No Such Thing As Anti-Schmetterling Schnibbles

10 Jul 2025 · 53 min · 24 chapters

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In short

Conservation and mythology trivia, plus a few “weird science” facts. The episode’s main threads are: using glittery poop to track endangered UK water voles; how invasive American mink are hunted/eradicated; and origin myths involving body-part imagery (especially anus/light). It also covers Tom Baker’s pre-death gravestone visits, Basque words for “butterfly,” and whether streetlights/burglar alarms affect crime.

Guests

Andrew Hunter-Murray and James Harkin (Dan Schreiber hosts; Anna is on holiday). No other guests appear beyond the regular hosts.

Key claims

  • Glitter-fed water voles produce “tiny glittery poos” that are easier to spot; mink burrow into vole holes like “furry drainpipes.”
  • Mink eradication includes traps using scent from mink anal glands.
  • Tongan myths describe a god whose anus shines to scare off thieves; similar body-part volcano/crater myths exist elsewhere.
  • Tom Baker fans visit his Kent gravestone despite it being blank for his death date.
  • Basque supposedly has dozens of words for butterfly (including “soul of a donkey”).

Notable examples

  • Water vole “toilets”/latrines; floating polystyrene “toilet” rafts for surveying.
  • A mink trap using a hollow golf ball and cigarette filter scent.
  • Captain Cook naming Tonga “Friendly Islands” after a festival.
  • Basque proverb examples and long lists of butterfly terms.

Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.

Chapters

Tap a time to open that second in VO

The Glittery Water Vole Experiment

1:06 to 6:10

Discussion about the conservation efforts for water voles using glitter.

“from three undisclosed locations around the UK.”

The Invasive American Mink

6:10 to 7:54

Exploration of the impact of American minks on water vole populations.

“What is, I wasn't expecting pushback on that.”

Glitter: More Than Just Decoration

7:54 to 14:00

Insights into glitter's uses and origins, including military applications.

“No, my underpants are our fur, but you weren't to know that.”

Counterfeiting and the Invention of Schnibbles

14:00 to 15:00

Learn about how schnibbles were used to combat counterfeiting and their accidental discovery.

Water Voles and Citizen Zoo

15:00 to 16:18

Discover a unique initiative in South London involving the reintroduction of water voles and how you can contribute.

“I have one more thing to say on voles, but it's important.”

Water Voles and Citizen Zoo

16:43 to 17:38

Discover a unique initiative in South London involving the reintroduction of water voles and how you can contribute.

“We're talking about a total game-changer.”

Tongan Mythology: The Shining Anus

17:41 to 18:06

Explore the strange Tongan myth of Tafakula and the amusing origin of two islands.

“Shop in-store or online for items from your favorite brands like Native, Pantene, Crest, Always, Gillette, Oral-B, and Tampax, and earn four times the points.”

Tongan Mythology: The Shining Anus

18:09 to 19:46

Explore the strange Tongan myth of Tafakula and the amusing origin of two islands.

“Okay, it is time for fact number two, and that is James.”

Vagina and Volcanoes: Hawaiian Myths

19:46 to 21:52

Learn about Hawaiian myths involving goddesses and their humorous, surreal stories.

“So there's a bunch of different stories in this book.”

Historical Anecdotes from Tonga

21:52 to 24:24

Discover quirky historical tales from Tonga, including the tale of a wooden king.

Show all 24 chapters

Legacy of a Wooden King

24:24 to 26:48

Delve into the strange story of a wooden king in Tonga and the implications of this legend.

“So basically what had happened was the king, Talatama, had passed away and he had no children.”

Perineum Sunning and Burglars

26:48 to 28:00

Discuss the absurdity of perineum sunning and the relationship between light and burglary.

“So the brother was trying to create an opportunity for himself to become king.”

Burglars and Streetlights: The Light Dilemma

28:00 to 30:06

Explore studies about streetlights and their unexpected effects on burglary rates.

“It might be because burglar alarms are put in places that are more likely to be burgled anyway.”

Transition to Fact Number Three

30:06 to 30:27

The hosts transition to discuss the next interesting fact.

“going, I thought there were some medical benefits.”

Tom Baker's Gravestone: A Visit from the Living

30:27 to 33:04

Learn about Tom Baker's gravestone that fans visit despite him being alive.

“And he used to go and do his bit for the community.”

The Quirky Life of Tom Baker

33:04 to 36:40

Delve into the eccentric and humorous life experiences of Tom Baker.

“off using some grass cuttings and some sheep feces that he finds.”

Verity Lambert: The Unsung Hero of Doctor Who

36:40 to 39:26

Discover the influential role of Verity Lambert in the creation of Doctor Who.

“That's like recording this podcast with Anna, though, you know.”

Doctor Who Fan Reactions: Love and Anger

39:26 to 41:35

Hear about extreme reactions from Doctor Who fans regarding the show.

“That's just John scrounging faggards from the floor.”

Doctor Who Fan Reactions: Love and Anger

42:03 to 42:44

Hear about extreme reactions from Doctor Who fans regarding the show.

“You know, powering through those lectures and studying sessions, you're going to need it.”

Exploring Basque Words for Butterfly

42:50 to 45:39

Discussion on the numerous Basque words for butterfly and their meanings.

“And very excitingly, all the way from northern Spain, it's Anna.”

The Unique Nature of the Basque Language

45:40 to 47:44

Insights into the Basque language, its origins, and relationship with other languages.

“You get lots of people who have theories that it's related to other things.”

Historical Anecdotes and Folklore

47:45 to 49:59

Tales of Basque history including unusual laws and proverbs.

“a fair few European languages, there are lots of links.”

Witch Hunts and Basque Traditions

50:00 to 52:38

Discussion about the Basque witch hunts and related traditions.

“So they got to be, you know, they were closely involved in this ceremony.”

The Etymology of 'Butterfly' and German Terms

52:39 to 56:00

A look into the origins of the word 'butterfly' and its German equivalent.

“especially the women, were a little bit racy because they wore short skirts and had earrings.”
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Transcript

Automatic transcript. May contain errors.

0:01For curb appeal that lasts, shop Labor Day Extra Big Deals at Lowe's. For a limited time, get 50 % off all Holland Pavers. Plus, save$110 on the Ego Power Plus 56-volt 2.5-amp-hour blower-trimmer combo kit. Now just$249. Labor Day deals are on now at Lowe's. In-store and online. Valid through 9-7. While supplies last, selection varies by location. Holland Pavers offer excludes Alaska and Hawaii. The new Red Bull Dragonberry Energizer is now at McDonald's. Made with freeze-dried dragon fruit and made to lock in. The all-new Energizer, now at McDonald's.

0:58James Harkin:Hello and welcome to another episode of No Such Thing as a Fish, a weekly podcast coming to you from three undisclosed locations around the UK. My name is Dan Schreiber and the reason we are three today as Anna is on holiday, so I am joined by Andrew Hunter-Murray and James Harkin, and once again we have gathered round the microphones with our four favourite facts from the last seven days, and in no particular order, here we go. Starting with fact number one, that is Andy. My fact is that scientists are trying to save water voles by feeding them glitter. Yes. Oh, nice. Yeah. I thought plastic was bad for the environment.

1:40Yeah. Well, yes. They're not feeding them plastic. They're not only feeding them plastic. It's not like they're just shoveling glitter into these poor voles. Basically, they're very endangered, water voles, in the UK. If you're listening from outside the UK, we have these charming little things. Ratty from Wind in the Willows is actually a water vol, he's not a rat. But they're really, really endangered for various reasons. And so conservationists are now trying to track them, work out where they are. They're quite hard to track because they're quite elusive. We normally track them by looking for their poo.

2:08but obviously hard to find like a small poo on a riverbank that's edible as the old saying goes it's like looking for a poo on a riverbank and so they're feeding them this edible like sort of biodegradable glitter the kind that you get on cakes and things like that so not plastic um i suppose yeah i suppose it's kind of useful because even if you find a poo on a riverbank you don't know who it belongs to it could be a mouse or a vole or a fisherman or whatever you just but voles

2:36James Harkin:are very organized with their poo. They have actual toilets. So I think to an educated eye, you would know immediately you're staring at water vol poo. Yeah. And they are on the decline, aren't they, Andy? It's 90 % down at the end of the 20th century than what we had before. So what they're doing now, they're feeding them glitter. They've been experimenting on captive vols to see if these produce extra sparkly poos, which will be easier to spot. And the experiment, very pleased to report, has worked. 24 hours later as the Beeb report put it a tiny glittery poo was spotted so look out for that on the riverbank near you it's quite cool as well they seem to be able to differentiate between different families of voles with quite an easy way, do you know?

3:22James Harkin:different coloured glitter? different coloured glitter so you know one family might have silver poo and then you've got another with gold poo down there and that's how they can differentiate who's packed together and where they're going that's going to become a status symbol in the water vol world isn't it? It's like the silver poos are not going to hang out with the gold poos anymore. We'd like to invite you to join our platinum poo club.

3:45Here's an interesting problem with this study, I think, that if you're trying to count water vole poos to count the number of water voles, there is a problem because water voles tend to eat poo. Not only that, they often eat or they sometimes eat poo directly from the anus. so it's not like you have a bit of time to find it before it gets eaten.

4:09James Harkin:Have a little self-respect. That's too keen, isn't it? That's a bit too keen if you're... It's too keen. That's sticking your mouth under Mr. Whippy's ice cream machine, isn't it? Before it hits the cone. Yeah. And they have these latrines where they all go. But there's another method that was pitched to find them in 2020 because it is really hard to find them because they're on the riverbanks and so on. It's just hard to survey, especially steep riverbanks, which was giving them floating toilets. So they were given these rafts made of floating polystyrene. And the idea is they'll think that is a terrific loo.

4:44I must use that little floating platform as a loo. It only works if they don't have fantastic loos already. If they've already got a great loo set up, then they won't use your platform.

4:52James Harkin:Yeah, clever. They've set those up largely because you can't walk around looking for water voles. You often mess the local environment up. So if you ever see a platform, look around, you might see a bunch of men with binoculars sort of honing in on the little platform. They're not perverts, weirdly. You'll see them and you'll think, what a bunch of perverts, but actually they're looking at water vol poop. They're heroes. They're conservation heroes. Yeah. It's better than the old way. So an old way of doing it was you would put radio colors on your voles and you can kind of track them that way.

5:25but they found that when you did that there would be way more male voles born and that's because a female vole who is stressed will give birth to males and that's like an evolutionary thing because when you know when your population is under threat you need more males but what they found is that when the females were wearing these radio colors there were just way more males born is that why i have so many boys finella was so stressed during all the three pregnancies It's not. Certainly during the conception I think she must have been, yeah.

6:00Have you been talking to her? How do you know that? Can we talk about mink? Yeah. Can we please talk about the American mink? Oh, okay. What is, I wasn't expecting pushback on that.

6:15James Harkin:What is a mink? As in, is it a bowl? Do you see the big sort of jacket, the big coat that Andy's wearing at the moment? Yeah, yeah. Very flush collar. It's perfect for this 31 degree heat that we're living in in London at the moment. Pure mink. Pure mink. Yeah, the mink really wicks away the sweat. It goes really nicely with the dismembered polar bear head you're wearing as a hat as well. Okay, guys. So basically, when Kenneth Graham wrote Wind of the Willows and wrote Ratty, there were loads of water bowls all over the UK. Then, in the last 100 years, one of the main problems like there's a little bit of climate and a little bit of habitat stuff the main problem seems to be goddamn american mink coming over here eating our voles they were farmed in the uk for ages there used to be hundreds of mink farms everywhere and obviously some of them escaped and blah blah blah and they bred and the main problem is right if a water voles hole looks like this i'm just holding up my hands for dana james here it's like this size right and when you say water voles hole you mean the hole to the house where they live i apologize yeah if this If a water vol's hole was this size, you'd spot the poos a lot more easily.

7:21So, like an owl comes down. Obviously, an owl can't get through this spot. It's just not possible. But a mink is basically like a furry drainpipe. Like, it's perfect. It's the right size to just get into the burrow. And they have no defenses against them. So, they can just be eaten like dozens and dozens. A mink can just dispatch dozens of vols, basically. It's a big problem. But basically, they've worked out now they need to eradicate mink from England, you know. because they're an invasive species and they've done a trial where they've eradicated them from five percent of england which is quite big when you think about it so get this i just love how this trap works you james you'll love this you get a hollow golf ball okay bit of a waste of a golf ball is it like a training golf ball that you ever get those oh you can get those little plastic ones with holes in i think it's like that so you you get that you put that inside the trap and inside that hollow golf ball is a cigarette filter containing one or two drops from the mink's anal scent gland which you have harvested this is getting better and better for me cigarette filters anal glands golf balls this is like this is like my luxury items when i go on desert island desks so you've you've harvested the anal gland um droplets from your previous the last mink you caught so it's very sustainable system and you so you put them in the cigarette filter you drip it on and then you just set a mink to catch a mink basically and then the trap door closes when the mink goes in and the trappers then get an email saying you have caught one mink

8:49James Harkin:and then they could just go and kill the mink basically that system of um using the holes uh for them to burrow through is also another way by the way that they've been trying to monitor and work out how many vols are out there so um they get a tube and they will pad it up all the on the inside with sticky tape so when the water vol goes through bits of hair gets stuck into the hole and then they can look inside and go oh yep there's been a vol does it not strip off its fur comes out completely naked it's a not effective way of doing it really um actually that's a good way to make the mink coats just get them go through that tunnel jesus collect the hair i just want to say for the listener just in case you didn't get it that it was a joke earlier andy is not wearing any animal products today.

9:34No, my underpants are our fur, but you weren't to know that. You know who stopped mink in the UK? Well. Because there used to be hundreds and hundreds of farms, and they were mostly farming them for their fur. It was pretty cruel, actually. Chris Packard. It's an MP. It's a current MP, actually, who's got a really appropriate name, Labour MP. Oh, okay. Arnold Valls. God, this is tough. I'm going to tell you. It's Maria Eagle. Okay. Oh, that was gettable. If we'd have sat here for four and a half hours, well, let's say Anna's here three and a half hours, because she's good on MPs. I reckon we could have got that.

10:12Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's cool. And she basically had a private member's bill where she got them cancelled. And then animal rights people would free thousands and thousands of mink. They'd break into the mink farms. And then in one of the stupid... They were being kept in very cruel conditions, but the answer is not to release thousands of incredibly dangerous carnivores into the local environment like yeah wow i've mostly got mink stuff for this fact i must say andy like due to the fact that this fact was about water bowls and glitter my mink material is quite

10:42James Harkin:scant i'm not so hot on it either though i am excited for your new quiz show where a single question requires three and a half hours of guesswork before we get to the answer can i say a thing about glittery poo before we move on um tardigrades sometimes have glittery poo do you You know what a tardigrade is? Like these tiny little, they're known as water bears as well. They live in water. They're kind of ubiquitous. They live everywhere you look. They're kind of indestructible. If you fire radioactivity at them, they don't die. If they go into space, they don't die. They're like superhero animals.

11:16Right. But these tiny little minuscule bugs. But they found some with glitter in their poo. And they wondered where on earth did they get it from? And it turns out that they probably swallowed their own mouth. Interesting. That's because they have these kind of crystal-like teeth in their mouth called silets. They used to grind little bits of invertebrates. And then every now and then they molt. But usually the teeth would just go out onto the floor. But sometimes they accidentally eat their own teeth. And then they end up with really glittery poo. Wow. You can swallow teeth. I've swallowed teeth before.

11:50What? No. I'm sure I swallowed my first tooth. My first tooth that ever came out my first milk tooth. I'm sure I accidentally thought it was a hell of a story if it was someone else's. I'll tell you what, hell of a story for the tooth fairy who has to go sieving your shit afterwards to give you 50p. It has to go under my pillow. This is not good. No one wins. Oh, little Andy, what's happened to your bed? No, no, no, let me explain. I swallowed my tooth. Just normally when you shit the bed, you shit it further down. That's the problem. like it's very it's a bad old night when it ends up under the pillow uh the word glitter comes from the vikings that's cool isn't it you wouldn't think that no but it just meant something that shines or shimmers and obviously vikings went on the sea a lot and the sea shimmers a lot so they used the word glitter to mean that and then obviously glitter as we know it today was came

12:41James Harkin:in the 20th century yeah glitter has its foundations in new jersey and that's where most of the glitter is made these days. And there's a company, I think the second largest company called GlitterX, who gave an interview to the New York Times. And it's insane, the protection. It's as if they're protecting KFC's secret ingredients or Coca-Cola. They won't show any journalists how their glitter is made. They won't let them hear how it is made. It's crazy. It's a really crazy article. The journalist, she asks, who is the biggest market in the world for glitter products? Expecting it's going to be something like Carnival or whatever um and they say we can't tell you that oh and she says why not and they say we can't tell you why not let's just leave it at that shall we interesting i think it's the u.s air force it's going to be military it's got military they have things called chaff tubes uh and this is a thing where they fire out tiny little bits of glitter out of the airplanes so if you got a missile that is kind of locked onto you with radar fire a load of glitter out then um the radar kind of gets confused and the missile is quite yeah it's quite a sort of fabulous way of like fighting like winning an air war you know what i mean like it's quite showbiz you know yeah you've got a mig on your ass go sparkle mode yeah i like that it's possible they don't want to say because it's used for stopping counterfeiting so in the same way they're using it on water vols so that they can monitor where they are companies like big manufacturers of plywood will have tiny bits of glitter inserted inside so that it's yeah because i'm always getting my counterfeit plywood i'm always going to the plywood shop and going this isn't the real stuff have you got anything got any cheaper plywood under the counter for me mate maybe what do you think the counter's made of mate that's yeah no absolutely like it's used in so many different products just to stop so global counterfeiting funny yeah and then just really quickly it was invented by henry f ruchman who was a german immigrant who was coming to new york on a boat in 1926 and he was hired as soon as he got off the boat because the captain of the ship noticed that he was a brilliant machinist and he went straight to the guy who was the charge of the westinghouse company which is like a big electronics company at the time and said you've got to hire this man so the guy literally walked top of the ship and straight into a job and he worked on the machine that cut out you know like if you take photos and you might get a big reel of photos you need to cut them into smaller photos he worked on one of those machines and then he noticed he had lots of little bits of plastic left over and that they shined in the light and he called them schnibbles wow it's kind of an accidental discovery andy was it was it now yeah that's it legit i prefer schnibbles i think that's It's a great name.

15:34Guys, I'm so sorry. I have one more thing to say on voles, but it's important. It's actually important. There's a group in South London who are involved in the vol reintroduction thing. They're called Citizen Zoo, and they have a scheme called Get Involved. Voled. It's better written down. And one thing you can do is you can make a small donation and you can name some water voles. So, very pleased to announce that I've made a small donation of company money. oh right not your own money because remember when we sponsored that um explosive finding rat or whatever it was that was my own money that paid for that wasn't your money oh okay um well i thought you guys would want to be in on this so i i will be i will be invoicing anyway there are now there are now two bowls somewhere in south london called everard and digby Oh Lovely Perfect Hey this is Kevin This is Joe And Nick Jonas from Hey Jonas This episode of Hey Jonas is brought to you by the all new drink lineup at McDonald's I don't have to tell you that there are already so many great drink options at McDonald's But the new drink lineup I mean it takes things to another level They've got delicious caffeinated refreshers Like the strawberry watermelon refresher Crafted sodas like the Spriteberry Blast and now the all-new Red Bull Dragonberry Energizer.

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18:11James Harkin:Okay, it is time for fact number two, and that is James. Okay, my fact this week is that according to Tongan mythology, the island of Kau was almost stolen one night, but the god tafakula bent over and the light shone out of his anus so brightly that the thieves fled in fear the classic maneuver so i was reading an article in live science about volcano that went off in the pacific last year and the headline was shining anus volcano in tonga coughs up cloud of smoke during a recent eruption and obviously that kind of caught my eye a little bit so i read this article and it said that this island called tofua it's got like a ring almost like the top has been cut off and there's a ring and there's a lake inside it and then nearby there's another volcano that looks like a perfect triangle and the story goes that there were three deities called Tuvavata, Sisi and Fangar.

19:15And they were going to steal Tofua. So they came and they tore off the top of the mountain. And when they tore it off, a lake appeared. But then this Tongan god Tafakula came along. He bent over, showed his anus. It shone so brightly. They were struck with fear. They threw the top of the mountain in the air. It landed and became this other island. And that's how the two islands sort of came to be. and then in life science the final sentence says it is unclear from the account why taffa cool as

19:45James Harkin:anus shone like the sun okay well so this this story was taken from a book that was written by a man called edward winslow gifford um and it was published in 1924 all about tongan myths and tales and there's quite a few it's all oral tradition told to this guy and and he noted it down and there's about five or six different versions. Sounds more like anal tradition. Hey. So there's a bunch of different stories in this book. And he writes down the different interpretations that are given. And one of the things that is mentioned in one of the stories is that his name itself, Tafakulu, is... No, I'm not going to...

20:26James Harkin:Stop laughing, Andy. I'm pressing on. His name is Tafakulu. And his name translates as red edges. And it says he had a red anus. So it's quite possible that just the anus itself was so red, brightly red, that it was mistook for the light. So we have a partial explanation. The song Roxanne by the police was actually originally called Tafakula. You don't have to put on the red light. No, please, Tafakula, it's fine. The cavity's over. Wow. So, I mean, it's just a story, I guess. But it's quite an amusing story. And I think quite a lot of Pacific cultures have origin myths, which have parts of the body in them, slightly different to the ones that we might have.

21:11So in Hawaiian culture, there's a goddess called Kohe Kohe Lele, whose name translates as Kapo with a traveling vagina. And there is a crater on Oahu, which is named after her vulva. and the idea is that Pili, who's the goddess of volcanoes, she was being attacked by a shapeshifting man with a pig's head and then Kapo came along, lured the attacker away by throwing her vagina onto a ha-hoo. He ran away from Pili. She managed to escape and the vagina became this crater. She threw her hoo-ha onto a ha-hoo? She did. Sorry, I didn't listen to anything else you were saying I'm excited to have realised that

21:59James Harkin:What a move What a move I had a bit of a scan through the Tongan myths and tales to see if there were any other stories that involved anuses and I could only find one other and it's to do with a tale of an island called Ua E-U-A, Ua and there was a great warrior called Tataki and basically he had all of his wife's relations killed really bad move really annoyed her she decided that she was going to kill him and so her method was she met him on top of a mountain brought up a coconut half a coconut full of water but she only filled it halfway through so as he drank it he had to lift it right up to get all of the water in and when he did that she pushed him off the edge he managed to grab her and they both plummeted to their deaths she fell to the ground but unfortunately he got snagged on a tree on the way down where the branch went right through his anus and came up out on the other side and a bunch of warriors who were coming to back up the wife saw him sort of levitating in the air looking incredibly intimidating and fled off the island because they thought he'd reached sort of like god level status in his anger um what a lot of stories right they have a kind of meaning to them like aesop's fables have a really clear slow and steady wins the race what is the meaning of this story i'm not entirely sure but there is still a cave on that cliff face where it's said to has happened that is called to tacky named after him don't attack women is that the motto of the story it's a good motto what about the motto being even in the worst of situations when you've got a tree impaling your anus and you just died some good can come of it that's a really nice message actually that's a really good message all the flip side is to the warriors if your opponent looks intimidating double check that he's not actually impaled through the anus by a stick really good tonga for a lot of people might seem as if it's just one place it's not a bunch of islands it's down in the pacific it's about 170 islands gathered under this one sovereignty right and james have you been there i've always been thinking this is a james harkin place no i haven't been to anywhere in the south pacific the empire of tonga at one stage spanned more than a thousand miles which made it about the same size as the zulu empire and the aztec empires Pretty good Of course Well for Tonga Most of it was ocean Right So it's a little bit Less useful to have A huge empire If most of it's the ocean I guess Yeah that's That's sort of cheating Yeah Tonga was originally Known as the Friendly Islands Okay And that was after Captain James Cook Arrived there in 1773 And he arrived During a festival And he was invited To join in And he thought Their locals were so friendly That he should call it The Friendly Islands Unknown to him Apparently the reason that they didn't kill him because the chiefs could not agree on a plan on how to kill him bureaucracy amazing that's so good they're all standing around a diagram of like different ways like angles of attack and things like that like one of them's holding a spear one of them's holding a tree they might put up his anus what's what's on the board guys oh no don't don't worry about it just go back to the go to the festival um shouldn't actually be this is a restricted bit actually um yeah i um i visited his house when we were on tour uh captain cook oh that's right it's in melbourne and they brought over the entire house to melbourne in fact it's a house he never lived in it was his parents house so it's a slightly confusing place but a good afternoon out well there you go i've got i've i was looking into some more of the weird sort of moments throughout the history of the tonga empire and for a three-year period, the king of Tonga was a piece of wood.

25:42James Harkin:So basically what had happened was the king, Talatama, had passed away and he had no children. And so this broke the line and this has happened in the past where it then goes to another clan or so on. And the brother of Talatama thought this can't happen. So he created a piece of wood that was painted and a bit shaped like a doll and said, this is the new king. And so the new king was put onto the throne. And then the new king, after a while, was given a wife. It sounds like it was a real human, as opposed to a piece of wood, because they don't mention it's a wooden wife. And then the piece of wood died after three years, but it left a son with the wife.

26:27James Harkin:And that was the brother. And then he took control. Yes. How does a piece of wood die? Well, how does an anus radiate light? There are lots of questions in the Tongan world that we don't have the answers to. You know, this is back in the 12th century. So this sits in that world of myth and legend. But it is a story that is known there. So the brother was trying to create an opportunity for himself to become king. Yeah. So he creates a sort of quasi-father figure in this piece of wood, marries it to some poor woman. then she has a baby who happens to be the guy who wanted to be the king in the first place is that it it's exactly that yeah very nice skillful um do they have to do a paternity test no you don't look anything like him you haven't got his knots are you guys familiar with the practice of um perineum sunning jesus no well i mean is it exactly what it sounds like it's exactly what it sounds like And it's to do with the claim that if you get 30 seconds of sunlight directly on your bottom, I mean right in there, it's the equivalent of a full day of sunlight with your clothes on.

27:41Interesting. Okay, that's useful to know. Does that work with tanning boots as well?

27:46James Harkin:Well, it's very hard to get your legs up in the booth, isn't it? But surely they can direct a beam just straight in. You're right, actually. um well don't do it basically you might get sunburned you've got quite thin skin down there don't do it please don't do it this fact was about uh a light putting off burglars do you think lights put off burglars or not yes yeah well you might be wrong oh interesting so um there have been various studies done uh there was one at the university of loughborough that found that if you have a burglar alarm with a light, you're more likely to be burgled. But they're not sure.

28:28It might be because burglar alarms are put in places that are more likely to be burgled anyway. And so that's why it happens. But there was also a study at London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, weirdly, at UCL. And they found that when you turn the streetlights off between midnight and 5 a.m., there are a lot less cars broken into in a certain area. and that's they think because it might make it more difficult to see if there are any valuable goods in your car and they might get scared it's spooky it's dark yeah it's spooky being out of the dark yeah yeah it is yeah and there's um i've got one of these security lights and we're saying that maybe i should turn it off well there was um a study in 2019 that found correlations between light levels and unsafe places and what they found is that when you have the lights on in a certain area that means there's almost more dark places for people to hide do you know i mean because the contrast between the light and dark is more so you're walking around the light bit you think everything's fine but there are going to be some dark areas where people can hide whereas if it's always dark your eyes will be more accustomed than you'll be able to see things so basically the jury's out a little bit i think okay that's interesting that's like you know the classic

29:43James Harkin:movies where prison guards have that one beam of light that they look for escaping prisoners going around, and they're always in the dark. What you're saying is that kind of impedes the hunt. They should turn it off. Don't worry guys, I know what I'm doing. I've read a study from the University of Loughborough which insists that if we turn off the lights it'll be safer. Dan caught in the middle of the prison yard with his pants around his ankles, going, I thought there were some medical benefits. Not trying to escape, just trying to get my 30 seconds of daily sun. it's midnight shriver

30:26James Harkin:okay it is time for fact number three and that is my fact my fact this week is that for over 20 years now fans of the doctor who actor tom baker have been regularly visiting his gravestone at a cemetery in kent despite the fact that he isn't yet dead um wow yeah so this is i found this out in a brilliant autobiography that tom baker wrote many years ago called who on earth is tom baker i started on the final chapter which is where i found it so tom baker many years ago was living in a little town in kent called bought in malherb and he lived in a house that was directly opposite at a church, St.

31:09James Harkin:Nicholas's Church. And he used to go and do his bit for the community. He would mow the grass in front of the church. And he decided, this is where I want to be buried. So he paid for a plot, but it seemed that there was a deal that you could get a headstone at the same time. So he bought one. So it is engraved Tom Baker, 1934, too, and then a blank space that will one day be filled in it's all moldy it's it's got muscle over it it's weather beaten and people come and visit it and quite often back in the day when tom baker was still living there he would often pop up behind the people who were looking at and say surely he's not gonna die he's just gonna turn into peter davidson isn't he yes that is yeah that's a little dr hugh joke for anyone who's ever watched dr hugh which is not me Yeah, so he is, we should point out the connection properly, Doctor Who.

32:03James Harkin:So Tom Baker was the fourth Doctor. He was the longest serving Doctor in all of Doctor Who's history. So he's kind of more associated as the Doctor than most of the other ones. I'm just going to tell you, because he is quite a quirky character, and I'll just give you a little bit of insight into how weird he is. In this final chapter in the book, when he talks about it, the story that he uses to tell the story is that he's mowing outside the church, and there's a man standing there and the man says, oh, hello. And he makes a point about his mower, his lawnmower. He says, oh, it's very nice. And he's acting all weird.

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32:36James Harkin:And Tom doesn't know what's going on. And he goes to bed that night. And then two men in balaclavas break into his house and they start searching for stuff. And Tom Baker doesn't know what. And he's petrified and they call the police. And it's a traumatic experience. The next morning he goes down and he sees his tombstone and it now no longer just says Tom Baker 1934 to and then blank. It now says Tom Baker 1934 to wanker. And someone's just written that in chalk on it. And so he rubs that off using some grass cuttings and some sheep feces that he finds. And so what is the story, Dan? The point is that this is the mind of Tom Baker.

33:13James Harkin:He becomes convinced that the balaclava people were there to get his lawnmower. So he moves his lawnmower up into his room and he sleeps with it every night alongside an axe that sits on his bed in case they come back in and it's not so he can kill them it's so he can chop his own head off before they get a chance to do it that's that's tom baker in a nutshell that's the final chapter in his book wow i mean dan can i just say you just waved a copy of the book at us i i've got a library copy of the book here yeah who on earth is tom baker i started at chapter one like a dweeb the first words of chapter one are uh because he's got this amazing voice hasn't he he's got a very very recognizable voice uh my first ambition was to be an orphan and it's sort of what you know and it's because he was growing up in the war in liverpool and apparently if you became orphaned you would get presents from the americans which i did not think was a scheme they ran but whatever yeah they just they were handed out binks weren't they left right and center so he writes the only drawback was that to qualify for the goodies your mam had to be in heaven so i prayed hard that a bomb would drop on mine as she trudged home from the Sefted Arms.

34:18He's got a very weird anecdote style.

34:23James Harkin:But he's a hero, isn't he, to a lot of people in this country. If you're overseas, Tom Baker, a household name, he certainly was. He certainly has a kind of higher status in the nerd world. But he's old. He's born in 34, so he hasn't been on TV for a long time. Did he do the voiceover for Little Britain? was that him as well he did that's right yes when he was 15 he became a monk yes kind of interesting like you uh like me no well you were kind of semi-monk weren't you i went to a catholic school that's what i'm that's what i'm thinking of but he was part of the brothers of plurmel yeah he he left becoming a monk when he just got a bit too horny and went on a sort of shagging spree he He said he wanted to commit every single one of the Ten Commandments.

35:11James Harkin:And he didn't want to do that while being a monk. He wanted to break them. Well, wait a minute. I mean, thou shalt not kill is one of the biggies. So that's a pretty tough one. Could be an animal. Well, maybe after he coveted his neighbor's ox, maybe he killed it after that. That's possible. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I think he likes a good story. I think that's the main point. Yeah. He claims that he once tried to kill... Hang on. We're on that commandment. Oh my god, this doesn't work. Okay, this does work, actually. He claimed that once he tried to kill his own mother-in-law while he was working at the family rose-growing business.

35:50What did he do? Did he push her off a cliff so that she landed with a rose-up her anus? That's it. That's it. Apparently he threw multiple hoes at her. oh you mean hoeing implements hoeing implements exactly exactly um because they were to hand i guess in the garden in the gardening business where he was working he was sort of plucked into

36:13James Harkin:the world of doctor who from being a struggling actor he was working on building sites even as they were filming i think possibly even as it was going out um and he he was a very dominating character it's very interesting because he's very eccentric very lovable but when you read into him He did have very much a dark side to a lot of how he treated people. And they used to say that it was great filming Doctor Who, but it was great only if Tom decided it was a great day. If he decided it wasn't, then that was a bad day. That's like recording this podcast with Anna, though, you know. That's just the price to have mentioned.

36:47James Harkin:Well, actually, do you know what? There's a character who the whole of Doctor Who really, I think, is indebted to. And it's someone who, every time I read about her, I think this is the Anna Tashinsky of Doctor Who. Verity Lambert. Verity Lambert was the producer of Doctor Who. And the reason she became the producer of Doctor Who was she was an assistant on a show that was airing live called Armchair Theatre. And she was working in the background. And there was a guy called Gareth Jones, who was meant to appear on screen and deliver some lines, but he had a heart attack and he died before he came on.

37:22James Harkin:So all the actors were standing in the scene looking off screen at a man who's now on the floor not knowing what to do and the main director ran into the studio and he said verity you're now in charge you're now the producer so she had to suddenly run the whole ship while he was on the set and he was writing the script rewriting it because it really relied on this character who just died in real life to be part of it and while she did that the heads of bbc saw her talent and went i think she can be put in charge of something that's new and great. Can I ask how this is the same as Anna Tashinsky, who's basically fucked off on holiday and dumps us in it this week?

38:02There are a few discrepancies in character. No, I can see it. I can see it. I mean, when we make jokes, we frequently die metaphorically. And Anna has to keep the show going while we do that by making sarcastic comments.

38:14James Harkin:Yeah. When they were putting the show together, the guy, Sidney Nolan, he said the reason he wanted Verity Lambert is because she was, to use the phrase of his, full of piss and vinegar. And that's what he wanted. He wanted that as part of his team. And it was a kids show given to her, which was amazing because when they said, are you going to have kids? Because this was a big concern of the BBC back in the day. There used to be a marriage bar, which was lifted in 1944. But if you were a female working at the BBC, if you got married, you had to leave your job because they thought you would have kids.

38:45James Harkin:And so that was the question to her and she said i don't know any children i don't want children i don't fucking like children she's like that yeah it's the direct quote and she was put in charge of what was a kid's program and she's responsible it's really largely down to her for fighting for it that it that it became a thing i i'm still struggling to see where she where the other bit comes in here absolutely maybe the piss and vinegar bit i guess i see i see her as full of piss and vinegar she just won't let something slide she'll stick up for anything that's that's not right that's anna she'll stick up for anything that's not right that does sound like anna actually well she's my biggest defender by the way tom baker not the only great doctor who actor out there i just want to give a quick shout out to john pertwee uh who is also one of the doctors he had an amazing life he was an advisor for churchill and yeah and he used to be in the war rooms with him and he used to do a thing where at the end of the meetings when everyone had left including churchill he would scour the floor for all the cigarette butts that churchill had thrown during the meeting onto the carpet then he would put them in a golf ball that's how you catch a churchill yeah yeah yeah he'd sell them he would sell them to his friends just for like a little tidy sum uh as a bit of memorabilia of churchill treason feels like It feels like his mind is not 100 % on the effort of defeating the Nazi.

40:13I don't know. It's tough times. Oh, sorry. That's just John scrounging faggards from the floor. We've had a load of facts sent in by a guy called David Lever, who's a huge Doctor Who fan. I just want to give him a little shout out. And he sent so many amazing facts, I can't do them all, I'm afraid. But one of them I just really like is this. When the deadly assassin, brackets, now regarded as one of Tom Baker's best episodes, was released, the head of the Doctor Who Appreciation Society hated it so much he immediately disbanded the society this was the last time Doctor Who fans ever got disproportionately angry

40:50James Harkin:yeah they do they do weird things when they're angry there was one guy I got this from the John Higgs book Exterminate Regenerate which is so good it's all about Doctor Who and he said that when it got cancelled one guy got so angry that he ripped off the TV aerial from the outside of his house and he sent it to the BBC as a protest This is so good.

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42:49James Harkin:Okay, it is time for the final fact of the show. And very excitingly, all the way from northern Spain, it's Anna. My fact this week, coming to you from the tiny and beautiful and very hot Basque village of Segura is that the Basque language has at least 50 words for butterfly, one of which means soul of a donkey. So what does that mean, Anna? Oh, we haven't recorded this bit. Sorry. Actually, she has sent me another file, so let's listen to that. Other words for butterfly include, courtesy of my Basque friend here, Julen.

43:32Micheleta, Michelote, Micholeta, Similot, Tzimereta, Tzimirrita, Tzimirrika, Inguma, Jankoyo, Jinkoyo, Maripampalona, Marisorgin, Machita, Pimpirin, Pimpirina, Pimpirineta, Pimpilipausa, Pimpilipausa, Zorginbitxi, Zorginmandatari, Amazing. Itamatachi, Falfala, Galapuchi, Abekata, Chaketa. Very nice. Hey. Has anyone done any research on this? A little bit. It's just, I mean, there are various different claims. Some people claim there are 80 words for butterfly. Some people claim it's 100. But, and also, it's not like these different words mean big butterfly, small butterfly, yellow butterfly, all of that.

44:28They all literally do just mean butterfly. But I have not known why, in fact. I can't find that either. My favourite word for a butterfly in Basque is pin-pillin-poucher because that comes from the sound that the wings make. That's like a really nice onomatopoeic one.

44:46James Harkin:Does it? I've heard butterflies flapping. Does that sound it to you guys? It's flippity-floppity floating about. Pin-pillin-poucher. You need to get a bit closer. So Basque, we should say where the Basque region is for international listeners who are not from the Basque region. It's top of Spain slash south of France. I think it's seven provinces historically where the Basque language is spoken. There's lots of traditional Basque culture. And the language is so weird, isn't it? It's a language isolate. It's not related to anything on either side of it. It's really peculiar. Yeah. So what does that mean?

45:23Can we not trace it to anywhere? I think it's believed to be pre-Indo-European. So lots of the languages that came over from Asia, basically, are related in various different ways. And this is a kind of survivor, almost, the weird outcrop that just has lasted since before that period, which is probably, you know, thousands and thousands of years ago. You get lots of people who have theories that it's related to other things. Like I went on the University of California website and they said that it might be related to Ainu, which is a Japanese isolate language. And what they do basically is they look at lists of the words and they go, actually, these words are quite similar.

46:05But I think if you really look at it deep down, it's not really related to any other extant language at all. Right. It feels too neat that it would be related to another isolate from the completely other side of the world. Yeah. Almost too odd. I think the idea being that Basque were often seafaring people, and they might have gone seafaring over to Japan as well and taken the language with them. But again, I don't think it's true. We have a few words from Basque in English. Do we? Do we? Yeah. Silhouette. The word silhouette? Yeah, so there was a guy called Arnaud de Silhouette. He was a finance minister of France, and he basically was in charge of a big bit of austerity, so no one could afford anything.

46:48and so they came up with these like really cheap ways of doing portraits by cutting out black things and they named it after him and his surname was basque yes interesting and he was from the

46:58James Harkin:basque country uh anchovy maybe anchovy really yeah arizona sarsaparilla zorro and a lot of people think bizarre comes from the basque word for beard although that's a little bit dubious that one but yeah sorrow is a cool word yeah sorrow comes from the basc word azaria meaning fox oh nice i didn't know that it just is so different like so french for welcome is bienvenue spanish is bienvenidos you can kind of see where they might be going there the basc is ongiatoria they just totally unconnected i love it and we should say even within the basc region there are five different dialects. Like, I think it is quite hard for non-Basque people to learn simply because there aren't many things to cling on to.

47:43Like, if you're English and you're trying to learn a fair few European languages, there are lots of links. But, in fact, there's a story that the devil wanted to send particular people from the Basque region to hell. So, he tried to learn the language. But after seven years, he had to give up because it was too difficult. Again, the meaning of that one. It's like these Tongan ones Okay Basque is hard I suppose that's the meaning And then does that mean that after seven years He decided well I'm going to stay Out of the Basque country Yeah it doesn't have this thing of like oh we're God's Chosen people like Yorkshire I think it's just that I presume he just hired a translator or something I don't know Because God spent seven years in Leeds didn't he And by the end of that he'd say Ay up me duck That's why Yorkshire are God's people

48:33James Harkin:traveling to iceland has become quite nice in the last 10 years for people from the basque region um and that's because in 2015 they officially revoked a law that allowed for citizens of iceland to kill people from basque on site and that's right on site no questions asked no questions i asked it was just a completely legal thing this was uh due to an incident no questions basque more like so in 1615 uh there was an incident in which a bunch of um i like it thank you oh no don't get me wrong it's wonderful stuff um basically what happened was is there was a big dispute between whalers and the people from basque were heading out this is in 1615 and it resulted in a dispute where they killed a bunch of these Basque whalers and it's just been in their law that you can kill on site since then.

49:29James Harkin:And 2015 they actually had governors from the Basque region, the Icelandic Minister of Education get together and officially revoke it. So it is now illegal. I think in practice in Iceland it was illegal to kill people more generally. I think if you'd have killed someone from the Basque country and said oh no look it's in the law i'm allowed to do that they might have said uh yeah but you're not really are you we've maybe we've had we've had other laws invented since then but did you hear the the thing about the ceremony the the repeal ceremony for this law who did you say it was a couple of local bigwigs you had the icelandic minister of education and then a governor from uh basc well they were one of the descendants of a murdered whale hunter and one of the descendants of one of the murderers.

50:18Amazing. So they got to be, you know, they were closely involved in this ceremony. Did they let the Basque bigwig kill the Icelandic bigwig as a bit of a blood feud thing? Yeah, it was nice. It was really sweet, actually. It was a very touching ceremony. Harpoon through the anus. That's right. God damn. Jeez. Do you want to hear some Basque proverbs? Yes, please. All right. when the fox is engaging you in conversation keep an eye on your chicken oh that's good

50:47James Harkin:i was hoping keeping on your water vol was going to be the end of the same thing um oh what a pair a snail and a slug okay that one's less clear i think it's when two people are being like they're both difficult two lazy people have found each other and it's like oh god yeah yeah yeah nobody's helping you um a lot of donkeys need a lot of straw i'm not even sure that's a proverb actually I think I might just be like a logistics thing. Okay. In other places, dogs go barefoot too. Okay. That means that no matter where you go in the world, there'll still be some things that you recognize. Exactly that.

