Lateral with Tom Scott - 196: A tiny umbrella

Episode Date: July 10, 2026

Davina Bentley, Ólafur Waage and Stuart Laws face questions about flatulent felines, careful cetaceans and gnarly gnats. 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: Adam Jeff, Victor Divina, Kelly, Leonie Mercedes, Laurie Griffiths, Martijn Pennings, Scott Sieke. 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 2023, why did the phrase, Cat, I have farted, suddenly gained popularity in France? The answer to that, at the end of the show. My name's Tom Scott, and this is Lateral. Hello, and welcome to Lateral. Incidentally, not many people realize that Lateral is actually an acronym. We've seen speculation online that it stands for learning about tricky enigmas, riddles and logic.

Others think it means loosely associated theses examined repeatedly and loudly. However, I can reveal that the official answer is that it represents the phrase, largely accidental theories ending randomly as luck. Let's meet today's group of unusual experts in speculative thinking, or our guests. First up, on our comedian special today, returning to the show for... Honestly, I've lost count of how many times. Oliver Vorge, welcome back. Hi, thank you for having me.

How is stand-up comedy going for you? Because, like, I don't want to say that the Nordics have a reputation for being straight-lake. and perhaps not outwardly laughing much. How is it going for you with a Norwegian audience and a world audience? I think it's the case that once you get them, once they're on your side, it's a huge win. Because, yeah, it is a very tough audience, but yeah, it feels very sweet once you got them on your side. And you are doing English stand-up in Oslo now? Yeah, yeah, it should be, when this comes out, we are thinking on a hiatus now, but it should pick up back up in the fall.

And is there anything else you're getting up to at the moment? I'm assuming you are still posting videos about the Nordics. Yeah, I'm trying. I'm reducing it a little bit because I'm focusing on the standard. But again, once we get on the pause in the summer, it's a pick-up back up. All right, well, good luck to you on the show today. And thank you also for the questions you've sent in for other shows while you've been away. It's a delight to have a question right.

Too many. Too many. Thank you so much. Well, best of luck today. You are joined by some players who, between them, have a couple of episodes under their belts. Devena Bentley. We'll go to you first of all. Welcome back to the show. Thank you for having me back. How did you find your first lateral episode? I, it was so, I thought it was going to be so hard, and I wouldn't know anything. And I was so worried. And I didn't know anything, but it was really fun. That's how the show works, usually. We are, I think, getting very close to the Edinburgh Fringe as this episode comes out. So plug the show. Just give us time, date, what you're doing?

Please come to the pleasance every day except for the two days. I'm not doing it. It's at 5.30, at the Pleasance in the cellar called Dancing While Old. And before that, there are lots of shows in London, so you have to come. All right. Well, very best of luck on the show today. Our last member of the panel, welcome back again, Stuart Laws. Yes, I'm back, and there's nothing you can do about it.

And enthusiastic. Good heavens. I'm here. You can't get rid of me. I mean, technically we can, and producer David could hit the button, but we're not going to be that rude. He hasn't got the guts. He hasn't got the guts. How was your last episode, Stuart? Awful. I felt cheated.

I thought that you were all so mean by saying stuff that I didn't know. You used the word proverbially. I did. I did use the word proverbially. I tried practicing it for the past few weeks. I still can't get it, right? Oh, I appreciate you keeping up the pretense that this is not magically filmed on the same day as the previous one.

Like, thank you. Thank you for that. I look completely different. I look completely different. Do you want to plug the, uh, Do you want to plug the show as well? Yeah. You listen to and watch on YouTube, Lateral with Tom Scott.

It's a fantastic show featuring incredible guests where they ask questions that will, if you said them at a party, people would be like, shut up. Don't ask stuff like that. We're trying to have fun. But here, it's a lot of fun. I'm in trouble today, auntie.

Good luck to all three of you. And to spell it out, let's begin with quirky, unsolved enigma, sparking theories, ideas, or nonsense one. Thank you to Laurie Griffiths for this question. On a pretty cobbled street in Nottingham, England, the word goal was once carved into the right-hand side of a stone arch. Why? I'll say that again. On a pretty cobbled street in Nottingham, England,

the word goal was once carved into the right-hand side of a stone arch. Why? Maybe it was the first time, you know, like football used to be called campball, and it was played across really like metres, you know, not metres, it was played across like a mile and hundreds of people would play. So they had to outlaw it. Yeah, I read it. I didn't read it.

I heard it in my audible book for dyslexics. But that's what it said in the Ian Mortimer book. So maybe where it says goal is where they used to play football in that street. Maybe it was like the first Nottingham Forest. There's still a couple of ball games going like that once a year. Really? There's a couple of English villagers. And depending on who you ask, it is this beautiful ancient tradition where like,

hundreds of mostly men, from the village and surrounding villages, all kind of pull in, and the goal is get the ball to your side, or, depending on who you ask, and the village, it is an excuse for a big fight. It's somewhere between those two. What is a male-dominated sport, if not an excuse for a big fight, whether that be verbally shouting at people that you've never met before? I don't know, I've been told that's true about ice hockey,

but then also I've been told about heated rivalry, so. Yes. I saw one of these where they would throw a ball out of a window and whoever was holding on to the ball after two hours. And yeah, that's a big fight as well. That is the Atterson ball game. Yes. Utterly unrelated to this, unfortunately.

