Transcript
A (0:01)
In a world where January is supposed to be boring, one staple of the holidays refuses to end the great deals At Verizon, the joy just keeps on coming. Right now, you can save on four new phones and four lines. Critics agree it's the deal that keeps on giving. Come into Verizon and save on four new phones and four lines on unlimited. Welcome. Additional terms apply@seeverizon.com for details.
B (0:30)
Hey, it's Raj and Noah, and we're back with a new season of Am I Doing It Wrong? The show that explores the all too human anxieties we have about trying to get our lives right.
C (0:38)
Because we're still doing a lot of stuff wrong.
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But who isn't? That's why each week we're talking about the topics that we could all use a little helping hit with. Whether it's making new friends as an adult, managing our emotions, or even dreaming.
C (0:49)
We'Ll be talking to experts in their fields who are definitely doing things right. So the rest of us can be a bit wiser and a lot better equipped to handle whatever life throws at us.
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Subscribe now and listen to new episodes of Am I Doing It Wrong? Dropping every Thursday starting January 1st, wherever you get your podcasts.
C (1:05)
And for the first time ever, we're gonna have full video episodes on YouTube. Because as long as there are things to get wrong, we're gonna be right here to help you do them better.
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Love y'. All. It's Tuesday, January 30, 1858, sometime between 9 and 10 at night. We're in the historic market town of Grantham in Lincolnshire, where a carriage has just pulled up outside the George Inn. A pair of weary travellers climb down from the vehicle and make their way through a grand stone archway to a set of oak doors. Inside, it's all leather bucket chairs and oil lamps on the tables. An open fire crackles at one end of the room, just what the doctor ordered. The two men take a seat at a little wooden table. Before long, they're tucking into their evening meal, washed down with plentiful quantities of warm. Alex, an elderly teacher on the next table, knocks back several glasses of brandy, murmuring about one of her more truculent students. The men leave her to her ramblings. They've been on the road all day, covering a distance of well over a hundred miles. They must be exhausted, but at least they haven't been recognized, because these days many one of the two is something of a celebrity. He goes by the alias Boz, while his friend is known as Fizz. In Reality. They're Charles Dickens and his illustrator, Hablet Brown. Their last collaboration, the Pickwick Papers, catapulted the young Dickens to literary stardom. Now they're up north researching their next one, a novel about boarding schools in the north of England. The book's hero will soon become a household name himself, Nicholas Nickleby. A few months later, when Dickens comes to write one of the novel's early serial installments, he'll remember this particular establishment immortalizing the George in in print as one of the best inns in England. Sadly, Nicholas Nickleby, unlike Dickens, never gets to enjoy the amenities at the George. In chapter five of the novel, he and his traveling companions pass right by it without so much as stepping inside for a glass of port. It's actually at another pub 10 miles up the road that Nicholas and the others stop after their coach overturns nearby. It's here, in this rather less salubrious watering hole while they wait for a replacement vehicle to arrive, that Nicholas hears the tale of the Baron of Grogswik. The story concerns a medieval German aristocrat who marries in haste, repents at leisure, and at his darkest hour is visited by a mysterious spectre. The Baron story is told by a merry faced gentleman who has been indulging in a bowl of hot punch, which may provide some context for the air of casual misogyny that surrounds his description of the Baron's wife. But whatever the gender politics of this boozy gentleman's story, what cannot be denied is that the Baron of Grogswig's encounter with the supernatural is one of the strangest ghost stories that Charles Dickens ever, ever wrote. I'm David Suchet from the Noiser Podcast Network. This is Charles Dickens Ghost Stories. And this is the Baron of Grogswick. The Baron von Code Vidaut of Grogzwig in Germany was as likely a young baron as you would wish to see. Now, I needn't say that he lived in a castle, because that's of course neither need I say that he lived in an old castle. For what German baron ever lived in a new one? There were many strange circumstances connected with this venerable building, among which not the least startling and mysterious were that when the wind blew, it rumbled in the chimneys or even howled among the trees in the neighbouring forest, and that when the moon shone, she found her way through certain small loopholes in the wall and actually made some parts of the wide halls and galleries quite light, while she left others in gloomy shadow. I believe that one of the Baron's ancestors, being short of money, had inserted a dagger in a gentleman who called one night to ask his way. And it was supposed that these miraculous occurrences took place in consequence. And yet I hardly know how that could have been either. Because the baron's ancestor, who