No Such Thing As A Fish - 581: No Such Thing As Clean Victoria

Episode Date: May 1, 2025

Dan, James, Anna and Andy discuss sexy socks, squeezy toothpaste, Daniel Day Lewis, and Gandy. 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 James Harkin, Anna Tyshinsky and Andrew Hunter Murray. 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 my fact. My fact this week is that a lot of the Daniel Day Lewis movie, My Left Foot, was filmed using his right foot. Day-Lewis movie, My Left Foot, was filmed using his right foot. What do you say using? Is that, was he operating the camera with his right foot while he filmed his left foot?

Yes. And when I say a lot, I also mean some. So let's just put this into context. This is a movie about an Irish writer and painter called Christie Brown. He was born with cerebral palsy and by the time he was an older kid, he didn't walk, he couldn't do much and he only really could operate by moving his left foot, particularly the big toe on his left foot. As he grew older, he got really excited by the idea of becoming an artist.

He started to learn to paint and then he started to write a book by using that left toe on a typewriter. It was a massive success and this is what eventually became a biopic which starred Daniel Day-Lewis. Now for anyone who knows Daniel Day-Lewis, he's a method actor. He loves to really immerse himself and in this case, he operated most of the movie from a wheelchair using his left foot. Yeah and when you say method actor, he basically lived as this character throughout the whole time, right? He stayed in the wheelchair the whole time, pretty much.

Yeah. Like he had to be carried places. Yeah, made the cast and crew feed him. Well, he just was trying to stay in character. But here's the thing. The movie involves some quite intense stunts, footwork wise. Okay, the movie is not... I'm sorry, I watched the film yesterday.

It's a terrific film. Stunts is not a good way of putting it. When you say this movie contains footwork, it's not like Ginger Rogers. So there's a couple of scenes where he, as an actor, was unable to do it by manipulating his left foot into the right positions. So the scenes are basically holding a paintbrush or a pencil. Or writing. And in fact, the first shot of the whole film, it's just a shot of a foot, and it's taking a vinyl record out of the sleeve. Yeah, I'm popping it on.

So what you're saying, Dan, is that he did that with his right foot instead of his left foot. Exactly. My question is, how did we not tell the difference in the movie? He has them switched around. It's really the opposite way around. That method. That's the method.

Feet severed and then reversed. That's exactly it. And he's got it right. It was, it was mirror filmed. So they, it's, the detail is a bit actually quite hard to work out if they flipped the film itself, as in they, they, they did a mirror image or if they filmed through a mirror. That's, that's, yeah. Good film. I've actually, weirdly. I read the book about 20 years ago. It's also a great book. Did you? Right. Yes, apparently he's a brilliant writer when the book came out, which bizarrely was when this guy, Christie Brown, was only 22, which is so young to be writing about your experiences so far. But I think it was in the 50s. And when it came out, someone said, I think the Irish Standard or something, said that it was the most important book since Ulysses in Ireland. I think that might have been the subsequent book.

Sorry, you're absolutely right. That was his magnum opus. Yes. What's it called? Down on All Days. Down on All Days. But I mean, they were both absolutely massive. And he was from a family of 22 children, not all of whom made it to adulthood.

I think 11 did. 11 did. Yeah. Imagine that, good grief. How did the birthdays? How did the candles go through? How did the candles? Wait, you, oh yeah, I was gonna say you could reuse them, but now you can't reuse them.

No, well you can at this point. Oh, it depends how quickly you light and blow, right? Most birthday candles are so thin. Maybe they had very strict lighting and blowing policy. Maybe in the- You'd have to, you'd have to. Anyway, it's a very, is that in the book? It's been 20 years. I can't remember. It's definitely not an overwritten book though, because

he's typing it with one toe. So he doesn't, he doesn't go for the incredibly long sentence. Quite a lot of the time. It's kind of the reverse Ulysses, isn't it? In a way. Yes, it is. Absolutely. Yeah. But it was good. And it was, it was a big book, right? So when it came out, it made splash internationally. He actually got no correspondence with this American woman called Beth Moore. And it was, it was a big book, right? So when it came out, it made splash internationally. He actually got no correspondence with this American woman called Beth Moore. And he eventually went over to hang out with her and she was married, but they had an affair. And this is where he wrote his magnum opus, this novel. And she basically is the reason he got it done because at this point, he did have a bit of an alcohol problem and it was preventing him from getting on with stuff. She basically said, you're not allowed to drink until the end of the day, after you've done a full

day's of writing, and then you can have that. And that's how he got the novel done. He dedicates it to her. He goes back to Ireland and then they have more correspondence saying- Is he married as well at the time? Because he did marry a couple of times. No, he's not married. He's not married. Yeah. So, but she tells her husband, I'm going to marry Christy. And just as that's about to happen, Christy meets his wife and gets married. And then Beth is stuck.

So a bit of an asshole actually. You know, people don't really focus on this bit, do they? Abandons poor Beth for his new woman. Who's the person I think in the film, which I haven't seen, but he goes off with a woman at the very end of the film. I think it looks like it's going to be happy. But actually that's the person he went off with. And it seems like based on his life, Beth, who helped him write his great novel, was a lovely woman. And he ended up with this other lady who I think a lot of his family didn't

like, who turned him into a bit of a recluse. She was an alcoholic herself, I believe. There were allegations of abuse. So he passed away quite sadly at 49. Really young. Choked while eating, but yeah, on his body, there were sort of unexplained bruises all over with the abuse. What about Daniel Day-Lewis? He's a character. Well, more often than he is himself.

Before this podcast recording time, I had never seen any of the films with Daniel Davidson. Is that right? Not one. I thought he was in Batman Forever, but it sounds like that was someone else. That was Val Kilmer. You're thinking of Jim Carrey. So I'd never seen any of his stuff. Have you just watched them all? Have you seen, I've now seen one on a halfway through two others. Which two? Gangs of New York, have you watched that? No, haven't. Oh, that's a brilliant movie.

