Ridiculous Crime is a production of My Heart Radio. What's up, Elizabeth Done? You know it's ridiculous. Oh, I've been waiting to tell you this. I was looking up some retro board games, don't ask, and I had no idea how wild old games were. Like, my sister and I were talking about it, and then she was telling me once she found, so I looked up some. Okay, these are the favorites that I found. I just want to tell you about them. Right. The board game called Capital Punishment. No, no, no, yeah,
the kid, it's worse than you think. The object of the game is to get all of your criminals to be scheduled for the electric chair, get them parked on death row or at least be given a life imprisonment sentence. And that's it. That's the game. That's how you win. Now. The other thing is you do is you take your opponents and you basically saddle them with criminals who are able to get through to the path of justice. So if they can get their criminals paroled and presumably back
on the street criming again, they lose. At least it's not like a cranium style you have to participate game. Yeah, no, it's not one of those, uh, the person to Death. No. The other one that I liked was Bigfoot, the board game Bigfoot. It was a game that allowed you as the person just kind of like I don't know, like Monopoly or life, where you're going around a board on these spaces, right, and you have this plastic bigfoot and there are ten discs, and you want to advance your
big foot around the board. Right. If you land on an opponent space and they have a disk there and they flip it over and it's a foot, you lose. I do not get it. I think the Bigfoot thing was just kind of throwing in on top like seventies style that the game just doesn't exist because it's no I see what you did. That that's the game. See that picture the game. That's the paporite. Wait, let me see it again. It's like Harry and the Henderson's abducted.
Play a game with me kids. Lastly, though, this is the one I want to tell you most about. My favorite of all three that I found was the Crazy Cat Lady board game. Don't like an Archie McPhee game. Oh yeah, you know it. I only know it's our she McPhee from the front cover. Yeah, so you compete to rescue cats. You move around the board and like once again, you land on spaces that are marked things like rescue grumpy old cat from pound or as I
like to call it, the zoo. And eventually you win the game by saving so many cats that your house is now overrun by cats and you go crazy from all the cat poop everywhere. I think, I think that's how you win. I don't know, crazy cat lady, that you you win. I have a confession to make. You've played the game, No, someone gave it to and never I was like, I bet Elizabeth would love this game. Thanks,
and I'm not the only one. Thanks did Yeah? No, someone was like they saw it and thought, Elizabeth, I don't own a freaking cat. No, not right now? Right I own a freaking cat? Is No, I don't know a cat? And then I mean I did at the time. You have in the past, right, the same you have cat owner. I'm a crazy dog lady, though that thing be both right. They don't make the don't limit yourself. No, I'm never going to. So, yeah, that's super ridiculous. Waiting
to tell you. You know what else is ridiculous rich people and then more specifically rich people thinking they're clever. Oh no, this is Ridiculous Crime, a podcast about absurd and outrageous capers, heists and cons. It's always murder free and ridiculous. Damn right. Remember Zarin, when I told you about that gold turlet that got stolen, Yes, the gold turlet. Yes, you remember that toilet, the commode from Baltimore turlet. By the end of the story, I was beyond irritated with
the wealthy folks. Yeah, I was. There's so much power tied up in money. So when like a wealthy person wants to do some sort of prank, it's always larger than life. It doesn't fly under the radar. You know, they can outsize it and why sometimes it's not always at the expense of the rest of us. Right, But there's this just like disregard for ordinary people that rubs me the wrong way. And it's kind of like that
of the little people. You little people enjoy what I'm because like maybe the prank bleeds over into like actual crime. Laudi da, what does it matter to me? It's a lark. Everyone just chill out. You know, most people, we don't get to We don't get to have that outlook on it, you know. And there there are ramifications when we do stuff. Yes, the rest of us who do not have like big white cho law forms. So the story I have for you today is about fraud. It's a hoax. It's done
as sort of a prank. I originally thought to make fun of excessive war spending. But it's not a political prank direct it's not like with it intended to be directed. No, no, I have no idea. It wasted time and effort, made the perpetrators look like a holes in my point, if I'm going to use strong language, I'm over here just blushing. But go on. So I want you to get ready to be way hazing. Um, I want you to be irritated by rich people again, I can do that, right.
