No Such Thing As A Fish - 524: No Such Thing As The Grand Old Dug Of Cardiff

Episode Date: March 28, 2024

Dan, James, Anna and Lydia Mizon discuss pregnant players, cunning companies, sinking snowballs and blistering barnacles. Visit nosuchthingasafish.com for news about live shows, merchandise and more episodes.  Join Club Fish for ad-free episodes and exclusive bonus content at apple.co/nosuchthingasafish or nosuchthingasafish.com/patreon

the week's episode of no such things a fish. Andrew Hunter Murray is away this week, and so in his place we have one of the Q I elves. It is Lydia Meisen. Now those of you who listen to us occasionally talk

to Zoe Ball on Radio two might know Lydia. She's one of our regular elves on the Y the team of the Escapologists. A couple of years after we didn't win only connect. I'm really sure you'll enjoy the show with Lydia. She's very nice, very funny and a little bit of a the best. I'm sure you'll enjoy this show with Lydia.

She's very nice, very funny and knows a lot of stuff. While I'm here, I might as well remind you to join Club Fish, especially if you like listening to all these newer elves, because we do a feature at with those guys

called meet the elves where they send us a fiendish question, and we tried to solve it. We also have lots the guys called meet the elves where they send us a fiendish question, and we tried to solve it. We also have lots of compilations on there. We have other bonus features like drop as a line where people send us

correspondence. We have quizzes. We have all sorts. There's a discord which you could go to and talk to like minded fish, friends and if by any chance we were to announce some live shows in the next few months, then that is where you would hear about them first. So come and join us at Clubfish by going to no such things are fish dot com forward slash apple or no such things are fish dot com forward slash Patreon. If you are not an Apple user, if you're missing Andrew Hunter Murray, fear not. He will be back very soon and you can always get your fix of Andy by buying one of his wonderful books. the Dan has a book out, of course,

the theory of everything else. Me and Anna also have a book out, which is everything to play for the QI Book of Sports. Why not buy all three? Or why not sit back, relax, and listen to this episode of No Such Things As Fish

with QI elf Lydia Meisen. Okay, on with the podcast. Hello and welcome to another episode of No Such Thing As A Fish, a weekly podcast coming to you from the QI offices in Hoburn. My name is Dan Schreiber, I'm sitting here with Anna Tyshinsky, James Harkin and Lydia Meisen. 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 James. Okay, my fact this week is that golfer Brenda Keane took part in the 2001 Women's US Open while eight months pregnant and started contractions on one of her backswings. The resulting daughter will become a professional golfer later this year. So good. Isn't that amazing? Yeah, that is amazing. How do you know she, how are the rules of golf? I want to get into

golf. How do we? Can I just say dear listener of golf? I want to get into golf. How do we- Can I just say, dear listener, we're not going to talk about golf this whole section. Please stay with us. It's okay. That's a condition on which James has permitted another headline golf ad.

We don't discuss golf. If you really hate golf, maybe just press fast forward about 10 times and then we'll get onto the normal stuff. How do you know someone's going to be a pro golfer before they are a pro golfer? So this is Rachel Keane. And she has said in an interview that that's what's going to happen. She's an amateur at the moment. She does college golf. She's one of the best.

And for quite a while she's been saying she's going to become a professional. But yeah, she spoke in golf week saying that she is going to become a professional this fall or this autumn for English people. And this is a fact which I learned when watching the Netflix golf documentary series, Full Swing. There was an episode about English golfer, Alex Fitzpatrick, and this was just like a throwaway line about his partner in that documentary. Yeah.

P.S. Netflix, do feel free to commission anything that we pitched to your future. We love you. Can I ask, when she had the contraction, was she mid game and continued the game? Yeah. So it happened on the 11th teeth. So the 11th of 18 holes She said I could feel it coming, but I was too embarrassed to back out. She followed through hit the she didn't follow through That's a golfing term she did her golf follow through and then was doubled up in pain the whole round

She shot nine over par, which is not brilliant, but actually the real problem was she was really nervous because there was loads of TV coverage about it, loads of press about it, that she was pregnant and doing this. And in actual fact, she had her worst holes at the start of the round,

and after the contractions on the 11th hole, she was level par for the rest of the round. So her game improved after that happened. Are we crediting her daughter with that? You know, her daughter got started getting involved, was like, listen, I'm going to be a pro. I think that might be right because she is amazing. She's such a great golfer. Yeah. So Fenella had three planned C sections, but we all must, you know, you three must remember the moment of the first contraction. Yes. What were you doing and do you think your child will become that thing? Lillian? Well, I was sleeping and if my daughter could start sleeping a little bit better than she currently is, that would be great.

That's amazing. Yeah, I think I was as well. I was having a cup of tea. I was having a morning cup of tea in the garden. So a professional tea plantation owner is what I'm schooling my daughter to be. We were watching the Super Bowl when my wife's water's drunk. That's much cooler.

Here we go. What? No, that's great. Yeah. So my daughter's going to be a tight end for the Pittsburgh Steelers. Or a slouch who just watches TV at home all the time. So it turns out Brenda's daughter might have actually helped because during pregnancy, the fetus and the mother share cells. And once the baby's born, they leave some of their DNA in the mother.

It's called feto maternal micro chimerism. And as a result for mothers who have sons, male DNA has been found in mothers up to 30 years after the birth. And it also works that if the mother sustains organ damage while they're pregnant, the fetus can send cells, not consciously obviously, but send cells to repair the damaged organ. So maybe by sending golfing cells. The golf cells, have they been identified yet? They have identified the golf cells, they're very round.

Right, with little dimples in them. And just to finish up on their family, Rachel Keen's grandparents were also golfers on her mother's side. Her grandfather Jack played for Venezuela in the first world amateur team championships in St Andrews and her grandmother Carmen was the captain of the Dominican team in the World Amateurs in 1986. So it is definitely in the genes. Yeah. Genes not allowed on golf courses, just to say. Are they not? It's endlessly fascinating golf.

Okay, so if you are one of the people who was fast-forwarding to not hear any golf, you can come back into the room right now. I can't promise that. I can't guarantee I won't ask again. But then if you have absolutely no interest in pregnancy, maybe fast-forward another 15 minutes or so. And then if you're not interested in yetis, probably another 15 minutes. Probably a couple of years.

