No Such Thing As A Fish - 483: No Such Thing As Rivets On A Tombstone

Episode Date: June 16, 2023

Dan, James, Andrew and Ella Al-Shamahi discuss hops, hominids, Spitfires and Socotra. Visit nosuchthingasafish.com for news about live shows, merchandise and more episodes. Join Club Fish for ad-free episodes and exclusive bonus content at apple.co/nosuchthingasafish or nosuchthingasafish.com/patreon

Have everyone welcomes this week's episode of No Six Things of Fish, where we are joined by the wonderful Ella Al-Shamahi. You might remember Ella from episode 373 of No Six Things of Fish when she last appeared, but if you don't remember that then she is a paleo-an anthropologist. She's an expert in the Ande Falls. She is a National Geographic Explorer. She's just an all-round badass. Ella has written a book called The Handshake, A Gripping History, which we talked about last time she was on.

But she's also been on loads of TV shows, loads of documentaries. And the last one I think was called our changing planet, all about the world's most threatened ecosystems, and you can actually still watch that if you go to BBC iPlayer or PBS Video App. Anyway, really hope you enjoy this week's show. Don't forget, Club Fish Exists, the place where you can get loads of extra content and ad-free episodes. Don't forget, there are still one or two tickets I think possibly left for our live shows coming up in the Soho Theatre in London and you can get

those by going to nosesthingsaffish.com forward slash Soho. Anyway that's enough of that, really hope you enjoy this wee show with Ella and it's on with the podcast! Podcast! Hello and welcome to another episode of No Such Thing as a Fish, a weekly podcast coming to you from the QI offices in Hobern. My name is Dan Schreiber, I am sitting here with Andrew Hunter Murray, James Harkin, and Ella Alshamahi, 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 is Ella. American beer was so bad in the early 1900s that the US government sent Alexander Graham Bell's sun in law on a secret mission to be verrier to steal German hops. Wow. That's a sandwich one pick. Yeah. Okay, so Alexander Graham Bell's sun in law. Was that an important part of it? Was that what the American government would have been able to report? It's not the brief. The really sad thing is, David Fairchild is like a hugely celebrated botanist and is described as the food explorer.

And yet for our purposes, he's just Alexander Graham Bell, son-in-law. Because to be fair, if he was your father-in-law, that's the end of your identity, right? But was it maybe this was at the point when there was only two telephones in the country? And so the government would just call them up and say, you got anyone we could use? Yeah. So you think when he invented two telephones in the country. So the government would just call them up and say, you got anyone we could use?

Yeah. So you think when he invented two telephones, Alexander Graham Bell, he gave one to the government and they kept one himself. Yeah. I know what else needs one, it's fine. And it became like the backbone. Was there any time they were needed for anything?

Bell phone. You have the bell phone. I'm loving the facts today, guys. So yeah, what's this guy? Fairchild. So David Fairchild. So he's a food explorer and I think he's absolutely fascinating

because explorers usually go around the planet, let's be honest, discovering stuff, but also pillaging a lot and what have you and like stealing artifacts and whatever takes your fancy. But this guy did it with plants, with botany, which is, in my mind, it's just like the loveliest thing to go around the planet stealing. Yeah. Because all he's doing is, he my mind, is just like the loveliest thing to go around the planet stealing. Because all he's doing is, he's basically turned around at the beginning of the 1900s going,

and the end of the 1800s going, America is a country clearly on the rise, but our agriculture is bad, our food is bad, industries as related to plants are just bad. So I'm going to go off to 50 odd countries and just collect samples, send seeds back, send saplings back, that kind of thing. And because it's plants, I just can't get mad at him. Because I'm just like, you were just helping to feed your people and build industry. Could we get him cancelled because he was like stealing from the farms? Are you trying to get him cancelled? I'm doing my best.

I do this on this podcast. You know what I mean? I try to never mention anyone you like on the show, games, or find a way to destroy. Do not do this to me, because I've decided that he is, he's like the one explorer that I really have nothing bad to say about. I'm like, I'm fair enough, you're trying to feed your people.

I think he did give the Americans broccoli and kale. So. Oh yeah, yeah. I love those two things. It's interesting how limited American food was. I didn't really appreciate that before the 1890s when he really got cracking. They had occasion introductions like in the World's Fair in 1876,

which was effectively America's 100th birthday, they got the banana. That was good. That was big of a bum. We just take a second to talk about world fairs? Yeah. Look, aren't they just the best thing ever? Yeah.

Yeah. Just this world where you were like, oh, let's just do a world fair. And it actually was like, everyone was like, oh crap, that's actually, that's new, that's what is that? It's yellow and it's bendy, that's amazing. When you were last have one, it's been a long time. Well, I went to one in, um, do five this year. Oh, yes, okay, so this year.

Oh, yeah, they did that. I don't know. Well, they did to one in Dubai this year. Oh, yes. Okay, so this year. Oh, yeah, they did that. I don't know. Well, they did one during COVID, and obviously no one could go. And then when I went, everything was closed. So you couldn't even get an Uber, everyone had gone home.

That's what, because that's what it is. They build them, these sort of huge things don't they, and all the different countries have their different stalls where they're saying, in Uzbekistan, we make amazing bananas or whatever and then two years later they all go home and that's it. They only do with countries that are on the rise right? Yeah, like we would do a world America wouldn't do a world fair anymore.

We are the world. But why would we do a world fair? There was a big one in America Carl Sagan went to as a kid so Sagan would be in his 80s if he was still alive or 90s. So you know, OK, the one thing to pay just to say that it's quite interesting which was a kid. So, Seagan would be in his 80s if he was still alive or 90s. So, you know, within that. The one thing, do pay, just to say, this is quite interesting, because each country made their own sort of building, and they were all kind of shaped with us beckostani design

or as a byjani design or whatever, and now they're changing it and they're turning it into flats the whole place. Oh, wow. And they're going to make it so you can live in this area, but it means that all these buildings are just these incredible designs that have made from the best architects in the world. Sounds like you're selling deviance that are canceling deviance, which I thought,

I thought you were the canceling of the world. What? Visit Devise. There's no, you can't get a nuber there. You can't, there's no shops there already. So I'm gonna live there. Oh, that's the bad side of Devise, guys. That's all the bad crappies.

Famous, there are no shops in Dubai. LAUGHTER Someone emailed in, and I'm going to book for their fact now, and also not credit them, because I didn't think we could talk about world affairs. It was a few years ago, the Brazilian delegation turned their entire thing into a trampoline. What?

It was something like a 4,000 square foot trampoline that was a Brazilian bit of the Brazilian... That can't be said. ...is it to sell rubber? I don't think it was. I don't even think it was. I think it was just saying, look, everyone else has got good stuff here. Well, you've got a big old trampoline. So just come along, have a bounce, enjoy yourself.

They had a big project that, at the last minute, got taken away. Right, we got it, we got it. Why are we talking about the world fair? I'm sorry I got this back. This is what happens when Ella goes around. Because during the world fair, the banana was introduced to America. Ah, I thought it was not free introduction. By fair child or someone else, this is free. That was like a sporadic thing, but then when he really got going, he was privately funded

as well. Yes. It's my barbaugh, Lathrop. Yes, yes, yes. That's wonderful gay fabulous figure basically, who's justore lathrop. Yes, yes, yes. The wonderful gay fabulous figure basically, who's just this incredible philanthropist. Squillionaires, just looking for something to fund. And they bumped into each other on a boat, didn't they?

