Lateral with Tom Scott - 88: Rolling a 7

Episode Date: June 14, 2024

Ella Hubber, Caroline Roper and Tom Lum from 'Let's Learn Everything' face questions about devious designs, tantalizing tubes and baffling bans. 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://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: Rei, May, Arizona Hays, Peter Scandrett, Gabriel C.. 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

Your team requested a ride, but this time, not from you. It's through their Uber Teen account. It's an Uber account that allows your team to request a ride under your supervision with live trip tracking and highly rated drivers. Add your team to your Uber account today. What did Singapore ban in 1992 when the doors of its mass-rapid transit trains kept getting stuck? The answer to that at the end of the show. My name's Tom Scott, and this is LATTRAL. Welcome to the podcast that's not afraid to tackle life's great mysteries, like why socks always disappear in the dryer, or why cats are always jerks. Just don't ask me why printer ink is so expensive,

you're on your own there. Here to take the world to task, we have the folks from Let's Learn Everything who have, for this recording, an inner joke that does not really work for an audio podcast, all turned up in identical red t-shirts that match mine. I appreciate the effort you went with, All turned up in identical red t-shirts that match mine. I appreciate the effort you went with. Like, you spent money for a joke on a podcast that isn't even yours.

Like, thank you folks. I'm honored. It's all worth it. It's so worth it, Tom. I'm really excited for the clips out of context where we don't explain why we're all wearing red shirts. It's gonna seem like I've sent a uniform out to y'all. It's gonna feel like I was responsible for this. And that somehow we now all make the guests look like me. I'm gonna spread that rumor. Please don't. I don't need that rumor in my life.

Or maybe we'll just let you edit them in post to make them all safe or something. What happened was we record these kind of a couple at a time. We block record. That's not a secret. What happened is they all turned off their webcams in the break between recordings and then steadily turned them on and waited for me to notice. It would have been so great if you were just like, oh nice shirts, wow.

Caroline appeared first and was like, oh, Caroline's changed their top. And then just the penny slowly dropped and I nearly no-sold it. I nearly pretended not to notice. It was like fifty-fifty on what I was going to no-sold it. Oh, that would have broken my heart. Yeah. If this is your first time listening to Lateral White, apologies for the inside baseball start. I am going to do the usual introductions.

We have the team from Let's Learn Everything. Ella Hubba? Hello. You've got to say something more Learn Everything. Ella Hubba. Hello. You've got to say something more than that. You've got to. Tell us briefly about the show. Our podcast, we learn everything, including the most important things in the world, like pigeons.

Caroline Roper. Hello! Yes, that's right. When Let's Learn Everything, every single episode we cover a big science topic, we answer a science question, and we cover a miscellaneous topic as well. It's a lot of fun. And Tomlom. You can tell, because I'm the Tom in the red shirt. That's how you know who I am.

Oh, and also part of Let's Learn Everything. Oh, it's going to be a rough one this. Alright, here we go. Question one. You can buy a special helmet that has a clear visor to cover the face. On the front of the visor are attached three narrow tubes full of liquid. What is this helmet for? I'll say that again. You can buy a special helmet that has a clear visor to cover the face.

On the front of the visor are attached three narrow tubes full of liquid. What is this helmet for? This was my second great invention to be able to drink all three sodas at the same time safely. I've saw this TikTok video of this guy who like puts a hummingbird feeder in his mouth and then gets them to like land on it. So my immediate thought is there's a special helmet where you have like sugar water in tubes and all the birds come. Wouldn't that be cute? And then you protect your face.

Yeah! You specifically said liquid, not water, which makes me think that it's basically anything other than water could be in those three vials. I think sugar water is a solid shout. And you are entirely correct. I thought Tom would go immediately with his invention about drinking three sodas at once, but no, he was just doing a bit. Ella, you're right. This is the HumViewer helmet, which lets people see hummingbirds feeding just inches from their face. There are three little nectar tubes, sugar water tubes, on the front of it.

