Pod Insights No Such Thing As A Fish Little Fish: See You In The Charts About this episode Dan, James and Andy discuss YOUR facts, including baseball, bridges and Ryan Bingham. We also learn why you don't want a meeting with Andy, no matter how handsome he might be. And we bestow eight facts on Friends of the Podcast.
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0:27 Speaker 01 Hello, I'm Chris Richards, general manager at Safford Volkswagen Richmond. I'm here to announce an exciting new program that I want you to listen to. Here's my friend Happy.
0:37 Speaker 02 Hi, I'm Happy Harry Turner, special finance manager at SaffordCredit.com. If you're in an open Chapter 13 bankruptcy, recently filed a Chapter 7, or you've been turned down because of credit challenges, don't give up. For nearly 30 years, I've helped people get reliable transportation when others said no. Visit SaffordCredit.com. Remember, I'm not happy unless you are.
0:56 Speaker 03 Hello and welcome to another episode of Little Fish. I'm Andrew Hunter Murray, and I'm here with Dan Schreiber and James Harkin.
1:18 Speaker 04 Hi, Andrew Hunter Murray.
1:19 Speaker 03 Hello, and we're here to discuss not our facts, but your facts. You've been sending them in. They've been flooding in to [email protected] , and you've sent brilliant facts, and we're going to tell you your best ones now. Clear? Okay, great. Who's got a fact?
1:37 Speaker 04 I've got one.
1:38 Speaker 03 Go on.
1:39 Speaker 04 This one is from Ryan Mahoney, and Ryan says, "Best outfield ever?", question mark. It's a fact about baseball. And according to Ryan, in 1998, there was a Cincinnati Reds baseball team with the players Dmitri Young in left field, Mike Frank in center field, and Chris Steins in right field, thereby giving the world the Young Frankenstein's outfield.
2:06 Speaker 03 Incredible.
2:07 Speaker 04 Young Frankensteins. And then he says, "It's alive!", which I think must be from the film.
2:13 Speaker 03 Yes, it is. I used to love the film.
2:15 Speaker 04 I haven't seen Young Frankensteins.
2:16 Speaker 03 It's so good. It's Gene Wilder. Mel Brooks. Marty Feldman. Yes. With weird eyes poking out. Well, those were just his eyes, yeah. Yeah, but they were weird. Okay. That was his main, he made a living out of those eyes. He's a brilliant comedian. Anyway, it's such a good film. Uh, it's so good. Anyway, what is an outfield? Is it like long leg in cricket?
2:36 Speaker 04 It's more like your midfield in soccer.
2:39 Speaker 03 Oh dear.
2:40 Speaker 04 Or your defence in soccer. It's like people who are playing next to each other.
2:43 Speaker 03 They must have done that. They must have thought.
2:45 Speaker 05 I don't, it's like, the thing is, it's such, it's such a, an expensive thing to just do for a name. You know, like, you need a good team.
2:55 Speaker 04 Uh, I've got a baseball fact that I found yesterday.
2:57 Speaker 03 Oh, great.
2:58 Speaker 04 Um, so I thought I would throw it and pitch it into the mix.
3:02 Speaker 03 Very nice.
3:03 Speaker 04 And it is that in 1957, there was a woman watching the Philadelphia Phillies in a baseball match. And she was sat in the crowd, sort of on the side, but quite near the front. Uh, and there was a stray ball hit into the crowd and it broke her nose.
3:19 Speaker 03 Oh, okay.
3:20 Speaker 04 And then people kind of came to help her. And then the very next pitch was also hit into the crowd. And it hit the same woman and broke her knee.
3:33 Speaker 04 Isn't that amazing?
3:34 Speaker 03 That's incredible. Have you, James, you've been to a lot of sports games. Has a ball ever made its way to you? Have you ever caught an object?
3:43 Speaker 04 No, I haven't. I always dream of it. Like if I watch cricket, for instance, especially if you go and watch like a one day cricket match where they're hitting it into the crowd. You always dream that that's gonna happen, but no.
3:52 Speaker 03 But also James's hands are normally full because he's throwing coins at the ref. So that's, you know, that's.
3:59 Speaker 04 The closest I got, I reckon, is a hockey puck.
4:01 Speaker 03 Oh, that's, but that's.
4:03 Speaker 04 But like, um, as in hit the, they have like a perspex screen in front of you and like it hit right in front of.
4:08 Speaker 03 Ah, okay.
4:09 Speaker 04 That was at the World Hockey Championships.
4:11 Speaker 03 It's probably good they've got those screens because I can imagine that a puck.
4:14 Speaker 05 Yeah, no, that's gonna.
4:15 Speaker 03 Would be, would really sting.
