No Such Thing As A Fish - 579: No Such Thing As Indiana Jones And The Rare Burrito

Episode Date: April 17, 2025

Dan, James, Anna and Andy discuss noise, names, notes and nachos.  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'm sitting here with Andrew Hunter Murray, James Harkin, and Anna Tyshinsky. 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 sodium citrate, the chemical you add to cheese to make it melty nacho cheese, contains sodium, carbon, hydrogen

and oxygen, all according to their chemical symbols, NA, C, H and O. Unbelievable. And this is proof of living in a matrix, right? Yes, very unimaginative matrix. So I was watching a YouTube clip by a person called Minute Food and they showed an experiment of how to make American cheese from any kind of cheese. So you could just take any kind of cheese and add sodium citrate and it will make it more melty and in that that's when they get satisfied. Although I've looked since logs and it is kind of all over the internet,

but it's not like some people won that. It's not enough over it. I think that we're doing the world a favor by hopefully putting it more on the internet because it is amazing. Yeah. This podcast is about what I learned this week. And this is a thing that I recently learned. It's a melting salt, isn't it? So when you melt the cheese, the fats and the proteins separate out from each other and they, but it can get very lumpy. Kind of forms like a mesh. Normally it's like a big solid thing with proteins and fats and moisture and stuff.

It kind of all spreads out. Now you've got this mesh of stuff and the more meshier it is, the more melty it is basically. Yes, and the sodium, as far as I understand it, it replaces calcium ions. And the calcium ions are the thing that made the cheese proteins all bond together. So the more sodium citrate there is,

the smoother the meltiness gets. And it does exactly the same thing in another thing that needs to get thinner. Humans. Oh, it should be used to diatrocate. A zempic is actually made of osmium. Blood, blood thinners. Really? It's put in lots of blood thinners.

Exactly the same thing. And it's usually in when you donate blood, they need to add something to keep it from clotting after you've donated it before it's given to someone. And they pop in basically nacho cheese. Sodium citrate also helps your body to create hydrogen ions, which lowers acidity in your muscles and stops you from feeling the burn when you do lots of exercise. Oh, cool. I'm not exactly sure of the chemical process of how it works, but it does work. And so some people take sodium citrate supplements.

Well, they might use it if they've got a urinary tract infection because it can be used to relieve discomfort in those. Really? I presume by just selectively melting bits of your urinary tract. I've understood the science. Does it work if you kind of shove some melty cheese up there? I think that's, that is suboptimal, but it will in a pinch. That's what you've got. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Natural cheese is not a cheese. It's not a cheese. It's a cheese product made from cheese.

Because as James says, you can put any, any old cheese you shove it in, you put this stuff in, you melt it, that becomes the natural cheesy sauce. So there's no sort of core cheese. Yeah. That produces natural cheese. So natural cheese is not a cheese. It's a cheese derivative. Which should be- It's an idea. Very clear if you eat it. It's kind of, it's weird because it's taking a cheese and it is making it worse, isn't it? I mean, it's making it more useful because it can spread over stuff. I think the thing is about food is it's not completely objective.

I disagree about that. And I think, do you? You think everyone who likes that cheese is just straight up wrong. Well, I have Brie on my nachos. That's what I do. And it's a bit harder to melt, but it's fine. The other thing about American cheese is it was invented in Switzerland by a Canadian. I think we've mentioned it before.

It's James Kraft who came up with the idea of extending the shelf life of cheese by putting all these salts in it. Interesting. Have we mentioned the competition we did? Oh, on stage. On our last tour. We tried to break a record for the most slices of American cheese eaten in a minute dry. Yeah. Yeah. So we, it was a Guinness World Record. I brought Craig Glende, who's the editor-in-chief on stage for us to attempt to break it.

We sucked. It was really hard. 10 slices in a minute without being able to lubricate your mouth is nuts. It was too much. James, you got the most, I think. I think James did pretty well. I did, respectively. And you guys did a small corner?

I ate one. I was just so pulled by the quality of the cheese. I found the hardest thing was taking off the bits of plastic because you had to do that as well. And I think the pros have like a special flip that they do with a wrist that kind of flips the cheese out and helps them to eat it. But I think I had four in a bit. Yeah, you did amazing. That's good. I've had like one and he'd been practicing for a week before. Yeah, I've been practicing for so long, but he only told me on the night I couldn't drink. If you can drink in between, you can get a lot more done.

And do you know what you can do in fondue instead of add sodium citrate and what they do do in fact? White wine you add to it. Yeah, I guess you know how to make fondue. I do. And his reaction there was like, she'd asked David number between one and a million and I guessed it. I was thinking, how has James worked out the chemical processes and then figured out that wine does that? Oh no, he just knows fondue recipes.

That's what the wine does in fondue. Dry white wine has the same kind of acidity and that helps the cheese not congeal in exactly the same way it stops the casein proteins binding together. Does the alcohol burn away or does it? Most of it burns away but it is why fondue smells as like you'll notice of alcohol, which I've always thought, God, it's such a strong smell. I don't think I've ever eaten it sober. So like for me, there's so much alcohol around anyway. I've never noticed the smell of the fondue.

You're so right. It's just in the air, isn't it? Who invented nachos? Have we said this before? I'm not sure we have. Mr. Mr. Nacho. Mr. Nacho.

Actually, not Mr. Nacho, Mr. Anaya, but his first name was Nacho, which is short for Ignacio. And he created them in 1943 at the Victory Club in Mexico, Coahuila. And it was a restaurant close to the border. And a lot of American service people who were kind of training for World War II were there and their families as well. And they all came in one day and said, we want some food. This guy was the maitre d' but the chef had disappeared. So he said, don't worry, I'll make you something.

And he ran into the kitchen and all he could find was this cheese and bits of tostadas and a few jalapenos. And he put them all under the grill and the new dish was born. So you're saying it was kind of discovered by accident in a way. Maybe. Did he have sodium citrate? Then did he have to, did he have like a big jar of chemicals? It was's like one of these will work. Cause actually natural cheese, as we would know today, like the real, the stuff you could kind of squirt onto the top of it didn't exist then that existed a bit later. I believe he did get a promotion to head chef or something. He did.

