No Such Thing As A Fish - 557: No Such Thing As A Sweater For Einstein

Episode Date: November 14, 2024

Live from Manchester, Dan, James, Anna and Andy discuss bestselling books, time travel, Mexican militias and Hellenic hydrology. 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

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It's a vital responsibility. By recycling properly, you help conserve resources, reduce energy use and greenhouse gas emissions, and protect the environment. Toronto's Blue Bin Recycling Program ensures the majority of the right items are recovered and transformed into new products. Recycling right is important and impactful. Let's work together and make a difference, because small actions lead to big change. For more tips A Fish, a weekly podcast. This week coming to you live from Manchester! My name is Dan Schreiber. I'm sitting here with Anna Tyshinsky, Andrew Hunter Murray,

and James Harkin. 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 James. Okay, my fact this week is that for Einstein's 70th birthday, mathematician Kurt Gödel gave him a sweater and a paper which proved time travel. Whoa. Ooh. But he didn't give him the ability to go back to his 60th birthday. No.

I know what you're all thinking. Bit dodgy. We're not certain that he did give him the sweater. Okay. Brilliant. A lot of places say that he did. Some places say that his wife Adele knitted it and he never gave it to him. But you know, I'm going to say that. Why would he have never given it?

Is that about an embarrassing thing where you think it might be awkward, he won't like it? Yeah, she backed out apparently and they gave an etching in its place. Who's wife Anne? Einstein's wife? No, no, Gödel's wife. Oh, Gödel. Okay, okay, okay. So I should say who Gödel is. Does everyone know who Gödel is? Kurt Gödel.

This does sound like an item of clothing. A Kurt Gödel. Like that would be a good thing to give someone for a present. Like a sort of... A sexy present. A sexy... yeah. You probably wouldn't give Einstein a Kurt Gödel for his birthday. Not his 70th. Well, Gödel was a mathematician, German, early 20th century.

He loved his logic, and I'm talking mathematical logic, so it's very complicated, weird stuff. But he basically just liked disproving stuff and kind of finding holes in things using his logical skills. And this was one of the things he basically... Yeah. Why does he appeal to you? So strange. He sounds amazing though. Yeah. He was sort of an archetypal, obsessive genius. So for example, here's an example.

He used an alarm clock, but to help him to go to bed Okay, because go on okay I think because he was so deep in his work that he needed a second alarm clock and then it went off you were like Oh, I must go to sleep is one of the morning again. I've been doing maths. That's kind of So I should just explain his proof of time travel Quickly if you will just 30 seconds Well, this was because Einstein had just come up with his theories and he was going into it and using his logic to see what could and could not be true and he came up with this idea of you fly your rocket really really really really fast

and you go in a great big curve and because the universe is rotating and because light isn't going parallel it helps you to go back in time. It's the real basics. I know I missed out lots of steps there. But the main problem with it is that the universe is not rotating. Oh, right, yes. So that means that all of his theory is completely up the swan-y. And it's really sad because he said this to Einstein, and Einstein lived for another five or six years,

and Gödel used to message him every now and then, or ring him every now and then and say, have they found out that my thing's true yet? He's trying to time travel it. Yeah, yeah. But only if we simply got the universe to start spinning, we could get this going. Sure.

It's worth trying, right? I'm just saying. Yeah, yeah. He said as well, if he proved it, if he proved time travel existed, then what he was really proving was time didn't exist. Yes, it's basically kind of, which is sort of what Einstein had done already, right? So general relativity had said time is sort of like the same as space, and it probably curves around on itself.

Again, this is really for toddlers. None of it is true. But the time travel idea is that you could skip from one bit to another. But the crucial thing was that Girl Dwarf was proving you could go back in time, because Einstein obviously had already said, you can go forward in time faster than we already do. That's the idea in all those sci-fi films where if you go out into very, very distant space, you can come back to Earth and you haven't aged at all,

but your daughter is older than you are now. That thing, that's completely uncontroversial and would happen. Everyone knew that. But that's not useful for people because they want to go back and visit people who have died. And so, yeah, he said this. And it upset people, didn't it, when he said that time travel could exist, to the extent that Stephen Hawking, amazing scientist number three, said this presents too many paradoxes and crucially

the paradox that says if you can go back in time you could go back murder your former self but then you wouldn't exist to go back in time to murder yourself you know that the classic sci-fi the grandfather all the people who have done that they've already gone yeah because they did go back and murder themselves it's fine Here's some time travel paradoxes saying as we're on the subject. Yeah, what do you think the bootstrap paradoxes? They sort of pulling yourself up by your boots exactly the phrase But you'll you go back and you tell yourself about the horse you what you put you win money on a bet and you become very rich. That's the back to the future paradox.

Yeah. Well, it's officially known as the bootstrap paradox. And the idea is that it can't be true because things would just come out of nowhere. Like, as in, you know, I would go back in time, tell myself how to invent fidget spinners, and they'd come out of nowhere. But that didn't happen. You know what I mean? We can see that. Is that what you would do, James? That is so tragic.

I did spend about half an hour trying to think, what would I do? It's amazing. It's amazingly hard to think of fidget spinners now. Do you know what I mean? Does anyone here still use a fidget spinner regularly? Yeah. Okay, that's interesting. What do you mean it's hard to think of them now? Well, there was such a big thing six years six years ago. Yeah, and it's hard to remember now Happened since then hasn't it? Yeah, I suppose

The whole world's got a bit more complicated since fidget spinners Do you know that's when the ball said it is when we all put them back in the drawer? Yeah, that was a distraction from the time travelers of the future. They gave us the fidget spinners. We didn't notice Trump It is just a... that's it. Can I mention a few things about Gödel? Because I have no idea what you guys are talking about on stage. So a fascinating character, clearly, as we're saying, he arrived in Princeton while Albert Einstein was there. And Einstein loved him. He loved him so much. And he used to walk to work just so that he could walk with Gödel,

and he would do his stuff there and then go home, so he could walk home with him. It was this amazing pairing. And people used to just be amazed if they had any contact with Gödel. There's a story of someone saying that they were in a supermarket one time, and they found the philosopher Richard Rorty standing in a total daze. And they were like, OK, what's going on? And he said in a whispered tone that he'd just seen girdle in the frozen food aisle.

