151: The Epstein Fails

18:38This is Matt Rogers from Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bo and Yang. This is Bo and Yang from Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bo and Yang. Okay, we've been talking about QP Mayo for a minute now, Bo, and wow, the feedback we're getting. I mean, so many of y 'all love this stuff. You're stopping us in the street going, I love QP. And if you're thinking, wait, what is QP? Uh, do you not have the internet? It's the OG Japanese mayonnaise. The one with the red cap and the little baby on the bottle. Once you know it, you start seeing it everywhere. People ask what makes it different from basic mayo.

19:11Well, the answer, egg yolks. Kewpie is made with egg yolks only, giving it this incredibly rich umami flavor that elevates everything. Burgers, fries, sandwiches, chicken, noodles. Chefs use it. Restaurants use it. People who really love food and flavor use it. Whatever you're eating, Kewpie it. So if you haven't tried Kewpie yet, find the bottle with the red cap and see what everyone's talking about. You'll understand. Kewpie, the original Japanese mayonnaise.

19:42Jane Mackenzie:Hey, it's your ceiling vent, so I'm dripping. Could be the rain, could be the upstairs bathroom. Yikes. You could hire the guy your neighbor recommended, but I'm pretty sure that's just his cousin. Do we know if he's licensed or does he just own a ladder? Listen to your home. Go with Thumbtack. Upload a photo or voice note, and we'll diagnose your project and match you with the right pro for the job. Thumbtack. We know homes. Hire the right pro today. Right. Now we come to part two of this week's podcast. Helen has regenerated as Jane McKenzie. Hello. Jane will be regenerating back into Helen for the final part of today's show.

20:22There's a detailed plan behind it. It's all working out. But before that, just before we come to Jane, there is a little victory for the eye we have to announce. This is hugely exciting. I'm just going to read a line to you, and then I'm going to tell you who said it. You shouldn't need a driveway to own an electric car. My plan for change is boosting funding for infrastructure to allow cables to run safely beneath pavements. That's cheaper at-home charging, putting money back in the pockets of working people. Not my words. Those of the Prime Minister, Keir Starmer. The gully campaign has worked.

20:52They've announced funding for cross-pavement charging. So there we go. Well done. Congratulations. Right. Brief, cheerful interlude over. Now we come to more gloom. Jane, what's another victory for the R? Jane's taken out a bishop. I pitched this to Jane as how to get a bishop defrocked or whatever the process is. But you're denying all knowledge and all responsibility. As I understand it, by the time I hit the shops, the trustees of the Church of Wales had already put wheels in motion to announce they had no confidence in the bishop. So he was already on the way out. So we're dealing with a story about the church in Wales.

21:37And that's not the Church of Wales. We'll get into that. But this is about the Archbishop of Wales, Andrew John, who also doubled as the bishop for Bangor, who has taken early retirement. He has defrocked himself. So what we first heard about was, in particular, the sort of financial allegations. Although, I mean, these were also cathedral staff were going on lovely foreign jollies quite expensively using money that wasn't even the cathedrals. So they were making use of diocese funds to take cathedral staff on lovely jollies. They also spent an enormous amount of money on designer furniture for the cathedral.

22:21Designer pews. Correct. And I think designer lecterns and altars. But yes, they got some very beautiful stackable pews. They did have very beautiful pews before. This is where Jane also comes in as the nooks and corners correspondent. When you say a large amount of money. Is it£400 ,000? Yes, that's when, as editor, I thought, this is a church. They don't have£400 ,000. How are they spending this on pews? And, you know, the people of Bangor have some other needs rather than some brand new uncomfortable seats. You know, there are issues of poverty in the area that maybe the church could be helping with.

