No Such Thing As A Fish - No Such Thing As A Mystic Beluga

Episode Date: September 5, 2024

Live from the Edinburgh Festival, Dan, James, Anna and Andy discuss raiders, radars, Wales and whales. 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

Hello and welcome to another episode of No Such Thing as a Fish, a weekly podcast, this week coming to you live from the Edinburgh Fringe. This Dan Schreiber, I'm sitting here with Anna Toshiske, Andrew Holmes of Murray, and James Harkin, 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 is, earlier this year, the town of Midgeham was invaded by Midge's. Super. Yeah. So, Misham is a... Mitchum, maybe.

Mitchum. Maybe. Absolutely, maybe. So, yeah, Midgem is located in West Berkshire. And it is a tiny town. It's got 350 people who live there. And very recently, they were in... invaded by huge swarms of midges, obviously hilarious, but I should point out, as the article

accentuates, the population are not laughing because it's been... Because the mitches will fly into their mouth. It's a nightmare. They can't walk out. If they open their mouth, they're swallowing big mouthloads of midges. That's what they're saying in the news report. It's not biblical. It is...

That's what they said. It's as many midges as pretty much every single Scottish person has dealt with in any place. No. The people of Bakshare are not used to midges. They're not hardy like you. They're sensitive souls. They said you can't even walk without swallowing. Okay, a few.

Okay. Yeah. Also, I just realized it's the Edinburgh fringe, so there'll be more people from Bakshah here than there are from Edinburgh. Yeah. It does sound bad. It also did really affect the nearby village of Woolhampton, but that doesn't have a funny name.

So it's got no airtime. The invasion of sheep there, two years in the walls. hysterical. Middham, I think having Google that is not interesting in any other way. Oh, contrary, James. Oh, my God. Here we go.

Strap him. Middrum is Barclshire's least used railway station. Interesting. Yeah. And that's from 2020 to 1. So you might think it was due to lockdowns and stuff.

Actually, it was also Barclsha's least popular a station in 2019 to 20. Right. And also, it's not in Midram. Middham station is just outside middhampton. Woolhampton? It used to be called Woolhampton, but then people kept sending it stuff for Wolverhampton,

which is much bigger and a long way away. So they changed it. Okay. And, okay, so that, yeah, I've got one more. Thing that has happened to Middrum ever. Yep, please. Peter Gray, a 72-year-old farmer, saw a giant ice block of frozen human urine smash into his lawn.

Oh, from an airplane? Yes, from a plane. No, from the mole people. Where do you think? Pissing aliens. So I mentioned I did have a look at if it's been invaded by Midges before because I thought this is the kind of thing

that tabloid journalists just desperately hope happens and make happen. And there were two other incidents in the last 12 years where it's reported as being invaded by Midges. And I have to say, we haven't seen any invasion plans or, you know, got any staff. So it may be that the people of midgem are just very wingy.

Out of curiosity, the first time it happened, did they find it funny? Is that just jaded midgem now going, yeah, yeah, yeah, first two times. I think it is, yeah, it's hysterical, yeah. And it was reported on both times as ironic, which is very upsetting. Oh, you've got a big thing about this, yeah. Everyone has a big thing about this ever since. Ever since it's Alanis Morissette invented having a big thing about it. Because it's not ironic.

Well, indeed. Right. Has anyone, so who has anyone? So who here has experienced midges? Okay, good. Who here has been to Mitchum? Get out. Really?

What is there a train station like? Were you there when Berkshire Live sent a reporter to see just how quiet it really is? I arrived before 8 a.m. on Wednesday and what you presume would be the height of rush hour. However, there was no one at the station at all. There you go, you weren't there. Does anyone here use the Midge forecast?

Oh. This is a thing. There is a mid-forcast, which some of the people here use. In Scotland? It is in Scotland, yeah, yeah. And the serious level is 1 to 5. One is the least serious, which is called No Flies on Me. And number four is great. It's, that's no mist.

That's midges. It was really good. I think it's entirely sponsored by Smidge, which is the UK's number one of, as far as I can tell, two, mid-repellants. Yeah, and they, it's a great. That's cool. Did you check out today's mid-fork? No, I didn't. Oh.

Did you? Cocky? I didn't know. It existed until 20 seconds ago. I actually checked it out and it's looking pretty good. Yeah? For all this talk of how, you know, midges are so bad throughout the summer and sometimes they have two phases, I think. But this year they reckon they have a third.

In September, there might be like a third hatching. It's fine. It's mostly at twos. And then I think one spot was at four. So stay away from, I think it might have been sterling. Oh, no. It was Glencoe. Glenn Co.

There you go. Right. I'm not sure if I've ever encountered a midge. Oh, you'd know about it. Yeah, right. It's really bad. Okay, right. Because supposedly, according to Scottish midge studies, 40,000 of them can land on a single unprotected arm in one hour.

