No Such Thing As A Fish - 560: No Such Thing As Spanish Toes

Episode Date: December 5, 2024

Live from the Sydney Opera House, Dan, James, Anna and Andy discuss North Korea, war games and 'breaking' news - that is, news about breakdancing.   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

Hi guys! I know what you're thinking, it's December and so all these brands are gonna start trying to flog me all of their merch to give as gifts to people where I can't think what else to give them. And I bet that's what those fish are about to do as well. Well, yes and no. Because look, our merch is not just any merch, our merch is really cool swag that your bestest friends in the world and any fish fan in your life doesn't just want they need it. So what have we got to offer you? Well we've got a pair of t-shirts and a lot of people on tour in Australia where we just were sporting these

t-shirts and they were looking, dare I say it, pretty damn cool. For the more understated fan who doesn't quite want to commit to a full t-shirt we've got a couple of very stylish little pin badges. We also have our No Such Thing As A Fish ultimate guide, our tour book full of weird stuff we've written over the years. James has got some poetry in there, Andy's got a moss wall, I think there's some photos of me, our nights out after shows that I never thought would see the light of day, that sort of thing. Anyway to get all of that stuff go to no such thing as a fish dot com slash shop. And also, do you want to get something a bit more hefty for somebody?

Well, look no further because we have three books out between us. Dan has a kids book called Impossible Things. You'll find that at the top of our website as well. Andy has a beginner's guide to breaking and entering kind of thriller come comedy and James and I have written a load of old balls our QI history of sport so there you go that's Christmas done for you you're welcome I am now off to Hello! And welcome to another episode of No Such Thing As A Fish, a weekly podcast. This week, coming to you live right from the Sydney Opera House. My name is Dan Shriver. I am sitting here with Anna Tshinsky, Andrew Hunson Murray, and James Harkin.

And once again, the four of us have gathered around the B Bugs 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 breakdancing can make you go bald. For the people at home, we've put up a picture of the greatest Australian sporting person. Ever, perhaps. Ever, yeah, ray gun. But this is a new study that's been done recently that describes breakdancers bulge, which is... It sounds so much sexier than it is.

It's really not. Well, you know, takes all sorts, doesn't it? It's a... It's a like a... Gives you a bit of a cone head, okay, because you're breakdancing too much. This was about a guy in his early 30s who'd been doing head spins for more than 19 years. With breaks in between, right? Yeah. But yes, definitely. Although it's five times a week for one and a half hours at a time. So he's doing a hell of a lot of head spins.

Wow. And it was... The case talked all about him, but in the middle of the paper, it said that they'd spoken to other breakers, especially in Germany, and they found that 31% had had some kind of hair loss. Yeah, really. And you get this sort of lump of squishy matter on top of your head, which is all you, but it's just you've been redistributed upwards, basically.

Where does it come from, do you think? Where does it go? That's amazing. Where does it come from? So you're defying gravity, basically. You're heading upwards. You sort of, well, you're just, it's because you're upside down. So gravity still wins, actually. Oh, actually, yeah.

You're upside down. You're right. That's doing all the work. It is. So this guy had an operation, and it can be dealt with with an operation. He was really happy because he said he can go out in public again, and people said he looked, you know, he looked a lot better than when he had this cone head. But some break dancers will wear two hats to deal with hair loss. That's one strategy really why not? Why one hat what?

They do wear one hat and then they wear another hat on top of that That doesn't make you look even less like you've lost your hair It's not it's to cover your head against the spinning is just to stop you going bold because it's the friction on the floor Sorry, it's not to conceal the boldness Just make the first hat not transparent. I gotta say, Anna, look, I'm a man in my 40s. I've got 12 hats under this one. Yeah, so it's called, more broadly, it's called break dancer overuse syndrome, this thing.

And with the hair loss, with the bald thing, it's basically that the hair follicles become damaged because you're rubbing them on the floor so much and the hair just refuses to grow. Yeah. I went to Google it and I put Olympic bulge and break dancing in. Okay. Yeah. And I forgot and I think it's, we probably will all remember, but it's worth just saying that one of the finest moments of the recent Olympics was the guy who lost the poll vote because his bulge took down the poll on the way over. So there were more embarrassing bulges in the Olympics.

It feels like he sort of won the moral victory there, doesn't it? He may have lost the contest. Yeah, that's true. It's not a safe pursuit spinning around many, many times on your head. I don't think it's very bad for you. A much more long-term thing is break dancing neck, which has been known about since the 1980s, which basically comes from putting so much weight on your neck the whole time. It's spinal cord injury.

But people do it so many times, the spinning round, that is. The record for the most spins, and that both the male and female records are held by B-boys and B-girls, as I think they're called. But that is break dancers, yeah. Yeah, the spins and that both the male and female records are held by B boys and B girls, as I think they're called. But that is break dancers, yeah. Yeah, the spins on that. Well, you could just be into spinning around on your head. I retract my comment. Apologies.

Imagine if in the Olympics, in the B-buying, someone came in who'd never done it before, but just loved spinning around on their heads. Are they getting gold if they just, the whole time they just do one big spin? Because I think the record is 137 spins. Wow. In one? Yeah. Complete?

