Little Fish: Checking the Mark Hoppus

Andy explains why he is a hashtag legend, while he, Anna and Dan discuss YOUR facts . This week's subjects include pedestriennes, presidents and pyramid schemes. And the gang announce eight more Friend of the Podcast custodians. 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.

• 0:13Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Hello and welcome to another episode of Little Fish. My name's Andrew Hunter Murray. I'm here in the QI offices with Dan Schreiber and Anna Tadzinski, and we've brought some of your best facts. Hey, guys.

• 0:24Speaker 01

  Hi, Andy.

• 0:25Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Hey, buddy. Who's got a fact?

• 0:27Speaker 01

  I've got a fact. That's a weird hello, Dan. You can't just be laughing from the outset.

• 0:31Andrew Hunter Murray?

  I'm a funny guy, Anna. Get with the program.

• 0:34Speaker 02

  I was laughing at your hello.

• 0:35Speaker 01

  Ouch. Okay. I'll work on that.

• 0:37Andrew Hunter Murray?

  What the... I want a fact.

• 0:39Speaker 01

  You want a fact? I've got a fact from Jack Poopart. When Albania... This is actually an incredible fact, and I want to do a whole podcast on it.

• 0:46Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Oh, okay.

• 0:47Speaker 01

  When Albania transitioned from communism to capitalism, the result was that almost two-thirds of the country ended up involved in pyramid schemes. Now...

• 0:55Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Lovely.

• 0:56Speaker 01

  This is the most incredible story I can't believe I didn't know about. So Albania, you know, Soviet Bloc fell, and they'd never done capitalism before. Most people didn't really know how it works. They'd never had private banking before. They didn't really understand interest rates. And all of these pyramid companies started up. Two-thirds of the country invested all their savings in them.

• 1:16Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Wow.

• 1:17Speaker 01

  And basically, it was where you took a deposit out, and then the interest was paid by the next person's deposit. And then that interest was paid by the next person's deposit. Do you know exactly how a pyramid scheme works?

• 1:26Andrew Hunter Murray?

  I thought that was how normal banking works. But I've lost all my money to a pyramid scheme.

• 1:33Speaker 01

  Do not join the Murray Bank.

• 1:35Speaker 02

  Do they, by the way? When you said they went from communism to capitalism, is that a one-day... Is it like, you know, when countries change side of the roads? For their driving side?

• 1:46Andrew Hunter Murray?

  No, they normally phase it in, I think. So all eggs are still communist. But if you're buying cereal, then you have to pay.

• 1:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:53Speaker 02

  Very confusing.

• 1:53Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Yeah.

• 1:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, that's true. A lot of crashes happened. This was incredible, though. So genuinely, the IMF said to Albania, "This is fucked up. It's a pyramid scheme. We in the capitalist world have known about this for ages. No one believed it." And anyway, it all collapsed in the late 90s, and there was this massive rebellion. And 2,000 people, in fact, died in the end of the 90s in these huge rebellions.

• 2:14Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Yikes.

• 2:15Speaker 01

  Albania was looted. State armies were looted.

• 2:18Andrew Hunter Murray?

  It's a classic Anna fact, where she gets us all excited.

• 2:21Speaker 01

  I know.

• 2:21Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Ah, there's gonna be some great comic twist coming up, like a Mr. Bean episode. Thousands died.

• 2:27Speaker 01

  You know, in the last episode of Mr. Bean, everyone died.

• 2:31Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Wow.

• 2:31Speaker 01

  But that sounds extraordinary.

• 2:33Andrew Hunter Murray?

  It's an incredible story.

• 2:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:34Andrew Hunter Murray?

  All right, I've got one now. This is a great fact. It comes in from Igor Ferrera. "One fact I think is quite amusing," says Igor, "is that Georgia," that's the state in the USA, not the Eastern European country, "has two counties which share a border, and they're named Bacon County and Coffee County." Quite a breakfast pair. Unfortunately, Coffee County does not have a strong coffee production culture. Neither does Bacon County have prominent swine farms. And it turns out that Bacon County was named after Senator Augustus Bacon. And Coffee County was named after Congressman John E. Coffey.

• 3:16Speaker 02

  Oh, man.

• 3:17Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Isn't that good?

• 3:18Speaker 02

  It is good.

• 3:19Speaker 01

  It's good.

• 3:19Speaker 02

  It's really good.

• 3:20Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Coffee County, John E. Coffey, really interesting guy. He is often confused with John Coffey, his cousin, of course, who is the namesake of Tennessee's Coffee County.

• 3:32Speaker 01

  Of course.

• 3:33Andrew Hunter Murray?

  This is stunning. And I went a bit harking on this.

• 3:37Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:37Andrew Hunter Murray?

  And I read through a list of 3,000 counties in America.

• 3:40Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 3:41Speaker 01

  Cool.

• 3:41Andrew Hunter Murray?

