No Such Thing As Lithuanian Soap Ornaments
00:02Hello and welcome to another episode of No Such Thing as a Fish, a weekly podcast coming to you from the QI offices in Hoburn.My name is Dan Schreiber. I am sitting here with James Harkin, Anna Tishinsky, and Andrew Hunter Murray.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, and that is James.Okay.fact this week is that Antonio Salazar was deposed as dictator of Portugal in 1968, but untilhis death two years later, everyone tricked him into thinking he was still leader.
00:51This is unbelievable. This is unbelievable. I can't believe we've never read about it before.It's the greatest story ever. It's incredible. It's basically the Truman Show.Yes. If Truman was a dictator. And that's the problem. It's the high stakes of his power andposition. You know, I could imagine that if maybe for the last 10 years, you guys have been recordingextra episodes with me and I'm not really on this show anymore. And I've just got a feed that I believethat I'm on. You know what? The other day, I was in, I've mentioned this farmer's market a fewtimes now on the show, but I was in a farmer's market and we were ready to leave, me and my wife,my daughter, and I said, oh, I'll go and get my daughter's scooter. So I went to get it. And then
01:28when I came back, my daughter and my wife weren't there anymore. And they'd actually gone tobuy some flowers. But for a moment, I thought, what if I've, I've,I've imagined having a wife and a daughter, and I'm just a weird guy who wonders aroundfarmers markets with a scooter.Oh, right.Do you never have that?Yeah, I have that a lot.Yeah.
01:46I've lost people and thought my whole family don't exist, actually.I'm just an orphan.You guys.Okay.Whoa.I'm still trying to work out how I'm not married to your wife and have your daughter.You're actually the dictator of Potchia.I had barely heard of Salazar.
02:01I mean, I wasn't very well-versed in Portuguese history.I knew that the whole Liberian Peninsula, I knew that Spain.and had Franco, as far as I was a bit of a close book to me.Yeah.So he was in charge for a long time, and a lot of people thought he was a really terrible dictator.A lot of people thought, as far as dictators are concerned, he wasn't that bad.Definitely in the dictator stakes, I would say.He's almost caught.
02:24Here comes, Anna.Name me a better one.Name a dictator you won't go into Batfall.That's all I'm saying.When the telegraph ran his obituary, they called him a benevolent autocrat.In fact, he himself said that he ruled with as much authority as necessary and as much liberty as possible.But he did have secret police.Lots of secret denunciations and the paramilitary group for seven to 14-year-olds, all of this.
02:49But it wasn't, he sort of kept a bit clear of Hitler and Mussolini during that period.He was technically neutral during the war, but he let the British use the Azores, or the Allies, I should say, use the Azores, which were Portuguese.So that was kind of on our side.But really when you read about it, it tended to be that him and the rest of the Portuguesejust kind of backed whoever was winning at the time.And there was ambassadors in Portugal from Germany and Britain.And whenever Germany was doing quite well in the war,a lot of Portuguese politicians would turn up to their garden parties.
03:25And then when Britain were doing well, they'd go to their garden parties.And you could kind of gauge who was doing well in the war by that.Really?Because that's like roughly first three years.last three years is how that divides.And who did the best garden parties?But I guess that's why you don't know him, Andy, is because he wasn't this ostentatious characterwho we would see on the news, who you could almost talk about on this podcast so easily
03:48by having crazy amounts of money thrown around for his.He didn't rename Portugal Salazaria or he didn't say Thursday is now called Antonio or whatever.Yeah.And he wasn't corrupt.But can we talk about the fact that he faked his own death was unfaked, the opposite ofthat. Very well put on it.So he had an accident and he went into a coma and we don't know exactly what happened with theaccident. It could be that he fell off a chair, which is what most people say. Some people say
04:17that he fell in the bath. And another version is he was trying to sit down to let theCaropodys treat his feet when he slipped off the chair and banged his head. But whateverhappened, he went into a coma. And everyone that expects that he's probably not going to come out ofthe coma. And so they bring in a new leader. And then,And in the best sitcom scenario you've ever heard, he suddenly recovers complete lucidity.And so then everyone's like, well, what are we going to do?Because he thinks he's leader.We can't really bring him back.
04:46We think he's run his course a little bit, actually.We've told everyone he's dead.And so what happened was they kept him in his house, kind of almost under house arrest.And people would go and visit him from his cabinet and say, what shall we do, sir?And he'd tell them.and they just ignore him.It's crazy.Did you read about the newspaper?
05:06They printed a fake version of the newspaper every day for him,which had removed all of the references to his successor.And I'm obsessed with the newspaper bit because I'm just wondering how much of it was fake.Like, did they do a fake crossword every day where it was, you know, current dictionary of Portugal,you sir, or whatever?Yeah, you'd really have to scan that nothing made it through.Yeah, like horoscopes.I mean, all of it.
05:29So they, you know, every edition removed references to Kaitano, who was.the new one and he just thought he was still in charge for two years was it until heyeah and they and it's quite confusing as to exactly why they did it rather than time the truthbecause he wasn't totally mad but this is another weird thing is that the global press knew about itlike everyone knew this was happening so time magazine wrote an article in 1969 which was sayingthe president of portugal who was a different person mostly nominal thing the president arrived at one pointin salazar's offices and said he was going to break the news to him this is according to donna maria who was hishousekeeper who looked after him. So the president came was like, I'm going to tell him. I have to tell him.
06:07And he went in with the firm intention of telling the truth, but he just couldn't find the words.You don't want to be the one? He don't want to be the bad guy. Yeah. And you think you're delusionaland have you arrested or something. And suddenly, they get up whoever he wants arrested, becausethat as soon as you walk out of the room, you're not arrested anymore. Well, then that is actuallyreally fun. Just having him like go like, you're going to die by puppies or something. And they bringthe puppies in and they show you and you're scared and you're playing along.And then you all walk out and high five each other going, he bought it. He bought it.Lovely. I think it's all down to his housekeeper, Donna Maria. She was the one who just basically
06:43became in charge of him, therefore in charge of consulting with every major military person whocame in, making sure the newspapers didn't get to him. It was her world to look after. It's extraordinary.Yeah, she was a fascinating character, wasn't she? Because she was his housekeeper for 50 years.And she started out completely literate peasant.And by the end, she taught herself to read so well that she managed all of his finances.She managed his correspondence, all the staff, things like that.And she was his confident.He never married.
