Lateral with Tom Scott - 62: The lifesaving blackout

Episode Date: December 15, 2023

Hannah Witton, Mike Boyd and Geoff Marshall face questions about versatile voting, clever creatures and brick buildings. 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: Albert F., Stuart Forbes, Navek, Matt, Kimchi Tea, Xavier. 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 type of creature are Pritha Garfieldi and Philistata Maguirei? The answer to that at the end of the show. My name's Tom Scott, and this is Lateral. Welcome to the show that offers so many new perspectives and points of view that we're recording this in a hypercube. First up, joining us we have... It was once said to me that a really good idea for a youtube channel is someone you can sum up as the blank that does blank so please welcome the scotsman

who learns things quickly mike boyd thanks for having me on i i apologize for summarizing particularly when just before coming on we we described how you're doing so much climbing and so much other stuff now. Yeah, I've branched out and fallen in love with something, potentially even more than making YouTube videos. And I'm just completely obsessed. So yeah, it's great to be in the honeymoon period of something. How has it affected you?

Like you said, it's kind of changed what you're doing, changed how you're exercising, changed everything. Yeah, so I went from like, I just, I went from sort of cycling and just regular cardio stuff to like really hard climbing, like six days a week. So yeah, and I'm just, I'm into, I'm a year into it now and I'm just starting to like look in the mirror and be like, oh yeah, this is actually, this is doing something. Sometimes on the show I have like three Gen Z people and I feel old. And right now, these are my people out here. This is great. Amongst friends here. Also joining...

I'm not the oldest one here. I think I'm the oldest one here. You know what? Let's go in age order. I'm going to go to Hannah next. We'll hold you up, Jeff. I don't actually know how old Hannah and Mike are. I just know that, yes, Jeff, you are unfortunately older. So we'll hold that back. Also joining us from the Doing It podcast and her own YouTube channels, Hannah Whitten. Hello. Yeah, thanks for having me.

I'm also in my early 30s. So similar to Mike, I think. How are you doing? How is everything? The last time we like had a proper conversation uh i don't think you were even a parent yet it's been a while since we've was i even pregnant the last time we hung out i don't know because it was also very pandemicy yes too um but yeah no um my 30s has brought with it motherhood, which has been great.

And how are you balancing that with the life of a YouTube vlogger that you had a few years ago? Yeah. I mean, even before I got pregnant, I had given myself a four-day work week, which was the dream and then um I gave myself three months maternity leave which you know is what it is um and then had just been gradually increasing my hours since then but I'm never working on a Friday again or at least not doing paid work on a Friday so you know apart from the whole motherhood thing which yeah exactly unpaid labor it's fine um but yeah no it's interesting it's definitely like given me um more like i don't know clarity in terms of like actually like my my ideal work setup and schedule and stuff like i love working part-time it turns out i'm looking forward to

being able to do that at some point also joining us the last member of our crew today and uh you know what we've we've we've started down this road please welcome the elder statesman of lateral jeff marshall yeah thanks for that i take the accololade. That's fine. Yeah, it's good. It just means I have experience, but no grey hair yet, just blonde hair, so it's all good. Thank you.

Thanks for the reminder. You're still heading around every train station in the UK reporting on whatever is happening on the network. How is everything? Sure. People always say to me, you've got to run out of things to do.

New things keep opening. They keep cancelling HS2, and then they open up a new bit. And there's always stuff going on. So it feels like, yeah, it's a never-ending... Yeah, I was having a discussion last night. It's a bigger conversation for the podcast. At what point do our YouTube careers all come to an end and sort of evolve into something else? But that day isn't approaching yet. Yet.

Welcome to what is apparently my parachute show. Good luck to you all. The questions are so twisted that my script is printed on a Mobius strip, which is a worry because it means that technically this episode will never end. But luckily, we have all the time in the world, so we start with question one. Thank you to Matt for sending this question in. On the 25th of September, 2023, the Philadelphia Eagles beat the Tampa Bay Buccaneers by a score of 25-11. Tens of thousands of people celebrated, even though they don't support either team or their players, and they didn't bet. Why? I'll say that one more time. On the 25th of September 2023, the Philadelphia Eagles beat the Tampa Bay Buccaneers by a score of 25 to 11. Tens of thousands of people celebrated, even though they don't support

either team or their players and they didn't bet. Why? I don't even know what sport it is. What sport is this? Yeah, we don't know. Oh, I've done the thing of... Go sports! We've lined up an American sports question for the three Brits on the show. I'm assuming it's an American football. Get the ball in the goal. Get the ball in the net. Kick it, throw it.