Yeah, people do do incredible things while pregnant. Something that I think is often played down is when people do stuff in first trimester pregnancy you get all the sympathy when you're massive and personally my experience is that's fine you know I was bounding up steps carrying a bike but first trimester is living hell for a lot of women I think with morning sicknesses with morning sickness basically So for instance I was reading about someone who won the Mount Everest Marathon and I didn't know this existed actually is it do you start at the top because that's the one I would like to be

Yeah, and then you sit on a sledge You don't even encompass the top which seems a shame you start at base camp 17,500 feet it's pretty high and you sort of run about and at a race camp at 17,500 feet. That's pretty high. And you sort of run about. And it was won in 2013 by Ang Damme Sherpa, Sherpa Lady, who was 44 at the time and three months pregnant. And she won the women's race.

And I think if you've got bad morning sickness, that's much harder than winning it at eight months pregnant. Oh yeah, and you're so tired as well, and you can't tell anybody. So you just have to persist through 12 weeks of pretending you're fine. Yeah, everyone's just going, God, you've got crap at this, haven't you?

You suck at Mount Everest marathons. What's going on? Anyway, well done, her and Dami Sherpa. That was the point. There's a lot of debate and anger over the years about what happens when people get pregnant and how workplaces deal with them. And opera has this quite a lot.

And there's an interesting thing with opera that for certain plays, like Wagner plays, there's a lot of flying in Wagner plays, so they don't feel safe. Humans can't do that anyway. But you're on, you're on, you know, the police systems and the wires. And so they say you can't do that. That's not a thing. If you're a Valkyrie, you mean?

Yeah, exactly. Yeah yeah but one of the major things as well is that your voice changes and I don't know if either of you two sing and then have noticed post birth of your child. I've never heard Anna sing I don't think in my entire life. That's a real shame I sing a lot but mostly in private which I think is for the best. You said to me the other day you thought my voice had changed. Oh. You said I sounded husky. You did sound husky, but I thought that was because you had a cold.

No, but I didn't. But then you did say it's because, yeah, it's got husky. You're just like smoking 30 a day, haven't you? Yeah, this is a genuine thing. And the science is not fully understood at the moment, so they're looking into it. But they say after childbirth, voices of opera singers often become enriched with warmth, creaminess, and depth of color.

As I say, the science is not really strong on this at the moment. Creaminess. Creaminess. But yeah, so there's a guy called Paul Quack. Again, that's not a good... You're joking. You're joking.

I didn't notice that until now. Dr. Quack, an EMT specialist. A snake aisle specialist. He said that, I've got to check that this is not an April Fools' Day. He said... QUACK QUACK QUACK QUACK QUACK You're so good at that noise. I feel like you've done it a disproportionate number of times on the front guns over the years.

Showing it off. Yeah, he says they're affected by the hypervascular state of the body that it enters to in pregnancy, it creates more blood vessels and increases blood flow through the tissue. And as a result, it changes the voice. So it definitely does seem to be true that voices get sort of better in and that this is during pregnancy for opera singers. And it's because there's that, you know, women have almost 50% more blood at the time. But they said they're particularly particularly good at the appoggio technique, which is I didn't know about apparently this is crucial in opera and it's where you basically exhale while leaving your ribs open

I spent about an hour trying to do this when I read about this yesterday and that makes you a really good singer or it's gonna make James pass out. How do you open your ribs? Yeah, you need some equipment actually. But they also said that the baby acts like a corset which you can push against. So the baby's pushing up against your diaphragm and you kind of use that pressure to push up against it and one opera singer Katherine Luik said that in the second trimester, she felt like she was performing on steroids. High notes just came shooting out of me. That's so good isn't it? That's amazing. On singers and singing do you guys know about Afeni Shakur? Afeni Shakur? She related to Tupac Shakur? She is indeed his mother. Oh god look at my cool music knowledge. Do you listen to her albums? Huge fan of all of Tupac's family's albums. She was a member of the Black Panthers and she was arrested and

charged with counts of conspiracy to bomb police stations while she was pregnant with Tupac and she represented herself in court and got an undercover cop to admit under oath that he and the other agents had basically organized all the unlawful stuff and They you know, they were kind of undercover cops But they were trying to get them to do things that were illegal and then they all got acquitted in May 1971 and then she gave birth to Tupac in June So like less than a month later, so she was eight months pregnant when she was doing that stuff in court. Wow. Pretty good timing. We're all doing I learned this fact from Jay Z. We're all doing. Oh, sorry. Is that a name drop? You're just hanging out with Jay Z.

Yeah, me and Jay were hanging out. And no, he did this interview where he stops the interviewer and he says you you white people, you all do white people pronunciation of Tupac's name. It's Tupac, not Tupac. No, I know Tupac, but when I try to say Tupac, it sounds like I'm a posh person saying pack. So it's like I have to, I'm really sorry, people who are actual fans who say Tupac, but we can't get away with it.

And I also, I know it's Tupac, but I say Tupac because I'm from the North of England. Exactly. There's a lot of qualifications. That's what I told Jay-Z. I said, listen, have you been to the north? It's how they say it there. You mean Jay-Z, right? Another person who had a tough time during pregnancy was Thomas Beatty. Thomas Beatty.

Oh, is that the transgender man who gave birth? Absolutely. In 2010, got the Guinness World Record for being the world's first married man to give birth. He was a transgender man who was part way through gender reassignment surgery. Not, I mean, not literally part way through at the time, right? Step back, step back. Had some parts of it and not other parts. He says people's attitudes have improved since 2008, but only slightly. Back then it was 99.99999% terrible.

Today it's probably only 95% terrible. But a few interesting things about Thomas Beattie, because people will remember that story, I reckon, who are listening to this, because it was quite famous at the time. But his fifth great-grandfather was William Henry Harrison. Whoa! Really? The ninth president. Really? The ninth president. The president. Really?

Yeah. Wow. And his third great uncle was Benjamin Harrison, who was another president. We're getting a lot of great descendant of president energy in recent shows. You know what? I was thinking exactly the same thing.

