The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - May 16, 2026


PREVIEW： Chronicles #47 ｜ Royal Flash with Dan Tubb

Topics
Royal Flash novel
Hosted by
Callum Edmunds Carl Benjamin Connor Tomlinson Harry Robinson John Wheatley Joshua Ferme Edward McLaren Elizabeth Heverin
Mentioned
Flashman John James Lola Montez Royal Flash George McDonald Speedy Cut Chronicles Baron Christopher Reeve Superman George MacDonald Fraser John A. Macdonald Malcolm McDowell Richard Lustberg Herr Bismarck Oliver Reed Carl Gustav Speedy Cook John Kelly Mrs James Schornhausen and 9 more
Breakfast With Beau ｜ Friday 15th May 2026 PREVIEW： Epochs #263 ｜ The Life of Henry VIII - Part 1

Episode Stats


Length

29 minutes

Words per minute

166.82

Word count

4,903

Sentence count

348

Harmful content

Misogyny

26

sentences flagged

Toxicity

62

sentences flagged

Hate speech

51

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

The Office's very own scoundrel and man of the world, Dan Whalen ( ) joins us to discuss the second novel in The Flash Saga, Royal Flash, by Walter Mosley. We discuss the history of the Flash novels, what it means to be a Flash fan, why we should see a Flash film, and whether or not it should have been made.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00 Hello, and welcome back to Chronicles, where today we're going to be talking all about the
00:00:18 second novel of the Flashman Papers, Royal Flash. And once again, who better to discuss it with
00:00:24 then The Office's very own scoundrel and man of the world, Dan.
00:00:29 Thank you, Dan.
00:00:30 You are.
00:00:30 Hurrah.
00:00:31 Nice sabre.
00:00:32 Thank you.
00:00:32 I thought it appropriate for the subject matter.
00:00:35 Yes.
00:00:36 So, look, it's been obviously a good number of episodes now
00:00:40 since we sat down and discussed the first, the OG.
00:00:44 Have the audience been good enough to get another Flashman book?
00:00:47 We are definitely backed by popular demand.
00:00:49 Right.
00:00:50 In fact, there's a whole sort of little series that I've started.
00:00:54 I've sowed the seeds of.
00:00:55 Like, I think episode 10 of Chronicles,
00:00:59 Bo and I covered the first of the Master and Commander novels.
00:01:03 Oh, they were right.
00:01:04 Yeah, I'll give you that.
00:01:05 Yeah, and I just haven't got round to getting to the next one.
00:01:07 And then there's Sharp and Hornblower.
00:01:10 Yes, they're quite good as well.
00:01:11 But the thing was with this, and I do love those,
00:01:14 and I really do want to return to them at some point.
00:01:17 Yeah.
00:01:17 So, you know, we've done Macbeth.
00:01:19 We've done, you know, more ancient Greek stuff.
00:01:21 We've just, I've had a great time here.
00:01:23 But for months now, I've been just thinking,
00:01:26 God, I want to read the next Flashman novel.
00:01:29 Of course you do, sir.
00:01:30 So here we are talking all about Royal Flash.
00:01:35 Now, this one came out the year after in 1970.
00:01:39 And intriguingly as well,
00:01:40 is the only Flashman novel to have ever been adapted into a film.
00:01:45 Oh, was it?
00:01:46 Yes.
00:01:47 I've not seen that.
00:01:48 Yes.
00:01:49 Honestly, it was kind of fascinating.
00:01:52 I haven't watched all of it.
00:01:53 I watched parts of it.
00:01:55 But maybe that tells you in and of itself. 1.00
00:01:56 Do they really capture what a complete bastard he is? 0.99
00:02:00 Because that's the key to the story. 1.00
00:02:02 He's a complete piece of shit. 1.00
00:02:05 That's why I love him. 1.00
00:02:06 Well, exactly.
00:02:07 But they have to tone down his sexual lust and all these sorts of things.
00:02:13 And it just doesn't work.
00:02:15 Even though, actually, it was directed by Richard Lester,
00:02:18 of an original
00:02:20 Christopher Reeve Superman thing.
00:02:23 And it also had in it
00:02:24 Malcolm McDowell from Clockwork Orange,
00:02:27 Oliver Reed
00:02:28 as Bismarck,
00:02:31 and, oh gosh, what's her name? 0.62
00:02:32 Bond Girl. Brit Eklund
00:02:34 as
00:02:35 Duchess Irma. Oh, Irma.
00:02:38 So it had a great
00:02:40 cast going for it. There was a lot of reasons
