Lateral with Tom Scott - 54: Smearing honey on doors

Episode Date: October 20, 2023

Jacklyn Dallas ('Nothing But Tech'), Beryl Shereshewsky and Alec Watson ('Technology Connections') face questions about charity costs, goofy greetings and malleable metal. 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. RECORDED AT: The Podcast Studios, Dublin. EDITED BY: Julie Hassett. MUSIC: Karl-Ola Kjellholm ('Private Detective'/'Agrumes', courtesy of epidemicsound.com). ADDITIONAL QUESTIONS: Felicia Barker, Pascal de Vries, Ellis, Jonah Hyman. 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

Which company wished a happy Father's Day to people who weren't their customers? The answer to that at the end of the show. My name's Tom Scott, and this is Lateral. Welcome to the show, a kind of full-body yoga where even your mind has to bend and stretch. So joining us in the studio today, we start with Beryl Cheryshevsky. Hi. Now, last time we were on, we rattled through a lot of questions between the group very, very quickly. So I'm going to ask, what is it that you're working on now that you are

really looking forward to producing? Do you mean like for my channel or like life in general? I mean, I can ask it as a big existential question. Yeah, I wasn't sure. I was just going for the YouTube channel. Oh, right. I was like, yeah, I don't know, like, love, loss. Okay, sorry, I'll answer that more accurately.

Can I just pick up or do you have to ask that question once more? Honestly, that'll probably stay in. Oh, okay. Honestly, that'll probably stay in. Oh, okay. Coming up, I have a new series launching that is going to help people learn how to navigate international grocery stores a little bit better,

where people from those cultures are going to guide me through different stores. So we're going to a Filipino grocery store. We're going to a Middle Eastern grocery store. That way you could go and not just kind of walk around befuddled by everything. You keep having format ideas that I'm like, there's a point at which an idea is so good that I get angry about it. And you keep having those. It's not like I

could do that series. I've got no cooking experience. I'm just genuinely impressed by that. Yeah. Also joining us, we have from Nothing But Tech, Jacqueline Dallas. Thanks for having me on. I totally agree with that. The format is like everything. Like if you have a brilliant idea, it's like hot ones on YouTube or like the progressively hotter and hotter wings. And then the questions, that is just so brilliant. What's your format at the moment then?

What are you working on? Yeah, I've been doing more day-in-life reviews for fraud stuff. So again, like that dual narrative, like hot ones you watch to like see how the guest reacts to the wings and then also see their answers to the questions. And for tech videos, it's like you're watching to see how the product performs,

then also what I'm doing on a day-to-day. And then I'm also doing interviews with tech executives. Did I see a custom mug there? Was that your own brand of mug? Yes. Oh my God. Good eye. Same. No way. I love it. Experimental sample merch here. i want that in my life i'm gonna instant buy that the second you make it available

and the third member of the panel returning to the show we have alec from technology connections alec how are you doing i'm doing great it's wonderful to be back what are you working on at the minute what is what is in the future we record this, but in the past as people listen? I'm going back to basics, actually. I'm just talking about a very simple thing and how it works. And I was just staring at it. It was like, you know, I don't really understand how those work. So that's what I'm doing.

You're going to learn all about the photocell light controls that turn streetlights off during the day. I love that. I think about that all the time. I'm not. I love that. I think about that all the time. I'm not even being sarcastic. I think it's such a cool idea. They are a lot weirder than you think. I believe it. I was like, that's how that works. So hopefully it's a good video. There's like this one moment in New York City where you can be in Central Park and all of the lights come on and it's always very magical if you can time it perfectly.

That's magic. Good luck to all three of you. Solving the questions on this show is a bit like living in a dreamscape. Nothing quite makes sense and at some point tonight you'll wake up going, ah! But while you're still lucid, we'll start you off with the first question, which is, question sent in by Ellis, thank you very much, why was the Polish charity Ecologic Group doubly sad when it received an unexpected phone bill for $2,700? And one more time.

Why was the Polish charity Ecologic Group doubly sad when it received an unexpected phone bill for $2,700? I like that it was like doubly sad, meaning they didn't know that they had a phone. Must have been the reason they had. Or they were expecting that they were expecting a bill that was only 1350. Who were they calling? They were sad.

