No Such Thing As A Fish - No Such Thing As A Magnetic Skateboard

Episode Date: May 20, 2022

Dan, James, Anna and Andy discuss a cupboard full of clown heads, the robot that doesn't jump over the moon and the rock and roll side of pension planning. Visit nosuchthingasafish.com for news about live shows, merchandise and more episodes.

Hello and welcome to another episode of No Such Thing as a Fish, a weekly podcast coming to you from the QI offices in Covent Garden. My name is Dan Schreiber. I am sitting here with Anna Tashinsky, Andrew Hunter Murray, and James Harkin, and once again we have gathered around the microphones with our four favorite facts from the last seven days, and in no particular order, here we go. Starting with fact number one, that is Anna. My fact this week is that scientists have invented a 30-centimeter tall robot that could jump over the Statue of Liberty if it was on the Moon. If they were both on the Moon. If they were both, yes, sorry, not if the Statue of Liberty was on the Moon and the robot was on Earth. That would be incredible.

So, sorry, we've moved the Statue of Liberty to the Moon. That's right, yes. Which I don't know why. So aliens, when they first come, the first thing they see is the Moon right before they see the Earth, unless it's on the other side. They're coming from you. I'm assuming they come from the moon side. The first thing they see is liberty and lightening the world. So we'll have to move it to the dark side of the moon, or rather the further side of the moon.

Oh, yeah. So we'll never see it again because the moon and the earth are locked, aren't they? Or the moon is tidily locked, whatever. So we'll just never see it. But we've seen, you know what it looks like now, don't you? We've got pictures. We've got pictures, Andy. We've been fine.

So this robot, which is an amazing robot, this jump, without leaping over the Statue of Liberty, it can leap 10 meters, right? Yeah, yeah, it can still leave quite high. It can actually leap 30 meters, so it can leave over a 10-story building. So it could also jump over the Statue of Christa Redeemer in Brazil, I think, I'm pretty sure. And that's if it was on Earth. And that's on Earth. If we got the Christa Redeemer back from the moon, where we put it.

Why? Because he always goes with a Statue of Liberty, doesn't he? They're dating. But how tall then is a Statue of Liberty? So the Statue of Liberty is 93 meters, I believe, and this could jump on the moon. 125 meters. So it could actually jump the Statue of Liberty's height and then about a third as high again. If she was giving Christ the Redeemer a piggyback?

Yes. I think that should. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that would work. Yeah, yeah. Hard to do, though, with the arm angles of both statues. Yeah, yeah. I'm just trying to work out how the little piggyback would work. Well, he's fine because he's up top.

He's got his arms out. Yeah, he's fine. Do you know that the Angel of the North is actually giving Christ the Redeemer a hug? but they're just so far away you never see it happens. But tectonics one day will bring them together. Eventually they'll meet. Anyway, this is a jumping robot. And scientists are very excited because it's really the highest the robots ever jumped

proportionally for its size. And it's quite a basic looking thing. It's made of rubber bands and some carbon fiber slats because they store energy really well. And it does have a motor. Yeah, so I just wanted to say it has a motor. Is that counts as a jump if you haven't? Well, it's not using the motor to propel itself in the air.

It's using its motor, like we would use a muscle, I guess, to bounce to jump. To wind up the rubber band. Exactly. Okay. But maybe it counts. Maybe it doesn't. Take it up with the researchers. I think they've cheated on a number of fronts here.

First of all, they put it on the moon. But it's a robot. You're allowed to give a robot a motor, aren't you? Yeah, you are. They're showing off that it can jump way better than, like, anything in nature. They're saying that the robot. reason is they're saying, oh, mine does better than everything in nature. In your face grasshopper.

But the reason it does it is because it has these carbon fiber slats and stuff like that. But actually, I would argue that one of the reasons is that they're using a motor. But I don't know. I agree. But I reckon they could do it with the force of just like a human pulling it, I think, really. Or maybe they could do it with wind up. They'd have to have some sort of force applied. But yeah, the motor is not flying it through the air like in an aeroplane.

It's not just an aeroplane. Right. Also, it doesn't look like, whenever I hear robot, I think it's got two legs and two arms, human, humanoid kind of. Well, not even humanoid, but, you know, it's... C3PO. Yeah, exactly. So I do not think R2D2 is a robot then? Yeah, good question.

God, do you really set him a trap there? That was a fuck of a lawyer, wasn't it? Well, Your Honor, can I ask my client? Actually, the other person's client? Does he think that R2D2 is? a robot. If you're a lawyer, James, you absolutely would do that. You'd start cross-examining your own witness.

Just see, because you saw a point to be made. Yeah, and I would have set him up knowing that he's going to give me the wrong answer as well. Sorry. It's fine. Damn it. I've had so much thinking time. I still haven't got an answer. I don't, yeah, it's obviously a robot.

But so it's just worth saying that this one looks kind of like a toy for a cat, right? Like, it's like a little ball that you would play. Yeah, like it's got a couple. It's got two wheels at cross angles or maybe. three on what I can't remember. Yeah, it's like two white wheels of crash into each other at right angles. Yes.

