No Such Thing As Jack Can't Reacher

7:43Dan Schreiber:I think it was a third of subscribers that. I mean that's a big hit isn't it?

7:46Anna Ptaszynski:That's one article you feel so.

7:48Andy Watts:You know what she wrote another book in 1873 called Women in Sacred History where she said that one of the apostles was a woman, Lydia she was just an edgelard. The hits just keep on coming. That's stunning.

8:01Dan Schreiber:And the clue is in the name, isn't it? Lydia the Apostle? How has no one else spotted that?

8:07Anna Ptaszynski:Did you say which of the apostles was secretly? Lydia. No, but which was that Thomas?

8:13Andy Watts:No, I think like the Bible just, there are actually 13 apostles, but the Bible never mentions it. I see.

8:19Anna Ptaszynski:It must have been one of the Judases.

8:20Andy Watts:Well, there were two Judases.

8:22Anna Ptaszynski:There were two Jameses. One of them must have been the Lydia. I reckon. You just like panicked and gave the name of the person she was looking at. That's what you do, isn't it? So Mrs. Doubtfire moment. Just quickly on the Byron thing. It's because she was great mates with Lady Byron. Because after Uncle Tom's Cabin, she met everyone. She was friends with so many eminent people. George Eliot, she? Great mates. But this wrecked her reputation, the Byron book. There was so much criticism. She had to hire a secretary to deal with the correspondence and hire a lawyer. And the person who stood up for her, I'm afraid, enemy of the podcast, Mark Twain.

8:56Anna Ptaszynski:He stood up for her and he was really good about,

8:59James Harkin:you know it and i just think that's invindicated a bit they were mates they were mates but have you seen what he's written about her in their later life because they were neighbors not just

9:07Dan Schreiber:mates oh what did he say about it's not very nice she trimmed the hedge wrong and yeah the

9:13Andy Watts:dog would shit in his garden as well no he said her mind had decayed and she was a pathetic figure but i think he means pathetic not as in we mean pathetic yeah that's absolutely that's not

9:24Dan Schreiber:criticism. I read that wrong then. Yeah, that no, it's pathetic back then would have meant someone that you feel really sorry for because she's got really unwell.

9:32Andy Watts:And then he wrote people in the area where they both of them lived would leave their doors open and then Harriet Beecher Stowe would go into their houses and then push them over and go whoop whoop. It's the sound of the police.

9:46James Harkin:Whoop whoop.

9:48Andy Watts:She wrote that as well. But then also that she would play her piano and you'd hear her singing melancholic songs to great effect. Yeah, no, they were mates. They were mates. Okay, cool. Can we finally talk about her husband? Because we talk about these women all the time on this podcast, don't we? Agreed. She wrote a lot of stuff, but he did write a pamphlet. And the pamphlet that he wrote described the frequent visitations from tiny fairies that danced on his windowsill. Really? Yeah.

10:19Dan Schreiber:That does sound better.

10:20Anna Ptaszynski:And I bet he talked about his pamphlet much more than she talked about her like 50 seminal books and crucial impact on 19th century literature well i can tell you that

10:29Andy Watts:his fairies that he saw were ruled over by king and queen who were slightly larger than the other fairies but they had a sinister and selfish expression on their faces that stopped him from trusting them even though they always smiled there is something sinister about them so he

10:42Anna Ptaszynski:didn't trust these fairies sorry is this a vision he had and then he wrote into a pamphlet or is he like is this a metaphor for something it's not a metaphor it's just yeah it's what he thought yeah

10:50Dan Schreiber:That's kind of sad because I know he was very encouraging of her literary career and she probably felt like she should do the same for him.

10:56Anna Ptaszynski:I just need a quick quote for the cover, darling, if that's all right. Just like something about the fairies and how they're really well described.

11:04Andy Watts:Yeah, I will.

11:05Anna Ptaszynski:Sorry, I've got to go meet Queen Victoria now.

11:13James Harkin:Okay, it is time for fact number two and that is Andy.

11:17Anna Ptaszynski:My fact is, some tortoises have hinges. So these are imaginatively named animals called hingeback tortoises. And there are loads of species and they have a hinge at the back. It's like a hatchback car.

11:29Andy Watts:And it means their back can just go boom and close up when they're trying to retreat into their shell.

11:35Anna Ptaszynski:There are loads of different species. There's the forest, there's bells, there's the homes, there's the western. I saw some of them two weeks ago, which is why I submitted this fact. That's so cool. Could you see the hinge? I couldn't get my arm quite far enough into the enclosure to do... It was a shame, but I read all about them. This was in a little rainforest experience near Reading.

11:59Dan Schreiber:It's the home of rainforest experiences.

12:01Anna Ptaszynski:It's a fantastic place. It's amazing the stuff they have there. Anyway, and they have these.

12:05Dan Schreiber:Sorry, when you say retreat into their shell, I would have thought that that would be on the front. They'd retract their heads in and then they'd drop a hinge down, but they're retreating their bottom into their shell and then they're shutting off their bottom of the business.

12:15Anna Ptaszynski:basically their legs and their tail just go back in i don't think any species has yet evolved a front hinge but that's something evolution is probably working on so if the predator comes

12:23Andy Watts:from the front they're buggered well i don't know i mean because you're always going to be running away from a predator aren't you so it does make sense that you're closing the back yeah they can

12:33Anna Ptaszynski:retreat a fair bit inside i think they can pull obviously they can pull their heads in i just don't know how far in there are some which have a really awkward thing where they put their head in and to the side and they just sort of scooch in there like that i'm doing it now for the

12:45Dan Schreiber:benefit of listeners you've done a lot of physical stuff so far in this fact for the benefit of

12:49Andy Watts:listeners that they're enjoying there's more to come i believe also um the hinge helps them to open their shell a bit further and lay their eggs and they have eggs that are bigger than average

12:59Anna Ptaszynski:for a turtle which means that the hinge is useful brilliant they're mutant turtles they do live into

13:06Dan Schreiber:their teens i believe yeah and we should say just because you've chucked in the word turtle now and i didn't look into them but they are tortoises right yeah they are tortoises cool although they're often used interchangeably and we've talked about the difference before well tortoise is a

13:16James Harkin:turtle but a turtle is not a tortoise yeah okay i get it yeah i don't and they also their shell

13:22Andy Watts:is slightly different than normal shells it's got a little channel that when it rains the water goes down the channel and goes straight to their mouth what no it doesn't they've got guttering what like one of those american sports hats that has a straw that comes right in exactly like that they shouldn't be the hingeback tortoise they should be the beer can hat tortoise

13:44Anna Ptaszynski:That's unbelievable

13:46Andy Watts:That's incredible

13:47Anna Ptaszynski:That's so evolution man I know we say it Week in week out On this show But it's grown up

13:52Andy Watts:Some cracking stuff It does well

13:54Anna Ptaszynski:Yeah There are also There are box turtles And they are Slightly different I think they might Also be a kind of Tortoise But they're definitely Called the box turtle And they have a hinge On their belly Which helps them To close the front And back half Up like a box When they flex it So they become A hinge on your belly

14:11Dan Schreiber:does sound like all your innards are going to drop out every time you open it.

14:15Anna Ptaszynski:I believe it goes the opposite way to that. Yes.

14:17Dan Schreiber:Right.

14:17Anna Ptaszynski:I think it's closing up, not opening out.

14:22Andy Watts:Splitting open. Yeah.

14:23Dan Schreiber:Got to pick that up.

14:24Anna Ptaszynski:Yeah.

14:24Andy Watts:I find that hard to visualize without any acting.

14:27Anna Ptaszynski:I know.

14:27Andy Watts:It's a thing.

14:28Anna Ptaszynski:I'm not getting on the floor.

14:29Andy Watts:I'm sorry.

14:30Anna Ptaszynski:But the eastern box turtle was going to be made the official state emblem or one of the official state emblems of Virginia. You know, every American state has like, this is the official state fern and the official state... Ice cream flavour. Yeah, exactly. And so Virginia, they suggested a couple of times in different years, bills to honour the eastern box turtle. And I just really like this. I think this is from the Wikipedia about them. In 2009, delegate Frank Hargrove of Hanover asked why Virginia would make an official emblem of an animal that retreats into its shell when frightened and dies by the thousands crawling across roads.

15:06Anna Ptaszynski:I just think that's such a mean thing.

15:08Dan Schreiber:Yeah, it's got other assets. And it's not its fault that we've created the car no exactly oh um on uh turtles being able to do entertaining things yeah in the olden days uh and i found this out in a study which was called tortoise rides and alligator slides in zoos that had tortoises just tortoise rides were the thing it was like

15:29Andy Watts:the donkey ride but it was a tortoise ride i've seen a photo of rothschild on the back of a

15:34Dan Schreiber:tortoise? Rothschild loved riding his tortoise, yes. But if you went to the zoo... We should say

15:38Anna Ptaszynski:zoologist Walter Rothschild, who was a big old collector.

15:42Andy Watts:Does anyone know who Rothschild is? Or it might be that I couldn't remember his first name, so I just said his surname.

15:49Dan Schreiber:But this is what you would do if you went to any zoo which had giant tortoises, then they would offer rides and it would either be just lots of children would climb on top or they had little tortoise carriages and the tortoise would pull it.

16:00Anna Ptaszynski:That is cute. It was cute. I don't know why we stopped doing that.

16:05Dan Schreiber:No, let's bring it back.

16:07Anna Ptaszynski:So what's an alligator slide? Sorry.

16:10Dan Schreiber:The alligator slide? No, it was said in this study that this was the most outrageous thing that they made animals do. But basically it was making an alligator go up a four metre high-ish ramp and then sliding down a steep slide, which sounds to me incredibly fun. You wouldn't have to make me do that.

16:25Andy Watts:You're not an alligator, though, are you?

16:27Dan Schreiber:I'm not an alligator. Also, alligator rides were commonly offered. There are lots of pictures of children sitting on the backs of alligators.

16:35Anna Ptaszynski:Not for your most loved child, though.

16:37Dan Schreiber:I think it would be the least favourite. Yeah, number three.

16:40Andy Watts:I guess if you lock the mouth shut, you're OK if you're not in water? You can hold the mouth shut with no force at all. With elastic band, you can hold the mouth shut. And that's what you'll say to child number three.

16:51Anna Ptaszynski:Come on, little Johnny, you're stronger than an elastic band on you. What kind of parrot are you if you see an elastic band over their mouth?

16:56James Harkin:You go, yeah, it's all good, man. It's all good.

16:59Dan Schreiber:I could say in the pictures I saw I think the mouth was hanging open as it trundled along with the child but I'm sure they were very well trained

17:06Andy Watts:because just to say the jaws of these animals like crocodiles and alligators and caimans they're really strong for closing and they're really weak for opening

17:14James Harkin:no absolutely that's the kind of QI fact that in real life I'm not sure

17:20Andy Watts:I'm willing to put my reputation on the line and my genitals

17:24Anna Ptaszynski:now you have fed this alligator a very good breakfast already right I think so It was either today Or last week That he had breakfast I'm sure he's still full Have you guys heard Other unusual tortoises And turtles and things The African pancake tortoise The African pancake No This is a great one I'm going to say flat It's flat It's got a flat shell But the cool thing about it Is not only that But it's that it can flip over Very quickly When it lands on its back Because It's so light It's a bit like You know in Robot Wars There's always one That can right itself Yeah And those are always the most dangerous robots of all.

17:59Anna Ptaszynski:But you're saying this can flip onto its back very quickly.

18:01James Harkin:I'm saying it flips off its back. It's got it.

18:04Andy Watts:It can right itself. So the thing is with tortoises is like, at least in cartoons, they end up on their back and they can't get back onto their feet, right?

18:12Anna Ptaszynski:I think that is real.

18:13Dan Schreiber:Yeah, I think it takes twice or three times as much energy for most of them to do that as it would to walk. So that's great.

18:19Anna Ptaszynski:Well, the African pancake one, though, it has a very light shell, which means it can run much faster than your average tortoise. But it's not got a big defence because it's got a very light shell. So when it's threatened, it just runs for cover and it runs under a rocky crevice and then breathes in like a puffer fish. And it's impossible to pull it out because it's just wedged in there. Oh, so cool. The rock becomes the shell. Yeah. Wow.

18:41Dan Schreiber:You've really got to find the perfect shape rock. I can imagine running to a huge pile of rocks and staring panic. So all of them, I can't get under that one. That one's too big. That one's where's the rock that's made for me. But cool.

18:50James Harkin:That's a really good point. Do they suss out the local rocks ahead of them? I don't have data We found the notebooks of tortoises With all the rock locations Well because they do an interesting thing Whereby they'll often sleep in a bit Where they know the sun is going to get to them in the morning So this is not all species of tortoises But a lot

19:07Anna Ptaszynski:They can anticipate the path of the sun Yeah

19:09James Harkin:Quite clever So that's where they will sleep So they know that when the sun hits in the morning It warms them up and it gets them going They only have to have been there for the previous morning They've got good memories

19:17Andy Watts:Yeah okay

19:18Anna Ptaszynski:It's not so okay

19:19Andy Watts:Unless they go to a new place on holiday And they just work out which way is east and west

19:24Anna Ptaszynski:That's quite cool because I've failed to do that on holiday when parking the car, for example. You park the hire car under the shade of the one tree and you think, oh, that'll be right for four hours.

19:32Andy Watts:Same getting on a train and you sit on one side of the train and you're like, oh, this will be beautiful. And then suddenly you're in there.

19:39Anna Ptaszynski:You're in an oven.

19:40Dan Schreiber:Well, that's because you're both warm-blooded creatures. So you don't understand the necessity. If you were a tortoise, you would have died on that train. You would have died in that car.

19:49Andy Watts:It's more important. But when the ticket collector came, I ran and hid between some perfectly sized suitcases.

19:56Dan Schreiber:The Galapagos Islands tortoises, very famous because of Darwin going there, finding them. And they were also really endangered, partly because we ate them all. So Darwin came across them. They had delicious meat.

20:09Anna Ptaszynski:He rode them too, didn't he?

20:11Dan Schreiber:I think he did. Did he ride them?

20:12Anna Ptaszynski:I think there were pictures of him having a cheeky ride. Yeah, he was good.

20:16Dan Schreiber:If you're the one who's discovered them.

20:18Andy Watts:Yeah. I think if you discover any species, you should be allowed to ride it. Yes, that's a good rule. Just you.

20:26Anna Ptaszynski:The incredibly fragile bat.

20:27Andy Watts:No, I'm getting on there. Saddle it up. I think if you discover a new species, you get a little card and you can go to any zoo in the world. You just pull it out and you go, I'm allowed to ride this.

20:40Anna Ptaszynski:The llama is recovering from a serious lumbar region surgery. It doesn't matter.

20:45Dan Schreiber:So, yeah, they were big and delicious. and they were endangered. And actually on the island of Española, there's a specific kind of giant tortoise, which was down to 14 in number in the 1970s. But now their numbers have really recovered and there are over 3 ,000 because of breeding programs. And the reason it's really important to conserve them, one of the reasons, is that they're extremely important for albatrosses because they facilitate something about albatross lives. What do you think of when you think albatrosses?

21:13Andy Watts:I think of them at sea, bad luck. Yeah, ancient marina. Yeah, Shotwell Rears, Crossbow, Cursed. They fly for extremely long periods. That's good. Big wingspans.

21:24Dan Schreiber:There we go. You can have your guess, Dan, but we've got the rounds.

21:27Anna Ptaszynski:I think... You know that phrase in card games, a dead rubber, where there's absolutely no consequence whatsoever.

21:33Andy Watts:I want to see Dan on University Challenge where someone buzzes in, Lord Byron, that's correct. Dan goes, no, no, I'm going to have another guess. Sorry, Jeremy, just quickly.

21:43James Harkin:I think

21:44Andy Watts:that

21:45James Harkin:quite often they need to crack things open and there's nothing that's really hard around so an albatross will fly over a giant tortoise, drop the item, be it an egg or whatever it cracks open on their tortoise shell Like a reverse Aeschylus Yes, exactly

22:02Dan Schreiber:That's correct, that's actually how albatrosses hatch their eggs is they drop them all on the backs of tortoises

22:07Andy Watts:So Aeschylus supposedly died when an eagle always carrying a tortoise and dropped it on his head because thinking it was a rock exactly yeah this is the opposite of that is he right anna um he's not it's really more about andy's

22:19Dan Schreiber:answer that they're very big wingspans yeah mean that uh they and the fact they're very large anyway they need a long runway to take off because they keep running and flapping but like it's one and they need to be very wide and as soon as the tortoises went what they do is they tramp up and down the mountains all day and they tramp down the vegetation in straight lines and they make these flawless, huge runways. And without them, the albatrosses can't take off. So the albatrosses were all dying out as well.

22:45James Harkin:I don't think Andy got that right.

22:47Anna Ptaszynski:I think he just said wings and you filled in the rest. They were very big. And I was about to go on to say exactly that about runways. Sorry. If you're a cuckold in northern China. Yeah. Big shout out to the cuckolds in northern China. I know you guys are listening. You've got time on your hands. Now she's gone. you're known as a tortoise. That term survives. It's a hundreds of years old term.

23:12Dan Schreiber:Really?

23:13Anna Ptaszynski:Yeah.

23:14Dan Schreiber:What? Why is it? Is it about being too slow and so someone's whipped someone out from under your nose? Oh, very good, but it's not right.

23:19Andy Watts:I think it was going into your shell, something like that. That's it. So they are associated...

23:24James Harkin:Hang on a second.

23:25Anna Ptaszynski:I think I know. Basically, I think they're associated with, I'm sorry to say, a detumescing penis. And so it's all sort of shrinking down and going soft. and you're shirking danger as well. So that's why. Thank God he didn't act that one out. I am, Dan, I am. You just can't see under the table.

23:46Andy Watts:Can I say one thing about hinges? Yeah. Oh, okay, yeah. So there's a door in this room. Yeah. It leads to the next room and there are three hinges on it. What can you tell me about the spacing of the top and bottom hinges?

24:00James Harkin:The equidistance? Yeah, they seem... They seem it, don't they? Yeah, they seem the same distance from the top of the bottom.

24:05Dan Schreiber:Is the bottom one actually a bit closer

24:06Andy Watts:to the middle one compared to the top one the bottom one is further from the floor than the top one is from the top oh and there's a few reasons for that one of them is it's an illusion so to you it looked about the same but actually it's not the same and that's because of the foreshortening effect so when things are slightly further away distance looks different and the other thing is the top of your door the hinge is holding more of the weight so the top one needs to be closer to the top.

24:34Dan Schreiber:Closer to the pivot because it's holding more weight.

24:36Andy Watts:Exactly. We can all agree

24:37Anna Ptaszynski:the middle one is not pulling its weight though, right? What's it even doing?

24:41Andy Watts:What's middle hinge doing? The middle one is there just because three is a good number for the size of a door. I guess it helps with the illusion as well, right? Yeah, it does. But the middle one is usually exactly in the middle.

24:51Dan Schreiber:That's very good to know this. If you ever climb a step ladder and suddenly look at your door and think, hang on, the hinges are all off and then you get down and think they're not again, that's just the illusion.

25:00Anna Ptaszynski:It might not just be the illusion. if you're doing DIY Anna it might be like

25:04James Harkin:and with this particular door James the frame that's around this door is not on the bottom but is on the top

25:10Andy Watts:oh yeah

25:10James Harkin:is that creating anything towards that illusion as well that I'm adding in the frame can't hurt love that

25:18Dan Schreiber:that's the last question of the night because this is who wants to get home

25:24Andy Watts:and all questions don't go bye

25:32James Harkin:Okay, it is time for fact number three, and that is Anna.

25:36Dan Schreiber:My fact this week is that after Frida Kahlo died, all her clothes and possessions spent 50 years in a bathroom.

25:44Anna Ptaszynski:Wow. Functioning bathroom?

25:46Dan Schreiber:People weren't going in and out using it, no. No number ones, no number twos.

25:50James Harkin:Big bathroom? Because presumably she had a lot of possessions.

25:53Dan Schreiber:She did have a hell of a lot of stuff in there, because it must have been. So just to tell you how this happened, It wasn't necessarily the plan, but Frida Kahlo died in 1954.

26:03Andy Watts:She was a Mexican artist.

26:06Dan Schreiber:And yes, to go back one step further, she was a Mexican artist.

26:09Anna Ptaszynski:Famously monobrowed.

26:11Dan Schreiber:Famously monobrowed, yes.

26:13Andy Watts:Imagine Oasis. Yes. But they're Mexican, and instead of singing songs, they paint stuff.

26:19Dan Schreiber:Yes. And she modelled herself on Oasis, actually. So I think you've got the picture. She dies in 1954. Her very famous also husband, Diego Rivera, shut all of her belongings in a bathroom in her house, which is called the Blue House in Mexico City. And it was a house where she'd been born, where she'd grown up and where she and Diego Rivera lived and where she died. And he said, I want all of her possessions to be locked in here until 15 years after I die.

26:48James Harkin:15.

26:48Dan Schreiber:15. I know a bit of a twist coming. and we don't really know why we think like out of sensitivity for her things that might be revealed and thought you know give it a bit of time because it's all her letters and stuff but basically he entrusted this task to a woman called Dolores Almeido who was a huge fan of Diego Rivera as all women sort of were he was obviously a compelling man so I think she probably fancied him and definitely adored him didn't really like Frida and so she just never took him out she just locked him in the bathroom waited Diego Rivera died a few years later and she just kept them in there.

27:22Andy Watts:Of constipation.

27:26Dan Schreiber:Because the bathroom door was locked. Indeed. No, but the rest of the house was full of shit by the time they got there. And yeah, it was only in 2004 after she died that someone said, should we open that bathroom full of Frida Kahlo shit and see what's in there? And it's all her stuff. 22 ,000 documents, 300 items of clothing, 6 ,000 photos, her prosthetic leg, her back brace, Oh, wow. All of her makeup, textiles.

27:51Andy Watts:So why did she need a prosthetic leg and a back brace?

27:54Dan Schreiber:Oh, yes. Well, this is all part of her great story, isn't it? Yeah. Of pain and injury.

27:59Anna Ptaszynski:Well, she had a terrible, nearly fatal bus crash when she was 18. She was involved in that. She had already got polio as a girl. She already had to wear a prosthesis on her right leg due to the polio. And then this bus crash completely wrecked her life. She broke her pelvis, her collarbone, her ribs, her back. most of her life she had to wear plaster corsets to support her and so much of this as anna says made its way into her art it frequently about pain yeah i mean it's frequently just this she's got this really badly broken body for the rest of her life painted her casts quite a lot didn't

28:31Andy Watts:she that was kind of some of the first painting she did was on her cast and she even painted the bus that hit her yeah on her cast which i think is pretty badass we should talk a bit about this

28:41Dan Schreiber:crash because it was an extreme crash she was with her boyfriend she was about 18 it was 19 1825. And basically a tram ploughed very slowly into their bus. And the boyfriend remembers his knees were suddenly touching the knees of the people sitting on the bench opposite as it bent. And then the whole vehicle splintered into a million pieces. And as well as all those horrendous breakages, probably the worst thing that happened was she got impaled on a steel handrail that went straight through her abdomen. And she didn't realise at the time the extent of her injuries, She says, I guess you don't in the shock of the moment.

29:16Dan Schreiber:She said, the first thing I thought of was this Mexican toy that I just got. And I thought, oh, no, where is it? I've lost it in the wreckage. And her boyfriend looked at her and was like, yeah, you're also impaled on a large metal spike. Wow. And they had to pull it out. Oh, God. And also the other mad detail that she's covered in blood, obviously. But then someone who they speculated was probably a house painter was carrying a big box of gold paint, sparkly gold paint. And that sort of flew through the air and landed all over her as well. Oh my God. So she was covered in blood with all these gold sprinkles all over her.