So his third great uncle was Benjamin Harrison. And Lydia, you'll know this. Benjamin Harrison was what, the 23rd was he? And there was someone who was twice, who's the person who was Cleveland? Cleveland. Yeah, Grover Cleveland was president twice on either side of him. And Grover Cleveland was the person who we mentioned the other day. Yeah, last episode. He was the grandfather of the trolley problem. The woman. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The creator of the trolley problem. The woman, but so the foot. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. The creator of the trolley problem. But anyway, Thomas Beatty was also in the vastly superior French version of Big

Brother, which we mentioned before, I think, where every participant has to have a secret. Do you remember that? No. So in French Big Brother, you go in and you also have a secret. And there's a secondary part where people have to guess what your secret is. So while he was on it, another participant had a city in Sri Lanka named after her family and another one was the World Car Washing Champion. But there was one, it was a few years after this, there was one where one of the contestants was a dog. That's an easy one to guess. No, that wasn't what their secret was. Oh, that's not the secret? No, no, that was out in the open.

Sorry, right. The amazing secret was that they were the mayor of a town in France. So good. It's actually ridiculous. Do you know that a leading advocate of natural childbirth, so in the 20th century it became common to advocate that because surgery is becoming more common and also it was early day surgery. So it was much more dangerous. And someone, one of the first people to talk about how important it was to promote natural childbirth was a guy called Grant Lee Dick Reed. So I just really enjoy his name. Okay, all could be Dick Red. And I don't know which is what it's because it's read like,

read a book. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think think if it's read there's more open to problems if you say my dick's red people don't know yeah yeah you're right people don't know you mean color or someone's just currently reading it exactly yeah that's before pictures dick reads right you sent me a dick read Yeah. That's before pictures. Dick Reads, right? You sent me a Dick Read. Was that a 19th century dick pick? Yeah. Okay, it is time for fact number two, and that is Anna. My fact this week is that for almost a thousand years, Christians have debated whether to treat the barnacle goose as a barnacle or a goose.

Oh, are we going to argue over it now or is it being decided? I think it's too controversial a topic for us to take a stand on, which it is. So we can just talk about the debate in general. It certainly looks like a goose. No, it is a goose, obviously, but it's been this very controversial thing for more than a thousand years, in fact, because when meat is not allowed, usually at Lent or on Fridays, you know, it's always varied what days you fast in Christianity, depending on time and place and denomination, but fish tends to be permitted. And there was this rumour going around in about the 12th century that the barnacle goose was maybe a fish, maybe a sort of barnacle-y thing, grew for barnacles.

So they said maybe we can eat it, maybe we can't. And across the ages, if you look it up, there are just constantly people saying, well, the Irish bishops are still doing that thing where they eat barnacle geese. I mean, I think Gerald of Wales in 1187 campaigned against it, but acknowledged that they were probably kind of barnacles. They grew out of wood. But he still said that's no reason for these bishops in Ireland to treat them. Did they not find eggs? How does anyone think that a goose comes from a barnacle? Yeah, it's very, it's interesting, isn't it? You've got to suspect they didn't look

hard enough. Because they, because their reasoning was pretty weird anyway. It was essentially that goose barnacles, which are the barnacles that barnacle geese were thought to have sprouted from, tend to grow on the bottom of bits of wood that are floating around at sea. And sort of have a goose-like shape-ish has been the claim. So look like-

Kind of white, aren't they, with like a black bit. Necky thing, which you might call a neck. It doesn't have a head attached, which does seem to be a problem, but whatever. Or any wings or legs. No. Or no. But they're ridges back then. Sounds like a goose to me. I mean, is it true? I think that the geese would migrate, so they would all disappear and there'd be no geese, and then the geese would come back. And we didn't know that migration was a thing, so it just seemed like they all disappeared, and then they all came back. But they all came back about the same time

as Driftwood was coming in, with all these barnacles on them and stuff like that, I think. Okay, yeah. I think, basically the problem was, no one knew what migration was. All birds disappeared, and then they all came came back and people's kids would be like, why are there no geese? Yeah. Why are there no geese in the winter? Why are they only here in the summer? And then people's parents had to make up some bullshit.

Oh, you see that tree? Yeah, they come off the tree. Now eat your peas. It was much easier to make things up back then. There was a man called John Gerard who actually had a garden here in Hobart that he wrote a book about all the plants that you would find in it and he said barnacle geese literally grew on trees and he covered his own back by saying look I have seen this happen but in some parts of the country it doesn't happen so if anybody from another part of England tells you that it doesn't happen they're probably telling the truth but I have seen it happen. So in the north, they may be speaking their own truth, but I've seen it happen. So there's much less science to go on in those days. After Gerard's

death, one of his friends issued an update to his book with lots of corrections. Really? You back checked it? That is a great idea. Damn. The chance of me outliving you is probably pretty slim. But if I do, I'm going through your book with a red pen. Oh, God. Jesus, there won't be anything left. In Ireland, I was reading a few slang terms to do with Lent and Green's Slang Dictionary

has this thing which is Cock Tuesday. Cock Tuesday? Yeah. So it's sort of like in the eve prior to Lent, it'd be, I guess, where you would gorge yourself. Oh, so what now is pancake day? Yeah. But it used to be Cock Tuesday.

Cock Tuesday. Okay. Do we find out why it's Cock Tuesday? Oh, I assumed it was you just ate a lot of meat. God, I didn't actually. You ate a lot of meat, so you call it Cock Tuesday? That's the real meat, isn assumed it was you just ate a lot of meat. God, I didn't actually... You ate a lot of meat, so you call it cock Tuesday? That's the real meat, isn't it? The cock. Is it not?

I said eating cock on a Tuesday. That's never been part of Christian tradition. I'm pretty sure in the Bible it says you're not allowed to eat cock on a Tuesday. Right. I think it's in Leviticus. Yeah, you're right. Yeah, I guess it is that. Could have been cockfighting. Yeah. Could have been cockfighting.

In fact, I do happen to know that cockfighting did happen on Shrove Tuesday, actually. Because it was banned, wasn't it? Do you remember? This is in our book, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. Probably fact-checking that if James dies before me. I mean, when you read about the history of what you're allowed to eat and drink in Lent, I'll be fact checking that if James dies before me. I mean, when you read about the history of what you're allowed to eat and drink in Lent, it does give the impression that the Pope has just been inundated throughout time with people knocking on his door going, can I try this?

