In short
Little Fish episode compiling listener-submitted “facts,” with hosts Dan Schreiber and James Harkin riffing on them remotely (“separate bunkers”). Key claims/examples: tomato plants under caterpillar attack release methyl jasmonate, making caterpillars more likely to eat each other; humans use over 5 kg of ATP daily (about 15× heart weight) and recycle it continuously; factories make more transistors than Milky Way stars in the time to say a sentence; an “internet road trip” game shows many people voting on a virtual map even while offline; Eden Park Stadium in New Zealand has a “pet rock” enclosed in a room; stick insects can mate for 79 days while stuck together; tick bites can cause alpha-gal meat allergy.
Guests
No named guests appear; only hosts Dan and James, plus absent Andrew Hunter-Murray (sent facts). Listener fact-senders include Dave Swaney, Ray Honeysest, Hayley Abramson, Jason Sanderman Allen, Draco, Hugh Fraser, Connor, William Wilson, Rich Schaffer, Louisa, Julia & Brandon McKay, Ferry Hunt, Veganer Natural, Walter, Rolf Lindsay, Chris Martin, Jill M.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VORemote Recording Challenges
0:00 to 0:24
Hosts discuss the difficulties and quirks of recording remotely.
“Kitchen and bathroom professionals know what goes behind the tile matters.”
Remote Recording Challenges
0:45 to 2:30
Hosts discuss the difficulties and quirks of recording remotely.
Listener Facts: Rail Crash Report
2:30 to 4:25
A listener shares a surprising fact about a rail crash and its implications.
“and you have to have at least one day off in any fortnight.”
Tomato Plants and Caterpillars
4:25 to 6:30
Discussion on how tomato plants defend themselves against caterpillars.
“And what's amazing on top of that is different plants smell that smell and release their own plant smell that stops caterpillars.”
Human Heart and ATP
6:30 to 8:35
Facts about the human heart's energy usage and the role of ATP.
“God, so is ATP, is that what's in charge of us all, do you think?”
Transistors and Technology
8:35 to 10:50
Hosts discuss the production of transistors and their impact on modern technology.
“And the transistor failed and he was locked in his garage.”
Internet Road Trip Game
10:50 to 12:55
A unique online game where participants control a virtual road trip.
Elizabethan Plays and Power
12:55 to 14:00
Fact about the power of the Master of the Revels in Elizabethan England.
The Role of Master of the Revels
14:00 to 15:40
Learn about the historical role of the Master of the Revels and their powers.
“I have another cool fact and this is from Hugh Fraser from Queensland who says long time listener third time emailer thanks for letting us know.”
Pet Rock Phenomenon
15:40 to 18:00
Discover the quirky history of pet rocks and the uniqueness of Eden Park Stadium's pet rock.
“These are all employees of Aritso if you're looking for a house and you want it to have a sort of fish-flavoured.”
Show all 18 chapters
Interesting Holiday Tips
18:00 to 20:00
Explore unusual facts about naming conventions and local parks in Virginia.
“Hold on, there are loads of Muslims going on pilgrimage to Mecca.”
Lost Property Offices
20:00 to 23:36
Uncover how ancient Jerusalem handled lost property and the humorous complications thereof.
“That's the sort of ongoing joke in New Zealand, apparently, from the sports websites I've been reading.”
Stick Insect Facts and Lightning
23:36 to 27:18
Learn about the bizarre mating habits of stick insects and the effects of lightning strikes.
“People said they thought the thermometer was wrong.”
Harry McClary's Cultural Differences
27:18 to 28:00
Understand the cultural differences in the interpretation of children's literature between New Zealand and Britain.
“I see who you're suggesting might have been struck by lightning at some point.”
Understanding Harry McClary
28:00 to 29:14
Explore the cultural differences in the character Harry McClary's background.
“And when you say episode, is it now a TV show or do you mean a book?”
Historical Penalties for Parking
29:14 to 30:19
Learn about the ancient penalties for illegal parking and societal reactions.
“You just don't drop them into clanging, forced anecdotes like we do on the show.”
Facts and Anecdotes
30:19 to 32:36
Listen to various quirky facts presented along with humorous anecdotes.