4:16 Speaker 05 That's gonna destroy.
4:17 Speaker 04 I think it could kill you.
4:18 Speaker 03 Really?
4:19 Speaker 04 I would say so.
4:20 Speaker 03 Gosh.
4:20 Speaker 05 I once, I once had a, an odd moment, uh, at a Red Hot Chili Peppers gig.
4:25 Speaker 04 Oh, yeah.
4:25 Speaker 05 So I was really far into the crowd in the mosh pits, quite far back. Let's say there's like 30 humans in front of me if you were doing a line. And, uh, Flea, the bass player, is drinking from a water bottle, chucks it into the crowd. I stick my hand up and catch it.
4:40 Speaker 03 Wow.
4:40 Speaker 05 Yeah, it's still got water in it and I drink it. About 20, 30 minutes later.
4:44 Speaker 04 Did you get a jab afterwards?
4:45 Speaker 05 Um, no, I got lung disease.
4:50 Speaker 04 That's Tex.
4:55 Speaker 04 Otherwise a brilliant joke.
4:56 Speaker 03 Thank you. What happened? You started feeling strange? No. His drugs were the water. No. Okay. No.
5:04 Speaker 05 Thirty minutes later, the drummer Chad Smith has a tall, plastic, red cup. You know, those you used to get at venues. He's drinking from it. He chucks it into the crowd. And with my left hand, I catch that. It lands at the exact same spot. And so I'm standing there with a bottle from Flea and a cup from Chad, about thirty people back. And I kept them for years. My mum threw them away when I moved to the UK.
5:24 Speaker 03 That's a good call. They got really mouldy.
5:28 Speaker 04 She threw them out the window. He was just happened to be visiting. Put your hand in the air, what's this?
5:39 Speaker 04 That sounds like a dream.
5:40 Speaker 03 No, but it happened.
5:41 Speaker 04 Yeah?
5:41 Speaker 03 Yeah.
5:42 Speaker 04 I believe you.
5:42 Speaker 03 Proof. Just a dream anecdote. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. That's really cool. Yeah, thank you. I've never caught any objects.
5:50 Speaker 05 Let's move on. That was from Ryan. I've got a Ryan fact here, so why don't we jump into that? This is sent in by Keith Moser, who writes that in 2010, Ryan Bingham won the Oscar for Best Original Song for co-writing "The Weary Kind" for the movie Crazy Heart. That same year, George Clooney was nominated for Best Actor for the film Up in the Air, in which he plays a character called Ryan Bingham. So the same name. So I did a tiny bit of extra diving into it to see whether or not there were more connections between George Clooney and Ryan Bingham. And what I found is that Ryan Bingham got commercial success for the first time when a song of his was used on the TV show ER, which was the TV show that really launched George Clooney as well.
6:35 Speaker 03 That's good.
6:35 Speaker 05 Yeah. That's really the only one, except for the fact that Ryan Bingham's... Ryan is not really his first name. His real first name is George.
6:43 Speaker 03 Whoa.
6:44 Speaker 04 Freaky. Doesn't that mean that the original fact is wrong?
6:47 Speaker 05 I mean, he goes under the name Ryan Bingham.
6:49 Speaker 04 Yeah.
6:49 Speaker 05 As his artist name.
6:50 Speaker 04 Like, George Clooney's character is called Ryan Bingham.
6:53 Speaker 05 Yeah.
6:53 Speaker 04 His name is George Bingham.
6:55 Speaker 05 Well, I haven't seen the movie. Maybe when he hands his passport over as he's getting on the plane, it says, "George Ryan Bingham, yep, you're on board."
7:01 Speaker 04 Is that what it's about, Up in the Air? He just gets... In a plane.
7:04 Speaker 05 I think he's a frequent flyer, yeah.
7:05 Speaker 03 It is genuinely what the film's about. And it's really good.
7:08 Speaker 04 Is it?
7:08 Speaker 03 Yeah. It's George Clooney and Anna Kendrick.
7:11 Speaker 04 Yes.
7:11 Speaker 03 And he flies around the world, I think, firing people.
7:14 Speaker 04 Oh.
7:14 Speaker 03 But professionally. It's quite you, James, because you're a frequent flyer. You know, he-
7:17 Speaker 04 I'm always firing people.
7:20 Speaker 03 He's trying to-
7:20 Speaker 04 Frequent fire.
7:21 Speaker 03 He's brilliant. That's what they should, that's what they should have called the film.
7:25 Speaker 04 Yeah.
7:25 Speaker 03 But his life is a bit up in the air, so I can see why they went with that instead of frequent fire.
7:31 Speaker 04 Um, it's a job that I think probably doesn't exist anymore thanks to Zoom.
7:37 Speaker 03 Very sad. We've lost so many of our traditions.
