Lateral with Tom Scott - 46: Mr. Kill Gun Die

Episode Date: August 25, 2023

Anna Ploszajski, Scott Manley and Bill Sunderland face questions about stately stands, letter lists and silver streaks. 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://www.lateralcast.com. HOST: Tom Scott. QUESTION PRODUCER: David Bodycombe. RECORDED AT: The Podcast Studios, Dublin. EDITED BY: Julie Hassett. MUSIC: Karl-Ola Kjellholm ('Private Detective'/'Agrumes', courtesy of epidemicsound.com). ADDITIONAL QUESTIONS: Oliver Forrest, Áron. FORMAT: Pad 26 Limited/Labyrinth Games Ltd. EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS: David Bodycombe and Tom Scott. © Pad 26 Limited (https://www.pad26.com) / Labyrinth Games Ltd. 2023. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Where would you see the letters C, D, E, F, L, O, P, T and Z? Hopefully. The answer to that at the end of the show. My name's Tom Scott and this is Lateral. Our guests today have been selected by a short list of attributes we like to call the four C's. Cleverness, competence, charisma, and caffeine. So with that, we'll have some stimulating conversation with Bill Sunderland, returning as one of our regulars, one half of Escape This Podcast. How are you doing? I'm doing well. I'm excited to do another one. I return so often because it's so much

fun to play this game. We always love having you back. How are things going? They're going well. Lots of podcast stuff is going well. It's late. It's very late. Tom, it's very late and I'm tired. So if you're listening at home and you think, oh, this guy doesn't know anything. I know everything two hours ago. It's slowly disappearing. We have three guests across three very different time zones right now. It is something close to midnight for Bill, and it is somewhere close to 3pm for Anna Porzheisky. Welcome back to the show. I have you still listed as materials scientist and storyteller.

Yeah, absolutely. That hasn't changed. Hello from London, everybody. To be fair, we're recording this about 10 minutes after finishing the last time you were on, so. Yeah, haven't moved. Yeah, I'm a material scientist and storyteller, so my work is all about trying to find fun and interesting narratives, different ways of telling scientific stories to engage lots of different audiences with ideas in science and engineering. And how was it last time? Because it was your first time on the show the last time you were here. It was. You know what? It actually really reminds me of back in the day when I was a lab scientist, because there's very much an element of just spitballing ideas, saying the first thing that

comes into your head, could it be related to this? Who knows? Let's find out. And also joining us very early in the morning after getting up to watch a rocket launch, Scott Manley. Hello again. Delighted to be here one more time. Hopefully with a little more success this time. It is early for me. hopefully with a little more success this time. It is early for me. Oh, I think it went well last time.

I mean, the last time I saw you, it was while the SpaceX... I can't remember which rocket it was. It was going up for the first time, and I was in the same room as you as it actually took off from the pad. Yeah, we're watching on an iPad. And yeah, I remarked a statement for the ages let's say which we will not repeat here it was it's quite profane yeah it was it was amazing though to watch that in the company of

such a distinguished guest let's say and also me there were like 10 people there yes but they were all had so many followers on the internet so it was like the entire intranet was watching with me. As you said something we are not going to repeat on this podcast. You can look Google Scott Manley starship and they'll probably find it somewhere. And yes, Tom is in the backdrop. As regular listeners will know, getting the right answers to our devious questions

is as simple as finding a needle in a haystack at night while using boxing gloves during a hurricane. So with good luck to our guests, we start with this. A listener question sent in by Aaron. In late 1943, Danish fishermen started sprinkling the decks of their ships with a mixture of dried rabbit blood and cocaine. Why? One more time. In late 1943, Danish fishermen started sprinkling the decks of their ships with a mixture of dried rabbit blood and cocaine. Why? Well, look, this was 1943, so something was definitely happening.

Something was definitely happening. We know this. That's a callback to the last episode. We are definitely in a historical period here where something was happening it was obviously to attract german u-boats out of the water right because because you know the the nazi forces were famous for their uh drug consumption well i i think luring something from the depths might not be the worst idea that we've had so far. They were trying to recruit the Kraken to fight the Nazis. That would be amazing. The Kraken, yeah.

Oh! Sorry, we don't have immediate puns very often on this podcast. I'm genuinely impressed. It's not the Kraken. It's something worse. We're trying to get seagulls. Seagulls.

