Lateral with Tom Scott - 99: Anti-stress vending machines

Episode Date: August 30, 2024

Jenny Draper, David Bennett and Annie Rauwerda face questions about pyromaniac phrases, eulogised elements and anonymous athletes. 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: Gareth Edwards, Mark L., Wade Widmann, Sara. FORMAT: Pad 26 Limited/Labyrinth Games Ltd. EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS: David Bodycombe and Tom Scott. © Pad 26 Limited (https://www.pad26.com) / Labyrinth Games Ltd. 2024. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You'll flip for $4 pancakes at A&W. Wake up to a stack of three light and fluffy pancakes topped with syrup. Only $4 on Now. Dine in only until 11am at A&W's in Ontario. In Louisiana, why is it possible to read the words start fire on a building that helps to prevent fire? The answer to that at the end of the show. My name's Tom Scott, and this is LATTRAL. Welcome back to LATTRAL. Before we start, just to let you know that our website, LATTRALCAST.COM, now has a QR code. Here it is. Black, black, black, white, white, black, white, black, black, black, new line. Black, white, black, white, white, black, white, black, black, black, new line, black, white, black, white, white, white, white, what? Okay, this isn't

working. Anyway, here to answer some questions that are far from black and white, first of all, we have, from the depths of Wikipedia, Annie Rowada. How are you doing? Hello, I'm doing, I'm doing pretty well. What is the best thing you found on Wikipedia recently? Because this is your job now. It is. Well, okay, here's one that's a little bit unusual. It's not just an article. In the early days of Wikipedia, people used the most recently public domain,

Encyclopedia Britannica, to populate articles. And so I recently found some of the few articles that have barely been changed since 1911. And so that was kind of fun. They're actually not particularly interesting, but I learned a little bit about medieval laws in Europe. Since 1911? Oh, because it's a public domain encyclopedia. Yeah, and a lot of the history stuff just doesn't change. Although one thing that's odd, in the history section of the article, Mat, M-A-T, like a mat, there is a notice that says, this is very similar to the 1911 encyclopedia, please update it.

And people have really ignored that banner for years. No, it's perfect as it is, don't touch my child. Well also joining us today, we have from the London History Show, Jay Draper. Hello! It's good to be back. Well, thank you for being back on the show. I'm going to ask kind of the same question. What's the most interesting thing you've found out about London history lately?

Because that is also now your job. It is indeed. So, I've been reading about Lady Mary Wirtley Montague lately, who pioneered smallpox inoculations in Britain. And when she was a child, her parents didn't really care about educating her because she was an aristocratic lady. But one thing they really wanted to make sure she knew was how to carve meat. This is a real thing. Her dad was, or maybe her uncle, one of her relatives was the grand carver of all England. And it was his job to carve the king's

meat at the table. And so they were like, you must also learn this skill. And so she had a tutor to carve meat. And he brought a little wooden joint that was made out of little wooden building blocks to teach her how to carve it up correctly. The monarch still must have a grand carver. Surely that's still a theme that's in Buckingham Palace somewhere. That feels like something that Prince Albert would have got rid of, to be honest. Along with the groom of the stool.

Our third player today then. Welcome back to the show from his own YouTube channel, pianist David Bennett. Hi, thank you for having me again, it's been great. So I'm going to ask the same thing, you break down music theory on your channel. What is an interesting thing that you've found lately? Lately, there's a songwriter called Elliot Smith, who you either love him or you've never heard of him, but there was a particular chord, the major version of the two chord, which only means

anything to music theory nerds, like the chord D in the key of C that he uses in the vast majority of his songs. And it's not usually a particularly common chord, so it's definitely something that gives his songs their sort of flavor. So if you're an Elliott Smith fan, that's like, oh wow. And if you've never heard of him, you're like, don't know what that means. But now you can hear that chord, and know it is that songwriter. I can't wait. On the show we usually tumble down a rabbit hole of lateral thinking. Unfortunately we have taken a wrong turn somewhere,

and have got some seriously annoyed ferrets. So let's see if we can weasel our way past question one. Oh wow. Oh, boo. I don't ride these. I do not ride these. Heat that your scriptwriter straight under the bus. You can't see the wheels anymore. They're gone. Wow.

I feel bad about throwing the scriptwriter under the bus there. Just sorry. I feel bad. Thank you to Wade under the bus there. Just sorry. I feel bad. Thank you to Wade Widman for sending this question in. One US state has an official state element that is not a metal nor mineral. Name the state and its chemical element. I'll say that one more time. One US state has an official state element that is not a metal nor a mineral. Name the state and its chemical element.

I don't know enough about elements but there's some of like metals, some are minerals but what what would that the other ones be like a like a noble gas or something like that I don't really know. Oh there's fictional ones right? First I was thinking neon because the signs in Las Vegas, but then I remembered that Las Vegas is, or excuse me, Nevada, the state of Nevada is home to the national security site where a bunch of nuclear bombs were tested. So it could also be uranium. But is that a metal or a mineral?

You don't want to be associated with that, surely. That's not going to bring in the tourists, really. Oh, okay. Now that I think about it, you're right. I come to the state of nuclear fission. Thank you for the tour guide perspective there. It's just permanently screwed in. Short tiny, tiny aside, did you know that before people realized that radiation was going to, could kill you, they would have watch parties in Vegas for the mushroom clouds?

Yeah. It was a fancy thing. There's a lot of stuff before people realized radiation could kill you. I would have watch parties in Vegas for the mushroom clouds. Yeah. It was a fancy thing. God. There's a lot of stuff before people realized radiation could kill you. I had a physics teacher when I was in school who said that he had once found a radium blanket in his attic. Oh, Christ. In his attic?

Yes. Which was one of those blankets that was infused with radium to give warmth and healing properties. Jesus. Yeah. Now, the story he told involved him calling someone and the British nuclear police turning up and confiscating it, and then his phone line being tapped for a year or so. I'm not sure how much of that I believe, but he did at least have the box of a radium blanket to show off. And if all he did was weave a good story around that, then fine.

Yeah, I was recently guiding some people around the Churchill war rooms, and there's a bunker that was built in the 1940s for the government during World War II, and in every room there's a little bucket that says like asbestos sheets in case of fire. Oh, oh fun. Awesome. Perfect. Thanks. Thanks. Perfect. I'm going to use those.

When Annie mentioned the neon, Tom's face did light up a little bit. Yeah, I've kind of been paving for time here because you absolutely nailed it. It is, it is Nevada and it is neon. Wow. You're spot on. I was just... I can't believe it. Wow. It's crazy, because California should totally choose Californium as its state element.

Yep. But I don't know if that would be a metal or not. So yeah, I was hoping you would go down, like, what's mined there, what's extracted somewhere. I was hoping there was going to be a diversion on Chicago being the windy city and that being a classical element of air. No, you just nailed it, Annie. It is Nevada and it is neon. Go go, Annie.

Yeah, in 2019, the governor rubber-stamped Assembly Bill 182, which designates neon as the official state element of the state of Nevada, because Las Vegas has its famous neon sign— well, had its famous neon signs. They're not really there anymore. But at least we have a sphere. Yes. I think they've got like a walk-around,

almost like an open-air museum of old neon signs, a little bit off the strip. There is the neon museum. There's also God's Own Junkyard in Walthamstow in London, which is a beautiful museum of old signs. But these days in Las Vegas, it is LEDs and modern technology in a giant sphere. I saw the sphere and I actually liked it. It fits in in Vegas.

I don't think I'd like it on my street. What was it showing when you saw it? The thing that's crazy is that it changes like every minute. And when I first arrived and I first saw it on the skyline, it was really breathtaking because they did it. They had it look like the moon. And I saw the craters of the moon in more detail than I've ever seen with my own eyes on the actual moon.

