No Such Thing As A Fish - 491: No Such Thing As The Beurre War

Episode Date: August 10, 2023

Dan, James, Andrew and Ella Al-Shamahi discuss wailing whales, stock cocktails and immersible immortality. Visit nosuchthingasafish.com for news about live shows, merchandise and more episodes.  Jo...in Club Fish for ad-free episodes and exclusive bonus content at apple.co/nosuchthingasafish or nosuchthingasafish.com/patreon

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Hi everyone, Wilkes, for this week's episode of No Such Thing as a Fish, where we were joined at the Soho Theatre by Ella Al-Shamahi. Yes, it is Ella, our explorer friend. She's a paleoanthropologist. She's an evolutionary biologist, a TV presenter. She is absolutely badass and she came to join us on stage for a really really fun show. Absolutely certain you're going to really love this one. I just message Della, she's off somewhere around the world and Astro she wants to be
Starting point is 00:00:32 to plug anything she said, but I really think I should probably mention that she does have a book, it's called The Handshake Agripping History, that's available wherever you get your books. One last thing while I have a little bit of time is if you go to NoticingsAfish.com and look for the shop there. I don't think we've mentioned this for a while. We have quite a bit of merch that you can get hold of. There's nerdy t-shirts, there's pin batches,
Starting point is 00:00:58 there's all sorts of stuff. There is also the ultimate guide. This was like a program that we made for our live shows. It was put together by Alex Bell. It's got interviews, it's got photos, it's got tons and tons of facts, and he did a whole page on moss. Basically, if you love the show, you will definitely, definitely love it. So yeah, go to those things at fish.com and look for the shop and you'll find the details
Starting point is 00:01:21 there. But anyway, let's just get on with the show, live from the Soha Theatre in London with Ella Al-Shamahi. Okay, off with the podcast. Hello and welcome to another episode of No Such Thing as a Fish, a weekly podcast this week coming to you live from the Soho Theatre! My name is Dan Schreiber, I am sitting here with James Harkin, Andrew Hunter Murray and Ella Alshamahi and once, 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 point is 00:02:11 Starting with fact number one, and that is Ella. Wales don't have tear ducts, because there's no point in crying in the ocean. LAUGHTER Wait, all right. I feel like I must have at some point cried in the ocean. I've felt a bit better for it, you know. That's true. I can see you cried in the ocean. I felt a bit better for it. That's true.
Starting point is 00:02:26 I can see you crying in the ocean as the point, right? And this was salty when I got here. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Can you not see people crying in the ocean? With your heads underwater. Now hold on seriously, okay, if you're actually properly bawling. Yeah. Would you be able to tell?
Starting point is 00:02:44 You'd certainly be able to tell the facial expression of someone who's crying for sure. Okay, so that, I think that's what's really amazing to me about this fact is that I, when I think about Wales, I think about their songs, right? And how, like, emotive they are, how they move people, like, there's been congressional hearings in the US where people haven't actually given testimony, they've just played Wales song. And to think that those beautiful creatures who sit there like communicating in this way that's just like moves us, can't cry, it's really tough.
Starting point is 00:03:14 But they cry vocally, don't they? Yeah. That's that we know about. We do that right? How is your CD selling down over? Dan's song. Shrivers whale song. Yeah. Shopping centers, don't you? Dan's song. Shriver's whale song, yeah. Shopping centers, don't you?
Starting point is 00:03:26 You're dropping to sleep, it's very calm. Whooo! But they do do that, right? Yes, so 100% they express emotion, etc, etc. I've got a question. So if, because obviously they live in water, if you cry, there's your... water is coming out of your eyes,
Starting point is 00:03:44 would it be a pressure problem as in, I wouldn't be harder to push a tear out of your eye, probably not. I don't know. See, they just don't have tear ducts, so they just don't have the ducts full stop. They still got the ability to secrete and clean their eyeballs. Yeah, so they've got like a useful tear basically. Like a windscreen water. It's like a windscreen. Yeah, so they've got like a useful tier basically. Like a winscream water. It's like a winscream. Yeah, exactly.
Starting point is 00:04:05 Okay, can I just want to test a misconception that I definitely have before researching this and I wonder if anyone else in the room had it. Right, I have had tier ducts wrong my whole life. I thought that tier ducts take the tiers from wherever they're made to your eye. Uh-huh. Right? Does anyone else think that?
Starting point is 00:04:24 Yeah, so I'm okay, so I'm not as many as I hoped would have made this error. But no, they carried tears away from the eye. Which I like, the tear duct is the gutter for tears. They get made in your eyes, lacrimal sack, and then they run into the corner and then that collects, and then it drains into your nose, which is why when you cry your nose right. If you look into the corner of someone's eye, you'll see a little black dot, and that's the tear duct, where the tears go into.
Starting point is 00:04:54 Right, and it's just the gutter. It's not like a sort of, I thought it was a kind of... So how come our nose doesn't run every single time we cry? It does, but it might go down the back of your nose, it's different as to. Yeah, okay. Another thing that's similar between the nose, the tear ducts down the back of your nose, it's different from what I was doing. Another thing that's similar between the nose, the tear ducts and the nose, is they're in wails. They have this stuff that they put on their eyes,
Starting point is 00:05:13 but it's much more viscous than human tears. And it's full of mukins, which basically means it's the same as snot, pretty much. Might exactly the same, but it's got the same stuffing. And they don't have to do it very often. They only have to do it every couple of hours. They kind of smear their eye with snot. And then they don't have to blink again for hours and hours.
Starting point is 00:05:33 Is it worth the trade-off? I've never having to blink, but you have snotty eyes. That's a good thing. I would go to that. I would go to that. Yeah. Because the ocean would wash it off, right? It does eventually, yeah.
Starting point is 00:05:46 Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's pretty useful, OK? No, I'm just thinking, you just save all that time. You get a constantly, sorry I'm late. I was blinking. But you miss like a tenth of whatever's happening in the world, don't you? I'm just trying to leave more women on this panel.
Starting point is 00:06:01 What? What? Like, oh, we should we have spotty eyeballs. Oh? Such a lads, fucking ladschat. Come back to mine, guys. Let's talk about fucking eyelids on whales. Strip, clumps, fuck that. We're going to talk about the nose problem. I preferred it down when you were doing my hair sound. Shall we do some lad's lad's lad stuff then? So what is the one body part of a whale that will be able to tell you what species they are
Starting point is 00:06:32 better than any other body part? Ooh. What species of whale? Yes. I know it's a whale already. You'll know it's a whale. Like, oh, is this a pig me right whale or is it a whatever whale? Well, the right whale has the biggest testicle in all of the whales species. Oh, whales, there we go.
Starting point is 00:06:49 There's that little bit. A lot of all species on Earth, right? It's the biggest species on Earth. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's bigger than in the other world. They're big. I would have thought, yeah, I would have thought blue well. Okay, Ella, do you want to have a pitch? No, geez.