23:10So it was£20 ,000 on the foreign jollies, the trips to Rome and Dublin, which feel like more Catholic destinations than Church in Wales. Anyway,£400 ,000 on designer pews. You said this was diocese money. What does that mean? Where does that come from? So these bodies are separate charities. The diocese is responsible for things across the whole area. So all the parish churches, any church schools, anything like that is the diocese. the cathedral and its own specific employees separate fund separate money but this was diocese money being spent on cathedral stuff and that's money that's been donated by members of the public effectively yes and sort of the long-term money that the church has for the ways in which it owns things but it's yes okay so so they were already spending like like drunken sailors basically well in fact one of the other financial issues that came out during the the process of looking into all of this when the um church sent people to have a look at their accounts was the uncontrolled spending on refreshments after services ah we're not talking tea and coffee we are not or a glass of sherry no it was considerably more than that as as a sort of later emerged and this was the cathedral priests the the adult members of the choir were quaffing considerably after services and performances and that brings us on the thing i really wanted to ask you about jane was the cathedral octoberfest event can you just run past us how that came to be so i believe this was in 2022 uh they decided to um bring back the tradition that the church blesses the beer for the harvest festival and therefore this is going okay had a um a very drink focused event uh focused around the cathedral so a lot of cathedral people were involved in that i suppose the idea was that it would get involved with the community and be a part of it and try and like a pet service or whatever but this turned into a a drinking culture absolutely i mean i I was slightly shocked when I was reading the details to see that they were on, was it Good Friday?

25:34Yes. Celebrating by having the seven last shots of Christ. Yes. Which is a drink for every... Which gospel's that from, is it, John? As a layman, that strikes me as quite extreme. I mean, there was a tradition of bishops rather like Mervyn Stockwood, who was a rather famous bishop who used to celebrate some of the religious festivals with champagne, saying, well, if it's good enough for everyone else, it's good enough for our Lord. And there was a sort of, there was a wry observance to the slight excess. But this one was just straightforward, just boozing. Who was controlling this? It sounds like nobody.

26:15Who should have been? So because the Bishop of Bangor is also serving as the Bishop of Wales, the day-to-day management of the cathedral is passed on to a sub-dean. The sub-dean was suspended last year and spent much of 2024 on garden leave and has since left. While all this was gradually, little bit by little bit, trickling out in terms of they had an inspection for their financial issues and they had an inspection for their safeguarding issues. So it became clear that he was kind of the the head man during all of this process but the real head is still the archbishop he's still the top man right and one of the things that you've found out since this story started as it were is that it has led to allegations of sexual assault yes and that they had been reported and dealt with internally so the archbishop and bishop yes has gone yes he what he has taken retirement unexpectedly soon, earlier than planned, just as the trustees of the Church in Wales were sort of setting out their lack of confidence in the church leadership.

27:31Is it like the Church of England? Do we just have no one in charge for a while and see what happens? This is like the time when Belgium had no government for about two years, and it turned out everything sort of just kept going and it was fine. Yes, I think there'll be bishop selection proceedings, but it's very hard to recruit bishops these days. It's quite difficult to find people willing to do the job, willing to have their own safeguarding records raked over. Where are we at with recruiting another Archbishop of Canterbury? Because it's a long time since the last one stepped down now, isn't it?

28:05Yes, it's a much longer process than selecting a new pope, that's for sure. A Crown Commission has been formed. Even that was quite difficult. people on it kept having to step down. So it has to represent the Canterbury Diocese, has to represent the Church of England, it has to represent the wider Anglican Communion. And in each case, finding people who could fill all those roles has been quite complicated. It's also trying to sort of find a commission that will be able to come up with a candidate that fits the whole Anglican communion. So for instance, one of the representatives of the wider world, the person representing Africa, is a Ghanaian woman.

28:55She's therefore got to represent a number of countries in Africa that she has ordained, but that wouldn't ordain her, and that certainly wouldn't consecrate a woman bishop. So if they were to choose a woman archbishop, she's put in quite an interesting position. Is there a timetable for it, though? I mean, do they have a deadline? Well, several months late in even getting the commission together. So whatever deadlines were set in the first place. And this commission will eventually recommend one candidate to Downing Street, to the King? Two, isn't it? And then they choose from two, the Prime Minister traditionally.

29:28I think they've narrowed it down now to one, because the story always was, wasn't it, when George Kerry was made Archbishop of Canterbury, that Mrs Thatcher had been presented with the one that everyone in the church could agree on, and then thought, oh, we've got to do two. I had no hope of George Kerry, and she picked him instead. It's quite high risk, especially given how many different issues could schism the entire Anglican church. Is that an active word now, to schism? Well, iReaders have already provided a set of alternatives, starting with Russell Brand going through Bear Grylls. We are trying to help.

30:04And the fact that they're slow, I would say, is not our fault. There have been so many stories recently about bishops taking retirement or defrocking themselves or being defrocked for all this. Why is it? Is the church uniquely bedeviled by these safeguarding issues? No, they can't be. I mean, you were saying, Jane, there are schools which exist and they have, you know, they might have potential problems, but they have processes in place to deal with it. What's missing here? I mean, the church has been spectacularly slow to grapple with the fact that it needs to deal with safeguarding. That it has long been a place where there are a lot of vulnerable people who are receiving help from the church, but are therefore sort of in close contact with people who have their own interests.

30:51People who might turn out to be abusers, basically. Absolutely, yes. You know, there are plenty of other areas of life that, I don't know, society that have managed to get on top of this earlier. I mean, sports, for instance, terrible culture of abuse in sports coaching for decades. But the amount of training for safeguarding they now put in is enormous. And that was across the board. That was gymnastics for girls and football very heavily for boys. And one of the allegations that's been made is people being incredibly inappropriate in front of young members of the choir in Bangor Cathedral. Yeah.

31:29The choir has little choristers as well as adult choristers. And they would be around at the end of services when everybody was heading off. Getting drunk in the last straws. Yes, making inappropriate and lewd comments. Good Lord. So is it a developing story? I mean, it sounds like it'll be developing for the next few hundred years at this, right? Yes. Can I just add an apology here? The story that Jane ran, I inadvertently illustrated with the Church of England logo, leading to our readers accusing me of being a disestablishmentarianist, which I am not. I realise that the church in Wales is a disestablished church.

32:14It is part of the Anglican Communion, but it is not the Church of England. So could I apologise? I think we were all waiting for you to say that. Is that the first example of anti-disestablishmentarianism on the podcast? I think it's on a double word score as well, so it can do really well. This is Matt Rogers from Lost Culture East, thus with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang. This is Bowen Yang from Lost Culture Research with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang. Okay, we've been talking about Kewpie mayo for a minute now, Bow, and wow, the feedback we're getting. I mean, so many of y 'all love this stuff. You're stopping us in the street going, I love Kewpie.

32:52And if you're thinking, wait, what is Kewpie? Uh, do you not have the internet? It's the OG Japanese mayonnaise. The one with the red cap and the little baby on the bottle. Once you know it, you start seeing it everywhere. People ask what makes it different from basic mayo. Well, the answer, egg yolks. Kewpie is made with egg yolks only, giving it this incredibly rich umami flavor that elevates everything. Burgers, fries, sandwiches, chicken, noodles. Chefs use it. Restaurants use it. People who really love food and flavor use it. Whatever you're eating, Kewpie it. So if you haven't tried Kewpie yet, find the bottle with the red cap and see what everyone's talking about.

33:33You'll understand. Kewpie, the original Japanese mayonnaise.

33:38Jane Mackenzie:Hey, it's your ceiling vent, so I'm dripping. Could be the rain, could be the upstairs bathroom. Yikes. You could hire the guy your neighbor recommended, but I'm pretty sure that's just his cousin. Do we know if he's licensed, or does he just stone a ladder? Listen to your home. Go with Thumbtack. Upload a photo or voice note, and we'll diagnose your project and match you with the right pro for the job. Thumbtack. We know homes. Hire the right pro today. Right, for the final section of this week's episode, we are going to have a summer quiz. Yay! Yeah! So one of the chief stories that's been across the British press, certainly in the last fortnight, is that of the Salt Path.

