No Such Thing As A Fish - No Such Thing As Meat And Greet

Episode Date: January 8, 2026

Lou Sanders joins Dan, James and Andy to discuss Margate, murmuring, Morrissey and Medicine (Nobel Prize for...)Visit nosuchthingasafish.com for news about live shows, merchandise and more episodes.��Join Club Fish for ad-free episodes and exclusive bonus content at apple.co/nosuchthingasafish or nosuchthingasafish.com/patreon

Hi everyone, welcome to this week's episode of No Such Thing as a Fish, where we were joined by the absolutely brilliant Lou Sanders. Now, you'll remember Lou, because she's been on Fish a couple of times, I think. She's been on QI many, many times. She's an absolute favourite of ours. She's so, so funny, so, so brilliant. There's loads of things I could tell you about her. She's written books. She's on tour next year.

But really, the best place to find out everything about her is to go to Lou Sanders. That's L-O-U-S-A-N-D-E. s.com and all of the information about her is there if you want to learn more which i bet you will because she is a real torde force and she definitely shows that off in this episode today and of course it would be remiss of me not to mention club fish go to patreon.com slash no such things of fish and find out everything there is to get there there is merch there's bonus stuff or there's all sorts you know where to go patreon.com slash no such things of fish and find out more Not much more to say, apart from On With the Podcast.

Hello and welcome to another episode of No Such Thing as a Fish, a weekly podcast coming to you from the QI offices in Hobern. My name is Dan Shriver. I am sitting here with Andrew Hunter Murray, James Harkin and Lou Sanders. And once again, we have gathered around the microphones with our four favorite facts from the last seven days. And in no particular order, here we go. Starting with fact number one, that is Luke. Well, you're more likely to get your way if you ask someone for a favour in the right ear and not the left ear. It's called right ear dominance.

Okay. So, yeah. Interesting where we're sat. You're speaking into Andy's right ear and into our left ears. Can I get more money for the podcast? Yeah. Yes. It wouldn't work if I asked Dan that.

No. Right. So right-o-dominance? Is this like being left or right-handed or left-or-right-footed? It's to do with the hemispheres of the brain, and now I'll consult my phone. You've got the main bits, right, without looking at us. Yeah, I was quite impressed myself, actually, yeah. So it's called by ear advantage, I said that, didn't I, for verbal commands and persuasion.

Can you imagine sort of like looping round and going through the other ear to sort of ask? Yeah, you've got to do it subtly. Yes. You've got to make your way over. Getting out of the bed, going around to her side. Yeah. It does make sense to sleep on the right side of the bed Right, yes. That is how we're positioned in bed.

Is that right? Yes. I don't want to hear how you're positioned in bed. Who speaks into who's right here? Fenella will talk into my right ear. I heard it was top to jail with you. I thought it was you on the top bunk. That's very cool. Yeah. That's a very good idea. You would see now, I wonder if you look at classic photos.

are big business meals and so on, whether or not you see, you know, who's on the right side of Trump, for example. Yeah, who's on the right side of history? So, do we know why this? Well, let me consult AI. I'm afraid it is now you, when you search engine something, AI comes up first, which is annoying because they're using all the water. Don't get me started.

Language, left hemisphere dominance. Language and verbal information are primarily. processed by the left hemisphere of the brain in most people. In most people, oh, the right ear is more directly wired to the left hemisphere, faster processing. Information received, is this interesting? Through the right ear reaches the language processing centre in the left hemisphere and real quickly, I don't know. Oh, here we go, this is more interesting.

A study conducted in Italian nightclubs where researchers ask clubbers for a cigarette in their left ear or right ear found that requests made in their right ear were twice as successful. Really? Yeah. I'd say I don't want a cigarette in my left ear. Italian nightclubs, the cradle of science. I've done my own research in there. No, no further, come on.

One of us sitting around this table, for a particular reason, has better hearing than the other three. Irrespective of age or hearing damage. Oh, is it the men have better hearing? Women have better hearing than men. Because we are supposed to get up for the baby, I suppose. That'll be it. Oh, damn it.

Is it better hearing in terms of, of like, you know, the higher a sound goes and then only dogs can hear it. Do they have a higher range? That's for sure they do. Uh-huh. Yeah, yeah. But it's also play a sound at any part of the range and women will be more likely to perceive it than men.

And our eyes are better as well, so we can see more colours than men. Yes. Isn't that? Like, why are we so downtrodden when we're actually better? Um, I suppose you were stronger. Yeah. Yeah. But we're emotionally stronger.

If someone's fighting you, you can't say, oh, I can see 20 colours here. It doesn't really help in the fight. We're emotionally stronger. That's true. So you tell me, how often are you getting into fights and how often are you seeing and hearing things? Every day you're seeing in hearing things. True. Fights, even you. Not one month, is it? I am from the north. One interesting thing about women having better hearing is they can hear higher things. And that means that there was a thing where people were making household appliances and they'd have a very high sort of hum. But the people who are making them were often men, so the men couldn't

hear it, and then they'd sell them, and the women were using them. This is like in the 70s and 80s, and the women could hear them. That's like the, is it called Invisible Women, that book? Caroline Creative, and it's all about how things are not built with women in mind. That's so funny that men have been making like

screaming blenders that are imperceivable to them. Another way to terrorise us. Congratulations. It's weird that this was done in Italian nightclubs. Because I think there's a big history of... Make your pleasure your job, you know? Make your passion your job. I think there's a big history of Italian ear science. Really? Yeah. So

Alessandro Volta was the count, Italian count. He invented the battery. Invented the battery and he did a lot of electrical experimentation and he was one of the pioneers of electrifying ears. Why was he electrifying ears? He was electrifying everything he could get his hands on. He invented the battery. What are you going to do? That's his USP.

It's basically going around nightclubs just batterying people. Right. Yeah, but there were lots of, I think lots of Italian pioneers. Here's another thing. Two people around this table will have better hearing than the other two. Irrespective of Lou. Forgetting about the male-female thing. Forgetting about age.

Me and Lou, because we live by the sea. You got it. Well, not living in the city. Actually, people who live in the city have better hearing. Oh, so you're a me James? Yes, sorry. Oh, that's right. Sorry, guys.

