No Such Thing As A Fish - No Such Thing As An Inside-Out Dolphin

Episode Date: June 13, 2024

Anna, Andrew, James and Helen Scales discuss curious cephalopods, destitute decapods, parky penguins, and munificent midlanders. 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 everyone, welcome to this week's episode of No Such Thing as a Fish, where we were joined by a special guest, and that was Helen Scales. Now, if you don't know Helen, she is a marine biologist, a writer, a broadcaster. We've known her for many, many years. She's so funny, so interesting. She loves her subject so much. Her books are absolutely great. The first one that she wrote was called Spirals in Time. I think that was the first one, which was all about shells and the history of shells. and her most recent one is called What the Wild Sea Can Be. And it is basically a look at the future of the oceans, which you might think is quite negative

because of all the news stories that are going around. But Helen, as is her want, is very positive about what the future might be and how we can save the world. If you'd like to get her books, obviously they're available from all the usual places. But if you go to helenskales.com, you can visit her shop,

related to the online booksellers bookshop, and if you go there, then all her commissions will go to the charity Sea Changes, so you'll help save the Sea as well as learning about the sea. There's also details on her website about a couple of shows she's doing to promote the book, so make sure you have a look of that if you like what you hear in this episode, and I know that you will. One more thing to say, you know we have a tour coming up. There are still tickets for most of the UK dates,

and a couple of the Australia dates left for that. So do get your tickets ASAP. And the people of Sydney and London do go back to no such things and fish.com forward slash live because there are details of new dates on there. So if you missed out on tickets to Sydney or London, then fear not because we have put some more dates on. Okay, that's it.

That's all I have to say this week. So really all there is left to say is on with the podcast. So let's say it. On with the podcast. And welcome to another episode of No Such Thing as a Fish, a weekly podcast coming to you from the QI offices in Hoban. My name is Anna Tashinsky and I'm sitting here with Andrew Hunter Murray, James Harkin, and extra special guest today, Helen Scales. And we have gathered around our microphones with our four favourite facts from the last seven days. So, in no particular order, here we go.

starting with Helen My fact is you can play Peekaboo with an octopus Wow that sounds like fun I think it was Peekaboo I'm not I'm that's what I was doing

Because you've done this Yeah Yeah Personal facts Exactly exactly How did peekaboo work Because the game is quite loose Rules-wise

I think so Yeah I mean maybe it was hide and seek No I think it was Peacboo So basically I was coming back from a free dive

or a snorkel if I want to make it sound not as cool, but I'll say free diet because that does sound cool. And I was literally just a couple of feet from the beach and the water was like knee high and I looked down, I was floating and I looked down and there was an octopus

behind a rock and I was like, awesome because I love octopuses and I see them occasionally but it's definitely a special thing to see. Where were you in the world? Oh, sorry. I was in Brittany in France. Very nice.

Yes. So there was this octopus and I was like, awesome, okay, fantastic. And then generally when I see exciting animals like that, You have to be like just looking as much as possible because any second now it's going to just fuck off, right? And you're left with like, oh, that was a lovely encounter,

but it lasted like seconds. But this one didn't move. And I was just hanging out with it. And how big are we talking? I mean, in my mind, it was like maybe a small melon-sized, I think, kind of thing. Okay, so first off, I did the My Octopus Teacher touching thing. Have you seen my Octopus teacher? No, no, not so.

There's a bit basically where if you put your hand out, an octopus will reach out and touch you with it. So it's like God and Adam in the Michelangelo but God is an octopus? Yeah, because I know they do do that. Basically, they're tasting you to see what you are because their suckers are really sensitive and they can have you like taste the chemicals and stuff.

So I put my hand out and it did, like put its little arm out and this tiny and thin at the end and it was like, never put it touched me and I was like, oh, that was amazing. And then so we did that and I was like, okay, so what else can I do with this octopus, you know, well, it's got my... Kick it up a notch. So I was like, well, what if I just hide it from it?

maybe you'll try and come and find me. Wow. And so I moved out of its line of sight so that it couldn't see me. And it was just like peered around the rock. You know, it was definitely like, where have you gone? You're over there. And I'm like, no, you go. But I just really had this sense of something a bit more intelligent

and it's thinking about you and it's interacting with you. And it was just really a really cool moment. So it didn't then hide from you or anything like that? No, it didn't hide from me. Then I think at that point I was like, I'm getting really cold. I need to get out. Can you do something a bit more interesting than to sit there?

And so I think I was like, I'm going to get a bit closer. And at that point it was like, no. And it went off and changed. You know, you hear about how octopus has changed colour and texture and stuff. And it really did. It had been like pale and smooth. And then instantly it turned like really angry red and very bumpy. And I was like, oh, wow.

Sorry. Are the bumps real? Yeah, yeah. So their skin... It's not just that it looks bumpy. Yeah, yeah. So their skin has like loads of little muscles and they can pull up and make little like warts and little bumps and then they can flatten themselves out.

And change the colour is also muscles too. They have these like bubbles of pigment which can open and close and they can change their colour. It's like pixels basically. I've knew that's how they changed their colour. I just sort of assumed that they... I didn't assume anything. I didn't really think about it, did you?

No, because he wouldn't really. Just like the way that you blush maybe, they might just change colour. They have layers in the skin. I can't blush loads of different colours. Like I could blush blue if I was on command. That would be like a really cool thing to do with like GM, right? just to like give ourselves chromatophores. Like that's what they're going to in alt-fuses.

That would be good. It'd be easier for those, you know, those parties where you have to go in a colour, like if you're available, you wear green. Oh, you all swingers parties. It's not always easy to find an amber shirt. They definitely do seem to be animals where you can have a bit of a relationship.

I think so, yeah. I mean, I'm not going to say I made friends with it, but I just felt like, for a moment, we had a bit of a play. And that was cool. I mean, I haven't ever played with a crab, for instance. That's never really worked out or a big. Yeah, the crabs just don't go for the peek-a-b. Well, sometimes, though, octopuses don't want to befriend. Like, they seem to have such personalities that they're discerning about who they like.

There was a person who worked in a New England aquarium who, one of the octopuses there, just completely took against him and used to squirt him in the room whenever he walked in, just absolutely hated him. And then I think he left and did a degree or something, left the university. And he came back, and immediately the octopus was like, no, Barry. again and went to him again. Yeah, they are a bit moody like that.

I've heard stories about octopuses, being given food they don't like and just being like this and they hold it up to the person and go like, uh-uh, see what I'm going to do with this? And they swim across to the other side of the tank and stuff it in the drain and be like, no. Wow. That's where that's going.

Like a toddler, yeah, basically. I imagine there are all those sorts of studies of like intelligence that are about that kind of level of... I reckon, although toddlers can't play hide and seek. And they not? No, no, no. Because they just think you're not there when you're lazy eyes.