Oh, I would love that. Yet again, the first question on a show of Let's Learn Everything has fallen in about a minute. It's all downhill from here, guys. So we'll move on. Tom, we'll go to you for your question. Rock and roll. In 1904, why did the man who would go on to be King George V of the United Kingdom feel compelled to spend £1,500 on a printed portrait of his own grandmother? I'll read that again.

In 1904, why did the man who would go on to be King George V of the United Kingdom feel compelled to spend £1,500 on a printed portrait of his own grandmother? It was a really bad portrait. It was just insulting. And in the same way that, like, in stories of the 1950s and 60s, people would have to buy photographic negatives because it was the only copy, like, this was the only copy of a really insulting portrait. And he's just like, he is having to be the highest bidder to make sure no one will ever

see his grandmother looking that bad again. Ooh. I love that idea. King George V's grandmother's Victoria? Probably. Yes, I believe so. Yes. Also, Tom, I love the idea of, like, in the same way that someone can take an embarrassing paparazzi photo,

someone painted a paparazzi portrait from the window and was like, ha ha ha. And then he had to buy it so no one else could get it. Right. Yeah. Is it the opposite that he desperately needed a portrait to show in his home and he just didn't have one so he was like, ah, I've got to go find one very quickly. And that was the one he found. I'm trying to think of portraits of,does it matter that it is of Victoria specifically? I'm trying to think of portraits I've seen of her where it's all in morning, black morning

clothes and she looks really dour. So maybe she was wearing something colourful and smiling, and he was like, need that. We've shown repeatedly on this show that my knowledge of historical dating is pretty bad. In terms of where dates are, not in terms of how people dated in the past. 1904 feels like around when Queen Victoria died. I don't know if she was still alive in 1904 or not, but that is about when... I don't think that's super relevant to this. Okay.

Okay. But about historical dating, was it that it was an unconventional portrait for the time? So it was a photograph and not a painting. Did you say it was a painting? It did say portrait and I feel like that word's doing a lot. Thank you, Producer David, who has just said Queen Victoria died in 1901, so we're three years after that. Ah, okay, cool. Ella, I will say, I can say, yes, it was an unconventional portrait, but in a way that when you look back on that later, you'll yell at me for saying that.

It's technically true, but it might not be helpful. It might be helpful. It might be helpful. Oh, good. So, okay, not a photograph then. Because I think, I feel like they would be really expensive. But also, how much was the, what was the pound amount? £1500. £1500.

That's a colossal amount for back then. Was she on the money? Was it like a rare £1500 note or bill or something like that? But, and her face was on it. Because the monarch's face is on the money. It wasn't money, no. It was on something. But it was something else. And you said compelled to buy, right? He felt compelled to buy it.

Yeah, I think that's a little subjective. I would say it's not, there's no urgency to this necessarily. I think compelled is an okay word. It was a wood carving on the front of a ship of Victoria sailing through the ocean. Could it have been something like a brooch with her face on it? You guys are circling it. I think if you split the difference somewhere between there. So it's something- Between brooch and figurehead.

No, no, between brooch and money. Which I know doesn't help that much more, but it's rare, but it's not one of a kind, is how I would phrase it. Is also how the price is. But it's not one of a kind, is how I would phrase it. Is also how the price is. Where would I put my face? We're just going to let that one slide by, right? We're not going to...

Yeah, let's not get into that. Emblazing my face everywhere. Maybe this was something that had been made by, like, a community in tribute to Victoria. And he felt compelled to reward them for that. Like, oh, you've spent all this time and effort making a tribute to my dead grandmother. I guess I should buy it off you and I promise to absolutely put it up in the palace here and not just chuck it under a desk. He definitely didn't do anything like hang it in the palace. What he likely did was put it with some other things.

He valued it, but... It was her face burnt onto toast like Jesus. On food. On some form of food. Yeah. No? No. No. I think you were the closest with money. Oh, okay.

