Little Fish: It's Mostly Machines These Days

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 have 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 7pm 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

1:38Hi, everybody. Oh, listen, Andy's got a cold and it's actually a really bad one. I've had a super sniffle. Hi, everybody. Welcome to Little Fish. This is our audience fact show. So never mind our boring old facts. It's time for your boring old facts instead. You've been sending them in to podcast.qi.com And we've been reading them Collating them, winnowing them Doing extra research on them And here are your best facts from the last seven days So let's go What you can't see, listener, is the most British thing Is happening in the background As Andy is introducing the show He's pouring himself a thermos of tea Yes, we're recording this on apparently my Duke of Edinburgh I thought it was incredible how you multitasked there Thank you very much Because actually, I think the listener wouldn't have been able to tell he was pouring that tea until you mentioned it.

2:31Yeah, yeah, yeah. There you go. Well, thank you very much. Yeah. But look, enough of this. Enough of this banter. Let's have some factor. Let's have some facts. Who would like to start? We got sent in a fact by Alex Hawes. And Alex says, Nazi propaganda in the 1930s relied heavily on an Englishman called Dick Seaman. Come on, Fitz. No. He had such a bad time in the English public school system that he just turned I wouldn't blame him Why would you give someone a name like that? You'd think his dad would have learned, given the fact he was called William Seaman Willie Seaman, come on Good lord Come on indeed So this is Richard Dick Seaman He was a British racing driver And he was signed by the state-backed Mercedes team in the mid-1930s To race in the precursor to what is modern F1 and he was appointed as a non-German to be part of the teams.

3:27He was signed off by Goebbels who showed him to Hitler. Hitler loved him. Hitler thought he was amazing. In fact, when he died, and sadly Dick Seaman did die in a crash during a race, Hitler sent the biggest bouquet of flowers to the funeral. So Hitler. It is really. Oh, I've got to send the biggest bouquet of flowers. Do you know what I mean? It's just showing off. He's the kind of person that, you know, like if someone does a sponsored swim and everyone sponsors you for five pounds he would do six pounds yeah he is god i knew i didn't like him but that's really taking it to a new territory uh interesting fact about seaman yeah i mentioned in an earlier i think it was a little fish about a football team in indonesia or the philippines called seaman pandang yes uh and i said that the name seaman came from a cement company and someone messaged me on Instagram.

4:21It was Lars Van Toff and Lars said that they lived in Bali most of their life and they can tell me that the word semen means cement in Indonesia. So it's not a brand name. It's just a generic word for cement. So whenever this person ever had to buy cement because they were an English speaker, they thought it was very amusing. As you would. Just while we're on sports and fascism and the 1930s Brilliant Who knew it was going to go in this direction? Who knew our listeners had such a niche knowledge base? Well, Stefan Barrett and Mark Norman have both sent in a brilliant fact So I'll start with Stefan Stefan says Infamous right-wing dictator Benito Mussolini's great-grandson Romano Floriani Mussolini Is a professional footballer who plays on Any guesses?

5:13Sorry, on? The right wing Oh Yes Okay And at a good level too Apparently In the Top Italian league Really? Serie Serie A That's right And Mark adds Mark says that fact as well And says Just a trivial thing I found amusing When I was told it I'm sure he's a lovely person And it does state on his Wikipedia That he has no interest in politics Cool Interesting I have a feeling that Gaddafi's son Might have played Professional football Really? at a relatively high level maybe seria bay or something yeah i think i might be wrong about that here's a fact from scott parsons who writes that they work in clinical trials and thought we would like to know some of the papers that scott has come across over the years so um he found that the half-life of communal teaspoons is 42 so if you have a load of teaspoons in the office then after 42 days, half of them will have disappeared.

6:12Interesting. That is interesting. And it rakes over an old wound for us, which we don't need to get into now. Like, I still don't understand how I got involved in that controversy. Well, because you kept putting the spoons in the bin. I think it was the forks. I think there were no forks. Or knives. It was one of them. All I did was jump in saying, hey, it could have been any one of us so that whoever did it would feel, oh okay it's not a problem to admit to it you know uh knives out yeah the first ever mystery that benoit blanc solved was what happened to the knives in the qi office and that's how that series got its name yeah there we go and was i was i fingered by it was cut from the final film that scene but um they also so scott also found that if you need a problem to be solved quickly brain surgeons are better than rocket scientists really interesting to a study because there's that whole um speaking of popular culture as we were there's that mitchell and webb sketch isn't there where the brain surgeon meets the rocket scientist which is very good but what What do you reckon is hardest, brain surgery or rocket science?

