Pod Insights No Such Thing As A Fish Little Fish: The Rat Ticklers Need Me About this episode Dan, James and Andy discuss YOUR facts, including boneless chicken, lifeless fungi paradoxical frogs. We learn what Anna has in common with Charles Dickens. And we name eight more Friend of the Podcast fact custodians.
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Transcript 5,918 words · 13 speakers
0:00 Speaker 00 Stop the podcast.
0:01 Speaker 01 Stop the podcast.
0:02 Speaker 00 Hi, everybody. We are sponsored this week by Progressive.
0:05 Speaker 01 That's right. So, everyone talks about how challenging it is to raise kids, but what about protecting them? I'm talking outlet covers, kitchen cabinet locks, baby gates. Where do you even start?
0:15 Speaker 00 Yes, it is a nightmare. Well, protecting your home and your auto is a great place to start.
0:22 Speaker 01 Progressive offers customized coverage options, so you can be sure you have the right coverage for you and your loved ones.
0:27 Speaker 00 They're basically the outlet covers, kitchen cabinet locks, and baby gates of insurance.
0:32 Speaker 01 Don't wait. Get your quote today at progressive.com.
0:35 Speaker 00 Progressive Casualty Insurance Company affiliates and other insurers. Not available in all states. On with the show.
0:41 Speaker 02 Jardiance has a big story to tell. Discover Jardiance Empigliflozin 10 or 25mg tablets. Visit jardiance.com, call 1-888-968-6648, or talk to your doctor to see if Jardiance is right for you.
0:59 Speaker 00 Hello, welcome to an episode of Little Fish. But before we go anywhere, Andy, there is something quite important that we have to say.
1:07 Speaker 01 Yes, we're going to be doing a live show. We're going to be going to Sweden to the Lund Comedy Festival in August.
1:15 Speaker 00 Yes, the 29th of August at 7pm. Anna will be there too.
1:19 Speaker 01 Oh!
1:19 Speaker 00 I know. Exciting, eh?
1:21 Speaker 01 Oh my god.
1:22 Speaker 00 I'm even surprised she's still here. She's not been in touch with me for the last nine months. If you would like to get involved in the pre-sale, that is for people who are members of Club Fish. So you need to go to patreon.com/clubfish and find out more about it there.
1:38 Speaker 01 That's right. General sale opens at the end of the week, but you can access the ticket pre-sale now, as James says, if you join Club Fish at patreon.com/clubfish.
1:46 Speaker 00 Okay, on with the podcast.
1:48 Speaker 01 On with the show.
2:05 Speaker 01 Hello and welcome to another episode of Little Fish. My name is Andrew Hunter Murray and I'm here with Dan Schreiber and James Harkin and we are going to go through your facts from the last seven days. Your facts have been flooding into the [email protected] and now we're going to tell you some of the best ones. Who's got a fact?
2:24 Speaker 00 Okay, I've got one. This is from Henry Bix. Henry says that in 2016, a Gothenburg man apologised for removing a giant snow penis by replacing it with a much larger snow penis and this has led to a spin-off tradition and even a new political party.
2:42 Speaker 01 Oh, okay. Some questions.
2:45 Speaker 03 So many questions.
2:46 Speaker 01 Is that a sincere apology, replacing a penis with a much larger snow penis?
2:50 Speaker 00 Yeah, because he was apologising for removing the original one.
2:53 Speaker 03 Right.
2:54 Speaker 01 Oh, I see. Okay.
2:57 Speaker 03 Next question.
2:58 Speaker 00 Yes, sorry, the man in the beanie hat?
3:01 Speaker 03 Thank you. The penis, just a bit more on that, please. Is it a vertical standing with two testes or what are we talking?
3:12 Speaker 00 Okay, so the original was a flat drawing. It was done on a river in Gothenburg and the government couldn't remove it until the weather changed because the ice was too thin. And then a local company helped out by getting a giant brush that they used to clean windows on tall buildings and they brushed it out. Now, people on the internet then got really, really mad because they thought that the government had been spending taxpayers' dollars rubbing out this penis and they, you know, set up Facebook pages saying this is disgusting. And the man who did it, who wasn't from the government, he was just doing what he thought was a good deed, then said, okay, fine. And he went into the north of the country,
3:53 Speaker 00 got a couple of massive snow blowers and then drew an enormous penis on the ground, which was 70 metres in length. And the tradition, the new tradition, these are 3D penises which are on around about in a place called Burros.
