Lateral with Tom Scott - 71: The sushi blockbuster

Episode Date: February 16, 2024

Daniel Peake, Lizzy Skrzypiec and Bill Sunderland face questions about bonus bunkers, fitness fanatics and incidental insurance. 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: Michael Teasdale, Mitchel van Ham, Andy Johnson, Nathan H., Bruno V.. FORMAT: Pad 26 Limited/Labyrinth Games Ltd. EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS: David Bodycombe and Tom Scott. © Pad 26 Limited (https://www.pad26.com) / Labyrinth Games Ltd. 2024. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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The answer to that at the end of the show. My name's Tom Scott and this is Lateral. On this show, it is the return of the question team. We have three people who spend a lot of their time setting up questions for others. We start from Escape This Podcast, Bill Sunderland. Hey, I'm back. I'm ready to go. I'm ready to answer some questions. So you're with the same folks who were setting questions as last time. How did it feel being a returning person to the show with people who

are now usually on your end of things oh it's it's interesting the problem the problem is i always do both because while on the main episodes of escape this podcast i'm behind the scenes run helping the escape room run and and being the one with all the answers i have to do all the play testing so i have to play them all first, get them all right, see how. So I'm used to both sides. And clearly, Daniel and Lizzie are both good at answering questions as well, because I think we smashed it last time. Oh, yeah.

Also joining us from Murder She Didn't Write and from being a question producer for multiple TV shows, Lizzie Skipiak. That's correct. Two points to you, Tom. Is this how we're doing it this time? Oh, I don't like that. I don't like that. That's been Uno reversed on me and I do not like it.

How are you doing? It was your first time on the show last time. How are you feeling coming back? Yeah, I'm glad to be back. I really enjoyed myself. I like that we got lots right. And I'm ignoring the many deviations we took together because they were fun. Also joining us is a puzzle editor for The Telegraph and a writer for Quiz Show Only Connect, Daniel Peake.

Good day. How was it for you to be on here last time as a question answerer instead of a setter? Great fun. I love having lightbulb moments because normally when you're writing questions, you want people to have that aha moment. It's genuinely fun to see other people have it. But to have one myself was absolutely lovely. The thing with writing questions is you always have the internet at your side. So you just quickly Google and go, yes, I know the answer to that. Here, none of that. Makes it a lot harder.

Also, you stream puzzles on your Twitch stream. I do. Do you ever have to quickly do some referencing on the side there to make it work? I may have a second monitor just over there for such a thing. Luckily, I have a very intelligent chat which helped me out, and I'm very open to having, once I ask for help, the chat helping me out. I do not know everything. And I'm very upfront with the fact that I don't know everything. Setting expectations at exactly the right level for lateral.

So good luck to all three of you. I am not reading a limerick, David. Do a limerick. Do a limerick. Do the limerick. David, the producer, has written a limerick for the segue into the... I'm going to have to... And Tom is going to read that limerick. I've just got a note that says, read the limerick.

Now that our guests have been met, they are ready to face the threat of my tricky clues that will make them confused and test their lateral mindset. That's... It doesn't even scan. Here's question one. Hungarian composer Franz Liszt could be regarded as one of the world's earliest celebrities. As his fandom grew,

why was he eventually forced to buy a dog? I'll say that again. Hungarian composer Franz Liszt could be regarded as one of the world's earliest celebrities. As his fandom grew, why was he eventually forced to buy a dog? It's just how you get… it's a lateral question. It just starts so normal and then drops off a cliff right at the end. She goes, buying a dog!

I love this question because it's got that punchline at the end. Why was he eventually forced to buy a dog? What? Yes. I mean, we've all done it just you know go about our daily lives oh no i've stubbed my toe gotta buy a dog now oh i know it's ridiculous i'm still feeding this one i mean silly pets silly pets are common amongst a list celebrity. Oh. The puns have started. What I like is that that was what I call a golf clap pun. It didn't get a laugh. It just got a, oh, oh, yeah, well, that's solid.

That's a good one. List. I would like to emphasise that I did not applaud. I groaned. I would like to have that on record. That's the same thing for a pun, Dan. That's the same thing. It was excellent, Lizzie.