And he just went, oh, I'll fund this trip of you trying to steal avocados. Yeah, why not? That sounds great. And I just say, as an explorer with natural geographic, that is our dream. That we, like, no, no, no, no. If you think I'm kidding, you do not know,

like, my friend group, in the sense that we are, like, we literally just sit there constantly going, right, how do we get this kind of thing from philanthropy? And every so often, it works out. So, like, I've got friends that, like, they're, like, this smart friend of the philanthropist who is, like, some billionaire or millionaire. They're, like, their sugar mama, dad, or whatever.

Yeah, I've never told you the story of Nat Geo, somebody walks up to me. It's really old guy, bless him. First time I've ever been at a national geographic and he looks at me and goes, I'm from Austin, Texas. I'm not a normal man, but I've got money and I want to give you some.

What's up? I'm not going to help! I saw that money in my account. An expedition was part funded by it. Wow, yeah. So it's simple as that. Okay, so it does happen. Yeah, that's amazing.

So Fairchild, I agree. I think reading about him seems like an extraordinary guy. I'm surprised I'd never heard of him, for example, but if you're in America and you're eating say like peaches or nectarines or avocados or mangoes, most likely the one that you're eating right now, someone's bound to be eating one right now as they listen, shares genes from the ones that Fairchild introduced to the country. That is quite normal. All those years ago, what a sort of footprint he's left

in the country. It's incredible. Send us your photos, if you're eating a mango now. Right now. Or an avocado. Or an avocado. Some quinoa. Yeah.

Did he bring in quinoa? Yeah, podcast at qi.com We want to see the man go steam. Yeah, let's talk about this is great gone. What was the man go steam? It's a it's a fruit that he introduced and that never took off because he introduced thousands Yeah, and they didn't all take off because you haven't still buy mango steams though. Can't you think sir? They just never I had never heard of had the mango steam before I had no. I really. The guy who wrote the book on David Fairchild is Dance Stone who's a friend of mine. And apparently while he was writing this book,

everybody would just send him really exotic food. I was like, oh my god, I'm in the full time who was writing the book because they were like, this is good for you, no? Yeah, that's true. Yeah, the book's called The Food Explorer, by the way, I think it's fair to say that every bit of research I have So yeah, well done man. What about mangosteen Sandy? Well as far as I can tell I'm again I'm down and I've never heard of them before and you two like having them for breakfast every day

So correct the fun wrong, but they're the size of a fist roughly and they're like a lychee But but the problem is they're not great for farming. And what he was doing, fair child, you have to persuade the farmers to grow the things and the public to buy them. Is that it's got two jobs to carry out basically, and he couldn't persuade either apparently he was side of the equation, because they're really hard, they bruise worse than peaches

and they're just a nightmare to transport and they go off really quickly, but he said they were the queen of fruits. They were his favorites. I know. And he kept trying to make them happen. Like fetch in mean girls. Catch, try to make it happen and no one was picking up on it. And so all these things he brought into the country, but the one of which you had lined your fact with

is very interesting because it was the beer hops. And you think you'd just go into a country, grab some fruit and leave the country, but no, people were so protective. They would have, you know, boys sleeping with the hops at night to make sure no one would see. Yeah, they were paying for security, that's the thing. So he'd come in and integrate himself with the communities, he would sort of become friends.

So this particular hop, so this is, I think, the SEMshop, he basically started talking about SEMs, the guy that came up with it, who was dead at this point, and he offered the son of S, basically he said, look, I'm really scared that in a few generations, people aren't going to know about your dad blah, blah, blah. So he was like, why don't you build a plaque? I will pay for it. So he, like, basically put money down.

So impressive US diplomacy here. And they made such a song and dance about it. Everybody was really happy. The whole, like, everybody in the town was happy about it. And then apparently somebody at night knocks on his door when it's raining and goes, do you want some? Do you want some cuttings? And apparently, yes, so like really restrain himself to not be like, yes, this is exactly why I did all this and have been manipulating you guys for like weeks. And he was like, yeah, okay. I can't do this publicly. I have to do it quietly, but I'll send 100 cuttings

to the next station down the line. Hold, not even handing them over now. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It was proper espionage. That's amazing. It's hilarious, but also to think of all the, of all the espionage that the US government has ever done. I just can't object to this one.

Yeah, I just can't. That's why American beer now is so delicious. How bad must it have been? So here's the crazy thing. Apparently during prohibition, all his hops were uprooted. So all the same hops that fell to hold. Oh, really? Yeah, they were all uprooted during that.

I read that. Basically, when prohibition came in, all the breweries closed down. And then when they reopened, there was a few more big ones and they decided to sell what they knew would sell because they weren't sure anyone would buy any beer anymore. And so they went with the really safe stuff which was the light beers and the mass produced stuff. Okay now can you explain Hershey's?

Hershey's. It's just like sick. Yeah, it tastes like sick to British people. Or you know it contains some chemicals which happen to also taste like sick. I don't know if it's exactly to be. I don't know how people have gone around tasting sick, they haven't, they haven't, they really haven't. That's not how it is. If you're reading a Hershey's bar right now, please send a phone.

If you're being sick, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know. Oh, yes, that one. On castercure.com. So do I have your address? Because I feel like if they have your address, they could send the manga steams and the sick, et cetera, et cetera, to the address. We've just moved offices and the reason being that the old office was just full of sick

and manga steams. Yeah, yeah, it's soon undated, yeah. But everyone's tasted sick if they've ever been sick. True, no. Yeah, you just tasted it in reverse, don't you? Sorry, to lower the tone. Oh, that's nasty. That's how we know what American chocolate tastes like.

Yeah, great. Good thinking. to lower the tone. That's nasty. That's how we know what American chocolate tastes like. Yeah. Great. Good thinking. Did you guys hear about the cherry blossom trees in DC and how he's responsible for all of them, basically? So, I mean, we have them now in London, quite a lot. They're very kind of ornamental and very beautiful, but he introduced them from Japan. And then it became all the rage and people were like queuing up to see him and Alexander

Graham Bell's daughters. Who's their house? Wasn't it? He put it to his... Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. And then, basically, Washington, D.C. was not the beautiful metropolis that now is. In fact, then it was kind of ugly. And he started saying, well, maybe we should just plant some cherry blossom trees around here, and that would be kind of beautiful. And then the first ladyhood of this. And before you know it, the Japanese who at this point they're not particularly like Chamiweth, they're like, okay this could be a

symbol of friendship. If you give us 300 cherry blossom trees, we can plant them in DC. And the Japanese got carried away, ended up shipping 2000. But they opened the crates, I think it was in Seattle and went, oh crap, they were diseased, they were absolutely infested with invasive species. So then they had to publicly burn the symbol of friendship between Japan and the US. And it was like on the front page of the New York Times. And the thing I read was, it was from orders of the president, which feels like he should have been busier than having to make executive decisions of agricultural imports. Although it was his decision, wasn't it, because it was him and the first lady who kind of made the decision to bring it over wasn't

Wow, but the Japanese were like are bad and so it was all fine They sent they sent more over and then they are now and as a result us Japanese relations state-very harmonious, didn't they? Good and it was interesting because the ones that they sent over the second time they had to make sure that they were really not infested. So they raised the trees in virgin soil, so the soil was brand new and they'd never been anywhere else. They wrapped the roots in damp moss to stuff any. To some more work for a friendship, man. Yeah.

