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The Great Panjandrum: A Hilariously Terrible Idea · Ridiculous History

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Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
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Speaker 1: back to the show Ridiculous Historians. As always, thank you
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Speaker 1: so much for tuning in and thanks to our super
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Speaker 1: producer Casey Pegram, our guest producer Andrew Howard, and I
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Speaker 1: guess thanks to the British This. This is a weird one.
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Speaker 1: This is the epitome of ridiculous. Yeah it is ben
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Speaker 1: I'm no, Um, yeah it's Uh. It's ridiculous for for
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Speaker 1: multiple reasons, first and foremost being the name of the thing. Um,
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Speaker 1: it was a gonad and get it out of the way.
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Speaker 1: Today's episode is about a weapon that sounds like it
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Speaker 1: came out of a Doctor Seuss book, not only in
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Speaker 1: the name, but also in the design. Uh. It was
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Speaker 1: called the Grand Panjandrum. Yes, the Grand Panjandrum, which, through
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Speaker 1: a series of bizarre events, is an actual word today.
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Speaker 1: It's one that I had not heard before we began
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Speaker 1: researching today's episode. It reminded me of it felt like, yeah,
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Speaker 1: Dr Seus's works. It felt like it would also maybe
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Speaker 1: be in a Riyard Kipling poem. Uh. This If you
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Speaker 1: were to categorize Ridiculous History episodes by genre, this would
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Speaker 1: squarely be in the genre of who on Earth thought
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Speaker 1: this was a good idea? So greenlit this picture right right. So,
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Speaker 1: war has a long and storied history of sparking invention.
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Speaker 1: It's a horrific thing that leads to atrocities, but it
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Speaker 1: all so leads to remarkable breakthroughs, at least as some
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Speaker 1: of the most extraordinary moments of human ingenuity. War has
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Speaker 1: given us countless medical breakthroughs, countless technological breakthroughs. The list
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Speaker 1: goes on. But one thing that you will know very
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Speaker 1: well if you are a long time listener of ridiculous
2:20
Speaker 1: history or stuff they don't want you to know, is
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Speaker 1: that the success rate for unorthodox ideas is very, very low.
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Speaker 1: For every nuclear bomb, every working plane, let us assure you, folks,
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Speaker 1: there are hundreds, if not thousands, of other ideas that
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Speaker 1: should have never left the drawing board. Yeah, you're talking
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Speaker 1: about innovation and war yielding such incredible technological advancements and
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Speaker 1: like the triumph of the human spirit and problem solving
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Speaker 1: and creating new paths to you know, cultural and dominance
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Speaker 1: as a species. Well, this ain't one of them. The panjandrum,
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Speaker 1: it's not. It basically looks like a giant industrial spool
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Speaker 1: like you might see like wire attached to or perhaps
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Speaker 1: like you know, rigged up to a giant crane or
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Speaker 1: something like that. Uh. What it essentially is is a
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Speaker 1: rolling bomb, right Uh. And and like when we say
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Speaker 1: rolling bomb, that doesn't mean it wasn't like it wouldn't
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Speaker 1: explode as I mean it would. I guess each like
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Speaker 1: step on the wheel had a rocket that would shoot
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Speaker 1: as it rolled, and I'm assuming that would also propel
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Speaker 1: it and make it go faster. But also like in
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Speaker 1: a line, it reminds me of that circle shaped ship
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Speaker 1: in uh Prometheus that everyone ragged on it because like
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Speaker 1: the woman just running in a straight line from a
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Speaker 1: circle shaped ship that's coming after, She's gonna just sidestep
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Speaker 1: one way or the other and been totally fine. But
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Speaker 1: you know, it would have robbed us of all that
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Speaker 1: amazing drama. But yeah, how did the Panjandrum project come
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Speaker 1: to be in the first place for this like rolling
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Speaker 1: rocket bomb? Yeah? Yes, the rockets were meant to propel
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Speaker 1: the wheels and they could make it go pretty fast,
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Speaker 1: but there were there were some basic problems of physics,
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Speaker 1: similar to that boat we talked about that would just
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Speaker 1: fire off and then send itself spinning exactly exactly. So, yeah,
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Speaker 1: this this gave about due to desperation and fear. We'll
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Speaker 1: talk a little more in detail about this, but essentially,
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Speaker 1: during World War Two, the Nazi Party and Hitler, they
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Speaker 1: were creating this gigantic wall, this barrier that would prevent
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Speaker 1: Allied forces from moving further into Europe. So the eggheads
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Speaker 1: got together then the British scientists and military minds of
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Speaker 1: the day, and they said, we need something to break
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Speaker 1: through this thing, this concrete Atlantic Wall, and we need
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Speaker 1: it to make a large enough break in the wall
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Speaker 1: such that tanks can drive through. So you know, we've
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Speaker 1: articulated the problem, they said, So now we know what
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Speaker 1: we need to try to solve, and that's how the
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Speaker 1: Great pan Jan Drum came to be. They said, we
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Speaker 1: can use machinery instead of just throwing young British men
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Speaker 1: at the problem and you know, racking up a butcher's bill.
