December 16, 2024 • 45 mins
Christmas is a time of cheer, love, and happiness. Except when it isn't. Aaron struggled to find uplifting stories so decided to steer into the skid and run us through some of the worst Christmas' that anyone has ever experienced. If you'd like to feel better about spending Christmas with the in-laws, this is the episode for you!
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Christmas is a time of great
joy for a huge number of peoplearound the world.
A time for familyand togetherness.
A time for presents and goodtimes.
This isn't going to bea Christmas episode.
He’s going to do aCheeky swap.
A time for gettingabsolutely blasted
and telling your familysome hard truths.
Yep, Aussie stuff.
For some,
it's even a time to make loveon a beach under floodlights.
(00:21):
That's a deepcut for you and I Sean.
And this year, it'sa time for me
to tell a Christmas storyon this, our favorite podcast.
It’s our only podcast. It’sthe only podcast we make.
I've decided, though,
that we get hammeredwith all this
Yuletidecheer every year by John.
So this yearI'm going to buck the trend,
(00:43):
make him regret palming it off,
and go with a collectionof some of the worst
and weirdest eventsto happen at Christmas
that the world has ever seen.
I like this,I like. That's right.
It's time for Grinch-mason Cheeky Tales.
I don't even knowif this would be Grinch-mas
This is just straight up like.
Well, we've already doneKrampus.
Alt-mas.
Welcome to Squeaky tales.
You've got to give me spaceto edit in the intro!
(01:05):
What doyou mean, just mute us.
On the intro.
Welcome to Squeaky Tales.
Just mute usfor the whole intro.
(01:25):
Welcome to Squeaky. Tales.
Yeah,I wanted to get that into you
because I stole your joke.
So what I did right was I.
Didn't even realizeI stole his joke.
Yeah, no.
Not. He was going to say creakytires, creaky.
Tiles, squeaky towels.
I was going to let that goand just say it myself.
Like someone.
So what I did right was I went,
what are somewhat are some Christmas stories?
It immediately became clearthat we've done them all.
(01:48):
Yeah. The ones that anyone caresabout, we've done.
So then why did you take ourwater department off this year?
Yeah. Nothing.
I went to my old friend slapGPT and I was like, hey,
what'ssome stories about Christmas?
And it was like,here's 38 story topics.
And I went, oh, all right.
And then I wentand researched them
and put together an episode.
And I did not use slapGPT for all of it.
(02:11):
But but slap GPT can be helpfulin gathering information.
It was a helpful assistant coachto take it out.
It's it was very goodto just get some stories
that I hadn't heard of.
So thank you. Slap GPT.
This is this is a.
I like this idea.
So if this guy as well
as you can doChristmas next year as well.
(02:31):
We might
we might be out. Of.
That sounds amazing.Sounds amazing.
We might be out of Christmasideas.
Yeah, I think we're donewith Christmas ideas after this.
We haven't had this year'sChristmas yet.
Something amazing could happen.That's true.
Who knows what's going to happenon December
25th, 2028when this episode comes out?
So the. Deep cut.
So the deep cut for Seanand I from the intro,
(02:52):
about the the floodlightsand the beach was one year,
we drove down to the Gold Coaston Christmas night.
We'd done all that family stuff,
and Sean and I and I thinka couple of other people.
Yeah, I think we had a few otherpeople.
Yeah, we had,we had three cars on the day.
No, no,I don't think we knew yet.
(03:13):
I don't I don't thinkI'd met you yet. Yeah.
So we drove down the Gold Coast,and we just
we would do thisquite regularly.
We'd go, like, drive at 10 p.m.
down to the Gold Coast and just
walk around, like, becausewe had nothing else to do.
We were all either livingor staying with our parents.
There was just.
It's just nothing to do.
Like your house is smalland hot.
(03:36):
You don't have an airconditioning in the bedroom.
It was the middle of summer. We.Oh, they do now.
Oh, they do now.
Oh, that's not.
Must be. Nice. So.
My my parents house was awful.
Staying in my old roomon my parents house.
Like, I just felt
squished the whole timemy brother was there.
My brother's girlfriendat the time was living there.
So we drove down the Gold Coastand it was Christmas night.
(03:57):
So we doneall that Christmas revelry,
and we walk along up to MainBeach
with all the floodlights on the beach.
And what do we say?
But a couple tenderlymaking love
on the middle of Main Beachon Christmas night?
Yeah, with the floodlightsright on them. With people.
People everywheresaying it. Go on. Yeah.
(04:17):
That happenedat schoolies for me.
It's likethey haven't experienced.
Schoolies in ancient Rome.
Like when?
We just looked at one night
from our apartment windowand then on a park bench.
Not even a park bench.
One of those, like, woodenpicnic tables in the park.
Yeah. And off the street, like.Yeah.
Why is it always in the lights?
(04:38):
I don't
I guess it's not always,but like,
because you're not seeingthe ones in the dark are.
Yeah, but, Yeah.
Anyway,
You're not seeingthe ones in the docks
every time you're walking,you know, in the dock.
Listen for grindsjust everywhere.
People in the dockjust making sweet love, hugs.
(04:58):
Saying a couple of peoplebumping
uglies,doing the horizontal Cha-Cha.
In Adelaide in particular,the parks right
near the city on East Terrace.
Yeah.
It's where they have, like,all the Fringe Festival stuff.
It's a pretty big parklands andthere's some pretty big trees.
And I remember there was.
I can remember in particularwhere this cute little lake is
where you can,like this weird rowboat.
I don't know howto do the right, so it wouldn't.
(05:20):
You're not allowed.
So I said.
I remember
I had left my car thereovernight, I went back,
someone had jumpedon the bonnet of the car.
It was the LandCruiser.So it didn't matter.
It's made of frigginadamantium at this point.
And apologies.
And yeah, that was just peoplejust absolutely grinding it
on the grass.
It sounds real.It was real cute. Cool.
(05:41):
Anyway, yes.
Let's get offthis Christmas. Let's.
Merry Christmas.
Merry Christmas, merryChristmas, merry.
Bowen. Mr. Christmas.
Happy holidays.
Happy Hanukkah at.
David Cox Christmas.
Let's kick things offwith a particularly bad one.
This is a soccer story.
I kind of fact check this.
The Christmas flood of 1717.
(06:02):
Oh, yeah, I can. That's old.
17 on Christmas Eve of 1717,
the peopleof the northern coasts
of the Netherlands and Germanyand the western coast of Denmark
settled on. Molasses.
Settling infor a night together.
You say the Netherlands,Germany.
Denmark? Denmark? Yes.
They're three different places.
You're speaking of hugeamounts of water
(06:24):
separate over a country.So I'm curious as to where.
You go on the map, chief.
Yeah, I picture yourself.
Netherlands, Germany, Denmark.
They're all together,all. Separated by water.
And not. Yes,they. All have land borders.
All separated by huge city.
Whatever. Just keep going.
Am I crazy? Go look at a map.
I am, I've got. They live.They they.
(06:44):
Germany is in the middle.
They have land bordersbetween you.
Can we get a map on the TV?
Well, just somebodygo pictures over here that
I don't.
My maps over there.
Get told.
Anyway,
they were settling in together.
Three countries were settlingin together.
Poor people.
The people of those places.
(07:06):
They were settling in.
Father Christmas for.
A night together,celebrating the impending
birthday of one Jesus Christ,who in the Netherlands,
they would have just finishedthe Santa Claus
feast celebrationsa few weeks earlier.
He was inhe was mentioned in the,
Yeah, well, that's the oldprevious episode, the first.
Christmas. Episode.
I think it was Nicholas.
In Denmark,they'd be settling down
(07:27):
for a ChristmasEve feast, and in Germany
that would be gathering aroundthe Christmas trees
that had just been invented100 years before
in the North Sea.
A cyclone was also preparingfor Christmas,
gathering in intensityand really just getting ready
to bea real Grinch over the evening
as we already know,
the Netherlands hasa long history of fighting back
against the ocean,which much of that
(07:48):
with much of thecoastline below sea level.
Well, they've done amazing
work over the centuriesto claw back land.
Mother naturesure is a bitch about that.
Germany and Denmarkalso have similar situations
on their northern
and western coastlines,and on Christmas Eve of 1717,
and we've become apparent
that maybe livingthere wasn't such a great idea
(08:09):
as the evening went by the way,he's gone quiet,
which means he's just lookedat the map and realized that no.
One's do not share a borderwith Denmark.
They're separatedby a massive expanse of ocean,
and huge chunk of Germanysplits them apart.
Exactly what I said.
I said Germany's in the middle.
Yeah, and you got Netherlandsand Denmark on either side?
Not quite yet.
No, they're. All one piece.
I'm curious as to how this isflooding. Keep going. Hope.
(08:31):
Are you seeing what he's doing?Well, he was wrong.
And he's just deciding to belike, well, actually about it.
They're all separatedby huge amount. Go. I just got.
Old. That one piece of land.
Just keep going.
Go look at a map so that you cansee how this guy's a dick.
Oh. You can just tell me.
(08:52):
All right, I love Christmas.
I wish it's.
Christmas.
I love Christmas,wish I had some. Crisps.
We should have had some crispsfor Christmas.
As the evening went on,the cyclone drew
closer to shore.
And with it, a storm surge.
Well, this would alreadybe pretty devastating.
It also occurred at a time
when there was a spring tide,which is an especially high
(09:15):
tide caused by the alignmentof the sun, Earth and.
Moon King tide.
It's what we would call a kingtide. Yes.
This, along with the already wet
ground from all the rain prior.
Oh, yeah.This is this is this is.
It would combine with the stormsurge to push a massive
swell onto the coastline
while there were dikes in place
to try and stop the large tidesand storm surge in.
(09:35):
Know warehouse,there was a massive swell
of Bay beach.
On ChristmasDay 2010 or something.
During.
Yeah. Good one.
You can count that.
That was really. Unclear to me.
Hey, John's,
(09:56):
So while there had been dikesin place,
to try and stop, large tidesand storm surges
had been poorly maintained over
the last few decades due
to poor economic conditionsin the area.
So with very few flood defensesand one hell of a storm surge,
the area was set for one of theworst floods it had ever seen
all along the coastline.
The flooding was immensein the Netherlands.
(10:16):
The provinces on the northern
end of the countrywere hit hardest, with Groningen
and Frieslandhit particularly hard.
Entire suburbs of these townswere submerged
and people trappedin their homes
and drowning as drowning,as the floodwaters gradually.
Drowned in thathaving. Hard. Yeah, crazy.
Honk!
Shoo, shoo. Yeah.
(10:39):
That's okay.
Oh, to have only haveone of those hats.
