Little Fish: I believed it when Pythagoras said it

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0:40Anna Ptaszynski:Hello and welcome to another episode of Little Fish. My name is Andrew Hunter-Murray and I'm here with my two close colleagues, Dan Shriver and Anna Tijinsky. And we're here to discuss the brilliant facts that you, the audience, have been sending in to podcast.qi.com. We've got loads of facts. Let's have some. Come on. who's got a fact i got one here from tom besoit tom besoit says the american actor john kazall only appeared in five feature films all of them were nominated for academy awards for best picture he did the godfather the conversation the godfather part two dog day afternoon and the deer hunter amazing yeah he did five of these in a seven-year period um but tragically he got very ill he had lung cancer and so he died and that's the only reason that he didn't star in more i've only seen two of them i've seen the conversation and what was the first one you mentioned the godfather no i haven't seen that uh deer hunter no i haven't seen that godfather part two nope yep very good dog day afternoon oh i've only seen one of them is is he does he play the same because sometimes people play a special role in all films like they'll play a policeman who's just got a random one-liner was it like that where he just plays he had he had substantial roles and he was very much loved um there's been documentaries about him people really miss him al pacino held him as one of the great actors of his day he said i just would have been in movies for the rest of my career with him um he was dating meryl street when he passed away he was part of a very big sort of unit of actors i think i've heard of him i think maybe he's a he feels like a famous like edges of gangster films kind of lad yeah it does feel like he's got a type he hasn't done never been kissed has he you know it's definitely down that hard yeah pacino-esque film and i've actually got a little bonus uh exciting element to this fact because that's often the fact that is told he was in five movies all for best picture he actually appeared in a sixth after his death because they used archive footage of him in godfather part three and that was nominated for an award as well best picture and he was in that technically so 66 so good you'd want to employ him wouldn't you if he'd made a crap film you'd be like should we get him in and we'll get the oscar if you've made piranhas five or something that's what people do with sigourney weaver in sci-fi films these days does it work have they all won oscars no but they are treated with more respect than maybe they would be if sigourney weaver wasn't in my opinion if you're making a sci-fi film let's say avatar 3 you might want to just get get the weave in and um you know she brings a touch of class yeah yeah she sure does that's what we do with podcasts though isn't it you know people want to make a great podcast they get they try and get us in i mean it hasn't happened yet but i thought you meant one of us was brought in for the class which one of us has been drafted in just for the touch of glass.

3:20Do you think we'd get another Chortle Award if Sigourney Weaver came on as guests? I actually do. And do you think that would be the proudest moment of her life?

3:28Anna Ptaszynski:I can't think of a higher one. Yeah. Yeah. Let's do another fact. Let's do another fact. This is from Oliver Frederick. And this is that in Sydney, if you speed 30 kilometers an hour over the speed limit, you'll be fined about 650 Australian dollars. And in India, the fine for the same crime is 2000 rupees. And so Oliver Frederick has done a a little bit of working out that James Harkin would love. He said, in order to pay the same amount of fines in India, as you would have to in Australia, you'd need to either break the speed limit over 20 times, or you could, and he's looked at all the fines in India for all these things, you could speed under the influence of drugs or alcohol, without a valid license, or wearing a seatbelt, driving recklessly into oncoming traffic, while texting, running a red light, and not stopping at a stop sign, or whilst blocking an ambulance from reaching an emergency.

4:14that would just about get you to 670 australian dollars so there you go that's so cool top tip

4:22Anna Ptaszynski:and that's why they film all those chase scenes in india because it's just a lot cheaper for the movies yes yeah the judge would be like but i'm gonna waive the fee for the effort because that was absolutely stunning yeah it's like shooting the moon when you're playing hearts isn't it you collect all the bad cards actually you win yeah yeah yeah love it all right here's a fact And this one comes in from Simone Few. Few. And it's a great fact. It's that Catherine Parr, last wife of Henry VIII, was named after Catherine of Aragon, the first wife of Henry VIII. This rings a bell. As in, Henry VIII had so many wives over such a long period of time that the youngest one was a baby who was named after his first wife, who was her godmother.

