The Massive Hunt

Incredible as it may seem, content from the home page of this site may have appeared momentarily in the wildly popular motoring show 'Grand Tour: the Massive Hunt' which was first streamed on Amazon Prime Video in December 2020. You don't believe me? Here's an image from 50 minutes into the show:

Compare what you see at the top of that image with these two items made by me from the home page of this site:

Ask yourself whether James May was indeed referring to this site as he tried to guide the Grand Tour team towards the La Buse treasure. I'm glad you agree! Do I feel flattered that he was using this site? Yes indeed, especially since there was no glimpse of any other similar site, as far as I can tell (though there were also books). Do I feel disappointed not to have received any credit for my work having been used? Yes indeed, but such is life.

There's actually another indication that James was referring to my site: he says at some point (1hr21min) that the 'Turkish dogs' that are mentioned (probably) in the cryptogram may refer to hairless dogs (dogs that have lost their hair due to canine scabies, very common in that part of the world back then). That was one of the major revelations put forward on this site - I don't think it's mentioned on many other sites.

If you have seen that episode of Grand Tour then you will know that James claims to have identified the word 'Seranambe' somewhere in the last four lines of the cryptogram (he calls it 'Saranambe', having decoded the second character wrongly). I haven't been able to spot that word in the cryptogram myself, but I can confirm that there is indeed a tiny village with that name on the north-east coast of Madagascar. On Google maps there is even a marker for 'The Grand Tour's Football Pitch Crater'!

Lastly, here's the trailer for the show: