Lateral with Tom Scott - 201: Vegan art

Episode Date: August 14, 2026

Matt Gray, Rowan Ellis and Kip Heath face questions about slipper sizing, traffic troubles and acting amateurishness. 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: Annette Lee, Lindsay Castle, Morgan Cole-Jones, Lee & Alex Watson-Jones, Gareth Williams, Sander Famil, Marcel. 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

Why did Amy knit some slippers that were twice the size of her feet? The answer to that at the end of the show, my name's Tom Scott, and this is Lateral. This is Lateral News, bringing you the latest developments in a puzzling world. Tonight's headline, three members of the public have voluntarily assembled in the name of National Service, despite having received no prior training. Our guests exchange pleasantries unaware that they will shortly have to join forces against a fearsome common enemy, the questions. And now, as the nation holds its breath,

we introduced today's brave warriors. First returning to the show, clinical scientist and science communicator, Kip Heath, welcome back. Thank you for having me. Apologies for the sudden change in accent there. Sometimes I get handed a script where it just says, act like you're on a newsreel. And you did very well.

How are you doing, Keith? What are you up to these days? Did you just say Keith? Yeah, I did, because Kip Heath got abbreviated in my head, and I just completely automated that, oh my God, it's been a day. We might just leave that in, depending on how Kit feels about it. How are you doing, Kit Pah?

What are you up to lately? I've been slightly busy. I'm currently on holiday. You can't see, but the Temple of Zeus is right outside my windows. So taking so much needed downtime and coming to speak to you, lovely people. Well, thank you very much for taking time while you're on holiday to come and play a quiz. And from a quizzing family is what we do for fun. Well, good luck with the show today.

also joining us from the Queer Movie Podcast and her own YouTube channel. Rowan Ellis, welcome back. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Very excited to be hopefully smart and also hopefully funny in various measures today. This is unrelated to anything to do with your work or lateral.

But you have the most amazing chair. It looks like it's been pulled from a country house and you are the detective about to deliver the verdict at the end of the mystery. Yes, I've gathered you all here today to tell you that I got this on Facebook Marketplace, this and a sofa that matches for £250. So yes, thank you very much for your compliments on the very cheap armchair that is absolutely delightful. Tell me about the podcast. What have you been watching lately? So I just watched a movie called Lesbian Space Princess,

which is exactly what it sounds like. I saw you perk up, Matt. It's so delightful. And it's going to be at a Flair Festival, which is the BFI's LGBTQ Plus Festival, which is happening in March. So I'm very excited to see it on the big screen as well. Big fan of a Suffolk plot. Well, good luck to you on the show today, Rowan. And as referenced there, the last member of our panel today, welcome back to the show. Matt Gray. Hello.

Thank you for having me. I was thinking that now I've been on lateral. That means I think I've now been on half of all of the podcasts I listen to. I listen to two podcasts. Two podcasts. I worked that out just like a fraction before you said. I was... The words, oh, what other podcasts have you been on?

Was halfway to my mouth before I realized... Oh, I've been on more podcasts. I just listened to them. Well, today apparently I'm just teeing up Matt for The Bit. So good luck, everybody. There's going to be a high bit quotient in this one. With formalities concluded, we return you now to scheduled puzzlement,

beginning with question one. Newsreel. a news fake. Thank you to Gareth Williams for this question. In January 2025, why did a UK government agency produce a list that banned anything ending in L-U-T or H-A-G? I'll say that again. In January 2025, why did a UK government agency produce a list that banned anything ending in L-U-T or H-A-G? I know this one. I'm going to sit out. All right. Kip, Rowan, it's up to you. And Rowan's cat. Most importantly.

It's a Kit, Rowan, and Rowan's cat that has come to sit in Rowan's lap. And Pesephani has come in to say hello. Okay, interesting. So I'm thinking about the American banning of a bunch of words and stuff on the American government website recently. But it was that they were taking words like diversity. But that was also including other uses of the word diversity from what I think they were attempting to target. it's like biodiversity also ended up, the pages end up getting deleted or censored.

And I'm wondering if like the hag or, what was the other one? L-U-T? L-U-T is, yes. That doesn't work so much. But I was wondering if it was like something to do with that, like when you try and to search a word and it kind of accidentally is putting all of the words that have that in it. But again, I guess it wouldn't be that it necessarily ended with those words.

I guess our first thing is, are those words being targeted? Like, is it an accidental thing like the biodiversity or is it intentionally older unmarried women, I suppose. I'm trying to think of words that end in the hag. That will help, yes. I can think of one. What would that be, Kip? I couldn't possibly say on a PG-rated, is it a PG-rated podcast?

Well, it might help if you did. I mean, the British teenage place to go is Shag. It is, yes. Which I guess slut is the other one if you're doing... Yes, it is. I know one of them's a type of bird. Yes. Yeah.

No, that joke has two meanings and I wasn't... Oh, God. No. Take that one. Take it out. Take it out. We're just going to cancel Matt Gray on this podcast. It's all good.

What was the exact wording of the question? It was... In January 2025, why is their UK government agency produce a list that banned anything ending in LUT or H-A-G? And you have identified. identified the reason why. We just haven't identified the agency or the reason that they did it for.

Yes. I guess which agency is likely to have... Which agency is likely for this to have come from? Is it a double meaning for words? If you solve the agency, you will immediately solve the question. But short of iterating through every UK government agency, I suspect that made up with the best approach.

And it was that they had... banned the words? What was the... They had created a list that banned anything ending in those letters. Maybe I'm being stupid, but that's confusing to me. It's like they banned, like, as in they banned the use of it. They banned, there was a list that had banned the words from where and from when. And only for 2025. And only for 2025.

Oh, is this to do with the fact that the date, because it's 2025? Yes. Or something. I had a thought and now the thought is gone is just disintegrated into the Gruschena

it was the start of a very good thought the year is important Is it because of five looks like an S is that Yes it is We are going for that

Oh okay And And in a video of mine You were on many years ago Rowan I think Kipp's going to be the one qualified To answer this

Is it something She was driving Yes it is Excellent Excellent excellent Excellent That's on you, care, by fair. Oh, so it's a DVLA then.

So it's a driving. Yes, the driver and vehicle licensing agency. So what are they banning? Oh, the license plates from being like five LA, yeah. Yes. Since the year was 2025, the license plate would have the number 25 in the middle. So it would be AB 25 and then three letters. And so they banned 25 LUT or 25 H-A-G to prevent license plates.

with the words slut and shag. Other plates banned at the same time, BA25 T-A-D, I'll let you all work that one out, and A-A-25-H-O-L. How much of that do we need to bleep? Couldn't tell you. What I will let you know though is there are

certainly will be ones they haven't thought of. Absolutely. Mm-hmm. A friend of mine ran the numbers on the most expensive plates plates that the DVLA sells, and they are all the ones that are DR numbers W-H-O. Ones on resale, maybe more expensive, but the Doctor Who ones are top of the list. This is also the Tom's reference to a driving joke I made was, we learn how to horse ride

together, to learn how to joust together for a video, and the person who was teaching us was using a lot of driving metaphors, and I joked that I didn't know. They were lost on me because I'm gay, and I don't know how to drive. And then poor Thomas' comments were full of well-meaning straight allies trying to explain how their sister was a lesbian and could actually drive very well, which was so funny to me and continues to be very funny to me to this day. Rowan, we will go over to you for the next question.

Whenever you're ready. This question's been sent in by Morgan Cole Jones. In old theatres, actors might hurriedly study their upcoming part if they were suddenly called upon to replace another. However, often there was not enough time to do this. Which modern term did this give rise to? I'll read it again for you. In old theatres, actors might hurriedly study their upcoming part

if they were suddenly called upon to replace another. However, often there was not enough time to do this. Which modern term did this give rise to? I might have that instantly. I mean, we're all thinking the same word here, but it doesn't feel like a lateral question if we're all thinking the same word. Because what I'm thinking is understudy

because you were studying under the stage? And I was thinking understudy because of something like that. Kip? It felt too easy. And it... It all feels too easy, doesn't it? And it was because that's not the word. Also, an understudy would normally have studied the part.