Can I have this? This beaver, like beaver is always a famous example that's used, beaver was classified as a fish for hundreds of years by the Catholic Church in South America because it swims a lot. And yet it's always like, and they went to the Pope and they said, Pope, are we allowed to do this one? Just like they find a new animal. They're like, find a dog bill platypus. Pope! Come in, look at this. Come on, it's in water.

Have you made it? Yeah, half his life is just loophole admin that he's trying to prove or say no to. Iguanas was a big one when the Spanish went over to South America because they spend a the the the the the the the

the the was a land iguana on the rules that the green ones spent time in water so iguanas are kind of fishy things so it was a double loop. All right because its cousin sometimes likes a swim so we'll eat this guy. Exactly yeah. Yeah. Sometimes the pope comes out with some suggestions for what you can do during Lent. 2020 what do you think he said to give up for Lent? Face masks. Condoms. It's gonna be too hard to do. Okay, what could you give up for Lent? I bet, no, they're trying to be cool.

It's 2020 and we're in lockdown. Yeah, it's kind of, you're in the right territory. A lot of people are online, I guess. They're at home, it's 2020. Masturbating online on Zoom with the rest of the monks. Yeah. It was very close. Hashtags?

Hashtags. Look, come on, we can get this. You can get it, but it's kind of a boring answer. It's kind of a carder. Is it scheduling Zoom meetings for sort of nine o'clock in the morning? Oh, yeah. Just get into work. Yeah, nine o'clock in the morning. Oh, yeah. Just get into work. Yeah, yeah.

We're in the territory. Just remember, a lot of people spending time online and online is a very scary place sometimes. Twitter? Oh, those online quizzes, they were all over the place. Yeah, no, no. It's online comedy shows. Yeah. Is it just like take some time out from the internet it's trolling so

Take time off from sending negative messages out into the world trolls. Stop your Saying don't murder people. Yeah, like stop doing it full stop And then you can have a massive troll Just go online abuse everyone. I tell you on, on Cock Tuesday you can all be cocks online. That's where it comes from. That's what he said, he said, if you all stop just for a month, then the world will be a better place. And then you can all go back to being fucking losers.

Alright, stop now! Do you guys know about mop eggs? Mop eggs. Mock eggs,. Mock eggs. But I want to know also what you think a mop egg would be. That sounds fun. Is a mock egg an egg which is pretending to be a mop? You're thinking of the mop egg.

Yeah, just under that dictionary. It's something that's not really an egg because you can't eat eggs over lent. Yeah. But you eat this particular thing instead. Yes. Which is? You can probably guess it. Okay, you can't guess it. I'll take it back. Hang on. So it's a food? Oh, is it? I know what it'll be. What's the aqua fava? Oh, you are close, but because as we I think we probably have mentioned the concept of aqua fava was invented about four years ago, and this comes from the 1450s.

It wasn't that. So is it something that you can use instead of eggs? It was something that you used to make. And it's a recipe for making a mock egg, because you couldn't eat animal products that included egg, but something that was extremely popular, much more popular than dairy milk throughout really medieval times was almond milk.

Oh yeah. And that's partly because you could eat that still in Lent, and so you filled an empty eggshell. Now I don't know how you got the eggshell really empty and then to a place where you could fill it again. Oh, just a tiny hole. Yeah, prick a hole, one in each end, and then blow it. But then you have to fill it up with... Okay, a slightly bigger hole. A little big hole. Okay, make a hole in your egg, empty it, and then you have to fill it up with... Okay, a slightly bigger hole. A little big hole, okay,

make a hole in your egg, empty it, and then you fill it with a mixture of almond milk-based jelly, and then real almonds in the middle dyed yellow with saffron. So you've got our crunchy almonds in the middle yellow, and then grey almond jelly outside, and it looks like a shit egg. Right. By the way, apparently, this is just calling back to the last fact you shouldn't blow air up a vagina when someone's pregnant That's true. I mean honestly if you're gonna do it ask permission anyway, whether they're pregnant or not Yeah, that is dangerous isn't it? I've heard that Well, actually, you know what? I've never checked it. Yeah, but it's the kind of thing you hear It's kind of thing you hear in the playground

Really? Yeah. Yeah So fillet of fish McDonald's. Oh, yeah, Lydia, you and I were talking about this. Yeah, it's a byproduct of Catholic fasting So it was developed in 1962 by a man called Lou Grun Catholic fasting. So it was developed in 1962 by a man called Lou Grun. He ran the Cincinnati franchise and couldn't sell burgers on Fridays or during Lent because most of his customers were Catholic. And so he came up with this idea of this horrible burger. Sorry, I'm sure it's great. And nowadays about 25% of the Filetto fishes bought by McDonald's customers

in any one year are bought during the 40 days of Lent No, nobody buys in the rest of the year. Really? Yeah. Yeah That's so interesting. Yeah, wouldn't have thought there were that many devout Catholics going to McDonald's in America There's loads some places that don't even sell them outside of Lent They just wait for Lent and then they bring it back on the menu. That's amazing. And this guy Grown He developed them in 1962. so Ray Kroc had taken over McDonald's in 61 and so they basically had a competition between them because he Ray Kroc had come up with his own burger at the same time which is a

non-meat burger called the hula burger which I believe we've mentioned before yeah it was hula hoops and there was grilled pineapple with cheese on a cold bun and so he said whoever sells the most will be on the permanent menu after a bit of time and fill it. Oh, fish one out. Do you know if there's more birthday parties than any other McDonald's in the world? Because I've been there this year. Oh, he's been there this year. This year. Bolton.

Yeah. Marrakesh? No, not Marrakesh. Montenegro? Montenegro is close, but not quite right. Serbia. Serbia, capital. Belgrade. Belgrade, correct.

It's in Belgrade. Is it? Yeah. And it's because basically when McDonald's passed the Iron Curtain, it was just so popular. I really like watching because both you Lydia and James are quizzes That was like training But Serbia was the place where the Golden Arches diplomacy rule got broken Oh, there's that Oh, so there's a sort of philosophical idea that no two countries with McDonald's had ever gone to war with each other Well, this was I'm not sure how true it ever was, but there was this idea that if a country

has a McDonald's, they probably weren't going to go to war with each other. And after somebody put it in an academic article a few weeks, NATO bombed Serbia. And so the Golden Arches rule, if it ever really existed, was broken at that point. Can I quickly talk about barnacles? Yeah. With their enormous penises. Yes, please. Always.