That's great. It's great, and they fumigated it twice, once to asphyxiate the insects and then once just in case Yeah, and the reason that they did this is because this guy a fair child had a nemesis called Charles Marlatt Didn't he? This is an amazing story so Charles Marlatt was in charge of the FDA sort of anti-insect part of the FDA, but they were boy-held friends. And actually, Malat was Furchel's best man at his wedding.

But then they fell out because Furchel basically got a load of easy jobs through his friends and family, a little bit of nepotism and stuff. And Malat had to work hard for his job. And so they really fell out. And Malat basically whenever Fertile brought in any new species, he would be like, does insects on that get rid of it? Dernet, do it now.

And so they really, really fell out. I have to defend the entomologist here, even though I loved Fertile. So it's worth saying that Fertile, he did get a lot of fame, but a lot of that was off his own back. But then, yeah, sure, he married into like this really prominent family and became really big with National Geographic. But today, we would actually side with the entomologist.

Yeah. Like, yeah. Scientifically, he's the sound one. Yeah. Not the botanist just being like, well, let's just hope it's going to be fine when we bring all these parts to more and over the world. Yeah, definitely. But it was, it was dangerous.

Yeah. I remember this amazing story that he wanted to send a thousand mangoes back to Back to America, but he put them on a boat and they were too heavy And so he solved it by getting a load of local children to eat them all What because all he needed was a stone He really needs the mangoes themselves So he just got all the kids and said free mangoes as many as you can eat They're like you us diplomacy there we go So he just got all the kids and said free mangoes as many as you can eat They went on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on No, children famously a bit more heavy than a mango as well. So, wait, was your issue?

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and you'll save 10% start your domain now. Okay, on with the podcast. On with the show. Okay, it's time for fact number two, and that is James. Okay, my fact this week is that at one stage of the 17th century, every woman living on the Yemeni island of Sakutra was called Maria. Was it? Okay. Okay. How many women were on the island? Well, I don't know, but it wasn't completely insignificant. It's big island, right? Is that the size of what? You've been there? Long Island, isn't it? Long Island, yeah. Is it that they were hosting a sound of music

reality show? Because they're 17th century up. I feel like it's a real Yemeni boy, it's like the tribe's none and the sound of music. Well, I don't know exactly how many people live there. How many people do you say live there now? It's in the 10th house. I think it's about 40,000. 40,000, it's quite a few. It wouldn't been less then. But basically, it was a Christian island.

By tradition, it was St. Thomas, who was shipwrecked there in the year 52 AD. And he's supposedly brought in Christianity. But definitely, the Greeks brought in the 4 52 AD and he's supposedly brought in Christianity but definitely the Greeks brought in the fourth century that definitely happened Marco Polo wrote about it in the 13th century that the Christians there and in the 17th century there's a guy called Padre Vincenzo and he visited Socacottra and he found that they were still Christian ostensibly but they'd kind of moved to other beliefs because Seculture is a place it's very difficult to get to especially it's

sometimes a year you can't really get there at all. The monsoon is good luck. And so because they were isolated from the rest of the world, they kind of had this new version of Christianity. So a lot of them were called Maria. There were still a lot of churches, but for instance, they used to do sacrifices to the moon and a few different things. So they can do it. Why not keep some of your old beliefs in just, just spice it all up a bit.

What year was that again? It was in the mid 17th century. Why would it call Maria? Because Mary the mother of Jesus. Oh, yeah. That must have been confusing. Oh yeah. Have you been there?

Yeah, so I've been to Sircottre is I can verify that it's very difficult to get there. Have you been there? Yeah, so I've been to Socotra is I can verify that it's very difficult to get that. Have you met a Maria? I have not met a Maria because weirdly there's no Christians left on the island. What's up? Someone said the rear calls. They're all Muslims now. So I went there kind of 2018, I think, of 2019. And we had three options to get there.

Either we fly in via mainline Yemen, but the airport we're flying into was another quieter, stronghold. So decided, maybe that's not the best way of getting in. And then the other route was via, kind of almost like a private jet via the Emirates, the place that you like. But they were only giving us verbal permission,

not written permission. And then the third option was to get on a cement cargo ship from Walmart and sail through pirate waters. And the ship was infested with cockroaches, like completely infested. And it had like a, the toilet was like a basket on the side of the ship, like attached with rope. Is this the route you went?

Yeah. It was hilarious. No pirates. Well, yeah, we luckily didn't have, we just cut crutches. Yeah, the, the Sweden, the group had his wits about him. Let me tell you that every time, every time a ship went past, you were like, yeah, just very nervous. But yeah, so it's, it's really hard to get to,

and that's a thing, right? But then that's good use for other things, so it means that they have amazing biodiversity there, and you've seen the trees there, there. They look incredible. I mean, the dragon blood tree, I know that's a thing, right? But then that's good use for other things, so it means that they have amazing biodiversity there. And you've seen the trees there there. They look incredible. I mean, the dragon blood tree, I know that's the most famous, really, that's the sort of like the headline tree out there,

but they do look beautiful. It's amazing. They look, they're described if you'd want to picture it, they're described as sort of looking like umbrellas, but a lot of them look like umbrellas with a high wind where you know when you're in umbrella, you flip some side out, because you see the stems coming up,

and they're known for the fact that if the sap comes out, it's red sap, hence the kind of dragon blood thing, and they've been exporting that for years, and it's been used for all sorts of nail polish and medicines, and so on. Smirring gladiators? Really? Gladiators supposedly had a bit of it to smear

on them as decoration and a bit as disinfectant. But the thing is that the tree, I think it only exists there now, but pollen has been found all around the Mediterranean, as in fossilized or archaeologists have found pollen of it around the men. So this is what the men used to look like. They used to be these trees much more commonly. So the dragon's blood tree, there's different species of Dragon's Blood. And there are still what we call in biology relic populations. So kind of populations that are on their last leg, in Socottra, but there's different

species of Dragon's Blood in the Canary Islands. There's another species in a one and kind of a remote part of a mine. And it looks like the Dragon's Blood tree was like a really dominant tree in the whole of the kind of that old world. It's kind of old school. It should kind of really be on its out and it is. But it is right. They're saying possibly in the next eight years, if we're not careful, it's going to be an extinct species of tree. And it's so interesting how it survives because most trees obviously get their water through the roots under the ground. But this tree has worked out a way. I don't know if that's a language. You use about trees But it's got the ability to take in the moisture of the clouds that are going above it

So it can pull from above as well as it's pretty amazing It injects much more water into the soil from the air than it gets in rainfall because it's sometimes it's foggy and cloudy Yeah, sort of yeah, suck that it's called horrors on precipitation capture, which is as it sounds, but they've got nine, I think 92 different plant species which live in the undergrowth, a few surveys have found that and seven of them are only found wow living in the undergrowth of the Dragon's Blood Tree. That's mad. I suppose that would make it an umbrella species. It looks like an umbrella. I tell you what, that's not geographic,

they go wild. Yeah, yeah. I mean, when you turn up there, I'm not gonna lie, you're like, what is this place? It looks, there's so few places on earth where you look at them and you go, oh, that looks really alien.