4:09 Speaker 03 I think it's a good use of taxpayers' money to get rid of an enormous penis that someone's drawn on the ground.
4:15 Speaker 00 Do you?
4:15 Speaker 03 Call me Captain Government.
4:17 Speaker 00 But you know, there isn't a magical money tree, Andy. Who's not getting the money?
4:22 Speaker 03 I think that's one of the core functions of a government, if I'm honest. It's like defence absolutely comes first. Second, remove snow penises. Third, ensure prosperity. Those are my two top priorities. And that's my political party.
4:34 Speaker 00 Yeah.
4:35 Speaker 03 Why is there a political party?
4:37 Speaker 00 The political party is the people who have started doing this tradition in the town of Burros. And they, the political thing, you know, they do put up these penises, but actually they're kind of an art collective. And they started a political party to see how easy it would be to set up a political party.
4:55 Speaker 03 Oh, I see.
4:56 Speaker 00 Which is like an art thing, but then part of the art thing is also making these giant sculptures. I should say that the information that I got all of this additional stuff from is a YouTuber called Edland Art, who did an amazing video about it.
5:09 Speaker 03 Very cool. Very nice. There's a drawing of a penis on the moon as well, which
5:13 Speaker 00 Blow it up.
5:14 Speaker 03 Is blow it up.
5:15 Speaker 00 I think it's big enough already, Andy. I don't think you need to blow it up.
5:23 Speaker 03 This was, this was the Moon Museum. Sure you guys have heard of it. So it was left up there by Apollo 12 and it was a group of artists. So there was David Novaros, John Chamberlain, but Andy Warhol was one of them. And it's this tiny little, it looks like almost like a chip that you would put into a camera and it's got little bits of art on it. And Andy Warhol drew a penis. And I think at the time he justified saying that it was a W and an A. And if you're being very generous, it kind of does look like that, but really it's a, it's a cock and balls drawing.
5:56 Speaker 00 Okay. Well, that will be useful if the aliens come. They will know what to expect when they arrive in Sweden.
6:04 Speaker 01 Let's have another Dan.
6:05 Speaker 03 Okay, here's one from Magnus Silverwood. Magnus writes, my fact is that Jupiter is not mostly composed of gas, but is in fact largely liquid hydrogen covered by gas clouds. And what Magnus finds really interesting about this, which is unbelievably fascinating because of the coincidence, is how we found this out. Uh, 1995, the spacecraft Galileo entered the orbit of Jupiter for the first time, just in time to witness what has been estimated as a one in 6,000 year event, the collision of the comet Shoemaker Levy 9 as it crashed into the surface of Jupiter. So the collision threw up a lot of debris into the atmosphere, the composition of which was studied.
6:50 Speaker 03 And they also opened a small observation window beneath the clouds so that they could see what was going on down there as the smoke was coming up. Um, yeah, and they found out that it's not the case.
6:59 Speaker 01 They found an enormous image of a penis.
7:04 Speaker 01 Doc, they've got their own tiresome art collectives on Jupiter, have they?
7:09 Speaker 03 But as a result of this-
7:10 Speaker 01 That's incredible. That is incredible.
7:11 Speaker 03 Yeah, they got to see this extraordinary thing, that one in 6,000. And that's, that's the story of how we, how we discovered that. And Galileo, that, that mission itself was a very interesting mission because they confirmed for the first time that there was life on Earth. And that was, as Galileo was flying away from us, Carl Sagan, who was part of the project, asked for it to be turned around and have all the instruments face Earth and take a reading. And the reading it took showed signs of life on our planet. And that might sound silly, but it served a major scientific purpose. It showed us what you would be looking for if you were looking for life on a planet.