What was the score? 25-11. I thought it was going to be something to do with the date because the was the score 25-11 I thought it was going to be something to do with the date because the date was like 25-9 but the

well no because the Superbowl was always around February March isn't it sort of the beginning of the year so it's not the Superbowl

what's Tampa is Florida right so we've got Philadelphia Florida what's going on with those two states I don't know.

I love how all of us are just, like, expressions right now. We're like, you know, we got nothing. What animals were they again? Eagles and... Buccaneers, so not animals, but not unless you have an adorable story about like rabbit pirates

or something like that which to be fair I would watch you just know that all the Americans watch you're going oh

right okay so I'm just gathering all the information we have and one of the lack of information is what sport is but we've got

eagles we've got rabbit pirates we've got pirates is it something to do with like by by Tampa beaten by Pirates wait what we've got Pirates is it something to do with like by

by Tampa beating or whoever beat who caused some huge team to

therefore win somehow oh there have been plenty of stories like that in sports where like someone needed

to win by a certain amount to knock another team out in the scoring this is just a regular season game and i will at least clue you in that it's the nfl it's american football okay cool we got that americans with their sports teams names i mean we've just got such boring names compared to them like celtic arsenal they've got the buccaneers i don't know when you, when you start getting down to the lower leagues in soccer, when you start getting all the way down to the 10th, 11th level of the

pyramid, you start having company teams and corporate sponsored ones starting to pop in. You know they can just move where they're based and then they just become the Seattle blah blah blahs? You can't do that in football.

The Seattle Rabbit Pirates. I sort of regret and don't regret using the words Rabbit Pirates here. Is you telling us what sport it is, does that change anything? It does change something, yes. Okay, interesting. And was it like a regular league match, or was it like a knockout cup match? Just a regular NFL league match? Or was it like a knockout cup match?

Just a regular NFL league match, mid-season. It's got anything to do with a specific player? No. Okay, good, because I don't know any of them. Is it anything to do with the coach? Did the coach swap teams mid-season? Is it coach-specific? No, it is sport-specific.

Did the commentators say something funny? No, wait, people are celebrating. Yeah, tens of thousands, people are celebrating. Yeah, tens of thousands of people are celebrating this. Tens of thousands of sports nerds are celebrating about this. So has it got to do with the score number and the date or something? Oh, is it the first time that these teams had ever met and it was the last one to be ticked off in all the configurations that could possibly happen? It's a nerd math thing between i won't just i won't just between hannah and jeff if you were to somehow like combine those two answers in a grizzly teleporter accident you've basically got it all right let's move on who who went with a science fiction analogy for a sports question

is there a sport metaphor there almost certainly but i couldn't find it in time something about the score and the date, like the numbers. So the date was the 25th of September, so 25-9 or 9-25, and the score was 25-11. What does it mean? Right, so somebody worked out that these two teams had never played on this date before,

but that filled in the grid of all possible combinations, something like that. Oh, come on. You are so close. Tens of thousands like i mean is there a crossover with something so is it like sports fans and another group of people and they're like their diagram and it's something to do with that or is it just it's just straight sports fans how much does anyone here know about American football scoring? Nothing. Very little. Okay, right. I just know that the games last forever and there's two teams per team.

Yep, they have separate offensive and defensive teams. Oh my God. You score three for a field goal, six for a touchdown, and one for converting that. There's a couple of other ways to score. Okay. How would you get 11? You'd have to get three, three.

This doesn't make any sense. Wait, no, because if you score in a six, you get a six and a one. So you nearly nailed it, Jeff. You said something about combinations. Every combination of every kind of score that you can do happened in that one game.

No, because there could be like 200, 300, right? There's no... The stats nerd keep track of what scores have happened across all the football games ever. And this, and somebody spotted an anomaly. And when this score came up, no, I've lost my thread, but I'm close. Oh, you were so well, you started so well. Someone else tapped that through.

Someone else tapped that into the goal. Come on. Is it just that this score has just never happened before? Never happened before. Yeah, Mike, spot on. No NFL game in the entire history of the league and the sport had ever ended 25 to 11. And so the sports nerds celebrated because that was one more thing chalked off on the little graph of all possible scores. It is technically called a scorey-garmy,

which was coined by sports writer John Boyes in 2016. And this is the first time. There's infinite scores that haven't happened, right? You can't... It would be very difficult to get beyond like 70-70 in an NFL game. And you would have to get everything wrong to do that. This is in the cluster where nearly everything's been gotten. And one of those holes got filled.