7:40 Speaker 04 Yeah.
7:40 Speaker 03 Um.
7:41 Speaker 04 People who fly around the country firing people.
7:44 Speaker 03 An incredibly handsome man, like the most handsome person you've seen in your life flies in, fires you, then flies off again. It would be so insulting.
7:52 Speaker 04 Would you prefer to be fired by someone hideous looking?
7:55 Speaker 03 I think I probably would.
7:56 Speaker 04 Yeah?
7:57 Speaker 03 Yeah.
7:57 Speaker 04 Would it take the edge off a bit?
7:58 Speaker 03 Yeah.
7:59 Speaker 05 Oh, interesting. I'd go the opposite, just to sweeten it.
8:02 Speaker 03 You like to be fired by someone handsome?
8:04 Speaker 05 Yeah, when, yeah.
8:04 Speaker 03 Well, Dan, I need to have a chat with you after the show.
8:10 Speaker 03 Here's another fact. This is a great one. It's from Soham Mukherjee. And Soham writes that a plane has recently been found after being lost for 13 years. Okay? It was an Air India flight that went missing in a parking bay at the Kolkata airport.
8:27 Speaker 05 Okay.
8:28 Speaker 03 They forgot they owned it and it just was, it was just there.
8:32 Speaker 04 So they just left it in the parking bay?
8:34 Speaker 03 They just left it in the parking bay. Air India just simply forgot it owed 83,000 pounds in parking fees.
8:42 Speaker 04 It was just covered in tickets.
8:44 Speaker 03 That's it. It'd been lost beneath all the parking tickets.
8:46 Speaker 04 It's, if you're gonna hide the plane, that's a good place to hide it.
8:49 Speaker 03 You're absolutely right. Uh, and it's been there since 2012. Anyway, it's a happy ending. Uh, because it's now been taken out and it's going to be used to train engineers.
8:59 Speaker 04 Oh, great.
9:00 Speaker 03 So it's having a successful afterlife. It probably was wondering what's happened to it, you know?
9:04 Speaker 05 Yeah.
9:04 Speaker 03 It wants to be up in the air, like in that film.
9:07 Speaker 05 Hmm, yeah.
9:08 Speaker 04 Okay, here is another fact from Russell Langer, and Russell says, I don't think I've heard this one on the podcast. Well, you haven't, Russell. Uh, it is that the Outer Bridge Crossing, the southernmost bridge between New York and New Jersey, is named after a man called Eugenius Harvey Outerbridge.
9:26 Speaker 04 Nice.
9:27 Speaker 03 So good.
9:29 Speaker 04 We love these, don't we? Where you would, you would hear something and assume that it's an adjective and it turns out to be named after someone.
9:36 Speaker 03 Do we think we've got enough for a book?
9:38 Speaker 04 No.
9:38 Speaker 03 Okay. Like a till book?
9:41 Speaker 04 No.
9:43 Speaker 03 I think we've got German chocolate cake.
9:45 Speaker 04 Yeah.
9:45 Speaker 03 We've got French's mustard, maybe?
9:48 Speaker 04 How long are your books, Andy? How many words is there in one of your books? Like 80,000, 90,000?
9:53 Speaker 03 We'll have, we'll do a long padding introduction. The children's Python, we did that on a drop us a line recently.
10:00 Speaker 04 Oh, yeah.
10:02 Speaker 03 That's four we've got. So I'll ring the publishers and say, just hold fire.
10:06 Speaker 04 It's enough for a pitch.
10:08 Speaker 03 It's enough for a pitch. That's it.
10:12 Speaker 03 1,000 things you would think are called the thing for the clearly obvious reason, but actually they're named after a person.
10:18 Speaker 04 It's a good name.
10:19 Speaker 03 It's a good name.
10:20 Speaker 05 Didn't we, what was the one, James, that I think we almost ran on the show, which was like the roly poly was named after someone called Michael Rolli Polley.
10:29 Speaker 04 Is it the blanket?
10:30 Speaker 05 Was it maybe the?
10:31 Speaker 03 Thomas Blanket in the 13th century.
10:33 Speaker 04 So there was a person called Thomas Blanket. And I think, so Anna and I have argued over this for many years. When we get drunk, this is all we talk about. But I think that probably what happened was there was already a blanket from the French blanque meaning white or from the French meaning white. And then this guy, Thomas Blanket, who definitely existed, came along and popularized the name. But I don't think it's named after him.
10:59 Speaker 05 God, I'm suddenly having flashbacks of like 2am in some hotel lobby, drinking and you and Anna absolutely going for it.
11:07 Speaker 03 Hammer and tongs, yeah.
