Lateral with Tom Scott - 21: The bandit that gives back

Episode Date: March 3, 2023

Sabrina Cruz, Melissa Fernandes and Taha Khan from 'Answer in Progress' face questions about deceptive dates, brick buildings and baseball baiting. LATERAL is a comedy panel game podcast about weird questions with wonderful answers, hosted by Tom Scott. For business enquiries, contestant appearances or question submissions, visit https://www.lateralcast.com. HOST: Tom Scott. QUESTION PRODUCER: David Bodycombe. EDITED BY: Julie Hassett at The Podcast Studios, Dublin. MUSIC: Karl-Ola Kjellholm ('Private Detective'/'Agrumes', courtesy of epidemicsound.com). ADDITIONAL QUESTIONS: Asger Harpøth Møller, Lewis F.S., Deniz Montagner. FORMAT: Pad 26 Limited/Labyrinth Games Ltd. EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS: David Bodycombe and Tom Scott. © Pad 26 Limited (https://www.pad26.com) / Labyrinth Games Ltd. 2023. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's known in Swahili as a kippa lefty? The answer to that at the end of the show. My name's Tom Scott and this is Lateral. Welcome everybody to this session of Trivia Geeks Anonymous. My name's Tom, I'm a trivia geek and it has been 23 months since I last played Trivial Pursuit. Today we are joined by the team from Answer in Progress. Welcome back to the show, Sabrina Cruz. Hello! The cat is also here. There he is. Meow for the camera. No, now the cat is next to

the microphone. The cat is silent. He's found the celery stick. I'm gonna pull him away from that. Also from Answer in Progress, Taha Khan. Hello, I am also from Answer in Progress. I just said that. Do you have a cat? I do not have a cat or pet of any sort, so my audio will be perfect. And also, also from Answer in Progress, Melissa Fernandez. Hello, I don't have a cat. I don't know if that's a good or bad thing in this situation. This feels like a targeted attack, but okay. Our show is just like the Snacks Isle at a supermarket. It's full of beguiling treats that sometimes are just outside of your reach. But will the questions drive you nuts or crackers?

I apologise for that joke. I liked it. Stand by it, you coward. We start off with question number one. Question number one is short and simple. Why is there a bar symbol on one-armed bandits? I'll say that again. Why is there a bar symbol on one-armed bandits?

I didn't understand. I understand those words as individual things. I don't know why the question is phrased as one-armed bandit. Do any of the three people here know what a one-armed bandit is? No. A criminal with one arm. See, I thought this was, this is a phrase that I know from like American pop culture from the past, but it's very much out of date.

So you know what? Stage one of this question is, what's a one-armed bandit? Yeah. And you're telling me it isn't a bandit with one arm. No, and it has a bar symbol on it. I don't even know what a bar symbol is. Is it a location? Is it a person? It's a thing.

It's a thing. It's a thing with one arm that steals your money. Is it like the parking, like when you enter and leave a parking lot and it has like the little arm where it's like, ah, you could go in. Oh, that's a lovely guess. It's not. But I can see why you went for that. Is it the little cat that comes out of a box and takes the penny in those cheap Chinese toys that you can get from places? Oh, not quite. Not even close.

Sorry, but you're coming up with wonderful suggestions for one-armed bandits. The arm is something that you pull down yourself. Oh, it's a slot machine? Yes. One-armed bandit is an old term for a slot machine. Interesting. Okay. Why do they have a bar symbol on those old-fashioned slot machines? Okay, what is a bar symbol?

Is it like a drinking bar? None of us have been to a casino. Wow. We are all Zoomers. This is a wonderfully mis-targeted question. Did none of you like play fruit? I mean, we call them fruit machines or slot machines in the UK.

Did none of you like play those as a kid? As a child? As a kid. What is happening in the United Kingdom? Okay. I've seen it before. I've only just realised how weird it is that children can play slot machines in the UK. I didn't know that was a thing.