7:21I feel like brain surgery is harder. Because it's more fiddly. I think it's largely machines these days, so I think rocket science... Well, you think rocket science is one of the last craftsmen? What, you think they're hewing those from timber, do you? It's an old nonner in Italy. Makes it from willow. It's mostly machines these days. I think brain surgery is largely You're not necessarily going in with your hands anymore You program it don't you And then you just press button one Yeah it's a bit It's no harder than playing Street Fighter these days Yeah And when in doubt just mash all the buttons And that'll probably do something It'll definitely do something If it shouts finish him You know you've done something wrong So brain surgery in the UK You need to do a five year medical degree Then two years of foundation training Then at least eight more years of neurosurgical training whereas to be a rocket scientist you need to do your degree but then you could do an apprenticeship after that and go straight into the industry so you need to do a lot more studying to be a brain surgeon interesting there's got to be levels of rocket scientist you start off making tea and just chatting with rocket science t minus five t minus four come on please wonderful i'm gonna take the rest of the day off that's it i got a good one here yeah from Alex Hartley.

8:46Okay. Oh. Who says, the guy from Milli Vanilli... Which guy? There were two of them. Well, there were two of them. One sadly passed away now, but the other one... Who were they, by the way? Just for more context. Milli Vanilli with this double act. Two incredibly handsome guys. Singers. Singers. Ostensibly. Yes. But it turned out that they'd been miming on top of the pops. That's right. Well, not just miming on top of the pops. So they had this unbelievably successful debut album It sold 8 million copies They were absolutely everywhere They were huge We're talking 1989 here They were superstars They won the Grammy for Best New Artist And then they were revealed not to have sung any of their live gigs Where they were all lip syncing Or any of their recordings Right, yeah So it just wasn't their voices At any point It was such a big story That I will have been like, what, 10 years old at this time And at school we all knew this story And we would make jokes about it and stuff like that It's kind of, and the backlash was Huge, fans destroyed their Records, you know, and that's millions Of records, it's the only Millions and vanillions Brilliant, absolutely brilliant Why are you still here to even make that joke?

9:59I feel like it's going downhill Isn't it? Diminishing returns, yeah But it's the only time a Grammy has ever been Rescinded They took it off them, didn't they? And some real hounds have won Grammys, I suspect. I suspect some people have won Grammys who are rotters. But probably sang their songs. But probably sang their songs. Yeah. So anyway, that's the situation, right? And Alex's fact is, the guy from Milli Vanilli, who had to give back a Grammy, is nominated this year for a Grammy for narrating the audiobook of the story of Milli Vanilli. So good. Absolutely stunning. And that, I think, is next year's Grammys.

10:37I think the 2026. The categories have been announced. Indeed this year by the time this goes out Absolutely, this year, hello everybody And Happy New Year The Golden Globes have added a podcast category this year Have you seen that? Yeah So the Grammys might eventually go on to that We might get a Grammy one day I think we were not eligible for the Golden Globes one Is that right? Yeah, it was like, I think only the top 10 podcasts in the world were up for Like, there was some rule that meant that And we're number 11, aren't we? Typical And there was definitely some rule that I saw it and thought Let's just throw a hat in the ring Why not?

11:16But we couldn't Damn it Also we don't do our own podcast do we? We have voice actors who come in and do this Yeah yeah I got the weirdest sounding guy to do mine The guy who's nominated, Fabrice Morvan Is up against a friend of yours Dan In the Grammy category Are you taking the piss out of me? Is this a real friend? It's someone you I think admire and someone I associate with you. Is it the guy who runs the Crab Museum in Margate? It's the guy who runs the Crab Museum in Margate. He's nominated. Oh, that's very good. Brian Blessed? Oh, they've both spent time in Tibet, I'd say. Is it G.C. Pink?

11:56Is it a Yeti? It's the Dalai Lama. It's the Dalai Lama. Wow. He's up for a Grammy, which I think at this stage would be a real Philip for his career. I think he needs that boost. Yeah. How wonderful. Yeah. It's got a lovely voice. Well, is it nicer than Fabrice Morvan's voice? I wouldn't know. I don't think anyone's heard it. Alice Hill has sent in two facts to us. One is from personal experience. She said you can flip a breech baby while it's still inside the mum. She's like, it's pretty common. Breach baby being? A breech baby is when the baby's facing the wrong way when birth is about to happen.

