No Such Thing As A Fish - 376: No Such Thing As Hamil-Son The Musical

Episode Date: June 4, 2021

Dan, James, Anna and Andrew discuss polite British invasions, Lin Manuel Miranda's next big broadway hit, and what a Ptaszynski really means.  Visit nosuchthingasafish.com for news about live shows, merchandise and more episodes.

Hey everyone, welcome to this week's episode of Fish. Before we begin, we just want to let you know that James is away this week, and so in his place, we've got a really good buddy of ours. It is Jamie Morton, the co-host of My Dad wrote a porno. I'm sure you're all aware of My Dad wrote a porno, one of the biggest British podcasts out there, and they've just launched their sixth series. There are a couple of episodes in. Do check it out. It is incredibly funny, it is incredibly rude, and maybe even go back to the first series and work your way up there because it's a long narrative and it is so worth the journey. They are obviously juggernauts, it's not just the podcast that they do. You can also find tickets to their upcoming live tours

online. Why not check out their HBO special as well. They've even just released some tie-in beers. There's My Dad wrote a porno ale that you can get now online, so do find that as well. You can actually see the whole team, Alice Levine and James Cooper and Jamie joining us online if you go to YouTube for the comic relief special that we did a few months back. The full team is there and we had a great chat. We had an amazing chat with Jamie on this episode, so I hope you enjoy. Do check their new series out and on with the show. Hello and welcome to another episode of No Such Thing as a Fish, a weekly podcast coming to you from four undisclosed locations in the UK. My name is Dan Schreiber. I am sitting here with Andrew

Hunter Murray and Anatochinsky and it's our special guest, our good friend, co-host of My Dad wrote a porno, Jamie Morton. And once again, we have gathered around the microphones with our four favorite facts from the last seven days and in no particular order, here we go. Starting with fact number one and that's you, Jamie. My fact is in 2007, tennis legends Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal played a match on a court that was 50% grass and 50% clay. Like a Frankencourt. Exactly that. Basically, they were both and still kind of are seen as the greatest on clay and grass. Rafa being the best on clay, Roger being the best on grass, and so they thought, why not combine the services and see who is the ultimate tennis player?

This was the idea. It's worth saying though, it's not a combination of grass and clay, like some new court that's been made. It's literally, and you can see photos or watch it online even, half of it is solid grass and then if you cross the court, it's solid clay. It's the most bizarre looking. It's wonderful. Exactly. Let me give you some kind of background to them. Nadal had kind of emerged as the first real rival to Roger Federer. Roger Federer was basically beating everybody and then Rafael Nadal came along in 2005, started to beat him on a lot of surfaces, but never on grass. So he had won 48 straight matches on grass and he was undefeated on the surface for five years. Five years undefeated on grass. That's insane.

At the same point, Nadal had won 72 straight matches on clay and he was three years undefeated. So they really were coming at the peak of their powers on both surfaces. Yeah. The match ended in a tie break as well. So it was meant to be a friendly, it was an exhibition match, but the guys took it very seriously and Nadal took the first set, Federer the second and then they went to a tie break in the third and that's where Nadal took it. It was very close and also a lot of Federer fans were bitching about the fact that the grass wasn't proper grass. They had a bit of a worm infestation in the day before the match was supposed to take place. Yeah. And it kind of buggered up all the grass. They had to get some putting green grass

put in overnight. And so it was kind of like a carpet of grass that wasn't really grass at all. So it wasn't really a fair test, guys, if you were at school. Didn't Federer say at the end, the court was great, especially the clay part of it. It's an insane to contemplate that this is 2007 and yeah, I agree. You know, you always think when Federer goes back into a grand slam, hopefully he'll win again. And I think he still won his last one in 2018. And yet this in May 2007, he was exactly halfway through the number of grand slams that he'd won. So he had won 10 of his 20 grand slams by that point. Whereas Nadal was just starting out. What's nice about them now is that they've both got 20 grand slams. It's almost like they should both retire now and just

be equal forever. Because this whole kind of conversation, who's the greatest of all time, it will go on and on and on. I guess this was a kind of a gimmicky way to try and settle who was the best. Yeah. And no one ever says, Oh, actually, Nadal's officially the better player because he won that match on the half grass. Also, it is insane how these guys stay at the top of the game. Do you remember there was that story of the guy who went in the coma? And when he went in the coma, Federer was number one in the world. He was in it for 11 years. And when he came out, Federer was still up there. I think it was number two. Was that his first question when he came out? It's Federer still number one. They said,

