No Such Thing As A Fish - Little Fish: It's Mostly Machines These Days

Episode Date: January 11, 2026

Dan, James and Andy discuss YOUR facts, including Lincolns, lollipops and Lamas. We also hear a very questionable story about bumblebees, and meet eight new Custodians of Fish Facts. Join Club Fish for ad-free episodes and exclusive bonus content at apple.co/nosuchthingasafish or nosuchthingasafish.com/patreon

Hi everyone, welcome to this week's episode of Little Fish. We've been so happy to get messages from you guys to say that you've been enjoying this show, and we certainly enjoy making it. It's a little bit more loose, a little bit more silly than the normal shows, but we really, really love getting your facts, so please do keep sending those in. The reason I have disturbed the start of your show today is because I want to tell you about a quiz that we're doing. It is for Patreon subscribers on the top tier, and it will take place on the 23rd of January. at 7pm UK time

So that'll be sometime in the afternoon If you're in North America And it'll be very early in the morning If you're in Australia or New Zealand But hopefully you will still be able to join us It's going to be a whole load of fun We've got loads of amazing stuff planned for you And if you are not a member of Patreon right now

Then you had to go to patreon.com Slash no such thing as a fish And join our top tier You could probably just do it for a month And then quit if you just want to do the quiz but honestly there's so much good stuff on our Patreon that I really think once you join you will be hucked because we have extra content, we have merch, we have video content, there's all sorts of stuff on there.

We hope we've made it value for money because people going on there help to support the podcast so it is a real good mutual benefit thing. Anyway, enough of that. Really hope you enjoy this episode of Little Fish. Hi, everybody. Oh, listener, Andy's got a cold And it's actually a really bad one I've had a super sniffle

Hi everybody, welcome to Little Fish This is our audience fact show So never mind our boring old facts It's time for your boring old facts instead You've been sending them into podcast at QI.com And we've been reading them Calating them, winnowing them, doing extra research on them And here are your best facts from the last seven days

So let's go. What you can't see, listener, is the most British thing is happening in the background. As Andy is introducing the show, he's pouring himself a thermos of tea. Yes, we're recording this on apparently my Duke of Edinburgh. I thought it was incredible how you multitasked there. Thank you very much. Because actually, I think the listener wouldn't have been able to tell he was pouring that tea until you mentioned it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. There you go. Well, thank you very much. Yeah. But look, enough of this, enough of this banter. Let's have some facts. Let's have some facts. Who would like to start? We got sent in a fact by Alex Hawes and Alex says, Nazi propaganda in the 1930s relied heavily on an Englishman called Dick Seaman. Oh dear, dear. No.

We had such a bad time in the English public school system that he just turned. I wouldn't blame him. Yep. Why would you give someone a name like that? You'd think his dad would have learned given the fact he was called William Seaman, Willie Seaman. Come on. Good Lord. So this is Richard Dick Seaman.

He was a British racing driver, and he was signed by the state-backed Mercedes team in the mid-1930s to race in the precursor to what is modern F1. And he was appointed as a non-German to be part of the teams. He was signed off by Goebbels who showed him to Hitler. Hitler loved him. Hitler thought he was amazing. In fact, when he died, and sadly, Dick Seaman did die in a crash during a race, Hitler sent the biggest bouquet of flowers to the funeral. So Hitler.

It is really. Oh, I've got to send the biggest bouquet of flowers. Do you know what I mean? It's just showing off. He's the kind of person that, you know, like if someone does a sponsored swim and everyone sponsors you for five pounds, he would do six pounds. Yeah, he is. Oh, God.

I knew I didn't like him, but that's really taking it to a new territory. Interesting fact about seaman. Yeah. I mentioned in an earlier, I think it was a little fish, about a football team. in Indonesia or the Philippines called Siemen Pandang and I said that the name Seaman came from a cement company

and someone messaged me on Instagram it was Lars Van Toff and Lars said that they lived in Bali most of their life and they can tell me that the word semen means

cement in Indonesia so it's not a brand name it's just a giant. It's just a generic word for cement. So whatever this person ever had to buy cement, because they were an English speaker, they thought it was very amusing. As you would. Just while we're on sports and fascism and the 1930s. Who knew it was going to go in this direction? Who knew our listener has had such a niche knowledge base? Well, Stefan Barrett and Mark Norman have both sent in a brilliant fact. So I'll start with Stefan. Stefan says, infamous right-wing dictator Benito Mussolini's

Great grandson Romano Floriani Mussolini is a professional footballer who plays on, any guesses? Soria on? The right wing. Oh, gosh. Yes. Okay. And at a good level too, apparently, in the top Italian league. Really?

