Little Fish: If You Believe What the Government Tells You

0:00Hi everyone, welcome to this week's episode of Little Fish. We've been so happy to get messages from you guys to say that you've been enjoying this show and we certainly enjoy making it. It's a little bit more loose, a little bit more silly than the normal shows, but we really, really love getting your facts. So please do keep sending those in. The reason I've disturbed the start of your show today is because I want to tell you about a quiz that we're doing. It is for Patreon subscribers on the top tier and it will take place on the 23rd of January at 7 p.m. UK time. So that'll be sometime in the afternoon if you're in North America.

0:36And it'll be very early in the morning if you're in Australia or New Zealand. But hopefully you will still be able to join us. It's going to be a whole load of fun. We've got loads of amazing stuff planned for you. And if you are not a member of Patreon right now, then you have to go to patreon.com slash no such thing as a fish and join our top tier. You could probably just do it for a month and then quit if you just want to do the quiz. but honestly there's so much good stuff on our patreon that i really think once you join you will be hooked because we have extra content we have merch we have video content there's all sorts of stuff on there we hope we've made it value for money because people going on there help to support the podcast so it is a real good mutual benefit thing anyway enough of that really hope you enjoyed this episode of a little fish

1:39Hi everyone, welcome to this week's episode of Little Fish. This is your regular show where we talk about your facts. and then at the very end we will be telling you some of our old facts and putting them under the custodianship of some friend of the podcast patreons so let's not chat any longer not that we've been chatting so far enough of this banter in my head it's banter it's me talking to myself but no let us talk about your facts so who is going to give me the first fact of the day me me Dan? Oh come on Mike Boone writes Andy go on I've got such a good one This is from Alex Hadley I just love this right Alex writes My fact that I've not seen written anywhere Oh I love those Fresh fact Lovely Is that Kanetanika The second oldest verified person Is the only human in existence Who lived through the first powered flight on Earth And the first powered flight on Mars Mars Yes Whoosh This is so good right she was born in January 1903 the first powered flight happened in December 1903 if you believe the government lies about it that's a joke they did it I mean she would not have really been that aware of it Alex does add she probably didn't care about that yeah no like she probably didn't care about the mask thing she was over 100 years old at the time you know isn't that isn't that the sad thing really about whole of human existence really that two of these incredibly important and things happen in this one person's life.

3:12And she did not give a shit about either of them. We are speculating about the Mars one. We are speculating. She might have absolutely been all over it. She might have been, yeah. So she was born January 1903. Wright brothers had their flight December 1903. She died in April 2022. So what's that? 119? Good Lord. And the Ingenuity helicopter had a powered flight on Mars in April 2021. She was the only person alive during both those events. That's a very good fact That is also very cool That is good We are assuming that her claim of being 119 is true Which has, as we've said on the podcast quite a few times That anyone over 110 Yeah You have to take with a slight pinch of salt Yeah, yeah I think there were quite good records for her in particular I mean, she was born in 1903 She got married in 1922 And she lived until 2022 It's just a matter of being able to say I got married 100 years ago it's just so bad because is she the number the number two oldest person after jeanne carmont yes who i think there are quite good questions so she this person could be the oldest person ever that's a good point actually yeah yeah yeah she might well be what do you get for your 100th anniversary incontinence yeah yeah yeah anyway there's a fact that i really like which is that Buzz Aldrin's dad was a pilot and he knew and worked in the same barracks at an army place with one of the Wright brothers.

4:41Yes. So he knew him. They would have been friendly with each other. So for him to witness flight in his own lifetime and then witness his son be the first person to land on the moon, that's got to be a pretty wild second person. If you believe what the government tells you, yeah. Why would the government spread a huge conspiracy that they did go to the moon, but that Neil was first, whereas actually it was Buzz. Have you ever met Buzz Aldrin? Briefly. Yeah, so can you imagine why they would prefer Neil to be the first? Because Buzz is terrifying? Yeah. He's an angry guy. He is. He was pretty terrifying.

