No Such Thing As A Fish - No Such Thing As A Toilet Haiku

Episode Date: April 25, 2024

James, Anna, Andy and Dan discuss low lighting, deep diving, high kicks and haiku. 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

Hey everyone, welcome to this week's episode of Fish. Before we get going, we have a very exciting announcement, Anna. Thanks, Dan. Our announcement is that our esteemed colleague Andrew Hunter Murray, famous podcaster, comedian galore. Does he want to say that? He's also a published author. I'm sure you've read his first two novels, which were brilliant thrillers. He's written a third, which is so much fun. So far, I'm only about a quarter of the way through. Because, look, he didn't send me the proof on time. But it is fantastic. It's called A Beginner's Guide to Breaking and Entering. It's really fun. It's got elements of comedy. It's got elements of thriller in it so far. I really love the main character because he's doing something that I can really imagine myself doing in life.

Don't Just Believe Us. It's been complimented by The Guardian, which says it has a propulsive plot, an ingenious narrator and lashings of intrigue, making it a genuine and thoroughly enjoyable page turner. The Sunday Times has called it hugely entertaining, laugh out loud, funny and impossible to put. down. Dan Shriver, what do you say? Well, I actually am a third of the way through the book, and I can say it absolutely gets better after the first quarter. So,

if you want your books great in the first quarter and then accelerating to an even better place, you've got to get a beginner's guide to breaking and entering. It is the story of a guy who breaks into the second homes of the wealthy. He lives in them. They don't know it. He steals nothing. But one day, after

he accidentally bumps into a group of people who also do the same thing, they witness a and they get embroiled in a thing that they can't escape. And it's one of those comedy capers that just gets further and further into the chaos of it. If you've read Richard Osmond's The Thursday Murder Club series, this is the perfect accompaniment to it. It's comedy, it's thriller, Paige Turner, you're going to love it. So go to your local bookshop or any online bookseller or Amazon,

look up a beginner's guide to breaking and entering by Andrew Hunter Murray now. Okay, on with the podcast. On with the show. Hello and welcome to another episode of, No such thing as a fish, a weekly podcast coming to you from the QI offices in Hoburn. My name is Dan Schreiber. I am sitting here with Anna Tashinsky, James Harkin, and Andrew Hunter Murray. 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 James. Okay, my fact this week is that children's author, Margaret Wise Brown, died from doing an over-enthusiastic can-can kick. I think now having read up on her, she would like that we laughed just then. Yeah. I think so.

Definitely. So is there an under-enthusiastic can-can kick? Is there such a thing as that? Yeah. I've been to the Moulin Rouge a few times and that's for my money back. Barely got above the knee. You've got your protract around in the front row. That's disgusting, Andy.

They really looked down at that. So Margaret Wise Brown is most famous for a children's book called Good Night Moon. She's written lots of others, but this is the biggie. What I liked about this is in this podcast, the number of times I've got a book out because we've talked about that author. And I've got about 25% of the way through it and never finished that book. This is probably the first time I've got through the whole book. Oh, you managed to finish it. All 140-ish words, right?

I thought you're going to say pages then. I was going to say, no, that wasn't the book I read. Yeah, it's a very short book. Actually, the first, maybe the first of those board books, you know, that you give to children. Yeah. Apparently, it was the first of those. Oh. But she, unfortunately, died in 1952.

She just had emergency surgery on either an ovarian cyst or an inflamed appendix, depending on what you read. And she was ready to leave the hospital and be carried, as she said, in a sedan chair by four of the village boys to a hilltop estate where she would come bless. but to show the medical staff that she was in good health, she kicked up her leg, Cancans style, and she had a blood clot, dislodged it, blacked out, and never left again. According to what I read, died instantly. Yeah, like Cancancan kicked and just out. It's sad, obviously, but that's how I would love to go.

Can't, can't. It's a good way to go, I think, if you've got to go at that age. I mean, she was young, though. She's 40, too. Yeah. She was, the other cool thing about this, she was on her way to meet, I think, her lover. One of the junior Rockefellers was going to pick her up in a boat

and sail away to Tunisia with her. Yeah, he was on his way on the boat. Yeah. So sad. I think that was maybe the saddest thing is that she'd had a very unlucky love life and she'd met this guy sort of a year before, I think. And I was reading a bit of a biography of her that he wrote many, many years later. And he was so obviously so in love with her and she had finally found a love of her life. And then, yeah, bam.

He was nicknamed Pebble, but it was a James Stillman Rockefeller Jr. And he was junior. He was 24. Yeah. Oh, wow. Toyboy. He later married a descendant of the Carnegie's. So it's a real powerhouse couple of that, the Rockefellers and the Carnegie's.

Yeah. Carnegie's, I would say. Carnegies are the ones who come up to you in the bar and say, that's a shit shirt. That's not how you neg. The neg is a compliment and then a backhand compliment. What? should I be doing? You should say, I love your shirt. I saw six people wearing it earlier tonight. Oh, that's good. That's better than mine.

But yeah, Margaret Waz Brown was a absolute legend. What a gal. And she sort of, the fact is that she's often referred to as almost like a Hollywood dame. Like she was going around in high class parties. She was doing the weirdest of stuff socially. She took on. She had things like the bird brain club, which she had. It was a club where the decision was anyone who was part of it. If they said on the day, it's Christmas, you have to go over and celebrate Christmas. It's a fun idea.

It's a great idea. No, it's a tiresome idea. It's a fun idea the first two times you do it. And even by the third time, it's annoying. I think it was used wisely. I'm sure some people were kicked out of the Christmas club or whatever. Bird brain society. She could run as fast as a dog.

There we go. Which dog? Not a greyhound. No. You're absolutely right. Well, she was an avid, I've written in my notes, she was a lifelong beagle. She was actually a beagle-er, which is where you chase hairs on foot and you have a load of beagle dogs with you. And supposedly she was noted for her ability to keep pace with running beagles.

Her relationship with rabbits gets intense when she's an author because she published a book which was called Little Fur Family. The illustrator is the same guy, Gareth Williams, who did the illustrations for Charlotte's Web. She had a first print run of 75,000 copies for this book. And each edition of it was wrapped entirely in the... fur of a New Zealand rabbit. No. Yeah. I don't believe you.

