September 8, 2024 • 30 mins
Today on the Daily Bespoke Podcast, World War 2 - which show member would have made the best soldier?
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Speaker 1 (00:15):
Litt let's get busy.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Yeah, it's the ninth of the ninth in the Year
of Our Lord, twenty twenty four. Welcome all you bespoke
you donkeyes to the Daily Bespoke Podcast.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
We've got a.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Huge one for you today. We've been preparing this all weekend.
We've got quite and a GINI. We've got a lot
to get through, boys, So let's get stuck in. Jeremy,
what have you got.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
I'm bringing a gains. Text shut around, text chat.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
You're not going to try and text my unrealized gains,
are you?
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Jerry? That's right. I'm thinking it's time that you, the
top one percent of earners in New Zealand start paying
a little bit more than what they're paying. It's time.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
Is that actually? What's going on at the moment? Are
you dealing with them but people coming after your money?
Speaker 1 (01:04):
Wells, No, No, I'm just no, I'm saying Matt needs
to pay more, not me, right, just being about Matt.
Speaker 3 (01:09):
Here, Matt, you do need to actally pay more.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
Text it's the.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Upper eashlongla Jeremy. That that just they hide it away
and offshore accounts. He's got, he's got, he's got twenty
two dollars. He's got five ninety nine five dollars nine
and account.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
Of the Canary Islands five dollars in my savings account, right.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Screwing it around in little amounts and bank accounts all around.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
The world, everywhere, everywhere.
Speaker 3 (01:35):
Can someone fact check this for me? We've got a
text today during the show on three for three, we're
talking mate, You're talking about your new oven, and you
haven't around rightfully so about the symbols that are now
on the dial rather than the name of the sitting
that you like, instead of saying fan bake or bake
or grill, it just has like some kind of hieroglyphic,
is what we were kind of describing them as a
(01:56):
text here on three for three.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
Is this true?
Speaker 3 (01:58):
So the study is actually called hieroglyphs. Hieroglyphs, Sorry, they
are actually hieroglyphics. What's on the wall and then the hieroglyphs,
and then the study of that is hieroglyglyphics.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
Oh so I was saying I can't read bloody hieroglyphics.
Smeg sought you should out. I should have said I
can't read hips. But I've never seen you can't read
English in that situation either.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
You can't. You didn't know you hieroglyphs? Yeah, I did.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
Well.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
Interesting, I think that might be. I think that might be.
I think that might be bullshit from that person, you reckon.
I think that might be bullshit because I was talking
about the Rosetta Stone, and for the longest time they
couldn't they couldn't work out hieroglyphs or hieroglyphics right because
that they were just looking at them, even though they're
pictures of stuff. And then they came across the Rosetta Stone,
which was just this piece of rock, but it had
(02:47):
a lot of admin on it, like it was it was.
It was sort of admin from this king and but
on it it had Egyptian and Greek. Oh so, and
they knew how it. They knew ancient Greek. So that's
how they worked out and they could took them ages
to work it back. There was complicated people trying to
work out how the Greek worked with the hieroglyphics. And
(03:09):
there's a whole, really really interesting documentary on it that
bore the shit out of the most Egyptologist person. But
until then they found this Rozeta stone, and then that's
how they worked out how to read the hieroglyphs. Yes,
but this one says inscribe in two languages, Egyptian and Greek,
and three writing systems hieroglyphics, demotics, script a, cursive terms
(03:33):
of port of Egyptian hieroglyphics. So this is saying agraphics
and the Greek alphabet preferred a key to the translation
of Egyptian.
Speaker 4 (03:40):
Because I've got that hieroglyph is the singular hieroglyphs, so
like A, for instance, would be a hieroglyph, A and
B would be hieroglyphs, and hieroglyphics is the practice of reading.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
Okay, interesting, So then I got the Rosetta Stone was
just a form of propaganda. Actually, the exscription written in
three langue, it was just Potolemy the fifth. This is
basically the Ptolemy the fifth, the god who maketh himself manifest,
whose deeds are beautiful, is old, and it was the
(04:13):
kind of shit that was on the Rosetta Stone.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
So the Rosetta Stone is old, old, fucking mate, old ancient. Hey, boys,
I've started listening to the History of New Zealand, that
book that you recommended to me Michael King, Jesus Christ.
First of all, incredible. Second of all, I It's made
me appreciate this country of ours a whole lot more. Yeah,
and I'd recommend anyone listening who has not read that
(04:36):
book yet to have a listen.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
What's the thing you've learned so far that you did
not know that surprised you? The most interesting thing?
Speaker 3 (04:43):
Oh man, the list is so long, well even just
talking because I'm only probably about four chapters in, and
it's it's very focused at the moment on New Zealand's
kind of natural side of what New Zealand like, you know,
before people were around.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
Oh, you're right back at the start.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
At the start.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
But even things that I couldn't I just loved. I
love knowing. But what it is turning me into is
a little bit of a piece of ship, because now
every time someone brings something up, I didn't have a
bit of that. Well did you know? Actually there was
no There was no so I had turning me into
that guy.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
But it book's good, guys. Yeah, it does help to
know something about your own country, doesn't it. It just
makes it slightly more interesting?
Speaker 2 (05:20):
Yeah, it does. I mean gas you context. That book
gets bogged down a little bit later on when it
just starts naming politicians that did this and started that
and did this.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
Really, Yeah, it mentioned Bob Simple. It does mention Bob
Simple and the simple tank. Yeah it does.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
No, it doesn't mention the Simple tank.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
Unfortunately it does.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
There's great feats of New Zealand engineering.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
Yeah, the simple tank, which was essentially a messy Ferguson tract.
There was some corrugated iron checked on the top of it. Yeah,
they thought of it in World War two. They thought
that was going to be a good, good solution if
people invaded New Zealand. We had these things called simple Tank.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
There's one thing that I didn't realize because you know,
when all our troops were overseas and for the longest time,
we just did what Britain said. And Britain was trying
to get rid of us for the longest time. They're going,
you have your own foreign policy, and we were go, no, no, no,
we don't. And they kept on offering us more and
more autonomy. But in World War Two we had so
many troops over in Africa and Europe, and then they
(06:12):
realized that Japan was potentially looking to invade US. I
don't know if they were or not, but we were
worried about it, and so Australia were worried about that too.
So Australia bought so many of their troops back at
that point to protect the homeland, but we didn't. We
left all our troops over there. And it turned out
that England had no or America had no intention of
trying to protect us if we got invaded. They had
(06:34):
they were like, basically, we can't because of course they couldn't.
They were like involved in a huge war, and so
we just risked it all. I think that's quite amazing.
So we had a huge army, like we took one
hundred and fifty thousand soldiers and we didn't have any
of them here to protect ourselves. So if Japan had invaded,
what a strange situation that would be when your entire
(06:54):
army as fighting a lot of ill thought out sort
of campaigns over there. What happened in Crete was a
freaking disaster.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
The thing was Japan, and that worked out that Japan
had no interest. Japan came in, had a little look
at New Zealand. Yeah, and they had a look at us.
But they went there's nothing there for us. It's too hard,
it's going to be too hard to invade. There's nothing,
there's no reason why we want to take that.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
But but we didn't know that. The New Zealand government
seriously thought that Japan would attack them, and we put
in we put in some level gun placements that were
that were less less powerful than the guns the cannons
that they had on the Japanese ships. So the Japanese ships,
if they had attacked, could have sat outside of range
of our our our installations and just bombed the you know,
(07:43):
missile the ship out of us. But that's a huge
freaking call for a country to say we're going to
leave our army overseas and leave ourselves completely undefend. I mean,
there was a few American soldiers on R and R here,
but they were basically basically playing softball and makings with people. Yeah,
I mean, there was there's this famous incident in Wellington
that doesn't make the book where a bunch of New
(08:05):
Zealand troops were getting on board a troop carrier to
go overseas and the and some American guys were arriving
and they were on the port, and one of them
yelled out, don't worry, We'll look after your woman for you.
