Lateral with Tom Scott - 207: The gift of wire

Episode Date: September 25, 2026

Lizzy Skrzypiec, Mark Cooper-Jones and Jay Foreman face questions about telltale tunes, tricky trespass and teetering towers. 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: Maz, Al-Yessa, Jan F., Ólafur Waage, Michael Jansen, Dennis Wood, Pratyush. 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

How might the band's Alkaline Trio and Good Charlotte help you with a science exam? The answer to that at the end of the show. My name's Tom Scott, and this is Lateral. Welcome to Lateral. It's a very simple quiz. Our three contestants will receive a question. They may answer that question immediately, or pass it to another contestant who may either answer, challenge, defer, bank, rotate,

or exchange it for a secondary question of equal complexity. A correct answer scores one point. If they're wrong, we enter, the reconsideration! phase, during which the other contestants may attempt to speculative override. At the end of each round, contestants can use the strategic reflection window to nominate another contestant to face the clarification challenge unless that contestant has already used their optional guest token, which of course changes everything. All of this culminates in the final round, known simply as answer the ruddy question. And if that's confusing, don't worry. We have a quiz expert in the room

in the form of TV producer and improviser, Lizzie Skippy Eck. Welcome back to Lateral. Thanks for having me. Thanks for letting me back in the lateral fun. I promise to follow some of the rules. Thank you for the enthusiasm as I haught. There were a lot of long words in that intro that I'll be honest, I hadn't really rehearsed. I liked the one that went speculative override,

and I'm going to say that at various points today. As we record this, Murder She Didn't Write, is just back from being on tour? Yes, we've just toured, well we've just been to the Adelaide Fringe and we're back and now we're on tour in the UK so come and see a murder she didn't write show sometime come and self a crime with us

well good luck on the show today you are joined by two other returning players who are quite familiar to both each other and the world I think please welcome the Map Men we will start with Mark Cooper Jones welcome back to Lateral oh thank you very much yes was that a subtle dig at the fact that I just had to go

to reunion because I lost a geography game against Jay and that's how I become familiar with. It was not that at all, although we're recording this well in advance, so you may already have lost the third game of Geogessor against Jay by now. Oh, come on. No chance. I mean, statistically, he surely has. Is there a rivalry being set up between the two of you here, Mark?

How much plot is being generated by an audience who would like to see revenge? The thing is I don't think Jay feels like, I don't think he gets hit up about it at all so I think the rivalry is purely one way and I keep losing, which is even more galling. I don't think you sort of feel pride in the same way. It's a one way rivalry like the one between Lancashire and Yorkshire. One feels it very strongly, the other one doesn't know. And England and Germany in the football, apparently. Yeah, exactly.

And even now, I feel like, you know, I've got the one measly map behind me. I mean, it is framed. And then Jay has just absolutely paid. the wall with maps just to be the bigger Matman. Which means I should introduce the other Mapman. Jay Foreman, welcome back to Lateral. Hello there, thank you very much for having me. And by the way, I love the sound of that game show.

I get the feeling that you actually have pitched that before. You should explain, I mean, not just Matman, but also explain why we were just talking about going to reunion there. So Mark and I, in the last video we did on our series, Mat Men, had a Geo-Gessor challenge, where the loser of Geo-Gessor had to travel in real life to the place that they guessed the further. from because they obviously need to educate themselves about that part of the world.

And Mark, for, oh, let's see, a third consecutive time lost a game and had to go all the way to the island of reunion in the Indian Ocean. And I lost my game and had to go all the way to Manchester. Some people think that what I did was cheating. I say I didn't. So you'd have to watch the video to understand really any of that. Really any of that. And I'd recommend you do that after finishing this episode of Lateral. Let's begin the same way that all quiz show is. do with question one. Thank you to Michael Jansen for this question.

About 20 different people wearing the same coloured shirt walk over a green carpet for 10 minutes while gesturing and pointing at things. Why? And one more time, about 20 different people wearing the same coloured shirt, walk over a green carpet for 10 minutes while gesturing and pointing at things.

Why? So my first thought was that this was one of those things like the big art attack, where you look at it from above and all the people are moving in sync it makes a photo. But then when you said about 20 people, that would be a very, very low resolution photo, so it can't be that. Is there a camera on them? Might be a fair question then. Well, I mean, anything these days, if it happens and there's no camera on it, did it happen

at all and was it worth happening? Because my first thought was the greenness of the carpet potentially being relevant and that being the colour that you key out and something that you and I have been doing all day, Jay. I think the fact that you and I have both spent the most of this morning working on our latest video. We're just thinking in terms of just after effects. If it's green, it must be being cut out. I think my thoughts was, A, is grass a carpet? Is it Bulls?

B, is it competitive estate agents? Those are my two trains of thoughts. The Bulls thing is great, though. That's a great thought, because they wear the same shirt and they're often just pointing at the balls, aren't they? Pointing... Right. And grass is a carpet for the outside.

