No Such Thing As A Fish - Little Fish: I believed it when Pythagoras said it

Episode Date: July 5, 2026

Dan, Andy and Anna discuss YOUR facts including scaring cormorants, cleaning horses and recognising frogmen. Anna reveals what her first word was. And we name eight more Friend of the Podcast custodians. London Podcast Festival tickets go on sale tomorrow - visit nosuchthingasafish.com/live to join us in person, or via livestream! Edited by James HarkinProduced by Leying LeeTeam includes Tara Dorrell, Joe Mayo and Ethan Ruparelia

Hello and welcome to another episode of Little Fish. My name's Andrew Hunter Murray, and I'm here with my two close colleagues, Dan Shriver, and Anna Tuginski. And we're here to discuss the brilliant facts that you, the audience, have been sending in to podcast at QI.com. We've got loads of facts. Let's have some. Come on. Who's got a fact? I got one here from Tom Besois.

Tom Besois says, the American actor John Kazel only appears. in five feature films. All of them were nominated for Academy Awards for Best Picture. Wow. He did The Godfather, The Conversation, The Godfather Part 2, Dog Day afternoon, and the Deer Hunter. Amazing. Yeah, he did five of these in a seven-year period, but tragically, he got very ill. He had lung cancer.

And so he died, and that's the only reason that he didn't star in more. I've only seen two of them. I've seen the conversation and what was the first one you mentioned? The Godfather. No, I haven't seen that. Deer Hunter. No, I haven't seen that. Godfather Part 2.

Nope. Yep, very good. Dog Day afternoon. Yep, very good. I've only seen one of them. Is he, does he play the same? Because sometimes people play a special role in all films, like they'll play a policeman who's just got a random one-liner.

Was it like that where he just plays? No, no, he had substantial roles, and he was very much loved. There's been documentaries about him. People really miss him. Al Pacino held him as one of the great actors of his day. He said, I just would have been in movies for the rest of my career with him. He was dating Merrill Street when he passed away. He was part of a very big.

sort of unit of actors. I think I've heard of him. I think maybe he's of he feels like a famous like edges of gangster films kind of lad. Yeah, right. It does feel like he's got a type. He hasn't done never been kissed, has he? You know, it's definitely down that hardening, Pacino-esque film. And I've actually got a little bonus exciting element to this fact because that's often the fact that is told he was in five movies all for best picture. He actually appeared in a sixth after his death because they used archive footage of him in Godfather part three. and that was nominated for an award as well, Best Picture, and he was in that technically.

Brilliant. So good. You'd want to employ him, wouldn't you? If you'd made a crap film, you'd be like, should we get him in and we'll get the Oscar? If you've made Piranus 5 or something. That's what people do with Sigourney Weaver in sci-fi films these days. Have they all won Oscars?

No, but they are treated with more respect than maybe they would be if Sigourney Weaver wasn't in them, in my opinion. If you're making a sci-fi film, let's say Avatar 3, you might want to just get the weave in. And, you know, she brings a touch of class. Yeah. Yeah. She sure does.

That's what we do with podcasts, though, isn't it? You know, if people want to make a great podcast, they try and get us in. I mean, it hasn't happened yet. Oh, I thought you meant one of us was brought in for the class. Which one of us has been drafted in just for the touch of class? Do you think we get another Chortle Award if Sororney Weber came on as guest? I actually do. And do you think that would be the proudest moment of her life?

I can't think of a higher one. Yeah. Yeah. Let's do another fact. That's another fact. This is from Oliver Frederick. And this is that in Sydney, if you speed 30 kilometres and over the speed limit, you'll be fined about 650 Australian dollars.