And the thing with that is everyone was armed. Everyone
had guns. So the Kiwi troops just started shooting off
the boat at the American troops who were unarmed because
(08:28):
they were on wrist and recreation and they were diving
for cover. And I think three Americans were killed.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
Wow, And that got swept under the carpet. No one
talking about that, but shit, choke. These guys are going
away to war and you say, I don't worry, We'll
look after you a woman for you. Pretty amazing. There
was a couple of riots as well, because the Americans
were running a sort of segregation policy and so they
didn't want Maori people in the bars they were drinking it,
(08:56):
and so the Kiwis were like fighting with Maori and
they didn't, you know, we were we weren't that kind
of country. And so there was there's another riot and
a couple of places where the Kiwis just beat the
shit out of the American So so because then you know,
cult soldiers that they were fighting with could get into bars.
There's a whole seedy underside of that whole thing. That
we don't hear about, is it?
Speaker 3 (09:17):
Because also just back to the japan coming to New
Zealand thing, when they thought about it for a moment,
and the fact that we didn't bring too many troops
back to look after us, even if we were at
full strength, do you think there was an element of
just like there was just no fucking chance, like if
we even if we did have all of our soldiers here,
it'd be real Sweetcause we had.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
One hundred and fifty Kiwi troops back here.
Speaker 3 (09:39):
Is that happening we had overseas?
Speaker 1 (09:41):
We didn't have any probably hardware or anything that was fine,
but we had a lot of people with arms. We
had a lot of guns. We would have been able
to find ourselves and that good luck, there would have
been an insurrection. Good luck, good luck trying to keep
New Zealand. There's no way. Yeah, there's no way. It
was miles away from everywhere, So how would have they
supplied How would they get supplied to New Zealand, So
they couldn't supply their actual so it would have been too.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
So at the time of the war, we had a
population of one point six million, and we had one
hundred and forty thousand troops.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
That's a lot.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
So one point six million, one hundred and forty thousand
troops overseas, and we're like, if we got invaded, then
we'd be like, that's a fucking huge army. There hasn't
been too many countries in the history of the world
that's had an army that big for their population. We
were so army at one point, and now you look
at it. We just took the fucking foot off the gas,
didn't we around there? Imagine if we had, you know,
(10:36):
but one in ten people in the army, Now, that
would be a very different society, wouldn't it.
Speaker 4 (10:40):
Half a million people?
Speaker 1 (10:40):
What a year was this, nineteen forty nine to forty five.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
Oh man, I am over talking to your boys about it.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
We lost.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
We had eleven, nine hundred and twenty eight casualties.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
My nana passed over the weekend from old age. He
had a great run. But I'm just having a look. Yeah,
So she she was ninety six, nineteen twenty eight, so
she was there was when she was born. So people
who are still around that experience these times.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
She was a teenager.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
There'd be quite a few people out.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
That I didn't real.
Speaker 3 (11:08):
That's not people talk about it long ago.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
People always talk about how much anxiety is in the
world at the moment, how people are worried about the world.
Imagine growing up as a teenager in the middle of
World War two. You are growing up when there's a
world war, and you know, back then, we were a
big part of the Empire. We believed in the Empire,
so we thought our very way of life was under attack.
We were going to be incredible, overrun by the Japanese
or the Germans. Everything was going to and see growing
(11:32):
up in that and it was real, and it was real.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
Our way of life was one hundred percent of at threat,
unlike what happens now, where people a worried about some
shit on TikTok TikTok that's mainly being made up to
sort of get engagement or potentially by the Chinese Communist Party,
who knows.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
But it was fucking real. I mean, as she wasn't real.
We're getting terrible propaganda. We didn't actually know what was
going on, but there was really there was.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
There were expansionist regimes operating in Asia and Japan, yeah,
and one in Europe being Germany. Yeah, and they were expansionists.
That's what they were doing. They're trying to they were
taking over.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
And people had everyone in their family and there was
nearly everyone had someone that they'd lost in their wider
family and the conflict over there, so you know, you
were getting letters from people like someone down the street
would have just lost their son to actually being shot
by Germans.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
It's quite what about that thing that people did with
So if you had if you're a family and us
had boys and they didn't go to war, they didn't
sign up, then you would get a feather that would
be put in your letter box amongst your mail, someone
would put a feather in there. And this was just
vigilantes inside of society that it was a woman that
and that was considered cowardice. So that meant that you
(12:45):
were your family were cowards.
Speaker 3 (12:47):
Yeah, there's a lot of generation.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
There was a lot of that going on.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
We really judged that. But can you mention the weird
anxiety you'd have if your kids were overseas fighting and
someone else's weren't, and like it wouldn't be rational and
it's not cool. But they kind of looked at it
in a really strange way, like have you seen that
movie Godzilla minus one. No, and it's it's it's really, really,
really freaking good. But it's made in Japan. It looks incredible,
(13:14):
made for fourteen million dollars, looks better than the two
hundred million dollar Godszilla movies they're making out.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
Of the States.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
But their logic was so bizarre that you can't understand
it now. So it's about It's about a soldier that
is a Kamikazi pilot and he was supposed to kill
himself because he didn't, And because if you arrived home and
you hadn't died, you were ostracized. Everyone thought you were
a piece of shit. They were like Tokyo's being absolutely destroyed. Yes,
(13:43):
she's not said Tokyo. But anyway, because you didn't die
in the war.
Speaker 3 (13:48):
Was it your grandfather and my grandfather is something in common.
I think you've talked about it before on the shows.
I was I never my grandfather never ever told me
a war story or anything like that, because he was
ashamed that he had not done his part properly because
he was still alive and around. I think you were
saying once that you've got people in your own feel similar.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
My god, I don't know about that. But my granddad
came home and he just basically didn't really speak again
because he was he was a captain, he was an
important man. And he came back to Vi Cargo working
in a dairy and he never quite five daughters and gaggle.
His life was never and my grandmother's house was just
oil paintings of him in his uniform looking incredibly regal
(14:26):
every everywhere, and then not much. But yeah, that is interesting.
So why couldn't your granddad go because some people because
sometime people would get white feather and they just weren't
accept that they flat feet or whatever it was.
Speaker 3 (14:37):
My grandfather was a carpenter and he was needed to
be at home. And back in the day, it was
at the time where you it was just like the
bodies for people that were building were so cooked because
they were looking after their bodies. So he couldn't hear
anything like that. He's pretty deaf, so he wasn't able
to go, but he went as a medic in the end,
but he just lived his whole life feeling like he
hadn't done the part. Ironically, to me, it feels like
and probably us in a metic is one of the more
(14:58):
admirable jobs.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
Ruder wouldn't have been able to go because he's got
flat feet, so you would. Flat feet ruled you out.
Blindness ruled you out. If your eyesight wasn't very good.
Speaker 3 (15:08):
So you couldn't go if you were wearing glasses. What
do they have dogs back then?
Speaker 2 (15:10):
Now you could go with the dogs.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
You could go with the glasses. But they generally but
eyesight was a bit of a thing. He might get
a disc job. They gave you. They looked you over.
