No Such Thing As A Fish - 375: No Such Thing As A Holiday On Uranus

Episode Date: May 28, 2021

Anna, James, Dan and Andy discuss bowling, bonging, fighting and farting.  Visit nosuchthingasafish.com for news about live shows, merchandise and more episodes.

Hey, everyone. Welcome to this week's episode of Fish. What you're about to hear is a live show that we recorded at the O2 Forum in Kentish Town. It was amazing to be back in front of an audience. We're not going to be doing that again until later in the year when we do our tour nerd immunity. However, there is going to be a special different podcast we're going to be doing on June the 14th. There is. We couldn't resist going back out in front of an audience because we're suckers for having ego massages. So we're crashing Richard Herring's podcast, I believe it calls it, the Richard Herring Leicester Square Theatre podcast. And that is going to be on the 14th of June. And you can come to that. That's right. But it's not happening,

as the title says, at Leicester Square Theatre. It is going to be happening, in fact, at the Clapham Grand. Do get tickets. It's always fun. Richard Herring is one of the great interviewers of modern times. He's certainly the pod king of the UK. And he always asks us really awkward questions and gets Andy particularly to reveal things that he's revealed to no one ever and never wanted to. Yep. So come and find out about Andy's bra size, etc. By booking tickets there, go to know such thing as a fish.com for tickets. Okay, on with the show. Hello and welcome to another episode of No Such Thing as a Fish, a weekly podcast this week coming to you live from the O2 Forum in Kentish Town. My name is Dan Schreiber. I am sitting here

with Anna Tyshinski, Andrew Hunter Murray, and James Harkin. And once again, we have gathered around the microphones with our four favorite facts from the last seven days. And in no particular order, here we go. Starting with fact number one, and that is Anna. My fact this week is that one of the main villains in China's equivalent of WWE is Steve the English as a second language teacher. That is terrifying. It's a frightening concept for a lot of Chinese people trying to learn English. I think it's quite a small outfit compared to WWE, which you may remember as WWF, but of course it's not allowed to be called that anymore because the Wildlife Fund got that name. Yes. It was a big fight with Hulk Hogan and a panda.

Bizarrely the panda won that one. So this is Middle Kingdom Wrestling, MKE, which is the very nascent Chinese pro wrestling organization. It was started in 2015. And yeah, it's got some imaginative, evil dudes. So Steve the English as a second language teacher, he brings exam textbooks into the ring. Does he like hit them with it? I think he does a bit. Does he? Yeah, I thought he did. He probably does. I was imagining he just opened it up in front of them and said, answer these questions. I read the article that you sent round about this, Anna. I read something. It was in sixth tone, I think was the website. Yeah. And it said, burger, burger, repeats the English language instructor showing a picture of a hamburger to his opponent. And then the commentator says,

cowardly attack here by Steve, the ESL teacher, letting issues from his personal life creep into the business life again. Yeah, his wife cheated on him with a hamburger. It's very awkward. But they do. I mean, it is like WWE used to be WWF, amazing characters. They've got the bamboo crusher who's a guy who comes out with sort of, it's basically he's meant to be a panda and he's just got two black marks around his eyes. Yeah. There's another character who is the curry kid. And he wears a devil mask, quite scary. And then on his head, there's a, I thought it was a weird looking hat. And I zoomed right in and it's a paper plate with rice on top. I don't know if it's real rice and it's like finishing school where you have to balance it on your head the whole way

through. But that was him. That's amazing. There's Queen Marie who just wears a crown. She's the only lady. And there's buffer da boom box. No, sorry, buffer and da boom box. Who carries a boom box? Wow. He's a great cast of characters. He's buffer. He's buffer. And a boom box. And a boom box. It's his sidekick. Yeah. You said there was only one female wrestler there. Does that mean she fights against the men or? I think they fight other wrestling outfits. So there's another outfit called the OWE Oriental Wrestling Entertainment. And I think they've interacted, but I'm not sure what Queen Marie does. Interesting. Because do you know that TV show glow that used to be on? Yeah. Brilliant TV show. The gorgeous ladies of wrestling. It's called and it's about women's wrestling,

but it was based on real life wrestling. And they brought in all these women who are mostly dancers and stuff like this. And there was only one woman who had any wrestling experience. She was called Dee Booha. And she played Matilda the Hun. But when she was doing her wrestling, she wasn't allowed to fight against the men. And there were no other women who could fight against her. So they needed to find someone to fight her. And they found a female bear. Okay. Who she fought. It's Hulk Hogan versus the panda all over again. And so she wasn't allowed to fight men. They had to find a female. They found a female bear. Okay, so surely fighting a female bear is harder than fighting a man.

Have you not seen that thing on Twitter that's been doing the rounds that most men think they can beat up a bear? Yes. Oh, I'm so glad that we've got onto this. I didn't think we would. But it was really interesting because the question specified, this was a YouGov poll, which was, you know, what percent of men and women think they could beat which animals? And it was within the last week, wasn't it? And it was something like 38% of men think they could beat a chimpanzee unarmed. I'm like, chimpanzees are strong. It was like 7% of men thought they could beat a lion. Yeah. Something like 8% of men and women were the same number. Weirdly, both men and women about 7 or 8% think they could beat an elephant in a fight if unarmed. Wow. I mean,

what do you do? How do you fight? Well, you grab the trunk, obviously. You grab the trunk. It submits, I guess. I mean, they're very sensitive. Yeah. This thing of the sort of the villain wrestlers, the heels, you know, the sort of, and this thing of which I don't really understand because I'm not a wrestling fan, where you have to stay in character. No one really acknowledges the, yeah, it's a, yeah, it's a whole thing. You don't encourage the kind of fictional elements of the universe and, you know, all of this. But this was such a big thing that wrestlers in the 70s and 80s weren't allowed to travel to matches together if they were on opposite sides in the fictional universe of wrestling. Oh, really? So, like, if two of them saw each other on a plane,