Seria. Seria. That's right. And Mark says that fact as well and says, just a trivial thing I found him using when I was told it. I'm sure he's a lovely person and it does state on his Wikipedia. that he has no interest in politics. Cool. Interesting.

I have a feeling that Gaddafi's son might have played professional football. Really? At a relatively high level, maybe Seria Bay or something? Yeah. I think I might be wrong about that. Here's a fact from Scott Parsons, who writes that they work in clinical trials and thought we would like to know some of the papers that Scott has come across over the years. So he found that the half-life of communal teaspoons is 42.

So if you have a load of teaspoons in the office, then after 42 days, half of them will have disappeared. Interesting. That is interesting. And it rakes over an old wound for us, which we don't need to get into now. Like, I still don't understand how I got involved in that controversy. Well, because you kept putting the spoons in the bin. God, I think it was the forks. I think it was no forks.

Or knives. It was one of them. All I did was jump in saying, hey, it could have been any one of us so that whoever did it would feel, ah, okay, it's not a problem to admit to it. You know Knives Out? Yeah. The first ever mystery that Benoit Blanc solved was what happened to the knives in the QI office. And that's how that series got its name. Yeah.

There we go. And was I fingered by better? You. It was cut from the final film that scene. They also, so Scott also found that if you need a problem to be solved quickly, brain surgeons are better than rocket science. Are harding to a study because there's that whole Speaking of popular culture as we were there's that Mitchell and Webb Sketch isn't there where their brain surgeon meets the rocket scientist

Which is very good but what do you reckon is hardest brain surgery or rocket science? I feel like brain surgery Is harder because it's more fiddly I think it's largely machines these days. So I think rocket science What you think rocket science is it's one of the last Sort of craftsmen, what you think? They're hewing those from timber, do you? It's an old non-a in Italy. It makes it from Willow.

It's mostly machines these days. I think brain surgery is largely you're not necessarily going in with your hands anymore. You program it, don't you? And then you just press button one. Yeah, it's a bit, it's no harder than playing Street Fighter these days. Yeah. When in doubt, just mash all the buttons. And that'll probably do something.

It'll definitely do something. If it shouts, finish him. You know you've done something wrong. So brain surgery in the UK You need to do a five-year medical degree Then two years of foundation training Then at least eight more years of neurosurgical training Whereas to be a rocket scientist

You need to do your degree But then you could do an apprenticeship after that And go straight into the industry So you need to do a lot more studying To be a brain surgeon Interesting There's got to be levels of rocket scientist You start off making tea

And just chatting with rocket scientists T minus five T minus four Come on these wonderful I'm going to take the rest of the day off that's it I got a good one here

yeah from Alex Hartley okay oh who says the guy from Millie Vanilli which guy there were two of them well there were two of them one sadly passed away now but the other one

who were they by the way just for more concert Millivinilly with this double act two incredibly handsome guys singers Singers. Ostensibly. Yes. But it turned out that they'd be mimming on top of the pops.

That's right. Well, not just mimming on top of the pops. So they had this unbelievably successful debut album. It sold 8 million copies. They were absolutely everywhere. They were huge. We're talking 1989 here. They were superstars.

They won the Grammy for Best New Artist. And then they were revealed not to have sung any of their live gigs where they were all lip-sinking or any of their recordings. Right. Yeah. So it just wasn't their voices. at any point. It was such a big story

that I will have been like what, 10 years old at this time and at school we all knew this story and we would make jokes about it and stuff like that. It's kind of, and the backlash was huge. Fans destroyed their records.

You know, and that's millions of records. It's the... Millions and for millions. Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. Why are you still here to you? Make that joke. I feel like it's going downhill, isn't it?