It sounds great. I've started, not an American Werewolf in London, The Last Mohican. Sorry. Yeah. Oh yeah. I started The Last Mohican. Terrific. Was watching that in the small house this morning. And I'm also watching Stars and Bars, which is a goofy comedy he made immediately after My Left Foot, which appears to have been the only film for which he's never done any method work whatsoever. What was his character in that? The premise is just like what if a goofy British guy went to the deep south of America and

it is so bad. I managed to watch the only time he did this film which is not like five star. This would change your life movie. Well in Last of the Mohicans he caught and killed all of his food apparently. I had to get into that character. Yeah, he lived for a whole month in the wilderness didn't he? I had to get into that character. Yeah. Yeah. He lived for a whole month in the wilderness, didn't he? In order to, yeah, probably embarrass himself. He was in the crucible and he didn't bathe for the entirety of the crucible. Now

I'm not sure. Is that about the witch trials? Or is it about Snuka? It's the happy marriage of the two. He bathed, but he kept one foot on the floor at all times. I think my favorite one, because I'd't even heard of him as like this incredible, he lives the role. My favorite is the unbearable likeness of being. I'm sure you guys all found this, which is based on a Czech novel by Milan Kundera. And he learned Czech, learned to speak Czech almost fluently for the film, despite the fact the film is in English. All of his lines are in English. And he said, yeah, but I can't just do an accent. I need to know where that accent comes from. Great. So he put all of his lines through the Czech in you and then back into English to do the

accent. I mean, insane. And do you know what people who speak Czech and particularly British people who now live in the Czech Republic say that it's a really bad Czech accent? If you learn how to speak a language, that doesn't mean you learn how to speak English in that accent. That's the one problem when you learn a language is you can never nail the accent. Yeah, I also really want to find out how fluent he is because there's so much allegation about this and apparently according to the Foreign Services Institute, which ranks languages by difficulty, Czech is in the fourth out of five hardest languages. So I mean,

it takes years and years and years to nail. So how, I mean, was it, do you think it was like primary school French level? I always wonder that whenever you see like a top football or a basketball player going, I speak nine languages. Yes. To you. Did you, Kobe Bryant, did you really? Or did you just learn how to say, oh, I got that three points today? Yeah, exactly. Because there's that fact we did ages ago about umpires and tennis do need to learn all the

swear words in multiple languages. So they understand maybe it's just that. Yeah. I mean, obviously some of it is myth making, but I do. I love it. I just love it. Like he played Lincoln president Lincoln. So he actually got assassinated for that.

He had himself made president first. So on the set of Lincoln, it was just total, totally a period appropriate. So supposedly nobody was allowed to tell that wearing a t-shirt with a logo on like, I presume all the like thousands of electricians and people who work on the film had to be in front coats and things like that. So dressed as like union soldiers, no shorts, no paper coffee cups. Lincoln wouldn't have had a paper cup. I imagine it's more for Daniel Day-Lewis than it is for everyone else. But you've got to slightly create the scene around him, haven't you? I mean, like, and

there's a famous thing in Gangs of New York when he was filming, where first of all, Stephen Graham, who's very famous and brilliant British actor, said that he was such a great guy to work with and they became friends before they started filming and they did the training together, some martial arts training together and then the first day on set Daniel Day-Lewis walked onto set and just touches him on the shoulder and says from now on I call you Shang and you call me Bill and then moves on. So cool. Bill the butcher. And then indeed. Is that his character? Yes. Yes. I read that he worked as a butcher for some time. I know I read butchers were flown over to the set. It was one butcher Butcher. And that indeed. Is that his character? Yes. Yes.

I read that he worked as a butcher for some time. I know I read butchers were flown over to the set. It was one butcher. But I've got a theory about this butcher. I don't think he's a butcher. I think this butcher is the ultimate method actor. He's a guy called John Dell. Look him up.

He's a butcher who runs W Head and Co butchers in Peckham. Sounds like he is a butcher. Well, no evidence of that online at all. There's like one little company record of it once existing. John Dell. How many butchers have websites? Especially at the time of Gangs of New York. It's a 2002 film.

It's early internet. It wasn't required that butchers had to have a buzzing online presence in 2002. Everyone's Google reviewed something. I can find nothing. He was an amazing character though when he was interviewed. First of all, he was asked by the producer who lived in Beckham and he knew him and he was like, this guy's a legit butcher. He knows how to slaughter a pig. Some avatar worker. You completely, if your butcher's killing the pig, that's a problem with the sourcing.

Butchers don't normally kill the animal. No, sorry. No, butcher. Sorry. I mean, butcher the animal. But he was very good at butchering pigs. So he trained Daniel Day-Lewis in how to butcher a pig. And they got along really well. He said Daniel Day-Lewis could butcher a pig like no one else. He'd never seen anyone else with the knife skills. He'd never seen anyone else with like the natural feel for cutting meat. This is a man who presumably has known a lot of other butchers. I reckon because they hang out together, don't they?

Yeah. Yeah. I love the sound of Daniel Day-Lewis. He sounds like a really nice bloke. I reckon because they hang out together, don't they? Yeah. Yeah. I love the sound of Daniel Day-Lewis. He sounds like a really nice bloke. And when he's interviewed about it, he sounds quite normal. Yeah. I'm just trying to get into the head of the character so that when I put it on film, it's real. I think he's a big old liar. No, I really don't. I genuinely do. I mean, I think some of it's true, but I think there's some...

And actually, I think a lot of the lies are made up by people around him. But like, there was the famous thing where he walked off stage because he thought he saw his dad in the wings when he was doing Hamlet. That's right. And then later on, like he did an interview saying that's what happened. Then later on he went, no, it didn't really happen. He said he was just tired. He said he was just exhausted and doing a you're doing a play for every day for 18 months or whatever. That's really exhausting. But you can imagine if Daniel Day-Lewis says I saw my dead father in the wings. You're going to believe that.

Absolutely. He's never done theatre since. But he explains actually he prefers the medium of film. I kind of agree. It's sort of like if he was less sort of thespian like and had so much integrity, he's Brian Blessed. Like all these stories are just tall tales. Apparently on my left foot he broke two ribs because he was hunching over so much while he was in the wheelchair. They just snapped under the weight of his hunchback. I just don't think that that breaks your ribs. I hunch over my laptop all day every day and never have I broken a rib.

You're not committing to the work like Day-Lewis commits to his work. No offense, Anna. I'm sorry. But he is a very, very successful actor, Daniel Day-Lewis. to his work. No offense, Hannah. I'm sorry. But he is a very, very successful actor, Daniel Day-Lewis. His Wikipedia, he doesn't have a separate Wikipedia page listing his movies because he's done so few movies. I think he's done less than 20 or around 20. But he does have a separate page listing all of his awards. Just because he's won so many.

Yeah, he's done around 20 feature length films and he's had 212 major nominations and 139 wins. Wow. Not one of them will have been for Stars and Bars. I guarantee it. What I worked out is if each episode of our podcast was as successful as each of his films, then we'd have more than 4,000 awards. And if they all weighed the same as an Oscar statuette, the total weight would be about the same as two elephants. So that puts it into perspective. Yeah,'s brilliant. Tells you a lot about Daniel Day-Lewis.

