No Such Thing As A Fish - 569: No Such Thing As Jousting Parrotfish

Episode Date: February 6, 2025

Dan, James, Andy and Anna discuss NZ, Oz and Ozempic. 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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Get a deal on the iconic duo with a Tim's Donut. Plus tax at participating restaurants for limited time. Terms apply, see app for details. It's time for Tim's. at participating restaurants for a limited time. Terms apply, see app for details. It's time for Tim's. Hello and welcome to another episode of No Such Thing As A Fish,

a weekly podcast coming to you from the QI offices in Hoburn My name is Dan Schreiber I am sitting here with James Harkin Andrew Hunter Murray and Anna Tyshinski and once again We have gathered around the microphones with our four favorite facts from the last seven days and in no particular order here We go starting with fact number one and that is James Okay My fact this week is that L Frank Baum

Based one of the witches in the Wizard of Oz on his mother-in-law I didn't know that he was a 1970s Stand-up comedian it sounds like such a sexist fact that doesn't it? Yeah But if we tell you who the mother-in-law involved is it won't sound sexist and also which which it was and which which it was Yeah, that's more important. It's the beautiful and benevolent Glinda, who is the good witch of the North. Yeah.

Gotcha, you thought it was the green one. No, I don't know what colour she is, I've never seen the film. Is it black and white? She's famously, the wicked one is famously green. Okay. And it also is black and white and then not. It was sort of the introduction of technicolour

to cinema world, really. Is it? So it's not like follow the black and white road? They didn't do that. They invented the colour process halfway through the first screening of the film. It was very exciting. So quickly. Just randomly. He had this mother-in-law who was called Matilda Elekta Jocelyn Gage and it turns out that she was a very, very awesome woman, as well as being his mother-in-law. She was one of the three leaders of the women's rights movement in the US. So you might have heard of Susan B. Anthony. There was also Elizabeth Cady Stanton

and there was this lady, Matilda Elector Jocelyn Gage. She was very cool. She gave him lots of ideas for the story. In fact, she maybe even gave him the idea of becoming an author. And she came up with the idea of putting a cyclone in the story. In fact, she maybe even gave him the idea of becoming an author and she came up with the idea of putting a cyclone in the story which, spoiler alert, is what sends them to Oz. These are spoiler alerts from a guy who hasn't seen the film. I couldn't work out and therefore I have a theory on this how she suggested the cyclone. She died in March 1898 which is just when he started writing and I wonder if he was having a massive mental block where he just spent years like, I've

got this idea, but I've got no idea how to transport them. And then on her deathbed, she said, I've got it, cyclone. And that was it. Because she literally died as he was starting the book. So it must have been the first idea that was had. I wonder if she just already half written this book. And then when she died he picked it up and went oh this is good because she was also an expert on witches. Oh yes she was the real

kind. Yeah because yeah because when she did a lot of her sort of feminism and all that kind of stuff people just kept calling her satanic and heretic and stuff like that and they would call her a witch which is obviously a way of demeaning women in those days. And as such, she decided, okay, I'm going to study them. And she was a real expert on witches. So that's another part that she had. She inspired a term. So she not only was a suffragette, she also was looking at any kind of discrimination that was going on in the States at the time. And she wrote a pamphlet, and it was called Women as Inventors. And she basically said,

here are all the women who have not been given their credit for all the inventions that they've done. And years later, the term the Matilda effect is used to describe exactly that. So women who have been brushed aside from history and should get the credit. Now, interestingly, there's a male equivalent to this, which is called the Matthew effect. And the Matthew effect is when a male scientist who is distinguished and older often

gets the credit if he has a co-writer who is younger and new to the field. That was invented by a guy called Robert K Merton. Interestingly his wife Harriet Zuckerman appears on the Matilda effect list because she provided all the data that led to him inventing the Matthew effect. Can I ask the Matilda effect, if you're talking about a really awesome woman who is like one of the main leaders of the women's rights movement, but you start the fact off about her son-in-law who wrote a children's book, is that kind of similar? I think you're banged alright. Do you guys know what the reverse Matilda effect is? Okay.

So it's where women get loads of extra credit for stuff that they hadn't done. You'd think it was that, but... Is it this podcast? Wow. That is the reverse though, isn't it? Oh wow. I mean, it is logically the reverse. I'm afraid that's not the thing that's been labelled the reverse Matilda effect.

This was a quite interesting study that was done in Poland last year, actually, where a Polish scientist ran this study where they showed over 800 school children a bunch of presentations about the history of maths and science and STEM stuff. And then as part of it, they mentioned people who'd invented certain mathematical or scientific physics based things. But these were made up inventions, they were made up people. And for one group of students, they had a woman be the inventor, for the other group of students, they had a man be the inventor.

And it turned out when they asked the students afterwards, when they'd mentioned that a woman was the inventor, the people just weren't interested in the subject. They were like, well, that sounds like a shit subject. And they didn't wanna study it anymore. And so we need to stop talking about women in science in order to get women into science. And it was the girls and boys. They were both like, oh, women did this.

And it was the same level of coolness of invention they were discussing for both the women and the men. It was the same invention itself. Oh, it was the same? Okay, okay. It wasn't like this woman invented a doily and this man invented the space rocket. You'd run some great studies there. I think a Doily is a cool... I've come into contact much more with a Doily than a space rocket. A Doily has probably avoided more human misery than a space rocket. No, it's more up your street. I agree with that.

I can imagine you, Andy, starting your Doily ex-company when you become a billionaire. The world's most revolutionary doily. So before he was a writer, L. Frank Baum worked in shops and he did amazing sort of window displays, didn't he? Really, that's what he was famous for at the time. Didn't he have a magazine? How famous can you be for writing a magazine about window displays? Well, I think he did. I think in the areas where he had window displays,

people would copy his ideas. And then he had the magazine and he came up with lots of different ways of doing things. Like he thought that if you had an American flag in your window display, you shouldn't have a fan blowing it because that's not the correct way for an American flag to be flown.

It should be on the end of a massive stick with someone waving it, like a figure of eight. He came up with like a mechanical system to get a flag to go that way instead of being blown with a fan. Oh, incredible. So like he just came up with loads of amazing innovations that we all know today. And then put it in his magazine and then he put it in his magazine and said, this is what you should be doing guys. Stupid fan thing. I didn't know he did the window displays. I thought we just wrote about no He we should say he the magazine was called the show window Which then became a book called the art of decorating dry goods windows and interiors

Which was almost the last thing he published before the Wizard of Oz actually that was it was in the same year What's that was 1900 so it was maybe a year or two before wonder I wonder if he's got anyone out there who, if they say, what do you think of L. Frank Baum? They go, I prefer his early stuff. Yeah. He had a shop called Baum's Bazaar, which was a complete disaster because it was lots of tat, basically.

