No Such Thing As Aunt Bessie In A Red Citroën Picasso

0:00Hi everyone, welcome to this week's episode of No Such Thing There's A Fish, where we were joined by one of my favourite guests we've ever had. I mean, I love them all. And even though this one's from Yorkshire, I thought she was brilliant. Fighting talk. Yes, it's the brilliant Amy Gledhill. You don't want to miss this episode. You're already listening to it, so don't worry. But it was so much fun to record. Amy is absolutely terrific. It's just really, really fun. We hope you like it. The main thing she wanted to let us know about were two podcasts that she make. One is called Single Ladies in Your Area, which is her and Harriet Kemsley.

0:33And the other is Northern News, which actually James and I have both been on. It's her and Ian Smith. And it's so funny. It's so funny. It's just a brilliant show. It's so good. She didn't really say that we should mention this, but we should say also next year, she's going to be on the last one laughing. Is it, Con? Which everyone loved this year. The second season is coming out and she's going to be one of the stars of that. So she's absolutely brilliant comedian. You're going to love this show. You're going to love the 50 minute version, which is right here. But if you'd like to hear even more Amy, then there is a chance to do that and that is by joining our patreon at the plenty more fish tier because in that place not only will you get longer episodes of fish you will also get videos of our super duper mailbox show drop us a line that's right if you want more fish if you want ad free fish you want bonus content club fish is the place to join you can join it by going to patreon.com slash no such thing as a fish we've been having an absolute blast making lots of new stuff for there go there and check it out it's so much fun but in the meantime enjoy this show and honestly there is a moment in this show where i've known dan for 20 years and he told me an anecdote about his life that i cannot believe you'll know it when you hear it on with the podcast on with the show

2:02Hello and welcome to another episode of No Such Thing as a Fish, a weekly podcast coming to you from the QI offices in Hoburn. My name is Dan Schreiber. I am sitting here with Andrew Hunter Murray, James Harkin, and Amy Gledhill. And once again, we have gathered around the microphones with our four favorite facts from the last seven days. And in a particular order, here we go. Starting with fact number one, and that is Amy. Okay, in North Carolina, it's illegal to play bingo for six hours straight. I'm sorry if that's sad news for any of you. Did you learn this the hard way? Yeah, I just got out of prison this morning.

2:40It was rough. Once you're into bingo, you can't just stop. if you're mid-game and it hits the six hour point are you meant to just duck out yeah yeah yeah how long does a game of bingo it's a long time since i played bingo is it i played at university a few times is it it can't be it's multiple games surely right it can't just be one game depends on the delivery you know the caller can go as slow as he or she likes yeah right you know i found that there is actually um a bingo caller of the year competition oh yeah and you and each region, I think it split into six regions, each region you get ten finalists and then they literally compete like in a live event.

3:21In it it says to be a winner you need to be a bit of a showman or woman, a performer you need to enjoy the attention and want to make people smile but you also need to know when to be authoritative as well. An extra talent such as singing or comedy doesn't hurt either. Who's doing a song? Bingo! If you were down to one number and your heart's racing and then someone's like Make them laugh, make them laugh Come on! Do we know if the callers in the Caller of the Year Are they allowed to come up with different calls? Like Legs 11, they can do something else So interesting Because I found in other countries Sometimes they have different calls when they do bingo Right I found that in Russia They have drumsticks instead of Legs 11 And for 40 they say Alibaba Because he had 40 thieves and when they say 43 now when i was younger the bingo caller would say down on your knees 43 i'm not really sure what that meant um but in russia apparently they say stalingrad 43 due to the world war ii battle where two million people were killed so that's a bit grim isn't it i love the calls i've because i've never played bingo so have you no what i've never in my life played bingo and have i got a nice out for you now that i know all the calls i'd love it number uh what's number six tom mix do you know who tom mixes no how is tom mix made it into bingo calling he was never in it when i used to do i've never heard of tom mix tom mix he's massive he was like american cowboy actor he inspired john wayne and all these other people he's on the cover of sergeant pepper's lonely heart yeah he's one of the cutouts tom mix you could have like stevie Nick's.

5:08Stevie Nick's. Little Nick's. Little Nick's. Otto Dix, I was gonna say. Who's Otto Dix? Otto Dix? Good question. Wow, yeah, a lot of the, you find when you look at the calls, a lot of them date back to the 1920s and 30s. It's not a game that has moved with the times. There are occasional attempts to update what they call bingo lingo. Oh yeah. There was a report five years ago, completely drummed up by a bingo company, like that woke millennials were abandoning the traditional calls and they were being updated instead so um 38 avocado on a plate no um 49 time to buy a house no it doesn't work alcohol free wine i was gonna say oh amazon prime

6:00seven and don't pay any attention to the rhyme here it won't help you the number of David Beckham when he played for Man United. That's it? Oh, so Beckham. David Beckham number seven. Yeah, it works. That is good. It's not bad. It's better than the rhyme they came up with. Go on. Seven, flexitarian. Flexitarian. What's that? Someone who is vegetarian but has a bit of meat sometimes. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Classic number seven. I'm just going back to North Carolina about why it's illegal to play six hours straight. Basically, all gambling was illegal in North Carolina. But then there was this thing about charities wanted to do bingo.

6:41So they had to make it legal so the charities could do it. But they didn't want to encourage people to open bingo halls where people gamble all the time. So they put in these really tight restrictions. So as well as only being able to play for five hours at a time, you're not allowed two games of bingo within a 48-hour period of each other to be held in the same building. And also no alcohol allowed, which kind of defeats the point, I think, really. I didn't think it was a boozy thing. I think of it as being tea time. Well, these days they have bingo nights out that you can go on, which are really boozy.

7:18Do you play bingo? Oh, yeah. Do you? Oh, yeah. I was so cynical about it until about five years ago. I was like, who's going to bingo? What a stupid night out. Who cares if you've got a number on a thing and you're dabbing, you dabber on it. And then I went and it was the most exhilarating thing I've ever done. Really? It's absolutely incredible. Like I'm getting goosebumps thinking about bingo. It's because it's hard. It's like it's hard to do, which I didn't expect. Is it? Look, I know you're all very intelligent. Bingo is hard. I think that was all the numbers. I know. Yeah. I know the first hundred.

7:55I do know the first hundred. and you only need to 90 so you're going to be fine oh really it only goes up to 90 didn't know that great but it's fast and it's quick and they take no prisoners if you go oh sorry what was they've moved on forget about it much like at Stalingrad no prisoners taken there no prisoners so the kind you were playing that was so exciting yeah was it I don't I'm not trying to I'm not trying to be mean or anything go on was it classic bingo which I would think of as like blue rinse bingo yeah I'm saying like Village Hall. Yeah. You might have been one of the younger clientele.

8:32I love the way that you're trying to... What's it in the north, Thaylee? What's it in the north? Was it elderly ladies in the north? It was elderly ladies in the north. We all had chips and gravy. There was lots of cups of teas rattling on the table. And then it is silence like I have never heard before when they go, eyes down for a full house. And everyone pin drops. You can hear people's heartbeats. It's so exciting. It's so exciting. Our hearts have stopped over there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Can we get disabled 16? What was that, 16? 16 house? No, wait. Oh, God, you missed the call. My way. Oh, no.

9:12I could see how you could just be in it and come out and six hours have gone and suddenly you and 17 grannies are being incarcerated. Yeah. yeah because I know there are nights now that are things like well a friend of mine was the first ever host of Rebel Bingo and there's there's bonkers Bingo there's bongos Bingo and they're they're sort of big they're like club nights they're club nights combined with Bingo full club nights then yeah but they don't sound more full on than no I actually think your Blue Rinse Bingo is like it's a genuinely exhilarating night out we should go on like a group outing I don't think we'd be accepted because we would make noise and they wouldn't like it oh we just want to chat to each other yeah we do when we're out and if you make the single sound you'd be leaning over interesting thing about the number 37 yes i could tell you as a math graduate tom mix was actually on the front so like the modern bingo renaissance let's say i think came from mecca bingo right so anyone in that the towns of the UK will probably have had a mecca bingo or probably still do.

10:23And this was invented by Eric Morley. He also invented Strictly Come Dancing. What? Same guy. Because he ran a load of dance halls. And so he wanted to get dance halls to be big. So he did Strictly. And also when dance halls became less popular, he brought bingo in there. And in 1951, he hosted and was in charge of the first Miss World contest as well. Eric Morley. Legs 11. no fat ladies

10:54the winner was Kiki Hackinson from Sweden she was crowned wearing her bikini and the whole event was condemned by friend of the podcast Pope Pius XII who said that the whole thing was completely sinful and she wouldn't be allowed and then he basically said the bikini itself was sinful wow well you know yeah was he wrong without saying But come dancing The TV show Strictly come dancing Dancing with the Stars His family are basically Still earning Off the back of that Morley's family Yeah Morley's family And Rather excitingly He was born In Hoburn We are Within minutes walk Of the birthplace Is there a blue plaque?

11:38I don't know There better be I doubt it Mecca Bingo Got in a bit of trouble Actually Around 1997 Can you guess why? In 1997 That won't help you Is it something Sorry Is it something to do with Muslim people praying It is Is it really It's basically There were some protests by Muslims saying We don't really think this name is on Our religion doesn't really go in for gambling Actually now I think about it I think they have a good point there Yeah it was in Luton And I think maybe they'd opened up in Luton Mecca bingo, I mean. And so I think there's quite a big Muslim population there. And so there were lots of pressure.

12:20There were bricks through the windows, I'm afraid. It all got a bit tense for a while. But it is the holiest city in Islam. Yes, yeah. But it's also a catchphrase. And what it just meant was like, this is a Mecca for shopping. And the idea was, this is a Mecca for dancing. It just means this is somewhere you go when you want to dance. But obviously, where does that word come from? I suspect it comes from the fact it's the holiest city in Islam. And they said, right, we'll change our name. and then they didn't right really and 30 years later it's fine and it's still going yeah wow eric morley he was part of the british sort of raising of bingo but in america there was an there was an entirely different person called edwin s low who made it massive there and he saw it as a game that was being played in carnivals and he thought this is an amazing idea and uh it wasn't originally called bingo in america in fact it had an even more british name that you could imagine it was called beano lovely beano was the original name of bingo you know it's like an american word for a party isn't it yes yeah yeah yeah like a bean feast i guess yeah wow good old bean feast you don't get enough of that these days can i tell you a couple of quick um sort of calls that are specifically military okay because a lot of it a lot of it dates back to a lot of it dates back to the early 20th century or even the late 19th century and the army had allowed bingo, partly because they wanted to allow not total gambling, but a kind of form.

13:45It was a really popular game. And it is gambling. And really, it's just everyone puts a bit of money in and the winner gets it all. So it's not like a massive... It's not like, I don't know, slot machines or whatever. Does the house ever win? Does a game end where no one's won it? No. The house never wins. But loads of the rhyming calls traditionally date back to 19th century military, you said, because it had been allowed in the army in the first place. So, 51? Where's my gun? Oh, very nice. The Highland Division. Of course. So catchy, isn't it? There's also, was she worth it? Seven and six. I don't know why that's seven and six.

14:21The price of a lady of the night. It was the price of a marriage certificate. Oh, that's right. Yeah, I mean, similar vein, James, but slightly different. That says a lot about my relationship, doesn't it? Ah, a sex worker. No, a wife. Oh, that's it. What a conjury, though, if they were the same price and you were sent off again. Why did they put the marriage certificate office next to the brothel? How did you know that, Amy? Just straight out there. That was the price. Seven and six was the price of a marriage. Sometimes bingo knowledge is just in my bones. Yeah. Yeah. I'm really impressed. All right.

15:01Well, last one. Pompey Hoar, 24. Oh, dear. That's Portsmouth. That's Portsmouth sailors on leave. Oh no, sorry, that's where I met my wife. Wife.

15:19Okay, it is time for fact number two, and that is Andy. My fact is that in 2010, it was reported that Pizza Express was training its staff how to flirt subtly with customers so they felt more relaxed. Is it more relaxing? I wouldn't, it depends on the flirting, doesn't it? Yeah. If it's just someone being friendly and attentive. But is that flirting? Not really. This was reported basically as just a thing that Pizza Express were trying. I think it was in their Richmond branch. And they'd hired an actor to train the staff to just, you know, be a bit extra friendly, I suppose. He said, there's a difference between flirting with someone and coming on to them.

15:57We're not asking them to do that. That would be mad. It was slow down service, among other things, you know. But if you're a guy And a really gorgeous Italian girl Comes to your table It's great to meet somebody like that And says Dough bowl sir No it's just the way I'm sat

16:16Yeah And it's even better To hear her talk with passion And authenticity About the ingredients on the menu That's the flirtation We're talking about Again I just think that falls Under normal waitressing Also I don't know If Mr James knew How many of the Pizza Express staff Are actually Italian Because it's Certainly around my local It's not required No. Maybe people like flirting with you. Maybe that's just a natural thing, Andy. Oh, they're not flirting. No, they're not. No? Absolutely not. No, no, no. So they didn't take it beyond this first and only Pizza Express? They reported that they were considering rolling it out, and there the trail goes cold.

16:49Right. Yeah. It would be very tricky for the staff to hear one day, like, oh, the job role has changed ever so slightly. You're still serving the pizza. You're still taking their orders. You do need to sort of really sort of sexually excite the customers now. Excuse me? yeah it's like you do the doubles you know you make sure they've had their starters and then you just sort of look at their lips a lot and you're like no well obviously not gonna do that if someone looked at my lips when i was in pizza express i would assume i had an olive on there yeah

17:21flirting is actively not encouraged in quite a lot of industries they actively say don't flirt i saw a headline uh talking about new york taxi drivers this was genuinely the headline uh i think it was and the Independent, New York taxi drivers to be banned from flirting with or ejaculating on passengers. I think flirting can go too far at times. I mean, he's facing the wrong way. Or she.

17:51You'll never guess who I ejaculated on last week.

17:57Dan, what is this headline? It was just New York officials has said that they need to ban because flirting would be happening and people were complaining and they had people writing in saying, I'm sorry, I feel uncomfortable in the back of the cab when I'm being flirted with and or ejaculated on. Stop it. Wow. But for it to be banned, it must be happening at a frequency that's enough for it to need banning. I actually think there were already laws against ejaculators. That's banned already. There's a sauna in Leeds where there's a sign in the sauna that says, do not piss. And it says piss. It doesn't say urinate.

18:36It says do not piss on the coals. And you're like, well, how often is it happening that they needed a sign? You'd be mad to put that up and no one has ever pissed on the coals. Absolutely. Because in a way, I'd be like, well, I never thought of that. I wonder if it steams more than water. So question, is it worse to piss on the coals? As in, is that going into your pores, you know? I don't know It'll be fine Because it's water What's the problem I'm just saying It also contains urea And that's not going to be There's going to be ammonia in the air There'll be ammonia in the air definitely No one's denying that There will be a tang I just don't know if breathing in Vaporised piss is I know it's not nice I know it's not nice but I just don't know if it's a it depends how much doesn't it quantity is all that's the problem your honour I just don't know if it's any worse your honour I'm just pissed on the calls I don't think it affects anything did you see this personally yeah I said this personally and then I was sat and I was sort of like pull your pants back oh okay whoops oh no oh no good lord yeah don't piss on the call don't piss on the call it sounds like a saying like I wouldn't piss on his calls so flirting Amy you make a show about love dating romance yes yeah called Northern News called Single Ladies in Your Area I just wanted to ask if you have encountered this because you've been on dating apps oh yeah big time have you encountered people flirting with you who you suspect of using artificial intelligence I've never considered that Because this is a thing that's been coming up in the news more and more this year.

20:29People are basically coming up with responses to questions by putting it into chat GPT or whatever. And then saying, and then people are going on dates with them and finding, oh, you're not interesting or funny at all. Because everything they've done is basically been mediated through. And sometimes you'll get two people using chat GPT talking to each other. And there's basically two robots talking to each other using the medium of humans. Wow. I know. Oh my God. But you haven't found that? No, I don't think so. And if they are using ChatGPT and that's been punched up, I would hate to see what this started with.

21:05Because if they need ChatGPT to get to what you've been up to this weekend, question mark kiss, then AI is not taking over and we're fine. The person who, one of the founders of Bumble, who's Whitney Wolf Heard, reckons that soon we'll be able to have sort of AI versions of ourselves that have basically all of my lines or things that I would be likely to say will be in this AI version. And then you might have your AI version and our two AIs can meet and see if they get on. And if our little robots meet and get on, then we will get on in real life. Yeah, I mean, it kind of makes sense. It makes sense.

21:44Is that a world you want to live in? It's odd, isn't it? I'm out of that world now. I have zero opinion on it, really. I suppose the experience of being on the apps is so boring and annoying and you know lots of people chat to you for a bit and then don't then they just disappear without anything like i can imagine any shortcut to not doing that anymore would be seen as a good thing yeah well i tried it i tried chat gpt generated flirting oh yeah on whom on my wife oh okay okay but i just asked chat gpt can you come up with something flirtatious for me to say to my wife yep line one your laugh is my favorite song and your arms are my favorite place to be oh yeah she said okay and then i i thought this is going well i'll follow it up um you still give me butterflies i must have done something amazing to deserve you and she said what's going on she's like what very much have you crashed the car like yeah yeah yeah and then i said i would love to answer this but you have no more free chats left please upgrade to pro to Continue.

22:50That sealed the deal. She said, you got me. Upstairs now.

22:58Wowee. That's amazing. Grim. Can I tell you some historical flirting techniques from Lancashire, where I'm from? Oh, okay. There was a thing called promenading or promenading where a load of boys and girls would stand on opposite sides of a road to each other. And they wouldn't say anything. They'd just try and make eye contact with each other. And sort of like smile and stuff like that. And then everyone would go home. And if the girl fancied the boy, she would leave a cake outside his house. And then that would mean they were dating. So you would know. It feels like that could create confusion.

23:33What if you made eye contact with two people and you found one cake outside your house? Yeah. Maybe the cake has their name on it. That's a good idea. Is this in your day? Or is this? Still my day, Dan. Still my day. Got the seven and six ready. No, this is early 20th century. So a little bit before my day. Just on the cusp. And then there's a guy called Spanking Roger, who's one of my favorite people in history. And he got together with his partner through a thing that used to happen on the moors just outside Manchester. And they would have a naked race of all the young lads in the town. And then the girls would sort of stand there watching and sort of eye up the form of everyone there.

24:18And then a bit later, they'd all go down the pub and they'd go, oh, yeah, I like the look of you. Oh, my God. Did you see it was called Spanking? Spanking Roger, yeah, because he was also a boxer. No, no. Some further questions. No, he would beat people up, like beat people in the ring. He'd give you a spanking. Right, right, right. Wow. It's like a live naked attraction. Yeah. Before it happened. moving like moving those are naked attractions you don't know how well they can move they're just standing there aren't they it's a good point actually that's a really good point tell me uh amy why do humans flirt why do humans like why do we not just come up to each other and say i want to have sex with you and then have children that way oh i don't know it'd be much easier if we were allowed to do that wouldn't it god i i honestly think that would be fantastic if we could all just be honest and be like you're physically attractive i think we should push our meat sacks together like i think that would just be so much easier but i don't know there's a new york taxi driver listening to this right now preach um i guess there must be some sort of evolutionary thing is is it to see if you're like a good match kind of yeah so the problem is that humans used to spend a lot of time in very small groups and if you decide that you want to get together with someone and they rebuff you you can't just move to london and then sort of move to a new place and get a new life or anything you're stuck in that place so the only way to do it is to give very sort of small signals that you can deny if someone says you know so it's deniability basically wow that's clever because there is this thing of lots of people don't know when they're being flirted with yeah yeah and i'm afraid amy women are especially bad at it is this just your personal opinion.

26:12You're like, I flirt all the time and no one gives me anything bad. Genetically, they're just not good at it. Actually, it's women and men. So women sort of sometimes underperceive when they're being flirted with and men overperceive it. So it will often be like male students when asked, they're likelier than women to misinterpret friendly gestures as sexual interest. and many mistake but many people do mistake sexual cues as amicable signals but often if you're a straight man the nervous woman smiling at you is not flirting with you she's nervous and you're thinking oh she's flirting with me and women underestimate her and there is a theory that this leads to the idea of the friend zone which is not a real or it's the idea that the friend zone is not a real thing it's that people are just drastically misinterpreting each other's cues and men are saying oh I've been friend zoned and actually that's not what has happened it's just that she's just not that into you to coin a phrase and so yeah yeah it's tricky and I think a lot of women I think you are really having to be friendly if you're like feeling unsafe so you know like if you're like on a train and a scary man sits next to you and he might think he's flirting and you kind of can't say please don't talk to me I hate this so you have to go like oh really oh that's nice and he'll be like she's into it but you're thinking don't harm me don't kill me don't fight out where i live but you're i guess you're giving off kind of friendly ish signals as a kind of safety device yeah yeah and i guess guys will be like she loves this there is only one way around this and that is boys on one side of the road girls on the other side of the road there's subtle link cakes i think any flirting with cakes is fantastic um can i tell you something very quickly that i found that that links in i guess sexy stuff and pizza emporiums.

