Little Fish: Ant Tower

Dan gives too much information about the comedian: [REDACTED], while he, Anna and Andy discuss YOUR facts . This week's subjects include helium, Humansville and holy holiday handouts. 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.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  You're listening to a quick ad.

• 0:01Dan Schreiber?

  You know what else is quick?

• 0:02Speaker 00

  Selling your car on Carvana. Just put in your vehicle information and we'll give you an offer. Done. No hassle, no negotiation, no guy from an online listing lowballing you. Which means by the time I'm done explaining this, you could have basically done it.

• 0:23Dan Schreiber?

  Still haven't started? Hey, better late than ever.

• 0:26Speaker 00

  Sell your car today on Carvana. Pickup fees may apply.

• 0:43Dan Schreiber?

  Hello and welcome to another episode of Little Fish. This is our bonus Monday show where we put down our favourite facts from the last seven days. And we get to sit back and enjoy all of your facts that have been sent through to us via podcast at qi.com. Very exciting batch of facts here. My name is Dan Schreiber. I'm sitting here with Anna Tashinsky and Andrew Hunter-Murray. Let's do it. What have we got?

• 1:07Speaker 02

  Here's one from Trent Theisens. And Trent says, I was listening to a Little Fish episode. There was a story mentioned about ants climbing on top of each other to reach the moon. It made me curious about how far every ant on earth could actually reach if they all joined in together.

• 1:22Dan Schreiber?

  Keep talking. Yes.

• 1:24Speaker 02

  Yep. And Trent's done an A4 pages worth of calculations with which he has concluded that all ants on earth could theoretically stretch from the earth to the moon approximately 52,000 times.

• 1:36Dan Schreiber?

  Wow.

• 1:37Speaker 03

  Now, that would be a strong tower. You could climb that.

• 1:40Dan Schreiber?

  Could you? Could you climb? Yeah, I think you would knock the ants away as you were putting your hand in to get grip.

• 1:45Speaker 03

  You'll knock some away, Dan, but there are 52,000.

• 1:47Dan Schreiber?

  So you think there would be enough? Yeah, you'd have to just keep going. And that's a hell of a climb.

• 1:52Speaker 02

  Wait, why? What do you mean, the ones you stop, they start all falling away?

• 1:55Speaker 03

  Once you stop, you fall as well.

• 1:56Dan Schreiber?

  Yeah.

• 1:57Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. Okay.

• 1:57Speaker 03

  You'll need to bring some food. You'll need to bring a picnic and they're going to be very interested in that as well.

• 2:02Dan Schreiber?

  Yes.

• 2:04Speaker 02

  No jam on this spaceship.

• 2:06Dan Schreiber?

  I think that's what would happen. It would reinforce the power of the tower because they would consume you into it and you would be stuck inside. And then the next person climbing is like, oh, that feels very like a human head. No time to stop, keep going. And it's just a column of humans that eventually become the main.

• 2:23Speaker 02

  What? So it's like a weird horror film where everyone keeps on going up looking for the last person who tried to climb to the moon.

• 2:28Speaker 03

  That is pretty distressing. Yeah.

• 2:30Speaker 02

  It's an upsetting film.

• 2:31Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's a horror film.

• 2:32Speaker 02

  Also, what's going to happen to earth now it's got no ants left?

• 2:35Speaker 03

  Oh, probably bad stuff.

• 2:37Speaker 02

  I expect so.

• 2:38Speaker 03

  But a lot of birds will go a bit peckish, won't they? Literally peckish.

• 2:42Speaker 02

  Good point. They're going to jeopardise the tower. The birds are the enemy, I think.

• 2:45Speaker 03

  Yeah, you're going to need some big bird netting around this tower to ensure it doesn't just become a roving buffet for all the birds in the world.

• 2:51Dan Schreiber?

  Yes.

• 2:51Speaker 03

  Yeah. Well, this is the sort of stuff that gets the fans so excited. It's the what ifs of sci-fi, isn't it?

• 2:56Dan Schreiber?

  Yeah, yeah. It's the plot twist that the person climbing the tower has to come across, oh god, there's a hole in the bird netting. The tower's being eaten now.

• 3:03Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 3:04Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:04Dan Schreiber?

  Am I going to make it to the moon?

• 3:07Speaker 03

  Why are you going to the moon?

• 3:10Dan Schreiber?

  Because the ant tower ends there.

• 3:12Speaker 03

  Because it's there. The moon does, of course, orbit earth, so the bottom of the tower is going to have to be on wheels of some kind, isn't it?

• 3:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's a really good point.

• 3:19Dan Schreiber?

  God, that's such a good.

• 3:20Speaker 03

  Are we last suing the moon with the ants?

• 3:23Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 3:24Speaker 03

  I'm not saying we can't.

• 3:25Dan Schreiber?

  No.

• 3:26Speaker 02

  Gosh, yes, and the earth spinning as well. That does complicate things rather, doesn't it?

