Lateral with Tom Scott - 151: Betting for free

Episode Date: August 29, 2025

Iszi Lawrence, Dani Siller and Bill Sunderland face questions about amenable albums, crafty containers and prudent practices. 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). PHOTO: Brad ('bjohnsme' on Flickr). ADDITIONAL QUESTIONS: Ray, Bob Weisz, Robert Stevens, Matthew Frye, Daniel. 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

Td Bank knows that running a small business is a journey, from startup to growing and managing your business. That's why they have a dedicated small business advice hub on their website to provide tips and insights on business banking to entrepreneurs. No matter the stage of business you're in, visit td.com slash small business advice to find out more or to match with a TD small business banking account manager. Why did the British electropopop duo, the Pet Shop Boys, call their first album, please? The answer to that, at the end of the show. My name's Tom Scott, and this is Lateral. Time is a flat circle, or so I'm told by people who understand time zones, which is nobody. So welcome to Lateral, the podcast for those who think the international date line is a premium

rate phone number. That's a joke that's just not going to land for anyone under 30, and I'm fine with that. If you would like to schedule a call, then you can prepare for everyone to become a time zone guru, armed with vague hand gestures and confident misinformation. But at least you know what time zone you're in right now, unless you're currently orbiting around the earth, in which case, please call us. We'd love to have you on the show. Joining us to navigate this temporal minefield, first of all, from Escape This Podcast and

and many other things besides. Welcome back to the show. Thank you for having me back. I'm excited to do another great episode of Lateral. And you are in a much later time zone than me. How are you doing late-night recording? Time zone-wise, I have the extra thing of being Southern Hemisphere. So all the people I work with online, there's like, oh, we're doing a daylight savings change, but they go one way and I go the other way and we end up with a two-hour change and it destroys every... And then everyone's going at different times. Don't get me started. It's a bad time of the year.

Yep, and North America and Europe are going at different times of the year as well. There's like three weeks apart this time. It's infuriating. But that has given away how far in advance we've recorded this episode. Hey, that's good. It makes you seem cool. Well, very best of luck on the show today. Also joining from Escape This Podcast and many other things, Danny Siller. Welcome back. UTC Plus 10 represent.

You should probably at some point plug all the stuff you're working on. I just kind of skip past that with Bill. No, I think it's fine. We've been on here a few times. People know where to find us with our podcast and things like that. I think it's time for petty personal gripes this time. You know what's going on in my life right now? I've got a pimple on my chin.

They assured me this would stop after I was a teenager, but it's infuriating, isn't it? Well, also joining us with whatever petty personal gripes you happen to have at the moment. So many. So many. Children's author. and many other things besides, Izzy Lawrence, welcome back to the show. Thanks very much for having me, Tom. What else are you working on? Because you've got the Terrible Lizards podcast.

Yes, I've got the Terrible Lizards podcast. You can hear me on BBC's The Forum. I'm quite a lot on that. I've got this new book called The Curse Tomb for your pedantic children who like their historical fiction as accurate as possible. So do check out Izzy.com. You'll find all about me. And you appear to have a robot behind you.

That's not a robot. Okay. What is it? What is it? That is a time machine, and specifically there's a time machine that's invented by one of my characters called Alex, who's a brilliant inventor. She lives up in Manchester, and she named it the boring machine. Because you know when you're bored, time slows down. Oh.

Get even more bored, it can stop. And using a boring machine, you can get it to tick backwards, which is why it's got two drawers. So the top drawer, you put in something boring, like a broken, like tablet or like conversations growing up talking about mortgages, stuff like that. that. And then that powers it. And then in the bottom draw, because obviously we know that the earth is moving through the universe and it's spinning and everything else, you have to have an object to follow. So you need the timeline to follow. And that's where you put something like, you know, a dinosaur tooth in or you put like some old coins or, you know, whatever you're fancy. And then you can, you know, grab onto the handles, you know, get flipped back in time.

But if you get too excited when you're back there, can't hold you there, you go straight back to the future again. So it's quite boring. I love that that's been turned in. to a physical prop that lives in your office? Indeed. This is, this was done by man called Dom, who basically cheated on World Book Day. For those of you without kids who do not know what World Book Day is, basically all the kids go in as their favourite characters. And one of the kids came in as Alex, so she,

I think she had the hair and everything else, but there she is, right? And came in as Alex. And so her dad made her this prop. And so she won World Book Day, and her name's Freya. Well done, Freya. Shout out to Freya. And yeah, no, and then they, had this in their house and we're just like, do you want it? And I was like, yeah.

It is a complete coincidence that the script that the producer's written today happens to be about time zones. Complete coincidence, which means that we should try to synchronise our body clocks and ignore the existential dread of temporal relativity. What time is it?

It's puzzle time. Here's question one. Thank you to Robert Stevens for this question. For over a hundred years, copies of the farmer's almanac have had a hole drilled in their upper left corner. Why? I'll give you that one more time.