Like that's a really unusual landscape. And so culture is definitely that, like these canyons, like grand canyon, or more, obviously not that scale, but with these dragon blood trees, and other trees as well, you know, giant snails, and a bunch of stuff that you're just like, what is this?

Well, Ella, I can ask you, as the anyone who's been there, did it seem to you at all like the atmosphere of the planet Pandora in the global mega hit Avatar films? Okay, okay, actually this is a good crowd to ask this, because I've heard that as well, but that was an inspiration. I read it somewhere, right. And I wondered if we knew what the source of that was, because here's the thing.

The thing with Socottre is, if you speak to people that are really in the know, so people, the kind of off-the-be travelers, people that are very interested in kind of biology, that kind of thing, they all know Socotr. It's like this hidden secret that actually everybody in a certain industry knows about, like, you know, and it's on people's dreams. I've met very rich people that are desperate for me

to take them to Socotr and I'm like, sure, once I've dealt with the pyreous situation, I will get you and you're very rich. You're as pure as a Texan, this is just waiting to be. But yeah, I wondered about that, because I couldn't see that, but I just wondered what the sauce is, because I just, being that we care about fact here, guys,

right? Right, right, Sean. I mean, more. Well, there's one thing we care about more than facts, and that's the continued success of the way of water franchise. So mind, mind, mind, mind. Just on the Christianity in Yemen Yemen in the 17th century,

this was what Padrevin Chenzar was talking about. A few weird things that they did. They had a priest called Adambo, who was elected by the people and changed every single year. She's like almost like an archbishop of the of the democratic, but democratic. That's quite cool. Let me tell you about modern day Yemen.

And the other thing is in the churches, I like to put Democratic. That's quite cool. Let me tell you about modern day Yemen. And the other thing is in the churches, they had like a, what would you call it like an altar, and every day they would smear it with butter. Oh, lovely. That's great. What for what reason? Yeah, do they slide along it?

Oh, yeah. Because that would be a great way of starting a service, wouldn't it? You know, whoosh! Oh, me! Was it sort of like, you're going up for your body of Christ, would you like some butter? I don't know. I don't know how this is just the fantasies with these two here. I don't know, that's what we take those to, he then's back to church. I've got a general Yemen fact.

Oh yeah, yeah. During, so Yemen, I think, used to be a British colony protectorate. That's the fact of it. The fact of it, say about anywhere in the world. Yeah. The British were involved in something. Well, you know, during that era, the port of Aden, which was, and I think even after the rest of Yemen might have

been, it depends, Aden maintained a kind of special status. Basically, Aden was in a pretty constant state of emergency. Things were so dicey there that British citizens living there were issued pretty much as standard with revolvers in case of assassination attempts on them. Imagine that. Imagine just moving to somewhere and being fitted with a revolver. Yeah, he had a man's an interesting place during, so there was a revolution and obviously now there's a war. And there was like a protest and outside the protest it says no bazookas Other web which is no visit we're drawing the line of a lot of lines and they were like no bazookas and no Like we just have process here and if you brought like a whistle a whistle or a luggage tag

A whistle. A whistle or a luggage tag they kind of shift your way to prison. No, no, no, no. But in defense of my parents' homeland, I will say it is a... Have you seen pictures of Mainland Yemen and the island of Scott? It's the most stunning place. I don't know, like I'm biased, but it is absolutely absolutely beautiful. I saw a photo of a place. I wonder if you've seen it in person. You've been there quite a few times, right? It's described as the Manhattan of the desert. Yes. I mean, it sounds incredible. That was Freya Stark, explorer who called it that,

in the 1930s, but this is a 16th century walled city that was the first ever city of skyscrapers. They went seven floors high, and the buildings were made of mud. It was just a much more complexly. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And there's still, obviously, there's been renovations and so on, but is there anything original? Oh, it's older. Yeah, and there's still obviously there's been renovations and so on. But is there anything original?

Oh, it's older. Yeah, so it's a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Again, it's so it's so so culture is also UNESCO World Heritage Site. And it's basically buildings, 10, 11, whatever stories high. The really cute thing is that some of those houses have bridges on the top of the houses because people can't be bothered to go all the way downstairs,

because I have elevators, they're like, right. Historic buildings, right? So they, instead of going all the way down to Cisco, visit the neighbors, they just go to the top, which they call the Jumbai, and they just leg it along these little bridges. But the thing is, it's so old and it's still inhabited, that's the main thing.

Oh, no, it's amazing. It's completely inhabited. It's a lived in and well-territid site. It's great. And when you turn up there, you're like, are you kidding? So, bazookas and pistols, yes, but also heritage. It was the go visit guys. It was the only place you could get coffee from for 200 years until one of these people who stole plants. Oh, you're a hero, Salah.

Suddenly, I don't like them. I don't like them. I went to Nick's other coffee and if Mocha, which is the place where the coffee was exported from, if they still had the monopoly on coffee, there would be enough money for everyone in Yemen to get a payment of $16,000 per year on top of anything else they earned. I'm kidding me. And that would be eight times higher than the actual average salary of a person from Yemen. Wow. So yeah.

Oh, that's a lot of fun. Just one more thing on Mary's. Oh yeah. At the end of the 18th century, 24% of women in England were called Mary. This is a culture of the North. This is a culture of the North. And in Vexan, which is in France, just northwest of Paris, in 1740, 68.4% of women were called Mary. What?

Or Mary, it would be. Yeah, I was, do any of you have Maria's in your family's? My, I have a cousin. Yeah, my, Rosemary is my auntie, so there's, yeah, I wonder if it's that, if it's the double barrel first. Well, in France, that's what happened. Yeah.

So around that time, around the 18th century, they started doing the double names, so you could have Marie Claire or Marie whatever. And yeah, so they started almost everyone was called Marie something. Oh. In 1813, 179, 33% of the male population of Sheffield were called John.

And 22% of the women were called Alice. John Alice invited us around. Be more specific! That's us! Okay, it is time for fact number three, and that is Andy. My hack did is that during the Second World War, the making of Spitfires was so secret that one married couple didn't know they were both working on it.

Was that John and Alice? It was John and Alice. That's cool. So it's so weird. I wonder if they both thought that the other was having enough. I know. I imagine them going to work in the morning, playing off to work. Yeah, me too. I can see you later.

I won in this direction. Oh, um. I'll just pop back to the house for a minute. Who says so would at work? It's your work to keep them apart as well. A nightmare life of the coming to the canteen at the same time. Hey, what have you covered up? It's such a weird fact.

They find out so many decades later, that's the crazy thing. So this is a slight. Was that the only secret thing they were working? I have so many thing. Was that the only secret thing they were working? I have so many questions. Was that the only secret thing they were working on? I think they were both working in this specific factory. It's the same factory even. Yeah, it was the same factory. Yeah, yeah.

I mean, there might be idiots guys. Basically, for anyone who doesn't know, we're talking about the Spitfire, the Super Marine Spitfire's legendary plane of the Second World War, a big thing in Britain, a big kind of national myth item in Britain, the Spitfire. And there was a factory in Southampton which made, I think, most of the Spitfires, and it was bombed in 1940 by the Luftwaffe, and it was not just bombed, it was flattened, and this was a disaster. And they needed to work out how to keep Spitfire production going, but keep it safe from

bombing raids. And what they did was they said, well, we'll of our production going, but keep it safe from bombing raids. And what they did was they said, well, we'll make it in secret. And not only that, we'll divide all the factories into, you know, lots of different tiny micro factories around the place, which were hidden. So they used all sorts of little offices or garages, a laundry, an old glove factory.

They just divide, it was amazing. They just divided it up. And lots of them were in Salisbury and Reading and Trowbridge and just like all over the place, basically. And this came out decades after the war that this is how it had been done basically. And there was an engineer who worked on them called Norman Parker and he said in 2021, he was interviewed about it, he was about 95 at the time that he was talking about this, he said we had one case there was a couple at a dinner party in the 1970s and over the dinner table the wife said, oh I was building Spitfires in Salisbury during the war.

And the husband said, no, you weren't. I was. And they had both been working in the same factory and they didn't know it. It could be a false memory. It could, it could. I think this is a really bad marriage, guys. Yeah. I've got...

Well, there are a number of things it could have been, but basically. Yeah. I reckon I have things with my siblings that we talk about when we were really, really young, and we all think that we were the one who did a certain thing. All right. I mean, you're throwing shade on the,

I'm just saying that's true, but I'm just saying, like I remember like I was, you know, my brother was locked in a toilet in France when we went to a restaurant once and we had to get him out. And then he thinks it was my sister who was that. Do you know what I mean? So it's like, yeah.

Where are they? Yeah. Or it could be that they're both telling the truth and it's a real thing. I can't. Do we know what they worked on specifically? Well, that's the other thing. Production was divvyed up in lots of ways.

So it might have been by same factory. It was a factory, it was at different sites or it was at, you know, they probably weren't in the same room. He could have been making the leather chairs for what could be used for a car, but was for a plane. And as in like, sure, yeah, yeah, that's what I mean to the level of what were they making. Exactly. Yeah. And people were as plausible for sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think they sort of dug into it. It's very secretive. And people were very secretive. Or you might know in a couple, I'm working on something that secret and I can't really tell you what it's about.

And they're both in war work. And the thing is about aviation, during the second world war, 65% of the aviation workforce were women, because most of them were in the arm. So statistically, she's more likely to be correct. So, yeah, like I say, I think they're both correct. So she's told this guy at the dinner table,

he's gone, wow, what an amazing life. What did you do? Yeah, yeah, so it fires us all. So anyway, the Spitfire. Spitfire is a blessing. So are you into the Spitfire? Yeah, I feel like I don't, I feel like, how do I put this politely? The people that talk about Spitfire's lot tend to be a few years old, aren't they?

Thank you. That's actually a compliment, guys, I don't know if you heard that was I'm young young seeming for a guy is interested in spent fires I'm not so I might teacher it school when I was a kid right an older guy was really into Spitfire. I think actually Ella you'll find the more that you meet Andy and talk to him He's an old man. Well a lot of the things he's interested in you would expect all the men to be interested in Is that fair to say? I think it's not unfair.

Yeah. LAUGHTER I'm not re-... I'm not deeply into the... But I am interested in logistics, er... I'm quite... LAUGHTER So for those who can't see this,

he might be shaking a little bit. I'm not really, really into it, but... I'm trembling with joy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I hate how to look at... Just, you know, we check joy. Yeah, yeah, I can't, I had a look at just, you know, we check what we've talked about before this podcast. I had a look, I can't believe you guys have stopped me for nine years from ever mentioning the Spitfire on this show.

We've never mentioned that. Well, that guy's high five the rest of it. Oh, great place. Yeah, incredible playing. And also, what a group effort of the UK during wartime to make this playing built to the numbers that it was built at. Basically, I was reading an article saying

that it was effectively like one of the early Kickstarter's where people funded coal communities would go around funding single planes. And they, as a result, got to name the plane. So lots of the planes flying that were in the war had names like Dorothy of Great Britain and Empire. And that was funded entirely by women called Dorothy. So it's so funny.

It's so funny. That's the Maria Party. Yeah, but it's 70% of women work all night. There was the dog fighter as well. There was that was the Kennel Club. All right, it wasn't people who did dog fights. They didn't go. People in the back of the book.

But check this out. This is the most incredible one. There was one that was a POWs of offlag. This is a prison camp in Germany that was captured offersers who donated their month's pay through the Red Cross. Then that went into the building of a plane. So they were in prison, and they were funding the plane.

That was them. I read about that, and they had to send letters back saying I want to give my money to this crowdfunding, right? Yeah. But they had to do it in code. So because you couldn't send the message that the Germans would be able to read saying, please put all my money into spitfire,

otherwise they're just going to accidentally lose it, aren't they? Yeah, exactly. It's amazing. That was a really nice thing, this crowdfunding effort, which I've not heard of. Yeah, and what would they have called it back then? That wouldn't have been crowdfunding. They were called Spitfire Funds, and the planes were kind of arbitrarily priced. They said £5,000 will buy a Spitfire, which was not actually a true figure, but it sort

of was a peg for people to. Yeah. But also that thing of charity ZZ was a £2 will buy a meal for one... Yeah, it was like six minutes will buy a rivet exactly two thousand pounds will get you a wing no see the what you were buying there is a lot of lot of money it was nearly given a much less sexy name than the Spitfire I think I was quite a swashbuckling name other contenders included Scarab Shrike which is quite good because that's a bird that impales its prey you know it's it's quite sort of, but I looked up the,

the complete list of super marine aircraft. And there was many, there were many bad options that, this bitfired could have been called. There was the Super Marine commercial amphibian. Wow. The Super Marine Sea Urchin. Uh-huh. Super Marine Spightful.

Sure. I get it. Super Marine Sea Gold. Super Marine Sea Otter. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no the otter and the super marine baby. Yeah, I know. In a brainstorm, sometimes there are about ideas. Unleash the babies. Yeah, yeah.

But they mostly began with this and they were mostly sea planes. That's what they started out as the firm started out making sea planes and so. We love sea planes. Yeah, that's cool. Imagine there a plane where you can just land anywhere. Mm.

Yes. There's a body of water a body of water, you just land. So not on land. Well, you're... No, no, no, no, no. I'm sorry. So that suddenly brings the facts. You get special life jackets in case you land them like this. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

These super marine spitfires, when they were taxing, so just kind of driving around the airport, they were quite often sort of, not overturned, but get really wobbly. And so what would happen is someone would often sit on the tail of the plane to keep them steady. And it was often a woman who did this. And there was a particular woman called Margaret Horton who did this in 1943 at RAF High Bull Stowe and she was sat on the back and the guy was a little bit anxious to get in the air and forgot to get her off the table. No, no. So started taking off while she was sitting on the tail of the spitfire and he radioed down to traffic controls saying there's something wrong with his plane. It's kind of really, it's not the fact. It's a black.

And so they're just hanging on. Yeah, so they're talking down. But they never told him that there was a woman on the back. Oh, no way. Well, because as soon as they tell him, he's gonna be. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So they're like, oh yeah, there's obviously a problem with the wing.

We'll just talk you down on how to get down. And so he never knew until he landed that this one. Bloody hell. She survived. She survived. She survived. There's a museum called Tagmir Military Aviation Museum. And when you go to it, there's a model that they've made.

You can see a model of a Spitfire taking off with this woman. A little plasticine woman or whatever the material is. It's all the gold-reddling tail wing. So funny. So brilliant. A little plasticine woman or whatever the material is. It's all the gold-redible. It's so, so, really hard. Should we say why it was so good? I guess what you're like. I mean, treat, yes. So apparently all the pilots loved it, but I'm like,

what, why, why did they all love it? Well, it was really nimble. It turned very, very fast. And also, the other thing about it was, it flew very, very fast partly because, okay, this is quite niche. If you guys want to tease me when I say this bit, I don't mind, right? But basically the had flush riveting, which is a good.

Okay, talk amongst yourselves. Dear listener, no, that is so metal skin, very, very cool. But if you had lumpy rivets all over it, which most planes did before that, it drags the plane back a bit, whereas if you sink these little countersunk rivets, so you sort of it's exactly level with the surface of the plane Then the airflow is very efficient and you get a much faster plane And they did some experiments on early spitfires They replicated what it would be like if it had external rivets by gluing split peas On to the spots where the rivets were all over the plane

and then flying it, doing a speed test, basically. And it was about 22 miles an hour slower. A fair chunk slower, which would have had a serious effect if you were in a combat situation. Could you have stopped the enemy by going in and putting peas on his plane? Definitely. That was a big part of the early SAS job. Was, yeah. I used to do that and so did my wife.

So that fact would be even more impressive if I knew a rivet was? Mm. Yeah. Well, you've got to retain some mystery, I'm afraid. That's still under the secret sector, actually. Well, that was a rivet. A kind of screw, kind of screw.

It's a big old screw. It joins the bits of the plane to the other bits of the plane. It's a giggling rivet. That's so funny. You know the word riveting. It's got nothing to do with what a rivet is. Hold on, rivet. It's giggling.

It's because it's always me to get it. Hold you in place. Yeah, you're right. Yeah, it's just a kind of screw. Yeah, basically. Yeah. Messaging if you're right. This is, yeah, there's just extra kind of screw. Yeah, basically, yeah. Messaging if you didn't know what a rivet. And if you like, I can repeat that fact for you now. And it'll be even more exciting this time round.

Should we leave that one? Yeah, I'll just quit the message. I feel like we've got it. I've read a tenth of my stuff out. I haven't told you about the Super Marine War. It's just that of interest. Like, what are your subjects that they won't let you normally talk about? I just need to know, like, how valid.

It's mostly second-world war logistics. Yeah. We end up letting him do it because he does crowbar it in somehow into any old facts. So, here's a question for you. Do you follow current war strategy and logistics? Like, I've got a whole bunch of male friends who are so into the logistics of the Ukrainian war that it's gone beyond anything that I think is normal.

You'd have to ask my wife, what's normal in terms of what? It's past and present. I think logistics is interesting. As the... LAUGHTER And I'm not... I'm brushing now, but actually and I'm not I'm brushing now but actually I'm not a shame it's interesting needs to go on your tombstone we can't only we bloody explorers you know on cool cement ships I'm gonna stay on the cement ship thank you I want to see some closer look at the rivets on Andy's tips though. Oh my god. Oh my god.

It's been so mean. No, no, no. Look, some people need to be in logistics. Just... Well, actually, James is right. We're not actually at a time, but we should move on. Can I tell you one more? Yeah, I've got it.

It's a bit of a... He actually wrote a book, partly about the Spitfire. Douglas Bader? Yeah. He was a really famous pilot, partly because I think it was in, I don't know if it was an accident. He famously had no legs. Yeah, no legs.

But he, none the less. He's legs during, for sure, flying accident. Yeah, yeah, flying incidents. And he became a Spitfire ace nonetheless. In the second mobile, he was shot down over France and he ejected, so he survived. But he lost one of his prosthetic legs

in the course of being shot down. Well, no, he was treated with a lot of respect by the Germans who captured him because there were rules about that. And he was in a prisoner of war camp and Gering, who was the head of the Luftwaffe, gave special permission for an artificial leg, a spare leg to be parachuted into his prisoner of war camp. Amazing. I think what happened was though, he kept trying to escape

and so they confiscated his contact again. He did, yeah, yeah. That was before the relationship sailed, I guess. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that was called Operation Leg. No, it's not. Where do they go? Where do they go?

There's one other hero we should mention, which is Lady Houston. Lady Houston's sort of the reason that the Spitfire became the Spitfire during the war. She was a suffrage-er political activist. She also was one of the richest women in the UK, if not the richest at one point. And she was someone who kept helping out with war efforts. She was always donating things. I think the war people didn't like her very much, right?

That's right. Because she kept saying that they weren't given enough money to the war people didn't like her very much right because she kept saying that that you know they weren't giving enough money to the war effort they weren't giving enough equipment all that kind of stuff and she would go around with placard saying give them more guns kind of thing and they got really annoyed but she did like get a lot of money together and I think are you going to say that she helped to pay for the design of the Spitfire? Yeah basically what it was was there's a thing called the Snyder trophy, which was a a biannual international airspeed race and Britain won it twice.

And the idea was if they won the third one, they would get to keep the trophy for good. But at this point, the government said, we're not going to fund this stuff, we need all the money. And she thought that was a huge mistake. It was a bit of a, like, this is a crazy wonder weapon idea, is it going to, like, this is a crazy wonder weapon idea. Is that gonna, like, this is a mad waste of money. It was in a depression. It was, yeah, this was in, like, late 20s, early 30s, this is before the same thing. Exactly.

And so, she said, well, no, that shouldn't be the case. So, she funded it. She funded it for it to go ahead. And as a result, Rolls Royce developed a new engine that became Spitfire's engine and so on. So, it was down to her and and making that happy. She was the wizard old Texan of her day. Yeah, she was. Exactly. They're wonderful. Let me tell you, if you've got some money,

lose some of it with me. It's fine. We also have a Patreon just saying. Damn it. Stop the podcast! Stop the podcast! Hello, everybody! James and Andy here just letting you know that this week's fish is sponsored by Express VPN. Absolutely. Did you know, Andrew, that what you watch on Netflix in the UK might be different to

what someone in Italy or in South Korea might see on their Netflix. Well actually James I exclusively watch Italian and South Korean dramas and reality shows, so I'm afraid not. Well, I actually do watch quite a lot of South Korean reality shows. I watch one called Run for the Money quite recently and another one called Siren, both on Netflix. And I'm really excited to see what else is coming out of South Korea and Japan at the moment. And so how on earth am I going to get

these new shows? James, have you considered using ExpressVPN? And in particular, the ExpressVPN app, which allows you to change your online location? Really? Have you considered that? Well, you know what, I probably should have thought of it. And I should have known that that would be the answer to my somewhat rhetorical question. But if you would like to see what is happening on various streaming services all around the world, then getting a VPN is the thing to do. And ExpressVPN is a very, very good example of them.