So they have the largest penis to body ratio in the world. Okay. One reason is because they don't move around very much because they just kind of attach to things, but they do sort of internal copulation. So if you're, if you're stuck where you are, imagine your feet are nailed to the ground and you want to have sex with someone who's, you know, three or four feet away and their feet are nailed to

the ground. The only way you're going to do that realistically is with a very long penis. And so that's what they did. That's what they've evolved. A great sketch of a married couple barnacles, but there's just a random guy in between them. Just every night he just watches a penis come over the front of him. Like when you're on an airplane. Yeah. And they put two of you like one seat away from each other

and sit someone random in the middle. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. You're just passing Maltesers to each other. Well, it's if you can imagine that with penises and barnacles, then that's what happens. But very recently they found out that Gooseneck Barnacles, which I'm not sure if it's the same as these ones, but I think it might be. They do something called sperm casting, which isn't a new podcast.

It's where you ejaculate into the water and the water sort of finds its way to a female. Yeah, that sounds sensible. That's a good way of doing it. But what the result is that they have evolved much shorter and less stretchy penises. Oh no, less stretchy as well. So that's what happens. They've kind of come up with this new way of mating, but at the expense of their penis stretchiness. Oh no, poor them. Stretchiness kind of...

To stretch something, I imagine someone has to be pulling at the other end, but they have to get a fish and be like, can you come over here? Sorry, I just want to get this to that girl over there. Could you just swim it over? That won't reach. I promise it will. It will.

It will. We've actually never mentioned the essential role that barnacles played in Britain's kind of historic reputation. And basically, us ruling the waves was really down to barnacles, or specifically down to our defeating them, because there's such a huge problem for ships.

So they glue themselves with this really powerful glue to the hulls of ships. And it means that ships need to use a huge amount more fuel, up to 40% more fuel, just to get going with the huge weight and drag. And the barnacles. It's called biofouling, and it's a huge problem. It's not just a word, James.

Come on. It's a good word. It's a great word word, James, come on. It's a good word. It's a great word. Biofouly. They biofoul. And in the 18th century, it was the British who realized that if you sheath your hulls in copper, the barnacles can't adhere to it, don't adhere to it.

And that was completely revolutionary. And that was what made Britain this naval superpower, one of the essential things. But it is a problem again now, because we stopped making boats out of copper and they're back. But I do wonder if that's why blistering barnacles is a expletive at sea. In Tintin. In Tintin.

I'm not sure. In one very specific Belgian kids' comic books. Okay, it is time for fact number three, and that is my fact. My fact this week is that just after the Titanic hit the iceberg, many of the first-class passengers sprung into action and immediately organized snowball fights for the next morning. Woo-hoo! Wow. Yeah. I mean, just to sort of show how non-threatening they thought the moment was, I found this

fact in a really bizarre place. I'm reading a book at the moment called Poking the Dead Frog, which is by a guy called Mike ... Ducks a quack. Ducks a quack. No, it's by Mike Sacks. It's an amazing book. If you're into comedy history, it's interviews with great comedy writers.

And it was within an interview with a guy called Henry Beard who started National Lampoon, he was part of Board of the Rings, the first Lord of the Rings parody. It's just in there, he just says my dad was friends with a guy called Lawrence Beasley and he was a survivor of the Titanic. And then there's a footnote that tells that in an account given in Lawrence Beasley's book, which is titled blistering barnacles. So it's called the loss of the Titanic. It's the sudden real downer of a reveal of the actual title.

Yeah, Mr. Trick that the loss of the SS Titanic, its story and its lessons byal of the actual title. Yeah, mr. Trick there. Yeah, the loss of the SS Titanic Its story and its lessons by one of the survivors And yeah He said that as soon as the hit occurred to illustrate further how little danger was apprehended When it was discovered on the first class deck that the forward lower deck was covered with small ice Snowballing matches were arranged for the following morning and some passengers even went down to the deck and brought back small pieces of ice which were handed round. Okay so question, these are presumably bits of iceberg that have fallen on their deck. Snowball fights to me is safer at least if you use snow rather than ice.

Yes. Yeah you always get annoyed with the person who picks up a chunk of ice and there's always one kid. I actually was thinking about that as well. I think possibly what happened is that the ice was almost grated so lots of powder as it were was coming down. Oh like a frozen martini. Exactly. Yeah is my... A lot of the other passengers planned the frozen martini party for the next morning. That's interesting. Yeah I think it definitely was shavings. Because actually at the time, according to the paper reports, the newspaper reports from the next day, they said the deck was filled with ice and snow,

which had been shaved off. And passengers were amusing themselves by throwing them around at each other immediately. Yeah, exactly. I heard playing football as well. With the snow? With the ice, like lumps of ice kicking at each other. Just sliding it along, yeah. And there was a stoker called Walter Hearst and I read that he entered some fellow stokers

cabin and threw lumps of ice at them to wake them up so Lawrence Beasley we've kind of mentioned him on the show before in passing he was there was we talked about um survivor guilt a lot of the people that survived the Titanic believed that maybe, particularly if they were male, I think almost, really almost exclusively if they were male, they should have gone down with it. Lawrence Beasley survived because he was standing on the side where the last boats were going down and a rumor went around that they were now taking men off the boat on the other side of the Titanic. So everyone ran around, but he just hung out there, he just didn't go. This is his story. And then they said there's more space, you could get in. So he jumped in that one

and that's how he survived, not knowing that that was a lie, that there weren't any other on the other side. And so he survives and he had survivor's guilt a bit to the point where he jumped onto the set of a movie of the Titanic that was being filmed and he tried to symbolically go down with the iceberg. Oh my god. No, not the same mate. What on earth? Yeah, he was a lot of a lot and he got he got caught.

They kicked him off the set so he survived that Titanic. Yeah, his grandson talks about the fact that it was a thing back then more so he says more so than any other time where it was women and children first was not just like a thing a suggestion it was built into you. I read that it was quite controversial even during and immediately after the sinking this women and children idea because the men obviously were the breadwinners they brought home all the resources so if you didn't bring your husband with you onto the boat, then you would be poor and destitute. So there was some arguing amongst survivors and people trying to get off the boat about whether it should be, should the men be left on the boat and leave the women and children destitute, what's better?