So I'm bringing back the motif. Let's list everything we know about. That was not a pun. That was an accident. Let's put it out there. We're on a video call here and everyone went, has he just? No. No.

Let's put out into the air everything we know about Franz Liszt. Composer? He played piano. Yeah, I was going to say that. I got there first, Lizzie. I want to say he was like a little bit before Chopin, because whenever I listen to Liszt, it's like, oh, this sounds like it's like Chopin, but not quite as sad.

He's not quite as sad. Or is he's not quite as sad or is he first chopin definitely comes first because chopin list oh the chopin list you've got to remember what you put on your ship exactly yeah oh okay so okay you guys have all this great knowledge this is what i need okay so chopin's first list is just happier you okay okay there, Tom? Yeah, yeah, I'm coping. I'm coping. It's fine. I'm sorry. Do you need me to go? You're not sorry. That's a blatant lie. Okay, so if he's a first celebrity, is he getting a bit of fan mail?

Or like, is he having... Have you seen List, by the way? Have you ever seen a... Like, there's a reason he should be a celebrity. Gorgeous. He's got like Fabio hair. He's wonderful. I'd be a List fan if I he's wonderful he just I'd be a Liszt fan

if I saw him in concert I'd be like buy a dog buy a dog with the exception of the buy a dog part now you're starting to go down

the right lines here okay Liszt is hot Liszt has big piano hands Liszt is not quite as sad as Chopin. And Liszt had concerts. And Liszt, he was like the Andre Rieu of his time.

Oh, yeah. Yes. I will say absolutely yes. Who's that? Andre Rieu? He's the violin guy. He does a lot of, he plays violin. Everyone loves him. Plays violin, big flow and locks, same kind of, you know, same kind of stage appeal. Yeah, big list energy. So was he so good looking he needed a distraction of a dog so that people looked at the dog and not him? It wasn't a guard dog, so it wasn't that sort of distraction, but he definitely

had crazed fans. And while it wasn't a distraction, Dan, that's vaguely starting to get to the right area. Was it a decoy? Because List had lovely flowing blonde hair, he got a golden retriever and he sat it in a chair and I went oh my god It's list and they ran over and he could sneak out the back of the concert hall You are surprisingly close Distraction not a distraction, but was it to look alike Okay, okay

Don't play piano? Oh! I think I've done my list facts. You guys can take it home. Was the look of the dog important? Yes. Oh, yes. I couldn't tell you what breed it was, but golden retriever's a pretty good guess, yeah. What does a dog do?

Not very much. Eats, sleeps, poops. Decoy is actually quite close. Not quite the right word, but stand-in, decoy, something like that, yeah. You've hit pretty much all the big

points here. Okay, so what if he's so famous that he now needs to be in more than one place at once but he can't he's only he has to obey the laws of are you saying he daft punked everyone with a dog with a dog list is not able to play the piano today but but here is his dog. Have a think about what the fans might be like, because we're talking the first mass celebrity. Oh, wait, I have a thought. Do they all want locks of his hair?

They all want locks of his hair. Talk it through. Oh my God, the dog's got the same hair as him he's shaving the dog or not shaving the dog i'm putting it in envelopes back to fans is he yep yet his fans were fainting screaming tearing their clothes to get closer to him on stage. They would clamour for any kind of souvenir he got requests for locks of his hair. And rather than saying no, he bought a dog that had similar hair and palmed that off. Oh, that's fantastic. I'm so glad I remembered that List had lovely hair. Some people say poodle, Pomeranian, something like that. Golden Retriever probably wouldn't

have the right texture, but it's something like that as substitute hair for list. They must think list stank of wet dog all the time. I mean, this was not the 20th century, you know? Yeah, everybody stank of wet dog back then. Er, de wet dog, yeah. Each of our guests has brought a question with them, and we're going to start today with Lizzie. Take it away.

An advertising campaign shows a Dacia Duster car with the registration plate MI808TH. Similar adverts show cars with different number plates but with the same property what is it an advertising campaign shows a dacha duster car with the registration plate m i 808 th similar adverts show cars with different number plates but with the same property what is it now i'm sorry to say that i know the answer to this one so bill and dan this one's on you okay good luck us okay i don't know the answer this one the dacia duster is apparently everyone's car in Iceland that has to go off-road occasionally. It just meets the requirements for being able to go a little bit off-road legally.