07:12He seemed like kind of a lonely person.There was a quote from him, which was something like, I think it was Kai Tano actually who took over from him,who had a meeting with him once and referred to him as a friend in the chat.And he said.Okay.This sounds very familiar, Andy.Okay.colleague, you know.
07:30Actually, you're really going toemphasize with this. SoSalazar said angrily, friendship iscompletely relevant to this conversation. And thenhe paused and sadly said,I can't have friends. I am nobody's friend.So this was reallyI'm coming around to this guy.
07:46That is weird, isn't it?Yeah, yeah, yeah. The thing about no relationships,we think they probably did have one or tworelationships, but the statemedia liked to put him as if he waslike this celibate monk-like.This is such classic dictator stuff, isn't it?I mean, Hitler was the same thing.
08:00Eva Brown was not announced because it was like,oh no, Hitler's sort of given himself up to the German people.He's married to the nation and all this.It's always the way with dictators.They're always boughing on the side.I don't think he was boughing that.I think it was too boring to bough.Really?
08:13He definitely boffed with his biographer.There was a married woman who came over.Yeah, yeah.She wrote a book about him,and that's one of the only instances where they saidthat absolutely was the case that they had a boss time.That's, I'm glad that you specified that onebecause I did read a lot by his biographer Tom Gallagher,
08:28who's a middle-aged Scottish man.That's him.Golly, I wonder if he was so positive about him.Him coming to power is very interestingbecause he did the classic thing of,he had a position in the government,and then he resigned in high dungeon over something.And everyone was like, oh no, Salazar, I'll come back,
08:44you're too great, we miss you.It's very clever.So he'd been a minister of finance.And then three years later, he was prime minister.Yeah, and they kind of brought him from nowhere, didn't they?He was just like, he worked in a university.as like a finance lecturer or somethingand then there was a big sort of
09:00coup d'etat and they're like, well, we need afinance guy and he'd obviously beeninvolved a little bit but they were like, let's bring him inso he'd never been a politician until then.Quite rare you get lecturers becomingdictators, I don't know.Yeah, they're usually dentists and stuffup. Yeah, it's always incredibly boring.
09:17Usually. Who's in Bernie Macamadoff?Birding Macamododod.And Assad was an optician, wasn't he?An ophthalmologist.Wasn't an optician, he was an ophthalmologist.So sorry, I didn't mean to do it.Your head's coming off.He was by all accounts extremely smart.
09:34And I think everyone says of him, like, whether you're...And by Anna's account, he was handsome, dreamy.And he had lovely eyes.Oh, Jamie Salazar's eye.I do some boffin.I am not saying I am a fan.I'm saying that all people accept, whether they're pro or against that, he wasn't reallyinto the crazed power.
09:55He didn't have the ego.all these big statues about him. He didn't want loads of biographies. He didn't like speaking inpublic. He was like a reluctant dictator who was sort of austere and was like, oh God, everyone elseis too stupid to run this country, so I will, which is weird because he didn't run it particularlywell, given the state it was in. I think something more was going on with him because it wasn'tjust that stuff. It was the way he led his day-to-day life. So he paid for his own stuff, like hismeals and stuff. He did that. When he came back from hospital, the suitcase that came backwas the same suitcase that 60 years ago
10:25he had as a student as he went intouniversity. He hadn't updated hissuitcases. Yeah, he was so...Yeah, exactly. It's just something interestinggoing on when you've got a dictator who liveslike he's almost a hermit. Apparently he didn'tturn his heating on in the winter. I mean,he's in Portugal, so that helps.
10:41He used to like work with a rugaround him and then put his overcoatover the rug to keep warm.But again, like a lot of these stories, I dothink they come through the windowof state media. So,him being very frugal when the country has not got much moneyand you need your people to be frugal.
10:59Obviously, it's a very convenient story to tell.Although I believe he didn't have enough money to pay,almost to pay for his funeral at the endbecause he was so, you know.But he was a dicket.I just want to clarify how a secret police chased after.You absolutely stitched up our next Portugal tour, Anna.Can I just say?
11:14I think he's still thought of quite fondly in Portugal, I think, actually.Because he was voted the greatest Portuguese person in 2007.Wow.Do you remember they did this thing where every country did the 100 Greatest Britons?I remember that 100 Britons won.King Arthur was voted as one of the greatest Britons.Yeah, but wasn't it?Isn't it about Kingdom Brunel who won it?
11:35No, Churchill won.Oh, Jitty.Brunel was in the top 10, I think.Yeah, yeah.They made, I think, a separate hour-long documentary about each of the top 10 candidates before the final vote.It was a really big thing.Yeah, it's often just who was in charge during the war is a game popular.There is a lot of that.
11:48I think the Salazal won.He won 41% of the vote.but there was a separate poll donearound that timethat found that he only got 11% of the votewith one poll and 6.6% of the votewith another poll. So a few polls done.And so what it looks like is it was a bit...
12:06It was telephone voting, so it looks like peopledid a lot of phone calls, maybe.Oh, one of those. I'm not saying it was riggedlike so much as people using up a lot of phone credit.Eurovision style.I think there might have been a bit of that.You say Eurovision? That's so bizarrebecause of course the Portuguese autocracy
12:22eventually collapsedand the signal for the revolution to beginwas that year's Eurovision songwas it, a thing called the Carnation Revolutionit was in 1974you know this guy Katana had been in charge for a few yearswho took over from Salazarand they wanted to, the various army officers were saying
12:38look this is ridiculousthere were lots of colonial warswhich Portugal was fightingyou know they were fighting resistance movementsin their African or maybe their South Americanterritories so there was a big thing sayingthat lots of people are dyingcan we just stop this?
12:50This is crazy.So anyway, the signal to begin was a song.What was it called?A depui do adios.I'm sure I've pronounced that wrong.But that's what Portuguese opposition figures picked.And two weeks before, it had been the Eurovision song.And it had done really badly.
13:05It got almost no point.I think that was necessary that it did really badly because you had to hear it on the radioand know it was time to attack.But if it was Waterloo and it was on the radio every 10 minutes, then what are you going to do?Very good point.Wait.So did everyone have their Walkmans in one hand and their swords in the other?Well, how's that working?