They were they were sad. They were a polish eco group they were sad because it should have all been paid for by solar and wind power and not by money power oh interesting i'm guessing no my my brain's not leading down any productive paths here. Well, you're right that the phone bill was one reason to be sad. Like, that's a sudden bill for the charity they weren't expecting. But there was a second reason.

Is there anything to do with the amount? Like, $2,700? That feels specific. Roughly $2,700. They were sad because they had to work at a charity to save the world. That seems complicated to save at this point in time. So they were sad and then they got a phone bill and they were like, just close up shop. We're done.

Yeah. They're like, everything is going wrong right now. Existential climate crisis jokes here, but sure, sure. I wonder if like that just shows the amount of calls they had to make to try to raise money.

Like $2,700, that's such a high phone bill that they probably were on the phone for so much time, but then they didn't actually raise that much money. Maybe it shows like that their efforts are not working. Or maybe somebody was just calling their friends and having a chit chat and actually they didn't raise any money. And the phone bill was all to like call in game shows like this one. Hey, I am. This is not one of those premium rate call and lose shows that we had for a while. That reference is not going to land for any of the Americans. But for like several years in like the I think it was late 2000s, early 2010s,

Britain had like a fine line in like late night call-in premium rate shows with just almost impossible questions where you basically had to guess and you would call the number and they'd be like, we're waiting for a caller through to the studio. We're waiting for a call. And a lot of the times just say,

sorry, you've been unsuccessful because it was basically a lottery and just as soon as enough people had called and they knew they were making a profit,'d let someone through allegedly i need to legal legal need to do a check through on exactly what the complaints were about that but we we had a we had a long line in sort of what were termed call and lose shows for a while and just to be clear no one here is on a premium right call to be on this to be on this podcast and definitely nobody from a polish eco charity i think there's something there with the they weren't raising money but

the call bill was so high that they were able to see that maybe people were not being productive they were calling 1 900 numbers well i was thinking maybe is it like a difference between outbound and incoming calls as far as how they're billed? Does that matter? There were a lot more calls than expected. People thought that it was the number for the president of Poland. And so they got a lot of calls and everyone was like, hey, and they're like, yo, this is Oleg. And they're like, that's not who I expected to pick up. Oh, maybe they got complaints about like an ad that they ran or something. And so they had a lot of calls come in about like complaints about what they were doing. I should clarify, the US is one of the very few countries in the world that bills for

incoming calls. Nearly everywhere else, incoming calls are free. Oh, okay, so this must have been a lot of outgoing calls. A lot of chit-chat, like you said. Was it just that they were saddened by all the effort they needed to take to get the donations they needed? No, you're way too serious. This has got to be something silly. Like, think about the questions. This is not serious.

Like, literally, they're making calls to, like, you know, sexy girls on the phone booths. There's something weird here. Something's not making, someone's calling for something wrong. Yeah, you've spotted, Beryl, there is something strange going on with this phone. The phone was actually a telemarketing phone that they didn't realize was a telemarketing phone that was just calling out everybody. That was one of those wonderful moments on this podcast where the first few words are like, she's got it, she's got it.

And then it fell down. I'll tell you the words that were right in that sense. It was, the phone was actually. Okay. Was the phone actually, like, always on? What kind of ecological work would include a phone connection? Okay. Burying the phone lines.

If you want to bury the phone lines, you got to make some calls. That's a big initiative in my mom's town because the power lines and phone lines get knocked over during storms. Or above ground. Yeah, above ground. And it's always like, bury the lines. But maybe that's not an eco-initiative and also very specific. Did someone just leave a phone off the hook? That would track.

But would a phone off the hook? That would track. But would a phone off the hook pay? Does that cost money? I'm just I'm also processing how many people don't know what that phrase means these days. Yeah, this was a cell phone bill and it was a little more recent than that. Oh, it's a cell phone bill. I was thinking just of like a rotary phone. I don't know why. I love that your mind went to rotary phone. Yeah, that's also like very because I don't know why. I love that your mind went to rotary phone. Yeah, that's also like very, because I don't know. Yeah, it just seemed like a phone bill.

Like you don't get phone bills on cell phones. It's just like a monthly plan, right? Like. No, I think you do. Maybe they were sending a lot of texts. Did it specify it was phone calls? Oh, international. You get bills if you do international calls. Okay.

And it mentioned that they were polish right so maybe they're like doing something that's actually not in service of like the like poland they were they were doing a lot of prank calls to other countries did they realize that they had crossed a border because of the phone bill and like did work in another country when they shouldn't have and so like suddenly they were roaming and so all the phone calls that they were making turned into international calls. Well, you're getting closer there. They were roaming,

but this was very much deliberate roaming. But also we were saying the phone was actually a, the phone was actually a smartwatch and somebody just had calls nonstop because they slept on it weird. You're getting closer. Oh my God. It's not close yet, but. You're getting closer. Oh my God. It's not close yet, but you're getting steadily closer.

The phone was actually a... Car? Like a car phone? I don't know. I want to say sandwich. Is that? What else might an ecological charity use a phone connection for? Oh, like taking pictures or something? So maybe like, what are they called? Trap camera or whatever. So that they had an automatic system that would dial out when it saw something

and would like the equivalent of fax a picture. What? But it was bad news. Oh. They weren't expecting that big a phone bill from this. It's not a trap camera, but it's definitely that sort

of thing. It's not a phone phone, initially. Oh, like a tattle? It was like a tattletale program? Like, you saw somebody doing something bad, and they were like, call us? No, maybe the phone, like, automatically activates when it sees X thing happen, and maybe they didn't expect X thing to happen that many times. Like the water level hits a certain level or something.

What kind of phone is this? That's like has like, like is sentient and like has sight and makes calls on its own. Not quite the phone barrel, but what might you attach the phone to? Is it like a big button for bears that says talk to the president of Poland or something? Actually, you know what, Alec, that's getting there. A big button for humans? No, you're going to attach this transceiver. I'm not even sure I'd

call it a phone, but it is technically a phone. You attach this to something. Oh, so like an animal that they were tracking. Yeah. Don't tell me that the animal died and that's what they found out. Well, that could be one of the reasons that they're sad, but they're not actually sure what happened to the animal. They sent it off with this little

phone tracker attached to it. It's a pigeon. It's on a pigeon. It's on a stalk actually, but yeah, more or less there. That was close. So where did the phone bill come from? Oh, and then maybe it like flew to a different country and that's why there was roaming. Oh, they knew it was going to a different country.

It's a stork. They're tracking its migration. Yes. The bar's not a $2,700 phone bill. Well, if the stork had a lot of friends and was trying to like throw a party and like needed to call someone. Did someone take the phone from the stork? Someone took the phone from the stork had a lot of friends and was trying to like throw a party and like needed to call. Did someone take the phone from the stork?

Someone took the phone from the stork, took the SIM card out of the phone, and then proceeded to make a huge number of international calls on the charity's dime. Who does that? You like steal a phone from a bird? It's wild. It was somewhere in Sudan in the Blue Nile Valley. They assume that the bird was either ill

or had possibly died because how on earth do you sneak up on a stork? But the answer is they don't know. All they know is someone in Sudan was able to get the SIM card

and charge $2,700 of phone bills to the charity. So you're saying the phone wasn't actually a sandwich. As always, our guests have brought questions with them, and we start today with Alec. What have you got for us? Okay, this question has been sent in by Pascal De Vries. In 1816, French physician and musician René Lenec watched two children scratching a long piece of wood with a pin. Later that year, this helped him overcome his deep shyness when helping a young

lady and made him famous. How? One more time. In 1816, French physician and musician René Lennec watched two children scratching a long piece of wood with a pin. Later that year, this helped him overcome his deep shyness when helping a young lady and made him famous. How? How was he helping this young lady?

What was he doing? I mean, physician and musician so there's a couple of options there. He could be giving her like music lessons. Also, physician and musician, so there's a couple of options there. He could be giving her, like, music lessons. Also, physician and musician is a hell of an overlap there. Very true. I just like the way that sounds. It's got a nice ring to it. He overcame his intense shyness while helping a young lady because he watched two kids?

Maybe he had to, like, perform, like, music or something. It's just weird phrasing that he was helping somebody because you would think if you're a doctor, you would be treating somebody, or if you're a musician, you would be playing for somebody or performing. It's like the word helping her, I'm like, with her groceries, and he was too shy to ask,

but then was like, remember those kids with the pin. Pin on a long piece of wood what's that gonna sound like please now enjoy the sound of the pen in my right hand and my left arm as i try and oh it's not a great sound it's like asmr but not so why why do you think the kids would be doing that they were trying to write their names in the log probably because that's what kids do they want to like leave their mark on the world or they were trying to make an instrument or something like music yeah i i had it more as an instrument like they're scraping it down there to make a make a noise like when i was a kid i used to have something

that looked like that where you just like play that's a good line of thought but the noise wasn't necessarily what they were doing they were sending signals signals to one another. Oh, they were like, they're like, hey, there's a weird guy watching us. The kid was like, yeah, I know. I'd be similarly concerned. Okay. They were using the sound as like a code almost. Like Morse code. Yeah. Remember he helped a young lady, right? He didn't know her very well okay so he watched he watched these kids scratch a log and the kids were giving each other codes and then he saw this young lady and he was like hey let me help you and then was like oh yeah remember those kids now i'm not shy i don't see the connection was he like it's very i, that is literally what has happened.

Yeah, I wonder if he was, like, inspired by watching the kids interact. And it, like, gave him confidence to help this person. So if they're sending signals, you can do that by scratching into the wood. You can do that by leaving physical marks on it. Or you can try and use an amplifier or something like that to send noises. But if you were doing that, I don't know why you wouldn't just yell into it. For some reason, I assume this log was hollow. I don't know why I thought that.

But if it's just a solid piece of wood, then you're just scratching things into it. That feels like what kids do, though, right? They just, like, scratch things into things. I mean, I think the part that I'm caught up on is like overcoming his shyness seems like a part of it because in overcoming his shyness, he was able to live a fulfilling life because before watching these kids and said log, he was, you know, I guess a very shy musician physician

which did not get him very far. Yeah, I feel like both of his roles, you have to be kind of a little bit extroverted, like a musician to perform. And being a doctor, you have to like be able to ask patients what's going on with them. He didn't want to invade the lady's personal space more than he had to.

I'm like stuck because the only way that I can hear the term helped a young lady, it's like with her groceries groceries it's the guy who invented the stethoscope oh that's exactly what it is I thought Tom knew this I really did not know this but I just had this moment of of like sorry sorry I realize that vague flailing and enthusiasm does not come across well on audio. This is the problem with like having the YouTube channels that I watch, because I'm like, I know someone's talked about this. Was it Tom? They're tapping on the log. If you tap on one part of it and you put your ear to another part of it, you can send noise through the log.

They weren't tapping on the log. They were scratching on the log. So Leneck saw two children sending signals to each other using a long piece of wood and scratching on it. And with an ear on one end, the child could hear the pin being scratched at the other end. And so later that year, he was diagnosing a young woman with symptoms of heart disease. And he didn't want to do the standard thing of pressing his ear against her chest. And so he thought back to those kids he saw scratching messages on a log i don't know i i i call shenanigans on that story that seems unlikely but like truly he was like you know young lady i once saw these two kids playing on a log brb i, I'm going to go create something. Yeah, and because of his musician background, he actually had skill making wooden flutes. So he designed a wooden tube for listening to the chest,

which was the precursor to the modern stethoscope. Next up is a question that has been sent in by a lot of people, the first one of which was anonymous. So we're not actually crediting any individual on this. Thank you to the many, many people who sent this one in. Good luck. Released in 2016 with a U rating, the film Paint Drying solely consists of a single shot of a newly painted brick wall for over 10 hours.

What was the director's motivation behind this? I'll say that one more time. Released in 2016 with a U rating, the film Paint Drying solely consists of a single shot of a newly painted brick wall for over 10 hours. What was the director's motivation behind this? And U

rating in Britain is equivalent to a G rating. Unbearable. They went with universal over here for some reason. We have U, which is just universal. I think we used to have one which was UC, which is like particularly for little kids. And then we have PG and then 12, 15, 18, which is like, this is the minimum age to see that.

No, wait, sorry. This is just a rant about film ratings here, but we also have 12A, which is the equivalent of PG-13, which was brought in purely because parents were like, eh, my kid's fine to see this. So 12A is like, yeah, it should be 12 years, but we let him in. We let him in with an adult. So U does not stand for unbearable no it's got to be like around the expression of like it's as boring

as watching paint dry like maybe he's trying to make a statement that it's actually not boring to watch paint dry for 10 hours uh he was trying it was an ad for a quick drying paint actually that's a rather quick time for outdoor paint to dry i just had a thought the the paint that's drying like i'm picturing just a camera pointed at a wall of watching paint drying but i think there might be more going on than just that or is that literally all we're seeing that is literally all you're seeing oh boy it reminds me of that swedish i think it's from sweden slow tv right where it was like you would be on the front of a train going across the country and like everybody would tune in to watch these 12 hour long plus broadcasts of just absolutely nothing.

