No Such Thing As A Fish - 577: No Such Thing As A Venetian Barge

Episode Date: April 3, 2025

Dan, James, Andy and Anna discuss cloud eaters, load masters, and various Carpenters. 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

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 Andrew Hunter Murray, James Harkin and Anna Tyshinsky. Once again we have gathered around the microphones with our four favourite facts of the last seven days and in no particular order, here we go. Starting with fact number one, that is Anna. My fact this week is that some planes are specifically built to carry other planes wings.

How degrading. Is it? I think it's a bit degrading for those planes. Just you know, you're the... Oh, I think they're the king planes. The wingwalla. Do you? Yeah, I think they're the planes without which other planes cannot be.

I think they're more like a wingman. Nice. Well, whatever their social hierarchical status in plane community, these are really cool looking planes. So I was just reading about plane construction, how planes are put together. And it was saying how all the different bits are made in different places. And I was thinking how on earth they get them to where they're assembled. And read that for Airbus, which is the world's biggest aircraft maker, they use this thing

called Beluga XL, which looks just like a Beluga whale, which is the world's biggest aircraft maker. They use this thing called Beluga XL, which looks just like a Beluga whale, which is quite cool. It's got the big, we've talked about melons, haven't we, on the podcast, their big foreheads. Yeah. James is looking skeptical. It doesn't look exactly like a Beluga whale. You wouldn't confuse it with one. I've seen the image. I think they look a bit like them. I'm just trying to think if the average listener is going to know what a Beluga looks like. Maybe a dolphin? Picture a dolphin. A dolphin with a big melon on its head. A big bulbous head.

Yeah. And they paint them to look like beluga whales. They paint the smile on to make them look friendly. They're very charming looking planes and they're amazing. So they are as long as two blue whales, just to continue the whale analogy. Yeah. They're the biggest whale in the world as a result. And they designed, they can carry two wings for an Airbus A350, which is itself a really

big plane. And they were designed, I think specifically to carry two of those to fit them in because those wings are massive and the whole face of the whale comes off. So you don't load them in the back, you just pull off the whale's head. Well, it sort of lifts up. It lifts up. Yeah. So did the wings go on the inside? Yeah. Yeah. Would you not just attach them to the actual?

But then how do you fly back? Double wings. Double wings. Get them there faster. Yeah. Oh, like a biplane. I don't know why they haven't thought of that. Yes. But the Beluga is one of the smallest whales in the world. So actually it should be a very small plane. Yeah. But it's poorly named. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, it's crazy as well. So this, the Beluga XL is a more recent innovation from the original Beluga. Um, the number of staff on the plane at any one time

on the original Beluga is just two. Really? That's it. You put the wings in. Pilot, co-pilot. Pilot, co-pilot. I assume not, like two flight attendants. But now the XL has a third member, the load master. Oh, very cool. That suggests that one person's loading the wings on. Yeah, she is. Quite wild. Is it to make sure, I suppose, that they stay strapped down during the flight?

Yeah. It's all right. I got it. That's a pretty sexy job title. Yeah. Loadmaster. What are you? Oh, I'm a loadmaster. Oh yeah, and what do you do?

I watch a small piece of Velcro in terror, fearing it's going to come undone. Cool. Cool. I'm going to speak to this person over here now. They didn't always use airplanes to get these things around. The Airbus A380, they used to move everything around using something called the Itineraire à Grande Gabarit. And that is a water and road route that was created just to move pieces of this airplane

around Europe. No way. So cool. They dig sort of giant canals across Europe that we didn't notice. Well, I think they more used existing canals and made them a bit wider. Cool. And also used existing roads and made them a bit stronger. But basically they were put together in Toulouse, but the bits were made in France, Germany, Spain, United Kingdom even. And so they had to bring all the bits together to Toulouse so they could make them, but they had to reinforce everything

because they're so big. And they would always travel at night time. So they'd park up in some lay by during the day. And then at nighttime, they drive around with these. They do all these big load people, largely because it's a real inconvenience in the day, but that makes it sound sexy as well. Oh, it sounds covert. Yeah.

You travel at night. I'm a night load master. Yeah. I don't normally come to these parties because I'm a bit of a night loadmaster. On that James, so you know how NASA gets its rockets around? I do actually. Okay, well can you pretend you don't? No, do they attach balloons to it and float it around?

No, they use barges. They have a barge called Pegasus. Okay. And they load the rocket on because it's from the assembly factories in Louisiana and they need to get it to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. And it's a hundred meters long and they just load the rocket on and then it doesn't have an engine. The tugs have to just tug it all the way. How far are those two places apart? They're quite far. From Louisiana to Cape collateral is probably about 400 miles I'd say. You wouldn't walk it. I think that's weird isn't it? It's weird because the word barge is so, yeah you picture it's like toed

in the hole or something. We're in Venice. Yeah, all Venice. If you go to Venice with your wife, are you saying, hey let's get a barge. I've got us the most amazing deal. Now there will only be three stuff on the barge. But we will Velcro you down. Yeah, what I found interesting about that NASA barge is actually it's only about 50% longer and wider than a standard canal boat, because canal boats are quite long, aren't they? I mean, having stayed on a canal boat are quite long, aren't they? Wow. I mean, having stayed on a canal boat for a week, it doesn't feel spacious.

Maybe not a narrowboat, like the tiny narrow boats. Oh, we're not talking about a Rosie and Jim style narrowboat. It's 310 by 50 feet. So I'm pretty sure that that's not, it's only, it's not twice as big as a normal canal boat. It's pretty amazing, isn't it? It is amazing. But they have got another way of doing it, haven't they? They use a thing called the Pregnant Guppy, which is a modified Boeing 377.

Yes, and this was at the start, well, they made their first Pregnant Guppy start of the space race. So I think then they went back to Barges for a while, because this was in the 60s, and it was a massive problem, because at that time they made it on the West Coast and then had to be taken to Cape Canaveral and yeah, it was just taking forever and they had to go through the Panama Canal and so far it took about days. You mean the America Canal. Sorry, sorry, yes. And they took the transport time from 25 to 35 days down to 18 hours. But it was, that's what inspired the Beluga designs.

Cause if you look at them, they look kind of similar, don't they? Yeah, the Banger Guppy inspired it. Yeah, absolutely. How they're all nautical, all the sea creatures, you know, Guppies and Belugas. I think that's deliberate. Yeah. The Beluga was a nod to the Guppy. Cause the guy who created the Guppy was a guy called John M. Conroy.

And he also came up with a plane to the Guppy. Because the guy who created the Guppy was a guy called John M. Conroy and he also came up with a plane called the Conroy Sky Monster. Such great names these planes have. So cool. Hey, this is pretty cool. The Beluga XL, it doesn't just take wings. It often gets, well, sometimes gets asked to bring a few other things. And at one time in 1999, it carried the Liberty Leading the People painting. So this is that French painting

by Eugene Delacroix. The things you make when you say that, it's such a shame the listener can't see it. That's why I'm not allowed to go to France. And yeah, so that's very famous. It's a massive canvas. It's like one of them is holding a big flag. Yeah, there's a lady in a bit of a state of undress. She's definitely in an emotional state. Yeah. She's got the flag. One of the buttons has fallen off. Yes. Yeah. She'll be livid when she finds out someone was painting that.

It was, it was loaned from Paris to Tokyo and so they needed to get it over there. It's too large to fit in what was, I guess, the biggest transport plane at the time, Boeing 747. So they needed to use a Beluga in order to do it. It is nine point eight feet tall and eleven point eight feet long. That is small. I feel like I've been in a Boeing 747. That's about the same size as this wall, isn't it? Yeah. It's a bit smaller.

A bit taller and a bit. But you've got to package it up and you need to make sure it's really good packaging. So that's going to add exercise. I mean, have you ever tons of bubble wrap? Yeah. You know, when you order for like a, you know, sometimes you order just like a lipstick from Amazon. Yeah. Yeah. I was on a flight last week and I bought a bag of crisps and then I forgot about it. And then halfway through the flight, I went, Oh, I'll have that bag of crisps. I went to my bag and the bag of crisps was enormous like because the pressure change

Oh, right. Okay. So it like okay So I wondered if you had an enormous bubble wrap around your painting With an old thing would just balloon to like ten times the size It looks small when you put it in and everyone's going that could fit on a 747 You wait till we get in the air Yeah, they had to put it in a vertical position There was a special pressurized container so it didn't get damaged on the way and they had to put it in a vertical position. There was a special pressurized container so it didn't get damaged on the way. And they had these anti-vibration devices that were

in it as well. I feel like this is missing. Just in case the loadmaster got excited. Loopy planes? Okay. So various countries have really led the field in this. I think the Germans had a pretty good record for a while. Did you hear about the Blobemann-Roth BV 141? I'm just going to go speak to this guy now.

This is so amazing. So picture a classic, let's say a ball of plane from the war, you know, you've got the main fuselage in the middle, you've got the wings on either side and you've got an engine on each wing and maybe the propeller on each. Got it. Okay. Classic planning. Yeah. Classic plane.

Maybe next time just say picture a plane. No, no, no, no. Picture a person. Second world war plane. Second world war style bomber, right? This was a plane which had the fuselage, sure, but that's not in the middle. So there's a wing, then there's a fuselage, then there but that's not in the middle. So there's a wing, then there's a fuselage, then there's a separate wing and the crew are sitting in a little pod halfway along

that wing. It is the weirdest looking thing. But what's the reason? Reconnaissance. So it gave a better view for reconnaissance photos to have you not being in the main bit of the plane. Okay, because the wing doesn't get in the way maybe. I always think the wing gets in the way of the viewer a bit when you look out of the plane. Okay, well, because the wing doesn't get in the way, maybe. I always think the wing gets in the way of the viewer a bit when you look out the window. NASA actually invented a wingless plane, which they flew, called the Flying Bathtub. And it was in the 1960s.

They're experimenting. If you look at a photo of it, it literally looks like just the plane, no wings, and it managed to take off. And what's giving it the lift? You have to roll it down a hill with three Yorkshiremen in it. It's a lot for the older generation. Don't explain it, don't explain it. Yona, what's the actual answer please? I was sort of hoping James' joke would make us run past that.

I'll always wait out the joke. Return to the answer, thank you very much. Is it what we do now we don't have a flu. We don't have a flu. Do you want to hear a plane we never got? The Lockheed flatbed. This is bananas. Okay, so what's the thing about planes?

So you got your two wings, you're going to have an engine underneath each of the wings. But you put everything you got in your plane, right? Or your people in their bags. There's still a load of space above them, isn't there? Yeah. Still a lot of headroom that is unnecessary wasting of that tube of the plane. Oh yeah. So what if you had a plane which had the wings and it's got the head and the tail.

Yeah. But then it's just like a flatbed truck in the middle. It's not a tube. Okay. So do the people have to lie down in it? It's not for people. Oh, it's just for paintings by Delacroix. It's for like, I don't know, like a big lorry or a tank or whatever, like something you need to move by air that just goes in an open top sandwich.

Nice, a convertible plane. Strap that down, convertible plane. Cool. And that was designed and tragically, it was, I don't think it was built, it was designed in the 80s. The pilots get to sit in a compartment, but mostly it's open. Yeah, otherwise your hair would get completely messed up, wouldn't it? Do you guys know about the X planes? Yes. Um, where have they gone? They were meant to be the future. Well, that's how the X men get around. Yes, exactly. Uh, they are the future and basically we only learn about them after they've been declassified. So, you know, there there might be still some explains being made, but we don't know about them yet.

Right. But we know about the ones which have been made and weren't useful. A lot of them were missiles. There was one called the stiletto, which looks like basically the bottom of a shoe of a woman's shoe extremely thin aeroplane. They thought it might be able to go really, really fast. Who's making all these? This is the US.

Okay. And what's their category? Their secret until they're released? Secret until they're released, yeah. So if you're making a secret sort of wacky plane and you're in the American military, Dick Dastardly is in charge, then you give them an X designation. And then eventually some of them came out. The X43 was in 2004 and it flew at Mach 9.6. So that's 9.6 times the speed of sound. It was about 7,000 miles per hour. But the engine only was able to run for 10 seconds. So they got that fast, but they couldn't do it for very long.