Yes. And he said, thank God, it must have just been a fortnight or something. Well, he went into the coma in the first place because Federer accidentally knocked a ball into his head. So it was a reasonable question to ask. How's Federer doing? Just on weird tennis matches, do you know that Andy Roddick once played a game of tennis with a frying pan instead of a racket? Wow. And I learned about this in a book called Andy Roddick Beat Me with a Frying Pan, which is actually an incredibly confusingly titled book because it's by a guy called Todd Gallagher. And it's a book about all these sports questions that you wish could be answered like what would happen if the NBA raised the basket to 12 feet

or how good a pro golfer is at miniature golf. And one of them is what would happen if you gave an amazing tennis player a frying pan to play with? Could I still beat him? And the outcome is that the author beats Andy Roddick. And I've never met a book where the title is just a direct lie once you read the actual contest. The match like Roddick played really, really well, but with a frying pan, it's quite difficult. You can't put any spin on the ball. You can't hit backhands apparently, which I would have thought you could just spin it around in your hand, but you can't hit backhands. Quite heavily. He could maneuver it around. Okay. But anyway, he struggled, but he did give an interview afterwards saying he thought that if he got

to practice a little bit, he'd get used to it. And indeed, for charity, he later that year, I think, played another guy called Chris Wetzel, who won this charity event. And he played him with a frying pan and he did then win. He actually thrashed him. And so Andy Roddick, the title Andy Roddick beat Chris Wetzel with a frying pan is less intriguing than Andy Roddick beat me with a frying pan. That's a problem. Yeah. But he didn't want to credit Chris Wetzel with writing the book that he'd written. So he's in a difficult place. Yeah. And he could have called I beat Andy Roddick with a frying pan. But it sounds, it sounds more menacing and fire. And it's a dangling modifier, isn't it? It's very misleading. It does imply that he's got the

frying pan. Another amazingly weird match that occurred is the longest match in women's singles, which lasted over six hours long. But that's not the interesting bit about it. Within that match was the longest single rally of tennis ever to occur. So this was September 24th, 1984. And this was the longest in terms of a pro match, longest rally. How many shots do you think this rally went for? Shots. 160. Yeah, 110. Pretty good. Pretty good. I'm gonna say 100. It lasted 29 minutes and it went for 643 shots. Oh my God. Serena Williams has won matches in shorter times than that. Yeah. It was between Vicki Nelson Dunbar and Jean Hepner. And it was a set point for Hepner. And it was in a tie break at the end of the match. And it went 29 minutes long. And Vicki Nelson

managed to take it on the 643 shot of the match. Oh, she would never have recovered for Jean. Oh, it was horrible. Vicki Nelson immediately collapsed with cramps in her legs. She was in so much pain. And the umpire, the umpire, gave her a time violation warning because she was taking too long to get back up for the next shot. Yeah. They're so strict, those umpires. It's just so unfair. Yeah. That is so unfair. That seemed to say that you could start watching an episode of EastEnders at the start of that rally and come out of that episode and be like, what's happening in the match? It's like, well, it's the same rally. You could be in an extremely short coma and come out of the coma and say, who won that set? We don't know. Are you okay, Andy?

Are you a lot of comers today? Sorry, Andy Roddick beat me with a frying pan. I do love the story of a really early tennis player called Suzanne Longlin. Have you heard of this woman? She was basically the most famous woman in the world in the 1920s when tennis was quite the sport and everyone loved it. And she was amazing. She was the first number one female tennis player ever. She won six Wimbledon titles, including five in a row. And from the first World War to her retirement in 1923, she never lost a match except once when she retired. She didn't lose it. She just retired from the match. But my favorite thing about her is that in between points,

she would sit and drink wine and cognac because she felt that that was the only way she could play properly. Wow. In between points, not in between, well, changeovers, I guess, games. Okay, right. That's because you do get points docked for interrupting a point in order to have a drink. I think that's pushing it. A cramp, you're not allowed, but a drink of cognac is actually fine. And she was so powerful in terms of getting people to come and see her that when she wanted to go and play in America, the USTA conspired to circumnavigate the prohibition laws that would mean that she could actually drink in America. So that she could take part in the tournament because she wouldn't play when I'm drinking. Wow. That's amazing. The most watched tennis game of

all time was The Battle of the Sexes, the very famous match. And so this was obviously the tennis game that's played between Polygyne King and Bobby Riggs to definitively decide whether a woman could be a man at tennis, quite bizarre concept. But I have not realized how many people watched it, 90 million people tuned in to watch it. And Bobby Riggs said it was the most disappointing, disheartening experience of my life losing, which is kind of sad for him. He was and it wasn't even a victory for King because she was 29 and he was 55. So it's quite hard to laud that over him. She actually said to be a 55 year old guy was no thrill for me at all. The thrill was exposing a lot of new people to tennis. She said that it was never about the athleticism and she would say that

because obviously quite the advantage. She said it was about respect is what she said. She said she wanted to prove that women could compete against men. Yeah. And she did that. I mean, it was amazing. So speaking of greatest players of all time, Anna recommended a book to me recently which I've ordered and I've just been reading reviews of it, which is Andre Agassi's autobiography, which is said to be one of the greatest sort of tell-alls of recent years. In the 90s, when he had his awesome long hair that was coming down from his bandana, turns out that was a wig. The whole time he was wearing a wig on the court. I had no idea. I mean, he was a hero in my day. But does he say why? Because that must have been so annoying to play with a big, because it was a big