It was sort of a, do you call it a bizarster? Very nice. Didn't want to let that go unmarked. You know, I probably would have cut that out, but now that you've made a point of it I think let's keep that in there. Let's shine a harsh light on that. Thank you, Andy Um, and it's all also it was a very novelty based shop. It was it was not a dry goods and Coriam It was you know, chocolate like chocolates and it's based on Woolworth's wasn't it?

Yes, any old any old stuff like lanterns paper lanterns strange glassware anyway he opened it shortly before a very harsh drought decimated the entire region and the appetite for paper lanterns and amusing glassware just went through the floor and lots of people were ruined. And I think that was the point at which I think his mother-in-law, I think Matilda, was very concerned about his prospects. She didn't originally want her daughter to marry him because he was a bit of a bum. Well he was just a very bum businessman.

He was a barn. Oh, Jesus. Oh, Jesus. Brilliant. Brilliant. See, that's how you do it. That's good. That was good. Thank you for the lesson.

Say it loudly and then a loud laugh to follow it up. Yeah, he was very bad at business and that bazaar, in fact, had to be renamed Gage's Bazaar. And this was another member of his wife's family who helped him out who I think Was Helen gauge his sister-in-law so he drove the shop into the ground and his sister-in-law was like, oh my god poor Frank He's screwed up again. And so she bought up all the remaining stock renamed it gauges bizarre and made it a very successful We haven't mentioned his wife Maud daughter of Matilda She came into his life as it was a quite quick

marriage. They were introduced by Bound's auntie. He immediately said, I'm going to be marrying you one day. They married a few months later, but she, she was quite brutal from some of the stories about how she ran the house in certain ways. Cause she sort of did everything in the house. Do you mean the, the donut incident? Yeah, the donut incident. Let's talk about this. It's incredible. OK, so he comes home one day, Frank, with a box of donuts. But he hasn't consulted her about buying these donuts. She is furious.

She's the one who decides what food enters the house. She wants only good food in the house. So if he was going to do anything like that, it had to go through her, and it was not going to go to waste. So he was going to have to eat all of these donuts. He couldn't manage it by the fourth day. It's very much a Matilda and Bruce Bogtrotter situation isn't it? He has to eat the whole cake.

Do you remember that? Oh yes, yes exactly. It's that. So by the fourth day they start going mouldy and he thinks I can't eat these anymore so he sneaks out into the backyard and he buries them under the ground. Oh god. Right? She knows something's up so she goes into the garden, she she knows something's up so she goes

into the garden she digs them back up and she presents them back to him and says you never buy doughnuts again and and he doesn't and she she's asked how many doughnuts did he buy that he couldn't eat them in four days exactly yeah one of those Krispy Kreme full packs, is it? There are like a dozen in there. Anna, I've seen you go through those packs. James, we don't need to talk about my history with donuts. No, you're right. That is the whole in the story. I reckon I could get through 50 in four days.

No problem. 50. You'd have a happier marriage than he did, clearly. I love the sheer list of his failures. He's one of the... Actually, he is one of these guys who makes you think, if I haven't made it by age X, like you know if you haven't started by the age of three, you're not going to be a tennis pro for example. Baum until 35, mid-30s, was still just knocking about and doing random stuff.

So has he given you hope? He's given me a lot of hope. He was a chicken breeder. He managed to fail selling oil in America in the 1880s and 90s. He just couldn't hack it. How do you fail a petrol company? Just ridiculous. Yeah. I thought the saddest story about Frank was, did you read about when he tried to be an actor? No. I will say for him, he tried so much. The reason I know I'm not him, I'm not going to suddenly be successful at 40, is that he like had a new fan every year

and he threw himself into it and his dad bought a bunch of theatres and he decided I'll be an actor. So he kept on asking producers to cast him and eventually one said, oh yeah, I'll definitely cast you in loads of leading roles, but you need to provide all the costumes for all of the possible leading roles you could be cast in. So he went home, told his mum and dad, his dad said, no. The mum said, oh, come on, he's got a job, buy this stuff. So they spent thousands and thousands of dollars buying up all the leading, like, you know, Romeo, Macbeth, all the costumes.

He turned up with the theater troupe. On the first day, the actor was playing Romeo said, oh, my doublet's a bit broken. Can I just borrow that costume of yours? four days every single costume had been taken from him and not returned did he play anyone in the play in the end he got some tiny little extra parts that's amazing speaking of costumes by the way um obviously a movie the wizard of Oz yeah yes um the cowardly lion costume was very very, but the really interesting thing about it is because it was made of real lion fur and because lions have distinctive fur patterns, they had to use the same one all the way through

because if they wore a different lion they'd be like, oh that's just a different lion's costume because it's a different pattern Wait, as in would a viewer, a casual viewer of the film, think, where did the lion go? Who's this? Who's just a new character they've just introduced? On the other hand, you might say, good work to say, let's try and make it as much continuity as possible. To kill as few lions as you need to. I agree with all of this.

I don't know if you needed to kill one. If I'm going to be totally honest, was the real lion fur completely necessary? And also, because actually I'm thinking about the character in the film, he looks nothing like a lion. They could have just put a yellow carpet on him, couldn't they? And then, oh, we just keep using the same yellow carpet? Actually, use a second yellow carpet, it doesn't matter. I had no idea that that was an actual lion skin. That was a real lion fur.

What about perm? Lions don't have that natural perm! Like, the head bit was separate, the head bit was moulded, but the actual fur bit was real fur. Another interesting thing about that is they went up for auction in 2014 and one way of authenticating it is they looked at the patterns on the movie and they could see it was the same on the costume that they had, so they knew it was real. And it sold for three million dollars which makes it the third highest priced outfit ever sold from a Hollywood film. Incredible. And the winner is?

Can we guess the others? I think you can guess one of them. Batman's costume with the nipples on from the 2D version. Very true. Very good though. Jim Carrey's wig and Dumb and Dumber, the four haircuts. No. So just the skirker on the tin man. I'm going toppers, which surely... No, so they're not from that movie. Oh, Marilyn Monroe's dress from... Is it the Seven Year Itch?

Is the winner of the Seven Year Itch. Oh, okay. $4.6 million that's sold for. Rosebud, the slave from... No, you won't get the award. That's not a costume. That was an actor in that. Not that you won't know it, but you won't have guessed it.