they'd have to get in a big fight? Yeah, exactly. Basically, yeah. And so there were two wrestlers called Hacksaw Jim Duggan. Oh, yeah. Ba-ba-beats. People love Hacksaw Jim Duggan. I should just say, we are, we very much have done specialist subjects on this section. That's not even his theme tune. That was like a random WWF music album that was released in 1995. That's great. Bret the Hitman heart has a love song on it. Much a man Randy Savage. Keep going, sorry. Thank you. So he, CF, dance early a bit. Hacksaw Jim Duggan and an evil character called the Iron Shake. Ah! Classic. Huge. Oh, I think I'm, I think I know what you're about to say. He was at a conference. Iron Shake met up with the ultimate warrior and he wanted to say hi and the ultimate

warrior didn't want to say hi back. And so the Iron Shake slapped the man who said he would say hi. It's very dramatic. It's on YouTube. That's not what I was going to say. Anyway, this fact has received such a kicking from dad. But basically. I'm just giving background context. Hacksaw Jim Duggan. Thank you. And the Iron Shake were arrested while traveling in the same car in 1987. Wait, because they were traveling in the same car? Admittedly, they weren't arrested because of the fictional universe of wrestling being breached. They were arrested for possession of cocaine and marijuana, but still. But I bet the police were bloody cross about the fictional world being breached as well, weren't they? You guys shouldn't even be in the same room together.

There was a guy, another famous pro wrestler in Britain in the 60s, 70s. Actually, I think wrestled up to the late 80s, 90s called Kendo Nagasaki, who actually there are two Kendo Nagasaki. One is a Japanese guy, which sounds about right, who is called Kazuo Sakurada. But the famous one in Britain is just this bloke called Peter Thornley. Now Wikipedia describes Peter Thornley as someone who remains a household name in his home country. Has anyone heard of Peter Thornley? No. Right. So it's not none of the households here tonight. But yeah, so he was super committed to the role and he wore a mask and his character was he had these powers of hypnosis and he was very dark and brooding and had a very troubled past and he's taking vengeance on everyone,

et cetera, et cetera, lots of bullshit. And he never spoke. So he had to have with him a verbalizer all time. So it was called Gorgeous George Gillette. Oh yeah. But so basically this guy was like Suti Kendo Nagasaki and Gorgeous George had to lean over and say, what's that Kendo Nagasaki? You're going to beat the shit out of this guy? Well, I'll tell them, but I don't think you're going to like it. He was very intimidating. What do you think of that, Bison Girl? So his life was essentially ruined in the late 70s because he was sort of living with Gorgeous George at the time, it seems. And his identity was fully hardcore secret. No one knew who he was. And then their toilet broke and they had to call a plumber in and the plumber saw Gorgeous George

answer the door, put two and two together and was like, I bet that guy who's sitting there on the sofa is Kendo Nagasaki because he's hanging out with Gorgeous George. And so he then printed loads of leaflets saying, this is the real identity of Kendo Nagasaki and this is the address he lives at and used to hand them out at all the gigs they did. And whenever he'd put adverts in the newspaper, so there'd be a big ad that Kendo Nagasaki is having a big fight here, then just below it would appear, posted by this plumber, a thing saying, the above wrestler, Kendo Nagasaki is Peter Thornley and he lives at this address. And everyone in the UK has gone, we know who Peter Thornley is. But that is the reality when you've got these amazing characters

and then the real life that you do. Yokozuna, one of the greatest characters in WWF, he was a Japanese sumo wrestler. He wasn't, he was from Hawaii and his name was Rodney in real life. Hulk Hogan, his name's Terry, you know? Is it Terry Hogan? No, it's called Belaya, something like that. Belaya? I should have said that you would know. Yeah, Terry Belaya. Okay, here's a quiz question for you Dan, seeing as you're such an expert, in which country do you think was the highest attended wrestling performance in history? Oh, I'm going to say Philippines. No, keep going. I'm going to say America. You've got 193 countries in the world. I'm going to say South Sudan. Andy, this is my game, sorry. It's pretty much one of the last

places you would think of. It's North Korea. What? Okay. And in 1995, there was a load of wrestlers from America, from WWF, went over to North Korea with Muhammad Ali, by the way, to do a big sort of wrestling show. One of them was Ric Flair, who I'm sure you will know. Yeah, the nature boy, Ric Flair. Always wore red when he was going to lose. No one knew that at the time. We've never done a podcast with live footnotes before. And it's unbelievably annoying. And he fought against this guy called Antonio Inoki, who was a Japanese wrestler. And he kind of had some connections in North Korea, so he could do it. But there were about 100,000 people watch this wrestling match, all North Koreans. And so didn't cheer, they just sat in silence,

and watch this match happen. And then Ric Flair at the end, they tried to force him into doing a statement saying, Oh, I can see why North Korea is so great and why America is so afraid of North Korea and stuff like that. But he, you know, he refused to do that. But Inoki, who is the Japanese guy, he was also a politician. And he once successfully negotiated with Saddam Hussein for the release of Japanese hostages, this wrestler. Wow. Isn't that amazing? And he's so revered in the Japanese wrestling world that if you're a Japanese wrestler, you might request to be slapped in the face by him. And that might give you some of his courage. That's the idea. I didn't know that slapping in the face is apparently a big wrestling move. I'm learning tonight. You're not

supposed to do it with an open palm. Is that right, Dan? You, well, you don't do it with a fist. You don't do it with a fist. It's an open palm so that you don't make, it's a more, see that noise? Yeah, thank you. Yeah, that's, you don't get that with the palm. So it's more for the dramatics of it. And it's obviously safer. And you don't pull hair. But also, like there was a, there was a tag team called the Bushwhackers. And they used to lick people's heads. They're from New Zealand. And I met them as a kid. Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. The New Zealand pet was your headline. But I think what you said just before, it was more interesting. Oh, so they, yeah. So their whole thing was they would lick people's heads. Was this pre-COVID or? Very safe at the time.

