No Such Thing As A Fish - No Such Thing As Parachuting Into Hollyoaks

Episode Date: June 8, 2023

Dan, James, Andrew and Rosie Jones discuss ziplines, olympians and chippy Yorkshiremen. 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 are joined by one of our favorite, favorite people in the world, Rosie Jones. Now, those of you in the UK will not need to hear an introduction for Rosie because she is one of the great comedians of our time. Any of you who've watched QI, which I know is a lot of you will recognize her. She's been on all sorts of stuff. So she kind of came into the limelight on the last leg and worked on the Paralympics. you'll hear a lot about that in this show.

She's a writer as well. She wrote for the Netflix show Sex Education. She's written a brilliant children's book called The Amazing Ed E.E. Eckhart, which is about an 11-year-old with cerebral palsy. She's just an all-round, very, very funny person, and I really, really hope you'll enjoy this week's show. I'm absolutely certain you will. It's one of my favourites that we've ever done, I think.

If you want to see Rosie in real life, then I think her tour has, I think it's literally just started maybe this week. And if you want to go and see that, you can go to rosyjonescom and all the dates are up there. Rosie is R-O-S-I-E. And that's all to say, really. I really hope you enjoy this show with Rosie and 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 Schreiber.

I'm sitting here with James Harkin, Andrew Hunter Murray, and Rosie. Jones and once again we have gathered round the microphones with our four favorite facts from the last seven days and in no particular order here we go starting with fact number one that is my fact this week is that the world's greatest Paralympic equestrian with 14 gold medals under his belt is also allergic to horses that's not his Paralympic qualification that's not the disability that means okay okay Absolutely. No, it's not. So, yeah, this is an extraordinary guy called Lee Pearson, who has over the years won 14 gold medals, a bunch of bronze and silver along the way as well. And he's just an amazing character generally. I mean, I'll mention a couple of things. I'm really excited to ask whether or not you've met him, because I know you've been to the Paralympics, right? But so he's the kind of guy who says, like, my training is curry, Malibu and Coke. And, you know, and he loves to party. and he's got a life story which is, you know, he was born and put into a broom cupboard as soon as he was born.

We've got to, okay, we've got to. Yeah, can I pick this? So he was born with a condition which I've never heard of before. It's called a thyroid groposis multiplex congenitor. I think I've said that right. I think that was known when he was born and he wasn't looked after especially well by the hospital he was in. So he was put into a cupboard for a few days in a sort of a crib thing. And his mom was heavily sedated so that they,

Didn't know. She was trying to find out where he was when she eventually, you know, came around. And as a result, he has no muscles in his arms. So he does the dressage with his shoulders. That's what he pulls with to control. And he got into horse riding because he couldn't ride a bike. So that's the basics. Is he, sorry, is he British or is he?

Yeah, he is. Yeah. He's also gay. And as a result, the headline on the story that I read was out of two closets and into Paralympic history. Yeah, yeah. And it's amazing. But so just to end the broom cupboard story is that he's left there for three days.

Finally, the dad comes to visit the mum, where's my baby? And they go find the baby. And they half kind of think they're going to find a dying baby, but he's doing okay. And the mum has to play it cool because for some reason she just wanted to not make a big deal out of it, worrying that they might then take him away because of her emotion. And so, yeah. And so he should have died according to the nurses. So his life story from the get-go is just a phenomenal moment.

And he was kind of a young kid who experienced a lot of interesting moments along the way. Like there's a story that Margaret Thatcher carried up the staircase at 10 Downing Street when he was being presented an award when he was six years old for children of courage. So he's always been sort of in the limelight and he's a huge advocate of gay. Thatcherism. Yeah. But yeah, he's, you know, when the Paralympics were going to be happening in Russia, he wanted to go. and explicitly talk about gay rights there. It's a really cool guy, he seems.

He is amazing, and yet I've met him, because I've been to two Paralympics now, because before I was a comedian, I was a researcher in telly. So in 2016, I went to Rio to work on the last leg. And then in 2021, I went to Tokyo again with the last leg. But this time, I was on television. Yeah, no. So I was their corresponding

out there and they tell me to shut up because there's not a fact in there. But I just want to say how both times to go into the Paralympics I've had incredible emotional journeys.

Right. Because I've been disabled all my life. I don't mind it. I love their life and the world are created. But it can be exhausting, going into rooms all day, every day when you're normally the only disabled person. So you get this disabled paradise.

Well, actually, if you're able-bodied, you look weird. It's such an emotional feeling to know that we're not alive. and then we're in it all together. Yeah, amazing. But what I wanted to say was I met Lee at both games and he is brilliant. We once interviewed him

and he was naked in bed like he did not care. It's amazing. It just sounds so cool. I love that he learned to ride on horses, not on the horse, but on a donkey. That was his first. That was his first experience. Yeah, a donkey called Sally.