Starting point is 00:07:00 That's right, the vagina. Wow, the vagina. Oh. LAUGHTER Wow, the... Do you know what? You laugh about this. I was once on camera trying to do a whale neck cropping, which is like the autopsy you did given an animal. Walking past this huge, say, whale, and on camera, we're talking through all the different bits,
Starting point is 00:07:19 and then I'm about to point at something and be like, so what's that? Because it was so huge. Wow. That's amazing. There is quite terrifying. Not as serious. I've never seen one in real life, but I've only
Starting point is 00:07:32 gone off what I've read. But apparently, so there's a woman called Dr. Sarah Messnick, who studies whale vaginas. And she says that basically they're just a series of flaps, folds, blind alleys, funnels. They said that the first time they open one up, they couldn't work out, like in a maze, they couldn't work out how to get from the opening to where the sperm's needed to be. They literally couldn't work out the maze.
Starting point is 00:07:55 Wow, like most men. But yeah, and because they're so different in all the different species, they're a really, really good way. If you only have one piece of a whale to look at yeah, okay go for the vagina Can I pick the whale's head to differentiate the species? Is that a shot and you'll see the other Chinese would better steer well? They all just look like whales, don't they yeah? That's true. That's really not true But like like there are some of the whales, like a beluga whale looks really different to a sperm whale, for instance.
Starting point is 00:08:29 But a lot of the, like, closest species do look quite similar, I would say. Do you want to affect about whale eyes? This is a... As a wrong-tiered oxen whale. Yeah. Lots of whales can't see blue. Oh. Oh, that's another really sad one.
Starting point is 00:08:44 It's really sad. They're monochromatic. They just see shades of grey. Yeah, it's monochromatic. Oh, we's another really sad one. It's really sad. They're monochromatic. They just see shades of grey. Oh, they're so depressing. Yeah, they can't cry. They can't see colours. I don't know what. I just feel really moved by... It's not everyone's moved by Wales, right?
Starting point is 00:08:55 That's like a thing. Yeah. Yeah, so I think my fat side of that just made me a bit sad that they don't. But they can see something very cool. This is great. So, Wales have big eyes, right? Actually not that big.
Starting point is 00:09:06 I don't compare it with the size of the whale. They're obviously way bigger than our eyes, but they're not huge. And they're pupils about half as large again as human pupils. So again, not a huge discrepancy, but enough that means I was reading an article about astronomy. It was a brilliant article, even with that small-ish difference in pupil size, they would be able to see twice as many stars in the night sky as we can. Well, that's cool.
Starting point is 00:09:29 But they live underwater. LAUGHTER But they do come up. They do come up. Although they have to remember to breathe, which I think is quite amusing. They're not having to remember to breathe. It's not automatic. That's incredible.
Starting point is 00:09:42 Oh, because they can commit suicide, can't they, mate? It's really dark! It's incredible. Oh, because they can commit suicide, can't they, by the way? It's really dark. It's really dark, yeah. Do you want to expect we call sad facts about whales? No, they can't. Those are the interstitials between my whale cries. See, they're whales, commit suicide. There's a...
Starting point is 00:09:58 Anyway, listen, can I steer us away from this incessent lad chat and get us to something different which is in Star Trek as part of the crew there are whales and dolphins on the actual Starship Enterprise. Yeah, there's a there's a there's a cetacean navigation lab which is always alluded to which consists of 12 bottle nose dolphins and a couple of whales that are on board. And is it because they can see the stars better? It's echo location. It's echo location.
Starting point is 00:10:30 It's the navigation system. So space-eco-location. Yes, so they're navigating for Captain Picard. They're like, where should we go? Ask the dolphins and whales. Isn't that cool? It's utterly bizarre. Yeah. Surely their echolocation wouldn't work in space. They're probably and whales. Isn't that cool? It's utterly bizarre. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:10:45 Surely their recolocation wouldn't work in space. They're probably space whales. Isn't there probably... Oh, right. I assume they're space whales. I think it's the future Star Trek, right? So they must have evolved to... Has the universe evolved to have molecules in between the stars as well?
Starting point is 00:10:59 We're going to have to move on in the same time. Oh, no, no, no, no. What about crying? So many. Yep. Doves don't cry. Doves don't cry. Oh, I think most animals don't cry, really, don't they? That's true. But there's only one song about doves that do cry.
Starting point is 00:11:14 As like, Princeton really suck on when worms cry. LAUGHTER No, they do have tear ducts, gutters, and can keep their eyes moist, but they don't do emotional crying. Talking birds. You know how we always think the birds aren't... Talking birds, who's the lad now, eh?
Starting point is 00:11:37 So, you know how we think bird songs are all about communication. They've discovered that actually no, sometimes birds are just muttering to themselves. It was so cute, apparently the other, apparently sometimes they're just like, it's just really all going well today. I read that Wales, if there's like predators around
Starting point is 00:11:55 and they have the baby whales near them, they'll whisper like, guys, we've got to be good. Like, Wales whisper. Cool. That's pretty fascinating. It's pretty exciting that they know to lower their tone. So my second crazy welfare act, if I could get it in, is that since the late 1960s, Blue Whales have lowered their sound,
Starting point is 00:12:12 so they've got more baritone, shifting the equivalent of three white keys on a piano, which ironically used to once be made of well bone. And it's really mad how they've completely changed, as well, the distance that they can communicate in. And part's like, it's really mad how they've completely changed, as well, the distance that they can communicate in. And part of that might be a good reason. So it might be that they have gone lower in sound because there's more of them since the 1960s, because the wailing conventions and anti-wailing and blah, blah, blah, it's actually worked. But the bad
Starting point is 00:12:40 explanation is that the ocean's more acidic and therefore sound travels quicker in your zone So it's like you can pick your explanation. Yeah. Yeah. Be happy or depressed basically. Okay, yeah, bad place to end Well, let me quickly tell you about some some new science has been done So there was some people who were swimming next to a whale and Before they knew it This guy who was ricing about said, the water was like chocolate milk. I couldn't see my hand when I held it in front of my face. I had poo in my eyes, mouth, wet suits everywhere,
Starting point is 00:13:14 and I was soaked in it from head to toe. Oh, no. OK, but the interesting thing is they reckon this is evidence that perhaps whales will expel feces when they're scared as a defense technique to try and stop people from attacking them. So that's very busy. I really have a mate who collects whale poo.
Starting point is 00:13:31 She's a Asha device. Yeah, she's really into electro-lankal whale poo. Has she ever been covered in it like this person? I think that's a bit, but not quite to that extent, maybe, I don't know. Well, I read this article in Vice and they said, if this Poonado was newly observed defense mechanism, then the divers have made a great discovery.