29:47James Harkin:And then a piano that was being lifted into a building dropped on top of it.

29:51Dan Schreiber:It's so art.

29:51Anna Ptaszynski:Every Laurel and Hardy. It is absolutely extraordinary. It's just really, really kind of baroquely awful. So she started painting, partly in recovery from this. And she's an amazing artist. I didn't really know much of her work before this. Like frequently self-portraits and self-portraits throughout her life, you know. And then she met Diego Rivera, who was a mural painter. Yeah.

30:14Dan Schreiber:incredibly famous

30:16Anna Ptaszynski:much older than her

30:17Andy Watts:like 20 years a senior twice her age

30:20Anna Ptaszynski:twice her age he'd been married twice before his doctor had told him he was unfit for monogamy as a diagnosis

30:28Dan Schreiber:what are you complaining about with a doctor when you book that GP appointment

30:31Andy Watts:I just know that when you book a doctor's appointment in the UK I don't know if it's for everyone but I have to go on a website and I have to click all the things that are wrong with me and monogamy has never been one of the checkboxes

30:43James Harkin:Did he have that as like, you know, if he got caught,

30:45Anna Ptaszynski:he would show that note to his partner and just say... I think he did get caught a lot. I mean, he had so many affairs. Yeah, so did she. Yeah. Well, she made a tortoise out of him. I'll tell you that much. But he also made a tortoise out of her a lot.

30:59Dan Schreiber:Sorry, what's the making of the tortoise?

31:00Anna Ptaszynski:We're in Northern China, aren't we? Sorry, I've forgotten that bit. Her sister he had an affair with? Yeah. For God's sake, Diego.

31:08James Harkin:Well, they had a very interesting setup there when they moved into their marital house. weirdly it was two houses connected by a rooftop bridge and so he had his studio in one of them she had her studio in the other but they just had their own pads for sleeping with him models and assistants and her with just men and women that she fancied and leon trotsky and leon trotsky quite the twist what a cameo

31:36Anna Ptaszynski:extraordinary i can't get over the trotsky thing i can't get over the fact she had an affair with Leon Trotsky. When he was, you know, he'd fled, he'd been kicked out of Russia, hadn't he?

31:45Andy Watts:So he was like a revolutionary who fell out with Stalin, basically.

31:48Anna Ptaszynski:And that was not the thing to do in the 30s. No, no, no, no, no.

31:51Andy Watts:Of all the people in the world to fall out with, he was one of the worst.

31:55Anna Ptaszynski:Absolutely, absolutely.

31:56Dan Schreiber:And he needed somewhere to go, didn't he, that was safe? And actually it was Diego and...

32:01Anna Ptaszynski:Spoiler, he was assassinated a few years later by one of Stalin's henchmen. Sure.

32:05Dan Schreiber:So he didn't find that place in the end, it turns out. But he did meet Diego and Frida and they begged the Mexican president to let him into the country and just house him. So the president said, okay, we'll house him. And then they kept him in their house for two years and their affair was very short. It was just at the start in 1937.

32:22Andy Watts:He was also married.

32:23Dan Schreiber:Yes, and he bought his wife.

32:25Anna Ptaszynski:Mrs. Trotsky was around. Mrs. Trotsky is a funny name. I just think that's a funny, you don't think of, and is there a Mrs. Trotsky?

32:30Dan Schreiber:It sounds like a little piglet.

32:34Anna Ptaszynski:Pepper pig, mind the character. But some of their meetings, Frida's and Leon, Trotsky's, they took place at the house of the very sister who had slept with Frida's husband, Diego. Right. Oh, it's messy.

32:50James Harkin:His death was wild as well, Trotsky's.

32:52Dan Schreiber:Trotsky's.

32:52James Harkin:Yeah, because he was killed with an ice pick.

32:54Dan Schreiber:Yeah.

32:55James Harkin:And the guy was a mountaineer who did it, so he knew how to swing one, and he thought, I could probably get it in two goes. He didn't want to fire a gun because he didn't want to raise the noise. He needed to escape from this compound that Trotsky was staying in. But he did it. It went into his skull, but not deep enough to kill him. So Trotsky was running around going, there's a nice pic in my head. Can we talk about the brows? Her famous brow? The bruise. Oh, okay, yeah.

33:15Anna Ptaszynski:Not her brows, her brow. She emphasised that, didn't she? Yeah. She painted it on, she made it up. She emphasised her moustache as well. She had a tiny little bit of moustachiness, but she really emphasised it to make herself seem strong, basically, masculine. Yeah.

33:30Andy Watts:She did really like that sort of, she really did push her brand, didn't she? Like she claimed that she was born on a day that she wasn't born at because it was the same year as the Mexican Revolution.

33:43Dan Schreiber:Yeah, I mean, three years apart. It wasn't like she claimed she was born the next week.

33:47Andy Watts:She came to her three years later. Wow.

33:50Dan Schreiber:Or coincidence that makes her three years younger.

33:52Andy Watts:But then, of course, like it's still the case now. Like Frida Kahlo, if you look at all the kind of art books that my daughter's got three years old, I've all got Frida Kahlo in. She's just such a brand, isn't she?

34:04Dan Schreiber:She invented an aesthetic that is unmistakable.

34:06Andy Watts:I genuinely think my three-year-old would be able to recognize Frida Kahlo. Yeah, right.

34:09Dan Schreiber:That makes sense.

34:10James Harkin:Well, they did a Barbie of her as well. Yeah. And the Barbie got banned in Mexico because, weirdly, they took away the monobrow as part of the look, this iconic look. They made her incredibly slim. So the family, basically...

34:22Andy Watts:Yeah, it wasn't the government banned it. Yeah. There was a lawsuit because they didn't want this to be sold in Mexico, and they pulled it off the shelves.