My granddad and my dad's dad and his brother who's
my great uncle, they went to war, and my dad
said that after because my dad was born in nineteen
forty two, ninety forty three, he said that they used
(15:32):
to stay up and talk about the war and drink
whiskey all his childhood. He said he just hated hearing
about this. He said it was so boring listening to
these stories the whole time. And now he goes, they
were actually the most fascinating.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
You were just going to give anything to record those
stories than like when people find cachets and letters.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
That was super interesting. And because my great uncle was
a major and my grandfather was a captain, they had
a lot of high level edmund chat that they'd be
talking about about what was what was passed down from
their seniors, and what they did and what they didn't
do and all sorts of crazy stuff.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
Because it's an interesting thing about the wars. You think
it would be horrible, and it would be horrible as well,
but it was also the most exciting and meaningful thing
that you would ever be able to do in your
life because you had a cause that you knew what
it was, and you were with your comrades, your friends,
and there was drama, I mean them bonding that they
did over there.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
Like no rules, no roles, no rules in war, you think,
I mean there's there's there's there's some moral moral, some
morality around in terms of what you do and what
you don't do, and dead and all sorts of things there.
My my grat uncle was always never fond of the
Japanese way that they treat dead or they did they
didn't bury them, whereas Europeans they had different beliefs around
burying dead people, just different cultural beliefs. Yeah, yeah, it was,
(16:47):
and so he had no respect for Japanese soldier to
hated Japanese soldiers with a passion.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
It's so freaking interesting that you were over there killing
people and then you came back to normal society.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
You asking what it was like to kill someone.
Speaker 4 (17:02):
Can you imagine if that was a podcast what you're
just the situation you described with two people high up
in the army sitting around and drinking.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
Yeah, they were talking about talking about these crazy things.
I don't know whether he would have told me about
calling someone that he's kind of weird like that.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
Well, often you didn't know if you killed someone. And
it's interesting because they've done these studies. There's this book
out you think you're telling about Jerry called kind.
Speaker 3 (17:25):
Sorry, can we just take a break, take a break, Yeah,
it's sake all right, for fun Jesus.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
Respect for the bloody diggers, Jerry, They bloody, the greatest generation.
They died for your freedom.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
Say that you're going to give respect is to play
some ads.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
That's the way that you show respect exactly.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
That's what they thought.
Speaker 3 (17:45):
For that.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
Thought.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
I hope you're on your feet with your with your
hand on your heart. No, you didn't take your head off,
well you mesh anyway, Just respect for the brain. I
didn't read this book, but I think Jerry did. But
you were telling me in that book. Kind was that
you that was telling me that that humans, when they
look into it, most people shot to missed on both
sides and all sides. You think everyone's over there shooting,
(18:12):
and they've done it right through through. You know, they're
right back in the Napoleonic Wars and everything. You found
that they find dead bodies and they'd find their muskets
and they'd have ten rounds shoved down it. So they
just keep loading to pretend they shot. Because no, because
it's actually there's a certain percentage of people of Charlie
Uppams that do most of the killing. And it's the
(18:32):
same thing like you know, you're hunting and someone will
you get the feeling that someone might have purposely missed
that shot.
Speaker 3 (18:37):
You know, that's an incredibly powerful thought, the idea of
thousands of people being out there and Warren and.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
They wanted to be seen to be shooting, but they
didn't actually want to kill anyone of course, especially would
you fuck.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
Because you know Napers has got a mum and a
dad and sisters and brothers and yeah, you know, and
you know a bit different. But there's people like Charlie
up and there was like, let's go, let's throw it.
Let's throw a grenade on the back of a retreating
troop carrier and see if well.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
He's famously when the war was over, he kept going.
So the war had finished, but he was like, I've
got some unfinished business with these pricks. Yeah, he didn't.
I hate Nazis so much, I'm gonna I don't care.
They were Nazis before the war finished, and now the
war's finished. Don't tell me that they're still not bad people.
I thought they were bad people before, and I'm going
to round them up. A'm going to kill them. He
escaped from cold Itz and he just started going around
(19:26):
just take just killing people. Have you seen that?
Speaker 2 (19:28):
Have you seen that picture of him like wrapped in
barbed wire trying to escape and just lighting a cigarette
and they've got He was too famous for the for
the because he was a hero, not just for New
Zealanders but for the whole Allied because it was crazy
throwing sneaking around the side of pill boxes and throwing
grenades in there.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
He was a grenade chucker.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
So at Coldics they were like they couldn't shoot him
because it would have been a bad lot. It would
have been a bad lock. So he tries to escape.
He gets wrapped up in barbed wire and they will
come over. He doesn't know that they're going to shoot him,
but he's just like there's a great shot. IM just
smoking a cigarette, go waiting to be cut out.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
I saw this great interview with him once. It was
recorded in the nineteen seventies. Yeah, nineteen seventies, and it
was talking about what they ate and cold its, and
it got to a point at the end where there
was not a lot of fo going on and they
were boiling up horses hoofs and water and that was soup.
Just yeah, it was horse hoof soup. So I didn't
(20:23):
eat any of the They didn't. They just boiled it
up to give it a bit of flavor. Wow.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
Yeah, well, I mean they were having trouble by the
end of the war to even supply their own. Their
supply lines were completely utterly wrote it by the end,
the Germans, so you know who are going to feed first.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
Yeah. There's a great up and book, the one that
Tom Scott wrote, and that's a good book, Finding Charlie.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
Yeah, very good book, very good book, and it's great
because it's a book. It's a sort of tribute to
another book called Mark of the Lion, which is a
book that was in every batch in New Zealand for
a very long time. It's a great book on Charlie
Upham and that really Tom Scott, and so he went
off and wrote a book which is sort of a
tribute to that book, and he went round all the
(21:05):
places and such a fucking good book if you can
find it. After the Bloody Yam the History of New
Zealand read because I've got.
Speaker 3 (21:16):
Trip to get through as well, so I'm going to
get through Tripped.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
Just what a shamozzle. The whole operation was just no,
like so many bad mistakes. Like they went to Creep
thinking that they were having rest and recreation after like
some really punishing battles the New Zealand and Australian soldiers,
and they got there and they realized they were surrounded
and they were fucked. Was like, man, you can't even
(21:40):
imagine it. Imagine how angry it would be at poor decisions,
Like you know, you get angry at poor management decisions
and a job. Poor management decisions in World War Two
were like I meant your friends got killed or you?
Speaker 1 (21:56):
Who do you reckon? Would be?
Speaker 2 (21:56):
Out of the four of us would go best in war?
Who would be Charlie Uppen in this rone?
Speaker 3 (22:01):
Oh that's a different question.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
Who'd be the Charlie Upham?
Speaker 2 (22:04):
Who would enjoy it?
Speaker 1 (22:06):
Be you? Mate?
Speaker 4 (22:06):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (22:07):
You push people off cliffs, killing, killing people with grenades
and stuff. Yeah, I would. I would ship my pants.
Speaker 2 (22:13):
I've dreamed about being a war like I've had the
dream and in a trench and I'm just in my dream,
I thought, I'm a fucking coward.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
That's what I've thought. I'd like to work in a
back office situation, you know, just stretch. I'd work on
strategy and just say to where people you're going in
troop troup sort.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
Of, you'd work on the military secretaries and stuff. You'd
be you'd be you'd be your strategies. You'd be focused
on the typing pool.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
Someone has to someone's got to do that job, all right,
it's a big machine.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
You'd be like listing your casualties. It's like there was
a math.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
There was thought everyone could be throwing grenades on the front.
Speaker 2 (22:47):
Your body count would be a very different body count
from Charles Upham. So you're like, how'd you go in
War twenty seven? BodyCount of twenty seven? You killed twenty seven? No, no,
I had six twenty seven be the twenty seven.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
What about the guys who are like chauffeurs for the
furor Yeah? What are those guys there? Has seen some
crazy stuff?
