No Such Thing As A Fish - 505: No Such Thing As Hitchcock's 'The Worms'

Episode Date: November 16, 2023

Dan, James, Anna and Andrew discuss snake bites, starfish bodies, sucking blood and a speaking building. Visit nosuchthingasafish.com for news about live shows, merchandise and more episodes. Join ...Club Fish for ad-free episodes and exclusive bonus content at apple.co/nosuchthingasafish or nosuchthingasafish.com/patreon

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 Hello and welcome to another episode of No Such Thing as a Fish, a weekly podcast coming to you from four undisclosed locations in the UK. My name is Dan Schreiber, I am sitting here with James Harkin, Andrew Hunter Murray, and Anna Toshinsky. 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, that is Andy.
Starting point is 00:00:40 My fact is that for years, scientists thought Starfish had no heads. It now turns out they have no bodies. All head. Even the arms, heads. No. Yeah, Kai, I think what this shows is that it's actually quite hard to describe Starfish in terms of human anatomy.
Starting point is 00:01:00 Yeah. So what's the difference between head and body according to this definition? Okay, this is the result of a new study from Stanford University and I think maybe one of the other places and it's about the genetic code that sort of programs Staffish. Because Staffish are really, really weird bodily as in they start out with bilateral symmetry, which is what humans have, as in you've got two sides, you've got a left and a right, and it's sort of the same, you know, you're mirrored. So, starfish start out like that when they're first born,
Starting point is 00:01:30 and then they kind of grow out of it, and they become the starfish shape that we know. And so, what the study is, it looked at the genetic code, which kind of programs head-like territory, and it turns out that they have that in each of their arms. And so the middle, the middle bit, which joins all the arms together, has more head-like genetics.
Starting point is 00:01:51 Not one bit of the starfish contains the genetic program which we associate in our own bodies with a trunk or a torso. Are they one entity or are the arms mini heads? Okay, so it's not like one big orbiting head. It's a bit like, then, like we used to think it was, imagine your body, but then we cut off your head, and so you're just a middle with some arms and legs sticking out. But now what it turns out is, imagine someone took off your arms and legs
Starting point is 00:02:18 and super glued them to your head. That's it. Although I read, and I don't know if this was one of the guys involved in the study, a biologist called Thurston La Cali, which is just a really cool name. He said we should be thinking of them as a disembodied head walking about the sea floor on its lips. So, are you saying the legs are lips? Well, well, yeah, kind of, except that also, Dan, in this example, where we've removed your arms and legs, we've also super glued your anus to the back of your head. So, yes, you are walking down the mountain.
Starting point is 00:02:50 Dan, you're becoming more and more attractive by the minute. Please, fan art center, Andy. Basically, what the main headline is, is that there's no way for a starfish to sing the song, head, shoulders, knees and toes. But there there's no way for a starfish to sing the song head-child as knees and toes Let's just know another key for that. This is head head head lips feet. Aynas. Aynas head head lips of feet.
Starting point is 00:03:15 Lips of feet. Amazing. That's incredible. Is this why they have that feature that I think we must have mentioned before, where even if you cut off the main circular Bit the looks like a body to us and just a left with a leg They can regrow and regenerate their entire self from just a leg Maybe is that related to the fact that each leg actually has this genetic head material in it that can sprout everything Yeah, yeah, but it's a cool thing to be able to do anyway Imagine someone just cutting all of your body off except your finger and then your finger grow a whole new. But it's a cool thing to be able to do anyway. Imagine someone just cutting all of your body off,
Starting point is 00:03:46 except your finger, and then your finger grow a whole new body on it. It's mental. It's absolutely crackers. The regeneration thing is insane, because as you say, like a tiniest bit can be chopped off, and they can grow into a whole new starfish. And that's really messed up a lot of fishermen
Starting point is 00:04:00 back in the day. So there's areas of the world where they would eat the local oyster population. This is the starfish, and they were depleting it. So what fishermen used to the world where they would eat the local oyster population. This is the starfish and they were depleting it. So what fishermen used to do is when they got a starfish out, they'd kill it and they'd kill it by slashing it into two or five or whatever and then just chucking them back into the ocean, not realizing they were creating a giant army of starfish. Like what I imagine the Gremlins were if I ever watched that movie. Is that what happens? He put water on them and they all dupal.
Starting point is 00:04:26 Is that what happens? They multiply. I can't remember. I haven't seen it. Oh, guys, what are you? What are you? Yeah, of course. Dan, I'm really disappointed in you.
Starting point is 00:04:33 Sorry. Do the Gremlins get chopped up into smaller pieces and then create more Gremlins? If you put water on them, they multiply. If you feed them after midnight, they become evil. If you expose them to sunlight, they die. How many anuses do they have? It's very vexed doctrine. There is a big debate among us, Gremlin heads.
Starting point is 00:04:52 There's an amazing thing that they do as well when they're eating. Starfish will basically send their stomach to go and get the meal. So say if they're eating something, like there's a thing called the sand dollar, which is quite a flat little species and you find it on the on the floor of the ocean, they'll send their stomach out, they'll they'll surround it and they'll melt down the body of it into the food, bring it back in and just leave the skeleton. You know what, if we did that then probably the job of delivereroo driver would be quite bad. Well, my delivereroo drivers don't stick around and watch me eat my meal.
Starting point is 00:05:29 Yeah, but you have to, because instead of you coming to the door, your stomach would come to the door. And when they handed you the food, your stomach would kind of envelop around the bag of Chinese takeaway. Leaving only the plastic, tough away behind. Yeah. I can't believe yours don't watch you eat Anna. It's maybe I'm tipping generously enough that they do, but they always stick around to leave a letter box. Yeah. What interesting thing about this stomach inside out thing is that you know
Starting point is 00:05:58 Oxytocin, they call it the love chemical. The love, yeah. Very important in childbirth, it's like what stimulates a lot of changes in the body when you have a baby and stuff like that. Oh, but in the one about it, don't they? They don't have that. Oh my god, light some scented candles, play some music.
Starting point is 00:06:17 Oh, that'll get your oxytocin going. So it's possible. Literally, if you ever go to one of those things where they teach you how to be a parent, if they ask you any question, just say oxytocin and that is always the answer. It doesn't matter what it is. But anyway, not if you're a starfish.
Starting point is 00:06:30 If you're a starfish, oxytocin makes your stomach go inside out. Cool. So it's in starfish world, it's known as the stomach inside out, hormone, not the love hormone. And they go to special lessons, don't they, about how to eat their first meal. And it's well, lighter-centred candle, difficult underwater, but you can do it. So it's good for them. It's not in a bad way, as in it's not bad for them. Yeah, it's good. It's the chemical which they release when they're hungry,
Starting point is 00:06:55 so that it kind of sets into motion, this thing that Dan described. And so we kind of use it for something different? Yeah, we use it to feel love. Yeah, to make changes in the body, to help you to procreate. Yeah. Okay, I'm seeing the difference in romantic stuff that you two say to your partners.
Starting point is 00:07:12 And he says, I love you. And James says, I'm having changes in my body that I help you procreate towards you right now. Oh, well, can we say what some staffers do in exactly this? Now we're on that kind of on their love life. Have you heard of pseudo copulation? Sudo copulation? That's all the copulation I've ever done.
