No Such Thing As A Fish - No Such Thing As A Soggy Monk

Episode Date: May 9, 2014

Episode 10: This week in the QI Office Dan Schreiber (@schreiberland), James Harkin (@eggshaped), Andrew Hunter Murray (@andrewhunterm), Anne Miller (@miller_anne) and special guest Eric Lampaert (@EricLampaert) discuss illegal javelin throwing, farts in a jar and more...

We run it on QI a few years ago. Yeah. Which was, there's no such thing as a fish. You know no such thing as a fish? No, seriously. It's in the Oxford Dictionary of Underwater Life. He says it right there. First paragraph, No Such Thing is a Fish.

Hello and welcome to another episode of No Such Thing as a Fish. Coming to you from the QI offices in Covent Garden. My name is Dan Shriver. I'm sitting here with three other QI elves, James Harkin, Andy Murray, and on fact-checking duties this week, Anne Miller. And once again, we're going to go over our favorite facts from the last seven days. Joining us today, we have a special guest, a comedian and friend of ours, Eric Lampere. Hello.

How you doing, mate? Very good, thanks. So, Eric is a good friend of ours. He's a comedian. He recently, as a stand-up, opened for Eddie Izard in French. It was a French gig, and Eric did his set in French entirely. He's also going to star in an upcoming movie called Amstardam. When's that out?

Yeah. I think it's this year, I think. Oh, what's it about? So this is not bad. It's like a fairy tale world. It is a stoner film with that name. I'm quite excited. I am excited. Based in Netherlands?

Yes, so it's in Amsterdam, yeah. And I can't really reveal too much. I have a fact about Amsterdam. Oh, yeah? To hear it. I can't remember what year it was. It was about, I don't know, 80 years or so ago, but there was a fog so bad that 29 people fell into the canals in a single night.

that's fantastic okay let's start with fact number one we're going to start with our special guest Eric uh... we borghumor right so in 1923 jockey frank hayes won a race in belmont park in new york despite being dead wow

explain that one yeah he started alive right he started alive oh so he died mid race mid race yeah well okay give us more of the story well basically he suffered from a heart mid-race, but he was straddled nice and strong in a saddle, and the horse won.

But how does, is there a seatbelt? It's presumably he keeled over, right? Yeah, yeah, but you know, like in that movie Shane, sort of like slumped over kind of thing. So he's got his feet nice and strapped in, and, you know, you've got your hands as well sort of tied around the rains. The reins. Did anyone, did anyone notice during the race, it was it only discovered after he had won? He was probably the only one.

horse just kept running more and more laps. He was probably the only one not hitting the horse. And yet, yet still one. What does that say about cruelty? Yeah, this horse, am I right in saying it was called sweet kiss? Sweet, sweet kiss of death. Sweet kiss of death, that's what they nicknamed it afterwards. Is it?

Yeah. Wow. This is an interesting, Link, your dad, Eric, is a jockey, isn't he? Yeah, I mean, that's one of the reasons why I thought. I mean, I only found out this fact this week. Yeah. But yeah, my dad is indeed a jockey. Because you're pretty tall, if you don't mind me saying.

Yeah, and I've got big gums as well, which has never helped. At school, they'd be like, oh, well, clearly your dad's had sex with a horse. It's not fair. Unfortunately, I'm hung like a human. You know the way that jockeys sit is kind of like a crouched thing where they're leaning forward, not the dead ones, the alive ones. This is called the monkey crouch. and it was invented by a guy called Todd Sloan in 1897.

And what's interesting about it is no one rode horses like that before in horse races. And when he invented that, horse race times and records improved by 5 to 7% in a single year. So he just completely changed the sport by deciding to crouch down and lean forward. No one had ever done it before. Wow. That's amazing, yeah. That's like the in the first brief life. Yeah, in high jump, yes.

I mean, that completely transformed the sport, didn't it? We did a couple of years ago. the new way of throwing a javelin which was invented very briefly in the 1930s which is to hold it by one end swing around and let go the javelin? Yeah like throwing the hammer and it was banned

almost immediately for obvious reasons but it did provide amazingly long javelin throws in fact to the extent that it could have been quite dangerous A because it goes too far and might have had spectators and B because it's very hard to get it in exactly the right direction just get impaled

spectators everywhere A slight margin of error. Yeah. And in the Paris Olympics in 1904, 1900? Paris 1900, yeah. Paris 1900. People trained in the public parks, javelins, and they were warm to be extra vigilant. Some people trained at night, so there was less chance of hitting people, but also more chance of hitting people.

