Futility Closet - 173-The Worst Journey in the World

Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to the Futility Closet podcast, forgotten stories from the pages of history. Visit us online to sample more than 9,000 quirky curiosities from the limits of crosswords to Charlotte Bronte's phrenologist. This is episode 173. I'm Greg Ross. And I'm Greg Ross. And I'm Sharon Ross. In 1911, three British explorers made a perilous 70-mile journey in the dead of the Antarctic winter to gather eggs from a penguin brookery in McMurdo Sound. In today's show, we'll follow the three through perpetual darkness and bone-shattering cold

Starting point is 00:00:39 on what one man called the worst journey in the world. We'll also dazzle some computers and puzzle over some patriotic highways. Apsley Cherry Gerard, whose friends called him Cherry, was the scion of English landed gentry. He was raised as an English country gentleman, and his father's inheritance meant he'd never have to work. But his father had fought with merit for the British defense forces in India and China, and absolutely felt he had to live up to his example. He joined Robert Falcon Scott's second polar expedition almost by accident. In September 1907, Scott was planning the expedition and happened to meet with

Starting point is 00:01:18 zoologist Bill Wilson at the home of Cherry's cousin. Cherry just happened to visit and decided to volunteer. Scott rejected his first application, so he applied again and offered a thousand pounds. When Scott rejected that too, he told him to just keep the thousand pounds because he believed in what he was doing, and Scott was struck by that gesture and accepted him. This made him the youngest member of Scott's expedition. He was 24 years old, shy, and distinctly underqualified. 8,000 people had applied to join Scott, and most of the 32 members who were chosen were scientists, naval officers, and seafarers. Cherry had never

Starting point is 00:01:50 been to the Antarctic and had no scientific training, though they called him the assistant zoologist. The others teased him at first, but he won them over through modesty and hard work. They all sailed to McMurdo Sound in 1910 and established a camp at Ross Island. Cherry became the protege of Wilson, the zoologist and the expedition's second-in-command. Wilson's personal goal in Antarctica was to retrieve some eggs of the emperor penguin for scientific study. At the time, it was thought that an animal's embryo passed through the various forms that its species had taken during evolution. You may have heard the phrase, ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny. The penguin was flightless and was considered by many people to be the most primitive bird in the world, so if a penguin embryo turned out to have vestiges of reptilian teeth, if it resembled a

Starting point is 00:02:33 reptile, this would be evidence that would suggest that birds had evolved from reptiles. That would be quite valuable to know, but getting the evidence appeared to be almost impossible. Scott's party was camped at one end of Ross Island, and the only known penguin rookery was at the other end, at Camp Crozier, where the birds incubated their eggs on the sea ice in the middle of the Antarctic winter. To get an egg, three men would have to sledge 70 miles across the island in the coldest conditions that any human had ever experienced, traveling in perpetual darkness, and even if they could reach the cape, they'd have to build a snow hut in the constant blast of wind and storms, then use ropes and axes to cross a series of enormous pressure ridges by moonlight

Starting point is 00:03:11 in order to reach the penguins, return safely with them to the snow hut, prepare them for preservation there, and then get home safely again. Scott had his concerns, but he valued science, and so he let three men go. They were Wilson and Cherry, and a third man, Henry Bowers, who was known as Birdie for his distinctive beak-like nose. The three of them set out on June 27th, timing this so that they could collect the embryos at just the right stage of incubation. At the start of his book, Cherry writes, Polar exploration is at once the cleanest and most isolated way of having a bad time which has been devised. And this trip would be nightmarishly bad. To begin

Starting point is 00:03:45 with, they set out with a total weight of 757 pounds, and they had no dogs. They'd be hauling this load themselves. It was impossible to fit it all onto one 12-foot sledge, so they used two 9-foot ones, one toggled on behind the other. This made it easier to pack and handle the gear, but it nearly doubled the friction surface. To compound the trouble, Cherry was extremely nearsighted. Even in England, people across the street were only blobs to him, and he quickly found that he couldn't wear spectacles while sledging. They frosted up immediately. This would have been bad enough in daylight, but they were hauling the load through endless night. Cherry wrote, the horror of the 19 days it took us to travel from Cape Evans to Cape Crozier would have to be re-experienced to be repreciated, and anyone would be fooled who went again. It is not possible to describe it.