7:53 Speaker 03 It could measure oxygen and methane in Earth's atmosphere. It spotted a steep cliff in the infrared spectrum of sunlight reflecting off the planet. And it had this red edge to it, which indicated the presence of vegetation. Uh, it picked up radio transmissions that were coming from the surface to show that there must be an intelligent life that were manufacturing artificial sounds and so on. So-
8:16 Speaker 01 Um, what year was it, Doc?
8:17 Speaker 03 1995 was the mission.
8:20 Speaker 01 Yeah.
8:20 Speaker 00 I was just thinking, what radio they might, they'd have got the archers.
8:23 Speaker 01 Yes.
8:25 Speaker 03 They would have got Scatman John, maybe.
8:27 Speaker 00 Oh, yeah.
8:28 Speaker 03 Yeah, if they were listening to the right music channel. Boom, boom, boom. Let me hear, say, whale. That would have been in the air. Not the best musical moment to be discovering Earth, but.
8:40 Speaker 01 Uh, here's one. This came in from Karen Gupta. So thank you very much, Karen. It's that the Indian Republic Day Parade held in New Delhi features 1,270 kilos of boneless chicken. Riddle me this.
8:58 Speaker 00 Well, there's lots of people there and they need to eat.
9:00 Speaker 01 It's not for people. It's not, it's not, these 1,200 kilos of boneless chicken are not for people.
9:06 Speaker 00 Um, do they leave it on, do they, do they put it on the side of the town? So that all of the wild animals go out to eat the chicken and they don't get in the way of the parade?
9:17 Speaker 01 Very good. You've got it.
9:20 Speaker 00 Oh.
9:20 Speaker 03 Nice.
9:21 Speaker 01 You've got it. The chicken is spread out, says Karen, at specific locations to attract black kites and prevent bird strikes. Because there are a load of planes that do the parade.
9:32 Speaker 00 Oh.
9:32 Speaker 01 And there are also a load of black kites in Delhi. And they fly at roughly the height that they might go into one of the engines and, um, and ruin their, ruin everyone's day, uh, and ruin an otherwise happy parade. And so they have been putting out lots and lots of meat. They used to do buffalo, uh, but they've recently changed the recipe, uh, to chicken.
9:52 Speaker 00 Can I ask, are these, um, kites really picky eaters that they don't like to eat chicken with bones in it?
9:59 Speaker 01 What a good point. I don't know. I think it, I, I did look it up a bit and it has to be in pieces of a specific size.
10:06 Speaker 00 It's interesting because I would have thought that they would just eat animals normally, right? They would eat like little voles or something. And they definitely have bones in them.
10:16 Speaker 01 Yeah, you're right. I think it's, I don't, I don't know what the reason is. I guess they can't just say, we'll just throw up any old, any old shite for them. Cause this is the, you know, it's a big Republic Day parade. It's gotta be, every element of it has to be meticulously planned.
10:28 Speaker 00 And also like you need to put something really nice for the kites. You can't just put like some chicken thighs out there because they'll be like, oh yeah, we could get that anywhere.
10:38 Speaker 01 No, no, no.
10:38 Speaker 00 Oh, but look, it's the amazing boneless stuff we can get in there.
10:41 Speaker 01 Boneless, jerk rubbed. I don't know what I'm doing. Trying to come up with a chicken recipe. I don't eat much chicken. But I think it's quite meaningful that it's chickens because of course they can't fly. And yet they, with their sacrifice, are allowing the, the aerial parade to happen. So in a sense they can.
11:01 Speaker 00 I think chickens can fly a little bit, can't they?
11:03 Speaker 01 Come on, not much.
11:05 Speaker 00 Not much, but they could like, you know.
11:07 Speaker 01 If you throw them in the air, they will flap as they fall.
11:11 Speaker 00 I believe that if you have chickens and you have a building like a shed and it's like two meters tall, they can get onto it, I reckon.
11:19 Speaker 01 Really?
11:20 Speaker 00 I think so.
11:21 Speaker 01 Yeah, I think that's right.
11:23 Speaker 00 They can sort of flutter upwards.
11:24 Speaker 01 Yeah, they can, they've, they're secret flyers.