13:24Well, I guess it's national radio, right?Not many radio stations.It's not like Spotify where you can play whatever you want.In those days, it was like pretty limited what you would play.Oh, sorry, it's just an advert.Hang on, I'll find out if we're doing the revolution in 30 seconds.I'm doing two adverts.I should have got premium.
13:39I should have got premium.You'll get the latest Spotify coup list.There's another time that he undied, using your very nicely chosen words, Anna,which was, there was a.bomb that should have killed him. Did you read about this?No. So he was a guy who did the same thing at the same time on Sundays, which was he would driveinto his car park spot and go to his local church to do mass. And it was always the same routine.So if you wanted to kill him, it was right there for the taking. And someone did take this chance.
14:05It was a group of anarchist militants. And they buried a bomb underneath where he was parking his car.And the bomb successfully went off. But because of the different sewers that were down therewhere they'd placed this bomb, by a matter of centimeters, it meant theexplosion went down the wrong funnel.But the priest was on the toilet at the time, and the water shut up his anus.Okay, it is time for fact number two, and that is my fact.My fact this week is that the lead singer of the Motown group, The Four Tops, was onceput into a straight jacket by doctors because he was thought to be delusional after telling them
14:46that he was the lead singer of the Four Tops.This was Alexander Morris, who was in hospital because he was having.having difficulty breathing, he had chest pains, and he informed a nurse and a security guardthat he was a member of the four tops.And for some reason, this raised an alarm.And they thought this guy's delusional.We need to get him looked at immediately.So they put him in a strait jacket.
15:08He is complaining the whole time going, I promise, I am.I am.Well, that's what you would say, isn't it, if you were the leader of the four tops here?Exactly.Also, I presume that it's just they had him put in the straight jacket.It's a bit boastful, isn't it?Just saying, you know, I'm the lead to the four tops, did you know?It's not relevant to your medical condition?
15:23Unless you've got a gig to get to, I suppose.Do you think they did it for arrogance?God, can they do that?I don't know.Probably they didn't do that, in fact, because actually it was quite a serious thing, and he sued.He did sue, and the reason he said it was he had security concerns, so he thought stalking fans werenearby that could get to him in this vulnerable state.So he eventually had to show them a YouTube video of him singing, and then the nurse was like,
15:44oh, God, it is him.Oh, so this was recently then?Yeah, yeah, yeah.I've seen this was in the 70s or something.No, this is in 2024, I think it happened.I think his wife turned up, right?And then it was his wife who said, look, this is him at the Grammys.Yeah.
15:55Right.And he did sue.And he sued for a good amount, something in the tens of thousands, which was much better thanwhat they originally gave him, which was a $25 gift card to a local superstore.They thought that would deal with it.Sorry, just to say, the case has been dismissed with prejudice in 2025.We don't know exactly what that means because it wasn't in the press.I haven't found in the press anything that says what happened.
16:21but I found this in the court records.I think it probably means as they settled,but it might not mean that.What's dismissed with prejudice sounds like we're dismissing it,but it is because we have prejudice against this kind of person.It does sound like it.I think he was saying that the racial profiling at the hospital was a problem.Yeah, part of the reason he was put into the trade jacket.
16:38Yeah, just to confirm with prejudice means that he can't re-sue them for the same thing.I see.That means that the case is closed.Pre-judged.Yeah.But there might be a reason why they thought that he was telling a lie,Alexander Morris, and that is because the four tops is one of those groups where they had four originalmembers that were the same for a very long time, and then they swapped in and out.
17:00Sugar Babes.Deaths and so on. Yeah. And it's now a sort of traveling Motown band that has links to theoriginal band, but it's now just got random members. So he took a stint as the lead singer,but if you miss that seven-year period or however long it was, you wouldn't know it was him.So Motown, yeah, which is a beloved music.Is it a genre? No, it's a label, isn't it? Not a genre.It's a label, yeah.I feel like it's a label that became a genre, unlike anything else.
17:26Yeah, to an extent it did.It sort of dominated a territory for a very long time.But then I think if you played something that sounds like Motown,but wasn't technically Motown, you get people writing to you saying,oh, that's technically not Motown.That was Tamla.Interesting.Yes, I think you're right.
17:43But the main figure in the Motown label was Barry Gordy.He lived in Detroit.he had been all sorts of things.He was still quite young when he founded the label.He'd been a boxer and he'd been a soldierand he'd had a jazz shop, which had failed.So he took a job at a car factory.But all the time he wanted to be a songwriter
18:02and he was, by all accounts, a pretty good songwriter,but much better at knowing what wouldn't be a hit.And so then he founded this label.The thing about him working in the car factory is importantbecause for two reasons.Number one, it was in Detroit, which is known as Motetown.and that's where Motown comes from.But secondly, he took the idea of the production line,
18:24which he got from the car factory,and then put that into making records.So it was like, you do this, you do that, you do this, you do that.Eventually we get a record, and we do that a million different timesand we're going to be millionaires.Yeah.And it worked.It did.
18:37And I loved his analogy, which was that just like in his car factory where he worked,the body of a car enters at the start.And then it goes through all these processeson the production line and it emerges a full brilliant car,you get a nobody from off the streets who enters at the startand then you put them through his music factoryand then they come out a huge star with their, like in-house producers,writers, like all the funding, the studios.
19:03It was Simon Cowell.He got some pushback.He said when he was interviewed about it about 10 years ago,he said, my family said, that's stupid.Those are cars.You can't do that with human beings.And he said, well, it's the same thing.He's still alive, Barry Gordy.
19:15He is still alive.He is still alive.96. Yeah, incredible. And it's sort of, it's quite interesting, like, because it is a bit different to Simon Cowin that the people who became the stars. So you had the temptations. You had Stevie Wonder. When he was a kid,you had Marvin Gay. And they all used to perform on each other's albums in various different roles. So you'llfind Marvin Gay as the drummer on someone else's hit song. And they used to tour together as well,slightly to protect each other. So the four tops in the mid-60s went on tour with the temptations. And this is when,if you were going around, there were a lot of white supremacists who really didn't want you performing.
19:50So they all carried guns on them.What?Yeah, purely for protection, because they were getting chased out of towns and they were getting shot at.So when the temptations were on stage, the foretops would be standing in front, looking out for anyonetrying to jump the stage.And then when they got off and performed, the temptations would act as the security line on themas well.You can't just fire into a crowd of audience.
20:11Absolutely.But you are allowed to carry guns in America.So it's just they were carrying guns.Didn't Elvis do this?Didn't Elvis have an ankle gun?Supposedly in case anyone tried to fire him.He thought, well, I could fire back.And imagine how his lower half was wiggling all the time.
20:24That's incredibly dangerous.Maybe that's why.Maybe the gun was going off all the time.He was just dancing around.The four tops would, they would record, you know,20 different songs in a day that were all written by different people.And then loads of other artists would all sing the same song as well.And then Barry Godi's team would say, well, this version by these people is the best.
20:44one, so we're going to use that one. And they would do it in that way. So the most famous song,which is Reach Out, I'll be there. They didn't really want it to be released because it was a bitsort of Utre for them. It was like he's shouting quite a lot on it, the lead singer, and it's just,it's a bit weird. It's a bit different from the other stuff they had. And they were like,yeah, we don't really think you should put this out as a single. But Barry Gordy's like,no, trust me, people are going to love this. And sure enough, they did. And it was absolutelymassive. But actually, Barry Gordy wasn't the main person eventually who had that big ear for a hit.There was someone called Billy Jean Brown. And she was assistant to Barry Gordy's sister.
21:24And she really knew what was good. And she would be the one who would pick them out.Yeah, she sounds like she was a real dragon. Barry set up this whole quality control department.She headed it. And she would have a meeting every week, 9 a.m. Sharp.And Smokey Robinson, like, greatest Motown writer ever, some people would say, said that like even he,If he arrived at 901, the door shutand she's like, come back next week with his songs for me.Billy Jean, what was the name?Billy Jean.
21:47Billy Jean.She wasn't by any chance, Billy Jean.Was she of the song, Billy Jean?I don't know if she was or wasn't, but I don't think so.So Michael Jackson was with Motown for a bit.Yeah, with Jackson 5.He started there.Right.
21:58Did you guys find or traverse the website Motown Junkiesin the course of your research?Oh my God.This is incredible.It's a website.Motown Junkies, an unofficial guide to every Motown single ever released.And it's one guy who is reviewing every A side and B sidein chronological order that Motown ever released.
22:19And it's so good.So I just wanted to tell you a line from the website.New reviews appear every couple of days.Think of it as an unauthorized track-by-track companionto the magnificent, the complete Motown singles, CD box sets, and beyond,with marks out of 10.I'm not Paul Nixon.I think you're pardoned.
22:42You know what?Until then I didn't think he was.I know.And now of all the people in the worldwho I think might be Paul Nixon,he's number one on my list.That's all I'm going to take away from this.Oh yeah, the Motown junkie guy, Paul Nixon.
22:53No, no.Paul Nixon is a music journalist.The guy who wants Motown junkies has the username Nixon.But it's not Paul Nixon.I just want to make that so clear.Yeah, yeah.Okay.The lady doth protest.
23:07But anyway, there's just a list of amazingband names and song names, the Chuckelux,the headliners who tragically fell toan attraction audience and didn't last at all.Oh, really? Yeah. Shorty Long, have a guessfor why he got his name?Oh, sure. He was a medium height.He was 5'1.
23:25So what was long? Whoa, what was long about him?It's just his surname.Yeah. Okay.Which ironically is quite shot.Yeah. Yeah, that's true.Diana Ross, big deal.Supremes.Huge deal. She had a son who she called,
23:40Ross. Ross Ross Ross. And I believe he actually, weirdly, all her other children had the surnameRoss, but he doesn't seem to have the surname Ross. Maybe that's why. Barry Goddy had childrencalled Barry, Terry, Kerry and Sherry. Stop.The audacity. No Mary, the obvious opener. Well, they all end in E.R.R.I. So I guess youcould save money somehow. Like when you're putting the names in their school jumpers.You'll be able to change one of the letters.Nice.That is so good.
24:13Or the letters on the door of their bedroom.Yeah?Yeah.So he had eight kids in all, Barry Gardy, and they all worked in the music industry in some way.His eldest child Hazel married Jermaine Jackson.And another child Kennedy, who's known as Rockwell, sang, Somebody's Watching Me.You know, that one that's got Michael Jackson in the background, I think.Okay.
24:33And his youngest child, Stefan, is known as Redfoo, and was the co-founder of Eleanor.MFAO.Oh yes.Who did party rock anthem and I'm sexy and I know it.Oh wow.And that was co-founded with him and his nephew.So that's Barry's grandson, SkyBlue.So the family is still going.
24:54Family's still going.Well, it was such a family enterprise like you say, wasn't it?Like he hired like his sisters, his brothers, his dad, who is apparently a legend wholike all the most famous Motown acts got together to sing a song about his dad, BarrySenior.Weirdly, his dad's name was Barry Jr.but because he became Barry Gordon the third's father,he then became known as Barry Senior.
25:15His father was Barry,but the only relation who wasn't,there were a lot of Berries around.It was Barry, Barry and Barry.What was the song they sang him?Thank you, Barry, Barry, Barry, Barry, Barry, Barry, Barry, Barry, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very.One of the only relations who didn't go into the music industry became president.So the great grandfather, who actually wasn't called Barry,
25:35the first one not to be called Barry,slept with one of his enslaved people, woman,and that gave rise to the Berry familyand then slept with his legal wife,which gave rise to Jimmy Carter, three generations later.Crumbs.Crumbs, indeed.Wow.
25:49Can I tell you one more thing about Detroit?We'll just researching a bitbecause it's Motown, it's Motor City.So the reason it's Motor City is largely, I'd say,down to Henry Ford,who based his factories there and his companies.And in the mid-20th century,one in six working Americans was involved in the car industry.
26:10One in six.That's stunning.Directly or indirectly.I mean, feedstock and the parts and all this stuff.But Henry Ford had his things in Detroit.And it was a massive city.It was a very multiracial city because people came from all over.They came from England, Scotland.
26:26They came from the heartlands of America all over.So it was very mixed nationally and ethnically.And he had this ceremony, which I don't know if you guys remember.we may have mentioned it before, where he would Americanise anyone who was from another country.And the ceremony was, you would walk into a massive melting pot.And there are photos, it is a literal melting pot in your national dress.And you would come out a homodulus American.Like they had an actual pot.
