Episode 389 - The Istanbul Snowball Fight

Lions Led By Donkeys Podcast

Lions Led By Donkeys

Comedy

4.6 • 2K Ratings

🗓️ 24 November 2025

⏱️ 80 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

USE CODE DEC25 FOR 50% OFF ALL PATREON SUBSCRIPTIONS UNTIL THE END OF DECEMBER https://www.patreon.com/lionsledbydonkeys In the early days of English ambassadorships to the Ottoman Empire, an increasingly petty collection of grievances among European envoys and Ottoman dignitaries set the conditions for a single errant snowball to incite an anti-English riot. Witness the story of the snowball that got a bunch of English guys' beaten with oblong objects. Research: Dr Joel Butler Reources: Public Records Office, The National Archives, Kew, London: SP 97/3; SP 97/4. ‘Bu bir nefret cinayetidir: Gazeteci Nuh Köklü, 'kartopu oynarken' öldürüldü.’ Radikal (2 February 2015). ‘Gazeteci Nuh Köklü kar topu oynarken öldürüldü’, BBC News Türkçe (18 February 2015). ‘Journalist Nuh Köklü murdered for playing snowball’, Agos (18 February 2015). ‘Life in prison for man who stabbed Turkish journalist over snowball fight’, Hürriyet Daily News (5 June 2015). Atran, S. ‘The Devoted Actor: Unconditional Commitment and Intractable Conflict across Cultures’, Current Anthropology, 57/S13 (2016), S192-S203. Brotton, J. The Sultan and the Queen: The Untold Story of Elizabeth and Islam (New York, 2017) Brown, H.F. Calendar of State Papers Relating To English Affairs in the Archives of Venice, Volume 9, 1592-1603 (London, 1897). Burian, O. The Report of Lello, Third English Ambassador to the Sublime Porte / Babıâli Nezdinde Üçüncü İngiliz Elçisi Lello’nun Muhtırası (Ankara, 1952). Butler, J.D. ‘Between Company and State: Anglo-Ottoman Diplomacy and Ottoman Political Culture, 1565-1607’, unpubd. DPhil thesis, University of Oxford (2022). _________. ‘Lello, Henry’, The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2023). Coulter, L.J.F. ‘The involvement of the English crown and its embassy in Constantinople with pretenders to the throne of the principality of Moldavia between the years 1583 and 1620, with particular reference to the pretender Stefan Bogdan between 1590 and 1612’, unpubd. PhD thesis, University of London (1993). Foster, W. (ed.) The Travels of John Sanderson in the Levant (1584-1602) (London, 1931). Horniker, A.L. ‘Anglo-French Rivalry in the Levant from 1583 to 1612’, The Journal of Modern History, 18/4 (1946), 289-305. Hutnyk, J. ‘Nuh Köklü. Statement from Yeldeğirmeni Dayanışması’ (20 February 2015) at: https://hutnyk.wordpress.com/2015/02/20/nuh-koklu-statement-from-yeldegirmeni-dayanismasi/ (accessed 8 March 2025). Kowalczyk, T.D. ‘Edward Barton and Anglo-Ottoman Relations, 1588-98’, unpubd. PhD thesis, University of Sussex (2020). MacLean, G. ‘Courting the Porte: Early Anglo-Ottoman Diplomacy’, University of Bucharest Review, 10/2 (2008), 80-88. MacLean, G. & Matar, N. Britain & the Islamic World, 1558-1713 (Oxford, 2011). Newson, M. ‘Football, fan violence, and identity fusion’, International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 54/4 (2019), 431-444. Newson, M., Buhrmester, M. & Whitehouse, H. ‘United in defeat: shared suffering and group bonding among football fans’, Managing Sport and Leisure, 28/2 (2023), 164-181. Purchas, S. Hakluytus Posthumus or Purchas His Pilgrimes, viii (Glasgow, 1905). Sheikh, H., Gómez, Á. & Altran, S. ‘Empirical Evidence for the Devoted Actor Model’, Current Anthropology, 57/S13 (2016), S204-S209. Unknown Artist. (c1604). The Somerset House Conference, 1604 (oil on canvas). London: National Portrait Gallery.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to the Lions Led by Donkeys podcast.
0:24.6	I'm Nate and with me today are Joe and Tom.
0:27.6	We're intrepid English merchants seeking to turn a profit in the febrile, cashed-up conditions of Istanbul in the year 1600.
0:34.6	Not one of us speaks Turkish, and we don't speak Greek, and the only Italian we know
0:38.7	is Duet Monsteri Bianchi per favor. But it doesn't matter all that much. We've made a killing
0:44.1	selling the wares of Northern Europe here in the Eastern Mediterranean. There's no shortage
0:48.3	of demand for large blocks of metal, elaborately painted harpsichords, one pair of linen pants that you
0:53.7	wear for 30 years,
0:55.2	assortments of blunderbusses with flared ends that keep getting wider somehow, dueling pistols
1:00.1	you have to light with a candle, and so much more. As representatives of the one non-Catholic
1:04.9	European Christian country with diplomatic relations here in the center of the Ottoman government,
1:09.1	we're seen as trustworthy, or at least
1:11.0	not in league with the French as much. We're friends with the Ottomans. Some of us are really
1:15.3	friendly with the Ottomans. We've even been instructed on how to deploy the smoke bomb that
1:18.9	immediately turns you Turkish if you get into serious trouble behind closed doors. Things are going great.
1:24.1	Flush with success, we decide to meet up on one particularly snowy day. We sit down in a
1:28.9	cafe to drink cups of hot coffee prepared in the style of any number of countries in the region,
1:33.4	which we've determined is always the same style, and it's always an observation that all the
1:37.6	residents of this region appreciate hearing from us. No, I'm serious. They love it.
1:42.7	English Tom laments that the wind is never as wet or depressing in Istanbul as the way it felt back home.
1:48.4	English Nate wishes there was less daylight here in December.
1:51.3	It's just not natural for the sun to be up after 4 p.m.
	...

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