Lateral with Tom Scott - 141: The world's longest poem

Episode Date: June 20, 2025

Matt Gray, Daniel Peake and Charlotte Yeung face questions about slovenly sales, mystery meat and risky rabbits. LATERAL is a comedy panel game podcast about weird questions with wonderful answers, hosted by Tom Scott. For business enquiries, contestant appearances or question submissions, visit https://lateralcast.com. HOST: Tom Scott. QUESTION PRODUCER: David Bodycombe. EDITED BY: Julie Hassett at The Podcast Studios, Dublin. MUSIC: Karl-Ola Kjellholm ('Private Detective'/'Agrumes', courtesy of epidemicsound.com). ADDITIONAL QUESTIONS: Leo Taanila, Daniel Peake, Stefan Teffy, Mitchell Lapham, Hugo Bouma, Ben Kitchen, Elena and Alessandro.. FORMAT: Pad 26 Limited/Labyrinth Games Ltd. EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS: David Bodycombe and Tom Scott. © Pad 26 Limited (https://www.pad26.com) / Labyrinth Games Ltd. 2025. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In Finland, what food item is sometimes jokingly called Moomin meat? The answer to that at the end of the show. My name's Tom Scott, and this is Lateral. Before we start, we'd like to thank the dozens of you who sent in so many kind comments in response to episode 125. They weren't for me or the show, but for the picture of the producer's dog. But have no fear, we are not desperate enough

to attempt that trick twice. Unrelatedly, here's some music. ["The Music Show Theme"] And if you're listening to this show on audio, don't worry, you missed nothing. Hoping they're not going to have a rough time with the questions, first returning to the show, working on a PhD in drug delivery systems, and one of the players, hopefully still on ITV's The Genius Game, Charlotte Young, welcome back.

Thank you very much. You cannot talk about the details. This will be going out about six weeks after the first episode we recorded with you. So you may still be in, you may be out. We cannot talk about this. What I will ask is, what was it like being on The Genius Game? I think The Genius Game was one of the most exciting points in my life. It really brought together all the knowledge that I wanted to put out there,

and I wanted to put myself out there as well. And we've made a really great collective group of friends. We still talk to each other, I attended weddings, I've attended puzzle meetups, we've done a lot together. So if nothing else, regardless of whether I'm still in the show or not, I'm just really happy to have met everyone there. Oh, that's just really lovely to hear. Because presumably, we're going to be a few weeks into the season when this airs. We will have seen all sorts of arguing and fighting and things like that, and it is lovely to hear that you're all getting along. Also joining us, someone who owns a pillow with the face of Lee Sang-min from the original

Korean genius game. A joke that I'm now going to try and ask him to explain. Matt Gray. That was a housemate. Not mine, so I don't have that in my house anymore. You don't have it anymore? No. The housemate moved out.

I'd completely forgotten about that though, but I'm going to just gloss over it and let everyone wonder what the hell that's about. Hi. How are you doing, Matt? – I'm all good, thank you. I'm actually quite excited because, as we record this next week, I might be getting to play with a satellite? – Oh!

– In space? – OK. Is the satellite in space, or are you in space? – Er, I think the answer is neither, because it's a satellite that's about to go to space, maybe. I don't know the details. If this actually becomes a video, you can watch it on my series Matt Gray is Trying. Which may or may not be out now, who knows.

Well, good luck to both you and the satellite, the third member of our team. That sounded slightly dismissive of your ability to deal with a satellite, Matt, but I apologise for that. If you've seen the rest of my Matt Gray is Trying series, I'm not surprised if you classify me as that bad. And the third member of our trio today is, returning to the show, puzzle and quiz editor and designer, Dan Peake. Yellow! No pillow talk for me, I'm afraid. You have watched, I think, all the original Genius Game as well? Oh yes.

A lot of people who enjoy that sort of thing found a way to watch it outside Korea. Oh yes, very popular in our circles. I love a good... Oh, it's almost... It's the closest you can get to board gaming on a TV show, I think. It's that complex, or that intricate, with rules and everything like that. So, Charlotte, at the time of recording, I've not seen any of your shows. I'm really looking forward to seeing it, and I hope you do some good back-stabbing.

What I think is funny is that today, on our team, we have two people who make terrible puns and one certified genius. So, true. And me, who falls into neither of those groups. who make terrible puns and one certified genius, so... Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha Thank you to Mitchell Lapham for this question. Why are some bags of crisps in Spain referred to as ham-flavoured? Probably. I'll say that again. Why are some bags of crisps in Spain referred to as ham-flavoured? Probably. That's interesting.