12:32Yeah. You want it the other way around. So you can, she says, literally massage the baby. two doctors can do it and they can massage at 180 degrees into the right position for birth which is amazing so this is obviously someone who loves a bit of science curious about the world here's the actual fact she sent in years ago i worked at a christmas tree farm on a particularly hot summer's day and i saw a bumblebee performing oral sex on another bumblebee the receiving bee was laxed out front arms up holding some pine needles front facing bum forward other bee face deep. I'll never forget that site.

13:09It was before the time of phone cameras, so alas, no photographic proof. How convenient. I've since tried to research it online. A bit tricky, though, for obvious reasons. Maybe you guys can find out if it's a thing. Alice, I looked into it. It is absolutely not a thing. I don't know what you saw, Alice. I assume it was two humans in Bumblebee costumes.

13:39Quiz Corner Oh yeah Frey van der Vlert writes Why in most car commercials Do you only see The following letters and numbers On the number plates A H I M O T U V W X Zero Eight I think I worked it out Is it kind of like A lot of TV shows will use the same phone number because you don't want to use a license plate that's out there that's a good idea and those letters are not on any other license plate in the world exactly there you go it can only be because they're all um symmetrical yes and so they must flip the footage or something it's because the image can then be mirrored to make the car drive on the correct side of the road depending on what country the commercial is airing in very cool of course this seems to be i've looked into it a bit more it seems to be true and often you will see a car driving along in what is quite clearly southern europe yeah quite often in iceland or something yeah and they're driving on the left hand side of the road and beautiful sun-drenched canyon or you know majestic but and it's just like it's it's clearly not the uk so i don't know how much good it does it's a really good fact yeah and a good question as well so thank you for a here's another one that is based on um roads yeah this is from alan mitchell and alan says he used to be a motorcycle instructor and one fun question we used to ask is if anyone knew what the black horizontal line was on a crossing patrol sign like a lollipop person would use on the round bit at the top it says stop children but then there's like a black lozenge in the middle of it okay uh and alan wonders what that was for oh in fact he knows what it's for he's told us it's gonna be for the drivers you know i read the email in the first place when i came into the inbox so actually this quiz is for one person in the stream only why would there be a black dot in the middle lozenge not a dot lozenge that's i'd say essential james i don't know if you'd Blackness is important.

15:49A lozenges like the sweetie. Yeah, like a long... Like a sausage. Like a sausage. Right. Why would there be a sausage on a lollipop, though? I'm just going to tell you. Yeah, I don't think I can get this. According to Alan, it's a blackboard, and you would write down the number plates of vehicles who fail to stop. What? If you're a lollipop person. If you're a lollipop person. Yeah, yeah. And one of the cars doesn't stop, they've committed an offence, so you would write down the number plate. Yeah, yeah. Now, the main problem is it doesn't really make a lot of sense. No. But I've looked online and it's definitely often said that this is true.

16:29And usually it's the lollipop people who say it. Right. I haven't found any sort of official source, like the Department of Transport or the Highway Code or anything like that that says that this is true. It's hard to see how it would be useful. well i frequently try when i'm out and about to remember a license plate that passes by yeah yeah just because i think i might be called on at some point to remember a license plate you know a short a short notice yeah yeah what if that car does commit an offense yeah yeah i'll need to i'll need to say yes officer i remember it very clearly how many do you retain i've got them all cool gotta be four or five thousand that i've memorized over the course of my life might one day that might come in useful absolutely yeah i mean don't try please test me now um uh november the 4th 2022 didn't spot any that day i was at home you were sick yeah yeah try please about another november 3rd 2022 i was on holiday were you yeah no cars where you went i was on the isle of sartre beautiful place lovely yeah yeah no cars no cars on sark famously all right well story checks out the thing is like why not just have a notepad yeah why write it on something where it might get washed off or whatever like if you need to if you need to keep hold of the license plate numbers yes that is not the best place to put it you might want to write it on there so that people can see it and it shames people but who remembers anyone's number plate enough to be like oh that's well obviously for you it would work but for most people it wouldn't so it's really interesting whether this is true or not certainly people who are involved in the community do think it's true but there is no real evidence and it's hard to see how it would make sense very interesting so So if you know the absolute certainty that this is true or not true, then do write into podcast.qi.com.

