Little Fish: Reindeer Animal Animal

Andy tells us which item of clothing he often loses in the night, while he, Anna and James discuss YOUR facts . This week's subjects include henges, Hitler, Swedes and subs. And the gang announce eight more Friend of the Podcast custodians. (Apologies for the audio quality this week - our microphones failed, but we hope the amazing batch of facts distracts you from it!) Visit nosuchthingasafish.com http://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 http://apple.co/nosuchthingasafish or nosuchthingasafish.com/patreon http://nosuchthingasafish.com/patreon Edited by James Harkin Produced by Leying Lee Team includes Tara Dorrell, Joe Mayo and Ethan Ruparelia

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Mr. Monopoly here. Miss me? Monopoly is back at McDonald's with millions of prizes. A 2027 cheap charity, a Carnival Cruise vacation, gift cards from DoorDash and Best Buy. You'll then play in the McDonald's app. Get your bag.

• 0:18Speaker 01

  No purchase necessary. 50 US and DC age 18 plus. See playatmcd.com for rules and playatmcd.com slash AMOE for info and playing without purchase by mail by November 2nd. Chess card game ends November 8th. Game ends November 22nd, 2026. See rules for prize details. Monopoly is a registered trademark of Hasbro.

• 0:30Speaker 02

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• 0:44Speaker 02

  See store for details.

• 0:46Speaker 03

  Hi everyone, welcome to this week's episode of Little Fish. Now, the reason I'm talking to you before the actual show starts is because we had a little audio flub this week. And the microphones unfortunately failed. But luckily for us, the microphones on the cameras that we're using to record the episode, they did work. But unfortunately, they are not quite the same quality as the ones we usually use. And so we sound a little bit like we're at the bottom of the well for this episode. But I've listened back to it. Our wonderful tech elves have done lots of lovely magic to make it as good as possible. So hopefully it will not impede your enjoyment of this episode too much. Really hope you enjoy it. We really wanted to put it out because the facts were so good. We had a great time recording it.

• 1:31Speaker 03

  We think it's a really great episode. So I hope you can get past the bad audio. Apart from that, there's not really much else to say, I suppose. Thank you very much for listening. We really appreciate every single one of you who listens to the episodes. And really, we wouldn't be able to do this without you. So thank you very much. We don't get to say that very often. So yeah, thanks. Okay, anyway, enough from me. Hope you enjoy this week's episode of Little Fish. On with the podcast.

• 2:11Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Hello and welcome to another episode of Little Fish, our weekly, regular, audience fact show. My name's Andrew Hunter Murray. I'm here with James Harkin and Anna Tzitski. And we've gathered with your best facts from the last seven days. So let's kick off, let's have a fact.

• 2:27Speaker 05

  Doug Steen is who this fact is from. Doug, D U G, no O.

• 2:32Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Cool.

• 2:32Speaker 05

  Very interesting. And that's not even the most interesting part of this email.

• 2:38Speaker 05

  Doug Steen says that reindeer, the etymology, is a combination of the Old Norse hrein and deer. Where deer means animal and hrein means reindeer. So when we say reindeer, we're actually saying reindeer.

• 2:52Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Time wasting.

• 2:53Speaker 05

  Animal is time wasting. It's like ATM machine and PIN number.

• 2:57Andrew Hunter Murray?

  So we should just call it a rein?

• 2:58Speaker 05

  We should just be calling it a rein.

• 3:00Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Feels like it'll lead to more confusion.

• 3:01Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 3:02Speaker 03

  Does that mean all animals are deers?

• 3:04Speaker 05

  Yeah, I believe so.

• 3:05Speaker 03

  Oh, that must be confusing for the Vikings.

• 3:07Speaker 05

  Uh.

• 3:08Speaker 03

  Another deer?

• 3:09Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 3:09Speaker 03

  Oh, you got killed by a deer.

• 3:11Speaker 05

  That's a good point.

• 3:11Speaker 03

  You fed the deer today. Yes, dear.

• 3:15Speaker 05

  Hold on a second. You've thrown this over, yeah, a deer, a standard deer. So we get that from Old Norse as well. And it just means animal. I guess maybe it's the only animals they had. Don't quote me on that.

• 3:26Speaker 03

  That's true. Don't write it Vikings.

• 3:31Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Bloody runes filling up your mouth.

• 3:34Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Oh yeah, gonna come to your town and chop your head off. Yeah, yeah, yeah, steal all your gold. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 3:39Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 3:40Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Well, that's a great fact.

• 3:41Speaker 05

  Only deer.

• 3:41Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Really good.

• 3:42Speaker 05

  Although it did get quite confusing in the email, which I should repeat from Doug, who says, reindeer means reindeer animal and thus, brackets reindeer animal animal or brackets reindeer animal, animal, animal, add infinitum, which I'm not sure quite makes sense. I think he's saying if you say reindeer animal, you're actually saying reindeer animal, animal.

• 4:02Speaker 03

  Yeah, I've never heard anyone say that. Reindeer animal.

• 4:04Speaker 05

  People very rarely say reindeer animal.

• 4:06Speaker 03

  Because there's not another meaning of the word reindeer that isn't the animal.

• 4:09Speaker 05

  I don't think there is, no, no. So that wouldn't come up. But aside from that, a great email, I thought.

• 4:14Speaker 03

  Very good.

• 4:15Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Yeah.

• 4:15Speaker 03

  Here's one from Christian Berlin. And it's also a bit Scandi. In fact, it's very Scandi. Christian says that the only national anthem that mentions Sweden in any way is the Polish national anthem.

• 4:29Speaker 03

  And the Polish national anthem basically mentions loads of different countries, according to the website Brilliant Maps, which actually is a really good website. Although it doesn't sound like it, but it is a really good website. They do loads of amazing stuff. And but I have checked this on other websites. And it's definitely true.