I think you could get away with that on most packets of crisps anyway, based on food laws. Eh, probably ham-flavoured. Well, a lot of the flavours in crisps that I've had don't really taste like what they actually are meant to taste of. I think I heard that, erm, Smokey Bacon crisps over here used to be vegetarian, despite the name. It's probably not the case these days, so... Yeah, I think the flavouring was mostly smoke and salt there.

I think there's one country where the same flavour that we use for prawn cocktail is labelled as tomato ketchup, or something like that. Ooh! Well, that makes sense. That probably makes me think it's, like... maybe even they don't know, but that would be a serious food violation! Do they have to declare that all their ingredients? Because I had a tube of Pringles that was mystery flavour the other day, and it was branded as mystery flavour. And it said on it, mystery flavour. You could read all the things on the back and it was a very oniony

paprika type taste. I've got no idea what it was that I was eating. But you must at least be able to, given that these were sold, you must be able to sell mystery flavour crisps, but we're not going to tell you what's in them. Yes, they'll have to mark flavourings on there, but they won't have to say specifically what they are. And they'll have to mark allergens. But other than that, they can hide the exact chemical compositions of that. Especially if they're all enumbered flavours rather than, or like chemical names rather than extracts of real things.

Everyone loves blind boxes and blind bags at the moment when it comes to toys. All these surprise toys like a Kinder Egg but without the chocolate and more disappointment. Maybe they're doing that with crisps, so maybe they've got a multi-pack of vaguely meaty? Could be ham, could be something else. Are all the crisps in it ham flavoured apart from one which has got like a special different flavour and so they're ham flavoured probably because there's a different crisp in there. Like one that fell on the factory floor we stuck that one in as well. A single mustard one. Yeah oh I love ham and mustard. Oh yeah, but all the mustard flavour on one crisp. That's crisp roulette.

Chip roulette for the Americans, but yes, crisp roulette. Oh, I'd do that with a wasabi crisp. The way my clue here phrases it is it's nothing to do with the dubious quality of the goods. That implies that the goods are dubious, but it's nothing to do with that. Unfortunately, I don't know enough Spanish to know the words for ham or probably. Hammon. Hammon, spelt with a J. Yeah.

Is the word probably similar? Is it a wordplay, maybe? I don't know much Spanish. It feels like it's going to be a wordplay. If you put hamon next to probably, then it's going to be a pun in some way. Yes, yes it is. And if you knew certain words, this would be a lot easier. I'm guessing the word for flavoured is something along the lines of flavoured.

Would they want something dubious on their marketing? Like that they wouldn't know, you don't know what it is. It might just be this. I don't know. It could be for the lols though. Cadbury's over here a couple of years ago did mystery-flavoured chocolate where the insides were like a flavoured cream filling and the flavouring, I tried reading the packet and the flavourings were just flavourings and the two I tried were completely awful. But you had to guess what the flavour was. And Fanta's done that with their drinks as well, so it's a trend, isn't

it? Have a think about the geography involved. These are bags of crisps in Spain. Okay, Iberian Peninsula. Oh, have they come over from Gibraltar and someone's just scrawled on them in Spanish over the English? Wrong border. Catalan. Is it a Catalan issue? Extremely disputed border.

There's still France and Portugal to go. Where are you going to go next, Matt? These are all better-desk guesses than I had. I was thinking, you know how Italy is the shape of a boot? Maybe Spain is the shape of a hat? Ooh. Yeah. I'm trying to think of the other border, because isn't there a micro-state on one of the borders as well? Oh, Andorra. Yeah, if that's true. micro-state on one of the borders? Oh, Andorra. If that's true. Is it the Andorran border?

I'd forgotten Andorra. Wait, is it something like the Portuguese word for probably is the same as the Spanish word for ham, and vice versa? Yes. What?! Vice versa is incorrect. But talk through what might be on that packet then. It's so that they can sell it in both countries. Yes. So it's got it in Spanish and in Portuguese,

and if you read it in Spain, rather than just ham, ham in two languages, it looks like ham, probably. Yes, that is right. On there, you have sabor, flavour, and then you have jamón, presunto. Presunto is the Portuguese for ham, it is also the Spanish for probably. So, just reading it in Spanish, you have flavour, ham, probably. Lovely. I love that I can just say something

