Lateral with Tom Scott - 197: Jumping in the fountain

Episode Date: July 17, 2026

Rosalie Minnitt, Verity Babbs and Bob Hagh face questions about academic admissions, eight-legged equines and five-dollar flights. 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: Josh, Lily, Seth Campbell, Zubin Nair Haider, Isabel McCracken, Kyle Chapman, KJ. 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

The Hulu original series Furious is coming to Disney Plus, starring Emmy Rossum. Furious follows FBI agent Alice Black on the hunt for a mysterious and calculating serial killer. Both walk their own paths toward justice, and as their lives start to intertwine, the line between right and wrong begins to blur. Don't miss the three-episode premiere of the Hulu original series Furious on July 27th, only on Hulu on Disney Plus. kind of hairstyle is a tellum? The answer to that at the end of the show. My name's Tom Scott, and this is Lateral. Thank you for choosing Lateral, the conversational curiosity system designed

for home or portable listening. Before using your podcast, please take a moment to familiarize yourself with the following operating instructions. Ensure the episode is securely inserted into your ears and that your curiosity settings are switched to on. For best results, listen in a comfortable position and avoid operating heavy machinery while attempting complex guesswork. During normal use, you may experience sudden realisations, speculative theories, and the occasional confident, but completely incorrect answer. These are normal and should not cause alarm. Inside today's unit are three guest components pre-installed and ready for operation. First, welcome back to the show, someone who runs comedy nights in art museums and the author

of the history of art in one sentence, Farrity Babs. Hello, thanks for having me again. Welcome back. Do tell us about the book, because I mentioned the history of art in one sentence. I assume the book is longer than one sentence. They did make me do more than one,

annoyingly. That wasn't the pitch. So it's 50 art movements over the last 500 years and 10 questions in each, each answered in a sentence. So the idea would be you could sort of browse through it and get a good sense for roughly who are the impressionists. and what is pop art about,

but with some sort of fun and hopefully funny facts in there as well. Obviously you have the big hitters of the art movements in there, but was there like a cut-off point? I think we can get 50, and then we start having to pick and choose. Yeah, I was like, I think we can get 40, and 10 of them are going to be... We just about got them together.

Some of them had sort of zania characters than others, which meant that it was very easy to find the fun fact. Some of them less of a barrel of laughs, but we cobbled it together in the end. And the gigs are going well? Yeah, so art laughs, the art-themed comedy nights I run, we do those in different museums and galleries. And they are always good fun and hopefully make art feel a little bit less scary. So no, all well. I've just checked through the questions in front of me, and I have zero art questions here,

but perhaps you do, we shall find out shortly. Very best luck on the show today. we are joined by another returning player and another comedian. Welcome back, Rosalie Minut. Hello, thank you so much for having me. It was your first episode last time you were on the show. How did you feel? How was it? Look, I realised that I'm not very good at thinking laterally,

and that should have been in the name. I think you did okay. I think there's something quite, yeah, like, I think I love a quiz, and it stresses me out that there isn't really like a pinpoint right answer. And as a perfectionist, I struggle with that. Oh, and you're taking a show to the fringe soon. Like, that's got to be difficult for a perfectionist.

Yeah, it does, it gets in your, it gets, I think, I feel like there's got to be something wrong with anyone that does comedy, to be honest. But I think, yeah, having being a perfectionist with joke writing is very difficult because you can't really get 10 out of 10 from an audience, like, ever. I know we're recording this early, but as this show comes out, the fringe is about to happen, so please plug when and where you are. What's the show? So I'll be doing my second show in Edinburgh Fringe.

It'll be called a Clementine 2 in some capacity. And it will be another chapter 2 of her wild escapades. And yeah, it'll be a lot of fun. I hope I'm truly sort of still writing it. Good luck with both the writing and the show today. Our third player today from Buzzablog, from the 24-hour game show marathon, from Twitch. I don't know how else to describe you.

Bob Haig, welcome back. Not a comedian. And I don't know why I keep coming back here at time. And yet, hosting a 24-hour game show. Yeah. Also, we didn't talk about Twitch last time, because we were too busy with the marathon. Tell me about what you're doing there.

Yeah, so my Twitch stream, I do a lot of Pokemon games on there. I also have a game show vibe where I sometimes give up my own money to random Twitch people coming on stream. It's a lot of fun to do, but I really enjoy that because I'm all about live entertainment, live television. I've been a big live TV fan growing up. So I love being in the moment with an audience, kind of have a little fun, and give people a chance to kind of unwind after a busy day, laugh a little bit, and watch me catch cute little monsters from doing it. I am so used to scripted and edited live scares the hell out of me. How long does it take you to go

from like, I don't know what I'm doing here to, no, I got this. You know, it's just the more you do it, the more you feel comfortable. Like, I've been on television shows before, and I feel like live streaming is much more stressful than that. I know it's a weird thing to say, but I think once you get comfortable with who you are, your element and you embrace failure and you just pick up where you left off

and just do better each time, you enjoy it more. So I kind of like perfecting that craft and having a good time and enjoy the journey with doing live events. Well, good luck to you on this absolutely 100% live, not edited in any way, episode of Lateral. Our curiosity system is fully initialised. Let's activate Question 1.

Thank you to Isabel McCracken for this question. When driving through Boston's O'Neill Tunnel, you often see rows of tiles that are either blue or brown. What are they there for? I'll say that again. When driving through Boston's O'Neill Tunnel, you often see rows of tiles that are either blue or brown. What are they there for?

I preface this. and say, I'm probably going to sit this one out because I've driven this tunnel many times and I've kind of learned on TikTok what this is. All right. I'm going to take a step back. It's going to be on Rosalie and Verity. Right. Let's do this. Right.

Let's get very serious. Yeah. So they, the, my assumption is that they are, they represent different things. If there's a reason why it's important that they're blue and brown rather than just like it's like a checkerboard pattern or something. So it could be like a combination of those two colours is there to like keep you awake. I feel like that's a bit of a kind of odd take on it. No, I know.

The 70s nostalgia colour combo makes you want to carry on living. Yeah. There are tunnels where that happens. I wouldn't normally come in on a suggestion like this, but I want to throw a tunnel fact. into this, which is one of the longest road tunnels, which I think it's the Laudal Tunnel, I think Norway. It's somewhere up in Scandinavia,

is so long that it deliberately has little laybys with interesting illumination in, so that if you have so much tunnel that you're starting to get a bit hypnotised, you can just get out your car, have a quick wander around, recuperate before keeping going. Oh, wow. Oh, that's so cool.

And I mentioned that partly to drop a tunnel fact and partly to say, uh, sorry, no. Where is this again, Tom? I'm not, I'm not let Bob answer that question. So, uh, it is in, uh, Boston, Boston, Massachusetts. Is it, but is it kind of, you go in, you go into Boston and you come out in Milwaukee? Bob, if I remember, you're, you're vaguely near Boston.

Do you, do you remember the big dig? Uh, Vaguely, yeah. So I can travel in that vicinity when I'm going to, like, Logan Airport, because I fly out of Logan Airport a lot. So I would have to kind of go in this area where, like, a major highway system is. So it is definitely a well-traveled area because it is like right in, like, the core of Boston. You have a lot of other streets, a lot of other highway systems coming and combining into this area. But it's not like one end of the tunnel is in one place. and the other is in like,

if you're in the blue zone, you're in Boston, and if you're in the brown zone, you're in New York State. Is that nearby? No, no, no. But I will say it is, and I hope I don't get too much away from this,

but I think the big dig is like one of like the most expansive or costly projects that we have done in the states. Absolutely. Yes. Oh my God. This is, I think Tom,

you're going to hate the suggestion as well. But maybe like, it's like you can buy theater seats and their like sponsored tiles, people bought them and they helped pay for the big dick, question mark. Honestly, not a bad shout. And also, I'm not going to hate any suggestion that comes out here. I dislike one that's personally insulting, but I'm never going to, you know, turn down someone throwing an idea on that. In between takes, Tom is saying discouraging things to us about our suggestions. They'll never make air, but...

Oh, do you mean this is an entirely live episode? I think you're all seeing this as a checkerboard pattern or a mixture of brown and blue tiles, and it's not. The tiles are either blue in a section or brown in a section. And it's not just the O'Neill Tunnel. This is through a lot of the big dig in this whole network that got built. Were two different tiler's racing?