In ancient China, no, not ancient China, but early modern China, the women polo players would play on donkeys. So the male polo players would play on horses and the women were playing donkeys. And it was because it's quite a high status thing. It was like very posh people who would play And they just thought it was safer really Because closer to the ground, I guess Right

And I guess that's why you practice To do your equestrian on on donkeys as well Because they're slower and closer to the ground Yeah Yeah There is a lot of horse allergy In Paralympic athletes Is there?

Horse riding athletes Yeah There's Sophie Wells She won silver in 2012 She's allergic to horses But I read that And I read an article with her That said

Because she was allergic to horses it's her mother had to brush down the pony when she was a child. It does sound to me like she's like, oh no, I can't, I can't muck her out, I can't brush her down, I'm allergic. I'm also allergic to dutch. Yeah, making beds, I can't.

The other thing about her, Sophie Wells, is she went to school at somewhere called the Robert Pattinson Academy. Really? No. Isn't that amazing? Only open at Twilight. It's named after Survelding.

Robert Pattinson, who was an MP for Grantham in the 1920s. Margaret Thatcher's old constituency. Strong link between Paralympic dressage and Margaret Thatcher. Sophie Wells, the rival of Sophie Wells. So, Seville was won silver in 2012. Her rival who took gold was called Michael George. Now, if my son name was Michael, no, if my son was George who had a son, I'm not sure I'd call him Michael.

Why? Because it's two first names. I'm thinking it's like a George Michael reference. Oh, I didn't pick that up. next to each other they'd be a palindrome. Yes, yeah. You didn't pick up on someone called Michael George having a name like George Michael?

No. I didn't. No. I'm the only one here he did? Oh, thank you. Okay. That first thought was what Torrey

Empley is. Yeah, that's that. It was in Thatcher's cabinet. I went to the Sydney Paralympics. Did you? Yeah. Yeah, it was awesome.

I don't actually have much We sat in Homebush, which is the big stadium that was built for it. And the Paralympics wasn't a big deal in the country. It's sort of the Olympics was such a big deal. 2000. 2000. And I remember on the day, my impressions of it were the stadium was virtually empty. It was a lot of school excursions, which is what we were on.

And the music that they were playing over the sound system. And these are all people are doing their big Olympic events were kids songs like row, row, row your boat and stuff. And I just remember thinking, that during the rowing events. Yeah, what's good motivation. But I just remember sitting there thinking, these are professional athletes who've spent four years getting to this point, and they've got nursery rhymes play?

It was really odd. And now it's kind of like the opening and closing ceremonies will have cold play, and they'll have Michael George. Michael George. Doing Whisper Carlos. They're first of Paralympic Games. was in Rome in 1960 and they had a few games

that unfortunately no longer happened my favourite was a sport called dachery torture which is exactly what it sounds like It was archery.

In a pub. Yeah. Everyone was strong. Then they had to like that boat and they had to get down to sleep. That's a great idea. But what's crazy is archery has a very big, effectively a large dartboard, doesn't it? Like that. So that's making archery ten times harder. Suddenly your place of aim is a dartboard.

Like that's, uh, yeah. You've got less surface area for... Was it the size of a dartboard? Yeah, I think so. Oh, was it? I thought it was literally a darn. Your normal arrow for an archery, if you fired that at something the size of a dartboard,

it's going to go in numerous different numbers at the same time. That's what I was confused about, but you've raised a really good point. What if it was bigger? I was reading about visually impaired. skiing, which I think is amazing because you're skiing down and then there's someone else who's skiing in front of you and they're attached by Bluetooth. So they're telling you what's coming all the way down and then you have to ski behind them. Wait, so they're not attached physically.

They're not physically attached. They're a guide and they have like headphones. But like how hard is it to attach your headphones to your phone by Bluetooth? That must be terrifying to just like your Bluetooth is now disconnected. Oh, fuck. What if you then connect to someone else? Getting the wrong info. What? I just think that must be absolutely terrifying.

Digital impairment is such an interesting territory about how there's assists just for that tiny bit of guidance. So for swimming, there's a thing called the tapper where when you're coming, they'll tap a swimmer on the head to let them know that the end is coming up. Or if you're... I think that's... And it's so basically as the swim... swimmer, who is visually impaired, you can just swim at full pelt and you'll know that the end's coming up, so you don't have this uncertainty ahead of you.