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Speaker 1: So their their intentions were good, which is very important
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Speaker 1: for you to know as we get into just what
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Speaker 1: a dumb idea this was. So let's say it's a
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Speaker 1: little after nineteen forties, Adolph Hitler and co. Have overrun
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Speaker 1: France and several other Western European countries, and Hitler, or
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Speaker 1: more likely one of his uh one of his handlers,
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Speaker 1: knows that the Allies are going to try to invade
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Speaker 1: the European continent, attack through those occupied countries, destroy the
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Speaker 1: Nazi regime. They just didn't know when this would happen.
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Speaker 1: I don't know where this would happen. And there was
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Speaker 1: a huge battle of spycraft to give fake communication and
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Speaker 1: mislead the other side. So that's why Hitler said, you
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Speaker 1: know what, China had it right. We're going to build
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Speaker 1: a wall, and they ended up building the world second.
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Speaker 1: I believe it is the second largest fortified barrier. That's right,
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Speaker 1: second only, of course to the Great Wall of China,
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Speaker 1: which is miles long. Have you ever been visited the
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Speaker 1: Great Wall of China been? I know you've traveled in
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Speaker 1: Asia plenty. I have not yet visited. It's on my list.
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Speaker 1: Although our friend of the show and co host of
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Speaker 1: Stuff Mom never told you in Savor, Andy Reese has
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Speaker 1: visited China, has seen the Great Wall that has some
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Speaker 1: fantastic stories about it. Isn't it true that you can
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Speaker 1: see it from satellite imagery because it's such a it
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Speaker 1: creates like a pattern because it's so large. Yeah, you
7:03
Speaker 1: made an important distinction there. Role there. There's a myth
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Speaker 1: that says you can see the Great Wall of China
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Speaker 1: from space, and that is true, that you can see
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Speaker 1: it from a satellite, but if you're an astronaut, you
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Speaker 1: probably won't be able to see it without technological aid.
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Speaker 1: If you squint a little bit, that fuzzy thing down there,
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Speaker 1: maybe it's the Great Wall. No, it's true. Yeah, you
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Speaker 1: can even look it up on Google Earth and see it.
