Little Fish: I believed it when Pythagoras said it

Dan, Andy and Anna discuss YOUR facts including scaring cormorants, cleaning horses and recognising frogmen. Anna reveals what her first word was. And we name eight more Friend of the Podcast custodians. London Podcast Festival tickets go on sale tomorrow - visit nosuchthingasafish.com/live http://nosuchthingasafish.com/live to join us in person, or via livestream! Edited by James Harkin Produced by Leying Lee Team includes Tara Dorrell, Joe Mayo and Ethan Ruparelia

• 0:13Speaker 00

  Hello and welcome to another episode of Little Fish. My name's Andrew Hunter Murray and I'm here with my two close colleagues, Dan Schreiber and Anna Sodzinski, and we're here to discuss the brilliant facts that you, the audience, have been sending in to podcast at qi.com. We've got loads of facts. Let's have some.

• 0:31Speaker 01

  Come on. Who's got a fact? I go on here from Tom Besoir. Tom Besoir says, "The American actor John Cazale only appeared in five feature films. All of them were nominated for Academy Awards for Best Picture."

• 0:47Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 0:48Speaker 01

  He did The Godfather, The Conversation, The Godfather Part Two, Dog Day Afternoon and The Deer Hunter.

• 0:54Speaker 02

  Amazing.

• 0:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, he did five of these in a seven-year period. But tragically, he got very ill. He had lung cancer. And so he died, and that's the only reason that he didn't star in more.

• 1:04Speaker 00

  I've only seen two of them. I've seen The Conversation and what was the first one you mentioned?

• 1:07Speaker 01

  The Godfather.

• 1:07Speaker 00

  No, I haven't seen that.

• 1:08Speaker 01

  Deer Hunter.

• 1:09Speaker 00

  No, I haven't seen that.

• 1:10Speaker 01

  Godfather Part Two.

• 1:10Speaker 00

  Nope.

• 1:11Speaker 02

  Yep, very good.

• 1:12Speaker 01

  Dog Day Afternoon.

• 1:12Speaker 00

  Oh, I've only seen one of them. Is he, does he play the same, because sometimes people play a special role in all films, like they'll play a policeman who's just got a random one-liner. Was it like that, where he just plays?

• 1:24Speaker 01

  No, no, he had substantial roles and he was very much loved. There's been documentaries about him. People really miss him. Al Pacino held him as one of the great actors of his day. He said, "I just would have been in movies for the rest of my career with him." He was dating Meryl Streep when he passed away. He was part of a very big sort of unit of actors.

• 1:43Speaker 02

  I think I've heard of him. I think maybe he's a, he feels like a famous, like edges of gangster films kind of lad.

• 1:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:49Speaker 02

  It does feel like he's got a type. He hasn't done Never Been Kissed, has he? You know, it's definitely down that hard to sing Pacino-esque film.

• 1:55Speaker 01

  And I've actually got a little bonus exciting element to this fact, because that's often the fact that is told. He was in five movies, all for Best Picture. He actually appeared in a sixth after his death, because they used archive footage of him in Godfather Part Three. That was nominated for an award as well, Best Picture. And he was in that technically.

• 2:14Speaker 00

  Brilliant.

• 2:16Speaker 02

  So good. You'd want to employ him, wouldn't you? If you'd made a crap film, you'd be like, should we get him in and we'll get the Oscar? If you'd made Piranhas Five or something.

• 2:22Speaker 00

  That's what people do with Sigourney Weaver in sci fi films these days.

• 2:25Speaker 02

  Does it work? Have they all won Oscars?

• 2:26Speaker 00

  No, but they are treated with more respect than maybe they would be if Sigourney Weaver wasn't in them, in my opinion. If you're making a sci fi film, let's say Avatar Three, you might want to just get, get the weave in. And, you know, she brings a touch of class.

• 2:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:41Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:42Speaker 02

  She sure does.

• 2:42Speaker 00

  That's what we do with podcasts though, isn't it? You know, if people want to make a great podcast, they get, they try and get us in. I mean, it hasn't happened yet, but.

• 2:47Speaker 02

  Oh, I thought you meant one of us was brought in for the class. Which one of us has been drafted in just for the touch of class?

• 2:52Speaker 01

  Do you think we'd get another Chortle Award if Sigourney Weaver came on as guest?

• 2:57Speaker 00

  I actually do.

• 2:59Speaker 02

  And do you think that would be the proudest moment of her life?

• 3:01Speaker 00

  I can't think of a higher one. Yeah.