Okay it is time for fact number two and that is Andy. My fact is that some French unions have special barbecues that can be used to cook sausages while on a protest march. Brilliant. They do like a strike in France. They love a strike and they love a saucisson. And they found a way of combining the two. And this does the rounds every now and again. But Snopes, the brilliant people at Snopes, looked into this picture. You can find it online. It's French people. They're very clearly French union workers. They're in their high-vis and they're pushing along this mobile barbecue, which is in tram tracks. Yeah. So they're going the tram route. I presume, oh, they're French train workers who were on strike.

It was in Nice. It was in Nice. Very annoying if it's French teachers on strike and they're confined to the tram route for the whole process isn't it. It's because they were doing some reform of the SNCF. There was some probably mild change suggested to working hours and absolutely everybody out now! We leave niece to rot for a year!

It's really cool though isn't it? There's actually video footage. It's like one second of video footage from what I saw where they're just pushing it down. It's a massive grill going over the two tram tracks. And they're pushing it along and they're, you know. So why do they put it on tram tracks rather than just putting barbecue on wheels? Good point. I suppose they were marching the route of the tracks. I mean, I suppose they were only walking the tram route to make a point about whatever beef they were having.

With their bosses. route to make a point about their, you know, whatever beef they were having with their bosses. Maybe it makes the point more emphatically if they're like, we've even made a barbecue to make our point. I mean, we're talking about them now. This was, this was several years ago. So, you know, it's worked. Their wages will probably shoot up now that we've discussed it.

You're welcome. Yeah, I did actually in a nice had trams. I've been to Nice, but clearly I wasn't paying attention. So you know, is that an all new low in terms of my anecdotes? Because I cycled into nice. That's it. Now we've hit the rock bottom. You know, the barbecue I have is a Weber or Weber barbecue.

Okay. And that is a it's like a circular one. It's almost like a bowl and it's on legs. I think of that as a classic. It's a classic garden barbecue. Yeah. It's like War of the Worlds, the tripods. It is. The terrifying aliens leap out of it if you want to cook the meat. Sort of. They will they climb into your body and then they leap out several hours later. Yeah. Well, they were invented in 1952 from two halves of a steel boy. A boy? You know, a boy?

A boy. Ocean boys. You know, those things that flow to the ocean. Yeah. Well, yeah, they decided they wanted to make a new kind of barbecue and they thought, wouldn't it be nice if it was circular? And what do we have that's circular in our iron works? Well, we have some boys.

Boys. Boys. Cool. That's brilliant. And the guy used it in his garden and basically all his neighbours called it a spaceship and laughed at him. But it turned out- But it took off? It did. So was the previous barbecue not round like a boy? No, because in America where barbecue started, that's not really what barbecue is. It's more

like roasting meat for 24 hours until it's really, really, really soft. Right. Because in the, I should say to any Americans listening in the UK, a barbecue is you sit in the garden when it's raining and you put burgers on a grill. You go into the house and put them in the oven if it's really raining. As far as I'm concerned, a barbecue is a metal tray that you buy from Tesco Metro on a sunny day. You tramp! You three bottles of white lightning.

Yeah, delicious. I discovered that I spell barbecue differently to you three. No, you spell it wrong, which is what I noticed. Are you spelling it with a Q, though? I'm spelling it with a Q, which is the Australian way of spelling it. That's the actual way of spelling it in Australia. Yes, it is. And New Zealand as well. And also, ah. But you pronounce that barbeque. Barbeque.

They pronounce it barbie, as we know. Oh, we have a barbie, but yeah, barbeque. And in Sydney, there's a thing. If it was, sorry, if it was meant, if you were spelling it like it was pronounced, but you wanted to include the Q, you'd have to end it Q-U-E-U-E. That's how you do Q. Join the barbecue! Yeah, well no, I'll bring that up. And next time I'm at the Australian embassy and they're asking me for my international opinions, they constantly got a barbecue on the go at the Aussie embassy.

They do, exactly. But this relates to a really interesting etymology of barbecue, because there's a kind of mythic folk belief that it comes from a French phrase from barb aque, which means from beard to tail, you're eating the whole pig. Jokes on you, that pig is Daniel Day-Lewis in disguise. He was method acting. You're in big trouble now. You cooked and eaten him. Was he in Babe? What was the movie? Because the word queue in English as in to stand in a line comes from the French for

tail as well. Right. Right. But you're saying this isn't correct? It's not from that. In fact, we very briefly mentioned years and years ago that it's from a guy called William Dampier who was a privateer, sailor, pirate, roaster. The original Robinson Crusoe, I want to say.

He was a buccaneer and a buccaneer is a pirate who cooks meat. Basically, the etymology of buccaneer comes from that as well. Yes, it's all Caribbean languages basically. So there's a barbeque which is from a sort of various Caribbean peoples who got it. So it's from the Americas, the word in the first place. Yeah. There's a fun phrase in Argentina where barbequing is huge and it's called asado in place of Argentina, Brazil, other parts of South America.

And then you get asado al disco. Do you know what that is? Circular revolving, rotating. Oh, the disco gets so hot that you feel like you're cooking. So they're a ball full of meat. Thank you. I was looking for some disco stuff and then I could say, no, it's about the first things that you guys said. But a disco is the disc from a plow.

So a plow has like very sharp discs that it cuts the crops with. And once they've worn out, then in Argentina, you take that off the plow and you cook on it. And it's like a, it's basically like a wok, a giant wok. And that's Apollo al disco, is using the disc from a plow to barbecue. Yeah, barbecue is very common around the world.

And one thing that's quite interesting is it's very common for men to do the barbecuing one thing that's quite interesting is it's very common for men to do the barbecue in almost everywhere that you go. So like we think of it in the UK, at least, and probably in America, as like the dads go and do the barbecue while everyone else does something else. That's right. And the men, the men obsess over it. And they talk, what truffle are you cooking with these days? You know, that kind of stuff. But yeah, Levi Strauss, the anthropologist, he says that, yeah, basically, if you look all over the world from Amazonian tribes, people in Africa, it's often the men's work

for the barbecuing. There was a book called The Complete Barbecue Book by John and Marie Robertson, who put it, they said that the man who does the barbecuing takes on a somewhat godlike stature. As for the ladies, well, they're virtually your slaves. I feel like John wrote that bit and not Marie probably. Who is it? An anthropologist and food writer called Calvin Trillin reckons that if you want to be a good barbecuist, you have to be basically a misanthrope because you're going in the garden on your own. You're not really talking to anyone else. Your friend is the meat as opposed to the... Oh god, it's such a lovely chance not to have to fulfill your social obligations and just stand there feeling useful. I would say in Australia, I don't know what

it's like here properly, but it's the water cooler. Everyone hangs around the barbecue. What are you driving these days? Yeah, that kind of thing. Exactly, that kind of thing. Yeah. But then this guy says that actually it's quite good as a hobby because, you know, golf and sailing and fishing, these are also things where men sort of like to go just a couple of men on their own and not see anyone else misanthropically, but at least in this case everyone gets some food out of it at the end.