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Speaker 1: Pretty impressive stuff. This German Atlantic Barrier was not nearly
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Speaker 1: as impressive, but it still had its charms and that
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Speaker 1: it was made of seven foot thick concrete and it
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Speaker 1: spanned the entire European coastline, or at least a pretty
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Speaker 1: large portion of it. And Britain's navy was looking for,
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Speaker 1: like we said, a way of crashing through this thing
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Speaker 1: and and being able to let the troops through and
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Speaker 1: and you know, with all the Kucherman that goes along
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Speaker 1: with that, including tanks and weaponry. And to do this
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Speaker 1: they developed this thing called the Great pan Jan Drum, which,
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Speaker 1: just to be a little more specific, if you don't
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Speaker 1: every already have a good mental image of it. It's
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Speaker 1: to ten foot tall wheels. They're linked by like a
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Speaker 1: fulcrum kind of situation. But again, like I think a
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Speaker 1: spool is the best way of referring to it, or
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Speaker 1: like a double sided wheel, and it's linked by this
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Speaker 1: drum that carried four thousand pounds of explosives. So the
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Speaker 1: rockets were exclusively for propulsion to make it just blast
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Speaker 1: forward at a breakneck speed. And then I'm assuming Ben
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Speaker 1: that the impact is what would cause the detonation. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: once it hits that barrier, that would cause the explosion.
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Speaker 1: In their defense, the rockets did actually propel this contraption
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Speaker 1: that would call the contraption at highway speed, and everybody
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Speaker 1: was on board with this. Everybody said we should at
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Speaker 1: least build it and test it out because this could
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Speaker 1: be a quick, efficient way to storm the beach. We
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Speaker 1: can save people's lives. This idea come from a British
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Speaker 1: wing commander named C. R. Finch Noise, the name I
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Speaker 1: quite like he had already earned some stripes as a
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Speaker 1: designer because he created the damn Buster bouncing bombs that
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Speaker 1: the Royal Air Force used to wreck to German Damn's
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Speaker 1: in ninety three when they started building the pan Jan
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Speaker 1: drum Finch noise was inspired by a nonsensical piece of
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Speaker 1: prose from an eighteenth century dramatist named Samuel Foote foot
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Speaker 1: with an e, and he was like kind of a
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Speaker 1: Lewis Carrol Edward Lear sort of dude. He wrote the
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Speaker 1: following passage, which we are going to edit a little because,
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Speaker 1: as the Internet says, it aged like milk. And here's
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Speaker 1: what we did. We're doing whimsical voices too. So as
9:52
Speaker 1: she went to the garden to cut the cabbage leaf
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Speaker 1: to make an apple pie, at the same time a
9:57
Speaker 1: great chebag coming up the street, Pops said into the shop,
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Speaker 1: what so? So he died, and she very imprudently married
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Speaker 1: the barber, and they were present the plank lead it
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Speaker 1: that word the job lilies, and they got ruelies and
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Speaker 1: the great panjandrum himself with the little round button at top,
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Speaker 1: and they all failed to play in the game of
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Speaker 1: catches catch can to the gunpowder ran out at the
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Speaker 1: heels of their boots. What such whimsy and low key
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Speaker 1: racism with that word he took out, people can probably
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Speaker 1: it kind of sounds like picnic. Let's just put it
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Speaker 1: that way, if you're looking for what that word might
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Speaker 1: be a weird one, to be sure, but but sort
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Speaker 1: of jumbled in with all these nonsense words. Actually, it's
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Speaker 1: funny that you said, Louis Carroll type figured Benny when
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Speaker 1: I said at the top of the show, this thing
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Speaker 1: sounds like something out of a a Dr. Seuss book.