Is that a winning move? I don't understand how that would encompass to you. Did the two of them lick the head at the, the, the enemy's head at the same time, like a sort of finishing move? No, no, it wasn't a finishing move. No, it was just a mid-match cheeky lick on the head. Come on, Annie, that's foreplay. That's basic. That's coming first. It would be before matches. It would be if they were being interviewed by the WWF, you know, ring announcers and so on. Why would they, why would they, what they would lick the heads of the people? Is this mid-match or is this an interview? Just you'd lick the interviewer's head. They'd lick the interviewer's head. Occasionally, there'd be a mid-match lick, if it called for it. My point is, is when I met them, I asked them to

lick my head and they did. And they licked your head. Yeah, both of them. I've got photos. I've got like a tongue, like really burrowing right next to the, what they had tongues that could burrow into your head. Big-ass tongues, probably why they started licking heads professionally. That's amazing. Yeah. Well, can I tell you my favourite fact I learned about wrestlers, which will be of interest to a very small proportion of people, but I'm going to do it anyway. Probably done. She may be not, right. You know David Arquette, the actor who was in Scream and, and what? It's very, very little else. Courtney Cox? So as Dan has specified, David Arquette, the actor famous for Scream and Courtney Cox. He,

one of the reasons his career sort of disappeared is that he got really obsessed with wrestling. So he played this character called Gordie Box in a film, a 2000 film about pro wrestling. Gordie Box. That Gordie Box. Oh, sorry. It just sounded like Gordie Box, which sounds like Courtney Cox. And I just wondered if that was before or after he met Courtney Cox. Well, this is after, but this is what's interesting. They were together. They were married at this point. He played this character. He got obsessed with pro wrestling. He was actually crowned the champion of pro wrestling, which was extremely controversial in the wrestling world because they're like, he can't even wrestle. But he got so into it that it became really embarrassing. And Courtney Cox has said in

interviews, it was a lot to handle to be with David and to see David at this point, because he suddenly got all consumed by that. He was going to wrestling matches and being loud and screaming. And it was kind of insane. I remember feeling embarrassed. Now, what is effing weird about that? Is that is a plot in Friends three years before it happened in real life, right? Who remembers that plot? Her boyfriend, Tom Selleck, wants to be the ultimate fighting champion. It's not Tom Selleck. Thank you for that, my God. No, it's not Tom Selleck. No, he is also Monica's lover in Friends, but John Favreau. Yes, it's that guy. Yeah. Wow. Anyway, how weird is that? Three years before

it happened, this happened to Monica in Friends and then happened to Courtney Cox in real life. Yeah, that is weird. What a roller coaster. But now David Arquette in 2018 decided to take up pro wrestling because he wants to redeem his name in the wrestling communities. Wow. How is it a roller coaster if the same thing is happening? A roller coaster, you want different things to happen? It's a shit roller coaster. What a monorail. Okay, it is time for fact number two, and that is Andy. My fact is that expert bell makers can tell where a bell was made just from listening to the bong. Yeah, I mean, pretty cool. Is that a useful skill, would you say? I mean, how often are you in a party and someone's got a massive church bells,

I guess, right? Church bells, yeah. Yeah. And someone's like, hey, Andy, come over here and tell us where this is from. It's a party. It's more of a party trick, unless you're a professional founder, which is that you're right. You're absolutely right. How do you verify it in the moment? How do you, if you said that's from, you know, this small foundry. Yeah, I don't know how you verify it. I guess the person asking you where was this bell made knows, and you don't. So they're being forced into the game. They're not just bringing it up. You're telling someone something they already know in effect, aren't you? No, well, no, you're saying, come and listen to my bell, if you're a vicar, say, you get the founder into your church, they listen to the bell,

they say, oh, that was made at the White Trouble Bell Foundry or whatever. By the way, if a vicar ever says to you, come and listen to my bell, do not go with him. There aren't that many places, and I don't mean to belittle this, but there are not that many places that bell could have been made in this day and age, are there? Yeah, but we have a lot of old bells. There are a lot of bells, but this is the problem. Okay, this is exactly the problem with being a bell founder in this day and age. So this is from, I should say, it's from this brilliant article, it was a Guardian article long read by Hetty O'Brien, and it's about a place called the White Chapel Bell Foundry. Foundry is just a bell factory, and it went out of business

a few years ago, and it had been in business since 1570. Queen Elizabeth I was on the throne when this place started up, and it was one of the last foundries in the country before it shut down, and the problem is that bells last forever. Yeah, because it's not like an iPhone, is it? No, that's why Steve Jobs didn't go into bell. He didn't come out and say, we know you like the iPhones, but here's a new thing. It's a 400 tonne bell. Yeah, it's a real problem. So they made the White Chapel Bell Foundry, made two bells for Westminster Abbey in 1583, which are fine. They're still working. They don't need upgrading, they don't need changing. Yeah, so bell companies have a nightmare if we're not on a period of

active church building. Except though, except when disaster strikes. So if say like World War II happened, that's fantastic for the bell industry, because so many churches are being destroyed, that suddenly they're back in business. I heard that they were behind the whole thing, actually, the bell makers. It was a big bell, wasn't it? Bell, yeah. But that's the moment when they suddenly have popularity in business. That was the only time they made a profit in the 20th century. The entire 20th century, the only time they made a profit was the years after the Second War. And then most recently, it was only because of Downton Abbey being so popular with their little ding, ding, ding, that suddenly they were back in business. Yeah, but those are not a glamour

product for them to be selling. So they're in trouble, aren't they? There's only one left, I think. Tailors of Loughborough. That's correct, yes. So wait a minute, this is even worse. When Addy's at his party and you say where's his bell from, there's only one to choose from. Only if it's a new bell, you know, as in, I don't know how many founders can do all like 400 which closed down over the last two centuries, probably not. Imagine there used to be 400 bell factories. That's a lot, yeah. So many. I think weirdly, Andy, if you hosted a TV quiz show, which was merely identifying bongs of bells, I think I would watch it. I think it would actually be really great. How many episodes would you actually watch? I'm definitely watching the trailer.