That's true. Not guaranteed with fishing. And very rare with golf. Unless you really hit something. Yeah, I think misanthropically for activities like fishing, which is so dominated by men, we need to replace the word misanthrope, which has a kind of coolness to it with unhelpful, because that's all it is. That's just men pissing off and not helping out. So when my wife says to me, why have you not taken the bins out? I could just say, I was being misanthropic.

The male thing is interesting though, and going back to French barbecues, a green politician in France got in trouble in 2022 because they were saying obviously meat, very bad for the environment, 20% of our greenhouse gases still come from the meat industry. And she was saying, we have to change our mentality so that eating a barbecued entrecote is no longer a symbol of virility. And basically people said you're blaming men for killing the planet. I don't think I've ever heard someone say the word entrecote and think that is a virile person.

France is a very different place to bolts and jigs. The interesting male thing about barbecuing and meat is that men just do eat more meat and actually we don't know why. But around the world in almost every country. It must be cultural. It can't be biological. Well a lot of people think it's biological. So there are arguments that female hormones suppress

the desire to eat meat around your period or when you're pregnant, which sounds very implausible to me. There's another argument that says men behave in more risky ways. So evolutionarily, they need to eat more protein to make their bones stronger, more meat. But also cooking a sausage for three minutes

at St. Gav's probably fine. That is a risky behavior. It is. But it's really interesting. And also there was a study looking at 23 countries also cooking a sausage for three minutes and saying yeah that's probably fine that is a risky behaviour. But it's really interesting and also there's a study looking at 23 countries and the wealthier and more gender equality we have what would you think as you get more gender equality which tends to happen in more developed countries does the gap between men and women's meat eating get bigger or smaller? Well you think it would get smaller. You think it would get smaller and it gets bigger? It doesn't because men are trying to cling to something to show their blokes. Is that it?

We don't know, but I like that's a nice interpretation. Have you heard of transglutaminase? I'd be really surprised if you had. No, no, some kind of molecule. It's a molecule, all right. It's an enzyme. And it's it's a thing that gets called meat glue. Oh, OK.

And if you buy a big piece of steak, you may notice it might be skewered. And if it's skewered, there's a good chance, this is in America, this stuff is not legal in the EU, that it's been had meat glue sort of painted on it. And if you paint meat glue on it and squish it all together, you can make a big expensive looking steak out of several pieces of small scrap of meat. Oh, cool. And that's how it's not cool. It's really horrible. No, but it's cool that like. That's how it's not cool. It's really horrible.

No, but it's cool that like you could bring a dino burger basically. It's like the Power Rangers, you know, they can buy their forces to one big. If you're listening to this after the Trump tariffs have forced us to do a trade deal with America, then you two could be eating one right now. It's all we eat these days. Yeah. I was looking at sort of out of place barbecues like the one on the tram line and there was a really cool thing I found which is there used to be a tour called the Vans Warp Tour.

It's basically a festival that you would have like 20 bands and they would go from city to city together. So not like Claston Regis. Yeah and they came to Australia in 1998 and I remember it being a big deal. So they had big bands you'd get people like blink 182 and no effects and stuff But then they would also give opportunities to younger newer bands and one of the conditions of being on the walk tour Was you could be the barbecue band you get a slot on stage But when it's done you go backstage and you're in charge of the barbecue and you cook for everyone Okay, and so that's the condition the trade-off of you being on the tour And we know any bands that went on to be massive

Having begun as barbecues. Yeah, the dropkick Murphy's Yeah, art of shock grit griller grillers Gorillas grillers. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah Are you mean I mean he belongs on a farm anyway. So you know there are these rubs. Yeah, there's a big thing. So it's basically a load of spices that you rub over your meat to marinate it. Exactly, exactly. And there's a shop near me which stocks something by what's called the Gentleman's Rub Club. And I haven have tried to find any evidence that it existed online because I remembered it

running up to this podcast. They're nowhere. The thing is, it's a bit like Butchers in the 1980s. You don't necessarily have to have a massive online presence if you're a rub club. You think that's fairly the first rule of Gentleman's rum club. But this just got me off onto like, got me onto grilling awards, barbecue awards. So I was looking at the NBBQA, National Barbecue and Grilling Association, because they have an awards of excellence every year. I think it's an American thing. So they've got beef rub, pork rub, poultry rub, seafood rub, spicy rub.

And I just, I wanted to read a few of the prizes from the latest awards. They're terrific. Barbecue apparel category. First prize, a t-shirt reading, want to see my rack. First prize. Third prize. Well, they're trying to encourage women to get into it, aren't they? Second prize, want to see my sausage.

Third prize, t-shirt reading, I got sourced for hat reading my dad's barbecue. But there's a barbecue book of the year. Oh, yeah. Badass backyard cooking. Oh, cool. There's even an award for best barbecue audio series. There's barbecue podcasts. Could we put this section up for it? I think so. If we want to dethrone the smoking hot confessions, BBQ podcast. Well, I definitely want to check out my rack T-shirt or whatever it is.

So let's do it. They're massive, the barbecue contest in America. They're all run by the Kansas City Barbecue Society. And it's trained over 15,000 judges to judge barbecues. And the rules are very tight. So judges are not allowed to eat with utensils, but you're also not allowed to lick your fingers. Why?

No one knows. You just have fingers covered in barbecue meat the whole time. How can you eat some ribs without licking your fingers? That's unnatural. Well, I think it's one of the challenges. Maybe you have wipes. Gloves? I don't know.

Gloves. Glove culture there they've got gloves. Like a snooker referee. Another 20,000 pairs of linen gloves, please. The scores are on a scale of 1 to 9, but there's no 3 and 4, weirdly. Right. 1, 2, 5, 6, 7 and 9. That's so funny.

Yeah, 5 is poor and then 2 is inedible, nothing in between. That's so funny. Yeah, five is poor and then two is inedible. Nothing in between. That's very funny. There are various rules to judge a brisket as in a big chest of a cow. You have to be able to manipulate it like an accordion. Wow. Oh, wow. What a sentence. Horrible. I think it's a useful trick.

I'm surprised, yeah. Because, well, I could play the accordion, right? And so you have to move it quite a lot, right? And to move a rib cage, I don't feel like that would be possible. Yeah, maybe the rib cage. Oh, that's a terrible tune. But if a couple of the ribs have already been broken,

let's say because Daniel Day-Lewis has been living as the cow. Dan, can I ask you a question? Yeah. Australia? Yeah. You're from there. Yes.

Have you ever seen a coin operated barbecue? Well, I was going to mention this before I was cut off for my terrible spelling, which was not terrible. In Sydney, we actually have not even coin operated, you have free barbecues on most of the beaches that you go to. So we would go down to Clairville on the weekend, you would just press a button, and it gets going. And your only thing is to just clean it up. Wait is it like gas or do you have to bring your own charcoal? Oh no just yeah just goes up. Isn't it unhygienic? No you clean so there's a raw sausages on the...

I kind of think the thing with barbecue is it doesn't matter if you drop it in the mud like because you're cooking it on such a massive massive heat. It's a thousand degrees what's surviving that? There's a real there's a real pride thing by way, of you leave it ready for the next person. Oh, pristine. Yeah, it's a thing that is sort of just part of the way. I see, I see. That's national culture. Well, supposedly even some zoos have free barbecues, which I feel is open to misuse.

What, do you think that's a bit scary for the animals, just sitting around? Have you seen the wombat? Where's the one back? Okay, it is time for fact number three and that is Anna. My fact this week is that epileptic fits can be triggered by thinking about toothpaste. That's wild. Yeah, not widespread. Don't worry. Do you have to have a specific condition already for this to happen? Epilepsy? I'm assuming. It is more common in epileptics, yes.

But you ask all the right questions, Andy. That's why we love to have you in the class. This I just came across this paper from 2006 which reported on a patient with epilepsy... I'm not laughing. I'm just patient with epilepsy. It came across a paper from 2006 which reported on a patient with epilepsy in which seizures were induced both by tooth brushing and by seeing or thinking about toothbrush and toothpaste. That's amazing. So is that is that someone who is stressed about the idea of brushing their teeth and then the stress brings on it? Like what is

bringing it on? I don't, well, it's very mysterious and I don't think it's quite that. It's a thing. It's a type of reflex epilepsy, which is epilepsy that's triggered by something. And this type is called thinking epilepsy and it's where thinking about something. And I don't think it's necessarily something that causes you stress, but thinking about a certain thing triggers it. So there was, uh, other cases reported on where someone, when they thought about food, whenever they thought about food, which is quite debilitating. I read about one who every time they tried to do Sudoku, they got an epileptic fit.

This seems to be a thing, puzzles, crossword Sudoku. I hate a Sudoku. Yeah, but it's not about hating it. I don't know. Do you have the like epilepsy? I'm starting to feel like I might. But is it because there's a particular location in your brain where the neurons for toothpaste or Sudoku or whatever or food are kept and there's a crossed wire in there? That seems logical, doesn't it? But I don't think anyone really knows. No, no. And it is rare, but it is amazing. And some people can think themselves into

an epileptic fit. It just sounds like the most awful thing because what is the only thing you can do when you're told not to think about something, obviously is think about something. If you know that you can't think about this. There was a guy who was taken to hospital and he had a brain lesion, I think, and he had an epileptic fit. And the only way you could characterize it was if he started to feel enthusiastic, he would then have a fit. I wonder if you have that. I know we probably never know.

That's why actually I play it safe. So it could be anything. It's, it's, you just got to identify it. So he's not allowed a hobby. Not, he's not allowed a hobby that he likes. No, he can do Sudoku to his ass, technically. But they actually made him induce one, which does feel quite mean. They were like, could you try and replicate the feeling when you have one so we can have a look? So it was like, okay, I'll make myself feel enthusiastic.

You ready? Toothpaste? Yes, please. How do the stripes get in? Oh my God, the ultimate question. I never knew. Why don't I know? I believe there's a couple of different ways of doing it.

Yeah, they've got a couple. But my understanding is that the main one, there's a little thing near the nozzle or something. Oh, it's a paintbrush. It's disappointingly technical, the explanation. Annoying that it's not like... Is it not through the back door? What do you mean through the back door?

There's one rope of toothpaste that goes into the tube. You've got the nozzle at the top and then you've got the bottom. Maybe that's not closed up when the stuff's put in and then you seal it up. What you're saying is that one long string of toothpaste is put in and it comes out in the same order that it went in the other end. No, I'm picturing it a bit like Mr. Whippy. What if you get it wrong and squeeze it the wrong way? How does it work the opposite way round though?

Because it would mush inside. It's white on the inside up to near the nozzle end and then the color or colors. This is one way of doing it. The colors are up at that end. And there's a very thin pipe. So as you squeeze from the back end, the white goes up through the nozzle, but the color bit is also pressed out through the holes in the sides

and joins the main white bit. Cool. The main bit is white and the other colors then are the garnish. That's fantastic. That's very clever. I never knew that. So if you don't like the colours,

you know, if you get a bit perturbed when you spit it out and it looks like your mouth is bleeding, you can cut your toothpaste tube in half and then just use the bottom of it. It's just white. That's what I do. Yep. Think of someone who could have had a tube of toothpaste, right? A famous person in history. Margaret Thatcher. She could, yes. Even more impressively, even further back on that. Da Vinci. Jim Callaghan. Julius Caesar. Yes, yes. Even more impressively, even further back on that. Jim Callaghan. Julius Caesar. Yes, Jim Callaghan, no Julius. Wilson. Harold Wilson. You're just in PMs. Yeah, just going backwards. I think even before Balfour. Wow. I don't know if designing quiz formats is for you.

Yeah. I don't know if designing quiz formats is for you. Do you want to add? Log Salisbury. Oh, gosh. No. Was it between Disraeli's first term and Disraeli's second term? No, it's after all of Disraeli and Gladstone. Campbell Bannerman probably could have had.

Wow. He was a turn of the 20th century prime minister. Atlee. Yeah, we've ascertained that we could have done James. You're not catching up. You're not playing the game at all. Well, which is surprising to me because it's such a good game. What's your point?

How young Joan Rivers list trust all of these people. So what I'm trying to say is that the squeezy toothpaste tube, the collapsible toothpaste tube was invented in roughly the 1880s, 90s. So Queen Victoria could have had a tube of toothpaste. That just makes you think, doesn't it? What does it make me think? Well, it's just the tube of toothpaste is older than we might think it is. James Thorpe, Clement Atlee was the earliest Prime Minister who could have had one, but

actually 1880, a dentist from Connecticut, confusingly he was called Sheffield, launched it and then it was launched in York, confusingly the place, in 1896. So other people who could have enjoyed it include Adolf Sachs, Friedrich Engels, William Morris and Rutherford B. Hayes. Got any women there who cleaned the teeth in the- Queen Victoria, I think was the opener. I stopped. Queen Victoria. Queen Victoria. Great.

Here's a worrying thing for toothpaste, possibly. Do you know that sales have dropped by a lot? Some say almost half since the late 90s. What? Yeah. Now riddle me this. Is it that people used to have much bigger toothbrushes? You got in one.