Wow. Tens of thousands. I mean, I don't think tens of thousands of people were like parading the streets being like, yeah, we got all of the most likely scores. Someone posted about it and that got more than 100,000 likes. So if you count that as a celebration, that is accurate. Yeah, I'll give you that, Tom. Yep. A like is the equivalent of a celebration.

So yes, 25-11 was celebrated by the sports nerds because it was the first time it had ever happened in the NFL. Each of our guests has brought a question with them and we're going to start today with Mike, whenever you're ready. Okay. Thailand's Kuk Kee Kai is a sturdy red brick building, 14 feet long and 23 feet high high with two rows of narrow slits for windows why did they keep chickens in half of it well the chickens have to live somewhere i'm going to read it one more time thailand's cook key kai is a sturdy red brick building

P.K. is a sturdy red brick building, 14 feet long and 23 feet high, with two rows of narrow slits for windows. Why did they keep chickens in half of it? It sounds as if it was built as a defensive structure because you'd have narrow slits maybe to fire arrows through. But then the position of the building meant that it was the perfect amount of sunlight to be let in for chickens to live in or something. It produced the maximum amount of eggs or something. No? I was with you on defensive fortifications. On that, I was like,

yeah, you want to fire arrows out or fire... I don't know why we went arrows. Fire eggs out. You can also fire guns out of those things as well. We all went for medieval fortresses, but... Yeah, it sounds like a medieval fortress. Is it a medieval fortress? It's not a medieval fortress,

but I like your train of thought with, you know, what the building was purpose-built for something with the narrow slits. So you're... I can't picture feet. You say it's 23 feet high. Sorry. I've no idea.

We all misheard that as being about the body part, right? All of us. Yes. It wasn't just me. It's seven metres high. Okay, so quite high. That's the height of a goal in NFL, Hannah. Seven metres by four metres would be the conversion there.

Which is actually not that high. I was thinking of it being like a big fortification, but seven metres is maybe only two or three storeys high. But it wasn't built for chickens. Chickens came later. Yeah, it's repurposed. It was built for something else. Repurposed, right?

An art installation of chickens. I would say that it's not been repurposed. Oh, okay. It was originally intended for half of this building to be chicken house. Potentially, potentially. It was useful for half of it to be a chicken house. Okay.

What's the other half of it useful? Is that going to be... If we figure that out, that will... That is the key. That will... Okay. Because once you figure that out, then it's obviously some half of it used for is that going to be if we if we figure that out that will that is the key that okay because once you figure that out then it's obviously some half chicken half blank place like a like a breakfast bar like it's a place to get brunch as in like you select your chicken and then it's like that's no like it lays the eggs and you get all right that's much more um yes when you say half is it side sidey or top top bottom half but you have to say which is it split in the middle that's that is a a key piece of information i would say okay okay i for some reason i'm thinking

that i'm thinking there's a floor and the chickens are on top but not on the bottom for some reason. I don't know why. That's my hunch. Oh, I saw it the other way around. And I think that's because I was like, maybe it's for heat rising or something like that. But also, like, I'm not sure if you were working in that building,

you would want the chickens above you. I feel like there's stuff that can descend there. I'm immediately picturing that scene in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory with the geese and them laying the eggs, and if it's a good one or a bad one. It's just a steady descent for the chicken eggs. I'm going to direct you guys a little bit here, because I think Tom and Geoff, you're onto it,

trying to figure out where the chickens are is you're saying i'm not onto anything you're perfectly going the wrong direction in that in that this you're you're picturing this as a pleasant happy place and it is not oh is this where they go to die oh don, don't say that. Oh, no. No, that would be sad. Is it just a slaughterhouse? Oh, it could be a jail. Bad chicken.

Not for chickens. But if you're building that size with small windows that people definitely cannot fit through, then jail is also a thing that would fit that description. Pretty good, Tom. Okay. So, yeah, I mean, yeah. cannot fit through then jail is also a thing that would fit that description pretty good tom okay so yeah i mean uh yeah that's it that's the answer half it so half it's a jail what okay but why are there chickens in the other half then to feed them or is it like part of community service like

looking after some chickens doing some farming so you've Tom, you've got it in the last thing you were questioning, and the jail. So it's a jail, and you were like, oh, I feel like it would be bad if the chickens were on top. Oh, they are on top, oh, what oh. And they lay eggs on their heads. You're too optimistic, Hannah. They on their heads. Mike, is this some terrible torture thing

where you put bad humans below purpose and allow chickens to s*** down onto... Spot on, yeah. Yep. Some miserable hellhole. This is a dark question. We don't normally have questions this dark. Hannah was like,

oh, it's like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I was like, it's not like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Oh, wow. That's so bad. So let me, let me, the building was built as a prison with only narrow slits in the wall for ventilation. And it had two

floors and the prisoners were kept on the lower floor. Chickens were kept in the upper floor and the floor was perforated so the chicken dung would seep through the holes onto the prisoners below. As well as being unhygienic, the situation would have been diabolically bad due to the smell of ammonia. And the building is now a tourist attraction.