Complete. You're allowed to use your hands to keep the spin going. Oh, are you? Okay. Yeah. Okay. This year, it was because it was the Paris Olympics, and it was held, I really just like this, in the Place de la Concorde, which is where

Marie Antoinette was guillotined 230 years ago Wow and that's just nice that just sort of matches Do you think her head spun around as it came off the probably dead? Do you think if she had more head they would have just lopped that bit off and she could have survived Just painted a little face on the on the top cone Big rough around their head. I should just say, I think we're showing ourselves up as massive docs because it isn't called break dancing. It is called b-boying and b-girling.

Break dancing is a very, very uncool word to use. Breaking. You say breaking. I gather it's one of the four pillars of hip-hop. Islam. Oh yeah, hip-hop. Five of Islam, four of hip-hop. Islam, oh yeah, hip-hop. Sorry. Five of Islam, four of hip-hop, three for any sort of podium. Anyway, and the others, I mean I don't need to say it to you guys, but they're DJing,

emceeing, and graffiti. Oh, okay. Is that Islam still? That's Islam. Because with the break dancing, that was coined by the newspapers. Okay. Whereas the B-boys and B-girlers themselves wouldn't call it break dancing. Did they call it breaking at the start?

Yes. They did because it's the break in the music. It's where you don't have lyrics, right? Yeah, so you have the song, song, song, song, song, then you have a little break where it's just the music. Drum. Loads of drum, right? Loads of drum, stuff like that.

And then the DJs would just repeat that again and again and again so that people could dance in that little break. I don't think we've ever looked so uncool in our lives. I don't know. Than what just happened just then. What are you talking about? We're passing ourselves off as hip-hop aficionados. I want to talk about the coolest person alive, speaking of hip-hop. Oh, either, please. I think the coolest person who ever happened there.

I know I don't embarrass you James. No your second coolest, coolest is the person who invented hip-hop or the person because of whom hip-hop came about. I just think it's amazing that it was a schoolgirl who wanted to raise money to buy some new clothes for school. Really? It's so cool. 1973 there's a schoolgirl called Cindy Campbell and her parents have migrated in previous five years or so from Jamaica to the US. And she wants to look a bit cooler,

buy some new school clothes. She's like, I'll just throw a big house party. Now I tried to throw parties when I was 15 and what happened to her did not happen to me. Everyone in the neighborhood came. She asked her brother, her big brother to DJ, a guy called DJ Coolhook. Don't think he was Chris like that.

In fact, he was Chris and Clive, which is not a cool name. And that was the birth of hip hop. And everyone in the hip hop movement knows that this is the origin story. A 16, 15, 16 year old girl went, I'm gonna have a little party at my parents' house. And that's where Hip Hop was born. And everyone says that they were there, don't they?

Like, you just... Anyone who was there near the start of breakdancing, they all say, well, I was at the party, of course. Yeah, I was there. And weirdly, in parental connections, there's another one, because I think Australia's best male breakdancer is Jeff Dunn. Is that correct? J-Attack?

Oh, so you guys aren't cool either. That's good. What a surprise. J-Attack. J-Attack. J-Attack, as he's known, or Jeff, is 16 and his mum is present at all his gigs. He's the best in the world? Oh, best in Australia. Best Australian man. Wow. Yeah, yeah. But the thing I didn't know about Olympic break, breaking, I'm just going to say break dancing, not fooling anyone, is that I thought that like ice skating, you get to pick your own music. You know, you have your tune, you go out to that, and then, and it's not the case.

In break dancing, the DJ selects the tune, and you just have to adapt to that. You have to improvise to it. You have to improvise. So that's part of the, like, it's execution and originality and your vocab of moves and technique, all of it counts in the judges. Ooh, your vocab of moves and technique, all of it counts in the judges. Ooh, your vocab of moves, eh?

Yeah, I was just... I'm desperately trying to get it back to something vocabulary-based. And... But so for the Olympics, there was a problem. They couldn't just let the DJs play whatever they wanted because it's going out on telly, so it has to be music that they've cleared the rights to. Oh!

So they had a library of 390 songs which the rights have been cleared. So 390 is a lot of songs. You probably couldn't learn all of them and react in time. And also the DJs were not allowed to spend any time at all with the break dancers in case the break dancers lean over and said, oh, can you play like Eleanor Rigby or whatever. Classic break dance tune. Silent night, whatever. Have you thought about entering? Classic breakdance. Like a silent night. Whatever.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Have you thought about entering? You know what's weird, Andy? You mentioned Eleanor Rickby. Paul McCartney, who wrote that song, spends five minutes every morning upside down on his head. Wow. Even at this age. Spinning?

I think it's static. I think he's, yeah. That's pretty good. So he does yoga and every morning, he's in his 80s, you know. He's upside down on his head for five solid minutes and I want to see if the cone has arrived. Possibly has, right? Can I just talk about the, if you're too cool even for breaking, as I am, what you're really

into is crumping. Do you guys know about crumping? Crumping? No. or too cool even for breaking, as I am, what you're really into is krumping. Do you guys know about krumping? Krumping? No. Can I just get a poll to judge how cool this audience is? Who knows about krumping? Yeah! They all know.

Quite a few. Do they? It's basically clowning, but I find this so cool because hip hop is the epitome of cool, right? But krumping is a key kind of new part of hip hop dance culture. And it was invented by a children's birthday clown called Tommy the Clown in the 1990s,

who wanted to liven up kids birthday parties. So he started like jerking his body in kind of really asymmetrical ways. And he'd keep, it's where you keep one bit of your body still and then you just like jerk one tiny bit of it. It looks cooler than what I just did with my hand on stage. And it became huge. And it's the big thing in hip hop now. And people go and do it in full clown gear.

