This is Lightly Used with Adam and Karen. We're nottogether this episode - it's weird! You mean you've dumped me? No, you're on the other side of the screen, we're recording remotely!
I'm on my sofa, you're on your sofa, and the reason for that is because I've had a horrendous chest infection for the last two weeks and I'm absolutely buggered.
Because it's nearly Christmas, we're being sensible and not poisoning anyone else with my dirty germs.
Because I'm going to see my famiily in a few days - though my niece probably already has germs she's caught from school... Kids are petri dishes! You can tell we're not parents!
They're a breeding ground for germs! A drain on your resources! Elf on the shelf - fuck that! Speakng of Elf on the Shelf - I did like Tom's video! I told him some things I wanted to see in there.
Tom's video was really good - I did text him afterward & tell him he's a psycopath though! I told him some things I wanted to see in there. While cheering on, oh, will he do this?
Is this happening?
Double tap.
Have a look at the Studio:Channel 84 for YouTube channel
for what we're talking about.
Yeah, absolutely.
It's only like two and a half minutes,
but it's revenge on-
Therapy for parents everywhere.
Yes, very much.
So therapy.
And even for people who aren't parents,
because I can't stand elf on the shelf.
Before we forget to do anything this episode,
I want to get this out the way.
coming up today...
Oh, right.
I thought you were getting all serious then.
I am.
We've got 13 episodes in,
and we've only ever said what's coming up on the show twice.
Was that the first episode and the last one?
Yeah.
I think so.
I'm trying to remember, did we even do it
in the first episode?
God knows.
Johnny Turnip from Friends,
encounter the Necromancer in Lightly Used News.
We've got Tat in the Box,
where we are going to try and remotely do this.
We've exchanged items in a box,
which are apparently gift wrapped.
Yes.
I've definitely gift wrapped mine.
Yes, and I definitely-
A bit too much in fact.
I gift wrapped?
Oh God.
I definitely gift wrapped the one that's in my box.
It's in your house.
So we're going to try and work out what we're unwrapping
from each other.
We're not gifting them to each other.
No, I want my back.
Oh, they're treasured tat items.
You're not having that.
It's fine, you're not keeping it.
We're going to take 10 minutes to try and play a game.
It's a very lightly used game.
That's all I'm defining it as today.
It's definitely not charity shop sourced.
I've had it for about a decade in a cupboard.
And we end with lightly used book in Bibliotat.
Before that though, you've got a festive new segment.
I have got a festive news.
Well, I've got a whole new segment,
but we're going to start off with a festive one.
So welcome to Karen's Factitious Corner,
Random and Weird Welsh Christmas Traditions.
Please forgive me for any Welsh pronunciation.
Apologies.
Gŵyl San Steffan or St Stephen's Day,
most commonly known in the UK as Boxing Day.
A previously common, but not so much now tradition,
thankfully, is holly beating.
So this is where young men and boys of the villages
would gather holly branches and beat the arms and legs
of young females until they bled.
I'm not quite sure how the custom came about,
but it died some.
What an idea of how it ended.
Yeah, the custom did die out before the 19th century
and I could not find any meaning behind it.
Apparently it was just an excuse from what I can see
for boys who fancied girls to do the mean thing
because that's what kids do when they fancy each other.
They bully each other.
That's how we show affection.
Yes, we're mean to you.
We like you really.
Fact number two, at Wassling with the Mari Lwyd.
Oh yeah, it's a good one.
This is a good one.
I like this one.
It's my favorite one.
So this is an ancient South Waelian tradition
that has had a resurgence in recent years.
I've not seen this around my neck.
In other words, I'll be honest.
Well, you don't really live in a village.
I'm in a rural council area.
I bet if you were more rural.
I have a rural council in charge.
I have to pay my taxes.
Yeah, you have a rural council.
Like I have a city council.
There's a farm across the road.
Yeah, there is actually.
Yeah.
Yeah, I suppose you are like.
You're just leaving me.
You are edging rural.
Rural edging.
I don't like the sound of that.
Is that a different thing?
I believe it is.
Anyway, the Mari Lwyd is a horse's skull
that is usually carried on a long pole
by a person under a cloak.
Although some villages, if they've got a gray horse,
they will just use the gray horse and stick a sheet over it.
And this is carried through the town
with a gaggle of wassalers or wassailers.
The wassalers knock on the doors in the villages
between Christmas day and the 12th night.
And they engage in rhyming ritual called pwnco,
that's P-W-N-C-O, in exchange for food and beer.
So you go around knocking on people's doors,
challenge them to a rhyming ritual.
And if you win, they have to feed and drink you, no.
So it's like a battle rap from door to door.
Yes, right, yeah.
Christmas rap, battle Welsh style.
Oh dear, right, okay.
Last but one, so the winter swim.
This is not something I am ever gonna partake in
unless forced to.
Polar bear sort of thing.
Yeah, so on Christmas day,
in lots of towns and cities along the coastline of Wales,
you will find groups of absolute lunatics
dressed as Santa or whatever they fancy festive.
And they will run down the sand and into the sea.
I don't know why.
The water temperature around South Wales at Christmas time
averages about four degrees,
which I think probably gives you about 10 minutes
in the water before you start getting hypothermia.
So it's probably not the most sensible thing to do,
but people seem to enjoy it.
There's a massive one in Porthcawl every year and in Tenby.
I never intend to participate.
And then the last tradition is technically not just Wales.
You know, lots of people like Mistletoe.
Before its romantic connotations,
Mistletoe was considered so sacred
that it could only be cut or harvested by druids
with a golden sickle.
The plant represented peace.
People who met underneath it were forbidden from fighting,
even if they were mortal enemies.
You can't, the tree said so.
Yeah, yeah, the tree said, oh God, be nice.
They said they were here.
Homes decorated with it offered protection.
Because of its pagan links,
you'll rarely find Mistletoe in a church.
You have the Cliff Richard song.
Yeah, well, I mean, Mistletoe and wine,
I guess that is pretty Christmas.
Christmas time, Mistletoe & wine Children singing, Christian rhyme
But I was also gonna say, Mistletoe is a parasitic plant.
It does not grow on its own soil of its own volition.
It hugs trees and eats their nutrients in order to grow.