And it's the cheapest option for that. So it's the first time driving anywhere I've gone, there's a lot of one model of car here. Once you start seeing them with the like X-shaped taillights, you're like, why are there so many of these? It's like, oh, because it can technically go off-road when it needs to. It's just got good suspension or something. Just a Dacia Justifact there for you.

There we go. There we are. Okay. I'm going to assume, well, it's property. Property. Yeah, it's a different license plate for different cars, but that lends to them the same property, it seems, unless it's a complete red herring and the license plates are irrelevant.

That would be wrong. So what does MI808TH look like? It looks like my 80, my 808th. My Bobth. Me Bobth. My Bobth. That's it. Because Me Bobth is the person who invented the Datcher Duster.

Yes, yes, he is. Oh, my God, you've got it. Incredible. You've got me, Bob. Okay. I have a feeling they're just humouring us here. Yes, you haven't got it, I'm sorry. It's actually entirely about 808 sequences, and you've

got to have that. It's always just got a reference to some particularly historic bit of electronic music. Again, I'm just talking. Turn your mic on. Get out of here, Tom. You know the answer. You stop mocking us. Daniel, Daniel, we do a lot of, both of us do a lot of puzzles. Right.

We're very puzzle-focused people. What does M-I-8-O-8-T-H mean? It's got eighth at the end. May is Bob. May is. Yep. May is Bob. That's it. All right, Lizzie. Yep. May is Bob. That's it.

All right, Lizzie. Yep. Did we get it? Wrap it up. No, this is, that also wasn't it. Is the fact that it's a Dacia Duster important here? Not really. Ooh, I really expected that answer to be yes.

Okay. Except that it's just a widely sold car around the world. Okay. So you have an ad. It gets published with a car. Let's revise to a car. And it says MI808 or 808TH. And then a different ad will have a different license plate,

but it's the same. It's the same in spirit in essence in heart you look like you've solved i just got it it was something you said i don't know what i wasn't listening but it was something you said um it was the word it was just i don't know what it was but it was just i think it may have been around the world that gave it away to you, Dan. Yes, that would be good. Little clue. If this turns out to be wrong, it's going to be brilliant.

So what confused me about this question was why can it be other number plates? Because I thought it had to be this specific number plate. But you and I, Bill, we live in countries where you drive on the left. But not everywhere drives on the left. Quite that where you drive on the left but not everywhere drives on the left quite a few places drive on the right quite a few and so what if you want to make an advert that will work in both and i think that's the key so it is around the world so what you could do i guess everything has to be flipped if you want to do it. Like the drive on the other side of the road,

but the steering wheel is also on the other side of the road. So if you have this number plate, if you flip it, it still looks like a number plate because that N. Yeah, every letter has that symmetry that it can rotate across its vertical axis, whatever. Yes, yeah. Yeah, N is still M, I is still I, 808, but they'll be in the opposite order. They would, but of course they're not sort of valid number plates anyway,

but they still make a number plate. That's so cool. So it still looked like letters. So you couldn't use the number three because it wouldn't look right reversed. It'd look like a backwards three. So when you were saying about puzzles will that's that's what got me on puzzles i mean that's exact and they only drive uh past mcdonald's as well because uh the big end that's it but yeah you got it they the number plate can be flipped left

to right for when they swap the advert over the other countries that drive on a different side of the road i'm gonna throw in a ukrainian license plate fact here go for it which is that ukrainian license plates only use letters that appear in both the roman and cyrillic alphabets nice because they use cyrillic but also would like to be able to drive their cars into other European countries. Okay, yeah. So they just limit it to those letters. Brilliant. Thank you to Red Cree for sending in this question.

When travelling, you might see the text not hammer underneath an actual hammer. Why? I'll say that again. When travelling, you might see the text not hammer underneath an actual hammer. Why? Is'll say that again. When travelling, you might see the text not hammer underneath an actual hammer. Why? Is it cake? I've seen a lot of these. I've seen that show. Yeah. Is it because it's a cake? Come on now.