And he was just so starstruck to see this genius. That's interesting because like towards the end of his life, his diet really changed. And he would only eat butter, baby food and laxatives. He had a really tragic end to his life. He thought he was being poisoned, didn't he? So he didn't eat to kind of show that, to sort of defeat the people who he thought were poisoning him, but that meant he could starve. Well, it was his wife, Adele. He would have her taste everything that he ate. Oh really? Yeah, yeah. But yeah, he made Adele cook for him

because hers were the sweeter version, is that he made Adele cook for him because she was the only person he could ever trust and Then when she got sick and went into hospital in the 70s late 70s was early 80s Then he did he did die because he couldn't eat anything else and he was very very troubled I mean, it's not worth being an amazing mathematician because you are gonna be troubled. Can I tell you guys about his time as a spy? I don't know. Yeah, this is amazing. Okay, so Grew up in Vienna, left for Princeton in 1940, right? There was a Viennese physicist called Hans Thuring, who wanted to warn the

US government and the US president about the risk of the Nazis developing a nuclear bomb. So Hans Thuring wanted to contact Einstein to pass the message on. There's no way of contacting him from Vienna without the Nazis reading the message, intercepting the call, bugging him, whatever. Can't be done. So he thought, Gödel. Gödel is going to Princeton. Okay, so I'll give him the task of warning Einstein. He is the message.

Gödel then gets trapped in this nightmare of bureaucracy. He can't go. You know, he has to apply for a visa. Then the US consulate is sort of swamped. The Nazi bureaucracy. He then is declared fit to serve in the German army. Nightmare, nightmare, nightmare, nightmare. He can't get out of Vienna and get to Princeton until Einstein.

Eventually, he got out, he went to the USA through Moscow, Vladivostok, Japan, San Francisco, all the way across America to Princeton, took him two months, and then when he got to Einstein, he just said, oh, Hans Thuring says hello, by the way. Just completely forgot to pass on the message about the Nazis developing a nuclear bomb. Oh my God. There are so many stories where he cede such a liability in that kind of respect. So when he was in America, he got the chance to sit the citizen test. And he started reading the Constitution. And he worked out that the Constitution, the way it was worded in America,

legally meant that it was possible for someone to become a dictator and set up a fascist regime. No, definitely not possible. I don't think, really don't think that's possible. When does this show go out? We're recording it in late October. So he basically was heading towards going to do his oath,

and Einstein went with him because he was like, I know you're gonna cock this up. So they arrive, but then the judge, was heading towards going to do his oath, and Einstein went with him because he was like, I know you're gonna cock this up. So they arrive, but then the judge, who was presiding over the whole thing, sees Einstein and goes, oh my God, please, gentlemen, come up to my room. And so they go up and they sit with him,

and Einstein's freaking out, Gödel's having a chat, and the judge says that Germany was under an evil dictatorship. Fortunately, that's not possible in America. On the contrary, says Gödel, and starts to explain what he found. And the judge at ISO just went, and he took the oath and got it.

But yeah, he really, what a liability. And that was the classics of wanting to use logic to prove things, right? So he also used logic to prove that God existed, but he wouldn't publish it because he thought that if he did, then people would think that he thought God existed, when actually it was just a mathematical bit of fun that he was doing. Was it a bit of fun? I don't know if bit of fun was one of the top elements of his character, I have to say.

I guess. Well, for him, maths was fun. Yeah. I don't think it, well, I disagree. I think he was a very sad person, but I do think he might have had, the one joy in his life might have been Adele, who was such an interesting person to marry, right? Because she was a dancer.

She'd been a dancer in a cabaret club called the Moth in Vienna. She was not well-educated. I just like the idea of a nightclub called The Moth because you've got all the dancers just constantly fluttering away at the center. Yeah. That was what it was, and she got very concussed.

And that's why she married this weirdo. She was a foot care specialist. Just what a strange person for him to marry. And she really protected him. He was quite dappy, as Dan says. He didn't quite know the right way to behave socially a lot of the time. And at one point when he was living in Vienna, he was mistaken for a Jewish person at a time when anti-Semitism, of course,

was incredibly rife, and he was attacked and beaten up by Nazi thugs. And she beat them off with her umbrella. Really? That's very cool. He hated chatting with people, right? That was part of that character. When he really wanted to avoid someone, he would schedule a rendezvous at a precise time and place and then make sure he was not there. That's tremendous. Yeah. We've got to move on in a second, by the way. Oh, he was, this is a sort of related thing about him avoiding people. He nearly wasn't understood at all after his death, as in all his papers.

And it was thought that they were in code, that nobody could understand. And it actually, it turned out, it was a thing called Gabelsberger script. And that was a special German shorthand. And Gödel was almost the last, he was in the last year of people who ever learned this specific kind of short hand.

Nobody else knew it. And obviously for decades after that. So 50 years later, you just faced with these squiggles. You think, I have no idea what this is. And he was in the very last class way back in the 20s to learn it. One more thing on time travel, maybe. So Back to the Future we mentioned earlier. And Back to the Future 3, I believe, how do they get to 88 miles an hour?

It's on a train. Well, he's a train to push the car. Yeah, well at the climactic bit. Yeah. Yeah Yeah, so I read you're on they just use the car. You're gone. I read the I read the user manual of the DeLorean car From back in the day and it specifically says on page 35, to avoid damage to your vehicle, do not attempt to start the engine by pushing with another vehicle. Really? So they may have got in the future, but they've lost their warranty. Wait.

