Lateral with Tom Scott - 173: Hairdryer on a pole

Episode Date: January 30, 2026

Rowan Ellis, Jarvis Johnson and Jordan Adika face questions about missing money, medical manoeuvres and mangled magazines. 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: Kate, Mac, Forest Davis, Corey Dabrowski, Toni Kovačić. FORMAT: Pad 26 Limited/Labyrinth Games Ltd. EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS: David Bodycombe and Tom Scott. © Pad 26 Limited (https://www.pad26.com) / Labyrinth Games Ltd. 2026. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 2016, Henry saved a woman's life with the Heimlich maneuver, even though he'd never been taught this special technique. How? The answer to that, at the end of the show. My name's Tom Scott, and this is Lateral. Tonight, we reopened the file on a case that has baffled investigators for years. Who an earth booked these three guests together? Experts agree it could only be the work of a criminal mastermind,

one who struck without warning, leaving behind nothing but a spreadsheet, labeled, guest list, final, final V7 brackets, use this one, close brackets. But now, with new testimony and the best reenactments $100 could buy, we may finally uncover the truth as we interrogate our three suspects, as we interrogate our three guests. First, hoping to get her alibi straight, video essayist about sociology and social justice. Rowan Ellis, welcome back to the show. Thank you for having me once more. My crime spree was not enough to stop you booking me again.

It is always a delight to have you back on. I note that description has changed. Have you found yourself doing wider subjects lately? Yeah, it turns out there are so many fascinating ways in which the world is messed up, and I love to talk about them. What have you been covering lately? I had a video around the ways that the alt-right in America is using food as a method of indoctrination and recruitment,

and I've just recorded one about the politics of rest and laziness. So if you're feeling not very rested, that's all right, because that's what they want you to be. Oh, as someone who is currently very much not feeling rested, I appreciate that. Well, good luck on the show today. Next, trying to control their heart rate, our second guest. So I was going to say half of the Sad Boys podcast, Jordan Adika. But as we record, you have also returned to YouTube. So please welcome YouTuber and half the Sad Boys podcast, Jordan Adika.

Yeah. I suppose I'm two-thirds myself at this point. I'd say fractions is not my strong point. I mean, let's be clear, after that hustle comment, you are many other things besides. Yeah, now I'm a prolific criminal, murderer. I'm now realising that was a joke, and so I'm not one. How is the podcast going? It's good. I've got my issues with my co-hosts. That's kind of private topic that I wouldn't want to exclaim too much.

I should point out I'm not. You know, I have a really strong prescription. I don't know who else is on the call, but I just got to say I'm kind of, I love the guy unconditionally, conditionally. He's becoming extremely difficult in general and has this like, oh, and so often there's like, stop disparaging me on podcasts, chill out.

You know what I mean? It's really getting my goat, but otherwise, no, it's going really good. And finally, rapidly cleaning their phone history and scrubbing down some walls, the other half of the Sad Boys podcast and also YouTuber Jarvis Johnson. Hello, hello.

Some friends of mine recently returned from a job at the Louvre. Sorry. This is a private call amongst friends, right? Of course. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, okay. Yeah, doing great content creating,

re-evaluating my professional relationships as of information revealed thus far on this call. It's excited to be here, excited to think laterally, and also excited for my coffee to kick in, because it's early in the States. I was going to say from the Jarvis Johnson YouTube channel, but I just look that up. You are now from the Jarvis Johnson Gold YouTube channel. Guilty. I unfortunately have not posted in two years on my main channel.

Second crime identified. Yeah, that's the classic YouTuber thing of your, the stress gets to. too big on your main channel, and so you make a second channel that then becomes as big as your main channel. And then now I've got to create Jarvis Johnson's silver and I'm going to hide in the, back in the shadows, you know? Well, good luck to you and your gold variant and to the future of your podcast together. Good luck to all three players. Let's start with Exhibit. Question one. A magician cut out small, narrow sections from a glossy magazine and stuck them all around a room. Why? And one more time, a magician.

Cut out small, narrow sections from a glossy magazine and stuck them all around a room. Why? They're just a bit weird, aren't they? Magicians in general or this specific magician? Yeah, magicians are, they can do a lot of weird stuff under the guise of being a magician. This is, I think, relatively low on the weirdness spectrum for a magician. Have you seen that stuff they'll do where something disappears in the hand? I mean, that's as weird as it get.