Wow. I'm really interested to know what the people in the audience thought it was. Who all said they knew what it was. Was that it? Well, they're all in clown suits. You all came in one car, didn't you today? Stop the podcast! Stop the podcast! Hi everyone, we'd like to let you know that this week we're sponsored by Squarespace. Yes, so do you have a brilliant idea for a website or company?

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You'd think we said all that up and yet just came to him on the spur of the moment. Okay, on with the show. On with the podcast. Hey, we need to move on now to our next fact. It is time for fact number two and that is Anna. My fact this week is that in North Korea, it's illegal to rest your cup of tea on a newspaper if that newspaper has a picture of Kim Il-sung on it. Mmm. And how many newspapers don't have a picture

of Kim Il-sung on them? That's the question I think quite a lot of them do. And in fact, it's the two subsequent Kims as well, I believe. So it's probably quite hard in North Korea to avoid a newspaper with any of their dear leaders in it. And it's very, very illegal.

So I read this in an interview. It was an interview in 2010, but I've checked it out. It still is the case from what we know. But an interview with a teenage girl who'd escaped from North Korea, crossed the border into China. And she was saying that any defacement of the image of Kim Il-sung, of course the founder of North Korea, was punished. So if you destroyed any notes, any banknotes with his face on them, you're shot. And it's, yeah, the newspaper thing, illegal to put anything on that newspaper.

Which, I don't know if there's a coaster, I don't know if that excuses you. His face is probably on the coaster. That's like... Yes, is it illegal to put your tea on a coaster with the face on? No, you should put it on the coaster. Yes, is it illegal to put your tea on a coaster with the face on? No, you should put it on the coaster. In fact, it's punishable to not put it on the coaster. In my house, it's punishable not to use a coaster. And again, that's just short, straight up, isn't it?

Yeah, that's right. So these laws are actually quite common around the world to various degrees, right? They're called less majest, are they called? And it's basically insulting your leaders. And in the UK, in fact, the Treason Felony Act of 1848 makes it an offence to say that you want the monarchy to be abolished. You can get life imprisonment under the act or in theory you could be transported to Australia Is that too soon? Is that still on the books? But they obviously they would never do anything about it.

Very rarely prosecuted. It would never be prosecuted, but they keep it on the books because of you know, just ceremonial reasons. Just in case. Just in case. Just be a bit more careful about what you say these days, Australia. We've heard some of the rumblings. This is, I mean, so as you say, this is around the globe. Do you remember when we did, so back in the UK, we did a BBC Two show version of our show

called No Such Thing as the News. And yep, that's roughly how many people watched it as well. But we were told there was at one point that we were going to do a fact about the King of Thailand and they said to us, the BBC, you can't, you can't do it because if anyone who's connected to your family lives there and they make that connection by you insulting the King of Thailand, you'll go to jail if you go to Thailand or one of your family will. And they would have to bring all of the BBC reporters out of Thailand. They told us yeah We did that but we're the only thing we weren't allowed to make jokes about yeah, that's true

But we're not currently planning a tour to Thailand. So let's get into it Have some laughs I still have family there, okay Okay, well sorry sorry for that Well, okay, well, sorry for them, Dan. I don't like them that much, though. You knock yourself out, buddy. It's so, it's still very much on the books. And the weird thing about it is anyone can complain about anyone and the police have to start an investigation.

I could just go to the police and say, I heard James being a bit rude about the king. And you'll- I didn't. Well, I heard it. What? And then an investigation is automatically open. So one guy got his brother locked up for a year with a Les Magest accusation, and actually their dogs had just got into a fight and he was annoyed with his brother.

Oh my god. It's an inefficient system. There used to be a system in ancient Rome whereby the person in power needed to be reminded not to go too far. They were known as humblers. If the Roman emperor was speaking, the humbler behind would go, yeah, but you're still a bit shit, mate. Like, they would just say things to bring them back down.

That's the most Australian version of an ancient Roman custom I've ever heard. Yeah, no, you're not great at all. No, yeah, yeah, yeah, no. Yeah, and that used to be a thing. Was it real? Because I've heard of that. I've read in multiple places that... It's been a long time Andy. I don't know. Well, it's the same role as a jester, I suppose really, wasn't it? Yes.

It's a fine line you have to walk. Your job is sort of to take the piss out of the king, but be very careful when you do it. I think there was one of my favorites is Francis the First, 16th century jester. I'm sure we all remember, Tribouillet. He used to do quite fun things So once he slapped the king on the buttocks and that was one step too far the king said sorry one step too far I'm gonna execute you now unless you can think of something more insulting than that slap And so of course he replied. I'm so sorry, sir. I didn't mean to do it. I mistook you for your queen nice

Got let off. You know, you've got to hand it to him. Yeah, that's pretty good. Is it even more insulting to imply he's got a womanly bottom? Is that... I'm struggling to work out why that's an insult. I think he's saying that his wife is so disgusting that her bare ass looked like that. Wait, the asses were bare? Why were the asses bare?

They all went around dressed like Donald Duck in the 16th century. I didn't know that. That's amazing. No, you're right. They probably weren't naked. One of the things, just jumping back to North Korea quickly, and Kim Il-sung and the descendants of him, is that you're not allowed to insult, but the flip side of it is you actively constantly need to praise there are over 34,000 statues of King Kim Il-sung who is still the president of North Korea Despite being dead for many many years. He's still an actively running president. Well, he's not actively running

He's hardly walking But he's still a see he's still listed as the president forever press And so even the tourist phrase book has helpful icebreakers in a section when you're sightseeing the city. It'll say things like, why don't you just randomly say to someone, comrade Kim Il-sung was the most distinguished leader of our times. That will break the ice. And then there was a journalist, a Western journalist who went over there and he went to the zoo.

