No Such Thing As A Fish - 548: No Such Thing As Radioactive Jenga

Episode Date: September 12, 2024

Dan, James, Anna and Andy discuss your facts, including domes, mushrooms, hiccups and the Flying Doctors.   Visit nosuchthingasafish.com for news about live shows, merchandise and more episodes. Jo...in Club Fish for ad-free episodes and exclusive bonus content at apple.co/nosuchthingasafish or nosuchthingasafish.com/patreon

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Hi everyone, welcome to this week's episode of No Such Thing As A Fish. It is our summer audience facts special, so we're going to be going through all of our mailbag to find the best facts that you have sent in. Because right now, Dan, we're not in the office, are we? No, we are on the road. We are doing our 10-year anniversary tour, Thunder Nerds. We've already done one in Bristol. We're on our way to Dublin to do our next one and man, what amazing gigs. Yeah, it's absolutely incredible. It's always amazing to do these shows because there are so many dorky, nerdy, geeky people out there. We absolutely love it. We feel like we're
Starting point is 00:00:38 in our element and the shows themselves have been so much fun. We've been doing quizzes. People have been sending in their best facts. we've met some incredible people, Dan. Yeah, so we've set up for this tour the Hall of Fame, where we're inducting a new person who's appeared as one of the facts in our show, and we get them coming live on stage, but James, Anna and Andy don't know who they are. I've been bringing them secretly in. We have had the descendant of Confucius on stage with us. We have had the Asparamancer, the person who predicts all of the future political
Starting point is 00:01:10 situations using asparagus, AKA Mystic Veg. She was there in Bristol. We've had the co-writer of Fatberg, the musical. I have very exciting ones lined up for Dublin and for Glasgow, as well as Cardiff, London, and Manchester. I am so excited for these things. It's an amazing night. Have you got anyone for Newcastle?
Starting point is 00:01:29 You didn't mention Newcastle. Oh, I do. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Newcastle might be the best. Oh, wow. OK. Well, if you are in any of those aforementioned towns, then make sure you come to the show. There are still tickets available for all of them. I think there might be a London show that's sold out, but we did did put on a new show so the tickets are available and you can get them by going to no such things are fish.com forward slash alive. Okay Dan we got a
Starting point is 00:01:53 flight to get. We do so let's get on to it you guys get your tickets we'll see you there at the live show come say hi afterwards when we take photos with everyone it's a great night see you there but for now enjoy the audience fact show Hello and welcome to no such thing as a fish a weekly podcast coming to you from the QI offices in Hoban. My name's Andrew Hunter Murray, I'm here with Dan Shriver, James Harkin and Anna Terjinsky and once again we have gathered around the microphones with your favourite facts from the last three months. That's right, it's our summer audience facts special, you've been emailing your facts in to podcast at qi.com, we've caught a few of
Starting point is 00:02:44 the very best ones and we're going to be serving them back to you today. Here we go. Starting with James. Okay, well, the first one that I've got on my big pile of facts is from Glenn Matthews and Glenn writes to rival the Eiffel Tower. One suggestion for the Chicago World's Fair was a 200 person bungee. Cool. Oh. On the same extremely strong bungee rope? No, no. All different bungee ropes.
Starting point is 00:03:11 This is from a book called The Devil in the White City by Eric Larson, which Glenn read. And he has lots of other amazing things that you could have instead of an Eiffel Tower to celebrate your city. In this case, Chicago. Hang on. Tourists go every moment of every day to see the Eiffel Tower to celebrate your city, in this case Chicago. Hang on tourists go every moment of every day to see the Eiffel Tower. If you were truly going to rival it you would need 200 bungee jumpers doing that every second of the day. There's nothing wrong with that. I just want to make sure. You could do it like not every second but you could do it every
Starting point is 00:03:40 half an hour say right? Yeah. I remember staying in a hotel in Las Vegas, and there was a bungee jump place on the top of the hotel. And just you would open your window in the morning. You're like, oh, what a beauty. And then there'd just be a guy sort of plummeting past your window. If you tracked him late at night, and you didn't know that was happening,
Starting point is 00:03:59 it's like, oh my god, someone's, oh no, cancel it, never mind. He's going back up. He must have changed his mind. Didn't when we stayed in New Zealand on our first fish tour, there was... the hotel was having a special charity thing. That big tower in Auckland, whatever it's called. Yeah. I don't remember this. Yeah, they do bungee off there as well.
Starting point is 00:04:20 It's all they do in New Zealand, isn't it? Having been. People bungee jump all the time, it's everywhere. Yeah. Oh, wow. Quite a lot in Australia, but New Zealand, it's just... New Zealand isn't it? Having been. People bungee jump all the time, it's everywhere. Yeah, quite a lot in Australia, but New Zealand it's just the only... New Zealand and Lord of the Rings tourism. This is your weirdest stereotype, I've never heard that. It's not a stereotype. In New Zealand there's a different legal thing and it's to do with the insurance that you get for extreme sports and I think the government might cover some of it, which means that it's much easier to set up an extreme sports thing in New Zealand than it is anywhere else in the world. Wow. I see.
Starting point is 00:04:49 That's why. I thought we were just into it. So it's not a tax break. It's not tax deductible. It's not tax break so much as you don't, it costs you less to do it. How would that work? If you're cost any budgeting, you don't pay any tax. That's it.
Starting point is 00:05:02 You're sitting with your accountant this day. God, you've really gone over the threshold this year. But good news, Mr Saunders. You can do 76 bungee jumps. Your investments can go down and up and down and up. So yeah, what do you think we could have? Let's say, for instance, in London, we wanted a new tower to rival the Eiffel Tower. They did actually come up with some ideas, didn't they?
Starting point is 00:05:25 But what do you think would be a good thing? I guess the London Eye was meant to be that, right? Kind of. Well, actually the London Eye was supposed to be temporary, I think. Okay, what about this? The London Ear. Oh, yeah. Right?
Starting point is 00:05:36 Oh, yes. So... Keep going. Well, it's a huge ear. Yeah. Like a London Eye looks like a big eye, sort of. And you can, if you go in it, you can hear sounds from all over London. Ah, that's nice.
Starting point is 00:05:48 It's not an amazing view, it's an amazing sound. And every day those people from gladiators uses one of their massive pugil sticks to clean it. Exactly, yeah. Yeah, okay, that's a good idea. Well, you'd want to be able to hear something, right? So maybe you need another ear set up over in Paris. So it's like one of the, you know, when you go to- Like a telephone. Kind of like a telephone, but in, no, in China, in the summer palace, I seem to remember that
Starting point is 00:06:13 you would go to either end of the palace and they would have somehow that you would whisper to the wall and you could hear it. Like you have in playgrounds, you often have other end of the playgrounds, those things you're talking to that never work. There was also one of those at Grand Central Station in New York, Whispering Gallery. And also St. Paul's. St. Paul's Cathedral, yeah. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:06:30 So that's a good idea. Thank you. Jenga Tower. Jenga Tower. Everyone plays. Every Londoner gets to play and you just have to insert a brick each and then the person who causes it to come out. Oh no, it's removing the bricks.