Was it like, I'll start at one end with brown and you start wanting with blue and it's like to encourage them to go fast. Or they get paid by the kilometre and they just want to get to that side first. Like, we're logging this with our bricks. Is it about what you can do in the tunnel?

Is it like, once you're in the brown zone, you can go 100 miles an hour? The brown zone, I lost it. It won't be the brown zone 100 mile now and a big dig tunnel. Have a thing about Boston's geography. Near the sea. It is.

This is all I've got. It is. Is blue underwater and brown under earth? Yes. Yes, it is. Yes, brown tiles on the walls of some of the tunnels mean you're underground. Blue tiles mean you're underwater. That is not just there as a fancy thing.

I'm going to let Bob come in here. Do you know why that might be? I feel like it's for also, I think, the workers of the tunnel to be aware of where they are at any given time. Because I know if you're underwater and you're doing some service work on the tunnels, you also need to have specialized exits or points where you need to possibly like evacuate or move or things like that. But I really think it's meant for a lot for just knowing where you are at a given time if you're doing work on the tunnel. More, I think, for drivers rather than workers, but yes, for orientation, certainly. As you are driving through these many long tunnels in Boston, if you know the above-ground geography, you can actually help track where you are by looking at the blue tiles for underwater

or the brown tiles for underground. We will go to our first guest question, Rosalie, whenever you're ready. Lovely, thank you so much. So this question has been sent in by Lily. Lily, Lily is in her mid-20s. Recently, she took part in a 1959 horror film, exactly as its director intended, even though he died in 1977. How?

I'll say that again. Lily is in her mid-twenties. Recently, she took part in a 1959 horror film, exactly as its director intended, even though he died in 1977. How? So the question is, what film, what horror films were? Was this like, I would think a major theatrical film that was out there around that time?

So I'm trying to think of what films were out there. Like, was Psycho? 19. I don't think when Psycho came out. I think it was a little later, I think past 1959. Has she just done a murder and thought that the film was like instructional? And it's like participation. And that's exactly as the director intended. Yeah.

The title is, how to get away with murder. Yeah. She has, in fact, got away with murder. I like your thinking, and I kind of wish that was the answer, but sadly no. Mid-20s is specific, isn't it? Like, why is her age important? Mid-20s.

I remember reading an article about a horror director, who was the king of gimmick horror movies. and I think that's around late 50s, early 60s, just as television was starting to come in and theatre audiences were declining, he was trying to bring in just weird stuff. The name that comes to mind is The Tingler, which was a movie he came up with, that said something like,

The Tingler is loose in this theatre, ladies and gentlemen, and then he'd like gimmick the seats in the theatres or get the ushers to turn off the lights at the right moment or scare people. He had one where there was a vote in the audience. He would hold up a panel to see whether the murderer would escape justice or not. And it was all obviously like pre-recorded, that they always voted to condemn the murder.

Of course they did. But he had a load of gimmicks. Now I'm wondering, like, as the director intended, I'm wondering if this is that guy in one of his horror gimmicks. You are very, very close. You are pretty much bang on. The trouble is I don't know what the gimmick is and why it would matter that it's her mid-20s.

I think don't worry about mid-20s maybe focusing on the took part in a 1959 horror film. It's too early for, or massively too early for something like Rocky Horror Picture Show where it's like she's got a kit off in the cinema and that's as intended. Like taking part, like what's like, I'm trying to think,

How major of a part did she take in with this? Was it just like something that was just small enough under the radar? Did it have a big impact on this? If it's a horror film, was it like, you know, was she, was she the one that got murdered in the film? Like that film boyhood where they record them every year being a boy, I don't really know what the film's about. But that thing of, you know, they're making a remake of Merrily roll along where they're doing it over the course of 40 years, is it like part eight coming in 2026 with new actresses? I wish it was a horror, a horror boyhood that had been started in 1959 that we just haven't heard

about. And Lily is now 107. Yeah. Maybe the gimmick is you're meant to scream back at the scream. That's how you def- that's how the audience defeats the monster. You must scream as loud as possible to defeat them like... Like a horror pantomime. It's like, oh, he's behind you. That's basically what these were. Little bits of this article are coming back to me. Like, he offered a coward's exit in one film, where if you were too scared, then you would be given the opportunity to run out and get a refund, but you would have to take the

coward's exit. There were all sorts of things like that. I would say, as a sort of suggestion that might help you along the way, The audience is at one point meant to think that something's gone wrong. So they're sitting down watching the film, correct? Yeah. They're watching the film. Does the film just suddenly stop?