Okay. And in India, the fine for the same crime is 2,000 rupees. And so Oliver Frederick has done a little bit of working out that James Harkin would love. He said, in order to pay the same amount of fines in India, as you would have to in Australia, you'd need to either break the speed limit over 20 times or you could. And he's looked at all the fines in India for all these things. You could speed under the influence of drugs or alcohol without a valid license or wearing a seatbelt. driving recklessly into oncoming traffic while texting, running a red light,

and not stopping at a stop sign, all whilst blocking an ambulance from reaching an emergency. That would just about get you to $670 Australian dollars. So there you go. That's so cool. It's top tip. And that's why they film all those chase scenes in India because it's just a lot cheaper for the movies. Yes, yeah. If you're the judge, you'd be like, but I'm going to waive the fee for the effort,

because that was absolutely stunning. Yeah, it's like shooting the moon when you're playing hearts, isn't it? If you collect all the bad cards, actually, you win. Perfect. Yeah, yeah, love it. All right, here's a fact, and this one comes in from Simone Few. Few, and it's a great fact. It's that Catherine Parr, last wife of Henry the 8th,

was named after Catherine of Aragon, the first wife of Henry the 8th. As in, Henry the 8th had so many wives over such a long period of time that the youngest one was a baby who was named after his first month. wife who was her godmother. That's incredible. Isn't that absolutely hideous? Hang on, that's not hideous. Can I not slouch shame Henry the 8th? Is that not even, is that not? You know what? He never gets to tell his side of the story. Oh my God. Oh my God. There's literally a very successful West End musical which finally has told their stories. Yeah, it's not his story, is it? We need the West End musical that tells his side of the story. I love to try and pitch that to produce us. We need to hear Henry's

the story. It's a musical called One. It's about the one man at the center of these six, you know, winging women. Well, four by the end of it. Wow, that's very funny. That's very funny indeed. Yeah, yeah. I've got another fact. Should I do one? Okay, this is from Sam Tomlin. I'm a math teacher by trade and continually find fun and interesting ways to present material. Before going through Pythagoras's theorem again, I discovered this. Friend of the podcast, President James Garfield created a proof of Pythagoras theorem. And this makes him the first president to contribute something original to mathematics, as well as the first president to eat anally.

Wow. I mean, just one of those things is a reason to be proud you were alive. Yeah. Both. Yeah. Amazing. That's so cool. Isn't that awesome?

It's just so interesting coming up with a new proof of something it is already proven, as in there are lots of different ways of getting to that truth of Pythagoras' theorem. But to come up with a new way mathematically of doing it, I just think it's very impressive. Yeah. All pointless. You know, if we've proven it. I suppose.

Okay, so there's a book that's called the Pythagorean proposition, and in it, Garfield's proof is 231 in a list of 370. It's too many. That's too many. We don't need that many proofs. I believed it when Pythagoras said it. Good source, Pythagoras. In a way, by going around the houses and doing something in a way,

a non-traditional, like getting something demonstrated in a non-traditional method. Isn't James Garfield sort of foreshadowing his own eating everything through his bottom later in life? Do you know what I mean? Yeah, lovely. Because there he had to circumvent normal route and go in another way. Yeah, that's what they said to make him feel better about it. They shoved the champagne up there.

This is just like your Pythagoras work, actually. That's the president. Yeah, yeah. That's great stuff. Okay, what about this one from Peter Campbell? Longtime listener, first-time e-mailer. He specifies to the show. He sent emails before.

Love it. He said, I think we were talking about sports teams with... You already know that's a hallmark of quality for a good email. Yeah, you know? I bet you didn't even read the rest, Andy. That just made it in. I don't know what it. I'm excited to find out what it's about.

It's actually very pro-fascist, the rest of it. No, he... I think we were talking about sporting teams with weird, wordy, coincidental names. And he said, in the 1970s, my team Albion Rovers had the spicy trio of Bill curry, Sid Sage and Albert Rice. You could make a whole meal out of them. I will say

it's not a brilliant team Albion Rovers. They are in the fifth tier of the Scottish Football League. But he does then, this chap does then go on to say, it's just, okay, focus carefully on this, these couple of sentences. It's just a pitter. The team doesn't have the same caliber of player now.

I still support them, though. Whatever the result, Vindalooz. Win or lose. Rise or Fal, I had to look that up. Farl is a very hot kind of curry, hot than Vindaloo. There's none more supportive than ghee. So he sort of descends into nonsense

by the end of it, to be honest. Well, thanks for writering your email in. Yeah, yeah. Here is the fact from David Carey. My fact is, down under is a lake named Lake Wombat. Right? Where do you think that might be? Sorry, down under is a lake.

Just in down under, you know where down under is. Yeah, yeah. Is that a clue not actually in Australia? It's in New Zealand. And the reason is that it is named after a 19th century gold prospector called Jake Wombat Irwin. But Lake Wombat is in New Zealand. They don't have Wombat is in New Zealand, right? No, they don't have Wombats in New Zealand.

No, no mammals, right? No mammals. I mean, there are loads of people that cheap and things. some bats right no mammals my mammals in New Zealand they've got a lot of they've got a problem with a load of non-native

yeah cats in Asia you have to cut off your mammary glands yeah it's a kettle lake I just thought you might like to know that this lake wombat what does that mean it's 9000 years old

I did want to know that I've just realised I couldn't with a gun to my head to find a kettle lake for you you really volunteered the information you didn't need to And you really felt we needed to know. Every geography teacher who listens is absolutely screaming. Okay, let's have another.

Okay, here's a little pop culture one. This comes from Alex Wilson. I have a bit of a fun fact for you. John Bon Jovi of the band Bon Jovi. His first professionally released recording was not an epic rock power ballad like he does with his band, but a song called R2D2, we wish you a Merry Christmas. from the Star Wars Christmas album. Christmas in the Stars.

And we covered this very slightly many, many years ago, probably a Christmas episode, or it might have popped up somewhere else. But yeah, he was working in his uncle's recording studio, mopping floors and stuff like that, doing basic janitor or real jobs, and they needed a singer. And so he had a good voice,

and they brought him in, and he sang on this song. How many times has the janitor stepped up and done a brilliant job? You know, like, this John von Jovi was the janitor? like Goodwill hunting. Like Goodwill hunting, that's it. There's definitely two, one that's real and one that's not.

Yeah. I'll be honest, I'm not pitching this to the publishers yet. And it's a very low bar to get an Andy pitch. So I would say, Penguin, Faber, put your phones down. Yeah, stop that bidding wall. Call it off. The Book of Genius, Generals, Real and Fake. Chapter 1, Chapter 2.

Oh dear. Index. Okay, here's one from Dane's Stringfellow. Oh. Don't know. Any relation? Yeah. Doesn't mention.

But he did say, I recently learned from my friend's dad that in the UK, you must have a license to scare cormorants. And then he says, and upon said scaring, you have to fill out a form listing the method of scaring

and the number of cormorants leaving and all returning. Beautiful. Which is nice. But, Dane, I will say, I'm just going to let this be a lesson to you when you hear facts from your friend's dad. Check them.

Check them out. checked it out. We don't need a license to scare cormons. You need a license to use lethal methods to scare cormorans, i.e. shooting at them, which does feel more like killing cormorants and scaring them, but I suppose it would be scared as well. So you do need a license to take a gun out with you, which maybe it is surprising if you're from America Dane, but that's just how we do it here. This is so, like, this is just a warning to the listener. We get sent a lot of facts, and it's our choice which facts we bring to this show. And Anna decides to shame. The incorrect facts.

I'm sure you have enough accurate ones. It just makes the UK sound like a place with some ridiculous loss. And actually, you know, this one is just saying, you know what, give the cormorants a chance first. Did Dane say he was writing from America? No, he didn't, but he said... So you've just, you've just interpreted that as... Look, he said in the UK, you have a license to scare cormorants.

He might have just meant you have to have a license. No, you're right. And I might have mistyped it, you know. No, you're right. I don't type them out. I do copy and paste. You don't know how to do that You know there's a shortcut for it as well

What? Yeah Oh that's going to save me time I'll talk to you afterwards All right No I was actually still fascinated to learn it Because you always go down a rabbit hole Don't you?

So then I ended up in lots of like fisheries based legal stuff Which was excellent And I'll do a spin-off podcast on that Yes So thank you Dane I did really enjoy that Here's one that came in from Ian Clark

Okay I just wanted to say how much I'm enjoying the podcast It's become a regular companion and on my drives. This is all relevant. This morning I was sitting in the car, listening as usual,

just about to head into the stables to see the ponies. So that's, I guess, Ian has ponies. When a van pulled up from a company called Southern equine sheath cleaning,

that immediately caught my attention. For context, as I'm sure you'll appreciate, I didn't know this, in the equine world, a sheath refers to a horse's penis. So there's this company which just only does

horse penis cleaning. Wow. That's quite something, isn't it? That's amazing. And, um, like, it's stunning. And I was looking this up. I was on a train next to a child when I was doing this research.