And this is according to a study at the University of Geeson in Germany. And they found that people in quiet villages, they don't have so good hearing because they don't have to fight over the traffic and stuff all the time. And the absolute worst hearing of anyone in the world, where do you think they live? The quietest place? Quietest, but then there's an extra thing on top. It's not whales. It's quiet, but there's a background noise. So like near a nuclear reactor because it's low population, but the nuclear reactor.

It's humming? It's not that. It's East Asian villages because they have a very quiet life that every now and then they get huge firework displays and that really damages their hearing, but then they also have the quiet thing. I was looking into ears inevitably landed on Van Gogh, because that's where all ear research will get you to. And I was reading about when he was getting his ear treated after an injury to it. And I can't tell if this was the injury where he lobed it off or if he had another injury where he'd just cut it with a razor and needed it looked after. Either way, he saw a doctor called Dr. Felix Ray. And as a thank you, he gave Dr. Felix Ray a portrait of Dr. Felix Ray.

So he did one over a number of days handed to him to say, yeah, really beautiful painting. I've seen it. Dr. Ray hated it, as did his wife. So for the next 10 years, they used it to block up a hole that was in the chicken coop that they had outside their house. Did they have the painting on the inside of the coupon? Not sure. Not sure. That's where it stayed for 10 years.

It was eventually sold off and it's now in a museum and it's estimated to be worth about 50 million. Wow. Did they get the money for it? Did they get some money for it? I think, no, I think it got, you know, just handed on to someone else. If they got any money, it would have been a small amount. Yeah. Wow, I should have kept that fan art that someone sent me with a boggly eye.

They tagged me in. I thought, I'm not reposting that. have a word on yourself. If you do make fun out of people, you want them to repost it, make it on the right side of flattering. Sure. Here's another really famous ear

from science history. Okay. The ear on the rat. The ear on the rat. The ear of the rat. Does anyone ever remember? Yes, I do remember. An ear was grown on the back of a rat.

The ear was grown on the back of a rat. A human ear. A human ear was grown on the back of a rat. And people, science has been doing this for at least 20 years on and off. The first one was done in 1997. Wow. I think there was a scientist,

the original, the Vacanti mouse. I think the scientist was Joseph Vacanti. Italian? It may have been Italian. It certainly sounds Italian, doesn't it? Oh, yeah, they love the ears, too.

Yeah. And he, basically, he was a pediatric surgeon, and one of his colleagues said, we really struggle with recreating good ears for children, if a child's lost an ear in an accident or something, it's really hard to shape the cartilage to make it accurate. Yeah, because you can't hear.

out, the mouse can't hear out of that massive ear on its back, can it? No, no. Because it's not like, it's not a working ear, it's just the outside bit. Like, it's the pinner you call it. Exactly. It's the kind of, the external, yeah. And they grow it, and they would put a, they put a frame on the mouse or the rat that grows the ear. Ah, so it grows into the shape of the ear because there's a mold. Yes, it's like forcing a cucumber in the right face.

Why? I didn't know that detail. I just thought, I do you actually think it was like, the mouse is going, Fuck, you know, shut up, will you? I don't think I've got a massive fucking ear on my back. I didn't think it was necessarily functioning. I don't have any cigarettes to give you. I'm sorry. No, but so, and his brother, weirdly, the Vacanti and his brother had both worked on the same problem. But they keep doing it.

And the latest one, I think, was in 2016. And they said, well, we're going to move to human trials soon. Yeah. As in growing the ears on animals and then implanting them into humans. And so far the trail has gone cold, I believe. So can we just grow a whole human if we put it. in a mould. If you put a mould of a human... There is a market for that.

Is there? Well, it doesn't do anything, does it? But it's a human doll. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes, because like the ear, it wouldn't... It would just be a shape. It would just be the shape, yeah. But I don't think those have grown on the backs of mice, as far as I understand. Sex dolls. Well, you couldn't put a high human body on the back of a mice. It would topple over.

Yes, absolutely. What the human... Yeah, well, everyone. Also, it wouldn't be able to get back into its hole, would it? Because the human would be too... You know, it's obvious. It's a terrible idea. Yeah. I don't have to be the one to say that. Come on, boys.

Come on, you're supposed to be a brainy. You can't grow a head body on a mouse. Come on. Get real. And we've been doing it for, as you say, since 1997. Yep. Multiple years. But no ear has ever gone from a mouse to a human.

I believe not. It's time to move on. I think it's time to double down. Get a bot on the mouse, camp. But also, you. always read things in the paper that says, oh, they've figured out a way to do this, and then you don't hear any more about it. I think it's like to give us a bit of a lift and a bit of a story,

but they're not really planning on doing anything with it. Like the thing that ate plastic, the... Or the little bacteria. Yeah, where's that gone? I think it's probably in... No, no one's talking about it. It made Lego Lab disappear, didn't it? Yeah.

Like, you know, they give us a bit of good news. Like, oh, they've saved sight or something I read the other day. Right. Come on then. It's always very early developments, isn't it? Don't waste my time. Can we roll this out? Yeah, come back to me.

It's because they need to do the headlines to get funding. Yeah. Yes. So they do the big, oh, we're going to save this. Yeah. The newspapers say we're going to save this. And they're like, no, we just really just wanted a few grand for some experiments to buy some more mice. On the hearing front, what is it with people that talk really loudly?

I've got two friends that talk so loudly. They must be deaf, mustn't they? Phinella says that I talk extremely loudly, and I don't think I do. No. She's always going on about how loud I am. You shout at her a lot. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, when I've been with you guys.

So that might be what's kept up. Oh, that's what she's talking about, my rage. Yeah. Have you not got like 15 kids to shout over? We do. And also, when you're sleeping top to tails, it does take. Damn, can you, the blankets. Yeah.

We should move on soon. Oh. I feel like we haven't done any facts. Oh, we've done loads. Oh, we've done tons. If you've got bigger ears, do you think you hear better? or worse or the same. Better.

You're right. It's one of those facts that's just what you would imagine. It's so enjoyable that that's the case. That big ears mean. It's only, it's very, very slight. It's 15 decibels difference, which is basically you can't really tell the difference. But yeah, it does make a difference. Like if you have the bigger nose, can you smell better?