34:22This is the memoir, or is it, by Raina Wynn, about the journey that her and her husband took across a sort of coastal path, and it's about losing your home, it's about, you know, terrible illness, But there have been a number of claims made in The Observer that the couple lost their home due basically indirectly to financial fraud. And there have even been question marks raised over the diagnosis that Raynaud's husband received. So I should say the couple have vigorously denied all this and they've claimed it's grotesquely unfair and highly misleading. There have been follow up stories in The Observer making further claims and bringing further evidence to light.

35:00So I'm sure there's plenty more to come out on this one. But I thought it might be a jumping off point for a quiz. Always a happy day. Not about the salt path itself, but about other times that memoirs have been revealed to maybe not be 100 % scrupulously accurate slash have been exposed as containing a few little fibs here and there. So, ready?

35:25Jane Mackenzie:Can I just say that I want you to, I think we should all do it. You know how Timothy and her husband is rebranded as Moth? I think on your rebrand, you'd have to just be...

35:36Jane Mackenzie:Of all the details I've read about them, there are many insane details about the story. The idea of being a Timothy who becomes a moth. That was the thing that irritated me the most. They were both called Walker, and they didn't use that for their book about walking. Sorry. Let's kick off the quiz about memoirs and the errors they may contain with everyone's favourite. So the Sunday Times printed the Hitler Diaries in 1983. I knew this would be a specialist subject for you, and I just had a hunch. But according to the German newspapers, which bought them and printed them first before the Sunday Times did, what was their origin?

36:07This is multiple choice, this quiz. Is it A, it was stashed with all Hitler's things in a transport plane in the final days of the war, which then crashed near the Czech border? Is it B, Hitler had sent a copy to his publisher within the last days in the bunker, thinking that a tell-all memoir might turn things round?

36:27Or is it C It was stolen by Eva Braun Who kept it in a locked safety deposit box In Switzerland Which of those was the story that was given

36:35Jane Mackenzie:Well Eva Braun also died in the bunker She did but had she sent it in advance Oh okay so I'm going to go with The crashed plane I know this one sorry That's one point for everybody there I love the idea that Hitler thought he might go on a rehab tour Maybe go on Oprah make some moving TikToks. Instead of calling it spare, it would be hair.

36:59Sweet pear. And this is the interesting thing. This sort of comes back to what you were saying earlier, Helen, about there was a conspiracy, you know, to keep Epstein out of prison. So there was a plane. It was shot down. Ten planes had flown out of Berlin with lots of stuff on board. By the time the SS and the local police got there to lock down the site of the plane crash, lots of things had gone missing already. So it's one of those perfect opportunities For someone to say, ah yes, this was in the wreckage Well it was thanked by a guy who used to churn out all of this stuff I mean he really did know his Nazi history And knew how to make it seem authentic and convincing We come to question two of the quid Good, excellent So the Hitler Diaries were printed With the right kind of ink They were written in a period appropriate notebook And in a heavy gothic script Which you wouldn't have put past Hitler In fact they were by East German forger Konrad Kujau Kujal went to prison for the fraud What did he do after coming out?

37:54Was it A He apologised and set up a charity Helping repatriate stolen Nazi goods Was it B He got a job as a fact checker at the New Yorker Or was it C He set up an art gallery Selling fake paintings It's C

38:10Jane Mackenzie:I like the idea that he did it in a gothic script Like one of those sort of Be a Keller kind of menu fonts It would have taken ages to write anything But the Sunday Times had employed as their fact checker the very famous historian, Lord Dacre, and who later transpired couldn't actually read this script. Not Paul Dacre. Not Paul Dacre, which is a great... Hugh Trevor Roper, originally. Hugh Trevor Roper, he became Lord Dacre, and then he changed his mind at the last minute, said, I'm not sure these are real, and Rupert Murdoch said, fuck Dacre. and history, largely because of people like ourselves, thinks he was shouting at Paul Dakin.

38:53But actually, he was showing his regard for truth and accuracy in the face of a deadline which was about to make the Sunday Times a shed load of money, which it did. Gosh.