Oh, I know the answer to this. For over a hundred years, copies of the farmer's almanac have had a hole drilled in their upper left corner. Why? Good news, Izzy. You get to sit out the first question and be a little smug

while Bill and Danny work their way towards this one. I really hope I'm not wrong because it's such a good answer. And it was so excited as well. Like, it's very rare that we have someone who says that so enthusiastically, and then turns out to be wrong, but it happens. I've done it before. I mean, if I'm wrong, I don't care, because the answer I have is so wonderful.

It's better than the truth. Yeah. All right, manual labour, notoriously my strong point. All I'm picturing is the hanging it off something unusual. Do you hang it off a rake? Is there a part of a tractor that's got a special hook? What would you do? I don't understand anything about farming. I think you do hang it. I feel like I have in my brain a pop culture reference, the source of which I have maybe even just a cultural reference, the source of which I have no idea of what it is. And for some reason, my brain is saying, Farmer's Almanac, you read that in the bathroom and it hangs on a rope by the toilet so that you can read the farmer's almanac, which I have. I have no understanding. The country equivalent of a fish poster.

Okay. I get the fish poster reference thanks to Taskmaster New Zealand, but Danny, you should explain the fish poster. That couldn't have made more sense to us when we saw that. Taskmaster. This is definitely a thing. I've seen it in a lot of houses, a lot of holiday houses, where you need something to read in the bathroom, but instead of having books, magazines or whatever in a little stack,

There's something on the back of the door. And for whatever reason, there are a lot of rules about fishing and a lot of interesting fish around our southern hemisphere areas. So there are pictures of all the fish you might find in the locale. Fish posters are universal in Australia. In the universe of Australia, they're everywhere. Just a poster of local fish, various sizes, what size they need to be. You guys are great.

If you have to throw them back. Surely poisonous spiders, snakes, things that people actually need to. know, maybe? No. They're just chill little guys. See, those are the ones we know not to touch, but a lot of people try to touch fish. You've got to know what fish you're touching. They're hard to touch, to be fair.

That's true. Bill, you have remembered that pop culture reference correctly. That is the first half of the question. Amazing. But you could just put the farmer's almanac in the toilet. Yeah. Not in the toilet. In the toilet room.

Let me rephrase that. In the bathroom. Yes. In the WC. There is a particular word that we're looking for if it was a few decades ago. Ah. The canode?

We're talking 19... Well, they started drilling this in 2019, so... That late? Yes. To stop people. They started officially drilling it in 2019. Before then, lots of people were putting a nail in the corner and putting a hole through it and hanging it up.

But first of all, where... And second, why hang it up? Is it, are they ripping pages out and using it as... Well, yeah, you say pages. It's toilet paper. It's toilet paper. Why don't people respect their almanacs? Keep going.

Why don't people respect their almanacs? You get a new one every year. You get a new one every year. It's a new year. Farming has changed fundamentally. All the harvest date. It's a different, and so who needs the old one? But not different enough for people to...

Well, yeah, no, it's completely different. You throw out the whole old book. You don't need any of its page anymore. I was visualising it the other way around. It stays the same every year, more or less. So like a phone book, you don't really need the updated version, so you get the updated version in your bathroom. The old ones probably makes more sense.

What's the keyword I was looking for instead of bathroom, though? Outhouse. Dunnys? Outhouse. Or Donnie. Either would work. Or Donnie. I'm happy with Donnie. Yes, this was the Farmer's Almanac, published since 1818, and it has a limited shelf life.

The information it goes out of date and goes steadily out of date over the year. So it was often hung in outhouses as free toilet paper. And the hole is still there today in the new version, mostly as a historic feature. And it's been used like that, I think, since the mid-19th century, since they first started printing it. Because basically, before then, toilet paper wasn't really a thing anyway. I'm sorry, I'm big into where people in the past use the bathroom,

because as a historical fiction author, and for kids, you need to know exactly, because the kids really need to know. So, yeah, so the farmer's almanac is, yeah, it's a classic. It's such a good fact. And I'm really upset that I've revealed everything, because I could have just snuck in and just been cool. No, I was just like, yes! Bill, it is over to you for the first guest question.

Question of the show. All right. This question was sent in by Bob Weiss. Thank you so much, Bob. The Ear Inn, one of New York City's oldest taverns, was established in 1817. For most of that time, it didn't have a name. Then, in the 1970s, the current owners hit upon an idea. Why did they choose the new name? I'll give you that again. The Ear Inn, one of New York, City's oldest taverns was established in 1817. For most of that time, it didn't have a name. Then, in the 1970s, the current owners hit upon an idea. Why did they choose the new name?