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Speaker 1: It also kind of sounds like something they could have
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Speaker 1: been in, like the Jabberwalkee, you know, like, yeah, for sure,
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Speaker 1: the great Panjandrum himself. But it's literally sounds like they're describing,
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Speaker 1: or he's describing sort of would ended up being the
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Speaker 1: kind of mechanic behind the thing, right until the gunpowder
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Speaker 1: ran out of the heels of their boots, which makes
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Speaker 1: me think of like, you know, having rocket boots or
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Speaker 1: something like that, right, yeah, exactly. This word is described
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Speaker 1: by the O. E. D. The Oxford English Dictionary as
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Speaker 1: something that was coined in seventeen fifty four or fifty
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Speaker 1: five by Foot to test the memory of one of
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Speaker 1: his fellow actors, a guy named Charles Macklin. Macklin had
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Speaker 1: bragged that he could repeat absolutely anything after only hearing
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Speaker 1: it once, and so the story goes Foot made this
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Speaker 1: up to test him and say like, well, how do
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Speaker 1: you do with nonsense words, my pal? And eventually Panjandrum,
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Speaker 1: which started as a joke a nonsense word, became a
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Speaker 1: household word, and now O E D has a kind
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Speaker 1: of tricky definition for it, because mockery is built into it,
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Speaker 1: like it's supposed to be a joke word, even the
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Speaker 1: it's a real word, which is kind of weird, right,
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Speaker 1: So the official definition in the Oxford English Dictionary is
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Speaker 1: a mock title for a mysterious, frequently imaginary personage of
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Speaker 1: great power or authority, a pompous or pretentious official, a
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Speaker 1: self important person in authority. Kind of reminds me of
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Speaker 1: like the Great Gazoo from from the Flintstones. Remember the
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Speaker 1: Great Gazoo. He was like an alien. He was like
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Speaker 1: a little green alien guy, and he hung out with
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Speaker 1: Fred flint Stone and could like tell the future and stuff.
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Speaker 1: And yeah, the Great Panjandrum probably hung out with a
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Speaker 1: great gazoo. It reminds me of Grand Puba that also
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Speaker 1: could be. Yeah, for sure, that was in the Royal
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Speaker 1: Order of the of the Water Buffalo. So then the
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Speaker 1: word kind of, as words do, grew to have its
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Speaker 1: own meeting from a complete nonsense word to you know,
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Speaker 1: official entry in the Oxford English Dictionary, to now a
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Speaker 1: new meeting which was a ceremonial fuss or formality rigamarole affair.
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Speaker 1: I am definitely using this in my next work meeting.
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Speaker 1: I'll be like, you know, we've got a lot of
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Speaker 1: panjandrum going on, right seriously. Yeah, it's a real pandemic
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Speaker 1: of panjandrum. Um. It's like this has become a great panjandrum.
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Speaker 1: This meeting has devolved into a great panjandrum. I like it. No,
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Speaker 1: it's fun. We learned, we're learning stuff here in ridiculous history.
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Speaker 1: And then of course, you know it, it became this
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Speaker 1: weird weapon that looked like a giant like sewing spool,
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Speaker 1: you know, with dynamite inside of it and rockets to
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Speaker 1: propel it forward at a great speeds. So in nineteen
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Speaker 1: forty three, near the end of the year, the Directorate's
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Speaker 1: which is what has that done? That's like a formal
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Speaker 1: name for like leadership of the British Army, the Directorate
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Speaker 1: of Miscellaneous Weapons Development. I love that sounds. That's so
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Speaker 1: British sounding. They began to test out prototypes in London
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Speaker 1: and actually a haul day and a giant truck too.
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Speaker 1: What what is Westward Ho? Westward Ho is the actual
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Speaker 1: name of the village. That's amazing. It has an exclamation
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Speaker 1: mark in it. Yes, okay, sorry, I don't I wouldn't
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Speaker 1: have usually let that go through me sounding so confused,
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Speaker 1: but I think it actually works here because yeah, I
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Speaker 1: thought was that like the name of the trucking company
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Speaker 1: or something, you know what. No, yeah, Westward Ho exclamation mark.