• 3:30Speaker 03

  Trent, when you sent your email, did you think it would lead to this level of high-end practical discussion?

• 3:36Dan Schreiber?

  I'm actually disappointed in Trent that he didn't work out this for us beforehand.

• 3:41Speaker 03

  There's a second page to the email, don't worry.

• 3:43Dan Schreiber?

  Okay, let me read one out here. This is from Scott Lucas. Scott Lucas has discovered that there is a small town in Missouri called Humansville.

• 3:53Speaker 02

  That's so cool.

• 3:54Dan Schreiber?

  It's a great name. He says, on top of Humansville, already sounding like the lady doth protest too much, it has the added quirkiness of actually being named for a Judge James Human in the 1830s. Thank you, Andy. So not really named for humans, but rather one specific human, who, incidentally, also has a name that could be read as an imperative sentence. Judge James Human, which I know you like and describes his job since Judge Human judged humans.

• 4:23Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 4:24Speaker 02

  Oh, that's good.

• 4:26Speaker 03

  That is very good.

• 4:28Dan Schreiber?

  Yes, it's very nice. I looked into other local names of the area just to see if there are any cool names. Um, there is a town there called Halfway.

• 4:38Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 4:39Dan Schreiber?

  It is halfway between Bolivar and Buffalo. And that's where I got it.

• 4:43Speaker 03

  If they'd called it Destination instead, they could have been the biggest city in the area by now.

• 4:47Speaker 02

  Really good point, yeah.

• 4:48Dan Schreiber?

  Yeah, that's true.

• 4:50Speaker 02

  In a way, everywhere is halfway, isn't it? Everywhere is halfway between somewhere and somewhere else. You're always halfway there.

• 4:58Speaker 03

  Whoa.

• 4:59Dan Schreiber?

  Not if you're at the bottom of the ant tower. Exactly.

• 5:03Speaker 02

  We're still on that. Okay.

• 5:06Speaker 03

  Oh, that's very good. This one is from Simon Burford, and I love it. Apologies if anyone has pointed this out before, but in episode 151, you talk about Stella Remington being the head of MI5. We remember her. She died some years ago now, but she's a really famous early head of MI5.

• 5:22Dan Schreiber?

  She wrote a book about it as well. She was one of the first publicly named heads, wasn't she?

• 5:26Speaker 03

  And she wrote lots of spy novels in her later, once she'd retired, obviously. Anyway, you surmise in this episode, 151, which was nine years ago, that she may not be the real head of the agency, but just a front for the real person in charge. Okay?

• 5:41Dan Schreiber?

  Oh, yeah.

• 5:41Speaker 03

  I can't believe that none of you pointed out that Stella Remington is an almost exact anagram of Remington Steele, who was a fictional character played by Pierce Brosnan, who pretended to be the head of a detective agency while it was secretly run by someone else. Coincidence? Probably, says Simon. Isn't that nuts?

• 6:04Dan Schreiber?

  Yeah.

• 6:04Speaker 03

  So I had never heard of this series before, but it was Pierce Brosnan's first big break, really. It was a big TV series in America.

• 6:10Dan Schreiber?

  In Hong Kong, it's a good.

• 6:11Speaker 03

  Did you?

• 6:12Dan Schreiber?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 6:12Speaker 03

  Stella Remington, Remington Steele, that's.

• 6:14Dan Schreiber?

  Remington Steele.

• 6:15Speaker 02

  That is weird.

• 6:16Speaker 03

  It's a bit mad. So basically, there's this detective, she's not getting any work. She makes up a boss of the detective agency and business picks up. He's called Remington Steele. And then Pierce Brosnan is a thief who turns up, pretends to be Remington Steele, and they solve crimes together. And Stella Remington was working as a spy when this was going out. So that must have been very weird for her. And she was a model for M as Judi Dench in the James Bond films, which is when Pierce Brosnan first played James Bond.

• 6:45Dan Schreiber?

  That's great.

• 6:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 6:46Dan Schreiber?

  That's wonderful.

• 6:47Speaker 03

  I know. And Stella Remington's father, guess what industry he worked in? The steel industry. What's happening?

• 6:55Speaker 02

  Oh, God, stop building that ant tower. We've got to get off this earth.

• 7:00Speaker 03

  Can I just tell you the mad little afterlife of the show? Because the show got cancelled, Brosnan got offered the role of Bond after the show was cancelled. And then word got out that he was being offered the role of Bond. Interest in Remington Steele exploded. He then was offered a new series of Remington Steele, which his contract said he had to take.

• 7:19Dan Schreiber?

  No, really?

• 7:20Speaker 03

  He'd done all the photos to be James Bond. He was in. He was about to have the champagne to toast his new life as James Bond. And his agent called and said, I'm so sorry, you have to do more Remington Steele because that's what the contract says. So the Bond producers then went with Timothy Dalton, at which point interest in Remington Steele collapsed.

• 7:35Dan Schreiber?

  No.