11:26 Speaker 00 I mean, not like, not the ones that like Bernard Matthews has fed to within each of their life. Like those guys can't do much.
11:34 Speaker 01 Very interesting. Okay. What's the highest you've ever seen a chicken fly? Podcast at QI.com.
11:41 Speaker 01 Why do I do it to myself?
11:44 Speaker 00 Okay, here is a fact from Jennifer Neal. And Jennifer writes about a species of fungi found in the fungarium at Kew Gardens. That does not grow naturally anywhere else in the world.
11:57 Speaker 01 Cool.
11:58 Speaker 00 Riddle me this.
12:02 Speaker 01 I love our little mystical riddles. It doesn't grow, it shrinks.
12:07 Speaker 00 Ah, yes.
12:08 Speaker 01 Born at a, at a full size and shrinks over the course of its life.
12:12 Speaker 00 Like the, there is a paradoxical, is it a paradoxical fish?
12:16 Speaker 01 Paradoxical frog.
12:16 Speaker 00 Frog, that's it, that's born bigger than it grows as an adult. It's like the, the female gives birth to this enormous tadpole and then when it turns into a frog, it gets smaller.
12:28 Speaker 01 Must be incredibly irritating for the mum.
12:30 Speaker 00 And this is a clue. It is, this fungus is called Gulfboliar Ambusta. The reason that it doesn't grow anywhere is because it is an actual golf ball. It's a golf ball that has been burnt and it was sent to Kew Gardens in 1952 from Lancashire as a joke. Uh, I think actually, like, to be honest, it's not certain whether the people who found it thought it was a joke or whether they thought it was an actual fungus. But definitely the guy who took it in was called RWG Dennis, who's the head of mycology at the Royal Botanic Gardens. And certainly he was in on a joke of giving it an official name, uh, and describing it.
13:13 Speaker 00 Yeah, he just, he's a fun guy. He described it.
13:16 Speaker 01 Oh my god. Oh my god.
13:18 Speaker 00 Sorry, I couldn't help that. I'm really sorry.
13:20 Speaker 01 I walked into it.
13:21 Speaker 00 I feel like I would have to hand back my comedy gun and badge if I didn't make that joke.
13:26 Speaker 01 Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.
13:28 Speaker 00 Um, but he described it in an official paper, uh, as small, hard but elastic spheres enjoyed by the Caledonians in certain tribal rites. Uh, and he was, one, making a joke, but two, kind of making a point that there was no definition of what a mushroom was at that time. And some mycologists, so people who've studied mushrooms, said that a fungus should be anything that's studied by mycologists. Uh, as in if we study it, it's just automatically a fungus because it was so hard to define. And he said, well, you can't really do that because if you do that, then I'm going to call this golf ball a fungus. Uh, and what I'm really interested in is that it was sent from Lancashire.
14:13 Speaker 00 And I have played, I would, most golf courses in Lancashire, I would say. But I can't for the life of me find out which golf course it's from, this ball. And I'm just really excited to find out. That's what I'm really interested in.
14:27 Speaker 01 Yeah. Feels like you missed the point of the whole story. Yeah.
14:32 Speaker 03 I've got another one here. This is from Brian Simpson. The band The Postal Service was sent a cease and desist letter from the United States Postal Service, but were then allowed to keep the name after agreeing to perform for the USPS.
14:51 Speaker 03 I actually used to listen to this band. They had one album. It was a sort of supergroup. The lead singer was from the band Death Cab for Cutie, and the reason that they were called The Postal Service is because that's how the album was created. One of them would put a bed of music down, put it in the post.
15:11 Speaker 01 One of them would write a note, E sharp.
15:16 Speaker 01 Is there an E sharp? No, there's no.
15:18 Speaker 03 Bollocks! Of all the notes you could have gone for. God damn it!
15:23 Speaker 01 F sharp. He'd wait for a return of post. Is that how they did it? Yeah.
15:29 Speaker 03 That's exactly how they debuted. Been reading the notes, yeah.
15:31 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah, yeah.