It's like a collectible. It is. Ah. A doll? It was a doll. A coin. A card. A baseball card with Queen Victoria showing her 15 career home runs and... Yeah. Top Trump's Queen Victoria. I play Queen Victoria in attack mode!

This is a classic old fashioned hobby also, I think. A play-dory? Oh, you guys are getting so close. I'm surprised you guys haven't said it. It's a classic, uh, collecting. I have like three mugs of Queen Elizabeth from different eras in her life. A thimble? Well, I want to dig into Ella's collection in a second. A spoon. A spoon? No, no guys it's a... I also collect spoons.

I just want to really destroy my reputation. You would have a booklet for this, for collecting. Stamps! It was a stamp with her face on it because in Britain the stamps have the monarch's face on and it must have been some rare stamp. Oh yeah. Ah! I also collect Doctor Who stamps.

Again, not surprised by this. I'm so sorry, Tom. Do you mind if we just like take a quick sidebar to this podcast? No, King George V was an avid stamp collector who spent a lot of money acquiring rare stamps. One of the stamps that he bought was the Mauritius Two-Pence Blue which bears the head of his grandmother Queen Victoria. The stamp was issued by Mauritius in 1847 and only a few dozen of them are known to exist today and it was originally intended to be used for invitations to a ball but some of them were mistakenly sold to the public. King George V bought the Mauritius two-pence blue at an auction in 1904. He did display it in a special frame in his

study. I was wrong, Tom. Oh, no, that would be good. Can you imagine being the person bidding against the King of England? For his grandmother's stamp. Right? Yeah, you're like, shh. But you're like, oh, but it'd be such a story if I got this. Nowadays, well, maybe they should have because nowadays the stamp is worth about one to two

million dollars in today's money. Oh my god. Wow. And he had 328 albums of stamps, which became the basis of the royal philatelic collection. Thank you to Peter Scandret for this next question. Hi Josh, have you seen Giovanni anywhere? asks Petra. No, replies Josh, there's no one called that here. Petra says, oh, someone told me, Gio to the changing room please.

Where had Petra recently started working, and why the confusion? Now we'll give you that one more time. Hi Josh, have you seen Giovanni anywhere? asks Petra recently started working, and why the confusion? Now, we'll give you that one more time. Hi Josh, have you seen Giovanni anywhere? Asks Petra. No, replies Josh. There's no one called that here. Petra says, oh, someone told me. Geo to the changing room, please.

Where had Petra recently started working, and why the confusion? I'm sorry, I gotta say, first of all, I didn't know we were starting these in media res nowadays. We were doing these abstract ways of phrasing these. I'm thinking it's some kind of, changing room doesn't mean what we think it means for a start, it means changing clothes. It means the room where, and then geo is either short for something

or it means some kind of rock, and it's some kind of rock to be or it means like some kind of rock. And it's like some kind of rock to be changed, polished into another kind of rock. At a laboratory. They were changing it into a new element. Not that exactly, but that idea. Yeah, did they need, oh, like a, they definitely need a geologist to come and move some stones around in the changing room. That's what it is. In the changing room. Yeah, they it is. In the changing room. Yeah, they change all of the little rocks around, move them around.

Is this about money? Is it the room where changes changed? I really thought this was like an accent pun. It sounded like one of those like in The Simpsons when you like call the bar and you give them like a fake name that sounds like something. I really thought it was one of those for a second. I mean that is the part of this to focus on, rather than Changing Room. Geo. I mean Changing Room will give you a clue to the location, absolutely, but there's nothing too fancy about this.

It's not some bizarre rock transhumitation room or something like that. Is it a language thing? So Giovanni was the name? Is it like Gio to the... is like Giovanni in another language? Come on guys, I'm trying a lot here and I'm getting nothing back! Is it Roman numerals? What was the question again at the very end? It was where did they... Where had she recently started working and why the confusion? Oh yeah, I completely forgot that.