5:07Anna Ptaszynski:That's incredible. Isn't that absolutely hideous? hang on that's not hideous can I not slut shame Henry VIII is that not even is that not you know what he never gets to tell his side of the story oh my god oh my god there's literally there's literally a very successful West End musical which finally has told their stories yeah it's not his story is it we need the West End musical that tells his side of the story I'd love to try and pitch that to producers we need to hear Henry's side of the story it's a musical called One it's about the one man at the centre of these six, you know, whinging women.

5:43Anna Ptaszynski:Well, four by the end of it. Wow, that's very funny. That's very funny indeed. I've got another fact. Should I do one? Okay, this is from Sam Tomlin. I'm a math teacher by trade and continually find fun and interesting ways to present material. Before going through Pythagoras' theorem again, I discovered this. Friend of the podcast, President James Garfield, created a proof of Pythagoras theorem. And this makes him the first president to contribute something original to mathematics, as well as the first president to eat anally. Wow. I mean, just one of those things is, you know, a reason to be proud you were alive.

6:23Yeah. Both. Yeah. Amazing. That's so cool. Isn't that awesome?

6:28Anna Ptaszynski:It's just so interesting coming up with a new proof of something that is already proven, as in there are lots of different ways of getting to that truth of Pythagoras' theorem, But to come up with a new way mathematically of doing it, I just think it's very impressive. Yeah. Or pointless, you know, if we've proven it. I suppose. Okay, so there's a book that's called The Pythagorean Proposition. And in it, Garfield's proof is 231 in a list of 370. It's too many. That's too many. We don't need that many proofs. I believed it when Pythagoras said it. Good source, Pythagoras. Because in a way, by going around the houses and doing something in a non-traditional, like getting something demonstrated in a non-traditional method, isn't James Garfield sort of foreshadowing his own eating everything through his bottom later in life?

7:16Anna Ptaszynski:Do you know what I mean? Yeah, lovely. Because there he had to circumvent the normal route and go in another way. Yeah, that's what they said to make him feel better about it. They shoved the champagne up there. This is just like your Pythagoras work, actually, Mr. President. Yeah, yeah. That's great stuff. um okay what about this one from peter campbell long-time listener first time emailer he specifies to the show he sent emails before love it um love it he said uh i think we were talking about sports teams with you already know that's a hallmark of quality for a good email yeah you know i bet you didn't even read the rest andy that just made it in i don't know what i'm excited to find out what it's about it's actually very pro-fascist the rest of it um no he i think we were talking about sporting teams with weird wordy coincidental names and He said, in the 1970s, my team Albion Rovers had the spicy trio of Bill Curry, Sid Sage and Albert Rice.

8:08You could make a whole meal out of them. I will say it's not a brilliant team, Albion Rovers. They are in the fifth tier of the Scottish Football League. But he does then, this chap does then go on to say, it's just, OK, focus carefully on this, these couple of sentences. It's just a pitter. the team doesn't have the same calibre of player now. I still support them, though. Whatever the result, Vindaloo's win or lose. Rye's or Fahl. Had to look that up. Fahl is a very hot kind of curry. Hot than Vindaloo. There's none more supportive than ghee. So he sort of just ended nonsense by the end of it, to be honest.

8:50Anna Ptaszynski:Well, thanks for writing your email in. Yeah, definitely. Here is a fact from David Carey My fact is, down under is a lake Named Lake Wombat Right? Where do you think that might be? Sorry, down under Is a lake Just in down under, you know where down under is Is that a clue It's not actually in Australia It's in New Zealand And the reason is that it's named after A 19th century gold prospector Called Jake Wombat Irwin but Lake Wombat is in New Zealand and they don't have wombats in New Zealand right? No they don't have wombats in New Zealand no mammals right? No mammals I mean there are loads of people in sheep and things but some bats right?