because I think it's stupid and be right. Each of our guests has brought a question with them. We will start today with Matt. This question has been sent in by Stefan Teffi. If you pass in front of the rabbit, you're disqualified. If you only just pass in front of it, it might be deadly. Which sport is this, and what is the hazard? If you pass in front of the rabbit you're disqualified. If you only just pass in front of it, it might be deadly. Which sport is this and what is

the hazard? Okay team, communal effort here because I haven't got a clue. A rabbit and that it can be deadly. Yeah. I'm now thinking of Monty Python. And the killer rabbit there. I was thinking greyhound racing. I realise that putting you in a question for that is a bit weird, given there's three humans involved here, but I think the thing on a dog track that flies out in front of the dogs for them to chase is called the rabbit. And I'm thinking that if the dog somehow overtakes the rabbit,

I don't see why that would disqualify them, but if they get just in front of it and trip up, it could be deadly? I'm worried because either this is something that I've just nailed it, or I'm completely and utterly wrong and it's nothing to do with greyhound racing. One slight question here. Yep. Would you call greyhound Racing. What, one slight question here? Yep. Would you call Greyhound Racing a sport? Because I don't know either, it's not Greyhound Racing.

Okay, fine, fine. You had me, Tom, I thought, oh, he's got it, he's nailed this, this is perfect. Thank you to producer David who has told me it's actually called the Mechanical Hair, not the Rabbit. Fine, fine. You don't want to confuse actually called the Mechanical Hare, not the Rabbit. Fieun. Fieun. You don't want to confuse that with a Mechanical Rabbit. There would be hell to pay for that. Hare. Hare, huh?

Hare. Yeah, no, Rabbit. Right, so Pass in Front, you're disqualified, but Pass just ahead of it was deadly. Right. So pass in front, you're disqualified, but pass just ahead of it was deadly. Yeah. What are you passing? Wind or water? That's the next question. Oh, yeah. Passing water on something with an electrical. Oh, it could be an electrical. No, no, let's not go there.

Maybe there's something, something spiky or something like that can trip you up, but only if you were to stand on it at that moment, but if you take a rather large leap, you would be in front and you wouldn't get tripped up. No. So it could be some sort of extreme sport, like something that involves parachutes or something like that, where deadly really means if you mess this up, you are at higher risk than a footballer might be. I would say that is the case. It's not the nickname for sort of the secondary shoot that you have in with your parachute when you said about passing water, you're

completely nowhere near it, but you are slightly closer. The rabbit is an alternative system to something else. So it's not a physical rabbit. It's not a cute little bunny. Yeah, it's not an animal, but it is moving at some speed. You said far from water, is it the air then? Water's closer. OK. So, sailing or water skiing or something like that. Try one of those. His eyes look brighter at sailing, so I think we should go with sailing.

It's Matt. His eyes always look bright for some reason. I don't know how he does it. There's a lot of nautical terminology. The rabbit could easily be some form of device on the boat. Is the aim of the race or the sport to try and catch up to the rabbit? Are we following the rabbit? But not overtaking it, because that would disqualify you. Yeah? So does the rabbit lead us to someplace if it's a moving part?

A different boat, say. You're going in the right lines here. So just to recap the question here, it was which sport is this and sailing's close enough for me, and what is the hazard? Oh, I'll give you another little hint here. In the Olympic version of this event, the race starts differently. You can catch a crab in something, can't you? Is that wrestling instead?

That's not sailing, is it? I have no idea, Dan. You can definitely catch a crab in something, or is that where the line snags in something, or am I thinking of something entirely different here? I mean, the other three of us are all thinking of the same joke, right? Think about a type of sport where it's hard to mark the course. We're going to be on the water here, so how do you... Oh, right, okay.

Are we dealing very specifically with the start of a race here? Is this where we're going? Okay, so if you're starting a sailing race, if you all need to be lined up, it's really difficult to judge. So would it be something in either the water or just underneath it that will raise to start a race to mark like the starting line? You were going so close to the right direction there and then you took a little swig. You're so nearly there.

Is it rather the boundaries of the race? And if you were to go outside of it you would either completely sink a ship because of something sharp and it will poke holes into your boat or if you went sailing straight outside of it you would be disqualified because you're no longer inside the range of the race? You are so close. It's a way of marking the start of the race. You were talking about something that raised up, Dan. Maybe it's something that lowers down or gets out of the way? That would probably make more sense. I was thinking like the Grand National, where they sort of have to do a sort of a running start and they have something in the way that rises

to get out the horse's way, but that would make less sense for... Like, deadly is a heck of a thing to use to start a race. If you pass in front of the rabbit, you're disqualified. If you only just pass in front of it, it might be deadly. Because it could somehow tip your boat upside down, I think. Is it just another boat? Ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding!