Diminishing returns, yeah. But it's the only time a Grammy has ever been rescinded. Wow. They took it off them, did they? And some real hounds of won Grammys, I suspect. I suspect some people have won Grammys who are rotters. But probably sang their songs. But probably sang their songs.

Yeah. So anyway, that's the situation, right? And Alex's fact is, the guy from Millie Vanilli, who had to give back a Grammy, is nominated this year for a Grammy for narrating the audiobook of the story of Millie Vanilli. So good. Absolutely stunning. And that I think is next year's Grammys.

I think the 2026, the categories have been announced. Indeed, this year by the time this goes out. Absolutely. This year. Hello, everybody. And Happy New Year. The Golden Globes have added a podcast category this year. Have you seen that?

Yeah. So the Grammys might eventually go on to that. We might get a Grammy one day. I think we were not eligible for the Golden Globes one. Is that right? Yeah, it was like, I think. think only the top 10 podcasts in the world were up for like it was there was some rule that meant that and we're number 11 aren't we typical and there was definitely some rule that I saw it and

thought let's just throw a hat in the ring why not but we couldn't damn it got it got it don't do our own podcast do we we have voice actors who come in and do this yeah yeah I got a weirdest sounding guy to do mine the guy who's nominated Fabrice Morven is up against a friend of yours, Dan, in the Grammy category. Have you taken the piss out of me? Is this a real friend? It's someone you, I think, admire and someone I associate with you. Is it the guy who runs the crap museum in Margate?

The guy who runs the crab museum in Margate? He's nominated. Oh, that's very good. Brian Blessed? Oh, they've both spent time in Tibet, I'd say. Is it Xi's pink? Is it a Yeti? It's the Dalai Lama.

Wow. Is it up for a Grammy? which I think at this stage would be a real Philip for his career. I think he needs that boost. Yeah. How wonderful. Yeah. It's got a lovely voice.

Well, is it nicer than Fabrice Morven's voice? I wouldn't know. I don't think anyone's heard it. Alice Hill has sent in two facts to us. One is from personal experience. She said you can flip a breech baby while it's still inside the mum. She's like, it's pretty common. Breach baby being.

A breach baby is when the baby's facing the wrong way, when birth is about to have first. Yeah. You want it the other way around. So you can, she says, literally massage the baby. Two doctors can do it and they can massage at 180 degrees into the right position for birth, which is amazing. So this is obviously someone who loves a bit of science, curious about the world. Here's the actual fact she sent in. Years ago, I worked at a Christmas tree farm on a particularly hot summer's day and I saw a bumblebee performing oral sex on another bumblebee. The receiving bee was laxed out, front arms up, whole. holding some pine needles, front facing, bum forward.

Other B, face deep. I'll never forget that sight. It was before the time of phone cameras, so alas, no photographic proof. How convenient. I've since tried to research it online. A bit tricky, though, for obvious reasons. Maybe you guys could find out if it's a thing. Alice, I looked into it.

It is absolutely not a thing. I don't know what you saw, Alice. I assume it was two humans in bummed. B. Quiz Corner. Frey van der Vlert writes. Why, in most car commercials, do you only see

the following letters and numbers on the number plates? A, H, I, M, O, T, U V, W-X-0-08. I think I worked it out. Is it kind of like a lot of TV shows will use the same phone number because you don't want to use a license plate that's out there. That's a good idea. And those letters are not on any other license plate in the world, that they? Exactly. There you go. It can only be because they're all symmetrical. Yes. And so they must flip the footage or something.

It's because the image can then be mirrored to make the car drive on the correct side of the road, depending on what country the commercial is air. Very cool. Of course. This seems to be, I've looked into it a bit more, it seems to be true. And often you will see a car driving along in what is quite clearly southern Europe. Yeah, quite often in Iceland or something. Yeah. And they're driving on the left-hand side of the road. A beautiful sun-drenched canyon or, you know, majestic.

And it's just like, it's clearly not the UK. So I don't know how much good it does. It's a really good fact. Yeah. And a good question as well. So thank you for A. Here's another one that is based on roads. Yeah.

