No Such Thing As A Fish - No Such Thing As A Tuna Macchiato

Episode Date: May 15, 2025

Dan, Anna, Andy and Rosie Holt discuss apes, art, anecdotes and Ancient Rome. 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

Hi, everybody. Before we start the show, I just wanted to let you know I'm joined by a very exciting guest right now. It is a world acclaimed author, Andrew Hunter Murray. Hello, Andrew. Hello. You've written a book I hear. Yes, I've written a book. It's called A Beginner's Guide to Breaking and Entering. It's out in paperback now. Yes. I've actually read it. And not even just because I'm friends with him, because it's such a fun read. And it's actually not a guide to how to break into a house. And burglit, which is obviously what I was hoping for. it's even better than that. Tell us about it.

Well, it's about a young guy called Al who lives in lovely, empty second homes when the real-life owners are away. He doesn't break things, he doesn't steal things, he just makes his way in, lives in these gorgeous places, and then gets out again.

And this book is the story of when he and his friends break into the wrong home on the wrong day. Someone ends up dead, not his fault, and things just get more complicated from there. It's a caper. It is a plus, a little bit of satire in the housing market. which every good book needs. And obviously he joins up with a fun motley crew of fellow breakers and enterers. It really is such a fun book to read. And I believe it's available in

bookshops. Is that right? It's available in all bookshops. And even better, if you're an audio person, it's in a two-for-one deal on Audible. That and one of my other books at the last day are both included in the current Audible deal, which is lasting a few more days where you can get two books for one credit. Do it. Go listen to the book and then read the book. Do both. It really is worth it. And speaking of guests, we had a fantastic guest on today. We had so much fun with her in the episode that you're about to hear. It was the excellent comedian Rosie Holt,

who I'm sure many of you are familiar with. And once you've listened to this, if you're in the market, for some very sharp skewering of what's going on in politics today, you have to check out her podcast, which is called Non-Censored. On the other hand, if what you fancy is a very witty satire on the last government, then check out her book, which is called Why We Were Right. So that is nonsense of the podcast or why we were right, the book. But for now, enjoy the show.

Over the podcast. 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 Tyshinsky, Andrew Hunter Murray, and Rosie Holt. And once again, we have gathered round the microphones with our favorite facts from the last seven days. And in no particular order, here we go. Starting with fact number one, and that is Rosie. My fact this week is, all the werewolves in the film Howling 2 are actually monkeys

because the wrong costumes were delivered. So, so much to unpack here. You said Howling 2, like every listener is going to know. Everyone knows about the famous film Howling 2. I think somewhere Howling 2 was called the worst sequel of all time. Those people clearly never saw Howling 8. And you're a fan, right, Rosie? Sort of. I'm fascinated by it.

So I don't want to spoil too much for people who are really excited about watching Howling 2. But it leaves off where Howling 1 finishes, where Spoiler Alert, the female lead turns into a werewolf and she is killed. And at the beginning of Howling to it's her funeral. And the best line ever is where Christopher Lee pops up, because why not? And he says, he says, I'm afraid your sister was a werewolf. And the guy goes, God damn it, that's my sister you're talking about. And he says it at the funeral. Yes.

And he turns out of the funeral, no one knows who he is. No. He's just a weird old guy. He stands at the back and then says that. And you can understand, we haven't led up to, like, did you know, there are more things on earth than I dreamt of? You know, like, werewolves exist. As far as I can tell, this is fresh news. It's a cold open.

I must say, because I think I might be the person on the planet who's watched Howling 2 most recently. I finished one hour ago, and then I came directly here. And it's really good. Watching it with the knowledge of what happened with these costumes. It was a mix-up. They were Planet of the Apes TV series. Yes, the costume story.

So basically, they were sent the costumes. The costumes were late. When they opened the costumes, it was actually from the Planet of the Apes TV show. And then good old Christopher Lee saved the day because he said, this is what we're going to do, Philippe, that's the director. We're going to shoot a scene where we simply explain that werewolves go through three phases, a human phase, a monkey phase, and then a werewolf phase. And that will solve everything. And it did. And that's what they do?

Yeah. Pretty much. So do they look like monkeys? They look exactly like monkeys. They look exactly like monkeys. It's really confusing. And they have shot it all in the dark And then later on once they got a werewolf head

They splice in lots of shots of random werewolf head crossing a screen It's terrific, it's so good I mean there's so much in this film Yes and there's lots of great little facts So the other thing about the costumes was there's a threesome scene Where they're all werewolves And they're all having sexy fun But if you probably remember Andrew

I remember the scene very well Yes it's not a terribly I mean vigorous threesome They're sort of tentatively kind of stroking broken each other and growling and it's because, so they'd had to be covered in hair for the costumes. And this took, I think this took like eight hours. And then they found out that when you touched each other, the hair came off. So therefore they were having to not touch each other because they realized if they actually did an orgy, well, a film orgy, all their costumes would fall off. Because it wasn't a costume.

It was them naked for eight hours with them putting little bits of hair on them. Yeah, sorry, I didn't explain that very well. It would have made more sense to put them in the monkey costumes for this, but I guess they thought because they're sort of naked, it's still going to be sexy-ish. It's not quite as sexy of the monkey costume day. It's the hairiest and most chaste threesome ever committed film. It's a rare double award.

Rosie, is this one of your favourite films or something? It's not one of my favourite films, but I do have a real soft spot for it. Because it's genuinely so bad, it's good. It is so bad, it's good. After the first ten minutes, I thought, I can't believe we're going to cover this in case someone watches it. And now, I say, watch it. Yeah, totally.

I mean, it has... The weird thing about Christopher Lee is that he's a good actor who's only done shit films with a few exceptions, obviously. Lord of the Rings, Man with the Golden Gun, The Wicker Man,

one of the greatest horror films ever made. So he's done some good films, but he's done a lot of really bad films. I think the only reason he did this movie was because he realised he hadn't done a werewolf movie, so he thought, okay,

this is the one. This is the one. This is the one. The filming of this one sounds amazing because Christopher Lee, we must have mentioned before, is like an amazing character. He had had,

this great war pass where he worked for the SOE, the Special Operations Executive in the War, which was like the Secret Service under Churchill. No one really knows what he did there because he was never allowed to talk about it. But it seems like the one person he confided in was the director of this film. It was called Philippe Moor. Yeah. It was a Nazi hunter. Yes. But apparently they landed in Czechoslovakia, which it was at the time, where it was being filmed.