The long pointed hats
that comes downnot at KKK hat and a little.
No one was thinking that.
I was thinking KKK hat.
Thanks for anyway.
It's a Ned Flanders.
Yes. Yeah, yeah.The sleepy. Hat.
Slave cap.
Yeah.
Two people were drowningin their own homes.
(10:59):
Yeah, that's folks.
Yeah.
So that'show little warning they got
because, like, it's the 1700sI don't have. Right.
So they're like, ooh.
I guess I don't have a weather.
I don't know why they thinknever weather. Right now.
They didn't have athey didn't have had.
To live without.
They didn't have the Bureau of
Meteorologyand they were not fine.
But you know, right. Yeah.I was going to say.
That we're fine.
(11:20):
It's fine. Oh.
So this is going to come outbefore what we just recorded.
But I was thinking before,
we should have done the randomcall at the end of that episode.
Because, that would bethe perfect time to do the,
the check in on.
Top of the cheesy.
Yeah. Check the cheesy.
In Germany,
(11:40):
the coastlines of present daySaxony and Schleswig-Holstein
were almost completelyswept away with entire villages
gone and massive livestockdeaths in the rural areas.
Denmark was also hit,particularly
in the
southern parts of the countrybordering the Wadden Sea.
Thoughthe devastation in Denmark
wasn'tquite as bad as in Germany
and the Netherlandsbecause so much
(12:02):
less of the country was hit.
And as the survivorsawoke on Christmas Day,
it became clearthat the impact of the flooding
would take decadesto recover from.
Decades.
Over 14,000 people had died,which is one of the highest
death tolls from flooding everin European history.
Vast areas of farmland,particularly in Germany,
had been salted by the seawater,
(12:23):
leaving themcompletely useless for years
due to the saltbeing left in the soil.
Yeah, right. Okay,that makes sense.
Combined with the livestocklosses, this left rural, rural
communities in particularlydifficult economic situations.
Afterthe floodwaters had receded.
There were also changesto the coastline,
with new inlets and lagoonsbeing developed
due to the erosioncaused by the storm surge.
(12:44):
Many survivors also consideredthe event to be an act of God,
punishing them for their sins,which would leave
a lasting impacton their religious practices.
They didn't bring tollthat year.
He brought death.
Lord your homes.
I think saying therewas, kind of.
Yeah, Santa. Claus, Santa Claus.
In the immediate aftermath,there wasn't much in the way
(13:06):
of organized relief efforts,
and many had to fendfor themselves.
Churches would open their doorsto the displaced,
thoughthere would be limited space
to house the nowhomeless masses.
Eventually,
neighboring regions
would send aid in the formof donations and food.
But being 1700s,this was obviously pretty slow.
Longer term,the affected areas would begin
to invest more in flooddefenses, building new dikes
(13:28):
and leveesto help alleviate future floods.
Alongside the new flood defenses
would be monuments to the dead,
which would serve as a reminderof the power of the sea
and its ability to swiftlyend the lives of so many.
So yeah, pretty devastating.
Not a good Christmas.
That's not a good Christmas.It's a bad Christmas.
(13:49):
Drowning in your bed.
Not a good. Christmas.
That's the. Yeah.
It reminded me a
lot ofthe like Boxing Day tsunami.
Oh yeah. It was a thing.
Yeah. Yeah.
We're just like,people didn't know it was coming
because they didn'thave communication about it,
and they're like,oh, what's happening right now?
And then all of a suddenthat just getting flooded.
(14:11):
What was that?
That was in the Philippines,Indonesia, Indonesia.
Bali. Bali.
I think it was Bali thing.
On story two.
To reduce.
The drunken Christmasin British Parliament. Oh,
when you think of Parliamentin Britain,
I'm sure you think of stuffytoffs standing in an overly
(14:31):
formal room telling each other
how the economic plan was betterthan their opposition.
Oh, perhaps.
Oh, big top hats.
2004 Indian Oceanearthquake and tsunami
violently hitseverely in Sri Lanka,
India, Thailand and Indonesia.
Yeah.
But not necessarily. Bali.
(14:52):
Not necessarily Bali.
It was further around.
It was further. It was.
Yeah. The north or.
Kind of the westor on the on the way around.
Indonesia. Indonesia's the bitthat I remember the most.
On the Thailand.Yeah. Big country.
It was on the Thailandend of Indonesia. Yeah.
So yeah overly formal.
I'm telling you how they hadthe economic plan
was better in their oppositionwith their big top hats.
(15:13):
And our glasses.
Oh I so, so. Us.
And at worst calling each othera name or two in their debates.
Squabbling overcoins and stuff. Yes.
Then I'm sure you've also heardof those parliaments
where every now
and then they end up in a dustupover a piece of policy,
usually in WesternEurope, Eastern Europe.
Well, in 1621
(15:35):
there was one particularly tenseparliamentary session
that took placeright before the Christmas break
that got right out of hand
and might have resulted inwholesale change in the country.
In 1621,things weren't exactly peachy
between the Parliamentand King James.
The first.
England was deep in the 30 YearsWar, which, without going
too deeply into itbecause it's incredibly complex,
(15:56):
was basically a mini world warthat included
a bunch of European countriesall pissed off about religion.
So the parliament wasn'tsuper thrilled that the King
wasn't being firmer
about his Protestant views aboutagainst those damn Catholics,
and they weren't happyabout his spending, either.
King James the First was knownfor his extravagant spending.
(16:17):
This is the Scottish one.
But yeah,I covered. The Scottish.
King a couple of weeks. Yes.Yeah, yeah. Cheeky verse. Yeah.
And they weren'thappy about his spending either.
King James the First was knownfor his extravagant spending,
maintaining an elaborate courtwith plays and entertainment,
sending expensesave gifts to royal favorites,
and buying crazyamounts of art and clothing.
(16:39):
Was this before or after GuyFawkes?
This is 1621,so I imagine it's before.
I don't think so.
Or if it's after.
That's pretty crazy.
Before it is before. Okay.
No, sorry.
This is after.
Yeah. Oh, okay.
Guy Fawkes died in 1606, right?
Yeah.
Man, this KingJames lived for a long time.
(17:00):
This is part of that reason isalso why Guy Fawkes happened.
Because they were upset with.
Yeah.
He's spendingand he was spending
money in Scotlandnot England. Yes.
Yeah.
He kept buying gifts for peoplein Scotland. Yeah.
Consideringthe Crown was in debt
when he took over,
the Parliament wasn't
exactly thrilledthat he was accelerating
spendingrather than reducing it.
(17:21):
Given this was the case,
it isn't surprising thatthere were discussions ongoing
about the balance of powerbetween the King
and Parliament at the time.
As theChristmas holidays approached,
the tensions had startedto bubble to the surface
and a lack of decorumwas inevitable.
As the final sessionof Parliament for the year
got underway, peoplewere already a little bit tipsy,
as it wasn't unusual at the timefor parliamentary celebrations
(17:43):
to includefeasting and drinking.
Everybody was getting tipsy.
That's good on you.
Okay, everybody in the.
House of Lords get.
Tipsy.
Ale, wine
and spirits flowed freely,but they still had work to do.
Just imagine today
if our MPs were
slinging down vibes whilethey debated foreign policy,
(18:05):
as you can imagine,as like goodie bags.
I can only.
Like Albanese was.
Like beautiful to.
You go dada,
spin that little spinthat heels hoist.
I mean I would watch that on TV.
Yeah, it would beso much more interesting.
You know how they showParliament.
(18:26):
I would watch that. Yeah.
If you saw Dutton.
Just likefor texting a bottle of wine.
Albo, if you're listening,there's an idea.
Yeah. You get our votes.
You could
you could bring us onas consultants
to make Parliament timemore interesting.
Shotgun this beeror you don't get to speak. You.
Before you stand up and addressthe speaker.
You have to. Yeah.
(18:47):
You have to doa. A shimmy, a beer.
Oh, you got to dotequila shot, tequila shot.
I was gonna
say the salt on Pauline Hanson.
Oh, no. You.
Where's the lime, Pauline?
And she does that smilewith a limes.
In her mouth. Oh.
(19:09):
Not gross.
As you can imagine. Off.
Sean, this is funny.
Sean loves Pauline Hanson.
He hates the factthat we're making fun of her.
As you can imagine, as they gotdeeper into the dice.
Goodness, this is had.
To be easily.
Sean's down the rabbit holereading.
About James the first
(19:31):
as you get a Queen Maryand Henry, the seventh
cousin of Elizabeth,the first order of the rabbit.
Oh, we've covered this.
Oh, I know.
Was Sean in that episode? Yes.
Okay.
It's too hardnot to get down the rabbit hole.
Sorry, but we keep interrupting.
So worried he'sgoing to attack me.
As you can imagine.
Attack, slap. Let's go.
(19:53):
As I go
deeper into the day,they started to cover
more contentious topicsand with the booze flowing, so
did the insults.
Stop laughing.
Did you have to cancel Kim'sconvenience?
Not surprising.
Yeah. I can't remember much.
I didn't know,
I knowI started watching you, like,
have you never seen the show?Your show, I watch it.
(20:14):
Yeah, I might bring it backif you watch it.
The debates that they werehaving over policy quickly
devolved into slurred insultsand even brawls.
Fists were flying, face, fists,
fists were flying, and peoplewatching reported that it looked
more like a bar on Christmas Evethan a parliamentary sitting.
As you can imagine,this didn't go down too
(20:36):
well with the public.
Almost immediately, word
started to get outabout their behavior,
and the royal court
and the public would ridiculethe behavior of the MPs.
Some people even went so far
as to make satirical pamphletsand posters mocking the MPs,
which would be widely sharedthroughout the country.
King Jamesthe First would also weigh in,
usingthe incidents to the incidents
(20:57):
the incident to improve his ownstanding
by saying that it was proofthat Parliament couldn't
govern effectively on their ownwithout royal oversight.
Longer term,as in just two months later,
the Parliament
would be dissolved by King Jamesthe First,
and it's highly possiblethat this incident
was one of the final straws thatled to this decision to do so.
I'd say so.
(21:19):
The incident and its falloutwould be a precursor
to what would happensome two decades later,
when the tensionsbetween the Crown and Parliament
boiled over into the EnglishCivil War in 1651.
I actually didn't know thatthere was an English Civil War.
I thought that was like
the whole thing,that they hadn't had one.
Sean, ifyou can do a quick search. Yes.
(21:39):
Like if you search, we remove
weed laws in England.
It's something like
you can't carry a fish intothe English Parliament, is it?
Yeah.
There's actually heaps of lawsabout carrying weird things.