wig. It was like a mullet wig. Because a lot of hair at the back of your hair. A huge amount of hair at the back. He was going bald and he didn't want to go bald. And he just thought he was less rock and roll and his hair was falling out in the shower and so on. He thought it's going to look disgusting when it's in the grass and on the clay. Sure. But like, why a mullet? Why so much hair? He's over-convincing with like... It went all the way down his back. Look, he was an angry man. There's no explaining his actions in those days. Well, there is explaining it. He was trained, almost tortured with the aim of making him a great tennis player, which he was. But it's a brilliant book. It's kind of a sad book. He had so many issues back then. So the bit of it that I

remember is that he was married to Brooke Shields for a while. And there was this scene in Friends, which we will probably remember, where Joey Tribbiani has a stalker. So when he's on Days of Our Lives, he has a stalker who thinks that he's the real Dr. Drake Ramore. And that stalker is played by Brooke Shields. And she's a crazy, creepy stalker. And she licks his hands at one point in this really crazy, creepy way. And when Andre Agassiz saw that scene, he was so overwhelmed with hatred and jealousy that he drove home and he smashed all of his tennis trophies. So all the tennis trophies he's won, up until that point, were completely destroyed. So he smashed them to pieces. What? Wow. He was an angry man. Then she filed for divorce. Very quickly after that.

He's now about to step your graph. Like two of the greatest tennis players ever. They're like two of the only people that have ever done the Golden Slam, which is winning all four grand slams and the Olympic gold medal. And they're married. And both very fucked up by tennis. I think that's what drew them together. They kind of both hated tennis. Yeah, exactly. That's a really good point. Because they were they were both children of obsessed fathers with the game, right? And apparently the two dads, when they met, almost came to blows while arguing over who had the superior backhand technique. Really fun wedding. Hey, someone else who had a fun record was the only person ever to win the men's doubles, the mixed doubles and the men's singles at Wimbledon.

And that was Bobby Riggs. And the fun thing about this, so this guy who then lost to Billy Jean King, something about this was that this was in 1939. But he was mostly known after that for being an Confederate gambler and a real rogue. And we should say that he became friends with Billy Jean King. So the whole misogynist thing was an act and they became very good friends afterwards. And she spoke to him the day before he died. So he he was a rogue. So he was obsessed with gambling. He put a bet on himself in 1939 to win the men's doubles, the mixed doubles and the men's singles. And this would never been done, never been done since. And so he won $108,000. So the equivalent of $1.5 million at the time. Yeah. And he only put, I think he put $500 on.

Well done, Bobby. Good on him. Well, Billy Jean King has said that he was always one of her heroes because he won that triple crown, I guess, and there was a great tennis player. And she said that she thought it was the fact that his career had been overshadowed by the Second World War that made him so bitter. Because no one really remembered him and his achievements. Because that's a pretty major thing no one's done it since. And no one really gave him credit for it. It was bigger news then and it's bigger news now. Yeah, you can't imagine much sympathy with the war veterans around the table. Oh, God, my life is ruined by World War II as well. Tell me about it.

Okay, it is time for fact number two, and that is Anna. My fact this week is that when Britain invaded Iceland in 1940, they knocked on all the doors before breaking them down and officially apologized for the inconvenience. Chills. So proud. So proud of my nation. They have flasks of tea as well. Yeah, yeah, exactly. This was the British invasion of Iceland in 1940, which I didn't know happened. And so don't worry, it wasn't too big a deal. It and it was almost not an invasion. It was basically an invasion because the

British didn't tell Iceland about it. So it was in May 1940, and it's called Operation Fork. And basically, the Germans had their eyes on Iceland. They'd just taken charge of Norway and Denmark and Iceland seemed like the obvious next step. So the British thought, let's get there in advance of the Germans. And they thought, if we ask the Icelandics, if we can go in, then they might say no, because Iceland was very determinedly neutral. They were really like, we're not getting involved with this whole war business, not a jam. And so we thought they'll probably say no. So let's just storm them. Let's just invade. So Britain invaded. But they invaded very politely. So the British commander was a guy

called Sturgis, and he issued fliers immediately after getting there apologizing sincerely for the inconvenience and saying, look, we're just saving you from the Germans. Really, really sorry about this invasion. And they took over communications like any good invasion does, you know, they seize radio communications and stuff like that. But before breaking all the doors down to those buildings, they did knock on the doors. And then once they broken them down, they showered the janitor with apologies, apparently, in the big radio building that they invaded. They didn't speak Icelandic. So they would have been apologizing, I think, in another language. They may have had a translator with them. But they really,

it was the worst planned. It's unbelievably shoddy reading this incredible account of it. So they planned to invade in secret. So they were sending a couple of detachments of troops, several hundred troops, I think about 700 maybe with the invasion force. And they thought they departing from Scotland, Greenock was the station they were getting to. They thought, let's be inconspicuous, let's send the troops. So they arrived staggered in Greenock. So it's not clear where they're sending huge arms off us. Exactly, really clever. Unfortunately, due to delays on the line, all the soldiers arrived in Greenock at exactly the same time. It was manifestly obvious they were planning something big. So that's even more British