9:38Anna Ptaszynski:No mammals No mammals in New Zealand They've got a problem with a load of non-native You have to cut off your mammary glands Yeah It's a kettle lake Just thought you might like to know that What does that mean? Uh, it's 9 ,000 years old. I did want to know that. I've just realized I couldn't with a gun to my head to find a kettle leg for you. You really volunteered the information. You didn't need to. Well, you really felt we needed to know. Every geography teacher who listens is absolutely screaming. Okay, let's have another. Okay, here's a little pop culture one. This comes from Alex Wilson.

10:18I have a bit of a fun fact for you. John Bon Jovi of the band Bon Jovi. His first professionally released recording was not an epic rock power ballad like he does with his band, but a song called R2-D2, We Wish You a Merry Christmas from the Star Wars Christmas album, Christmas in the Stars. And we covered this very slightly many, many years ago, probably a Christmas episode or it might've popped up somewhere else. But yeah, he was working in his uncle's recording studio, mopping floors and stuff like that, doing basic janitor or real jobs, and they needed a singer. And so he had a good voice and they brought him in and he sang on this song.

10:58Anna Ptaszynski:How many times has the janitor stepped up and done a brilliant job? John Bon Jovi was the janitor, basically. Like Good Will Hunting. Like Good Will Hunting, that's it. But there's definitely two. One that's real and one that's not, so far. I'll be honest, I'm not pitching this to the publishers yet. And it's a very low bar to get an Andy pitch. So I would say, Penguin, Faber, put your phones down. Yeah, stop that bidding war. Call it off. The Book of Genius, brackets, real and fake. Chapter one, chapter two. Oh, dear. Index. Okay, here's one from Dane Stringfellow. Don't know. Any relation? Yeah.

11:41Doesn't mention. But he did say, I recently learned from my friend's dad that in the UK, you must have a license to scare cormorants. and then he says and upon said scaring you have to fill out a form listing the method of scaring and the number of cormorants leaving and or returning.

11:57Anna Ptaszynski:Beautiful. Which is nice but Dane I will say I'm just going to let this be a lesson to you when you hear facts from your friend's dad. Check them. Check them out. I checked it out. You don't need a licence to scare cormorants. You need a licence to use lethal methods to scare cormorants i.e. shooting at them which does feel more like killing cormorants than scaring them but I suppose it would be scared as well. So you do need a licence to take a gun out with you, which maybe is surprising if you're from America, Dane, but that's just how we do it here. This is just a warning to the listener. We get sent a lot of facts and it's our choice which facts we bring to this show.

12:32And Anna decides to shame the incorrect facts. I'm sure you have enough accurate ones. It just makes the UK sound like a place with some ridiculous laws. And actually, you know, this one is just saying, you know what, give the Cormorants a chance first.

12:47Anna Ptaszynski:Did Dane say he was writing from America? No, he didn't. So you've just interpreted that as... Well, look, he said in the UK, you have a license to scare cormorants. He might have just meant you have to have a license. No, you're right. And I might have mistyped it, you know. No, you're right. I don't type them out. I do copy and paste. You don't know how to do that. You know there's a shortcut for it as well. What? Yeah. Oh, that's going to save me time. I'll talk to you afterwards. All right. No, I was actually still fascinated to learn it because you always go down a rabbit hole, don't you?

13:15So then I ended up in lots of like fisheries based legal stuff, which was excellent. And I'll do a spinoff podcast on that. So thank you, Dane. I did really enjoy that.

13:25Anna Ptaszynski:Here's one that came in from Ian Clark. OK, I just wanted to say how much I'm enjoying the podcast. It's become a regular companion on my drives. This is relevant. This morning I was sitting in the car, listening as usual, just about to head into the stables to see the ponies. So that's, I guess, Ian has ponies. When a van pulled up From a company called Southern Equine Sheath Cleaning That immediately caught my attention For context, as I'm sure you'll appreciate I didn't know this, in the equine world A sheath refers to a horse's penis So there's this company Which just only does Horse penis cleaning Wow That's quite something isn't it?

