FACTORALY - E94 SPOONS

Episode Date: June 26, 2025

Spoons can be used for eating or drinking from or serving or even playing. This episode looks at all kinds of uses of the common or garden spoon. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello Bruce. G'day Simon. How are you today sir? I'm feeling absolutely fabulous thank you very much. How are you? Wonderful. I'm feeling alright. Just alright? Yeah. It'll do for now. No better than alright. I mean, I'm pretty alright. Okay. Yeah. No, I'm alright. Okay, cool. So, I mean, I don't think we need to do this anymore.

What, do you want to stop doing Factorally? You want to stop producing this wonderful show? Well, no, I don't think we need to tell people what it is anymore. Oh, I see. You think they know? I think if they're listening, they know. Yeah. OK, fine. Well, then, we won't bother telling you. No. It's factorially. You know what it is. And you're who?

I'm Simon Wells. Who are you? I'm Bruce Fielding. So, do you know what? When our generator first put up the word spoons, Simon said to me, I don't know whether that subject's big enough. Maybe we should do cutlery. And I said, no, no, I think spoons is going to be fine for half an hour. Yes, turns out you were right. There's a lot of information out there on spoons. So shall we start with a spoonful of definition? Yes, as Mary Poppins once

sang. Oh we'll get back, we'll get on to that. I'm sure we will. A spoonful of definitions helps the etymology go down. So spoons, the definition of a spoon reasonably simple compared to some of the other things we've had of late. It's an The definition of a spoon reasonably simple compared to some of the other things we've we've had of late. It's an implement consisting of a small shallow oval or round bowl on a long handle used for eating stirring and serving food which i think is reasonably concise. Yes i think that defines a spoon very well. Yeah the etymology of the word spoon comes from the old English word spoon, which means a chip of wood.

Oh. Which in turn comes from the German slash Scandinavian word spahn, meaning a shaving of wood. Oh, okay. So it's a little chip of wood that you use to eat with. To spoon stuff up in. Indeed. And that's what they're for. They're there for eating liquid soups, stews, ice creams, jellies, things like that. See our previous episodes on each of those

things. Oh yes. And for dishing out foods that exist in lots of small particles like rice, sugar, cereals, peas, et cetera. Yes. They're too small to use a fork. So how long have spoons been with us, Bruce? OK, so I'm guessing Roman or Egyptian. It usually is one or the other, isn't it? Or was it Pliny the Elder saying that they were excreted from the bottoms of ducks or something?

Oh, what a lovely image. Good old Pliny. No, it's actually, they're way older than all of that. They're sort of one of the oldest utensils, I mean, other than knives, which you know, sort of pre-date cutlery as such. So the oldest evidence of spoons is from the Paleolithic period which is roughly 21,000 years ago. Okay. They're really old. One example was a pair of spoons made of mammoth ivory which was discovered at an excavation in Russia which are sort of 20,000 years old. So they're ancient. People have been using spoons for a very, very long time. In the Neolithic period, they found some spoons in Sardinia that are made of ceramic. They existed in China. So they've found bone spoons from the

Shang dynasty, around 1500 BC. Greeks and Romans obviously used them, made of bronze and silver and I think Greek spoons sometimes had a pointed handle so that you could flip it round and stab a chunk of meat. Oh, use it as a fork? Yeah, exactly. Oh cool. That would be a spork. That would be the spork, that's right, yeah. So yes, they've been around for a while and everyone's used them. I'm sorry, we've just discovered that there was a very first spork. If you'd listen to Factorily for nothing else. There you go. The first spork was in ancient Greece.

So what interesting things have you found about spoons, Bruce? Well, I mean, okay, let's get straight on to this. So you mentioned a spoonful of sugar. I did. As in Mary Poppins. So do you know what inspired that song? Presumably the old idiom that a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down. It's not an old idiom. It was so it was Robert Sherman's son, Jeff Sherman.