• 3:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:03Speaker 00

  Let's do another fact.

• 3:04Speaker 02

  Let's do another fact. And this is from Oliver Frederick. And this is that in Sydney, if you speed 30 kilometres an hour over the speed limit, you'll be fined about 650 Australian dollars.

• 3:13Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 3:14Speaker 02

  And in India, the fine for the same crime is 2,000 rupees. And so Oliver Frederick has done a little bit of working out that James Harkin would love. He said, in order to pay the same amount of fines in India as you would have to in Australia, you'd need to either break the speed limit over 20 times, or you could, and he's looked at all the fines in India for all these things, you could speed under the influence of drugs or alcohol without a valid licence, or wearing a seatbelt, driving recklessly into oncoming traffic while texting, running a red light and not stopping at a stop sign, or whilst blocking an ambulance from reaching an emergency. That would just about get you to 670 Australian dollars. So there you go.

• 3:53Speaker 00

  That's so cool.

• 3:54Speaker 02

  It's top tip.

• 3:55Speaker 00

  And that's why they film all those chase scenes in India, because it's just a lot cheaper for the movies.

• 4:00Speaker 02

  Yes. Yeah.

• 4:01Speaker 01

  If you're the judge, you'd be like, but I'm going to waive the fee for the effort because that was absolutely stunning.

• 4:06Speaker 00

  Yeah. It's like shooting the moon when you're playing hearts, isn't it? You collect all the bad cards. Actually, you win.

• 4:11Speaker 02

  Perfect.

• 4:11Speaker 00

  Yeah. Yeah. Love it. All right. Here's a fact, and this one comes in from Simone Few. Phew. And it's a great fact. It's, um, it's that Catherine Parr, last wife of Henry VIII, was named after Catherine of Aragon, the first wife of Henry VIII. As in, Henry VIII had so many wives over such a long period of time that the youngest one was a baby who was named after his first wife, who was her godmother.

• 4:40Speaker 01

  That's incredible.

• 4:40Speaker 00

  Isn't that absolutely hideous?

• 4:43Speaker 02

  Well, hang on, that's not hideous.

• 4:45Speaker 00

  Can I not slut shame Henry VIII? Is that not even, is that not?

• 4:49Speaker 02

  You know what? He never gets to tell his side of the story.

• 4:53Speaker 00

  Oh my god. Oh my god. There's literally, there's literally a very successful West End musical, which finally has told their stories.

• 5:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's not his story, is it? We need the West End musical that tells his side of the story.

• 5:04Speaker 00

  I'd love to try and pitch that to producers. We need to hear Henry's side of the story.

• 5:09Speaker 02

  It's a musical called One. It's about the one man at the centre of these six, you know, winging women.

• 5:16Speaker 00

  Well, four by the end of it.

• 5:20Speaker 00

  Wow, that's very funny. That's very funny indeed. Yeah, yeah.

• 5:22Speaker 01

  Uh, I've got another fact. Should I do one? Okay, this is from Sam Tomlin. I'm a math teacher by trade and continually find fun and interesting ways to present material. Before going through Pythagoras's theorem again, I discovered this. Friend of the podcast, President James Garfield, created a proof of Pythagoras' theorem. And this makes him the first president to contribute something original to mathematics, as well as the first president to eat anally.

• 5:51Speaker 02

  Wow. I mean, just one of those things is, you know, a reason to be proud you were alive.

• 5:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:56Speaker 02

  Both. Yeah. Amazing.

• 5:58Speaker 00

  That's so cool. Cause I just, it's just so interesting coming up with a new proof of something that is already proven. As in, there are lots of different ways of getting to that truth of Pythagoras's theorem, but to come up with a new way mathematically of doing it, I just think is very impressive.

• 6:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:12Speaker 02

  Or pointless, you know, if we've proven it.

• 6:15Speaker 00

  I suppose.

• 6:16Speaker 01

  Okay, so there's a book that's called The Pythagoras Proposition, and in it, Garfield's, uh, proof is 231 in a list of 370.

• 6:27Speaker 02

  It's too many.

• 6:28Speaker 01

  That's too many.

• 6:28Speaker 02

  We don't need that many proofs. I, I believed it when Pythagoras said it.

• 6:33Speaker 01

  Good source, Pythagoras.

• 6:35Speaker 00

  In a way, by going around the houses and doing something in a non-traditional, like getting something demonstrated in a non-traditional method, isn't James Garfield sort of foreshadowing his own eating everything through his bottom later in life?