It is! Right at the start, when I was on about the mechanical hair, it's the same thing. You're chasing the rabbit. The rabbit is a speedboat which sails on a known path from offshore towards the beach. And so if you pass just in front of it... You get hit by a speedboat. That'll hurt. That'll hurt. If you pass quite a bit in front of it, you're just setting off too early.

Ah. So is the speedboat going across the line? Oh, so the speedboat is literally making a wake which is the start line. That's how you're painting on top of the sea. But why is it called the rabbit? Same reason that the greyhounds chase a rabbit. It's the thing in front that everyone else is chasing. Oh, I see. In races where there may be 50 windsurfers or more, it's not practical to use the Olympic

system where you mustn't cross an imaginary start line between a boat and a buoy before the race begins. Instead, a speedboat called the Rabbit is used. It sails on a known path from offshore towards the beach. If you pass in front of the Rabbit boat, you're disqualified. If you pass just in front of the boat, you'll be injured or worse. Though popular in windsurfing, this type of start is also used in other sailing competitions. I am delighted to say we have another live recording coming up.

We're headlining the UK leg of the cheerful, airful Comedy Podcast Festival. Our show is on Sunday, October 12th, at the Clapham Grand in London. Doors open at 12 noon for a 1pm start. We'll be playing a regular version of the show, with three fantastic celebrity guests. Rhea Leena, Alistair Beckett King, and Izzy Lawrence. To get your tickets, go to lateralcast.com slash live. That's lateralcast.com slash live, and hopefully we'll see you there. Thank you to Hugo Boma for this next question.

To the west of Rotterdam in the Netherlands, you can read a 61-word poem. Why has it been described as the longest poem in the world, and why is the first half usually read faster than the second half? I'll say that again. To the west of Rotterdam in the Netherlands, you can read a 61-word poem. Why has it been described as the longest poem in the world, and why is the first half usually read faster than the second half?

Rotterdam's the Netherlands. Yes. On the coast. Yes. I suppose the whole of the Netherlands is on the coast, when it's not under the coast. Rotterdam, to be clear, is a little bit inland, just because if you go west from the Dutch coast you do in fact find the ocean. So just, yeah, west of Rotterdam. 61 words isn't very long. I'm not a poet but I could make a longer poem than that.

Perhaps it's longest when it's verbally said. Oh! Maybe, maybe, wait, is the, oh my god, it's gonna be embarrassing, but is the language spoken German? Dutch. Dutch. Dutch. Netherlands, but it doesn't necessarily mean that the poem is in the language of the country that it's written in. True. It could be in Welsh. In which case, I think some Welsh words are very, very long when spoken. Yeah, like both German and Welsh can compound their words. Del A deliberately, a poem written using deliberately long words to trip up the reader. That'd be fun.

That sounds like a good puzzle, but it is unfortunately in Dutch. That's not very fair on the Dutch, Tom. I've had a silly idea and I'm kind of worried because the last few times I've had silly ideas on this podcast, it's been right and it's not fully formed so I can't see how it would be right. But you said the first half is quicker than the second half? Yeah, it's usually read faster. And I'm thinking it's kind of coastal around there. So I don't know how the first half could get covered up by the tide before the second half, so you're running along with the water to read it. But that's the first thing that's popped into my head why it could be faster at one end

than the other. Oh, but then it would be physically long. I see where you're going with that. So there's some form of physical length that it's written out long. Yeah. Like in Anthony Gormley, lots of stuff on the beach going out to see — he's a sculpture person who puts effigies of himself on beaches. You have solved the first part. This is a physically long poem, written down about 900 metres, nearly a thousand yards. So why is the first half usually read faster than the second half?

Because you're still enthusiastic at that point in time. I do like to describe the west of the Netherlands as, it's a bit coastal round there. It is, they're very proud of it. LAUGHTER I think I've got the topic. Is it, what do you say, it was a stellar poem? Why do you say that?

I was trying to think of things that are regularly depicted as long public art, with stuff bunched up at one end and spread out the other. And it's planets trails, where you have all of the planets down like a cycle path or whatever. And to get from Mercury to Earth is pretty quick, but to get all the way to Jupiter takes forever. So I don't know if it's a poem about the stars and planets that's laid out with each line at the same relative distance as the distance between the planets? It's such a lovely picture. And it's entirely wrong. I'm sorry about that.