You can't wear a suit of armor.
That's the one thing.
You can't weara suit of armor. Into.
I mean, that makes sense,because that's the equivalent.
All right, here we go.Bring an AK 47. Thank you.
(22:01):
Google, I just quietly I'mactually really enjoying Google.
I didn't we talksmack about Gemini.
Yeah. No.
But when when you do
when you do a Google search
and it just gives youthe eye over the response.
It's very it's very helpful.
I don'tlike and it saves me opening.
So unusual laws in the
United Kingdom,being drunk in charge of a cow.
(22:23):
What does thatthe Licensing Act of 1872
prohibits being drunkwhile in charge of any animal
on a highwayor other public place.
Oh, so that must meanlike walking them?
Yes. Yeah.
Handing.
Hay or handling salmonthis suspiciously.
(22:44):
That's the one I was like, does.
This salmon act?
But that ain't 1986.
Sorry.
Requires people to showthe legal origin of any salmon
they have to prevent the saleof illegally caught fish.
How you just say, oh,I caught it legally.
Jumping the queue.
Transport for London's bylawsprohibits jumping the queue
at a tube stationwearing armor in Parliament.
(23:05):
The ban is a remnantof the medieval period,
when the House of Parliamentwas a place
where disputes could escalateinto violence.
Therefore, you can't wear armor
and also potentially handle salm
Walk in witha salmon and a suit of armor.
They'll probably hangyou immediately.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, just yeah.
I was wonderingif there's any of these laws
(23:25):
coming out of sight.
Apparently it is illegalto linger after a funeral.
Yeah. Good rule.
And apparentlyit is required by law,
even though no one enforces itfor taxi drivers to carry water.
Hey. Hi.
Yeah, I don't know, but thehorses. Yeah, for the horses.
I don't think it's enforced,but apparently it's still a law.
(23:47):
That's probablyfrom when they actually had.
They had actual horses. Yeah.
So when cabs were.
Horses
I have seen a lot of videosof people testing
all of these dumb lawsto see if they'll get pulled up.
And I have seen a dudetry to wear a suit of armor
into the house, into Parliament,and pretty much
get away with it. Yeah,
because it's like these daysthey're going to be like.
(24:07):
Yeah, everyone's like,all right, this dude is cooked.
Yeah. Like, yeah,
ordered.
It's one dayhis laws are still in effect.
Yeah I'm at two.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I'm just wonderingif any of these laws are
coming out from this.
Oh much love.
Topless Jay-Z.
Yeah. If you have a shirt on.
(24:28):
No love whatsoever.
Don't bet on using abusivelanguage in a library.
In a libraryin England is illegal to gamble
or bet
or use violent or obscene
language,or behave in a disorderly manner
to the annoyance a disturbanceof any other person.
Also,using the library under section
two of the Library OffensesAct of 1898,
anyone convicted of such eventswill be fined a penalty
(24:50):
not exceeding 40 shillings.
The average wage atthe time was mere 14 shillings,
one and a half pence.
I really love libraries.
Anyway, we're sticking aroundin England, Wales.
And Sturgeon's fan in the UnitedKingdom belong to the Crown.
Oh really?
Yeah. Anyway, let's move on.
Rabbit hole achieved.Thank you John.
You're welcome.
(25:25):
Well,we don't have to move too far
because we're staying in Englandfor our story.
Number three,the big freeze of 1962.
As we know. This is recent.
England isn't the warmestof places in the world.
Not really.
Right now, I'm sure it's cold,overcast and gray.
Race.
You can tell uswhen this episode
comes out in the comments.
(25:45):
Sean weather up Penguin London.
Where does it currently.
Go to bomb?Go to a weather radar.
But in sixth, in 1962 and 1963,there would be a winter
that would disrupt the nationfor months, changing the way
Christmas and New Year'swould be celebrated.
Christmas Year. Christmas.
It is currently seven degreesin England as a whole.
(26:07):
And it's summer over there.Balmy.
It's not summer there.
It's winter over thereon. A wet summer here. Yeah.
That's the coldbecause of the air.
Yeah, that'swhat I'm thinking of.
You played cricket today.
It's summer sport.And how are you, Bailey? Okay.
He attended cricket today.
You were in the vicinityof a cricket ball today.
For 20 bowls. At 20V.
(26:29):
Yeah.
Look, it's single digitsall day.
Yeah. Is it overcast?
No. Oh, must be nice.
All right.
I've seen chance of rain.
Humidity at 84% when.
That something raising wind.
At ten kilometersan hour feels like five.
Apparently, I'm just fine.
Well, this phrase would beginin early December
(26:50):
with heavy snowfallthrough the month.
So about now,
there would be severalfeet of snow
in some areasfor much of the month.
And even before the start of the
official start of the freeze,many rural communities
were cut offby the depth of snow.
You'll cut off.
Yeah. I can't have another beer.
By Christmas Day,the snow had blocked
many familiesfrom leaving their homes,
and temperaturesstarted to dip as low as -20°C.
(27:14):
I am all for you weirdos.
Negative degreesF, -four degrees Fahrenheit.
Yeah, I was too busytrying to make fun of people
to actually get it out there.
Making fun of people,of using stupid things.
Fahrenheit.
Whileit was certainly picturesque,
it wasn't exactly practical.
Supplychains have been disrupted
(27:35):
due to the snowmaking travel difficult.
Damn.
And so neighborhoods
would need to come togetherand share the food they had.
The Christmas
that you would be rememberedfor, simple and adapted foods
alongside the community spiritthat led to stories of heroes
braving the elements to deliverfood, assisting the elderly,
and rescuing those strandedin the snow while traveling.
(27:57):
Christmas that yearwas only the beginning, though,
as the freeze would continueuntil March, when
the disruption would continue
with roads being blockedby blocked by snow so badly
that plows and saltingthe road had little effect.
Railways were also affected,with snow
blocking the tracks and wreakinghavoc on the train schedules.
(28:18):
Cars and trains were alsoaffected by the low temperature.
With trains and.
I've seen the roadsand the railways
and now it's the carsand the trains
also affectedby the low temperatures,
with frozen enginesand power lines causing
frequent issues for motoristsand train operators.
So like people'scars were freezing
despite the antifreezeand everything.
(28:39):
I have heard thatlike in Siberia,
before you go to work,you get under your car
with your lighter and meltthe fuel in the fuel tank.
But that's.
Why live somewhere like, I.
Don't know. I just why. Not?
Because it's very cold.
That's why not. It was. Yeah.
If you're always late, it'shard to leave.
That's true. It's a big country.
(29:00):
But it's the biggest.Yeah, yeah.
Equally affected was the powerand heating networks.
With the low temperaturescausing increased
electricity demandacross the network.
Compounding this issue
was the road and track closurescausing
shortages of coal in powerplants throughout the country.
This resulted in frequentblackouts, as it simply wasn't
(29:23):
enough fuel to servicethe demand of the public.
I love the United Kingdom,seriously,
but every time
they have slightly inclement
weather, hot or cold,everything turns out.
Everything shuts downevery. Time it's too hot.
Oh, house is not built for youguys, are all.
And then we put on a pufferjacket.
They make fun of us,but then they have cold weather.
It's like,oh, everything's okay.
We can't do anything now.
(29:43):
The weather needs to be between
ten degrees and 22 degreesor it doesn't.
England doesn't exist.
Rolling blackouts.
Rolling, rolling. Blackouts.
There was also issues withrivers and lakes freezing over
the Thames,particularly at times.
Oh, the.
Famous. Sam. Farms.
Farms, river.
Partially froze in many areas,reminding people
(30:05):
of the great Foss Frost phase ofthe 17th and 18th centuries.
If you don'tknow about the frost phase,
they were eventswhere the Thames would
was frozen over and markets
and gameswould be set up on the ice.
That'd be pretty funny.
Very cool,but also very dangerous.
You need for thick iceto not fall through as April.
(30:25):
Kept falling. Through.
Yeah, you need at least 30at least 30cm.
Ice to really be stableon top of it.
Anyway, with lakes and pondsalso frozen,
people would start to play
ice hockey and have some funice skating on the ice.
At least there was something funto come out of all the chaos.
As things continued in that icyway, people
(30:46):
from all walks of lifehad to make adaptions very spun.
Farmers would need to improvetheir animals insulation,
working to use as much highas possible to keep them warm.
From the taxes.
They would.
They were
they would need to do the samewith their water supplies,
and would even resort to burningtheir furniture to do so.
(31:07):
Those living in the areaswith power cuts
would learn to wearmultiple layers
even when inside,to protect themselves
from the lack of heating,
and even footballwould need to adapt well.
The Kiki's as I like calling it.
Round ball as I.
Call it, with an orange footballfamously being introduced
to improve visibilityin the snow.
(31:28):
They also had to cancela bunch of games for weeks,
as the pitches were frozen solid
by extending the seasonlong into the summer,
as I had to make upfor the lost games once again.
If it's not five degrees 22,they just can't function.
Just play the damn game.
I do love the ideathat they like,
we can't see this ball.
Yes, do not get that orangeone out.
(31:52):
And then yeah, they had to like
extend the season by a few weeksbecause I had all these
canceled gamesI had to reschedule. Yeah.
Eventually air from the Atlanticwould sweep in,
ending the big freezequite quickly in March of 1963.
The rapid melting would causenew concerns, though,
throughout the countryas flooding would set
in, causinga whole new set of problems.
(32:13):
Through April,
many communitieshave been cut off
and heavily affected by the snow
would now be equally affectedby the floodwaters,
compounding an alreadydifficult.
Time with the floodwaterscome from the melting ice.
Melting snow. Yeah.
Not ice, but.
That's why it's called the snowyRiver. Boy.
What killed the dinosaurs?
The Ice Age
(32:35):
was the phrase, a reference.
From the worst Batman.
Film.
I'm sorry, Clooney.
I love you, mister.
Maybe he knows he'sthe worst back.
He knows he's the worstBatman. I mean, Falcon was
welcome.
Why didthey put nips on that Batman?
So I just even then.
(32:55):
They must have been like,why are we doing this?
We're down to our last story.
Yeah. What hit me with you?
The Christmas Day.
Christmas.
Execution of Nicolae Ceausescu.
Such Ceausescu.
Good luck spelling that one.
Chow chow.
(33:17):
Chow.
Let's end on a particularly.
Gruesome Romanian politician.Yeah, what it looks.
Like right the first time.What a shall we do?
Let's end on a particularlygruesome Christmas story
the end of Nicolae Ceausescuduring the Romanian Revolution
of 1989.
No, this is shall we do it?
(33:39):
I liked it.
Oh, no.