Robert Sherman was one of the brothers that wrote the music for Mary Poppins. And he asked his son what sort of a day he'd had at school. And his son said, oh, we all had to have polio vaccines at school. And his father, Robert, said, I know you don't like needles. Was it okay? And he said, oh, yes, they just put a droplet of this stuff onto a sugar cube. Okay. And that helped the medicine go down. And he just went, hang on a minute. Because at that very day, he'd actually have one of his songs for the movie had been rejected. So he thought that's interesting. Sugar helps the medicine go down and write the song. So we thought that's interesting. Sugar helps the medicine go down and wrote the song. That's great. One of the most iconic songs from musical history was inspired by a kid having a polio vaccine. Yeah. Brilliant. Wow. The facts are already coming. Oh yes. I mean there are lots of different sorts of spoons aren't there? We should get that out of the way as well. Yeah sure. I saw a picture, I'll tell you what, we'll upload one of these pictures onto our website.

If you go and visit Factorily.com. Factorily.com? That's the one. There's a wonderful, wonderful blog section which Bruce painstakingly creates every week. And I would encourage you to visit it because I've looked at the numbers and not enough of you are visiting it to make it worth my while to do it. So if you want it to continue. Yes. Then please visit the blog and have a really good time. Please support your local rabbit hole. So we'll put a we'll put a picture of this.

But I found an image of an 18th century silverware table service thing and it just had so many types of spoons on it. I mean, I didn't even look at the crockery and the forks and all the rest of it, but it had a gargantuan number of spoons for different purposes. This particular image contained a serving ladle, basting spoon, salad server spoon, tablespoon, soup spoon, dessert spoon, teaspoon, boiled egg spoon, sauce ladle, basting spoon, salad server spoon, tablespoon, soup spoon, dessert spoon, teaspoon, boiled egg spoon, sauce ladle, sugar shovel, mustard spoon, salt spoon, spice sifter, marrow spoon, Stilton scoop and a berry spoon. I didn't know that most of those things existed. And I have quite a few of those.

You do? Have you been able to identify which one of yours are what? Oh yes, I know what they are. You know what they are? Use them. Just in everyday life. Wonderful. Brilliant stuff. Have you been able to identify which one of yours are what? Oh yes, I know what they are. You know what they are. Use them. Just an everyday life. Wonderful.

Brilliant stuff. But there are some spoons that aren't called spoons. For example, a Scottish spoon made from antlers to stir porridge with. It's called a spurtle. A spurtle? Yes, and I've got one of those too. That might just be my new favourite word, that's lovely. Spertle, yes.

And then there's a mother spoon. Right. Again, which I have a sort of a version of. Is it related to the daddy spoon? No, it's made from mother of pearl. Oh I see. And the reason it's made from mother of pearl is that if you use a metal spoon to spoon caviar, it taints the caviar oh does it so what you

what you want to do is you want to spoon the caviar out onto the onto the v of your hand right so basically you should eat caviar off the v on the outside between your thumb and your forefinger all right sort of almost like you're licking the sauce at the end of having a shot exactly right exactly and that's how you should eat caviar but you spoon it on with a mother of pearl spoon or a spoon that isn't metal. How interesting. So this is just a standard Friday night for you then? Yes, of course. I mean there are lots of spoons that aren't spoons. Oh okay when is a spoon not a spoon? When it's a three wood. Oh! So a three wood in golf is called a spoon. Is

it? Yeah because it's got a slight angle on it so it's almost like you're kind of lifting the lifting the ball up. You're sort of scooping it into the air. Yeah I mean it's not a five wood but a three wood is good enough. A driver which is flat or a one wood and then you've got a three-wood which has an angle on it and that kind of spoons the ball up. Wonderful and it's nicknamed a spoon. It is. That's great. Then there's um I mean we have to get onto this at some point because I know you're an expert. Spoons. Right now I was really hoping you were going to go here I decided not to. So if you've done any research on this, then brill.

So Tim Martin's 900 pubs. Yeah. Has he got 900 now? 900 Wetherspoons. Flips. Yes. So Wetherspoons is called Wetherspoons. I mean, everybody calls it spoons.