This is from Alan Mitchell. And Alan says he used to be a motorcycle instructor. And one fun question we used to ask is if anyone knew what the black horizontal line was on a crossing patrol sign like a lollipop person would use. On the round bit at the top, it says stop, children, but then there's like a black lozenge in the middle of it. Okay. And Alan wonders what that was for. Or in fact, he knows what it's for. He's told us.

It's going to be for the drivers. Yeah, I read the email in the first place when it came into the inbox. Actually, this quiz is for one person in this room only. Why would there be a black dot in the middle? Lozange. Not a dot lozenges, that's, I'd say, essential.

James, I don't know if you agree. Yeah, the blackness is important. Lozance is like the sweetie. Yeah, like a long... Like a sausage. Like a sausage. Right. Why would there be a sausage on a lollipop, though?

I'm just going to tell you... Yeah, I don't think I can get this. According to Alan, it's a black box. and you would write down the number plates of vehicles who fail to stop. What? If you're a lollipop. If you're a lollipop person. Yeah, yeah.

And one of the cars doesn't stop. They've committed an offence. So you would write down the number plate. Yeah, yeah. Now, the main problem is it doesn't really make a lot of sense. No. But I've looked online and it's definitely often said that this is true. And usually it's the lollipop people who say it.

Right. I haven't found any sort of official source, like the Department of Transport or the highway code or anything like that that says that this is true. It's hard to see how it would be useful. Well, I frequently try when I'm out and about to remember a license plate that passes by. Yeah. Yeah, just because I think I might be called on at some point to remember a license plate, you know, a short notice. Yeah, yeah. What if that car does commit an offense?

Yeah. I'll need to say, yes, officer. I remember it very clearly. How many do you retain? I've got them all. Cool. Got to be four or five thousand that I've memorized over the course of my life. One day that might come in useful.

Absolutely, yeah. Please test me now. November the 4th, 2022. Didn't spot any that day. I was at home. You were sick. Yeah, yeah. Please, another.

November 3rd, 2022. I was on holiday. Were you? Yeah. No cars? Where you went? I was on the Isle of Sark. Beautiful place.

Lovely. Yeah, no cars. No cars on Sark, famously. All right, well, story checks out. The thing is, like, why not just have a notepad? Yeah. Why write it on something where it might get washed off or whatever? Yeah, that's true.

If you need to keep hold of the license plate numbers, that is not the best place to put it. You might want to write it on there so that people can see it, and it shames people. but who remembers anyone's number plate enough to be like, oh, that's... Well, I do. Obviously, for you, it would work. But for most people, it wouldn't. So it's really interesting whether this is true or not. Certainly people who are involved in the community do think it's true.

But there is no real evidence and it's hard to see how it would make sense. Very interesting. So if you know the absolute certainty that this is true or not true, then do right into podcast at QI.com. Very cool. I like it. I've got one that I can fashion into a question as well. This is from Sean Slater.

He says, for every American president assassination, a Lincoln has been present. Certainly in the one where Abraham Lincoln was shot. He was there for that. Mary Lincoln was there, his wife. Yeah, and Abraham was there too. So you got two Lincoln's. Okay.

Garfield was shot by that guy with a weird name, like a Gito. Yes. Charles Guito? Charles Lincoln Gito. Yeah, that's correct. And Robert Todd Lincoln, who was Abraham Lincoln's son, was there. Oh, really?

Okay. Yes. McKinley? Was McKinney shot? McKinley. Correct. McKinley was shot. A member of the Lincoln family was there?

The same Lincoln. Robert Todd Lincoln was there. Really? Really? Yeah, he was even quoted later as saying, I'm not going to any more events because it's got a certain fatality about it when I go. it when I go. And don't tell me JFK was driving in a Lincoln. He was in a Ford Lincoln continental car.

You got it. Wow. Very nice. That's a great quiz. Very fun quiz. I think we must be getting towards the end of this now. I think so. I think let's switch over into Friend of the Podcast mode and

dedicate some facts to people who've joined on Patreon at the top tier. If you've joined at Friend of the Podcast, we would like to dedicate one of our facts to you. So let's dish out a few of the those now. I'll kick off with one. Vicky, congratulations to you. You are now the custodian

of the fact that kangaroos have five legs. Bad look, Vicky. This was one of those rare ones when we just made stuff up. That's right. No, it's that their tail is a fifth leg. According to all sorts of tests, they've put kangaroos on treadmills and they've done all sorts of science on it.