And like, does something happen where it just chaos ensues? There's a technical issue. And then the audience is just sitting there figuring out what's going on next. The lights come up or maybe the lights stay down. Who knows? And then you hear the bloody murder being screamed somewhere else. And then the lights come back on. and then you see someone missing?

Is that what's happening? Yeah, that's it. I mean, you literally basically all together, Tom and Bob pretty much got it as we went. So it is that film that you said, Tom, the tingler. And they're the climax. It is the tingler. The creature is set to escape into the cinema.

The screen goes dark and the house lights come on while a planted performer in the audience screams and pretends to faint as if attacked. During the original release... That's the bit I couldn't remember. This is the bit. The moment was accompanied by a vibrating device attached to some seats.

and revival screening, sometimes recreate the stunt with actors in the audience. Other gimmicks included a break when people could leave the film, which is what you said and get their money back. A poll on whether the film should have a nice ending or a tragic ending and a skeleton flying over the audience. And I will say these are giving me some great inspiration for my Edinburgh. What's the guy's name? He's called Director William Castle.

William Castle would absolutely eat in the Edinburgh Fringe like these gimmicks he would absolutely take over Pleasance Courtyard no doubt about it My guy would be in all of the In all of the top shows to see in French Yeah that's so that's why

So she took part sort of after the fact The director intended to have a live A live performer in the room as well There should definitely still be a coward's exit For like any film to be like I just need to get out of Wuthering Heart right now.

Yes. Yes. I'm walking. Thank you to Kyle Chapman for this question. Jeff often jumped into a fountain before walking into a hotel. Why? And one more time, Jeff often jumped into a fountain before walking into a hotel. Why?

I don't think Jeff's a human. If I know lateral, Jeff is probably a bird. My instinct is that the... The hotel hosts a lot of hendos and Jeff is a Colin Firth in Pride and Prejudice, look-a-lite. Yes. And he has to get wet before going to perform. That's great. My guess is that there's a, there's some kind of, I mean, if it's, it suggests that he doesn't always have to do it, but sometimes he does it, which maybe, maybe Jeff is a known quantity at these hotels.

And it's like the thing that Jeff does and they all think he's hilarious for it. It's just Jeff's thing. It is definitely one of Jeff's things, but I don't think the hotel would approve. Oh, see, I thought Jeff was like an employee of the hotel trying to clean it up or something. Like if people are throwing coins in the fountain and he's collecting the coins and bringing it back into the hotel. But the hotel is, so the hotel does not like what Jeff does. If they knew who he was, they wouldn't want to have that. Oh, is he always, is he like a murderer and he's got to clean himself in the fountain before in the hotel?

He's just come back from a screening. He's been the live actor. Is the fountain special in some way? Is it like one of those springs that are meant to be, you know, the goddess of whatever? Oh, yeah. And he's dipping himself in for luck or for prosperity or... Luck. He's douncing himself. I hope I get a room. Oh, the fountain of hotel room.

So, not really, but there is a certain amount of maybe luck involved, yeah. Does he do it in front, do it, he does it for every hotel, or is it just one hotel? Just some hotels sometimes. Just some hotels. So he thinks it might do him some good to do this? Yeah, yeah, I think he's definitely benefiting from it. It's not, it's not, it's not, it's not, it's not, like, the hypothetical fountain of youth. He's trying to take a shower and like, I want to be 10 years younger, but what benefit do you,

unless the benefit is, you go into a hotel and kids eat free and then maybe you get a free meal or something, I don't know. Okay, so, Bob, you said a couple things there. Okay. He's not trying to get a free meal, but there's something like that going on. Is, is he trying to already be wet by the time he comes in? into the hotel room to pretend he was already at the spa? Yes, he is very much. Oh, my God.