Well, you know, there's that, there's that paint that goes on purple and dries white. Was that like something like that? I don't know. I'm grasping at straws here. But I think the question wasn't the question. What was he actually trying to say? Oh yeah.

Yeah. What was his motivation behind this? What was his motivation? His motivation was was to kill the theatre industry so that nobody would ever want to go back to the movies again.

We also don't know anything about what audio was happening. Like, there could be something more dynamic going on with the audio. There really wasn't. There's nothing. It's just the paint.

Where were they playing this? I'm not sure it was ever actually played anywhere. Oh, so. It's just a paint. Where were they playing this? I'm not sure it was ever actually played anywhere. Oh, so nobody was watching the paint dry. It just streamed, possibly. Or, wait, if nobody watched it, it's like if a tree

falls in the woods and no one hears it, is the paint still wet? Mmm. If the paint's dry but nobody's touched it, it exactly exactly i like that i can tell you for sure someone watched this the cameraman maybe the person that like approves films for like a festival or something oh yes i just had so it was entered into a film festival oh my god they were it was a dirty trick. They were trying to get back at somebody for like,

you know, stealing their tractor. Like waste someone's time. You submit like a 10 hour thing. It's boring. You're trying to waste the person who- Yep. This was mostly out of spite. Oh, that's dirty.

I love it. It's great. Very specific bit of spite here. Okay. Oh, maybe someone, maybe maybe someone commented about his last movie and was like, it was more boring than watching Paint Dry. And then he was like, hey, I'm going to actually show you how boring watching Paint Dry is.

Yeah, and then maybe the person who made that. But why would they have to watch it? Someone has to. Maybe they say they watch every single submission. And so he's like, okay, you say you watch every single submission, like, here's 10 hours. So who had to watch it in the whole film process? Oh, the judges that were being about his last movie.

Oh, the ratings agency. The ratings agency. Because they have to watch everything to see it. What did the ratings guy do to him? They must have given him a bad it. So he probably... What did the ratings guy do to him? They must have given him a bad rating. So he probably got a rating. I bet he thought that either they missed something or they rated something of his too strictly.

And then they were... It was a protest against the cost of having films rated. Oh, okay, okay. So he did a Kickstarter, worked out how much he'd got from that and that was the length that the film could be 10 hours 7 minutes at the rate of 101 pounds 50 plus seven pounds and nine pence per minute of runtime so someone had to sit down at the ratings agency and watch 10 hours, seven minutes, just in order to make sure that there wasn't some weird flash thing he put in there. Yep, his name was Charlie Shackleton,

and he made the film to force the British ratings agency to watch 10 hours plus of paint drying as a protest against the high costs. Jacqueline, over to you for the next one. Amazing. All right. This next question is sent in by Felicia Barker, and it says, in June 2022, nine kilometers or 5.5 miles of track was added to Britain's railway network.

It didn't connect any new stations or infrastructure and provided no additional benefit. A few weeks later, it was gone. What happened? I'll read that again. In June 2022, nine kilometers or 5.5 miles of track was added to Britain's railway network. It didn't connect any new stations or infrastructure, and provided no additional benefit. A few weeks later, it was gone. What happened? I should know this.

I should absolutely know this, and I do not. I've got nothing. I had, so I had an idea. Okay. But then I think the idea is wrong. But I know that in Japan they've done this, where they've created stations that have no connecting points that are there for you to marvel at the train system and at the nature around it. And there are actually two such stations in the UK for that, that you can get on off at this station, but there are no on or off ramps. So you just stand there until the next train comes.

And the idea is to like marvel at the train system. That's definitely true for Japan. I think the one in the UK is more prosaic in that it's at an army base. So the train station is like national rail property and you can get off the train, but then you're just not allowed to go any further because it's a bleak military base in the middle of nowhere. But this obviously is not correct for your clue because they built the track then they disassembled the track correct it says it was gone so what i i know that there are some like abandoned stations that get used as movie sets and i'm thinking that like okay they needed to connect a portion of it to roll a train in for filming. And that's all they did.

