No Such Thing As A Fish - 385: No Such Thing As Crossing the Futility Boundary

Episode Date: August 6, 2021

Dan, James, Anna and Andrew discuss Albatrosses, Cheetahs, Mangles, Rocking Chairs, Dolly Parton and plenty more besides. Visit nosuchthingasafish.com for news about live shows, merchandise and more episodes.

Hi everyone, welcome to this week's episode of no such thing as a fish coming to you live from my editing suite straight to your ears We are all on holiday this week having a nice relaxing time Enjoying the great British weather and so what we have for you is one of our Compilation specials loads of fun bits from the last few months that didn't quite fit into the show But a really funny really stupid really just does messing around these are always my favorite episodes by the way I absolutely love them I genuinely think some of the best bits of fish that we've ever done have been in these compilations But it's all sorts of bits all sorts of subjects loads and loads of facts loads and loads of fun

We really really hope you enjoy it. We will be back next week with a normal episode with a very special guest More on that next week, but for now, I guess all there is to say is on with the podcast 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 Anna Tyshinski James Harkin and Andrew Hunter Murray and once again We have gathered around the microphones with our four favorite facts from the last seven days and in a particular order here We go starting with you Andy my fact is that after his death Anton Chekhov was brought back to Russia in a refrigerator wait in over fridge awaited

Bugs Bunny's gonna be doing my back for me. I had a friend who used to sleep with his eyes open, so Every now and then we'd be sat in the front room like you know Playing video games or something or just chatting and then we'd be like, oh rich hasn't spoken for a while He'd be sat there with his eyes open and it turned out he was asleep. Are you sure he wasn't just trying to avoid talking to you Clever way He did sometimes talk in his sleep and say shut the fuck up James We had just in the sort of modern-day theater version of that James and I got a behind-the-scenes tours of the Harry Potter and the Curse Child set

which is the play in in the West End in London and It we were told at the time that takes about a million pounds a week to run the whole production There were so many different little bits and pieces that go into putting it on and one of the things that they have is There's a moment where Two of the characters need to emerge from a lake and they've built under the stage a massive water tank So on the payroll for the Curse Child are two scuba instructors who go inside with these kid actors And they have a they have a little mouth-breather on and then they come up through the stage Completely soaking so it's like this body of water, but that's how that's why can I just say I was on this tall with Dan

And he's talking rubbish. It's all magic the whole play Completely magic and the reason I know that is because when you go backstage you can see all the ones backstage and they're plugged in to the Electricity so you know that it's definitely working. Well, I didn't know you needed to charge a wand. They're all Bluetooth Now Sorry, I don't understand why these children had to be submerged in water before they came on stage Was it just so they looked wet? No, no, they came up through the floor of the stage

So it was a tank built underneath the stage. So they were coming up You but why are they in that right? Sorry, I don't know the plot because this is the story coming out of a lake Oh, they're coming out of a lake. Sorry. I missed that bit. Right. Well, that makes sense. I I actually went to see the play so I should remember that. Wow, but I did leave at the interval It's literally just before the interval. It's the last thing you would have seen Well, I remember you came out saying there's a fucking lake in this one alone a bullshit. Why are they so wet? I don't understand how they did it. I can't my brain can't fathom Do you know who is the highest grossing actor of all time I got sent this by our friend Justin Gaynor on email

Yesterday, he asked me if I knew The highest grossing actor. So what this means is if you're in a movie They add the entire amount of money that that movie has made to your amount. So it's brilliant Who's been in the most very very high profile movies in history? I think it was the guy who I mentioned a few episodes ago Frank Welker Scooby-Doo and the Grinch he did the dog in the Grinch think about that the Grinch is big But it's not the biggest think about the biggest movies of all time Andy Serkis has been in the biggest movies of all time as CGI guy. So what's your what are you naming as biggest movies there?