• 6:49Speaker 02

  Mmm.

• 6:49Speaker 00

  Do you know what I mean?

• 6:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, lovely.

• 6:50Speaker 00

  Because there he had to circumvent the normal route and go in another way.

• 6:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's what they said to make him feel better about it, as they shoved the champagne up there.

• 6:58Speaker 00

  This is just like your Pythagoras work, actually, as the president. Yeah, yeah.

• 7:02Speaker 02

  That's great stuff. Okay, what about this one from Peter Campbell, long time listener, first time emailer. He specifies to the show he's sent emails before.

• 7:12Speaker 00

  Love it. Love it.

• 7:13Speaker 02

  He said, I think we were talking about sports teams with...

• 7:17Speaker 00

  You already know that's a hallmark of quality for a good email, you know?

• 7:20Speaker 01

  I bet you didn't even read the rest, Andy. That just made it in.

• 7:23Speaker 00

  I don't know what it... I'm excited to find out what it's about.

• 7:26Speaker 02

  It's actually very pro fascist, the rest of it. No, I think we were talking about sporting teams with weird, wordy, coincidental names. And he said, "In the 1970s, my team Albion Rovers had the spicy trio of Bill Curry, Sid Sage and Albert Rice. You could make a whole meal out of them." I will say, it's not a brilliant team, Albion Rovers. They are in the fifth tier of the Scottish Football League. But this chap does then go on to say, "It's just..." Okay, focus carefully on these couple of sentences. "It's just a pitter. The team doesn't have the same caliber of player now. I still support them, though. Whatever the result, vindaloo's..." Win or lose.

• 8:09Speaker 02

  "Rise or fall." I'll have to look that up. Fall is a very hot kind of curry, hot kind of vindaloo. "There's naan more supportive than gee." So he sort of just ends his nonsense by the end of it, to be honest.

• 8:23Speaker 00

  Well, thanks for writer-ing your email in.

• 8:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 8:27Speaker 00

  Yeah. Here is a fact from David Carey. "My fact is, down under is a lake named Lake Wombat." Right? Where do you think that might be?

• 8:38Speaker 01

  Sorry, down under is a lake?

• 8:40Speaker 00

  Just in down under. You know where down under is. Yeah, yeah.

• 8:43Speaker 02

  Is that a clue? It's not actually in Australia?

• 8:47Speaker 00

  It's in New Zealand.

• 8:48Speaker 02

  In New Zealand.

• 8:48Speaker 00

  And the reason is that it's named after...

• 8:53Speaker 00

  A 19th century gold prospector called Jake Wombat Irwin.

• 8:59Speaker 00

  But Lake Wombat is in New Zealand. They don't have wombats in New Zealand, right?

• 9:03Speaker 02

  No, they don't have wombats in New Zealand. No, no mammals, right?

• 9:05Speaker 00

  No mammals. I mean, there are loads of people in sheep and things, but some bats, right? No mammals. No mammals in New Zealand. They've got a lot of, they've got a problem with a lot of non, yeah, cats.

• 9:16Speaker 02

  You have to cut off your mammary glands.

• 9:20Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's a kettle lake. Just thought you might like to know that. This Lake Wombat.

• 9:23Speaker 01

  What does that mean?

• 9:24Speaker 00

  Uh, it's 9,000 years old.

• 9:30Speaker 01

  I did wanna know that.

• 9:31Speaker 00

  I've just realised, I couldn't with a gun to my head define a kettle lake for you.

• 9:36Speaker 02

  God, you really volunteered the information. You didn't need to.

• 9:38Speaker 01

  And you really felt we needed to know.

• 9:40Speaker 00

  Every geography teacher who listens is absolutely screaming.

• 9:45Speaker 00

  Okay, let's have another.

• 9:46Speaker 01

  Okay, uh, here's a little pop culture one. This comes from Alex Wilson. I have a bit of a fun fact for you. Jon Bon Jovi of the band Bon Jovi. His first professionally released recording was not an epic rock power ballad, like he does with his band, but a song called R2-D2, We Wish You A Merry Christmas, from the Star Wars Christmas album, Christmas in the Stars. And, uh, we covered this very slightly many, many years ago, probably a Christmas episode, or it might have popped up somewhere else. But yeah, he was, um, working in his uncle's recording studio, you know, mopping floors and stuff like that, doing basic janitorial real jobs and they needed a singer. And so he had a good voice and they brought him in and he sang on this song.

• 10:30Speaker 00

  How many times has the janitor stepped up and done a brilliant job? You know, this Jon Bon Jovi was the janitor, basically?