Where had she started working and why the confusion? If it's a changing room that means a changing room, then my brain immediately goes to like a gym or a swimming pool or something like that. I Guess it could also be anywhere that you have to change into a uniform of some sort I'm wondering could it be also if it's like an outpatient thing or something where like yeah They meant someone else that like doesn't work there but like could have been just like they're momentarily or something I'm just thinking geo is like shorthand for something else or like GEO. Oh, like a hospital code or something, right?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Something now. Now I'm just thinking of all the words that could fit there. Because I know there's like and there's all the like apocryphal. I don't know how true or not there are, but like in hospitals, it's like, and there's all the like, apocryphal, I don't know how true or not there are, but like in hospitals it's like if you hear like a certain song or a phrase that means like there's an emergency of some kind that they don't want to like raise panic. Like Inspector Sands in the tube for a fire.

Yes! Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh! Yeah, is it? Yeah, if you ever hear Inspector Sands being called to an office or a location in a tube station, the fire alarm's going off. Oh, okay. I thought, I was like, if there's a fire, you should be telling people you shouldn't be using code words for that.

No, it means the fire alarm has gone off or something has been tripped. Got it. It's not like full evacuation and you don't want to panic anyone. Inspector Sands! Inspector Sands! Quick, quick, quick! Yeah, it's not like that. Inspector Sands! Inspector Sands! Quick, quick, quick! It's not like that. But it is a clue to the staff that there is something that needs investigating.

The apocryphal one I heard was that Disney stores, the retail locations, if you ever hear over the PA that there is a customer who needs attention, then that's a shoplifter, because the people who actually go in, honestly, are guests. Guests. Wow. Is that true? No idea, I got told that by someone once. My sourcing on that is, eh, heard it.

Is, I believe that for Disney. They do silly stuff. Geo. Geo to the changing room. Was it G-E-O? Is like an acronym. That is a really key part of this question, Ella. Oh.

As in, in the right direction? That's the key part. What she heard was G-O to the changing room. But what was actually said was something else. You've got the right idea, Ella. Not necessarily the right letters. Is it like G-O-2? What sounds like G-O-2?

Like the number 2? Or like, that was also part of it. G-O-2 is like a phrase, maybe? G-O-2? That's not a... Yeah? Chi... Is it like Chi? Like instead of Chi? You're literally just saying it out loud. It's not, it's not, you're way over-complicating this.

G-O-2? G-O to the changing room? G-O, general, is it like an operator? G-O. General. G-O. Which would be the word? Go to the changing room.

Yep. Oh! I'm... I'm... Oh! I... I... I need to go. I need to... I can't... No, no, Tom. You need to G-O. That's the...

Alright, that was it! That was it! So long, everyone! Stole that joke right out of my mouth, Tom. Yes. This is a place with a changing room where GO is habitually spelled out as G-O. So G-O to the changing room, hence the confusion. So where had she recently started working? Why might somewhere do this? Oh my god, we're not done with the question. I'm just, I can't believe we were just saying it out loud. It really... G-O to the pinch...

Oh, oh, oh, a pet store or a vet's office maybe? When you spell out words so that pets can't hear you, right? Oh, I see why you'd go for that. It's not that. It's to avoid confusion. Why would you not want to use the word go? If it's a race around or something like that? Oh, is it something that could launch at NASA or something?

You want to say go for something? Yeah! Go for launch? It's a pyrotechnic thing. Or something similar, like it's not NASA and it's not launching. So you now have all the pieces. You have potential pyrotechnic stuff waiting to go off, or other big stuff moving around when someone says go. You have a changing room.

Why might it be tradition in this space to use G-O instead of go GO unless you are actually telling someone to hit that button and fire the pyro or move the thing. Like a parade, like fireworks? Or like a stage or a concert? Stage. Caroline, you're spot on. This is a theatre tradition. Because theatre traditions are weird sometimes. It was where my head was actually. That's actually, yeah. That was my last clue was going to be, this is a place with some weird traditions.