There are 37 different species in Scotland. It has caused major problems here. So there's an estimated 20% of working forestry days in Scotland are lost because of the clouds of biting midges. You have to stop. And it can cost up to 268 million. pounds a year in lost tourism visits as a result of the reports of them being here. Really? However, what's very exciting is you do make up that money a bit by the 41 million pounds

that is brought in annually by visits to the Loch Ness Monster. So, that's what Nessies bring into the table. Yeah, but that's nothing to do with what we're talking about. Completely non-relevant. The Edinburgh Festival brings in lots of money. That would be a more apt thing to say, ironically. Yeah, but we're talking about animals. Yeah, some which exist. And some which are yet to... Yeah, yeah. They're symbiotic, Nessie and Midge's, I think is what you're saying, isn't it?

They have a symbiotic relationship, so one can't exist without the other? I'm pretty sure that must be down to the point. Otherwise, it'd be completely... It'd be an insane thing to break up. You did say there's lots of species of Midge. Yeah. They are often named after their penises. Because they all have very distinct penis.

Well, they got all have distinct penises, but many of them do. Other people that are named after their penises are Vikings. So they're quite a lot. We've done a fact in here before. for where there was a Viking called Small Penis. And I just wondered if you guys wanted to have a game of Midge or Viking. Yeah, okay. Sure.

Lovely. Yes, please. That's what we're all here for. So I'm going to give you the name of a name. And it's either the scientific name of a Midge or it's the name of a Viking. Okay. Spiny penis. A lot of the audience are saying Viking.

I'm going to go Midge. Yeah, I think Midge, because they do have spiky penises, don't they? I'm going to say Viking. I'm going to say Viking. Some of them do have spiny penises, and indeed this one does, because it's a midge. Yes. Um, butter penis. Please, Viking, please.

Always dropping things with his penis. Yeah. Just use your hands, mate. Or is it just butter penis? Like, is it used in that? Lovely. What a chat of life. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

The answer is it was a Viking. Butter penis. Butter penis. What do we know, butter penises story? No, we don't know. It was just in a list of Viking there. He was friends with butterballs, the Viking. Yeah.

What about curvo penis? Curvo? Yeah. Curvo. Is that just a name, or does it describe the curviness, perhaps? I'll say midge. Viking. I'm going Viking.

This side of the table is going Viking. No, it was a midge. It was discovered in 2011 by a guy called Wang. Brilliant. Super Nice And you could have had Barry penis

Dentopinus Oxy penis Convexipinus and debilipinus They're all midges Oh Barry penis Oh here he comes

Barry penis It's just a good That's a good nickname It's really good You were saying James earlier Because we've got another James H on the tour And you're like I need a nickname for this tour

We're not making Barry penis Yes. Brilliant. Hey, here's the thing that the people of Mijim are missing, right? Oh, yes. Because they've got food flying into their mouth. Free.

You can eat Midge. Midge ham. Exactly. So there's a thing which is, have you guys all heard of Kunga cake? Yeah, it's an African thing, right? Yeah, exactly. Fly cake. Fly cake and midges are used in that.

And so what you need to do is you need to turn your issue. into a tissue, what's the phrase? That's good. Turn your issue into a tissue. Turn your issue into a tissue by, you go out, and this is what they do when they're making Kunga cake, you just bring a frying pan outside and you coated it in the oil or in butter and you just wave it through the swarm and they stick into it and then you just go home and cook it and make that into a cake.

I think they squash it, they get loads and squash it down, right? Yeah. But I think the ones that happen in Africa is way, I know they have problems in Mijam. But I think the ones in Africa are absolutely insane. Like, you can hardly walk through them. There's just so many midges. Right. I think so.

Yeah, I think you're right, because it's sort of, they get more hatchings, and you get, like, in places like Camero and you get a hatching every three weeks. Yeah, it's like it's bad if you get, what, three in a year? It's actually the warmer the places, the more hatchings they get. Okay. The baby midges are these tiny little lavas. They look like little caterpillars. And in the Golden Rod Gold Midge, they have this amazing way.

of jumping where they get all their internal fluids, push them down to the tail, turn themselves into a little sort of circle, and then hold on, hold on, release, and then they jump into the air. It's an absolutely amazing way to get about. They can move 28 times more efficiently than a caterpillar can crawl.

Than one of the trams. Are they still a joke? No, okay, good. If a sausage could jump that quickly, then it could get to the top of the Great Pyramid at Giza in three seconds. Oh my God. Wow. That is context.

That's incredible. Imagine that sausage. Their eggs are actually sausage shaped. Well, their eggs biting mid-eggs are either cigar, banana or sausage-shaped. Which is a cool range of shapes for an egg. They're all quite similar shapes. Cigars and sausage is a... I was wondering about the difference.

I think it must be the ends, right? The tapering, yeah, yeah. The tapering. few sausages which sort of tail off at the end. Yes. But cigars, loads. Hey, we're going to have to move on a second, by the way. Can I tell you an audience fact?