And I had to quite carefully tilt my screen because I didn't want the, you know. So they could see that. No. I didn't want to sort of like blow, to blow any young minds or anything like this. But anyway, the owner of this company is a woman called cat seaman. So they're not cats. No, they're not cats. So it doesn't work at all.

So it's completely irrelevant. But, uh, yeah. basically and it's recommended you do it twice a year some horses never need it some horses they say I mean obviously they're trying to sell you sheath cleaning services so they will like much like

oh you really should launder your pillows every four days come on here yeah but there are some friendly bacteria under there that you don't want to disturb so don't do it all the time and some horses go their whole life without needing a sheath clean I bet they're really cocky horses as it were I bet everyone's prancing around poor all back Harry's been sent to the sheath cleaning for the ninth time this year.

You absolutely would think it's a prank if Mrs. Seaman called up to say, I'm a horse penis cleaning company. I was like, thank you, no, goodbye. Don't hang up, don't act. She must start every conversation. Don't hang up. Can I do one more before we... Yeah.

...custodians. All right, here we go. This is from Olivia Byers, who says, howdy y'all? She's actually requested Andy that you say that out loud. So if you want mind. Howdy you all? There we go. Fact the first.

She's given us two facts. A small mountain town in North Carolina called Marion, population under 8,000, has officially designated Bigfoot as their town animal. Lovely. They celebrate this with a Bigfoot festival that draws over 40,000 people,

which means the festival population is roughly five times the town's population itself. There are expert panels, Bigfoot-themed food, and my personal favorite, a Bigfoot calling contest. The festival slogan is, come a skeptic, leave a believer. I have not attended. I am not yet ready.

But, fact, the second is Ohio is in the process of legislating a state crypted, specifically the Loveland Frogman. Now, we spoke about how every state has a state animal. It's looking like the Loveland Frogman is going to be Ohio's. officially described by Ohio legislators as a frog-like bipedal creature standing approximately four feet tall. So it was spotted twice in March of 1972. But you'd think that's, okay, that's too far away. But then again, in 2016, by two Pokemon Go players. Oh, yeah, who are looking at their screen and seeing all sorts of mad, weird animals all day long. There is thought that it might

be a large iguana that they spotted. But no one has said. So yeah. So this cryptid might become the official. Unbelievable that Ohio legislators have to get involved in this. Like, just leave it to that mad bloke in the pub. Just say, sure, make it whatever you like, can't. Just going to go back to housing here. But this is that thing, like this town called Marion, that's a thing that is going to really help its economy every year, right?

It's just such a, if you can land a weird animal or an idea in your town or a UFO, you really are just going to help the local economy. it just seems to be the case that it all... Don't encourage it even more. Don't encourage fun? Is that where you're against? Yes, it is. John Maynard Keynes wrote a brilliant economics book about Nessie and how...

Yeah, yeah, yeah. The macroeconomic implications of Nessie is a really interesting one. It hangs in a lot of money. It will bring it up... Plushes everywhere. Every shop you go. They're all wearing the Scottish hat. Right.

That's enough of your facts, I think. Especially yours, Dan. Facts to the air quotes around that one. Let's have some of our facts being dished out now to Friends of the podcast, because if you join Clubfish, our secret members club, publicly available at patreon.com slash clubfish. If you join at the friend of the podcast layer, you can get a headline fact from the podcast dedicated to you in perpetuity. And we're going to dish out a few of those headline facts to brand new friends of the podcast

now. So who wants to go first? ago, this one goes to Alyssa. Alyssa, your fact is that there is a skyscraper in New York which keeps itself stable with a 400-ton weight in the top. Magic. Oh, my goodness. So cool.

And it sort of hangs like a pendulum and the building goes that way. It's just sort of central weight. Is that it? Is that it? I can't remember. And the fact actually came from Alex Bell. So get in touch with him if you wanted explaining. But yes, I do remember that.