Engaging with the Audience
32:36 to 33:55
Find out how listeners can participate and share their facts for future shows.
“People can get allergic to meat through being bitten by ticks, for sure.”
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:00James Harkin:Kitchen and bathroom professionals know what goes behind the tile matters. That's why trade pros trust fiber cement Hardy Backerboard to keep tile firmly in place, resist cracking, and help block moisture. Chosen in over 40 million kitchens and bathrooms, Hardy Backerboard, what the best build on. Shop now at participating Home Depot, Lowe's, and Floor & Decor stores. For more information, visit jameshardy.com slash hardybacker.
0:43Dan Schreiber:Hello everybody and welcome to Little Fish, the weekly podcast where we, the No Such Thing as a Fish team, take your facts, the facts from the audience and we talk about them, we analyze them we tear them to shreds and here to do that with me are my fellow hosts Dan Schreiber and James Harkin hello hello sorry I left a weird pause there um it's okay we should say we're doing
1:11James Harkin:this in three undisclosed locations hang on no James okay that seems to be a connection issue um this might happen a lot that was just me trying to be funny Dan don't worry no I do that I was they're doubling down on your funny um oh yeah see this is this is how natural it always seems
1:27Dan Schreiber:as soon as you're recording remotely which we are yes undisclosed locations um we've been asked to go to our separate bunkers um and andrew hunter murray is not with us but i think we're gonna be okay so he has sent us some facts from listeners hasn't he we still make him peruse the inbox has anyone got a great fact from a listener to share can i do one that he hasn't sent me i got independently yes oh just because i i know if he was here he wouldn't allow this but seeing as he's away we should like subvert the genre a little bit okay um someone called dave swaney sent me this and it is to do with a big rail crash in clapham that was caused by an overworked signal engineer and the government made a hidden report to establish all the problems that occurred and this report was named after Sir Anthony Hidden.
2:21Come on. And basically that's the reason why if you work as a train crew you need 12 hours rest between shifts and you have to have at least one day off in any fortnight. Wow. But yeah, named by Sir Anthony Hidden. Very good. And I replied to Dave saying, well, you know what, I'm not really a big fan of these kind of facts. and Dave said, oh yeah, sorry, I know Dan is the one who's pushing this trend, but you're my favorite. So he's another one who can't tell the difference between Dan and Andy.
2:54James Harkin:Wow, this is getting wild. But you're doing Andy's work for him now. You've converted without knowing. You were filling that book up every week now. You are. Well, that's a great fact. That's awesome. I got one that was sanctioned, that was allowed in by Andrew Hunter-Murray. This is from Ray Honeyset. Ray says, my fact is that when tomato plants are under attack from hungry caterpillars, they produce a chemical that makes caterpillars more likely to eat each other than the plant. What? Yeah, which is amazing. And Ray adds, my mother tried to tell Dan this fact a few years ago when she lived in South London next to him and would share a commute with him into town.
3:34James Harkin:Unfortunately, she forgot the details of this and instead told him that scientists have found that tomatoes eat caterpillars. I am emailing to set the record straight
3:43Dan Schreiber:Do you remember this instance Dan?
3:45James Harkin:I do, I remember his mum She was awesome Can I just say, I think tomatoes do eat caterpillars Well they certainly eat insects Sure Okay, in what sense? Well they have like a fluffy stalk, don't they? And I think the fluffiness of the stalk Is to kind of trap insects And then they fall down to the ground Decompose into the earth And then the plant can eat the chemicals No way. I think so. That's interesting. Well, the further details on this particular method to stop the caterpillars from eating them is the plant, the tomato plants, release chemicals called methyl jasmine. And the idea is that it makes the plant taste so disgusting that they would rather eat each other than continue to eat the plant itself.
4:31James Harkin:And what's amazing on top of that is different plants smell that smell and release their own plant smell that stops caterpillars.
4:38Dan Schreiber:So that's why they end up eating each other and not just another plant. Because it does seem illogical. If I've got dinner and I'm eating peas and I think I don't like peas, I don't instinctively think, okay, I'll eat the person sitting next to me. Can you imagine? Like the TripAdvisor reviews. The gazpacho was so bad, I ate my own friends.
4:57James Harkin:Yeah. Wild, isn't it? This is, yeah, John Oreck, who's an evolutionary ecologist in Wisconsin, said basically the plant rearranges the menu for the caterpillar to make the other caterpillars the optimal choice.
5:08Dan Schreiber:It's a truly amazing fact and would have made The Very Hungry Caterpillar a much more interesting book, actually, although maybe not as child appropriate. I had a great one from Hayley Abramson, and she is a biomedical engineer, so she knows what she's talking about. She's working in America and she creates medical devices for hemodynamic monitoring, which I think is watching what's happening to your blood. and she said that the human heart uses over five kilos of ATP, which is the molecule that you use in your heart to release energy, uses over five kilos of it every day, which is 15 times the weight of the heart itself.
5:48Dan Schreiber:Now, I got very into ATP at this point because I realized you learn about it at school. You don't really know. I don't really remember what it is. And it's universal across all life. Every single living cell needs to use ATP to get energy. And I didn't realize that the way we get it is literally we have this molecule in us and we break it down and that releases energy. And then we build it up again. Your body contains only 250 grams of it any moment and you produce your own body weight in it every day because we just break it down, rebuild it, break it down, rebuild it. Kind of a mad Sisyphean task we're all doing actually.
6:23but then yeah it almost seems like the entire point of life is just to generate and regenerate atp yes yeah like you see these sort of stories in new scientists or whatever saying oh we found a new kind of animal that lives on rocks or whatever and what it actually means is there's some kind of tiny cellular life which is turning stuff into atp making energy and then making more ATP and then making more energy and just doing that again and again and again.
6:54Dan Schreiber:God, so is ATP, is that what's in charge of us all, do you think? I think it is. ATP has created life so it can be created and destroyed.
7:05James Harkin:I've never heard of it, ATP. Had you two? I mean, James, it sounds like you definitely have.
7:10Dan Schreiber:Yeah, you went to an unusual school. I think in fairness, I don't think I learned it in GCSE biology. Fair. I feel like I learned it through doing 15 years of QI work.
7:22James Harkin:That period where you ate nothing but rocks. I think it was in that moment.
7:26Dan Schreiber:But yeah, great fact. Great fact from Hayley. Anyone else got anything else? Okay, here's another science-y one. Jason Sanderman Allen tells us that in the time it takes to say this fact, the world's factories will have made more transistors than there are stars in the Milky Way. What? Oh my God. What? People do work very hard, don't they, in some factories? That's too hard. To be fair, it says the time it takes to read this fact, but the email's quite long, so I don't know if it's the entire email or just that sentence. But basically, a transistor, like, in my head, a transistor used to be like, oh, it's like a radio, a transistor radio or whatever.
8:09But actually, a transistor is a tiny little switch that you get in any electrical device. and in your laptop there are millions of them in your microphone there are millions of them in your headphones there are millions they're just they're in everything and it's just um it's
8:25James Harkin:basically the thing which is either a zero or a one so there's i think an estimated about like 100 billion stars in the milky way right so surely we need just one day in the factory and we have
8:38Dan Schreiber:enough that's it that's a good point we don't need any more have we got an oversupply it's like stop up someone where's the off button we've got all these bloody switches but where's the off button yeah that is wild i mean that's a lot 100 billion look basically the modern day is atp and transistors that's yeah sounds like it that's how we're going down in history i know i happen to know that the
9:01James Harkin:co-inventor of the transistor was a guy called john bardine and when he co-won his nobel prize he was told off by someone who was there either the committee or just someone high up for not bringing his family along he's like where are your kids you didn't bring your family and he said oh no it's okay i'll bring them to the next one next time i win they'll be here he won it again and he brought his kids yeah that's brilliant one of the few scientists to
9:27Dan Schreiber:get the double nobel what a dickhead i'd never thought i'd hear this sorry no what an amazing guy um i was i was just still reeling from the surprise of hearing the sentence come out of your mouth, I happen to know that the co-inventor of the transistor is just such a casual happen to know.