Speaker 2 (23:07):
Yeah, well, if you've read that fantastic bok that we've
talked about, and we talked to Norman Euler the other
day who wrote it Blitzed, all the soldiers that were
dealing directly with Hitler were going, oh my god, this
guy is fucking because the impression they were giving out
there was a vegetarian, that he was healthy, that he
was just an example of good health. But anyone that
(23:29):
met him was like, this guy is a fucking sunken
not sleeping. He's an absolute junkie. His hands is shaking.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
He's that footage of him, the last ever footage of him,
where he's he gets out from the bunker and he
walks along the row of hitler youth and awards, the medals,
shakes their hands because they're defending Berlin. I mean, getting
kids to go out there and defend Berlin while you're
making stupid decisions you pracking then killing yourself anyway, Yeah,
(23:56):
the first So he's a hand and his hand it's
just like look it up on YouTube. It's quite something.
He's got the hand. It's just shaking like nobody's business.
He looks terrible by that state.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
It's so much, so much meth in the system, Isn't
it interesting? Because you know, when we're talking to Norman,
he said they were always going to lose because I
was like, you know, did the allieds win? Because we
always feel amazing like it's a a sort of underdog victory,
but really, our fucking psycho was it? Obviously Hitler's psycho
(24:27):
to fucking try and take on the whole will And
once he.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
Got going, Yeah, he had a thing about luck though,
and he thought that he had the luck, and he
had these moments of luck and then he thought to himself,
this is a sign. And that's when he that's yeah,
crazy thinking. He thought, this is it's destiny. It's clear
that this is what's meant to happen, because otherwise this
other stuff wouldn't have happened.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
What surprised him was that the UK, that Britain decided
to take him on. He thought that they wouldn't wouldn't
care as much. He thought that they could just take Poland,
and they could take Belgium and that and France eventually,
but like quite quickly. But he didn't think that Britain
would be so angry about it. He didn't really have
much of a beef with England. He actually thought they
(25:10):
were quite cool. So he was surprised that England went okay, mate,
and Britain went, we're going to fuck you up. Mate,
couldn't and then he couldn't back out, and then and
then American Russia and then taking on Russia is fucking stupid.
Speaker 1 (25:21):
It's a massive country. You're never going to be able.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
To control that huge border. So you've got like the
western and eastern borders coming for you. Total myth behavior.
Speaker 1 (25:29):
You want some liver straw and you want some living
space to the east, but you don't need to take
the entire that's a lot of living space.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
Yeah, I mean, it's not rational. It's not rational. It's
kind of like New Zealand going, we need Australia's should
and let you have a few quite good victories because
you're like Australia is like what the fuck? New Zealand
just arrived in Sydney.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
MEAs Prime minister taking over to New Zealand say I've
got a plan. We're going to take over Australia people,
and then that gaining momentum and gaming support as an
idea and we militarize, yeah, and we really get we
really get things going. We get rocket Lab on.
Speaker 2 (26:05):
Board in Australia's over there going that those are theo's
an't going to do.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
And then we do. And then he was going, what
the fuck we'd send the five oh ones back? Would
be the first thing with like bombs side bombers.
Speaker 4 (26:18):
My grandfather was a fighter pilot for Britain in the war.
Speaker 1 (26:24):
Jesus Christ.
Speaker 4 (26:26):
Yes he did. Wow, but may as well not have
because like my dad when he was growing up would
be like, oh, you know, what was it like? And
he just would never tell him did you kill people?
Never tell him? But that the most my dad got
is that, yes, he used to fly over France, used
to fly over Germany, used to bomb.
Speaker 2 (26:45):
Was he a fighter pilot or a bomber?
Speaker 1 (26:47):
I think it was. I think it was both.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
And soon a Lancaster or something.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
Mosquito spit fires.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
Oh wow, very cool.
Speaker 4 (26:54):
Yeah, but just thinking about you know, people that didn't
want to go and kill people. My grandfather there was
one of those people. But that was his job, to
just go and bomb people, these nameless people. And the
only story he ever told my dad from the war
was that once when he was on the ground, he
was in a row of trenches and they saw the
(27:15):
bombs coming from the opposition, and he saw one trench
taken out, next trench taken out, next s trinch and
he was like, and we were in a line and
we were fourth, and we saw it come down and
it didn't go off and trench. That is the only story.
And by the mid eighties he was in care because
he just couldn't live right.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
It must be so like those people like you know,
like I wake up in the middle of the night
at three am and I'm riddled with kind of guilt
about not paying taxes or not sorting at my text
bill or something or something.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
I said.
Speaker 2 (27:46):
Some of those guys there by no follow their own
They had to go on bomb cities, just fly over
and drop bombs, Willy Nelly on families and stuff. I
imagine you knew that what you were doing was probably
for a good The Nazis were funckwords, but boy, you
would be like, I can imagine some nightmares on the
back of that, right. But there were also some bombing
(28:08):
raids where they just would get out of their own
radar zone, drop all their bombs, and then fly around
and come back. They'd just go, let the captain go,
we're not going in.
Speaker 1 (28:17):
Well, they didn't have satellited to Madrid to know what
was going on anyway, so you'd.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
Come back and they'd be like you roup bombs, toads, yep, yep,
they're gone at the target. It was all good, right, yeah,
And they really just drop them like on in a
field like these, these these woods and fields are taking
a real pounding just on the outside of Berlin.
Speaker 4 (28:37):
It's like those people that deliver the local newspaper, but
they actually just go and check it down the creek
and they're like, yeah, delivered all of them, no worries.
Speaker 1 (28:43):
I was one of those people.
Speaker 3 (28:45):
Push it down the back.
Speaker 2 (28:47):
Don't do it with the free toothpaste samples like I did,
because that's because I was delivering those. When you don't deliver,
they's the only time anyone rings up when you're delivering
advertisings and you.
Speaker 1 (28:55):
Don't live the free gift, free gift.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
Then they rang up and going you well, they're down
the side of Johnald and Starry.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
Those oneseample of conditioner people want.
Speaker 2 (29:06):
Anyway, I think there's some good A nellis essentially good work, guys.
And that's when we did research for that over the
whole weekends.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
Because of the research, that's what it was. It was
the plan that we had.
Speaker 3 (29:17):
It was a great player. Jerry, are we geting to
your capital gains?
Speaker 1 (29:19):
No, no time for that anyway. We'll do that to
my heartbreak capital gains tomorrow.
Speaker 4 (29:24):
Yeah, well David tomorrow.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
And I'll tell you what textile is very similar to
boxing strategy.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
It feels about a capital gains text. Yeah you hate it?
All right?
Speaker 2 (29:38):
All right, then you've seen busy.
Speaker 1 (29:39):
We'll let you go. All right, Okay, that was good.
Delete it.
Speaker 2 (29:44):
Hello. I'm Matt Heath. You have been listening to the
Matt and Jerry Daily Bespoke podcast. Right now you can
listen to our Radio Highlights podcast, which you will absolutely
get barred up about anyway. Sit to download, like subscribe,
wright review all those great things. Really how myself and
Jerry and to a lesser extent, mass and ruder. If
you want to discuss anything raised in this pod, check
(30:05):
out the Conclave, a Matt and Jerry Facebook discussion group.
And while I'm plugging stuff, my book A Lifeless Punishing
Thirteen Ways to Love the Life You've Got is out.
Now get it wherever you get your books, or just
google the bastard. Anyway you seem busy, I'll let you go.
