No Such Thing As A Fish - 499: No Such Thing As Old Testament Podcasts
Episode Date: October 5, 2023Dan, James, Andrew and Lou Sanders discuss skating, shanties, flies and fishing. Visit nosuchthingasafish.com for news about live shows, merchandise and more episodes. Join Club Fish for ad-free ep...isodes and exclusive bonus content at apple.co/nosuchthingasafish or nosuchthingasafish.com/patreon
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Hi everyone and welcome to another episode of No Such Thing as a Fish, where we were joined
by none other than Lou Sanders, one of the funniest people I know.
You'll know Lou from all sorts of TV stuff.
She's on Taskmaster, she's been on QI many times.
She's just a really, really, really funny person.
We had such a good laugh with her making this show in the Soho Theatre last month, But what I really want to say and what is very important is that Lou has a brand new book out.
The book is called What That Lady Doing. It's a really, really great book about how
she maybe used to be a little bit unhinged and now channels all that unhingedness into amazing
comedy. It's so well written, I really highly recommend it.
But one thing I should also say while we're talking about books is that Anna and I have written
our own book. It's called Everything to Play for, the QI Book of Sport. It's for people who like
sports, it's even for people who don't like sports, who just want to read a load of interesting stories
and fun facts.
I mean, it's from me and Anna, you know what you're gonna get.
And it comes out next Thursday,
but the reason we wanted to mention it now
is because if you go to Waterstones
and you put in the offer code QI Sport 23,
then you will get 25% off.
And that is a deal for pre-order only.
So you need to do that
before Thursday if you want to get a book for a quarter off. Anyway more
importantly really for this week is you must go and check out Lusander's book
What's That Lady Doing? That's available right now in all bookshops and all
online places where you get your books. Hope you enjoyed the show, on 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 Theater in London!
My name is Dan Schreiberl and sitting here with James Harkin, Andrew Hunter Murray and
Lou Sanders 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 my fact, my fact this week, is that names of
registered competitive roller derby players include skate bush, Venus thigh trap, Camille Toe, Alice in Wunderland,
and Weird Al Spankerbitch.
That's rude.
Very rude, but this is the most fun naming convention
I think I've ever discovered, which is the amazing sport of roller derby,
largely takes place in America.
They have this huge registry of names where when you join, you almost get like a WWF wrestling
name, you pick it for yourself, you put it forward, and you get added to this big register.
And then when you're out there, that's who you are, that's who you embody.
And there's something like 40,000 names that have been put over various different lists
over the years.
And that's so good.
Yeah. And they have just so good. It's a huge years. And they're so good. Yeah, they're so good.
It's a huge list, and you can waste a lot of time, as I did.
So, HP Shovecraft, Roll the Mort, that's a good one.
And some of them are just pure on,
like there are some just violent ones.
Affirmative smaction,
Agatha Crushty,
Alstrapone,
Bit of a stretch, but...
Strapon, I think they're going for there, are they?
I think it's Alcapone, but with the strap on.
Got it, Alstrapone.
There's also Adolf Glitter, Adolf Hitter, Adolf Whistler and Adolf Hitter.
I'm sure I think flirting with the taste line.
Yes, but they are.
It's an amazing spice. It's mostly women who do it. The taste line. I guess. But they are. Perfect. And winning. Yeah.
It's an amazing spot.
I say it's mostly women who do it.
In fact, it's almost exclusively women.
Fine, I know.
Will you do it?
You're not Roller Derby, but you're a roller skater.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I know some roller derby people, yeah.
And do you have a name?
Oh, what do we call?
Loose ends.
Loose ends.
Loose ends.
Because a skating term is to send it.
Lose ends.
I've actually found Roller dubby names for each of us.
Oh, right here.
Let's go through the database.
So for you, Lou, there is Lou Brickent.
And what?
Lose your daddy.
Lose your daddy's lover.
Lou's your daddy's lover.
And that's Andy Clockwise, James Bondage.
And... Do you know what they do in Roller-Turby?
Do you think it's Bondage?
No, I just...
In his fantasies, a little bit different.
Dan Haillan or Dan Sin Queen.
Dan Sin Queen.
Oh, that's good. Yeah, so you...
But the spot is basically you roll a skate around the rink, right?
And you've got one person who's kind of in charge
and who you're trying to protect
while the other team are trying to get them,
basically, it's like that kind of thing, isn't it?
And it started off, their whole spot started off
as endurance races.
So in the 1880s, there was this huge thing in America,
I think we might have mentioned it before,
of women doing six day races,
where they would just walk and walk and walk and walk again and again and again,
until, basically, there was one person left,
who would just keep walking and keep walking.
And then they started to do it on roller skates.
And what they found is that some of the people who were faster would get round the circuit
and that start overtaking people,
and then the people who were being overtaken would really hate it,
and so they start knocking them over.
Right.
And they found that people enjoyed that way more than they enjoyed the rest.
They didn't really quite like people just going round in circles, loads and loads of
times, but they loved it when people beat the shits out of each other.
Yeah.
Well, I can see why, though, because the very first one that they did, this is what you
would come and watch.
People skating, roller skating around a ring,
57,000 times.
Yeah.
The idea was that they were going across America.
That's the thing.
They'd worked out how many times around the thing
was to get from New York to LA or whatever.
And so.
They stopped for breaks, so right?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
You wouldn't stop for much breaks.
You stop for just like 20 minutes here or there.
And you go 24 hours just with the occasional,
just stopping for the hour.
I think it's a lot more fun now.
They're bashing each other out the way.
Yeah, we'll talk about that.
You don't know.
No, but so many people have told me.
So basically, it's quite aggressive sport.
My friends do it, and it's like you end up
with a lot of breakages and stuff,
and it's often like big units that do it.
And so many people have told me that'll be really good at it.
So many people, you should do that. Do you know what your friends have particular names that?
Yeah, but I can't remember any of them, but I only write down two.