That is actually really, really weird now I think about it. But it was such a part of my childhood and like seaside arcades that I never even thought to question that. That's really weird. Yeah, it is. I would have liquidated my assets and put it all into slots as a four-year-old. Like there's a limit on the amount of,

like you can only bet maybe five or 10 pence at a time. You can bet? You can bet? Yeah, and the jackpots are limited to like two or three pounds. But yeah, there's no age restriction on those machines.

Now I say that out loud, that's bizarre. What I'm hearing is you can get a 30x return. Good investment. To all the four-year-olds listening. To all the boss babies out there. No, hold on, hold on. I'm going to defend my country and my childhood just a little bit here. I'm not sure that's worse than those machines where you just put some money in it

and it gives you useless tokens you redeem for prizes. I'm not sure that's actually better or worse. But I think the stance that we should have is that both of those things are bad. For children. Agreed. Yes. Like, don't worry, I've read, there's a great book called Addiction by Design,

which is like, this is how bad slot machines are for people and humanity. And it's this really bleak academic book. And I never really connected that to, no, I would go to the seaside as a kid and like put a pound into slot machines and occasionally make a profit. And now I say that out loud,

that sounds so bad. Why is it specifically the seaside? Yeah. That's kind of. That's where the bandits are. The UK has a lot of coastline and like, that's where you would find like amusement arcades and things like that would be where people go on holidays. Okay.

Traditionally that would be the seaside. This entire thing is so weird. now I say it out loud. Yeah. I've never made that connection in my head. So imagine, if you will, an old-timey slot machine. With the spinny reels on it and things like that. We don't mean to make you feel old. And yet,

we're just youthful, you know? What can we say? Oh dear. I feel like I should make us feel better that I have seen one in real life before. Very recently too. Did you see the bar symbol? Was there a little plaque that

was explaining? Are you talking about the word bar? Like the word bar. Yes. Seen that. Okay. Don't know why it's there. That's the question.

Good. We've got to the question. We've got to the question. We're there now. We're there. We've established all the terms. So it's not just numbers and words. What else is on there traditionally?

Diamonds. Cherries. Mm-hmm. There's a reason we call them Fruit machines in the UK My favourite fruit, diamonds Sorry It used to be cherry, melon, orange

Everything like that They have these at service stations And pubs They have slot machines in pubs? Yeah Truly a different country. That is true. Also, that's true in like Oregon and a couple of other US states and all of Australia.

Probably Vegas. Oh, yeah. Maybe. I don't know if there are many slot machines in Vegas. Okay. So they have these symbols. Do they do gambling in Vegas? I don't think so.

It's like the middle of a desert. Why there why would anyone be there yeah um that's true anyway so there are these symbols on these cylinders the goal is to get them to match up in a certain way these symbols apparently used to be primarily fruit oriented but and then one that just says bar just says the word bar it doesn't look like a big saloon sign that says saloon nope is it is it that if um all three say bar like in a row you have to go to the bar and be like hey i just got all three in a row so you have to give me like a big amount of money it's like the winner the it's like i i can't dispense this amount of money so so you have to go to the bar. So you're actually fairly close on that. The reason is not because you were in a bar

or that you might have to go to the bar, but it is a different definition of that word. Well, a bar is like a table, right? Like it's just a location. It's like a table. It's also like bar none. You could also have like bar none. I don't know what the word bar is doing

in that sentence actually, but like bar none would You could also have bar none. I don't know what the word bar is doing in that sentence, actually. But bar none would be like... I'm trying to understand what that definition is. Save anything else, right? You've not found the right definition of that yet. So it's not a gold bars. That's the right definition of the word, though. Oh, it is?

It's not gold bars, but it's something like that. Chocolate? You know those big chunks of cash like the big stacks has a little band around it i guess those are called bands i was i was gonna say it's like if you get three of them you've lost too much money and they're like you're barred from this machine for a bit but we're clearly already on gold bars they're never going to do that yeah so it's a bar of something it's representative of like

other things if they match up it'll spit out coins or whatever but if you get three bars at some point bars of silver? is it just silver? well you say it'll spit out money at some point

it's not necessarily true for very early slot machines very early slot machines they wouldn't spit out money at some point. It's not necessarily true for very early slot machines. Very early slot machines. They wouldn't spit out coins or money. What did you say? They wouldn't spit out coins or money? They wouldn't spit out money. Oh.