Can I ask how you're spelling ear? You can, but will I answer? Yes, I will. E-A-R, like the human ear. The word I'm saying is ear, I've got one under this headphone. How did they get away with not having a name for that long? Oh, because that's something in a lot of genres is the wrong word, categories, types of, well, the thing is I'm going so broad on here. I've just got to go with like categories of noun and things like that. There are lots of examples of where things at some point need to be given a name just because computers now exist and records now exist and you have to identify it somehow. Like the tavern in the local, uh, level. village doesn't need a name.

Before that, it was just known enough. It's just at the tavern. If someone comes in, then you need to point someone there. Yes, the tavern over there. Roads did not always have names and sometimes still don't. Like, there's lots of places where if it's just the thing that everyone knows, it doesn't need a name until it has to go into some national database or regional database of, oh, we have to identify this thing at this address, what's it called?

It doesn't have a name. I wish this was the episode where I had my Greenland question because I had a fact that I found about that. It's also, while I'm rambling, because I'm rambling, but I'm going to keep going, this is why you end up with things like River Avon. Avon means river. River? It's River, River. There's loads of them because someone comes up and goes, what's that called, Avon? Oh, it's the River Avon.

It's just the river. It doesn't need a name. Now, you said something that I did wonder about that. You said, oh, just that tavern over here. Is that what someone did, did they say, oh, in here, or ear? Well, that's what I'm saying, if it was cockneys, then this would make sense, but this is New York, and they'd go, over here. They don't do that. You know, and also, there's hit an R on that. There would be, it would be, it would be ear, which I can't say in my accent. Nobody can say, nobody can say New York accents. They can exist. It's weird. It's like Boston accents.

But there would be a rotic R on the end of it. It would be ear. But they'd probably put that on ear as well, right? Earring. Is it because they sold earrings? That's a weird tavern. No, no. It is not because they sold earrings. In fact, honestly, it has nothing to do with a human ear. Okay. Not any practical real way. Okay. So is it maybe, is it one of the, some of the letters have dropped off?

So was it called like Pearl and the L and the P dropped off? And so it became ear? Is it like one of those things? Like the C when it falls off canals off. street. What you're hitting on now is actually pretty close, but it didn't have a name. It's not that this is the new name. This is the first name in the 1970s. For most of its history, it didn't have a name. So are those the cheapest lettering that they could get? It's not Scrabble rules. That's a shame because I was working on anagrams of ear in there and all I got was nearing, which is not. No. N.E. Rain. It's not there. But you're very It is a very close idea.

Oh, okay. So it's the shortest, maybe vowels are cheaper than consonants, and it's the shortest word that they could think of, that has, like, vowels in as opposed to, does that make any sense? No, you have to buy a vowel. They cost you extra. That is true. So why ear?

There's nothing to do with the human ear. You said that it looked nothing, it was nothing to do with the human ear. I was thinking, I don't know, maybe they had some. some sort of artwork on the outside, and that was what it ended up looking like. Is it, is it like, um, um, I'm next to an opticians. And you've got another. Again, you were, you were so close with the idea of like the name falling off or parts of the letters missing.

It's just, it didn't have a name, but you're very close. So what did it have? What did it have? What did it have instead of a name? Was there a, uh, maybe this is a part of a road sign or something. And they just added the word in. So it's like near Boulevard or something. I don't know.

It's going to be a street or an avenue in... Oh, no, that's Manhattan. It might not be... Yeah. It didn't have a name, but no one was confused as to what it was. It did have signage. It had a sign outside that hung there like an ear. No, no.

No, okay. Because old pub signs, because the pub sign comes from, just because let's not erase women's history here on this podcast. Because women used to brew beer. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Hold on. We're not going to let you get away with this again, Tom.

Exactly. While we're talking about signs for taverns, this is an important fact, right? In the olden days, medieval times. It's why I get really upset when you have pubs. I don't mind taverns, that's fine. But your pubs in your medieval times didn't exist. What you had was women, housewives, people like that, brewing beer, brewing too much beer. And when they had a lot of beer, they put a sign outside to say, hey, guys, come get beer.

And then I'll come get beer off you guys. It's sort of like, you know, swapseys for beer. and each had their own painted signs that's why you get like a little white lion or you get like a little red hen or something it's because women were doing that in the past because women brewed the beer. Anyway, that's got...

So I'm thinking that there was a thing hanging outside the inn already which looks either like an ear or was something like an ear. I'm convinced this as a word one or a latter one. In his words, I will say, I would never call this place a... tavern in my daily life, but I have done so for a reason, because I'm asking a question on lateral, which means it might be bar or pub or something like that. It's not going to be pub,

is it, not in America. Is it reusing letters? It's, it's, it's, it's, it is, you're, very close with that missing letters. It's an adaptation of an existing. Is it the fact, if you took the word bar and adjusted the bee a little bit, that does look like it would turn into the word ear. They did remove the right half of the B in bar to make it read ear. But there is one tiny little extra element to this. There must be. Why?

Why would you just slightly change the signage of your existing place? Why don't just give it a cool name that you wanted to give it as a cool name? That is a good question. Or was it in like the background shot of the famous TV show or something? And everybody was just like, oh, I know that place. and they didn't want to, like, in taxi or something, and it was in the background of a, you know, thing like that. Or they were just cheap and did not want to buy a new sign.

I mean, that makes sense to me. It wasn't so much cheap. If it was easy for them to get a new sign, they would have. Because at the time, there was New York strikes on sign makers, and they refused to make any more signs because there was a massive... Yeah, no, okay. Yeah, what was going on in the 70s? Bar and Inn are, like, engraved into the stone somehow.

one of the really old buildings in New York, and they just had to cover up the... It is one of the really old buildings. So there's a historic reason that they... Wait, they legally can't change the building. It's a listed building. They can't hang a sign on it. They're not allowed to change a sign on it. Yeah, now, look, they may have been allowed if they'd try it hard enough, but it would have required a lot of red tape and bureaucracy to change the sign on a historic

landmark. And so instead, they just sort of turned off some of the... tubing on the old neon sign and bar the unnamed bar became the cool hip new drinking location ear so i have a question about neon tubing and signs because i don't think that that how how old are we talking it's the 1940s earliest i'd imagine am i running that when this happened i think exactly so it's only 30 years i mean i suppose it's new you know american who knows when they listed the facade And the Brits think 500 miles is a long way. But yes, to change the signage on their heritage-listed facade,

they partially painted out bar to turn it into ear. Morning Brew's Daily Newsletter breaks down the biggest news in business for millions of people every day. And now we're moving from your inbox to your headphones. Each day we'll cover everything from the latest Apple event to why nobody can afford a house right now. And some people are saying it's the best. best part of their morning. Because we know

something you don't. Business news doesn't have to be boring. So check out Morning Brew Daily wherever you get your podcasts. And on YouTube. Thank you to Matthew Fry for this delicately worded question. On the 24th of September, 2017, where did Simon

ask David and Jerry to insert a couple of plastic water bottles in front of people. Say that one more time. On the 24th of September 2017, where did Simon ask David and Jerry to insert a couple of plastic water bottles in front of 2,000 people? Sorry, why is everyone laughing? Can someone explain that to me? Um, no. No. I realise we're meant to yes and things here, but, uh, no, no, no, not gonna explain that one. Um, yeah, so Simon, David and Jerry. Yes. I've got together. This has got the vibe of

important that these names are Simon, David and Jerry rather than just three names put out of a hat. I think these are names that we could recognise. We're like, oh, that's three members of the Blue Man group. Well, Jerry is the only one that stands out, isn't it?

Because it's either Jerry Seinfeld or Tom and Jerry, and that's the only Jerry's They are the only two Jerrys. They're the only Jerry's. Oh, Ben and Jerry's. Jerry Halliwell. Oh, I didn't see it written there. Nice. Yeah, because I spelt it in my notes. Yeah. So it could be Jerry Halliwell. It could be Seinfeld. It could be Ben and Jerry's for the ice cream. It's time for Name that Jerry. There aren't many. This is a good route to go down. It could be a can. They're putting plastic bottles in a Jerry can.

That's right. It could be a random German from the First World War. You will not know this Jerry. you might know this Simon but I think it's unlikely you'll recall him from memory. I wouldn't go too far down the names here. Exactly. So three people.

Three people. Males. Males were going with. Three guys, a couple of plastic bottles and 2,000 people. So 20,000 people could just be online in 2017.

There were, you know, YouTube had taken off that much. People were online. This could be just a really random. Was this, like, key bottle flipping times when that was the big trend? Oh, 2017, people like to flip a bottle. I mean, is it the fact that they're water bottles significant? Because I know that water bottles are used in charities,

because they, instead of light bulbs, they're like a skylight for certain, like if you live in a favela or something, you've got a simple building. They basically cut a hole in the roof, and they put a water bottle in. And because of the refraction of the light and everything else, it actually lights the room up quite nicely. Water bottle and a little bit of bleach. Ooh. I know that we have school students who do similar things like to use them with seedlings that surrounding them with water bottles.

I don't know if it's to help with structure or just for a bit of a protective barrier, but that's when we use them. The bottles are being used to a somewhat improvised piece of equipment. Is it an instrument? Are we playing on stage and you stick the water bottles in and you go, bobo bo bo bo bo bo bo bo. Where did that come from, Bill? Let's see if he can keep this going. I don't know, I just pictured water bottles full of different...

It comes from miscongeniality. You kind of improvise with them. You just think, hey, you know, I could get a different sound out of these different water bottles. But glass, not plastic, surely. You can do it with... I would definitely do that with blowing over the tops of them as practice for playing the flute before I played the flute. But you don't insert those bottles anyway, do you?