They are very scary, to be fair. Yes. Rats with wings. Oh, yeah. I know there was that cocaine bear film. I've got cocaine seagull in my head now. I don't know quite what that would involve. It's coming 2025.

How does a thing with a beak snort coke? With great difficulty. It would have to have full contact. Yeah. But we're all imagining, I think, slightly different arrangements of beak and table here. Agreed. Okay, 1943, Denmark.

Rabbit droppings and cocaine on the deck. Rabbit blood and cocaine. Oh, I'm so sorry. Well, then I've got it. Easy. Completely different. Rabbit blood and cocaine. Would it be to do with the colour of the rabbit blood?

Were the ships light coloured in the water so they could be seen and maybe bombed? And the only thing they could find was rabbit blood. Yeah. Famously no paint in Denmark. Sorry sorry all the black paint's been taken for the war effort i mean maybe were they doing the norse thing and they were using like robots and so they needed to like you know give them some energy and so the cocaine there and the blood it would be like viking blood and cocaine in close proximity makes you row harder.

I don't know. I don't know how many longboats were involved in 1943's warfare. In World War II. Yeah. I'm not sure these are rowboats either. These are fishermen. Yeah. They're fishermen.

That's right. They're also fishermen. I got so obsessed with the fact that there was a war on. I forgot that these people were fishing. All right. So you're fishing. Is there something that you can attract? Some kind of fish that you can attract with rabbit blood and cocaine?

Or when you take the fish and you put them on the deck, does it wake them up and make it easier for you to see the ones that you want to toss out or something or does it knock sharks out so you can like beat them and yeah well cocaine would like make the sharks even more vicious you would think not necessarily it's not a sedative though is it i think well i think we've got to be careful about ascribing our human reactions to narcotics to you know different, especially something as old as sharks. Yeah. You are not along the right lines, but I hope not.

There's certainly animals involved in this. Wow. Yeah, rabbits. And yes, the historical events going on at the time are very relevant. This is a World War II story. Good. Okay. So what side is Denmark on?

That's a very important question here. Weren't they occupied by the Nazis? Yes. Right. So you're Denmark. You're occupied by the Nazis. So they would get boarded by the British and then... Oh, not by the nazis so they would get boarded by the british and then oh not by the british

when the nazis board the boat they'll slip on the blood and then they'll accidentally snort the cocaine when they land and then what are they going to do the very first part of that sentence bill when the nazis board the boat correct everything after that wild flight of fantasy well i don't know well look i've set it up. One of you two can knock it down. I've got the Nazis on the boat. You've got to find out what to do with them. Right. The Nazis are on the boat. What do they want? They want to commandeer the boat. Does it make it really smelly? So they won't commandeer the boats? or does it cover the all the sea when we write with seagulls the seagulls like blood and cocaine i'm here it's a party and they land on the boat and then nazis hate fun fact nazis hate seagulls that's how that's how we won the war nazis want the boat or the fish. No, Nazis want the boat.

We're just watching Tom's eyes as we say things Nazis want and see what he nods or shakes his head at. The other clue there was animals. You successfully went down that aisle. What animals might the Nazis have brought with them onto the boat? Dogs! Dogs! Why? Nazis hate seagulls, dogs yeah even hitler loved dogs does it just

confuse the dogs like the dogs they sniff they go blood let me sniff that now they're sniffing cocaine everywhere wait wait they were trying to take people out of germany to like safe spaces right they were trying all right And they had to stop the dogs finding the people. And the dogs won't be able to smell anything when they've got blood and cocaine in their nose. Yeah, they'd just start frothing at the nose. They were evacuating Jewish people

out of Denmark across the Orison Strait to Sweden. The Nazis would board the boat looking for stowaways with sniffer dogs, so they sprinkled blood from rabbits and cocaine on the deck to confuse the dogs. Our first guest question this show then comes from Anna, whenever you're ready.

Okie dokie. This listener question has been sent in by Oliver Forrest, which is his second question on the podcast. Congratulations. Here we go. In an episode of the medical drama ER, a patient called Mrs. Gardasco accidentally overdoses on her tuberculosis medication by taking 10 pills more than prescribed over 24 hours. How? I'll say that again. In an episode of

the medical drama ER, a patient called Mrs. Gadasco accidentally overdoses on her tuberculosis medication by taking 10 pills more than prescribed over 24 hours. How? Worthy suppositories. Not relevant to the question. Scott just finds this very funny. That's all he needs.

