I received an email from Colin Turner, titled “Famous at last!” I opened the email and found a link to an American podcast, Thinking Sideways. This was a weekly podcast in which the three hosts; Devin, Kevin and Nevin – sorry, that’s Devin, Joe and Steve – would discuss unsolved mysteries.
Episode 214 was all about the riddle which coincided with 1994’s Division Bell album and tour, the Publius Enigma.
The Thinking Sideways team had managed to locate the chapter in Albert Magoolie Remembers titled “Wots… uh the Enigma?” in which I explained the whole thing. They began discussing my exposé at about the 49 and a half minute mark of the podcast, but kept pronouncing my surname “MOOG–LEE” instead of “MA-GOO-LEE”.
I found this a little perplexing, as I didn’t think “Magoolie” was all that hard to pronounce. Indeed, it didn’t say a lot for a team of sleuths scouring manuscripts for hidden clues in the solving of famous mysteries when they couldn’t even look closely enough to read someone’s name correctly.
But that needn’t have come as any great surprise, given the other mistakes they made in the podcast. Like calling David Gilmour Nick Mason, referring to a non-existent character named “Mu–gi” and, worst of all, forgetting the name of this website!
Ironically however, my dear wife actually liked the mispronunciation of our surname. She thought it sounded “cute.” Somehow I think that her first name being Julie (Julie Magoolie) played a part in her twisting my arm to have the name changed by deed poll, which I did shortly thereafter.
With the name changed I emailed Devin alerting her to their mispronunciation and how it led to the changing of our surname. I told her “listening to your podcast has changed my life.”
Devin emailed back thanking me for the laughs. I’m not sure exactly what she meant by that.
Predictably the podcast no longer exist. It ended just under a year later. I’m surprised it continued that long after the fatal mistake of mentioning me! (This comment will make more sense as further stories unfold.)