than the more apologizing to be fair. The trains didn't work well. Yeah, nothing wrong on time. Andy, didn't they also, the idea was let's invade by night. But in May, in that bit of the year, Iceland is basically bathed in light. Even though it wasn't completely light, it was light enough that people saw it coming. Crowds formed because it was a public holiday and a payday for all of the fishermen. So they were drinking late into the night, out on the docks, looking out, going, oh, what are those massive ships coming? Imagine how fun that is. Because you're on a night out, you're thinking, what are we going

to do now? The pubs have shut. A bit boring. Do we go home? And then round the corner, invading Naval Force. Dreamy. I mean, that's going to extend your night. And they wouldn't have known if it was a German invasion, a British invasion. Think of that, that kind of the buildup of that. What ship is it? Can we see it yet? No. There was jeopardy at the time over that because, as you say, there were shapes of ships, ship shapes, if you like, in the water. And they, I think they sent out a late night policeman on his bicycle to try and assess the situation a bit better. But he came back and said, I can't see what kind they are. Where did he ride to? How is he getting further than anyone else at the dock?

Maybe they sent a policeman with the best eyesight, I'm not sure. But the invasion force had already massively given themselves away because one of the ships traveling had a little sea plane attached to it, which was a model of plane called a Supermarine Walrus, which is a great name for a plane. Really good. You know, you want an amphibious plane, Supermarine Walrus. Brilliant. Anyway, they sent up the pilot saying, look, we're looking for German submarines in the area, which could be a huge threat. We've got, you know, hundreds of troops on these ships. So look for subs in the area. Be careful. Don't fly directly over Reykjavik, the main city in Iceland, which the plane immediately then did several times, waking up everyone in Reykjavik.

I mean, such a ball's up. I love it. It's truly heinous. It's brilliant. The soldiers hadn't fired their guns. Lots of them had never fired the rifles they'd just been issued with. Really? Yeah. They didn't need to, to be fair. They brought some loaded rifles, but it was very much a case of the ship docking. And in fact, I think the British ambassador, who was the only person in Iceland who knew that what was going to happen, the British ambassador sort of saying to the crowd, do you mind standing back a bit so these invading soldiers can climb off their ships and invade you? And everyone's like, yeah, yeah, of course. So sorry. So sorry to have gone the way. One of the Icelanders snatched a rifle from a Marine and just stuffed a cigarette in it,

and then threw it back to him, selling it to him. Be more careful. And then the Marine got told off by his commanding officer. Oh, you probably would have been told off for having a random dude manage to snatch your rifle off you. Like, yeah, that's pretty bad soldiering. We should say, I think everything we're saying is from this fantastic article. So I think we should cite it. It's this article in Hakai magazine. And it's one of my new favorite sites. I've been reading it for about six months now. And it's ostensibly a site about fishing, really. But the article is just amazing on it. I'm addicted to it. So it's a great magazine if you want to read it. And this article is amazing. Highly recommend checking it out. I mean, it opens with this

amazing thing that some of the earliest color footage that we have of Iceland was taken from the camera of Eva Braun, Hitler's girlfriend. She was the one who had trained it on Iceland, and she caught these little children on camera. And it's just mad that that's some of the earliest footage that we have is filmed by Hitler. Just on a cruise holiday, right? On a cruise holiday. On a Nazi cruise holiday, right? Like this was part of a Nazi incentive. If the politics thing doesn't work, maybe the whole cruise ship thing might take off. And I didn't realize that she was, as is mentioned again in this article, that she was hidden as a girlfriend to the German public because much like the Beatles or other pop bands,

the idea that Hitler being in a relationship would have put women off joining the party. But Hitler as a bachelor was, you know, like, ah, Hitler, it was a bigger... Oh yeah, because Hitler was such a stud. Yeah, he was in his mid 40s at this point. Surely at some point the K-pop, not in a relationship, fiction has to wear out. There must be a recruitment ceiling where beyond which you're thinking young women are not getting into the party because they think Hitler might fancy them. Interesting counter-historical narrative. If Hitler had openly got a girlfriend, would he have been forced to leave like the K-pop stars who get boyfriends or girlfriends?

Yeah, and instead we'd be talking about some guy who ran a cruise ship company. God, yeah, you... I can imagine Goebbels actually knocking on the door saying, mate, I'm so sorry. Sort of the dominant comments. Yeah, I can't say it's him. So this invasion was about Norway and Denmark. So they'd been taken over by the Nazis. So Iceland was under Danish control at the time, although it sort of seceded for the war, and Norway was right there. And so the reason that the Brits invaded was because Germany was getting dangerously close to Iceland. But in Norway, it was illegal under Nazi occupation

to do various things. It was illegal to wear a paperclip as a brooch. And that was because students used to wear them as a sign of resistance against the Nazis to show that they were bound together. And there was another thing people used to do, which became a thing in Norway, which is giving wrong street directions. So Nazi soldiers arrived in Norway and didn't know where anything was, and so would ask for directions to places. And the thing became to point them in the opposite direction to where they wanted to go. And also illegal to stand on a bus if a seat was available. Why? Wait, did people refuse to sit next to German soldiers? Absolutely correct. Yeah. Yeah. That's pretty petty making a law saying you have to sit next to