  And I just thought, I'd see if there were any more amusing food named counties.

• 3:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:46Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Crisp County, Georgia, Congressman Charles Crisp. Lamb County, Texas, George Lamb. Orange County, Indiana, named after the Quakers from a different orange county. And there's also Letcher County, Governor Robert Letcher. Coming County, Nebraska, Thomas Coming. And Cock County, Tennessee, named after Senator William Cock.

• 4:06Speaker 01

  Who had a huge penis.

• 4:07Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Huge penis.

• 4:08Speaker 02

  Willie Cock.

• 4:08Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Willie Cock, yes. And there's also Big Horn County in Montana, but that is named after the local sheep.

• 4:15Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 4:16Speaker 01

  Really good stuff.

• 4:18Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Anyway, there you go, counties.

• 4:19Speaker 01

  Lovely work.

• 4:20Speaker 02

  Very cool. I got a fact here. This has been sent in by Mark Hoppus. The fact is that punk band Blink-182 are the only band to have broken the Geneva Convention. So, the email continues. Basically, the cover of their 1999 album, Enema of the State, features a nurse with a red cross on her hat. As Blink-182 aren't a medical organization, they were told by the American Red Cross that they would be breaking the Geneva Convention. And so subsequent pressings of the album remove the red cross from the cover.

• 4:53Speaker 01

  Really?

• 4:54Andrew Hunter Murray?

  But no one would have tried to get medical attention from the album.

• 4:58Speaker 02

  I think it's just something in place to mean that you can't... Yeah, that you can't use it.

• 5:03Speaker 01

  And would they have been on trial in The Hague were it not for that removal?

• 5:06Speaker 02

  I think so.

• 5:07Speaker 01

  Right now, next to Slobodan?

• 5:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think that's exactly why they had to remove it. Interesting little thing that I can hear, even though it's a pre-recorded show, I can hear thousands of people yelling out right now.

• 5:18Andrew Hunter Murray?

  I think I might be about to yell it out.

• 5:20Speaker 02

  Did you just say that that email was sent in by someone called Mark Hoppus?

• 5:23Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Oh, okay.

• 5:24Speaker 02

  Mark Hoppus is one of the members of the band. Now, either, Andy, you've misread the name of the person sending in this email.

• 5:32Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Always possible.

• 5:32Speaker 02

  Or it's possible, though, that Blink-182 listened to our show and sent in this fact. But that's Mark from the... He's the bassist in Blink-182.

• 5:41Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Should I write back? And say, "Are you the..." Also, no, what I was gonna shout out, Dan, is you keep saying Blink-182.

• 5:49Speaker 01

  I know, weird.

• 5:50Andrew Hunter Murray?

  And everyone I know says Blink-182. But I think their full name, of course, is Blink-182.

• 5:55Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 5:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, I actually don't know. That's... I've always called them Blink-182.

• 6:00Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Interesting.

• 6:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 6:01Speaker 01

  I call them Blink-9 scoring 2.

• 6:03Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Well, in French, of course, they're Blink-Sol-Cat-Cavande.

• 6:09Speaker 01

  It must... It's gotta be a big fan of his who's pretending to be him in his email.

• 6:13Speaker 02

  Well, yeah, because then it says, "Source this interview by bassist Mark Hoppus." So why would you source yourself rather than just saying, "Hey, it's Mark Hoppus"?

• 6:21Andrew Hunter Murray?

  I must have just copied out the email wrong.

• 6:22Speaker 02

  That must be wrong.

• 6:23Andrew Hunter Murray?

  I'll check that later. Unless, of course, Mark Hoppus just happens to have the same name as the bassist from Blink-182, and therefore has interest in them, has read up on them. Spent his whole life reading about them and knows all about them. That's possible, too.

• 6:35Speaker 02

  But didn't think it's worth putting in the email itself, just so you know, I'm not that Mark Hoppus.

• 6:40Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Yeah, because he would have assumed that... No, the right minds would assume that the bassist would write in citing an interview with himself.

• 6:46Speaker 02

  With himself.

• 6:48Speaker 01

  I think he's testing you to see if you spot it. And it bypassed some people, but it stopped at you. The buck stopped at you, Dan.

• 6:55Speaker 02

  I love him. I think they're amazing. The album cover, by the way, this wasn't the only change that it went through. So the red cross was taken away. But also, there was a capital B for Blink on the album initially, and their logo was a lowercase b. So then that got changed as they did the repressing of it as well.

• 7:14Andrew Hunter Murray?

  It's almost like a reverse typo, isn't it? Someone's correctly ascertained that that's the first word of the sentence, so it should have a nice capital letter. And they've had to do a... You know, they had to deliberately get it wrong.

• 7:24Speaker 02

  They're punk.

• 7:25Speaker 01

  Do we know why? What, so they looked at the capital B on the first pressing and thought, "Not punk enough"?

