FACTORALY - E52 BIRTHDAYS

Episode Date: August 22, 2024

Everyone has a birthday. And almost everyone celebrates it. This is our 52nd week of Factoraly which means that we've been going for a year! So we're celebrating with this episode on birthdays. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Happy birthday to us. Happy birthday to us. Happy birthday, de facto-rally. Happy birthday to us. Hello, everyone. Hello. Guess what? What? It's our birthday. It's our 52nd episode.

Is it really? Should we be doing this on our 53rd episode? Because then we have had a whole one. Oh, no. Oh, no. That's all sorts of complicated, isn't it? Not if you're in China. Okay. So the day you're born, you are one. Yeah. That's just, that's complicated, isn't it? And a secondary question, is this our birthday or is this our anniversary?

Well, you see, we thought we'd do one on birthdays. And I looked at birthdays and anniversaries. Anniversaries is massive. Birthdays is, you know, eatable. Still pretty big. We can digest birthdays quite easily. Birthdays, we can just have one slice of the cake. Yeah, exactly.

The anniversary would be like eating an entire feast. Exactly, that's what I thought. So I thought rather than do anniversaries and birthdays, let's just do birthdays. Fine, okay. Well then, now for anyone who's accidentally stumbled into this for the first time and is wondering what we are talking about, what are we celebrating the birthday of? First up, who are we? Who are you?

Pass. Nice to meet you, Pass. I'm Simon Wells. I'm Bruce Fielding. We are both professional voiceovers. We use our voices to record audiobooks, meditation pieces, the occasional funny character voice. The most boring corporate videos you've ever heard in your life.

Excellent. But just for funsies, when we're not doing that, we come together here in this mutual little virtual space to record this podcast, which is called Factorally. How would you summarise Factorally, Bruce? It's loaded nonsense for about 30 minutes. That's the one. We look at subjects. We're basically fact nerds. We like facts.

And also, the more useless, the better. Yes, absolutely. So what we do is we look at a subject. We take a different subject each week. Normally, we pick from a random subject generator. This week, however, we haven't. No, we haven't. We decided not to. We've been put to this.

And then we just do a bit of research or dredge the recesses of our brains to remember things that we might have learned once upon a time. And we kind of spout it out again for the benefit of our listeners, who we call Factorialites, and we are very thankful and grateful for their listenership. We are indeed. So, in fact, also, happy birthday to you lot, the Factoralites.

Yes. You have only been Factoralites for one year. Yes, exactly. We know it feels like forever. Well, it does for us. Yes. Well, it does and it doesn't. I was thinking about this the other day. I can't quite remember a time when we weren't doing this and yet i remember our first um planning meeting that we

had together in your flat it only seems like it like a few weeks ago i know i know it's crazy isn't it yeah perhaps we should tell people what we've been doing because our first episode was on cucumbers. Yes. And since then we've done, here we go. Tools, codes, fish, confection, dogs, cars, cleaning, potatoes, plugs, type, toilets, bottles, trees, flags, predictions, shoes, photography, New Year's, paper art, glue, bicycles, Vikings, rubbish, breakfast, money, nuts, Norfolk, dentist, fishing, diet, circus, rubbish breakfast money nuts norfolk dentist fishing diet circus curry nata rabbits poison lego mistakes fans telegraph sheep hats pirates secrets camels bathtubs police smells wasps pipes and perfume wow we have been busy haven't we haven't we and you know what i can't remember the vast majority of the facts that we pulled for any

of those episodes to such an extent we did one on fishing we got halfway through and i said to bruce this all feels really familiar and we looked at our notes and went oh yeah we've already done one on fish oh but this is fishing this is different different So, birthdays. We are here to tell all of you lovely folk at home some interesting facts related to birthdays. OK, let's start off with parties. OK, go on then. So, birthday parties weren't really a thing until quite recently. OK, how recently? As far as I could research, birthday parties were for adults, not for kids.