This is the Dreadnought hoax. So let me give you some background. So the HMS Dreadnought was yeah, completed in nineteen o six. So the New York Times called it quote a fast, heavily armed behemoth that changed naval warfare. It's awesome power was the focus of attention abroad, just as its shocking expense was a point of debate. At home now. I mean at the time things were going swimmingly in the UK in England. Uh. I just like the term going swimming, like the economy wise well for them,
So they and you know, maybe good planning. They're doing some military spending the Victoriana era, right, like oh big idea of like still the empires. So they're like, we need ships to control the sea. Rule Britannia. The Dreadnought was called the most powerful, complex and aggressive machine in the world. Yeah. Uh. The ship was a quote potent and expensive symbol of state power and authoritarianism. So there's this historian Peter Stansky. I'm going to be doing so
many quotes today. I'm pulling his errand like it. The Dreadnought was not only a particular ship, but also the first of a new class of powerful battleship, the very symbol of the British Navy's assertion of its continuing superiority over the German Navy and its determination to maintain its position as the most powerful navy in the world. So the Royal Navy full of fun times, Oh from what I've heard. Yes, if it's not just the buggery, it's
the scurvy barrel laughs. Um, the ships in the fleet, they would play pranks on each other, okay, you know while having trying to avoid scurvy, um and so at around n the h MS Hawk and the HMS Dreadnought were in a hoaxing feud. So they're pranking it up. Enter English irishman Horace Dever Cole. Now English irishman. Does this mean he's like North Irish, He's like he's not from the county county. I mean he's like landowner, Yes, a man of privilege. She was most likely probably beholding
to the craft. Well, I mean his Okay, so his maternal great grandfather is the Irish poet Sir Aubrey de Vere But you're not you know that's an English title, sir, So you know where I'm going to that. His paternal grandfather was William Henry Cole, and he was a British businessman who made a fortune in the coinine mark it and fighting. And you know, of course the other one
that probably the more prolific one for them. Horace's dad died of cholera in India in Inja when Horace was a little boy, and Horace almost died of diph theory when he was ten and surgeries, Yeah, surgeries were required to save his life, but that meant that he couldn't really hear very well about like one ear um. He couldn't join the army because of that, so instead he enlisted in a volunteer cavalry and he went to South Africa during the Boer War. He was shot in the
back by Boer snipers, narrowly avoiding death. So he was running from I'm pretty much it's better being shot in the back by your own men. Yeah. Well, he returns to the UK in rolls in Cambridge and he was like known for his pranking, his hoaxing, and then he oftentimes did this with his best friend Adrian Stephen. So Horace and Adrian they met at Cambridge when they're undergrads.
One time they dressed up as the Sultan of Zanzibar's uncle, and then Adrian, well that was what Horrace dressed up as. Adrian dressed up as the Grand Vizier part of the entourage, and so the Sultan. At the time, the Sultan of Zanzibar was touring England and was going to be at Cambridge at the same time, so he's just like, no, I'm the Sultan, and he and Adrian, Horace and Adrian,
they get escorted around Cambridge. They get a formal reception. Yeah, they were able to con people because people knew that this guy was coming the Sultan. Dad's of r be here and then they said, oh, I've got a funny hating some robes. Totally there you are, yeah, and so like Horace then later tells the Daily Mail about what he did, and there's all this publicity around this what they're calling a joke, and he gets a book deal off of it. He's like an offer for a book deal, like,
please tell us more. He's never he's never punished. He's never I gave it thirty seconds. He's never punished for this, but it builds this reputation that he has. He's like, oh, yeah, what a clown. So someone on the h MS Hawk reaches out to him like we need an expert. They're like, Captain prank Er, Hi, this is the h MS Hawk, Um, I need you to help us in our prank war and it's against the h m MR and that He's like,
guess what, I'm on it? So he like the back the background A team music starts playing, he's going to assemble his group. Number one, Adrian Stephen his bestie. He said, come on, dude, atrians sister Virginia. So she's like, she's an unpublished author at the time. You'll know her later as a Virginia Wolf. Yes, that that Virginia will so a clever last clever one. By the way, Adrian and Virginia's cousin was this guy named Leie Fisher, and he was an officer on the dreadnought um so maybe that
kind of is why they wanted to do this either way. Now, this like early Bloomsberry group. Yes, it is artist Duncan Grant, who was a paramore of Adrian's and then two friends of their's, Guy Ridley and Anthony Buxton, and so I think it was Duncan Grant is the one who's in the Bloomsberry. This is the very beginning of it. Interesting.
So you've got this group of people. They're wealthy, worldly educated, and apparently they love pranking, and they about the world at their feet and they could do whatever they want and they choose to prank you. Well and yeah, so okay, what kind of prank do we do? We want? To prank the Dreadnought for pranking a whole ship. What we could do anything, It's so cool. Oh, I know, another fake African or African adjacent royal visit. There's not a
lot in the repertoire with these clowns. So I'm really worried about this. This is like screaming great British bake off Mexican Week totally. It's like, I know, I'm going to be pushing buttons of some of our English listeners, but I'm not pushing your buttons. None of the rich, like you know, aristocracy or like high falutin types are listening to us. My family called it the pink toes, right, they got better stuff to do. They don't. They don't
know what we do down here the cool thing. So you know whatever, but if you my feeling, if you can't take it, don't dish it. And so Mexican Week has laid it out like guess what here the target? Now it sucks to be a caricature, doesn't it England? Um So anyway, so this group they decided to pose as an Abyssinian nobleman named ross Al Mala Ken Machelen ross Al Maclen Ethiopians. Yeah, well, I mean that's the thing. Absinia Empire located in what is now Ethiopia and Eritrea.