See you in it, but the eye is very small. So you need to do it.
And Captain Beaver, and I thought, sounds like my love life.
LAUGHTER
I was chatting to someone called Lynn Quinn,
who was England captain.
Hang on, is that a joke name or that?
It's not, it's a real name.
What's the name again?
Lynn Quinn. Oh, OK, Lincoln.
I did think you said Lynn Quinn.
That's why I got questions.
That might have been her fake name.
No, her fake name was Shaolin Scarlett,
and she was a captain of the England team
in the World Cup in 2014 and 2016.
And I was asking her about how it works.
She says, lots of teamwork is really, really important,
the teamwork.
And when they came up with a new tactic,
they all get matching tattoos of their tactic of holding in.
That's pretty hard, Cops.
We do that with our facts, don't we?
We'll never.
Yeah. We are absolutely coated. Head to don't we? We'll never. Yeah.
We are absolutely coated.
They've had to make the font smaller and smaller
as the years go by, because they keep thinking we'll stop.
But we won't.
Have you got any tassies?
Have a guess.
No.
I'll never tell.
And this is a podcast, you can say what you want.
Oh, yeah, I got 16 huge ones.
Yeah. Yeah. The other lingo. Oh, yeah, I got 16 huge ones. Yeah.
Yeah.
The Ovalingo.
16 big ones.
That's why you want it to the tattoo places said give me 16 big ones.
I don't mind what they're off as long as they're big.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Teenage Mutant Inja Turtle. There's another one.
Oh, very nice. I thought that was your tattoo.
Two-packed Shank her. That's clever. That's good.
Yeah. Twatt Rocket.
I don't think that one's so clever. That's the love line.
The events as well.
Night of the Rolling Dead,
Noctober Fest,
Spanx Giving,
Seasons Beatings.
Okay, great.
But the, there were these big mass events earlier,
like even in the 19th century,
before they started doing proper skating,
before these formal events.
So in 1884, there was a guy called Victor Kluff
who skated 100 miles in 10 hours
in a round-a-course, which was very impressive.
And then in 1885, there was a six-day event
where they had 36 skaters, again, Roller's Gates competing.
And then soon after that, the winner of the race,
who was a guy called William Donovan, and another competitor, died.
Ooh!
Yeah, and they said, oh, maybe we shouldn't do this for 10 hours a day all the time,
because people just weren't up to it, and they just kept going.
I was reading about the walking version that came before the skating,
and this was, like I said, it was women doing this for six days at a time and it became so popular that there
was one stage, I can't remember where it was, but there was a load of kids went missing in
an area and everyone thought, oh shit, all these kids have gone missing.
And what they found is they were in a warehouse and they started their own events of walking
around in circles for days on end.
And they just were trying to copy what these women were doing and were like, yeah, let's do that ourselves. And they'd been walking around in circles for days on end. And they just were trying to copy what these women were doing,
and we're like, yeah, let's do that ourselves.
And they've been walking around in circles for three days
when they were found.
Gosh.
I thought that was going to take a darker turn.
I thought it was going to be like a roller skating
pipe-pipe situation, where the pipe-pipe
were skated through the town and all the children
had danced.
Yeah, we thought it was Jimmy Sapple.
I didn't think that.
Did you hear of Rinkomania?
No, what's that?
There's the Edwardian craze for rinks, skating rinks.
Loads of venues around everywhere
used to be rinks that are now converted.
Just because it was so crazy.
Basically, because you could meet the opposite sex.
That was the, you're a bit less chaperoned.
You're able to skate away from your chaperone.
I read one article saying, Mother Grundi,
they're not trust herself on skates,
which meant that some, you know,
all the person isn't going to be watching you
and making sure what you're doing with the other,
exactly.
The opposite sex, yeah.
My wife started, right?
Like, I can't believe I've just thought of this just now.
But my wife decided to start roller skating.
Oh, and her skating instructor is very handsome.
LAUGHTER
What's her street name?
Ooh, I'm not sure.
I don't want to say anything that will mean I can't go home tonight,
because she's here.
So, but here's the thing, right?
So she bought a pair of roll-as-gates.
She hasn't done it since she was a teenager.
And we're leaving the house, and she starts putting them on.
And I said, what are you doing?
She was like, I'm just going to go and do it now.
And I was like, you've got to test it out.
And apart, we're on a main road here.
And you're going on your own with our child
in a buggy, wealth was like only a few months,
like, you know, nine months old or something like that.
So I said, listen, I better come with you.
And she was insistent that she does it.
So she put the roller skates on.
She took the buggy outside.
And you live at the top of a very steep hill, don't you?
We do have a bit of a nitcline.
And you go everywhere by unicycle as well.
There we go.
So I close the door, and all I hear is,
ah!
And I turn around, and Fonella and the buggy have just gone off.
And she can't stop, because she doesn't know
how to use the brake on the back.
And I have to chase them down the road
as they're heading to oncoming traffic,
coming on the road. There's two I have to chase them down the road as they're heading to oncoming traffic,
coming all the way over there.
There's two guys with a glider.
Some glass going across the road.
Wow.
I love that spirit, though.
Yeah.
That's amazing.
Oh, can I ask you, have you seen Roller Limbo?
No. This is amazing.
Okay, so it is literally as it sounds,
there's Limbo on Roller's Gaze,
and you... Oh, yes, yes.
You have it, you think, you know what it is, and you're wrong.
So... No, no, no.
Like, you... So what you're imagining, maybe,
is someone skating towards and then bending backwards.
Yes, that's right. Imagine, yeah.
It's not how you do it. You basically...
It's so hard to describe, because I'm behind a desk.
But basically, your legs go out to the sides.
You go down into the spots.
I'll be honest, Andy, I don't think the fact there's a desk here
is what makes that difficult for you to make somebody...
I so wish I could show you all.
Well, we have got some skates for you.
So you're doing the sideways slabs.