Starting point is 00:13:46 If not, they just got covered in shit. Stop the podcast! Stop the podcast! Hi everybody, just let you know, we're not sponsored this week. Hm? We're not sponsored this week. Okay. But on with the podcast! just let you know, we're not sponsored this week. Hmm? We're not sponsored this week. Okay. But on with the podcast. Hold your horses, Dan.
Starting point is 00:14:09 We're not sponsored by someone in particular. This week, we are not sponsored by Make My Money Matter. Yeah, Make My Money Matter is raising awareness about something that I think most of us have no idea about. For example, did you know that there are three trillion pounds invested in UK pensions, and without you knowing it, it is being invested into places that are actively harming our planet.
Starting point is 00:14:31 That's right, your pension could have thousands of pounds invested in things like fossil fuels and deforestation. That's the bad news. The good news is that it does not have to be this way. That's right, if you head over to makemymoneymatter.co.uk, they are gonna show you where you can reinvest your pension money, which is so simple to do, Andy's already done it, haven't you Andy?
Starting point is 00:14:53 I did, it took genuinely, it took me about 10 minutes, and that was because I couldn't find my password for a little while. Switching from a standard fund to a sustainable fund, it is so easy, and it is such a massive lever that you can pull. Make my money matter of done some research, they have found that making your pension green could cut your carbon footprint 21 times as much as giving up flying, giving up meat,
Starting point is 00:15:13 and switching your energy provider combined. And if you want to find out more, all you have to do is go to makemymoneymatter.co.uk. That's right. So head to makemym my money matter.co.uk and find out from pensions to savings, investments to bank accounts and all the other choices out there of how money should be really invested in the right ways, they will tell you they are the place to go and thank you make my money matter for not sponsoring us today. That's right, now get out there and spend your trillions of pounds! Okay, on with the show. On with the book, guys.
Starting point is 00:15:47 MUSIC It is time for fact number two, and that is James. OK, my fact this week is that in the 1950s, Campbell's tried to persuade people to start drinking cocktails made out of beef soup. No. It sounds amazing. It does sound of it. You're not fancy that it was over ice.
Starting point is 00:16:12 Maybe we could fill it up alcohol. Lovely. No. Perfect temperature for beef soup. I see. I was... What was the beef soup made of? Like beef. Like beef broth or like... Beef, bouillon.
Starting point is 00:16:27 Billion, bouillon. What does that mean? Uh, no one knows. Just like beef soup, basically. Yeah, it was like soup. I don't know what to say, but it's like, crumbles, so they're like tens of tens of... Yes, it's like crumbles, basically.
Starting point is 00:16:38 Yeah, I know, but like, for any boozy women in the room, you know that there's this movement right now with like beef broth and bone marrow. No, what's that? It's bone marrow is like supposed to be really good for your gut health. Right. Well, I. The IBS ladies in the room. Oh, yeah.
Starting point is 00:16:53 Sorry, this is a bit of a laddie podcast. We don't really, do that stuff. This is in 1955. And the idea was, Campbell's, they decided that this was going to be their new marketing campaign. They sent a load of what could just be described as cans of soup and ice buckets and recipe cards to a load of magazine editors and influencers,
Starting point is 00:17:16 what we would call influencers today. And they just said, this is the new thing, this is what you have to do. They did averse in magazines. These soup cocktails actually appeared on menus in Los Angeles and New York. And it was all the way up until the 1970s, they were saying that this is something you could do.
Starting point is 00:17:34 You could even add bitters, you could add vodka, you could add lemon, but the main benefit was soup over ice. Yeah, and it's so disgusting. Did they have a massive surplus or something? Whether they were trying to shift or was it? No, it was just a, how do we find a new market? And as James says, it was sent to like the Dodgers, the baseball team, they all received it.
Starting point is 00:17:52 It was the marketing, this is the wording that they were sending some of the stuff out within in the adverts. For a summertime drink, it is low in calories, less than 30 calories per generous serving. It is inexpensive. It is especially valuable to athletes and golfers in replacing salt loss to exercise.
Starting point is 00:18:09 Best of all, is downright delicious. And they would put the recipes on the side of cans, and there was a moment where they almost made it a thing. Yeah, there was a guy called Lester Lannan, who was an orchestral leader, and he introduced a new dance called the soup, which you would dance after you've had a few soup cocktails. Oh, it's so... I like a force like really that you didn't think to buy some Campbell's.
Starting point is 00:18:32 We should have done. Yeah. Added to Bordker, add it to them. Because the amazing thing is, last year Campbell's did it again. No. Disappeared in the 70s, and then last year, the Campbell's website had a page where it could tell you how to make a mushroom truffle daiquiri, a faux mango bourbon sour, a Thai chicken nagroney, and a pork ramen margarita.
Starting point is 00:18:56 No, thank you. There's some room temperature water, please. It's so, it's so grubby. You would try it. I'd try it. Who would try it? Yeah. Hard your lot. Oh, really safe, aren't you? It was a massive thing. And one of the other things which I had never read about before,
Starting point is 00:19:14 but this is a thing like James has said, kind of just keeps coming back. And this is largely down to people on TikTok sort of reintroducing this as a thing. But there's also tomato soup cake. Right. And people would genuinely enjoy 50s as well. Yeah, it's in the soup cake. Right. There's a big thing, and people would genuinely... Was there 50s as well? Yeah, there's in the 50s.
Starting point is 00:19:28 Yeah. It does feel like people thought, wow, it's the nuclear age now. Fuck it. Yeah. That's just, nothing matters. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And now, 2022, and they're doing the same thing. It's a bad sign.
Starting point is 00:19:37 Yeah. I've got a lot of guns of soup left over from COVID. Right. Yeah, yeah. Don't do something with it. Well, enjoy your Thai chicken and the groanie. Lovely. Can I tell you a hero of soup? Oh, yeah. yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Do something with that. Well, enjoy your Thai chicken and the groanie. Lovely. Can I tell you a hero of soup?
Starting point is 00:19:47 Oh, yeah. One of the heroes of the soup world. It's called John Dorrance. Oh, Dorrance? John Dorrance became the head of the Campbell soup company. Through his genius, he realized at one point, you know, because he was, I think he was working four Campbell's and he realized, my God,
Starting point is 00:20:01 we're just transporting water, you know? Because that's a huge part of the cost of soup. He's moving it all around. And it's just, and he invented, my God, we're just transporting water, you know? Because that's a huge part of the cost of soup is moving it all around. And he invented condensed soup. He created the magic formula. And as a result, his family are all billionaires now. Yeah, really? Because he just thought, let's just take the water out. That's clever. Well, I sort of said the Doran's family,
Starting point is 00:20:17 there was a list of the richest people in the world, the richest families in the world. So we're not talking individual billionaires. In 2023, they are listed as the 19th richest family in the world. So we're not talking individual billionaires. In 2023, they are listed as the 19th richest family in the world, according to this list, and above them is basically just a bunch of cocks. It's, you've got, in at number eight, the cocks family, who they are the ones
Starting point is 00:20:41 that have done cable and broadband, cocks communications. Who else have we got? I've got legally, I'm feeling quite nervous. I know. Have you got more Cox? Well, no, it's interesting. There's two coxes. There's one that's spelled differently. There's the butts, the butt family, and there's a bush.