They did a study where they, gave a toddler a doll and they put a blindfold on the doll and the toddler thought that they couldn't see it. Wait, they thought that the doll couldn't see the toddler. Yeah. But the doll caught to the toddler either way. They thought that the toddler thought the doll had gone invisible. The doll had gone invisible because they don't think that. Because I feel like I've heard that kind of thing and obviously the study was done.

But I've heard that kind of thing where they think if you clover your eyes and you've gone. But when you do it with kids, they don't think you disappear. I literally did it yesterday and it worked. Could you? Yeah, yeah. With your kids? What? So they just think, but they can see your body?

I said to her, I said, look at me, that took a while. I guess she doesn't really do what I tell her. But then eventually she looked at me and I covered my eyes and I said, can you see me? And she said, no. Does that mean that she thinks she can't see you though? Or that she thinks the thing to say in this game is no. Well, because... It feels like if you've vanished, then children would be like, what the hell does happen?

But the other evidence is that if you play hide-and-seek with a child, if they cover their eyes, they think you can't see them. Just in the middle of the room, eyes closed. I'm hiding. It's great. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

The really interesting thing is it works for voices as well apparently. Although I tried this with my daughter and it didn't work. But apparently there was a study

where experimenters put their hands over their ears and said to the child, can you hear me? And the child said, no, I can't hear you. No, I did try this and it didn't work with my daughter.

I'm not sure if that means she's too smart or not smart enough. But if you put on a different voice, will she think that, for example, Bruce Forsythe is in the room? And she's like,

nice to see you. I can't see. You. Octopuses, I think, have they been reclassed in Britain in terms of their intelligence? Because they're so, literally, they're so clever that the government has now classed them along with vertebrates. They're way cleverer than most, not most, lots of vertebrates. And they're classed as sentient beings. That's right.

Yeah. That's good news. It is good news. It means, well, hopefully it means now we have to be nicer to them. Because there are all sorts of discussions about, oh, should we farm them? Should we farm these really intelligent, amazing weird? creatures. That don't like living together and they're generally cannibalistic and, you know, all sorts

of stuff like that. You don't want to farm like where all the cows are eating each other. Well, exactly. You don't want us one great big octopus left at the end. I mean, that's really good to be possible. Chop it up and just shouldn't eat. You might get the same number of stakes from one enormous cow that's eaten all the other cows. And it's easier to herd, isn't it?

If you just got one. You need a big dog. Very big dog. It's tragic. They can't write, but they do produce. ink. Oh, that is tragic. Is that in the Alanis Morissette song? Is it

wasps or bees that can make paper? Yeah, wasps paper. Wasp can make paper. If they could get together. Never the twain. Give it a snorkel and imagine the two species could reek. Was it Alanis Morissette, ironic? Yeah, but they weren't very ironic.

No. The most of the ironic thing. There was someone else. Averillivine. No, it was. You're thinking of skater by. Yeah, I confused the two the other day in the social situation and I haven't at the end of it yet

anyway He was a wasp She was an octopus Can I make it any more obvious They're very strong octopuses as well Every sucker is so powerful Isn't it? And I think I worked out

So if a sucker touches an object It like changes shape To form this seal around it And I realise that the common octopus If it's hanging off the ceiling The four of us and I've done some vague weight estimates. And I think it wouldn't be true

if Dan was here, but I think the four of us... Down is no heavier than I am for sure. But James, who does Dan have to be heavier, Dan, Dan, for this to work with the four of us, but not if Dan was here. No, I do see that. I do see it.

But it did sound like a slam on Dan's weight. It's. Look, I think we can say that Helen is a few inches shorter than Dan's try, but they're both in great shape, but Dan probably weighs a few pounds more. Once I was in the ITV studios on the South Bank and there was a lot of people in the lift and I walked into the lift and it went, beep, beep, please leave the lift because I was the person who put it over the level and I felt awful like it was a really low moment in my life. But imagine that if all your mates are hanging off an octopus and you're the one that pulls him down.

And it's like, no, that's it. I'm letting go. Do you know what happens if you cut the arm off an octopus? So this is, you know, if you wanted to eat it. Does it live? Yeah. So fishermen will like chop the arms off and stick them in the bucket. And they try to climb out basically. So octopus have like 500 million neurons, but half of them are in their arms.

So they have a very different kind of nerve system to us. We don't have a, it's not all in their brain. So the question is like, do they think for themselves these arms? Are they like actually able to make their own decisions? But what we think they're doing is that their kind of response is to pass food towards the mouth. So if a bit of food goes to the end of the arm, the suckers are like passing it to the next one or to the next one. And actually that same motion, if you've chopped an arm off, in a bucket, is climb out of the bucket. Do you see what I mean?

So they're just trying to pass. They're just like, this is a thing we do. So it's not, there's not necessarily any thought in it. But they will basically walk off. Oh. Yeah. The other thing, if you cut the very tip of an arm, it will still respond to like nasty chemicals. So people who are like doing science and they'll take just a little bit of tissue off.

And then you try and put the little tip of the arm into a pot of alcohol. And it goes, oh, no. Ow. Oh, are we calling alcohol a nasty chemical? Oh, sorry. To be careful about casting its versions. You mean... Ableau used to preserve the tip of an octopus's arm.

100% scientific stuff. Unfortunately, if you, Helen, that's what Anna likes to do. My limbs have cut off go towards the glass of tip. Just a thumbs up from Anna's removed and... You don't eat octopuses, right? No, I don't. Do you eat other fish? Not really.

Not really. I did for a long time. I gave up being meat years and years ago, and I kind of kept on eating. sustainably caught fish. But definitely octopuses, you wouldn't. No, not since meeting one. I definitely not since playing peekaboo with one.

I couldn't. Something else that needs to avoid eating octopuses is the dolphin. Although, I mean, they do like to sometimes. And octopuses are really good food for other sea animals, because I guess they're very meaty. But they're quite dangerous to swallow. And I think when dolphins do eat octopuses, they have to really work hard on cutting up their food

to tear them to shreds because they did, I think they found a dead dolphin recently. in the last couple of years, which had an octopus in its mouth, and you can see its tentacles like flopping out of its mouth. So if I'm a dolphin and I have an octopus and it sort of clings onto the inside of my throat

as it's going down, because I haven't chewed it properly, does it pull me inside out, is what I'm trying to say. I end up coming into work the next day, I think I had a dodgy octopus last night. Because it's attached to the inside of the tube that is me. Yes. It has done that. And it's gone all the way through.

I don't think the dolphin was inside out when they found it. I'm afraid that would be even more great terms. than the already the truth, which is like you say, it suckers on to their esophagus until it chokes them to death, which is quite clever.