5:16Oh, he's brilliant. I liked him. I met him because he was doing the Museum of Curiosity, which you guys were producing at the time, weren't you? Yes, that is correct. He does. Yeah. Okay, great fact. Okay, Dan. Yeah, I got one here. This one is sent in by Mike Boone. Mike Boone says the greatest spy scandal in New Zealand history occurred in 1981 when a member of the secret intelligence service lost his work briefcase somewhere in Wellington. It was eventually discovered by a 10 year old boy and it contained three pies and a porn magazine. Now this, it's enough that a 10 year old boy has found it and then someone's discovered this, right?

5:53It must be the worst feeling in the world when you're this spy and you find out the 10 year old boy was the son of Fran O'Sullivan, who was a leading award-winning journalist in New Zealand. So he came to his mom and said, I found this briefcase. And she opened it and blew the story wide open. Yeah, it had, there's different descriptions of what was in it. Three cold oval meat pies were in the briefcase, two slices of cake, copies of the latest listener and penthouse. There was also three identity cards, the man's letters of appointment to the SIS, the secret intelligence service. I was going to say, if you just have three pies in a porn magazine, that's untraceable to you.

6:32It's the perfect spy's briefcase, actually. Yes. In fact, it was a really good spy's briefcase because it doesn't make you seem like a spy. It makes you seem a bit weird. It makes you seem like a very hungry pervert. So completely undone, unfortunately, by the fact. I've not read that children's book, The Very Hungry Pervert. On Tuesday, he had three pies and he read a copy of Hustle. But yeah, I mean, you're right. And completely unfortunate that it was undone by the fact that he literally had the letter that said congratulations you are now a spy treat yourself to this voucher for any three pies of your choice wow yeah that's extraordinary yeah i didn't i didn't know much about the kiwi spying services to be honest no i think kiwi james bond is a fun idea yeah we we we spoke about when reese darby was on the show on nancy i can't remember her name now she karate chopped a nazi to death she was a new zealand spy that's right she was amazing you weren't in that one were you andy yeah you weren't in that one that's right i was there um yeah there was also that story in the news about the fact that a lot of countries were asked to identify the spies in their countries and kick them out and new zealand new zealand said oh we had a look can't find any and that was that um very good okay here is a fact from julian sean and julian writes about the excessive mountaineering tourism on mount everest and the huge problem it has caused with human waste leading to the so-called mount everest poop slide oh and apparently this is people pooing on Mount Everest and the poos don't just stay up there.

8:17A poo boulder will roll down the mountain when the ice melts and it will often end up in drinking sources. So this is a huge problem. And now if you climb up there, they give you special bags with chemicals in that you have to poo into and then take them back down again where they came from. Do you poo into the bag or do you do a poo and then pick up after yourself as if you were the dog? dealer's choice yeah i guess so as long as the poo ends up in the bag that's fine it doesn't really matter yeah i think i would probably do a poo and then wait a couple of hours for it to freeze and then put it in the bag that's a good idea that's a good idea yeah i would have a swap system going with one of the other mountaineers oh well i'm not going mountaineering with you well i'm doing the other mountaineer stands around awkwardly like pretending he can't see me like a dog owner would we're only going for a walk in the cheviots bring the bags um my favorite advice that brian blessed always gives about mount everest is he says and it's to do with pooing right he says never camp below the french because the bastards will shit on you from any height and supposedly that would be a worry is that uh in In his experience, yeah.

9:32He's not camped under every nationality in the world. I don't think it's fair to blame the French. It's coming with no judgment from me. I'm just reporting on the man. Well, I had a quick look at this problem on Mount Everest, and I found that the 2019 amount of human feces was 7 ,200 kilograms in a single season. And that is the same weight as Vladimir Putin's armored limousine. Putin You took away from my brilliant comparison there With your lame Putin joke I think you both got something to be blamed for there Okay fine, well why don't you give us something better than Andy Oh gosh, alright Here's a fact from Michael West Have you guys heard of AMF bowling?