And were they all ones that she'd caught herself while being in the legal? You have no idea. It's amazing, isn't it? Sorry, no. Apparently it was because of a surrealist artist called Maret Oppenheim, who you might know this, like, it's like a teacup with rabbit fur on the inside and the outside, actually. Oh, no, I don't know that. It's in the Museum of Modern Art in New York, is it, I think.

And it was the first surrealist thing that they bought. But yeah, she decided she would do her own thing with bucks and make them really furry. But 75,000. Yeah, it's mad. Dan, you mentioned that you haven't read Good Night Moon, so you won't be aware, as I am, as someone who reads it every single night, my daughter. The main character in that is also a rabbit. Yeah. In fact, they're both rabbits.

So having read this about her, I look at that completely differently now, every page where you see this old rabbit in a rocking chair. It's a fantastic book, we should say. It's so good. It's pretty good. It's like one of the first ones that just was like slightly weird and just rhyming stuff. Yeah. It's just a little bunny going to bed and it's all the stuff in the room, you know, good night clocks and good night socks.

Yeah, all that. It's just very gentle sort of lulling for a child. I'm sure I was read it lots, I think. But she also didn't like children as well as not liking rabbits. So it's kind of weird to make a book about rabbits for children if you don't like either of those things. Yeah, because she also did another book which had a print run of 80,000, which was entirely wrapped in the skin of five-year-olds. She said in an article for Life magazine, she said, I don't especially like children.

And in another note to someone, she wrote, how many children have you got? I have 50 bucks. I think she saw the bucks as her. All right. They are less trouble. Have you seen all the Easter eggs in Goodnight Moon? This is just what happens when you have read it over 100 times now. You know how to read it again.

You are. There's so much of you stuff to discover. Don't tell me it's the same with Les Miserables because I'm not reading that again. As long as you got the illustrated version. Well, I won't give it away so you can discover it. But if you do have a copy, look at the clock on every page and look at the moon. Do you go backwards? No, like memento.

That would be so much better why didn't you? It just goes forwards. It just goes forwards. And so you know that it takes an hour and ten minutes to get this rabbit to sleep. Oh, when you watch you go forwards, which is actually a long time. And look at the book on the bedside table. What do you think the book on the bedside table is? Is it the book itself?

Is it? It's a meta. Good night moon. Still innovating. all these years later. She wrote her books, she said, in a sort of 15 to 20 minute period. That's the first draft. And then the second draft. This is like Kenny. We were talking about your books as well. Kenny.

So it takes her 15 to 20 minutes for the first draft. And then it takes her between one and two years for the second draft. Oh, that's where you're going wrong. No second draft. Oh, the edit's hard. The edit is hard. Can we talk about the great thing she did with the royalties? Yes. This is a great thing. Margaret Moyes Brown. the royalties for every single one of her books, basically in her entire estate. She said, I leave it all to this little nine-year-old boy who lives next door, who I'm friendly

with, and, you know, I'm 40. Nothing's going to happen to me. I'll probably change the world when I gain dependence or whatever. Anyway, she then dies. Two years later, right? Two years later, she dies. And also, Good Night Moon was on the, it was not selling big anymore. It was probably going to go out of print shortly. Obviously, it's never been out of print. It sold millions of copies. And he was called Albert Clark. And by the time he was 21, there was $75,000 waiting for him. Unfortunately, he had become a bit of a tear away. Oh, yeah.

A bit of a... A bit of a... A bit of a rogue. Burglary, joyriding, vandalism. He was a very, very, very naughty boy. Kick out of school for fights, all that sort of stuff. Yeah, and he had this bizarre life where he was always broke and getting into trouble and being arrested and banged up.

And then every year, publishers would say, right, it's another two million quid waiting for you. It's like the lotto-lout. Do you remember him? No, I don't. Do you not remember him? He was like when the lottery first started. Okay. I'm sure he's a very nice guy, so apologies if you're listening.

But he won a load of money on the lottery and then just spent it all within like two years or something. And he was in all the tabloids as being a bit of a rogue. Right. But it's like that. But then once he spent it all, he won the lottery again. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. So the first initial batch money that he got, he gave a lot to his parents, which was nice.

He gave $35,000 to his parents. He spent $4,000 on $4,000. clothes for him and his two brothers. He had two brothers. And then he bought a Chevy and parlor. As soon as he took it out of the shop, got smashed into, immediately dented it. That's not his fault. No, no, but I read an interview with him where he was sort of saying, look, yes, I've done bad things, but also just like bad things just happen all the time that throw me into situations. Such weird details. It's like he had a dented car and 14 pairs of alligator shoes. That's all he had in life. And then the next check comes in. And the only thing

he's kept with him wherever he goes is the will. He keeps the will that she was. wrote. And the alligator shoes. A naked man wearing alligators on his feet, clutching a wheel. Isn't it weird? Like she was putting rabbits on her bucks. He was putting alligators on his feet.

This is like the least vegan fact we've ever done. I just mentioned her love life earlier, which was, again, not something you imagine when you're reading it because you picture this old lady. He's writing these books. Also, her name sounds old, doesn't it? Margaret Wise Brown.

Yes. It doesn't sound like what. Wise, yeah. I suppose in the 1920s, that was already sex your name. Margaret is. Now a more old-fashioned name. I think that's fair.

Is that fair to say? Well, my mum's a Margaret. There we go. And she's very cool. Yeah. Can come in every weekend. She had an interesting love life, changed his mum.

And so did Margaret Wise Brown. And she went out with a woman called Michael Strange, confusingly, who the, I like the LA Times in 1992, described Michael Strange as a writer and performer of limited gifts and voracious ego. And she did seem to be not a great. partner for Margaret Weiss Brown, but they got together in 1940 and pretty much lived together or lived in next door apartments until Strange died in 1950. They did share a butler. The two ladies?

Yeah, so they had an apartment opposite each other. So in the corridor, the butler would just sort of go out the door, go through the next door and sort of just... Wait, do they know? Did they know that they were sharing a butler or was he doing a sort of... Yeah, take the mustache off. You don't need to take the muscle. Why would you do that? Well, no, because they're dating.

Oh, you're right, yeah, yeah. How's your butler? Well, you're still without a mustache. You must get one. Mine looks dashing. That's really fun. That's a great thing to do. I looked at a few other kids' authors.

Oh, yeah. Well, basically, I went through my daughter's books and Googled all of their authors. And I was looking at the tiger who came to tea. Oh, yeah. Which is by Judith Kerr. And Michael Rosen, who was the children's laureate in the writer and stuff. He has drawn parallels between the tiger who came to tea and Judith Kerr's

early life because Judith Kerr's father was on a death list from the Nazis and they had to leave Nazi Germany when she was nine years old. And Michael Rosen said that maybe the tiger is based on the threat that they faced when they were children because it disrupted their life so much. They took everything that the family owned like the tiger who came to tea drinks all of the water and eats everything in the cupboards and stuff like that. And Judith Kerr has said that the tiger represents nothing more than a tiger. Well, I believe Michael. It's got a very weird ending the tiger who came to tea.

Yeah, well. Doesn't the tiger just leave? No, I think daddy comes home and it's really annoying because, you know, the tiger's had all his... Drunk all his beer. Drunk all his beer and had all the food for tea. Yeah. So then... He says, I've got a very...

good idea. We'll go to the cafe and have sausage and chips and ice cream. Oh yeah. Daddy takes them all out for... Meanwhile, there's a drunk tiger. The tiger goes unaddressed, exactly, yeah. No, because then the next morning they buy loads of food to fill the pantry up and they buy a tin of tiger food in case he comes back and he never did.

Oh, really? Interesting. I think if I was a dad walking back home, I opened the door, I see my three kids and my wife, sitting by a table. No, no, just like in my story. And in the corner is a drunk tiger. I do think my first instinct is to not make a deal of it. I say, kids, we're going out now. Okay, so the tiger's already left when Daddy comes home.

Oh, I thought you said he was drunk. No, so the Daddy comes home. Yeah. And all the food's gone. Yeah. All the water's gone. There's no water in the taps. Oh, yeah.

Wow. And Mummy and Sophie tell Daddy what's happened and said the tiger came in and ate all of the food and drank all of the drinks and all of your beer and took all the water out of the taps. And then Daddy goes, let's go to a camera. That's how it works. It sounds like Daddy doesn't believe a word of this. It sounds like it's happened before. Yeah.

And all the beer's gone, has it? Oh, the tiger, right. Someone's turned the water off, have they? And the water bill over here, that's not been paid. But the interesting thing about that is when they walk to the cafe, it's night time. So all the street lights are on and all the cars have their headlights on. But there's a little cat that's walking by near where they live that looks exactly like a tiger. But in the cat...

Lovely. It's acknowledged as a... but it's obviously like what inspired her lies. This drunken reprobate lady's lies as she boozes up on her husband's drinks. Here's what we're going to tell daddy. He's never going to believe it, man. I wish I'd been able to, because I was on a sofa

with Michael Rosen yesterday. Were you? Yeah. But it was such a long sofa that I couldn't ask him about this. It was an enormously long sofa. Well, he wouldn't have heard you. Honestly, he wouldn't. I would have had to get up and walk to the other end of the sofa.

Wait, did you? Wait, did you genuinely think, oh, I'd love to talk to this man, this legend of literature? No, the sofa's too long. He had picked the absolute opposite. He had picked the furthest other part of the clover and except on. It was very clear to me that he wasn't looking for a pal. Right. Well, you were DFS.

It was a corner sofa as well, so I could have walked the hypotenuse. Okay, it is time for fact number two, and that is Anna. My fact this week is that the city of... of Matsuyama has over 90 post boxes specifically for mailing haiku. Hmm. Lovely. Or, as you could say, Matsuyama has over 90 post boxes for mailing haiku. Brilliant.

Is that right? It's right. It's right. Amazing. Well done. Why? Why? Why?

Why did you bother making that hykoo? That's bloody easy to make, aren't? they. This is the capital city of Shukoku Island, which is one of Japan's islands. And it's because the city sort of calls itself the home of haiku, because very famous haiku poets lived there. And so the first post box was installed in 1968 to commemorate one of these poets' births. And now they're all over the place. They're like monuments and baths, public baths. And they're really beautiful as well and lots of different designs. And every three months, the local haiku poets go to the post boxes or they send an envoy and they empty them out and then they judge all

the entries. Oh. The winner gets published on the city's website. It's so good. Yeah, that's really nice. I hope there's a walking trail. There is. Between them, which is called the take a haiku. That would be good. But there is a walking trail. Sorry to jump in on your joke. No, no. I didn't see it coming. You should be able to see by now that long, that distant look in my eyes, but it shows something's brewing. The fact he's been silent for two minutes, Dan, that should have been a clue. Yeah, no, they do in this place as well. The Matsuyama area, they have certain haiku bars that you go into,

and you go up to the counter and you write a haiku, and the cocktail they make you is based on your haiku. It's just, you know, they love a haiku. They love a novelty thing to do there, yeah. What do you say, gin and tonic, please? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Is it Basho who was from this place or is it someone else? Because he's the most famous haiku guy.

He is, yeah. There seem to be sort of four kings of four kings of five. Haiku and he's like the king king king of kings. But no, it's Masooka Shiki who was the person who rejuvenated Haiku in the 19th century. So it basically sort of died or was really dying. And he lit a fire under its ass and... Redamed it as well. And gave it its name.