• 10:37Speaker 01

  Like Good Will Hunting.

• 10:38Speaker 00

  Like Good Will Hunting, that's it.

• 10:39Speaker 01

  Well, there's definitely two, one that's real and one that's not, so far.

• 10:43Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 10:45Speaker 00

  I'll be honest, I'm not pitching this to the publishers yet.

• 10:49Speaker 02

  And it's a very low bar to get an Andy pitch, so I would say Penguin, Faber, put your phones down.

• 10:56Speaker 00

  Yeah, stop that bidding war. Call it off. The book of genius, brackets, real and fake.

• 11:05Speaker 02

  Chapter one, chapter two.

• 11:07Speaker 00

  Oh dear.

• 11:08Speaker 02

  Index. Okay, here's one from Dane Stringfellow. Don't know.

• 11:12Speaker 00

  Any relation, yeah.

• 11:13Speaker 02

  Doesn't mention, but he did say, I recently learned from my friend's dad that in the UK, you must have a licence to scare cormorants. And then he says, and upon said scaring, you have to fill out a form listing the method of scaring and the number of cormorants leaving and/or returning.

• 11:29Speaker 00

  Beautiful.

• 11:30Speaker 02

  Which is nice, but Dane, I will say, I'm just gonna let this be a lesson to you. When you hear facts from your friend's dad, check them, check them out. I checked it out. You don't need a licence to scare cormorants. You need a licence to use lethal methods to scare cormorants, i.e. shooting at them, which does feel more like killing cormorants than scaring them, but I suppose they would be scared as well. So you do need a licence to take a gun out with you, which maybe is surprising if you're from America, Dane, but that's just how we do it here.

• 11:57Speaker 01

  This is so, like, this is just a warning to the listener. We get sent a lot of facts and it's our choice which facts we bring to this show.

• 12:05Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 12:05Speaker 01

  And Anna decides to shame the incorrect facts.

• 12:09Speaker 00

  I'm sure you have enough accurate ones, yeah.

• 12:11Speaker 02

  It just makes, it just makes the UK sound like a place with some ridiculous laws. And actually, you know, this one is just saying, you know what, give the cormorants a chance first.

• 12:20Speaker 00

  Did Dane say he was writing from America?

• 12:22Speaker 02

  No, he didn't, but he said.

• 12:23Speaker 00

  So you've just, you've just interpreted that as.

• 12:25Speaker 02

  Well, look, he said, in the UK, you have a licence to scare cormorants.

• 12:30Speaker 00

  He might have just meant you have to have a licence.

• 12:32Speaker 02

  No, you're right.

• 12:32Speaker 00

  And I might have mistyped it, you know.

• 12:34Speaker 02

  No, you're right.

• 12:34Speaker 00

  I don't type them out. I do copy and paste.

• 12:37Speaker 02

  You do know how to do that. You know, there's a shortcut for it as well.

• 12:40Speaker 00

  What?

• 12:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 12:41Speaker 00

  Oh, that's gonna save me time.

• 12:43Speaker 02

  I'll talk to you afterwards.

• 12:44Speaker 00

  All right.

• 12:44Speaker 02

  No, I was actually still fascinated to learn it because you always go down a rabbit hole, don't you? So then I ended up in lots of like fisheries based legal stuff, which was excellent. And I'll do a spin off podcast on that.

• 12:54Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 12:54Speaker 02

  So thank you, Dane. I did really enjoy that.

• 12:58Speaker 00

  Here's one that came in from Ian Clark, okay. I just wanted to say how much I'm enjoying the podcast. It's become a regular companion on my drives. This is relevant. This morning, I was sitting in the car, listening as usual, just about to head into the stables to see the ponies. So that's, I guess Ian has ponies, when a van pulled up from a company called Southern Equine Sheath Cleaning. That immediately caught my attention. For context, as I'm sure you appreciate, I didn't know this. In the equine world, a sheath refers to a horse's penis. So there's this company which just only does horse penis cleaning.

• 13:38Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 13:38Speaker 00

  That's quite something, isn't it?

• 13:39Speaker 01

  That's so amazing.

• 13:41Speaker 00

  And like, it's stunning. And I was looking this up. I was on a train next to a child while I was doing this research. And I had to quite carefully tilt my screen because I didn't want, you know.

• 13:50Speaker 01

  So they could see that.

• 13:52Speaker 00

  I didn't want to sort of like blow, to blow any young minds or anything like this. But anyway, the owner of this company is a woman called Cat Seaman.