I am going to ask a little bit more about competitive estate agents. Oh, so it may well be to do with competitive estate agents. Oh, good luck. Oh, no, Lizzie's an improviser. I just want to keep going on competitive estate agents here. So I assumed it was... They had like a grotesque house. They were like horrible green carpet.

One of those, is it a lime bathroom? and stuff, and they've just got to go around and be like, but it's coming back into fashion now, and they have to persuade people to buy a horrible house. So these are estate agents, there's estate agency where they all have to wear the same coloured shirt, and it's like butlins or something. The Bunn's Estate Agency where they have a state agent uniform.

Actually, I have a question about that. When you said they're all wearing the same coloured shirt, is there one very, very large tent-sized shirt that they're all wearing? Or do you mean they've got one each? They all have one each. And Lizzie, yes, competitive estate agency is a bit ridiculous, but competition is right. And while it's not grass, it certainly resembles grass.

So I have a thought is, could it be that these 20 people are all competing with each other and one will emerge victorious, or are they a team of 20 against other similar teams? Or is it two teams of 10? Is that what you were saying? Or three teams of three and a half each? Yeah.

Why would you point a carpet? Did they do anything other than walk over a green carpet and gesture and point of things? I mean, is there a part that's being missed out? They will do. They will do. But the first act is we are going to gesture and point a thing. So that means probably not a game with balls. I don't know.

I think if I was a big cheese in charge of a modelling agency and I wanted a photo of a model pointing to something, I'd want to make sure I found exactly the right person to do it and I'd want to see how they point. So I'd audition 20 people. I'd make sure that all 20 of them were wearing the same t-shirts so that I know how it looks in the final version, and they all point, and then I pick my favourite by pointing at them.

Is that anything to do with this question? Here's the thing. I'm trying to find any sort of connection between that and the actual answer. Unfortunately, not in the spirit of improv. I have to say no. But... No, and... Audition is...

Not right, but it is a thing that happens before the main event. Oh, so they auditioned for this? Auditioned is the wrong word. Are these 20 people pointing at an object? Is this the performance? And do people get to watch these 20 people? Are they on a stage, I wonder? No, they're on carpet.

You can have a carpet on a stage. There will be an audience for this, but I wouldn't call it like a theatrical production. Is the audience watching at home or on a stream? Both. Both. Both at home and live. In the arena, might be too strong a term, but... Is it an indoor thing? I assume it's a carpet, it will be indoors. Yes, it is.

I assume that it takes place in somebody's house, because it's definitely not an arena. Much bigger than that, and you will have heard of this event. I don't... Oh. Folks outside the UK will have heard of events like it, certainly. Are there things other than people there? Definitely. There are definitely things other than people there now, and there will be more shortly. I was going down a Crofts route. You were going down the Crofts route. Keep talking, Mark.

Okay, so we've got a big, we've got a large indoor arena, and you've got various obstacles, and the people are pointing them out to their dogs, going, this is what you need to go through. This is what you need to go over. So it's like a little simulation run. It is, and it is a simulation run without the dogs who are not allowed to practice. Ah. That is spot on. Oh, that's great.

I mean, that's going to be very disappointing to watch because I don't think it's a controversial thing to say that the dogs are the best bit of crofts. Yes, yeah, that's fair. They don't really give out awards to the trainers all that much. I like the rounding crofts where the dogs have to sell terrible houses to different customers

by advertising their lime green bathrooms. That's The Apprentice, very different show. Oh, yes. So these are dog agility competitions, and this is one part of Crofts the Dog Show. They require handlers to guide their dogs through a sequence of obstacles, such as jumps, tunnels, and seesaws.

The handlers are allowed a short course walk without their dogs, and they will jog or walk through the course while pointing and gesturing to mark where they will give commands or change direction. So if you are not familiar with dog agility and you look in, you will just see dozens of people moving around an empty course pointing at very little.

As ever, each of our guests has brought a question with them. We will start with Mark. This question has been sent in by Jan F. In Marta El Pino, Spain, a three-meter-wide polystyrene sphere weighing 250 kilos is seen in public each year. Which famous charity approved of this event and what clever title is it often given in English? And while you're thinking, I will say it again, in Marta Alpino, Spain a three metre wide polystyrene sphere weighing 250 kilos is seen in public each year.

Which famous charity approved of this event and what clever title is it often given in English? So, great big sphere made of polystyrene. My first thought is it looks like a great big snowball. but then my second thought is Spain. So that's not it. Also, that seems surprisingly heavy for polisdireen. I was thinking that, but volume calculations have a cubed symbol in there. That gets big very quickly.

Have you ever seen the footage of the ball stunt at the Indiana Jones Stunt show going wrong? Yes. The Disney Indiana Jones Stunt Show has a sequence where Indiana Jones runs down a ramp with the ball following him. Yeah, I saw this. Yep. And the ball unfortunately broke free of the round. and is bouncing across the stage towards the audience. And to be fair, this man is a hero.