00:02:42 why it should have gone right, but frankly
00:02:44 it was
00:02:46 such a... It wasn't necessarily
00:02:48 a disaster like well it got mixed reviews but but the main point was that for george mcdonald
00:02:55 fraser himself he swore that another flashman film would never be made so long as he was alive
00:03:01 right so the one guy you really had to win over with it uh they failed to yes and look the the
00:03:08 reason that we have the flashman books is because he wrote them in 1970 there is no way you get it
00:03:15 You get away with that sort of book today.
00:03:17 And as for making a film, I mean, the one where he does the slavers
00:03:23 and he travels to Africa and then onto the continent,
00:03:26 I suppose there would be some DEI roles in that.
00:03:28 Yes.
00:03:29 I mean, if they try to make it today, they'd want to make, 1.00
00:03:33 oh, I don't know, they'd want to make his wife black or something.
00:03:35 And if you know anything about Flashman, that is so incongruous,
00:03:41 that's not going to fly.
00:03:42 No, no, definitely not.
00:03:43 But that's all right.
00:03:45 because we have an exceptional series of novels
00:03:48 and they're able to take the time with it.
00:03:51 They're able to get inside,
00:03:52 because it's obviously written as if it's his memoirs,
00:03:55 they're able to get inside the head of the Flashman character
00:03:59 in a way that the medium of film I just don't think could ever do.
00:04:03 And of course the great genies of these books,
00:04:04 it's not just getting inside the head of the character that he's created,
00:04:08 it's getting inside the head of real historical characters.
00:04:11 so you know the last one we talked about the the retreat from afghanistan first flashman book
00:04:17 all of those conversations that you have between the high level players all of those are accurate
00:04:23 and when i say accurate i mean i don't mean down to the world because what we have is we have letters
00:04:27 from the real historical character who said look i met with so and so and so and so and so and so
00:04:31 we discussed this we argued about this um and we agreed this and that happens in the book it's just
00:04:38 that he doesn't do it in that formal, you know, English as in writing a memoir version.
00:04:44 He brings it to life and there's discussion, there's back and forth, there's insults,
00:04:48 there's kind of, he brings the conversation to life, but the outcome of the conversation
00:04:52 and the decisions made and the actions that follow it, all of those are historically accurate.
00:04:57 Right.
00:04:57 So he's not just bringing to life Flashman, he's bringing to life real historical characters.
00:05:02 Now, for a while, I wasn't a huge fan of this particular book in the whole Flashman series.
00:05:07 Oh, really?
00:05:08 And I'll tell you why, because this one is not a historical story.
00:05:13 No.
00:05:13 So with his second book, what he decided to do
00:05:15 is he decided to basically do a parody of The Prisoner of Zelda.
00:05:20 Zender.
00:05:20 Zender, yes.
00:05:21 Quite right, yeah, I'm thinking of a Nintendo game, aren't I? 0.96
00:05:23 Yes, which is fair.
00:05:25 Yeah, so he did a parody of that, and that is a fictional story.
00:05:29 Now, because he's John Fraser MacDonald,
00:05:32 he still wove in real historical figures.
00:05:36 Great selection of them, too.
00:05:37 Yes, Lohleman has, obviously, Otto von Bismarck.
00:05:40 They're all real historical characters.
00:05:43 But he betrays them earlier in life before they became particularly famous.
00:05:47 And so he captures, as far as we can tell,
00:05:50 entirely accurate to what their personality could well have been.
00:05:54 But it's like an AI doing an approximation or something.
00:05:58 I see what you mean.
00:06:00 He's done a sensible approximation of what Otto von Bismarck
00:06:04 would have been like in his sort of late 20s.
00:06:07 yeah well i i don't think it's um an entirely untruthful depiction like there are certain things
00:06:13 oh yeah bismarck says in this novel yeah yeah that really feels like that that sounds like