Skyscraper is surprisingly hard to build. That does. Does that not give you a fear of buildings in the way you might not have had it before? That it's all reliant on, like in this case, a giant weight that's just swaying at the top? I think it's okay. Cool. But I choose not to think about it. Yeah, I think that's key.

If you start thinking about anything for too long, you'll go completely mad. Oh, I'd never think. Okay, how about another one? For Amy G. One of Canada's leading crime writers, Howard Engel, lost the ability. to read without losing the ability to write. My gosh, I remember this guy so well. I found it one of the most amazing things I've ever learned.

He had a stroke, didn't he? And literally his hand was still connected to the words. So whatever bit of his brain controlled his hand could still write. But when he's seeing it, he can't read it. His eyes don't know what to do. Yeah. Crazy. Absolutely crazy.

But was it a condition that was a disease that led to his death? I'm just thinking Terry Pratchett had a very similar thing. he couldn't got to the point where he couldn't read the words because they were all scrambled, but he still could obviously write what he was thinking. I guess the extraordinary thing is that the hand is connected to such a different part of the brain, to the eyes. So the eyes cannot understand something that the hand can. It's like when some people have certain types of epilepsy or have their brains cut in arm to treat it, and you know, you'll ask them a question and they'll know the answer.

But if you write it down for them, they'll be able to read the question but not know the answer. It's all that. The brain is insane stuff. Wonderful fact. Here's one. This goes out to Blue Limpit. And I hope you stick to this fact like glue, Blue Limpit. It's that Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple and inventor of the personal computer, met his wife on a Dial A Joke call.

Dan, I'm going to hand over to you to explain Dial A Joke. Well, I think back in the day in America, there used to be people who would put out numbers and you would call in an answer machine would just play down to you. And so every day, Steve Wozniak would load up new jokes onto his answer phone and people were call up and they would just learn a new joke to tell their friends.

I believe from memory that that's what it was. And I'm trying to remember the connection of how his wife eventually... She called the dial joke. I've got it in the archive here. And he said, I bet I can hang up faster than you and hung up. It's quite a bold move.

And that seduced her? Yeah, apparently so she must have phoned back. Wow. Yeah, yeah. Playing hard to get it works. I once saw him talk live in Edinburgh. He did a sort of just sitting on stage being interviewed and afterwards everyone was lining up to meet him and get his signature and he was just signing. Brilliant.

The back of them. Yeah, that's his method of assigning. Yeah, I suppose you would. Just hand your phone over and he signs it for you. The back of them makes sense. I was imagining the screen and thinking, how annoying would that be? And there's just come off after a day. Yeah.

All right, let's do another. This one is for Farhan Abrol and your fact. I love this one. Babies practice their first words before saying them out loud. That's amazing. How much practice do they put in, though? Because often it's just kind of blah or mama. Why aren't they better?

How much practice are they putting in? They need to put more in, apparently. Yeah. Because that's, yeah, it's not good enough. It's very sweet. It's like baby birds do this as well, don't they? They sub vocalize their songs. They'd say them very, they sort of murmur them to themselves before singing.

That's so good. Yeah. I would love to see if someone could film the practice. You know, I just would love to see the footage. If you can see their lips moving at all, if they give it even like a little whisper. They're walking up and down in front of the mirror. Come on, what's my light? Line.

Do you guys know what your first words were? I don't know what mine was. Yeah. What was your first word? Apple. Apple. Apple. Really good.

Which is weird because my mum hates fruit. Never has it in the house. But she loves Steve Wozniak. He's the co-founder of Apple. Huge fan, yeah. She got together with him actually by calling up her. I can't remember mine. Do you know yours?

Marvelous. That I said simply marvellous. No, I don't know. Let's have another. Yes. Here's one for Lydia Grant. Lydia, take this, look after it. Guard it with your life.

The first pair of Nike or Nike. trainers was made in a waffle iron. Yes. I can't write, yes, it was sort of jammed into a waffle iron. I can't remember as in, was it the base, the pattern on the base of the shoes or something? I mean, that seems like the obvious, but doesn't it? That's a bit that's like

got waffle-like resemblance. Yeah. Let's see. Well, I've checked the archive and then all we've got after that is Dan saying that Nike is pronounced Nike like Mikey. Okay, let's have another one. And this goes out to John Alex Alexander Smith, and it's that.