Yeah, there we go. You don't say the name of the Scottish play, you tell people to break a leg, and you say G-O, just in case some stagehand within Earshot is waiting for someone to say, go in their ear and fire a pyrotechnic. Wow, that makes sense. Wow.

So going all the way back, a new person like Petra starting at a theatre would hear Geo to the Changing Room and would be like, I don't know who Geo is, but I'll go find them. I like to think that the fact that it was worded with characters in the play was a subtle hint at what we should have gotten there. It kinda was! It kinda was. Caroline, we'll go over to you for the next question. Perfect.

This question has been sent in by Mae. A collector of weird and novelty dice has a six-sided example in their collection where you can roll 0, 1, 2, 4, 5 or 7. Why does this die exist? I'll say that again. A collector of weird and novelty dice has a six-sided example in their collection where you can roll 0, 1, 2, 4, 5, or 7. Why does this die exist? Ooh. I feel like we're doing all the nerds classics. We got like stamps, we got dice.

Oh yeah. And I was immediately like, oh, it's going to be a backgammon doubling die. It's a backgammon. It's not a backgammon. It's not. It's just not. I'm very curious to know the answer to this That's good, because that's our job for the next few minutes I'm already feeling that I'm gonna be very unhelpful during this

Just because you feel like being a jerk, that's yeah I feel like bullying you guys for being nerds about this. Yeah. Uh... Uh... Uh... Uh, the numbers three and six are... They're the missing ones.

Ooh. Ooh. Yeah. Unlucky. They're forbidden. They're not used in this game specifically. So, I know some mathematicians who have some merchandise that is weird dice. And one of them is a dice game that you can almost always win.

Like it's pairs of dice, and through some magic of mathematics, you roll them one way, and your opponent rolls them some other way. I think you select them from a pair pair and you can always win the game. Or almost always win the game. It's your math scam thing. But I don't know how you do that with one dice. One die. Whichever.

Like, I can't see a way where you can make that unfair if it's just one die roll. You know what? One thought I had was maybe it has to do with the alignment of the pips or something, or maybe like, because it's three across and then the hex, the three lines, two vertical lines for the six. So I'm wondering if like, that is like a meaning they don't want to confuse. Interesting. I do also love the idea that the answer is just like, oh, this was just a dice for like a D&D expansion, the caves of Larknar, and they needed this

or something. It was just a mistake. They just put the pips in the wrong place and manufacturing error. Sorry. You know. Hold on. Hold on. No, no, no.

Hold on. Hold on. Is this a rare stamp, rare dice situation? Oh, okay. So funny that you should say that. Wait, this dice does have the right number of pips, doesn't it? Like, in total, it has the right number of pips. There are, um, seven times three...

Yeah, there's 21 pips on a dice. Did they print the one on the six side so it looks like a seven? No, it doesn't. I've just done my maths on this and I'm wrong. They haven't put the pips in the wrong place. Sorry. Oh right, because three and yeah. So I'll say again, the numbers that you can roll are zero, one, two, four, five or seven. Right, but if you overlay the three on the six, the middle one is the only thing that sticks out because the rest overlap.

You are absolutely spot on. Well done, Tom. Yeah. I don't understand. I have no idea. I said misprint and then I went, oh, they've done it. And then my brain completely misfired. Carol, I knew you were going to have to explain this one.

Yeah, I'm lost. It is a standard six sided dice, but there was a misprint in the manufacturing process. So the three number three, so it is like, it's not a printed version where it's like the number three, two, is those pips. So it's those spots. And the spots for three was drilled onto the same side as the six side. And you think about how they're laid out. The six is like three dots, two rows of three. And the three is a diagonal that goes across, so the pips were drilled into the same place, leaving that spot in the middle, which came up to seven.