our soldiers in case their feelings are hurt. I presume. It's pretty sad. Maybe their soldiers are in relationships. Normally it's between them. The Norwegian invasion, I don't know if we've said this before, is where the word quisling comes from, to mean a traitor. Because the leader who collaborated with the Nazis was called Vidkun quisling. So it's one of those cool examples of where an individual, a named individual becomes a word to mean characteristic. Do you think you'd be pleased or excited or nervous if someone said to you, after you die, there's going to be a noun that's named after you? And that's all I'm telling you. Because it's, you know, you think, oh, God, there's going to be a noun quisling. That's so exciting. What's it

going to mean? Is it going to be a really brave person? Is it going to be a really beautiful object? What would a Tejinski be? It would be like the perfect pub. I think it would be a unit of alcohol, but like an unrealistically large. Okay, it is time for fact number three. And that is my fact. My fact this week is that 32 years after he defeated Alexander Hamilton in a duel, the last thing to happen to Aaron Burr on the day he died was that he was defeated in a court case by Alexander Hamilton, Jr. So incredible. Amazing. How so, Dan? How so? So obviously we know Hamilton, the musical, based on Alexander Hamilton, one of the founding fathers of America. And the fact that he was murdered by Aaron Burr,

who was the third vice president of the United States. And that happened in 1804. They had a duel and it resulted in Hamilton's death. So it was horrible. He died and it really had horrible ramifications for the rest of Burr's life that followed him all the way to his death. So in 1833 at the age of 77, Burr got remarried having lost his wife a number of years before to a lady called Eliza Jumel, who was a very wealthy widow herself. She was 19 years younger than he was. And he thought, okay, this is great. This is a second chance to have a huge bit of wealth in my life. And so he kind of took control of her wealth and squandered it. He invested it in very odd projects. And she cottoned on to this and went, hang on a second, you're bleeding me of all my money. So she decided

to get a divorce. When she decided to get a divorce, the divorce lawyer that she hired was the son of Alexander Hamilton, Alexander Hamilton, Jr., who was an incredibly successful guy. This case was way below him. He'd passed doing this kind of menial stuff years and years ago, but he said, absolutely, I'll take it on. And he used the court case as an excuse to really showcase what a terrible person he thought Aaron Burr was. He talked about all his affairs and so on. And the court case took three years and it was finally settled in the favor of Eliza Jumel on the very day that Aaron Burr died just a few hours before he passed away, a final little defeat from the Hamilton. So he did hear about it before he died. We don't know. I don't actually know that. Yeah,

I'm not sure. I hope he'd, Dan, why don't you know that? Go on, mate, do your research, go back in time. Get the facts right. Come on. Thank you for saying it, Jamie. We've all been thinking it for years. That's what I'm here for. So this is another, because one of the famous things in the musical is that Alexander Hamilton had a son who died in a duel. Yes, correct. That was his oldest son. Philip Hamilton died in a duel. And he was defending the honor of his dad, Alexander Hamilton. Someone was like bad-mouthing his dad. And so he was like, I'm not having that. See you on the dueling field, sir. And then he died. Yeah. Well, then they did the thing that they used to do in the olden days, which I always find a bit creepy of calling their next son Philip as well, which

always feels like a bit of a burden to carry. In fact, they called him Philip II. Oh, wow. The son who, their next son born after Philip, their elder son had died. Yeah. So he started with Philip, then he named a later son, Alexander Jr., which feels like the first name you go to. And then later on went to another, this is too mixed up for me. I have a quick pitch, a musical pitch here. And we should say, Jamie, you actually are friends with the creator of the Hamilton musical, Lin-Manuel Miranda. He's been on my dad wrote a porno, right? And you've hung out with him. Best friend. So you could probably get this idea to him on my behalf.

Sequel to the musical Hamilton, Hamilton Jr. Okay, that's the, that's the sequel, because the story of Alexander Hamilton Jr. is extraordinary. He was obviously from a family destroyed by two deaths as a result of gun dueling. His sister sadly lost her mind off the back of her father dying. He was, he was a sort of grew up in a broken household, but he rose above it all and became this extraordinary character. So he was someone who eventually went on to become a colonel fighting against Napoleon. He sailed to Spain in 1811, and he was fighting with the first Duke of Wellington. He came back to America. He became a lawyer. He was a big part of Wall Street when he became a real estate agent and built that up as well. And it's full of little cameos. It's a

great story where when he was just traveling in the West, he met Abraham Lincoln, who was at that point a state legislator, nowhere near being coming president. He met him in a grocery store where he said Lincoln was lying on the counter in the midday telling stories, just laying there, just given a yarn of what was going on. Wow. Was there a cue? I mean, that's very annoying if you're third of the UK, you're trying to buy a broccoli. Some lunatic sprawled out on the counter. Honest Dave, shut up. Dan, would you call it Hamilton? As in, I'm just trying to work out what it would be called. Like, is it Hamilton with two L's in the middle? Hamilton or is it Hamill two on, which is where... Yes, you've put the two in place of a T at the end. Yeah.