One of the staff goes to stop the ball. However, that ball is significantly heavier than he is and does not look it. And I'm told he was fine, but he does get absolutely flattened by the thing. Even polystyrene, even something that's meant to be lightweight at three metres wide is going to be heavy. I think he did break...

I think he did at least break something. I think he was in hospital, that guy, actually. Fine as in, he's alive, but it wasn't great. Just to put a few things out there, first thing I thought, things that are round. One, the globe, maybe it was a picture of the globe or, you know, is Earth. Or two, tomatoes. Is it a big tomato for the Big Tomato Festival? And everyone's like, a lovely tomato.

My first reference was to The Prisoner, the old TV series, with the big white globes bouncing around Port Marion. But it seems odd for a 19, I think, 70s TV series from the UK. to be referenced in Spain these days. That feels a bit obscure even for me. And I think probably it's fair to say that this particular event, it is a modern invention. Okay.

When you say modern, do you mean within the last 200 years or within the last two minutes? I do mean between the two. Thank you. So let's see. What's a modern invention that's big and round?

Unless, is the invention the thing that it's representing? Or is the invention the thing that made it. Because these days, most modern inventions are sort of oblong. When was the last time they invented a new round thing? Well, okay, I think maybe the word invention, we're putting a bit much stress on there.

It's a modern thing that's happening. I don't think you need to worry too much about any technology. I'm trying to think of modern round inventions now, though, Joe. You've completely sniped me with that. Zorbs. Zorbs. The answer is Zorbs. Thanks.

Thanks. Zorbs. The answer's sobs. I think they've been still the 80s. One point for Zorbs. Yeah, bonus point for Zorbs, but only out of generosity. I've only just realised that this could be a painted ball. I just assume when he said polystyrene, big white three metre ball. But yeah, someone said Globe?

Like this could be painted to be. Yeah, Lizzie suggested Globe and Tomato, both lovely. I don't think that either of those things are painted on it, and I don't know of anything being painted on it. Similarly, does this take place in an outdoor area or an indoor area such as the arena in Birmingham where they do crofts? Good crofts knowledge, Jay. Is it in Birmingham? That was just a guess. The NEC feels like a craft sort of place. I think you're probably right back on the crafts. But on this, it's outdoor.

Outdoor, okay. So this event happens in the streets. and you were, you have sort of already been onto it. Very early doors. Very, very early doors. You were on totally the right lines. Oh, okay. Speculative interjection. Is it to do with the snow theme from earlier?

Is it the giant snowy? No, it's not that. But I think one thing that is really important to this is the location, the country that this happens in, is absolutely no coincidence that this giant ball that I think it's about to say moves happens in Spain. Oh!

If it's not a tomato, is it an orange? No. I just really wanted to say orange really slowly. Tom, you look like you're onto something. Are there people involved with this as well, Mark? Because if there are, I think I might have just twigged what the pun is in English.

There are people involved. Yeah, I think you may have the pun. And I wonder if anyone can. get the charity. But yeah, go on then, Tom. Let's start with that. Oh, I can't get the charity. No, we'll start with the pun. Well, the pun, I assume that this is rolling down a street towards people, and it is therefore the running of the balls. You are correct. Very good. It is a mock version of the running of the Bulls held in Marta Alpino, not Pamplona, and why might you, therefore, why might a charity be interested in doing this? What sort of charity might want to do it?

Don't be an animal one. Is it a charity such as Peter? Peter is correct, Jay. We were both right. Is it Petter or Peter? That depends. On which is right. I pronounce it, however the last person I spoke to,

pronounced it first. Yeah, fair enough. They both sound wrong. Let's call it Peter. So it's a animal-friendly version of running of the ball called Running of the Ball in Spain. Correct, yes. And it started in 2010.

so it's a cheaper and more humane version and a massive polystyrene foam ball rolls down the streets as locals try to dodge it and it says here in my notes Tom, as if they're Indiana Jones. Hey! There you were right there at the beginning. And it can still inflict injuries to the unwary.

I mean, you know, as you'd imagine it is 250 kilos and it is often called the running of the balls in the English-speaking press set up by Petter, the charity that campaigns against animal cruelty. Who now labelled it their new favourite festival. Thank you to Dennis Wood for this question.

Why did Admiral Grace Hopper give President Reagan a piece of wire that was 29.9 centimetres, 11.8 inches, long? I'll say that again. Why did Admiral Grace Hopper give President Reagan a piece of wire that was 29.9 centimeters, 11.8 inches long? A store-bought piece of wire or a wire that's been plucked out the back of a TV or some such? A very specific length at 29.9. Did you say it was given to George Washington? President Reagan. Oh, sorry, President Reagan.

Much, much later. Much more recent, yeah. I'm with you. Because they didn't invent 29.9 centimetre wires until after Reagan became president. So it's just short of a 30-centimeter ruler. It's just short of a foot. He's an admiral, so one presumes that might be relevant,

that it's got some sort of naval relevance. I'm trying to think what happened in Reagan's era that was naval, and I'm coming. coming up extremely short. And I don't know. Why, a fuse? Is it at the length that something missed something by? Something, I don't know.