• 7:29Speaker 02

  No, no, it's... They have a logo, and they have a typeface, and they have a style of writing. It's quite... Sometimes when people write no such thing as a fish, and it's a small a for "as."

• 7:38Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Oh, ouch. That gives me the big old ick. That gives me the screaming abdass. But I'm not a cool punk. I think the punkiest thing to do would be to not care whether it's an upper or a lowercase b.

• 7:47Speaker 02

  Yeah. Well, then, this was... There's more changes to this album cover.

• 7:51Andrew Hunter Murray?

  More?

• 7:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 7:52Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Than the typo?

• 7:54Speaker 02

  And also the cross on the front. Then there was a Malaysian addition where... So the front cover is a nurse, but she's dressed very sexily, let's say that.

• 8:05Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Okay.

• 8:06Speaker 02

  And there's cleavage. And they were like, "No cleavage, thank you." So the nurse's top gets covered, so it knocks out the cleavage on the Malaysian cover. So you've got three changes to one album cover.

• 8:17Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Not very punk to cover up a sexy nurse's cleavage?

• 8:20Speaker 01

  No, I'm sorry.

• 8:21Andrew Hunter Murray?

  But it's also... It's more like a Carry On film.

• 8:24Speaker 02

  And I don't know how punk the Malaysian government are, but I guess there's our answer. But they were so silly, because that album, Enema of the State, it was followed up by an album called Take Off Your Pants and Jacket. And they used to have tours called the Poopoo Peepi Tour. They were very silly back in the day. And then they got a bit serious, and they fell out with each other. And very recently, because of a few sad moments for them, Mark Hoppus was diagnosed with cancer, and they reconnected off the back of it. They found their comedy again. So their last year's tour was called Missionary Impossible. And it feels like the first time in a while that they've really got funny again.

• 9:04Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Right.

• 9:04Speaker 02

  And so, Mark, if you're listening, we love you. I certainly do.

• 9:08Speaker 01

  You got funny again. After those bleak, unfunny years that Dan just mentioned.

• 9:11Speaker 02

  No, no, no. Oh, Jesus.

• 9:13Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Would've thought that was a fact for you, Anna, that contains a sudden, unexpected, serious twist.

• 9:19Speaker 01

  All right, you want another one?

• 9:20Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Yeah.

• 9:21Speaker 01

  From Emily Johns. And this is that Emma Sharp was the first woman to complete a 1,000-mile walk in 1,000 hours. She did this outside a pub, armed with pistols, whilst people tried to poison her. Unsurprisingly, this was the first and last time she did any sort of walking event.

• 9:39Andrew Hunter Murray?

  So hang on, sorry. She did the walk outside a pub. Did she walk a mile or half a mile out, or half a mile back, 1,000 times?

• 9:44Speaker 01

  No, I think she walked a long way. I think she began outside the pub. I don't think she was just walking around around the pub, waiting for it to open. I don't think. I've been there, Emma Sharp. God, you know, you've gotta keep yourself busy, haven't you? Clock's ticking. When will 7:00 AM arrive?

• 10:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, and Emily quite rightly says she's the most incredible woman and deserves the world to know about her. And she is great. And it just reminded me of this thing that we've never talked about, which is pedestrianism, which James and I covered a bit in our sports book.

• 10:17Speaker 02

  Oh, okay.

• 10:18Andrew Hunter Murray?

  I think we've done it a tiny bit, but many years ago.

• 10:20Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 10:21Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Maybe.

• 10:21Speaker 01

  This mad craze in the late 19th century, mid to late 19th century, for women to go on these big, big, long walks very competitively. And this woman, they were trying to poison her, by the way, I think, because there were lots of bets laid on whether she could do it or not. And so vested interest, once you put a grand down.

• 10:35Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Yeah.

• 10:35Speaker 01

  You'll try to jeopardize someone's chances.

• 10:37Speaker 02

  Really good. What you do for a grand, kill someone is...

• 10:41Speaker 01

  Well, actually, it's a poison.

• 10:43Speaker 02

  Or is it just to make her sick?

• 10:44Speaker 01

  Maybe it was just a big bout of diarrhoea or something. We don't know.

• 10:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, we don't know.

• 10:48Speaker 01

  Would you give someone explosive diarrhoea for a grand?

• 10:51Andrew Hunter Murray?

  In modern money.

• 10:53Speaker 01

  In modern money, yeah.

• 10:54Andrew Hunter Murray?

  GBP, pound sterling.

• 10:55Speaker 01

  GBP, yeah.

• 10:56Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Yeah.

• 10:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:57Speaker 02

  Do you know what? How would you go about doing it?

• 11:00Andrew Hunter Murray?

  What do you mean?

• 11:01Speaker 02

  Well, how are you giving someone explosive diarrhoea?

• 11:03Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Uh, I'd put it in the water, because everyone needs water eventually.