9:44James Harkin:Because I mentioned John Bardeen not too long ago on Fish, because when he found out that he had won his second Nobel Prize, he was in his garage and he went to open the door of the garage to go to the party celebrating it. And the transistor failed and he was locked in his garage. So the thing that he won the Nobel Prize for the first time stopped him from getting to his party the second time all i would say is that we always do this podcast in person most of the time and when we're in person we don't have our laptops or our phones or anything and we're just chatting but i watched a documentary about online chess yesterday where basically they said as soon as it went online and people weren't in the room together they all cheated so if anyone from i'm not saying that dan didn't know who that guy was wow but if anyone in the future is saying i just happen to know then there could be something afoot outrageous claim yeah yeah i won't have it
10:40Dan Schreiber:i'm the host here and i'm kicking you off the show for this kind of slander yeah against your fellow man i'm not even on the internet right now this is all pre-recorded nuggets dan centers
10:54James Harkin:we're interspersing okay if i turned my camera on the laptop and you saw six researchers sitting there just showing me showing me facts on big bits of paper we all know he's too analog to be able to use the internet i happen to know jane john bardoon what is it what is it better spelling
11:13Dan Schreiber:give it to the guy with better spelling okay go on then dan give us one of your facts from your
11:18James Harkin:um non-internet perusing well this one is great this one is from draco just called draco um draco says there are over a hundred people taking a road trip across the usa together they've covered over 40 000 miles yet none of them have left their homes oh interesting yeah so this and i want to thank you guys hear there's an there's either an airplane or a helicopter going above my house at the moment i can hear that yeah okay is there anything to do with your fact down center to take you out yeah your betrayal question my use of internet um this is i again thank you draker so much for introducing me to this but this is a website called neal.fun n-e-a-l.fun and it's a bunch of online interactive games that you can do and one of them is called internet road trip and you click onto it and it's a virtual map in which a car you know when you go on google maps and you have all the arrows and you press one of the arrows well it's this but right now i'm on it right now there are a hundred and just despite not being on the internet 114 drivers right now are on it and whoever votes most for which arrow that wins and that's where the car turns do you see what i'm saying so it's a it's an ongoing trip that is being voted for by people i'm going to vote right now i've just voted yep it's gone my way how cool is that and honestly this site is amazing neil.fun um there's there's a game that you can play on it which is called cursor camp and you just give your cursor a little holiday and you play i just played volleyball earlier with someone from the netherlands um this is so sad this is holidays
13:05Dan Schreiber:of the future and sport of the future and driving of the future it's all so sad highly recommend it guys this is incredible incredible site um was this site made by the boffins at fun.com you'd hope so yes only the brains at fun.com could come up with this this really does remind me of the old days of the internet and being at university and one of my friends going oh you need to go on this website where you can play some games yeah yeah i i had a similar experience yesterday where i felt like i had gone back in technological time when you know when you can't google can't open a website because you're not connected to the internet and so it says press spacebar to play and i've literally never pressed it and i pressed it have you guys ever done it no well could you do play pac-man or something no it's literally you just make a a dot jump over some obstacles and it just keeps moving and you hit spacebar whenever you want it to jump did that for about five minutes and then thought is this how i want to spend my life on this earth and the answer was yes I did it for another four hours.
14:07Dan Schreiber:I have another cool fact and this is from Hugh Fraser from Queensland who says long time listener third time emailer thanks for letting us know. I have a fact for you the man responsible for organizing plays in Elizabethan England was allowed to imprison people at will when they offended him or didn't work hard enough. I really feel like Andy's given me this one because he knows it's a fantasy of mine. They were freed from jail when he decided they'd serve their time. And this, I think we might have mentioned him before, Edmund Tilney, who's Master of the Revels under Queen Elizabeth. Is he the guy who was legally allowed to kidnap children to be in his choir or something?
14:46Dan Schreiber:Maybe he was. It sounds like the kind of thing that would be a perk of the job of Master of the Revels. Possibly. He's definitely, I mainly know him because he's one of the baddies in Shakespeare in Love. Have you seen that? He's the guy who keeps on censoring Shakespeare's plays and generally gets a very bad rap. But he's actually a good guy and he reformed the whole art scene under Queen Elizabeth and was the reason Shakespeare was famous.