The interesting thing about javelins is that they make them lesser or dynamic as the time goes on, because the length of a running track is always going to be about 100 metres. And so what they do is they have to make sure the javelin can't be thrown more than that. People get stronger and stronger and better, and they get closer to 100 metres, and then they always make the javelins a little bit worse so that people can't get that far. By the end, it'll just be like a toothpick.

Really heavy toothpick. Wow, okay, so what was you were at? It was 1897 when he discovered that idea. Okay. It's amazing. It's an interesting thing when you start looking into what people have achieved once they've died. There's a really one of my favorite stories from the Ignobele's world. We've had Mark Abrams, the founder on on a few podcasts ago. And he wrote a book years ago called The Ig Nobel Prizes 2, Why Chickens prefer beautiful humans. There's a fantastic story about a man called Lal Bihari, who in 1975, when he went to the bank to apply for a loan, he discovered that he'd been declared dead by his uncle. who wanted to declare him dead in order to get the land rights for the farm that he owned. And he spent 19 years as a dead man trying to get recognized as a living man. And it just no one would recognize him.

And he did incredible things. Like he stood for parliament. He tried to get arrested countless times because they arrested him technically. It meant he was alive. So they couldn't arrest him. He would do all this stuff. And they were like, we can't arrest you because you're dead. And so for 19 years, he stayed dead technically.

and finally got a court to overturn it. And he set up in his town where he lived, and I think for all of India, which is where he's from, a whole network and a group in support of people who have been declared dead, who are in fact alive. Oh, I'd love to have that power.

That sounds amazing. It's called the Association of Dead People that he created. And it was in 1994 that he was finally proven to be alive. It's a massive problem as well, in places where the paperwork often doesn't catch up with people's actual legal status or whether they're alive or not that it happens a great deal

it's why there's a need for an association Was that in India? Yes, it was, yeah. Well, I do believe in reincarnation That's why he was born again, I guess. That's possible. Well, let's go back to horse racing and jockeys and stuff like that.

There was a jockey, a very successful one, called Laffitt Pinkay Jr. And in order to keep his weight down, he would take a single peanut, slice it into slivers, and eat just half of it for lunch. The dieting for jockeys is actually mad. So, like, me and my mum, and my mum's French.

So we'd eat, like, so much. We'd proper pig out. And then my dad, he'd always eat salads and stuff. And I remember when we were in South Africa for one of his races, and he carved himself in black bin bags, right, and just sellotaped it all the way up to his neck. And then he pushed a wheelbarrow full of things, and he ran around with the wheelbarrow around the feet.

to lose the weight. Now I remember he took off all the black bin bags and it just poured out like a waterfall. It was disgusting. That's amazing. I also read that people jockey speedwalk instead of run because they don't want to put on extra muscle.

Muscle weights. Is it AP McCoy? He's one of the great jockeys of time. Yeah, I lived near him. Do you? Newmarket. He has very intensive, almost golden hot baths.

Same reason, I think, to sweat out. so much of the water in his body. He does it for a couple of hours a couple of times a day before a race. Anything that makes some sweat, like sometimes they'll commit a crime near the police. Just see if they get away with it.

That's like two stones gone. Okay, before we move on, Anne, have you got any facts? Do you want to... Yeah, I do. James's Amsterdam fog was in 1893, and it was 79 people who fell into the canals that one night.

So watch where you're going in fog. Frank Hayes, the New York Times, reckon that he died just after his horse took the lead before he finished and they put it down to his heavy training regime and his excitement at coming first. Aw. Which so... Well, the horse's excitement.

The Frank Hay's excitement. Oh, okay. He'd be working so hard and then he suddenly saw he was about to win and that gave way of what gave way. There is a tumbler I found called Curious History. I haven't seen them before, but they are apparently one of the 20 best tumblers in the world, according to MSN. and they say the spectators thought he was showing up

and was riding one-handed, kind of like riding a bike with no hands because he was going over the line and then one realized he died till the race was over. The javelin spinning round technique actually quite effective. The current world record was 83 metres

and the guy who spun around through it 112 and was then was then disallowed because, yeah, didn't want the copycats. That was in 1966. So the world record for javelin

has been disallowed. At the time. Well, that one was because you're not going to whirl it over your head. I don't think anyone's... Like a helicopter. Has anyone done that many before? I don't think anyone's got that far. But the thing is, every time that they change, every time they change the javelin, that invalidates all previous records because you're not on a level playing field. Yeah, the current record is with the current javelin is 98.48 meters.