So was it representative of, like, the only winning option was bar, and that's the only time that you win? Yep. So what might you win, given what else is on those reels a basket of fruits or a drink could you win a drink oh what was that melissa like a fruit oh wait no fruit fruit a fruit bar no that doesn't make sense i mean they get a fruit salad like you know like a buffet you're close enough, I'm going to give you it.

It's a bar of chewing gum. You are not close at all. You're being far too gracious. I mean, yes, but we did start at the process where no one really recognized the phrase one-armed bandit. So I feel like we've blundered our way through a very, very difficult race there. Well, now it makes sense why it was open for children

if the things that you win is like a little piece of gum. Yeah, there's a lot of old traditions that the gambling laws haven't quite caught up with. It was originally, you put some coins in, you spin the wheel,

maybe you'll get a bar of gum at a very cheap price. Maybe it will just remind you of the flavours of gum you could win with the fruits on the reels. Ooh. This sounds a lot more

child-friendly. Yeah. Child-friendly in sort of like a lifetime of addiction kind of way. Listen, we're out here using TikTok, Taha. What are you talking about? That's also true. I'm judging, but like, you know, I've wasted a day

to TikTok before. As ever, our guests have brought in a question as well. And I don't know the question. I don't know the answer. Good luck to all of us. We're going to start this time with Melissa. All right. This listener question has been sent in by Dennis Montagner.

So here we go. During an international soccer match one evening in May 2018, the Tunisian goalkeeper lay down on the ground during the second half so that the rest of his team could run off the pitch to find their dates. Why? I'll say that one more time. During an international soccer match one evening in May of 2018, the Tunisian goalkeeper lay down on the ground during the second half so that the rest of his team could run off the pitch to find their dates why i thought writing things down would help me but i'm just do you want me to say a third time no no no i'm just i just i'm bad i'm

stupid that's why okay so we lay down on the ground. So potentially faking an injury of some sort to like run down the clock. Oh, I was thinking it was some kind of weird strategy or something like that. I was thinking he was just kind of laying down in front of the goal and leaving an open goal, but. I'm still thrown off by finding their dates.

Like, aren't they busy? Are they not playing a game they busy? Are they not? They're not doing their job. Um, does dates mean like the, it means like somebody that they were like seeing for the evening at least. So it was like, they didn't have like labeled like the fruit and been like,

this is my one. I need to go find my one. What was your question, Sabrina? So they were talking about, like, they were going to go find people they were, like, spending some sort of time with. No. The fruit? It was days. I got it.

I've got it. I've got it. Yes. They were lying down because they were fasting and they went to break their fast close enough May 2018

that is that is correct wait this was the World Cup I remember this was this is this correct I don't know if it

yes it was the World Cup yeah I remember this and the sun had just set so yeah and it's during Ramadan. Yeah. Incredible. Nice.

I just remembered that from the depths of my soul. That was great. Serena, your question kind of gave the key there. I'm not going to lie. I wouldn't have gotten it. I think that it still still i i had a thing in my head saying make a joke about the dates being like the fruit and then i thought no i'm not i'm not gonna ask that one that you always say the stupid thing it might actually turn out that was good so yeah um the goalkeeper lay down on the ground so that the

teammates could break their fast because it was during Ramadan. Next question is back to me. And it's a bit of a mystery one, this. This isn't based on real events. This is just a hypothetical for you. A sleeping woman is found at the arrivals lounge at Heathrow Airport, London. She has no possessions or ID with her.

However, one security guard saw she was wearing her watch upside down. They knew which country she'd been visiting. Where was she from? I'll say that again. A sleeping woman is found at the arrivals lounge at Heathrow Airport, London. She has no possessions or ID with her. However, once security guards saw she was wearing her watch upside down,

they knew which country she'd been visiting. Where was she from? This is like a riddle. Is it like some place with a 12-hour time difference? So then she remembers the location, but if she wants to call like family or whatever, she has to account for that time difference. So she wants to know the local time.