39:05Jane Mackenzie:I wonder if they regret it now. I wonder if they now think that the credibility hit was kind of offset by the mega box. Well, just to polish off that question, Kujo opened a gallery in Stuttgart and he sold forgeries by people like Salvador Dali and Juan Miro, but he did put his name on them, although he was later done for forging driving licenses and fined. Last one on the Hitler Diaries. Why should the Sunday Times have been particularly ready and prepared to spot the hoax? Was it A, the editor of the paper at the time was actually a fluent German speaker? Was it B, the diaries were written on the same kind of paper that the Sunday Times itself was printed on?

39:41Or was it C, they had already fallen for and purchased the Mussolini Diaries.

39:47Jane Mackenzie:Is that Andrew Neil was editor at the time? No, it wasn't for him. It was Frank Giles. Frank Giles. Later made Emeritus editor. I famously asked Rupert Murdoch, what does it mean? And he said, the E means you're out and Emeritus means you deserved it. Brilliant. That's an absolute banger from Rupert Murdoch there. Do you think he had that one pre-prepared? Oh, yeah. Written that in Gothic script. It was an incredibly funny period. to observe a national newspaper just completely getting egg all over its face in all sorts of avoidable ways. Robert Harris wrote a very funny book about it afterwards.

40:24I did ask a question several minutes ago. I think it's German.

40:27Jane Mackenzie:I think it's short for Frankenfurter Giles. You think Frank Giles spoke German? Frank Giles' wife was German. OK. I'm afraid it's C. It's the Mussolini diaries. In 1968, Thompson, the publisher, had spent£100 ,000, a huge amount of money at the time, on 30 volumes of Mussolini's diaries. And they had reasoned partly that there are 30 books of these things. They cannot be forged. In fact, that was a clever thing by the fore, just to write 30 volumes of diaries. It was an Italian mother and daughter who had just conned them. And the editor at the time, Harold Evans, made clear that he had not known about Thompson buying those.

41:02He was incredibly irritated at the suggestion that he had fallen for them. Right. But they didn't publish them. No, they did not. They did not see the light of day. The Hitler Diaries themselves are quite tedious They're largely just sort of lists of appointments and things Because your forger by that point Knew better than to put anything too sensational In them because people would think well these must be fake Right we now move away From the Hitler Diaries and we're going to other Memoirs now What was the biggest claim Of author Misha Defoneska who wrote a memoir about Her time during the Second World War Which turned out to be fabricated So was the claim A

41:39Jane Mackenzie:during North Africa she had been romantically involved with both Montgomery and Rommel was it B, she had invented the atomic weapon two years before America did or was it C she had crossed Europe on foot and been raised by a wolf pack along the way. She was raised by wolves. I know this because I did a whole yeah, I did a whole piece that was about people who, in 2020's peak social justice period, people who faked social justice outrages and it got me reading about all the Holocaust fakers. And there's an incredible story of a guy who claimed as a kid he'd been in Auschwitz, met up and did a piano concert in LA many years ago with another woman who claimed that she'd also survived Auschwitz.

42:20Jane Mackenzie:And they were both fraudulent. And I love to imagine the moment where they had to be like, well, I know I'm, it's like high stakes poker. I know I'm bluffing. Are you bluffing? Wasn't it terrible in Auschwitz? I remember very well. Yeah. And she'd also, it later turned out, at some point, claimed that she was a victim of the satanic panic as well. I mean, not only was she at a school in Brussels in 1943, she wasn't even Jewish. So she had previously won$32 million from her publisher due to a copyright claim or case. Anyway, she was then ordered to pay all of that money back. And the wolves? Did they get anything?

42:51Nothing for the wolves, I'm afraid. Right. Next up, one of the biggest literary hoaxes of the 1950s was Tuesday Lobsang Ramper, supposedly a top-ranking Tibetan lama. who did Ramper turn out to be in the end? Was it A, a housewife from Stoke who had a lot of bingo debts she needed to pay off? Was it B, a surgical trust manufacturer from Devon? Or was it C, a disgraced deacon from Ayrshire?

43:22Jane Mackenzie:I'm so going deacon. I don't know why. It's got to be deacon because the other two are such Andrew Hunter Murray comedy lines. That's the problem. You made a rocker room back there. Ian? I would always go for the vicar in a mean way. Oh, dear. It was the unemployed surgical trustmaker from Devon. No! Yes! Cyril Hoskins. Born Cyril Hoskins. Later, Tuesday, Lobsang Ramper wrote an incredibly successful memoir about being a Tibetan lama. It turned out he didn't speak Tibetan. He'd never owned a passport. He hadn't battled the Japanese Air Force during the war. I mean, none of it was true. Absolutely none of it was true.

43:58He came up with the explanation that he had been born in the body of Cyril Hoskins. Trustmaker. But while leaning over out of a tree trying to photograph an owl, he'd had a fall. And at that point, the soul of Tuesday Lopsang Rampa had entered his body. And this is the reincarnation theory, but just taken to have happened during a life. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

44:22Jane Mackenzie:I absolutely respect that. Have you seen that story about the Dalai Lama and the Chinese Communist Party want to control who he reincarnates as? Yeah. Incredible story of a collision of religion past central bureaucracy. Absolutely. Rampa wrote 18 more books in his character as Tuesday Lobsang Rampa before moving to Ireland for tax reasons I love that I love that when we do a fraud and then they're outed as a fraud and they carry on doing it and people just sort of decide it was sort of spiritually true fascinating and this is a little bonus question on Rampa but which of his pets did he claim had dictated his book Living with the Llama was it A his frog, B his dog or C his cat D his llama Yeah, David's Lama.

45:02I can't believe he even put a Lama in there. Who wrote this?

45:08Jane Mackenzie:Frog, cat or dog? Yep. One of them dictated the book Living with the Lama to him. Cat. Ian's got it. Yeah. Point to Ian. It was Mrs. Fifi. Just cat people. We could spot each other because they have nine lives. It was Mrs. Fifi Greywhiskers who dictated the book to him. Was that really the name? That was really the name. She was born Cyril Hoskins. She dictated it to him in Siamese cat language And then he translated it into idiomatic English I think we say Thai now Other books included accounts of his visit to Venus The hidden time capsule left by the Atlantis inhabitants And won 21 years after his death To an underground realm under the Himalayas So is there something in it after all?

45:52Next up It makes a lot of the MAGA stuff look pity themed doesn't it? Right. Naked Came the Stranger was a 1969 hit. Trashy, full of sex, and supposedly written by Penelope Ash. It was all about the erotic adventures of a radio host. But who was the real writer? Was it A, 12 nuns from Wyoming? Was it B, 24 writers from a US newspaper? Or was it C, 200 students from Yale? I'm still stuck on Erotic Adventures of a Radio Host. Of all the sexy professions. She leaves the studio. She does a lot of roving reporting. And that is something with the traffic. Sorry there you go

46:29Jane Mackenzie:Unfortunately I've just got derailed by the fact that Didn't Alistair Campbell have a career writing erotica at one point Did he? He did yes He was the bagpiping buccaneer or something All about his adventures with his bagpipes on the Côte d 'Azur Gosh the rest is filth This I'd like to hear I'm going to say 200 students But only because my mind is on Alistair Campbell's erotic fiction Any more for any more? The others were the nuns or the reporters Nuns Longer reporters Point for Adam, simply by default So 25 journalists They were led by a hack called Mike McGrady Mike McGrady was very irritated about the state of American literary culture, he basically thought Oh you can sell anything as long as it's got enough sex in it He set out to prove the point Put together a collective of writers Some of the chapters had to be re-edited Because the originals were too well written And it sold Hundreds of thousands of copies Is the depressing fact Next up I Libertine Was a raunchy memoir By the pseudonymous Frederick R Ewing The book was banned In Boston But requested By multiple bookshops Across the USA What was especially Impressive about this hoax Was it A The book's editor Was unwittingly Defrauded by his own wife Was it B There was no such book at all It didn't exist Or was it C The entire book Was a palindrome I'm going palindrome It's just too A lot of effort to get it You're faking it as well though isn't it I'm libertine I mean the title isn't well no but the whole book you see start to finish yes but then the last words would have to be