But I think that has a big responsibility on the tapper. Absolutely. You've got to get that. Oh, yeah. Got to get it in one. You've got to get that bag on it. Yeah, exactly. And you have to agree what the thing is before you start the race. What the distances.

I'm sure they do, Andy. I'm sure they do. I'm not just wing in it. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So I'm going to try and tap you one centimeter before the edge of the end. Yeah, yeah. But you last, but they won't.

an incredible swim in Rio and he had no arms and no legs and his way of stopping in the pool was literally to hit his head so good for the end of it

he must have brain them as well. Was he wearing like a helmet or something? No! Oh my God. No. That's amazing. Also what I love about the Paralympics is all their different groups.

There's a million groups and they group them on ability And I think that's why I love it more than the Olympics Because you know that everyone in that race Is the same sort of ability Oh yeah I didn't know about the classification thing

Yeah I haven't read either And it's why there are so many events as it were Yeah Because you've got ten, is it ten classes of disability from the least to the most impaired. Well, yeah, but you get different classes for swimming, different classes for running. Yeah.

You just need it because you cannot have visually impaired than that's aneurys. You can't have someone with no arms, legs, against someone who's allergic to horses. Yes. That's not. But I think it's right. So within class seven or whatever it is,

there will be different kinds of impairments. So you might have someone who's got a limb, which is shorter, or someone who's got impaired muscle power. Or someone who's shorter, but they have been assessed at being the same level of impairment. And what it means is the winner is whoever's the best on the day. Yeah.

Yeah. I like to set up rivalry with me right for me. So obviously the Paralympics are countries competing against each other. But when I went to Tokyo, I set up Team CP. So I only supported people with cerebral palsy. And if there was anyone with like, Amy, I'd be like, get away. You're not aggru. That, I think, is the spirit of the Paralympics, really, right there.

What you're basically impaired. Pets on. So good. Okay, it is time for fact number two, and that is Rosie. A man from Yorkshire once changed his name by Deep Pole to Yorkshire Bank PLC are fascist bastards. Lovely. Now, for avoidance of that, we're not saying that Yorkshire Bank PLC are fascist bastards. No, there's only one man saying that

And his name is Yorkshire Banker Fatschitz bastards Yeah So are we going to call it Mr Bastards or Well actually I've read that to his friends Is known as Yorkshire Really? Has he stopped?

Because this was a few. few years ago. 1999? The 90s, yeah. So has he stuck with it, I wonder. But I tried to look and I can't find it, but I like to think that Yorkshire out there, enjoying Yorkshire and hating Yorkshire Bank.

I reckon he's probably now called like United Utilities are fascist bastards or, you know, the Royal Mail are fascist, but you know, He probably just keeps doing it, right? Because actually, he's changed his name to those, what that's six words. So four of those are middle names. So he will look like he's just called Yorkshire bastards. Well, we don't know if fascist bastards is a double barrel. Oh, yeah, it could be.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, true. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I always picture this going to a depot because I need to change my name to something. Let's say a lot of actors do it right where a name's taken. So they pick something quite normal. And you're standing in the queue and the person in front of you is like, oh, what are you changing it to? Oh, Yorkshire Bank of Fascist Barclist Barz? Oh, that's pretty cool.

Guy behind you. What are you changing it to? oh you know rainbow sunshine lollipops oh god damn it and i imagine i would just keep coming out with a different name i'd buckle under like the influence you came in just to call yourself don schreiber yeah exactly i'm leading as indiana jones platypus orange man whatever i've got an idea adding after this we should all go and change our names to each of us Oh, that's a great idea. I don't mind being Rosie Jones.

A lot more work. His real name was Michael Howard. Yeah. Like the ex-conservative leader. Was Howard big in the 90s? Huge. Michael Howard? Yeah.

I don't know. That was when he was a minister because the conservatives were in government at the time. So, yeah, he was a big deal at the time. So extra incentive to change from Michael Howard if you didn't want to be. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But the report from the time is so good because he asked for his balance at the bank. 69 pence to be returned to him by by check. And a spokeswoman for the bank had to say the relationship with Mr. Howard has irretrievably

broken down and we very much regret that. And he said, sorry, who do you talk about Mr. Howard? Who's he? Conservative leader. I love Rosie. The link you sent over was from a Guardian article which was called It's a funny old world 1999 and this was published in November. And just the other examples in there just to read one or two of them.

There was this great one. In Sydney, 120 men. named Henry attacked each other during a My Name is Henry Convention. Henry Panty of Canberra accused Henry Papp of Sydney of not being a Henry at all. But in fact, an Angus. It was a lie, explained Mr. Papp. I'm a Henry and always will be, whereupon Henry Papp attacked Henry Panty, whilst two other Henrys, Jones and Dyer, attempted to pull them apart.