So still less than the guy who spun over his head. That's amazing. So yeah, it's pretty good. Good factual nuggets. Okay, let's move on. On to fact number two. Fact number two is my fact, and that is that some Buddhist monks run marathons to achieve enlightenment.

So this is a, I think, extraordinary endurance tests. Kind of seems like it's the greatest endurance test on our planet, which is done by these monks who are known as the marathon monks. And these marathon monks achieve enlightenment by going on these huge thousand-day running challenges that go over the course of seven years. And each year, they have to do 100 days in one chunk of running a distance per day. So 30 kilometers for the first 100 days. Then they take a break. Then they do another 100 days next year and year two. They do 30 kilometers again per day. Year three, it's 30 kilometers again and it's 30 for four. But then for five, they do 200 days straight. On year

six, it jumps up to 60 kilometers per day for 100 days straight. And then in year 7, it's 84 kilometers per day for 100 days straight, and then 30 kilometers additional 100 days after that. And if at any point during this whole process, they fail to reach the number that they're meant to reach on that target, they kill themselves. And only 46 people in the 100 years or so that this has been going on had successfully completed it.

So they kill themselves if they haven't already died in the meantime. Exactly. But if they sort of, if they run short by a couple of kilometers, They carry, they dress in white, because the white is the symbol, the color of death. So they're dressed for death. They bring a sword and a rope. So they can either... Sounds a lot, little cuckoole of...

Are you sure you got your facts, right? But yeah, so they have the option of hanging themselves or of stabbing themselves. I think they may not still kill themselves. I think they haven't since the 19th century. I think it's been officially a bit discouraged. Yeah, it's been, that's true. The original hard, I mean, there is an area near the mountain where these monks live in Japan, which is called the mountain haii.

I don't know how to pronounce that properly. It's H-I-E-I. And it's littered with unmarked graves from the people pre-19th century monks who did not manage to finish and complete it and had to kill themselves as a result. But the idea is that if you do complete it, you get a medal. You get a nice little medal, you get a pound the back and those flowers. Silver blanket around you When you finish Well actually you say silver blanket

But one thing that I found out about monk Is that they have a technique Where they can heat themselves up So it's a yoga technique called Tummo And they can enter like a deep meditation And if there's a few monks Around each other

And they can have like cold Cold like blankets on them And they can heat those blankets in a cold room. Wow. And other people would die. There have been experiments on those guys who, I think he had sort of wet blankets put on them

and they started steaming until they were completely dry. There is an endurance swimmer who we've covered on QI on TV and he is able to raise his body temperature by up to one or two degrees because he swims in very icy water. And I wrote to him and asked, is this true? And one of his representatives wrote back and said, yeah, that's what he does. Let's go back to crazy monks

Let's do that I'll tell you one more thing About the marathon monks Just to bring us back in Which is that So 46 people only Have ever completed this course I think I've got the number wrong

And it would be great to know When this practice started Because I think It's either 100 years ago 400 years ago Or 1,000 years ago But 46 people have completed it

One guy Did it twice Yeah He's super enlightened Yeah How many marathons Is Eddie is on though Yeah quite a lot

He's as he do No did he do 60s Sorry Eddie did 43 marathons In 51 days in 2009 Also his marathons Were presumably a lot

Shorter I'm guessing No Their marathon is always The same distance Now Although they're not always The same distance

The original Distance run After the Battle of Marathon Was I think About 22 miles. It wasn't any more than 25 either. And there was a lot of early flux. But wasn't the first marathon by this guy that

had to run from Argos to like somewhere else? He was reporting on a battle. Right, okay, the battle. There had been won. It wasn't that we've lost the battle. You need to flee immediately. It was, hey, we won guys. It was the Battle of Marathon. That's it.

It wasn't actually called the Battle of Marathon. Okay, I didn't realize that. There is a really interesting thing about the official modern marathon length, which is that it's 26. miles and 385 yards. And it was only, it's only been the case since 1908, and it was done to please the British royal family

because Queen Alexandra wanted the race to start on the lawn at Windsor Castle so that her children could watch from the nursery window and then an extra mile was added to the race. And then at the end of the race, 385 yards were added so that it could finish in front of the Royal Box at the Olympic Stadium in White City. So it's all been done an extra mile and 385 yards. at the royal whim.