I saw them cut someone in half! I saw a guy who held his breath for a long time, and I was like, that's not much of a magic trick, but okay. So holographic, holographic sections. Did you say vertical sections of magazines? I didn't say the word holographic at all. I said narrow sections from a glossy magazine. Glossy. Again, coffee is not kicked in yet, but when I... But that's someone with Pokemon card knowledge immediately. I'm thinking, listen, so the glossiness, okay, so the glossiness. Okay. So the glossiness. The glossiness makes me think that information is relevant.

And I wonder about a big, glossy wall collage of magazines. Could that create some sort of mirror-mirring effect? I second Jarvis's idea that the words in the question are important. I think that that's key. It's got to be. And I think that that's a good point. This is the type of analysis I bring to the lateral podcast. So my question is, so a glossy magazine is also just, it's both the fact it is glossy,

but it's also a type of magazine in that it's often like a women's fashion magazine or there's like a glossy is kind of the name of the magazine. So annoyingly, it might also not be relevant in terms of its iridescence. I'd say that's relevant, yes. I was thinking of, I didn't know that shorthand, but I do associate. like the gloss texture of a page with more of a tabloid than a newspaper, do you know what I mean? Yes.

Definitely. She said what? And then a surprised person stood next to like a scandalous royal or something? Definitely that kind of magazine. Okay. Like with that film. Maybe he was cutting out the images of skinny women to put on his wall to try and figure out who was going to be his next assistant.

Oh, murderer. in an extremely old-timey, classic, misogynistic magician show in which he was figuring out who to disappear and cut in half. I do like the idea that he's running an internal interview process. He's vetting through like a hiring service, like, who? Okay, what proportions are they? Where would I slice? Okay, interesting. Okay, but what if he's like a down on his luck magician and he doesn't have the funds necessary to cut a real woman in half?

so he's like, I'll cut women in half in the magazine. He's misunderstood the asidebook. Your characterization, Jarvis, is, I would say, better of the two. He's a down and out magician. Judging by the fact that I was kidding, that doesn't vote well for me. There are certain skills that a magician needs to have.

He didn't have yet. He's still learning. Oh, without magic, you're one of the worst magicians. That's so cool. Is this a famous... Can we ask if it's a famous one? Would it be known by name? It's not a famous magician. Okay.

No. Like I would know any. This is actually a technique that is taught on a magic DVD from way back when. Incredible. Magic DVD. There is such a small period of history in which a magic DVD is something that exists.

I'm delighted that it's made it into this podcast. I think they may still... I think they're mostly online downloads now. There's probably still a few DVDs out there. There is that... Yeah, that... Yeah, that golden era of, like, public access to recording equipment that starts in, like, the early VHS era and then, like, most especially in the mid-90s, right?

And I love the idea that someone has spent all of their money on acquiring the video itself. And then it was like, oh, Jesus. I got it. It's like downloading, like, a plug-in for Premiere or something. And then going, like, wait, there's, like, three others I also need. And I need Premiere as well. And a woman? What am I going to do?

Okay. So maybe he's not down on his luck, but maybe he's up and coming so much so that he's a child. You know, because children do like to do magic. It's one of the things that children do when they're trying to decide what their life is going to be like. And sometimes they choose magician. When they're cool, when it's like a couple of cool guys specifically who like when maybe looking for an affect. What I'm getting from this is that you two try to be magicians as children.

You're like, yeah, I don't know, it's just something that kids, cool kids do. Like, I don't know if that's the thing you are picking up on. It's like early to mid-2000s, got to, yeah. Something like current YouTuber podcaster may, you know, start their career as a magician. Up and coming is right. Not necessarily age, but certainly, like, has not developed all the skills needed yet. Was it that they were trying to. predict the future of these possible scandals of these celebrities question might maybe?

No, but you have correctly identified that he's cutting out celebrities. Okay. Pictures of celebrities. Parts of celebrities. Parts of celebrities. Terrify. Early on, Jarvis, you did ask horizontal or vertical. These are horizontal strips. So I'm imagining, and I don't know why a magician would be doing this. but I'm imagining you could be like creating kind of a Frankenstein's no not at Frankenstein's monster more like if you were to collate a bunch of vertical strips of slices

of a celebrity you could horizontal strips of a celebrity you could create something that looks like an average of a celebrity like someone that looks famous but you don't what might that help you do cold reading is it to give them like an advantage on what the average traits are that you would use or something like that? No, not in this case. It doesn't necessarily need to be a magician here. I guess a stand-up comic could do this as well. Oh, is it just like being nervous about doing something in front of people?