And I'm going to use that later. Jeff would wear a bathing costume, then throw himself into a nearby fountain, then walk into the hotel lobby, dripping wet. Hotel staff would assume that he'd just come from the pool and didn't challenge him when he then went into the spa. Jeff here is the urban explorer, Jeff Chapman, otherwise known as Ninja Licious.

He was a pioneer in urban exploration. He is also credited with the invention of the term credibility prop. Does anyone want to take a guess at what that means? So I guess, is the being wet a credibility prop to be like, well, obviously I was in the spa, otherwise why would I be wet? Yep.

Might be some other things that could help with that. Not necessarily for going to the spa, but for getting into anything. Oh, like when people buy high-vis jackets to go to festivals. Yep. Hiver's jacket, clipboard, if you're in England, a tray of mugs of tea might open a lot of doors for you.

Jeff also maintained a blog going into various fountains around the world. And thank you very much. Kyle Chapman sent this question in. Kyle is Jeff's brother. Wow. Wow. Jeff passed away in 2005, age 31, and is still known as one of the early urban explorers. Wow, it's so cool.

Good on you, Jeff. Thank you, Jeff. Yeah, thanks for that tip, Jeff. We're going to keep that alive. We're going to keep that alive. For using that, yeah. Bob, we'll take your question, please. Awesome.

This question has been sent in from Zubin Nayar Haider. Why do many children in India and Pakistan struggle to count past 20 in their native languages? I'll say that one more time. Why do many children in India and Pakistan struggle to count past 20 in their native languages. Like, it must be hard for French children saying, like, the number 90, because it's like saying four, 20s and a 10 and a 5. Is it very, is it just, like, actually a bit of a mouthful?

My favourite one of those is, I think it's Denmark, where, apologies, Denmark, I'm going to mangle this, but eight, the numbers like 70 is three and one half-twenties, or it might be like four minus a hundred. half-twenties. Oh. It's not how someone actually thinks. Like you just hear the syllables and your brain goes,

oh, that's 70, but the word comes from like four minus a half-twenties. Hmm. Is there something for... Like, can I get a wording check on the question? Is it past, they're not able to count past 20 or 220? Yeah, so the question says they struggle to count past 20. Okay, I'm going to go for the obvious answer. There are a lot of languages in India and Pakistan.

India in Pakistan. Maybe some of them don't have words for numbers past 20, because some languages have limited number words. Yeah. That doesn't seem lateral to me. No, no, I don't think that's what we're looking for here. No. Hmm. And going back to your point, Tom, when you were talking about like with Denmark and the numbers, you really don't have to worry about like any type of like mathematics here. So you don't have to worry about like what is what is three fourths of this number No math is required for this test. Is it that their like numerical system is different in some capacity or that it doesn't include that kind of...

I know that there are some communities or languages where they don't have words for certain things, like they don't have words for certain colours. And therefore like that colour does not exist to them, which is quite interesting. Or like money, they don't have money so they don't have word for money. My linguistics brain is all...

is just going, well, technically it doesn't work. No, I'm getting it. A pedant in me. Shut down. Is it not linguistic? Is it that actually it's like a number, it's a counting system that's like digital?

Like, it's like, because you can, people can do, you see these like maths, genius children doing counting on their fingers. Is it? I mean, you've got ten fingers and ten toes. But other countries do not have the problem with kids going,

I've run out of digits. I'm going to have trouble counting now. I will say, I know we were talking about kids a lot, but it's not just kids who have this issue. It could also be adults that have a similar difficulty with getting past 20. Is it because you so rarely have to count above 20? It's like, it's difficult because like, why am I doing this?