It was kind of one of those like, oh, wait, maybe this thing that I used to think was dystopian is cool. That's how I get you. That's how I get you, and then bam, adverts for crypto. Boom, exactly. And on that note, time for an advert break. No, um... David, over to you for the next question. In 2018, why did a Kuwaiti fish shop have to close after a member of staff used some craft supplies?

I'll read that again. In 2018, why did a Kuwaiti fish shop have to close after a member of staff used some craft supplies? Oh god, they didn't like mistake PVA glue for sauce or something, did they? Just sloshing it on there. Oh my god! Oh brilliant! This is, it's got glitter glue in it. Fantastic. Other than, oh no, this isn't, er, Sariatcha. PVA? There was that Copidex glue, when I was a kid in school, that smelled like bad fish. Oh!

It's a PVA type, I don't know what it actually is, but it's the safe glue you give to kids for craft projects and it smells awful, it smells like bad fish. So my thought was, yeah, my thought was like they're going to slather it on everywhere and I'm like, oh, the fish is rotten, we have to close. Glue isn't the craft supplier that you're looking for. Okay. This is the thing, like someone writes craft supplies in the question. Whatever that craft supply is, that's a giveaway.

I'm just really hung up on why there are many ways to procrastinate on the job, and sometimes people do it for fine reasons. But crafting, like that's, it's one thing to scroll on your phone for five minutes on the toilet or something, but you bring out a whole craft while you're working at a fish shop. I don't know. Some, I mean, I've, I've done this in customer service jobs before. Some bosses will not stand for you having even a glimpse of your phone on the floor.

But if you've got, I knew a colleague once who made chainmail, while in customer service. I knew people who do crochet, all sorts, because apparently that's not as bad as being on your phone. I don't know what you do in terms of that would get fishery called though. Maybe like to be cheap, they were not using the food-safe skewers and they just bought some lollipop sticks from Hobbycraft. Yeah, we don't know if they used the craft supplies as part of the fish sales, or if it was just, you know.

I was really imagining just passing the time by doing some paper mache. To be fair, if you were walking up to the clerk at a shop and they were on their phone, you might be a bit like, oh, they're distracted, they're not. If you walked up and they were crocheting, I would feel bad for interrupting them, right? Like, I'm not getting in the way of someone's crochet. Can you just remind me what happened? Did they recall the fish, did you say? They had to close down the shop? They had to close the shop, they were closed by the authorities.

Was it a Molotov cocktail? Ooh. I have often bought my Molotov cocktail supplies. Yeah, I often go into the hobby shop and buy a milk bottle and a bag and some petrol. Molotov branded cocktails. Is it legal for me to give those instructions as part of a podcast? I'm slightly worried, have've just given instructions for making... That feels like a thing that's on Wikipedia somewhere anyway.

I'm page four of the anarchist cookbook. I feel like we're all going to have fire alarms that start going off. So think about other craft supplies. It's not glue, like you're talking about. What else would you get at a craft store? Is it something sharp that he dropped a load of pins in the deep fat fryer? We don't know if this is fish shop in the British term, meaning like fish and chips shop, or just a fishmonger's,

just a shop that sells fish. It's like a fishmonger. It's fresh fish. Ooh! Beads. It was just from the bead shop. Just enormous quantities of beads and they got in the fish and had to be recalled. I mean, to be fair, there's not microplastics in there anyway, but... So the item was used in a deceptive way. They're trying to make the fish look... They're painting the fish to be more colourful.

A rainbow fish. You're going along the right lines. They're making the fish look they're painting the fish to be more colourful a rainbow fish you're going along the right line making the fish look fresh putting the button eyes in teddy bear eyes oh no oh no not teddy bear eyes on the fish googly eyes googly eyes googly eyes googly eyes the fish they put googly eyes on the fish to make them look fresh. Oh! I don't know, I don't see how they thought that would work. And apparently no one was! No!