That empire lasted from twelve seventy into what seventy four. It's one of the great African empires. Yeah, highly. Selassie gets deposed by a Soviet backed military, a punta, and that they've ruled until ninety one. So anyway, so they're saying they're these Abyssinians, um like an uncle maybe a cousin of the emperor and and then his whole entourage. So Horace says that like they're Abyssinian royals. They're in England.
They're visiting Eaton. Oh that's where Horace went. So this is basically like the equivalent of for now, like, oh, I'm a Saudi prince like you everybody knows this means you're well exactly. And they say, oh, we're coming to look at Eaton's, like we may send our kids there. So Horace gets in touch with a costumer named Willie Clarkson and he talks to him a bunch of times. They have all these meetings like let's talk wardrobe and they go and they drink tea. How do you feel
about sequence? Bring me some swatches. Clarkson had done costumes for all these like major theater productions in Paris and in New York. Um in one of these books that says he quote provided wigs to all the leading ladies of the Aedwardian age, from Marie Lloyd to Sarah Bernhardt. He's like, whig masters, I do know who Sarah Bernhard is.
That's a theater lady. Yeah, yeah, something like that. In the eighties, he also quote assisted Scotland Yard in their attempts to catch Jack the Ripper by disguising officers as prostitutes. Oh that's so he's dressing him up as tarts. He's like, all right, look, here's what we need. We need some cops dressed as sex workers. I happened to be really good at that. I've got all the best makeup. I happened a game. Yeah, don't ask me about the questions.
You know how I got this stuff. Just it. Horace and his whole group they meet at Adrian and Virginia's house on early in the morning of Monday, February seven, nineteen ten, and Clarkson and brings some assistance. They show up. Um, he kind of had figured out what they were up to by this point and keeps his mouth shut. He's like, you know what I can do it, I can keep you see grid. So Anthony Buckston, he dresses up as a nobleman, like the one who's got leading this whole crew,
ros L Mackelin. Oh like yeah, like I like the ross L because it's like the Rastafari you can actually hear, you can hear it. So he's going to be this nobleman ross El, Russell MacLean and then which kind of sounds like McCallan, but we're gonna let that go. Virginia, Duncan and Ridley. They dress up as princes in full black face and robes. Yeah, they're calling themselves Ross I'll sing Anya, ros L Mendax and Roz Michel Gallan. L. Wait a minute, so they do black face, which I'm
assuming they only did the paint. They didn't do anything to just change their look, like you know, no, no, See, there's a book called The Sultan of Zanzibar, The Bizarre World and Spectacular Hoaxes of Horace de air cole And by a man named Martin Downer. He Marty details the entire thing. It's a it's a slog um. He talks about their makeup, and the names of the colors and such that they use are so offensive that I will
not repeat them. Is it like and word name of h Yeah, and so they just they're painting, they're painting the faces. It's yeah. I just always love the idea. As a black person, I find it really amusing that people think, oh, you know what I can do blackness, I'll just paint my skin. And I'm like, for so many reasons, I will say you're wrong, but I just like that you think that's all that there is, and like anybody else is going to see that going there
it is it's not all the historical oppression or anything that. Yeah, I love that for them anyway. So they're worried that the makeup is going to run, and so Clark's in the costume where he says, don't eat or drink anything while you're there. But they had forgotten to eat breakfast. So in all the accounts that I was reading, oh, we were so hungry the whole time, I have at no point did I feel sorry for them being hungry. But okay, okay, so they're going to dress up as
Abyssinian Royalty and I'm gonna go hoax a ship. What the Abyssinian Royalty has to do with hoaxing the ship? Like what is it? What we fooled you by letting these fake Abyssinians on, Like we got over on you that we're not really black. Okay, who's to say I'm trying to catch us to say? So? Adrian is his job is to play the official translator. And then Horace plays someone named Chamandalay from the Foreign Office, now like
an Indian. Well, remember Horace's maternal great grandfather the Irish poems, Sir Aubrey de Vere Chamandalay was the name of the family who replaced the Deviers as the Lord Great Chamberlain in England, and so that was the title that the Deviers believed they still laid claim to. So it's like a rival family. He's just their name is really sticking it to the man over wo get them guys, Horace and Adrian, they're not in black face because they're playing
white folks. Umslat Yeah, Adrian did wear a fake beard and a mustache. And then what's referred to in the book as a little sunburn powder sunburned powder. You know what that means? That like like a rust colored ready ready thing I've never even heard so, But because of that, they could eat whatever they wanted, you know. So they took a couple of portraits for posterity sake. Yeah, And then after the costume and the black face are done,