Or like the skeleton of a football. Anyway, it's a weird looking robot. I'll give you that. Your Honor, I have another question. The way it works, I should say, is that it's basically by releasing a really, really strong elastic force, isn't it? So it's got these rubber bands that are stretched

really, really super far. And this makes the carbon fiber bend, like an archer's bow. would bend and then when you release those elastic bands then the archer's bow bend straightens and it shoots up into the air and it makes the comedy noise yeah they had to add that sound effect it actually has quite a lot of weight

it's very cool yeah it is very cool did it was it a surprise to them how high it went the first time I didn't even want it to jump they just leapt out of their hands this is the world's best standing still rope oh fucking how we've invented the perfect coffee

table. One of the other good things about it is that it's able to write itself when it lands. And so it sort of reinflates on the ground and then gets upright and then jumps away again. Great. So you've got to, it keeps you on your toes. And it will be useful apparently this kind of technology in space. You know, in space we've got like sort of robots and asteroids already that jump over the little lumps and it could jump over big lumps.

Yeah. I didn't know that. Well, like on Mars kind of thing. Exactly. Right. There's a boulder in the way. Exactly. If I'd need to jump 100 metres into the air.

Could be a big boulder. Could be a big boulder. That's true. I was looking up jumping records. Oh, yeah. I got a bit distracted thinking, when do you think the queen last jumped? Has she ever jumped? I'm sure she did because she's been a child.

You know, she would have jumped and done skipping and things like that as a child. I've never seen her jump to my knowledge. No. Is there any footage of the queen jumping? Does anyone know? If you have, send it in and you could win 250 pounds. When do you need to jump in life? When you're skipping, that's exercise.

When you're... Exercising in general. If you're... She goes on long walks, then might be your little stream that she needs. Over a stream. Yeah. Like if a corgi gets in the way when you're walking for your... Yes.

Jump the corgi. I think her corgi is a better trained than that. Do you think that's what they say when a monarch has gone too far? She's really jumped the coggy now. I don't know. Andy. In fact, none of us knows. We're just speculating. Great question. I think she has jumped, but I don't think for a while. Do you know the highest jump by a horse record?

So was this Olympics? No, it wasn't. It's just the record. Although they did do the horse high jump, didn't they? In the really early Olympics, I think. And long jump we covered as well. Yeah. It's not. So, Anna, I guess you mean the horse is allowed to run up to the thing. So it's not jumping from a standing position. No, it's not jumping from a standing position.

I bet horses can't even do that. I bet they can't bit. Jump from a standing position? Yeah. They can jump from a standing position They've got muscles in their legs The Queen can do it Can she do it on a horse though Because she rides a lot doesn't she

Can't jump the hook? Can the queen jump over a horse I don't think a horse can stand still I think I've seen that happen At like badminton and stuff Where they have like multiple fences to go over And they'll stop from one to the other I think They definitely do that

I mean I've seen horses do it as well I think they're quite better at it than we are I think you're right I'm thinking of a horse standing With all its legs straight But you're allowed to bend your legs before you jump Yeah, it can't fire itself up. I don't think you can jump without a tiny bit of bending of any muscles.

You think you can. But now when you think about it, you're like, actually, I am moving my ankles a bit if I do that. If I do that pencil jump. Yeah, yeah. But it wasn't a pencil jump. Just a normal horse jump. I think it's, I remember a fact. I think it's shorter than the human high jump.

It's actually not that much higher than it, but it is a bit higher. And it beat everyone else by quite a long way, all the other horses. So it's 8 foot one inch. And the record was set in 1949, and it's never been broken. Wow, really. And it was set by this really, this cool horse called Huasso. Hosso. Hwasso.

Hwasso. Hoasso. Oh my God, it's called Horso. Well, it was a horse in Chile. I guess Hwaso was the Chilean for horse in the 40s. Oh, my Kwas. My kingdom for a horse. It came from New York to Chile.

Anyway, it was really bad at everything else. And it was almost retired. In fact, I think it was almost put down because it failed at racing, at dressage, at show jumping, because it was very hard to control. And then an army officer was wandering by its field one day and saw it jump over a fence and thought, my God, that's high, and bought the horse on the spot.

And they trained it up specifically just to break the world horse high jump record. And it did it. And it broke the record when it was 16. and the moment it broke it, it retired. And it was never written again. Wow. Isn't that nice? One moment of glory in its life.

Yeah. No one to quit. It retired or it was retired? It made the decision. It signed the forms of little hoof prints. Put it into a field with very high fences. Some stuff on robots, maybe? Oh, yeah.

One thing that's really hard for robots to do is handle soft fruit. But there is a... What? Because they don't need to eat fruit, I suppose. So I can't imagine it being a problem. They haven't needed to learn. Yeah. But what if you want a robot to prepare you some fruit?

Yeah. That's a good point. The problem is that fruit is uneven in shape, right? So even if you have two apples, they might not be exactly the same. Two bananas might not be exactly the same. But there's a guy called Hichiel Kim at the University of Tokyo. And he and his colleagues have developed a machine learning robots that has learned how to peel a banana. So it took eight.

811 minutes of data that it had to watch to learn how to do this banana The task was divided into nine stages Like first of all grasping the banana then picking it up off the table blah blah blah Okay And now they have this robot that can successfully peel a banana 57% of the time I'm not gonna I'm not gonna stop staff my um holiday beach bar with it Am I? Does it take ages as well?

Three minutes. Three minutes. The queue is building up at Robos, the beach bar for the banana smoothies. Wow. 50-something of the time. That's so funny. I was reading about you can get these new robot smart suitcases. Oh, it just looks so cool.