And the first thing that they showed him was a parrot who has learned to squawk, long live the great leader, comrade Kim Il-sung. That's like, that's what you see at the zoo, which by the way, sounds like the most fucked up zoo I've ever read about. They've got basketball playing monkeys. They've got a dove that is part of a figure skating routine.

They've got a dog who is trained to manipulate an abacus and just do sums in the corner. And then there's a monkey that just smokes ciggy's all day long. It just, you walk up, I've seen photos, it's just got a pack of ciggy's and it just pulls out a new one each time, lights it up and is like... I'm not really enjoying this basketball. How much should I pay for it? Rack this up on your abacus, dude. The one person who is very positive to the leaders of North Korea is their poet laureate.

And he became very, very close to Kim Jong-il and so much so that when he wrote a really long poem, it got immediately turned into the law of the land. Isn't that amazing? I find poems hard to interpret the best of times. I don't know how I translate it into a little. Say something about no lettering. It kind of tells the history of the great leaders and stuff like that, and it becomes part of the national history.

So it's become kind of canon. Yeah, yeah. Wow. He's got to be careful when he's writing because it is illegal if you're writing Kim any of the Kim's names Kim Jong-un's name It's illegal to let it run over two lines So, you know if you're publishing a book and you know, you have to let a word fall over two lines That's very illegal. Don't do that If you're writing a letter and you're getting up close to the edge, you've got to start a new line mate

Don't split those guys up always doing that Is it really insulting if you start writing it and you realize you're running out of space and write it smaller and smaller and smaller? I think that's extreme torture. Oh my god. Do you know what the people's instrument is in North Korea? I rather like this. Ooh, can we hazard a guess?

You can have as many guesses as you like. I'd be impressed if you get that. So what was the question, sorry? What is the people's instrument? Oh. Kazoo? Musical instrument. Not kazoo.

Good guess. Theremin. Theremin is nice. No. It's. Musical instrument. Not kazoo. Good guess. Theramin. Theramin is nice. No. It's low tech, but not much lower tech. Recorder? High tech. Synthesizer. Nearly. Accordion, someone shouted out in the audience,

and it is the accordion. OK. There he goes. Wow. OK. If you wanted to be a teacher in North Korea in the 1990s, you had to first pass an accordion exam. Wow.

Really? Because it was for songs, basically, so you could lead propaganda songs, things like that. Wow. There's one very famous story about Kim Jong-il that he played 18 holes of golf, scoring 34, including four holes in one, which would be 20 shots better than the best score ever shot by anyone else on earth. Right. But actually there's been more recent stories about it and what we think is that they used a different way of scoring.

So a par would be zero points, a bogey would be one. So like if you do what you're supposed to do, you would get zero. If you're slightly worse, you would get one. If you're much worse, you would get two, etc. And if that's true, then he would have actually shot 106, which is quite good for someone in the first game, but not impossible. So are you saying it could be the case with this whole North Korea thing? We've just been misunderstanding them the whole time.

Well, the truth is that a lot of it comes from South Korean propaganda. A lot of the things that we say and that we learn, it comes through South Korean press who have an axe to grind. Totally. Yeah. Well this is from people in exile. That's basically the place you get actual information. It's people who have got away and said, oh, these guys are clads. Absolutely. So it might be that Kim Jong-il was not lying about his golf.

Donald Trump, on the other hand, he claims to be scoring 73 on a regular basis at golf. And if he did that, he would be the best golfer of his age in the world. Oh, OK. That's fair enough. Well, he's pretty good at stuff, isn't he? LAUGHTER Just for clarity, I didn't vote for him. What? I didn't get a vote. Wish I could have!

Oh! But Kim Jong... Kim Il-sung, by the way, I think the North Koreans are very good at sometimes saying, actually, do you know what, we were lying about that, because recently they revealed that Kim Il-sung cannot, in fact, manage to teleport by folding space, which previously they suggested he absolutely could. Yeah, yeah. So, they do. Since he's died, he's stopped being able to teleport by falling space. That's probably what that is. Yes

Yeah, okay, so he still could do it while he was alive. He was born supposedly again Who knows on the day the Titanic sink? Yeah, which is a harbinger of the fall of Western imperialism Oh, is that is that why it's what they say it is. Mm-hmm, right? Yep Materialism. Oh is that is that why it's what they say it is. Mm-hmm. Right. Yep And he wrote an eight volume memoir about his life. Okay, you read it. I haven't read it I think that's too much. I think I think it could have done with that's too many Yeah, we're gonna have to move on in a minute guys. Okay. Well just quickly back to insulting leaders Yeah, and there was someone called Danny Lim Who people in the audience might remember?

There was someone called Danny Lim, who people in the audience might remember. Who that? About seven or eight years ago, he had a sign that said, people can change, Tony, you can't, referring to Tony Abbott. But the letter A in the word can't had been turned upside down and sort of rounded at the bottom. Oh, weird. And with the cross kind of not very visible. How strange.

That must have made it very hard to understand what the sign was. Yeah, people, I'll be honest, people misunderstood it quite a lot. No. But he did get off because the judge ruled that he hadn't unequivocably used the word... Abbott. Right, right. Abbott. Fair enough.