So he's got like all the eyes and like a crowd that he puts on the wall. Because he's too scared. That's so much scarier than a crowd. That's so cute. In Eldridge horror. to look at. You haven't quite got it. It's not Eldridge horror. You've nearly got that. You're right that it's about not being shy, about performance skills, everything like that. Is it like eye contact specifically? Yes. Like cutting out the eyes? Yes. Spot on. This is a tip for

magicians to improve eye contact when performing. So it's a shy magician. If you have problems maintaining eye contact, you cut out the eyes, which you would find in celebrity magazines or things like that. And you pin them up, because then you can't look at anything else. You can't go, oh, I'm close enough, I'm looking at their chin, I'm looking at, you've got to actually match the eyes. Is there any chance that this is just a flimsy defence on the part of a real serial killer? Yeah.

Bought like a, you know, a magic starter set with the Little Black & Boat Wond and went, Your Honor, you're on it, you're on it. It's for magic. The bones in my fridge are for the trick or something. That's a different kind of magic. Yeah, it's very talented. Jordan, it is over to you for the next question, please. This question has been sent in by Mac.

When composer Dean Hurley showed David Lynch a representation of a computer file, he replied, It's cosmic, it's cosmic. What caused this reaction? When composer Dean Hurley showed David Lynch a representation of a computer file, he replied, It's cosmic, it's cosmic. What caused this reaction?

I really appreciate the character work. That was lovely. Okay, so it's a composer is showing, so a composer is a composer of music. Theoretically, they're working together on some sort of film project. And it's David Lynch where, like, in the early days of computers being integrated into maybe the workflow of film and production. And this composer is showing David Lynch a representation. Is that the word a representation of a computer file? He, yes, a representation of a computer file implying music. Yeah, what could it, what could cause him to represent something as it's, it's caught, or say that it's cosmic other than like faking the moon landing? Okay. I am thinking about what you would see like, I'm assuming this is like 80s, 90s, something like that. you would have file extensions like dock files for Microsoft Word and PPPT for PowerPoint and music and audio would be a MIDI.

I was thinking WAV, wave file. Wave. Wave. Wave. Wave. Oh, interesting. Yeah, it was a MIDI. Midi file.

Oh, okay. A representation of MIDI could, is like, isn't it like little dashes? is like... It depends which program you're using. It could look like an old player piano thing or it could be a full music score. I truly don't know what you're talking about. I don't know anything about files or music.

So I have really nothing to give here. Yeah, you've got two former computer nerds here, haven't you? Yeah. I'm like, wow, space orbits, planets, stars, cosmic. That's what I give to you today. And I think that those are valuable contributions. I think it's definitely worth, Roan, any familiarity you might have with David Lynch's. It's tied to a specific project of his.

It's not general. Is it Twin Peaks? I can tell you that it is related to Twin Peaks. Oh, this is unhelpful because I've not seen Twin Peaks. Neither have I. So, okay, but I haven't seen Twin Peaks, but I know things about it. And I will say you have also mentioned the three of you have definitely identified. the two factors, Twin Peaks being the thing it's related to and the music file that it is tied to.

So Twin Peaks is like, I think about how it inspired Lost. I think of Twin Peaks is a very like mystery driven, like eerie type of vibe. And so hearing Cosmic as like a description of something, that's like what he's going for, like maybe, uh, in terms of, um, and so hearing Cosmic as like a description of something, that's like what he's going for, like maybe, uh, in terms of the environment crafting, the soundscape maybe, but I think, um, I'll reference you guys also referenced the, uh, when you're saying dots, that's the piano role typically. Yeah. So it is the, Java's mention of the format.

It is that format is that it is in the piano role. Ah. Okay. So is it, okay, here's a, here's a thought. They made some eerie music for Twin Peaks at the midi looks like a shape of face or something. You are really in the right area. I feel like a music track that when represented as MIDI looks like a monster or looks like

the monster from Twin Peaks. You are so close and I'll tell all of you guys, the fact that you've not seen Twin Peaks does not matter. Oh, okay. Are they just Twin Peaks? It's Twin Peaks. It's Twin Peaks. It's two Twin Peaks.