So there was a side with no spots on it, and a side with seven spots on it. You said right at the start, the missing numbers are three and six. Yeah, yeah, absolutely, yeah. Because the three and the six were printed on the same side of the dice. That's a good one. That's a good question. That's a really lateral question, isn't it? Yeah, that's a great one. Thank you to Gabriel C. for this next question. Why was the owner and crew of an oil tanker, the Cherry Valley, awarded $4.1 million for

pulling a tugboat to safety off the east coast of Florida in 1994? One more time. Why was the owner and crew of an oil tanker, the Cherry Valley, awarded $4.1 million for pulling a tugboat to safety off the east coast of Florida in 1994? To safety meaning back into land, or out to sea again perhaps. Perhaps it's a misdirect. It was full of sea lions. What? I don't know why they would have gotten an award for that. I'm not sure where the sea lions came from or why they have that much money, but... We'll keep going, so...

Big sea lion was lobbying. I feel like we're ganging up on Ella this episode, and I would be less guilty about it if I wasn't, like, 70% sure that she's the one that came up with you all wearing red T-shirts. No, that was Tom Lum. Of course it was Tom Lum. In hindsight, of course it was Tom Lum. The amount of messages that we got in our Discord server about this from Tom Lum was... Infuriating.

this from Tumblum was infuriating. Um, anyway. So please be nice to me. Thank you. I tried to stop him! Um, it was a famous tugboat. It was the little tugboat that could, and that's why. My thought is thinking like, oil rig and thinking like, did a big oil company pay them a whole bunch of money to be like, leave us alone so we can keep drilling or something like that, you know? Like, that's… It was a single tugboat full of oil.

It's actually not strictly relevant that the hero here was an oil tanker. The owner and crew just got awarded this amount of money for keeping that tugboat safe. Did it have somebody famous or important on it? Yeah. Was Queen Victoria in it? No, they were awarded it. Oh. Oh. Was it a missing tugboat? And therefore there was an award for finding it?

Ooh. A child had driven the tugboat into the Atlantic. Was it a world record for most tugboats saved by an oil company? Oh, I like that. There is a different sense of awarded that you haven't quite got yet. Did they catch like a criminal? Pirates. Pirates!

You can also get awarded money by a court. Ooh, oh, okay. They were repo, they were repo-ing the tugboat from land, from water, I don't know. Oh guys, come on. Did the tugboat like damage the oil tanker in some way, or it was in the way, and because it was pulling the tugboat out, it then went off course, it ran out of time, and it tried to claim that back through courts or something? Were they purposely trying to get stuck and they were like, no you weren't supposed to

save us or something maybe? Ahhhh. Ella, you said repo. And there is a fairly technical term for doing repo out at sea. I don't know the term for... do you know? I'm gonna give you this bit, because I suspect your knowledge of international maritime salvage law is not great. How dare you! How did you know?

What? Actually, that's very offensive. Salvage is the key word here. Oh. It was part of... It was a tugboat that was part of the Titanic. You know? An old or famous tugboat?

Yeah. Tugboat wasn't worth that much. Was something that... The tugboat itself was carrying worth something? Yes. And... Oh. This is the East coast of Florida, 1994. Oh, we're supposed to...

None of us were alive, mate. The tugboat wasn't carrying, it was tugging. Of course, because it's a tugboat. Oh, you damn idiots. I mean, I don't mean to cast aspersions about Florida during that time. Is it, like, something that would be in a Netflix documentary about, like, criminals, maybe? Um, up until we got to the word criminals, yeah, there's going to be lots of documentaries about this. East Coast of Florida. Oh, in the 90s. Yeah, absolutely.

East Coast of Florida. In the 90s. Yeah, absolutely. East Coast of Florida now, frankly. East Coast of Florida since about 60, 70 years ago. Well, all I know is about Salgasso, the seaweed that's been around for about that long, and getting worse. Is it some kind of... it must be some kind of animal. It's not an animal. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh,

oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, storm they got into trouble. It was carrying a space shuttle fuel tank. Oh wow. I would like to publicly apologize to Florida for thinking it was, I don't know, like narcos related. I'm so sorry. I had no idea.