Bless blessed, blessed. Give them a taste of key we
from me
Litt let's get busy.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Yeah, it's the ninth of the ninth in the Year
of Our Lord, twenty twenty four. Welcome all you bespoke
you donkeyes to the Daily Bespoke Podcast.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
We've got a.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Huge one for you today. We've been preparing this all weekend.
We've got quite and a GINI. We've got a lot
to get through, boys, So let's get stuck in. Jeremy,
what have you got.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
I'm bringing a gains. Text shut around, text chat.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
You're not going to try and text my unrealized gains,
are you?
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Jerry? That's right. I'm thinking it's time that you, the
top one percent of earners in New Zealand start paying
a little bit more than what they're paying. It's time.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
Is that actually? What's going on at the moment? Are
you dealing with them but people coming after your money?
Speaker 1 (01:04):
Wells, No, No, I'm just no, I'm saying Matt needs
to pay more, not me, right, just being about Matt.
Speaker 3 (01:09):
Here, Matt, you do need to actally pay more.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
Text it's the.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Upper eashlongla Jeremy. That that just they hide it away
and offshore accounts. He's got, he's got, he's got twenty
two dollars. He's got five ninety nine five dollars nine
and account.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
Of the Canary Islands five dollars in my savings account, right.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Screwing it around in little amounts and bank accounts all around.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
The world, everywhere, everywhere.
Speaker 3 (01:35):
Can someone fact check this for me? We've got a
text today during the show on three for three, we're
talking mate, You're talking about your new oven, and you
haven't around rightfully so about the symbols that are now
on the dial rather than the name of the sitting
that you like, instead of saying fan bake or bake
or grill, it just has like some kind of hieroglyphic,
is what we were kind of describing them as a
(01:56):
text here on three for three.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
Is this true?
Speaker 3 (01:58):
So the study is actually called hieroglyphs. Hieroglyphs, Sorry, they
are actually hieroglyphics. What's on the wall and then the hieroglyphs,
and then the study of that is hieroglyglyphics.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
Oh so I was saying I can't read bloody hieroglyphics.
Smeg sought you should out. I should have said I
can't read hips. But I've never seen you can't read
English in that situation either.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
You can't. You didn't know you hieroglyphs? Yeah, I did.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
Well.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
Interesting, I think that might be. I think that might be.
I think that might be bullshit from that person, you reckon.
I think that might be bullshit because I was talking
about the Rosetta Stone, and for the longest time they
couldn't they couldn't work out hieroglyphs or hieroglyphics right because
that they were just looking at them, even though they're
pictures of stuff. And then they came across the Rosetta Stone,
which was just this piece of rock, but it had
(02:47):
a lot of admin on it, like it was it was.
It was sort of admin from this king and but
on it it had Egyptian and Greek. Oh so, and
they knew how it. They knew ancient Greek. So that's
how they worked out and they could took them ages
to work it back. There was complicated people trying to
work out how the Greek worked with the hieroglyphics. And
(03:09):
there's a whole, really really interesting documentary on it that
bore the shit out of the most Egyptologist person. But
until then they found this Rozeta stone, and then that's
how they worked out how to read the hieroglyphs. Yes,
but this one says inscribe in two languages, Egyptian and Greek,
and three writing systems hieroglyphics, demotics, script a, cursive terms
(03:33):
of port of Egyptian hieroglyphics. So this is saying agraphics
and the Greek alphabet preferred a key to the translation
of Egyptian.
Speaker 4 (03:40):
Because I've got that hieroglyph is the singular hieroglyphs, so
like A, for instance, would be a hieroglyph, A and
B would be hieroglyphs, and hieroglyphics is the practice of reading.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
Okay, interesting, So then I got the Rosetta Stone was
just a form of propaganda. Actually, the exscription written in
three langue, it was just Potolemy the fifth. This is
basically the Ptolemy the fifth, the god who maketh himself manifest,
whose deeds are beautiful, is old, and it was the
(04:13):
kind of shit that was on the Rosetta Stone.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
So the Rosetta Stone is old, old, fucking mate, old ancient. Hey, boys,
I've started listening to the History of New Zealand, that
book that you recommended to me Michael King, Jesus Christ.
First of all, incredible. Second of all, I It's made
me appreciate this country of ours a whole lot more. Yeah,
and I'd recommend anyone listening who has not read that
(04:36):
book yet to have a listen.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
What's the thing you've learned so far that you did
not know that surprised you? The most interesting thing?
Speaker 3 (04:43):
Oh man, the list is so long, well even just
talking because I'm only probably about four chapters in, and
it's it's very focused at the moment on New Zealand's
kind of natural side of what New Zealand like, you know,
before people were around.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
Oh, you're right back at the start.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
At the start.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
But even things that I couldn't I just loved. I
love knowing. But what it is turning me into is
a little bit of a piece of ship, because now
every time someone brings something up, I didn't have a
bit of that. Well did you know? Actually there was
no There was no so I had turning me into
that guy.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
But it book's good, guys. Yeah, it does help to
know something about your own country, doesn't it. It just
makes it slightly more interesting?
Speaker 2 (05:20):
Yeah, it does. I mean gas you context. That book
gets bogged down a little bit later on when it
just starts naming politicians that did this and started that
and did this.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
Really, Yeah, it mentioned Bob Simple. It does mention Bob
Simple and the simple tank. Yeah it does.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
No, it doesn't mention the Simple tank.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
Unfortunately it does.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
There's great feats of New Zealand engineering.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
Yeah, the simple tank, which was essentially a messy Ferguson tract.
There was some corrugated iron checked on the top of it. Yeah,
they thought of it in World War two. They thought
that was going to be a good, good solution if
people invaded New Zealand. We had these things called simple Tank.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
There's one thing that I didn't realize because you know,
when all our troops were overseas and for the longest time,
we just did what Britain said. And Britain was trying
to get rid of us for the longest time. They're going,
you have your own foreign policy, and we were go, no, no, no,
we don't. And they kept on offering us more and
more autonomy. But in World War Two we had so
many troops over in Africa and Europe, and then they
(06:12):
realized that Japan was potentially looking to invade US. I
don't know if they were or not, but we were
worried about it, and so Australia were worried about that too.
So Australia bought so many of their troops back at
that point to protect the homeland, but we didn't. We
left all our troops over there. And it turned out
that England had no or America had no intention of
trying to protect us if we got invaded. They had
(06:34):
they were like, basically, we can't because of course they couldn't.
They were like involved in a huge war, and so
we just risked it all. I think that's quite amazing.
So we had a huge army, like we took one
hundred and fifty thousand soldiers and we didn't have any
of them here to protect ourselves. So if Japan had invaded,
what a strange situation that would be when your entire
(06:54):
army as fighting a lot of ill thought out sort
of campaigns over there. What happened in Crete was a
freaking disaster.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
The thing was Japan, and that worked out that Japan
had no interest. Japan came in, had a little look
at New Zealand. Yeah, and they had a look at us.
But they went there's nothing there for us. It's too hard,
it's going to be too hard to invade. There's nothing,
there's no reason why we want to take that.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
But but we didn't know that. The New Zealand government
seriously thought that Japan would attack them, and we put
in we put in some level gun placements that were
that were less less powerful than the guns the cannons
that they had on the Japanese ships. So the Japanese ships,
if they had attacked, could have sat outside of range
of our our our installations and just bombed the you know,
(07:43):
missile the ship out of us. But that's a huge
freaking call for a country to say we're going to
leave our army overseas and leave ourselves completely undefend. I mean,
there was a few American soldiers on R and R here,
but they were basically basically playing softball and makings with people. Yeah,
I mean, there was there's this famous incident in Wellington
that doesn't make the book where a bunch of New
(08:05):
Zealand troops were getting on board a troop carrier to
go overseas and the and some American guys were arriving
and they were on the port, and one of them
yelled out, don't worry, We'll look after your woman for you.