34:30Dan Schreiber:Did she really not have a monobrow? The Barbie? Yeah. The most famous thing about her. Extraordinary decision, isn't it?

34:35James Harkin:And so, Andy, as you said, she did paint herself a lot. So apparently in total, it's 143 paintings, 55 of which were self-portraits. And they're very surrealistic. I didn't realize she was as surreal as she was. There's one which is called My Birth, where she's giving birth to herself. So you see her head coming out of her own vagina. You don't see that it's her because there's a sheet over the head of the person giving birth. but through notes that she left in her diary and so on we know that that was her being represented underneath the sheet now that is owned by madonna we know that madonna owns roughly five self portraits by frida carlo two of which we know the names of that one and then there's another one where there's a monkey on the side of her arm has madonna got that one yeah madonna's got that yeah and madonna has been quoted in vanity fair as saying when she brings people over who are new people in her life she'll show them the my birth one and if they don't like it she'll know that they're not going to be a long-term friend i feel really sad about that about what that i'm never

35:37Andy Watts:going to be friends with madonna i do like lots of frida carlo stuff but that honestly is a bit

35:43Dan Schreiber:it's a bit much for me right but my question is would you really be honest about that if madonna asked i think no one's saying to madonna to her face i don't like your painting yeah i think she's like well everyone's my friend jane is actually the only person i know who might just say hate that. You know what? Actually,

35:59Andy Watts:I didn't really care for Like a Virgin. Ouch, okay. Well, we can't be friends now.

36:10Andy Watts:Okay, it is time for a final fact of the show, and that is James. My fact this week is that actor Noel Guglielmi played Hector in The Fast and the Furious. Since then, he has played a character called Hector in 30 other projects, and now if he's in a movie where he's not called Hector, he'll try to change the character's name to Hector. Yeah. Is he confused about acting? What acting is he? He's found his niche. Yeah, he's Hector. So basically, this is something that I saw in an interview with Los Angeles radio station and apparently started as a coincidence, so the writers just were looking for a Hispanic name and they would often just come up with Hector or Carlos because it's like not the most obvious but it's like one of the most obvious.

36:58Andy Watts:Interesting. So it's like not calling your English character John, it's calling him Michael.

37:04Anna Ptaszynski:Do you know what I mean? Yeah, because I associate Hector just with the Trojan War. Yeah. And I don't think of it in a Hispanic sense.

37:10Andy Watts:Well, it is kind of a popular Hispanic name. So in Puerto Rico right now, Hector is the 18th most popular name, which is beaten by Michael, Kevin and Brian. But in the 80s and 90s and early 2000s, it was very popular. So these characters, this guy is in his 30s. So his character, people of that age were called Hector quite a lot in the Hispanic speaking world. And so, yeah, it started as a coincidence. And then it was noted in an Instagram post and it went a bit viral and he sort of ran with it. And now sometimes in a movie, he'll get a choice to change the name or keep it. And if he has a chance, he'll always say, no, I want to be Hector.

37:48Andy Watts:Well, he's got a hell of a list of movies he's done.

37:51James Harkin:He's been in so many movies. So Hector's not even the only recurring name that has come up in his movies. So he's played Jose four times. He's played Cruz twice.

38:00Andy Watts:So I would say Jose is the straight up first Hispanic name you would go to, right? No way. Just put that in anywhere.

38:11James Harkin:Well, how about this one then? Twice, he's played someone called Gangbanger One.

38:16Andy Watts:Again, that's the 19th most popular name in Puerto Rico right now.

38:20Dan Schreiber:This is not an unrelated film

38:23Andy Watts:It completely is No

38:26James Harkin:So he did it Gangbanger 1 He's listed in the X-Files And that's just a gang member We should say

38:31Anna Ptaszynski:It's just someone who's in gang fights a lot Oh Is it? Oh grow up guys

38:36James Harkin:I've never heard

38:38Anna Ptaszynski:He's a gangbanger Is very common Come to South London You'll hear it said It's somebody who's in a gang It's somebody who gets in gang fights Are you sure? Who plays the drum in the gang? No Just anyone Any gang, yeah Are you sure? I'm positive I remember from my time in the Peckham crew, alright?

38:57Dan Schreiber:I remember from my time in the orgy And we all had a different understanding

39:02Anna Ptaszynski:It's an old fashioned term It's not as much used these days I suspect Because I would say probably

39:08Andy Watts:My memory of the X-Files Is there would be more likely to be gangs Than bangs Than bangs Yeah

39:16James Harkin:Well the other time was in a movie called Out of Sight which is listed on his Wikipedia but not listed on IMDB and I didn't have time to watch the movie

39:24Dan Schreiber:wait not out of sight with George Clooney

39:26James Harkin:and Jennifer Lopez an amazingly bad film well yeah he's had so many roles he's been called Snuffy, Chicken, Lord of the Garbage Subway Guy, Sam the Man Random, Dog Walker

39:36Dan Schreiber:why do Pete demand to always be called Lord of the Garbage?

39:40James Harkin:that's a Michael Flatley dance that I didn't really want to see Latin Guy on a Bicycle and that was in the video clip for Pretty Fly for a White Guy. The offspring is in that.

39:53Anna Ptaszynski:Very good. Character names are funny, aren't they? Often, they express something about the character.

39:59Andy Watts:Some writers will, as soon as you see a character's name, you'll know exactly what they do. Like Dickens, for instance, or J.K. Rowling. Exactly. They would just call themselves Jack Reacher. You don't know what that is. It's just a person called Jack.

40:13Anna Ptaszynski:The Dickens characters, they're called cratillic names, which I didn't know. It dates back to platonic dialogue. So there's a platonic dialogue, which is all about, is your name relevant to your character? And so when Dickens has Mr. Bumble or Mr. Murdstone, who's a tough, hard character.

40:30Dan Schreiber:Who's the Mr. Chokum something in?