Hamilton. That's better. Hamilton. Their descendants, Hamilton's and Burr's descendants, are now friends with each other. They know each other. I think they live in New York, or they certainly did a while ago. They met Alexandra Hamilton Woods and Antonio Burr. They met at a party in 2007 and they worked out that they had a familial connection and they would go kayaking together. Yeah, they're part of this. So, they're both psychoanalysts and they met at a big psychoanalyst party and they were introduced because of the surnames. They were like, any chance, Alexandra Hamilton, that you are related? It turned out she was. And he said that he's

part of this kayaking club, which kayaks on the Hudson, which is the river that Hamilton and Burr had to cross in order to get to their dueling spots. So, they actually do kayak very near to the spot where the duel happened together. And they're both... So, that must be tense, surely. Yeah, one of them just starts reaching into the bottom of the kayak and pulling out a pistol. Yeah. Remember this? They do have to get into arguments with each other sometimes in debate because they're both part of the Inwood Canoe Club, you know, the high board. So, he's one of them's a treasurer and Burr is the president emeritus. So... Burr finally became president. That's nice. It's not quite the high stakes battles of

your, is it? No. Canoe club. One thing I do love about Aaron Burr and because you've got me on the show, I feel this is fitting for me to bring up. But in 1861, a piece of erotica was published all about Aaron Burr. Really? Really, this is true. It was called The Amorous Intrigues and Adventures of Aaron Burr. And because he had quite a reputation for being a womanizer, I think you mentioned earlier, Dan, and a lot of his enemies, including Hamilton, who was also a bit of a womanizer himself, would often kind of use that as a reason to attack him. And so, some anonymous person, could it have been Alexander Hamilton II or whoever, wrote this sexy book all about Aaron Burr. Have you read it? I tried to find some so that I could read it out,

Alan, my dad wrote a porno, but I just couldn't find it anywhere. Good news, I found out about this book as well, and I did find an extract, so I'm going to put it in the chat here. The warm-hearted girl sighed heavily. There was a choking sensation in her throat, and her large, dark eyes were rolled up in her head with such a softness in their expression that Burr must have been more or less than man. God, this is worse than my dad's. Not to have desired a more intimate acquaintance with her. Burr threw up, oh sorry, Burr threw up her clothes. It's very niche kind of porno, I've got to hear. Burr threw up, different line guys, Burr threw up her clothes and revealed such charms as seldom have been exposed to the light

of the sun. Oh, that's beautiful. The smooth, round belly, the voluminous yet compact thighs, the robust calf, and small foot and ankle, the satin smoothness of the skin, and other graces not to be mentioned. Well, it's erotica mate, mention them, that's what we're here for, but who's pouting and most freshness be tokened a guarded virginity, which, however, longed for the pressure of manhood. All these so fired him with passion that he had scarcely the necessary patience to prepare himself for the amorous encounter. Burr. It's hot. That's hot stuff. A red worse. I don't know if I would be happy that this is how he's going to be remembered,

because I'm finding it impossible to divorce the real Aaron Burr from that fictional account now. Do you guys know that the, you know, the woman who, he was divorcing, who Burr was divorcing in this original fact, Eliza Jumel. So she was kind of interesting, she was very much gossiped about, I bet there's some fan porn fiction about her around, round and about. And she was, I'm sure she's in the book. She must be a character. Yeah, right. She was very poor, and she married up above her station, this very rich man called Stephen, Stephen Jumel, and then he died apparently, according to reports, falling off a hay cart and onto a pitchfork, which sounds almost completely implausible. That's someone who, who stabbed him with a pitchfork.

Hastily positioning him so he looks like he fell off the hay cart. Come on. Just put the pitchfork facing up with his body at the top. Oh, that was suspect. Well, perhaps unsurprisingly, the rumor spread that she killed him, and then let him bleed out. So all these rumors about her, and she, so she then divorced Burr. But the other thing about her is, and this is why I think Burr's quite exciting, because he's been responsible for two of the greatest pieces of entertainment of the last 10 years. Because after divorcing Burr and Burr dying, she employed a New York housekeeper called Ann Northup. And Ann Northup is the wife of Solomon, Solomon Northup, who was the person in 12 years

of slaves who was abducted and sold into slavery. And that was Solomon Northup. So while her husband was missing, Ann Northup was working for Eliza Jumel. So how cool is that? They were sort of a duo together for a while, a double act. That's amazing. And then she lived in the oldest mansion in New York, which is now a hotbed for ghost hunters, Dan, if you're ever there. Yeah, well, actually, I read a book by Hans Holzer, who is the person who Ghostbusters is based on. And he says that when Hamilton was shot, he went back to a house in New York, and supposedly, the house that he died in, the ghost of Hamilton still haunts. And Hans Holzer went to investigate that. And if you go to this house in New York these days, what you need to listen out for is