Electric toothbrushes. Oh wow. Electric toothbrushes have such a small little surface area for you to put it on that you're not squeezing as much and also the rise of the two for one or three for two promotion has absolutely knocked out sales for them as well. But it's literally that we're using it almost half the amount that we usually would. I'm so surprised, because I don't think a high proportion

of people use electric toothbrushes. I'm surprised that it's half. Do you guys? Well, so the promotions as well. I do. I don't. But I tend to just cover my whole flannel with toothpaste and then rub that around my mouth.

Well, do you know, Lundsey? So I'm probably keeping the industry going. That would work. And this is his, you don't need to put it on a brush or anything. And this is something that will really send toothpaste sales plummeting. If they were worried before about this drop, it's totally pointless. What to have in your teeth, Anna?

Toothbrush. Toothpaste. What? So, study after study. If you're looking at removing plaque, study after study, like dozens and dozens of studies, very, very reliable, broad studies, look at the difference between tooth brushing without any toothpaste and tooth brushing with toothpaste and there is absolutely no difference.

Your teeth are gonna be stronger if you use fluoride. Your teeth, so the only thing is, the fluoride in toothpaste is in the long term, good for your teeth, only if you do the thing that I've always known you should do but can't bring myself to do, which is not rinse at the end. Do you guys all not rinse? I do now having learned this because we talked about this from QI coming up.

Oh, did we? But yeah, it is quite interesting because I think and there are so many ingredients, but it is literally the only thing is fluoride that does anything, unless except like breath smelling of mint, because you get fluoride free toothpaste, which I do have friends who use, and I'm not judging them, because they're my friends. Yeah, you can't invite them to the barbecue because they can't get through the meat. How is RFK? See, you're right. It's so interesting how we got fluoride in toothpaste and in fact, in water. In 1901, there was a young dentist called Frederick McKay, and he moved to Colorado Springs in America. And he found the people there had a young dentist called Frederick McKay and he moved to Colorado Springs in America

and he found the people there had a thing called, have you heard of Colorado brown stain? But I wouldn't buy that toothpaste, Grant. Isn't that one of the sports team, the Colorado brown stains? Go brown stains. This is insane. 90% of children had it. Almost no one in the rest of America had Colorado brownstone or any kind of brownstone. The water was tested. Turns out the water was very high in fluoride, right? Particular towns with particular water sources

had awful brownstone. But the good thing was they did some experiments, Mackay and Et al, and they found that basically this waterborne fluoride changed the color of your tooth enamel, but it also made this this mottled tooth enamel that people have was very resistant to decay. And so they started thinking, okay, we pop a little bit, these kids have rock hard teeth, basically. And they thought if we put the right amount of fluoride in the water, you won't get discolored

teeth, but you will get strong teeth. And the year after the first place Grand Rapids in Michigan got fluoride, the number of cavities dropped 60%. It's one of the most effective health interventions ever made. It's like that thing in Switzerland where everyone had goiters on their neck and then they started putting iodine in the salt, just overnight changed it. Well, and bizarrely we don't do it everywhere in Britain, which I actually didn't realize until recently. Not everywhere, no. In fact, in most places we don't do it. But does that mean we should actually, or good teeth, a mottled brown teeth? Like really, if we want super strong teeth, why not triple the fluoride?

I think you can have too much fluoride. You definitely can. There are advisory levels. And people go a bit nuts about it, obviously. There's lots of stuff online about it. When it was installed in Grand Rapids in 1945, lots of people said, this fluoride, it's given me sore teeth and sore enamel and it's really bad. And then we're told, yes, we haven't actually put the fluoride in the

water yet. That's happening in a few weeks. So we know now that there's no toothpaste before Campbell Batman. Well, there's no tubes, right? Yeah, okay. But what did the Romans do to, to keep their mouth nice and healthy? What they used as mouthwash. Oh, like urine. Oh, like urine. So, there is this sort of factoid that Romans used urine from Portugal as mouthwash. Oh, Portugal. Lovely.

And it is put across by lots of popular historians, but it's really probably not true. If you look for any classical evidence, there is a mention by Catullus and it's a poem, but he's mocking someone and he's saying, oh yeah, you're in Spain. You've been to Spain, so you probably wash your mouth with urine. And it might be that maybe some people in Spain did that, but this is a satirical sort of taking the piss. Really, they didn't do this. You mean not only not Portuguese urine, they probably didn't use urine in general. Probably not. Otherwise, why would you take the piss out of someone for doing it having just been to

Iberia? Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. I thought you were saying like, it's a myth that they imported large quantities of Portuguese urine and actually they just used good old fashioned Roman urine. But you're saying no urine was probably involved. No, I don't think there's any urine involved. It was only after they introduced the urine tariffs, of course, that they started getting good at making their own.

There's a lot of old methods to clean your teeth and alleviate toothache. Before it was a paste, it was powder, so we were all using powder toothpaste. One of my favorite ones, if not my favorite, is you would use the ground up ashes of a wolf's head. But what you say is when you find that dead wolf and you get its head in order to mash it up and use that, it is a well known fact too that there are bones generally found in the excrement of that animal. These bones attached to an amulet are protective as well.

There's a lot going on. It's an undertaking isn't it? It's laborious every night I guess, yeah, if you're out of toothpaste. Honestly, compared to, because I've literally been to the dentist two days ago and compared to that I'll take the wolf crap. You'll follow a wolf around until it does a shit, immediately kill it, turn the shit into a necklace. Rather than an hour and a half of drilling, yeah I'll go for it.

My dentist said, Mr Harkin, you have a very strong tongue. Wow, wow. Is it keeping it out? Would you like to join my gentleman's rub club? Okay, it is time for our final fact of the show and that is James. Okay, my fact this week is that things that French newspapers were censored from mentioning during World War One included any use of the word peace without the word victorious, any mention of the cold weather in case it reminded people about the

shortage of coal, and any reference of a meeting between the president's wife and a wild ape. I mean, plot twist. And did that reference a specific occasion or was it just in case anyone? It did. Did it? It did, yeah. There was an incident involving Henriette Poincaré, who was the wife of the president. And on the Wikipedia for the Alize Palace, it says in 1917, a chimpanzee escaped from a nearby menagerie, entered the palace and was said to have tried to hold the wife of

President Raymond Poincaré into a tree, only to be foiled by the guards. How strong was it that he could have hauled her into a tree? What? Chimpanzees? I know chimpanzees are strong, but that's bulky. A teenage girl chimpanzee would beat you in an arm wrestle. I don't doubt it. I don't doubt it. I know you've been bulking up.