Hey Torontonians. Recycling is more than a routine. It's a vital responsibility. By recycling properly, you help conserve resources, reduce energy use and greenhouse gas emissions, and protect the environment. Toronto's Blue Bin Recycling Program ensures the majority of the right items are recovered and transformed into new products. Recycling rate is important and impactful. Let's work together and make a difference, because small actions lead to big change. For more tips on recycling, visit toronto.ca slash recycle right. Hey Torontonians, recycling is more than a routine. It's a vital

responsibility. By recycling properly, you help conserve resources, reduce energy use in greenhouse gas emissions, and protect the environment. Toronto's Blue Bin Recycling Program ensures the majority of the right items are recovered and transformed into new products. Recycling right is important and impactful. Let's work together and make a difference, because small actions lead to big change. For more tips on recycling, visit toronto.ca slash recycle right. It is time for fact number two, and that is my fact. My fact this week is that the author of the international bestselling book, Rich Dad Poor Dad, which taught readers to be financially intelligent is currently one billion dollars in debt.

One billion? One billion dollars. It's a lot. It's a lot of dollars for one person to be in debt. Yeah. Has he ever been a rich dad or is he? He was a rich dad. So Robert Kiyosaki is his name. It was a novel narrative basically where he tried to use an analogy of having one dad

and a stepdad, one of which went down the classic road of going through business the normal way. And then another one who was independently financial as a result of the path that he'd chosen, and it was showing how you could go from rags to riches basically by not doing the normal thing. Massive seller, some numbers say it sold as many as 40 million copies worldwide.

So that would be about a billion dollars, wouldn't it? Did he buy them all? Wait. Yeah. How has he done this? How't he? Did he buy the mall? Wait. Yeah. How has he done this? How has he ended up so indebted? Well, in the article that I read about it, he says, I'm one billion dollars in debt, and I don't mind.

He's kind of fine with it. It's because he doesn't have to deal with it, right? As he says, it's the government's problem at this stage. It's kind of true of debt. Yeah, he says he uses debt as money. So it doesn't work. It doesn't work for a while. It does work for a that doesn't work. It doesn't work for a while. It does work for a while.

It doesn't work in a shop, does it? Just say, just put it on the tab again. At some point. That's what a credit card is. Yeah. Oh my god. So this guy's just got the biggest credit card in the world. He's got a $1 billion overdraft on his Sainsbury's credit card.

It is sort of true to who he is, right? Because he's sort of saying cheat your way into financial health. And I really couldn't work out what I thought of him because the book, he says it's nonfiction and he claims it's a very true story. His dad was the poor dad. His best friend's dad was the rich dad. And they took financial advice from the rich dad, who basically said, people are idiots.

Poor people are idiots. People who aren't upper class are idiots because they think that the way to get rich is to work really, really, really hard and save all your money. That's bullshit. All you've got to do is make money work for you. That's what rich people are doing. And it is sort of true, right? Rich people get their millions and they invest them sensibly and they get all this advice and they make loads more. But the thing is, this dad didn't exist. So he made up that story. What do you mean? Which dad didn't exist so he made up that story You mean which dad didn't exist the rich dad only the poor dad exists And I think that might be a lesson to take away from this yeah He's had multiple companies that all have largely gone under so in 1977

He had a company called Rippers which were nylon and velcro wallets, so you get your ripper and Went bankrupt just didn't work out his rich dad poor dad company rich love all the need to lose money on a wallet company How can you screw up a wallet He turned rich dad poor dad into a company So it became the rich dad company rich global LLC that went bankrupt as well in 2012 the other books Do you know the names of the other books? I was written 26 which one you want rich dads cash flow quadrant. Oh, yeah Sounds dubious rich dads rich kids smart kid sort of reverse it

Rich dads retire young retire rich rich dads guide to becoming rich without cutting up your credit cards rich dads Who took my money it does feel like he's just put a load of words in a hat. Oh yeah. But a lot of them are rich and dad. Yeah. It's true. He wrote, we want you to be rich. Two men, one message, co-authored with Donald Trump.

And, yeah, they paired up because basically, Richard Kiyosaki. He sounded like such an on-the-level businessman before you said he was in business with Donald Trump. How sad. No, they found each other because both their books, The Art of the Deal, did massive, best book ever. And the other one was really well received as well, so they thought let's come together. And they wrote two books in total with each other.

Wow. The first self-help book was called Self-Help, I think. The idea of a self-help book is named after this book by Samuel Smiles. And his book came out in the same year as On the Origin of the Species and sold a fuckload more. Really? And his idea was basically all you have to do is work really, really, really, really hard and you'll make loads of money. So it's kind of like, there's some advice in there, but it's mostly list of really rich

people who, you know, slept two hours a night and... More successful people, right? I read it, it's really weird because it is just, it's literally mini-biography after mini-biography after mini-biography. There's a biography of about a thousand people in there. You've got Galileo, Robert Peel, Prime Minister, James Watt, everyone successful and just what they did. And what they did always sounds really unappealing

and like they had no fun. And he said that what you need to do is work hard like these people and not have what normal people have, be perverted life. Right. Uh-oh. Wasn't he great-great-grandfather or great-great-something of Bear Grylls?

He was, yeah. He was, yeah. That great-great-something of Bear Grylls? He was, yeah. That's cool. Samuel smiles, Bear Grylls. Both sentence people. Ah, yes. Interesting. Prove the thought. What does Bear Grylls mean in a sentence? As in the right to Bear Grylls? LAUGHTER

Yeah, that's right. Or you have lots of Gryills if you're from London. I've got bad grills! Self-help is so influential. It was one of the first ever books translated into Japanese, okay? From English to Japanese. And Japan had been a really closed society until very recently before this. And basically, that was the first book translated into Japanese.