You still popped to Paris, couldn't you? That's great. Can I tell you guys one really amazing thing about moving big stuff around? Wind turbines, those big sort of arms of wind turbines, you have to basically make them in one piece and then get them to where they need to go. You can't make them and then stick them together because they need to be really strong. And so they put them on enormous flatbed trucks, right? But sometimes the place where you need to put your wind turbine is in the countryside. How do you get through a little town with these massive wind turbine trucks?

Do you have to just take everything down basically? Like anything that goes over the street, any wires or anything? Sometimes that would happen, yeah, in the past that's had to happen. Or they've had to like make roads way wider. They've had to pave over the top of roundabouts because they can't go roundabouts. But they've invented a new class of vehicle called the self-propelled rotor blade adapter. And this is amazing. So you drive your truck and it's on a flatbed and then the rotor blade of the wind turbine can move upwards so that it's perpendicular to the ground, which means

you can drive it much better around like tight corners. It does mean you've got the biggest sail known to man. They would only do it at night time and everything's really quiet. But otherwise you're like you're knocking down like trees and I've actually seen, I think they sometimes don't do it at night time and everything's really quiet, but otherwise you're knocking down trees and... I've actually seen, I think they sometimes don't do it at night because there's a really good video of someone driving, I think it's in Hull, a really good video of a truck which looks microscopic when you put a what, 100 meter, like wind turbines might get up to 100 meters long. I think this one's 70 meter long turbine blade on it, sticking up like

James says in the air and then behind it there's one guy walking in fluorescent gear with with a hard hat on. He's the load master. Come on and go party to get to. Okay it is time for fact number two and that is Andy. My fact is that Japan has just experienced its maximum ever number of traffic lights. Is this by royal decree? Yeah, it's an imperial thing. They've decided there are just too darn many. What is this?

Like, how can you be sure that they're not going to add more? I'm not positive, but barring surprising demographic shifts, which aren't unheard of, Japan will never have as many traffic lights as it does now. Is your fact that Japan's population is going down? No, that's no, it's closely related to that fact. I'll grant you that. This was a piece in the FT and it was about the fact that Japan's population is going down. This was a piece in the FT and it was about the fact that Japan's population is going

down and if you've got fewer people, you need fewer traffic lights. Do you remember we did the thing about conveyor belts, that mad Japanese scheme to have conveyor belts instead of freight lorries, you know, in rural parts of the country. Basically many traffic lights are quite old now and roads in rural areas are emptying of traffic. So the police have just announced from this year, more traffic lights will be decommissioned than newly installed. So the total numbers going down demographics. It's called the 2025 problem actually in Japan, which is where this massive baby boomer generation, they are moving from early old to old old. They're over 75 now.

So they're moving into more of the, and that's not advanced old age, but you know what I mean? They're getting older. And that just means big, big changes. And this is one of them. Yeah. Is it that they don't know how to use traffic lights anymore because they're getting older?

No, it's more like that will lead to lots of shifts in terms of the amount of social care you need for people. If you have a big cohort of society who are no longer in early old age, but in older old age, that will lead to big things. And that's why they're experimenting with lots of things like robots in care homes and things like that. They're trying to solve it with a combination

of robotics and other things, mostly robots, because it's Japan. It's not just depopulation, it's the fact that the traffic lights themselves, they have a life expectancy of 19 years. And so if you wanna redo them up, it costs about 6,000 pounds in order to do each traffic light. And they're just saying, actually, let's just take them down.

It's depopulation and old age of the lights themselves. So as to your question, James, if Japan suddenly goes on the bonkathon of the century and suddenly the population is going to double, then they might consider... Japanese bonkathon. I love it. You mentioned robots. Yeah. Robot is what a traffic light is in South Africa.

Beautiful. What? What does that mean? That's what they call them. No way! Really? Yeah, yeah. What do they call robots? Traffic lights. I think you can have the same name for two things.

Don't think so. It might get confusing though. It might be. They were originally called that. So in Johannesburg, the first one came in 1927, and they were called robots, and they still are. But they're quite unreliable in Joburg, and people knock them over quite a lot. The Johannesburg drivers damage 81 robots a month, and they have to replace them and they often replace them with quite high-tech things and those high-tech things often get stolen because they have lots of metal in the cables and stuff like that. They

fitted loads of them with monitoring system but the monitoring system had SIM cards in and people realized they could just steal the SIM cards and use them in their phones and make free calls. Wait, what? And the problem is so bad that in some cases, jail sentences saw attacking robots can be as high as they are for murder in joint house fires because they decided we're going to stop this so we're going to make the punishments really high. Wow. Yeah, big problem. That is a big problem.

Singapore has got an interesting thing with its traffic lights. Depending on who's crossing the road, you might be stuck at a red light in your car longer than if someone else was crossing the road. Is this a riddle? Yeah. Go for it. Is it that they've got sensors to tell if it's someone in a wheelchair or an elderly person who takes longer to cross?

So yeah, but it's not sensors. This is a new thing, which they're going to slowly spread out through all of Singapore, which is if an elderly person is trying to cross the road, they have a car, which is kind of like a pensioner's card, which they tap onto the side, which tells the signal that there's an old person crossing and they get an additional 13 seconds to cross the road. I think that's such a good idea. I spend a lot of time with pedestrian crossings thinking this is way too little time if you're really old. Sometimes I can even only just get across.

And especially if you're not there at the very start. If you're an older person, you're like, I'm not going to start unless I was there at the beginning. Some of the roads in Singapore are quite long as well. Yeah, what, wide? They're quite wide. Yeah, they have lots of lanes, like almost as wide as our motorways, but they're just normal. God, imagine getting to sort of the middle of a 12 lane road and realizing and looking behind and in front and thinking, should I tap my car? People with wheelchairs are much like to be

in traffic related accidents, partly because they might take a bit longer to cross, but also partly because they're way less visible because you're a lower height. So in Vienna, the cameras can detect that and they sort of work out with 99% accuracy, whether you want to cross the road or not. How cool is that? I honestly thought we had similar things in London, I must say. Like there's one near our house, which gets you across to the park. And I swear when people are slowly going across it, it stays on for longer. You've got to get out there with your stopwatch. I know I'm gonna do it. Did you know, outrage of outrage, that well first of all I've always been fascinated by traffic light technology and I've like googled this loads before like how they're all coordinated,

how many lights are rigged up to the same system because you know they all seem to change in coordination with each other. You have something called a green wave. Do you know what green wave is? Well I came back from the airport the other day and I was driving from Stansted into central London and it felt like every single light was on green. I just got so lucky. That's because you'd had your crisps, you were in a good mood. But what I thought is, if you hit one green, does that mean you're going to hit all the greens because you're just going at the right pace? Well, it usually depends on whether you're in a row of traffic.