15:09James Harkin:Starring friend of the podcast, Joseph Fiennes, just for listeners of the past.
15:14Dan Schreiber:Is he a friend? I've missed that friendship being formed.
15:16James Harkin:Just before you came back, he almost became a solid character. He's only been in that one film, whereas all the other findses have been in loads of other films. Yeah, his brother's really nailed acting in multiple movies.
15:28Dan Schreiber:That is so harsh. I could definitely name another if you gave me the internet in a couple of hours.
15:36Dan Schreiber:That's a great fact. Anyone else got any other facts?
15:39James Harkin:I've got a few from down under from New Zealand, which are quite nice. One comes in from Connor, who says, if you sold your house with this company and they're called Arizto, A-R-I-Z-T-O, they're a real estate company in New Zealand, you could quite possibly end up working with someone called Andy, someone called Dan, or someone called Anna James.
16:06James Harkin:These are all employees of Aritso if you're looking for a house and you want it to have a sort of fish-flavoured. What a random thing to find out.
Read the full transcript
16:16Dan Schreiber:Hang on, why does this person know that? Does this person work for that company?
16:20James Harkin:No, I don't think so. They don't say so. It's just they were going around the site. Maybe they were looking for a place to rent or buy, and that's what they discovered.
16:29Dan Schreiber:Frantically Googling our names over and over again.
16:31James Harkin:There were also three other choices of James. If you wanted to use Anna James as one and you need one more at the table, there's three other Jameses. So anyway, thank you very much, Connor. But then we get one from William Wilson, also from New Zealand, who writes that Eden Park Stadium in New Zealand has its own pet rock. So when the stadium was rebuilt in 2011 for the Rugby World Cup, this rock was there and they considered getting rid of it. But it's so massive that they decided in the end, let's just build a room around it. And now when you go on a tour of the stadium, they take you to the rock room to meet the pet rock.
17:08No way.
17:09James Harkin:That was part of the sort of history of this place, which is pretty amazing. Why did they build a room around it? That's kind of weird, isn't it? Yeah, I think the idea was it would cost so much. It's a volcanic rock. It's thousands of years old. It's 50 feet plus. They just thought this is such a big job. It's easier just to leave it there in place and put a room around it.
17:31Dan Schreiber:Sorry, you said it's 50 feet plus, the rock?
17:33James Harkin:I think so, yeah. Oh, it's huge. Yeah, yeah.
17:35Dan Schreiber:I was imagining a kind of a large pebble. What? Okay. It's a big rock. It's big. It's right. Isn't Mecca got a big rock in it? That big building in Mecca has got like a meteorite or something. I think so. And they built a big building around it. And now millions of people every year go to visit it. Yeah, I think so. And that's different to going on a pilgrimage to Mecca. Hold on, there are loads of Muslims going on pilgrimage to Mecca. And then there are loads of rock fans going on pilgrimage to the rock next door. Or is it the same thing? It's the same thing. It's the same thing. Got it. Okay.
18:12Dan Schreiber:I was just thinking what a low maintenance pet that would be. because I was thinking about pets the other day and thinking maybe I'll cave eventually and go for stick insects because they're the easiest. But that is easier. Stick insects are not easy. We had pet stick insects when we were kids and they would die 10 a week. Yeah, but what's easy about them is that you can buy more and no one ever knows. 10 a week? How many do you have, James? I may be wrong about 10 a week. In fact, I am exaggerating, but you would just put them in big jars. We had them a lot. they wouldn't do anything at all and you would kind of be hard-pressed to know that they were even there and the only way that you'd know that they died is because they stopped pooing and you'd be like oh i don't have to clean the poo anymore so they must be dead god it'd be tempting to just leave it at that yeah how long does it take a kid to go you know what should we not buy anymore uh they did there was a craze for pet rocks in the 70s It was like, yeah, it was like a, I suppose it was just like people would go to the shop and buy a pair of googly eyes and put them on a rock and say, this is my pet rock.
19:18But it was a thing. Jesus.
19:20James Harkin:Yeah, right.
19:21Dan Schreiber:Tough time, the 70s.
