Little Fish: Bizarre Choreography, Schnapps, and Singing in Swedish

0:07James Harkin:Ho, ho, ho! Hey everyone, welcome to this episode of Little Fish. Before we get into it, there is just a little announcement that I would like to make. Christmas is only a few days away, and if you were looking to get a present for someone in your life who loves fish, I would love it if you would be able to come to my new tour that I'm going to be doing around the UK as of March next year. What? I'm so sorry. This is a terrible way for you to find out. We're going on tour? We're not, unfortunately. Dan! You can come. I don't have a stitch to wear. You can come and watch. I can do my act. Oh, no one wants to see that, mate.

0:47James Harkin:I've been practicing. I can do it without injuring any of the audience by now. I really can. Oh, Dan, I'm so excited. Where are we going? Where are we going? Okay, well, this show is called This Changes Everything. And we should clarify, it's just Dan. It's not me. I'm just being a silly banana. You could come along. I would be very happy if you did. I'm going to be in the front row with pom-poms every night, Dan. It's going to be Dan on tour. Where are you going? So on the 15th of March, I'm going to be in Warwick. And then I'm going to be in Salford. I'm going to be in Brighton. I'm going to be in Edinburgh, Nottingham.

1:16James Harkin:And then I'm going to be playing the Royal Geographical Society in London. Yeah, this is going to be a great evening of mysteries, amazing facts, mind-blowing stories from history. I've put together the best of the best of stuff that I've been digging up over the last 10 years. If you've read my book, The Theory of Everything Else, you'll know the kind of tone of it. It's all the stuff that has led to the world we live in today, but it's all the bits of history that have been swept under the carpet because people would rather you didn't know about it. So if you like mystery, adventure, and jokes, please come along to This Changes Everything.

1:49James Harkin:So if you're looking to buy tickets for yourself or someone else, just put Dan Schreiber This Changes Everything tour into Google. You'll find a link. You can also find it on my Instagram, at Schreiberland. It'll be in the bio. Please come along. It's going to be an awesome night. I'll be there. And Andy will be there. I mean, just come to us to see Andy. Sure. Sit and watch Andy watching me. We've got another little fish for you now. These are your facts. Here we go. On with the show. On with the podcast. Thank you for doing that. I didn't have a choice. Now, please, please, Dan, put the call through and release my family.

2:40hello and welcome to little fish the show where we look at the great facts that you guys have been sending in over the past seven days. Andy has gone through the inbox, as bulging as it was, and taken out the very, very best, sent them to me and to Dan and kept some for himself. And we're going to read through them today and maybe chat a little bit more about them. So without further ado, who's going to read the first one? Maybe Dan?

3:07James Harkin:Yeah, okay. I got a fact here, which is from Eli Jones, who says that jungle gyms were invented in japan in the 1880s by a british polygamist with the goal of training a generation of children to intrinsically comprehend the fourth dimension so jungle gyms i think is what i would have called soft play when i was younger right so me a jungle gym is the metallic bars that are in a sort of a crescent shape from the ground that you would climb around oh interesting an adventure playground Yeah, that's a jungle gym to me, but... Do we know what this guy invented? Wow. A hard... this sounds like a hard play.

3:49James Harkin:Yeah, that sounds like a hard play. Hard play. Well, here's a story. While living with one of his families in Japan, a British mathematician called Charles Howard Hinton tried to instill a fundamental understanding of the fourth dimensional geometry into his children. What is the fourth dimension? Sorry to throw you an easy one so early. Yeah, well I know... Imagine you take a square and you turn it into a cube. Yep. You're adding a third dimension. Now, imagine you turn that into the next level up. That's the fourth dimension. I've just got another cube on top of a cube in my head. That would be a hypercube.

4:21It's really hard to explain. Yeah. I thought the fourth dimension was time, but that's clearly not what we're talking about here. No, this is the fourth spatial dimension. Oh, boy. Oh, boy. Okay. Well, it sounds like soft play might not have been enough to do it, I'd say. I suppose, was he trying to teach children spatial awareness because they're moving through a 3D space? Yeah. And they're becoming, are the children the fourth dimension?