Avatar Lord of the Rings Think bigger adaptation of little Doran That's what so bigger than that even Even bigger than King Kong and and Lord of the Rings Star Wars again. Have we heard of this person or is it? Yeah, you've heard of extra than this got the best chance to get this I would say but you are my someone who plays some Harrison Fredby background II Yes, yes

Someone in Jackie Chan films. No, no thick. What's the biggest grossing movie of all time? Titanic? No Ben her It's a new movie. I don't know where the wind is fair, but I'm talking about actual adventures adventures Okay, and almost all of the top 20 are Marvel films. Yes. So Robert Downey Jr. Is no Someone who's been in all of them John Favreau. Nope Samuel L. Jackson, he's number two. He's number two, but he's not been in all of them Stanley Stan Lee Because he is in a tiny cameo in every single Marvel movie up until he died and the couple after he died as well And so if you add up all of those amounts, then he is the biggest of all time

And he was in more rats as well Kevin Smith's movie I'm not sure if he was in Little Doritz, but he might have been At the moment right now, there are 200 spy albatrosses in the world Which are flying around logging illegal fishing vessels. This is very cool It's interesting because fishermen hate albatrosses famously They do the H and Mariner and stuff. So now they have good reason to hate them. They do have good reason. Yeah the French National Center for Scientific Research it fitted them with little GPS trackers because it's like there are so many

illegal fishing boats out there But they and they switch off their their unique ID systems to try and stay cover all by all fishing boats Have a sort of radio ID system and if if you're fishing in illegal waters, then you turn it off But the the birds cover so much ground You know, they can see a fishing boat from 20 miles away and they can pick up the the GPS signals that these boats aren't able to switch off and in the first six months of the trial They found 353 fishing vessels in that time of which one third had their ID systems switched off Implying that they were up to no good and fishing in illegal waters. So this could be a this could be a useful

Technique and today so but they're doing it unwillingly the albatrosses, right? I think they ever get together and say I hate this bloody, you know monitoring collar. They've put on me It's a real it's a real albatross around my neck Very good. They find that very offensive actually Anna I Didn't see for such a long time where you were going with that. I knew I'd have to see it all the way through it was It's just not quite common parlance enough that you don't have to finish it off There's only one other thing I know about cheaters

And it's that this is a really strange thing It's that if you if you have cheaters in a zoo, you have to be really careful to pick up their poos because they There's a particular disease which is spread via cheetah feces and normally they have massive ranges and you know They never come across their own poos again. Well, obviously, that's not the case in a zoo but in the wild Scientists study them by their poos, but it's a real problem because cheetah families all poo at the same time So if well, they do say a family that poos together stays together, don't they? It's really a nightmare

So you've got a cheetah family you're a scientist observing them and it gives you the DNA and you can work out who's fathered whom Which is really interesting because cheetah females make with lots of different males and then produce a letter You know, you can have three different cubs in a letter by different three different fathers So it's useful to know who's fathered whom for your studies But obviously they spread out and do their mass poo at the same time You have to photograph all the cheetahs as they poo you have to map the poos Then you have to assign the right poo to the right cheetah and then you can study them by the DNA I remember growing up in quite a large family and every morning

It was a bit of a stress to see who could get in for a shower first But imagine the jeopardy if you all have to poo at the same time That is oh my god, thank you If I've just had a vindaloo and like, you know, I've got my seven siblings there and I'm saying I'm absolutely desperate guys Are you ready yet? Well, I have to wait sort of seven hours until one of them is managing to crimp one out Very stressful And then do you see that's why sometimes when you're wandering through Africa you see bags hanging on trees, don't you? Yeah, the cheetah scientists who've left those poo bags then they always claim they're gonna come back and pick them up

You know in recent podcast and I was mentioning to us how Stephen King is the master of just taking anything and turning it into a Horror story no matter how ridiculous. He just knows how to do it. So have you guys heard of the Stephen King story the mangler? No, no, and this this was made into a movie The story is about a police detective Investigating a sudden rash of deaths caused by an industrial laundry press and this is a laundry press That has become possessed by a demon So the the villain in this actual story is a laundry press itself going around killing people. Yeah He can run around

Well, actually he's more interesting to me he's in he's in he's in his is in laundry room So no, so you're safe if you don't go in the laundry room Yeah, that's a good strap line for the film In fact, I suppose just you're kind of probably safe as long as you don't put yourself into the mango, right? Yeah, it's not The mango must have some kind of independent movement where it can attack you, right? How it might it might lure you in it might be like hey hey come You know, it might it might speak and get you to go to it or something like that

But I see what you're saying James. It's like we're all we're all safe from Charles Bronson unless we go into his cell like that's You're right. Just don't go into his cell. It's a terrifying thought to leave us all with Well, they were they were very dangerous though mangles. So in a way, this sounds like it was more historical Documentary than his classic horror They were think people used to get injured all the time I was reading a book that was called save women's lives the history of washing machines Which was written in 2003 about how And it went it was a by a guy who runs a museum about washing machines

And he said whenever he showed people around at least one older person would reveal a scar They had from an angle at some point So every you know every time he had one Who was like oh, yeah and revealed a huge bald patch on her head from where she was scalped by it Because they'd be steam powered quite often and then electric of course so you couldn't stop them So if you got your hair caught in a mangle, that's your scalp Then why are all these people who presumably have PTSD from being mangled in a mangle going to a mangle museum? It's some Stockholm syndrome isn't it?