Starting point is 00:06:41 Screw you, you quite know it works. I was spoiling every game of Jenga. She's really in bricks. We've been playing this game of Jenga for hours. I don't understand. Great. Well, come on, James. What did they what did they propose? Sorry. Was this Chicago?
Starting point is 00:06:58 This was for the World's Fair in Chicago. Yeah. So J.B. McComba thought you could get a massive tower, which is much bigger than the Eiffel Tower, 10 times the size of the Eiffel Tower, and you would put rails from the top going all the way to New York, Boston and Baltimore, which you can toboggan down to get home. It's a great idea. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:07:22 Hang on, you toboggan all the way from Chicago to one of these. That's going to be a long toboggan commute, isn't it? That's fun. The gradient is going to be quite unexciting, I would guess. Yeah, it's a green run. Oh, but it has to be enough. It has to be enough that you can toboggan. You know when you go in a water slide and there's not enough water and there's not enough
Starting point is 00:07:38 gradient that you just have to pull yourself along on your butt. Terrifying. Like a dog with worms. You have to do that for 400 miles. He said in his proposal, as the cost of the tower and its slides is of secondary importance, I do not mention it here, but will furnish figures upon application.
Starting point is 00:07:58 Should I do another fact? Yeah, let's have one. This one is from, this one is from Suleiman Ilyas Jarrett. And he said that he recently learned that since Biden dropped out of the presidential race, this will be the first US election since 1976 that doesn't have a Bush, a Clinton or a Biden on the ticket. Including vice president. What? And he said, I even checked it myself because I didn't believe it.
Starting point is 00:08:23 And then gave us a Wikipedia link, which admittedly I didn't check. I thought it would be ballsy to put that link in there if it didn't prove his point. Biden's not a great inclusion. Biden just is a normal president. Who? I think he covers the last three because he did vice president for two terms. Oh, it includes VPs. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:08:42 Yeah. So Bush is running native Reagan. That's weird. So Bush is a running mate of Reagan. Oh, that's weird. Do you want to hear a fact about presidential names? Because I thought I'd find one myself after having read this. Do you know what Grover Cleveland's nickname was? Rover Cleveland. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:08:59 Because he liked to go for a long walk. And... Oh, yeah. No, it's not that. Rover Cleveland, because he would herd his sheep across America. Any more rhymes of Grover you wanna go with? I'm working on it.
Starting point is 00:09:12 Should I tell you? Yes. Well two, you can have two options. One is Big Steve. Mm-hmm. Yep. Isn't that a great nickname for Grover Cleveland? Big Steve, was Steve even a name then? Well, believe it or not, it for Grover Cleveland? Big Steve! Was Steve even a name then?
Starting point is 00:09:25 Well, believe it or not, it was Grover Cleveland's first name because Grover was another nickname that he had. Oh! Was it? He was actually called Stephen. Steve Cleveland! But as in, I'm surprised that Steve, of course Stephen has been a name forever and ever, but Steve!
Starting point is 00:09:40 You don't get a lot of Steve's popping up in Dickens or in... Yeah, but he's American. It's a very American name. It is now, but again... Stephen Fry has this whole thing that he, his American adventure, he so nearly moved to America when he was a kid and he pictures this whole world where he was Steve Fry,
Starting point is 00:09:54 because that's the name he would have undoubtedly had. It's such a, yeah. I don't know. Edith Water and Henry James aren't mentioning many Steve's. I don't think, but I don't know. If you're called Steve and you're 150 years old, write in. Okay, let's get through a few more facts. Mandarin writes in and she writes in
Starting point is 00:10:11 with some nominative determinism. Lovely. Arthur Owen Blessed is a travelling Christian preacher who is known for carrying a cross through every nation in the world. Lovely. Every nation. Every nation.
Starting point is 00:10:24 That's very impressive. Surely all 193 of them. He must have nation. Every nation. That's very impressive. We all 193 of them. He must've been annoyed when South Sea Dome was founded. Yes. Whenever there's a new one, he must be like, oh, for God's sake, picks up his cross. Do we know if he takes a position on places like Taiwan
Starting point is 00:10:38 or micro nations? Yeah. I don't know that. Has he visited all those tiresome former oil rigs off the edge of the British coast? Yeah. Some pratas said, oh, this is Steve land. All the utopian failed areas. I could just imagine Ada going to him going, so Arthur, bless it.
Starting point is 00:10:58 Have you been to Germany? And he's like, fuck! In Black Adder. And we got one more bit of nominative determinism from Nathan Dwyer. He said that Scottish poet Ivor Cutler kept a set of ivory cutlery in his home.
Starting point is 00:11:16 That's fair enough. Probably a lot of people did, didn't they? He's also a comedy writer. Ivor Cutler is a poet, isn't he? He writes comics. I don't know anything about Iverculler. But he sounds great. A friend of the Beatles. Oh, OK.
Starting point is 00:11:29 OK. He was in... Sounds like a euphemism there. Friend of the Beatles. Friend of the Beatles. I don't know what for, but... He was in the Magical Mystery Tour. OK.
Starting point is 00:11:38 Where he played a bus conductor called Buster Blood vessel, which is where the pop star from Bad Manners gets his name. I don't know about his name we've gone down a train that I'm actually on a bus right now remember when I visited the man with maybe the biggest collection of cutlery in private hands yes not not only that but this just shows where the hierarchy lay back in those days you visited him because you did the original QI research and you picked up all the cutlery and then once we were done with it I had to schlep there to take it all back to him. I didn't even know that we
Starting point is 00:12:08 bothered returning it. You wouldn't have Andy, you were on to your next project. That was the 11th series of QI, the K series. Yes. What series have we got now? 22 or 3. So you've been carrying around that grudge for how many years? I'm so glad I've got it off my chest. The wording, it felt like you've practiced it in the mirror. It felt like this has been something you've been ready to get off your chest. I'm very excited. So you did that.
Starting point is 00:12:32 You took his cutlery and then you just didn't think he might want this back. No, I probably said something like, oh, someone sort this out. Some fucking idiot. Some ret. No, he would never have said that to a colleague, but I'd say, can we get one of the juniors to sort that out?
Starting point is 00:12:50 James, give us another, give us another fact. So Lowell Bender writes, if you haven't already covered this, I'd like you to know that some US banks have their own zip code. Oh, nice. Cool, isn't it? Lots of buildings actually have their own zip codes in America and in fact the shoe floor of Saks on Fifth Avenue has its own zip code. The one floor of a building. One floor that sells shoes. Ironic because shoes are one item of clothing that rarely has zips.