4:46James Harkin:He said he wanted to help them with the understanding that we typically move in two dimensions, walking around cardinal directions, is what he said. Yeah, so you walk flat on the earth. We're not flying. Like a bird is in three dimensions because it can go up and down as well. But normally we're on the ground. If someone stops me and asks for directions, I very rarely include the third dimension in my answer. I say, take the second left down here. And I never say, you'll need to rise about three meters. And then go into the fourth dimension. So to us, you'll still appear like you're in the same place, but actually you'll be in a different position in that other dimension.

5:26James Harkin:It's very simple stuff, guys. So he wanted to do this by creating a bamboo grid and running drills with his kids where he would shout coordinates at them and they would scramble through the grid to get the coordination right. So that was his plan. It was to invent a device that allowed for them to do that. A byproduct of it was the invention of the jungle gym. Yeah, I've seen a picture of it and a jungle gym you're talking about is like a climbing frame but made of lots of boxes. If that makes sense. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. What was the other thing that, maybe it was soft play that was invented by a guy in Manchester who saw that people were playing in burnt-out cars and decided that maybe we should give them something else to play in.

6:09Was it bombsites as well? Yeah, I think so. There were a load of precarious concrete and rusty metal strewn patches and kids were playing on them because it was a kind of free space for them to play. And it never did them any harm. He definitely came up with some kind of playground. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I remember that. Yeah, well, great fact. Indeed. Andy, what about another one? All right, here's one from Andy Walker, who's sending his favorite film fact. The UK actor Richard Todd was a D-Day veteran. And I really like this. He was in a film called The Longest Day, which is a really, really famous Second World War film.

6:43It's about three hours long. It recreates large chunks of D-Day, basically. He was in the film The Longest Day playing his real life commanding officer. So he had been at D-Day himself as a young man. 20 years later he gets cast in this film Playing the guy who was in charge of him on D-Day And there's someone else in the film Playing him as a younger man Really? Yeah, and I'd never heard of Richard Todd really I hadn't seen this film And he was incredibly popular in the 60s and 50s And he was a matinee idol And he was there at Pegasus Bridge in D-Day Which he had to capture and sort of hold off Really fierce German attacks to try and retake it Because they were trying to shut the whole thing down And yeah He ended up in this film later on With a load of, I mean it's a huge film With a lot of incredibly famous actors in it Many of whom had been there On the actual D-Day That must have been so surreal

7:37James Harkin:Yeah exactly And he had enough of an impact that he was a character in that movie Yeah That's pretty wild isn't it Yeah yeah yeah it's really cool I guess small regiments you would know the names of everyone You know that you were talking about He was one of the first people on the ground He landed at 40 minutes after midnight on D-Day He was absolutely one of the first people Did it start at midnight? Maybe that's when the parachuting dogs landed I think it was when the parachuting dogs landed I think we said in an earlier episode That that's what came in first He was one of the first two-legged Mammals on the ground I'm not sure I would start at midnight Because I think that's when they'd be expecting it Good point I think I'd start like 17 minutes past something Well that's why it was such a terrible failure Because they didn't listen to you No that's fair enough I don't know if it was dead on But I did a little more reading about him and his life And it was a very interesting life One of his other superior officers on D-Day This is just an amazing name I've tracked down He was a guy called Geoffrey Pine Coffin That was his surname That's very good It was a double-barreled name The Pine and the Coffin families had got married to each other A century before And they called themselves Pine Coffin You don't get names like that anymore It's a brilliant name okay here's one from me by dario persicino thank you very much for writing dario with this incredible fact that it would take just over 1418 years to eat a full jesus

9:09so what dario has done here is assumed that when you're eating a communion wafer which is the body of christ that that is actually um jesus and he's worked out all the stuff he's sent us all the working out and i can promise you that it's all great uh and he worked out that you would need 74 000 communion wafers to eat a complete jesus and assuming you receive communion once a week it would take approximately 1418 years to eat a full jesus he says this does not take into account any philosophical issues of transubstantiation and that it hasn't taken into account the weight of jesus's foreskin which he said he knows would be a point of interest to me because that's why it was excommunicated but he said he figured it would only make a one small wafer difference yeah i gotta say friend of the podcast jesus is foreskin now absolutely but dario honestly absolutely stunning yeah stunning bit of maths i wonder how many bottles of wine it would take to drink all the blood of christ dario get on it that's that's in true hawkins style that fact isn't it that's uh i read um a recent article about communion wafer which had got the blood of christ on it ah and they found red stains on the communion wafer and thought that's what happened in actual fact it was caused by a fungus and three different types of bacteria all of which