They've fallen in love with their mangler See Stephen King finger on the pulse. There's obviously a huge market for this I gotta say that honestly like you always tell us how great Stephen King is and then you regale us with some bullshit story That makes no sense at all Diane Keaton just a bit of celebrity trivia. Yeah Diane Keaton wore clothes pegs on her nose to try and make it thinner Had any surgery plastic surgery, but in many ways this is a kind of surgery She said in an interview that she did it and the only other person I can find who ever did that was Megan Little women who used to sleep every night with a peg on her nose to make her nose thinner

I don't think it worked for either of them But she must have got the idea from little women, right? That's about unless you got it from a cartoon Because that's the only other people I could think he'd do that. Yeah, we're she doing this when she was a child, Anna No, no when she was a young woman. Yeah, if you watch Annie Hall again, Andy, you'll see Diane Keaton has a peg on her nose Not the new ones they've CGI'd it out, but yeah the original Anna, did you read that fact while reading about Silvio Sabah by any chance I Didn't actually

Well, he's got a he can teach Meg from little women and Diane Keaton I think I'll do because he has the record for the most clothes pegs on his face at the same time in one minute actually the most clothes Pigs added to the face within a minute. All right. Has it a guess? Well, I don't think maybe my skin isn't stretchy enough But I can only imagine being able to get three or four on mine before it gets too stretched out I'm gonna be honest the Guinness World Record is higher. Yeah, but I didn't expect when you asked me Well, when I said what I could do I wasn't thinking well, you know, when you say how fast did you say bolt run the 100 meters? I don't think well, I could do it in about 15 seconds. So probably about the same if it's a world record holder

It's gonna be better than me. It is better. It is five five Okay, let's be serious seven Okay, thanks guys. Um, it's 51 in a minute 51. So that's almost one a second I know and I'm amazed at just the speed of adding them never mind how stretchy his skin is Yeah, but um, he he has a bit of form because he's one of these guys who has loads and loads of records So he's also got he's got about 200 records. He's got the record for most underpants pulled on in 30 seconds You can actually do both of those records at the same time if you had an outdoor clothesline, couldn't you? I was really about Russian dances and Russian balls

They had a ball season in Russia which lasted from Christmas until Maslenitsa, which is like pancake day It was brought in by Peter the Great So they were compulsory if you're in high society you had to go to these balls The only way is if you had a serious illness or you were in mourning you could miss the ball But otherwise you had to do it and then you would do all of these dances You would start with the waltz and then you would do a Hungarian dance Then you do another dance another dance and then the finer one was the Mazurka Which was like a big Russian dance where everyone puts their arms around each other, but then you pair off as well

And of course anyone who's read Anna Karenina will be very familiar with that kind of thing because of course When Anna came into the ball and she danced with Alexi that was kind of the big Sorry, that's a bit of a spoiler Don't push your luck James mentioning Anna Karenina We've got to move on There used to be cheaters in America, like not pet cheaters, but real kind of wild cheaters Well, they're false cheaters, but they're kind of very similar They're called Mira Synonyx

They were known as but they died out The only reason we know about them is because they have in North America they have pronghorn And pronghorn are really really fast and they move in lots of directions and stuff like that And the only way that they could have evolved to have run and dodge and kind of jump around Is if there had been a predator that was chasing after them And so they realized that there must be this other thing and so they called it Mira Synonyx That's bizarre Which is a false cheater, yeah

And do we have evidence that this cheater cheater existed? I don't think that they haven't quite found the bones or anything yet But they just have inferred that there must have been a predator that was faster than these pronghorn Otherwise, why would they evolve to a get so fast? Because it's fun, I think that's a big inference It's fun It's fun going fast, why do people buy Lamborghinis? Yeah, well there used to be a predator that had even faster cars than us

That used to come after us and that's why we evolved Lamborghinis I didn't know that Can I quickly tell you one thing? I don't think it'll go anywhere But the first Polish language encyclopedia I just read the other day It was called Noe Atene, which meant New Athens And the definition of the word horse is everyone knows what a horse is It feels like that was the last article they had to write And they just didn't have the will to do it properly anymore