40:33Anna Ptaszynski:Chokum Child. Chokum Child, yeah. That's a really rubbish one. So there's this story about Dickens that Tiny Tim was allegedly going to be called Puny Pete at one point. and it's I have been trying to nail this because I don't think it's actually true like there's this piece from Dickens Quarterly in 1995 which says actually this might be from an advert because there was an advert which said Little Larry Small Sam Puny Pete they were all crossed out and then below it it says Tiny Tim not crossed out and it's saying like sometimes you have to iterate and go through a few versions before you get the final thing so that might be that's a common internet factoid that actually might not be

41:09Dan Schreiber:it's one of my favourite things we do is explode misconceptions that only two people had

41:13Andy Watts:but those two people will be listeners so it's good um this guy hector arguably is typecast you know he's doing quite similar characters in all these things imdb has a category of the most typecast actors in the world and it explains the kind of character that they do so i want to do a quiz where i'll give you the explanation of the character and you have to say the name of the actor okay that they're describing so easy one to start off with neurotic sex obsessed intellectual woody allen straight in there if at home you got that quicker than dan and be well done um greasy weaselly slightly mental creep that's dan isn't it he didn't do much acting

41:59James Harkin:no but i've got that one credit gangbanger too

42:05Dan Schreiber:Alan Rickman?

42:06Anna Ptaszynski:No Greasy Weasley Slightly mental creep And when I tell you You'll go

42:11James Harkin:Oh yeah Okay

42:12Anna Ptaszynski:Hang on a sec Oh no I can picture him on my head Steve Buscemi

42:15James Harkin:Correct That's who I was going for as well Yes okay Well done Andy and me

42:22Andy Watts:Offbeat quirky hipster Who's a little stuck In dreamland Michael Cera No it's

42:28Dan Schreiber:That annoying woman Yeah

42:30Andy Watts:Oh god

42:32Dan Schreiber:I think she plays the mum in Paddington.

42:34Andy Watts:Sally Hawkins.

42:35Dan Schreiber:Sally Hawkins.

42:36Andy Watts:Oh, no, it's not her. Is it a woman? It's a woman. Offbeat. Say it again. Offbeat quirky hipster who's a little stuck in dreamland. I'll tell you this one. Louis Deschanel. It's correct. Wow. I don't remember who it is. A tough woman who eventually shows vulnerability by breaking down in a crying scene. Sigourney Weaver?

42:54Anna Ptaszynski:She doesn't break down in crying scenes. She breaks others.

42:56Andy Watts:Meryl Streep. Who did you say? Meryl Streep. Meryl Streep, no. We're kind of getting there. Julia Roberts Correct Oh He's back in the game Is she a tough woman? Yeah

43:07Dan Schreiber:Okay

43:08Andy Watts:Finally in this quiz Immature man child Adam Sandler Correct

43:16James Harkin:That's quite striking That is very good

43:19Anna Ptaszynski:How clearly they come across

43:21James Harkin:So the typecasting is so dangerous for actors There's a Ed O 'Neill There used to be a sitcom Married with Children If you can't picture him from that He was in that He's in Modern Family as well as one of the husbands in it.

43:34Andy Watts:He's like a long-suffering husband.

43:37James Harkin:Yeah. Incredibly funny to the point where he almost just had to shrug and people would laugh. And so he was in a movie called Flight of the Intruder, drama movie, 1991 it came out. Test audiences kept on laughing any time he came on screen or did any movement that he was just cut from the film. Wow. They were like, you're ruining the film. You're too funny. You're too funny at the moment. That's tough.

43:57Anna Ptaszynski:Timecasting, it is a real thing, isn't it? So there's an actor called Mikhail Ghelevani Who played Stalin In 12 different films Made during Stalin's lifetime And then the work did dry up

44:11Dan Schreiber:Why am I going to get a job now actually If he's in the right country?

44:15Andy Watts:Yeah I read about him He basically played Stalin in one movie And Stalin really really liked him Because he was like by far the most handsome And tallest member of the cast And he was playing Stalin And Stalin was like that's exactly who should be playing me. And then from then on, yeah, he was like, this guy is going to play me all the time. And obviously there were quite a few movies about Stalin made.

44:37Anna Ptaszynski:Yes, and when the casting call comes in, it must be a tricky, like, do you want to take this job? It is typecasting me, but I'll be killed if I don't do it.

44:44Andy Watts:But yeah, then after Khrushchev did that speech that said Stalin was a wanker, then no more.

44:51James Harkin:James Doohan had a horrible one. James Doohan was Scotty in Star Trek. So he was the guy who would fix things, He had a Scottish accent. He kept not getting films off the back of it because they kept saying, we don't need a Scottish guy in this movie. He was Canadian. That was just an accent. But he was so typecast to that character that, yeah, he lost roles.

45:12Dan Schreiber:I'm sure, did you guys read about Jagdish Raj Khurana? He's got a Guinness World Record. He's a Bollywood actor. He was. He died in 2013. He's got a Guinness World Record for being the most typecast actor. And he played the role of a police inspector in 144 films. Which is just... And I looked at his whole Wikipedia list of films and God, he worked hard. Small bit parters work bloody hard. They do about 10 films a year. So he also played a doctor 10 times and he had various ones where you'd think maybe he wasn't going to be a policeman, like a film called Suhag. And he's visiting a brothel and he's a bit of an underworld character.

45:52Anna Ptaszynski:Picking up a gangbanger.

45:53Dan Schreiber:Exactly, doing some gangbanging. Undercover cop. There we go. That's good

45:58Anna Ptaszynski:But if you know the actor You'll know he will turn out to be a cop Yeah you're so right

46:02Dan Schreiber:That ruins it

46:02Andy Watts:Yeah I read that He had his own police uniform That he used to keep at home Because he was going to be a policeman so often Brilliant And he has his son called Bobby Oh fantastic Nice

46:15Dan Schreiber:Superb Lovely stuff

46:16Anna Ptaszynski:You know how Jack Reacher The character got his name Because Lee Child Chose his pen name Because it would be between Raymond Chandler and Agatha Christie Is the story Okay but Jack Reacher the character is named because he's good at reaching things so Lee Child is very tall right that is true right and he started writing these books during a period of unemployment he used to be like a 90 feet floor manager I think and he was sacked from that job and started writing but during that period where he was unemployed when he was in the supermarket little old ladies would sometimes say can you reach that thing for me down and his wife used to tease him saying maybe you could get a job as being a reacher and he's since turned that into a globe-straddling cultural empire.