Oh, of course it is. Of course it is. Next one's from me. Good luck, folks. Thank you to the two people who sent in versions of this question, Kim Chiti and Xavier. Varna is a port city on Bulgaria's Black Sea coast. On the night of the 7th of March, 1983,

why was most of the city's electricity turned off so that a plane could land without further incident? I'll say that again. Varna is a port city on Bulgaria's Black Sea coast. On the night of the 7th of March, 1983, why was most of the city's electricity turned off so that a plane could land without further incident well there's clearly a light that they want the plane to see so they turn everyone else's lights off so they can see

the light that they want the plane to see no yes no i mean that's that's that's like the immediate thing i got to as well there's but i can't see why that wouldn't just always be like that and normally if you're flying over somewhere and you want to find the airport in the city it's actually going to be the dark bit but the black sea would be it's just dark. It's nothing. There's no lights on the sea. Does it have something to do with the high salt content of the Black Sea? That's the Dead Sea. Does the Black Sea also have high salt content? I think the Black Sea is just a regular sea.

Just a regular sea. I'm not sure about that. I'm going to go dark again. Had the plane been hijacked, taken over by terrorists or something? Yes. Oh, I don't know where that came from all of a sudden, Geoff. Keep talking. It's the Cold War, innit? It's near Russia. It's in the 1980s. Yeah.

Jeez, you guys are good. I'm getting the wrong C and everything. It's not my first time on natural. This is clearly a dark episode. So everything's weird today. Well, this has a much happier ending. The plane landed safely.

Everyone was okay. Yeah, I'll say this. This is a story where all the passengers and crew were absolutely fine. Hooray! Okay, interesting, interesting. Right. Okay.

So there's some kind of... They tied up a plane, they wanted to land it, and the authorities were deceiving them by saying, we can only do it if the lights are on or off or something. That was some kind of strategy to get them to land in a certain place where the security forces could then apprehend them or something. But then how would the crew on the plane be able to communicate that with the people on the land if their plane was hijacked?

To do a little sneak-oo like that was it to prevent them you know seeing large structures in the city and crashing into them yeah no i think it's the the crew and the past the attorney electricity office like a tactic to to hijack the hijackers it's that's something. So by making this city, this port city, completely dark, that's then confusing the hijackers who are trying to control the plane in terms of what they want to do with the plane. So what is it they want to do with the plane? Right. That's your missing piece. You've got pretty much everything.

You even mentioned earlier, Hannah, that the Black Sea is also dark. That's kind of the problem they've got. So, why turn the lights off in Varna? Because then they make them think that that's also the Black Sea, or it makes them confused as to their location. Yep. So, the only thing you're missing, literally the only

thing, is what the hijackers were actually asking for. Well, if this is the 80s, it's normally just like money or release of a political prisoner. You know, but that's a very clichéd That tended to be once they're down on the ground. They're still in the air at this point.

What does a hijacker normally say when they're taken over the plane? Take me to Russia! Mmm. Hannah's nearly there. It wasn't Russia. Where else is Bulgaria? What's nearly there. It wasn't Russia. Where else is Bulgaria? What's near there? Bulgaria is on the eastern side of the Iron Curtain.

I mean, do they want to go to the west? Yes. Yeah. And somehow... Yeah. So they've said, take us to Vienna. The authorities have instead turned off the lights in Varna, which is where they were meant to be going.

So put it all together. I think you've basically got it, Hannah. Why are they doing that? Is Vienna in the West at this point? Vienna is in the West. The hijackers believe that they are going to Vienna. I mean, are you trying to fool them into thinking that they're going to Vienna. I mean, are you trying to fool them into thinking that they're going to Vienna by turning off the lights?

Because they've got loads of lakes, and so it looks more like the Adriatic Sea than the Black Sea. You basically got it. The Black Sea coastline was really obvious. It would be really clear to the hijackers that they're not actually landing in Vienna. Unless you turn off all the lights so they can't see a thing, the plane lands, the hijackers are they're not actually landing in Vienna unless you turn off all the lights so they can't see a thing the plane lands

the hijackers are still convinced they're in Vienna up until the moment the plane gets stormed by commandos. Wow, that's such a an interesting tactic to manipulate them.