00:06:17 that sounds like bismarck yeah but but the but the the later part of the story when it sort of
00:06:21 develops that is uh that is a little bit more made up um but actually on on rereading it i thought
00:06:28 no actually it is it is i was being a bit too harsh on it but not being history it is just a
00:06:34 bloody good story it is and is it enjoyable read it is but also as well because a lot of the uh
00:06:39 places in it are uh are made up and a lot of the characters are made up so just just for example
00:06:45 uh one of the main um um duchies that we're going to talk about strafans is a fictitious place yes
00:06:52 the duchess who lives at irma is a fictional woman she wasn't a historical figure and indeed
00:06:58 the man that Flashman ends up
00:07:00 pretending to have to be, Carl Gustaf
00:07:02 of minor Danish
00:07:04 nobility, sorry, royalties
00:07:06 rather, hence the title of the book
00:07:08 is also made up.
00:07:10 But this actually, I quite enjoyed
00:07:12 that on this occasion because
00:07:14 in the first one, if you know
00:07:16 the history, you know where all
00:07:18 of this is leading to and
00:07:19 Fraser manages to play on that in such a way
00:07:22 that it builds the anticipation
00:07:24 because you know that all of the men
00:07:26 exiling from Afghanistan are going to get 0.93
00:07:28 massacred. And so it puts almost 0.98
00:07:30 like this Alfred Hitchcock-esque
00:07:32 ticking time bomb beneath
00:07:34 the table. In the real history,
00:07:36 one surgeon, one man
00:07:38 survived
00:07:39 whichever Lord North Army.
00:07:42 Luckiest man in the world.
00:07:43 Whereas in the Flashman version, it's one surgeon
00:07:46 plus Flashman.
00:07:47 But otherwise, yeah, it's the same story.
00:07:50 Yes. But with this one,
00:07:52 because a lot of it is fictionalised
00:07:54 and the places he goes to,
00:07:55 you can tell that he's really just having fun with...
00:07:59 He's developing the character.
00:08:00 Yeah, just finding outcomes for different fates,
00:08:03 different gruesome fates,
00:08:04 like, you know, some of Bismarck's henchmen
00:08:08 and stuff like that.
00:08:09 Yeah, these are great characters.
00:08:10 And it's lovely watching Flashmen evolve as well,
00:08:14 because, you know, as we talked about last time,
00:08:17 he is a womaniser.
00:08:18 Oh, yes. 1.00
00:08:19 And a cheat and a bastard and a backstabber. 1.00
00:08:23 And he is a coward. 1.00
00:08:24 That's a key part of his character. 1.00
00:08:25 He's a complete coward. 1.00
00:08:26 But he is a temperamental coward, not an instinctual coward. 1.00
00:08:30 Because in this, he has no choice at certain points but to fight.
00:08:34 And when he does have to fight, if his back's to the wall,
00:08:37 he's actually quite brave in that.
00:08:40 He's quite decisive.
00:08:40 He fights smart.
00:08:41 Yes.
00:08:42 He fights smart.
00:08:43 But as soon as the opportunity comes to throw one of his allies
00:08:47 under the bus and do a legger, that's it.
00:08:50 He's off.
00:08:51 Yes.
00:08:51 Yes.
00:08:51 Yes. So let's start talking about what happened. So the novel picks off almost immediately after the events of the first novel, which we'll remember, because you all, of course, watched the original Chronicles that we did on it, didn't you?
00:09:07 that flashman is a celebrated hero this is completely undeserved by the way yes but this
00:09:15 just happened to be the last man alive in a fort storms by the afghanis and when he came to they
00:09:22 all got the impression that he was basically holding out single-handed and he played into
00:09:27 it marvelously and britain looking for a hero decided to basically anoint him the disaster and
00:09:33 Yes, it was a catastrophe.
00:09:35 We need a hero to bring something out of this.
00:09:37 So he was basically anointed a national hero
00:09:39 and he was canny enough to go along with it.
00:09:42 So he comes back with this completely undeserved acclaim 1.00
00:09:46 and he comes back to his Scotch wife
00:09:49 who was kind of forced into a shotgun marriage
00:09:51 because whilst on assignment in Glasgow,