Thank you. I think a teenage human girl would probably beat Andy in an arm wrestle. Oh wow, we're going there are we? I celebrate strong women, Dan. I'm sorry you don't. Wow. We have a metaphorical Armwrestle in this discussion. You just got slammed. I got beat shitless, yeah. So I read this in Wikipedia and I looked for some contemporary reports and I found this mention,

actually this was from the 1930s they mentioned it, it was in the London diary and it was things that you were not allowed to mention in 1916 in France in World War I. So that seemed to be that it might have happened but then I went further back and found some reports in 1916 in the American press and this definitely did happen. The Baron Henri de Rothschild had a place near the Elysee Palace and he'd been to the Far East, which means that maybe this ape might have been in orangutan, we think. He brought it to his home near the Elysee Palace and it had escaped. And I read one account in the Oldie magazine more recently that said the ape wrapped her in his embrace, took her by the waist and attempted to carry her up a tree. That's like King Kong.

It is King Kong, that's it. And then apparently Poincare, the president, he apparently put the orangutan up against the firing squad. No. What? According to one article. Which is still King Kong. That's the exact plot.

Yeah. So I mean, whether that's all true or not, like it definitely was reported in 1916 when it happened. Because it's really hard, isn't it? Because it was censored from the French press. So you've picked a really hard factor to respect. But it was mentioned in the world press around the time. And apparently President Deschanel, who came after him, he was so impressed by the ape that he took to jumping in trees during state receptions.

Oh wow. But he was the one who went a bit crazy. He was very mad, wasn't he? Deschanel was the manic pixie dream president, wasn't he? He was. He was the one who woke up on a train, opened a window, fell out of it as it was going 35 miles an hour. They didn't know until the next morning that he was gone.

And he was found by a local rail guy who he was saying, I'm the president of France. He goes, sure, make sure. Okay. Brings them to his home and they just keep them there until he convinces them that he is. Yeah. And then later on, he left the palace to go into the gardens and started chatting to a park worker, but he had no trousers on. And then he stepped into an ornamental fountain thinking it was trousers on. And then he stepped into an ornamental fountain thinking it was a bath. And then he resigned. Was it the stress of the job? No, in fairness, like we think now that he had some sort of really awful sort of sleep

deprivation illness. Alpina syndrome, I think it was called sleep drunkenness. Yeah, but yeah, it was basically he would would never he couldn't go into rem sleep or anything so even when he slept he just wasn't getting his brain refreshed oh boy although it's so weird because he lasted a long time with being fine and then as soon as yeah he became president maybe the stress did do something for it yeah um his wife was called germaine and um i just think i've blown something open but i don't quite know what because she's a Germaine Deschanel was there. She was a society lady. She looks like she would have been so good at entertaining because your whole role as first lady then was throwing big parties and she was brilliant at

that. So such a shame he only lasted about a minute as president, but she's called Germaine. They were married in St. Germaine church and he first went mad in St. Germain Forest. Wow. What do you, so what's your theory? What are we saying? Well, I've put something open, but I don't know what it is. Is this like the Peckham Butcher?

Do you think she doesn't exist or? Well she is the devil or something who she drove him mad by embodying a forest and then a church. I think it's a very Germain theory. Oh yeah. And there's the missing piece. Yes. The pun. You need, for any conspiracy theory, you need a pun. So this original president's wife, the one who bumped into the orangutan, was Madame Poincaré, right?

Yeah. She was, so Mr Poincaré, him indoors, was Raymond, who was president, very presently president for the whole first world war and some years on either side, PM three times as well over a longer period, like really very eminent. And then came back to be president again, I think afterwards. Wow. Yeah. I mean, so like amazing political career. So he would have had tube toothpaste, right? He would have had tube toothpaste. Yeah. Yeah. So his cousin was Henri Poincaré, mathematician, who James you might know. Conjecture fame.

Of conjecture fame. And I'm putting big quotes on that. Poincaré conjecture. So he's, yeah, he's really famous, right? Oh, yeah. In maths world. In maths world, yeah. So I just love this. This is a slight sidebar. But he was in a picture on Reponcoury, which is known as the most intelligent photo ever taken. So there are lots of smart people in it. Exactly. More than that one from the Oscars with Alan DeGeneres in it. Amazingly, no, that one, that was not the most intelligent photo I've taken, but this

was in 1927. So it was the previous record holder. Can we guess who's in the photo? Would we know? Let's say Einstein. Let's say Einstein. I'll give you a clue. Niels Bohr. Can I give you the clue?

D-Rack. Wait. Proust. Please wait. Mary Curie. Hugo. I mean, you kind of had all of them. I know.

The 1927 Solvay Conference on Quantum Mechanics, which was held in Brussels, attracted, there were 29 people in this photo, 17 of whom got Nobel prizes. The photo was stunning. So you said Einstein. You said Marie Curie. You said Dirac. Someone said Paul Dirac. Niels Bohr, Max Planck, Heisenberg, Erwin Schrodinger, August Picard. Like everybody, 17 of them got Nobel's. And just- Picard. Wow. I know. Yeah. Kick hard. Yeah. Yeah. Um, but there's just one photo of the, maybe the most intelligent conference that's ever happened. It wasn't in the, um,

and Pankara was in it. He was in it. He was in it. He was one of the, one of the people. And that's lots of nuclear physicists of that period as well, right? Cause that, I wonder if the phrase, if a atomic bomb dropped on us right now. I'm afraid the atomic bomb hadn't been invented. No, no, okay. Well, a bomb. Is there a phrase that says if an atomic bomb dropped on us right now? No, I was just adding that to the bomb. If a bomb hit this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like if a bomb hit this recording studio we're in right now, no effect on global history.

I'll take this off now. Although next year's top barbecue podcast might be short one candidate. Can I just ask quickly the censorship over that story? Is it because it wasn't so much that it was embarrassing, it's just that no matter what interview they gave, the journalist was just desperate to say, you know what, Dan, like I really did a lot of very, very in-depth research on this and it's very difficult to research, but I think it was because they were trying to keep morale up in the country. I can't think of anything that would improve morale more than if I found out

what's the name Starmer had been attacked by a cheetah in the garden of Downing Street. Well, I think also like it could denigrate his authority. Yeah, right. They're quite good about, well rather, they're quite strict about private lives in France. But you're right. And it's sort of a leading industrialist as well. It's like if Alan Sugar's pet Komodo dragon had temporarily abducted Mrs. Starmer and Starmer's had it shot by a firing squad.

Yes. Lovely. She, Madame Poincaré, she was quite controversial. In fact, the Queen of England was very snobbish about her, Queen Mary. They did an official visit in 1914 and she refused to be seen with her at first. Sorry, I was just grinning away at the thought of Queen Mary using some collapsible toothpaste jeans. For God's sake. How did you know?