Here's the thing about crazy marathon. So as an Italian athlete called Morrow Prosperi, and in 1994 he was running a marathon in the Moroccan Sahara, but he got lost. And when they found him

nine days later, he'd run 200 kilometers off course into Algeria. He'd lost 18 kilograms and only survived by drinking his own urine and eating bats that he found in an abandoned mosque.

Wow. Wow. But this guy, he... Did he have to catch these bats? Yeah. Because that's pretty impressive as well. If he, like, after running, losing those away, drinking your own urine. Still like, oh, God, now I've got to catch these bats.

Wow. He just must have thought he was having a terrible race. But he might have thought he was winning. Yeah. The other guys will be here any minute. So, anyway, he got a bit dispirited, as you would, after a few days. And he wrote a note to his wife. And he took a penknife.

from his rucksack and he slit his wrists. But he was so dehydrated that his blood, his blood thickened so much it clotted the wounds so he couldn't even kill himself. And then they eventually found him. What you should have had is a rope or some sword. Some sword. That's a bit of sword. I really like the story of when the modern Olympics came back,

the very first marathon that was run. Because it was a big, it was the, I guess, big event for Greece, the idea that is what they would win. The marathon, the marathon was so rooted in their culture. And they already had been disappointed because they lost discus. They were furious because that should have been one of the

events that they won. I have a quick thing about that. The guy who won the discos had never competed with one of their discuses before. He was an American and he had had a practice one made in America which was extremely heavy. And so he got to the

real Olympics, completely fluffed his first two goes because he wasn't used to playing with this new discus and then through the winning shots. I like the way you're throwing it like a frisbee as well. Well, that might be the, that might be what is the sport moon? The monkey crouch. Yeah. Sorry, you were saying about the... Well, no, so they, they'd been, they'd been sort of shamed in the discis, they lost it to that man. And so they desperately needed the win in the marathon. So there were 17 people competing in the marathon. And they had good chances of winning as 13 of those athletes were from Greece, so that was pretty high odds.

But it's great because very early on at the race, and it kind of shows you, it shows you a different age of sportsmen as well when you hear these stories of how more, kind of like they had the right stuff, and there was more grit. So the early leader in the race was actually a Frenchman runner, but he ended up pulling out of the race

because he got too exhausted. But mid-race, while he was in the lead, he made a stop at a local inn to drink a glass of cognac from his future father-in-law. So he had time to stop, and have two drinks and then carry on. But then he dropped out because of exhaustion. So the guy who ended up winning was from Greece.

His name was Spiridan Louise. He ran it in two hours and 58 minutes. And what fueled him along the way, what his kind of choice of drinks, were he had wine, milk, beer, some orange juice, and an Easter egg. Brilliant. Yeah, that's the winner of the first ever modern Olympic marathon.

An Easter egg. An Easter egg. Amazing. About the guy going into a pub, they used to do that in the Tour de France. Do you know that? Like whenever the tour would go by a pub or a bar, the cyclists would just all get out and en masse run into the bar

and just pilfer everything they could get all the wine and all the beers and everything like that and they would run out again and then go. So all the people who ran bars and that went past the Tour de France thing, they would always close down the shutters and try and stop the cyclists from getting in. It's always the French, isn't it? Eric, because your dad had ever stopped halfway through a race for a glass of orange juice slash wine. Well, my dad's English, so no, but he stopped for a nice rose dinner. I love us, well, the second and third place were won by Greece as well,

but the third place winner got disqualified because he was later found to have covered part of the course in a carriage. Carriage, got a lift. No one said it was against the rules. That's all I'm saying. I think we should move out. Yeah, we should wrap up on that. Before we do, Anne, have you got anything for us? Oh, I've got so much for you.

Oh, great. So the swimmer who can change his own body temperature is called Lewis Pugh, P-U-G-H, so that's Pugh, that's around with Hugh. And he is the only person who's swam in long distance in every ocean in the world, including the North Pole, which he did wearing goggles, speedos, and a cap. Wow. That was all. And CNN have called him the human polar bear.