00:09:55 he kind of diddle one of the local landowner's daughters
00:09:57 and basically got dragooned into marrying her,
00:10:00 which actually turns out to be quite helpful
00:10:01 because his old man goes bust 0.99
00:10:04 and his Scotch relatives are keeping him in the clink.
00:10:06 So they're keeping him in the coinage. 0.75
00:10:08 But the only problem with Elspeth, 1.00
00:10:10 lovely and stupid as he is, 1.00
00:10:12 she's a complete troller. 1.00
00:10:13 So he gets back and it becomes quite evident to him
00:10:18 that his wife is sort of putting through the mattress
00:10:20 all about town.
00:10:22 And, you know, what's he to do about it?
00:10:23 Because he can't get rid of her. 0.66
00:10:26 Because, you know, the Scottish... 0.99
00:10:28 He's indebted to his grouchy, miserable, lonely... 0.99
00:10:31 moving Presbyterian in-laws. 0.96
00:10:34 And he looks at this situation.
00:10:35 He's like, well, I'm certainly not getting by
00:10:37 on half-lieutenant's pay while I'm not on deployment.
00:10:41 And I'm certainly not going on deployment 0.81
00:10:42 because I'm a coward.
00:10:43 So I've got no choice but to put up with a wife. 0.88
00:10:46 And actually, he does still quite like her anyway 1.00
00:10:47 because she's a beautiful idiot. 1.00
00:10:49 That's his type. 1.00
00:10:50 She's easy company.
00:10:51 Yes, exactly.
00:10:52 So he thinks to himself,
00:10:54 how am I going to remedy this situation? 1.00
00:10:57 Well, of course, they're whores for that. 1.00
00:10:58 So off he goes to a card house 1.00
00:11:00 with his friend Speedy Cut.
00:11:02 Yes.
00:11:03 And because he's a gentleman, you know. 0.96
00:11:06 An illegal card house.
00:11:07 An illegal card house, yes.
00:11:09 Now, because he is a gentleman,
00:11:12 you know, he doesn't like to rush to these things. 1.00
00:11:14 So he's upstairs playing cards with the whores 1.00
00:11:16 and his friend Speedy Cut. 0.99
00:11:17 When the constabulary arrive to do a raid 0.92
00:11:20 on the illegal card house. 0.99
00:11:22 Yes.
00:11:22 Now, a few twists and turns aside,
00:11:24 I shan't spoil it,
00:11:25 but he almost manages to get away,
00:11:29 but ends up with the constabulary giving him chase off down the street.
00:11:34 So off he goes.
00:11:36 And the way he sort of extracts himself's situation,
00:11:38 as well as obviously throwing his friend under the bus.
00:11:41 Sorry, I'd just love to focus in on that moment for a second as well.
00:11:45 One thing is that at the card house,
00:11:48 Flashman points to the fact that actually,
00:11:51 look, I am existing at the tail end of a glorious era right now.
00:11:56 He's like, I am indulging in the greatest age, 1.00
00:12:00 which was just Georgian debauchery, right? 1.00
00:12:04 Where everyone just had a bit of fun. 1.00
00:12:06 Everyone was, you know, just tastefully, Englishly, of course. 0.75
00:12:10 It was tasteful English debauchery.
00:12:12 Debauchery, but with good manners, yes. 1.00
00:12:15 But Victoria is on the throne now, 1.00
00:12:18 and everyone's got to stick up their butts, 0.87
00:12:20 and all of the morals are getting stuffy.
00:12:22 And so Flashman is actually pinpointing
00:12:24 that there has just been a very psychological change beginning.
00:12:28 He can see the culture shifting.
00:12:30 Right.
00:12:30 And he's determined to make the most of the debauchery
00:12:33 while he's still living large.
00:12:34 And so, as you say, when he is being pursued by the policemen
00:12:39 down the streets trying to get away
00:12:42 because of seeing him at this illegal place,
00:12:45 Speedy Court says to him,
00:12:46 because Flash obviously had his leg broke,
00:12:49 Flashman had his leg broke
00:12:50 when he heroically defended Piper's force near Jalalabad.
00:12:57 He's not able to outrun the police.
00:13:00 And so Speedercut says, oh, I'll hold them off.
00:13:02 I'll have a fight with them.
00:13:03 And the Flashman being the Flashman was like, yeah, all right. 1.00
00:13:06 If you're stupid enough to stick your neck out for me, 1.00
00:13:10 I'm not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. 1.00
00:13:12 Yeah, you Flashman.