Judge, you had initially risento power in 1965
as an old SovietPolish politician.
He aligned himselfas a reformer,
wantingto bring the country forward
into the modern age without theinfluence of communism.
Unfortunately,foreign. Sounds are a.
Unfortunately for
(33:59):
Romania,he was also a bit of a dickhead
and would turn out to bea brutal dictator. Okay, okay.
Yeah.
Jet, you would work to builda cult of personality
around himselfwith dissent against him,
his wife, or his policiesparticularly harshly punished.
It seems like he has French.
Purged.
French.
(34:20):
Ancestors. Yeah.
With Marie Antoinette. Yeah.
He would portray himand his wife as the mother
and father of the nation,
with their portraitshung everywhere around Romania.
His goal of reformingthe country would be to push it
forwardthrough rapid industrialization
and through that to pay offnational foreign debt.
But unfortunately, as we've seenbefore, this kind of policy
(34:40):
results in widespread povertythroughout many countries.
And things were no differentin Romania.
Throughout his reign,the country would see
shortages of food, electricityand heating,
with all three being rationed,
makingwinters particularly harsh.
The triggerfor the end of his reign
would begin on December16th of 1989,
(35:00):
with an attemptto evict a dissident pastor,
LaszloA, his Laszlo was popular,
and so public demonstrationsagainst the regime would follow.
As these thingsdo, it quickly became about
more than the pastor,
as the public's angerabout their poverty
and the repression of religionand expression boiled over.
(35:21):
Ceausescu would respondin brutal fashion
by sending in the military
and secret police with ordersto shoot protesters on site,
which led to hundreds of deaths.
The very secretivethey're they're shooting people.
Yeah. Not really.
The secret police is kind oflike a they.
It's just like, stop.
You won't know when they'regoing to show up to get you.
Yeah.
While it was intended thatthis would calm things down,
(35:44):
of course it didn't.
What do you know?
Merkin people in the street.
Not the best way to calm thingsdown.
And things would continueto escalate against Judge Askew.
Not so great anymore.
He started off saying don't.Okay.
Yeah, I don't like communism.
But what Ido love is being a dictator.
You would attempt to deliver
a speechin Bucharest on December 21st,
(36:06):
but was met with significantbooing and defiant chants
from the crowd,
which was entirely unprecedentedin the dictatorship.
As protestscontinued to grow on December
22nd,the military would switch sides
and align themselveswith the revolutionaries.
Military coup?
Yeah, effectively leaving Cheskywith no more allies.
He and his wife would fleeto a helicopter.
(36:27):
Get to the chopper.
He waited all night to say that.Yeah.
Get to the chopper.Get to the jump.
Get to the chopper.
Yeah, to the chopper.
I was doing a better onethe other night.
You were on his socks, and.
Yeah, that would attemptto leave the country,
but were forced to land by themilitary and taken into custody.
Wait, was it the other daythat there was us?
(36:47):
Is it South Korea?
Yes. Well, I the the martiallaw, like martial law.
And then they literallythe stories about how the MPs
got into Parliament in orderto do the vote was crazy.
They were like climbing wallsand sneaking around and like.
More psychos to like.
Yeah, well, historydefining moment.
Well, it did happen.And then like 40 minutes later.
(37:09):
Yeah,I think it was within two hours.
You know, reverse.
They were
saying that there were peoplethat would have gone to dinner
and missed the whole.Missed the whole thing. Yeah.
It wasalmost like very similar to
was the Russian
paramilitary groupthat marched on.
Oh yeah. Moscow.
And then never heardfrom them again.
(37:29):
Yeah. They just like stopped.Don't want to be part of it.
Yeah. Private military groupthat started that turn.
The Wagner. Group. That's it.They turned and started.
And then what happened to that?
Yeah. Some deal got done.
And then he died in a planecrash. Yeah. Okay.
Yeah. He got Putin.
Yeah. Yeah.
He got Putin into the ground.
(37:51):
A hasty trial for Ceausescuand his wife would be arranged
on Christmas Day.
Hasty. What?
What? Tasty.Like couple of those.
As in,
they got capturedon December 22nd
and they were on trialon the 25th. Right.
I'm not going around.
And by all accounts,it was an absolutely
predetermined outcome,which isn't. All that.
So there wasn't a fair. No,
(38:11):
it was a militarytribunal with the charges
including genocide, subversionof state power, destruction
of the national economyand embezzlement.
Guilty.
Consideringthe seriousness of the charges,
it was a ridiculously shorttrial of only 90 minutes.
And of course, Ceausescuand his wife would not recognize
the court's authority.
Regardless,they were found guilty
(38:31):
and sentenced to deathby firing squad.
Just an hour later.
Broadcast camerasrolling to show the execution
across the nation and the world.
The pair were let out and shot.
So on live TV on Christmas Day,they got shot.
Our kids. If I put yourpresents, I would sit down.
To watch our dictatorbe shot in the head.
Let's let's let's.Yeah, let's sit down.
(38:53):
And we're all going to watch thehead of our state be murdered.
Shot a 71 year old man.
On national TV.Channel tell you that? Yeah,
obviously there's.
A YouTube video somewhere.
Yeah, yeah, well.
I saw a photo of it, right?
Yeah, yeah,
obviously there was someaftermath from the whole day.
Yeah. Don't muck around. No.
With many criticizingthe speed of the trial
(39:14):
for its lack of fairnessto the schools,
it was clearly designedto quickly eliminate them,
to ensurethey couldn't rally supporters
or reveal anything about others
that had taken partin the dictatorship.
Others saidthat it was very distasteful
to complete it on Christmas Day.
Yeah.
And then broadcast it? Yes.
Others still pointed outthat just during 1989,
(39:36):
there had been other peacefultransition of power,
particularly with the downfallof communist regimes in Poland,
Czechoslovakia and Hungary,as well as the fall of the
Berlin Wall.
Yeah. So sorry.
What year did this happen? 1989.
That's not that long ago.No it's not.
These weren't alive.
No, I was you.
Were probably like in. 43. Yeah.
(39:58):
I was 36. Yeah.
Future.
So maybe there was a way forwardthat didn't involve
a public executionof an old man.
Head over here.Oh, you look older than I do.
Sloppy lap dogmillionaire over here.
Slumdog millionaire.
Now, any of the guys inthe barbershop
are listening, but, yeah,
(40:18):
they call me Celeb DogMillionaire a lot.
Regardless of the waythey got there,
Romania would be led by a new,supposedly democratic government
who would sadly be accusedof their own communist leanings.
Yeah.
The country would still facethe issues of economic
and political instabilityfor years to come, with many
remembering the whole fiascowith very mixed feelings.
Yeah, that's pretty,
(40:40):
intense Christmas Day.
Yeah.
On Christmas Day, you're like,oh, let's have our roast.
Somebody turn on the TV.Maybe we'll catch the parade.
At least they only took himand his wife
and sentence them to death.
Unlike the Russian Revolution.
Where they just killed.
Everywhere,they just killed everybody.
Yeah. It's Nicholas.
(41:00):
He was like, it's okay.
I'm abdicating half the country.
This needs to happen.
So what did they do?
Storm his house?
But him better.
His wife, but all his childrenand the pets.
Yeah. And then just.
And then to stick himin the ground.
In the pits. Yep, yep.
I killed literally,like, innocent children
and had never done anythingthe Russian over.
(41:21):
They just was like that.Kill them all.
Kill the whole family.That's the Russians, really.
That's quite a lot of children.It was really upsetting.
Yeah.
They eventually gave thema state funeral with honors.
When they found. Them. Yeah.
And like that long,like less than 30 years ago.
Yeah.
Anyway, that's a sad Christmas.
Christmas.
So enjoy your Christmasthis year.
Yes. There will be no publicexecutions until.
(41:42):
The public executions onTV. Cheeky.
Cheeky titles.Can't guarantee that.
Check it out.
Condemns, public executions.
No, no, no to live broadcastpublic executions.
We say also say noto a lot of the issues
of the communist statesinvolved in the Warsaw Pact.
Says no to dictatorships.No to decay.
(42:04):
I think that's a hard one.
Yeah, we say yes to taketater ships that the. Oh,
anyway, that's a differentkind of Christmas episode.
That is a different kind of.
I wore my Snoop Dogg ChristmasT-shirt for this Christmas.
Yeah. Snoop Dogg says no.
It was the nasalbefore Christmas.
Remember? Through the haze.
(42:25):
Can't see the rest of it.Yeah, it's. A great show.
It is a fantastic shirt.
I think he wore that lastChristmas.
I did wear it last Christmas.
What it for last Christmas.Bring it. Christmas.
This is. For that. Shirt before.
This is it before last episode.So if dog was brought up.
Snoop Dogg was brought up.
No it wasn't. Yes he was.
Not in the time show.
Yeah.
(42:45):
Was he all. Right, wasn't it.
No, he wasn't. Running the game.
Awards were. And Snoop Doggperformed at the Game Awards.
Oh, he's new single there. Yeah.
Anyway,
if you would liketo see some supplemental imagery
from this episode,they will be not.
They will not be photos.
Execution won't be muchsupplemental inventory.
(43:06):
We will have some imagery there.
I will,
definitely be highlightingthe borders of the countries
mentioned in the floodingepisode. Yeah. Flooding story.
You can hollow them allyou want. It's fine.
You can find us on at CheekyTowels
Pod on Facebook and Instagram.
But. But cross country for.
Another deep cutfrom how long it was.
(43:28):
It's probablygot a couple episodes ago.
It is Christmas betweenthe release of this episode
and the next one,which will be yours, boy.
And we wish you all a very MerryChristmas and.
Thank holidays.For being part of.
These responsibly.You know. What?
I'll save the year.Wrap up for your episode.
(43:48):
Okay?
Eight responsibly.
Responsibly. Drink responsibly.
Get yourself some,
BundabergBrewing Christmas ginger beer.
Got one in the fridgeregularly when I get home.
It's so good.
Also, hydrate or die.
It's hot at Christmas.Drink water. Damn it.
Look, every alcoholic drinkyou have, have a water.
(44:10):
You need one liter
per day per man,per degree, over 25 degrees.
Thanks, Army. Sean. Thanks.
Russell. Quit. Oh, yeah. Thanks,Russell. Come on, man.
Watch some. Russell quit this.
Yeah, actuallywatch some Russell quit. Yeah.
Good Christmas stuff.
Anyway, I think it's time to sayMerry Christmas.
We will see you in a fortnight.
And, Good night.
(44:32):
Merry Christmas.
Chicago's good night tickets.
John had a really good one.
Yeah, yeah.
But he got us both.
And then we lost the recordingat the end last.