This is like, why am I bothering doing this? Is it that it's bad luck? Ooh. Spiritual thing? I don't know whether it could, is it that like, you know, don't go to the, seventh floor kind of thing. It's not, no. I will say as

English speakers, we don't really have this problem. Okay. Our words for tens are based on our words for the units. Not perfectly, but you have 30 is 3, 40 is 4, 50 is 5 and so on. Maybe there's a disconnect between those two, and you have to learn not just the words for 1 through 9, but also the words for

10 through 90? You're getting there. Yeah, you're on the right track with that, Tom. Okay, I'm just going to share my favorite counting system because I'm enthusiastic about it. There is an old sheep counting system in the north of England where one, two, three is Yantan Tethera. And there's just these wonderful words,

and it's got this wonderful flow to it. But also, you can walk five miles and find a different variant of the same system because it's from so long ago that it was essentially like local accent, local dialect, and just this... the numeral system is just a beautiful, flowing thing. But it repeats in interesting ways

that do not necessarily make sense to an English speaker. Like it's difficult to remember for us. So... Okay, you said something clever there. Difficult to remember. Difficult to remember. So memory...

So memory is a big... issue here. So going up to 20 is fine. It's past 20 where it becomes much more difficult. And that's where the memory challenge can can really kick in to figure out a number past 20. Is it because of like the actual notation of what they use, like the numerals? They can't remember what the icon is or that they use different, I guess, I don't know what you'd call that, but like we use numbers, but they don't use numbers. Is that it? Correct. So, So, yeah, so what you're using up to 20 is working, but then past 20, it's completely different. But why is that?

Because you've run out of hands and toes. Because they have maybe something different for one to 20. They've got 20 things, but they don't have anything past that. That's right on the cusp. So, yeah, so in many South Asian languages, like a Hindu, Urdu, you know, the numbers above 20 have something different versus the numbers before. 20 have something different. So what, you know, so yeah, everything from like Rosalie, what you were just saying, you know, verity in time, you're all like dancing around this, but looking for the exact reason

why after 20 something is different. Is there a different word for every number? That's what it is. Yeah, different, different wording, different names for the words after 20. Correct. So, what? Leading up to 1 to 20, you can kind of familiarize yourself with a pattern, like the teens, like in English. But past 20, all the numbers have unique names up to 100.

So between 20 and 100, you have unique names for every single number. So 21 and 22, that's how we say it. No, it's a completely different names. So learners have to memorize many individual words rather than applying a simple rule. So many children in India and Pakistan learn English numbers at school alongside their native languages, and they find the English system easier for the higher numbers. Now, what's great about this question is that the question sender Zubin says, and this is a quote,

me, my sister, and a lot of our friends and cousins just can't count beyond 20 or 30 in our native languages and tend to use the English terms for numbers beyond that. So it becomes very difficult. And as you get older, maybe your memory just starts to drift away. Yeah. Like, what is 72? And I have no idea. So that's all different names from 22100.

Wow. Thanks, KJ, for this question. In the early days of mobile phones, why did support staff often ask callers to remove their SIM card and wipe it with a soft cloth, even when it was unlikely that the SIM was the problem? I'll say that again. In the early days of mobile phones, why did support staff often ask callers to remove their SIM card and wipe it with a soft cloth, even when it was unlikely that the SIM was the problem?

For soft cloth sales? They're like, we've got to, we've got to boost these numbers. I know this is a quick tangent, but I know Apple sells a cloth on their website, and every time a new device comes out that says, yes, this cloth is compatible with the new iPhone. And I'm like, I am thankful. They told me that because I have no idea. I think they also sell one display that that cloth is not compatible with. That's correct. Yeah.

I've seen that. You know, I've worked in tech support. And also, if my display isn't compatible with whatever window cleaning thing and cloth I'm putting on it, I don't want that display. I've worked in tech support before. And I know, like, there's silly things you have to go through a checklist of items to make sure, like, you verify that. Yes, you did this. This is not the problem. But removing your sim, like, are they removing the SIM card while on the call? That would be difficult. But it's also the early days of mobile phones. So they could be calling on a landline to debunk the phone.

Was it just to like, is it just to kind of like waste time and like they didn't really know? And it was just to like, look. It's like, turn it on and off again and just give it a go. Is it kind of like a placebo effect? And then it makes them think that. Their photo's going to work again. I'd keep thinking along those lines. Yes. It's not the placebo effect, but turn it off and on again is quite important here.

I feel like those older phones took a long time to connect and power on. They were built sturdy, but even the early technologies, those phones take a while to maybe connect to a tower or there may not have been enough towers nearby to connect at that time, so it took longer to possibly get reception.