10:37James Harkin:are commonly found on human hands oh now there is a theory that jesus was a mushroom so he could have been could be reforming on that wafer right could be could be that's brilliant that's really good you've all taken your tinfoil hats off what's going on Should I do one? Yeah, go for it Okay, this is from Anton Gilenberg Who writes, fact The Vatican Apostolic Library holds shelf after shelf of self-help hiccup remedies Do they have the finger up the anus? Which is, I believe, the only medically certain way to cure it You're right You're right Wow Digital rectal massage Yes Is that what the Sistine Chapel is?

11:24James Harkin:Is God's finger coming towards No, stop Adam, have you got hiccups? Okay, so this is Pope Pius XII, who reportedly... Friend of the podcast! Huge friend! Give me... He was the guy who said that anyone who mentions Jesus' foreskin gets excommunicated. He was the guy whose embalming went incredibly wrong. Yeah. That hot thummers. Who had that crazy doctor. He was a proper friend of the podcast. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, welcome back, Pope Pius. So yeah, he suffered from chronic hiccups. So over the years people from all around the world would send him all kind of remedies From charming suggestions like being startled To the more vulgar ideas that we have mentioned on our show.

12:08James Harkin:I'm assuming There we go finger up the bum bum So as Correspondence addressed to the Pope God's representative on earth These submissions could not be discarded and were preserved according to standard Vatican archival procedures So they are all there. So there's many unusual items, including all of these remedies that are now part of the collection that are maintained by the Holy See. Yeah. There's a PS to this email, by the way, from Anton, who is in Helsinki in Finland, just to add that. PS, I have actually come to possess the only foolproof method to cure hiccups. As it involves bizarre choreography, schnapps and singing in Swedish, it's rather difficult to explain in writing.

12:52James Harkin:But if we ever meet in person, I would be delighted to share it with you. Okay, let's book that gig in Helsinki straight away. The only, I have come in to possess the only foolproof method. It's quite strong, isn't it? It's got choreography involved. Yeah, I think this is exciting. I imagine what it is, is everyone gets some schnapps, stands in a circle, does this sort of really amazing dance with, you know, your arms going one way, your legs going the other way, all that kind of stuff. Then we all say something like some ancient riddle in Swedish. And then we all put our fingers up each other's buns I've got one Yeah This is from Emma Wood And I find it quite fascinating So she sends a couple of facts I'll just do the second one if that's alright Emma It's a bit anecdotal But she says I personally found this quite a cursed piece of trivia Years ago on a tour of a famous commercial radio station I was told for their breakfast show That they use a specific voice filter to make the hosts sound more artificially happy in the mornings.

13:57There's any knowledge about... Is this person British, do you think? I don't know. She says, in my research, unfortunately, cannot find anything documented to back this up. Is this a radio-wide conspiracy? Have I blown this shit wide open? Well, we can say because we know Zoe Ball and we've all been on her breakfast show that she is genuinely that happy all the time. Yeah But we add a filter to our show This show we've got lots of filters on Oh yeah Which just remind me what they are again Well We put on one which makes us sound a bit cleverer Oh yeah Dan to yours has been broken for a while actually I know I've been meaning to get that looked at

14:37James Harkin:I have the cruelness filter on mine of course You've got that set to strong today I see Anna believe it or not We've turned down her sarcasm filter Yeah that's why she hasn't been on for three months

14:54Okay, so here is another fact. This one is from Gudrun Ulfarsdottir. She says that tourists in Iceland have been tagging the place name Gjaldskulda in hundreds of photos on social media recently. The weird thing is that these photos seem to be taken in lots of different places around the country. The reason is because Gjaldskulda in Icelandic means parking fees apply. lovely lovely and apparently lots of parking lots people have been putting up this sign to make sure that people pay um but then people have just seen that it in fairness it looks like it could be a name of a place in iceland for sure brilliant but of course it reminds me of the pravo jazdy thing a few years ago in ireland where loads of traffic infringements had been given to this single person called pravo yasdy but it turned out the pravo yasdy was polish for driving license i just like to give back i left that one yeah that's brilliant yeah um should i