15:32 Speaker 03 Yeah, no, so they had, they just had conflicting schedules, so they were sent it to each other through the post. It was slightly annoying when it was revealed that they didn't in fact use the US Postal Service as their method of posting, but used others like FedEx and the United Parcel Service. But yeah, so they got sent this cease and desist letter. They went and met up with them, and they agreed that if they would play at their National Executive Conference in Washington DC, then they would be allowed to use the name. They struck up a good relationship then. The band CDs were then sold on the USPS official website.
16:07 Speaker 01 Wow.
16:07 Speaker 03 So they got a lot of publicity off the back of this moment. So yeah, the lead singer's married to Zouy Deschanel. That's a little bonus fact there. The reason his band's called Death Cab for Cutie is that was a song by the Bonzo Dog Doodah Band, and it was performed in Magical Mystery Tour, the Beatles film. Always comes back to the Beatles.
16:26 Speaker 01 Yeah.
16:26 Speaker 03 It certainly does when you're talking, Dan.
16:33 Speaker 04 Stop the podcast.
16:34 Speaker 01 Stop the podcast.
16:35 Speaker 04 Hi, everybody. We are sponsored this week by Progressive.
16:38 Speaker 01 That's right. So, everyone talks about how challenging it is to raise kids, but what about protecting them? I'm talking outlet covers, kitchen cabinet locks, baby gates. Where do you even start?
16:49 Speaker 04 Yes, it is a nightmare. Well, protecting your home and your auto is a great place to start.
16:55 Speaker 01 Progressive offers customized coverage options, so you can be sure you have the right coverage for you and your loved ones.
17:01 Speaker 04 They're basically the outlet covers, kitchen cabinet locks, and baby gates of insurance.
17:06 Speaker 01 Don't wait. Get your quote today at progressive.com.
17:08 Speaker 04 Progressive Casualty Insurance Company affiliates and other insurers. Not available in all states. On with the show.
17:15 Speaker 05 Hi, I'm Jenna Oshkowitz. You might know me from Glee. This is At the Table, the food allergy podcast, a show about food, connection, and what it really looks like to live with food allergies. Each episode, we hear stories from real people like Daniel.
17:30 Speaker 06 People would always think I was lactose intolerant, so I just kind of shortened my explanation to I'm deathly allergic in a big way that defined a lot of my childhood.
17:41 Speaker 05 And while there are challenges, there are moments that remind you you're not alone.
17:46 Speaker 07 One of the best guys that I dated, he made a point to memorize all my food allergies.
17:52 Speaker 05 So join us and hear their stories and more, because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat. It's about still having your seat at the table. Brought to you by Genentech and Novartis. Listen to At the Table, the food allergy podcast, on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow At the Table and start listening on the free iHeart Radio app today.
18:14 Speaker 01 Um, I've got one.
18:16 Speaker 04 Yeah, I've got one.
18:17 Speaker 01 This is from Nick Sais. "I thought you might find it interesting," he writes, "that the French learned how to make the nuclear bomb by playing 20 questions with American scientists."
18:30 Speaker 04 No.
18:31 Speaker 01 Way. So basically, America's got the nuclear bomb. France doesn't. American law forbids America from sharing nuclear secrets, but they're both allies. I think this is after NATO has set up. So that America wants France to have the bomb, but legally they can't say, this is how you make a nuclear bomb. So instead they use this system called negative guidance, where the French would say, here's what we're doing. And the Americans would say hotter, colder, or don't do that. And basically they just sort of reverse guided them to having a nuclear bomb. Isn't that crazy? And you can, and you can do that in 20 questions?
19:09 Speaker 00 Doesn't seem likely.
19:10 Speaker 01 Exactly. No more than 20. Yeah.
19:13 Speaker 00 Because like you use the first one up with like animal, vegetable or mineral, right? So like that's only 19 after that.
19:19 Speaker 01 Yeah, but you know, the mineral, which is uranium. So you're laughing. It feels like they probably had the plans, but they had to go through the diplomatic process of asking 20 questions. Don't, don't get hung up on the 20 thing. I think they were probably allowed a few extensions to the 20. Yeah. Yeah, I think so. Like 20,000. France got to the end of the 20 questions and the Americans were like, oh, well, that's a shame. Sorry. The West's nuclear umbrella will just have to have a little panel missing, won't it? Oh, well.