14:07Anna Ptaszynski:That's amazing And um Like it's stunning And I was looking this up, I was on a train next to a child while I was doing this research. And I had to quite carefully tilt my screen because I didn't want to, you know. So they could see me. No, I didn't want to sort of like blow any young minds or anything like this. But anyway, the owner of this company is a woman called Cat Seaman. So they're not cats? No, they're not cats. So it doesn't work at all. So it's completely irrelevant. But yeah, basically. That's incredible. And it's recommended. It's recommended you do it twice a year. Some horses never need it.

14:41Anna Ptaszynski:Some horses, they say, I mean, Obviously, they're trying to sell you sheath cleaning services. So they will, much like, oh, you really should launder your pillows every four days. Come on, yeah, yeah. But there are some friendly bacteria under there that you don't want to disturb. So don't do it all the time. And some horses go their whole life without needing a sheath clean. I bet they're really cocky horses, as it were. I bet they're prancing around. Poor old Barry's been sent to the sheath cleaner for the ninth time this year. Absolutely would think it's a prank if Mrs. Seaman called up to say, Anyway, I'm a horse penis cleaning company.

15:14Just like, thank you. No, goodbye. Don't hang up. Don't hang up. She must start every conversation. Don't hang up.

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15:54Can I do one more before we get to the custodians? All right, here we go. This is from Olivia Byers, who says, howdy y 'all. She's actually requested, Andy, that you say that out loud. So if you wouldn't mind. Howdy y 'all. There we go. fact the first she's given us two facts a small mountain town in North Carolina called Marion population under 8 ,000 has officially designated Bigfoot as their town animal lovely they celebrate this with a Bigfoot festival that draws over 40 ,000 people which means the festival population is roughly five times the town's population itself there are expert panels Bigfoot themed food and my personal favorite a Bigfoot calling contest the festival slogan

16:36Anna Ptaszynski:is come a skeptic leave a believer lovely i have not attended i am not yet ready but the second is ohio is in the process of legislating a state cryptid specifically the loveland frogman now we spoke about how every state has a state animal it's looking like the loveland frogman is going to be ohio's officially described by ohio legislators as a frog-like bipedal creature standing approximately four feet tall so it was spotted twice in march of 1972 but you'd think that's okay that's too far away but then again in 2016 by two pokemon go players um oh yeah who are looking at their screen and seeing all sorts of mad weird animals all day long there is thought that it might be a large iguana that they spotted um but no one has uh has said so yeah so this cryptid might become the official unbelievable that ohio legislators have to get involved in this like just leave it to that mad bloke in the pub just say sure just gonna go back to housing yeah but this is a this is that thing like this town um called marion that's a thing that is going to really help its economy every year right it's just such a if you can land a weird animal or an idea in your town or a ufo you really are just going to help the local economy it just seems to be the case that it all don't encourage even more don't encourage fun is that what you're against yes it is yeah no john maynard canes wrote a brilliant economics book about um nessie and how yeah yeah yeah the macroeconomic implications of nessie is a really interesting one a lot of money it will bring it up it's a plush is everywhere every shop you go you're all wearing the scottish hat yeah right that's enough of your facts i think Especially yours, Dan Facts, the air quotes around that one Let's have some of our facts being dished out now To friends of the podcast Because if you join Clubfish Our secret members club Publicly available at patreon.com Slash clubfish If you join at the friend of the podcast Leia, you can Get a headline fact From the podcast dedicated to you In perpetuity And we're going to dish out a few of those headline facts To brand new friends of the podcast now so who wants to go first okay this one goes to alissa alissa your fact is that there is a skyscraper in new york which keeps itself stable with a 400 ton weight in the top magic magic oh my goodness so cool oh and it sort of hangs like a pendulum and if the building goes that way it's just sort of central weight it seems that it right i can't remember and the fact actually came from alex bell so get in touch with him if you wanted explaining but yes i do remember that skyscrapers are surprisingly hard to build that does does that not give you a fear of buildings in a way you might not have had it before that it's all reliant on like in this case a giant weight that's just swaying at the top i think it's okay cool but i choose not to think about it yeah i think that's key if you start thinking about anything for too long you'll go completely mad oh i'd never think um okay how about another one for amy g one of canada's leading crime writers howard engel lost the ability to read without losing the ability to write oh my gosh i remember this guy so well i found it one of the most amazing things i've ever learned he had a stroke didn't he and literally his hand was still connected to the words so whatever bit of his brain controlled his hand could still write but when he's seeing it he can't he can't read it his eyes don't know what to do yeah crazy absolutely crazy but was it was it a condition that was a disease that led to his death i'm just thinking terry pratchett's had a very similar thing he couldn't got to the point where he couldn't read the words because they were all scrambled but he still could obviously write what he was thinking i guess the extraordinary thing is that the hand is connected to such a different part of the brain to the eyes yeah so the eyes cannot understand something that the hand can it's like when some people have certain types of epilepsy or have their brains cut enough to treat it and you know they'll you'll ask them a question and they'll know the answer but if you write it down for them they'll be able to read the question but not know the answer it's all that the brain is insane stuff wonderful fact um here's one this goes out to blue limpet uh and i hope you uh i hope you stick to this fact like blue blue limpet It's that Steve Wozniak Co-founder of Apple And inventor of the personal computer Met his wife on a Dial a joke call Dan I'm going to hand over to you to explain Dial a joke I think back in the day in America There used to be people who would put out numbers And you would call in an answer machine And it would just play down to you And so every day Steve Wozniak Would load up new jokes Onto his answer phone and people would call up and they would just learn a new joke to tell their friends.