All the books he mentioned in self-help This is how successful self-help was in Japanese all the books he mentions in the book then became bestsellers in Japan Yeah, right. What a hellish job for the publisher. So the publisher published that and then went oh shit I've got to publish another thousand books so that everyone gets this one. What are we going to do with all the money we're making? What are you talking about? Napoleon Hill you heard of him? Yeah, of course. Yeah, think and grow rich You're right thinking grow rich which as far as I could tell is just a con, right? It's like if you think of something the world will give it to you

It's if anyone knows the book by Rhonda Byrne the secret mass Yes, I'm not saying that's a con because I don't know whether she's still active and suing The book that is based on yes Is a con. Yes. So that first one is the con. And he's definitely dead, right? He's so, well, this is the interesting thing about him. He is, but he was involved with this bizarre cult. He had loads and loads of failed businesses.

The cult's still suing. They have gone out of business as well, so it's fun They were called the master metaphysicians and they came up with this scheme of raising an immortal human Okay, so they adopted this baby girl a real human baby girl. She was called Jean Gawnd They pronounced that they were going to raise her a vegetarian So good dick. Yeah one small whoops and They all liked him when they were too weak to say anything. If you like that comment, please ask one of your stronger, meatier brethren around you

to give a loud roar at raw approval. Yeah. But they adopted this girl. I mean, this baby child, they adopted into this cult, and they said, we're going to make her vegetarian, and also we're only going to think Positive thoughts about her we're going to surround her with this kind of bath this ambient that stuff as a parent now, isn't it? We all love our kids but always positive Yeah, you're absolutely right, and they didn't they said no one tell her about the concept of death

So she just won't know that that's a thing that was like Yeah, Napoleon Hill was her godfather. This was in 1939, this was happening, so everyone involved in his long death. And is there a big reveal where actually, she's Taylor Swift? It works! They eventually just returned the baby to her mother and sort of said stuff like this. It was after 15 months, it just didn't work out. She would be, what, kind of 80- something now, so she might well still be around. It may have worked. Yeah.

I can't believe they gave up after 15 months. Jesus Christ, all parents want to do that, for God's sake. But yeah, that book as well, that is possibly the best-selling business book of all time, Think and Grow Ridge. They estimate about 80 million copies have sold. And the idea of that was Napoleon Hill interviewed Andrew Carnegie,

one of the richest men in America, most successful man. Carnegie set him on a 20 year challenge to go and interview all of the most interesting people around the US. And multiple people who've studied the life of Napoleon Hill, looked through all his stuff, have all said, we don't think he ever met Andrew Carnegie.

We don't think he even met any of these people in the book. It's astonishing. This is the best selling book. And is it like the other people are kind of happy to be mentioned because it shows that they're really successful? I think most of them were dead. So Carnegie was dead at that point. Edison, I think, was dead at that point.

The old Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, all the people are dead and they can't complain about the fact you've lied about them. And what's so weird about that is that the person who wrote, what I think is probably the most famous self-help book of all time, How to Win Friends and Influence People, everyone told that, everyone knows the phrase.

It was the first sort of modern day genre self-help book by Dale Carnegie, who was actually born Dale Carnegie. But he gave a speech once in Carnegie Hall and thought, hey, Andrew Carnegie was successful. I'll name myself after him instead and change the spelling of his name. And then- It's not much of a change, no.

It's not a huge change, no. But it was an amazing book. I, self help is a bullshit genre really, isn't it? But this- No, what? Oh, well we can talk about it later. I love it. No, I'm sure it's fine, but this really was quite good.

The idea of it was be sincere, be kind, you will be interested in people. He said you can win more friends in two months by being genuinely interested in people than you would in two years by getting people to be interested in you. And the only reason he wrote it was because he wanted to write the great American novel,

really desperate to, wrote this whole novel. This is early 1930s, went to the publishers and they said, this is terrible, you can't write novels, stop trying. I thought you were going to say, I'm afraid so, this is Moby Dick, you've just written it out again. He did keep, he wrote in his private time too, Dale Carnegie, he wrote, he kept a folder which was entitled He wrote he kept a folder which was entitled damned fool things. I have done. Yes Oh and any social misstep he made any faux pas if you ever made someone feel awkward or uncomfortable He would just write it down and file it away and so he could kind of learn from it So he was kind of walking the walk of self-help as well

I've got I'd keep on off the back of reading that book to you. Yeah. Yeah, I have one I have a an idiot diary and it is full. Yeah, it is. It's on a daily, yeah. So, Deo Kaniga would sometimes, mostly he would dictate them to his secretary because he was very successful at this point, but sometimes he was so embarrassed by whatever he'd done or said that he would just privately write it out in the long hand. You must have read a lot of self-help books, Dan, right? And one day you're going to find the one that works for you and it's all going to turn around. Which is the best one? Which is the best?

I love that one. It's a genuinely good book. It does seem like a genuine book. There was one written by his wife, wasn't there, Mrs. Dale Carnegie, which was called How to Help Your Husband Get Ahead. No. No way. If you have a job or career of your own,

would you be willing to give it up if it would advance your husband's interests? If not, you are more interested in promoting yourself than promoting your husband. No way. Mrs. Carnegie. Yeah. I'll get that for them.

Yeah. One of the fun things about the internet coming to rise in Kindle books and all that sort of stuff is you suddenly get access to all these books that you never knew existed. And the self-help genre has some extraordinary ones. I found one called How to Land a Top-Paying Pierogi Maker's Job. Now that's dumplings, right? How to Land a Top-Paying Dumpling Maker's Job by Ashley McFadden. But then this one got me, which was by Donald L. Wilson.