19:52 Speaker 00 Okay, here is one last one from me. This is from Matt Souza. And Matt Souza writes that my significant other, this is Matt's significant other, is a veterinary technician who just informed me of a fact you all might enjoy. There exist online courses to become a certified rat tickler. And this is amazing. There's basically tickling rats is a very important thing in science because the pathways in rats' brains are very similar to the pathways in humans' brains, especially when you're being tickled. And so whenever they want to do any tickle science, then they do it on rats first. And rats absolutely love it. And they're, you know, if you're a rat tickler, you only
20:37 Speaker 00 need to walk into a room and all the rats are going to jump around going, oh my God, the rat tickler's here. We can't wait to be tickled.
20:44 Speaker 01 James, are you about to tell us that you have completed this course and become a certified rat tickler?
20:51 Speaker 01 Cause I'll be so happy if you have.
20:53 Speaker 00 I only wish that I thought of it. No, I think it probably takes a bit longer than we had in the day and a half since you said these facts.
21:03 Speaker 01 How hard could it be to tickle a rat? It sounds like they're up for a tickle.
21:06 Speaker 03 Yeah, we all, all of us should have, you know how people who chase meteorites, they get a report that one's landed and they just have to go immediately to go and find it? They all have a bag ready at the door for these moments. I think we need the equivalent where it's like, rat tickling course available. We're recording tomorrow. See you, honey. Out the door.
21:27 Speaker 00 Sorry, Paulina. The harken signal is in the sky.
21:32 Speaker 00 The rat ticklers need me.
21:35 Speaker 01 Right, that is enough of your facts. Let's have some facts being dished out to you. Because if you join Club Fish, which is a members' club on Patreon, at the highest tier, which is friend of the podcast, then you will get a shout out on the show and we will allocate you a fact and send you a certificate confirming that you are forever the custodian of this fact. So we're going to do a bunch of those now. If you want to check it out, go to patreon.com/clubfish. You can join at any of the tiers and there's great stuff on all of them, frankly. But let's have some custodians. Who wants to go first?
22:10 Speaker 00 I will. Okay, this one is now under the custodianship of Melinda Fredrickson. Melinda, your fact is that in Kentucky in March 1876, it rained mutton tasting meat.
22:27 Speaker 01 Lovely.
22:29 Speaker 00 I think what happened was it was fed to a load of black knights and they were like, what's this disgusting stuff? And just spat it out over this time. No, I don't remember. I think basically what happened was this so-called mutton tasting meat fell down to earth and we still don't know what it was. And it could be that some frogs were sort of sucked up in a water spout and then flown over, sort of Wizard of Oz style, and then landed in this place in Kentucky. And then people ate the frog and thought, oh, this tastes a bit like mutton. Or it could have been something else. We don't really know what it was.
23:04 Speaker 01 No, you're right. We'll never know. But I do love it. I love the fact.
23:08 Speaker 00 Yeah.
23:08 Speaker 03 Um, I'll do another fact now. This goes out now to Grapefruit Street. Congratulations, Grapefruit Street. This is your fact. It is that Victorian inventor Peter Halkett invented a coat which doubled up as a boat.
23:24 Speaker 01 Yes. Love this.
23:26 Speaker 00 And it could take eight people. He could fit eight people in his boat coat. It's amazing. It's like a modern day Noah, you know?
23:36 Speaker 01 Yeah. And if it's eight people, I think you can fit Mrs. Noah and Ham, Shem and Japheth.
23:45 Speaker 00 Right.
23:46 Speaker 01 Someone dropped out before the third Noah child, James.
23:48 Speaker 00 Yeah.
23:49 Speaker 01 Where were you in Sunday School?
23:54 Speaker 01 And three of their friends. So they can all bring their girlfriends or their wives if they like.
23:59 Speaker 00 Yeah. Yeah.
24:00 Speaker 01 Yeah. Shame about the animals, but I'm sure some of them can swim and
24:05 Speaker 01 see you later, everybody. It was a boat all the time, not just a coat. Eat it.