• 14:00Speaker 02

  But they're not cats?

• 14:01Speaker 00

  No, they're not cats. So it doesn't work at all. So it's completely irrelevant. But yeah, basically.

• 14:06Speaker 02

  That's incredible.

• 14:06Speaker 00

  And it's recommended, it's recommended you do it twice a year. Some horses never need it. Some horses, they say, I mean, obviously they're trying to sell you sheath cleaning services. So they, they will like, much like, oh, you really should launder your pillows every four days. Yeah, come on. Yeah, yeah. But there are some friendly bacteria under there that you don't want to disturb. So don't do it all the time. And some horses go their whole life without needing a sheath clean.

• 14:31Speaker 02

  I bet they're really cocky horses, as it were. I bet they're prancing around. Poor old Barry's been sent to the sheath cleaner for the ninth time this year.

• 14:40Speaker 01

  Absolutely would think it's a prank if Mrs. Seaman called up to say, I'm a horse penis cleaning company. Just like, thank you. No, goodbye.

• 14:49Speaker 02

  Don't hang up. Don't hang up. She must start every conversation. Don't hang up.

• 14:59Speaker 01

  Can I do one more before we?

• 15:00Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 15:01Speaker 01

  The custodians. Alright, here we go. This is from Olivia Byers, who says, "Howdy, y'all." She's actually requested, Andy, that you say that out loud. So if you wouldn't mind.

• 15:10Speaker 00

  Howdy, y'all.

• 15:11Speaker 01

  There we go. Uh, fact, the first. She's given us two facts. "A small mountain town in North Carolina called Marion, population under 8,000, has officially designated Bigfoot as their town animal."

• 15:26Speaker 00

  Lovely.

• 15:26Speaker 01

  "They celebrate this with a Bigfoot festival that draws over 40,000 people, which means the festival population is roughly five times the town's population itself. There are expert panels, Bigfoot-themed food, and my personal favorite, a Bigfoot calling contest. The festival slogan is 'Come a skeptic, leave a believer.'"

• 15:45Speaker 00

  Lovely.

• 15:45Speaker 01

  "I have not attended. I am not yet ready."

• 15:50Speaker 01

  But, fact the second is Ohio is in the process of legislating a state cryptid, specifically the Loveland Frogman. Now, we spoke about how every state has a state animal. It's looking like the Loveland Frogman is gonna be Ohio's, officially described by Ohio legislators as "a frog-like bipedal creature standing approximately four feet tall." So it was spotted twice in March of 1972. But, you'd think that's okay, that's too far away. But then again, in 2016, by two Pokemon Go players.

• 16:25Speaker 00

  Oh yeah, who were looking at their screen and seeing all sorts of mad, weird animals all day long.

• 16:30Speaker 01

  There is thought that it might be a large iguana that they spotted. Um, but no one has, uh, has said. So yeah, so this cryptid might become the official...

• 16:40Speaker 02

  Unbelievable. Unbelievable that Ohio legislators have to get involved in this. Like, just leave it to that mad bloke in the pub. Just say, "Sure, make it whatever you like, hon." Just gonna go back to housing, here?

• 16:52Speaker 01

  But this is that thing, like this town called Marion, that's a thing that is going to really help its economy every year, right? It's just such a, if you can land a weird animal or an idea in your town or a UFO, you really are just going to help the local economy. It just seems to be the case that it all-

• 17:10Speaker 02

  Don't encourage them, even more-

• 17:12Speaker 01

  Don't encourage fun? Is that what you're against?

• 17:15Speaker 02

  Yes, it is.

• 17:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:17Speaker 00

  John Maynard Keynes wrote a brilliant economics book about Nessie and how, yeah.

• 17:23Speaker 02

  What it's done for the economy in Scotland.

• 17:24Speaker 00

  The macroeconomic implications of Nessie is a really interesting one.

• 17:26Speaker 01

  Brings in a lot of money here to Scotland. Clutches everywhere, every shop you go, they're all wearing the Scottish hat.

• 17:33Speaker 00

  Yeah, right. That's enough of your facts, I think, especially yours, Dan.

• 17:37Speaker 01

  Facts to the air quotes around that one.

• 17:40Speaker 00

  Let's have some of our facts being dished out now to friends of the podcast, because if you join Clubfish, our secret members' club, publicly available at patreon.com/clubfish, if you join at the friend of the podcast layer, you can get a headline fact from the podcast dedicated to you in perpetuity. And we're going to dish out a few of those headline facts to brand new friends of the podcast now. So who wants to go first?

