Little Fish: Mike, can we say this?

Dan gets exclusive facts about a 1980s TV megastar, while he, Anna and James discuss YOUR facts. This week's subjects include Canada, Collops and the Coney Island Cyclone. 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

  Stop the podcast.

• 0:01Dan Schreiber?

  Stop the podcast.

• 0:02Speaker 00

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• 0:05Dan Schreiber?

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• 0:22Dan Schreiber?

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• 1:09Dan Schreiber?

  Hello and welcome to another episode of Little Fish. This is our Monday bonus show where we put down our favorite facts from the last seven days. We pick up yours, all the facts that you've been sending in to podcast at qi.com. Andy has gone through the emails. He's curated the best of, and we've got him here. So I'm Dan Schreiber, sitting here with Anna Tashinsky and James Harkin. Let's get into it. Who wants to open with a fact?

• 1:33Speaker 03

  Go for it, Anna.

• 1:34Speaker 00

  Oh, okay, I will. This is a fact from Andy Walker and Ben Walker. Some relation. Ben is 12 and is Andy's son. And Andy says, while on a walk in Canada, my son asked about the relative ubiquity of Canada geese in the UK versus Canada. And I don't know if the 12-year-old phrased it like that, but if he did, well done. Anyway, he's done some calc's.

• 1:58Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:59Speaker 00

  You're gonna like this, James. Apparently, there are 250,000 Canada geese in the UK, 8 million in Canada. And if you do do the calc's and divide that by the land area of each country, the goose density in Britain is higher.

• 2:12Speaker 03

  That's really good.

• 2:13Speaker 00

  So, Canada geese are really British geese.

• 2:16Speaker 03

  Well, actually, also, they're American geese, Canada geese. So I was trying to prove this for QI this year for our general ignorance. Because I thought, from some articles I read, there might be more Canada geese now in the United States of America than in Canada. But it's really hard to tell because those buggers migrate around.

• 2:37Speaker 00

  They do, yeah.

• 2:38Speaker 03

  But I think perhaps it might not be true. It certainly wasn't clear-cut enough that I would run it for the TV show.

• 2:43Dan Schreiber?

  Right. Great insight, great background scenes on how QI genics are written.

• 2:49Speaker 00

  Yeah, desperately hunting.

• 2:50Dan Schreiber?

  The level to where it's not just writing a question and putting it out there. James is following migration routes.

• 2:57Speaker 00

  He was out there in a microlight.

• 2:58Speaker 03

  I just was reading all my feeds, and there was an article saying that there were more breeding pairs of Canada geese in America than there used to be. And of course, the first thing I think is, is the more than in Canada.

• 3:11Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm. And Canadians, please don't write in and complain that we colloquially have used America to refer to the US. Because you're part of Europe now. Welcome.

• 3:21Speaker 03

  We swapped you for Greenland.

• 3:22Speaker 00

  We did. I actually learned that you say they migrate loads in North America. Canada geese, when they come to the UK, just sit still. I really didn't know that. I, A, didn't really know the UK populations are just here permanently, stupidly, like an idiot. I thought they were migrating from Canada. But UK populations have been here since the 17th century, and they don't migrate.

• 3:43Dan Schreiber?

  Why?

• 3:43Speaker 00

  I don't know. Maybe the UK's just got good climate all year round.

• 3:46Dan Schreiber?

  Yeah.

• 3:46Speaker 03

  I think that is true, possibly, of those American ones as well. I think, like, usually, they go from Canada to somewhere in the United States.

• 3:53Speaker 00

  Like Mexico, yeah.

• 3:54Speaker 03

  Yeah, but, or Mexico, which is also not part of the United States at that time of recording.

• 3:59Speaker 00

  Welcome to Europe, Mexico.

• 4:01Speaker 03

  But I think a lot of them are sort of hanging around going, actually, it's not that bad here.

• 4:04Dan Schreiber?

  So what if we took, yeah, what if we took migrating geese from Canada over to Britain? Would it feel the need to migrate in a migration period? Or would it be like, actually, hey, you guys got it good here?

• 4:15Speaker 03

  You don't think of migration as them going, I quite like it here, so I'm not gonna leave. You think of it as an inherent part of their psyche that they have to go. There's nothing they can do about it.

• 4:24Dan Schreiber?

  Yeah.

• 4:25Speaker 03

  Do you remember that guy who had some birds, migratory birds in a cage, and then put, like, ink on their feet and showed that they were trying to go in the direction of their migration, even though they couldn't escape?

• 4:37Dan Schreiber?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 4:40Speaker 00

  So there we go. Well, great question, Ben Walker.

• 4:42Dan Schreiber?

  Very good. Yeah, nice.

• 4:44Speaker 03

  Okay, here is one from Igor Santos. And Igor says, true fact, Scotland has an area of just under half an acre.

• 4:52Speaker 00

  Sorry.

• 4:53Speaker 03

  So, it turns out that acre, as it's written, A-C-R-E, is also the name of an area of Brazil, which is actually pronounced acre.

• 5:05Dan Schreiber?

  Okay.

• 5:06Speaker 03

  So this doesn't work at all when you read it out. But the area acre, which used to be part of Bolivia and Peru, and is now part of Brazil, is twice the size of Scotland. And that's it.

• 5:17Speaker 00

  That's good. That's really nice.

• 5:18Dan Schreiber?

  That's very nice.

• 5:19Speaker 00

  So if someone writes down how big their property is, you've got to ask how they're pronouncing acre.

• 5:23Speaker 03

  Definitely.