I'm literally spouting things here. Well, let's think. Why would you give something to a president? Presidents often like to receive gifts or presidents like to receive something that they can use for something? Yes. Yeah. It is a gift.

I think that would be the right way to say it. Yes. I'm going to assume that because it's a wire, it's a gift because it's the very wire that such and such and such. It's a very specific wire that did a specific job, is what I'm thinking. It's perfect necklace length. Yes. If you were doing, if you're going to fashion it into a nice necklace.

But I tend not to wear wire as necklaces. Wire. Yeah, nor did Regan famously. I would focus more on the length than the president. Although I will say this wouldn't have made sense to give to Washington. Washington wouldn't have understood what was going on here. Yeah, yeah. And if I tell you that Admiral Grace Hopper was a pioneer in computer science,

that may help direct you a little. So it's a wire that's been ripped out at the back of a computer. 29. What do we know about that number? It's the frame rate for American television. If centimetres were frames and then you add a 0.97, it's, I'm barking up the wrong, that's not the right thing. 29.9 centimetres is just short of a foot. It is.

Yes. It is. Is it something that's used on a ship, therefore? Is it the naval thing relevant? I would say it's more of an engineering thing. Okay. Was Admiral Hopper involved in a sort of invention, a sort of...

Did he have a particular connection to this wire? She. Admiral Grace Hopper is she. She was one of the first... Absolutely lampooned there. You set me up and I've taken the bait and I've been absolutely publicly smashed and humiliated.

Come on, was nobody going to... Did you say Grace at the beginning? I did say Grace at the beginning. Oh, Christ, I wasn't even lampooned. I heard it and I still presumed. Twice it was read out. And the admiral said, but it's my son.

How can this be? Would she call Grace? Must be a man. It's an admiral. To be fair, this is the Reagan era. It was unusual to have women in the military then. And so is that of relevance? No, not even slightly.

Okay. Let's think, what do admirals do? They walk around, holding bits of wire, giving into presidents. They tell... Giving them to a lot of people, actually. That's a good question, is, was President Reagan the only person to receive this 29 centimetre piece of wire? Absolutely not. She gave out wires like this to other people, including students.

Oh. Interesting. Did the wire contain... information so that if you wrap it up into a teeny tiny ball and zip it past a tapehead. No, I'm barking up the wrong technology again. I'm not sure you are, Jay. I don't think it contains information, but it is information in itself. It illustrates something. It's about the length as that bit of wire in your credit card, in it?

Is that, if you've seen that, where people dissolve their credit cards and then they're left with a bit of wire? Oh, and then put it into like a magic wand or a sonic screwdriver or something like this. I thought you were there, Lizzie, when you're like, it's about the length that. Okay. That bit, great. It's about the length that.

It's about the length of. About the length of a mouse. And it's it an electricity wire? Mark, electricity wire. Yeah, that's very important. Yeah, it's not just a bit of garden wire for trellising. This is, yeah, we're talking electrics. Mm-hmm.

And it's that specific length. It conduct electricity. Mm-hmm. It was given out to many people, including students and presidents, Yes. And Admiral Grace Hopper worked in computer science, electronics, anything electrical. What is it about the length of? Is it like a T, yeah, I guess it's TV aerial, mouse link. All of these things have something in common. Honestly, for this call as well as we record this episode. Some sort of coil, is it a coil? No. It's a piece of wire that is essential for a piece of wire that is essential for a

of technology to work that you would know about if you were both an admiral and interested in computer technology and a president. She is teaching here. Admiral Grace Hopper gave lectures. This is a visual aid. This is more about information, not practical uses. Is she saying, this is all you need in order to something, something that you might think is more complicated, and a simple piece of wire will do something impressive? We're all dealing with something as we record this, because we're all recording remotely. And occasionally it gets edited out, but there has been a couple of stutters

if we've been talking over each other. So it's about delay? It is. We're talking about time and distance here, Mark. So it's the time it takes... So that wire has some sort of relevance to the time it takes the electrons to get down it and any longer and you've got a problem.

Yes. With the mechanism, whatever the mechanism is. Yep. 29 and a bit centimetres is the length of time it takes for a single electron... Yep. That's the end of my sentence. I think you're almost there.

A piece of wire... A piece of wire is a bit like an adverb because it starts at one end and ends at the other. I'm looking for one of two keywords here. You get either of these, I'll give it the answer. Either the speed it's measuring, or how long it takes. A second? A second.

Takes a bit less time that for an electron to go one to the other. If it's a particularly lazy electron. Or I'll just take... What speed is that electron going at? The speed of light? The speed of light. This is Grace Hopper illustrating the speed of light. By some weird coincidence,

the speed of light is one foot, more or less, per nanosecond. If you get a piece of wire, she was very precise with it, 29.9 centimetres, 11.8 inches, but very roughly, light travels one foot per nanosecond. And she became known for, I mean, many other things, like programming of the first Harvard Mark 1 computer,

lots of things like that. But her physics demonstration was this piece of wire that she is holding in front of her that you can see that is one nanosecond at the speed of light. She didn't want to do this over and over, so she just went, I'll find a piece of wire, so she didn't have this. It's a bit stronger when you can give them away as a memento.