Like 45 minutes in. America.
Some of our best content.
Yeah merry Christmas JTJonathan.
Merry Christmas.Our Lord and savior. Good night.
Christmas is a time of great
joy for a huge number of peoplearound the world.
A time for familyand togetherness.
A time for presents and goodtimes.
This isn't going to bea Christmas episode.
He’s going to do aCheeky swap.
A time for gettingabsolutely blasted
and telling your familysome hard truths.
Yep, Aussie stuff.
For some,
it's even a time to make loveon a beach under floodlights.
(00:21):
That's a deepcut for you and I Sean.
And this year, it'sa time for me
to tell a Christmas storyon this, our favorite podcast.
It’s our only podcast. It’sthe only podcast we make.
I've decided, though,
that we get hammeredwith all this
Yuletidecheer every year by John.
So this yearI'm going to buck the trend,
(00:43):
make him regret palming it off,
and go with a collectionof some of the worst
and weirdest eventsto happen at Christmas
that the world has ever seen.
I like this,I like. That's right.
It's time for Grinch-mason Cheeky Tales.
I don't even knowif this would be Grinch-mas
This is just straight up like.
Well, we've already doneKrampus.
Alt-mas.
Welcome to Squeaky tales.
You've got to give me spaceto edit in the intro!
(01:05):
What doyou mean, just mute us.
On the intro.
Welcome to Squeaky Tales.
Just mute usfor the whole intro.
(01:25):
Welcome to Squeaky. Tales.
Yeah,I wanted to get that into you
because I stole your joke.
So what I did right was I.
Didn't even realizeI stole his joke.
Yeah, no.
Not. He was going to say creakytires, creaky.
Tiles, squeaky towels.
I was going to let that goand just say it myself.
Like someone.
So what I did right was I went,
what are somewhat are some Christmas stories?
It immediately became clearthat we've done them all.
(01:48):
Yeah. The ones that anyone caresabout, we've done.
So then why did you take ourwater department off this year?
Yeah. Nothing.
I went to my old friend slapGPT and I was like, hey,
what'ssome stories about Christmas?
And it was like,here's 38 story topics.
And I went, oh, all right.
And then I wentand researched them
and put together an episode.
And I did not use slapGPT for all of it.
(02:11):
But but slap GPT can be helpfulin gathering information.
It was a helpful assistant coachto take it out.
It's it was very goodto just get some stories
that I hadn't heard of.
So thank you. Slap GPT.
This is this is a.
I like this idea.
So if this guy as well
as you can doChristmas next year as well.
(02:31):
We might
we might be out. Of.
That sounds amazing.Sounds amazing.
We might be out of Christmasideas.
Yeah, I think we're donewith Christmas ideas after this.
We haven't had this year'sChristmas yet.
Something amazing could happen.That's true.
Who knows what's going to happenon December
25th, 2028when this episode comes out?
So the. Deep cut.
So the deep cut for Seanand I from the intro,
(02:52):
about the the floodlightsand the beach was one year,
we drove down to the Gold Coaston Christmas night.
We'd done all that family stuff,
and Sean and I and I thinka couple of other people.
Yeah, I think we had a few otherpeople.
Yeah, we had,we had three cars on the day.
No, no,I don't think we knew yet.
(03:13):
I don't I don't thinkI'd met you yet. Yeah.
So we drove down the Gold Coast,and we just
we would do thisquite regularly.
We'd go, like, drive at 10 p.m.
down to the Gold Coast and just
walk around, like, becausewe had nothing else to do.
We were all either livingor staying with our parents.
There was just.
It's just nothing to do.
Like your house is smalland hot.
(03:36):
You don't have an airconditioning in the bedroom.
It was the middle of summer. We.Oh, they do now.
Oh, they do now.
Oh, that's not.
Must be. Nice. So.
My my parents house was awful.
Staying in my old roomon my parents house.
Like, I just felt
squished the whole timemy brother was there.
My brother's girlfriendat the time was living there.
So we drove down the Gold Coastand it was Christmas night.
(03:57):
So we doneall that Christmas revelry,
and we walk along up to MainBeach
with all the floodlights on the beach.
And what do we say?
But a couple tenderlymaking love
on the middle of Main Beachon Christmas night?
Yeah, with the floodlightsright on them. With people.
People everywheresaying it. Go on. Yeah.
(04:17):
That happenedat schoolies for me.
It's likethey haven't experienced.
Schoolies in ancient Rome.
Like when?
We just looked at one night
from our apartment windowand then on a park bench.
Not even a park bench.
One of those, like, woodenpicnic tables in the park.
Yeah. And off the street, like.Yeah.
Why is it always in the lights?
(04:38):
I don't
I guess it's not always,but like,
because you're not seeingthe ones in the dark are.
Yeah, but, Yeah.
Anyway,
You're not seeingthe ones in the docks
every time you're walking,you know, in the dock.
Listen for grindsjust everywhere.
People in the dockjust making sweet love, hugs.
(04:58):
Saying a couple of peoplebumping
uglies,doing the horizontal Cha-Cha.
In Adelaide in particular,the parks right
near the city on East Terrace.
Yeah.
It's where they have, like,all the Fringe Festival stuff.
It's a pretty big parklands andthere's some pretty big trees.
And I remember there was.
I can remember in particularwhere this cute little lake is
where you can,like this weird rowboat.
I don't know howto do the right, so it wouldn't.
(05:20):
You're not allowed.
So I said.
I remember
I had left my car thereovernight, I went back,
someone had jumpedon the bonnet of the car.
It was the LandCruiser.So it didn't matter.
It's made of frigginadamantium at this point.
And apologies.
And yeah, that was just peoplejust absolutely grinding it
on the grass.
It sounds real.It was real cute. Cool.
(05:41):
Anyway, yes.
Let's get offthis Christmas. Let's.
Merry Christmas.
Merry Christmas, merryChristmas, merry.
Bowen. Mr. Christmas.
Happy holidays.
Happy Hanukkah at.
David Cox Christmas.
Let's kick things offwith a particularly bad one.
This is a soccer story.
I kind of fact check this.
The Christmas flood of 1717.
(06:02):
Oh, yeah, I can. That's old.
17 on Christmas Eve of 1717,
the peopleof the northern coasts
of the Netherlands and Germanyand the western coast of Denmark
settled on. Molasses.
Settling infor a night together.
You say the Netherlands,Germany.
Denmark? Denmark? Yes.
They're three different places.
You're speaking of hugeamounts of water
(06:24):
separate over a country.So I'm curious as to where.
You go on the map, chief.
Yeah, I picture yourself.
Netherlands, Germany, Denmark.
They're all together,all. Separated by water.
And not. Yes,they. All have land borders.
All separated by huge city.
Whatever. Just keep going.
Am I crazy? Go look at a map.
I am, I've got. They live.They they.
(06:44):
Germany is in the middle.
They have land bordersbetween you.
Can we get a map on the TV?
Well, just somebodygo pictures over here that
I don't.
My maps over there.
Get told.
Anyway,
they were settling in together.
Three countries were settlingin together.
Poor people.
The people of those places.
(07:06):
They were settling in.
Father Christmas for.
A night together,celebrating the impending
birthday of one Jesus Christ,who in the Netherlands,
they would have just finishedthe Santa Claus
feast celebrationsa few weeks earlier.
He was inhe was mentioned in the,
Yeah, well, that's the oldprevious episode, the first.
Christmas. Episode.
I think it was Nicholas.
In Denmark,they'd be settling down
(07:27):
for a ChristmasEve feast, and in Germany
that would be gathering aroundthe Christmas trees
that had just been invented100 years before
in the North Sea.
A cyclone was also preparingfor Christmas,
gathering in intensityand really just getting ready
to bea real Grinch over the evening
as we already know,
the Netherlands hasa long history of fighting back
against the ocean,which much of that
(07:48):
with much of thecoastline below sea level.
Well, they've done amazing
work over the centuriesto claw back land.
Mother naturesure is a bitch about that.
Germany and Denmarkalso have similar situations
on their northern
and western coastlines,and on Christmas Eve of 1717,
and we've become apparent
that maybe livingthere wasn't such a great idea
(08:09):
as the evening went by the way,he's gone quiet,
which means he's just lookedat the map and realized that no.
One's do not share a borderwith Denmark.
They're separatedby a massive expanse of ocean,
and huge chunk of Germanysplits them apart.
Exactly what I said.
I said Germany's in the middle.
Yeah, and you got Netherlandsand Denmark on either side?
Not quite yet.
No, they're. All one piece.
I'm curious as to how this isflooding. Keep going. Hope.
(08:31):
Are you seeing what he's doing?Well, he was wrong.
And he's just deciding to belike, well, actually about it.
They're all separatedby huge amount. Go. I just got.
Old. That one piece of land.
Just keep going.
Go look at a map so that you cansee how this guy's a dick.
Oh. You can just tell me.
(08:52):
All right, I love Christmas.
I wish it's.
Christmas.
I love Christmas,wish I had some. Crisps.
We should have had some crispsfor Christmas.
As the evening went on,the cyclone drew
closer to shore.
And with it, a storm surge.
Well, this would alreadybe pretty devastating.
It also occurred at a time
when there was a spring tide,which is an especially high
(09:15):
tide caused by the alignmentof the sun, Earth and.
Moon King tide.
It's what we would call a kingtide. Yes.
This, along with the already wet
ground from all the rain prior.
Oh, yeah.This is this is this is.
It would combine with the stormsurge to push a massive
swell onto the coastline
while there were dikes in place
to try and stop the large tidesand storm surge in.
(09:35):
Know warehouse,there was a massive swell
of Bay beach.
On ChristmasDay 2010 or something.
During.
Yeah. Good one.
You can count that.
That was really. Unclear to me.
Hey, John's,
(09:56):
So while there had been dikesin place,
to try and stop, large tidesand storm surges
had been poorly maintained over
the last few decades due
to poor economic conditionsin the area.
So with very few flood defensesand one hell of a storm surge,
the area was set for one of theworst floods it had ever seen
all along the coastline.
The flooding was immensein the Netherlands.
(10:16):
The provinces on the northern
end of the countrywere hit hardest, with Groningen
and Frieslandhit particularly hard.
Entire suburbs of these townswere submerged
and people trappedin their homes
and drowning as drowning,as the floodwaters gradually.
Drowned in thathaving. Hard. Yeah, crazy.
Honk!
Shoo, shoo. Yeah.
(10:39):
That's okay.
Oh, to have only haveone of those hats.
The long pointed hats
that comes downnot at KKK hat and a little.
No one was thinking that.
I was thinking KKK hat.
Thanks for anyway.