00:13:13 Which is hilarious as well, because actually with Flashman's injury,
00:13:18 Speedy Cook could have easily left him behind
00:13:21 and just gone off himself to leave Flashman to be caught.
00:13:25 But heroically, he's looking out for his friend
00:13:27 with a friendship that is entirely unreciprocal.
00:13:31 Oh, yes.
00:13:32 And just instant comedy.
00:13:34 Oh, yeah. 1.00
00:13:34 I mean, the complete bastard that he is. 1.00
00:13:37 But yeah, absolutely. 1.00
00:13:39 So he heads off.
00:13:41 He gets away from the police, but not quite.
00:13:44 Because again, like you said, he's still got his leg injury.
00:13:46 Yeah.
00:13:46 and he notices an empty carriage outside her house.
00:13:51 So he ducks in there only for that carriage
00:13:54 to then very shortly after attempt to be occupied 0.93
00:13:56 by the genuine inhabitants of it. 0.96
00:14:00 And just his luck, it turns out to be an incredibly beautiful woman.
00:14:05 Just his luck.
00:14:06 Yes, I remember her by her name that she went by later on, Lola Montez.
00:14:10 But Rosanna James.
00:14:11 Rosanna James.
00:14:12 Because she's married to a British officer.
00:14:15 Captain James
00:14:16 soon to be a very much divorced
00:14:19 Captain James
00:14:20 and she's being escorted
00:14:23 by a young Prussian gentleman
00:14:25 who we later
00:14:27 discover to be Otto von
00:14:29 Bismarck of
00:14:31 German fame
00:14:33 bit of a state 0.99
00:14:35 as in through sheer tyranny of
00:14:37 will he managed to
00:14:39 forge Germany through 0.62
00:14:41 as he gave in his speech blood and 0.90
00:14:43 iron into a nation that would change the course of history.
00:14:49 I mean, Bismarck is clearly a character of transhuman will and purpose. 0.82
00:14:57 And Flashman manages to, well, George Fraser MacDonald manages to capture that early on.
00:15:02 What must a man like this have been like in his late 20s?
00:15:06 Right.
00:15:07 The steely single purpose.
00:15:08 Anyway, so Bismarck is having none of this, but he is a right Prussian prude, and whatever her name is, Mrs. James.
00:15:17 Yes. 0.99
00:15:17 I mean, she's a high-spirited young woman.
00:15:20 She has a sense of adventure.
00:15:22 Well, very much a sense of adventure.
00:15:25 And she's being escorted by one of her husband's friends who's been put up to escort her about town.
00:15:34 Yes. 1.00
00:15:34 And she's thoroughly bored of him because he's an uptight German. 0.99
00:15:38 and so she she takes the opportunity uh to show kindness to flashman and also notices he's big 0.99
00:15:45 and broad and he's got a bit of you know a bit of adventure about him and she likes that and she
00:15:51 she likes it even more when uh the policemen do eventually catch up to him and one of them says
00:15:56 my god aren't you captain flashman of jihad about fame and so he's literally his status is being
00:16:02 pumped up in front of her as well as a singular soldier this daring daring hero yes and she's a
00:16:08 bald trollop and she's looking at this thinking right well there's opportunity here so anyway
00:16:13 romance ensues go ahead just just one thing that from what i understand of it as well a lot of the
00:16:20 inspiration for this story actually just came out of you know george um uh fraser doing his usual
00:16:27 just meticulous research of the era and realizing that there was one particular moment in british
00:16:36 history in which Otto von Bismarck
00:16:38 and Lola Montes were
00:16:40 both in London at the same
00:16:42 time together. And so a lot
00:16:44 of what follows just
00:16:46 comes from him seeing that one
00:16:48 observation and just going, right, there's
00:16:50 definitely a story there to
00:16:52 be told. Let's put Flashman
00:16:54 straight through the middle of it.
00:16:55 Romance ensues with
00:16:57 Mrs. James, I should
00:17:00 say.
00:17:02 He does remark that she is an exceptionally 0.99
00:17:04 beautiful young woman yes with the slides irish uh yes she's got anglo-irish oh she's she's a 0.98
00:17:12 bog eater but very very beautiful she is and um but but she is uh as noted she she is she is a 0.87