Yeah, it would be a pain to turn, it off and on again. It would be a pain. So is it to make it feel like turning it off and on again, and by taking the SIM card out makes you feel like I've definitely done an action? Like, is it to make you feel more satisfied that, like, it's off, I've given it a little rub and putting it back in? Almost. Is it similar to something that people used to have before, and it was like a kind of a method that people used to do for, like, records or something, that, and it was, like, helped people move on to new technology? You've got most of the elements here.

It is not to make the customer feel better. Is it just a way for them to sell more phones? Oh, no. No, no. I was like, Bob, you said you've worked in tech support? I have. Do you trust the people on those calls? Hmm.

How much time do we have on this podcast? I mean, I was, I was front-facing support when I worked in a mobile store and a mall, so I was doing real-time support in person. Okay. Yeah, so a lot of times, like if a SIM car, wasn't working, we would just activate a new SIM card and put it in the phone or if we needed to transfer data to another phone, we would do that. But this was like, I worked in like 2010, 2011. So this was way before, way before then. But you said it doesn't make the customer happy.

Is that what you said? No, they won't feel better about this. Oh, they won't feel better about it. Okay. But will the person on the other end feel better? Because it's like, can you give me a minute to work out what's wrong? Like Rosalie said, like Rosalie said that it's like, it's to buy a bit of That's not the motivation, but you're right, it will make the operator, the support person, more confident. Is it because none of them knew what they were doing? And that they were just, like... The callers don't know what they're doing, certainly. Yes.

If you can rub it with a cloth, you clearly know what I'm talking about when I say sim cards. It's like proof, proof of them knowing what's going on? It's proof of something. What's involved in taking that SIM card out and giving it a wipe? You have to do one thing. You've got to power off the phone, pop the back piece off. You've got to power off the phone.

Oh. So it's to prove that the phone is off? It's to prove that the caller has actually turned the phone off and on again. Oh, because that's usually what would solve it. Because 90% of the time that's going to solve it, and the operator is going to go, have you turned it off and on again?

And the caller is going to say, yes, of course I have. Do you think I'm an idiot? When, actually, no, they haven't. They're sure that they haven't. If, on the other hand, the operator says, can you take the SIM card out and give it a wipe? Yeah, absolutely, let me just turn the phone off.

So the operator can be certain that the phone has actually been turned off and on again. Care for your skin, like you care for the game. Dove Men Plus Care is an official sponsor of the FIFA World Cup 2026, and has just dropped their new limited edition Deodorant and Anti-Persprint Collection. for 72 hours sweat and odor protection,

helping you stay fresh from kickoff to the final whistle. Visit dove.com slash CA slash EN slash men dash care to shop now. Hear that? It's your money calling. It wants a promotion. Elevate your savings with the Scotia high interest savings account. Always earn high regular interest rates that grow the more you save and invest. Conditions apply.

Visit Scotiabank.com slash H.I. ISA to learn more. Scotia Bank. You're richer than you think. Verity, whenever you're ready. Great. This question has been sent in by Seth Campbell. Picasso, Dali, Warhol and Rembrandt rank along the most stolen artists in history. Second place on that list belongs to the American painter Nick Lawrence, with 557 paintings taken.

What makes his case different from the others? Picasso, Dali, Warhol and Rembrandt rank among the most stolen artists in history second place on that list belongs to the American painter Nick Lawrence with 557 paintings taken. What makes his case different from the others? Is it that they don't look like paintings and they're like weird, they're like bag sculptures

and people just think they're like, like they're rubbish or something? Yeah, one of those, like, it's all fruit and he's like, my art. Yeah, it's like, my art. Yeah, it's like, yeah. Is it that people see his name and think it's an instruction? You Nick Lawrence. Oh, that's good.

For a brief moment, as I said that, I was like, this had better not be the answer. I thought it was the tingler. It was one of those instructions again of like, Nickness, and then take the coward's exit. The coward's exit is such a funny phrase. Is it that they were intended to be stolen? That that's the...

That was what his artists... journey was that they're meant to end up in like different hands in a kind of like banksie-esque way? No, it's not intentional. He will have been peeved about this. I always try to think like if it's not the traditional sense of a painting, I don't know if it's like a something more digital, like if it's something different than what, you know, the classic artist actually had physical, physical work, someone like holding it in their hands and stealing it versus this is more like using a blockchain to steal something? You wouldn't steal a painting.