19:22James Harkin:By the way, the Eden Park venue that this rock is at, it's kind of the national venue of New Zealand. It's where the All Blacks play. And they've got a record there of consistent wins since 1994. and I think it's 53 consistent wins. They've not lost. They've had a few draws, but they are yet to lose in their own stadium for that long. Isn't that wild? It must be The Rock. It must be The Rock. The thought is actually that they only invite teams to play them there when they absolutely know they're going to thrash them, when they know that they're just not in a good shape. I don't think that can be true.
20:01James Harkin:That's the sort of ongoing joke in New Zealand, apparently, from the sports websites I've been reading.
20:06Dan Schreiber:We should probably move on to our custodians soon. I just want to give Dan a holiday tip for if you ever want to take a holiday that's not just a virtual one on your computer. Yeah. Because this is from Rich Schaffer, a fact that was sent in, and he was saying, I was driving through southern Virginia in the US and saw signs for Dan Daniel Memorial Park in the city of Danville. It specifies Danville is not named after the politician Dan Daniel, nor is Dan Daniel named after Danville. And yet they're all named after that real estate agent from New Zealand.
20:42Dan Schreiber:OK, we have reached that time in the show where we bestow some facts upon our lucky Club Fish listeners. And we have some facts from our previous podcast to give to you. Does anyone have a fact they want to let go of?
20:56James Harkin:Yep. I have one here. This is for Louisa. and the fact is ancient Jerusalem's lost property office just involved shouting about what you had lost in the hope that somebody had found it. That's a good system. Such a good system. Presumably you have to shout in a very particular place so people know where you're shouting or you just walk around shouting for it. Yeah.
21:19Dan Schreiber:Was it you told a specific shouter what you'd lost, didn't you? And they walked around like they were the town crier but the lost property town crier. Because then I think this is the one where we discovered that James has actually been to town crier championships or he claimed to have been to them is that true I have been there yeah there's photographic evidence I didn't take part I was just there as um as a as a viewer how do you think you'd go would you be good in a town I don't think so I don't think I have the bass in my voice to be a good town crier
21:49James Harkin:needs Andy or Dan maybe some of that I got some bass yeah I might be able to do it hey do you guys remember when i was on the way into the royal institution for our recent uh run of live gigs and on the train and the other end of the carriage i heard a man on his phone going hi there yes i've just left my second son at the uh station could somebody please collect him and hold him and i'm just wondering to what extent uh this lost property box what would be like the the weirdest thing that you would hear someone shouting because i've never heard anything weirder than that i see what someone
22:24Dan Schreiber:shouting a second son second son anyone found a second son yeah like that kind of thing so what
22:29James Harkin:yeah what what kind of lost property are you shouting for yeah i mean it's gonna be something
22:35Dan Schreiber:rude isn't it it's like how how much do you want to face embarrassment to say you know the pink fluffy oh yeah yeah goat attached to it yes yeah fluffy dildo okay
22:50it's just gonna need regular cleaning that's all
22:53Dan Schreiber:i wouldn't know personally but you're right it is an interesting idea and i think if it's washing machine friendly and it's got i've got a duster actually which has a really useful removable cover which could easily double up as a fluffy dildo last fluffy dildo it's machine friendly and it has a removable sheaf so it's very usable you could reuse it anyone's seen it
23:19James Harkin:imagine 20 years from now anna's going to be sitting in an interview and they're going to say now not many people know this anna but before you started your humongous fluffy dildo empire you were a podcaster weren't you i prefer to forget about those times they're just an embarrassment okay here's another fact this one now is under the custodianship of julia and brandon mckay and julia and brandon your fact is that the man who discovered why we sweat did so by getting in a sauna with a dog a steak and an egg i remember this guy me too what a wonderful fact this was what a lad um yeah i think was it wasn't
24:04Dan Schreiber:Just to prove that it was hot enough. People said they thought the thermometer was wrong. And so he said, okay, well, you can cook a steak in here. That's how bloody hot it is. And an egg and a dog. And an egg and a dog. Cook a dog. Why take the dog? We believe you with the steak and the egg. It's fine. You've got to share the steak with someone. Yeah, I think this is the guy who discovered about thermoregulation, wasn't it? Yeah. What a laugh. What a fun party that sauna party was. Okay, here is a fact for Ferry Hunt. And this is the fact that, oh my gosh, how weird this has just come up. This is the fact that stick insect sex can last for 79 days and the insects are stuck together the whole time.