It's such a good thing But apparently, and I don't know any Polish obviously But apparently everyone knows what a horse is Has become kind of a phrase to mean something that is more obvious than it seems It looks like a really technical thing, but actually it's really simple But you stole that encyclopedia entry, it became a sort of in-joke in Poland Exactly That is so good

There was a website, Movies From Men, it's called, that did a list They went through 350 films and they did a death count compiling the deadliest actor list And this was a few years ago, so it might have changed I don't know if the expendable movies have been used in this But so, you know, Aliens, Die Hard, Terminator I think they're all kind of expendable movies, really, aren't they? I can't believe you've been driven to go into all these in-cell websites There's a top ten list, and who do you think has more kills?

Is it Schwarzenegger or Stallone? Well, I would have said Schwarzenegger personally I think so too, there are a couple of unbelievably silly sort of commando films where So I'll say Schwarzenegger too I know you're not allowed to guess on this because you're not No, they're not movies for me, are they? So it is Schwarzenegger, who has, as far as they can tell, 842 kills He ranks number four on the list, number six on the list is Sylvester Stallone

Yeah, go for it Have we heard of number one? Oh, and Stallone, by the way, has 786, so it's not a huge difference between the two of them But yeah, who's in at number one with 1,296 kills? I would say it's Moff Tarkin in Star Wars who blows up the planet of Alderaan, of course Which I'm guessing now is a much lower population than previously imagined Okay, killing an entire planet, that's good, what about Thanos? Oh, yeah

I can't imagine who'd get it Someone in a war, someone in war films, right? You can't be including pressing a button on a bomb, right? Otherwise that's not fair Yeah, I think this is... They've got to be hand to hand Hand to hand almost So I'll give you three and two

Number two is Dolph Lundgren with 919 Two is Jet Li with 1,076 Is it that guy you like? I know, it'll be Bruce Lee Bruce Lee, we'll see one He does not appear on the list Oh, someone like that Someone who played a famous...

Jackie Chan, I mean, Jackie Chan doesn't appear on the list either Is this someone who played... What pacifist Jackie Chan likes to keep people alive? Yeah Okay Is it Pikachu from Detective Pikachu? Yeah, that was a bloodbath at movie

I really regret taking my three-year-old to that Is it worth it ever? I mean, how surprising are we going? Let me give the answer The answer is Mila Djokovic The only woman to appear on the list of the top ten in the man list with 1,296 That's sticking one to the incels, isn't it?

Yeah Who did you talk about? Resident Evil Resident Evil, yeah He's in all the six Resident Evil films all of which I've seen Have you? They're great

They're so good You were the one who tallied up the kills for the site, weren't you? Well, a lot of them are zombies in those films but I guess that counts That's it I don't know I don't know what criteria movies for men use to make scientific studies How rigorous is there a search, do you think?

I had pineapple last night for dinner by sheer coincidence With? And the reason I had it actually with caramel sauce poured on top that we received as a Christmas present from some people that we work with Anna, are you okay? Sorry, that just sounds like a meal of last resort is what I'm trying to say We'll use the Christmas caramel sauce and pour it on top of the pineapple

I mean, it does feel like you had a certain amount of food at Christmas two months ago and you're getting to the really last bits of the Christmas buffet It definitely has been there for a while It was the beginning of December they sent it I hate waste, you know, and the pineapple was just going off because no one wants to eat a pineapple that's been sitting in our fruit bowl for two weeks who gets delivered with the fruit delivery

And this is why, you know, there's this thing where in the 1700s people didn't eat pineapples because they were so treasured they just used them for decoration but I think it's just because they're such an arse to break into You can't be bothered Yes, they are a bit of a pain I always, this is not going to go in but I always make like a green curry and put it inside the pineapple

right, so you scoop out all the pineapple stuff and then you put the green curry inside but it is unbelievably difficult to scoop out It's alright if you slice it up, it's not that hard but if you're trying to scoop out the inside, it's completely impossible Do you eat the pineapple on the side? Pineapple goes in the curry as well Very nice, very nice

and then I save some of it and usually have it with like meat the next day when I used to eat meat because like it goes well with gammon and stuff, doesn't it? Mmm, yes Classic Anyway Join us next week for Cooking with Harkin That's funny

Who takes the most naps on the planet in national terms? Well, I would have thought like the Spaniards maybe Yeah, Spain Spain has such a reputation for their siestas and it's not born out, almost 60% never have a siesta Spanish working hours are longer and they tend to sleep a bit less than the rest of Europe and do you know who's fault it is?