It's a Ned Flanders.
Yes. Yeah, yeah.The sleepy. Hat.
Slave cap.
Yeah.
Two people were drowningin their own homes.
(10:59):
Yeah, that's folks.
Yeah.
So that'show little warning they got
because, like, it's the 1700sI don't have. Right.
So they're like, ooh.
I guess I don't have a weather.
I don't know why they thinknever weather. Right now.
They didn't have athey didn't have had.
To live without.
They didn't have the Bureau of
Meteorologyand they were not fine.
But you know, right. Yeah.I was going to say.
That we're fine.
(11:20):
It's fine. Oh.
So this is going to come outbefore what we just recorded.
But I was thinking before,
we should have done the randomcall at the end of that episode.
Because, that would bethe perfect time to do the,
the check in on.
Top of the cheesy.
Yeah. Check the cheesy.
In Germany,
(11:40):
the coastlines of present daySaxony and Schleswig-Holstein
were almost completelyswept away with entire villages
gone and massive livestockdeaths in the rural areas.
Denmark was also hit,particularly
in the
southern parts of the countrybordering the Wadden Sea.
Thoughthe devastation in Denmark
wasn'tquite as bad as in Germany
and the Netherlandsbecause so much
(12:02):
less of the country was hit.
And as the survivorsawoke on Christmas Day,
it became clearthat the impact of the flooding
would take decadesto recover from.
Decades.
Over 14,000 people had died,which is one of the highest
death tolls from flooding everin European history.
Vast areas of farmland,particularly in Germany,
had been salted by the seawater,
(12:23):
leaving themcompletely useless for years
due to the saltbeing left in the soil.
Yeah, right. Okay,that makes sense.
Combined with the livestocklosses, this left rural, rural
communities in particularlydifficult economic situations.
Afterthe floodwaters had receded.
There were also changesto the coastline,
with new inlets and lagoonsbeing developed
due to the erosioncaused by the storm surge.
(12:44):
Many survivors also consideredthe event to be an act of God,
punishing them for their sins,which would leave
a lasting impacton their religious practices.
They didn't bring tollthat year.
He brought death.
Lord your homes.
I think saying therewas, kind of.
Yeah, Santa. Claus, Santa Claus.
In the immediate aftermath,there wasn't much in the way
(13:06):
of organized relief efforts,
and many had to fendfor themselves.
Churches would open their doorsto the displaced,
thoughthere would be limited space
to house the nowhomeless masses.
Eventually,
neighboring regions
would send aid in the formof donations and food.
But being 1700s,this was obviously pretty slow.
Longer term,the affected areas would begin
to invest more in flooddefenses, building new dikes
(13:28):
and leveesto help alleviate future floods.
Alongside the new flood defenses
would be monuments to the dead,
which would serve as a reminderof the power of the sea
and its ability to swiftlyend the lives of so many.
So yeah, pretty devastating.
Not a good Christmas.
That's not a good Christmas.It's a bad Christmas.
(13:49):
Drowning in your bed.
Not a good. Christmas.
That's the. Yeah.
It reminded me a
lot ofthe like Boxing Day tsunami.
Oh yeah. It was a thing.
Yeah. Yeah.
We're just like,people didn't know it was coming
because they didn'thave communication about it,
and they're like,oh, what's happening right now?
And then all of a suddenthat just getting flooded.
(14:11):
What was that?
That was in the Philippines,Indonesia, Indonesia.
Bali. Bali.
I think it was Bali thing.
On story two.
To reduce.
The drunken Christmasin British Parliament. Oh,
when you think of Parliamentin Britain,
I'm sure you think of stuffytoffs standing in an overly
(14:31):
formal room telling each other
how the economic plan was betterthan their opposition.
Oh, perhaps.
Oh, big top hats.
2004 Indian Oceanearthquake and tsunami
violently hitseverely in Sri Lanka,
India, Thailand and Indonesia.
Yeah.
But not necessarily. Bali.
(14:52):
Not necessarily Bali.
It was further around.
It was further. It was.
Yeah. The north or.
Kind of the westor on the on the way around.
Indonesia. Indonesia's the bitthat I remember the most.
On the Thailand.Yeah. Big country.
It was on the Thailandend of Indonesia. Yeah.
So yeah overly formal.
I'm telling you how they hadthe economic plan
was better in their oppositionwith their big top hats.
(15:13):
And our glasses.
Oh I so, so. Us.
And at worst calling each othera name or two in their debates.
Squabbling overcoins and stuff. Yes.
Then I'm sure you've also heardof those parliaments
where every now
and then they end up in a dustupover a piece of policy,
usually in WesternEurope, Eastern Europe.
Well, in 1621
(15:35):
there was one particularly tenseparliamentary session
that took placeright before the Christmas break
that got right out of hand
and might have resulted inwholesale change in the country.
In 1621,things weren't exactly peachy
between the Parliamentand King James.
The first.
England was deep in the 30 YearsWar, which, without going
too deeply into itbecause it's incredibly complex,
(15:56):
was basically a mini world warthat included
a bunch of European countriesall pissed off about religion.
So the parliament wasn'tsuper thrilled that the King
wasn't being firmer
about his Protestant views aboutagainst those damn Catholics,
and they weren't happyabout his spending, either.
King James the First was knownfor his extravagant spending.
(16:17):
This is the Scottish one.
But yeah,I covered. The Scottish.
King a couple of weeks. Yes.Yeah, yeah. Cheeky verse. Yeah.
And they weren'thappy about his spending either.
King James the First was knownfor his extravagant spending,
maintaining an elaborate courtwith plays and entertainment,
sending expensesave gifts to royal favorites,
and buying crazyamounts of art and clothing.
(16:39):
Was this before or after GuyFawkes?
This is 1621,so I imagine it's before.
I don't think so.
Or if it's after.
That's pretty crazy.
Before it is before. Okay.
No, sorry.
This is after.
Yeah. Oh, okay.
Guy Fawkes died in 1606, right?
Yeah.
Man, this KingJames lived for a long time.
(17:00):
This is part of that reason isalso why Guy Fawkes happened.
Because they were upset with.
Yeah.
He's spendingand he was spending
money in Scotlandnot England. Yes.
Yeah.
He kept buying gifts for peoplein Scotland. Yeah.
Consideringthe Crown was in debt
when he took over,
the Parliament wasn't
exactly thrilledthat he was accelerating
spendingrather than reducing it.
(17:21):
Given this was the case,
it isn't surprising thatthere were discussions ongoing
about the balance of powerbetween the King
and Parliament at the time.
As theChristmas holidays approached,
the tensions had startedto bubble to the surface
and a lack of decorumwas inevitable.
As the final sessionof Parliament for the year
got underway, peoplewere already a little bit tipsy,
as it wasn't unusual at the timefor parliamentary celebrations
(17:43):
to includefeasting and drinking.
Everybody was getting tipsy.
That's good on you.
Okay, everybody in the.
House of Lords get.
Tipsy.
Ale, wine
and spirits flowed freely,but they still had work to do.
Just imagine today
if our MPs were
slinging down vibes whilethey debated foreign policy,
(18:05):
as you can imagine,as like goodie bags.
I can only.
Like Albanese was.
Like beautiful to.
You go dada,
spin that little spinthat heels hoist.
I mean I would watch that on TV.
Yeah, it would beso much more interesting.
You know how they showParliament.
(18:26):
I would watch that. Yeah.
If you saw Dutton.
Just likefor texting a bottle of wine.
Albo, if you're listening,there's an idea.
Yeah. You get our votes.
You could
you could bring us onas consultants
to make Parliament timemore interesting.
Shotgun this beeror you don't get to speak. You.
Before you stand up and addressthe speaker.
You have to. Yeah.
(18:47):
You have to doa. A shimmy, a beer.
Oh, you got to dotequila shot, tequila shot.
I was gonna
say the salt on Pauline Hanson.
Oh, no. You.
Where's the lime, Pauline?
And she does that smilewith a limes.
In her mouth. Oh.
(19:09):
Not gross.
As you can imagine. Off.
Sean, this is funny.
Sean loves Pauline Hanson.
He hates the factthat we're making fun of her.
As you can imagine, as they gotdeeper into the dice.
Goodness, this is had.
To be easily.
Sean's down the rabbit holereading.
About James the first
(19:31):
as you get a Queen Maryand Henry, the seventh
cousin of Elizabeth,the first order of the rabbit.
Oh, we've covered this.
Oh, I know.
Was Sean in that episode? Yes.
Okay.
It's too hardnot to get down the rabbit hole.
Sorry, but we keep interrupting.
So worried he'sgoing to attack me.
As you can imagine.
Attack, slap. Let's go.
(19:53):
As I go
deeper into the day,they started to cover
more contentious topicsand with the booze flowing, so
did the insults.
Stop laughing.
Did you have to cancel Kim'sconvenience?
Not surprising.
Yeah. I can't remember much.
I didn't know,
I knowI started watching you, like,
have you never seen the show?Your show, I watch it.
(20:14):
Yeah, I might bring it backif you watch it.
The debates that they werehaving over policy quickly
devolved into slurred insultsand even brawls.
Fists were flying, face, fists,
fists were flying, and peoplewatching reported that it looked
more like a bar on Christmas Evethan a parliamentary sitting.
As you can imagine,this didn't go down too
(20:36):
well with the public.
Almost immediately, word
started to get outabout their behavior,
and the royal court
and the public would ridiculethe behavior of the MPs.
Some people even went so far
as to make satirical pamphletsand posters mocking the MPs,
which would be widely sharedthroughout the country.
King Jamesthe First would also weigh in,
usingthe incidents to the incidents
(20:57):
the incident to improve his ownstanding
by saying that it was proofthat Parliament couldn't
govern effectively on their ownwithout royal oversight.
Longer term,as in just two months later,
the Parliament
would be dissolved by King Jamesthe First,
and it's highly possiblethat this incident
was one of the final straws thatled to this decision to do so.
I'd say so.
(21:19):
The incident and its falloutwould be a precursor
to what would happensome two decades later,
when the tensionsbetween the Crown and Parliament
boiled over into the EnglishCivil War in 1651.
I actually didn't know thatthere was an English Civil War.
I thought that was like
the whole thing,that they hadn't had one.
Sean, ifyou can do a quick search. Yes.
(21:39):
Like if you search, we remove
weed laws in England.
It's something like
you can't carry a fish intothe English Parliament, is it?
Yeah.
There's actually heaps of lawsabout carrying weird things.
You can't wear a suit of armor.
That's the one thing.
You can't weara suit of armor. Into.
I mean, that makes sense,because that's the equivalent.