Because they use it for walking. Yes, they use it to propel themselves. That's very good. That was a James Hark in fact. Vicki, episode 19. Yeah. Congratulations. Shall I do one? Yeah.

We've got an Ana Tysinski fact to give out, and that's going to Ewan Taylor. And that fact is that during the financial crisis of 1720, Parliament called for stockbrokers to be stitched into sacks and thrown into the Thames. Wow. Yeah. Gosh. Yeah. It's pretty wild this fact. There's a bracket here, an extra bit of info for your fact, Ewan, which is that this was a speech by Lord Molesworth.

people who committed parasite were stitched into the sack with a rooster, a monkey and a dog. I think that was an ancient Rome, wasn't it? Yeah. I don't think it was in 1720s, London. Feels like that wouldn't be the case, would it? Yeah.

I mean, it is 300 years ago, but that feels like it had gone out of fashion. That was definitely an ancient thing. Okay, well, congratulations to you, Ewan. And the next one is now under the custodianship of Jen Sykes. And Jen, Jen, this is your fact. it is that there are three times as many estate agents in the UK as members of the armed forces. Yes. Who could have brought that fact to the table?

Who likes warfare? It's mine. It's my fact. Congratulations, Jen. This is a great fact. And, excitingly, I imagine it'll have only, the ratio will have only improved if you're an estate agent or got worse if you're a member of the armed forces since then. Because this was about 10 years ago. So I don't think the army's doubled in size in the last 10 years. Was this the fact word? Dan told us about how

his wife made him hide his cocoa pops in the washing machine. Yeah. I feel like it was because maybe you were selling your house and people would come round and your wife didn't want people to know that there was an adult in there who was eating cocoa pops.

Yeah, it possibly is then. That was the wildest guess where a game I've ever had to play in my house. Everything was not where it should have been. Because it's a risk. It is a risk. It's a risk that if you have a viewing of your flat and someone opens the washing machine, which they wouldn't do normally, but you never know. People like inside cupboards and they look in and see cocoa pops and they think, well, this

person is very unstable, I'm not going to buy them. All you really do when you're buying a house is bang on the worktops a few times and then hit the wall and go, oh, that's a supporting wall. Yeah. Ask if there's any ghosts you need to know about. Get out of there. Okay, here's another fact, and this one is one of my ones. It's going out to Brian Kelly. It's the fact that in medieval manuscripts, there are hundreds of drawings of snails and knights fighting each other, and nobody knows why. Oh yeah, I remember this one. It's really cool.

In the margins of all these old books, there's these drawings of these battles going on. But it's just like a cultural meme, isn't it? Yeah. It's just sort of, that's the thing everyone's drawn in the last, in the books for the last 100, 200 years. Oh, it's the 6'7 of its day, basically. Six, seven of its day. Here's a fact that is now under the custodianship of Leah Smallercombe.

that the most painful place to be stung by a bee is inside your nostril. Oh, yes. What's a great fact. Yes. And that's because someone actually tried it out, right? Yeah. There was a student called Michael Smith who let bees sting him all over his body and rated, which was the most painful. Things we do for science. What heroes? Well, how precise do you want to get with it, though? Because I don't know if this student said, right, so I've done testicle, but I've only done top of testicle. I'd better do mid-testicle, base of testicle, being stung by a bee?

Like, how scientific are we getting here? Probably there is work to be done from another scientist now and building on Michael's work. That could be you. If you're at university and you're looking for something for your PhD, find yourself a bee. Yeah, if it's not mid-blow job, you can get it to... Oh my goodness, I've just looked up Michael's study.