We can't move on till you answer the question because I think it's a cake. You need to let me know if it's a cake. It is not cake. In fact, just next to it, there's a sign that says not cake underneath a real cake. That one's a hammer. Is there a long list of signs of things it's not? Not cat, not dog, not quantumly entangled cheese. I think on a molecular level, everything's quantumly entangled cheese.

Oh, no, here's a philosophical debate. It is a hammer and it's labelled not hammer. It is a hammer. It's labelled not hammer. Are we playing with homophones? Is it a hammer that you use to measure the speed of a ship? Is it like it's a not hammer? It's like every time you go.

Oh, not. Yeah. You know what? Yes, it is not yeah you know what yes it is k and that's the answer yeah like a k or is it like where you got a knot you need to untie it don't untie it just hammer the knot when i brush my hair at night i do the same yeah just bang it all over it solves the problem it It's not MC Hammer in a way, is it? Ironically, MC Hammer wasn't even Scottish. Or a hammer. It's not an art thing. It's not an art thing. I think the question said, when travelling.

Did it say when travelling? Yeah, where are we travelling? I mean, you do occasionally get those little hammers on, like, a train. But those are hammers. And I don't remember it saying underneath, not a hammer. It is actually that type of hammer. Ooh. Not hammer.

Does it also say do? Does it say do not hammer? I don't think even our question writers are jerks enough to put something like that in a question. It does just say not hammer. Does NOT stand for something? Something, something, something. There's three words there. I couldn't string three words together. It's 2am and I couldn't string three words together so someone else will have to do that for me

thank you for being awake on Australian hours for our European recorded podcast it's a strange sign to have underneath something that is clearly a hammer

because it's confusing hmm hmm not sure it is confusing it's confused me well Tom hmm

are we in a are we in a place are we in a place where Not is referencing something local? Like Not is a company that runs the buses in Finland. Oh, Nottingham. It's not Nottingham Hammer, is it? It's a Nottingham Hammer. It's a Nottinghammer. Wow!

Now you're starting to get a little bit closer. Travelling is more about where you are. It's nothing to do with Nottingham. Oh, okay. But you're right to pick up on travelling. Normally it's the sort of hammer that you only use in an emergency, sort of if there's been a train. Yes, it's exactly that kind of hammer.

Is not Estonian for emergency. Yeah, it's not Estonia of hammer. Is not Estonian for emergency? Yeah, it's not Estonia, but you're pretty much there. Not hammer, one word, is the German for emergency hammer. Oh, it's a bloody not hammer. It's a not hammer. It was a not hammer. We said it was going to be a not hammer and it was. This hurts my head.

Simple as that. In German, knot means distress. So emergency hammer, as we'd say, it would be a distress hammer. It would be a knot hammer. I would argue all hammers are distress hammers. I don't like the implications of that statement. I just have an image now of like a German ship lost at sea and it sends out like, Mayday!

And everyone gets really concerned and goes, not! He goes, oh, okay. We'll leave you alone. Dan, over to you for the next question. A 1999 film features a prominent scene

inspired by a collection of Japanese sushi recipes. Despite the text being extremely prominent, no viewers noticed this at the time or even years later. Why? A 1999 film features a prominent scene inspired by a collection of Japanese sushi recipes. Despite the text being extremely prominent, no viewers noticed this at the time or even years later. Why? Well, I'll tell you one film that was out in 1999

that I'm pretty sure it is. Is it The Matrix for 1999? Was that The Matrix a year? Oh, it's The Digital Reign. The The Matrix here. Oh, oh, oh. It's the digital rain. The start of The Matrix has that code coming down.

And I remember reading in the making of that it's some combination of numbers and random Japanese characters flipped and rotated that they just built a digital effect. Here's some Japanese text and some characters. Is it the digital reign for The Matrix? It's got to be. It's exactly that.

It's exactly that. Your 1999 movie knowledge is excellent. So production designer Simon Whiteley was asked to do the digital rain and he looked through a Japanese cookbook and it was owned by his wife and he just scanned it in and they are heavily manipulated these katakana but in the green rain

scene they are taken from one of those cookbooks. I am nerdy enough to know not just the fact but the term digital rain. Yeah, impressive. Right, next one's from me, folks. Good luck. The owner of a manufacturing business builds 10 identical bunkers to store his stock, even though one bunker is more than sufficient to store everything he needs.