• 5:24Speaker 00

  Just in case they mean...

• 5:25Dan Schreiber?

  Maybe we should have a little message at the top of this show saying, if you get the chance, why not read this episode in the transcript option on Apple?

• 5:33Speaker 00

  Lovely.

• 5:34Dan Schreiber?

  You'll get more out of it.

• 5:35Speaker 03

  So I was looking at some different types of area. And have you guys ever heard of a collop?

• 5:42Dan Schreiber?

  Collop.

• 5:42Speaker 03

  A collop.

• 5:43Dan Schreiber?

  No.

• 5:44Speaker 03

  C-O-L-L-O-P. It's an Irish measure of land, and it's the land sufficient to graze one cow.

• 5:51Dan Schreiber?

  Ah.

• 5:52Speaker 03

  It was actually quite useful, because you could have loads of land. But if it's all barren and there's no grass on it, then it's no use to you, especially if you're in a cow-rearing area.

• 6:02Dan Schreiber?

  Yeah.

• 6:02Speaker 00

  Oh, so the size changes depending on the sort of foliage.

• 6:05Speaker 03

  Exactly. So you might have 12 collops, and your friend might have 12 collops as well. And you can each have 12 cows, but one of you might have more land.

• 6:14Speaker 00

  Right. She's in the summer desert, and I'm just, you know...

• 6:17Speaker 03

  Well, you're both in Ireland.

• 6:20Speaker 00

  Right, yes.

• 6:20Speaker 03

  There you go.

• 6:21Dan Schreiber?

  It sounds like the cow version of running. A horse gallops and a cow collops.

• 6:25Speaker 03

  It does sound like that, yeah. I've never... I'm not sure. Have I ever seen a cow running? They tend to walk towards you like zombies with dead eyes, just trying to kill you.

• 6:36Speaker 00

  I've seen them break into a canter towards me. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. I've had to leg it from some running cows.

• 6:41Dan Schreiber?

  Have you?

• 6:42Speaker 00

  Some coloping cows.

• 6:43Dan Schreiber?

  What's the circumstance? Why were you...?

• 6:44Speaker 00

  Just sometimes if you're walking on a walk and you're walking through a field of cows. I've had it multiple times.

• 6:48Speaker 03

  Steal milk.

• 6:49Speaker 00

  Often have a dog, and yes, I go and milk from underneath your eyes. And then I'll take a calf and sling it over my shoulder.

• 6:55Dan Schreiber?

  But other than that...

• 6:56Speaker 00

  I'm not doing any of that.

• 6:57Dan Schreiber?

  Nothing. I've got an email here from Mark Perkins, who says, Harry Corbett was famously so protective over his Sooty puppet, so Harry Corbett created Sooty, that he once set off on a family holiday, but had to return back so that he could take the puppet on holiday with him, as he wouldn't settle without it.

• 7:17Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 7:18Dan Schreiber?

  Yeah, when his son Matthew took over the family business, he made sure that he didn't grow attached the glove puppet in the same way that his father had done, to the point that when the studio camera was off, he never referred to Sooty by name. Instead, he called Sooty the prop.

• 7:32Speaker 00

  Really?

• 7:33Dan Schreiber?

  Yeah.

• 7:33Speaker 00

  That's heartless.

• 7:34Dan Schreiber?

  I know. Wow.

• 7:35Speaker 03

  We should just say for foreign listeners, Sooty's like a little yellow bear-hand puppet?

• 7:41Dan Schreiber?

  Yeah.

• 7:42Speaker 03

  I think, but very beloved by British children for...

• 7:45Dan Schreiber?

  Big TV show. I grew up with it in Australia and Hong Kong. I don't know if I was, you know, if that was the experience of most Aussie kids, but I certainly saw it there. And there was Sweep, who was a dog puppet. It was massive.

• 7:57Speaker 03

  And Sue.

• 7:58Dan Schreiber?

  And Sue, don't forget Sue. Anyway, he says, I heard this on an interview with someone who'd been a guest on the show, possibly Pat Sharp, but I can't be sure. He said that when he cut his hand by accident during filming, he said, "Oh, it's gonna be okay." But Matthew said to him, "No, you better get a bandage on it. You might get blood on the prop." Hence, knowing that it's the prop.

• 8:18Speaker 03

  And Pat Sharp, for foreign listeners, was the host of Fun House in the 1980s and early 90s.

• 8:25Speaker 00

  An amazing show.

• 8:25Speaker 03

  It was the greatest television show of British history.

• 8:28Dan Schreiber?

  Is it really? I never, I never got to see that. I tried to look into this and see whether or not it was the case that he called it the prop and this relationship that Harry Corbett had with Sooty. And I couldn't find anything. But then I remembered that one of the editors during the pandemic of No Such Thing As A Fish, when we were having to do stuff over Zoom...

• 8:48Speaker 00

  Was it Matthew Corbett?

• 8:48Dan Schreiber?

  It was Ben Corbett.

• 8:50Speaker 00

  Ben Corbett, that's what I mean.

• 8:51Dan Schreiber?

  Who is the grandson of the creator of Sooty and the son of who then took over Sooty.

• 8:56Speaker 03

  Yeah, he did all of our audio mixing.

• 8:57Dan Schreiber?

  Yeah, he did the mixing, and he's a great guy. And so I messaged him, and I sent him this email saying, can you confirm or not? And he wrote back, and he said, "Hey, Dan, true in spirit, but he didn't refer to the puppet as the prop, but the bear." So he still didn't say Sooty. Pat Sharp, the DJ, was never on the show, but there was a PA called Pat Sharp. So, a personal assistant on the show was called Pat Sharp.