• 7:35Speaker 03

  And they drastically cut the next series they'd planned down to kind of six episodes because no one's interested in Remington Steele anymore.

• 7:42Speaker 02

  Are you serious?

• 7:43Speaker 03

  I'm serious.

• 7:44Dan Schreiber?

  Dalton was never meant to be Bond.

• 7:45Speaker 03

  He wasn't the first choice. Brosnan was the first choice at that age to be Bond when Dalton was picked.

• 7:51Dan Schreiber?

  Wow.

• 7:51Speaker 03

  Isn't that crazy?

• 7:52Dan Schreiber?

  Yeah, that's amazing.

• 7:54Speaker 02

  Poor old Dalton then, because was he one or two, Dalton?

• 7:56Speaker 03

  He did two.

• 7:57Speaker 02

  Two. And then Brosnan zooms back in.

• 8:00Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 8:00Speaker 02

  Fresh from Mrs Doubtfire.

• 8:05Speaker 02

  His audition film for Bond, many think.

• 8:07Dan Schreiber?

  Where he outs an undercover.

• 8:09Speaker 02

  Oh, my God. You go, he just does.

• 8:13Dan Schreiber?

  He probably had that written into the script going, I'm not losing out on this thing entirely. That's the dad.

• 8:22Speaker 02

  Oh, very good. Okay, let's have another one, shall we?

• 8:25Dan Schreiber?

  Yeah.

• 8:25Speaker 02

  This one is from Tom James from Edinburgh. And this is the fact that the best music for selling dog food is by Cat Stevens.

• 8:34Dan Schreiber?

  Okay.

• 8:35Speaker 02

  What? Tom says, this came up in conversation with someone who spent years working in licensing at record labels. And they talked about how unglamorous the day-to-day of the music industry can be and gave the example of licensing music for dog food commercials. So I asked, who always, you know, does the music for dog food commercials? And it's Cat Stevens.

• 8:55Dan Schreiber?

  Right.

• 8:55Speaker 02

  And weirdly, I didn't know this, you might know this, Dan, Cat Stevens had a song called I Love My Dog.

• 9:01Dan Schreiber?

  No, I didn't know that.

• 9:02Speaker 03

  That's very good.

• 9:03Speaker 02

  And so this was a go-to choice.

• 9:04Dan Schreiber?

  And Cat Stevens, though, is no more because Cat Stevens changed his name to Yusuf. I can't remember the surname.

• 9:11Speaker 02

  Yusuf Islam, yeah.

• 9:12Dan Schreiber?

  Yusuf Islam. And I would love to know if dogs like Yusuf Islam.

• 9:17Speaker 02

  What?

• 9:17Dan Schreiber?

  Is there a sort of cutoff point when Cat Stevens no longer is appreciated by the dog community?

• 9:23Speaker 02

  I think must be, yeah.

• 9:24Speaker 03

  Well, because they can tell that he changed his name.

• 9:27Dan Schreiber?

  Just curious.

• 9:27Speaker 03

  In the music.

• 9:28Dan Schreiber?

  Just curious.

• 9:29Speaker 02

  You've got to assume that they don't, otherwise this person would have said, you know, they like Yusuf Islam. Although who can name a Yusuf Islam song? No one, nobody. We all know the Cat Stevens.

• 9:38Dan Schreiber?

  Yeah.

• 9:38Speaker 02

  Hey, did you know Cat Stevens was converted to Islam by his brother, who brought him back a Quran as a present when Cat Stevens was, you know, looking for spirituality? But his brother was Jewish. And they both started Greek Orthodox. What?

• 9:51Dan Schreiber?

  What?

• 9:52Speaker 02

  Just a nice story, isn't it? And his brother now runs a charity in Israel that tries to bring together Israelis and Arabs.

• 9:59Speaker 03

  That's quite something. As in a gift from holiday.

• 10:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, a gift from holiday.

• 10:03Speaker 03

  That's probably the most impact you can have with a gift from holiday on someone's life is to literally change their faith.

• 10:08Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 10:09Dan Schreiber?

  That's true.

• 10:09Speaker 02

  And name.

• 10:11Speaker 03

  Yeah. Because I brought back some donkey milk soap from holiday recently.

• 10:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, but your wife now worships donkey milk soap, doesn't she? She's got a shrine.

• 10:19Speaker 03

  Yeah, she does. Here's one. This is from Felix Iliff. Perhaps I'm too late with this fact, but I thought I'd try my luck anyway. I was at the Farnborough Air Show last week. Lucky you, Felix. Sounds great. I've never been. And saw a display of two pilots in Extra NG aerobatic aircraft. That's this particular kind of plane, basically. While many were excited by the remarkable skill and courage on display, the thing that excited me was learning that the Extra NG is built by the Extra Aircraft Company, Extra Flugzeugbau, which in turn is named after its founder, Walter Extra.

• 10:54Dan Schreiber?

  They can't just all be names, Andy.

• 10:56Speaker 03

  But that's all people send me.