Starting point is 00:13:19 There speaks a woman on a quater with high fashion. Auntie and dad are both wearing their knee high boots today. So many shoes have zips. I mean, not most. I think most shoes would have laces. Go into a leather shop and you'll see a lot of zips. Do leather shoes have zips? High heel, female high heel boots, beetle like boots. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:13:38 No, you're right. It's not as ironic as I let everyone to believe because some shoes do have zips. What's something that never has zips? Hats. If it was a hat shop, it would be... Oh, well, I've got Trey Renner. led everyone to believe because some shoes do have zips. What's something that never has zips? Hats, if it was a hat shop, it wouldn't be fun. Oh well, a prayer runner. Lifts off his top hat to show a fully zipped Trilby. Yes, so the zip code of the shoe shop was created as a one-off partnership
Starting point is 00:13:58 between Saks and USPS. I feel very mucky about that. I'm not sure about that. It's like when, so sometimes London Underground stations will do a humorous collaboration with a big like mega corp company and they'll change the name of the station for the day to Bond James Bond Street. Oh, yeah. Or something, if there's a James Bond film out to plug. I don't know if they've done that but I just think it must be really confusing for people who are just trying to get around London maybe you're a tourist, maybe you're not familiar with it. What do you think you turn up to Bond Street station,
Starting point is 00:14:26 which is on Bond Street, and you see it's called James Bond Street, you're like, oh, it must be somewhere else. That's a bad example. That's a bad example. I just got back from Turkey, right, and I was at the immigration desk, handed my passport in, and the guy behind it, he looked at my passport, and he went up and he looked at me and he went, Mr Bond. And then he laughed and said, I bet you get that all the time. And I laugh going, yeah. And I was going, I've never had that in my life. And then I realized it's because my middle name is Craig.
Starting point is 00:14:54 So I am Daniel Craig on my passport. I actually get it quite regularly. I must say. You get James Bond. James Bond because I'm called James. Like I've definitely had it at least twice going through immigration in Russia, for instance. And I've definitely had it at least twice going through immigration in Russia for instance and I've had it in a few other countries as well. Yeah yeah it's really weird. That's so weird because there are other famous James's. Yeah but I was carrying a revolver having sex with a woman and drinking a martini at the time. While we're on Russia and also kind of on trains I read a thing which I wonder if you know the Russian word for train? Is it like Voxel? How would you spell it? Oh Voxel means
Starting point is 00:15:31 Voxel is train station. Yeah and that and the story goes a bunch of Russian engineers came over to the UK that went to yeah that's they went to Voxel tube and they were like this is so good we'll just go back and name everything after it. It was the Voxel overground station I think which was really ornate at the time, I don't know if it still is, I haven't been there for a while. I wouldn't, if I had to reach for one word to describe Voxel I would not describe it as ornate. It's very functional. Really, because almost all train stations are quite beautiful so Voxel hasn't managed to achieve that, but mind you they're probably going for that Soviet aesthetic, which often isn't ornate.
Starting point is 00:16:07 Yes. Although in fairness, Russian train stations are pretty beautiful. I think. Generally speaking, yeah. And the underground especially, like the undergrounds tend to be huge bolts with very ornate artwork and stuff on them. Oh, Voxel underground is the eighth wonder of the world. Oh yeah. Can I do one more? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Robbie Garman writes about mushrooms. He's found a phrase on a website. If it smells spermatozoic, eat it. If not, you'll probably die. All right. Wait. I need a reminder of what that smell is. No, no, no. I don't think you do. What's the deal with all mushrooms that smell like sperm are safe? No, it's a very specific mushroom called the Miller.
Starting point is 00:16:51 I don't know if anyone's told our colleague Anne Miller about this, but it can look very much like the deadly poisonous fool's funnel. And apparently the best way to tell whether your mushroom is a miller or a poisonous fool's funnel is to sniff it. And in most polite books, it says it smells like raw dough, but actually scientific places says it smells spermatozoic. What if someone just wanked off on a fool's funnel? It's a great point. It's a good question.
Starting point is 00:17:21 It's not worth the risk, I think. It's not. It's possible great point. It's a good question. It's not worth the risk, I think. It's not. It's possible. Wow. We're about to be told, like, God, we've got bad news about your weird fetish. You thought it was all innocent. You're out in the fields making the mushrooms. You've killed 50 people. You're under arrest. Stop the podcast! Stop the podcast! Hey everyone, this week's episode of Fish is sponsored by Squarespace. Yes, Squarespace, are you a content creator? Oh, we're all content creators these days, aren't we?
Starting point is 00:17:56 Everyone's a content creator, but how do you get your content out there? You need a website. That's right, and there is no better place on the internet or Earth itself than Squarespace to build a website to show all of your content. It is the one-stop shop to make sure that anything that you need to get out there from merchandise through to photos through to songs, whatever it is you do, this is the place to go. And the thing is about content is it is worth a million quid these days It's worth a lot of money and Squarespace helps you to monetize that kind of thing. They have flexible payment systems So if you sell something you can accept credit cards PayPal and Apple pay they have AI
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Starting point is 00:19:11 That's right, so go to squarespace.com for a free trial, and when you're ready to launch, go to squarespace.com forward slash fish, and you will save that 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Okay, on with the content. On with our content! Okay, it's now time for fact number two and that is the facts that have been sent to Anna.
Starting point is 00:19:37 My headline fact this week is from Jeffrey Partica. He said, my fact is that every March, the US has a 50% increase in vasectomies so that men can spend their recovery time watching the men's college basketball tournament. That's superb. It is, and it seems to be a very clever bit of PR from the vasectomy industry because this is known as March Madness in America and it's where- The basketball. The basketball, yes. And it's where all college basketball teams play each other and it's all done very intensively like a knockout tournament all happens in the same three week space. So ideal for recovery time. I mean actually it only takes about six hours to recover from a
Starting point is 00:20:16 vasectomy so this is a lot of malingering men on their phones. It could be a botched one. They always ask for the botched ones. It could be a botched one. It could be. They always ask for the botched ones. I was talking to the comedian John Bishop about vasectomies and he had one and he was telling me that on the day, because you're awake when you have it right, but they go in so they sort of cut open the ball sack and you've got to go into each testicle with
Starting point is 00:20:39 the tube. So doctor does the first one and he's laying there and he's sort of like, it's very weird sensation. So, doctor does the first one and he's laying there and he's sort of like, it's very weird sensation, he's very aware of it, gets the second testicle and the doctor says, do you mind we have a student doctor who's in today who would be interested to... He's a big fan, try and... Can he keep one of your testicles? Is that alright? You won't be using it.
Starting point is 00:21:03 So, he says, yeah, the student doctor goes in and gives it a cut, and then all he hears next is, oh no, and the doctor says, what have you done? And suddenly there's a bit of a crisis moment where he sees his testicle being lifted out and so on, and he's like, what is going on? It was a total botch job, and they managed to fix it They sewed him up so you can get botched even when you're famous comedians. Especially when I would have thought if you go in as a student doctor and it's Judi Dench there who's um, vasectomy or performing, which I know is unlikely but... So when they're advertising these vasectomies to so you can watch basketball, do they say it'll give you a free shot? Brilliant! As in you can have sex without having kids.