And then, but so like it was added to the network just to get a train someplace. And then they didn't need it anymore. I like that idea a lot, but that's not necessarily in the right direction. But also if it's not connecting to anything, it didn't like it didn't go to any. It didn't connect to any news stations. And that one that was purely built to get around a US law that says some complicated thing to do with trains and boats having to connect and you can't travel between two US ports on something.

Anyway, they unloaded stuff, moved it 300 meters and then put it back on the ship to do a loophole. But that can't be this because it's nine kilometers and it's in the UK. And I'm just annoyed I don't know this because it feels like something I should have filmed. Maybe it's something to do with municipality laws if they were like, oh, if you have X amount of train track in your town,

then you get X amount of funding. And so they were like, oh yeah, no, we have it. It's just give us one week and just come. Yep, just it's right over here. I would think a little bit less about laws and a little bit more about science. Oh, hang on.

Okay, not this, but there is a railway up in Scotland that doesn't connect to anywhere. It just goes from the beach for like several kilometers inland in a straight line, and it's for cable and pipe laying ships. They can just build a section of pipe, put it on the railway, move it along, put it on the railway, move it along, put it on the railway, move it along.

And then at the end, when it's all connected up, a ship can just connect at the end and drag the whole thing out to shore in one go. That is about nine kilometers, but it wasn't part of the network. That's just a thing that someone's built. What if it's like a runaway train ramps? Like they have those runaway truck ramps in the mountains.

If a truck is going too fast on a mountain, then they veer up this little tiny road that they build so they can slow down. Maybe it was at the end of a hill and this extra train track was so that the trains could slow down because they were going too fast. Okay, well, another interesting thing to think about is that it didn't cost.

I like the idea, but no. We don't do yes ands on this show. This isn't Game Changer. You're just, you're just, no, not that. I do like the idea, though. I didn't know that was a thing. Okay, it did not cost the network rail any amount of money. Okay, here's an off-the-wall idea, which I'm sure...

I hope it's not. I doubt this is the case, but like... Okay. Did they have two adjacent tracks and the gauge was correct so that the two inner tracks could become a third track, and they were using this weird middle section for some reason? No, but that's really smart. Oh, but it could be something that was not a part of the network or anything,

and it just kind of got added under British Rail's network for a while just before it was destroyed? You said it was gone afterwards, right? It wasn't destroyed though. It was gone. The word gone is kind of important. Maybe the tracks were made out of mud. They were mud tracks, like animal tracks. We're thinking tracks.

I like the idea of thinking about like non-traditional ways that tracks are there. You said like science. Yeah, you said science experiment or something or something tracks were made out of something that disintegrated when it rained and they were gone because it rained and they were actually made out of flour this is like something to do with a like um developing the ballast or the stuff that the rails go in to hold them there. It was like testing different materials.

Packing peanuts. Yeah, or some sort of a test track for testing a new technology or technique. They didn't necessarily test something new, but something just happened. Oh, hang on. This is June 2022, middle of summer. Oh, that's when there was a heat wave.

They melted. The tracks melted. Or it was an old train track in a valley that had been flooded for a dam or something like that, and the water level got low enough to reveal the tracks. That was really smart, Tom, but you were more on track with the heat thing. Ah, okay.

There's something with the heat. Was it so hot that the rails expanded and touched something to the point that like... No, it was just so hot that the rails expanded. Yes. Because there's thousands of kilometers of track and thermal expansion in the middle of the heat wave added nine kilometers.

Oh, I hate that question. Well done. Killed it. Okay, yeah. So basically, during the height of the heat wave in the UK, the temperatures had risen so much that the track rails were expanding significantly. And on June 19th, Network Rail said

that they expected the track to expand by 30 centimeters for every kilometer. So that would be like one foot for every 0.6 miles. And since they have 30,000 kilometers of tracks, that added nine kilometers to the question. Okay, so now I want to know, do trains have an odometer or something like that so they could actually tell, okay, today we've gone 30 feet longer than we normally go. They don't, but I found out that modern electric trains have an electric meter. It's not like a domestic one, but it used to be that the power companies would just calculate how many track miles each one ran and just figured, oh yeah, they probably cost about that

much. And now modern electric trains actually have a meter on them to see how much power they've been using. So I guess in theory, you could work it out from that, but I feel like there's so many confounding factors. Yeah, so it's wild that because of the heat wave, the network rail system expanded by nine kilometers, but then when the temperature went back down, it went back to its normal length.