• 11:07Speaker 02

  Do you have explosive diarrhoea and you're passing it on?

• 11:10Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Dan, there are ways of giving people diarrhoea instead of all putting diarrhoea in their food.

• 11:15Speaker 02

  Well, speaks the voice of experience, apparently.

• 11:17Speaker 01

  I was thinking about a laxative.

• 11:19Andrew Hunter Murray?

  I meant laxative.

• 11:21Speaker 01

  Not shit in the water, Jesus.

• 11:24Andrew Hunter Murray?

  God, Dan, that's pretty dark.

• 11:27Speaker 01

  You don't, if you were gonna do that, you'd have to do it in the tea, because water is so inap, isn't it?

• 11:32Andrew Hunter Murray?

  I know, shit, it is clear. Clear water bottle, that'll do it.

• 11:38Speaker 02

  Ooh, I love corn in my water.

• 11:41Andrew Hunter Murray?

  God. Ironically, you'd be giving someone the runs to stop them doing a walk.

• 11:45Speaker 01

  That is ironic, yeah.

• 11:47Andrew Hunter Murray?

  That's pleasing.

• 11:48Speaker 02

  It's worth it for the headlines, isn't it, in the papers?

• 11:55Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Let me check that Mark Hoppus right now.

• 11:58Speaker 01

  Checking the Mark Hoppus, they're checking Mark Hoppus. I leant upon a Hoppus gate.

• 12:04Andrew Hunter Murray?

  What's that?

• 12:05Speaker 01

  That's from the Darkling Thrush poem by Thomas Hardy.

• 12:08Andrew Hunter Murray?

  I'd just like to say, Dan, I'm so sorry, that fact came in from Sven Saber, not from Mark Hoppus. Sven, I'm really sorry, that was your fact, Sven Saber. Um, do you want another?

• 12:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 12:20Andrew Hunter Murray?

  This I love, I absolutely love. It's from Lettuce, and Lettuce writes, "The fact I would like to share with you is that the Romney, Hythe and Dimchurch miniature railway in Kent claimed to have built the only armoured miniature train in the world."

• 12:38Speaker 01

  Claimed to have?

• 12:39Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Well, I think, I mean, they have, they did. It was during the war, Second World War.

• 12:43Speaker 01

  Ah.

• 12:43Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Basically, I have, I have cycled the route of this miniature railway.

• 12:47Speaker 02

  Have you?

• 12:47Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Hashtag legend. Um, it's a gr-

• 12:51Speaker 02

  When's the last time hashtag's been used to denote being cool?

• 12:55Andrew Hunter Murray?

  So it's a great miniature railway. It's in, it's in Kent, it's Romney, Hythe and Dimchurch is the route it goes around. Anyway, Lettuce writes, "In the summer of 1940, my newly conscripted grandfather was posted to guard the miniature railway. He said it was quite boring, as all he had to do was paint the coal white to make sure nobody was stealing it." I don't know if that's a sort of grandfatherly joke or something.

• 13:15Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 13:16Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Um, so having spent a lifetime idly wondering why Hitler would want to ride on this miniature train in particular, and why it needed to be armoured, it turns out they were using it for transporting materials to the Channel, because they were planning D-Day, and there was this huge thing called Operation Pluto, which is absolutely mega. It was a pipeline under the ocean, so Pluto.

• 13:37Speaker 01

  Ah.

• 13:38Andrew Hunter Murray?

  And it was because 60% of what was needed by weight in, in northern France after the invasion was going to be fuel, it's going to be oil. Like, by volume and mass and weight, that's most of what you need, is just to keep your military going.

• 13:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:50Andrew Hunter Murray?

  So they had to lay a pipeline under the ocean incredibly rapidly and stop it being bombed.

• 13:55Speaker 01

  Really?

• 13:55Andrew Hunter Murray?

  And there are all these places around the area which are like fake bungalows, which are actually pumping stations for oil.

• 14:01Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 14:01Andrew Hunter Murray?

  They built fake stations, there was a fake garage, fake ice cream shop, and they were just, they were just pumping stations, so-

• 14:07Speaker 01

  And they're just pumping oil through the pipeline to-

• 14:09Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Exactly, to get it-

• 14:10Speaker 01

  Under the Channel.

• 14:10Andrew Hunter Murray?

  To get it from the main sort of British network down to the coast and then over the Channel. So it's a, it's an amazing bit of history, and it has this miniature train at the heart of it.

• 14:19Speaker 01

  And so this, sorry, this girl's grandfather was guarding the miniature train that was carrying coal to the, oh, sorry, carrying-

• 14:25Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Supplies for the-

• 14:26Speaker 01

  Supplies.

• 14:26Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 14:27Speaker 01

  That is amazing.

• 14:28Speaker 02

  And if you- How, how small is the train?

• 14:31Speaker 01

  It's a key question, because there are two types of miniature train, and I was picturing for a long time, like, in a model village.