Starting point is 00:20:55 So within the top 20, four of the richest families are two cox, one butt and a bush. What, what do you need? Well, there's a hunt, but it was close. How much money was put into this marketing campaign? Well, they were just sending stuff out to people. They did do a full page advert on live magazine, so that will have cost a bit, but mostly it was just sending out recipe cards and stuff, so not too much.
Starting point is 00:21:21 I just find these food trends to be completely bizarre. Like the one that paleo trend that was going on. Yes, the diet, you mean? Yeah. What was that? You eat like caveman, so. So you eat raw meat and dinosaurs? You eat like no.
Starting point is 00:21:36 Oh god, somebody teach him geology. Okay, so the dinosaur was caveman. But, no. But, yeah, no, that's just when, you know, you just eat beef and you eat just like a lot of meat and grain and stuff. But it was really awkward for those of us that actually studied human evolution because they kept asking us about it.
Starting point is 00:21:52 And we were like, yeah, I mean two things. One is they were eating all aspects of the animal. So unless you're gonna start eating the intestines of an animal and the inside of the intestines of the ant, like squeeze out the inside of the intestines of the animal and eat the eyes of the animal and the tear ducts. And then it's not really the paleo duct because that's what our ancestors were doing. They were like being quite, you know.
Starting point is 00:22:11 No, the tail. Yeah, like everything. Yeah. But then the other side of it is like, I love this whole like, oh, the original thing was the best thing because I'm like, they were all dead by our age. So. Oh, yeah. They were all killed by dinosaurs.
Starting point is 00:22:24 That's a shame. So... Oh, yeah. Don't you know what I mean? They're all killed by dinosaurs. That's a shame. Yeah, they were actually... Anyway, oh, God. We never talked about bovrull, proper. We've talked mentioned it once or twice. Right, why is that exactly? Bovrull, it is.
Starting point is 00:22:36 Of course, it reminds me of your stagdew, Andy. Yes, sir. Bovrull is, it was originally called... It's Johnston's Fluid Beef. And it's just... That's nice. It's ultra-condensed, very condensed paste, which is very beefy, and it's a bit... Can we say it's a bit marmitee? It's kind of... Ooh, that's right.
Starting point is 00:22:55 Like, you make a drink out of it. It's like a very thick substance. You tell it into a drink. Yeah. It's like a very weak beef soup, but you drink it like tea. Meat tea. You drink it. Meat tea, yeah, yeah, it's a drink.
Starting point is 00:23:06 It's just an English thing. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. This is... But Bavaria used to be absolutely huge. It was invented in about the 1870s, and it was again like condensing all the good stuff and the invention of stock and things like that. But, in fact, the Pope appeared in a Bavaria advert at the time.
Starting point is 00:23:23 Yeah, Pope Lee had a TV ad. It's not unethical, but... And TV ad in 1870s. advert at the time. Yeah, Pope Lee had a TV ad. It's not unethical, mate. And TV ad in 1870s. Sorry, Miss Lee. Yeah, sorry. It was only in 1900, but it was a magazine ad. And I don't think it had full paper clearance, because it showed him drinking bovral on his paper throne. And the slogan was,
Starting point is 00:23:39 the two infallible powers, the Pope and bovral. So it was not strictly on brand, I think, for him. But have you heard of Chevrolet? Chevrolet. No. Can you have a guess? Is it chicken Bovril? Is it a different country? No, it's Chevrolet. It's not Chevrolet. Oh.
Starting point is 00:23:58 Chevrolet. Horses. It's horse. Oh. And this was not an official drink. It was a siege drink during the Burr Wall. The Burr Wall. The Burr, Burr. Burr? Is that the one that keeps appearing on my iPhone? That tells me to celebrate the day. Oh, that's the battle of the bind. At the point.
Starting point is 00:24:16 And so, the Burr Wall. Burr Wall, yeah. How are we saying it? Sorry, thank you. So, why do you say that? It's like a butterwarp in France. The... B-O-E-R. Oh, we all look... What, so do you get... BOOR, BOOR, BOOR. Anyway, during that conflict, I was the second of those two wars, by the way.
Starting point is 00:24:38 There was a siege, it was a place called Lady Smith that was under siege. As part of that, I might have been the first one. And the garrison, they were so desperate that they made themselves horse bovril because by the end of the siege, they were so reduced to eating, you eat all the food, they'd eat all the stuff that looked a bit like food
Starting point is 00:24:52 and then they had to eat the horses. But they had a bit of fun with it because they got to boil down the horses and make chevril. So that just shows the cultural power of bovril. It seems, it might seem like I said that quite long things for no good reason, but that's not the case. Just...
Starting point is 00:25:08 Okay, to people still eat drink, bovrall. Yeah, it's very big. It's massive. Really? You would get it if you go to a football match, you would see it. Yes. You've been to a pub at last orders. Yeah, everyone.
Starting point is 00:25:20 Have you noticed? Everyone around you gets a steaming hot mug. That's the final. Yeah. Yeah. It keeps you warm on the walk home. Yeah. Yeah, a bovro for your walks.
Starting point is 00:25:30 Yeah. You must have... Okay, I know. I'm true. They ring the bovro belt. They ring the bovro belt. This is a podcast about facts, guys. But, okay, so you guys will have bovro.
Starting point is 00:25:42 Yeah, well not... You can have bovro. Ella, it's like everyone. LAUGHTER It's very, like, and I'm not British, but I've... Well, after this, if anyone wants bovro, we'll go together. What we got away from last orders, and we've got no choice. Well, why don't we all go and have the most expensive soup in the world? Do you fancy some of that? Sure.
Starting point is 00:26:00 It's called Cordicep Soup. Would you like some Cordicep Soup? So, it's a must for me, thing? Yeah, it's a must for you. You like it? It's called cordiceps soup. Would you like some cordiceps soup? So it's a cordiceps soup? It's a mushroomy thing? Yeah, a cordiceps mushroom. You like it? It's got chicken, so obviously it's veggies. Oh, OK.
Starting point is 00:26:10 Yeah, yeah, sorry. We can have it without the chicken, red dates, logen berries, and cordiceps, which is a mushroom. Yeah. It's that mushroom which goes inside caterpillars and sort of makes them climb up to the top of a plant and then grows out of their brains and then makes birds eat them.
Starting point is 00:26:26 You know that much. You've got to do it, yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. Lovely parasitic mushrooms. It goes out the brains and then they explode and all the spores go everywhere. Yeah. Again, I think the room temperature water just feels hungry. Is that...