• 10:57Dan Schreiber?

  Because they're guaranteed to be read out on the show. It's a catch 22 almost.

• 11:03Speaker 03

  It's catch 22. The people want what they want.

• 11:06Speaker 02

  Why does that-

• 11:07Speaker 03

  And it dovetails exactly with what I want. That's the weird thing.

• 11:10Dan Schreiber?

  That is weird.

• 11:11Speaker 03

  I, the inbox guy. It's bizarre. Well, I'm not going to tell you now about the white cap company of Chicago, which makes the ketchup glass bottle tops.

• 11:19Dan Schreiber?

  Do they?

• 11:19Speaker 03

  Yep. Founded by the White Brothers in 1926. Thank you, Randy Reddov.

• 11:25Speaker 02

  Um, why did that person say, I think I might be too late for this? Do people think that there's a deadline for-

• 11:30Speaker 03

  People think that we're gonna stop. People think we're gonna, people think I'm gonna stop.

• 11:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, okay.

• 11:35Dan Schreiber?

  Oh, for your book, not just for the, uh, the facts themselves.

• 11:39Speaker 03

  That must be what Felix means. It's a deadline for the book.

• 11:41Speaker 02

  Oh, for the publishing deadline.

• 11:42Dan Schreiber?

  Yeah, because we're not-

• 11:43Speaker 02

  Felix, the book. I hate to break it to you, but there is no book.

• 11:48Speaker 03

  Uh, anyway.

• 11:49Speaker 02

  All right, it's my turn?

• 11:50Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 11:51Speaker 02

  Here's one from Dan Marsh. This is a great fact. Dan Marsh says, I have a fun, submersible fact about the invention of digital audio compression that knee- I know, it doesn't sound promising yet, but this is awesome. So Dan says, in the 1980s, Swedish audio engineer Lars Liljarid was approached by a diving company on oil rigs to say they need a better communication system between divers because, and I just didn't realise this, the oxygen tanks contain large amounts of helium. So when divers were trying to talk to each other underwater, it was very difficult to understand. Because they were all talking like this and no one could understand anyone else. I'm not doing a bit. I need to come up to the surface now.

• 12:34Speaker 02

  There's been a catastrophic breach in the hull. Please, I've got one minute left.

• 12:42Speaker 02

  Oh, that minute's gonna drag, boys, but.

• 12:47Speaker 02

  Anyway. Glop, glop, glop.

• 12:53Speaker 02

  Demonstrated this is very dangerous. Um, they couldn't communicate because everyone sounded very high pitched. And Lars Liljarid, um, who was a sound engineer, developed this digital pitch shift system to convert their voices back to natural sound frequencies.

• 13:06Dan Schreiber?

  Wow.

• 13:07Speaker 02

  Um, and he gave it to the diving company, but it's that technology now, which means that large audio files can be compressed. So it's the same technology that means that our podcast can be enjoyed by billions of listeners.

• 13:20Speaker 03

  That's terrific.

• 13:21Speaker 02

  And that was invented for divers, so they didn't speak in stupid voices.

• 13:24Dan Schreiber?

  So it was a live feed that was immediately, it wasn't a pre-record.

• 13:29Speaker 03

  Maybe it was that. Maybe it was a slight delay on it with the communications. I don't know.

• 13:33Dan Schreiber?

  It was like, so we've recorded it and then we'll compress it and we'll send it up. And so when you hear, hi, I've got one minute left to live, can someone help? When did, it's half an hour ago we got that.

• 13:45Speaker 02

  This is actually last week's episode as well, so.

• 13:53Dan Schreiber?

  Well, let's go from down in the ocean to up into outer space. Uh, cause this is a message from Colin Summers, who says, my wife Rachel's fact, so actually from Rachel, is that NASA had 11 men volunteer to act as guinea pigs in multiple experiments that tested how humans would react to weightlessness and motion sickness, specifically because they were deaf. Is that amazing?

• 14:20Speaker 02

  Sorry.

• 14:20Speaker 03

  This is motion sickness.

• 14:21Dan Schreiber?

  Yeah. So when they were testing, uh, for trips to space, trips to the moon, there were 11 people who were taken from a school for the deaf. And there's a certain type of condition when you're deaf that means that you lose the ability to get motion sickness. And so they could go on boats and never experience seasickness and so on. And this proved to be the perfect thing to work out the science of how you could avoid motion sickness in space. And, uh, the tests performed included, this is from the email, Rachel's fact, living in a slowly rotating room for days, being on a quickly spinning platform for hours on end, rides on the vomit comet and riding on a boat in a storm in the Atlantic that included 40 foot waves.

• 15:07Dan Schreiber?

  And actually that one I read up on, that had to be abandoned because all the researchers who were on the boat with them got so sick.

• 15:13Speaker 03

  Oh, wow.

• 15:14Speaker 02

  No way.

• 15:14Dan Schreiber?

  While the others were sitting and just playing cards and other games and just not being affected whatsoever.