That is kind of the point. This kind of feels more like someone that was asked 45 minutes before the show started recording, for example. Oh, and the theatre's got loads of... I can't think of a single one right now, but it's got loads of terms that people use to... Yes. Like limelight and stuff like that that people use these days without realizing it's theatre related. I mean like a rush job or a botched job, they all feel a bit not lateral. But if you don't know your script, you're going to have to either have someone queuing you off stage.

Like either you need someone down in the front with cue cards. Or, I mean, this is an old term, so it wouldn't have been an audio prompt. or you need to literally be holding the script and just ask the audience to accept that. Or auto-cue or autoscript or... Did you say this was an old term, Ron? It does say in old theatres. The first record, I do know when the first recorded use was,

and I guess it depends, considering that theatre is as old as humanity, I guess it depends on what you think of as old, but it's, let's say, late 1800s is what we're looking at. Pre-auto screens then. So as Thomas said, like you could either go on with the script, which they did in some of the Shakespearean days, didn't they? Did they?

They just winged it, didn't they? Yeah, you only had your part, so you didn't know how it lined up with everybody else's necessarily. Did Matt just say the answer? Oh, winging it. Matt did just say the answer. But did she come in from the wings or the answer? Yes. You, that is truly the most stumble into the answer I've ever seen on this podcast, truly.

You didn't even trip over the answer. You just walked over it and kept going. You just flew through it. Yeah, yeah, that's exactly, that's exactly it. You were right. A lot of things in English come from theatre. Because the wings are the side parts of the stage, right? Exactly, exactly.

So they would learn their part from the size of the stage, known as the wings. Sometimes I might have to improvise their part. I think they couldn't remember exactly. and so the concept of having to improvise to cover up for unpreparedness became known as winging it. And yet 1885 is the first recorded usage of it. And what's really interesting to me, like as a theatre person, is there's a lot of superstition and mythology around theatre,

but a huge part of it, which is still very controversial as to how true it is, is that we get a lot of our words from the theatre that then go outside of the theatre from sailing with the idea that a lot of the time that sailors were the ones, who would come in when they came off ships and weren't on a, on a like a job, they would come and be the backstage, stage hands for the theatre because they would know how to use ropes and tie up and be strong enough to pull open stuff.

And so a lot of my ideas about like... They know the ropes. They know the ropes. Theatre rigging is the same as like ships rigging. There's like a load of things, but it's really controversial as to how accurate this is and whether it's not just like a really fun thing. Because like even whistling in the theatre is meant to be bad luck and the idea was like whistling

as like the boatswistle of the ship that you didn't want to like go over the commands that were being put down. But yeah, it's quite a controversial as to like what that is. But theater etymology is very interesting if people are looking to to have a little look into it after this question. Hey, y'all, it's Kelly Clarkson with Wayfair. Ever order furniture online and wonder what if? Like, what if it doesn't hold up? That sofa was four days old. You should have ordered from Wayfair. With Wayfair, there's no what if. Just style you love and quality you can trust. Visit wayfair.ca. This question was sent in by Sanda Vermil. With the council's help, a child did something to slow down traffic in the Belgian town of Low Renning.

However, in 2025, it actually caused some cars to drive much faster. How? I'll give you that one more time. With the council's help, a child did something to slow down traffic in the Belgian town of Low Renning. However, in 2025, it actually caused some cars to drive much faster. How? How? So the first question is, are both words of the council capitalised? Because if it's the council, it sounds way more ominous than the city council.

With the assistance of the council, a child will slow down these cars. Okay, I think that the child would just go out in front of traffic at random and the drivers learned, hey, we gotta slow down because we don't want the child to die. But then at the very end of 2024, the child did something truly terrible. And they were like, in fact, in 2025, we will be deliberately trying to speed to run over this evil child who's like kicked a bag of cats or something. And the council was like, fair enough. We're going to figure something out for 2026. The council demands that the child kids. I suppose one thing we don't know yet is how old.

the child was in 2025. Is this something a child did 50 years ago? Yes. And he's now a fully grown adult. It's a 50-year-old man. I'm wondering if it is that like the council, you know, one of those like competitions or the council's like,

hey kids, you know, design a poster that makes people want to slow down or design something so that they have to read it or something like that. I don't know whether it's, the 2025 is significant because it's like something happened. There was technology in 2025,

like something went on or whether it was just that it had been so long that like something wore off on the sign or something happened that it became less effective, maybe. Rowan, you've got the first part of it. Absolutely right. This is what the child did. It was one of those design contests for like, um, yeah, I mean, as we've established in this

episode, Rowan, uh, you don't drive, but for those of us who can, you will see those. There's crayon drawings you get on a school zone sign or whatever. Yes, exactly one of those. But it's now causing cars to drive much faster. Some of them, yes. Has someone vandalised the sign, maybe? Does the sign still look as it did when the child initially designed it? Or has someone changed the...