Okay, so nothing to do with like a big, nothing to do with a camp ball or field ball. No. I was going to say something really stupid as a semi-joke, but like hoping there was a bit of truth in it. I was just going to like fish. I was going to be like, did a goalkeeper? Or just like, no, a striker or some kind of person.

Did they hit their head on and on the art? And we're like, oh, that was so funny. Stuart Pearce or something. Well, I was going to say, is it something to do with Stuart Pearce, who famously missed a penalty in 1990 against West Germany, that potentially that someone's written that there as like a thing of like, this is where you should have been aiming?

Like stupid Stuart Pearce? Like every time he walks past him, he feels like an idiot. Yeah, it's like where he grew up or something like that. No, he managed Nottingham Forest, right? He played for them in the early 90s, but I don't know if he managed them. I'm pretty sure he got a redemption at some point there. I would hate for the only reference to my entire long career in something to be, this is the time I messed up.

And that's all that anyone remembers me for, Gareth Southgate. Yeah, sure, but everyone remembers and keeps on bringing up to me that time I appeared on lateral and had to go at the format. That's all being it will bring up. No, Stuart Pierce did have his redemption in the penalty of his death against Spain. in Euro 96 and then against Germany then in the final, except obviously then Garret Southgate had his moment, which then he had his redemption.

And the curse passed onwards. Exactly. I'm just sitting here nodding. Those are all terms. Okay, so the thing is you're not, you are both a very long way away and also very close at the same time. Isn't an acronym? Hmm.

Yeah, like Googling and, or lateral? It's not an acronym. Goals only allowed labs. No. Okay, so it's not an acronym. You're all starting to circle the right area now. So it is Stuart Pearce, not for it.

That's not the bit. The laugh told me it was, it's not that bit. This is a building that was built in 1772. This is definitely pre-Stewart Pierce. Okay, well, if you adhere to some of the mainstream media, views on Stuart Peters, but I happen to believe he's an immortal. He's from the medieval period, so he'd be there. Yeah.

We don't know he's immortal, but he's definitely six, seven hundred years old. Yeah, he's old. Isn't that like with Keanu Reeves? People have old paintings of like Dukes and whatever. They look like Keanu Reeves. And like, yeah, Keanu Reeves is immortal now, yes. Yeah. Because there's a type of heart that Keanu Reeves is, that is immortal.

I agree, I agree. That sort of beauty. You are doing a show about ageing. that's... Right. That's with my head's on it. A cobbled street does not seem like

the right place for sport. You know? But it's very much the wrong place for sport, and that is important. No, I was going to say something to do with golf, but now it's not...

They had to chip it into that particular brick. Oh, like it was a former, like, Wino Forever, being Winona Forever, kind of, like it was amended from GO. It was amended. It was amended.

Oh, so that was Stuart. I just again said what Stuart said but louder. That's my, that's kind of thing I like to do. You are right that this has been amended. The word goal was once carved into the right-hand side of a stone arch. Oh, it was white ones. Oh, but there's nothing there now. It's not that it was... Oh, there's definitely something there now. Right now, it's the National Justice Museum. Sorry, but does Goal still stand? Is it's goal still... Not really, no. No. No. supposed to be, is it like a girls and boys toilet? But they've just spelled it like that goals and boys. Is that it?

Spelling is right and amendment is right. Oh, it's it at jail? Keep going, Oliver. Because an old way of saying jail in like Roman times, like it's a, you write it as gaol. You write as GAO-L, yes? Yeah, yeah. So is this like an old prison or old, like a place where a prison was and this was the entrance into the prison?

This was a police station, courtroom and jail. So why was Goal once carved into that arch? Because it was someone's aspiration to work. Because people who go to jail are bad at spelling. I'm sorry, I said it. I mean... Wow. Not the people who go to jail.

Hang on. The designers, the town designers, the building design, the architect. There's one word you're looking for, and it's the guy with a chisel. Oh, the chisel guy. Chisle the chisel guy. It's a chisel guy. I'll give you a little. The technical term. The Stone Mason. The Stone Mason. There we go.

Stone Mason is a bloody idiot. Is that right? Yeah, that's basically it. We don't know who the Stone Mason is, but we know that sometime in the 18th century, someone carved county goal over the arch of the county jail. Well, they'll throw you in jail for spelling it gold these days. And it was corrected, and if you look at the arch that's there now, you can still see the remnants of an O and an A, underneath the A and the O, at the National Justice Museum. Oliver, we will go to you for your question, please. All right, this question has been sent in by Kelly.