It was a space thing. Oh amazing. Yep. And maritime law says that if you salvage something, and there were arguments about what counts as salvage and how much that is, but under maritime law, if you put yourself at risk as part of a rescue to salvage something, you get a share of what that is worth. And the answer to that was 12.5% of $33 million for a fuel tank, for an oil tanker that was in the right place at the right time to save the right tug. That is documentary worthy. That's neat. That's wild. Ella, it's over to you.

This question has been sent in by Arizona Hayes. In the middle of a 1975 Australian Rules football match, player Norm Dare ran off the field and into the stands. Doing so helped his team win the game. How? I'll say that once more. In the middle of a 1975 Australian Rules football match, player Norm Dare ran off the field and into the stands. Doing so helped his team win the game. How?

I have a really ridiculous thing. And I'm going to just say it and you have to... I have a crap joke. Can I do my crap joke first? Oh, do the crap joke first. Yeah, yeah. I know this is like my standard joke for this episode, but he was just a really bad player. He was just he was just Just didn't help the team at all. He just went he saw his mom in the crowd

He ran off there and just decided and the team was just better off without him. Well, Tom Scott No, you're wrong. Yeah, stop. You genuinely, Ella, you genuinely got me. OK. I hate you. I can't believe I can't believe I actually. Don't do that. Oh, you scared me. Set in the scene, there's five minutes left of play and some plonker has kicked the only ball that the team have got off into the crowd somewhere. But it's Australian rules or it's different rules and

that means that they can't stop play at any point. So this guy has to run into the crowd go and get the ball back, run back down just in time for them to score the winning goal. Crowd goes wild, goes wild. It's incredible. Okay. That's very elaborate. Thank you. Have you ever read any of John Boyce's stuff about American football? He's done, uh, I don't know how you say it, 200020 and like the Tim Tebow Chronicles. And he's just bizarre, otherworldly versions of football.

And like that has that kind of feel to it. Yeah, if you said this with voiceover, with this infographic, I totally would have been like, oh yeah, yeah. Yeah. Oh, you said this was Aussie rules football, right? So this is like rugby kind of stuff. There's a lot of catching the ball and throwing the ball and people hurting each other. Yeah, it's American football.

It's bloody not. It's Aussie rules football. They'll take you to task. Sorry, I don't mean to offend any Australians. I mean, it's that kind of game. I only meant to offend Americans. Yeah, that's true. So, the answer I've been holding on to is this is a classic speedrunning glitch. And so if you go outside, if you go out of bounds, you'll lag the game and then you can

score a lot faster. Ah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I thought it might be something like Caroline's thing where if you, it like runs the clock or something like that. It's nothing to do with time. What was the phrasing at the end about like like it helped them win or what was it again? Do it he ran off the field and into the stands doing so helped his team win the game. Was he a distraction to the other team?

Or was he getting rid of a distraction? Oh, it's nothing to do with the other team. I could tell you that much. I had a thought, could there have just been a person in the audience with a laser pointer or something being a nuisance? I was actually thinking sun reflection or something like that. He's blocking a glimpse. Ah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

You can't do that with one body for the whole thing. There's something that's messing his team up. Maybe their star player ran off earlier and he was going to go and get him back. Look, there is something that's messing his team up. It's just not quite in the way you're saying. Okay. Tom, do you, Tom Scott, you seem to know about Australian rules football a little bit. Do you know anything about the rules?

I know that there's maneuvers where, like where they lift each other up to get extra height. Oh, that's cool. It's got some of the DNA from rugby and some from American football and some from its own self. There's something, this game is known at Ford that is very distinctive from other types of football. Was it someone on standby that they were able to or were their coaches? There was no like information to the team, no trait, like that he didn't benefit the

team in that way. Leaving benefited the team specifically. Were there too many players on the pitch? So him leaving balanced them out again? Yes, that was it. Oh! Wait, did he just realise they had too many players and went, oh my god, the referee's going to notice this, but I've spotted it first.