Oh, yeah, yeah, the design hasn't changed. Okay, so it's not like a part of a letter rubbing off to reveal another word. No, that... In theory, something like that, like maybe not rubbing off, this could have. happen, but in this case, the design hasn't changed. Is it, okay, so in which case, I guess the meaning of the design potentially has changed, in that, like, and if it's only some cars, it's not some cars, it's some drivers, right? Like, the cars didn't magically speed up.

No, it's some cars. Oh. Oh. Is it driverless cars? Yep. Oh, it's driverless cars? So it's reading it something. Oh, what were you thinking, Matt?

I've driven some cars that if you're in variable cruise control, it automatically reads the speed limit signs, and then it sets your speed to that, which you have some control over, but it does it, and you realise it's got it wrong. So has it started, like, I don't know, has a snake and has something else become to look like a 30 instead of a 20? You're basically there. It's not driverless. You're right, Matt. This is the ones with the adaptive cruise control. The design hasn't actually changed. What might the child's drawing actually had on it. The speed limit signs. Oh, is the speed limit change? Not quite. If you're an adult, you wouldn't phrase a safety sign this way. Ah, is it drawn by Jeff age three? And it sees the

three and thinks it's a 30 or something? No, no, the sign is very clear. It's a crayon drawing, but it is, it is very clear. If you're an adult, you wouldn't, you wouldn't design it this way. it's kind of saying the opposite of what you wanted to say. Is it a fast speed limit sign that's crossed out, but not well enough for the thing to pick it up? Yeah, kind of. I'll give you that, Matt. The child had drawn a 130 sign

with the message, obviously, in the local language, 130 isn't good. Wow. That's so real, kiddo. The speed limit itself was 30, and the kid had drawn a sign with an extra one in it. Having driven a few different models of cars that have that feature, I'd say pretty much all of them will not just pick up the road signs from your road.

They will also pick up ones off to the side. And there's a good one in London where if you're going on the main road, there is a bridge over it with a 30 mile an hour sign on it, and the main road is much faster. and I've had two different cars that would read the one from above from a different road pointing in a different direction and automatically slam the brakes on. Yes. In this case, it was the opposite problem.

The government marked at the 30 kilometre an hour zone with a child sign that said, 130 isn't good, and the cars promptly read the 130 and followed its instructions. That's terrifying. I've had 30 read as 80 before as well. Oh, yeah, lots of times. Like most of the time, it's just showing a non-30.

on the screen rather than actually doing anything. Matt, your question, please. This question has been sent in by Lee and Alex Watson Jones. Decades ago, audio engineers at the BBC's television centre often rewired mixing desks so that pushing a fader up, lowered the volume, and pulling it down, made things louder. Why? Decades ago, audio engineers at BBC's television centre

often rewired mixing desks so that pushing a fader up, lowered the volume and pulling it down made things louder. Why? For the non-tech person on the call, is that opposite to normal? It feels like it should be. Yeah, usually you would pull the fader towards you and down to lower the volume.

Like, moving it up as it well, like away from you, it would make it higher. So... Thing up equals volume up, thing down equals volume down. It's the usual way things like that are done. Just checking in case there was something that I was missing entirely. Does this have anything to do with the broom cupboard? Matt. I'm going to need to explain the broom cupboard, aren't I?