Thank you very much, Kelly. Keith is prescribed a one-inch-long, transparent capsule containing 24 tiny plastic rings. What is this for, and what is special about the rings? I'll say that again. Keith is prescribed a one-inch-long transparent capsule containing 24 plastic rings. What is this for, and what is special about the rings?

Is it for Sonic? He's just, just hit a spike, lost all his rings. You've got to contain that. But then you can still catch them as you're going back into them. Also, unfortunately, the doctor was Dr. Robotnik, and this is all going to win very badly for him. I made a video game joke. That doesn't happen often.

That is a counter that only goes up to one. It sounds like a medicine box, right? It sounds like a little box of, you know, all the pills. Like, old people have them. It's like Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. But this is 24. And it's transparent so you can see them. It's only one inch, though.

It's so small. So those rings must be tiny. A friend of mine got prescribed a camera. Like, you can get a pill camera that contains a little tiny light and a battery and a transmitter. And you have to wear the receiver around your neck for 24 hours. But it just, like, you swallow it, and the instruction is, do not recover it afterwards.

Oh. I wonder how the Wi-Fi signal is in there. She had to wear, like, a full receiver box on the front. And, like, any time she moved or it moved, it would send a signal. But if everything was static, it wouldn't, to save battery. Like, fascinating bit of technology. And, yes, of course, she recovered it afterwards, and sent what she called the cursed selfie to the group chat, which was just a fascinating.

Well, apparently something shot on that camera is up for Best Foreign Object Picture at the Oscars. Okay, that's good stuff, actually. That's a good one. Thank you. Cheers, everyone. I appreciate that. I can't think what 24 rings would be, though, unless that's the number of sphincties it goes through on the way. I guess there must be multiple sphincters in the body, right?

There's a lot of internal sphincters. Oh, in your heart, I guess people. Would you call that a sphincter? It's more like a valve. But what is a sphincter, if not a valve? There are many. There are many internal swinters, yeah. You said it with such,

the intonation was such that I would believe you if you said there are two million sphinxos under human money. There are many. There are many. There's many. Many sphincters. The amount of the ring,

like the exact 24, it doesn't matter. You need quite a bit, but... So it's something to go in the body. Yes. Yes. And then the rings are there for

cholesterol purposes. The rings like, stents, maybe the transparent box dissolves away, and then are they, you know, like stenting open your heart valve, or I suppose it would be in your esophagus? That's the thing. I was assuming they were swallowing this, in which case, like, nothing's going to go into the rest of the body. Right. There's barriers there. You're not going to get a, you're not going to get a one-inch ring through, uh, look, there's a joke about rings that we're all not going to make here, okay? Are you talking about the rectum? Are you talking about the annual ring?

because it will go that way because it's going through your digestive system. Yeah, I mean, I was hoping to spell it out through metaphor and illusion, but sure, we'll just, yeah. I'll say that the capsule is one is long, but the rings are a tiny. The capsule, oh, so this, this, the cap,

oh, sorry, capsule I was imagining. So it's literally like a pill, a see-through pill, what do you need the little rings for? They're so... Goes in that way. Yep. And then it's sort of,

the rings get through the stomach. All right. Hydrochlorocast? No, surely they're going to... They do? Yeah, yeah. The stomach won't dissolve, like, plastic or anything like that. Are these rings plastic?

I don't know, but I'm assuming that. They are plastic rings, yeah, 24 plastic rings. They're going, let's say they go in your stomach. Yeah, but plastic is mostly going to pass through. Plastic doesn't show up that well on x-rays. Is it plug holes in the large intestine? Of those that I've been going through, Tom, keep going. Keep having fun with this one.

Was I wrong about x-rays? Maybe they do show up. It's on an x-ray, it's on an MRI. They've got little trackers. They've got like, they're like, what's that thing that the dyes or something like that you can track? Keep going. Keep going. Oh, that's it.

It's not it. Stuart got it. It's the dye. And then you take an x-ray, you see the dye, you see when it went. You see where the hole is. You look at the dye and you see the root. Yeah. So why?

would you, like what would be the idea of doing this? Yeah, because you could just drink the dye. Like, people drink stuff to show, like, you don't need the capsule and the rings and everything to go through that regamol. You just, you drink the dye stuff. But what would the difference between the liquid and the physical object?

Time release of the, like, the time they take to... Do we not keep going? Well, if the 24, maybe there are different thicknesses, each of the plastic hoops, so it's different timing, how long does absorption take, how long does dilution take? You're dancing, like,

if I want to go into specifics, you're kind of dancing around. What's going on here? You're pixels away. Your pixels away. All I can think about is that then, obviously, they will make it all the way through the body at some point.

And now I'm terrified of this image of going to the bathroom and then someone hammering on the door, and you're like, what's that? And then they knock the door down and it's sonic desperately going into the toilet. To get the rings? To get these 24 rings.