they go to Paddington Stations. Good question, so Horace. He requests a special V I P rail coach take them to Weymouth where the fleet is docked. About an hour after they leave the station, they have this friend who's named Tudor Castle Tu d o R. Castle. He sends a having a friend named Glass Skyscraper basically or why
eight house. Uh. He sends a forged telegram to the under from the Under Secretary of State Charles Hardinge to the Commander in Chief of the Home Fleet, Admiral May, saying that Prince Macalan will arrive around four twenty to meet them on a ride PM and meet him on arrival meet them there at So there's this tight timeline. The Admiral doesn't send a telegram back for confirmation because he's like, oh snap, like okay, we're doing Yeah. So
on the train ride, Horace and Adrian. They're like, they're trying to learn Swahili on the train ride and they get say, of this book, Adrian says, Swahili is I believe spoken in some parts of East Africa. Whether it's spoken in Abyssinia or not, I don't know. But we thought it might be as well for me to know a few phrases. And to that end, we had bought a grammar from the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. Do you know what language is not spoken in Ethiopia,
Eritrea or the former Abyssinia. It's banned to so nice try. It's like, you're like, I gotta teach myself some Greek phrases because I'm going to France or I'm going to North America, so I should probably learn some Spanish. And you land in Canada. Yeah, pretty much. I need to take a break. These people are irritating me. Um when we get back, I'm gonna tell you about all these softies and black face flouncing around on a warship. I just want to know what they what they're gonna do
on this ship. Yeah, okay, Zaron. When we left off, Horace and this gang of pranksters they're on their way to pull off an epic prank on board of a navy ship. They got on the train. They're making their way all in what they think is Abyssinian garb zaren. I want you to close your eyes. No, no, I'm gonna leave my eyes open. Then open your eyes and pictures eyes. It's February seventh, nineteen ten. You're a traveling doctor.
You're on your way from your clinic in Dorchester, headed to see some patients in Weymouth on the southern coast of England, and the train pulls into Dorchester. You see through the windows a group of people dressed in weird costumes and face paint, well, let's be specific, black face. It's you know, some of them, it's pretty obvious that it's face paint. I think all of them the right. So you get in the carriage and you see that they're wearing these like flowing silk robes and then calftands
over slacks they have on turbans. You know, they have really suspicious facial hair, suspicious and that it looks fake as hell. So you take a seat at the end the other end of the carriage. You're like, just you know what, I just want to think about trains. Just love train. Have we talked about training? I've been here and I just want to be with the trains. Is sar, and I want to talk to you about trains, but
instead I want to keep telling you this story. So the group, they're whispering and giggling to themselves, and you think these are just some like well to do Oxbridge types out on like a theater trip of some sort? Is that like new avant garde data? Is M performance stuff that I've been reading about doing. Train pulls up at its terminus, Weymouth station. You get out of the
train before the troop of goofballs. You see a red carpet and a naval officer in full dress uniform and they're like, oh hey, hey, is there someone famous on this train? Is it I don't know, H G. Wells, I Forced or some other person that goes by two initials. Uh, You're shocked j G bo J G Wentworth. You're shocked when you see this. Sorry, please go on em C wren light. Uh. The group gets off the train and that's who the officers waiting for leads him down a
red carpet. You are shocked, shocked, I tell you. So the group gets taken to the dock where Admiral May and the rest of the ship's staff are all waiting on the Dreadnought, all in full dress regalia. No one is suspicious of the face paint in the costumes. Apparently really, I just can't, I cannot get my head around this.
These are adults, these are grown folks, okay. So the Royal Marines Band starts to play to greet them, and they play the national anthem of Zanzibar No, and they apologize to like, you know what, we don't have the Abyssinian one any port and storm it's African. Hey close enough. So Horace then introduces everyone. He like misspells his own name,
he gets the names wrong. He introduces Adrian as hair Hoffman, a German translator, and they're both kind of like surprised German accent on the and then and the thing is, it's like Germans aren't really welcome on worships at nineteen ten in England. So Adrian was like later explained, I had picked an English name that sounded kind of like Coffin, but I guess he didn't hear me, and he just went with Harry Kaufman, so they also, he, like Horace,
switches up the names of the princess. Princess. He calls Buxton, who was playing the character for whom the visit had been arranged, Yeah, Rosal Macalen. He calls him russ L Mendex. And then don't you feel like Horace is one of
those reckless people who just wants to get caught. And it's like either because he knows because of who his family is, in his station in life, that nothing's going to happen to him, or then there's also like a little bit of a high of like, you know what I can get out of this, Like I can use all out of this. I think it actually goes both ways.