And they got to the airport. and there was a huge crowd of people who were all like cheering and waving and giving this heroes welcome. Wait, hang on. Yeah, go on. Quick query. Go.

He's a super secret war hero and Nazi hunter. And yet he's so globally famous as a Nazi hunter that everyone in the Czech Republic knows who he is at the airport. He must have been like James Bond where he just didn't hide. I mean, is that totally plausible? No, no, there were elements of his war past

that were known at that point because it was the 80s by then. And basically, it seemed to be widely accepted that as part of his spying war history, he'd been involved in the assassination of Reinhardt Heidrich, who was the highest ranking Nazi ever assassinated by the West. So he landed in Prague and he got this hero's welcome. And the director was like, one do that's for. And Christopher was like, I'm going to stop you there. It'll be for me.

For my Nazi killing. I have seen a couple of stories saying, did he exaggerate his war record at all? And I haven't had a time to properly look into them And I just hope he didn't. I didn't want to be skeptical of the year. Surely he didn't exaggerate any of it. Yeah, but it could have been So globally famous film star at the time.

They might be chewing any old stuff. I don't think that's relevant. I don't think that's what to do with it. The Czechs are above that. But because it was filmed in Czechoslovakia, Christopher Lee and Sybil Dan. Was it Sybil Danning? Yeah.

Yeah, they both were getting followed the whole time while they were shooting by two creepy men who would sit in the corner when they ate in the restaurant in the evening. As in like Iron Curtain spies or secret police. Iron curtain smiles. Wow. Iron Curtain smiles.

Because they did. Yeah, they were like, they were making phone calls back home and they could hear them like in the background just like men breathing and coughing as they were listening in on the conversations. They weren't great spies, were they, that the Soviet Union had. No wonder if it fell apart if it didn't have its shit together to stay quiet on a phone call.

I think they're using the Christopher Lee tell you I'm a Nazi murderer process. They don't care. The lead actresses, Sybil Dam. as you just said. There is a bit of the film, a slightly sexy bit, where she rips her shirt off.

It's a very charged scene, you know. But she apparently had been asked to do this in lots of films because she was very attractive and she was a bit bored of it and she said, do you know what, I think I'd like to do just one topless scene

or even one topless shot entirely in this film. Is that okay? And the BBC said, yeah, great, great, great. Anyway, she does it. Sorry, she said, I want to be limited to one. Yes, she just wants to do this once, which happened. She then turns up to the premiere of the film

where the credits, the closing sequence, of the credits, uses that shot a further 17 times for absolutely no reason. Yeah, it just has on repeat, like exposing her chest. Wow. Like a sort of sexy gift. If you give them in, they will take a while. But it's so, Mora, the director, back to him for a second, he didn't know they were

going to do that to Denning, the actress. So he actually... Because they were friends, weren't they? They were friends. And he kind of at the end of the movie, they brought in some other people to do a final edit on it and part of that edit was throwing in 17 shots of Her Topless during the credit sequence and he was really pissed off by that so he then goes on he says I want to make Howling 3 because I want to I want to fix the reputation of what this did because of that credit

sequence he was just pissed off the whole film I think a lot of rehab work on your career I don't think the credit sequence is the main problem is problematic but it's yeah so howling three sounds amazing howling three the marsupials this then Completely different. It's set in Australia, has no reoccurring characters, has no plot that is connected to anything else. In it, the humans that are transformed into the howling pouches like marsupials. Amazing. Yeah, it sounds pretty amazing.

He generally just in praise of Mora, because he's an Aussie film director, and I'd never heard of him. But his list of movies is extraordinary. I'm really obsessed with a movie that he directed called Terradactal Women from Beverly Hills. Wow. I know, right? So listen to the plot. Paleontologist Dick Chandler discovers a dinosaur egg prompting an eccentric witch doctor named Salvador Dali

to put a curse on Chandler's wife, Pixie, causing her to slowly transform into a pterodactal. After Pixie lays an egg, Dick tracks down Salvador Dali and apologizes and the curse is lifted. Now, Barry Humphreys is in this movie. It's like a proper movie. I can't wait to see that. Barry Humphreys.

Barry Humphreys is in it. There's a bit where Christopher Lee says. in Howling 2, right, there are some sort of king werewolves and queen werewolves, they cannot be killed with silver. There's an oh no moment. Oh no, what are we going to do? Then he just says they can be killed with titanium,

which although a slightly harder metal to get hold of, was very much easily available at the time. It's stunning. Is that a copyright thing with Brian Stoker's people? I've no idea. I read an interview with the director and he was really so enthue, because it got so panned,

And he's so enthusiastic about it. And everything he got asked, you would go, thank you for asking. And one of the things he said, which I liked, was in the poster, there's Sybil Danying. She's wearing these sunglasses, which obviously appear in the movie. And that came about because he said that she came along and she had conjunct of Icatus.

And they were like, what we were doing? He was like, don't worry, you're a werewolf. And a werewolves can wear sunglasses indoors if they want to. And that's all stuck through the whole film. I read that somewhere that that became very influential in the movie industry. So if you think of the Lost Boys, the vampire movies and so on, they're all wearing glasses and according to numerous people, that was a direct influence. It suddenly was cool to do it.

It's hard to imagine this film. It's just a trinket. I think it might have in the 80s. You know, Christopher Lee's in it. It was a proper release. It's part of a massive franchise. Yeah. I was just looking at monkey costumes.

Yes. Oh, yeah. And the guerrilla movies used to be a really big thing in the 20s and 30s. They were a cultural preoccupation. I suppose they are now, actually. Like King Kong, anything else? It's all leading up to King Kong. Basically, they started with normal-sized gorillas and then they worked the way up to Kong.