So that's him. The marathon running monks, they seem to be keeping records since 1885, which makes it 1209 years. 46 of them have done it since then. Eating bats is not good for you. They spread diseases. Guinea actually a few weeks ago have banned eating bats because they've got an Ebola breakout

and they're glaring the bats for this. 62 people have died and they eat them either in a peppery soup or ready to ride them out for a flyer. They advise not eating bats until the Ebola has gone away. In terms of eating strange things while you run, it's not quite Easter eggs,

but Assam Bolt famously loves as chicken nuggets. On the day he won a gold medal in Beijing. They asked him how he did it and he said he basically got up late, ate chicken nuggets, went back to bed, eight more chicken nuggets did the race. Such a show off. Such a show off. Got a world record.

Apparently you got through a thousand chicken nuggets over the Beijing Olympics, which worked out a hundred a day. That's like a marathon monk, but that's the equivalent of two actual chickens, which is pretty impressive. That has not been fact checked. If you're listening to The Man, that's for you. Okay, on to fact number three, and that is, is yours, James.

Okay, my fact this week is the Slovakian and Slovenian embassies in Washington meet once a month to exchange wrongly addressed mail. That's fantastic. Isn't that great? This came from a website, Slovakrepublic.org. I think it seems to be pretty kosher.

This Slovak website, I've got a special section of their website saying, we are not Slovenia. Which is brilliant. They've got a load of exact. Apparently, George W. Bush once said, the only thing I know about Slovakia is what I learned firsthand from your foreign minister who came to Texas. And their foreign minister had never been to Texas.

It was the Slovenian forest minister who'd been there before. That's brilliant. Typical George W. But it's not just him. Silvio Berlusconi introduced Slovenian Prime Minister Anton Ropp to the crowd of journalists, saying, I'm very happy to be here today with the Prime Minister of Slovakia. So it's very easily done. It does happen for these countries that there's just, we put,

we find that we keep seeing examples of people putting minimum effort into actually working out who they are, what they're, like, remember that famous incident with the National Anthem for Kazakhstan? Yeah. That, you know, up on the podium, this girl had won gold medal, and then they play the Borat version. Oh, my God. No way.

And he sings in, you know, the lyrics are in Kazakhstan. The lyrics are like, We have the cleanest prostitutes in the region or something like that. Kazakhstan's prostitutes are the cleanest in the region, except, of course, for Turkmenistan. Kazakhstan, Kazakhstan, you very nice place. Come grasp the mighty penis of our leader from Junction with testes to tip off its face. That's incredible.

Going back to the Slovak thing, in the Slovak culture, there was a Slovak cultural group in America, and they had a big sort of map of their country, and there was an old guy came in, and he was looking around, and they asked what he was doing, and he was trying to find his grandfather's village because his grandfather was from there. But then his wife came over to him.

She looked at the sign and said, you're not Slovak, you're Slovenian. So this guy had gone his whole life thinking of Slovakian and he was actually Slovenian. If they don't know, how can the rest of the world know? That's a great story. Yeah, I read about these, there was a new couple.

I think they just got married, and they wanted to get a flight to Sydney. And they bought the flight, and it was a lot cheaper than they thought. And when they got there, they found out that they'd actually gone to Sydney, Nova Scotia by accident. This is, unlike your, you're from Sydney, aren't you? I am, yeah. Unlike your Sydney, this is a former mining town with a population of 26,083, and one of the highest unemployment rates in Canada. Yeah, but it does have a very nice opera house.

Well, this couple, they said, oh, we're just going to make the most of it, and they're interviewing the newspaper. And they said they were looking forward to looking at the pickup trucks and eating the local lobster. Brilliant. That's fantastic. That's nice. Yeah, that's really. Yeah. Okay, so I was looking at other mix-ups, and I saw a newspaper story.

The FDA in America was warning people not to mix up the prescription eyedrops called durazole with the acid-containing, water removal, juror sal. Apparently, these are two medicines with very similar names and people have been putting this acid in their eyes thinking it was eyedrops. Oh my God. And that got me to thinking if there's any other like medicines with similar names and what could happen. And I found a brilliant list online of commonly confused medicines. So there's a drug called Allegra, which is a drug often used for the temporary relief of runny nose and people keep getting that mixed up with Viagra.

That's their excuse There's something that actually helps to cook carrots and potatoes It's called vegesil Some people confuse it And there was another thing called Bino, this was a company name And it was an anti-gas thing

If you've got a bit of gas You take this Bino And it makes you feel better But people were mistaking it for B&O Which is Belladonna and Opium Oh, wow. Anything to add? Just another Slovakia, Slovenia.