Starting point is 00:21:47 They should. They advertise it as vast madness. Why don't they call it a basket ball? I'm sure that's in the art and press releases. Okay. If not, you're welcome. Yeah. America.
Starting point is 00:21:58 Why don't they get Keith Fuzz to do the address? I mean, they might be already doing it. I'm sure he is. You're welcome. Anyway, this guy sounds great, actually, Geoffrey. He said, I wanted to link this fact with information regarding frozen pea sales in America, because that's the solution often for men who don't have an ice pack. But there was no public information breakdown of monthly sales of frozen peas.
Starting point is 00:22:20 So I've tended a letter to the US Department of Agriculture about this deficiency and Wow, he also says I feel it should be noted that I left the mushy pea jokes to the professionals despite the low-hanging fruit There we go. He didn't give us the low-hanging fruit jokes Chumps in with that one Thank you, Jeffrey. That's a great. This is a great little fact from Robin. During World War II, the German city of Konstanz actually kept its lights on so that pilots flying overhead would think they were still over Switzerland. That's brilliant. Must just be close to the Swiss border.
Starting point is 00:22:55 It's very Lake Konstanz. I've been to Lake Konstanz. Nice. Did it have its lights on? It was daytime, so they were cleverly... So you just bondedbed it anyway. Nice, so yeah. Very cool. I think I was on the Swiss side of Lake Constance.
Starting point is 00:23:10 Yeah, me too actually. Interesting. Funny you didn't bump into each other. It was at different times. You don't know that? I do. We're not allowed to take holidays at the same time anymore. No, that's true.
Starting point is 00:23:22 In case you're both killed at the same time. No, that is really cool. And I can't remember why I was looking this up. But, oh, in fact, it was one of my facts. It was about Roel Albert Hall. During the Blitz, or maybe it was in the First World War, but whatever it was, they would put over massive curtains over the top of it. And it was the same stuff as they would use to black it out whenever they showed movies but they would put it all the way over the top of it so that
Starting point is 00:23:50 no lights would come out and would give it away or lights would shine off the glass. So they usually use it to black out the inside. Wow and they sort of turned it inside out. That's very cool. I thought you were going to say, wasn't that a fact that the roof of the Albert Hall isn't detached? It was mostly that it was built in Manchester and then taken apart and then rebuilt on the roll-up. Yeah, but it's just sitting on top though. It's just loose, it's like an upturned bowl. I mean domes are just mental, aren't they?
Starting point is 00:24:16 What's the one in Florence? Is it Brunelleschi made the one in Florence and we still don't know how he did it? Because it's got no structure holding it up. It basically holds itself up. Is that the Duomo? Duomo, maybe, yeah. I think it is, yeah. I've been to the Duomo when I was tiny, but not at the same time. But yeah, and we don't know how he did it.
Starting point is 00:24:35 What we think is he built the first circle and then the next level sort of interlocked with the previous level of bricks, and the next level interlocked with those, and then eventually it sort of holds itself up. Like a jigsaw? Like a jigsaw, kind of. Interesting. Like Lego, almost. But we don't fully...
Starting point is 00:24:54 But we still don't know how we did it. How do you think when, if you're one of the builders doing it, and you're like, this doesn't work, and he's like, no, it will, it will. Like what's your confidence as a builder when someone's handed you a blueprint of something that no other architect can make sense of? Yeah, I can only imagine Brunelleschi was saying, just do it, mate. Just do it. Do it. Yeah, don't ask questions. Just take this cutlery where I tell you to take it.
Starting point is 00:25:16 I think it's amazing anything was built before about 1800. I agree. I think it's big. I think it's substantial. It's insane that they did that. Using what? Bullies. And built better, really. And built. It's insane that they did that. Using what? And built better really? And built to last longer than bloody buildings today, am I right? Sure. Yeah. Stonehenge. Yeah. Look at that. It's not that good of a house. You're like, you don't want to live in Stonehenge, would you? The pyramids were the tallest building on our
Starting point is 00:25:38 planet until something in America, right? Until the Eiffel Tower, I think. No, no, no. It was the Lincoln Centre. Lincoln Cathedral. Lincoln Cathedral. In Lincoln, UK. Right. Not in the States, yeah. And then there was Lincoln Cathedral for 400 years. And also the Duomo, I think, was the biggest dome in the world until the Royal Albert Hall.
Starting point is 00:25:57 Nice. Good fact. Yeah. Good stuff. I think this is my favourite fact that came through. It's from Justice Goldstein Shirley. And it's this amazing thing that Bookland is a made up country.
Starting point is 00:26:09 Bookland. Where all books come from. Did that preacher manage to get there to? Arthur Blessed. Yeah. With his cross. I don't know if Blessed has been there. To me, this is not a good fact.
Starting point is 00:26:21 This is a poor fact. Because it's just made up. No, no, no. Because it's where all books come from. Ah, but no. I've been to a place where books are printed and it wasn't in Buckland. You went there as well, didn't you, Andy? None of the same time has changed. Basically, as they say, I've just learned a fact you all may enjoy. According to their
Starting point is 00:26:40 barcodes, all published books come from a country called Bookland. It's because when barcode numbers were being standardized in the 1980s, the first three digits of all barcodes of products that you buy in shops or whatever were assigned according to a country of origin. But books already had ISBN numbers, and so they didn't want to completely change the system for books. So they thought, we're just going to add a country onto the front of the ISBN numbers a little bit added to the barcode. But to make things easy, we're just going to say all books are from the same country. And it's 978, which I've never noticed every single book has the same first three letters at the start numbers at the start. We better check. 978.
Starting point is 00:27:21 Yeah, this one's got a label on it. How many should we do? 978. Yep, this one's got a label on it. How many should we do? 978! Mark Mason's book, 978. Katie Hickman's book, 978. Dan Schreiber's Impossible Things, 978. Out now. Out now. Dan Schreiber's Impossible Things, 979! All they've got, 978 at the start! Amazing.
Starting point is 00:27:35 All the numbers. It works! That's great! Anyway, and that's Bookland. They're like, this is called Bookland. That's like the shoe shop having its own zip code. All books have their own country of origin in a non-existent country.
Starting point is 00:27:50 Love that. Do you want me to do more? Yes. Yeah. Great, I will. Benjamin Cutt, 1986 movie, The Manhattan Project. Has anyone seen it? No. It's about a kid who makes hoops.
Starting point is 00:28:02 Nice. Nice. Nice. It is... It was fine, man. It was quick. It wasn't funny, but it was quick. That was a Richard Feynman joke. Oh, was it? Oh, wow, Dan, that was good. That was highbrow.