I could imagine Andy being at a party and someone brings out a bong and Andy goes, oh, speaking of bongs. It took me a while to get that joke because I was so into bell law that I, you said bong and I thought, yes, it brings out a bong of a bell. Someone does a bong. I was devastated with an article about tailors of Loughborough, now the only remaining bell foundry because during the government shutdown, during the whole COVID shutdown, then it was difficult for all industries, including the last remaining bell foundry. And the headline in the art newspaper was, shut down tests metal of UK's last major bell foundry. And they didn't even spell metal like metal. They just spelled the M-E-T-L-E, like absolute chumps. Come on, the art newspaper,

that's why you're not at household name. Not like Peter Thornley. But they've just got this lottery funding. Why are we subsidizing these non-profit-making institutions? They've just got 3.45 million pounds. You're not going to subsidize the profit-making companies, are you? I say subsidize Pricewaterhousecooper. I'd be happy about paying tax. No, it is sad. It's a sad thing that this industry is no longer as big as it was. Well, this Whitechapel place is completely shut down now as well, the Whitechapel bell foundry, which, as you say, has been going since the 1500s. And that's just happened because it looks like a hotel is going to be moved in in its place, a sort of hipster kind of hotel. And I

agree. I think that is really sad. It's a huge part. Big Ben is from there. The Liberty Bell is from there. It's got huge history. Both of those bells have famously got massive cracks in them, haven't they? Yeah, they're not very good at what they do. It's amazing they lasted this long. It's a 400-year con making shit bells. So the Big Ben Bell. It was made in 1858 and it took... So once you pour the... It's molten tin and bronze, I think, that goes into a bell. Once you pour that into the cast, it takes obviously, you know, a day or two to cool down. This bell was so big it took 20 days to cool down. It was still warm from the casting after that. And then it was taken to Parliament on a trolley pulled by 16 horses. It's incredibly

ceremonial. It took 18 hours to get it from the base to the top of the tower. Well, they can't carry it upstairs. Like, pivots? Pivots? I thought horses couldn't go upstairs as well. They can't go upstairs. They can't go downstairs. They're still there. Who do you think's been dogging all the time on the bell? They did pull it up by hand. Amazing. Unbelievable. This bell weighs absolutely tons and it was just eight men who got it from the bottom to the top. They not have made it up there rather than making it in a different place and then bringing it there. If only you'd been around to advise on the project. It wasn't just them carrying it because obviously it literally weighs

tons. They had a crank and they had built and they had constructed an 1800 foot chain to attach it to and then they had a timber cradle carrying the bell and then they just had to turn this huge windlass, you know, around and around. I've gone into excess detail. If you're ever looking for a crank in future, when they bombed Big Ben during World War II, it was a problem, wasn't it? So at first you'd always, the BBC News would be broadcast and we broadcast, the Allies broadcast BBC News in Germany and it was sort of a propaganda thing to, you know, kind of undermine the enemy and on the hour before the news they'd always do the Big Ben bongs live and then they realized it was giving away what the weather was like because the Germans who were listening were able to detect

what the weather was like in London based on the sound of the bongs because depending on the humidity of the air and depending on the temperature, the bongs make a slightly different noise, so I think moist air will absorb kind of higher frequencies. That's exactly what the bell makers want, don't they? They want all the bells to be blown up and they can make more. Can your bong people tell that, Andy? The weather? My bong people. I don't know, I don't know. It wasn't, they changed it though because they were figuring it out so then they would play, the BBC started playing recorded bongs so they wouldn't give away the weather. So they trick the Nazis into thinking the weather was perfect for a bombing raid when actually it was rainy? No, no, you would trick

them into thinking it's not perfect for a bombing raid. You wouldn't be like, oh it's a glorious day, you can see where you're going. What a beautiful day for a bombing raid. The prime minister's in. Jesus Christ, Andy. This is why you were fired from Churchill's War Cabinet. Okay. Bells used to be really important to people in Britain. They would, lots of different things. If you were living in a village or a town, really there wasn't much noise, there wasn't loads of traffic noise or anything like that, so really the bell was the loudest noise that you could hear from miles and miles around and it would mean lots of different things. It was like a kind of language of the bells, so if it did certain bell rings it would say you had to go into church

or it might say you know there's a fire and you need to run away or it might be that there's been a death in the parish or there was loads of different things and it was basically you would hear the bell and you would know what was happening in your town. That's very cool. Is it going to be a bombing raid due to an unfortunate misunderstanding? But then during the Reformation, obviously bells associated maybe with Catholicism and so they kind of banned the bell and Edward VI made a law that said only one bell was allowed in each church. Okay, you allow one bell but a lot of the villagers like they had such affection for the bells that they would bury them hoping that the law would change in the future and they'd be able to dig