Yes, they do now. But it's actually called Wetherspoons for two reasons. One is because he really enjoyed the Dukes of Hazzard. And he especially liked Boss Hogg, J.D. Hogg. Oh, J.D. So that's the J.D. part of Wetherspoons. And he had a teacher in New Zealand where he was brought up who was completely useless and couldn't control a classroom. Who told him he'd never come to anything.

Right. And called Wetherspoon. Oh, wonderful. So he thought he would get his revenge by calling his pubs Weatherspoons. That's fantastic. I don't think I've seen the JD written down in a long time. I remember when I first became aware of Weatherspoons sort of early 90s I suppose. They said JD Weatherspoons on them. I don't think many of them do anymore. Well the first one was in Muswell Hill. They were mostly in North London to start with and now they've spread obviously to 900 pubs and

hotels and all sorts of things. Yeah and I think one of the earliest was named The Moon Under Water. You may well be right after the Orwell. That's right yes I think we might have mentioned this somewhere before on one of our many episodes. So George Orwell wrote a beautiful little piece describing his ideal pub. It wasn't real, it was just imaginary. And he talked about all the wonderful assets that this pub should have and he named it the Moon Underwater. And so one of the first spoons pubs was called that. And so there are a few branches of Wetherspoons, particularly around London. There's a moon on the hill, there's a moon on the green, there's a moon underwater, etc. in homage to that. Very good. And if you go back to our episode on carpets, you'll discover that in every

Wetherspoons there's an Axminster carpet custom-made for that pub. Yes, indeed, yeah. I have used that fact a few times when going to said pubs of late. Excellent. So that's a spoons that isn't a spoon. Yes. Do you enjoy spooning? Oh, you went there. Yes I do, actually. I find it rather comfy.

You should, because it's very good for you. Spooning is where you lay and sort of cuddle somebody else sort of with your front on their back or vice versa depending on which one of you wants to be big spoon or little spoon. Yes. But it's it's very very good apparently for stress and pain relief. Oh really? So actually sort of cuddling up to somebody is a very good way of releasing oxytocin, dopamine and serotonin. Wonderful. So all that so it basically you get a better night's sleep and you're more relaxed and calm. That's wonderful. I do like a good spoon. I have wondered about the

phraseology you just use big spoon little spoon because the implication is that the little spoon goes in front and the big spoon spoons from behind. But actually the whole point of it being a spoon is that you can get two spoons of the same size and they will nestle into each other. You don't nestle a smaller spoon into a bigger spoon. They fit together just because they are both spoon shaped. So actually that terminology is slightly inaccurate. But but hey who's counting? I had a look at um silver spoon or silver spoons not silver spoon the brand of sugar. No, as in born with one in your mouth. Indeed yes, exactly. So that phrase kind of means that

you're from money, you have inherited wealth, the image being that as soon as you were born, as soon as you were a baby, you were fed with a silver spoon. And often it sort of has slightly negative connotations that you don't even realise how wealthy you are, you don't really appreciate your position, you just take it for granted that you're rich. And this expression goes back quite a long way. It's first written down in 1719 in an English translation of the Spanish novel Don Quixote. And it's actually inaccurate, the guy who translated that into

English, there was another Spanish phrase used in the original text, which he didn't understand, but it meant the same thing as to be born with a silver spoon in your mouth. So he translated it as that. So that shows that the phrase was already in use when he used it in 1719, so it's at least that old book, probably older. And in Australia, they take this phrase and they've come up with the word spooner, which refers to a young person who has lots of wealth that they take for granted. So that person is a spooner. And that sort of took me down looking at different uses of silver spoons and things like that. Apparently, going back a few hundred years before the idea

of a set table service, dinner service in sort of 17, 1800s, it was not uncommon for you to take your own cutlery with you to dinner when you went around to someone's house for dinner. Oh really? Yeah apparently so. I'd never heard this before but I've seen a few websites that verify it. And one of the particular things you took with you was a spoon. And if you were of a certain class, you would take a silver spoon with you so that when you're at dinner, you whip your silver spoon out of your pocket and you make a good show of it and everyone else around you knows that you're of a certain class. And more recently in 2015 there's something in South Korea called spoon class theory, which takes this idea that you can tell what class someone is from from the type of