Fair enough. It is time for fact number three, and that is my fact. My fact this week is that in the UK there is a football competition called the Tolstoy Cup in which the war study department at King's College London takes on the peace studies department at the University of Bradford. Peace is currently beating war 10 to 3. It's not real life guys, let's not get too excited. It's very much the opposite is true in the actual world. Oh it's pretty.

What is a lovely tournament. It's a lovely tournament, it's been going for years. There was a break during the pandemic and then they had one very recently and we got to meet the four of us, the captain of the peace team, Dr. Alex Waterman. And so what's really great is they all represent someone who represents war and peace and that's the name that appears on their back. For example, the match that happened recently, it was like real nail-biting, 3-2 in the end. Mother Teresa got a yellow card.

Yeah, and Martin Luther King made it 2-1 for peace 22 minutes in. Some controversial choices. I mean, Jesus, for instance, did he belong on the peace team? A lot of people would say some wars are based around Christianity. Did Tony Blair belong on the war team, which he was? Or did he actually bring peace to a formerly troubled region? wars are based around Christianity. Did Tony Blair belong on the war team, which he was? Or did he actually bring peace to a formerly troubled region? We're not here to decide. Yeah, no, it does sound really cool, as in it's a nice... They're both interesting institutions

in different ways. So the peace department of Bradford, they actually, they have the original studies for, you know, the peace symbol? The upside down Mercedes with the extra one that was designed in 1958 and by a guy called Gerald Holtham and they have the originals there nuclear thing exactly really very cool Bradford that's a Bradford yeah it's not of the war studies one the war studies one is really interesting though they do big war game exercises trying to work out what would happen if a war broke out and they actually I mean they're kind of on the side of peace they're not they're not gunning for it

They yeah, they're trying to avert wars despite the name But there's a lot of really interesting people that a lot of spooks as well actually No, the war studies department Well, let me talk about a real sort of rivalry in sports. Okay cricket between England and Australia. Oh There was a few interesting things about this. After World War II, there were some things called victory tests that were held between English and Australian servicemen. And there was one Australian bowler called Graham Williams, who'd only been released

from a prisoner of war camp a couple of weeks earlier. He was 35 kilograms below his pre-war weight. He had to take glucose tablets throughout the match, he was given a standing ovation whenever he did anything on the pitch. That's incredible. There was a guy called, an Aussie called Keith Miller who's scored a century in the first of those tests and when he was asked about the pressure of playing against England he said, pressure is a mess you're smit up your arse. Playing cricket is not. I mean, cricketing rivalries are obviously a big thing in both of our respective countries,

but university rivalries, which this is, also are everywhere. And one of the most famous British university rivalries is a cricket one. And it's the annual cricket match between Eaton and Harrow, which are just two just very common man schools back in England. They're two incredibly posh schools, and they've been playing the same cricket match at Lord's since 1805. Not the same one, they do a different one every year. They do go on a while, those cricket matches, don't they?

Well, it's Test Cricket, so God knows when it's going to finish. It's the oldest cricket fixture played at Lord's, still played today. And I really like the account of the first one. So it was Harrow who actually thrashed Eaton in the first one. But one man you might have heard of who participated was Lord Byron. Really? Yes, he did indeed play. He played for Eaton. He went to Eaton, didn't he?

I think he went to Harrow. Cool. He played for Harrow. Oh, I'm not, didn't he? I think he went to Harrow. Cool. He played for Harrow. Oh, I'm not... One of those will be correct. I think so. And he... So he appeared in the game, but he had a club foot, so he needed a runner to run for him. He did some batting, and then he had someone else run for him. He batted really badly, but it's quite sweet.

His whole team batted very badly, so actually you're right, he batted for the losing team. And he wrote a letter to his brother afterwards, saying that he'd played really well. And it's just quite endearing. He said, look, our team did dreadfully, awfully, but I, you know, comported myself quite impressively by comparison and only batted the third best of everyone, which still meant he only scored about six runs. But it's just so sweet knowing him, there's this great ego desperately trying to say, I'm good at cricket.

And then he said, later, to be sure, we were most of us very drunk and went together to the Haymarket Theatre, where we kicked up a row, as you may suppose, when so many herovians and Etonians meet in one place. Wow. Which plus a change. Speaking quite similarly, actually, kind of similarly, in 1908, the Aussie Rules League

in Australia had a team from Melbourne University join the league, and everyone else at the time was amateur, they were all workers. But this team from Melbourne University, you could only play for them if you'd matriculated or if you had a higher class degree, otherwise you weren't allowed to play for the team. And they left the league in 1916 after losing 51 games in a row. That's superb. Australia has quite a lot of great rivalries, I think. Not just with other places, but also internal ones.

So for example, which is better to live, Sydney or Melbourne? It's very mixed. Canberra! Well, I mean 40% of Australia's population live in one of those two cities. Right. And obviously neither of you got to be the capital. But the rivalries are very tight on either side. So for example, Sydney has been named the world's best city eight consecutive times by Condé Nast Traveler.

Oh yeah. Pretty good. But Melbourne has been named the world's most livable city seven times by The Economist. So is it rather to live in the best city or the most livable one? Let's ask the room. Which one would you rather?

I regret, sorry, the room is curdling like milk as I'm reading this now. So can I tell you about a pumpkin growing thing? Yes, please. Which city is best at growing pumpkins? Sydney! Sydney! The Great Australian Rivalry number one is the Atlantic Giant Pumpkin Growing Championship. This is amazing.