their bells back up and then put them up. And Edward VI of course is where we get the word bell end, isn't it? Because he ended bells, yeah. Very nice. That's great. So maybe some of them are still out there, you know, still in the ground. Imagine that. If you were a metal detectorist that would be the most exciting find of you. It's the fucking jackpot. Yay. We're going to have to move on in this. No, no, no, no, no, no, really unprecedented move. We're going to have to go back to the last act to do more wrestling. Can I tell you one more thing? Yeah, this is just a, I was looking up Guinness records and this is not about church bells. This is about the hotel bells, you know, the little ding, you know, when you get to the,

yeah, those. Do you know what the record is for the most desk call bells rung with the chin inside one minute? Okay, so I reckon that I could do probably about 40. Okay. At least one a second. So 75. Way more than a second. That's the same bell you're doing there, damn it. Yeah, you're doing, you can't, you can't ding the same bell. You have to have other bells. Yeah. Right. They're all different bells. Yeah. So the concierge desk needs to be really long. You need a, exactly. Yeah. So it's a guy called Cherry Yoshitake of Japan. He's known as Mr. Cherry as well. And he, this year he broke this record. He dinged 149 bells with his chin in one minute. Wow. Unbelievable. Wow. It's almost like he had nothing better to do in 2020.

I love that his nickname isn't even related to this insane thing that he, what else is he doing with cherries that is far more interesting? That's his nickname. Can I quickly tell you about a suffragette bell ringer? Oh yeah. This was a lady called Mary Maloney. And when Winston Churchill was trying to regain his seat in parliament in Dundee in 1908, she wasn't very happy because he'd said some remarks about the suffrage movement. And so whenever he went to any kind of speech, she just stood right next to him and just rang a bell. And then she'd stop and say, Mr. Churchill, do you want to apologize for the things she said about the suffrage movement? And he said no. And she went, okay. And she just would follow him and he'd kind of start getting

flustered. And then he'd leave and go in his little carriage. And she'd follow him. And then as soon as she got there, she'd start dinging again and dinging again. And there's an article in the London Evening News that said that Mr. Churchill struggled good humorously against the bell. But he said if she thinks that this is a reasonable argument, she may use it. I don't care. I bid you good afternoon. And he left. But then according to the biography of Churchill by Michael Sheldon, so this is a bit biased, but he reckons that by the end of the week, everyone was so sick of this suffragette with that bell that they all kind of got on Churchill's side and he did win the election in the end. So really, shot herself in the foot, foolish woman. That's suffragettes,

you see? Bunch of idiots. That wasn't the point of that story. I can't believe you're broadcasting this negative shit about the suffragettes. Okay, it is time for fact number three. And that is James. Okay, my fact this week is that in the 1930s, Canada's bowling alleys had to close on nine occasions due to strikes. Very strong. So this is what a little bit of inside a lingo what happens at QI. We call this a remote controlled fish. I'm not sure why we call it that. But basically, you come up with the funny idea of a fact first, and then you try and prove it's true. So I thought, wouldn't it be funny if there'd never been a strike in a bowling alley? And then I found this paper called strikes bogey spares and misses pin boy and caddy strikes in the 1930s by Ian McMillan

that talks about all these amazing strikes in Canada. It's more impressive that you found the strikes you were looking for, because this was hard to research. If you just search bowling alley strike, you don't get the industrial action side of things very early. So why were they striking? So basically, these were pin boys in bowling alleys. So these days, if you got 10 pin bowling, there's a machine that picks up the pins and puts them back where they should be. But in the olden days, it would be adolescent workers, young lads who would do this job, they would sit on a little shelf behind the bowling alley. And then once you've rolled, they jump down and then they shift away the ones that you knocked down and put the other ones

where they should be. And there was this one particular moment in Saskatchewan where they forced the pin boys to shovel snow outside the bowling alley, but wouldn't pay them. And when they said they wouldn't do it, they fired them and they went, no, we're going to go and strike. And they were helped a bit by the Communist Party in Canada. And they just continually, for about a decade, just kept going on strike. I'm impressed because I thought that pin boys were, you say adolescent, but they were like young, weren't they? And a lot of them, I think, often who got pushed out with the photos for the promo shots were young, pretty pubescent. And the idea of sort of a nine-year-old boy striking through the streets is very strange.

But yeah, they were put out of business, all of them eventually, by the awesome machines you get in bowling alleys now, weren't they? Let's see whose side you're on. Side of mechanisation against the humble working child. These nine-year-old luddites are going to need to catch up with technology. Can I ask a question about the pin boys? So they would go down after the first bowl and the pins that were knocked down were moving out of the way. But obviously it's very important that the formation remains the same as the other ones, but they were popping them back into to be reset, weren't they? So they would have to make sure that they were placing them in the exact right spots, right? So when you bowl once and then they get rid of the ones on the floor

and then you get a chance to knock the rest of them down, they stay where they are, but then the next person would come and they'd have to put them right in the exact place. But if you tips them really well, they might put them in a slightly better position for you, so they kind of move the front pin a little bit closer and move the side ones in a little bit and the people who they didn't like, they would move them out so that they couldn't get those right. And then one of the trick they would do is, as well as putting the pins up, they would have to roll the bowls back to the bowler and what they would often do if they were really skillful, if there was someone they didn't like, they put backspin on the bowl. So it went up towards them

and just before he's about to get it, it would spin back towards them. That's amazing. That's so good. I wrote one thing that they did, one of their duties, which was if, so they put the things in a setting machine. So the setting machine does put the pins out, but they are placing them there. But if sometimes they didn't work, these setting machines, and if a pin came out wobbly, a pin boy would have to wriggle out onto the lane on his stomach and position it properly and just hope that they had seen at the other end that there was a wonky pin that was being fixed. So you might get a ball chucked at you if they didn't see that. If your reactions aren't fast enough at pubescent or pre-pubescent age to avoid a bowling ball

been chucked by some millionaire. I know we have ascertained which side of the argument you're on. I'm going to say, me slagging off the suffragettes, he's looking a lot better, isn't he? The guy who invented the pin setting machine, which put all these boys out of business, he did it in 1936, and the first pin setting machine was made of lampshades and flower pots. And in a turkey house on his mate's farm, there's a guy called Gottfried Schmidt, and he'd heard about what hassle it was having these pin setters, because it takes a long time having a little boy kind of rearrange all your pins. So yeah, he cobbled some lampshades and flower pots together. If you're laughing at that, then that's the problem with you.