But we still have loads of Kong stuff now and we're still having Planet of the Age. So this is a permanent societal thing. But there was one guy called Charles Gamora, who was known as the King of the Guerrilla men in the 20s and 30s, partly because he had his own suit. So any film that needed a gorilla Get Charles Gamora on set now And he'd done a bit of He'd seen, he was very convincing in his suit

And he was the right sort of height And he was, you know, he'd been to the San Diego Zoo And sort of observed them And so he was trying to do it properly He was going method Anyway, in 30 years he was in 43 films 39 of which involved him being a gorilla Right

The others, he played two aliens, one bear and one cannibal Same suit, with bits sewn onto it Same suit. I don't know. It just sounds great. He's one called the monster and the girl, where a gorilla receives the brain of a man who is seeking revenge

because he was wrongfully executed. Right. Yeah. And the brain goes into the gorilla. That's really good. I mean, I really hope modern Hollywood is still using the, well, he's got a suit.

Andy Circus just has a great costume library. That's how Downey Jr. got Iron Man. Okay. It's time for fact number two, and that is my fact. My fact this week is that the author, Elizabeth Gaskell, died in the middle of saying, when I am dead, but only got as far as when. So how do people know? This is really interesting. We should just say very quickly, before we get into it. This is Elizabeth Gaskell, Mrs. Gaskill, as she was often known. She was an English novelist. She wrote short stories.

She was a biographer, most famously having written a book about Charlotte Bronte. Maybe we'll get on to that. Although that's certainly not like, you know, she's most famously wrote. Brilliant works of fiction. Yes, Mary Barton. Yes. She was one of our great Victorian. Yeah.

But at the time, she was the most famous for writing. Her obituary basically said, Charlotte Bronte's biographer dead. Yes. When? When, exactly. So what happened was this is 1865. She is 55 years old. She's at her home, which is a sort of secret home that she's a sort of secret home that she's

purchased. Yeah, I feel like we'll go into that. I'm just leaving some little plot moments as we go along. So she's at her house, she's sitting with her daughters, and suddenly she keels over and she dies, but she dies mid- anecdote. And we know what happened because of a Reverend called Reverend Hawks, who recounted the story, as was told to him by one of the daughters. So she was with her daughters and her son-in-law. She was telling a story, and she says, the judge said when, and then that's when she passed away. Now she was telling an anecdote. Fortunately, one of the four people there had already heard this anecdote, presumably so many times that they knew exactly what was coming next. And the line that was meant to come next was the judge said, when I'm dead, Lady Crompton

can visit Rome. A great, a classic line. Yeah, classic line. We've all trotted it out. I think you can see where she was going in the conversation because a little bit of backstory is that Justice Crompton had just died. He was her son-in-law's dad, and I think her son-in-law's present. So the guy she's talking about is the person who said, When I am dead.

So I imagine she was going on to say, so now Lucky Lady Crompton can book her flight to Rome. Because, you know, it was relevant. It's funny because he is dead, so it's got a bit of gallows humor to it. So you've sort of solved the end of the anecdote. I think that's what's happened.

Yeah. It's like Edwin Drood has finally been revealed. Thank God. How great the. to sort of not be lost on that last word. Like we should all practice our final words with someone in confidence beforehand so that if we do go mid-sentence,

I mean, I will be saying something I've already said loads of times already because I'm down to a limited stock of anecdotes now. Just people know my things. Do you think it was a bit of a letdown though when they said, well, she started by saying, and then someone went, no, no, actually she's told that several times before. Bit of a bore, actually, Lizzie.

I was whang in about the same stuff. That was probably why old people, People repeat anecdotes all the time, isn't it? Just to make sure that once they're saying their anecdote there, we know where they were going with it. Very wise. Yeah. That's very wise.

She's, has anyone... I've read Mary Barton. Thank you. I've read North and South. Thank you. I think I've read North and South. Or have you just seen the TV series? No, I'm going to be a little bit heretical.

I don't think she's all that. She's good. They're good novels. But they're very Victorian. They're a bit, you know, they haven't aged brilliantly. I think they've really have. I think she's much more radical than people. Yes.

That's what I don't like. Yeah, yeah. Mary Barton, it's a sort of a working class character and it's very much in that life which was, you know, not so much the done thing back then. I completely agree. I think, like, her and Dickens are two people who really engage with people who are having a shit old time in life

more than almost any other Victorian novelist, you know, because they're all about factory workers, the strife between bosses and labourers. Not into that, though, are you, Andy? I like reading about aristocrats with my... the social problems. That's my thing. Because she did write about that stuff.

It was really controversial, wasn't it? In her community as well, particularly, where she was representing these characters. Because I believe I actually haven't read any of her stuff. But it sounds as if the other writers of the time who were in the same field. So Bronte, a friend of hers, Austin, they would write about a period slightly gone, whereas she was writing in the present. So that was a bit more controversial. And there's a few books.

She had one book called Ruth, which, was very controversial and they actually burnt copies in her local church. Yes, members of her own church. Yeah, which is out. Why did they do that? Because it was a borge. It's about a fallen woman. Oh, yes, they shouldn't be about it.

And it has a threesome scene, actually. Wolves dressed as gorillas. That's what fallen women do. Gaskell wasn't allowed into her husband's library. He had to get books out for her. It's very weird. Really? Local library, not like his personal.

Like, no, not his, she was allowed, she was allowed the run of the house. at home. But no, he was a member of a library. Like Bluebeard. What's that? You know the tale of Bluebeard where he marries this young woman and he says you can go in any room you like except for this one. You're talking about Beauty and the Beast?

No, I'm not talking about Bluebeard. Are you talking to the pirate? No, everybody. Kurt Vonnegut novel? No, it's a very famous tale that none of you have heard of. I know what's in the room, but you say it, you say it, what's in the room? So she finally, you know, because he keeps going away So she's wandering around all these rooms and she gets some patience

because I just want to know what's in the mystery room. So she uses the skeleton key. I think it's the skeleton. I may have maybe abolish that. And she opens it and inside are all the dead bodies of his previous wives.

Oh. Don't draw attention to it, you idiotic man. But then he comes back and he goes, oh dear, looks like I'm going to have to kill you too because you opened. Another notch in a skeleton key. Yes. Another notch in the skeleton key.

Yes, it's a funny old story, isn't it? Where's it from? Is it like, is it an author we know? Is it like almost like a folk tale? No, it's very old. It's a very old tale. Right, okay. That wasn't the case in Gaskell's husband's library as far as I know.

Well, you don't know because no one went in there. That's true. But the thing about her, I think, which kind of annoys people or bores them is that she actually was really normal. And the thing that's quite nice by her is that she just basically had a really happy life. She was quite conventional in how she lived, you know? She married this vicar. Wait, or was she? Or do you know the hidden history of her orgies?

Her warehouse. Well, wasn't there a rumour going around when she died that she and her husband were separated? And that's why she was in the separate house. Well, I do think that that's got weight. So I'm glad other people who aren't gossips like me have said it. Because I'm not a gossip. I only bring the fact. You're an intellectual.

So separate house. She bought her own house. The house she dies in. Yes. Yeah, without telling her husband. And the story is that it was a surprise for her husband, like a retirement home. Oh, we're going to move to the country, this lovely mansion. And she was in the house with all her daughters saying, isn't Daddy going to be delighted?

So all the children are there as well? Yes, all the kids are there. Which is why slightly the story suggests that that is what was going on. But is he at home at the breakfast table at house? I think it's very quiet this morning, isn't it? God, they're sleeping in today. I bet they were separated. Do you reckon?

Yeah, I think so. Or it was a secret death house. Sorry? She thought, my time is up. I like how animals like to go and, you know, die under a log or something. She thought I'm going to die in a house that's not my own. God, it's a huge fath to buy a full house, isn't it? Yeah, but houses were cheaper then.

I think it was probably easier to do. A few years ago, a university got a collection of letters that were written by someone who was friends with Elizabeth Gaskell and they were having correspondence. And in it, Gaskell predicted her death that year. year. She said to her, I'm not going to make it to the end of the year. So I better buy a house. But perhaps she didn't know that she was doing so well. Well, she could sense it. There is an argument in Gaskell's life. So the house, the secret house that she bought was in Alton in Hampshire, which is where Jane Austen lived for the last years of her life.

And Alton Towers? Is that there? No, it's in a completely different place. It's hundreds of miles away. But Gaskell grew up in Stratford-upon-Avon. home of Shakespeare So is this a layline You guys weren't quick enough So is this an argument for laylines In terms of literary creativity?

There's certainly something going on isn't there? Certainly I think Do you know she gave us the word squiffy To mean drunk? Really? Oh brilliant I know I love that fact

I love the sound of her I have to say as in when you read about her social life There is this comparison I think with Dickens where Dickens was partying all the time He was everywhere. He went around the world. That's exactly what Gaskell did in a time where it felt like that would have been much harder. She was a mother of how many children did she have in total?

Five? She was pregnant seven times. A couple of the children didn't live. Okay, right. Five daughters and one son, yes, which is quite a lot. That is, yeah. She was writing, she wrote, God, quite a few novels, a lot of short stories, a biography. She traveled the world.

She was constantly said to be dancing half the night at party. She was a real socialite. I think she sounds really fun. I think you would have gotten along with her very well. It feels like it. It feels like it. She even wrote one of her novels while she was staying with Florence Nightingale.

Like she just touches all these little elements of the past, which I really love. She sounds like someone who deserves to have been let in the library. Yeah. I don't know though. You know, it's a slippery slope, isn't it? I think she should have been allowed in that library.

You let them in libraries one day, you know, the next day. Just go in there willy nilly. Yeah, exactly. I have another theory about her that I think we should spread this gossip. Her brother John, And you read about him He was about seven years older than her So she had her mom died when she was one

And she was sent to live with an aunt Who she loved and she lived in this very female-dominated Community. It was all women But she did have this older brother Who still live with her dad And they wrote to each other a lot And he was really fond of her And then he joined the Merchant Navy

And they kept writing to each other And then he just vanishes And everyone says he was either abducted by pirates In India or his ship sank But she, after writing the book The year, she's 17? Yeah. Never.

Blue beard, yes, kidnapped. A blue beard and black beard, brothers or friends, they must know each other. They're naughty cousins. So, yes, suspicious. And she never mentioned it. She never mentioned him to her kids except to say, oh, I don't really remember him. Really? Of course you'd remember him.

Too painful? Well, I don't know. What's your theory? You seem to be driving at. something here, Anna. I think... Is he in the library? His corpse was on the shelves.

I think maybe he ran away with like an Indian lady and told only her and she could never tell anyone. That's a good theory. Yeah, I like that. Just on people who wrote anonymously. Because Gaskell was always, by a lady, would appear on her title pages. I think she was Mrs. Gaskell later in her career. But I didn't really realise how common this was.

So between 1750 and 1790, 80% of all... novels did not list an author on the title page. Male and female writers, you know, it just wasn't a thing. For women it was because it was, you know, it was a bit risque to be writing a novel. It was too similar to prostitution, which, I mean, that was genuinely the theory I read. But by a lady was a good phrase to use because it showed that the author was someone of a decent class, you know. So Jane Austen was by a lady and then later on by the same lady who brought you sense and sensibility. I was genuinely that.

and she never saw her own name on a title page, Jane Austen, which is kind of tragic. Yeah, it's sad. Do you think other books at the time were written by a different lady? Not that lady. I can't believe it's not a lady. But all of it, like Trist from Shandy, Byron stuff, Jonathan Swift, it's all anonymous. Really?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I suppose the novel was quite new then, wasn't it? Maybe it was still a bit like, oh, this might not go down very well in history. It was risky, definitely. And it was quite fun as well. So Jonathan Swift, he sent his stuff. to a publisher via someone else, so there was no way of tracing it back to him.

Oh, really? Yeah, yeah. And then when the printer said, look, who is the author of Gulliver's Travels? Swift and his friend Alexander Pope, they pretended, I don't know who wrote this. They would even write letters to each other privately saying, who wrote this Gulliver's Travels book?

Completely between themselves. Yeah. It's so funny. It was a bit of a game. But was there a royalty thing that they would still have in place? Yeah, I guess you could be paid anonymously quite easily at the time. There's just one person who's called like Anna Lady

who's just funneling all the money accidentally sent her. Gaskell obviously gave all her money to her husband at first. In fact, I think it went to him automatically because married women weren't allowed to earn money. Really don't approve of this husband, I'll tell you. He came in from his library. Apparently it was very affectionate.

I was listening to a... And that's why she bought a secret house. I think it was a little joke He was the one who suggested she write To get over the death of her one-year-old son Who had very sadly died And he said, As to help you with grieving,

write a novel, Probably not suspecting she was going to become a world-famous novelist. And yes, when she got paid, it went straight to him And he sort of jocally pocketed it Saying, well, you know, women shouldn't be earning Or in control of the purse strings,

should they? I'll give you some pocket money. But I think it was all meant... What's he saying that? All mentioned jest. It was all meant in jest. It was a different time. It's so hard to know when it's written, isn't it?

You didn't know the tone. Yeah, they needed more emojis, I think. There you go. How much of history would be different if emojis existed? I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat. Winky, finkie. Okay, it is time for fact number three, and that is Anna. My fact this week is that one of Ovid's tips for seducing a woman you fancied was to

pretend you'd seen dust on her cleavage and then go to brush it off. It's a great line, isn't it? Oh, you've got a very dusty cleavage. It's what every woman wants to hear. Anna, when you say go to brush it off, follow through and actually brush it off? Follow through, yes. So these were his exact words. Go to and then complete the brush. Do you think it's like an updated thing of the, no, sorry, a downdated thing.

Because now it's if you've got an eyelash on your cheek, isn't it? And then the man like removes the eyelash. You know this man. Come on. I have a pocket full of eyelashes that I try and suckling sprinkle onto people's cheeks. Yeah, it's true. Absolutely classic. Absolutely classic. Have you had that tried on you?

Does it work? You've got an eyelash on your... And then they lift it off your face. What harm is that eyelash doing there? Make a wish. So maybe it's the same. It was like, take you get out, you've got some dust on your cleavage. And then they hold it out and go make a wish.

Blown in like a dandelion. Yes. I think this book of Ovis might contain a lot of things that you guys could try out and I'd love to hear the results. So this is a book called Ars Amatoria and Ovid was Roman writer. He wrote this in year 2 AD.

It got in early. Box fresh. Got in early. So a couple of millennia ago. His exact words were, as often happens, if perchance a little dust should fall on the bosom of the fair,

it must be brushed off with your fingers and if there should be no dust, still brush off that none. It would work for me. I'd like it. He has so much good stuff in there. Oh, he also said, let it be your object to please the husband of the fair one that you fancy. I suppose we're assuming. Oh, this is naughty.

Because once made a friend, he will be more serviceable for your designs. So I think, you know, you'll get invitations to the house a little bit more. Not like come in and have a hairy threesomes. No. No, he did specify no bad gorilla costumes and no threesomes. I mean, he was a very risque writer at the time. He was, what's the word? He was not evicted.

He was deported. Yeah. He was banned. Exiled. Exiled to the worst place in the world at the time he claimed. Seems to have been a completely normal city in modern day Romania. But compared with Rome, I guess it was. rubbish. And the last

10 years of his life, he spent there writing the Tristiye, which were basically sad letters saying, please can I come back to Rome, to everyone he knew in Rome, including the Emperor. But I think he was evicted because he was quite a libidinous, quite a licentious writer, lots of sexy stuff in the Ars Amatoria, lots of love

poetry, but it's quite mysterious why he was actually kicked out. Yeah, we don't know. No one knows for sure. There might have been a scandal involving the daughter of the Emperor, Augustus. Yeah, Julia, I think. Maybe it was It might have been a general back-to-basics campaign that Augustus was running because Rome was getting a little bit CD and Augustus didn't really like that.

And he was trying to raise public morals a bit and Ovid was set out there saying, get dust in, you know, all of that. So it's really unclear why he was... Get dust in. Bang, and the dirt is gone. Man, throw some dust on these ladies. So there were three volumes of this book, right? The Art of Love.

First one which teaches the reader how to seduce a woman. The second one then is, okay, okay, you've got her. Now, how do you continue to seduce her, which is very interesting. And then the third one is how for women, so there must have been feedback going, hey, this is all very man-based. Can we get the opposite version? So he wrote how a woman can seduce a man. But the fourth volume, which is a separate book, is the most exciting one.

The marsupials. Yeah, love it. Develop a pouch in your front. Remedia Amoras. This is the book of how, if it's unrequited love, do you start? Stop loving a person. What a great idea for a book. It's a terrific sequel.

It's fantastic. The publishers must have been absolutely chuffed. It's got great advice on it as well, the remedia. There's join the army. Become a lawyer. Become a farmer. Get a hobby. How is this supposed to get you out of unrequited love?

I think it's when you're heartbroken. It's how to get over it. It's distraction. It's not like my dad gave me some advice once when I was a teenager and I was very heartbroken over a boy who did not love me back. And my dad said, just picture him on the loo. Oh, wow. Really?

I can see that going in there. Well, there is a similar-ish thing. Did it work? No, and I said to dad, because he said, I was in love with Sarah, I can't remember her, this girl he was in love with him when he was a teenager. And he said, I. What a shame we can't give her a shout out, right? Cleveland.

Sarah Cleveland. Oh, thank God, great. Now we're legally secure. Yep. So I was in love with Sarah Cleveland. And I would picture her on the loo to get me over her. And I said, did it work? And he went, no.

Right. If anything, I developed a weird fetish that has dawned my life ever since. Well, okay. Well, Ovid wrote, maybe this would have worked alternatively. And this is about if you're a man and you've had your heartbroken by a woman, go and see her unannounced, right, early in the morning. When she hasn't got her makeup on. She hasn't got her makeup on.

And you'll be reminded. She's got too much dust on her clean edge. I need a broom to get that off love. Yeah, he would, he also the classic kind of like teenage movie techniques, burn all the items that are associated with them. So sit in with a fire and throw the letters in, the love letters. No way. The bits of clothing or whatever has been left over in your house.

Do that. But what a great book. What a, what a forward-thinking book. He had to, yes, there are some ropey bits of it. Maybe it doesn't stand up to a lot of feminism. But he was very pro-makeup, actually. He wrote a whole separate book on wine. women should wear makeup because there was a lot of pushback in society at the time about how

women were overdressing their faces with makeup. Augustus, back to basics. Let's take off that thick slap. Exactly. And he was like, no, natural beauty. Have you seen their natural faces underneath? And that's also a good read. Lots of slap dusty bums.

He gets quoted a lot as a kind of proto- pick-up artist. Yeah. And there was a brief trend when that... Neil Strauss, the game. Sort of grim thing of pickup artistry

was doing a thing. A lot of like proto-brose were saying you gotta read Ovid. In much the same way that they were all saying you've got to read Sun Tzu's The Art of War.

Are you reading that? Are you really? Are you actually reading Marcus Aurelius' meditations? Are you? It did actually really remind me of that. I didn't realize people are connected those.

It reminded me of that game mentality. A lot of his advice is quite sort of modern. Like when he says how you should befriend the ladies' maid. Yes. And that's how to get in there. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. So it is a bit like that. Yeah. I mean, he also does that befriending a ladies' maid. What kind of life do you lead, Rudy? So modern. That is what you do.

But one of the people who's written loads about this is a woman called Donna Zuckerberg, who is a classicist. And she's written a book called Classics Beyond the Manosphere, all about this. And she is an interesting person. And she's the only Zuckerberg's sibling not to have become a tech titan. Wow. Yeah, she's sister of Mark. And there are four Zuckerbergs.

And, yeah. Well, she wrote a book as well as the one that you were talking about called Not All Dead White Men. And the idea was she was talking about how the sort of alt-right of America have really harnessed all the Roman ideas and so on. And of it is very much connected to the Neil Strauss, the game pickup artist movement that's going on. and she wants to keep showing the connection between those two things. And it's so interesting that she is Mark Zuckerberg's sister because the very first thing that he did was a site called FaceMash where you got students who went to Harvard University,

both women, their pictures, which he hacked off a system, and you ranked who you thought was hotter. That was the original Facebook, basically. And so she must have been horrified by that and decided to dedicate her life to showing what a misogynistic move that was by her brother. Sounds like they have parted ways. Well, so she's saying Ovid was a misogynist and so of these guys.

She's not necessarily. She's sort of saying that, as Andy was saying before, it's that thing of using an old historical idea to give legitimacy to why you're... We can't all blame the fact that men keep befriending my maid. On Ovid. A lot of it does obviously read quite sleazy, but a lot of it doesn't. You know, he says, send very eloquent love notes. Cry in front of your loved one.

I don't recall seeing Andrew. saying you've got to be able to cry in front of her. You know, it's not, it is a bit different. But what's also different in which Donna Zuckerberg writes about in her book is that it was actually, it was quite a lot more dangerous in the times, the advice that he was giving because when he was saying things like befriend the husband of the person you're fancying, there was death penalties back in the day for things like if you were having a child

out of wedlock, if you were, well, it was dangerous. There would be certain things that you weren't allowed to do that in this day and age, you'd get away as sort of just, it's bad manners. But is that how you think the affair is going to go down down? Yeah. That's Johnny Bell. No, but yeah, so she points out that the risk level was much higher back then. Right.

If you were employing these tactics and they worked on certain women in society. Yeah. Yeah. And he suffered the pay the price because he suffered relegatio. He did. That was the official term for the exile that he was put through. And he died out in... Died out there.

Renegatio was the mildest form of exile. What I want to know is when he... died, was he with somebody? Did he find love? Or did he die in exile alone? His last word was when? And sadly, we don't know the answer. No, he died very unhappy.

The last 10 years he was writing these Tristii letters. And it was, you know, his book had been banned from libraries. And he said, look, it's completely awful out here in modern day Romania. He said, you know, the wine freezes in the jars and the ice is so thick on the black sea, The dolphins can't even jump through the water, you know, really horrible. Poor guy. But he was constantly writing poems to his friends and to the emperor and to his wife, probably in that order, to defend his cause.

I'm really sorry about all the licentia stuff. I can change and I will change and create pity for himself and it did not work. That's so sad. Reminds me a bit of, you know how John Dunn used to write lots of sexy poems? And then in his later life, he did lots of like, no, all his poems were like, no. God, God. They were all, that was the kind of vibe. Right.

I didn't know he's got more like that. I feel like I've read more the sexy stuff. Yeah, his only ones are all sexy. And then the later ones are all more self-hating. God, forgive me. For my sexy past. God, we all turn into such balls, don't it? It's like Tolstoy.

No one ever stays the fun playboy slash playgirl. Yeah, it's very sad. Bit of a good update on Ovid. I do have a bit of good news about it. So rare you do that sentence. Is this breaking news? Has this just come in? It's recent because of its exile was eventually revoked in 2017

when Rome's city council, who were not what they once were, I suspect, voted to repair the serious wrong that he had suffered and say his exile was now officially ended. Was he like the night in Indiana Jones 3? He came back. He came back. You decided, wisely. Okay, it is time for our final fact of the show, and that is Andy.

My fact is that the largest collection of contemporary South African art in the world is in Nando's. Which branch? Every branch. No, no, I'm joking. The Manchester, Salford Keys one. It's nice. Yeah, yeah. That's a good one.

Yeah, and it's big. So there was a terrific piece in The Guardian recently about Nando's collection of modern South African art. Nando's is a chicken restaurant for anyone who doesn't know. I don't know, we have American listeners, do you have Nandoes? Don't they have Nandoes? Don't they have Nandoes? I think Nandoes everywhere. I think Nandoz is global, yeah. Yeah.

But it's the biggest here, I think it's worth explaining. I've only been to one. Here is the highest ever peri, Perry Penetration on the planet, I think, in this country. You've only ever been to one Nandoz. With you guys, in fact, yeah. Oh, on tour? Which one was it? Was it the one at the Salford? It was the one at Salford, yeah.

And I only went for the art. Would you like anything, madam? Just a tour of your 70s pieces, please, yeah. Seriously, you've only been to Nando's once in your life. Yeah, I don't really like dry chicken. Wow, it is quite dry chicken. It's dry. But he says they're in more than 20 countries, Nando's.

I actually thought it'd be more than that, you know. Yeah. It's not that much, isn't it, really, in the grand scheme of countries. It depends on the countries. Yeah, if you're only in Tuvalu, Vanuatu. Yeah. Then you're doing something wrong in your marketing, I think. Yeah.

So I don't know if they're in the USA, but yeah, they've got about 1,200 restaurants. And across those restaurants, they own 32,000 odd pieces of art. And they buy another couple of thousand every year. And it's the main... Seems to be the main thing keeping the South African contemporary art market going. Well, it's really nice. They really support artists. They have a thing called the Creative Block Program

where they basically hand out wooden blocks for it to be drawn on. So it's original commissions as well. And they have programs where they look after artists. I don't know what the rest of the business is like. Sorry, they like send wooden blocks to South Africans. and say, draw something on this and send it back to us. Well, two artists who are on the scheme. Like, they run all these schemes for young artists.

And they run a thing where it's an apprenticeship program where they take disadvantaged young people who don't have skills and they train them up over three years to become mosaicists or ceramicists. Oh, wow. It's quite cool. Yeah. And then obviously you get skills. So, yeah.

So Nando's are doing something quite good at. I don't know many other restaurants that, or any other restaurants that do this. Does Pizza Express have a... But we didn't know this about now. Pisa Express might have the largest collection of statues in the world. We don't know. They also do a mentorship scheme, which is basically for furniture, lighting designers. They have a lot of this stuff.

The only one that I can think of that does a similar kind of scheme is whole foods, globally, in every whole foods, they hire someone who is the artist in store. So when you go into a whole foods, you might see a lot of different art. You might see a lot of different like paper mashay sculptures around the mushrooms. They might have a big mushroom. That's one person who's doing it. it bespoke for the Whole Foods as part of the payroll. And they're always sculptures of the food?

No, no, like, whatever it is, whatever they decide to do as the resident artist of Whole Foods, they get to do. I thought you meant it was like, you know, in Japan when they show sushi, they have sushi models outside restaurants. It's not like that. You're like carrots and you've got carrots. There'll be signs, it will be posters, it'll be whatever they want to do. But that's their job. They're the Whole Foods artist.

Yeah. I was quite slow on the uptake on that. I was thinking, what are they working behind the counter? It's like, well, let's take an artist and get them giving out fish. Give them a proper career. It's something that will have some money. We're buying this salmon, this broccoli, and I'd like a sketch of me, please, while you ring it up. Domino's Pizza.

Do they have corporate art? Well, they have a really close link to Frank Lloyd Wright. Like, probably the most famous architects, 20th century American architects, one of them, and, like, you know, had all these utopian visions of what you wanted to do with this architecture. And the founder of Domino's Pizza, this chap called Thomas Monaghan. and he bloody loved Frank Lloyd Wright as in the 60s when he founded him and he was responsible in the 80s

for Frank Lloyd Wright's works like his furnishings and his decorative art going up in price single-handedly because he just spent millions Did Frank design the little table that goes inside the pizza box? I don't understand so what was Frank doing to the pizzas?

Ah so it was a side job just to fund the architecture I don't think Frank gave a shit about pizzas But I think he was dead by this point. So this is getting more tenuous by the moment. No, no, because the whole of Domino's Pizza is based around Frank Lloyd Wright architecture. So its centre of operations is a place called Domino's Farms. It's World HQ.

And the whole building is meant to imitate Frank Lloyd Wright's Prairie-style buildings. Because the founder of Domino's is so obsessed with him. And there's a whole section in it, which is a gallery, an exhibition of Frank Lloyd Wright artworks, artworks, which he's bought up. He spent more on Frank Lloyd-Rite artwork than anyone else in the world. Rosie, do you collect art? Have you got any pieces in your house? No.

Not yet. Okay. But I might from this Frank man. Again, I don't know if he's still available to buy from. Are you anando's fan? So, like you, I find the chicken a bit dry. Also, is it free range? I don't know if the chicken's free range, is it?

It's really good. And if I have battery chicken, I get chicken guilt. Okay. But it is an interesting place in general because, well, it started in 1987, as did I. That is interesting. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, I feel an affinity with them. But there is this big thing of the Nando's black card.

And I know I'm looking at three people who've all got one, which means you have free Nando's anytime, any place. Ever and ever. Yeah. My buddy, Tom Davis, had it. Do you know Big Tom? Yes. Tom and I used to go almost every day with his black card in Kentish Town. You've got to use one of the black cards.

Many times. And why was he given one? Because the person I know who had one was a radio host who was cool at the time. It's just for being famous. Tom wasn't famous at the time. How did he get one then? Tom called up Nando's and he said, I'm interested in the black card. And then he got called up to the chicken council.

And he had to present his case. He only had to present his case for why he wanted it. Who sits on the chicken council? That's a, we don't know. That's like the library. We don't know what's going on. Are they in chicken suits? Well, they wanted chicken suits, but they only had gorilla suits at the time.

Do you know anyone who has the disheum dice? You heard about the disheum dice? So, Ishaan Akbar has the disheum dice. And what it is, is at the end, you throw the dice. and if it lands, if you get two sixes, then you get to get the whole meal for free. No way. And what do you have to do to get the dishroom dice?

I don't know. Yes, because that feels like a relatively low risk financial investment for them. Send a couple of plastic dice out of some influencers and they have a one in 36 chance to give them meal for free. But I went and he rolled and we'd ordered so much food and he got it if we got it all for free and they were so. He got two sixes. I think they were really upset because they looked like,

like they didn't even know. Oh my good. I mean, yeah. Because you can get them weighted. You can get those. That's what I would do. I would go off and have them waited so that no matter what they land on six. Maybe you can't do that because their special dish you may dives.

They must be designed to look like dissure. But if you pay just a few thousand pounds to a dice crafter, he'll be able to make you two double six every time. But then that'll go on the spreadsheet at Dissue MageQ. Well, you tell your mate, I know the world leading dice. he makes the weighted dices. He does them for people like get out.

Dan, I thought you were just bullshitting then when you were saying with such authority you know you can get any dice you like weighted. I had drinks with him with the world leading... You're giving away ground secrets? Are you supposed to tell us? We can redact that in the... He's very good friends with my friend

who's the Loch Ness Monster Hunter and we had drinks on Locknets and he told us all about the dice and showed us. Anyway, that's an incredible fact about Dishuam. Yeah, that's terrific. That's an incredible fact of yours about Tom because Nandoes insist that the only rule is they never give their black card to anyone who asked for it. They say it's just if you're famous.

But how wonderful, before this, I didn't even know there was a chicken committee. So you think what are the chicken committee doing the rest of the year? It's water wall to wall. They're pecking. They're walking. I was looking at some logo stuff, corporate art logos. Actually, do you guys know slash remember? but I don't know if any of you are old enough. Rosie, don't know how old you are.

You could be 60. And if so, you might remember the time when the Starbucks logo was naked. Oh. So you know, she has hair of her breast now. She used to have tits out. Oh, naked. Stop it, did she?

I'm going to have to Google this right now. Yeah, because she's a mermaid, right? Was she? Yeah, yeah, she's a mermaid, although she has two tails, so it's quite an unconventional mermaid. Oh, look, there she is. She's actually quite unattractive and frumpy.

She's very unattractive. I don't want to judge her. I'll judge her. This is a 15th century drawing of a siren though, and that was the Starbucks logo. She looks like your drunk uncle at a wedding. Wow. Yeah. She does look drunk because she looks like she's saying, I've caught these two fish and doesn't realize she's holding her own lower body.

Oh, that's classic. Yeah. Wow. So for two women who are very positive about Mrs. Gaskell, it's not universal, you know, sisterhood. This is not what a feminist looks like. I don't know. They're both in agreement, though. At least as consistency.

You just got to go with us. That's what true feminism looks like. So that was the Starbucks logo, a weird 15th century... Why did they change it? Well, it is just an upgrade, isn't it? Yeah, it's a Nordic woodcut. She is, yeah, boobs out and bits of tail in each hand. She looks more like she's holding fish now

because you can't see the bottom of her tail. So if you look at the Starbucks logo, it looks like she's just holding two dead fish. Right. It's weird because I don't think they sell anything with fish. They don't sell anything fish related. No, they do. They do the tuna macchiato.

It's lovely. It's really nice. That's right. So, was it controversial because she agreed to the one wood cut, but then they put her on all of the cups and all of the... Yeah, exactly. Yeah, right. Just to tie together this with The Howling,

I didn't spot any artworks on display in Howling 2. Right. But it's really hard to use original art in films. Like, the world of image rights has tightened up a lot lately. You can't just, if you want to show the Mona Lisa or Girl with a Pearl Earring or whatever, you can't just stick a print in a frame and pretend in the film. Because artistic estates get a bit funny about that and right for owners and all of this. So lots of times when they make a film which features art,

or they want it to include really famous art, they take weeks and weeks making replicas. And then the estate of the artist insists that the artwork is destroyed, that the filmmakers record and film the destruction of the artwork, and then send them the evidence of the fake artwork being destroyed. That's so interesting because you would figure... You'd figure that would go on a memorabilia market as opposed to, you know, being passed off as a...

I don't know what they're worried about. It might be passing off, yeah. There was a film about Baskillat in 1996 and the estate asked for so much money to use Baskiette images that they said, well, we can't make the film. So instead they just knocked up a load of Baskiet style artwork. But then they had to have a lawyer look at all of the artworks

and say, that's fine, that's too close to actual Baskiat. Can't use that. So all of that is sort of artist approved. Has any film producer ever experimented when they get that initial rejection with saying, okay, well instead we'll draw a load of badly sketched cock and balls, claim that as Baskiat and see what the estate has to say about that. I don't think that was a strong position.

You'd be a great film producer. You'd be like really balser. That doesn't work for the movie. It's a bluff. It's a bluff. In the Da Vinci Code, if the Mona Lisa looks like... It's like a cock and balls. You've got to hope that they bring first.

Otherwise you're stuck with the weird film. Who's going to look more stupid? I don't know. I don't know. Okay, that's it. That is all of our facts. Thank you so much for listening. If you'd like to get in contact

with any of us about the things that we have said over the course of this podcast, we can be found on our various social media accounts. I'm on at Shriverland on Instagram. Andy? I'm at Andrew Hunter M on Bleaske. Are you on social media? Oh, yes, I am.

At Rosie is a halt on Instagram. and various others. It sounds rude, but it's not. It's not rude. It's not rude. It's just the way I delivered it. And Anna, if they want to get to us as a group. You can get us on Instagram at No Such Thing as a Fish or Twitter at No Such Thing or podcast at QI.com is the email address.

Yeah. And Rosie, if they want to find out anything else about what you're up to, is there anywhere else they should be checking out? Check out my podcast, nonsensored, which is very funny. Well, do check that out. You can also go to our website. No Such Thing Asafish.com. All of our previous episodes are up there.

There's also links to a live show that we're doing later this year in Sheffield as part of the Crossed Wires Festival. That's going to be really exciting. There's also bits of merchandise. And there is a link to our secret club, club fish, where we have bonus episodes that go up all the time. Do check that out. Otherwise, just come back next week. We will be back with another episode. We will see you then.

Goodbye.