And they said, it's not women and children versus the law of the sea, but it is an inherent law of human nature. Mm. Okay. That's interesting. So they should have done a sort of like means or an IQ test or something to see who were the most useful breadwinners. Some sort of mean tested survival I'm sure would have been completely straightforward. Quiz, Lydia? Yeah, quiz.

That sounds good. If you can name the capital of Serbia, you are on. Capital of Zagreb? Damn it. Capital of Zagreb. Someone went down, Dan. This guy. Just throw yourself in the water. If you can name the capital of Serbia, you are on. Capital of Zagreb? Damn it! Capital of Zagreb?

Something like going down, down. This guy, just throw yourself over here. I was panicking. I put myself in survival mode. Interesting little connection between this guy as well, Beasley, is that his son Alec was married to a writer called Dodie Smith, and she's who wrote 101 Dalmatians. Really? Yeah, just a little,

it's no presidential connection but it's pretty good going. Nice. Speaking of people with survivor's guilt, another one was a person who is the coward of the Titanic. So who do you guys think of as the coward of this whole story? Ismay? Billy Zane. Exactly. Okay. Lydia's is historically accurate. Yours is based on the film. So I'm going to go with Ismay. Yeah, Bruce Ismay, who was head of White Star Line, who was the guy who apparently, or it's speculated, encouraged them to keep the ship going faster so they could make the morning headlines. You know, and in all adaptations of Titanic, he is the villain, the panto villain, because he kind of was the reason it crashed and then he escaped onto a lifeboat, snuck onto a lifeboat. And he's not, and I just feel like he should be rehabilitated. So the reason that he's this pantomime villain still today is because William Randolph Hearst,

who owned all the newspapers at the time that were influential, just hated him. Ismay was this quite cold, awkward Brit. Hearst was the American guy. Ismay was this quite cold, awkward Brit. Hurst was the American guy. And he just ran this smear campaign almost immediately after the Titanic sank. He made his papers publish the suggestion that the emblem of White Star be changed to yellow liver in testament to his cowardice.

And actually, we have no evidence he did that. It was reported that he did his duty completely. He was on the very last lifeboat to leave. and come on, it's the driver, the captain. Where was he in all this? He was hiding away in that room that exploded with water. Is it? I haven't seen any of the movies, but it seems to me like the bad guy would be the iceberg. Is that not? The iceberg was just doing its duty, James. Oh, was it? Yeah, it's what it was born to do, sink ships. So a lot of people went to testify about what the experience was, just so we could get it down in history books, and people were trying to get money from the company as well for

the disaster. And one woman basically, it reads like the worst TripAdvisor review ever. It's just her. It's like it takes ages for her to get to the actual incident itself. Because the food was shit, the gym wasn't big enough? We were put into a third class room, we should have been in a different room. It was barely enough room to get two people in there, learn the three people that we had, the meals were not being served correctly.

But then she does make this point that when they did hit, she sent her son off. Sorry, did she actually complain about stuff before? Genuinely. Wow. That's what I mean. It's like a huge, long, yeah, yeah, it's a proper trip advisor. Two stars. That's so funny. Two stars? Really? What does he have to do to get one star? But she then also, she says that her son goes up, finds the captain, and he's in a card game,

and he laughs it off. He says, oh, this is nothing. And she goes back there. Then it goes to complaints about her going, the boat that we were put down in, the life raft, that was a nightmare, getting into that, the lowering of it, they didn't know what they were doing. It was a boat on top of us, almost crashed into us. To be fair, you're putting a lot of tone on this, that Navy people know. And was it one of those reviews that had the passag response from White Star Lion King? You paid for the first class ticket, which we will acknowledge we hit the iceberg. Thank you for your feedback. We relish any kind of feedback that we get for any of our liners. So funny. Have you heard of a woman named Violet Jessup?

Violet Jessup, no. She survived the sinking of not only the Titanic, but also the Britannic in 1916, and she was aboard the third sister ship the Olympic when it collided with another boat and nearly sank in 1911. And she later wrote a memoir where she complained that after the Titanic sank she got the mick taken out of her because she couldn't find a toothbrush and she was complaining all the time about not having a toothbrush and so the other survivors just started making fun of her. Hang on when the Titanic was sinking?

After she was on the ship, after the Carpathia, she'd forgotten to take her toothbrush with her and so she just kept complaining that nobody would give her a toothbrush. So when the Britannic sank later, the first thing she did when it started sinking was she ran to get her toothbrush because she said a friend had told her, never undertake another disaster without first making sure of your toothbrush. Wow, I can't believe that's the lesson she took away from being on the Titanic, because it sank.

That's mainly what she talks about. Because she's thought, well, what I'm going to do is make sure I bring a toothbrush next time, whereas what I might think is, don't get on a massive fucking ship. Yeah, ending in ick. She doesn't learn. Do you guys know who the original captain of the Titanic was? The original

captain as in not the one who then was the captain. No so Smith. Edward Smith. Edward Smith was the captain when it was sailing but actually when it was being assembled in Belfast. Okay. I'm just thinking it's quite an easy job to be a captain of a ship while it's being built. Most of the work does come in once it's at the sea. It's it's a common misconception. Actually, the hardest part is standing there watching it being built. And no, I had a master in Belfast

who was largely responsible for assembling the crew together to get it to Southampton, where it went off to. So he captained it to Southampton? Is that what you're saying? He actually didn't. He just got the crew together. But he was officially captain of the Titanic and he was Captain Haddock. Blistering barnacles!

Are you kidding me? Captain Herbert Haddock. First Captain of the Titanic. Isn't that quite bizarre? That is something. Why isn't that incredibly famous? What a shame he didn't take it all the way to the end. Do you know the link between Titanic and North Korea?

I feel like you might know. Both had a McDonald's and... Is it a white star? No, the HMS Titanic sank on the same day that Kim Il-sung was born, which is April 15th, 1912. You're right, I do know the birthdays of all dictators. Well, it just seems like you're a quizzer. It's the kind of thing that comes up. So the...