It's the Mounties. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's the theme song represented as a MIDI is two is two peaks because a scale goes up and down. It's so funny because, yes, that's exactly correct. Yes! I think, so I think one thing is you were being too generous by thinking it was an Easter egg, and instead it was just the fact that it's a synth and it's like a pejorating up and down. Yeah, it's so.

David Lynch was like, oh my God, the computer seen my TV show. That's really funny because it is just up and down like a scale goes. And then he's going, whoa, like two, it's like the more like a black mirror, the cell phone. It's actually for anti-social media. The fact that it was that's cosmic. In my head, I was like, when you were talking about the midday stuff, I was like, oh, maybe it's like literally constellations based on like the night style or whatever. But it's just two points. It's just two incredible cosmic points.

It's like ancient cave drawings. David Lynch was freaking out. Davey. Yeah. So David Lynch co-created the Surrealist TV drama series Twin Peaks. If you take the theme of the show, Laura Palmer's theme, and take that into MIDI file format, you get on the piano roll,

those two spikes and then all of the, like, foundation chords mostly line up. I mean, looking at it now, it does have some depth to it because so much of the like riffing is higher and lower on the scale. So it is creating not just this line with two little spikes on it, but it is line spike, line. And then beneath that, a series of unaligned spikes that make it look, in my opinion, a little like grass or like boulders or dotting the landscape. It's cosmic, to be honest. It's cosmic, to be honest. Wow. Well, well said. This was, however, completely accidental.

And when it was pointed out to the themes composer, Angelo Bad Alamenti, he said, Whoa, whoa. I imagine this is scary, but very cool. Which is like the normal person way of saying it's cosmic. Thank you to Corey Dobrowski for the next question. In 2006, how did American Marines use a hair dryer mounted on a long pole to protect themselves from slugs. I'll say that one more time.

In 2006, how did American Marines use a hairdriar mounted on a long pole to protect themselves from slugs? Hair dryer mounted on a long pole. I feel like that is important. I also would love to question why they needed protecting from slugs. What were these slugs doing that was so dangerous to the Marines? Was it they were eating their lettuce, their surprise? Were they space slugs?

Were they eroding some sort of like metal or equipment? Because my thought about the hair dryer is that I don't know enough about slugs, but if they're attracted to moisture or like humidity or something, then I can imagine a world where they're trying to create a environment that kind of like moths to a flame they would like attract the slugs over here and not to the area

that the slugs are like ravaging let's say. That's I think very accurate in all but one very major detail but I would certainly go with moths to a flame I would certainly go with trying to attract them to an area moths to a flame slugs to a hairdry

as the saying goes. As the saying goes yeah. I always forget the grapes of breath whatever. Right. Is it... Slugs, I don't know. Maybe I'm generalizing, and that's just...

You know, I'm not that politically correct. But am I generalizing when I say that leeches live within the subgenre of the slug? I feel like, could they're kind of like the evil slug, you know what I mean? Like a wasp is an evil bee. Yes. I think that's science. That's science. Yeah, yeah.

That's cosmic. That's cosmic. And yet the killer. B is like an evil wasp. Hmm. Hmm. The bumblebee, the hero of the form. Yeah, I think the word killer is doing a lot of

heavy. Yeah, that makes sense. Could it be, I mean, I feel like slugs in, within foliage, like if the hairdry is blowing something, like blowing leaves away to uncover them, so they're like, no, I'm, I'm so delicate, and then they plug away. They do slug a lot. Love to slug those slugs. Is it a case of, I suppose it's, yeah, this kind of imprower. device implies that it was a problem identified when deployed, not something that they were

prepared for or doing at a base or maybe... Yes. They're on the open seas in my mind. Yes. And then they were like, oh, geez. The Marines. Oh, I'm thinking of the Navy SEALs. You're thinking of the Navy SEALs.

Yeah, what do the Marines do? Well, what did the Marines do in 2006? The War on Terror. Yes, this was in Iraq. The War on Terror. I hadn't realized you were all picturing the Navy here. To be clear, you are about as far as it's possible to get away from that in terms of...

Marine, I think, got in my brain. No, that's on my mind. Because of the word marine, unfortunately. I was thinking of marine biology. Yeah. Okay, so we've identified that they were... Can we confirm that was there killing? Did they kill the slugs?

