Little Fish: Put A Peanut In It

The gang discuss YOUR facts, and Dan completes a Rubik's cube in just a few seconds. This week's subjects include Pakistan, pubs and printing papers. And Anna, James and Andy shout-out 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.

• 0:13Dan Schreiber?

  Hey everyone, welcome to another episode of Little Fish. This is the bonus Monday episode where we put down our favourite facts from the last seven days and we go through all of yours. We get to sit back and enjoy them. Thank you for sending them in. My name is Dan Schreiber. I'm sitting here with Andrew Hunter-Murray and James Harkin. We've got a great batch this week, so why don't we get straight into it? Who wants to go first?

• 0:34Speaker 01

  I will. I've got one here from Sword and it is about the FIFA World Cup, which is now all over.

• 0:42Dan Schreiber?

  Yeah.

• 0:42Speaker 01

  But I think we might have a few sort of strugglers in the FIFA World Cup facts.

• 0:47Dan Schreiber?

  This is to wean people off the excitement of what we've gone through.

• 0:50Speaker 02

  Just to give people a bit of inside knowledge, when you email in, if it's a good fact and it's going to be in Little Fish, hopefully, that will be in about eight weeks' time.

• 0:58Speaker 01

  Actually, this is about the FIFA World Cup 2002, so it must be that's when they sent it. No, actually, it's about all of the World Cups, I would say. Certainly the more recent ones. And it is about the hometown of this person called Sielkot in Pakistan. And Sielkot manufactures all the balls used in the World Cup. So Pakistan is always represented at the tournament, even though the men's team is ranked 198th in the world.

• 1:26Dan Schreiber?

  Oh.

• 1:28Speaker 01

  And Sielkot also manufactures the most bagpipes in the world outside of the United Kingdom. So it's all pipes and pipes and balls.

• 1:36Dan Schreiber?

  Leather-y containers.

• 1:38Speaker 01

  I guess they are, yeah.

• 1:39Dan Schreiber?

  You could, in extremis, use a squished football to be the bag for a bagpipe.

• 1:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:46Dan Schreiber?

  You know what I mean? Like jam, do a sort of tracheotomy on it, jam in the pipes.

• 1:49Speaker 02

  Very true.

• 1:50Dan Schreiber?

  That'd be exciting.

• 1:50Speaker 01

  Vice versa.

• 1:51Dan Schreiber?

  Absolutely.

• 1:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:52Dan Schreiber?

  It's Scotland's first ever World Cup final. But oh no, there's been a mix-up with the delivery from Pakistan. So you're going to have to play with bagpipes, guys.

• 2:00Speaker 01

  No, I like, you know, it's a really good concept, but I think you have to suspend belief a little bit for Scotland getting to the final of a World Cup. Sorry, Scotland. So yeah, this place, the industry began in 1889 in this Pakistani town, when a British sergeant asked a local saddle maker to repair a damaged football. It's kind of been an industrial town for a long time and they just have really good artisans, really good sewers and stuff, because hand-sewn balls are way better than machine-sewn ones.

• 2:30Dan Schreiber?

  Are they? Right. Okay, Andy, have you got one?

• 2:33Speaker 02

  Yes, this is a fantastic one. Okay, so it's from Elise Lu. And I'm going to give it to you in the form of a riddle.

• 2:41Dan Schreiber?

  Okay.

• 2:42Speaker 02

  Okay. So I'm standing on Blackfriars Bridge overlooking the River Thames.

• 2:46Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:47Speaker 02

  And I'm in London.

• 2:48Dan Schreiber?

  Okay.

• 2:49Speaker 02

  What country am I in?

• 2:52Speaker 01

  Ah, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

• 2:55Dan Schreiber?

  Uh-uh. You're in, you know, those places that rebuild the world in a small little town?

• 3:01Speaker 01

  Are you in London, Manitoba or wherever it is?

• 3:04Speaker 02

  Ontario.

• 3:05Dan Schreiber?

  Are you?

• 3:06Speaker 02

  London, Ontario is a town of about half a million people, between Toronto and Detroit, in a bit of Canada, sticking down between the Great Lakes. And Elise has just provided what they have in London, brackets, Canada.

• 3:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:18Speaker 02

  They've got the River Thames, they've got Covent Garden Market, they've got Blackfriars Bridge, Victoria Park, Foxhall Park, Oxford Street, Piccadilly Street, Pall Mall, Kensington Avenue, Regent Street.

• 3:29Speaker 01

  They should get their own stuff.

• 3:31Speaker 02

  I know.

• 3:32Speaker 01

  Why are they stealing our stuff?

• 3:34Speaker 02

  They've got Westminster, Hyde Park, Lambeth, to name three of the jewels of London, brackets, original.

• 3:40Speaker 01

  Oh, really?

• 3:40Speaker 02

  I just love it.

• 3:41Speaker 01

  Have they got Hackney Fried Chicken?

• 3:46Speaker 02

  And also, this is the weird thing, it is a crucible of Canadian celebrity talent.

• 3:54Speaker 01

  Oh, I thought you were going to say crucible of Canadian witch burning.

• 3:58Dan Schreiber?

  No, Celine Dion?

• 3:59Speaker 02

  Well, I'll tell, why don't I tell you?

• 4:01Speaker 01

  Alanis Morissette?

• 4:02Speaker 02

  Well, again, again.

• 4:03Speaker 01

  Justin Bieber?

• 4:05Speaker 02

  Okay, yes, granted, but.

• 4:09Speaker 02

  Elise, Elise provides a list of people.

• 4:12Dan Schreiber?

  Okay.

• 4:13Speaker 02

  And I think there is quite a clear fame meridian, which we pass at some point to the list. I'm not going to tell you when.

• 4:19Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 4:20Speaker 02

  All right. These people were all born in London, Ontario.

• 4:23Speaker 01

  The Beebs.

• 4:23Speaker 02

  Justin Bieber.

• 4:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:25Speaker 02

  Ryan Gosling.

• 4:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:27Speaker 02

  Rachel McAdams.

• 4:28Dan Schreiber?

  Yep.

• 4:28Speaker 02

  Victor Garber. Paul Haggis.

• 4:32Speaker 01

  Did he invent the Haggis?

• 4:34Speaker 02

  Invented the Haggis. Pakistani man, actually, but yeah, yeah.

• 4:37Speaker 01

  Actually, the one, the one before Paul Haggis, I wasn't aware of.

• 4:41Speaker 02

  Victor Garber, I think, is a producer and a performer. The one's a performer, one's a producer, but I would say the fame meridian is between Bieber and Garber.

• 4:49Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 4:50Speaker 02

  Yeah. Of course, they didn't stay there forever. Gosling moved to Cornwall, which is in Ontario, and Rachel McAdams went off to York University, brackets, Toronto, Ontario.

• 5:01Speaker 01

  Very good. Yeah.

• 5:02Dan Schreiber?

  Yeah.

• 5:02Speaker 02

  Thank you, Elise.

• 5:03Dan Schreiber?

  Lovely fact. Very good. I'm going to take us over to Dublin. Dublin, Ontario.

• 5:07Speaker 01

  Dublin, Ohio.

• 5:09Dan Schreiber?

  No, we're in Dublin now. This is from Michael McLaughlin, and he says, "Thought you might enjoy this." And this is, this is new news, so this is sort of topical. "The Hole in the Wall pub in Dublin was recently issued a closure order because there were holes in the wall."

• 5:26Speaker 01

  Have we been to this pub? I feel like I have been there.

• 5:29Dan Schreiber?

  I haven't been, and I think I'd know that we'd been there purely because it is the longest pub in Europe. It stretches 100 metres long.

• 5:37Speaker 01

  No.

• 5:37Dan Schreiber?

  Yeah, it wraps around this whole road. On their site, it says it's 153 metres, and then other places, it says it's 100 metres.

• 5:44Speaker 02

  But how, is it deep?

• 5:48Dan Schreiber?

  Yeah, it's.

• 5:48Speaker 02

  Or is it just long?

• 5:50Dan Schreiber?

  Oh, isn't, once you're inside, if it's long, isn't it deep?

• 5:54Speaker 02

  Incorrect. It's a long pub going all the way along the road, right?

• 5:59Dan Schreiber?

  Yeah.

• 6:00Speaker 02

  How deep is it from the back? Is it like six feet deep but 100 metres long?

• 6:06Dan Schreiber?

  I think I don't understand what deep means. What do you mean?

• 6:09Speaker 02

  In a three-dimensional, look, Jesus Christ, right, look.

• 6:12Dan Schreiber?

  Get a bed out.

• 6:13Speaker 02

  The pub is 100 metres long, right?

• 6:15Dan Schreiber?

  Yeah.

• 6:15Speaker 02

  It goes along a road. That's what you said, and there's no problem there.

• 6:19Dan Schreiber?

  Yeah.

• 6:19Speaker 02

  But is it a shallow pub?

• 6:23Dan Schreiber?

  Hmm.

• 6:23Speaker 02

  Which is only like that.

• 6:25Dan Schreiber?

  I don't have the dimensions on its width.

• 6:27Speaker 02

  How tall is it?

• 6:28Dan Schreiber?

  I think it's largely one floor with a mezzanine bit.

• 6:32Speaker 01

  Didn't expect you to know that, very impressive.

• 6:33Dan Schreiber?

  I know, but it's, it's been shut down because they, they had a problem with rat droppings and so on. So the hygiene levels have not been great. That was part.

• 6:44Speaker 02

  So the holes in the wall?

• 6:46Dan Schreiber?

  The holes in the wall mean that that's where the access points are for all of the rodents that are getting in.

• 6:50Speaker 02

  So it's not entirely because of the holes in the wall.

• 6:53Dan Schreiber?

  It's a two-parter. It was rats and holes were the, were the two things.

• 6:58Speaker 01

  I've been to what was claimed to be the longest bar in, I'm going to say the world, but it could be Europe. And this is the actual bar itself, not the, not the length of the pub.

• 7:09Dan Schreiber?

  Ah, yeah.

• 7:10Speaker 01

  And that was bar one in Sheffield.

• 7:12Dan Schreiber?

  Ah.

• 7:14Speaker 01

  And also, while I was there, I broke the world record for the biggest round ever sold, as in.

• 7:20Dan Schreiber?

  What? How many did you buy?

• 7:22Speaker 01

  I didn't buy, no, I was part of the, I was a recipient.

• 7:25Dan Schreiber?

  Wow.

• 7:26Speaker 01

  Of one of the drinks.

• 7:27Speaker 02

  When you say, "I broke the record," it's like, there are 10,000 people here, James, and James is like.

• 7:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's all right, I'll get it. Yeah, it's fine.

• 7:35Speaker 02

  Let's go on the company card, please.

• 7:40Dan Schreiber?

  Well, that's really impressive, Dan.

• 7:41Speaker 02

  Very cool.

• 7:42Dan Schreiber?

  Hole in the wall. Yeah, it had a name before, it became the Hole in the Wall. There's a rumour that it became.

• 7:46Speaker 01

  It's called the Rat Shit Club.

• 7:50Dan Schreiber?

  I'm sure it's a great pub.

• 7:51Speaker 01

  I've been there. I think, I'm pretty sure I've been there and I'm pretty sure it is awesome.

• 7:55Dan Schreiber?

  Yeah, nice. Yeah. And one of the thoughts is why it was given its new name, the Hole in the Wall, is because of the local army barracks around. They're not allowed on licensed premises, so they were thought that there might be holes that they could sell them the alcohol through.

• 8:09Speaker 01

  That's clever.

• 8:09Dan Schreiber?

  No, no, it's just a, it's just a theory.

• 8:12Speaker 01

  Might be.

• 8:13Speaker 02

  Might be.

• 8:13Dan Schreiber?

  All right, let's get, let's get another.

• 8:15Speaker 01

  Okay, this one is from John Kelly, and John was walking down the South Downs. So back in good old Blighty, not the South Downs in New Zealand or whatever. And John was curious about how many skeletons lay under his feet. And it turned out that according to John's calculations, there was roughly one, between one and five quadrillion skeletons.

• 8:39Speaker 02

  Huh? Oh, we're talking like animal carcass and insect carcass?

• 8:44Speaker 01

  We're talking cockolith carcass. Because this is chalk, and chalk is made of billions of microscopic skeletons. And John did the maths, and that's how many? Five quadrillion maximum?

• 8:58Speaker 02

  I don't know what a quadrillion, is that, is that just beneath him or is it the hole of the cliffs?

• 9:03Speaker 01

  I think it must be not just like the outline of his feet downwards. No, no, no, don't draw it.

• 9:10Speaker 02

  Right, this is now not the pub, this is now the White Cliffs of Dover. It's John walking along.

• 9:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, okay.

• 9:16Dan Schreiber?

  Okay. Has that helped you, James, with Andy's question?

• 9:19Speaker 01

  Neil Buchanan shitting himself, that's what I can say.

• 9:24Speaker 01

  For international, never mind.

• 9:26Dan Schreiber?

  No.

• 9:27Speaker 01

  So yeah, these are just cockoliths. They create a protective shell known as the cockosphere. And when they die, they sink down to the bottom of the ocean and they turn into chalk. And that's what the White Cliffs of Dover are made from.

• 9:42Dan Schreiber?

  It is pretty cool. It's pretty metal.

• 9:44Speaker 01

  It's amazing, just to think of how many billions of living creatures made those cliffs.

• 9:50Dan Schreiber?

  Yeah.

• 9:51Speaker 01

  For you to just draw a shitty picture of them.

• 9:54Dan Schreiber?

  Interesting. It's hard seeing your art criticised, but I'm going to say that was fair.

• 10:02Dan Schreiber?

  Andy, give us facts.

• 10:03Speaker 02

  All right, here's one. This is from John Cornwall, brackets, Ontario.

• 10:09Dan Schreiber?

  Is it really?

• 10:09Speaker 02

  That guy. John Cornwall, that's his name.

• 10:11Dan Schreiber?

  Oh, it's his name?

• 10:12Speaker 02

  Yeah. It was just, this is a very interesting fact, I think. I saw a post yesterday about someone that was on a cruise that set off the day before. They saw someone reading that day's newspaper and asked how on earth they had got it. Maybe a drone delivery or a paper boy who'd invested in a speedboat. Turns out that some of the larger cruise boats, I believe they call them liners, have a printing press on board and they print a slimmed down version of some newspapers.

• 10:39Speaker 01

  That's really cool.

• 10:40Speaker 02

  This may be common knowledge, but I found it amazing and thought some of your listeners might as well. And I know that for Dan, who has an especial interest in printing out things and putting the date on the top, and whether that's a wasteful policy,

• 10:53Speaker 02

  you might like to know that. I think that's a great, that's an amazing idea. Cause I've, and I've got personal experience of this, because I've done a voyage from Southampton to New York.

• 11:02Dan Schreiber?

  Yeah.

• 11:02Speaker 02

  And they had something like three copies of the Times available for the whole ship.

• 11:07Speaker 01

  Oh, did they?

• 11:07Speaker 02

  Because.

• 11:08Speaker 01

  So whoever gets it first and does the crossword spoils it for everyone.

• 11:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 11:12Dan Schreiber?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 11:13Speaker 02

  See, what I'd like to do for cruises is a predictive newspaper, where you pre-print every day of the voyage with the news you think is gonna happen and how things are gonna play out.

• 11:23Speaker 01

  Oh my god, ship hits iceberg.

• 11:27Speaker 01

  What the hell? No survivors? Oh my god.

• 11:32Speaker 02

  But you live in this bubble of this, this news that gets passed around and then you get off on the other side and you find out how different it was to.

• 11:37Speaker 01

  There was that TV show called The Bubble, wasn't there? Do you remember?

• 11:40Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 11:40Speaker 01

  It was very short-lived. I think it did really well in another country, like Netherlands or something, but they brought it here and they put celebrities in a bubble. And then after a week, they asked some questions about the news, which obviously everyone at home would know.

• 11:53Speaker 02

  Right.

• 11:53Speaker 01

  But they wouldn't know because they were in the bubble.

• 11:55Speaker 02

  That's quite good.

• 11:56Speaker 01

  It's quite a good idea, but it didn't work at all.

• 11:58Speaker 02

  What was the TV show where the guy got tomorrow's paper delivered to his door every day?

• 12:04Dan Schreiber?

  Really?

• 12:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, that was a brilliant, it was an old American series. And basically, he got a paper delivered. He never saw who delivered it. He was always rushing to the door saying, who's delivered this? And it was tomorrow's paper and it was all the awful things that would happen in the city.

• 12:16Dan Schreiber?

  And he'd have to try and stop it.

• 12:17Speaker 02

  He then had to run around and stop it. I think at the end of the episode, he'd actually see the paper that ended up being printed.

• 12:23Speaker 01

  And was that always better because he'd saved the day?

• 12:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, it was like building doesn't burn down. Or whatever.

• 12:29Speaker 01

  I've never heard of that.

• 12:30Speaker 02

  It's a fantastic show. I'm gonna have to look it up.

• 12:32Dan Schreiber?

  I wonder how many things you could get to in a day to prevent.

• 12:35Speaker 02

  It's not a whole newspaper's worth, you know?

• 12:37Dan Schreiber?

  It's just front, the front page, right?

• 12:38Speaker 01

  Would you choose the one which did the best good for the whole city or the one which was closest? And you were more likely to be able to do something to save.

• 12:48Speaker 02

  Yeah. I might put in a few calls for the ones that were, let's say, on the other side of the river.

• 12:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:54Speaker 02

  I might just ring up and say, by the way, there's, um, this is gonna be, an atrocity's gonna happen.

• 12:59Speaker 01

  The problem is that if you ring up and say the atrocity's gonna happen, then you're directly implicated in that atrocity.

• 13:04Speaker 02

  Oh yeah, this guy was always being arrested for making bombs right and stuff.

• 13:08Dan Schreiber?

  Day three, he's most wanted man in America.

• 13:12Speaker 02

  I probably completely butchered the explanation of the series. Wait, I gotta find out.

• 13:16Speaker 01

  Sounds a bit like Quantum Leap, doesn't it?

• 13:18Speaker 02

  Do you know what? I think it was shown in a double bill with, um, with Quantum Leap. I seem to remember that. It was called Early Edition.

• 13:25Speaker 01

  Right.

• 13:26Speaker 02

  1990s supernatural drama. Yes, it was on for four years, from 1996 to 2000. And he uses his knowledge to prevent terrible events from happening.

• 13:35Speaker 01

  Do you think someone sent him an email the day before it got cancelled saying, watch out?

• 13:46Dan Schreiber?

  Here's one that's come in from Alex Nelson. Alex Nelson says, Sir Christopher Wren has a single IMDb credit, art department on a 2013 episode of Question Time.

• 14:02Speaker 02

  And I looked it up and it's there.

• 14:03Speaker 01

  That's very good.

• 14:04Speaker 02

  It's very good.

• 14:05Speaker 01

  So it was basically held in one of his buildings.

• 14:08Dan Schreiber?

  It was filmed in St Paul's Cathedral and he is listed as set designer in the credits.

• 14:15Dan Schreiber?

  And I tried to find more because it's actually quite hard to find on IMDb who's gonna be listed. So you just have to chuck some names in and hope it lands.

• 14:23Speaker 02

  Were you trying to find particular architects?

• 14:25Dan Schreiber?

  I looked, so Frank Lloyd Wright, he's got a, he's got a credit for Cliff House Designer. But then you have things like in 2014, Sigmund Freud was named a spiritual consultant on a movie. But that's on IMDb. It's an official credit for Sigmund. They all have, I mean, everyone does have it because they, as, they appear as their self, don't they, in archive footage?

• 14:47Speaker 01

  I suppose, yeah.

• 14:47Dan Schreiber?

  But it's weird when you see like Hitler's IMDb and there's six listings of thanks, you know?

• 14:53Speaker 02

  What?

• 14:55Dan Schreiber?

  That's where it gets a bit strange.

• 14:57Speaker 01

  What? Do you know what they are? Can you remember them?

• 14:59Dan Schreiber?

  Some of them were ironic.

• 15:00Speaker 02

  Surely it is. Oh, right. Okay.

• 15:02Dan Schreiber?

  Like, I think Aeroplane has him listed as worst boy.

• 15:06Dan Schreiber?

  That kind of thing.

• 15:07Speaker 01

  That's such a good joke.

• 15:09Dan Schreiber?

  But I did see, I put Rosa Parks's name in there because Last Little Fish, uh, that the three of us were on, um, she came up as a part of potentially being on Predator. And she has a lot of self and she has a lot of thanks, but she also has a credit for a show. She was in an episode playing herself.

• 15:28Speaker 02

  Oh no, I know this. She was in Only Fools and Horses, wasn't she?

• 15:30Speaker 01

  She was in one episode.

• 15:33Dan Schreiber?

  Yes.

• 15:33Speaker 01

  It was really funny.

• 15:34Dan Schreiber?

  She gets engaged to Del Boy, yeah. And then there's the whole caper that leads to the falling apart.

• 15:40Speaker 02

  Is it, can we guess it?

• 15:42Dan Schreiber?

  It's an American drama, Early Edition.

• 15:48Speaker 01

  Imagine if that was right.

• 15:49Speaker 02

  Yeah. Like, he reads the news of this civil rights protest and he's like, I must stop this.

• 15:54Speaker 01

  Now you see me far.

• 15:57Dan Schreiber?

  No, it was a show I, I knew, uh, growing up in Hong Kong, it was on TV all the time. Touched by an Angel.

• 16:02Speaker 02

  I was about to guess Speed because I was trying to think of other great bus-based.

• 16:06Speaker 01

  Oh yeah, Spice Woven Movie.

• 16:07Dan Schreiber?

  Yeah.

• 16:10Speaker 01

  Summer Holiday with Cliff Richard and Rosa Parks.

• 16:14Dan Schreiber?

  Do you think her agent was always calling her up going, there's a, uh, a real amazing ceremony going on in your honor? You're up for it? Great. We've also got an offer from Keanu Reeves in Speed.

• 16:27Speaker 02

  No? Okay, I'm just checking. I just, I always like to check with you. Always like to check. Um, yeah, she was in an episode of Touched by an Angel, which was an American.

• 16:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't remember that one.

• 16:37Dan Schreiber?

  It's hard to describe, but those kind of.

• 16:38Speaker 01

  Is it like an angel who basically does the same as all these American dramas used to do, which is something dramatic is happening and then someone has a superpower that helps them to solve it?

• 16:48Dan Schreiber?

  Yeah. Yeah, I think it might have been. I can't remember, but it's not a drama as in like Dallas where it was like on every day. It was more like Party of Five or whatever that, however those American things are. Anyway, she's, she's got that.

• 17:00Speaker 02

  Brilliant.

• 17:00Dan Schreiber?

  Yeah. So anyway, congrats to, uh, Sir Christopher Wren.

• 17:04Speaker 01

  Okay, here's one from Shen Flindal. And they write, if the Rubik's Cube world record holder and the blindfold cube world record holder solved the same scramble, the blindfold solver would probably be finished before the regular solver had even started.

• 17:22Dan Schreiber?

  Oh.

• 17:25Speaker 01

  What's going on?

• 17:26Speaker 02

  Cause when you see it, you can start, right? As in when you, when you get the cube, you just get, you just go.

• 17:31Speaker 01

  Well, no.

• 17:32Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 17:33Speaker 01

  What happens is when you get the cube, you have 15 seconds to look at it and work out what you're gonna do and then work out what all the moves are gonna do. And then you go, go! And you go, and you make it, okay? The blindfold record is 11.67 seconds, but in that rule, you basically, you get it, you look at it, and then as soon as you're ready, then you put the blindfold on and then you solve it. So you're allowed to start before the 15 seconds.

• 18:02Speaker 02

  Oh, okay.

• 18:04Speaker 01

  So that's why he would always have beaten, uh, this guy called Charlie Eggers, who's the blindfolded guy, would have beaten it before Theodore Zaida from Poland.

• 18:14Speaker 02

  Right.

• 18:14Speaker 01

  Uh, would have done his because of just the rules. In actual fact, Theodore Zaida could do it quicker, but in the rules, he has to wait his 15 seconds.

• 18:22Dan Schreiber?

  Yeah. Can I, I know, because James, you can solve a Rubik's Cube and you can do it really fast. Well, but you can do it, I can't do it at all. So.

• 18:30Speaker 01

  Much faster than that.

• 18:31Dan Schreiber?

  Yeah.

• 18:35Speaker 01

  You just try every one of the 15 billion possible places it can be and then eventually it comes in.

• 18:40Dan Schreiber?

  And then you get it.

• 18:41Speaker 02

  Force majeure, yeah.

• 18:43Dan Schreiber?

  So my question is, is that if you're blindfolded, is the time that you're given that's extra looking at it? It's because there is a set way of just turning it right until you get there. So you've got to work out how many of those moves are, because you can, no one's going to stop you if you get it. If you go past it, presumably in the blind version of solving it, you just keep going past the final configuration.

• 19:04Speaker 01

  Oh, I see what you mean. Yeah, you might do that, but I mean, I don't have the brain capacity or exactly the understanding to do it. So I don't know exactly how it works, but I think it would be pretty unlikely for you to get the final configuration, then go past it. I guess you could go one or two.

• 19:19Dan Schreiber?

  But you can't see it, right?

• 19:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, they've got someone, they've got someone standing by them.

• 19:21Dan Schreiber?

  Coughing.

• 19:22Speaker 02

  Screaming, "Stop, stop, I can't take it, stop."

• 19:25Speaker 01

  No, you can't say it, but you would just know, like, because you know what order all the moves are in. So the final section of moves, where you're getting the final pieces in, that will always be the last move you make, will always be one of those.

• 19:36Dan Schreiber?

  I see. Oh, because the configuration changes. Yes, I see.

• 19:39Speaker 01

  So you would, I guess it's possible you could get just past it, but you would never be miles past it.

• 19:44Speaker 02

  Well, there's one behind, there's one literally behind you on the shelf, Dan, so let's just, let's just, you just, you just, you just start doing it now. No, no, we're going to get Dan to do it.

• 19:51Speaker 01

  This only needs one turn to be complete, so.

• 19:54Speaker 02

  Welcome to the next 15 hours of your life.

• 19:58Speaker 01

  This is a Richard Herring special, um, Rubik's Cube, yeah.

• 20:02Dan Schreiber?

  Done.

• 20:03Speaker 02

  Wow, I think that was even faster than you could do it.

• 20:06Speaker 01

  I think honestly it was, yeah.

• 20:08Dan Schreiber?

  Okay, interesting, amazing.

• 20:10Speaker 01

  There you go. Uh, the record for solving a Rubik's Cube was done by.

• 20:14Dan Schreiber?

  Rubik? No, it wouldn't have been the.

• 20:16Speaker 01

  Correct first letter.

• 20:19Speaker 02

  Richard McAdams.

• 20:20Speaker 01

  Correct, from London, Ontario.

• 20:24Dan Schreiber?

  That's right.

• 20:25Speaker 01

  Uh, no, it's, uh, robot.

• 20:27Speaker 02

  Oh, it is.

• 20:28Speaker 01

  A robot can now do it in 103 milliseconds.

• 20:31Dan Schreiber?

  Wow.

• 20:32Speaker 01

  Uh, and for reference, it takes you between 200 and 300 milliseconds to blink. So if you're watching a robot doing the cube, it would be definitely possible for you to blink and it'll just have happened when you were blinking.

• 20:44Dan Schreiber?

  How would it not shatter the cube?

• 20:47Speaker 01

  They're special, yeah, they're.

• 20:49Speaker 02

  Reinforced and extra lubricated.

• 20:51Speaker 01

  They're very lubricated, yeah.

• 20:52Dan Schreiber?

  Yeah, okay.

• 20:53Speaker 01

  Because you can buy Rubik's lube, can't you?

• 20:55Speaker 02

  Cube lube, they call it, yeah.

• 20:56Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 20:57Dan Schreiber?

  My son and I, Ted, were trying to say supercalifragilisticexpialidocious as quick as possible the other day. And we tried to see whether or not it's possible that you can bunch them up so tightly that you can just go, "Splat." And if you slowed down the audio, it would break down into the entire word. And I wonder if that's possible.

• 21:14Speaker 01

  It's really nice that you found someone at the same mental level as you to have conversations.

• 21:19Speaker 02

  We're actually setting up a rival podcast to fish, uh, soon.

• 21:23Speaker 01

  We're dead in the water, Andy, with that kind of chat.

• 21:26Dan Schreiber?

  Yeah.

• 21:27Speaker 01

  Oh my god.

• 21:28Dan Schreiber?

  Don't they also like soap up Rubik's Cube? Are you allowed to?

• 21:31Speaker 01

  You lube them.

• 21:32Dan Schreiber?

  You can lube them.

• 21:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 21:33Dan Schreiber?

  Bring your lube to the cube.

• 21:36Speaker 01

  This is why you weren't allowed on that ITV game show.

• 21:41Dan Schreiber?

  Bring your lube to the cube with Dan Schreiber.

• 21:44Speaker 01

  Didn't that used to be Philip Schofield who hosted that?

• 21:46Dan Schreiber?

  Was it?

• 21:47Speaker 02

  The Cube?

• 21:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:48Speaker 02

  I don't remember.

• 21:49Speaker 01

  I think it was.

• 21:49Speaker 02

  I think of Dan as the Philip Schofield of fish.

• 21:52Dan Schreiber?

  Oh, that's very sweet. Okay, Andy, go on, give us another fact.

• 21:56Speaker 02

  Here's one more fact about Canadian geography.

• 21:59Speaker 01

  Oh, god.

• 22:01Speaker 02

  I just love this so much. It's from, this is a wonderful name, Clementine Curly, from Melbourne.

• 22:07Dan Schreiber?

  Melbourne?

• 22:08Speaker 01

  Australia.

• 22:09Speaker 02

  Australia. Doesn't, actually Clementine doesn't say, could be Melbourne, Ontario. Clementine writes, "I recently learned, are you familiar with the actor Nathan Fillion?"

• 22:17Speaker 01

  No.

• 22:17Dan Schreiber?

  No.

• 22:18Speaker 02

  He was in Buffy, he was in Firefly and Serenity.

• 22:20Speaker 01

  Oh, I, I think I know who he is.

• 22:23Speaker 02

  Probably know who he is. Yeah, he's a great actor, really good. Anyway, uh, Nathan Fillion has a little parklet dedicated to him in his hometown of Edmonton, Canada, which is called the Nathan Fillion Civilian Pavilion.

• 22:39Speaker 01

  That's really good.

• 22:40Speaker 02

  And is painted vermilion.

• 22:42Speaker 01

  Is it really?

• 22:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, it is.

• 22:43Dan Schreiber?

  That's great.

• 22:44Speaker 01

  That's brilliant.

• 22:45Dan Schreiber?

  Yeah.

• 22:47Dan Schreiber?

  Well, that is fantastic, uh, but that's enough of your facts for now. We can't wait to read more of them out next week. But before we wrap up today's show, we love to hand out one of our old facts to members of Club Fish. So if you join on patreon.com slash Club Fish at the highest tier, which is friend of the podcast, we assign you one of the headline facts from the last 12 years of Fish. You get a really cool digital certificate along with it and, uh, we like to read out who's got what. So we're going to do some now. Uh, who wants to go first?

• 23:17Speaker 02

  I'll do one. This one goes out to Sveinung Carlson. Sveinung, congratulations to you. Your fact is, if you grow cos lettuce in a spaceship, it tastes like rocket.