Starting point is 00:04:30 To begin with, the cold was almost unbearable. On the second evening, the temperature dropped to minus 47 Fahrenheit, and eventually it would drop to minus 77. That's minus 60 Celsius. Cherry unwisely took his hands out of his mitts briefly to haul on the ropes, and soon all ten fingers were frostbitten. They learned to love activity and to hate their sleeping bags, which they called shivering bags. During the day, their sweat froze into their clothing, and at night it melted into the sleeping bag so that afterward the bags froze solid, and it could take 45 minutes to chip away back into them each night. Their breath covered their faces with ice and soldered their balaclavas to their heads. They had to wait for a stove to be started in camp in order to free themselves again. After leaving the breakfast tent, you had to

Starting point is 00:05:08 remember not to stand up straight because your clothes would freeze solid in 15 seconds and then you couldn't lean forward in the sledging harness. The surface was a mass of hard, small snow crystals, and the cold was so great that the sledge runners couldn't melt the snow, so pulling through them was just like pulling through sand. For this reason, on June 30th when they started, they found they couldn't move both sledges together. They had to move one and come back for the other. That meant that they walked three miles for every one mile of progress they made, and most of the time it was so dark that they had to manage this by candlelight. Cherry wrote, it was the weirdest kind of procession, three frozen men and a little pool of light. Generally we steered by Jupiter, and I never see him now without recalling his friendship in those days. All this made for appallingly slow

Starting point is 00:05:49 progress. On a typical day they might spend eight hours advancing two and a half miles. Cherry called these days the worst, I suppose, in their dark severity that men have ever come through alive. But he says his companions were always cheerful, and there was never a crossword among them. He wrote they were gold, pure, shining, unalloyed. Words cannot express how good their companionship was. Wilson, who was nominally the leader, kept apologizing, saying he never dreamed it was going to be as bad as this. He asked them repeatedly whether they wanted to go back, and they always said no. Generally now, they were having to spend eight hours marching, seven hours in the sleeping bags,

Starting point is 00:06:22 and more than nine hours at routine camp work, which slowed to a crawl in the cold. That's more than 24 hours, so they began to ignore the clock and just plod it on, doing their best in the darkness. Gradually, they were making their way into the eastern end of Ross Island, which was dominated by a 10,000-foot volcano with the unconsoling name of Mount Terror, named by Sir James Clark Ross for his second ship, the HMS Terror. After 67 miles, they finally reached Cape Crozier and set about building a hut of stone, which when they finished it was seven feet in diameter and roofed with canvas. They joked that they were living in a transitional period between the glacial and paleolithic ages. Their plan now was to set up

Starting point is 00:07:00 a stove that they would feed with penguin blubber and have a safe home while they did their research. The plan now was to set up a stove that they would feed with penguin blubber and have a safe home while they did their research. Building this hut took three days, after which they found they were into the fifth of the six tins of oil that they'd brought, so they were eager to reach the penguins both to collect some eggs and to get some fat to keep the stove going. This meant negotiating a maze of hummocks and crevasses, and without his spectacles, Cherry was a menace to the party. One day he fell into crevasses six times. But as they neared the rookery they could hear the emperor's calling and finally after much struggle they found it cherry wrote we saw the emperor standing all together huddled under the barrier cliff some

Starting point is 00:07:33 hundreds of yards away the little light was going fast we were much more excited about the approach of complete darkness and the look of the wind in the south than we were about our triumph after indescribable effort and hardship we were witnessing a marvel of the natural world, and we were the first and only men who had ever done so. We had within our grasp material which might prove of the utmost importance to science. We were turning theories into facts with every observation we made, and we had but a moment to give. They gathered five eggs, which they hoped to carry in their mitts back to their hut on Mount Terror, where they could pickle them in alcohol. They also killed and skinned three birds for their fat. By now the light was dying, and in their hurry to return, Cherry burst both his eggs.