• 18:07Speaker 01

  I'll go. This one goes to Alyssa. Alyssa, your fact is that there is a skyscraper in New York which keeps itself stable with a 400-ton weight in the top.

• 18:17Speaker 00

  Magic.

• 18:18Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 18:18Speaker 00

  Magic.

• 18:19Speaker 01

  Try it again. Oh, my goodness.

• 18:21Speaker 00

  So cool.

• 18:22Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 18:22Speaker 00

  And it sort of hangs like a pendulum and if the building goes that way, it's just sort of central weight?

• 18:27Speaker 01

  It seems right.

• 18:28Speaker 02

  I can't remember, and the fact actually came from Alex Bell, so get in touch with him if you wanted explaining. But yes, I do remember that. Skyscrapers are surprisingly hard to build.

• 18:36Speaker 01

  That does, does that not give you a fear of buildings in a way you might not have had it before? That it's all reliant on, like in this case, a giant weight that's just swaying at the top?

• 18:48Speaker 00

  I think it's okay.

• 18:49Speaker 01

  Cool.

• 18:50Speaker 00

  But I choose not to think about it.

• 18:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:52Speaker 02

  I think that's key.

• 18:53Speaker 00

  If you start thinking about anything for too long, you'll go completely mad.

• 18:56Speaker 01

  Oh, I'd never think.

• 18:59Speaker 02

  Okay, how about another one? For Amy G. One of Canada's leading crime writers, Howard Engel, lost the ability to read without losing the ability to write. My gosh, I remember this guy so well. I found it one of the most amazing things I've ever learnt. He had a stroke, didn't he? And literally, his hand was still connected to the words. So whatever bit of his brain controlled his hand could still write. But when he's seeing it, he can't, he can't read it. His eyes don't know what to do.

• 19:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:27Speaker 00

  Crazy.

• 19:27Speaker 02

  Absolutely crazy.

• 19:29Speaker 01

  But was it, was it a condition that was a disease that led to his death? I'm just thinking Terry Pratchett had a very similar thing. He couldn't, got to the point where he couldn't read the words because they were all scrambled. But he still could obviously write what he was thinking.

• 19:43Speaker 02

  I guess the extraordinary thing is that the hand is connected to such a different part of the brain, to the eyes. So the eyes cannot understand something that the hand can. It's like when some people have certain types of epilepsy or have their brains cut in half to treat it. And, you know, they'll, you'll ask them a question and they'll know the answer. But if you write it down for them, they'll be able to read the question, but not know the answer. It's all that the brain is insane stuff.

• 20:05Speaker 00

  Wonderful fact. Here's one. This goes out to Blue Limpit. And I hope you, I hope you stick to this fact like glue, Blue Limpit. It's that Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple and inventor of the personal computer, met his wife on a dial a joke call. Dan, I'm going to hand over to you to explain dial a joke.

• 20:29Speaker 01

  Well, I think back in the day in America, there used to be people who would put out numbers and you would call and an answer machine would just play down to you. And so every day, Steve Wozniak would load up new jokes onto his answer phone. And people would call up and they would just learn a new joke to tell their friends. I believe from memory that that's what it was. And I'm trying to remember the connection of how his wife eventually.

• 20:53Speaker 00

  She called the dial joke. I've got, I've got it in the archive here. And he said, I bet I can hang up faster than you and hung up. It was quite a bold move.

• 21:02Speaker 02

  And that seduced her?

• 21:04Speaker 00

  Yeah, apparently so. She must have phoned back. Yeah, yeah.

• 21:07Speaker 02

  Playing hard to get, it works.

• 21:09Speaker 01

  I once saw him talk live in Edinburgh. He did a sort of just sitting on stage, being interviewed. And afterwards, everyone was lining up to meet him and get his signature. And he was just signing laptops and iPhones.

• 21:23Speaker 00

  Brilliant.

• 21:23Speaker 01

  The back of them, yeah, that's, that's his method of assigning.

• 21:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, I suppose you would.

• 21:27Speaker 01

  Just hand your phone over and he signs it for you.

• 21:29Speaker 02

  The back of them makes sense. I was imagining the screen and thinking, how annoying would that be? And it was just come off after a day.

• 21:35Speaker 01

  Yeah. All right, let's do another. This one is for Farhan Abril and your fact, I love this one. Babies practise their first words before saying them out loud.

• 21:46Speaker 00

  That's good. How much practice do they put in though? Because often it's just kind of blah or mama.