48:08don't pick that option then I'm ruling out a palindrome

48:10Jane Mackenzie:I think maybe it didn't exist let's defect to that one it didn't exist I'm afraid you'd already given the answer so this was an American radio host called Gene Shepard he was annoyed at the system because book charts were done A by sales but also by what was requested In bookshops so he said to all His listeners right let's all go and request The book iLibertine And thousands of people across the states went into their Local bookshop and said I'd like to buy iLibertine Please it's out soon and it got Onto the New York Times bestseller list as a Result of that yeah Tell me he actually then wrote iLibertine Yes the book was then commissioned and written Like fly fishing By J.R.

48:47Hartley which became a book After being in a beta advert Exactly how publishing works. Right, two more. In 1998, an illustrated biography of New York artist Nat Tate was published, full of interesting photos and details of his life. Tate was, in fact, a completely fabricated artist, despite the fact one of his paintings had been sold at auction to Ant from Ant and Dec. So Tate was completely... It took a turn. I know. Tate was fictional. Which Big Beast author was behind the fraud? Was it Wilbur Smith, William Boyd, or Salman Rushdie? It was William Boyd. It was. It was Boyd. And David Bowie was in on it, wasn't he?

49:23David Bowie, who we haven't said, was at the launch party and, you know, gave quotes. Yeah, and claimed to know this artist and really admire his work.

49:30Jane Mackenzie:This has completely passed me by. This must predate me. When time was... When did this happen? Late 90s. Oh, I was too busy being young and cool and such. Oasis. It was a very, very good scam. Yeah. And an inordinate amount of detail, which, like with the Hitler forger, you just thought no one could have made up all this stuff about this bloke's life. And they think they did because they knew you lot would look it all up. Yeah. And the really nice thing is William Boyd, one of one of the friends of Nat Tate pictured in the book was Logan Mount Stewart, who was the actually fictional person that Boyd then wrote his any human heart about, you know, very detailed.

50:12but like fictional biography of a 20th century life. Yeah, he should have done it once, so he did it again. Finally, this year's summer reading list in the Chicago Sun-Times and the Philadelphia Inquirer included completely fabricated books by real authors, including Isabel Allende's Tidewater Dreams, not a real book, and Percival Everett's The Rainmakers, also not a real book. Who had made up the fake titles? Was it A, a recently fired sub-editor? Was it B, the editor's boyfriend who got drunk and hacked the system? Was it C? Nobody at all.

50:44Jane Mackenzie:It was nobody at all. It was an AI. Well done! It was AI. Yeah, they hallucinated it, and some guy just plugged it in, and he was some random freelancer. A random freelancer said it was a huge mistake on my part, and these books had been kind of AI-generated and just ended up on the books to read the summer list. Which, I think, Percival Everett's The Rainmaker sounds like a brilliant book from the synopsis, but it does not exist. There's a John Grisham book called The Rainmaker, which presumably if you had that rewritten like he did Huckleberry Finn if he rewrites John Grisham's Rainmaker that will one day exist.

51:15Jane Mackenzie:Yeah, I'd buy that. I was hoping for JT Leroy. That's my favourite literary fraud. Do you remember that? Two women cooked up this entire author and they pretended to be a sort of androgynous guy and it just seemed to involve one of them wearing a hat. Yeah, the questions are amazingly unconvincing. Yeah, it's just a guy in a hat or a woman in a hat. Right, scores at the end. In third place, Adam, I'm afraid. in second place Helen first place Ian it was the Hitler Diaries purely on age anyway there you go there's your quiz about the greatest and least true memoirs of all time hope you enjoyed playing along at home hope you enjoyed this whole episode of page 94 we'll be back in a fortnight with another one until then why not go and buy the magazine private-i.co.uk thanks to Ian Helen Adam and Jane of course and thank you to Matt Hill of Rethink Audio as always for producing Bye for now.

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