Was it like the Nazis? They're usually sublime for everything, aren't they? Yeah It was, it was the Nazis It's the fascists But it's the Spanish fascists presumably Actually, no, it's the German fascists in cahoots with the Spanish fascists So in 1942, General Franco, the fascist,

changed the country's clocks in Spain to match Berlin's time zone in solidarity with Hitler and no one ever changed them back and so Spain is on Central European time or European Central time which is the same as Warsaw, 1200 miles east of there and this is a mad time zone for the country of Spain to be in It's part of the reason that Spanish people work

I mean, also the weather and so on but, you know, Spanish people tend not to eat until 9pm they don't go to bed before midnight There is a whole campaign to get Spain back onto GMT because Spain is just not in the right time zone for the circadian rhythms of the people who live there Wow You would have thought there's a real two strong arguments

which doesn't work for them in terms of the circadian rhythms and B, it's got a strong association with fascists I know Ditch it guys Can I say one more thing about soap detergents seeing as this was about that There is a thing at the moment in Europe called the CERN Axion Solar Telescope

and it's that CERN and they're trying to find these tiny particles called axions and axions are particles that are a little bit related to the Higgs boson and things like that they're going to help us explain what dark matter is if we find them They were named by a guy called Frank Wilczek and the reason that he called them axions is because that was his favourite soap powder that he used

and he said that it sounded a bit like a subatomic particle, doesn't it? an axion, kind of sounds like it but he said if they find them it will clean up a problem with particle physics Lovely Nice He's also got the best interns name ever Who's going to sort this out? Oh, Frank Wilczek Do baboons have sex for pleasure or do they just have it for procreation?

I don't know I don't know They seem like fun loving criminals I know bonobos do Yeah, bonobos love it Like kind of an in between Bonobo is nearly a nanogram of baboon Well that's why I was thinking actually

I think if any animal is a nanogram of another animal I'm always disappointed when melons and lemons don't taste the same I think they kind of should Yeah, absolutely Yeah And they've both got boobs and knobs if you sort of break their names down They do, yeah

That sounds quite sexy Yeah Well, we've revealed a lot This is why lexicographers and zoologists are very different beasts It's so nice to leave knowledge out there for the experts Any baboon expert listening won't feel threatened by this podcast, I think I think my favorite thing that I found out about Air Force One Is that there was a room temperature button

A little dial that was added onto the plane And this was because President Johnson When he was Vice President He kept arguing with the crew about lowering and raising the temperature of the cabin He was always too cold or it's too hot And so they eventually got tired of this And they installed a temperature control in the conference room But it was fake

Didn't work at all And so he could go up and change it on his own Never changed anything But he'd go, that's better And sit down And think that he'd controlled the weather inside Okay, that's what we call gas lighting And this man is a cool guy

There was a haunted rocking chair in the 50s Did anyone read about that? No I read about this It was in a blog called Strange Company Which I can highly recommend It's an unbelievably good blog And this was an article from the Baltimore Sun

Of the April the 29th, 1950 About a rocking chair with a mind of its own And what it was Is there was a family called the Floyd Holidays And they had a rocking chair And it just wouldn't stop rocking all the time And it just had rocked nonstop for 37 days And it became really, really famous

And was on TV in America People would go on chat shows And these people would go on chat shows And they'd be like, yeah, we've got a rocking chair That won't stop rocking And a lot of people kind of went to visit the house They almost got rid of it Because so many people were coming to visit

This haunted rocking chair And some people said that maybe it was Vibrations from the refrigeration motor That was going off right next to it But when they moved it to another house It carried on rocking as well And then eventually they took it to be on TV This rocking chair

And it had to go through an airport And some vandals hearing about it Ripped it up and kind of looked inside it To see if there was some motors or something like that And it was insured for $1,000 So the insurance company said Well, I would give you $1,000 Or you can have $700 and you can keep the chair

And that's what they went for But it kind of stopped continually rocking At that point And we don't know why it was rocking all the time But most people think that perhaps it was The legs were in a way That they never quite got in Hang on, isn't that a perpetual motion machine?