I think he exactly what you say. He has the hive knowing he can get out of it, but also he kind of likes being caught and shamed because he has never really had that, and he's a naughty boy. He craves. Yes, He's like, tell me I'm a naughty boy, thank you so much. Okay, So Adrian gets worried right because don't forget cousin Willie's on the boat. Oh not old cousin Willie, and there's also he recognizes a guy who's part of his Sunday walking club and we all
have Sunday walking clubs. Yeah, I got a Monday. He sees Willie, he sees Sunday Walker Man, and uh, he doesn't know Sunday Walker Man is a captain on this ship until that morning. That morning he's standing there, He's like, they're going to recognize me. They don't. They don't recognize them.
They see what they want to see. And like Virginia, she really loves cousin Willie, but Adrian and the Stephen family kind of looked down on Willie because he was very conformist and came from like a middle class part of the family. Okay, so maybe they're just they're kind of like getting the kick out of face. Yeah. So the officers they get invited to a party and have
a drink. Adrian says, no, we don't consume alcohol, partly because they are all in they'll have their face start running, and so the officers are like, well, can we get you food tea? And then Virginia she said that no on behalf of this group. No, we must decline because we have to have our food prepared in a special way. Now, is Virginia wolf in black face? Yeah? I think so, right. I was just assuming because you said the only people who weren't were the two people who are the white
dudes translators. So everyone else I'm picturing in black face black wolves, and they're going no, no, ill. And I'm not sure how she expresses. She says that later she did that, but like you'll, you'll find out, Okay. So then they said, oh, you know, oh, I'm sorry. It wasn't Virginia who declined. It was Adrian who said, no, we can't eat because it has to be prepared to especial away. Yeah, Virginia's and black faces, but they don't
know the word for it. So um, he said at sunset, we have to pray towards Mecca, but he forgets that they're all wearing crucifixes because they're pretending to be Coptic Christians exactly exactly, but you know, hey, it's just somewhere over there. Um. So then to accommodate the prayer, Admiral may quote officially delayed sunset, meaning that the buglers across
all the boats in the fleet. They stood waiting for the dreadnought to give the sign for sunset, and he had to coordinate whether it was really sunset, what was the sun doing. I don't know. The whole thing is just this British military, like we ignore the reality. We're waiting for the whistle exactly. So Horace though, he's like, you know what, I'll have some of that tea. And then Adrian and the princess they go on a tour. They get shown around the ship for forty minutes. They're there,
marched all over the ship. Yeah, Adrian, he needs to disguise his voice, so he spoken quote a most unnatural deep base and an accent that was meant to be German. And then he forgot all the Swahili that he learned over He couldn't remember what to like translate, so to compensate when he's translate when he's speaking to the group, he's using like Latin and Greek that he remembered from studying Homer. Oh God. And so this is a British navy. A bunch of them speak Latin and Greek too. I
bet so they're catching some of them. Well. He's also throwing in nonsense words, so it's just a mishmash. Here's what Adrian Stephen said about it later, quote, I don't find it easy to speak fluent Gibberish impromptu. I must somehow produce something that would not be too jerky, too implausible. I had to take care that neither the Latin nor the Greek should be recognized, of course, but I felt that probably few naval officers had suffered an education like mine.
And in any case I so broke up the words and so mispronounced, and that probably they would have escaped notice even of the best scholar naval officers not knowing Latin? Does he not know anything about British naval officers, Like he's like the poorest don't know these things? Like I'm with him on Like maybe your average sailor doesn't know Latin.
But a British naval officer, so Buxton as the press, he would repeat some of the words that he heard Adrian use in his responses back to him, and like a couple of the officers apparently remarked on the quote oddness of their lingo. Um, but so and there was there was an officer on the ship who spoke Abyssinian, but he was away on leave damn. Oh, this is all pre Vatican too, so every Catholic pretty much a
whole lot of Catholics on that good back. For Virginia, she's worried that her voice is going to sound too feminine, so she just grunts and tending to be a man. Yeah, I forgot about that. Yeah, she's one of the p right, So she's just grunting and laughing. Ho ho ho um. Then she says later she admitted, quote, it is very difficult, I found, to look perfectly blank when you hear English spoken, and then to show great interest and intelligence when you
hear pure gibberish. I'm sorry, decided to keep saying, oh wow, I really cannot say other without cussing. So this is me, This is me researching this, reading that book and going oh, closing the book and taking a deep breath and then opening it back up and being like, do I really want to get mad again? Um. So at one point they're up on the mass like admiring what they're calling the new wireless equipment like videos. Duncan's mustache starts to
lift in the wind. So Virginia sees this. She motions to her brother Adrian, and she's and he says something to Duncan in quote Abyssinian um, and then takes him over to a dark corner to fix it. How does one say in Abyssinian you're giving free mustache rides away. I don't know. We're gonna have to have a good friend. Is Ethiopian, I'll ask her, um so uh. Adrian later wrote quote I did what I could with an umbrella, but there were five people to cover. And then I
saw the obvious solution. I spoke to the captain of the heat of the Abyssinian climate and the chill of England, and he saw my point at once and took us below. For a moment or two. I had to separate Duncan from the rest and dab hastily at his upper lip. But I was able to be quick enough to escape notice. So they're just they think they're so clever, they're getting one over on me. I'm a stinker, so Adrian like.