Well no one was there, it's the middle of the night. Okay, well that's very weird and you just got lucky I think. If it was the middle of the night they'd just have them on green unless another car comes. But the green wave is basically... Were you driving a wind turbine blade at the time? This is when loads of lights along the same route, along the same straight stretch of road, are coordinated to go green one after the other to stop cars stopping. Now usually it only works if you're in a row of traffic because environmentally it's much more friendly to not have lots of cars stopping and starting because you know when engines stop and start that's worse for the environment.

So people say that if you are in a green wave, if you catch a green wave then a bit like getting in a slipstream you've got to stay close to the car in front. Not too close, but close enough that you don't break the green wave so that you can get through all the greens. Because if suddenly you let enough distance between you and the car in front happen, then the light will go red. Okay. So is it, so is everyone on board?

Are you sort of, are you in the car going, oh my God, we're in a green wave? You should be, yeah. Right. And then you will, then you will try and conger it. Yeah. Yeah. Pretty cool. London has something called scutes, which is smart traffic lights and they can let certain cars and trucks and people go through depending on what's best for the environment. So if there's like some really big heavy goods vehicles that got to go through London, they think we don't want

to stay in in central London and clogging up the air. So we're going to kind of give them a bit of a free run on the green light. And that's using smart cameras and all that kind of stuff that they can do that. That's stunning. I know. And they have a similar one in Amsterdam, which can talk to your phone and they can give cyclists priority when it's raining. Wow. Isn't that amazing?

The Dutch are so far ahead of the bank. give cyclists priority when it's raining. Wow! Oh no way! Isn't that amazing? The Dutch are so far ahead of the bank. But they're kind of thinking to stop this. In fact, they might have recently stopped it because they hadn't really thought about the privacy risks of being able to see where everyone's going all the time. What's the harm? A few people have complained about it, so I'm not sure if it's still going, but for

a while that was definitely the case. There's people who are cycling home from their lover's house. And that's how they got busted. From the big Dutch bonkathon. But for a while that was definitely the case. There's a few people who were cycling home from their lover's house. That's how they got busted. From the big Dutch bunkathon. Well, I just wonder if that's, if there's a hidden sort of like air traffic control system that's used for say like if there's a major incident and you need ambulances to get through.

In America they have that. There are places like that. In the UK we don't have it because ambulances just go through red lights. Yeah. Oh yes, of course. But there is, again in the Netherlands, there's a traffic light system in, uh, oh gosh, I can pronounce it wrong. Her toggenbosch, which has all these detection loops like plugged into the whole town software. So all the city buses have

these transponders on which talk to the junctions. If the bus is running on time, the light works as normal. If the bus is running late, the lights change to give the bus priority. And if the bus is early, the light says, yeah, you can hold that. The light just stops the bus for the sake of it. Stops the bus and lets the other traffic through first. Well, this is the explosive thing I realized about this country is that, yeah, we don't have it with emergency vehicles, whereas America does, which, and I should say, because I read so many forums with ambulance people saying, we never go through red lights unless it's safe. So, you know the end is willing, nearly.

Of course, of course we don't. No, no, of course we don't. We're going to need a few more ambulances out there. We've got there in great time. We have left a trail of destruction. But do you know who can override red lights whenever they want? The buses in this country. It's so cool. So if a bus has the appropriate technology, which is the bus radio link. I think you're thinking of cyclists. You're always hopping on the back of passing cyclists and tapping them with your oyster card and just staying on until you've reached your destination. This is true. They have certain

different bits of tech that can do it, but one of them is bus priority radio link, which communicates with traffic lights. So if you're on the bus, you have this radio link that says, I'm coming along, I'm a bus, let the light stay green for me. And the light will stay green for the bus. Because again, it's better because buses are more efficient, they're carrying more people, better for the environment for them to stop and start. Sometimes you'll see, and I really want to see one of these now, a sensor on the road before traffic lights, and it's a bus sensor, and I think they're often at the bus stop just before the lights, on the bus stop, and it senses that a bus has gone past and it relays information to the traffic

light saying, if you're on green, stay on green for a bit longer, because bus is coming. So smart. Let him through. These buses are getting away with murder. Police cars are there. Such a miserable response. I am being cheated here by this bus getting through efficiently. My Ferrari having to sit here idling. Okay. Which is better? Reversing into a parking space or going in face first? I have this argument with my husband all the time.

I always go in face first. I was this argument with my husband all the time. I always go in face first. I always reverse. I wonder if it's a gender thing. I believe it's easier to reverse into any spot. Alright, you're doing the challenge. Because then I reverse coming out, don't I? We both have to reverse at some stage. Although my dream is I drive in straight and then the person in front of me and the other parking spot leaves and I could just go straight through the parking

spot. That's a great day when that happens. I knew this would be a hot button. And if you're listening at home and you've got opinions about whether you reverse or go face first. Okay, here's another reason why you should do what Anna does. Reversing out of parking space is more dangerous because there are people walking around there. Bingo. Whereas it's unlikely there are people walking around. Bingo. Whereas it's unlikely that someone's walking in your parking spot. Exactly that.

So there is a writer called Tom Vanderbilt, who's an American traffic writer. And basically, particularly in America, which is where he's focused on, there are loads of crashes, you know, some of them fatal in car parks. And it's because people, and it's also because American cars are way bigger than European ones. People just get in, they reverse out, visibility is much reduced. However, there are some places where it is illegal in America to reverse into a parking space. Really? What? I know. There's a city in California called San Luis Obispo, I'm sure I'm saying that

wrong too, which has made it illegal to reverse into a space. I don't know. Everyone who lives there is a woman in a 1950s sexist joke, aren't they? It's just chaos. It's clearly safer to do the opposite of the law in this place, which is nuts. It must be the fights, right? Because in order to reverse it, you have to pass the spot. And then it's like you've changed your mind and go actually I'm gonna and they're going no I'm a front parker. Yeah I think that's probably it. Can I say one last thing about an effect of traffic changes? So New York City has just a little bit of glamour has just introduced congestion charge. Okay.