To keep up the pretense the aircraft landed and was boarded by airport staff who could speak fluent German. How did they get that message to the ground to get them to turn the lights off? I do not have that in my notes, but I assume

that someone came up with it on the ground and the pilot just received it and did not pass that on to the people with the guns. That's very clever. That's like something out of Mission Impossible that Tom Cruise would do and they've pass that on to the people with the guns. It's very clever. That's like something out of Mission Impossible that Tom Cruise would do, and they've done that in real life. That's brilliant. So yes, the lights were turned off in Varna

to fool hijackers into thinking that it was actually where they wanted to go. Next question is from Jeff. Whenever you're ready. This has been sent in by Nivek. The question is, in 1964, how did US Senatorire engel help to dramatically change the lives of over 20 million americans by pointing to his face i said again in

1964 u.s senator claire engel helped to dramatically change the lives of over 20 million americans by pointing to his face. Why was that? Has this got anything to do with the civil rights movement? 64. Feels like it should have. Yes. Very, very good. Is he black?

Or I don't know if they would have had a black senator. I've no idea when the first black senator or congressperson was. Doesn't say. I don't know.

It's nothing to do with the colour of their skin as far as I'm aware. It's like a really German name, isn't it? Yeah. Pointing to their face. Are they Jewish? Pointing at his face.

And that specific act did a thing? I want to have maybe motion pointing at my face, but it might give it away. All right. So 20 million Americans, population of the US back then, that's like maybe 10, 15% of America, at a guess. That feels like the right sort of numbers.

I have no idea. I mean, no, Hannah, you're right. It is the Civil Rights Act. So that bit you've got absolutely correct, but there's just, there's a bit, but you just got it so right. Wait, the Civil Rights Act specifically? I can't give you another clue

without really giving it away. We've got some time to think about this one. Okay. Did he have something written on his face or drawn on his face? He did not. Okay. But it was his way of voting. Okay, hang on.

Were they a Republican or a Democrat? Were they pro-civil rights? Like, is that a clue what their stance was on it? Because it could be. Because they do voice vote sometimes. I seem to remember that the US Senate, I think, I can't remember whether it's the Senate or the House, but sometimes they vote literally by saying,

aye or no, or yes or no, aye or nay, or something like that. Is pointing to your face a way of abstaining or something? Not abstaining, but... Voting for yourself? Go on. So were they the final vote that passed the Civil Rights Act?

Or they crossed the aisle, or they were they were meant their their party was meant to be against it and they actually swapped and then they decided to say yes

to allow it to be passed and they pointed at their face like yeah it me yeah on your eye they pointed at that eye because they're saying

eye eye eye yeah eye but you are you are 90% dead is he deaf yes there we go right saying aye. Aye! Aye! Yay! Aye! But, you are,

you are 90% there. Is he deaf? Yes, Mike, there we go, right, you're pretty much there, okay.

Oh my God, okay, so we were thinking civil rights along the line of race, but was it disabilities? It was absolutely the, it says here, the passage of the

Civil Rights Act in 1964, which was very protracted and it was, the other, one of the houses was trying to filibuster it by making it last a long time, and it came down to this final vote. However, the key thing which you're missing is that Claire Engle was present in the chamber, but he had a brain tumour which had caused him to lose speech,

so he couldn't verbally vote. So he literally pointed to his eye to say I and the vote went through. That's how he voted. Next question's from me, good luck folks. A campaign for the charity Quit UK inserted pieces of paper that were roughly 5 by 8 inches in size. People would typically find them after a few hours. Where were they placed and what two-word phrase was at the top? I'll say that again. A campaign for the charity Quit UK inserted pieces of paper that were roughly 5 by 8 inches in size.

People would typically find them after a few hours. Where were they placed and what two-word phrase was at the top? You haven't just smoking, is it smoking? My first thought was smoking, but... Yeah, Quit UK is an anti-smoking charity. Yeah, okay. So you put them inside the pack of cigarettes, but why would you take your while to find them?

Because it has to be folded up, because like a five by eight inches, is that like an A4 piece of paper? Hold up. Hold up. Hannah, I sent your query size and measurement again. Is this five? That's about maybe, is that like eight inches?