21:42I believe from memory that that's what it was. And I'm trying to remember the connection of how his wife eventually...

21:48Anna Ptaszynski:She called the dialogue joke. I've got it in the archive here. And he said, I bet I can hang up faster than you and hung up. It was quite a bold move. And that seduced her. Yeah, apparently so. She must have phoned back. Playing hard to get. It works. I once saw him talk live in Edinburgh. he did a sort of just sitting on stage being interviewed and afterwards everyone was lining up to meet him and get his signature and he was just signing laptops and iphones brilliant the back of them yeah that's that's his method of assigning yeah i suppose you would just hand your phone over and he signs it for you the back of them makes sense i was imagining the screen and thinking how annoying would that be and it's just come off after a day yeah um all right let's do another This one is for Farhan Abrol And your fact I love this one Babies practice their first words Before saying them out loud It's amazing How much practice do they put in though?

22:44Anna Ptaszynski:Because often it's just kind of Blah Or mama Why aren't they better? How much practice are they putting in? They need to put more in apparently Yeah Because that's Yeah It's not good enough It's very sweet It's like baby birds do this as well Don't they? Yeah They sub-vocalise their songs They'd say them very They sort of murmur them to themselves before singing that's so good yeah i would love to see if someone could film the practice you know i just would love to see the footage if you can see their lips moving at all if they give it even like a little whisper like walking up and down in front of the mirror come on um line

23:20Anna Ptaszynski:do you guys know what your first words were i don't know what mine was yeah what was your first word apple apple really good which is weird because my mom hates fruit never has it in the house. But she loves Steve Wozniak, who's the co-founder of Apple. Huge fan, yeah. She got together with him, actually, by calling up her. I can't remember mine. Do you know yours? Marvellous. No, I said simply marvellous. No, I don't know mine. Let's have another. Yes, here's one for Lydia Grant. Lydia, take this, look after it. Guard it with your life. The first pair of Nike trainers was made in a waffle iron.