Starting point is 00:07:33 I'm so glad we've reached like 70s comedian. It actually is quite like that because normally, or loads of species of staff at offeraties, there are dozens and dozens. Normally they release sperm and eggs near each other and they then meet up and you know there's no sex as we understand it at all but pseudo-copulation is kind of similar so a male and a female they form a pair and the male quite sweetness puts all his arms between the female's arms so they're kind of cuddled and then she releases eggs right there,
Starting point is 00:08:05 and he simultaneously releases all his sperm. So it's like a very intense cuddle, basically. Oh, okay. That's nice. Did you say that's how particular species does it, sorry? It's how some species do it. Yeah, not all of them. Do you guys happen to know,
Starting point is 00:08:19 I'm only thinking this because Andy's brought this up, but if you chop a starfish in half, and it regenerates into a new starfish, does it carry the same age or does it start fresh? Because you know, they can live up to like 35 years roughly. I think they can start fresh because for some of them, that's actually how they appropriate is just by dividing, even more sexless. That's what I mean, they don't need copulation really. They're just lubbin arm off and they're good. Well they all necessarily need it but it's good for genetic diversity.
Starting point is 00:08:49 Copulation, that's why I always say to my wife, this will be good for the genetic diversity of our species darling. Oh Valentine's Day for walking out, so there's a very cool, there's a very cool version. I think I really like the cushion starfish because it's not actually star-shaped. If you look at it, it's like it forgot to sprout its lips slash legs. It's just a pentagon, really. And when it's young, it starts how's a pentagon and it just gets bigger and bigger and then it ends up as a big blob like a cushion. Nice. It is quite nice. There's about 2,000 of them, 2,000 species. And we're in dangerous times.
Starting point is 00:09:29 So back in episode 45, James mentioned a thing which was the starfish wasting syndrome, which is this really horrible disease that has just been sweeping through the oceans and within hours of a starfish getting this disease, they are dying and they're dying in really weird way. So as James mentioned, one of the arms sort of dislodges itself and just walks off into the distance. So they keep finding these these arms everywhere, just laying on the seabed and then a completely
Starting point is 00:09:55 gooey, yucky starfish that's just been, you know, eaten by this disease. And we are losing billions at a time at the moment. It's so huge, it's so bad. And as far as I can tell, the leaning scientists who are trying to work out what's going on are studying it in a tank. And do you know where this tank is? It's in Star City, no, it's in... It's in the Madame Tussauds.
Starting point is 00:10:19 It's in the Pentagon, and it's got Pentagon's starfish in it. Very nice, lovely. No. On the... How are we supposed to know that? It's in one of it's got a pencigun starfish in it. Very nice, lovely. It's on the... How are we supposed to know that? It's in one of those restaurants where you go and they've got all those lobsters sort of sad like your lobsters going around. It's in there. It's not that.
Starting point is 00:10:34 I'll give you a clue. It's in the Mexican Aquarium where free willy was based. Oh, that's great. You were basically there. It is literally in a warehouse right behind the place where Kiko was held. Holy shit. Holy shit. Holy shit. Oh, really? Oh, that was such a good guess. in a warehouse right behind the place where Keko was held. Where free Willy was held. Yeah. Oh, really?
Starting point is 00:10:47 Oh, my God, that was such a good guess. Yeah. That's right. Yeah, so they're studying them there and they've found a method which is kind of helping them but you can't get that into the oceans right now. It's insane. There's nothing we can do. What's causing it?
Starting point is 00:10:59 Is it? They think it's a bacteria. Is it? Yeah. Right. But they don't actually know, and James mentioned this close to 10 years ago and we're still not on the wireless. It's ridiculous. What's the point of me bringing these subjects to light if they're not going to do anything in nine years? Honestly, you guys listen back to episode 45, 46, 47. Yeah. I was always bringing up these really important things and everyone just ignored me like a Sandra. Yeah. It is hard to know what to
Starting point is 00:11:23 do about it, isn't it? As you're everyday, man on the street, maybe we need a free starfish, you know, free willy sequel. Oh yeah. Someone else flinging it into the ocean, I don't know. Yeah. I have to stop. Since 2013, 5 billion have died from this disease
Starting point is 00:11:39 and they're down, these population wise, by 90%. It's mad. Oh my goodness. That's terrible. You can also eat starfish. Can you? Yes, some places in the Far East do. There's a place called Qingdao where it's quite common
Starting point is 00:11:55 that they eat starfish. I've seen a blog of people making them and eating them. What you do is you kind of break off the leg and then you open it up and then the meat is inside and it looks like if you can imagine a baby's nappy when they first come onto solids, it looks a bit like that. Why did you get fired as the restaurant menu description writer for this place James? I don't know, I thought it was a visual way of describing it. And apparently the taste is the same as the beach smells low tide.
Starting point is 00:12:27 Right. Wow. Yeah, they eat them in Qingdao, but to be honest, these days it's mostly a thing for tourists who got to Qingdao. They eat the locals don't really eat anymore. If you ordered it for dinner and you ate sort of like three quarters of it and asked for it in a doggie bag,
Starting point is 00:12:42 by the time you got home, would you have a full meal? Yeah. Brilliant. They leave footprints wherever they go. So very bad criminals. Let prints. Let prints, sorry, yes. This was actually an interesting study that I read about on a blog called The Echinoblog. It's this guy called Christopher Mar,
Starting point is 00:13:02 who calls himself the Starfish Guy. He's written multiple entries a month on just starfish for 10 years, stopped in 2018. So like literally just hundreds and hundreds of entries just about starfish. And he reported that they don't have suction cups on their feet, which is what everyone always says, they stick to things by suction. It's actually more like glue. So they have a fuzzy coat, what's called a fuzzy coat, on each foot. They've got hundreds and hundreds of feet on each leg.
Starting point is 00:13:32 So on each foot, they've got a fuzzy coat. And when that touches the ground, they push this kind of gluey film through it, which forms a mesh. And that sticks them to the ground. And then when they lift their leg up again, they leave the fuzzy coat behind and you can track a staffish across the sea floor if it's shoplifted because they leave these constant every single one of their little suction things,
Starting point is 00:13:54 leaves a little fuzzy coat behind. And then you have to take a lip print, which is quite sexy. You have an underground group who would do you bowtocks in your lips like if you just am a brine. They a face off. Yeah, it's like face off, but just with lips. Lips off. Yeah, lips off. Oh, and is it Travolta and Nicholas K to have to swap lips? Just the lips. Just the lips. Yeah. I think I would watch that film if it was Mick Jagger and Michael Gove. Oh, like you want two people with very different types of lips, don't you?
Starting point is 00:14:26 Oh, yes. And I mean, we are getting into the realm of body swap comedy here, where Gove has to live as Jagger and vice versa. Yeah. It's weird you say vice versa because the body swap comedy genre, which includes what like free Friday or all that stuff. It began in the 19th century with a book called Vicer Versa. Oh, Vicer, one of those.