So, sideways splits, but you're moving forwards
and you're holding on to your calves.
I know, and you're going under these bars,
which are about, I don't know, 20 centimetres dear. And you're going under these bars, which are about,
I don't know, 20 centimetres high.
And you're so low as you have,
you've got to look it up.
It is so good.
Wow, that's the most amazing thing.
Those people need to grow up a little bit.
LAUGHTER
Well, the competitors are mostly children, so.
LAUGHTER
They're good on them.
LAUGHTER
Have you heard of John Eve Blondo?
So John Eve Blondo has invented a new suit made of plastic
that has 30 roller skates attached to it
in all different parts of his body.
So wherever he, if he falls off on his back,
he can roll his skate.
If he falls on his front, he can roll his skate.
Really?
If he falls on his head, he can roll his skate.
He can walk along the wall and roll his skate along the wall as he's going.
He can't make it.
He can.
There's videos on YouTube.
Wow.
As he's using his powers for good or for evil.
LAUGHTER
I would say neither good nor evil.
He's just using them for more hits on YouTube.
He's doing his head.
That's incredible.
Yeah, the head one, that probably may be excited.
He's just a little bit.
But he could do in theory, yeah.
And he basically goes down all these really big hills
around the world as quickly as he can on his suits.
How does he stop?
Does he have a break on like his elbows or something?
You know what?
I'm not sure.
He must have some breaks, yeah.
He's still going somewhere.
Eventually, you're going to get to the bottom of the hill.
You don't need to stop.
The reason you have to stop is in case you fall over.
He's already fallen over.
Yeah.
Nobody.
You don't need to stop. There's a big wall there.
Exactly.
You could just go up the wall and then on the side
and then on his head and stuff, it cannot be stopped.
He should be stopped.
He should be.
He also has one of his suits, which these ones you can buy, these 30 ones.
I don't know how much they are for this.
But he does have one suit, which isn't for sale, which also features samurai blades and spike horns.
Oh my God.
What is that useful for?
Probably evil I reckon.
I've given him six years life expectancy.
Yeah.
Exactly.
I need to move this on very soon.
I've got a couple of other names that I found.
So here's the thing, there's a lot of extremely rude names
on this registry.
And it's done in a kind of empowering way.
I think it's sort of, you know, it's exciting
to have these real badass names.
But God damn it, they really go for it.
So some of them I'd discovered.
Bitch Hiker is one. Okay.
Vagina might. Oh wow. Is that like Marmite? Yeah.
It's, yeah, you love it or you hate it. It's some kind of yeast extracts. I'm not sure.
Oh my god. Oh my god.
Oh, this is my experience from this podcast.
Oh my god.
Stop the podcast. Stop the podcast.
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What a great tagline. I'm with the podcast.
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What a great tagline. Up with the podcast. On with the show.
It is time for fact number two, and that is Lou.
OK, my fact this week is that the TikTok singer
who went viral with the C-Shunty
is unable to perform his song on boats
because he suffers from terrible seasickness.
That's so funny.
Yeah, it's I- and it went to number one, which is, yeah, it went to number one in the UK charts.
It's a song about a whale trawler
and they're looking for a whale.
And this was 2021.
So you would think by now, maybe it's died down a bit,
but I went on to his Spotify lessons.
He's still, as of today, gets five million listens
a month on his Spotify account.
That's the same as Tom Jones.
Wow. Yeah.
So it's not unusual though.
LAUGHTER
Don't shake your head at your own. That is really good.
It's not even a C-shanty, is it?
No, not really. No, isn't it?
No, it isn't. None of these are. It's a bit of a shanty. What is it?
It's just a song.
LAUGHTER
A C-shanty has to be something that you sing when you're working.
So like, Drunk and Sailor is like, what would you do with a Drunk and Sailor?
You're pulling the rope and you're bringing it up.
Maybe he's getting a record deal.
He's working sort of on that.
That's a really good point.
Yeah, checkmate, Harkin.
That is the cool thing about C-Shanties, like the old C-Shanties is that because on a vessel
you only had a very skeleton crew that had to do multiple things, the song is the beat
of allowing you to know how we all work as a group.
So the rhythm of it, the lyrics of it, would mean you have to pull at that moment and pull
at this or whatever places and whatever.
So people often see it done on like Navy ships.
It never really would have happened on Navy ships
because they had so much crew.
You didn't need the same amount of dancing.
They were banned the UK Navy.
They were banned sea shanties because you wouldn't be able
to hear commands if you're singing too much.
You were.
But you haven't had love.
Yeah.
So it's like merchant ships.
One way of leaving ships and things like that.
And there were specific songs for different things you were doing on board.
So there was hauling shanties, running shanties, pump shanties, swarbing shanties, capstan
shanties.
Capstan is that thing you'd turn around in the middle of the ship that pulls the anchor
up.
I know you've had their own songs, really.
It's pretty cool.
Yeah, I love it.
But it's been like that song that he sang.
It's not like it's an obscure song that's not been around for ages.
It's one of like the better known C songs.
And you can read a list of places that's appeared.
So it was in 2013.
It was on the album.
Now that's what I call C-Shanty's volume one.
No.
Yeah.
I found that.
Did you find the volume two?
Yeah, I did.
No.
Yeah, it's on Spotify.
Not as many listeners as Tom Jones.
But it's doing okay.
To be fair, it's a great title,
and it's not multiple different C-Shanty acts.
It's just the one band from Wellington in New Zealand
called Wellington C-Shanty's Society.
But there is a whole genre.
How did they get that name?
There is a whole kind of niche genre of pirate metal.
And they sing Wellerman as well, this song.
It's a Scottish band called Ails Storm and Stormseeker.
They've been known to sing this song.
So it's been around.
So how come he gets all the money for it?
Just because he made it popular.
It's a traditional song.
And so traditional songs, I don't think there's any copyright over.