Probably not right, because it doesn't necessarily mean your receptors are any better. You can take more air in one sniff. Why don't you let us know, Dan? Okay, wait, Dan's got a big, big nose. I've got a small nose. Andy, you make a smell and we'll see who smells it first. Yeah. Make a smell.

Make a smell right now. I'm doing it. If you can smell it at home, do let us know. Podcast at QI.com. Stop the podcast. Stop the podcast. Hey, everyone. This week's episode of Fish is sponsored by Squarespace.

Yes. Are you wanting to set up a new website? perhaps you want to set up a fan site for the excellent movie franchise. Now You See Me. Well, if you do, you should go to Squarespace, the all-in-one website platform designed to help you stand out and succeed online. Oh my God, this is such an incredible idea. And all the tools are there on the side. That's the thing. You can arrive almost as a pro immediately because of the tools that Squarespace gets you. You could set up a shop for all the knock-off merchandise that you're going to create. You can do video. What? Okay. You can remake the movie and put it.

it up there for people to watch because you can host videos on there. Everything that you need to have a professional website will be there for your incredible Now You See Me website. I'm ready to pull and rub it out of the hat because if you go to Squarespace.com slash fish, you will get a free trial and when you're ready to launch, use the offer code fish to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Do it now. Turn your hobby into something that looks incredible.

Make your business look incredible online, Squarespace now. All right, on with the podcast. On with the show. Okay, it is time for fact number two, and that is James. Okay, my fact this week is that the town of Ramsgate is named after a gate for Ravens. Hey, very confusing. That's so cool. It is really cool.

Well, I think it is. Why do Ravens need a gate? It's a gap in the cliffs. the Ravens go in. I thought you were going to say, it's a gap in the market. We think it comes from the old English word gate, meaning gate, and Raffin, which means raven, and that became Ramsgate. Raffin also sometimes means warlord, so it could be gate of the warlord.

And Daniel Defoe thought that Ramsgate was originally called Romans Gate, and it's where the Romans landed, because it was actually where the Romans landed, but we're pretty sure that isn't true. Can we just say for maybe for international listeners who don't know. Or listeners from the north. Or listeners from the north or west of England or other parts of the UK who may not know about the bustling metropolis of Ramsgate. Yes.

What Ram'sgate is. Well, it's part of Thanet, which is on the south-east coast. That's a circular. No, it's a, it's a, it's, because it's quite connected to quite a few places that you may have heard of. Margate, Broadstairs and Ramsgate kind of come as a trio. You've got Westgate as well. It's a town.

It's a town on the... That's what you were trying to get to. It's a town. Just say it. If you want us to say it's a town, you say it. I just think that's referencing Borghose and Margate. Andy, the fact was the town of Ramsgate. You're right.

You're absolutely right. You're right. It's a classic English seaside town in many ways. It is. It's lovely. And it's so interesting. I had no idea how interesting it is. Is it where you live?

No. No. Do you have a thing? No, I've no idea what you're talking about. No, I was, I lived there from two to four, then I moved next door to Broadstairs. Now I live in Margate, so I'm doing the trilogy. Oh. Is that going up market or down market to go from?

Well, they all changed. The Ramsgate was a dive, and then Broadstairs is a bit fancier. And then Margate was a dive, but now it's fancier. You know what? Regular listeners will know about Margate because Dan goes on about it so much. Yeah, because I live there. Yeah, not just because of fancy. It's nice.

It's nice. It's nice. I really excitedly, I went to see a school. today. It's one that my daughter might go to and they said that every year they take all the kids on a trip to Margate and I've got to say, sold. Yeah, great. Sure.

Well, I think if it was a trip to Ramsgate, that would be even better. For your podcast. Because it's stunningly interesting. It's one of those towns where it's quite, it's reasonably close to London and then for a spell in the 18th and 19th century, it was one of the most fashionable places

on the planet. Incredibly beautiful buildings. incredibly rich history in terms of connections to Europe. It's got a waitrose. It's got a waitrose. Charles Darwin had a flat. Did a lot of his barnacle research

in the area. Vangoff. Oh, and that brings it. Of chicken coop fame. Wow. Himself spent three months as a teacher in a ramskish. A lot of artists do go to the area because the light is very beautiful.

You see the sun rise in Ramsgate and you see the sunset in Margate. Something to do with them. Yeah. Geography. Teaching assistant, I think. Teaching assistant. He was a TA?

Who was? Van Gogh. Imagine being the teacher in the class where Van Gogh is a teaching assistant. That's quite tricky. If you're the art teacher, as I'm presuming he was, and you're trying to teach something. He's in the back. Being a bit weird. Cutting his ear off.

But it was also branded in World War I as the most bombed seaside town in the UK. Basically, the first blitzers hit Ramsgate. And they had an amazing way of dealing with that, which I'm sure Andy you must have read into and enjoyed the tunnels that they built. Yeah. Oh, it was tunneled into the cliffs. They dug, and I think it was for the Second World War was the big bombing raids.

Although there were some in the first World War. But the Second World War, they just dug this cave complex into the cliffs. I think they could get 60,000 people down there. They could. So it's really, I didn't know this. And I've been to these caves. Well, I've been to the gift shop. We didn't quite make it into the caves.

No. But we were going back. Isn't the gift shop usually at the end of this. You would try to get him for free by going in through the gift shop. Walking backwards through the sand snail. So what's it selling a rock? Yeah, it's like a model of a cave. What is it? No, it's where you actually buy the tickets to go into the cave.

But they can only take you as a tour group, so you can't just wander in. So it's huge. And initially why it was built was it goes deep into, away from the ocean inland. And it was for the local town members to have a tunnel that would get them straight to the seaside. So it wasn't built initially for the bombing, but they already live at the seaside. But it's just a quick way rather than going through the town. Well, underground. Yeah, because there was a little, there was a little railway.

Yeah, it was trains and crams and stuff like that. I'll go above ground. What if you need to pop to boots or something? Also, people get a piss in that tunnel. Yeah. Yeah. Surely not. Surely not in Ramsgate.

Oh, well, do you want a story about Ramsgate that's not very high brown? Yes, please. Years ago, I was thinking, why don't I just buy in Ramsgate? This was like years and years ago. And I thought it's quite nice. And then I was seriously considering it. And then I went to the toilet at Ramsgate Station before I got on the train. And someone had done a shit, a loft of the radiator in the waiting room.