I think it's quite poisonous or toxic as well.
Yeah, I definitely wouldn't recommend eating the berries
or getting any of the juicy juice on you.
It's not very good.
Sure, we can pick a better plant for this in modern times.
Ponsettia.
That's come up so much in the last couple of years.
From Mexico, you know.
Yeah, I heard that recently, actually.
Funny you should say that.
I've heard that for the third time now in as many weeks.
My mum used to get a Ponsettia every year.
I don't know if she still does,
but yeah, we always had at least one on the fireplace,
bright red.
Yeah, lovely.
So that is the end of Karen's first edition
of Karen's Factitious Corner or KFC for short.
I wanted to chime in with some from the Metro.
Quirky?
So many articles at the moment doing this.
Quirky Christmas traditions around the world.
Yay, go for it.
Overuse of the word quirky.
It's just what they do.
Christ, I'm Welsh.
Quirky to the rest of the country.
...and I think parading a horse skull around is fucking weird.
It's not as fun as burning a big goat though, straw goat.
It's not meant to be burnt, don't encourage people.
I'm sorry. ...of Norway?..
Anyway, give us your quirky facts, love.
...or Sweden?.
Sweden
In Italy, the Bethana, as per Italian folklore traditions,
it's a witchy old woman who bestows children
with gifts on January the 5th,
like we're packing up the Christmas decorations
ahead of 'epiphany'.
I think it's just, look at the state of this place,
the trees shedding needles, is that the epiphany?
My fucking feet coming into the lounge.
Let's get rid of this thing.
I knew I was gonna research something, pronunciation.
She's been referred to as the...Vecchia?. (Adam pronounces 'vek-ee-a')
How many Cs?
C-C.
Vecchia. (Karen pronounces 've-chee-a')
Vecchia?
Vecchia, yeah.
Old woman.
The Stria - witch, and the Pasquetta - little Easter.
Oh.
Again, pronunciation?
In Norway, hiding broomsticks in cupboards.
Their folklore tradition.
And Norwegian stories suggest that witches
and evil spirits emerge on Christmas Eve to steal brooms.
So Norwegian families hide them away in cupboards
to avoid the witch's wrath.
Witches can't open cupboards, obviously.
I guess not.
Or have, is it Alohamora to open the door?
I don't know, I don't talk Harry Potter.
That's one of the first ones in the books.
Yeah, I think, or is that the films?
Yeah, no, I think you might be right.
One of my favorites, Krampus.
Yeah, it's the scary German demon.
Yes, love it.
It's the German, Hungarian, and Austrian children.
Ooh.
This creature that, other than Santa,
deals with naughty children, the devil-like Krampus.
Frightens poorly-behaved kids.
Sometimes throws them into his sack.
In Austria, people often dress up as him in early December
and scare children on the streets.
Yes.
There was, somewhere in Germany recently,
a big Krampus street festival.
Oh yeah.
And they did like, you know, floats and stuff,
and people all in their big demon costumes,
and things, it looks amazing.
I'd love to see it,
but I think I'd probably have nightmares for a week.
But I would also like to see the stats
to find out if there are better-behaved kids there than us.
There are definitely better-educated.
Do we need the Krampus here?
Maybe, we've got the Grinch.
I did ask Tom and Rob to investigate for me,
so their episode hasn't come out yet.
Ah, that's true.
We'll see how they got on.
Why isn't he well popular here?
Christmas cryptid information.
Finally, for the Metro article,
in Venezuela, roller skating to Christmas mess.
Las patinatas...patin-atas?.
Patinatas.
It translates to 'the skating'.
I should have,
I definitely should have checked these translations.
You should have gone to Google, yeah.
Just play what that sounds like.
I'll write the phonetic.
Yeah, I read a story about that one
when I was looking up my Welsh facts.
It just came up in an article,
and I was like, oh, that's quite cool.
That's a fairly recent one, the skating.
Dates back to the 1950s,
involves people roller skating all night.
They're making their way to church for a five or six AM mass
from the 16th to 24th of December.
I thought you were gonna say a five or six hour mass then.
What do you mean, like, bloody hell?
Throw that skating and be asleep.
You're getting the early one.
I also asked you to do a Christmasy thing.
What's your earliest Christmas memory
as my festive contribution to the show!
Yeah, so I've been thinking about this really hard,
and I don't actually know.
So I've got two
that are probably similar ages.
So the first one was when I thought I was getting a pound puppy,
but I got on My Pet Monster instead.
That's an excellent trade-off.
It is now.
I guess, at least your heart was really, really set,
I'm guessing.
As a six or seven year old obsessed with pound puppies,
there was a particular one I wanted as well.
But to be honest, I made a massive mistake
of not actually telling my parents
and assuming they were psychic, it would know.
But it was the year that My Pet Monsters came out.
It was 1986 maybe.
And I got the big blue one from the advert
with the orange handcuffs.
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
I made it in the middle of the race.
He was a hand puppet as well.
So you could make him say things
as well as bite your smaller siblings.
He had a big snaggle tooth, which I quite appreciated.
And my sister and her friends had some pound puppies.
I'm trying to which two there was.
There was a sort of shaggy sheep dog,
like the Jim Henson storyteller dog puppet
with the gray wooly strand looking one.
And I think there was a brown and white spotty one.
Okay.
There were only two pound puppies I can remember.
I think my sister and one of her friends had one each.
Yeah, they were very popular.
I did love my pound puppies.
But yeah, sorry, mum and dad.
Initially I was really disappointed at the My Pet Monster,
but I've come to love him over the last 30 odd years.
And I am sorry.
I was an ungrateful child.
And my second Christmas memory is when I got my first camera.
And it was a little red and black.
I think it was a Kodak, although I might be wrong.
I'm sure dad would be able to correct me.
And the back opened out
and it had like the binocular shaped reels of film in.
Yeah, and I loved that.
It was great.
And dad was really into his photography
and always has been.
Winded up.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Love the little wind down.
And then it had an automatic rewind, which was very fancy.
So yeah, and I loved that.
I took hundreds of photos on that.
Yeah, it was great.
And those are my two kind of Christmas memories
that really sort of cropped up.
So your turn.
I'm the one that's stuck with me.
I can't remember if my sister was born yet.