I feel like Lydia's just declared war on this. Right. The QI, the classical rule of democracy has been broken. So the North Korean calendar starts from April the 15th, 1912. Yeah, yeah, I know all this stuff. Come on, tell me something I don't know. What the Fergrana? No, I do know that. They start with his birth, don't they? Yes, they start with his birth. And I tried to find out what time he was born, because

obviously it sank in the Atlantic and Korea is, I don't know what time zones were like in 1912, but several hours ahead. So it could possibly have been born at the moment of the sinking. Do you think there's a connection? I do, but I'm not going to go into it here. Get on down to other podcasts. Can I just quickly, very, very quickly say that in 19... There was a 1962 law in the town of Owasaw in America, which banned children from throwing snowballs at each other. Why? Because it hurts.

I think the idea was that, you know, it stopped protesters and stuff, but effectively it stopped people from throwing snowballs. And they eventually changed the rule. But what happened was that people heard about this law and they got very, very upset about it and started sort of trolling the city and saying, how come you're stopping kids from throwing snowballs? It's disgusting. And one of the people who's in charge said that the nastiness of it has been incredible. We haven't seen as much unexpected vitriol since we cracked down on kids selling ice cream off their backs.

To be honest, they do sound like the bad guys. It's downcast. Do you know in the American Civil War, massive organized snowball fights used to happen quite regularly? Between just same side or? Same side, but it would be, it was usually among the Confederate troops and it would be between different regiments so there was one in 1864 where 20 000 troops took part there were 10 000 on the Georgian and South Carolina side and 10 000 on the Tennessee side. What? Yeah yeah isn't that crazy? That's a lot of people for a snowball fight. Yeah it's um I don't know how they but it's so organized

and they used to play their bugles properly and the officers would be mounted on their horses, they'd fly their standards and then they'd just gallop at each other. That's amazing. On Tennessee 1, if you're interested. And if you catch, if you captured someone from the opposition, then you drag them through the snow and like stuffed snow in their, you know, face and nose and eyes and down their back and stuff. So you didn't want to be captured. Sounds really good. Good practice for the actual war. Oh, not that good practice. you know, face and nose and eyes and down their back and stuff. So you didn't want to be captured. Sounds really good. Good practice for the actual war. Oh, not that good practice. Maybe that's why they didn't win, actually.

The North are having proper military training. First guy comes back going, guys, those bullets hurt way more than the snowballs. Heads up. in the snowballs. Heads up. Okay, it is time for our final fact of the show and that is Lydia. My fact is that entrepreneurs have been ending their businesses names with near me in an attempt to appear near the top of search results. So, that's so good. It's like the modern day version of doing the naming your company with the letter A, you know, to get at the top of search results. So that's so good. It's like the modern day version of doing the naming

your company with the letter A, you know, to get the top of the phone. Artfact plumbing. Yeah. Yeah, but is it good because let's say this is, you know, a Tex-Mex restaurant in Santa Fe and they're called Tex-Mex near me and I Google it in London.

Yeah. What fucking use is that? You'll get on a flight. You'll be like, well and I Google it in London. Yeah. What fucking use is that? You'll get on a flight. You'll be like, well, I guess it's the closest one. I really want Tex-Mex. A bit further than we were hoping, but I do, won't it? This is exactly it. It does work, but the problem is exactly what you have just said is that it only works if

you're within about a mile. So I read an article which is about this New York City restaurant called Thai food near me. So in NYC, in New York City, it works because of the population density. You're probably very close to things. Lots of people will be Googling Thai food near me within a mile of this restaurant. But what's happened to make it really popular

is that it's gone viral. Lots of people have been looking at it, thinking, this is a great joke, this is such a good idea. And that in itself has pushed up the SEO. So this has taken off in a way that I didn't really realize. In Texas alone, there's six businesses called Affordable Dentist near me, which is quite bleak. There's a psychic near me in Chicago.

I have been spending some time. You know that already without having to look. In the UK, I did a company's house search and there are 90 companies in this country with near me. Really? Including Skip Hire near me, Locksmiths near me. There's a... Don't come. Somewhere in Yorkshire called Cheap Flooring near me. And in Oldham, there's a somewhere in New Yorkshire called Cheap Flooring near me.

And in Oldham there's a company called Fire Extinguishers near me, which you think if you need a fire extinguisher, it might be a bit more urgent than. Yeah, I want one really near me. People don't set their house on fire and think, oh, we better buy her a fire extinguisher. The shop isn't open for another six hours. That's why I have to wait. But you're right. It's the modern equivalent of naming your business AA Plumbing or AAA Luxsmiths.

Apple, obviously, I think we said before it's called Apple because they wanted to be a head of Atari. I actually read that you can tell kind of how old a company is. Obviously not really accurately, but if it's like Aardvark Plumbing, you know that they came out around the time of Yellow Pages and telephone directories. If they're called Dan Schreiber locksmiths, then it came before that when the most important thing was reputation. So people would name it after the name of the person. Probably not Dan Schreiber though, if I'm being completely honest. What do you do? And these days, like in the internet area, you might be more likely to be called, you know, Oxford Plumbing.

Yeah. Because people are more likely to search for the place or something like that. Interesting, yeah. So I don't know if that's true, but I think it's a good rule of thumb. Yeah, I tried to, I was on the train when I had this thought and I couldn't get the research done. But I imagine there must be examples of bands and authors who've taken on pseudonyms to place themselves. Let's say you're a kids author. Why not make a name Rowlett or something like that and be right next to the Harry Potter books? That's what does write a really I think you have to write a good book.

Yeah, I think that only works. That's only useful if you write some piece of shit that you want people to accidentally buy. Yeah. If you actually want to be a proper good author, you want to be distinct from these people, right? You can't go to your publisher next time down and be like, I've come up with a brilliant concept. My name is Richard Usman. Why did you make your surname start with you? Oh yeah, I'm way away from him now.

name start with you. Oh yeah, I'm way away from him now. The problem is that these things do move on so that wouldn't work anymore. And in fact, the near me thing hardly worked for any time at all because as soon as Google catches on, as soon as the internet catches on, it rejigs, you know, its algorithm. So it doesn't work now because Google has been recoded so that now if you have, if you're called whatever great dentist near me, Google will discount the words near me as keywords. So it won't look for anything with near me in the title. And you've already made all the letterheads.