I'm not sure if that's right
I think that's what I think you do get royalties, but you have to bury them
That's quite a pain in the ass actually
Okay, here's a little quiz question for you when did the last actual proper shanty man not like modern singers?
When did the last proper shanty man die? Oh?
Well, I would have thought probably
18th century. OK, any advance?
92, 1992. 92?
92, OK.
Gas, don't. Yeah.
93.
We're just having a laugh.
Well, Lou, you're correct, because you died in 1992.
LAUGHTER
APPLAUSE
Hello.
CHEERING
Are you doing it? No, I'm not joking. OK. Are you joking?
No, I'm not joking.
I was...
As you said it, I was like, keep the poker face,
keep like, don't give away shit.
She's got it.
Yeah, that's insane.
No, it's okay. No, it's okay.
He was a guy called Stanley Huggil, and he was...
I mean that.
Yeah.
He was born in 1906.
He was at C in 1922 when he...
He lost a beam.
Yeah, and then he was the shanty man on the last ever British sailing ship,
which was called the Garth Pool, and that was on its last voyage.
And that ship was wrecked in 1929, and he lived his whole life.
He was in the Sacawabaw, he settled down.
You know, he wrote down all his shanties because they're all traditional.
Like there wasn't a proper song book.
And he died in 1992.
Wow. Yeah.
I, I, and you ain't like this, but, and he died in 1992. Wow. Yeah.
I, I, and you won't like this, but this is not really yours at bag,
but I do think I'm a bit psychic.
Oh, no.
We were talking about it.
You're sitting right next to the person who absolutely loves
here, kind of stuff.
Why do you think you're psychic?
You think you pulled that out of Andy's head just now?
Yeah, basically, and I'm very emotionally intelligent.
LAUGHTER But you don't even believe in UFO basically, and I'm very emotionally intelligent.
But you don't even believe in UFOs, so I'm not going to continue.
I said that to you in private backstage.
That's true.
He said he doesn't believe in UFOs and he hates women.
Only one of those things is true. He's a lovely lad. Oh dear. Oh, just
James. Punishment? Anyone? I think that's actually, I can't
have felt like I've had enough. This is to do with music and the army. So corporal punishment in the British army
was often meted out by drummers and bands people.
You were the drum.
I suppose in a way you were.
The cat of nine tails is the drumstick.
It was like rhythm.
Well, no, it wasn't so much that it was probably
there was two possible reasons.
One that other musicians would play music,
and it would drown out the screams of the person being punished.
But probably because just the people who were drummers
or in the band, they were not proper sailors.
And so they were like the lowest of the low of the,
as far as, you know, who's the most senior.
And so the idea was, if you're a sailor,
you wouldn't want to be meeting out punishment to your peers,
and so maybe you would get the person at the bottom to do it.
And that apparently is where we get the idea of being drummed out,
so being drummed out of the army is because it was the drummer
who would do the beating.
That's where actually beating you?
Yeah, with the cat and nine tails, like her.
Oh, I see. OK, OK, that was a pretty good one.
And do you know what, boys, okay, those are pretty good. Do you know what boys pussy is?
say
former champion roler derby
winner
No, just on topic it was a cat and nine tails but for younger recruits
So if you're a young person who joined the army., you weren't of age perhaps, they would have a...
Like a cat of nine tails would have nine, like, whips on it,
and there would be knots on it, but yours would only have five,
and it'd be made of smooth cord.
Oh, that's nice, isn't it?
Wow. Yeah, but it's pussy.
Crucky.
Have you ever heard the sea shenty come all the year tongueers?
No.
Sing it. Sing it. I can't sing it. Is it theenty come all the tongueers? No.
Sing it. It's good. I can't sing it. Is it the same as come all you faithful?
It's about the tongueers with the guys on board ship
who collected stray intestines of whales floating around.
Wow. Yeah.
I think in their well-emone, he says,
we'll get the tongueing done or something like that.
It does, it does, exactly.
So that's what that means. That's what that means.
Yeah. That's very cool.
Not a lovely job.
I got to fact about Wales singing.
Actual Wales and Wales song.
So I loved this.
OK, Wales song spreads like human songs.
So the scientist found there was basically
there was a hit Wales song among humpback Wales
in the West Coast of Australia.
It was only found there.
But then several months later, they
heard that same song on the East Coast. And this happens in the Atlantic too and basically hit whale songs make their way
from West to East. So you will get whales in the East which are still singing the old songs,
but the whales in the West have a new song by now and it gradually spreads across and it's
always West to East and we don't know why. know why yeah yeah amazing to imagine like the radar listening
It's got to get those photo-finanements from somewhere
This is a cool thing. There's sea sickness. We're talking about but there's other kinds of sickness that you can get motion sickness
Sea sickness is one of the motion sickness. Love sickness. We don't know who the person.
Love sickness.
Yeah, sorry, yeah, go.
What? Is that a thing?
I thought you were just joining with more kinds of sickness.
Is that a sickness?
Yeah, it was.
Is love sickness not a thing?
There's a lucky guy.
LAUGHTER
No, it was a proper thing in the 19th century, wasn't it?
Love sickness.
Yeah, right.
They thought that it meant you, if you had like a pallid expression and like just deep sun
highs and stuff, that's because you were love sick.
Right.
It was probably a thing.
OK, so with all the sicknesses, it's probably impossible
to ever say this was the first person
who ever had sea sickness.
This is the first person who had love sickness, right?
But we do know the person who had the first sickness
of one kind.
So I'll give you the name.
He's called Germann Tittov.
What did Tittov have for the sickness?
Okay, herpes.
Herpes sickness.
Tittov, presumably, space race.
There we go.
What? What?
Space sickness?
First person to ever have space sickness.
How do you know that?
I feel like I'm a bit psychic. LAUGHTER
APPLAUSE
It could be all the Russian history I've read,
but I think it's a psychopsychicness.
LAUGHTER
So Titov, he was...