24:51Yeah, and that fact was originally read out by someone who kept stick insects as a pet when they were younger.
24:59Dan Schreiber:and you did you spend 79 days straight staring at your little cubicle honestly my parents taught me about the birds of the stick insects funny was this show this show was up the creek i think this
25:14James Harkin:was a live show these are all yeah they're all reminding me because quite often despite all these years this is the show that often gets cited as if you're going to start listening to fish this
25:23Dan Schreiber:is the episode to listen to um don't say that because it was over 10 years i know we peaked episode 82 if you're listening to this and you want to go back and listen to it yeah wow i believe downhill from there i think it was up the creek yeah yeah i think you're right
25:40James Harkin:okay well anything from the far inferior episode 83 yes this fact is for vegana vegana natural And your fact is the seventh time park ranger Roy Sullivan was struck by lightning coincided with the 22nd time he fought a bear off with a stick.
26:00Dan Schreiber:A dang classic.
26:01James Harkin:Yeah, Roy Sullivan. What an interesting character. And the further you go along the story each time of when he's getting hit by lightning, the more improbable and more ridiculous it is. Just one of those fantastic stories that just keeps giving. I read an article about people who get struck by lightning and there's like a conference every year that they all go to because actually it's a really like it's obviously very bad at the time. But the people who live with it have a really difficult time of it. And so they have like support groups where they all get together and stuff like that. But there is like various different things that happen to you if you get struck by lightning.
26:38and I am going to look because I have it as a fact in my future facts file some behind the scenes here
26:47James Harkin:James has had all his facts basically since we started Fish in a file we scrounge around every week looking for headline facts James has had them all since day one it's amazing yeah and actually there's so many of them I have got like 20 of them that are to do with lightning but yes symptoms of being struck by lightning include food tasting like glue, sexual dysfunction, and the inability to sweat.
27:14Dan Schreiber:Interesting. Yeah, you see where I was going? I see who you're suggesting might have been struck by lightning at some point.
27:22James Harkin:Yeah, well, it's unfair. Andy's not here to defend himself. Which Andy?
27:31Okay, here is another fact. This one is now under the custodianship of Walter. And Walter, your fact is that in 2015, America's Hero Dog of the Year Award was won by a cat.
27:45Dan Schreiber:Unbelievable. They can't even find enough heroic dogs to fill that prize. And there's an episode of Harry McClary based on this that was reading only a couple of nights ago, isn't there? When Harry, as you all know, being Harry McClary fanatics, Harry McClary wins the best cat in show competition.
28:04James Harkin:Harry McClary from Donaldson's Dairy.
28:06Dan Schreiber:That's absolutely correct. Yeah, that one.
28:07James Harkin:And when you say episode, is it now a TV show or do you mean a book?
28:10Dan Schreiber:No, I mean a book. I just forgot the word book. Okay. The interesting thing about Harry McClary from Donaldson's Dairy for British people is that he's from a dairy, but the books were written in New Zealand where dairy is very different. A dairy is like a corner shop in New Zealand. So it's not a place where you get milk from or anything like that. So in Britain, we always think that Harry McClary lives in a place where there's loads of cows and they're getting milk. But actually, he lives in a corner shop. Amazing when you first told me that. It's like everything falls into place because Harry McClary, there are never cows in it.
28:45Dan Schreiber:And there's not this bucolic countryside landscape. It's sort of suburbia. So, yeah, not interesting to our New Zealand listeners, which Dan has confirmed we have a lot of. And you know who told me that? It was the son of the people who wrote The Little Yellow Digger, which is, I think, the second most famous kids book from New Zealand. Wow. The Little Yellow Digger got stuck and a bigger, bigger digger pulled it out and all that kind of stuff. You know their kids. Oh, mate, I got my showbiz pals just like the rest of you.
29:17James Harkin:You just don't drop them into clanging, forced anecdotes like we do on the show. Damn it, that's wonderful.
29:25Dan Schreiber:Okay, Hero Dogs. Excellent. Enjoy that one, Walter. I have got a fact for Rolf Lindsay. And this fact is that the earliest known penalty for illegal parking was to be impaled on a stake. Yeah, this is just in the 50s in Leicester Square. And no, it wasn't. It was thousands of years ago, wasn't it? I think it was about 4000 years ago. Was it one of those old codes of Hammurabi or whatever they're called? Well, I think it was one of those, like the Hammurabi Code. Yes, it was in Nineveh and it was the Royal Road. So I suppose only the king was allowed to waltz up and down there. I'm trying to work out if this show will go out before the second episode of our Royal Institution run where the crowd were baying for blood for any social infraction that anyone could make.
30:19Like we would say Oh someone got fined for using their phone On the train And the crowd was like Find them more, find them more
30:27Dan Schreiber:String them up Turns out we've got some really hardline fans They're going to be loving this All listeners going Damn right should still have that For parking infractions
30:40James Harkin:I've got one here for Chris Martin This is your fact now Female corn earthworm moths Go invisible after sex it's a good fact because a it starts with a thing you've never heard of the corn earthworm moth um and b it heads into magic yeah it's seems unbelievable and c it's going to chris martin from coldplay presumably it must be him of course yeah uh whose ex-wife runs a sex toy website that in future will presumably be selling fluffy dildos wow and when we were last in new zealand on the day we were in new zealand guess where coldplay played a gig oh i'll give you a clue there's a big rock there oh oh don't i i can get this hang on come on guys sorry just talking to the research team uh eden park eden park that's right because do you remember we had some issues with um trying to get guests over because all of the flights were booked out because
31:46Dan Schreiber:all the fans were going to watch coldplay at eden park of course and that must be where chris martin heard of us all that kerfuffle and that's why he's writing in now must be and he'll love that fact because he of course wrote the song the scientist and it is a sciencey fact oh my god It's like we tailored it to him Blowing shit wide open Okay the last one for today I think goes out To Jill M Jill M your fact is That every week Two people in Sydney Get bitten by ticks And become allergic to meat Wow Those two people need to get out of Sydney Yeah this was huge a few years ago Wasn't it Yeah, and it's still everywhere.
32:35It still happens. People can get allergic to meat through being bitten by ticks, for sure. But gone out of the news a little bit. Right.
32:42Dan Schreiber:I always like it because it's called the alpha gal, something like alpha gal syndrome or something when you get bitten by. Yeah, it just sounds really cool. It sounds like something from Mean Girls.
32:53James Harkin:I'm surprised that there hasn't been a sort of like a vigilante group of vegans who haven't collected up these ticks and have just been spraying them around in people's homes and getting them allergic to meat so that we literally stop it that way. That is such a good terrorist atrocity that you've come up with. Let's hope that no one does it now because you'll be directly implicated, I think. It's such a genius idea.
33:17Dan Schreiber:I don't know. I think it still might be easier to print out lots of pictures of dogs being tortured and distribute them rather than catch these elusive pics. Yeah, but you've got to torture the dogs. You've got to print out the pictures. shit is that what they're doing I'm only joking obviously please don't write in okay and speaking of writing in though please do write in because this is the end of this show but if you want to feature in a future show you have to write in with a good fact it's podcast.qi.com Andy goes through all the emails and shaves off the best stuff for us to say and thank you to our brand new fact custodians.
33:59Dan Schreiber:They are Louisa, Julie M. Brandon McKay, Ferry Hunt, Veganer Natural, Walter, Rolf Lindsay, Chris Martin and Jill M. Thank you so much. And if you want to be a fact custodian, you'll have to join Club Fish. Only way to get there. Look it up, find out how. But for now, that is it from me, James and Dan. We will see you next week for another episode of this or later on this week for another episode of No Such Thing as a Big Fish. Until then, goodbye. Goodbye.
From the publisher
James does some gratuitous celebrity name-dropping while he, Dan and Anna discuss YOUR facts. This week's subjects include revels, rocks and railways. And Dan, James and Anna shout-out eight more Friend of the Podcast custodians.
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Edited by James Harkin
Produced by Leying Lee
Team includes Tara Dorrell, Joe Mayo and Ethan Ruparelia