Yeah, I know. That just looks stupid. So they'll see the words near me and Google will be like, okay, you want to find something near you. So they'll understand what it means, but they won't look for the keywords. So exactly, same with open now. Don't call your business something something open now because they they discount those as well

And it's actually counterproductive because honestly if I saw a business called something something near me, I think that's really Stupid. I mean, do you think do you not think it looks quite cheap if you yeah, would you go to Thai restaurant near me for the gag? Yeah, you'd go for the guy. Would you? I actually thought that Vietnamese restaurant like banh mi near me. That's good. Well done. But um, fire extinguisher shop open now. What about when it's not open? Yeah, you have to stay open all the time. I think if your name is open now, the rules should be that 24 7. Yeah, I think if your name is open now the rules should be that 24 7 Yeah, I think I'm attracted to places like that. For example, I used to go to a Thai restaurant that was up in North London

Specifically and it wasn't even in my bit of North London because it was called the Titanic genuinely Yeah, yeah, I love it It was fine, I don't know Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love- Was it good food or? It was fine, I don't know. Yeah, no, you didn't care. You just-

No, I just, I love a good joke. Just sad. Or a bad joke. Just a joke, I love a joke. Yeah. Anyone having an effort. I looked at the rules of naming companies in the UK. So if you have a limited company, it has to, your name has to end in limited. Or it's also allowed to end in SIF.

SIF? SIF. S-I-T-H. C-Y-F. Huh, can we guess why? SIF? SIF. S-I-T-H? C-Y-F. Huh. Can we guess why? Riddle of me this. Is it guessable or is this what it is?

I think that question was directed at Lydia. I think you and I said this one out. I'll tell you what, there is a clue if you've been on Only Connect, because it's related to something to do with Only Connect. Coron? Coron. Ah, no, where do they film Only Connect? Oh, Cardiff.

Which is in? Wales. Which? Oh, it's Welsh. Where they speak. Yeah, it's Welsh, so it's Siffingadig, which means limited, is shortened to Siff. Siffingadig sounds like a song, sounds like a Mary J. Blige song. Siffingadig, gadig, gadig, gadig. There's a... You know, it's a finger dick,

a dick, a dick, a dick. Who did that song where they say it backwards? Do they... Oh, Missy Elliott. Missy Elliott. Is that who you think it is? That's something he obvious. Same kind of era. Same kind of era. That's true.

I'm going to give myself a point. OK, one time tonight. Is this how only Connect works? We haven't been on. There are words where you need permission to add them to your company name, a big long list of them. So you are not allowed to have the word benevolent in your company name because it implies you're a charity or that you're helping families or whatever.

What if you're a charity and you're helping families? You need permission still. Well, you need permission, so. Yeah, yeah, you are allowed to. It's possible you're allowed them. The word Doug, you're not allowed. D-U-G. Can you guess why? Is it Welsh? Is it really? It is Welsh, yeah. I thought, hey, Dougie had somehow got the domain of every single possibility. Why not Doug? It's Welsh for Duke. And so you're not allowed to be called king or queen or duke or whatever without permission, because they might think

that it's a royal company. What if your surname is King? Yeah, you would just have to say, is it OK that I do this? And they would say yes, I think. So is it the Grand Old Doug of York as a song in Wales? No, because York is not in Wales. No, no, the song just the Grand Old Doug of York as a song? No, because York is not in Wales. No, no, the song just isn't. The Grand Old Doug of Cardiff.

And also there are two cities. These are both in England, which are not allowed to use without permission. Okay. I bet it's going to... Both. Cheddar. Windsor? Lydia has got one of them, Windsor. And the other one is very, very difficult to guess.

Is it a pun? Is it something that means something else? No, it's not. It's just because this city is very famous for making other things. Sheffield? Manchester? Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. I got it right again. Wow. Yeah. So the company of Cutlers is allowed to object to anyone calling their company

Sheffield. FYI, international listeners, Sheffield is incredibly famous for making Cutlery. They do have to reject company names every year, don't they? Because obviously a lot of people apply with these things in their titles and often they get told they can't use that name and often it is people who are like Queen's plumbing or whatever, but also the company's house, which is sort of the British register of companies. And they say, if you're allowed to set up a business,

they don't allow offensive names. And so I was just looking at some of the names that have been rejected recently. Hey. Should we do some rejected names? Yes, please. There are a lot, there are almost 57,000 names rejected between January, 2019 and April, 2022. Wow. So they've gone are a lot. There are almost 57,000 names rejected between January 2019 and April 2022.

Wow. So they've gone through a lot. Lawn porn UK. Is that a gardening place or a pornography place? I think it does both. Yeah, the husband does the gardening and then the wife does the porn. Lawn porn. I think probably just lawn knowing. Doggy style, which... Yeah. That's good. Is that like dog hairdressers? Well, the sad thing about the fact they were rejected as company names is you can't actually look up the company and find out what it does, but I've got to assume it's an anal sex selling company.

Yeah. Come on, who asked for all your anal sex selling. Always open. We have to enter round the back of the building. I'm bull-parking in the rear. And bum-face and dick-weasel. Can I just say me and Dan were very upset. They wouldn't let us use our perfectly normal nicknames. That's our fringe show this year, isn't it?

Double act. Okay, that's it. That is all of our facts. Thank you so much for listening. If you'd like to get in contact with any of us about the things that we've said over the course of this podcast, we can be found on various social media accounts. I'm on Instagram mainly on at Shriverland. James, I am on Twitter at James Harkin, Lydia, also on Twitter at Lydia Mizen. Yeah. But if you want to get to us as a big old fish group, where do they go, Anna?

You can go to at no such thing on Twitter, or you can go to at no such thing as a fish on Instagram, or you can email podcast.qi.com. Yep, also head to our website, no such thing as a fish.com. All the previous episodes are up there, as well as information of how you can become a member of Club Fish. It's where we have lots of bonus episodes.

It's where there's a link to the Discord, where all the listeners of the show can hang out and chat, and also it's where we debut secret information, the hidden stuff about upcoming shows and so on. You want to be the first to find out? Become a member of Clubfish and that's the place to do it. Or otherwise just come back here next week, we'll be back with another episode. We'll see you then. Bye!