11:09 Speaker 04 Yeah, so Outerbridge, Eugenius Harvey Outerbridge, his sister Mary Ewing Outerbridge was the person who brought lawn tennis to America.
11:18 Speaker 03 That's good.
11:18 Speaker 04 So it had been taken to Bermuda from the British and then the Americans brought it over. In fact, Mary Ewing Alterbridge brought it from Bermuda to America. And there was, when they started doing it, everyone argued about everything about it. So the size of the court, the size of the net, the size of the racket and the size of the ball was different wherever you played.
11:40 Speaker 03 Right.
11:41 Speaker 04 And so they had to bring it all together and it was actually Eugenius Alterbridge, after whom the crossing is named, who came up with the idea of forming the US Tennis Association.
11:51 Speaker 03 Oh, wow.
11:52 Speaker 04 To sort of bring everything together.
11:54 Speaker 03 Was he called Eugenius?
11:55 Speaker 04 Eugenius.
11:56 Speaker 03 Eugenius.
11:58 Speaker 05 Yeah. So how's the spelling? Like Eugene and then?
12:01 Speaker 04 Yeah, Eugene without the E at the end and then I U S.
12:05 Speaker 03 Cause there must have been a moment in his life where he did something stupid and someone got to say, you idiot Eugenius.
12:11 Speaker 04 It's, it's like EU genius.
12:13 Speaker 03 Yeah.
12:14 Speaker 04 It's like the reverse Nigel Farage.
12:17 Speaker 05 That's brilliant. Um, I got a fact that was sent in by Mimi. There is an unknown animal in the Burmese Zodiac.
12:25 Speaker 04 Okay.
12:25 Speaker 05 The Burmese Zodiac is quite interesting. There's a, there's a few elements to it. One of the main things is that to know what your Zodiac animal is, is based on not the year that you were born, but the day of the week that you were born on.
12:37 Speaker 04 Oh, okay.
12:37 Speaker 05 And, um, so there are eight animals in this Zodiac. Eight days a week. How does that work? Right? They've split Wednesday up into two days. So you've got Wednesday morning and Wednesday evening. And the animal associated with that is an elephant with tusks. And then in the evening, it's an elephant without tusks.
12:53 Speaker 03 Okay.
12:54 Speaker 04 Oh, it's still an elephant.
12:55 Speaker 05 Yeah. Um, because eight is a, is a very lucky number out there.
12:59 Speaker 03 An elephant who's been to the dentist.
13:00 Speaker 05 At 2:30.
13:02 Speaker 03 Yes.
13:03 Speaker 05 And so the, uh.
13:06 Speaker 03 Sometimes I wonder why I bother.
13:09 Speaker 04 We all do. I think we all do.
13:11 Speaker 05 Dan, you've just knocked a zero off your settlement payment when I fire you after this.
13:17 Speaker 05 I don't mind because you're so good looking. It's fine. So anyway, um, there is a mysterious animal on there. So I looked into it. I was born on a Saturday. Andy, you were born on a Saturday.
13:28 Speaker 04 Yes.
13:28 Speaker 05 So we are a dragon, according to it. Um, James, you were born on a Friday. So was Anna, and you were both the mysterious animal, which is, which is a guinea pig.
13:40 Speaker 04 Wait a minute, you said it was something that didn't exist.
13:43 Speaker 05 Well, it shouldn't have existed in the area when they were doing the Zodiac. It's very confusing. They're not sure why it's on there. It's had huge debates because this is, this is very old, the Zodiac. And yet a guinea pig statue is everywhere in their temples.
13:57 Speaker 04 Guineapigs are from South America, and there was no way you could get from South America to Myanmar at that time, I don't suppose.
14:05 Speaker 05 Exactly. And so there is lots of questions about what it is. So a lot of people have looked into it and they've found similar animals that are in the area that it could be, like the bamboo rat, uh, and so on. But, but it's known.
14:17 Speaker 04 Any nice animal?
14:19 Speaker 05 It does like, I feel bad, James, that we got dragon and you've got the bamboo rat.
14:28 Speaker 00 Chat GPT for teens is designed to help teens learn, think critically, and grow their skills. Chat GPT for teens supports active learning by breaking concepts down rather than giving teens the answer. Study mode helps teens work through problems and interactive quizzes test their knowledge and provide immediate feedback. Safety protections are on by default and parental controls offer families additional options like setting study hours and quiet hours. Visit chatgpt.com slash parents to learn more.
14:58 Speaker 05 Here's another one. Yep. This is from Edmund Galaski and Edmund writes, I came across this news tidbit uh, about a new proposal and I recall you discussing past proposals for something similar in 21 or 2022. Edmund's catching up. So Edmund, if you're listening to this in 2033, hello. Um, but basically it's about a snow tunnel. Okay. You know how you have indoor ski slopes sometimes? Oh, yeah.