That's it. Scott's gone. Scott's just collapsed into laughter there at the idea of someone taking ten more suppositories than necessary. Taking one?

That's hilarious. Ten? Oh my god! I don't know why. We've not had someone completely collapse laughing on this show before but it's really, really tickled Scott this ass.

It wasn't even somebody else's joke. All right, so we're taking pills. We're taking pills. I don't know how we're taking them. Some form, but the pills are being taken. Correct. Ten more in a day. Also, this is ER, which I i keep every time i hear that i hear

it as a yorkshire person saying here you are yeah um so so okay surely we it's like is it details to how something is prescribed like take once daily somehow is read wrong as take this 10 times better keep taking it, never stop. Like, is there a way it can be written that makes this happen? You're along the right lines there. Did she have short term memory loss? No. Okay, so prescription is perhaps wrong.

Or ambiguous. I think Bill's along the right lines there. Like it's an ambiguously phrased prescription or something like that. No, the prescription is correct. Okay. So 10 times more. 10 pills more. It's my favourite song from Les Mis.

So now it could be that she needs two and therefore is taking five times as much medication. So it'd be like, you know, every four hours, right? Take every four hours, except somehow that got... Oh, take every 24 hours, but in fact the prescription said take every four hours, right? Take every four hours, except somehow that got... Oh, take every 24 hours, but in fact the prescription said take every four hours. Someone scratched out the two. No, it's not to do with the frequency. Hmm.

So it's a pill. So it's not going to be like she was meant to take a tenth of a pill and she took a full one. It's 10 whole pills extra. And it's not like pills come in packs of 11. So she can't have misread it as take one and she takes the full pack each time. Right, but it could be a pack of 12 and she was supposed to take two and took 12. Okay, yeah. Could be.

Now, we didn't get her first name. Is her first name plus 10 pills? Is her name like Mrs. Plus 10 Pills Gabrioni or whatever, whichever the surname was? You're on the right lines. The wording of the packet or the prescription is something to do with it. Yeah. It's correct but misinterpretable?

Yes. Take two daily take 12 there's 12 hours in the clock was she meant to take two and then ah it's gonna be some horrible pun concocted by the writers that makes it ambiguous either way that wouldn't occur in reality and i cannot solve it and it's really annoying me yeah because writers. Oh, like a good pun in our show. Yeah. So Bill, you were right when the prescription, the correct prescription should have been take once a day. Okay. Once a day. Now I don't know, I have no frame of reference for this, so someone's going to have to tell me if this could ever be true. Do you think 11 pills weighs one ounce?

It's like take an ounce a day. She's like, I'll take an ounce of pills a day, and piles them all up and downs it. You're thinking in the right way, but it's not to do with ounces. Okay. Take once per day. Take one dozen per day. How might she have misinterpreted the instructions?

Take once per day. And she said, no, how dare you lie to me and took 10 just out of spite. There were 11 in the packet and and she interpreted take once a day to mean that you take the entire bottle because because american pills still come in bottles that surprised me if you're in europe you cannot buy i went to get allergy meds and you can just get 365 pills in one single bottle like you can just get massive jars of painkillers and those have not been legal in Europe for a long time.

But you could also get a blister pack of allergy meds, very specifically. Also, I feel like I should explain it. It's quite a bleak reason, but they're not legal over here because banning those big easy-to-open jars has reduced the suicide

rate. Because if you don't have the ability to have 100 pills without popping them out of a blister pack, you are less likely to, you know. Yeah. Okay, let's get back to the question. So the problem is that this patient has misinterpreted what the packet says. She was supposed to take one.

Instead, she took 11. Is it a misprint? The number one has been doubled up. It seems like the packet is correct and she is wrong. Did she have double vision? No. She doesn't have double vision and the packet is correct. Take once a day.

I feel like we're missing something obvious here. She has tuberculosis. Is that relevant? Do we need to add some tuberculosis? No, the TB isn't relevant. It's actually something to do with her herself. The name Mrs. Gardasco might be a clue mrs gardasco is that a nationality that is relevant linguistically uh maybe gardasco is that an italian name oh isn't

or something like that in is 11 in language. In all those romance languages, they're all the same. It's one of those languages. I don't know which one. Keep guessing. Keep guessing. Fridge, turn Spanish. Yes. So the Spanish word for 11 is once, which is spelt the same as once, O-N-C-E.