LAUGHTER
...liv it.
LAUGHTER
Wow, I can't read mine yet.
I know what you're thinking right now, though. LAUGHTER Yeah, but you're saying that, because you've read mine, do you know what you're thinking right now? Yeah, but you're saying that because you've read it, you're not psychic,
but I've never read a book in my life.
He's a nice player now.
He's a nice player now.
He's a written one, yeah.
Yeah, everyone.
So, 1961, August, German Titov is the, I think, the fourth human,
certainly one of the first batches of human to go up and orbit the Earth,
and he's the first person who up there gets most, well, space sickness
and vomit, so first ever human to vomit in space.
And so it landmarks thing and it affects so many people, so many astronauts who go up
there and it's for the opposite reason that you might get sea sickness or any kind of motion
sickness on Earth.
You have an opposite effect, right?
I don't know the proper science,
but to put it in context,
if you were in a car and you were reading your phone
or a book, you might get motion sickness
because what you're staring at is counter
to everything else that is in your normal life.
Like a movement around you, you're trying to keep that?
Yeah, exactly.
In space, to get rid of everything moving around
because of the lack of gravity, you should read a book
and to get yourself in the first place.
My work is now available for all the first shots.
It's cool, what's that lady doing?
Full stars and heavy endings.
Cheers.
Yes.
I have, yeah, and have NASA express any interest,
though, you know that?
They've not expressed any interest.
So here's the thing, they were very worried
when it happened to him because he came back down to Earth and was space sickness something that's going to carry through on into life.
And then suddenly, they noticed huge changes in his personality.
He suddenly was sort of like sleeping around with different women.
He was being really rowdy and bar as he was like all these different personality traits.
And they thought, God, the space sickness has come down
So they studied him but what they might have to go up to space
That's the missing chapter in your book, isn't but here's what they worked out. It wasn't space sickness
It's just he was a dickhead
LAUGHTER MUSIC
All right, cool. We need to move on to our next fact.
It is time for fact number three, and that is...
Andy.
My fact is that the people of Iceland can think of a good use
for 95% of a cod.
LAUGHTER
So, this is a fact about recycling.
LAUGHTER Do we know, can you tell us what part of a cod they are... So this is a fact about recycling. And specifically...
Do we know, can you tell us what part of a card they're...
Yeah, I'm thinking...
...stubbing the last few percent.
Basically, the blood and the eyeballs are quite hard to...
...monitise and make...
You know, you probably use them.
I've always said that.
I've always said that blood and the eyeballs are hard to manage.
We have said that the aqueous humour in the eye can be drunk in an emergency.
Yes, it's just hard to monetize.
Yeah, it's hard to...
Monetize an emergency.
Yeah, and like, there is a use for the blood as well.
It can be used in sausages,
but...
Or as fish food,
but it's hard to get fish and to come in.
Yeah, I see.
The blood from the...
Anyway, basically, this is from a magazine called Hacker Eye
Magazine, which we've mentioned before.
It's great. And it's favorite.
And it's favorite magazine.
It's all about the sea and everything,
nor to gill and all about water, basically.
And Iceland catch loads of cod.
And they didn't use much of it until recently.
They used 40% of the cod in the early 2000s.
Nightmare.
Lots of waste.
You know, using the fillets, you're eating the meat,
but not really using it properly.
So there is a project called 100% fish, which aims to put all of the cod caught to good use,
you know, just use the whole thing, which is much more sensible. So the skin, if you've been,
if you've had a burn, the skin can be grafted onto people now. So there are people who are part
cod because they've got, yeah, you can see the imprint of the scales as well. But it's a really good thing for skin grafts.
Like it's really, it's really thousands of people have been treated with cod skin.
Would it make you swim faster?
No.
What? No, absolutely not.
Why not?
No, no, no, no.
You're recovering from a major operation, you're bit through hell.
Suddenly, there's Dr. Harkin at the door,
saying, in your speeders, come on.
Oh, I don't think it's...
You could, is there not a way in the Olympics,
and next Olympics, we put this cod skin on all of our swimmers?
Yeah. No?
You're right. Well, maybe it would. Maybe it would work.
I thought it's a good point. I don't know if...
But then you retire like age 27,
and you're just covered in cold for the rest of your life.
Smelling a fish. No, what's the hangout with you?
Yeah. Yeah. No, you're right.
Tom Scaly. Yeah? Tom Scaly, do you get it hang out with you. Yeah, yeah. No, you're right. Tom Scaly. Yeah?
Tom Scaly, do you get it?
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
This is a guy called Tom Daly.
Yeah.
And he's got, yeah, do you get it?
Tom Daly, and then put the cod on him and his cod.
He does, though, which would presumably
be a nightmare if he was plunging downwards
and then just hit the bottom at torpedoes.
Yeah. No suit for Tom Scaly.
Anyway, some uses of a card.
Oh, yeah.
So if you are a professional Fisher person,
and when I say professional, I mean you're doing it in competitions,
so you see who can catch the biggest fish.
Yeah.
The way that they tell which fish is the best is they weigh it.
Now some people will put some like metal or something inside the fish to weigh it down.
Now, what if you bought some cod on the way and you've shoved it inside your fish, they'll never find it because it's fish inside fish. And that's what happens.
There's this big scandal in fishing which people have been buying fillets of card
and shoving them inside the fishes to make them heavier.
That's disgusting.
So disgusting.
It's true. And there was a notorious case
really recently last year, which was uncovered
by a judge called Jason Fisher.
Oh, really? Oh, wow.
How desperately they have to be to win an angling competition.
But you're busy shoving cod up another fish's ass.
Like, what is the...
You must have a look at your life, then, and think,
I've lost my priorities.
I'd go down the mouth.
Who knew?
I probably weren't here,
as opposed to the small opening,
which is more plausible.
But which is more fun, you know?
You know, I see some questions.
Got to get some fun out of it.
God, that's really clever.