15:25 Speaker 03 But they're a real pain in the bum because they're huge and they're very land hungry and energy intensive and all of this. And it's just like, it's a big pain. Well, what if you just had a massive hamster wheel of snow and the barrel will be spun to about 31 miles an hour? And if you're a skier, you can just get in and start skiing and ski the hamster wheel. Down, down all the time. You're constantly skiing down, you see?
15:47 Speaker 05 Yes.
15:48 Speaker 03 And if you're new, you can latch on to a built in stability apparatus, which is like it couldn't possibly go wrong and lead you to be dragged around this circle. Upside down.
15:59 Speaker 05 It is a nice idea.
16:00 Speaker 03 It's a proposal, but the interesting thing, this email came in from Edmund Golaski. Gola ski. He has ski in his name.
16:09 Speaker 04 Right, very common ending.
16:11 Speaker 05 Yeah, so there's literally a member of our podcast who has it.
16:15 Speaker 03 Oh, yeah.
16:16 Speaker 04 And she would be quite good in the hamster wheel because she's a guinea pig.
16:21 Speaker 03 Beautiful, beautiful. Right, should we have one or two more?
16:24 Speaker 05 Yeah.
16:25 Speaker 04 Yeah, go on then. This one is from Paul Fuller. And Paul says the program McDonald's use to run their electronic menu display at their drive throughs is called chips.exe.
16:37 Speaker 03 Very nice. Is that because, is that because they do chips?
16:41 Speaker 04 No.
16:41 Speaker 03 Because they do fries. They don't even know it's funny.
16:44 Speaker 04 Yeah, that's true. I think it's not, that's not why they use it. And also, I don't think it's quite true.
16:52 Speaker 03 Oh, what was our correspondent's name?
16:54 Speaker 04 Paul Fuller.
16:55 Speaker 03 Oh, Paul.
16:56 Speaker 04 It's hard to tell because this is like corporate secrets and stuff like that. It's hard to tell exactly what's going on. But I think what it is, is there is a payroll software called Clearing House Interbank Payment System or CHIPS. And I think they put this software on a lot of their computers and then they use those computers to put the electronic programs on, but the electronic programs are something else. But every now and then this program fails and then you get a error message and it says chips.exe has failed. And people see the chips.exe and they take a photo of it and put it on social media and everyone goes, ah, ha, ha, look, that's the name of the executing program. But actually, I think it's just a background program, I think.
17:40 Speaker 03 That's very, that's a very thorough hearkening. I love it.
17:43 Speaker 04 The truth is, I don't know for sure, but that's what my research points to.
17:47 Speaker 03 Well, don't we have an in with Zoe Hamburger, friend of the podcast? Who, like, episode one of Little Fish?
17:53 Speaker 04 Yes.
17:54 Speaker 03 Senior McDonald's executive. She'll pick up a call from us, won't she?
17:57 Speaker 04 I'm sure. She won't pick up a call from you because she'll fear that she's being fired.
18:01 Speaker 03 Yeah, absolutely.
18:04 Speaker 03 That's great research, James. Lovely. Dan, do you have one last one?
18:07 Speaker 05 Uh, yeah, this was sent in to us by Ian Flower from Seattle, who says, "This fact is from the same body of water where we employ anti espionage dolphins." So, you know, we spoke about these anti-
18:21 Speaker 04 Off the coast of Seattle?
18:23 Speaker 05 Yeah.
18:23 Speaker 03 Yeah.
18:24 Speaker 05 Yeah. He's written, "We've just had historic flooding and apparently the local ferries are using spy goggles to dodge dislodged debris." And so you heard this from a local NPR station. I had a look into it and it seems correct. Basically, there are a bunch of floating logs that are going towards all of these ships. If they get hit, they're going to get really damaged.
18:42 Speaker 03 Okay.
18:43 Speaker 05 So, the debris in the water has a different heat signature than the water itself. So what they do is they have a member of the team who stands at the front with infrared goggles on and then yells to the captain, "Move to the left! We've got a log directly in front of us."
18:58 Speaker 03 The captain's log. Brilliant. Well, he'd probably say, "Port." "I suspect rather than move to the left." You never know. Maybe it's his first day.
19:10 Speaker 05 It might be. It might be fun.
19:11 Speaker 04 Sorry, I always forget. Is left port or is left starboard? It's the same number of letters. Left is port. That's how you remember it.
19:19 Speaker 03 Oh, that's really good. I always remember, "Oh, there's no port left." Like if you're having a decanter of port.
19:25 Speaker 04 Oh, yeah?
19:25 Speaker 03 Yeah.