Isn't that the thing we're told can't happen? Exactly, that's why it's mysterious That's why it's in the newspapers I think I can't believe all the world's scientists All the brilliant minds have not yet figured out This rocking chair I imagine probably they had other things to figure out But basically what happened was

Whenever it started moving, I assume It just took ages to stop And then other things would get it moving again And it just would carry on rocking for ages I bet, I bet when people came to see it They said, right, don't go in Don't go into the room just yet As soon as anyone went in, the chair was rocking

But also Grandpa was just shuffling away from it Right, look there, you've seen it's rocking And no one's sitting at it, right? You better leave, come on, get out, get out You're probably right Donald Trump obsessed with badges apparently Sorry, I know we all thought we'd never have to talk about it And I'm bringing it back

But there was a report near the start of his term That he, from within the White House Among his staff That said he would constantly Be asking Ryan's pre-brass Who was his chief of staff at the time About badges and was interrogating him Because Ryan's was from Wisconsin

Which is the home of the American Badger I think it's their state animal And he'd say things like, do they have personality? Are they boring? How do they work? Are they mean to people? I don't know about badges Wow, there was a badger in the White House Wasn't there? I think it was Roosevelt

Had one called Josh I'm going from memory here Oh, that means a bird Teddy Roosevelt Because he had almost all animals, didn't he? And he had a lot of crazy pets I think he might have, this is again also From memory, but was he in Wisconsin

And like a little girl said Do you want a badger? And he said, yeah, sure He went away 10 minutes later Came back with a badger And then he had to keep her Maybe Trump read about that And thought, if Teddy gets one

I want one I mentioned it mainly because Did you know that the nickname that Scaramucci had for Ryan's pre-brass Was Rancid Penis It's amazing that Scaramucci only lasted 10 days of his job with his back of making friends Oh, I've got a

This isn't a gross butterfly Actually, it's just a weird sex Butterfly thing Which is, and it's another American one Actually, it's in the Sierra Nevada mountains There's a butterfly which has been discovered To be a hybrid of two completely Separate species of butterfly

Which at some point shagged Each other and Produced fertile offspring That's completely counter to the way The Tree of Life normally works Split, you know So this is one of A handful of cases of branches merging

Wow, is this The beginning of the end? Is this when we all start Contracting back down into one single Species? So we're all, you know And we're back to this theory, are we, Anna? This theory is from about Four years ago, which is

That we're all going to evolve back into Amoebas Oh, wow Before That I'm consistent If not good that I forget What I've said as soon as I say it Okay, here's the thing about changing

From black and white to colour and back again This is mad So James' fact is about The Israel removing colour And that was done again in the UK in 1970 By ITV Where the staff went on strike

They went on a three month colour strike Where they were objecting over their pay rates And so they just started Making shows black and white again And because these were quite technical shows to be filmed They just refused to work with the colour TV Equipment, they switched off the colour tubes On the cameras they were working with

And for three months ITV just had to go back to black and white Because the staff were So funny And then eventually they resolved the strike And they turned, they were willing to make colour TV Shows again I wonder if they lost a lot of viewers in that time You know last year when the archers

Couldn't have the Covid Because it seems to be run by a 120 year old person So it was just monologues For about six months And I think a lot of people said They would leave the show But their listenership has Sustained and recovered

So maybe the same Great news It's neither black or white nor colour actually The archers obviously What your imagination is like I can't have a fantasia But that is true Isn't it, is that right

That some people imagine things in black and white Or dream in black and white It's when they grew up with black and white TV James, you know that condition That you have, the aphantasia Where you can't imagine Things that are not Images that are not there

I can't close my eyes and imagine anything I was thinking the other day It's very weird that it's called aphantasia Because Disney's fantasia is one of the most Extravagant colourful imaginative things ever made And do you know what the prefix A means No, it means without

Yeah So absolutely not weird at all When you really break it down When you blow the shit white open When you blow the shit white open Okay Hey, there was another musical knife That I found

Which was from Switzerland in the early 19th century It's really gorgeous, it's like an early Very basic Swiss army knife But it's got two blades One for fruit and one for flowers And if you could imagine a tiny Swiss army knife What's the difference between those two things It's like you've got your fruit knife

And you're trying to cut up top off the flowery Like this is not working at all I will tell you, I know What it's for, because the fruit one The fruit blade is guilt And that's so the fruit juice won't corrode it When you slice your lemon Fine, I suppose that does make sense

Exactly, and then the flower one I guess it does, there's no problem But it's got a musical mechanism inside And this is, I think it's from about 1800 And it's got a little clockwork Barrel inside And it plays music, and this was on the antistrogera A few years ago