• 9:22Speaker 00

  How funny. You didn't need to know about Fun House, it turns out.

• 9:26Speaker 03

  But Google it anyway, because it's an amazing show.

• 9:28Dan Schreiber?

  But then he then added, he said, "Some bits that you might find useful." And he gave me some extra facts.

• 9:33Speaker 03

  Oh, brilliant.

• 9:34Dan Schreiber?

  Yeah, so this is from the grandson of the creator of Sooty. "My granddad also used to put air holes in the box he carried the puppets in so that he could breathe, so that Sooty could breathe."

• 9:44Speaker 00

  And Matthew was covering, he was taping up those air holes straight away, wasn't he?

• 9:47Dan Schreiber?

  He did say, "My dad was less sentimental and he saw it more as a job, really." So I think the suggestion is, yeah, the air holes were not there. "When my dad took over the show, because my granddad had had a massive heart attack, all was well for a while, but when my granddad got better, he wanted to start doing the shows again. But they had to agree to not overlap geographically, so that Sooty would never be seen in two theatres at the same time."

• 10:10Speaker 00

  They did them simultaneous, as in they were working together?

• 10:13Dan Schreiber?

  They were working in different theatres around the country.

• 10:16Speaker 00

  But wait, surely there was just one Sooty?

• 10:17Speaker 03

  Anna, I'm so sorry to tell you this.

• 10:22Dan Schreiber?

  So the son, Matthew, continued to do the TV work and most of the country, but he left Dorset to the granddad who continued doing his one-man shows with his grandmother.

• 10:34Speaker 00

  Sweet.

• 10:35Dan Schreiber?

  Yeah. So anyway, there's more, but we should move on.

• 10:38Speaker 00

  That's so cool.

• 10:39Dan Schreiber?

  Yeah, thank you, Ben, for a good old insight into Sooty.

• 10:42Speaker 00

  All right, here's another good insight into something completely different, and it's from Stephen Ultra Shen. His fact is, in the 1938 film, The Adventures of Robin Hood, they shot the extras with real arrows. So the special effects department wasn't happy with any of their attempts at fake arrow strikes. So they offered any extras willing to tempt fate $150 to be shot by expert marksmen with blunted arrows.

• 11:08Speaker 03

  That's amazing.

• 11:09Speaker 00

  They dressed them in special padding that caught the arrows without doing too much damage to the performer.

• 11:14Dan Schreiber?

  Okay, blunted arrows is...

• 11:17Speaker 00

  Blunted?

• 11:17Dan Schreiber?

  Is better.

• 11:18Speaker 00

  It's better, and I did look it up to check, and they did get to wear a block of balsa wood backed by a thin steel plate. Now, it doesn't protect your arse, your thighs, your head, of course.

• 11:29Speaker 03

  In order of importance, where you might get head.

• 11:34Speaker 03

  No, not the arse!

• 11:37Speaker 00

  Well, it's just, I keep my brains in my buttocks. Isn't that incredible?

• 11:41Dan Schreiber?

  That is incredible.

• 11:42Speaker 00

  And I looked it up, and they actually used the man who was the world's greatest archer at the time, Howard Hill.

• 11:47Dan Schreiber?

  I would insist that anyone but him. I'll do it, but I'd rather not the greatest archer.

• 11:52Speaker 00

  What?

• 11:53Dan Schreiber?

  Living.

• 11:53Speaker 00

  Wait, he's not gonna try to be killing you, Dan?

• 11:55Dan Schreiber?

  Oh, that's true. No, but he might get into the story of it.

• 11:58Speaker 03

  I'm gonna choose the greatest archer. I'm sorry. If only part of my body is covered by balsa wood.

• 12:04Dan Schreiber?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 12:04Speaker 03

  And my buttocks are not, then I want Harry Hill or whoever it was.

• 12:08Speaker 00

  Howard Hill.

• 12:08Speaker 03

  Howard Hill.

• 12:09Dan Schreiber?

  Harry Hill.

• 12:10Speaker 00

  Dan's taking Harry Hill.

• 12:11Dan Schreiber?

  I've got Harry Hill.

• 12:12Speaker 00

  He made a mistake.

• 12:14Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 12:15Speaker 00

  Anyway, amazing fact.

• 12:16Speaker 03

  Was it £150 per arrow?

• 12:18Speaker 00

  It was per time they got successfully shot.

• 12:20Speaker 03

  Wow, that's, in those days, that's good money.

• 12:23Speaker 00

  Apparently it was equivalent to £3,000, so...

• 12:25Dan Schreiber?

  Do we know if anyone made good money? Because if this is the greatest archer...

• 12:29Speaker 00

  I actually don't know if anyone... I don't know the amounts. I know that no deaths were reported.

• 12:34Speaker 03

  How much would you accept to be shot by, let's say, what's he called? Is he called Matt Stutzman, that guy who fires with his feet? That amazing archer?

• 12:44Speaker 00

  Who's actually one...

• 12:45Speaker 03

  He like had a world record for archery, but he doesn't have any arms.

• 12:50Dan Schreiber?

  Okay.

• 12:50Speaker 03

  But he's brilliant.

• 12:51Dan Schreiber?

  But he's brilliant.

• 12:54Speaker 00

  And you're wearing the protection, so you just have to make sure that he hits you and not your head. I'm gonna, like, if it's 3K, I'll probably take it.

• 13:00Speaker 03

  Yeah?

• 13:01Speaker 00

  I think so.

• 13:02Dan Schreiber?

  Oh, I'd go, I'd pay him. I think that's a cool, that's a cool experience.

• 13:06Speaker 03

  That's true. When you go on Would I Lie To You, you have something, "I was shot in the chest by a man with no arms."

• 13:13Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 13:14Dan Schreiber?

  Exactly. All right, James.

• 13:15Speaker 03

  Yes, okay, here's one from Jackson Herbert. And Jackson says, "Doing research for my latest book."

• 13:22Dan Schreiber?

  Ooh.

• 13:22Speaker 03

  But then doesn't say what the book is, so unless Andy has deliberately deleted this from the email because he thinks it might take away sales from his own book.

• 13:30Dan Schreiber?

  Oh, yeah.

• 13:32Speaker 03

  Look out for Jackson's book. But Jackson found that if you consider the Earth's surface is 510 million square kilometres, which is approximately, 29% is land, get rid of the uninhabitable bits, get rid of the mountains, the deserts, the ice caps, and then take the current world population, we would each get 12,500 square metres per person.

• 13:53Speaker 00

  Oh, wow.

• 13:55Speaker 03

  And that is roughly the same size as the Louvre Pyramid Plaza in Paris, the White House compound, the Roman Colosseum, the Taj Mahal and Trafalgar Square. Each of those is about the same.

• 14:08Speaker 00

  Okay, not combined?

• 14:09Speaker 03

  No, it's about the same size as two football pitches.

• 14:12Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 14:13Dan Schreiber?

  That's a curious coincidence in its own right, that these amazing landmarks are roughly the same size.

• 14:20Speaker 03

  Well, I wonder if Jackson's thinking that maybe this is just an inherent amount of land that people think is a good amount of land, and maybe that's why the population has gotten that high. And we do think it's gonna reach a slightly higher and then it's gonna start going down.

• 14:34Speaker 00

  Yeah, we instinctively know. Now we've got a White House each.

• 14:37Speaker 03

  Everyone's stopped having sex.

• 14:39Speaker 00

  That's the only reason we're doing it.

• 14:41Speaker 03

  But yeah, so I just wondered what you would do with your two football pitches' worth of land.

• 14:46Dan Schreiber?

  I can build anything.

• 14:47Speaker 03

  Yeah, why not?

• 14:48Speaker 00

  Just leave it as two football pitches, actually.

• 14:49Speaker 03

  Yeah?

• 14:50Dan Schreiber?

  Would you?

• 14:51Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, just play some football, yeah.

• 14:53Speaker 03

  Two games at the same time?

• 14:54Speaker 00

  Two games at the same time, yeah.

• 14:55Speaker 03

  I can say one other thing you could do with it. If you had a cow and a calf, a cow and its calf.

• 15:00Dan Schreiber?

  Yeah.

• 15:01Speaker 03

  Then it would be equal to about one collop.

• 15:04Dan Schreiber?

  Ah.

• 15:06Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 15:07Speaker 03

  Because sometimes the collop would be not just the cow, the calf would count as well.

• 15:10Speaker 00

  I see, because they'd just go wherever the cow goes, so they don't need extra room. Nice.

• 15:14Speaker 03

  So yeah, one collop per person.

• 15:17Speaker 00

  And you'll actually get more, because presumably, like, you're gonna be with your wife, you'll be with yours and your children, so that's, I get four times as much if I'm in a family of four.

• 15:25Speaker 03

  That's true.

• 15:26Speaker 00

  Oh, interesting. Eight games of football.

• 15:28Dan Schreiber?

  Almost sounded like a Jet 2 ad you were doing there.

• 15:32Dan Schreiber?

  You get four times as much with a family of four.

• 15:34Speaker 00

  I did, didn't I? And you get a family discount.

• 15:37Speaker 03

  If it was a Jet 2 ad, then your kids would have a collop of land that was nowhere near your collop of land.

• 15:41Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 15:42Speaker 03

  Unless you paid extra for it.

• 15:43Dan Schreiber?

  Yes. Extra leg collop.

• 15:47Speaker 00

  And the land has no windows.

• 15:49Dan Schreiber?

  Okay, I've got another fact here. It's sent in by Jesse Hendricks. My fact for you is, up until the 1950s, riders of Coney Island's iconic Cyclone rollercoaster got a final jolt after disembarking. Isn't that interesting?

• 16:04Speaker 03

  What do you mean by jolt?

• 16:05Dan Schreiber?

  So you'd think, oh, okay, you're getting up, do they just shove it a bit more, you know, as you're getting up and freak you out?

• 16:10Speaker 03

  That would be very dangerous.

• 16:10Dan Schreiber?

  That's very dangerous.

• 16:11Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 16:12Dan Schreiber?

  And it's not the answer. It's a much safer thing, which is that the riders were then met by a little person, or as they were known in the day, a dwarf, who would zap them with an electrified paddle.

• 16:24Speaker 00

  Okay, that also sounds dangerous, to be honest. How electrified are we talking?

• 16:28Dan Schreiber?

  It's enough to give you a nice little shock and make you laugh, I think, as opposed to cry.

• 16:32Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 16:32Dan Schreiber?

  And it sounds like the feedback on it must be like, "It was great, it's just missing one extra scare." And they thought, "All right, we're gonna have to like hire some dude to come just literally zap them." Apparently as well, not only did you get zapped with an electric paddle, but then after that, you think it's done, you're then harassed by a bunch of clowns. And that finally had to stop after someone hit a clown. So, yeah. A few more things on the Cyclone ride. On the 50th anniversary, a man named Richard Rodriguez set out to claim a world record, and he did so with 1,001 consecutive rides, which he did over four days straight. And this was a record for 30 years, until someone broke it in 2006, called Frank Rosler.

• 17:15Dan Schreiber?

  But then Rodriguez said, "Okay, well, I've gotta break it again." So he then, 30 years later, reset the record, which he did.

• 17:23Speaker 03

  That's just non-stop, right? That's like, I reckon that's something like one every six minutes with no sleeping.

• 17:28Dan Schreiber?

  Yeah.

• 17:29Speaker 00

  Sorry, how long did it take him, did you say?

• 17:30Speaker 03

  Four days.

• 17:31Speaker 00

  Four days? Only four days? Yeah, you're right.

• 17:32Speaker 03

  Just do 1,000.

• 17:33Dan Schreiber?

  So he did, he reset the record by, he rode the Pepsi Max Big One.

• 17:39Speaker 03

  In Blackpool?

• 17:40Dan Schreiber?

  Yes.

• 17:41Speaker 03

  Cool.

• 17:41Dan Schreiber?

  And he rode 405 hours and 40 minutes, so nine days and 12 hours in total. Presumably that is purely the operating hours only of the theme park.

• 17:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 17:52Dan Schreiber?

  They left him on at night. And walked off and just, "Waaah!"

• 17:56Speaker 00

  Just keep it going.

• 17:57Speaker 03

  They just, the big lever that sets them off, they just tie it with a two-laced, just say, "Like, you'll keep going, we'll see you in eight hours."

• 18:04Speaker 00

  We've left some food here, you can grab it on the way past.

• 18:09Dan Schreiber?

  But the Cyclone as well, apparently terrifying. Charles Lindbergh said that it was scarier and he got more of a thrill than when he was flying an airplane at top speed.

• 18:17Speaker 00

  No.

• 18:17Dan Schreiber?

  And I guess back in the days, rollercoasters were a new experience.

• 18:20Speaker 03

  Yeah, and also planes are really slow.

• 18:23Speaker 00

  True, they don't even have to go off.

• 18:24Dan Schreiber?

  But Lindbergh, and we've said this on the show, when he flew his plane on that iconic flight, he didn't have front windows. That should be the most terrifying thing ever. Do you know how?

• 18:34Speaker 00

  You know, was he had to look out the window or something?

• 18:35Dan Schreiber?

  If he wanted to see forward, he either had to turn the plane to the side and look out the side window.

• 18:40Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 18:40Dan Schreiber?

  Or he had the periscope installed that he looked through for when he was flying lower.

• 18:45Speaker 00

  Yeah, that is silly.

• 18:46Speaker 03

  But there's no other planes on that, you know, he's the only pilot in the entire world, so it's not like someone else is gonna fly into him.

• 18:52Dan Schreiber?

  That's true.

• 18:53Speaker 00

  It's not like Dan's favourite fact, the only two cars in Ohio crashing into each other, there were two planes in the air.

• 19:02Speaker 00

  Stop the podcast.

• 19:03Dan Schreiber?

  Stop the podcast.

• 19:04Speaker 00

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• 19:07Dan Schreiber?

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• 19:30Speaker 00

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• 19:34Dan Schreiber?

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• 19:37Speaker 00

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• 20:46Speaker 00

  I've got a good one here from Scott O'Brien, and that's, that Scott O'Brien says, "Last week, I went to the Centre for Integrated Semiconductor Materials at Swansea University."

• 20:56Dan Schreiber?

  Wow.

• 20:57Speaker 00

  A building so high-tech, it gets...

• 20:59Dan Schreiber?

  Mic drop. What a, what a brag.

• 21:03Speaker 00

  All right, mate, calm down.

• 21:05Dan Schreiber?

  Cool. Some of us don't have as cool a life as that.

• 21:08Speaker 00

  We've all been places. No, it gets even better. "A building so high-tech that part of the floor plate is seismically isolated to remove the vibrations coming from the waves crashing on the shoreline and the M4." So I guess they're doing such important experiments.

• 21:23Speaker 03

  Why are the waves crashing on the M4?

• 21:26Speaker 00

  The waves are crashing in Swansea, and at the same time, the cars are driving on the M4. And it's causing vibrations, and it has to compensate for those. And he says, "Really cool, but the best bit was that my meeting was in the Ken Boardroom, named for Professor Ken Board."

• 21:48Speaker 03

  How are you doing? Ken Bored. Talking about semiconductors all day, of course I'm Ken Bored.

• 21:57Speaker 00

  Anyway.

• 21:58Speaker 03

  Ken Bored. I'm Ken Bored. Here is one, we mentioned before about the QI general ignorances and where we find them from. I think this is a possible one. So this came from Chris from Chelmsford and he is currently on holiday at the Grand Dixence Dam. All right, mate, we've all been places.

• 22:20Speaker 03

  And this is the world's largest gravity dam. Okay, so it's, there's a huge glacier, the glacier melts in the summer, but there's a huge like concrete dam there which stops the water from going down, holds the water up. And then they can use it for drinking water, but they also use it for hydroelectric. And the water from this glacier drops down to power the turbines at a height of 1,883 metres, which is more than twice the height of the world's largest waterfall, Angel Falls.

• 22:56Dan Schreiber?

  Oh, okay.

• 22:57Speaker 03

  So Chris thinks, and I agree, that we can reasonably say that this is the world's largest waterfall.

• 23:03Speaker 00

  I reckon, yeah. Definitely water's falling, isn't it?

• 23:06Speaker 03

  Absolutely. Now, there is a thing on QI, we said that there's a bigger waterfall that's underwater between Iceland and Greenland somewhere, where there's like cold water falling down.

• 23:16Dan Schreiber?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 23:17Speaker 03

  Water or whatever, but I don't think we can count that anymore. I think this is our new record holder.

• 23:20Speaker 00

  I'm confused by the world's only, or one of the world's tallest gravity dams. I was under the impression that all dams were gravity dams, but there must be a specific definition of a gravity dam.

• 23:30Speaker 03

  A gravity dam.

• 23:31Speaker 00

  No dam would be anywhere without gravity, would it?

• 23:33Dan Schreiber?

  I guess you could flow out as opposed to drop down.

• 23:38Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. Well, right in.

• 23:41Speaker 03

  You've reached the edge of my understanding of dams, I'm sorry to say.

• 23:46Speaker 00

  Tipped over the edge.

• 23:47Speaker 03

  I'll ring Tom Scott and ask him.

• 23:49Speaker 00

  Thanks.

• 23:50Speaker 03

  This is a problem, just for some inside baseball on this, is that Andy sends us these facts relatively close to recording time, actually a bit longer this week, but we have then a very small amount of time to do a bit of research, check that they're true and then find some extra facts. But we don't necessarily have that long to completely understand all of the topics.

• 24:08Dan Schreiber?

  No, exactly.

• 24:09Speaker 00

  But you can deal with a little bit of musing, right? A little bit of unanswered questions.

• 24:14Dan Schreiber?

  I mean, usually I'm just waiting for who was named something similar to the thing not named, as Anna just did with Ken Bored.

• 24:20Speaker 00

  We're all always tense now.

• 24:23Dan Schreiber?

  All right, well, that's it for all of your facts. Thanks, everyone, for sending those in. But before we wrap up the show, we have something important to do that we do at the end of every episode. That is hand out custodianship to one of the facts from our 12-year-long archive of headlines. So if you're a member of Club Fish and you sign up to the highest tier, you're going to be able to claim one of our headline facts. We're going to send you a digital certificate and we'll read it out here for you. Let's do some now. So who wants to go first?

• 24:51Speaker 03

  I'll go first. This one is now under the custodianship of Rebecca Forbes. And Rebecca, your fact is that brown falcons commit arson.

• 25:02Speaker 03

  So when there's, they find a fire, they pick up a twig, they drop it in the forest, they make a new fire and then they eat whatever runs away.

• 25:12Speaker 00

  And so this is deliberate, right? I suppose arson has to be deliberate.

• 25:15Dan Schreiber?

  That's what arson is, eh?

• 25:15Speaker 00

  Yeah. Wait, is arson deliberate or can you accidentally drop a cigarette? Does that count as arson?

• 25:21Speaker 03

  What a great question, everyone.

• 25:23Speaker 00

  Again, we've reached immediately the waterfall of our ignorance.

• 25:26Speaker 03

  I feel like we need, in the background behind the cameras, we need a lawyer at least. Certainly some kind of, you know, infrastructure expert.

• 25:33Speaker 00

  Yeah, and I could do with a masseuse, actually, just here.

• 25:37Speaker 03

  And I don't know if you would get done for that or just accidentally being an asshole.

• 25:42Speaker 00

  Asshole, it's an asshole, not an arson.

• 25:44Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 25:44Speaker 00

  If you've done that. But falcons can't get arrested anyway, so they can do it willy-nilly.

• 25:49Speaker 03

  Don't write in about the falcons that got arrested.

• 25:52Speaker 00

  For God's sake. Okay, well, enjoy that, Rebecca. And here is a fact for Justin Stapleton. Justin, your fact is that in 1461, the mayor of Yain in Spain donated 10,000 eggs to his citizens so that they could have a huge food fight. Oh, I remember this, I love this, like weird sort of mad stuff done by weird villages in history, often medieval. I feel like they had a lot of extra time in late medieval era. And yeah, this was just a fun mayor and he was just like, it's Easter, eggs are associated with Easter, let's have a massive egg fight.

• 26:26Speaker 03

  Seems like a waste. I don't know about what it was like in 15th century Spain, but could they do away with that many eggs and not eat them?

• 26:35Speaker 00

  Frowned upon here, wouldn't it be? Yeah, that is very wasteful. And those chickens, how did the chickens feel, knowing they've gone to all that trouble?

• 26:41Speaker 03

  Well, as long as it was lots of chicken, if it was one chicken, they'd probably be quite annoyed. But if it was 10,000 chickens, probably didn't really affect them that much.

• 26:49Dan Schreiber?

  No, exactly.

• 26:50Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 26:50Speaker 03

  Yeah. But is this like the tomato Tomatina Festival where they all throw tomatoes at each other?

• 26:56Speaker 00

  I think it was exactly like that, yeah, an early version of that.

• 26:58Speaker 03

  And I don't look down on those guys.

• 27:00Dan Schreiber?

  Do you not? It does feel wasteful, doesn't it? When you say it in the context of a fact with that big number.

• 27:05Speaker 03

  I know what you mean, but I think given it's people who are doing it right now and it's part of their culture, I don't want to say that they're wrong to do it.

• 27:11Speaker 00

  Oh, I see, I see. Because I didn't look down on them until you mentioned the waste thing, but now I find I am looking down on these specific Spanish people.

• 27:19Dan Schreiber?

  Well, I did have an opinion, but the lawyer's shaking his head to be in the corner and I'm going to back out. Thanks, Mike. Okay, let's do another one. This one is for Raiden Reborn. You are now the custodian of the fact that in 1951, Australia's football team played against England and lost 17-0. Their goalkeeper was called Norman Conquest.

• 27:42Speaker 03

  That's absolutely brilliant.

• 27:43Dan Schreiber?

  That's amazing.

• 27:44Speaker 00

  Shall we, because we've got the Bayeux Tapestry here right now, shall we sew that one extra panel onto the end of the Bayeux Tapestry?

• 27:51Speaker 03

  That's true, because the Bayeux Tapestry is incomplete, isn't it? We think that there's another panel which disappeared sometime in history.

• 27:57Speaker 00

  You're so right.

• 27:58Speaker 03

  So how do we know that it wasn't this football match?

• 28:01Speaker 00

  The final Norman conquest, yes.

• 28:03Dan Schreiber?

  Some soothsayer was like, guys, the ending is coming, but in 1951.

• 28:08Speaker 03

  Okay, here is another one. This one is now under the custodianship of Ricky Wellstead. And Ricky, your fact is that Grumpy from the Seven Dwarfs is not nearly grumpy enough.

• 28:21Dan Schreiber?

  Such a hearken fact.

• 28:23Speaker 03

  I don't remember what this was, actually.

• 28:25Speaker 00

  It was, I had to check, it was that he's a miner with an E, not a child. And miners, are they happy and cheerful and singing all the time? I think the idea was that none of the dwarfs were grumpy enough, even Grumpy, who was quite grumpy. He still sings along, I think. And I think the idea might have been that miners are miserable.

• 28:45Speaker 03

  Oh, okay.

• 28:46Dan Schreiber?

  Okay.

• 28:47Speaker 00

  And there was a study that backed it up. It wasn't just you thinking miners have a bad time.

• 28:51Speaker 03

  Was I making a political point about the closing of the mines on the Margaret Thatcher?

• 28:55Speaker 00

  It was a very anti-Thatcher episode, actually. We had to have it removed.

• 28:58Speaker 03

  I went through that little phase, didn't I?

• 29:00Speaker 00

  Your Burnham phase, we called it.

• 29:04Dan Schreiber?

  Brilliant, all right, Anna?

• 29:05Speaker 00

  Yep, I've got a fact here for Sarah Fridge. Very cool name, if that's your real name. And your fact, Sarah Fridge, Ms. Fridge, is that the ancient Romans had party bags. Those ancient Roman parties are amazing, where they all lay down, didn't they, on their lying sofas?

• 29:24Dan Schreiber?

  Yeah, so were these party bags for adults as opposed to kids? Is that what we're saying?

• 29:28Speaker 00

  Yes, they were, no kids allowed unless they were the small boys for the men to fornicate with, but.

• 29:36Dan Schreiber?

  And they didn't get party bags?

• 29:42Speaker 03

  Oh, my goodness.

• 29:44Speaker 00

  The party bags were just for the, just for the ad. They were just for the ad.

• 29:48Speaker 03

  It was a different time. It was part of their culture. Mike, can we say this?

• 29:53Dan Schreiber?

  Yeah, is that cool?

• 29:55Speaker 00

  Fuck, I wish Mike was real right now.

• 29:56Dan Schreiber?

  Sure you are. The 10,000 egg fight in 1461 is looking a lot more appealing, isn't it?

• 30:02Speaker 00

  The party bags were just for the adults, because only adults attended the parties mostly. They also had doggy bags, if you remember in this episode, where you had to bring your own doggy bag and then you would get some food to take home.

• 30:14Dan Schreiber?

  Okay, okay, very cool. Because they used to have yo-yos, remember, in ancient Greece? That was a headline fact that we did.

• 30:21Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 30:22Dan Schreiber?

  That's, that's great party bag.

• 30:24Speaker 00

  Yes, yeah.

• 30:25Speaker 03

  I still don't buy that.

• 30:26Dan Schreiber?

  Really? But it's on the side of the vases.

• 30:28Speaker 03

  It looks to me like a crack and a ball.

• 30:37Speaker 03

  Like, it's hard to tell what a yo-yo is from just an image, do you know?

• 30:42Speaker 00

  Yeah, absolutely. I can't believe you think it's a crack and a ball, wow.

• 30:45Dan Schreiber?

  That's great.

• 30:46Speaker 03

  It's like we've got images of people supposedly wrestling, right? From like cave paintings and stuff, but you don't know whether they're wrestling or hugging or, you know, dancing or whatever. It's really hard with a single image to tell.

• 31:00Speaker 00

  The, yeah, that's a problem with the fact that they didn't invent video sooner, is all of these pictures, yeah, they could have just been frozen in that position for ages. I believe it though, Dan, they are quite low-tech yo-yos, you can see them.

• 31:11Dan Schreiber?

  Well, I quite like the idea that it's a total misinterpretation of history because of the crack. That's incredible. Speaking of cracks, this one's for Jack Kraketa. Your fact is Ernest Hemingway once stole a urinal from a bar, saying he had pissed away so much of his money into it that he now owned it.

• 31:30Speaker 03

  That's cool.

• 31:30Speaker 00

  Classic Ernest.

• 31:31Dan Schreiber?

  It's a good line.

• 31:33Speaker 03

  I've seen that, I've seen that urinal.

• 31:35Dan Schreiber?

  Oh, you've been to his place, haven't you?

• 31:36Speaker 03

  I went to his house in Key West and it's still there.