Natural bust enlargement with total mind power. How to use the other 90% of your mind to increase the size of your breasts. Oh, so it only works on your breasts? You can't stare across a room. I'm trying to help you. You gave up your career for me. Let me give something back. It is time for fact number three, and that is Anna. My fact this week is that during the Mexican Revolution, the women in the army traveled

on train roofs because the horses took up all the room inside the carriages. Right. That sounds bad. It does, but it's not. Have you ever tried to persuade a horse to stand on a train carriage roof? It's very hard. Have you ever tried to persuade a woman to stand on top of a... No, I never have. I never have.

You only ever book one seat, don't you, then? It's laps or roof. One of the big issues, apparently, is the beating sun. Like, it's a very hot place to be on top of a train. I mean, it makes sense. You're very exposed. Yes. They do have big sombreros, though, looking at a picture. They do, and these women famously wore big sombreros. And and I mean I think traveling on top of a train sounds super fun but so I don't mean to present this fact, it's an anti-feminist thing. They probably

wanted to do it but this was... There's the anti-feminism. This was Mexican Revolution which I'm sure I don't need to remind you, around from 1910 to about 1920. And they were quite famous, these women. They were known as soldaderas, and they existed before the Mexican Revolution in other Mexican wars in the 19th century. They were largely women who traveled with their male family members, their husbands,

or their sons to provide them with cooking, nursing, company, because that wasn't really provided by the state, the army. So, you know, armies would travel with their partners. There was one soldier who was once asked why he was making his wife come into battle with him. And he said, shall I starve then? Who shall make my tortillas but my wife? It is very cool.

Yeah. Are they the same as Las Adelitas? Yes, they are the same. Adelitas was a name that was introduced in the revolution, and it was after an apparent companion of Pancho Villa, who was one of the many revolutionary heroes, but she didn't actually exist, but they were named after her. Okay. Okay.

Because some of the women just fought as women. Yep, some of them dressed up as men and then fought Yeah, some of them dressed as men and then just decided to stay men after the war was after the revolution was over I'm a Leo Robles Was born Amelia Robles and then just like fought as a commander in charge of hundreds of men One lots of respect apparently through drinking and womanizing. Yes. And then lived out the rest of his life as Emilio, married a lady, adopted a daughter. And that was that. Yeah, absolutely.

And they're known of and spoken of today, the ones who fought. Often the ones who fought rode side saddle and they rode in long dresses and they kicked up dust with their horses to disorient the opposition Which I'm sure wasn't the main method of attack but The other thing is that a lot of them had this braided sort of buns on the side of their head And George Lucas told Time magazine that that's where he got his idea for Princess Leia's Yeah in the in school in one of the museums of Star Wars,

they have a photo of Clara de la Rocha, and you can see the Leia buns there. So yeah, the Mexican Revolution gave us Princess Leia. Should we say what the Mexican Revolution was about? It was about giving us buns for Princess Leia. Yeah, no, completely, yeah. Freedom for Mexico, basically. From whom?

dictatorship dictators and the capital from Porfirio Diaz who was in charge for quite a long time and he held a banquet to celebrate more than quarter of a century of Stability and about two weeks later the revolution broke out Just a minute time you got there It was really crazy wasn't it because it was about 10 years of someone, he was overthrown. Yeah. And then the guy who replaced him was overthrown. Yeah.

And then maybe the next guy I think was also overthrown, a lot of turmoil. It was very complicated. I'm not sure the country having several leaders in the space of a few years now have been going to absolute. It was one of my favorite moments of it was during some of this turmoil. We've all got a favourite moment in the Mexican Revolution. There was a guy called Victoriano Huerta, and he was actually the person, the second dictator,

who deposed the good guy. So, Huerta, bad guy. Oh, so we're talking sides now, aren't we? We had to simplify it somehow. There's good guys, there's bad guys. Huerta, bad guy. De Bozer's Madero, good guy. But he's like, okay, I want it to look a bit like the presidency I want to have now is legitimate.

But what I've done is I've deposed and actually executed, oops, the current president and the vice president. So he made the person who'd been third in line to the presidency president for literally some say 15 some say 45 minutes Just so that this guy could appoint him his last of his trust of the I mean, he didn't necessarily want it. He's literally there so that he could make who ata Secretary of the Interior which meant who aterta was next in line for the presidency. And then Mr. 15 Minutes stepped aside and was like, oh, Huerta, you're next in line. Who does that fool? It doesn't fool anyone.

It's weird. What's the fucking point? Just kill the third guy as well and seize the presidency. Don't have killed the first or second. I mean, just, yeah, yeah. No, good advice. Don't kill anyone. That's the message.

Pancho Villa? Oh, yeah. Pancho Villa? Pancho Villa was a great general. And he is famous mainly in the war for having struck a deal with the mutual film company to sell the film rights for his own battles in exchange for cash basically, and propaganda venue. And there are lots of myths saying they made him retake battles, entire battles.

Sorry, we didn't have the camera running. It's surely hard to get everyone involved in that retake, isn't it? Just picking up bodies from... So there's a bit of back and forth about it, but basically it does seem absolutely true that he got 20% of the box office from the films of his own battles. It's amazing. There was a fantastic bit film crews would often wait for a battle to die down And then they would approach some nearby soldiers and say look could you recreate what just happened that did actually happen that I mean

Lots of this did happen. Yeah, they would wait for it to die down wouldn't you as a guy just armed with a camera? I think some of it they filmed and it wasn't regarded as dramatic enough and it had to be restaged. Yeah, I mean, but some of it they would ask nearby soldiers to reconstruct and there's a fantastic moment where a group of Mexican soldiers realized that they are being portrayed as cowards in the film that is being shot of them. They decide to start fighting for real and then an entirely new battle breaks out because they were so unhappy with the way they were being portrayed in the film of the battle that just happened. It's so weird. I love it. battle breaks out because they were so unhappy with the way they were being portrayed in the film of the Battle of the Descendants.

It's so weird. I love it. I love it. In 1914, there was the New York Times wrote a news announcement which said, Pancho Villa, a general in command of the Constitutionalist Army in northern Mexico, will in future carry on his warfare against President Rueda as a full partner in moving pictures venture with Harry Aitken. It's an astonishing announcement. And he he did it. Zapata, who is another one, did it.

