Little Fish: Moss Moss Mossmoss Moss

Anna, James and Andy discuss YOUR facts including kitchens, cocktails and a chap named Cassell. Anna works out why she lost to James at archery. And we name 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

  Tire Discounters presents Strange But True. You can now get four tires installed with a free alignment and oil change as low as 350 bucks. Oh, it's true.

• 0:28Anna Ptaszynski?

  Hello, everybody. Welcome to another episode of Little Fish, the podcast. Yeah, I know, I'm changing the vowels. The podcast spinoff show where we read out some of the best facts that you guys have sent us, which are almost all fantastic. My name is Anna Tashinsky and I'm here with my esteemed colleagues, James Harkin and Andrew Hunter Murray. Hi, guys.

• 0:52Speaker 02

  Hi.

• 0:53Speaker 03

  Hi, Anna. I've got a fact here from Danica Edmondson, who says, "The man who made the first drink for the first men on the moon was taught to make cocktails by the first woman to fly solo from England to Australia."

• 1:06Anna Ptaszynski?

  Whew.

• 1:07Speaker 02

  Lot to unpack.

• 1:09Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:09Speaker 02

  A man who made cocktails for the first men on the moon.

• 1:12Speaker 03

  The first cocktails for the first men on the moon.

• 1:15Anna Ptaszynski?

  I didn't know the first, the men on the moon had cocktails. That feels like a luxury.

• 1:18Speaker 03

  Well, it was when they came back. It was the first thing when they came back, apparently.

• 1:23Anna Ptaszynski?

  Was it? Is that what you want?

• 1:23Speaker 02

  In the 60s, you wouldn't put it past them to say, well, we're going to need a functioning cocktail bar on a 111. We, you know, like, they guys need to relax. They certainly need someone to smoke.

• 1:32Speaker 03

  There's no point in having a disco bar if we're not going to have the cocktails as well. So this was made by a barman from the Savoy called Joe Gilmore, and he would make lots of cocktails for different people. So he made the Churchill cocktail for Winston Churchill, for instance. So he created the Moonwalk, which was Grand Marnier, grapefruit juice, a bit of rosewater and champagne, and then sent it to America. And then when the guys landed, it was the first thing they drank. Okay. So that's quite a cool connection. But Joe went to work in a bar in London before he got to the Savoy. And someone turned up and ordered a dry martini. He didn't know what to do. He did his best, but didn't make a very good dry martini.

• 2:14Speaker 03

  And so the lady who ordered it came around and taught him how to make a dry martini. And he was so inspired by that day, he decided to go on and become a great bartender, one of the best in history.

• 2:25Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 2:25Speaker 03

  And the woman who showed him what to do was Amy Johnson.

• 2:31Speaker 02

  Love it.

• 2:32Speaker 03

  The famous aviatrix.

• 2:34Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 2:35Speaker 03

  And so, yeah, isn't that a great connection that Danica sent us?

• 2:38Anna Ptaszynski?

  That's unbelievable.

• 2:38Speaker 03

  And Danica said, "I've always found this story amazing, but I might be a bit biased as he is my grandfather."

• 2:44Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 2:44Anna Ptaszynski?

  Oh, you've buried the lead.

• 2:46Speaker 02

  Bring it home.

• 2:47Speaker 03

  Well, I couldn't put the lead at the top, could I? So this is a fact about someone's famous grandfather.

• 2:53Anna Ptaszynski?

  Sounds metaphysical that way.

• 2:54Speaker 02

  That's a really good fact.

• 2:55Anna Ptaszynski?

  And do we know if Amy was also inspired by that moment to become a famous aviatrix? Did she think?

• 3:00Speaker 03

  She already was. She was. This was in the 40s, I think. So she will have already, it would have been a while since she did her.

• 3:06Speaker 02

  She would have not had long to live.

• 3:07Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 3:08Speaker 02

  Because I, the other weekend, cycled past her memorial.

• 3:11Speaker 03

  Did you?

• 3:11Speaker 02

  In Hearn Bay, I think.

• 3:13Speaker 03

  Oh, is it?

• 3:13Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:14Speaker 03

  And once it say like here died Amy Johnson from choking on a martini.

• 3:23Speaker 02

  She flew her plane, I think she crashed into the sea around there, just off there.

• 3:27Speaker 03

  Yeah, she did.

• 3:28Speaker 02

  I sometimes mix her up with Amelia Earhart, who was maybe eaten by crabs. But Amy Johnson was not eaten by crabs.

• 3:33Anna Ptaszynski?

  No, nor was Amelia Earhart, really, but closer to being true.

• 3:37Speaker 03

  I don't think we know exactly what happened to Amelia Earhart, do we?

• 3:40Anna Ptaszynski?

  I thought she was married to Elvis somewhere.

• 3:42Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah. Sorry.

• 3:43Anna Ptaszynski?

  They both moved to Panama.

• 3:45Speaker 02

  All right, here's a fact. This is from Dan Parry. Dan writes, "I'm a filmmaker and I was recently inspired by a supercut that came up in my feed of every time the Coronation Street cast said London in a shocked way." You might have seen this. It's a really good one.

• 4:00Speaker 03

  I've not seen that, but I can imagine it. Ken's gone down to London for the weekend.