26:55Wow.And this was seen as a really good thing at the time.You know, this is one of the ideas of America is that it doesn't matter where you come from, you're American now.You know, when you get citizenship in the UK, you get the invite to the ceremony.and the mayor of Hackney sort of gives you a scroll or something.Or equivalent.Or wherever you are.It's not always Hackney.
27:12But like on the invitation it says you're allowed to wear national dress.And what that means is if you're from Ethiopia, you can wear a traditional Ethiopian dress.But when my wife got citizenship, she read it as you're allowed to cosplay as a British person.So she wore a bowler hat and a pinstripe suit and a black umbrella.That is so cool.That's amazing.She turned up, well, why do you need citizenship?We were already clearly British.
27:46Okay, it is time for fact number three, and that is Andy.My fact is, the number of people conducting the Indian census is bigger than the number of people in Lithuania.Wow.So not even people answering the census.It's the people going...The number of people altering the census is everybody.That would just be the fact that India is bigger than Lithuania in population terms.And India is bigger than Lithuania, both geographically and in population terms.
28:12No, this is the number of people...And GDP.And GDP.In what sense is Lithuania bigger than India, though?Oh, there'll be something.Like exports of small carved soap ornaments or whatever.There'll be something in which Lithuania is crushing India.They probably don't even have more Lithuanians.
28:29India probably has more based on population size.I'm not sure that there's a massive expat community of Lithuanians.Podcast at QI.com.Please write it.But actually what I was thinking is all the people conducting the Indian census,like they do that once every 10 years, right?What they're doing for the other nine years,they could go to Lithuania and do the census there.
28:51Each person counts one person.That's a really nice idea.That's great.It's like a pen pal system.And of course, I mean, we could have it the other way around.Everyone in Lithuania could do the Indian census,but everyone in Lithuania would have to go.Who's going to make tiny soap on this?
29:06Absolutely.And it would be a disaster as well.because they don't speak many of the local languages.Like it would be, that would be chaos.It would be terrible.But India is having a census, and that census has happened every 10 years normally,but this one is going to be mega,because it's been delayed by, I think, five years due to COVID.
29:22And there are 1.4 billion people in India.And there are 3 million people who've been hired.And it's often teachers or civil servants who are, you know,they've got time off over the summer maybe,or they've kind of been dragooned into it.And it's going to be a biggie.It's going to be very exciting.Is it going to be exciting?
29:40I think your sentences is you've got a tick box.No.Is it exciting?No, but there's something different about this particular Indian one, which is really interesting,which is there are, I think it might be 33 questions on it,but they're going to be studying one thing in particular,which hasn't been, that's not the interesting thing.Don't make a sarcastic noise, okay?
29:59No, I see why you're so excited.Oh my God.The interesting thing that they're doing, this hasn't been done since 1931,is they're going to ask a question about cast and the caste system.and basically you need to judge the extent of the caste system and how it's impacted people's lives.And just to say that the caste system is like a very, very, very complicated version of our class system, basically.Exactly, exactly.And there are cast and there are subcasts and there are clans and there are surnames.
30:26So they did try in 2011 to study cast, but it was a disaster because they mixed all of those different kind of categories up.They got 4.6 million separate casts out of it.Not helpful.Like, not useful data to get.Well, because they didn't categorize them properly and do the subcategories.They basically gave people an open box to write in whatever they wanted to write in.So, you know, it's really important to have that because the caste system is basically like an old Brahmin network in many ways.And these days, it's much more about connections.
30:55But you need to be able to study it in order to move on from it.So when's it's it's happening?It's happening over the course of several months.It's a long process.Like in 2026?6 and 7.Yeah, it's going to be happening.It's weird.
31:07they got the car system question wrong because Ihappened to be reading a handbook given outto enumerators in the 1890Indian census and theywere very good at it. So it just happened tome and then we did this fact on.It was so lucky, yeah, I was just in themiddle of it and Andy suggested this.
31:24It was pretty long.Woke your husband up, hey,you'll never guess. This bedtimereading's going to come in use for after all.I don't need to tell you all these facts anymoreabout the gender of everyone inBombay in 1889.Wake up, another bloody
31:41cast.When's it going to end?33 questions.So this is a handbook forwho? It's a handbook for the enumeratorsof the 1890 Indian sentences.And so I'm sure a lot of people willhave read it. But for those who
32:01haven't. So sorry,if I could be serious for a moment, was thisBritish administration?is conducting the census because of the imperial times.Yes, British administrators and obviously Indians mostly conducting it,but under the instruction of the Brits.So you're reading the English version.No, I read that.
32:19So I had to learn Hindi first as well, which is surreal.But I'd heard it was best in the original language.You miss a lot of the New Orleans, day.You can never really appreciate the 1890 guidelines for enumerators.But I'll give it to you in the English.The categories that they listedIt's a real letdown nowReligion, sect of religion, caste
32:41Subdivision of caste, subdivision of thatAnd then the only other questions they asked wereAge, Are You Married, LanguageAnd then a column at the endWhich says, Are You Insane, Deaf Mute from Birth,Totally Blind, or a LepperNB, do not enterIf You're Only Blind in One Eye
33:00Or if you've become deaf and dumb since birthOr if you only suffer from white leprosy.and they're the only gas queriesand so are they still in?Are they one of the 33?I am not insane.I am the lead singeron the four tops.
33:15You sat right next to you.I am not Paul Nixon.So the questions this yearare going to include things aboutwhat electricity access do you have?What kind of clean water accessdo you have?Do you have access to a toilet?
33:31And what kind of, you know,is it indoor, outdoor?That kind of stuff to gauge poverty.What is your main cereal?That's going to be an exciting one.It's not Cocoa Pops, damn.It's like nice or nice.Yeah, this is exciting.
33:45One thing that they're going to have an issue with is the Andaman Islands,the Centanelese people who live on North Sentinel Island.If you go anywhere near them, they fire bows and arrows at you.So no one has been on this island from the West for many, many, many years.And whenever they do, they get killed straight away.A couple of idiots have been, haven't they?A couple of idiots have been and been, like,I think one idiot went and managed to escape,
34:11but then was immediately arrested.But it's part of India.So how do you count those peopleif whenever you go near them,they're going to shoot bows and arrows at you?Count the arrows.Like the British archers at Agincourt could fire three arrows at once.Really good.