Huerta did it as well. Supposedly his deal meant that they would screen it for him so that he could censor it before it went out. Yeah. And the Mexican Revolution, it seems that a lot of the army was stoned a lot of the time. Really? It's kind of hard to find the evidence of this because on a lot of the marijuana websites they just make shit up a lot of the time. But it does seem true that actually a lot of them were stoned. The Yakuis who were one of the groups of peasants, they were hired marijuana, they

fought like demonic spirits, they ground out yards and still got nowhere, then they staggered about here and there confused I Don't remember the fighting like demonic spirits element of being stoned. I remember staring about confused elements Does anyone have any tortillas? I forgot my wife Did you hear about when says la moguel this is incredible Okay, this is this was a guy who was caught up in the fighting as all of Mexico was this is 1915 Incidentally, the reason I think it doesn't get as much play in over here is that you know

The first world war was going on for 1914 to 18. So like that attracted a lot of attention over here But there was a lot of stuff going on over there We had the big Hollywood hit but they had the art house movie didn't they? Wow Anyway, what's this loud mogul got gets caught up in this conflict and he was accused of being a revolutionary He was not tried and then he was sentenced to death and the typical method at the time, firing squad. And as far as I can tell, Mogwil is more or less the only person ever to have survived

a firing squad. He was shot eight or nine times. The coup de grace was, he was shot actually in the forehead. He survived. He was in pain. He was in severe pain. But the federales, the people who shot him, they just moved on to whatever they were doing next. And he was incredibly, he was still alive. He managed to crawl to safety. He recovered from his wounds. He lived until 1976. How did he crawl to safety? I have no idea. He was I mean, he was permanently scarred and disfigured. He clearly had been through something

To say I have no idea he was I mean he was permanently scarred and disfigured like he clearly had been through something Unbelievably traumatic, but he lived and he was known as el fusilado the one who has been shot And that was his nickname from that on there is a song about him by anyone know Robbie Williams Chamba Wamba I get knocked out Yes! That's incredible. It's an extraordinary story. Is that... Does it count the surviving firing squad, what Pancho Villa did, which he was sentenced to death by firing squad in about 1913,

when Huerta was in charge, and Madero, who was actually president, who was Villa's ally, sent a stay of execution. He was like, shit, Pancho Villa's being executed. I don't want that. Sent a stay of execution. He was like, shit, Pancho VIA's being executed. I don't want that. Sent a stay of execution to say, do not kill this guy. Pancho VIA was standing there firing squad guns cocked pointing at him when the person arrived waving the letter saying, stop, stop. And so they didn't shoot him. That's film stuff. Maybe that was all set up for the film. He had a nickname as well, Pancho Villa, which also is a song.

So there's quite a lot of tunes coming out, which was La Cucaracha. Really? I don't think the song is based on him, but that was his nickname. Yeah. Is it not, I mean, because what the hell does that mean? It means cockroach. The cockroach. And the cockroach in the most popular version of that song is stoned. So...

Oh, yeah. But they called him the cockroach because Pancho Villa, he was like a revolutionary in northern Mexico. He wasn't very happy about America was kind of getting involved. And so he decided to attack America on his own with some of his mates. And they went in and sort of shot up a town in America and then leg it back into Mexico and America was not very happy about that because they didn't have World War I to bother them about quite yet.

And so they went in and they went after him and they went after him for years and years and tried to find him and they couldn't find him and that's why they called him the cockroach because it's like you know he's there under the fridge somewhere but you don't know where he is exactly. Oh really? Yeah. Okay. One thing about Pancho Villa is according to the new American bartender's guide, if

you go into Mexico City and you say you want tequila estilo Pancho Villa, por favor, which is tequila in the Pancho Villa style, that's the coolest way of asking for tequila. But if you order it Wenceslao Moguel style, you get nine shots delivered. LAUGHTER OK, we need to move on to our final fact of the show. It is time for our final fact, and that is Andy. My fact is, there is a cave in Greece where water flows uphill. How? Well, I should say, I'll just quickly say where I got this.

I recently judged a competition, a fact competition from Descent Magazine, which is the caving Bible, really. And this was the winning fact. And Descent Magazine, I should just say, is great. And I did look up if it could be confused with anything. There is also Dissent magazine, which is politics. Descant magazine, which is a Canadian literary mag. Decent magazine, just a magazine for men, I think.

Discount magazine, Decanter magazine, and Long and Short, which is a Dacson magazine. Oh, wow. Oh, that's great. That's good. This one. Long and Short is a great a Dax and magazine. Oh wow. Oh, that's great. That's good. This one... Loughngan Shorts is a great name. That's incredible.

We'll get into the fact, but this is a bimonthly magazine. It's been going since 1969. I'm so fascinated by... Did you meet everyone at Dissent magazine? How many facts came in? It was a mostly email-based competition judging thing for me. I didn't get to go. I didn't go to the ball.