A loft of the radiator. Yeah, it's just they positioned themselves on top of the radiator. So the toilet was like two seconds through a door. Toilets there. But they said, no, what I'll do is pulled down my pants in the waiting room. and just poop on a radiator. Don't get that in broad stairs, do you? You don't get that in broad stairs.

Definitely human. Well, I haven't got time to do them all. Do you know the world's biggest weather spoons is in Ramsgate? I go there probably once a week. Do you actually? I do. I don't because he was like a pioneer of Brexit. Yeah.

But you can get a pint of ruddles for £1.20 old. Here we go. You're doing it. Yeah. It's grade two listed. It's very nice. 1,500 people it can hold, which is the same as Shakespeare's Globe. Wow.

It's an old ballroom. Different audience. Yeah, it's an old ballroom and it's really beautiful. It's right on the beach. It's a, it's a, it's a, oh, have you, right. It's lovely. Yeah. It's a great big pub.

It's true. I'm with Lou. It's a shit-all. And it's a two-minute walk from the caves, by the way, if anyone. There's some lovely little independent wine bars up the road. I can't say that. Do you know the home for smack boys? Yeah.

No. That's in Ramsgate. What is it? It's, what does it sound like? Where my ex is congregated. No, no, no, come on. No, come on. Smack boys were people who worked on smacks, are they?

Yeah, fishing boats. Fishing smacks. Right. And they went out with boys as young as sort of probably about 14 were going out, working on the fishing boats and so this was a place to give them food and accommodation and, you know, stability. But still, if you walk across from this building, it still has the words like something like Home of the Smack Boys on the side, which if you don't know what that means is quite confusing. What it's attached to is the Sailors Church, which is this tiny church.

You can fit about 30 people in there. I've been into it multiple times. I've never seen a service done there, but I started reading into it. And there's reviews by, and I didn't know this was a thing, mystery worshippers. So it's like mystery shoppers. Yeah. Isn't that great? So, yeah, you would have mystery shoppers who would do their thing.

Mystery worshippers are people who go into a church. They experience it and they report back on a survey that they're questions about. Did you connect with the Almighty? Yeah, exactly. Level of spiritual. Well, questions are like, how full was the building? Did anyone welcome you personally? Were the pews comfortable?

And the person who filled it in was slightly, slightly odd. Was the pews comfortable? The pews had very low back support. So I thought on balance, no, it was uncomfortable. Off balance, might. Gump. Did the service make you feel glad to be a Christian? I didn't feel miserable.

That's an accomplishment. Wow. As someone who used to regularly go to church, if any new person came into our church, everyone would know. Yeah. Because it would always be the same family. Everyone would sit in the same places and stuff like that. If someone sat in your place, you would know immediately that they were a secret. Mystery worshipper.

History worshipper. The smallest church in the world, maybe, is in Dover, just up there. Really? I think so. Every time someone asks me if that's really true, I panic, but I think that's... How small are we talking? Tiny. Can it fit one person in?

Lots of people. Because obviously I've not got my answers. Hey Andy, I thought you would hate Ramsgate because your hero hated Ramsgate. Jane Austen? Correct. Really? Why? Well, she thought it was a place of disrepute as seaside resorts were in her day, really.

Sure. And apparently, according to Kent Historian, Norman Thomas, she mentions it in Pride and Prejudice in Mansfield Park, and she's never complimentary in either. I've not read any Jane Austen. I think it's where Mr. Darcy's sister is nearly seduced by Mr. Wickham in, I think it happens in Ramsgate. Is that the place, is that the one where Mr. Darcy leaves a turd on a radiator? Yeah, that's right. And that's when Lizzie Bennett knows that he's the one. Yeah. I think her brother lived down there for a while. Captain,

Yes. She had a load of brothers who were Navy or military and I think it was a place where, have you heard, you know this thing, scarlet fever? Not the disease. It's where it's basically. Sorry, just cut out everything I said about the smallest. Listener, if you wonder why it was being quiet for the last couple of minutes. No, it is one of the smallest work in churches in England, Dover's tiny chapel of St. Edmund of Aberden is the only church. still in existence that was dead and by that point you get quite bored right

got it you get the idea there's a small dress and dover it's a small church yeah get over it sorry what were you saying

nothing nothing important yeah I got I got quite a nice message which is something that usually would be reserved for drop us a line

but a listener who runs a local thing called margate mushrooms so as Andy and James will know I've been taking lion's main mushrooms.

Actually, it's a little drip to help your concentration. Dan, we have to keep this for the advertising bit of the show. We have to put it in the ad breaks. We can't just work at it. We can't just work at it. Well, it turns out the person who makes this stuff listens to our show. I had no idea.

And she messaged me. She listened to our episode about crafts that are going endangered and virtually out. Ramsgate is home to one of the very few chain mail makers living in the UK. So a guy named Nick Chexfield, so he has a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Heritage Crafts Association.

And she was saying, because she knows him, or certainly has spoken to him, and she was saying he's so good at understanding chain mail that if he looks at old, centuries-old chain mail, he can tell if the maker was right or left-handed. He can tell if they were getting tired as they were making it. But who's fact-checking him? You know what I mean? I could go on and go like, yeah, okay, this guy's a Sagittarius.

You know, well, he's dead 100 years ago, sir. Actually, that's easier to fact-check. It's easier. It's easier. Actually, that's really easy. Well, he's got a website. Nick Checksfield. We've all got a website, babe.

No, it does sound good. And I would like some free mushroom drops as well. Would you? Right. But check this out. The website, he has an advice hotline for if you have emergency questions about your chain mail. Now this is going to come in useful. Do you mind if I just jot that down?

What circumstances do you need emergency advice about your job? If 100 crossbow bolts are flying towards you. Nick. Does he sell much, do you think? I don't know if he sells much. And I assume the advice hotline is for people who are in museums who might have damaged a chain mail and they need some advice on what to immediately do. He's doing some good work.

Yeah, he's doing great. Well, but anyway, that's a craft that's endangered and he's down there. Rams get a hero. Yeah. Along with. Oh, Bagpus. Really? Broadstairs.