00:17:20 spirited lass and it was her inclination to basically hasten him in his lovemaking with 0.90
00:17:27 the back of a hairbrush now because because she is an exceptionally beautiful young woman
00:17:33 he can tolerate this up to a point
00:17:36 or of course an English gentleman
00:17:38 can only be pushed so far
00:17:39 so at some point he takes
00:17:41 enough exception to this and he decides to
00:17:43 liven her up a bit 1.00
00:17:44 and she gets all indignant as women 1.00
00:17:48 are likely to do in this sort of situation
00:17:50 and it leads to a slightly
00:17:52 unfortunate situation where he's having
00:17:54 to make his way out of the
00:17:56 residence putting his trousers on 0.97
00:17:58 as he goes down the stairs while she throws a piss pot 0.92
00:18:00 at his head. Now 0.94
00:18:03 we've all been there such is the challenge of being a gentleman about town especially in london
00:18:10 um when engaging with the the hot ones are mental well i mean that's the risk we take isn't it it
00:18:17 it is it is one of the one of the little details i love about that as well is that because of her
00:18:23 her penchant for the for the hairbrush yes flashman remarks on the fact that literally
00:18:28 He cannot go throughout the rest of his life without seeing a hairbrush
00:18:32 and just being reminded of her.
00:18:35 Every time he comes in with an everyday object,
00:18:38 he's just like, oh, my God, it was Lola, you know, just over and over again.
00:18:43 But the other thing as well is just the fact that
00:18:45 because already in the first novel,
00:18:47 Flashman has been established as such a womanizer,
00:18:51 but also as well as such a man of insatiable lust, 0.91
00:18:54 He cannot go a week without a woman.
00:18:59 And that would be quite a long time for him. 0.99
00:19:01 And so the fact that there is a woman out there
00:19:03 with a higher sex drive, a deeper loss than him,
00:19:07 and that he's just going, 0.99
00:19:09 oh, bloody hell, let me catch my breath. 0.94
00:19:11 You know, like, bloody hell, 0.98
00:19:14 it immediately gets across to you 0.97
00:19:16 just how insatiable this woman is. 1.00
00:19:19 Yes. 1.00
00:19:20 It did her well.
00:19:21 Remember, audience, she's one of the real characters in this.
00:19:24 some of the later ones but she is one of the real characters
00:19:27 so anyway so
00:19:28 he beats retreat now
00:19:30 all things being equal
00:19:33 this would simply be
00:19:35 just another wench for Flashman
00:19:37 and he probably wouldn't have thought 0.80
00:19:39 much about it
00:19:40 as it happens though
00:19:42 Mrs James after her divorce
00:19:45 then decides well look I need to make my
00:19:47 way in life how am I going to do this
00:19:49 she's got a sense of advancement so she 0.83
00:19:50 reinvents herself as Lola Montez 0.85
00:19:52 and passes herself off.
00:19:55 The exotic Spanish dancer. 1.00
00:19:55 The exotic Spanish dancer.
00:19:56 And she passes herself off as this sort of rarefied and very... 0.97
00:20:00 And, of course, you could do that back in the 1840s
00:20:02 because no internet, you can't look people up.
00:20:04 She reinvents herself as this sort of legendary dancer
00:20:07 and gets herself introduced to the London stage.
00:20:11 And Flashman, who at this time was quite bored,
00:20:14 I mean, this was a few months later,
00:20:15 but Flashman being bored, decides to sabotage her,
00:20:18 which, you know, I suppose we don't need to go
00:20:20 into too much detail on that,
00:20:22 But simply to say, he made an important enemy.
00:20:26 Yes.
00:20:27 The other enemy he made was that other chap in the carriage
00:20:30 who ended up going off in a huff, which was Rotterdam on Bismarck,
00:20:33 who did spend a bit of time in London, English-like society,
00:20:38 and he got taken out by various people to do a swat of hunting and riding.
00:20:42 Yes.
00:20:42 They go to the Leicestershire countryside to hang out with all of Flashman's chums.
00:20:48 Yes.
00:20:48 And there's this remarkable moment where,
00:20:50 and it's one of the things that I bookmarked because it's just so funny to watch him.