• 21:53Speaker 02

  Why aren't they better?

• 21:53Speaker 00

  How much practice are they putting in?

• 21:54Speaker 01

  They need to put more in apparently. Because that's, yeah, it's not good enough.

• 21:59Speaker 00

  No, it's very sweet. It's like baby birds do this as well, don't they?

• 22:02Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 22:03Speaker 00

  They sub vocalise their songs. They'd say them very, they sort of murmur them to themselves before singing.

• 22:08Speaker 01

  That's so good.

• 22:09Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 22:09Speaker 01

  I would love to see if someone could film the practice. You know, I just would love to see the footage. If you can see their lips moving at all, if they give it even like a little whisper like.

• 22:18Speaker 00

  They're walking up and down in front of the mirror. Come on, what's my life? Line.

• 22:25Speaker 00

  Do you guys know what your first words were? I don't know what mine was.

• 22:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 22:29Speaker 00

  What was your first word?

• 22:30Speaker 02

  Apple.

• 22:31Speaker 00

  Apple. Really good.

• 22:33Speaker 02

  Which is weird because my mum hates fruit. Never has it in the house.

• 22:36Speaker 00

  But she loves Steve Wozniak, who's the co-founder of Apple.

• 22:39Speaker 02

  Huge fan, yeah. She got together with him actually by calling up her.

• 22:45Speaker 01

  I can't remember mine, do you know yours?

• 22:46Speaker 00

  Marvelous.

• 22:49Speaker 00

  That I said simply marvelous. No, I don't know mine. Let's have another.

• 22:53Speaker 02

  Yes, here's one for Lydia Grant. Lydia, take this, look after it. Guard it with your life. The first pair of Nike or Nike trainers was made in a waffle iron.

• 23:05Speaker 00

  Yes. I can't, yes, that was sort of jammed into a waffle iron. I can't remember as in, was it the base, the pattern on the base of the shoes or something?

• 23:13Speaker 02

  I mean, that seems like the obvious bit, doesn't it? That's the bit that's like got waffle like resemblance.

• 23:18Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 23:18Speaker 02

  Let's see. Well, I've checked the archive and then all we've got after that is Dan saying that Nike is pronounced Nike like Mikey.

• 23:26Speaker 02

  So.

• 23:27Speaker 00

  Okay, let's have another one. And this goes out to John Alexander Smith. And it's that rats dream of places that they want to visit.

• 23:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, I saw a rat today.

• 23:39Speaker 00

  I saw a rat today.

• 23:41Speaker 02

  You're kidding. Was it the same? Was it? So was it? It had a quite a long tail and grey.

• 23:45Speaker 00

  Yes, yes, yes. It was a rat. Yes.

• 23:47Speaker 01

  Maybe let's.

• 23:49Speaker 00

  Where did you see it?

• 23:52Speaker 01

  Am I home?

• 23:53Speaker 02

  Um, where did you see yours?

• 23:55Speaker 00

  Near a cafe.

• 23:56Speaker 02

  Mine was outside of Costa.

• 23:58Speaker 00

  That's so interesting.

• 23:59Speaker 01

  London? Are we both talking? Let's go. Guys, honestly, we can narrow this down so quickly.

• 24:03Speaker 02

  Mine was not London.

• 24:04Speaker 00

  Uh, mine was London and it wasn't Costa.

• 24:06Speaker 02

  Ah, different rat.

• 24:09Speaker 00

  But Costa will be really appreciating this brand messaging we're getting out for them.

• 24:15Speaker 02

  Very much outside. And it was a cute one. You know, some rats look gross.

• 24:18Speaker 00

  It was, it was queuing. It was ordering a venti latte. Yeah, great.

• 24:23Speaker 02

  You know, whatever's good for business.

• 24:24Speaker 00

  Yeah, he had little gloves on. Great. Well, lovely.

• 24:27Speaker 02

  Anyway, what was the fact again?

• 24:29Speaker 00

  Rats dream of places they want to visit.

• 24:30Speaker 02

  So sweet.

• 24:34Speaker 01

  Okay, uh, this one now goes out to Georgia Badgerie. And her fact is that spiny anteaters only use half their penis during sex.

• 24:45Speaker 00

  Yeah, right. I'm not even trying, they're saying to their other halves. This could be twice as good for you, actually. Now, isn't it? They can use the left half or the right half.

• 24:55Speaker 01

  How do you do that?

• 24:56Speaker 00

  They've got very strangely shaped penises. From a human perspective.