51:24It's basically saying things are largely similar in most places, which again, it's not a slammer of a proverb, I think. For people who very much decide that they're very, very different from all the other people who live around them, as the Basques do. You're absolutely right. They'd probably say to me, the words are big, but the acorns are small. You have a small penis? I mean, they would say that to me if they got to know me well, but no, that's not what I'm saying. I think it's like ear, all mouth and no trousers.

51:57James Harkin:Ah, that's a good one. All mouth and no trousers. I don't even know what that means. It's when you have a lot of talk, but you're not matching it with big action. All mouth and no trousers. All fur coat and no knickers. That's another great one. Do you know that one, Dan? nope wow um speaking of knickers yeah the word basque refers to a piece of underwear does it yeah like a basque is like it's almost like a sexy corset you know that oh no i have heard of that i have heard of that yeah yeah um so you don't spend enough time in and summers you two or i spend way too much time in that but apparently it was first called that in french because it looks a little bit like traditional Basque costume.

52:38And also the French thought that the Basque people, especially the women, were a little bit racy because they wore short skirts and had earrings. And the national costume to the French at the time looked a bit ooh-la-la. To put it in French. They had a big problem with witches in the 17th century, the Basque region. Oh, yeah. Huge problem, actually. They had a lot of witch hunting. and there's a very famous bit of history which is called the Basque Witch Hunt, effectively. And it was like hundreds and thousands of people in the Basque region confessed that they'd been to the witch's sabbat. And I'm afraid to say they had had sex with the devil.

53:16Did you learn the language by then? I think it was the language of love by that point. You'd fly in basically either on a broom or a goat, apparently, if you couldn't afford a broom. And you'd worship the devil a bit and then I think you would dig up dead witches and eat them. That was a thing that supposedly happened at these kind of witchy fiestas. If you were old and you had no teeth, the devil would lend you his own dentures. Children would be like... That's disgusting. It is disgusting. Also, the thought of the devil with his teeth out is quite a funny one. Yeah. Your immortal soul.

53:55This is such weird reports. Like, children would be given velvet-clad toads to guard at these fiestas. Witches would dance with toads as large as chickens It's just I mean it's mad, it's a completely mad episode of history It's probably just people being tortured until they confessed I'm afraid it was mostly, wasn't it? Yeah The Basque version of Santa is kind of interesting It's called Olent Zero And if children don't want to go to bed A sickle is thrown down the chimney And the children are told that Olent Zero will come and cut their throats If they don't go to sleep Yikes! and what happens is they mostly go to sleep i imagine one last thing maybe um butterfly where the english word butterfly comes from okay because butterfly is quite a nice word in lots of different languages really yeah but i'm thinking papillon and papillon in french in italian i think in german it's something not quite so beautiful as it's like jonas it'll be an 18 consonant and it'll be really mechanical.

54:56Yeah, yeah, yeah. But in English, butterfly, we don't really know where butterfly comes from. So there's an idea that they would, if you left your milk uncovered, they would come and drink the milk and steal your butter and stuff. But I think the best version is it comes from the Dutch old word for a butterfly, which was butterscheiter, which was because butterflies had yellow excrement. And so the Dutch called them like, butter butter shit uh and then we stole that name and then over the years like a lot of these things their word shiter just turns into fly because you're being polite with your kids yeah that was really funny um i've just googled german for butterflies schmetterling schmetterling that's could have like that could have been a warplane you know i've got a bunch of schmafflings on my ass.

55:50Deploy the chaff. Deploy the glitter. What was the glitter called? They were called schnibbles. Schnibbles.

55:57James Harkin:Deploy the schnibbles. Deploy the end of schmetterling schnibbles. They come out of the back of the plane with a big ban.

56:11James Harkin:Okay, that's it. That is all of our facts. Thank you so much for listening. If you would like to get in contact with any of us about the things that we have said over the course of this podcast, we can be found on our various social media accounts. I'm on at Schreiberland on Instagram. James? My Instagram is no such thing as James Harkin. Andy? My Instagram is Andrew Hunter M. Yep. And if you want to get to us as a group, you can go to podcast at qi.com. Send us emails there. We can feature some of the best of those on our bonus episode. Drop us a line, which is part of our big club, Club Fish.

56:44James Harkin:And if you go to nosuchthingasafish.com, you will find the link to Club Fish. You'll also find all of our previous episodes, bits of merch. All the stuff is there. Otherwise, just come back next week because we will be back with another episode. And we will see you then. Goodbye.

57:18Shop in-store or online for items from your favorite brands like Native, Pantene, Crest, Always, Gillette, Oral-B, and Tampax and earn four times the points. Points can be redeemed for discounts on future purchases on groceries and gas. Get these deals before they're gone. Offer ends September 29th. Restrictions apply. Offers may vary. Visit JuleOsco.com for more details. When she said I don't dance now, I make money moves, that was a mission statement for a whole new generation. Respect, but that's not the Mount Rushmore. Listen, cash rules everything around me. When that line dropped, it changed the whole hustle.

57:56The greatest tracks are never finished. They're just debated forever. Introducing the Sprite Living Tracklist, 50 tracks that shaped the culture from six decades of hip-hop. Scan the QR code on a Sprite or Sprite Zero Sugar to see the full breakdown. Obey your thirst. Sprite. Mom, can you tell me a story? Sure. Once upon a time, a mom needed a new car. Was she brave? She was tired, mostly. But she went to Carvana.com and found a great car at a great price. No secret treasure map required. Did she have to find a dragon? Nope. She bought it 100 % online. From her bed, actually. Was it scary? Honey, it was as unscary as car buying could be.

58:31Did the car have a sunroof? It did, actually.

58:34James Harkin:Okay, good story. Car buying you'll want to tell stories about. Buy your car today on... Carvana! Delivery fees may apply.

From the publisher
Dan, James and Andy discuss shining holes, glittery voles, Baker's burial and Basque butterflies.
Visit nosuchthingasafish.com for news about live shows, merchandise and more episodes. 

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