Sounds incredibly annoying at the dinner table, doesn't it And it's going to ruin the vibe if you are trying to murder someone If you stab someone in the heart And it starts playing twinkle twinkle It starts playing, doesn't it But is that what happens At most of your dinner parties, Anna It is, yeah

I've got a very big cellar There are some industry legends of naming drugs Which I like as well Arlene Tech is Very famous in the biz As the woman named Viagra That was her huge innovation She did it by speaking to

So Viagra is a brand name, not a Generic name And she did it by asking a group of urologists What it's like What it feels like for men when you've had erectile dysfunction And then it's cured And one of the doctors said, imagine a strong stream And she combined the word vigorous

And the word niagra and came up with Viagra Ah, that's good Yeah, really good Yeah The US can be strict on It's rules about Like even brand naming, right You've got quite strong rules of brand naming

And the US seems to The US rules seem to basically say You're not allowed to suggest that the medicine works So there are a few things Like there's a hair regrowth Treatment called Regain It's called Regain in Europe and the rest of the world In America it's called Rogaine

Because you're not allowed to suggest That it's always going to cause your hair to regrow I think hair growth stuff Is generally Oh, it's Dodgers Health Yeah, absolutely, they're done There's another one called Which is a stop smoking tablet that you take

Which is called Champix And in America it's Chantix Because Champix is a little bit too Triumphant Exactly What if you take them and then you're back on 40 a day By the end of the week It's misleading

I guess it's a bit like that thing about how You're not allowed to be called that in America Because they don't help your digestion Is that right? But the champion thing You should be allowed to call your thing Like awesome pill Even if it's not, right?

You would have been a quack in the 18th century LOL Roll up, roll up Come and see Daniel Shriver's Pills of Mystery Stick them up your bum It'll make you flow like Diagra LOL You know the song WAP by Cardi B?

I've read Reports about it in the Daily Telegraph There was a Republican who was going for Congress This time called James P. Brady Who said that every time he heard the song It made him want to pour holy water into his ears LOL

What's wrong with this song WAP? It sounds so wet-ass pussy And it's about It's about It's an extremely feminist song Feminist song about Women taking charge of their sexuality I've just said that's disgusting

James, so that's going to sound really bad now And holy water will only make things wetter What you need is a holy towel LOL Some holy kitchen roll perhaps LOL She credits Popeye with saving her life Who, olive oil?

Yes, that's not who we're talking about Oh, down on Dolly Parton No, she credits Popeye Popeye the dog with saving her life Oh, Popeye the dog, of course Popeye the dog This was It was in the 1980s where she fell in love with someone

I think didn't have any physical relationship But she kind of, you know, she was married But it's a long time, she fancied someone else It was upset when he didn't fancy her And she looked at her revolver And it's weird because Dolly Parton is such A bubbly, cheerful person But for a moment, she looked at her

The little gun she keeps in her bedside table And she thought about She thought about killing herself And then she said she heard the Little tap tap tap of Popeye the dog's feet Coming up the stairs And she took it as a message from God In fact, she told the Times in an interview

Well, you know, God is Dog backwards, so I took it as A message from him Dogs are God's little Little pockets of friendship he sends our way And it snapped her out of it Wow, wow, wow And one thing, physically

That we don't know about Dolly Which is What her arms are like So she always Despite wearing, spending, you know, 50 years Wearing very tight or very revealing costumes In lots of ways, she's always got sleeves She's always got very long sleeves on

And there is a conspiracy theory And even saying that, I've talked about way too much There is a slight, tiny subsection Of fan belief That she's absolutely covered in Crazy tattoos From wrist to shoulder And it's possible

She's been asked about it And she's denied In fact, she's quite a clever denial Where she only actually denied that she has Snake tattoos So we know her arms are not covered in snake tattoos But they might be There might be all sorts of other tattoos on her

We don't know So many others I've just googled Dolly Parton I can see her arms Her arms are here She may have got the tattoos After she did the Playboy cover Recently she was

I have to say, I've now done what Dan's done And maybe it's our different search preferences But I can't see any naked arms In any of these pictures All heads of naked arms There we go But in Dolly Parton Playboy She's asked to do again

For her 75th birthday I think it's happened for her That she's back on the cover But she was a Playboy model And her arms are right I've just googled Dolly Parton's arms And there are a few Definitely a few images relatively recent