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Speaker 1: I adore it. And it was a seaside village in
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Speaker 1: southern England, much like where the Allies stormed the beach
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Speaker 1: would go on to storm the beaches at Normandy. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: it makes sense to test it there because the geographical
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Speaker 1: conditions are similar at least so. The Panjantrum is a
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Speaker 1: big thing. It's not super easy to move if the
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Speaker 1: rockets aren't lit. It has those two wheels that were
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Speaker 1: mentioning there, each ten feet tall, and they're rimmed with
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Speaker 1: seventy cordyke rockets in These rockets are technically slow burning
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Speaker 1: so that they can propel the whole contraption. Gerald Powell,
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Speaker 1: in The Secret War Through writes about the Panjatrum in
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Speaker 1: depth and He says that thankfully for testing, the engineers
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Speaker 1: packed that drum that axel with sand instead of explosives,
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Speaker 1: and Powell also notes, quote this may be the smartest
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Speaker 1: thing anyone in the project ever did, because from the
15:35
Speaker 1: very first test it was clear that they had some
15:39
Speaker 1: other things they needed to think through. One of the
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Speaker 1: first things is that beaches and shorelines have sand, and
15:48
Speaker 1: sand is famously difficult to get a good purchase on. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: it really is. It probably should have tested on like
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Speaker 1: tennis courts or something like that, because he really do
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Speaker 1: need a solid foundation for this thing to go. Otherwise,
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Speaker 1: I'm picturing it like a cartoon character running it rapid
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Speaker 1: speed on a beach and digging itself into the into
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Speaker 1: the grounds, you know what I mean. Yeah. Yeah. It
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Speaker 1: also makes me think of this is one of those
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Speaker 1: Internet famous clips, or it's even a category of clip
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Speaker 1: now where people are lighting fireworks and like a dog
16:17
Speaker 1: wants to play, and so they grab one of the
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Speaker 1: fireworks in their mouths and they're running around like it's
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Speaker 1: a stick, but the fire was one of those that
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Speaker 1: shoots out the balls of fireworks. Yeah, Roman candle, that's
16:29
Speaker 1: the one end uh, And then the rest of the
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Speaker 1: family is running away from this like insanely happy terrier
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Speaker 1: has become an agent of chaos. Uh in, yes, exactly
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Speaker 1: right in uh And we have a dog that plays
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Speaker 1: a role in the story today and this excellent article
16:44
Speaker 1: I'm Wired from about just how poorly this gadget worked.
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Speaker 1: They call it the explosive equivalent of a loose garden
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Speaker 1: hose at full power if you don't account for that
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Speaker 1: sand So quickly they realize, you know, a giant two
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Speaker 1: wheel thing just flying around, shooting off rockets and exploding
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Speaker 1: uncontrollably would maybe not be a huge help. It might
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Speaker 1: actually make things worse because it would be as much
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Speaker 1: danger to the British troops as to the German forces
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Speaker 1: and the Atlantic Wall. So yeah, weapon you can't control,
17:22
Speaker 1: it's not much of a weapon, uh you know. Or again,
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Speaker 1: it's like that circle ship with the cannons on all
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Speaker 1: sides that was absolutely useless. At least that one would
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Speaker 1: just take you for like a weird kind of theme
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Speaker 1: park type ride. This one could actually literally backfire on you. Yes, yeah,
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Speaker 1: it could literally backfire on you. The guy was the
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Speaker 1: lead of the project at the time, Nevill Shoot Norway
17:47
Speaker 1: he may He said, something I thought was logical. He said,
17:52
Speaker 1: why would just put a third wheel on it, you know,
17:55
Speaker 1: more wheels will be more stability. That did not help.
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Speaker 1: So then they said, okay, let's try to steer it
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Speaker 1: with these ginormous cables. But that didn't help because uh
18:07
Speaker 1: and being unfair. It helped a little bit, but it
18:10
Speaker 1: couldn't make up for the problem of the rolling resistance
18:14
Speaker 1: and how it changed on the beach, so one wheel
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Speaker 1: would always go faster than the other, which of course
18:21
Speaker 1: would make the whole thing turn. And the rockets were
18:24
Speaker 1: supposed to stay on the wheels. But the thing is,
18:28
Speaker 1: when it reached full speed around sixty miles, those rockets
18:33
Speaker 1: inevitably detached from the outer wheels, making them even more dangerous.
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Speaker 1: They were just flying off. This thing was coming apart
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Speaker 1: essentially as soon as you turned it on. Yeah. Yeah,
18:44
Speaker 1: it was not a very pretty scene. Essentially, they realized
18:48
Speaker 1: that they had created a monster, an unhinged, you know,
18:52
Speaker 1: explosive bull in a China chop situation. They immediately lost
18:57
Speaker 1: control over. They referred to Uh. There's a amazing article
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Speaker 1: on war history online dot com that refers to as
19:05
Speaker 1: a giant two wheeled weapon flying around shooting off rockets uncontrollably.
19:10
Speaker 1: That that's about about sums it up. It would post
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Speaker 1: easily as much danger to the Brits as as it
19:15
Speaker 1: would to the enemy. So a second test was in order,
19:18
Speaker 1: and you know, surprise, surprise, it didn't go particularly well either. Again,
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Speaker 1: the Directorate, in all and their infinite wisdom, made some adjustments,
19:27
Speaker 1: and then in in the autumn and then again in January,
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Speaker 1: they decided to do another like big high profile test
19:37
Speaker 1: to run in front of like the top leadership of
19:40
Speaker 1: the military Pan the pan exactly the great Panjandrums indeed themselves.
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Speaker 1: So how that one go? Ben? Well, h we have
19:49
Speaker 1: a couple of quotes. You may recognize this as something
19:54
Speaker 1: that you might see in America's Funniest Home videos. Unfortunately,
19:59
Speaker 1: the start the rockets blazing, and then, according to James
20:03
Speaker 1: Moore and Paul Nero in Pigeon guided Missiles and other
20:08
Speaker 1: ideas that never took off, quote, the Panjandrum hurtled from
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Speaker 1: the sea and wondrous speed sparks flying from its rockets.
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Speaker 1: But then old habits kicked in as the rockets dislodged,
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Speaker 1: the Panjandrum spun and shock replaced the confidence of those
20:23
Speaker 1: attending generals fled for cover. The official cameraman was almost
20:28
Speaker 1: mown down, and the Panjandrum rockets flailing wheels ablaze disintegrated.
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Speaker 1: I think there's an even there's another description that I
20:38
Speaker 1: enjoy even more about this second test from an scene, Nold,
20:43
Speaker 1: do you want to do the honors on this one? Oh,
20:45
Speaker 1: I'd love to bend there. I mean, they really, like,
20:47
Speaker 1: you know, pulled out all the stops for this demo.
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Speaker 1: They had a documentary film crew on hand, and an
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Speaker 1: onlooker gave this account a clamp gave first one, then
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Speaker 1: two more rockets broke free. Panjandrum began to lurch ominously.
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Speaker 1: It hit a line of small craters in the sand.
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Speaker 1: It began to turn to starboard, careening toward the filmmaker,
21:10
Speaker 1: who viewing events through a telescopic lens, misjudged the distance
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Speaker 1: and continued filming. Hearing the approaching roar, he looked up
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Speaker 1: from his viewfinder to see Panjandrum shedding live rockets in
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Speaker 1: all directions heading for him. Oh man, what a what
21:26
Speaker 1: a moment of realization of like doom? Did did he
21:30
Speaker 1: make it? Ben? The observer made it? H The humans
21:34
Speaker 1: weren't harmed. But going back to my earlier reference of
21:38
Speaker 1: dogs playing with fireworks, one army officer brought his pooch
21:42
Speaker 1: with him and the dog saw one of these loose
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Speaker 1: rockets making its merry exclusive way down the beach, and
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Speaker 1: the dog chased it, and the panjandrum, of course, didn't
21:56
Speaker 1: make it. This test was the end of the road
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Speaker 1: for that, But we still aren't completely sure what happened
22:03
Speaker 1: to the dogs. Some people say the dog was almost
22:07
Speaker 1: killed and narrowly escaped, and some people say the dog
22:12
Speaker 1: may have been the unfortunate, one and only fatality of
22:17
Speaker 1: the great pan Jan Drum. But here's the thing. Okay,
22:22
Speaker 1: so first off this is we have to understand the context.
22:26
Speaker 1: These people were serious. They were trying unorthodox, innovative solutions.