Starting point is 00:14:49 Super Fathers and the Sun, who swap places. And the story goes that Anthony Trullop was reading this book out to his friends and he found a bit which was so funny that he just got into a laughing fit and he died. No, no. Trullop died of laughing? I mean, no, he didn't really a laughing fit and he died. No, no. Troll up, died in laughing? I mean, no, he didn't really. He did? He did. Well, he died of a stroke,
Starting point is 00:15:10 he died of a stroke which he had due to intense laughter. He died a few weeks later, but I think that is true, actually. Hold on, he laughed intensely and then he had a stroke immediately and then he died a few weeks later. Sorry, it wasn't like he had a stroke a few weeks later and they went, remember when he laughed a couple of months ago he died a few weeks later. Sorry, it wasn't like he had a stroke a few weeks later and they went, remember when he laughed a couple of months ago? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, Stop the podcast. Stop the podcast. Hi everyone, we'd like to let you know that today we're sponsored by BBC Mystro. That's right, BBC Mystro is a subscription-based streaming platform that is created to educate and inspire people and get them to explore their creativity. And they do this by getting some of the leading figures in various industries to give you
Starting point is 00:16:02 these incredible courses that span 33 lessons and six hours in some cases from the greatest minds out there. James, this is like my wish list of heroes. I know. Let me hear some of them down. Go on. Okay. There's a course on comedy by Billy Connolly. I mean, what? Yeah. There is a course on storytelling by Alan Moore. If you know Alan Moore, he wrote the Watchmen comics. He wrote from hell. He doesn't do much, does he? He doesn't. That's a real coup. Julia Donaldson, Julia Donaldson, who writes the greatest kids books in my mind. Lee Child, Mark Ronson, it's incredible. Oh my goodness. Imagine if you wanted to write a comedy story for children,
Starting point is 00:16:40 which has got thriller elements and some amazing re-bixing music production, you would be in your element. That was extraordinary. That is a BBC Mystroke that's self right there, ladies and gentlemen. And if you want to get involved and see all of these incredible courses, all you need to do is head towards bbcmystro.com and use the offer code, fish, and you'll get 40% off your favorite video course or 40% off an entire subscription. Let the greatest be your teacher with BBC Maestro. And we are also sponsored this week by Babel.
Starting point is 00:17:31 Jumapel, James. Jabi Tavolton, Donzler Nord West, the Longlater. That's about as much as I remember about my GCSE French. But I would love to learn more. So how am I going to do it, Anna? Well, first of all, you're going to stop telling lies like you live in Bolton. When, as far as I can tell, you haven't lived in Bolton for 10 years.
Starting point is 00:17:51 But the way he can become better at French is by signing up to Babel. So Babel is the language learning platform, which is the easiest and most efficient and proven to be successful way of learning a new language. Absolutely. If you want to make your next trip abroad, a bit language. Absolutely. If you want to make your next trip abroad a bit more enriching, if you want to maybe expose yourself to better job opportunities, the reason I learn languages is because it's
Starting point is 00:18:12 kind of a good workout for the brain. There's all sorts of good reasons for doing Babel. And right now, you can get six months for free with a purchase of a six month subscription if you go to Babel. And the way you do that is by going to Babble, www.el.com for a slash play and using the promo code Fish. Core-severe. Do go to babblebbb.el.com slash play and use the promo code Fish and you'll get an extra six months for free
Starting point is 00:18:40 with the purchase of a six-month subscription. I'm with the podcast. Oliver! Okay, it is time for fact number two, and that is my fact. My fact this week is that one of the best times for Dracula to suck your blood is while you are watching a Dracula movie. No. It's that because it's so thrilling, normally, to watch a Dracula movie that you'll be distracted. Or is it because you're watching the Dracula movie, then if you see Dracula in your house,
Starting point is 00:19:13 you think, oh, that's normal because it's happening on the TV, so it's how it's here as normal as well. We've stumbled into the confusion of the fact immediately, which is, do you mean the best time for Dracula or the best time for you? Because often what's good for a vampire is not good for the person the vampire is sucking on. Or is it mutually good for everyone? It's for, no, it's never good for the person being sucked unless they want to become a vampire, which often does happen within that world. But it's fantastic for Dracula. The fictional world.
Starting point is 00:19:40 It's fantastic for Dracula himself, because he loves blood. And your blood is at its thickest or at least it's much thicker when you're watching a Vampire movie a horror movie anything would scare isn't it? So okay two things. Yeah, does he like thicker blood? Exactly like if your milkshake gets too thick you can't get it through the straw. Oh Great point, but if it's too thin, you send back your cup of milk, don't you? That's true. So it's just right.
Starting point is 00:20:11 And secondly, you said much thicker. It's presumably not so thick it can't get through your veins and arteries. It's like tar. Yeah, exactly. Okay, yeah, no, it's just a bit thicker. So it's a nice meal for Dracula. This is a study that was done at Laden University
Starting point is 00:20:28 in the Netherlands, and basically, they wanted to analyze blood samples from volunteers who had watched a horror movie, and then at another point, watch a very distinctly very unfrightening movie, a documentary. And so what they did was they found two different movies to show them. They found the 2010 horror movie in Sidious, which they showed to them. And then a week later,
Starting point is 00:20:52 they showed them a very, have they called it, non-alarming documentary called, a year in Champagne. What they found is that the people who sat through in Sidious had high levels of the blood clotting protein, which is called Factor 8. Did you know that this is pretty unrelated to the subject of this fact, but champagne in Russia now can only be called champagne if it's made not in champagne, if it's made in Russia. I think so. Everywhere else we're only allowed to call champagne champagne if it's made in the champagne region. It's one of those. Whereas Russia has changed trademark laws so that it can only be if it's Russian champagne.
Starting point is 00:21:27 So if I'm not in America as well, you'll have to call whatever you want, champagne in America. Really? Yeah, because it was in the decision to call things champagne, that rule was in the Treaty of Versailles, and the Americans never ratified the Treaty of Versailles, they had their own treaty against the Germans.
Starting point is 00:21:44 Sorry. Why are there being bolt-ons added to the Treaty of Versailles, they had their own treaty against the Germans. Sorry. Why are there being Boltons added to the Treaty of Versailles about champagne non-minglishers? Well, I mean, shouldn't we be just focusing on, should we just fix on the water ender wars and bring that safely to a conclusion? I kind of feel like we're going quite a long way away from Dan Spack to help.
Starting point is 00:22:00 Directly here. Yeah, but yeah, basically it was because Germans were making sparkling wine as well, and also the champagne region had been quite badly hit by the war. Vampires? Yeah. Yeah. We talk about real vampires for a bit. Yeah, go on. But then proper black not real. The people who live in the world as vampires. Oh, yeah. Sure. Yeah. So I was reading about them, and they, it's really interesting because basically most of them don't drink blood. There are a few few the sanguinearians
Starting point is 00:22:27 But that even they are really careful obviously because you can get all sorts of diseases from drinking blood But I think the vast majority are apparently psychic energy trainers who go along to places and Feel the energy a place of like concerts and then suck the life force. Yes from that Yeah, but I we all know people who when you talk to them You feel like you're having the life force suck from you and I just thought those were boring people But it does that they might actually be vampires is that right? I think they also Give like massages. I think the idea is like today if you give someone a massage you can suck up the Energy from that rub it out of the wow. Yeah
Starting point is 00:23:04 I think well also if I'm gonna suck away my psychic energy massage you can suck up their energy from that. Rub it out of the. Wow. Yeah, I think that's the reverse. That's the one to suck away my psychic energy. Then I want to be getting something in return for it, I guess. So a massage seems like a fair deal. That is a good deal. Let's take reverse raky instead of putting your good energy into someone you're taking it out.