I mean, a 12-hour time difference. Is in fact just the same watch. I'll pass away now. It's fine. Six hours? Would you like to rephrase the answer? I'm not fully confident. Six hours.

Is it six hours or 24? It's six, right? Yes. Six. You are actually really close with that one. You are rattling through this, but that's not quite right. That wouldn't really work if you turned your watch upside down. I'm going to fish out a watch.

Kind of a watch. Was it a digital watch or an analogue watch? It was analogue. Okay. This is a riddle. Do you think they have Apple watches and riddles?

Maybe. Yeah, they were using the smart watch face on the new Apple watch. Does the Apple watch have an accelerometer in it so if you flip it around the other way

probably I don't know this is this is an analog wristwatch okay she's got it doesn't flip

upside down okay she's just locked my watch I've got it because this is a riddle the horse's name was Friday we've got it because this is a riddle the horse's name was Friday we've nailed it

we can go to the next one okay you are actually almost right Sabrina you're in definitely the right area but six hours would not work for turning your watch

upside down upside down because I don't have like a clock face like available to me but I just stay in this room, this timeless room of void.

But I think that if you turn the watch face upside down, the time will go backwards. Am I wrong? I found a watch. No, I'm wrong. No, it'll still keep going clockwise. Yeah, it'll still go clockwise. It doesn't invert.

I really thought that looking at a watch face would suddenly just unlock it for me. It means nothing. It was just like someone from a Christopher Nolan film. Would you like to... Okay, so this is the watch right side up. And then it does this. I flipped it upside down. And it feels like it's being like...

It's being mirrored on some axis. So the top of the watch would say 6. But it's upside down, so it would say 9. Oh. Right? Wait. No, it would say 12. Am I wrong?

This is truly a humiliating episode For the Zoomers on this call We don't know what a slot machine is We have not looked at an analog watch face In a very long time To be fair, I realized I've lost the ability To intuitively tell the time In my childhood I could look at a clock and go, yes, I know what time it is now. Whereas now I do have to go, yeah, and just kind of work it out.

Like I've lost that ability. No, six is at the bottom. I'm not crazy. Yeah, six is at the bottom. But when you flip it upside down, six moves to the top and then 12 moves to the bottom. No, no, I understand that. But isn't the actual symbol of six turned around oh six upside down becomes nine you went deep into the riddle so what i'm saying is

that maybe maybe like it was nine in the other country and 12 and six in the normal country so three hours. But it would only work for that one number, wouldn't it? Yeah, that's what I mean. But like you only need the one number to tell the time. A broken clock is always right twice. I don't know. I mean, you're definitely on the right line, Sabrina.

What is that movement doing to the time? When you turn that watch upside down, what happens? So this truly is just us unable to parse this clock. Okay, so it's six. All of our brain cells together. So it's six hours. The difference is six hours. Because it rotates on a weird axis, though,

because it's by minutes as well. It's a half hour. So it's one of those, is it one of those countries with a half hour difference as well? So it's six and a half hours. Newfoundland. So you are nearly right on six and a half, but not quite.

And completely, utterly wrong on Newfoundland. Damn it. Five and a half hours. Yes, you're right. If you turn that watch upside down, you have to nudge the hour hand a bit in your head, but it's roughly five and a half hours by changing that. I have a question. Does anyone know the time difference to Australia?

Because I know Australia has half hour time differences because one of the time zones uses the Korean time zone. So maybe they were either in Korea or in Australia because I know they both have half hour time differences. There is one other major country with a half hour time difference. And if you don't know it, you don't know it. I know the other two. That's crazy. Yeah, you unfortunately know the other two.

There is one very major country that is about five hours east. You're in the right area. You're not quite there with China. Not Korea, not Australia. So what's in that region? Like Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Uzbeks. I'm moving this way. I'm just going to guess this so that I don't feel shame. Is it Pakistan? Not quite.