Why? And one more time. The owner of a manufacturing business builds 10 identical bunkers to store his stock, even though one bunker is more than sufficient to store everything he needs. Why? I'm going to take the literal meaning of stock. Was he a soup maker? I didn't know if you were going to go with cattle or soup or… Soup. Little stock cubes. Little stock cubes. Because they're really tiny.

They're very concentrated. You do not need a lot of space. You could put more in there. Yeah. We're not talking about stock cubes, are we? It was 10 bunkers worth of veggies that got simmered down into one bunker worth of bouillon. This was by Campbell's, wasn't it? Or something like that. He was the name of the person.

God, I can't believe we got through two questions so quickly i couldn't tell you the name of this one but this is an anecdote that was told personally to our question writer oh that doesn't rule anything out oh dear the question is he does he's a wild man um and love soup we need to work out what the stock is right yeah and it suggests that maybe it's quite precious it feels like someone's doing the cup trick with bunkers where you're like what bunker is it in is it in this bunker but with moving stuff about so you never know where the stock is. I mean, you're basically there. Are you kidding? You've more or less got it. It's kind of the cup of tea.

I need to hear a bit more than that. Like, why would you do this? What might it be? But you're certainly along the right lines. See, this is funny because this is good because now I can say my completely incorrect thought, which was where I first went, which was that he's a manufacturer he's a bunker manufacturer that's that's his job and so he made all these bunkers it's like i only need one but i'm gonna make 10 because that's my job i make bunkers uh but then i realized he's actually just got a bunker of bunkers yeah it's one big bunker full of little

bunkers and inside those smaller bunkers tiny bunkers of little bunkers. And inside those smaller bunkers, tiny bunkers. Tiny little bunkers for a little mouse. Again, it's 2am. But okay, so we're much closer. So Lizzie basically got it with where it's relevant that we don't know where the stuff is in the bunkers. Or maybe it's to distribute it rather than just have it all in one place to distribute it because it is valuable, whatever it is.

Yeah. They're a manufacturer and their stock is stored in a bunker and it is – Oh. Could all be in one, but there's ten of them. Right. If accidents happen and one of those bunkers burnt down, you would lose all your stock, right? So if you're like, where do I put my flammable items?

Well, I shouldn't put them all in the same place. It's actually only one bunker in use at a time. Ooh, okay. Oh. I would think, actually, Lizzie, your choice might be a little bit better for what we're talking about here, but apparently only one bunker in usage time. Are we getting into issues of national security?

These bunkers full of nuclear, feasible materials and things like that? Okay, way too far. Way too far into the dangerous thing there. But still valuable. But along those lines, yeah. Okay. It's not fissile material, but... Is it the bomb from the Batman movie that he holds above his head and runs around trying to throw,

but he can't because there's like a marching band and then there's some ducks? Is it that? I mean, I'm tempted to give you it as being close enough, honestly. It's Batarangs. Is it the nuclear football? No? Something that can activate something else? You're close enough, I'm going to give it to you.

It's shotgun cartridges. But this could apply to anything sort of valuable and dangerous and must be locked down. You can't just have them hanging out on the shelves unless you're in America, and we'll just skip past that. But in most countries, you cannot just have these hanging out on the shelves. Okay.

But why the bunker swap? Is it just so that you don't have an exploding bunker? Or is it to keep people from stealing them? It is to keep people from stealing them? It is to keep people from stealing them. Wow. Oooh. So they move it from bunker to bunker occasionally to obscure its actual location? There are ten bunkers and at any time, only one of them has the stock.

