Little Fish: Shall we put a podcast on? What a stupid idea!

0:00This podcast is sponsored by Made In Cookware. Made In partners with multi-generational artisans and some of the world's best chefs to create professional quality cookware, knives and kitchen tools. Their products are trusted in Michelin-starred restaurants worldwide and designed to perform just as well in your kitchen. From five-ply stainless clad to carbon steel, every piece is built to last and made to actually make you a better cook. Discover award-winning cookware at MadeInCookware.com. Save big on your next project at Menards. Check out our huge selection of Richmond water heaters. Whether it's electric or gas, tank or tankless, Menards has what you need in stock.

0:44Ensure that you have hot water for when you need it most with a new Richmond water heater from Menards. Plus, check out our weekly flyer on menards.com for all the great deals happening now. Save big money at the Nards

1:14Hello and welcome to Little Fish. This is the bonus Monday episode where we put down our facts from the last seven days and we get to chill out, sit back, and really enjoy the facts that you've been sending us in. My name is Dan Schreiber. I'm sitting here with Andrew Hunter-Murray and Anna Tashinsky. And Andy, you've been going through the inbox, collecting the best gems sent in to us this week. So let's begin.

1:38Anna Ptaszynski:Let's have a gem. This one goes out to, I want to say it goes out to, I mean, comes in from... Oh dear. It's from Leah Mackay. Okay. So Leah's fact. Well she sent a couple of facts actually And they're slightly themed Fact number one Women who pay for their coffee or meal on a first date Tend to display more interest in matrimony And then she adds a secondary fact to that Which is that leap day is no longer the only day That a woman can ask a man to marry her And by the way, Ryan Leah has something to ask you right now This is huge I think this is the first fish proposal Are we meant to leave a blank space now for her to I hope Leah's paused the podcast at that moment Oh wait, are we not asking?

2:24Anna Ptaszynski:I think Leah should be the one to ask I mean, they'll have turned it back on by now And we'll know Well, we don't know now what's happened as a result of this But that's from Leah Mackay Wow That's amazing Isn't that nice? Wow, congratulations, all commiserations Oh, wow Oh, yes This is exciting, isn't it? I really hope that they've listened to this In like a good moment of their day Yeah You can have bad moments, can't you, as couples Where you sit down and Put a podcast on What a stupid idea I don't think you'd choose To put this podcast on In the middle of a huge argument Knowing what was going to be on it Or do they not know When we're going to sneak it in I don't know if Leah knows When we're going to put this out You absolutely have to tell her I should probably warn her That is insane Okay okay I'll warn her Oh my god She'll be waiting ten years She just missed one episode She forgot about it I can't propose any other way Well look I hope that we can say Congratulations to you Leah and Ryan Yes Please do email in Podcast at QI.com and actually any other big life moments maybe conception we're happy to the moment of or we're happy to soundtrack that with effect a bit like when Tudor Kings and Queens first had sex they had like a group of people around them monitoring it we could be like that oh you're suggesting we record an episode while they're doing it yeah in the same room okay do you reckon that's interesting it certainly is interesting Andy alright well let's get another fact Anna this is going to be a bit of a damp squid, isn't it?

3:47I know, you've really saved the best for first. And yet is this the best for second? It's from Izzy Turner. Here's a fact for you. In 1703 the High Sheriff of County Cork in Ireland was split between two men, the High Sheriff Hood I guess split between two men named Dick Cox and Willie Supple. That's just to get us back into down the line fish facts. It's absolutely beautiful. Potential names for any newborn children coming your way, Leah. Willie Supple. Is that what you want in a willie? uh it can't hurt that's very good yeah something to put on the tinder profile that's really good very nice i've got a fact here that's been sent in by pj neal and the fact is barilla the pasta company barilla okay has a spotify account with 10 different playlists each of their playlists is named after a specific type of pasta spaghetti you know linguine and the length of the playlist is the exact length of the time you need to cook that pasta.

4:45Yes. So if you're doing penne, you would fire up the 11-minute pleasant melancholy penne playlist. And I've got them all here. There's absolute carbonara, mixtape spaghetti, boom bap for silly. You know, it's all good.

5:02Anna Ptaszynski:Brilliant. That was really good. Shall I give you another one? Yeah, give it to us. This one comes in from Dick Berg from the Netherlands. No relation, we presume, to... What was it, Hugh? penis and willy boobies willy supple dick berg uh from the netherlands writes this is about the name of the little supermarket okay it's not one of my name things it's just a great fact the name of little comes from a guy called ludwig little um who was a retired school teacher and painter who i think was friends with a parent of the founder of little right so dieter schwartz was the founder of Lidl. And in 1973, he was setting up this supermarket, but he didn't want to call it Schwarzmarkt, which he should have done.

5:47Anna Ptaszynski:He was calling it, you know, his shop. Yeah, because that means black market. Schwarzmarkt. So instead, he just thought Lidl is a good, short, powerful word. And I got to buy for a thousand marks the name from Ludwig Lidl. Wow. So that's the guy who. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And what's Ludwig's surname now? I think he got to keep it, I believe. He doesn't have to give it up. No, no, no. And the company, in fact, was founded in the 1930s before they renamed it as the supermarket. Yeah. But the original company was called Schwarz Lebensmittelsortiment Großhandlung. I think that is his new surname, isn't it?

6:26Anna Ptaszynski:It was a swap. Yeah. That's very good. Anna, let's get one from you. Yes, this, I think, is one of my favourite facts I've ever had. It is bang up my street. This is from Tom Ween or Tom Wayne, W-E-I-N. And he says, if you're ever in an argument with Senegalese footballer El Hadji Doof, you can diffuse the tension immediately by calling him brainless. Now, this is part of a West African tradition, which I'm definitely looking into. Keep an eye on further podcasts for facts about this, because it's part of a West African tradition of joking kinship, in which particular ethnic groups have standard gags they make about other groups.

7:02So it's a socially approved thing and you're not allowed to get annoyed. So there'll be one group of people in Senegal who are allowed to say, you're a wanker. And you're not allowed to get pissed off because it just shows how close you are. And it's used to get people to calm down. So if you're having a fight, weirdly, the way you can diffuse attention is to say, you tosser. And they have to say, oh, the joking kinship thing. You win.

7:23Anna Ptaszynski:That's really good. It's so amazing. You twat. Yeah. Did I get it right? I've just got to take it. You nailed it. Yeah, that's our joking kinship. Moron twat. No, no, you don't have moron. I'm offended now. Selfish. Okay. You know, greedy. No, no, it's not just your feelings. It's not every word you want to. My dad calls me dickhead, and that's with affection. Is it? Yeah. Well, I'd need to double check. Does he call anyone else that, or is it just for you? Oh, all the arseholes in our local area are called dickhead by him as well. So I don't know why he's grouped me with them, but yeah, it's a...

7:55Wow. Oh, you dickhead. Yeah. I mean, that's fair. Yeah. He's just some dickheading in our family. Yeah. But it's so cool that this is like written into law, L-O-R-E. And he does say that in at least one recorded case, they persuaded a rebel group to release hostages just because people told the right jokes. And as he says, Dioof is from the Serer group, which means the Peol people are allowed to call him brainless. Wow, lovely. Amazing. Yeah. Yeah. Love it. Very cool. Really good. We seem to be on a little name theme going on here. So I'll read this one here, which is Sophie Williams writes in.

8:27hi fish nhl player so national hockey league player steve heinz plays with the sweater number 57 very good because there are 57 varieties exactly yeah is that known in the nhl what is

8:40Anna Ptaszynski:that america or canada it's canada right it's probably in america as well but i know it more as a canadian thing um yeah so that's a that's a thing he was 57 and i don't think he was granted the number to begin with 57 he asked for it and the first team he played for said no and then he eventually got it. Oh wait, Holden, so he was asking specifically because of the Heinz connection? Yeah. That's actually even funnier. I thought it was just coincidence. No, no, he asked for it specifically. But he's not connected to the family. No, he's not. Because they were, I mean, they were millionaires. I think they may have been billionaires actually, the Heinz airs.

9:11That makes sense. Billions of beans have been sold. Yeah, yes. It does make sense. And they do other things too. There's another player who plays for the NHL, who wears the number 22, and that's Jordan Tutu. really good and again i feel like he's had other numbers and that's the one that he's chased i like it when teams that's great their players do that do you remember we did a fact years ago about how ray crock bought a baseball team the padres and one of his first signings even though the person was sort of past their peak as a player was a guy whose nickname was big mac and he brought him into the team yes stuff like that yeah lost a whole lot of money for the investors.

9:48He really did. Nice to have the in-joke. Yeah. In-jokes. They're worth more than actual wins, I would say. Yeah. Good one, dickhead. Okay. Okay.

9:59Anna Ptaszynski:My dad can call me dickhead. Here's one from Shan Valvis from Sao Paulo. The first personality quiz was devised by Marcel Proust. Interesting. So I looked into this one. He actually didn't come up with it. He did answer it He's the most famous early recipient of this quiz Or partaker in it Because the Victorians, they had this hobby of writing a confession album Okay What's that? A diary? No, it sounds a lot more fun than it is Basically, you have to answer a list of questions Which is your chief characteristic Your main fault Your favourite occupation Your idea of happiness You know, all of these And it gets quite philosophical you know the more you get it starts off with what's your favorite color um you wouldn't even answer that one would you let alone you're just tearing it up your business i prefer not to say um so this album that he answered it belonged to his friend who was called antoine foray and basically he lists a whole load of his you know most most intimate and deep secrets in this questionnaire so that was the first kind of popular parlor game version of a personality quiz that's Interesting.

11:12Because there's a thing that's done, I think it's in Vanity Fair at the back, which is the Proust questionnaire. I mean, that'll be this. Yeah. That is this. I think it's largely asking about books, or at least that's my memory. Maybe it's not, though. Maybe it's all about your favourite everything. Yeah, so that must be connected.

11:26Anna Ptaszynski:Yeah, yeah, yeah. It will absolutely be that. It's known as the Proust questionnaire these days. And this is basically kind of, instead of a board game, you play a game where you answer these questions and then you talk about them. Interesting. All your friends have written, I think in your confession album, all of their answers to the quiz. Oh, fun. Yeah, which is quite cool. You, not to throw too much of personal life in here, Anna, but you play a similar game to that that you got me to do. Oh, Wheel of Life? Yeah. God, should I share the Wheel of Life? Yeah, tell people. Oh, this is, me and my friend compiled this about 20 years ago.

11:56And it's basically to work out how well your life is going. There are seven categories. And they are relationship, friends, house, job, self-improvement, health. So that covers your diet and your exercise. Yes. And another one. But you can make that one up yourself. And you go through them and you grade them out of seven. And then you look at your total score and you think, well, here's where I'm in trouble. I don't have a house. I hadn't realized before that that was why I was unhappy. Yeah. Or something like that. Yeah. It's great.

12:24Anna Ptaszynski:And you and I have played it, Anna. We have. I don't think I gave you anything. No, it lasted about half a minute. Okay, I've got another one here. This is from Anders Nissen. And this is that sharks can bite you in their sleep. And this does seem to be one particular case in 2005 in New Mexico, which recorded its only so far shark attack incident because it's landlocked but it took place at the Biopark Aquarium and there's a diver called Ken Pitt who needed six stitches. The email says sustained minor injuries that required six stitches. I actually would say that's moderate injuries. When a captive sand tiger shark bumped into him and sand tiger sharks, if you picture them, they've got teeth sticking out.

13:03So the sand tiger shark was sleeping, wandered over, bumped into him and bit him with his, or scraped along him with his teeth. oh okay yeah so it didn't because sometimes it's like say like you you pet a sleeping dog and it suddenly it has a reaction and yeah and it bites you and yeah yeah i thought you meant like that no it didn't even have a reaction you don't need to let sleeping sharks lie they're fine with it stroke away but this one did um inadvertently bite him but uh weirdly this event was considered a provoked attack which seems kind of unfair maybe you just got to fill something in on the form i

13:34Anna Ptaszynski:don't know yeah yeah what's an unprovoked attack yeah i don't know if that is provoked yeah how much gentler do you possibly have to be than just being there you guys been bit by many things no no i don't think i've children uh yes i have been bit by a child not like not my own child oh really oh yeah what did you do well you got to put them down afterwards they're too dangerous to roam the streets at least with a with any other animal you're allowed to really shake it yeah and kick it. You can't do that when it's a child. And of course, they go lock jaw on you and you've got a really good... Pencil up the bum.

14:15The dogs do that if you stroke them while they're asleep. I think you can freak a dog out and it turns and bites, yeah. I've never had that. I've never touched a sleeping dog. Because I listen to the sayings. Okay, here's another one. I got an email from someone called Ed Robinson who says, you mentioned recently that we can't say for certain that Charles Darwin didn't ride the tube. So we spoke about this. There's an overlap between the beginning of the tube and the end of days of Charles Darwin. So to my knowledge, we also can't say for certain that Karl Marx didn't have a fruit pastel as they were invented in 1881 and he died in 1883.