Five by eight is about A5 size. It's smaller than that. You're holding a bit of A4. Five by eight is smaller than A4. I appreciate the sacrifice of a piece of paper there. Maybe a little of A4. 5 by 8 is smaller than A4. I appreciate the sacrifice of a piece of paper there. Maybe a little smaller than that. And this is folded up inside a cigarette packet. Do you know what?

This is ringing bells to me. I feel like I've heard about this. Yeah, this is ringing bells as well. And it says, You scumbag! Stop smoking now! Like, you're going to die! I don't know.

Like, anti-smoking campaigns are super aggressive. But that wouldn't take you a couple of hours if you were a smoker because you would smoke and you would notice it straight away. Maybe it's hidden. Like you have to have smoked through all of it. Like it's right at the bottom. You have to have smoked all of it. It's at the bottom.

You have to have smoked through 20 cigarettes. Is it a picture of some decaying lungs? And it says your lungs and this gross picture? Wait, is it two words? Did you say it's printed on it? Yeah, two words. Quit now! Quit UK! By the way, we should absolutely put this in an episode that had a load of

Europeans or Americans because they would have made a load of Brexit jokes by now. There's a whole separate alleyway that our question writers hoped people would go down here but it didn't happen. My first thought was smoking and my second thought was Brexit. You just summed up the entirety of Britain in 2016

there. Yeah, totally. I don't know. Is it in the bottom of a cigarette pack? No, it's nowhere near a cigarette pack. I think they were, were they not slipping it into people's jackets and briefcases on the train and stuff oh my god were they putting it in like kids school

bags and then the parents would find it later and it would be like mommy i don't want you to die or something horrendous like that you know how all the speeding anti-speeding ads now are all like focused on the kids perception of the parents speeding. Is it about, is it anything to do with that? It's not, but you're right. This has an air of mischief about it. Mischief? Quite like angry ranting telling people off mischief, but it still falls into that.

Oh, I like me some mischief. I think I've oversold the mischief quantity of this. I couldn't think of a better word than mischief. So people sneak and get into places. Yes. Tom, what should we be focusing on? Where they're found or what the words are? Size of the paper.

Oh, right. I was focusing on that. Five by eight inches. or what the words are? Size of the paper. Oh, right. I was focusing on that. Oh, ooh. Five by eight inches. It's actually, it's a little smaller than A5. Was it tucked under car windscreen wipers? People often put flyers there, don't they?

No. Definitely inserted here, not tucked. I was going to say vinyl record, but no, not if it's recent. Okay. You are sort of branching slightly closer with that. With like music. Well, not necessarily music, but that... If you draw a line from cigarette packets to the answer,

I'll tell you that CDs and LPs are closer. A book. A book. A book. Eight by five is your normal size for a paperback book. And so people sneak in these notes into people's... Oh, in books and just bookshops and libraries and stuff? Yep. Bookshops, coffee shops, vending machines, book clubs, anything like that.

And they would find it later and it would say... And it would say two words. Stop smoking! The worst thing about this is I've heard about this. Why might it take a few hours for people to find it? Would they remove the last page of the book and replace it with... The end. Correct.

The end. Oh! Yeah, Mike, they didn't remove the last page of the book. They didn't replace it. They weren't quite that evil. But next to the last page of the book. They didn't replace it. They weren't quite that evil. But next to the final page of the book was an anti-smoking ad snuck in there with the end saying that if you smoke, your story will end sooner.

They are aggressive, these anti-smoking campaigns. Yeah, they really are. I feel like I oversold the mischief on that one. I mean, I think that's reasonably mischievous. I like, Mike, how you stayed out of that question then they just dove in precisely with the answer at the end like congratulations i think i think the end was uh that was hannah's really um like the actual words that's the hard bit um have you guys heard about the like the crazy spoilers for harry potter novels what like people sneak in like dumbledore dies like

no so like a bunch of books got like somehow leaked 24 hours before the sale then people would speed read it hop in their car drive past like walmart with thousands of people are queuing with like megaphones and just blur out like these people are die-hard harry potter fans i've heard about this out the ending and it would just be complete chaos i feel like that's why you get past mischief and just being a dick yep yeah that's not mischief scott Scott Mills on Radio 1 did this every year after about the fourth Harry Potter book on the radio. He'd be like, hey, we've been leaked an advanced copy. Let me read you the last page. And Harry was

dead. And he'd do this joke like five years in a row and people would write in to Ofcom and complain. And he's like, we do it every year. That's mischief. That falls into mischief. That's mischief. Yes, it's the end. And it wasn't quite the last page of the book.