Please do. I'd like to hear how you explain it. Okay. So British television used to have in-vision continuity announcers between programmes. So a programme would end and someone would appear on screen saying, this is what's next, this is what's coming up, and then they go to the next show. That sort of fell out of fashion, but it stayed around for children's TV programming. There would be a host between the programs. And what was originally just a tiny little studio that they did this announcement from became known as the broom cupboard, and kids would send in their drawings,

and it would get pinned up there. And it was basically a Twitch stream like 30, 40 years earlier, because you've just got this friendly person who's reacting to the stuff that's going to be on screen. like they're not envisioned you're in the pro. Anyway, point being, here's why I think this matter. If you, like the early days, they would have had both an engineer and an announcer in the studio. And the mixing desk would have been between them. So when they went to having one person doing that, could they, like, it was either rotate the entire desk so the presenter runs their own microphone, or rewire just the fader they're going to use.

Is it for the presenter being on the other side? No. Oh. Well, that was a minute and a half of diversion about the broom cupboard. Nobody needed. Carry on. It wasn't done for any broadcast quality or sound engineering reason directly. Was it just for pranks, Matt?

Was it just the sound engineers are really fun jokesters? And they were like, t-he-he-he, it's April the first. We're going to blow out every speaker in this building. Good luck. I would say it was almost the opposite, because it helped avoid embarrassing moments on air. Is it because it's easier to push, like in a panic,

if someone's doing something or saying something and they should be muted or whatever, that it's easier to like, but, oh, okay, let me just slam it, like slide it to mute them. Oh, no, I can, I mean, Matt may say that's right now, but my thought on that would be immediately,

oh, hell no, you learn very quickly what that feels. Like, I have, accidentally hit, back when I was doing university radio, like accidentally hit a track, realise that there is a swear word coming up that I've forgotten about, and suddenly going, well, no, grab, like you grab instinctively. Rowan, you're, you're getting close, actually. Okay. And modern studios don't usually do this anymore.

Huh. I've got a background in radio, and I've, one of my tasks is training people how to use studios and training someone who's been a way for a while or not done their own technology for a while, who has used what I would call the back-to-front way of doing things takes quite a lot of practice to get that as their muscle memory again. Was this unique to the BBC, or is this something that was done in multiple networks? Were they doing it just?

It's known for being a BBC thing, yeah. Okay. Yeah, Kip, because I was kind of wondering if it was the time of which the BBC was the people who would be controlling the fader were people who were maybe more used to using commercial type like ways of listening to audio and that it was the opposite way around but I guess if it was specifically the BBC

that wouldn't necessarily make sense. It is partly about protecting the expensive equipment. Huh. If you go back row into what you were thinking of earlier of something that might happen in a studio maybe. Knocking over a mug of tea into the fader.

The BBC training materials did mention health and safety. Oh, because the BBC Camry studios they deliberately put the cup holders underneath. They're in a separate space for that reason. Look who went on the tour. In my career, I have lost count of the number of mugs of tea that I have cleaned out of the desk. In this case, this isn't the answer that we're looking for,

but it is studio accidents category. Is it falling on it and accidentally hitting that one particular fader up? Yeah. You're nodding? In short, yes. It was designed in this way. So then that any accidents would reduce the sound levels to zero. Huh.

You can tell the accident prone person. Oh yeah, because I'm 100% grace here. Some decades ago, the BBC's old TV studios deliberately reversed their mixer faders. So they're pushing them upward, reduce the volume. The idea was that if an engineer slipped, fainted, sat on the desk, or accidentally caught a sleeve on the controls, the volume would be lowered. And this was a fail-safe design

to help prevent feedback, blown speakers, and accidental on air noise. The practice died out as studio layouts improved, and also 1970s-style shirt, cuffs, became a thing of the past. So I've heard this several times from people that have been in the industry ages. People getting their sleeves caught on a fader

was very common because people used to turn up to work wearing shirts, and you can catch it under a fader very easily. These days, you don't really get that. Because everything's compressed to the same volume anyway. Yeah. Thank you to Marcel for this question. In the 1990s, a Polish advertising agency decided to set up a yacht charter company

and shoot an ad about boats for the brand Boles. Why? I'll say that again. In the 1990s, a Polish advertising agency decided to set up a yacht charter company and shoot an ad about boats for the brand Boles. Why? Boles is in the Dutch drink company. Yeah, I thought spirits as bowls.