• 14:36Andrew Hunter Murray?

  That's what I've got in my head. It's not a model railway, it's a miniature train.

• 14:40Speaker 01

  It's a crucial difference.

• 14:41Andrew Hunter Murray?

  So-

• 14:41Speaker 01

  I was thinking, it's not very far to cycle, Andy. Let's not brag about that. It's only a metre and a half.

• 14:46Speaker 02

  We've got half a cup of oil on the train coming our way.

• 14:51Andrew Hunter Murray?

  No, sorry, when I say miniature railway, I could sit on it, but probably not two of me abreast could sit on it. Do you know what I mean? It's sort of about a person and a bed wide.

• 15:00Speaker 02

  Ah, so what, you take your kids on it, like?

• 15:02Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Exactly, exactly that, yeah, yeah. And little fact for you, Dan, after the war it was reopened, and the ribbon was cut by Laurel and Hardy.

• 15:09Speaker 02

  Was it really?

• 15:10Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Yep.

• 15:11Speaker 01

  Nice.

• 15:11Andrew Hunter Murray?

  So anyway, anyway-

• 15:12Speaker 02

  Two scissors, one pair of scissors?

• 15:15Andrew Hunter Murray?

  I don't know, I'm so sorry, I failed you, Dan.

• 15:17Speaker 01

  Why didn't they include that information?

• 15:21Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Oh, anyway, Lettuce, incredible that your grandfather was part of this, that's so cool.

• 15:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's brilliant, what a connection.

• 15:27Speaker 02

  I have another one. Uh, this is from Walt Mankowski. "I just saw this fact tonight, and it's too good not to share. Since Abraham Lincoln's assassination in 1865, every US president has been alive at the same time as Herbert Hoover."

• 15:44Speaker 01

  That is so cool.

• 15:47Speaker 02

  Incredible, right?

• 15:47Andrew Hunter Murray?

  But not all at the same time.

• 15:49Speaker 02

  Not all at the same time.

• 15:51Speaker 01

  Because it's so important to read those last three words.

• 15:54Speaker 02

  Except for that vampire Obama.

• 15:58Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Don't, because there will be a thriving community of people who think Obama's a vampire out there somewhere.

• 16:04Speaker 02

  Uh, Hoover was president for four years only, from 1929 to 1933, but he lived until he was 90, providing plenty of time for other presidents to overlap with him. So then Walt says, "Amazing bonus fact, Kamala Harris was born on October the 20th, 1964, Herbert Hoover died October 20th, 1964, the same day." Now, the question is, did Kamala Harris get born before he died?

• 16:31Speaker 01

  Because if she got born after he died, then he was obviously reincarnated as Kamala Harris. Is that what you're saying?

• 16:37Speaker 02

  Oh, wonderful logic.

• 16:39Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Yeah, that's it.

• 16:40Speaker 02

  I hadn't thought of that.

• 16:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:42Speaker 02

  That's a very good point. Um, so that's where Walt ends his email.

• 16:47Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Great news, great news, Mrs. Harris, you've had your baby, and we're proud to report that it's been inhabited by the soul of Herbert Hoover.

• 16:56Speaker 01

  You'd cry with joy, you know, you're probably crying anyway, but tears and joy it would be, wouldn't it?

• 17:00Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Absolutely, yeah.

• 17:01Speaker 02

  But she, she of course didn't become president. Well, this is exciting. It's the first time I've ever had an email where the correspondent has sent an update email saying, "I found out the exact timings. Hoover died at 11:35 AM ET in New York City. Harris was born 9:28 PM PT Pacific Time in Oakland, California, which is three hours behind New York, so she missed him by 13 hours. And that's why she didn't become the president."

• 17:31Andrew Hunter Murray?

  That's it.

• 17:32Speaker 01

  That's it.

• 17:33Speaker 02

  That's it. She was the only person not born in his lifetime.

• 17:38Andrew Hunter Murray?

  So that's what the Democrats need to be focusing on-

• 17:41Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 17:41Andrew Hunter Murray?

  For the next election is just where you were alive before that date in 1964.

• 17:45Speaker 02

  Pete Buttigieg, I'm afraid you're out. Um, we're gonna have to go Bernie.

• 17:49Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's good, because a lot of people are saying we need even older leaders in America, so I think-

• 17:55Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Imagine if he made that his main campaign platform.

• 17:59Speaker 01

  You might as well, probably like anyone.

• 18:01Speaker 02

  Yeah. I actually, and I'm terrible at counting, so I think these are correct, but I looked into, how many prime ministers does Andy Burnham overlap with the current UK prime minister? How many do you think?

• 18:16Andrew Hunter Murray?

  How many, so he's, what, 50 odd? 55?

• 18:21Speaker 01

  How many people does he overlap with? There are, I said, born in the 60s, who died in the 60s. Let's say there've been seven. I'm gonna say 11.