How did Regan receive it? I mean, Regan must be like, what the hell is this? What are I supposed to do? What's a nanosecond? Oh, thank you. Thank you very much. Yeah, I'll put it in the drawer with the other. Yeah, thank you.

I feel sorry for whoever was working in the hardware store when she walked in and says, I'd like a hundred of these exactly this length, please. Dennis, who sent him the question, has one of those nanoseconds given by Admiral Hopper and it is taped to a picture of her giving a nanosecond to President Reagan? Oh, that's nice.

That's cool. Jay, let's have your question, please. This question has been sent in by Olifor Vorgay, and he says this. From 1783, the number of incidents of trespass steadily increased until 27 countries signed the Paris Convention of 1919. What caused the problem and what redefinition solved it? That question again. From 1783, the number of incidents of trespass steadily increased

until 27 countries signed the Paris Convention of 1919. What caused the problem and what redefinition solved it? Was it a redefinition of the word trespass? Maybe it was. Maybe it wasn't. Maybe it's too ready to tell. I think it might be this. It may be like, I don't know. Anyone could trespass without knowing.

So people probably doing it loads of times a day. I suppose it's fair to say that yes, trespass is the thing that got redefined because that is the only word here. The trespass was the thing that was the thing that was happening more and more, but why? Was it that traditionally, if you went round to somebody's house for lunch, you could then, if you hadn't signed a waiver, be accused of trespass afterwards,

and then they went, no, hospitality doesn't count? I'm thinking it might be a borders thing. Paris Convention sounds like a big legal agreement that all the countries are joining up to. And my first thought is that it's about borders following rivers because there are a lot of definitions where the border follows the river and then the river moves or forms an oxbow lake or something like that and maybe the Paris Convention made the borders follow the river

so people were like, oh, I'm walking through Belgium, you know, absolutely fine, not going into France, but the river has moved and, oh, you've trespassed into France, that's a terrible thing to do. So as much as it pains me to shut down, a conversation about Oxbow Lakes. It is nothing to do with rivers. Okay.

But is it to do with borders? It is to do with borders, yes. International ones? Not necessarily international ones. Oh, okay. Interesting. But it is like a global, like it sounds like a global agreement

like Tom picked up on that actually the Paris Convention. I assume we're not talking about, yeah, that's sort of just a French issue. We're talking about an issue that people have come together on. I mean, my first thought was, I wonder if it has anything to do with animals. We're going back to Croft here, but I wonder if it had anything to do with animals,

because I wonder if people's livestock or something were straying, and possibly that could be across international borders or just in the conventional sort of neighborly way. And then they had to go, there were so many cases of increasing, you know, increasing animal husbandry and stocks or something like that, causing more and more disputes. And they had to go, animals don't count. They have to be allowed to graze or something like that. Well, if that were the case, you'd have to ask why from 1783 did that suddenly become an issue, which is my way of saying, no, not cows. Okay, so 1783.

Focus less on the word border and more on the word boundary. That might help a little bit. Okay. Keeps it more domestic. Oh, so was this to do with farming? Like, is this to do with like, this is when farming took off, isn't it? Like in a big way? Like in an industrial sense.

Isn't this the start of the, when we started putting machines in fields? It's nothing to do with that? Is it to do with America? No. As far as I know, this could have taken place either in or out of America. It's nothing to do with America. But it's not to do with the new world and, okay, fine. All right.

What angles have we got to attack this, folks? We've got instance of trespass. We've got 27 countries signing it, and we know it's not international borders. So how else can you trespass? I will throw you in a clue, which is that no one was intending to break the law. Yeah, so it's like their journey to work or something. Or like they're going somewhere. Lizzie, you're on the right lines with travel.

Think about ways of travelling that might make you have to change the law. Canals? Was it canals? We're big on can I feel like we're talking about Europe. We're talking about the olden days. That leads me to canals. Is it canals? That's all I've got.

It's not canals. I feel like canals. Canals hasn't been. met with the reaction you were hoping for, Lizzie. But if you say canals a couple more times... Wait, wait, let me check. Is it canals? It's not canals. It's still not canals, okay. Going to go for a high-speed, exciting canal question now.

Four knots maximum, don't let you wash, disturb the water voles. Keep thinking of modes of transport and travel. Horse and cart. There's horse and cart. There's good old-fashioned foot. Virgin Airways. Just specifically, though. Are there, when do the railroad start? Well, British Railway is about 200 years old now, so it's later than 1783. Later than that, yeah.