22:30
Speaker 1: I applaud that. I think we all can. But this
22:33
Speaker 1: is a hilariously bad idea, right, this is a quite
22:37
Speaker 1: literally ridiculous idea. But still someone brought it back at
22:43
Speaker 1: the Apple Door book Festival of all places, in two
22:47
Speaker 1: thousand and nine. I love a good book festival. Then
22:51
Speaker 1: the decatured as a really nice book festival that'll be
22:53
Speaker 1: fun to go to after everyone's all nice and vaxed up.
22:56
Speaker 1: I look forward to that. It's a nice summer events.
22:58
Speaker 1: But yeah, the Apple Door book Festival. In two thousand nine,
23:03
Speaker 1: to mark the sixty five anniversary of D Day, UH
23:06
Speaker 1: fireworks company perfect Fit here Ben created a small a
23:12
Speaker 1: scale model of the thing, fitted with fireworks instead of
23:15
Speaker 1: explosed those obviously, and it was lit and deployed on
23:20
Speaker 1: that same beach in Westward Ho and it went straight
23:24
Speaker 1: for about fifty meters before it fizzled out short of
23:30
Speaker 1: what where they were hoping to get it too, So
23:32
Speaker 1: even in its smaller, more kind of level headed version,
23:36
Speaker 1: it still didn't didn't really do the trick. No, no,
23:39
Speaker 1: but you know it's a that I would argue is
23:42
Speaker 1: a good way to liven up a book festival. Right.
23:45
Speaker 1: So so there's that, And there's one little piece of epilogue.
23:49
Speaker 1: You may not have heard of the Republic of Malassia,
23:53
Speaker 1: which is completely surrounded by territory of the US to
23:56
Speaker 1: only eleven point three acres. It's one of the small
24:00
Speaker 1: stations under Earth. But it's called a micro nation, right
24:03
Speaker 1: and never heard that term before. It's not recognized. It's
24:07
Speaker 1: like the principality of ceilings. It's not recognized by the
24:10
Speaker 1: UN or anything. But they've been working on a Panjandrum
24:13
Speaker 1: for a number of years, so that might be what
24:16
Speaker 1: turns the tide and gets the international recognition. I'm having
24:21
Speaker 1: a hard time fiction. I don't think it's gonna I
24:23
Speaker 1: don't think it's gonna happen for him. Uh, it seems
24:26
Speaker 1: like a it's a weird one. They were, they not
24:29
Speaker 1: paying attention to history, but they don't know what people
24:31
Speaker 1: say about history repeating itself. Well, I say, god speed,
24:34
Speaker 1: you know, more power to them. I hope, I hope
24:36
Speaker 1: they get it right this time. But yeah, they were
24:38
Speaker 1: working on that as recently as this year or last year.
24:41
Speaker 1: Rather April eleven, the they tested the Great Panjandrum there
24:46
Speaker 1: for a second time at a secret weapons facility deep
24:49
Speaker 1: in the desert, and there was an original design flaw
24:52
Speaker 1: that that had a weak axle that had been fixed
24:55
Speaker 1: since the very first test, which was in and much
24:59
Speaker 1: like this extra reminds me a lot. I remember that
25:01
Speaker 1: that train collision race. You know, they had like a
25:05
Speaker 1: public it was like a thing at a fair, like
25:07
Speaker 1: a you know, World's fair kind of situation. I can't
25:09
Speaker 1: remember exactly what the details were, but yeah, there was
25:11
Speaker 1: an assembled crowd watching this test. And here's the thing
25:14
Speaker 1: that makes the most sense about all this and why
25:16
Speaker 1: this would be hard. You're launching it on the ground
25:20
Speaker 1: and your calculations have to be really precise or else
25:23
Speaker 1: it's gonna like go askew. That's exactly what it did.