That sounds quirky and fun to me. Is it really such a health risk? I don't know. So yeah, apparently there was a video that went viral of this particular place that had done it and then the Kuwaiti Ministry of Commerce managed to find the shop and shut it down. And then rival fishmongers reacted by advertising that their own fish were sold without cosmetics. You shouldn't get in trouble for objectively funny crimes. I have eaten so much plastic on accident in my life. And I just really am not convinced that a little googly eye is that big of a deal for most people.

It feels less deceptive because surely it's just like an innocent thing. You just pull it off, right? But yeah, if you were painting it or something that would be more deceptive. But also at the point where that video has gone viral, someone has to step in. They can't let it get away at that point. Like what else are they doing to the fish if they're putting googly eyes on them, I guess, is the thinking. Your team requested a ride, but this time not from you. It's through their Uber Teen account.

It's an Uber account that allows your team to request a ride under your supervision with live trip tracking and highly rated drivers. Add your team to your Uber account today. Next question's from me, folks. Good luck with this. Kira was feeling apprehensive, so she was surprised but relieved to see a machine built for dispensing gobstoppers mounted on a wooden fence. What was it for?

One more time. Kira was feeling apprehensive, so she was surprised but relieved to see a machine built for dispensing gobstoppers mounted on a wooden fence. What was it for? Okay, so crucially this machine doesn't actually have gobstoppers in it, because otherwise you would say a gobstopper machine. That's what I was going to say, yeah.

This is a machine built for gobstoppers. I feel like the question team have been quite nice here, because it would be entirely valid to say gobstopper machine there, but... It would, it would. Alright, it's machine built for dispensing gobstopper machine there, but... It would. It would. Alright, yes, machine built for dispensing gobstoppers. Got it. Also, I feel like someone should give a definition of gobstopper, because there are going to be

some folks listening who've never heard that word. Yeah, sure. Gobstopper is a big, hard, round sweet that it takes a really long time for you to suck to make it small. So it stops your gob, which is your mouth. So I guess this machine could dispense anything that was around that size, like a golf ball sort of sized thing.

Okay, and her emotions are quite interesting. Kira really was going through it. She was so nervous. And then she was like, oh, thank goodness, it's a gob stopper. What did she expect? A bomb? I don't know. Maybe she expected something very bad to go in her mouth. Heather Miedema Has she forgotten to bring something with her and she's like, Oh, thank God they've got some here. I can just buy one. Sarah Breslin She had really bad breath. Heather Miedema I mean, like a golf ball, right? Like, Oh, I've

turned up for my first day at golf club, and I forgot to bring my golf ball. I'm never going to get into the sorority at this rate. Oh, thank goodness they've got the golf ball machine here. Tampons? I'm gonna say tampons. Actually, it's golf balls. It is golf balls. I was kind of padding for time there. David, you said golf balls, so I was very early on.

Okay. Actually, yeah, it's golf balls. So why is Keira apprehensive and then surprised but relieved to see a golf ball dispensing machine on this fence? She's been finding golf balls everywhere, all day. And she's like, where are they coming from? They've just been all over the floor, everywhere I've walked there's been golf balls. Oh, it's from this machine. It's the kids on this machine. It's the sheep that live in this field have been turning the knob

on this. That makes sense. I was really worried that the golf ball killer was coming after me. Jamie Tworkowski Is it something to do with she was walking across an area that she didn't realize was a golf course? And for some reason that... And she kept, I don't know, falling in the golf... She was lost. And then when she saw the machine, she realised, oh, OK, this is the... this is the golf course. Jenny, David, I would say the opposite of both those answers. She was found.

She was golfing and she accidentally hit hers into a lake or a pond or something. You're really close there, Annie. Okay, so she's golfing, she's ran, she runs out of golf balls. She's apprehensive at this point. What, she hit a ball so far and she went looking for it and then lost her way? And now she's found her way back? She's not going to lose her way. You'll think this is something that has happened.