He said he was carrying the work done by the Schmidt-stink pain index, which is all about different kinds of insects. Michael's study said the pain was rated on a 1 to 10 scale relative to an internal standard the forearm So the forearm is your baseline Okay The three least painful locations were the skull middle toe tip and upper arm The three most painful locations were the nostril Upper lip and penis shaft

I mean when you say penis shaft it does imply that other parts Had been tried Do you know what I mean? Otherwise he would just say penis Yeah, exactly Okay, well, here's another fact. This one is now under the custodianship of Stephen Winfield. Stephen, your new fact that you have to look after forsaking all others is this one. Walt Disney's favorite breakfast was fresh donuts, dunked in Scotch whiskey.

Lovely. Wowzers. That was one of mine. We had a great chat about Disney in that one. It was a fact I think James that you found, which is the story that he went into cryogenics to look after his body. so that he could be woken up one day but you found that's not true I think we all know that's not true

but what James found is that actually the one bit of his body that he did used to put on ice was his testicles I don't remember this at all I think it was you James It was after he deliberately had a bee stigling The idea was I think it was a fertility idea that when him and his wife were trying to conceive

they said put your balls on ice and so he used to do that a lot Yeah There is the theory which I don't think is true which is that Disney's Frozen was given that name so that when people Google Frozen Disney, they don't get stories of his cryogenesis. It's a beautiful theory if it's not true.

Like, it's just a wonderful connection that someone's made. And that's why the song Let It Go. He's talking to the people who keeps spreading this rumor. He's like, Let it go, Dice. Let it go. You see? I think that's a, you've built on the theory. Yeah, the cold never bothered my testicles anyway. Okay, we got time for a couple more?

Yeah, let's do. come more. This is going to Beth. It's an Andrew Hunter-Murray fact. Shouting at drivers improves their driving. I stand by it. What's the road? That kind of stuff. Shouting at drivers improves. Was this presumably some kind of study? Yeah, it's a study in Kenya. They have lots of buses which crash quite frequently, or they certainly did at the time. And I think they put up stickers inside the buses saying, if your driver is driving erratically, please shout at them and go at them. It depends what they're shouting.

What are they shouting? Yeah, yeah. There's a tradition that has to be adhered by Japanese train drivers that I read about where they have to point at things while they're driving as a way of maintaining their concentration. Really? Yeah, so you would point a sign. And read it out as well, I think. And the idea is that you just don't get monotonously kind of half asleep

because you're just doing the same thing over and over again. You have to go, Ossica. But surely, driving a high, high tech Japanese train these days is much like brain surgery and that you just, you know, program in the destination and then you just sit back and fall asleep. You think so. Yeah, you think. Yeah,

there's more to it. Well, cool. Congratulations to Beth. I'll do one. This one goes out to Ali ML. Ali, your fact is that the French used to call arsenic succession powder because it was used in so many murders.

Yes. Le Poudre du succession. I'm not just clumsily assuming that that's what it is. I'm pretty sure that's what the French phrase is. Very cool. Yeah. This was, it was Anne Miller's fact, wasn't it? Because it was an area that she was particularly interested in at the time. Yes. And as we know, it's always wonderful to hear a Scottish person say murder. Morda. And when I say, what, she wasn't interested in murdering her husband. It was that she was into her crime novels. Well, not her first husband who sadly passed away in an accident. And the second through fifth husbands as well.

But now she's happy with Havier and there's no need to refer to any of those remarkably strange accidents. Anyway, so congratulations, Ali. That's a fact for you. And congratulations to all our fact custodians today. Beth, Ali, Stephen, Leah, Brian, Jen, Ewan and Vicky. Those of you who have signed up

but I haven't had your shout out yet, it is coming. As I say, we've had a bit of a rush on. Sorry about that. We're going to try and do them as speedily as as decent. but also in a way that remains fun for you, the listener. If you would like to join as a friend of the podcast, just go to patreon.com slash no such thing as a fish, and you can have a look there,

and for all sorts of things like add free episodes and bonus content and all of that. It's all there, and it's a great club to be part of. But that's it for this episode of Little Fish. We'll be back again in a week's time with another one, and we'll be back in three days' time with the main show, unless, of course, you're doing clubfish already, in which case there'll be a drop of the line

at some point in the next. So we'll see you soon is the point we're trying to make. Thanks very much for listening. We'll see you next time. Bye now.