25:26
Speaker 1: It apparently barreled right into the crowd, and much like
25:30
Speaker 1: that train situation when you know they collided and debris
25:34
Speaker 1: and you know, just act like shrapnel, the sort of
25:37
Speaker 1: shooting everywhere. People were leaping for safety and thankfully no
25:41
Speaker 1: one was hurt, just as as was the case with
25:43
Speaker 1: the original. But it does not seem to have gone
25:46
Speaker 1: in the in the way they were hoping, And I'm
25:48
Speaker 1: surprised they didn't just learn from the mistakes of the
25:51
Speaker 1: British and realize, maybe this isn't the best use of
25:54
Speaker 1: our time and resources. Well, perhaps they can try out
25:58
Speaker 1: some other terrible ideas from mill It's erries of yester years,
26:01
Speaker 1: such as the Iceberg Navy, the bat Bob, or the
26:05
Speaker 1: nov Garov, which is that circular Russian vessel we were
26:09
Speaker 1: talking about earlier. You can read more about all of
26:12
Speaker 1: these in a great article by Mental Flaws called eight
26:15
Speaker 1: other bizarre weapons that failed spectacularly. That is our gift
26:19
Speaker 1: to you Navy of Molossia. Indeed, and hey, you know what,
26:23
Speaker 1: and I I'm actually I'm gonna many a little crow here. Um.
26:27
Speaker 1: It does turn out that the Molossian Navy did have
26:31
Speaker 1: two successful launches of the Panjandrum, one during an evening
26:36
Speaker 1: events that went well. The the article on Molossia dot org,
26:41
Speaker 1: which you can find yourself and loss is pretty easy.
26:43
Speaker 1: You're a Milossy dot org slash Navy slash Panjandrum dot html. Um.
26:47
Speaker 1: So again this is you know, from the micro nation themselves.
26:50
Speaker 1: But the way they describe it as very grand sounding
26:53
Speaker 1: as is befitting the great Panjandrum a profound success. The
26:57
Speaker 1: Panjandrum had one final test, a nighttime launch, this one
27:01
Speaker 1: spectacularly as the mighty machine charged across the desert floor,
27:06
Speaker 1: rockets blazing in the twilight. And I'd like to add
27:10
Speaker 1: as a last word there, I am personally fascinated with
27:13
Speaker 1: micro nations. I believe our colleagues and stuff you should know. Uh, Palas,
27:17
Speaker 1: Josh and Chuck have a great episode on micro nations.
27:22
Speaker 1: H if you want to reach out and just talk
27:25
Speaker 1: with us about micro nations. I am super down. You
27:27
Speaker 1: can find us to talk about micro nations any old
27:30
Speaker 1: time you'd like, or weird military ideas of guests or
27:33
Speaker 1: year on our Facebook page Ridiculous Historians. Thank you so
27:39
Speaker 1: much to Casey Pegram, our super producer. Thank you to
27:42
Speaker 1: our guest producer Andrew Howard. Thank you to our own
27:47
Speaker 1: great panjandrum and actual like uh unlike the great Panjandrum
27:51
Speaker 1: our research associate Gabels actually works and is spectacular, So Gabe,
27:56
Speaker 1: if you're hearing this, thanks to you, man. Huge thanks
27:59
Speaker 1: to Alex Illiams, who composed our theme. Christopher hastiots here
28:03
Speaker 1: in spirit. Congratulations on being a new dad for the
28:05
Speaker 1: second time. How cool is that? Um? We miss you Christopher,
28:09
Speaker 1: and now on your back up, we hope to have
28:11
Speaker 1: you on the show Lickety Split. Um and man, thanks
28:14
Speaker 1: to you, Ben. This has been a great couple episodes.
28:16
Speaker 1: I hope everyone enjoyed them this week because I sure did.
28:18
Speaker 1: And Jen drum Indeed, that's it. That's my contribution and
28:24
Speaker 1: it's absolutely fitting. End. We'll see you next time, folks.
28:35
Speaker 1: For more podcasts for my Heart Radio, visit the i
28:37
Speaker 1: Heart Radio app. Apple podcast or wherever you listen to
28:40
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.