He then later goes on pedantically speaking, I must admit myself capable of deception when I took part in the hoax. But I but once the telegram had been sent off and we arrived and had been received, it would not have been an easy matter to tell the truth, and we almost, i think, believed in the hoax ourselves. He's like, guys, I'm Abyssinian. Now I got the black on me, and now it's that's it. I mean, this just maybe my future.
Yeah it is. So the tour wraps up and then they they you know, bid their farewells auslamacum, I guess they said. And so they go back to the station, Horace Uh. As they're going to the station, the guy that's accompanying them, Horace, tries to give him, uh the Order of the Star of Ethiopia, which is like a brooch that had been hanging around Buxton's neck. Where did they get it? Where did this train from? An army
Navy store? They got it off a guy Ridley's mother's hat, and the officers like, no, you know what, I that's okay. He didn't take it. He's like, that's good. I'm good. I don't need that. And then I'm wondering, is he onto them? He said he has to be. So then on the train back, Anthony Buxton he sneezes and half his mustache flies off. But luckily no one from the navy's with them, so their hoaxes done. Their hoax is done. They have fooled the navy. Yeah, and they look at me,
what away, what's the point. So they're all starving, right because I haven't eaten all day. But Horace, he delays the meal and the train because of sunset because he demands that the waiters serve them wearing white gloves, and they didn't have any, and they had to go out and purchase white gloves before the train left so that they could have proper service for these jerks. And there you are trying to get back to your clinic on the return trip, and you're delayed while they go out
and buy white gloves. My patients, my patients, and I don't mean the ones in my hospital. They decided the group was like, you know what, you guys, this went so well and the officers were so nice to us. We don't want to embarrass them, so let's not tell the press. Don't tell anybody what your whole point? Oh my god, okay, whatever, Yeah, you know what. Fine? Rich kids just like, yeah, we had fine. It was a lark. Wasn't that a great afternoon? Guy? It's like, I don't
you don't understand it. For this last week when I've been reading up on these things, I've been clenching my fists so tightly. When we come back, we need to take a deep breath. Let's stretch, arms up, down, stretch, Let's get some I think I pulled the buffle in my head. When we come back, I'm going to tell you how that all worked out. About keeping it a big secret. Spoiler alert did not work out? All right, Saren?
Did you get good breathing in? No? No, okay? This only the story reminds me of those kids recently who threw paint on the van Go painting in the museum, And it was to protest climate change and to say like, look if you ruin these nice things and you care more about that than the whole planet being ruined. And girl, you know, I am a big I want us to do something about what we've done with the climate and to be smart about this. I'm supporting we are at
the point of emergence. Can I am totally on side of their argument, But I do not see how throwing paint on a van Go painting. Who I one of the pores, one of the little people enjoys in the common sphere that we share how that is making me or anybody else go, you know what, you're right, we
should save the planet. I don't know, if you're a rich kid and you want to be doing direct and activism or get involved in some sending some message, I don't know, maybe try doing it from a material standpoint, since like use money or time as opposed to look at my theatrics. But they didn't even these these guys that not hoax. They didn't. They weren't even trying to
make a point. They weren't saying like they weren't saying like all this money spent on this warship is it should be spent on you know, education, feeding the babies? I don't know, something, something that has life. It's the Ain't I a stinker? Like the whole break? And maybe I get a little bit irritated because I come from a navy family, and it's just like this has taken up a lot of time and resources, and don't clown them, come on, I don't know, it's just a full unawareness
of what you're dealing with. And because it's like, look if you're gonna okay whatever, how did they so we left off? These fancy lads they'd like pulled off their hoax. Prancing around the ship, rode home on the training black black face, speaking the Gibberish, with their mustaches flapping around. They made the promise don't breathe a word. That night, Horace tells his friends he's my favorite party. He tells
some of his ends. Some of them turned around and told the Foreign Office, and then Horace had to confess for snitches. It is worth noting that at the time of this hoax his sister, Horace's sister Anne Cole, was engaged to her future husband, Tory leader and future British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain. What my God, ain't I a stinker? Um? So February twelve, the story comes out on the first page of the Express. The headline was amazing naval hoax
sham Abyssinian princes visit the Dreadnought. And then the Globe came out with the same story the same day. So either the Express of the Globe or both reported. It's really hard to find these particular papers at that time. I was all over newspapers dot com great resource for this, not these specific ones. This is from that that book. Um. They reported that the group would say bunga bunga as they were admiring different parts of the ship. I'm getting there,
meaning apparently, isn't it lovely? Like oh, bunka bunka that was there? Like made up turn when they'd see something that they like. And so then the real Emperor of Abyssinia comes to London a few weeks later, and it's reported that street boys ran after him yelling bunga bunga. Okay. Then the boys also, all these kids would go and like yell this at the ship's officers when they were in Weymouth. And then towards the end of World War One,
the Dreadnought, he looks so scared. The Dreadnought sunk a German submarine really stuck it to the jerry Uh. The ship got a congratulatory telegram that just read bunga bunga. And then there was a song that came out of it that was sung in a music hall nearby that went when I went on board a dreadnot ship, though I looked just like a costermonger, they said I was an Abyssinian prince because I shouted bunga bunga. What a produced dealer on the street with a car. Thank you.