India? India is absolutely the right answer. India has a five and a half hour time difference. So there is a trick, which apparently Narendra Modi told, like, to the entire Wembley Stadium audience when he was, I was going to say performing, holding a rally there. You can turn the watch upside down and that will convert you between Indian time and UK time. That is so cool. The next question comes from Sabrina. Go for it.

All right. This is a listener question that's been sent in by Louis FS. If you look at a British home constructed in the late 18th century, it is likely that its bricks are larger than those in a house from the early part of that century. Why? I'll say it again. If you look at a British home constructed in the late 18th century, it is likely that its bricks are larger than those in a house from the early part of that century. Why? I mean, the comedy answer is inflation, but that's, you know.

Somebody was outside blowing air into a brick. Would it just take less time to build? To construct because they're bigger pieces? Less time to put it together? From her facial expressions, that was a no. No, no, no. It's not a no per se. It's like you're on the right track,

but it isn't necessarily answering the question of why. Is it because they invented some building tool that allows them to move larger bricks so they could build faster because they're bigger bricks and they had the ability, like a crane, like a rudimentary crane

to build houses. They had aliens. You can move a brick by just picking it up yeah but like unless people got stronger yeah everyone just started working out uh no there was no technological reason for this shift oh okay so the only bit i know about old buildings back then is that there was a window tax

there's a place where I can't remember there's a big old mansion stately home somewhere in the Midlands that

was known as more glass than wall because it was ostentatious they were putting windows everywhere to show off that they had money

because you were charged by the window by how much glass you had in your building I don't know how that would affect windows everywhere to show off that they had money because you were charged by by the window by the how much glass you had in your building um i don't know how that would affect the size of bricks though i'm just vaguely if we're talking about non-technological reasons that change why buildings look because i was thinking like in my head you know there's like massive bricks that go on the inside of a building and then they put the nice outside bricks up.

So I was thinking like... Breeze blocks, yeah. Breeze blocks, yeah. Maybe I was thinking that they invented breeze blocks. Hmm. I'll say that, Tom, you're not right, but you're inching. You're getting there. It's a legal change then.

Is it literally as straightforward as the legal requirement for a brick increased? No. Oh, did the tax on the brick increase per brick? Like there was a hard... So good. Like you were charged a penny per hundred bricks tax and the solution was just to make really big bricks.

That has to be... It absolutely is. Oh my gosh. Do you guys want to know why there was this tax that was implemented? Money. They wanted to make more money. Well, that is usually why you would implement a tax. Did it specifically target some group who were building like big brick places or something like that?

It was more so for a specific cause. Think about the era. It's the late 18th century. What's been going on? Was this? Oh, this is where my history knowledge shows up wrong. Is this like King John and the Crusades? I'm just thinking like Robin Hood.

And I think that was centuries earlier now. Not quite. It wasn't quite that time But it No that was centuries That was centuries earlier wasn't it Yeah Yeah

Should I just Should I just tell you You guys figured out that it was a brick tax And it was to pay off The American Revolutionary War Oh Mm-hmm That

Yeah I That's a random Tax to add Yeah Sometimes in my head The dates Despite the dates being the same

Yeah of course Late 18th century Late 18th century Does not feel like American Revolutionary War To me For some reason That doesn't feel like

The right definition of there Late 18th century Feels like Oh that's That's centuries ago That's medieval No it's not That's medieval. No, it's not. That's the American Revolution. There's also the fact that all of us

were born around or before the 90s. We were born in the late 20th century, y'all. What's it like? I used turn of the century in a video a while back without really thinking about it to mean the turn to the

21st century and that confused a lot of people who just haven't kind of internalized that yet yeah that's fair but to answer like to get it all together this this tax for these bricks was introduced to recoup the cost of the american revolutionary war uh the word excise on the brick showed that tax had been paid on them. And from 1803, an act was introduced that charged double duty for bricks over 10 by 5 inches. So you couldn't keep scamming the system. What we've done is we've taken one massive brick and carved it out from inside it. Yes. But interestingly, bricks used in constructing or repairing churches were exempt from this form of taxation. My last big question of the show then. On the night of October 5th,