Starting point is 00:08:11 But they reached the hut safely with the others, and the penguin fat kept the stove going, though it spat a blob of boiling oil into Wilson's eye, which incapacitated him for some time. Now, on top of everything else. Unfortunately, the worst was still to come. The following evening they were in the hut, with the tent pitched outside when an enormous storm swept in. At its height, it seized the tent and carried it away. Now they would have no shelter to sleep in on the journey home. Cherry wrote, our slow minds suggested that this might mean a peculiarly lingering form of death.

Starting point is 00:08:40 In the storm, they managed to gather the supplies that had been in the tent, and then they waited in the hut watching the canvas roof, which Cherry said was being wrenched upwards and then dropped back with great crashes. They tried to weigh down the roof with heavy blocks of snow, but they knew that the canvas must give way soon. They cooked a final meal, got into their bags, and for 24 hours waited for the roof to go. Wilson told them that once the roof was gone, their best course might be to roll so that the openings of their sleeping bags were beneath them, and then resolved to freeze to death. In the end, the canvas didn't just blow away, it exploded into hundreds of fragments, leaving them exposed to the sky and

Starting point is 00:09:12 the storm, which almost certainly meant the end. But even here, they felt a strange belief in their task and in each other. Bower said, we're all right, and the others agreed. And Cherry later wrote, this statement was helpful. They turned their bags over and they lay in thought and occasionally sang hymns. They considered that they might make their way back to camp by digging a hole each night in the snow and covering it over with the hut's floor cloth, which was all they had left. This was lunacy. Even as they discussed it, they had to hummock themselves up onto the mounting snow. It had taken 19 days to get here in cold that had never been experienced before by human beings. Now they'd been out for four weeks under conditions in which no man had existed previously for more than a few days.

Starting point is 00:09:51 Cherry wrote, It had been in the early morning of July 22nd that they discovered the loss of the tent. The snow was piling onto them, keeping them warm but saturating their bags and the floor cloth. After they'd gone two days and two nights without a meal, there was a lull in the storm. They managed to cook some tea and pemmican, which were delicious, and they went out hopelessly to look for the tent. Jerry wrote, I followed Bill down the slope. We could find nothing, but as we searched, we heard a shout somewhere below and to the right. We got on a slope, Jerry wrote, umbrella, and as the wind pulled it up, otherwise it would have been destroyed. The storm had dropped it into a hollow half a mile from camp. Its fastenings were strained, and the ends of two poles were broken, but the silk was intact. They carried it back and pitched it securely again on the mountainside. With their lives given back to them, they discussed making another go at the

Starting point is 00:10:57 penguins, but finally they decided to head home. As it was, their sleeping bags had become so icy that they were very doubtful they'd be able to get into them in very low temperatures. The return to Scott's camp was just as nightmarish as the outward journey had been, and now all three of them were exhausted. Cherry wrote later, Antarctic exploration is seldom as bad as you imagine, seldom as bad as it sounds, but this journey had beggared our language. No words could express its horror. Bowers had to give up keeping the meteorological log on some nights as he literally fell asleep as he was making the records. Some sources say that Cherry shattered most of his teeth chattering in the cold.

Starting point is 00:11:30 I actually can't find any support for this. What he wrote was, There was no unnecessary conversation. I don't know why our tongues never got frozen, but all my teeth, the nerves of which had been killed, split to pieces. I guess I don't know enough about teeth to know quite what that means. What split to pieces means, but that doesn't sound good. Yeah, he had health problems ever afterwards after this. It just destroyed his health, understandably.