Yeah, yeah. This is from a Scottish listener. Bev Clark, I suppose you're in? Anyway, she said it in a fantastic fact, right? This is actually about bats, but she submitted it as a pipistreled bat has to eat about one sixth of its own body weight in midges every night to survive.

That is the equivalent to an average Scottish nine-year-old child having to eat 23 tins of baked beans, one bean at a time, whilst flying every night. That's just such a good fact. Yeah, that's brilliant. We do need to move on to our next fact. So it is time for fact number two, and that is Anna. My fact this week is that there are radar detectors, and there are radar detector detectors, and there are radar detector detector detectors.

But as far as we know, there are not yet any radar detectors, detectors, detectors. But that's only because we don't have a radar plus one to find it. How would we know? There's always going to be one more detectors than we know about. I don't think so, right? Because your radar is used by the cops. So the policeman with a traffic gun, that's a radar. So then the police need to know if you're breaking the law by getting a detector.

so they have a detector, detector, detector, but if you get the next level up, you're already breaking the law with your other detector, so they don't need the second one. They don't need to know. That's a good point, and that is basically what it is. So this is from radar that's sent out by speed cameras,

bounces off your car a couple of times, and then it sees how fast you're travelling by working out what distance you've travelled in that time. That's a radar detector. No, that is just a speed camera. And then you in your car, because you're a criminal in lots of places, where these things are banned,

might have a device that's a radar detector. Dan, have you done your driving theory test yet? The theory test? Yeah. No. Well, I hope you're listening to this, because this all will come up. Yeah. I did slightly blank out. What are we talking about? So I, if I'm driving and I put a radar detector in my car, that's to tell me when there's a speed. A speed camera. Exactly. Okay, so then the police officer has a radar detector to see if you have a radar detector to see if he has a speeding camera. So the police officer, well, not the police officer, the speed camera, in it has a detector that will detect if the driver has a detector. So that's a detected detector.

Exactly, because it sends off little vibrations, but the way of detecting in the camera is to vibrate a little bit itself. So some of the radar detectors also have within them detected, detector detectors. And that's the complicated world of radar detectors, basically. And the thing is, like, even in your car, you might have a thing where, in your sat navv, it tells you where there are speed cameras. Yeah. And that's perfectly legal in most places but not in all places. So if you're driving in America for instance and you go into Virginia, Mississippi or Washington DC, technically you have to turn that off in your car. Now fuck knows how you do that. But like in theory you would have to do that in order to or you

have to prove that you're ignoring it by speeding through every speed car. Do you know what the fastest ever speeding ticket was? as in like you were giving it two seconds after sorry oh my god you peddend I'm used to this stuff from James when it comes from Dan I've got no defences

Is it um Are we talking in the UK It is in the USA Okay It's in the US Word is Would you want to have a guess Well no cars would go more than 200 miles an hour

Aha Ah Well there's lots of stuff online saying The fastest ticket ever was a sports car a special sports car, it was in Texas, it was in a 75 mile an hour zone, and it was going at 242 miles an hour. There's a lot of stuff on the internet saying that. I didn't find the exact initial story behind it. I have a theory that the fastest ever speeding ticket was someone who was caught going at eight miles an hour because the speed limit was two miles an hour at the time.

And that just makes them faster. Well, relative to the limit, it's the fastest, I think, ever. four times the speed limit. That's crazy. You wouldn't drive 120 in a 30, would you? No. So technically. Ah, okay, right.

Technically it is. But that was the first one ever issued. That's amazing. It was 1896. Whoa, that is the exact same year as the first ever speeding ticket that was given over here in the UK. This was in the UK. How ironic.

Wait. He started out talking about the US, but we did them. Pets would. Very near we used to. Oh, yeah. God, I got to start listening, man. That was, we're talking about the same thing here. Yeah, okay.

It was in 86. And it was eight miles an hour? Eight miles an hour. Yeah. It was supposedly he was followed by a police officer on a bike for five miles. There was a guy a couple of years ago called Nigel Mills, who was clocked speeding 88 miles an hour in his car, which was a... Oh, brilliant. A DeLorean, as the audience got.

He had to go to court. He paid his fine. But in court, he did deny that he was attempting to break the space-time continuum. I learned something that I think probably I should have known. This definitely would be in the theory, in fact. The thing that always accompany speed cameras, which I didn't know about. Or the main speed cameras that you get, which, as I'm sure you know, are the Gatso cameras, which are the big yellow boxes, although I think in Scotland they're yellow and red, diagonal stripes.

Is that right? Yeah. But they always are accompanied by lines on the road, which I just never noticed. But um... He's going so fast. It's just a blur. And also you're pissed out of your brain. You can't be expected to concentrate on this sort of thing when you're lying down.