It's Audrey Hepburn's dress from My Fair Lady. Oh, from My Fair Lady? Wow. Yeah, that's incredible. Andy, back to your point very quickly about he was going through lots of different careers and he finally had enough and he was like, I'm going to become a proper writer. And he sits down finally to write The Wizard of Oz. I really like this because you do often wonder if you've written something that is going

to change the world. I always wondered, does an author have that feeling? He clearly did. He got to the end of it and he had his pencil that he'd used to write the manuscript with and it was right down to the nub and he immediately framed that pencil because he knew that he'd written something that was great. It was next to his window display pencil and his exotic chicken pencil. display pencil. And it is exotic chicken pencils. A Tim's Donut and Coffee is the original collab. And now any classic donut is a dollar when you buy any size original or dark roast coffee.

Get a deal on the iconic duo with a Tim's Donut plus tax at participating restaurants for a limited time. Terms apply. See app for details. This time for Tim's. Stop the podcast. Stop the podcast stop the podcast. Hi everyone We'd like to let you know that this week was sponsored by Squarespace Yep, Squarespace is that all-in-one website platform if you want to suddenly become the biggest thing online since

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Yes, do it now. Get those videos out there. The world needs them.. Okay on with the show Okay, it is time for fact number two and that is Andy My fact is that the journey towards modern weight loss drugs begins with the venom of a Gila monster It begins with the venom of a Gila monster. Do you mean a Gila monster? I do. And that is how I've seen it written down. It's because I don't live in Utah.

I've never heard it called a Gila monster. We have had this discussion before we came on Mike and I always called it a Gila monster, but apparently you've been wrong. No, it's Gila. I don't even think you need to do the, Yeah, I don't know where that came from. What are you meant to say?

Just Gila, right? Wait a minute, wait a minute. It's healing people and it's a healer monster. Oh my god. MG, you've got to reword the facts. That's terrific. So I read this on a great blog called Astral Codex 10 and it was from a piece about Azempic. And it was about this whole class of weight loss drugs and where they come from. They're called GLP-1 drugs. They were invented for diabetes.

And then the scientists noticed, no, everyone's losing weight. Human and rat who we're trying this on, they're all losing weight. The basic thing about these drugs is, and the reason they work for weight loss, is that when you eat a meal, your intestine detects that you've eaten

and it releases this hormone, which is called glucagon-like peptide-1, GLP-1. That hormone tells your body you're full and commences operations to sort of deal with it. So, you know, your body will, you know, it tells you pancreas to release insulin, it pushes sugar down and so on. But the problem is, originally,

you couldn't make a synthetic version of that exact chemical, the GLP-1, because it decays within a minute. So if you were gonna use that as a drug, you would have to inject yourself with it every hour. You know, it's not an effective way of tricking your body into thinking you're full. But in 1992, scientists found that Gila monster venom,

I pulled out of the full Espanola, Gila monster venom, it has this chemical in it which does a similar thing. It triggers all the processes that GLP-1 does, but it lasts two hours. And so they started playing around with the structure of that and making a synthetic version of that. And they came up with something called Xenotide, which was salt to treat diabetes. And then other scientists piled in and started, you know, the thing which led to his MpIC. Yeah, I really liked. So it was 1984, Dr. Daniel Drucker, I have a lot of connection

to that was born in'm called Daniel as well. It's really weird, isn't it? I love that he he found out this thing about the Gila monster and thought I need to test it But they didn't have any of its DNA in the bank so any that they did wasn't usable So he had to get in contact with the zoo He had to go and actually get one in person and had to apply for them to go and find Go and get one. Well, they actually apply for them to go and find one. He didn't go and get one. Well, actually it flew to him on a plane. Yeah.

It was brought to him. He'd go in the zoo and sneak one out and just come. He sort of talks about how it was very different back then when you were trying to get any of these kind of DNAs that you had a theory about. And that's what it was. He said, I think this could be to help diabetes. And they went, fine, that's good enough. We'll go and get you one.

It came in a cage with a metal bottom because they're so good at digging Gila monsters that they thought if we put it in any other cage, it will just dig its way out. Dig its way through the bottom of the plane. Imagine if that's what caused a terrible tragedy. So then he did this work. And then there was a guy called John Eng, who synthesized a version. So this Daniel Drucker was working with actual Gila monsters. And then there was a guy called John Eng who synthesized a version. So this Daniel Drucker was working with actual Gila monsters. And then John Eng came up with this version, which was fake, not fake, but you know, synthetic. Yeah. Yeah. And he had never seen a Gila monster in his entire, he probably pronounced it Gila monster. Like he'd never seen one in his whole life at that stage. Also, we should say obviously,pik has become one of the most

valuable remarkable drugs in the world. It does sound like the beginning of a horror film doesn't it? Like it was great we all started inventing this synthetic lizard saliva and the effects were great at first and then we should also say that Novo Nordisk who make Azempik they say that the Gila monster study has nothing to do with Azempik. Do they? That it was an important step in the making of this kind of drugs, but their work was separate to the Gila monster. Well actually, I don't know if you know this, but the Gila effect, James, is the name for

when Gila monsters are not given due credit for the inventions that they made. There isn't an enormous bank of Gila monsters somewhere in Denmark being systemically drained of their venom. Yeah, yeah. That's not what happened. But it did take about 20 years between the Gila monster discovery all the way for it to be approved by the American pharmaceutical company. That's because it was two different sites.

Yeah, it was a long journey. And that happened April 28thth 2005, which is my birthday Stunning your 21st birthday when you became a man is the my god And here's one more thing just to say like these new drugs that people are taking to make them thinner It gives you this GLP one which helps you not want to eat. You can get GLP one naturally Good news for everyone. But unfortunately you have to eat basically healthy foods and exercise. It doesn't have to be that healthy. You could literally just eat porridge instead of taking a Zempik. And it does the same thing. And that's an exaggeration

because it's not nearly as powerful. But I did find it really interesting the role of fibre. I had no idea what fibre did as an appetite suppressant Okay, so it does the same thing when you eat fiber. It goes through your digestive system really slowly You can't really digest it So usually the stuff you eat like Andy said it triggers the release of this GLP which tells your body I'm full don't eat anymore, but then it goes away really fast If you eat loads of fiber, you know some brown bread some porridge then that takes ages goes away really fast. If you eat loads of fibre, you know, some brown bread, some porridge, then that takes ages getting to your colon and then that triggers way more release of

it later on. So as Azempik does, it will tell you I'm full two hours, three hours after you've eaten. There's a weird thing about Azempik, which is that it works inside the brain. So the anti-diabetic effect happens in your intestine because that's where the GOP1 is released and that is what triggers the body to slow down its release of sugar, for example, to prevent a big sugar spike. But scientists didn't know for a long time exactly how azempic controls the mental sensation of hunger. And it shouldn't be possible for it to happen because there's this thing in your body, the blood brain barrier, which is meant to keep your brain just working on

nice clean blood with no other stuff in it. Just stops any big molecules from getting in. Right. And a Zempig, the drug, is a big molecule. So what the hell is going on? And it turns out that if a little bit gets in and that activates a bit of the brain stem, which in turn acts as a kind of transmitter relay station for other bits of the brain, that then makes your brain generate its own GLP-1, because it's not only made in the intestine. So that's why you feel less hungry. It's really weird.