And the thing with that is everyone was armed. Everyone
had guns. So the Kiwi troops just started shooting off
the boat at the American troops who were unarmed because
(08:28):
they were on wrist and recreation and they were diving
for cover. And I think three Americans were killed.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
Wow, And that got swept under the carpet. No one
talking about that, but shit, choke. These guys are going
away to war and you say, I don't worry, We'll
look after you a woman for you. Pretty amazing. There
was a couple of riots as well, because the Americans
were running a sort of segregation policy and so they
didn't want Maori people in the bars they were drinking it,
(08:56):
and so the Kiwis were like fighting with Maori and
they didn't, you know, we were we weren't that kind
of country. And so there was there's another riot and
a couple of places where the Kiwis just beat the
shit out of the American So so because then you know,
cult soldiers that they were fighting with could get into bars.
There's a whole seedy underside of that whole thing. That
we don't hear about, is it?
Speaker 3 (09:17):
Because also just back to the japan coming to New
Zealand thing, when they thought about it for a moment,
and the fact that we didn't bring too many troops
back to look after us, even if we were at
full strength, do you think there was an element of
just like there was just no fucking chance, like if
we even if we did have all of our soldiers here,
it'd be real Sweetcause we had.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
One hundred and fifty Kiwi troops back here.
Speaker 3 (09:39):
Is that happening we had overseas?
Speaker 1 (09:41):
We didn't have any probably hardware or anything that was fine,
but we had a lot of people with arms. We
had a lot of guns. We would have been able
to find ourselves and that good luck, there would have
been an insurrection. Good luck, good luck trying to keep
New Zealand. There's no way. Yeah, there's no way. It
was miles away from everywhere, So how would have they
supplied How would they get supplied to New Zealand, So
they couldn't supply their actual so it would have been too.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
So at the time of the war, we had a
population of one point six million, and we had one
hundred and forty thousand troops.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
That's a lot.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
So one point six million, one hundred and forty thousand
troops overseas, and we're like, if we got invaded, then
we'd be like, that's a fucking huge army. There hasn't
been too many countries in the history of the world
that's had an army that big for their population. We
were so army at one point, and now you look
at it. We just took the fucking foot off the gas,
didn't we around there? Imagine if we had, you know,
(10:36):
but one in ten people in the army, Now, that
would be a very different society, wouldn't it.
Speaker 4 (10:40):
Half a million people?
Speaker 1 (10:40):
What a year was this, nineteen forty nine to forty five.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
Oh man, I am over talking to your boys about it.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
We lost.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
We had eleven, nine hundred and twenty eight casualties.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
My nana passed over the weekend from old age. He
had a great run. But I'm just having a look. Yeah,
So she she was ninety six, nineteen twenty eight, so
she was there was when she was born. So people
who are still around that experience these times.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
She was a teenager.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
There'd be quite a few people out.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
That I didn't real.
Speaker 3 (11:08):
That's not people talk about it long ago.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
People always talk about how much anxiety is in the
world at the moment, how people are worried about the world.
Imagine growing up as a teenager in the middle of
World War two. You are growing up when there's a
world war, and you know, back then, we were a
big part of the Empire. We believed in the Empire,
so we thought our very way of life was under attack.
We were going to be incredible, overrun by the Japanese
or the Germans. Everything was going to and see growing
(11:32):
up in that and it was real, and it was real.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
Our way of life was one hundred percent of at threat,
unlike what happens now, where people a worried about some
shit on TikTok TikTok that's mainly being made up to
sort of get engagement or potentially by the Chinese Communist Party,
who knows.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
But it was fucking real. I mean, as she wasn't real.
We're getting terrible propaganda. We didn't actually know what was
going on, but there was really there was.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
There were expansionist regimes operating in Asia and Japan, yeah,
and one in Europe being Germany. Yeah, and they were expansionists.
That's what they were doing. They're trying to they were
taking over.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
And people had everyone in their family and there was
nearly everyone had someone that they'd lost in their wider
family and the conflict over there, so you know, you
were getting letters from people like someone down the street
would have just lost their son to actually being shot
by Germans.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
It's quite what about that thing that people did with
So if you had if you're a family and us
had boys and they didn't go to war, they didn't
sign up, then you would get a feather that would
be put in your letter box amongst your mail, someone
would put a feather in there. And this was just
vigilantes inside of society that it was a woman that
and that was considered cowardice. So that meant that you
(12:45):
were your family were cowards.
Speaker 3 (12:47):
Yeah, there's a lot of generation.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
There was a lot of that going on.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
We really judged that. But can you mention the weird
anxiety you'd have if your kids were overseas fighting and
someone else's weren't, and like it wouldn't be rational and
it's not cool. But they kind of looked at it
in a really strange way, like have you seen that
movie Godzilla minus one. No, and it's it's it's really, really,
really freaking good. But it's made in Japan. It looks incredible,
(13:14):
made for fourteen million dollars, looks better than the two
hundred million dollar Godszilla movies they're making out.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
Of the States.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
But their logic was so bizarre that you can't understand
it now. So it's about It's about a soldier that
is a Kamikazi pilot and he was supposed to kill
himself because he didn't, And because if you arrived home and
you hadn't died, you were ostracized. Everyone thought you were
a piece of shit. They were like Tokyo's being absolutely destroyed. Yes,
(13:43):
she's not said Tokyo. But anyway, because you didn't die
in the war.
Speaker 3 (13:48):
Was it your grandfather and my grandfather is something in common.
I think you've talked about it before on the shows.
I was I never my grandfather never ever told me
a war story or anything like that, because he was
ashamed that he had not done his part properly because
he was still alive and around. I think you were
saying once that you've got people in your own feel similar.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
My god, I don't know about that. But my granddad
came home and he just basically didn't really speak again
because he was he was a captain, he was an
important man. And he came back to Vi Cargo working
in a dairy and he never quite five daughters and gaggle.
His life was never and my grandmother's house was just
oil paintings of him in his uniform looking incredibly regal
(14:26):
every everywhere, and then not much. But yeah, that is interesting.
So why couldn't your granddad go because some people because
sometime people would get white feather and they just weren't
accept that they flat feet or whatever it was.
Speaker 3 (14:37):
My grandfather was a carpenter and he was needed to
be at home. And back in the day, it was
at the time where you it was just like the
bodies for people that were building were so cooked because
they were looking after their bodies. So he couldn't hear
anything like that. He's pretty deaf, so he wasn't able
to go, but he went as a medic in the end,
but he just lived his whole life feeling like he
hadn't done the part. Ironically, to me, it feels like
and probably us in a metic is one of the more
(14:58):
admirable jobs.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
Ruder wouldn't have been able to go because he's got
flat feet, so you would. Flat feet ruled you out.
Blindness ruled you out. If your eyesight wasn't very good.
Speaker 3 (15:08):
So you couldn't go if you were wearing glasses. What
do they have dogs back then?
Speaker 2 (15:10):
Now you could go with the dogs.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
You could go with the glasses. But they generally but
eyesight was a bit of a thing. He might get
a disc job. They gave you. They looked you over.