Oh, okay. You didn't bother with children's birthdays because they might not survive past about the 10th one. Oh my goodness. So it wasn't until the 19th century that children's birthdays were first widely celebrated. Really? Yeah. It's the Germans. Of course it is. They do Christmas, they do birthday parties. And they coined the term Kinderfester or children's parties. That's brilliant. I think a Kinderfester sounds much

more fun. Doesn't it? It sounds like you'd have an egg with something in the middle of it. It does, doesn't it? Yes, exactly that. So the most common birthday is actually either September the 9th or October the 5th. My goodness, isn't that interesting? We've come up with very different dates for that. I found that as well. Okay. My research said, well, it depends whether we're talking globally or in this country. Right. So globally, the most popular birth month is August, with 9% of the world's population being born in August.

That's correct, yes. In this country, the most popular birth date, I found the 26th of September, you found the something else-th of September. Yes. The research I found, 26th of September has an average of 1,974 UK birthdays on that day each year, which is quite a long way ahead of all the other most popular birthdays. Yes. And the theory is too wild. There are two theories as to why this is a particularly popular time. One is that nine months earlier, mummy and daddy were getting

frisky at the Christmas do. Yes, or New Year's Eve party. Or New Year's Eve party. Second theory, apparently there are some parents who specifically time their conception so that their children will be born right on the cusp of the beginning of the academic year. So that that child would be the oldest child in the class rather than the youngest and would therefore have a head start. I can't imagine anyone being that precise. No. Hello, darling. It's time. But, I mean, birthdays are fairly evenly spread. But if you have, I think, is it 23 people in a room? Right.

The likelihood is that two of them will share a birthday. Oh, really? Yeah. Is that right? So it's about a 50-50 chance. Okay. If you have a room full of 23 people, there's a 50-50 chance that two of them have the same birthday. Right. And if you increase the number of people to 70, the chances of two people having the same birthday is 99%.

Really? Yeah. So if you're in a room full of 70 people, you're almost guaranteed to find someone else. Two people who share the same birthday. Yes. That's bizarre. Yes. How interesting.

Now, that's where the majority of birthdays happen. Apparently, the least popular month to have a birthday, I mean, as if one has a choice about the month of one's own birthday, the least popular is February, globally speaking. There are fewer people born in February than at any other time of year. Yeah. I guess there's two reasons for that. One is because there are two days fewer. Two is that nine months before that is fairly boring. Yeah is not i can't do the math it'll be may maybe yeah may but that leap leap year birthdays must be a nightmare yes absolutely i had a i had a quick look into this it's i i know someone who was born on the 29th of february oh wow um and they so obviously because because a year isn't really 365 days long it's 365 and a quarter

yeah you make that up by throwing in an extra day every four years just to confuse everyone so every four years you get a 29th of february if you happen to be born on that day um i've always thought that's a bit of a jib because you can only celebrate your birthday every four years so you get to my age and you're technically only 10 years old. It just seems a bit unfair. Apparently in legal terms, in passports, in official legal documents and that sort of thing, 29th of February, perfectly legitimate, viable date.

There's no problem with that at all until you come to working out how old are you. The answer to which is, well, I'm not really sure. Dep i'm not really sure depends what metric it's how many birthdays versus how many years isn't it exactly that yeah yeah so a lot of people tend to officially officially celebrate their birthday either the day before or the day after february 28th or march 1st just to avoid the confusion so an official birthday yes an official birthday much like the king like the king brilliant um so if if you're born on a leap day which is that extra day in a leap year you are you are called a leap ling that's lovely isn't that a lovely term a leap it's almost like the uh the the german form

term of affection isn't it leap ling yes i suppose little yeah. And do you know who the most famous Leap Ling is? At least in my book. No. Go on. Superman. No way. Except he was born on Krypton. Well, yeah, I know. But in 1976, DC Comics published

a calendar, just a wall calendar with all your favourite superheroes on it. And on each day of the month they put a superhero as hypothetically speaking that's their birthday not because it's written in any of the comics but just because wouldn't it be fun to have batman's face slapped on a particular date yes and on the entry for february 29th on this calendar they just happened to slap superman's face on there um so officially unofficially superman was born on the 29th of february which may explain why he never seems to age because

he's only had a quarter he's only a quarter of the age that you think he is exactly that yeah but then the month that you're born has all sorts of ramifications, doesn't it? In all sorts of places, like your zodiac sign. Oh, of course, yes. It's dictated by the month in which you're born. So your birthday determines whether you're a nice person or a horrible person. Yes. No, that doesn't work.