Thank you to Jonah Hyman for sending in this question. In a 2012 science documentary, Tadayoshi Kono smeared honey on the window of an office door. What was he trying to demonstrate? And one more time. In a 2012 science documentary, Tadayoshi Kono smeared honey on the window of an office door. What was he trying to demonstrate? So, like, okay, my, my like instinct is something, it's about like, oh, glass is liquid

and honey moves really slow as well. So maybe it was something there. But then I was like, no, it's not that. And then I thought about the, you catch more bees with honey than with vinegar. And then I thought about that he was actually protesting the tea conditions in the break room because the quality was so poor i love the train thought i love the train thought sadly nowhere near but i appreciate the multiple twists and turns that took okay what about there i feel like there's something with um the fact that it drips

so slowly like honey in particular has like a very specific type of texture compared to other things. Like why honey? And you can kind of still see through it. But why an office door window? What does he not want you to see? You can kind of see through honey though. Was this office something to do with honey?

Or is it like out of left field that this guy somewhere was like, I'm going to spread honey all over this door? He was just like a disgruntled office worker. And it was actually a spree across all of, I'm not sure what country he was from, but. If I was the production company, I could do this in my own office. He was trying to catch, there was a fly problem and he was, it was a natural way to get rid of pests in the office. He was doing everyone a fly problem and he was it was a natural way to get rid of pests in the office he was doing everyone a favor maybe he was trying to show that there was an issue with insects and stuff well i was just trying to think of like like the act of smearing honey it just feels like really sticky and gross yeah and like tactile and absolutely horrible.

But it's not going to completely obscure the view of something. Honey is just like, you're only going to now just be like, why is there honey all over that office door window? Like, I don't think that he's able to like hide behind the honey. Honey does crystallize after a while. So would it turn opaque if you had like like he was frosting the windows

yeah yeah some bizarre way to frost the glass just smear honey all over it well you are edging around the right area there the window was a little bit special oh the window's special okay it was a bathroom window it was a bathroom window. It was a bathroom door. Everybody was looking in the bathroom. When you say bathroom window, what do you mean by that, Beryl? I mean, you know,

like your average bathroom just full of windows on all the doors. I don't know. If you did have a window on there, how might it be a bit different? Oh, like normally it's like kind of opaque, right?

Where like you can kind of see through, you can't fully see what's going on. It like almost obscures. Frosted glass. Oh, oh, is it the thing? Okay, because like if you put a piece of tape on frosted glass, it makes the frosting go away.

So does Honey do the same thing? Honey does the same thing. Ew, he was trying to see through the bathroom windows? Oh, nasty boy. And that's why it was an office window. They found an office which had a frosted glass window. And yeah, it turns out that you can do it with tape, you can do it with honey.

It smooths out the etching enough. That's so cool, because it reflects the light. And the refractive index is close enough that it turns the etched glass, the frosted glass, into regular glass. That's so cool. So yes, Yoshikono is a security expert. So he was demonstrating for the science documentary a hack that lets you see through frosted glass.

Our last guest question comes from Beryl. Over to you. All right, here we go. On some old British trams, a brass strip was mounted on the front wall of the passenger cabin. It was about two inches long and contained four deep horizontal grooves of different sizes. What was it for?

Okay, I'll read it one more time. On some old British trams, a brass strip was mounted on the front wall of the passenger cabin. It was about two inches long and contained four deep horizontal grooves of different sizes. What was it for? We have two British transport questions in this show and I know neither of them. I've got nothing. Well, it's also a show with all Americans. Yeah, that's true.

Does this have anything to do with coins? Yes. Oh, wow. Because I was thinking when you drive a tram, you have like four or so settings of like how much speed you can put into it. And you basically have just put the engine on for a bit and then off. And I was thinking it was to do with that. But no, it's to do with coins. Never mind. Because the way you were describing it,

I was thinking of like a change holder. But now I'm wondering, like, was this like a coin mechanism and there's a coin-operated door to let you into the tram? No. Oh. Yeah, it's just like when you're in a car

and you just need some change for the toll booths. You know, the toll booths the trains go through. I don't know where I was going with that. That's what I was imagining, is that it was a holder for the tram driver to keep change. But it's made of brass and coins are conductive, so maybe it's meant to be a conductive thing, but I don't know why you'd use coins for that.

Maybe they're not like monetary coins. Maybe they're like a different type of coin. Is this some sort of revolutionary battery-powered tram and you need like copper and zinc and so you're putting different coins in there? This is just your average run-of-the-mill tram. Just your everyday tram. The kind that Tom drove, possibly. Could it be for signalling? There are old trains and tram networks where, rather than having flashing lights or coloured

lights or physical signals, you needed to carry an actual token, which is what they called it. And then when you got to a single track line where, in theory, you could meet an oncoming tram or bump something else, you had to have a physical token that there was only one of to have permission to get through. And then at the other side, you would hand it off.

And so that person has the token and they're allowed to go through that line. But I don't know why you'd have four horizontal grooves for varying sizes, unless the tokens are all different sizes. You have a lot of obscure train knowledge. Of course. Look at me. That's not a surprising thing. I'm exactly that kind of nerd.

Like, you shouldn't be surprised by obscure train knowledge. You should be surprised I didn't immediately get both those questions because I was subscribed to some obscure newsletter about British trains. I didn't immediately get both those questions because I was subscribed to some obscure newsletter about British trains. Like, look, I'm, you know, I'm 70 kilos of asthma. You know, what else am I going to be interested in? Yeah, I think at this point you have too much knowledge

and you're going too deep. I thought that might be the case, yes. Is this just, could this be as simple as a coin sorter? It's, I think, I think the key word here is it's like it's something simple and uh jacqueline was she said something i should have interrupted because it was a while ago but you did say it had to possibly do i went off on a rant about tokens yeah we were too late i had to let Tom continue down that bizarre path. It's not bizarre. It's perfect. Sorry. Carry on. Bizarre but interesting.

Okay. But Jacqueline, you did say something about the coins being different. Okay. Yeah. I don't think that they're monetary coins. They are monetary coins. Oh. But they're different in some way?

Because my thought was like maybe they're like tokens, but they're shaped as coins. Something would be inserted into the appropriate groove. And then something would happen briefly to that object. Oh, maybe you like put coins in and they like flatten them or like turn them into like something different. Is this just like like counterfeit detection? Okay. But the grooves are to test whether the coins were real. And if the coins were not real, they would bend when put onto the grooves where the real coins would not. If a conductor had any doubt about whether they had been given a genuine coin by a passenger, they would insert it into the groove on the appropriate thickness for that type of coin. They would then try to bend it and fake coins would bend and real ones would not. they would insert it into the groove on the appropriate thickness for that type of coin.

They would then try to bend it and fake coins would bend and real ones would not. The different grooves were used for the different thicknesses of coins. And this became obsolete in 1971. Which is when we decimalized and we changed all our currency. And that was when Tom was driving the tram. Hey, hey, look, Gen Z here. Don't you, don't you dare. Hey, I am a young millennial.

I am not Gen Z. The very last thing then, and given that everyone smiled when I read this out at the start of the show, I suspect you'll know the answer. Which company wished Happy Father's Day to people who weren't their customers? Panel? Trojan.

Trojan is what I was thinking. It was Durex, but yes. Oh, the other one. Oh, okay. One of the condom companies. You're absolutely right as they jibe against their competitors. With that, thank you very much to all our players. Let's find out what's going on with the shows you run and your lives.

Let's start with Jacqueline. Thank you so much for having me. It's like the most fun I've had on a podcast. I run a tech YouTube channel where I do real-day-in-life reviews of the latest consumer tech and interview executives. And where can people find you? Ooh, yeah, I should have mentioned that.

You can look up Nothing But Tech on YouTube or my name, Jacqueline Dallas. Alec, where can people find you? You can find me at YouTube.com search for Technology Connections, and that will be my channel name. And Beryl? If you want to continue to explore the world of food

and cultures all around you, you can find my channel on YouTube under Beryl Cheryshevsky. We have awesome episodes like Food Waste and Durian coming up. Thank you very much to all the players. If you want to know more about this show, then you can do that at lateralcast.com,

where you can also send in your own questions. You can find us at Lateral Cast on pretty much every social network, and you can catch video highlights every week at youtube.com slash lateralcast. With that, thank you very much to Alec from Technology Connections. Hi, thanks for having me.

To Jack and Dallas. Thank you. And to Beryl Shavishevsky. Yay, thank you. I've been Tom Scott, and that's been Lateral.