The two guys are called Gary Smith and Dale Oliver, and they try and grow heavier pumpkins than each other. The Australian record is 743 kilos. For a pumpkin, but they're very nicely, they are sort of trying to beat each other, but they're also very relaxed. So Dale Oliver was asked, what about Gary Smith, this guy who's trying to beat you?

And he replied, well, I hope he does. He puts a lot of effort in, so that would be great. Aw. That was actually a typo. It was, I hope he does. He puts a lot of effort in, so that would be great. That was actually a typo. It was, I hope he dies. I think we can't talk about rivalry without talking about the longest term rivalry of all time. And it's just so epic, Blues versus Greens. I don't think we talk about it enough. Ancient Rome, Blues versus Greens went on for 400 years.

What do you mean? What's that? So they were the two sports teams, basically. It was the chariot races. They were split into four teams. Originally, it was reds, whites, greens, and blues. And then eventually it became blues and greens, and reds and whites joined one each respectively. And they were fanatical.

And it really reached its climax by about the sixth century when it was the Byzantine Empire and it was things like, you know, you'd be in a big stadium and 3,000 people would be massacred as a result of this just like hot-headed rivalry and it wasn't about chariot racing anymore much like Football rivalries or sports rivalries today It was just kind of people who were either blue or green running on and beating each other up. And this epic moment in early by the time history, the Nika riots happened because of this weird sports rivalry, which was it was the most violent disturbance in Constantinople's history. It was the year 532. There was a massive fight between blues and greens, and the emperor was like, you're all detentioned, you know?

You're all doing lines. Oh. I'm punishing you all. The leaders of both of you are being executed. Come along with me, get executed. Two of the executions were botched, but it was one from the blues and one from the greenside. Oh, good.

So that was a lovely coming together moment. Yeah. Because they were both like, oh, you botched our executions. And everyone was like, oh, well, let them go. You fucked up their executions. You know, just let them free. How do you mess up an execution in ancient Rome? Oh, it's a lot more complicated.

The scaffold broke. Oh. That'll do. It's a project management problem. OK. Yeah, yeah, sorry. Yeah. I'm sure a carpenter was fired.

There are still battles between the blues and the greens and the whites and the reds, right? The Calcio-Fiorantino tournament still goes on, which is like soccer slash rugby slash lots of different sports. And they play in Italy. And it's very, very, very violent. There was a guy called Mirko Cardelli who broke both his hands during a game but carried on playing and complained afterwards that the main

problem was he couldn't urinate properly for weeks. Right. Because his head was broken. I think it meant he couldn't hold his, not that he was urinating through his fingers. And they brought in new rules about maybe about ten years ago saying that convicted criminals are not allowed to play in the tournament and the green team lost 20 players due to that rule. No! Is it a descendant of the Bison team one? Not really. The Calcios only goes back to about the 13th century.

And not two. Because this one actually did end in them being wiped out during this botched execution thing. 30,000 people died, 10% of the population of the city killed, because they got together and rose up against the emperor. They were like, hang on, I bet we're better together. Do you know why we are rivals with each other? Us here today? We're not. We're all on the same team, Andy. Okay, that's loser talk. Wow!

What is it not like a sexual selection thing? Oh! Not tonight! Okay. And we sexually selected each other. Wow. There is, I just, I like the- You know sometimes you forget there's two and a half thousand people in the room.

I'm just thinking how is it possible for three people to have lost this competition between three people? But go on. Why are we rivals, Andy? There's a theory that it's from the unheimlich, which is the German for the uncanny, right? So Freud had this theory that the rival, it's a double who reveals uncomfortable truths about ourselves. You sort of see yourself reflected in them, you know what I mean? You see the similarities between you, which creates a sense of, you know, unhappiness and unease within you.

Therefore, you react with kind of hostility and aggression, you know. Like those bastards in Melbourne, whatever. That's the principle. Like, you hate and you undermine them. I must be the true one. It can't be these guys, because they're so similar to me that I find out. Which I quite like. I just think that word is too close to Heimlich,

which is a very important maneuver, which I don't want anyone in a restaurant going, does anyone know the Heimlich? And you getting up going, the unheimlich, yes. The unheimlich maneuver is when you put more things inside their mouth. Stop the podcast. Stop the podcast! Stop the podcast! Hi everybody, I just wanted to let you know that this week we're sponsored by Express

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My fact is that Spanish people have no way of telling the afternoon from the evening. Come on. It can't be done. Well, until now, because we're here to tell them Spain, is when it gets a little bit darker, a bit more difficult to see. End of fact. There you go. What the hell are you talking about?

You're welcome, La España. This is great. This is, okay, so this is based on a brilliant piece that was in the Financial Times by Barney Jobs. And kudos to him. So there is a word, la tarde, right? Afternoon. What's the word for the evening? La tarde. Uh-oh. So tarde is, as far as I can gather, either from soon after 12, not actually at 12.

It's either soon after 12 or potentially from 4pm. So there's a gap. But if you have lunch at 4 p.m. Or maybe 5 p.m. Which is very common It's not let's add in till 5 o'clock and then you go back to work at 6 o'clock But if you say buenas noches to someone before 11 p.m. They'll look at you like you're insane. Yeah They'll say that's the sort of an ultimate faux pas. It's like calling your teacher mum. It's just So it's... Does the whole country grind to a halt every single day? Well, it's not for me to say what's grinding to a halt or not.