And so suddenly- So I'm going to go and hide! No! That's it. That's it. So to avoid his team getting a penalty for having too many players on the field, he ran off the pitch. The thing about Australian Rules Football is that it has massive team sizes, a maximum of 18 people on each side.

Oh, wow! So you can't always tell if there's too many people on the pitch. And it's only a penalty if the referee notices and flags it in time, presumably. Exactly. Yes. Yes. That's so clever. That was so smart. I will say about this specific event in 1975, Norm Dare apparently ran off and hid under the trench coat

of someone who stands. Yeah, he just went hide. That's great. This is, I, that feels like such a, that's like a theater exercise to like, have to act in a way where you're pretending to not get caught, where you're like, Yeah, good, good, good, good. Yeah, I'm just gonna stand a little bit over here.

Just like, careful. And then just like... To sneak off. Wow! So if a coach respects the opposing team has more than the allowed number, they can request a head count. Oh. Ah. Oh, brilliant. So all players on the field must line up to be counted mid game and a penalty is applied

if there are too many players. At the time of this match, the penalty would actually result in the offending team score being set back to zero. Whoa. Oh my god! That's brutal. What a game. Of all the rules of tackling and jumping on people for the answers who have been the one where it's like,

Jason, Jason, are you here? Line up, line up! Steven, that is fully from a John Boy story. 100%. Right? That's so chaotic. I love it. Which brings us to the question I asked the audience right at the very start. Thank you to Ray for sending this one in. What did Singapore ban in 1992 when the doors of its mass rapid transit trains kept getting stuck?

Any ideas from folks? Coats. Umbrellas. Hair extensions. Ambrellas. Walking sticks. French coats. Suitcases that people used to jam into the doors to keep them open.

That's not getting a door stuck. Those are all things that keep the doors open. Long hair. Change. Small change. These are still things that keep the doors open. Long hair. Change. Small change. These are still things that keep the door open, not stuck. Oh, to keep it cl- oh, oh, oh. Super glue?

Super glue? Dock tape? Food and drink that could cause it to get sticky. Gum. Is it gum? It's gum. Chewing gum? Very famously, Bans chewing gum. You cannot sell it.

Wow! I don't know if you're allowed to import it at all, but I certainly made sure I had none on me when I went in. Singapore famously banned chewing gum. There were other reasons. They didn't want to have to clean it up off the floors, but Singapore banned it after two incidents in 1991 when chewing gum stuck between the automatic doors. And in this case, it actually prevented them from closing fully so the sensors didn't work.

But that was the thing that kept the doors stuck. And Singapore to this day still bans. Wow. That is our show. Thank you to my three guests in their red t-shirts. Almost forgot about it. It became very normal. If people want to hear more from you, where do they go?

We will start today with Ella. We are Let's Learn Everything, and you can find our podcast and all of our other stuff on let'slearneverything.com. Tom, what kind of things? We've covered things like carcinization, can animals make art, mitochondrial Eve, and if you just want to listen to a little bit of Tom Scott, he has a brief cameo in our holiday episode if you want to go listen back to that. Caroline, why can't you tell them what's coming up? We can't tell you what's happening next because we don't know.

We all take our own topics to each episode. We don't do any research. You make it sound like it's improvised. It's all improvised. That's not true. We don't do any research. You make it sound like it's improvised. It's all improvised. That's not true. We do so much research, please. We do so much.

It's one of the few podcasts out there that is not just some people sat around a table unrehearsed. Uh-huh. We all do our own research, and then we bring it to the table during the episodes that each other finds out what we've been researching. It's so much fun. It's a really, really good time. Well, thank you very much to all of you. It has, as ever, been a chaotic joy to have you on the show. If you want to know more about this show, you can do that at lateralcast.com.

We can also send in your own ideas for questions. We are at Lateral Cast basically everywhere, and there are video highlights regularly at youtube.com slash lateralcast. Thank you very much to Tom Lum. Yay! Caroline Roper. Yay! Ella Hubber. Yay!

My name's Tom Scott and that's been Lateral. I nearly held it together! I nearly held it together!