Little Fish: Release The Naughty List

0:13Andy Dawson:Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of Little Fish. This is the show where we go through your incredible facts that you have sent to podcast at qi.com and we chat about them for a little while and then we do some other stuff at the end. I am James Harkin. I am sat somewhere in the UK in my house. And Andy and Dan are also elsewhere in the UK. And we're going to chat right now. So guys, one of you, give me a fact.

0:41James Harkin:I'll go on here. This has been sent to us by Meg O 'Connor, who says, perhaps you are already aware, but Santa Claus is not the mayor of the North Pole. I think we all assumed he didn't have a mayoral role.

0:54Andy Dawson:And wasn't there, there was a politician called Santa Claus, and I think he lived in North Pole, but I thought he was the mayor, actually. So in fairness, I would have fallen for this one.

1:05James Harkin:Well, he's a council member of the North Pole government. It's actually, of course, Larry Turch, who is the mayor of the North Pole. And this is North Pole, Alaska.

1:18Andy Dawson:I hadn't heard of this before. I actually send my letters to Larry Turch when I want to get something for Christmas. If you want a dropped curb in the North Pole area, he's the man to go to.

1:33James Harkin:So there's, as you say, James, there is a Santa Claus. And for all the kiddies listening, this is a different Santa Claus. This is someone who lives in a place called North Pole, Alaska. His real name was Thomas O 'Connor. He legally changed it to Santa Claus in 2005. He, as well as being a politician, is an Anglican monk. He is a proponent of free healthcare, medical marijuana, and wealth tax. And yeah, he lives in North Pole, Alaska, which has a population of about two and a half thousand. Bob Ross used to live there. You know, the painter in America, Bob Ross?

2:08Andy Dawson:He sounds very liberal, this Santa Claus. Don't you think? Like with his marijuana. I would have thought someone who flies around the world giving things out for free once a year, to most boys and girls, it's not really means tested. There's a little bit of naughty or nice, but the bar is pretty low. So do you think he's a socialist? Yeah. I was thinking he sees you when you're sleeping, he knows when you are woke. Beautiful.

2:34Andy Dawson:That's what I was leading up to. That's really good.

2:37James Harkin:I think we're all thinking the same thing, though. Release the naughty list. Release the naughty list, Santa.

2:46Andy Dawson:I have been on that naughty list, I have to admit. But it's just incidental. I never went on the sleigh. I want to make that very clear. I've got one. Yeah, go on, Andy. Here's one from Andrew Lauwassa. I work in movie trailers. Brackets. The audiovisual medium, not the vehicles. Lovely. We're off the blocks. And my fact is that the most prized award in the industry isn't best trailer. or Agency of the Year, but it's an award for the best trailer for the worst movie, which is dubbed The Golden Fleece. And I just absolutely love this. Basically, there's this golden trailer awards ceremony, which is all about the trailer, movie trailers.

3:30Confusingly, its logo is a little picture of a trailer, the vehicle, but it's about the two-minute long adverts you get for films, right? That's the Golden Trailer Awards. And there is this award, The Golden Fleece, Where if you've made an absolute dog of a film But you turn in a really good trailer You can win it

3:48Andy Dawson:That's amazing I think whole trailers these days are a bit weak I gotta say I think the golden age of the trailer Is perhaps behind us Really? Well when was the last time you saw a really innovative trailer? There's a film called Free Fire It's set in a single warehouse It's a big shootout You know only one person can make off with the money Did someone like Edgar Wright do it? Or like some It wasn't Edgar Wright Or was it, what's his name? Someone cool. Well, it's a pretty big slam on Edgar Wright

4:16James Harkin:when you say someone cool.

4:22James Harkin:Andy, do you happen to know if these award ceremonies, do they have categories like most misleading trailer? I think it's, no, I think it's, that's the only one where it's like best trailer for worst film. All the others are kind of other elements of the trailer process, which are not the film is bad. This award ceremony was set up by these two sisters, the Brady sisters, Evelyn and Monica. They just got out of film school in 1997 They really wanted to make a feature film But they couldn't get the money together for it So they thought, let's make the trailer First And that'll get investors to put all the money into the film But they didn't know anyone who made trailers either I don't know what film school is for If you come out of it not knowing anyone who makes trailers But whatever So they made the awards show to try and lure in companies Which make trailers So they could make the trailer And then get the money for their film And they're still doing the awards They still haven't made the film

5:12Andy Dawson:that's so clever uh ben wheatley was free fire oh which to me him and edgar wright are the same person yeah i think i think he's probably cool i've got um another um a movie based one here oh yeah so this is a fact from jesse nell and it's about someone called judith love cohen who helped create the abort guidance system, which rescued the Apollo 13 astronauts. Now, she worked on this system on the day she was in labor. So she was very heavily pregnant. She was in work. She took the papers with all of the maths home with her. Then she went to hospital, gave birth to a child, and then came back and said, yeah, I've solved it.

5:57Andy Dawson:It's okay. Wow. Yes, this is ringing a bell.

6:00James Harkin:It's ringing a bell. I'm a big Apollo 13 connoisseur, but also the surname.

6:06Andy Dawson:Well, her surname is not that important to the fact. The reason that it rings a bell, Dan, might be the reason that I said it was to do with movies.

6:17James Harkin:Yeah.

6:17Andy Dawson:A particular actor, which I know you're a big fan of, Jack Black was the child. Kung Fu Panda. Yes, that's right. um yeah jack black was the child who came as a result of that birth when she disappeared when she was working on the apollo 13 so whether that would be quite exciting if you were in labor and people were doing big countdowns all around you and you kept having to say no no no no no don't don't stop counting down you know because there's a baby coming i see what you mean yeah she didn't give birth inside the center where all of the stuff she went to a hospital

6:52James Harkin:yeah and also generally there's no countdown in birth i don't know if that's a different experience for you andy but um are you joking because when i when my wife gave birth i was in

7:05Andy Dawson:charge of the music like they always gave the dad something to do so they gave me this bluetooth speaker that i had to work out how to do and then i had to put the music on and i put my favorite track which is the countdown theme tune wow that's not true dad like i thought it might have been on the list were you in the music yeah yeah like i genuinely think that they did that in order to give me something to do otherwise i'm going to be sat there fretting so like you know how hard it is to get a bluetooth speaker to attach to your phone yes yeah i was like i'm struggling here guys i'm struggling give me some air give me some gas

7:44James Harkin:i got to do the music as well for and on my third child it was a bluetooth music system but for the first child the few days before they said you've got to burn a cd and bring it in lovely 2017 there's no cds to burn anymore like where are you getting that from and my uh father-in-law will he did it up in his office fenella and i picked five songs that we were very happy for our son to be born to. And it got to the end of the CD. We thought it'd loop back around. And suddenly this 10 minute long Bob Dylan track comes on. Because he thought, I want my grandson being born to Dylan. And we just had to sit through it.

8:22Andy Dawson:Anyway, yours was just a countdown. No, mine was Angel, after whom my daughter was playing. Oh, lovely. The Belgian pop star. But anyway, enough about our lives.

8:33James Harkin:Yeah. Give us some facts. I've got another one here. This is from Cherie Bluebond When the Nazis ran a contest for a baby Who exemplified the Aryan ideal They picked a Jewish child This is fascinating This child was called Hesse Levinson's Taft And she was on the cover of Nazi magazine And she appeared on it without her parents' consent or knowledge What had happened was there was a competition to find a child who could, you know, have the look of an Aryan who would seem to be the ultimate Aryan to be put on the front of this cover. And they went to this photographer who, as a sort of sinister little joke, he slipped in this photo of Hesse Levinson's Taft knowing that she was Jewish.

9:25James Harkin:And this picture was picked supposedly personally by Goebbels. She had no idea about it. Obviously, she's a baby. Her parents had no idea about it. And one day a cleaner was over at the house And she was dusting the mantelpiece And she saw that photo and she went Isn't that the ultimate Aryan baby That I saw on the front cover of Nazi magazine? Was the magazine called Nazi magazine? That's what it says it's called here You have to be careful if it says

9:51Andy Dawson:If there's a free gift because gift in German is poison Oh, very nice Interesting But also this cleaner after the war She said, oh that reminds me of the Nazi magazine that I used to subscribe to, did she?