So if you turn up as a thief, what happens? 10% chance, yeah. Yeah. That you find it a 10 chance that you pick the right one a 90 chance that you are so distracted by trying to open the fake bunker that the police will arrive by the time you start on the second or the third oh my god the film would be called lock stock and nine empty bunkers let's make it it. The problem is once the police arrive, they then open eight bunker doors to reveal them all is empty

and they say, do you want to switch bunkers? Or do you want to steal from the one that you've already got? Always switch bunkers. Always switch bunkers. Bill, over to you for your question. All right. bill over to you for your question all right wayne heads down to the gym in his plain gray tracksuit hey how you been asks his pal bobby i'm working out to toughen up for a new sport i've taken up replies wayne bobby says i bet i can name the sport and the position you play. How? And one more time for you. Wayne heads down to the gym

in his plain grey tracksuit. Hey, how you been? Asks his pal Bobby. I'm working out to toughen up for a new sport I've taken up, replies Wayne. Bobby says, I bet I can name the sport and the position you play. How? It's a sports question, folks. I'm sure we have some listeners who are great with sports questions, but... I consider myself sport-adjacent rather than sporty. Sport happens around me, and then I'm just there. OK, so Wayne is wearing a plain grey tracksuit, which I'm sure will go... Sweat patches.

If you're wearing grey, sweat patches are a problem. Yes. So there's your top tip. Heading to the gym, so he's got to bulk up. Toughen up. Got to toughen up. So it's rare you would toughen up for say badminton or croquet extreme mad max style badminton with an exploding shuttlecock but it might be he was

wearing his what it suggests to me right is that he put his and i don't know the sporting word for this, uniform that he would maybe wear during the game so he's probably wearing his what do you call it an outfit that like players wear when they play sports a little costume you're wearing your sports costume

I think you're fine with uniform yeah you're wearing your sports uniform maybe all grey is this person's sports uniform. He's playing rugby for the All Blacks, but unfortunately there was a terrible laundry mess up and the tracksuit just went in with the whites. With the cricket teams. Yeah.

There we go. There we go. That joke from the 1970s before we had modern detergents and washing machines, but never mind. No. Oh, it's not that. No, it's not that one.

Is the fact that he's going to a gym important in this instance? Yes. Okay. It is important that he's going to the gym. If they had had this conversation and he was going somewhere else, I don know maybe the viennese opera it would not have been as relevant okay probably wouldn't have come up at all do we do we have to know what type of gym it is is it a special gym that's just a gym it's going to a fitness first types of gym well there's gym james i was going to give an answer there that's like CrossFit gyms and boxing gyms and all sorts like that.

But it is just a generic gym. It's just a gym. He's going there to work out, get tough. Get tough. Pump iron. You've used that word tough and the word tough was in the question as well. So he does say specifically, based on meeting, that he can name the sport and the position. So he must have something in this situation, this small little moment.

I'm outside the gym. I'm wearing my track suit. I've got a bag with whatever in it. I'm going in to get a workout done. And if someone says, hey, I know what sport you've just picked up. I know the position that you are. So what could give that away? Is it someone incredibly famous?

No, it's not famous. They're not lying when they say they've only recently taken up the sport. Only recently taken up. Is he doing something? Is he like opening a door or something like that? And what he's doing or how he's doing the action is giving it away. Like his arm is tired in a particular way or something like that, and what he's doing or how he's doing the action is giving it away. Like his arm is tired in a particular way or something like that. It's the right flavour of thought, but it isn't about an action that he's doing.

Is it how he looks? As in like, if you pass a basketball team, I've never, I've not really passed many basketball teams, but they're all like super tall. So you're like, you're probably basketball players. Again, the right flavour of thought. But no, if you saw him somewhere else, you wouldn't think, oh, I know the position of a sport that that person plays.

Oh, that's a shame because I was hoping he'd just got, I am now running back for the NFL on his forehead as a tattoo. Yes, yes. Yeah, no. Maybe he's incredibly, maybe he's incredibly small so jockey

and the position is on top of the horse that's the position that is the correct position you could try some other ones no it's not so much it's not about his physique his stature it's something that he has with him

so he's going to have like an item of sporting equipment, isn't he? So in the case of badminton, it would be like a badminton racket, but you wouldn't take a badminton racket to the gym. Exactly. You wouldn't take other equipment to the gym. But you might take something like your car keys. So he's taken up motorsport and he's got this, he's driven there in his Formula One car.

Position? Seventh. In his millions and there in his Formula One car. Position? Seventh. In his millions and billions of dollars Formula One car. Keep going. What do you take to the gym? Bottle of water. Towel. Towel.