The thing is, looking at Jay, there's absolutely not a flinch or a flicker on anything you say. Positive or negative. It's just the same, exact same, like quite unshaven for you, just colouring the picture here for the listeners, more of a Jake Gillenhol look than ever, I would say. Is it bicycle? It's not bicycle, but. keep going with the different modes of transport and think about the 18th century. Aqueducts. It's a mode of transport you very rarely see nowadays.

I think you probably would have very rarely seen it then. But, you know, it's not one. It is not a mode of transport that took off, shall we say. Is that a pun because I was about to say Zeppelin? Maybe it is. Or hot air balloons. Yes, hot air balloons. Lizzie, how would hot air balloons have changed what trespass means?

It's the breeze. If you get a hell of a breeze and your drift-o, So it's to do with airspace. I guess there must have just included airspace because if a big wind gets you, you trespass him. Absolutely right. That's the Paris Convention. It's the airspace one.

The airspace, so this is what happened. From the 1780s onwards, people travelling in hot air balloons were quite accidentally going over private land because for centuries there was a legal principle known by the Latin phrase, cuis et solom eos, et sussi, It's usky ad coolum et ad infros.

I've never heard anyone read Latin in an old English accent before. He's a linguist, Tom, and you can tell. The law held that a landowner's rights extended from the heavens to the depths. In practice, this meant that anything passing through the air above someone's property could technically count as a trespass. The principle became awkward after the first successful hot air balloon flights by the Mongofier brothers in 1783,

as ballooning and later aviation developed aircraft routinely passed over private land. By the early 20th century, it was clear that the traditional rule was incompatible with flight and agreements such as the 1919 Paris Convention established who owns what over airspace, while allowing aircraft to pass overhead without constituting trespass or indeed trespass. Yeah, that are moles. You've got watch out for going underground as well. But yeah. Oh yeah. Thank you to Pratius for sending in this question. In 1631, Shah Jahan commissioned the Taj Mahal as a tomb. The structure of all four tall minarets surrounding the central building

are not built perfectly. What is the fault and why was it done? I'll give you that again. In 1631, Shah Jahan commissioned the Taj Mahal as a tomb. The structure of all four tall minarets surrounding the central building are not built perfectly. What is the fault and why was it done? They are hollow so that it's cheaper. So perfect for you is anything that's not hollow. If it's got a cavity, it cannot be considered any form of perfection. Is that right? This is an imperfect Easter egg.

Two of them are in use and their smoke billowing out of them and two of them are just for show. Okay, so is it imperfect in terms of shape? Was the word structure, imperfect structures? Yeah. Okay, I got a thought, back in the older days when they made stuff, they tend to go for, like, beauty. So is it to do with, like, it looks more beautiful from a,

certain angle if they're like a bit mismatched and they're like, oh, but screw perspective. Doesn't it look lovely if we're stand over here? Is it to do with... That's a great thought. The idea that symmetry is actually not the aim as well. Like there's almost a beauty, you know, like the idea of a beauty spot, an asymmetry to it or something. I don't know. It feels so right, but look at Tom's face. It's not. No, he ain't happy about that. No, but if it was right, he wouldn't, you know, there's no way he's giving it away at this point. He's going to let us go all the way over there. Then he could, then he'll And then later we'll go, you had a good, you had it really good earlier actually, guys.

The perspective thing is actually true. I wouldn't really call that a fault as much as this is. Is it like that building near Old Street in London where if you look at it from the ground, it looks like a perfectly normal, very, very tall building sloping away from you? But if you look at it from far away, it's sloping artificially to make it look taller from the ground. That sort of thing? Also, do you know the building I'm talking about? It's horrible, isn't it?

Yeah, I know the one. It's weird, but I think it's not perspective. I think we're being steered away from perspective. We're not looking for a perspective trick. Is there a slit down the back so that it can breathe? A crack of the back so it can breathe. Yeah. Well, you know, things get bigger and smaller in the heat.

So maybe in order to keep it more structurally sound, there's like a seam down the back where no one's looking. A back crack. That's right. Yeah, a back crack. Back crack. A back crack for the Taj Mahal. For moisture.

Yeah. For the damp. I feel like somehow we're being sacrilegious with the phrase the Taj Mahal's damp back crack, but never mind. But you're about to say we're right on the moon. It is for a practical reason. Okay, but it's not heat. You're right that it's subtle and it's hard to see.

The builders were thinking ahead. Oh, subsidence. Oh, I bet they've got, I bet it's all that. Oh, I'm too excited for belly speak. But is it because it's on the banks of a really? in it. So is it? Isn't it? So basically whether like this is going to wear down, this is going to go cave and like do this, move up and down. So maybe we need to build it a bit wrong, overcompensate.

So for when it sinks a bit, it's going to look banging in about 20 years time. Was it that? You're halfway there. More worried about earthquakes and things like that, I think. But yes, planning into the long future, they considered some scenarios that might happen. So is there a slight gap between the minarets and the remaining structure of the building? Just so there's that bit of give, if there is movement from any of these things. No, but along those lines, what do you think they might be trying to prevent here? Collapse. Full collapse. Not really.