Starting point is 00:11:52 At the end, just before they arrived back at camp, Wilson said quietly, I want to thank you two for what you have done. I couldn't have found two better companions, and what is more, I never shall. They reached Scott's camp on August 1, 1911. Geologist Griff Taylor wrote in his diary, Cherry staggered in looking like nothing human. He had on a big nose guard covering all but his eyes, and huge icicles and frost stuck out like duck spills from his lips.

Starting point is 00:12:14 Scott wrote, They looked more weather-worn than anyone I have yet seen. Their faces were scarred and wrinkled, their eyes dull, their hands whitened and creased with the constant exposure to damp and cold. Their frozen clothes had been cut from their bodies. Someone suggested using a can opener. Cherry's clothes weighed 24 pounds, and most of that was ice. But they were alive. They feasted on bread and cocoa and listened to music on the camp gramophone. When Cherry got into a warm sleeping bag, he wrote later, I managed to keep awake long enough to think that paradise might feel something

Starting point is 00:12:40 like this. They slept 10,000 years, he said, and then got up for a haircut, a bath, and a shave. Amazingly, Cherry had lost only one pound on the whole adventure. The others had lost three and a half pounds each. I wish that were the end of the story, as the rest is tragedy. Wilson and Bowers joined Scott and two others in an attempt to reach the South Pole now. They got there on January 17, 1912, only to discover that the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen had beaten them by five weeks. They struggled north again, but met terrible weather. Two of the five men died, and the remaining three, Scott, Wilson, and Bowers, got within 11 miles of a supply depot and then

Starting point is 00:13:15 froze to death. Their bodies were discovered eight months later by a search party that included Cherry. He was tortured by the thought that he ought to have saved his friends, and he was determined to redeem their sacrifice by delivering the penguin eggs to the scientific establishment. But there seemed to be no meaning even in that. He presented the eggs to London's Natural History Museum in 1913 and found that they weren't much interested in them. The theory that Wilson had been relying on, that a creature's embryo reflected its evolution, had already begun to be discredited. At the museum, the custodian he spoke with seemed churlish and mistrustful. He said, who are you? What do you want? This ain't an egg shop. What call have you to come meddling with our eggs? Do you want me to put the police

Starting point is 00:13:52 onto you? Is it the crocodile's egg you're after? I don't know nothing about no eggs. You'd best speak to Mr. Brown. It's him that varnishes the eggs. Mr. Brown took the eggs without a word of thanks and turned to talk to a colleague. When he noticed the cherry was still there, he said, you needn't wait. Cherry said, I should like to have a receipt for the eggs if you please. Brown said, it is not necessary. It is all right. You needn't wait. Cherry said, I should like to have a receipt. He waited angrily in a corridor until they understood that he wasn't going to leave, and finally they gave him a receipt. He wrote later to the museum, I handed over the Cape Crozier embryos, which had cost three men their lives and cost one

Starting point is 00:14:25 in his health, to your museum personally, and your representative never even said thanks. When he visited the museum later with Scott's sister, the custodian denied that the eggs belonged to the museum or even existed. Cherry demanded written acknowledgement within 24 hours if the eggs were safe, or he said England would reverberate with the tale, and they finally sent him a letter. He retired to his estates, increasingly depressed and brooding over the trip and whether he might have saved the three doomed explorers. In 1922, he published a book about the expedition, and he called it The Worst Journey in the World. He and his friends had gone through unbearable hardship to advance human knowledge,

Starting point is 00:14:58 and scarcely anyone seemed to care. Their scientific findings were not valued, and his friends had lost their lives. He went on to other pursuits, though the expedition and the book were the major achievements of his life, and in time he reconciled himself to his disappointments. He came to see that it was his friendship with Wilson and Bowers, their dedication in seeking knowledge for its own sake, that had originally given meaning to the winter journey, and that that would endure no matter what the world came to think of it. He wrote, I tell you, if you have the desire for knowledge and the power to give it physical expression, go out and explore.