Rats dream of places that they want to visit. I saw a rat today. I saw a rat today. You're kidding. Was it the same? Was it? So it had a quite long tail in grey. Yes, yes, yes.

It was a rat. Yes. Maybe let's... Where did you see it? My help? Where did you see yours? Near a cafe. Mine was outside of Costa?

That's so interesting. London, are we both talking about? Guys, honestly, we can narrow this down. so quickly. Mine was not London. Mine was London and it wasn't a Costa. Different rat. But Costa will be really appreciating this brand messaging.

We're getting out for them. Pretty much outside. And it was a cute one. You know, some rats looked gross. It was queuing. It was ordering a venti latte. Yeah, great. You know, whatever's good for business?

He had little gloves on. Great. Well, lovely. Anyway, what was the fact again? Rats dream of places they want to visit. So sweet. Okay, this one now goes out to Georgia Badgerie. And her fact is that spiny ant eaters only use half their penis during sex.

Yeah, right. I'm not even trying, they're saying, to their other halves. This could be twice as good for you, actually. Isn't it they only use the left half or the right half? How do you do that? They've got very strangely shaped penises from a human perspective. Yeah, absolutely. Them we probably do.

Very good. You know? We don't want to have the ante to community writing in. The wokenest thing I've heard I'd say ever. Sorry. Yes, it's they only use the left or right heads at any time. Oh, they've got double head. They've got four, actually.

And they only use two at a time. I told you it was weird. From our Western point of view. Is it in the East? It's actually very acceptable. From our middle class, like London elite bubble. Marvelous. Yeah, yeah.

So that's nice. Spiny antitus. Spiny antitas. But I don't think the penis is spiny. You see, you'd resent that name because you'd always have to explain it's not the penis that's spiny. Yeah, true. But the only person you were explaining it to is the same species.

So I think they'd probably know, right? Don't need to. They don't need to say it. And my vagina isn't spiny either. It's okay. Great. Okay. Why don't they tell us that when we're younger?

I should be taught that at Antieter school. Okay. Let's have one last one. Here's one for Mike Spur. Mike Spur. take care of this one. The world record for horse long jump is shorter than the world record for human long jump. Something for humans to be proud of.

This was one of mine. I remember discovering this. Yeah. Oh, I love this one. Yeah. It's critical. Because you'd think the horses would be better, wouldn't you? Yes.

That's why we said yes to me using that. That's why we were okay with it as a fight. It's great. Whereas running, we're sort of neck and neck, aren't we, with horses? There's always that horse versus human running race in Wales somewhere. It's terrain dependent. I think we can say that. I think distance as well. It's distance and stairs are the two

complicating factors. Distance humans are better. I know, but not at short distance. I don't think the Grand National would see the jockey going. Do you know what? I'll actually get this done quicker if I just do it. I'll leave you behind, Nellie. This fact, by the way, from memory, correct me, if I'm wrong,

was a fact that we did at the Latitude Festival. It was. Oh. I think it might have been our first festival. possibly we did something else but it feels like that was our first and that is cool because this is about horses longitude and how long they're jumping you know what I'm saying I bet we've made that joke on the day I think we did we must have done you wouldn't leave gold like that unpicked up would you yeah yeah all right I think we're going to end on that note yeah yeah congratulations over for

getting through all those jokes and congratulations to our eight new fat custodians by whom I mean Mike Spur, Georgia Badgerie, John Alexander Smith, Lydia Grant, Farhan Abrol, Blue Limpet, Amy G and Alyssa. Enjoy your facts, love them, and we'll be back in another week for another little fish to dish out eight more. Please do send in your facts to podcast at QI.com. There's such a treat to receive. We love getting them. So please do keep them flooding in. And we'll be back again in a few days' time with another episode of No Such Thing as a Big Fish. Until then, it's just time to say.

Not actually called that. called that. Until then, thanks to Dan, my apparently live in the moment editor, and to Anna for taking part. Thank you for playing both of you and congratulations. Thanks for taking part, Anna. It was a privilege. Bye.