It's just downloading someone's JPEG of their NFT. No, it's not that. It's physical work. Physical work, okay. That's amazing. NFT jokes now seem old hap. Isn't that wonderful?

Yeah. The world is healing. I very rarely get employed to give my opinion on like the state of the art world and the two times I have. One was about NFTs where I was like, this is nonsense.

It's going nowhere. and the next week the the people sold for a billion or whatever how much is sold and the other one was during lockdown for that app called clubhouse and I was like this is the future of social media this is going to last forever so now I don't get asked to do those kinds of articles anymore but no not NFTs have you heard of him no is he is he is he does he copy he copies he they're copies maybe that are stolen They're fakes. They're not fakes. 557 is a lot of paintings. I honestly, that's a ridiculous thing to say. Yeah. But that feels like more paintings than a lot of painters would sell.

Yeah. Like, that's prolific. More than some painters would make. Yeah. That's a lot, yeah. More than some painters should make. You were saying something unique about this theft of paintings. So I'm trying to think, was it the actual process in how people stole these paintings?

Like, I don't know if maybe back then the people who stole the paintings maybe impersonated someone else, whether that's possibly like if they're in a museum or if they're like a police officer and they're trying to investigate and they like steal something. Is it the actual process of how someone went and stole these 500 plus paintings was different? They were all stolen at the same time. they were all stolen at the same time. Is that it? I didn't think that was...

They were all, almost all of them were stolen. At the same time, Bobby, you were so right about the, it was the method in which they were stolen. So yes, like he's not a household name. So he's on this list with these hugely famous artists. But basically, the American painter Nick Lawrence appears on these lists for the most stolen artworks, not because thieves repeatedly try to steal his work over and over again

because they're fundamentally valuable. but because an entire collection disappeared at once in 2004, hundreds of his paintings were being prepared for exhibition and they were reportedly moved to an unsecured storage shed after a fire code issue was raised and they were subsequently stolen in a single large theft. So he is second in the list to Picasso,

who is number one with 1,147 paintings gone. What? But people are nicking those because they're Picasso's, whereas Nick Lawrence basically got unlucky. Is that the same painting multiple times? Or did Picasso just have that many paintings? Some of them will be. Picasso did churn it out.

And at one point he was a suspect for the theft of the Mona Lisa. Picasso, they thought he might have done it for a bit. Wow. But he's Nick Lawrence's number two on the list just because he had one fell swoop of bad luck. So we just have the question from the top of the show. Thank you to Josh for sending this in. What kind of hairstyle is a tellem?

Anyone want to take a guess? I wonder if it's not a human hairstyle. Maybe it's for like a poodle. Does it physically tell people something? Like, it's a tellem if you get, I love you, shaved into the back of your hair. Like a tellem. Is it a classic hairstyle?

People are still doing it today? Or is it something more that was done in the past? I don't think you're going to see many tellums around today. My notes say that this was associated with emo and alternative fashion in the 2000s. Oh. Oh. Is it like a curtains situation? Yeah, it'd be like that, yeah.

It'd be exaggerated fringe, long front section. And is it named tellem after a band, like a song, or a... It's named tellem after another hair start. Oh, mullet. It's a backwards, it's a backwards hairstyle. It's a backwards mullet. There we go. We did it.

Thank you very much to our players. Where can people find you? What's going on your lives? We will start with Verity. Yep, so you can find me at Verity Babs art on Instagram and also searching Verity Babs, but also searching art laughs for the art-themed comedy gigs and the history of art in one sentence for the book.

Rosalie. Thank you so much for having me. You can find me on Instagram, at Rosalie Minute, and I'm currently on tour, so please do come and see my show. And Bob. You can find me on the socials at BuzzRBob. If you want to catch all the latest hot game show news, buzzerblog.com. 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 and join the Lateral Producers Club. We are at Lateralcast, basically, everywhere, and there are full video episodes every week on Spotify. Thank you very much to Bob Haig. Thanks for having me. To Verity Babs. Ta. And Rosalie Minut. Thank you.

I've been Tom Scott, and that's been Latrim.