You put them in a vibraphone so you can slap them with a... Or whatever they are. Do you put them like in a... In a kick drum? I want to put them in a life... Oh. What was that, is he? I want to...

My mind's going, you put them in a live creature, but that's probably not right. I'm thinking of that episode of Jerry Seinfeld where they banished to get a golf ball into a whale. But that's what's throwing me. It's the name Jerry is really throwing me now. I will say that Bill is out of nowhere, very close.

But he's a musician So it's not that You know This is where his brain goes You know What makes amazing sound That's half of Half the music I make

Is water bottles on a stage But you came up with I think Vibraphone and kick drum And those are not where you might Put plastic I've just seen people do weird stuff With their with their bass drum

Or the kick drum On a on a On a drum set They'll be like I put this big rolled up Piece of cloth in it And I've done this I know

the first what are those things in circuits which with the sign that's like an equal sign that goes like that, what's they called? Capacitors. Capacitors.

So a capacitor, a normal capacitor, the first capacitor, right, was done mid-18th century by this sort of like weird priest guy and he basically used large bottles of water in order to slow down

the electric current and try and store it. So all I'm saying is could this have something to do if you like wrap an electric guitar cable around it you insert it into a coil, that actually might make the sound like really funky. Because you know how obsessed musicians are with their cables and keeping them perfect

and they don't like you, like, tying them in a knot and stuff and they cry? Well, all I'm saying is, maybe I'd use them to wrap, you know, around a cable. So wrong instrument, but right kind of reason. It made it sound better, or it made it sound more appropriate. Is it a weird trumpet mute or a trombone mute? Yes, Danny. Yes, it is. Oh, what? I love the sound of a muted trumpet.

Yes. These were used as a trumpet mute. The Simon is Sir Simon Rattle, the famous conductor, who was joining the London Symphony Orchestra, and they were producing celebration concerts. Now, why use water bottles? That's the last bit of this question. Yeah, why not, like, get a mute? You use your hand and a lot of jazz stuff, don't you?

You use your cool little hat. Is there something to do with the fact that it's like mostly water and therefore it absorbs sound in a particular way, or it doesn't reverberate at the right tone? Yeah, actually, I'm going to give you that, Izzy. That is close enough. They auditioned all sorts of mutes for the performance of Stravinsky's Right of Spring, which has lots of raucous passages, lots of quiet sections. And for the quiet sections, got a direct quote from Jerry here,

they're just very quiet mutes sent to us from a trumpet player in Japan. David and I played a different selection of mutes to Sir Simon for that passage. Those were the ones he preferred. I love it. Wait. His last name's Rattle. Rattle. Sir Simon Rattle.

That's almost non-initative determinism. Almost. It's kind of like... He could have been a conductor or he could have been a baby. Exactly. Tom, I appreciate you telling us not to spend too long focusing on the names. I didn't think you'd get Simon Rattle. Everyone at home, don't tell Tom, but I was not going to get Simon Rattle.

I was definitely going to get Simon Rattle. Come on. Yeah. Over to Izzy for the next question from the guests, whenever you're ready. Here we go. A household object can be made to last longer by burning it more. What is it and why? And again, a household object can be made to last longer by burning it more. What is it and why?

We have a lot of firebans around here. So I get the feeling this might not be the question that gives us an edge. Burn it more so it lasts longer. I'm going to say candles, they're out. That's not the answer. I don't know. Do fireplaces work better if you shoot smoke through them every so often? I don't know what a fireplace is like when it stops working.

Yeah. Sometimes there's a load of things in these questions to go off and explore it. In this case, it's just a household object. It's not even a human name that we can dissect. When you get, when you've, when you've read all of the word documents that are on your rewritable CD, you could just throw it out, or you could burn it more, stick some new documents on there, it lasts even longer. Does it though?

I love, I love that as an answer, Bill. Well done. But there is something that Bill has said, which you might want to disagree with. Oh, candles. Is this something, I feel like we're getting into weird riddle territory that, you know, the more you wet something, the more it dries, one of those sorts of riddles. Is there some way that candles work with that? Exactly how was the question phrase?

Can you give it us one more time? A household object can be made to last longer by burning it more. What is it and why? Oh, I think it is candles. Bill, you're a candle aficionado. Bill's a candle aficionado? No, I just have a couple of candles. But I do just a couple, just a few.

Couple dozen. I think this is a candle thing actually So I think this has to do With like candle tunneling A wick is much like a boring machine itself Because it tunnels straight through the centre of the candle I think this is like when you first get a candle tip For all your candleheads at home

I'm pretty sure when you first get a candle Pretty sure Candlehead is a villain from a horror movie Probably a Batman villain. You're never saying as me. I'm Candlehead. Random ancient Egypt fact, right? In the olden days, if you're a woman at a party, you put a thing of scented candle

on your head pretty much, set fire to it, and the wax would go down your face all evening and left off amazing smells, which I think we should do. I legitimately thought you were going to say, you know, some of the ancient Egyptian gods had like eagle heads. Well, you'll never guess Candlehead. This is that candle, candle literally like, you know, all over you.

I love it. I know, so cool. Anyway, sorry, there's nothing to do that. That's to the candleheads. I'm pretty sure if you light a candle, the first time especially. If you light it for a little bit, it'll make a little pool just around the wick. And then every subsequent time you light it, it'll just melt into that pool and it will never access the outer wax. But if on the first time you let it like evenly melt across the whole candle and you really get a proper melt going on, it'll use all the wax the whole time. This is picturing when it's like a candle in a jar kind of thing

and it'll use the whole thing it will go down rather than tunneling right through the middle. Bang on, Bill. How do you force that to happen? I don't know. I'm not enough of a candlehead. Bang on. You say that, Bill.

Now and forever you are obviously the candle aficionado and expert of the podcast. I mean, I would just say there's a million middle-aged women just yelling into their headphones right now. Just go, I knew that. That's obvious. Come on. Everybody knows this. Don't ever blow out a candle until it's fought that bit of melty. We know this. It also works with, if you've got a fat candle that's standalone, it'll also do that as well. It's very important that you do the things that's not just a little tapered dinner candle. But if a candle is not burned for sufficiently long before it is extinguished, only the area immediately around the flame will melt. This causes a memory ring effect, where the outer part of the wax will never melt. Instead, the flame will tunnel down vertically. leaving much of the wax unused.

To avoid this from happening, you should keep burning the candle until the entire top layer of wax is liquid right to the edge. This is especially important on the first burn. So 10 out of 10, Bill, you got it. Okay. Apart from, I should minus like a little bit

because you went, it's not candles. It's not blowing everyone off. Don't do candles. Thank you to Daniel for sending this question in. The Language of the Vikings. Old Norse was originally written in runic script. Each rune was made up of vertical and diagonal lines.

Why were horizontal lines avoided? And one more time, the language of the Vikings. Old Norse was originally written in runic script. Each run was made up of vertical and diagonal lines. Why were horizontal lines avoided? Because they were really hard. I am worried that Izzy's going to get this immediately because it's a history question.

It's a history one, but I don't know. my Norse runes at all. So this is, I'm going to, I'm going to say for now, I'd no idea, but I'm going to say for now, it's to do with how it's read, but I don't know how it's read. My kind of first pitch is that it's like due to the, not the medium, the thing that it is written on. Stone and wood. I wonder if, if you're writing on like stone, but it's got like stratigraphy kind of things going up and down. If you're writing a wood and it's got tree, like maybe whatever you write on naturally has sort of randomly horizontal lines.

So you just say, hey, if you see horizontal, don't even look at it. Don't look at it. So you mean like, for instance, wood makes more sense to me like that. You have to go against the grain because if you go with the grain, it'll just split or something like that. Is that what you mean? Or like it just, you would look, you would see horizontally. Oh, you just couldn't see it very.

well. But that would mean logically you weren't ever putting like a wood, you know, plank vertically if that was the case. You'd only be using wood planks horizontally, which doesn't really make much sense. No, but there's something. Maybe it does. Absolutely right. Absolutely right. It's so the wood didn't split. Oh, exactly. The grain of the wood? Yes. So runes were often be carved along the length of a stick or staff or handle. So vertical's fine. Diagonal's fine. You put a horizontal line in there, and that will just split the whole stuff. Bone. They should have used bone. They should have used. Idiots. They're Vikings. There's bones everywhere. Exactly. They went all the way to Greenland

to get them. The walrus bones. Exactly. But I love that sort of stuff of how things develop, because they're just like limited by the specific technology or the specific material, because we live now in a time where you can kind of just do whatever because it's magic. You get ink, and you're like, oh, you can write it however you want, with whatever you want, in whatever way you want, you're so free. But so much of this early development is like, well, can't go sideways. Yeah. Sideways. Sorry, man.

And in my notes, you were right, Bill. Even if it didn't split, the lines of grain would make it less legible. That's clever. I didn't think of that at all. Yep. You can even see that in other ancient script. Some early Latin texts will avoid making horizontal lines just in case it made it less legible or split the wood.

Men, that being said, how much of trying to? to read actual ancient Roman tablets have you done. I had to do that for university. They're impossible to read. I don't know why. There's just something about the way they've written and what little we have of the actual preserved things. It's hard to actually distinguish the letters a lot of the time. I hear loads of like Mesopotamian archaeologists just going please. Have you seen Cuneiform? Have you seen Cuneiform? That's true. That is. Like, no. So, yeah, I mean, this is the world's smallest violin held by Mesopotamian and Arcadian people just getting, no. I was trying to read, I was trying to translate this tablet

for six months, it turned out a bunch of chickens just ran in some mud. It's not that, I mean, if only, more like ants with boots on. That's... My favourite sort of runic fact, I did this a video a long time ago, is the Bluetooth symbol on your phone, is a made-up ruin, made by combining H for Harold and B for Bluetooth, and it is the name of an actual Viking that Bluetooth was named after, and it is his ruling, and that is on everyone's phone. So cool. So yes, Old Norse, written in Rooms, avoided horizontal lines

because it might split the wood or make it less legible. Wendy's most important deal of the day has a fresh lineup. Pick any two breakfast items for $4. New four-piece French toast sticks, bacon or sausage wrap, Biscuit or English muffin sandwiches, small hot coffee and more. Limited time only at participating Wendy's Taxes Extra. Danny, I think it's you for the next question. Whenever you're ready.

Absolutely. This one has been sent in by Ray, so thank you so much Ray. LeVar is a regular at his local casino. At the blackjack table for several hours, LeVar's winning bets combined to make a fairly good profit. However, his losing bets don't cost him a dime. Why does the casino allow this? And one more time, LeVar is a regular at his local casino.

At the blackjack table for several hours, LeVar's winning bets combined to make a fairly good profit. However, his losing bets don't cost him a dime. Why does the casino allow this? We're all big casino heads here, right? It's been so regularly. Is this a ruse that the casino have got? So they employ LeVar to look like he's winning so that other people get

attracted to the game and think it's easy. A bit like those people who play, you know, hide the, you know... Pre-card Monty. Yeah. Exactly. Is that what's going on? Which is still going on, by the way. If you go on Westminster Bridge or a couple of tourist sites in London,

there are scammers there still doing, you know, find the lady or any of those scams, the cups and balls. And they run away when the police arrive. And they successfully built tourists over and over and over again. You would think everyone in the world knew this. scam by now. Well, maybe they do, and it's just part of the experience. Yeah.

It feels like it's getting there. But in this case, no, this is not a scam. No one is being fooled by this. When you said LeVar, my first thought was LeVar Burton, who was in... Is the only LeVar I am aware of? The only LeVar I can think of from reading Rainbow and Roots and Next Generation Star Trek. He doesn't seem like the gambling type. Unless he was wearing his handbook.

If he's got Jordy's visor, then he could, like, see it through the cards or something like that. And everybody's just so impressed that they're just like, you can take our money. In theory, I don't know too much about his personal life. Wait, but also, this is roulette, wasn't it? No, Blackjack. I've got the wrong game, it's Blackjack. Hey, Tom, I had roulette in my head as well. Yeah, I don't know why.

I wrote down the word blackjack, and in my head, there's a ball spinning around a... Do you know what it is? It is that Simon Rattle. It's that Simon Rattle we're hearing that. It's the Simon Rattle rattling about. Yep. Yeah, there you've got it. I'm not going to forget him anytime soon.

But to the best of my knowledge, this is not LaVar Burton that we're talking about here. There's not some weird thing where he's the dealer. Like, the dealer plays and is part of the thing, but he wouldn't. Like, I can imagine a dealer playing and not losing money, but he wouldn't make bets. That'd be kind of rude. Or does he, or does he have to put up a bet? Is he, like, the ante? The profit is the casinos, but the lost.

does not cost LeVar or anything. That would match with Bill saying dealer. Okay. Here's the interesting point. You are correct that LeVar is the dealer. However, we are not just talking about, technically, I'm using the casinos money, so it's all good. That is not where we're going with this.

So there's something else going on where he is absolutely actually making some money. He's making bets, but he doesn't lose money when he loses. He's losing his winning bets, bets that he makes. It's not just like when you're the dealer, you refer to other people's bets as your bets. I am going to give you a horizontal hand to that. It's got nothing to do with the fact that it doesn't cost him a dime, but it does cost him dollars. Yes. Way more.

You know what, the fact that it does mention dimes, maybe this is more of a thing in America than other places. Tips. So he's playing on the son leads of the casino, obviously, because he's the dealer. To an extent, I do want to highlight what Bill just said, though. He's winning tips. There's something to be with him getting tips. He's winning...

Is it just that when his bets, I'll refer to the bets at that take. And when people win in blackjack, they toss a coin to their dealer. You tip the dealer if you've had a good day. Like they're witcher. Yeah. Okay. There's a little, there's a little slight more detail to it than that. So you are totally right.

This is about tipping. When someone plays, they will often tip. But we're not talking about just your standard, woohoo, I won. Here, have a 20. It works a little bit differently. to that. I don't know how much you know about this being a slightly different form of tipping that can take place. When they win, the casino punishes them by cutting off the tips of their fingers and giving them and he pulled any hands him in for a bounty. I've seen casino. I've actually

not seen casino. I mean, the phrase was profit that it's in the question. So how's that spelled? Maybe he gets a message from God every time they win. I was, I was going to speculate that it's some kind of form of, like, blackjack anti. So, you know, in poker, it's like, before you do anything, it's that one person has to anti up and, like, put some money out there to be like, here's the money, we're all, so we know there's something in the pot. Is there, like, part of other people's bets form, like a, like an anti, as a, as a, as a bet from, which accounts as the dealer's bet.