Aww! I'm sorry about that. We've definitely had questions about, like, model solar systems before on this show. This is, unfortunately, not one of them. There is one part of your answer that's right, though, Matt. Okay. You did say a couple of key words in there, and another Dutch stereotype. A Dutch stereotype? Oh, cycle paths! I said cycle paths. You did.

Is it going to be... the Netherlands is quite flat, but is it going to be on a hill in some way, so that you read the first half a bit quicker because you're going down the hill and then the second half is on flatter ground? Yes. This is the Benelux Tunnel in Rotterdam, which carries a motorway, a metro line, and a bike path under the New Amas River. Along the bike path, the wall tiles form the words of a poem by the famous Rotterdam poet Jule Deelder, stretching 900 yards from south to north. The middle of the tunnel goes down to 24 metres.

The first part of the poem is read more quickly, and then you're going uphill to leave the tunnel. And that's the second half of the poem. That must be the biggest slope grade in all of the Netherlands. Yes! Yes. I like Matt's idea with the stars better. We should commission it, we should go do it ourselves. I'll go get a bit of chalk and write it out. Yeah, to be fair, that's the sort of thing that you can just build,

and probably no one's going to complain about it. What rhymes with Uranus? And we move on! Charlotte, we will go over to you for the next question, please. OK, this question has been sent in by Elena and Alessandro. Officials in the Brady region of the Czech Republic were frustrated. Seven years of red tape had held up the permits for a major restructuring of the Vltava River Basin. Suddenly the job was done in a few days for $1.2 million less than planned. How? And again, officials in the Brady region of the Czech Republic were frustrated.

Seven years of red tape had held up the permits for a major restructuring of the Vltava River Basin. Suddenly the job was done in a few days, for $1.2 million less than planned. How?" Restructuring of a river basin. Oh, plug out. There you go. Done. That sort of happened once in history. Yeah, we're doing a question on it, right? This happened? — Well, okay, the plug thing. There was a salt mine in somewhere— I want to say Louisiana, but they don't have salt there.

Somewhere in the US. And they mined a bit too much, and they punctured something somewhere, and an entire lake drained itself through the salt mine over the course of a couple of days. Just the colossal whirlpool. Because of course, it starts small, but it's salt, so the water just keeps washing it and washing and washing, and by the end, you no longer have a lake, you have a cavern. Mmm. It's the salty equivalent of the Davatse crater in Turkmenistan, I'm not aware of it.

Oh, there's a bit of gas here, we'll set it on fire, it'll go away, and it's still burning. Yes. Oh, thank you, Producer David, that is Lake Peña, a brackish lake in Louisiana. I did get that right. I didn't know there was salt in Louisiana, all right. Not anymore. LAUGHTER

So, a restructuring of a river basin. I'm assuming they're not changing how you wash your hands in the toilets. And it's in Czechia. The Brady region. The only thing I know about that is that he played American football. Yeah, I made a sports joke and it was terrible. Yeah, you made a sports joke. But I was thinking natural disaster. I was thinking that like 1.2 million was the entire budget for this thing, and actually,

by luck, a flood happened, something happened, a giant rainstorm just restructured the basin for them, coincidentally the exact way they wanted. But that's getting very close to act of God there. Well, it could be what you were saying about mining. Maybe someone was mining nearby and dug up. So I will say you're very much on the right track. It is natural, lesser disaster, and bang on, the original budget was $1.2 million. Okay.

Because in terms of restructuring, there's not many ways you can really restructure a river. You can make it flow the other way if you really want it to. That has been done in history. I think it's in Illinois, the Chicago River initially went into one of the Great Lakes, but they were, due to pollution reasons, they went, okay, we need to actually reverse the flow of this. So it can be done, but it requires a heck of a lot of effort. And that doesn't feel like that's what's going on here. You couldn't do that for a million. And continuous effort.

Yes. And the only thing I can think of restructuring river basin-wise is, well, I'm not fully certain of the term river basin. All I can think of is the LA River, where that was just a concreted sluice, is that the term? It's just a channel for the water to run down. But that, you know, you can't have an act of God do that, unless there's a lot of fly-tipping of concrete. That would be an act of God, though, wouldn't it?

There's the river, all of a sudden it's channelized with neat concrete and no one knows why. That, honestly, that happens overnight. It's pretty good evidence. It's a miracle. I would say, Daniel, you're pretty close. Instead of having the river turn completely 180, what other things could be used to kind of redirect the water, do you think? Oxbow lakes! Yes, that's the only term I learn in geography at school is oxbow lakes.

So sort of cutting one off, or you wouldn't want to make one, you'd want to cut one off, wouldn't you really? Oh, so if there was a big heavy flood, that could easily be the final thing that cuts off the oxbow lake and makes the river straight again. Because oxbow lakes are when a river gets all wiggly, and then it gets even wigglier, and then suddenly it finds a shortcut, which leaves a random bit of water, which is wiggly when the river's gone straight again, and that's the oxbow lake.

But yeah, a flood can force that to happen. As anyone who's done year 9 geography knows and understands, it's the one thing everyone remembers. I also do remember that, and I always think about like a little, you know, knows and understands. It's the one thing everyone remembers. I also do remember that, and I always think about like a little, you know, something like this. But how about instead of making it straight, we're literally boom, boom. You know, redirection. Oh, it went round a corner. Not, not exactly. Not exactly. I'm imagining it flooded, and then it found a new course

because it turned whatever natural ground was in the way into sediment, and then that became an easier way for it to go, so it took a different route thanks to the flooding moving all of the earth out of the way? Or it could be the opposite, that it's a rockfall, or something like that. Like the river is going this way, we've been intending to block it and move it, and then all of a sudden this mountain's collapsed. Beavers! Beavers!

Beavers. Please continue. Oh no. No. No! No. Oh, I'm not having this. Being silly strikes again. So it is the opposite. They wanted to not have a straight river, but move it away from being

a straight river. And then suddenly some beavers built a dam themselves without anyone noticing. And they woke up one morning and the river was now doing... Dropped on. And then they put the $1.2 dollars in their pockets and walked away whistling. That is exactly it! You don't need an environmental impact study when the environment is doing it for you. The beavers were like, I don't care about any permits, I'm just going to go do this. Oh yeah, you said seven years of red tape, no one was there!

It's just all blocked off and no one allowed in because they're planning this thing and then suddenly the beavers turn up in their high vis and their hard hats. So a colony of eight beavers had built the dams in the same places that the administration actually wanted in order to redirect the water and it turns out that the way that the beavers did it was even better than the way that they had designed it in the first place. Ah, amazing. They must have bribed them. They must have bribed the beaver somehow. Thank you to Ben Kitchen for sending this question in. In 2023, rookie NBA player Nick Smith Jr signed with the Charlotte Hornets where he'd wear shirt number eight.

Why did this have the potential to reduce the team's expected revenue? I'll say that one more time. In 2023, rookie NBA player Nick Smith Jr. signed with the Charlotte Hornets where he'd wear shirt number eight. Why did this have the potential to reduce the team's expected revenue? Terrible player. He's actually a golfer. That's a reverse Michael Jordan. I'm just thinking, does his name or initials and then the number 8 spell something that might not be allowed? No, it's going to be something on that, isn't it? That number eight is important. It's a lucky number though.

So, in Chinese culture, so I feel like... The Charlotte Hornets are gonna have a nickname and that nickname's gonna be something, isn't it? And we're gonna need to know the nickname. And if you put the number eight after it, it's gonna be like a rude word. No, well, maybe, but then the number, having the number eight on a shirt is not

unusual. So it must be this very specific person plus team combo. Smith. 8 is what it'll say on the back of the shirt, right? Smith Junior. 8. But yes. Smith's a very common name. 8's a very low number. Maybe there's been a Smith Junior in number eight position before when they don't need to buy more merch or something, or... Yet again, Matt, you have nailed it. Oh! LAUGHTER She... What?

Really? Talk through what might have happened here. Nick Smith's dad was on the Charlotte Hornets before, and they already sold his jersey with Smith and the number 8 on it and no one else wants to buy new ones. It wasn't a relation, but that's basically if it was... there was already a Smith Jr. the previous season, Dennis Smith Jr., who had also worn number 8. Why would they give them the same number? That's terrible for revenue.

Well, yes indeed. Yes, you're absolutely right. Usually when a new signing occurs, some fans will buy shirts with the new player's name on it. They didn't need to. They already had a shirt that said Smith Junior and eight. Matt, you're on fire. Can I have your brain for the day? I realise the way this game works is to make silly jokes around the questions to make them last longer, and that's what I've been trying to do because I haven't thought any of these would actually be the answer. Sorry. The Chevrolet employee pricing event is on now. Get a big cash

purchase discount of up to $11,300 on the 2025 Chevrolet Silverado LDZR2 and Silverado HDZR2. With a factory-installed lift kit and Multimatic DSSV dampers on both the Silverado LD and HDZR2, you'll have all the capability you need to leave the asphalt behind. Hurry in! Employee pricing is on for a limited time. Visit your local Chevrolet dealer for details. Get unlimited grocery delivery with PCXpress Pass. Meal prep? Delivered. Then we will go to Dan for the next question whenever you're ready. Okie doke, this question has been sent in by Dan Peake.