Interesting. I didn't know if that was a promotion. I thought they were just on different career streams. Like I would have thought major D then goes to hotel manager. Okay. Well, he just changed career, off the back of a major invention. Because he had this moment of... He just had this moment of glory. That's very nice.

100% agree. Sorry? I just agree with you Andy, I just hadn't put that together and now I think about having worked in hotels for lots of my life, that absolutely isn't a promotion at all. It's very much a sidestep. It's a pivot, yeah. And then he eventually left, he opened up his own restaurant, which he called Nachos Restaurant. Though I feel like he missed a trick, I feel like he should have called it Let Them Eat Nachos. That's my title. Because his wife was called Marie

Antoinette. And that just would have been fitting. But you would have had to have big brackets. The owner's wife is called Bury Antoinette. It's a great story for when you're sitting down saying, why'd you call it that? Another thing from Mexico, or another food from Mexico rather, Caesar salad. Invented in Tijuana in the 1920s. In fact, not only in the 1920s, in 1924, because they've just had the 100th birthday of the Caesar salad. A chef called Caesar invented it had the 100th birthday of the Caesar salad. A chef called Caesar invented it, which is why it's called Caesar salad.

It's actually got nothing to do with Julius Caesar. I didn't know that. No. That feels like the kind of thing you learn in QI on your first day. I'm so embarrassed. This is actually a suspiciously similar origin story to the natural thing. He had a big crowd in the kitchen at his restaurant, but he only had some lettuce and crostini and a dressing.

Yeah. What it makes it seem like... Wait a minute, was it a Caesar salad dressing? Because it feels like that's really part of the invention. Yeah, yeah. It's like, yeah, but who invented God? You know. Here's another surprising one.

Where was the burrito invented? Oh, like Nantwich or something. Yeah. Like during the Pina Colada festival. Yeah. There was a big rush at the pina colada festival. Yeah. There was a big rush at the pina colada festival. Someone said, we need something to mop up all this pina colada.

And the chef only had some pulled pork. Got it in wine? Burrito. So, okay. Well, for me, Mexico, because it means little dog key in Spanish, burrito. Absolutely. I've only got a very silly answer here. So, yeah, North Korea.

This surprisingly, it was invented in 2011. This is one of the weird ass claims that Kim Jong-il invented the burrito that was released by the local news sources of North Korea, who said that its popularity has been booming ever since 2011 and his invention of it. But it's one of those false memory things where you think you had them in your childhood, but actually who saw a burrito before 2011? Exactly, I never did. No one. I think it's no one. They actually have in their real history, or sorry, the alternative Western history, they did tend to be eaten in Mexico. And then there was this massive program called the Braceros program in the 40s and 50s where

The US was short on workers and there were loads of Mexicans who wanted to come to America So they offered them loads of work permits and Americans thought the good way to feed these laborers who of course they were paying Lower wages and they would pay Americans is to give them these burritos, which we know they're into so they gave them all burritos Every day two burritos a day But all the immigrants came from central Mexico where actually no one ate burritos and they hated them. And it was part of the reason for huge resentment was the fact they were being force fed these. And I don't think they were the great burrito. They were like a bit of wrap and some beans, no sauce. Before all of this, of course, we had the Aztec and the Maya and the pre-Columbian Americans and they all let maize, a lot of their thing is to do with maize and light tortillas are all made of maize so it's carried on. But the

interesting thing about that is if you just eat maize it's not very good for you. I mean it's fine but it's not going to give you much of what you need to stay alive. But they came up with a thing called nyx-domalisation. Basically, you soak the grains of maize and then you cook them over wood ashes and then there's like an invisible outer coating of the maize and that gets removed and then it's much easier to grind, much easier to cook and it enhances the amount of protein in the maize. And it's so much better that you can basically look at whenever this was invented by looking at old fires and where the maize has been cooked. You can look at it and you can see all these Mesoamerican civilizations growing when each area kind of works out how to

nixtamalize things. It's incredible. And when the Europeans went over and brought maize back, there's lots of areas that kind of started eating maize in the old world, but they still got quite malnourished because none of them knew how to nixtamalize things. Oh really? Yeah. It's crazy. I'd never even heard that word before this week. And they also have that thing where they eat the fungus that grows on maize in Mexico, don't they? Which actually looks kind of delicious and they have it corn smut. No, have you had it? What corn smut? No, I hate fun it? Will Barron What's corn smut?

No, I hate funguses. Georgie Tunny I'm sorry, that's why you're shaking head. Will Barron Of all the funguses that I'm ever going to try, maybe a black truffle, but a piece of corn smut? Probably not. Georgie Tunny It's diseased and it looks like a sort of black lump of mould. And there was quite a fun story in 2014 where there was a farmer called Nat Bradform and he was asked to grow some corn for a chef, quite a famous chef called Sean Brock who's big deal in America and he wanted this corn

to be grown for his handmade tortillas and poor Nat woke up one day, went out into his fields and overnight the whole thing destroyed by fungus. Corn smut everywhere. Corn smut everywhere. So he called the chef like you know in tears. I'm so sorry I've destroyed your restaurant. And obviously Sean being a chef and knowing the ways of the Mexicans, was absolutely delighted. It was like, you've got a delicacy there. You've just accidentally grown overnight this fantastic delicacy that I'll incorporate into my Mexican restaurant food. Cold smut pizzas all around.

Cold smut pizzas, there you go. And do you guys know Taco Bell? You must know Taco Bell, massive American chain. Yeah, I've ever been to one. Okay, do we have them over here? Oh, yeah. Oh, do we? Well, there's one within walking distance of my house. Yeah, they're here.

They're not massive here. But in America, they're very, very big. And globally, they have places all over the world. One place they don't have is Mexico. And they've tried twice. The first time they went in, they sort of went all out, just saying, this is a fast food version of what you guys have here, so have it. They said, no, it doesn't make sense.