Every time you go to the bathroom, there's just this, bring! Oh no, he's here, he's here! That's horrible. Yeah, a little angry little hedgehog coming at you. But also he can't get the rings, because haven't they... So they're not going to... They're not going to this all.

But you said that they will go out than once, will they? No, they'll go at different times because they're different... Oh, no. So you've got a stomach bashing at your door for days. She's not. You either die a hero, you live long enough to see you so. smashing down the toilet cubables. Is that D-Y-E, a hero?

Yeah, yeah. Okay, they, nice. They, that you take the pill, it dissolves in your stomach, the 24 rings are released, and travel at different speeds through your body.

Yep. So you're seeing absorption. Because they're travelling at different speeds, you can see different absorption rates. So say you want to see how someone's breaking something down, how the enzymes in their stomach are working. There we go, yes.

You're basically tracking how things will travel throughout the body. Huh. Yeah? But what's special about the rings? I say plastic rings, but Tom is right. That's not going to work. Ladies are obsessed with rings. They're obsessed with locking it down.

It's like if you can't get that kind of ring. Are they all different sizes? Do they all? If I say, like, they're not necessarily perfectly plastic. They're not perfectly plastic. They're called markers. these rings. I can't.

This is so, this was like in my degree. I just can't, it was such a long time ago. What's your degree? neuroscience. There is a fancy word that Tom might have

danced around a little bit. Is it proverbial? Do you just get like an x-ray after a while and you're like, you have this light. But white colour,

you'd have like green. You literally would see like a green to see the where something's moved. There would be green lines on those whatever. Yeah, you basically have it. They're called radio opaque.

I wouldn't expect you to find the actual name of it. Yeah. So they're a test to show how once colon is functioning, and they show up on x-rays. In a colon transit study, a patient swallows a capsule containing multiple small rings. The rings are radio opaque, they block x-rays,

and therefore appear clearly on the image. Has anyone ever done a time-lapse x-ray? Probably you wouldn't want that, I think. No, you wouldn't. but yeah, it might be a good way to go out. Sort of, because in the very early days of x-rays when they didn't understand how dangerous they were, the way that...

I think it was like a shoe-sizing machine that was just a constantly on x-ray. And you just put your foot in it, and there are the bones. Yeah, wagging your toes about, there you go, good luck, yeah. That was a thing for a little while. Florescope, I think it was called. I put my foot in it. Hey!

I had an x-ray this week, first one for, like, many years. And the girl, it was very funny. She was obviously like a trainee, but didn't get that. I was a real patient. And she was about to take a picture of the wrong arm.

And it was quite hard to like be very, it made me think of when people, you know, amputate the wrong leg. And she was about to take, she was like, move me. And I was like, it's the other arm. She was like, okay, noted, thank you. It was very like Gen Z.

It was, have you seen the sketches of people who work at Joe and the juice? It was like that, but for the x-ray. And she kept being like, God, it's really heavy. And it was like, maybe I might not be the person to complain to them in a lot of pain.

That was actually quite an old lady complaint, but x-rays, fun, radiation. Thank you to Martin Pennings for this next question. In 2020, a metro train near Rotterdam ran through the end of elevated tracks about 10 metres 30 feet above water. The driver survived because of a whale. How? I'll say that again.

In 2020, a metro train near Rotterdam ran through the end of elevated tracks about 10 metres above water. The driver survived because of a whale. How? I know this, so I can't say anything. All right, Oliver, Devena, it's on you. Well, it's obviously the Rotterdam version of speed, right?

Or speed ended? But if they're version, they have a whale instead of whatever they had in speed. Sandra Bullitt? No. It's gorgeous. No, that's... Gene Hackman was the whale. I don't... How did speed end? I can't remember.

It just becomes speed two, and it's a cruise ship. Like, does the bus actually blow up? The bus blows up, yeah. It lands on like a transport airplane, and she gets taken hostage and they're on a train. Right. That's why it ends there. Yeah, it's three transports, isn't it?

Because it starts on an elevator, goes to a bus, and then ends on a train. That's not a clue. That's just speed knowledge. I just know about speed, all right? And then Sonic turns up, and he's like, give me rings! Give me rings! Okay, so it's a Metro, it's in Rostam,

and it's gone elevator track. Was it? Yeah, 10 minutes. Elevated. Yeah. 10 meters off the ground. Yeah. But it shouldn't be going on that bit of track.

Oh, it should. It should. It ran through the end of the tracks. The end of the track. You just keep going. Oh, it's suspended above. So, like, speed might not be that far off, that, like, it wasn't constructed,

and they went off, like, the constructed end and landed on, like, I don't know, a bit of pylon that was on the other side. It's a little jump again, speed. Well, if you mean the realistic, version of that bus jump from speed where the bus gets about three feet out and then immediately plunges down to the ground, that's more what would have happened here. Yeah, this is, this is a, this is the end of elevated tracks at 10 metres in the air. I mean, I assume there's

some kind of water involved because there's a whale that seems to save the day. So, let's say it's the end of tracks that are elevated. That makes me think above ground level or above the road. Yeah, it's up on a viaduct. Oh, it's up on a viaduct. A viaduct is one of, is it that one? Is that a viaduct? No, genuinely, I always get really confused. Is that a viaduct? A viaduct is anything that carries the track above ground level. Is it just a statue of a whale? Okay, that's what's going on? Keep going, Oliver. Oh, I don't know where I'm going. I'm just swimming I'm swimming with a whale. Like, is it, like, did it go, like, off the rails and landed on the whales? It went off the rails and landed on the whales. You are spot on. All right. Yes.