Because I had the same thought then. I don't know the state of her dental hygiene. All I know is I'm trying to make the serious point that the English, the Brits, were very snobbish because Madame Poincaré, she was very old when she married. This wasn't why they disapproved, this is why I disapproved when I read about the story. She was 46 and the Prime Minister She was in her, she was 46 and the Prime Minister was a bit younger. So Queen Mary refused to share a carriage with her

because she was divorced and her first husband was a cab driver who was still alive. Oh, okay. Unbelievable. It's a shame because they could have run with the headline Cougar Attacked by Chimpanzee. Very good. Yeah.

Well, I mean that mirrors current Prime Minister Brigitte Macron. The French are into it. Yeah. They're also into presidents having lots of mistresses. Oh, yeah. Francois Hollande, he had four children with his long-term partner, but then when he became president, moved in with his mistress, Valérie Tréville. Yeah.

Yeah. moved in with his mistress, Valérie Tréauville. But then he cheated on her with an actor, with an actress. And it was really funny because he went off to see this actress with a motorcycle helmet on his head thinking that no one would be able to tell it was him. But he wore the same pair of socks that he'd been wearing at a recent international visit. So the photographers took a photo of him and went, I recognize those socks. Whoa. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's bad luck.

What does it, did the socks say president of France? Like what was... It must have been quite distinctive. They must have been, because most socks are just quite plain. Most male professionals wear plain black socks. That's why I always wear plain black socks. So I can get away with... Oh no, because what socks are you wearing? Just says shagger on your face James. I'm wearing powder puff girls socks, which I reckon if, oh look at Dan's, he's got bright

yellow ones. James, you must be the only man in London wearing those socks today. I know, if I have an affair. Yeah, you're screwed. Dan, what's that? It's Blast Skateboards. It's their logo. I am the only man wearing this in London today, but because of them I will not be having an affair.

I think the same applies to James. I'll show you mine, plain black. So if you see a man having an affair in plain back socks, you know it's not me or dad. And if they've got a little garter and they're tighter than me, you'll know it's me. He is not, I don't mean to be rude about him, but he's not David Gandy. Hollande, you're saying? Hollande, yeah. He's like, he's an example of power

being a great Afro-Disney X. You know, he's sort of just a very average looking dude who happened to be the president of France. He's not David Gandy. Is that the best person you could come up with? He is, Mahatma Gandy's, yeah, yeah, yeah. If Mahatma Gandy had taken his well man pills, he would have looked like David.

David's one of my top-end male models. He's an underpants model. Right. Oh yeah. Okay, yeah. Is this the first ever modern popular culture reference that Andy's ever said on the podcast? I think it might be. Maybe that none of us have, well, I've got it, but like that you two haven't heard of.

I can't believe you haven't, Hannah. He's sort of a famous guy. What, you think I know a lot of male underpants models? You might get a magazine or something. But Jack Schurach, president of France? Yeah. Did he muddle underpants? Well, he might as well have done. I mean, he certainly showed his pants off a lot, didn't he? When he was mayor of Paris in the 1980s, he ordered the city council to buy him a coat fitted with a bedroom so he could meet lovers on official engagements.

Sorry, a coat fitted with a bedroom? Coat. them so he could meet lovers on official engagements. Oh wow. Sorry, a coat fitted with a bedroom? Coach. Coach, right. Coach like a bus. Like a National Express. Like a mega bus.

Like a mega bus. Like a mega bus. Like a really mega bus. But yeah. Wait, was that so he could have lots of affairs, not just so he could sleep between... No, it was specifically so he could meet lovers. Did he say that? Yeah.

Well... You can in France, can't you? He had his private jet when he was president. He had a room that was for trists. Lovely. He has the weirdest thing, which made me sort of warm to him. So Jack and Bernadette, his wife, brought a Vietnamese refugee to live with them and sort of adopted a Vietnamese refugee. And it was on a whim.

So this woman was called Ann Dow Traxel. She was actually about 20 But she'd escaped from a refugee camp in 1979 when the Vietnamese were having a not very good time And she was crying in the corner of an airport in France and Jack Shorak saw her approached her and said don't cry my dear From now on you'll live with us. Hmm. Okay. I've got a special bedroom on the jumper Can I tell you one French heroine I found out, she wasn't first lady of France or anything, but just in the course of researching us, I found out about her because she was amazing. Her name was Valerie Andre. She died this year in February.

She was the wife of president Peter Andre wasn't she? She was. And she was a mysterious girl. She died this year. She was 102 years old, right? So she lived 1923 to 2025. Uh, she was in this order, a brain surgeon, a parachutist and the first woman to fly helicopter missions in combat zones and the first French woman to become a general in their army. Wow.

So she would do parachute jumps into combat zones. If someone had been wounded, right? Um, uh, you know, she would either do parachute jumps in, or she would fly a helicopter in herself, pick up a wounded soldier in the helicopter, fly them to hospital, and then she'd say, hello, I'm going to be your surgeon today and do the operation on them. That's amazing. I just think, imagine that, imagine your pilot then becoming a surgeon halfway through and patching you up. Just crazy.

I think I would feel less confident in her in both roles. I think you're not put in your full life into being a helicopter pilot or a surgeon are you? Would you say that before she made the first incision or would you maybe wait until... I'd be like do we not have someone who studied their whole life as a surgeon who can do my surgery please? Looking at gift horse in the mouth or what? That's so funny. I'm not going to sign this consent form. Okay, that's it. That is all of our facts. Thank you so much for listening. If you'd like to get in contact with any of us about the things that we've said over the course of this podcast,

we can all be found on our various social media accounts. I'm on Instagram. You can find me at at Triborland. James. My Instagram is NoSixSingersJames Harkin. Andy. I'm on BlueSky at AndrewHup4M. And if you want to get to us as a group, Anna. You can go on Twitter at NoSuchThing or Instagram at NoSuchThingAsAFish or email podcast.QI.com. Yep. Or you can head to our website, NoSuchThingAsAFish.com. Yep, or you can head to our website, no such thing as a fish.com. All of our previous episodes are up there. There's also links to an upcoming live show that we're doing later this year in Sheffield. It is part of the Crossed Wires Festival that's happening on the 6th of July. Tickets are available.

We also have a lot of merch that's up there. We have the entrance to our secret club, which has bonus episodes, behind the scenes stuff. It has extra compilations of all the outtakes from our show it's called Club Fish. Is it still £2.99 then? At the moment, but I am I'm on the brink of changing that James. So get in quick, get in while that lasts and yeah otherwise just come back because we will be back here with another episode next week and we will see you then, goodbye!