• 25:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 25:01Speaker 00

  To them, we probably do.

• 25:03Speaker 02

  Very good. We don't want to have the anteater community writing in.

• 25:06Speaker 01

  The wokest thing I've heard Andy say ever.

• 25:08Speaker 00

  Sorry. Yes, it's they only use the left or right heads at any time.

• 25:12Speaker 02

  Oh, they've got double head.

• 25:14Speaker 00

  They've got four, actually, and they only use two at a time.

• 25:16Speaker 01

  Ah.

• 25:17Speaker 00

  I told you it was weird. From our Western point of view.

• 25:23Speaker 02

  Is it in the east?

• 25:24Speaker 00

  From our middle class, like London elite bubble.

• 25:30Speaker 01

  Marvelous existence.

• 25:32Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. So that's nice.

• 25:34Speaker 01

  Spiny anteaters.

• 25:35Speaker 00

  Spiny anteaters.

• 25:36Speaker 02

  But I don't think the penis is spiny. You see, you'd resent that name because you'd always have to explain it's not the penis that's spiny.

• 25:41Speaker 00

  Yeah, true.

• 25:42Speaker 01

  The only person you're explaining it to is the same species. So I think they'd probably know, right?

• 25:46Speaker 02

  Don't need to. They don't need to say, and my vagina isn't spiny either. It's a gay.

• 25:49Speaker 01

  Great. Okay. Why didn't they tell us that when we're younger? We should be taught that at anteater school.

• 25:55Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 25:56Speaker 00

  Let's have one last one.

• 25:57Speaker 02

  Here's one for Mike Spur. Mike Spur, take care of this one. The world record for horse long jump is shorter than the world record for human long jump. Something for humans to be proud of.

• 26:09Speaker 01

  This was one of mine. I remember discovering this.

• 26:11Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 26:12Speaker 01

  Oh, I love this one. Yeah.

• 26:14Speaker 00

  It's pretty cool.

• 26:15Speaker 02

  Because you'd think the horses would be better, wouldn't you?

• 26:17Speaker 01

  Yes. That's why we said yes to me using that.

• 26:21Speaker 02

  That's why we were okay with it as a fact. It was great. Whereas running, we're sort of neck and neck, aren't we, with horses? There's always that horse versus human running race in Wales somewhere, I think.

• 26:30Speaker 00

  It's terrain dependent. I think we can say that.

• 26:32Speaker 01

  I think distance as well.

• 26:34Speaker 00

  It's distance and stairs are the two complicating factors.

• 26:38Speaker 02

  Distance, humans are better.

• 26:39Speaker 01

  I know, but not at short distance. I don't think the Grand National would see the jockey going, do you know what? I'll actually get this done quicker if I just do it.

• 26:47Speaker 02

  I'll leave you behind, Nellie.

• 26:50Speaker 01

  This fact, by the way, from memory, correct me if I'm wrong, was a fact that we did at the Latitude Festival.

• 26:57Speaker 02

  It was.

• 26:58Speaker 01

  I think it might have been our first festival. Possibly we did something else, but it feels like that was our first.

• 27:03Speaker 00

  And that is cool because this is about horses' longitude and how long they're jumping. You know what I'm saying? I bet we made that joke on the day.

• 27:12Speaker 02

  Oh, we must have.

• 27:14Speaker 00

  You wouldn't leave gold like that unpicked up, would you?

• 27:18Speaker 02

  No.

• 27:18Speaker 00

  Yeah. All right. I think we're going to end on that note. Yeah, yeah. Congratulations everyone for getting through all those jokes. And congratulations to our eight new fact custodians, by whom I mean Mike Spur, Georgia Badgerie, John Alexander. Connor Smith, Lydia Grant, Farhan Abrol, Blue Limpit, Amy G and Alissa. Enjoy your facts, love them and we'll be back in another week for another little fish to dish out eight more. Please do send in your facts to [email protected]. They're such a treat to receive. We love getting them. So please do keep them flooding in and we'll be back again in a few days' time with another episode of No Such Thing As A Big Fish. Until then, it's just time to say-

• 27:59Speaker 01

  Not actually called that.

• 28:00Speaker 00

  Not actually called that. Until then, thanks to Dan, my apparently live in the moment editor, and to Anna for taking part. Thank you for playing both of you and congratulations.

• 28:11Speaker 01

  Thanks for taking part, Anna.

• 28:12Speaker 02

  It was a privilege.

• 28:13Speaker 00

  Bye.