Yeah very late. London had it about 15, 20 years ago. Durham had it before that. So yeah. Oh, nice. Okay. Well, New York has finally caught up with swing in Durham and brought in a congestion charge. And it's like, it's, it's only a month or two in and it's, you know, politically sort of much vexed because people, some people are saying, oh, it's terrible. It's woke, blah, blah, blah. But it's cut down traffic a massive amount. Like it's just journeys are much smoother now. But the other weird effect it's had, it's cut down another thing that's common in New York. What's it called? Honking. Honking. Okay. Honk related complaints are down 70%. 70%. Is that just car honking? Or is it also

people pretending to grab people's breasts? Well no, actually those are up hugely, sadly. It's also lowered the number of instances of people saying, I'm walking here! Oh, that's to cars? That's tragically down. 94% already said. Okay, it is time for fact number three and that is James. Okay, my fact this week is that bacteria eat clouds. So it turns out up in the sky, there's a lot of stuff living up there.

Lots of stuff. And a lot of it is very small. So you know, fungal spores, viruses, and bacteria, And the bacteria, how they can live up there for so long is that they get their energy from the little bits that make clouds. So if you think about it, a cloud is made out of water, right? But the water can't just stay up there by itself. It needs to get around something. So there's little bits of dust. There might be little bits of dead animals up there, little bits of, you know, dead fungal spores, something like that.

Little bits of dead animal, like the leg of a rabbit. The roadkill that the planes hit while they're up there. Tiny cellular. I meant tiny cellular things, yeah, as opposed to a trunk of an elephant. But yeah, so that stuff might be made of carbon and the bacteria can use this carbon to make a molecule called adenosine triphosphate or ATP, which is basically what we all use. What all living things use it to create energy and they get theirs from this stuff that's in clouds.

Yeah, cool. I always thought these are nucleators, the little bits that clouds gather around it. I always thought they were mainly dust and bits of earth and basically water attached them forms ice around them and that's clouds. But actually up to 100% of them in some places and the vast majority are biological. So it's largely the corpses of other bacteria that bacteria are eating. A lot of dust comes from bacteria. It's wild to think though that when it rains, there's an estimate that says a single square

meter of ground gets pelted with a hundred million bacteria during every hour of rainstorm. You're being rained on by bacteria. Because I don't really like using umbrellas because I feel like it's a bit soft. And so I always go out in the rain and I'm just kind of happy to get wet. And also because I'm from Bolson, I feel like it reminds me of home when it rains. But now that I know all that bacteria is coming down as well, I feel like I might have to use an umbrella. Now you know you're being bombarded with fungal spores. Yeah, you've got a real two mixed signals coming in there. So you, James, I recently considered buying a second umbrella

stand. Honestly, if anyone listening wants to know the difference between me and Abby, that pretty much sums it up. It's pretty wild though that it's not just the rain that I, you know, I grew up by the beaches in Australia. Every crashing wave was pumping bacteria into my face. I just didn't know that. It's crazy because I always go swimming completely naked because I think if you wear a swimsuit, that's soft.

Now you're Burkini, aren't you? I read a piece, which I'm sure you guys all did, which was printed in microbiology today in 2005. I'd read it before. This was a fantastic, I just wanted to give a shout out to Dale Griffin. I don't know if he's still trading or still listening, but It's about soil moving across the earth every year I just want to read you the quote the current estimate of the soil moving some distance in the earth's atmosphere each year is approximately

3 billion metric tons If that was converted into 1964 Volkswagen Beetles Based on weight and dimensions there would be enough beetles to create a 42 kilometer tall tower with base area equivalent to the walled city of Chester UK. Oh my God. Mate. So hang on. So think about that.

I'm struggling to think about it. So the amount of soil. Did we need the beetles in there? Yes. Couldn't we just have the soil making the tower? No, no, no, because the soil is denser than Beatles. The soil is converted three billion tons of soil converted into three billion tons of Volkswagen Beetle.

Because you got the inside of a Volkswagen Beetle is not full of soil. No, not unless you've been doing some very heavy driving. Interesting. Okay. Well, I say interesting. Do we need Chester anymore? Wouldn't it be better to have a 42 kilometres tall tower? Tea hailstorms. You know about these? Tea plantations? Yes. They're more common. Uh, hailstorms over tea plantations. And it was

this really big mystery in 1979. There was a scientist in Kenya who was aware that the world record for hailstorms was on Kenyan tea plantations. They got 132 days of them a year. Wow. Which is a lot of hail and didn't know why. And it turns out it's all the tea pickers fault. Basically as they walk through the tea plantation picking the tea, they kick up bits of leaf,

bits of dead tea leaf into the air. And there's a bacteria in tea leaf that attaches itself to the leaves as they rot and they're flawless hail nucleators. So as you pick up the tea leaves into the air, you free up these bacteria, they go straight up into the air and they hail down again. Does it damage the tea? It seems like it would, but it's not like they're constantly having to move the tea plantations to escape the hailstorm. There's a science writer called, I think he's called Zimmer, who's writing a lot of all the science writers, and he writes a lot about these things, which are collectively aeroplankton is the term for them. And it contributes a huge amount to the circle of life. So there's

a bacteria called pseudomonas and it's very good at turning water to ice or helping water turn to ice. So when a plant is covered in this stuff on the ground with these bacteria and rain lands, the pseudonymous bacteria turn the water twice, the leaf cracks open and the bacteria can then get inside the leaf, which is what it's trying to do. It's trying to feed on the leaf. So that's, you know, what the bacteria's function is and it sort of damages the plant, but clouds containing those bacteria rain more. And it might be that that helps plants grow because plants need rain to grow. So actually everyone's helping everyone in this.