My granddad and my dad's dad and his brother who's
my great uncle, they went to war, and my dad
said that after because my dad was born in nineteen
forty two, ninety forty three, he said that they used
(15:32):
to stay up and talk about the war and drink
whiskey all his childhood. He said he just hated hearing
about this. He said it was so boring listening to
these stories the whole time. And now he goes, they
were actually the most fascinating.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
You were just going to give anything to record those
stories than like when people find cachets and letters.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
That was super interesting. And because my great uncle was
a major and my grandfather was a captain, they had
a lot of high level edmund chat that they'd be
talking about about what was what was passed down from
their seniors, and what they did and what they didn't
do and all sorts of crazy stuff.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
Because it's an interesting thing about the wars. You think
it would be horrible, and it would be horrible as well,
but it was also the most exciting and meaningful thing
that you would ever be able to do in your
life because you had a cause that you knew what
it was, and you were with your comrades, your friends,
and there was drama, I mean them bonding that they
did over there.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
Like no rules, no roles, no rules in war, you think,
I mean there's there's there's there's some moral moral, some
morality around in terms of what you do and what
you don't do, and dead and all sorts of things there.
My my grat uncle was always never fond of the
Japanese way that they treat dead or they did they
didn't bury them, whereas Europeans they had different beliefs around
burying dead people, just different cultural beliefs. Yeah, yeah, it was,
(16:47):
and so he had no respect for Japanese soldier to
hated Japanese soldiers with a passion.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
It's so freaking interesting that you were over there killing
people and then you came back to normal society.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
You asking what it was like to kill someone.
Speaker 4 (17:02):
Can you imagine if that was a podcast what you're
just the situation you described with two people high up
in the army sitting around and drinking.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
Yeah, they were talking about talking about these crazy things.
I don't know whether he would have told me about
calling someone that he's kind of weird like that.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
Well, often you didn't know if you killed someone. And
it's interesting because they've done these studies. There's this book
out you think you're telling about Jerry called kind.
Speaker 3 (17:25):
Sorry, can we just take a break, take a break, Yeah,
it's sake all right, for fun Jesus.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
Respect for the bloody diggers, Jerry, They bloody, the greatest generation.
They died for your freedom.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
Say that you're going to give respect is to play
some ads.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
That's the way that you show respect exactly.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
That's what they thought.
Speaker 3 (17:45):
For that.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
Thought.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
I hope you're on your feet with your with your
hand on your heart. No, you didn't take your head off,
well you mesh anyway, Just respect for the brain. I
didn't read this book, but I think Jerry did. But
you were telling me in that book. Kind was that
you that was telling me that that humans, when they
look into it, most people shot to missed on both
sides and all sides. You think everyone's over there shooting,
(18:12):
and they've done it right through through. You know, they're
right back in the Napoleonic Wars and everything. You found
that they find dead bodies and they'd find their muskets
and they'd have ten rounds shoved down it. So they
just keep loading to pretend they shot. Because no, because
it's actually there's a certain percentage of people of Charlie
Uppams that do most of the killing. And it's the
(18:32):
same thing like you know, you're hunting and someone will
you get the feeling that someone might have purposely missed
that shot.
Speaker 3 (18:37):
You know, that's an incredibly powerful thought, the idea of
thousands of people being out there and Warren and.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
They wanted to be seen to be shooting, but they
didn't actually want to kill anyone of course, especially would
you fuck.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
Because you know Napers has got a mum and a
dad and sisters and brothers and yeah, you know, and
you know a bit different. But there's people like Charlie
up and there was like, let's go, let's throw it.
Let's throw a grenade on the back of a retreating
troop carrier and see if well.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
He's famously when the war was over, he kept going.
So the war had finished, but he was like, I've
got some unfinished business with these pricks. Yeah, he didn't.
I hate Nazis so much, I'm gonna I don't care.
They were Nazis before the war finished, and now the
war's finished. Don't tell me that they're still not bad people.
I thought they were bad people before, and I'm going
to round them up. A'm going to kill them. He
escaped from cold Itz and he just started going around
(19:26):
just take just killing people. Have you seen that?
Speaker 2 (19:28):
Have you seen that picture of him like wrapped in
barbed wire trying to escape and just lighting a cigarette
and they've got He was too famous for the for
the because he was a hero, not just for New
Zealanders but for the whole Allied because it was crazy
throwing sneaking around the side of pill boxes and throwing
grenades in there.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
He was a grenade chucker.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
So at Coldics they were like they couldn't shoot him
because it would have been a bad lot. It would
have been a bad lock. So he tries to escape.
He gets wrapped up in barbed wire and they will
come over. He doesn't know that they're going to shoot him,
but he's just like there's a great shot. IM just
smoking a cigarette, go waiting to be cut out.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
I saw this great interview with him once. It was
recorded in the nineteen seventies. Yeah, nineteen seventies, and it
was talking about what they ate and cold its, and
it got to a point at the end where there
was not a lot of fo going on and they
were boiling up horses hoofs and water and that was soup.
Just yeah, it was horse hoof soup. So I didn't
(20:23):
eat any of the They didn't. They just boiled it
up to give it a bit of flavor. Wow.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
Yeah, well, I mean they were having trouble by the
end of the war to even supply their own. Their
supply lines were completely utterly wrote it by the end,
the Germans, so you know who are going to feed first.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
Yeah. There's a great up and book, the one that
Tom Scott wrote, and that's a good book, Finding Charlie.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
Yeah, very good book, very good book, and it's great
because it's a book. It's a sort of tribute to
another book called Mark of the Lion, which is a
book that was in every batch in New Zealand for
a very long time. It's a great book on Charlie
Upham and that really Tom Scott, and so he went
off and wrote a book which is sort of a
tribute to that book, and he went round all the
(21:05):
places and such a fucking good book if you can
find it. After the Bloody Yam the History of New
Zealand read because I've got.
Speaker 3 (21:16):
Trip to get through as well, so I'm going to
get through Tripped.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
Just what a shamozzle. The whole operation was just no,
like so many bad mistakes. Like they went to Creep
thinking that they were having rest and recreation after like
some really punishing battles the New Zealand and Australian soldiers,
and they got there and they realized they were surrounded
and they were fucked. Was like, man, you can't even
(21:40):
imagine it. Imagine how angry it would be at poor decisions,
Like you know, you get angry at poor management decisions
and a job. Poor management decisions in World War Two
were like I meant your friends got killed or you?
Speaker 1 (21:56):
Who do you reckon? Would be?
Speaker 2 (21:56):
Out of the four of us would go best in war?
Who would be Charlie Uppen in this rone?
Speaker 3 (22:01):
Oh that's a different question.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
Who'd be the Charlie Upham?
Speaker 2 (22:04):
Who would enjoy it?
Speaker 1 (22:06):
Be you? Mate?
Speaker 4 (22:06):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (22:07):
You push people off cliffs, killing, killing people with grenades
and stuff. Yeah, I would. I would ship my pants.
Speaker 2 (22:13):
I've dreamed about being a war like I've had the
dream and in a trench and I'm just in my dream,
I thought, I'm a fucking coward.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
That's what I've thought. I'd like to work in a
back office situation, you know, just stretch. I'd work on
strategy and just say to where people you're going in
troop troup sort.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
Of, you'd work on the military secretaries and stuff. You'd
be you'd be you'd be your strategies. You'd be focused
on the typing pool.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
Someone has to someone's got to do that job, all right,
it's a big machine.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
You'd be like listing your casualties. It's like there was
a math.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
There was thought everyone could be throwing grenades on the front.
Speaker 2 (22:47):
Your body count would be a very different body count
from Charles Upham. So you're like, how'd you go in
War twenty seven? BodyCount of twenty seven? You killed twenty seven? No, no,
I had six twenty seven be the twenty seven.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
What about the guys who are like chauffeurs for the
furor Yeah? What are those guys there? Has seen some
crazy stuff?