Second time they went in, which was years later, they tried to push it as not Mexican food, but American food, while still having the menu that they have. And they even advertised it by saying, it's not Mexican, it's just something else. I think that's a much better strategy, because yeah, Mexicans would deny it was Mexican at all, Americans deny it's American. And tacos weren't hard. It's insulting either way. It's insulting if you say this is your cuisine, it's insulting if you say this is our cuisine. They don't have any Taco Bells in North Korea either. It's for the same reason. Yeah.

They invented it. Exactly. Did you hear of Diana Kennedy? No. She was very cool. She's one of the people who has contributed to saving, or not saving, but preserving, huge amounts of the diversity of Mexican food. Because obviously it's a huge country, it's got hundreds of different cuisines in it. And she spent 60 years driving around the country, doing apprenticeships in bakeries, like going to individual villages and saying, what do you eat? Let me learn how to make it. I wanted, I want to sort of make it myself. And she was awarded not only, I think she might be the only person ever to have been awarded

an MBE for services to Mexican-British relations, but also the Order of the Aztec Eagle, which is Mexico's highest honor. This is very cool. It's cooler, isn't it? We need to rename our MBEs actually. Yeah. And she was called the Indiana Jones of food. She sounds great. Yeah. Which bit of Indiana Jones' career is it? His academic side, where he's always as a professor or out fighting Nazis? No, it's like when she's out in the... She's out, like she's gone into the temple. There's a rare kind of burrito on the stand. Yeah. Okay. And She swaps it over for some tamales she's holding in her other

hand. Chased by a giant ball of palm smut. Okay, it is time for fact number two and that is Anna. My fact this week is that white noise was named because the pattern of its waves resembles white light and pink noise was named because it resembles pink light. Brown noise was named after someone called Robert Brown. I've never heard of pink or brown noise. No. And I was quite unclear what white noise is actually before looking this up. Yeah, yeah. Well, there we go. Let's get into it. So white noise first of all is the most common one that people know because it's this. That's it. And people often use it to make their children go to sleep.

They do and pink noise is more like. It's softer. And is brown noise the one that makes you poo? And brown noise is the one that makes you shit. No it isn't, is it? It's not, no. So white noise is basically a noise that contains all the different frequencies within human hearing to the same extent. So we can hear between 20 hertz and 20,000 hertz.

And if you take all of those frequencies, 20, 21, 22, et cetera, and then you play them all with exactly the same amount of energy, that's white noise. Confusingly, white noise sounds horrible, I think. I don't understand people who find it relaxing because higher pitches sound louder to us. Pink noise is where there's more energy in the lower pitches. It's a bit bassier. Now, listening to pink noise, I still think it sounds, it's still quite jarring, isn't it? I would say. Pink noise? Well, you know, like a lot of people, just to give the opposite side of the argument,

think that it sounds like the waves washing over you. I would say brown noise sounds like waves. I think pink noise, but you're right, a lot of people do write that. But brown noise is the hypnoe noise, right? Brown noise is what everyone is now listening to on YouTube hours at a time as they go to sleep. Headlining Glastonbury this year, guys. Get with it, all right? And that's low brown noise. So brown noise is where you're putting a lot more energy at a time as they go to sleep. Headlining Glastonbury this year guys, get with it, all right? And that's low brown noise. So brown noise is where you're putting, is putting a lot

more energy into those lower frequencies. So it sounds bassy. And I think if you listen to that, it sounds like trees or sounded a bit like a nice ocean waves to me. Can we explain why it's good for sleeping? Cause I think that's important too. And I think the, the reasoning is it increases your, what they call arousal threshold steady on. It's that normally if you're asleep and it's completely silent around you and then a car alarm goes off, you wake up, right? Because there's a big difference between the background nothing and then the car alarm. But if there's a background playing constantly, you're already kind of higher on the sonic mountain, like all boats

have been lifted. And then so that spike of the car alarm, which is like the top of the mountain, it pokes up less high above the general background that you're listening to, and therefore there's less of a chance. And it doesn't matter what frequency the car alarm is, because all the frequencies are being fired at you anyway. Right. So it's bound to be covered by one of them. Exactly. So then you wake up in the morning, your car's been stolen again. At least you had a good night's sleep. Exactly. But apparently it also, for a lot of people, stops the voices in their own head.

So people going to sleep going, oh, did I lock the car? Did I lock the car? Did I not? It stops all those questions from your head and just lets you fall asleep. And more so for ADHD people, as you'd expect, because if you've got ADHD, then distractions in your mind and out of them are more distracting and it sort of helps drown them out. I should probably say how these relate to colours very quickly. Okay. Won't go into it to a boring extent, but just because white noise is named after white light, so that's white light is like all the frequencies of light all mixed together equally.

Pink light is what the brain interprets as a combination Of red and blue light, but there's actually a bit less blue So in the same way it's a bit heavier on the lower frequencies because red is like a bit lower and then brown Brown Robert Brown was a Scottish botanist. It's so random that his main Legacy to the world is naming this kind of noise. It's not his main legacy He was he was an amazing botanist and his name is put to many animals and geographical locations. It's only become his main legacy since Brownewise became the new trendiest thing on the block.

Like before we did any of this stuff I'd only heard of him because of Brownian Motion. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, that's fair enough. But within the world of botany his name is there. Lots of plants and grasses and things. And Brownian motion is the way particular molecules, if you look at them under a microscope, he observed they looked like they were dancing, these pollen grains that he was looking at. And they're not alive. How can they be dancing? It basically has to do with the heat of individual molecules. The molecules are bouncing off things, moving things around in a random way. And this noise

is more random than the others. Yes, the way it looks. And in fact, it was Einstein himself, good old Einstein, his first influential paper, who took Brownian motion, which basically Robert Brown, and he had a habit of doing this, just looked at it, went, oh, that's happening, and then went back to his plans. And Einstein went, let's explain that. And it was essential to finding out that atoms and molecules are the smaller particles of matter, because it was like, how else could these pollen bits be moving except if tinier bits are moving inside them?

Yeah. Well, he was a busy man. He collected 2000 new species in Australia alone. Yeah. Pretty cool. Yeah, but it was a piece of piss in those days. No one else had done it, so you just wander around, you go, has anyone seen that flower before? Throw a brick. Yeah.

