The White Ship and The Splendid and the Vile

Fantasy Fiction lover turned historian David Gates is back on the podcast to discuss two English history books: The White Ship by Princess Diana's brother Charles Spencer and The Splendid and the Vile by journalist Erik Larson. The White Ship is an examination of the 1120 shipwreck that threw the future of the crown into question.  The Splendid and the Vile is a riveting account of Winston Churchill and his first year in office when he is trying to keep the Germans at bay and get the Americans in his back pocket. Larson uses primary source documents to construct a very readable non fiction story that reads like a thriller.

Books and Resources Discussed:
The White Ship by Charles Spencer
The Splendid and the Vile by Erik Larson
The Spy and the Traitor by Ben Mcintyre
A Spy Among Friends by Ben Mcintyre
Colditz: Prisoners of the Castle by Ben Mcintyre

Check out a previous episode with David:
The Kingdoms, Season 2, Episode 7

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Transcript

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Well, when you get back to that far it kind of like we were talking about earlier how everything gets so murky when you go that far back in history. Like you don't really get a really strong sense his personality like you know, he like shagging? Yeah. Oh, God, like he shakes a lot. Yeah. And he likes to eat a lot of fish. Yeah, right. That's how we dice. much fish. Yeah, right. Yeah. Which is like half the guys in Kerrisdale right. Hello, welcome back to the Red Fern book review. I am your host, Amy Mair. And today I am joined by my friend, David Gates, who you may remember from our discussion, season two, Episode Seven, where we discussed a book called The kingdoms, which we both did not like. There were some issues there. And he is a fantasy fiction aficionado. And, but today, we are switching gears, and we're going to be looking at English his history, which, frankly, is a lot more exciting than Canadian history, I have to say, you can get a lot more violent. Anyway, the first book we're going to discuss is the White Ship, conquest, anarchy and the wrecking of Henry the first stream. And that is written by Charles Spencer, otherwise known as Princess Diana's brother, you may not know is actually a very credible historian. And the second book is The Splendid and the Vile about Churchill's first year in power, and it's by journalist, Eric Larson. So hello, David, how are you? Well, Amy, thank you. And thank you for having me again. This is great. First question I have before we get started as what are you making for dinner because I know that Sunday is your dinner night. And there were some questions about whether this you're going to be able to pack that in the podcast. It is I'm multitasking right now. It's very stressful. It's a very complicated issue. As you can imagine, I'm quite a sophisticated Quisenberry person. So it's called enchiladas. Oh, okay. You take tortilla shells. You put ground beef in it, and you heat them up and you put cheese on top. Okay, well, it should be quite exquisite. That's it. That's a crowd pleaser. And then you're doing tater tots on the side or what's going on? No, but I did handmade tater tots last weekend. They were I made handmade tater tots. Yeah, I made meatloaf. Again a complicated dish. You need to know about that. And it involves ground beef as well. But then I made handmade tater tots, which took way longer than the meatloaf. And not at the spoiler alert. Right. McCain's has better tater tots and handmade ones just by the store bought. They are they are pretty good. They are very spicy laced with chemicals. Not sure. But nonetheless, they're more delicious. Don't tell your with his wife. Jill is very healthy. She is and that's what she does. She's healthy. And she has a company called nourish Mimi nutrition. And, yeah, so she focuses on people. And full disclosure, I just ate a peanut butters cookie here. We didn't have to let that out there. But anyway, I gotta get off. Okay, so let's talk about let's talk about the white ship. Okay, so the white ship. This came on my radar from David. This was his pick, which we're going to talk about, but you're gonna know Charles Spencer. He's best known for his fiery eulogy he gave at Princess Diana's funeral. But actually, he is an expert on 17th century Stewart history. And then here for this book, he's gone way off off piste. He was doing a talk. And for some reason someone in the audience said Well, you better you should really look at the white ship, but it changed the course of English history. And he didn't know much about it. And so what that is, it's about the sinking of a ship that was literally called the white ship. I think in French is that right? Yeah. And it happens 1120 And on the ship was Henry the first heir to the throne. William, do you see the last name adult adilyn adilyn his half sister, Matilda, and 300 people died on the ship, it sort of seemed like the equivalent of the Titanic at the time. And only one person lived that was the Butcher of ruin. And what that led to was a succession crisis and a civil war. So with that, how did you why did you pick up this book? So I was at hay gars, which is a local bookstore. I'm kind of mad at papers, but okay. So I was there. And I find when I go there, 90% of the books have absolutely no interest to me. Like, I just don't find anything. But once in a while, for some reason. There's always a book I've never seen before that always kind of Yeah, kind of rings my bell. Yeah. So that was the white shift. And what got my attention is if you look at the cover of it, it says, Game of Thrones, but in the real world. So needless to say, oh, you know what, I didn't even know this, that. And I was actually, maybe I did, because I wrote something in my notes about Game of Thrones comparisons. So that that was a big part of it. And also, because I've never like I've read quite a bit of English history. Yeah, you know, I'll cool the guys do. And what, I've never found any books particularly good before the War of the Roses. Okay, when was when was the War of the Roses in the 1400. Okay. And that was the end of this house, actually. That was the big that and it took years. It was a nasty, nasty war. But an Alison Weir has a very good book in that era. But so that's what really compelled me. And also it was talking about William the Conqueror and how he came about brothers. And then Henry the first, obviously, so that's, that's to answer your question. That's what kind of appealed to me that claim to be like Game of Thrones. Well, I was gonna say, I see a lot of crossover in the fantasy books you'd like. And I was thinking I was, as I was reading this, I was sort of thinking, Where would I rather be like, Would I rather be plunked down into a real life Game of Thrones, or into Henry, the first England and I think I'd rather be on Game of Thrones. Yeah, I think I'd be safer there. Like it was so violent. Yeah. And scary. And just chaotic. Yeah. And honestly, it I was so surprised by that. Like, the later history that you read is it's not like that. Is it? Like, well, it's so brutal. Yeah, right. But what's interesting about this, this is kind of the era before there was even any structure, right? So like, I don't want to steal too much. But there's a bunch of times where people are giving their words and swearing to God and that they're going to recognize this air that air and then make this book so I think this books okay to spoil. Oh, is it okay, in my opinion, but there's a lot of cases there's a lot of betrayal that happened. There's a lot of a lot of lying, a lot of wear and there's no repercussion is just chaos. You know, they always say the Middle Ages, life was brutish, and short. Right. And this definitely showed that I thought, well, one of the things I didn't know is I just assumed everything went to the firstborn son. And at this time, I think that pretty much janitor wasn't in place yet. Right? So literally, they would say, and this is the other thing. They literally say, Oh, this sounds stupid. And then they give them like the last name, you know, Henry, the stupid, and then he's not gonna get the lands or whatever, and they just they decide who's gonna get it, but then you're right, everyone, and then as soon as someone dies, like, all of the person's attendance, like, run, like grab the person's jewelry or like, just like, yeah, it's just horrible. Like even William the Conqueror is funeral. Right? Right. Great. William the Conqueror is he's having a funeral. No one's around for the burial because they're too busy pillaging all this stuff. No, it's just it's pretty crazy. Okay, so what did you think of this book? I'm fascinated by the era. Yeah, I give them huge kudos for like, I feel like history before war. The roses, especially in England gets so murky, right. You know, I mean, like, just things are all sudden, like gloom to conquer gets way more shapeless, and you don't understand the personalities. And I think he did a really good job. Obviously, he researched the heck out of this. Yeah, but he's definitely faced the challenge that he only had a small handful of sources, some of them much like later than the actual events. And I felt like like the book was about 290 pages. Yeah. And I think it could have been 225 I've Paige's right. And you could have got rid of some of the laundry lists of characters that he introduced and made a more sweeping comment about the end of their succession plans, because, like you were saying, the 300 people that got wiped out on that ship, and that ship was the fastest ship in Europe, too. That was the interesting part about just like the Titanic, right? Was that it was the who's who? of British society or English society, and they had just taken