Someone found that out. They were so happy. Yes, this is an episode. When it said take once per day. Once per day. When it said take once per day, she read that as take 11 per day. That's so good. Next question's from me. In the banqueting room of the Royal Pavilion in Brighton, England, there is a wooden stand near the fireplace. It has an oval panel, roughly one foot in width, on top of a three-foot vertical post and base.

What's it for? So one more time. In the banqueting room of the Royal Pavilion in Brighton, England, there is a wooden stand near a fireplace. It has an oval panel, roughly one foot in width, on top of a three-foot vertical post and base. What's it for? Your coffee, obviously. To rest it while you watch the fire.

Yeah. Done. Next. Perhaps I should clarify. A one-foot vertical oval panel on top of a three-foot base. You know what? I wasn't picturing like you could put a coffee on it, but I was definitely picturing it at 45 degrees to the ground. So I'm glad we can add a 45 and we can have a vertical oval on a stick.

It's for trick shots, obviously, bouncing ping pong balls into the fireplace. We are at a fireplace very explicitly. But wood famously quite flammable. Also true. Do we heat something on it from the fire oh oh oh do you know what you could put on a little you know what look at this look at this guy look at me see see i got like a face it's like a face shape thing you know what i would wear if i was someone going to brighton pavilion i'd put my bloody wig on it i'd take my beautiful wig i've come in from the rain because it's

england it's definitely raining and i walk into brighton p in from the rain because it's England. It's definitely raining. And I walk into Brighton Pavilion. I think, oh, my, it's pouring out there. My wig is terribly damp. Oh, just put it on the wig stand by the fire and then come join us for a banquet. Wig off on the stand, dry wig, and I get to eat some food. I was wondering either the character work was going to continue or if someone else was going to come in and riff off that, but no. No, I was waiting for you to confirm whether it was correct. Wig stand? Yeah, obviously. Wig stand. Wig stand! Wig stand!

You have identified the basics of this, but it's not a wig stand, and it's not to dry something. So I've worked out nothing? Because you came in and you pointed your face at your oval face and said... An oval face? Something like, look at this bloody guy. I can't remember what it was. It was something like that.

That sounds like me. That's along the right sort of lines. Okay, so obviously it's where you dry your face masks when you're doing Victorian Mission Impossible. Right? You've made your mask up a thing. You're going to dry it by the fire and then you're ready like Victorian Mission Impossible, right? You know, you've made your mask up the thing, you're going to dry it by the fire, and then you're ready to go, right?

Now I can perform my heist using like dimensional portals or whatever, right? That's it. If I'm going to get gateways off my website. Is it so that you can approach the fire and be close to the fire, but that your face doesn't get too hot? It doesn't melt your makeup. Yes. And that's the last bit, Bill.

Correct. There you go. Victorian makeup back then, if it got too warm, your face would sort of start to melt. So this is absolutely right, Anna. So Victorian ladies could get close to the fire and not have their face start to melt. Wow, I had no idea. Oh, when you were saying that, I was like, that's the most, hey, Anna,

that's the craziest idea anyone's ever had. And you were completely right. I mean, we've all been there with our face melting, right? Oh, yeah. All the time. I sit by the fire, face falls off. The question source here is actually from the kids' tour of Brighton Pavilion. They don't mention this to the adults. It's not an important thing on that. But somewhere on the kids' tour, they mention that, yes, that screen is there to stop Victorian ladies' makeup melting off.

Bill, over to you for the next question. OK, here we go. In 2006, David Fern changed his name by deed poll. His new middle names now included Kill, Die and Gun. The registrar was amused but not concerned. Why? And I'll give it to you one more time. In 2006, David Fern changed his name by deed poll. His new middle names now included Kill, Die and Gun.

The registrar was amused, but not concerned. Why? Was he German? Was his original surname Fern, did you say? So you're going to have to forgive whatever pronunciation I have. F-E-A-R-r-n fion oh yeah fern fern no no i heard you correctly i wasn't sure if it was burn with a b it was not i think scott you're onto something there did you say it was german well i don't know die is like

the or something like that the but the yeah kill the bird kill the gun uh no the no other languages here it's the word kill the word die the word gun uh is it die d-i-e or die d-i d-i-e gun and g-u-n or a-n-n gun g-u-n there's a long history of people changing their name for stunts in Britain. I'm pretty sure someone at my old university once changed their name to... In my head, it's like Weetabix, the cereal. It was some brand name or something like that in order to win a competition and some money. And that made the papers. But I can't think that you'd want Kill, Die and Gunn in there.