It's not like they ripped that out, Mike. But it was near the end, about 15% from the end of the book. They would sneak in an extra page that said, the end. And a warning that said, if you smoke statistically, your story will end 15% before it should. Only 15%? It's not that bad. Actually? It's not that bad. Actually, it's not that bad. You know, all the really old people I know

are just like chain smokers their whole life. All the evidence I see for smoking is just like, yeah, I just don't think it's that bad. Do you want us to leave that in the show, Mike? Because I just feel like that's going to come back to haunt you at some point. Mike Boyd, smoking, it's okay, kids. The beginning.

I think drinking has definitely got to be worse. I mean, socially, because smoking doesn't change your behaviour, but drinking, anyway. Last big question of the show is from Hannah. Take it away. Okay, so this question has been sent in by Stuart Forbes. Last big question of the show is from Hannah. Take it away. Okay, so this question has been sent in by Stuart Forbes. In a Japanese street, two nearby kiosks sell the same item.

Every few months, one has a queue of about 70 people. The other has just a few. What is the item and why the difference in queues? Again, in a Japanese street, two nearby kiosks sell the same item. Every few months, one has a queue of about 70 people. The other has just a few. What is the item and why the difference in queues? Well, he's either food or drink or magazine or newspaper. Kiosk is that, isn't it? I don't know. I'm trying to think what I know about Japanese streets. And the only thing I've got is that you can't park cars on them. Large amounts of Japan, you can't own a car unless you have a place to park it.

I think you're onto something there, Tom. So like, they're regulated in Japan. So is it like some... I can tell you you're not onto something. Just bear with me a second. Is it like some sort of thing that everyone wants, but to keep both kiosks and businesses some sort of law that only one stock can take for one?

I'm thinking there are two rival businesses, but society in Japan is so polite, they've sort of come to some agreement where they go, you have the business for six months and I have the business for the other. And they're having just a gentleman's agreement between the two otherwise rivals. Maybe. No. wasn't necessarily in the question. You said that one of them was popular and one wasn't, but not that they're taking turns. I think we both implied that from the question, Geoff. It might just be that one of the kiosks is just terrible. It's just bad. They both sell the same thing, but

one of the owners is just a complete jerk. 70 people, though. I mean, now you might be onto something, sort of. What do kiosks sell? Newspapers for drinks. I was trying to find some kind of counter example. Some weird kiosk I've once seen in Japan.

But honestly, I can't think of anything outside those groups. There are other things that you can think of that kiosks sell. Could it be anything to do with their position? Like one is on one side of a road and is just much more accessible than the other? Or to do with the sunlight. You get the sun shining in from the right angle

and it just makes it more attractive to go to that side of the street. No. Could it be some seasonal thing? Because every couple of months, they stock some exotic fruit that comes into season at different times so it's not so there's something that tom said that is like on to something and there's something you just said

there mike there's also on to something which is about like what is happening every few months that creates these cues i was gonna i was gonna say every year or something like that because it could be like in the question it says every few months okay and then tom you were saying about like people preferring one over the other is it something like uh what do japanese people they've got a really big uh love for like i going to get hate for this because I don't know the right word, comics and manga and things like that. Is there one that stocks one type? It's the same thing.

Same thing. Every few months. That's what gets me. It's not like an annual thing. It's something that happens every few months. Is it like twice a year? Is it like when the clocks change or something like that? Or when the seasons change? Or it's like equinox or solstice or something that's on a regular calendar thing? It's not a natural phenomenon. Okay. Is it a political thing? No, no.

Some new thing, something that's released. Is it new? Oh, something. There's clues in like some of the previous questions that we've done, which might help or might not help at all. What, in today's show? Yeah. There's just some connections. It's either books or torture by chicken dung. So, like...

Okay, no, that's not going to help you guys at all. Okay, well, there's a clue in something that we were previously talking about that will help to add to the list of things that are sold at kiosks. Well, I've got hijackers and NFL games in my question. I mean, the thing we were talking about before was books. And magazines.

And cigarettes. Okay, the answer isn't cigarettes, but obviously you can also get cigarettes at kiosk stands. And what else? There's so many things that you can also get at kiosk stands. Come on, people. Cigars. How are we all blanking on things you can buy from kiosks?