Easy Higg. Here's a rare flower. Easy Higg. He was kind of there to help prove whether or not Australia was a group of islands, wasn't it? So it was known as New Holland at the time, and so the idea was that he was going to go through the interior to try and work out if this suddenly broke up. And it's a big task.

Well, you wouldn't know. Just disprove that this 4,000 mile wide thing is not an island place. Yeah. Because it gets quite warm in the middle doesn't it. It does get a bit barren. You know what's named after it? To prove it's an island you only have to go around the outside. Around the edge. You don't need to go in the middle. Andy organising a trek through the centre. Wait, what are you saying? To prove something is an island all you have to do is go around the edge of it.

No, because it could be like an atoll. You know, it could be... It could be islands within it you're saying. Yeah exactly right. You mean it could be fully encircled but even then it's a lake inside isn of it? No, because it could be like an atoll, you know? It could be islands within it, you're saying? Yeah, exactly. You mean it could be fully encircled, but even then it's a lake inside, isn't it? We still think it needs studying. Sure. On this expedition, they took on two Aboriginals, Bungaree and Nambaree. They took them on board to help them communicate with the local tribes, and they were essential

to the success of the trip, basically, because every time they stopped on the coast, they had to send, it was usually Bungaree, I think, on shore to say these guys are legit, they're normal, and usually didn't speak the language of the different tribe, but at least knew the... Is this bit still the same island or have we gone onto a different island? They knew the general habits, but usually the protocol was that you should remove your clothes. So every time they parked on the coast, they'd be like, right, Bunga, take your clothes off, go ashore please. So he had to strip down naked every time he went to negotiate with people.

Having a Bunga Bunga party. Oh my God. Yeah, actually, of of course Australia isn't one island. And he- So fine, thank you. And Brown was the first person from Europe to explore Tasmania. And also for Andy there is Tetradontium brownianum, which is a species of moss called Brown's four-tooth moss, and it's named after him. He found it in a place called Roslyn near Edinburgh in the 18th century and the place where he found it you can still see this moss growing

today. That's nice. That is very cool. The Brownian motion thing by the way. So that was a discovery that he made at the time through a microscope that he had and that was called into question many, many years later because they thought there's no way that the microscope would have been able to prove this. And so there was a big thing where they took out the original microscopes and they had to re-observe what he said he had observed in order to prove it and they did. Well they used his old microscopes.

They used his exact microscopes. I think it's a weird thing to doubt, isn't it? More drain. The interesting thing is he thought that pollen was moving by themselves and this was, you know how sperms move around to reproduce, That's what the pollen was doing. Like this was the force of life that basically existed in all things and it existed in the pollen. And that's why basically that was his thought. It's quite a big theory. Yeah. This was in the 1820s and it was such a big deal in the world that it was mentioned in Middlemarch, George Eliot. Is it? He's read the podcast, George Eliot's Middlemarch.

I'm trying to remember that bit. I did read Middlemarch a few years ago. It's not like a major plot point, however. No, it isn't. Dr. Lydgate. I knew it would be Lydgate. He's the scientific one. He's trying to buy a vase from a guy called Mr. Fairbrother. Mr. Fairbrother says, you are eyeing that glass vase again. Do you want to make an exchange? I have some sea mice, fine specimens and spirits, and I will throw in Robert Brown's new thing, microscopic observations in the pollen of plants, if you don't happen to have it already.

I mean that sounds like subtle advertising doesn't it? That sounds... Oh yeah sorry, then it goes hashtag spawn. In fact there's an offer code we can... So this would be, this would be kind of weird fact for a lot of people to listen to, because I think a lot of people listening are trying to get to sleep right now. Wake up! Have you checked the car? There are dozens of sleep podcasts.

I mean, specific sleep podcasts, you know, not just ours, which is just boring. But I mean, supposedly, I don't know if this is like big podcast who've sponsored this research, but 46% of people sometimes will listen to something as they go to sleep and 28% do it regularly. Yeah. There's a thing they do on radio called comfort noise, which is, it's got a slightly different motive but it's to also keep you at ease when radio goes silent. So for example, if there's like a minute silence, because if there's a minute silence and

the radio goes completely silent, you start going, wait, has the radio station just turned off? If it's complete silence, that's supposedly quite... But the only time there's ever a minute silent on the radio is when they say, we're going to have a minute silence now to remember the dead. So you never then go, what the hell's happened to my radio? Well it's interesting, they do it for a few reasons. So one, they do think it gives a comfort to people who think it's suddenly turned off. So they'll play bird noise or they'll play London traffic in the background. So it keeps it going. There are actually things Beep beep beep! I'm walking here! I'm trying to drive down wide, or where's this huge crowd of people standing around

in silence? Beep beep! Wait, how come we've never heard? So when they play the minute of silence on the radio, that's what we're hearing. I know you don't tune in, but I know I have heard a bit of Birdsong actually. I think that is familiar. The other reason for it is, is because there's protocols in place as part of a major system for all radio, which is when absolute silence is there, a song will kick in.

So you don't want a minute silence for the Queen and suddenly YMCA comes on halfway through, right? So that's another part of it. Yeah, that's a good point. This is not to do with this really, but the Masters Golf is probably happening when people are listening to this or it's just happened. And they play in bird noises. And actually a lot of golf, if you watch golf on TV, they play in bird noises. Oh, do they?

And I was listening to Tom Scott's podcast and they said that there was a time when they played in the wrong bird noise for wherever it was in the world. They were playing this golf tournament and a load of people wrote in saying uh you don't get the great crested grebe in south korea okay it is time for fact number three and that is andy my fact is when you hover over a link on the computer and the mouse icon turns into a little hand, that icon dates back to the 11th century. They waited so long before inventing the rest of the computer, didn't they? You know, it looks like a white gloved hand, certainly on my computer anyway.

Is it mostly on Macs you get it? Or do you get it on all of them? It's on quite a few. You can get it on all, don't you? Yeah. I don't know. So on my computer, it's got a pointing finger and it's got a white glove on and it's got three lines on the glove. It looks like a butler's glove. Like a snooker referee. A snooker referee. Exactly. Yeah. And those are our two reference points. James got a watching a lot of snooker. I grew up with stuff. If anyone wants to know

the difference between me and Andy, I say this quite often. That's it. For me, it's Mickey Mouse's glove. And there's Dan. Yeah. So this is a thing, it's based on a thing called the manicule, which dates back to the Doomsday book. It's a way of medieval scholars in particular to say, hey, look at this bit of the text. And it's just a pair of fingers that you draw, or sometimes you draw a whole hand, but you would, the common element was always like a pointing finger saying, hey, look at this bit. It's like a highlighter. It's exactly like a highlighter without having to draw along the whole,

because often the manuscripts are, you know, because they didn't have highlighters basically. It's a way of marking passages. Yeah. Yeah. Or an arrow. I mean, it's so much effort to go to, isn't it? It's because when you look at them, they're so beautiful. And I guess it's just testament to that, again, in the old days, they didn't have Netflix and stuff.

So they clearly spent so long on these stunning drawings. Sometimes they'd be like a beautiful octopus pointing its various limbs at various bits of text. There was another dragon which instead of a head had a hand for a head pointing. There was a whole big Greek god kind of gesturing at something. And these are often just people who are reading the text as well. They're not, you know, they're usually monks. Yeah. Often monks, but just people who are reading the text as well. They're not- And they're usually monks. Yeah. Often monks, but just literate people. I think often anyone who had the text was a reader, like a rich person.

It's such an interesting evolution because you have the Doomsday book where it's the monks who are reading it, putting it in the margins, right? So they're going, here's a bit you as the next reader should look out for specifically. Then by the time we get to the 15th century, the printers themselves are putting the fingers in to say we think you should look specifically at this bit. And then it kind of to where we are today evolves into how authors will now put footnotes in their own pages now because they're now saying actually this is super interesting and I want to tell you more

about it. I'm gonna take up the page. It's not even about the publisher or the reader putting in anymore. But yeah, they look absolutely lovely. They're stunning. And they're just a form of marginalia, really, aren't they? Yeah. A marginalia is just anything that's not part of the book that was scribbled by someone else in the margins, right? Yeah. And then the modern one, certainly the one in the Mac, was invented by someone called Susan Kare. And she has done lots of different icons for various computers, not just Macs, also Windows stuff. So she came up with the command key on Apple keyboards, which is a biggie. It's like, what does it look like?

So square with circles on each corner, isn't it? Yeah. It's like a little infinity knot. Infinity knot, yeah. She got it from some road signs in Scandinavia. They used it for landmarks. And she just thought that looks good, so I'll use that. And she also designed the card deck for Windows Solitaire game. That's a big A, isn't it? She's had a huge influence on my childhood.

Yeah, she's amazing. And the road sign thing is very interesting because that's exactly what she said each of the symbols needed to be. They needed to be as clear as a road sign thing is very interesting because that's exactly what she said each of the symbols needed to be they needed to be as clear as a roadside. She had zero experience in this field. And so as part of the interview, she went to a library and she took out a bunch of books that were all about graphic design and just brought them and put them on the table with her. So it looked like she sort of was super keen. They're like, oh, look at all those books. She came into the interview room, did she just sort of close the last book in the pile as she got to the end of the last page? Huh, okay. Sorry, what? What's the page? A lot of her designs, now you wouldn't see because they're quite 80s, but one that stuck around is the thing that I never know what it is, that little watch. So you know, sometimes, and I think again, sorry, we're very spoiled off this, so we all use Macs. But you've got the mouse, you've got the hand,

you sometimes get the little timer thing. Then you know, sometimes you get a little watch that comes up. And it just basically means something's fucked up. Oh, I've never seen that. I always thought it was a computer saying I'm working it out. Give me, give me time before it's saying. I think maybe it is saying that. Yes, I think perhaps it's that. Yeah. Well, I see you. Well, it's very annoying anyway, so I'm not a huge fan of hers.

It still uses the floppy disk symbol for when you're saving something. Oh yeah. And that's no one using a computer who was born in the 2000s will have any idea really what a floppy disk is in the same way that they don't. Except they're all reading all the lists that say, oh, why are we still using this old fashion floppy disk? You can still buy floppy disks by the way. And they're often used by like DIY media,

arty kind of people. If you create an amazing bit of media and you want it to be really sort of super awesome, you might just put it on floppy disk and everyone will think it's even better. But you can buy them. There's not that many around, but there's a few specialist places

and they cost about $1 per megabyte of data. Okay that's a lot. It is because the average cost of memory right now is one cent per gigabyte, so if you buy a floppy disk for your to save something is the equivalent of buying a pint of milk with a one kilogram bar of gold. Cool. Which is what I do, but I'm not really in time for the common man. This pointy thing, just one last thing on the on the manicule. I just like the names of it. So it was called the indicationum or the index, which is from Latin for to point.

And that's where index finger comes from. Yeah. But it was also known as a mutton fist or a bishop's fist. And I don't know why. Yeah. That's interesting. I was actually reading, as part of my research for this, the descriptions of the perfect hand, because you know, it's a drawing of a hand and how people have drawn hands. And it included mutton hands, but as a non-desirable thing. This was, this was in the 18th century, a guy wrote a book called Orthopaedia. And there's a guy called Nicholas Andree, and it's where we get orthopedics from, is him, he invented it. And it actually means a correct or straight child, hence the paedia, because it was a book of how to correct deformities in children. And I read his whole chapter on what makes

the perfect hand. And he indeed said, your hand should not look like shoulders of mutton. That's fair enough. Well, his shoulder of mutton thing was just a hand that was a bit too square. And I am looking at your hand now, James. And he said, although they're useful for catching things, they're the worst type of shape. Are you joking? I've got beautiful hands. Yeah. Don't listen, James. You've got lovely piano player's hands. Can I ask you-

I am good at catching things. I had to say that, didn't you? I had to make clear. Syphilis, gonorrhea. Can I check if you guys have these proportions? Okay. Because I was actually quite impressed with mine when I went through his list. So your fingers should be a bit round above and flat below. Your index tip, the tip of your index finger should end at the root of the middle fingernail. If you're holding your hand up straight in front of you with your fingers together, tip of your index finger should end at the root of the middle fingernail. If you're holding your hand up straight in front of you with your fingers together, tip of your index fingernail should line up with the root of your middle fingernail. Everyone got that? Close enough, yeah.

Oh, no. I'm a bit low, I think. Yeah, that's classic. And he says a bit low is bad. Uh-oh. In what respect? Does it mean I'm a bad podcaster? Or does it mean I'm an evil person? I'm hearing mutter. I'm afraid of these. Just you've got to I'm an evil person? I'm hearing mutter. I'm afraid it means you've got shits.

It means you've got three weeks. Shithead. The ring finger needs to reach the middle nail of your middle finger. Oh my God, I'm nowhere near that. James, this guy would have really had a field day with your hands. Actually, they're all over the place, aren't they? We're making it sound like James is a Simpsons character. I've only got four fingers. I've got five because I'm God.

Can I just very quickly speak about highlighters? Oh yeah. So these little hands are pointing to a thing that today we would just get a yellow felt tip and colour it in and people will be able to see it. Those things, the fluorescent highlighters, they were invented by accident in 1963 by a guy called Francis J. Hon, who was trying to make a new kind of marker for children. And while he was experimenting, he got this yellow ink and he put it on and he realised that it basically could still see the text in between it and he thought, oh, I'll do that. And you know, Stabilo Boss highlighters. I feel like they're the biggie. They're the biggie. They're kind of like square in shape, aren't they? And they've got a very flat

tip. And that flat tip was actually invented by accident. So one day some people at Stabilo, in fact it was Schwann Stabilo who was in charge of Stabilo Boss. He and his group, they were doing some presentation of this thing and it wasn't really working properly and they slammed it onto the desk and it made it flat at the bottom. They went, oh look, this works amazingly. That's according to their official website. I don't believe it. That's very funny. One more thing on that please.

In 1996, a prisoner in the UK decided that he would try to get taken out of prison and put into hospital by saying that he had jawned this by colouring his entire body in with a yellow Stabilo Boss highlighter. The prison spokesman said he carefully painted all of his body, even his private bits with a yellow highlighter pen. The problem was that he had made such a good job of it that he would probably have died if his skin was really that colour. Wow. Who did his back? Someone else has evolved.

Oh yeah. What are cellmates for, Anna? If not helping you out. Can I tell you about a really silly drawing things controversy? Okay. This is great. Let's go back to 1927, Switzerland. There's a geologist called Albert Heim, who at this point is about 70 years old, very eminent Swiss geologist, and he got in a huge row with the Swiss Federal Office of Topography over the way maps were drawn of Switzerland, right? So you know those relief maps which show altitude, you know, those kind of they look like they've

got the mountains on, they look like if you touch them, they'd be all lumpy and bumpy. Yeah, I like those ones. Yeah, beautifully drawn. And they often look like there's light and shade on them, right? Albert Heim's problem was that in Switzerland's two official map series, they were shaded as if the sunlight comes from the North West. And he said, this cannot stand. There's no way the sunlight's coming from the North West and hitting Switzerland, right? He said this was a lie that flew in the face of nature.

What a hero. He's very huge, eh? I bet he had good fingers. And he, I read this whole article about the, the Northwest illumination problem, which was an established thing from the middle ages onwards. It was just the way people drew. And there are loads of theories as to why maybe it's because cartographers drew from left to right. So you want to shade so that you, you know, right-handed because you're right-handed basically.

So even in medieval maps the light is falling from left to right. Or cartographers draw with the right hand so the drawing doesn't cast a shadow so they can see what they're doing. Basically that's what you would do with that. And wait, just to double check, the truth is that it would only ever be coming from the south if we're in the northern hemisphere. Because if it gets to... Either it's going above you or...

Well the sun moves, but generally you don't get as much light coming from the northwest. Cool. So what happened next? Any guesses? Oh, they he was murdered. They turned it into a map of Australia where it would have made sense. They turned all of the maps upside down and traced them from the back so that now they were on the right way. Lovely. Lovely. No, he didn't win. He still comes from the back so that now they were on the right way. Lovely, lovely. No, he didn't win. This still comes from the Northwest.

Is that how we could tell from history who was a left-hander versus right-hander if we looked at maps and the way the shadow falls? Nice idea. I don't know. I think everyone was a right-hander in fairness. Really? Yeah, maybe. They weren't as tolerant.

Drawn by the right-handers. That's so interesting. Hey, what is the most famous drawing of hands in the world? Now think of that. Escher? Where he draws his own hand? I'm thinking Michelangelo. Sistine Chapel?

Yeah. Sistine Chapel. So let's say that's number one. What's number two? Okay. What about the Mona Lisa? She has her hands one over the other, doesn't she? Yeah, that's true.

That is a good one. It's not the main bit of the Mona Lisa though, isn't it? I've got Dürer's hands. The artist Dürer, the praying hands, which are... Albrecht Dürer? Yeah. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes, that is famous. Those are very famous hands. The Clifton Prater. Yeah, and people have them on their walls globally. If you're religious, they're a very important piece of art.

They're from the 1500s and for many many years it was thought that it was a sketch drawing that was then transferred onto a big altered piece that Dürer did as part of a commission. So everyone thought that this is just a quick sketch, but it's become this massive famous thing. There's a new theory which is being put forward by one of the curators of a major museum that he used it effectively as like a business card. So whenever people came and he said you should get me as an artist, he would pull it out of his desk and say, this is the kind of stuff that I'm capable of doing.

I can draw hands. Yeah, I can draw hands. Hands are hard. Yeah, that was famous, wasn't it? In the Renaissance, it was like no one could draw hands. It's like AI as well. Yeah. Which on our question, now that we've seen all these bloody doodles going back to medieval times of people drawing, as far as I'm concerned, brilliant hands all over manuscripts, these

Renaissance artists who couldn't hack it. Those are cartoons of hands though. You know, you want to, like, really good hands are really hard to do. And it's a nightmare for portrait artists who have to get their subjects to do everything, you know, can you just stick them in your pockets? You think it's possible that they could do hands perfectly, but everyone in the Renaissance had manky fingers like I do? That'll be it. A lot of mutton, a lot of mutton going around.

Okay, it's time for our final fact of the show, and that is my fact. My fact this week is that there was a football match in Germany last year where one team was made up entirely of players called Kurtanovic. Brilliant. So, confusing for anyone playing them. In fact, apparently a lot of teams often think Kurtanovic is the sponsor of the team. I read that, but then they are actually sponsored by Kurtanovic, some of the players as well. What is Kurtanovic? Kurtanovic is a surname. Okay, okay. And a lot of these guys who play for the team have their own company. So they put that on their shirts.

So this is a bottom of the league German football team who play in the town of Florsheim. And this is a tiny town, 20,000 population. They have a team that was put together by a guy who's called Harris Kutanovic. And he thought, who can I get to be reliable to come up to practice, to show up? Why not my family? Why not my uncles? Why not my second cousins? A few buddies came along.

But for one match at least, when you walked onto the pitch, you were playing one name, Kutanovic. Wow. It's like the opposite of nepotism. There should be a word for when you just get roped into a career that you didn't really want because you're guilted. They all speak Bosnian on the pitch as well because they're all from this area of the border between Montenegro and Serbia and Bosnia. So yeah, that's where they're from originally. And this team, they're actually really successful as well because, well, I mean, relatively, they're in the 11th division in Germany, but they were in the 13th

division and they got moved up to divisions because they were the second team and their first team were doing really badly. So they swapped them around. Right. Cause they also have a few players who aren't Katanoviches but who are Serbian and Montenegrin who have played in higher leagues. So they're kind of better than they should be. How do those guys feel about being shackled to the floor of the leagues by the millions of Katanoviches who they have to turn up with every week? I think the truth is that in a normal week

they probably have about four or five Katanoviches playing for them. But occasionally they bring out a full Monty. I hope this is being filmed. It sounds like welcome to Wrexham. If they're making their way up the leagues. Yeah, that's a really good point. That's even more wholesome, isn't it? Should we buy them? Like Ryan Reynolds? Should we be the Ryan Reynolds of 11th division German football? I think we definitely could get on their jersey. We could be the sponsors. We'd have to change our name to Kurtanovic as well. I think it's worth it. Do jersey. We could be the sponsors. We'd have to change our name to Kurtanovich as well. I think it's worth it.

Do you know what the German football team is? No, I don't actually. Mannschaft. Great stuff. Just every time I see it, whenever there's a World Cup on it makes me laugh. But you get this every now and then with families playing football. The Goodjohnsons, famously. So Ida Goodjohnson, who used to play for Bolton, he's Icelandic, and his son Arnor was also playing for Iceland. And there

was one game where Ida was playing and he got taken off and his son came on instead of him as a substitution. They were in the same squad and they were on the same pitch for like a micromillisecond Just before they passed over and then yeah. That's very good. James as a golf fan, do you know the work and recent playing of Ji-Hong Un Lee Six? This is going to be a Kim Jong-Un thing, isn't it? No, no, no. She was a US women's open champion. She was ranked, I think, at her highest at seventh in the world. Is she Korean?

ranked I think at her highest at seventh in the world. Is she Korean? Yeah she is and she's called Ji-young and Lee six because there have been five other Ji-young and Lee's and in order for them all to differentiate themselves they've attached a number to the end of their name. Oh really because that would happen in a normal family like if Andy's father and grandfather were all called Andy Murray, you would be Andy Murray the third. Yes. But these are not family members. These all happen to just be players with the same name. So yeah, so she officially goes by Lee Six. So Lee and then the number six right after her surname. And then you've got one, two, three, four and five who are all golfers.

So it's quite funny when you see anything written about her. It looks like you're reading something about royalty. Great. Brady Fiegel. Have you heard of him? Brady Fiegel is a minor league baseball pitcher and he's six foot four. He's got glasses where he's got a sort of the rim of the glasses sit over the top, but allow for the lens itself not to be covered in a rim, if you know what I mean. So frameless at the bottom. Frameless at the bottom is a quicker way of saying that. Under boob glasses.

Yeah. That's actually the way I'm saying it. Under boob glasses. Yeah. He's got red hair and I'm giving you all the... Six foot four, under boob glasses, red hair. Is this a police light? Now draw him.

Did he take your car? Is it like... I was listening to white noise in bed. And you heard smash of this baseball bat going through your car window. All you saw as he went away was the shock of orange hair and him holding up his under boob glasses going, see you later sucker! So he had an elbow problem that needed surgery, so he had that done. And then six months later, the doctor who performed the elbow surgery is told, your

patient Bradley Fiegel is ready for his surgery. And he thought, I did this six months ago. And so, it turns out there were two Bradley Fiegels, both who wear under-boob glasses, who are six foot four with red hair, who look exactly the same. Both car thieves. Both car thieves. Both have the same name and both had to have the exact same surgery from the exact same doctor for the bit of the elbow. And now they are aware of each other. That's how they became aware of each other.

And they did a DNA test, didn't they, recently to see if they were actually related. And? No. I think to get the media to shut the hell up about these two Bradley Fiegls. Wow. It turned out they're not related at all, but they do both have ancestors from Germany. According to one of these fake, you know, 23andMe things. Well, which you would have known from their surname Fiegl, wouldn't you?

Yes. Right, right, right. There was a charity football game in Bungie in 2012 where 70 people played Bungie. Was Bungie not the naked guy from Two Facts of God? From The Aboriginal. From Brown's Mission. We shortened it. We nicknamed him Bungie because we're mates. Right.

But he was called Bungaree. Oh, right. Like Dungaree. And this is Bungie, which I think is- It's just unusual to have that word twice in one episode. It's like Bart of Einhorn syndrome, isn't it? Yeah. You'll see Bungies everywhere now. There was a charity game in Bungie in Suffolk in 2012 where 70 people with the same name played and they were all called Bungie.