Several more Henrys, Smith, Calderwood and Andrews became involved, and soon the entire convention descended into a giant fist fight. I wonder how they hoovered up after that. The final line, the brawl was eventually broken up by riot police, led by a man named Henry. Shane. It was Australia. Rosie, you're from York, aren't you?

Yes. Okay. I'm proud of Yorkshire lady. And I think we get a reputation of being typed. Bats. But I wanted to call me and say, actually, that reputation isn't even true, because there was a survey done that said more than 60% of yours approach never used a overdraft. And three quarters of people from Yorkshire put up to 200 pounds a month aside. So we've got the money going on.

Wait, are you a Yorkshire ambassador? Are you trying to change? Is that where you're here? You've got an agenda. Come to board a year. All that says to me, Rosie, if they're not going into their overdraft and they're saving money, is that they're not spending any money. Oh, yeah.

There's a weird fact I found which kind of combines the name changes and the money thing. So is it pronounced Conisborough in Yorkshire? Yeah. Conisprosper. Okay. So there's a place in Yorkshire called Conisprera, which has a road in it, which is called Butthole Road. Okay? We're a little bit.

They didn't love it. It was probably named after a water butt that used to be. be in the road. I mean, perfectly innocent, normal, not funny, you know, but three words, butthole road. Imagine when that wasn't funny. I know, I know. Well, the thing is they were getting a lot of prank calls. They were getting tourists turning up with their asses out and that kind of stuff. Taxi drivers point blank refused to believe it was a, so they wouldn't take you there. There were tour buses turning. I mean, it was quite quiet tours, I guess, but one family, one family actually sold up and moved in 2003 because they were so annoyed.

about the jokes. Yeah. The new owner of the house, Peter Sutton said, he knows what to expect and he's looking forward to moving in. I know.

I know. It's very sadly, for our purposes, they changed the name of the street in 2009 to Archer's Way. Ars what? But the council refused to replace

the street sign for free, which I don't know if that plays into the other York's stereotype. Yeah. Yeah. Um, yeah. that I've never been to, but I say signs for it called the Land of Nod. Really? The Land of Nod?

Yeah. That's quite nice. It's in the Bible, isn't it the Land of Nod? It's the place east of Eden where they get sent off. Is it? Is it? Is it right? Is that where they call it God's own country?

Yorkshire? Yeah. No, it's because they're deluded. Oh, sorry. Okay. Oh, I'm sorry. something. I'm from Lancashish. Do you guys? Yeah. Do you have

rivalries? Oh yeah. Oh yeah. We hate have you ever. Have you heard of a little thing called the Wars of the Roses? Because okay. It's still ongoing. Yeah. Yeah. So actually my mom and dad are from Lancashire. Are they? Oh, you're not. A peace offering

has occurred so quickly. Sorry, Rosie, so you're from Bridlington, right? Yeah. They have 21 fish and chip takeaways within a five minute walk of the center of Bridlington, right? And now I call that a challenge. The problem is you have so much fish and chips, that also means you have a lot of seagulls. Yes. I was reading the Bridlington Echo, and it's a recurring story about the problems with seagulls.

The Royal Mail had to warn residents that they wouldn't be getting their postal deliveries because seagulls kept attacking postal workers. And there was a bank that was closed because nesting seagulls had caused a leak in the roof. And the Bridlington Fire Station had to rescue a stranded seagull after it sat on top of a metal lamp post for too long in the winter. So it's, you know... Wait, did you get...

Sorry, just to borrow down into that one a bit. What was it frozen? I'm afraid. You know, like when you put your tongue on a metal... Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, apparently if you're a seagull, it works with your... feet as well. Oh no. How do they rescue it? Well with the tongue you usually pour like

lukewarm water. I imagine they did something similar. I think they're so great but I think what that shows more than anything is shit all that thing in Brooklyn. Well there was a big story recently a woman called Susan Radford. She was a grandma and she spoke out against sexually explicit sweets that were on sale on the sea front. Do we have any examples? Yeah, come on. Well, you know, like rock? Like solid sugar.

Oh, you mean like the shape of it? In the shape of. Oh, what? Of penises. Oh, yeah. What do you think? I'm you. I'm you.

And she was so upset that she's, she got in touch with the local, Anglican church to help her complaint and she said she's not going to visit Bridlington again until they get rid of the rock box. She's not from Bridlington. No? She just went on a holiday one day, saw them and went, I'm not coming back here again. Wow. God. We don't need her. I saw a couple of articles where it said Bridlington voted one of the worst towns in the UK and stuff, but everyone who then went to ride up on it came out going, it's awesome here. What are you talking about? Like, who said that this was bad?