They want to prevent it from flooding. They want to prevent it from sinking, turning inside out. Be worn away. Cracking. All of these are things that could happen to the Taj Mahal. And really with building technologies in 1631, there's not much they can do about those. But they can think a little further ahead. It's actually made of tiny Lego bricks, so that if anything happens to one brick, it can immediately be replaced.

Bear in mind, the Taj Mahal is a tomb designed to, well, eventually, house a body. But they don't know how big this body will be. They have to make it a flexible... No, absolutely not. But we'll build a tomb. We don't know who we're going to put in it yet. There'll be some lucky winner, and we don't know how big they'll be. I think it was for his wife, and then he joined her in there. It's my, I think.

If you're building a tomb to honour and protect a body, what long-term planning might you do? You need to wrap it up in toilet paper and add Worcestershire sauce to make sure that it doesn't go off in hundreds of years. Is this about preventing thieves from getting it? No, this is more structural than that, isn't it? It is structural. Like, you've got what they're protecting against.

earthquakes, other risks, anything that could cause problems to the building. So what might you do to the four very tall minarets? Lean them out slightly so that if they fall, they fall that way and they don't fall in and hurt the thing. Yes, spot on mark. The Taj Mahal was commissioned by Shah Jahan for his wife. It is surrounded by four tall marble minarets and if they are measured very carefully, you can see that each tower is built with a slight outward tilt rather than being perfectly vertical.

Architectural historians commonly explain that this was done as a precaution. If there is an earthquake, if centuries pass and the Taj Mahal begins to fall, they will fall away from the mausoleum. They will protect the dome and the body within. That's brilliant. So smart.

That implies that the leaning tower of Pisa is leaning away from a very, very important tomb just behind it. Or against their enemies. They were like, can't wait for this to fall on their house in a few years' time. Lizzie, we'll go to you, please. Okie, so this question has been sent in by Al Yasser. Every few weeks, Yasmin goes into a shop to make a purchase.

On one visit, she notices that some of the shelves have the word look-alike on them. Where is she and what are the signs for? Every few weeks, Yasmin goes into a shop to make a purchase. On one visit, she notices that some of the shelves have the word look-alike on them. Where is she and what are the signs for? Is she in a shop that sells celebrity cardboard cutouts? And they can't licence any photos of the actual celebrity, so they get a look-alike.

You have just made me think of a brilliant idea for a business. You don't need to licence. I don't think celebrities' images for those big cutouts or anything like that because the photo is owned by the photographer. And as long as you're not passing it off as endorsed by or official merchandise, I'm pretty sure they can just sell those. That's a great theory.

Now let's hear some more theories that are to do with celebrity lookalikes. Not a standard grocery store or something like that then. I've never seen an actual lookalike sticker in a shop that I know of. And you can't create a look-alike product, right? You can't start your own little soup company. Phrase it as Campbell's Soup, make the logo the same, just put look-alike in tying letters. Well, that's what's bizarre.

If you're selling something where it being a look-alike the customer needs to be told, why would that be being sold in the first place? It has to be a product where you are a bit disappointed, but don't mind if it's a mere look-alike. Yeah. That narrows it down. Or it's a prop for movies or something like that,

but I can't see Yasmin regularly going into It's not like there's a store for props that you go into on the high street. Well, Yasmin goes to buy, say, a gun or a mop every week. Two very different things there, Jay. Yeah, and neither of those scenarios seems to work. You've made an assumption that the sign is for the public. Oh. Does Yasmin work at the store?

And it being a lookalike is for security reasons. She's going into the store and she's said the sign. but it might not be for her. I have a question not just for Lizzie. It's a question for all three of you, which is that the word lookalike, does that refer only to people? Could it be a replica object that's a lookalike?

Or is it a person lookalike? And Lizzie made an noise. She went, ooh. Oh, I assumed it was going to be on a physical object, that this is not the real thing. Yeah, this is on a shelf. On a shelf? Of course, it's on a shelf.

It's not a real shelf. One of the places I visited on the big filming road trip I did was a training hospital ward. And they had signs up that warned people that the oxygen in the tanks is not actually oxygen. It's compressed air. Partly because that means it's not explosive. Partly because that means people don't try and actually use it in an emergency. So I'm wondering if it's something like that where it's like, this is not the real thing. Don't try and use it as the real thing.

it won't work. Like all those banknotes or postboxes that have the word specimen written across the front. Or this is not a real banknote, your nearest real banknote is a few blocks down that way. Just to remind you, she's going into a shop. So you might want to work out which one. What type of shop?

Yeah. I'm guessing we're not talking about your typical supermarket, selling your food and groceries. Could be clothing. Could be... Toy shop? Not toys. Electronics.

So what we do know is that the sign that says lookalike on the shelf is not necessarily for the customer. The people working in the shop or the security people need to know that this particular one is a look-like. You can't buy this one, but it's on the shelf anyway, and the staff got to know. It's not the security people and then keep going. So it's the staff that sell it? It's the big... I'll tell you that Yasmin can't reach the... the shelves from where she is.