Starting point is 00:28:16 It's about a kid who makes a nuclear bomb and the prop designer took things a bit too far and designed a bomb that might actually have worked. Oh, wow. Is that based on a real story? Because there was a kid who made a bomb, wasn't there? Do you remember? Yeah, there was.
Starting point is 00:28:31 I think that was that not more recently. Was he a boy scout? I think it was. Yes. I think it was about then and it was in a shed or something. Yeah. They had to take a shed and bury it in the middle of the desert. That's right.
Starting point is 00:28:42 Wow. It doesn't claim so, but maybe they did plagiarise the story. How do they know it might have worked? Well, this is the thing. It said it would have worked, but it was minus the plutonium sphere. And then I went down such a rabbit hole about how you make atomic bombs. And basically the plutonium sphere is the centre, which is quite important. It is the main bit, isn't it?
Starting point is 00:29:00 Yeah. So this is the explosives around it. But I ended up looking up. Yeah, but. But still, you know, you've made, you've put all the explosives together. All you I ended up looking up. Yeah, but yeah. But still, you know, you've made, you've put all the explosives together, all you need to do is chuck a plutonium. Exactly.
Starting point is 00:29:08 If you watch the Mission Impossible films, those things are ten a penny. They're constantly being traded across the world. I love the idea though of prop makers doing it so well that the thing, like, can you imagine if like Michael J. Fox actually disappeared when he hit 88 in The DeLorean? Have you guys heard of the Demon Corps? No. It's kind of cool. So I looked up Plutonium Sphere and this is the only thing that comes up. It was the third bomb, so it was meant to be the bombs that obliterated Hiroshima
Starting point is 00:29:38 and Nagasaki. The Americans had a third one ready to go if the Japanese didn't surrender. They nicknamed it Rufus, but it was renamed the Demon Core. But basically when Japan surrendered, they were like, well, we've got this spare plutonium core now, let's do loads of experiments with it. And these scientists just went nuts with it, trying to experiment with how much radiation it took to kill you and where you reach the critical point where there's a radiation explosion. But it kept on going wrong, understandably. so there was a scientist called Henry Daglian in August 1945 who went to the lab after dinner which sounds a lot like he had a lot to drink stumbled back to the lab built all these bricks around the plutonium core made of tungsten carbide which apparently makes it more and more
Starting point is 00:30:22 radioactive and he got to the exact moment where he knew if he added one more brick, it would suddenly have this radiation explosion. This is your version of Jenga as well, isn't it? Just going to add one more brick. It's the most dangerous Jenga game in the world. Wow. For bad kids. Did he add it? No, what he did was he thought, you know, what I'm going to do is I'm going to take
Starting point is 00:30:43 the bricks away now because I don't want to kill myself But he went to take one brick away and he dropped it on the core and there was a big flash of radiation It was only for a split second and he went and grabbed it and pushed it off But that was enough and within 20 days he was dead. Whoa Yeah, it's the scariest thing isn't it? Because you think you think oh that tingled a bit. It's probably fine But it's actually not if it's a plutonium core. Good to know. Yeah yeah yeah yeah. Public service. Anyway that was just the rabbit hole that went down. Wow that's brilliant. Okay let's have one last one from Sam Bromley who says during a bout of hiccups today I did
Starting point is 00:31:17 some googling and found out that some proven remedies for hiccups include finger in the rectum or a fist. I'm afraid there's nothing more to that. The thing is, if a finger in the rectum works, why go full fist? Or did it start off with an arm and then they thought, actually, just the fist will work. And then they're like, oh, actually, just a few fingers will work. Actually, maybe just give it 10 minutes and we'll go naturally. Certainly would be a shock you know that you're told to shock someone.
Starting point is 00:31:51 I think yeah. If you start hiccuping and someone puts the fist up your ex and then that will be a shock. It's worth two in the bush right here. Is the fist in the... The fist on the arse. Andy. Jesus Christ. Sorry.
Starting point is 00:32:10 I bought my wife something called Hiccowake. What? Hiccowake. Right. Anti-hiccuping. What shape is it? It's a mechanical arm. It's not that.
Starting point is 00:32:23 What is it? It's a thing that you drink from, but it's like a straw and it's supposed to be proven to get rid of hiccups because my wife suffers from hiccups. James, I'm here to tell you that you have given your wife the fist whether you know it or not. That's what the fist is. So a finger in the rectum study, and he has cited studies which actually show finger up the rectum works, but the fist is completely different F I S S T and it stands for forced inspiratory suction and swallow tool and it is the Hiccoway. Oh cool.
Starting point is 00:32:54 So you fisted your wife without even knowing it. Stop it Emma. This is the blowers show. It's just facts. So what is it? It's a straw that's particularly hard to suck I think isn't it? Why does the finger work out of curiosity? Surprise.
Starting point is 00:33:06 No, because if I'm doing it to me, that's not a surprise. I think it'll still be a surprise. I'll be surprised. It's not a surprise to yourself. It's like trying to tickle yourself. You can't tickle yourself. I believe if you're schizophrenic, you can shock yourself with a finger up your own anus. Right, there we go.
Starting point is 00:33:22 No, I think, is it vagus nerve stuff? I actually didn't read the study, it's a digital rectal massage that you give yourself, but I felt like I'd gone deep enough. The only thing I remember about putting a finger at the bottom is it's the way to get a dog to stop biting you. Oh, put the dog's bottom on your own. The dog's like, that's disgusting. I'm not biting this guy.
Starting point is 00:33:43 Thank god you clarified though, Adam. There will be someone out there who will remember that little nugget one day. He died being bitten by a dog with his finger up his arse. It can't quite work out. Okay, it's time for facts number three, and that is Dan. Yep, so we've been sent in a fact here by John Woldrop from 1934 to 1947, and then from 1951 till his death in 1954, the mayor of Fort Wayne, Indiana was Harry Balls.
