No Such Thing As A Fish - No Such Thing As A Barney The Dinosaur In Westminster Abbey

Episode Date: July 24, 2025

Dan, James, Anna and Andy discuss Canadian contours, Dylan's demise, Singapore Slings and sunflower seeds. Visit nosuchthingasafish.com for news about live shows, merchandise and more episodes.  Join Club Fish for ad-free episodes and exclusive bonus content at apple.co/nosuchthingasafish or nosuchthingasafish.com/patreon Get an exclusive 15% discount on Saily data plans! Use code [fish] at checkout. Download Saily app or go to https://saily.com/fish

Hi everybody, it's Andy and James here from No Such Thing as a Fish. Hi, your favourite two. Shh, but yes. Now we're here with a little Top of Show announcement because we've got some secret juicy gossip for you. We sure have. And that gossip is that we are going to be doing some live shows. You didn't hear it from us. But if you go to King's Place in London on the 5th and 6th of September, you can see not one but two No Such Thing as a Fish live shows.

Dan and Anna will also be there for clarity. Anna will not be there for clarity Yeah, sorry, yeah Dan will be And some very, very special guests Now, we have already boxed one of these special guests And I promise you, if I mention the name of that person right now We would sell out in seconds

That's right, and if it does sell out There are streaming tickets available too You can watch the show live See what it's like when we're not rigorously and scrupulously edited Here, all the stuff we say that really should be edited out by getting a streaming ticket. And where do you get those tickets for, Andy?

I think if they just go to our website, there'll be a link. No Such Thing As a Fish.com. Excellent. Well, do that right now. But in the meantime, it's time to say, on with the podcast. 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 James Harkin, Andrew Hunter Murray, and Anna Tashinsky, and once again we have gathered round the microphones with our four favorite facts from the last seven days, and in no particular order, here we go. Starting with fact number one, and that is my fact. My fact this week is that before he was buried, the poet Dylan Thomas, was used as a poker table. That doesn't feel very practical. No. The chicks are going to go everywhere.

And I imagine as a poet you're wearing a lot of ruffles, maybe a cravat. You know, you're not going to be a smooth table. No. Okay. So it's not his body that was physically used as the poker table. Dylan Thomas, as a bit of backstory, had been in America and he died on the 9th of November 1953. Let's get right to the... Let's cut to the chest. Was he born before he died? I need to know all the context, Dan. So yeah, it was really unfortunate. He was 39 years old. He was a big drinker. There's a bit of mystery about what actually caused his death. But there we have it, the facts. He dies November 1953. His wife, Caitlin, he decides. she doesn't want him to be buried in America.

She wants to bring him back home to Wales, his home country. And so she puts him on a ship, and he's in the hold. And one night, she's a bit disruptive upstairs, and she gets sent downstairs. And it just so happens that she's bunking up very near to his coffin, and she notices that all the sailors gather around the coffin and use it as the poker table. And she thought, he would have loved this.

Yeah. So was it not obviously a coffin? I think it might have been. They might not have cared. That's quite macabre. I would have tried to find another table or just a packing crate or something. Would you? I would have gone out my way to find the coffin.

Yeah. If you had there's a coffin on board. I genuinely think when I go, if I could organise it that my mates had a poker game on my coffin and they didn't mind, then I'd be down for that. It would be more golf for you though, wouldn't it? That's hard to play in a coffin. Right.

You could be the last hole. The 19th hole. I'm hoping that I'm laid down face up, actually. Apparently, like you said, there was some ruckus with Caitlin. I read that she was in a cabin with, and I quote, some sort of glamour queen that she really didn't like. And so she deliberately caused a ruckus so that she would get kicked out of that cabin. Yeah. Yeah, having now read up about Caitlin, I wonder if that's true or if she was just generally causing ruckus.

Because that was the thing about them. They were sort of described as the prototype Sid and Nancy of the sex pistols. were a couple that were destructive. They'd get huge fights. They would get drunk everywhere they went. But what's crazy is that when Caitlin got back, she went on a pub crawl with the person who picked her up and Dylan was just left in the car park in the coffin while they were getting pissed along the way in all the pubs towards where his home was going to be. Yeah. Did you find the claim that he was buried in a banana-shaped grave? No.

We should. Okay. So we should say, also, most famous Welshish, poet, arguably, I'd say, ever? For me, he is. I mean, he's up, he's barred territory. If someone asked me name a Welsh poet, he would be the one. Exactly, exactly. And he certainly was barred from most of his local. Well, there is a claim, I read, that the grave digger was deaf and mute,

and he only knew that he was burying a man whose favorite fruit was the banana. So in tribute, he originally dug a banana-shaped grave before being told off and told the corrector. Now, I just think if you're a professional grave-digger, you know that you've very rarely get a banana-shaped coffin. Yeah. Do we know that his favorite fruit was banana? Do you know, the original thing is so untrue that I haven't even sourced that.

I thought deaf and mute sounds like a Welsh name. I thought that was the name. So his death, Dan, you said that there was some weird things about that. Yeah. There was the idea that he drank so much that the night before he went into a coma, which then led to him going to hospital and eventually dying. He claimed to have drunk 18 whiskeys. Oh, say the line. Say the line.

Supposedly his last words were, I've just drunk 18 straight whiskeys. I think that's a record or something like that. That's a great line. Yeah. But that's not true, is it? He definitely said things after that. I think he did say that, actually, in fairness, but it was the day before and then the next day he did talk to people and said different things. He said, God, kill for a banana right now. So it was the doctor's fault, right? So, yeah, so he was sedated with some morphine and he went into a coma. And he had pneumonia, which hadn't been diagnosed.

That was the problem with the morphine. But this is the interesting thing. I think it's actually Dylan Thomas's fault because he did make that joke about having had all these whiskeys, right? And then, I believe his friend who'd overheard that, when he was really ill, said to the doctor, oh, well, he told me yesterday he'd had 18 straight whiskeys. So the doctor very naturally assumes alcohol poisoning and then gives him the morphine. which puts him into the coma which kills him. So actually, Dylan Thomas died of his own joke

as well as medical misdiagnosis and all of that. But basically it's because his friend said, oh yeah, well, this is what he was saying. Well, it's possible he wasn't joking, though, because they went and interviewed the bartender who was serving drinks at night. And he said he didn't drink 18. Absolutely not.