What did they do? It just follows you. So, like, let's imagine you're in the airport and you're just walking to your plane. It's just coming up next to you beside you. Is it with a magnet or something? Because I've often thought you could get a great, like if you have the right magnet. No. No, it's not.

But you could, like... More likely radio waves coming from your phone and it just follows the waves. Exactly. That would be another way of doing it. Yeah. It would be a great big magnet. Walking through security in the airport with a massive magnet. Yeah, I can see that working.

And also, everyone else has the same luggage as you, right? That's one problem. Everyone else just attracted to your massive... back there and you're just walking around Heathrow with a hundred bags attached to you it's not feasible Andy like a beekeeper for suitcase a beard of suitcases

yeah there are some teething troubles murray's magnet suitcase yeah but yeah so no it's it's also got facial so it is a phone in there's facial recognition and the facial recognition that does mean if someone like Andy tries to run off

with your suitcase. It's got an alarm system. It says, no, no. Or like, you know, beats. Does it scream? Yeah. No, Mr. Murray. No, please. That's really clever. Yeah. Thank you. That's great. So, sorry, how does it, I can't, can't remember down how it works. It follows you around. You've got, I guess you'll have an app on your phone. By facial recognition, do you say? Is this, but what's it? What force? Oh. Sorry. Well, what is it using, um, are you using a motor. Cheating. It's one of the cheating robots. It's a motion. So it's It's like remote controlled, instead of you using a remote control, it's just following your phone. Yeah. But was there not a guy, when we were in New York and we were walking down the street, was it not a guy on a motorized, what's it called, skateboard?

Yeah. Who fell off his skateboard. And then his skateboard was like five meters away from him. And he pressed a button on his phone and it kind of followed and came up to him. Do you remember that? I didn't see that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

We were walking along the street. And he came out. He looked like a bit of a chump. He fell off his skateboard. But then he summoned it like a dog. it was cool. Are you sure? Because I remember the guy coming off, but I don't remember the skateboard returning. That did happen. Wow. Same technology. Or a magnet. Or a magnet. He wouldn't have fallen off at all with the magnet in place.

Okay, it is time for fact number two, and that is James. Okay, my fact this week is that the last ever speaker of the bow language of the Andaman Islands would only speak it to birds who she considered to be her ancestors. So you might remember a few weeks ago We talked about the Anderman Islands About elephants swimming among them I did a lot of research about the Anderman Islands themselves But we never used it

So Here we are again This is recycling Greta would be proud This is the Andaman Islands As we said before They are between Just off the coast of India

And it's an article that I read on BBC online About Professor and Vita Abbey who has written the first dictionary of this language. And she talked about this last speaker who was called Boa Senior. And she said that, you know, I spoke to this person, got all the words, blah, blah, blah. But whenever this woman... Did she have to dress as a bird? Can you get the words out of her?

Well, she said, Anvita Ravi, Professor Anvita Rabi, she said they caught this woman speaking it to the birds. And when they asked her about it, why are you speaking it to her? birds. They said, well, they're our ancestors and they're the only ones who understand my language besides yourself. And yeah, this is... Wow. That's very sad. Yeah. If she'd dressed as a bird, she would have been a feathered boa. Yeah. Wouldn't she? That's really good. So she could have done that, but it probably wouldn't work in her language. That joke. That is the tragedy. It is. She spent 30 years as the only person speaking it. It's such a long time. It is a long time. Obviously, she knew other...

variations of Hindi that she also spoke to on the islands. Yeah, she could talk to other people in some ways. She was quite spry. So she died in 2010. Yeah. And she was in a mid-80s, I think. But when the Indian Ocean tsunami came in 2004, was it, I think? Yes. She was 79 years old, and she had to climb up a tree to escape it. Yeah. Did she? Maybe she asked the birds to lift her up into the branches of the tree. It's very possible. Maybe she has a little motorized little thing in her ankle

and lobbed up into the tree. It was really interesting about that because she used, her group used really old knowledge to see that there was a tsunami coming. So it's the Ongay tribe that she was part of. And they used knowledge by the type of fish

that I found at different levels of seawater. So when the sea really went out, there were different fish that they could see and they could see that there was a problem. So they went to high ground. There was another group called the Jurawas who were in the Andaman Islands and they saw the patterns of the waves changing and they had this ancient knowledge that knew that there was something

that was a problem coming and so they could get away. And the Andamanese, they're much more sort of integrated into Indian society now and they were the slowest to react to this tsunami because they didn't have all of the ancient knowledge. But that is weird you mention that because that's one of the things about where languages is the fear that that kind of knowledge will get lost. In rural communities, there's so much kind of knowledge that we don't know yet. I was listening to a really interesting podcast. I think it was the Guardian Science podcast and it was about how we're

losing medicinal plant knowledge because of all these languages that are disappearing. So it was someone saying that like every botanist, even however much they know, they'll go into the forest and immediately they'll go, shit, I only know about 1% of these plants. And yet the local people who live in the Amazon or in Guinea or whatever will know all of them and will know like what they can be used for. and this guy did a study in the Amazon North America and New Guinea and he made a list of 12,500 plant purpose pairings my God it must have taken a long time but it was so that's like a plant and then the purpose that it's useful pairings and he said 75% of them were specific to one language so they're not shared by any other language and most of those

languages are endangered languages yeah so all of that knowledge would go do they work sorry do these 12,000 fits work well he actually didn't specify that he gave examples. Doc leaves on a nettle stick. That's the only one I know and it doesn't work. But you know aspirin. That comes from a will-in. I know how to go into a shop and ask for a cowpole, you know.