BOLS. Yes. Like, the reason I would set up a yacht charter company rather than charter a yacht from a yacht charging company would be tax fraud, I think. So, was this tax fraud? Lateral, the answer is tax fraud. Oh, that's going to be out of context. Never mind.

As someone who has watched the terrible reality show below deck, I do know that on chartered yachts. It's almost required that you drink alcohol. And so it's clearly not the case that it's like, oh, you know, for safety, they don't allow to have alcohol on yachts. They had to do their own charter thing. I'm like, no, I think that's kind of their whole deal is that they get drunk. And that's kind of what you do on a yacht.

but is it something to do with like having only that type of alcohol, if it is an alcohol company within the yacht in order to be able to do advertising on it, maybe? Because setting up your own chartered yacht company is either tax fraud, as Matt says, or it's just very, very poor financial planning. Or if not tax fraud, then like bankruptcy fraud and stuff like that. Like you just bankrupt the company and just don't have to pay for hiring the yacht is... Thanks for that tax advice. Matt, I will move you away from tax advice.

I mean, I don't know this much about high value fraud. Your honour. You've twigged alcohol very early. Good knowledge kit that Bolls is an alcohol company. It is not to do with fraud. Certainly, you're along the lines on technicalities and regulations. Licensing. Oh no, but alcohol licensing is normally about selling it and they're not selling, well, they're selling it because it's an advert, but they're not directly selling it in the advert, are they? It's, I mean,

so Bowles is a Dutch company, so although it's a Polish advertising company, so they might not be filming off the coast of the Netherlands. International waters? That was what I was wondering, because you have, it's like those booze cruises off to France from the UK, isn't it,

where you go off and you, but you can't bring any of the alcohol back, you have to drink it first. This makes it sound like I drink a lot more than I. Again, certainly the right area. Certain restrictions in certain countries, yes, but you don't need international waters for this one. If you're chartering a yacht rather than just it being a company where you have, it's to do with going somewhere specific, is it the destination that's useful or important? Oh no. This is very much about the journey and not the destination. What might have been restricted

in Poland? A percentage of alcohol. Alcohol that's not vodka? Because I know Sweden's got booze shops where you can get like beer and low volume wine in supermarkets, but anything stronger has to be very licensed.

Is it similar in Poland? I don't know about sales, but something about alcohol certainly was. Storage of quantity? Remember, this is an advertising agency. Is it the advert where you can't advertise alcohol, in the way that you can't advertise cigarettes in the UK,

it kind of is a thing that you're not allowed to advertise alcohol. So in order to shoot the commercial, they had to be not in that country anymore. Okay, very close. Did they make an advert for a yacht charter company that just happened to be full of bowls stuff? And actually, the yacht charter company's entire purpose was to make an ad for bowls subliminally.

Okay, yes, you are so close, Matt. That's basically what happened. They set up a yacht charter company, so they had something to genuinely advertise, and they are genuinely advertising these boats. This is Poland. I don't expect anyone here to speak Polish, but could you take a guess at what they might have been doing there?

Were they recording something and dutch over the top? Something about the Polish language. Is it that the word for boat is the word, or the word for yacht is ball? Like there's some connection where it's like the same word that means that they can say phrases and they can do it. and it ends up basically saying, buy our alcohol. Kip, you said vodka specifically earlier.

And you're right, that is also the Polish word for vodka. The Polish word for boat is vodka. Oh. So what might this have sounded like? Buy our vodka rather than buy our boat. Yes. Have a lovely evening with our vodka rather than have a lovely evening with our boats. Yes.

That was basically what they did. They advertised the boat. They advertised the hell out of these boats. They said many good things about the boats that they were providing. And every single time, it sounded very, very close to vodka. It's like Santanderer using Anton Deck. Yes. But worse.

Or better? Better. Definitely better. Hey, y'all's Kelly Clarkson with Wayfair. Ever order furniture online and wonder what if? Like, what if it doesn't hold up? That sofa was four days old. You should have ordered from Wayfair. With Wayfair, there's no what if.

Just style you love and quality you can trust. Visit wayfair.ca. Wayfair, every style, every home. Kip, we will get your question, please. So this question has been sent in by Lindsay Castle. In 1841, an American named John G. Rand made painting more vegan, which helped to spark the Impressionist Art Movement. What did he invent, and how did it change art forever?