• 15:20Speaker 02

  Wow. So all these, um, were they children from a deaf school?

• 15:23Dan Schreiber?

  No, no, no. This was a sort of adult age, like university level.

• 15:27Speaker 02

  Right. Wow.

• 15:29Speaker 03

  Did we talk about the thing last week when we were doing a fact about, you know, test engineering? I don't think we mentioned the NASA vomit comet early tests where they were testing-

• 15:38Speaker 02

  No, we didn't.

• 15:39Speaker 03

  Testing a space toilet?

• 15:40Dan Schreiber?

  Oh, no.

• 15:41Speaker 03

  I don't think we did. So when they were doing that, they had to find volunteers again, who could reliably defecate within a 30 second window. And the reason for that, I don't mean through a window, I mean,

• 15:56Speaker 03

  a window of time. And it was because when you're in the plane that's doing, is it parabolic flying where you're going down and up? And you're testing brief periods of weightlessness. When the plane enters its dive and everyone on board starts floating around, because that's how the plane is moving, you've only got 30 seconds of that. And so you need to test your space toilet in those 30 seconds. And that costs a lot of time and money and effort. So you need reliable pooers.

• 16:21Speaker 02

  Oh, cause if you don't do it, you've cost them 10 million quid or something.

• 16:23Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 16:25Speaker 02

  Expensive non shit.

• 16:26Speaker 03

  Yeah, I just didn't actually need to go. Sorry. So, so yeah, 30 seconds was, was your time.

• 16:32Dan Schreiber?

  I, I have a friend who would be perfect for that job.

• 16:35Speaker 03

  I don't want to know.

• 16:36Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 16:37Dan Schreiber?

  We can, we can bleep out the name, um, but I used to, I used to live with him and we'd be sitting, uh, you know, just chatting and he'd say, sorry, I need to go for a poo, as, uh, as he used to say. And he'd go off and he would be back instantly. And I was like, impossible. There's no way you just did that. That was quicker than urination time. And he said, it just, it just comes out and I'm done and I'm back.

• 17:01Speaker 02

  I thought you were gonna say that he could do it on, you could say, do a poo now.

• 17:05Speaker 03

  Set your, set your watch.

• 17:06Dan Schreiber?

  I think he can.

• 17:08Speaker 02

  Well, that, cause that's more impressive than just pooing quickly.

• 17:10Speaker 03

  I do think that's-

• 17:11Speaker 02

  That just implies he doesn't wipe his arse.

• 17:12Speaker 03

  He might've waited until it was absolutely essential and urgent. Whereas actually what you're saying is, we need you in the next one minute to produce. Do you see what I mean?

• 17:22Dan Schreiber?

  I do see what you're saying.

• 17:23Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 17:23Dan Schreiber?

  All right. Well, listen, we need to move on. That is all of your facts. Thank you everyone for sending them in. If you want to have yours read out on this show, podcast at qi.com is the place to send it. But before we wrap up today's episode, we have to hand out some of the headline facts from our 12 years of making this podcast to some new custodians. Now, if you join Clubfish, which is our secret members' club on Patreon, so patreon.com slash Clubfish, if you join that highest tier that we have, which is called Friend of the Podcast, you will be assigned one of these facts. You're going to be sent a digital certificate. Uh, and then eventually you'll have that fact read out by us on the show. And that's what we're going to do now. So let's get eight new custodians officially inaugurated on the show. Andy, why don't we start with you?

• 18:08Speaker 03

  Yeah. Okay. This one goes out to Namitha Vinayen. Uh, Namitha, your fact is, in 2015, the world discovered the largest prime number ever. It would have been discovered months earlier, but the computer which found it forgot to tell anybody. So just a silly computer fact.

• 18:27Speaker 02

  This is back when computers forgot stuff rather than deliberately concealed things from us and plotted amongst themselves.

• 18:34Speaker 03

  Yeah, you're absolutely right. Yeah, yeah.

• 18:36Dan Schreiber?

  That's very good.

• 18:37Speaker 02

  Here's one for Kevin. So enjoy this one, Kevin. This is the fact that in a press release about a new English language test for migrants, the British government misspelled the word language.

• 18:49Speaker 03

  Do we know how they misspelled it?

• 18:50Speaker 02

  Oh, I believe they did it the classic language, did the A and the U the wrong way around.

• 18:55Speaker 03

  Right.

• 18:56Speaker 02

  An easy mistake maybe to make for maybe a five year old. And maybe that's who they've got drafting their immigration policies.

• 19:04Dan Schreiber?

  Let's do another one. This is for SV Yates. And, uh, your fact is now a New Zealand firm has developed an irrationally angry robot to train telesales staff.

• 19:15Speaker 03

  This would have been a while ago. Again, this would have been about 20, what, 2017 we're in now or 2018?

• 19:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 19:20Speaker 03

  So this was bang up to, this was what AI was being used for at the time. Probably it was to create.