But they... So one way you could fool them is you could cover up the lines on the road before you got to the speed camera. Wait, hang on. Do I have to park my car a mile back? Walk up to it with a black cloth or something. With a sheet or something that can cover the lines up. Because basically what the lines are doing,

speed cameras do two things to make. sure that you're speeding or not. They send out some radar. And so it's like two pulses of radar and they work out how far away you are with each pulse of radar and then they work out how far you've travelled in the time it sent out the two pulses. But also they need a backup way of telling how far you've travelled. So they also take two photos as you're travelling and they need to see where you were in the first photo and where you were in the second photo and then see how long it took you to get from one to the other. I always wonder when I'm going past one of those, if I swerve into another lane, will they not be able to take the second photo?

They're on every lane, sadly. Are they? They'll think it's a different car with the same license plate. They can't get you. They can't put a glove on me legally. I think you might have to go on the verge and that's a whole other contravention.

But yeah, they can only tell where you are because the lines are like the lines on a ruler so they can tell how far up the ruler you've gone. So Gatsos was named after Maurice Gatsonides who was a racing driver. We very briefly mentioned him about nine and a half years ago. Okay. His first speed gun that he invented was two rubber tires on the road,

and you still see those. You know, when you're driving just around the around and about, there's just two little rubber lines. They tell you how many cars are going along so that people can make rules and stuff like that and check out what the speed limit is, but they also tell you the speed. What do you mean rubber lines?

It's like two little rubber like wires that go across the road. Tiny cords. I always assume. that they were testing whether they should put a speed camera in there. And I would slow down for them because I don't want people to know how fast I normally drive over that bit. That's sensible. They are doing that, but they're also

checking how many cars go across there. I've never noticed. Do I never look at the road? Oh my God. He was a racing driver and he invented the speed camera to speed himself up because he wanted to know how fast he was going and he would keep going round the corner loads and loads of times

and his speed camera would say you're going at 60 miles an hour, 70 miles an hour, 80 miles an hour. and he would try and get as fast as possible. But he was also, he invented a charcoal-burning petrol generator during the German occupation of Holland, which kept the country going. He was part of the resistance during World War II. And he took up engineering after he was turned down as a pilot for KLM

due to a mangled finger, which he got after a bicycle accident as a child. A mangled finger? Yes. I don't think that should discount you. They were more picky in those days. Right. I don't know. You couldn't even do it if you're...

I think they're very picky. You can't even do it if you're short-sighted. Can't you? No, he certainly couldn't back then. But I'm short-sighted. Well, I'm sorry to, you know, rain on your parade, Andy, but you're going to have to stick with the podcast. And he also invented his own car,

which had a glass dome over the top of it to make you think you were driving an airplane. Oh, cool. You know, like that one that Homer Simpson makes? Yeah, it's quite like that. I've got another inventor, just to bring up. This is taking it to radar very quickly. Have you guys heard of Dr. Robert Rines?

Incredible radar designer. So he sort of innovated the resolution of what radar and sonar images could achieve. And the stuff that he did allowed for the Titanic to be found. It was using his advanced technology to find the wreck of the Titanic, to find the Bismarck. Absolutely incredible. But what he applied using that sonar to most of all was his big passion, multiple expeditions, to find the Loch Ness Mod style. Oh, no.

He went on like six, seven expeditions. He found a perfumer to create a scent that would lure Nessie up from the lock. He made the easiest day's work for that perfumer. He trained dolphins to carry cameras that they could send through the lock and try and serve for it. I don't know if he ever actually did that, but that was the attempt. And he was amazing. Outside of sonar, he invented a hinge that you could use for chopsticks. And he tried to invent something that would stop tornadoes from.

materializing, but it never happened. But yeah, one of the great Nessie hunters, local hero. Yeah. I was reading about Radar, and I came across a really fun kind of paper that was written in 1946. There was a really short time after Radar was basically invented. So we only worked out how to use it usefully in the Second World War, and it was for use in aircraft and aircraft detection.

And on boats and on submarines, they kept picking up ghosts or phantoms, or sometimes they called them echoes. and there's all these sources of people writing, speculating about what it might be. So in Germany there was speculation that it was probably a matter of sharply bounded areas of discontinuity in the atmosphere. Now it turns out, what that's another word for is birds. But they just couldn't put two and two together. It's bizarre than in 1946 this story was written like, actually we've worked out that it was birds all along. Is it not true the radar was invented because they were trying to make a death ray?

I think that's true, isn't it? Interesting. I think so. So there was rumors that Germany would be making a death ray by firing radio waves at people and it would just make them disappear. And it was taken seriously by the British and they thought, well, we're going to need one of our own.

And they found this guy called Robert Watson, and they asked him, can you make us a death ray please? And they offered him, if he could zap a sheep from a hundred paces away, they'd give him a thousand pounds. He did his experiments and realized that it was impossible But then he realized also that he could use this radio waves To bounce off things and work out how far things were away

Wow, that's incredible He must have considered trying to blag it By getting his friends to dig a hole near the sheep And they did get it down Okay, it is time for fact number three And that is Andy My fact is that In 16th century Wales, there was a financial crisis,

which meant that lots of families could no longer afford to keep a household bard. Wow. Huge while. And they, every ten a penny, every house would have its own barred. And now? Or very few. Yeah. Very few.