• 4:04Speaker 02

  London. Except they're not from the West Country because it's Coronation. It's set up north, isn't it?

• 4:10Speaker 03

  London.

• 4:11Speaker 02

  Yeah. Where is Corrie set?

• 4:12Speaker 03

  Manchester.

• 4:13Speaker 02

  Manchester. Okay. And so there's this supercut of all the times. And it's really funny that they say it because it's like, yeah, exactly like that. "It got me wondering what other phrases in media are used repeatedly." And of course, there's, "I have a bad feeling about this."

• 4:26Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 4:27Speaker 02

  So using a clip database of film, TV and adverts, I searched for the phrase from the first time that it said, there's a Star Wars film where it pops up very famously. And it came back with a lot of results. Assuming each clip is around three seconds and including paraphrasing, a supercut of this would last 2,077,464 seconds or 24 days.

• 4:48Speaker 03

  Oh, no. I got that feeling about that. Are you going to play it now?

• 4:53Speaker 02

  I'm going to play something else Dan has sent in.

• 4:55Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 4:56Speaker 02

  A different supercut. Dan says, "That supercut might be a tad more work than I'm prepared to do. So instead, treat yourself to a supercut I've made of every time Andy says moss over the past five years."

• 5:09Anna Ptaszynski?

  Oh, good.

• 5:11Speaker 02

  Are you ready?

• 5:12Anna Ptaszynski?

  So ready.

• 5:33Speaker 03

  There's nothing moss can't do.

• 5:35Anna Ptaszynski?

  So good. I like how sometimes you can hear us groaning a little bit in the background.

• 5:40Speaker 02

  Yeah. Anyway, thank you, Dan.

• 5:41Anna Ptaszynski?

  Really good.

• 5:42Speaker 03

  Thanks, Dan.

• 5:46Anna Ptaszynski?

  Maybe spend your time differently next time. I've got one here from Robert Taylor, and this is about someone called Hippolyte Mers-Moyez. Ring any bells, guys?

• 5:57Speaker 03

  No.

• 5:58Anna Ptaszynski?

  He invented margarine, but...

• 6:01Speaker 03

  Oh, I did, I have heard of them.

• 6:02Anna Ptaszynski?

  You would have, you would have heard of them.

• 6:05Speaker 03

  Yeah, in a competition.

• 6:06Anna Ptaszynski?

  Yes, he won lots of awards. He won an award from Napoleon III. Well done. Not the most famous Napoleon, but still. But before he was famous...

• 6:14Speaker 02

  Second most famous, though.

• 6:15Anna Ptaszynski?

  Second most famous, yeah. Before he was famous for the invention of margarine, he was famous for creating a method to make 14% more bread from the same amount of raw materials.

• 6:24Speaker 02

  That's clever.

• 6:25Anna Ptaszynski?

  And Robert Taylors, yeah.

• 6:27Speaker 03

  That seems, I mean, there's a certain thing called the laws of thermodynamics that that seems to...

• 6:32Speaker 02

  I'm going to come in with bubbles.

• 6:34Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 6:34Speaker 02

  Like, if you're only measuring the outer bread volume.

• 6:37Speaker 03

  Or did he invent the bagel?

• 6:39Anna Ptaszynski?

  You can't be only, what you mean, so if I've, if I've scooped out all the inside of a loaf of bread, like I used to do on the way back from the shops as a kid, that's still the same amount of bread that I'm claiming.

• 6:48Speaker 02

  Okay, some questions, your honour. But what a demented little child you were.

• 6:55Speaker 03

  I've got another question.

• 6:56Anna Ptaszynski?

  Yeah.

• 6:57Speaker 03

  Did he invent the larger loaf of bread in order to sell more margarine?

• 7:05Speaker 03

  Because that would make perfect sense, wouldn't it?

• 7:07Anna Ptaszynski?

  That's so good.

• 7:07Speaker 02

  They're looking at a big graph of sales. Sales are down. What can we do?

• 7:11Speaker 03

  Guys, I've got an idea. Big bread.

• 7:15Anna Ptaszynski?

  Literally. He invented a better milling process for grains, apparently, which does make sort of sense, right? So I think Robert Taylor is slightly hazy on the details, but he said it's possible he basically invented whole grain bread, but don't quote me on that. But next time you have toast and margarine, you can double toast to Hippolyte.

• 7:36Speaker 03

  I've got a fact here from Amanda from Arkansas. And Amanda tells us that North Dakota and South Dakota were established as states on the same day, which is November the 2nd, 1889. But because there was such a heated rivalry between the states, Benjamin Harrison shuffled the paperwork so that no one knew which he signed first. Therefore, there is no record of which was signed first, and North Dakota and South Dakota are number 39 and 40. But it's not that one is 39 and one is 40.

• 8:06Speaker 02

  Brilliant.

• 8:07Anna Ptaszynski?

  I didn't know the states were numbered.

• 8:08Speaker 03

  They're quite often like, we're the number one state. Or we were the 49th state or whatever. They do, they do care about that quite a lot.

• 8:17Anna Ptaszynski?

  How hilarious.

• 8:18Speaker 03

  But in actual fact, usually North Dakota is called the 39th state because of alphabetical order, usually.

• 8:24Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, you can't win, you can't beat that.

• 8:27Speaker 03

  But yeah, I thought, you know what? To me, it sounded like a big old myth that, do you not think?

• 8:32Speaker 02

  Shuffling the papers.

• 8:33Speaker 03

  Sounds made up, doesn't it? But it does seem like there were contemporary reports that they were definitely signed with no one knowing which was first. But whether he shuffled them or whether someone else just gave them to him and he signed them without looking at them, we're not really sure. But basically, the North and South just didn't like each other.

• 8:52Anna Ptaszynski?

  It's weird to have a big rivalry before you even exist. You're there, you're poised, ready to hate each other.

• 8:57Speaker 03

  Because it was the Dakota, it was like the Dakota Territory, right?

• 9:00Anna Ptaszynski?

  Yeah.

• 9:00Speaker 03

  It was one area, but they decided to call it North and South Dakota because the South thought that the North was just run by wild folks, cattle ranchers, fur traders. They just thought that these people are not good enough, so we don't want to be in the same state as them.

• 9:15Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 9:17Anna Ptaszynski?

  Should have made it one state and then they all would have had to be friends.

• 9:20Speaker 02

  That's how it works.

• 9:20Speaker 03

  That's how statehood works.

• 9:25Speaker 02

  Do you want another?

• 9:25Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 9:26Speaker 02

  This one comes in from Frederick Howard and it's about a man, a Swedish man called Peter Gunnarsson.

• 9:32Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 9:33Speaker 02

  Who emigrated from Gothenburg, where we've been.

• 9:36Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 9:37Speaker 02

  Uh, in the year 1639.

• 9:39Speaker 03

  We weren't there then.

• 9:40Speaker 02

  We weren't there then. Uh, and he went to the USA and he named himself, he gave himself a new name after a hill in Gothenburg, where is the old country, right? And the hill was called Ramberget. And this guy became Peter Gunnarsson Rambo, okay? He had also brought some apple seeds with him. This is the most Grandpa Simpson way I could tell this story. I'm so sorry. This guy, Peter Gunnarsson, he named the apple variant after himself Rambo. So Rambo was an apple, right?

• 10:10Speaker 03

  Right.

• 10:10Speaker 02

  And then, years and years later, what's three centuries later, the author David Morell was looking for a strong name for a protagonist for his novel First Blood. And he was given a Rambo apple by his wife and he liked the sound of the name.

• 10:23Speaker 03

  Imagine if he got given a Pink Lady. That would have been a very different film. Or a Garry Smith.

• 10:29Speaker 02

  Still, I could have carried it off.

• 10:33Speaker 02

  Um, yeah.

• 10:34Anna Ptaszynski?

  That's amazing.

• 10:35Speaker 02

  I know. That's where Rambo comes from. It comes from this guy and it comes from this apple and it comes from this hill in Gothenburg.

• 10:39Speaker 03

  It doesn't come from Arthur Rambo, the poet.

• 10:42Anna Ptaszynski?

  The poet, famously played by Leonardo DiCaprio in one of his early roles.

• 10:47Speaker 03

  Oh, okay.

• 10:47Speaker 02

  Get you.

• 10:48Anna Ptaszynski?

  I actually know his entire oeuvre, um, from when I was obsessed with him. Yeah. If you ever want to know any of it.

• 10:55Speaker 03

  It is very interesting, your pop culture references, which are sparse and few.

• 10:59Anna Ptaszynski?

  Thank you.

• 11:00Speaker 03

  But they include Leonardo DiCaprio, Friends and Mambo Number Five is pretty much it.

• 11:06Anna Ptaszynski?

  I don't think you need anything else, do you?

• 11:07Speaker 02

  It's as if there was a year, it was as if there was a year after which you just checked out of everything. Probably around the turn of the millennium. I don't know what happened that made you think, you know what, I'm out.

• 11:15Anna Ptaszynski?

  It was a big party. I took some things I shouldn't have and my memory ends there.

• 11:20Speaker 02

  Just blown your mind.

• 11:21Anna Ptaszynski?

  Yeah. Um, that is incredible. What a great fact.

• 11:24Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 11:24Anna Ptaszynski?

  Um, I loved this from Alan Morrison, which is that the woman who designed the modern kitchen had never cooked. And this is because I loved learning about this woman who I'd never heard of, Marguerite Shutilohotsky. And what she designed is the built-in kitchen. She lived to be 103. So she invented the kitchen in 1926. She didn't die till the year 2000, the year that my pop culture knowledge ends.

• 11:47Speaker 02

  Coincidence?

• 11:50Anna Ptaszynski?

  On her 100th birthday, she was interviewed and this is when she revealed that she'd never cooked. She said that, um, her mother always cooked at home. And then she said that when she left home, she just went to the restaurant or the pub to eat.

• 12:01Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 12:02Anna Ptaszynski?

  So she said, I designed the kitchen as an architect, not as a housewife.

• 12:05Speaker 02

  Right. So she was an architect and she got the gig of designing, she just decided to? Well, she, she can't have been commissioned by anyone to say, we need to sort out this kitchen thing.

• 12:13Speaker 03

  Sorry, she went to the pub every night for dinner. I mean, I know your, your point was very important, Andy, but.

• 12:20Speaker 02

  No, no, no, no. Let's do yours. Let's do yours.

• 12:23Speaker 03

  That's utterly mad.

• 12:24Anna Ptaszynski?

  So she says.

• 12:25Speaker 03

  Did she live next to a Wetherspoons or something?

• 12:27Anna Ptaszynski?

  I think she must have, because I'm not sure she was particularly loaded. It was a different time.

• 12:31Speaker 02

  Well, there was a thing of fewer people having kitchens, wasn't there? Like, and even today, there are big bits of the world where just everyone goes out to eat because people like, places like Hong Kong have a much bigger dining out culture, just because homes are small and you naturally, you might not have a kitchen.

• 12:44Speaker 03

  Food carts as well, where you just, everyone goes.

• 12:46Anna Ptaszynski?

  Yeah. You get the street food, cheaper food. She named one specific pub actually, um, but I can't remember what it was called. So she was obviously a regular there. She must've got very bored of the menu.

• 12:56Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 12:56Anna Ptaszynski?

  I hope it was extensive, but yeah, she designed it.

• 12:59Speaker 03

  I'll have the full English again. Yeah. And two pints of riddles.

• 13:04Anna Ptaszynski?

  Extraordinary that she lived to 100 with her diet, let's be honest.

• 13:12Speaker 03

  Stephen Cochran tells us that in 2018, an anonymous testicle checking booth debuted in New Zealand.

• 13:19Speaker 02

  Brilliant.

• 13:20Anna Ptaszynski?

  To check for, that you've got, that you've got them?

• 13:23Speaker 02

  Uh, you've got to check them.

• 13:25Speaker 03

  You've got to check them.

• 13:25Speaker 02

  You do have to check them, Anna.

• 13:26Anna Ptaszynski?

  You've got to check them.

• 13:27Speaker 02

  You might have a lamp, you might have something turning up.

• 13:29Speaker 03

  It's exactly that. And it's that they thought that maybe Kiwi men would be a bit embarrassed to go and see their doctor and, you know, whop them out onto the table. And so instead, there's a little booth and you would go in and, you know, like, you know, like if you go to the seaside and you put your head to the table. It was like one of those but upside down so that you would just put your, put your testicles.

• 13:52Anna Ptaszynski?

  Wait, and your mum takes a photo?

• 13:56Speaker 03

  The image is like a bowl of kiwi fruits, but then you put your testicles in.

• 14:03Speaker 03

  But yeah, it's a really good idea, I think. Like.

• 14:05Speaker 02

  Really nice. Yeah.

• 14:07Speaker 03

  I mean, anything to get people to check themselves is gonna, is useful, right?

• 14:11Speaker 02

  I would feel more embarrassed clearly going to the big centre of town anonymous testicle checking booth. Cause everyone can see you going in there.

• 14:19Speaker 03

  They probably don't put the sign up outside in big neon writing.

• 14:23Speaker 02

  Well, they should do.

• 14:23Speaker 03

  They probably put like, you know, local library or something. So you go in. Just go into the library.

• 14:30Speaker 02

  You'll go to the library a lot. You've been there four or five times this week. What's going on?

• 14:33Speaker 03

  Why are you not wearing any trousers?

• 14:37Speaker 02

  I know you're reading Winnie the Pooh and enjoying it, but.

• 14:41Anna Ptaszynski?

  Why would you go four or five times a week to the testicle checker?

• 14:44Speaker 02

  Well, it's sometimes nice.

• 14:45Anna Ptaszynski?

  I think you've misunderstood. One more time.

• 14:51Speaker 02

  It's to me, you know, for a bit of company.

• 14:53Anna Ptaszynski?

  No, sure. Some human contacts. Okay. Whatever you need to get you through the day, Andy.

• 15:01Speaker 03

  Oh dear.

• 15:01Speaker 02

  That's a good, that's a good fact.

• 15:03Speaker 03

  No, well, it's, it's a very good thing for people to do.

• 15:07Speaker 02

  Absolutely, absolutely.

• 15:08Anna Ptaszynski?

  I'm sure we've, we've only made Kiwi people feel more comfortable about doing it with this conversation.

• 15:13Speaker 02

  Was that, you said when you put them through, there's a picture of a bowl of kiwi fruit on the other side. Is that because it was in Kiwi? It was a New Zealand thing?

• 15:19Speaker 03

  Well, it was also that testicles might look like kiwi fruit. So it worked on two levels.

• 15:24Speaker 02

  I was trying to think of other pictures they would work in.

• 15:27Speaker 03

  Okay, go on.

• 15:27Speaker 02

  I think there's a bowl of potatoes or something on the table at the Last Supper.

• 15:31Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 15:33Speaker 02

  Probably a bit sacrilegious.

• 15:35Speaker 03

  I was thinking of one of those. Is he called Archimbolo? He's like, um, an artist that does like faces, but they're all vegetables and stuff.

• 15:42Speaker 02

  Oh, that's good. But you'd have to paint them for that.

• 15:44Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 15:45Speaker 02

  It'd be very, you'd need to camouflage them somehow. Purple, I suppose. Plums. Anyway.

• 15:49Anna Ptaszynski?

  Sorted.

• 15:51Speaker 02

  Here's one from Andrew Wilmot. Came across this today and was surprised to discover this unexpected eponym in the bagging area. So I'm telling you upfront, this is a name related thing.

• 16:01Speaker 03

  Great.

• 16:01Speaker 02

  Why is gas called gas?

• 16:04Speaker 03

  Come on. It's just a very old word for wind or something.

• 16:10Speaker 02

  Um, so petrol, gasoline.

• 16:13Speaker 03

  Oh, after Cassell or something.

• 16:16Speaker 02

  There was a guy called John Cassell who invented gasoline and it got degraded to gasoline. Now, I went on a bit of a rabbit hole on this, because if you read the surface level, dictionaries do not support this etymology, says Wikipedia.

• 16:30Speaker 03

  Oh, really?

• 16:31Speaker 02

  And then you go to the OED, the gold standard, and it says, it seems possible that it was from gasoline, which he sold in 1862. And then by 1864, a rival merchant had changed it to gasoline. And I just think that clearly, surely that's gasoline to gasoline. I mean, that.

• 16:49Speaker 03

  I think, I think we might've touched on this on QI and I think we fell on the angle of it being true, I think.

• 16:55Speaker 02

  I think it seems likely.

• 16:57Anna Ptaszynski?

  It's all, that's so good, because it's always been so confusing. And you did mispronounce it at the start, which is why we were confused, of course. It's why is gas called gas?

• 17:06Speaker 03

  Gas. Does gas, I thought you were talking about gas as in the state of matter.

• 17:10Anna Ptaszynski?

  Our gas, British gas.

• 17:11Speaker 02

  Sorry, British gas.

• 17:12Speaker 03

  Not British gas.

• 17:13Anna Ptaszynski?

  Not British gas, no.

• 17:14Speaker 02

  That is sold as a liquid, the stuff here. Yeah.

• 17:16Anna Ptaszynski?

  English.

• 17:17Speaker 02

  I mean, it is confusing because when you say you burn gas, like in a boiler or whatever, that is a liquid.

• 17:21Anna Ptaszynski?

  Mm hmm. Gas boiler, I suppose, yeah.

• 17:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 17:25Anna Ptaszynski?

  It is. It's confusing.

• 17:26Speaker 02

  Gas, which is a liquid. Ah, doesn't, oh.

• 17:28Anna Ptaszynski?

  We should go back to calling it CAS.

• 17:30Speaker 02

  Kaz.

• 17:31Anna Ptaszynski?

  CAS.

• 17:31Speaker 02

  Caseline.

• 17:32Anna Ptaszynski?

  Caseline.

• 17:32Speaker 03

  Yeah. Okay. I'm down. Great.

• 17:34Anna Ptaszynski?

  Let's start it. Let's make it happen.

• 17:36Speaker 02

  When you drive into the petrol station next time and you shout at the guy in the booth, I'd like some caseline, please. Come out and look lively. What do you mean you're not allowed to leave the booth? I've got a crisp half crown here for you, young man.

• 17:49Anna Ptaszynski?

  It's the testicle guy again. Just don't serve him. He'll go away. Okay. That's probably enough for this week, isn't it? Everyone had enough? Um, well, great facts, one and all. And I think it's time now to bestow some facts. So we have some facts that we've mentioned on the podcast before. We're going to give them to some very special fact custodians to look after for the rest of their lives. Has anyone got one to kick us off?

• 18:12Speaker 02

  All right. Here's one. And this one goes to Amir Sokolovski. And Amir, your fact is Napoleon loved roast chicken so much that his household chefs were constantly cooking some, in case he wanted any. Constantly cooking some roast chicken.

• 18:28Speaker 03

  Those battles must've smelled delicious.

• 18:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 18:32Anna Ptaszynski?

  Maybe that's why we kept the war going. For that delicious smell. So wasteful. How much chicken was chucked away?

• 18:39Speaker 02

  Yes. There is a story about Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York, doing exactly this sort of thing, I'm afraid, in the new book about, uh, about her and Prince Andrew.

• 18:47Speaker 03

  Really?

• 18:48Speaker 02

  Basically, there's a, it sounds like there's a whole roast pig on the sideboard every night and they will have some crisps and then leave the roast pig on the sideboard. It's not good.

• 18:55Speaker 03

  Isn't it, there's a story that King Prince Charles used to, um, like get 10 boiled eggs every morning and then choose which one was cooked the best.

• 19:03Speaker 02

  I have heard that.

• 19:04Speaker 03

  I think that might not be true.

• 19:05Speaker 02

  It feels like it can't be true. It feels too good to be true.

• 19:08Anna Ptaszynski?

  How can you tell which one's cooked the best before you've opened it?

• 19:10Speaker 02

  Well, you have to open them all up.

• 19:11Anna Ptaszynski?

  He opens them up, I see.

• 19:12Speaker 02

  You have a little guillotine. Well, no, that's probably a sore subject.

• 19:18Speaker 03

  With Napoleon, did he have someone who was carving it all the time as well? Or did he just pull the bone apart himself? Strong.

• 19:26Speaker 02

  Didn't see it coming. Didn't see it coming. Walked right into that.

• 19:29Anna Ptaszynski?

  Coming. You see the look in his eyes, you think there's danger ahead.

• 19:35Anna Ptaszynski?

  Lovely. James, you got one?

• 19:36Speaker 03

  Yes, I do. Um, this one now is under the custodianship of Paul Sanders. And it is the fact that IMDb was originally just a list of actresses with beautiful eyes.

• 19:47Speaker 02

  Oh, that was creepy.

• 19:49Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think that's creepy.

• 19:51Speaker 02

  I mean, everyone's got beautiful eyes, haven't they?

• 19:53Anna Ptaszynski?

  Have they? What? You think everyone's got beautiful eyes?

• 19:56Speaker 02

  Well, I think it's a nice thing you can say to someone. You've got beautiful eyes.

• 19:59Speaker 03

  But that just means that half the time you're lying.

• 20:02Speaker 02

  No, I think it's very hard to get an, what am I trying to say? Hang on.

• 20:07Anna Ptaszynski?

  No, I like it that you think everyone's got beautiful eyes.

• 20:09Speaker 03

  Wait a minute. So that means that when you told me yesterday that I had beautiful eyes, that doesn't mean anything because you think everyone's got beautiful eyes.

• 20:15Speaker 02

  I was only saying that so you'd feel my testicles in the booth. I'm sorry.

• 20:22Anna Ptaszynski?

  I think he wasn't creepy. I remember this guy. And also it's not, it's not like beautiful breasts, is it? You know, it's kind of innocent compared to what happened to the internet afterwards. It was on a little internet, wasn't it?

• 20:32Speaker 02

  Yes. Didn't you find, aren't you on feats.com or something?

• 20:35Anna Ptaszynski?

  I.

• 20:36Speaker 03

  WikiFeeters, is it?

• 20:38Anna Ptaszynski?

  Certainly haven't put myself on WikiFeeters.

• 20:40Speaker 02

  Why do you know it's called WikiFeet?

• 20:40Speaker 03

  Because it's a meme that comes up all the time and jokes and stuff.

• 20:44Anna Ptaszynski?

  Suspicious.

• 20:46Speaker 03

  What?

• 20:47Anna Ptaszynski?

  You put them up there.

• 20:50Speaker 03

  Put them up where?

• 20:54Anna Ptaszynski?

  Getting out of control. Andy, how do you keep it under control?

• 20:58Speaker 02

  It's very difficult, isn't it?

• 20:59Anna Ptaszynski?

  Yeah. Um, okay. Another one. This is for Alan McCormack. And this is that the word fascinate literally means the embodiment of the divine phallus.

• 21:08Speaker 02

  Arms.

• 21:09Anna Ptaszynski?

  This was always one of my favourites because fascinate felt like such a QI fish word. We do stuff that's fascinating and it's just all about penises. And this is because it comes from Faskinum in Latin, doesn't it? A phallic shaped, um, holy amulet.

• 21:26Speaker 03

  I didn't remember that.

• 21:27Speaker 02

  Very nice. Shall we have another?

• 21:28Anna Ptaszynski?

  Yes. Let's have another.

• 21:29Speaker 02

  This goes out to Shiv Taylor and it's that the 2015 French Scrabble champion Nigel Richards doesn't speak a word of French. He must know oui and non, but basically he doesn't speak French. That's the thing.

• 21:42Anna Ptaszynski?

  Yeah.

• 21:43Speaker 02

  And didn't speak French. And I think he's won more languages because he just memorizes the word lists.

• 21:47Anna Ptaszynski?

  Yeah.

• 21:48Speaker 02

  These things. He's good at maths, not French. And if you're good at Scrabble, if you're really good at Scrabble, you have to be quite good at maths. I think that's it, isn't it?

• 21:55Anna Ptaszynski?

  Maths? Or like, just like memorizing?

• 21:58Speaker 03

  Memorizing and also logic, like where to put things.

• 22:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's it.

• 22:03Speaker 03

  Not putting a word down which opens up something to your opponent is quite an important part of it.

• 22:08Anna Ptaszynski?

  Although you have to be able to double and triple stuff for the triple word scores.

• 22:12Speaker 03

  Surely at the highest level, someone's doing that for you.

• 22:16Anna Ptaszynski?

  You've got to do it yourself. And if you fuck it up, you're disqualified straight away.

• 22:21Speaker 03

  Okay, I've got one more here. This one is now under the custodianship of Caitlin Partridge. Caitlin, your fact is that the world's only venomous frogs headbutt their enemies to death.

• 22:34Speaker 02

  Pretty cool.

• 22:35Anna Ptaszynski?

  Yeah, really.

• 22:36Speaker 02

  Sort of raises the question why they're venomous if they're so good at headbutting things.

• 22:41Speaker 03

  No, as in the venom is in their head.

• 22:43Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 22:46Speaker 03

  It's not like, you know what, I'm gonna headbutt you and if this doesn't work, I'm gonna get you with the venom.

• 22:51Speaker 02

  Okay, okay. The venom's in their heads?

• 22:53Speaker 03

  I think so, yeah.

• 22:54Anna Ptaszynski?

  Spike. Spike on the head. Like a unicorn.

• 22:56Speaker 02

  Yes. Hmm.

• 22:58Anna Ptaszynski?

  Are unicorns venomous? Nobody knows.

• 23:01Speaker 03

  Those, the really interesting thing about those venomous frogs is like, they're really tiny ones. They're like really colourful and you see them in zoos and stuff.

• 23:07Anna Ptaszynski?

  Mm-hmm.

• 23:08Speaker 03

  And then the sign says, this is the world's most venomous animal or whatever. But in actual fact, that frog is not venomous at all. And it can headbutt you as much as it likes, but you'll be absolutely fine.

• 23:18Anna Ptaszynski?

  Hmm.

• 23:19Speaker 03

  And that's because they get the venom from what they eat. And when they're in zoos, they don't eat the venomous stuff. And so the ones in the zoos are absolutely fine. There's nothing wrong with them.

• 23:28Anna Ptaszynski?

  Oh my god.

• 23:29Speaker 03

  Isn't that interesting?

• 23:30Speaker 02

  That's a really good...

• 23:32Speaker 03

  It's a really good thing to say to people when you're in a zoo.

• 23:34Anna Ptaszynski?

  The staff and stuff. I bet that's really annoying for them.

• 23:36Speaker 03

  I don't say it to the staff. I say it to the people who come with me. And the thing is like, because I am so tedious, it's always a different person. I never go to the zoo with the same person twice.

• 23:45Anna Ptaszynski?

  No, I can imagine. You never get to go anywhere with the same person twice, do you?

• 23:50Speaker 03

  Just this podcast every week because you guys turn up.

• 23:53Speaker 02

  Also, that thing of a venomous frog that's not venomous because it hasn't eaten the thing feels like absolutely classic Jonathan Creek to me. Like, that would be the way someone would die in a Jonathan Creek. And it turns out that the zookeeper had been, or someone at the zoo had been feeding the frog the venomous stuff. So it would kill the person.

• 24:08Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 24:09Anna Ptaszynski?

  And the mystery was that then they tested the, the thing and it wasn't venomous.

• 24:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly.

• 24:14Anna Ptaszynski?

  Yeah.

• 24:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 24:15Anna Ptaszynski?

  Okay. I can see that it needs work, but it's a good start.

• 24:18Speaker 02

  So for the reboot.

• 24:19Speaker 03

  I've never watched Jonathan Creek, I'm sorry to say.

• 24:22Anna Ptaszynski?

  It's not that kind of thing at all.

• 24:23Speaker 03

  Is it not? I believe it's really good. I've...

• 24:25Speaker 02

  I think it's, I think it's good. I mean, I've only seen a few, but it is that kind of thing. It's convoluted murders and Jonathan Creek's clever.

• 24:31Speaker 03

  Is he a magician or something?

• 24:33Anna Ptaszynski?

  Yeah.

• 24:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, he's a magician who lives in a windmill?

• 24:35Anna Ptaszynski?

  Yeah. It is, it's fantastic. It's the best thing Alan Davies has ever done. No, it is absolutely fantastic. It's so satisfying and clever. How about another fact then?

• 24:45Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 24:46Anna Ptaszynski?

  So this is a fact. I'm gonna start with the fact this time and then I'll say who we're giving it to. The fact is that the larger Pacific striped octopus catches its prey by sneaking up behind it and tapping it on the shoulder. And that fact is for Anton Delbar. Anton Delbar, there you go. A sneaky octopus. So cool. And this was, um, I think this is one of mine from back in the day. And it's that it taps it on the opposite shoulder to the shoulder it's on. Because octopuses have quite long arms, don't they?

• 25:14Speaker 02

  Beautiful.

• 25:15Anna Ptaszynski?

  So reaches around, taps it, and the thing thinks something's coming from the other direction and runs straight into the octopus's mouth.

• 25:20Speaker 03

  It's very clever.

• 25:21Anna Ptaszynski?

  Oh, how embarrassing.

• 25:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 25:25Anna Ptaszynski?

  You look like an idiot.

• 25:27Speaker 02

  Here's one that goes out to Sophie Williamson. Sophie, your fact is that defunct sports from the early 20th century include archery golf, boxing on horseback and competitive flagpole setting.

• 25:40Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 25:42Speaker 02

  I love that.

• 25:43Anna Ptaszynski?

  We almost have to specify that written down archery golf is hyphenated. Otherwise it did almost sound like you said archery golf.

• 25:50Speaker 02

  That's a good point. It's archers and golfers competing for the same hole.

• 25:54Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 25:54Speaker 02

  So you go to wherever you fired or hit the ball to, and then you get to have your next stroke slash shot from there.

• 26:00Anna Ptaszynski?

  Is it? And is it equally difficult?

• 26:02Speaker 02

  I don't know. I'll defer to James on this.

• 26:04Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm. Well, I find golf a lot easier. That's mostly because I've played golf many thousands of times in my life and I've done archery once.

• 26:13Speaker 02

  And you caught your wrist, didn't you?

• 26:15Speaker 03

  No, I caught my nipple.

• 26:16Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 26:17Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. I was with Anna.

• 26:18Anna Ptaszynski?

  Because it was with me. I'd forgotten you caught your nipple. You still managed to beat me.