Now, I feel like there's one major word in this question you haven't really drilled down into yet. Oh. Slugs. Oh, is it, is it slugs like from a gun? Yeah, from a gun. Slugs. A shogger.

Yeah. Yes, there is more than one use for the word slug. But the whimsy! The whimsy! Tom, you've ruined the whimsy. Yes, unfortunately, this is not a particularly whimsical question. Potentially the hairdrior is moving something, so it looks like something is, like people are somewhere that they aren't.

Like there's kind of like it's moving sheets or something or things that make shadows so that the slugs are going towards the thing that is being moved by the hair dry out. Yes, absolutely. It's to affect the heat signature on like, on like systems like where they're, they basically want to like create a false like pretend that they're somewhere they're not. For the like thermal vision on a sniper or something. or whatever, yeah. Yeah, I think I can give you that. When you said moths to a flame, Jarvis, and slugs to a hairdryer,

yes, we're not talking thermal vision here or cameras or snipers. What was one of the other major things that US troops had to deal with? Oh, like landmines and stuff? Exactly right, IEDs. These are actually called EFPs, explosively formed penetrators,

which are roadside bombs that project a slug of molten copper and which react to the heat from vehicles. Wow. I was going to say, I was wondering if the hair dryer element wasn't even related, it was just that hair dryers were readily available, more so. Yes, eventually there was a military spec thing designed for this, but until the rhino passive infrared defeat system came along, that was the eventual thing.

A convoy would put a long pole with maybe the heating element from a toaster, or maybe a hairdry or something on the end, and whatever was aiming at them would fire before they got there. What was the name of the device, the eventual military device? The rhino passive infrared defeat system. The rupertidda. It could have a better acronym. Rhino passive infrared defeat system. Wow.

The rubber did. Rowan, whenever you're ready? Your question, please. So this question was sent in by Kate. In the early 1700s, horticulturalists at the Royal Gardens in Paris, carefully tended strawberry plants reproduced from a Chilean specimen famous for its giant fruit. Yet, despite perfect care, none of them produced berries. Why?

In the early 1700s, horticulturalists at the Royal Gardens in Paris carefully tended strawberry plants reproduced from a Chilean specimen famous for its giant fruit. Yet, despite perfect care, none of them produced berries. Why? I'll be the first to admit my porticulturalism

is a little wonky these days. You know, just because of social media and stuff, I haven't paid attention to my classes. Is it possible that this special Chilean plant just doesn't make that berries? grows fruit upside down or something? This can't be one of those technical questions.

It's a strawberry plant, but strawberries are not technically berries. That doesn't feel like a lateral question to me. I'm thinking, and I think the straight ahead thing answer is that the climates are different, and so it just doesn't work, right? And so it can't be something like that. There has to be some lateral way of thinking about this. Oh my God, I love the movie. Lateral, this summer.

And it's the 17th. So, in the 1700s. So, in the 1700s. Yeah, that's true. Everyone was pretty bad at stuff in the 1700s. Okay, but you're right. They would have been bad at stuff. And I don't know where strawberries are originally from, like which part of the world.

I don't know if they're originally European fruit or originally South American. Like, maybe they were, maybe they just didn't understand how this thing worked. Yeah, I'm wondering if they legitimately, they got the wrong plant. Like, they were just like, we saw some strawberries. And so we got some of the seeds of what the hell is going on here? And it looks like, yeah. It was like a potato foundation. Yeah, they didn't know that the seeds on the strawberry were like the little parts on the outside of the strawberry.

And they thought the seeds were something else. But the perfect care aspect is throwing me. Yeah. So I can confirm from what you were just saying that it's not that this wasn't a strawberry plant, but this species of strawberry plant did behave differently. from European strawberry varieties. Ah. It keeps going, feed me Seymour.

It sounds like it's distinctive traders that it doesn't grow. That's it. For a plant, not great evolution, but it does troll 1700 horticulturist in Paris. Yeah, it was a break. I'm wondering, is it a situation where there's like a plant that it looks like a strawberry, but it's actually like not a strawberry and so they were like caring for it as if it was a plant that it wasn't?

Nope, these were strawberries and as kind of it says in the question this was also a strawberry plant that was famous for having really good fruit like it definitely did. Was there any nefarious things at play? Was there any, there was no scammers or con artist and vodka? This is not some kind of fruit-based.