So they're kind of happy to have this little bacteria cracking open their leaves because they know by doing that, they're going to get more rain. Exactly. And so the thing is there are these kind of bacteria motorways in the sky, which is mapped these kind of traffic light controlled or is it like a roundabout based system? The environment is called the aerobiome like outdoor above us is the aerobiome. So in cities, the aerobiome is less diverse and there are fewer microbes in the countryside,

loads more microbes in the countryside. And maybe this affects whether you get asthma, you know, the environment you live in, whether The microbiome is less diverse and there are fewer microbes in the countryside, loads more microbes in the countryside. And maybe this affects whether you get asthma, you know, the environment you live in, whether you breathe in more or fewer or different kinds of these things sort of affects that. But some scientists think that the 2001 foot and mouth outbreak in the UK, which was cattle livestock foot and mouth, not human one. They think it might've been due to a storm in North Africa, which may have carried spores north because a week after that storm cases of foot and mouth started happening.

So how interesting. And that's the Sahara, I think, wasn't it? Which gets blamed for a lot of stuff being carried. I think it was from there that they thought it might have come because similarly, I think we talked before about how a lot of the sand in the Caribbean is blown over from the Sahara. And there was this major coral disease in 1999, which killed off loads of Caribbean coral. It was a fungus called Aspergillus sidaui. And it happened to coincide with all these dust storms in the Sahara. And this fungus lived in the Sahara desert, been picked up, blown all the way

over to the Caribbean, killed a bunch of coral. Bloody Sahara desert. I read something about this, which I don't have in my notes because it was years ago, but I think there's an underwater cave in the Caribbean, which is one of the best places to study old sand from the Sahara because it flies over there, it hits the water, it goes down, it gets into this cave and it's kind stuck there, and no one can contaminate it or anything. And I think it's called the Dam Cave. Oh, wow. I think, from memory.

That feels like an enterprising scientist has said, well, I need to study the Sahara, but I'm going to need to study from the Caribbean. Uh. That's incredible. I think that's true. That is so good. Oh, the Dam Cave sounds like something so much more disgusting than that actually.

It's like a man cave. No offence. It's so weird. I was thinking superhero back cave. That's where I went. You went straight for the dirty magazines. Yeah. I was actually thinking of rotting Nessie corpses and stuff. With me just wanking in the corner. There's no need for that.

That's what my wife said. Okay, it is time for our final fact of the show, and that is my fact. My fact this week is that number one selling singer, Sabrina Carpenter, is the niece of another number one selling singer, Sabrina Carpenter, is the niece of another number one selling singer, Bart Simpson. Wow. It's a confusing fact because much like me, none of you would have heard of the Sabrina Carpenter.

Alan, do you want to know the Bart Simpson's leading singer? Who's the Bart Simpson fellow? Okay. So a lot of people will know that Sabrina Carpenter is one of the biggest pop stars in the world right now, and she has had a bunch of singles that have gone to number one. Me Espresso, for example, is one. And it turns out that her auntie is Nancy Cartwright, the voice of Bart Simpson, who herself had a number one hit, with Do the Bartman.

Can I just say, I read someone on Reddit, someone called Blamenixen, saying that that makes Nancy Cartwright a carpenter aunt. Because she's called Sabrina Carpenter. Carpenter aunt is the name of a species. Nice, that's good. Yeah. That's pretty good. Oh, and and is a northern pronunciation of aunt. Yes. Yes. Got it. Thank you. That was the missing link I needed. I just thought it was a good joke, but not good enough that I was going to claim it myself. You thought you'd fly the kite. You can always edit out the Reddit bit if it does really well.

Are you a fan of Sabrina Carpenter? Huge fan. I thought you would be because she's a big fan of Moss. The album cover of her last but one album, Emails I Can't Send, was inspired by old photos of Kate Moss. album emails I can't send was inspired by old photos of Kate Moss. Someone from Reddit as well. Well you have me going there. I really like Sabrina Carpenter. I think she's great.

I actually think you would like her because who was the person we spoke about who sang? Oh, it's my party. It's Leslie Gore. Yeah. I think of her as my party. Leslie Gore. Yeah. I think of her as a modern day Leslie Gore. Oh, wow. Like her song, Please, Please, Please, I reckon is pretty much the modern version of that

song. I'm always open to new talent. I'll give this guy a go. I'll give her a go and see if maybe we can help her. Apparently she's doing fine without me. She's doing okay. And was she the only one of the Carpenters who had a career after? Oh, she's not current Carpenter's sister.

Yeah. She's not related to the Carpenters who had a career after... Oh, she's not current Carpenter's sister. Yeah. She's not related to the Carpenters. What we've got here is two people who live in the modern world and they've got me and Anna. Well, let me give you a bit of background about Sabrina Carpenter. So Nancy Cartwright's stepbrother is David Carpenter, who is Sabrina Carpenter's dad. He is an X-ray servicing company member. Sorry? Sorry? David Carpenter's dad. He is an X-ray servicing company member. His, sorry, sorry. He, David

Carpenter works. An X-ray servicing company member. It doesn't feel very important. That fact is not really important. You said it in the same way that you would say he's a teacher. He's a doctor. He's an X-ray servicing company member. Company member. Right. Okay. If you ever meet someone like that at a party, again, you're moving on to the next person. I'm going home with the load muffler. That's point. Get your big trunk. Her mom is a chiropractor. The reason I mentioned these two things, the reason I mentioned it is because outside of Nancy Cartwright, there's no connection to the world of entertainment.

She's not a Nipah baby. Exactly. She's often accused of that as a result of that connection, but they don't seem to be that she started her... She can get all the X-rays she wants. Anytime she likes. Need your back clicked. You are in luck, my friend.

She released her first single, which was called Can't Blame a Girl for Trying, one week after Phish started. So she is as old as Phish, or one week. Yeah. March 14th, 2014. We should get in touch. We could have a joint birthday party. Yeah.

She's still got a week to catch up and be as big as us. Is that what you're saying? Yeah. birthday party. Yeah, she's still got a week to catch up and be as big as us. She started off, she did a Miley Cyrus singing competition when she was 10 years old. And she's gonna have to explain around. Do you know Billy Ray Cyrus? Her dad was Billy Ray Cyrus, who worked in the music. He was an X-ray guy. That's right. But it was like a competition for Miley Cyrus fan club members, but it was kind of voted for by people. It's one of those early internet things.

