PJ Vogt

So I think that's probably where that comes from, especially around the royals, because I think the British are very protective.

Even if you don't like them, a lot of British people are very protective about conversations of the royals should only occur between British people.

So this was the answer.

Why had the pool been kept a secret from me?

perhaps because I was a loud American, and the legions of British people who we'd emailed likely held in their hearts a prejudice about my ilk.

They thought that we only asked questions about the royals because we thought their royals were kind of dumb.

Our national identity, after all, began with the idea that monarchy was stupid, that a taxpayer-funded palace might represent a civilization unevolved.

We might ask questions, but the Brits suspected we did not seek to understand.

We were here to tease, maybe as a way of feeling better about the faults in our own system, with its nepotism, its corruption, its occasional January riot.

America had broken up with England two and a half centuries ago.

We had a country of our own.

Why were we still bothering them with our childish questions?

I think your question was, it was a really interesting question, but I don't like, I think you guys were like, maybe expecting like this really sort of extravagant answer.

And it was literally probably the most boring answer that you could have got to a question about like, what's the pool like?

It's like, it's just a pool, mate.

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Search Engine is a presentation of Odyssey.

It was created by me, PJ Vogt, and Shruthi Pinnamaneni.

This episode was produced by Garrett Graham.

Fact-checking by Holly Patton.