Heist, Heist. Yeah, I don't know what it says about me, that that's my instinct. This does seem to be the true crime episode, to be fair. Yeah, I do. And I love to lie. Yeah, it's not a story of sabotage. Oh, man. Okay, they were bad at it.

They were bad at something. They were caring for it perfectly, but they didn't understand something that was going on with this plant. Was that fair to say? Yes. There was a key piece of botanical knowledge that was missing. Is it an achievable goal? Was it something that they could have done anything that could have been different?

Or was this like a foundational problem? They never could have done it. So they did achieve it. These plants, these type of strawberries did eventually grow in Paris, but not until a while later. And not with those particular specimens propagated offshoots that they had of the original plant. I'm wondering if the plant was dead or something. of that, like it's the right species, but it's like not, it's like matured past being able to

bear fruit or something. It's a, it only bears fruit once. It's, it's one of those plants that, that isn't annual. You get some strawberries and then you're done. Neither of you are correct, but you are getting to a point where if they'd have just picked from a different plant, everything would have been fine. But what was the reason why one of these plants would and one of these plants wouldn't bear fruit? It's just probably some kind of dastardly French foolishness.

I'm like... Sorry, that absolutely... The phrasing just got me. Sorry. Yeah, classic. Okay. I guess there could be like some sort of genetic defect in the,

the plant that they chose. And I'm also imagining a world where there's like two, like two plants that work together in like some sort of ecosystem. And they chose the rot. They chose the protector plant rather than like the fruit bearing. They chose the, uh, the gardener, but not the actual fruit. They doesn't, there's not. Yeah.

They chose the butcher, not the chef or whatever. Most plants are both male and female. They have both parts. Mm. Is this a species that either it only has one part and they only brought the male or the female, or it just required some pollinating insect that isn't in France? I've just thrown two ideas out of it.

Tom, I like that. Your first answer was entirely correct. They had managed to import all female plants. All female. No males. Well, that explains it. Because I didn't want to work, huh? Oh, God.

What kind of show is this? I've decided to pivot into being like they've got an alt-right guy. Love podcasts. Yeah, so, Amadee Fonseigneur, or however that is actually pronounced, brought back five strawberry plants from Chile in 1714. However, no one, including the Royal Gardner's in Paris, could grow berries from the specimens or their propagated offshoots, because at the time, it wasn't known that many,

strawberry species, outside of the European varieties, were either male or female. And so not knowing any better, they just took five female plants because they were the ones who seemed to be bearing fruit. And they thought, oh, look at these amazing fruits that are here. Is that just like an advancement in the tech that nobody really was aware of at the 1700s? Or was this just a kind of regional slip-up? I mean, presumably at some point, someone brought a male plant over.

And they're like, what the hell? Finally a man to fix this problem. It's an alt-right podcast, guys. Just kidding. So, in fact, it wasn't the work of a man, but a 17-year-old boy who in 1764 used a European plant as an alternative pollinator, and allegedly King Louis XIV was so impressed

with the size of the resulting berries that he ordered an illustrator to draw them. And I have on my PDF a lovely illustration and those strawberries are extremely chunky. They are absolutely enormous. What happened? Are these Parisians hiding the goods? Why don't we have this?

I fear they might be. Thank you to Tony Kovitchitch for this next question. In 2023, a Croatian game show changed its jackpot prize. Even though a winner would earn more than before, viewers still complained. Why? And one more time, in 2023, a Croatian game show changed. its jackpot prize. Even though a winner would earn more than before, viewers still complained. Why?

My first thought is that there was some sort of stunt associated or some sort of novelty associated with the former prize, that they changed it to something stale like cash. Oh, like it's the, I guess this is an overly British reference, but like the countdown teacup or whatever, the countdown teapot, something that's like It's like has cultural cachet for the, like, maybe the show has been around for like 50 years. And it's like, oh my God, where's the Croatian teapot? Oh, whatever. Is this a popular game? I mean, I guess, I don't know if we know, but is this like a, is it like a institution, this game show?

