#146 Jesters (Part 2)
Oh What A Time...
Pop! Pop!
4.8 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 4 November 2025
⏱️ 27 minutes
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Summary
This is Part 2! For Part 1, check the feed!
This week we’re going back in time to look at that most curious of careers: jesters! We’ve got the earliest professional farters, we’ve got Harlequins and we’ll see what jesters were up to in Ancient Rome.
Plus we have a quick bit on the history of the mattress. And if you’ve got anything else to contribute, you know what to do: hello@ohwhatatime.com
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Oh, what a time is now on Patreon. You can get main feed episodes before everyone else, ad free, |
| 0:06.4 | plus access to our full archive of bonus content, two bonus episodes every month, early access |
| 0:11.9 | to live show tickets and access to the Oh Water Time group chat. Plus, if you become an Oh Water |
| 0:16.9 | Time All-Timer, myself, Tom and Ellis will riff on your name to postulate where else in history you might have popped up. |
| 0:23.8 | For all your options, you can go to patreon.com forward slash O Water Time. |
| 0:28.6 | Hello and welcome to Oh What a Time. This is part two of Jester's. |
| 0:32.9 | Let's get on with the show. |
| 0:46.0 | Yeah. the show. Okay, here we go. |
| 0:47.2 | All of the world, the court jester played an important role, not only in entertaining, |
| 0:52.8 | but also in delivering unpanitable news and critiques |
| 0:55.9 | of behaviour, including the behaviour of monarchs that could only be provided under fools' privilege, |
| 1:02.4 | which I think Tom Crane has on this podcast. |
| 1:06.4 | Do you have that with the council when you miss like council tax and... |
| 1:10.1 | Sorry, I've got fools' privilege. |
| 1:13.7 | So it means the ability to talk freely without fear of punishment. |
| 1:17.2 | Now, among the earliest fools we've recorded at the English Royal Court was the delightfully named Roland the Fartre, |
| 1:22.9 | who served King Henry II in the 12th century AD, and he would do his jump, whistling and fart routine at court every Christmas. So in the same way that they always repeat, Morkham and Wise. Yeah. Let's get Roland did. It's popular for a reason. Yeah. Roland the Fartter. I swear I saw his DVDs like a couple of years ago. And he's still on the circuit? Well, no, there was a man called, was it fart? No, fart man. |
| 1:46.3 | No. his DVDs like a couple of years ago. He's still on the circuit? Well, no, there was a man called, was it fart? |
| 1:47.6 | No, fart man. |
| 1:50.4 | No, you might be thinking of Mr. Meethy. |
| 1:51.5 | Oh, that's it. |
| 1:52.5 | Mr. Methane. |
... |
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