Yeah, it's good as net, it's really clever.
By the way, how many of us on this stage have been to Iceland?
I happen to. I know you have been there.
I've been a few times.
Yeah, you won. You did a TV thing, though, didn't you?
What was it?
Dangerous roads.
And it is good to go to Iceland
when someone else is paying for it,
because it's so expensive.
Is it really?
Yeah, so expensive.
I was like, this is really good.
I'll have another sandwich.
What did you see?
Like, what?
Oh, yeah.
I suppose it wasn't about the sandwiches.
Um, sort of, Ed Campbell.
LAUGHTER
Do you know what a fact about Iceland?
Everyone's loads of people are called Daddy.
So it may happen.
Because that's the name of Dave.
They're called, if your name's Dave in England,
it'd be called Daddy and I. Oh, wow.
Chasin Daddy. Yeah.
So our fixer was called Daddy, so we had to keep saying,
Daddy, Daddy. Wow.
That's good fun. So in Iceland, you're like,
they're like, oh my god, the winner from Tassemaster,
from Daddy, channel Daddy! Yeah, channel Daddy!
Yeah, it was on Channel Daddy.
Wow.
Dave.
Oh, I just understood that.
Sorry, yeah.
I was taking, it's on Channel 4, isn't it?
No, got it.
Oh, sorry!
No, it's a couple by now.
It's series 8, right?
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Which is the more of an Iceland, rabbits or rabbis?
Ooh!
Oh, that's good.
Rabbis. You're saying rabbis? I think so. Audience have pitched him with a vote for rabbis? Ooh! That's good. Rabbits.
You're saying rabbis?
I think so.
Audience have pitched him with a vote for rabbis, okay?
Well, Rabbits.
Rabbits, thank you.
Yeah, I would say probably a lot of countries don't have any rabbits,
so I'll say rabbis.
Ooh.
One rabbi, no rabbits.
You're half right.
They've got loads of rabbits and only one rabbi.
I know.
I know a really good fact about Iceland. Here we go. They've got
a dating app because, because it's such a small country, everyone's sort of related.
So you could sleep with someone in the pub and it could be your first cousin. And so they've
got a dating app, which this is true. I don't know why everyone's looking at this. And they've
got a dating app where you can tell
how far removed the person you've just got off with is.
But do you ever wait?
Don't you do it before?
Yeah, but maybe different.
That's not like they're going to turn the lights on
and you're like, daddy!
LAUGHTER
So you don't know all your cousins or whatever.
But if so many people are related and it's cause problems
with babies coming out, odd and stuff,
that someone developed this dating app so you can tell.
Wow, that's amazing.
So imagine if you win the Throws of Passion,
you're like, oh God, I just turned the app maybe.
Oh no, maybe I won't pull that.
Iceland is home to the hottest hole on the planet.
The hottest hole.
Literally the hottest hole.
Okay.
So geothermal hole is the Iceland deep drilling project and it's 5,000 degrees Celsius at
the bottom.
It's really hot.
I think I've been really...
I really resist.
You can be there.
I think I have.
I think so.
And then there's a big factory on top of it where you can go visit.
That's very cool. Yeah.
And basically, the pressure is too hot.
You put water down there and it becomes something called super critical,
which I do not fully understand.
But it's basically neither liquid nor gas.
I don't know what it is.
Solid?
Yeah.
It's ice.
If you heat water up enough, it becomes ice again.
Very new science. Yeah.
It's so useful because they use it to heat everything.
They can have underpavement heating from the geothermal heat.
People don't fall over on the ice because obviously it gets really icy,
but you don't slip over and fall, so it's very hard.
But they use it for so much, don't they?
They like most of the houses that the hot water comes literally from the core of our earth.
Like it's heated by geothermal.
It's heated by geothermal.
Literally from the carbonara.
We can head out the literally from my word ever.
No, but it's like they got round problems of school.
But what about that dating app?
Have we ever spoken about the day that all the women went on strike in Iceland?
I think we have.
1975, basically, there was a thing, the United Nations proclaimed it, Women's Year.
And basically, the women of Iceland got together, this group of women as a sort of representative
and went, we should go on strike and make a point about the fact that we're paid less, we should make a point about we're doing all the domestic stuff at
home, we're doing all this stuff. Let's really let them know that this is something that
we disagree with. And Iceland back then, in 1975, there's 200,000 people that live in
Iceland. 25,000 women were at one single event to hear the speeches that were in the lead
up to this. And so instead of calling a strike, they thought we might piss off too many people and it
won't happen.
So they said, could we have a day off?
And they went, oh, a day off sounds nice.
Yeah, have a day off.
So every woman in Iceland had a day off, and the country went into chaos.
Supermarkets sold out as sausages, because dads did know what to cook their kids. Everyone was working jobs that they didn't necessarily
knew how to do because they thought they were at a higher level
and they were suddenly having to be the teller at a bank,
rather than the bank manager at a bank kind of thing.
The men refer to it still the long Friday,
because it was such a nightmare.
Yeah, I need to move us on to our final fact of the show.
Can I tell you one last thing? This is something that happened to an American visitor It was such a nightmare. Yeah, I need to move us on to our final fact of the show.
Can I tell you one last thing?
Yeah, of course.
This is something that happened to an American visitor
to Iceland in 2016.
He was called Noel Santillan.
He was on holiday.
And he arrived, hired his car.
He wanted to go to Laugaveguers Street.
I'm sure I'm pronouncing it wrong.
45 minutes from the airport.
Thought no problem.
He misspelled it by one letter.
And Iceland sat in the air, said to him, airport, thought no problem. He misspelled it by one letter and Iceland's set now sent him six hours, 265 miles away to a tiny fishing village. So he got there. Bloody hell.
But the people were very friendly and they were like, what a funny mistake to make.
Oh well, he stayed there for a few days, like making friends. Oh, it's the funny American.
