No Such Thing As A Fish - 586: No Such Thing As A Levis Jury

Episode Date: June 5, 2025

Dan, James, Anna and Andy discuss Socrates, Stansted, short wigs and long waves. Visit nosuchthingasafish.com for news about live shows, merchandise and more episodes.  Join Club Fish for ad-free e...pisodes and exclusive bonus content at apple.co/nosuchthingasafish or nosuchthingasafish.com/patreon

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Hi everybody, Andy here. Just before this week's show starts, if you're enjoying No Such Thing As A Fish and you'd like bonus episodes of fish and ad-free episodes of fish, you can join our super secret special club which is called Club Fish. To find out more and to get a free trial period, just go to patreon.com slash no such thing as a fish or join on Apple. On with the show. Hello and welcome to another episode of No Such Thing as a Fish, a weekly podcast coming to you from the QI offices in Hoburn. My name is Dan Schreiber, I am sitting here with Andrew
Starting point is 00:00:52 Hunter Murray, Anna Tyshinsky and James Harkin. 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 Anna. My fact this week is that when Socrates lost feeling in his penis, he asked his friend to sacrifice a cock. Wow. When you say sacrifice his cock, does that mean he swaps it over for Socrates?
Starting point is 00:01:22 Yeah, it's like a battery swap. Yeah. Have you rubbed it? Have you put it in the right way round? It's like a literal organ donor. This is very immature wording of a very serious story about someone who had to commit suicide. So it's 399 BC. Wow! I didn't actually read the story. He was executed by himself. I think that is a difference.
Starting point is 00:01:45 It is so bizarre. I don't know if we do this anymore in any countries that the state sentenced him to suicide, which I don't know if you can call it suicide when the state, but they gave him the hemlock and he took it anyway. And the effect of it, because he was so hardcore Socrates and he was so had his shit together. Hemlock usually had quite violent effects on people but according to people who were around him, with him it just made him go numb gradually from the feet up, it crept up his legs and as it reached his groin, the numbness of the hemlock as he was killing himself, according to Plato he spoke his last words which were, we owe a rooster to Asclepius, we owe a cock to Asclepius,
Starting point is 00:02:26 don't forget to pay that debt. And then he died. And Asclepius was a god, this is not a person he had borrowed a cockerel from. Yes, sorry. And we should say we're in fourth century Athens. That's the other thing we should say. BC, yeah. BC, sorry, fourth century BC Athens. Asclepius was the god of healing. Yeah, and the idea is that whenever you were sick and you got better, you sacrificed a cockerel to Asclepius. Yes.
Starting point is 00:02:49 But he saw his death as a recovery from life almost like he wasn't scared of death was the point. He's been cured of sickness of living. It's very cryptic. Like, and also you can't ask him what did you mean by that exactly, because he's just he's literally just died., so there are a few theories of or maybe He's making fun of the Pythagoreans because they saw cockerels as being sacred or maybe he was alluding to something else But it seems likely that exactly he was saying actually life is the illness. Yes Real chin stroker. Well, it was a funny man, wasn't it? It was funny guy Yeah, there's a big theory that he didn't die of hemlock really. I mean he had died of hemlock but it wasn't
Starting point is 00:03:28 hemlock that made him go numb because hemlock doesn't make you go numb. No but as I said he's a very special man. I think the other other theory. The suggestion is that he had a lot of opium mixed in with it to kind of take the edge off a little bit. Okay. Because there was a guy in the 18th century described the effects of hemlock. There was a guy in the 18th century described the effects of hemlock. There was a guy called Fergus Caird and he was living in the village of Talisker and he mistakenly ate some hemlock roots thinking it was carrots. And it said his eyes did roll about, his countenance became very pale, his sight had almost failed him, the frame of his body was all in a strange convulsion and his pudenda retired so inwardly
Starting point is 00:04:06 that there was no discerning whether he had been male or female okay out but it was quite fine would make you convulse and stuff yeah was he all right in the end he this guy actually got better they basically um they gave him loads of stuff to make him vomit and make him shit himself until it all got out of his system and he just about survived. What about his pudenda? Did they reinflate? Not recounted. Why do they run the important stuff? That's interesting about the opium because that kind of suggested it's like the equivalent
Starting point is 00:04:34 of a last meal when you're on death row. It's like you're going to be drinking this. What would you like as your mixer? What do you want in there to make it go down nicely at the end? Can I have a hemlock and opium? Oh, he's already got got Pepsi is that okay? We should say what he was sentenced to death for. Yeah. Yeah, so Correcting the youth corrupting the youth and also impiety
Starting point is 00:04:57 And he'd been teaching young people critical thinking which was frowned on And he'd also probably not been taking religion completely seriously and Athens was a very religious society. And also, the other sort of context is, like Athens had had this really rough time, it was in the golden age of democracy, but they'd just been really walloped in a war by the Persians, and, you know, it was a very rough time. And there's a theory that people were willing to put up with Socrates, who famously asked provocative questions Didn't accept the established version of things like he was a provocateur
Starting point is 00:05:29 He was a thinker and there was a theory that when it was going fine for Athens people willing to put up with that And then when Athens was really doing badly people said this is this is subversive now So we're gonna have to you're gonna have to knock it off and tried for that You know, he was tried by jury and it was a massive jury. It's not like your classic 12 angry people. It is 501 jury members. The Levi's jury. Absolutely. And it was the one extra so that you don't get a tie when it comes to the voting. It would be bad luck to get 250 all, wouldn't it? Exactly. He ended up with a close margin. 280 voted that he was guilty versus 221.
Starting point is 00:06:11 It's not that close. Well, I guess it's... It's a great thump, but in a modern democracy that's a resounding mandate. Okay, well he got thumped. Well, what's even crazier is that he lost it, 280 to 221. That was just to find him guilty. Then there was another vote to see what the sentence should be. He said, well, I think you should give me free lunch for life. Like he was a joker, right? That pissed off the members of the jury, including jury members who said that he was innocent. And even they voted for the death sentence because I was so pissed
Starting point is 00:06:39 off by that joke that he made. Yeah. Cause I think it's a weird thing to ask the newly guilty party, what do you think your punishment should be? It's a bit like asking a toddler, isn't it? Yeah. But maybe that was a little bit like twist playing your own games to Socrates. You're the one always asking us bloody questions rather than giving us answers. Well, we'll ask you a question. Did anyone vote for the free lunches for life? To be fair, he did get free lunches for life, probably. Oh yeah. I mean, I don't imagine he had to pay for the hemlock and opium. Maybe it was his clever way of saying, I think I should be put to death in a couple of days,
Starting point is 00:07:15 but that I should get the food in the prison in that time. Yeah. That was his clever way of saying, yes, put me to death. Yeah. That's his clever way of saying something. Because that was what he did, wasn't it? Well, actually, like, you know what, he was sentenced to death, but then his mates bribed the prison guards and said, we'll get you out of here. And he said, now you're all right.