I'll read that one more time. In 1841, an American named John G. Rand made painting more vegan, which helped to spark the Impressionist art movement. What did he invent and how did it change art forever? Okay, so things that could be non-vegan that is art is paint brushes in terms of like animal hair used, where I guess depending how strict the vegan is in terms of like animal products of like horse hair brushes. Also paints because I know that like I don't have any idea.

Okay, this is a word that I've never heard said out loud, only written down. But is it like cockanil or cochineal? Cochernil. It's a red coloring, yeah. Yeah, like that was Beatles, right? Like, so I'm wondering, I feel like those are two really obvious ones. I don't think there's any other like art supplies we can think of that might be non-vegan to begin with. And I was wondering about you can get a lot of thickeners made from animal products as well.

So if it's, or like oil paints, did the oil actually come from oil of snake or whatever? I'm imagining which is making paint now. A snake oil is the phrase I'm looking for, isn't it? So yes, that would be what the vegan paint stuff is called. That would be the snake oil. I did once see someone actually selling snake oil. It was at crafts market in, I think somewhere in Australia. They were just all, you know, it's all those little independent stalls set up.

And I swear one of them was selling like oil from snakes as some sort of beauty treatment entirely unironically. And I just didn't want to approach in case it was like a prank for a TV show, because it just did not seem real. Does sound Australian though. It does, yes. The other thing I can think of is canvases, because they can paint on canvas linen, wooden boards, but they generally get coated or covered. So like you'll get a canvas that's covered in white goo as a painting base. I mean, there's still vellum used in some places for canvases, which I think, I'm pretty sure as an animal product,

but it's not like that's a, like you, the fabric is canvas. It's called canvas because it is canvas. I think if that's wrong, that's going to be really embarrassing. So the other thing I'm thinking of is it mentions impressionism here. Yeah. The impressionist paintings I can think of are more on the smeary end of paintings rather than the detailed end. The last time you were on, Matt, we had an art historian on the panel. It's a shame she couldn't make it for this one because on the smeary end is just such a wonderful phrase.

I was thinking that as well. Oh, come on, you're not going to look at any Monet or Turner and go, yeah, there's some definition in that. you're going no i can see the cataracts in those lilies oh good deep cut on monae there as indeed was his cataract operation i don't know if this is relevant but as someone who also doesn't know about art history but as well as smeary

i feel like a lot of the impressionist paintings i can think of are very um on location shall we say like they're outside or they're someone's traveled somewhere like even the ones that are of people are like of ballerinas at the ballet or like stuff like that and I'm wondering if it's something to do with like

the portability of something or the if that makes sense like something like there's a there's a reason why that made it easier to do where you were able to go somewhere and make something like fast enough like it dried fast enough or it was portable

enough to be able to go out and do these kind of quick paintings of the landscape that wasn't so detailed, it was more impressionistic, and then be able to return, rather than going somewhere, setting it up and then having to do that sort of, like, posing for a portrait for a million hours, kind of energy.

Yeah, you no longer need your live cow with you for the beef gelatin. That's so, that's it. We've cracked it, we've cracked it. Are we on the right line ticket? I would say the outside section, it's a little bit like the question earlier. It's a backward solving.

Someone figured out vegan sunblock And all the artists were okay Spending Time Outside now Leather Would you wrap your tools up in leather Or What do you mean by tools? Like brushes and pots and

But in 1841 there wasn't like a big Vegan movement Like there was some religious vegans There were a few practicing vegans For ethical reasons But it's not like it was anything Even close to mainstream Like most of the painters

Would not have cared if something was vegan or not. Unless it's by being vegan, that makes it more disposable so you can have more of them or could ruin them. Or cheaper or better or, yeah. So like if you brushes,

you have to kill a horse every time you want to paint something. Sorry, you don't kill a horse for its hair. Or it made it much cheaper. Like painters used to reuse canvases all the time, right? You can use an X-rays and famous paintings and find other versions and other things. They would scrape off and paint them.

You've talked a lot about the different types of tools and the canvas, but what's the most important thing? Your eyes. Having something to paint. Having a subject. An easel. Eyes. Paint.