And it was mentioned in loads of her local newspapers and they basically said vote for her, vote for her, vote for her. So she got down to the final like three or four people and she was only 10 years old and everyone else was like older teenagers doing it. So was that when she started out when when fish was? Yeah, well, actually that happened. Yeah, that was earlier.

And then she went on to YouTube because she got big on this competition and put a load of songs on YouTube and then got massive on YouTube. She got picked up by the Disney club or someone. Yeah, she did a show called Girl Meets World, which I think was a reboot of Boy Meets World, which is a big show when I was a teenager. She was cast as the lead character, the Lindsay Lohan character in the Mean Girls musical that Tina Fey did on stage. So she had a bit of a career ahead of it. And then she did this. A lot of slugging away before you're an overnight success. Exactly. That's what we felt. Is this like an ad crossover swap? Is she going to release a song about no such thing as a bitch?

Yeah, I got to say. Come on, it's like, we're not expecting any publicity back from the traffic lights into She-O. Nancy Gart, right? Oh yeah. Is this disappointing or am I being judgmental? She's big on Scientology. I know they all are, but she's really big. What do you mean they all are?

All the famous people. She's big on Scientology. I know they all are, but she's really big. What do you mean they all are? All the famous people. Have you not seen the roof of Moe's cavern? It's one of those big pyramid wire things that you wear. She Cartwright was awarded in 2023, the status of patron Excalibur with honors by the Church of Scientology, which she called the most beautiful acknowledgement I've ever received in my life. Which I think is really weird to appreciate that. Cause the reason she's got it, I assume is that she's donated $20 million to the Church of Scientology.

The Simpsons money goes. Well, there's a lot of Simpsons money. Yeah, absolutely. I mean this album that you're talking about, Dan, this was the Simpsons sing the blues released in 1990. This is the Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah. Yeah, the one with do the Batman on it. Exactly. That was the first track and that sold in the UK It's on 400,000. Yeah, I remember it was absolutely Yeah went to number one here, but it didn't in America oddly and what's weird is it was it was only played on Sky one At this point the Simpsons in the UK. So for overseas listeners, that's a sort of pay for it. Yeah, it's a pay for channel. So quite wild. The album sounds very good. It's got, it's got lots of great musicians on it. BB King,

Dr. John, DJ, Jazzy Jeff. I mean, these are, this is my, these are my people. It was listed that Michael Jackson was the composer of Do The Buttman, which I think we might've said on this show. And I believe that's not actually true. It's a guy called Brian, Brian Lauren, but it got sold 2 million copies in the USA. I mean, it was a really, I think people forget how massive the Simpsons was. Biggest cartoon ever. Well, until the new Chinese movie, Nezha. I can't take another pop culture reference.

Just as a new animated movie, which is the biggest animated movie of all time. Oh, really? Literally came out this week. That's it. Oh, wow. Will it be the Simpsons movie? Yeah.

Probably will be. Nancy Corio, by the way, before she was Bart, she did various different roles. So she did in My Little Pony, she did a voice that was quite similar to Bart Simpson. But probably for me, most iconically, she did the voice of, if you remember who framed Roger Rabbit, there's a moment where there is a shoe being dipped into a vat of acid. That's her. That's Nancy Cartlidge. That is really neat. It's quite a seminal bit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't think that's even on a Wikipedia page. You need to get that up there.

That's funny. Guys, who's the main creator of The Simpsons that comes up? Matt Groening. Groening. No. Groening. Groening. Not him?

No, sorry. It is. I just can't believe I've been saying Groening all these years. You see that name so much. You think Groening is Groening. Groening. Do you know what his parents called? Oh, it will be... Mr. and Mrs. Groening. Wouldn't it be like Homer and Marge? It's Homer and Marge?

Is it? Yeah. No, his dad's a consultant radiology company member, isn't it? Yeah. The effects it had in the early years was brilliant. I just love all the things because there was a time where the Simpsons was really big in the news and I know they're still making it now, but there was a time where like it prompted big headlines.

So in 1996, the New York Times reported that there was a mega glut of saxophony happening in America. All children wanted to learn the saxophone because of Lisa Simpson. Sax teachers said, they interviewed the sax teachers who said this is just, you know, it's a nightmare. They would have a whole band of saxophone students. You know, it's like, this is like who are we talking about last week? The farmers who complain when they get too big a yield. The saxophones. Yeah, the saxophones. The saxophones. Bloody saxophones. You should kill Joyce. Sorry, band leaders were furious about this because they, you know, they desperately needed

a piccolo and all they got was a thousand saxophones. Yeah, that makes sense. And they interviewed one who said also due to the fact that if you go to the movies, it's always the sax playing the steamy part when there's something interesting going on on the screen. Saxy. Yeah. Saxy stuff. That's very cool. Also Bill Clinton and Kenny G. movies, it's always the sex playing the steamy part when there's something interesting going on on the screen. Sexy. Yeah. Sexy stuff.

Also Bill Clinton and Kenny G. Oh, yes. Oh gosh. The two sexiest men ever to live. So the reason I said Homer and Marge before is because I do know that fact that he named all the characters after his family except for Bart, which was an anagram of brat. And he sort of came up with it in the moment. Um, but I was reading up on his sister, Lisa, and she, she married a man called Craig Bartlett. Craig Bartlett is the creator of another show that's called Hey Arnold, which is a massive

show. I loved Hey Arnold. Yeah. And Dinosaur Train was a more recent one, which my son grew up on. But yeah, so that is a real powerhouse of a family of cartoon connections. He also named a lot of characters in The Simpsons after places he knew about. So he grew up in Portland in Oregon and streets where he grew up, near where he grew up, included Flanders Street, Simpsons character, Lovejoy Street, Reverend Lovejoy.