spoon that they use. And this is a whole sociological political theory that's actually taught in universities called spoon class theory. And it goes really in depth and I can't be bothered to talk about it that much but there are levels of spoon class that you could refer to people the wealthiest being a gold spoon so that person is a gold spoon and the poorest being a dirt spoon and there are different levels in between from clay, bronze, silver, gold, etc etc all representing that family's particular economic status. So spoon class theory. Gosh, so you mentioned taking your own spoon.

Yes. In very cheap restaurants, cafes, places where you eat but that are really cheap. Eateries. Many many years, hundreds of years ago, what they did was they had like a wooden table places where you eat but not but that are really cheap eateries and many many years hundreds of years ago what they did was they had like a wooden table and they would basically make bowl shaped indents in the wooden table yeah and they would serve out food into the indents so no washing up I see right so basically you and you ate out of these wooden indents. Oh, and what

they would do is they would chain a spoon. Right to these to these wooden tables. So they would be sort of a number of spoons change to the table. Yeah. And it's a theory that what they used to do is come along with a cloth. When you finish, they sort of wipe around this this wooden bowl in the table yeah and then they'd give your spoon a bit of a wipe yes but occasionally they wouldn't give it a very good wipe right which would leave it greasy greasy spoon oh I say what do you think our chances are with that actually being real I would since all the apocrypha is real in fact orally, well I think it's real. Yeah I do too. Greasy spoon. I like that very much. You've seen the movie Digby haven't you? The biggest drug in the world yes. There's a scene in that where Jim Dale's character goes into a cafe and

there's a knife and fork chained to the table to prevent theft. Yes. But they're both on really short chains and he tries to grab them both and start eating his breakfast and they don't both reach the plate at the same time. So he sort of shifts the plate to the right, cuts the sausage, shifts the plate to the left, picks up the sausage with his fork and eats it and there's a whole little musical number in this movie based around that. Excellent. based around that. Excellent. When you talked about Australian spooners, I thought you were going to talk about Oxford

spooners. I don't know what that is. So there was a chap called the Reverend William Spooner, who was a Don of Oxford, who used to get his words mixed up. Oh, Spoonerism? Yes. Oh, yes. Oh, spoonerism. Yes. Oh, yes. Right. Okay. Yes. Go on then. Yes. So, I mean, there are, there are, I mean, there are so many spoonerisms.

I mean, I can put it, I can put a link in the, in the blog. But one of my favourite one is when, when there was a toast and the Reverend William Sooner stood up and said, ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to propose a toast to the queer old dean. The dear old queen, that's brilliant. One of my favourite spoonerisms, I do this quite a lot, it's just fun to mix your letters around and I sort of do this with my son quite a lot, which perplexes him because it often turns out to be something rude. That's kind of the best way to use a spoonerism. And one of my Spoonerisms is actually an Australian term.

An Australian friend of mine says no wucks, meaning no problem. Yeah. And no wucks is short for no wucking furries. Yes. Which I love. Yes. So the, so the, the queer old Dean would have been Queen Victoria. Yes.

Cause Spooner was around between sort he was born in the 1840s. Right. And sort of died in about 1900s. Yeah. Early 1900s. So he was a prolific and learned Don of Oxford University. Yes. But he's gone down in history for mixing up his letters.