Alright guys We don't have to just There is such a thing as arm makeup Can I remind you? And I don't like us just Google image searching It's not a weak fact about Dolly Parton's arms I'm more amazed by the fact

That there's such a thing as arm makeup Please don't google Whether or not arm makeup exists Is there a such thing Is arm makeup Definitely is They do it for movies all the time Yeah, but you wouldn't sell arm makeup

In a separate section of the shop to leg makeup Is leg makeup a thing? I'm not saying leg makeup is a thing I'm being Oh no, I'm being I'm being corrected in real time And Dan it feels horrible You get used to it though

You eventually learn to love it 300 more episodes of it Andy And you'll have tough enough Here's a fun thing About sunglasses and tanning There is a theory That if you don't wear sunglasses You can get a tan

You're wearing suntan lotion And you're wearing clothes So there's a theory That just exposing your eyes to light That will help you tan And this is based on an experiment in mice So I don't think An equivalent has been done on humans as far as I know

I can tell if a mouse is Tanned You just shave it, Andy So this was An experiment in 2000 And the scientists Are involved They dressed mice

In tiny suits of aluminium foil Adorable And they gave them holes for the eyes So they had your armour And then they had normal mice And they exposed both sets of mice To UV light for a year And then they looked at their skin

And it turned out that both sets of mice Even the ones which have been wearing suits of armour All year Had similar amounts of melanin in their skin So it was the colour of the eyes That was the thing which was giving them the melanin Does that also, if you take that in the other direction If you go sunbathing with your eyes closed

Then you won't get a tan People have suggested that No, people think Well, because it's online I think probably off the back of this experiment People think that if you wear sunglasses Then your body will be tricked into thinking that It's not sunny and so it will not produce melanin

And so you'll get burned really badly And It's weird, no one's properly debunked this yet But there was a molecular biologist Who has asked this Who said that it is not your eyes At least in humans That trigger the hormone response

And the pineal gland which may produce melanin Is your skin So it definitely doesn't happen in humans In mice, clearly Different setup going on But wearing sunglasses Is not a substitute Or a counter-action of

Green I love just jumping back to Andy's description Quickly of the mice It's such a fine line, isn't it, between What you would say is animal cruelty In the kind of way you tell a story A lot of people would be like, and for a year They'd dress them up in tin foil, these poor mice

But Andy's sort of going They look like cool little knights They look, they had a fun time You're the kind of guy, Andy They would hire for movies Just so they can say no animals were hard During the making of this movie Except the whale of a time in the making of this movie

Except the whales Who were terribly mistreated I like this one I found one drug that's called Anakinra Which is a balm that you put on your neck If you've just had it knocked off by a train It's actually for arthritis

Oh, it's a real thing Anakinra She never lived to experience arthritis I found out a nice term This is just a bit of drug industry slang And it's when a drug is no more effective Than a placebo And the term for that is

Crossing the futility boundary Because literally the drug is completely pointless It doesn't do any better than a placebo drug So, yeah, you've crossed the futility boundary So you can use that in day-to-day life now Hopefully we're not, we can't buy Many of these drugs, right? Surely they're not being approved

Oh, I just mean in day-to-day life You can say in your own activities I've really crossed the futility boundary On this, whatever, activity Broaden out If you're watching a TV series in your three seasons in You're still not enjoying it Do you think we've crossed the futility boundary

Of this section of the podcast? I think the podcast in general some years ago The text of the theme The text in the UK charts in 1992 And Andrew Lloyd Webber Was the man behind it I bought it, I remember Andrew Lloyd Webber

Composed the tune No, he remixed it, didn't he? It's a Russian folk song It's by Nikolai Nekrasov You speak Russian, James Can you give us a little excerpt possibly? Just because I did it Off my curly run

I'll try So he goes Nice one, mate So Andrew Lloyd Webber then took That very well-known traditional tune And passed it off as his own Sounds very unlike him Oh my goodness

That's just a little Slam from having listened to too many Lloyd Webber soundtracks over the years Wow Also rendering this podcast completely Legally unstable Okay, that's all of our facts Apologies for my singing

If you would like to get in contact With me and tell me how terrible my voice is You can get in touch with me on James Harkin You can get in touch with Andy On at Andrew Hunter M You can get in touch with Dan On at Shriverland

And if you want to speak to Anna You can email her on podcast At qi.com Of course there is a group account On Twitter which is at No Such Thing And if you'd like to learn anything more about the show Get some merchandise

Maybe get some tickets to come and see us live Okay, we'll see you next week Goodbye