Can they be trained? I mean, the CIA are always training dolphins and things, aren't they? Are you thinking, Andy, that we can defeat the CIA for whatever reason we might want to by sending an army of octopuses to turn their dolphins inside out?

Oh, yeah. That'll send a strong message, Britain is back on the global stage. We've inverted. Every dolphin is CIA is. They're trained. Okay, it's time for fact number two, and that is my fact. My fact this week is that during winter, the ground is too cold for male emperor

penguin's feet, so they spend two months leaning back and balancing on their heels. That's great. They're just so painful and uncomfortable. They sound like kind of relaxed dads. You know, they're leaning back. They've got their tail, like they're propped back. They lean back on the little sort of, like a hunting stick, I guess. You know, those things you can like...

Shooting stick. Shooting stick. Yeah. Oh, like one of those seats that are old ladies. It's on the beach. Yeah. So, yeah, I'm guessing you're very familiar with this. And we should just say why they have to do this.

Because it's cold. Because it's cold. Really cold. That's really cold. It's freezing. They're in Antarctica. It's like minus 40 Celsius. And the female essentially lays her egg.

I think this is right. And it's in the middle of winter because they need to start incubating the egg so that it's born in nice springtime when there's lots of food. So middle of winter cold as possible time The females laid the egg, plopped it in front of the male Disappeared for a couple of months And they have this incredible pouch That they plop over the egg

And the egg balances on his feet But then if his feet are flat on the ground Then they just get super super cold And so as you say he leans back And like a tripod balances on his tail For two months I'd vaguely seen that they did this I had no idea about the details

And how difficult it is The dads can only eat snow for those months They get pretty skinny, don't they, by the end? They lose half their weight sometimes or 40%. And the dads basically had an enormous mega barbecue the summer before. All the dads hang out. They put on lots and lots of weight because they know they're going to need it. They use it all up.

Oh, that's just interesting. So when am I going to lose this weight? I thought I'm going to be in a dad. You need to head on down south and spend quite a bit of time on the sea ice. They just lose no heat. Scientists did the sort of, you know, those heat map body things that you do. You know, you see where someone's losing heat. And I think they found that the only.

places they're losing heat are through their eyes. Really? You know, in Dune, the film Dune, and the book, Dune, they've got those still suits which allow them to lose zero moisture. Yeah, very cool. They're basically in the desert,

we're on the planet Arachis. We get the idea. But they've got these suits, which means they lose no moisture. And the penguins, Emperor Penguins are basically that bodily. They just can do it and not lose heat. It's stunning. Yeah, they get so hot. You know, they do that huddling thing, the males, when there's blizzard and they all cuddle together.

They can be like so hot they have to break apart and be like, oh God, and they're steaming. Yeah. It sounds like more of a thing, which you wouldn't think because you see them in documentaries and you feel so sorry for how cold they must be. But actually it seems like overheating is more of a problem. Actually potentially more a problem, yeah. And I always thought that those big huddles where, you know, hundreds of them, as you say, clumped together, don't they and they rotate who's on the inside.

I always thought they lasted for ages. That was kind of how they stood. But apparently it's about 50 minutes each one lasts. And it's really when it's like, yeah, when it blizzard blows through and it's really cold. Do you think they don't feel cold then? I think they would if they got cold. It just sounds like that they don't. Their threshold is just way lower than humans.

So I think it's down to minus 10 Celsius. They're basically comfortable. Well, actually, that's the same as someone from Newcastle, I think. That's why the black and white is the end of it. They're still a bit chilly then, I guess. If minus 10, they're comfortable, minus 40, they're probably like. That's when they're like, oh, let's. Or, you know, get together a bit.

Do they have human conceptions of discomfort in the way that we do? You know, I don't know. Well, that comes back to the whole sentient thing, you know. That's kind of the big thing of that. It's like, are they suffering? Is the first penguin dad to suggest a huddle looks on as a bit of a wuss? Yeah. Or is everyone secretly hoping someone's going to be the first one?

Oh, I'm not going to hug for you. Touch me, mate. One thing I like about the whole penguin feather thing is, have you seen the video, have you seen kind of on blue planet or whatever it was, of the emperor penguins, whooshing up underwater and jumping out of, like they do this kind of leaps, right? They basically, that's like, need to get out of the water because there's probably something coming to eat me, but my little legs aren't going to be very good at clambering off onto the ice.

So they swim up from deep down and it's skin that's their feathers. So basically as they go down, they hold their contal feathers, the outside ones in place, they lock them in place so that the air is trapped. And then as they're coming up, they basically let that air out. And it all comes fizzing out of their little under fuzzy bits. And forms a strong. of bubbles and it's called air lubrication and it basically reduces the friction

against the water and so they go a bit faster and they go popping out of the water at the top and then they land on the ice and they've got even they've got a nice little tummy their fronts are covered with more feathers so when they land it's nice cushion that sounds cool and they're like Iron Man they've just got tricks

for days they're a real risk of climate change aren't they? Yeah sadly they live on sea ice and if sea ice melts that's the this bit specifically this bit with the males and the chick rearing is on the sea ice. And it's all on the outside, isn't it? Yeah, exactly.

Because they need access to the sea. If the ice melts, basically, then that means they, like, lots of colonies have had complete breeding failures where no chick survived to the next year. It's happened two years in a row now. It's really... It's really bad, yeah, yeah.

And I think the idea is that if the world keeps to 1.5 degrees of warming, then the numbers will hold up much, much better than it goes far beyond that, you know. So that... Yeah, no, it definitely matters. Like, every degree we can, like, avoid of heating. the better the emperor penguins will do. And you know, like the cool thing I love about it as well is how we study numbers of penguins

is from satellites. There's like once a week a satellite passes over Antarctica and takes photos. And you can only do that during the summer because it's dark during the winter, obviously and you can't see anything. But in the summer months, they pass over and take photos

and then you can count the penguins and they're poo, basically. The guano stains the ice and you can see where they are. So that's how you figure out how many there are. And so basically the end of the winter, when the sun comes up again, it's like fingers crossed everybody

how many are still there like how many of these you're looking for a huge poo on the ice basically yeah and then that's when we see so basically this year we won't know till because it's just going dark now we won't know till like September October how this year's

clutch of penguins have done I wonder did they take into account the level of poo by which I mean like let's say your penguins are not eating very well for whatever reason they might poo less and I wonder if when they look at it To be honest, yeah, I don't know whether they do the poof individual numbers or whether they're just like, here's a colony that's generally there.

And then you zoom in and you can actually see like a little shadow. That's how good the satellite is out. You can see and they're so tall that you can see a penguin's shadow in the satellite images and then for count each individual. Yeah. And actually, I think one really interesting thing is you can tell how many individuals there are in one of these huddles by knowing the size of the huddle and the temperature outside. Oh, yes. They're really mathematically precise. They go into like hexagons.