I was like, there must be a euphemism in there somewhere. People desperately looking, laughed prematurely. I don't think there is actually. Hey, did you guys know this is just a quick modern bowling thing that I didn't realize? I enjoy bowling, and I do love getting the shoes, putting the shoes on. It's always a fun element of it. Sure. I didn't realize, and I wonder how many people here did, I do love it, James, don't love it. I mean, I've been bowling with you. I can see that that would be your best bit. My 30th birthday, my 30th birthday, I had a bowling party. James came and murdered me, murdered me in front of all my closest friends and family who had not met him at this point.

They didn't know what a twat I was. I didn't know you had a bowling party for your birthday. I don't, I don't, I remember you working, putting the pins up. Quick, he's on his belly. Get him. Thank you for that tip, James. It was extremely nicely. Well, bowling shoes, when you're out with your friends, you're out with my best buds. Sure. They come as either left-handed bowling shoes or right-handed bowling shoes. What? Yes. How does that work? As in there's one left for the left foot and one for the right foot? Yeah, okay. Like shoes? Yeah. Oh, boy.

If you haven't seen Don Tribe's amazing square normal shoes, they are a sight to behold. What are you talking about? That's my TV show. What will they think of next? Check this out. No, okay, so this is really interesting. And obviously, if you go to a normal bowling alley, they probably give you normal shoes, which probably hurts your game is what I'm guessing. If you're a professional, you're right-handed or you're left-handed. If you have a dominant leg, you have a dominant foot, that's going right. So one shoe of every bowling shoe has a sliding element to it, and the other has a breaking element so that your back foot can break while your front is sliding. Wow, how interesting. So if you're bowling right-handed, you need the

slidey bit to be on your left foot. And so do you think you were maybe given some left-handed bowling shoes by accident, and that's why you lost embarrassingly to James Arkin? Just if my family and friends are listening, yes, I believe there was a conspiracy that night. It's illegal to switch hands bowling as well. Oh, shit, I think I did that. You did it so many times. Switch hands. No, I genuinely did. Well, you are post-hoc disqualified. That is not allowed. So sorry, bowling won't... Screw you, Harlan! Yes!

This is exciting, because this has actually come up quite a lot over the years. Yeah, you're not allowed to, because you might be sandbagging. Is that what you were doing? Were you sandbagging? I don't know what that means. What sandbagging? You were sandbagging. I don't even want to do the rest of this podcast. That means cheating, Andy. Sandbagging is when in professional tournaments, this is why they ban in professional tournaments, then you will try and get a better handicap by bowling with your other hand, because it's quite hard to bowl badly deliberately, but without it being noticed with the hand that you're strongest with. So if you bowl with your other hand,

which some people often do, then it tricks people into giving you a better handicap. It's like having a hustler. I see. I wasn't doing that, but... Wow. You look like a sandbagger to me, Jim. And that was a euphemism. I've got a fact about the first bowling alley opened in the UK. Okay. So the first bowling alley in the classic American style that we think of, opened in Stamford Hill in North London in 1961. It was opened by the American Machine and Foundry Company. Oh, I've just seen Foundry again. Nice. Anyway, that's not what it's about. Don't worry. We're not... Take him off stage. But they, that company, they also made the underground

launching system for the Titan Intercontinental Ballistic Missile. Oh my God. But this is the sort of conspiracy I thought of because there's a bowling alley under the White House. We know this. Yeah, there is. Yeah. So is it possibly connected to the Intercontinental Ballistic... Do you think they accidentally ordered the wrong product from the Intercontinental Ballistic Missile providers? And they were too embarrassed to say, no, take it back. Yeah. The vice president of the company that made a lot of very dangerous weapons, a very dangerous time in history, said that the company's product will make a great contribution to human happiness. And there was such a good Guardian Askle on this, which you might have read, which was

careful to specify they meant the bowling alley and not the missile launcher. And at that event, the first person to bowl the first ball, so the first ball ever bowled at Bowling Alley in Britain, was a guy called Sir John Hunt, who led the British Expedition up Everest. And it's worth watching the footage because he does, of course, bowl it straight into the gutter. It's very awkward. What an amazing, strange celebrity booking to open your bowling alley. I know. Who else would you get? Like... Princess Margaret? He went straight for Princess Margaret. I think Aim High. Do you think Princess Margaret would have used, she would have used that thing where you pushed the ball

down on the little skeleton thing, wouldn't she? There's no shame in using that by the way. The bumpers. The bumpers designed for kids, right? That was the invention. The bumpers are designed for anyone who wants actually a more interesting style of gameplay. Good point. It takes quite a skill to bounce it off three times and then still end up in the gutter. And that's why you weren't at the 30th birthday party, Andy. So, you know, that's designed for kids. And I was amazed to learn that there's this club, which is the three... I'm giving it its name as a club, the 300 club, but the idea is a perfect game in bowling is 300 points. So, you want all strikes and that means nine strikes for the first nine and then on the 10th you need three because you get those