Yeah. I had a little bit of a look at famous people who were born on both yours and my birthdays. Okay. And it's a real mixture. It's some good, some bad, some indifferent. So I'm not entirely certain that the day of your... But don't give it away because you know passwords. Well, exactly.

Yeah, I made a really nice list of the famous people that were born on both of our birthdays. But as soon as I say that out loud, people will Google that and find out when we were both born. So that's a whole chunk of my research down the drain. I should state for the record right now that I do not use my birthday in any passwords whatsoever. Neither do I. But without naming them, on my birthday was born an actor, a politician, a footballer, another actor, a king, another actor, another politician, a duke, a gardener, and a singer. And lots of other people as well, I imagine.

Oh, sure. I mean, these are the famous ones. And on your birthday was born a sculptor, a right-wing politician, an actor, another actor, a murderer, a musician, another actor, and another actor. Oh, fair enough. So, yours is looking slightly more ropey than mine. I mean, I didn't have any right-wing activists or murderers on my birthday, Bruce. Well, no, no, no, no, no. Indeed.

You know, the other thing about birthdays, you can have a birthstone. Oh, yes, of course you can, yeah. And, you know, the other thing about birthdays, you can have a birthstone. Oh, yes, of course you can, yeah. And, you know, generally speaking, they're all sort of quite valuable, nice things. Yeah. So you get, like, you know, if you were born in April, your birthstone is a diamond. Oh, lovely. And there are rubies and sapphires and fabulous stuff.

Unless you're born in November. Right. It's a citrine, which is basically a form of yellow quartz. Oh. And it's described as common and cheap, neither of which describes me at all. Go on then. Did you look up what's the birthstone in January? I believe it to be garnet.

Garnet. Which is also fairly common, but you know. Okay. I'll take that. And who gets to decide these things? I mean, who was the first person to wake up and say, do you know well okay i'll take that and who who gets to decide these things i mean who who was the first person to wake up and say do you know what would be a really good marketing ploy i'll match every month of the year to a precious or semi-precious stone and we can sell them it's the international birthstone association no it isn't it should be brilliant the other thing you get on your birthday of course is you get a cake you do indeed i like cake i

like cake as well you can tell by looking at me that guy looks like a cake guy and there are candles on cakes yes um the the practice of putting candles on a cake nobody really knows when it actually started but what's the interesting thing about candles is that candles are generally votive so you're sending something into the heavens yes the wafting of smoke upwards through the smoke yeah which is why you make a wish before you blow out the candles so that the smoke from the candles can drift your wish up to heaven and hopefully have it granted. We normally do the Guinness Book of Records stuff

at the end, don't we? Yes, we do. As we're talking about cakes, should we... Go on then, throw one in. I've got two facts about cakes which are record-breaking. I've got the biggest and the longest. Oh, great.

The longest birthday cake. Shall we do a guess? Yes, go on. Okay, I'll give you some clues. It was baked in India by the Bakers Association of Kerala. Right. And it was in 2020. Oh, five metres.

A lot more. Let's throw in a zero, 50 metres. A lot more. Half a kilometre. A lot more. Let's throw in a zero. 50 metres. A lot more. Half a kilometre. A lot more. A kilometre? Even more. I don't know.

Go on, how many? Well, the five bit was right. Oh, good. 5.3 kilometres. No way. 17,388 feet of cake. That's just... I mean, you couldn't even lay that out in one straight section, could you?

That would have to be winding all around the local neighbourhood roads. Yeah, down the side of a highway. So where did this happen in India? This is in Kerala, in India. That's fantastic. You can only hope that they brought out all the locals to come and take a piece, can't you? Well, yes. I mean, it would be tricky to keep the birds away oh heck yeah it would wouldn't it you'd have five five and a third

kilometers of seagulls all over the place wouldn't you pecking at it wow that's a big cake so that's the longest what's the biggest well have you have you got a figure for the biggest i haven't no have you not this i don't know you've got both of those okay i've got other records yay okay this one's american this is in fort payne alabama okay so i'll give you the last bit it's eight ounces good two pounds and eight ounces very close 128 238 pounds and eight ounces goodness gracious that's i wow the icing alone weighed 16 209 pounds is there any indication how big this is i haven't yet found a picture of it but if i do you know it's going to go it's going to go on the blog on factorily.com. Factorily.com? That's the one.