Starting point is 00:23:18 Oh, yeah. You know raky? Okay. I don't really know raky. Not really. We've got into some rupee territory here. Haven't we? Some non-fact based territory. Yeah, yeah, pseudos Raky. No, not really. We've got into some Ropie territory here. Haven't we? Some non-fact based territory?
Starting point is 00:23:26 Yeah, yeah, pseudo science, but it's quite famous. Oh, sorry, sorry, let's get back to vampires. And fucking psychic energy. Yeah, well, you do get fangsmiths as well. People who make prosthetic fangs for other vampires. Oh, right. I read an interview with a bloke who's called Father Sebastian.
Starting point is 00:23:44 So Sebastian, but with two A's at the end, the final bit. It's very touching, actually, that he's a fangsmith because his grandfather was an orthodontist. And so he stayed in the family business, but he's just catering for a slightly more niche audience. Only makes canines, basically. The contouring size is made, sorry. Real vampires refer to themselves sometimes as hemasexuels, which I find quite funny. That's nice. That's quite good.
Starting point is 00:24:09 Apart from... I'm glad you're attracted to blood, sexually. Well, and they're very clever, they're not attracted to blood, actually. That's a completely different thing. Well, but why do they call themselves hemosexuels? It's a funny quip. All right, it's just a... Yeah, I love them.
Starting point is 00:24:22 ...doing themselves any favors of people thinking that just people. So maybe it's a nickname coined from outside the vamp community, I don't know. They should focus really on the fact that we are in the minority as blood drinkers in history, really, because there are just so many instances of people drinking blood. Which I suppose I suppose makes sense, it was quite available, but it is always the blood of criminals. It seems to me and so there's been this belief for thousands of years that blood drinking cured epilepsy. Don't know where that came from, but it's right from ancient Rome and people would drink the blood of vanquished gladiators or more commonly they'd drink the blood of beheaded criminals.
Starting point is 00:25:05 And this ran all the way up to 1500 years later. In fact, in 1860, there was a source that reported epileptics would still stand around the executioner's block in Alaskan islands with cups in hand waiting for the blood to spew out. Wow! So that they could drink it. It was always said that medically, the blood that was best for curing epilepsy was the blood of criminals, which does seem quite convenient
Starting point is 00:25:29 that it's also the blood that happens to be likely to flow from the executioners' blood. Yes, that's true. I read one article on this subject, which I think made a good point, which is if you see someone bleeding, God forbid they're bleeding to death, they're getting weaker and weaker as they lose the
Starting point is 00:25:45 blood. And so it does kind of make logical sense that ingesting blood would make you stronger, and that's probably why people have done it for most of history. Right. Right. So if you see someone dying of loss of blood on the ground, should you hand over your arm and just let them know on it until help comes? No, no, no. You have a very, very, very scary film and it will plot fast enough that actually they'll be fine. Yeah, or try and maybe put some pressure on the large veins, maybe try and stop the bleeding. Yeah, yeah. Hopefully there's two of you.
Starting point is 00:26:19 So one of you can do the boo and the other one can do the tourniquet. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I'll just re-adact to Dracula Philvo, while low. LAUGHTER Oh, one last thing, vampire bats. So they do, you know how we were talking at the top of this fact about how would Dracula prefer to have thicker blood?
Starting point is 00:26:37 Would that not be too thick? So vampire bats have a saliva that contains an enzyme which is called draculin. And it basically prevents blood clotting. So that when it releases this thing, it goes into the blood stream, which means the blood can just all flow much quicker. So obviously directly named after Bramstokers creation. How did you pronounce it, then? Draculin. I think it's pronounced d'la kulin. Ah, ah, sorry, yes, there's a silent ha ha ha in the writing here. But yeah, and so what they've worked out is
Starting point is 00:27:11 if they can take this enzyme and there's tests that have been going on, there may be new results, but from when I last read it, it was still in the in the research stage, it can be applied to help stroke victims by breaking down blood clots and stroke is an anagram of Stoker. Dun dun dun. Well you've really peaked that together. I love it.
Starting point is 00:27:33 I've got shivers down my spine and I can feel my blood thickening as you speak. So it's all the way to the top. Okay, it is time for fact number three and that is James. Okay, my fat this week is that in 1554 thousands of people in London were convinced that they heard an angel talking to them from behind a wall and slagging off the queen. Mmm, sorry, is that what an angel would do though if it came down to her? That's where an angel's hide. That's an angel's habitat behind the wall. I accept the wall thing. I'm just not sure angels are going to bother to make the journey
Starting point is 00:28:12 down to earth to slag off the queen. Well, if the queen was Queen Mary, Bloody Mary, who was doing terrible things in the name of religion, then you might do, I don't know. No, maybe you would as an angel. So yeah, that's, spoiler alert, the queen that I'm referring to, Bloody Mary, who was on the throne at the time, obviously lots of the people in Europe about Protestantism and Catholicism and stuff like that. The queen was about to marry Philip, the second, I think, of Spain.
Starting point is 00:28:43 Yeah. And there were lots of people in England who weren't very happy about this because he was a big old Catholic. And so they tried to do whatever they could to stop it. One of the things would be to rouse up the rabble and one of the ways that they thought to do this was to pretend that there was an angel in a wall.
Starting point is 00:29:02 And the angel in question was a woman called Elizabeth Crofts, to pretend that there was an angel in a wall, and the angel in question was a woman called Elizabeth Crofts, who according to the dictionary of national biography, nothing is known of her before 1554, and nothing was heard of her after 1554. She just comes into history, does this amazing thing, and then disappears again. Angels have got a lot on, haven't they? I read a blog by a history writer called Susan Abernathy and she was saying that they believe she might have been born in 1535 because there's details written that she was a vassered an age
Starting point is 00:29:36 and so they've just pieced it back that way. They believe that she was working in a house at the time as a maid. And so she was put behind this wall. She was given a whistle so that she could make weird whistling noises. And then she also began to speak sort of anti-catholic propaganda. And people started calling her the angel or a bird that was in the wall. So it could have been a bird is the other option, by the way. Still crazy if a bird is saying stuff that's about the
Starting point is 00:30:03 Queen's forthcoming marriage. I would still stop on the street and listen to that. Yeah. And they hid people in the crowd, unless it was paring. It was paring, Andy. It was going, ah, parrot, ah, yeah, that's interesting. I'm sort of now wondering what I would stop on the street for.
Starting point is 00:30:16 As in, if a parrot was doing quite convincing sectarian propaganda, I would probably, I would probably pause. Yeah. But what, even if you're in a rush, you're five minutes late for the podcast already, we're gonna have no sympathy if it's, oh, I stopped on the street because there's a parrot
Starting point is 00:30:31 giving anti-catalytic propaganda. Yeah, if I was in a rush, I'd probably just sort of hope it would still be there when I came back. Yeah. The other way, which I think she was, wasn't she, Elizabeth Cross? Doesn't she, she had to be stuck in, I think she was in the wall sort of, it's kind of a hit. It was, like, she was hidden? Doesn't she, she had to be stuck in, I think she was in the wall sort of, it's kind of a hit.