15:58James Harkin:do one more yeah this one is such a fish geared fact um you have to know an in joke in order to like this one i think caleb groen has sent this in i'm a long time fan of the podcast as a u.s law student, I recently came across a fact that might be of interest to you. Judging by word count, the constitution of the US state of Alabama, sources vary, but 373 ,000 words is probably the best estimate, is longer than Anna Karenina, which is around 364 ,000 as the highest estimate. Wow. That's the fact. How much verbiage does it take to run Alabama effectively? Probably there's a lot of stuff about farming and the alabama constitution like there is in anna karenina yeah i think i think yeah caleb basically wanted to let us know that because he said spoilers about the alabama constitution will probably be less infuriating to our listeners than spoilers about anna karenina that's really funny andy go on give us one more all right here's the final one uh this is very exciting this is from yana rao and yana is working on a sub antarctic sub antarctic Sorry It's not where the Nazis live It's the entrance to the hollow earth Sorry I think this must mean Just above the Antarctic Rather than Just Below the Below the South Pole An island called Marion Island Off the coast of South Africa And Yana and 19 others Are living there for 15 months Doing scientific research Wow Your podcast keeps me Highly entertained And puts a smile on my face In the field While we hike Hundreds of kilometres In shitty weather and Yana is a seabird researcher working closely with wandering albatross so cool and just sends a few brilliant facts about the wandering albatross so I don't think we've mentioned them very much and they're basically they've got the longest wingspan of any bird it's two and a half metres roughly and I really like this they've got this elbow locking mechanism they can keep their wings open for as long as they want without activating their muscles and basically they can fly several hundred miles in one go without flapping their wings once.

18:10Yeah. I just didn't really clock how far they can fly. Like imagine several hundred miles from wherever you are. Yeah. It's a long way away. From London to Bolton. Without flapping. Yeah. Not one flap. Last time I drove, I was flapping the whole way. Right.

18:24James Harkin:And so they lock their elbows so that it just rides the wind. Yeah, exactly. And I looked at what's going on on Marion Island, from where Yana is writing, and it's where they're trying to wipe out the mice which have for years been absolutely demolishing the albatrosses. It's been a real catastrophe because half the world's wandering albatrosses are bred on this island and the island next door. So it's a really important base for them. They shouldn't be called the wandering albatross, should they, considering they have such a small... They're all from here. It's true. Well, they do wander. They can fly...

18:59Some of them have been seen flying 75 ,000 miles in one year. So they do wander. Just a couple of flaps to get there though. Yeah. And basically this island introduced five cats to the island in 1949 to control the mice, which were already causing a huge problem. Guess what they didn't do to the cats? Neuter them. They didn't neuter them. So then they had hundreds of cats preying on the albatrosses because it's easier to catch the mice. Did they consider dogs after that? Yeah, it was very much the old woman who introduced an unneutered cat to the Marion Island. Basically, they finally have got rid of the cats about 30 years ago.

19:34And now they're going after the mice. And if they can do it, if they can do full elimination, this will be a huge boon to the albatrosses, which have really suffered their populations. So that might be what Yammer's working on. Very exciting. Very cool. It's very cool. Very, very cool. Okay, one more fact. Do you want one that's also about birds or one that's also from an expert in the field? Oh, I'll say expert in the field. Yeah, expert in the field. Okay, bad news to Kirsty Blackman and her penguin fact. We're going to go... No! Sorry, Kirsty. It's all right. It was just penguins can't taste fruit.