Shoes. Your shoes might give it away. Ooh. One of those three things you've listed is the relevant object. That has not helped. The water bottle, the towel, or the shoes. Yeah.

I don't know. If it's towel, he's like, a swimmer? That's a freestyle towel. Butterfly towel looks good. Backstroke looks good. Anyway. What? The shoes? It's got to be the shoes looks good. Anyway. What? The shoes?

It's got to be the shoes, surely. Yeah. This is so tough as a leap, I'm even going to give you, it's the water bottle. Ooh. It's the water bottle. No. How could a water bottle tell you both what sport someone plays

and the position they're in? Ooh. It could be something like rugby, where they're in a scrum because they have to wear a mouth guard for it and the water bottle cap is chewed the other thing you when you squirt them i don't know what there has to be a name that is not nipple for the thing on the end of the water bottle that you squirt the water out of. Teat, isn't it? That's worse. That's worse. Knobbly bit.

It's just kind of gummed rather than chewed. It's got a weird top that they sort of squeeze the water bottle and then they get the water through that rather than having to, you know, unscrew a lid or do anything like that. Oh, yes, because if you have unscrew a lid or do anything like that yes because if you have to wear a helmet or something like that you have to like spray the water through the helmet rather than or a straw you are so so close and the only thing i'll say is i'll give you give you

because i could call it here but i'm not gonna what i'm going to say is obviously mouth guard could be a whole number of positions i'm not like a like obviously, mouth guard could be a whole number of positions. Like a gridiron helmet could be a whole number of positions. This is something like that that only one member of a team would wear. That you can be like, that's it, I know your position. It could be a particular goalkeeper of something or... Hockey. Hockey goalkeeper.

Hockey goalkeeper because you have to wear the helmet and giant gloves which means that hockey goalkeepers have to have a unique kind of water bottle so it's not so much about the gloves it's that it's a full face mask it completely covers it's only got a little mouthpiece and there is a uniquely hockey goalkeeper water bottle and for people at home i would encourage you to look it up it's like if you took a water bottle and then you took what tom loves to call the nipple of the water bottle give me a better word give me a better word and i will use it there's not one thank you you've made your case um so it just goes on and on and on and on.

It's just, it's like they always have an inbuilt straw. It is, the tip of the water bottle just goes on and on and on. It's this very, very long thing. So you can put that into the face mask of your hockey goalkeeper mask and still drink from your water bottle. And that's the water bottle you brought to the gym. Thanks for some very quick answers in there there we have unlocked the shiny bonus question so what is sometimes protected with a nail-to-nail insurance policy what is sometimes protected with a nail-to-nail insurance policy nail-to-nail nail-to-nail so we've got to work out what type what nails are are they

fingernails are they building nails are they these are this is a this is a lifelong guarantee on acrylic nails they'll go from the first time they put on your nail right into the last nail goes in your coffin wow that's the length you'll have them from nail to nail wow it is one of those types of i mean it it must is it a nail that you hammer isn't it's not actually it's a nail that you're hammering right so but which is it a hammer or is it a distress so it's we're talking about nails are we talking about coffins

I don't think so we're not talking about coffins I kind of thought we were I thought we were talking about coffins I thought I was I thought I was talking I don't think you nail them shut these days

do they get because what if it does happen that sometimes people do come round in a coffin so do they not always need to be Slightly open or something like an emergency exit No I've seen Kill Bill

They just punch it over and over again from the inside Ah right okay Also that's how the zombies get out Oh good point Probably buildings rather than coffins So From the first nail that you put in To the last.

A hammer. Uh, what was the wording of the guarantee? A nail to nail something or other. Insurance policy. Are both nails in this case nail nails? Yes. Okay. It's from one nail to another nail of the same type.

It is from one nail to another nail of the same type. It is from one nail to another nail. The extent of a building which is covered by an insurance policy. No, you're not between the nails. We can't cover that. Ooh. Oh, it's not like a bridge then. Is it like a bridge? Ooh.

Oh, there's rivets in it. Ain't it, now? Oh. The nail is not part of the object. Ooh. Okay. I have an object. Unrelated, I have two nails.