Starting point is 00:07:35 Yeah, I'll just take my punishment. And his idea was that the law of Athens had protected him all the way through his life. And so it would be inconsistent to say well now I think that because the laws are against me I shouldn't follow them anymore. But I'm grateful. That is good and he was 70 as well so going on the lamb would probably, I mean just surviving in ancient Greece outside Athens was probably... Yeah he must have been in terrible shape. Ancient Greece age 70, 71. Sorry Tom Cruise is 63 so let's put this in context. Socrates was only a few years older than Tom Cruise is now. So Socrates' method was really good. You'd say, so what do you think, you'd just get someone into a conversation, so he'd say, so what do you
Starting point is 00:08:16 think about this matter or another? And they'd say their opinion, and then he would slowly unravel them. Anytime they said something, he'd say, hang on, you said just a moment ago that this other thing was true. So how can those both be true? And you would end up with both of you in a state of aporia, where neither of you can further define the idea that is under discussion. And there are lots of anecdotes written about Socrates getting into conversations with people
Starting point is 00:08:38 who end up just saying to him, sorry, I have to go. I have nothing more to say. I'm on my way to work. He's basically like a charity bugger outside of Stoke-Stoke. Sorry, just one minute. What do you think of free speech? Did he get punched too much? I imagine you're in the groceries and you're behind Socrates and he's questioning the seller. Would you punch someone for that? Maybe to engage down. You should see him in the 10 items off you a line. What is an item? That's a bunch of grapes. Is that one item? Is that 12 items? He did use to
Starting point is 00:09:16 cost people in the gym quite a lot when they were exercising, which maybe isn't a good idea if you want to avoid being punched. If he was in the gym causing ruckus and starting fights, I actually think he would have held up on his own because we do picture Socrates as this older philosopher walking around barefooted. You know how I picture him? Yeah. Exactly how he is in Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. And I also pronounce him so great most of the time.
Starting point is 00:09:39 So great. Yeah, exactly. We picture him as this philosopher, but actually he was a decorated military hero. He went all the way up to 48. He was still going to battles. He was still in front line. And I just didn't know that about him at all. I've just had this old man philosopher in my head. But it does raise some questions because so the three main people in his life he wrote about him were Aristophanes, Xenophon and Plato. So huge amount of Xenophon. And I hadn't
Starting point is 00:10:03 realized he saved Xenophon in the middle of battle. So in the Peloponnesian Wars, Xenophon and Plato. So huge amount of Xenophon and I hadn't realized he saved Xenophon in the middle of battle. So in the Peloponnesian Wars, Xenophon was dying. It's a little bit like the Two Little Boys story. Xenophon's lying there dying. He chops up, says, do you think I'd leave you dying? Tosses Xenophon over his shoulder and carries him out of battle with one hand while fighting people with the other. I thought they both had a wooden horse or something. Yeah, that's the Trojan War you're thinking of. No way. Did you just make that joke?
Starting point is 00:10:31 That's incredible. What is the Two Little Boys story? Yes, they start off with a wooden horse, but you've obviously never made it to verse two, where they go into real battle. Yeah, they grow up. They, do they grow apart? And then they come back together,
Starting point is 00:10:43 one of them saves the other's life. Yeah, it does ring a bell now. It's a tearjoker. Anyway, then Xenophon wrote loads of really obsequious shit about him for the next 50 years, but of course he did, he saved his life. And we also get a lot from Plato, because these are all his students, right? And Plato writes all the really smart things that Socrates thought, but actually it kind of starts off like that, but then towards the end, it's just whatever Plato thinks. And he's like, Oh yeah, yeah, Socrates thought that Tremere are the best team in League Two this season. Yeah. So he just like, you never know where Socrates ends and where Plato starts.
Starting point is 00:11:20 Is it right that there's no written stuff by Socrates? There's no record of any of that. He hated writing. Yeah, he was against it. He thought it would ruin people's memories. So it has proved. And well done. In fact, that's the reason that a lot of historians apparently really love the Bill and Ted movie, because in it, you can't understand what he's saying. And that is very on point with the
Starting point is 00:11:41 fact that we don't know anything that he actually said. Right. So it's a perfect representation of Socrates. Okay. I haven't seen it, but I am gonna counter the claim that it's a perfect representation of Socrates nonetheless. Yeah. Is that fair?
Starting point is 00:11:54 No, not fair. Okay, sorry. It is the most triumphant movie. Was there a Mrs. Socrates? Yes there was. Yes. She was called Xanthippe? Yeah.
Starting point is 00:12:04 I'm saying that right. Very useful for us at the moment because we're researching the X series of QI. As is Xenophon, actually. Yes. So they had three boys and they lived in near poverty while Socrates went around the city asking people weird questions. Does this remind you of anyone? Dad Schreiber. Three boys? Yeah. Yeah, near poverty. You're always just going around asking people weird questions while Fenn is saying we need to sort out this or that. Christ, if Dan's the great philosopher of our time, we are really all screwed. Just another Xanthopy thing. This is a mystery that I got too deeply into, so I'm going to
Starting point is 00:12:40 drag you down. Xanthopy was the original Shrew. She's, you know, known throughout medieval history. She's the shrewish wife. She's mentioned in the Taming of the Shrew as the archetype. And then a shrew was discovered in the late 19th century and it was named Xanthope's shrew by the person who discovered it. Obviously after Xanthope. But get this, its other name is the yellow-footed shrew. Now, as I'm sure you'll know, Xanthos in Greek is yellow, golden yellow, and podes per pair is like feet. So Xanthippe sort of means yellow-footed, and it's got yellow feet. But it's named after Xanthippe the woman. What's going on? That's amazing. I got lost halfway through. Has anyone followed? Did it was, they named it after Zanthippe, the woman. Because she has yellow feet.
Starting point is 00:13:29 Yeah, because she's a shrewish woman. But if you twist the words a bit, it sounds like it's got yellow feet in Greek. Exactly. That's crazy. That's really good. Thank you, Andy. Are you the first person to make that link? I think I might be.
Starting point is 00:13:41 Wow. Yeah, this is going to blow some stuff open. Yeah. Let's get in touch with our PR. Let's get that out there. Is that? We don't have a PR. Damn it.