19:26 Speaker 05 Oh, that is good.
19:27 Speaker 03 But it's confusing because you say there's no port left. I should say there's some port left.
19:31 Speaker 04 Dan, how do you remember the port and starboards?
19:35 Speaker 05 I don't, which is why so many boats have crashed when I'm yelling out. "Stop putting me on lookout, guys." Jesus.
19:42 Speaker 03 There's a starboard. Who? Is it clearly? Oh, Ryan Bingham.
19:49 Speaker 04 I think if you say there's a star on board.
19:52 Speaker 03 Yeah.
19:52 Speaker 04 And Dan thinks, who's the biggest star? Ryan Bingham. What does Ryan Bingham's name begin with? R. What side is the starboard? The right. That's how you remember it.
20:02 Speaker 03 There we go. Yeah. As long as it's not a real emergency, we've got time to go through that every time.
20:10 Speaker 03 Right, shall we do some friend of the podcast?
20:12 Speaker 04 Yeah.
20:13 Speaker 03 Custodian.
20:13 Speaker 04 Let's do it.
20:14 Speaker 03 Fact dishing outs. Right, so everyone listening, if you join our Patreon, you can go to patreon.com/nosuchthingasafish and you join, you get all sorts of stuff. You get ad free episodes, you get bonus content. And if you join at the very top tier, you can become a friend of the podcast and we will dedicate one of our headline facts to you. So let's dish out a few of those now. I'll kick off. This is a fact going out to Karen McMillan. The 17th century prophet Dorothy Harling would cure you of your sins by urinating on the afflicted part of your body, but would also whip you first. So a nice PG fact to start off. Congratulations Karen, that's yours forever now.
20:58 Speaker 03 She was known as the perpetual spring.
21:03 Speaker 03 Urinating on her followers.
21:06 Speaker 04 Fair enough.
21:08 Speaker 03 So congratulations Karen. I'm afraid no takey backsies, that's your fact forever now.
21:15 Speaker 04 Okay, here's the next one. Homosexuality is illegal in Sudan, but a woman can have a female husband and a child can have a female father. And that fact now belongs to Soultramp. S O L E T R A M P. Presumably an internet name? Don't know.
21:36 Speaker 03 Could be a relation of the band Supertramp.
21:38 Speaker 04 Could be.
21:39 Speaker 03 Yes.
21:39 Speaker 04 If you get bitten by Soultramp, you turn into a super tramp.
21:45 Speaker 03 So I've just, I've just looked this up in the archive and basically there's a tribe called the Nuair. And if you're a woman and you can't have children, but you have a father who wants to pass on their property, you marry a woman who then has a child herself and that child technically, sort of legally becomes your child. Okay. So that, that is enshrined in law and society. And this was all about legal structures that people used to get around sort of sex-based, uh, like problems or difficulties. So we talked about the sworn virgins of Albania. Oh, yeah. They were women, but under, under the Albanian sort of sacred law, they had the status of men. They lived as men. Okay. And this was a really common thing for sort of centuries. So it's all that kind of stuff. Yeah. Yeah.
22:28 Speaker 05 Uh, here's a fact now for Anna Wilson. The man responsible for the first computer, Colossus, worked out that the way to stop crashes was to not turn it off and back on again.
22:40 Speaker 03 Yeah.
22:40 Speaker 05 Basically, if you turned it off, you were risking damage for when you turned it back on for things to burn out and so on. So the best way to have it functioning was just to leave it. Turn it on and just leave it.
22:51 Speaker 03 That's great.
22:52 Speaker 05 And let it, let it work itself out. Um.
22:55 Speaker 03 Yeah, I'm glad. I've been doing that for years with my computers. That's fine. They're fine. They're fine. Uh, should we have another one? Yeah. This one goes out to, uh, Kellen with two exclamation marks.
23:08 Speaker 04 Um, I don't think you sold it. Honestly, I could have, when you said that, I could possibly hear the first exclamation mark, but I definitely couldn't hear two.
23:17 Speaker 03 I gotta do it again. This one goes out to Kellen. Uh, and it's the fact that in 2014, two botanists from Kew Gardens checked a one pound 29 packet of supermarket mushrooms and found three species previously unknown to science.
23:34 Speaker 04 That's incredible.
23:34 Speaker 03 It's so good. I think it might've been Waitrose.
23:37 Speaker 04 Oh, well, of course.
23:38 Speaker 03 Of course.
23:38 Speaker 04 Yeah.
23:39 Speaker 03 That's the Waitrose guarantee, actually.
23:43 Speaker 04 Isn't that weird? Like, because you would think those mushrooms, if you don't know what the species is, could conceivably be poisonous.
23:49 Speaker 05 Yeah.