What's she apprehensive that might happen? Mmm. That she's going to run out of golf balls because she's hit them into a lake? I mean, you don't really run out of golf balls, usually, on a golf course. Not if there's a golf stopper machine around. That's exactly it. Yes.

So I'll fill in. So I think you've got the various bits of this. All right. This is a golf ball dispensing machine at Crater Springs Golf Course in Midway, Utah, that is in a place where you have to make a difficult shot, where you might lose your ball. It's on the out-of-bounds fence.

If you have lost it, if you're about to lose it, and it is your last ball, because yes, golfers do take more than one, there is a golf ball machine out there that if you slice it and put it in the lake or put it out of bounds, three quarters will get you a brand new golf ball. Is Kira a real character? No, that's just a name the question writers put in. Do we know what this obstacle was that people keep hitting balls into? It's the out of bounds fence. It's likely to just go out, away, and you're never going to find it again.

Jenny, over to you for the next one. It's likely to just go out away and you're never going to find it again. Jenny, over to you for the next one. This question has been sent in by both Gareth Edwards and Mark L. The painting An Allegory with Venus and Cupid by Bronzino hangs in London's National Gallery. Why are millions of people familiar with just a small section from the bottom left corner, even though it has been reversed? I'll read it again. The painting, An Allegory with Venus and Cupid by Bronzino, hangs in London's National Gallery. Why are millions of people familiar with just a small section from the bottom left corner even though it has been reversed? I'm sitting now to this one. David, Annie, it's on you.

Is it because that segment was used as like album art or something in some other medium? You are on the right lines, yes, but not an album. Not an album? My mind went blank of all other forms of art. That's the only place you could possibly see a bit of a painting. Museums and albums. If only we could invent something else. A billboard, a cartoon, TV, art in TV. The thing that's coming to my mind, the fact that it's been reversed, I wonder if that's just, it just randomly was reversed for no real reason. Or if there's like a functionality

to that. Like, I don't know, like, are you a robot tests on like capture tests where you have to do something only a human could do? And I don't know something about the reversed image and matching it to the right reflection? Don't get too hung up on it being reversed. But Annie, you were right that it is... Yeah, you were right. One of your guesses is on TV. Are on TV? You can maybe get a little bit of a clue by the fact that I know this one, knowing my... Knowing a bit about me and what sort of stuff I might have grown up with.

Yeah, I thought you might know it. Yeah, this was always going to be a me question this one. That hint didn't help me. If it's British TV, then Annie might not stand a chance. She might not. But she might have seen this. Yeah, okay. It's not like the test card or something. I don't know why that would be in the national portraits. We can get the BBC over here, believe it or not, if you know the right people. I mean, I don't have a VPN sponsorship for this particular episode.

But you wish you did. And just in case, well, as it turns out, I do actually have a VPN ad in this episode, so let's go to that. Well, as it turns out, I do actually have a VPN ad in this episode, so let's go to that. So it's a segment of a painting, a larger painting, and it's so much to do with TV. Did one of the things in the paint, did a character in the painting inspire a cartoon character? No. Do you know the painting? And I'll agree with Venus and Cupid. Bronzino. Unfortunately, I don't.

No, maybe if I saw it, but I don't know the name. So it's the bottom left corner of the painting. Is the bottom left visible in some famous TV set? Like, I don't know, in the background of Friends or something, you can just see that or something like that? Not quite, no. On the assumption that I do have the right thing here, which I'm still not certain about, but… I think you… I think I've got it.

If you've got a painting with two people in it, what might be near the bottom of that painting? Their feet. Hmm? Hmm? You liked that? That was pretty easy. That was an eyebrow raise.