She's about three years younger than me,
but we did move out to this particular house
when I was about six.
So we'll set that as a ceiling.
I was six or less.
Okay.
I found my main Christmas present in my parents wardrobe.
What were you doing going around sneaking
about in your parents bedroom, you bad child?
My sister and I, we were really nosy kids.
It was a yellow pedal car.
It looked like an AA Range Rover.
Oh, awesome.
Pretty sure.
It had a little trailer with toy tools on it as well.
I've got a memory of being told off for finding it,
rightly so.
Yes.
Like you did.
Yes.
Well done, mum and dad.
But my memory of being told off also includes being told
it's not mine or it's for somebody else.
And obviously a month or two later, it clearly wasn't.
Like Mulder's poster...except about Santa.
I want to believe.
Yeah, Santa gave me that.
Yeah, Santa put it in mum and dad's wardrobe
three months ago.
I was kind of compartmentalised
that I saw it a few months ago.
He just does early deliveries.
There's a lot of children to go around to in one night.
No one's that magic.
And when I was much older, I think I was a teenager,
or not quite a teenager maybe,
one of my mates who lived in the other street from me
saw my main Christmas present before I did.
Because it was a mountain bike
that my parents had kept in my grandparents' house -
- or in their shed - who lived round the other street.
So my mate saw my parents going round,
they're getting it out of their shed,
taking it into their, loading it up into their car
and then bringing it around.
So he knew exactly what I'd be getting
the evening before.
That's fantastic.
He didn't tell me, obviously phones weren't around then.
I was going to say, can you imagine,
text message immediately.
I was like, Adam, Adam, you've got a bike for Christmas!
You're getting that snazzy mountain bike.
Although I knew what I was getting for Christmas that year
as well, to be honest,
because my parents took me to the bike shop
to ask me which of these mountain bikes I would like
Yeah, fair enough.
Wasn't exactly a surprise.
No.
Well, it's still nice to get a bit of freedom,
which is what wheels give you.
Before we move on to lightly used news,
not quite corrections.
Okay.
We just forgot to give a time
for the Rubik's race last episode.
It was one minute, one second.
It took you one minute and one second to beat me.
Yeah.
I need a rematch.
And also because this is an audio format,
I completely forgot to show the shaker to the camera
to show the pattern that we were meant to complete.
Let's see, yeah, but I reckon if you'd have picked it up
and tilted it, it would have changed the pattern again anyway.
So have you put the video up?
Yeah, it's on the show blog as well.
Oh, cool.
Excellent.
Oh, well, check out lightlyused.co.uk and YouTube.
It's in the blog post for episode 12.
Yay.
And last episode's bibliotat,
the My Little Pony annual 1990.
Mm-hmm.
Also not on the internet archive.
You said we could find some books....
No way.
Books inadvertently I had on the episode that...
I wonder if it's because it's incredibly racist
and insensitive.
It's not *incredibly*, it's just very specifically
in one story.
Really dressing a boy pony up as a cowboy
living in a wigwam.
The very least culturally insensitive.
In this episode of Lightly Used News,
Abergavenny man claims he was spiked
by a psychic called Steve.
From Tim Butters, in the Abergavenny Chronicle
on Monday the 27th of May.
I'm laughing already.
An Abergavenny man who just wanted to kill some pigs
in the forest of Dean has alleged that
the illegal hunt went sideways after he and his friends
had their whiskey spiked with acid by psychic called Steve.
Originally, Indiana Jenkins told us Steve was a necromancer,
explained semi-professional long distance runner,
Johnny Turnip, and that we needed his blessing
to hunt wild boar or risk the seventh torment.
Turnip added, to be honest, we thought Indy was a clown,
but we were a bunch of Welsh boys in English forest
and you know, funny they can get on that side of the border.
We decided not to upset the natives,
and get the boss wizard's blessing.
Turnip revealed that as they approached the magic man's lair,
things began to go a little pear shaped.
Suddenly, I began talking all flowery like some sort of
perfumed ponce who'd just necked a bottle of opium,
explained Turnip.
Big Tony had it worse.
He started barking like a dog and cocking his leg
on nearby trees.
Meanwhile, Puerto Rico Paul began doing the river dance
while reciting nursery rhymes.
Indy was busting aggressive yoga moves like a new age mum.
Turnip explained, maybe he'd warned us the necromancer
would probably put some sort of weird spell on us
as we approached his cabin and his prediction proved right.
However, after downing half a bottle of whiskey
to counter the magician's influence,
I had that familiar feeling you get when a bad trip wears off
and realized this was no spell, it was the purple haze.
We'd been spiked, Turnip added.
I quickly worked out
that Indy must have been in league
with the necromancer
and dropped a few tabs into the bottle of whiskey
we shared the previous night.
Thing is, the dozy tart had gone and spiked himself.
But I suppose he had to for the scam to be plausible.
Anyhow, I now had this David Blaine wannabe's number
and leaving the boys to their trip,
I knocked on the door of his cabin, ready to go to war.
Turnip revealed that when the necromancer finally appeared
from behind a cloud of coloured smoke
and puffing on his vape, he instantly recognized him.
This is no magi or High Priest of the Dark Arts, explained Turnip.
It was Steve the Psychic.
He's a run of spiritualist night
down at the Maerdy village hall every Thursday
before he mysteriously disappeared like a thief in the night.
Some say he'd taken out one too many payday loans
to fund his online gambling addiction
and needed to do a vanishing act.
But if he needed to lay low in a place no one ever goes,
why not choose Telgarth?
Turnip explained that when Steve appeared,
he was still very much into his necromancer's act
and hadn't realized his ruse had been rumbled.
He added,
As the smoke cleared, I saw his weasel-like face
smirk at Tone, Paul and Indy,
who were valiantly fighting off the effects of their trip.
I simply gazed at him, all cool and stony-faced,
like Michael Corleone in The Godfather, and I said,
I know it was you, Steve. It was always you.
He just looked at me all haughty,
like he'd never done tarot card readings for a fiver
in a caravan at the steam rally, and said,
Well, well, well, if it isn't Potato Bill,
Portugal Polly and Little John.
I just tried not to laugh, stood my ground and replied,
You know our names, Steve.