extra goes. So, it adds up to 300 points that you get in total. And the record holder of the youngest person ever to get that is a nine-year-old girl at the time in 2013. She's still the record holder called Hannah Deem. And she took up the sport at age six when she was at a party and she was like, oh, I felt like this was a calling. And by age nine, she had bowled a perfect game, 300 strikes the whole way. And so, you get a ring when that happens. And if you bowl more, they add like a little rock to it each time and so on. But they're very serious about whether or not to take it, the fact that you've said you've got a 300. There's a team that comes in and in the early days, they would confiscate the ball off you to suss out the ball just to make sure that it was a proper

ball that hadn't been cheated. At the end of that day, they would shut down the bowling alley, let no more games come, and someone would come and they would have a way of measuring the oil slickness of the lane just to make sure that it wasn't too... I'll just talk that you haven't rigged it. Yeah, there's all these things that they do. So, was she cheating? Had she poured mercury into her ball? Had she covered the thing with oil? She was clean. She was clean. Go on, Hannah. Nine-year-old going to get enough mercury. Since they stopped selling barometers and mercury thermometers, it's very hard to get your hands on enough mercury. It's a bold move to make a call back to an episode, 12 episodes ago, to a live crowd. I thought there'd be one or two.

Barometer fans? Cool. You mentioned the oil. So, I didn't know how crucial oil is in bowling, but this basically answered a question that's been bugging me for 20 years, which is, you know, when you go to a bowling alley with friends and you get kind of, like, if you're on a good role, you get a bunch of strikes, your friend gets loads of strikes, you think, this is so effing easy. How are their professionals in this game? They must be getting strikes every time, otherwise they're just idiots. Well, turns out their game is way harder than ours. So, in recreational bowling, if you're going to Rowan's bowling alley down the road or wherever, then they have the oil arranged in a certain way. So, down a bowling lane, it has oil on it,

and it originally had oil on it to make it more slippy so that the balls didn't crack the ground. But it became apparent that oil obviously adjusts the way the ball goes. So, if there's oil down the middle, the ball slides very fast down that oil, and then as soon as it goes off the oil, so there's not as much oil nearer the pins, then it starts going more slowly and friction acts more on the ball and it starts to spin, things like that. So, bowling alleys for plebs like you and me have the oil rigged so that it funnels the ball towards the pins, and that's why we're all getting strikes. And if you go to a professional bowlers association bowling alley, they do not have that. They make sure that the oil is spread exactly evenly, and I think if any of us tried to

bowl down one of those, it would just be straight in the gutter every time. Really? Is it possible that I've spent my life accidentally going to professional bowling alleys? Do you think in those professional bowling alleys they would put the tubes on the side? I guess it's possible. Okay, it is time for our final fact of the show, and that is my fact. My fact this week is trees fart. Trees fart. It turns out. Come on, Dan. Trees fart. How often have you been on a lovely walk in the forest and just hearing farts? Yeah. Well, the thing is, if a tree farts in the forest, but there's no one around to smell it. So, this is, I mean, it's a real technical thing, isn't it, in this case, because obviously they don't have anuses, but they do. Slow down, Professor.

Trees do release little bits of methane, and that's obviously a big problem for global warming. The article that I was reading was talking, this is how I learned the fact, it was in Science Alert, it talks about ghost trees. Ghost trees are trees that are dead, and they still function, though, in certain areas, so they can suck up soils and so on through them, acting like a straw, and as a result, ghost trees release sort of much bigger farts, and they're much more dangerous. But the thing is, like, a normal tree farts gives off methane, but it also kind of sucks in CO2 and photosynthesizes and stuff, so it's kind of fine because it offsets it. But the ghost trees, they don't have any leaves,

so they can't do it. So, it's much worse, these kind of dead trees that you get at marshes and stuff like that, and they suck up this methane. We think from the soil, although we're not quite sure how they do it at the moment. This recent study that was in the article, they found that the amount of methane that comes up is way more than you would expect due to the amount that's in the ground, and so there's something else happening. We don't know what it is, and obviously it's quite important because lots more trees are dying because the changes in the, you know, climate and stuff, and this might cause problems in the future. Yeah, and is it, I think, is it that when water or when sea levels rise, sometimes you get forests near the coast, which can't survive in those

conditions, so that adds to the effect as well? So, the sea comes in, it's more salty, the trees die, and then they start doing all this farting. Yeah, and I think we should say that because every single article and every single scientist who looks into this says about 59 times an article, don't they? We are not trying to say that trees are bad. The overall impact of trees is still incredibly good. Please, God, Daily Mail, don't print an article saying that trees are bad for the environment. They've got to go. That's what they're screaming. They've got to go. People of Kentish Town, please do not go straight out to your nearest tree and chop it down. You do that. You take those farting fucks out. Don't please. I'm begging you. The whole methane thing is really interesting,

just sort of globally the methane thing, because there is the American NOAA, who are the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Scientists, they are in Colorado, and they are methane detectives. They have a department which is methane detection. So, for the last 40 years, every single week, they have received this consignment of flasks from around the world, which are flasks of atmospheric air from all over the planet, and they measure what's inside. So, they have been able to measure methane levels around the planet for the last 40 years, and they've been just studying atmospheric levels. They've found that methane has been rising since 2007, and no one really knows why. I mean, it's our fault, clearly, but no one really, they haven't pinned down exactly why. It could be from

wetlands, it could be this tree thing, pig manure causes it, so, like, cattle cause a huge amount of it. So, yeah. I'm not trying to pass blame, because I'm sure it is our fault, but is there any chance it's Beaver's fault? Because Beaver's are apparently an issue. I thought you said Beaver. He gets private jets everywhere. Beaver's, no, they're invading Alaska, because waters are warming, which means they can go much further north up into the Arctic Circle, and so, they're building lots of dams up in an area that used to be frozen or extremely cold, and then their dams are like big heat reservoirs, which warm up the surrounding soil to grade the permafrost, and there's loads of methane in the permafrost. It's a massive problem, methane,