Again, I can fly blandly. That's beautiful poetry. Thank you. Stuart, you said you vaguely remembered this? I think I saw it on Instagram. Yeah, it was... It's half off, isn't it, by the end? Yeah, this is Diakas Station in Spike Anissa, in Rotterdam.

It is the end of the line and the end of the elevated line, and the train overshot the end, broke through the stop barrier. There is a body of water below, about 10 metres down. The driver, the only one on board, by the way. There was enough speed that you're right. The train came off the viaduct and then came to rest on one of two large whale-tail sculptures positioned beneath the viaduct.

And the artwork is called Saved by the Whales' Tale. That's amazing. Davina, we will head to you next, please. This question has been sent him by Victor Davina. Carlos does gig economy work in Manila. Why does he need a tiny umbrella to do his job from June to September? I'll just read that again.

Carlos does gig economy work in Manila. Why does he need a tiny umbrella to do his job from June to September? Am I right to know, like, when is monsoon season around this, in this area? Or is that, like, does that fit with that? Manila is... Why am I blanking on where Manila is?

I should know that. The Philippines? Okay. But, and so there is that sort of territory, I think it's monsoon season. Yeah. Right? So you would imagine like you're doing kick work, you're doing food delivery, grocery deliveries, those things.

But then you'll be in a car or a scooter or like some sort of like thing with a roof. Then, okay, so my, why is it a tiny umbrella? So then my thought is that the word manila, we're being tricked here, that it's actually about an envelope. And that's what the work is around. And that's why you need a tiny envelope to cut them open. as a letter opener. You need a tiny umbrella to keep the manila Yeah, yeah, yeah.

During monsoon season, yeah. Yeah. So, let's say that again with Oliver. Oloffa, what are you doing with the umbrella? You have a tiny umbrella above the envelope to protect it. Okay. Is that just to get me to do the thing again, or am I close? What is so interesting is that Stuart, by being really lateral,

kind of was very wrong, but really fundamentalistic, and, you know, Manila. Really wrong with Minnell Envelope, but... Really wrong, however, basically everything else that was said was completely right. That's basically the tagline of the show. Like, you are absolutely insane, but not far off. Yeah, and really quickly kind of got to the... But go even earlier.

What was like the first thing that Oliver said? So, gig economy, you said it could have been like a car or something with a roof. But if this is the Philippines, it's going to be a lot of scooters. There's a lot of motorbikes. and like, I don't know what you would use a tiny umbrella for other than keeping the sun or the rain off something small. But also thinking, like, tiny, like, if you wouldn't have to say tiny umbrella. If it's like if you're on a scooter, you just have an umbrella,

attach it to the scooter and do your thing. But I'm like, is this an umbrella for a dog? You're like dog walking? I think there's two things. You guys are forgetting the thing you said before gig economy, which was completely right about Manila. You said something else. Right.

Also, you can't have a huge umbrella on a scooter because wind. You can't hold that up. Yeah, yeah, that's not going to work. That's not going to work. Like, you wear waterproof clothing in monsoon seasons. And you've got a helmet and bike leather's on, presumably. So what's the tiny umbrella for?

Okay, so I think think about what Stuart said about... But I was wrong. Well, in one way, but in another way, you were so very right. Oh, is to protect Sonic on the back of the... the tach-tac. You're not deferential enough to the questions. You have to defer to the question. This is not the sonic episode.

It is now. Oh, but it could be like electronics. It could be a phone or something like that. Is it just to keep the phone dry? If you're in monsoon season, like phones are meant to be waterproof, but if you're going at 40 miles an hour down the streets of Manila in a monsoon,

I wouldn't trust the waterproofing on the phone. Agreed. Agreed. Cool. Thank you. Great. We move on. Thank you.

Is that right? Yeah, it's clear thing. Yeah, it's clear thing you're right. Like many people in Manila, Carlos, rides a motorbike or scooter to get around. You guys got the scooter. Regardless of whether he's offering rides or doing deliveries, he needs access to an app to accept new jobs and follow the map.

And during September, that is the rainy season. So covering the phone won't. work. No, it won't. And so, right. Covering the phone won't work and putting a touch, like, you need to completely cover it so you can still tap the device. The screen won't work.

The capacity screen won't work in the rain. It's not just put a cover over it. It's completely keep it dry. So the picture that I have, which I feel like you guys have described beautifully, and in a way it started with the manila envelope, having its own little... Oh, that's why you did the... That's why I wanted you to do that it wasn't just the humiliation. It was for...