Bagpus was from Broadsteads. Again, I will have to fact check that. Oh, please. Well, see you in a few minutes. And then the podcast gets shorter. Is that the guy who created a bagpuss? A bagpuss himself. Oh, with a postgate, right?

Right. Right. How do you retain all this information? This is crazy to me. Well, the good thing is I can keep staying stuff, and if I get it wrong, I'd just cut it out. But I couldn't even remember that I booked acupuncture for myself the other day. It's fascinating.

That you will need to remove your chain mail for that. Okay. Time for fact number three, and that is Andy. My fact is, the scientist who won this year's Nobel Prize for Medicine didn't find out for nearly a day because he'd gone off grid and he only found out after his wife got 200 texts. Wow. So this is about Fred Ramsdell, who's an immunologist. Yep. And a very good one, clearly.

And he and his wife in October, they'd gone on a three-week hike in Wyoming with their dogs. And they were having a whale of a time. And they're gone off grid. and they turned off their phones and they just had not paid any attention and the very last day his wife started screaming and he thought

she's seen a bear we're in big trouble and it turns out she just got 200 text messages saying can you please put your phone on the no bells are trying to contact you and that's why I won't ever turn my phone off in case I just win a Nobel Express

and if you turn your phone off you have no bell on it so yes brilliant brilliant Edit and a laugh. Yeah, they've been trying to get in touch for 20 hours and there's pretty much a new record

for how long anyone's been able to stay away from the Nobel Committee to try to contact you. Very amazing. I mean, quite often it becomes the viral thing when the Nobel Prizes are announced. Someone not picking up their phone. Yeah, we love it. This happened last year where a neighbour had to come over who happened to be a scientist at like 2 in the morning

and was ringing the doorbell. Yes. Did I pick up your phone? That was 2020. That was Paul Milgram. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Do you want to hear about Richard Ernst in 1991? He was on a flight from Moscow back to the USA. He was asleep. It was a night flight. And he was woken up.

He said, there's a phone call for you. He said, what do you mean? There's a phone call for me? It's 1991. How could there be a phone call for me? And he said, leave me alone. I'm going back to sleep. I think they did have some phones on planes, but it wasn't a common thing to receive a call.

He said, no, let me sleep. And they said, no, no, no, get up, sir. Come to the cockpit. And he went to the cockpit of this plane. And he put on the radio set that the pilot handed him. And it was the Nobel Committee saying, you've just won the Nobel for chemistry. Wow.

And then he's dancing down the aisle over. Yeah, he'd done the research underpinning MRI scanning. He's a big deal. Yeah. There was a guy, Melvin Calvin, going slightly off memory here. Sounds like you going off memory.

Sounds like a blank has been filled in. He won it for, he won the science prize. And he was not, they weren't able to reach him because he was away secretly at a alien conference. And it's not as weird as it sounds because it's where Carl Sagan and Frank Drake

were, where the foundations of SETI were. So he was at the very first SETI meeting and they found out as SETI was being set up. He was busy being probed. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And actually, Frank Drake was going to send off for some champagne. And it just so happened that the person who was the chauffeur for all of them to get them to this place was called French beverage. And he thought, I can't send French. I can't send French. beverage to go get the champagne. That just feels too... The mushrooms that you had with A.M. So Melvin Calvin Calvin was the guy who won, but was at an alien conference.

Well, not an alien conference, so we're setting up SETI. Yeah. Sorry. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Quite good that Setti rhymes with Yeti. Like, those are two of your big interests. Yes, that's true. Didn't know that. That's a good point. And spaghetti you like as well, don't you? I love spaghetti. The whole point is that he wasn't, they couldn't reach him and they got through to his wife. He then had to call. the secret base, yeah, in order to mention it to him that he had won.

A lot of people think it's spam, don't they, or telemarketing when people, when the nobels ring up. Oh, really? Abdur Azat Gurner, who won their literature prize a few years ago, they rank him and said, you've won the Nobel Prize, but before they could say anything, he said, leave me alone and just slam the phone down on them. I think Casualo Ishiguro. Yeah. Same thing.

I bet. Yeah. So maybe you've already won it, Lou. You just been hanging up on it. So off grid, which is where. Fred Ramsdale was. What does that mean? Well, I think it gets used wrong all the time.

I certainly use it wrong. People say I'm going off grid. Yeah. And what they mean is, I won't have my phone on. I'm putting on my out of office on my email. Well, Morrison's in Margate has got no reception. So that's off grid. Right, there we go.

What it should mean is, I'm not going to be... And you do have to fend for yourself because some of those are really mixed up. But it should be, I'm not going to be using public utilities. Yes. I'm not going to be using public water or electricity supplies, but people don't use it to mean that anymore. Self-sustainable is what I want to be. So you have your own electricity,

you have your own water source. I think they're the big two. Those are the big two. Some kind of sewage system, if we're being fussy. Yes, yes, yes. Or a radiator at least. Drying it out is half the battle.

You either get rid of it or just dry it. Thank you. It's mostly water weight. So are you interested in this? I would love to keep doing my job and keep doing what I do, but then living in a few acres of land with my own water and electricity, solar system, all eco. I'd like to sort of have a little eco village. So I would like to be self-sustainable, but still, you know, pop on QI, etc.

You know? Yeah, yeah. You'll have to make your own QI, unfortunately. No. No, I still have to have your own set built. Just with chicken. I still want to go to cafes, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'm not growing my own coffee beans. I think that's fine. I think that is off grid. There's one good way of getting empowered that a YouTuber called Chris Dole has done. You know vapes. Love them. I'm coming out of your ears.

So vapes, they each have a tiny battery in them. But what people do is they vape them until you can vape no more and then you chuck them away. But then that means they're chucking away this tiny battery. And usually there's electricity left on it. So this guy, he salvaged 500, disposable vapes and turned the batteries

into a working power wall which powers basically all of his stuff in his house. Wow. That's so good. That's cool, isn't it? Yeah. It's not that many vapes as well.

I don't know how fast you get through a vape? 500. Well, you get through about 20 a day, didn't you? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I do. They come with a certain number of puffs, don't they? And you can buy mega vapes, which are illegal, which have more puffs in them. Really?