Most importantly, it feels like we need to teach people how to do that. There's an explorer called Wade Davis who's been pushing this for many, many years. We've mentioned him on the podcast before. He's the one who claimed that poo knife was made by... Yeah. A frozen, frosty poo knife. A frosty poo knife. Yeah, but he, so Wade Davis.

Frosty the Poon. Less good Christmas creation. Slightly older children. So Wade Davis says that, and he says us in his talks, that he thinks that what our sort of period of time is going to be known for is, it's going to be obviously the destruction of the environment, but he thinks the ethnosphere is the biggest thing that we've not noticed, that we've decimated.

All the languages of the world are becoming extinct because we keep spreading out. We keep saying English is a great language. Why don't you learn that or French and we lose their languages and all the knowledge goes with it? 7,000 languages in the world and 2,000 are endangered as in less than 1,000 people speak them, I think. It's sad and they're going extinct every day, aren't they? A couple of recent ones. If you search on Google news for like extinct last speaker of, you know, there's loads in the last couple of years alone. Really?

Yeah. Yeah, this year we lost the Yagan language, the Yaghan language. the Jagan language, the Yacan language, the Yamanah language, Hausi Kuta, Yagan Kuta, Tequinitsa and Yapu languages. All on the same day, because they're all different words for the same language. Yeah. This was in Chile. This is a woman called Christina Calderon. She was the last speaker of what we would mostly know as Yagan.

and Yagan language is most famous among people like us who do this kind of research for a word, which is Mami Lappinatapai, which got the Guinness World Record in 1993 for being the world's most succinct word. Oh. And it means the unspoken but meaningful glance shared between two people during a private moment where both individuals know the other understands what is being expressed. And say it again what it is? Mami Lapinatapai Okay

It's quite succinct Yep I could create a shorter word Could you? We all know what you mean I read a really interesting piece about it This Aussie island It's called South Goulburn Island

Never heard of it before It's off the coast Because it's an island obviously Which coast? The Australian coast And There's only one done Yeah

Yeah It goes all the way around It goes all the way around. Sorry, my bad. My bad. Bloody hell. Ask a stupid question, mate. There are 500 people there. This was a piece in the Atlantic, by the way, which confusingly is not a relevant ocean. But there are 500 people there.

They live in a settlement called a Waurui community. And between these 500 people, they speak nine languages, right? Now, the really weird thing is that they haven't developed a mutual pigeon, you know, kind of mash-up language where everyone's... knows that one and they don't speak each other's languages. But there are only 500 of them. You know, you can't only speak to people who know your language. So the way they get along with each other is they all speak their own languages

and everyone else just understands enough of the language the other guy is speaking. No way. So effectively they are like British people on holiday who just use their own language and trust that it will be understood. Yes. Oh, wow. Do they shout really loudly and say it really slowly and in a slightly racist accent? They want two beers.

That's what they want. And they have multilingual conversations. So you walk past two people having a chat about something. One will say something in their own language. The other will reply in a completely different language. Wow. That's unbelievably confusing. Yeah.

God. Well, hey, here's a cool species from the Andaman Islands. Yeah. It's called Asidabularia jellakeney. Oh, yeah. And it's 10 centimetres tall. It's an algae and it's made of one cell. Wow.

Oh, why? Cell. Cool, because we've done the larger single-celled creature, and I feel like it's not that much bigger than that. That's amazing. It's got one nucleus. It looks quite complicated. It's got roots and a stalk and a cap and all this stuff,

and it's just one-celled creature. I find those are so weird. And how high can it jump? The same as the queen. Yeah, exactly. It doesn't. Can I tell you about one more language which died this year? Yeah.

So this was Gallic in the Brays of Lacaba. It's a vernacular. from this area of Scotland and it was due to the death of Ronnie the Crofter who died age 90 this year. He was well known in the crofting community and the droving community.

Do you remember we talked about those? He was a bit of a drover. And his mother came from a family of farmers called the McDonald's. The McDonald's. Not the McDonald's. Not the McDonald's. In the Scottish McDonald's.

Scottish McDonald's. Not the chain McDonald's. No, and not from the old McDonald's had a farm. No, story. Farming dynasty. From the Scottish McDonald's. And his father was a Campbell. Okay, so the Campbells and the McDonald's,

a bit of a tough time, but since the massacre of Glencoe between those two families. And so he had to find an explanation for his family, and he found an ancestor who had been a piper for both the Campbell's and the McDonald's,

who was one of his ancestors. And so actually he could say, well, you know, We were together back then and we're together again now. That's very nice. And apparently, and this was in the article in the BBC, they said that the pipers in those days were so important in the clan system

that a really good one would transfer between clans like a modern footballer would transfer between football teams. Amazing. Isn't that incredible? Having listened to enough bank pipes in my time, I think they were thrusting them on each other. You take him, honestly. Sorry, was he called Ronnie the Crofter? Ronnie the Crofter, yeah.