But someone pointed out that a shot in America versus a shot back home is three times the amount. So they think in his incredibly drunken state, Dylan Thomas was doing math and worked out how many that would have been back home, which was 18. In fairness, the math was only three times six. Once you've had 18 whiskeys. He actually wasn't good at taking his drink.

He's got this reputation for being such a heavy drinker. But I think people who knew him said actually he was kind of a lightweight, so maybe he just seemed pissed a lot. He had a famous sort of relationship slash what's an enemy ship? Frenomie. He was sort of a frenemy, but without the fronaut. a bit with Kingsley Amos, who only met him once but used to write really awful things about his poetry. Okay.

And Amos met him in 1951 and he said he was an outstandingly unpleasant man who cheated and stole from his friends and peed on their carpets. And he boozed a lot because it fitted his image as a poet rather than out of any thirst or need. I think people, quite a lot of people didn't really like him very much, even his friends. No, it's a shame if you like his poetry to read up on him because it makes him quite unlikable, isn't it? think he considered himself to be a poet, which meant he didn't need to get a proper job. He could just sort of dilatontishly turn up at people's houses and sleep on the sofas and urinate on the carpets, perhaps. I don't know. But yeah, like one of his really good friends, Norman Cameron, he wrote, who invited him in? What was he doing here? That insolent little

ruffian, that crappulous lout. When he quitted a sofa, he left behind a smear. Oh, dear. If that's what his friends thought of him, what of his enemy? needs. Right. But his fans kind of loved it, right? They loved this image of a drunken poet who was living up to that romantic idea that they're sitting in a shed with a glass of whiskey, writing these incredible lines.

And in his final eight years, you know, died 39, as I said, final eight years, he wrote six poems. He spent basically the last period of his life going on tours and talking and reading out his poems. He became an orator as opposed to a writer, and people would go because it was

quite rock and roll. Is Dylan Thomas going to wear at someone in the crowd. Is he going to drunkenly fall off the stage and pass out? Is he going to leave a smear on the sofa? The curtain comes up. There's a sofa on the stage. Get it, Dylan! But he was kind of, you know, people were into that.

I think he was less hard living in lots of ways. So he lived for a while in a place called Lahn and the Thomas family GP, the doctor, wrote, he didn't do any womanising, he was pretty sober, he was very respectful. He started

the day by helping his dad with the Times crossword every morning. Apparently his capacity for drink, I'm quoting now, was very limited compared with the average hearty. He couldn't drink very much. Three or four pints was his absolute limit. But then, of his wife, Caitlin, the doctor wrote, Caitlin is a nymphomaniac and a first-class bitch. Jesus. Was that a medical diagnosis back then? She does seem a tough character.

But I really didn't know. The thing I found most unbelievable about him is you say that he only wrote six. poems, whatever, in his last seven years. Really, he wrote all of his best poetry, pretty much everyone agrees by the time he was 19. Isn't that insane? I was a child when I was 19. It's like, you're thinking such immature stuff. And that's why it's kind of nonsense. I used to love him when I was a teenager because I thought, well, this must mean something amazing. But it was really heartening to read all of these reviewers, right, about him and say, the word's beautiful, which is what's so fun about reading him. But no one knows what he's on about. He also, because we're calling him a poet, but he also

wrote some pretty seminal other pieces. Like he wrote Under Milkwood, which was a play, which is still sort of known today. Did you really? Lots of people do, don't they? Who did you play? Sorry, no, as in for my GCSE English, I had to learn it. Okay, right. You played a tree, admit it.

You're one of the trees. But there's a lot of milk under me. You guys know AJP Taylor? I only know the name is that. He was a really, famous 20th century historian, like mega famous, at a time when historians were rock stars. Anyway,

Dylan Thomas befriended his wife Margaret and... Euphemism? Well, she definitely had the hots for him and Dylan Thomas went to stay on the sofa and did a lot of...

He would stay for a month. And AJP. Taylor liked to keep a barrel of beer in the house. That was just his nice thing. But he hated having Dylan Thomas to stay because he would drink supposedly 15 pints a day and he constantly have to be replacing his barrel and Taylor's wife Margaret fell absolutely besotted

with Dylan Thomas. She spent all her money on him. She wrote him erotic letters she persuaded AJP Taylor to buy a house for £2,000 for Dylan Thomas and Taylor said okay fine if you stop giving him money which she did not and then she bought him another house I mean he does sound like a really annoying guy

to have to stay. I read one out I think does about him he went out drinking with novelist Philip Lindsay and got his penis stuck in a honey pot. Willie the Pooh take. Great thing about this. This is in Andrew Lice's biography, and it's kind of mostly there and not really anywhere else. But it was from people who were there who said it happened. But no one knows why he did that.

No. Was it a honey trap? They said on the same occasion, he pushed a shirt button up his nose and couldn't get it out. You go into the A&E and you're like, yeah, it's this button thing. Can you get the button thing out, please? Sir, there appears to be something. No, no, just the button. I actually having just said Winnie the Pooh, I only know Winnie the Pooh sized honey pots.

Do they come smaller? Wait, does Winnie the Pooh have massive honey pots? Yeah, his head gets stuck in them. Oh, yeah. Well, maybe Dylan Thomas was very well endowed, and that's what kept the women following in. But the shape of a honeypot is, it expands as it gets towards the base, as it were. It's not like a honey jar. I could understand of getting his penis.

stuck in a honey jar. I was imagining a honey jar. It's just set honey or runny honey. You know when you go to a travel lunch and you get those tiny little jars of honey. We're going to have to ask you to leave the breakfast buffet. Everyone's got their own size honey pot. Yeah, it's full of tantalizing details that biography.

It's amazing because he's spoken to everyone who ever knew him. But people just give memories without elaboration. So there's those two. On one occasion, he managed to stab himself. in the eye while eating a plate of meatballs. No further details. How do you do that? How do you do that?

And then someone else said, there was a particular period where he had to deal with his rubber fetishism. No more on it. That's it. That's all we go. What do with rubber? Now, he is a very important poet. He is part of the Poets Corner in Westminster Abbey, which is reserved for some of the

grades. It's Shakespeare and so on. He originally wasn't in there. And it all comes down to Jimmy Carter, President Jimmy Carter, who lobbied for him to be in there. Why? He loves him to the point where he went to certain bits of Wales just to be around the area that Dylan Thomas would have been in.

Good Lord. Even wrote a poem called A President Expresses Concern on a visit to Westminster Abbey by Jimmy Carter. No way. Gosh. Yeah. That makes me like Dylan Thomas again, having just gone off him. Jimmy Carter liked him.

Yeah. Because you're a massive Cardiffan, yeah. Yeah. What a weird presidential. Is that what happens on state visits? Campaigned a bit harder to get himself reelected. Exactly. Well, it happened in 82, so maybe he worked on it post-presidency,

but it was on that trip that he said, I can imagine Donald Trump at the moment is trying to get Barney, the big purple dinosaur in Westminster Abbey. We'll do it, we'll do it. Larn, this place where he lived, his local pub was a place called Brown's Hotel. It was bought recently by Guess Who? The game.

The boardmakers. Sorry. Okay, give us a clue. What, the TV show? Mine are two Ronnie Skies? No. What was Dylan Thomas? He was a man behaving badly.

Oh, is it Martin Cloons? It was Neil Morrissey. The other man behaving badly bought his local. Really? Isn't that weird? And Dylan Thomas was a man behaving badly. And Neil Morrissey for international listeners was about 30 years ago in a sitcom called Memhaven Badley.

Yeah. That's a great fact. Okay, it is time for fact number two, and that is Andy. My fact is that six out of ten lakes are in Canada. That's amazing. Out of all the lakes in the world, that's wild. 60% are in Canada. It's big, Canada.

It is big, but it's not 60% of the world's lamb mass. It's a disproportionate number of lakes. So if you wake up after a big old Dylan Thomas style bender, and you look and there's a lake there, you're more likely than not in Canada. That's right. Yeah. That's right.

Do we know how many and why? We do. 900,000 and geology is the short... No further questions. No, I got this on a great substike by a guy called Thomas Pueyo. And basically, at the bottom you've got the Great Lakes, sort of celebrity lakes. Yeah.

And then there's this line stretching across the country, above which it's just monstrously full of lakes. Just lakes everywhere. like throw a brick. And it's because there's a region near the coast further up, near the coastal mountains, which is lower, because the mountains kind of depressed the land around them with their landmass. Didn't know mountains did that.

And everywhere else in the world, or most other places, these depressions, they turn into river valleys, water flows along them, right? But Canada is very far north, so it rains less, so there's less water. And it's also to do with the ice sheets that dug these huge holes in the ground. And that leads to lakes when the... ice retreats. You've got basically lake shape masses everywhere. Yeah, that was the Laurentide ice sheet, wasn't it? And that also formed Niagara Falls and the Great Lakes. So it was a biggie.

And it might also have given us Noah's Ark. So apparently the collapse of that ice sheet caused the flooding of the Gibraltar, Straits of Gibraltar, loads of water going into the Mediterranean Sea. Huge floods everywhere, about 8,000 years. years ago and maybe all the myths that we have about floods in all different cultures have flood myths and maybe due to that collapse. Love it. That's amazing.

It's crazy. So 900,000 lakes in Canada, you're saying Andy. Manitoba is an area that has 100,000 of those lakes. And only 10,000 of those lakes have been named as of 2017. The number will have gone up. But they're trying to give names to every single lake that's out there. Can we campaign? Well, here's the thing to what have a lake named after us.

Yeah. Doesn't work like that. Fish Lake. Yeah. Damn. Well, this is a problem that there's not a big group that names the lakes. There's one main guy and then he's got a few assistants. What? Yeah. Well, that's why they haven't gone around to naming them all year.

It's been very slow. He'll name like seven a year. And that's- What? But that's gone up now with the assistants. Maybe as slow as Dylan Thomas writing poetry. Is this guy just going around doing rock star shows and saying I name lakes? Exactly. The thing he says is he gets a lot of calls on Valentine's Day with people saying, can I, in a romantic gesture, name this lake after my partner or girlfriend, a boyfriend, or whatever.

And he says, no, it doesn't work like that. Is he stressed that all these lakes don't have names, or is he relaxed about it? He's relaxed. He's taking his time. What they're doing is basically naming it after fallen soldiers from World War II and World War I. And it's important work, because if you happen to have an accident at a lake, how do you find it if there's no name? Dan, if it's important work, maybe he should be trying to name more than seven every year. He has. There was one year where they named 2000.

Like it's, oh, okay. Because he got assistance in. Assistance came in. Vegas can't be choosers. I think if I say, can you name your Lake Polina? He shouldn't be saying, no, I have to do it after this other thing instead. I think he should be accepting these names because he needs 20,000 of them. He needs a lot of, he needs a lot.

And in fact, there's only been one exception so far, one living person when an Olympic gold medalist in hockey was given a lake name. He sort of got put ahead of all the fallen soldiers. God, they'll do anything for. hockey players are Canadians, right they? I think he needs to be sacked. Sorry. Do you know what the most common lake name in the United States of America

is? Oh. Is it guessable? Maybe. Is it big lake or deep lake? No, but you're getting there. It's very descriptive. Round lake, yeah. Wet lake. That's the closest. It's mud lake.

Really? Yeah, there are 900 mud lake. in America, but they're endangered really because they're all getting renamed. So Michigan, for instance, had 300 mud lakes, but 71 of them have been changed in the last few years. Why are they changing them? Is it not politically correct? Well, one reason you want to, like mud lake isn't very nice, but number two, like Dan said, you need to be able to tell exactly where something is. So if you've got 700 mud lakes and you say, I've injured myself next to mud lake, what are they going to do?

Yeah, you're right. There are reports, and again, this is at the level of Dylan Thomas was buried in a banana shape. That's great. Well, there's a lake in Canada called Lake Mini Wanker, but that is true. Some reports say it's the smallest lake in Canada, and it appears not to be. I think there are some smaller. But it is home to a drowned village, which is called Mini Wanker Landing. Cool.

And was it named after someone who drove the Minnie? It was when Tom Cruise lands his plane. That's why he radios into the control tower. All this depends on how you define a lake, right? Yeah. Because there's a thing called Lagos, L-A-G-O-S, which is like a research. It's like the Wikipedia of lakes where you go to if you want to know anything about lakes in North America. But they define a lake as something that is one hectare in area, surface area.

So that's about two football fields. But if you look to count lakes that are like one hectare, so half that size, then the number of lakes in Canada goes up to 3.5 million. Oh my goodness. That's getting stupid. It's basically a puddle. That go out of the naming office is going to be probably still relaxed. We've got time.

And the other scientific definition of a lake is it needs to have an aphotic zone. So that's an area deep enough where plants can't grow because they don't get enough light. Oh, really? That's supposed to be the level between a pond and a lake. There's interestingly on the definition of a lake. There's also the bigness of lakes. So Lake Superior, one of the great lakes. Great Lakes are all shared between the US and Canada, except one, Lake Michigan.

Lake Superior is the largest lake on earth, but only if you don't count the Caspian Sea, which is about five times bigger. And it's really interesting the Caspian Sea controversy because Caspian Sea is technically a lake, I believe, as in it's not connected to the sea, but it has higher salinity than almost any other lake. So it's a huge political debate between Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Russia, Turkmenistan, which all border this lake slash sea, because if it's a lake, you split it equally. So that's why all the great lakes are split equally between the US and Canada. And it's hugely important because it's got massive natural resources. It's got loads and loads of oil deposits in it and mineral deposits.

And so Iran, which has a very short coast on the Caspian, is saying, no, it's definitely a lake. Definitely a lake, because I want to split it equally with the rest of you. Whereas if it's the seashore, you own a distance away from the seashore. Depending on your length of coastline. Exactly. So then, you know, Russia's saying, or Kazakhstan, which has a huge coastline, I'm saying this is bullshit. You can't take a fifth of the oil in it.

So which side do you fall on? And when would we get a resolution to? No, that. Honestly, Dan, I think they got a few other things to iron out in that region. There was a massive meeting in 2018 called the Convention on the Legal Status of the Caspian Sea where all the countries met and they were there for weeks and they concluded it's neither a lake nor more sea. Oh, great. It's a pond. Here's a lake. This is also in the United States of America. It's called Crater Lake and the Kal-Math people who live around it haven't looked at it for more than 7,000

years. No. How close do they live? They don't know. Do they fall in? No, they don't fall in. So it's basically, it's a taboo. Wow. And it's, we think, down to an eruption that happened 7,700 years ago. And then they preserved these stories of this myth that's happened. And that would be 300 generations of word of mouth have kept this story going. Don't look at the lake. And they still don't look at the lake.

What if you accidentally look at the lake? Another eruption, probably. Someone must have. No one's done it. We don't know. Well, we'd know. We would know. We would know, yeah. Wow.

That's crazy. Some lakes swing from side to side. Like a banana? They're called banana lakes. No, they're not. This is amazing, though. They're these things called sashes, and the most famous one is in Lake Erie,

which is one of the great lakes. But basically, it happens if there's a really strong wind that's going in one direction on a lake, and it keeps pushing the water up to one end. And then the wind suddenly stops, then the water, you can imagine like in a bath, swings backwards. And it does extraordinary things.

Like in 2008, there were 16 feet high waves in Lake Erie that flooded. It's Buffalo, I think, in New York that always gets flooded. In 1844, there was a 22 foot high, Seish wave, which caused this flood in Buffalo, which destroyed the town completely. Just from this swinging lake. Crazy. 78 people died. It stopped the Niagara Falls from flowing because it damned it up because, like, the force of all the water. to push the ice to the top of Niagara Falls

and stopped it flowing. What? Just from this swinging lake, isn't that cool? That's very cool. Not the deaths, but yeah, the other stuff. There was a long time ago. Okay. Canada is so big that the southernmost point of Canada is closer to Brazil than it is to the northernmost point of Canada. I don't believe you.

Well, you've got to. Okay. Maths. How do we resolve this then? We need a conference. I mean, yeah, only because I've seen maps. I mean, there's not much in it. There's about 10 kilometres in it.

There's 10 kilometres in it. Yeah. That's so close. Southernmost point of Canada to northernmost point of Canada is 4,620 kilometres. Right. To Brazil, from the southernmost point of Canada, it's 4,630. That's like how my house in Margate is closer to Belgium. than it is to London.

Yeah. That's wild. And it takes you hours and hours and hours to get here every day. I should stop going via Belgium. Okay, it is time for fact number three, and that is James. Okay, my fact this week is that at one Spanish football stadium, they will stop you from eating sunflower seeds, but they won't stop you from smoking.

That is so weird. Is it? Are you allowed to smoke sunflower seeds? Lifehack. Oh, good thinking. Yeah, in a rollout. Actually, you're not really supposed to smoke, but they don't enforce that ban.

But they are enforcing their ban on sunflower seeds. And that's because if you go to Spanish football games, you will often bring sunflower seeds with you as a snack. They're called pipaz. And this team called Elche has decided to ban them because people keep, you kind of, you crack them open and eat the seeds inside, And then you throw the shells away.

And the shells, they clog the drains, they clog the pipes. They rot and deteriorate the seats. The pigeons come, rats come. And they're having to basically redo the entire stadium. And part of the reason is because these sunflower seeds are just all over the place and they're rotting and they're making everything minging. Yeah, there's too many for them to clean up. So as you arrive, you're just cracking shells underneath your foot, going to your seats. It's pretty amazing.

such a tiny thing causing such chaos. And this was in the times that I read this and one of the fans said this is the best thing they could have done that now they just have to enforce the ban on smoking. Yeah, yeah. Is it Spain-wide that these things are enjoyed? It's common throughout Spain, yeah. Really interesting because it's quite a hippie-ish, quite healthy thing

I imagine like, oh, I'm just eating some sunflower seeds. Yeah, this is a weird thing. Oh, okay, they're very salty. This is the thing that I discovered. It's this whole global culture that we do not have in Britain of sunflower seeds being such a plant. popular snack and they're all these countries. So Spain is one of them where they're really popular across Eastern Europe, Eastern European listeners, Brighton, confirm how many sunflower seeds you eat a day.

China, the Middle East, Russia. They're like this big deal snack. And so I think in China you have them in the shells and it's this great meditative experience. The one girl was saying that you put it in your mouth, you have to get the sunflower seed out of the shell. You kind of do it all of your teeth. So the little gray thing that I get when I buy a pack of the sunflower seed is not a sunflower seed. It's actually, that's the kernel. Yeah, it's a kernel. A de-hulled kernel. Whereas people here are eating the naked seeds, which are the black and white striped, they're bigger.

That are inside, yeah. That is a sunflower seed. Yeah. And it's pretty amazing. I went to the National Gallery the other day to look specifically at Van Gogh's sunflowers, right? As research for this fact. No, it's completely separate. I was just, I thought, God, it's around the corner.

Why have I not been there? And I went, stood and just stared. And each flower, there's 11 flowers. they contain about 2,000 between 1,000 and 2,000 seeds. That would have been edible, you know, what was in the pot. I find that fascinating. I've never thought about it in that way before. No, me neither.

If you're really hungry and you've got a sunflower growing in your kitchen, scrape off the top, if it reaches ripeness, and get some seeds out. There's like a TikTok trend at the moment where people are like roasting entire sunflower heads and eating them. Oh, really? I mean, it's just classic TikTok. That doesn't seem.

Everyone's a food expert until you actually try what you're in. eating and then it's disgusting. Well, people do seem to rave about them. And I was reading in China the way they harvest them is really cool. So people go through with big machetes or massive pairs of scissors and they chop the heads off all the, yeah, or nail scissors, whatever you've got to happen. Like you're opening a department store? Yeah, exactly.

A lot of ribbons to cut. They chop the heads of each individual sunflower. But then they pick up the heads, they spin them upside down and they plonk them back on top of the stalk and they leave them there for another week to dry. And that's because it saves having to. dry them in a certain space. So you'll sometimes go to a big sunflower field in China and be like all the flowers are upside down. Yeah. They've all been decapitated. They've all been

decapitated and had their heads put on upside down. Who did this? That's amazing. What psycho. So I should just say Elche, by the way, the football team, they're from Alicante. They were promoted to La Liga last season and I read as much as I could about them. There's not a great deal of interest in stuff. Apart from the kit man, their head kit man is called Pepeede whose name is Spanish for pumpkin seed. Lovely.

It's not quite right, is it? No. Quite got the nomination. Almost got it. I saw his name and I was like, that really looks like it means sunflower seed. Unfortunately, no, Pippaz is the sunflower seed, which also means blow jobs in Greek.

Golly. Well, that won't. Surely that might have led to any congeny. A load of Spanish football fans turn up at Panathan Akos. You've got a cracker. it open with your teeth. They are known these seeds as Spain's football foreplay. I don't know if you came across that phrase.

But what is Britain's football football? Pies. Pies. Nice pie. As in like that's just for play in general, isn't it? A nice steak and kidney pie. Scotch pies, they're called. What is a scotch pie?

Scotch pie is probably if you go to football in the south of England, you don't really get this stuff. But certainly in the north of England, they're kind of. made of pastry, like water pastry, and they usually have mutton in them, lots of potato, not so much meat, absolutely delicious. Yeah. Yum. And they were supposedly despised by the Scottish Church because they were considered a sumptuous meal

and very similar to English pies. So the Scottish Church tried to ban Scotch pies for a while, but they never managed. I would say keep your beaks out, guys. I just think that's not their jurisdiction to... Like, the church tends to... get involved in lots of different things, doesn't happen to historically, especially the Scottish church.

I just think that's a bit like Jimmy Carter getting involved in Dylan Thomas's posthumous reputation. I just think, come on, prioritize. You've got Kirk's to run. Actually, it was because of the church, I think, that sunflower seeds came to be. Well, they did, unless you're saying

that God made them. Exactly. Sorry, yeah, that we started eating sunflower seeds. So they were huge in Russian. first. Russia was like 100 years ahead of the rest of us, mainly in terms of turning them into oil, which is where it's so valuable. And it was basically because during any kind of fast, Christian fasting or lent or anything like that in Russia, then any kind of vegetable oils were banned.

And then Peter the Great, or his minions, sort of discovered that you could get oil from sunflower seeds. It was Peter the Great when he, you know, he did his European tour. He brought them back, didn't he? He saw them in like the Netherlands or something and brought them back. He did, yes. And then some peasant in Russia in the 19th century, Just working in the Fields Peasant, built a machine to get oil out of them. And because they were new oil, the church hadn't managed to create in its list the name sunflower oil. It's so funny. And so everyone just drenched their food with sunflower oil during Lent.

That was why it was so popular. And now Ukraine and Russia is by far the biggest producers of sunflower oil in the world. I read that. It's like more than half the global production is them. That's why Ukraine like the sunflower is a symbol of Ukraine. I see. I didn't know that. It was used as well for mopping up basically a lot of the radioactive waste during the Chernobyl disaster.

Was it? Yeah, so the stems, they noticed that when they put them into bodies of water, that it would take up a lot of the radioactive elements, and then they could bring it away, and then they could discard it in a better way. But so sunflowerers are planted largely around nuclear radioactive areas in Chernobyl and used. Yeah, yeah. Famous pop culture person who eats sunflower seeds. Okay.

Cardi B. Yeah Good shout Someone that you guys have A character that you guys Can you give us a clue Oleg Snoopy A character

A fictional character Yeah 1990s 1990s fictional character The fresh prince of Bel Air Very good no Dennis the menace No Oh yeah cartoon or real

Real Zach from Saved by the Bell No Okay Blobby British or American American Okay

Okay Narrow it down One of the Simpsons No But one of the biggest shows of the 1990s. Friends. People are yelling this at home, not friends.

Something that Dan would like due to his other podcast. A weird, a cryptid-y thing. What's a... Come on, guys, the truth is out there. Oh, Fox Mulder loved Sunflower Seeds? Fox Mulder, he eats Sunflower Seeds all the way through it. And he had to stop in the later series because, according to him, it's hard to act with sunflower seeds.

Yeah. But it was the creator, Chris Carter, who would eat Sunflower seats. seeds and he kind of passed it onto the character. But David Dukovny, who played Mulder, wants people to know that he doesn't like sunflower seeds and he also does not wear ties so fans are discouraged from sending

him either. Poor guy, so he's forcing the sunflower seeds constantly. And wear lots of ties as well. Poor guy. I mentioned Van Gogh earlier. There's another very famous art piece which is called sunflower seeds. Do you remember that?

I-we-we-we-we-way. I-way-way, 2011. So this is extraordinary. He handcrafted porcelain sunflower seeds with his team. There was 1,600 people, and they made 100 million of them. It feels like he's the guy to solve the Canadian lake naming delevan. Like, they could just bang through that. If these 1,600 people, I'm sure, you know, it's making a very important political point and stuff like that.

but it's a long time to be making tiny ceramic seeds. Oh, I see. You're thinking it's a bit of a waste of time. I mean, being a podcaster is a waste of time. I'm fully accept that. But I just think... We've made 100 million identical episodes of this show. But it has been useful, I would say.

Yes, what's the point? They weren't identical, were they? They were slightly... I remember this. Oh, because they were handcrafted. Oh, I'm talking about the episodes of the show, which is no, I remember slight differences. Well, they put...

And so they were first, displayed at the Turbine Hall at the Tate. And if you've ever been there, you know what that's like. Yeah, it's where you get these huge exhibits that are really famous every year. I went to that one, actually. Did you? Did you get to walk on the seeds? No, I didn't.

Because I got... You can walk around on them? So to begin with, and it raised up about 10 centimetres off the ground. That's how many seeds are the height that it reached to. Only 10 centimetres. Well, it's a big, huge hall. Yeah, it's a massive hole. Not that much.

Put it in a smaller room. Have them up to your neck. That's what I would have done. Good idea. That's exciting. Now, that's hard. So was the point he's making is that we're all different? No, the point he was making, I believe.

Well, it was a lot of different points like much art, but I think a lot of it. And this is why the trampling was so important. And I remember being so disappointed is about the oppression and repression of the Chinese state. And all these people, these billions of people in China being treated just like one random, identical sunflower to another, don't have your own. And I think Chairman Mao used to say that the people of China were sunflower seeds. And his idea is like if you get all of these 100 million seeds together, then they make something very big and important. But by themselves, they're kind of...

Oh, yeah, that's a different interpretation. There you go. I don't know. Like you, I went and was slightly disappointed that I wasn't allowed to walk on them. And to begin with, you were allowed to walk on them and then health and safety because they thought little microdust was coming through from all the crunching. But I worked out that the equivalent sunflower seeds that he made, that Van Gogh would have to paint would be 50,000 flowers.

Okay. Because it's about 2,000 seeds per head, right? About 2,000. I think that math, right. I was eating whiskeys deep by the time I did that. That's doable. Baseball players also love sunflower seeds, apparently, in the USA. There is this question of why baseball players are constantly chewing.

Because they are. If you look at them in the dugout, they're always eating. So there's one big theory is that the game is boring. My daughter, when she gets bored, she always asks, can I have a snack? Right. The theory is that's what they're doing. You know, they're sporting guys, they will burn it off, but basically it's a dull game to watch and to participate in. I really like lots of sports, but I do find it difficult to sit in a stadium through an entire baseball game. Right. There we go.

I think there really is a divide in the world, which no other sport has, between people who understand why baseball is appealing and are obsessed with it. My friend's obsessed. And the rest of us who think, oh. But it sounds like all the players are on our side. Well, they... They know from the inside. But they used to chew tobacco. That's another theory why people, they might chew sunflower seeds now

because you don't chew tobacco anymore. But chewing tobacco could give them some buzz. And they had another big advantage. When baseball players chew tobacco, they could slobber their juice onto the ball. Interesting. And Philo Thomas used to slather his juice on their surface, didn't he?

If you slobber on the ball It would become darker And that would be harder for the batter to see So it's a tricky It's a tricky sneaky way Of making a camouflage ball I understand this against the rules to do that The rule was changed in 1920

To disallow baldy facing That was what it was defined as So maybe that's another reason For the rise of the sunflower seat Apart from the unbearable tedious Of watching this game Okay speaking of tedious American spots I mean, I absolutely love American football

But what snacks do you associate with American football? Weeners, get your weaners Hot dogs That's the same as a wiener, isn't it? So hot dogs, for me, I would more have hot dogs at a baseball game, probably. Candy gloss. Natchels.

Yeah, all these are good answers. Cavia? Caviar is correct. From the Caspian Sea, the belugas. No, it's, I think for me it's chicken wings. Okay. If you're watching the Super Bowl, everyone in America basically eats chicken wings. Right.

And this all came due to an accidental over-order by a company in Buffalo. They accidentally ordered a load of chicken wings, and they didn't know what to do with them. And so they came up with a new recipe, which was Buffalo Wings. So you basically put chili sauce and butter together, and it makes this sauce, and they're absolutely delicious. And this bar called Anchor Bay, they started making it. them and then a little bit later the Buffalo Bill's NFL team made it to the Super Bowl for three years in a row and everyone associated the Buffalo Bill's team with Buffalo wings and suddenly chicken wings became like the food for the Super Bowl. So it's all a big mistake?

But 1.6 billion chicken wings are eaten on Super Bowl Sunday every year. Jesus. I think because Americans get some shit sometimes from the rest of the world about certain elements of their culture, but one of the greatest cultural things that exist in America, which I didn't really know that it was a thing as tailgating. Tailgating? Or the tailgate. Driving very close to the person in front of you. Well, indeed. That's the only thing I know it as.

But like, basically at any NFL match in the parking lot, then you'll have a tailgate party. And there's host. And I was asking, well, my husband's lived in America. And he was like, yeah, I mean, literally everyone does it at every NFL match. I went, I've been to a couple of NFL matches in America. And I never got invited to this party. I'm so sorry. So, wait, sorry, you go to the car park.

Yep. And there are just people who are such big fans of the team that they cook up a massive feast. They've made like 100 burgers and pizzas for everyone and loads of beers. And just everyone has it. They have a big party. But kind of anyone's invited.

So you go and it's called tailgating. Almost anyone. Don't rubber it, don't know. I'm starving that day. Driving around a completely empty town. weren't you, James? All the restaurants were closed. Okay, it is time for our final fact of the show, and that is Anna.

My fact this week is that Singaporeans drink more than a bottle of scotch per person per month, which is twice as much as their nearest rivals. Wow. How? What? Are they the children of Dylan Thomas? I like the way you say rivals. Like there's a big sort of international competition.

could drink the most scotch. Poor old Latvia coming second, desperately trying to catch up. Are they second Latvia? Lathia a second. Really? Yeah. A bottle of scotch per person per month. Isn't that insane?

That is a lot. Latvia has their own, what is it? Now, I have some at home. It's like schnapsy stuff that Latvians drink. And they have balsam as well. Balsam, yeah. So like, they're spreading themselves too thin, the Lapians. You're right.

Give up the balsam. Give up the balsam. And having tasted the balsam, just give up the balsam. And then you'll win. Stick with the whiskey. So a bottle per person per month. Or they buy a bottle of scotch per person per month. And I think that's an important distinction because I struggle to really find the reason.

Because I've got a bottle of whiskey at home and I've been working on it pretty solidly for a couple of years now. I've got past the halfway mark. Well done. Is all this whiskey being drunk or is it that it's just being bought and stored? Well, it's not clear. So the stats are from the Scotch Whiskey Association, which says that they export 12. They have all the export figures. In case you're wondering, domestically,

in case you're wondering, oh, the Scottish surely drink more. 73 million bottles are sold domestically in the UK each year. So even if every single UK bottle of whiskey was sold in Scotland, they'd only just be drinking as much whiskey as the Singaporeans. And it's not. And we know that Andy's having... Because Andy's getting through.

Working away on my famous grass, yeah. I've still got a bottle of whiskey in my house that I bought on my honeymoon, which was 12 years ago. Really? Is that for ageing purposes? No, I only use it for whiskey sauce on Burns Night once a year. Is it? It's not unbelievably delicious whiskey, is it, that you're wasting?

It's Talisca. It's pretty good. Oh, really? Yeah. Okay, well, we're not contributing to the English stats, obviously. But it's weird. I was looking it up, Singaporeans, very light drinkers. They consume two litres of alcohol per person per year, which is about five times less

than we do. as Brits and it seems to be when I was looking up like people talking about it, Singaporeans talking about it is about investment and a lot of them are buying up whiskey now. It's become a trendy thing, it's pretty wealthy country Well there's a lot of expats as well so

Lots of expats and who will skew the number of people and what they drink If I go as a tourist to Singapore because I know it's a whiskey hub as then they've got lots of amazing whiskey from around the world and whiskey shops and things and I buy a bottle there Does that count do you think? A Judy Free-Sitch, yeah

I've never been except I think briefly to the airport once but it sounds like an amazing The airport is nice in fairness And again I didn't go specifically to Go to the airport I just went into Changi Couple of glasses of whiskey

Straight back out I've had half a glass of whiskey today I think that's a record But it's an amazingly weird place It's cool I've been Yeah I went a lot as a kid It's right at all right from there

It's right at the bottom of Malaysia And it's much like Portland In that it's an island, but it's separated by a very narrow strip of water from the rest of the mainland, as it were. Portsmouth of the south. It's the Portsmouth of the South. When you learn in Singapore, there's a big banner that says, much like Portsmouth. Here's another thing they drink there. Yacolt.

Oh, yeah? So, you know, Yacolt, that kind of little sort of yogurty drink with probiotics in it. Singapore is the only country in the world that sells different flavours of Yacolt. Is it? It's yum. So just a childhood thing, Yakult was massive in my childhood in Hong Kong, but I can't picture another flavor other than the basic. Honestly, they only do it in Singapore.

Wow. They also have the biggest serving size of anywhere in the world, which is 100 milliliters. No, you can get that one in Hong Kong as well. You can get that in a few countries, but you can't get it in the UK, but you can't get it in Singapore. You mean of spirits? No, sorry, of Yakult.

Yakult. A Yakult was not a Yakult. It's like a novelty Tobler in, right? Like it's a... Yeah. And also, in Singapore, this is the... the only place they have it, they have a Yakult home delivery service, which started in 1986,

and they will bring you your yakult to your door if you want it. Jesus Christ. Their gut health must be out of this. That is so strange. Isn't that weird? But it's because it's an island. It's got this kind of island culture, you know, where just things are popular there that aren't popular anywhere else.

Like they've got the world's first ever salmon ATM there. Okay. It's a vending machine. In fact, there are dozens of vending machine. specifically for Norwegian salmon. But the salmon always try and swim back into the very thing. Yeah, it's bizarre. Norwegian salmon.

There were 61 as of 2019. But it stays fresh in there for two years. Because it's frozen. It's frozen. Okay. Oh, still. I like Singapore, when you go there, and this is again from the viewpoint of a kid, it's not particularly weird.

It was a bit intimidating because of the rules. You were always told, can't chew gum there. that's illegal. You will be lashed if you chew gum. I remember the tailor of that. Yeah, I remember every time I would go there just being like, wow, it's so clean here. And yeah, there's a reason for that.

I've just realized, because I remember thinking that as well, but maybe I misunderstood, because if they're all drinking so much scotch and they're all getting lashed every day, maybe that's what it meant all along. Yeah, no, it is pretty wild. I was surprised, actually, that the number one imported drink isn't gin.

That's just because simply of the same. Singapore sling. The most famous drink to have the name Singapore in front of it. That's the second most famous. There are no others. So yeah. But that's, that is a massive drink there. It was invented in Raffles, the hotel, which is an extraordinary hotel. I don't know if you've ever seen pictures of it. No, I mean. Or you've been to Raffles. In fact, I've had a Singapore Sling there.

Have you? So yeah, they say they, at the bar, which is called the long bar, they say that about 2,000 Singapore slings are made per day. I've got to say I ordered one, had a sip, and then ordered a beer. Really? Because you didn't like it. Yeah, it was too sweet. Yeah, it was basically invented by one of the bar staff there because women were not really

allowed to drink publicly. And so you make this with pineapple and lime and you put the gin in, but it looks like they're just having a nice fresh juice. And so that's kind of how it kicked off. James, when you went to that bar, did you notice as you walk that your feet were crunching everywhere on shells? Some far see shells? No.