You've got to be pretty loaded in modern Wales to have your own bard. Bards were big noise back in the day. Bards were multi-taskers, weren't they? Oh, they did it all. I mean, they're mostly read poems. and blade the harp, but they probably held with the washing up,

if required. Actually, there was a medieval document called the Triads of Britain, and they say that the three principal tasks of a bard is one,

to learn and collect sciences, the second is to teach, and the third is to make peace and put an end to all injury. It's a big remit, isn't it, isn't it, in the jaw bad?

Who's CB? If there is heavy washing up, you will be, it will be really appreciated to a bit. It was just an interesting... And it was also... It was a time where around this period,

the Welsh language was kind of being demoted and English was being promoted. Okay. And, you know, the aristocracy were anglicising. And there were a lot of popular poets at the time who, proper classical barons thought were trash. So they were nicknamed, like the modern poets, were called poets who sing at fairs, gross.

And some of them didn't even play the harp. Hang on, sorry, were these like the English imported poets? Kind of, yeah, yeah. I think that was... like a newer, like, I always associate poets with a lute rather than a harp. I associate harps with like angels and stuff.

I don't know what a lute is. You see this big screen? Yes, I do. Yes. Yes. That is a huge lute. Like, I would say like a harp is more like at a wedding.

You see someone playing a big harp. Yeah. It was the thing for Bards, though, wasn't it the harp? The triple harp, in fact. Tended to be what they played. A little handheld drobbies or? But bigger than what? Do you know what job he means in Scotland?

Goodbye. Yeah. Sorry. No offense. Balance. Yeah. Triple half. That sounds cool.

Yeah, yeah. Three layers of twang. What are they called strings? But is it like when a guitarist has two, you know, those awesome guitars with two necks on it? Or are they layered on top of each other? They layered on top of each other. And in fact, I was interesting. to learn that Dex the Hall with Bows of Holly

was written by a bard, a Welsh bard. Was it? Yes, the most famous Welsh bard, John Parry, who was a blind bard, as many were because they were thought to have sort of extra sight, which gave them this wisdom to write. But basically, we say that the job of the bard, they were pretending to cure all ills or something, but basically it was to massively

kiss the ass of the posh people, wasn't it? Yeah. It was. It was quite fascinating. Particularly in Ireland, in fact, which had a huge barding history, you essentially went around touting your wets, to posh nobility, praising them and writing verse about how amazing they were and how big their houses were and how beautiful their wives were and how great their penises looked and whatever it was. And that's how you got your gigs. Lovely penis Barry, just one as well. They could be quite dangerous bards, couldn't they? Like there was an idea that their songs could bring up insurrection and stuff. I think the English thought that a lot of the Welsh bards. They're a bit worried about the Welsh bards.

Same with the Irish, in fact. Yeah. Inspire the nobles to revolt. I wouldn't be surprised if it was the same with the Scottish, I would say, knowing those English. No, the Scottish ones just love the English actually throughout history, yeah. Yeah, yeah. But let's try and get out of here alive.

Everyone's from Berkshire, it's fine. In 1282, apparently King Edward of England decided to get rid of all the bards in Wales because he was worried that they might cause insurrection among the world. the Welsh. And apparently he had a massacre of 500 bards. How did he lure them all to the same? Did he have a bligg like,

loot sale? And then advertised in lute. Advertised in lute. Brilliant. That was a good joke about 30 years ago. That's such a good. You don't remember Lute, the magazine? Then why didn't the four of you laugh? It's so weird though, this thing, right?

So apparently he supposedly massacred these 500 bards. No one really knows about it in England. No one really knows about it in Wales, but everyone knows about it in Hungary. Ah. What? Because there is a song that Hungarian schoolchildren memorize,

and it's almost like a nursery rhyme kind of thing, which is about the massacre of the 500 Welsh bards. No. And so all Hungarian children know it. No. Yeah. You know, they're dangerous for other reasons as well, as well as possible interactions.

They also were able to kill a rat by talking to it. And this was a thing that has been written in multiple plays. Shakespeare references it. Lots of plays reference it. And it was the idea that there was a very famous bard from Ireland who came home one day. And some mice had eaten the meal that his wife had prepared for him. And so he sort of went,

you're fucking assholes. And they died. And that became a thing that you would bring a bard over to your house because he had a mice problem. Yeah. And they would use their words purely to kill it. That can't have lasted long. because the proof's really in the pudding when you get the rodent guy around.

I don't believe it. I just... Do you know, one of the most famous ever bards was called Yolo? No. Yeah. I-O-L-O. His real name was Edward Williams. But he was...

He deeply loved Welsh... He became a Welsh bardic scholar, basically. And a lot of what we know or what people thought they knew about bards in the 18th and 19th centuries is because of him. And he also made up a lot of stuff and pretended it was by a 14th century bard. He did a lot of forging works. But he held the first ever Welch Gorseth, which is the gathering of the bards, in Wales. Primrose Hill in North London.