00:20:55 Flashman has been welcomed into the hunting lodge
00:20:58 and is expecting just this wonderful, easygoing, plain sailing weekend away with the lads.
00:21:05 Bunch of cads.
00:21:06 Yes, a bunch of cads.
00:21:07 And then it says,
00:21:08 The fellows gave a hurrah when I came in and thrust punching cheroots at me
00:21:13 while Tom did his duty by the stranger.
00:21:16 Barron, says he, the brute has a title, thinks I.
00:21:20 Permit me to present Captain Flashman.
00:21:24 Flash, this is Baron Otto von, uh, von Schorhausen, ain't it?
00:21:32 I can't get my confounded tongue round it.
00:21:35 Schornhausen, says Otto, bowing stiffly with his eyes on mine.
00:21:41 But that is, in fact, the name of my estate.
00:21:44 If you will pardon my correction, my family name is Bismarck.
00:21:48 It's an old man's fancy, no doubt, but it seemed to me that he said it in a way that
00:21:53 told me that you would hear it again. 0.92
00:21:56 It meant nothing to me, of course, at the time, but I was sure that it was going to.
00:22:02 And again, I felt that prickle of fear of my back, the cold grey eyes, the splendid
00:22:08 build and features, the superb arrogance of the man, all combined to awe me.
00:22:16 If you're morally as soft as butter as I am, with a good streak of the toad-eater in you,
00:22:22 there's no doing anything with people like Bismarck.
00:22:25 You can have all the fame that I had then, and the good looks and the inches and the
00:22:30 swagger, and I had those too.
00:22:33 But you know you're dirt to him. 0.96
00:22:35 If you have to tangle with him, as the Americans say, you know you'll have to get drunk first. 0.97
00:22:41 I was sober, so I toad-eat.
00:22:44 Honoured to make your acquaintance, Baron, says I, giving him my hand.
00:22:48 Trust you're enjoying your visit.
00:22:50 They are already acquainted, as I am sure you'll remember, says he, shaking hands.
00:22:56 He had a grip like a vice. 0.87
00:22:58 I guessed you were stronger than I was, and I was damned strong, in body at least. 0.74
00:23:03 You recollect an evening in London, Mrs. James, first present? 0.92
00:23:08 By God, says I, all astounded.
00:23:12 So I do well.
00:23:14 Well, and here you are, eh? Damn, I never expected. 0.99
00:23:21 Well, Baron, I'm glad to see you. I trust Mrs. James as well. 0.99
00:23:28 Surely I should ask you, says he with a thin smile.
00:23:32 I have not seen the lady since that evening.
00:23:37 No? Well, well, I haven't seen a great deal of her myself.
00:23:42 I was prepared to be present and let bygones be bygones if he was.
00:23:47 He stood, smiling with his mouth, considering me.
00:23:51 Do you know, says he at length, I feel sure I have seen you before, but I cannot think there.
00:23:58 That is unusual, for I have an excellent memory.
00:24:03 No, not in England. Have you ever been in Germany, perhaps?
00:24:07 I said I hadn't.
00:24:09 Ah, well, it is of no interest, says he coolly, meaning that I was of no interest and turned away from me.
00:24:19 I hadn't liked him before, but from that moment I hated Bismarck and decided that if ever the chance came to do him a dirty turn, I wouldn't let it slip away.
00:24:31 Spoiler alert, there is an opportunity to do him a dirty turn and it happens just a few days later.
00:24:37 Yes. And so Flashman is now in the situation where he has made two enemies of historical consequence.
00:24:46 And as you mentioned there, you alighted upon the point that Bismarck thinks he recognises him.
00:24:55 He thinks he's seen him before. And it's a very powerful recollection he has, but he can't quite place it.
00:25:04 He doesn't know what's going on. It doesn't make any sense.
00:25:07 So anyway, Flashman does the Dirty by Bismarck.
00:25:10 He's already done the Dirty by Lola Montez.
00:25:13 More time passes.
00:25:14 And I think we skip a few things.
00:25:16 Yeah, they go horse riding, don't they?
00:25:18 Oh, yes.
00:25:18 And then there's the horse race.
00:25:20 And Flashman being a very competent rider, actually.
00:25:23 You know, he's letting...
00:25:25 They're going through the wilderness and everything,