He gave it its name. It was called like Hoku or something before. And then he was... No, he just put a stamp on it. He just, yeah, this is the Shiki stamp. It's really interesting what Shiki did because he was obsessed with Haiku. He failed his... exams at university, partly because he was writing so many haiku and reading haiku and, you know,

he was engrossed in the world of haiku. He sort of added to the rules about haiku and the first, the most important thing about haiku as we know them is that it's an observation of what's around you. It's an observation of nature. So that's a, that's a key element to haiku. So actually what Anna did at the start was not a hykoo. No, it had the right number of syllables in, but it has to have something to have something to do with nature or something to do it. It has to have a word that's something to do with one of the seasons. Oh, yeah. So, for instance, there's a really famous one by Basho, who mentioned earlier,

which goes, an ancient pond, a frog jumps in the splash of water. In Japanese, it works as a haiku. But for him, it's the word frog refers to spring. It's a spring word. And so you need one of those. And so unless you're using the word postbox to refer to... Yeah, it's a classic autumnal word, postbox. It's in the glossaries.

I get it now. So I read that earlier that one, and I thought, you know, it was like, this was one that he published and became famous and he was like dining off it for years. Like, man, that haiku was insane. And I didn't find it impressive at all. I didn't make the spring and the frog connection. And now are you wowed by it? I do like the, I do like the punnery and the kind of double meaning. Are we saying it because frogs jump?

No. No, no, that's not it. Oh, then I just like it again. No, that's what was going on. That wouldn't work at all in Japanese. No, it's just that frogs come out in spring. as in they're born in spring, so they're associated with springtime.

And it's supposed to you read it, and it just puts you in that position of being in a garden, in spring, the frog jumps in, you know exactly where you are, you know what's happening, you're one with nature, that's it. Do you get it now?

I get it now. Listen, it's no good nightmoon. It's like, it's... But what it's meant to be is like, it's like a shot in a film almost. Yeah, yeah. It's a shot that crystallizes something and expresses something.

I really like them. I did not know they don't have to be 575. No. You can be a bit flexible. And actually, I was very interested to message my Japanese friend after I'd read about this, because people who write about haiku properly and who know about it say, look, the syllables thing, it's a misinterpretation in English anyway, because it's not syllables, it sounds. And she wrote me a few haikus at random, I think, while she was sitting on the toilet.

And none of them had the right number of syllables. And I was like, sorry, I don't know if she would have wanted me to share that, but I have. She said, an ancient toilet. I've heard, jumps in. The splash of water. And she said the only thing I think a haiku needs is the seasonal reference. And it is, they have, Dan, these glossaries that you have to stick to, don't they? You can buy a glossary, a hyacly glossary.

Can you name, Dan, could you maybe say some words that you think might be summer words? Summer words? Yeah, like a word. Sun. That might do it. I reckon. Although you do get sun in the other, you know. True.

A nice bright. You get it in most seasons. You sort of get it all year around, don't you, the old sun? Harvest. Sorry, that would be an autumn one. Bikini. Beach. Yeah.

Bikini. Yeah, yeah, that's a classic. It's in the list of summer words. Blockbuster. So summer could be insects. Autumn, scarecrowes. Nice. Winter, tangled twigs, empty fields.

Oh, lovely. I really like. Can I show you the prop I brought along? Yes. I like a related prop. Hang on. Because I don't know if you guys know this. You're not on mic.

Sorry. I don't know if you guys know this. Have you got Michael Rosen in your bag? I brought the sofa. Okay, so there's a British haiku society. Oh, yeah. Do you guys find that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Of course of your research.

Well, I'm very proud to announce they've gained a new member this week. No way. Yeah. Have you stopped your subscription to the Lighthouse Society? The Association of Lighthouse Keepers have lost a member. Is it like having citizenship? You're only allowed to be a member of one or the other? I think it's lapsed now because I haven't received a copy of Lamp Magazine for a

a while. And I was a big fan of that. Lights out. I am now a member of the BHS. Yeah. British HomeStars. That's right. And look, I've got the journal here, which is called Blythe Spirit. So Andy is holding an A5 white book with Blythe Spirit written on it. Does it have a lot of haiku in it? Absolutely jam-packed with really good haiku. It's just loads of them.

Just randomly pick one. Yeah, give us a good haiku. A spring one if you can. You're not going to believe this. This is by Philip Murrell. Called home, I scrape away moss to find his name. And you can see why I signed up. I like the way you pretended that was just random. It's fallen open to this page because the spine is so cracked. All right.

A baby shower immersed by cherubs, Botticelli. What do you guys? I admire the idea of haikus. I really like them. It doesn't do anything for me. Certainly something like reading through a book like that. I imagine if I was sitting in nature and then someone sent me a haiku about the area. That would be really nice and poignant.

But do you guys get something from haiku? I have done research for this. I'd say until that I hadn't. Until I understood what it was, I didn't really get anything out of it. But I like the idea they have these clubs where, you know, 100 people will go to a beautiful place in nature and they'll all just write as many haiku. See, I get that. I get that.

And you're just kind of like, you're trying to. trying to capture one moment where you're with nature in just this kind of slightly formulaic, but you can go out of the rules if you want to weigh. I kind of, I buy it. It's a lovely conceit, definitely. I like it. Yeah, I really like it. As James says, reading about it, the analysis of it, as with any kind of poetry or art,

because I'm not smart enough to understand it face on. But when you read the analysis, I think you get it. And maybe you could be lured in by the punchline element. You know, often you'll do a comedy set where at the end it's got a big reveal. And all haikus have them Haikus, exactly They're supposed to be this moment of realisation So that's why I thought the spring with the frog thing

Sorry, not that kind of thing More like the one I read that I really liked Was bass picking bugs off the moon And the way it was explained was Your bass, it's a type of fish, it's plucking bugs And then it's off the moon Because suddenly you realise to them They think they're picking bugs off the surface

of the moon because they're always looking up at the moon. Oh, that's lovely. To us, they're picking up the surface. And all of the haikus would have like a word in it, which is kind of hard to translate into English, but they're like a surprise or a cut. They call them a cutting word online a lot. And it might be, aha. Or.