14:51Actually, I think he died in 1882, but But still, it's a year. It doesn't take that long to meet a fruit pastel. Yeah. Do we know what killed him? I mean... Apologies. Sorry. No, that's my fault. We're talking about Karl Marx there. Darwin died 1882. Sorry.

15:08Anna Ptaszynski:So Darwin and Marx could have both had a fruit pastel. Yeah. They could have died having a fruit pastel eating competition, in fact. That's what that killed you. Karl Marx won. Depends how well the competition goes, doesn't it? Yeah. If you win the fruit pastel eating competition, you may die. of diabetes or something of just fruit pastels death by fruit pastel of course it was a very common one wasn't it i looked into other things that darwin might have been able to experience 1882 darwin could have had heinz ketchup on his chips when he was eating he could have had a sip of absolute vodka while he was eating those chips with heinz ketchup of course back in those days heinz ketchup just came with the big number one on the bottle because they'd only invented one variety yeah he also could have been walking around in denim levi jeans darwin could have had a pair of levi jeans you don't picture it do you sort of cut off so with a hole ripped in the knee do you think he'd go for do you know what's weird he would have known about jeans in his lifetime levi's but he wouldn't have known about jeans in genetics in his lifetime oh dear what kind of jeans did darwin know about that yes yeah quiz question because that's so good That came years later.

16:21Someone had found the foundations of genes. So genetics is dated while he was still alive, but no word was put to it.

16:27Anna Ptaszynski:Nothing was properly published. Charles Darwin goes out for a night on the vodka on his way home in his jeans, has some chips with Heinz ketchup on. Yeah. And then gets the tube home eating his fruit pastels. Yeah. But it's interesting, isn't it? Because what's the equivalent now of doing that? So Dame Vera Lynn, I think, has only very recently died. Dave Vera Lynn could have got a lime bike to the vape shop and paid for it with some Bitcoin yes say big on your next project at Menards check out our huge selection of Richmond water heaters whether it's electric or gas, tank or tankless Menards has what you need in stock ensure that you have hot water for when you need it most with a new Richmond water heater from Menards Plus, check out our weekly flyer on Menards.com for all the great deals happening now.

17:23Save big money at Menards. Save big on your next project at Menards. Check out our huge selection of Richmond water heaters. Whether it's electric or gas, tank or tankless, Menards has what you need in stock. Ensure that you have hot water for when you need it most with a new Richmond water heater from Menards. Plus, check out our weekly flyer on Menards.com for all the great deals happening now.

17:58Anna Ptaszynski:I've got one more. Last one from me. This is from Dominique Touraine, who writes, I'm a long-time listener, first time emailing from Montreal. Montreal. For those listening at home You have to understand There's always a pause afterwards Because Andy's mouth drops to the floor When he hears these exotic locations That have been sent to us He's from Darwin's era He can't believe the technology exists What other podcast For you to hear us What other podcast gets emails from Montreal Sao Paulo Just loads of them I've got one from St Albans But like just stunning Okay right Dominique Turin writes Montreal by the way Home of the world record For most tickets sold for a podcast recording 20 ,986 and she adds slightly snippily when will you do a live show here well as soon as we clear that 20 ,000 seater venue as soon as we get it booked yeah yeah we'd love to do that anyway dominique wanted to write about the fact that canada has icebreaker hovercraft how cool is that wow basically when the ice melts big chunks of ice can sometimes jam up the mouths of streams or rivers or whatever.

19:08Anna Ptaszynski:You know, it's a problem because that leads to flooding of towns and farmland or whatever. So they deploy the ice hovercraft and they just hovercraft over and blast down and the vibrations break up the ice into smaller chunks. I think they've got two of them and yeah, just wicked. So good. Just a cool invention. At what height do you stop being a hovercraft and stop being a helicopter? Because I feel like helicopters could do, they could get low enough, couldn't they? Like, I suppose it's whenever the rotor blade has moved from the bottom to the top. That's when you're a helicopter. And there's horrible budget helicopter experience that you've signed up to.

19:44Are you sure this is, it looks like a boat. It does occasionally leave the water though. There's a big wave. That's great.