That made the papers, but I can't think that you'd want Kill, Die and Gun in there. I mean, this was about the time when you would have Golden Palace doing all those stupid like stunts to advertise their gambling thing. Oh yeah, didn't someone get a tattoo on their forehead? Yeah. What happened to them? If I was working in the office where people come to change their names i would have seen so many stupider ideas for name changes than kill die and gun that i wouldn't be that concerned about this one yeah i think there's other names involved those are just three that have been specifically chosen

to make it seem like a conundrum when in fact if we knew them all it would be really obvious i think that's where we're going oh like i'm going to kill and make die this person with a gun that's why that's more concerning that's that's way more concerning than the words kill die and gun that's a plan this is it i'm trying to find a reason to be concerned about just like an idiot trying to change their name right i know the words in that particular order because he could have picked like like one word from every letter of the alphabet and just given himself 26 middle names. I don't know if there's a maximum length you can have.

I mean, there is in databases, but. There's a maximum in the passports and things like that. Yeah. Discovered that with my son. I will say the name is incredibly long. I thought it might be. All right. Was it the lyrics to some song?

It wasn't the lyrics to a song, but you're not on the wrong track. That's not the wrong flavor of incorrect response. All right, I'll stop trying. I'll stop trying to anagram kill Diane Gunn and David Fern how to try and see if I can find something in that. Save your anagramming for later. So a quote then, a quote from a famous a favorite quote

or a whole bunch of bond titles a whole bunch of bond titles like what yeah like a view to a kill die another day and the man with the golden gun that is exactly what's going on here you've hit the nail on the head well done sc, Scott. Good catch of those. Now, I will say, it's 2006. His name is every... His middle name is every single James Bond

film in order. That's his middle name. What do you think the rest of his name is? It's not David Fern anymore. Bond. James Bond. The full name was Jamesames doctor no from russia with love goldfinger thunderball you only live twice on a majesty secret service diamonds are forever live and let die the man with a golden gun the spy who loved me moonraker for your eyes only octopussy of you to a kill the living daylights license to kill goldeneye tomorrow never dies

the world is not enough die another day casino. Bond. But it doesn't include Never Say Never Again. No, he's a purist. Which was the not Bond movie. And it doesn't include the original Casino Royale. So we know where we are on the list. And it does, unfortunately, include Die Another Day, which is awful. This man is a broccoli Bond only.

That's all he cares about. Some people have too much time on their hands, don't they, really? Yeah. All right, good luck with this one. In Formula One, the Mercedes team is known as the Silver Arrows due to a mistake

made with their 1934 car. What was the problem and solution? So one more time. In Formula One, the Mercedes team is known as the Silver Arrows due to a mistake made with their 1934 car. What was the problem and solution?

It wasn't painted, so it was silver and they painted it. No, I've got this one right away. Are you ready for this? I know it. Here it is. Here's the answer. I know the problem. They've got the car.

It's on the track. They're ready to take it out. Weirdly, back then, they always used to race at night. They don't do it anymore, and here's why. A vampire comes right in. He steals the car. Wait, no. A werewolf comes right in.

He jumps in the car. He's off. Like, the werewolf took the car. What are we going to do? Don't worry. Silver Arrow, the werewolf's natural enemy can't deal with silver shoot it through the chest werewolf dies they clean out the car they race again in the morning they get the silver arrow name sorry to ruin another question tom but i got it yeah

maybe jack churchill was involved in that jack churchill he came here's the thing one of you two is along the right lines. It's either Scott, that it's something to do with the paint, or Bill, that it's a werewolf. Anna, I'm going to let you just kind of pick between those two. I'll bring this home. I think you've got to start naming some other cryptids. So I'm going to go with Scott's original thought process.

I don't know why. And I'm wondering whether it's something... I wonder if it's something to do with the shape of the Mercedes logo. It is more to do with the paint or lack thereof. I think you're very close there, Scott, very early. The paint or lack thereof. Well, are the cars made of aluminium, so they're silver coloured? What is a Formula One car made of? Well, these days it's all carbon fibre, but there used to be, you know, pressed metal.