I wouldn't, it's, it's not. not like that. There is nothing mandatory about this, but I think that by saying that you've got this sort of side dealer's bet, that is probably what I would consider close enough to what's going on here. I mean, I've only played poker once in my life, and that's because my friend Simon told me about it, and I wanted to understand. Simon Rattle? I didn't know he played. It's not Simon Rattle, unfortunately. So in my head, poker is called Simon's betting game. And I've forgotten pretty much all the rules, because unless it's got worker placement, it doesn't feel like a proper game to me. So I'm not that overly familiar with how the bets work. I know that you can't

break over a certain point, and if you do, then you get, you lose your money. I know Blackjack has the concept of insurance, but you're not testing the dealer there. Oh, maybe one way of thinking about it could be, where is the money, where is this money coming from? Do dealers have like a little pot that the casino gives them? that they can use to make bets already? Or is it just a case of people are, like, he's just taking money off the players and then replaying that? Wait, do people playing Blackjack go like, and have one for yourself?

It is essentially like that. You don't tip the dealer. You give the dealer money to bet with on your hand as well, so you're both in on it? A little bit. That is essentially it, yes. Blackjack players, if they want to tip the dealer, they might make a little second smaller bet.

And if your main bet wins, the dealer's mini-bet wins as well. That's a fun way of tipping them. Because if you've got a corrupt dealer, that's a really good way of winning. If you've got a corrupt dealer. I like that. I think the dealers have to follow very strict rules. I don't think the dealers are actually making any decisions. It's just the casino has a rule that they stand on certain numbers and they hit on certain numbers.

So it's not like the dealer can choose to make you more successful. I've seen magicians, Tom. That's fair. I know what they can do with cards. I will say when I tried to look up more information about how this worked, I did end up on a lot of websites of people asking, hey, do really good roulette croupiers have the ability to decide where it lands? And a lot of people were agreeing that they totally do.

There must be skilled to it. There must be. Just wait for the, like, six to come around again and go, I can do it. Yeah, how could you get better at Wheel of Fortune if that was. wasn't a skill that you could have. True. So if there's a player who wanted to tip LeVar, then they'd just make a little side bet,

and that's LeVar's one. So if they win, LeVar wins. See, if we were cool, we'd have known that. No, we don't know that because we're too cool. Which just leaves the question from the start of the show. Why did the British electropop duo Pet Shop Boys call their first album, please? Any guesses before I give the audience the answer to that? Because they really wanted people to buy it

Please, please buy my album I'm just a little pet shop boy So that it would be next to the Beatles album Please Please Meet Was that even an album or just a single? Izzy's closer Oh, okay It's begging

Not quite They weren't the ones they wanted to say please To the record company What? Publish this please I'm just a little pet shop boy Please publish it It's a great Neil Tenant impression.

Again, not quite. There's one other group of people in the transaction. Please stock my record, please, in your shop. Okay, there's two other groups of people in the transaction. So saying we've got the record, we got the, can you press this at the factory correctly? There are three people. Our four main weapons.

What's going to go from the other end? The customer. Please buy it. Yeah, well, not quite. This is the 1980s, I think. Yeah, it would have been. Or very late 70s. So what's happening there that doesn't really happen when you're enjoying music now? You go to a shop. You do. Hey, I would like to buy an album, please.

Correct. Amazing. This was, according to their official website, it's so people can go into the record shop and say, can I have the Pet Shop Boys album, please? Nice. Nice. Congratulations to all our players. Thank you very much for being part of the show.

What's going on in your lives? We will start today with Izzy. Yes. Please go to iszzi.com. That's Izzy, I-S-Z-I. You can buy my books. You can listen to my podcast, Terrible Lizards, and you can get links to all my BBC stuff as well.

Danny. You can find us at consume thismedia.com. That will be the umbrella to get you to any of our podcasts that you want to listen to. Plenty of personal hygiene complaints all throughout those. And Bill. Why don't you check out some of the murder mysteries we've been doing

this year? You could listen to the furtive fiend. It's maybe got a demon in it. Probably not. Demons aren't real. And there's five little pigs. It's some fun stuff.

That's an adaptation. Come and enjoy it with us. And if you want to know more about this show, you can do that at lateralcast.com. We can also send in your own ideas for a question. We are at lateral cast, basically everywhere. And you can catch video highlights regularly at YouTube.com slash lateral cast.

Thank you very much. To Bill Sunderland. Thank you for having me. Danny Siller. Thank you so much. Izzy Lawrence. Been a pleasure. I've been Tom Scott, and that's been lateral.