Well, both. This question's come from Raphael, and he says, personal anecdote, I'm a student in Manila. During the city's rainy season, I've witnessed a couple of motorcycle drivers using a tiny umbrella for their phones. It's been quite amusing and funny to see. That's lovely.

Thank you to Scott Seeker for this question. In 2025, how did a gnat in Maryland help Tommy to earn an extra $80,000. One more time, in 2025, how did a gnat in Maryland help Tommy to earn an extra $80,000? Let's not answer this question, and I'm just going to go do that.

I think let's just keep it here and I'll go and, yeah, I'll find a nut. One of your gnats for it? I thought it was gambling. Like, do you remember the octopus that used to predict elections? Do you think it's like a gnat he used to be like, if you buzz there, or do that, that on that team or Buzz there. Yeah, a gnat with a knack.

A gnaw with a knack. Yeah. For gambling. Predicting. Yeah, the full, the full, that's the full phrase. Maybe I'm misunderstanding the word for Nat. So it's not network access translation. It is not.

It is G-N-A-T. A g-n-a-t. Which is the name of a little mosquito, right? Yes, little bug. Little bug. Little bug got 80 grand. And that is a mosquito, right? The one that sucks your little, your blood.

Is that right? It's a tiny bug of some description. So I think it's where it sucks your blood. Like if it sucks it on that arm, it's like, I don't know, Arsenal's who and everything, but if it sucks that arm... That's the nematosaura. That's the of the mosquito kind, I think.

Yes. Which Iceland doesn't have, but now, after this summer, apparently Iceland has mosquitoes. Yes, first one spotted. Really, finally. Stuart, you said that kind of an enthusiastic time? I was like, finally, there's mosquito. Good on you.

I welcome to the big boy club, baby. Welcome to Mosquito Town. Let's see how you deal with it. You're going to need some deat. Are they actually fighting them or just let it happen? Because I'm remembering Alberta and the rats. They found eggs. So what they're saying is like they're probably somewhere.

Right. So they're just waiting for this summer to arrive. Imagine finding eggs. They're just stumbling. Oh, sorry, why we're tripped over? Oh, it's mosquito eggs. Could have a really good eyesight. Yeah.

Yeah. see those little, little gnats. So the gnat helped him to earn an extra $80,000. And no, it's not gambling. Did you say earn? Earn an extra $80,000. And no, it's not gambling, but he'd have probably helped some other people earn some money like that as well.

So it is to do with the McDonald's monopoly thing. The gnat helped him get the winning game pieces. and they were distributing them around to people and saying if you want the million dollar one, you've got to pay me 100 grand. Here it is, which is a real thing that happened in the 90s with the McDonald's.

That is a real thing that happened, yeah. But I think the Nat brought it back. Is there something to do with the stock market? Okay. Sorry. Sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Sorry, sorry.

How could a Nat help you with the McDonald's monopoly game? It's in the security, through the security without getting noticed. And then it's like, like peeling off the sticky labels and being like, oh, we need for three more blues. And this is it. This is Jurassic World Dominion,

started with a Snickers rapper, and it was their representation of chaos theory. This is chaos theory, but it's a Nat winning McDonald's monopoly. Yeah, okay. Is it that? Wrong on almost all counts, except perhaps for a little bit of the chaos theory thing here.

So it flapped its wings. If a gnat in Maryland flaps its wings, does a guy... I have one tangent. Has I started to do it with the stock market? No. Here's my little tangent because you mentioned chaos theory. I remember there was some account somewhere where someone had a fish in a tank

and they had marked on the fish tank something about the stock market, if you should buy or sell or which thing you should buy and sell, and then a camera would take a photo once in a while. And wherever the fish was in the fish tank, that's what you used to do with the stock. You should buy it and sell it. and apparently that did better than some analyst or something. So is this a gnat that is like doing something

and then based on what the net does randomly, they make a decision. I am again just going to pick a few words out of that. It's something the nat did randomly. But it's not like there was someone deliberately doing this. What did that do other than fly from one place to another place? Yeah, that's... Shows your ignorance there. There's a lot of other things.

That is basically what it did. Yeah, it flew from one place to another place. Air Go, earning 80,000 pounds, because it was a door-dash delivery, it got an extra job, it was an Uber driver. With a tiny umbrella. With a tiny umbrella. Yeah. What it feels like is this is like the underpants gnomes in South Park where it's nap flies from here to there. Question mark, question mark, question mark.

Profit. Yeah. Yeah, basically. Like the $80,000 was on top of an already big payday for Tommy. Stuart, I'm going to bring you back to, you said gambling. earlier. Tommy is not gambling, but people would have been gambling on Tommy. Because it's sports. Sports. Sports. Sports. Sports. Nat racing. Oh, yeah. Stuart Pierce. Missing. Yeah.

