Lateral with Tom Scott - 143: Mind-altering coasters

Episode Date: July 4, 2025

Stuart Laws, Bella Hull and Olaf Falafel face questions about pally pretzels, pesky pets and prairie programmes. 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: GC, Enigma, Thomas Irwin, OMacMacca, Otto Forsbom. 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

No Frills delivers. Get groceries delivered to your door from No Frills with PC Express. Shop online and get $15 in PC Optimum Points on your first five orders. Shop now at nofrills.ca. What nine-letter word means someone to break bread with? The answer to that at the end of the show. My name's Tom Scott and this is Lateral. On the show today, we are delighted to be joined by a trio of stand-up comedians, all of whom are off to the Edinburgh Fringe. I am not sure what the collective noun for comedians is, a punchline, a heckle, a therapy session. Whatever it is, our guests could beat any courier company in the world. Because they all have excellent delivery.

I'm sorry, alright, I'm just, I'm... Wow. Yeah, being outclassed by three... That was good. That was crazy. Thank you. Thank you for the one non-professional here who is... I believe the collective noun is a threat. And on that note, we start. First, Stuart Laws, welcome to the show. Thanks so much for having me. I can't wait to laterally think all over the gaffe.

What sort of things are you doing up at the Fringe? I'm doing like a play slash stand-up hybrid, which is lateral thinking, if you think about it, because normally you do one or the other, but I said, you know what, no genre can confine me. I'm doing both in a show about the time I worked as the caretaker of an island of puffins. One went missing and I had to solve the mystery of its disappearance. That's incredible, and I have to ask where the island was. In the North Atlantic, but I can't say any more because it's not a real island.

For a moment I was genuinely convinced that you were Puffin Island Guardian there. And between you and me, I was. Well, very best of luck both with the Puffins and the show today. You are also joined by Bella Hull. Welcome to the show. Hello. Thank you so much for having me. Are you doing anything at the Fringe, and is it to do with puffins? I'm doing stuff at the Fringe.

Whether or not puffins will be involved is kind of an issue for the legal team, I think. I'm doing my third hour of standup. It's called Doctors Hate Her. It's at Monkey Barrel at 1.55 p.m. Oh, get the time and location in there. Well done. Hell yeah, it's at Hive 2, so have a disgusting hot dog or pizza that costs you £25 in from a kiosk, and then come to the show.

Wow. And nurse your stomachache while you listen to my new jokes. Stuart, do you want to get the time and date in while you have the opportunity? You can actually do the double. You can do the Bellerhal Hive 2, 155. You come out of there, you've got five minutes to make it up the road to the Tron for a 3pm start. And if we've done our research, which to be clear we haven't, then hopefully the third member of our panel today will round this out. Olaf Falafel, welcome to the show. Where and when are you at The Fringe?

Hello, and thank you for having me. So I am doing two shows at The Fringe. I'm doing a kids' comedy show, which is at 11.30 at the Counting House Ballroom. So you can go to that, because it finishes at 12.30 and then you can leg it down to the monkey barrel. Unfortunately, I'm also doing an adult grown-up show. And that clashes. That's at 2.30. Oh. You'll just have to go to the Fringe for multiple days.

Yes. What is your style? I mean, I have in my notes here, like, multiple-time winner of best joke at the Fringe? Wow. Not multiple. I won it once. Won it once. Multiple-time nominee, right? Multiple-time nominee. But due to Covid, I'm actually the person who has held the title the longest.

Right. Because I won it in 2019, and then I capitalised on all of that great PR by not going to the Fringe for a couple more years. It was you that ate that bat. You wanted to hold the title for as long as possible. Exactly. It's a bit like when Portsmouth won the FA Cup

before the war broke out. That's what I always liken it to. But I've also got a — I need to plug this as well — I've also got a jokebook coming out July the 10th, which will be my merch for my kids' show. And that has a lot of really bad jokes that I've written. You will get on very well with our producer. Good luck to all three of you on the show today. Let's see who can deliver the best answer for question one.

A Cessna 150 plane went right through Michel Lotito, and yet he lived to tell the tale. How? I'll say that again. A Cessna 150 plane went right through Michel Lotito, and yet he lived to tell the tale. How? Can you spell Michel Lotita for me? I can. M-I-C-H-E-L-O-T-I-T-O. So I know what happened. Basically, it was one of those shrinking rays

that we've all seen advertised in the back of newspapers. They shrunk that Cessna down, and it went straight in through the mouth, and out of one of the other exits that you can get out of, of the human body. I love the reference to shrinking rays advertised in the back of newspapers, which I feel is a reference that predates both of us. Yeah, if it does feel like classic golden age of, like, Americana 50s, 60s, it's like, you want a shrinking ray, some X-ray specs, and then some sort of mini spaceship. Mm-hmm.