Or are they just able to tell everything by context? Why do we need to tell? The question I found myself asking is when you mentioned this, why on earth do we need to? You know, it's afternoon and it's pre noon That's there I spoke to my brother-in-law who is Spanish and that is exactly his attitude and I was like no but then say it's like You're reading a novel and they say these words. How do you know and he went we know They just know I know It's quite baffling as a non Spanish speaker to try and get your head around this Yeah, but I think it's great problems because when do you have your tea? Would you have your afternoon tea? Yeah, what what if you have it at 7 p.m. By mistake you screwed up

But Spain is really mixed up about time in general so Spain is on the wrong time zone I think we've mentioned before they in the night in about 1940 General Franco was trying to kiss up to Nazi Germany and set Spanish time, pegged it to Germany. And that means that for half a year, they're on the same time as the very eastern edge of Germany. The other half, they're like halfway across Ukraine, is where like sunshine and midday matches the clock. So everyone is quickly out of work.

They don't have a random bit of the country that's half an hour different than everywhere else today. No. That would be insane. I think I read something that said it probably has a lot to do with the fact that it's lighter a lot more often and it's not, so it stays light later. And it's the same in Arabic. You don't really distinguish between afternoon and evening in the same way.

You have the specific prayer times, which refer to five specific times of day, but you basically have something that means good afternoon and something that means good night. And that's, I guess, you know, it's light. And maybe because in the UK, because it gets dark much earlier, you know basically whether it's the afternoon or the evening. So Spanish people get very annoyed if you suggest they all have a siesta for three hours a day, because they actually, they really don't. Yeah, I think only about 20% of them do these days, don't they?

And it's much shorter. But the problem is that the workday goes from 9am till about 8pm. Actually, they really don't. Yeah, I think only about 20% of them do these days, don't they? Yeah, and it's much shorter. But the problem is that the workday goes from 9am till about 8pm. They're some of the longest workers in Europe by hours. And the good TV doesn't start until 10pm. And children's TV sometimes doesn't start until 9.30pm. Really? Children's TV? Yeah.

No way. This is the maddest thing I've found. In 2017, in Spain, MasterChe. Ended at 1 in the morning Like MPs complained about it saying could they possibly turn off the children's TV by 11 p.m. Everyone is under slept Yeah, yeah my brother-in-law He keeps telling me that Spanish is the superior language whenever we're talking about our respective first languages And well, I mean compared to your language, yes, Dan, but he should compare Spanish to English one of these days.

Okay, I mean the language I speak is Australian, so that's a bold little statement there, mate. But I don't know, do we have Spanish speakers in the crowd? Okay, a few, right? Because while hunting, it's so hard to tell sometimes whether a translation is a bit too wild or not. But so for example, I read that the Spanish don't have a distinct word for toes, for feet, right? For your toes. Yeah, they call them desdos des los pais, which means the fingers of the feet. Makes sense. You know how we always say you have three-toed sloth and a two-toed sloth?

Yeah. But actually they all have the same number of toes, but they have a different number of fingers. Oh wow. But the problem is that it all came from a Spanish translation where they called everything fingers. So it's a three-fingered sloth and we assumed it was three finger of the footed sloth. Exactly. But it's just three-fingered sloth. So it can be a problem. Yeah. How big a problem has that been? The sloth world, honestly, is

ground to a halt every afternoon. An amazing language thing relating to day times between Spanish and English. I've always loved the English word day and the Spanish word dear. You know, they're completely unrelated to each other. Really? Isn't that so cool? The Spanish is from Latin, D.A.'s, which all the other Romance languages are. Our day has absolutely nothing to do with that. So theirs comes from heavenly sky, you know, it's related to the lightness of the sky, which is why it's quite similar to

Deus, God. Whereas the English word comes from Old English, Daig. Nothing to do with Latin. Isn't that so cool? That's weird. That's very cool. In Spanish, they use reflexive verbs quite a lot. So if I knock over this water, you might say James knocked over the water,

but in Spanish, you would say the water knocked over itself by James. And then your brother-in-law says this is a superior language. That's what I'm talking about, right? But what it actually means is when you show someone from Spain like a drawing of something that's happened, like there's a vase on the floor and there's one person looking guilty and one person not looking guilty, they find it more difficult to work out who knocked over the vase than English people because as far as they're concerned the vase broke itself.

And they can still do it but it just takes the brain a bit longer to process. That's so interesting. Does it also mean murder mysteries are a little bit more exciting because there's the waiting there's he was killed by da da da whereas we just go oh Barry killed him. Where's the suspense there? But there's a thing about how the Spanish speakers and English speakers think about time, which is just the same. You get a different conceptual universe by the way your language is shaped.

So English speakers think of time as a length. It was a long time, right? Oh, OK. That's a length stretching out. It's centimeters. It's a sausage, right? Spanish speakers. Everything comes down to sausages with you, doesn't it? In Spain, it's a sausage right Spanish speakers Everything comes down to sausages with you

In Spain, it's a volume. It's a swelling. It's a sausage It's an all an orb sausage if I could put it that way yeah like a haggis It's a grow is a constantly growing haggis. That's right So does that change things? Maybe a bit. It's funny when you get to, like when I talk to my brother-in-law about his impressions of English, you know, we could equally be doing a fact about how weird our language

is, right? One of the first things is when he started dating my sister-in-law and they eventually got married, there was a bit of religion going on at the time. They used to go to church a lot. His impression of how we generally spoke to each other was to speak in a voice like this. And so that just used to be his thing at the dinner table. Can you pass me the soledadio?