Starting point is 00:30:45 Like, she was hidden inside the wall. It was like a facade wall. Yeah, that was put out in front of the main wall, I think, and she was sort of in between. And it lasted days. So yeah, did she sleep there? Did she go home? Was there a door in the other wall
Starting point is 00:30:57 that she could go through? You know, there must have been a way of getting her out. So I think the point, though, Anna, is saying it's a bird or an angel. That would be the debate. Andy would be going going by and he would just have an opinion going What's obviously a parrot and they're saying no, we think it might be an angel, you know, there's this mystery there I see I see there was a pick hold up raw in the end and they went to the mayor of London And the mayor of London said well, why don't we just knock down the wall and see whether it's a bird or an angel or what and
Starting point is 00:31:22 They knocked down the wall and sure whether it's a bird or an angel or what. And they knocked down the wall and sure enough, it was this woman. This is a woman. Elizabeth Crofts. This just reminds me so much of when I turned essays in late and I just wouldn't have a plan for when the teacher said, where's your essay? It's like surely the people who know that there's a girl behind the wall are watching, the demolition men knocking, break up, to break it. How are we going to deal with this?
Starting point is 00:31:42 They should have put her in. Why did they get rid of her? They should have put her in. Why did they get rid of her? They should have put her in like either an angel or a parrot costume. Yeah, exactly. Or a brick costume. Oh brilliant. Yes, that's dangerous. That's dangerous.
Starting point is 00:31:56 That's dangerous, is someone who's right that is dangerous. Sledgehammer hitting bricks. You don't want to be dressed in a brick. But she can just say, I'm a talking brick. I'm a magical talking brick. Yeah, who's got strong opinions about the Queen's religious faith. Yes, yes. You wouldn't dare destroy that, would you?
Starting point is 00:32:09 No, I think it should be just say sort of quickly the context. Like, why is all that? I mean, James, you've already said a bit of it. But basically, England had been through a right-old nightmare in the previous decades where, you know, England was Catholic and then Henry VIII, Mary's dad, broke with the church and dissolved the monasteries. And then his son, Edward VI, took England even further away from the Catholic Church, and then he
Starting point is 00:32:29 died aged about 16, and then Mary, his half-sister, became queen. And she was very Catholic. For active back. I mean, poor old Edward, who always gets accused of introducing very Protestant regime, and the guy was nine. I mean, there were just lots of old men behind him. But say that's a really fat. Say that. And the war was very pro Queen Elizabeth, the future Queen Elizabeth, the war. Yeah, the angel of the bird in the war.
Starting point is 00:32:57 Because they would cry out things like, you know, God save Queen Mary and the war would stay silent. And then they'd say, God save Lady Elizabeth and the war would say, so be it'd say God save Lady Elizabeth and the wall would say so be it. So they really wanted her to get into power because she would have kept it Protestant according to what they believed at the time. Yeah, you know that Pink Floyd song Brick in the Wall is actually based on this incident in 1554. Yes, you know, you're just another brick in the wall as addressed to Elizabeth Crofts. And then what happened was because she was just a mate who
Starting point is 00:33:27 don't need no education. She was, she was let go basically. They decided that she must have been, there must have been other people behind it and must have been other people who talked her into it and probably she was just a pawn in the scheme and they let her go. She, I think she was in prison for a couple of weeks. And then, was she doing it for any money, which is of course another very famous people that's on there. Right now.
Starting point is 00:33:53 I hope she didn't suffer any brain damage as a result of the war being broken in on. Is that another one? It is. I think it is, yeah. Yeah, anyway. I always think it must be so awkward in the Tudor era, when, as you say, there was Elizabeth who was daughter of Ambulin, obviously, and who was Protestant, and then there was Mary,
Starting point is 00:34:13 who was very Catholic, and then there was Edward who was Protestant. But they all hung out together as well. I mean, Mary was essentially sent away from the Royal Household when Henry divorce Catherine of Erigan, but then she was sort of brought back in a bit of a disgrace because she was Catholic, but brought back in, she's hanging out with Elizabeth, but at the same time, they both know that they're on opposite sides. They also, Elizabeth also lived with Lady Jane Grey,
Starting point is 00:34:38 which I didn't realise, which for internationalist is a famous here as the nine-day queen. And she's the list truss of the monarchy. Fancy shit. She. Famous is such a generous way of putting it. And I mean, Lady Jane Grey is not, we're not all going around talking about Lady Jane Grey today.
Starting point is 00:34:55 She's pretty obscure. She's huge to live. She's Lady Jane Grey and the Kardashians. I'm very much forefront of everyone's mind. No, OK, maybe she's famous in like year 10 history classes. So basically she was the Protestant who Edward and the people behind Edward wanted on the throne. Right. And then Mary had her executed. Yeah. And then Mary had her own. Which was kind of par for the course because you've got to have the people who acclaimance to the Throne as in a blah, blah, blah. I do like Mary,
Starting point is 00:35:20 Queen Mary, bloody Mary has a really, really bad reputation and I think a lot of it is Like Queen Mary, bloody Mary has a really, really bad reputation. And I think a lot of it is a deeply inherited propaganda, as in you're just kind of, you assume that, oh, she was the awkward awful bit before Queen Elizabeth came in and sorted it all out. But her teenager was really, I just think of how embarrassed you are as a teenager. And basically, firstly, your parents break up.
Starting point is 00:35:41 Okay. Then your dad changes the entire religious structure of the country so that he can remarry. That must be tough. Exactly. And then he annulls his marriage to your mum. So suddenly, your parents were never married. So now she's illegitimate. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:35:57 And you are downgraded from a princess to a lady. So I mean, she's always. She's always. Must have been very embarrassing. Oh, yeah. Whenever she's winging about that, she's always got a little sister Elizabeth there, putting her hand up going, uh, mate, oh, yeah, but she's always been very embarrassing. Oh, whenever she's winging about that, she's always got little sister Elizabeth there, putting her hand up going,
Starting point is 00:36:08 oh, mate, oh, dad killed my mum. Yeah. So keep me now shut, love. But I read that she had to then become part of the sort of servant crew for Elizabeth. So she didn't even just get demoted. She was actively then sort of like, is your brother's sister?
Starting point is 00:36:23 Yeah. Yeah. Oh, it is funny that she's remembered as Bloody Mary, She was actively then, sort of like, is your brother's sister. Yeah. Yeah. It is funny that she's remembered as Bloody Mary still now, even though that is anti-Catholic propaganda, really. Or it's the fact that Protestantism, or the Church of England, won over. And also there was that very famous book, Fox's Book of Martyrs, that was, I mean, it's still not to underestimate how popular this book was.
Starting point is 00:36:46 It was published in 1563, so shortly after Mary had died. And it was basically the book of all the Great Christian Martyrs who had died for their faith throughout time and it ended with all of Mary's Martyrs. So she killed about 260 people, I think, burned at the stake. And so this was a great piece of propaganda against Mary, but it sold like 150 million copies. Whoa, hang on. Oh, hang on. That's greater than the world's population. It was over many hundreds of years.