The world's greatest repository of further research and useless knowledge. And rabbit holes. Indeed, yeah. You'll go so far down the rabbit hole that you'll join the Mad Hatter eating cake at his tea party. Oh, yes, of course. You know, another fabulously traditional food that you can eat on your birthday, seaweed soup. I went down a little rabbit hole of my own of interesting and different ways of celebrating birthdays around the world. In South Korea, you can expect to receive a bowl of seaweed soup for your birthday.

It's a long-standing tradition. The dish is full of iron and vitamins and minerals and things like that. And it's always eaten on your birthday. And apparently, this is actually a common thing for expecting mothers to eat on the build-up to giving birth, because it nourishes her and the baby. And therefore it gets associated with your birth. So every year on your birthday, you eat seaweed soup as a sort of a show of respect to your mother and an indication of long life and health and so on. So it's got lots of good stuff in it.

Yeah, like seaweed. But it's not cake. No, it's not cake at all. It's nowhere near cake. Some other interesting global celebration styles I found. Oh, before you move on, talking about Korea. There are days in North Korea when you're not allowed to have a birthday. Not allowed? Not allowed. You get killed if you accidentally...

You have to change the date of your birth on the birth certificate. Really? Yeah. Are these sort of dates that happen to coincide with the premiere? The deaths of previous premieres, yes. Really? Yes.

As a show of respect? Yes. Wow. That's inconvenient, isn't it? You can just imagine mum and dad absolutely bricking it when... Just hold on a little while longer, dear. You can do it tomorrow.

Oh, that's great. So you're saying it was other places? Yeah different different traditions in in different parts of the world um in japan the number 20 is a particularly important number so for us we reach adulthood when we turn 18 you can drink you can vote you know etc etc yeah in japan uh it's 20 um andyear-olds have a sort of a coming-of-age day. And they visit the local town hall dressed in traditional Japanese outfits. They hear a speech given by a local official sort of marking their rise to adulthood. In Spain, they have an ear-pulling ceremony. Okay. Much like in this country, I don't know if it's still a thing, when I was a kid you used to have the birthday beats. Yep. Your dearest and nearest chums would punch you really hard in the arm

the same number of times of your birthday. Like the bumps. Like the bumps, yes, exactly that. The beats and the bumps. For people who don't know what the bumps are, basically your friends, in quotes, in inverted commas, take a limb each. Yes. and they just throw you into the

air but still holding onto your limbs for the number of times of your birthday so if you've got us if it's your 68th birthday giving you the bumps is probably not a good idea gonna be there a long time um but in spain they they tug earlobes they tug your earlobe once for every year of your birth um not entirely sure why it happens one suggestion is the fact that as you get older your nose and your ears are the only things that don't stop growing they just they carry on growing right um so the older you are the you know longer your ears are um and the idea of pulling on your earlobes kind of signifies we wish you a long life okay that kind of thing um in australia they eat an item called fairy bread oh nice isn't

that lovely that sounds lovely essentially white bread slathered in butter and tops off with hundreds and thousands those little little candy sprinkles yes that'd be nice in jamaica you're likely to get um pelted with flour several times during the day okay in various parts of the caribbean it's become a tradition to flower someone as that's now a verb apparently yes um all the usual you know cake party games music presents yes but then at random unannounced points during the day someone will come and pour an entire bag of flour over you. In China, you get red envelopes, which are given to you by relatives, which contain money. And that's sort of your birthday gift.

They do that on the Lunar New Year as well. Yes. But particularly for newborn babies, when you come to visit the family to celebrate the birth of their child, you sort of scatter knickknacks and trinkets around the baby, like pens, coins, flowers, books. And whichever item the baby happens to sort of lurch itself towards

is an indication of what that person might grow up to be. So if they lurch forwards and land on a pen, oh, they're going to be a writer, etc. Okay. All right. And if they sort of onto a theodol pen, oh, they're going to be a writer, etc. Okay. All right. And if they sort of onto a theodolite, then they're a quantity surveyor. Which is pretty much, yeah.