I haven't been myself, so I don't know. But the pictures, it looks kind of pretty. I mean, I think Bridlington is very good if you're under five and you're over 85. Right. In between, there's not a lot to do. Pretty rough message to hear on your sixth birthday in Bridlington. Get out now, Fred. Can I quickly tell you a couple of Yorkshire World Records?

Yes. Very proud Yorkshire World Records. Fastest time to make a litre of ice cream, which was 10 seconds. Wow. Andrew Ross. But the ingredients did include liquid nitrogen, so I feel like there was some. Yeah. Shoot.

Yeah. World's loudest clap. Okay. I was talking about the action. We're talking. We're not talking about the disease. So painful, you could hear him screaming for miles. I've got the clap.

I once read, I don't know if this is true, that the name the clap came. This is awful. That they used to put your penis between two pieces of wood and then whack them together. And it would like get the discharge out of the... We're talking about a seven-year-old girl here. So I hope you're all very proud of it. yourselves. I think that might be true, but I'm not sure.

I think that's to cure a different thing. I think there's a thing called Peoria where the penis starts to bend. And it happens increasingly as you get older it. It's incredibly painful. And there are now ways of dealing with it. Also, if your penis isn't flat enough, that'll be like.

Anyway, look, can we get back to this? Poor kid. Sorry, what was this? A young girl. Martha Gibson. Martha Gibson. She was clapping. Her family noticed.

She's got an incredibly loud clap. You know when some, Some people, they really, they have these hollow space in their hands. And it's apparently the equivalent of a heavy goods vehicle passing by 73 decibels. And they got someone from Guinness to measure it. So a seven-year-old. Yeah. And maybe there's someone allowed her who hasn't been officially Guinness-approved measured.

But anyway, she was born in 1998, which means she's out there somewhere. Yeah. You know, she's in the 20s now. I don't know if she's still got the... She hasn't been 20 of our gigs. I can say that much. Can I say one last thing from these, It's a Funny Old World. So they're just such great stories.

A sex line caller complained to trading standards after dialing an 0-8-9-1 number for an advertisement saying, hear me moan, only to be played a tape of a woman nagging her husband for failing to do jobs around the house. I love that. And then a sign scene in a police canteen in Christchurch, New Zealand.

Will the person who took a slice of cake from the commissioner's office return it immediately? It is needed as evidence in a poisoning case. It's a good gag. Okay, it's time for fact number three, and that is Andy. My fact is that, despite them being one of the largest fish on the planet, nobody knows where female whale sharks live. So not the ocean.

Yes, the ocean. Yeah, so. Okay, next fact. Solve that quickly. Jonathan Creek. Detective Dan investigates. You are welcome. They live in the ocean.

It's a big place. It's a big place. Just shout out to Rich Horner, who's a great place. sent this fact in, not knowing that, you know, Dan... Would solve it so quickly? Yeah, yeah.

This is about whale sharks, which are absolutely massive, and I don't know very much about them. They're the largest shark. Yeah. So they're not a whale, they're a shark. Yeah. And they're only called a whale shark

because they're just so huge. Largest fish, I reckon. He said one of the largest fish, but there can't be many bigger. There are sunfish, aren't they? Which are massive. I don't know. There are different dimensions,

aren't they? They're like, there's mass, and then there's length, and there's all of this. But they are absolutely huge. Apparently they were. Yeah, so much as three elephants. Wow.

Yeah. And yet we don't know where the females live. It's mad. So scientists, they know where young males are because they tend to frequent waters that are more coastal. Oh, they're very harmless, by the way, should say. They're omnivores, but they eat plankton. Not if you're a plankton.

Well, that's a good point, yeah. And there's one place where scientists know they're likely to find female whale sharks, which is just off Darwin, which is the not. northernmost Galapagos Island. But that's the only place that they know they hang out. I mean, they live across thousands of miles of ocean. They're just missing. Just obeyed us.

I read that they actually found one confirmed pregnant whale's act. And it was 10.6 meters. And she contained 300. put... What? 300? Holy moly. But they all survived.

Well, thank, I mean, thank goodness. In a sense. We know exactly where they all were because we'd be knee deep. It would be like Bridlington and Fish and Shape Shops. Wow. Yeah, and they give birth

they're called A placentally Viviparous. So Ovid Paris is where you lay an egg. Viver Paris is live young. But a placental viviparous is where you lay an egg inside yourself. It then hatches also inside you. And then you eventually give birth to the live young, which is hatchet. So 300 eggs will have hatched inside that manner.