It's Johnny Turnip, Puerto Rico Paul and Big Tony.
Turnip explained,
He just pulled this tired comical expression and snarled,
Because those names are a lot less comical, aren't they,
my wandering anus?
I ignored his pathetic attempts at humour and warned him,
Laugh it up, dickhead.
When Tone stops thinking he's a dog,
you're in a world of trouble, pal.
He's never liked you.
He may forgive you for telling his missus
the spirits said he was wrong un',
but when you spiked his drink, you crossed the Rubicon.
Why did you do it, Steve?
What are you playing at?
As I talked, Big Tony began making his weird whimpering sounds
like my old bitch Kipper used to do every time there was a thunderstorm.
To make matters worse,
Puerto Rico Paul moved on from the river dance
and was hopping around on one foot muttering,
If both feet touched the ground,
the devil and his legions would claim him.
I shouted,
Would you two tarts cut it out?
Anyone would have thought you'd never done 'shrooms before?
This is no spell.
It's the purple haze.
You're trippin'.
This bastard spiked us.
I said, well, pointing theatrically at Steve the psychic.
Now get the whiskey from the bag and man up.
Turnip explained.
As the boys in Indy started necking the spirits and feeling better,
I turned to Steve and said,
I'll ask you again.
Why do you put acid our whiskey, dude?
That's a bit uncivilized, even for a necromancer.
This time around,
the Sturm and Drang seemed to leave Steve completely.
He dropped his act and sighed.
Okay, lads, he said.
You've got me.
I'm sorry it had to be this way.
But after consulting with the arch wizard Earl Elderflower
about the prophecy of the Three Unwise Men
and confirming that Indy was indeed 500 years old,
I had no choice.
Men have been seeking the gift of immortality and eternal life since time began.
And when I found the Hapless Three promised to end the curse,
we're lost in the woods.
I knew the gift of ages was but a stone's throw away.
Turnip said,
I just looked at him and tried to think of something clever to say,
but all I could think of was...
Oh.
To be honest, I was dead on my feet.
Lack of sleep, booze and acid had taken their toll.
All I wanted was a pork pie and a place to rest my bones,
but once again,
I feared that somehow me and the boys were being called upon to save the world.
To be continued.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Brilliant!
It would now normally be time for...
Tat in the Box.
However, as we are doing this in a slightly festive way,
I'm going to change the jingle.
To...
Wrap up your tat, wrap up your tat.
Welcome to...
Wrap up your tat.
Welcome to... Wrap up your tat.
So you have any claps at the end this time?
No, I still got them wrong and do you know I was going through this in my brain last night?
This was an original song so you can have as many claps in there as you like.
That's true, that is true.
But yeah, I was going through it.
I was honestly trying to fall asleep last night and I was singing it in my head,
time in the cup, and I still can't get it right.
Honestly, it was going through my mind for like an hour.
But also, and the reason why I was thinking about that is because yesterday
and the day before, all I've had stuck in my head is 'four lights and a Cardassian disco ball'.
I cannot get just about one particular line out of my head.
So yeah, I tried to distract myself with a new jingle but I clearly didn't do any good.
Well, I've still kept the tat in the box. I'm not taking it out yet.
No, your tat is in your box.
Oh, there's still tat in the box.
There is still...
You can do two jingles.
Wrapped tat in a box, tat in a box.
No, that's it, that's enough.
Right, okay, no one...
I'm going to have some fun this time without singing
and without having to time the claps.
Are you going to jingle?
I have no sense of rhythm or pacing, not even on the ones and threes.
Oh dear.
Okay, should we go for it?
You get to go first.
I get to go first.
Ladies first.
You still have to close your eyes.
Oh, but it's wrapped.
Well, whilst you're unwrapping it.
Oh, right, yeah, no, okay, fair enough.
Christ heavy.
Yeah, be careful.
I'm not going to break it, am I?
Don't put it down too... If you drop it, you will.
Right, it feels like it's made out of pot, not weed - pottery, ceramic I should have said.
Okay, so this is very nice white wrapping paper with red snowflakes and dots on it.
I'll move it a little bit far away from the mic so you don't get too much crackly crackly.
It's quite cold.
It's quite firm.
Some sort of base thing is going on there.
There is definitely a way up at its stand.
I'm probably going to open it upside down, but anyway, I'm going to go for it.
On touchy feely in the paper.
That's the right way up, you've got it there.
Yes.
Fat at the bottom, thin at the top.
Just how everyone likes it.
It won't break if you don't keep it that orientation.
Oh, okay, and now I need to close my eyes.
All right, okay, so I'm closing my eyes.
As long as you're throwing it around towards the top, you'll be fine.
Can you confirm over camera that my eyes are closed?
Tilt your head forward a bit for reflection.
There we go, yes, yes.
Crunch closed.
Unwrapping.
Trying not to open my eyes.
How many layers is this in?
A whole roll of paper?
I wish I had kept some of that for my niece's present.
I'm still going with that it feels like it's made out of ceramic.
It's very cold.
Could be glass, I suppose.
I know I have wrecked this bit of paper.
No, that's okay.
I've wrecked all the presents.
Oh!
That easy.
That's disappointing.
I'm going to be able to mix these two.
Oh, darling.
Right, okay, so.
Have I got all the paper off?
Yeah, right, don't fall apart.
So, this is your...
...Carling pump head.
Ah, yeah, got it in one.
Yeah, love it.
So, this is what you would see on a bar if you were going to order a pint of beer.
It's got a black base and it's kind of like a trophy sort of shape
with a silver neck and then the white carling diamond with the big
carling label, carling black label.
Or is that different?
I think it was 80s carling black label.
Carling black label.
So, yes, excellent tap, my love, and I've not broken it.
Oh, thank you.
Yeah, my second job was being a bartender at a new harvester that opened near my house
when I was about 18 or 19.
Right.
So, I was one of the original staff at that harvester and a few years after opening,
bar had a minor update from the brewery.
They sent the new font heads, so updated styles and things like that,
and changed a few bits around.
So, my mate, who was also a bartender, said, oh, could I have one?
And I asked for another.
There were two going spare that looked quite nice.
But ath the end of day my mate went, "do you want this as well?".
Yes, please.