Starting point is 00:26:39 This is the World's Most Expensive Soup. One bowl is $688, last time I checked. And it's made with the stuff. And these Cordicep fungi, which grow in the insects and caterpillars, especially in China, in the Tibet area, they get it, and it's supposed to be very good for you. Right.
Starting point is 00:26:58 That's the same mechanism as in the TV show in the computing and the last of us. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's what it's based on. Yeah, yeah, yeah. If there's only a pocket of tapas, the last of us. Yeah, yeah, so it's all about the game. That's what it's based on, yeah. If there's on-be-apocalypse happens, because some people wanted expensive soup, that's gonna be so...
Starting point is 00:27:11 Can you do it? As well, you know when we go see flowers that we know are gonna bloom once every 100 years, and they open, can your meal arrive as just an intact bird, and then suddenly it just... Explains out. That would be great in the mouth. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:27:24 But also you're saying people in the Himalayas are spending $600 pounds. No, so they take them and then they take them to rich Chinese cities. Are those shirtpers liens so much don't they? Yeah, obviously those guys. But there was the Chinese National Games in Beijing a few years ago and there was two athletes, one shung shia and two young shia. And they beat the world records in the 10,000 metres and there was two athletes, one shung shia and two young shia. And they beat the world records in the 10,000 meters
Starting point is 00:27:47 of 3,000 meters and the 1,500 meters. And the newspapers all said it was down to this stuff, this cordy-seps soup that they met. Right, Trinket. Were they getting close to the finish line? And then something just erupted out of their head and pushed them over. It seems looking bad that it might have been
Starting point is 00:28:02 due to steak, sanctioned, doping, but... Who knows? Who knows? Who knows? Probably because that delicious mushroom soup. Do you know Webster in America? Dictionary Webster. Yeah. So when he was putting the dictionary together, he kind of just changed certain words to what he thought was the better pronunciation, the better wording, rather, the better letters
Starting point is 00:28:23 to be used in the word. So yeah, so like the reason, I don't have his book on me to have looked that up. But so the word center, he changed to ER. Okay, that's why Americans do it ER. He's responsible. Color, there's no you in color in America because of him. But there were words that he tried to use but were kind of rejected by others
Starting point is 00:28:47 If you soup and soup was one so soup was meant to be spelled S O O P according to web So the Americans might have had soup. Yeah Literally change words exactly an island he tried to change as well So island he was gonna get rid of the S. So it was I-L-A-N-T. Oh! So island. And is he was going to get rid of the S and put it as is. Oh, that's it.
Starting point is 00:29:12 And is that? Oh, yeah, sorry. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I need to move us on to our next fact. So, um, okay. Are you okay? Do you want to cry? Well, it was a...
Starting point is 00:29:23 I have to cry. You can't tell because I'm crying into the ducts. Okay. Do you want to cry? Well, it was it. I have cry. You can't tell because I'm crying into the ducts. No, it's going to ask if you wanted to talk about portable soup, pocket soup. No. Okay. It is time for fact number three. Oh, get this portable soup, get this portable soup.
Starting point is 00:29:40 Well, it's also known as Veele Glue. I mean, there are a few different names, but it's basically just solid soup. And again, it was invented in the 17th century. It's something to carry around. It's something to take away to see with you, like a proto-bovar, really. It's just condensing, you boil it down, you boil it down, you boil it down,
Starting point is 00:29:56 to eventually have this gelatinous chunk of soup. And then you just rehydrate it. And so Lewis and Clark, when they did their expedition, they took 193 pounds of solid soup. So I would have made that would have fed them for ages, but they only ate it when food, when things were really dead. Then that's because it was disgusting. Yeah, yeah. We had a fact also from a listener about Lewis and Clark, which is part of the reason I mentioned this, is that when they went on their amazing trans-American voyage, they took 150 pounds of semen with them. Which was their dog, he was called semen.
Starting point is 00:30:27 LAUGHTER Lovely. All right, I'm out. MUSIC OK, it is time for fact number three, and that is my fact. My fact this week is that in 2003, there were 4,096 fraudulent votes in the Belgian election. The culprit, it was later discovered, was the universe.
Starting point is 00:30:55 So what happened is, the universe, it's always patosies and at at the Soho Theatre. The universe accidentally voted in the Belgian election and it was down to cosmic rays. So basically, there was a lady who was running for a unionist party and she was called Maria Vin Foccaul, apologies for the pronunciation. And it was National Election Day and there was a precinct where they were having the votes counted. And as they were counting it, it sort of registered 4,096, which seemed impossible because that was more than there was possible to have in that area. So they thought something dodgy is going on.
Starting point is 00:31:38 They had every single person in computers in the area look at the machine, try to work it out, what the hell's going on? Nothing, why are you guys laughing? Have you tried telling that off and on again? They tried that. I'm sorry, it's a computer people game. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're in computer. So they look to it. They looked at it. And they looked at it and they saw that 4,096 was a very computer-y number Yes, isn't it is it genuinely it is to some people here will have worked it out To the 12
Starting point is 00:32:15 Okay, Bob for all later you know It's two to the 12 so in binary it's 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 12. And so one of the zeros must have turned into a 1. Yeah. So that's. Oh, OK. OK. I do get that, but sure. Like a merc tiny glitch.
Starting point is 00:32:33 A merc tiny glitch. Suddenly, and they couldn't work at what was. And then, a while later, there was a conference of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. This was happening in Boston. And it was during a talk called Cloudy with a chance of solar flares that it was revealed that they believed
Starting point is 00:32:49 that it was the cosmic rays of the universe that had hit it at this precise moment, which happens a lot on our planet. I think somebody to call Trump up or his lawyers. I mean, like, yo, we've got you a better excuse for that whole election to buy, God. This man is just sitting here ruining democracy by telling everybody, well, here's another excuse we can use in court.
Starting point is 00:33:09 Yeah. It's actually solar flares. And that one over there's giving you mathematical formulas. If I'm like, no part in any of this, but carry on. No. I like the way that it was solar flares that changed this election. So that old newspaper headline, which was the Sun What Won It, literally was true. Oh, that's very good. Yes, yeah. that changed the selection, so that old newspaper headline, which was the Sun What Won It, literally
Starting point is 00:33:25 was true. Ah, that's very good. Yes, yeah. Which, shall we say what a cosmic ray is? Yeah. So it's, it sounds like a ray, but actually it's not, it's a, they're particles, they're pieces of atoms, they're obviously incredibly tiny and they are passing through all of us right now.
Starting point is 00:33:42 Even in this basement, we're not safe. They're not harmful, that's a good news. But at sea level, roughly where we are, every square centimeter of the planet gets hit by one, muon every minute. And they're going at 19. Muon is what you make bottle of from. LAUGHTER It was discovering, what was that war again?