Those eggs are the biggest eggs on earth as well. Are they? Yeah. I didn't realize that this might be common knowledge, but what makes, this is a whale shark. What makes it more shark than whale? What's the difference between a whale and a shark? One's a mammal and one's a fish. Yeah.

But one other. difference, which I didn't know, is that sharks are all cartilage and whales are bone. That's what makes it the shark. That's true. Is that crazy? No bones. One thing, one interesting thing because of that is that, you know how, or I know this because I'm old, as you get older as a human, you kind of get stiffer a lot. Well, sharks are the opposite. Sharks start off being quite stiff and then as they get older, they get floppier and floppy. Really? Yeah. Maybe. Maybe I haven't. got cerebral palsy, maybe I'm a shot. If you've got more than 300 teeth, that is another sign.

Oh, no, happen they got two hundred and a tooth. Speaking of teeth, where you're sheds have teeth on their eyes. Oh, yeah. Yeah. What are they called denticles or something like this? Yeah, because sharks don't have eyelids. So in order to protect them, they have what looks like little teeth. Yeah.

That's amazing. And their eyes stick out a tiny bit from their head, which is also a problem, obviously, in terms of protecting them. Yeah. So they have another trick, which is that they can retract their eyes. Oh, really? They just go, boop. When what? I guess when Dangerous threatens.

It's quite a long way. it's about half the diameter of the eyeball. They can just... Wow. I love the and the noises for whenever animals do anything. I remember when hippos retracted their testicles by going... Exactly. The teeth as well.

So these teeth that are all over their eyes are all over their body as well. They've got these denticles all over their body. And I've read this description saying that it's a protection thing. So if another shark bites them back, without them really doing anything, they're sort of biting the shark back itself because the teeth might hurt a bit, I guess, if you're biting into it. That's just mad. You're biting something from your torso.

It's nuts. They grow really quickly. So they're born quite big, but then they get really big. So there was one in an aquarium that went from weighing 1.7 pounds to 333.4 pounds in three years, just over three years. And I worked out in human terms, that would be equivalent of a three-year-old baby growing to the size of the world's largest unicycle. You always go too far with these things, but you always think,

I can cram in one more fact here. You can imagine that one. Well, I can imagine a range of things for the world's biggest universe. Because right now, I'm imagining the Empire State Building, with a unicycle leading up against the entire night of it.

It's smaller than that. How big is the world's biggest? It's 31 feet. Oh, that's big. I thought everyone knew that, actually. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. 31 feet. As in 31 feet, but in the same proportions

as a normal human. So the child wouldn't look like a unicycler is what you're saying. It would look like a normal proportioned human, but 31 feet tall. Yeah. God. I think the unicycle thing is really thrown. Throne as well. I've got more questions about the unicycle, is it rideable this unicycle?

Yeah, it has to be ridable, otherwise it doesn't get the world record. Yeah. God, that must be a terrifying unicycle ride. Yeah. How long must your legs be to ride that? I think what they do is they, they, Keep the pedals quite close to where your bum is, like the same distance as your leg. Yeah, that's quite that.

I wouldn't have done it that way, but I think they've done it better, actually. No, it's mostly like a long store. It's mostly the pole, yeah. It's really, it's a normal unicycle, but they've just extended the distance between the wheel and the pedals. I've seen people do it on these record size. It's petrified. Well, you would be able to know exactly how big one of these babies that don't. exist would be because you've seen it yourself. Yes, exactly. So I was on board. I thought

was a fantastic analogy. You need to watch more YouTube clips you too. Oh, um, these are these pups we were talking about a bit earlier. Yeah. So those 300 pups, this is a really cool thing. They're often inside the mother. There are different stages of development. But they're all from the same father, whale shark. The mother can basically stall sperm for ages and gradually furtural fertilize a little bit at a time. Oh, yeah. You know. Yeah, don't.

So I think other sharks do it and maybe even kangaroos where they sort of like pocket away the sperm. That's not what's in that pocket. Is it? That's it. It's full of sperm. Wow. Yeah.

So it's one, just to get this right, it's one male whale shark. Yeah. Has sex. They, the female keeps all the sperm and then slowly has more and more children with that Original. Exactly. I think it's one mating session. And then...

Imagine if you can do that someone you had sex for 20 years. Yeah. Come around with their baby. Yeah, when you finally get the call that you've got an illegitimate child, it's like you've got 20 illegitimate kids. And they're the size of the world's largest you to cycle. Yeah. And that drunken night in Bidlington?

Well, you're... One's 18, once 12. Two of eight. Yeah? They have this really interesting habit, whale sharks, which is... They dive down about 2,000 metres. Huge, the largest vertical range, almost of any sea creature. That's like 200 times the size of the Welsh largest unit.

Oh, my God. Yeah, well, that really makes you think, doesn't it? Imagine that. How long would your legs have to be? Okay, so... And the things we don't know why. And also, when they sink, they... So scientists often tag the few that they can find to research,

because that's a really useful thing for them. But it shakes... Basically, the tags don't work 2,000 meters down. So they kind of... They can see in the dark as a result. They've got special genetic mutation, which allows them to see in the dark, because they're so deep down.

But there is a... And we don't know why they do it, because down there's less oxygen, there's less food. It's very cold. So they have to warm them themselves up a bit afterwards. There is one theory, well, there are a couple of theories, I think, but this is from a whale shark scientist called Simon Pierce, which is that it might be so they

can navigate better because they can get a better reading of the Earth's magnetic field closer to the crust, which is effectively that they're going to get a better signal. That's amazing, which I love as a theory. It's like holding your phone up in the air to get a better signal. It's exactly like that. Wow, that's super. Yeah, that's incredible. We don't know if they make noises, as in vocalizations. Oh, really? Okay.

Well, we kind of know that they don't, but there's a few scientists that think that they do. Okay. And it's very confusing because they don't, as far as we can tell, have anything that would make a sound. No vocal cords whatsoever. The way that their teeth are set up is they can't do a grinding sound to create a noise that comes out as grinding. So they don't have a swim bladder, which a lot of fish will use. to control buoyancy, but also noise will come out of that that you'll hear. So you don't have anywhere really that sound can come from.

Yet there is a scientist called Heather Barrett, who has been recording them, and a couple of times has got sound out of them. So it's a sort of mysterious thing. She's been following this one male called Shredder. She said she thought it sounded like two strokes over the ridged back of those wooden frog noisemakers, salted tourists in every Mexican market. Another relatable. Oh, my God.

But yeah, so big mystery to be solved. Wow. Do the whale sharks make noises? Very cool. Yeah. I was looking at some odd females in the animal kingdom. Oh, yeah. Because I found that there's a thing called a pouched rat.

And some female pouched rats can create a chemical that makes all the other females vaginas seal up. Wow. Isn't that amazing? Wow. So is it a status? Yeah. Do you have to be the sort of lead? You're spot on.

So like the most dominant female in a pack of pouched rats, she'll be the one who's mating. And to stop any of the other females mating, she sends out this chemical and all the vaginas go, who are? And close up. You put it in terms I can understand now. Isn't that amazing?

I find that astonishing. What a power move. Yeah. That's the craziest thing. That's one of all the, years. That's one of the weirdest facts I think I've ever heard on the show. You should write funny old world for the Guardian. Okay, it's time for our final fact of the show. And that is James.

Okay, my fact this week is that the place where Judas plotted to betray Jesus is about to become a ziplining site. So cool. Will they mark on the ground the point where Judas did the exact plotting so that as you zip line over it, you can contemplate that. That would be good. Yeah. Or maybe you have to pay. 30 pieces of silver. I don't know. This is in Jerusalem and it's an area sometimes known as the Hill of Evil

Council. And according to tradition, this is where Judas plotted to betray Jesus. And it's part of a more general sort of attempt in Jerusalem to bring more tourists in and make it more tourist friendly. Although

some people say it as part of a bigger political strategy. to make eastern west Jerusalem less solid things and maybe make Jerusalem a more Israeli area. I mean, what does zip lines do? They cross borders. Normally a good thing, but sometimes can be controversial. It can be controversial. And according to some people, in this case it is. Can I check? Sorry, James.

You said the place where Judas plotted to betray Jesus. I thought, well, maybe this is the place where Judas actually betrayed Jesus. The Garden of Gathemen. Yeah, that's where he did the actual betrayal. So this is just like the pre-betrayal. This is where he thought about it. He was like, you know, you can't just turn up at the Garden of Gassetti with no plan.

No, God, no. You need to think about it first. If you fail to prepare to betray Jesus, you prepare to fail. Yeah, and this was in the Hill of Evil Council. So it was where, I think it was where the Romans sort of came up to him and said, hey, want to do a bit of betraying?

Wow. And yeah, that was where that supposedly happened. And at the end of that meeting, Judas went, God, I wonder one day in the future, how they're going to commemorate this start. A statue of me, what's it going to be? And then, yeah, you can get on it on your ziplane and it'll take you down to a place called the Peace Forest.

Very nice. As far as I know, it doesn't have any biblical story attached to it. But then the developers are saying, well, it's nothing to do with this political thing. It's actually because they're quite neglected areas. A lot of drug dealers around there. So how do you fight drug dealing with zip lines? Yeah, yeah. Make it easier to this.