• 23:30Speaker 01

  Perfect.

• 23:31Speaker 02

  Brilliant fact. Brilliant fact.

• 23:33Speaker 01

  Because they did it and it does. They must have, when they first tasted that cos lettuce, they must have thought, we've blown this shit wide open.

• 23:42Speaker 02

  Or if you're in America, it tastes like arugula.

• 23:44Speaker 01

  Oh yeah, but it doesn't work quite as well.

• 23:46Speaker 02

  The joke doesn't work.

• 23:47Speaker 01

  No.

• 23:49Speaker 01

  Um, I've got another one here about vegetables.

• 23:51Dan Schreiber?

  Oh, yeah.

• 23:52Speaker 01

  Uh, this is that the National Giants Vegetable Championship had to move venue in the mid 1980s as the pumpkins started getting too big to fit through the doors. And that now is under the custodianship of Heather Klein.

• 24:07Speaker 02

  Love it.

• 24:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, I remember that. Do you remember we did quite a lot on big vegetables and big pumpkins and stuff?

• 24:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, this is not meaning to sound like a joke, it was the low hanging fruit of its time. I mean, just giant vegetable growing competitions are just wonderfully funny things and the people who run them are brilliant.

• 24:24Dan Schreiber?

  Uh, all right, let's get another one out here. This goes to Michael Luna. Your fact is, the bearded lacewing insect incapacitates its prey by farting on it.

• 24:35Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 24:37Speaker 02

  That's nice.

• 24:38Speaker 01

  That's nice, that's nice.

• 24:40Dan Schreiber?

  It's going to look nice on your wall framed.

• 24:44Speaker 01

  It's a conversation piece like all of these are.

• 24:46Speaker 02

  It is, it is. They stun termites 30 times their size with a, with anal vapor. Isn't that incredible? That's like me knocking out an elephant with a fart.

• 24:58Speaker 01

  That's, I would like to see that.

• 25:00Dan Schreiber?

  Right, you'd have to get your bum right up to the elephant's nose.

• 25:03Speaker 02

  Well, it's got a movable trunk though, doesn't it? I mean, that's, the trunk is, yeah, yeah.

• 25:06Dan Schreiber?

  Yeah, you picked a good animal there.

• 25:11Speaker 01

  How do you encourage the elephant to get its trunk near your bum though?

• 25:14Speaker 02

  Put a peanut in it?

• 25:19Speaker 01

  Well.

• 25:22Speaker 01

  I just think, I, I hope no poachers are listening to this because we've given them too many good ideas.

• 25:30Speaker 01

  Put a peanut in it.

• 25:31Speaker 02

  Brilliant. Here's another one. This one goes out to Harry. Harry, your fact is that Ruby, a sheep which had been genetically engineered to glow in the dark, was accidentally sold to an abattoir.

• 25:45Speaker 01

  Oh, lovely. Another nice one to go on someone's wall.

• 25:47Speaker 02

  This was an Anne Miller fact.

• 25:49Speaker 01

  Was it?

• 25:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Ruby's mother had been given this gene.

• 25:52Speaker 01

  Anne, for the nicest woman you'll meet, she does come here with some dodgy facts, doesn't she? Do you remember the, the one about the, um, the bear who, um, they had to castrate them because they'd been having sex with their family members or whatever it was?

• 26:08Speaker 02

  That's right. It was a sort of incest, incest bear in Romania or somewhere.

• 26:11Dan Schreiber?

  Yes, that's right.

• 26:13Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 26:13Dan Schreiber?

  No, I know. I mean, well, she likes crime, doesn't she? She likes murder.

• 26:16Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, that's true.

• 26:18Dan Schreiber?

  Infectional terms. Anyway, congratulations to Harry. That's a lovely fact.

• 26:21Speaker 01

  Okay, here is another fact. This one goes under the custodianship of Zachary Nichols. Zachary, your fact is that during the launch of BBC Two in 1964, a live kangaroo got stuck in a lift at Television Centre.

• 26:39Dan Schreiber?

  I, I pretended to sort of be stuck in a lift, um, with the comedian Barry Cryer.

• 26:44Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 26:45Dan Schreiber?

  So I kept sending us to the wrong floor so that I just got more time with him to get more chatting with him.

• 26:51Speaker 01

  Did you?

• 26:51Dan Schreiber?

  Yeah, so we went up, we went down, we're like, oh no, this is not it, what's going on? Kind of thing. And I, I milked it for quite some time because he was like, oh, it's a confusing building, isn't it? And I thought, which it was, wasn't it?

• 27:01Speaker 01

  It was a confusing building, yeah.

• 27:03Dan Schreiber?

  Hmm.

• 27:03Speaker 01

  Um, it feels like that's kidnapping.

• 27:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, and a pensioner as well.

• 27:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:10Dan Schreiber?

  Hmm, when you frame it in a negative way.

• 27:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 27:14Dan Schreiber?

  Yeah, I can see how that might.

• 27:18Dan Schreiber?

  Uh, let's, let's do another one. Uh, this one is going to Jay Now. Your fact is, Dr Seuss once wrote a Warner Brothers film that was banned because it accidentally predicted The Manhattan Project.

• 27:32Speaker 01

  Brilliant.

• 27:32Speaker 02

  Lot going on in there.

• 27:33Dan Schreiber?

  Yep.

• 27:34Speaker 02

  Dr Seuss wrote a film that was banned.