00:25:27 and they're racing.
00:25:28 He's hanging back.
00:25:29 He's taking his time.
00:25:30 He's pacing the horse.
00:25:31 He's letting, you know, his opponents scout out the territory
00:25:35 where the safe jumbles are. 0.96
00:25:35 So he's a damn good rider. 0.98
00:25:37 Right. But then once it's all clear and his path ahead, he gets neck and neck with Bismarck and then ahead of him. 0.85
00:25:44 And there's a small opening, a clear jump between the thorn bushes.
00:25:51 And he basically says, you know, get out of the way. It's my right of way because I'm ahead of you.
00:25:56 And Bismarck totally ignores Flashman.
00:25:59 Yes.
00:25:59 and then makes a jump and Flashman bottles it
00:26:03 in front of this man who he despises.
00:26:07 And so he's been seen to be the man with less nerve
00:26:10 than the mighty Bismarck.
00:26:13 I say mighty, but at this point he's no one of any repute.
00:26:17 No.
00:26:18 And of course, it's even worse because he knows full well
00:26:22 that somebody like Bismarck has a hell of a lot more nerve than him.
00:26:26 but he's all about appearances when there's nothing on the line.
00:26:30 When it's just a steeplechase across country,
00:26:32 he wants to look the big man.
00:26:34 If there was actual cannon fire going on,
00:26:36 he'd be cowering behind something.
00:26:38 In society, when it's reputation,
00:26:40 he has to maintain his undeserved reputation,
00:26:45 and Bismarck sort of robs him from that.
00:26:48 So following that, of course, he does the dirty on him
00:26:51 by engineering a situation where he gets into a fight
00:26:55 and comes off the worst.
00:26:56 This was great.
00:26:58 This was such a great one
00:26:59 because he brings in, doesn't he,
00:27:00 John Gulley,
00:27:02 this veteran championship boxer.
00:27:05 And a gentleman.
00:27:06 And a gentleman, absolutely.
00:27:08 But the thing is, with all of this,
00:27:10 whilst Bismarck has been... 1.00
00:27:12 Bear in mind that Bismarck is a foreigner 1.00
00:27:14 and a stranger. 0.97
00:27:15 It was only being humoured
00:27:17 by Flashman's friends
00:27:19 because some uncle is a friend.
00:27:24 And it's just there.
00:27:24 And as a guest, there is a certain etiquette, obviously,
00:27:29 in English society, and what Bismarck should be doing
00:27:31 is sitting back, being casual, laughing with the gentleman,
00:27:36 listening to what they have to say about England,
00:27:38 listening to them tell about...
00:27:40 But Bismarck, in his usual domineering way,
00:27:44 just forces... He chooses the conversation.
00:27:47 He chooses what's going to be discussed.
00:27:50 He chooses the correct opinion on the matter.
00:27:53 He's regularly reminding the room full of Englishmen 0.99
00:27:56 how Germany is superior.
00:27:57 Right, so he just goes on these grand patriotic monologues
00:28:02 about Prussian militarism and how mighty Prussia is
00:28:07 and why the Schlager competition with these swords 1.00
00:28:11 is just so much better than your stupid little boxing matches. 1.00
00:28:16 Yes. 1.00
00:28:17 Stupid little boxing matches that have no skill in them. 1.00
00:28:21 It's just two men thrashing at one another. 1.00
00:28:24 And so Flashman basically says, right, I've had enough of this.
00:28:27 He says, we have a veteran boxer here.
00:28:30 He's retired now. He's about 60.
00:28:33 He says, but maybe he could just show you, Herr Bismarck,
00:28:37 that there is actually some skill to boxing.
00:28:41 And so eventually, as also as a man of honour,
00:28:45 and also because they are all gentlemen as well, 0.99
00:28:48 it's not like Bismarck can say, oh, no, I'm not fighting this pleb. 0.50
00:28:51 No, they are all of the same pedigree. 1.00
00:28:54 And so Bismarck gets himself into this altercation
00:28:57 because of his own pride.
00:28:59 And as well, Flashman's like,
00:29:01 well, obviously I'm not going to step into the ring with him, 0.97
00:29:04 but I do know this man here who can beat the shit out of him.
00:29:08 If you enjoyed this piece of premium content from the Lotus Eaters, 0.76
00:29:11 head to our website where you can find more.
00:29:21 You