Starting point is 00:13:52 Daily Express though, if you're listening. I have a favorite Socrates sort of thing that he did. It's the Socrates freeze. Did you read about this? It's written about, so Plato writes about it in the symposium. Basically, he used to get stuck with ideas in his head that he really needed to think about. And when he did, he just stopped or moved himself to a convenient, out of the way spot
Starting point is 00:14:12 and just remained there completely still, no matter what he was on his way to. So in this, he was on his way to a dinner party and he suddenly had an idea and he just stands on the porch and just stays silent. And then that's how I have that when I walk into a room and can't remember why it went in. I do the exact same thing. Just stand there and look around and go, what was it I came in here for? Right. Maybe you are the great philosopher of our time. I think we all know that's true.
Starting point is 00:14:36 I think that's probably true. But you're saying Socrates is standing on that porch going, who the f***s house is this? Yeah, that's what I reckon. My favorite Socrates is the... I know who that's what I reckon. My favourite Socrates is the... I know who it's going to be! My favourite Socrates? Who is that, do you think?
Starting point is 00:14:50 Is it going to be the other famous Socrates in history, the football player? The football player from Brazil in the 80s. He was known as the smartest player in the Brazilian football team. Question, was he known as Socrates before people thought he was smart or was he called Socrates and then people said he was known as Socrates from a very young age. People in Brazil, they'll often get a nickname. But I think I think actually his dad was a self taught very poor but self taught guy and he named him Socrates after the philosopher because I think his brothers were called Sophocles
Starting point is 00:15:21 and some other very lesser Greek person. Yeah. So his dad was a philosophy like he studied philosophy and he had lots of books and basically it was quite sad actually because there was a coup d'etat in Brazil and when the army came in they forced everyone to burn all their books and Socrates as a child, the footballer, he watched his dad burning all the books in his library and imagine how painful that was for him because that was what he loved He loved his books and did that then said I want to football
Starting point is 00:15:49 He said well if I can't if I can't read because of this clue I'm gonna know he was just a great footballer Really because he also had a medical degree which he got while he was playing football. Yeah, he was super smart He's amazing and then when he got towards the end of his career He got into politics as well And he said if this you know if this military dictatorship doesn't leave, and if they don't allow free elections, then I'm going to leave and I'm going to go and play in Italy. And what happened? He went to play in Italy.
Starting point is 00:16:13 Oh, what a letdown. I thought you were going to say, and the government act down. No, in fairness, like they did back down eventually. He played one year in Fiorentina and then the next year they did back down and he came back. But they didn't just abandon the dictatorship because to get him back into the country. No, they didn't. But he was quite instrumental. He was influential. Yeah, yeah. He was such a big campaigner for all that. He was such a great guy and he made them all wear shirts saying democracy in their big... This is when he played for the Corinthians.
Starting point is 00:16:40 Right. Which is also really cool because obviously the Corinthians, great allies of Athens, allies of Socrates, Socrates fought with them in the Peloponnesian Wars. Anna, have you taken Dan's coincidence pills? This is insane. This is insane. I love it. Stop the podcast. Stop the podcast. Hi everybody. We wanted to let you know that this week we're sponsored by Squarespace. Yes, that's right. Squarespace is the all-in-one website platform. It's designed to help you stand out, succeed online.
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Starting point is 00:18:32 Do it. Get on with it. Go on. Okay. On with the show. On with the podcast. Okay. It is time for fact number two. That is Andy. My fact is that a lot of people in the UK have their heating controlled by BBC Radio 4. That is amazing. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:18:51 It seems unlikely, doesn't it? Yeah. This is mad. This, I should say, was sent in as an audience fact. It was sent in by Bill Welch, so thank you, Bill. Right, so you all have electricity in your homes, right? Not me with my poverty situation going on. I'm out on the streets anyway, so it doesn't matter.
Starting point is 00:19:11 So, your electricity is controlled by a meter, and it might be a smart meter if you've had it upgraded, or it might be an old-fashioned one which measures the current going into your home and you pay for the amount you use, but you also pay maybe a different amount at different times of day. You know, at night, there's more electricity that's going unused and like there's more wind turbines going around, so there's lots of cheap electricity available. Some old-fashioned electricity meters can switch between different tariffs, different rates they're charging you, and the way they do it, switching twice a day, is that they are set up to receive a signal embedded in the BBC Radio 4 longwave radio signal. It's nuts. Twice a day, Radio 4 sends out this message
Starting point is 00:19:51 from Droitwich, which is in the middle of the country and is a transmitter that can reach the whole country, and it just goes blip, and hundreds of thousands of homes across the country switch onto the new tariff that they're paying for their electricity. And this system, it dates back, I think, about 40 years. It's only meant to last another month or so. They're meant to be shutting it down in June 2025, but still they've got hundreds of thousands of homes where they haven't switched over the meters yet. We don't know what's going to happen. No. Because at a time of recording, they're still going to cut it off.
Starting point is 00:20:20 I know. Good luck. They are trying to switch people over, but they have to accelerate pretty fast. They're switching people over at like several thousand a day. They are trying to switch people over, but they have to accelerate pretty fast, don't they? They're switching people over at several thousand a day, or they're trying to. But it's hard, isn't it? It's hard, yeah. And there is a petition, just in case anyone's listening and thinks, hang on, I don't want this to happen, on change.org.
Starting point is 00:20:34 Do check it out, because it's like... I think it's going to happen. I think there's time. If you're listening to Radio 4 and you're listening out for this noise, you're not going to hear it. No. Because it's not a bloop, not really. It's the signal is sent by the phase information of the wave. So you've got this radio wave sort of pulsing through the country and it's always the same frequency so that you can pick it up on your radio. But if sometimes they put little changes
Starting point is 00:21:05 in where the peaks and the troughs are in this wave, and those tiny changes are the things that it picks up. And your radio would normally strip away any of those differences. Any radio that you own, you would never hear this. Now in theory, you could build a radio, like a ham radio, that would pick it up. But even if you did that,
Starting point is 00:21:24 it would just be the tiniest little hum you would have. That's interesting. So if you are at home and your radio is off, you've turned off radio four, that's, it can't get through the radio right? No. Like that's it? No. That's not how radio works.
Starting point is 00:21:39 Then you pay loads of extra money for heating. It's such a stupid system. So you have to leave their radios on all night. Your electricity meter is a radio. It contains a tiny little rod with iron in it, and that's an antennae, and that can receive 198 kilohertz radio waves. And any signal that comes in on that radio wave will be picked up by that little rod. And so that is kind of acting like a radio.
Starting point is 00:22:03 You can't get a test Test Match Special through your electricity V. So if I lean up close, I won't hear the Arches theme tune. OK, that's good to know. Test Match Special isn't played on Radio 4, anyway. No, it's all right. Isn't it? They got rid of it a few years ago. OK.