Starting point is 00:34:02 The bull! LAUGHTER A muon. A muon. Muon? Yeah. All right. Who is discovering? What was that war again? The Boor. A muon. A muon. Muon? Yeah. All right. And the... But all of us now, all of us are being... Just bang, bang, bang. Muon's passing right through us. All of us now are being...
Starting point is 00:34:16 Is no one concerned, even slightly? I'm concerned. But you said it doesn't harm us. It doesn't harm us at all. I'm not concerned. That's exactly what the mu and Lobby would say. Yeah, yeah. Here's the thing.
Starting point is 00:34:29 We say it doesn't harm us. It absolutely does harm us because it harms the things that we use. It harms communications. It harms... If you're... There's examples of airplanes literally dropping hundreds of feet because they've been hit by a cosmic ray and the system has rebooted and freaked out. And those... It's rare.
Starting point is 00:34:46 It's really rare. It's really, really rare. It's really, really rare. So one of the problems that there is going forward is that these particles have energy and they can change... They can flip transistors basically. A transistor is a little switch in an electrical thing.
Starting point is 00:35:00 Now, the smaller a transistor is, the less energy you need to flip it and the more you have, the less energy you need to flip it, and the more you have, the more susceptible you are, and as time goes on, we have way more transistors in everything and they're way, way smaller. So in theory, it could be worse as time goes on. Spread? Yeah. It is. It is. You said it didn't harm us.
Starting point is 00:35:21 You know what this happened? Yeah. Do we know if people were scared, or were suspicious, thought there was some kind of fraud going on? Yeah, no, absolutely. I mean, fortunately, because it was so obviously fraudulent, that it was called immediately, even by the party, that they just knew. They were small parts, right?
Starting point is 00:35:37 So it wasn't. Yeah. And they know, because in the Belgium elections, these machines, they do multiple different counts in different ways. And if any of the counts are different, they know there's something off. That's clever. Basically. Did she end up winning, by the way?
Starting point is 00:35:49 I don't think so. No, no, she didn't. Oh, that's sad. Yeah. She never was going to, which hence why it was sort of... She saw the numbers and she was like, my God, the revolution is in here. LAUGHTER This is the way that they do the elections in this part of Belgium. So the voters are given a magnetic card with a magnetic strip on it.
Starting point is 00:36:06 They feed that into a computer, then they use a light pen to point at a television screen and that information then goes back onto the card. They take the card out, they put it into an urn. People go into the urn, they pick the cards out, they put it into another computer. That information is sent on the internet to another computer, which is in the polling station.
Starting point is 00:36:27 That information is then put on a 3.5 inch floppy disk. This was in 2003, this was happening. That's right. And then it was sent to the head office in the area where they would then put it into another computer, which added up all the numbers. Wow. I think there's a lot more than soda flows going on.
Starting point is 00:36:44 That's amazing. Yeah. Well, yeah. I mean, I just imagine more than soda flows going on. That's amazing. Yeah. You think after that? I mean, I just imagine that if it had been a serious election, the mood would have been like democracy would have been at stake. I'm sure the people at Belgium thought it was a serious election. The world was quite chaotic. They had no government for about five years.
Starting point is 00:37:02 Yeah. And it was fine. Yeah. We could and it was fine. Yeah. We could just get, boy. LAUGHTER Yeah, because if you've seen how long it takes to vote, I think it's fine. It's fine, you'll do.
Starting point is 00:37:13 You can just stay where you are. We need to be more like Maccassi in Deneja, which in 2018, there was one guy running completely unopposed from mayor, and he still lost the election to none of the above. Oh! LAUGHTER Do you say Indonesia? Yeah, they have almost, I would say,
Starting point is 00:37:32 the opposite system to the Belgian 2003 system. It's entirely... It's no good. Cross it off the touring schedule for 2024. Look at what we're talking about. They have nail-based voting. So you get a ballot form, ballot paper, ballot sheet. Might just call it a ballot.
Starting point is 00:37:53 A ballot. You get your ballot. And then you punch a hole next to your chosen candidate with a nail, and then you hold it a lot during the count. You can see whether light shines through the little hole. And that is it. And they introduced pens in 2014. But the authorities said, you must use the pen as a nail.
Starting point is 00:38:11 Just, not one other election thing that I read. Do you know who won the 2020 Nambian election? It was a local election. Nambian? Sorry. Are you using Webster's Dictionary? Sorry, I was looking for the region, and I got confused as I was saying it. So there's a nibbib.
Starting point is 00:38:34 Go ahead. Wait, don't wait. If I take it slowly and we all concentrate, it will be OK. You can do it. You can do it. In 2020, and the Mibian politician. Guys, if I cut out all the other stuff, it sounds like you were on massive funds of Namibia. Hey, they have great landscapes, is all I can say.
Starting point is 00:38:57 Beautiful. No, okay, there's a local politician in Namibia, who is... It was, I'm sorry, it was. I don't know about me, as well. It's the same, but... Did you say'm sorry. I'm out here as well. The saying about... Did you say the Bibbia? I don't know. I don't know what comes out my mouth.
Starting point is 00:39:12 In the Bibbia, there's a candidate. Yeah. In 2020, there's a Namibian candidate who won a local election, who is... Can you guess his name? Whatever we guess is going to be close to the one ever you read. It's a form of politician, so it's a name that we know, so it's kind of like... Like Winston Churchill. Kind of like that.
Starting point is 00:39:35 Tony Blair. No. Just because lots of children were named Tony Blair. Oh yeah. Haces like Kosovo, after the... Tony Blair. Tony Blair. Yeah, yeah. It was a squashed name. It was like... They were called... Tonibler. Yeah, yeah.
Starting point is 00:39:46 It was a squashed name. It was a conibler. It was a Christian name. Okay, so a famous politician. Malmullen. No. That's good. Ming Campbell.
Starting point is 00:39:54 Think bigger than England. Bigger. Erick Peckles. No, you're a famous... Maybe George Washington. Really famous politician. Yeah, that's a good one, but no. Adolf Hitler. Yeah, there's a good one, but no. The Adolf Hitler.
Starting point is 00:40:05 Yeah, there's a politician there called Adolf Hitler. So Adolf is actually a common name over there. What? Of course. Is it still a common name? Well, I guess there's a generation that are getting into political power age. And Adolf Hitler said, and it's Adolf Hitler,
Starting point is 00:40:22 that's his first and middle name. And he said, my dad's Adolf Hitler, that's his first and middle name. And he said, my dad absolutely knew who Hitler was. I don't think he knew who was a bad guy necessarily. He sort of gives his dad a bit of coverage on that. But he says, wasn't there maybe a German in the opposite of the opposite? Yes, or something.
Starting point is 00:40:41 It was OK, exactly. It was. So he seems, I mean, I didn't have enough time to go to a deep dive into him, but he seems like quite a cheery, happy guy. Might be restoring the name, I don't know. But he said, they said, are you going to change your name? And he said, this is it's on all the papers already.