• 26:22Speaker 03

  Did I?

• 26:22Anna Ptaszynski?

  Damn you. Maybe that's the trick. I didn't have to catch my nipple on the way.

• 26:28Speaker 03

  Yeah, I don't know. I wonder if the archer's allowed to fire at the golf ball or vice versa to try and knock your opponent out of the way.

• 26:34Speaker 02

  Fun idea. And we talked a lot about flagpole setting, which is a really fun competitive sport.

• 26:39Anna Ptaszynski?

  Yes, and sort of has a great history, doesn't it? Because it's, the stylites, those people who sat on poles for hundreds of years.

• 26:45Speaker 02

  Great pedigree. They weren't doing it for the sport, but they were doing it for the Enlightenment. But, I mean, the effect is the same.

• 26:50Speaker 03

  What's the, what's a skillful part of this sport?

• 26:53Speaker 02

  Not falling off?

• 26:55Speaker 03

  Um, yeah, really? It's all about balance.

• 26:58Speaker 02

  It's gotta be partly about balance, hasn't it? Um, not coming down for a pack of crisps. There are all sorts of...

• 27:05Speaker 03

  Oh no, he's come down, he's come down for a pack of crisps. For the third time this season, he's come down for a pack of crisps. And again, Andrew Hunter-Murray, I'm afraid has lost in the first round of the flagpole sitting competition.

• 27:18Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 27:20Speaker 03

  Oh, it's, it's embarrassing. It's monster munch as well. I don't believe it.

• 27:25Speaker 02

  I look over at the, the stand where my sponsors are looking absolutely furious. We paid this guy 2 million quid.

• 27:34Speaker 03

  And you're sponsored by Hula Hoops.

• 27:39Anna Ptaszynski?

  Okay, very good. All right. James finishes off.

• 27:42Speaker 03

  Final one for the day, um, is for Yelka Ludolfi. And Yelka, your fact is that the first ever pencils were used to draw on sheep.

• 27:52Speaker 02

  Beautiful.

• 27:53Anna Ptaszynski?

  From Andy's famous trip, I believe.

• 27:56Speaker 02

  The Keswick Pencil Museum.

• 27:58Speaker 03

  And that's all we got time for, Anna, I think.

• 28:01Anna Ptaszynski?

  Please, let's not get back to reminiscences. We'll never get away.

• 28:04Speaker 02

  Such a good place.

• 28:05Anna Ptaszynski?

  Yeah.

• 28:05Speaker 02

  And you've been there as well, James.

• 28:07Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah. But I used to live up there, like...

• 28:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, I made a special trip, to be fair.

• 28:11Anna Ptaszynski?

  Why wouldn't you?

• 28:12Speaker 02

  It was a time of personal crisis, which I don't like to go into now. But it was a bright, it was a very bright spot amid the gloom.

• 28:17Anna Ptaszynski?

  Yeah, I'm sure. How could it not be?

• 28:19Speaker 02

  That was the Honesty Slate mine to absolutely stand out days.

• 28:23Anna Ptaszynski?

  Hang on, were they, so did the slate go to the pencil museum? Did you go and see where it started and then where it ends?

• 28:28Speaker 02

  Do you know what? They haven't worked that together and they should do. Because that's a much better, that would be, that would be a whole day out, wouldn't it?

• 28:33Anna Ptaszynski?

  I mean, that's a PR coup for them.

• 28:35Speaker 02

  They're both a whole day out in and of themselves, but, um, yeah.

• 28:37Speaker 03

  But you could like, for people who go up for the weekend, you could get like a double ticket.

• 28:41Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 28:42Speaker 03

  Saturday at the pencil museum, Sunday at the slate museum.

• 28:45Anna Ptaszynski?

  Two for one. It's a dream come true for any honeymooner.

• 28:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 28:54Anna Ptaszynski?

  Lovely. Okay. Well, shall we wrap up there?

• 28:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 28:58Anna Ptaszynski?

  Um, okay. Well, thank you so much for listening. And that's all of the facts that you've sent us for this week. And hope you enjoy the facts that we've bestowed upon you. Of course, if you want to send us some more facts to potentially be read out on the next or a future Little Fish, write to [email protected]. Andy will filter through them all. He'll get rid of the crap. And he will choose your great fact for us to read out on the next episode. And if you want to listen to No Such Thing As The Fish, the big show, Big Fish, then please come back again in a few days' time. And failing that, we'll see you here on Little Fish again next week.

• 29:32Speaker 03

  Can I just say, if your fact hasn't been read out yet, it's not because it's crap necessarily.

• 29:37Anna Ptaszynski?

  Not necessarily.

• 29:37Speaker 03

  It might be that we just haven't got to it yet.

• 29:39Anna Ptaszynski?

  Just keep listening and find out. But if it hasn't been read out in like five years' time and you've already sent it, then give up. Maybe, maybe. Or maybe just send again. Andy might have missed it.

• 29:50Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 29:50Anna Ptaszynski?

  Okay.

• 29:51Speaker 02

  Well, I feel like you've given everyone's egos a real boost today, Anna.

• 29:54Anna Ptaszynski?

  That's what I'm here for. Okay, over and out.