You know how hexagons are the best way at packing things. If you kind of take a big pile of penguins, you know how much they're huddling because you know how cold it is and you just put a load of hexagons on that grid. That's how many penguins there are. Oh, what you mean?

If it's colder, they'll go closer. That'll suddenly be 10 to a metre instead of... I don't know whether to be more impressed by scientists or penguins than that. As if working that out is unbelievable, then working it out as penguins is unbelievable. I'm just very impressed by everyone. They're really cool.

Yeah. I didn't know that. that part of Scott's expedition was about penguin eggs, collecting penguin eggs. So crazy. Scott of the Antarctic. Scott of the Antarctic, that one. So 1910 to 1913 is Terra Nova Expedition. A lesser known part of it in, I think, 1911, was where three of them,

so I think it was sort of the brainchild or the person who was most passionate about it. It was Edward Wilson, who was Scott's second in command. And then there was this other chap called Apsley Cherry Garard. but they were there to go and collect Emperor penguin eggs, weren't they? Because they believed it was going to be really evolutionary important. Yes, that's right.

They thought they were the oldest birds and there was this theory of recapitulation which totally fell out of favour but the idea that an embryo retraces its evolutionary heritage of its ancestors. So it would kind of basically start off in its egg as a little reptile

and then turn into a bird as it was growing. And so it totally comes back to this whole crazy winters and the males with the eggs on their feet because the only way to get an egg with an embryo in it is to go in the middle of winter. Absolutely. The hard is possible. And not only is it freezing cold, of course, pitch dark. They kept falling down like holes in the ice.

It was ridiculous. But then surely you've also got to fight an angry dad. It's not in his fighting weight though, is it? At that stage. So the three of them went and then the three survived. But Cherry Gerard got back and he was so ill from this expedition that he didn't go on the bit to the South Pole, which is where Fowers and Wilson died with some. Scott. But they did get the penguin eggs. But I mean, it sounds extraordinary. So

Cherry's teeth chatted so violently with the call that they shattered, apparently. Do you know how they kept warm as well? How? They're burning penguins. That's dark. That's very dark. Hey, you do what you can. I thought you'd say they had a lovely hug and a couple together. Well, I'm not hugging you. I'm going to burn this penguin. I mean, that was when they went to the colony. They grabbed a whole bunch of eggs. And they took some adult males. I know like, and they ate, they burnt them because they're really oily. Yeah, I was going to say like scoers, they burn quite well, don't they?

Oh, do they? They use those as lamps in Scotland. Oh, they stick a, yeah, stick a, wick up there. But yeah. I mean, how strong are your ethical principles when you are near the South Pole and suddenly you realize it's death or penguin burning? It was a couple of penguins. Yeah, it's a couple.

And it was, so it took him 45 minutes each night to chip into his frozen sleeping bag. Oh my. They probably burnt like the novel. that they brought with them in the finish before they burnt the thing. I imagine so, yeah. I mean not the Dickens, because you need to keep hold of the best ones. Sorry, it took 45 minutes to chip into his sleeping bag.

Each night would be a block of ice and he said 45 minutes. And all I've got is one of these pieces of my own tooth to chip away with. Oh my God. That sounds... Well, I'm going to bed. You'll get to bed early. Yeah, yeah. Got the old sleeping bag chipping to do.

There was also a thing where they had three sleds, I think, but they could only pull one at a time. So for every sort of mile they traveled, they had to do three back and forth. Oh, no, God. And they couldn't leave the chicken on the sled at the same time as the grain. We've got a penguin, an octopus and a dolphin.

Okay, it is time for fact number three, and that is Andy. My fact is that when Queen Elizabeth II got married, the people of Leamington Spa clubed together and bought her a washing machine. Oh. Yeah. That's nice. It's very nice.

Club together? How expensive was the washing machine? Or how little did each individual in Lemington Spark contribute? Wow. Wow. Well, I'm sorry, but that's less than one penny each, isn't it? Once you've taken everyone. I'm sure they were more expensive in 1947, I guess.

Yeah. Yeah. It was also a time famously of massive deprivation. Sure. After the war. Bread was rationed at this point. They all used their ration cards to buy our washing machine. Did she have one already?

Unclear. I think out of diplomacy, she was a famously diplomatic woman. She would never have said, I actually have 16 washing machines in my different houses everywhere. Yeah, so she was Princess Elizabeth at the time because she wasn't yet queen. That's how it works. And 1947, post-war, really poor time. So lots of gifts were food, you know. I mean, people, people, and gifts from around the world, she got given lots of dresses, most of which she gave away to, other girls getting married around her age around the same time, you know, so... That's cool. Yeah, the list of wedding presents, this is so weird, was published as a book, and you can buy it today,

and I have ordered it, and it hasn't been delivered yet. Oh. So tune in next week, I'll be doing the same fact again. Wow. Yeah. But it's just weird presents,

like 500 cases of tin pineapple. Can you get to do that much pineapple in your life? I don't think I could. No, I mean either. No. I haven't had one tin this year. Haven't you? No.

Gosh. Maybe after this. Woodley, I think I had my first Tim pineapple of the year yesterday. That is a coincidence. That is a bizarre. Yes, it was part of a Panang curry. People sent her stockings, which I find quite a personal thing to send someone. And she got over 100 pairs, I think, hundreds of pairs of nylon stockings, which were a high value item.

Nylon was a newly invented thing. Yeah. What would the equivalent be to it at Bitcoin, probably? the people of Levington Spire chipped together to get you one doge coin Ryle wedding gifts are often quite weird don't they?

Grace Kelly, friend of the podcast She got a yacht That's a nice gift Aristotle Anassus Yes please Yeah which village club together to buy it Better than washing machine isn't it The interesting thing about that

is it was a repurposed ship. It was a yacht. And then it got turned into a ship for the war and was used at Dunkirk to help evacuate soldiers. And then after the war, Anastis bought it again and turned it back into a yacht and then gave it to Grace Kelly as a wedding gift. That's sort of, sort of recycling.