had a decisive war against France, right. So they had finally resolved the issue of Normandy. So they were, you know, he was laughing Henry the first. So he goes on the boat across getting ready to get everything in place. His kid parties with the ship, guys. Yeah. And then they follow him. Yeah, but they're so drunk. Yeah, they hit a bunch of rocks, like 10 minutes, as soon as they leave. Well, the other fascinating thing is back then, everybody was scared of the water. Like no one understood swim. A lot of people didn't know how to swim. Yeah, like water, you're in the water, you're dead. And then the other thing that kind of corresponds with the whole, like, fantasy world that you like, is bad. Is that they often think of things as the fate faded, or, like things are faded or destined and, and then they sort of tied this back to was it Henry, the first wife, Matilda that she was actually, I think it was that she was actually a nun first, was that her, or someone, if you take a oath as a nun, you can't get married. And so someone lied. That's probably a good bet, that someone may or may not have lied about that. And so that kind of if you remember that, I read this. I just finished this book. And that just kept coming back. That will that's because she did that and all these things are happening. But this this, what I will say is this. ship wreck was very avoidable. Oh, absolutely. It was just a bunch of Yahoo's. Yeah. And it was a rock they ran into, that everybody knew about, like you, you knew, like, there was this big land, you know, this thing coming out of the water, and they left it and I I mean, the whole thing was a disaster. So and the irony to if I'm not spoiling is one the guys that was supposed to be on the boat. He was having irritable bowel syndrome. Yes. And he couldn't stop going to the bathroom. Right. So he had to hop off the boat just before they left. They go crash, they all drown. Yeah, he gets better probably had a little Imodium or something. And then whatever they had back then. And then he hopped back over there. Well, he ends up later to become a future king of England, even though he was at that point. So distant relate so far, because everything changed. Change change. But I would say one of the criticisms I had, I actually majored in history, I like it, but I don't love it to the point that, like when I first picked this up, this is definitely this book I recommend for someone who loves history, they should pick it up. If you don't love history, I'd maybe give this a past. I agree. But I picked it up. And I was like, Oh, my God. Everyone's named Henry. Everyone's name Matilda. And there's so many names, that I actually read 50 pages, and I didn't know what I'd read. And then you would say how much you liked it. So then, this is a lesson. I mean, I think this is good for a lot of books as I just had to put it aside. And then I came back and I liked it the next time and I decided I'm just not going to worry about all these names. But I don't know if that was typical. I just when I've read the kind of history books that I might read, they don't. I just felt the need. He felt the need to like say there's a meeting name every single person in the room and where they came from. Yeah, took away from the main story. I mean story. I agree. Like I think what it's almost he felt like he did this Herculean amount of research on it. And he would drill down. So all of a sudden there would be some guy that's pretty much a minor noble, but maybe because he had the information he was trying to make this meaty enough book that he would get into the detail of how his grandfather played the loot for Andrew when he was a little kid and yeah, where it wasn't relevant to the arc of the story. Right so me No, I yeah, I think that's where he maybe maybe airs his airing more on being an historian or perceived or being historian then still telling the story. Yeah, I agree. And that's where I kind of got but I thought, I mean, and learning about Norman history, which I didn't know, to the if you want to know about Mormon history, this is a great book for that. That'd be a great miniseries. It would be actually the crown prequel prequel three totally that could be that would be really well done. And bombing ah, You Okay, another question though, in the in the afterword Charles Spencer talks about, like I said, how he came up with this idea. But then he goes on about how amazing Henry the first was a leader as a leader. And I could only think that had to do with. He did do some things around accounting and some things around taxes. But from all accounts what I could see, he seemed pretty ruthless. And so I was just wondering, did you think he was a good leader? Well, when you get back to that fart, kind of, like we were talking about earlier, how everything gets so murky when you go that far back in history, like you don't really get a really strong sense his personality, like, you know, he like shagging? Yeah. Oh, God, like he shakes a lot. Yeah. And he likes to eat a lot of fish. Yeah, right. That's how he dies. Too much fish. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Which is like half the guys in Kerrisdale. So anyway, so you really don't have a sense of the, his personality. But you do, I think, I guess I would agree with Charles Spencer in that, you know, he did do the exchequer reformation to the whole currency side of things, the taxation, he cleaned up a lot of things. And also just he came from, like, he did not inherited this, like he was the youngest. So he was, I think he was going to be a month, there was something I think he was definitely stuffing him in the corner that he was not supposed to be anything. No. And then for a variety of reasons. There were some brothers that were like, the stupid or whatever they people that didn't like, and then there was another brother that died. And I don't know if you caught this, but they kept bringing up the hunting accident where Henry was present. And I was wondering if they're implying hurt. Yeah, that's awful. I don't think we'll get into that. But whether he had anything to do with the brothers stuff, like I don't know, but yeah, I didn't know. Okay. But did you think he was I guess he was a leader of his time. Yeah. And also like, to overcome all that he did. But even the great Henry the first, right? Like he said, Okay, I want my daughter to take over after me. And everybody said, You bet. Yes, sir. We're gonna do it. I swear to God, and then as soon as he's gone, you know, that's when his his nephew kind of takes a run out of it. That's the guy who had irritable bowel syndrome. That was oh, yeah, he was, he was a problem. He was a problem. Um, so would you recommend this to? Would you recommend this book? I agree with you wholeheartedly. If it's people that dig history, like my older brother loves history, like I do, I recommend it to him. But if I wouldn't, like I wouldn't recommend it to my wife who's an avid reader or, or other people. You have to be really, really interested in that era. Because if you are, it's a very, very good book where the choices are pretty paltry for that area. Because of the murkiness of the information. It relies heavily on a on a monk, there's one monks, there's this monk, I think his name is order ik the talus and he's like, I mean, I hope he was telling the truth, because most of what was said in this book is coming from this guy, and he's the only order in the book. It's a bunch of Henry's and Matilda. Yeah, you remember the name? Yeah. Okay, now we're gonna move over to I'm just gonna say, an exceptional book in my mind. It's called the splendid in the vial. And it's by Erik Larson, who is his incredible knack for writing. He's written mostly nonfiction. He wrote another really great book, The Devil in the White City. Have you read that? Not yet, but going to need to read that it's about the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago, and there were a bunch of murders by a similar serial killer named HH Holmes, and it's actually really, really good and then didn't give anything away there. Did you know, no, I didn't. We won't totally spoil this one. But, but But the Germans lose the Germans. Yeah. Okay. David. His Eric's book. In fact, he's been criticized for taking liberties with his work because it reads so much like a novel. People are like, That can't be true. That can't be and he claims that all of his stuff. Everything he writes is based on a primary source document, but it literally reads like a mini series. And what is also quite clever. It's, it goes dives down into a very specific time period one year, so it's about the Blitz. When Churchill first year he took power from 1940 to 1941. And the book uses The public source documents intelligent report diaries. And yeah, it's it's really the focus is on Churchill's role in in all this. So, David, what do you think? I agree with you? And I don't know if I agree with that criticism of him. I was just looking when you're saying that, like his just somebody like saying that can't possibly be true. Well, yeah, not not not actually. I don't think because if you look at the sources in the bibliography very well, source pages. Yeah, it's a 500 page book and sources. But yeah, I thought it was, it was really good. And I've never read a book kind of that style that's historically factually based. But that writing style, like you said, it's really engaging. Yeah. And the actual story, I think I know a lot about that history, like all Yes. But he showed us sides of it both on the British and the German side. Yeah. Like I personally found as soon as he got to a chapter about the Germans. I know, I was like, ah, right on, because every one of those chapters was just like, stuff I never knew before. Well, and also, just from the age that you and I are, like, we always were taught Russians and Germans are bad, like, you know, just like an end here to see people that, you know, are maybe trapped in a world that they can't do anything about, or in some cases. Trying to what was the guy? Who left? Yeah, that's amazing. I didn't know about that. Well, I knew I knew the story. But I never knew the depth of that in the background. He provided there. It was fascinating to tell people what he did, as well. Yeah, I mean, and it's just one instance, where you hear about parts of the story that you didn't appreciate, like I didn't appreciate, and I'll get into the s part. But I didn't get how the Germans really thought they were like, they were a couple of weeks away from ending Britain. Like they really and I didn't know that either. I didn't know that. And it got to the point with not dia but Dunkirk. Yeah, Dunkirk that they had been kicking the British but so bad with the expeditionary force? Yeah, that Hitler said, You know what? Air Force, you guys can finish them off? And Gordon said, yeah, yeah, we'll finish them off. So he took all these tanks out and took them out east to get ready for the Russians. So that's how the British escaped. And also their whole thing was air if they had any land or sea forces, you know, could be until you're so that was fasting. I never had known extent. And then Rudolph has story was fascinating because he was nominally the second in control for Nazi Germany. But he was a bit of a crazy guy. And he actually flew to Scotland because he thought he could rendezvous with the Scottish air risk, simply sympathetic with the Nazis, right? And it was such a ham hocked plan, like he basically just hopped in a plane and flew until you would be able to hunt it down. Anyways, ended in disaster. Yeah, he flew. He flew with with, you know, no flight plan, I don't think oh, just gets on the plane. And Scotland, and he survives it. Barely. Yeah. And then his taken prisoner, I assume. Yeah. So. But what did you think about Churchill and what he's trying to say about Churchill? I mean, what they, what I've wanted to talk, we were right. Before we went on air, we were discussing about what does the splendid and the vile mean? And what I thought it meant was Churchill himself, because he's kind of gross, or very gross, like he's naked in the bathtub, and probably not someone you want to see naked in the bathtub. And while he's doing, you know, his minutes with people around him, he but he really, almost is portrayed as the only person who could have done this. That's how I feel that he's saying what he's saying. I agree. Like, I think that's what he's trying to say. Like, the way it reads is if it hadn't been for Churchill, it might be different. And he was such a, it might be the king the kingdom. But yeah, I agree. I mean, it just seemed like he's, he's just saying that this real, eccentric, narcissistic, drunk guy with a really weird work pattern was just the right man at the right very specific time for this situation. But it was surrounded by Bedlam to right. Yeah. Totally, totally crazy. And then the one thing that also makes it very interesting for those of you that, you know, aren't sure whether you'd want to read this as he gets into all kinds of details about his crazy family. Yeah. And you know, they're all hanging out at this beautiful state called Chequers in the country. While you know, bombs are dropping and having dinner parties and his son has a tool, and they don't know what to do about him. And, you know, just crazy, kind of salacious details that make it kind of gossipy and good when I read this. So I read this a couple of months ago when Boris Johnson was getting kicked out of power in Britain and being taken. And they were going to Britain lose trust and all that, too, for a couple of weeks. And I found that so interesting, because it was all about, you know, basically him breaking all the COVID protocols and party gate, right, number 10. But when you read this book, you know, you realize the power of the media now versus then like these guys, like you were saying, he gets into really interesting detail about people like the citizens of London, right, the horrific things, and parts he never really knew before. I thought he did such a good job of that. When he talks about like, the right rations they live under and like, they get like half a bottle of sherry a month, or something like that. But then these parties at Chequers. They're just lighting it up till like three, four in the morning every weekend. Yeah. And it's just like nowadays, imagine the hue and cry or something like that. But it was just two parallel worlds, wasn't it? Well, and Jeff and I often discussed like, do you need to be to be a world leader? Do you also need to have an amazing personal life? And because we will talk about Clinton that way? And Jeff says doesn't matter. And I say it does. Well, though, do