Starting point is 00:22:16 Oh my god. I think that's the saddest part of all this stuff, actually, that Test Match Special isn't on Radio 4 anymore. Right. Not even Longwave. Because the reason they put it, like we should say, like most people listen to FM or probably now digital, right? But Longwave was because there are about 90,000 homes in the country
Starting point is 00:22:32 which couldn't get FM radio, and you would have to carpet the country with transmitters to make that signal available absolutely everywhere. So for those homes, they just had the Longwave signal, which is different, it can get anywhere. And also, if you then have a program that lasts for five days, like Test Matter Special, you just shove it on long wave. So you don't have to stop all other Radio 4 for a week. But this is this is why the heating has had to be stopped, right?
Starting point is 00:22:55 It's not about the heating systems changing over. It's about Radio 4 saying no one's using long wave anymore. So also this will be probably news to maybe five people after the country. They're stopping broadcasting over longwave. And this is just the knock-on effect where these guys are going, hang on, that's going to stop my heating. Although it doesn't really affect that many people. For instance, if you go to Curry's and try and buy a radio, I think of all the radios they sell in the entire country, there's only one of them that will pick up longwave signals these days. Really? Is that true?
Starting point is 00:23:25 We're shooting ourselves in the foot by turning off longwave. What about when the internet stops, when it breaks, we're gonna need a good reliable backup system and that can be longwave. Yeah, well that's probably there, right? For us to still use. No it's not. This is the weird thing. The whole point of it is that they can't get these handmade glass valves. There are these big glass valves which make the long wave signal work. And the BBC bought the entire global supply some years ago, which was 10.
Starting point is 00:23:51 Yeah. And you need two of them to make the transmitter work, right? How long did they last? Well, between one and 10 years. So, you know, so they're down to their last two now. They've got like, they've got no spares in the cupboard. They're using their last two valves. When one of those goes, the system goes.
Starting point is 00:24:08 Yeah. One interesting thing about the long wave, especially this thing in Droitwich, is you have to send out a frequency and it has to be exactly 198 kilohertz, right? But how do you make sure that the frequency is always the same when you're sending this signal out? Yeah. I don't know. Well, they used to have a thing called an Essen ring and it was made of quartz.
Starting point is 00:24:32 And if you apply voltage to quartz, it vibrates at very precise frequency and you had to, it had to be in a perfect ring and you had to sort of hang it up by nylon threads. It's so cool, the technology we used to have. And one of these existed inside the Droid Witch thing so that you would always have the exact frequency. And now they do it with rubidium. So they get some rubidium atoms, like a gas, and rubidium atoms, rubidium-87, the isotope, they always transition between two energy levels this is quantum
Starting point is 00:25:05 physics now which are exactly 6.834 682610 gigahertz apart and that's basically an atomic clock that's what that is okay yeah so we used to keep time in paris wasn't it with the courts before they came up with the absolutely so that's how my cassio works yes actually i'm not even joking it has a small piece of course in that's how a Casio works. Yes. Actually, I'm not even joking. It has a small piece of quartz in. That's how a digital watch works. So yours works in the same way that the S&Ring would work. Obviously, you don't have rubidium atoms in there.
Starting point is 00:25:33 I didn't spring for that. I saw it on Amazon as an option. But it was three quid more, and I thought, no, stuff that. But the atomic clock inside Droit Witch not lose more than one second every 3,000 years if it was a watch. Wow. Which. Superb. Which is pretty good.
Starting point is 00:25:46 Although we're now up to with atomic clocks ones that won't lose a second in 30 billion years. Yeah, we've got to perfectionist, haven't we? It's like having to find the next digit of pi. Yeah. Who cares? We've gone far enough. A second every 3,000 years is still, if you'd started that when we invented farming and came to now, it would still be within three seconds, which I think is good. I think that's good. Socrates would be almost a second late if you had a meeting with him. It doesn't matter he's frozen half a mile down the road anyway.
Starting point is 00:26:16 I had to refresh my memory from the old GCSE physics of how on earth all these waves bloody work. And so in case you need it long wave hugs the ground, which I just like the idea that that's why it can get to all of those places is that like some sort of weird cartoon character just clings just above the ground so it can gallop over mountains and humps and everything. So if you're in a valley you still get it. Exactly. So is it bouncing off the sky?
Starting point is 00:26:44 Sometimes it is but more important with the bouncing off the sky? Sometimes it is, but more important with the bouncing of the sky, and I think this is the very cool thing, is shortwave reception. So shortwave relies on the ionosphere, which is the ring in our atmosphere of charged ions. And the reason they're charged is because the sunlight bashes into atoms in the daytime in our atmosphere, and it causes them all to react with each other and lose electrons and they become ions. So it's all very electrically charged. And we use that ionosphere, shortwave, to bounce radio signal up and then back down to us. What I quite like about that is that that means that you'd get much better reception at night
Starting point is 00:27:21 on the radio just because of how the ionosphere works. So basically, in the daytime, the ionosphere has been all charged up by the sun. So it's lots of ions, like free electrons, wandering around looking for a partner. And so the radio wave goes up like someone going into a ballroom full of dancers looking for partners. This is sexy stuff. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And it's harder in the daytime to get through that ballroom because the dancers keep on trying to dance with you. They're these free ions being like, hey, pair up with me, pair up with me.
Starting point is 00:27:50 But in the nighttime, they all chill out. They recombine with their normal partners because the sunlight's gone away and stop stirring them up. So the radio signal of your shortwave radio can just go straight through the dance floor without anyone assaulting them. Which is all well and good, but you can't play cricket in the night time. The terrible irony is you can never listen to Tess Met Special with a good signal. And that is the ultimate point is it's pointless. What good radio is on at three in the morning?
Starting point is 00:28:17 Droitwich played a part in D-Day. Did it? Yes, it did. The D in D-Day stands for Droitwich. Yes, it did. The D in D-Day stands for Droitwich. Droitwich Day. Yeah. The date of the landings was broadcast from the Droitwich transmitter because there were people in France, the resistance, they were getting signals from Britain and how do you send a signal all the way to France? Well, it's pretty difficult unless you have a big old tower that can send long wave. And so they did. And they could pick up the BBC French service from there.
Starting point is 00:28:46 And they played like a poem by Paul Valan, I think. And when they heard that poem, they knew that this was the time to, basically what they did was they would kind of cause ruckus with the Germans and like, you know, just be a pain in the ass. If you're gonna blow up the roadways, blow them up now. Yeah, exactly.
Starting point is 00:29:02 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just keep them occupied in various, ironically, you're the one who's occupied, but keep them occupied while we're going onto the beaches. So the signal was like, create a distraction. Yeah, yeah. Cool. Can we say what the line was? It's so cool. So as you said, it was a poem by Paul Verlaine, who was a 19th century, quite avant-garde gay poet. Like he was quite... Was he the one who had an affair with Rambo? I think. I think he did.