Starting point is 00:40:58 I think I'll just leave it, actually. It's fine. So he's just kept it. And he won his election. Yeah, he won it. Track it nice, Bill? Yeah, he won it. You're recognizable. Yeah, exactly. He's Wikipedia says, by the way, he says,
Starting point is 00:41:12 it's not to be confused, yes. Exactly. Not to be confused with Arthur Hitler. And then on that sidebar, it has occupation, political activist, known for, sharing the name as Anil Hitler. That's got to be the disambiguation on Wikipedia, but the biggest difference in article length
Starting point is 00:41:29 between the Wangzhou, you know, they're done. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know what he's achieved in Namibia, you know? No, true, very true. You know, in 1964, the general election, which Harold Wilson was the victor in. Yes, defeated Alec Douglas Hume, go on. Ooh. Well, that's, go on. Ooh.
Starting point is 00:41:46 Well, that's kind of hot. Oh, Dad, where were you during my university years? Yeah, so, 1964, he says that one of the big reasons he believes that he won the election is because they managed to swing a bunch of the marginal seats that might not have gone to labor had the turnout not have been as massive, right? So he needed to get the turnout to be massive. And according to him, he managed to do this by persuading the BBC to delay a repeat of steptoe in son
Starting point is 00:42:15 the TV series and moving it to another time. And as a result, no one was glued to the TV and they went, all right, let's go out and vote instead. And he says that he thinks that that's what helped shift. Harold Wilson said that. Harold Wilson said that, yeah. It's actually a bit more complicated than that. So is it? LAUGHTER
Starting point is 00:42:31 MUSIC OK, I need to move us on to our final fact of the show. It's time for our final fact of the show, and that is Andy. My fact is that the men who just broke the world record for living underwater got a visit from his 80-year-old mother, for our final facts of the show, and that is Andy. My fact is that the man who just broke the world record for living underwater got a visit from his 80 year old mother halfway through to keep him cheerful.
Starting point is 00:42:50 Oh, that's nice. Nice, great, sweet story. Yeah, he's a guy called Joe Ditturi and he's a brilliant scientist and he's been studying how extreme pressure affects the human body over long periods of time and it might be helpful for space missions if humans ever go to Mars.
Starting point is 00:43:08 So he moved to the Florida Keys. There's an underwater lab, and you go down about 22 feet, and you're living under there. The pressure is much higher than at the surface, obviously. So it's a dry environment. You're in a pod capsule thing, and he was doing
Starting point is 00:43:25 tests on himself every day, he managed a hundred days, which is huge, let's ever live that far down for that long before, unless you're in a submarine, slightly vexed question, never mind. And it's the longest underwater and a fixed structure, sorry, because otherwise a lot of our listeners are on submarines, nuclear subs, and we'll get emails. Eventually. Yeah, and he's an incredible guy and he got a visit from his mum, who sounds like an incredible woman. She scuba dived down to go up to meet him.
Starting point is 00:43:54 He was on his side, so he did 100 days and it was a bit further than the halfway, it was 81 days into it and she scuba dived down with his brother and there's this great photo of them just sitting in this underwater house. It is quite cool. It's quite a, you know, Eleor and Explorer. And it's good that people go down this and do all this thing. But it is a commercial hotel that has stayed in here.
Starting point is 00:44:15 So like any of us, if we could afford it, could just go and live there ourselves. Yeah. The problem is, there's so many people doing these. I'm gonna stay down here the longest attempts that the booking is like, have you got anything in August? Nothing? Yeah, it problem is there's so many people doing these I'm gonna stay down here the longest attempts that the booking is like Have you got anything in August nothing? Yeah, it's nothing one guy They don't have someone coming by and cleaning the room every day, do they?
Starting point is 00:44:35 Go over diving down with a mint that they actually They will they will send you down pizza though So it's $800 a night for two people. And there's... It's a bit, well... You know? No, come on, that's like... I would have expected that to be much better. Yeah, if you can't scuba dive,
Starting point is 00:44:52 you also have to pay for a three-hour scuba diving class. There you go. But like some premiering in the center of town, all that, busy times. That's not bad. Yeah, I guess so. It includes a pizza dinner, which they send out. Apparently, I read the TripAdvisor reviews.
Starting point is 00:45:05 Apparently, the pizza is sometimes slightly damp. Oh, really? Wow. And yeah, and then you can stay. And then you can't fly or dive again for 24 hours afterwards because of the pressure change that you've had. Yeah, yeah. Because your pressure rise, don't you?
Starting point is 00:45:21 Yeah, that's the kind of the point of his science, isn't it? He thinks that the pressure down there is going to help us live for a million years. 110 at least, so he's 55 years old, and he's saying, I believe that if I was living down here, that would be at the halfway mark on my life expectancy, so I can make it. It's really interesting.
Starting point is 00:45:38 It's really interesting. It is interesting. So there's two things that come to mind. One is that this, you kind of touched on it, which is like this, forgive the words I'm about to use, the interface between extreme adventure and science is becoming really weird and actually happened quite recently with Ocean X, right?
Starting point is 00:45:55 It's just this idea that anyone can go on an expedition. Basically, as long as you're willing to pay enough money, even Everest, we're talking about Everest. There's loads of people that are now aren't really training for Everest and they've just got these poor shepherds, basically. Like literally hiking them up. And there is, I don't know, it's really weird.
Starting point is 00:46:12 I don't know how I feel about all of it. This, you know. Deteria is a legit. Yeah, I know. But the thing is, it's like, a lot of, there's now this really weird move in exploration where a lot of really big research vessels are actually also tourist vessels,
Starting point is 00:46:25 so you can get on these massive vessels that are basically for people that are spending like 60,000 pounds for their trip of a lifetime. And there's a bunch of actual hardcore scientists in the corner doing all this stuff, but also have to give a lecture to like all these people. And it's just, I don't know how I feel about this at all. And they're going to help pay for it.
Starting point is 00:46:44 That's a thing, it's a funding issue, isn't it, ultimately? So it's kind of, yeah, it's kind of a good way of making sure that your expedition happens at all. But I get what you're saying. It turns it into a tourist proposition. But he's found out a lot of amazing stuff, because he was down there. He was monitoring every single bit of his body every day.
Starting point is 00:46:58 So one thing that is going to be probably annoying for the next person is that the toilet gets a lot of usage when you're down there, because your bladder is really squished, right? So he said, you're constantly just going to be probably annoying for the next person and is that the toilet gets a lot of usage when you're down there, because your bladder is really squished, right? So he said, you're constantly just going to the toilet. Increased frequency and urgency of urination, is that we put it?
Starting point is 00:47:14 And also, he says that it's interesting that the, your, your, I'm so glad you're saying it. Yeah, I know. Because I've got it in my nose, and you're working out a good way to say it. I'm trying to look for the phrasing. Your semen travels at your dog.