And I will ensure you from nail to nail and down the mountainside. So what do I – how do I get these nails to be relevant to an object? I used to live in Bristol and there is something outside the Bristol town hall, I think, where there are giant nails in the ground. We used to, people, people used to pay on the nail. Is it anything to do with that? Used to pay on the nail? They're giant sort of metal nail like structures and it's where

trade used to be done uh and so that's sort of if you pay on the nail pay exactly that is where you would pay so maybe it was the start of an insurance thing around the bristol area or something that's going to be very specific for this show it is going to be very specific it is just two regular nails two regular hardware nails and is it in time is it the first nail to some building happened to the last nail and you are ensured from the time that what the first one goes in is that the last one not part of the object they're not part of the object not then we're not hammering them into the to the. The object's going to be important here, isn't it? Yes, the object solves the entire thing. Sorry about that.

And the object is... Is it like a ship? Have a think about some other things you might do with nails other than constructing a building. You would put them in your teeth to look like you're in the middle of constructing a building. Like a toothpick. No, that's like a classic.

If you need an archetypical person who's like doing some wood, you put two nails in the corner of their mouth. And then they've got a hammer in their hand like, oh, I've got work to do. That's what they're like. Okay, what else do you're like. I'm sorry. Okay, what else do you do with nails? You build, you... They're made for building. There's nothing else you can do with a nail. Nothing in the physical world.

Oh, there is definitely, definitely something else in the physical world you can do with a nail that is not just constructing a building or a ship. When you're training classical Japanese martial arts, a lot of them involve shuriken jutsu, throwing shuriken, right? And other than the throwing stars that people often picture, which is a senban shuriken, there's also bo shuriken, which are long, basically nails. And often in modern practice, if you want to train that, you can go down and you buy roofer's nails

and you can practice throwing roofer's nails as a version of bow shuriken. Please do not try this at home. I'm just going to say that. Just going to put that little disclaimer in there. Is it a target

for the practice of shuriken in traditional Japanese martial arts? Insured from nail to nail? No. Oh, well, I was close, I'm sure. Both nails are in a wall. Oh, so you put pictures up. That is the other thing that you can do with nails.

You can hold things up. So if we're in the art world, then it's sort of got to designate an area in which a picture is insured? It's for like transport of a picture from one nail to the other when we take it off this wall and put it on that wall. Spot on. Nail to nail coverage means that it's covered as soon as it's removed from one gallery wall all the way through to when it's up on the final gallery. It's what's taken out for loan of paintings and things like that between galleries and museums. Amazing.

And with the power of editing, that was our first guess. Yeah. Absolutely. One last order of business then. Why do signs saying beware of pickpockets often encourage pickpockets to hang around those areas? I asked that to the audience at the start. I'm going to give the answer in a minute, but does anyone want to take a quick shot? Has anyone heard this story?

Yeah, I know this one. Yeah, take it. I do? You see the sign, it says beware of pickpockets. So you tap your wallet to see if someone has pickpocketed it. And then a pickpocket goes, I know where his wallet is. And then they take it. Spot on.

If you ever see one of those signs, it's a really bad time to check if your wallet is still there, because someone might be looking to see where you keep it. With that, thank you very much. Congratulations to all of our players for running the gauntlet today. What's going on in your lives? Where can people find you? We will start with Dan. You can find me on Twitch at QuizzyDan.

I do a few streams every week with games, quizzes, and puzzles. We'll start with Dan. You can find me on Twitch at QuizzyDan. I do a few streams every week with games, quizzes and puzzles. Bill. Check out ConsumeThisMedia.com for Escape This Podcast, Solve This Murder and anything else that we ever do. And Lizzie. Find me at DegreesOfError on some socials. And if you want to know more about this show, you can do that at lateralcast.com

where you can also send in your own listener questions. You can find us at Lateral Cast in the increasingly devastated wasteland of social networks. And you can catch video highlights at youtube.com slash lateralcast. Thank you very much to Lizzie Skipiak. Thank you.

Bill Sunderland. Thank you. Daniel Peake. Thank you very much. I've been Tom. Thank you. Daniel Peake. Thank you very much. I've been Tom Scott and that's been Rattray.