He wanted to kind of show England and London that this was wealth bardic culture and how amazing it was. And he was responsible for a lot of England being kind of druid mad for a long time. But he made a lot, yeah, as you say, he made a lot of it up. And no one knew that at the time. It was sort of like in the 20th, he was what, the 18th century they found it in the 20th century. Yeah. Through some academics reading into it and finding out. And he had all these details about his life that sounded so badass.

Like he said that he learned to read by watching his dad carve names into gravestones. Like that was where he learned the alphabets and that's where he learned. Really? Yeah, yeah. Is it Mary Shelley or Mary Wollstonecraft who is Mary Walsoncraft, isn't it? Oh, Mary Shelley, who learned to write her name by tracing her mother's name on a gravestone. Oh, yeah. And she also lost her virginity on it as well.

Yes, she did. Yeah, I touched it the other day. It was amazing. Herbert. Very creepy. Yeah, that was actually creepy, isn't it? Well, what did you touch it with? Every country has their own bards, don't they?

Or every country has their own storytellers. And I think the reason they exist everywhere is because they're a repository of knowledge for people who can't write or read, which is sort of everyone until here and today. And so I didn't realize that hula dancers are bards. So a hula is not a dance. It's a way of acting out a story which is being told at the same time traditionally. That's cool. This is in Hawaii. In Sicily, you have an ancient storytelling method passed down from one person to the next, which is called cunto. And it. Anna. It's just improvised, sung verse and spoken prose. The cunto and there. How's it spelled?

There's the bottom. Yeah, I see it. That's nailed on. Andy, weren't you looking for a tour nickname as well? Wow. Sorry to doubt you. It absolutely does say that word. Highly respected, the cuntiste, of course, who tell the stories of the cunter. Good luck. And there are lots of others as well.

I can't just put an O on the end and keep saying it. You have to stop doing that. I've never had the courage to say it before. I didn't realize. realize this and we wanted to. The Sixth Marks brother, who is not allowed on street. In 16th century France, they had an anagramateur royal whose job was they were with the royal family, and whenever a dignitary would come, they would make an anagram of their names.

That's quite cool, isn't it? Yeah. So Anna Tashinsky could be Zainey-Pain-Skank. About a million miles off. She's not zany. You guys. Andrew Hunter Murray, untrue Rwanda rhymer. Untrue Rwanda rhymer.

That is me. And then Daniel Schreiber, Incredible ass. Whoa. Wait, wait. Did you say incredible? You do have to put the H at the start, otherwise it doesn't work. Wow, what's James Harkin? Oh, there are no analogues of that.

So yeah, overseas storytellers, I was reading about the Benchie of Japan. Oh, yeah. I'd never heard of the Benchie before. During the 20th century, theaters, movie theaters in Japan, when all the movies were silent, would hire these storytellers to come and talk over the movies and explain what was going on or give their own narratives about what was going on. So yeah. Don't invite a Banshee.

Just have all the way through your film. It wasn't Banshee. That's like a mythical. Yeah, screams a lot. I would assume that you would be all over that, then. Oh, don't give him a way into another fucking Loch Ness Monster Factor. We should talk about Scotland's National Bard, Robbie Burns, shouldn't we? Yeah.

I guess. And he's in tonight. Some words from Burns's. Yes, please. Poems, and see if you can guess what they mean. Swankies. Trousers. Not a million miles away, but no.

Sox. No, it's Swaggering, Strapping Fellows Who are in their prime Oh, great Okay Well, you're looking at four of them Tonight on stage

Bickering Brattle Oh, it's good No, it's the way that a mouse Runs along the floor So like this way, that way, this way, that way Kind of thing Trying to get away from the bard Just racing it

Canty It's an Italian It's a Sicilian form of traditional storytelling. It's the excess of good spirit at the point of bursting into song and lunt. Okay, right.

Lunt. Lunt. It's when you get lint, but in your crotch area. Very annoying. Oh my God. Yeah, that's a thing. That's a thing.

That's a thing. Yeah, Lynn gathers on your clothes, isn't it? Can I tell you the answer? If you've got new pants, you'll experience love. Yeah. No matter what you've got going on down there. Yeah.

It's to walk away while smoking. Oh. Okay. That's not nearly as good as Anna's one. Much before Anna's one. That's great. We've got to move on in a second. Before we do, this whole fact was about basically families not being able to afford

things anymore. People not being able to afford things anymore. And you know, a group of people who've really experienced that hard in recent times. And thank you, James. I almost forgot to mention. are Nessie hunters because things have got so expensive now in Scotland that any of the local areas that rent out the holiday homes,

the Airbnbs, the hotels, you can't afford to go and sit by the lock anymore and so as a result, yeah. How terrible. But the goodies is you have as good a chance of finding it if you just stay at home. Okay, it is time for our final fact of the show and that is James.

Okay, my fact this week is that some whales communicates by wobbling their melons. Ooi, a skill exclusive to them and definitely does not occur with lock mess monsters. So these are belugas

and there's a picture on the screen. Beluga. The funnest whale to say, I think. Is it? Oh, come on, what's fun of the... Baluga. Spurm. Yeah.