Starting point is 00:47:28 Yeah. Semen travels at shorter distances when you're down there as well. And so he... He's mothers down there, maybe that's what's left of them. Don't come in. Don't scream when I'm down here. I'm down here. I'm taking experiment.
Starting point is 00:47:47 You can only enter by rising up through the moon pool in the floor as well. So I'm like, go back down, go back down. Is that going to be a problem for people having children? Yes, he says that maybe we won't be able to continue the species beneath 22 feet under sea level Which is an interesting observation because his point is that I'm part of the research and this was happening a lot in the 60s Oh, yeah, could we set up underwater bases where people could live for long periods of times Jacques Cousteau did that. Sylvia Earl went down. She's an amazing amazing oceanographer They would go down for 30 days 40 days 50 days and so on trying to work out, can we live down there? That
Starting point is 00:48:29 was the big push. Let's build these giant underwater civilizations, basically. But we won't be able to ejaculate properly. So we will. You've got to go up for that, and then you go right down. There's a lot of like teenage boy, which is going to go for a quick hunt. Just want to see the surface quickly. Yeah. I just want to see the surface quickly. Yeah, I just want to see the stars. There's a whale up there. He can show me some cool new constellations.
Starting point is 00:48:50 I was thinking a lot about James Cameron recently, because, again, because of the ocean gate thing. When I first heard about what he did in the ocean space, I'll be honest, I didn't really believe it. Because he went down to the bottom of the Marianas trend? Yes, he did. He's been deeper than any person. He's been saying that the guy who directed Avatar 2
Starting point is 00:49:10 has been deeper than anyone else on the planet. Well, you're also directed Titanic, so that's closer, right? As a... Well, Avatar 2, the way of water is a largely aquatic film. Yeah. It's actually a more relevant thing for me to mention at this point. Sure, Andy. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Starting point is 00:49:25 Touched to nerve, don't know if that was about that anyway. Sorry. Sorry. I got... Sorry, your CGI movie, exactly, yeah. Sorry, I got really, really crossed. Yeah. And can I say, that was not hot, okay? Oh, if I don't know what I could... If I don't know what I could do, the sexiness of early.
Starting point is 00:49:42 The Alec Douglas Hume moment, earlier, yeah. It's so interesting, because he gave up his seat in the House of Laws to rub as the Conservative leader. That's very rare. Er... What? You'll take something about, sir. Cameron also went down to see the Titanic.
Starting point is 00:49:56 Yes. So the Marianas trench. Sorry. And that's oceanography credential. No, no, no, that's not... But that's the thing, that's not just his oceanography credential. So people think, oh, he... So he's been to, like, the Titanic more than 30-odd times, and you're like, oh, that's not, but that's the thing. That's not just his oceanography credential. So people think, oh, he, you know, so he's been to like the Titanic more than 30 odd times. And you're like, oh, that's something.
Starting point is 00:50:09 But what's actually amazing is that he is legitimately in his own right, a deep sea explorer, not in any way as a tourist, as an engineer. And there are all these crazy stories. So for example, Bob Ballard, who find the Titanic. I don't know if you guys were following this, but after the whole catastrophe, with that submersible, Ballard and James Cameron came out publicly and were like, look, there were safety concerns, there were always safety concerns.
Starting point is 00:50:32 We've tried to highlight this, like, etc, etc, etc. And what was really fascinating is watching the interaction between the two of them, because at one point, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, turns around and goes, I mean, yeah, I'll defer to what he said about the mechanics of it. And you're just sitting there going, Bob Balard is respecting this guy who was one. Like, God knows, you stay in your lane, stop making us feel bad about ourselves.
Starting point is 00:50:54 And I think he's like this incredible filmmaker and is also this incredible tech guy and the detail he will go into. And then I did some digging. And apparently, this has always been the, sorry, this is, you can't understand, it made me feel really bad about myself. So apparently at the age of 14,
Starting point is 00:51:11 James Cameron turns up to the Royal Ontario Museum, where outside they had Canada's first permanent submersible and they had it out there and then they were gonna put it in the water in later on for like two years. And it's outside the museum and he writes to the museum, at the age of 14, asks for a blueprint for the bloody submersible. And the guy, I think his name's Joe McGinnis, who's a really, really famous oceanographer, he's like, okay, this is insane, sure, I'll give you it.
Starting point is 00:51:44 And he sits there, James Cameron, 14, and tries to make it based on this blueprint, puts a mouse in it. Well, it tries to make his own one. Yeah, but a small one, puts a mouse in it, and puts it in a lake behind the Niagara Falls, where he lives, and apparently the mouse makes it, but it's slightly traumatized.
Starting point is 00:52:01 And then he's like, oh, I've got a problem with the windows. All again, at the age of 14 writes to this scientist again and goes, can you help me with the window design? And the guy gives him the address to a company that he can write to to get, what's it called? The perplexed, what's it called? Perplexed. Perplexed. That, that, that, that, we can't, why can't we, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't we... Well, I can't, I pronounce things today. Anyway, I think... Buh. And they actually sent him a sample, and then he attaches it and does it again. And does this whole...
Starting point is 00:52:34 The age of 14, you're thinking, oh, this guy is a genius. Yeah, that is amazing. We're going to have to move on, in the sake, because we want to run away over. So, yeah, we need to get out of here and get our bovra also. Well, I can tell you a few more things going on the wall. So the word urinator originally meant someone who dived. OK, that's the first use in English of the word urinator is someone who goes deep-sea diving.
Starting point is 00:52:58 And then later it became someone who urinates. Must have been across over period Larry has consequences It's impossible to fart past 20 meters a challenge A challenge from the people that get us going to cry and fart underwater So this underwater simultaneous fart cry one by Andrew Hunter Murray This guy couldn't have farted in the whole time he was there. He couldn't do. Dr. Deepsey.
Starting point is 00:53:27 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because what happens is the... Due to boilslaw, the volume is much, much smaller of your fart, and your body just can't push it through. And so what that means is, as you go up, it expands. Oh, what? That doesn't happen with the other thing, does it? LAUGHTER At the front.
Starting point is 00:53:45 You mean the ejaculation stuff? I do mean the ejaculation stuff. Actually, you blast your way back to the stuff. That's it. Lads, lads, lads, lads, lads. MUSIC OK, 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
Starting point is 00:54:13 podcast, we can be found on our Twitter accounts. I'm on at Shribland, James. At James Harkin. Andy. At Andre Nandorem. And Ella. Ella Ashamahi. Underschool. I'll Shamahi. Ella, underschool, al shaman.
Starting point is 00:54:25 Or 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 up there. So do check them out. So, theater, guys, thank you so much for being here today. I really appreciate it. Don't tell anyone what happened. But that's it.
Starting point is 00:54:41 We'll see you again another time. Thanks so much. Goodbye. you

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