Yes or BS

Anyway, where were we? Oh yes, it's the Christmas special, 2023!

Did St. Nicholas resurrect a partridge? What was the deal with King John's Christmas cards? And who are Timmy, Betty, and the King of Sicily, and what do they have to do with Christmas Eve? From talking cows to amphibious armed robbery, the 2023 Christmas episode of Yes or BS truly has it all! Whether you want it to or not.

Who wants a Christmas present? Well, instead you’ve got this. Just in case you thought 2020 couldn’t get any worse, we’re back with this year’s Yes or BS Christmas special!

As always, the rules are simple: six facts, each as unbelievable as the other, only some of which are true. Can you sort the Yes from the BS?

This time around, we’ve got Icelandic troll children, festive spouse-conjuring baking, Ben Jonson’s tale of Captain Gregory Christmas, and, of course, a magical 3ft platypus who saved the crew of some hapless shipwrecked Australian whalers. What is true? What is untrue? What is genuine? What is nonsense? And does anyone really care?

Happy Christmas everybody! And we’ll see you again in 2021...

Will Ant recover from his 6-0 defeat at the start of the series? (Unlikely.) Will Paul have a fact about a Victorian eccentric? (Very likely.) And will Ant really manage to go an entire season without a Roman history fact? (Impossible.) It’s time for the Season 4 finale of Yes or BS!

Brace yourself for six more rounds of true-or-false trivia, from an Ancient Greek naval mishap to a globe-trotting presidential candidate, and from an anonymous helmet-wearing bigamist fraudster who turned down the king’s autograph to a treasonous Ottoman vizier who successfully managed to commute his own death sentence by running a race against the sultan’s gardener. Which might just be the strangest sentence we’ve ever written.

Enjoy – and we’ll see you all again for Season 5 very soon!

It’s fair to say Yes or BS covers quite a few knowledge bases each week, but seriously – where else would you find facts about Frank Sinatra, porridge oats and sentient octopuses all nestled up against one another? Or, for that matter, where would you *want* to find facts like that nestled alongside one another?

Right here, that’s where! If you thought international coronavirus lockdown procedures would stop Yes or BS, then you were wrong! Welcome to the very first remotely recorded, socially distant episode of the podcast where everything is true (except all the parts that aren’t).

Did a helpful dolphin guide ships through New Zealand’s waters for 24 years? Has artificial intelligence learnt how to dream? Is the Eye of Sauron watching over us all from billions of miles away in space? And who in their right mind would offer the role of John McClane to 73-year-old Hollywood legend Frank Sinatra?

The truths and untruths behind all these facts and a whole lot more besides – all in Episode 26 of Yes or BS.

Yes or BS reaches its quarter century with one of the strangest and most eclectic episodes yet. (And that’s saying something.)

Besides Noah’s Ark, this week we’re finding out about dinosaurs, classical music, Asian history, and humorously crude farm animals.

Did Bach write a cantata about how much he liked coffee? Did Tibet once have an empire to rival China? Was history’s biggest ichthyosaur bigger than the blue whale?

Does Hungarian have a set of jokes about an impossibly rude pig? And was Noah’s Ark accidentally discovered during the Cold War?

The answers to all these and more, in Episode 25 of Yes or BS!

This week on Yes or BS, we’re covering everything from Star Trek to nuclear warfare. Never let it be said we’re not eclectic.

Among the facts you’ll have to decipher this week is a tale about a group of Spanish guerrillas, who may or may not have been terrorized by unseen demonic forces during the Napoleonic War.

Was a nuclear explosion narrowly averted by a North Carolina plane crash? Was there a 1920s craze for oxygen-depriving ‘isolation helmets’? And did a 19th century anatomist publish an account of a local murder case in a book bound with the murderer’s skin?

Think that all sounds a bit too macabre? You can blame Anthony. But don’t worry – there’s also a fact here about domestic cats, the naming conventions of astronomical objects, and, er... Mr Spock.

Season 4 of Yes or BS continues apace!

This week Ant (@VoiceoverTony) and Paul (@HaggardHawks) cover another eclectic mix of topics, from the monsters of traditional Japanese folklore to the Frankish king Charlemagne’s lengthy wars against the ancient Saxons – who may, or may not, have once worshipped a god called Geoffrey.

Did downtown Newark, NJ, grind to a halt for a pet canary’s funeral in 1920? Is snowball fighting the official state sport of Alaska? And did Socrates keep fit by dancing on his own, without a note of music being played? It’s either Yes, or BS.

We’re back! Another six rounds of absolute nonsense, courtesy of Ant (@VoiceoverTony) and Paul from Haggard Hawks (@HaggardHawks).

In this opening episode, topics covered include Mesopotamian letters, the world’s most inbred monarch, and a hand-pumped precursor to the modern car.

Did Calvin Coolidge keep fit in an, er, unorthodox way inside the White House? Did the world’s oldest vending machine dispense holy water in the temples of Roman Egypt? And were 19th century Americans really actively discouraged from sending their family members in the mail?

Take an hour out of your day and find out. And as always, let us know how you score over on Twitter at @Yes_or_BS.

Happy Christmas everyone! Who needs a bumper crop of festive nonsense to go with all your roast parsnips and pigs in blankets? No one, that’s who. But too bad – you’re getting a bumper bonus episode of Yes or BS anyway!

As always, here are six suitably festive facts and stories, some of which are entirely true, some of which are complete BS. Did Charles Dickens have a real life moorhen-eating miser in mind when he wrote A Christmas Carol? Was a sleepy Wiltshire village spooked by a UFO one bizarre Christmas morning? Is the Star Wars Holiday Special not actually the weirdest festive entry in the Star Wars canon? And did a pair of donkeys stranded on an island in Yorkshire on Christmas morning in 1806 spark a short-lived nineteenth century catchphrase? You can probably answer that last one already, but why not listen along anyway to find out more!

We’ve made it. You’ve made it. WE’VE ALL MADE IT THIS FAR. It’s the Yes or BS Season 3 finale!

And, as always, we’re going out with another bumper last-of-the-series episode...

This week, Paul and Ant talk Wild West bandits, bizarre Victorian conservationists, Mother Shipton’s Cave, Ancient Roman gigantism, and 18th century lotteries.

As if that weren’t enough, along the way, we’ll discover whether or not Molière achieved his place in French high society through underhand means; whether the Spanish wife of an English nobleman became the first woman in history executed for espionage; and whether or not a squirrel was asked to speak at the funeral of a noted 19th century eccentric. This being the last in the series too, there just might be a callback to a certain Mr Tolkien...

Enjoy! Comment! Review! Share! And we’ll see you again very soon!