Feet? Okay, you kind of asked me… that was kind of a preschool question. Well, I'm sorry, but you hadn't got that so far, so… That was an eyebrow raise. Feet? Okay, you kind of asked me, that was kind of a preschool question. Well, I'm sorry, but you hadn't got that so far. So it's not like the Monty Python foot that comes down and squishes people. Yeah, the Monty Python foot. Oh, wow. So, yeah, in the bottom left corner of an allegory of Venus and Cupid,

you have one of the characters' feet. Terry Gilliam cut that out, obviously not out of the real painting, and turned it around. And it squashes the title in Monty Python's Flying Circus and in other places in the show as well. Good job. LS This is a great fact for me to know and to repeat to people. STS-001 It's, I mean, extremely good fact for me. I did not know that's where it came from. Like, even looking at the painting, like, I don't really see it, but I think he changed the colour a little bit on it as well. But yeah, I do that, I guide that painting in

my job, so it's going to be a great fact for me. Thank you to Sarah for sending in this question. During the 2024 London Marathon, supporters shouted out, Come on Jay! And go on honey! to two people wearing a t-shirt that had Lola written above a photo. However, all three names were wrong. Why? And one more time, during the 2024 London Marathon,

supporters shouted out, Come on Jay! and Go on Honey! to two people wearing a t-shirt that had Lola written above a photo. However, all three names were wrong. Why? There's a Lola bunny and you can have a honey bun. I don't know what a Jay bun would be. Who are Honey, Jay and Lola? Lola Bunny could be fun. You can't dress as Lola Bunny though, right? For a marathon? It would be hard to get a costume that people immediately go, oh, that's Lola Bunny. I wonder if the 2024 is relevant at all or not, because if you're wearing a bib that said, landed marathon 2024, whether people would somehow

a bib that said, landed marathon 2024, whether people would somehow misread something that was on there. Oh, like, you know, you can spell words on a calculator and they just happen to have a number if you turn it upside down, it says, hello. It says Lola, Jay and honey. It would be 1010, right? Lola. They're not actually upside down, right? No, they're not. So they're not actually upside down. But if you had 1010, it would say Lola. Were they used as some sort of weird, like, phonetical alphabet? Like, Foxtrot Hotel, Juliet, but not using that for some reason. They changed it to Lola, Jay and Honey. A lot of the runners, if you've never seen the marathon, by the way, a lot of the runners

will just wear their names. Because a lot of the crowd, if they see a name coming towards them, will, it doesn't matter if they don't know the person, they will just cheer the name on to give them some boost here. Running with a fake name. But in this case, the t-shirt says Lola, and they're calling out Jay and Honey. And by the way, Jenny, when you said, like, who are Lola, Honey and Jay, there is a small subset of this audience who are screaming the answer. Honey Boo Boo? That would be amazing if she pivoted from like, yeah, being kind of southern and eating.

To marathon running. So did you say it says Lola, but the thing, the shirt or the bib says Lola? Is that what you were saying, Tom? Yeah, the shirt has Lola and it has a photo on it. Okay. Are Lola, Honey and Jay real people? Or are they fictional? Well, now that's a really interesting question.

And I think you might have nailed it there. Okay. Mmm, I don't feel like that helps me. Is it actors that played these characters? Yes, it is. This is a scene for the BBC soap opera EastEnders. And I don't expect anyone to nail exactly, like, the name of the show there, so I'll give you EastEnders.

So what was happening? Um, well, the actors are real people that are running a marathon. Yeah. For some reason. Yeah. And people see them and they think of the characters. Oh. And so they call out the character name because it's so familiar.

No, they're supposed to be calling out the character name because they're being filmed. The actors aren't running the marathon. This is the characters running the marathon for the soap, right? Yeah, they're filming a genuine segment for the show. Right. The characters are running the marathon, which means that the actors must run the marathon. What? No, it doesn't. It doesn't mean that. They don't need to do that. They can and they did. Those actors ran the entire London Marathon in character, raking for scenes at various points along the way where other actors were cheering for them.