2001, people in a motley assortment of boats, inflatables, kayaks and canoes waited in Macovey Cove, a small inlet of San Francisco Bay, hoping to catch a possible fortune. What was that fortune? I'll say that again. On the night of October 5th, 2001, people in a motley assortment of boats, inflatables, kayaks, and canoes waited in McCovey Cove, a small inlet of San Francisco Bay, hoping to catch a possible fortune. What was that fortune? So I know that at some point, because you made a video on it, they spilled Lego into the sea. Yes, a lot of Lego. A lot of Lego.

So was there like a limited edition Lego that they were all trying to find? I love that. Unfortunately not. That plastic tends to get washed in with the tide onto a beach. So you'd have to be kind of sifting through sand for that. You'd also somehow have to track a single piece of Lego from like a container ship accident a hundred miles away, which would be a little bit tricky. So does it have anything to do with like something

spilling out into the ocean? In a very, very vague sense, yes. Wow. Is it like, is it, I don't know why my head immediately went to this, but is it like something visual? Like, is it like a sunset or something like settling in? Like, you know those big moons when people are like,

oh yeah, it's the big moon day. Look outside, the moon is so big. Is it like one of those? Weirdly, for the questions in this show, it's actually less metaphorical than that. Okay. They're not just trying to hope to catch the sunset. They're not catching the sunset

and that's their fortune that they've earned in their hearts. No, this is very much trying to catch a fortune. So this is 2001? 2001, October. And something spilled, you said? Spilled is something we came up with. Spilled is something you came up with. I'm saying very, very vaguely.

It's something that's spilling into the ocean. A small fortune. Did they mint the first Bitcoin that was in the sea? Because all I'm thinking is San Francisco is Silicon Valley. I'm just, I don't know. I feel like it's something technological in nature, maybe. It's artificial. It's not necessarily technological.

Interesting. Interesting. Is it alive? maybe it's artificial it's not necessarily technological interesting interesting is it alive uh no well the people in the bay are hopefully but uh

the small fortune isn't alive okay the small fortune is this turtle yeah but this actually happens fairly

regularly uh this one was special there was a reason there were so many people there but fairly regularly. This one was special. There was a reason there were so many people there. But fairly regularly, there's people in this cove trying to find something, hoping to catch something.

Like microchips? Was there like a... Nvidia graphics cards. Fishing. Yeah. The reason I asked if there was anything alive was like, maybe it's like some sort of sea creature that lives in that area that would be particularly valuable.

But apparently not. It is NVIDIA graphics cards, Melissa. There we go. It's still gun valley. They need it for the Bitcoin mining. Yeah, they are trying to catch a small fortune here. Am I just making this up,

or did you say 1.2 million? You are entirely making that up. I've said no numbers at all. Oh, okay. Yeah, I guess that's what I think of as a small fortune. I guess. 1.2 million. What do you see this cove as looking like?

It's McCovey Cove, which honestly sounds like someone doing a Boaty McVote face, but I swear that's the name. What are you picturing this as? Like a bowl, like an inverted bowl of stone. I'm picturing a beach. This is the San Francisco Bay. And it's not necessarily by the beach here. Is it like Alcatraz? Is it like a piece of the

Golden Gate Bridge? Huh. You're closer to the right area of the bay there. I don't know enough about San Francisco. I wish we recorded this a week from now. I'm going to San Francisco a week from now.

This is right next to a building. A lot of buildings, but one specific very large building. And there are just a lot of people floating in the ocean next to it.

What's a large building? The treasury. A big bank. They're just throwing out bags of money. Leaking coins. I mean, there is something

coming out of that building at speed. If they catch it, it's going to be worth a lot of money. At speed? Oh! Bow! Wah! Got it!

Yeah! Somebody's famous home run ball! Sorry, I was doing a lot of sound effects. I appreciate the sound effects. Oracle Stadium looks out into this beautiful view of the bay. I imagine boats were there because somebody was going to hit some big number, some legendary number. Yep, Barry Bonds' 71st home run of the season.