20:05That's all I got. That's what Kirsty said. Why would they have evolved to taste fruit? They're in a fruit-free environment. I have all the information, but we're not going to go into it today. We're going to instead have the fact from Ralph de Roa Mercado Mesquita, who writes that if elephants were to walk on the moon, their limbs would need to be about 10 meters long to maintain normal gait mechanics. What? so this is ralph is a biomechanist and researcher in locomotion and his team wrote a paper about what elephants would have to do if they were on the moon i basically will just pray see this basically if they wanted to keep walking in the way that they walk on earth they would need very very long legs based on the gravity and their leg length and all that kind of stuff that is an

20:51James Harkin:astonishing fact in that i just assumed you could transport any animal to the moon and they would be able to moonwalk up there like they do down here like when you say moonwalk you don't mean walk backwards like michael jackson i think that's the agreed way of how you have to walk on the moon is it not no it's true but um obviously if humans walk on the moon then we are bouncing rather than walking really aren't we so um yeah the elephants would have to have certain changes as well and ralph and his team will be presenting the project at the society of biomechanics in marseilles in two weeks from the moment he sent that email so probably if you're in marseille you might have missed it yeah yeah i think so i'm afraid what are they hoping to achieve with this study it's just fun and oh i'm sorry that's what i missed it gets people interested in locomotion and gate and biomechanics and stuff like that i don't think they're intending to actually send elephants up to the moon but i think that's i think you're right it's super interesting and if someone did let's say, fantasize the idea of a moon zoo, how would animals function on the moon if they were living there?

21:57James Harkin:There's probably so many interesting different ways that you would have to adapt an animal to be out there. The space suit for the elephant is going to be a big ask, isn't it? Where does the oxygen go? In the nose? In the trunk? They don't need a helmet. They just have a little thing on the end of their trunk, don't they? I think their space suit is doing more than just helping you breathe. That's a good point. That's a good point. That's a really good point. And he's like, no, I'll go out I'll just hold my breath I can hold my breath for two minutes I'm going to go out, pick up a few moon rocks I'm having a piss, I don't need It's fine I don't breathe through my cock

22:39Shut up, Houston Houston

22:45James Harkin:Your last words I'm in trouble, I've got three seconds left What can I do, Houston? It's actually Houston Okay, on that Diabolical note We still have one more thing to do And that is to tell you The listener, if you are a member Of the upper tier of Patreon Whether or not this week You are a new custodian Of one of our facts So who is going to go first with one of those? I'll do one, this one goes out to Edward Cox Congratulations Edward, your fact Is one from Another great friend of the podcast, Leven Skyder Who came on the show in episode 13 And presented the fact that during the second world war The Nazis employed two official Nazi comedians, Tran and Heller.

23:30They made a series of films Didn't they? And I think maybe they got fired For being a bit too, because about regulations Or maybe committing the Cardinal sin of making fun of the regime A little bit.

23:40James Harkin:Yeah Yeah. Great fact And this was our first moment with Levin on the show We've since had him on multiple times Largely when we do Nerdland which is his festival in Belgium. Are we going to do it next year? He's just sent us a message. Oh, has he? Okay, well, if the dates work, yeah, maybe. Is this an exclusive and official response? Livan, if you're listening. If the dates work, yes. Maybe. Great, very cool. Okay, I'll do one. This was my fact from episode 13, and this is for Lin. Lin, you are now the custodian of this fact. The Philippines Basketball Association is the world's second oldest, and names of its 10 teams include The Rain and Shine Elasto Painters San Miguel Beerman And Talk and Text Tropang Texters Brilliant Great names At one stage when you started I thought we were going to get all ten teams I don't remember this And the reason is Was I in this episode?

24:43James Harkin:No you're not No I don't think I've ever even listened to this episode Oh wow it's a goodie It's a goodie Yeah yeah yeah Well, Ling, congratulations. Yeah. Here is another fact. This one is now under the custodianship of Casey McKenzie Johnson. And the fact is that if you get a zebrafish drunk and put him in a tank with other zebrafish, the sober ones will follow the drunk one around. Lovely. Lovely. And as fact in episode 13, I feel like she was just hoping that that was what happened with her life. But no, this is about zebrafish Which are often used in medical trials Because they have quite similar Nervous system to humans And to other animals I think maybe my cousin studies zebrafish Really?

25:31I haven't asked her lately How it's going I'll have to drop her a line Very nice Yeah, that's cool I didn't know that Yeah Well, I mean, I barely know it, clearly As we've ascertained with me saying it But yeah, yeah Should we have another one? Yeah Alright This one goes out to you Joshua Smith Joshua Your fact From this day forward Forsaking all others Is that The youngest woolly mammoths Are older than the oldest pharaohs Ka-bang Yes Bosh Pharaohs Mammoths There was a time Where you could have had A pharaoh riding a woolly mammoth Yeah And it's an absolute catastrophe That we didn't make that happen As a species How stupid are we?