Starting point is 00:29:26 Not Rambo the... No, it's not. Dad's looking interested. Arthur's telling me more. Who's Rambo? Arthur Rambo was the poet as well. The poet. Yeah. They were like the romantic poets of France.
Starting point is 00:29:37 Yeah, they were terrific. That's a disappointing movie night when I rented that movie. Rambo first blood. Actually, totally a clip starring Leonardo DiCaprio as Rambo is a great film, Dan. Wow. Yeah, there you go. So the poem starts, Le sanglant de violon d'automne bless mon coeur dans le longer monotone. The long sobs of autumn violins wound my heart with a monotonous languor.
Starting point is 00:30:01 Very poetic. So when they broadcast the first half, that was a signal to the French resistance, invasion is going to be within two weeks, you've got two weeks to get ready. And then they broadcast the second half of that line, which was, you got 48 hours. Like the French service broadcast all of these phrases, some of which were meaningful, like, molasses tomorrow will bring forth cognac. That just went into France, as it might've been done in Morse code, but it was, and then John has a long mustache. And some of these phrases were meaningful to the resistance and a lot of them were nonsense just to confuse the Germans basically. And the Germans knew the
Starting point is 00:30:36 significance of the verlan poem. There was an officer, a German intelligence officer who said, okay, the invasion is coming within 48 hours. And he passed the message on, but it did not get through to the army who are actually in charge of Normandy and trying to man the beaches. Did he go shortwave? I don't know. Screwed it up. Yeah. The warning wasn't passed on. That's mad, really.
Starting point is 00:30:56 It's huge. That's a big counterfactual. Well, the amazing thing is also the Germans sent some signals from Droitwich as well. They had someone in on the inside and so they could signals from Droitwich as well. They had someone in on the inside and so they could use the Droitwich transmitter to send their own signals to people in France. Right. There was a German spy in Droitwich. They don't know who it was but they assume it was someone working at the BBC or something. That's crazy.
Starting point is 00:31:19 Wow, that's cool. I like that Longwave can go through water as well and that was submarines would use Longwave to get their radio their radio for they would literally use To get it. I think they still they still do but obviously at the end of this month. They weren't right What are they gonna do? I don't know. I don't obviously got a new thing. They're gonna swap to but that that was the thing I'm sure we've said it where in wartime You would make sure that England was still there basically while you were underwater if radio 4 was still going So they probably gone on BBC Sounds now. That's true. They probably pre-download before they go.
Starting point is 00:31:53 I do love codes in, I feel like we should do this at some point. There's a whole period of an American radio where they would put a code for the listener at the end of a radio show. So it would be like a little bit of Morse code and you had a decoder at home as part of the fan club so we would give little teasers for what's happening in the episode that you were going to hear the next day or the next week. That's a really good idea because we know that you listening to this almost certainly stop listening before we say our email address is at the end because we've seen the figures we know when the drop off comes. Are you saying we should put them in Morse code
Starting point is 00:32:25 at the start of the podcast? No, I'm saying we put something special at the very end so people are forced to listen to us saying, I'm on Instagram. Oh. Yeah. All right, we're gonna do it. We can just tell people we'll put something special there.
Starting point is 00:32:36 What should we put? Crossword? That's the most fun I think I've ever thought of. What about Sudoku? A Sudoku. So I'll do the first box. Blank. You've got to listen next week. In just 81 episodes time, you've made your own Sudoku grid.
Starting point is 00:32:57 This will get people listening. Okay, it is time for fact number three and that is my fact. My fact this week is that Andy Warhol would regularly have his wig cut by a barber and then return the following month wearing a new longer wig. Very annoying for that barber. Yeah, how did the barber react? Well, this is Andy Warhol we're talking about. He, as well as being an artist, was an art piece in himself, and the barber would have known and would have enjoyed what they were
Starting point is 00:33:30 doing. And actually, you know, like at the moment, if you're a barber, you have to sit there waiting for your customers to grow hair. But if they just come in and buy some hair for you to cut, it's giving you more work. Yeah, that's a good point. Was it so that his friends would kind of slowly see his wig get longer and shorter so it looked more realistic? Yeah, well, I think as well, like this is one of the most photographed socialites in
Starting point is 00:33:54 America at a time. He wanted to make sure that his look was ever-changing. It was sort of in fashion. The wig was a huge part of his life, by the way. Because his wig is a very obvious wig and he wore holes, isn't it? Yeah. It's silvery, isn't it? I know you had hundreds of wigs. But iconic. So he basically started going bold when he was in his twenties and he really
Starting point is 00:34:15 didn't want this. And there's a lot of early art pieces where it clearly is playing on his mind. There's a piece that he did called bold question mark where he just showed someone gradually becoming bold in sketches. And so he took it very seriously. And there's a huge collection of Andy Warhol wigs that are out there now. They were all very nicely made by a man who was called Paul Bocchiccio. They were iconic wigs. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:34:41 You could buy one in 2006 at auction for $10,800 at which time it was the most expensive wig ever sold Oh, yeah, has it been overtaken three times? Do you want to guess? Oh, yes You can get them all big wigs Simpson oh my god Let's try some real-life people, okay Big wigs is a good name for when I turn this into a Channel 5 format. Yeah, absolutely. I'll take my usual 10% fee. Yeah, I feel like we might struggle after the first episode, in fact, after the first question.
Starting point is 00:35:15 I'm struggling now, I think I'm really famous. So I'm thinking of people, I'm thinking of iconic weird artists like Salvador Dali. Oh, think of more famous, very famous. Edna Heverage. Edna Heverage. Really good cool. Michael Jackson. Michael Jackson in at one, $75,000. What's his awake? He did wear wigs later on so he was in a commercial for Pepsi. Yeah. And there was a fire or he burnt his hair basically and he had to wear wigs for a while after that. It was pyrotechnics that went wrong during the
Starting point is 00:35:44 advert recording and his head lit up. He didn't even notice. You can see the footage where he's still dancing and his head is just in. Really? Yeah. Oh, so that's number one. Other famous wig wearers, so... Go for more famous people who might have happened to have worn wigs at a certain time.
Starting point is 00:35:59 Dolly Parton. Close, but no. Give us one clue that's sort of like... The most famous woman of the 20th century. Marilyn Monroe! Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor! Oh! Double!
Starting point is 00:36:12 Yeah, you kind of spoiled the format by getting them so quickly. Fill another 24 minutes of the show. But it was Elizabeth Taylor's wig in Cleopatra went for $16,000 and Marilyn Monroe's wig she wore in The Misfits, which was her last film, went for $30,000. Right. Come back next week. When we'll desperately be hoping for some big news in the wig world. So what, and he kept hundreds, didn't he?