24:12 Speaker 01 Oh, happy days. Here's another one. This one goes out to Hayden Freeman. Congratulations, Hayden. Your fact forever is now that in 18th century France, tooth pullers were entertainers. One fired a gun while pulling teeth with his head in a bag.
24:31 Speaker 01 Fact about ancient dentistry.
24:33 Speaker 00 Amazing.
24:34 Speaker 01 Great. Yes, I remember that. I remember this fact. There was, they had all sorts of wacky tricks. And that was one.
24:40 Speaker 00 Was it because we didn't have any of the anesthetic? So it was a sort of distraction?
24:46 Speaker 01 I don't think it was for the patient's benefit. I'll say that much. I think it was to draw crowds.
24:52 Speaker 00 They went from town to town, didn't they? And they would sort of turn up and say, I'm here. Who needs their tooth pulled out? And they'd also sell their kind of their balms and quack medicines and stuff.
25:03 Speaker 01 Yeah.
25:04 Speaker 00 Yeah. So they're just trying to get people in really. And also like, you've got someone screaming because you haven't given them any anesthetic. You've got to distract the crowd somehow from that.
25:14 Speaker 01 And you can do that by shooting a stranger on the other side of the crowd.
25:20 Speaker 00 See, this guy isn't hurt as much as that guy.
25:22 Speaker 01 Yeah, you could be worse off. Look at him.
25:25 Speaker 00 Um, okay. Here is another fact. This one is now under the custodianship of Adam Webb. And the fact is that in the First World War, the Romanian army issued an order saying that only officers above the rank of major had the right to wear eyeshadow in battle.
25:42 Speaker 01 Hmm, very strict.
25:44 Speaker 00 I think we kind of looked at the use of makeup in history, uh, in the army and, and for the fact that men used to wear makeup a lot more than women and, and all sorts of stuff like that.
25:55 Speaker 01 Yeah. Actors used to wear green makeup in films. Am I making that up? Do you remember early days of Hollywood?
26:01 Speaker 03 Yeah, black and white films. Yeah.
26:03 Speaker 01 Yeah. Well, that's great. And that's why the Romanians who fought on.
26:08 Speaker 00 Good question.
26:09 Speaker 01 Side?
26:10 Speaker 00 Um, I think they fought on our, cause Hungary were not on our side, were they? So I assume that the Romanians who border Hungary probably were. And do you Google it?
26:20 Speaker 01 Romania joined the allied powers.
26:25 Speaker 00 Yeah.
26:26 Speaker 01 They were on our side.
26:28 Speaker 00 Yeah.
26:28 Speaker 01 Very nice.
26:30 Speaker 00 I've always liked them. Always liked those Romanians.
26:35 Speaker 03 Uh, here's another one. This one goes out to Molinol. Molinol, your fact is Daisy Meadows, the most borrowed children's author from British libraries doesn't exist.
26:46 Speaker 01 Ah, yeah.
26:48 Speaker 00 Well, that's.
26:49 Speaker 03 I myself had never actually heard of Daisy Meadows and still have not heard really of Daisy Meadows. Um. If I think of all the books in my house or the books I see in bookshops, I, I don't spot Daisy Meadows, but she is a, a brand, basically. It's a group of authors that write underneath the name Daisy Meadows, much in the same way that Tom Clancy novels are now ghostwritten under that name or Virginia Andrews of Flowers in the Attic. It's that thing you can't let go. Once a, once an author is nailed a genre, you just start writing using their name.
27:23 Speaker 01 Yeah.
27:23 Speaker 03 Michael Crichton is another example of that. So yeah, um, pretty amazing for someone who's the most borrowed, yet least heard of of all the big children's authors.
27:34 Speaker 01 Very cool fact. Uh, here's another one. This goes out to Luke. Congratulations, Luke. It's the fact that it would cost 850 quadrillion dollars to build a Death Star.
27:46 Speaker 03 And that was built by your father, Luke, interestingly.
27:49 Speaker 01 Really nice, really nice.
27:52 Speaker 00 Spoiler alert.