This is a big deal. Oh, absolutely. I was going in a similar direction in my head, but I very much more lowbrow that I was like, it was originally 69,000 to be. Yeah. It was like, oh, it's got to 100, and everyone was like, no, but it was so funny before. But the T-Pot thing makes more sense. I was thinking of, it's like, who wants to be a millionaire, but now it's like 10 million or 1.2 million,

so it doesn't line up with the expectation of the show. Oh, yeah, people are being pedantic about it. Jarvis, you have the correct game show. Oh, wow. Who wants to be a millionaire? Yes. And Rowan, what you were saying, that was about right as well. Like, you're getting close.

Did they change the currency and raise the number or something? Yeah, like, think about where Croatia is. What might have happened in 2023? Did it be using euros or using a different... They switch from the Croatian cuna to the euro. You've basically got it. You said the prize went up, John. That's not quite right.

Oh, okay. So, okay, so due to the conversion rate, that it's like the euro, it's going to be. like 800,000 euro or something like that. Yes. Yeah, okay. And it's not, yeah, an 800,000 euro air is like not as catchy. It's actually much less than that.

A million Croatian cuna worked out to about 132,000 euro. Oh. So even though they put the prize up to 150,000 euro, it is technically worth more money, but people were complaining because it is not who wants to be a millionaire. That's so funny. It's true. Who wants some money?

Right. I would have loved to have been in the meetings of that, like the production of that show. When they realize they're like, our whole thing is to make people millionaires. We don't have the budget to give them 10 times the amount of money. We're going to have to make a decision. Just keep using the old car. I mean, you pay the videos, but just keep saying it's the old one. It's like millionaires.

those things where they've made the show in so many different markets that I'm sure they run up against this issue often. All the time. Yeah. Jarvis, whenever you're ready, your question, please. When staying in an Airbnb, why did Flacco put a bag of frozen vegetables halfway up a wall? That's the most lateral question I've ever heard in my life. When staying in an Airbnb, why did Flacco put a bag of frozen vegetables halfway up a wall?

Me when I'm the Airbnb owner. Why did you do that? Why? Why? He's so quirky. Halfway up a wall. Truly so many elements of this question. Frozen, frozen vegetables.

A wall, Airbnb. I put it, didn't stick it, didn't nail it, put it. Is there a, uh, there is an understandable, like, skepticism? and anxiety some people have about being monitored in Airbnb's. Possibly tight of that. But why frozen vegetables? The only flacco I know is the owl that escaped from the Central Park Zoo in New York. I will say that this is not a flacco that you would know.

Okay. No! Why did the owl put the frozen vegetables on the Airbnb? That would have been the whimsy. You're just destroying all the whimsy. I know, right. every single question. That's like, it's part of its nesting process is whipping down Iceland

and growing a couple bags of frozen bees. That owl was a tourist attraction for a while. Just kept flying about... They keep going. Did they capture it or something? Turns out there's a reason that zoo animals shouldn't be released into the wild. They tend to get ill from rat poison and things like that. So, not great. It's not fair.

Same. I mean, frozen... You don't thrive. Yeah, me and rat poison do not mix. Mm, no, I'm good together. I mean, frozen vegetables are used for, for, like, wounds and for things like that, but it wouldn't be, unless it was the most trick of a question, it's like, if it was technically halfway up a wall, where a person's wound was, I'm like, that's...

Halfway up Mrs. Wall, his wife. Ebby and B is an element that I feel like it's so essential. What is, well, Jordan, what is halfway up a wall in an Airbnb? The TV? That's a thing. That's a thing that's... The air, like, not like Airbnb, the vent, the AC. It's the thermostat.

They put it on the thermostat. They did put it on the thermostat. So it just, like, kept, like, making the temperature go higher, like, within the... Because it thinks it's still really cold, so it's trying to reach, like, a certain temperature. Because the landlord won't let you change the thermostat. Yes, that's exactly correct. That's awesome. That's such a sly method.

So why wouldn't they be able to just change a thermostat? I mean, the Airbnb Classic is, you know, the service of the website is, do you want somehow a landlord that's worse than normal? I, you know, plenty of, I've been plenty of landlords who are very fussy, in a passive aggressive sense about temperature stuff. because the tenant agreement says, you know, you don't have to die in the cold, but they will look at the building, I don't know, maybe you could do some damage. So it's, did, can you, can you lock at them? Is that what they're doing? They're just like, it's available to touch, but it's just locked and there's, they have no ability to change.