Yeah. Mega vape. I've never felt more how do you do fellow kids than talking about vapes. Yeah, but I think And you can say to your news agent or whatever, have you got any illegal vates for me? And he'll go under the counter and pull out

like a vate the size of a toblerone. You don't know? Of course I've not done it. How do you know this? Andy, Andy. Toblerons come in all different sizes. I'm so sorry. You're absolutely right. Pull out the size of an airport Toblerone. Oh, right. There we go. If I ask for a large

toadone, would they have that under the counter as well? They'll actually pull out a massive toadaderoon. They'll pull out an even bigger one. It's always a bigger one. There's always a bigger out of the counter. No, I think they're meant to be legally, they have to be rechargeable now. But people still throw them away because they can't be bothered to recharge them. Because they're cheap.

Because they're cheap. Lou, there's quite a few places that are kind of set up already for off-grid living. Would you ever consider just incorporating yourself into a place? The groundwork having been done. Yes, but how am I going to be a cult leader if there's already. Good point. You know. Well, you kill the previous leader.

A trial by combat. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I want to do it with a couple of friends or something. So I don't know. I don't know, maybe. But then would you have to deal with annoying people? I don't know. Always.

In life, always. Usually what happens with cults is either. So it's not actually a cult. It's just James's Shorehand. It doesn't mean anything by it. Let's say people who live off grid in communes. Yeah. Usually what happens is someone decides, let's all have sex with each other.

Yes. And then they all fall out or two groups mob and they all fall out. Well, there'll be no sex. my commune and even if it's a married couple I will be enforcing a non-sexual. Oh, okay. You'll be lying in between them. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Wholesome, wholesome.

I think I may have found out the most famous person to be living off-grid. I might be wrong with it because I'm sure there are loads of candidates. Currently living off-grid? Currently living off-grid, I believe. Okay, most famous person. Winnie the Pooh. Okay, is it someone we could guess? Someone who lives in America.

Taylor Swift. Not far off, actually quite far off. Sabrina Carpenter. More male. More male. Then Sabrina Carpenter. Good luck finding up. Very, very narrow subset we're in now.

Joe Rogan. Okay. Writer. As in he's a writer or that's more correct. Stephen King. Even closer with Stephen King, someone who writes famously about rural America. Michael, John Grisham?

Oh, now we're getting closer. Now we're getting closer. Rural America. He writes about a small time drifter, drifting into your town, solving some problems. Lee Child's British? Lee Child lives in Wyoming. Oh. Lee Child.

Sorry. Really deadballed that answer. Hit that one into the net. I just didn't pick up because he's British. He lives in America. He has experience of life in America now. And he lives in this mad, huge estate in Wyoming. Okay.

Lou, I don't know if you'd be up for this. Marrying him so I get my land, yeah. His postbox is 10 miles from his house. No, thank you. 10 miles to the postbox. How often does he said letters? All the time, he's exclusive. He's like Jane Austen.

I guess he's not on email. His nearest grocery shop, 45 miles away. No. If he needs to go and get some milk, it's a 90-mile round trip. Is he making his own milk? What are we saying? And I don't mean that's not a human person.

At that stage, you've got... Yeah, has you got farm. Yeah, cows. Well, you know what Jack Reacher's like. Lee Child will just pick up a cow and drink. Straight from the deep. Straight from the same. No, I don't know if he's got a farm, but basically he's in this place in Wyoming.

Wyoming is the size of the UK. But the population is the combined populations of Cambridge, Canterbury, Carlisle and Chelmsford, as he's put it. It's just very, very sparsely populated. And he has a friend. who he sometimes visits for dinner who lives 105 miles away. Wow. That's, I mean, I'm not interested in that life. It's so remote.

Yeah. It's so far from, let's 10 miles to your postbox. Yeah. For someone as well who kind of puts out a book a year and is in the press and is doing interviews and presumably doing launchers. Yeah, but he's not being distracted by constant letters, is he? So he's not one doing to write out of how you write a book a year. A lot of people want to move to these places in cases like a nuclear war or something or a zombie.

outbreak or does that appeal to you Lou? Are you sort of trying to get a gauge of how much of a nutter I am? In a polite way. And will we be, will we be bottling all the piss? Will we? Well, the reason they ask is like a lot of squillionaires will

buy these sort of off-grid places and we'll have them in case the whole world goes to shit and they'll have a place to live. Oh, if I had the money, I probably would. Yeah, so this guy, Peter Thiel, you know him, squillioner asshole. He got New Zealand citizenship so that he could build a super bunker in New Zealand.

They're all building in New Zealand because they know that they're causing climate damage to, anyway. They are. But there's a new book by a guy called Mark Linus who looked at all the countries in the world and who would survive best a nuclear winter situation. And New Zealand is one of the worst places you can be. Really? Because they're very unself-sufficient in food. Oh, wow.

They import a lot of food. So only 68% of Kiwis would survive a nuclear winter along the whole world. Is that the bird, the kiwi? Or is it the fruit? The best places? Any of the best places to live? Oh, go on. Is it someone once told me that it's in the UK if you go like, nope.

In the UK, 99% of people will die. 99%? Because we're not self-sufficient with food. But I want to focus on that 1%, James. That's who I've absolutely beat the table. You want to see it in the world? Yeah, yeah. I've got 50 cans of beans under my stairs.

You all be the 1% I reckon living in your self-sufficient. Um, world. Okay. I'm not highly allergic to beans. That's the only problem. So some of it's self-sufficient in terms of food. Yeah. That's really interesting.

Is it somewhere in... And energy and various different things. Oh, it's like Sweden or Norway or something like that. I'll give you Iceland. Thank you. Oh, because they've got all the geothermal. Oh, and they've got all those great aisles of options. Australia, Iceland, Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay and Costa Rica and Haiti.

The places are... They're kind of self-sufficient in themselves so they can feed their whole population. Yeah, right, right, because in Australia, you said, is sort of... I think they've got so much solar power. They've just been going to give everyone three hours of free electricity. And they've got very low population as well. Right, right.