Starting point is 00:36:44 Andy Warhol in boxes and... Yeah, he was a huge hoarder. He collected everything in his life. There's a weird massive art. I think there's an Andy Warhol museum somewhere. Maybe it's in Pittsburgh, which is where he was from. Yeah. But it's got, wherever it is, it's got 50,000 of his things or a hundred thousand, you know, many floors of tickets, stubs and old... He basically at the end of every day, he would get a big cardboard box and anything that
Starting point is 00:37:06 he had left over like half a sandwich or a smoke cigarette or something he would just pour it all into that box and with market time capsule and then just put it to one side. Really? That's a good idea. And the Andy Warhol Museum has hundreds of these and I don't think they've all been opened. No, so back in 2007 there was a journalist who was invited to see some of the boxes being open. So they had 600 boxes of these things. I think only like 80 of them had been opened at that point. And they had just no idea what you'd find in it. So he was there as they
Starting point is 00:37:34 opened it and they found an unopened Lionel Richie CD. And then they found things like a mummified foot that he bought at a sort of sale, you know, like a garage sale, and that he kept in. This is a format, James, I'm sorry. But like, when the Wig Show comes to the end of its natural life after many seasons, I think Andy Warhol's big box open is a good... It's like Storage Wars, where you bid against each other for what's in a box, and you might get a half-eaten sandwich, or you might get millions of flies.
Starting point is 00:38:04 That's a fun concept. Are any of them moving or ticking? Or are there any like... It's very much something you can get away with if you're a very famous artist, but if I did that as an ordinary human being, my friends would think I'd gone completely mad. It's unsustainable for all 8 billion of us to do this with all of our things. But also the wig became its own thing in his life where it could act as him. So there was a whole tour in colleges and instead of going he sent an actor, I think the guy had his own hair, but he cut it and he coloured it to exactly Andy.
Starting point is 00:38:40 It was so iconic that look and he wore dark glasses. Can we say what he was called? Yeah, absolutely. He was called Alan Midget. Yeah, Mijet. I'm so sorry for mispronouncing something for Comic Effect. Alan Mijet. It had an E at the end, but you put that E on. It didn't have the E originally.
Starting point is 00:38:57 Yeah, thank you very much. And basically people were very annoyed with Andy Warhol when they found out that he'd sent Alan Mijet in his place to sit and collect sunglasses in a wig. Yeah. Did they know straight away when he came up or would they see the whole talk? Basically, they screened an incredibly boring film that Andy Warhol had shot and then Andy Warhol's shtick was that he didn't answer any questions. So you'd have a question and answer session where he'd say like two word answers. I think people did get pretty quickly that-
Starting point is 00:39:22 They eventually did get it. And it was a bit confusing and the people around Andy would say isn't it fascinating some people who'd even met Andy would then meet Paul Magette and say wow Andy lovely to see you again And he was like if enough people around a person believe it is the person then they get confused into thinking it is and that Was the case and he said they got a better deal because actually Maget gave more answers at the talks than Andy would have. He was more personable, he was more likeable. Supposedly he was caught when he ran out of silver hairspray. Alan Mijet. I don't know if that's true.
Starting point is 00:39:53 And people were so annoyed about this when it was discovered that one Oregon college made Andy Warhol swear on a Bible that he was Andy Warhol before they let him do the event. Cause it was to students, these talks basically. And I think people had- But it feels better to see the double because you're seeing an Andy Warhol work of art. the event. Because it was to students these talks basically and I think people had paid. But it feels better to see the double because you're seeing an Andy Warhol work of art. As Dan says Andy Warhol made himself a work of art. So it was like everything he did you had to
Starting point is 00:40:14 appreciate and some people didn't get it. This guy is the Socrates of the 20th century. I'm sorry he's going around irritating people. Not answering any questions, only asking them. around irritating people. Not answering any questions, only asking them. He was a weird guy. He did a lot of art which was about replication and uniformity. So one of his most famous things is the paintings of Campbell's Soup Cairns. That's what made him famous, really. Yeah, but this was 1962 and it was his first big solo show, so it was his debut to the art world. It was not a success. He sold five? Really? Yeah. In fact, I don't even know if he sold five, like a few of the two were sold and a few more someone said, yeah, keep that back for me. You know, it was a failure. And the gallery owner
Starting point is 00:40:55 then said, actually, I'm not going to sell any of these. I want to keep the series together. But I think it's interesting that Campbell's didn't know about it. Because obviously he hadn't, he wouldn't have warned them or anything. But then people started wearing Campbell's didn't know about it. Because obviously he hadn't, he wouldn't have worn them or anything. But then people started wearing Campbell's soup clothing because this work of art had become popular. And then Campbell's soup gave him a commission to paint a can because their chairman was retiring. So they've got this weird relationship.
Starting point is 00:41:16 Then they threatened to sue him later on. Then they made their own dress out of soup can labels. If you send them $1 and two labels, they would send you a dress that looks like Campbell's soup can labels. If you sent them one dollar and two labels, they would send you a dress that looks like Campbell's soup can label. Oh, so it was for anyone. It wasn't like high fashion. No, no, no. It was just a sort of an offer, but it was based on- One dollar. That's a great value dress. And two labels. It's still a great value dress. But he just sort of dragged this perfectly innocent soup company into the world of high art and then they started engaging with it
Starting point is 00:41:43 off the back of it. It was very weird. Can I ask, you might not know this, but if that was such a failure, at what stage did he become not a failure? Do you know what I mean? I think it was very soon after that. I think it was almost the day after that. I think it was connected.
Starting point is 00:41:56 A lot of people thought all the soup thing, don't know. And then a few critics said, actually, this is great. Actually, it's pretty good, yeah. Yeah, which I'm still on the fence about. Some other people who don't appreciate his art, people from his original village. Because as you say, I think he was born in some like Pittsburgh, but ethnically he was Rusyn, not Russian, Rusyn, which is this really tiny ethnicity from the Carpatho-Rusyn mountains and it's between Poland, Slovakia and Ukraine.
Starting point is 00:42:27 And that's where both his parents were born before they emigrated to America. It actually, so he's from a place called Ruthenia, it's also called, which existed as a nation for one day in 1939. What? Yeah, it declared independence and then immediately was invaded by Hungary. Oh, that's bad luck Was there a connection? It wasn't that they were thinking when should we do it let's wait no way should do it today. No, no, let's wait
Starting point is 00:42:56 Okay, finally, let's declare our independent There was stuff happening in 1939, I'm not sure if you're aware of that. I understand. But anyway, he's got all these cousins still there in the area and they kept in touch with Andy Warhol's parents when they were in America. And the parents wrote back to their cousins in Slovakia saying he's a painter.