Did they have to finish in a certain order for the plot? I think they just had to finish it. They just had to get through. This is Jamie Borthwick and Emma Barton, who played J. Brown and Honey Mitchell on East Enders. So they ran the full, real London marathon. They had some additional recreation scenes elsewhere. But there is only one way to fake up shots of a marathon for a TV show, and that is to do the marathon, where the BBC camera crews are already lining the route

and picking up on them as they go. Wow. I mean, I guess it's cheaper to do it that way. So the extras in the background are just normal runners in the marathon? Yeah, they're just running the marathon. Did they know they were gonna be in East Enders? I mean, if you're running the London Marathon,

you know you're on camera anyway. There's helicopters over the route, there's cars, there's everything. It would be so bad if you had a... You know how sometimes when you're running, you lose control of... You spit a little bit. There's helicopters over the route, there's cars, there's everything. It would be so bad if you had a... You know how sometimes when you're running you lose control of... You spit a little bit, sometimes you poop in the road. You wipe your pan.

Wouldn't it be the worst if not only you did that, but then it was on EastEnders? Do they do this every time a character from EastEnders needs to do something in the real world? If they're protesting, they have to go to a real protest. If one of the characters eggs a politician, then they have to really egg that politician in real life. If the character goes to jail, it's a real jail. It's a real courtroom. Deidre went to prison for real. Oh, nice reference. Neither of the other people in this call are going to get the Deidre Rashid reference but it's appreciated.

Thanks. So is Lola someone that they're running in memory of? Yes. And is she also a character from the show? Yep, spot on. They had a photo of Danielle Harrold on their t-shirts because her character, Lola, had died of a brain tumour and they were running for her. Annie, over to you for this one. Lola had died of a brain tumour and they were running for her. Annie, over to you for this one. In 1994, a gang stole a modest amount of money from a bank in Abay, Paraguay.

Dirty looks were exchanged when they were only able to leave with half the money that was in the safe. Why? In 1994, a gang stole a modest amount of money from a bank in a bi-paraguay. Dirty looks were exchanged when they were only able to leave with half of the money that was in the safe. Why? Okay, so they thought they were going to get all the money in the safe and they were only able to get half of it. Someone had not been working out. Someone had just like... Just physically can't carry been working out. Someone had just, like, absolutely not. Just physically can't carry that much money. I can carry this much. I can carry two million, I'm gonna guess, dollars,

because chances are it's a Paraguayan dollar. It's probably not gonna take a guess. And yeah, absolutely I can carry that. And then it turns out, no, hasn't been working out. This is why we were at the gym, Marty. Where were you? I like that bank robbers in Paraguay also have old-timey mobster accents. I'm imagining Al Capone turning up. Everyone just sounds like goodfellas.

That's incorrect, but it is very fun. Were half of the banknotes now out of circulation, but they were still in the safe for some reason? The money was money. Oh, the Paraguayan Garani, or Garani, I think. Thank you, Producer David, for that. It's worth about a fraction of a penny. Was it a tax thing? A tax thing?

I mean, that's how they got Al Capone. Like, that's how they got Al Capone, right? So even if you're a bank robber, you've still got to pay your taxes. So they were like, we're gonna leave half of it here for the tax man. And then we're getting Gabagool with Carmela. And she's making a famous ziti and risotto. Meadow, get over here. Somewhere, someone in South America will be able to translate that to the local equivalent, but that is not our job. That is not a thing we should do right now. That's going to go badly.

Yeah, I've no idea what the Paraguayan version of that would be. Did you say roughly half or exactly half, by the way? I just said the word half. Okay. And I would imagine that it was exactly half. I think they counted it out. Oh, if you take more than 10 million, then you get the chair. But 9,999,000, 9,999,000, it's only 20 years. Easy time. I also think that's a very creative guess. But no.