Starting point is 00:15:29 If you are a brave man, you will do nothing. If you are fearful, you may do much, for none but cowards have the need to prove their bravery. Some will tell you that you are mad, and nearly all will say, what is the use? For we are a nation of shopkeepers, and no shopkeeper will look at research which does not promise him a financial return within a year. And so you will sledge nearly alone. But those with whom you sledge will not be shopkeepers, and no shopkeeper will look at research which does not promise him a financial return within a year. And so you will sledge nearly alone. But those with whom you sledge will not be shopkeepers. That is worth a good deal. If you march your winter journeys, you will have your reward, so long as all you want is a penguin's egg. Harry's offers you an amazingly high-quality shave at an affordable price,

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Starting point is 00:16:59 go to harrys.com slash closet. That's harrys.com slash closet. Don't wait. Get started with Harry's today. We have some further follow-up to the puzzle in episode 165. Spoiler alert, that was the puzzle where the Indian newsreader misread a name as a Roman numeral. Mark Andre Caron, who thankfully sent pronunciation help for his name, wrote, capital I and the lowercase L that look like the Roman numeral for two when side by side. She was also promptly fired. He was succeeded by his son Kim Jong-un, which must have been extra confusing for her since UN is how we write one in French. I researched the newsreader's name and network but then decided against sharing this information since she has probably had to live

Starting point is 00:18:00 with enough shame already. Keep up the good work. And I guess she could have read it as Kim Jong-11, I suppose. Kim Jong-2. That probably happened more than once. Bill Shuler, who sent a whole pronunciation guide with his email, wrote, As my son Luca and I were listening to your explanation of the library phone system reading M as thousand in episode 167, I had to recount my family's text to speech inside joke. When we moved to Texas from California 10 years ago, we learned about farm to market roads. In the once rural area surrounding Frisco, Texas, there are still plenty of roads referred to by number such as FM 257 instead of a friendly or common name. We were using a GPS with an early version of text-to-speech

Starting point is 00:18:48 that would announce the name of the street on which to turn next. Our well-meaning and surprisingly worldly GPS would kindly guide us by saying, in 250 feet, turn right on Federated States of Micronesia 257. Luca and I love the show and eagerly await each episode. My daughter and Luca's sister Anya is holding out for the Sasha only spinoff as the current show has too much talking and not enough animals for her younger tastes. Your current and surely future fans, the Shulers. And regarding the Wake County Library phone system that read M as thousand, Kevin Smith sent in this follow-up. I work in the department that administers that machine for Wake

Starting point is 00:19:32 County Public Libraries. Over the years, there have been several funny examples. At one time, it interpreted the name Mia as M-I-A, like missing in action. These have, for the most part, all been resolved. So nice to know that the people of our county are now safe from having their names converted to Roman numerals. And it seems that Anya is not alone in thinking that our show could use more animals. We recently received the following email with the subject line, Sasha. I would like it if you would let Sasha the mascot interrupt the show sometime. I would like to hear her, George. And beneath that was written, Dear Futility Closet, the note above was written by my 10-year-old son who loves your show and would love to hear Sasha's meow.

Starting point is 00:20:18 George is a big fan, listens to every episode, Rebecca O'Brien. So thanks so much for writing, George. Sasha has interrupted the show from time to time, though some people seem to find her easier to hear than others. We think it depends on what speakers or earphones that you're using to listen to the show. And I think I've maybe mentioned before, with our new recording setup, it's now actually much harder for her to get picked up. We switched to a new setup a while back to improve the audio quality of the podcast, and that means that background noises, which unfortunately includes kitty cats, don't come through as much as they used to. However, we have had a few people

Starting point is 00:20:55 specifically mention that they would like to hear more from Sasha, so we'll have to see what we can do about that. But in the meantime, I've put together a recording of some of Sasha's off-show contributions, and we'll make that audio file a public post on our Patreon page, which means that anybody can access it. So if you want to go over to patreon.com slash futility closet, you can check out what Sasha had to say. And as a more general FYI, we do put up some public posts on our Patreon page, and that includes some extra facts about each episode if anyone ever wants to see those. We have a couple of updates on some much older topics. Dazzle Camouflage to try to confuse enemies about the ship's type, size, and heading, and about how similar camouflage may be currently used by automakers testing prototype cars.