Starting point is 00:34:16 Very good. Yeah, I sort of, I remember mentioning him years ago on the show, but I don't think it made it to an edit in the end. He's called Harry. He's called Harry Balls, B-A-A B a a l s the pronunciation is that because he was once on a radio show with a guy called Bob chase Who wasn't quite sure what to say in the moment? And so he pronounced the mayor's name Bales. So it's a mayor Bales is with us and
Starting point is 00:34:39 And he called him on it and he said son. This is your mayor. I pronounce my name balls So he was very into that but um, yeah, he seemed to be quite an interesting character. He did a lot of stuff for the city. He sort of helped to build underground storage systems. He launched lots of city departments, lowered the city tax rates, a liked guy by all accounts. I looked him up on eBay and you can find him. You can buy him for 12 nights a day. Yeah, he's available now. No, there's a lot of like of the old paraphernalia that you can buy from his, I guess, election time and just general stuff. And I can't tell which ones are genuine
Starting point is 00:35:14 or not, but it's, you know, on the badges it will say stuff like, I'm proud of my Harry Balls, you know, stuff like that. So they obviously leaned into it. And apparently one of the most stolen street signs that you can get in the States is Harry Balls Drive and That's constantly being yeah, so they had to rename it to HW Balls Drive Just to avoid that. I kind of feel like the balls bit is kind of part of the problem. Yeah Exactly. Yeah, so yeah, thank you very much to John Walldrop. Here's an interesting one that we got sent in Someone was saying that I love the show. Oh, that's great. Yep Yeah, so this is from Jessica Ackerman
Starting point is 00:35:55 I love the show in episode 5 3 8 and as fact is that there are only two colors of cat As a cat lover, I love the conversation and I have a rad fact about cat allergies to share. We can use chickens to make cats less allergenic. This is how it's done. The protein, Feld-1, is responsible for around 90% of cat allergies in humans. The protein is found in cat saliva. Scientists have found that chickens raised in the proximity to cats develop an antibody to FelD1 called IgY that is passed into the yolk. If you feed a cat egg yolks
Starting point is 00:36:31 from the cat exposed chickens, the IgY antibody will cause the cat's body to produce less of the FelD1 protein thereby lessening the allergen that most humans react to. So sorry, keep a chicken near your cat, then feed the cat the eggs of the chicken is laid. Yes. And the cat will produce less of the stuff that... How do I convince my cat to eat this egg? Do I mix it in with some Evian? Yeah. It's exactly that. You mix it into the cat food. There's also companies now, there's a one called Purina that sells a cat food that I believe has it mixed into it already. But the DIY solution as Jessica points out is you you mix it into the food of your cat.
Starting point is 00:37:13 We can't eat the eggs and sort it out on our side. It has to be the cats. Because then the cat would have to eat you. Yes. That's a great fact. Yeah, that's very cool. That's very cool. Well, this is quite similar actually. This is from Zoe Keane. She writes that Dr. Anthony Waddell has created budget frog saunas. And this could be amazing.
Starting point is 00:37:32 I know. I hate it because I always spend so much money on my frog saunas. About time someone hit the lower end of the market. So there are frogs that are being wiped out by a fungal infection called chytrid or citrid. It's a really big problem, isn't it? So these rare frogs in places like Hawaii, which are just dying by the thousand because they're just getting these fungal infections. Yeah, so it's thought to have caused 90 species to go extinct, the decline of a further 500 species. It's a big, big problem.
Starting point is 00:38:02 And the idea is that once this fungus reaches an environment where the frogs are living, it's pretty much impossible to save them. That's what it's been like up until now, until Dr. Anthony Waddell comes in with his frog saunas. Because what he's worked out is that heat treatment will prevent frogs from croaking, as Zoe has written. So basically, they set up a bunch of experiments where they put frogs into a sauna-like condition. It was very heated. They made it so that it was fun for them to be in there. And they noticed that the frogs...
Starting point is 00:38:30 Sorry, how did they make it fun? Well, I guess... They said, you can pour the water on the coals. Lovely fluffy towels to where they make sure there's a good storage unit for all their gold and watches and all that. Yeah, it's hard. Relaxing music. You take your... Yeah, sorry.
Starting point is 00:38:45 You don't go to budget solders, do you? Where's the gold locker? Sorry. There's nothing we have to do. You've got to take off all the jewelry. Oh, like your wedding ring and the things. Yeah. It sounded like you were turning up with a huge chain.
Starting point is 00:39:01 Also, Dan, you shouldn't really take off your wedding ring when you go into the solder. I know. Shouldn't you? I don't know because I don't really use saunas. They're not burned through your finger. It sends a message, doesn't it? So, okay. So basically the idea is that they created what are effectively saunas for the frogs to be in and they discovered that the frogs seem to have an immunity once they are in this heated area and that the fungus can't handle the heat and dies off. Is it if they've caught it they can be saved or is it sort of do you know what I mean?
Starting point is 00:39:30 Is it do they have to have already contracted the fungus? Yeah, um maybe that builds up in resistance. It must be because if you just put a bunch of uninfected frogs in saunas they're also not going to get it but also you've got a bunch of uninfected frogs stuck in a sauna forever. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So hang on. So in the lab they allowed infected frogs the option of spending time in the warm environment. They sprang at the chance to use the
Starting point is 00:39:48 saunas. The fungus could not handle the heat and the frogs recovered. A control group without sauna access stayed infected. So what they're trying to work out now is how do we create natural saunas for these frogs in these? Well, for warning! There we go. It's naturally going to happen. It's going to be, we're all going to die except the frogs. Do you know that fungi are two times more deadly than they were in 1990? Why? Because people keep spaffing off onto them. It's so rude. It's an epidemic.
Starting point is 00:40:21 It is. Due to a substance that we're putting on them. But it's fungicides, basically. James, sorry, I'd never do this. But just a quick request for the edit. Can you just remove all the earlier mentions that animated that so it comes absolutely out of nowhere? Yeah.
Starting point is 00:40:39 We're using more fungicides than ever. And like if you use too many antibiotics, you get antibiotic resistant bacteria, you can get more antifungal resistant. So they're much more dangerous than they were 30 years ago. Oh, I've had a thought about this fact that we got in was it from Zoe? Yeah, yeah. You know, it's nice because now we can update a saying can't we? There's that classic saying, you know, if you put a frog in warm water and raise the temperature, how long before it screams or whatever, or how
Starting point is 00:41:09 long before it, you know, panics and jumps out. It's a catchy one. Is it saying? No, but you know, a frog is saying it's like... Is it like, count your chickens? I didn't know. Is this another... There's a frog in a bath and you raise the temperature and you know, how long before it actually realizes that it's dangerous and tries to jump out. It's not a saying.
Starting point is 00:41:24 No, but it's a bit... It to jump out. It's not a saying. No, but it's a thought. It's a thought experiment. You've learned the experiment. Use it in like I'm at your house. When would you say that to me? For instance, Dan, you know what? These tax rises, they're happening, but they're happening quite slowly. And so people don't complain about them. It's like a frog being in a pot of water and it getting warmer and warmer and warmer and they never jump out because they never realize it's gotten too hot. Thank you. Exactly. A political option. Not the one I would have gone for.
Starting point is 00:41:48 That's basically the premise. So this is an update because you've got a frog in the sauna and it's nice. It was more of a slam dunk in my head when I was planning this. More than that. Really? Let's move on to Oliver Titcombe who says, my fact this week is that Canadian police procedural Jew South was set in Chicago, but filmed in Toronto. In one episode, the characters crossed the border to reach Toronto. This scene was filmed in Chicago.
Starting point is 00:42:15 Okay. No. It's very nice. Yeah. Is that for a funny joke of the directors? I know, I looked into it slightly and that's kind of one of those IMDB factoids that you don't get much more on. Maybe it's out there.
Starting point is 00:42:28 I never watched You South, but I always assumed it was Canadian, all of it. It was set in Chicago. Yeah. Which is not in Canada. I know, right? So how did you assume it was Canadian? You recognised all the sites of Toronto. Why do they keep referring to Chicago when there's the famous... The place at CN Tower is right there.