Is this one of those weird sport, like the otcho? It's like a not a normal sport. Very popular this sport. Okay. Tommy was already going to earn a lot of money here. Oh, so he's an NFL player. So he's Wadded. And he's in Maryland, which is, in America. The Wire, Baltimore. He plays for the Baltimore Wanderers. He's not NFL. But he is basketball.

But you're right. Famous sportsmen, but a gnat couldn't really affect much in a basketball or a football game. Oh, it's like cricket with the, like, you know, when they rub the ball on the ball and it's like, you're being ridiculous, like the sandpaper on the cricket ball, right?

Yeah. It's not cricket, but sandpaper and it's... Tiny. It's like a tiny thing changed. that really affects the game. Yes. Golf? Golf.

No, golf. It's golf. So it's like if a... It's to do with the wind, surely, in golf. Yeah. It landed on the ball on the edge of the hole, and it... We went in the hole,

and he won the extra amount of money. Tommy is Tommy Fleetwood, playing in the BMW Championship in Maryland. He made a 28-foot putt. It stopped, quoting directly here, agonizingly close to the hole. And the TV cameras spotted a ton of... tiny bug crawling on the side of the ball nearest the hole. And was it the bug that tipped the balance?

We don't know, we're not sure, but as far as the TV commentators were concerned, the bug flipped to the other side of the ball and the ball toppled in. And instead of $830,000 for fifth place, he won $910,000 tying for fourth. Wow. That's great. That's comedian money. That's the real. That's the big. That's the Maryland job. isn't it? The end of that with a truck

hanging over the edge. Yes, that's right. But it's in Maryland. It's a lovely bit of business. And they're little five gnats with their minis. Stuart, we'll take your question, please. This question has been sent in

by Leonie Mercedes. David regularly bought a Greek newspaper that he knew he wouldn't read. Why? One more time. David regularly bought a Greek newspaper that he knew he would. wouldn't read. Why?

This is great for cleaning the windows? There are a lot of lateral questions that end with the word why. And sometimes it is difficult to enunciate that in a way that doesn't sound like Alan Bartridge whining. Why? If he's not reading it,

did it matter if it was Greek or just I guess it matters that it was Greek? But it doesn't matter that it was Greek specifically. So maybe it's like it's got to be a foreign newspaper or it's got to be a on American or English, because we're in England, it's got to be, maybe there's more word, there's less print on a Greek newspaper.

I'm thinking about, you know, when you clean your windows with the newspaper, because it gives you no streaks, which I learned from... I didn't know that. I feel like I should have known that. It's just women taking on more of that, more of that labour in the household. Well, stop coming around here and cleaning my window that.

I've literally haven't asked you. Never! No, I'm going to come over with my Greek newspaper. You love it. So it's a newspaper that. it's used for, oh, maybe it's used to absorb dog wee. Or you know, something else. Why would you mean specifically Greek newsletter? Because the dog can only read Greek.

Say more, though, say more. The dog is Greek. No, that's slightly going the wrong way now. The dog needs to do the crossword puzzle. You're using it for the dog need to we? Now, this is my little reveal because I've been destroyed mercilessly in this game to say, Davina, absolutely nowhere near with the dog stuff. Absolutely.

nowhere near. The dog is going to do the wordle, not the guy. Okay. So he doesn't read Greek. His neighbours do. So he puts it up in his window, and his neighbours who speak Greek read it. So it's like when you have like a labour sign or something. It's like when people put signs in their window to show who they vote for.

It's not for him to read, is what I'm trying to say. It isn't for him to read. That bit is correct. It's for Greek speakers, Greek readers, if you will, to read. I would say in this example, that. is irrelevant. There is not a Greek person in sight. Oh, because I was thinking that he's trying to blend in as a local. Like, he's in Greece, and he's annoyed with people constantly thinking that, oh, there is the

tourist. So I'm going to buy the Greek newspaper, and I'm going to go on the Athens metro, and no one's going to bother me for being a tourist. But there's no one Greek in sight, so that doesn't make sense. And Athens is famously filled with Greeks. Correct. It is, yes. There's one thing. Mm-hmm.

That was my takeaway. Yep. It is part of trying to blend in, but it's actually to do it, it's, yeah, it's in an interesting way. I was thinking, like, are you a CIA agent and you wanted to be? But there's no Greeks and sites then. Oh, but maybe it's, you have to have a foreign newspaper to be on that bench at a particular time, it's to send a message, like the way symbols, so he's been given instructions.

Or it's to make people. think that he doesn't speak English, or to make people think that he's foreign. Like he's in British, he buys the Greek newspaper and sits there and everyone's like, oh, that's a Greek man. But I don't know where you'd go from there. Why would you want to be seen as a Greek man? Everyone thinks you sell really good Greek food

because you run a Greek restaurant in England. Absolutely nowhere near again. I think that was actually unnecessary. I think that was unnecessary nasty. That was really nasty. For those listening just in audio there, Stuart did a full finger on nose and point before saying nothing like that.