10:23You might Dan, because in Australia it's a major chain Of 10 pin bowling centres Oh no, I haven't heard of it, no Michael is writing from Sydney I hope it's not Michael from West Sydney No, I think it's Michael West from Sydney Are you sure it's not Sydney West from Michael? That's it So Michael says Here in Australia, AMF is a major chain of tempering bowling centres Imagine my surprise to learn that AMF built the first nuclear reactors In Iran, Pakistan and Israel Come on, the same company Same company This is insane There was this firm called American Machine and Foundry They haven't existed since the 90s now But basically, they made everything.

10:59They made bowling equipment. They made pretzel bending machines. They made the silos for American nukes. And they made nuclear reactors for these countries around the world. It's insane. They were just really good at making weird machines. Yeah. They made tennis rackets, bicycles, scuba gear, remote planes, and ballistic missile launching systems. Wow. I know. And they're responsible for something. I think this is something you're interested in, James. They put thousands of people out of work With one of these inventions Oh I love putting people out of work One of my main hobbies that Andy I love it I meant this is an area you've done a fact about In the past Go on then What did bowling What did these bowling machines Who did they put out of work Oh the pin boys That is interesting Thousands of boys used to just hang around At the other end of a bowling alley Putting the pins back up Yeah, they did.

11:57And then if you were nice to them, they'd put the pins close together to make it easier to not come down. Is that so? Yeah. That's great. Did you have to just put a little note, some money in the hole? I think you'd tip them, maybe, and then the next time you came. Or basically, I think the other thing is if they just didn't like the look of you, they would make things more difficult. That's funny. Probably put chewing gum underneath the pins or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah. If you're on a date and you want to impress, you'd have to say to them, you know, can you put them closed? Can you just knock them over, please?

12:27Look at that, an aeroplane. Your date turns around and then, oh, wow, I thought you went straight in the gutter. No. Is that a nuclear reactor being transported over to? No, I believe that's a pretzel turning machine. What a pivot from what they were doing to bowling. Very unclear which way they pivoted first. I think they might have done the bowling first. Right. And then, you know what we could use this for? Either way. We sort of started a chain reaction with those bowls. i don't think so because if you're iran and you need someone to build your nuclear reactor and someone comes over and goes well we're a pretzel bending and a bowling machine company you're not going to trust them whereas if you want to make pretzels and someone comes up to you and says well we also make nuclear reactors you're going to go oh you guys know you're yeah you're right you're absolutely right yeah you have to build down you have to build down start with the girl i say start with something incredibly complicated and then you know to see if you can make a bit of pretzel money on the side.

13:24Thank you, Michael. Who's next? Dan? Yeah, I got one. This is from Tom Worth. This is a fact about CGI in movies and in Jurassic Park in particular. So he says, The T-Rex attack scene in Jurassic Park where the lawyer character runs out the car into a nearby hut and is eaten as he's sitting on the toilet. That's a CGI shot. So they needed a CGI human for it as well. They couldn't use an actual human. Okay But this was the early days of CGI And it didn't make sense to build a whole new CGI human For literally one shot Where you see him from behind and at a distance So they decided we'll reuse the CGI human That we've already used in another movie So just it was a recycled bit of human for CGI So Jurassic Park, what, 94?

14:10A bit later, 94 or 5? 94 So it's got to be a movie that came out in the early 90s Yeah Is it something we can guess? Yeah, I mean, yeah, it's a blockbuster movie. From the early 90s. Indiana Jones. It's not, no. One of the alien movies? No, it's not, no. The CGI human that you see being eaten by the T-Rex in Jurassic Park is in fact T-1000, the Terminator. I was going to say that! From Terminator 2. Oh my gosh, that's brilliant. Yeah, isn't that great? That's very pleasing. Can we say that they're in the same universe, maybe? Oh yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah, they are. Yeah, great idea. I think Terminator versus Dinosaur is the movie we're all waiting for.