You said like dirty, what was it, dirty looks were exchanged or? Dirty looks were exchanged when they, the gang, were only able to leave with half the money that was in the safe. That is very specific phrasing. All the bills literally cut in half. Who were they exchanging those looks with? All the bills were literally guillotined. They were cut in half. That's like that Bible story about the baby.

Yeah. The two moms want the baby and then the king is, no, you have to cut it in half. The bank manager's like, I can't decide. You will get half of the bill each. It was a Fast and Furious type caper where they were trying to drag the safe out of the building entirely using a souped up car And unfortunately, they only took half of it just literally chopped down the middle You'll be shocked to find out that it's not It was not that it did not get cut exactly down the middle. Someone in the gang

Was some sort of double agent or something and then once they got in there They're like give me half the money and I'll let you take the other agent or something, and then once they got in there, they're like, give me half the money and I'll let you take the other half, or something like that. It was like some sort of deal done at the last minute. Okay, this is getting a little bit closer. Yes, it was... They were talking and they were making decisions with...

No. There were people that were... No, hold on, hold on. There weren't two simultaneous heists here, were there? There weren't two gangs who both tried to rob the same bank at the same time. And the dirty looks were them just going, yeah, well, you've taken half of our heists here. Please, please tell me that there were two simultaneous heists here. That sounds so good. Please let this be true.

That is true. Actually, we are cheering crime there. So just for balance, don't do crime. Laws, yeah. More information for you. The bandits were successfully carrying out their planned operation when the bank was raided by a second gang of robbers. The two gangs agreed to split the money equally between

them. According to a police spokesman, the gangs, quote, gave each other dirty looks as they scampered out the door. There's got to be a film about that, like a fast comedy about, like the one about the elderly bank. It could keep going as well, then there's another gang and then they have to harvest a gown. Tony, you're here too! You told me you were sick! There's just a traffic jam of getaway cars on the way out.

Like that airplane joke where it pans across and you see a whole line of people queuing waiting to rob the place. But once again, because Tom's concerned that viewers will be hatching plans to rob banks together, don't do it. Last order of business then. At the start of the show, I asked in Louisiana why is it possible to read the words, start fire, on a building that helps to prevent fire. Does anyone want to take a quick pot shot of that before I give the answer to the audience? Did it used to say something like, don't start a fire, but the don't and the ah got covered

up by like a billboard or a door closing or something, so now it just says start fire. It's an old ad about for a Billy Joel single that half it's been ripped down. Like a Mad Magazine fold in. Yeah. Maybe the word fire refers to firing a gun rather than a fire fire and it's like you would, I don't know, what you'd shoot, a shooter bail to get the fire brigade's attention or something. Are they like buttons on the fire hose?

It's not the word fire that's weird here. Start? Mm-hmm. Oh, it's like the place it's in is called like Start Fire Station because it's in the village of Start. Yes, this is in the... technically it's a census designated place. In northeast Louisiana it's called Start, it's home to about a thousand people, and the fire department there just has a big old building

with Start on one door and Fire on the other. Guys, I've posted this. I have posted a picture of that building. I really. Oh, Annie. Well, first of all, Annie, where can people find pictures like that? You can just search depth of Wikipedia on Macedon,

Twitter, TikTok, Instagram. Lots of cool stuff, and maybe you'll forget it like I do. David, where can people find you? What's going on in your life? You can find me on YouTube at David Bennett Piano, where I talk about music and music theory. And Jenny, where can people find you to be a tour guide for them? You can find me at JDraper London on YouTube and TikTok, and I talk about London history. And if you want to know more about this show or send in your own idea for a question, you can do that at lateralcast.com.

We are at Lateral Cast basically everywhere, and there are regular video highlights at youtube.com slash lateralcast. Thank you very much to JDraper. Thank you very much for having me. David Bannet. Thanks very much. Annie Rowder. Thank you. I for having me. David Bannet. Thanks very much. Annie Rowder. Thank you.

I've been Tom Scott and that's been Lateral.