24:00yes i can't yes it was sort of jammed into a waffle iron i can't remember was it the base

24:06Anna Ptaszynski:the pattern on the base of the shoes or something i mean that seems like the obvious but doesn't it that's a bit that's like got waffle like resemblance um yeah let's see i've well i've checked the archive and then all we've got after that is dan saying that nike is pronounced nike like mikey so okay let's have another one and this goes out to john alexander smith and it's that Rats dream of places that they want to visit I saw a rat today I saw a rat today You're kidding Was it the same Was it So was it It had a quite long tail Yes Yes yes yes It was a rat Yes Maybe let's Where did you see it?

24:47Anna Ptaszynski:My help? Where did you see yours? Near a cafe Mine was outside of Costa That's so interesting London are we both talking about Guys honestly We can narrow this down so quickly Mine was not London Mine was London And it wasn't a Costa Different rat But Costa Will be really appreciating This brand messaging We're getting out for them Very much outside And it was a cute one You know some rats look gross It was queuing It was ordering a venti latte Yeah great You know whatever's good for business Yeah he had little gloves on Great well lovely Anyway What was the fact again? Rats dream of places They want to visit Costa So sweet Okay This one now goes out to Georgia Badgery And her fact is that spiny Anteaters only use half their penis During sex Yeah right I'm not even trying they're saying To their other halves This could be twice as good for you actually Now isn't it they only use the left half or the right half How do you do that?

25:51Anna Ptaszynski:They've got very strangely shaped penises From a human perspective yeah to them we probably do very good you know we don't want to have the anti-community writing in wokest thing i've heard andy say ever sorry yes it's they only use the left or right heads at any time oh they've got double head they've got four actually and they only use two at a time ah i told you it was weird from our western point of view is it in the east from our middle class like london elite bubble. Marvelous existence. Yeah, yeah. So that's nice. Spiny anteaters. Spiny anteaters. But I don't think the penis is spiny. You see, you'd resent that name because you'd always have to explain it's not the penis that's spiny.

26:36Yeah, true. But the only person you're explaining it to is the same species, so I think they'd probably know, right? Don't need to. They don't need to say and my vagina isn't spiny either. It's okay. Great. Okay. Why didn't they tell us that when we're younger? We should be taught that at anteater school. Okay. Let's have one last one. here's one for mike spur mike spur take care of this one the world record for horse long jump is shorter than the world record for human long jump something for humans to be proud of yeah this was one of mine i remember discovering this yeah oh i love this one yeah um cool because you'd think the horses would be better wouldn't you yes um that's why we said yes to me using that that's why we were okay with it as a fact it's great whereas running we're sort of neck and neck aren't we with horses there's always that horse versus human running race in wales somewhere i

27:25Anna Ptaszynski:think it's terrain dependent i think we can say that i think distance as well it's distance and stairs are the two complicating factors distance humans are better i know but not at short distance i don't think the grand national would see the jockey go in do you know what i'll actually get this done quicker if i just do it i'll leave you behind nelly this fact by the way uh from memory correct me if I'm wrong was the fact that we did at the Latitude Festival. It was! I think it might have been our first festival. Possibly we did something else but it feels like that was our first. And that is cool because this is about horses' longitude and how long they're jumping.

28:04Anna Ptaszynski:Nice. You know what I'm saying? I bet we've made that joke on the day. Oh, we must have. I think we must have done it. You wouldn't leave gold like that unpicked up, would you? No. Yeah. All right. I think we can end on that note. yeah yeah congratulations over one for getting through all those jokes um and congratulations to our eight new fat custodians by whom i mean mike spurr georgia badgery john alexander smith lydia grand farhan abrol blue limpet amy g and alissa enjoy your facts love them and we'll be back in another week for another little fish to dish out eight more please do send in your facts to podcast at qi.com they're such a treat to receive we love getting them uh so please do keep them flooding in and we'll be back again in a few days time with another episode of No Such Thing as a Big Fish.

28:51Anna Ptaszynski:Until then it's just time to say. Not actually called that. Not actually called that. Until then, thanks to Dan, my apparently live in the moment editor and to Anna for taking part. Thank you for playing both of you and congratulations. Thanks for taking part Anna. It was a privilege. Bye.