the toilet flushing, because apparently Hamilton is obsessed with toilets, because it's a technology he didn't know in his days. This is the thing they say about ghosts generally. Ghosts apparently are obsessed with toilets and flushing them. So if you hear a rogue toilet flush in that house, it could be Hamilton. It's not Hamilton, but it could be, I suppose, if we're going to stretch. According to Hans Holzer, is what I'm saying. Yeah, sure. It's a big caveat. So you're saying ghosts today, they come to the future, and they've got the internet, they've got aeroplanes, they've got space travel, they've got microwaves, they've got cars and trains. And you're saying the flush of a toilet, that's what astonishes them, which I believe the flushing toilet, some sort of

flushing toilet was invented in Elizabethan times, wasn't it? Is that the only thing that can impress them? I don't know why you say I'm claiming this, all I mean is passing on Hans Holzer, legendary ghost hunters. We're blaming the messenger here again. And also, ghosts can't hold things or touch it. How could they operate a toilet? It makes no sense. No, I mean, they can. They can smash mirrors and they can. They're poltergeist. You're very confused there. I don't believe well behaved poltergeists who are only interested in sanitation. Okay, it's time for our final fact of the show, and that is Andy. My fact is that the police in Paris have an elite unit of cops who are armed, but also on rollerblades. Ah, yes, they are.

Yeah. Actually, when you said this fact, I want to know what you mean by elite, because that sounds like something they tell the cops to reassure them. They don't like complete twerks on rollerblades. So fair. I think maybe I mean niche unit of cops. The ones that are useless, anything else. So are they real cops, right? They're not cops. They're not token. No, they have guns and truncheons and they, I mean, there aren't very many of them, you know, compared with the overall Parisian police force. But they are elite. Yeah, they are real. Yeah, they have been going for about 20 years. There are just eight members of this unit. And I know it's extremely elite. Yeah. It's very hard to recruit into obviously, because you need someone who's unbelievably good at rollerblading.

But they do have advantages in urban police work. They can go about 30 kilometers an hour normally, because they're quite heavily weighed down. But if they really get a move on, they can get up to about 50 kilometers an hour, they claim, which is a lot faster than someone can run. Yeah. Although as soon as that someone runs over cobblestones, they're in serious trouble. Yeah, they're stuffed. They can't, they really hate cobblestones. A similar scheme was piloted in London in 2000. The Royal Parks Constabulary attempted to use them in Kensington Gardens, but it was abandoned because the minute someone ran on grass, they were screwed. Because equally like cobblestones, rollerblading, not so great on grass. I can't believe they put them in the Royal Parks, though,

which are mostly grass. That's a predominantly grass environment. Should we go for the parks in the gardens for this? Yeah. Yeah. Well, what about the beaches? Let's do the beaches. If they just put some clay in there as well, it would have been perfect. It is a ridiculous idea, because it's only useful if you have to give chase against someone and immediately get them. Any other situation of policing coming in with rollerblades is just ridiculous. And these guys in Paris, they are used for different situations. They're sometimes asked to go and police other bits outside of just the main street. So sometimes they have to go and stop, you know, fighting that's going on in a building. And in the thing I read,

they're like, sometimes we have to go up to the fifth floor. There's no elevator. We're there in our rollerblades, going upstairs, and then we're arriving at the scene on rollerblades, which no one can take seriously. Hang on, do you think surely if you're on the fifth floor, it depends how many floors it is. But if it's five, I'm definitely taking off my rollerblades, running up the stairs, then putting them back on at the top, aren't you? There's probably a guideline about how many floors it's acceptable to take off your blades for. You're so right. Yeah. Rollerblading is very much something that shoots up and down in popularity and one year will be super popular. But I remember going on French holidays with my friend when we were kids.

And we used to rollerblade a lot then, but I haven't seen much of it since. Yeah. And it's basically since the mid 19th century, isn't it? Since it first took off, which was 1863, and this is when a guy called James Leonard Plimpton invented roller skates that actually worked. So before that, you couldn't really go round corners. And he finally invented wheels that were kind of attached to a cushioned springy platform, and also two rows of wheels rather than one. So skates, not blades. And it took off overnight. And it became this mad craze to the extent that in 1885, in Scientific American, there was an article that was roller skating, The Medical View, which was analyzing why it was that America got so obsessed with certain things.

And it started. It's such a good article. And it rang so true for today. It started, we hear of no other country so violently perturbed by waves of temperance, crusading, religious revivals, velocities, crazes, pedestrianism. No one walked apparently before that. And now roller skating, which exceeds all the others. And it was an analysis of how it had managed to become such a mad craze and whether it was medically harmful. And I concluded, no, it's not. Oh, it's safe. It's safe, guys. Thank God. Oh, thank God. It's safe. Yeah, Andy, you can keep them on. Thank you. We should say, by the way, we keep saying roller blades. And the reality, which I only just found out through researching this, is that it's a brand name. It's not the sport itself.