Bada bing. And it's a small fortune to... Barry Bonds, Taha? Who is that? He was mentioned in a Kanye song. I don't know who that is. I know who Kanye is, the other song. I don't know who that is. I know who Kanye is, the other one. He's one of like the all-time greats.

I think he has the record. Yeah, but it's still baseball. He got the record. He took the record from Mark McGuire, who got 70 home runs this season. That ball was sold for $3 million. So you are almost right with two million yeah um so all these people in kayaks and canoes and inflatables were kind of just waiting there in

case the ball comes out and there's a regular crew of people who do this but it's very rare that's going to be a ball that could make someone a fortune if they catch it yeah similarly so i'm a relatively large fan of baseball i went to like 15 Blue Jays games this year. And so one of the games that they played was against Aaron Judge, who was set to like break the record for the American League. Some reason I completely forgot the division that they play in. And so he was set to break that record. And so there was like this section of seats that was just empty. And so there was like this section of seats that was just empty.

And everyone was hypothesizing like somebody had bought it out to like catch to make sure that they could catch the ball because it was where he was more likely to hit it. So that's fun. It was it was it was sorry. The vacuum is so loud that somebody had said that they would buy that ball for two million dollars. Wow. And it wasn't even a good record. It was like a mid record. Two million dollars is what it costs for about 10 seats

at a baseball match as well. So, you know. I love baseball match. Match neutral. As it turned out, that home run was actually caught by a fan inside the stadium. So they were sadly disappointed outside.

They didn't even get to watch the game. No, no. But they got a lovely float out on the bay. So there's that. They're in it for the money, not for the love of the sport. Yeah. So yes, the inflatables, kayaks and canoes on the San Francisco Bay on that day were there to try and catch a record baseball.

So one big question left in the show, and it's from Taha. All right. In 1920, some US juice manufacturers would sell their wares as a brick. People could add the brick to a gallon of water to reconstitute the juice. On the packaging was a warning that virtually all their customers would ignore. Why? I've got to sit out of this question. I know this one. So I'm going to sit out. Sabrina and Melissa, this one's on you. Okay.

Do not bite the juice bar. I would be tempted immediately. Take a little crunch. Yeah. Well, they still like sell that frozen juice concentrate. And I had to be talked out at one point the first time i saw that they were like oh what do you do with this and someone's like oh no it's just it's like a uh frozen dessert you just kind of like and i kind of got to him they're like no don't don't do that don't do that love

that i still wish i had i still wish i'd experienced that i might go and buy some frozen juice shortly and just just live out the dream. Life is too short not to eat the forbidden snack. This is terrible advice. Cut it. Tom Scott plus a juice bar. Which is certainly something you can win out of a slot machine.

There you go. Okay, Melissa. What do you think? What else would people do with it? Other than... Okay, hold on. What type of warnings do we usually ignore? I ignore ones that are like, wait, use this specific...

If it's like, use bread flour, I'm like, I'm sorry. I only have one flour available. It's called all purpose. only have one flour available. It's called all-purpose. Sorry, this is an entire distraction, but I've wondered this question for a while. What the hell is all-purpose flour? The British definitions are like plain and self-raising,

which is just we've added baking powder to it. I don't know what... Is all-purpose flour just like plain flour? I believe it's just plain flour. Okay had we we have we have an episode that we ended up scrapping it's going to be a patreon exclusive where we make bread and i had this exact problem because we we did this episode in canada and none of the names of flour made any sense no it's terrible i was at a disadvantage desperation and pain I'm sorry back on it okay so there was a warning

that was ignored what follow up questions well Sabrina using this logic you ignore you ignore the directions because why you just want to be rebellious ignore the directions because why? You just want to be rebellious?

Because I'm an impatient monster. I want my juice now. I don't even like juice. I'm not going to lie. I'm one of those weirdos. Okay, so the warning was written like with a

nod and a wink. Like, not actually, they didn't have an emoji, but like, you know what I mean. Don't drink this. This is not safe for human consumption. Oh, don't mix it with alcohol. Close. Prohibition. Oh.