Starting point is 00:43:18 And people were interviewed saying until the late 70s, they all thought he just painted houses. They were like, oh, those guys are a house painter. And um there were some good interviews like he's got a cousin i think a first cousin called julia varsholyver who's from there so lives there and she said um semi-recently in america you don't really need to be good at something you just need to be different uh warhol was just really good being different wasn't he so he was called Warhol-ah. It was an A originally. But isn't it, I think it's in Slovakia that they have the second largest collection
Starting point is 00:43:50 of Andy Warhol art now and memorabilia. So there's an actual museum there that's outside of Pittsburgh. But how are you gonna compete with 600 boxes of mummified feet, right? Like, you're not gonna come first. But yeah, so they've obviously embraced it. Well, a little bit. The person who set up the museum embraced it, but he did go around trying to tell
Starting point is 00:44:07 everyone to get into it, him and a lot of his family and people there were like, we don't get it. We don't like it. Right. Whatever. And then he was shot. And then he was shot by Valerie, Sol and us, who he put in a few movies. She thought she should have been in more of his movies. He shot me and then I shot him. Yes, I guess so. It's a different time, isn't it? I think she had a few issues. But basically, she was a member of a feminist organization called the Society for Cutting Up Men, or SCUM.
Starting point is 00:44:37 She walked into his factory because the place where he worked was called the factory. And she just walked in, shot him and walked out again. And then a few hours later, she kind of went to a policeman saying, I think the police are looking for me. I am a flower child, arrest me immediately. And they arrested her. And he survived. Just because if you don't know story, that sounds like he died. But yeah, it was 1968. Yeah, this all happened. I thought that the reason she shot him was because he had lost the script of a play that she had written called Up Your Ass, which and apparently that
Starting point is 00:45:13 where he lost it. But she I mean, she went to tell me the way. Yeah, for a few years. Yeah, declared. She was declared. But the episode of his shooting is insane. It's the kind of shooting you'd imagine in Andy Warhol's mad life. Two friends there, his friend Mario Amaya was also shot and the bullet went all the way through from back to front. Didn't get any organs, but then they called an ambulance and it took half an hour to arrive. And in that time, more mates turned up, found this blood soaked scene. Mario was running around going, is there a bullet in my back? Is there a bullet in my back? And then Andy Warhol was lying dead. And he was literally declared dead.
Starting point is 00:45:53 Really? In one of those, you hear that as a fact and you think, no, surely not. But he was taken to hospital, he had no signs of life. And there was a sort of vascular surgeon in the room who said, hang on, I quite like the soup cans thing. I'm gonna really try and sew this guy up. Not true. The doctor didn't know who it was. They thought he was a random tramp.
Starting point is 00:46:10 Oh, I thought that they thought he was a tramp at first and then they were told he was Warhol when they were operating. Although I'm not saying he wouldn't have operated on the random tramp. No, Giuseppe Rossi was the name of the surgeon. What a guy. This is an artist, okay?
Starting point is 00:46:22 What he did. I'm serious. Warhol's been shot, I think, twice. And really badly. Like, he's in very, very bad nick. He's dead. He's dead. But Rossi opens Andy Warhol's chest,
Starting point is 00:46:35 massaged his heart, took out his spleen, and he puts it in order for 12 pints of blood. He's like, we can do this. And he did it. And Andy Warhol thanked him by giving him 10 posters of Campbell's soup. Well, hang on, that's gonna be worth so much. Yes, they were sold after Rossi eventually died.
Starting point is 00:46:57 I think his widow then sold them because I imagine they kept them for life. Yeah, yeah. If I gave a doctor 10 posters, that's an insult. What would you pick? Posters of what a doctor 10 posters that's an insult what would you pick posters of what fish tour posters this is panella's dream we've got to give away 10 of my posters brilliant i've got them ready dad poor surgeons at home after a very hard day's work and someone says there's a life-size model of grouchy muck size
Starting point is 00:47:31 Okay, it is time for our final fact of the show and that is James. Okay, my fact this week is that when Stansted Airport was being planned, locals campaigning to maintain the area's natural beauty often met in a village called Ugly. Lovely. So initially this was a fact that I found about the Ugly Women's Institute. We were going to do an Ugly Women's Institute fact, but that's kind of on the internet a fair bit. And when I was researching that, I found this campaign about Stansted and they were deciding where to put London's third airport. And it turns out that quite a few of the meetings to stop the airport from going round there took place in Ugly Church Hall.
Starting point is 00:48:10 Because Ugly is a village in Essex. Yeah. And we should say, Stansted is an airport. It's an airport for international visitors who've not been. It is not a great place to spend time. It's not a beautiful place. But it's one of the big three.
Starting point is 00:48:23 Gatwick, Heathrow, Stanston. But yeah, they had lots of meetings at this ugly church hall. Some of the ugly residents were pro. So the ugly youth club wrote a letter to the preservation society saying that it will bring some life into the area that according to them had little around but farming. And they said that a lot of young people were moving out of the area. And if you brought in this big airport with all the jobs it created, then maybe it will keep the ugly youth around. And Councillor Jay Lukies responded saying it's a feeling that the youth has that they're
Starting point is 00:48:58 being brought up amongst squares. So yeah, so it was, you know, it wasn't everyone was against it, but it was, it is quite a beautiful part of the world actually around Stansted. Ugly is really nice. I've been looking at photos. It's lovely as they are, they will tell you. Understandably, they'll get defensive. It's very beautiful. Ugly Church is not ugly. Ugly Green, Ugly Village Hall. There's an Ugly Farmer's Market that happens every now and again. I went on to company's house.
Starting point is 00:49:27 There's an ugly coach house and until 2023 there was a company called the ugly Indian and that was based in ugly. And I can't find out what it was. I assume it's a restaurant. Yeah. Right. It's not going to be a single person, right? That would be insane.
Starting point is 00:49:40 But there is. There's a group called the ugly Indians in India that kind of clean up potholes and stuff But it's not that that's cool No, I'll be a terrible base from which to clean up bottles Yeah, I really like the the very first mention that we have of ugly written down is in 1041 and it had a different name It wasn't called ugly then. Oh, yeah, it was called You double G E L E then. It was called Uggly. And actually the locals there, the locals there don't call it ugly. The posh ones who were living there, they like to call it Uggly. I know they do, but there's not a single one.
Starting point is 00:50:24 This was told to a reporter called Laura Fiddler who was down there trying to find out all the most interesting things about Ugly. Laura Fiddler's misunderstood the jokes on her. It's five kilometres north of Stansted Airport. So Stansted is named after a town called Stansted Mount Fitchett, which is just outside where the airport is. So it's not inconceivable they could have called it ugly airport. That would have been terrific. Other nearby villages include Little London, Mole Hill, Maggot's End and Hope End. So Hope
Starting point is 00:50:52 End airport would have been a good one, wouldn't it? That's good. There is a nearby village called Nasty, which is 12 miles away. It's a long running, I think it's just a joke. Reputedly there was a newspaper headline once, Nasty Man Marries Ugly Woman. I suspect it never happened. Sadly. Quite near to another little village called Matching Thai, which is a great name for a place. Oh, such a good name.