Oh no. Alright. I delight in this question. In 1652, a new door was installed in the wall of a church. As a result, someone had their feet chopped off. How? I shouldn't laugh at the phrase, someone had their feet chopped off. It was the way you said it. In 1652, a new door was installed in the wall of a church. As a result, someone had their feet chopped off. How? What? This is one of my... I've listened to lateral affair a bit.

This is a classic lateral question that starts perfectly normally and then ends with and then someone had their feet chopped off. It's classic. So it's not a real door, they're not real feet. Church actually means something else and chopped is actually a non-English word that sounds like the English word chopped. No comment. I don't know where to start with this. Construction crew were really bad and you need some new people. I suppose health and safety standards in 1652. Yeah. I did once... sorry, I'm going to drop a travel story in here.

I once visited Guédillon Castle in France, which is a medieval castle. They are building with medieval techniques as like experimental archaeology. And they're just little things they've had to make and do to comply with this century's laws. Like they are wearing hard hats, but they're camouflaged, so they look like something that might fit in in that century. They are wearing steel toe cap boots, but you wouldn't know it because they've got overshoes over so it looks right. But with the exception of that, there's maybe a few more railings around than there might otherwise be. I'm just imagining hard hats with wigs on. In 1600s, doors to churches, and in fact to the present day, tend to be wood, if it's a real door. Churches

can have normal-sized doors, and they can have ridiculously huge, ornate ones. Knowledge bombs from Matt here. Matt Gray's Knowledge Bombs is actually his competing podcast. That sounds way too laddy and misinformation-y for my liking. Churches have famous people buried in them. Maybe someone got exhumed and didn't fit in through the new door. Matt, I have the horrible feeling you've just solved it again. Surely not. No! I am taking the piss here about exhuming someone.

How can that be the answer? If this is Westminster Abbey, I am taking the piss here about exhuming someone. How can that be the answer? If this is Westminster Abbey, I... Matt, you're absolutely wrong. Yes! Oh, yes! You sold that so well, Dan. All righty. So I was thinking that it was somewhere like Westminster Abbey where there's a lot of famous

people interred and they had to move a grave. In the 17th century, the easiest thing to do was just go, ah, just crop that bit off. Yes, yeah. Lovely cropping is a great term here. Not that that's a good idea. I will say many people today wish that this hadn't happened. What I do like is I made a joke about someone being exhumed and you were all shocked. Not because I made a joke about someone being exhumed, but you were shocked because I might have got the answer right.

Many people wish that this didn't happen now. Yeah. Was the person alive when their feet was chopped off? No. So it is from a dead body as well. And maybe it was the body of a rather famous person? Feet can also mean accomplishment? Oh, you had your accomplishments chopped off.

Well, that sounds painful. Well, the door could have been an ornate one, listing someone's people that have achieved a thing and the person at the bottom of the door, the door could have been the wrong size and they could have chopped their feet off this list of accomplishments written on the door. Clever. And again, absolutely wrong.

It is F-E-E-T. So why would someone need to chop the feet off a dead body to install a door? I'm going to steer you away from the dead body part. Oh. You did say they were dead though, right? They certainly weren't alive. Was the new door like a protective casing to keep hold of a mummified body that you would want to preserve for years to come? Just an ordinary door.

Hmm. I was going to say you can have doors to tombs as part of churches. I will say that no actual injury took place. Statue? Not quite, but we're getting there now. Taxidermy? Was it Jeremy Bentham? That's a taxidermied human.

It is, yeah. He's in UCL too. Oh yeah. Wait, have you seen Bentham's body then, Charlotte? I have, yes. It's in the main campus. Well, most of it. I think his head's stored somewhere else because it's a bit too gross.

But it's a wax head on Bentham there. But the rest of his body is sat in that cabinet. It's just in a corridor as well. You can just walk in and look at it. So it wasn't Jeremy Bentham. Oh, he was probably not even born by then. Could this be someone depicted on stained glass or something like this, where they have to crop off part of the artwork to install the door?

