At last our heroes Carruthers & Davies arrive at the East Frisian islands. It's October 15, and, in a curious reversal of roles, Davies is quaffing pink gin in a bar, whilst Carruthers is dealing with intruders on the boat.
In this podcast you can learn why Wangerooge is rarely in the same place in any given century, how to mix a delicious pink gin (with proper German gin), and how the Frisians used dykes, drainage and 'siels' to build a nation - and create a stink.
First up, we ask why does the author Childers bother with a gap between October 7 and October 15 in the book? (01:30); Lloyd NotDavies talks us through the history of Wangerooge tower-building; we do another plug for our crowdfunding page on Unbound.co.uk - pledge now! (09:53)
A brief aside about casual anti-semitism in the book (10:46); Tim NotCarruthers puts on his serious history face and delivers a lecture on dykes, drainage and siels/sluices (11:32); East Frisia as a contested space (14:24); did Childers mistake the age-old practice of dyke-building for German acts of militarism? (16:03); how sluicing also involves sewage and stinking harbour pollution (17:05); the problem of leisure craft waste, and where Carruthers and Davies went to the toilet (19:34).
Lloyd notDavies mixes up some pink gin (22:06); we avoid drinking the 'old genever' and savour Doornkaat instead (23:52); James Bond is a pink gin drinker too (27:34); we meet another Doornkaat drinker: Horst Schlämmer (28:48); there's even a Doornkaat musical interlude! (30:07)
Club Business: Nick sends us a cartoon of the Kaiser, drawn by Queen Victoria (30:49); Ian tells us what 'ahoy' really means (32:03); Tony on Dulcibella's mizzen mast (33:21); Frank on the very wonderful swimmer Annette Kellerman (34:46); William on his real-life travels throughout the Frisians and the Baltic (37:18); Lloyd NotDavies's frank admission that on our adventure to Queenborough we actually went to *the wrong pier* (39:10).
MUSIC CREDITS
Great Open Sea by Wellington Sea Shanty Society (https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Wellington_Sea_Shanty_Society/none_given_1098/12_-_Wellington_Sea_Shanty_Society_-_Great_Open_Sea) is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 International License.
Horst Schlämmer: https://youtu.be/7j64_SXRdig
Doornkaat Song: https://youtu.be/dsOqOwe_nzU