Jetpack. Jetpack. Those are technically a real thing now, it's just they're not advertised at the back of newspapers. They're advertised in weird adverts on Twitter. Mm, yes. Yeah. What, excuse my ignorance, but what is a Cessna? How dare you?

How dare you ask what a light aircraft is? Is it, what is it some kind of, is it a Hotpoint washing machine or dishwasher? Look, when I was younger, I flew a Cessna. It is a wonderful, wonderful single prop airplane. And I think the 150's got the wings above the fuselage, is that correct? I don't know. I'm going to have to look up a Cessna 150 now. It's not strictly relevant to the question, but I love that someone has come in with that sort of plane trip.

Do you put glassware in the top or the bottom rack? It's all obviously in the top rack. Who's putting glassware in the bottom rack? Maniacs like me. Sometimes I put a long pint glass in the bottom rack just because it doesn't fit in the drawer. I've got a really long... Oh God, why is it Blue Moon? Is it Blue Moon? And that only fits in the bottom of my Cessna, Hotpoint Cessna. I think that the Cessna is like a curry. It's one of these curry places that's all of their dishes is like a different aeroplane. You know how they different restaurants do that? I think the Cessna is like a really spicy curry and it went right through the guy.

Yeah. It will make you spit fire. Yeah, exactly. If you know what I mean. It will make you evacuate. The thing is, you're not that far away from the truth between us. Is it a chilli pepper? No, this is genuinely a plane.

Stuart's right, it's a Cessna 150 is a two-seat, high-wing airplane. Just one of those that gets taken off from little airfields, flown by individuals. And you're right, the wings are up at the top. But it is a proper full-size one. Oh, okay. Go on, Olaf, go on. No, I was going to say, did it come free in a pack of Kellogg's Cornflakes or something, and the comedy kind of... What was that? And then...

You just have to wait for nature. Well... Regretting the high wing. You've sort of got it. You've got the manner in which the plane passed through him. Digested it. Yes. Ooh! Is he one of these weird people who eats things and takes them to bits, and then, like,

there's a guy who used to, like, eat a car, but you would take it to... He is that guy. That is the guy. Who is that guy? Yes, he ate the plane piece by piece. Not a... What? This is...

Aged nine, Michel Lotito accidentally broke a glass in his mouth and noticed that he didn't suffer any consequences. Please, if you are nine years old and listening to this, do not try this at home. I think you were going to say, aged nine, he accidentally ate a Cessna. Yeah, yeah. I took my eyes off him for a second, he's eating a Cessna! So, as a stunt, he subsequently ate all manner of weird things, including 18 bicycles, 7 televisions, 6 chandeliers, 2 beds and a coffin.

Right. And what did he do with the partridge in the pear tree? Just gave it a nice peck on the cheek. Between 1978 and 1980, he ate an entire Cessna 150 light aircraft that had been cut into manageable pieces, around two pounds of metal, so about a kilo of metal a day. How big is a manageable piece? I love the word manageable. Like it's manageable to eat titanium that's this big.

And on the side... That's just unmanageable. On the side of the plane, did it have a little graph that said the calories per plane and then per portion? And then it was like red or green? Yes. Afterwards, you know how they get little decals on fighter planes for the ones they've shot down?

He just got a tattoo of a Cessna. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So they go next to the coffin and the... Yeah, sorry, that's not true, to be clear. I wasn't reading that from my notes. I just accidentally used my authoritative voice for a joke, which isn't generally a good idea. What's the biggest thing you've eaten that you shouldn't have eaten?

Six Portuguese tarts. Six Portuguese. I don't want to show off here, but I have had the biggest Toblerone that you can get at the airport. The 4.5 kilos, I know about it. How long did it take? It took me a few days, but I was hallucinating after. But that was big and that was good.

There is one more note here, which is that Michel Lotito was awarded a plaque by Guinness World Records. What did he do with it? He ate it. Yes, he did. Absolutely right. Each of our guests has brought a question with them. We will start today with Bella, whenever you're ready.

After celebrating St Patrick's Day at a Toronto bar, a man changed his mind about something because his drinks coaster was made of metal. What was it and why? After celebrating St Patrick's Day at a Toronto bar, a man changed his mind about something because his drinks coaster was made of metal. What was it and why? Okay. Okay, so the key details we're looking at here is St. Patrick's Day. He's changing his mind and it required something light. Otherwise, it was dangerous. So he was going

to do like an odd job style flinging the beer coaster across the room, and then he realised, no, this is taking someone's head clean off. And that would not be right on St. Patrick's Day, unless it was a snake. Unless he was attacking a snake. Oh, good St. Patrick reference! He can't be doing that thing where he's just flicking the beer mat up and trying to catch it in midair. You mean beer mat flipping? The thing that I tried a world record for.