On the way back, he was trying to get to the blue Lagoon geothermal spa. It happened again.
He ended up in the coastal town, which is home to the office of the company, which owns the spa. So he just ended up in an office building.
He literally, he walked into a staff meeting, rather than...
And they said, ah, you must be the American.
LAUGHTER
MUSIC
I need to move this on to our final fact of the show, and that is James. OK, my fact this week is that there is an app that can tell you when your fly is down.
Yes.
It's just useful, isn't it?
It's the work of a guy called Guy Du Pont, who is a YouTuber and a hacker.
And he's invented loads of things.
He's invented like a baby monitor which vibrates when the baby cries so it's more accessible.
He hacked his fridge so it tells him when he certainly leaves it open. But this is his, by far,
his most useful invention is a pair of smart pants. And whenever your fly has been down for,
let's say 30 seconds or maybe a bit longer,
maybe a minute or two,
then you'll get a beep on your phone,
saying your fly's low.
You need to look at it now.
Is it called the wife fly?
It's called the wife fly.
Oh, beautiful.
It's really good.
I read it not a little about James.
It did sound like there were a couple of disadvantages.
Yeah.
I like to go all the way around with with my flies and John, for example.
It's constantly monitoring, so your phone battery lasts about half an hour while you're using it.
Also, you can't watch the jeans anymore because they're powerful magnets inside the zip.
Yeah. But it's cheating troubles. I'm sorry.
I didn't know that was out. I do want some problem with your flies,
it's not that big a thing that you'd, would you ever get an app just to tell,
I mean, who cares?
So someone, someone will tell you, right?
I guess so.
I guess so.
If you're someone go, sort that out.
If you're somewhere quite urban though,
often people don't tell you because people talk to you.
If you're like, like, your strangers.
Yeah, if you're a primary school teacher, that's a problem.
Yeah.
Just day to day. Yeah, I don't know primary school teacher, that's a problem. Yeah. But just day to day.
Yeah, I don't know.
I do see that.
But yeah, like you say, because you can't wash it,
that's going to be a problem.
And it reminds me of they did make some robotic trousers
for old people to remember this.
Oh, yeah.
And they were really good.
They were, obviously, they wanted
to stop old people from falling over.
So they made this kind of exoskeleton,
which would help them to walk.
And it was absolutely brilliant.
It worked really well.
But the problem was that you couldn't wash them,
and they couldn't stop the old people
from trying to wash them.
No matter what they said to them,
they just kept putting them in the washroom.
They're often shitting themselves.
We're really living in this sort of golden,
unrecognized, I would say, golden age of innovation
in the app world.
So one that I found is Airbnb.
So like Airbnb, but Airbnb is for people who hate public toilets,
and there are people in the local area who've put their apartment listed just as the toilet.
So you can go, and you can just, like it's like me being at home and someone knocking on the door
and go, we got an P&P appointment and they come in
and take a piss in my toilet and then head off.
No.
And we give each other a review.
Is your creature what's the review?
I think that is run by perverse.
It's got to be.
As a woman, there's no way to a stranger's house
to use the toilet.
I don't think so.
No, good point.
Not even if they were like 4.9 stars.
Have never killed anyone.
Oh, I'm popping.
Yeah, no, there's a really good point.
I think it's more the ideas that I find
interesting than the practicality of it.
Yeah.
Because I don't have my dreams.
Have you put your home on a PMP?
No, not yet.
But it was my dream. But it was my dream.
Because it was my dream.
I had a...
LAUGHTER
Well, I was in a bit of London one, so it was near a park,
and there were no toilets around, and I thought,
you know, I should do. I should just open up a toilet.
And I'll sit in there, like I'm Ted Danson and Cheers,
and people come in, and they'll have a pee and we'll chat,
and then they'll go out.
I'll charge them, I don't know, 20 quid of piss.
They're like that.
Well, they're getting a good chat, aren't they?
Exactly, exactly.
We're getting a chat.
20 quid.
To have a brief chat with you, that'll piss.
Yep.
I mean, you've invented the public toilet, I don't think you know.
So you've invented that.
Because that's dirty and disgusting, the public toilet, and there might be people in there who are naughty.
And so this is...
Point to me when you say that.
I was referring back to your point. Oh, I see.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So this would be guaranteed a high class...
No, in a public toilet.
No one ever... No, exactly.
Nobody ever opens a public toilet saying,
well, in two weeks, this is going to be a disgraceful... 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, 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,'ve written those two down as well. Oh, good. Give it to us. Give it to us.
What's Waky?
If you struggle to get up at in the morning,
someone will call you as an alarm, a stranger.
And you can call other people to wake them up as well.
So it's an alarm clock. It's a call.
You pick it up and it might be just like a fisherman in Iceland
going, hi, how's it going?
That's your wake up call.
I think they've now removed the waking up bit.
It's now just random calls with strangers.
So if I go to a public toilet, might someone chat to me while I'm there?
I'm just thinking about my key.
I'm a wanky, yeah.
That's wanky, I think.
That's a very different app.
There's a few other apps which I think is really cool.
So there's an app that can
blow out candles. What? Yeah, isn't that really cool? So it's called the blower app and it's a,
you must have been disappointed when you downloaded that. Yeah. Your mum designed it.
It's basically, it's an extraordinary kind of innovation where certain frequencies are
generated by the app that means that the phone itself shakes in such a way.
And where there are the holes for the speakers, it turns the error that's inside into being
propelled out strong enough that it can blow out a candle.
So you can use it.
But why can't you just blow out your own candles?
Well, it's...
LAUGHTER
That's not the spirit that, you know, conquered
the American frontier, is it?
That's two things the way we've done them in the past.
No, let's make the phone app.
Do it.
Let's make the phone app completely American frontier for us.
We did say in the past that when you blow out candles on a cake,
it puts loads of germs all over the cake.
So it's a bad thing to do.
You don't think that's covered in germs?