They should have raised money by going Bungie jumping. What were they thinking? Nice. That's a big game. How do you manage to get 70 people? Because it was all the officials as well, all the mascots, the match doctor and also quite a lot of people who went to see the match were called Bungie. They were all called Bungie? Yeah, and it was all complete coincidence. I didn't know there were that many bungies knocking about. I'm very surprised.

There's 455 according to the census at the time and with 70 of them that's close to 15% of all the UK bungies that showed up to this one spot. Although it wasn't all UK. There was one who came from Australia who was then sent off for swearing. Brilliant. Which should be coming away for a charity game. And it was, they'd advertise for bungies. Yeah. Which is why.

You would. In case you hadn't figured that out when you were listening to this. It used to be really common to give kids the same names in the UK. And in Scotland, it was the case until the 19th century that it was relatively common, especially in the island of Skye and in other Western Isles. There was a survey done of people who lived in the 19th century there, and there were 462 households that had two sons that shared a name. Really?

And 232 were two daughters shared a name. So it's quite a lot of it. And it was mostly in this area. And they think what happened was, basically they had real rules for naming your kids. The first son will be named after his father's father. Second son named after his mother's father. Third son named after the father. First daughter named after the mother's mother. And what happens with that is,

eventually the number of names just gets lower and lower and lower. Because like from one generation that's fine but then the next generation suddenly everyone's called Mary and then four generations everyone's called John and that's what happens and so that really happened until quite a long time. What self-inflicted confusion that must have wrought over the island sky. Well yeah it's funny isn't it because there's another thing where people name people call

each other by the wrong names within families so there's a thing if you've got lots of siblings, you might have found that one of your parents will say blah, no, blah, no, Anna or whatever. Have you heard that? That happens a lot. Christ, yes. They run through the full gamut. Do they ever throw in the dog's name as well? Absolutely. Yeah. Okay. So there's a reason behind it. Which is Toffo. It's just unbelievable. Do you think your child will be called that?

I've looked at you before, Anna, and thought Toffo. But there's a reason behind this, which is really interesting, which is that it's to do with how your brain stores names. And basically in your brain, you have two envelopes in which you keep all the names. In one envelope, you keep these. Stop saying envelopes. These are metaphorical envelopes, aren't they? No, no, no.

No, they're like the computer icons. They're not metaphorical, they're just small. So one of them, one envelope, is for really close acquaintances. So immediate family, you know, like people who really matter to you. The other, for everyone else. So when you're trying to name someone, one of your children, obviously, someone who's from envelope number one, people are almost always taking the wrong name out of the right

folder. And that is why a parent, like your mum, will cycle through all of your siblings names and the dog's name before they get to your name, because those names are all from the right folder. Yeah, it does make sense. You know what, I put the dog's name in just the drawer below. I wouldn't have the dog in the same folder But maybe I'm a better parent

Hey just on Scottish names We were talking about a Scottish person before Robert Brown He was a Scottish botanist who lived in the 1800s So just for anyone who's listening who's thinking wait Robert Brown the botanist and boot maker born in the 1800s No, not that one. For anyone who's thinking, oh, Robert Brown the Scottish botanist who also was the first person to use the word gadget in a book. No, not that botanist. For anyone who's thinking, Robert Brown the Scottish botanist who was also the polar explorer from the 1800s. No, not that one either. Apparently,

there are multiple amazing botanists called Robert Brown who all existed in the 1800s? No, not that one either. Apparently there were multiple amazing botanists called Robert Brown who all existed in the 1800s who went and made major discoveries and that was a problem. To the point, I'll tell you where it's at, because Robert Brown, the one who wrote Gadget for the first time ever, had to call himself Robert Brown of Campster to differentiate himself when people confused him with the Robert Brown of Brown Noised. What did you say called himself? He called himself a campster. He was from... He said hamster for some reason.

Whenever he collected a new sample, he'd stuff it into his cheeks. There's a group of people in Papua New Guinea called the Orokaiva people and they have a brilliant system, right? So if you have the same name as someone else, as long as you're on good terms with them, you count each other as what's called a Sasso, a namesake, and you are basically the same person in the eyes of that society. Like you can shag their wives and- No.

So it's really interesting. If you're the younger Sasso, you will consult the elder at every stage of your ritual life. You don't have to ask them what should I have for supper tonight. But when you do your confirmation and stuff. Exactly like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And as the older one ages, the younger one has a responsibility to provide him with firewood and other provisions. And if the older one

dies without a will, then you have to sort out his affairs for him. And your family groups, your kin groups are kind of knitted together because it's understood that you and this other person are the same person. What a burden! And it's as if I bumped into someone at the party called Anna Tshinsky who was a tedious don't. I'd then be stuck intertwined with this person forever. Yes, but she'd be stuck intertwined with someone who's very rude about a lot of other people all the time for no good reason. So you know, we all have across the bear Anna. Right. What a system. Okay, that is 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 our Tribaland. Andy. I'm on Instagram on our tribal land Andy I'm on blue sky at Andrew hundred M James my Instagram. Oh, I'm also on blue sky. Hey But I had to be Harkin James because someone else already had James Harkin kidding. That's me

But if you want to get to us as a group Anna where they go you can email podcast at qi.com I have no and he's trying to follow me on blue sky. I have no followers. I literally only went in because I wanted to read someone's blue sky. Wow, he doesn't even have a profile picture. This is big. I'm following. Follow one follower. Okay.

Everyone follow James and he'll feel sort of pressure to generate content. What was I saying? Oh yeah, how you get in contact with us? You can get us on Instagram at no such thing as a fish, Twitter at no such at NoSuchThing, or you can email podcast.qi.com. That's right. Or you can go to our website, no such thing as a fish dot com. All of our previous episodes are up there. There's bits of merchandise up there as well. You can go and find live dates. We're going to be playing a live show at the Crossed Wires Festival in Sheffield on the 6th of July. or you can join our very exciting exclusive club Club Fish.

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Get in quick! Before we realise. Okay, otherwise you can come back here next week. We'll be back with another episode. We will see you then. Goodbye.