Actually, in that era, it would have probably been hand-bent materials. They wouldn't have had the big machine presses they have today. But aluminium, yeah, if it's unpainted, it looks pretty silver. And there's quite a few aircraft that are known by silver whatever because they're unpainted okay but if that's the problem that they didn't paint it we're also looking for a solution how do you how do you solve that drive it into some paint yeah or maybe because it was unpainted it had more drag due to riveting or something and they needed to paint over it. Sorry, I hate to interrupt the creative process here, but I just want to drill down on drive it into some paint.

I don't understand your problem, Tom. You're driving. You're not going to stop to paint the car. So you set up a big thing of like a waterfall of paint in the middle of the track. They go through. They come out. Problem solved. Now it's a painted car. I don't understand why you have a problem with this. The lack of paint wasn of the track. They go through, they come out, problem solved. Now it's a painted car.

I don't understand why you have a problem with this. The lack of paint wasn't the problem. Okay. I wonder whether the paint did some kind of chemical reaction with the car because there's all sorts of stuff in paint. You're a material scientist. What are all the things in paint? Is that your job?

No, I don't think so. So maybe it caused some kind of corrosion or the things in paint is that your job no i don't think so so maybe it caused some kind of corrosion or the lack of paint would cause corrosion if it you know became rusty maybe although if the lack of paint isn't the problem is the lack of paint the solution oh i see yeah but maybe the arrow is a impression to do with them going fast in a straight line and then going straight when they're supposed to turn. The problem was there was a bend in the road. The problem was no steering wheel. In this case, we are just talking about silver.

Arrows was just a poetic term that came with it. But the silver comes from the lack of paint. So what did that solve? Yeah, what problems do you solve well i mean you know you make your your thing lighter because you're not carrying the weight of the paint right yeah but i thought that was the problem it was called the silver arrow because it didn't have pain and it turned out that it made it faster it wasn't so much that it made it faster it may have done because it would have been a little bit lighter. But also this is on the Nürburgring back in 1934.

So weight was not so much a problem as the fact you have to get around like 13 kilometers of terrifying curves. There was one specific problem here that meant it was outside the rules before they took the paint off. It was overweight. It was overweight. The car was too heavy. It was one kilogram over the weight limit allowed.

So they sanded off the paint. There was a naked aluminium body underneath there, and that was silver. And since then, Mercedes has always been the silver arrows. There you go. We do that in space flight all the time. Sand down the rocket on the pad. Isn't that what one of the SpaceX ones did?

They're just like... Well, yeah, but the space shuttle, the original fuel tank was painted white and then they got rid of that and it saved like almost a ton of paint. Wow. And that meant like a ton of extra stuff to orbit. Isn't one of the SpaceX ones just bare metal

or stainless steel or something like that? Yeah, the Starship is mostly bare metal, bare stainless steel. I guess when you're sending that much up into orbit that fast, a little bit of weight from the metal is worth the cost saving. I don't know how. I think it just all burns off. That's the thing. Scott, time for your question.

What have you brought? Well, fed up with being the victim of petty crime, why did Mrs Cooper reach for some canvas, a reel of thread, and a packet of fish hooks? And again. Fed up with being the victim of petty crime, why did Mrs Cooper reach for some canvas, a reel of thread, and a packet of fish hooks? Home Alone. This is, I don't know who she is,

but this is the British reboot of Home Alone that actually ends up really gruesome. Yeah, fish hooks a lot. Well, I want to say worse, but Home Alone had a lot of melting people's flesh on a burning hot door handle, dropping an iron on someone, setting people on fire. It was pretty gruesome. Fishhooks are par for the course.

There's a YouTube channel I know called Corridor Crew, who do visual effects. And while I would... They have edited Home Alone to be R-rated and gruesomely violent by just making the injuries make sense in reality. Yeah, you don't have to change the tracks. I couldn't watch that. and gruesomely violent by just making the injuries make sense in reality. You don't have to change the tracks. I couldn't watch that. I don't like gore at the best of times. And they really did work on the scene where he stands on the nail.