Yeah. So it's vegan paint. The paint is not vegan. It's what you're carrying the paint around in. Yeah. Was it like, okay, okay. Oh, oh, as someone who has bought paints, has ADHD, has decided to be a painter for approximately a week and then has forgotten about it.

has come back seven years later to unusable paints. Is it some way of store, but I guess, well, I guess maybe that, okay, I'll just say this because I guess what I'm realizing is that I don't know how paint used to be stored. But is there like a storage that it used to be stored in something that would have to be, like airtight or, or, yeah, like organs. They, oh, I feel like they're always making like balls out of organs and bladders and hearts and lungs and stuff. So is it, was it in an intelligent.

intestinal tube. Yeah, was it always, yes. Was it in like sausage meat intestines or something? And then they... No, but that's, if you need a tube to squeeze paint out of, what are you going to use before 1841? You're going to use an intestine. You're going to use a sausage casing. Did they invent artificial tubes for paint? Yes, because the sausage casing will go off. And then you'll have smelly sausage and smelly paint. Well, and it would go rancid. It'd probably make it look different as well. Well, it wouldn't necessarily. necessarily because if you think about like organs were used a lot of the time as like ways of storing like liquids of some kind like because they were watertight in many ways

and that they could be dried out or anything like that. So was it that Tom's absolutely right. It was nothing to do with needing to be vegan. It was actually the problem they were solving was something different in terms of it lasting long enough in order to like store the paints for a long time that you could take them back out with you. And then you could and it just happened to be vegan. Yeah. So I think. Matt slightly earlier said about paint tins, which was the answer, but not in the way that he was saying. So in 1841, John Rand patented the collapsible metal paint tube. Before this, artist stored mixed paints and fragile pig bladders, which were pierced to dispense color and then

quickly dried out when they were exposed to air. Pig bladders! Delightful, isn't it? Rands tin tube, the ancestor of today's aluminium and plastic versions, allowed paint to stay fresh, resellable and ready to use. This made it easy. easier to paint on plein air, apologies to my French family, outdoors, helping fuel the rise of impressionism. Artists could now carry a full palette into fields and streets. Renoir's son later said,

without paints in tubes, there would be no Cézanne, no Monet, no Cicely or Pissarro. One final thing then, which is this question sent in by Annette Lee. Thank you, Annette. Why did Amy knit some slippers that were twice the size of her feet? Any quick guesses from the panel before I give this to the audience?

Is it that they wanted the shoes to be extremely like solid and that they could, they only had huge knitting needles. And so there was loads of space between the knits and then they would shrink them in the wash. So when it was shrunk, it would be tight and perfect. Yes. Yes, it is wrong. Absolutely right. Some knitted slippers. I'll take, go ahead.

I have very recently shrunk. a woolen thing in the wash, and that's how I know. Deliberately or accidentally? Accidentally, Tom. Yes, some knitted slippers are designed to be felted or fooled after construction, so you make an oversized loose pair using wool yarn, you run them through hot cycles in the washing machine, the wool fibres mat together, and the slippers come out at the right size. Thank you to our players, what's going on your lives, where can people find you?

we will start with Matt. Go watch my YouTube videos. Type in Matt Gray is trying into YouTube and you will find me having a go at people's weird and wonderful jobs. Rowan. If you don't put Rowan Ellis into the internet, I guess, you can find me on YouTube,

especially as where I do my video essays. You can find me over there. And Kip. You can find me on most social media channels as Kip Heath and occasionally around London on Comedy Nights. And if you want to know more about this show, you can do that at last.

Lateralcast.com. We can also send in your own ideas for questions. We are at Lateralcast, basically, everywhere, and there are full video episodes on Spotify. Thank you very much to Kip Heath. Thank you. Roan Ellis. Thank you very much. Matt Gray. You are very welcome. I've been Tom Scott, and that's been lateral. Hey, y'all, it's Kelly Clarkson with Wayfair. Ever order furniture online and wonder what if? Like, what if it doesn't hold up? That sofa was four days old. You should have ordered from Wayfair. With Wayfair, there's no what if. Just style you love and quality you can trust. Visit Wayfair. Wayfair, every style, every home.