14:52They send a dinosaur forward in time to kill John Connor. You know what I'm saying? And then they have to just like deal with a robot dinosaur. Come on. Guys, come on. The opening scene is Jurassic Park and we see them going off, but then we cut back to the hut and the chewed up man stands up and you can see half his face is cyborg. That's good. and we go from there where do we go well this thing writes itself guys i think you'll find if you just put that sentence into chat gpt and let it do the rest yeah i think where we probably go is we turn back to jurassic park which is an actual good movie we just watch that

15:38here is an amazing one from charles hargrove and charles says that the inuit of the north american arctic used to treat snow blindness by tying a louse to a human hair and walking it across the affected eyeball what whoa what indeed it's it doesn't make any sense but it is from the avatak cultural institute in nunabook so this is a very very good source what is i don't really know what snow blindness does to you i mean i can sort of guess is that you just you can't differentiate things with your eyes anymore because it's also yeah i think that's what it is but i think there is some physical stuff that happens because i went onto the website and read about it and apparently the idea is that you walk this louse across your eyeball and the film sticks to the louse's feet no way and according to this website you need several lice because lice are small and get tired real fast and the procedure is no longer used because we don't have hair lice anymore oh that's such a shame yeah there must be some other reasons why we don't do that anymore but flies with their wings tied down may be used in the same way how are you tying down a fly's wings sorry with more human hair i guess do you mean that they don't have human lice out there yeah these guys i know human lice do exist oh head lice i could send my kids over imagine you make a killing i would uh some of the things they use to treat snow blindness ptarmigan breast laid on top of the eyelids and apparently if you do that the patient the patient should not eat any ptarmigan for a while or some square flipper seal fat applied directly to the eye should you not eat the ptarmigan because then you're out of ptarmigan should you need to put them on your eyes again or has it has what what an interesting connection that you shouldn't eat it if it's been on your eyes i think a lot of this is cultural sort of folklore and stuff like that I do wonder if some of it is just people from that area taking the piss when anthropologists come over and go, yeah, what we do is we tie a hair louse to an eyelash and let it walk across your eyes I always think that when I see those dogs particularly like the weird ancient alien ones where like they're out in some jungle and some old 90 year old woman is going, an alien landed down here I can picture everyone else going why do they keep interviewing Mad Sally?

18:02She's going on about aliens again She's a nutcase But it is on the official website Dedicated to preserving and promoting Inuit language So the source is good So cool, very cool That's fantastic Okay we've got time for one more maybe Yeah I got one here This is from Jodocus Mordant Apologies Jodocus I'm reading your name as I see it Zoologist And they say they're constantly learning about animals Umvelten Which is their sensory world oh yeah very good so he says here's my favorite one from this week star-nosed moles can forage underwater they can purposefully blow air bubbles and then re-inhale them to detect sense from potential prey amazing not to mention that their star is 13 times more sensitive than a human clitoris which i think i learned from your show you did i looked it up uh that was in an episode called no such thing as the mole street journal and what was the other fact about the star-nosed they can purposely blow air bubbles and then re-inhale them to detect sense from potential prey umvelt is really interesting because that's the idea that you just don't know how any other animal is experiencing the world right so if an electric eel goes through the water and it can tell where things are because it has an electric force somehow detects things or if a bat is somehow detecting things using clicks and bouncing ultrasound off walls and stuff we just have no idea of knowing what that's like yeah we can kind of come up with a analogy or whatever but really you just don't know what it's like to be a horse or a lion or a gnat and even really close animals to us yeah even like a chimpanzee we don't know if they're looking at us as if we're other chimpanzees or whether we're this weird sort of different animal or what i wonder what the closest animal is where we feel like we're getting closer to understanding their perception of the the world whatever's been studied most i guess yeah dolphins and fruit flies dogs yeah dogs guinea pigs because designing a vr headset game where you were existing with their vision with their you know dogs seem black and white is that right yeah but they smell a lot yep so you'll have to have a vr big vr nose yes but then the the nose would have to give you so many smells you wouldn't know what to do with them.