• 18:31Andrew Hunter Murray?

  He was born in 1970. Yeah, I think 11's a pretty good shout, because there was a period where there weren't too many, and then we've had lots recently.

• 18:38Speaker 02

  If my numbers are correct-

• 18:39Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Yeah.

• 18:39Speaker 02

  It's 17.

• 18:40Speaker 01

  Sorry, yeah.

• 18:41Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Whoa.

• 18:41Speaker 01

  I forgot we'd had lots recently, yeah.

• 18:43Speaker 02

  17, there was a big rush recently, wasn't there, of that number?

• 18:47Speaker 01

  I had to get in the front, thank you.

• 18:48Speaker 02

  Yeah. Um, the first prime minister, as far as I can see, who he wasn't alive for, was Churchill.

• 18:53Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Whoa.

• 18:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, makes sense, just missed him.

• 18:55Speaker 02

  John Major, I believe, is 21.

• 18:58Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Wow.

• 18:59Speaker 02

  Not years old. He overlaps with 21 prime ministers of the UK.

• 19:03Speaker 01

  Oh, really? Nice.

• 19:04Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Mega.

• 19:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, so far.

• 19:06Andrew Hunter Murray?

  There might be, there'll be more.

• 19:07Speaker 02

  I think it's crossed.

• 19:08Speaker 01

  Ally writing from Wicklow in Ireland, "Miniature horses do not like bananas, but will happily eat banana skin, whereas Arabian horses will eat banana, but not the skin."

• 19:18Speaker 02

  What's going on there?

• 19:18Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Oh, so they're perfectly teamed?

• 19:19Speaker 01

  Perfect match. It's the, it's Jack Spratt and his wife.

• 19:22Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Can I check? Miniature horses, do you mean horses that are tiny, the size of a few inches tall, or do you mean model horses?

• 19:30Speaker 01

  It's a really good point. Um, I didn't ask, and yeah, because obviously if it's the first, you'd need miniature bananas, wouldn't you? So-

• 19:38Speaker 01

  I'll write back.

• 19:39Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Right. Caitlin O'Brien, I was looking up land use in the UK. Yes.

• 19:44Speaker 01

  Of course you are.

• 19:45Andrew Hunter Murray?

  I work in museums. This is the kind of workplace chat we have, says Caitlin. According to this article, Woking is 11% golf course, but the Lake District is only 3% lake. This means that Woking is nearly four times more golf than the Lake District is lake.

• 20:02Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 20:03Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Great.

• 20:03Speaker 01

  Really good.

• 20:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's really good.

• 20:04Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Yeah.

• 20:05Speaker 02

  Is that an original calculation?

• 20:08Andrew Hunter Murray?

  No, I think it's from, according to this article.

• 20:10Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 20:10Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Yeah.

• 20:11Speaker 02

  Brilliant.

• 20:11Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Pretty cool, though.

• 20:12Speaker 01

  It's a sign of the times, isn't it, that I can't now hear the place name Woking without thinking that it's like a verb referring to being, you know, overly obsessive about people's gender pronouns or whatever.

• 20:23Speaker 02

  Hmm. They should do a survey on that and see how many woke people are in Woking.

• 20:27Speaker 01

  You golf?

• 20:27Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Good idea.

• 20:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 20:28Speaker 01

  If you're listening.

• 20:29Andrew Hunter Murray?

  You golf, more like.

• 20:30Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 20:32Andrew Hunter Murray?

  All right, now let's move to phase two of Little Fish, fact allocation. So if you join Club Fish, our exclusive members' club, patreon.com/clubfish, and if you join it the highest tier, which is friend of the podcast, then you will get exclusive ownership, custodianship of one of our headline facts from the last 12 years of doing this podcast, and that'll be yours forever. So do go to patreon.com/clubfish to check it out. Also, if you want to see the other tiers, there are extra shows, there are longer shows, there's all sorts of wonderful stuff there. So go and do that now. Right, let's have some fact allocations. Who's up first?

• 21:07Speaker 02

  I've got one here. This is now under the custodianship of Jack O'Connor, and it is that TV star David Frost used to host live shows eight nights a week.

• 21:17Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Brilliant.

• 21:18Speaker 02

  I love this fact so much. This was, and he was, he was on TV non-stop, multiple programmes, but the reason he was able to be on TV eight nights a week is because he used to do four nights, I think it was, in the UK. And at the end of the show, he would get on Concorde and on the very same night do a show in America on TV and then play it out for the rest of the week. So he was working seven nights a week, but he managed to fit eight nights in as a result.

• 21:43Andrew Hunter Murray?

  So good.

• 21:44Speaker 01

  It's brilliant.

• 21:44Speaker 02

  And you can't do that anymore because we don't have Concorde, and so that's not possible. So this is a sort of a fact locked in time.

• 21:51Speaker 01

  You could do it, but I think you'd have to be like next to Samoa or something. You'd have to be on one side and then the other side of the international day line, wouldn't you? In like Hawaii and then...

• 22:00Speaker 02

  Good news, we've booked you for Graham Norton's show. Unfortunately, it's his eighth evening recording in Samoa.

• 22:08Speaker 01

  If you could fund the travel there.

• 22:10Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 22:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's a great fact. That was also, I was looking back through that episode when I saw this fact, and it's where we mention people I haven't talked about since, Robozo and Aplenalp. Do you remember those guys?

• 22:20Andrew Hunter Murray?

  The pranksters who were Richard Nixon's close friends and who were constantly getting into scrapes.

• 22:26Speaker 01

  Yes, they delivered him a prostitute in a suitcase, if I remember rightly.

• 22:31Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Classic Anna story.

• 22:32Speaker 02

  Was she alive?

• 22:33Speaker 01

  She was alive, guys.

• 22:35Andrew Hunter Murray?

  In a suitcase?

• 22:37Speaker 01

  She was alive.

• 22:37Andrew Hunter Murray?

  What a carpet.

• 22:39Speaker 01

  I think it was in a suitcase.

• 22:40Speaker 02

  Oh my God, those two characters. You might as well have just mentioned two of my best friends from school that I just somehow forgot about and they walked in the room. I'm feeling so much joy right now.

• 22:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, me too.

• 22:50Andrew Hunter Murray?

  I've got to go back and listen to that.

• 22:51Speaker 01

  Robozo and Aplenalp. Anyway, here's another fact for another new owner, and this is a fact for Niels Lindholt. And this is that the original chill pill was a pill you took when you had a chill.

• 23:06Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Brilliant.

• 23:06Speaker 01

  Simple but effective.

• 23:07Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Old school medicines.

• 23:08Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 23:09Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Which all worked, definitely.

• 23:13Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Shall we have another one here?

• 23:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 23:15Andrew Hunter Murray?

  This one goes out to Al, who I think is Alice, I don't want to presume from your email address. But the fact is, tomorrow will be the longest day of your life. And this is specifically tailored to you, Al or Alice. It's just going to be a really rough day, I'm afraid.

• 23:33Speaker 01

  This is actually such a grim thing to suggest you frame up on your wall.

• 23:36Speaker 02

  I know, next to your live love laugh.

• 23:40Andrew Hunter Murray?

  It's because the Earth's days are getting longer all the time because Earth is gradually slowing down. Does that make it more cheerful? No, not really. You won't notice it. You don't need to reset your alarm or anything. It's fine.

• 23:53Speaker 01

  No.

• 23:54Andrew Hunter Murray?

  It's by a fraction of a fraction of a second. So, so, so cheer up.

• 24:00Speaker 01

  I read recently, I happened to read an article about this, about, you know, there's huge time committees talking about the leap second. So it's why we have leap seconds added every few years. And they're at the moment thinking that we might stop having leap seconds and instead we'll have a leap hour every few hundred years.

• 24:14Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Whoa. That's cool.

• 24:16Speaker 01

  It's a kind of exciting thing.

• 24:17Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Yeah, really exciting. Yeah, yeah.

• 24:18Speaker 02

  When would we be due our first leap hour?

• 24:20Speaker 01

  I think in like way after we've all died.

• 24:23Speaker 02

  Really?

• 24:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:24Speaker 02

  Shame to miss it.

• 24:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, I know, but maybe your great grandchildren will get that.

• 24:30Speaker 02

  All right, let's get to another fact. This goes out to Michael Smith. Your fact now is in 1457, men with moustaches were banned from Dublin.

• 24:39Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Wow. Whereas now I'm sure they're not.

• 24:42Speaker 02

  No.

• 24:43Speaker 01

  Don't risk it.

• 24:45Speaker 01

  Tom Selleck, if you're planning a trip.

• 24:47Speaker 02

  No, I think, I think comfortably you can wear a moustache now in Dublin.

• 24:50Speaker 01

  You can. This was because the, a moustache was a sign of being Irish, basically, back in the day. And Irish people weren't allowed in Dublin when the English had control over it. And so it was just a way of saying, if you're English and you've got a moustache, shave it off. Otherwise, I'll think you're Irish.

• 25:05Andrew Hunter Murray?

  And it's all to do with the pale, isn't it?

• 25:06Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 25:07Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Which you can be beyond, beyond the pale.

• 25:09Speaker 01

  Now, the line between English-owned and Irish-owned.

• 25:11Andrew Hunter Murray?

  That's right. Yeah, yeah.

• 25:12Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 25:13Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Great fact.

• 25:14Speaker 02

  Very good.

• 25:14Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Yours, Michael?

• 25:15Speaker 01

  Here's one. This is for Tamara Morgan. And this is that diplodocuses could break the sound barrier.