Speaker 2 (23:07):
Yeah, well, if you've read that fantastic bok that we've
talked about, and we talked to Norman Euler the other
day who wrote it Blitzed, all the soldiers that were
dealing directly with Hitler were going, oh my god, this
guy is fucking because the impression they were giving out
there was a vegetarian, that he was healthy, that he
was just an example of good health. But anyone that
(23:29):
met him was like, this guy is a fucking sunken
not sleeping. He's an absolute junkie. His hands is shaking.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
He's that footage of him, the last ever footage of him,
where he's he gets out from the bunker and he
walks along the row of hitler youth and awards, the medals,
shakes their hands because they're defending Berlin. I mean, getting
kids to go out there and defend Berlin while you're
making stupid decisions you pracking then killing yourself anyway, Yeah,
(23:56):
the first So he's a hand and his hand it's
just like look it up on YouTube. It's quite something.
He's got the hand. It's just shaking like nobody's business.
He looks terrible by that state.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
It's so much, so much meth in the system, Isn't
it interesting? Because you know, when we're talking to Norman,
he said they were always going to lose because I
was like, you know, did the allieds win? Because we
always feel amazing like it's a a sort of underdog victory,
but really, our fucking psycho was it? Obviously Hitler's psycho
(24:27):
to fucking try and take on the whole will And
once he.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
Got going, Yeah, he had a thing about luck though,
and he thought that he had the luck, and he
had these moments of luck and then he thought to himself,
this is a sign. And that's when he that's yeah,
crazy thinking. He thought, this is it's destiny. It's clear
that this is what's meant to happen, because otherwise this
other stuff wouldn't have happened.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
What surprised him was that the UK, that Britain decided
to take him on. He thought that they wouldn't wouldn't
care as much. He thought that they could just take Poland,
and they could take Belgium and that and France eventually,
but like quite quickly. But he didn't think that Britain
would be so angry about it. He didn't really have
much of a beef with England. He actually thought they
(25:10):
were quite cool. So he was surprised that England went okay, mate,
and Britain went, we're going to fuck you up. Mate,
couldn't and then he couldn't back out, and then and
then American Russia and then taking on Russia is fucking stupid.
Speaker 1 (25:21):
It's a massive country. You're never going to be able.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
To control that huge border. So you've got like the
western and eastern borders coming for you. Total myth behavior.
Speaker 1 (25:29):
You want some liver straw and you want some living
space to the east, but you don't need to take
the entire that's a lot of living space.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
Yeah, I mean, it's not rational. It's not rational. It's
kind of like New Zealand going, we need Australia's should
and let you have a few quite good victories because
you're like Australia is like what the fuck? New Zealand
just arrived in Sydney.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
MEAs Prime minister taking over to New Zealand say I've
got a plan. We're going to take over Australia people,
and then that gaining momentum and gaming support as an
idea and we militarize, yeah, and we really get we
really get things going. We get rocket Lab on.
Speaker 2 (26:05):
Board in Australia's over there going that those are theo's
an't going to do.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
And then we do. And then he was going, what
the fuck we'd send the five oh ones back? Would
be the first thing with like bombs side bombers.
Speaker 4 (26:18):
My grandfather was a fighter pilot for Britain in the war.
Speaker 1 (26:24):
Jesus Christ.
Speaker 4 (26:26):
Yes he did. Wow, but may as well not have
because like my dad when he was growing up would
be like, oh, you know, what was it like? And
he just would never tell him did you kill people?
Never tell him? But that the most my dad got
is that, yes, he used to fly over France, used
to fly over Germany, used to bomb.
Speaker 2 (26:45):
Was he a fighter pilot or a bomber?
Speaker 1 (26:47):
I think it was. I think it was both.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
And soon a Lancaster or something.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
Mosquito spit fires.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
Oh wow, very cool.
Speaker 4 (26:54):
Yeah, but just thinking about you know, people that didn't
want to go and kill people. My grandfather there was
one of those people. But that was his job, to
just go and bomb people, these nameless people. And the
only story he ever told my dad from the war
was that once when he was on the ground, he
was in a row of trenches and they saw the
(27:15):
bombs coming from the opposition, and he saw one trench
taken out, next trench taken out, next s trinch and
he was like, and we were in a line and
we were fourth, and we saw it come down and
it didn't go off and trench. That is the only story.
And by the mid eighties he was in care because
he just couldn't live right.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
It must be so like those people like you know,
like I wake up in the middle of the night
at three am and I'm riddled with kind of guilt
about not paying taxes or not sorting at my text
bill or something or something.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
I said.
Speaker 2 (27:46):
Some of those guys there by no follow their own
They had to go on bomb cities, just fly over
and drop bombs, Willy Nelly on families and stuff. I
imagine you knew that what you were doing was probably
for a good The Nazis were funckwords, but boy, you
would be like, I can imagine some nightmares on the
back of that, right. But there were also some bombing
(28:08):
raids where they just would get out of their own
radar zone, drop all their bombs, and then fly around
and come back. They'd just go, let the captain go,
we're not going in.
Speaker 1 (28:17):
Well, they didn't have satellited to Madrid to know what
was going on anyway, so you'd.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
Come back and they'd be like you roup bombs, toads, yep, yep,
they're gone at the target. It was all good, right, yeah,
And they really just drop them like on in a
field like these, these these woods and fields are taking
a real pounding just on the outside of Berlin.
Speaker 4 (28:37):
It's like those people that deliver the local newspaper, but
they actually just go and check it down the creek
and they're like, yeah, delivered all of them, no worries.
Speaker 1 (28:43):
I was one of those people.
Speaker 3 (28:45):
Push it down the back.
Speaker 2 (28:47):
Don't do it with the free toothpaste samples like I did,
because that's because I was delivering those. When you don't deliver,
they's the only time anyone rings up when you're delivering
advertisings and you.
Speaker 1 (28:55):
Don't live the free gift, free gift.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
Then they rang up and going you well, they're down
the side of Johnald and Starry.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
Those oneseample of conditioner people want.
Speaker 2 (29:06):
Anyway, I think there's some good A nellis essentially good work, guys.
And that's when we did research for that over the
whole weekends.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
Because of the research, that's what it was. It was
the plan that we had.
Speaker 3 (29:17):
It was a great player. Jerry, are we geting to
your capital gains?
Speaker 1 (29:19):
No, no time for that anyway. We'll do that to
my heartbreak capital gains tomorrow.
Speaker 4 (29:24):
Yeah, well David tomorrow.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
And I'll tell you what textile is very similar to
boxing strategy.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
It feels about a capital gains text. Yeah you hate it?
All right?
Speaker 2 (29:38):
All right, then you've seen busy.
Speaker 1 (29:39):
We'll let you go. All right, Okay, that was good.
Delete it.
Speaker 2 (29:44):
Hello. I'm Matt Heath. You have been listening to the
Matt and Jerry Daily Bespoke podcast. Right now you can
listen to our Radio Highlights podcast, which you will absolutely
get barred up about anyway. Sit to download, like subscribe,
wright review all those great things. Really how myself and
Jerry and to a lesser extent, mass and ruder. If
you want to discuss anything raised in this pod, check
(30:05):
out the Conclave, a Matt and Jerry Facebook discussion group.
And while I'm plugging stuff, my book A Lifeless Punishing
Thirteen Ways to Love the Life You've Got is out.
Now get it wherever you get your books, or just
google the bastard. Anyway you seem busy, I'll let you go.
Bless blessed, blessed. Give them a taste of key we
from me
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