was an amiable man, felt very sorry afterwards for having been so rash. And laying violent hands upon a quantity of stone and timber which belonged to a weaker baron, Built a chapel as an apology. And so took a receipt from heaven in full of all demands. Talking of the baron's ancestor puts me in mind of the baron's great claims to respect on the score of his pedigree. I'm afraid to say I'm not sure how many ancestors the baron had. But I know that he had a great many, more than any other man of his time. And I only wish that he had lived in these latter days so that he might have had more. It's a very hard thing upon the great men of past centuries that they should have come into the world so soon. Because a man who was born three or four hundred years ago. Cannot reasonably be expected to have had as many relations before him As a man who is born now the last man, whoever he is. And he may be a cobbler or some low vulgar dog. For aught we know will have a longer pedigree than the greatest nobleman now alive. And I contend that this is not fair. Well, but the Baron von Koeldvidalt of Grogzwig. He was a fine swarthy fellow with dark hair and large moustachios. Who rode a hunting in clothes of Lincoln green. With russet boots on his feet and a bugle slung over his shoulder like the guard of a long stay. When he blew this bugle, four and 20 other gentlemen of inferior rank, the Lincoln green a little coarser. And russet boots with a little thicker soles turned out directly and away galloped the whole train with spears in their hands like lackadaria railings to hunt down the boars or perhaps encounter a bear. In which latter case the baron killed him first and greased his whiskers with him afterwards. Oh, this was a merry life for the Baron of Grogzwig. And a merrier still for the baron's retainers. Who drank Rhine wine every night till they fell under the table. And then had the bottles on the floor and called for pipes. Never was such jolly, roistering, rollicking, merry making blades as the jovial crew of Grogswig. But the pleasures of the table or the pleasures of under the Table require a little variety, especially when the same five and 20 people sit daily down to the same board to discuss the same subjects and tell the same stories. The baron grew weary and wanted excitement. He took to quarrelling with his gentlemen and tried kicking two or three of them every day after dinner. This was a pleasant change at first, but it became monotonous after a week or so, and the baron felt quite out of sorts and cast about in despair for some new amusement. One night, after a day's sport in which he had outdone Nimrod or Gillingwater and slaughtered another fine bear and brought him home in triumph, the Baron von Coldwithout sat moodily at the head of his table, eyeing the smoky roof of the hall with a discontented aspect. He swallowed huge bompers of wine, but the more he swallowed, the more he frowned. The gentleman, who had been honoured with the dangerous distinction of sitting on his right and left, imitated him to a miracle in the drinking and frowned at each other. I feel. Cried the baron, suddenly, smiting the table with his right hand and twirling his mustache with his left. Filled to the lady of GROGV. The 4 and 20 Lincoln Greens turned pale with the exception of their 4 and 20 noses, which were unchangeable. I said to the lady of Grogswig, repeated the baron, looking round the board, Shouted the Lincoln Greens. And down their 4 and 20 throats went 4 and 20 imperial pints of such rare old hock that they smacked their 8 and 40 lips and winked again. The fair daughter of the Baron von Schwilnenhausen, said Colt, without condescending to explain, we will demand her in marriage of her father ere the sun goes down tomorrow. If he refuses our suit, we will cut off his nose. A hoarse murmur arose from the company. Every man touched first the hilt of his sword and then the tip of his nose with appalling significance. What a pleasant thing filial piety is to contemplate. If the daughter of the Baron von Schwillenhausen had pleaded a preoccupied heart, or fallen at her father's feet and cornered them in salt tears, or only fainted away and complimented the old gentleman in frantic ejaculations, the odds are a hundred to one. But Schwillenhausen castle would have been turned out at a window, or rather the baron turned out at window and the castle demolished. The damsel held her peace, however, when an early messenger bore the request of von Coldwithout next morning and modestly retired to her chamber from the casement of which she watched the coming of the suitor and his retinue. She was no sooner assured that the horseman with the large moustachios was her proffered husband, than she hastened to her father's presence, and expressed her readiness to sacrifice herself to secure his peace. The venerable baron caught his child into his arms, and shed a wink of joy. There was great feasting at the castle that day. Ho ho. The 4 and 20 Lincoln Greens of von Coeld Vidaut exchanged vows of eternal friendship with the 12 Lincoln Greens of von Schwillenhausen, and promised the old baron that they would drink his wine till all was blue, meaning probably until their whole countenances had acquired the same tint as their noses, everybody slapped everybody else's back when the time for parting came, and the Baron von Cold Wittout and his followers rode gaily home.