Starting point is 00:37:15 So for about 300 years, it was the best selling book alongside the Bible. And it was so gory. I mean, there's got to be a reason it was so popular. And I think it was the amazing detail of how these people died. It's like Anne Ascue. Do you know Anne Ascue?
Starting point is 00:37:31 Was she called Anne Ascue before she died? Oh, did the Ascue bit come after what ever happened to her? She was the first English woman ever to demand a divorce because she was Protestant and her husband was Catholic. She didn't like that. And she refused to accept transubstantiation, so refused to believe that the bread was the body of Christ. And we should say of all these people, I think if they'd recounted they wouldn't have been burned. Oh yes, that fault. Oh take that, so take the side of Bloody Mary, go on, I don't need that. Show a bit of
Starting point is 00:38:03 balance. She was put on the rack and stretched, which is always nice when you hear about one of these really sort of torture instruments you'd learn about at primary school being used. And she was stretched and all of her limbs were dislocated. So that will make you a skew. I mean, she was right, a skew.
Starting point is 00:38:20 Yeah, fitting. And then she was executed and she had to be carried to the stake on a chair because she couldn't walk understandably. I imagine sort of flopping over this chair. Lovely. Yeah, so it's that kind of stuff you can see what is a bestseller.
Starting point is 00:38:34 Yeah. I think another, I mean, obviously the 200 years of propaganda in England defining itself specifically as being a non-catholic country will have played into it. But I think another thing was that the Bernie at the start, Elizabeth had loads of people executed. She had loads of religious heretics executed as well,
Starting point is 00:38:51 but she tended to execute them as traitors instead of heretics. So it was seen as more of a political thing, or it's easier to write off as a political decision rather than bloody Mary, the religious, you know, religious. I mean, Henry the egg, like what, 60,000 probably, compared to a few hundred for Bloody Mary. But yeah, they're just like, oh well, they weren't bads at the stake,
Starting point is 00:39:13 it wasn't heresy, so. Yeah, yeah. I was trying to think if, because I knew nothing about Mary and the Bloody Mary name, is that where we get the name for the drink? I sort of had a quick look into that. Well, no, there's no idea. Lots of theories about what it could be. Bloody Mary is obviously
Starting point is 00:39:29 one of them. She's included in there. There's a thought that it might be the Hollywood star, Mary Pickford. But one of the main ones is that, and this is quite a famous bar called Harry's New York bar, which I'm, you know, weirdly as in Paris. But according to their manager, I run by a guy called Jeff. According to their manager, there used to be a cocktail waitress called Mary, who used to work in a Chicago bar called The Bucket of Blood. And supposedly it was that.
Starting point is 00:40:00 Right. So we don't know. Yeah, probably after that, rather than the really famous historical figure who was just called Bloody Mary. It is amazing all those cocktails because they're all within memory of people, you know, they're all within a couple of generations, but almost every cocktail, the name is lost to the miss of time, isn't it? Mmm. Because everyone's pissed on this, as soon as they invented it. No one could remember how it happened. I was looking up the sort of propaganda of the time. Oh yeah. And it was the big age of the pamphlet. I kind of hope it comes back one day, the pamphlet. Yeah. Because it's a right old-ass writing a book.
Starting point is 00:40:37 And you tried recently, James. Oh yeah, I have actually, Anoron I, in fact, wrote everything to play for the QI Book of Spots, but far beyond for me. I just wrote a pamphlet version, which I think you're in for praise of it, to your algebraic. But yeah, it's basically there was such good propaganda pamphlets. I don't mean your book. I'm sure your book is scrupulously even-handed. But, you know, you can print them in a couple of days, you can distribute them fast and cheap, and it was like people having substacks today
Starting point is 00:41:06 Yeah, and I found this is slightly later. This is a later anti-Catholic document from 1624 called the Travels of Time Right and it was printed again as a sort of regal monarchy commentary. So Charles the first who was seen as being quite pro-Catholic Was going to marry the Spanish Infanta, which was a princess, not an infant. I mean, given the time she might also have been like eight, but the marriage collapsed, and people printed. I find this so, again, it's quite gossipy,
Starting point is 00:41:38 but they've just printed these pamphlets to celebrate the collapse of the marriage, the perspective marriage between the two of them. And again, if people were doing that about me, I'd be heard. But there were all these allegorical images. That was a huge thing. And people got all the allegories in these pamphlets.
Starting point is 00:41:51 So one of the images in this pamphlet showed the Spanish ambassador to England, Don Diego Samuero and Todea Kumagandama, using his buttocks to incubate Locust eggs. And that was an acceptable political point to make at the time. That's my good, though. What's the political hole and what the locust eggs represent? I think they might represent.
Starting point is 00:42:12 It's all of the devil. Papacy, popism, you know, that kind of stuff. And it was incredibly rude. This is quite an obscure historical paper I found it's in, because he was, and I'm quite a hear, the renowned sufferer of an anal fistula. So it was especially funny to show him with locus dags in his bum. Wow, that's tough one.
Starting point is 00:42:32 I know. What a terrible party or bio that gets used for like, chatchas. Famous sufferer of anal fistula. Yeah. He prefers to talk about Anglo-Spanish diplomacy, but of course, we know Mr Fiskula. Welcome to the stage.
Starting point is 00:42:49 Mr Fiskula does sound like quite a good music whole name for someone. Until 1910, when you became King or Queen, you had to swear that you repudiated Catholicism as superstitious and idolatrous. Isn't that amazing? Till the 20th century you had to do that and then Edward VII said, Edward VII did do it, but he insisted on whispering the words, because he thought being insults to any Catholics who were living in the country at the time. That sound like it was. Who were famously hard of hearing, weren't they?
Starting point is 00:43:25 Yes. Leave. Stop the podcast. Stop the podcast. Everyone, we'd like to let you know that this week we are sponsored by Express VPN. That's right. So if you go online without a VPN, then your internet service provider can basically see all the websites you're visiting. You know, it can see your activity,
Starting point is 00:43:48 you're leaving your door wide open as you're getting changed. I don't know why you're getting changed in front of your door. Stop doing that. Anyway, that is the case. And then they can legally sell this information about the websites you've visited without your consent to an ad company, to a tech giant,
Starting point is 00:44:04 and they can use all this data to target you. about the website you visited without your consent to an ad company, to a tech giant, and they can use all this data to target you. I hate the idea that there's all this knowledge about me out there, which could be being used to kind of sway me in certain ways. With ExpressVPN, you can prevent that. What? So, you don't want to get tagged as a tadver, so it's something that you literally just bought yesterday.
Starting point is 00:44:21 If you at home would like to get a VPN, then Express VPN is the one to get. And the way to do that is to go to express VPN dot com slash fish. That's EX PR E double S VPN dot com slash fish. And when you do that, you'll get an extra three months for free. That's right. Go to express VPN dot com slash fish. And you'll get your extra three months for free today. Okay, I won't with the show. I'm with the podcast. OK, it is time for our final fact of the show and that is Anna. My fact this week is that this year a woman was injured when she was attacked twice.