20:28You wouldn't be able to differentiate between them. You'll be just like, this smells a bit meaty. But actually it could be venison over there and dog shit over there and you just can't experience what it's like to be able to tell all those different smells at once. Why does Andy keep smelling everyone's ass when they come and say hi to him? He took the helmet off weeks ago.

20:49Is someone going to pick up after me or not? Waiting for it to freeze.

20:56Okay, on that note, I think we should maybe go to our second section of this show, which is to look at some of our old facts and give them a new home. So, Andy, do you have the first person who is a new custodian of a No Such Things A Fish fact? Yes, first friend of the podcast to be assigned their brief this week is Richard Martin. Congratulations, Richard. Your fact is an absolute classic. It's that the first known football chant Was composed by Edward Elgar I think a lot of Things you hear shouted on the terrace Have actually been composed by Eminent composers, is that right? Yeah, the referee Zawanka, that was by Schoenberg Yeah, absolutely Who's the bastard in the black?

21:41Who was that? Was it Rimsky-Korsakov? I think it was Prokofiev But I'm not certain I always get them mixed up The Russian composers, aren't they? The one that goes, shh, when you're taking the piss out of the other fans for not making any noise. John Cage. John Cage. Lovely.

22:02There you go, Richard. That's your fact now. Dan, let's have the next one. Yeah, this fact is for Catherine. And this was my fact. And it's from episode 17, as was the last fact. And that is Eric Cantona was raised in a cave. This must have been a football special. I think it was a World Cup final. It absolutely was I can see the next two facts Was there a World Cup in 2014? There was My favourite Eric Cantona fact From I think we mentioned it in that episode Can't really remember It was People used to sing Ooh Ah Cantona And that was composed by Camille Sanson Was it? Oh God you really got me You really got me Eric Cantona has the record For the most kicks to someone else's head In one minute Call back for you though very good very nice okay tiffany gregory you've been waiting for your name and here it is and will we find out what fact you are now the custodian over yes we will it is oh it's a bit of a long a bit of a mouthful apologies for this in the first world cup final in 1930 uruguay and argentina couldn't agree on the size of the ball so used argentina's small ball in the first half and Uruguay's big one in the second half.

23:19Lovely. It's a lovely idea. It also implies that people from Uruguay are sort of multiple times the size of people from Argentina. The size of the bowl was not that different. I don't think I seen at least one of these bowls in the design museum in London quite recently. Right. And they are quite similar in size. But still, I mean. It'd freak you out a bit, wouldn't it? You'd probably play your best game with the ball that you were used to. Yeah, yeah. It wasn't like they were using the marble for the first half And a beach ball for the second half Shall we run out of the fact? Yeah, go on Andy Right, this goes out to Rita Hoffmayer Rita, thank you so much for becoming a friend of the podcast And here is your fact It's that FIFA has more members than the UN A famously ineffective, sclerotic and corrupt organisation The UN remains in business Hey!

24:11This was a debut fact, by the way, Rita from the creator of QI, John Lloyd. Very first appearance onto Fish. This is really exciting though, because you guys don't know this, but I can say that Rita Hoffmeyer, as well as becoming custodian of this fact, you are also going to receive the No Such Thing as a Fish Peace Prize. Oh, that's huge news. It's huge. It's huge. Obviously, for all of the great stuff that you've done to stop wars in the world, we've decided that you should get it. Yeah. Congratulations, Rita. Dan, another one? Yeah. So we're jumping over to episode 18 now. And this is a fact that's going out to Cara Riley.