18:34Very cool. I like it. I've got one that I can fashion into a question as well. This is from Sean Slater. He says, for every American president assassination, a Lincoln has been present. Certainly in the one where Abraham Lincoln was shot. Yeah. He was there for that. Mary Lincoln was there, his wife. Yeah. And Abraham was there too. So you got two Lincolns there. Garfield. Yep. was shot by that guy with a weird name, like a... Guito? Yes. Charles Guito? Charles Lincoln Guito. Yeah, that's correct. And Robert Todd Lincoln, who was Abraham Lincoln's son, was there. Oh, really? Okay. Yes. McKinley?

19:15Was McKinley shot? McKinley. Correct. McKinley was shot. Was there a Lincoln, a member of the Lincoln family was there? The same Lincoln. Robert Todd Lincoln was there. Really? Yeah. He was even quoted later as saying, I'm not going to any more events Because it's got a certain fatality About it when I go And don't tell me JFK was driving in a Lincoln He was in a Ford Lincoln Continental car You got it Wow Very nice That's a very fun quiz I think we must be getting towards the end of this now I think so I think let's switch over into Friend of the Podcast mode And dedicate some facts to people Who've joined on Patreon at the top tier If you've joined a friend of the podcast We would like to dedicate one of our facts to you So let's dish out a few of those now I'll kick off with one Vicky, congratulations to you You are now the custodian of the fact That kangaroos have five legs Bad luck, Vicky This was one of those rare ones Where we just made stuff up That's right No, it's that their tail is a fifth leg According to all sorts of tests They've put kangaroos on treadmills and they've done all sorts of science on it.

20:25Because they use it for walking. Yes, they use it to propel themselves. That's very good. That was a James Harkin fact, Vicky. Episode 19. Yeah. Congratulations. Should I do one? Yeah. We've got an Anna Tashinsky fact to give out and that's going to Ewan Taylor. And that fact is that during the financial crisis of 1720, Parliament called for stockbrokers to be stitched into sacks and thrown into the Thames. Wow. Yeah. Gosh. Yeah, that's pretty wild this fact. There's a bracket here an extra bit of info for your fact Ewan which is that this was a speech by Lord Molesworth People who committed parasite were stitched into the sack with a rooster a monkey and a dog I think that was an ancient Rome wasn't it?

21:08Yeah, I don't think it was in 1720s London feels like I know it was the case with it. Yeah, I mean I did 300 years ago But that's I don't think yeah, that was definitely an ancient thing Okay well congratulations to you Ewan and the next one Is now under the custodianship of Jen Sykes And Jen this is your fact It is that there are three times as many estate Agents in the UK As members of the armed forces Yes who could have brought that fact To the table who likes warfare It's mine it's my fact Congratulations Jen this is a great fact And excitingly I imagine it'll have only The ratio will have only improved if you're an estate agent or got worse if you're a member of the armed forces since then because this was about 10 years ago so yeah yeah i don't think the army's doubled in size in the last 10 years was this the um the fact where dan told us about how um his wife made him hide his cocoa pops in the washing machine yeah i feel like it was because maybe you were selling your house and people would come around and your wife didn't want people to know that there was an adult in there who was eating cocoa pops yeah it possibly possibly is is then that was the wildest guess where a game i've ever had to play in my house everything was not where it should have been because it's a it is a risk it's a risk that if you have a viewing of your flat and someone opens the washing machine yeah they wouldn't do normally but you never know people like you never know covers and things they look in and see cocoa pops and they think well this person's very unstable i'm not going to buy them all you really do when you're buying a house is bang on the work tops a few times and then hit the wall and go, oh, that's a supporting wall.

22:44Yeah. Ask if there's any ghosts you need to know about and get out of there. Okay. Here's another fact. And this one is one of my ones. It's going out to Brian Kelly. It's the fact that in medieval manuscripts, there are hundreds of drawings of snails and knights fighting each other and nobody knows why. Oh yeah. I remember this one. It's really cool. In the margins of all these old books, there's these drawings of these battles going on. But it's just like a cultural meme, isn't it? Yeah It's just sort of, that's the thing everyone's drawn in the last, in the books for the last 100, 200 years Oh, it's the 6-7 of its day, basically It's the 6-7 of its day Here's a fact that is now under the custodianship of Leah Smallacomb It's that the most painful place to be stung by a bee is inside your nostril Oh, yes, what a great fact Yes And that's because someone actually tried it out, right?

23:35Yeah There was a student called Michael Smith Who let bees sting him all over his body And rated which was the most painful Things we do for science What heroes Well how precise do you want to get with it though Because I don't know if this student said Right so I've done testicle But I've only done top of testicle I'd better do mid testicle Base of testicle Being stung by a bee How scientific are we getting here Probably there is work to be done from another scientist Now I'm building on Michael's work That could be you. If you're at university and you're looking for something for your PhD, find yourself a bee.