Starting point is 00:45:02 Once by a five-foot-long snake that fell from the sky, then immediately afterwards by the hawk that dropped it. This was really too wide on maternity leave, really, actually. I think I read it in the week. It's just the most incredible story. It's a woman called Peggy Jones in Texas who was mowing her lawn and a large snake fell out of the sky. Her husband estimated later that it was 4.5 feet long, which is large, and it wrapped itself around her arm.
Starting point is 00:45:32 Like I'm kind of imagining you, you know those things that you used to slap your arm with as a kid and they wrapped around them. It wrapped around, yeah. Yeah, I'm sort of imagining it did that as it felt. And she tried to shake it off and it got tighter and tighter. And the hawk that had been carrying the snake in its mouth, plunged down and started attacking her to try and get the snake back.
Starting point is 00:45:49 And they both managed to inflict some multiple injuries. So the hawk was flying at her and grabbing for the snake and slapping her with its wings and clawed these deep cuts in her arm. And the snake, meanwhile, was striking her in the face and chipping her glasses and apparently spewing a liquid. Yeah. And I love her husband, Wendell, got to her by riding over on his mower. Yeah, I imagine.
Starting point is 00:46:13 Oh, what? Hurry up, Wendell, go into fifth gear! I know. What a scene. So, this is... She's one of the first people to have been involved in a snake and bird incident since, just two years ago, when Dwayne the Rock Johnson was, I mean, it was a minus celebrity story.
Starting point is 00:46:33 He was temporarily barricaded in his home because there was a snake right outside his front door, which was busy being eaten by a large hawk, which was busy eating the snake. And whenever he kind of got near it, it was threatening and flapping at him. Wow. Yeah. Minus celebrity. Probably one of the highest paid actors. Sorry.
Starting point is 00:46:51 Sorry. I don't mean to call him a minus. I mean, the story is a minus story about a major celebrity, but I think we can all agree it's not one of the main things in his life. The story. Sorry. What?
Starting point is 00:47:01 What? I just don't want to smell what he's cooking. And I'm very happy to say he's a big deal. You know, he's in Dumanji for having sake. The new one, not the original. The new one, by the way, which has a body swap part in it, which reminds me of an old book called Ice Bursa. LAUGHTER
Starting point is 00:47:20 Animal attacks, they happen way more than I realized. As in, if you just do a new search, there are multiple stories globally that are just pumped out every single day. So just 24 hours ago when I was, you know, looking at these facts, an Australian farmer, he described himself to the BBC and other outlets as lucky to be alive after repelling a crocodile
Starting point is 00:47:42 by biting the crocodile back. So he found his face leaning against the crocodile's head, and he bit the eyelid of the crocodile making the crocodile freak out. It let go of its bite, and he was able to escape, but it was only by biting the crocodile back that he was able to get out there. So many news articles. Look, this is literally the last three days. Arizona woman fatally trampled by elk. She might have been trying to feed. porn stars pet python
Starting point is 00:48:10 bites partners penis and horror scene. Blood everywhere. Yeah, I mean, the animal world is famous. You're dangerous, Dan. But on things that you don't expect to attack you, I think of otters. Well, otters, I think, are the cutest animals alive. And so I was very surprised about an otter attack on someone called Lea Hillia. This was a few years ago and it's really incredible. It was a Minnesota on this remote lake. And she always went for a swim in the lake, she was staying at her grandfather's lake out of her kids, always in for a swim in the lake. She saw my myola day, felt one day something bite her leg. And then about 20 feet away, really quickly an otter bobbed its head up, and then it kept swimming back to her leg and biting her leg again, and then swimming away and then bobbing its head up and looking
Starting point is 00:48:57 at her. And it bit her 25 times. And like, probably it pierced her ankle bone, it pierced through her calf muscle. She's an otter and she was screaming for help and her dad, her poor dad, heard these screams and tried to start the motorboat to get to her. And in his panic, he flooded the engine of the motorboat. And he also had to get the kids. He had two kids, so were two and four, so he had to get the kids on the boat. So we got another boat started, got out to her, dragged these poor kids, blood drenched mother out of the water. And the maddest thing for me is she got out of the water, got to hospital, was given a rabie shot in every single one of the 25 bites, which made her vomit.
Starting point is 00:49:40 Two weeks later she got back in the lake. Matt, the otter's still in it. The otter's just there bobbing away. Would you like to feel like I wouldn't go swimming again? That's balsa. You see a few otter stories of the attacking people. There was a minus celebrity story, and I actually will say this is about a minus celebrity,
Starting point is 00:49:59 an actor called Crystal Finn, who was in succession. But one of the quite minor characters in succession, I'm sure she's an amazing actor, but I'd never heard of her before. She got beaten on her backside and on her leg this year by Otters. There was a guy called Graham George Spencer, who was bitten 26 times in 10 seconds. What? Is that amazing? Was that multiple otters?
Starting point is 00:50:22 It was a pack of otters, yeah. I don't know what they're called, it's the world's that multiple otters? It was a pack of otters, yeah. I don't know what they're called. It's a world's fastest drill, but that'd be over there. His friend ran over screaming to try and scare off the otters and they sort of, they swam away. But then the pair said they ran towards a visitor center to get help, still pursued by the otters. Oh no.
Starting point is 00:50:41 Except the sued by an officer. That's amazing. I was reading an article about why animals don't attack us more than they already do. And obviously most of the time when animals attack humans it's because we're in their space, because they're protecting their young nearby or because we're on their territory. But because we're bipedal, we look bigger. We don't look bigger than we are, but you know what I mean? We look bigger than we were if we were on all fours. Yeah. And so that's kind of a little bit of a bluff. It makes us a bit tougher. And also,
Starting point is 00:51:10 it does mean we're slower. You kind of run a cat. So that's kind of maybe perceived as a bit of a show of strength. Like I don't need to be able to outrun a cat because I'm so tough. That's risk isn't it? It is real. I don't know to be able to outrun a cat because I'm so tough. That's risky, isn't it? It is really, I don't know if that's the way I do. That way your MMA career is going so well, I'm thinking, because you're like, I'm so good at MMA, I don't even have to work out, I don't have to get buff, I don't have to be strong looking. Yeah, no one has ever turned up to a fight with me in the MMA rig because they're so terrified
Starting point is 00:51:43 of this average looking bloke He's done no exercise. Yeah, I'm always really skeptical about the old mate yourself a bigger by putting your arms out And I guess it must be true because it does work, but it is like a bears blind Can they not see the once we put our arms out? It's just two small spindly things sticking out of us Why do they suddenly go oh my god, he's absolutely massive. I'm not so small. If you're bipedal, you're bigger looking to something that's looking at you from the side. But like worms probably think we're smaller than we are.
Starting point is 00:52:19 Because from a worms' eye view, if we were on our old forest, we'd be much bigger. Yeah, and hooks, actually, maybe this one was a techno or a hawk because... That's true. ...should have gone for hawks, actually, rather than worms. No, I like worms. I think that's good. That's why you get so many worm attacks. They covered them up. You do. We just wouldn't know. Worms are attacking us all the time. We just got no idea. Just headbutt in us from below.