They really worked on that. They really hammered it home. Oh. Love it. There's something to the petty crime here, isn isn't there what sort of crimes was she fed up with being being stolen from she was free fallen that's my only tom petty song art forgery she's she's got canvas and thread and she's she's doing art forgery i don't know where i was going with no canvas and thread that's trying to catch an art

thief you put a you put the thing on a little fish hook you bait it with a with a priceless rubens and you wait for them to come by and then you get them you pull them back up you catch them in the canvas is that it's got have we solved it was she fishing for art thieves no not art thieves no is it is painting canvas or like just canvas material it's just canvas just canvas i mean thread and hooks is like fishing for stuff right yeah it it feels like it's gonna be very painful i think tom and i had the same look on our face just like oh fish hooks oh oh no mrs cooper uh this is a shot in the dark out of nowhere and and if it's right i'll actually be quite sad because i feel like i brought this question to to a close very early don't tell him but there's something in my head about like protecting um food from bears in

national parks like you if you you've got your picnic basket and you are camping overnight, you get... But you'd need a rope. But you sling it in a canvas bag and you pull it up over a tree branch. But I don't think you'd use fishhooks and thread for that. The fishhooks are so when the bear tries to grab it,

it goes... You know? To be clear, she was concerned about crime. Bear crime is a big problem. Have you not seen Cocaine Bear? Petty theft. Petty theft. That's the pettiest theft of all when a bear does it.

There's a documentary about it. The bear's got a green hat and a tie on and a little friend called Boo Boo. Yeah. That reference won't land for anyone under the age of 30. Tom, everybody knows Yi bear do they do they yeah he was that baseballer with all the aphorisms i'm wondering because to be fed up of petty crime that means that a crime keeps occurring to her until one day she snaps and she buys a load of fish hooks and twine so could it be yeah we've mentioned theft but i wonder like what what else is classed as petty crime like vandalism maybe

yeah vandalism libel yeah you what other kind of petty crime is there other than like art theft and vandalism like well vandalism, like graffiti is a fair thing. People keep painting something on her house. So she builds an entire fake wall out of canvas and then pulls it up, puts it back down again when they come to. Okay, it's not vandalism. Trespassing?

Was she annoyed that people kept coming through her grounds, garden, house? Oh, I mean, possibly, but I have to be that nerd who says that trespassing is not a crime in England. We have the right to ramble. No, we don't have that either. That's Scotland, but it's a long... No, that's Scotland.

It's a civil thing. But is it shoplifting? No, it's still theft, isn't it? No, no, no, no. I just said that art theft is not petty crime. Oh, art theft. Okay, so it could just be theft theft. Oh, fine.

Okay, so theft is a fairly petty crime, depending on how much you steal. What do you save with canvas, hooks, and string? What do you stop people stealing? You build an enormous barrier that stops people. Well, what was her aim? Was her aim to stop people thieving or was it to catch the thieves in the act? Yeah, is it a...

Or to push fish hooks through their eyes as a punishment? Specific on the eyes there, Hannah. Yeah. Hey, that's how you do it. specific on the eyes there, Hannah. Yeah. Hey, that's how you do it. She changed her name to Mrs. I'm-going-to-stick-fish-hooks-through-the-eyes-of-this-man-Cooper. Origin of Jigsaw.

Ah, is it Jigsaw? Well, look, the hooks were supposed to be a nasty surprise for someone, right? They were sort of, like, not in the eyes, a surprise. No, it was just surprises, right? We're sort of like, not in the eyes, surprise. No, it's just surprises, right? Did anybody else have, when you were growing up

in your local stores, did you ever have like lucky dips? Like as a kid, you could pay and just like rummage in the thing and take like an unmarked package and be like, that's yours? Like a, just, yeah.

No, but I was thinking of Halloween candy in the US.s people who just take the entire halloween candy bucket or a hundred things wrong but i don't think you'd want to do that with kids reaching into the bucket and getting surprised that doesn't feel like no no if they grab if they grab just one that's fine if they try and take the whole bowl it's rigged to the wire drops the canvas net with all the fishhooks, catches the kid. No, no, no. Instant horrifying Halloween costume.