you think that Churchill supports your case? No. But he he was no one thing I don't know if you one person that kind of is plays a big role in this book is Pamela, who was married to Randolph Churchill. And it's really interesting. So she was this very, very young, beautiful. Yeah. And she is they basically they say in the book, she's sleeping her way to the top, and she probably wouldn't have had, I think, Randolph Churchill, Churchill didn't have a lot of options. Totally, but because of who he was, because on his own, he probably wouldn't have married well, yeah, he's a Churchill. He was the she was the third woman he had asked to marry. Right. So she was number three. And she was like, I'm going for this because I think she had a bit of a Yeah, so she had a bit of a rough. I think her life. I don't remember her background, but she did not come from an aristocratic background. I don't think I'm and anyway, so she marries him. And then she ends up playing actually a role. She has an affair with a key us kind of figure, I think that comes over to negotiate with Churchill. Anyway. She keeps going on and on. And I remember her well, because she ends up eventually marrying. Yes, and she was a huge socialite in the United States and a big political activist. And I just remember her with this big helmet hair, and you read about her throwing these parties, but yet, then when you hear about how she started, that's not the image. I couldn't agree more. I couldn't believe it that I found that kind of shocking, cuz she looks like Nancy Reagan, like the way she presents. But I guess she was a real actor. And this is what the book saying. Like, it's not me, but they say she was like a real knockout. Yeah. And when she was like, 18, lists, this dude was like, 31, alcoholic, overweight, random. Right. So and to give you a sense, what a piece of work he was. So 90, he was a member of Parliament from 1940. To 1945. Yeah, in 1945. Right. His dad just won the war and a safe conservative seat. He lost the seat. Oh, my God. But a little about more about Churchill. What what do you think specifically? I mean, they basically make it sound that it was his, well, first of all, it was his ability to, to kind of massage the Americans. So he really had to butter them up, which would have been hard. Yeah. And then also, I don't know, I think they make it sound like it's the speeches that he gave on the radio. Is that Yeah, that was the key and the Russian and, and the Americans were listening to them. And also the Germans were listening and it became, I read that some the Germans would get in trouble or they would get whatever, like, sent to prison or something if they were caught listening. Yeah, he was such a good, so good. Yeah, probably worried. I thought it was interesting how he used Lord Beaverbrook. So Lord Beaverbrook was Canadian. He was his minister. are unfair munitions, right? And basically he would put them in there because everyone hated him. But he got things done. So he became his bad cop, right? That's right. And he would keep Beaverbrook, in every like Beaverbrook woods. That's important to have someone like that. Like so he so Churchill would have like distance on some of the real nasty stuff because he was at Beaverbrook was in charge of trying to rebuild this air force. They had no air force, right. And they were about to get in this major air war with the Germans, right? And so they had to build an Air Force out of nothing, right overnight, and Beaverbrook basically just stole by crook and hook from everywhere, including other government departments, right? So all the other government departments hated them. The Air Force hated them. And Churchill would keep them in and he kept wanting to quit. He kept keeping them in and in until the very end, if any yanked him out once he got what he wanted everything. Yeah, yeah, that was an interesting thing. Yeah, he's a he's a he's not afraid. I think he's not afraid to be unliked. I think he's not afraid or he's not afraid to. I don't know. He's, he's weird dude, though, like, is super weird. Like, whenever there's a scene, France is about to fall, okay. And he goes down to France to try to keep them up and working on it. And they're at that chateau. And they're literally like, I don't know, like, 50 miles from the Germans advancing. Yeah, he's with the French government officials. Right. Or, like, Yeah, I think I'm on the clock now. Yeah. And he started getting really upset because they didn't have a bathroom. And he's, he's in his bathrobe. And it gets up. He's got this bathroom. That's peaceful on my bed. So weird. He's always like, naked in his bathroom with like, people surrounding him. I know. That he was, um, yeah, there's laws about that. And yeah, there's laws about that. And one of them was wife. She was kind of one time. Yeah. Yeah. coolest name, though. That's a good, good handle. Well, okay. loveless