This thing it was called Ronald McDonald? Did he raise cows? It doesn't say what his actual surname was, but perhaps he was a camel. Oh my God. But he had two uncles who are archbishops of Glasgow. His grandmother was a close relation to St. Mary MacKillop, who was the first Australian saint. He was a Shinty champion. He was a champion Shira.

He never married, but he said, those who were desirable were not available. and those who were available were not desirable. EI.E.I.O. Okay, it is time for fact number three, and that is Andy. My fact is that the Rolling Stones' latest tour was sponsored by a retirement planning organization. They're so, so old now. Surely the main audience of the Rolling Stones is, I'm sorry to say, too late to be planning their retirement. You're right.

God, that's a good point. You know when you watch daytime TV and all the adverts are like, don't forget your will, guys. Or, you know, this donkey sanctuary would really be helped if you left it some money. It's basically like a big version of that. Yeah. But in Wembley Stadium or wherever it is. So this is the most recent tour.

So there's a group called the Alliance for Lifetime Income. It basically is a non-profit, in a form to raise awareness about the need to, you know, protect your income in retirement by getting an annuity. Da-da-da-da-da-da-da. You rock and roll. And they actually, they do. I really like this detail. So they, you know, they sponsor the whole thing because the Rolling Stones audience had lots of fans who were up to the age of 75, many who were over. But they thought this is perfect to spread their message.

And they sent along a bus to the events where you could get your retirement income security evaluation showing how well you'd be covered in retirement at the gig. That's great. I mean, I love it. Yeah. So this was the no filter tour. That's right. It's called. And it's pretty amazing to see how much, much,

money the Stones are still generating. There's a big list of like most successful tours of all time. And this tour is in the top 10. This late in their career is in the top 10. So they don't need to worry too much, really, about their own retirement. Given that they're all about 95 and they're still working. Multi-hundred millionaires. Yeah.

And who haven't paid any tax on any of their earnings for the last 30 years. Now look, they moved to France for a very good reason in the 70s. It's very high. The Stones have always done this sort of corporate sponsorship, commercial, stuff, like way ahead of other bands and things like this. So in 2003, they were sponsored by T-Mobile. In 1981, they were sponsored by Jovan Musk, which was a fragrance firm. And, like, way, way back.

Well, didn't they start out doing a jingle for Rice Krispies as well. They didn't start out doing that, but they did it very early on. Very early on there. It was like in 1964. And they, so their first gig was in 1962. Right. So, yeah. Because Mick Jagger went to London School of Economics, didn't he?

Yeah, yeah, he was quite on it. And did he was quite on it. And did final. in accounting, I think. Certainly did a module in it. And did pretty badly and didn't do any work. Clearly picked up something. Yeah.

Yeah. His tutor said in the first year he got straight Cs in all of his subjects because he wasn't really paying that much attention. But the next year he did come back and do his resets and like went to the library and properly studied and stuff like that because it was only when they got the first contract to record a first single that he completely gave it up. He still kind of thought he might go into finance at that stage. God, that's interesting.

So he kind of moved from Class C to Class A is what you're saying, which mirrors the other journey they went on as well. There was quite a nice interview with the guy who was their accountant back then, guy called Lawrence Myers, and he said he remembered talking to Mick Jagger when they were in their 20s, and Mick Jagger being really worried then about getting a pension and saying, you know, I need to start saving for my retirement because who knows where I'll be. And he said he remembers a phrase Mick Jagger saying, I'm not exactly going to be playing rock and roll in my 60s, am I? And then finding it the most hilarious idea that he would be.

and the man is now 78. Yeah. They're so old. They're so, I mean, the three surviving key ones, I think they're about 200 between them. No, more than that. Really? Are they, right.

Well, Mick and Keith are both nearly 80. Yeah. Ronnie Wood, who's the new boy because he's only been in the band for 40 years. He's never quite fit in. Basically, yeah. I mean, they have this combination of being, obviously quite cool,

greatest rock and roll band of the world, blah, blah, blah, and powerfully NAF. Yes. There are so many incredibly boring things about them. So, for example, Charlie Watts, their drummer who dies a year ago, he was incredibly dull in multiple different ways. Like, he was like he made a study of it.

He wasn't really interested in rock and roll music, for one thing. He liked jazz, and he had his own jazz band and, you know, did that. They're not necessarily dull if you like jazz. Very good point. Very good point. Sorry, yeah, yeah. Okay, okay. All right, that's just a warmer.

That's the start of the time. When they went on tour, what's the classic thing a rock band will do to their hotel room? Like throw TVs out of the window. Absolutely. Tear it. Yeah. He would draw his room on tour. he would produce an accurate drawing

of every single room he stayed on on tour for about 50 years. I think it was specifically the beds. He was obsessed with the beds of every hotel room that he stayed in and he said that basically up until his death, he's had like 15 journals worth of,

you know, they did like 2,000 gigs. He did every single bed and he felt like if he didn't draw the bed, something was a skew in his life and it just, it was out of whack. Once you've seen one bed, I feel like you've seen them all. Well, he would agree

because he said, I have all these hotel rooms. rooms recorded. He did all the hotel rooms, but he definitely did the bed every time. But he would often do the whole lodgings. But he said, you've got Washington in 67, and then you've got Washington from a couple of years ago. And they're kind of the same. I was reading a piece about it, and it said the 15 notebooks full of drawings of beds by Charlie Watts. And the person who was writing the article said, I mean, are there any publishers reading this? We've got to get these printed. No, you don't.

Come on. They'd tell like wildfire. Here's what I want to know, though, and I couldn't find this out. He passed away in hospital. Yeah. In a bed. I'll stop. I bet he didn't have time to draw the final bed. Do we have the final Charlie Watts bed? I hope somebody did if he didn't.

With him finally in it, Charlie Watts finally lying in his bed. I like to think, I hope he did trash the rooms afterwards because I like to think he trashed the room completely. And then as he's checking out, he went, I've trashed the room. But here's exactly what it looked like. So another thing of Charlie Watts is that he used to have all these amazing cars. It was a hobby. He would collect all these cars. is really expensive, but he didn't have a driver's license.

So they just used to sit in his garage. But what he used to do is he would commission a suit that matched the car in its color. And he would just go sit in his garage in his suit in the car and just like, go brum, and just play with it for a bit. And that's what you do with all your tax-voided money, isn't it? Why it's a guy you can't drive? He didn't like the drums even. Or he didn't like practicing the drums.

And in fact, just didn't do it. there's quite a charming interview with him where he was asked if he ever practiced himself on the drums and he was like oh no I'd never practice the drums playing the drums is so bloody boring and he's really dull playing the drums he's scared of the drums he thinks they're too loud

he's scared of the drums his life reads like a tragedy really you know you become incredibly famous and successful doing something you fear and hate yeah imagine that every time he was like boom ah he um he um started life as a banjo

Yeah. Well, he was given a banjo to play. Has anyone tried to play a banjo? By the way, it's really, really hard to play banjo. And he found it also hard. He couldn't work out the fingerings. And so he kind of broke up his banjo. And with his broken banjo and a mechano set, he made his first drum kit, which is how he learned the drums. Oh, wow. That's quite cool. Because on quite a few of the big stone's tracks, he plays a kid's drum instead of using actual drums. I can't remember what, yeah, the massive tracks. I can't. remember the names of them. That's funny, because he said the only way he ever did practice was playing with heavy sticks just on his legs. So maybe he loved playing drums that aren't real drums. Sorry, he beat himself on the legs. Yeah, he can't walk now, actually. No, he can't walk now.

He can't walk now. God. My landlord used to be Mick Jagger's old flatmate. Oh, yeah. And it's just, there is a bit of a celebrity connection, which is that my landlord is Tim Hennman's dad. And so Tim Hennman's dad and Mick Jagger used to live with each other in Richmond, I think. Stories they must have had to say to each other.

Yeah. Tim Hempel, I guess, wasn't born at the time. No. No. But I'll bet they still found a lot to talk about. Absolutely. Yeah. It's not the most.

That is very, you know, your old landlord. Was Timmer's dad as well? I can't believe I didn't know that. Yeah, that's a, you've been holding that fact out in us for eight years. I think I have. I must have found it too excited. and deliberately forgotten it because I wouldn't have been able

to look at them the same way again. I'm actually shaking a bit. Being on the same room as a guy who once paid rent to the father of former British number one Tim Hemman. I'm shaking a bit, but the bit that's shaking is my head.

It's a true story. They used to be a very huge thing in bands about eating on stage. So during the Rolling Stones' first ever gig, Ian Stewart is kind of the sixth member of the Rolling Stones, but he's never been one of the front line up, but he played with them decades and decades.

Their first gig in 1962, which was in a club on Oxa Street, he was playing the piano with one hand and eating a pork pie with the other. It's not a very complex piano part, is it? If you can do the pork pie with your hand. You know when you play chopsticks and two of you can play at the same time?

Oh, you think he had someone else's hand? Someone else was eating a prawn sandwich whilst playing the left hand. Actually, there is quite a lot of do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do. Single-handed piano going on. Well, there must be the pork pie in the other. But the Beatles used to eat jam sandwiches on stage. And then their manager, Brian Epstein,

told them you have to stop eating jam sandwiches on stage. Was that in Berlin, sorry, in Hamburg? That's pre that. It was just like, this looks quite unprofessional boys. That was the same way as Bob Marley had his sandwiches, wasn't it? Oh my God. We're jamming? Yes.

Yeah, yeah. Amazing. Oh, my God. Just for the dads, for the dads, for listening. Actually, speaking of Bob Marley, I was looking into people who were connected as staff of the Rolling Stones off the back of the fact that they had such a good financial package set up for them. and just to see if any of them had got onto anything interesting

and found this guy who used to work as private security for the Rolling Stones in the 60s never permanently he just had worked for them time to time Like an investigator? No, as in like a bouncer. Oh, okay. And his name was Judge Dredd and obviously not his real name,

Alexander Minto Hughes is his real name, but he went under the name Judge Dredd, which was his later career, which was he was an English reggae and ska musician and he was the first ever white guy to have a hit for reggae in Jamaica, first guy ever. And he was massive there, and he went over to tour, and they had no idea that he was white when he got there.

So they were like, my God, who's this incredible guy? He had more band songs on the BBC than anyone else ever before. So he was the bouncer for the Stones. And he went on to that after. That's good. It's no, my former landlord was Tim Hemmer instead. I'm not really done it. I lived in Tin Headland's childhood room.

That was my room. Oh, God. And they preserved it exactly. the way it had been. Yes. You weren't allowed to take the posters down, weren't you?

It was a drawing by Charlie Watts of what it used to look like. It was trash by the time I got there. Okay, it's time for the final fact of the show and that leaves me.

My fact this week is that clowns can spot amateur clowns by the amount of makeup that they put around their mouths. Too much or too little? Too much is the problem. An amateur clown

will do up the top lip with white, with red, with black. they'll do the whole mouth. And the professional clowns, they refer to this as a busted asshole. That's an incredibly up-tucking phrase.

And I wish it was the first time it had even been on this podcast, but it's not. Is it? What? Because, you know, you've got to check the archive of what we've said before in this podcast. Yeah, so that we don't repeat anything. Well, exactly. Well, fortunately, we're not repeating this fact,

but it's just the second use of the phrase because... Oh, God, do we guess? When have we said Boston? I remember it now. I'm trying to remember what it was. It's not the ladies with the rectum that was... No, it's not the ox rectum. I think it was someone said.

It was like a quote from someone. Oh, yes. It's a phrase. That's right. It's a phrase. He's about as much use as a hatful of busted antholes. Who is that by? I can't remember.

Oh, okay. Were they referring to a fake clown mask? So I got this fact from a book called God Know by Penn Gillette, Penn of Penn and Teller. So it's all about his life as a magician, how he got to be who he was. And one of the things that he did when he was coming up. His name is Penn. he must be able to think of a better name for his memoir. I like God no.

From the pen of pen. Yes, for instance. Is that good, though? Gillette, the best a man can get. Yes, it's another one. Yeah, so he failed title-wise, but the content is quite good. He went as a teenager or late teen. He went into the Ringling Brothers in Barnum and Bailey,

Greatest Show on Earth Clown College. And that was in Florida. And he started doing classes in trapeer. and all that stuff. And he really sucked at physical comedy. He didn't like it at all. He learned how to be a clown. And in the process of being taught how to be a clown,

you learn that there are certain things that you should and shouldn't do if you want to really get it right. And one of the things that they do say is that if you put makeup on the top of your lip, you're effectively closing off emotion in a really interesting. That's interesting.

Yeah. So by leaving that empty, you can get more out of a clown's face. Whereas an amateur clown just thinks, I've just got to cake the whole thing. And is that? Because Ronald McDonald, I think, does it wrong then in my memory

he's just died the poor guy the poor crofters just died no I think doesn't he have a busted ass or Ronald he does oh my god absolutely well the legal letters will be flooding their way in all houses

well the area of clown IP is quite interesting because it's sort of mostly egg based it seems the way that clown makeup is registered is on eggs and this was a thing that was started in 1946 by a guy called Stan Bolt, who wasn't a clown.

He was a chemist, oddly. And he started, you know, when you blow eggs. So I suppose that's sort of adjacent to chemistry. So you mean blowing the insides out of the eggs? Yep, hollowing out, blowing out the inside of an egg. And then he started painting faces of prominent clowns on these eggs as kind of a hobby. And then he developed this huge file of clown faces. And all of their makeup is completely different.

I always thought, standard clown, they all look the same. I'm embarrassing now that I thought that. because if you look at the egg collection, they all look completely different. And actually there's a suitcase of hollowed out egg faces that he painted that still exists, which is quite impressive. It still exists in London, doesn't it?

Exactly, the collection still exists in London. It does exist in London, but it used to be held in a, it was in a museum, wasn't it? And I think it was only like once a month it would open because of the costs of keeping it going. But now it's not even there anymore. There was a flood in the museum.

and the clown faces the eggs are kept in the basement of this guy in Clarkenwell who was the archivist of the museum. Are you serious? There's been a terrible flood. So as a result, we've moved them to a basement. Put them in the attic. Yeah, really good point. He probably lives in a ground four flat.

I don't know. But yeah, apparently during lockdown, he kind of got through it by going checking all of his archives from the clown museum. That's how he got through lockdown. In lockdown, seeing a cupboard with a cupboard with a clubbed. thousand creepy painted eggs. Well, it gets worse. There was, he also has 47 clown costumes and 20 pairs of clown shoes, which he would get

go and look at from time to time. But he said in an interview, the only reason you get clown shoes in a museum is because the clown who wore them has died. Ernest Hemingway was once asked to write the saddest poem he could with six words and it was for sale clown shoes. Yes. Too big. Have any of you guys, have any of you guys been to?

clown school? No, but you have. I have. Yeah. Just in case one of you guys had also been present and I hadn't noticed. It was a horrible experience. Was it? Yeah. Why? It's not clowns as in, you know, like big shoes and tiny cars was it. It's a different type of clown school. No, it's, it's the sort of upsetting Golié Lecoq, the master will break you down and then rebuild you thing. Like learning to fall over and stuff and no, no, no, no, no. Just you get, you get, you get horribly, insulted by the instructor. They're trying to work out who your comedy character is. Is that right?

A little bit. You all arrive in a tiny car. That's the airport pickup. Did everyone get horribly insulted by the instructor or were you just not very good? There was one guy who was a bit of a teacher's pet who didn't get horribly instructed, but the rest of us all got. And it was only a four-day course as well. So they had time to kind of break us down very badly, but not really time to build us back up again.

So it was four of the worst days of my life. They waterboarded you with confetti, didn't they? I had to smell so many flowers. Have you guys heard of Lady Evetta, who was in 1895 called the Only Lady Clown? Oh, no. Probably wasn't the only Lady Clown at the time. But she was a very famous clown,

and one of her favourite tricks was she would sit in the audience and next to some unsuspecting bloke. and then she would claim that that was actually her fiancé and heckle the ringmaster saying, you're looking at my fiance, that kind of thing. But what I really like about her is that there's a quote from her in the New York Times

and she said, all my people laughed at me when I told them I was going into the ring as a clown, but they do not laugh now. Oh my God. Isn't it? Bob Monkhouse. It's supposed to be a Bob Monkhouse joke,

but actually it's from an 1895. Really? Actually, Bob Monkhouse was so old. It was a little joke. He was the husband. That's amazing. Yeah, isn't that cool? Another female clown, Annie Fratellini,

she founded the first circus school in Europe in 1975. And she did the full kind of august clown. So you've got white face, you've got the red lips and all that kind of stuff. And when she was asked whether she was portraying a male or a female, she insisted that clowns have no gender. She founded the first circus school. So I think she is. the authority on that. So if you see a clown, you think it's a man or a woman, it's not. It's just a

clown. And her father, her grandfather was Paul Fratellini. Paul Francois and Albert, they were famous clowns, all three of them, really, really famous clowns. And their father, so her great grandfather was Gustavo Fratelini, and he was an Italian patriot who, along with Giuseppe Garibaldi, took part in the unification of Italy. But imagine, like, unifying Italy, and then all of your kids are clowns. Isn't that a weird what was it all for? That's amazing.

Or just on the clown sex thing clowns don't have a sex. That does kind of make sense because otherwise you're implying the existence of clown genitalia. And that would be what sacrilege to the clown? Where does the ha ha?

Sound come from if not from. That's not them squeezing their balls. Or vaginas. They can do amazing balloon tricks actually. That's the really clever thing. Henry IV of France had his life saved by a clown. Really? By his own clown in 1594, an assassin got into his bedroom and was going to assassinate him.

And he was in there with his clown. Yeah. Oh, yeah. And just testing, is it true what they say? The clowns have no genitals. Maybe we could test the theory. Is it true what they say about men with big feet? There was nothing untoward going on.

The clown was still in. How about a busted asshole? Oh, God. Wow. No assholes were busted in the making of this escapade. This was actually a female clown as well. It was, she was called Maturine de Valois. And she arrested the assassin and stopped the assassin leaving the room.

And thus saved his life. I don't know how she did it. I don't know if it was. Wow. Confetti to the face. But, yeah. That's incredible. And then his hand was burned with molten self.

and led. Whose hand? The assassins. Yeah. Really? As a punishment. As a punishment. Because it was the hand that...

It's a ponitry. I'm wrong. Wow. That's great. Because it was the hand that touched the king. And then he was executed. Oh. I thought that was like a...

We'll let you off on this occasion. But we'll mess up your hand. No, no. It was all mess up your hand and then we'll kill you. Oh, dear. And then we'll chop me into loads of pieces. What was a different time. That was okay then.

You know, they don't say break a leg in clownland? Do they not? No. What do they say? They say, bump a nose. Oh, that's good. Bump a nose. A group of clowns together?

What are they called? Clown town. No, as in like the collective noun. A collective noun. A collective noun. A collective noun. A honk of clowns? A ha-hawn.

A clowns? The listener, Jane's hand did go under the table. It's a giggle. Like a giggle of geese. A giggle of geese. A giggle of geese. Can I tell you one clown trick? I was on the website of clown historian Bruce Charlie Johnson,

which is an unbelievably good clowning site. So it's one of those old websites which made about 15 years ago. So it looks very old, but it's just full of great information. And there was a clown who toured the world called Adolf Proper, decades and decades ago. But one of his tricks was this. I think it's very important that we know exactly how many decades ago Adolf Proper was storing.

Was it seven decades ago? Was it nine decades? Okay. Early 20th century, it's as far as I'm going. Okay. But basically he had this musical comedy act, a clowning act, and he could produce large numbers of items from his coat. That was the thing. It's kind of a Mary Poppins bag.

Okay. Get what he produced. 300 bananas. 57% of which could be peeled. Three watermelons, six pineapples, four oranges, 24 neckties, a broom, an oboe, 12 man. sandalins, a cigar box, a trash can, a hatchet, a music stand, and other items. My God. He got out of one coat.

And the way he did it was they were all collapsible. They were made from Papier-Mashe. Oh. It was so good. And they were fitted with intricate springs. So they all expanded whenever they were produced. That's really clever. That's fabulous.

Although I really thought, because you started with a list of fruit and then you said 24 neckties. And I thought you thought that was the plural of nectary. What? Why have I been wearing this around my neck all this time then? 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 have said over the course of this podcast, we can all be found on our Twitter accounts. I'm on at Shreiberland, Andy, at Andrew Hunter, M. James. At James Harkin. And Anna.

You can email podcast. At q.com. Yep. Or you can go to our group account, which is at no such thing. Or go to our website. No such thing as a fish. com.

Check out all of our previous. episodes. They're up there. Check out our upcoming tour dates in September. We're going back on the road for a few shows. Do come along. And do come back as well next week because we'll be here with another episode. We'll see you then. Goodbye.