And there was Burnside Street and Montgomery Park next to each other, which is Montgomery Burns. And then Portland also has Turwiliger Boulevard. And of course the real name of sideshow Bob is Robert Underdunk Turwiliger, but he didn't name him after it. Completely different person. They were interviewed once and they named sideshow Bob after a character from the film The 5000 Fingers of Tea, who was called Dr Turwiliger. And it has nothing to do with the fact that also in Portland,

Oregon, there's a street called Tur-Wa-Licka Boulevard. That's a total coincidence. It's apparently so. Maggie Simpson, the baby. Her first word was daddy and it was said by friend of the podcast, Elizabeth Taylor. They got lots of famous people voicing it, don't they? But she had to do six takes because every time she did it, it came out too sexy. According to producer Mike Reese, he said we had to keep reminding Lisbeth Taylor that she was a baby talking to her father, not

hitting on him. Do you know who voices Maggie? So Maggie is, we get the dummy sucking. So you mean who does the dummy sucking? Yeah, who does the dummy sucking? Is it also Lizzie Cartwright? Nancy Cartwright. Nancy Cartwright. No.

Okay. Is it Matt Groening? It's Matt Groening. Is it? Yeah, I imagine that. It's like, it's an easy way to make a lot of money, isn't it? I think it's like when we talked about Simon Cowell doing the cowbell just to get the credits. It's like, I'm just going to get a credit on this. He can't need more.

It is the producer of the show. It can't be the difference between him. 100% he'll get paid for that. Yeah. That's very funny. That's a main character. I'm going to say that's James' opinion as to why he's doing it. I don't believe that's his motivation.

That's why I cough in these shows sometimes is to get a little extra on the back end. I'd love to start a feud with the Simpsons and then maybe they'll put us in the Simpsons as some evil. I mean no one watches it anymore so it doesn't really matter but... Well there you go, there's your feud, cool. Gosh that would be... yeah yeah yeah. They used to get into great beef with people at the time and they recently have had a bit. They've had a bit with Morrissey. Okay.

Oh yeah. He hates beef. Morrissey? Okay. He hates beef. They parodied him in an episode called panic on the streets of Springfield. They had a singer who had a quiff and was a vegan. And you know, they just took the mickey a bit. It was pretty gentle. And Morrissey complained, you are especially despised if your music has effects people in a strong and beautiful way. In fact, the worst thing you can do in 2021 is lend a bit of strength to the lives of others. There is no place in modern music for anyone with strong emotions.

In a world obsessed with hate laws, there are none that protect me. Hang on, was this targeted at the Simpsons? Yes. Okay, so the story just sounds like a generic statement. No, it was a statement to the Simpsons. It was to dear Simpsons. There he is.

They've had high profile beef with world leaders. So they had Barbara Bush called them out saying that it wasn't a show you should watch and Marge Simpson wrote a letter to Barbara Bush in response saying that she actually thinks her family is a good family. They've had episodes where, because obviously it's a global product and so there's a lot of references that are going to be not suitable for certain countries. So in China, for example, there was one episode they had to remove the line about Mao Zedong being a little angel who killed 50 million people. They thought that wasn't appropriate. In Japan...

Can you cut after angel? Japan, there was an episode where they had to lose a bit because... They mentioned the massive Japanese bonkathon. Yeah, Homer tosses the Japanese emperor into a sumo thong dumpster. So in fact, that whole episode was banned. Right. Okay. Do you think that Marge should dump Homer?

Not after all this time. I think... Oh, really? Well, I just think... When was my marriage? Once you've been in the marriage for at least 12 years, you shouldn't dump your husband. Oh, really? Well, I just think it's a relationship for when was my marriage? Once you've been in the marriage for at least 12 years, you shouldn't dump your husband. I think, yeah, I think once the kids are grown up and out of home, unfortunately,

that's never happening. Okay. I only ask because you gov asked their long suffering test audiences. This is 2018. Yeah. All right. I think all 20 people trapped in a room. What did they say? So thank you for asking. So 14% of women said Marge should dump Homer. Only 8% of men said that. So men being a bit more forgiving.

Can't believe so few of either though. Well, you go, I just want to say what you've said. When asked the majority, 52% of Simpsons fans consider Homer a man who frequently strangles his son has framed March for drink driving committed bigamy caused his father's kidneys to fail has worked for a terrorist organization and is frequently asleep or absent in his role overseeing safety at a nuclear power plant to be a good person. Has he not also like he's definitely been to space.

You must have I bet you saved the world like three or four times. He probably has. You're saying you saved the world like three or four times. Yeah, he probably has. You're saying you take the wrath of the smith? Yeah. So by contrast, Bart, whose escapades are far more childlike and consequence light is almost twice as likely to be seen as a bad person at 22%. Yet Maggie, who shot Mr. Burns, is only seen as a bad person by 4%. Spoilers.

Sorry. 4%. That was a big deal, wasn't it? When it was a big shot, Mr. Burns. Were you guys the right age for that? I remember it was like, yeah, exactly. It was like Dallas. Yeah. JR. Well, you guys weren't old enough for Dallas. No, no, no. But yeah, I was there for it. I remember it. Apparently only they had lots of forums at the time saying, can you guess who it is? And the, the, uh, the show writers said only one person got

better. It was, I remember you could bet on it. And I remember, I don't think even it was one of the options, but you, you weren't old enough to bet that this time I was going out. I would, um, when did it happen? He had a fake ID online ID. Well, I was born in 78. Okay. So I was able to in 96 I could. I'm just picturing the scene in the betting shop like a load of jaded regulars gathered around the horse racing screen and alone like nerds in the other corner watching The Simpsons. And it comes in this muggy. Oh, tear up your ticket.

One guy goes to the counter, pulls out stacks and stacks of cat. Isn't that Matt Groening? 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 have said over the course of this podcast, we can all be found on our social media accounts. I'm on Instagram on at Shriverland. Andy, I'm on bluesguy at Andrew Hunter M. James, my Instagram is notice this thing is James Harkin. And if you want to get to us as a group, Anna, you can find us on at no such thing on Twitter

at no such thing as a fish on Instagram or email podcast at qi.com. Yeah, do send in some emails because they will make their way hopefully to our bonus episode that happens in Club Fish. Club Fish is our secret members club that you can find at no such thing as a fish.com. We do a show called Drop Us a Line where we go through the mailbag and answer all of your questions. You can also find all of our previous episodes on that website. There's merchandise, there's an upcoming live show at the Crossed Wires Festival in Sheffield that's happening in July. Check that out and come see us live if you're around. Otherwise, come back next week. We'll be back with another episode.

And we'll see you then. Goodbye.