23:50 Speaker 04 Quite a high proportion of mushrooms are poisonous.
23:53 Speaker 05 It's, it's not the greatest food to discover new species of in a pack.
23:57 Speaker 04 Okay, I've got one more here. This fact is now under the custodianship of Mark Vent, who was in a recent episode and Dan said, I know Mark.
24:07 Speaker 05 I know Mark, yeah.
24:08 Speaker 04 Yeah.
24:08 Speaker 05 Yes.
24:09 Speaker 04 Um, so friend of Dan Schreiber, if not the entire podcast. Does Mark also know Ash Gardner?
24:15 Speaker 05 He does, yeah.
24:16 Speaker 04 Well, very good news for you, Mark, because Ash Gardner was the originator of this fact in episode 32, and it was that in 1060 B.C., the entire Egyptian city of Pi-Rameses was moved 20 kilometres north. So basically, it was by the Nile, and the Nile dried up, and they had to move the whole city. And Ash, I think, wrote a song about it.
24:39 Speaker 05 He did. And he also, for those who aren't familiar with his name, he wrote the theme tune for Fish as well. And that's why he was on the show. He also used to slip me the occasional fact, famously, when sparkling water was being transported across from country to country on boats, they would take the bubbles out and then reinsert the exact same bubbles back into the water when they got there. We still haven't checked to see if he's wrong.
25:02 Speaker 04 He's wrong.
25:03 Speaker 05 I think you guys assumed.
25:04 Speaker 03 Very nice. Great fact.
25:05 Speaker 05 Let's do another one here. This is for Kay Sutton, and the fact is, in 1864, one of Charles Dickens's friends gave him a flat pack Swiss chalet as a Christmas present.
25:17 Speaker 04 Very nice.
25:18 Speaker 05 Yeah. This is now in Rochester. I've seen it. I've been there a few times. It came in 58 different boxes, and he had to create this beautiful Swiss chalet where he wrote a lot of novels. He wrote so many in it. Yeah.
25:32 Speaker 03 That's so cool.
25:33 Speaker 04 Hundred percent someone else did that for him.
25:35 Speaker 05 Did the building.
25:36 Speaker 04 Yeah.
25:36 Speaker 05 Yeah, probably. Yeah. But yeah, his later novels, I think it was his later novels, were largely written in that Swiss chalet.
25:43 Speaker 03 Well, this is one of my favourite facts about Charles Dickens, because Rochester is in Kent. This is where the chalet is. And I do want to go visit it, actually. But Rochester is also where there's a house, which was the inspiration for Miss Havisham's house in Great Expectations. And it's a house that was later lived in by Rod Hull.
26:00 Speaker 04 It wasn't the roof that he fell off, was it?
26:03 Speaker 03 And that's the one he fell off.
26:04 Speaker 04 No.
26:04 Speaker 03 Rod Hull, famous British entertainer who had an emu on his arm. He was very, very famous in the, what, seventies and eighties. He went up onto the roof to fix the TV aerial.
26:13 Speaker 04 Yeah, he wanted to watch a football match.
26:14 Speaker 03 Apparently because Giles Brandreth told him.
26:17 Speaker 04 Don't think that's true.
26:18 Speaker 03 Okay.
26:21 Speaker 04 Okay. I've heard a couple of different entertainers saying that they told him that.
26:25 Speaker 03 Could have been Bruce, he could have been Wogan, but someone foolish told Rod Hull to go up and fix the TV aerial on his roof and he fell off and died.
26:31 Speaker 04 Yeah.
26:31 Speaker 03 And off Miss Havisham's house.
26:33 Speaker 04 I can't believe it's Miss Havisham's house.
26:35 Speaker 03 I know.
26:35 Speaker 04 I didn't know that.
26:36 Speaker 03 That should be a little footnote in all future editions of the book.
26:40 Speaker 04 Great expectations.
26:42 Speaker 03 Just as you're reading. By the way.
26:49 Speaker 04 I wonder who lives there now.
26:50 Speaker 03 Yeah.
26:51 Speaker 04 I'd love to live there. That's such a historical house.
26:54 Speaker 03 Timmy Mallett lives there now.
26:55 Speaker 04 Does he?
26:56 Speaker 03 Yeah.
26:57 Speaker 04 The guy who invented the mallet?
27:02 Speaker 03 Sorry to all the international listeners, let's have another fact.
27:06 Speaker 03 This one goes out to Johanna Koyvunen, I hope I've pronounced your name right, and it's that neuroscientists can tell if you are a musician simply by looking at your brain.
27:17 Speaker 04 Hmm.
27:17 Speaker 03 And I imagine this is the brain activity rather than opening up your skull and having a look.
27:21 Speaker 04 Yeah.