We're getting there now, yes. Okay. Did the door get installed first, and then on the other side of the door, some windows needed going in and for some reason the art needed to go through that door and then they wouldn't fit because the room was small so it needed to be chopped, you know when you're trying to get your IKEA furniture around the corner of the stairs. Pivot! No, no stained glasses involved, just this door.

The person was dead at this time, but this could still be a depiction of the person when they were alive. And it could be some famous artwork that is now missing its feet, because in the 17th century it wasn't considered psych-religious to chop off a bit of an artwork because you need to put a new door in. Tom's getting there. You're getting there. Okay. So the question is, what's the church, what's the artwork?

Michelangelo's David? Nope. Could be the Sistine Chapel, though. Could be Michelangelo's one of... It could be Adam. On the creation of Adam. Because the Sistine Chapel needs a new door. Getting close, it's not the Sistine Chapel and it's not Michelangelo.

But we're in the right realm of things now. My brain just said Botticelli and part of me's thinking, is that an artist or an F1 driver or both? I'm thinking both! It's a different Ninja Turtle, if that helps. All I can think of is the bloody chick mumps, no? Alvin Simon Theodore, the famous artist. Raphael?

No. Charlotte, help us out. What are the other Ninja Turtles? I'm so sorry. I think I was four. April O'Neil. Leonardo. Leonardo da Vinci. It's going to be Leonardo da Vinci. Uh-huh. April O'Neill. April O'Neill. Leonardo.

Leonardo da Vinci. It's going to be Leonardo da Vinci. Oh, the man. The Vitruvian man. Not that one. The other man. The man without his feet. This took place in Milan.

The Milan man. There is a very famous work by Leonardo that's on a wall. People think it might be a painting, it's a mural. Just a sec, I've been to the cathedral in Milan. Is it that cathedral? Basilica is what it says here. Oh, it's the painting with the disciples and the... Oh!

Yes. For the Last Supper. Thank you. There it is. Are Jesus' feet not in the Last Supper because someone needed to install a door? Correct. Wow. Correct.

It's like any women posting photos of themselves on the internet these days because of freaks, but with Jesus and in the 1600s. If you take a look at the Last Supper, Jesus' feet are not there and they would have been there, but the church wanted to put a door there instead. And it's this giant mural, so it easily fits there. It's just a little gap in the painting so then the door can fit in underneath it. It's underneath the table.

I encourage you to take a look at it, because it's something you just won't have spotted about the picture. Fortunately, The Last Supper is definitely out of copyright these days, so in the video version, I think we can actually see it. And now I'm looking at it. Oh yeah, that's a door!

It's a door! There's no feet there! You can see other disciples' feet. There's a door! How have I never noticed the door at the bottom? I mean, just content-aware fellas, it'll be fine. So Leonardo da Vinci painted The Last Supper in the 1490s on a wall of the Basilica di Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan. And then in 1652 they just put a door at the wall,

and they put it in the lowest centre of the fresco so that Christ's feet are now no longer visible. Which brings me to the question from the top of the show, sent in by the very Finnish-sounding Leo Tanilla. In Finland, what food item is sometimes jokingly called mumin meat? Does anyone want to take a quick guess at that before I tell the audience? Tofu! Ooh.

Yeah, it'll be something white and squishy, because mumins are white, so I'm assuming something... What are the mumins, for the audience that don't know? The white hippo-like creatures that live in a mysterious area in the north of Finland? Yes, you did miss the word fictional there, but yes. It's like the haggis in Scotland. What? They're fictional! They sell cards, you know, like greeting cards. Moomin.com.

Yes, there's a huge number of novels, comic books, TV adaptations. They are white, soft and round. Moomin.com. Yes, there's a huge number of novels, comic books, TV adaptations. They are white, soft and round physique, which can jokingly be compared to the texture of mozzarella cheese. Congratulations to all our players for running the gauntlet. What's going on in your lives? Where can people find you?

We will start with Dan. You can find me on Twitch at Quizzy Dan and various social medias. Just search for Quizzy Dan. That's where you'll find me. And Matt. Go to mattg.co.uk to find links to all of my social media and my YouTube. And Charlotte.

You can catch up on episodes of The Genius Game on ITVX. And if you want to know more about this show, you can do that at lateralcast.com. We are at Lateral Cast basically everywhere. There are regular video highlights at youtube.com slash Lateral Cast, and there are full video episodes on Spotify. Thank you very much to Charlotte Young. Thank you. Matt Gray.

Also, Soft Round Amite. Dan Peake. Thank you. I've been Tom Scott, and that's been Lateral.