Starting point is 00:52:44 The Hitchcock film, The Worms, was a complete commercial and critical flop, wasn't it? You know what, Eeskullus. So we mentioned before, ancient Greek playwright who was killed when a bird dropped a tortoise on his head. Oh, yeah. I thought the idea was that the hawks dropped turtles on rocks to open them up so they can eat
Starting point is 00:53:04 the delicious turtle inside. And they thought his head was a rock because he was so bold. That was the claim. That is the claim. Yeah. So I just sort of looked him up because I don't think we mentioned anything really more about him at the time, just he was an ancient Greek playwright. And so I found out this about him. There is a theory that he invented people talking to each other on stage.
Starting point is 00:53:26 So he was a pretty early dramatist, and this is claimed by Aristotle. So, you know, pinch of salt and some earlier sources would have been lost, blah, blah, blah. But Aristotle claims that basically he invented characters who had conflict between each other. And before that, characters could only speak to the chorus and everyone was speaking to the chorus
Starting point is 00:53:44 and not to each other on stage. What an innovation. What a moment. Yeah, then it must have been huge. And if he hadn't come up with that we would still all have to be. Talk to the chorus. Everything would be to the chorus, yeah. Yeah. Wow. So weird to have invented the chorus element first though, right? Because it seems less obvious. Because in normal life, it's not like when I chat to someone it's always mediated by a group of 12 people singing annoying songs. I just do it direct. It's quite odd, isn't it? Yeah, but then maybe that's what separated it as fantasy from real life. You know, the other one that wouldn't be able to tell the difference, maybe.
Starting point is 00:54:15 He's like Ricky Gervais inventing the office. Suddenly sitcom is just... He's a little bit more Ricky Gervais of his time. Just back to snakes that have been attacking people. I've read a story about a guy who's called Valentin Gromaldo from Texas. A coral snake came up and bit him on his hand. He grabbed the snake, he bit its head off, and then used the snake as a band around his arm to start off. No.
Starting point is 00:54:47 Like what they call the tonic. Tonic. Yeah, he used that around his arm and then they went off to the hospital's emergency room and he was fine. Are you still got the head as a keepsake? Wow, that's really ignominious. That's wild, isn't it?
Starting point is 00:55:00 How embarrassing. You know dragons. Sure, not real. There is a theory, and I think it is a true theory, snake, isn't it? How embarrassing? You know dragons. Sure. Yeah. There is a theory, and I think it is a true theory that basically dragons are just sexed up snakes. To what extent is it true theories are we? I think it's true. I think when you look at like people writing about dragons, especially in the
Starting point is 00:55:18 Middle Ages, they start off being these worm-like creatures with no legs that have stripes on their body and forked tongues. And then as the Middle Ages progresses to the Renaissance, they just become more and more fantastical that they can fly and breathe fire and stuff like that. And so what we reckon is because they kind of story started off in the Southern Europe and Egypt and whatever. There were plenty of snakes and then they came up into Europe where there weren't so many snakes. People just started adding stuff because they didn't know what snakes were like really. In the Iliad, the original or the earliest version of the Iliad that we have, it says that the dragon could be eaten by eagles, which obviously the modern day dragon,
Starting point is 00:56:04 you would not be possible to do that, but. No, Bizzoli on an early effect, I had to think about the Odyssey, which I didn't say, which is that the Odyssey features the first appearance in literature of black pudding. Oh, does it? And it was about people eating blood, I think that was why I was on that time. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's a sort of goaty blood sausage that they have and it is clearly a black pudding. And that's in the Odyssey. What's the bigger innovation do you think, Andy? The introduction of black pudding or chatting to each other on stage.
Starting point is 00:56:28 Interesting. Gosh, they're both massive, aren't they? They're both huge deals, but in different, such different spheres of endeavour. Hmm, I reckon most people on earth could say they could live without one. I could live without black pudding. That's the one I think Ado is. I think, I think we could live without drama. I think some people would say they could live without drama, but not black pudding. That's the one I think Addo is. I think, I think we know, I think some people would say they could live without drama,
Starting point is 00:56:46 but not Black pudding. You know, I'm sure there are people in the, people in the North. Come on, I can, yeah, say it, Anna, people in the North. Is that she, I was going to go to Scotland, in fact, in my stereotype thing. We still get Coronation Street at Black that putting can we say that at least you can get coronation street but everything is mediated through the character of Elsie Tanner who plays the chorus. Yeah. Speaking of snakes have you guys ever seen and I addressed this many to Dan, a documentary on the Discovery Channel in 2014 called Eaton Alive. Is this where the guy alive? Is this where the guy decided to be eaten by a snake and ingested? Yeah. Well, because he went in the wrong way, I think, is the story. He went in head first.
Starting point is 00:57:32 He went in first. Sorry, he didn't crawl up the stakes asked. Sorry. I've got it the wrong way, guys. I'm going to let the wrong way, guys. It's such a mad, stupid thing to do. And Paul Rosalie was his name. And first of all, he was on an exhibition in the Amazon to find the biggest anaconda there was. A biggest green anaconda there was. He had told it existed. It would be over 24 feet long.
Starting point is 00:58:01 It would be the world's longest. And once he got there, he was going to let it eat him. And this... Was that a dude that he was in a sleeping bag or something, or that he was in some kind of sack, which he could then wriggle out of? He wore a special suit so he could survive it, and then he was going to be extracted from the... So he wouldn't be digested, yeah.
Starting point is 00:58:17 Did he go into the... He totally screwed up. So first of all, he didn't find the big anaconda, so he had to be supplied with a 20-foot one from a zoo. And then he had this zoo, which they drenched in pigs blood, to make the snake want to eat him. And he said he saw the snake's mouth open, everything went black. I think his head went into the snake. His shoulders maybe went into the snake. What about his toes?
Starting point is 00:58:47 And then he was a starfish. So it became very confusing. That is going to be a real when I listen back to that edit and see which of us got in burst. So wait, sorry, his head went into the snake and everything went back. How mysterious. Yeah, so then, yeah, then what? I mean, I think he tapped out.
Starting point is 00:59:05 He tapped out. The snake that had twisting his body and started wrenching his arm around a bit. And he suddenly thought, oh, this hurts. My arm's hurting. And started shouting to the technical assistance. Can you get me out now, please? He wasn't on his own.
Starting point is 00:59:19 So he was shouting from inside the snake. Get me out. I'm done. And so they managed to extract him from the snake. Wow. Yeah. Did he shout, I'm a minus celebrity. Get me out, I'm done! And so they managed to extract him from the snake. Wow, yeah. Did he shout, I'm a minus celebrity, get me out of here? He's not the rock. He said it was all to raise awareness about the plight of wildlife in the Amazon, about which there's some skepticism from me. Well, he just has, because now we've got the message. No one's coming away from this podcast thinking oh the plight of animals in the Amazon
Starting point is 00:59:46 That's why I remembered they're thinking idiot shoved his head in a snake 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 course of this podcast We can be found on our Twitter accounts. I'm on at Shriberland James at James Harkin Andy at Andrew Hunter and Anna You can email podcasterQI.com Yeah, but you can go to our group account which is at no such thing or our website no such thing as a fish dot com All of the previous episodes are up there so do check them out a bit of a merch store up there as well and also a link to club fish So, just go back to the next episode, we'll see you then, goodbye.

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.