Starting point is 00:21:51 Duncan Creamer, who nicely let me know that there was nothing at all tricky about pronouncing his name, wrote, Hello you two and Kat. I've recently discovered your podcast and am working my way through your podcast, out of order, and found something you may have covered already, or rather Thanks for the show and everything you do. And Duncan sent a link to an article on computer vision dazzle, or CV dazzle, from The Atlantic. vision dazzle, or CV dazzle, from The Atlantic. The point of CV dazzle is to try to prevent facial recognition algorithms from seeing a face through the use of bold facial makeup that alters the standard patterns of symmetry and the areas of light and dark that faces usually display. And while this may confuse computers into not noticing your face, as the author of the article discovered, it does cause other people to

Starting point is 00:22:45 stare at you quite a bit. There's also an article in the New York Times that goes into more detail about exactly what you need to aim for with CV dazzle to try to confuse the facial recognition programs. And we'll have the links in the show notes for anyone who wants to see the techniques or some photos of people's faces that look to me like something out of dystopian science fiction movies. And I found it interesting that as dazzled as the faces were, I didn't have any difficulty recognizing them as faces. So I'm guessing it's likely that at some point the technology will catch up and computers will learn not to be so fooled either. In the meantime, it's an interesting look for Halloween, maybe. And on another Halloween type topic, in episode 102, we discussed how you can hunt for spiders

Starting point is 00:23:28 at night using flashlights or headlamps and looking for the reflections of their eyes. Kendall Williams wrote, Several years ago, I wrote you about your story on spider hunting. I even linked to a headlamp that I thought would be helpful in your quest. Well, today on one of my favorite websites, I found this post that shows exactly what you would see if you wore the headlamp out at night. Good luck spider hunting. And of course, that link will also be in the show notes for anyone who won't feel too creeped out discovering just how many spider eyes may be staring at you in the dark. We haven't actually been brave enough to try it ourselves yet.

Starting point is 00:24:04 No, but that video is, it's more than you think. So thanks so much to everyone who writes into us. And if you have any questions or comments for us, please send them to us at podcast at futilitycloset.com.

Starting point is 00:24:23 It's my turn to try to solve a lateral thinking puzzle. Greg is going to give me a strange-sounding situation, and I have to work out what's going on, asking only yes or no questions. This is from listener Petrus Meli. This fall, drivers driving on highways in the Czech Republic will see many billboards along the road. Every single one of them shows the Czech flag. What is going on?

Starting point is 00:24:46 Hmm. Are they moving the border? No. Like somehow, like so people might think they're in a different country and it's like, here, you're in the Czech Republic. That would be a very effective way of doing that, but no, that's not it. Okay. So drivers in the Czech Republic are going to be seeing billboards that show the Czech flag. Yes. Does it show something else plus the Czech flag?

Starting point is 00:25:10 Interestingly, no. Just the Czech flag? Yeah. Does it show the Czech flag in any kind of interesting way, like upside down or folded? Just the Czech flag and nothing else? That's right. Nothing else. And this is only going to be in the Czech Republic?

Starting point is 00:25:25 Yes. Is this to remind drivers of something? No. Like it's a symbol for something. Like show your patriotism and slow down. I don't know. Okay. Are the billboards being placed only so that drivers will see them?

Starting point is 00:25:46 I mean, is it deliberate that they want specifically motorists to see them? I think I will say no, that's not the point. They want people to see them. No, they're not being placed for people to see. I mean, the point isn't that they want people to see the Czech flag. I think I'd say that's right. That's not really the point. Okay. Are they kind of space holders for something else that's coming? No.