I don't recall that. I don't remember it very well, to be honest. because it was quite a lot of years ago. But no, I don't think so. I remember it being very colonial. Right. So they have peanuts there that they give to you in bags, but they don't give you a plate to put the shells on

because it is tradition to throw them on the floor immediately after you've eaten. Oh, really? At the end of the day, they just have to sweep up all the discarded shells. That's nice. Nice for the cleaning stuff. Do they appreciate that tradition? All those migrant labour are cleaning stuff? It's part of it.

Yeah. And also, here's a really interesting fact. It is located on number one Beach Road. However, there is no beach. near it riddle me this. Did they used to be a beach near it? There used to be and there's so much reclaimed land. Oh, it wasn't named after Dylan Thomas's wife who was an infamaniac in a beach.

First class beach at that. Was that wild? There used to be a beach right at the edge of it. It's on beach road and so much land has been added that it's no longer in sight. And Singapore is 20% larger than it was in the 60s and it's and it's basically taken the land from Malaysia and Indonesia, which you would think sounds like a war, but they've not gone to war and taken the land in that way. They've gone over there, taken all the sand,

and then created new land in Singapore. So the sand comes from different countries. It's Malaysian land. It's Indonesian sand, but it's made Singapore 20% larger. And it's very controversial because it's drained. Like they've banned it in Indonesia. They banned it a while ago. They've officially, I think almost all of it comes from Cambodian now.

because it got banned elsewhere. Cambodia have banned it, but you can still make a huge amount of money as a Cambodian who's willing to get your sacks out and collect loads of sand and expulsed. Sand smuggling, yeah. Because it is, I think a lot of stuff about Singapore is to do with the fact it's so small, and they import so much of their food that they have to

have innovative solutions for feeding themselves and, you know, supplying their own stuff. And they've smashed that. It was always a chart when I went, I mean, which it was 20 years ago, but I think it's the same. The only two things people ever told you about Singapore, and no offense of Singaporeans, I know there's more, but the airport's amazing and the food's incredible.

And actually, when you're there for three days, once you know the food is the only thing really to do there, once you've had kind of four meals in a row, it's like, well, I can't enjoy this anymore. What am I going to do now? Can you stop enjoying food? I've had them within about two hours. You've just gone around, stuffing your face.

Actually, I just thought of something that they did in Singapore that's like the NFL stuff, which is they turn the car parks into like food holes. I'm sure they do that. I remember going to, it was like an old car park. Once the car park closed and all the cars had gone, suddenly it just opens up and they sell like durian and. Yeah, okay, that sounds likely.

It's like one huge food hall. Graves? Because there's so little space going. They have to be all shaped like banana. And they kind of tessellate with each other, don't they? They're all spooning. So sweet. No, you get, they're digging up.

There used to be a couple of hundred cemeteries in Singapore. Now they're only about 60. left because they just need space. You get 15 years only in the ground if you choose to be buried. And then you have to go elsewhere. Obviously, as we've said, they're kind of big on their rules and trying to stop people from doing certain things. There was an anti-gambling advert in 2014. And this featured a little boy called Andy.

And he was complaining to his friends that his dad had bet his life savings on Germany winning the World Cup. And Germany then won the 2014 World Cup. And the National Council on Problem Gambling said that they decided to choose Germany because they thought they were very unlikely to win, but at least it would be realistic. You can never bet against the Germans in a workshop. Exactly. They should have known. But obviously everyone thought that this was encouraging people to gamble.

So the council revamped the advert. And Andy, the little boy, says, his friend asks, your dad's team won. Did you get your money back? And he said, no, dad never stops. wants to bet one more time on which he bet on Lester winning the next year's Premier League. No, he didn't. That's so funny. Lots of things banned.

That's the only thing I know. Chewing gum I know, obviously. But, I mean, it's pretty draconian there, isn't it? So you can still be caned if you're a man under the age of 50. Another euphemism for getting drunk. Oh, no, yeah, you're right. But you can really, like, they have a cane and they will, and it's sort of minor levels of crime, but it's really painful.

like it's really bad and there are all sorts of rumours about the procedure and just it's actually I thought like jaywalking could get you caned like is what I thought when I went there I don't know if it's true but

Mine of vandalism does That kind of stuff Weeing in a lift Dan You were there as a child Did you say? Not at that age Okay Because they had a huge problem

With people weeing in the lifts Sorry sorry At what age did you stop Wearing and lift stuff Like 23 Yeah You're Dylan Thomas face Yeah, because everyone lives in high-rise buildings

And in the 60s and 70s, every lift stank of piss And it was horrible And they had suggestions of how do we combat this Because it's a really nasty social problem One block of flats just bought its own lift attendant Like everyone chipped in And you'd have someone to press the buttons But also stop anyone weeing

And eventually, in the 1988 war on piss They installed urine detectors in lifts And had a crackdown and if a drop of wee hits the floor, that urine detected detects it, the lift slams to a halt. No. And you have to wait there

until the authorities come and, you know, drag you off to chokey. Oh my God. And the first people called for it were, I think, you know, boys who were just sort of... I want to know. It's terrifying. They have this problem in other countries

that most people live in high rise. You're so close to home when you're in a lift. What if you're going out? It feels like go before you leave. Right? It just feels like you're so close to having either just left your toilet or just arriving at your toilet. But you know what it's like when you really need the loo, you suddenly can't hold it anymore when you're 10 yards from your front door, right? Yeah, you let your guard down a bit.

Exactly, you relax. I don't think it's people who are incapable. I don't think it's people who are almost home and just can't hold it anymore. I think it was just a, I don't know. If I was visiting your home, though, James, I might we in the lift on the way up just to kind of mark the territory. Why don't I live in a crowd floor flat? But through the front window Okay, that's it. That is all of our facts.

Thank you so much for listening. If you'd like to get in contact with any of us about the things that we've said over the course of this podcast, we can all be found on our various social media accounts. I'm on at Shreiberland on Instagram. James. My Instagram is no six things James Harkin. Andy. My Instagram's at Andrew Hunter M.

And if you want to get to us as a group, Anna. You can email podcast.com. That QI.com or you can tweet at no such thing or Instagram at no such thing as a fish. That's right. Head to our website as well, by the way. We have all of our previous episodes up there. We have a link to the gateway to Clubfish, which is the secret members club that we have. We do a lot of bonus episodes there. Add free episodes as well. Do check it out. Or just come back next week because we'll have another episode waiting for you here. See you then. Goodbye.