But this island is in Kefalonia, an Ionian island, and it has a cave where the sea flows into the land. Okay, so it goes the other way. Confusing. And it makes its way through the island. There's a kind of porous rock under the island, and it comes out on the other side of the island, right? But scientists were interested in what was happening to it and they put in some very strong dye in the

water in the bit where it goes into the island's rocks to see what happened. They used 140 kilos of dye. So they dyed a huge amount of the water and what they found is it emerged two weeks later on the other side of the island, which is nine miles across. Amazing. And it emerged higher than sea level on the other side of the island, which is nine miles across. Amazing. And it emerged higher than sea level on the other side. Really? So has it gone through the porous rocks or is it flowing like the idea? The seawater comes in and this is fresh water that's moving uphill and the two mix, but

then the seawater is denser so it kind of pushes the fresh water upwards. Pretty much. It's all to do with sea and fresh water and their relative densities, exactly as James says. And it comes out in Melissani Cave, which is the cave of the nymphs. Right. The nymphs being those horny Greek people. Right.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Sensing. No, no, no. So no human could go this stretch of water to the other side, could they? No, no. No way. That way, there might be a route. As in, the internet is full of videos of people Oh, so no human could go this stretch of order to know That we there might be there might be a route as in the internet is full of videos of people Is anyone here have a scene of caving videos of they're so upsetting Why there's people going through really like they're crawling with their shoulders only through these insanely tight

It's really scary. Yeah, I don't think I'm claustrophobic, but you watch this and you think that is unbearable. I like the fact that cavers are like Batman in that if there is a caving disaster. They live in a cave, yeah. Yeah. Oh my God, I hadn't thought of that element. Wow.

Because I was thinking about if there's a caving disaster, the core goes out to all cavers and they flock. So there was, for instance, so Wales is a good place to go caving. And there was a core in a place called O'Gough Fononthe, which I'm sure a Welsh person will get in touch and tell me how boundary I pronounced that. It almost sounds like Gotham in a way,

like a Welsh version of Gotham. Oh my god, this is blowing so wide open. Right, so there was an accident this cave where cave er George Lanane fell He was very badly injured and he was a very long way into this cave as I say 274 meters below ground the call goes out 16 teams across England responded 300 rescuers from England Scotland and Wales all dropped their jobs, dropped their pens, closed their computers, got on the next train to this cave

and they all helped out, which I would say is a lot of people who are quite bored by their jobs in marketing. And you know, the caller said we need about eight or nine cavers and they've gone, it's all right, I'm here, I'm there. And they're all underground, but it is extraordinary if you've got someone incredibly injured as he was,

broken bones and stuff, getting a stretcher by someone who's incapacitated through like underwater up vertical Inclines, you know places where you can only fit one human body and you're soaking wet and it took about three days I think so you're freezing cold. It's extraordinary. How many meters down was he? He was 274 meters and how many people answered the call? 300. So you could just do a human train. And just like grab it by the ankles and back we go.

I feel like you've got a bit of a problem there with the other hundred and odd people who are underwater for that amount of time. That's very true. So has anyone here been down the Devil's Ass? Yeah. Is that in Manchester? It's not far off, it's in the Peak District. Oh, okay.

It seemed like it was, because for listeners, the whole audience said yes to that question. It's very famous around here, the Devil's Ass. Okay. It's a cave in Derbyshire. Okay. And they changed the name, it was known as Devil's Arse. And then they changed it to Peak Cavern in 1880

because Queen Victoria visited. But we've changed it back now. And it's lots of awesome things about it. It's where a lot of Britain's last troglodytes lived. So cave dwellers lived there. They made ropes and they would sell it to the nearby villages. The Troglodytes. When are we talking?

They left the final time in 1915. What? And it's where the Thieves' Cant was invented. So Thieves' Cant is a type of language that thieves used. And it was invented by a person called Giles Hather and Cock Laurel. And they were at the mouth of the devil's ass. And they came up with this new language that they'd be able to talk about and the cops wouldn't understand what they were saying.

I mean, just saying Cock Laurel's at the mouth of the devil's ass is quite a confusing thing to hear. Well, do you want to guess some thieves' cant words? Oh, okay, yeah. What do you think a bung nipper is? A bung nipper? Bung, B-U-N-G, nipper. A child who lives in a barrel.

No. Is it when you're caving and someone is so up your arse in terms of like they're too enthusiastic. So bung as in beavers and butthead bunghole. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And nipper is like you're literally nipping it with your mouth. No, I got it. But the thing is... This is all about thieving and caving, right?

I mean, they met at the mouth of the devil's arse. Oh, this is about thieving? Yeah, they're not fit to do with caves at all, really. A bung nipper. So that's someone stealing something? I'm gonna pull you out of your misery. It's just a purse. Just a purse. Do you know what a little snakes man is? Little snakes man. Yeah. Is it like in Oliver Twist where you're like a little kid and you go in someone's deep pocket with your snake-like little arm and pull out his wallet? You're really, really close. Really close.

It's a small boy who passed through a window and then they'd unlock the door of the house and then the thieves can go in. Also a scene in Oliver Twist. God, I was just 200 pages too soon. Ah! Ah! Ah!

And finally, moss. What is moss? Moss. According to thieves. Thieves. An old person to rob. They're not gonna move move, they're not going to notice, they might as well be moss and you can just... Always on the north side of a tree.

Yeah. No. Just a weedy thief because it's wet. It's like moss. No. Where does moss grow? Roves. Bogs?

Someone who goes in the roof, who takes off the roof of a house and goes in and somehow the residents don't notice. I'm going to give it to you. It's lead stolen from the top of buildings. Ah, that's very good. So now if you're ever in the 19th century gangs. Love it. Good to know.

Did you guys hear about Beatriz Flamini? No, what's that? She is a caver. April, 2023, she came out of a cave, right? And that's not interesting because she is a professional caver. Makes sense. Yeah, the interesting thing is she went in in November 2021 to that cave.

How long was that? I think it's about 500 days. November, it's a year and several months. Did she get lost? She knew. It was an experiment she was doing with some scientists, but she was up for it. She wasn't just going to do a... You know, when you're on a beach as a kid and you go and do a poo in a cave.

And I always used to think that. Pause, pause. Pause. Okay, here we go. Right. There's always a moment in every podcast where someone overshares. Hang on. And it's always Anna or Dan.

Everyone does this, right? When they're children. Okay, okay. Audience, anyone ever shit in a cave? Oh. A lot of nos. What we're saying is she hadn't just gone down a poo and got lost. No.