All right, here we go.Bring an AK 47. Thank you.
(22:01):
Google, I just quietly I'mactually really enjoying Google.
I didn't we talksmack about Gemini.
Yeah. No.
But when when you do
when you do a Google search
and it just gives youthe eye over the response.
It's very it's very helpful.
I don'tlike and it saves me opening.
So unusual laws in the
United Kingdom,being drunk in charge of a cow.
(22:23):
What does thatthe Licensing Act of 1872
prohibits being drunkwhile in charge of any animal
on a highwayor other public place.
Oh, so that must meanlike walking them?
Yes. Yeah.
Handing.
Hay or handling salmonthis suspiciously.
(22:44):
That's the one I was like, does.
This salmon act?
But that ain't 1986.
Sorry.
Requires people to showthe legal origin of any salmon
they have to prevent the saleof illegally caught fish.
How you just say, oh,I caught it legally.
Jumping the queue.
Transport for London's bylawsprohibits jumping the queue
at a tube stationwearing armor in Parliament.
(23:05):
The ban is a remnantof the medieval period,
when the House of Parliamentwas a place
where disputes could escalateinto violence.
Therefore, you can't wear armor
and also potentially handle salm
Walk in witha salmon and a suit of armor.
They'll probably hangyou immediately.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, just yeah.
I was wonderingif there's any of these laws
(23:25):
coming out of sight.
Apparently it is illegalto linger after a funeral.
Yeah. Good rule.
And apparentlyit is required by law,
even though no one enforces itfor taxi drivers to carry water.
Hey. Hi.
Yeah, I don't know, but thehorses. Yeah, for the horses.
I don't think it's enforced,but apparently it's still a law.
(23:47):
That's probablyfrom when they actually had.
They had actual horses. Yeah.
So when cabs were.
Horses
I have seen a lot of videosof people testing
all of these dumb lawsto see if they'll get pulled up.
And I have seen a dudetry to wear a suit of armor
into the house, into Parliament,and pretty much
get away with it. Yeah,
because it's like these daysthey're going to be like.
(24:07):
Yeah, everyone's like,all right, this dude is cooked.
Yeah. Like, yeah,
ordered.
It's one dayhis laws are still in effect.
Yeah I'm at two.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I'm just wonderingif any of these laws are
coming out from this.
Oh much love.
Topless Jay-Z.
Yeah. If you have a shirt on.
(24:28):
No love whatsoever.
Don't bet on using abusivelanguage in a library.
In a libraryin England is illegal to gamble
or bet
or use violent or obscene
language,or behave in a disorderly manner
to the annoyance a disturbanceof any other person.
Also,using the library under section
two of the Library OffensesAct of 1898,
anyone convicted of such eventswill be fined a penalty
(24:50):
not exceeding 40 shillings.
The average wage atthe time was mere 14 shillings,
one and a half pence.
I really love libraries.
Anyway, we're sticking aroundin England, Wales.
And Sturgeon's fan in the UnitedKingdom belong to the Crown.
Oh really?
Yeah. Anyway, let's move on.
Rabbit hole achieved.Thank you John.
You're welcome.
(25:25):
Well,we don't have to move too far
because we're staying in Englandfor our story.
Number three,the big freeze of 1962.
As we know. This is recent.
England isn't the warmestof places in the world.
Not really.
Right now, I'm sure it's cold,overcast and gray.
Race.
You can tell uswhen this episode
comes out in the comments.
(25:45):
Sean weather up Penguin London.
Where does it currently.
Go to bomb?Go to a weather radar.
But in sixth, in 1962 and 1963,there would be a winter
that would disrupt the nationfor months, changing the way
Christmas and New Year'swould be celebrated.
Christmas Year. Christmas.
It is currently seven degreesin England as a whole.
(26:07):
And it's summer over there.Balmy.
It's not summer there.
It's winter over thereon. A wet summer here. Yeah.
That's the coldbecause of the air.
Yeah, that'swhat I'm thinking of.
You played cricket today.
It's summer sport.And how are you, Bailey? Okay.
He attended cricket today.
You were in the vicinityof a cricket ball today.
For 20 bowls. At 20V.
(26:29):
Yeah.
Look, it's single digitsall day.
Yeah. Is it overcast?
No. Oh, must be nice.
All right.
I've seen chance of rain.
Humidity at 84% when.
That something raising wind.
At ten kilometersan hour feels like five.
Apparently, I'm just fine.
Well, this phrase would beginin early December
(26:50):
with heavy snowfallthrough the month.
So about now,
there would be severalfeet of snow
in some areasfor much of the month.
And even before the start of the
official start of the freeze,many rural communities
were cut offby the depth of snow.
You'll cut off.
Yeah. I can't have another beer.
By Christmas Day,the snow had blocked
many familiesfrom leaving their homes,
and temperaturesstarted to dip as low as -20°C.
(27:14):
I am all for you weirdos.
Negative degreesF, -four degrees Fahrenheit.
Yeah, I was too busytrying to make fun of people
to actually get it out there.
Making fun of people,of using stupid things.
Fahrenheit.
Whileit was certainly picturesque,
it wasn't exactly practical.
Supplychains have been disrupted
(27:35):
due to the snowmaking travel difficult.
Damn.
And so neighborhoods
would need to come togetherand share the food they had.
The Christmas
that you would be rememberedfor, simple and adapted foods
alongside the community spiritthat led to stories of heroes
braving the elements to deliverfood, assisting the elderly,
and rescuing those strandedin the snow while traveling.
(27:57):
Christmas that yearwas only the beginning, though,
as the freeze would continueuntil March, when
the disruption would continue
with roads being blockedby blocked by snow so badly
that plows and saltingthe road had little effect.
Railways were also affected,with snow
blocking the tracks and wreakinghavoc on the train schedules.
(28:18):
Cars and trains were alsoaffected by the low temperature.
With trains and.
I've seen the roadsand the railways
and now it's the carsand the trains
also affectedby the low temperatures,
with frozen enginesand power lines causing
frequent issues for motoristsand train operators.
So like people'scars were freezing
despite the antifreezeand everything.
(28:39):
I have heard thatlike in Siberia,
before you go to work,you get under your car
with your lighter and meltthe fuel in the fuel tank.
But that's.
Why live somewhere like, I.
Don't know. I just why. Not?
Because it's very cold.
That's why not. It was. Yeah.
If you're always late, it'shard to leave.
That's true. It's a big country.
(29:00):
But it's the biggest.Yeah, yeah.
Equally affected was the powerand heating networks.
With the low temperaturescausing increased
electricity demandacross the network.
Compounding this issue
was the road and track closurescausing
shortages of coal in powerplants throughout the country.
This resulted in frequentblackouts, as it simply wasn't
(29:23):
enough fuel to servicethe demand of the public.
I love the United Kingdom,seriously,
but every time
they have slightly inclement
weather, hot or cold,everything turns out.
Everything shuts downevery. Time it's too hot.
Oh, house is not built for youguys, are all.
And then we put on a pufferjacket.
They make fun of us,but then they have cold weather.
It's like,oh, everything's okay.
We can't do anything now.
(29:43):
The weather needs to be between
ten degrees and 22 degreesor it doesn't.
England doesn't exist.
Rolling blackouts.
Rolling, rolling. Blackouts.
There was also issues withrivers and lakes freezing over
the Thames,particularly at times.
Oh, the.
Famous. Sam. Farms.
Farms, river.
Partially froze in many areas,reminding people
(30:05):
of the great Foss Frost phase ofthe 17th and 18th centuries.
If you don'tknow about the frost phase,
they were eventswhere the Thames would
was frozen over and markets
and gameswould be set up on the ice.
That'd be pretty funny.
Very cool,but also very dangerous.
You need for thick iceto not fall through as April.
(30:25):
Kept falling. Through.
Yeah, you need at least 30at least 30cm.
Ice to really be stableon top of it.
Anyway, with lakes and pondsalso frozen,
people would start to play
ice hockey and have some funice skating on the ice.
At least there was something funto come out of all the chaos.
As things continued in that icyway, people
(30:46):
from all walks of lifehad to make adaptions very spun.
Farmers would need to improvetheir animals insulation,
working to use as much highas possible to keep them warm.
From the taxes.
They would.
They were
they would need to do the samewith their water supplies,
and would even resort to burningtheir furniture to do so.
(31:07):
Those living in the areaswith power cuts
would learn to wearmultiple layers
even when inside,to protect themselves
from the lack of heating,
and even footballwould need to adapt well.
The Kiki's as I like calling it.
Round ball as I.
Call it, with an orange footballfamously being introduced
to improve visibilityin the snow.
(31:28):
They also had to cancela bunch of games for weeks,
as the pitches were frozen solid
by extending the seasonlong into the summer,
as I had to make upfor the lost games once again.
If it's not five degrees 22,they just can't function.
Just play the damn game.
I do love the ideathat they like,
we can't see this ball.
Yes, do not get that orangeone out.
(31:52):
And then yeah, they had to like
extend the season by a few weeksbecause I had all these
canceled gamesI had to reschedule. Yeah.
Eventually air from the Atlanticwould sweep in,
ending the big freezequite quickly in March of 1963.
The rapid melting would causenew concerns, though,
throughout the countryas flooding would set
in, causinga whole new set of problems.
(32:13):
Through April,
many communitieshave been cut off
and heavily affected by the snow
would now be equally affectedby the floodwaters,
compounding an alreadydifficult.
Time with the floodwaterscome from the melting ice.
Melting snow. Yeah.
Not ice, but.
That's why it's called the snowyRiver. Boy.
What killed the dinosaurs?
The Ice Age
(32:35):
was the phrase, a reference.
From the worst Batman.
Film.
I'm sorry, Clooney.
I love you, mister.
Maybe he knows he'sthe worst back.
He knows he's the worstBatman. I mean, Falcon was
welcome.
Why didthey put nips on that Batman?
So I just even then.
(32:55):
They must have been like,why are we doing this?
We're down to our last story.
Yeah. What hit me with you?
The Christmas Day.
Christmas.
Execution of Nicolae Ceausescu.
Such Ceausescu.
Good luck spelling that one.
Chow chow.
(33:17):
Chow.
Let's end on a particularly.
Gruesome Romanian politician.Yeah, what it looks.
Like right the first time.What a shall we do?
Let's end on a particularlygruesome Christmas story
the end of Nicolae Ceausescuduring the Romanian Revolution
of 1989.
No, this is shall we do it?
(33:39):
I liked it.
Oh, no.
Judge, you had initially risento power in 1965
as an old SovietPolish politician.
He aligned himselfas a reformer,
wantingto bring the country forward
into the modern age without theinfluence of communism.