Starting point is 00:26:15 Okay, let's start again. Billboards are being placed in the Czech Republic. No. Billboards are already in the Czech Republic. Yes. They're being covered with the Czech flag to cover up something else that's on the billboards? No, I wouldn't say that. Okay. Billboards are in the Czech Republic right now.

Starting point is 00:26:32 Yes. Do they have the Czech flag on them now? Well, they do now, but let's say a few months ago they didn't. A few months ago they did not have Czech flags on them. Does it matter what was on them? No, but I'll just tell you it was just ordinary advertising. Okay. Is it that billboard advertising is no longer allowed in the Czech Republic and so they're trying to replace all the billboards with Czech flags? That's close. That's close. Okay. Hmm. So there has some law changed. Yes. A law to do with billboards. Yes.

Starting point is 00:27:00 Some law changed. Yes. A law to do with billboards. Yes. A law to do with advertising on billboards. Yes. Across the board as opposed to like some sorts of things can no longer advertise on billboards? Yes, across the board.

Starting point is 00:27:16 Across the board. All billboard advertising as I understand it. Okay. All billboard advertising is now banned in the Czech Republic? Yes. Well, along highways. Along highways. Okay. But you already have billboards up.

Starting point is 00:27:29 Right. And they already have ads on them. Yes. So they're covering the ads with the Czech flag because that's not advertising. I'm missing something. You're so close I can almost give it to you. I'm missing something. Some billboards are being taken down altogether.

Starting point is 00:27:42 Okay. But the ones that remain are putting up the check flag. Okay. Oh, are they serving some other purpose, the billboards that are up, so they want to leave them up for some reason? No. So it's not that they're serving a purpose. It makes a great opportunity to display the check flag. We wouldn't want that.

Starting point is 00:28:01 So why aren't they taking some billboards down? Is that the crux of it? There are some, and the people who run these, who manage these billboards are just private companies that, as anywhere, that just manage advertising on billboards. Because they're hoping that the law will be changed back and then they can use their billboards again. Basically, yes. That's close enough to just give it to you.

Starting point is 00:28:21 In 2012, the Czech government passed a law banning billboards near major highways to prevent drivers from being distracted. By September 1st, 2017, advertisers had to physically remove all billboards that are within 250 meters of the highways. Some companies dismantled their billboards, but others chose to protest the law by replacing their ads with the Czech flag. They argue that these billboards no longer count as advertising spaces and don't need to be removed.

Starting point is 00:28:44 Petter writes, the billboards will longer count as advertising spaces and don't need to be removed. Petter writes, the billboards will eventually be removed by the government agency managing the highways, but until then, Czechia looks like the most patriotic country to anyone driving through. And he sent me a photo, which I'll put in the show notes. It looks wonderful because it's quite a handsome flag, and you're just this highway going along through the landscape with all these beautiful flags, and that's all you see. It's kind of nice. That might be nicer than advertising. So thank you for sending it in, Heather. Thank you. And if anybody else has a puzzle they'd like to send in for us to try, you can send it to podcast at futilitycloset.com. Futility Closet is supported primarily by our amazing listeners.

Starting point is 00:29:21 We do get some advertising for the show, but that doesn't by itself cover the big commitment of time that the podcast takes. So thank you to everyone who's been helping to make this show possible. And if you would like to help support your weekly dose of The Quirky and the Curious, please check out our Patreon page at patreon.com slash futilitycloset, or find us on the Patreon app. You can also check out the Support Us section of the website, and while you're at the site, you can graze through 9,000 exceptional esoterica, browse the Futility Closet store, and see the show notes for the podcast, with links and references for the topics we've covered. If you have any questions or comments,

Starting point is 00:29:57 you can email us at podcast at futilitycloset.com. Our music was written and performed by the awe-inspiring Doug Ross. Thanks for listening, and we'll talk to you next week.

Futility Closet - 173-The Worst Journey in the World

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