Can you imagine how annoyed he must be? He must be growling in his rave. There are other things you can do with spoons of course. Okay. You can play them. Oh yes you can. Yeah I had a little look at this as well. Did you? So what did you find out about playing the spoons? I found out that it's a really big topic which you could actually spend a very long time

talking about so I'm not going to. But yeah, it's sort of a popular, it's a percussion instrument, if you can call it an instrument. Well you say instrument. Well yeah, exactly. Although having said that, Duncan Campbell from UB40 was the first musician to be registered in the Musicians' Union as a spoon player. Oh really, was he? How good for him! But it's kind of, it's used in folk music, it's used in quite a few countries actually,

so British folk music, American, Canadian, Greek, Russian and Turkish folk music. And it's a percussion instrument, specifically it's something called an ideophone, which is a brand new word that I'd never heard of before. Idiophone. So it's a percussion instrument that makes a sound just by being hit, unlike a drum, which resonates with the skin of the drum. Spoons or clavy or that thing that looks like an armadillo that you scratch with a stick, which I can't remember the name of. These are called ideophones, so they make sound just because you hit them. But yeah, in makeshift folk bands, someone's playing a washboard with some cymbals on their

fingers, someone else is playing the spoons. It's cheap and it's easy, but it's quite cool. Yeah. I mean, there have been some quite well-known players of the Spoons. Because you're a bit of a Whovian aren't you? I am a Whovian yes. So did you know that Sylvester McCoy is a Spoon player? No I didn't is he? Yes and he actually played Spoons on Doctor Who. I've seemed to remember that being the case I didn't know that's because he was actually a Spoons player I thought it was just a funny thing that the doctor did. He also played the spoons in Ian McKellen's King Lear. Oh really?

Yeah. Oh how wonderful. Yes. There are different techniques of playing the spoons depending on sort of how you hold them and how you strike them. There are techniques such as the fire tongue style, the salad serving style, the castanet style and the drumstick style. But yeah, they're quite a flamboyant thing to use. You know, people sort of tap them on their knees, on their elbows, on the back of their heads, off their thighs and it's a whole body movement thing. It's quite showy. I remember seeing the now late Eddie Jordan playing spoons. Okay.

From Jordan Formula One Racing. Oh really, oh right. Yes. He was a drummer but he also played spoons. Right, okay. Again, I'm sure if we can find a video of this being done for anyone who's never actually seen it then we'll throw it up on the website. What else can you do with a spoon? So you can eat with it, you can serve with it, you can play it, you can drink in it, spoons. What else? You can hang it from your nose. Sure. Have you ever seen

spoon hanging? I'm aware of it. I've never seen it in person. I've never tried actually. Give it a go. It's great fun. You basically, you dry sort of your nose so it's not too greasy and then you dry the spoon and you breathe on the spoon and you basically put the spoon end on your nose and it just stays there. Great. Until gravity takes over and then it doesn't. I may or may not have a record related to this which I'll share with you later. Oh okay. Oh you can bend them with your fingers? Of course you can yes or with your mind if you're Yuri Geller. Well exactly exactly. He made his name from from bending spoons. That's so niche isn't it? Can you imagine that? I mean they've sort of tried

to work out how he did it. There's all sorts of people who give excuses and reasons why it might be but they don't really hold up. And if you want to see a large collection, if you go to the blog at Factorly.com you will see a picture of Yuri Glla's Cadillac, where he has actually riveted loads of spoons that he's bent. Oh really? Including Elvis Presley's spoon, there's an old sort of King Edward's spoon, Queen Victoria's spoon, just loads and loads and loads of spoons that he's kind of, people have given him, so can you bend this? Now who in their right mind would give Queen Victoria's spoon to a man who is known for bending spoons? I mean that's just...

Oh and not only that, then he actually rivets it to his car. To his car. That's strange. To be fair, I mean the car looks ridiculous. I'm sure. And because it's me, I have to mention a car in every episode. But he uses it to raise money. So this car is based in the UK and it goes around various events and raises money for charities. That's brilliant. That's peculiar, but that's brilliant. Speaking of Royal Tea and their spoons, I came across something that I didn't know existed called the Coronation Spoon.

The Coronation Spoon is part of the Crown Jewels collection and it's an implement that's used in the coronation of British monarchs. Oh, the Anointing Spoon! Yeah, that's the one. It's called the Coronation Spoon. It dates back to the 12th century. And it's a silver gilt spoon with four pearls in the handle. And the bowl has a ridge down the center of it.