They've basically got really similar flags as well, which doesn't help. They've got a white, blue and red stripe with a shield on the front. Shield are different, everything else is the same. So Slovenia have done a contest to find a new flag, but I don't think they've adopted it yet, which will distinguish them. And then there's a professor from the University of... The University of Ljubljana. The University of Libliana, who said he reckons a problem with the confusion is that Slovenia hasn't got a brand.

Finland has Nokia and Sweden has IKEA and they need their own brand. So someone suggested Slovenia becomes the one-hour country. You can get everywhere within an hour. It's very small. And then with confusions as well, there was that thing at the London Olympics when the North Korean women's football team walked off because they showed the South Korean flag, not the North Korean. That was very embarrassing. did not go down well, welcoming them with the wrong flag.

And just at the end, Urbino, there was a second Dennis and Menace for made his debut in America. Of course, literally within five days of being debuted. America's Dennis and Menace. And they had a very similar look, and they were done completely independently of each other. It's amazing. It was like deep impact in Armageddon. Fontaineau and Dante's Peak?

Yep. Any of us? Genesis and Exodus. The bands. No, I do. So let's move on to our final fact of the show, and we come on to Mr. Andy Murray. Andy.

Okay, my fact is, in the 18th century, there were genuine medicines called Alan's Nipple Liniment, Grimston's Eye Snuff, Miller's Worm Plums, and Italian bosom friend. Do you know what was in any of them? Somebody said that Grimston's eye snuff was just pepper. Just black pepper ground up

But a lot of patent medicines Really consisted only of Sort of 50% alcohol Yeah So they were And a lot of them We call them patent medicines of course All these fantastically named

Old Hamlins wizard oil Just you know beautifully named Oh I want that Yeah Sugar Plums for Worms Aromatic lozenges of steel Cockings cough lozenges Gingerbread worm cakes

There were some of them that did have Active Ingredients There was one called Mrs Winslow's soothing syrup. That was aimed mainly at babies and children, and it contained a full gram of morphine per ounce. And Copps' baby friend, that was another baby one.

Cop's baby friend. The label there boasted 8.5% alcohol and 1 8th grain sulphate of opium per ounce. That was marketed to help to help baby sleep. You could buy heroin, couldn't you, in the First World War, to send to troops on the front line.

Yeah. You could buy it in Harrods, I think. Really? I think so Still can, I think I'm not certain Yeah, but behind Harrods We should fact actually Has anyone heard about During the Middle Ages

When there was the Black Death That Farts in a Jar Was a thing that was prescribed to people Yeah, the idea was that if you conditioned the smell Of something quite disgusting To your nose by the time If there was an outbreak of black death around you

You would become accustomed To that kind of smell So it kind of made you immune to what was going to happen. So you would go to the doctor and they would give you a fart in a jar. I don't know if it was your own fart or if it was a pre-packaged fart

and you would go home with it and then you would rip open the lid, have a sniff. In case of emergency, break glass. Ray Quinn. That's incredible. Is that like an early version of the vaccination idea?

Sort of. Or like taking small doses of a poison to build up a resistance which some Roman emperors did. Yes, exactly. It's that to build up the resistance. You're already putting up resistance to your own farts.

Well, it's fair enough. Which I've been doing for years. When I had my appendix, when I had my appendix taken out, they cut the intestine by accident, and stomach acid was pouring out. And I was digesting myself, right? So I was in hospital for like three months, and I wasn't allowed to eat anything. So, because I wasn't allowed to eat anything, because nothing worked, I also couldn't fart.

So, but there was gas trapped inside. And the nurses did say, you're allowed to leave or eat. when you can fart. And it took me two months to essentially release any gas. And when it came out, it was the worst thing I've ever smelled ever.

But what was also really horrible was that I had to call a nurse to make her smell it. Which is the opposite. I have a feeling you didn't really have to call out. She's probably already ringing your taxi. She's probably got a matching story about the worst thing she's ever smelled.

And he called me in to smell it. It wasn't necessary. The other cool thing about a lot of these medicines that I really like is that beyond all the kind of crazy names they had, some of them probably worked better than a lot of medical alternatives which were being touted by real doctors, I mean doctors with medical degrees at the time. Right.