Okay. That is a good one. That's a fun one to say. We shouldn't spend the rest of this listing whales. No, we shouldn't. So, what are Chile?

They're white. So they're white whales. They get the name from the Russian for white. They have this kind of muscley bit of fat on the top of their head

and they can contract it and move it around. And we didn't really know why they were doing this, but a recent study from the University of Rhode Island has found that they do it 34 times more often

during social interactions than they do otherwise. So we think that they're communicating with each other. Right. I think that makes it. And actually, it's like an interior hat they've got that they can kind of tip to a lady. Yeah.

And they can, they've got all these moves. They can squish it up and they can flatten it down and they can move it round to the side. And it's crazy. They've got five moves, haven't they? Which is good? They can ripple it, they can ripple it back and forth. Really?

It's insane. Have you seen a video? I've seen a video. Wow. So literally like a wave pool. Yeah. Wow. It's brilliant. What are they saying? I don't know. Nobody knows.

Nobody knows. I think they had a look at when they used them most often, and the shake, as in the wobble, I guess, seems to be mostly males towards females during courtship. And I think then two of them, so there's flat, lift, press, push and shake. I think a couple of them are more playful, and then push is maybe a bit more agro. So it's like having a language with only five words. Okay. Why haven't we worked out what those five words are then?

We only just figured out they do it. Give them a chance. Okay. apologies to the marine biologists They're the only whales that can nod I really like that Really? Yeah yeah All the other whales have got like fused necks

But they can go uh-huh To the hat to the lady group I couldn't work out of that fused neck thing Because we have unfused necks Yes Our vertebrae and mostly they've got bits in between That mean we can wiggle our neck around I was trying to work out if that meant

A beluga could look to one side While you were swimming along next to it And I don't know how far they can move their heads That's a great question, but I think not. Okay, okay. They're the cats of the ocean, basically. They're the most flexible whales there are. They're also named Sea Canaries, which I love.

Oh, yes, because they can make all sorts of noise. They can whistle and sing and moo and click and squeal. And speak human words. What do they know? Yeah. So there was a buglea whale called No Sea. And Nocy had been part of like the army was kind of training him and stuff like that because there is a bit of that that goes on with the US

and with Russia or the Soviets. And one time there was a Navy diver and he was underwater and someone said, get out! And he got out and he said, who said that? And it turned out none of the humans had said it, but this beluga whale had said it. Really? What are you talking about?

It's true, honestly. And there was... You got Down's notes? No. In 2012, there was a paper called spontaneous human speech mimicry in a cetacean which was about this particular beluga whale, and we have actual evidence of it making sounds

that are a bit like human voices. So it's a bit like a parrot might copy you that kind of thing. Yeah, yeah. Did you know where a lot of this studying is going on of these belugas? In the water? In the water, isn't it? Yes, in the water.

But obviously, you need them contained and you need to be studying them, right? So there is... So suspicious of what you're going to say, Dan. It's called the Mystic Aquarium. And where is it? In a village called Mystic. Oh, okay.

In Connecticut. Yeah, that's brilliant. So annoying, because I thought that that whole thing that maybe they were looking into telepathy or something like that, but actually it's just, it's the town called Mystic. Well, who named it? Who named the town?

Oh, it's some... The whales. Oh, no. Okay. Don't encourage it, Andy. They're amazing. They're amazing things. Yeah.

They're really beautiful. And they live in the Arctic, and then they come down during the summer months and they feed and breed, and then they go back up, I think, during the winter months. And the whole thing about a beluga, so they don't have a dorsal fin on their back, right? They don't have a poppy-uppy fin that, say, a killer whale does.

And killer whales prey on belugas. They love to eat them. And part of the reason that the beluga is able to avoid the killer whale is that they live under the sea ice in the Arctic. So the sea ice is a really important environment for them. Even if it's 96% sea ice and there are these tiny cracks in the ice where there's sort of air above it, they can approach that crack and they can stick the back up so their blowhole finds that crack perfectly

they can breathe because they're mammals and they have to breathe there exactly and so that's how they avoid orcas because the orkers can't follow because the hawkers can't risk getting their fin stuck in sea ice and they can't be under sea ice that long it's kind of like hiding it's like hiding from a really tall person in a short in a small

in a low roofed room isn't it and every time the tall person tries to get in they hit their head I mean, it is like that. Yeah, but you need to very occasionally pop out of the room for something. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. You have a snorkel leading up to the attic. I don't think it needed a terribly complicated.

Just for anyone who didn't understand. The lack of dorsal fin means that it's quite hard for them to steady themselves in the water. But to help that, they have love handles. So they have bits of fat on their sides. And again, they're attached to muscles, and they can move them along their sides. and it helps them to be steady in the water. Yeah, that's pretty amazing. And their skin as well, they go slowly off every year.

Oh. Their skin goes a bit off yellow and they just look a bit manky. And so they have to swim to a bunch of rocks and sort of like grating cheese, just grate themselves away. You mean like getting one of those files for your feet skin? Yeah, exactly. Body one. Yeah, yeah.

Pretty cool idea. Because they go through seasonal malt, but it doesn't just come off. So they have to go down and literally. just rub themselves against rocks until... It is quite gross, actually. It's like you rubbing yourself against the gravestone.

Oh, God. How do you know that my thing malts? Oh, God. God, that's a fucking odd sentence. It's terrible. And you call me Barry penis.

No, you're cunto. I'm Barry penis. No, I'm Barry penis. Fun fact about the film Spartacus. I think we should say that all toothed whales have a melon. It's not. Belugas have the big one that sticks out that they're famous for, but all toothed whales have one.

And I think they must be used in communication because I think it's for they obviously echolocate and it's almost for transmitting their cliques. But sperm whales have one as well. But theirs often gets called the junk. actually they have it sort of split into two bits so they've got their junk and then underneath they've got their sperm aceti organ and I never knew why they were called sperm whales

so you know this spermaceti organ is the organ that's kind of in their head oh well it's an organ in their head filled with white liquid okay um and it's we believe for yeah communicating and they keep that next to their junk they keep it next to their junk what is it for it is like the melon it is the melon so we think it's for basically transmitting echolocation and helping to control them as they leave. And it would come back into like a chamber where it echoes around and they can...

Wow, so cool. That's so cool. But the reason they're called sperm whales and the reason it's called sperm assessi is just because when they first found it, everyone thought it was their semen. Really? So whalers in the 19th century cracked open sperm whale heads, when there's white stuff in here, that must be where they keep their sperm. I was reading a thing, an exciting new idea about bulugas.

and it's a research paper that's been released recently. It is the idea that belugas could very well be the Loch Ness Monster. And it's called, could the Loch Ness Monster also be the result of Lake River sightings of belugas? And so someone has put forward to... That's a very sharp paper when the answer is just no. Well, they're saying there's a lot of stuff that would be very similar. The body length is kind of in a similar length, a two-meter length, the dorsal fin is absent. That is a big thing that teeth are present

Clearly visible recognizable The paper has a bit that says problems One, geographical location That's an issue But you do get belugas off the fjords That are out to the right of Inverness They do get them They go up rivers

Exactly and they've been found in the Thames and so on They're slightly salt slash freshwater agnostic Exactly So could the beluga whale actually be the locus monster? Do you think? Yeah, totally possible Who peer reviews the papers that you find online? This was published on mystic aquarium.com.

That's such a rare four out of four for you. We normally don't get that. Yeah, it's very, guys, that's impressive. I heard the booze, and I appreciate that. We are going to have to wrap up fairly soon, guys. Any more beluga? Well, just that, what does a beluga have in common with a blonde in a joke that's offensive to blonde people.

Men's? Okay, do you remember that joke that's like, there's a blonde with headphones on all the time? I don't approve of this, by the way, if you're blonde, with headphones on all the time. And everyone's like, why are she wearing headphones? Why is she wearing hairphones? Eventually someone takes her headphones off and she dies.

What was the, what were the headphones saying? It's saying, remember to breathe in and out. Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out. But beluga whales need the headphones. In fact, all whales, breathing is not an unconscious thing. They actually need to remember to breathe, not just to go to the top to breathe, which they do need to do,

but if they don't actually tell themselves to breathe every time they do it, they just stop breathing and die. What? Yeah. But is it genuinely a problem? No, sometimes it happens in aquariums where they think they just decide that they've had it, and you can just stop breathing. Oh, yeah, yeah.

It's so good to end on a fun one, isn't it? It's so good to end on it. I think whale suicide is going to be a good punch now. I think like whales, like, population's getting a bit better, right, isn't it? Clay, the whaling has gotten less and less as the years have gone on. We have more whales now than we've had in recent years. And the thing is, when they're more sort of spread out, they find each other for mating by singing.

And now that there's more of them, they actually do less singing, and they kind of fight each other a lot more. So that means that whales are wailing less due to less wailing. Very nice. Very nice. Guys, I'm going to have to wrap us up. That is it. That is all of our facts. Thank you so much for listening.

If you'd like to get in contact with any of us about the things that we've said over the course of this podcast, we can all be found on our various social media accounts. I'm on Instagram on at Shreiberland. James. At Barry Pines. Andy? I'm not saying my...

You've actually been banned recently, haven't you, for that now? been let back on. And Anna, where can they get to us as a group? You can go to Twitter, No Such Thing, or No Such Things of Fish on Instagram, or you can email podcast.quI.com. Or you can go to our website, no such thing asafish.com. All of our previous episodes are there. We have a club called Clubfish.

If you haven't joined it yet, please do. And also check out all of our upcoming tour dates. Thank you so much, Edinburgh. This was the start of our Thunder Nerds tour. And that was fucking awesome. So thank you for being here. We'll see you again soon. Goodbye!