So, no idea why, but yeah, he gave me his.
I could happily take both of them.
Awesome.
One of my most fond memories from working there, because we were good.
We had about five stars.
It was either our first three or five Food Hygiene Bureau inspections.
Oh, right.
Clean sweep, five stars, the whole lot.
So, the whole unit was treated to a day at Oakwood Park.
Oh, my God. That's awesome.
Staff from other harvesters covered our shifts.
Ha, losers.
At the time of the year that we went, we pretty much had the park to ourselves.
It was just a work outing in the park.
That is wicked.
Later on in the day, some public did start coming in.
But yeah, we were there by ourselves for a good few hours.
We got to stay on rides about two or three goes.
One of them was called Bounce.
Now, this is sort of a big rectangular pole...scaffolding sort of thing.
Yeah.
With a square of chairs.
Right.
So, four rows of chairs, one round each of the sides of this square pole.
And it gets hydraulically shot up like an air ram, then drop down, controlled then bounce back up slowly, back down.
So, it varies speed, you're up and down, you know.
That sounds.
It's got a plunge. Yeah.
That sounds horrific.
It's called Bounce.
But from the very top, you can see another one of their rides.
It's a water slide.
You sit on a sort of tea tray and it's a big vertical drop.
And you go down and skim across the water at the end.
Cool.
Me and my bunch of mates were on Bounce.
This is maybe our second or third go.
And the guy that gave me his font head... we could see.
When we got to the top, we could see this in installments.
He was climbing up the stairs across the park, to the top of the water slide ride.
So, we got there and saw it.
Then, oh, he's about to go down the ride.
We are down the bottom.
Oh, we've got to go up, go, go, go, go, go, go.
Thankfully, we got to the top and it lingered there.
And there's slow descent, just long enough for us to see my mate on the tea tray.
Go down the slide, skim, skim, skim.
...Then, seemingly pause.
Then, slowly topple to one side into the water.
So, we were pissing ourselves on the way down.
That's so funny.
Did you tell him afterwards?
Yeah, oh, yeah.
When we got to him, he'd had to go to the merch shop to get entirely new clothes.
So, he was decked out in theme park clothes from head to toe.
Oh, my God, he was a full strip wanker.
T-short - he had tracksuit trousers, socks, everything.
And also, to top it all off, early in the day, he'd had his face painted like a tiger.
He was like the guy from Phoenix Nights, except without the spray paint.
Oh, my God.
Yeah, that's my remaining memory of working at Harvester.
That is absolutely hilarious.
That day out in Oakwood Park.
That's fantastic. What a story.
That's made my cheeks hurt because I've smiled and laughed at that so much.
My face aches now.
Gwynn, you're a legend.
Nice one, Gwynn.
You're famous now, Gwynn from Harvester. Sir!
Right.
Your turn, too.
I'm just sitting back. There we go.
I've told my story.
Yeah, yeah, you just sit and chill, love.
It's fine.
I'll do the rest of the pod on my own.
Don't worry.
Yes, your turn, in your words, to caress and guess.
Right.
It's about the size of a little bit more than A5 size.
It feels very fabicky inside.
OK.
It's soft, spongy.
It could be a plush figure.
There's some structure to it, I'm feeling.
It's not just like a scarf or a pair of socks, I don't think.
Right, let's unwrap this away from the mic.
Eyes closed.
Oh, yeah, I've closed my glasses.
Yeah, I can confirm he's not wearing his glasses and his eyes are closed.
I hope I'm looking towards the camera as it'd have been weird otherwise.
No, turn right.
I'm surprised you didn't hit your mic on the way back.
I'm surprised I haven't hit anything at all.
The wrapping commences.
OK, I have access to the package.
Excellent.
It is a plush figurine of some sort.
Oh, hang on.
Right, there's a nose.
Yeah.
Is it a pound puppy?
It is a pound puppy!
Initially I was going to ask, is it one of the axolotls?
But I remembered they're crocheted.
They are crocheted and they're not tapped.
I was trying to work it out.
There's gills and legs and so many things hanging off it.
You were holding him bum up to start with.
I thought it was up the head.
Oh, hit the mic.
Oh, never mind.
Yours was the brown with black spots or darker brown spots.
Yeah, kind of like a beige-y colour with dark brown spots.
No tag.
So, what you have in your hands...
Oh, there it is.
There's an embroidered bit on his bottom.
Oh, yeah, he's got a little tattoo on his bum.
He's got his branding.
Yeah, so what you have in your hands is my pound puppy Mini.
And this puppy came out of a bin bag.
It does smell like old dog.
No, well, it smells old because he's about 40.
Well, no, maybe 38.
Don't sniff too hard.
Sniffing a dog's bum.
What are you doing?
I didn't want to smell the face.
That's the place where people would be kissing
or touching it too much on the front.
Oh, dear.
There's a germy at the back.
Yeah, fair enough, if that's what you think.
30 or 40 years old.
Really?
In very good condition.
Well, I looked after my favourite things
because I was an anally retentive strange child.
Here's my pound puppy Mini.
As I said, he came out of a bin bag.
And whilst that sounds bad, please remember this is a plush toy.
It's not an actual puppy.
He just came out of some paper wrapping too.
Yeah, he did just come out of some paper wrapping.
So the bin bag gift sessions, I suppose, like lucky dip,
happened a couple of times when we were little
because my dad worked away a lot.
And I think he felt kind of guilty that he wasn't there.
So every now and then on his way home from London,
because he used to work at Euston Station,
he would get us little gifts.
I say us, me and my sister Ruth initially,
because Ruth's the oldest and it's me.
And then there's four years between me and my little sister
and five between me and my little brother.
So I don't really think they got the bin bag treatment,
but me and Ruth definitely did.
And these Mini pound puppies came in this bag.
And Ruth had one.
I think it was grey with the slightly chunkier chops.
And I've got the one with the slightly flatter snout,
more sort of retrievery than pug.
I also had a standard size pound puppy that was dark brown.
And I think I got that for Christmas in 1986.
So the larger puppies came in travel boxes
with an adoption certificate,
very similar to the cabbage patch kids.
And I think I still had the certificate from my big pound puppy
when I went to university in 2000.
I think it got lost somewhere after that
because my bedroom swiftly got turned into my dad's office.