I never heard that one. Yeah. So they're saying, like the layers on this so many so they're like I looked like a costermonger, but they said I said I was an Abyssinian prince. So it's like, okay, so our conception of what the Abyssinians look like is like a street vendor. Like, okay, I gotta step back on that one. I just keep thinking of and saying, saying bong bong all the time, and I'm like, please, connections. Well, it's
you mentioned burl Asconi, right, former Italian prime minister. It's probably because of this association with the quote exotic and quote racist, and that later Ethiopia was a colony of Egypt, so they could have likely heard the story from that. That's why Burlasconi called his sex parties bunga bunga parties. Oh my god. Not so we have Virginia Wolf to thank for bunga bunga party. There's a direct line between Virginia Wolf and black face and Sylvio Berlascon's naked bunga
bunga party. Put put the red pieces of string on your on your bullet board. Charlie Date losing my head. February sixteenth, The Daily Mirror puts a photo of the group in its front page story called how the officers of HMS Dreadnought were hoaxed photographs of the Abyssinian princes who made all England laugh. You see, this is what it was. I didn't understand the British culture enough because they're like, oh, we all love this. I'm like, where's
the hoax? Like, well, they love it well. And the thing is when they when the Daily Mirror ran the pictures, they first ran it on February fourteen, and the photos that they used were actually from Horace and Adrian's Zanzibar hoax. They're just like black face whatever, we got some. So yeah, two days later they had to rerun it with the oopsies and they Horace gave the pictures to the paper. They weren't there was that portrait. Horace wants to ride
any wave he can. I'm assuming who's the most mad about this? Um, See who's besides me back then, who was most mad about it? Jeez, I'm hoping some abbest it's got a little Oh no, it doesn't mean no one. No one consulted them Admiral May, Oh, yeah, there we go, and like others in the Navy just wanted to let it. Golomsberry, he he just would not let up. He wanted them punished. But then it was determined that the only crime committed
was sending that forged telegraph. Technically, that's that is our ridiculous crime here in terms of actual criminality from crimes against culture and taste. We could make a whole other podcast about various crimes against culture and taste, but in this case it all winds up being just just a forged telegram. So um it did though. This whole thing makes its way to Parliament, of course, and it resulted in quote a tightening of regulations for ceremonial parties. Did
it help get Neville Chamberlain elected him? Probably? And then so like after a month of this, May is like all right, Admiral May's like okay, fine, Um, it's not going to help if we punish the forger Mr. Tudor Castle, which again like come on, um, we're not going to get anything out of that, and it's only gonna draw attention to how we bungled this if we really keep up. So Admiral May's like, fine, whatever, but there's one more person who is still mad. Cousin Willie. Cousin Willie He.
A couple of weeks later, he shows up at Virginia and Adrian's house and just just screaming at Adrian, laying into him. But because of archaic British naval custom uh he because they had an no, because Adrian's aunt was Willie's mother, Willie himself could not physically punish Adrian, like as a direct family line. So he can't physically punish him. Why not? I don't know, and I find that very
hard to believe, based on the British Navy's love of punisunishment. Yeah, they're be like, hey, spread this round now, so and said he just yells, right, But then Adrian gives up the addresses of the other hoaxers. That's kind of what he really wants. He's like, if I can't beat you and beat somebody anymore, so um Fisher, Like cousin Willie, some of his navy friends, they go to Duncan's house.