• 27:36Dan Schreiber?

  By Warner Brothers.

• 27:37Speaker 02

  How can you accidentally predict the most complicated human endeavour ever created? I guess you just have to predict it a bit, don't you?

• 27:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, you don't have to be like, first this wocket goes in this socket, then this goes boom and this goes doom and loads of room is.

• 27:51Speaker 02

  Oh my god, that is quite good.

• 27:52Dan Schreiber?

  That is good.

• 27:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:54Dan Schreiber?

  Before he was a children's author, he worked in the writing department for the military, didn't he? He wrote a lot of, uh, movies and so on. So he must have written something that just was a bit too close.

• 28:04Speaker 01

  He also wrote one with loads of naked characters in it, didn't he? Do you remember that?

• 28:09Dan Schreiber?

  Did he?

• 28:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, um, but then it was illustrated in the same way as his normal books.

• 28:13Dan Schreiber?

  Don't remember that one.

• 28:14Speaker 02

  Hmm. Here's one that goes out to Robert Dixon. Robert, your fact now and forever is, the phrase, "Why is my poop green?" is Googled most commonly between 5:00 and 6:00 AM.

• 28:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:27Speaker 02

  It does make sense. It does. There are peaks and troughs of when you're Googling things.

• 28:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, people, they're most likely to find out after a, a long sleep, maybe.

• 28:36Speaker 02

  Five and six in the morning, quite early.

• 28:37Speaker 01

  Quite early.

• 28:38Speaker 02

  Feels like these are people who are having a long, dark night of the soul.

• 28:40Dan Schreiber?

  I think, I think you've had a night poo, it's been green, you thought that's probably normal, you've woken up at four, you've spent an hour freaking out and then you've Googled.

• 28:48Speaker 02

  Interesting.

• 28:49Dan Schreiber?

  I mean, that's, that's certainly how I did it.

• 28:50Speaker 02

  Just as an example of how that might happen.

• 28:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think this was just like Google had released a load of data about when people searched for different things and what was the most searched item in that year and whatever. And this was the funniest part of it.

• 29:06Speaker 02

  Oh God, you had a follow up fact on this one, James. The percentage of people Googling lonely peaks at 3:24am.

• 29:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:13Speaker 02

  Because I normally wait until 3:25am to do that, so I hold off.

• 29:18Dan Schreiber?

  It's not a very social hour, 3am, is it?

• 29:21Speaker 01

  The reason you're lonely is because everyone else is asleep.

• 29:26Speaker 01

  Okay, the final one for today goes now under the custodianship of Guinevere Derek. And your fact, Guinevere, is that in winter, we should all wear our socks outside our shoes.

• 29:41Speaker 02

  Brilliant.

• 29:42Speaker 01

  Dan Schreiber, you said this 11 years ago. Do you still do it?

• 29:47Dan Schreiber?

  If I was writing my predictive newspaper, I would have said it had changed the world and that's how we were all doing it since we'd said this fact.

• 29:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:56Dan Schreiber?

  And I don't think anyone's doing it.

• 29:58Speaker 02

  Weird.

• 29:58Dan Schreiber?

  Despite the science being on its side.

• 30:00Speaker 02

  Because it's to stop you slipping over, right?

• 30:02Dan Schreiber?

  Exactly. You get more grip on the ice if you have your socks on the outside. And this was tested, I'm going from memory, in New Zealand, and I believe either they won an Ig Nobel Prize for it, or it was reported by Mark Abrams in the improbable pages. I'm pretty sure that's where I got this from. But yeah, they found that it was an obvious thing to do. If you're on very slippery ice, just take your socks off, put them on the outside.

• 30:23Speaker 01

  It feels like if you're wearing specialist walking shoes with very good grip on, then maybe you shouldn't do that.

• 30:29Speaker 02

  That's true. And you're allowed to wear extra socks on the inside. I think the thing that people find a bit gross is the idea of not wearing anything between your foot and your shoe. I don't like that.

• 30:37Speaker 01

  Do you wear always socks with your crocs?

• 30:40Speaker 02

  Of course, of course.

• 30:43Dan Schreiber?

  I think that's in at the moment. I mean, my kids are certainly doing it.

• 30:46Speaker 01

  Socks with crocs.

• 30:47Dan Schreiber?

  Yeah, socks with crocs.

• 30:48Speaker 01

  Is it?

• 30:49Dan Schreiber?

  Yeah.

• 30:49Speaker 01

  It also sounds like a Dr Seuss book, doesn't it?

• 30:52Speaker 02

  Cocks in Crocs was that one. It was about another of the naked people.

• 30:56Dan Schreiber?

  The period, yeah.

• 30:58Dan Schreiber?

  Well, cool. Hey, these are, what a great batch. That's a killer batch of facts. So congratulations, you are now the custodians of these facts. So please look after them. Guinevere, Robert, Jay, Zachary, Harry, Michael, Heather, and Svinung. You hopefully have your digitally printed version of this. And if you want your own fact, again, just go to patreon.com/clubfish. But if you rather just listen to this show with someone who's hoping that they can get their fact read out, podcast at qi.com. Send them our way. Andy goes through the emails. He cherry picks the best. He brings them here. We love reading them. So please continue to send them along. But for now, that's all from me, James and Andy. And we'll see you again on Friday with another episode of No Such Thing as a Fish.

• 31:43Dan Schreiber?

  But for now, bye.