And you can go to expressvpn.com slash fish right now. And if you do so, you can get an extra three months for free. That's exactly right. Go to express VPN. That's ex pr e double s VPN dot com slash fish. And if you buy a subscription there, I think a year subscription, you'll get an extra three entire months for free.

Okay, up with the podcast. Up with the podcast. Up with the show. Okay, it's time for our final fact of the show, and that is my fact. My fact this week is that one of the original names proposed for what we now know as Neanderthals was Homo Stupidas. Brilliant. Yeah, so this was in the early days when we were finding skulls of what was then thought like, is this the bear, is this a sort of just like no one knew what it was a plane. There was a point where we were finding lots of skulls and we didn't quite know what this thing was. It would later turn out to be Neanderthals.

And when it got to a point where they were thinking, okay, actually we do have a new different species of homo here. We need to give it a name. But by the look of it and by the skeletons that have been found, it looked like a very clumsy, bulky idiot. And so, a very famous scientist at the time, Ernest Hegel, suggested why not call it homo-stupidist to really dig home,

that this is why this moron is no longer existing on a planet. Now we now know that this is completely wrong, that Neanderthals were actually very intelligent, they did art, they could sing, perhaps, you know, there's lots of things that we're discovering more and more about than they used, penicillin even, like a old version of penicillin. I mean, prehistoric, prehistoric. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Not if the counter stuff, these shows. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But you're a Neanderthal expert, Ella. So, yeah, yeah, yeah. Not if the counter stuff, these shows. But you're a, you're a, the end of the like spirit. Yeah, I have a number of questions. One is, um, I feel like we're doing it the wrong way around. No, this is definitely targeted at you three. So when you have the guests on, um, are the topics always consistently the topics that they are specialists in? And if so, why did I get a Spitfire? I think we try... We try...

Bit of inside baseball. We try to do things that I guess are going to know a lot about. Yeah, I know Wikipedia page, it says you're an expert in rivets. Please, nobody edit it. There's already a whole bunch of our truths on that page. But sometimes a little fact about maybe logistics or or military strategy will just slip through that. I wish this was being filmed because you're facing it.

Yeah, no. The thing with... So taxonomy is a... is the system of naming things in biology. And there's this rule called... it's an A priori thing. And what it means is that if we find a fossil today and we call it something, that is the name, it is given if it becomes a species. So if I find a fossil today and I go, oh, it might be Homer's APN, or it might be Homer's Rhyber. We already had a holler's stupidest.

That's right. Right. Then let's say there's this, but I publish it. If I publish it in any journal, then later on, if people are still like, no, no, no, no, we don't think that's a separate species. If suddenly two more of them are found that really do look similar,

and somebody goes, no, actually, we really do think that now needs to be a species. They can't go, well, we wanna call it, you know, home or whatever. No, no. The A priori rule is very clear. It has to be called that. So luckily, home on the Antelolensis

must have gotten there earlier. Because otherwise, we would be stuck without bloody name. Yeah, it was proposed. It was never seriously taken to a board. It was a guy called Dr. William King who was an Irish geologist who eventually was the one who said, let's who was an Irish geologist who eventually was

the one who said, let's call it Neanderthal because it was found, the particular one they were looking at, found in 1856 at the Neander River Valley and so it was named after the area. And Thal is Valley, isn't it? I didn't know that. Oh, I didn't know that. As in the Ander, Neander Valley, Thal, it was in the Neander Valley. Wow. That's all. So the Homo Neanderthalensis is what we call it now. But some people call it Homo sapiens Neander felensis, because it might be a subspecies of Homo sapiens. If it was called Homo sapiens stupidus,

then that would literally be stupid wise man. Oh yeah! Sapiens means wise. Yes. And that would have been quieter. Yeah. I don't actually know how sapiens was picked because it does feel like we've given ourselves the nice end of the time, you know. Oh, we are, can we? Yeah, we're great, but I'm just saying,

it's a bit, it's a bit kind of. With the name of the committee, of course we're gonna. Some people said once that the brain is the only thing that named itself, which I think is nice. So brain must be a really good word for it. Yeah. It's actually a rubbish word, isn't it?

Yeah. I think your brain would have come up with something better than that. Yeah. One of the names that the Neanderthal could have had was Gibraltar, man. How about Gibraltar, or whatever. Because the first, I think the first skulls

were found in Gibraltar, but they were found too early. And they were found by, I think, a soldier. And he was a soldier and geologist. And he said, I think this might be something was a soldier and geologist and he said, I think this might be something new but he didn't really get anywhere, you know. Yeah, I think there was a few that were found technically before but they just didn't identify that. I think there was one in, I think there's a speed one as well which is Belgium. I think that's also an early one.

Yeah. Where they just didn't, um, yeah. Oh Flint, sorry, Flint was his name, Edmund Flint, which is a nice sort of prehistoric sounding name. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's like, it's from the Quent Stelts. Yeah, he does, yeah, yeah. And he found it, but again, he didn't get anywhere. And actually, I think the last Neanderthals

also lived in Gibolta. Well, yeah. That's, oh. Disagree with that. Oh, go on. No, I think, so I think the team out there I really believe that, but I don't think most of the rest of us believe that.

I think we think it's a tosser. They might have been the Iberian Peninsula, but I just, yeah. Was it somewhere Islandy where things kind of cling on a bit? It was probably just the south, but also we just don't know actually the dates are constantly shifting.

When I say that, I mean that when the scientists are dating them, they're realizing that all the dates we've thought we had are kind of not as great, shall we say. There's many questions about these dates. I was reading about in the end the first site in Croatia called Crap in a Cave. And what I found is that they found coprolites in there. So that suggests that the Andeville's might have actually crapped in a cave. Do you know what? We take you lot to realize that Crapina,

which is an integral part of my research, is actually Krapena. I never in all my years realise that before. Thank you. You're very welcome. I'm really appreciate it. I'm not going to high-five you. Sometimes it takes a full to teach a wise woman. A stupider. Ella, do you know whether or not you're a bit near andethal? Yeah, I got tested. Yeah. What's your number?

I don't know. I can't remember. You can't remember. I can't remember. I can't remember retaining it. It was average-ish as far as I remember. I can't remember. 2% is average.

2% and you can do that. So the National Geographic Society, they have a geographic project where you do a swab in your mouth and you send it in and then they can give you the results and tell you whether you're not. And then I think we know Ozzy Osborne is a bit in the form. I mean, we mostly are.

Is it, everyone outside Africa is a couple of percent. And that because early humans left Africa, bred with the other cells, those populations spread to like Europe, Asia, but then is it called ghost DNA? I love this. Even people in Africa these days have kind of a small fraction of a percent of Neanderthal DNA. Well, so there's a few things going on there. One is that, yes, it's everybody outside of sub-Saharan Africa. So like the Tunisians have got some, you know, the Egyptians have got some. And what it is is Neanderthals were more European Asian species and never went into Africa.