He Duncans sitting there having breakfast with his parents. They lure him out and they take him in a car and they drive him off. They take him to a remote area where they plan to beat him up good. However, they saw that he was terrified and not fighting back. He's basically just like whimpering and peeing a little bit. And so they're like, you know what, instead of beating him, we're going to give him two ceremonial taps with a cane.
They're going to wrap him on the knuckles. The just tap tap that is enough to avenge the Royal Navy, apparently the honor. Avenge the honor, it's more symbolism. Yeah, So then Willie and then another naval officer they found Horace. That's the gold mine right there. Horace is sick in bed, they don't care. They go into his house. Boom, the makeup. Horace was the Horis is the ring leader. So they break in. They're like, guess what we need to avenge
the honor of Admiral May. Admiral May has no idea. They're there. So Horace later tells the Daily Mirror quote, I want you to take a deep breath first, you're ready. Finally, I said jokingly that if the Principal officer would allow me to inflict on him six strokes with a cane, I would receive a corresponding number from him. To my astonishment, he was so serious that he readily accepted the offer.
We then retired to a neighboring muse and there we found a rubbish box which served as a sort of triangle. And here I gave the naval officers six strokes with the cane, not very hard ones, as I treated the matter as a joke and did not want to hurt. Then I in turn received six strokes from the officer, who, with his colleague, was very serious the whole time. Then we all shook hands, and the naval officers left, apparently satisfied, for they said they did not intend to cane other
members of the hoaxing party. I don't even He's like, look you want to be let me beat you. Even Stevens He's like, that sounds totally fair to me. And they go out in the woods together and bend them over something. Then okay, now my turn, and then they shake hands. I will never understand British called I'm sorry, uh. And with that the whole thing concludes. I'm just so
glad that you did not dry. I was so worried that there was going to be a direct line between Virginia Wolf and black face and the election of Prime Minister Nevill Chamberlain, which leads to the appeasement of Hitler. So basically, Hitler could come to power because Virginia Wolf was in black face. I was really worried that you're gonna draw that line. May I still do all the events? I just can't do, don't you know. Don't give me too much time to ruminate. You can find the facts
in here. Yeah, so that. Yeah, what's your takeaway, dude? I don't I keep it. That's my takeaways. I don't want any you know, you can keep it all. I just keep thinking about what would have happened if it was just regular working class young people who did this. They would have been destroying, Their lives have been ruined, they would have had to pay severe consequences because people would have wanted to punish her. They would have not have had the money and therefore the social esteem to
ignore to have their crimes be ignored. And that's the thing, among many other things, that is insane to me, is that the damage that can be done just because you were lucky that your parents were wealthy. It's like, can't you have a little perspective on this one that like you did nothing, this is you just got lucky, Like that was it? Like there are a lot of people who I've known who are wealthy and they would actually say this to me. It's like, look, I get that,
I just got lucky. And I was like so cool with that, because it's like you're acknowledging your human moment maybe like no, no, yes, the British Royal, the British Navy, like oh, we're gonna ignore this actual sunset and we're gonna wait for the whistle. That level of ignoring reality I find humorous. The rich kid's level of ignoring reality is just patently offensive because the damage that they do.
I mean, look look at all this. I mean, this is one little let's go down to the boat and like literally British history and Sylvia burs are all affected by this. I just exactly. I keep thinking about how, um, there wasn't a point to what they do. I'm all for fun and I'm all for being I mean, you know, I take absolutely nothing seriously totally, and I like, I like messing with people, my friends in particular especially British Navy. But I just that's the whole thing is so self
congratulatory and not really funny. It's not a funny prank. It's not funny stupid. If someone were to witness it, it's not like, oh, look, you got over on them. I mean maybe this is like that embarrassment humor. I don't get, like I didn't watch The Office. I don't know why this is funny. I look at it. Remember how I told you once about how I want to
go to like a presentation and say boring in the crowd. Well, like I would love to be there and just have them like, oh we're so cool and just be alt lame. It was lame there, it wasn't. Yeah, So anyway, that's funny takeaway. I'm sorry I've done that to you and everybody. Um, you can find us online at Ridiculous Crime on both Twitter and Instagram. I'm going to put the photos up mostly of the big Foot board game. It may just be a make sure of the big pot Dad work
got that one for you? Okay, cool, I'll just go take a picture of it in the pleasant. Um. You can email us if you want to at ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com. Otherwise, tune in next time. Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Zarin Burnett, produced and edited by Dave Kusten. The Natty Dreadnought researches by The Bloomsbury Group director Marissa Brown. The theme song is by facial hair engineer Thomas Lee and wig technician Travis Dutton.
Executive producers are Admiral Ben Bollen and Cabinet member Noel Brown. Say It One More Time. Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeart Radio. For more podcasts to my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.