34:28Really good points.So maybe count them and divide by three.I don't know, whatever.So what they've done is in the past,They've basically gone around the island on a boat and counted the number of people on the beach.And then sometimes estimated from that and then sometimes just literally gone, well, there were 39 people on the beach.So let's just say it's 39.Because probably if you're on a little island, you spend all your time on the beach, aren't you?
34:51So it's probably all of them.We just don't know.And then they're talking about using drones for this current one.But the problem is like, do you remember the big tsunami in whenever that was, 2004?There was helicopters went over to make sure these guys were okay,and they fired arrows at the helicopters as well.So they just don't like people going anywhere near him.And definitely they won't like drones.
35:13So it's just a bad idea all around.Just leave them alone.Leave them be.Doesn't feel like you need to know, does it?You're not really taxing them.You don't particularly need to know what cereal they're eating.No.No, but yeah, I suppose.
35:24You might need to know how many people are there so you know what support.But I guess if you're not supporting them,they're keeping themselves to themselves.But that's the whole point of a census, right?Well, there's a few different points.But one of them is you work out what people need.And that's one big problem with censuses are often overcounted or undercounted.You might not give the right support to a community because they're not replying to the census or vice versa.
35:48So in the last American census in 2020, there was loads of political stuff going on.But ethnic minority groups were not responding to the census as much.So they were undercounted.And it was the first one you could do online.and so more affluent people were responding to it more.And so it meant that you got this really distorted thingwhere you didn't think there were so many poor peopleand you did think there were a lot more rich people
36:12and it meant that their resources were going to the wrong places.Oh, right.Yes.They also have a problem with census data in China.So, for example, one census showedthat there was 1.334 billion people,but actually estimates are as high as 1.5 billion people.And the reason is people are avoiding the census either as illegal migrants or the one-child policy.
36:38So you will be fined something like £20,000 if you admit that actually I did have a child under that time.Hang on, you're saying there are more Chinese people than we think.Yeah.I'm saying there are fewer.Oh.Well, fight it out.Okay.Because there is a claim that 100 million Chinese people don't exist.
36:55The demographic stats are lower than the official.in local government statsand that might be officials in localgovernments having an incentive to say there are loadsmore people here because it means you get more resourcesfrom the state, that kind of thing.And actually, it's a slightly maverick theorybut I think it seems pretty possible.
37:14So maybe it cancels out.When you're dealing with countries as bigpopulation size as India or Chinaand as you're saying, Andy, this is going to go over months,what happens with the rate of death and birththat means your census is in any way accurate?Or does it level out?I think the start decisions are figuring
37:30that out, aren't they?There's a lot of people smarter than us dealing with this kind of thing.I actually, I happen to be reading...Oh yeah, here we go.Speaking of statisticians, the Office for National StatisticsMethodology section on how they do the census.Sometimes the 1890 stuff gets a bit too exciting, doesn't it?And you want somebody to calm down before bed.
37:52That's the toilet book, isn't it?It's the Office for National Statistics that do the census usually.So they're in charge of it.And I just came across a bullet point in their methodology for centres taking,which said,we've made methodological adjustments to the data for children age naught to two years.This is because people often forget to add their babies to their census return.And I looked it up.
38:14And it's across countries.And it's a much bigger effect than you think.So in Australia, America and the UK,about 5% of naught to two or nought to three-year-old are not counted.Is that wishful thinking of very tired parents?It's got to be right.I mean, we don't know.We just, people just forget to say, yes, and my newborn baby.
38:33Yeah, you're right.To the extent.And in Australia, they put a note on the O&S press release saying,please do remember to count any newborn children in your household.So I was looking up some jobs from the 1921 census.So there was getter, brackets someone who gets things.Oh, okay.Nobber removes head of fish with a knife by hand.
38:53Odd boy, rabbit destroyer, assistant bottomer.Very funny.But then I thought, look, what do I like?I thought I go to the S listing.There are 10 different sausage-related jobs in the census.Okay.Oh, great.Sausage case maker.
39:08Sossage casings cleaner.Sausage casings dresser.Sausage filler.Sausage linker.Sausage maker.Sausage meat mincer.Sobage skin cleaner.Sausage skin dresser.
39:23Sausage skin maker.So wait a minute.You had sausage skin dresser and another kind of sausageDresser, didn't you?Sausage case dresser.Sausage case dresser and sausage skindresser. Possibly people are fillingin slightly different. I feel like we have a cast
39:37issue here, don't we? Where people havejust been given a box and they could write what they want.I just like the idea of the sausage factory, which hasall of these people in strictly demarcatedlines of work. It did read like they were eachstanding next to each other on the production line.Save a line in the budget by sacking one ofthe sausage casing dresses.
39:54No, you're absolutelyright. In 2022,there was a question on the censusthat asked, can you speak Scots?And it became apparent that Scottish people weren't entirely sureif what they spoke was Scots or if it was just weird English.That's basically what Scottish people said.Scott is English.
40:11Yeah, the truth is with Scotsis an English person who's never read Scots in their lifecan read a paragraph of Scots and get the gist of it quite easily.It's exactly, you can sort of get the gist, exactly.So there's a great website now called I-Can, A-Y-E-C-C-Can,which basically says,listen to people on this site speaking Scotsand it will help you decide if you can understand it
40:31if you're a Scots speaker whether this is your mainlanguage. It should have been called I-Kennbecause Ken is Scots for knowledge.They can't even speak Scotsfor God's sake. The people who made the website.Anyway, it sounds greatbecause it sounds beautiful, isn't it?Yes.
40:46Yeah, you're going.Yes, cool.It would have been a very brave podcastto say no to that.Okay, it's time for our final fact of the show, and that is Anna.My fact this week is that Japan's biggest toilet maker is an essential part of the computer chip industry.This is weird, but it's Toto, and they make toilets, not the band, the toilet maker.I hear the drains down in Africa.
41:19That's very good.Nice.Thank you.Thank you.So Toto, known for washlets.Those posh lues that spray warm water on your bottom, and then they give you a bottom dry, and then they've got some cleansing stuff.The best things in the world.Do you think the best things in the world?
41:33Oh, I've got a theory about why you in particular might say they're the best things in the world.Okay.Yeah.Do you want to save it or you want to tell me?No, I'll just say now.I'm sure we'll talk more about Luz later.But the reason Toto became so good, became industry leaders, is because they started out researching everyone's bottoms.And they started researching the golden angle, the angle at which you should be sprayed and
41:59and they did their first research on golf courses.Oh.So they've been aiming for your custom, James.Yeah.So that's what they do.You may or may not love them.But 40% of their profits come from making electrostatic chucks.So as far as I understand it,
42:18all the circuitry in a computer chip,like the bit that stores all the dataand does all the important stuff,is printed on a silicon wafer.A really, really thin, like a quarter of a millimeter thick,bit of wafer. Each circle of wafer is then put into the chip. But when you're printingthe circuitry onto that wafer, you need to hold it really still in place. But you don'twant to use like a tiny little clamp because that takes up space on the wafer that you want
42:44to print the circuit onto. Okay. So a chuck is this amazing disk of material that uses likeelectrostatic forces to suck the wafer onto itself, hold it perfectly still so you can printthe circuitry on it. And Toto make these tiny, tiny, tiny.Chucks. When they were invented, did a load of humans lose their jobs, like people who are reallygood at Jenga and they could hold things really, really still? Then suddenly they weren't neededanymore. Amazing at those. Did you ever play those steady hand things where you have to take a ringacross? Yeah. Sadly. Now you just see them at fairgrounds, don't you just play in those steady hand games?And they're like, oh, I used to be important in the microchip industry, you know. They can hold out
43:23a cup for loose change incredibly still.The reason being is these things are made aporcelain. Partly made a porcelain, yes.And obviously, who makesparcelin a toilet company?Toilets, there you go.And porcelain is very non-conductive,so it's not going to cause shorting.
43:41It's not going to make the electric charge run away from it.But it can pull heat away from the waferbecause it will conduct the heat.So anyway, it's just the perfect materialto make these chucks and to make toiletsand it pulls the heat away from your bottom.It's useful as well that they're non-conductingporcelain toilets, isn't it?
43:58Because imagine if every,time you went to the toilet in a carpeted house and you had one of those electric shocks that youget.Do you know what I mean?Oh, I certainly do.Yeah, yeah.Was it a financial time story that you sent around, Anna, as the source for this?Yes.
44:12Because did you guys read the story?It ended with this amazing sentence.Toto is not the first ostensibly non-tech company in Japan that has become part of the AI boom.Aginomoto, better known for soup stocks, uses resin derived from its.It's expertise in umami flavorings to make insulation material between chips and motherboards.So cool.I think what happened was around 2020, the government started this idea where they would try and get people to, if you had a company, you should go into techno stuff.And they basically gave people money to go from making ramen into making chips or whatever.
44:54Making ram.Very good.And in fact, I read an FT article about this.They found that a lot of seafood companies had gone from fish to chips.Oh, my shoe company.Well, not my shoe company, I wish.But I heard a pair of shoes by the company.Murray Brogues.
45:12Murray Brogues.For the quality gentlemen.You now make leather wafers onto which circuitry is printed.Sorry, this film called All Bird.And I have a pair of shoes by them.And they were sort of a, I think they were kind of, apparently they were quitetech broie shoes, which I was not a while.I just thought they were kind of woolen sneakers, which I quite liked.
45:36But they recently announced, yeah, we're going to be doing AI from now on.And everyone said, what?But basically they just said, yeah, we're going to be new bird AI from now on.We've lost massive amounts of money making shoes.And we seem to be completely doomed.So now we're going to acquire graphics processing units.And their share price went up 600%.And the shoes now walk out of your cupboard and put themselves on you, don't they?
45:56Lovely.Because they're AI.They're AI.I've been sacks from my job of putting my shoes off.Actually, relatedly, on Japan and AI,I was reading an article about why so many of these companies do these switches in Japan.And another of the reasons was, according to this guy who's called David Dai,who's a Japanese analyst at a semiconductor company,
46:17so he's really looked into why people will do this.He said, in Japan, you've got much more of a Zen long-term approach generally,and a lot of companies really, really embodied that.They've never been so short-term capitalist-driven,them quite good for this, but also very slow to respond to demand.And an example of this is that in the UK, 32% of workers are now using AI.In the US, 50% of workers are.In Japan, only 8% of workers use AI at the moment.
46:43And he was saying this is because there's this, you know, like caution, conservative,let's just stick with what we were doing.So maybe they'll turn out to be the only ones who survive.Another part of the world that does this kind of pivoting quite nicely is South Korea.For instance, Samsung, they started in 1938 and they were selling groceries and dried fish and noodles and stuff.And now they sell electronics and all sorts of stuff like that.But this is due to something called Chai Ball.And it's a Korean idea where it's a family business and you have your main family business that the people in charge of your family are like concentrating on.
47:23But everyone else can kind of do their own thing.but you're under one big umbrella of the family.And so it means that your kids can do risky things,but it doesn't really matterbecause you have the overarching family businessthat's always going to carry on.So like useless cousin Derek can still fit into the family businessand he can still be making his little soap ornament, for example,
47:43but AI now.So, you know.Wait, how many family free riders can you havebefore you're like, I need to have one grandchild who's doing something?I guess the hope is that your dried fish companyis still going to carry on no matter what.Right.And then maybe crazy cousin Derek who's actually making very nice TVs and says, oh, you know what?
48:03Mine's doing all right now, so I can take over.And then he becomes a new umbrella.That's really good.That's very good.That's very clever.In the UK, it feels a bit more haphazard, I think.I don't think we have that attitude.So case in point, walls.
48:15What do they make?Ice cream.With a gun to your head?Right, ice cream.Yeah.Okay.And what else do they make?There's another gun to your head.
48:20Walls.Sausages.Sausages.Oh.Sausage is an ice cream?Why?Is it because you only ice ice cream?in the summer and sausages in the winter?
48:28Did you cheat and research this in advance?No, I didn't.Thomas Wall saw his staff working terribly hard of the year, flogging sausages,and then where the weather changed, he had to sack everybody.Was there like one really perfect Goldilocks day of the year where you would get a 99with a sausage in it?I think I half do remember this fact, and I think he might have had like a refrigerationunit or something that he could start using for ice cream, maybe.
48:51That's so clever.Yeah, yeah.But basically that's it.It's an ultimate pivot based on your existing resources.And then...Having to sack all your staff half the year, every year.Oh, even the sausage casing maker and the sausage skin maker as well.The sausage linker and the sausage filler.
49:09Pivots are great.I do love pivots.I found a great one, which is in 1882, the Plymouth Iron Windmill Company,who made windmills, ran a promotion whereby if you bought a windmill,they bundled it with a free BB gun that they also made.And the BB gun proved so successful that they rebranded as the Daisy Outdoor Products Company.And they now exclusively sell air guns.And they're one of the biggest BB gun manufacturers.
49:35Sorry, can I ask?How many windmills were they selling?Because it feels to me like a windmill is a very high value commodity.But you might only sell one or two of them in a year.Yeah.And to sell a BB gun with every single one is not that many BB guns.I don't know the windmill crate.of 1882 in Michigan, America,
49:57but it might have been huge.They used to be tiny.Wimbles did used to be much smaller.I didn't realize the date and the, yeah.So in America, they used to havethose kind of metal tripodsand almost only like five meters high.They were really little.
50:11They wouldn't run much power here.And it's definitely not the ones on a wooden stickwith the plastic bits of thin around in the wind.You put in the garden.Because a windmill could be good for target practicewith a BB gun. That would be really fun.Which I imagine why they bundle them together.What is a BB?
50:26Ball bearing gun.There we go.On we plow.Can I tell you a listener fact that got sent in?Exactly on this topic.This is from Ron Liebach.Thank you so much, Ron.You were going to be in the little fish, but I've bumped you up.
50:40Wow.Is this a new thing?Promotion to the main show.From the inbox to, you know, glory.So Ron writes in about the Nintendo company.Now, I think you guys might know,because we may even have mentioned before.Nintendo was founded in 1889 as Nintendo Copite.
50:54they made playing cards, right?Anyway, they were founded 1889.Vincent Van Gogh, he says, died in 1890,which begs the question,did Vincent Van Gogh play Nintendo?And actually, between 1640 and 1854,the Netherlands were Japan's sole trading partner with Europe.I heard that he did play Pokemon Van Gogh.
51:16Oh my God.Stunning.But he did have an obsession with Japanese art, Van Gogh.And you look in a bunch of his paintings,and he's painted a Japanese painting in the background.There is a painting of him with a bandaged ear, I think,and it's got a picture of Mount Fuji in the background.Yeah.
51:33This is it.So he got obsessed with this kind of woodblock printtowards the end of the 1880s.There is a chance that maybe he played withNintendo Hanafuda playing cards.So are we saying that maybe he ended it allbecause he couldn't beat Whisk Pig?I don't know what that means.
51:51I think beating the Whiz Pig probably is a bit ofof a euphemism.That's so disgusting.Oh no.Don't ruin my childhood.We mentioned very briefly the Toto Company and the experiments they did on golfers.Well, it was quite buggy this original toilet that kind of squirted water at you.When they were practicing at the very start, quite often people ended up with red hot water fired
52:19in their penis.But they did get finally two.what Andy called the golden angle.In fact, what they called the golden angle.So it was 43 degrees, which was the exact angle that would wash your anus.And they would also have a 53 degree spurt at the front for washing female genitalia.And that was what they said was the big sort of breakthrough that made them really popular.Because they tried it out in America.
52:47And people weren't really up for it at all.And then they went to Japan and they were like, people were like, yeah, we do like this.Right.Yeah, these things really took off in Japanbut still people are a bit funny talking about itand they took off partly because they have a suite of anti-emarrassment deviceslike you press a button and it makes a flushing noiseto cover any embarrassment and all of this.
53:06Can I ask when you say you've got the embarrassment flush,that's a flush to cover up the sound of you pooing, is it?Because I think what I find embarrassingis when you do, I don't think this is overshedwhen you're reading out loudthe 1890s Indian sense of it.Coffee toilets.Snoring coming from the next cubicle.
53:28You know when you have to do a flushand it doesn't work so you have a big pauseand you have to do a second flush,I find it very embarrassing because people outside will knowif I haven't emerged very soon after the first flush.You've had to do a double flusher.They're going to know.And I would imagine this embarrassment flush
53:41actually is going to make people assume that.I suppose people will know that there's just stuff going on in there.Psychologically.It's just now they know if three flushes come out at oncethen that's when you've done a really big one.Yeah.To give it five minutes.Everyone's always counting the flushes, guys.
53:55We should wrap up in a set, guys.I have one bit of toilet innovation,which I read on my feed literally this morning,so it's new news.And that is scientists who have created a mosquito toilet.So sweet.It's a 3D printed funnel,which is coated with a super hydrophobic material.
54:17So when the mosquito does a poo on it,it kind of just goes down into a collection jar.And they use it to analyze the feces and they can find what viruses are in the mosquito.And we're finding new viruses in mosquitoes that we didn't know about before because of these tiny mosquito toilets.How do you persuade it to use a toilet?Well, that's the big problem, I think.You start off with nappies and then you get pull-ups.What's my job?
54:51I fit nappies onto mosquitoes.I used to work holding electrostatic trucksvery, very still.And then I teamed up with a guywho used to work as a sausage case manufacturer.Okay, that's it.That is all of our facts.Thank you so much for listening.
55:15If you'd like to get in contactwith any of us about the thingsthat we have said over the course of this show,we're all online.You can find us there.I'm on at Shreiberland on Instagram, James.Come and join.me on LinkedIn. It's my real name, James Harkin, and lots of people are adding me and doing nothing
55:30with it, so come and join me. Nice, Andy. I'm on Instagram at Andrew Hunter M. Yep. And Anna,you can email podcast.uI.com or go to Instagram at no such thing. Yeah, and if you want to sendus something that you would like read out on the show, podcast at QI.com is the most important one.If you want to send us some extra information, you know, are you two reading the old Indiancensus? Perhaps you want to invest in Murray Brogues, right?to us, we will bring all that information to our bonus show, which is called Drop Us a Line.And that is part of Clubfish, which is on patreon.com slash clubfish. We have lots of tiers.There's Excel episodes. So if you heard this episode and you wanted more of this episode,
56:10well, there's a longer version there. We do online quizzes. There's a bunch of great stuff.Check that out. Or if you've got a brilliant fact that you would love for us to read out,we have a whole separate show for that called Little Fish, where we put down our facts and we read the best of yours.So check that out as well.Otherwise, come back next week because we're going to be back with another episode.Thank you as ever to our team, Leying Lee, Ethan Ruperalia, as well as the larger fish buster crew.And we'll see again next time.Goodbye.
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