24:12Yeah, if it's not mid-blowjob, you can get it to... Oh my goodness, I've just looked up Michael's study. He said he was carrying the work done by the Schmidt Sting Pain Index, which is all about different kinds of insect. Michael's study said the pain was rated on a 1 to 10 scale relative to an internal standard, the forearm. So the forearm is your baseline. Okay. The three least painful locations were the skull, middle toe, tip, and upper arm. The three most painful locations were the nostril, upper lip, and penis shaft. I mean, when you say penis shaft, it does imply that other parts have been tried.

24:50Do you know what I mean? Otherwise, he would just say penis. Yeah, exactly. Okay, well, here's another fact. This one is now under the custodianship of Stephen Winfield. Stephen your new fact That you have to look after Forsaking all others Is this one Walt Disney's favourite breakfast Was fresh doughnuts Dunked in scotch whisky Lovely Yes Wowzers That was one of mine We had a great chat about Disney In that one It was a fact I think James That you found Which is the story that He went into cryogenics To look after his body So that he could be woken up one day But you found That's not true I think we all know that's not true But what James found is that actually the one bit of his body that he did used to put on ice was his testicles.

25:34I don't remember this at all. I think it was you, James. Was it after he deliberately had a bee stinger? The idea was, I think it was a fertility idea that when him and his wife were trying to conceive, they said, put your balls on ice. So he used to do that a lot. yeah there is the theory which i don't think is true which is that disney's frozen was given that name so that when people google frozen disney they don't get stories of his cryogenesis i think it's a beautiful theory if it's not true like it's just a wonderful connection that someone's made and that's why the song let it go he's talking to the people who keeps spreading this rumor he's like let it go guys let it go see i don't i think that's a you've built on the theory yeah The cold never bothered my testicles anyway Okay, we got time for a couple more?

26:22Yeah, let's do a couple more This is going to Beth It's an Andrew Hunter Murray fact Shouting at drivers improves their driving I'll stand by it Watch the road! That kind of stuff Shouting at drivers improves Was this presumably some kind of study? Yeah, it's a study in Kenya They have lots of buses Which crash quite frequently Or they certainly did at the time and I think they put up stickers inside the buses saying if your driver is driving erratically please shout at them and go at them It depends what they're shouting What are they shouting? There's a tradition that has to be adhered by Japanese train drivers that I read about where they have to point at things while they're driving as a way of maintaining their concentration Really?

27:07Yeah, so you would point at a sign. And read it out as well I think. And the idea is that you just don't get monotonously kind of half asleep because you're just doing the same thing over and over again you have to go osaka but surely driving a high high tech japanese train these days is much like brain surgery and that you just you know programming the destination and then you just sit back and fall asleep you think so i think yeah there's more to it well cool congratulations to Beth. I'll do one. This one goes out to Ali ML. Ali, your fact is that the French used to call arsenic succession powder because it was used in so many murders.

27:49Yes. Le poudre du succession. I'm not just clumsily assuming that that's what it is. I'm pretty sure that's what the French phrase is. Very cool. This was Anne Miller's fact, wasn't it? Because it was an area that she was particularly interested in at the time. Yes. And as we know, it's always wonderful to hear a Scottish person say, Mardar. Mardar. And when I say, she wasn't interested in murdering her husband, it was that she was into her crime novels. Well, not her first husband who sadly passed away in an accident, and the second through fifth husbands as well. But now she's happy with Javier, and there's no need to refer to any of those remarkably strange accidents anyway so congratulations ali that's that's a fact for you and congratulations to all our fact custodians today beth ali stephen leah brian jen ewan and vicky uh those of you who have signed up but haven't had your shout out yet it is coming as i say we've had a bit of a rush on sorry about that we're going to try and do them as as speedily as is decent but also in a way that remains fun for you the listener if you would like to join as a friend of the podcast just go to patreon.com slash no such thing as a fish and you can have a look there and for all sorts of things like ad free episodes and bonus content and all of that it's all there and it's a great club to be part of but that's it for this episode of little fish we'll be back again in a week's time with another one and we'll be back in three days time with with the main show unless of course you're doing club fish already in which case there'll be a drop of the line at some point in the next so we'll see you soon is the point we're trying to make.

29:26Thanks very much for listening. We'll see you next time. Bye now.