So it was, that's why Sub-Saharan's don't really have it. The ghost DNA. So this is really cool. So now, ancient DNA is so fascinating that they have been able to identify that there are other species out there called Homo, Rodnos, what. But they just don't have a single fossil for it. They don't know anything about this, but they know based on looking at all of our DNA globally, there were other species that we interbred with. And we just don't know. So we know that

we interbred with Neanderthals. We know that we interbred with a species called Denisiver. And then yeah, in the process of doing all this, they've also come across a few ghost lineages. And they're like, how do you marry it up with the fossils that are out there? Because you're like, I don't know what it looks like. So can we, do we not name it until we find the fossil? So some, so in genetics, if it's a ghost lineage,

they tend to like give it like population-wide or population-ex or that kind of thing. They don't give it a name because they really don't know. Gotta give it a cooler name than that, you know? Well, yeah, that's the whole point. that's the standby name, isn't it? Oh yeah, I see it. It'll come up with a review. You'll come up with a cool name first.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you're right. But like imagine if, like so, you've got Homer and Eledi, which is a new species that they discovered in South Africa. And that might be the ghost lineage. But that might be one of them, but we just, we don't know, because until we've got DNA, we can't compare the two.

A DNA from a fossil. A LED, yeah, yeah, yeah. You need the DNA, you need DNA from the fossils you've got to be able to compare it to this ghost lineage. So it might be from how? It might be a LED, it might be a LED, we just don't know. It's so cool. So the guy with the found the LED, Lee Berger, is like, I reckon it is. But we're like, maybe, we don't know though.

Sorry, I've got very excited. No, it is exciting, it's incredible. Do you know, is his name, Svanta Pavel? Svanta Pavel, yeah. So he's a Swedish DNA expert. Did he start the field of extracting DNA from ancient bones? Yeah, you just want to know what prize were. Oh, nice.

Oh, congratulations. Yeah, it's a massive, powerful, good. And it was really funny, because he won it for medicine medicine and everybody went, we just had cove, what? We just had cove it and you've given it to this guy who's found the underthought DNA. He's slow, clap. He published a study and you know he'd realised that you could extract DNA from old bones, that's a huge realisation, he worked out how to do it as well. And he got letters, lots of letters from men saying,

I can't, Neanderthal actually, I can't. He said fully or partly, Neanderthal. And like offering him samples to analyze for his work. I know, I think it's bit samples, I think. But there's a really interesting, there's definitely agenda divide here, because 12 women wrote into him to say my husband is definitely he's in the end of all you can study him if you like

only two men wrote saying the same of their wives and I don't know if any women wrote in saying I'm in it I think I'm pretty sure I'm in the end of the ride okay so there's an interesting thing about how we think of the end of all today that's what it tells us about that's actually so true because sorry sorry, I pointed it you very aggressively then, but... Andy just for the listeners. Yes. So I made a show called Neanderthals for the BBC and PBS.

And... Oh, with Andy Circus, who is Gollum in Lord of the Rings. Yeah, and the million other things. Like the guy's got a very impressive resume. And there was this really big discussion, because we were like, blatantly, you're going to make the reconstruction is got a very impressive resume. And there was this really big discussion, because we were like, blatantly, you're going to make the reconstruction is going to be a male.

But actually, why are the reconstructions of cave men always men? Like, think about the descent of man image, where it's like, you know, from ape to human. It's always just men. And it's like, well, they definitely didn't do that on their own. Right. So it's like, where are the women in this?

And we had a really big discussion. And in the end, we did make a man, and we called it Ned, but we did make a Nelly, but the Nelly was not the same quality. Well, the animation wasn't, it wasn't Andy Sokras' work. Let's just put it like that. It was only took us playing the motion capture.

Yes, so he brought the Nelly and thought to life, basically. Did he co-host as that? He was, no, no, no, no. He was, there's this scene where he, actually, I love this scene, it kind of gives me goosebumps when I see it where he wakes the Neanderthal up from his slumber, so it's an Iraqi Neanderthal and he wakes it up from its sum.

So he's used it, he's like Andy's freaking set. Yeah, yeah, wow. Well, see both of the male and the female. No, no, no, no, no, literally. There's like, then he was forgotten about, not in your nelly. No, no, no, no, no. But he was. I do wish he co-hosted No, no, no, no. But he was.

I do wish he co-hosted it as the end of the book. That would have been... Alshamahi. Oh, no. Oh, no. Do you guys know why the Anthos have got such a bad rep? Oh, was it... Oh, then they find what were effectively, unfortunately,

deformed skeletons and so on. And so we just thought, that must be what they all look like. Yeah, so basically it was an individual, Lasha Balosset, don't query my French. And it was a highly-authoritic individual. It was an old man, although pretty sure it was only like 40, but old for the time.

Very young for today. And they basically... I don't like the way you look to me when you said that. He was highly arthritic. And there's a number of things going on here. But the guy who did the reconstruction of this fossil, basically portrayed it as being like essentially knuckle-dragging, well, it kind of hits heads jutting forward, it's, you know, it's knees, a bent blah, blah, blah. And then they obviously realized later on that was completely

incorrect, but it was too late, it was like it got out there that this is, and because we were looking for a missing link in inverted commas, right? So it kind of fit the narrative and it was a new field, right? Reconstructing what somebody looked like from a fossil was such a new field that, you know, and so essentially it's everybody speculating since as to why he did such a bad job, which is really embarrassing because he's a legacy amongst other things because he's quite a, you know, renowned person, is that he basically did an awful PR job on the end of those two. It's amazing. Like, if just like, for instance,

in a million years' time, they find humans and they only find my body. Yeah. I have very bad sinuses, right? They're just going to think all humans had a cold all the time. That's it. That's it.

That's basically what happened. That's completely... They're going to find Dan's body and think all humans were unbelievably hairy. They'll think, oh wait, they're killing it. I love how you guys don't know how bodies and decomposition are. For sure, yeah, hair is gonna be found on them. They'll find Andy and they'll be like, well, all humans used to make modeller replacements.

That's because they'll have found me in my tomb, where I've been buried with all my airfixes. And all your rivets, pivots, rivets, rivets. Oh, my riveting! Okay, that's it. That is all of our facts. Thank you so much for listening. If you'd like to get in contact with any of us about the things that we have said over the course

of this podcast, we can all be found on our Twitter accounts. I'm on at Shribeland, Andy. Out Spitfire Spitfire Spitfire. Jesus. James? Ah, James Harkin. we can all be found on our Twitter accounts. I'm on at Shribeland, Andy. Outspit fire, spit fire, spit fire. Jesus. Oh, James. James, hi, I can. And Ella.

Ella, underscore alchemy. Yep, where you can go to our group account, which is at no such thing, or you can go to our website. No such thing as a fish.com. All of our previous episodes are up there, so do check them out. And Ella does want to give another shout out quickly to Daniel Stone's book, The Food Explorer. It is an amazing book, so do try and track that down.

But otherwise, come back next week, because we'll be back with another episode, and we'll see you then. Goodbye! you