That's how I would interpret that. Oh, look, he's just landed on the floor. He's going to be a carpenter. Or a breakdancer. Or that. Yeah, slightly open to interpretation. And then, of course, something that seems to have come into English culture quite a lot in recent years is the Mexican piñata. Okay.

You have an item, often shaped like a donkey, made out of paper, hung from a string. You blindfold the birthday child. You give them a large stick. They whack the piñata until it breaks open and sweets fall all over the place much to everyone's delight simon will now remind us of the episode where we talked about piñatas coming from china dang it um was it hang on the paper art one oh yeah yeah paper art yes let's go with that but yes so that's uh that's another one yeah i think there's another one where the coming of age thing where we're sort of like in um latin countries I think there's another one where the coming of age thing, where in Latin countries, when the girl comes of age,

she wears almost like a wedding dress or sort of like a beautiful dress and they have a big party for her. Yes. There's something in Mexico called the quinchinera, which is a girl's 15th birthday. That's sort of her entry into womanhood. That's probably it. They dress up in beautiful outfits and get paraded through the streets and generally celebrated.

Cool. Do they get cards? Do you know what? I didn't look at cards. Did you not? Did you look at cards? The billions of pounds that people spend every year on cards all over the world. Sorry, billions and billions of pounds that people spend every year on cards all over the world. Sorry, billions and billions of pounds. I mean, there are companies that have built TV channels based on the fact that they sell cards.

Oh, the Hallmark Channel. Yes. Yes, of course. All very twee and happy and nothing bad ever really happens. And given that we're nerds, did you know that there is more technology in a birthday card that plays music than there was on the first Apollo missions. Oh, my goodness. Basically, you could use the technology that plays Happy Birthday and go to the moon.

Well, that puts things into perspective, doesn't it? Talking of playing Happy Birthday... Oh, goodie, a segue. Oh, absolutely. So, quick secret here. Before we do the podcast. Oh, yeah, let's let them all into our creative process. Can we tell them?

This is ridiculous. Okay. So, before we start any podcast, we generally sing an appropriate song together. Yes. And today, obviously, we sang Happy Birthday to You. Of course we did. Which Simon said, and of course we can't put that on air because it's copyright but it isn't no it isn't anymore it isn't anymore it was for a while yeah what can you tell us about that then well um it was originally um a couple of teachers and they

wrote a song called good morning to all in 1893 yeah it basically went, good morning to all, good morning to all. And that was then changed to happy birthday to you. And it was copyright. Yeah. Somebody bought the rights to happy birthday to you.

And it's now out of copyright. When did it go out of copyright, Simon? Well, as far as I found, it was in copyright all the way up until 2016. Oh, wow. Complicated backstory. But the words to happy birthday to you were originally written as part of a poem not sung not set to music

um but it was a poem called roy's birthday uh written in 1901 i think it was okay so the words as we know them from the song were written in a poem back then but not set to music then at some point or other someone put those words to the music of good morning to all um and that those things together that song as a whole was published in 1911 the words and the song they were copyrighted in 1935 by the sumi company and they just put this ridiculously long copyright period on it. And as time went on, time went on, the late 1990s, someone said, hang on, this thing doesn't run out until 2030. That's ridiculous. We want to put it in our film.

Exactly. So they had a judge overturn it, and it was no longer in copyright by 2016. Wow. Yeah, I mean, you always used to hear people singing all sorts of other songs instead of Happy Birthday to You. Yes, absolutely. In films and on TV because of the copyright. Yeah, yeah.

So you were banned. I mean, you weren't banned from singing it in the comfort of your own home, obviously. No, you're not banned at all. You just have to pay through the notes. No, you have to pay for it. So to use it in movies, TV, radio, anything like that,

you had to pay a copyright fee. And this is why if you sort of watch old American movies or even some modern American movies, I suppose, they have a tendency to sing for he or she is a jolly good fellow on the birthday instead

because it's cheaper. Yeah, exactly. And you get presents, of course. Oh, yes, I've got. Why didn't I do any research on presents? Wow. So, I mean, there is a lot of stuff about birthday presents. Yes. But interestingly, in the 19th and early 20th centuries, and it's quite recent, a popular 21st birthday present was to have all of your teeth removed and replaced with dentures. That's odd. Well, the idea was that it would prevent the expensive dental treatment later in life.