• 19:24Dan Schreiber?

  Just to piss off-

• 19:25Speaker 02

  Training telesales.

• 19:26Dan Schreiber?

  People on the phone.

• 19:27Speaker 02

  I don't understand how much training you need as a telesales person ringing someone up to deal with them saying fuck off and cutting the phone off. I mean, do you need to design a whole robot to deal with just sitting on the line for the split second before?

• 19:40Speaker 03

  I think it might not be for that. It might be for customer service as well, I suppose, where people are ringing you and they're angry.

• 19:46Speaker 02

  Oh, yes.

• 19:47Speaker 03

  I think you don't need training to go with being hung up on, I think.

• 19:51Speaker 02

  Just to emotionally deal with it. Yeah, you're right. It's people saying, my phone bill's too big.

• 19:55Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 19:56Speaker 02

  Nice.

• 19:56Speaker 03

  That's good.

• 19:57Speaker 02

  God, these do feel like simpler times, don't they?

• 19:59Dan Schreiber?

  Yes.

• 20:00Speaker 02

  That one and the computer that forgot.

• 20:01Dan Schreiber?

  Our headlines are kind of a weirdly a cultural stamp on what was going on at the time when we get topical.

• 20:07Speaker 03

  Dan, in the actual main show, there was, there was a thing you said about this fact, which was that, uh, I got a call from a robot, but it knew to stay silent.

• 20:15Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 20:16Dan Schreiber?

  To give the space for me to say the obvious response, I think is what it was.

• 20:19Speaker 03

  Right.

• 20:20Dan Schreiber?

  So it's, can I help you today with this problem? Uh, yeah, that'd be great. Why don't you tell me what the process of the gap would be for whatever I answered in between?

• 20:28Speaker 03

  An appropriate gap.

• 20:28Dan Schreiber?

  Yeah, for the space that it would take a sort of predicted answer.

• 20:33Speaker 02

  So they were that basic. They were just predicting how long you'd take. They weren't even responding to the sound you made.

• 20:38Speaker 03

  It's a long time ago.

• 20:39Dan Schreiber?

  It's a long time ago.

• 20:40Speaker 03

  These days the AI will ring up and say, hello, I know that last night you dreamed about your uncle Peter. Well. What? I did.

• 20:50Speaker 03

  I didn't even have an uncle Peter. How have you done that?

• 20:53Speaker 02

  We've made you an uncle Peter.

• 20:56Speaker 03

  Right. Should we have another?

• 20:57Dan Schreiber?

  Yeah.

• 20:58Speaker 03

  This one goes out to Reverend Dr. Nicole Sturdevant. I hope I'm saying that name right. Um, it's that a fifth of America's meals are eaten in cars.

• 21:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, I remember finding this one. It was extraordinary.

• 21:12Speaker 03

  It's your fact. And it was, of course, we've missed, uh, this year's national drive-through day, which is the 24th of July.

• 21:18Dan Schreiber?

  Again? We missed it again?

• 21:22Speaker 03

  Um, yeah. And it's, so it's one in five, but it's, it's because of cars.

• 21:25Speaker 02

  It's because of drive-throughs. Yeah.

• 21:26Speaker 03

  It's because of drive-throughs. Well, it's a combination actually of cars and drive-throughs. If you only had one or the other, it wouldn't be nearly as much.

• 21:32Dan Schreiber?

  Cars are 50% of this fact.

• 21:36Speaker 02

  Imagine inventing the drive-to if we didn't have cars. What would that be?

• 21:40Dan Schreiber?

  I think that still kind of works, doesn't it? It's sort of, you don't go in the building, you're not going to sit down. I'm just passing by.

• 21:46Speaker 02

  A walk-through.

• 21:47Dan Schreiber?

  Walk-through.

• 21:47Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 21:48Speaker 03

  Yeah. Well, there is a place not near us, which is a restaurant which has a hatch on the street.

• 21:53Dan Schreiber?

  A place not near us?

• 21:55Speaker 03

  No, it is near us. I misspoke.

• 21:58Speaker 02

  Either way, it's not a good anecdote.

• 22:02Dan Schreiber?

  All right, another fact here. This is Matt Birch. Matt, your fact is now that the most dangerous job in Britain is hairdresser.

• 22:11Speaker 02

  Yes. Right to feel hardcore as a hairdresser.

• 22:15Speaker 03

  Stabbing self with scissors?

• 22:17Speaker 02

  You'd think that, but it's actually repetitive tendinitis stuff, which I totally understand, right? Like having to bend a weird way all day around people's heads and the snip, snip, snipping with your fingers. I mean, my fingers get really sore typing.

• 22:31Dan Schreiber?

  My parents are hairdressers, both of them.

• 22:33Speaker 03

  Have they ever suffered any of this stuff?

• 22:34Dan Schreiber?

  No, no, never heard that kind of ailment with them. And I can't think of that being a problem for any of the uncles and aunties that I grew up with, you know? Ceremonial uncle aunties in the hair salons.