And that's why a lot of medicines, things like homeopathy, in the 18th century, homeopathy was your best bet because all the other medicines were more likely to kill you and likely to kill you quite first. So that, I think, has accounted for a lot of alternative and complementary medicine today still being popular is that it had an initial lead.

They used to call them snake oil salesmen. They still do a little bit, don't they? And I remember reading that actually snake oil is good for you. If someone's sold you some snake oil, it contains 20% of omega-3s, which is a thing that people like to take.

It's supposed to be good for your hat. And salmon, which is one thing that people do take for omega-3, only contains 18%. So actually snake oil would do you a bit of, bit of good. The thing is, all these medicines is trial and error.

So, you know, at a beginning of medicine time, you know, trying some honey with hedgehog hair, you never know, you'd be like, yeah, just try that. Yes. For your eyes. And you're desperate, probably, as well. Yeah. The last thing, when you're in pain, you're a little bit delirious. And you'll turn to your, you know, your friend or your internet friend just to go,

what do I take? And they'll just say, oh, yeah, just do that. And you will do it. Yeah. There's a group of people in the Amazon who they like to put snakes down their trousers to bite their penises, which gives them length and directions. And I wonder how they found that out. They're really just trying to cure their runny noses. That's what they claim.

I was reading a lot about placebos in relation to this kind of medicine. This is incredible. There was a drug introduced in the 70s called Cimetidine, which cured 80% of stomach ulcers. Now, as time passed, it fell to just 50% of stomach ulcers which it cured. And this seems to have occurred after the introduction of ronitidine, which is a competing, and it was supposedly a better, more effective drug. So people think that the placebo effect of the initial drug stopped working because doctors knew there was another supposedly better drug,

and that's why the success rate fell. Because doctors have also been tested giving medicine to patients, and half of them have said, I think this is a really good drug. I'm very excited about it. It's shown really well in trials. And half of them are said, I'm not sure about this. But take it anyway, see if it doesn't eat good. Patients have reported much less pain with the first sample of doctors. Same pill. It's incredible. Wow. Yeah. And placebo injections are more effective than placebo pills. Because it's a more dramatic intervention.

It feels... Culturally, people think that. I wonder if placebo works with all of these really weird things that they did in the middle ages and stuff like that. So like, for instance, in the 14th century... one way that you could cure impotence was to wear your trousers on your head for 24 hours. It's hard to imagine the placebo effect working there. It's hard to imagine finding anyone who wants to have sex with you

after you're walking around the village all day with your trousers on your head. Speak for yourself, Emily. The placebo effect doesn't always work, though. I was reading about Greek philosopher Heraclitus who spent the last day of his life laying the sun covered in cow dung convinced it would cure him.

And it didn't work. your rumour from what friendship that worked that's lovely okay and have we got anything right or wrong you want to add? Perfectly right

just to add that it was until 1916 that you could buy cocaine and heroin at Harrods and I don't this is a joke or not but in the article it said you could buy gift packs of both to send soldiers yeah wow I think that's true plausible nice little Christmas gift

I had fun when you were talking watching the weirdest YouTube video I've ever seen about how to bottle your fart, so thanks for that. According to N-Maniac, the way to do it is to do it while you're in the bath, because that's how you can best direct said fart to jar. But what I quite liked was he began his video by washing out the jar before he put the fart in.

Oh, yeah, you don't want to get that jar dirty. Yeah, I just want to quickly add that from the website that I got the farts in a jar from, there was a line at the bottom talking about because it gave examples of how it was done and so on, and it just says, sounds funny now, but the plague was no joke.

Okay, that's it for another episode and there's such thing as a fish. That's all of our facts. Thanks so much, everyone, for listening. If you want to get in touch with us to question us about anything, you can get us all on Twitter. I'm on at Shriverland, James.

I am at Egg-shaped. Anne. Miller underscore Anne. Andy, you're at. Andrew Hunter M. And special guest, honorary elf, Eric Lempare. It's my name.

Eric Lampere, at Eric Lampere. At Eric Lampere. At Eric Lampere. And of course, if you want to explore any of the topics that we've spoken about a bit more, you can head to the QI.com slash podcast page where we're going to have lots of links. We're going to have videos. We're going to have pictures. Anything that we've spoken about, hopefully we'll be up there for you to explore more. And we're going to be back again next week with another podcast. So we'll see you then. Thanks for listening. Goodbye.