You know, so those things happen.
So I don't have that anymore.
Pound puppies were designed by a gentleman called Mike Bowling in 1984.
They were initially produced by Irwin just for the Canadian market.
But Hornby then picked them up for production in the UK and the US markets
between 1984 and 1986.
So he might actually be my big pound puppy.
He might be pre-86. He might be 85.
Multiple companies have since owned the rights to produce pound puppies.
Irwin and Hornby, as I've already said,
but also Tonka, Galoob.
I don't know who they are.
Yeah, they've made toys.
I think they had a license for maybe He-Man and stuff like that.
Oh, right. OK. Oh, that would make sense, actually.
It might make sense when I get to a fact in a minute.
And then after Galoob, there were so many other names
that I just put etc. because I'm lazy.
The plush toys were so successful that they inspired an animated movie,
cartoon series, Pound Purries, which were the cats,
puzzles and games.
And Hannah Barbera produced two seasons of the Pound Puppies animated show.
The first season was called Pound Puppies
and the second season, for reasons unknown, was called The All New Pound Puppies.
And those, their style of animation was based on the Tonka 1985 TV special.
There were 26 episodes in total, so 13 in each season.
And the main characters, I've written a list down,
Bright Eyes, who appeared in the 1985 TV special only.
But then you've got Bratina, Nose Marie, Katrina Stoneheart.
Well, one gets a surname.
Yeah, Captain Slaughter.
And a title.
Holly, Cooler, Bruno, Howler, Barkerville, Whopper, Catgut and Squounder.
Were some of those villains?
They must have been. They must have been with some of the names.
I didn't look into that too deeply.
And if you go onto IMDB, Pound Puppies is rated seven out of ten,
which is equal to the Wuzzles,
better than Care Bears, who are rated 6.1,
or the Snorks at 6.4, but below Muppet Babies at 7.5 out of 10.
I thought Care Bears would have been more commercially successful.
I thought they would have been too.
They did a lot more movies and things,
but note Pound Puppies are winning the popularity contest on IMDB still.
So yes.
Good research.
Thank you very much.
I like the stats at the end.
I actually did some research.
That's wrap up your tat.
OK, we're still not back to the Crystal Maze yet due to technical reasons and germ reasons.
Massive germ reasons now.
We have got a stand-in game, very lightly used,
not by me because I've never played it before,
but I stole it about 20 years ago when I worked in a call center.
It's called Urban Myth.
And I think from the tagline it will give you an idea of how old this game is.
The truth is in here.
Essentially, we've got half the deck of the cards each.
I think it's meant for six players.
We're only going to be playing it for 10 minutes, which reminds me.
Set a timer.
I think this is how we play it.
You've just read the rules.
I'm just going from memory.
OK.
On the back of the cards is a true or false statement.
We read them out to each other.
If you get it right, you win that card.
On the back of the card is a letter and they spell out either true or myth.
Correct.
And the first to spell out either of those words wins.
Yes.
And we've also got three wild cards, which could stand for any letter you want.
Yeah.
Is that roughly the gist of it?
Yes, that is pretty much it.
Yeah, so this is a game of trust today because obviously, as you guys know, we're not in the same room or the same home.
County.
Different counties.
Same country.
So, yes, we're going to have to trust each other on the letters that we've got.
Do you want to take a note of each other's as we win them or do you just want to go on trust?
I think if we go on trust, it'll be hard enough to keep track of our own cards.
That's fair enough.
We're on camera as well, so we can hold up the completed set of letters to each other to show that, yeah, we've got them.
Although for our beloved listeners, we are only doing an audio recording.
There will be no viditorial evidence of this.
We'll have to remember to take a photo of our completed decks though, at the end of the game.
Yes.
So according to the rules, the youngest player goes first.
So you pick the first card and I tell you whether I think it's a true or a myth.
OK, 10 minutes starting now.
Category is life.
OK.
The word handicap comes from the phrase cap in hand and refers to the disabled being forced to beg for a living in the 19th century.
True.
Oh, it's a myth.
Oh, OK.
You get to keep the R.
OK.
For a Y, Mr Court, this is a world category.
No, dear.
The potato was introduced to North America from Ireland.
Myth.
True.
I get to keep the Y.
I knew I'd do badly at that.
That's not just world, that's history.
For another crack at an R.
World.
Back at you.
OK.
A tidal wave of molasses swept through Boston in 1919, killing 21 people and injuring 150 others.
That's too stupid not to be true.
It is true.
Yay.
I'm going to give myself an R out of my deck.
Pull it from the bottom.
I'm taking it from the middle.
Or anywhere, it doesn't really matter.
OK, right.
For a U.
Also, you haven't shuffled these, have you?
Yeah.
Oh, OK.
I've randomized all the cards - I've randomized the letters, not the categories.
Ah.
World.
Third world in a row.
There are more London streets named after Queen Victoria than any other person.
True.
Correct.
You win a U.
I'll get you out of your deck.
Let me find one.
Got one.
Excellent.
You are playing for a Y.
I've already got one, I hope.
Told you I'd randomized it.
Might have a spare.
Health.
Rubbing butter onto a burn helps minimize the damage.
That's a tough one because if it was cold butter, it might feel soothing, but it's fat, so it might also contribute to the burn.
I'm going to say myth.
You're correct.
Give yourself a Y.
A spare Y.
OK.
I've now got two Ys and an R. What have you got?
R and a U.
OK.
All right.
For a T.
Coconut milk can be used as a blood plasma substitute in an emergency.
I'm going to say myth.
It's true.
Really?
Yeah.
I'm really surprised.
There we are.
Good to know.
A T back at you.
OK.
Health. (adam has a long pause)
King George 5th
Sorry, I was reading Roman numerals.
King George V? (Karen pronounces 'Vee').
Yeah.
King George 5th was killed by a lethal dose of morphine and cocaine injected by his own doctor.
...That's a speedball, isn't it?
I wouldn't know.
I'm far too innocent to know, though.
No, genuinely I don't actually know.
I've been guessing all mine.
George V. Was he directly before QE2?
I don't know.
You're asking me history questions.
I just read what's on the card.
Myth.
It's true.
I didn't need a T anyway.
Right.
For a U.
We've got five minutes left.
We've both got two left.
Life category.
The first ever England football captain died in 1881 after a night out dancing and drinking.
True.
Correct.
Give yourself a U.
I already got one.
Sorry.
I'll grab a spare.
There's one.
You get another crack at a T.
Oh, God.
Let's just move this on...what letter do you....
I need a U, an E, an M, or a T, or an H. Oh, I do need another T.
You do need a T?
Yeah.
Stupid woman.
World.
The bra was invented by a New Yorker named Otto Titzling.
True.
It's a myth. I was trying not to smile SO much!
I wanted it to be true so badly.
For an E.
Life category.
Crisp's were invented in Australia in 1957.
False....
...Myth.
It is a myth.
Give yourself an E.
Oh, there's an E.
Do you need a Y?
No, I've got two of those.
T you said you needed, yeah?
Yeah.
Okay.
Very wordy one, this.
Crime.
In 1997, a Philadelphia restaurant was fined $150,000 after a customer threw a soft drink over her boyfriend and then slipped in the puddle injuring her back.
True.
It's a myth.
Oh.
What letters do you need?
Could I have a T, please?
A T, please, Bob.
Let's see if I can find one.
Aha, there's one.
For a T.
World category.
Britain turned down the chance of taking over Volkswagen as part payment for the German war debt of World War II.
I'll say true.
Correct.
Give yourself a T.
I win.
You're too good at these games.
Let me get the T to prove it.
I think, hang on, I've discarded a T.
No, you've discarded it.
You don't get to keep it if you've discarded it.
No, from the one that you got wrong earlier.
So you'd be rummaging through an entire stack.
There's like six there instead of all of those.
T-r-w-e.
True.
Well done.
Am I holding this right?
No, wrong way round the camera.
It doesn't matter.
We're not filming the cameras.
Well done, you win.
You're too good at these games.
We still don't know if they're half-spare.
We need to find something harder.
Have we really?
Not fair play.
Yeah.
It's a fun little game.
I can imagine with a party of six people or whatever, you would have a nice little giggle
over a glass of wine or two playing that game.
Love it.
Brilliant.
Good game.
It cost nothing because I stole it.
Good game, you tea-leaving sausage..
Good game, good game, you dirty thief.
It is time for Biblio Tat and this episode, I so nearly said this week, this episode is
my turn to bring a book along.
So I have brought Ghosts of Wales by Peter Underwood.
President of the Ghost Club is also an illustrated book and it was printed by Corgi.
Do you think he gets a badge or a special hat?
Well, I don't know.
He's president.
He can do whatever he likes, right?
That's how it goes these days.
Maybe whatever the previous president did.
Maybe.
So the Corgi edition of this book was printed in 1980, but the original publication was
first published in Great Britain by Christopher Davis Publishers Limited in 78 and reprinted
by Corgi in 1980.
So it's an anthology of tales from around, tales from around Wales about ghost ghouls
and creepy things.
And there is actually a chapter on Swansea.
It's only four pages long.
So I thought I'd give you a little bit of Swansea ghost history.
I'm going to turn my torch on because I haven't got my light on.
I like to be spooky with the torch on.
Telling ghost stories for real.
Definitely not attractive with the torch on.
Two poltergeists and the ghost of Jersey Lill.
Busy bustling Swansea has been the scene of several ghostly disturbances, including violent
turmoil at a terraced house on Rhondda Street in 1965.
The Howells family, David and Marcia and their two little children moved into the house and
three days later Mrs Howells said, We woke up in the early hours of the morning.
We could hardly breathe and felt as if something was choking us.
We opened the windows, but it made no difference.
Nothing further happened for 10 months.
And then Marcia Howells entering the living room one afternoon was amazed to see a child's
medicine bottle rise by itself off the mantelpiece and fly towards her.
She quickly left the room and slammed the door shut.
As she did so, she heard the sound of the bottle smashing from within the empty room.
Soon David returned home from work and when they looked into the room together, some of
the furniture was upside down and clothes were scattered all over the place.
A couple of days later Mrs Howells grandmother was in the front room with Gareth, who was
not yet two years old, when she heard a crashing noise from the direction of the living room.
She immediately went to that room but was unable to open the door.
When Marcia returned home with Beverly, nearly four years old, they found the living room
had again been wrecked.
The settee had been upended, a television set thrown on the floor and chairs were tumbled
on top of everything.
Upstairs they found a double bed in the front bedroom upside down on top of the baby's
cot.
This much they could see through the gap in the bedroom door, which they could only open
a few inches.
Marcia leaving the back door locked, as it had been when she went out, now waited at
the front door for her husband.
As he arrived there was another crashing sound that seemed to come from inside the house
towards the back.
On investigation they found an unconnected gas stove lying on its side in the lean-to
kitchen and a smashed bottle of coffee nearby.
Coffee coming bottles?
Maybe it was a glass jar?
Yeah, or camp coffee comes in a bottle.
The family, including two grandparents, now left the house and spent the night with relatives.
How many relatives have these people got?
David and Marcia had had enough.
David said that although he had a mortgage on the property he would never take the children
back into the house and Marcia said she would never sleep in the house again.
She was convinced that no human being could have been responsible for the happenings.
Police, a reporter and a Roman Catholic priest later visited the house but encountered no
further damage or phenomena of any kind and it was assumed that by then the disturbances
had ceased of their own accord.
Mrs. Glendora Howells, the grandmother who moved out of the haunted house with the
granddaughter's family, said that later none of her property was damaged.
She and her husband Jack had occupied the front room.
She was very puzzled by the fact that none of the things were among the furniture and
fittings thrown about the rooms by an unknown force.
She said the affair had badly shaken her and she would not return to the house and
run the street if she were offered £500 to do so.
A few days later Harry Holmes, a local psychic investigator, spent 24 hours in the house
and came to the conclusion that the damage was not the work of a poltergeist but of a
human being.
He disclosed reasons for suspecting that someone, for reasons unknown, had manufactured the
disturbances and made them look like happenings of a paranormal nature.
He described how a jammed bedroom door could have been rigged and pointed out that a loose
window in the lean-to kitchen could have enabled someone to obtain entry and exit.