I'm sorry, you what? Yeah, I tried for the world record of most beer mats flipped in 60 seconds, and I came up short by about eight. Oh, wait. You came up short by eight on like a hundred, or eight on like nine? So you had to do single beer mats. Yep. The most you can do in 60 seconds, the record's something like 74.

Okay. If the record was like ten and you came up eight short, I was going to be like that. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that is less impressive. See, I always thought it was how many you could flip. Well, it's different, there's different categories. Yeah. Yeah, I've done 50 in one hand. Wow.

Wow. Yeah, and I'm not, you know, blessed with big hands. Oh, don't do yourself down Stuart. No, you'll see it on all my profiles. I've seen your gloves. He's got to be drunk at this point, right? He's been celebrating St Patrick's Day and he's in a bar in Toronto. And like, North America...

Yeah, the famously Irish city. Well, North America tends to go harder for St Patrick's Day than parts of Ireland do. He probably started off in Ireland and ended up in Toronto. Like, whoa, how did I get here? Is the fact that it's metal something to do with it? Is it, I'm thinking magnetic? Oh, so he had an MRI planned. Yeah. And he was going to use that to sort of like fool the people into thinking his liver was bigger or something.

He got a shard of the beer mat just embedded in him and couldn't have the MRI anymore. Exactly. It's not a million miles away from that. This is why you say the stupid ideas. It's kind of like, you know, the harmfulness of an object made of metal. It's not relevant to this discussion. So he couldn't get through airport security afterwards? Or something like that?

Or the knock that you want to play with a beer mat. That's not a metal one anyway. I'm trying to think of alternative uses for a beer mat, because you can use them to fix a temporary hole in a shoe, but then that turns your shoes into tap shoes, which is like Riverdance, so that would be completely appropriate. I love everything about that last sentence. That was wonderful.

So hang on, let's just go back. This was Michael Flatley in Toronto... ...trying to work out. With the tap shoes. It's Irish Cluedo. And he changed his mind about whether or not to self-fund a spy movie. Do you know about that? That's a deep Michael Flatley cut there.

I'll keep doing deep cuts. Yeah, Michael Flatley funded and starred in his own spy movie, right? Yeah, yeah. Like, it is like, what is it, Operation Midnight. Threat Level Midnight. Whatever. Threat level Midnight. Threat level Midnight from The Office. But it's Michael Flatley did do that. And I get that, right? I'm not, you know...

He's not content with just being, you know, one of the world's leading dancers, romances of women. He was like, I need to also be a spy in a film that I direct and write myself. You know, I've moved in. Thank you, producer David, who's just told me that Flatley's film was called Blackbird. It cost three million euro and had box office receipts of 130,000 euro. Blackbird romancing women in the sky tonight. I mean, Michael Flatley, if he wants to lose that amount of money, he should do a Fringe

Show. He wasn't satisfied just having the Guinness Book of World Records for romancing women. Yeah and I connect with that because I've moved from stand-up to stand-up slash theatre so you know I am romancing women. You're still on that podium holding a silver medal and above you is Michael Flatley. Okay, so hang on, that's maybe a clue. A silver medal. Was it metal? Was the metal silver? The coaster was made of something that was, I suppose, a recie- it used to be something else. Aluminium. It's going to be aluminium. Surely.

Mercury. It was a liquid beer coaster. It doesn't say what exactly the material was, but it was made from a part of an old thing. And it made him change his mind about something. It was an old Cessna that had previously been eaten and excreted— no. So it could be a beer mat made of old beer cans. Ah, that's gotta be it. It's not it. Ah.

That was one of those moments where I was like, ah, that's great, let's change his mind about recycling. No, okay, fine. So he's changed his mind about doing something at the end of the night because of what this coaster is made of. Getting a kebab and regretting your life decisions. Why would you change your mind about something? Because you suddenly got a thing you didn't have before.

Apart from, you know, like, a blood-borne virus. Could it have been he was going to do something bad? Drink driving. And then this acted like a... Correct. Oh, so the beer coaster is made from wrecked vehicles from drink driving accidents. Correct.

Oh, well done, Stuart. Yes. Very good. I get why this show is called Lateral. In 2017, a whiskey bar in Toronto served used coasters made from metal salvaged from crashed vehicles. The coasters carried the message, this coaster used to be a car, that car never made it home. The metal was sourced from a body shop which repaired cars that had been in collisions. Was part of a campaign by Arrive Alive, an organisation that raises awareness about the

impact of drunk driving. 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 Clapping 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 very much, folks. Next one's from me. The film critic Mark Kermode placed £5 bets on the winners of five major Oscar categories before the 1992 nominations had been announced. Why was he distraught when he discussed this some months later after all five bets had won? I'll say that again. The film critic Mark Kermode placed £5 bets on the winners of five major Oscar categories

before the 1992 nominations had been announced. Why was he distraught when he discussed this some months later after all five bets had won? Well, I'm thinking straight away that he is discussing it on a show with the person who was up for all five and didn't win. So is it one of those Oscar things where you've got like two movies that are like really going for all of the things and he bet on, I don't even know what 1992 would have been. Pulp Fiction was 1994, wasn't it? Dancing with Wolves was that 1991.

And then whoever the other one was, was on his Radio Show and were still quite sore about it. What about if Mark Kermode himself was up for every single one of those awards? And he was distraught to not win Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Director? He was actually best supporting male actor in Michael Flatley's Blackbird. Yeah, yeah. He swept the board. Yes. You're right about part of that, Olaf, which is there was a time delay between the win and the discussion. He was actually on Danny Baker's show talking about it when he discussed it later.

So Danny Baker was up for all five. Did the films later turn out to be sort of evil? Hang on, yeah. I remember that. Hitler. Hitler. Hitler the good guy. I remember that. Hitler. Hitler. Hitler the good guy. I remember. That was it. Yeah, Hitler the good guy. It was the hangover, but with Mussolini, Hitler style. The films themselves actually don't matter.

Oh, well. Why would you be gutted that you've won £12.90 times five? Yeah, so each bet would bring in about 25 quid. So it made about 120, 125 quid, more or less. Was he talking to somebody about like betting and how unethical it is? He would have had some qualms about that. He actually had a Methodist upbringing

and was really not certain about gambling. He definitely wasn't used to betting. And that's important here. Ah. So he was a Methodist upbringing. The Methodist specifically isn't important, but he was not used to going into a bookies and putting bets down. So he didn't know that he could go back and get money, he just thought he'd go in, put the money on, and then was like, yay, I won! He didn't know something. He didn't know what the way around the odds are.

So he thought he'd won way more than he had. You know where it's supposed to be. It's three to one. You put on five pounds, you get 15 back. Yeah, they're about five to one on average. No, but in 91, there's a film called Last Boy Scout with Bruce Willis, where it's an action film where the plot of it revolves around illegal sports betting, and like a cabal that are doing that, and he's like... And it's such a weird watch if you're from the UK, because the villain is someone who organises betting on sports,

which is a cornerstone of the UK life. Yes, and now a cornerstone of the US, now they've legalised it. I remember an American friend telling me they were confused about a plot in Lockstock and Two Smoking Barrels. Because there's a plot in there about a betting shop, and they just assumed that the concept of a betting shop was illegal by definition. How could you have placed that bet more wisely? Doing an accumulator. That's the key word! Yes! So he's gutted that he didn't put an accumulator on?

He did, well, more than that. He thought he had. What might Danny Baker have told him about? About the multiplier effect of an accumulator. Yeah, could you talk me through the accumulator, like what is it? Well, basically the winnings from one goes on to the next, and that goes on to the next, and then that goes, so it would be, he the winnings from one goes on to the next, and that goes on to the next, and then that goes on. So it would be he would win a million rather than...

He would have won £70,000. Which given, you know, 1992 is now old enough that I think I kind of have to adjust that for inflation. That would be, you know, decent low six figures these days if he had known the concept of an accumulator. Yeah, he could have put a Heinz or one of those multiple bets that does the singles, the doubles, the... I don't know about that. Yeah, a Heinz?

There, it's got 57 different bets from five, I think it's five selections. I used to really like betting on horses. Yes, Mark Comode was so naive for betting that he went in, he placed five bets that he was sure were going to win, they did all win, and he made about a hundred quid when he could have made 70,000. That's gutting. Well, it wasn't at the time. He was happy. He got his hundred quid in.

And then he goes on Danny Baker's show after the Oscars ceremony. He says all his bets had won. And Baker says, You did do an accumulator, didn't you? And he replies, What's an accumulator? What an idiot. And now we know that everything he said about films was said by an idiot.

So anyone listening whose film's been torn to shreds by this man... Michael Flatley, are you listening? But I've got a great idea for a movie. Stuart we will go over to you for the next question please. So this question has been sent in by Thomas Irwin. When retired La Liga official José Luis Pajares Paz appeared on a Spanish TV sports show, his pet caused a minor controversy which called his integrity into question. How?

I'll ask it again. When retired La Liga official Jose Luis Pajares Paz appeared on a Spanish TV sports show, his pet caused a minor controversy which called his integrity into question. How? I'm instantly thinking of a parrot that basically grasses him up. That says something about how he would take money in brown envelopes. I was thinking his parrot might have someone else's voice, like his mistress or something like that.

Ooh. Or his parrot reveals him as actually not a Spanish man, but like, his real accent that he uses at home. Yeah, he's from Birmingham. Which is Birmingham. Or his parrot reveals him as a pirate. Yeah. Because you know parrots, if they don't have, it's kind of sad, if they don't have any voices to repeat,

they'll just start mimicking like the sound of a microwave. Huh. I'm the same. So maybe if he went on being like, have, it's kind of sad, if they don't have any voices to repeat, they'll just start mimicking the sound of a microwave. Huh. I'm the same. So maybe if he went on being like, oh, I hate microwaves, it's all about healthy eating, and the parrot went, eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

I know they're incredibly smart birds. Bu one as a... So am I. Hey! Yeah, Michael Flatley's not interested. Ha ha ha! We're just unjustly mocking Michael Flatley, the multi-millionaire womanizer there, so, you know. Ha ha ha!

Can I just interject that I do have a joke in my book about a pirate's parrot. Oh! And that is when the pirate's parrot died he was sad at first but at least it was a weight off his shoulders. Ayyyyy! There we go that's that's the level. Was it a parrot? Can we can we ask that? Can we rule that out? Or are we... I can confirm at this time it was a parrot. Hey! It had to be a parrot, didn't it? And so he appeared on... What did he appear on? Was it a TV show?

Spanish TV sports show. And it caused a controversy because it called his integrity into question. So how could you call a referee's integrity into question? Did he also have an eye patch and a dilapidated map? He has buried treasure in several La Liga stadiums around and the parrot has just given away the locations. Ah. Did the parrot start chanting... Oh, yeah, that's clever. ...songs of his favourite team that made him sound

biased. I'm gonna have to just give it to you because that is absolutely bang on. His parrot sang the anthem of the Real Madrid football team. Wait, how often is he listening to the anthem of one team for the parrot to pick that up? I'm a Spurs fan, and I would say I do not listen casually at home to the anthem of Spurs. Not like waking up like, oh, how can I get exhausted? Get myself ready for the day. So, do by the great esteem, the world of heresy. Just standing up, saluting every morning to...

My crow just staring at me going, So he was taking part in a discussion on El Chiringuito, a show that the retired referee's parrot began to whistle the anthem of Real Madrid, revealing the love for that particular team. Now, the host found it particularly hilarious, and the flustered José tried and failed to sort of quieten down the bird, which gives vibes of that Zoom when the kid walks in in the background. I mean, it's giving vibes of Rod, Hull and Emu to me.

And part of the problem is that there has been alleged bias of referees in La Liga for years. Maybe the parrot was a plant. The parrot reminds me of, you know, that video of Nigel Farage like and that little girl and the girl says, my mummy says you hate foreigners. It's like that. Why did you bring the parrot? Yeah, that's sort of like, you know, when you're walking out of the, you know, out of your house and you like your testicle spectacles, wallet watch, parrot.

Yeah. That's like a rap, Stuart. Testicle spectacles. Thank you to Otto Forsbom for this next question. Little House on the Prairie was a gentle TV show about a family of Minnesota settlers in the late 1800s. Why were children in Finland banned from watching it when it was first released on DVD in 2008? I'll say that again. Little House on the Prairie was a gentle TV show

about a family of Minnesota settlers in the late 1800s. Why were children in Finland banned from watching it when it was first released on DVD in 2008. Did it make them, did it give them ideas above their station about, you know, churning milk and so on? And wearing Hessian. And wearing Hessian. And manifest destiny over some other content.

Exactly. Are the Moomins from Finland? They are, yeah. So is there something to do with it giving like an unreasonable expectation of body types to people from Finland who are all sort of modeling themselves after Moomins? They all have to become nebulous blobs. Well, that's what the aspiration is, but seeing Little House on the Prairie was like, oh, we could look humanoid. And that caused consternation in the government.

I used to go out with someone who looked like a Moomin. Please say more. In what context? She was self-diagnosed. And I know that people talk about whether self-diagnosis is acceptable. You know, I think it's obviously how you identify is very important, and that's important within your soul. She self-identified as a moomin lookalike. They're like cute hippos, aren't they? So...

Yeah, and she was one of the most dangerous animals on Earth. Oh my god! I will happily not yes and this conversation, and just say that no, this has nothing to do with movements. Oh, okay. All right. Okay. Well, I think it's quite interesting that we've we were talking about dishwashers earlier

and now we're talking about Finnish, which my favorite dishwasher tablets. Hey. What else is Finland known for? Nokia, mobile phones? I guess Minnesota and Finland share snow. They probably share sort of like an isolationist sort of quality like they are. You know, cabins probably are de rigueur in both countries. So is there an unreasonable portrayal of how humanoids and non-mumens can live in cabins. No, we cut them in. Yeah, cosy. Hashtag not all mumens. That's what my back tattoo says. I don't know, I

mean I've gotten into phases where I've watched a lot of, or I've read a lot of books from the 1800s or the 1900s, and I do start using words that aren't appropriate for Preta Morge, you know? I'm going to give you a note off my card here quite early, just in case we go down this path, there wasn't anything in the show that had dated particularly badly. Okay. Okay. And I'm not saying I dated particularly badly, I think me and Alex are on reading this. It was previously shown on Finnish TV with a PG rating. So is it something about the DVD then itself?

Did it have directors' commentary from someone... not good? It was something about selling it on DVD. Oh! But it wasn't about the contents of the disc itself. Nothing on there had aged particularly badly. So is it the design on the actual DVD itself, or the cover? It's something to do with that process, yes. Oh!

Has it—was the translation— was it—did it get—the name got translated to mean something offensive? My favourite mistranslate—or, like, not mistranslation—translation that is funny in English is another Scandinavian. I think it's Sweden, the end of Finding Nemo. You know, the beautiful end of Finding Nemo, and then the camera's just drifting back through the ocean, and then it just comes up on screen, slut.

— Laughter — — For end. — Because the English version says, — Fun. — Yeah. — It's a great pun. — Lovely. The equivalent in Swedish is, I think, SLUT, or something like that. Yeah, yeah. It's really... We found him.

I think it'd be good to talk through the process of, like, what do you have to do to get something on DVD? Compress it. Just phone up the people and say, we want this on DVD, and then it comes back with your... It's like when you used to get your photos developed in boots. I'm sure. I'm sure that's the process. But it's not that. It's nothing to do with the laser, so... A laser reads it, but to do it, like, it's a pressing thing, right?

You press the disc, and all the data is on it. There's certain loopholes that a DVD manufacturer would have to jump through. And they were being cheap skates. I've had an idea. I don't know whether it's right. But I used to have old VHSs, and I'm pretty sure they work in a similar way, where you can record 15 to 1, or whatever it is you used to like watching, and then you could record the FA Cup final, and then when that had stopped you'd get the rest.

Were these DVDs previously adult movies? Oh, no. It wasn't that. And then when they'd stopped watching Little House on the Prairie, it was some hard, graphic, DIY shows. Big house full of sluts, yeah. Sluts. It wasn't that, but how would you prove that it wasn't? By watching it.

There's one other stage of the process, to get a DVD on sale. Oh, when it has to be classified, but you know, the rated BBFC... Yes. And in that process, did they get sent the wrong thing, and they got sent little house on the other P-word? Oh my god. Ah, was it the fact that the people who have to watch the thing were just like, this is rubbish, we're not going to watch this, there's no way we're going to certify

this 24 hours of... And yes, there's 200 episodes to go through. Oh, so no one wanted to, They were bored, so they just watched. They would happily have done it. But they couldn't, for some reason? So you're right, you've identified it's the rating. It got a K18 rating, which is adults-only. Because they sent the wrong thing, or they sent the porn parody of it, like Little Kiss on the Prairie.

Little Kiss on the Prairie. I appreciate you somehow making that joke too adult and not adult enough for us at the same time. It's great. We could brainstorm some wrong answers. Little House on the Derrier. You're very, very close. But it wasn't the ratings agency who was saying, we can't bother to do this. The ratings agency would have happily done it. So the distributor was like, we can't be bothered to put this together,

because who's going to buy it in Finland? Basically yes, they were being cheapskates. So they gave a couple of epi— they gave discs that just had all of the same ten episodes on. Cheaper than that. One episode. One episode. Cheaper than that.

No episodes. Nothing. So, talk me through what they did. They sent a blank disc and just went, This is Little House on the Prairie, give us a PG, see you later mate. That's close enough that I'm going to give it to you. The Finnish authorities charge two euros per minute to watch and rate anything. I do remember that. So they just sent like ten minutes of it and just went...

And they sent nothing. They just accepted an 18 rating because who's going to buy DVDs of Little House on the Prairie? And then his parrot flew in and started singing the finchoo. Yes, you more or less got there. Finnish authorities charged 2 euros per minute to assess the age limit. There were 200 episodes to go through. Each one is... I don't know how long, but enough. Sexier than the last.

That is thousands of euros. We imagined that was when they started, they were like, we're going to do this, but each episode will be sexier, but a minuscule amount. By 200 episodes, wow. Universal Pictures realised that the only people who were likely to buy these DVDs were older adults, so to save money they just skipped the process altogether. So the DVDs were released with the default rating and stickers saying banned for under-18s.

They later paid the money and got the rating switched back. Now that's lateral thinking. Olaf, whenever you're ready, your question please. Okay, so this question has been sent in by Omak Makka, which is the most Scottish name ever. And the question is as follows. Odd and even are in a room full of posters. The posters are different and bear several patterns of dots on them. Where is this and what is the significance of the dots?

What? Oh, right, I know, I'm confused and I know the answer. I'll read it one more time for you. Odd and even are in a room full of posters. The posters are different and bear several patterns of dots on them. Where is this and what is the significance of the dots? Where do you begin, eh? All right, so odd and even, are they animals in any way?

Oh, you've got how this show works. The common thing of like, is everyone in this question human? Like, well done. Is everything I say a twisted trickery lie? Yes, you... Um, I mean, they are animals in as much as people are animals. Ah.

OK, good. Are they... So they're people. Are they Moomin-esque? Cos I'd like their number. How many of those people have Stuart dated? Yeah. Well, their phone number is a combination of odd and even numbers. Ooh. Well, I made number is a combination of odd and even numbers. Ooh! I made that up.

Oh. Oh yeah, you've got to be careful not to use the authoritative voice for jokes. It's... Yeah. Okay, a room full of posters with dots on them. Yeah. And odd and even are humans. Morse code?

Something about Morse code? Ooh. I mean, that's the that's the train. It's not Braille. Braille. No, no, no, that's that's not a clue. I mean, that's the chain of thought. Well, hang on. Now we're on a train. We're on a train.

But it's not the correct train. It's not the correct. It's still at the platform. So we need to change at Reading. So, yeah, you want to get off at Morse and head on to another pattern of dots. But not to Braille? Ah, no, not Braille. There's currently planned engineering works at Braille. Braille does sound like the name of a station when you put it like that. The only thing, the only dots I can think of is like, you know, those photos of

aeroplanes leaving Turkey full of men that have had hair transplants? And they've got so many dots on their head. That's the only thing I can think of. Or like ladybirds have dots on them. — When you said aeroplanes and dots, I was thinking the famous image of when they analyzed where the damage on returning fighter planes was in World War II. — Oh, yeah. Most of them had holes in the wings.

But that's not the bit you need to shore up, because those are the planes that made it back. You need to shore up the bits that weren't. So, I'm trying to think of any sort of dot pattern like that. Your eyes lit up when I said ladybirds. Well, no, sorry, I'm giving you too much encouragement there, Bella. I'm just an encouraging kind of person. Story of my life.

But you were kind of thinking of dots. I'm just, yeah, keep doing that, man. Leopards, ellipses, dots. I'll give you a little clue. So odd and even, they're visiting a specific type of building. Okay, so it's a railway station. You've already said that by accident. Is it something to do with science?

Is it a lift? Oh. No, it's not a lift. Oh, that's a shame. One of those lifts where there's, yeah, where there's, there are lifts where there are two going up at the same time, like one stops on odd floors, one stops uneven,

and so you can be in the even section of the lift, and the doors just won't open, it will stop... There is some efficiency gain, apparently, to this, and it just confuses everyone. But you can't straddle the two? No, you can't. You can't go from an odd floor to an even floor without going via the ground. The odd lift is just for freaks only.

I go to get in the even one and there's the bellhop is there. Get out of here! Get in the odd one, you little freak! Was it a stadium? A sports stadium? No, it wasn't a sports stadium. A theatre of some sort. Ooh. Now we're cooking on... Okay. An auditorium. Oh, what about one of those, um, what are those, like, you'd know Stuart, the places where you go to look at space, stars? A planetarium. Yeah, planetarium. Colder, colder, colder. You were warmer with theatre in traditional sense.

So it's odd and even, it means you're going to a different section. Odd and even are people. Yeah, yeah, but they're going to different areas, right? So one is sat in the odd section, one sat in the even section. No. Well, then why is that their names? It's just sort of like this is in Finland again. Odd. To tell you what, we'll rewind, they are names in Norway.

Oh! Okay, okay. This gives us a location. So odd and even, apparently, quite common first names in Norway. Right, okay. Wow. And is it in like Lillehammer where they did the Winter Olympics or something like that and it's something to do with that?