• 4:48Speaker 05

  Is it like, we will beat Sweden into the ground?

• 4:50Speaker 03

  There is a bit of that in there, yeah.

• 4:52Andrew Hunter Murray?

  You're Polish, Hannah, you should know this. You should sing it every morning.

• 4:57Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 4:57Speaker 03

  Can the advances family do to the British national anthem lately?

• 5:01Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Yeah.

• 5:02Speaker 05

  I only know the original Polish and I wasn't sure about the translation.

• 5:05Speaker 03

  Ah, yeah, of course, because of course the Polish word for Sweden is very different.

• 5:10Speaker 05

  Actually.

• 5:11Speaker 03

  The Swedish national anthem mentions the North.

• 5:15Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Oh.

• 5:16Speaker 03

  As a sub euphemism for Sweden.

• 5:19Speaker 05

  I see.

• 5:19Speaker 03

  It's a lot of new countries, but it doesn't say Sweden by name. You know, the British national anthem doesn't say Britain, does it?

• 5:26Andrew Hunter Murray?

  No, it doesn't. It doesn't have anything, does it? I guess that's because it's so old.

• 5:30Speaker 05

  I just think you don't say your own name as often as you say other people's, do you? I never say the name. Of course you do. You speak about yourself in the third person.

• 5:36Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Hello, I'm Andrew.

• 5:38Speaker 03

  Well, what about Oh Canada or Advanced Australia Fair?

• 5:41Speaker 05

  Good point, yeah.

• 5:42Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Or go on New Zealand.

• 5:45Speaker 03

  Go back.

• 5:47Speaker 03

  But we do mention one country in the British national anthem.

• 5:53Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Scots.

• 5:54Speaker 03

  In some versions.

• 5:55Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Well, the older, the later verses have some rather decidedly unwoke stuff about rebellious Scots to crush.

• 6:01Speaker 03

  Yeah, you're right. There is a verse about someone called Marshall Wade, who's going to crush the rebellious Scots. But that is very much non-canon, I would say. It was kind of a verse that was invented in the 19th century. Because in those days, we were a little bit anti Scots.

• 6:20Speaker 05

  Was it?

• 6:20Speaker 03

  Plus now we're all mates.

• 6:21Andrew Hunter Murray?

  But now that it was put in later.

• 6:23Speaker 05

  And so.

• 6:24Speaker 03

  There are a few like verses which were sung for a little while, but they weren't sung afterwards.

• 6:30Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Interesting.

• 6:31Speaker 03

  And that's one of those.

• 6:31Andrew Hunter Murray?

  It's non-canon. Although ironically, if you were going to crush rebellious Scots, you would probably need quite a few canon.

• 6:36Speaker 05

  Hmm, yeah, multiple canon. Good use of the plural canon.

• 6:40Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 6:40Speaker 05

  Always something to enjoy, isn't it, the plural canon?

• 6:43Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Singular plurals are terrific, you know, or unexpected plurals. Courts martial, lovely.

• 6:49Speaker 05

  Courts martial are beauty.

• 6:50Andrew Hunter Murray?

  I mean, a bit of a hackneyed example.

• 6:54Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Well, exhibit.

• 6:56Speaker 03

  I believe that's in the German national anthem.

• 7:01Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Oh, can I do one?

• 7:02Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 7:03Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Here's a fact from Tony. Tony says, I have a fact for you. The continents of America and Europe are moving apart at the same speed as a fingernail grows. This means if you stand at Lands End, which is the southwesterlymost point of the UK, and point west, your fingernail is stationary and you are moving backwards. No notes. I think that's terrific.

• 7:27Speaker 05

  Yeah, really is.

• 7:28Speaker 03

  But both sides are moving away from each other, right?

• 7:31Andrew Hunter Murray?

  I guess.

• 7:32Speaker 03

  The way I thought you were going to go is that the end of your fingernail is always the same distance from America, no matter how it happens.

• 7:39Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Oh, that's a, that's a real mind exploder.

• 7:42Speaker 03

  You know, I always, I've heard that fact before. And I always think of it whenever I cut my fingernails.

• 7:48Speaker 05

  Do you?

• 7:49Speaker 03

  I do, I think, because my fingernails grow relatively fast.

• 7:52Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Yep.

• 7:53Speaker 03

  Like.

• 7:53Speaker 05

  How do you know relative? Do you ask other people how fast theirs grow?

• 7:56Speaker 03

  Relative to what I imagine they should grow.

• 8:01Speaker 03

  I didn't say what it was relative to.

• 8:02Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Oh gosh, has it been that long since I cut my fingernails? They've grown so fast.

• 8:05Speaker 03

  That's why I do think a lot.

• 8:06Speaker 05

  I find it incredibly variable, so I am sometimes extremely surprised. In fact, right now, to be honest.

• 8:11Andrew Hunter Murray?

  It is variable. Okay, this is the great thing. Your fingernails grow more in the summer.

• 8:15Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 8:15Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Hot country.

• 8:16Speaker 03

  Which we've become.

• 8:17Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Well, yes.

• 8:18Speaker 03

  So due to global warming, we're all going to be like RuPaul. Does RuPaul have long fingernails? He was the first person I could think of.

• 8:25Andrew Hunter Murray?

  I don't know.

• 8:26Speaker 03

  No, I don't.

• 8:27Speaker 05

  I'll be honest.

• 8:28Andrew Hunter Murray?

  It was a great reach.

• 8:31Andrew Hunter Murray?

  But that's, it's probably due to more blood flow in your fingertips, basically.

• 8:35Speaker 03

  Is it?

• 8:36Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Yeah, when it's a bit hotter. There was a doctor called William Bennett Bean, who spent 35 years from 1941 studying his own fingernail growth. He concluded that nothing has any effect on fingernail growth. I think he was wrong, which is a bit of a chicken, chicken in the teeth there.

• 8:53Speaker 05

  Do you know someone who cuts one fingernail a day? Because they think it's more efficient.

• 8:59Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Loopy, it's not.

• 9:00Speaker 05

  Than doing all at once.

• 9:01Speaker 03

  Just so wrong.

• 9:02Andrew Hunter Murray?

  The extra work that's being done is finding the clippers, getting them out of the cabinet, not ever putting them away again. If you're doing that 10 times instead of once, I'm sorry, this doesn't know where that's made of. Also, he cuts their fingernails every 10 days, a psychopath.

• 9:13Speaker 05

  They do tend to get further out.

• 9:14Speaker 03

  They'll be toes as well.

• 9:15Speaker 05

  Toes. And 20 days is about right.

• 9:17Andrew Hunter Murray?

  20 days is about right. Yeah, but you'll have a constantly shifting border across your.

• 9:23Speaker 03

  I used to say that to my mum. She used to say, if we clean up a little bit all the time, then it will save us time overall. And I was like, no, the best thing to do is to make a load of mess.

• 9:32Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Yeah.

• 9:32Speaker 03

  And then all at once clean it all up. That's the most efficient way of doing it.

• 9:36Speaker 05

  It is, which is why you can't use that argument as well. You've just got to say, I like it being tidy more than one set at a time. Okay? I don't like living in a shit pile because once a month you want to clean it.

• 9:48Andrew Hunter Murray?

  No, I think that is, that is sort of sensible, the fingernails thing. I think I'm going to start doing that with my hair. I've just got, you know, and every day. Yes, just another five pairs comes in, please.

• 9:58Speaker 03

  Yeah, I just get a pressure one tooth every 20 minutes.

• 10:03Speaker 05

  Stop the podcast. Sorry, James Tooth. Anyway, this is a fact from James Relf. Something I came across, which I thought was a bit fishy and hadn't heard us mention, is that the Soviet Typhoon class submarines were so big and they were meant to be under, I was going to say ground, but underwater for such long periods, they had a swimming pool, gym, sauna and aviary.

• 10:28Andrew Hunter Murray?

  No.

• 10:29Speaker 05

  That's extraordinary.

• 10:31Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Poor birds.

• 10:32Speaker 05

  I know, it's not that fun, is it? But maybe that if birds in a cage, do they care if it's above water or below water?

• 10:37Andrew Hunter Murray?

  But why do they have an aviary though?

• 10:39Speaker 03

  To keep morale up.

• 10:41Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 10:41Andrew Hunter Murray?

  It doesn't keep morale up as much as one dog, does it?

• 10:44Speaker 03

  Unlimited cuttlefish for them to have in their cage.

• 10:50Speaker 05

  They're lucky, if anything.

• 10:52Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Is it like canaries in a coal mine, maybe?

• 10:54Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 10:54Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Because they notice that when there's been a pressure change, if all the canaries are dead.

• 10:58Speaker 05

  They all drop dead, yeah. What do you do?

• 11:00Andrew Hunter Murray?

  What do you do? You're in a submarine, yeah, yeah.

• 11:03Speaker 05

  Yeah. Yeah, I think that must be morale. So you can sing the sea ditties and have them accompany you.

• 11:08Andrew Hunter Murray?

  That's a good, that's a really good point.

• 11:10Speaker 05

  Yeah, thank you.

• 11:11Andrew Hunter Murray?

  It's nice, but you wouldn't have a dog on a submarine for a start.

• 11:13Speaker 05

  I think a dog would be more unhappy than.

• 11:14Andrew Hunter Murray?

  The poos.

• 11:15Speaker 05

  The poos, because there's already a fat flushing poos on a submarine, isn't it? Because.

• 11:19Speaker 03

  It's really annoying to flush the poos, especially when you do want to poo in 35 minutes.

• 11:29Speaker 05

  Oh fuck, all the dog that James trained.

• 11:34Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Oh, that's amazing.

• 11:35Speaker 05

  Yes, it is very amazing. Oh, something else very cool that he added is that he mentions they're absolutely massive things and they were meant for missiles they were carrying. And they had a double hull layout. So there was an outer wall that was like water filled. It was kind of like a tent in the anti. And then the in-between bit was water filled, encasing an inner wall. So, as he points out, if you took a toy submarine and put it in the indoor pool there, you'd have a sub in water, in a sub, in water, in a sub, in water.

• 12:05Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Amazing. Really nice.

• 12:06Speaker 05

  Like the Russian doll of. And it's so good.

• 12:10Andrew Hunter Murray?

  There we go.

• 12:10Speaker 03

  Very good. Yeah.

• 12:12Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Nice fact.

• 12:13Speaker 03

  So good. Uh, another worry one.

• 12:16Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Oh yeah.

• 12:17Speaker 03

  Um, after leaving the Marx Brothers, Zepplin Marx invented the clamp which held the little biatomic bomb in place on his flight to Hiroshima.

• 12:26Speaker 05

  No way.

• 12:28Speaker 03

  Yeah, Zepplin Marx. He was an inventor, it turned out.

• 12:31Andrew Hunter Murray?

  So he invented, sorry, he invented what?

• 12:33Speaker 03

  He invented the clamp which held the little biatomic bomb. So what it is, it's a clamp which holds cer- um, cylindrical things together. Do you know if you have a hosepipe and you need to attach the end of the hosepipe onto your sprinkler thing?

• 12:48Andrew Hunter Murray?

  It's the bait of my life.

• 12:48Speaker 05

  Oh, those things that never work? Yeah.

• 12:50Speaker 03

  Yeah, those little, those little metal things that never work and you have to tighten them and they kind of make a seal. It's not that.

• 12:56Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Okay.

• 12:58Speaker 03

  Oh, oh, right, okay, yeah. But it's very similar to that. Cause when I saw an image of it, I thought, oh, it's one of those things. So I could just say that thing and everyone will know what I mean. And they'll know what the clamp is. But then I looked more carefully and it's very slightly different.

• 13:11Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Cause I think it is good that they didn't go with that clamp device for the atomic bomb, because those things never, ever work. And I don't want a loose atomic bomb rolling around in, in the platform.

• 13:19Speaker 03

  No, because whenever you use those, you get the sprinkler and it's not working. You turn it on to your face and it sprays off into your face. Imagine if that happened with the atomic bomb.

• 13:28Andrew Hunter Murray?

  But that's only because, um, Jerry the mouse has been standing on the hose and there's a huge bulb of water that spills out behind it. Yeah.

• 13:35Speaker 03

  Uh, but yeah, Zepplin, he was like a proper inventor. He invented, um, he invented a wristwatch that checks your heartbeat. And can tell you if something was going wrong with your heartbeat, which is like.

• 13:45Speaker 05

  The Apple Watch?

• 13:46Speaker 03

  Yeah, like a Fitbit, right?

• 13:48Andrew Hunter Murray?

  That's incredible.

• 13:49Speaker 03

  Well, we're talking like nineteen sixty-nine, he invented that.

• 13:52Speaker 05

  Oh my lord.

• 13:53Andrew Hunter Murray?

  That was a Marx brother.

• 13:54Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 13:55Speaker 05

  But was these are lesser, there are three of them, right?

• 13:57Speaker 03

  Those four, yeah.

• 13:58Speaker 05

  Leave Dan here for those three.

• 13:59Andrew Hunter Murray?

  And there was a fifth who was, I think, a non-combatant. I mean, what, not, I don't even think the Second World War. I just mean like he was, he was not in the Marx Brothers. You know, the Marx Brothers, Chico, Harper, Granger, Zepplin.

• 14:09Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 14:09Andrew Hunter Murray?

  And I think there was.

• 14:10Speaker 03

  George.

• 14:10Andrew Hunter Murray?

  George. Ringo.

• 14:14Speaker 05

  Like the Kardashians. I feel like there's one Kardashian that's, that's not there.

• 14:18Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Susan.

• 14:18Speaker 03

  I think what you're thinking of actually is that it was the guy from Black Sabbath.

• 14:22Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Ozzy Osbourne?

• 14:23Speaker 03

  The Osbournes. So there was one Osborne who was never in the Osbournes.

• 14:25Speaker 05

  Oh, really?

• 14:26Andrew Hunter Murray?

  She didn't want to be in the TV series.

• 14:28Speaker 05

  Okay, yeah, yeah.

• 14:29Speaker 03

  Uh, anyway, so yeah, he also, one other thing he invented, this is really cool. He invented a thing where you could put two beehives together without all the bees fighting each other.

• 14:40Andrew Hunter Murray?

  How did you invent that? Was it a pheromone thing?

• 14:43Speaker 03

  It has like a reverse bend which has a queen excluder in it. Cause it's the queens that cause all of the fighting. So they're basically, all the bees can go in and out, but the queens can't go from one to the other. So it stops the drones and stuff from fighting each other.

• 14:58Speaker 05

  Is that?

• 14:59Andrew Hunter Murray?

  That's really funny.

• 15:00Speaker 03

  Which of those inventions, the, the clip for the Hiroshima bomb?

• 15:03Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Yeah.

• 15:04Speaker 03

  The Fitbit or the anti-beefight excluder, do you think was the biggest invention? Which one did you want to talk about in chat shows?

• 15:13Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Um, I mean, I think they're all completely inconsequential.

• 15:17Speaker 03

  What the?

• 15:17Andrew Hunter Murray?

  The Hiroshima? The clamp? Who cares? It's like, oh, like the Marx Brothers here with his idea for the clamp. Okay. Well, that's great, but it's not.

• 15:24Speaker 05

  Yeah, but isn't that like, otherwise they couldn't have picked it up. They would have just had a big bomb sitting in America and not knowing what to do.

• 15:29Speaker 03

  It was quite important.

• 15:30Andrew Hunter Murray?

  I guess.

• 15:31Speaker 05

  You think someone else might have made a clamp if he hadn't?

• 15:33Andrew Hunter Murray?

  I just think if you're in charge of the Manhattan Project and you're in charge of this hugely significant doomsday device, there's just a risk that if you get one of the Marx Brothers involved, like it's just, it's about PR as much as anything else.

• 15:46Speaker 03

  Sorry, we're the Three Stooges, not a bad one.

• 15:50Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Imagine if we had invented the ultimate weapon and the guy responsible for delivering it to the battlefield was Michael McIntyre. And we just think, hang on. Is he gonna do a bit?

• 16:01Speaker 03

  I reckon McIntyre is a secret agent working for the government.

• 16:04Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Hundred percent.

• 16:05Speaker 03

  The light entertainment stuff is just a cover.

• 16:07Speaker 05

  Why do you think that? Cause no one could possibly devote their life to that?

• 16:10Speaker 03

  No, cause he's so good at it. Obviously he must be getting a lot of help.

• 16:14Speaker 05

  I see.

• 16:15Speaker 03

  The government, you see how it turned that around.

• 16:17Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. The government, if it's good at anything, it's crafting comedy with tea.

• 16:25Speaker 00

  Mr. Monopoly here. Miss me? Monopoly is back at McDonald's with millions of prizes. A twenty twenty-seven Jeep Cherokee, a Carnival Cruise vacation, gift cards from DoorDash and Best Buy. Feel then play in the McDonald's app. Get your bag.

• 16:43Speaker 01

  No purchase necessary. Fifty US and DCH, eighteen plus. See playatmd.com for rules and playatmd.com slash AMOE for info and playing without purchase by mail by November second. Chess card game ends November eighth. Game ends November twenty-second, twenty twenty-six. See rules for prize details. Monopoly is a registered trademark of Hasbro.

• 16:58Andrew Hunter Murray?

  I got another. From George, who says, I thought this was fascinating when I overheard it mentioned by a geography teacher. Quite interesting.

• 17:05Speaker 05

  Always promising.

• 17:06Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Overheard it mentioned by a geography teacher. So it's unclear if George was in the lesson and not really listening and just sort of overheard it. Or if George was in the pub next to someone who's clearly a geography teacher, you know, cause he's wearing corduroy or whatever. Sorry, geography teachers. Um, anyway, I love this fact. The Romford to Upminster branch of the London Overground, okay, so branch of the, uh, North London, marks the furthest line of ice penetration during an ice age.

• 17:36Speaker 05

  Wow, interesting.

• 17:37Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Now, listen, I've been fooled before by ice age related facts.

• 17:40Speaker 05

  Yes, you have.

• 17:41Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Elephants in Cornwall made the road network there.

• 17:44Speaker 03

  But the ice definitely didn't get as far as Cornwall.

• 17:47Andrew Hunter Murray?

  No, but it did get as far as the Hornchurch Till. Now, if anyone's looking for a metal band name, I think Hornchurch Till is actually quite good. Uh, it's a glacial deposit and it contains all these rocks and fossils, which were basically carried down from the Midlands, further north of London. Four hundred and fifty thousand years ago, the most extreme ice age of the last two and a half million years, this one, got as far south as North London.

• 18:09Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 18:09Andrew Hunter Murray?

  And then it stopped.

• 18:11Speaker 03

  Well, we'll want to go south of the river.

• 18:12Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Well, not this time of night.

• 18:15Andrew Hunter Murray?

  And basically there are all these rocks and fossils in there that we've, you know, you can tell because of where they belong in the land that they've been carried down. It is so cool. It's quite, I think it's quite metal. It was discovered in eighteen ninety-two by a geologist called TV Holmes. Holmes in Sherlock Holmes. Quite hard to Google him because you search TV Holmes, you just find like the latest Sherlock series, whatever. Exactly, yeah. And this ice age is so cool, is the reason that the Thames go through London. Cause the Thames used to go through East Anglia, north of London, came out of the sea in Clacton, uh, in Essex. And it now, it was pushed south into another valley by the advance of the ice sheet.

• 18:53Speaker 03

  You know what I used to think, and I thought I was a genius thinking this, that the rocks at Stonehenge were brought down by that ice age. Because that line where Stonehenge is pretty much as far as it got as well.

• 19:04Andrew Hunter Murray?

  A three, A three.

• 19:05Speaker 03

  And I was sure like I absolutely nailed the origin of Stonehenge. It's had that. It's just definitely not true. And I have plenty of evidence that people carried them over from Wales.

• 19:13Speaker 05

  Well, that's just got BBC publishing articles about the origin of Stonehenge every two weeks. It's definitely not true. So I think you should give them a call.

• 19:20Andrew Hunter Murray?

  But there's all this stuff of like Ice Age Essex. There's the Clacton Elephant Bed and the West Thurrock Lion Pit. There's all this like rock stuff.

• 19:27Speaker 05

  Yeah, really cool.

• 19:28Andrew Hunter Murray?

  I just love it. So anyway, yeah, the Thames, just think if, like, if the Thames hadn't been pushed south, London wouldn't have a river going through it now.

• 19:35Speaker 03

  Just London wouldn't be there.

• 19:36Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 19:36Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Well, no, it'd be there, but without the river going through it. We'd have all the branches and stuff, but nothing. So there you go, food for thought.

• 19:45Speaker 05

  Yeah, it really is.

• 19:45Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Yeah. Anyway, thank you, George. I love that fact.

• 19:47Speaker 05

  Yeah, really cool. That's amazing. What about this one from Kate Haynes? Um, this is that in World War Two, one of the plans put forward to stop Hitler, which was a very important aim at the time, was to feed him carrots laced with estrogen in the hopes that this would feminise him. And make him meek and mild, like his sister, apparently. I didn't know he had a meek and mild sister. Did he have a meek and mild sister? So Gertrude Hitler?

• 20:12Andrew Hunter Murray?

  I think there was a sister called Paula.

• 20:14Speaker 05

  Paula, she says.

• 20:15Andrew Hunter Murray?

  It's bad, isn't it? So yeah, I think his sister was called Paula. I know perfectly well she was called Paula.

• 20:21Speaker 03

  Did she also have the little moustache? That was that family trait.

• 20:24Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Family trait.

• 20:27Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Oh dear. Um, was, or I don't know how meek and mild she was, but they also.

• 20:31Speaker 05

  Probably meek and mild though, which it wouldn't be difficult.

• 20:33Andrew Hunter Murray?

  That's true. There were also his in-laws, if you remember, the Scouse branch of the family. But that's because he had a, a different sister's husband, maybe, or Alwa, no, Alwa, maybe his brother married someone, or only worked in Liverpool.

• 20:45Speaker 03

  And then one of them moved to America, didn't they? And went on the sort of chat show scene a little bit or.

• 20:49Speaker 05

  Oh, forgotten that.

• 20:50Speaker 03

  You're not chat show so much as like going to theatres and talking about my terrible cousin Hitler.

• 20:55Speaker 05

  Yeah. Cancel your terrible in at the start. Make clear your side you're on.

• 21:00Speaker 03

  Uh, but yeah, so.

• 21:01Speaker 05

  This is one of those mass plans. Yeah. And also apparently it was also hoped that his smoother skin and large breasts would make him a laughing stock among the military men and world leaders.

• 21:11Andrew Hunter Murray?

  You don't know they're gonna be large before you feed them the carrots. I'm sorry. I think that's, I think this is all a bit of a fever dream from whoever's planning this.

• 21:17Speaker 03

  Maybe it depends how many carrots he goes to one. Does like the boob size depend on how much estrogen you have? I don't suppose it does, does it?

• 21:22Speaker 05

  I don't know, actually. Maybe.

• 21:25Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Well, we're not, James and I are not the experts and we're not expecting you to be either.

• 21:28Speaker 05

  I, no, I'm not. Just cause I have them, I've never really looked into how, um, estrogen carrot consumption corresponds. But Kate Haynes does specify that she found this at the World Carrot Museum, this fact. So I guess that's why they had to throw in the carrot fact.

• 21:40Speaker 03

  Uh, the physical carrot museum or the online one?

• 21:45Speaker 05

  Oh, I think the online one, yes.

• 21:48Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Oh, there is a great carrot.

• 21:50Speaker 03

  Yeah, that website, I think it has gone into kind of QIPO. Plor is like one of the greatest ever websites devoted to one subject.

• 21:59Speaker 05

  Okay, yeah.

• 22:00Speaker 03

  It's just one person who collects a lot of amazing carrot facts.

• 22:02Speaker 05

  So good. I just always loved these plans. I was even mad there should be a competition between plans to kill Castro and plans to kill Hitler, which were madness. And there are so many which involve, I mean, just surreptitiously feed them stuff that they've never eat or slip into their night gowns, things that like, you know, how, how, what were the logistics of this? How likely was it? And if it was likely, has it happened to lots of other people we don't know about? Like, was Ming Campbell originally really a vicious person? And do you know what I mean? If they had these plans a lot that didn't work.

• 22:32Speaker 03

  Do you think, how much effort, time, money is gonna go into making Ming Campbell? Particularly relaxed guy.

• 22:40Speaker 05

  Yes, no.

• 22:40Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Do you want to do anything for international listeners on Ming Campbell? Former leader of the Liberal Democrat Party, not especially well remembered here either, actually. I think we should do something for domestic listeners on.

• 22:48Speaker 05

  What do you think? I think they'll all have heard of him. Larky with New Zealand listeners. Um, he just struck me as quite a gentle person, so I thought maybe he didn't used to be until he was fed the carrots himself.

• 23:00Speaker 03

  If you can get close enough to give Hitler some carrots, which got estrogen in, it feels like you're close enough to do something more.

• 23:08Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Put a bomb in the carrots. And the bomb is attached to the case by a clamp that's been created by Miranda Hart.

• 23:17Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Now, look, Tony Hancock is carrying an incredibly explosive pie.

• 23:23Speaker 03

  I just love the idea of like the war department, then outside you've just got a queue of all.

• 23:30Speaker 03

  I'm in for the things that happened. Like Diane Morgan, ready for duty.

• 23:37Speaker 03

  It's a very funny idea.

• 23:38Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Yeah.

• 23:39Speaker 03

  They have to make that show.

• 23:40Andrew Hunter Murray?

  But not today, because we've reached the end of our fact time.

• 23:45Speaker 03

  Oh, so soon.

• 23:46Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Well, the good news is we're gonna come on to fact allocations. So if you join Club Fish, uh, at the top tier, friend of the podcast, then you will get one of our headline facts dedicated to you. If you want to check out Club Fish, just to say, go to patreon.com/clubfish. There are three different tiers. There are all sorts of good things there. There are bonus episodes, there are extra long episodes that James edits, there is all manner of stuff. And as I say, if you become a friend of the podcast, you will get a classy certificate sent to you with one of our facts that will become yours in perpetuity. So let's dish out a few more of those now.

• 24:19Speaker 03

  Okay, uh, here is a fact that is now under the custodianship of Alexandrana. Uh, and Alexandrana, your fact is that the World Puddle Jumping Championships bans fizzy drinks in case they improve participants' performance.

• 24:37Speaker 05

  Would they?

• 24:38Speaker 03

  And that's because it's kids, it's kids that's doing it.

• 24:40Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Oh, of course.

• 24:41Speaker 03

  And it's, it's, it's whoever does the best sort of jumping. It's not necessarily most puddles, it's just whoever does, it's, it's more like figure skating. It's, it's all about your style.

• 24:53Speaker 05

  Oh, was it arm? Because I would assume it was length or, or width. But okay, that makes more sense as style, that's more interesting to watch.

• 24:59Speaker 03

  Hmm, yeah, I'm not sure if it still exists, that competition, must admit.

• 25:04Speaker 05

  Do we know how rigorous the drug testing is on the, it's from the, on the fizzy drinks? How do you test for a fizzy drink? I bet there's no blood test that can do that.

• 25:11Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Surely it affects your blood sugar a bit.

• 25:13Speaker 05

  But couldn't you have just had a flat drink that was very sugary?

• 25:15Speaker 03

  That's absolutely true.

• 25:19Speaker 03

  That's the loophole. Everyone's just fruit shooting up.

• 25:26Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Oh, that's great.

• 25:28Speaker 05

  That's really good. Um, okay, here's another fact for Nicholas Romaro. And this is that the shuttlecocks used in professional badminton are made with real goose feathers and they're always taken from the left wing. Because badminton is traditionally very socialist court.

• 25:44Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Brilliant.

• 25:45Speaker 03

  Very good.

• 25:46Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Um.

• 25:46Speaker 05

  That, um, that was from a guest.

• 25:48Speaker 03

  Mark Mason.

• 25:49Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Oh, yeah.

• 25:50Speaker 05

  Um, and it's because they spin different ways depending on what side of the bird they're on, don't they? Uh, because they're intended to be used by the bird.

• 25:56Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Yeah.

• 25:57Speaker 05

  And so they're a particular shape for a spin. And you've got to have your shuttlecocks all spinning clockwise. I think the left wing spins clockwise.

• 26:04Speaker 03

  I wonder if you had an aviary on a submarine, whether you might be able to farm those birds for your shuttlecocks for a bit of iron art for your sailors.

• 26:15Speaker 05

  We don't know, that's not why they had it.

• 26:17Andrew Hunter Murray?

  I don't know how big these submarines were. It sounds like they were very big. It does feel like a goose farm and a badminton court are going to, they're gonna stress the central committee for approvals.

• 26:30Speaker 03

  There's no point having one and not the other, Alan, right?

• 26:34Andrew Hunter Murray?

  I like the idea of it, because submarines are such a boring shape, aren't they? They're like two, you know, they're basically big fish shapes, effectively, aren't they?

• 26:40Speaker 03

  Yeah, for the reason of.

• 26:42Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Okay, but no, no.

• 26:44Speaker 05

  It's like a buttering horse.

• 26:49Speaker 03

  You want, you want something that's gonna go nicely through the water, and I think a fish is a good example of such a thing.

• 26:55Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Yes, but what else goes through nicely through the water? A manta ray, right? Imagine a manta ray shaped submarine, where it's basically one floor, it's basically a massive bungalow. Then you've got space for the badminton court and everything, because it's so, it's so spread out.

• 27:08Speaker 05

  Lovely, lovely.

• 27:09Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 27:09Speaker 05

  Something to think about.

• 27:10Andrew Hunter Murray?

  We'll get on to the MOD. Right, let's have another one. Uh, this one goes out to Danny Thomas. Danny, your fact now and forever is that the ancient Egyptians had pornographic papyrus's.

• 27:21Speaker 05

  Papyri?

• 27:22Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Papyri, for sure.

• 27:23Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 27:24Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Um, but thi- this is about the Turin erotic papyrus.

• 27:28Speaker 03

  Ah, yeah.

• 27:29Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Yeah. Uh, and it's got various rude images on it, all in hieroglyphics, obviously. Squiggle, squiggle, squiggle, bird.

• 27:37Speaker 03

  I have horrors.

• 27:40Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Um, yeah, and it's, we're not quite sure what it was for, I think, but it was.

• 27:44Speaker 05

  Oh, are we though?

• 27:45Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Well, it was maybe for, it was maybe for, you know, ancient Egyptian teenagers, uh, or maybe it was a manual of some kind, or maybe it was just, you know, a prank, funny prank.

• 27:55Speaker 05

  Lovely idea that in 4,000 years, someone's gonna find an old Playboy and go, we're not quite sure what they used this for.

• 28:02Speaker 03

  It could have been that they plastered the pictures up to show people where brothels are.

• 28:10Speaker 03

  Is this what they always say, isn't it?

• 28:11Speaker 05

  It is, yeah.

• 28:12Speaker 03

  Oh, there's loads of, um, like rude graffiti on this wall. Oh, that was to get to point out where the brothel was.

• 28:17Speaker 05

  Signpost. All the 15 year old boys going, yeah, okay, sure it was.

• 28:22Speaker 03

  Although they, to, to kind of roll back immediately on that, um, the idea is like sailors come into a port and they don't necessarily speak the language. So they need to have photos, photos, drawings.

• 28:33Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Drawings.

• 28:34Speaker 03

  Etchings.

• 28:35Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Rude etchings, okay, yeah, yeah.

• 28:37Speaker 03

  Here is one that is now under the custodianship of Sam. And Sam, your fact is that the world's only Cornish pasty museum is in Mexico.

• 28:49Speaker 05

  Mexico.

• 28:50Speaker 03

  Mexico.

• 28:50Speaker 05

  Yeah, love this. Although I think it might not be true anymore, actually. I have a feeling that they've got a Cornish pasty museum in Cornwall since then.

• 28:58Speaker 03

  I remember there was, in fact, maybe even when we did this fight, they were talking about building it, weren't they? Uh, but what happened was a lot of Cornish miners went over to Mexico because they had expertise in tin mining. Uh, and in Mexico, they were gonna mine stuff, and so they brought the, uh, Cornish pasty with them, I believe.

• 29:17Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 29:18Andrew Hunter Murray?

  That is very, well, I think, I'm just looking for an update now.

• 29:22Speaker 03

  Oh, news coming in.

• 29:24Andrew Hunter Murray?

  News flash. This is StOstelChamber.co.uk. Plans are developing to establish the UK's first ever Cornish pasty museum.

• 29:33Speaker 05

  Still developing.

• 29:34Andrew Hunter Murray?

  It has hoped it will be ready for visitors in time for the 2016 season. So I don't, sorry, the article didn't have a date on it. Um, I don't think.

• 29:46Speaker 03

  It didn't get built.

• 29:48Andrew Hunter Murray?

  I don't think it got built.

• 29:49Speaker 05

  This is what, for international listeners, British, um, sort of big, uh, construction projects like this often do run over a bit, don't they? So.

• 29:58Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Oh, yeah, I've just looked it up now, yeah, it's now costing 10 billion pounds.

• 30:03Speaker 03

  It only goes as far as Devon.

• 30:08Speaker 05

  Very good. Okay, so here's another fact. This is for Naomi Robinson Dunbar. Naomi, enjoy this one, and this one is that 20% of people wake up wearing fewer clothes than they went to bed with.

• 30:19Andrew Hunter Murray?

  It me.

• 30:20Speaker 03

  It, oh, yeah, you're feeling seen.

• 30:22Andrew Hunter Murray?

  It me, I'm feeling so seen.

• 30:24Speaker 05

  It's me.

• 30:25Andrew Hunter Murray?

  This is classic me. It's just a thing people say, it's me, you know, that's me, it's, it's an old.

• 30:29Speaker 05

  Who comes in and steals them in the night?

• 30:31Andrew Hunter Murray?

  No, it's normally the nightcap comes askew and, uh, gets discarded.

• 30:35Speaker 05

  Do you think it's easier to subconsciously take off clothes and put on clothes?

• 30:38Speaker 03

  100%.

• 30:40Speaker 05

  Definitely, okay.

• 30:41Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Of course it is.

• 30:42Speaker 03

  Sorry, officer, I don't know how I arrived here in an extra jumper.

• 30:47Speaker 03

  You never get anyone saying that.

• 30:49Speaker 05

  You're right.

• 30:49Speaker 03

  But you often get people saying, sorry, officer, I don't want to my trousers.

• 30:54Speaker 05

  Yeah, okay.

• 30:55Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Oh, that's great. All right, um, here's another one. Oh, I love this one. This one goes out to Lauren Castling. Lauren, your fact is there are people who mine for jeans. Denim jeans, this is in, it's in America, isn't it? There are all these old Levi's buried in mines and things. Because, because people got too hot when they were doing the mining, they took off their jeans.

• 31:18Speaker 05

  Without even realising it.

• 31:20Speaker 03

  People did used to get naked when they're mining, didn't they?

• 31:23Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Yeah.

• 31:24Speaker 03

  That's a pretty common thing.

• 31:25Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Yeah.

• 31:26Speaker 05

  Was it so hot?

• 31:26Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 31:27Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Yeah, people would, people would go down into the mines and, you know, they're just, all the jeans would get, and they're obviously valuable now because they're so old and they're full of rip, proper rivets, and they're actually quite high quality clothes. So, um, people sell them as, as cool ancient artefacts.

• 31:41Speaker 05

  So what are we going to be mining for that those people left behind when mining for jeans?

• 31:46Speaker 03

  Oh, I see.

• 31:47Speaker 05

  Like their jean tweezers that they just pick up the jeans with?

• 31:50Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Their jean tweezers, yeah.

• 31:52Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 31:53Andrew Hunter Murray?

  That reminds me, I must, uh, just pluck a single hair from my eyebrow.

• 31:57Speaker 05

  Stop the podcast.

• 31:59Speaker 03

  This fact is now under custodianship of Nicola and Nicola, oh, Dan Schreiber should be here to justify himself because this is one of his facts and the fact was Jesus had a mono brow. Can't remember what his evidence for this was, given that I've only seen circumstantial evidence that Jesus was even a historical character.

• 32:20Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Okay, but all of them say, but if he did exist, Dan said there was someone who runs a blog of descriptions of Jesus by Tom Chivers and at least three of these say that he had eyebrows meeting.

• 32:33Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 32:34Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Um, although another said he had hairs as white as snow.

• 32:39Speaker 05

  Okay, and he might have.

• 32:40Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Yeah.

• 32:41Speaker 05

  Blondie.

• 32:42Andrew Hunter Murray?

  And everywhere the pilot went, that Christ was sure to go. So Mary had a little land wreck there.

• 32:47Speaker 05

  Well, that's one for the kids.

• 32:48Andrew Hunter Murray?

  One for the kids.

• 32:48Speaker 05

  See?

• 32:49Speaker 03

  That is a conscious pilot.

• 32:50Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Yeah.

• 32:51Speaker 03

  But then Mary was an actual character in the pilot.

• 32:53Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Yeah, that would have been a lot better, a lot better. In fact, that's, I almost think what I've done is amazing there.

• 33:00Speaker 03

  Yeah?

• 33:02Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Like, I need, I need to adjust Mary had a little lamb to put in the character from the Bible. Pilot. Oh dear.

• 33:11Speaker 03

  I just think your brain works in extreme ways.

• 33:13Andrew Hunter Murray?

  In very mysterious ways, I'd say. Right, well, let's have another fact.

• 33:16Speaker 05

  This is one for Henry Smith. Henry Smith, take this to your grave. Ernest, sorry, that's a bit dark. Just take this with you every day. Um, Ernest Shackleton's dogs' names included slippery, slobbers, Satan, painful, swanker, bummer and Bob.

• 33:35Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Bob?

• 33:36Speaker 05

  Bobby, poor old Bob, run out of inspiration at the end. Poor Shackleton.

• 33:39Speaker 03

  Which of those, which of those would you feel least confident shouting in the park if you'd lost them?

• 33:44Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Oh, they've all got some problems. I mean, bummer and Satan feel like the two least acceptable.

• 33:51Speaker 03

  Swanker!

• 33:52Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Swanker, yeah, true, yeah.

• 33:54Speaker 05

  Swanker depends what, if he says something before, like, you know, if he says something that could be pluralized, like, hams, wanker. Hams, wank, like a new.

• 34:05Andrew Hunter Murray?

  To pick a normal, to pick something normal that you'd say in the park. Hams, wanker.

• 34:09Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 34:11Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Yeah, yeah. Good point.

• 34:14Speaker 03

  To pick another biblical character.

• 34:19Speaker 05

  Oh, you insert your own noun. Um, so yeah, there you go. Good old Shackleton.

• 34:23Speaker 03

  I just love how you were painting yourself into a corner. As you were saying it, I was like, I can't think of anything certain.

• 34:30Speaker 05

  I felt it coming. I felt it coming towards me. It was like that scene in Austin Powers with the very, very slow steamroller coming towards him. I'm gonna have to finish this sentence.

• 34:39Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Oh dear. Well, that is eight new fact custodians dished out. So congratulations to Henry, Nicola, Lauren, Naomi, Sam, Danny, Nicholas and Alexandrana. You are now custodians of Fish Facts and if you would like to be a custodian, just go to patreon.com slash clubfish and sign up today. But that's it for this episode of Little Fish. I've had such a fun time and I hope you guys have too. And I hope everyone listening has. But for now, it's time for goodbye. We'll see you in a few days for another episode of No Such Thing As A Fish. Bye for now.