You're right, Tom. This is a good plan. I agree with your plan, Tom. Your kid catching trap that you've designed and patented, I think is a great idea. Real blood. We've taken some dark turns on this episode, haven't we? Yeah. You're so close. Okay okay it's a trap so missing the link to petty crime is it so petty that this is something that

she has sewn in to the containers of hundred dollar bills in her monopoly set just like you keep taking from the bank you'll get a hook in the hand oh my name's not mrs i'm gonna hook your hand cooper i think real money was involved real money i mean not real money but not fake money things with real value perhaps yes you're a thief you're trying to steal mrs cooper doesn't want you to steal what What does she do? So I'm going to say, yes, the orientation of the fishhooks is really important to what she did. Orientation of the fishhooks? Think about that. You were so close with the Halloween ball. Wait, were the fishhooks intended for the criminal or to just attach something?

Did she have a costume or something like that? They were supposed to be a nasty surprise. As I said, not through the eyes, but a surprise for somebody involved in the petty crime. Oh, oh, did people keep stealing stuff out of her pockets? And so she sewed a fake pocket into her coat and put a load of fishhooks in it so that when someone put their hand in

and took it out again, then they'd get like a bleeding hand. That is pretty much again, then they'd get like a bleeding hand. That is pretty much it. But it was worse than a bleeding hand. They would pull their hand out and it would be stuck down in her dress by fish hooks. Oh. And she'd run to the police and they couldn't get away. Yeah.

They're like, literally would say, I am going to the police station and you are going with me. Good on you, Mrs. Cooper. I'm not sure good on you is quite right for that. Hey, I support Mrs. Cooper. I don't like people stealing from old women. She's 82 years old, Tom. Where did that come from? She's 82 and they just keep taking her medication.

She's got all that tuberculosis medication. She keeps taking too much of it, but they send her home with the right amount. She's on her way and they try and steal it. And you want the thieves to succeed, Tom? I'm just not sure that massively being spiked with fish hooks is a proportionate response for that. That's fair.

Maybe not necessarily a punishment. It was a different time. When was this? It was 1943. Stuff was happening, Tom. Apparently invention ran in the family. Or I wouldn't say ran in the family, but it was a family business because her husband was Peter Cooper, who actually built and designed one of the first steam locomotives in the US. Ah.

It's innovation on every level. And his grandson was D.B. Cooper, who stole a million dollars and jumped out of a plane. In my head, this was like 2005 or something, somewhere in a quiet village in Britain, and the context was very different. One final thing, then, folks. At the start of the show, I asked where you'd see the letters C, D, E, F, L, O, P, T, and Z, hopefully.

In the alphabet. I mean, if they're not there, something's gone wrong with the entire world. So possibly not quite that far. All right, we got flop. We got cadets. Cadets flop. Without an A and with a Z.

You'll see them probably every couple of years or so. Well, you used to. These days are something more modern. Oh my God. In a census. These are weird letters. I'm looking at my keyboard, like trying to keep track of the letters. The letters themselves don't matter too much, but they'd all be in different font sizes.

Oh, is it on an eye chart? It's the old Snellen eye test chart, yes. Oh, yeah, hey. I once went to the optometrist with my glasses off, and the entire eye chart was just one gigantic letter E, and I went, I have no idea what you're showing me. Yeah, these days they tend to use computer screens and change up the letters each time so you can't remember them,

but that is the classic eye test chart it is those letters with that thank you very much to all our players let's find out what's going on in your lives uh scott let's start with you hey yeah you can find me on youtube i will probably be making videos about poop in space or nuclear weapons possibly both at the same time uh yeah just just look for Scott Manley. Anna. You can find me online. Google Anna Pojaiski. Just give it a crack and it'll probably auto-correct to that, particularly if you type

material science next to it. I've got a book which is called Handmade, A Scientist's Search for Meaning Through Making. And Bill. You can listen to the podcast I make, Escape This Podcast, Solve This Murder. Another fun project I'm involved with

is streaming live actual plays of tabletop role-playing games over on the Twitch channel Level One Geek. I have a lot of fun over there. We're probably in the midst or wrapping up by the time this comes out, a campaign where we all play various gods in a modern LA setting. I'm the god of awards and also a Scottish firefighter. It's a very strange situation. And if you want to find out more about this show, you can do that at LateralCast.com. There are video highlights every week at YouTube.com

slash LateralCast, and we are at LateralCast pretty much everywhere. With that, thank you very much to Anna Posheisky. Bye! To Bill Sunderland. Thank you for having me. And to Scott Manley. Thanks for having me. Fly safe. I've been Tom Scott Manley. Thanks for having me. Fly safe. I've been Tom Scott, and that's been Lateral.