• 25:22Speaker 02

  Nature's whip. I think that's what they would do. They would, they would, they would whip their diplodocusy tail and it would create such a snapback that you would get a little sonic boom and you would break the sound barrier.

• 25:35Speaker 01

  So cool.

• 25:36Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Must be, right? Like Concorde.

• 25:38Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 25:38Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 25:39Andrew Hunter Murray?

  But are we just, you know, do we think there's nothing going on there?

• 25:41Speaker 02

  Are we saying nothing?

• 25:42Andrew Hunter Murray?

  What are we saying? They were the Concorde of their day.

• 25:45Speaker 01

  They were. People used to ride on their tails.

• 25:47Andrew Hunter Murray?

  The ancient David Frost could do eight shows a week.

• 25:53Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Yeah, that's a lovely fact.

• 25:54Speaker 01

  Really cool. And you'd be able to do, did you ever do that towel whipping trip?

• 25:57Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 25:58Speaker 01

  Imagine what a good one diplodocuses could do.

• 26:00Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Not me.

• 26:00Speaker 01

  They could really whip the shit out of your thigh.

• 26:02Andrew Hunter Murray?

  No, never did that.

• 26:03Speaker 01

  You never whipped anyone's thigh with a towel and made it bleed?

• 26:06Andrew Hunter Murray?

  No, no, no. I've been towel whipped, don't get me wrong. I've been on the one end or another of a towel whipping, doesn't matter.

• 26:12Speaker 02

  Have you? I don't think I ever have.

• 26:13Andrew Hunter Murray?

  No, I haven't. It's the sort of thing that I think you get in American locker rooms, but not in British ones. In British schools, you're too busy just stamping on each other's nuts and things to fanny about with towel, towel snapping. Yeah, yeah.

• 26:25Speaker 02

  An insight into your childhood, though.

• 26:26Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Good days. Let's have another fact. This one goes out to Jamie Minter. Jamie, your fact forever now is that more and more scientists are describing their findings as astounding, which I think was about ego in science, wasn't it? And you were having to tax up your results, basically, and say, this is absolutely astounding, you know? Whereas it might have been a completely normal study that just proved something that you, you thought before. Anyway, they're getting emotional is the thing.

• 26:54Speaker 01

  Remove emotion from your findings.

• 26:56Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Right. Salty, very warning.

• 26:58Speaker 02

  All right, let me give another fact out to Sam Elam. Even though we're not sure it exists, the new planet, Planet Nine, is the most planetary planet of all the planets.

• 27:09Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Great fact. Great fact.

• 27:12Speaker 01

  I think this, was this one of yours, Dan?

• 27:14Speaker 02

  It was, but I, do you know what? I believe I was given this by James. We were talking one day and he said this, and I said, I need to take that to the show. And...

• 27:24Speaker 01

  That makes sense because I looked it up in the archive and you said it as the headline, but then the explanation was next to the initials JH. So I think you said it as a headline and then he said, and James, my assistant, will explain to you too. What does it mean?

• 27:37Speaker 02

  Sometimes a team needs two people, one to, to kick the header and one to let it in the net, you know?

• 27:43Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 27:44Speaker 02

  In this case, James was getting us a goal, but could he do it if there was no ball heading towards his head?

• 27:48Speaker 01

  Wait, so are you the ball?

• 27:50Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Sounds like you're the ball.

• 27:53Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Certainly feels like I'm the ball in this show sometimes. Shall we have one last one?

• 27:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 27:58Speaker 01

  Let's have one last one, and this one goes out to William Lam. The first use of the word Snowmageddon came in the same press release as the first apology for the word Snowmageddon.

• 28:10Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Beautiful. This was the Canadian government.

• 28:13Speaker 01

  Was it?

• 28:13Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Yes, they said, sorry about the word Snowmageddon, obviously it's very important,

• 28:19Andrew Hunter Murray?

  in the press release about it, which was in 2008. I don't know if Snowmageddon is still much in use in Canada. I haven't, I haven't seen it, but I'm not Canadian, so I don't know.

• 28:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, Snowmageddon, do you use it?

• 28:28Andrew Hunter Murray?

  Podcast at qi.com, which is the email address to write to. But we don't have time now to get into it because we have to thank all of our new fact custodians, and that is William, Sam, Jamie, Tamara, Michael, Al, Niels and Jack. Thank you so much to all of you for joining and becoming friends of the podcast on Club Fish. If you would like to join at any tier, it makes a massive difference to us and it really helps support the show and you get a load of extra wonderful fish stuff yourself. So patreon.com/clubfish. That's it for this episode of Little Fish. We'll be back again in four days with another big fish, but we may be back depending on the broadcasting schedule in two days with another Drop as a Line, which is only accessible if you join Club Fish. You don't need to worry about any of that. That's for our internal systems.

• 29:14Andrew Hunter Murray?

  The thing I'm trying to say, thanks, thanks to Dan and Anna, and we'll see you again soon. Bye for now.