So Australia is a good place to go. Yeah, and also they have lots of different sort of climates there, so you could grow lots of stuff in the north that you can't grow in the south and stuff in the south you can't grow in the north so if you need all the different vitamins but if everyone was wiped out in England

I'd just sort of go along as well I'm not that interested in living underground for five years on some tins. But you live near the Ramsgate tunnels which are perfectly perfectly set up they've got the bunk beds left over from the war in there oh Fenella and I will fit in nicely

I'll be running my cult no touching it up Stop the podcast. Stop the podcast. Hi everyone, we'd like to let you know this week we're sponsored by Babbel. Yes, Babel. If you're a long-time listener of Fish, you'll know exactly what we're talking about here. This is the language app.

That means you can be learning multiple different languages that are curated by amazing experts from all over the world. And you'll be learning the latest bits of the language, the slang that's been using there. If you don't like learning it in a very kind of linear way, there are games, there are podcasts, so many different ways to suit your perfect learning needs. Absolutely. Studies show that 70 to 90% of people who try to learn a new language give up. But Babel is definitely the thing to use if you want to keep going because it really does encourage you to do so. And did you know that there is a special limited time deal for our listeners, Dan? Oh, tell me more.

Right now, if you're listening to this, you can get up to 60% of your Babel subscription at babble.com forward slash fish. That's right. Join the already 25 million subscribers to Babel and learn a new language today by going to Babel, B-A-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-E-L dot com forward slash fish, and you'll get that 60% off at checkout. Rules and restrictions may apply on with the podcast. On with the show. Okay, it's time for our final fact of the show, and that is my fact. My fact this week is that at Morrissey gigs, security have been known to pat down fans to search them for meat. Wow. The idea of a big security is kind of going off.

You just see the shape of a pork chop in someone's pocket. Or a sausage. Or a sausage. I do the same at my gigs, actually. Do you? Yeah. But I'm sort of wanting to find the meats. Are you doing the pat downs yourself?

Yeah, I am, yeah. I'm meat and greet with Lou Sanders has a very different meaning. I pay you. I pay you to meet and green. So this is Morrissey, singer from the band The Smiths, who's had a very long solo career after their breakup, and he is a committed vegetarian and vegan, and he hates meat to the point that if it is even in the air,

If he can even smell it at a gig, he will be known to walk off stage. So he always says that if he's going to play a venue, you're not allowed to sell meat in the venue for that specific gig. So if he was playing, let's say, the O2 in London, that would be one of the conditions that he would have. And in 2011, fans were reporting that as they were coming through the security barriers, men and women were patting them down, searching for meat amongst them. I think it's fair enough, is his gig. I think the searching is a bit, I think the searching is because, Once or twice he's had sausages thrown at him on star. No.

Yeah, which I don't think is on. I do think that's poor form. Yeah. Do you need to search everyone for meat? Just the people who look suspicious. They look like they might be packing a suspicious sausage. Anyone in tie-dye come straight through. But you can, meat is I would say, quite easy to smuggle.

Yeah, because you're made of meat. So there's no way they could do like an x-ray thing because your whole body's meat. It's only if there's an extra bone, you would spot that if someone's smuggling in a teabond steak. But yeah, I agree. I think it's a bit much. It's a bit much. He's, he said he's, he doesn't identify with the term vegan. Like, he's managed to find an even smaller subset of things.

What does he identify with that? He says, he just says, I refuse to eat anything that had a mother. He says he's never had a curry or coffee or garlic. Coffee got a mother? I don't think that's the last. Not related. But he said his diet consists of bread, potatoes, pasta and nuts. So it feels more like a sort of Channel 4 documentary about a fussy eater.

This is interesting, though, his influence, despite him being this character that people find quite difficult. People get annoyed with vegans. And my theory is that because they know that they shouldn't really be eating, something in them feels a bit icky about eating animals. They feel embarrassed about themselves. That's possible. Yeah. Cachella, the big festival, really tried hard to get a Smith's reunion. And there's been so much fallout between the members, Johnny Marr and Morrissey.

They don't particularly get on. They do not get on. And so Cichella said, we want you to get back. We're going to pay you a lot of money. And we will make Cachella a vegetarian experience. And he said, I would rather eat my own testicles. Why? Which is not very vegan.

but he uh because this is how much the band do not like each other i'm afraid oh dear this will be us in 30 years i think last maybe last year they almost got together and morrissey wanted them to get together because they got offered an insane amount of money but johnny mar said no yeah oh wow he could have given her to the animal charity um Morrissey has cancelled a gig in iceland over there meat policy okay supermarket yeah they do a lot of promorings don't they you know um sorry yeah No, geothermal powered country, Iceland. But the venue just refused to stop selling meat.

For one day. And he said, I love Iceland and have waited a long time to return, but I shall leave the Harpak concert hall to their cannibalistic flesh-eating bloodlust. He's not afraid to put together a pithy quote for a press release. I'll say that. I think it's crazy that the venue couldn't stop sending meat for a day because it's so bad for the planet as well.

You'd think, you know, just don't sell meat for a day. People will cope. I think the thing is with Iceland, they have like a history of eating lots of meat because they've not been able to grow plants for many hundreds of years, especially in the winter. So they really do have a very big culture of eating. Whales, yeah, puffins, fish.

I think you're rightly. I think the vegan thing is really interesting because I think he's been very provocative in the way he presents it. His tour gigs will feature of videos of slaughterhouses. Slaughterhouses are provocative. Absolutely, absolutely. And I think probably he sort of deliberately does it

in an abrasive way maybe because he's trying to shock people. And no one's listening. Well, I think it works on only a small percentage of, I think people are likely to shut it out if something is so upsetting. I think it's like the veganism movement has had a bit of a stumble in recent years. It's a bit less popular than it was about five years ago. And just a lot of people have sort of thought, oh, the world is quite difficult now. I can't quite be bothered to cut out everything.

And, you know, like vegetarians sometimes get stick for not being vegans and that kind of thing. So I think it's tricky how you sort of softly, softly people into it. Yeah. Do you guys remember that Morrissey Rodenol? And it became quite well known for the fact that it contained possibly the worst sex scene of the year included in the book. Did it win that there's an award for worse sex? It did. It won the 2015 worst sex scene.

So his book was called List of the Lost. Could you read it in a sexy voice? Yeah. Well, do you want to read that? Okay, here we go. Eliza and Ezra rolled together in the one giggling snowball of full-figured copulation, screaming and shouting as they playfully bit and pulled each other in a dangerous and collared. I think it's good so far.