• 22:46Speaker 03

  Cool Australian hairdressers, though, probably. They're extremely fit and they, you know.

• 22:51Speaker 02

  Fit, well, they've even got fit fingers.

• 22:53Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 22:54Speaker 02

  Aunties all go for finger jobs.

• 22:56Speaker 03

  Everything in Australia is fitter, basically. You're outdoors. Everyone's outdoors all the time.

• 23:00Dan Schreiber?

  Yeah.

• 23:01Speaker 03

  All the hair salons are outdoors.

• 23:02Dan Schreiber?

  They cut on surfboards while they're out in the ocean.

• 23:06Speaker 02

  I think it's skin conditions as well, isn't it? Have they both got very bad rashes?

• 23:10Dan Schreiber?

  Ah, they've got great skin.

• 23:11Speaker 02

  Have they?

• 23:11Speaker 03

  Australian, Australian, Australian.

• 23:14Speaker 02

  Bloody hell, let's all move there.

• 23:17Speaker 02

  All right, next up, here's one. This is for Effie Palacios. Elvis Presley once started a riot at the end of his show by saying to the crowd, "Girls, I'll see you backstage."

• 23:30Dan Schreiber?

  Worst Elvis impression.

• 23:32Speaker 03

  It didn't sound American, let alone like Elvis.

• 23:35Speaker 02

  Hold on. I know. Girl. Oh, that's good. Do that.

• 23:38Dan Schreiber?

  What was that one?

• 23:40Speaker 03

  Elvis was, of course, New York Jewish.

• 23:43Dan Schreiber?

  Girl, girls.

• 23:45Speaker 02

  Maybe I could do the voice. Girls.

• 23:51Dan Schreiber?

  Girl, girls, I'll see you back.

• 23:53Speaker 02

  You do it, Dan.

• 23:53Dan Schreiber?

  Girls. I can't do it now. Girls, I'll see you backstage.

• 23:58Speaker 02

  That's.

• 23:58Speaker 03

  Very good.

• 23:59Dan Schreiber?

  No, that was terrible. You've got to do some, uh-huh, that's right. Uh-huh, uh-huh, girls, I'll see you backstage.

• 24:04Speaker 02

  Does he do the stupid face as well, I wonder?

• 24:06Dan Schreiber?

  Stupid face.

• 24:07Speaker 02

  There wouldn't have been a riot if he'd done that face.

• 24:09Speaker 03

  That was a really good Elvis lip curl that you were doing and I liked it.

• 24:12Dan Schreiber?

  That's what I was trying. I guess it looked good on his face. Girls, I'll see you backstage.

• 24:19Speaker 03

  I don't want to hear this phrase anymore than I already have done. He said, "Girls, I'll see you all backstage." And that caused a riot, did it?

• 24:26Speaker 02

  Sure did.

• 24:27Speaker 03

  And well, our gigs are like that, aren't they?

• 24:29Speaker 02

  They are. You've done that before, haven't you? And people scrambling for the door.

• 24:35Speaker 03

  All right, let's have another. This one goes out to Brittany Pulliam. And it's that a million seconds is 11 and a half days. A billion seconds is 32 years.

• 24:48Dan Schreiber?

  Very, very good.

• 24:50Speaker 03

  It's a brilliant fact. Don't confuse them. Be careful when you're signing a document which might say something's a billion or a million seconds.

• 24:57Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 24:57Speaker 03

  Because you don't know what you're in for. If a judge sentences you to a million seconds in prison, well, that's fine.

• 25:02Dan Schreiber?

  Yeah.

• 25:02Speaker 03

  A couple of weeks. If they sentence you to a billion seconds in prison, you've probably done something really naughty.

• 25:06Dan Schreiber?

  Yeah.

• 25:08Speaker 03

  And this was Corey Taylor's fact.

• 25:10Speaker 02

  It was.

• 25:11Speaker 03

  Who is the, is he the lead singer?

• 25:12Dan Schreiber?

  Yeah, lead singer Slipknot.

• 25:13Speaker 03

  Slipknot.

• 25:14Dan Schreiber?

  Stone Sour. And author of many books, including some that are paranormal, about ghosts and so on.

• 25:21Speaker 03

  You knew him as a paranormal writer, didn't you? Before you found out that he had a little band on the side.

• 25:25Dan Schreiber?

  Yes, yeah, that's his side hustle, Slipknot. And he, uh, he, first, just a little background on our relationship with him. We found out that he was a fan of QI. And then when we released a vinyl, which if anyone has out there, it's such a cool item. We released a physical record of an episode. He did a bonus little bit that we didn't mention initially, which was right at the end. It's like a bonus hidden track. And then he came on an episode and then we had him on the Comic Relief episode as well when we did that big, long stretch marathon. So he's been on the show a bunch of times.

• 25:59Speaker 03

  Been on.

• 26:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 26:00Speaker 03

  Thank you, Corey.

• 26:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, that was in our cool days, wasn't it? Back when Corey Taylor came on and we had vinyls.

• 26:05Dan Schreiber?

  Yeah. You know, that's, that fact is always, it's a way of making you see what the difference between a millionaire and a billionaire is, effectively, right? It's, it's always like, what's the difference between a millionaire and a billionaire? But there are quite a lot of billionaires and it does feel more achievable than when you break it down into days and years, to me.

• 26:22Speaker 02

  You mean?

• 26:23Speaker 03

  Define achievable?

• 26:25Dan Schreiber?

  I feel like there's a lot of billionaires out there now.

• 26:27Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 26:27Dan Schreiber?

  Um, and it feels like going from a millionaire to a billionaire should almost be impossible within a lifetime.

• 26:33Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 26:33Dan Schreiber?

  But a lot of people are achieving it.

• 26:35Speaker 02

  You mean, when you read that Corey Taylor fact, you think, how is it possible anyone's become a billionaire?

• 26:39Dan Schreiber?

  Exactly.

• 26:39Speaker 02

  But now there are loads of them.

• 26:40Dan Schreiber?

  Yeah.

• 26:41Speaker 02

  You don't mean it feels achievable like you're giving away how much we get paid to do all those adverts we do?

• 26:44Dan Schreiber?

  I think it's unachievable is what I'm saying.

• 26:46Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 26:47Dan Schreiber?

  Yeah, it just seems nuts.

• 26:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 26:49Dan Schreiber?

  It's also making me think, I wonder how long it took for Paul McCartney to become a billionaire.

• 26:54Speaker 03

  Is he?

• 26:55Dan Schreiber?

  Yeah, he'll be a billionaire.

• 26:56Speaker 03

  No.

• 26:57Dan Schreiber?

  Paul McCartney.

• 26:58Speaker 03

  That's a lot of money.

• 26:59Speaker 02

  We just said it was basically unachievable and now you're saying it's ridiculous that he wouldn't be.

• 27:02Dan Schreiber?

  Now we have trillionaires. Surely the.

• 27:05Speaker 02

  We've just got the one.

• 27:06Dan Schreiber?

  One of the Beatles is going to be a billionaire.

• 27:08Speaker 03

  Perhaps, possibly, I suppose.

• 27:10Dan Schreiber?

  Yeah, okay.

• 27:11Speaker 03

  Because he's, he's been around for a while.

• 27:12Dan Schreiber?

  He has been around.

• 27:13Speaker 03

  But that's just compound interest working in his favour. Just a few successful gigs in the 60s and you could actually do it these days. Almost all boomers are billionaires, actually, fun fact.

• 27:26Dan Schreiber?

  Okay, why don't I do one final fact? And this is for Harold Burgius. And your fact now is Star Trek was almost not commissioned because the pilot was considered too erotic.

• 27:42Speaker 03

  Was it erotic? Was it?

• 27:44Speaker 02

  I think an alien wanted to shag them all. But it's weird, right? Because it was Star Trek that had the first same-sex kiss, was it? Or on-screen kiss?

• 27:51Dan Schreiber?

  Interracial kiss is what it's, is what it's claimed it had. But I think actually it wasn't, but certainly that's what the pop culture of today tells us.

• 27:59Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 28:00Speaker 03

  Was it in the show, was it also interspecies? But did it happen to be interracial in the show and it was a human and a Klingon or whatever?

• 28:06Dan Schreiber?

  Yes, I think it must. I think, I can't remember, to be honest. Uhura? It was Uhura and it was Captain Kirk, is my memory.

• 28:13Speaker 03

  Can I say, don't write in? Because I can feel a million fingers reaching out towards keyboards, no?

• 28:19Speaker 02

  Trekkie fingers.

• 28:20Speaker 03

  I promise I'll look it up and I'll even watch the episode.

• 28:23Speaker 02

  He won't, guys, he won't.

• 28:24Speaker 03

  I've never seen Star Trek.

• 28:26Dan Schreiber?

  But now you've got a reason to, now you know there's an erotic episode out there.

• 28:29Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly.

• 28:30Dan Schreiber?

  Honey, it's for research, okay? God, get off my back and out of the room.

• 28:38Dan Schreiber?

  Don't come in, don't come in.

• 28:39Speaker 03

  I'm watching The Wrath of Khan.

• 28:43Dan Schreiber?

  All right, listen, we need to wrap up. So congratulations to Harold, to Brittany, to Effie, to Matt, Dr Rev, Nicole, SV8, Kevin and Namitha. These are your facts. If you want your own fact, as I said before, join Clubfish. Go to patreon.com/clubfish. It's in the friend of the podcast here. You get an awesome digital certificate along with it. And yeah, I hope you enjoyed the episode. We're going to be back again next week with more of your facts. So do continue to send them in to podcast at qi.com. And we'll see you in a few days for a Big Fish episode. But until then, that's it from me, Anna and Andy, and we'll see you again. Goodbye.