Sorry, I just heard Dan say we did it in the sea. Yeah. My mum made us go into a cave and dig a hole and do one at least. We just sent out to sea to do a big float or where everyone's trying to bodyboard. Don't try and make me the weird one here. Okay, but it was an experiment for, it was for science about what happens to the human body under these conditions. So she didn't know anything about the news in that time. She was completely cut off from civilization. She didn't know about the queen dying. She

didn't know about Russia, Ukraine. She didn't know about the Queen dying, she didn't know about Russia-Ukraine, she didn't know about Liz Truss, she didn't know anything. She had quick shit in the cave and come back. She had the time of her life. It's amazing reading her account of it. She said it was an excellent experience. She didn't have a bath or a shower for a year and a half. She thought she'd been in for 160 days because she had no sense of time down there.

She, um, I just love it. Your body goes into a weird rhythm, doesn't it? She thought she'd been in for 160 days. Yeah, that happens. Because she had no sense of time down there. I just love it. Your body goes into a weird rhythm, doesn't it? Yeah. And you kind of go into 12-hour days or 14-hour days or something. Basically, she said, I really don't want to know about anything that's happening out there, even if there's an emergency, even if there's a family thing. I just want to try this experience properly.

So she would get food delivered by the scientists. They would collect every fifth poo. And I suppose the previous four poos as well. They didn't just collect three. Every five poos she did, she got a collection done by the scientists. Is it like one of those Costa cards where you, you know, stamp it every time?

What do you mean they collected everyone? Were they going into her chamber? They collected her poo. Like, she would come out to the bit where she picked up her food and I suppose dropped off her poo and then she would retreat again. That's the worst delivery room ever, isn't it? Thanks for the tip, mate. Um, deliver poo.

Oh, there we go. Get this. Get this. Like, at one go. Get this, get this. Like at one point the cave was swarmed with flies and she was just completely covered in flies for a little while, like head to toe in flies. She didn't talk out loud except when she was filming her video diary.

When they came down to get her, she didn't want to leave. She was annoyed because she hadn't finished her book. She said, why are you coming down to get me? I haven't finished my book. How many books did she bring down? Or how so a reader is she? She got through 60 books. Did she? Wow. That's incredible. So I reckon the poo thing is to do with minimal impact caving, which is a genuine thing. Because if you go into a cave, it's a whole ecosystem

and you don't want to disturb things that are going on there. So they say things like avoid touching microbial mats. And so you don't want to mess with the communities that are living in the cave. No smoking in caves. I can't believe that. You can't bring ciggies down because it might interfere with the bats and all sorts of other animals living there. No recreational drugs or alcohol while caving, they say. Oh, come on, why the hell not that? I know, right?

You can't do that there. Limited scratching of skin and hair because you don't want any dandruff or follicles to get off But then the big thing which was a bit confusing to me I had to look it up it said always make sure to bring your burrito kit and your burrito your wife you need Your burrito kit is a slang for a bag to store your poo. So you bring bottles to put your urine in and you bring your burrito kit to put your poo in. And I discovered that burrito kit meant that by going to a caving slang webpage.

So I'm going to give you not thieving slang, but I'm going to give you some caving slang. What do you guys think air repel is? Air repel? Web page so I'm gonna give you not thieving slang, but I'm gonna give you some caving really What do you guys think error repel is? Repel repel as in like repelling repelling as in like going down a cliff Yeah, sounds like we just jump off one surface very a very long way. It's like I'm sailing but you've forgotten your rope sort of It's when you accidentally fall down a cave There's the cardboard caver. Cardboard caver. Is that someone who's not very good at it? Or someone who's got the equipment but they don't know how to do it?

It's when at the first sign of wetness you decide to turn back because you don't want to get involved with that. Uh, douching. Oh. It's when you- Is it when you fall down and the water goes into you? Like you fall, you slide down. Yeah water goes into you like you fall you slide down Yeah, like that's what they have that in

And what do you call it when you're on the back of a motorboat water skiing water skiing? Yeah, yeah, if you fall off and the water goes up you that's douche. I've been water skiing I've never had water and to me like how you're describing. No, I've heard that too. Have you I've had it It's the most painful thing you could possibly experience. How really lucky man Wow, I must have a tiny bumhole It's always a second over sharing moment when you think the first one's over Well, anyway, it's the practice of blocking a stream at the top of the pit. I've forgotten the word now. Uh, douching, sorry. So you block the stream at the top of a pit, only let it to go all over your friend on the rope below when they're most vulnerable.

So you build up the water and then it's like gunging them. Funny. Can I, did everyone read the greatest story that was this week or last week of accidental caving? No. Matilda Campbell. I'm playing it fast on this for the word caving. Actually, it was so good. She is in Australia, obviously. dental caving. No. Matilda Campbell. I'm playing it fast on this for the word caving. It was

so good. She is in Australia, obviously, New South Wales, Hunter Valley. She's on some rocks with her friends. She drops her phone in a crevice between two rocks. She thinks, I'll go and get that. She went face first down into this crevice, which was three meters deep between boulders, got stuck head first three meters down. She was there for seven hours. She had no phone reception. She was there for seven hours. She had no phone reception. She had one friend with her who had to be like, sorry mate, I'm gonna have to go and find someone,

and left her alone upside down, three meters down, squashed between rocks for ages. Eventually fire, ambulance, police, and a bunch of volunteers came, and it still took them seven hours to move these boulders. But she's such a hero. The lead paramedic said the whole time she was so calm and collected through the whole thing I would have been frantic she wasn't panicked at all and she was wedged in this weird S shape so even when they'd

moved the boulders they couldn't really get her body out for ages and yeah eventually they got her out and the the article I read, I think, in The Guardian said, sadly, they were unable to retrieve her phone. LAUGHTER Still a tragic loss. MUSIC That is it. That is all of our facts. Thank you so much for listening. Thank you, Manchester.

We'll be back again. We'll be back again next week. We'll see you then. Goodbye!