27:53 Speaker 01 Yeah.
27:57 Speaker 01 Yeah, this is just a fact about budgets, I suppose.
28:00 Speaker 03 And there was, there was that thing where-
28:02 Speaker 01 Project overreach.
28:04 Speaker 03 Project overreach.
28:05 Speaker 01 You know, on time and under budget, dream on.
28:07 Speaker 03 Well, there's this thing where you can, if you get a petition up on the White House website and enough people sign it, there has to be an official response. And this was one of those petitions that reached the required number to get the response, which was,
28:20 Speaker 01 Right.
28:21 Speaker 03 Can you build a Death Star? It would only cost 850 quadrillion. And someone had done the math.
28:27 Speaker 01 That's really good because it's good that it happened under a previous administration because I think if someone, if someone pitched it now, might, might well, might well go through.
28:37 Speaker 00 I think you might be right. Okay, here is another fact. This one is now under the custodian's ship of Meredith Baku. And Meredith, your fact is, oh, it's a festive one. Before going on stage to read a Christmas carol, Charles Dickens drank a pint of champagne mixed with two tablespoons of rum and sherry with raw eggs.
28:59 Speaker 01 Lovely.
29:00 Speaker 00 Now, there is a story behind this. This was a live show at the Aces and Aces that we did. And well, Anna wasn't going to let Charles Dickens get away with being the only person to drink a pint of champagne before a show. And if you listen back to episode 41, you can almost pinpoint the exact moment that those bubbles hit Anna's head. When she gets very drunk halfway through the show.
29:24 Speaker 03 Yeah. Yeah, we ran out just before the show started and bought a couple of bottles, I think a prosecco in the end, and poured a bunch of pints. I drank mine the whole way through the show because I couldn't do it. Anna absolutely downed it before we went on. And yeah. Amazing fact about Dickens generally, though, that fact and his live shows that he used to do and how this is how he operated.
29:47 Speaker 01 Yeah.
29:48 Speaker 03 Yeah.
29:50 Speaker 01 Right, let's have one more.
29:51 Speaker 03 Yep, this goes out to James McDonald. Crap Christmas jumpers date back to the Romans.
29:59 Speaker 00 Yeah, so like this was, it was a live show, wasn't it? And it was, um, it was our Christmas special.
30:05 Speaker 01 Yeah.
30:06 Speaker 00 And yeah, this was basically Marshall, who wrote back in the Roman times and he wrote about, I think it was, was it Saturnalia or it was one of those, um,
30:16 Speaker 01 Nice.
30:16 Speaker 00 One of those festivals that they did, which we now say is kind of similar to a modern Christmas. Uh, and he said that one of the things they did would be they would give each other sort of quite garish clothing.
30:29 Speaker 01 So good. I've never worn a Christmas jumper.
30:31 Speaker 00 Have you not?
30:32 Speaker 01 I'm sorry, what?
30:34 Speaker 00 Why not? Is that like now that you've gone this far, has it become a thing that you just refuse to?
30:39 Speaker 01 No, I've never refused to. I've never been asked to. I've never, I've just never engaged with that whole scene. I've got, I've got, you know, I've got, I've got a couple of fun jumpers, but, but they're not Christmasy. It's just, and when I say fun, I just mean they've got a slightly bolder knit than I'm happy with.
30:55 Speaker 00 I suppose like you, you do wear fun jumpers all the time. Like we all call you fun jumper Andy. So like, doing something special over Christmas doesn't really make sense for you?
31:04 Speaker 01 Absolutely. I'm a fun jumper guy the other 364 days of the year. Right. That's enough of this stuff. Let's have one final round of thanks to our wonderful new fact custodians and friends of the podcast. They are James, Meredith, Luke, Molyneau, Adam, Hayden, Grapefruit Street and Melinda. So thank you so much to all of you. Thank you to all of you who are listening, who have joined Club Fish at any of the tiers. It makes a massive difference. If you would like to give that a go and get ad free episodes and bonus content and much more besides, just go to patreon.com slash Club Fish. Until then it's bye from all of us and we'll see you in a few days time for another Big Fish.
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