Unfortunately,foreign. Sounds are a.
Unfortunately for
(33:59):
Romania,he was also a bit of a dickhead
and would turn out to bea brutal dictator. Okay, okay.
Yeah.
Jet, you would work to builda cult of personality
around himselfwith dissent against him,
his wife, or his policiesparticularly harshly punished.
It seems like he has French.
Purged.
French.
(34:20):
Ancestors. Yeah.
With Marie Antoinette. Yeah.
He would portray himand his wife as the mother
and father of the nation,
with their portraitshung everywhere around Romania.
His goal of reformingthe country would be to push it
forwardthrough rapid industrialization
and through that to pay offnational foreign debt.
But unfortunately, as we've seenbefore, this kind of policy
(34:40):
results in widespread povertythroughout many countries.
And things were no differentin Romania.
Throughout his reign,the country would see
shortages of food, electricityand heating,
with all three being rationed,
makingwinters particularly harsh.
The triggerfor the end of his reign
would begin on December16th of 1989,
(35:00):
with an attemptto evict a dissident pastor,
LaszloA, his Laszlo was popular,
and so public demonstrationsagainst the regime would follow.
As these thingsdo, it quickly became about
more than the pastor,
as the public's angerabout their poverty
and the repression of religionand expression boiled over.
(35:21):
Ceausescu would respondin brutal fashion
by sending in the military
and secret police with ordersto shoot protesters on site,
which led to hundreds of deaths.
The very secretivethey're they're shooting people.
Yeah. Not really.
The secret police is kind oflike a they.
It's just like, stop.
You won't know when they'regoing to show up to get you.
Yeah.
While it was intended thatthis would calm things down,
(35:44):
of course it didn't.
What do you know?
Merkin people in the street.
Not the best way to calm thingsdown.
And things would continueto escalate against Judge Askew.
Not so great anymore.
He started off saying don't.Okay.
Yeah, I don't like communism.
But what Ido love is being a dictator.
You would attempt to deliver
a speechin Bucharest on December 21st,
(36:06):
but was met with significantbooing and defiant chants
from the crowd,
which was entirely unprecedentedin the dictatorship.
As protestscontinued to grow on December
22nd,the military would switch sides
and align themselveswith the revolutionaries.
Military coup?
Yeah, effectively leaving Cheskywith no more allies.
He and his wife would fleeto a helicopter.
(36:27):
Get to the chopper.
He waited all night to say that.Yeah.
Get to the chopper.Get to the jump.
Get to the chopper.
Yeah, to the chopper.
I was doing a better onethe other night.
You were on his socks, and.
Yeah, that would attemptto leave the country,
but were forced to land by themilitary and taken into custody.
Wait, was it the other daythat there was us?
(36:47):
Is it South Korea?
Yes. Well, I the the martiallaw, like martial law.
And then they literallythe stories about how the MPs
got into Parliament in orderto do the vote was crazy.
They were like climbing wallsand sneaking around and like.
More psychos to like.
Yeah, well, historydefining moment.
Well, it did happen.And then like 40 minutes later.
(37:09):
Yeah,I think it was within two hours.
You know, reverse.
They were
saying that there were peoplethat would have gone to dinner
and missed the whole.Missed the whole thing. Yeah.
It wasalmost like very similar to
was the Russian
paramilitary groupthat marched on.
Oh yeah. Moscow.
And then never heardfrom them again.
(37:29):
Yeah. They just like stopped.Don't want to be part of it.
Yeah. Private military groupthat started that turn.
The Wagner. Group. That's it.They turned and started.
And then what happened to that?
Yeah. Some deal got done.
And then he died in a planecrash. Yeah. Okay.
Yeah. He got Putin.
Yeah. Yeah.
He got Putin into the ground.
(37:51):
A hasty trial for Ceausescuand his wife would be arranged
on Christmas Day.
Hasty. What?
What? Tasty.Like couple of those.
As in,
they got capturedon December 22nd
and they were on trialon the 25th. Right.
I'm not going around.
And by all accounts,it was an absolutely
predetermined outcome,which isn't. All that.
So there wasn't a fair. No,
(38:11):
it was a militarytribunal with the charges
including genocide, subversionof state power, destruction
of the national economyand embezzlement.
Guilty.
Consideringthe seriousness of the charges,
it was a ridiculously shorttrial of only 90 minutes.
And of course, Ceausescuand his wife would not recognize
the court's authority.
Regardless,they were found guilty
(38:31):
and sentenced to deathby firing squad.
Just an hour later.
Broadcast camerasrolling to show the execution
across the nation and the world.
The pair were let out and shot.
So on live TV on Christmas Day,they got shot.
Our kids. If I put yourpresents, I would sit down.
To watch our dictatorbe shot in the head.
Let's let's let's.Yeah, let's sit down.
(38:53):
And we're all going to watch thehead of our state be murdered.
Shot a 71 year old man.
On national TV.Channel tell you that? Yeah,
obviously there's.
A YouTube video somewhere.
Yeah, yeah, well.
I saw a photo of it, right?
Yeah, yeah,
obviously there was someaftermath from the whole day.
Yeah. Don't muck around. No.
With many criticizingthe speed of the trial
(39:14):
for its lack of fairnessto the schools,
it was clearly designedto quickly eliminate them,
to ensurethey couldn't rally supporters
or reveal anything about others
that had taken partin the dictatorship.
Others saidthat it was very distasteful
to complete it on Christmas Day.
Yeah.
And then broadcast it? Yes.
Others still pointed outthat just during 1989,
(39:36):
there had been other peacefultransition of power,
particularly with the downfallof communist regimes in Poland,
Czechoslovakia and Hungary,as well as the fall of the
Berlin Wall.
Yeah. So sorry.
What year did this happen? 1989.
That's not that long ago.No it's not.
These weren't alive.
No, I was you.
Were probably like in. 43. Yeah.
(39:58):
I was 36. Yeah.
Future.
So maybe there was a way forwardthat didn't involve
a public executionof an old man.
Head over here.Oh, you look older than I do.
Sloppy lap dogmillionaire over here.
Slumdog millionaire.
Now, any of the guys inthe barbershop
are listening, but, yeah,
(40:18):
they call me Celeb DogMillionaire a lot.
Regardless of the waythey got there,
Romania would be led by a new,supposedly democratic government
who would sadly be accusedof their own communist leanings.
Yeah.
The country would still facethe issues of economic
and political instabilityfor years to come, with many
remembering the whole fiascowith very mixed feelings.
Yeah, that's pretty,
(40:40):
intense Christmas Day.
Yeah.
On Christmas Day, you're like,oh, let's have our roast.
Somebody turn on the TV.Maybe we'll catch the parade.
At least they only took himand his wife
and sentence them to death.
Unlike the Russian Revolution.
Where they just killed.
Everywhere,they just killed everybody.
Yeah. It's Nicholas.
(41:00):
He was like, it's okay.
I'm abdicating half the country.
This needs to happen.
So what did they do?
Storm his house?
But him better.
His wife, but all his childrenand the pets.
Yeah. And then just.
And then to stick himin the ground.
In the pits. Yep, yep.
I killed literally,like, innocent children
and had never done anythingthe Russian over.
(41:21):
They just was like that.Kill them all.
Kill the whole family.That's the Russians, really.
That's quite a lot of children.It was really upsetting.
Yeah.
They eventually gave thema state funeral with honors.
When they found. Them. Yeah.
And like that long,like less than 30 years ago.
Yeah.
Anyway, that's a sad Christmas.
Christmas.
So enjoy your Christmasthis year.
Yes. There will be no publicexecutions until.
(41:42):
The public executions onTV. Cheeky.
Cheeky titles.Can't guarantee that.
Check it out.
Condemns, public executions.
No, no, no to live broadcastpublic executions.
We say also say noto a lot of the issues
of the communist statesinvolved in the Warsaw Pact.
Says no to dictatorships.No to decay.
(42:04):
I think that's a hard one.
Yeah, we say yes to taketater ships that the. Oh,
anyway, that's a differentkind of Christmas episode.
That is a different kind of.
I wore my Snoop Dogg ChristmasT-shirt for this Christmas.
Yeah. Snoop Dogg says no.
It was the nasalbefore Christmas.
Remember? Through the haze.
(42:25):
Can't see the rest of it.Yeah, it's. A great show.
It is a fantastic shirt.
I think he wore that lastChristmas.
I did wear it last Christmas.
What it for last Christmas.Bring it. Christmas.
This is. For that. Shirt before.
This is it before last episode.So if dog was brought up.
Snoop Dogg was brought up.
No it wasn't. Yes he was.
Not in the time show.
Yeah.
(42:45):
Was he all. Right, wasn't it.
No, he wasn't. Running the game.
Awards were. And Snoop Doggperformed at the Game Awards.
Oh, he's new single there. Yeah.
Anyway,
if you would liketo see some supplemental imagery
from this episode,they will be not.
They will not be photos.
Execution won't be muchsupplemental inventory.
(43:06):
We will have some imagery there.
I will,
definitely be highlightingthe borders of the countries
mentioned in the floodingepisode. Yeah. Flooding story.
You can hollow them allyou want. It's fine.
You can find us on at CheekyTowels
Pod on Facebook and Instagram.
But. But cross country for.
Another deep cutfrom how long it was.
(43:28):
It's probablygot a couple episodes ago.
It is Christmas betweenthe release of this episode
and the next one,which will be yours, boy.
And we wish you all a very MerryChristmas and.
Thank holidays.For being part of.
These responsibly.You know. What?
I'll save the year.Wrap up for your episode.
(43:48):
Okay?
Eight responsibly.
Responsibly. Drink responsibly.
Get yourself some,
BundabergBrewing Christmas ginger beer.
Got one in the fridgeregularly when I get home.
It's so good.
Also, hydrate or die.
It's hot at Christmas.Drink water. Damn it.
Look, every alcoholic drinkyou have, have a water.
(44:10):
You need one liter
per day per man,per degree, over 25 degrees.
Thanks, Army. Sean. Thanks.
Russell. Quit. Oh, yeah. Thanks,Russell. Come on, man.
Watch some. Russell quit this.
Yeah, actuallywatch some Russell quit. Yeah.
Good Christmas stuff.
Anyway, I think it's time to sayMerry Christmas.
We will see you in a fortnight.
And, Good night.
(44:32):
Merry Christmas.
Chicago's good night tickets.
John had a really good one.
Yeah, yeah.
But he got us both.
And then we lost the recordingat the end last.
Like 45 minutes in. America.
Some of our best content.
Yeah merry Christmas JTJonathan.
Merry Christmas.Our Lord and savior. Good night.
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