Well, there's actually something quite brilliant about that, isn't there? That's an investment for the future. Happy 21st birthday, darling. Here's the key of the door and a trip to the dentist. How wonderful. Yeah. I know we had some records earlier. Yes.

Do you have any other records? I have a couple. I've got a couple. I've got some birthday-related records. Go on, then. Give me a record. This is such a broad topic that I had to whittle this down

to the ones that piqued my interest. Okay. Most generations of the same family born on the same date. Oh, okay. That's a good one. There was a chap in the USA called Ralph Bertram Williams.

He was born on 4th of July, Independence Day, 1982, in Wilmington, North Carolina. His father, his grandfather, and his great-grandfather all happened to be born on that date as well. So that's four generations of the same family who were all born on the 4th of July. I can just imagine their wall charts for the next generation. It's like, okay, darling, tonight's the night. The highest number of siblings born on the same date. The Henriksen family from Norway, they had three. It doesn't seem like an awful lot, but three of their kids,

born in 1960, 64, and 68, all born on the same date. That's interesting enough. But they all happen to have been born on Leap Day, February 29th. Oh, wow. So three children, three siblings, all born on successive Leap Days, four years apart from each other. How does that work? I have no idea. And the last one I found was the most birthday greeting videos received by one person. And I picked this out purely because this gentleman has a fantastic name. He's called Saint Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh Jee Insan of India. Of course he is. And he received 32,207 birthday greeting videos.

From his closest friends. I would imagine from friends, family, and the general population who revered him as a highly respected political gentleman. Wow. That does seem like quite a lot, doesn't it? It does. It does. So how about you? What were your records?

Have you had birthday parties given for you? I guess you must have given birthday parties for your son. I have, yeah. I don't know, how much would you normally spend? Would you sort of spend, I don't know, 0.1% of your annual salary? Yeah, fine, fine. Unless you're the Sultan of Brunei. Okay.

In which case, that's $27.2 million. Crikey. That's an expensive birthday, isn't it? Very expensive. Basically, there was a polo match. They erected a stadium specifically. It was a dinner at his palace, which has, I mean, there are 1,778 rooms. And they lit it up with floodlights.

And they had champagne and beluga caviar. They built an amusement park. He invited the good and the great and and the famous and he kind of invited now king charles um all sorts of people turned up for the party including michael jackson who performed did he really oh yes and a lot of the a lot of the 27.2 million was Michael Jackson's fee. He charged $16 million to perform at the party. That's bad. I bet he was thrilled about that.

To be fair, he gave a couple of gigs as well. Right. For $16 million. And everybody that left the party was handed a solid gold medal. Really? Here's your reward for attending this lavish party. Yeah, $27 million. But this is a guy who reportedly paid his badminton coach $2 million a year.

Really? Yeah. I mean, some people just have too much cash floating around, don't they? They do. They do, really. So I've run out of birthday facts. How about you? I've run out of birthday facts as well. I think the candle has been blown out. I've been disappointed by the presents.

And all of my chums have gone back home. But we would like to ask you as a birthday present to us. Yeah. As a little treat. You don't have to wrap it up or anything. You don't have to wrap it up. Just leave us a five star review. Naturally.

It's what it's worth. It is what it's worth. We would also invite you to subscribe to this podcast so that every week you can get a lovely little ping in your inbox telling you there's another episode waiting for you.

How exciting. And we also have a Facebook page. We also have an email address, should you wish to write to us. Yeah. We're only human. We get things wrong at times. If you ever find something that you go, oh, I know a contrary fact to that, please, please feel free to email us and tell us because we're on a constant journey of learning just

as you are. Absolutely. So, yes. So the email address for that is hello at factorial.com. Perfect. And then there's telling your friends. Of course, yes. You meet your chums during the week and you say to them,

do you know what I found this week? I found these two lovely chaps giving me loads of interesting information that I never knew I needed. Come and have a listen. Well, that is it. Thank you so much for joining us on this celebratory birthday edition of Factory. Thank you so much for coming. We do hope you will come again soon. Bye for now.

Cheerio.