Sort of. Sorry, which bin does this yacht go in? Oh, that's great. That's much better than the one I felt. Prince Charles and Diana, when they got married. a council in Somerset said one ton of peat because he's a farmer

and you know he's not a farmer as he but he owns lots of farmers yeah but you know that was a huge faux pa really well that was too like sending excrement to a wedding is that faux par

oh Pete is an excrement I need to do some basic lessons but it was it was Sedgmore District Council they said I'm a ton of Pete and this was exactly about the time that Charles was banning Pete because he is very environmentally aware and has been for a very long time

and in the 80s he banned Pete use on all of his farms because you know it's a big biodiversity area. Yeah. Also it like sequesters a lot of carbon doesn't it? Yes. Yes. Although I didn't at the time but he was very you know predicted. So Sedgmore, you screwed up

and that's... One nice wedding gift I found is something that people get in Japan called the Venus flower basket. Oh yes. I know this one yeah. Go on. Tell us what it is. So it's a deep sea sponge. It's a glass sponge they're made out of kind of silica basically. They look like a very

ornate stocking, so a bit sort of like a woven, knitted stocking. And then there are these shrimp that live inside them and they get inside them when they're larvae so they can sort of go through the holes of this glassy sponge thing. And then they get trapped. And so basically you have a male and a female that are trapped inside this sponge

and can't get out. And that's like a marriage. Exactly. Exactly. And they send their babies off into the world through the holes of their sponge but they stay there entire life inside this. Yeah, it is that. It's because like the male and the female stayed together the rest of their lives. Well, it's a claustrophobic concept of marriage, isn't it? What I also found is like, because it's like, um, this glass sponge is like in a framework, isn't it? It's like a lattice. Yes. And they found that the currents go into it and they create

like a little vortex. And it means that when the male and the female release their sperm and eggs, it's the perfect vortex to make them all sort of mixed together. Oh, cool. So that's quite romantic as well, isn't it It is, it's lovely. I've heard as well that they designed the Girkin in London

around the skyscraper. Around this sort of shape of a sponge as well and it was like rather than water and other things circulating around it it's like it's for air

conditioning and it pulls air and it goes up the building do not release sperm around the girkin looking for love to see what happens

building security and the cleaning team will both be this fact That's so interesting. Wow, that's very cool. We do a washing machine thing or two? No, washing machines? Yeah, they're bad.

Are they? Yeah, washing machines are bad. Synthetic cloth washing accounts for 35% of primary microplastics found in the environment. Wow. And they're trying to come up with a law where all new washing machines have to have a filter in them. And it's already the law in France, I think. but at the moment it's not the law in the UK and it needs to be the law in the UK.

And does that stop the microplastics getting out and into the water system? That's a filter, yeah. And when you say synthetic fabrics, I'm... That t-shirt you're wearing, I would say... Oh, it's cotton, I guess. I guess, I think it is.

No, I think you're talking more like fleeces and... Yeah, like polyester. Oh, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. Polyester fleas are particularly bad because they just shed loads of fibres. Why would you ever wash a fleece? Yeah, good point. Don't, really, no, just next time don't.

I'm at the school of like, if it's an outer layer, you never wash it. No? Unless you fall in a swamp. Oh yeah, and if you're wearing your fleece, you might be... What if a bird poo's on you? Oh, yeah. Just wipe it. Wait till it's dry and then a stiff hogs back whistle brush.

Do you know that the first fleeces were called synthetic chinchillas? No, stop in it. Yeah, yeah. I think that's right. When? Yeah, roughly. 20th century. Get away.

20th century, yeah. Because before that, people were wearing chinchilla. I think chinchilla was a name of a fabric that was kind of similar to what a chinchilla was. But it was made of cotton, but it was cold chinchilla. That's so funny. Synthetic chinchilla. I think that's amazing. Ironic, actually, they're sort of chin warmers, aren't they?

That's very right. Yeah. Gosh. Good grief. Can I tell you a washing machine fact? Yeah. This is good. So you know the Samsung jingle?

The Samsung jingle? No. That's not one of the famous ones. When you're washing machine finishes, it plays a little. tune. Samsung. This is the Samsung, yeah. No, I don't know it.

There's a tune, well, lots of washing machine. My washing machine just goes, beep, beep, beep, when it's finished. Oh, you're missing out. Does it go, do you know, do that? Nope. That's an announcement of the underground you're thinking of. I installed the wrong thing in my kitchen.

It's the one that goes, dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum. Really? And it's really long, right? So this is so mad. It was composed in 18. 17, the Samsung washing machine jingle. For this?

With this in mind. It's Franz Schubert. Wow. I know. And it's a song. It's called The Trout. So there's an aquatic theme. And it's based on a poem,

a different, confusingly, a German writer called Shubart. Wow. And it's about a trout that gets caught by a fisherman. And it's a warning to young women to stay away from men. Well, where you are. Yeah. And this is the tune that is in every Samsung washing machine.

It's a little sort of ceremonial ditty that plays at the end of... And I have one of those washing machines. I hear that tune a couple of times a week. And your wife leaves the house. What a multi-layered fact. There are so many bits to grasp there. Well, I mean, to start off with, I didn't know Samsung made washing machines. I thought they made TVs.

Right. That's the foothills of this fact. Yeah. Shoebert and Shoe Bart. I want to know about that. Comedy double up. Can I ask you guys a question about your washing machines? How much washing powder do you tend to put in?

I just put one of those like, you know, those tide pod things that Americans eat. I put one of those. Oh, you do the tide pod. Yeah, just a scoop. I don't use powder. I use liquid. Nice. From a refill shop.

Well done. Yeah, just a cup of that. Okay, a lid. Good, but I'm afraid it's not quite as good as the old reusable egg full of dry granules that I use. I've got one of those. You do have to fly down to the Antarctic to get the egg. That's why I've lost all these teeth,

these front teeth and fine. Is that right? You wash with a... There's a little plastic egg which is full of dry granules and they last about like 100 washes or something and you just replaced those dry granules. I wondered why you smelt so bad.

Like it works, it's really good. Oh, cool. Yeah, yeah. Well, that's a much better public service announcement than mine, which is if you're just using normal washing powder, you should never need to use more than really a table, which is much, much less than you're probably using.

This is a New York Times expose. And it's really bad to overuse it because it makes your clothes go all crunchy. Can I ask Anna, as someone who has a toddler who's currently potty training, and so I often have urine and feces stains on my clothing, is it different for me? It says for extremely heavy loads, you might want two tablespoons, but you're never going to need more than that. Thank you. And they're lying to you the companies with their cups on the lids because they just want to get through it.

Goob, don't they? It's in their interest. Yeah. There you go. Big sour. But, because I've always thought the whole thing's a scam and what I've always thought is the whole washing clothes thing, it's a scam.

The thing I've always thought is the draw thing. Got to be a scam. So I've always put everything in the drum. Yeah, I do that as well. Well, what I've realised, if you use fabric softener, if you put that in the drum, which I always have done, it's completely pointless. And it's because it's, it's to do with the charging of it.

So fabric softener, it's partly there to stop your static clothes sticking together and it does that by being positively charged so that the negatively charged clothes sort of bind with it and become neutralised so it's stopped there you go that's kind of what it does but it has the opposite charge to your washing powder so if you put them in at the same time in the drum they cancel each other out and it doesn't do any good so if you are like me and you're just tipping your fabric softener in the drum don't do that stop it and stop using all of it and be more ethical like these guys get the egg get the plastic I swear get the egg and the granules get the giant penguin egg shove it in the washing machine.

Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Close. I've studied one wedding present thing. So it's based on a fact I discovered, which is that in 2015, Christiana Ronaldo, bought his agent, George Mendes, and his wife, Sandra, Greek Island is the present. So they're best friends, I think he was best man at his wedding or vice versa.

So they're very close, house sweet, bought him a Greek island. And I was just like, how do you buy someone a Greek island? And do you know there's a website called Private Islandsonline.com, which just has low. loads of islands for sale. And when Greece went through the credit crunch, I didn't realize, but lots of economists advised, and eventually they went with it, advised that they put up a bunch of their islands for sale

to make back some of the money. I have been on this website, I think. Have you got an island? No, I think, like, if memory serves, you go on, and it's like some of them are, like, not beyond the realms of possibility of someone like me could buy, but it's always like a tiny island in a lock in the northernmost part of Scotland.

And it says no electricity, no water, no ability to get to the island. Well, you know, you'd be living a little bit off grid. Yes, but I still think the cheapest Greek one I found was $5 million US dollars. So if, you know... If we all club together... If those bastards in Levington Spa actually chipped in. And dug deep. Maybe, I don't know what the mortgage offers are on this.

It's Strugillo Island or Struglio Island. It's got beaches around the edge. Okay, hear me out. No such thing as a fish island. Everyone is listening. Chips in a bit and everyone gets to go there. Okay, lovely. I love it.

Let's do it. We can get $5 million. It's 54 acres so we could all fit. There's anything on it? Some trees. It's very green, very verdant. Sounds lovely. Oh, and it's got power in some...

A power station. There is a nuclear power station in the middle. And it had a little hiccup a few years ago. But honestly, it's fine. It's fine. Anyway, just something to bear in mind, I think. Yeah, get that kickstarter going. Yeah, I think I will.

Get Anna on an island. Lovely. Could I do animal gifts? Oh, yeah. Wedding gifts. Can we do this quickly? Technically known as not puttial gifts, and there are lots of animals

that give each other a presence before mating. Did you know about this? Uh-oh. So, usually the males, but occasionally it's females that offer something. It's usually food. But the really cool one I found was the nursery web spider. So the males approach the female and give her a gift of usually an insect. And he wraps them up in silk.

And the females prefer the wrapped ones. They like the white, shiny, wrapped up presents. But he'll give her the present and she will open it and start eating it. And, meanwhile, he's getting busy with what he needs to do. So they start mating while she's opening her present. Right there. Yep. Okay.

And generally You just wait You just wait until I'm like No no It's sort of the whole point And if she can At least sing happy birthday No

No he's amazing while she's opening the present But basically because it's wrapped up He can cheat And they don't always put something inside No way That's so funny It's like deal or no deal So that's what it's so

Yeah yeah So basically some of them are like Well I'll just put this old piece of shit in here Like no one's going to know Until she's opened it Because it takes a bit of time and if she opens and she's like, what is the... Too late. Too late. I've done it now.

Yeah. So then she'd be like, no, off you get. We're going now. But the male, they also do a thing where... So Hickton and I read, this is from the paper, actually. There's a study of this. And I just thought this is a lovely sentence. However, if the female moves and attempts to terminate copulation, the male may perform thanatosis, which is death-thaining behaviour. He stretches out his legs, which is unique to this species. the male then ends at the insertion

and grasps the gift with his chalice array which was like mouthparts and then the female moves away while holding on to the gift and the male is dragged along behind the female until eventually she'll give up and then he revives and resumes mating. Wait, okay I was going to ask what his endgame is here

because I thought he was just trying to get the present back. Yeah, me too, to re-gift it. Well, I don't think we really know. I mean, his game game is to basically try and make her as long as possible because you do, like the more, the longer they go, the more chance they have of fertilising. And so basically breaking, like, giving her a crap present is not a great idea because she will be like, no, I'm going to stop now because there's nothing in here. And the better the present you get, the more time.

But it seems that sometimes they just don't have anything. Or they're really hungry and they eat the gift first. So they take the insect, bees it. Honestly, I did buy you a bottle of wine, but it was a long train journey. Anyway, here's the bottle. Anna, stop mating with me. And you've never invited me back. Anna, feigning death clean, flunching the white bottle in her mouth.

Okay, it's time for our final fact, and that is James. Okay, my fact this week is that hermit crabs are facing a housing crisis. Join the club. Oh, satire bell, everyone. Dink, ding, ding. What do you mean? I think it's relatively self-explanatory in that hermit crabs, as you might know, don't have their own shells. So they go and find a new shell.

And usually it's one that's discarded. But it turns out that there aren't as many shells as they used to be. There's various different reasons. One reason is because gastropods, shell creatures are shrinking. The populations are shrinking. But the papers basically analyzed, photograph, of crabs online and found...

Social media pictures of hermit crabs pretty much yeah they basically went into Instagram and look for hermit crabs and found loads of pictures of them using bottle caps soda cans, Lego bricks really scary bit is the

it's the broken end of a light bulb so like the metal bit that you screw in they use that yeah there's quite a few pictures of hermit crabs you know I guess those are very durable

in the ocean I suppose yeah yeah they just last a little longer time, don't they're. And I think that's one of the other reasons they're doing it just because it's what's there. Right. Yeah. And there was another study in 2019 that found that half a million hermit crabs are dying every year after getting stuck inside bottles and things like that. So it's bad news for hermit crabs. It is. I mean, it's kind of mad. Apparently as well, this plastic starts to smell like dead crabs. And that's one reason why they come towards them.

So there's a stuff called dimethyl sulfide, which is this molecule that does all sorts of important things like make clouds and it comes off plankton in the ocean. But it also, it's like, it's the smell of a rotting crab. But it sticks to the outside of plastic stuff, plastic pollution in the ocean. So one reason, possibly why these crabs are going for the Coke bottle lids and yoghobot pots is because they think it smells like a dead crab and therefore it's a shell that's just been left behind by another crab. Because you would use that naturally. Yeah, yeah, exactly. These hermit crabs will use whatever they can find. So in Madagascar there was a beach where there's a big cliff full of fossil shells, so really old shells. And the crabs will wait at the bottom

of the cliff, waiting for the fossils to drop out. And then they will use those as their home. That's so cool. That's like buying like a period property. Like a listed building. They're not allowed to decorate though. No, no, no. That's amazing. So they will use all sorts things. It's really interesting what you said about how they'll go towards the smell of a dead crab, because obviously in nature, that's very unusual, isn't it? Like, you usually, you Usually if a member of your species has died, you would usually give that a bit of a wide birth. Yeah, unless you want to eat it. Well, yeah, which is what they do, I think, as well, right.

They might do. But yeah, you're right. It's not a good smell. Like carrion, rotting carrion is not. Yeah. So what happens is that sometimes they'll climb into a bottle. And because the bottle's smooth, they can't get out. And so they'll die.

And then the smell of the dead crab comes out. And then the next crap goes, oh, great. Dead crap goes into the bottle and then they get stuck. Oh, no. It's like a horror film. And then the next crab goes to find that dead crab. And then you've got a bottleful of dead crabs. Oh, God.

And another kind of crazy thing about this is that maybe it's actually kind of makes sense from the crab's point of view. Because if there's a ton of plastic and you want to hide, then you hide inside the plastic. That's true. And then predators might also not really have figured out that there might be crabs inside of yogurt pots. And so they haven't kind of learned yet to go looking. So it could be actually an advantage for the crabs. They're also lighter as a shell. Yeah, they take almost no energy to pick up.

They're all really clever, the sort of the way they do it. So they sometimes evict each other. So if you have outgrown your shell and you spot a hermit crab with a shell that would be perfect for your current size, they go over and bang on the shell with their claws. They do. And before the fight breaks out, they'll show each other their claws. Because if you've got the bigger claws, then generally you're the one who wins.

So they try not to have a fight. They'll be like, look, I'm this big. and the other one will, they'll compare claw size. And that can deflect fights. That would be good. You know, in boxing at the start, before the boxing fight, they always come up to each other

and sort of like stand head to head and sort of talk to each other. It'd be good if every time one of them just went, oh no, I'm going to lose this. You're way bigger than me at. Is that the way in, James? Are they actually weighed at that point? Yes, they are.

Because in most weights, there's a maximum weight you can be and they try and get as close to that as possible. And are they both, I've always wondered of this about boxing. Are they both standing on the same set of scale? Because they're standing right facing each other and looking at each other. I always wonder if there's one big set of scales in the middle that they both have to get on. As in like one of those balanced scales that goes up in there. No, it's one set of sails and they take turns.

Oh, they do. Okay. You've got to use the same set. Oh, sure, yeah, yeah. But it would be nice if there was a joint set. They could both use it at the same time. And if it goes over the weight. Just a seesaw. Exactly.

And it has to be exactly balanced. Yeah. And it would be a nicer. Actually, it would be nicer if in the middle of the boxing room was a seesaw. And whoever wins the seesaw. How do you win at seesaw? I was a very competitive child. Absolutely crush them on the little springy dogs at the park today.

Hermit crabs, hermigms. Hermit crabs. So they do actually decorate their homes quite well. And so we've talked about the way they move house. But when they're living in their house, they do various things. The anemone hermit crab gets anemones and sticks them to its shell. And I think it's because they've got stinging tentacles that affect other passers-by. And so it's a little bit of protection. the anemone, gets some food, but when they move shells, they do then take all the furniture

with them. The flat doesn't come furnished. And so I think they spent ages, is this right? They spent ages prising off the anemones. Yeah, yeah. There's a species of deep sea anemone that was discovered just last year. And they got a couple into the aquarium. And this was scientists in Japan. And it spent two days trying to move the anemone. Yeah, it was like pinching it and pulling it and like just generally trying to get it to let go. And then you've got to persuade it to cling on to the new one as well. Oh my god. It just doesn't want to move. Yeah, the anemone, I don't know if it knows. It's basically just, I don't know. But it's just not cooperating. It just clings on. But the crab is like, well, you, they might not get another anemone and they're in short supply, so you have to bring them with you.

Wow. That's so funny. It's like the worst blue tank ever when you're moving out of a house. It's scraping away. Yeah. I don't I put that poster up. Have you heard of Aki Inomata? She's a Japanese artist. I don't think so. She does collaborations with animals, and one of the animals that she's done an art project with is a hermit crab. Okay. So she's 3D printed miniature cities. Oh, yeah.

Ah, see-mey. And she puts the miniature city sort of model she's built on top of a shell, and then lets a hermit crab move into that. It is cool. I mean, I guess it's also not a natural shell, which would be the best thing. But it's an interesting, you know. We'll move into anything. Like, you give them, like, you can make them little Lego homes.

They'll try that. And I looked a bit more into her work. Inamatta, she's done another project, which is called I wear the dog's hair, and the dog wears my hair. Okay. And she and her dog wore capes made from each other's hair. Oh. Okay. And it looks a lot nicer than you would think it would look.

When you say collaboration. That's amazing. That was the dog's idea. She said, I collected the hair of a dog called Cialo and my own hair. over a number of years and then make clothes out of my hair for the dog and the dogs there for myself so we can exchange coats.

The two species, human beings that dogs have developed together over the ages. This work examines the relationship between a human and her pet. What kind of dog was it? I just wanted to know what kind of patterning it had. Oh wow. Was it spotty or stripy or...

Just brown, I think. I just wondering if it's a small dog, what kind of outfit you can make really. It's wearing quite a nanny little waistcoat. It looks good. And she's wearing a kind of cool, sleeveless jacket thing. So the dog's waistcoat is made out of her hair. That's right.

So why don't we make more clothes out of human hair? Yeah, Andy. That's a good question. Oh, I don't know. Let's do it. Well, one creepy, I would say. Yeah. But I mean, you get a lot of, I mean, I guess they use, like, when you get your hair,

if it's good hair, they'll use it for making wigs. Yeah, yeah, that's good. That's true. So maybe we do that instead. I don't know. Just one of the hair. Probably, I mean, this woman's a very good artist, it sounds like, and probably most people who try to make clothes out of human hair would look like shit.

Yeah. And also just think of all the head and shoulders you have to put in the washing machine. Do you guys know about, I really love historical manias and I think we often cover them on the show. And I don't think we've talked about conchillomania or conchillomania. In the 18th century, people just got really obsessed

with collecting shells, didn't they? I really did. And it sounds like a really fun time to be alive. And the... Coles, you'll die at 40. Pros. Lovely shell collection It's got some nice shells

Yeah Worth it So I suppose like a lot of these manias It's a time when people in the Western world Or in Europe are exploring more So they're finding more exciting shells around the world The most valued was this one called glory of the sea Have you seen a glory of the sea shell?

Yes They're not that impressive are they Well no you're not you're right I've seen one that was like Was from that time And it was collected by Victoria Collectors In the Natural History Museum Oh cool

On the back And but yeah It's because no one had one And so therefore, you know, the few that existed. Is that the one where there's a story about someone buying another one, he had one already, bought another one at auction, and then immediately smashed it to pieces? In order to up the value of the first one.

And that might just be apocry. I don't know if it's true, but it's that kind of level of meaning. It was that vibe. Yeah, yeah. There's definitely one that sold for three times more than a Vermeer painting at the same auction. And then there was this awful moment where we slightly got over the... the shell collecting obsession by the 20th century, but they were still really valuable.

And I think in 1966, there were only 41 known specimens in the world. And then in 1969, we just found this habitat in New Guinea where they all live. And now there are tons of them. Scoobers found them, didn't they? Yeah. I think, yeah.

And there's probably not so many left for hermit crabs now. No, that's true. Actually, I don't know if they're good for hermit crabs. They've got quite small opening. They are very petite. It would have to. It was the very lower end of the housing market, I think. First time. You've written a whole book about Shells, haven't you? Spirals in Time.

That's correct. That's correct. Can I ask you, Helen, about periostrachum? Oh, I might be saying it wrong. I say periostricum, but, you know, I'm making that up as well. You're an actual expert in this field, so I'm going to go without you say. Is it true that Shell's, this is like a skin? Yes.

Shells have skin in life. Some do, yeah. So it's like a hairy layer that grows on the outside. I think it's like a probably camouflage, probably some sort of protective thing that makes them look less like a shell and more like a bit of weedy rock. Yeah. All the shells that we see are, well, no, like lots of them, will have had skin. That's weird, isn't it? Yeah.

Isn't that weird? I find it a bit weird. It's quite weird, yeah. And then things like cowries, which are really shiny. You know, have you seen like big, lovely shiny cowrie shells? The reason they're shiny is because part of their body called the mantle, which is like the pink bit on a muscle when you eat muscles. That's the mantle.

Anyway, it falls over the outside when they're alive So they cover themselves in like a part of their body Which means they stay nice and shiny And they don't have like stuff growing on them That's why they are So like porcelain-y kind of Kind of shiny glassy Is it porcelana as the Italian for

Cowrie shell I think Is it? Yeah Cool, there you go, yeah So that's why they I think porcelain was named after the cowrie shell I think Ooh, that's cool

And the cowrie shell was named Porcelana because it reminds people of a pig's vagina. Yeah, carrie's have got a lot of that sort of stuff going on. You can see that when you picture a cowrie shell. I mean, yeah. First thing that springs to mind. If you've only ever seen a cowrie shell or a pig's vagina,

basically you've seen them both. I think that's correct. Yeah, I would say. For people at home. Is it true, Helen, that we don't really know how shells form when animals grow their own shells? The process of biomineralization? Yeah, I'm reading it's a bit of a mystery.

a bit of a mystery because it's one of those things it takes a very long time. I think there's a lot going on. There's like a protein scaffold that gets laid down first, I think. And then the calcium carbonate, which is the hard stuff, gets laid down in that. And it's all at the outer edge of it. They harvest the calcium ions and carbonate ions from seawater and then combine the two of them together and they make crystals of calcium carbonate, which then go on this scaffold. Right.

It sounds like we do know how it's made. Yeah. Okay, but... I mean, that's... Brought brush. We know what happens. How? And also why?

Exactly. And then it can be... But I just think that's insane that they can harvest... But they don't know that they're doing it. It's not like they're chemists. It doesn't make it less impressive. Well, it does make it a bit less impressive.

But I don't think it's still. It's just amazing. It's really cool. The world's most exclusive textile is made from a bivalve. And I'd never heard of this. Have you seen this? It's made from the pen shell. So a bivalve is like a muscle, right?

Yeah, I think. The snappy shell. A Pac-Man. A Pac-Man. A pack-in. Yeah, yeah. There are only 60 items known to be made of this special silk from this special pen shell. And so you've seen one of these things. And basically, they're huge, aren't they? The shells, they're like a metre tall.

Yeah, I mean, they used to be. Now they're not. They're doing quite badly now and there's not as big. But yeah, it's basically like a beard. Oh, like when you have muscles, if you eat mulmangiere and you pull off the mossy, beardy bits. The same stuff. The threads. Exactly.

And they use this hair to embed themselves in the seabird. Exactly. Yeah, yeah. And then you make this amazing silk out of it. Yeah, you go through, it goes through stages of processing. I went to Sardinia, which is really where the only people left who do it. In fact, I think there's one woman left I read. Yeah, I met that one woman.

Kiara Vigo. Oh, wow, you've got opinions on Kiara Vigo. I don't know if I should be mean. No, I'm not going to be mean, but she claims to be the last living mistress of sea silk, as it's called. But I met several other people who do it. And this is exploding. of news to me and probably no one else. No, and it's all in the book.

It's in spirals and time. I talk about it. I met her and she's kind of all like very woo-woo about it. And she can go into her little workshop and she does all this kind of, oh, and here it is and I do all these things. But then, yeah, I met two other women who've learned it from there. Because it's handed. No one does it because you're not allowed to harvest these things anymore.

But from the fact they're not doing very well because they've just been wiped out by a disease. Penchels are now protected. So you can't go and take one to get there. So did you call the police on this one? Well, no, because she claims that she can sustainably harvest them, but no one's allowed to watch her do it. That was the part where I was like, oh, okay. Yes, because she says she doesn't calm the shelves.

Yes, exactly. She's like, no, no, they're fine. They grow back. And I'm like, they do grow back, but I don't know how fast and if it's fast enough. And she doesn't let anyone watch her while she's doing it. How interesting. I will keep the pig alive while I make this bacon sandwich, but I must do it in a closed room and you can't come in.

You might hear some squealing. That's me. I just love bacon sandwich. So much. Okay, that's it. That's all of our facts. Thank you so much for listening, everybody. And if you want to get in touch with any of us,

you can find these guys on some of their social medias. Andy, you're on Twitter at Andrew Hunter. James? My Instagram is no such thing as James Harkin. Helen, do you have any online? I do. Twitter is Helen Scales and instead it's Dr. Helen Scales, because someone already had Helen Scales.

Dr. Helen Scales on Instagram. or you can email podcast at QI.com or you can go to our Twitter account at No Such Thing or Instagram at No Such Thing as a Fish or go to our website, no such thing as a fish.com where you'll find links to our brand new tour, which is selling out fast, so please get there because we have so much fun.

We're going around the UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, do come see us in any of those places. Way more important than that is please, by all of Helen's books. They're amazing, but definitely by. the latest book, which is What the Wild Sea can be. It's such a romantic title.

Do you like it? I came up with it first. Normally the title comes last. Sparrow's in Time was particularly painful. That was last minute. But this one I came up first, so. It has optimism in it, doesn't it? Oh, definitely.

Yeah, that's kind of the point. It's like, let's not give up. And there's lots of things that's hopeful. And hopefully there's some fun things in there too. So do that and come back again next week. To catch us again. We will see you then. Goodbye.

I've never heard of that. I've got to look it up when I get home. It's fucking good. It genuinely works. At what temperature as well? Because that's the other thing. Oh yeah. Oh yeah, 150 Celsius. For three hours. Fine, fine, fine. Good, good, good, good, just checking.