28:05Oh yeah. Oh wow. Okay. So there was an article that said Pizza Hut responds to furious Hull customer who claims ketchup bottle label sounds like swingers app. So I was like well what the hell are they calling their ketchup in Pizza Hut? Do you want to guess what they name it? Squirty. Yeah. So they call it shake, squeeze and squirt. And he was like that is too sexual. Yeah. That's a great direction. I think if it's on a ketchup bottle, I think it's not too sexual. Context is all. Yes. Yeah. There's a penis tattoo.

28:44If you just tap it on the top, it'll come out much quicker. Turn it upside down and bang the bottom really hard. If it doesn't work, stick a knife in it.

29:02okay it is time for fact number three and that is my fact my fact this week is that in 1931 laurel and hardy simultaneously filmed up to five versions of every movie that they made each time speaking in a different language despite the fact that they only knew english lovely this is this is a fascinating bit of hollywood uh which often doesn't get mentioned which is when it was the silent era when you were sending movies over to europe or any other country it was very easy you replace the card with the words on it right and so people had these massive fan bases all over the world laurel and hardy in particular had a big big fan base in spain and italy and other countries in europe and then when it became the talkie movies suddenly they were not understanding it and they didn't have the technology to do subtitles at the time so what used to happen was and this was an idea of hal roach who was this amazing movie mogul he said we're going to film every single scene of everything you film from now in up to five different languages and they had to learn phonetically how to say all of the dialogue there was half an hour of rehearsals for each scene where they had to learn the phrases they had speech coaches of the language there with them telling them to do it you know what i thought when I read this is there's no way they did it very well right because as someone who's learning a language right now you can know exactly how to say something but you try and say it until a native speaker it doesn't quite sound right yeah so that's definitely true and I think the interesting thing was I read a report about it which said Spanish audiences took special satisfaction in seeing Laurel Orhardy squirming under the burden of a difficult Castilian phrase and so it's sort of almost funnier yeah seeing knowing that they're having to do it and knowing they can't do it very well everyone else was a perfect speaker so they surrounded them in the so all the other actors were perfect i presume or maybe they subbed in the actors and like said right get the spanish cast in now and they'll do it with them so yeah that might have been it a lot of these movies are now lost because they weren't the main thing that people were keeping for posterity right like the the english-speaking versions were um but it's exactly that they loved it when laurel or hardy could just mumble a sentence you know it doesn't matter it's comedy it's fine we just want to see them falling over with a piano i bet they knew how to say oh no piano in so many different languages the great thing about piano is it's the same in almost every language yeah but yeah i i i was thinking about double acts because amy you're part of a double act to work i still am still am the delightful sausage yeah yeah it's a catchy name that we we never thought we would be a double act we just needed to run a comedy night together.

31:42And we was like, what should we call it? And Chris had literally just had breakfast and he'd said, that was a delightful sausage. And we were like, yeah, yeah, yeah, that'll do it. Ten years later, we're like, we should have thought about that name just like a bit more. It's a brilliant name. It's a great name. Do you think? It's amazing. I mean, the word sausage is the funniest word in the US language. We recently learned as part of No Such Thing as a Fish that the word sausage has been in our titles more than any other word out there. Outside of like with and or and so on. It's our number one word.

32:08So you're on to it. something wow because you could have gone something and something yeah and that's like Laurel and Hardy is the classic one and you know Cannonball Hail and Pace all of that all those things like the Mighty Boosh where it's not clear that it's a double act yes I reckon the Mighty Boosh is similar to your name because that's named after his hair wasn't it like Northfield he's got a Mighty Boosh yeah oh my god oh wow has one of you got a he's flirting he's flirting I feel unsafe but yeah Chris does have a huge boot.