I mean, the control panel can be separate from the thermostat. Yeah. So if the landlord has just removed the controls, whether that's physical or digital or. I think, imagine even simpler, though, an even more crude solution. They've just like super glued the like... Okay, slightly less crude, but you're on the right track. Tape? There is a product, but in terms of the elegance of the solution,

it's not as elegant as like separating the controls or something like that. They've padlocked it. They've somehow locked out the thermostat. Yeah. They just like drilled like a cage over it. Yeah, there's a box. They put like a little box over it. It's like a clear plastic like lockbox.

Oh, that's worse that it's clear plastic. So it's like, you can see, you can see, but you can't judge. You can see it, yeah. It's worse than like tanking the cost of the AC. Like this is, it's such an embarrassing thing to have on your reviews of your Airbnb versus just what it's paying like a couple extra dozen bucks for the day that they're staying there or something. I would love just the Airbnb. the reviews are just all pictures of people

with frozen peas up against a thermostat. Like, this is the experience. The funny thing is this type of security mechanism works exactly one time and then it goes viral. And then everyone gets the solution to how to bypass your system. So I'll explain who Flacco is. Instagram user Flacco Shaheen

was staying at an Airbnb in Wisconsin. He was annoyed to find that the Airbnb host had put the thermostat inside a locked perspex box. Flacco put a bag of frozen baby okra on top of the box to cool down the air inside, thinking the room was colder than it actually was, the thermostat turned on the heating once more. Oh, respect. Oh.

That's honestly, that is, that's like medieval science approach. It's getting rid of like the ill humors just by putting up like a... It is lateral thinking. I think it's a very clever solution. Which means that all that's left is the question I asked the audience at the very start of the show. Thank you to Forrest Davis for sending this in. In 2016, Henry saved a woman's life with the Heimlich maneuver, even though he had never been taught the special technique.

How? Any guesses from the panel before I give the audience the answer? He was trying to do something else. He was, they were doing quite sexually suggestive dancing and the dance. floor. She was choking. He didn't realize and sort of accidentally saved her life. He was having like a heart attack and there was some sort of heart arrhythmia that they managed to fix with a botched time like maneuver. He fell forward because of his heart arrhythmia, grabbed them, they stopped choking. The impact against his chest cured his problem.

And the both the two of them were able to step away from an act of God. It wasn't absolutely. amateur or an accident, he executed this like a professional. Is it his, he'd come up, this is old, heme, he himself. Yes, it is, Jordan. You're spot on, this was Henry Heimlich. But he, had this been established yet? He was like, I could, I could do this.

He'd never been taught it because he came up with it. Because he invented it. The genius. Yeah, he came up with a technique in 1974. In 2016, 87-year-old Patty Gilriss was dying, in a steakhouse in Ohio. As she began to choke, Dr. Heimlich, stood up from another table,

pushed on her ribcage three times to dislodge it, and used the Heimlich maneuver at the age of 96. He's got to be pretty excited, huh? An icon a legend. He's got to be rubbing his little heads together. That's like on the airplane when they're like,

is there a doctor on board? And he goes, I'm a doctor. Thank you very much to all of our players. Congratulations on running the true crime gauntlet today. Where can people find you? What's going on your lives? We'll start with Jarvis. You can find me if we're eating dinner at the same restaurant and you start choking. I will attempt the Heimick maneuver, but I have not been taught it and I won't be able to help very much. I'm at Jarvis on the social media.

Jordan. You can find me choking and then my friend runs over and saves me at the restaurant and it kind of ruins the whole vibe of the cheesecake factory. You should probably plug the podcast. I'm just a throw that one here. Yeah, that's true. You started with that, though. Would they know? I don't know. Yeah, we have a podcast called Sad Boys with a Z at the end,

not an ass, don't mess it up. You can find that on YouTube. And we also... You can listen to an episode with Tom Scott where he tells us way too much about theme parks. That's true. That happens a lot if people invite me on podcasts. That's a great out.

And Rowan! You can find me staring directly into the eyes of a magician, anywhere where you can find good magicians. and you can find me online if you just search Rowan Ellis. I also have a podcast. It's called The Queer Movie Podcast. And if you like queer movies, check it out. 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 questions.

We are at Lateralcast basically everywhere, and there are free video episodes every week on Spotify. Thank you very much to Rowan Ellis. Thank you. Jordan Adika. Tara. Jarvis Johnson. Not a doctor. My name's Tom Scott.

I'm not a doctor, and that's been Lateral.