And it sort of divides the bowl into two halves, which it's suspected was originally used for sort of diluting wine. So you'd pour water in one half, wine in the other half, and then pour them both into a cup to make diluting wine. So you'd pour water in one half, wine in the other half, and then pour them both into a cup to make diluted wine. But yeah, during the coronation ceremony, the Archbishop of Canterbury dips his fingers into the two halves of this spoon, which contains anointed water. And then, you know, don't know why I'm doing this symbol on a podcast, but you know exactly what I'm doing. Makes the sign of the cross with the water on the monarch's forehead. And this thing was first used, so the spoon

itself is from the 12th century, it was first used to anoint a monarch in 1603 when James I became king. So it's had sort of 500 years of life just being used as a spoon before someone said, hey, do you know what would be cool? We should use this thing to anoint the monarch. Yes. Have you heard of apostle spoons? Oh no, what's an an apostle or apostle? Apostle, as in follower of Jesus. Okay. No. So Apostle Spoons were a thing going back to the 1400s, quite popular throughout Europe. And this would sort of be a gift set, often presented to a child on their baptism. And it's a set of 13, obviously, because we count the other guy. So these 13 sort of

beautiful decorative silver spoons and the end of the handle is carved into the shape of a particular apostle with whatever theme imagery goes with that particular apostle. And yeah, so these were popular in England, quite a large number of them have been found in sort of excavations throughout Germany and the rest of Europe. And there's a set of them in the British Museum, which date from 1536-ish, so rather old. This particular set, one of the spoons has Mary on it instead of Jesus. But yeah, by the 1600s these were sort of a popular gift to present to kids being baptised from the godparents, you know. And in some areas this

tradition continued right up until the 20th century, so you could get a set of apostle spoons for your baptism day all the way up into the 1900s. Oh, interesting. Love spoons. I love spoons as well. So there's a thing called a lovespoon, most typically a Welsh lovespoon. Okay. Very, very popular in Wales. They did use them in Germany as well but I think that habit has sort of died out. But it's a decorative wooden spoon presented to a couple on the day of their wedding and it has different imagery sort of carved into the spoon.

I've got one because a Welsh friend of mine bought me a Welsh love spoon on the day of my marriage. And they're carved with different symbolism, so it's sort of right into the handle all the way to the end. You have a series of symbols one after the other and you get a horseshoe carved in for good luck, a cross for faith, a pair of bells representing the marriage, a heart for love, obviously, often a cartwheel for support and hard work in your marriage and a lock to represent the security of being married. And you can get these fantastically decorative wooden spoons with all of these different bits of imagery carved into the handle and you just sort of hang it on the wall as a

symbol. They often carve the date and the name of the couple into the heart in the middle of it. In Norway they have something similar called linked spoons. So they would make a pair of spoons connected by a wooden chain and these things were usually carved from one single piece of wood so all of the links in the chain were sort of hollowed out and really really intricate. They sort of look like a pair of nunchucks. Well we know that vikings had very little to do when there was terrible weather. Yes that's true yeah. So that would be something that you're whistling some wood down into a pair of spoons with a chain in them. Exactly yeah it's something to do on a rainy night isn't it? Yeah.

And these spoons were traditionally used by the the married couple on the second day of their wedding. They would use it to consume their breakfast on that morning. And it was sort of a symbol of their linkage and their connectedness in marriage. And then after they'd finished using them, they'd hang them on the wall as a symbol. How nice. So it's about this time in the podcast when I will ask Simon, what records do you have for me Simon? Well Bruce, I'm glad you asked. I've got a few, this is a great topic. Every now and

then you get a topic that's quite hard to find interesting records, they're just the biggest and the smallest. This one is just bizarre and therefore it fits in really well. So I mentioned one of them earlier on, balancing spoons on your face. There's a world record for a man from Iran called Al-Bafazl Sabah Mokhtari, I think. Apologies to anybody if you've got the pronunciations like that. Sorry if anyone's listening from Iran. And he has the world record for balancing the most spoons on his body, so not just on his nose or his face. They're actually draped over different parts of his body.