Oh, it's a trademark name. It's a single manufacturer that make roller blades. And the rest of it is called inline skating. Inline skating. So that's what we should be saying. Okay, nice. Yeah, we should redo this fact. Because we don't know they're wearing roller blades. No, you're right. Oh, God. Some budget police version. The guy who created the first popular inline skates was a guy called Scott Olson. He was a hockey player and he made them in 1979. They had been patented before. And in fact, he was beaten by 20 years by this lady from Palm Beach called Emma DeSauro, who got a patent on inline skates. She had the idea. And then the patent expired. And she never made a penny out of it. She was, they interviewed her, you know, years

after rollerblading have become a huge thing. And she said, well, I'm obviously glad everyone's were all applauding, but I did have the idea. It's really a sad thing. Yeah. Bless her. I know. Has she ever invented anything else? No, not as far as I know. They weren't interviewing her saying we're off to be Emma DeSauro in her mansion, which she got after she invented thermodores or whatever. I don't know. I can but dream. She did one day create something that we all live day to day. I know, I know. But so Olson, that Scott Olson, the hockey player, he has invented so many other silly sports and means of getting around. He's a bit of a hero. So he was, I think, the guy behind the rollerblade company, but then had terrible legal fallings

out and the sheet like ructions and he got kicked out. And it was all very, you know, chaotic. It's like Steve Jobs, pretty much. So in 1996, you made the row bike, which is a bike with these kind of push pull handles. And that's how you propel yourself along. Yeah. Very exciting. He's made the sky ride, which is a roller coaster, but you have to pedal yourself around it. Sorry about that. There's this huge track suspended 150 feet up and you get in the thing and you just have to pedal away. It's better than it sounds guys. It looks really fun. Do you have a sort of safety net or something? I mean, how high up are you for that? 150 feet. You're pretty high up. You must have a

harness or something. Yeah. Yes, I imagine there are some basic safety precautions. Because I can't get across monkey bars these days. That's actually terrifying. You're sitting in a pod. You're sitting in a pod. You do thing with all inventors. All great inventions. The key is if you're enough darts, one of them is going to strike. Because every inventor, you look at their history and you go, God, they invented a lot of shit, didn't they? In amongst this whole penicillin thing, they invented, you know, fluffy bicycles or whatever. So the original inventor of roller blades, in fact, which preceded roller skates by about 100 years, was a guy called John Joseph Merlin, who we've mentioned before. And we've mentioned him

in the context of when he invented his blades to publicize his other inventions. He showed them off by blading straight into a mirror and smashing it. So they didn't take off at all. But his other inventions were kind of cool. He invented a rotating tea table. And this worked by having the teapot or like the samovar that poured the tea in the middle. And then you had all the cups around the outside and your hostess could spin the samovar, which would pour and fill all the cups by just operating a pedal under the table. So the lazy, lazy woman didn't even have to stand up and pour the tea. That was the start of women's day. I think he was attributed as well with inventing if you go on a merry-go-round, it used to be a stagnant horse that would go around the

whole way. And he, I think, invented the up and down motion of a merry-go-round horse. It's the best bit of a merry-go-round. That's not the best bit, Jamie. It is. Come on. Come on, it is. It's with the going round in a circle. The best bit is the going round. There's only one way to test this. All right, you both have to create your own merry-go-rounds, one where the horse moves in a circle and stays on the horizontal plane. And the other way just goes up and down and doesn't move around in a circle. And you'll open one next to each other and you'll see you get small punters. Oh, my God, this is the Federer Nadal court of up and down circular entertainment. The problem with the one where you stay in one spot and the horse goes up and

down is you have to wave at your mum all the way through the ride. I have one last really stupid thing of Rollerblades, which is a 2016 report of the Wiltshire police about the 999 calls they got. One of their operators said that she'd taken a call from someone who'd been out rollblading at night who wanted an officer to come and pick them up because the caller had come across a very steep hill that they couldn't roll a blade up and they went out stranded. That's the sort of thing that I would do to be fair. Come on. The operator said, I ascertained that the caller was not very far from home and suggested that she contact a friend or a family member to pick her up instead. Or take them off. The old take them off has come back. Oh, my God. Why not take them off? We got an email

once for a guy called Marcus that I don't think I've ever mentioned, but it's such a good fact, which is that so in some countries you call different numbers for a different emergency service. And in Chad, the number you call for police is 17. And the number you call for the fire department is 19. And what do you think the number is that you call for an ambulance? 21. 17, 19, 21. Oh, I like that logic. I would have guessed 18. It is in fact 2251424. Okay, that's it. That's all of our facts. Thank you so much for listening. If you would like to get in contact with any of us about the things that we have said over the course of this podcast, we can be found on our Twitter accounts. I'm on at Shrybeland, Andy at Andrew Hunter and Jamie

at Uncle Eagle to ease. Never done this before makes no sense. Anna, you can email podcast at qi.com for me. Yep. Or you can go to our group account, which is at no such thing or go to our website. No such thing as a fish.com. We have all of our previous episodes up there. Go check them out. Also, check out all the previous episodes of my dad wrote a porno Jamie's podcast, which has just launched its sixth season. There are a couple of episodes in now. Do listen to them all. They are online wherever you get your podcasts. And yeah, we will be back again next week with another episode. So we'll see you all then. Goodbye.