Yeah, you can't get a drop. Put a zip lock on a zip line. It's very hard to drop a single E into someone's mouth from a zip line, though. I smell a challenge. I've never been on a zip line. I have. Oh, yes. I did a channel for travel show.

But in hindsight, I have. I think their producers were trying to kill. Because every day you go in the outfits and be like, okay, so now you get went to sky day. Were the producers related to anyone you'd slagged off at the Paralympics? The previous, yeah. Was that okay, okay? They all had any, didn't they?

So we did one episode in Wales which is home to the longest and the fastest plan and it was incredible. That one looks amazing. I've seen clips of that. Was it with Jenny Eclare, was it? Yeah. How do you know? It was on television.

I thought I just did it for fun but Jenny was hilarious because obviously there's a camera rounder and I was screaming and yelling and having the time of my life we look back at Jenner's video and we were like, is she asleep? Like, she was so zen. No, really?

Like, she said she enjoyed it. I've been on a zip line only once, and it was a tiny one. It was one of those adventure places that you go to. And I don't know what went wrong. I don't know how I'd done my harness up incorrectly. correctly it sort of trapped my testicles in a really painful way so I go down the zip lines screaming and I don't make it right to the end so I can't get my legs onto the thing and I am screaming like it's really hurting but unfortunately the person I did it

with was my friend who's a comedian Tom Davis yeah who's a very sinister sense of humor and got everyone to step back and let me just hang there while I was screaming there's a lot of photos that Tom has online of me screaming with my testicles trapped in a yeah that's my only experience yeah you were sort of you were hanging there ironically like a like a like a testicle in the like a just like a huge testicle but yes your own testicles weren't free exactly and that was the problem yeah yeah makes you think doesn't it does make you think James have you been on a zipvine I have I was just thinking I've always liked Tom Davis yeah I like him even more Yeah, no, I have a few occasions

Around this table Right, come on, we'll all go to where you Will all go change your name by the day Yeah, we'll go zip line I've been somewhere I've been somewhere that has recently got permission for a zip line Have you? But when I went there, they hadn't got the planning permission yet

Honest a slate mine in the Lake District. Just wanted to give a shout out to them. Okay, cool. They spent 10 years trying to get permission for a zip line. 10 years. Yeah. Really?

And the council said, no, this is beautiful here, this old slate mine. And I've got to tell you, it's not the place that would suffer irretrievable. Watch out, he's slating it. I enjoyed it. I bought some souvenir slate there. I had a really good time. It's a fun place to go. I was there by myself.

And I had a really nice time. Did a slate mine walk. It was brill. Lovely. But you do think, the addition of one wire and the occasional person screaming as they pass. Yeah. Do you think?

But you could think of the amount of slate you could see in a short amount of time if you had that zip line. Stop it. Stop it. You're trying to get me excited. And it's working. But it will be used to transport slate

in quiet periods. Is that right? Yeah, yeah. I believe that's the arrangement they've come to. So it is going to happen? Yeah. Are you on a waiting list?

Of course. On a slating list. Oh, God. Anyway, just wanted to ride. my own personal anecdote. That's very such a good story that I wanted to. Topped all of us.

You know one of the dangers of going on a zip line. I'm very glad you didn't get this. Tesh. Takeo. Yes. That's one of them. The other one is slamming into sloths. So I've watched a video of a young boy in Costa Rica

going down a zip line and behind him is either an instructor or a parent that don't quite know who. And you see the video he's just going. super fast, super strong through this canopy and then suddenly you just see this ball of fur and he slams into it and fortunately the sloth doesn't lose grip but they both stop and

this sloth is just so confused and turns around Was it all right? Yeah, well it seemed to be okay it didn't drop. Fortunately it was the boy. It was fine. I saw that video as well and the person who's in charge who's called Flavio Leighton Ramos

he said the sloth or child weren't hurt. They just had to wait for the sloth to get out of the way for around 15 minutes. Yeah. And you watch the sloth climbing away in there's moments where it's hands not on the wire and it's taking so long you think. Oh, it's on the wire? Yeah, it's on the wire. It's in the middle of the zip. Yeah, so the zip line's going past a load of trees. And so it's obviously been on one of the tree hanging branches and sort of thought this was a branch. Yeah. Oh, gosh. But it's literally, yeah, there's no tree near it for, I guess, 15 minutes because there's no way for it. It's got to just. It's like cliffhanger. It was amazing. The intro of a cliffhanger. Isn't that where the zipline comes from, Costa Rica?

The modern zipline was invented there by a bloke called Donald Perry. That's right. Because he was trying to study the canopy and there was no good way of going from tree to tree. So he turned up in 1979 with a crossbow, which is so cool. That is cool. