No Such Thing As A Fish - No Such Thing As Glass in the Future

Episode Date: December 9, 2022

Dan, James, Andy and special guest Jamie Morton discuss Oscar records, Disney secrets, and what Rocky Flintstone was doing in the 60s. Visit nosuchthingasafish.com for news about live shows, merchandise and more episodes.   Join Club Fish for ad-free episodes and exclusive bonus content at nosuchthingasafish.com/apple or nosuchthingasafish.com/patreon

Hi everybody, just a quick announcement before we start this week's show, and that is that we have a special guest on. He's been on once before, and he was so good that we decided we absolutely had to have him back. It's Jamie Morton from My Dad Wrote a Pornow. He is the star. He is the one whose dad actually wrote a Pornow. And we're having him on partly because he's a brilliant guest, and also because it's a very sad time in podcast land

because the final episodes of My Dad Wrote a Pornow have just gone out. All apart from the very, very last one, which is coming out on the 12th of December, and it features an exclusive interview with, for the first time ever, Rocky Flintstone himself, the Banksy of Erotica, as they call him. missed opportunity to call him the wanksy of erotica, but never mind. Jamie was absolutely brilliant. This was such a fun episode to record. He is so funny.

We think you're going to love it. And so do check out the final My Debreda Pornow episodes and all the other ones too. All right. On with the show. Hello and welcome to another episode A No Such Thing is a Fish, a weekly podcast coming to you from the QI offices in Covent Garden. My name is Dan Schreiber.

I am sitting here with Andrew Hunter Murray, James Harkin, and special guest, it's Jamie Morton, and once again we have gathered round the microphones with our four favorite facts from the last seven days, and in no particular order, here we go. Starting with fact number one, that is Jamie. Okay, so my fact this week is this week I'm not on this show often, but this week, my fact is,

Barry Fitzgerald is the only actor in Oscar history to be nominated twice for the same role in the same film. Amazing. Oh, was the film an early version of Mrs. Doubtfire? Best actor and best actress. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no.

He had one role. It was Father Fitzgibbon in 1944's Going My Way, which did win Best Picture, actually. Yeah, he was nominated for both best leading actor and best supporting actor. Yeah. Which is insane. It doesn't say much for the rest of the cast, does it? Exactly.

But he won for best supporting actors. He could have conceivably won for both. Yes. But it went to Bing Crosby, who was the lead in the film. Or co-lead. Hang on, so it won best film. It won Best Actor for Bing Crosby. Yes.

But then Fitzgerald lost Best Actor, but he won Best Supporting Actor. Yes. That is amazing. I know. What a sweep. Yeah. Do you have to pay entry fees for the Oscars? That is a great question, James. Andy. Yeah. Yeah, you do. I imagine you do. I imagine you do. You have to nominate yourself.

Yeah, yeah. It's probably an administration fee. Like 20 quid or something. 20 quid. Probably, right. This movie sort of set a lot of records. For example, it was the first film to ever have two actors win, the Academy Award for Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor. Oh, interesting.

It was the first movie to get the Academy Award for directing and writing. which was by a guy called Leo McCarrie who wrote and directed it. Oh, so he won two. He won two at that one. It was the first film to win Beck's Picture at the Academy Awards and the Golden Gloves. It was the first picture to win Best Picture and Best Song. It has all these records as the first movie. Have no one seen it?

I never heard it. It seems such a waste. I suppose in 1944. We had other things to worry about, didn't they hid the era of police? Well, it's interesting you should say that because during the war, all Oscar statues were made of plaster instead of gold or gold-plated, Rons, which is what they actually made of. So he got a plaster Oscar,

and he was a massive golf fan with old Barry Fitzgerald. And he was practicing his golf swing one day, and he decapitated his Oscar. There's a great picture of him with, like, the head and the body. I was reading a bit more about this guy, Barry Fitzgerald. Yeah, yeah. Oh, interesting man. Yeah.

He was childhood playmates with the siblings of. Okay, fine. James Joyce. Okay. But not James. No, they thought he was weird, didn't they? I think he was older, yeah. He was a bit older, and they said that he had a beard and glasses and was always reading books,

and so didn't play with them. His name, Barry Fitzgerald, is not his real name, is it? And usually you do that because you arrive into the world of the arts, and someone has your name, and so you have to register your name, right? You change it. But for him, it was because he was trying to hide from the fact that he was sort of doubling on his work when he was meant to be working in the civil service. So his name would be on the bill

And they wouldn't know it was him The worst thing was he worked in the unemployment department So they had all of the list of who was supposed to be working And who wasn't supposed to be working So all of his mates would have known that he was doing He's a movie star It's hard to hide being This is when he started

He was in the vaudeville days He was doing plays He worked in the Abbey Theatre with Sharon Yates as well So more of yeah What a milieu I know He was once almost kidnapped Before the opening night of a play he was in

By his boss who said You should be working It's called The Clown on the Stars, right? It was quite a controversial play And Ireland was very recently out of a civil war You know, it was a feebrile time And the play had a lot of controversial stuff in it And the Irish Times reported this

It was in 1926 Several gun boys turned up at Fitzgerald's mum's house I don't want a gun boy A young gunman I mean we've got a gunman That's the thing Yeah And it's just a young one of those, I guess.

I think people who carry guns around between places, maybe, like gun runners, but young people, maybe. Might be. Well, anyway, the gun boys were there at the door. And they met his mum, and they said, right, we're here to take him, just keep him safe until the opening night has gone. So he won't be able to appear on stage in this play. Right. And she said, well, he doesn't live here. This is his mum, you know.

And I'm not telling you where he is. And so they had to go away. And then he did the play. Wow. Yeah. What polite gun boys? Just because the gun boys still. live at home. Doesn't mean that everybody's something.

Literally, they were 12. They're almost like knocking. It's very okay to come out of play, please. Have any of you ever held an Oscar? No. In real life? Oh my God. I reckon there's an anecdote coming here. You haven't lived, boys. And I'll tell you something. I've held two. Same time. Same time. Oh my God. I went, I was

name drop, hideous, name drop, but I was at Emma Thompson's house for dinner. She's not that hideous. No. The name drop. She's lovely. She fed me and everything. No, but in her downstairs loo, her two Oscars right there. An interesting fact about Emma Thompson,

you might know this, that she's the only person in history to have won Oscars for writing and acting. Still, to this day. It's not mental. What? Yeah. Were they both for...

I mean, was the writing one sense and sensibility? Yes. Correct. And the acting one... I thought Jane Austen wrote that. Well, I agreed. It was a controversial year. It's like when Kenneth.

Brano won the Oscar for Macbeth or whatever he put on. Best Adapted Screenplay, literally just used to use the words. He didn't actually win for, I was going to come on to that. Oh, yeah. You mentioned Kenneth Branagh. You know, they used to be married. Right. What?

I did not know that. They used to be married, and he just won an Oscar for writing Belfast at the last Oscars. And if he were to win an acting Oscar, him and Emma Thompson would be the only people of history to have acting and writing Oscars. And he's been nominated for two acting Oscars. not beyond the realms of possibility. And then that's how they, we sort of parent trap them back together, right?

Well, maybe not. I think she's very happily married to Greg Wise, but, you know. Jeremy, did you take a selfie of yourself in Emma Thompson's toilet? And what he was holding two Oscars? I mean, what would you take this time we go with? Well, I didn't, but my friend did. And then weirdly later on in the evening, somehow, I think we were taking pictures and like, we were like, say, oh, they dropped me them or whatever.

And Gaia, Em's daughter, took his phone. and found honestly about 50 selfies in his camera holding the Oscars and she was like, oh my God, that's so embarrassing. But I didn't because, you know.

Too classy. Yeah. Wait till you get your own. Well, I'll be waiting a while. But yeah, I'm not sure that Barry Fitzgerald should have got the Oscar for the best supporting actor.

Well, for example, there's a little goof in this, which is that, so he plays a Catholic priest in this film. But Barry himself was Protestant, so he wasn't kind of, of fully aware of how priests act and in the film I haven't seen the film myself but but you're going to say he didn't deserve the award though aren't you well apparently when he

does the crossing of himself you know yeah he does it the wrong way which feels like as an actor you would look into the basics and post I think oh my god that's possible he doesn't do it um the wrong way upside down though he just does it right to left to left to right yeah yeah yeah I think you're meant to do the left to right you do top to bottom that's right yeah so okay so yeah take it back. Take it back. Curacy isn't everything in the arts, Dan. It's an interpretation.

Do you think maybe he was making a comment on Catholicism? Oh my God. You know, like the devil probably would do it that way. Yes, yes, really good call. Oh my God, it's even deeper than I realized it. Do you know that it's, um, this is a bit of a reach, guys. But I found this and I thought I'd share it. Male actors who have won or been nominated for an Oscar are statistically more

likely to get divorced than their Oscar-less acting peers. Do you know that? Interesting. Because... They've just got women throwing themselves at them. Well, because there's a thing called the negative consequences

of positive status shifts. Basically, when you get a bit arrogant because you've just been nominated or won an Oscar, men tend to leave their wives. Interesting. I can do so much better. I remember years ago reading a book

where Dustin Hoffman, struggling actor for years and getting bit roles and stuff, suddenly gets cast in the graduate. it, yeah, and this line being that when he got the call, he tells his wife, and they just stare at each other and there's an unspoken thing that's happening there, which is, this is the end of our marriage. Bloody hell.

Yeah, because he's now going to be, he's going to be globally famous and obviously he's going to go off. Obviously. No, that's obviously in the room to them to. It was obvious to them to in that moment, that was the end of their marriage. Gosh. To be fair, this does remind me a little bit of the time, I don't know if you, Dan and James remember the time we won our first Chautil Award.

Yeah, I do remember that. Yeah, we all split up with our partner. Didn't we immediately? Speaking of Oscars. I keep my Charles award in the bathroom actually which has led to a lot of weird stains on it.

I keep one of my awards in the bathroom as well. We won a Webby Award. One of my awards? Klan? One of many? They don't all fit in the cabinet. That's the problem. Mine is next to a review that I got

in the Sunday Times which called my dad wrote a porno the quote, worst cultural event of the decade. So it's ying and yang in my bathroom. Which decade was it? It was in the Christmas edition of the Sunday Times, 2019. It was like a roundup of the decade.

And some absolutely poisonous little toad of a journalist. I won't name him. He knows who he is. He finds a way to worm us into any bad review he ever gives. This was terrible, but not as bad as my dad read a porno. So he'll be thrilled that we're ending. Yes, I thought it's important to kind of have the, both to realize that neither really matter, do they?

Oh, that's very good. That's like Rudi Kippling, isn't it? If the triumph and the disaster and you know, you treat them both the same. It's exactly like that, Andy. I'm often called. If you go on IMDB, they have lots of sort of tagging that you can do and people just go and do it. It's not like an official thing, but

there's loads of different tags and each movie might have 20 different tags. Someone went through them to see if there's any correlation between these tags and whether you can win an Oscar or not. And apparently there are some key words that have never been even nominated for an Oscar. So zombie food fight and breast implant.

There has never been a movie with any of those three things that has ever been nominated for an Oscar. I don't think that's true. It's the tagging. So it could be that someone has a tag. Because I'm pretty sure that Hook has a fantastic food fight. Oh, was that nominated for Best Picture? Absolutely not

But it must have nominated for something Like production design or song or something You're saying that my screenplay My double D undead custard brawl Is not Probably not Oscar worthy A chisel award though Can I just quickly ask

In my double D undead custard Brawl Sorry Is it simply the breasts that are undead It is it? is. It's about a woman who goes in for a routine operation, a breast enlargement, and she gets given the breasts of a dead person. Ah, yes. Yeah. And it's, and they come to life, but still attached to her and she's alive. Wow, that's weird. You rarely have a zombie attached to a

human who's alive. We don't have a woman on this podcast where we normally do, but is that how breast implants work? They just take the breast off another person and stick them on to you. Is that right? I believe, I believe so. I do need to do. as Greenplay is still in the research face Russell Crow has an Oscar Doesn't he? Russell Crow has one? Has he? He's got a few.

He had back to back. He's got a best actor. No, he's the only one once. But you know where he keeps his Oscar? He doesn't keep them in his bathroom like, I haven't been to his house and taken self as I just say. He keeps his Oscar.

Okay, what's the most Russell Crow place to keep an Oscar? Like his barn or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You are so close. No, really? It is in his chariot. I bet he has the chariot from Gladiator.

He's got in a haystack. He's like it's a needle in a haystack and he keeps it in his haystack. It's like your thing. Has he got a coliseum? Did he take that home as a prop? He has a chicken coop and he keeps it in his chicken coop at his ranch and he claims that he helps his hens to lay bigger eggs. Wow.

I mean he can find that all he wants. All the cockcrawls sadly leave the chickens. That's the problem that we introduced it. Rosamund Pike buries her rewards in the garden What? Yeah So funny

She's so weird She's so bloody got to goth Rosamund Pike She's all classy But actually there's a heart of darkness She like leaves a little bit of the top of them To kind of glint in the sun That's nice

Yeah I know It's kind of interesting isn't it And what awards have she won? She's won like a golden globe Okay but she hasn't got a chortle Because she hasn't got a chortle You can't Sacriage to bury

A chort on the carpet They'll come and dig it up but take it off you. It's not allowed. Okay, it is time for fact number two, and that is my fact. My fact this week is that one of the attractions at Disneyland in 1956 was

The Bathroom of Tomorrow, which included, amongst other exciting exhibits, an array of interactive faucets and a dramatic story of valves. Wow. Not valves. Yeah. What a narrative.

Ripping. Any Oscars in this bathroom? Oh, God. They're showing. be right. Except the, well, there's not, but the whole thing is kind of one big Oscar because it's gold, the entire thing. Yeah. So the idea was in the 50s, they thought in the future, everyone will have a gold bathroom. I think so, basically. And sadly, only Donald Trump has managed to make that dream a reality. Yeah. So this was part of an area of Disneyland that was

opened along with the original Disneyland in America called Tomorrowland. And Tomorrowland was going to have lots of exhibits where they could showcase how the world was going to look in the futuristic future of 1986. And it included things like this bathroom of tomorrow whereby air conditioning was going to be in there. There were dumbbells so that you could do exercise while you're having a bath that were on the side of the bath. You know, all these sorts of like little innovations. But the whole premise of it was done by a company called the crane company. They were selling it now. So the bathroom of tomorrow was actually today. And yeah. And so this was one of many of these little exhibitions that were put on that was slightly sponsored by corporations who wanted to showcase their related stuff within this area

of Disney. Yeah. Very cool. It was designed by Henry Dreyfus, who was a designer. Dreyfus also designed the classic black telephone, you know, this one that you basically see everywhere. He also invented most of the Hoover models of vacuum cleaners, the upright ones. And he was also the chair of the meeting of the International Organization of Standards

Committee in Berlin when they kind of came up with all the different. signs that there would be around the world. You know, like if you go to an airport, the sign for a taxi rank is the same everywhere. Yeah, right. I love that kind of stuff. I love those shadowy organisations that, you know, secretly, secretly dealing with signs. And I went on a mad research bender last year for QI about plug sockets and the standardisation of plug sockets.

Yeah, yeah. And are we going to hear about it now? I think for everyone's benefit. That would be the worst cultural. events of the 2020s if we did that. I had such an amazing time doing the research. I look back and I've written about 20 paragraphs of just dross. Yeah.

This bathroom does have some good things in it. It had a sink which you can adjust the height of. You just sort of pull it up or down. That's clever. Accessible. And it's accessible. And for kids they can pull it right down and, you know, it's there. It was hydraulic powered.

I think that's a good idea. I mean, clearly a huge pain of the bum to install. But once it's in, it's in. Exactly. you know? Yeah. Never think about it again. Yeah.

And is it still there? No, it shut down after a couple of years. Yeah, it surprisingly was not as exciting for kids as they probably thought it was. Well, Disney isn't just for kids, Dan. It's also for adults. Absolutely true. Yeah. Because you know, I have worked for Disney Parks and Resorts for...

Have you? Like, more than 15 years. I direct a lot of stuff. Are you in the mouse suit? No. You're not. There is no mouse suit, James. Oh, sorry.

Sorry. Yes. I have been. to the parks a lot. Wait, wait, wait, but there is a suit, right? No, he's saying it's just Mickey. It's just a nude. It's just a new rodent man running around.

Genetically modified. Mouse man. One Mickey Mouse. That's cool. Yeah, it's cool. So I have been there a lot, actually. And have you then got access? We've spoken in the past on the podcast about all these like crazy corridors that you can go.

Yeah, the tunnels underneath what is you've done all that? Yeah, I've been in those tunnels. They are called, what they call? They're called the Utiladors. Oh, yeah. All of these. tunnels and you know they're actually not a basement people think they're the basement but because it's built in florida and it's essentially on a swamp you can't have basements in florida okay so it's all

so everything else is on the first floor exactly magic kingdom's on the first floor what yeah that's so funny and if you walk up to magic kingdom it's on a very very subtle slope so you're actually climbing up a full flight of stairs as you approach magic kingdom that's incredible it is incredible yeah but those tunnels are mad and there's everything in there there's like coffee shops there's like dry cleaners yeah it's amazing for the staff exclusively yeah and it's good to

kind of get people through the park so that like no character or cast member from one part of the park will ever be seen in a different part of the park they'll just go through the I imagine like a race of troglodytes who live under there and have never come to the first floor yeah

yeah yeah yeah that's that ironically would be a great movie The one that Disney will never make. From the maker of Double D undead custard brawl Comes. This quick down to Tomorrowland Before we go to Broad Disney, it does sound absolutely bananas

because all of it was sponsored by one company or another. So the House of the Future itself was actually sponsored by Monsanto, who later became extremely controversial as one of the makers of Agent Orange, which was used to Vietnam. Oh, really? Yeah, so Disney kind of dropped that sponsorship once that sort of, you know, came out.

But all of these different firms, so American Dairy Association, American Motors, National Lead Paint, who sound great. Wow. It's very much of an era, aren't they? Very mid-20th century. The Dutch Boy Colour Gallery was sponsored by Dutch Boy Paint. Wow. Can't find much more information about them. Friends with a gun buys.

Yeah. Amazing. And when they opened it, they didn't cut a ribbon, did they? they just turn some taps on instead of, yeah, like Oh, really? Yeah. Because it was the house of the future.

Just to show that it's the future. Yeah. You know, what's more of the past than cutting a ribbon? Yeah. Yeah. I was told by someone that I work with over there that this is insane,

this fact. Okay. And I'm not sure if I believe it, but he told me and I, and he's very... And he works there? Yeah. Quite senior.

Where, though? Is he one of the troublodytes? Has he gone nuts? Has he not seen sun in 10 years. Let's just call him Mr. Mickey M. No. M-M-Mouse. The boss.

No, 4% of all the photographs taken in the United States are taken at either Disneyland or Walt Disney World. Stop it. What? 4%. 4%.

That's a lot. Isn't that? It's quite a big country, isn't it? Yeah. In the States of America. 4% is that's mega- It's mad, right? Yeah, it doesn't,

it, you're right to be skeptical. Yeah. I was like, is that true? But, wow, amazing. And you know, they also isn't just theme parks. They have cruise ships. Have you been on a Disney cruise?

I have. Oh my God, okay, I've got so many questions to ask you, right? Oh, okay. This is amazing. Wow, I've never seen you so animated. Yeah, this is not since we started talking about plugs that time. Okay, I was reading an article called Disney Cruise Secrets. Oh, yeah. And I have to say, it was the most disappointing article I've ever read.

Okay, let me just, I'm just going to tell you a few of the secrets, right? The Disney Cruise secrets. Okay, secret number one, Disney Cruise staterooms are not ready until 1.30 p.m. Oh. Secret Wait, how's that a secret? I know, it's only a secret if someone rocks up at 1230 and they say, yes, it's ready.

Secret number five, you can bring bottled water on board. Ah, secret. Secret number 14, Disney will provide you with soap. Oh, the soap's so good on the cruises. It's some of the best soap you've ever had in your entire life. I may have taken it with me. It's really good. Really?

Okay, so that does that is a secret. That is a secret. So can you confirm about the rooms are not being ready until one? I actually can confirm that because you here's the thing with, here's the thing. With those ships is that you have to get off them really early because they're changed over the same day.

So everyone's going to be off the ship by like nine or something. How long are you on it for? Is it a few days? There are multiple. You can do two nights. You can do four nights. Dan, you can do a week. I'm now a travel agent But so yeah

I guess the turnaround is that they Yeah so until Right 1.30 Back get some time to clean All the estate room That must be a chaotic Four and a half hours

On board Just finding out Yeah I know Left in all the rooms I mean that happens in every hotel In the world It must be absolutely

Mayhem every day But what's fascinating About the Disney cruise line Is that they're the only cruise line On the planet That has fireworks at sea

Okay. Oh. Yeah. So they have a big deck party, normally on the penultimate night, and they have fireworks that's that off from the ship. And what's fascinating about these fireworks is that they are made from a biodegradable material so that when they hit the water, they become fish food. Oh, that's cool.

Isn't that cool? That is really cool. Is it, is it, do you need special dispensation for fireworks at sea? I think you probably do, yeah. be able to, yeah. Because it might be seen as a signal. Might look like flares, right? An SOS.

Yeah. Wow. They're going very whimsical with their very extravagant flares. Wow. They're sinking, but they also want to let it look goofy is having a great time. And then, well, I was once on one of these ships and they have these rides on board the ship. It's like a slide that goes off the edge.

Actually, you know, this one that is like kind of, you stand on like a trap door and it, and it opens and it goes, and you go down a shoot and stuff. I got all the way up to the top stood on the trap door and I was too heavy but instead of saying I'm sorry sir you're too heavy they said I'm so sorry buddy

you're just too full of magic today too full of magic I mean I can see what they were going for but it was even more annoying I was like just call me a fat bastard to be honest That's so funny. So I had to walk all the way down in front of all the children and their parents.

And what? You said to each one, too full of magic. Two full of magic. I was sorry. I was like, I forgot something in my room. Sorry. Couldn't get into 1.30. It was no. It was a low point on what was otherwise a beautiful trip. Okay. It is time for fact number three. And that is Andy.

My fact is that 5% of the world's... electricity is spent turning big rocks into small rocks. Mad. That is mad. It's a lot. It's such a large amount. 5%. That is crazy.

There's something that sounds unbelievably dull. I know. But this is a big business. So what exactly is it? Because I'm just, I mean, I tried to research this topic. I failed. I'm not going to lie. I will be a passenger for this podcast.

Andy, educate me. I found this in an interview. I was reading an interview with a guy called John Stanton, who specializes in crushing big rock. into small rocks, that's his line of work. That's his gig, he loves it. He's a big rock crusher. And basically, when you're mining, you might get some big rocks out of the ground,

but the ore is inside those and you can't just deal with the big rock you've got, you need to turn it into a small rock. You need a rock crushing machine. And there are lots of great models available on the market. Can I ask, when you say he's a big rock crusher, is he a big, as in the industry, rock crusher, or is it specifically he's a big rock crusher? I think it's both of those. It works on the two levels.

It does. I don't know how big he is as a man as well. It could work on three levels. I don't know. How much magic does he got? I saw that piece in the Times. He's got as much magic as me. Wow.

It's called comminution, isn't it? Turning big rocks into little rocks. Oh, man. And then you screen them, and then you might grind them smaller again. Yeah, crushing, grinding. Do you know what's better, wet grinding or dry grinding? Oh, my God. Because they're both done.

I do know. I do you? No, of course I don't. I would feel like, what do you say better? Yeah, grinding mills can be operated both dry and wet, according to the Encyclopedia Britannica. Let's go wet. Yeah, and wet grinding is predominant. Yeah.

Wow. So what is wet grinding? You just adds. Oh, damn. Give me a break. Literally reading directly from the Encyclopedia Britannica. You add water to the Crusher. And I just wonder why it helps.

I guess it's lubricates. Yeah, lubrication. And it helps with like the dust probably. Absolutely. Like when you cut into flagstones and things, it helps out a bit of water to kind of... That's strange. Where do you come from?

I'm sorry, guys have arrived. What can I say? Yeah, but most of them are like massive nutcrackers, basically. They're all top loaded because then the pressure from the rocks above acts on the rocks that you're trying to crush down. And so they're being forced into, you know, two different directions. Right. And you just feed the rock in and the rock cracks.

And because the metal surfaces are harder than the rock, that's, you know, that's the process. And then eventually when it's small enough, it's a dust and you can get the lithium out or the gold. So hang on, so you're using big rocks as your tool to crush the former big rock into smaller rock. It's helping. That's so cool. It's a partner. There is actually a thing called autogenous milling.

It's literally just the rocks that you're crushing are all crushing each other. That's so cool. That's incredible. I love that. I was reading about the history of crushing rocks to big to small. One of us had to. I just want to give a shout out to the website MachineryPartner.com

Okay Because I'm quoting directly here It's an event in 1881 When Philetus W. Gates Got a US patent for his device Which was the sort of A rock crusher You know that was the basic model

Philetus Not a name you hear often these days, is it? No No Yeah Phil Gates In 1883 Mr Blake challenged Mr. Gates

To crush nine cubic yards of stone In a contest to see which crusher would finish the job faster. The Gates Crusher completed the task 40 minutes sooner. I was looking into humans who can crush rocks.

Oh, that's good thinking. Because I thought, before we had the machines, we must have needed humans. Yeah, yeah. And then I thought, you know, can anyone do it with their bare hands? And I actually found

the first non-Roman emperor Maximinus Thrax, who was supposedly a rock crusher. The first non-Roman emperor? Yeah. As in he wasn't born in the Roman Empire. But he was... Sorry, but he was Emperor of Rome.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And he's a person who was very tall, but because he was quite a lot taller of the most people, the exaggerations have been written down and it's hard to know where he was. So supposedly, and this was a Roman emperor, he was eight feet six inches tall. No. Yeah. Yeah.

Apparently his thumb was so large that he wore his waist bracelet as a ring on it. That's how... He's got it hitchhiking that guy. And so during public events, he used to impress people by picking up rocks and crushing them with his bare hands and pulling wagons on his own. Wow. Feels a bit demeaning for the Emperor of Rome to be having to do like, hey. He had a very short tenure. It was three years as Emperor because he was overthrown because of his disastrous.

Bloody hell. Yeah. How? How? How? Just by some people, some other people. Yeah, just that's very impressive. they managed to overthrow.

I mean, it's not just him fighting against everyone. He's not like, let's do a thumb war. If anyone can beat me in a thumb wall, I will hand over. Oh God, yeah, when he's telling the gladiators whether or not they've survived or not, there's no mistaking that. It's like a foam hand at a basketball match. So this was a really interesting topic for me. Yeah.

So I have decided to go a little off-piece and discuss. the Rock. Did you know that the Rock's nickname as a kid was Dewee? I bet you didn't. No. Dewey? Dewey. It's it covered in Dew. Yes, exactly. And that's the reason why. Do you know that he has a degree in criminology?

I bet none of you knew that. He's an ordained minister, guys. He's an ordained, okay, that's more understandable. That makes sense. On Dewey, is it like Huey, Jewy, and Louie kind of thing? Do we know why? Or is it the Dewey Decibel system? He spent all his time in the library as a kid. I'm going to be on.

list. These are bullet points. I haven't really delved deep into it. Okay. Do you guys know what the smallest rock is? Here we go. Back to business. Back to proper rocks, boys. Well, okay. Well, what is a rock? You know, is a speck of dust a rock? No. Oh. It's not, it's a pebble a rock. Yes, I think it is. Okay. Is it grit? Is it smaller than grit? You guys are never, you're never going to get it.

Tauk seems pretty small, yeah. Yeah. It's clay. Clay. Clay. Clay? Clay. Clay. Clay? I'm sorry. You're so expected and excited.

I'm going to have to really sell this. Okay. No, this is really interesting. Genuinely, this sounds so boring and I appreciate that. You don't need to keep saying that. Everything in this segment follows that trend. So which is smaller, sand or clay? We now know it's clay.

It's clay. But you might not have thought that, right? No, no. of clay. Like sand feels so fine. Like, you know, that very fine Caribbean sand, it feels so fine. Okay. So clay particles are unbelievably tiny, the smallest.

What is clay? Small rocks. It's a sort of little silica. I think it's a silicate. Okay. But yeah, you never feel it as like sand. It doesn't fall through your fingers. Yeah.

Exactly. Right. But I think you've got clay soils and stuff like that, and there is a granular form. So particles of clay can be less than 0.0.0.02 millimeters across. I think that's two minus. Crohn's possibly. It's unbelievably small. So the largest particle of clay you can get is not even a thousandth as big as the smallest particle of sand. Right. That's incredible. That's the scale of difference we're talking about.

I told you. I take it all back. And this is the really weird thing. Clay particles can be so small. I'm quoting directly from a site. Sorry, I read here. Clay particles can be so small that it could take hundreds of years for them to settle from the top to the bottom of a bottle of water. What? Because it just takes, everything gets in their way. Everything, you know, the tiny molecule of anything just disrupts the clay from its path. And this is why clay soil is so sticky. It's because there are so many spaces in between these tiny, tiny particles.

The water fits in between the particles. So it just holds huge amounts of water. That's why clay soil is so heavy. Has someone actually done that experiment? No, we invented plastic a hundred years ago. Yeah, well, that's, if they started then, they would have watched it hit the bottom. I'm afraid. I don't think anyone's done that experiment properly, but it's just, it's sort of, yeah, yeah. And also, we're actually banning plastic guys.

Yeah, we don't want to encourage that, do we? Sorry. I found a mystery rock. Oh. It's a mystery rock that grows baby rocks. And it's very bizarre. So, and it's only found so far as we know in one place in the world, or at least so far as the article claims. And this is in Romania.

And it's in a town called Costeste. and these are called trovant rocks, T-R-O-V-A-N-T. If you saw the rock one day and it's raining overnight or whatever and you come back the next day, suddenly the rock has grown. It's got like a bulbous new bit of rock that's on top of it. And they basically secrete cement and hardened. So what happens is during rain, during a heavy shower, they absorb the rain minerals and then they come into contact with chemicals that are inside the rock,

which then create a pressure reaction which pushes out this, kind of concrete and sometimes they become so bulbous that they loosen and they fall off and that's the baby rock that's created next to the rock. Other times they just stick like giant pimples coming out of them. It feels like we could utilize it to build things like build a bridge. You put one of these rocks and then you fire a hose at it and then shape it. Yes, exactly. Yeah. I think it's true. And some are tiny. They can be really, really tiny or 15 feet high these rocks. So when the bulbous bits are secreted, they're like giant rocks. Yeah. Two Roman emperors.

Ridiculous. Yeah. And you just get it in this one spot in the world so far as we know. Wow. That is so interesting. That's really good. Yeah. But did you know that The Rock has a tattoo that took 60 hours to do?

So, you know. What is it off? Yes. Okay. It is time for our final fact of the show. And that is James. Okay. My fact this week is that one of the biggest TV events

of 1966 involved someone reading extracts from a book written by a relative known as Rocky Flintstone. What? This is an outrage. This is insane, James. This is an accusation of plagiarism. Isn't it? Against my father. This is astonishing, I have to say.

I've never heard this. So I was just reading the old newspaper archives and I searched for Rocky Flintstone because I thought maybe there was someone with that actual name who lived in the past. And I couldn't find anyone like that. but there was a big spike of mentions in 1966, and that was then the final episode of the Flintstones aired. And you can still watch this today online. It's an episode where Fred finds an old diary of his grandfather, Rocky Flintstone.

His name was Rock Bottom Flintstone, but he was nicknamed Rocky. That's an even better name for my dad. And it was about a run-in with some Stone Age Nazis and a romantic escape with a character called Mata Har Rock, like who's based on Matahari this man. So there's a little bit of romance in there as well. Do you know what? That makes some sort of sense because my dad

my dad recently tried to trademark Rocky Flintstone because he's an idiot and he thinks that that's going to be able to be done. And he got a letter back from Warner Brothers basically saying absolutely not. Really? And actually you're lucky that we're not suing you for using it up until this point. But you know what? The parallels here are going to.

a bit further than just the name being the same. So my dad wrote a porno is ending now after six seasons. Because we're being sued by the Flintstone. And the final episode of My Dad Wrote a Porno is going to feature for the first time Rocky Flintstone himself. That is the first ever appearance of Rocky Flintstone. Someone's read the press release. So Flintstones, this episode where Rocky Flintstone appears for the first time,

is the final episode of season six. That's the Flintstones. Yeah, so it's the exact same scenario as you. That's so what this is. So did you have any idea that your dad, I mean, has your dad seen this episode of the Flintstones? No. Did you sort of see it and then forget all about it and then years later? No, because it would have been, I think it's just an awesome name and the coincidence.

Yeah, it must be. He was, he named himself the Rocky after a dog in Brazil, which we don't need to go into. But the Flintstone bit was because he really relates to, you know, in the title sequence. Yeah. When he gets locked out the house, he's like bags on the tour. Yes, yeah, yeah. Apparently that's very, that is very much like my parents. So I think that that's where he was inspired from.

But that is mad that Rocky Frinson is actually a character. And the grandfather of Fred, you said. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. So one generation difference. Wow. But close up. And I watched a bit of the episode in it, it's going from Fred reading out loud to his wife and Barney, his friends.

So it's a similar thing, extracts of the diary out loud while they then cut to the scenes itself. I think there's something of Alice in Wilma as well, isn't there, would you not say? Yeah. Redhead. Yeah. I mean, I'm not sure how I feel about this. That it makes me think my whole career has been alive. But obviously the Flintstones was massive in the 60s. It was absolutely enormous. And so the end of the Flintstones was watched by, I don't know how many people. They didn't have the actual figures, but it was like 30% of the TV watching. Wow. Yeah. And it was the end of the original series, because obviously it's gone on and on and so on. But we're going to

talk about the Flintstones movies later on. Don't you worry. I bloody hope so. I'm iconic bits of cinema. But the Flintstones, the cartoon, I didn't realize, was also originally aimed at adults just as much of children. Yeah. Forecast late in late in evening. Prime time show, 8.30pm.

Yeah. And I really like a fact it was originally called the Flagstones. And then the Gladstones. Yeah. And then the Flintstones. They finally hit on that as a, because those two both sounds so weird. Yeah. Comedy called The Flagstones.

Have you seen the pilot of the Flagstones? No. No. I actually watched it. Really? All 90 seconds of it. 90 seconds. And it was good. It's amazing that it got picked up.

Are you saying it is good? It is good. It is good. But it doesn't have the magic of the Flintstone. Was it the same characters as well? Yeah. Okay, right. Yeah, but it was made in 1959 but never aired until 1994 when it was discovered.

Okay, right. You should watch it. It's interesting. To see, is the year that the Flintstones movie came out? No. Oh, my God. anyway, in the original series, one of the things to appeal to adults as well that they did, I'm pushing on, is they would have celebrity guests that would come on or they would parody celebrities

of the day in order to give some comic, as you would say, for the adults sort of recognition. So, quick quiz, because they loved a pun. They absolutely loved a pun. Okay, Carrie Grant is a character. What has he been renamed? Clay Grant. Oh, that's good. Kerry Granite. Yes. One-nil.

Tony Curtis, who voiced himself, is on. What is he called? Boney Curtis, because they were in there. That's good. Yeah. No. Close. You're in the right area of the name.

Stony Curtis. Stony Curtis. That was obvious. Yeah, keep going. There's more of these. Yeah. There's Rock Hudson. Plains himself.

Amazingly, yeah. It's Rock Hudstone. Oh, my God. And Hallie Barry. in the movie The Flintstones. I don't know if you're keen to talk about that. She was actually directly named after a famous female celebrity. Halle Beryl.

No, so, no, so you've got to step away from Halley's name altogether. Shaly Berry. No, no. Hallite. Barry. No, her name is nothing to do with it. Right. It's another famous actress.

So you want the character's name. Yeah, the character's name. Yeah, named after another famous actress. Shalys Therok. No, so there's no pun. It's just outright. her name. Sharon Stone.

Yep, there we go. And she's called Sharon Stone in the movie. Yeah, Halley Berry's called Sharon Stone in the movie. That's clever. But that's enough on the movie. Let's get back to TV series. Well, just lots of, I really find it interesting the sort of adult elements of it,

because I did not, I never watched the Flintstones, really. Really? Yeah, just not very familiar with it. I guess so. But it's, they, they were sponsored by cigarettes in the original days, which. Winston. Andy.

How many sounds like that I was a joke? you. Anyway, they were sponsored by this phone, Winston Cigarettes. Was that when it was going out to children? It feels like that was when it was more than. Even then it was good. Well, yeah, because advertising was just different back then. They were advertising to adults.

They weren't kids smoking. Have you seen that as well? I actually watched her. Yeah. It isn't the smoking that got me. It's the outrageous misogyny of those two men. Oh, really? It is insane.

Like, Barley and Fred are just like watching their wives do loads of children. and housework. And then they're like, let's go around the back. And they sneak off and they just like reclining and just smoking and just chatting and watching their wives work. Right. They are cavemen. But it is still.

There's a theory that the Flintstones are from the future, which I quite like. That's the Jetsons. Well, they do meet the Jetsons at one stage, don't they? So that's part of the theory. Okay. they have four fingers. Obviously, we have five fingers in this time. So perhaps the little finger has sort of vestigially disappeared because you don't need it

anymore because what you use your little finger for. You're right. And we never had four fingers. So that has to be an evolution. Yeah. The animals in the Flintstones can speak. Obviously, these days, animals can't speak. And never in the past, as far as we know, have animals been able to speak.

So perhaps in the future, they will be able to speak. Humans co-existing with dinosaurs never happened. Never happened. In the past. It's a Jurassic Park. Is it a sequel to Jurassic Park? The Clint's like it. It's pretty cool.

The theory is that it's a post-apocalyptic future where all current technology has collapsed. They're trying to replicate it using the mutant dinosaurs that they've got access to. My theory is that they listened to this podcast and rocks became so popular because of the last section that we just did away with all of the technology and people lived in a rock. based society. Yep, I'd live there. I'd move. Wow. Did you guys see

the Flintstones Kids Just Say No Holiday Special? No, I missed that one. This was something that went out in 1988 and it was a public service

say no to drugs Flintstones episode. Brilliant. Oh man, can I tell you the plot? Yes, please. So the Flintstones kids, it's like young Flintstones

It's just bam bam and pebbles. No, it's not. It's actually the main generation we know, but like the Muppet babies. Oh. Exactly. Oh, fun.

Okay. Yeah. Nice. They're trying to win tickets to a Michael Jackson concert, who in this is called Michael Jackstone. Thank you. Exactly. And Wilma is tempted to join up with a gang of older kids whose leader Stoney smokes

crack. Marijuana, unfortunately. You're right. They should have gone with crap. And then Wilmot talks to her parents, and they tell her that a real friend wouldn't offer you drugs. And Stoney is arrested for drug usage. and it ends with a version of Michael Jack Stone's song Beat It

and the episode also features Nancy Reagan as herself. Does she have a funny name? I think she might have been doing a kind of extra like, hi everybody, you know, rather than Nancy Reagan. Yeah, that is a really hot one. That's probably why she never made it onto the film.

Can we talk a little bit about the movies? Yes. Oh, go on there. Oh my God, yes. Okay. Well, this is kind of tangential. It's not really about the movies even though it is. The B-52s, the band of Love Shack fame.

What a tune. They recorded versions of Meet the Flintstones and the bedrock Twitch, which I'm sure you've bought that record. Did you? Yeah, the B-52s. They changed their name. They changed their name to the B-C-52. Very cool.

And they even appeared on the top 40 chart as the B-C-50s. Oh, really? That's committed to a bit. That's great. Yeah, isn't it? Everyone got on board. I like that. The gig.

Yeah. I really want to see both the Flintstones film and the Flintstones film sequel Viva Rock Vegas. Yeah. They're both great. So you've seen both. Of course, yeah. I just mentioned to my wife that we were recording this.

She says, I've seen that. Hallie Barry tries to have sex with John Goodman in the film. And it's quite a sort of saucy plot where John Goodman is Fred Flintstone. Because he's incredibly eminent as an actor now. And seeing him in 1994 playing Fred Flintstone is very funny. But he looks so like Fred Flintstone. He does. It's amazing.

Is it not a good film? It's quite... Like it's a cult film. It was commercially successful. But afterwards, the entire cast refused to return for the sequel. Which is why the prequel, Viva Rock Vegas, was recast entirely. Nobody the same. Yeah.

Because the first Fitzhose movie is Elizabeth Taylor's last ever film. Yes. Which is really terrible. The casting is amazing. What a way to go out. It's got Rick Moranis. It's got Elizabeth Taylor. They clearly.

thought they had something. One thing I read was that Rick Moranis basically quit acting after this movie because they realized that they were using him. It peaked. How do you can't follow him. I don't personally I think I'd read that he had he had family issues which meant he had to step back from acting but the thing claims that he was just like I can't be put in any more movies like this. Rick Moraine is like a moraine is like a it's like scree that you get on top of a mountain. That's brilliant. Very nice. Absolutely cool. Rock Moranus was right there. But you don't settle for the easy

He needs the puns you need explaining for. That's his puns. Glass was banned from the entire set of the Flintstones. What is it? I guess is why. No glass in the future. In the future, there's no glass.

That's correct. Well, what's it that, though? Because I know that in, is it in downtown abbey, you're not allowed to wear Calvin Klein underwear? because even though it's not on show, they think maybe your sackcloth or whatever it is they wear in it.

It might ride up and they might see it. I haven't seen... Do you think it's that? Like in the 14th century with peasants and things? Is it not? No. It's not. It's an abbey, right?

I thought it's about monks. There are lots of probably quite sheer and slinky gowns and outfits and maybe if you're wearing modern. You can't wear modern underwear, basically, even though it's not going to be on show. Is it similar? It's not that, no.

Glass band from set. I think Jamie you're the only one who hasn't, playing it again. James has got quite a good one. Darren's no glass in the future. So there's a wide range of plausibility. I forgot it again. Then we talk about the Flintstones.

The Flintstones movie movie. But they worried that because there was so much rock on set. No shoes. No one's wearing shoes. Oh, no one's wearing shoes. The entire cast of filming barefoot. That's clever. And so obviously you can't have any glass on set.

Yeah. Well done, death. That is good. That is pretty good. There was the actor in the original series, Miss Jean van der Ply, or Pills. P-Y-L is her surname, and she was the voice of Wilma.

And she gave an interview in 1995 where she explained that they were basically for the amazing amount of money that this made, because it was syndicated around the world. I mean, there was just so much money being made. She only received $250 an episode. And then she did a contract that said the residual payments from syndication. She did a one-off payment of $15,000, and that was it that she got. And she was a great voice. She did a lot of voices in the Jetsons.

as well and she did, I think as well as doing Wilmer, she did pebbles in that show. She was Rosie in the Jetsons. She was the maid. Yeah, it's so incredible. Oh, that's awful. Yeah, and so, yeah, she said, if I got residuals, I wouldn't be living in Sam Clement.

I'd own San Clement. Oh. Yeah. So, well, she should have a better agent, frankly. Exactly. You're only glad yourself. Okay, that's it. That's 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 on this podcast, you can find us all on our Twitter accounts. I'm on at Shreiberland, Andy. At Andrew Hunter. James. At James Harkin. And Jamie?

At Uncle Eagle. Don't ask. Okay. It's the whole thing. Yeah, or you can get us on our group account, which is at No Such Thing, or our website, No Such Thing as a fish.com. Check out all of our previous episodes. They are up there now.

You can also buy the new merch that we've released. It's a bunch of T-shirts. pin badges and so on and also you can get access to clubfish the private member club Jamie you can listen to the final episodes of my dad wrote a pornor which are going out in December these are the final episodes one including Jamie's dad Rocky Flintstone for the first time ever no one's ever heard his voice before will you have done I know your dad but yeah and it's a good voice so I'm very excited to hear it but on behalf of the podcasting world we're very sad to see you guys go so now well I mean financially that lived is all right

fine. Fish live on forever, don't they? Anyway, we're going to miss you guys. But we hope to see you coming back for reunions. Anyway, that's it. That's all of our facts. We'll be back again next week in another episode. We'll see you then. Goodbye. Oh my god, I just broke it.

What's that? I didn't see there was one behind it. Oh my God. Are they both? I actually broken it. Oh, no. You know when people win awards are like, I wish I could break it in a half and give it to the other nominees. I'm really sorry, I was practicing my golf swing nearly on.