I know what it is. It's because none of us go to kiosks because they don't sell anything that I want. And I assume that's the same thing. Are you sure, Mike? Apparently smoking's not that bad. Are you sure Mike? Apparently smoking's not that bad Like I always just walk straight past the kiosk section in the supermarket and think like there's nothing there that I want not a single item is something I want

Picture it, picture it What do you see there? It's like lottery stuff It's like something to do with gambling or scratch cards or lottery stuff, and it comes out every while. There's a huge lottery culture in Japan,

isn't there? I think there is. Or gambling culture. I mean, you've figured out the item. Yeah, it's a lottery ticket. It's a queue for lottery tickets on one side and not the other. Because they believe there's like, because fortune, it's a lottery ticket. It's a queue for lottery tickets on one side and not the other. Because they believe it.

There's like, because fortune, it's a superstitious thing. Yeah! Yes! Is it? Yeah! Yeah! Did one of those kiosks sell a winning lottery ticket once, so more people went to it, so it kept selling winning tickets,

so more people went to it, and so on and so on and so on, and now that's the booth that sells lucky lottery tickets. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Absolutely smashed it. Yeah. Brilliant. Maybe I helped you too far along. Because as soon as you've got a lottery ticket, you've got it.

No. That took us far too long to get. That's got to require editing down. That's embarrassing. These kiosks, they sell lottery tickets. And in Japan, especially for the big summer jumbo and the New Year's jumbo draws, many people line up to buy their tickets

from lucky sellers who have recently sold winning tickets. But Tom, obviously, like you said, it causes a feedback loop because the more tickets that they sell the more likely it is that someone will have a winning ticket from that kiosk um and then the 2022 new year's draw had 23 top prizes of 700 million yen which is about 4.7 million dollars each i know two people that have won the lottery what wow yeah but like five six numbers or just ten pounds like like about a hundred thousand pounds so i don't know is that winning the lottery i think that is winning it's good enough yeah

so i know two people that have won a hundred thousand pounds or more on the lottery? I want to be your new best friend. That's how this works, right? You're like, it's contagious, so he'll be next. Is that like a statistical anomaly or is that like, do you guys also know? I genuinely can't tell

if you are sort of lucky by association or if it's one of those statistical things where eventually someone was bound to know two people who's won the lottery. Yeah. Or is it a demographics thing? Like, are these Scottish friends of yours? And are Scottish people more likely to buy lottery tickets?

I don't know. I think that's probably true. Yeah, anything bad, us Scottish people will do that. And the lottery's bad. So. and the lottery's bad. So. Geoff, just before we go into the final bit,

how did you get a tube sign that says lateral behind you? Yeah, it's a light box. You buy them from the London Transport Museum. It's a big one, small one. That's a small one, but the blue bit in the middle, you can, I just printed out my own words. You can just slide the blue bit in and it then lights up. I don't want to sound like I'm an advert for the London Transport Museum, but they're about £40 just by the mind from their shop. They're great.

Does it say lateral right now? It does say lateral. Okay, that's nice. Thank you very much. You can have that as a thumbnail. Click. At the very start of the show, I asked what type of creature are Pritha Garfieldi and Philistata maguirei. Before I give the answer, anyone want to take a quick shot at that? My first thought is that that cat called Garfield and then Lizzie Maguire. You've picked the names out, it's Garfield and Maguire.

But we don't have any film buffs here. Oh. Is it a goldfish? No, but why did you say that? In Jerry Maguire, he takes his goldfish with him when he gets fired. Oh, Jerry Maguire. We have film buffs,

but we don't have superhero fans. Does Andrew Garfield and Tobey Maguire mean anything to people? Oh, Spider-Man. And so they are? Spider-people. Well, they're spiders, which were names for the actors from the Spider-Man movies. That is Pritha Garfield, Philistata Maguire, got their name because researchers needed some new Latin names for spiders.

Thank you very much to all of our players. We're going to start with Mike. What's going on with you? Where can people find you? You can find me on my YouTube channel. It's called Mike Boyd. And yeah, I upload a bunch of cool stuff about me learning new skills as quickly as possible.

So come check it out. And Hannah Witton. Yeah, you can find me on my podcast, Doing It podcast. We've just released um the newest season deep diving into lots of different taboo topics around sex and relationships and jeff marshall uh thanks so yeah jeff with a g uh my name my channel uh travel to new stations or you know uh depots see new trains that are coming in just travel and transport around the

country and worldwide in some cases. And if you want to know more about this show or send in your own guest question, you can do that at lateralcast.com. You can find us at Lateral Cast basically everywhere, and you can watch video highlights a few times a week at youtube.com slash lateralcast. With that, thank you very much to Hannah Witton.

Woo! Geoff Marshall. Thank you, Tom, thank you. And Mike Boyd. you very much to Hannah Witton, Geoff Marshall, and Mike Boyd. I've been Tom Scott, and that's been Lateral.