• 31:38Speaker 00

  Are you allowed to use it?

• 31:40Speaker 03

  No, it's in the garden, it's not plumbed. I was going to say they wouldn't stop you, but I think they would stop you because it's a museum.

• 31:47Speaker 00

  I reckon they would, yeah, yeah. I mean, often if you get your willy out in a museum, generally they stop you, let alone you start pissing in one of the exhibits.

• 31:53Speaker 03

  Like, considering how many of those statues have got the willies out, why am I the one being?

• 31:58Speaker 00

  Joining in, when in Rome.

• 32:00Speaker 03

  Like, it's happened again.

• 32:04Dan Schreiber?

  That is the place where, didn't he breed a type of cat that had?

• 32:09Speaker 03

  I saw them, they have six toes on each paw.

• 32:11Dan Schreiber?

  And they're still there, are they?

• 32:12Speaker 03

  They're still there, yeah.

• 32:13Dan Schreiber?

  That's amazing.

• 32:13Speaker 03

  And he also had the swimming pool that his wife put in when he was fornicating away during the Spanish Civil War. And she basically took all of his money and made a swimming pool.

• 32:25Dan Schreiber?

  Oh, wow.

• 32:26Speaker 00

  Really?

• 32:26Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 32:26Speaker 00

  Oh, she took all of his money and then built him a swimming pool with it?

• 32:29Speaker 03

  She built the swimming pool saying, well, if you're going to go and have fun in Spain, then I'm going to have fun here.

• 32:33Speaker 00

  Good on you, love.

• 32:34Speaker 03

  Yeah. So here is my last one for today, and this is now under the custodianship of T Amos. And T, your fact is that the official medical diagnosis code for being struck by a chicken is different to that of being pecked by a chicken.

• 32:51Speaker 00

  Wow. These are fun.

• 32:53Speaker 03

  Yeah, we went through a lot of medical codes, didn't we? And this is like, if you, if something happens to you and they need to say what's happened to you for surveying reasons, they have to give you a code.

• 33:03Dan Schreiber?

  Yeah.

• 33:03Speaker 03

  And there's a code for almost anything you can think of.

• 33:05Speaker 00

  The most specific things. It feels like every new thing has a new code, doesn't it? And it's proper WHO classification system.

• 33:13Speaker 03

  So we know how many people were struck by chickens compared to how many people were pecked by chickens.

• 33:17Dan Schreiber?

  Yeah.

• 33:17Speaker 00

  Exactly. Imagine if you conflated those two. Completely flawed stats.

• 33:21Speaker 03

  Yeah, and then you started removing all the chickens' beaks because you think all these people have been pecked, but they've actually been struck.

• 33:27Speaker 00

  Yeah, really good point. I wonder how you get struck by a chicken? Do we think with the claw?

• 33:31Dan Schreiber?

  Flying.

• 33:32Speaker 00

  Flying. Oh, because they can fly, despite what they've done chicken run.

• 33:36Dan Schreiber?

  It's scared, it's turned around, flown into your face.

• 33:39Speaker 00

  Lovely, yeah.

• 33:40Dan Schreiber?

  There you go.

• 33:41Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 33:41Speaker 03

  Maybe the chicken was just upset that you made it lay 10,000 eggs and then threw out a load of Spanish people.

• 33:49Dan Schreiber?

  Justified.

• 33:50Speaker 00

  Yep. Sorry about that, Daisy. This is our last fact.

• 33:54Speaker 03

  What a weird name for a chicken.

• 33:55Dan Schreiber?

  Daisy for a chicken.

• 33:59Dan Schreiber?

  No wonder cows are running after you. You're giving away all your names to the chickens.

• 34:05Speaker 00

  Listen, I've got a fact. I've got to give it away. It's weighing me down and it's for Larissa. And this is the fact that the frog, whose Latin name means blue frog, is actually green. This one is yours, Dan.

• 34:17Dan Schreiber?

  It was, yeah.

• 34:18Speaker 03

  The thing that basically it probably was turquoise and no one can agree what colour it is. I think it's green. I think it's blue.

• 34:26Speaker 00

  And then they tossed a coin. It actually wasn't, even though they are similar colours, I think. Do you remember?

• 34:32Dan Schreiber?

  I think I remember what it was. It was that, it was a specimen that was collected, put into a jar, and then it was transported somewhere. And by the time it arrived, it had discoloured as a result of...

• 34:42Speaker 00

  Yeah, like the chemicals, the preservation chemicals.

• 34:44Dan Schreiber?

  Is that right?

• 34:44Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. Well remembered. So they called it blue frog. Don't name things until you've seen a live version. That's my hot tip.

• 34:54Speaker 03

  So Anna, what was the name of this dinosaur? Nope, no idea. Don't know. This one doesn't have a name. No, this one doesn't have a name either. Nope. So you've seen the live one. We're not giving them names.

• 35:04Dan Schreiber?

  They're all called Daisy. I'm showing a real one.

• 35:10Dan Schreiber?

  Okay, well, listen, congratulations, Larissa, T Amos, Jack, Sarah, Ricky, Raiden Reborn, Justin and Rebecca. You are now the custodians of those facts. And again, if you want to be one of the custodians, join Club Fish at our highest tier. It's called Friend of the Podcast and you will get one of these with an awesome looking certificate. Otherwise, got a great fact? Just send it in to us, [email protected], and we will hopefully bring it to a next episode of Little Fish. But for now, that's all from me, Anna and James, and we'll see you on Friday with another big fish. And until then, goodbye.