19:54Anna Ptaszynski:Have you been on a hovercraft? I don't know. There used to be ones crossing the channel, didn't there? And I used to go across the channel when I was a kid. Maybe I went in one. Maybe I didn't. If I did, I didn't wish it. Have you? Hong Kong had hovercrafts to get us between islands. I recently went on a bike ride past the first ever international hovercraft port. The first ever international hovercraft port. I cycled past it. Does anything interesting happen? It's very near you, Dan. Is it? It's Pegwell Bay. No way. Now he's interested. Now it's relevant to Dan. Because actually it's really interesting.

20:29Yeah. Yeah, Emma, yeah. I'll move to Margate. Maybe I'll see the light. Okay, well, that's it for your facts. Thank you, everyone, for sending them in. But before we wrap up today's episode, we have one more thing to do, which is hand out our latest batch of facts to the custodians of the clubfish tier, known as friend of the podcast. Who wants to start? I will kick off and I will donate a fact to Laura Grace. And that is that the Natural History Museum is stopping moths from destroying the exhibits by turning them gay. Mmm. I think was this... Actually, I remember this is one of yours, but it's one of mine.

21:06It's yours. Yeah. Everything good I do, I attribute to you, Dan. Yeah, this is cool, isn't it? Moths eating them up, so you turn them gay, they don't have kids. So the kids can't eat them up.

21:17Anna Ptaszynski:Yeah. How do you turn... Oh, yeah, no, that's the hard bit, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think they give them some hormones, like spray some pheromones on them or something, don't they? I think you're right. They spray, what, male moths with female hormones who spend all their time trying to mate with each other. Is that turning them gay? It's more like dragging up male moths as females. Yeah, you're right. It's tricking heterosexual moths into performing a homosexual act. Hmm. Yeah. I wonder if that's still the method because this is obviously an old fact. What times have changed, you're saying?

21:47Anna Ptaszynski:As in culturally. Someone might have come into the Natural History Museum the next year and said, actually, we've got a different method. We're going to have to stop this whole idea now. This mad idea. We can just actually spray this moth killer around. You can't do anything anymore. Shall I do one? Yeah. Okay, this fact goes out to Jane. Jane with a Y, right in the middle. And the fact is this. The word marvellous has fallen in use from 155 times per million in the 1990s to only two times per million today. That is a catastrophic decline. It's sad, isn't it? That's down, what? that's that's yeah almost down to one percent of its formal range and habitat i think that's tragic i use the word marvelous all the time you'll be astonished to know i do as well and i've got a theory about these all these facts about like use of word has declined i think we don't write them but we still use them so these are always taken from like google engrams aren't they or things like that which see how many times we've mentioned them so maybe it's fallen out of fashion in our high literature but andy and i half of our conversations are the word marvelous no one's recording that are they i wonder who that i i can in my head hear stephen fry saying it a lot yeah yeah marvelous marvelous yeah okay here's another one this is going out to ryan gilgolin your fact is to prepare for china's national day a hundred thousand pigeons receive anal security checks to make sure they're not carrying anything suspicious that ryan can now be framed on your wall.

23:21Anna Ptaszynski:Ryan will have had his certificate months ago in effect. 100 ,000 pigeons receiving anal security checks. And is it just the one person, do we remember, with a very small finger? Oh, actually, we have more detail in the archive. I think they get, gosh, they get cavity searches twice. Just when they think they've got through the first test, there's another one. Is that in case they've hidden it up a different hole? I don't know. But they're all pigeons that are released for the National Data. And again, this was a few years ago. maybe they maybe things have changed but i hope they have the anal security is as necessary i don't i don't see what's changed to make it less necessary but what the deal is that they're i mean why the picture they're used a lot in national day aren't they so they're they're released yeah they do amazing performances exactly yeah or they fly into the air and they look really cool yeah otherwise why are you why are they trying to get in to this night they're going to a gig because they love taylor swift or whatever but they shouldn't be but what if they're smuggling something yeah no you've got to Yeah, you've got to check.

24:20Anna Ptaszynski:You've got to check. Let's do another one. This is for Cam B. Cam B, enjoy this little nugget. Only 28 % of people know when they're being flirted with. Cam B, what a great fact that is on you. Yes, Cam. Looks really nice. Have you been exercising your fact? Cam, I don't know if I'm flirting with you. Sorry. I remember we actually did this on QI last year, I think, as well. and it's interesting because who do you think is less aware that they're being flirted with? Women. Women are less aware that they're being flirted with, and that is because... Men are bad at flirting? Men are too subtle. Yeah.