No, you already said it's not sports. So what's going on in Norway where you're going to have a room full of posters? Vikings? A post... posters? Theatre? But not theatre, close. Cinema? I don't even know, in the cinema? Person A and person B, who just so happen to be Norwegian, are in a cinema full of posters. The posters are different and bear several patterns of dots.

Where is this? A cinema in Norway. And what is the significance of the dots? So now we just need to work out what are the dots? So the posters are movie posters, presumably? Yes. Like advertising what's coming up? Yes. Oh, do they have a different film rating where instead of stars it's dots?

Bang on! But what are the dots? What is the rating, precisely? Where else? Not ladybirds? Oh, dots. On the back of a bug or what's the insects that reviews? Instead of like ratings one to five stars, their rating goes one to six. Legs. Legs, dots, big bugs. Stitch. Stitch has got six legs and then loses two of them to look more like a dog but it's still blue. It's Lilo and Stitch. Alright, see you later everyone. I'm off and cool. Dice? You've got it, that's it.

Dice! Norwegian film ratings are shown with dice? On their film posters they have dice to rate how popular or how good the film is, so they will have the different people who rate films and they will give it a 3 with the 3 dots in a diagonal. So a little white square with three dots. So the film posters are covered in dice. You can literally be like, should we roll the dice with this one? It's three out of six. Three out of six. And here I've got the everything everywhere all at once poster,

and it has one, two, three, four, five, six dice, and they've all got a six on them. In hindsight, that's such a good question and I hate it. Well, thank you very much. Who was it? Omak Maka. So yeah, in 1952, the Norwegian newspaper Verdensgang began to use dice throws to score films as part of a visual redesign and And films were rated from one to six instead of out of five stars. And then film posters will often show a row of dice showing fives, sixes, fours,

along with the names of the media outlets who have reviewed those films. And then other sections of the media have also borrowed this metaphor, but will often use more critical scores. And odd and even are just common male names in Norway used to throw you off the scent. Which brings us to the last order of business,

the question I asked right at the start of the show. What nine-letter word means someone to break bread with? Before I give the audience the answer, does anyone want to have a quick shot at that? Nine-letter word? Yep, someone to break bread with. Angry baker. I'm guessing it's, yeah, break bread.

It's derived from Latin and Old French, which is quite a big clue there. I used to go out with someone who was Old French. So it should be easy for me. Is it pan something then? Is it pa-in? Pan is definitely in there. Panobulator. Pan-quatidienne.

What prefix usually means with in French? Avec. Pan-avec. Pan-au-chocolat. Ah, it's pan-au-chocolat. There is, annoyingly, a different word for with we're going on here. What word have you got that will help us? Well, if I tell you the other French bit now, like someone to break bread with,

it would be com-someone. Companion. Companion. Exactly right. You break bread with someone you're sharing a meal with. The Latin for bread is panis, that became pain in French. So someone to break bread with would be a companion. Thank you very much to all our players for running the gauntlet today.

Get your plugs in, where can people find you? We will start with Olaf. You can find me anywhere on social media, just type in Olaf Falafel. It's quite a unique name, I don't think there's many people trying to steal it. And you can find me up at the Edinburgh Fringe doing a kids show at 12.30 to, oh no, 11.30 to 12.30, get the time right. And then my slightly more grown up, but not too much more grown up show

at 2.30 to 3.30. Bella. You can find me every day at the Edinburgh Fringe. I'm 155 at Monkey Barrel Hive 2. My show's called Doctors Hate Her. I'm also on social media. I'm at Bella Bella Hull on everything. And Stuart. You can find me in Finland looking for a Moomin type person. And also, you could Google me. I reckon that would work.

That would work. Is that OK to say? Sure. I mean, I thought you might want. That would work. Is that okay to say? Sure. I mean, I thought you might want to tell people where the Edinburgh Fringe show was, but it's up to you if you want to skip that part. I want you to want to see me.

I don't want to put it on a plate. Like, if you can't work it out, how have you watched this video? I want you to not want to see me, but to come anyway. I want you to not see them too and come and see, no. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And if you want to see this show in full video, you can do that every week on Spotify.

We are at Lateral Cast basically everywhere. And if you want to send in your own idea for a question or find out about our book or many other things, you can do that at lateralcast.com. Thank you very much to Stuart Laws. You should say something, we go in audio as well. Something quick by me, I've said it. Bello.

Thanks very much for having me. Oh thank you, I should have said thank you. And Olaf Falafel. Thank you very much and thank you for Stuart as well. Oh I should have said thank you, I messed it up so bad Tom. I've been Tom Scott and that's been lateral. Ugh. Ah. Ah.