He just thought that was... Why? Because he's totally never talked to you in church. No, because he just used to hear those beaches, that's right. So does that mean when he heard you and he didn't really know what he was hearing, that's just the sound that made in his head? Yeah, he was trying to adopt certain accents in ways that were... In the same way that if you were speaking Spanish, you might put on a slightly racist Spanish accent. Now I know you're referring to a previous episode in which I tried to explain that I find their lisp very sexy, that sort of...

Oh yeah. That kind of... because it's not a speech impediment, it's a thing that they purposefully have trained their language to be, right? Yeah. What the fuck? Oh wow, don't stop it. I think it's important that we move on. Can I teach you, right? Yeah. What the f- you talk about the f- Okay. Oh wow. Don't stop it. I think it's important that we move on. Can I teach you some Spanish?

Yeah, sure. Okay. Can you spell the word socks in English? S-O-C-K-S. S-O-C-K-S is Spanish for, that's really what it is. No. S-O-C-K-S. Oh really?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. S-O-C-K-S. These are really cool. Can I just- I don't think that's racist, right? Like that is the thing that they've built into the language. Am I cool with this? Are we all right? It's weird.

I got a big no there. I'm going to stop it. I'm going to stop it. I'm going to apologize. Okay, let's try this one then. Say I meant to kill you, but in a slightly Irish accent. Nope. I'll do it.

I'll take this one. Irish or Northern Irish? Republic. Oy meant to kill you. Oy meant to kill you. Oy meant to kill you. Well, I meant to kill you is the butter in Spanish. Oy meant to kill you.

Yeah. Oy meant to kill you. How does it break down? Oy meant... Why are you being so full-fledged about it? Oh, I've only ever heard them when they sing in choirs. I meant to kill you. Just two more of those.

Fireman Derek sounds like thank you in Albanian. Say it again. Fireman Derek. Fireman Derek. Fireman Derek. And 12 months in Estonian sounds exactly the same as cocks taste good. Lovely. There's one word in Spanish that can be spoken but that cannot be written down.

Oh. And this has been stated by the Royal Spanish Academy, which as you know, the French has the Académie Francaise, which monitors their language. Spain has exactly the same thing, which monitors the Spanish language made up of immortals who tell you what the rules are. And there's this word, which I find fascinating. And it's the word that means get out and you'd like get out to him or get out to her, you know, get out to him, help him out. It's not super common, but it is used a fair bit and it's written S-A-L-L-E or it should be. But if you pronounce that you'd say sayay,

but it's actually pronounced when people say it sol-le. And it's incredibly confusing. And the Royal Spanish Academy have said, because this word has no spelling that matches the way we say it, this word is not allowed to be written down. So this is the one word you can say soler, but there is no correct way to spell it,

and it suggests if you do want to write it down, find an alternative. They're crazy. They're so hardcore. I love the Royal Spanish Academy. I think they're brilliant. A few years ago, they printed an 800-page guide to the proper use of Spanish.

Like, they really care. So they, a few years ago, they printed an 800 page guide to the proper use of Spanish. Like they really care. Last year, only last year, they finished a 13 year battle over the use of the word solo and whether it should have an acute accent over the first O, okay? That was a 13 year struggle in Spanish linguistics. And I think they concluded no, no acute accent over the first O in solo.

But a very famous Spanish author called Arturo Perez-Riverte, he declared, I will put solo with an accent until the cold of the grave. Wow. People care. They do. Which he has met prematurely and mysteriously now, hasn't he? A huge acute accent sticking out.

They're great. Can I tell you guys a quick thing. I've just suddenly remembered speaking of my brother-in-law. So he's Spanish they He's better. Yeah So he got married in Spain and two nights before he got married He decided to throw a stag do and so I was invited to the stag do and it was him and all his Spanish friends and me, who speaks no Spanish whatsoever. So we went to this bar and my soon to be wife, Fenella, and I should say what I'm about to say next, put the whole idea of marriage in jeopardy. She and her family went home and we stayed out and we were having one more drink and just before we were going, one of the bartenders spoke Spanish, I didn't understand anything, slammed a drink down

as a courtesy bottle for us to have for free and it was called Thunder Bitch. And... Sorry, is that Sunder Bitch but you're doing the sexy accent? Yeah, it was called Thunder Bitch and that is all I remember from the end of the evening, right? I woke up, I woke up in a hut in a farm with a man holding a bowl of paella over me going, get up! And I was like, where am I?

Fortunately, the groom was there as well. I called my wife, she's like, where the fuck are you? We're in rural Spain and you've disappeared. So I thought, and I was like, oh, I was trying to look after him, but I had no memory of the night. So two days later, we went back to that bar and I thought this will be fine because we couldn't speak to each other.

There's no chat that would have happened, right? I get to the bar and I've told her that I've had a very casual night. We woke up and we say, hi, can we get a couple of glasses of wine? And the bartender looks at me and goes, oh my God, crazy Dan is back? And he went to everyone, guys, crazy party Dan is back. And they were like, you were amazing. You were on all the tops of the bars dancing and stuff.

And Fidel was like, you fucking what? And that- I can't believe a conversation about the intricacies dancing and stuff and Fidella was like you fucking what and Can't believe a conversation about the intricacies of the beautiful Spanish language has descended into a stag do story That was one incredible afternoon I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. week with another episode and we'll see you then. Goodbye!