being released from the permafrost. And so, that puts methane in the atmosphere. Beaver's fault, I'm not responsible. So, what we're saying to the people of Kentish Town is to go out and strangle a beaver. Yeah. I can't down a tree and strangle a beaver, yeah. I think that's responsible messaging. There was a problem with animals and methane. Specifically, our old friends, the sauropods, the big dinosaurs and lots of plant material, there was some work done by David Wilkinson of Liverpool John Moors University, and he reckons, he's worked this out, he reckoned that sauropod population, when they were at the absolute biggest, they were pumping out 520 million tons of methane a year, which is about the same as the current emissions of greenhouse

gases. Really? Yeah. So, the sauropods, and they reckon that that did change the climate as well through farting. Wow. So, did the sauropod green party eventually get some steam behind it and take power? Eventually, someone stuck their neck out. We first discovered that methane were in trees, was in trees, in 1907, and it was this professor, a chemistry professor in Kansas, wandering around Kansas in 1907, and he saw little bubbles in the sap of a tree, a certain type of tree, and he thought, I wonder what's causing them, I wonder if it's methane, so he struck match above it, and it ignited and burped out a big blue flame. So, he basically lit the fart of the tree. He lit the fart of the tree, and apparently, if you're studying trees anywhere,

your tree professor will always do this, and you can do this. You go to a tree, and you get the sap, and it's burping out methane, so you can light it, and it does a little burp. Don't, like, if you're in Australia, please don't do that. Jesus Christ, this podcast is going to cause bushfires globally from that sentence. Once you've finished strangling your beaver, just set fire to the nearest tree, and science will win. Here's a warning, here's another warning. If you hold a fart in for too long, it may leak out of your mouth. It's got to go somewhere, isn't it? Exactly. It's basically, it gets reabsorbed into your circulation, just finds its way in, and whether you notice or not, it's just going to slowly come

out of your mouth. It does, that sounds, it's, everything you're saying sounds true, but it does sound like one of those things that your mum says, doesn't it? Well, if you keep your face like that, the wind will change, and it'll get stuck, you know, or whatever. It sounds like a sort of old, wise tale of... It does. Your mum has got some amazing socks, Andy. Have you farted enough today, Andy? Because you know what will happen. But how come they don't smell like sulfur? Because the reason fart smell is because of sulfur, which is in compounds that smell bad, but when I burp, it doesn't smell like a fart, I don't think. And I've never smelled anyone's burp smelling like a fart, like a sulfuric fart. No, I agree, yeah. So something must have happened there. It must,

maybe the sulfur is like only the arse, but the other ones will come out of the mouth. Maybe. Hmm. You've really given us something to think about there. You'd be great, I thought, for the day. Welcome to the moral maze on BBC Four. Why does sulfur choose the anus? Methane chooses the mouth, doesn't it? As in, for cows, I thought that cow's methane was sort of mostly like a split at each end of the cow, whether it's burping or farting, whatever. About, I think it's 95% of cattle methane comes from its mouth. And this is, this really is a genuinely huge problem, because there are, I think, about a billion cows on the planet.

That if they were a country, they'd be the sixth largest emitter of methane in the world. What a country. In this country that's just cows, are they also running the place and stuff? Do they have the old prime minister and stuff? Yeah, in this whimsical world. Andy, in that, if that was a country, genuine question, if it was that dense of cows, like it's a country made of cows, as you're saying, so the methane's huge, if I lit a cigarette lighter, would the whole thing go up? I don't know. No, I don't think so. It doesn't if you do it in the middle of a cow field. It doesn't even if you do it. This is a country made of cows.

It's not made of cows. That's what Andy's saying. There are loads of cows in it. There are only cows in it. It's a cow. It's not many there are. If you're in a billion cows and it's in the size of San Marino, then that's a lot of cows and a lot of methane. But if you're in the size of the Soviet Union old style, then they'd be fine. If you're my mistake, if there are a billion cows in a country the size of San Marino, there are bigger infrastructural problems to deal with. How are the Italians keeping them out? It's one very big cattle grid and they just can't get over it. But yeah, of course, it depends how much methane you have, but also how much oxygen you have, right?

So the methane will only set on fire if you have oxygen because you need oxygen to make fire. And that's the thing that on Uranus, there's a lot of methane. The whole of the atmosphere is made of methane pretty much. There's tons and tons of the stuff, but you can't set it on fire because there's no oxygen. But what that means is if you had a spaceship and you went into the Uranus atmosphere, you wouldn't need the oxygen there because you'd have to breathe it. As soon as you open the door, any kind of turn on the light switch or any kind of naked flame, the whole place is going up. And it's like a reverse Hindenburg. So like the Hindenburg had the flammable gas on the inside, but you've got the oxygen on the inside and it would just go,

wow. I thought that was very adult of you all, not to laugh every time. James said Uranus, very proud of you all. It's a guy wasn't planning on going there. It's a good another good reason not to. It is on the government green list though, if anyone's interested. Okay, that is it. That is all of our facts. Thank you so much for listening. If you would like to get in contact with any of us about the things that we have said over the course of this podcast, we can be found on our Twitter accounts. I'm on at Shriverland, Andy at Andrew Hunter M. James at James Harkin and Anna. You can email podcast at qi.com. Yep. Or you can go

to our group account, which is at no such thing or our website. No such thing as a fish.com. All of our previous episodes are up there. Check them out. Links to our upcoming tour, nerd immunity, which is going to start in October of this year. Fingers crossed. We'll be back again next week with another episode. We'll see you then. Goodbye.