Starting point is 00:51:15 It's TYE. Have you guys, have Dan or Andy heard of Matching Thai? No. No? I'm really surprised you haven't, because Rick Mayall lived there until he was three years old. Oh! That is a real gap in our knowledge, Dan. Yeah, I can fix that. We're going to have to send in our badge and our gun back to Rick Maile, so I think they shouldn't let us have a gun.
Starting point is 00:51:32 I thought you had a badge and a big frying pan. More Essex place names, just as we're on those. There's Shallow Bowels, Shallow, not Shallow, those. There's Shallow Bowels, Wiggly Bush Lane, Burnt Dick Hill, Dancing Dicks Lane and the best of all, Fingring Ho. Fingring Ho. Oh. Fingring Ho. Yeah. You've said it three times. I think we understand why it's funny. That's funny. Actually, speaking of Dix, Dix related names, there is an ugly women's institute.
Starting point is 00:52:10 And there was, well, it was certainly reported in the late 50s that they decided to change to women's institute brackets ugly, but then by the 80s, they were back to being the ugly women's institute. And their president in the late 70s was Mrs. Dix. Mrs. Dix was president of the Ugly Women's Institute. Oh wow. Yes.
Starting point is 00:52:28 You know the most famous person to visit? Ugly? Ever? I think. Oh, just like passing visit. Yeah. Daphne and Celeste. No. Think more German. Daphne and Celeste. Well, A-Hits, Adolf Hitler. You know what?
Starting point is 00:52:47 Right period. Right cabinet, in fact. Okay. Goering. Hitler. Can we just pause on the fact that James has a nickname for Hitler? They go way back. A-Hits.
Starting point is 00:53:00 Just reading it off his tattoo deck. I couldn't fit the full name on my penis. Oh my god. Wow. Oh dear. It was Joakim von Ribbentrop. Oh is it? Yeah.
Starting point is 00:53:21 Try fitting that on your penis. Of packed fame. Of packed fame. Of packed fame. What the moment of Ribbentrop was Russia and Germany. He was the foreign minister. I think this was before his time as German foreign minister. He visited Orford House, which is just outside of that thing, but it's still in the sort of parish boundaries. And of course, later he was the first man hanged for war crimes after the Nuremberg trials. He was. Yeah. I think he might have been the only person who's been too ugly who was hanged as part of the Nuremberg trials. And what was that? Like why was he staying at a hotel
Starting point is 00:53:55 the night before a flight from Stansted? It was a beautiful house that I think was owned by a local Toff who invited him over. And he loved England. I think it was Ribbentrop who kept on trying to get Hitler to invade England because he thought it was so beautiful, loved Cornwall. So yeah, probably loved ugly. There was a big argument about Stansted Airport when it came in. So we had two airports in London, we had Gatwick and Heathrow, and they thought we're definitely going to have to build a third one. had Gatwick and Heathrow and they thought we're definitely going to have to build a third one. And the decision that we were going to need one starting about the 50s and 60s. And they didn't actually build Stansted Airport until the 80s. I think it finished in 85 something like that. Because actually Stansted in the end was, they just did up an old airfield. Like,
Starting point is 00:54:42 rather than building like a whole big massive new airport, is what they were planning, they kind of rolled back on that idea a little bit and went for the smaller version, which was what Stanstead was. But everyone obviously got really upset about it. People don't like airports near them, do they? Understandably. It's huge.
Starting point is 00:54:58 And it wasn't even, during the Second World War, it was the ninth largest American air base in East Anglia. It might not have been the obvious choice, actually. There were big ones. After the war, it second world war it was the ninth largest American airbase in East Anglia Like it might not have been the obvious choice There were big ones after the war it was used as a base for German prisoners of war who were going to be sent Back to Germany and actually if you do isn't it? Well, if you go to Stansted now, they've they've really preserved that sense What it must have been like yeah They nearly built the third part in a place called wing Yeah. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:55:22 And they nearly built the third airport in a place called Wing. Oh! Really? In Buckinghamshire, yeah. Really? There was locals there, weren't happy about it either, and formed the Wing Airport Resistance Association. But that was gonna be a really big airport, and it was after the oil crisis in the 70s
Starting point is 00:55:40 they decided that actually we should do a smaller one, and that's when they went to Stansted. So we could have had a wing airport. And actually where the airport was going to be, there's now, they put some trees there and you can go and visit that sort of patch of forest of where there should have been an airport. Is that a big tourist hotspot in Buckinghamshire?
Starting point is 00:55:57 Yeah. Um, just NIMBYism in general. Oh yeah. You know, there's NIMBY not in my backyard. This is what people say when they don't want to think. The alternatives are the banana people, and that is build absolutely nothing anywhere near anything. That's brilliant. And there's an idea in, I think it's more of an American thing when it's cave,
Starting point is 00:56:17 which is citizens against virtually everything, which is another good. Nice. It's really good. But maybe the paradigm example of this, this was something that happened in Medway in Kent. So not far from Essex, three years ago. Medway Council, they really wanted to add solar panels to their headquarters. It's kind of a post-war, like modern, block. It's not incredibly exciting to look at.
Starting point is 00:56:39 They thought, let's stick some solar panels on there. So the Medway Council put in an application to Medway council to put solar panels on their own headquarters. And they were shocked when Medway council turned down the request by Medway council saying, no, this is not appropriate at all. The weird thing is it already had solar panels on it. And they were just like, can we put some more on?
Starting point is 00:56:58 No. Oh really? Um. 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 social media accounts. I'm on at Tribaland on Instagram. Andy? I've joined Instagram. Oh, I'm at Andrew Hunter M.
Starting point is 00:57:20 James? Well, I might leave Instagram then if Andy's there. I'll go for TikTok. Knows such thing as James Harkin. Yep. And Anna, if they want to get to us as a group. Yeah, we're on Instagram on at no such thing as a fish or at no such thing on Twitter or you can email podcast at qi.com. Yep. Or you can go to our website, no such thing as a fish.com. All of the previous episodes are up there, so do check them out. There's also links to our upcoming live shows. We got one in Belgium in a couple of weeks, and then we're gonna be in Sheffield as part of the Crossed Wires Festival.
Starting point is 00:57:50 We've also got a link to Club Fish, our secret club, where there are bonus episodes and lots of fun things going on. So check that out. Or you could just come back next week, because we'll be back with another episode. We'll see you then, goodbye.

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