Well, I did read there was a study of 3,500 swabs
taken from people's phones, and they found nine
unstudied branches of bacterial life,
including many species of bacteria that were unknown to science.
Wow. They found one species of bacteria that were unknown to science. Wow.
They found one species of Edwards bacteria that had only previously been known
in a nondeground water aquifer, and another one that was only found previously
in abandoned gold mines.
Wow.
And they're just on your phone.
That's amazing.
Isn't it?
It's quite nice in a way.
I feel like I'm harboring interesting things.
Oh, yeah. We all feel that. No, I know what you mean. It is kind of nice in a way. I feel like I'm harboring interesting things. Oh, yeah. We all feel that.
No, I know what you mean. It is kind of nice in a way,
but we don't know whether how safe it is.
It's not what I guess.
Do you know the word fly?
For your zip.
Or for anything.
Yeah, fly. Do you know what the word fly originally meant?
Did it mean a zip?
Did it mean the insect or did it mean to fly around the map?
Or looking cool. time, looking cool.
Oh, looking cool.
There's four options, which one do you think came first?
I'd guess to fly.
To fly as in the verb, yeah.
Well, weird enough, it was the insect that came first.
And then it came to mean like flapping your wings
or flapping things.
And then it came to mean flying as in the verb to fly.
And the reason that you have a fly on your trousers,
the fly is not the zipper.
It's the bit that covers the zipper.
And that's because it kind of flaps in the wind,
like the front of a tent.
So where you have the zipper of a tent,
you have a little bit of cloth, and that flaps in the wind.
Oh, yeah.
And that was named a fly because it flaps.
And then the front of your trousers was named a fly
because it looks like the front of a tent.
So tents came before trousers?
Before flies were named, yeah.
Well, that in itself is a very exciting fact.
LAUGHTER
Do you not think?
Yeah, I'm a rouse.
LAUGHTER
I found a couple of new apps that are...
One new app that's launched this summer, which is quite exciting.
I've actually got it on my phone now,
so I can answer questions about it.
It's called Text with Jesus.
Oh, lovely.
And it's recreated our Lord as a chat GPT guy,
and you can write, you can ask questions,
and he'll answer you, and you get lots of people.
You get Jesus Moses, the Virgin Mary, Abraham's nephew, Lot.
You get a certain...
What was either one who got turned into a Pellar of Salt?
That was Lot's Wi-Fi, you see.
But you can ask Lot, what was it like when your wife was turned into a Pellar of Salt?
And it's basically, they write back quite convincing answers.
Like quite realistic.
Got an example?
Hang on, I have to dig out, sorry, because I have been chatting to them.
Like Mary Magdalene cost 2.90 a month.
Various people are locked on the thing, so you can't access.
How much is Jesus?
Jesus is free, Jesus is part of the package.
Good message, Jesus is free.
Of the apostles, of the apostles only Peter is free,
and everyone else is locked. Wow.
Get John the Baptist Abraham.
So Judas on there. Judas is scarier, is is locked. Wow. Get John the Baptist Abraham. There's a lot.
Judas on there.
Judas Iscariot is on there.
How much?
He's up 30 pieces of silver.
Hey, oh!
Oh, don't get so much Judas material these days, do you?
LAUGHTER
I chatted a bit up to Job.
I got it.
Is he having a tough time with me, I guess?
He is what he's ch bit up to Job. Oh God, is he having a tough time? I guess.
Here's what he's chatting to me.
That legendary patience is wearing very thin.
He's finally given up on God now, hasn't he?
Also, when you look at the messages, he's written quite a lot.
Job, that's written quite a lot. That's Joe. Joe, that's Joe.
Joe's is a single line answer, and he's like...
LAUGHTER
And he's like, ten lines per message.
My opening gambit with Joe was,
what drove should I get?
Ha-ha.
Sunglasses emoji.
Joe replied, ha-ha, I see what you did there.
Well, get the answer to some detail we're playing.
Yeah, anyway.
Hannah, who is...
Is that all the long message?
Is that Joe?
No, the long message was Joe.
I thought not writing an essay to Joe.
Well, does Joe think of the podcast?
Can you ask?
I can ask, yeah.
Yeah, do that live, and let's find out.
So can you ask Joe why he's so clingy?
As an ancient figure, I must admit that I'm not familiar with modern podcasts,
like No Such Thing as a Fish.
Oh, modern.
LAUGHTER
That's going on the poster.
LAUGHTER
It's no, my dad wrote a porno, of course.
Is that what he's supposed to seriously?
No, it's not what he says.
No. He says, for more like a gather,
this is what it is, and they discuss interesting and unusual facts.
Podcasts like these can be great for expanding your knowledge,
discovering fascinating tidbits and even sparking curiosity.
If you enjoy learning youth,
you don't laugh so castically at that.
If you enjoy learning new things in an entertaining way,
it sounds like no such thing as a fish could be right up your alley.
Nice. Of course, everyone stays a stiffer.
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've said over the courses podcast, we can be
found on our Twitter accounts. I'm on At Shriberland, James.
At James Harkin. Andy.
At Andrew Hunter M.
And Lou. At Los Angeles, we think.
What do you mean?
Well, I don't know.
I don't know.
But also, you looked at me like that was incorrect,
and I trust you more than me.
That's not a loan, my self-esteem.
Or you can go to our group account, which is at No Such Thing, or our website, NoSuchThing
as a Fish.com.
All of our previous episodes are there, so do check them out.
Of course, definitely, definitely pick up, lose, amazing new book.
What's that lady doing?
Yeah.
Out in bookshops now, we're online. And do check out all of our previous episodes.
They are on nosuchthingasaffish.com.
Thank you so much, everyone, for being here.
We so appreciate it.
That was really fun.
We'll see you again another time.
That's the end of our SoHo Run.
That's it.
This is yeah.
Well, hopefully you play here again.
But until then, we'll see you around.
Goodbye. Good bye!