What? Sorry? Yeah. It's just like, it's like an, it's almost like an exclamation point. Oh, okay. My favorite haiku that I found is, and I hadn't heard of this and I really think this is beautiful. The idea of the death poem. Oh, yeah. So the death poem is a Japanese tradition whereby if you know that you're about to die, let's say an execution is going to happen, because this

has been going from centuries and centuries, this death poem idea. You were encouraged to write your final poem, and that can be presented in sometimes as a haiku. So there was one that was written by a guy called Moria Senan, and his was, bury me when I die beneath a wine barrel in a tavern. With luck, the cask will leak. Okay, so that's, that's his That's his thing. What's really nice is the line, hopefully the cask will leak or the cask will leak, the Japanese wording for that is

Moriya Sennan, which is his name. Lovely. Oh, that's clever. Is that wonderful? Yeah. That is clever. No one else can do that, can they? No one else did a chance in that competition.

Hey, doctor, watch this. I'm doing a big cancam. Uh-oh. Oh, shit, shit. Beautiful. Really good. Where's the seasonal reference? Did you guys hear tell of...

This is now he's a member of the Haiku Society. This is how Andy speaks. Everything has to scan. Did you hear tell of the 2014 haiku artist who operated out of Sainsbury's in North London? No. This was the Baud Baker who smuggled complaint power.

into the Sainsbury's treats that he was bagging up. So, for example, enjoy your cookies. Each bite is a minute. I'll never get back. It's a nice one. Anyway, he was identified and immediately fired. Sainsbury's apologised customers that said it should never have happened. I love it.

Come on. I'm more of that. I liked it. You'd be absolutely delighted if you've got it. It's like a fortune cookie, isn't it? But instead of your future, you get some abuse. This city is Matsuyama, which led me to read about his. Hideki Matsuyama, who was the first ever Japanese professional golfer to win a men's major

golf championship. What? What are we talking? 2021. What? Wow. That's the first time. First time a Japanese man, at least, has won a major golf championship.

And he was once disqualified from a competition due to TIPEX. Riddle me this. Yeah, okay. Disqualified for a competition. It's famous in the golfing world. Painting his balls. Painting his balls with TIPEX, where they're already white. Yeah, but does it add weight?

to it or some kind of grip that you wouldn't have. You're getting really close, but it's not the ball. Did he tip-x over his score on the board and then bring a different score? It's the club. He would put it onto the club itself on the... So he put like a little target on the club so that he could see where he wanted to hit the ball with tip-X and that's allowed. You're allowed to do that.

But he put too much tip-ex on it, which made it slightly raised, which would change. the grip that when the club hit the ball it would change the way that the ball flew and they measured it and it was like a millionth of a millimeter too thick how amazing is that from a competition god the the forensic down to the millimeter yeah yeah that's fascinating like someone said yes you are allowed to put tip x on your club but only a bit yeah yeah yeah wow so that's just me shoehoning some golf into this fact there was an exciting thing in the world, this is sort of, he was the first Japanese golfer to do this. That was an exciting thing in the world of Haiku in 2017 when a very prestigious competition was won for the first time by a non-Japanese person. Really?

And it was Gracie Starkey who was a 14 year old schoolgirl from Gloucestershire. Wow. And she was learning Japanese at the time and her teacher encouraged her to enter it. I think there were 18,000 entries. It doesn't say much for the entire population of Japan, does it? It doesn't. This girl who I'm sure is great,

but has only just started learning the language. Yeah, it shows that the bar to entry is low for haiku, I suppose. Like, I can't imagine her winning the Japanese Open Golf, for instance. And her poem was printed on millions of... There's a green tea drink company that was sponsoring it. So her poem was printed on millions of these bottles. And the coder to the story is that Gracie then decided to drop Japanese for GTSE. Saying the Japanese language is so hard.

Okay, it is time for fact number three. and that is Andy. My fact is that in the early 1900s, there was a debate over whether cinemas should be dark or fully lit. Do we think they got it right? I think they did get it right.

For me, yes, I think dark is better. For the screening purpose, yes. For the rest of society, maybe not. Mm, go on. Well, this is, this was the brainchild of a guy called Roxy Rothafel, early cinema entrepreneur.

And he announced in 1910 that he had perfected what he called daylight pictures he said they were absolutely flickerless they wouldn't tire the sensitive eyes of the audience out and you could see everything in the room and that was a kind of crucial point because he was a big part of making cinema

socially acceptable whereas you know before it was fairgrounds and peep shows and it was a bit raucous and it was dark and you couldn't see what was going on and people might be you know getting up to hanky-panky and men and women were sitting next to each other in the dark you know why have we allowed this to happen and he basically said look here's a lovely bright

nicely lit screen and he said you can see the picture perfectly but you can also see the room and it's just a nice more sociable way of watching. But actually even the very, very, very, very earliest cinemas so when Edison's motion picture patents company was first sending out projectors, they said that you should install ambient lighting

to deter misbehavior. So even from the very first moment of cinemas they were saying, let's not have it too dark because you never know what's going to happen. Exactly. Imagine if they've stuck to it, I wonder how many children wouldn't have been conceived

in the back row of a cinema. It could have done damage to the population of the world. I know, it would have ruined a lot of people's cinema experiences, wouldn't it? Well, yeah. There's a cinema that's reopened

in Leeds recently called the Hyde Park Picture House and they are gas lamp lit. And they basically were saying that the reason that there were gas lamps in there was to stop the groping, not necessarily hanky-panky, but actually attacking women in the dark sitting in the cinema.

And so as they were restoring it, they've been putting up photos online of all the things that they're finding like sort of under the floorboards and the seats and stuff. And one thing they're finding is giant hat pins. And this used to be a suffragette thing where it happens. Yeah, you would have, they have to legislate the length of hat pins because they were being used as weapons.

But in the cinemas, women would bring hat pins with them because guys would come and latch onto them and no one could see it. And they would start poking them with the old hat pin. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Nice. Because it was a thing that you had on you anyway. Like you could say, oh, no, this hat pin, it's not for stabbing people. It's for keeping my hat on. But you knew if you were a pervert and the woman you were purving on his hat fell off, you knew you're in trouble. Get out of there. It's my advice. It's really cool.

If we ever get back to Leeds for a live show or whatever, you know, the cinema's back open. It's the only gas-lit cinema in the world now. It's pretty cool. One of the thing about the darkness in cinemas is that you know how if you go to the theatre or opera or you know whatever it's dark. Well, that wasn't always the case either. And it mostly came through Gustav Marla, who decided everything should be dark. And he was probably inspired by the cinemas.

So I think it seems that in the early 20th century, he insisted on dimming the auditorium. And actually, when he did so, the audience were protesting because if you go to the opera in Vienna in the early 20th century, you're wearing all your best clothes. You want everyone to see you. Oh, yeah. You didn't go to see the opera. You went to see your rivals, didn't you, in the box over the other side of the audience.

Well, you didn't want, was it to be dark and you have to concentrate on the opera. Because, as we are now, opera is incredibly dull. It's literally just a filler. Exactly. It's not. It's not even though. I'd love to have visited back then just to watch the social situation. I didn't realize it was literally social gazing, basically.

People went sort of every night of the season, and they were not concentrating on the plane beyond night one. Yeah. Wow. Wow. There's a thing now where there's a lot of controversy about when the lights should come back up in a cinema at the end of a movie. Well, I think it's useful, right? Because if the lights haven't come up and the credits are starting, that's probably because there's an end Marvel thing at the end, right? Yeah. That's usually what happens. What do they do? Do they do like a little scene at the end?

Yeah, like all the Marvel movies would have a little scene at the very end. Anna's never ever watched a Marvel movie and I respect that so much. But they wouldn't put the lights up. kind of knew that was coming. Right. That's very clever. So what's this, what's this red hot debate about when the lights go on? The red hot debate is that it's a health and safety thing, right? Most people, when the credits start rolling, want to get out of the cinema as quick as possible. Maybe they need to be somewhere. If you just hate seeing the names of people who've worked like, curious. I was like, fuck's sake, guys, you've done the job. I don't need to know about who's the best

boy. Oh, it's not bragging. So they want to get out of there. That can be very dangerous. They can fall over trip hazards, all that sort of stuff. The issue is modern cinema uses its credit sequence now. as part of the film. So there's one film where basically the final scene is happening as the credits are rolling. Right. But you don't have the old day projectionists in most cinemas these days. Let's say a modern cinema, they get a hard drive and it has stamped throughout the hard drive. This is when the credits arrive.

So they'll pre-program the lights to come up. Right. So a lot of people are missing the end of movies in terms of the Atmos because lights are coming up. And so, yeah, it's a raging debate. How many films are running the credits over the final scene? That feels very avant-garde to me. Yeah, yeah. Dan, have you ever been, I ask you this because you're Australian?

Have you ever been to Broome? No, haven't actually, no. Because it's a very long way away from the rest of Australia. It's in the north-west. And it's got a cinema called Sun Pictures. And it's one of the first, it's a very early cinema. I don't know if it's Australia's first, but it's very old. 1916.

It was, I just like it so much because every night the cinema at Broome was flooded by the tide. He was on the coast, and there was tidal flooding, and most nights the street would be submerged. And apparently some old-timers who remembered it back in the early days said you would be able to catch a fish during the screening under your feet. That's so good. Yeah. Great if you're watching Titanic or something in your own-sum cinema.

Absolutely. It was more fun when projectionists had a bit more control on the day, wasn't it? Because people, you almost had a relationship with your projectionist. And actually, even... Is it? I think momentarily, when you're in the... the cinema, you could say, you know, put the music on louder in old Nickelodeons or whatever. Oh, yeah.

Or in 1939, a newspaper in Newcastle reported on a really exciting innovation that it said is going to take off in cinemas. Where in musical films, of which there were quite a lot, like singing in the rain or whatever, after one of the good songs, they'd bring the lights down to black, and then that was the cue for the audience to shout encore. And if they shouted encore long enough, then you rewound the song and you played it again. That's great. Oh, that is good. That's really good. Could you say, I didn't quite, who's this?

Can you play that bit again? Is she married to him? Yeah, it would be incredibly annoying watching it with a granny or a child or me. You mentioned Nickelodeons. So that was in America, right? And it was, you paid a nickel to get in. And it was like usually in a shop or something like that. And they would pull all the blinds down, make it really, really dark.

And you'd be able to watch one of these old movies. And obviously very dark. And it was very cheap. So they attracted the poorer classes. And so it was worried by higher class people that they'd get pickpocketed or whatever as soon as they went in. So again, the darkness was thought to be a problem. But in the UK, we had our own version of the Nickelodeons and they were called penny gaffs. And obviously, the difference being that in the UK, there were one penny to go in, whereas in America it was a nickel.

But the problem was a nickel was worth 2.5 pennies. And so the people who were making the penny gaffes, were making two and a half times less than the Nickelodeon people. They just did it for the catchy title. Call them Topny Gaffs. I guess it was like the smallest. They didn't have pennies in America, didn't they? So they could have done pennies as well.

But yeah, it was just, I suppose they thought that it was the only price they could charge. But there was a worry at the time. I read some newspaper articles saying that young children were robbing from their parents so they'd be able to attend the penny gaffs. Right. Always. Always social worries. Any new technology?

It's so interesting. Just how is this going to ruin the youth? Yeah. And the other thing that they did is because these penny gaffs were in shop. So it's a normal shop and they'd be like, okay, we'll put a load of chairs up. We'll charge people a penny to come in. But there was people tried to shut them down. And one way they did it was saying you don't have a music hall license because there's no cinema licenses because cinemas didn't exist.

And so loads of them would play the movies in complete silence. And so you would go in, it was completely dark and it was completely silent. You'd be watching the moving pictures, but there'd be no music. And that because usually you'd have a piano or something, wouldn't you? Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. But they couldn't do that because if they did, they'd get closed down for being a musical.

To be fair, I think that's fine. I mean, most if you're watching a silent film, you're not watching it for the piano music, are you? Oh, no. The lot of music was composed specifically for the reels. They'd be handed the sheet music. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, of course. Yeah.

But I don't think it matters as much as with a film with dialogue, for instance, where you wouldn't know what was happening. If you're watching a silent film, you still know what's happening. I would like more ambience in my movies, you know. If you think Star Wars, which has dialogue, would be as good without the score, then let's experiment and have a completely music free of Indiana drones or whatever. Also, I need something to drown out James going, who's that? Is that what? When are they married?

Okay, it's time for our final fact of the show, and that is my fact. My fact this week is that one of the oldest diving clubs in Ireland is the Muff Diving Club. And what's so funny about that? Nothing. It's interesting because it's how old it is. It's one of the oldest. Wow. How old is it? We're talking a good like three decades. Wow. Oh my God. Yeah, no, this is the muff diving club. Yeah, it was just set up by a group of guys who obviously spotted a good gag and they wanted to do it.

And they've not only been pushing for it to be an old, long lasting diving club, but they want it to be the largest, the biggest membership of any diving. club in the world. And so you go to their site, you can buy t-shirts, you can buy, you can get a membership card. There's a lot more t-shirt selling than actual diving in this club, I think. I'm finding it so hard when I'm looking into it, and I still haven't got to the bottom of it, if any diving happens at all. What is a diving club? What is a diving club? What is a diving instructor? What are you getting? Diving? Oh, I thought it was high diving. Did you not even see the logo? Did you research this? I don't follow the link you said. I've tried, but I've got a child lock on my computer

mate. How interesting. I mean, you could have a high diving club as well. People who like to high dive might get together and practice together. I guess so. But if all your facts are about high diving

then you are going to be lost for the next half an hour. I've gone purely muff actually and muff directional. Well, me too. I went to the Irish sort of version of company's house to see how many other muff companies there are in Ireland.

Right. Muff engineering. Muff service station. Muff soap. Muff direct. Muff direct. Is this all in muff? These are all real.

They're all in muff. Muff after school. And... No. You call on as a parent send your kids to that. It's just like an after school place where kids go to like

while the parents are still working at the Muff Licker Company. No. The Muff Licker Company, this is really interesting. I went on their website and it doesn't seem to be a joke at all. In fact, if you go to the website,

it looks like they haven't realized that muff liquor could be quite rude because it's a proper like it's a vodka company. and they've got a history of this guy, the grandfather of the owner, who started it all these years ago. So there's no sort of sly wink at the fact

that this is an amusing phrase, like that salad company called Tost. No, unless I've completely missed it. I think they've just gone deadpan. No, I think you're right. I think it's just, we're in muff, we make a liquor, let's put it out. Well, fair enough.

They do know, but they've gone, we're above that. These fucking muff divers next door, we don't need to stoop to that level. We'll put it out there, we'll let people chuckle to themselves, and we'll sell them some vodka. No t-shirt necessary. I was reading an interview where a lady called Caitlin was over in Australia

and she was on a TV show like a family fortunes kind of thing. And she was from Muff. Like, you know, it's not got a big population Muff, but she was from there. And the guy couldn't believe that she was from there. And she said she went to a school that was called Hollybush. So that was a nice, another connection. And she says that when you come, when you're driving in,

that there is a sign that says you are now entering Muff. And I've not seen that online. I've been looking. Seems plausible. It does seem plausible. You can say you see welcome to muff, but I haven't seen it. You are now entering muff. House prices are struggling in muff.

Yeah. Apparently the prices are lower than you might imagine. I'm just waiting for the other shoe to drop on this joke. I can't tell what it is. Well, it's for a slightly different reason you might think. So you would find like people who live on shit house lane or whatever. They always complain in the newspaper so I can't sell my house. Yes.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But in actual fact, the reason that they can't sell them very well is because they're on the border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland and Brexit has meant that the bottom has dropped out of the muff market. There we go. There we go. I knew something was coming. Was it worth it? It was worth mortgage news from muff. That was not a written joke. that you were on the phone to a local estate agent. So if I say this, am I technically right? Do you want to buy the house or not?

Oh dear. Shall we talk about muffs themselves? That's talking about muffs. Fair muffs that people would wear. Okay. You know, hand muffs, as it were, how you keep your hands warm. They used to be completely gender neutral. Men and women alike would wear muffs.

It was just a thing because it was really. really cold. It used to be a lot colder. What? What more warm, guys? It used to be a bit colder, but also they were more cold. In the 16th century, you know, people did not have well-insulated homes and clothes were, you know, you didn't have lovely

puffer jackets, you know, people needed to keep warmer and wearing fur muffs to cover your hands. Really useful. Okay. Furry muff. Furry muff. And I think it came from muffuli, which is a medieval Latin term, which describes these big leather winter

to Mets that you'd wear, Muffuli. And there was a great article all about the history of the word Muff. On the Oxford University Press website by Anatoly Lieberman. And it's all these different words come from Muff. So, Danish Moth means clown. And Dickens uses Muff to mean

like an annoying person or a fool or whatever. German has Mufferl, which means sulk. Miff. Might come from Muff. Miff. I'm feeling a bit miffed. Oh, mift, right. You might really be actually muffed. You say muff.

We use muff in American football. Do you? Yeah. Oh, you've muffed it? Yeah, that's what it means, basically. As in, someone kicks the ball to you and you try and catch it and you don't quite catch it, but the ball's still in place so someone else can get it. That's a muff. Oh, yeah.

That's quite a technical term. Because I would say, yeah, you've muffed it to mean sort of, oh, you just messed it up. You do say that. And I actually checked all my WhatsApp messages and you're the only person who's ever WhatsApp me the word muff. No. Really? Yes. And to you, to mean muffed it up?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, wow. That is interesting. I'm going to search my WhatsApp. Well, no, not now. Oh, okay, yeah. I'll do it later. It's great.

You're at work. But muff is also slang for a woman's vulva. No. What? No. I know, it's so weird. What? Wait a minute.

So what about the Muff Diving Club? So I think that could be a, that should be a euphemously. It sounds like cunni-lingis. What about the thing that James said about the bottom dropping out of the moth market? That's even funny than it was originally. I don't know it's just funny because James said the word bottom, which is a bit funny. No, it's actually true. But also it's pretty...

But it has been slang for that for so long. I like how quickly we turn this into slang. So it started meaning a hand-warmer in the 1590s. And by the 16-90s, it meant a woman's pubic hair. Because I suppose you carried it down there. It's a big hairy thing that's around your crotch. So, of course. It's 100 years.

That's a long time for it to make the leap. When it's first written down there, I bet they'd be saying it for decades. Yeah, you could get muff warmers Is that to warm your muff or? Yeah, I thought muff Must are to warm you Yes, but the muff warmer's warm the muff I think you've put your hand in out

But who warms the muff warmer? They were little ceramic things That you would fill up with hot water And I imagine actually that you'd leave them in the muff Yeah, you would And then when you're going out That's clever You warm the muff up

Maybe you're going out in an hour You say we'll put the muff warmer in the muff Then you come to go out You just get your muff as lovely and warm Andy, idea. Have you got any money to invest? Yeah. Good.

Okay, so a mannequin. Yeah. But it's heated and you put your coat on the mannequin. And then when you go out, you can take a nice warm coat and put it on. Oh, yes. Ring the dragons. Ring the dragons. That's great.

Or if you're really wealthy, you just have a human coat warmer. Someone who wears your coat for half an hour before you go out. I see that. Yeah. Mine is just a one-off purchase, whereas yours is more of a subscription. I do see that. I mean, when you get into bed, it might be nice to, I mean, a warmer bed is not. I know you two, sort of weird as you like cold beds, but I like getting into a bed that's

slightly warm on a winter's night. Yeah. Do you do like they used to do on the Grand Tour where they would put a live pig in their bed before they went to bed to warm it up and to get rid of bed bugs? Is that a real thing? Yeah, that's what they used to do. On the Grand Tour. You saw the clocks in show.

Wait, what were you talking about? That's what I thought you were talking about. I was talking about when would it have been in the like 18th century when you would go around Europe. Yeah, yeah. Have you heard of Muff boutiques? This is great. Okay, not a company in Muff.

No. This was a thing. It's from a book by a 19th century dandy called Octave Uzanne. And he was an admirer of ladies accessories. And he wrote a book which was called L'Ambrel Le Gant Le Manson, which means the parasol, the glove, the muff. And he said that it. In Renaissance Italy, there were muff boutiques where you could either go in and buy a muff

or in the off season, when it gets nice and more, we don't need your muff anymore, you go and you store it in the muff boutique and they de-laussed them. I mean, if true, that's very funny. It's a brilliant book that, isn't it? It does sound great. I've only read secondhand about it. There was a, it's actually quite, it's all available online and it's quite short. So I did read it.

And yeah, it's the sunshade, the glove, the muff. And it was published by this guy in response. through the previous years, incredibly successful, The Fan, which was his history of The Fan. Oh, that was great. Yeah, yeah.

I know that book. Really? Published sort of 1881. Were you there for the first? No, I know a modern one. Someone wrote a whole book about. No, it's great. The Sun Taked the glove of them off.

And he tells, my favorite story from it was, he says there's an account in the late 1500s of towers being besieged and at the front line of defenders who are, you know, defending themselves from this siege, is a woman. with muffs and a halberd in hand.

A halbud being a sort of poker, pokey-sticky thing. Spear? Spare, thank you. A woman with a muff defending the city. For a reason? Keeping her hands warm while, because you've got to be quite dexterous to operate a spear, I suppose. Absolutely.

You can't prod a haldene with cold hands, can you? Very difficult, yeah. There were muff chains, which was to hang your muff, I think, when you're not using it. Your hands out of your muff, you just put it on your muff chain around your neck. Oh, right. Muff pistols. Okay. To shoot your muff.

To shoot from your muff if you're approached by footpeds. Oh, I see. They weren't like the sex pistols. The muff pistols. It was like a female sex pistols. No, that was just a tiny gun for ladies to protect yourself if you were out and about and someone approaches you to rob you. One place in Ireland that would have used the muff divers, I think, quite usefully, is a town where the first transatlantic telegraph cable was laid. in the 1880s.

Oh, yeah. So that was there. That was in Ireland. It was a little place called Spunkane. Mm-hmm. Yeah. That's where the first transatlantic cable was late. Spunk cane.

Spunk cane. Sounds great. Okay, here's another fact. The word spunk also can mean ejaculate. No. What? That's a really funny name for a place to start the cable. I thought it was just like a good looking dude, you know, spunky, you know.

That's disgusting now. Spunkane. The town of Muff where the original fact was is where Amelia Earhart landed when she did her first solo flight. Cool. Not our last one. No, unfortunately we don't know exactly where she landed that time.

But her first one she landed just outside the village of Muff. Oh, wow. The man who composed the theme music for Gladiators is called Muff Mervin. Gladiator's a TV show. Yeah. That's a good name. Muff is a man's name. Muff. I don't know any muffs. Maybe it's a nickname as well.

Yeah, I don't know any muff. I'm not familiar with the name Muff. The brother of Spencer Davis, who obviously founded the Spencer Davis group. Obviously. It's called Muff. You know the Spencer Davis group. Give me some loving. Is that band? Oh, it's a band.

Yeah, it's a band. Give me some love and that one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Oh, hang on. Is that, I've always thought it was give me summer loving. No. I have thought it was give me some muffin. James has inserted a muffin there. Anna has thought it was a haiku.

It must be a summer reference. Okay, that's it. That is all of our facts. Thank you so much for listening. If you'd like to get in contact with any of us about the things that we've said over the course of this show, you can find us on various bits of social media.

I'm on Instagram. You can get me on at Shreiberland. Andy, I'm on Twitter at Andrew Hunter. James. I now have 400 followers on TikTok on no such thing as James Harkin, despite the fact that I have no intention to post it.

anything on there. Yeah, and if you want to get to us as a group, Anna, where did they go? You can go to Instagram, which is No Such Thing or Fish or Twitter at No Such Thing, or you can email podcast at QI.com. Yep. If you want to find anything else out about us, go to our website, no such thing as a fish.com. There is the links to get you into the world of Clubfish, which is our secret members group. And there's a great Discord that you can join and lots of bonus content that we put out

through Clubfish. or you can just get access to all of our previous episodes, as well as bits of merchandise so you can get your hands on there. Otherwise, just come back here next week. We're going to be back with another episode, and we'll see you then. Goodbye.