That's so interesting. So there's another thing that I was going to mention off the back of I wonder if Fibro would do this for you, and I don't think it does. One of the side effects of taking an ozembic and other weight loss drugs is a lot of people have reported the stopping of what they call food noise and food noise I've never personally had it but it's if you need I've sat next to you while you're eating I have I have outward food noise yeah not in inside food noise and inside food noise is if you can't help but keep eating and keep eating it's your head talking to you going we need food we need food right now do you see that place why don't you get some food and it's your head talking to you going, we need food, we need food right now, do you see that place? Why don't you get some food? And it's this thing that people really

suffer from when they're trying to be on the die. I don't think it's always necessarily like a voice saying it, it could be just a feeling. Exactly, they call it the noise, and supposedly a zempik knocks out the noise as well as suppressing the... But is that just because you feel full and so your body's, your brains can stop saying it? I think people who are full still have the noise going, we could probably get a bit more. Yeah, squeeze some more in. Another doughnut, Anna, come on, you can do it. Scrape that mold off the top.

But it's still good. It is the case that it's not just about when you're full because it stops other cravings, I think. So it's supposed to be quite good for people who are addicted to other things. Yes. And unfortunately, people who are addicted to exercise, it seems to stop you from wanting to exercise. Oh wow.

You don't need to anymore, you've been. We haven't actually mentioned the real major player in the Azempic story, and that is the great theme tune it has. You know, Magic by a band called Pilot? So that it's, oh, whoa, whoa, it's magic. You know that one? Okay. Okay, Andy doesn't know it. Well, we might not be able to put that in for legal reasons, but Google it. by a band called Pilot so that it's oh oh oh it's magic you know that one okay okay Andy doesn't know it well we might not be able to put that in for legal reasons but

google it if we haven't but they changed it to okay so oh oh oh it's magic they changed it to oh oh oh oh zempik and so everyone was singing it and they were saying that psychologically they think it worked really well because it's such an upbeat song it makes you feel good but you all at the certain age know that the word that Ozempic represents is magic and magic is now in your head and so the lead singer of Pilot had no idea that this was happening he just started getting messages going I'm hearing your song everywhere in America and he was like what's going on because they're able to license the song out no one had to ask him for its use of adverts and... Okay so it sounds like we can't use it. no one had to ask him for its use of adverts and... Okay, so it sounds like we can use it.

Nothing. Sing the whole thing. Unfortunately, it'll be owned by a huge multi-national music company. That's the issue, yeah. But so he himself is so on board with it that he's even gone back to Abbey Road to record the Ozempic version of the song. Is it possible that all of the science behind Ozempic is nonsense and the only way it works is that that theme tune has replaced food noise in people's heads. That could be it. Should we go on to Gila monsters? I said at the start we were blowing shit wide open. They do open their bums to keep cool.

Clever. Can they do it can they just with thought or like with muscle movement? They don't hold it open. They don't hold it open, I know that's what I'm asking. They don't have opposable thumbs then. Well you can do it with a finger. Well they can do each others. Yeah. Basically a lot of reptiles keep themselves cool by opening their mouths. Yeah.

But they can open the cloacas as well, which will help moisture evaporate and it can cool them by up to three degrees. That is a lot for a Heel of Monster party that must be are you feeling too hot? No. I think you are. Shut your asshole at the dinner table. Because they're found in the deserts of North America aren't they? They live underground mostly because it's so hot. They only come out for a few weeks each year. You just see a bum sticking out. But their tail as well right is an amazing, like when I was reading about them, I thought that's a cool thing. I wish we could do that as well. Well, store your fat in a tail.

Yeah. So it means that they only need a few meals per year, basically. And if they're in trouble, that's their stock sitting there, all the fat in their tail. There's another thing they can do. And this, I'm afraid, is sort of at that end of the body, related to the bum thing. They store water in their bladder, right? And then the phrase I found was, they reabsorb it across the bladder epithelium. And what that means is they can have a reverse piss inside themselves back into their system. Isn't that mad?

Can they do that like just with thought or do they have to shut their hands off? Squeeze! Squeeze! Okay, it is time for fact number three, that is my fact. My fact this week is that for many years in the 2000s, New Zealand's highest earning sports personality was Tiger Woods' caddy. It's a bit embarrassing, isn't it? Well, who's your greatest sports star by brute force of economics? It's this guy who carries stuff around.

Oh, there's a lot more to it than that. There's so much more. It's an incredible job. If you don't carry the things around, you do get fired. I'm just saying. That's undoubtedly the main part. I'll give you that. How much are we talking? Well, I very specifically worded it as personality. Obviously, it's not sports star.

You know, the 2000s, you would have had Jonah Lomu, you would have had all these characters. I didn't want to call, and his name is Steve Williams. I didn't want to call him very specifically a sports star. I would say he's famous in the golfing world. Absolutely. The reason he got so rich is because caddies have a salary, right? They get paid all year round by their golfers if they're playing the whole year. But on top of that, when the golfer wins something,

a percentage of it goes to the caddy. Now, those numbers are sometimes hidden. It's often thought to be 10% of what they get. So if you're winning a million dollars, that's a good amount. And he was Tiger Woods's caddy. There was an unprecedented, I think I'm right in saying James, moment in golf, where he won all the majors. He won four back to back. And were there signs on the golf course that it was going to the caddy's head?

Like, was he turning up with a golden bag? He had his own caddy. I don't really do the carrying part. It's not really for me that. Yeah, I think they're all quite humble caddies actually, having met a few in my life. I think because it's historical, isn't it? It goes back to you guys must have found this. It was like people in Edinburgh or something. A few hundred years. And they used to be kind of general porters in Scotland who were, the word caddy was applied to just someone who was like a delivery driver kind of thing. Yeah.

It was a kind of person who would pick you up something and bring it to your house and they were unionized and stuff like taxi drivers kind of thing. And you know, if you needed someone to do you a job, then you would just get a caddy to do it. Right. Yeah. And the thing they seem very keen to emphasize now, which probably people don't know who aren't and if you needed someone to do your job, then you would just get a caddy to do it. Right. And the thing they seem very keen to emphasize now, which probably people don't know who aren't into golf, is that there is more to it

than carrying all the clubs around, even though that's the main part. Yeah. I didn't know that they do give lots of advice. I'd actually like to know from James, actually in reality on the golf pitch, Jesus. How much do they do that? Because the idea is with a caddy you

have to know the whole course like all the bumps and lumps. Are they like a pilot for a ship? You know you have pilots who know the local terrain and advise how to get out of this particular river without bumping into anything. Okay so if you play normal golf with your mates you don't have a caddy. Okay. It would be very rare to have a caddy. Would you look like a real tool if you turn up with one? Yeah, you would. I mean, it would be insane. It would be utter, utter insanity. However, if you like, let's say you go and play in St. Andrews, which is the oldest golf course, one of the oldest golf courses in the world, probably the most venerable, you turn up.

It's a really important moment in your life because you're a huge golf fan. They will have caddies there who will carry your bags for you and give you lots of tips. And they will really tell you, okay, on this hole, it looks like you should go to the right, but actually it's better if you go to the left, that kind of thing. Yeah. And on, in the professionals though, would Tiger Woods have his caddy, you know, give him advice? You're like, they're too good. Like, you know, in reality, would it be just for your shot?

Yeah. So before the, before the round start, your caddy would walk out and walk the whole course. They would make their books, which would tell you where all the shots come in from, the different yardages. They, yeah, they just give you lots of advice. Yeah, the suggestions about which irons to use, because you have multiple different ones. You have, you know, it goes even deeper than that. Like for example, in Tiger Woods's case, there was one time when there was a boulder in the way of his ball.

So he hit his ball and it landed behind the boulder and they worked out that the boulder was loose on the ground, which meant it was a loose impediment. His caddy Sisyphus was able to temporarily remove it. Just for the moment, yeah. But no, and so that was his job. He had to get down. I think what happened there is they got a load of people who are watching to move it.

It was part of, actually, Tiger Woods had such a large team that it was his team, but legally on the rules rules you can have onlookers come and move an object It's just if it's just sort of resting on the ground rather. Yeah, exactly So because it was loose he was allowed to move it Um this Steve Williams who we're talking about he used to be the caddy for Raymond Floyd One of his jobs was when Raymond hit the ball Towards the hole both Raymond and Steve had to stare at the ball and will it into the hole. That was part of his job.

Is that on his job description? Well, you might get fired if it doesn't go in and he looks at you and says, you weren't willing it. That was your fault. So yeah, it's like when you watch those car races that are off road where they've got someone sitting there with a little book telling it's like that. Rally drivers. Yeah. Well, so there was a very famous caddy troop in the Augusta National Golf Course, which I guess is the best, biggest deal in the world as a golf course. One of the biggest deals in the world. One of the biggest. A big deal. Yeah. It's where the Masters happens. Correct. America. America. Yes. In Georgia.

Yes. Got it. Got it. And they had a very famous troop of caddies. So it was started in the 1930s, 1934, I think. And the caddies were all sourced from a local area, which was a completely black area. And they were all like black kids who were making a bit of extra money by carrying their bags around. Between 1934 and 1983, I think it was, it was like all black caddies who were sourced from there. I think the first white caddy there was 1983 when golfers started bringing their own, which was very controversial. But the godfather of the Augusta caddies was this guy called Willie Pappy Stokes, who started when he was 12 and he ran this caddy school. But yeah, they said a lot of the golfers at the time said

it was completely like down to the caddies that they won. There was a champion called Fuzzy Zella, who was very, yeah, they said a lot of the golfers at the time said it was completely like down to the caddies that they won. There was a champion called Fuzzy Zeller, who was very famous. Yeah, we all know the champion called Fuzzy Zeller. Oh, yeah, yeah. We all know Fuzzy. And we all know that he was the only person ever to win the Masters on his debut. And when he did so, he said it was nothing to do with him. He said he was led around by Jerry Beard, his caddy, like a blind man with a seeing eye dog. Fuzzy and beard. Is that your takeaway of that?

It's all I can remember. Is this true James? I don't know if you, as the person who plays golf here, they're known as the 15th club. I can understand that because you're only allowed 14 clubs. Right and there's this great- But you're not allowed to use them for that, are you? Rare circumstances there. They're a bit like the daemon in Philip Pullman's Northern Lights.

They're always a different animal. They're so umbilically tied to the golfer. You know, it's a real team thing. There's a golfer, right, if I'm saying his name wrong, I'm sorry, Ian Woosnam? Correct. He was doing extremely well in 2000 in the Open Championship. He was playing the golf of his life. Yeah, he was very far ahead. No, Woozy. Woozy. That is his nickname. Woozy. As far as you ever played Woozy. And then at this key moment when he was doing brilliantly his caddy said to him There's too many clubs in the bag and he'd miscounted

And the golfer Wusnam had to go up to the judge umpire Man in charge rules official bring go and say I've got 14. I've got 15 clubs Yeah, and he's a shot for every hole I think he was penalized a couple of strokes and he lost his cool. And it was all the fault of the caddy just not counting how many, cause he tried two different versions of the same club and then they'd all just gone into the bag.

That's terrible. And he was ahead and he would have won big money and then he didn't. And then he was forgiven, Woosnam forgave him, probably through quite gritted teeth. And then the next, he failed to show up on time for an early tee off. I think a few, not long after that, I think he got shown the door.

Fair. Really? Absolutely fair. They do get fired every now and then. There's a guy called Robert Allenby, who's an Australian golfer and he has fired a couple of caddies, but one of them, he fired them halfway through the round. And so one of the spectators had to come in and carry his bag for the rest of the game. Really? Wow. That's got to be a serious infraction, if it's...

I think he was a troubled man at the time and they'd had a bit of a tattoo. Okay. Did the spectator provide the advice? Was he going, hit it sort of over that way? No, no, a bit higher than you did before. It does sound really scary, like the intensity of some of these moments, because of the penalties that you can get. I'm fascinated by the rules of golf. There's a story from that same period with Tiger Woods and with Steve Williams where it's the final day of one of the major tournaments and he's going into the bag to get Tiger Woods a ball and he's suddenly like there's way

less balls in here. There's only three balls in here. There's meant to be six. And what happened was Tiger Woods had been practicing putting in his hotel room and forgot to put three balls back inside. Okay, so that's what he was doing in his hotel room. So that's Tiger Woods' fault. Tiger Woods' fault, except no, it's Steve's fault. Steve should have checked the balls before they started. Now the game has started. And the issue is you can't say to the guy next to you, can I borrow one of your balls if he's playing with a different one? You will get a penalty and strokes will be added to your right to your count. So he's going to three balls Don't tell tiger. It's absolutely fine tiger. It hits the first ball scuffs it goes

Oh, this is crap hands it to a kid Steve goes. I can't take it off the kid. This is live TV It's gonna look so bad. So he doesn't do that then they go and and then later in the game I have to ask a kid. Can I have my ball back? Yeah, true and then he hits it off into He hits into a spot where I think he wants to reset the ball So he goes give me my next ball now Steve knows this is the final ball So things are gonna screw everything over for Tiger Woods if he doesn't land this next shot. So stressed I know it's that's the thing. It's like high octane, it's like a poly 13. Anyway, it makes the shot and it's fine, but like, you know, you don't really know what's

going on. Is that it? Does the poly 13 end abruptly as well? Yeah, it all works out fine. Yeah, it's all fine. Right, okay. It's intense. It's so intense.

There's one other caddy who got fired that I read about. I don't know if you guys know about him. So first of all, they all have nicknames apparently, which is quite cool. Like literally every caddy seems to have a nickname like John Stovepipe Gordon or Frank Marbleye Stokes. And there was one called Willie Cemetery Pertite, who was Dwight Eisenhower's caddy. Oh, so his nickname Cemetery. Yeah, yeah, yeah, his nickname Cemetery. So he was fired in the end for being too old and slow, but the way he got. Oh, we all get there eventually. James, your days are numbered.

But the reason he got his nickname, it was given to him by Eisenhower, and it was because he, by night, was a jazz drummer, and he was leaving a gig, and he was jumped by this gang with knives who had been sent by his ex-girlfriend, who upset that he dumped her and he was very badly injured he was sent to hospital people thought he was dead he basically woke up in a morgue staring into the eye of a mortician who was about to you know cover him and wax or whatever and embalm him and because he'd been given the wrong meds and everyone thought he had died. Wow. And so from that day on he was called Dead Man until Eisenhower said,

I don't like having a caddy who's called Dead Man. Shall we go with cemetery? Isn't that good? Wow. It's a good nickname story. That is good. That's really cool. That's a solid one.

I wonder if he's in the caddy Hall of Fame. He's not. He's not? Oh, man. I had a look into the caddy Hall of Fame. 130 men and women have been entered into the Hall of Fame. Well, 129 men. Exactly. Actually, 128 men. There's two women, but one of them isn't a caddy.

So it's a lady. So Fanny Soonison, who is a very famous caddy. She was Nick Faldo's caddy for many years. She's the only actual female caddy in there. The other person is called Laura Cone, and she's who founded the caddy Hall of Fame And so she's in there for honorary purposes. Just to get herself in there. Yeah Someone else is in it is George Lucas. Oh, yeah Yes, caddy Hall of Fame. Absolutely George Lucas Started his career as a caddy and he is actually the king of the yardage books that James mentioned

Which is the books that now everyone carries around. Actually now they've been banned. Actually, they've been fully banned like as in in the last maybe six months. But I'm sorry, what's the yardage book? It's a thing where you a book that was sort of invented by a few individual golfers in the 50s or 60s, where they drew up the complete lay of the land very detailed, all the contours, the distances, the angles and everything. And then this George Lucas guy was like, I'm going to make an official one. Spoiler alert, it actually wasn't the same George Lucas, I don't think, although I didn't. It is a different George Lucas. What an incredibly, incredibly misleading fact. Jesus. Oh, great. Okay. He's actually more interesting than George Lucas.

And they could be the same person because the way he measures all the distances is he goes around, or he went around golf courses with a laser and he fired lasers at different spots on the golf course. And you know, the time they took to bounce back told him the distance it took. Which if that's not a light saber.

A light saber, yeah. Yeah. Right. I don't know what is. Well he does insist all the golfers he caddies for go vrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr It was something like gorgeous. Oh yeah, gorgeous with a J. Wow. Very nice. Okay. I don't know how I got onto this, but I was trying to find sports where you can bring

a friend. Like carrying, I suppose. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, weightlifting. You often have someone to help you with the weights. No. You wouldn't know someone to spot you when you're lifting a big heavy bar. They might be able to step in if you get into difficulties or

whatever. In professional stuff, do they? I don't know. But anyway, I found. They might do. They might do. Yeah, yeah. Anyway, just the Google, you know, what shows up automatically when you type in sports where you can. It's quite interesting. You've got sports where you can be short. Oh, yeah. for you. I didn't look it up. Lindo. Sports where you can start late. And I thought that originally meant like at noon or whatever.

It turns out it's sports where you can start. If you want to be the L. Frank Baum of... Exactly. Exactly, start late. The guns fired, everyone's gone. You're gone. Just give me a second. I thought you meant if you just, the guns fired, everyone's gone. You're gone. Just give me a second. I'll start on the next lap.

Yeah, yeah. And most of those articles, I did follow this one, it's mostly, look, even if you're 12, it turns out you can start this sport and be fine at it in life. But the one exception does seem to be equestrianism. Yeah, jockeys. So old. Showjumpers are often in their mid-40s. There was another New Zealander called Julie Braum who debuted at the Rio Olympics, so old. Showjumpers are often in their mid-40s. There was another New Zealander called Julie Braum who debuted at the Rio Olympics age 62.

And a lot of the horses are old too. Are they? They're teenagers. In horse years. In horse years, they're quite old for a horse. Yeah. Yeah. We've spoken to a lot of sports people

for our other podcasts that we won't go into. No, I don't want to mention it here, it's embarrassing. It was last year when we did all that plugin. But occasionally, like I think shooters tended to be a bit late and occasionally you do come up with someone who Started when they're at university and stuff like you get rowers who start university and yeah It's time to get into it isn't it? Yeah often in the Paralympics you start later, which is quite hard to decide to do that That's the slightly weird thing that I wasn't expecting to learn about caddying Which is I assumed that maybe it was an alternative career once you try to be a golfer That's a slightly weird thing that I wasn't expecting to learn about caddying, which is

I assumed that maybe it was an alternative career once you tried to be a golfer and then you pivoted into that as a secondary job. But Steve Williams started doing it at six and a lot of caddies started when they were very, very young and that was the primary job. Like it's a job. It's a skill. It's got this whole... The money is so variable depending on whether your Tiger Woods caddy or not, basically. And there have been some controversies, like there was a golfer some years ago who won $1.3 million on an event and he paid his caddy $5,000. And that was a real controversy.

Was it Jim Furyk? It was Matt Kuchar? Oh, Matt Kuchar, that's right. Matt Kuchar. And there was a little bit of backlash to that at the time, but he said, look, we had an arrangement, he's very happy with it, he's earned five grand in a week, well done him. I would say still. He's really happy with that.

Honestly, still people bring that up to Kuchar. Really? In interviews and stuff, yeah. So there's a little discrepancy, because Dan was saying you have to pay some of the prize money to them, but it doesn't matter. I think his normal caddy wasn't there. So he brought in a new person and said, they'll pay you this flat sum. Right. So it's not a rule, which is like you have to pay them 10 percent.