27:22 Speaker 03 At the tissue. And this is all about neuroscience and how musicians' brainwaves synchronise when they have a duet together and all sorts of stuff. And turns out it's in the brain, the music.
27:38 Speaker 04 Do you think our brains synchronise when we're doing this show?
27:40 Speaker 03 Hundred percent. I do.
27:42 Speaker 04 Do you?
27:43 Speaker 03 Yeah.
27:43 Speaker 04 What about when I'm saying an anecdote and you're just completely glazing over and not paying attention?
27:48 Speaker 03 And I'm doing my emails on my phone. Yeah.
27:51 Speaker 03 I have to be in sync because I know when the anecdote ends, so.
27:57 Speaker 03 We're a part but together. Yeah, yeah.
27:58 Speaker 04 Got it.
27:59 Speaker 03 Yeah. Where did they say that that does happen with heartbeats with strangers? Is it during a, watching a movie?
28:06 Speaker 04 Cinema, you blink, you blink in sync, that might be a fact that comes up later.
28:09 Speaker 03 Yeah, yeah. So I can, I can actually believe that our most intimate rhythms would be united during a show recording.
28:18 Speaker 04 Yeah.
28:19 Speaker 03 Yeah. Okay, exciting.
28:21 Speaker 04 I haven't had a period since Anna left.
28:30 Speaker 05 Too much?
28:30 Speaker 03 I don't think so.
28:31 Speaker 05 No.
28:32 Speaker 03 I'm sure you're not pregnant, though.
28:35 Speaker 05 Okay, here's another one. This one is for Richard M. During the Second World War, Jack Warner of Warner Brothers realised his studios were indistinguishable from a nearby aircraft factory, so painted a huge sign on the roof saying, "Lockheed, that way."
28:51 Speaker 03 That's very funny.
28:52 Speaker 05 Yeah.
28:52 Speaker 04 That's very good.
28:53 Speaker 05 Yeah. That's... I love, I love, um, uh, anyone who paints on the top of a roof, because it's often used.
29:00 Speaker 04 I just love those guys, unless it's Ruddle.
29:05 Speaker 04 You love people who paint on the top of buildings.
29:10 Speaker 04 I love walks in the countryside, champagne, and people who paint on the top of buildings.
29:18 Speaker 03 When is your, when is your book coming out, Dad? Of a thousand great people who paint on the top of buildings?
29:24 Speaker 05 I think it's not long after your book on people's names on What the Thing Is, is hitting the charts. I'll see you in the charts.
29:35 Speaker 05 I remember there was one where, uh, someone had painted on the top of a roof as people were landing into LA, "Welcome to San Francisco", you know, things like that.
29:44 Speaker 03 Yeah, that's fun. That is fun.
29:46 Speaker 05 You know, it's great.
29:47 Speaker 03 Yeah, absolutely.
29:47 Speaker 05 Yeah.
29:48 Speaker 03 Yeah.
29:48 Speaker 04 The guy from Warner Brothers, he could have, like, painted a fake tunnel on the side of a nearby cliff or something.
29:59 Speaker 03 Right, that, that's your lot for this week. Thank you so much to all those who've joined at the friend of the podcast here. That is Richard, Johanna, Kay, Mark, Kellen, Anna, Soultramp, and Karen. We're going to be doing another batch of these in a week. We hope you've enjoyed it. If you'd like to see more things that are available on the Patreon on Clubfish, just go to patreon.com/nosuchthingasafish. Thanks very much and keep the emails and the facts coming in. They're absolutely brilliant and we love them. [email protected] . That's it for this time. Bye for now.
30:43 Speaker 06 She's been thinking about this sleepover all week, but I think about her food allergies all the time. Fortunately, her doctor prescribed Zolair, omalizumab. It's proven to significantly reduce allergic reactions if a food allergy accident happens.
30:56 Speaker 03 Zolair 150mg is a prescription medication used to treat food allergy in people one year of age and older to reduce allergic reactions due to accidental exposure to one or more foods. While taking Zolair, you should continue to avoid all foods to which you are allergic. Don't use if you are allergic to Zolair. Zolair may cause a severe, life-threatening allergic reaction called anaphylaxis. Tell your doctor if you ever had anaphylaxis. Get help right away if you have trouble breathing or if you have swelling of your throat or tongue. Zolair should not be used for the emergency treatment of allergic reactions, including anaphylaxis. Zolair is for maintenance use to reduce allergic reactions, including anaphylaxis, while avoiding food allergens. Serious side effects such as cancer, fever, muscle aches and rash, parasitic infection, or heart and circulation problems have been reported. Please see zolair.com for full prescribing information. Ask an allergist about Zolair. This is an advertisement for Zolair,
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