24:52And this is a fact that was from one of our guests on that show, Richard Turner. Richard Turner is the co-creator and producer of Museum of Curiosity, which is a show that me and James Harkin worked on for many, many years. He's a really, really good friend. And Rich's fact is that When Neil Armstrong landed on the moon He was wearing ladies underwear Very good I can't 100 % remember It was a slight stretch I think it was that A stretch but very comfortable And very forgiving It was that the undergarments Of the space suit were made by Playtex I think that also made Undergarments Separately he was in a thong

25:37um yeah uh i will do one more uh this one is now under the custodianship of ben newman ben this is your fact it is that in 1963 muhammad ali released a stand-up comedy album called i am the greatest that's right brilliant that's right the special i saw that album in an hmv uh which is where i got the fact from i was like i was going through the stand-up comedy cds and it was just sitting there and i was like what the hell is this and did some googling and yeah it turned out is it funny he was an incredibly funny guy i don't know if you've ever seen interviews with him he just had a great way with words he had sort of uh anytime he was trying to roast his opponent he did very well it's funny so what it was was it wasn't him on stage explicitly coming out like he's Jerry Seinfeld.

26:29He was doing talks around the world and they were recording them. And so this was a compilation of all those talks. I think it had poetry as well that he'd written. I haven't listened to the CD in a while so I can't remember. This goes out to Nicky Kelly. Congratulations, Nicky. And it's the fact that in 1325 in Italy war was declared and 2 ,000 people killed because a bucket was stolen. Oh dear. I know. This was the war of the oaken bucket between Bologna and Modena. And some Modenese troops had stolen a bucket from the Bolognese. And it had some stuff in it. It wasn't a completely empty bucket.

27:07And then Bologna responded proportionately by invading with 32 ,000 troops. Wow. And chaos ensued. So there you go. Anyway, I know we're all just thinking about our favourite bits from that war. I was just thinking of my favourite Bolognese sauces that I've had over the years. I'm really sorry. Lovely. and they are there was one in Soho a nice Italian individual meals I thought you meant recipes okay you don't get spaghetti modernese do you? no you don't if you do podcast.qi.com I imagine that was what the outcome of this war was wasn't it? who's allowed to make spaghetti with the ragu on it go on Dan let's have one last one one last one here and this is a James Harkin fact But it now is under the custodianship of Sean Wandersea And that fact is There is a group of chimpanzees in Zambia Who wear a blade of grass in their left ear As a fashion statement Yeah, not anymore Unless it's come back Yeah, I wonder how quick fashion changes in the chimpanzee world I'm not sure I think this was back in the news this year Was it?

28:15Yeah, it was But I've just googled it This is what it was The headline now is chimpanzees Have found a fresh spin on the old Fashion and they're sticking grass And sticks in their bottoms

28:30Imagine being the first Chimpanzee to do that And thinking you know what everyone's gonna copy me This is cool It's the same place It's the same refuge and it's 15 years later And it's happened again But they're also just doing it in a different They're still doing it in their ears but they're also doing it Into their bottoms Amazing That's the way fashion goes eventually Everything comes back around Get those old blades of grass out of the wardrobe Where they've been hanging for years Teenage chimpanzee going to their parents Hey mum, dad I don't suppose you have any blades of grass Hanging around from your chair Oh yes we do Oh I'm so glad it's getting Wait a minute, where are you What are you doing Okay On that note, I think it is time to end today show.

29:19Congratulations to Sean, Nikki, Ben, Cara, Rita, Tiffany, Catherine, and Richard. You are friends of the podcast and you are also now custodians of those facts. If you too would like to become a custodian of the fact, then go to patreon.com slash knowsuchthingsafish and you'll be able to find out details there of how to become a friend of the podcast or any of the other tiers that we do. If you don't want to do that and just want to listen to the show, then come back next week or come back on friday when we'll have our big fish episode in the meantime bye from me also me i'm gonna say bye andy and it's goodbye from me you