Little Fish: Right Over Our Heads

0:13Hello and welcome to another episode of Little Fish. This is our audience fact show. You have been sending in brilliant facts. to podcast.qi.com, and we are here to tell you the best ones. And who are we, Andy? Oh, yeah. I'm Andrew Hunter-Murray, and these are my friends, Dan Shriver and James Harkin. Good to be here, Andy. James? Oh, yeah, I love it. Let's crack on. Who's got a fact? I've got one. Yep. This is from Mary Kuna. I think maybe from Colorado, because she said, here's a fact from Colorado. When Denver smells like manure, it's about to snow. Ooh. What a great riddle. When Denver smells like manure, it's about to snow.

0:56That feels like the old, if you can see the hills, that means it's about to rain. And if you can't see the hills, it is raining. That's all we say in Bolton. Yeah. Is it because the area is going very dry, because it's getting so cold, that the smell can travel to your nostrils quicker? Not quite. Not quite. What it is. Nice one, professor. are there no points for trying on this show i thought it was a very good effort dan i don't mind saying so it's because denver's in kind of a bowl and lots of cattle live there and you get this thing called the upslope effect where air pushes up against the mountains and goes up to the top of the mountains and then when it gets to the top it condenses and you get rain or snow so it is one of these things where actually people think it's they say oh if it smells like manure it's going to snow but it actually is true so the air gets sort of pulled off the land the cowie manurey land yes that's right mountain then turns into snow precisely correct does the snow taste like feces don't eat brown snow that's what they say in denver yeah there you go would you like one more fact about denver yeah uh much of the tap water in denver comes from a place called gross reservoir uh it might be don't write in if you're from there because it might be that it's pronounced gross i'm not sure because it's named after uh former chief engineer of denver water dwight d g-r-o-s-s ah right nice gross gross yeah it could be yeah yeah potato potato what a great denver nugget lovely um and if you can smell those denver nuggets it's about to snow it's the name of the basketball team as well the denver nuggets oh um is it it is yeah very good that was a good one yeah it went right over my head is that a basketball joke it went right over my head Well, that one also went out of my head Three points I don't understand basketball either Let's do a fact Let's do a fact This one comes from Camille Jordan Sister of Michael Jordan, of course From the Chicago Bulls No, Camille Jordan is from Alton in Switzerland And this is a fantastic fact Technically, Camille says The first flag on the moon Was the Swiss flag Yeah So We all I'm not sure that is true.

3:12Well, let's let Camille show her workings. Can I just say, I think we might have done this on QI where everyone thinks it's the American flag, but the Russians sent a probe up, it crashed, and there was a Soviet flag on there. So we always thought it was Soviet, but what's the Swiss thing? You've absolutely kiboshed her reasoning here, if that's the case. But so let's say when the Americans landed on the moon, before they put up the American flag, they sort of accidentally put up another flag. No. Physicists from the University of Bern designed an experiment to be performed during the first moon expedition A solar sail to capture solar wind particles For the best result, the sail needed to stay up as long as possible Which is why it was set up even before the US flag The equipment had a little Swiss cross on it Which, depending on your definition of a flag, makes the Swiss flag the first flag to be placed on the surface of the moon Yeah, absolutely Camille says that there's a short documentary that everyone can watch on YouTube called Burn on the Moon which shows this story and shows how it is.

4:11So if anyone's interested to look into that more, you can check that out there. Interestingly, there was another flag that was taken to the moon, not just the American, not just the Swiss flag. Or the Soviets. Or the Soviets. And this was taken up by Buzz Aldrin, which was the Freemason flag. Oh, God. Well, he was part of a Freemason's lodge and the idea was that they wanted to open their own lodge on the moon. No. Well, this is according to Bedfordshire Freemasons website. Bedfordshire? Yeah. They would know, if anyone would know. Probably they won't tell it to any of the other Freemasons, but just the Bedfordshire branch, they're the ones who really know what's going on.

4:49Here's what they say on their website. They say, so two American astronauts landed on the moon in the Sea of Tranquility. One of these brave men's was Brother Edwin. Brother Edwin Eugene Aldrin Jr., a member of the Clear Lake Lodge No. 1417 in Texas. Brother Buzz was authorised by the Grandmaster of Texas To claim Masonic territorial jurisdiction For a Grand Lodge of Texas on the moon No, I've just written Sorry, I'm just thinking back Because you know the footage of them getting off Buzz has his trouser leg rolled up, doesn't he? He does, yeah He does, and he's got that big wizard wand as well It's not a wand, Dad It's just a piece of wood that you do spells with Yeah, so it got permission And the idea was, because there was a lot of belief From the Masons.

5:33From the Masons. Not from NASA. No. Well, because he also, he snuck on. He was Catholic. He snuck on, yeah. He was doing lots of stuff, wasn't he? Yeah, he did lots of rituals. It's amazing he had time to do any science on the moon. I know. It seems to be mostly like a tourist thing for Buzz. Yeah. The thought was because apparently people were projecting that by the year 2000, there would be permanent lunar bases on the moon that would allow you to get there as quickly from Earth to the moon as you would fly a plane from San Francisco to Boston. And it would be a stopping point between your trip to Mars or the rings of Saturn.

5:59Therefore it made sense for them to open a special lodge For them to have ready for them for that time So there we go Andy give us a fact This is a fact from Alex Wilson And it's about regret In 2009 Lily Allen was asked to do a gig She was asked to do a gig online But not as herself She was asked to do a sort of streaming gig Do you remember the video game Second Life? Yes People had avatars and they had jobs inside Second Life There was a whole Second Life economy It was a really big thing for a long time Comedians like Jimmy Carr were doing live gigs He'll play anywhere Lily Allen was asked to do a gig in Second Life And she was offered a fee Not in pounds But in a new fake currency It was in Bitcoin She was offered hundreds of thousands of Bitcoin.

6:59Ooh. Which might, I think, I found a source that said it was equivalent to like$600. Interestingly, she did regret it. She thought it was a Dogecoin. Yeah. Thought it was a dojo. Nah. It's like, that's one of her big songs from her album. Really? That's a really good joke that went, super good joke, right over our heads. That's going to be the name of this episode, isn't it? I think so. Lovely when you hear it form in real time. No, didn't know that. That's a really good joke. Yeah. She finds, it's Pussy Palace and she thought it was a dojo. Oh, yes. Yes, on her new album. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

7:30Got it. Yeah. Well, do you want to hear how much she was offered? So she says hundreds of thousands of Bitcoin, right? If it was literally 200 ,000 Bitcoin, which she turned down, that would be worth about 13 billion pounds today. Okay. I have found a source which said it was$600. And with the value of Bitcoin as it was then, that would have been about 860 ,000 Bitcoin, Which at today's value Would be 56 billion dollars 50 times the net worth of The king About the 20th richest person on the planet Yeah Anyway she said no to the gig And instead they brought this blues artist called Elon Musk Who came in Alright well instead it's a new act night Come on Elon Can you imagine that I think you can't I think you have to not imagine that She's doing alright She's doing great But she's not 50 times as wealthy as the king She's not doing great as the new Album of Ates But she's doing fine I'm sure she's in a better place now Oh definitely Well she's the Lord Byron of the 21st century Yeah you're right Would it have made her happy?

8:40No Well maybe It makes you happy up to a certain point Then it doesn't make you happy But I think above a certain point Surely it's got to make you happy a bit Yeah Well I don't know Do you remember we had Malcolm Gladwell on No Such Thing as a Fish. You should check out that episode if you haven't heard it because it's a great guest appearance. He asked us a question, which was, which would you take if you were offered either, what was it? 10 million? 100 ,000 pounds. A million. 10 million. 100 million. Yeah. Or a thousand million. Yeah. A billion. And he said, most people pick 10 million. I think I...

9:16It's an imaginable number. And Dan swore blind he would take the billion. I just said a billion for the sake of playing the game. And he went nuts on me I tore you a new one. Yeah, in a very funny way. It was great. But he just, the unhappiness that would bring to your life to take a billion versus a million. So what did you do with it at the end? Put it all in Bitcoin. Practically, the day before. Anyway, you have to still keep making the show forever now. Okay, here is a fact from Peter Marsh. And Peter says, this is very good. At any one time, there must be a Polish person who is northernmost on planet Earth.

9:54And so they would be the North Pole. Yep. Okay. Not a fact so far. But he says, but Peter says that it's usually very difficult to tell who it might be. But on 23rd of May 1995, we can be sure it was either Marek Kaminsky or Wojciech Moscow, because they were the first poles to reach the geographic North Pole on that day. so they were the two north poles at the north pole that's lovely that's wonderful that's nice and i thought i'd have a look at the south poles and it turns out there is an arctowski polish antarctic station uh which is in the antarctic in the south pole uh and basically polish people live there and do science there and so there's always like a little community of south poles that's very good that does we can't do it now because we're putting it out but that is a great quiz question in 1995 for one day there were three north poles yeah aren't there five already yeah there's geographic and then there's magnetic and then there's um okay well it's a complicated question sure for the quiz but which quiz are you pitching it to maybe one of our quizzes that we do for patreon yeah that's good yeah we could do it the next one we're uh we're doing them quarterly and uh we're about to do our first one tonight as we're recording this episode so uh yeah let's bring it to the next one.

11:16Great. Dan's poll quiz. Yep. Oh, no. Should I bring in another fact here? This is from Andrew Perez, who writes, Joan of Arc once prayed at a chapel in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. No. Yes. Not true. True. Is that the dairy state? Wisconsin is, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Just showing the knowledge. Great. Carry on. No, she didn't. She lived, as far as I understood it, She lived and died in France. Yeah. And the new world hadn't been discovered at that stage. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You're both correct. But she was magic. Or there was another person called Joan of Arc. Oh, that's it. Who played quarterback for the Green Bay Packers.

12:01That's it. No, it's not. No, what this is, is there is a church that was built in 1420. And it's in a town that is southeast of Lyon. and it was where Joan of Arc prayed. Now, there was a very rich American called Gertrude Hill Gavin, who was daughter of an American railroad magnate, and she was obsessed with Joan of Arc. She learned that this chapel was up for sale. So she acquired it, she had it dismantled, and she had it shipped over to her property in Long Island. And from there, it's been in America ever since. So it's moved from Long Island to Wisconsin. Yeah, I guess so. Yeah, it's another journey.

12:45Yeah, exactly What's interesting is this particular church was so beloved by one person in particular Who was an architect that he basically mapped out every single brick and just said if this was ever dismantled This is how it would come back together So the blueprint for how to put it back together was already written for her by this obsessive So did he like label each brick and say this one has to go here this one has to go here? Basically, yeah. Interesting. Basically. So, yeah, so she even renamed the chapel so that it had Joan's name in the chapel. And in 1933, Pope Pius XI gave her written permission to have mass in that building.

13:21So it's officially sanctioned by the Vatican as well. I think we did a fact ages ago about Rosa Parks had a house that was going to be dismantled and just completely destroyed in America and people wanted to save it. So someone bought it and shipped it over to Berlin in Germany, where it was for years. So you could go and visit Rosa Parks' house, which was not one of her main houses, but somewhere she spent a lot of time. I think her brother lived in it and owned it. She rented it out as an Airbnb for the summer, didn't she? Yeah, you make it sound like she was more of a property lady than anything else, Rosa Parks.

13:57But that's why she was getting the bus to and from, of course. It was just to check on the property portfolio. So it's been in Berlin for ages And then America requested that it be sent back for an exhibition So it went back to America It was shown there And then brought back over to Europe It's very dicey all this moving stuff around I'm not sure how I feel about it It's like they're about to move the bio tapestry Over here Are they? Yeah, we're going to get it back That's good Briefly I feel like tapestries are easier to move around than houses You would think so They are having the devil of a time Are they?

14:28Because obviously it's so old And they're terribly worried that any movement to more than two millimeters and it'll just fall apart. And it'll be incredibly embarrassing if they open it up at the other end and it's been damaged in transit. So they're making a dummy 900 year old tapestry, rolling it up and doing the journey with that in this ultra buffered thing because of potholes and things. Right. And vibrations in the road. Oh, it's going to be a nightmare. Would it be easier just to move everyone who wants to see it to France? 100 % absolutely. I can move up and down two millimeters. I'm fine.

14:58Have you guys ever seen it? No, me neither. No, I haven't actually. Oh, Dan's wondering. Was it shown in the British library a while ago? It was not. It's been in bio for 800 years. I think I'm going to say no then. I'm going to say no on account of the fact I'm not 100 % certain where bio is.

15:22Here's another fact. Yeah. From Morten Feiring. What a great name. Yeah. I suspect it might be Norwegian. Morten. Like Morten Hackett from AHA. Is Morten Hackett Norwegian? Yes. There we go. Well, Morten writes, the most famous traitor in Norwegian history was named Famous Traitor. Is it Quisling? So it's a guy called Vidken Quisling, who was the head of the puppet government in Norway in the Second World War after the Nazis invaded. And basically... For a very long time, I didn't know what the puppet government meant. And I took it to mean The other version of what that is What's that, Sooty?

16:05You want to take over, Greenland?

16:09Oh, wow That's really funny Well, he was the head of that And he was a big old collaborator Anyway, Quisling has become A byword for being a traitor In English In English, and Norwegian And basically, Vidkun, which is his first name Is a Norse name Which means Widely known So he So Vidkun Quisling Literally means Famous traitor And he is a famous traitor That's good He's a Yeah He was the first Norwegian Executed by the state In 75 years Let's see They didn't do it But they did bring that Out of retirement for him Yes Yeah After the war So bad news We're going to execute you Good news You're going to be A very interesting fact Yeah yeah He tried also I did a bit more Reading up on him He tried to do The world's first ever Radio coup d 'etat Interesting So you go in and you just do a radio broadcast saying, we control everything now.

17:00Well, quite often you would see a coup d 'etat in, let's say, in Africa or something. Yeah. And the first thing you really see is the army, either side of the former president, saying we're in charge now. Completely. So you can kind of see where they're coming from. Broadcast is absolutely essential. You've got to seize the means of communication. I suppose the problem with radio is people can't see whether or not you're holding the president at gunpoint. Yes, yes. You have to do very good foley to make them believe what's happening Stamp, stamp, stamp, stamp, stamp We're in charge Yeah, you can do that these days of course Because there are too many podcasts It's very hard to seize all the podcasts at the same time Interesting, you could buy an inserted ad And if you use the offer code FISH You can also take over our nearby islands Here's one from Kate Boyle Kate says botulism cures anal fissures Oh, gosh.

17:57Okay. Botulism is bad? In large doses, it's very bad. Even in quite small doses, it's very bad. It's the most poisonous thing, basically. Is it related to Botox? It's so related that they're exactly the same thing. I understand. But you put minute amounts of botulism into your wrinkles, and it paralyzes your skin, and it removes the wrinkles. But yeah, botulism is the most poisonous thing you can get. And because it stops muscle from spasming, it's used to help anal fissures as well as migraines, excessive sweating, overactive bladders and cerebral palsy. Gosh, that's pretty good. Useful stuff.

18:392023 study that I had in my files looked at the brain scans of people who had Botox and said that they have different brain activity than the rest of us when they look at happy and angry faces. and that's because when you see someone happy you kind of mimic their face and it makes you feel more happy but they can't mimic the faces because they don't have so much botox in their heads that's so it makes you less happy or it makes you less makes you less sad yeah do poker players secretly get botox i would be surprised if they didn't because you're always looking for the tiniest little um help in poker yeah could you botox away your tell if it's say like a little twitch in your eye or...

19:21Absolutely. How much of you are allowed to... are you allowed to... because they wear shades, don't they? Or sometimes? Many of them do, yeah. Do you like to wear a mask? Um... Are you allowed to sit in a bin? Like with a little eye hole cut out? You can play online. That's sitting in a bin. You've seen my home setup, I see. Cool. Yeah, yeah. That's wonderful. Yeah. Okay, I'll go on here. It's from Mark Vent, who I know. I know Mark Vent. He's a friend, yeah. So he has written in saying, in Oxford, there's a building where the weather forecast could honestly read between minus 269 degrees and plus 150 million degrees.

20:01This is Cullum's fusion reactor, which produces plasma hotter than the sun. And it's right next to a machine that is colder than deep space. So yeah, is that useful for them to be next to each other? No, but it's probably a building that's dealing in... Could be. Oh, do you mean do they need to be each other to cancel it? Well you suck all the heat out of one space and that probably helps you get up towards your 150 million degrees in the other space. Could very well be. It's possible it could work that way. It's like how it's hot sometimes next to the fridge. Behind your fridge is very hot. It's warm behind your fridge, exactly.

20:34So that's probably what this is. That's what this is. They probably didn't even mean to create the fusion reaction because it was so bloody warm next to this bit. We should use this. This is just an unusable fridge that just went too far in its coldness and heat. Is there a position between those two places where it's just right? Oh. There must be a bit where you stand there and it's perfect. But you've got to keep rotating. Yes, like a rotisserie chicken. Yeah, yeah. Anyway, very cool. Very cool. And very hot. Lovely. All right. Those are your facts. But now let's have some of our facts, because what we're going to do now is everyone who has joined Clubfish, our members club at the friend of the podcast here, Gets one of our headline facts Given to them in perpetuity To love and care for With a certificate It's great fun If you want to check it out Go to patreon.com Slash no such thing as a fish You can see all the stuff we've got there Ad free episodes Lots of bonus content And friends of the podcast certificates So let's dish out some facts now Who wants to go first?

21:33I can do that Yeah This is a fact that now belongs to Dave Chronister Dave this is a fact from episode 25 Rats wearing polyester pants can't get erections. Very nice. Not if you're a rat. Yeah, bad. Bad. Is it the polyester? Is it the, as opposed to linen? I think this was, yeah. Because obviously a rat in little linen trousers would be very sexy. It's silk. Oh. I think this was research that we got from Mary Roach. I think she wrote in a book of hers. She might well have done, yeah. I think it was Bonk. And I think she went and she visited. Yeah, it's a wonderful book. I mean, she's one of our favorite riders the rat tailor didn't she yeah yeah that's a great fact okay here's another one um this is now under the custodianship of tom watcham and tom this is your fact during the first world war entertainments for the troops included pillow fights wheelbarrow races and wrestling on the backs of mules it does make it sound fun it does andrew hunter murray you were the one he said this the first time around.

22:41Was I? Yeah. Well, I can remember every word of the fact itself, because we've got a list of them in front of us. I don't remember the pillow fights. I have just finished today reading Journey's End, which is an absolutely classic play set in the First World War by someone who'd been through the First World War. And there is not a pillow fight to be seen. I'll tell you that. He very much edited that out of his mise-en-scene. I'll dish one out. This one goes to Matthew Acorn. It's that the atmosphere in Venus is so hot that if you took a pizza out of the freezer there, it would cook in three seconds.

23:13You could do that in Oxford in that building. Take it out of the special minus 269 degree freezer. Frisbee it across by the time it lands. Perfect. Lovely. Yeah, that was my fact. I don't remember much about it. Apart from, I don't think I worked it out myself. I think it was something I read elsewhere. Oh, that was before you went on your 10-year binge of creating new facts. But I think the idea was it would cook it, but it would be very crispy on the outside and perhaps not exactly unfrozen on the inside. Yeah. But like if I do a barbecue, for instance. You really want to give it five seconds, don't you?

23:53Let's have another one. Okay, here's another fact. And this is going to Melanie Young. Melanie, this was one of my facts from episode 25. In Iceland, there is a phone app which tells you whether you're related to the person you're hitting on. that's an interesting one because there have been debunks of that yeah uh but i think that it did exist but i don't think it was like something you could buy in the app store or anything like that basically iceland got all of this data and put it made it available online so that anyone could use it and some people as a project came up with this idea and they did actually make the app but it wasn't commercially available oh well there we go well it had a motto that went along with it which was bump phones before you bump in bed.

24:37And quite a nice idea because it is a small-ish population over there. Yeah. You probably know if someone's your cousin, though. Would you? Of course. You guys don't know your cousins? Sorry, not your cousins. You guys don't know that you're cousins? Oh, God. And I saw you kissing. Oh, no. Oh, no. No, I know what you mean. As in, like, you'll know your immediate family. And anyone who's more than a few cousins away, I think is fair game. Oh, wow. Plot twist As in people used to marry their first cousins all the time And sometimes people still do And it's nobody's business Yeah, but I think there are more people Who are second or third cousins That they don't necessarily know about in Iceland Than there might be in another country Because of the small population And because no one really goes in and out very much As it were The problem is they're going in and out Isn't it?

25:30But yeah, like the people who have lived there for many generations Right, okay Okay, here is a fact And this was a fact given to us by Simon Rich The author Simon Rich, yeah, so he was a writer for SNL I think he was possibly the youngest writer that they ever had And he's a brilliant short fiction writer He writes a lot for the New Yorker in America Very funny Very good, and the custodian of this fact is also a writer, Galen Presumably The ancient Greek physician That's what it seems like I don't know We've been told that this person is called Galen Whether that's a non-diplume Or whether that's your actual name I don't know But it doesn't matter because your Fact forever in your possession Now is that Coco The gorilla who knows sign language Has owned and cared for Three cats over her life Did she look after them well?

26:25I think she did Did she eat the cats is what I'm trying to say I'm not sure she did I think she looked after them I feel like if Coco If you were looking after Coco And you gave her a cat And she ate it You might not give her another one No you think she's full up That's fine This is the perfect time To give her a cat When she's just finished Even if she's sign languaging Saying please can I have another cat I probably would sign language now You know what pester power is like I mean people You know And once you've got one cat You often get another one Don't you Because they're very Moorish Yeah Well congratulations Galen This one goes out to Irene Villatora Irene congratulations because your fact forever is now.

27:04See if you can guess who said this one, Irene. Here it is. It's easier to escape a female yeti than a male yeti because females have such long dangling boobs they have to throw them over their shoulder before chasing in case they trip. You know what, Dan? I don't remember in the early days you having such wacky facts literally every week. Yeah. I thought that you mostly had straight ones. I think we were enjoying the playground of these in the early days. Yeah, no one was listening. It didn't matter. Yeah. And then the feedback started coming in and we moved on. No, this is almost a sort of classic fact of the show in that it's been brought up in live shows and kind of occasionally makes a return.

27:48I made an interesting discovery recently, a sort of update on this, which is that it is, and I should say, this is a fact with air quotes going around it. It is believed by, it is a fact within the world of people who believe in yetis. Yeti people. So it's like, it's an interesting thing for them. That's a reality. It's a fact in their world. So this is when you were being chased downhill. It's easier to escape a female yeti. What I discovered recently is that according to these same experts, it's easier to escape a male yeti when they're running uphill because they have such long dangling testicles that they will bang on the rocks as they're running up and fall over.

28:26Like that dog of your friend. Like Dave the Sausage Dog. Did that ever make it to a show? Oh, it did. Yes, like Dave the Sausage Dog, who was the dog of the producer of the new Lily Allen album. Oh, wow, bringing it back to Lily. Yeah. She probably could have afforded a different producer if she'd have got all that Bitcoin money. She could have bought that dog a golden posing pouch. Okay, are we going to do a couple more of these? I think let's do only a couple though. Okay, so this one, if I wasn't sure whether Galen was the real name of the last person, I suspect even more that this might be a nom de plume.

29:06But the next fact goes to someone called Smokey Big Spliff. Oh, fantastic. Smokey, your fact is that the Kama Sutra suggests 64 arts to practice alongside sex, including solving word puzzles, teaching birds how to talk, Tattooing, making beds And playing musical glasses filled with water That's very nice Some of those might be nice if you've also just Smokied a big spliff I presume I don't know about word puzzles That feels like slightly high effort for that But playing musical glasses filled with water You could probably spend hours doing that I feel like I've never been to one of those parties But I imagine that's what they're doing I love that fact That's a great fact The Kama Sutra, that was one of yours James Yeah Well you were working your way through at the time weren't you I was yeah I'm still up to the third one Skip one and two A bit unphysical for me Oh that's very nice Do we have one last one?

30:04Yeah It's this one It goes out to Courtney V Congratulations Courtney Your fact is now that At any given moment There are more than 15 trillion tons of water above the earth Fantastic Clouds Clouds Clouds Clouds Clouds The fact is clouds exist It's more about the fact that someone added up all the clouds, isn't it? Like, that's pretty cool It doesn't fully make sense to me I think there are different ways of counting Yeah Like, I think you can extrapolate in these situations I think you'd have to in this case, yeah Because the thing is, they do move Yeah Oh yeah And they do empty And they refill They've not got a list of, like, the one that looks like a giraffe The one that looks like Mother Teresa