I don't know. Just on rich sports people and jockeys, you can be super rich and old as a jockey. And do you know the keep talking? So I happen to come across a list of the 50 most well-paid jockeys in the world. Okay. And current. And 29 of them are Japanese. Weird.

29 out of the top 50 are Japanese. It's huge in Japan because it's one of the only four sports you can gamble on legally. So they get loads of money. And the top guy, Yutaka Take, is 56. And he's earned a billion dollars. What? I think a lot of that money was when he was a sumo wrestler before he got the Azem pick. You're absolutely correct. And now, any classic donut is a dollar when you buy any size original or dark roast coffee. Get a deal on the iconic duo with a Tim's Dollar Donut.

Plus tax at participating restaurants for a limited time. Terms of flight. See after details. It's time for Tim's. Drive safe and obey the rules of the road. Vehicle owners who receive a red light or speed camera violation can pay or dispute online at toronto.ca slash aps. Okay, it is time for our final fact of the show.

And that is Anna. My fact this week is that if 88 elephants balanced on a 50p piece on a parrotfish's beak, the beak would not break. Mmm. What part is the 50p piece playing in this? It feels like an unnecessary intermediary layer. I'll tell you, I'll tell you what part is playing.

Pressure is depends on area. And I think I have to say and I have to come out and say at the top because otherwise someone's gonna mention it. I was clicking through some stuff and I ended up reading an article in Scientific American called Fun Facts About Teeth. And yes, I'm a senior QI researcher and it's a long time since I read an article called Fun Facts About X, but it was a good article.

And it was in this article and it said it's about an inch. So if you have the square inch, so I thought 50p is about an inch, probably. One of the old ones. I had the 50p on its side. Did you get it on its edge, but it's not. No, sorry. No, I think that would break it. Sorry. No, it's a 50p on its side. Did you hit it on its edge, but it's not. No, sorry. No, I think that would break it. Sorry. No, it's the 50p laid down flat.

Then I've got a big apology to make to my parrot fish. And this is just about... Are we going to cut to live to see the experiment in action? Abort! Abort! Have you factored in the weight of the 50p? Because it's exactly 88 elephants. I haven't. Okay, it's 87.9999 elephants and the 50p peas. Asian or African elephants?

Bucks. Are we talking full grown males or are we talking newly hatched? Got it. I'm just going to give you the amounts, okay? Let's just take away the stupid metaphor and I'll tell you that one square inch can take 530 tons of pressure you happy? Hey, what's a parrot fish? So it's a fish and they have these beaks so that the fish you often see on them coral reefs gnawing away and beautiful

What should be the elephant's out of the way? Yeah, it wasn't a great dive, the reapers covered in elephant dung, it was horrible. That's why they're dying out. They have, they're very beautiful except for their faces I would say, and maybe it's just a personal thing. I get that a lot as well. Because they've got these weird beaks. And it looks a little bit like if you've ever seen, what's it called, the sheephead fish, which has almost giant human teeth. But their beaks are made from about 1,000 teeth, arranged in 15 rows, but they've been compressed, and compressed, and compressed, and sort of molecular level woven to make them incredibly hard.

It's the stiffest biomineral ever found, which of course is not the same as the hardest. It's only the second hardest. What's the difference between stiff and hard? The questioner took me a long time to work that out. Yes, I mean you did. Harder means if you like get a diamond on it, one of them will scratch the other.

Yes. That's basically it. That's hardness. Diffness I think is more about how bendable it is. on it one of them will scratch the other yes yes okay that's oddness stiffness I think is more about how bendable it is so if you try and dent it with your fingernail it will dent the least out of any what do you call it bio mineral bio mineral yeah basically just a thing that's made by nature it's a rarapetite right yes floor appetite floor appetite is the same stuff as you

get on your teeth if you use fluoride toothpaste Your teeth create fluorapatite which makes them so strong. I did not know that Yeah, so it's sort of but I would not be able to for example as these fish do chew coral I mean no because most of your teeth are made of dentine and other stuff But you can get small amounts of fluorapatite in your teeth if you use fluorine. That is very cool But don't try the elephant trick. Okay. No. Okay, so these parrotfish, they're very good in a way for coral reefs,

despite the fact they eat large chunks of coral reef, because the reef gets algae growing all over it, doesn't it? And that slightly inhibits the growth and the natural functioning of it. So along comes Mr. Parrotfish and just crunch, crunch, crunch. Yeah. They are really... Because it wants to eat the algae. Weird thing is the parrotfish don't want to eat the coral, they just want to eat the algae on it, but it's bloody hard to scrape off isn't it? Yeah. Well there are loads of species, some of them just scrape off and some of them do more

gouging and they do all kinds of varieties. But they're massive. So each adult green humphead parrotfish, which is a particular species of parrotfish. They're the biggies. They can get about a meter and a half long They can eat five tons of reef per year It's so much. Yeah, and then they poo it out. We've mentioned before as sand basically beautiful white sand They're responsible for so much. They put out hundreds of pounds per year. A single parrotfish can produce up to 90 kilograms of sand each year, which is enough to fill the most popular parasol holder on Amazon. Sorry? At the bottom of a parasol you have a really heavy sort of thing.

Oh yeah. But it's not always heavy because otherwise how do you get it to the beach? What you do is you bring it to the beach and then you fill it with sand and that makes it heavy and stops your parasol from blowing away. Sorry. Anyway. We're the only producer. That actually is quite disappointing to me. One parrotfish would fill that in a year.

Well, that's less than I thought. At first I thought you were talking about one of those parasols that ladies had in, like in My Fair Lady. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. But you mean a big one. Yeah. A big one.

I don't think we've said before about parrotfish. One of the other brilliant things about them is that they have two sets of jaws okay like the alien in alien you know they open the mouth then uh-oh there's a little mouth inside second one okay yeah what are they using for that there is a word for that isn't it pharyngeal teeth pharyngeal so i think moray eels have them yes and uh a few other things but they're really rare. If you're diving a reef with pharyngeal teeth that's a moray. Look at that. James, that's beautiful. Brilliant. And those are the teeth which grind up the coral and turn it into sand basically. Yeah okay. So the main teeth just bite off chunks and the

pharyngeal teeth are the ones that do the fine milling of the coral. Yeah. You mentioned the giant bumphead parrotfish, the big ones. And they fight each other by headbutting, which I think was only filmed recently for the first time. And it's quite funny to watch, because they've got quite thin heads. Like, if you look at them face on, they're almost two dimensional.

So you watch them going after each other, and they miss each other about 3 quarters of the time. They just whiz past each other and then spiral back around and then eventually bump into each other. It's like jousting. Yes yeah did that happen a lot in jousting you just went straight past. I saw some jousting last summer at a castle. Oh yeah. What do you mean of course you did? You're a renaissance man. Thank you. Oh you really flipped that into a compliment that was was amazing. Yeah, no, it was great. But they didn't, they didn't. Was it not violent?

Oh, it was. Oh, that's why you liked it. Well, I blindfolded myself for the violent bits, but I know it was, um, it wasn't too violent. There wasn't, that wasn't enough gore. It was, you know, everyone, everyone walked away. Okay. What was it? Like it was a... It was, it was just a, I think it was Hever Castle in Kent. Oh yeah.

Beautiful. Amberlyn's old house. And,. And they were just having a sort of medieval fair and there was jousting. There was a great hype man dressed as Henry VIII who was doing a lot of crowd work. And then they did a good bash at each other. It was really fun. And was it as with the giant bumper parrot fish that the winner got to shag the woman at the end?

That does explain why they sent us all home. Wow. So that's how that ends. That's how that ends. Yes, yes, it is. Although they all start out, almost all parrotfish start out as women, don't they? As three males. There are a few that are born male,

known as primary males, but quite rare. And then as they get older, get sexually mature and the biggest female in the group has a sex change thing. Well it's one male and then a load of females so it's a harem situation and then one day the male wakes up and finds out oh hello my biggest girlfriend has turned into another bloke who's now challenging me this is a nightmare scenario. And the thing I find amazing about it is that if you've got the harem, which they do seem to be referred to as, a female and a male, but then the male dies, another female will

know to change sex and how does that happen? Isn't that unbelievable? Does she think about it or does she kind of go inside and do some molding? There is a different kind of parrotfish. So these are not the only fish that get called parrotfish This is a I never know how to say it's itch lid. Oh I always call them chick lid, but I don't think they are chick lids that I that's a word that I always mispronounce Sick lid is what I let's land on that see I see a gel ID

But they are called the parrotfish and these were invented in the 80s Monkeys they were hybrid of two different cichlids. Cichlids. And I was on Tropical Fish Magazine website, which said it was as improbable as Steve Urkel and Madonna getting together. That's one for the oldies, isn't it? Who's Steve Urkel?

Well, Dan knows who Steve Urkel is. No, I don't actually know what show he was from. I can't remember. Oh, God. But he was like a very annoying sort of nerdy American... Point Dexter sort of... And who's Madonna? Which is the Virgin Mary, which is why it would be so surprising for her to cop off with Steve Urkel. But they get bread because they're breedable ones. These are for aquarium nuts, because they're on Tropical Fish magazine. They get bred jelly bean parrotfish,

which have been soaked in a dye and artificially colored. Some of them have tattoos. So they're soaked in a dye and then permanently they stay that color? Yeah. Wow. Some of them have tattoos on. Like you get people to tattoo their fish. It feels bizarrely unnecessary because of all the fish.

Parrotfish are famously beautiful patterns and colors. And everyone is different. And those are proper parrotfish not these these are the proper fact Okay, sorry. Oh, so maybe these ones are a bit more dull and they wanted to be more like the proper ones So they tattooed them. Very weird. But yeah amazing and they get even more colorful when they're pissed off. So Defending territory they'll get even more attractive. Yeah There's quite a few species of them as well, right? There's between 60 and 90 subspecies of a parrotfish. So when we're talking about one, it might, a thing we're saying might not occur in another subspecies. But they do do that thing that we've mentioned on the

show before as well, where they create a mucus bag when they go to sleep. So it's the sack that they just sleep in overnight. It just looks amazing, doesn't it? It looks incredible. And that means that they sleep so long, they're so lazy, they sleep 10 hours a night. Oh I imagine that. I know! You just need to learn to build your own mucus bubble.

I've been trying, I've been trying Anna. Yeah it's pretty disgusting. We need to clean this room every time you're in it. They do it every night? Yeah. It takes an hour I think. The idea is that they do it to stop parasites, right? And the way that they worked that out is scientists got a load of them in a pool or something.

And when they made their sleeping bags, once they'd fallen asleep, the scientists sort of very slowly pulled the blankets off them so they didn't have them anymore. And then they put parasites in and found who got bitten the most and they got way, way more. Oh, that's interesting. Because there's also a theory that they are using it So that if anyone is trying to pull the blankets off They've got time to escape rather than just be outright sitting there to be eaten. I'm sure there's multiple reasons behind it Yeah, so it's for big predators and small ones in a way. Yeah, that's what pajamas are for. That's great Your pajamas are covered in metal spikes, aren't they?

No parasites on Andy. No, exactly. There was a test on the moray eels actually, an experiment, just while we're on the experiments done on these things. So on the pharyngeal jaws, the cool thing about them for the moray eels is that it means they don't need to feed in water. Oh, well they can grab something like a mosquito or something? Kind of, or a little bit of prey outside. But I find this so weird. Basically it's to do with the mechanics of how you eat. Like all other fish need to be in water, the mechanics of water, so that they can feed.

Like it's just, we would find it difficult to eat if we were submerged in water. Do you know what I mean? The mechanics, the physics doesn't work as well. So the scientists who did this on the eels, they trained the eels, they took five years training seven eels to slither up a ramp, grab a mouthful of fish from outside the water, and then go back into the water. I don't think there was evidence that they were doing this before, that they were eating outside water, but I think they were trying to show how these draws worked. What if that knowledge spreads among the eel community and now... They all leave the ocean? Yeah, again that's the start of a horror movie isn't it? Like beach goers... Oh you mean disasters for us?

I was thinking disasters for the eels but you're afraid of the... I just think we shouldn't be teaching animals to come out of the water and bite live prey and go back in. Yeah? Sorry if that makes me old-fashioned. Hahaha! Guy who's seen a jousting match at a castle. Hahaha! Hahaha! Okay, that's it. That is all of our facts. Thank you so much for listening.

If you'd like to get in contact with any of us about the things that we've said over the course of this podcast, we can all be found on our various social media accounts. I'm on Instagram on at Shriverland. James? My Instagram is no such thing as James Harkin. And Andy? I'm all at Bluesky. Oh! I don't know how to...

Are you? You are at Bluesky? Oh, God! I'm old! I think I'm at Andrew Hunter M on Blue Sky. I'm not sure. Okay. Nice. Good luck everyone with that hunt. Or you can get to us as a group through various different means. Anna, what's the best?

Yes, you can email podcast at qi.com or you can tweet at no such thing or you can Instagram no such thing as a fish. That's right. If you want to find out anything more about us, our club fish, you want to find all our previous episodes, you want to just read general stuff about us, you can go to nosuchthingasafish.com. All of that stuff is there. But otherwise, come back next week. We'll be back with another episode and we'll see you then. Goodbye. A Tim's Donut and Coffee is the original collab. And now, any classic donut is a dollar when you buy any size original or dark roast coffee.

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