Starting point is 00:42:45 So wait, hang on. Where was it? It was filmed in Chicago. It was filmed in Chicago. No, filmed in Toronto. Thank you. I think, I actually didn't look into this bit, but I'm going to assume that it's a Canadian police show that is based about a Chicago police station.
Starting point is 00:43:00 In what sense is it a Canadian police show except that it's filmed in Toronto? The show follows the adventures of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. What are they doing? Who first came to Chicago on the trail of the killers of his father I see so it's a mountain It's like a fish out of water or a frog out of sauna I think this would have been helped if any of us had seen to you sound Yeah, also all of his email was a bit longer and I cropped it to just that one paragraph. So, he actually did explain a little more, but I thought, I'm sending it to Dan, I've just got to include the first paragraph. Yeah, yep.
Starting point is 00:43:33 The show's format looked at the stereotypical differences between Canadian and American culture at the time. That sounds quite good. Created by Paul Haggis. Great name. I want to see the show where he goes to Scotland. Yeah. Okay. Another fact from Sarah Ellis. And I'll do this as a quiz question because I think it's sort of presented like that. In parts of Australia, there will be two minutes in a day that last for a minute and a half
Starting point is 00:44:01 each. Why? So I've seen the answer. Okay, yeah, of course. It came to the inbox, so I'm going to rule myself out. Or I'll try and trick these others, actually. Okay. I'll say it's because Australia is so big, they have to stretch the minute. Oh, that's a good idea, isn't that?
Starting point is 00:44:18 Yeah, I'm going to go for that. Can I ask some follow-up questions? Absolutely, yeah. Great. Is it just on one particular day, or is it every day? It's every day. Right. Can you say it follow up questions? Absolutely, yeah. Great. Is it just on one particular day or is it every day? It's every day. Right. Could you say it one more time?
Starting point is 00:44:29 Yeah. So in parts of Australia, there will be two minutes in a day and those two minutes last for a minute and a half each. Okay. Okay. Do we lose the other minute? Because the number of minutes in a day presumably is the same as anywhere else. So we've got an extra half minute from each of those.
Starting point is 00:44:47 Have we lost that minute somewhere else? Yes. Ah, okay. So they've decided to do away with one of the minutes of the day. Which minute would you lose? Ooh, what a question. I reckon I'd lose the minute of you talking about people spunking over mushrooms. Why would you lose a minute? Well, logically, you'd say the first or last minute would be a good one to lose. Maybe
Starting point is 00:45:11 the confusion of zero, zero, zero, like as in midnight, is it one day or is it the next day? Bang on. Is it really? Yeah, yeah, that's absolutely it. It's a very, it's a, but where in Australia? It's, this is a bit too hard to get. This is too hard to get. We's absolutely it. It's a very it's a but where in Australia it's this is a bit too hard to get This is too hard to get we can get it. You can't it's a bit misleading Sydney or Melbourne
Starting point is 00:45:33 Have we heard of this place? It's like it's not a place. It's a let's say it's a exact center an institution Help me out Andy. Oh, is it Space Agency? GPS think what think like they're related to that. Who invented GPS? Who owned GPS? NASA. And the? And the Space Force.
Starting point is 00:45:51 And the American? They've got big guns. Army. The Army! Wait a minute, is he still tricking us? Slightly. I don't remember, I think, is it the Army? It's the Royal Australian Navy.
Starting point is 00:46:01 Oh, sorry. So the explanation Sarah gives is that the Royal Australian Navy uses a 24-hour So the explanation Sarah gives is that the Royal Australian Navy uses a 24-hour clock as opposed to 12-hour time. 24-hour time starts at 000 and it goes until 2359 as we all know then resets. Now, for some reason, they just don't like the 000. So what they do is they make the minute 2359 last a minute and a half and then when it flicks over, it flicks over to 001 and that lasts for a minute and a half and then when it flicks over it flicks over to 001 and that lasts for a minute and a half. I love that. Wouldn't it be amazing if you could lose, I was just thinking about the minute of the day that I would lose, and getting out of bed is the worst moment of the day right? If you could lose the minute between when you're lying down and when you're standing up, so you could just be like lying down and be like okay fine can I skip ahead a minute now? And then you're standing up. Don't you guys?
Starting point is 00:46:45 That's a great premise for something, a story or a film or something. You have a button that you press and it just, I think that's great. Just skip that minute. Thanks, Andy. And this is a published novelist here. Okay.
Starting point is 00:46:56 You're saying that. 978? 978? 978. ["The Last Supper"] Okay, it's time for the final facts of the show and those are my ones. So get ready guys, because these are the really good ones. These are the creme de la creme. So here is a great one.
Starting point is 00:47:17 This is from Derek Dayman and he writes, I'm a train operator on the New York City subway and I noticed the most bizarre Shakespearean coincidence within the system that I want to share with you. This is great. The fact is the Romeo train goes through the Montague tunnel and the Juliet comes close but never gets to join it. Okay, this is insane. And I'm pretty sure this is a Derek generated fact.
Starting point is 00:47:42 I think he's the first person to notice this, which is so cool. So there are all these subway tunnels connecting Manhattan and Brooklyn, right? One of them is called the Montague Tunnel. Presumably not named after the family and Romeo and Juliet. No, it gets its name from the street that it runs underneath once it reaches Brooklyn, which is Montague Street. So in New York, the subway lines, they just have a letter or a number, you know, the A train, the B train. Is it like alpha and beta?
Starting point is 00:48:06 Well, they do the phonetic alphabet. So train crews on the R train call themselves Romeos and train crews on the J train call themselves Julietts. And the R train goes through the Montague Tunnel. They're R tracks which would allow the J and Z trains to also use the Montague Tunnel, but they aren't used in passenger service. They both terminate just before the entrance to the tunnel. So Juliet never gets to join Romeo through the Montague tunnel. I just think that's great. Brilliant. So good. Well done. Do you want to hear? This is a great one. This is an Australian one. We're going to Australia soon. This might be helpful from Will Davies from Emerald Beach, New South Wales. Familiar to? Yeah, it's by the coast, I think.
Starting point is 00:48:50 I'll do this one as a riddle as well, actually. The third largest airline in Australia does not charge its passengers to fly. So it's gonna be animals that it's... Or some sort of freight or military. Flying doctors. Not freight, it's not... James has got it freight or military. Flying doctors. Not freight, it's not, James has got it. Flying doctors.
Starting point is 00:49:08 Flying doctors. Nice. It was third largest by fleet size. So I suppose that's not total passenger capacity, but like number of planes you've got because they're much smaller planes. So yeah, it's the flying doctors, who I don't think we've ever spoken about. No, no, how does, what are they? Well they, they're as it sounds.