Just incredible. I was thinking like he was like making people think he had, his food truck was really authentic so we'd have the Greek newspapers there. But no. But you said the Greek was immaterial, right? Yeah, it doesn't matter that it's Greek specifically. It's just that it's not English.

It's got to be foreign. Yes. So he wants something to convey foreignness. Yes. Why do you want to convey foreignness? Because you want to be seen as sexy. So you don't read the sun. To get a discount on something.

To con... Who are you trying to convince? I don't think you're trying to... Convince is interesting. But actually, it's not that you're trying to convince that you're Greek. It's that you're not English. It's not about the... Because if the Greek is a material, right, or let's say whatever language is a material,

the foreign newspaperness is a material, isn't it then what Tom said, it's that you're not English, that's the emphasis? Yes, I guess. It's more specific than just broadly English. Is this something to do with the recession? It's something to do with the Eurozone and the collapse of the Greek economy? By the way. I'm wondering if it's like the reason why you say, like you want to convey that you're Greek,

but not, and then you keep pausing, I'm like, oh, there's something here you don't want to give away. It's like you don't want to say that you're North Macedonian or like there's something like a neighbouring country of Greece. It's an interesting idea, I would say, nowhere near. What gleeful, the glee with which he tells us we're wrong, feels kind of against the spirit of the show. But it's not for me to say.

I just, that's how I feel about it. So we could have ganged up on him for the rest of the episode, you know? So, look, it would make, people would notice it before they noticed him. It's a key detail which would then... Oh, so they won't talk to him. Yeah. And why would you want someone to not talk to you? Because you're on a flight for like eight hours

and you want to be left alone on the flight or the train? You're just antisocial and would prefer not to be bothered today. I can't speak of the motivation in that specificity, There is a broad reason. Why would you want to not be spoken to in a broader reason? Because you don't, you can't, because you find social interactions tricky. I mean, you're busy with something else. You cannot have anybody speak to you, so you're listening to something.

He can't speak. He's unable to speak. No, he very much can speak. Oh, he's famous. He's a famous person and he wants to just hold the newspaper over his face because he's like George Clooney. No, no, no, it's not that... It's that anyone looking at him

is going to go, that can't be that famous person, he's reading a Greek newspaper. Correct, and who's the famous person? I've already said it. What was the name? What was the name in the question? David.

David? His name is David. Is it Beckham? No, I've already said his last name at some point. Oh, no. Is it David? You haven't got it. You snuck the surname into the question somewhere?

I snuck it into the chat that we've had somewhere. Oh, no. Yes. Oh, this was great. You've set yourself up as the villain at the end of the episode, Stuart. That's incredible. You're going to have to give us the David.

It's David Bowie. Oh. That's really good. And I said at one point, I said, Bowie Way, in a way that's supposed to say no way. Oh. I think we're going to need an instant replay here. Yeah, we are.

We are. Rewind the tape. Is this something to do with the recession? It's something to do with the Eurozone and the collapse of the Greek economy? Bowie way. So he used a Greek newspaper as part of a low-key disguise when moving around in public, especially in New York and London. The idea was that if someone thought that they'd spotted Bowie,

the sight of him carrying a Greek language paper would make them second-guess themselves, assuming it was just an ordinary Greek man who happened to resemble David Bowie. One last order of business then. Adam Jeff, thank you for sending this in. In 2023, why did the phrase Cat I have farted suddenly gained popularity in France? Anyone want to take a shot at that?

Oh, is it to do like Red Dwarf or something like that? It does sound like a line from Red Dwarf. Is it a song lyric? But like translated from American into French or something? What if that in French? Does it sound like something else? Shat. I can't do parts.

Oh. What is... I think you could get this first. from just cat I have. Chate. Chate. Chatee. Chatee.

Chatee. Shatipete. Yes. Spot on. When a French speaker sees chat GPD written, they would pronounce it as Chachepete, which sounds very similar

to the French for Cat I have farted, chat Gipete. Tech-savvy French people mostly use the English pronunciation to avoid confusion. Thank you very much to our players. Where can people find you?

Plug the show. We will start with. at the Divina. Please come and watch my show Dancing While Old on 530 every day at the Pleasance in Edinburgh and Work and Progresses in London.

Follow me on Instagram at Davina Bentley Comedy. And Oliver. Follow me on the internet at Oliver W. And Stuart. I have a podcast. It's called Weak-Minded,

W-E-E-E-K, and it's with Daman Bamra. It's a weekly podcast where we just have a nice chat about what we've been up to and I'm pretty sure I'll be discussing becoming the villain

on this show. And if you want to know more about this show, You can do that at lateralcast.com, where you can also send in your own ideas for questions or join the Lateral Producers Club. And we are at Lateralcast, basically, everywhere, and there are full video episodes every week on Spotify.

Thank you very much to Stuart Laws. Thank you. Oliver Vorge. Bye-bye. Devena Bentley. I've been Tom Scott, and that's been Lateral.