Any of them? If it's the sort of shop where you can't reach the shelves, it might be IKEA. Oh, well, like, this isn't a real toilet. Please don't use it, size. It's a warning that could be a matter of life and death. So it's a shop where you're having things like that. Life and death. It's a shop where you're having things like life and death.

Well, like where the things that you buy impact that. Oh, then it's a pharmacy. If she can't reach the shelves, and it's that important, it's a pharmacy. So what's the lookalike item? Lordnum. Can't put actual lordnum on the shelves these days, only the lookalikes. Got to ask your pharmacist for that.

Where do we think the word is? Which side of the boundary? I assumed it's on Yasmin's side. I assume it's like she's, reaching for products. No, she can't reach. She can't reach that's out of reach of reach of her. So it's for the person that works there.

So this is for the person behind the desk. It must be written on the top of the product, which is high up, and you wouldn't see the top unless you lifted it down. It's on the shelf. It's on the shelf. It's written on the shelf. The words lookalike is written on the shelf, and the object is on top of where it says lookalike,

so that when you withdraw the object, you see the words look alike, and go, whoops, that was a look alike. I'll put it back. It's for the pharmacist, right? This is for the pharmacist's benefit. So Yasmin can see it, but the pharmacist, she's presumably a customer, and the pharmacist has this look-a-like version of the thing,

that they need to be told this is a look-alike and not the real thing. They're both real things. The look-alike is real, but it is a look-like. Because you can get, like, trainer epipens and things like that. Everything is real. Everything. This isn't our test. Everything is real.

Everything is real. It's like, sometimes it gets, like, like, suddenly it gets cosmic. And I'm like, wait, what does lookalike mean? What are we doing? If the person who works at the pharmacy, if the pharmacist is not warned that this thing, despite it being real, is a lookalike,

it's a match of life and death. Is that right? Yes, that is pretty much it. So what's the thing? So, what's on the shelves behind in the pharmacy? What's on the shelves? Oh, all sorts of pills and... Pills and medicines, yeah?

so sometimes why would you have look-alike? Because they're going to look similar. So what is the importance there as a pharmacist? But wait a minute, why would you not simply have nothing but real pills all over the shelves? They're all real. To what end would you have a fake one? No, it's not that there's a fake one. There's, wait a minute, there is a drug called look-a-like.

No, no, there's just two. Which cures boldness. There's just, there's two types of pills that look alike. Yes. Yes. It's not a look alike. It's not a replica. It's not a fake version. It's that these two types of pills look alike. And if you're prescribing one, you need to make sure that it's the right one so you don't give the wrong medicine to someone.

Oh, that's infuriating. Okay, well done. Everything is real. This is... Damn it! Yes. You did keep saying it was... all real. Everything is real. Was the most confounding sentence. Yes. So just to let you know,

there are sometimes, they're marked with the words look alike because these pills look alike. And you don't want to make the mistake of giving the wrong pills to the wrong person because that could be pretty sketchy. So in addition, there's also sound-alike medicines as well. So we've got clondine and clondipin. So you've just got to make sure you're giving the right people the right meds, so it's there for the pharmacist. Which means we just have the question from the start of the show. Thank you to Maz for sending this in. How might the bands, Alkaline Trio and Good Charlotte help you with a science exam?

Any guesses from our panel of biochemist, former geography teacher and linguistic student? Yeah, we've done so well at science today, haven't we? Honestly, I think this kind of is in Lizzie's ballpark. Yeah. What was Good Charlotte's song? Well, I wonder if it's the letters in their names. It is. Keep going, Lizzie. So, oh no, what is G? I can't remember. Or GO or something like that. Are they the symbols, elements in?

Very close. Alkaline trio and Good Charlotte. It's not the periodic table. So there will be an alkaline trio because you've got the alkaline elements, right? Alkaline trio are a real band. Is it the genome? Mark, keep going. ATGC. A, T, and G. Yes.

Adonine always pairs with thymine. Guine always pairs with cytosine. Cytocene. I said it was a biochemistry thing. A.T. and G.C. And the initials are alkaline trio and Good Charlotte. And thank you to Maz, who in turn thanks their school friend,

Sikanda, who came up with this, of course, in 2004. Thank you very much to our players. Where can people find you? What's going on with you? We will start with Jay. You can find Mark and me on our channel Jay and Mark where we have our series Map Men. This is awkward. Mark. Yeah, I would have said the same thing but in a more natural intonation, I think.

And Lizzie. Yeah, I'll be on stage solving crimes or committing them with Murder She Didn't Right. And you can follow me at Lizzie Skippy on Instagrams. And if you want to know more about this show, you can do that at lateralcast.com. We can also send in your own ideas for questions or 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 Lizzie Skipiac.

Hey, thanks having me. Mark Cooper Jones. Thank you for having me. Jay Foreman. Thank you for having me. I've been Tom Scott. And that's been lateral.