Starting point is 00:49:24 As it sounds. As it sounds? But is it like if you call an ambulance in the outback, or you've been hit by a kangaroo, then you call and a doctor has to get to you? Or something even less stereotypical than that. Oh no, one of the cogs went in my eye for my hat. Oh, it fell on me. Yeah, that kind of ear.
Starting point is 00:49:42 I guess because you normally have just the paramedic go and then take them to a- Yeah, but some of these places are so remote and they're very low, but small populations. And so you just need, if you need a doctor within a couple of hours, they have to be- The reason I actually knew about it is probably 10 years before Dew South came out, there was a TV show called The Flying Doctors, which was, I didn't really watch it, but I knew that it was about this. Yeah. Yeah, I used to watch it back home. Yeah. It was a sort of staple of, you know, I didn't really watch it, but I knew that it was about this.
Starting point is 00:50:05 Yeah. I used to watch it back home. Yeah. It was a sort of staple of, you know, along with home and away and all that. Okay. Here's a bonus quiz. This is something because I was reading a bit about the flying doctors. So they, if they're landing in the dark, places they're flying to are not equipped with airports.
Starting point is 00:50:20 Most of them. Right. So that what they want is proper sort of flares or electric lights on the runway to clearly mark out where they have to land at night. So if you are landing somewhere which doesn't have those lights, what is the best alternative that the flying doctors like to use? Pumpkins? Fireflies? Not bad. Bioluminescence? You have to breed some phosphorescent shrimp. You chuck them out of the tags. You just throw the aquariums.
Starting point is 00:50:50 Every community under 20 people in Australia has millions of shrimps on standby. Okay, someone breaks their leg. No, it's... Phones! Hold your phone up. That's a really nice idea. You are setting light to something. What does every house
Starting point is 00:51:05 have? A washing machine? A gold safe. Evian? It's a dunny roll. Oh, okay. It's a new roll. What you do is you soak toilet rolls in diesel and you just line them along your impromptu runway and set fire to them and they burn for half an hour.
Starting point is 00:51:24 Yeah. And the pilots can... And if you can't do that, if for whatever reason you've got to line them along your impromptu runway and set fire to them and they burn for half an hour. And if you can't do that, if for whatever reason you've got to the end of your last roll, maybe that's the crisis that you're calling the flying doctors for, then you have four cars with their headlights at the corners of your runway. Very cool. Flying doctors. They're awesome. Here's one from Henry Biggs. Until the mid 1920s, Italians drove on both sides of the road. Well, we all drive on both sides of the road because that'd be a complete waste of road. Yeah so you mean one way. What? It's not like you look at a road and only half of it's reused. Oh we're in pedantry cul-de-sac now. They drove on the left and the right. Okay. In the same direction. Thank you. Why did they do such a thing? Well, Italy largely
Starting point is 00:52:07 adopted driving on the right as law in 1912, but in some cities with tram networks, drivers would have to switch to driving on the left as they approached the city centre. Quite confusing. You know what, I once drove the wrong way round a roundabout in Italy, and they were very annoyed, the people who were also on the roundabout. But I should have just said, I thought we were still in 1912. That would have calmed it down. Yeah, but weirdly they think the Romans drove on the left. So I look into this a bit off the back. Yeah, I think that's true, isn't it? So they look at the ruts in the road and stuff. You've got it. Yeah, I was going to be a little quiz. Oh, I'm sorry.
Starting point is 00:52:43 No, that's quite all right. Just forget. Okay, Dan and Anna, forget you had that. I can't believe James doesn't even need the quiz question at this point. It just comes in with the answer. How do we know they weren't just always reversing though? That's true. Well, it was 1998, they worked out, because there was a quarry near Swindon, and archaeologists found it and they found the ruts on the, so if I'm looking at the quarry for a distance, right, the ruts on the right hand side of the road are deeper than the ones on the left. So what they think is that carts were arriving lighter on the left because they're not weighed
Starting point is 00:53:15 down and then they're weighed down with stones as they're leaving so the ruts are heavier. So that's how they can tell which side of the road was driven on. Very cool. That is amazing. Great detective work. One last one. From Adam Wilson, according to the leading piracy historian Marcus Redeker, more people have worked on the pirates of the Caribbean franchise than there were ever actual pirates of the Caribbean.
Starting point is 00:53:40 And it's partly because the number of pirates was so small. He reckons, Marcus Redeker, who is a very eminent historian, that there were 4,000 total ever cumulative pirates. Imagine that, like 4,000 of them and what they have influenced. Every child pretends to be a pirate. Honestly, it's incredible. 4,000 people. And they are pretending to be golden age pirates. Yeah, probably they're pretending to to be 100 of those, right? Most of them wouldn't have been army hearties.
Starting point is 00:54:09 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's amazing. I think they're 4,000. I know. And I presume the number of people who works on the, I presume even the graphics department for one Pirates
Starting point is 00:54:19 of the Caribbean. Yeah. There have been about 4,000 of the films. That's true. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:54:24 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, that's it. That's all of your facts. Please keep sending them in to podcast at qi.com. We love hearing from you and they all get read and some of them may get read out. So that's another incentive. So thanks for everyone who contributed to today's show. If you would like to get in contact with us about any of the things that we said, we can
Starting point is 00:54:46 all be found on our various social media accounts. Dan, you're on? At Shriberland on Instagram. James, you're on? My Instagram is NoSuchSlingersJamesHarkin. Lovely. Anna? You can get in touch with the podcast as a whole by going to Instagram at NoSuchSlingersTheFish,
Starting point is 00:54:59 Twitter at NoSuchSling, or emailing podcast.qi.com. And I'm at Andrew Hunter M on Twitter. And if you enjoyed this kind of show, slightly different format, we actually have a club, a secret private, highly publicised members club. It's called Club Fish. It's so much fun for a few quid a month. You get ad free episodes and you get bonus content, including Drop Us a Line, which is our audience a Line, which is
Starting point is 00:55:25 our audience feedback bit, which is very funny. It's, it's, it's not dissimilar to what you just heard. The audience is funnier than the podcast. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it's, it's really, it's, you know, I think a lot of the intellectual life is happening in, in Club Fish at the moment, you know, it's the salon, it's the sauna, it's the sauna. So whip off your wedding ring, pop your gold in the safe and step on down. That's on Patreon or Apple and you can get that at no such things as a fish dot com as well. And if you go to our website, no such things as a fish dot com, you can listen to previous episodes. You can get tickets for our tour. We are going on tour around the UK, Ireland and Australia and New Zealand. We are very excited about
Starting point is 00:56:05 it. It starts soon. There are still some tickets left for some of the UK dates. Australia and New Zealand is mostly sold out at this stage. Gothenburg Andy? We're going to Gothenburg. We're going to Gothenburg for the book festival on the 27th of September. That's going to be fantastic fun. We're going to be doing a show there. So if you live in continental Europe, that's your opportunity to see us. And we will be back again with another episode of this show next week. We'll see you then. Goodbye.

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