He first set this record in 2021. I'm sorry, my mind went immediately somewhere. Yeah, it doesn't show. It doesn't state whether it's that region. But it certainly, they're all over his face, his neck, his shoulders, his torso, etc. He first set the record in 2021 when he balanced 85 spoons on his body, beating the previous record of 64, so really smashed it. And then he broke his own record in 2023 with 88 spoons spoons and then he smashed it again just this year, 2025, with 96 spoons.

Just balanced anywhere on his body? Yeah, at the same time. Okay. So that's quite fun. The largest collection of spoons, there's a fella in Australia called Des Warren who owns a collection of over 30,000 teaspoons and this record is is recognized by the UK Spoon Collectors Club which I just think is charming that we have such a thing. That makes my sort of dozen spoons pale into

insignificance doesn't it? But yours are practical you have a wonderful collection of usable spoons that most people didn't know exist. That's just as impressive. He had a special room built as an extension upon his house to contain 20 cases of spoons for this collection. A spoon room? Yeah, a spoonery. Wow. And they're made from all sorts. They're made from china, silver, gold, some bone ones, some crystal ones, glass ones. It's quite quite exceptional. Wow. And then the the largest ever spoon. Yes. You mentioned Yuri Geller. Yep. Yuri Geller created, I don't know whether he personally made it or if he had it made, but he has the largest steel spoon in the world. This spoon is 16.18 meters long. That's 53 feet and one inch.

I mean, you know, getting the soup to your mouth would be a bit tricky. Imagine. That would be ridiculous. The bowl of the spoon measures just over two meters in diameter, six foot eight inches, and this spoon stands upright in front of the Yuri Geller Museum in Tel Aviv, Israel. Gosh, how about that? As a representation of what we've already spoken about Yuri Geller doing stuff with spoons. Well there's a thing. Isn't it a thing? I found, the only one I found was the most expensive spoon. Oh go on. Which was part of a collection of silver

And it sold I mean the the whole collection sold for like 2.4 million Oh good grief. This fine silver auction. Wow. But the spoon went for 32 and a half thousand dollars. What? for 32 and a half thousand dollars. What? Yeah, that's an American spoon. What was so special about this spoon? I don't know. I haven't seen a picture of it.

It must have been sort of particularly rare, the only one of a particular set left or the only one it was created. It was monogrammed HH for Hepzibah Hall. Wow. Well, that brings me in mind of the time we tried to sell your canteen of silver cutlery on eBay. Yes. We didn't quite get that. No, no, we certainly didn't.

Well, that's all I have on spoons. I'm spooned out. Yes, I think I have ladled up all of my spoon related facts. Nice. Well, if you know anything more about spoons, then please let us know, as we said before, you can write to us at hello at factorally.com, or you can go to our Facebook page, factorally, or you can just tell us.

If you see either of us wandering the streets of London at any time shout out to us and tell us, oh yeah I know a fact about spoons. But there's something more important isn't there Simon? Oh there is yeah infinitely more important. What's that? Some stars. Oh yes. Some stars would be lovely if you would be so kind as to go on to your podcast player of choice and give us a lovely, glowing five star, five spoon review and share some lovely words about why you enjoy listening to this show, assuming you do. Of course you do. Yes, of course you do. Then that would be much appreciated. Another thing you can do is to subscribe to this show

so that every Thursday morning you'll get a notification reminding you that a new episode has arrived. Yes, or you can just tell your nerdy mates. Yeah. I mean you might you might have friends who are into spoons. You never know. Or in the spoons. Right now they might be in spoons right now. You may be one of those people on the Wi-Fi in spoons. There you go. Just just ligging around all day long day drinking. Ordering a random item of food for someone else's table number. Who knows? Well thank you so much for coming along to listen to us. We do hope you'll join us again for the next fun-filled fascinating factual installment of

Fact-or-ally. Goodbye. Au revoir.