Less than a month later Mr and Mrs. Jack Howells, the grandparent, returned to the
house and lived in it without experiencing any unusual happenings until it was sold.
So moving on to the story about Jersey Lil, this one's a bit shorter than the last one.
Five years later, after the house and run the street incident, some of the night shift
workers at Swansea's Ford Motorworks began to report that a ghost of Jersey Lil had
returned to the area.
Many years before this ghost had long been reputed to haunt the old Elba Tinplate works
at Jersey Marine and it was thought she may have returned to the works which is now part
of the Ford complex.
One theory suggested that Jersey Lil was a woman of easy virtue who had been murdered
in the area many years ago.
Another idea is that she was a woman who worked at the old Elba Pickling works and met her
death in a vat.
Sounds dramatic.
Certainly when the Ford company took over the Elba works they were warned they had a
ghost on their hands but it didn't trouble them it seemed until now.
In December 1970 a worker was in the toilet of the heat treatment area when he said he
felt a hand on his shoulder.
He turned around and there was a wraith like figure of Lil.
He made a hurried exit from the toilet.
Later an identical figure was seen walking down the steps into the main plant.
Was it using a ladies toilet?
Maybe.
Maybe she just wanted him to piss off.
Excuse me! See the sign on the door?.
Now workers recall that Lil made a brief appearance at the plant a couple of years
previously but no one took much notice of her.
The management were not committing themselves other than to say that in the heat treatment
area crown wheels were put into a furnace and then cooled off and there was a lot of
steam and rising smoke and that could perhaps be mistaken for a ghost.
Later a spokesman of the firm said he had noticed there were often about 18 month intervals
between reported appearances of the ghost but he offered no possible reason for the
apparent rhythm.
There were also news radio reports and there are many other ghosts in Swansea.
In 1965 the ghost of a chimney sweep was reported to be haunting a house in the district of
Morriston.
Even policemen were said to have witnessed the phenomenon and some very strange things
seemed to happen at a house of a Methodist minister who lived on St George Street now
Hanover Road off Walter Road.
The roof of David Phillips is described in published accounts of the case as one of the
keenest and wittiest of men.
Not the type of person you may think of easily hoodwinked but he was completely puzzled when
his furniture suddenly began to move itself whenever his back was turned.
His bedroom in particular repeatedly turned itself up-dye dome upside down and I literally
can't read anymore but what I do want to say is I paid 50p for this book in the British
Heart Foundation in Llanelli and its original publishing price in 1980 was £1.25
so I don't think Peter Underwood got that many royalties from this book but I'll probably
read the rest of it because I like a good ghost story.
Guess what?
It's the outro!
We're done for another episode.
Not just the episode.
Yeah done for the year.
Done for the year.
This is the last episode of 2024.
It's been lightly Christmas themed.
It's been a quick five months.
Was it July we started?
Yeah so it's more than five months.
It's what six, seven months?
No, July, August, September, October, November, December.
Six months, literally half a year.
It was the start of July wasn't it?
Yeah.
Either way it's gone by fast.
It really has.
And I guess really what I want to say first is thank you everybody so much for listening
for all the shares and the likes, the views on YouTube.
We appreciate every single one of you.
Absolutely.
Merry Christmas.
Happy New Year.
I hope 2025 starts off really well for you.
Please keep listening.
We will be back in the new year.
Thank you Tom.
Thank you Rob for having us.
We are part of the Studio:Channel 84 Network.
If you haven't already listened to our fellow network shows, please do give them a listen.
The Variety Show where Channel 84 all started, where pop culture meets parenting and everything
in between and to the sides, above it and below it and around it.
The general area.
The Untitled Trek Show is no more.
Long live the Untitled Sci-Fi Show.
The Untitled Trek Show did bow out with style and class.
Check out the very, very special Christmas Shitshow story.
That's fantastic.
It was a labor of love for Rob.
Thank you very much for including us in it.
It's been amazing.
28 hours of editing for that one episode.
It does show.
Yeah, it really does.
He's done a fantastic job.
It's really fun.
All of the Channel 84 guys are on there.
Everyone from the studio, apart from Ross because Ross doesn't do anything.
He's the sensible one.
Plus some of our other wonderful friends and podcast family people that we've met on the
socials and face to face over the last couple of years.
So please do look out for them and have a listen because it is fantastic.
And apologies in advance for when my voice breaks.
I was going to say, is it appropriate to give a headphone warning?
I mean, the levels are okay.
And we've got to say thank you as well to Simon and Ross of Who Takes the Socks Off.
Ross and Simon have been torturing Tom, Rob, Adam and myself for the last couple of months
in a master of tasks, not rip off Taskmaster themed Christmas special.
All of which was audio recorded and video recorded.
It's not out yet.
Simon is still working on the editing, but it will be available, I believe, in audio and video format.
So hopefully you'll find it on YouTube.
If not, definitely linked to the channel84.co.uk website.
In the meantime, there is their best of 2024 mammoth episode as well.
That's a good three hour slog.
If you've never heard the show before, if you want to find out what you've been missing.
Yeah, that sums up the entire year - best bits of the year for them.
It does. It's a collection of brilliant soundbites and clips and mini interviews and things.
Yeah, just really good fun.
Socks have also got their first live stream taking part in Lemon Sunday's six hour stream.
That's on January the 19th.
You can find their podcast feeds and socials at channel84.co.uk.
Have a listen and tell a friend.
And you can find us at likelyused.co.uk as well.
You can. And you can also find us on Twitter because I refuse to call it X.
Blue Sky.
We also have a Discord. You can find a link and an invite to that.
We have an Instagram and occasionally when we're bothered I share things on Facebook too.
So we've got most of the social covered, but the Facebook stuff is under my name not the show.
So yeah, is that it? Is that everything?
I think that's everything we do.
Oh wow.
That's it for the year.
In that case.
We wish you a Merry Christmas. We wish you a Merry Christmas.
We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
Hurray
Adam and Karen have been lightly used.
Visit likelyused.co.uk for more.
To get in touch, email pod at likelyused.co.uk.
Turnip explained that when Steve appeared he was still very much into his necromancers act.
He hadn't realised.
He's real...
...
This was a Studio Channel 84 network show.
To find more, head over to channel84.co.uk now.