10:05James Harkin:So I think the war was still going on. So this was while Hitler was in power. And I think actually that might be the New York Times article title on cover of Nazi magazine. So I'm sure it had a different title. But apparently there were five or six magazines that were pro-Nazi that you could get in the newsstands at the time. I thought they all were at the time. I'm sure most magazines in the 30s had a pro-Nazi line. Yeah. So anyway, they saw her and they said, what is this doing here? They questioned the photographer. He gave his reasoning and they were terrified for most of their life at that point because They thought if the Germans found out that this was a Jewish baby, they would actively hunt down the baby And so they lived in fear.

10:44James Harkin:She barely went out for walks, but she survived and the reason this story has been sent to us Is as a part of an obituary. She died just this year age 91. Wow, very cool I got another one here. Yeah, you guys know I like a transport infrastructure fact.

11:01Andy Dawson:We do, Andy, yeah. We're aware of that. Someone else would like to... Ideosyncrasy of your life. So I've been to two separate bus museums in the last month. It's amazing to wait for one bus museum.

11:17Fantastic. Anyway, this comes from Martin Kaiser who says, one of my truly favourite facts is that the southernmost station on the London Underground is on the northern line and the northernmost station is not. Okay, that's quite fun It's quite fun The southernmost station is Morden Which is on the northern line And the northernmost station On the northern line Is High Barnet But there are three other lines that go further north And I believe it's Chesham

11:49Andy Dawson:Metropolitan line does Correct, Chesham is on the metropolitan line Are we playing this game? Yep The northernmost station on the central line On the central line, yeah, it's going to be the one that's just past Staden Boys Is it Epping? It's Epping, very good And what will the other one be? Piccadilly Oh, what, Cockfosters? I guess it would be, yes I didn't write that one down, eccentrically

12:18James Harkin:Right, it's such an eccentric

12:21Andy Dawson:Do you want to hear this? You know how I did that really good joke earlier? Do you want me to really flush it right down the toilet with one of the worst jokes you've ever heard? Yeah. I went on the Piccadilly line the other day to go to Cockfosters, but I got off one stop too early. Oakwood. Ooh, really? Nice.

12:43James Harkin:So there's a place called Oakwood. Yeah, yeah. Overseas, yeah. James, I've got a museum to go to with you, and I can't wait. I'll see you there. You have to come along now.

12:59Andy Dawson:Here is a fact. You know, guys, that I'm a big fan of sport. It's just one of those idiosyncrasies that I have. Grant Mitchell wrote in. I don't know if it's the fictional character from EastEnders. It's got to be. Or not. But Grant wrote with a football fact, and he said that in the 2015-16 and 2016-17 seasons, there were two players in the Red Star FC team, which is a French football team, named Pierre-Ric Crow. They were born within nine months of each other and both left Red Star on July 1st, 2017. So they had the exact same name. Grant only knows this because he says he obsessively updated his pro-evolution soccer game with new transfers every half season.

13:50Grant, welcome to the club. beneath that hard man exterior on east enders there lurks the soul of a real nerd that's lovely

14:01Andy Dawson:so there you go there's quite a few times in history where you've had players with the same name so uh in the 1970s scarborough football club had two players called harry dunn but they were called harry dunn and harry a dunn but harry a dunn didn't have a middle name they just added the a just so that people would know the difference between the two dunns lovely lovely uh locomotive moscow between 2002 and 2003 they had two players called sergey of chinykov so what would you do in a russian team if you have two people with the same name i'd make all the other nine players change their names to sergey or chinykov no that's not what happened really imagine imagine this football team um was in a dostoevsky novel how would you tell the

14:46James Harkin:difference between them do you add like a like a son like a yeah pretty much that so um in russia

14:53Andy Dawson:you have your normal surname but you also have your patronymic so these two players were known as sergey ivanovich or chinikov and sergey ladamilovich of chinikov so they were known by their full sort of like russian 19th century novel name that's going to be a very busy back of shirt I mean that's You're not going to need A small font I think And I'm looking Through my binoculars I can see It's off Chinnikov But which one You wouldn't know this Andy But when you buy A football shirt If you want a name on You have to pay For the number of letters What a Swiss