It was during the prohibition. You're so close. I'm, like, tempted to give it to you, but, like. Okay, Melissa, we're so close. Let's get there. What? So it was grape juice. That helps.

Oh, this whole time I thought it was orange juice. I was thinking orange juice. This changes everything. Glad to know. Shared that thought. Okay. okay okay so it was grape juice don't ferment it i don't know yes basically the warning was telling customers how not to turn their grape juice into wine so it was like oh no if you follow these instructions you might accidentally have wine that would be terrible um so in the prohibition era vineyards turned their produce into bricks of grape juice which

were entirely legal to sell two such warnings included warning after dissolving the brick in a gallon of water do not place the liquid in a jug in the cupboard for 20 days because then it would turn into wine, which is hilarious. Well, the other warning that they put on it was to prevent fermentation, add a tenth of a percent of benzoate soda. Benzoate of soda. So in case you actually want a juice,

is what I'm hearing. Yeah. You can just eat it. There's one guy who just really likes grape juice and is just confused. Oh, I don't want to do that. I'm so drunk right now. What's happening?

I love that first warning. It is so blatant. Like, I thought it might be something like a little bit more cloaked, but it was genuinely like, oh no, it would be terrible if you did this I think it's just it was the use of the word jug that did it for me where I was like is this a real warning for me it was that Taha said that he knew the answer so then I was like ah must be about oranges that That's actually true. My favourite, I love orange juice. I consume about a litre a day.

I have a bag of clementines a day. It's, I love oranges. Have you tried putting it in a jug under the cupboard for 20 days? I was told not to do that. One final thing then. We had a listener question to the audience at the start of the show. Thank you to Asghar Pathmola. What is known in Swahili as a kippa lefty?

Anyone want to take a guess at that before I give the answer? I just instinctively think football. Ah. I heard the word lefty and then something at the front. So I was just like an ambidextrous person. It's kippee lefty. Is it derogatory? Not at all.

Why would that be in the show? Why would Tom decide to put it in the show? I don't tend to ask questions about slurs. The question writers don't tend to put those together. I'm sure we could come up with some if we really wanted to. Oh my God. Banned on the internet you know the last episode of the show when i just want to get cancelled we'll just have a whole

section that's so funny i i i hope melissa's just sat there like head in hand i'm sorry for like rinsing you for that suggestion it was hilarious and thank you for saying it. I don't know how to explain that, but okay. Okay. Kippa lefty, it's something that drivers would encounter. Okay. Is it an animal? No left turn. A U-turn, a roundabout.

A roundabout is the right answer. Yes, a roundabout or a traffic circle in Swahili. The word for more than one of them is vipilefti because in Swahili, plurals change the start of the word. Very neat. So that is our show. Thank you very much to the entire Answer in Progress team. Last time it was Taha that did the outro for you all.

Sabrina, Melissa, I'm going to leave this to both of you. Good luck. We are Answer in Progress. We make YouTube videos where we ask questions trophy all uh savrina melissa i'm gonna leave this to both of you good luck we are answering progress we make youtube videos where we ask questions and stumble our way to the answer melissa what should they do they should watch the videos and watch us stumble and sometimes get the answer but usually stumble it's a fun journey watch videos like wow look at these fake buildings that's so interesting you guys are so bad at this this is why we leave it to you melissa where can they find you you can find us at youtube.com

forward slash a and don't answer in progress i'm not gonna say i was going for the url and i stopped I stopped immediately. YouTube.com forward slash answer in progress. And if you want to know more about this show or send an idea for a question yourself, you can do that at lateralcast.com. We are at Lateral Cast on pretty much every bit of social media and you can get video highlights every week at YouTube.com slash Lateral Cast.

Thank you very much to Sabrina Cruz, Melissa Fernandez, Taha Khan. We are our own studio audience. thank you very much to Sabrina Cruz, Melissa Fernandez to Ahkan we are our own studio audience I'm John Scott and this has been Lateral