marriage, like a weird marriage. Right. Like they, you know, there, there wasn't much going on there. How but she was a trusted counselor. To him. I would say he was a very perceptive person. Or maybe she was critical to the whole thing, too. Yeah, I think so. That he that he had that. So we would agree then that you love this book, too? Yeah. Good. Yeah, I would think I know a lot of people or a lot of listeners that I am in touch with have read this book. And if you haven't, it would be a great gift for somebody. And I think it would be great for grandparents. I think it'd be great for spouses, and even if you have a child that reads a book. Actually, my son just picked up the book. Recently. He's 19. But he doesn't really normally read. This is the this is the kind of book that I think could draw someone in. Yeah, to history. Because it's it's a sign sometimes non-readers. Like nonfiction, if it's done very, very well. And this is because it's just I don't know, it's relatable. Yeah. And I think this is a great book. And I was surprised because I had heard this that it was good, but because it deals with such a finite period of time. I thought I'd want more, but I actually liked it like that. Yeah, I agree. Because you get enough. I think, don't you kind of get sick of that dinners at checkers and everything in that. Yeah, it was it was enough. It was the right timing. And then it's amazing though, once Pearl Harbor happens, how often they say, oh, yeah, we're good. We're good. Yeah, we're good. We got the Americans. Okay, so one last thing before we go. I have a book I want to recommend to you. Because I think we talked about the yes, you read the prisoner. This is a new one by Ben McIntyre. So what was it the trader, the prisoner and the trader trader in the spy, the trader in the spy? And then did you read his other book? Anyway, he got a quite a few. He he's one of my favorites. And he is so Ben McIntyre specializes in essentially World War Two around that era, spies in history, and Cold War ones too, and cold war and he has a new book out about the war prison Colditz, which used to be it's in Germany, and it has just a terrible history, and it used to be a castle. And so it played a big role in world war two and then before that, it was kind of thinking the same asylum so I thought that maybe this might be Oh, yeah, for sure. I love Boston. McIntyre is so good. So maybe I'll tell Jill for Christmas. There you go. Bad Are you enchilada recipe? This is going to air after Christmas. But anyway, I thought I thought you might like that. Is there anything else you have on your radar now that you want to read next, are you? Oh, I'm just reading house of dragons. Weren't you reading that last time? No, I was waiting for the show to come out. Oh, okay. No, but I'm now back on to house of dragons. Get started when I then I switched off it. I did. Yeah, maybe. Are you? Is it living up to the hype? It's not as good as the books. Okay. It's basically an anthology of the history of the house of Targaryen. Okay, anyways, I don't want to bore you. With just when is that new miniseries that came out so it takes place a couple of 100 years before the game of thrones as you know it. Oh, great. It's a prequel right now. Okay, HBO, but he wrote a book about it. Oh, we did? Yeah. And that's not when did he write the book? Was it after he finished Game of Thrones, okay. Okay. And it just basically lists out the whole thing. It's good, but it's not as good. Did you write the book before Game of Thrones became a show? would have been? I think, no, it came out while the shows were being released. Okay. All right. Well, thank you so much for returning to the Red Fern. Thank you for having me. Always a pleasure. Okay. Thanks. Bye. Thanks so much to Dave gates for coming back on the podcast. He always has such a great way of finding the fun in history and taking what could be a dry subject and making it making it fun and informative. So we give a big thumbs up to the sponsor in the vial. And if you are a history nerd, or buff, do pick up the white ship. But if you're not, I wouldn't. And just to circle back earlier in the podcast, he was talking about Hager books. And I just want to say that's our local bookstore. And it is a wonderful book store. But sometimes I struggle. I don't know if you guys struggle with this, wanting to support local independent businesses of any kind. But sometimes it's not as convenient. So for example, in this case, I had to in order to book from them, it took longer than I had hoped. And I could have gotten it very quickly if I had or ordered it on Amazon. So I think you know, it's a year and I'm trying to be more patient because I really want to see favorite independent shops for me. But sometimes it can be hard because it's not as convenient. So that's what that was about. So anyway, thanks so much for tuning in. And I will talk to you. Soon