26:14We didn't know that the woolly mammoth was going to go extinct so quickly. No, we didn't. And we also didn't know that the pharaohs were going to die out so quickly as well. No, you're right. You would have thought they'd both go on happily forever. But yeah, and the last woolly mammoths were living on this place called Wrangel Island, I think. And it's just because it was quite remote. And there are all these theories about why they died out. In Siberia, right? Yeah, that's it.

26:36James Harkin:Would the two have ever met? Do we know if... No, there were no pharaohs in Siberia. No, but I meant ancient Egyptians. would they have traveled at that point to that area? You can't really. They did some seafaring and they did some travels in Africa, but there's no way they could have got to Siberia. I'm sorry to say. They wouldn't have had the warm togs for that environment. No, those like tunics and funny hats that they wore. Absolutely not. They would not be good in Siberia. Absolutely not. So sad. Then give us another. This one is for Rachel Gilbert. Congratulations. You now own a James Harkin fact, which is that the CEO of Levi's hasn't washed his jeans in more than a year maybe 11 years the dirty bugger no I do remember this one and I remember it being quite controversial in the office because I think Anna said she had never washed her jeans ever yeah was the idea you put it in the fridge that was the freezer freezer yeah that was one way to do it but basically they said that they just don't need washing and I just straight up disagree Still, after all this time I think washing clothes I mean, call me a rebel, call me a maverick But I think washing your clothes is a good thing Yeah, jeans are not the kind of clothes That need washing every day You know, I try and get a new pair of pants on every day And I don't mind sharing that on the show But jeans, they can go a while Because if you spill something Very urgent on them Then you need to change them I agree If you shit yourself, you should change them well yeah if you shit yourself badly you should change it's case by case oh i've said too much this is what i try and keep quiet about my personal life okay um let me do one more this fact is going to devon parent stein appears that parents is this person's middle name yeah uh and devon you are so lucky you are really getting your money's worth with this fact because it's a Dan Schreiber fact.

28:42James Harkin:Wow, this is long. Is this how I said it on the day? Surely not. I've read audiobooks that are shorter than this fact. The thing is, we just hadn't got the hang of delivering a crisp fact yet. Oh my God, the Alabama Constitution is shorter than this fact. Devin, your fact is, the first successful transatlantic flight in 1919 was made by Olcock and Brown. At one point, they got lost in a cloud and when they came out, they were only 60 feet above the water and flying at 90 degrees to water a double water in there as well yeah i don't think i would have double watered it okay okay mate maybe i typed it up wrong maybe you actually said something that was only five words long and i just got carried away when typing up the episode i think i would have said the first bit as the fact and then quickly came in underneath it with the qualifications.

29:34James Harkin:But that's not an interesting fact that Alcock and Brown were the first people to cross the Atlantic. That's just a bit of trivia. I think Devin would feel absolutely stiffed if his fact was that the first transatlantic flight was made by Alcock and Brown. Well, you're welcome then Devin, because I've included the extra exciting detail. It was pretty amazing. Them getting lost in a cloud and flying out of the cloud at 90 degrees to the water is funny. That's funny, because you'd think there would be other signs, like their drink spilling. Yeah. Yes. Or them falling out of the plane Yeah See the terrible thing, I actually trimmed this down a bit Before we read it out on today's Little Fish I genuinely did Okay, are we going to do one or two more?

30:14Yeah, Andy, what have you got for us? Alright, this is for Benjamin Not Benjamin, Benjamin It's this fact In 2007, a woman called Evan Latimer Inherited Napoleon's penis From her father And we did a lot about the afterlife of napoleon's um petit corporel uh because it was passed around and inherited and probably won and lost in card games and things like that and it's had a it's had a busy busy afterlife yeah i play a lot of poker these days but i think we are missing the time when you could just shove something on the table and say let's play for that really it's all chips and it's all like oh let's play for a fiver and stuff like that you know you don't get people shoving mussolini's eyeball on the table and saying i feel like all my stuff would just be rejected