46:58Anna Ptaszynski:That's so funny.

46:58Dan Schreiber:And I haven't read or seen the films, but is Jack Reacher someone who's always fitting light bulbs? Is he a handyman?

47:04Andy Watts:He's basically like a human Mr. Tickle.

47:07Dan Schreiber:Right, okay. They sound much more fun than they appear.

47:11James Harkin:The character is very tall.

47:13Dan Schreiber:Is he?

47:13James Harkin:Which was the huge controversy when Tom Cruise was cast. Oh my God.

47:19Andy Watts:There's someone who doesn't get typecast as a short-ass, does he?

47:23Anna Ptaszynski:Jack Reacher's six. five I believe. Is he? Yeah and he's a tough guy. I think there's one book where he stops a bullet with his chest and that's right. That's easy to do can I just say.

47:36Andy Watts:But it's not that easy to survive it. Sorry. Yes.

47:43Dan Schreiber:I'm sort of, I know I'm late to this party but I'm astonished that he's specifically a six foot five and it's played by Tom Cruise. Was that a funny joke?

47:49Anna Ptaszynski:No. The first Jack Reacher film with Tom Cruise is brilliant. It's really good. The second one is also decent. Never go back.

47:55Andy Watts:Do they have very small actors around him to make him look taller?

47:58Anna Ptaszynski:They cast only Munchkins. He beats up a hell of a lot of Munchkins in that film. No, you're right. I think they just show him like he's short but he's accelerating upwards towards your face with his fists. I see. Oh, it's good. They're bloody good.

48:14James Harkin:It's not mentioned in the movie, his height. It's how they got around it. They don't go, my God, he's huge!

48:20Andy Watts:They don't call him Jack Cartritcher.

48:27Dan Schreiber:Dan I have a fact that I wonder if you know Or anyone In absolutely fabulous Internationalist is great British comedy Jennifer Saunders character Is Eddie Adina Monsoon Do you know why she's called that? Can you work it out if you know stuff about her life Which I reckon you do Eddie Monsoon is her name

48:48James Harkin:Eddie Monsoon

48:50Dan Schreiber:Do you know anything about her personal life?

48:52James Harkin:So she's married to Adrian Edmondson And he's Eddie in Bottom Edmonsoon

48:57Dan Schreiber:There you go

48:59James Harkin:That's an incredible fact

49:00Dan Schreiber:Isn't that nice Edmonsoon Very good It's a shame that Andy had to get that for you

49:07Andy Watts:But you helped him Made it all the more exciting You two are working as a great team today

49:15Anna Ptaszynski:So sometimes character names can get you in trouble Oh yeah There is a writer called Jake Arnott author of books. And in 2006, he was writing a book and he had a character in it who was a real villain. It was a 1960s cabaret singer, and he named him Tony Rocco, right? And the character was a real sleazebag who preyed on teenage boys. Now, unfortunately for Jake Arnott, there was a real 1960s London cabaret singer called Tony Rocco who was not a pervert who preyed on teenage boys, and he was still trading Having had a very successful hit single And was still performing with a loyal fan base Obviously he was not happy when this book came out

49:57Andy Watts:Was it a complete coincidence?

49:59Anna Ptaszynski:It was a complete coincidence I don't know, he hadn't googled it Did he get sued? There was a legal process which played out In due course And led to some compensation being paid And Tony Rocco, the real Tony Rocco said I'm very glad we can just work this out and move on

50:13Andy Watts:There was a famous thing with Peter Kay In Phoenix was it in phoenix nights or the one that he did before that uh but it was one of his sitcoms and there was a character called keith lard who was um like a health and safety officer who had sex with dogs and it turned out it turned out that peter k had previously worked with a health and safety officer called keith lard and it was a complete coincidence was it really says mr k and there was some legal process and again I think some compensation was distributed I believe there was it might have been that the compensation went to you know fire safety things dog trust

50:58James Harkin:wasn't there a thing within books whereby people would add the detail of a small penis if they were describing someone so that they would never sue because they wouldn't want to admit that the character was them

51:07Dan Schreiber:yes it's that one Pride and Prejudice that's chapter 4 isn't it

51:13Anna Ptaszynski:But if I read a character called Den Schreiber I write as a real bastard And I say and he's got a small penis Is that going to stop you suing Den?

51:22James Harkin:What the small penis bit?

51:23Anna Ptaszynski:Yeah Because it's so obvious I'm making fun of you in the book And in fact this has given me a great idea For my next novel

51:34Anna Ptaszynski:Does the small penis come into it? Well it's part of the reason he's cuckolded By his northern Chinese wife

51:42James Harkin:well I'd be angry but this sounds so damn good I'm in well you're not quite in

51:57James Harkin:okay that's it that is all of our facts thank you so much for listening if you'd like to get in contact with any of us about the things that we have said over the course of this podcast we can all be found on our various social media accounts I'm on at Schreiberland on Instagram Andy I'm on Instagram at Andrew Hunter M

52:14Andy Watts:James I'm still on Twitter Oh yeah Don't really use it very much But if you want to message me at James Harkin Then there's a decent chance I'll see it one day Yep And if you want to get to us as a group Anna

52:26Dan Schreiber:I think there's an email address ProPodcast.qi.com There's an Instagram at No Such Thing As A Fish Or you can do the Twitter thing at No Such Thing Yep

52:33James Harkin:Okay Or you can go to our website No Such Thing As A Fish.com Do check it out You can also find merchandise so you can find Club Fish, which is our special place where we put up lots of bonus episodes. Drop us a line, which is the mailbag episode. There's compilation episodes of all of our outtakes. Do check it out. Otherwise, come back next week because we will be back. Well, three of us will and Anna will be back in roughly nine months time with another episode. We'll see you then. Goodbye.