Yeah? Sorry, how's everyone else doing it? In a clamorous roller coaster coil of sexually violent rotation, with Eliza's breasts barrel rolled across Ezra's howling mouth and painted and the pained frenzy of his bulbous salute... Salutation. Salutation, sorry. Extenuating his excitement as it whacked and smacked its way into every muscle

of a lives as body except for the otherwise central zone. This is a Tuesday night in my house. This is just Tuesdays. That's mad. I do think sexy novels are a bit less sexy when you have to ask people. Can you tell me what this word is? But that is insane. He's never had sex.

I'm sorry, I think that's good. There are so many mixed metaphors in there. They're like a snowball and they're like a roller coaster. It's a tremorous roller coaster coil. Yeah. And it's quite. aggressive, not at all. Sexually violent rotation is a bit.

I mean, if your breasts are doing barrel rolls. That's the least, imagine, like... That's R-A-F stuff, isn't it? That's like... That's the red arrows, you know? And your bulbous salutation is a bit... That's mad. Bulbous salutations feels like they might support the Smith. On Morrissey's books, he has been a bit controversial

because he wrote an autobiographical. a memoir, and it was published by Penguin Classics. Oh, yeah. So same list as Ovid, Homer's Odyssey, and he basically said, I'll do a book, but only if it goes in straight as a Penguin Classic. Oh, wow. A Penguin Class, sorry, I didn't really take notice.

Yeah, so it didn't come out in Hardback, which would be your traditional release. It was straight into a paperback with the classic look of it. Wow. So, you know, Plato, they're on the same list. I think it's bold, and I think it got him a lot of publicity. didn't they? Mostly negative.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But he's got a long history of writing. So before he was a pop star, he wrote unsolicited script for Coronation Street. Did they go with it or not? He sent it them. He sent them the script where the Rover's Return installs the jukebox and they did not go with it.

It's basically fan fiction, isn't it? It's basically fan fiction. Yeah. Yeah. I found one other example just while we're still on Morrissey slash musicians of people who are very strict vegan slash vegetarians

to the point where it almost seems a bit awkward. Katie Lang. Oh yeah? Katie Lang once refused to meet the singer Meatloaf. Because of his name. Because of his name. That's so amazing.

Come on. Stop it. It was an interview from Meatloaf where he said, I was a vegetarian for 10 years, and I was sitting next to John Bon Jovi at an awards thing, and I said, oh man, I'd love to meet Katie Lang. I'd really love to meet her. They went to find out if that's okay. She said, no, his name is Meatloaf.

But he was a vegetarian at the time? Possibly he'd lapsed at that point but he had been a vegetarian at some point for 10 years. That's crazy. Yeah. I think that's a bit strict of Katie there. Yeah. I just while we're on sort of pop stars and stuff

before we got into veganism, I had a look at some other riders that people have. So Kanye West, apparently when he played later with Jules Holland, that he must have his dressing room carpet ironed. Wow. Eminem, apparently when he played at a festival in Northern Ireland, insisted on a koi carp pond.

and according to TMZ there's a rapper called DMX who I'm not massively familiar with he's a biggie though yeah he is big for every rider he wants a bottle of Hennessy and three boxes of condoms

three boxes which boxes well sometimes the boxes are fewer even if there was three in a box that you reckon you can get through nine before a gig not before when I'm at the Bill Murray

it's a similar story It's a similar story. He's 60. I'm optimistic. No, that's mad. I was wondering if he might be using them to carry water because they're quite good for that. We've asked to tell that they're good for water.

I heard that Drake puts when he finishes it off in a condom because he doesn't want kids with some, like, you know, stranger that he's sleeping with. He puts like chili flakes in the, their remnants or something so they can't shove it out of them. Oh. Oh. That's what I heard.

So people might take the condom and then shove it. And chili flakes is going to stop them. I mean, if you're mental enough to want to do the first part of that, do you think the chili flakes would stop? Condoms naturally spermicide covered, aren't they? The spermicides on the outside of a condom. So it's spice. I just thought it was all. Put it out on back to front.

How many kids you got? Inside out, not back to crunch. Yeah, well, is that true? That's what I've heard. If it is any of it true, because the rumours of the riders, you could just make that up, couldn't you? Yeah, absolutely. And I wouldn't be 100% certain that any of the things I said are true. Well, you've toured, Lou, you recently toured.

The only thing I asked for was not a plastic bottle of water. So either like a jug, a filter jug. A condomful. Yeah. or like cans I guess of water because I don't know the plastic bottles yeah fair enough

I guess I'm a good person I guess I'm just what I'm saying here Saturday is like I'm a good guy You're a more a sea of comedy Yeah Yeah But better But better

But better But better Um joke alert Does Eminem ask on his rider To have all the Van Halen's removed From his dressing room I love it Very good show

Only the brown ones Yeah Yeah Okay, that's it. That is all of our facts. Thank you so much for listening. If you'd like to get in contact with any of us about the things that we have said over the course of this podcast, we're all online. You can get us on Instagram. That's where I am on at Shreiberland, James. My Instagram is no such thing as James Harkin. Andy.

Mine is at Andrew Hunter M. Yeah, and Lou. You just search Lucy Santas and it will come up. And I've just done a substack note and it's got two likes, so join in. I think that's the first substack Be that third like Yeah Well cults they start small

Well it's worse because I've got over 4,000 subscribers But they're not They're not into what I'm doing I suppose Anyway Yeah Or if you want to get to us as a group You can message us on podcast

At qI.com Send us an email there With anything you want to chat about Any extra facts that you have We often go through the inbox Andy will cherry pick out The best of those to bring to our mailbag episodes that we do called Drop Us a Line, which can be found in a very

secret place. Lou, it's called Clubfish. It's a secret, exclusive members club. It's a cult. It's a cult. No sex. There's not a flicker of sex going on there. I don't know not be joining. No bulbous salutations, I'm afraid.

And yeah, we will read out the best of those emails on there. So check out Clubfish. You can check that out by going to know such thing as a fish.com. We've also got other stuff up there like Merrill. merchandise that you can buy. We've got all of our previous episodes. But if not, just come back again next week, because we will be here with another episode. We will see you then. Goodbye.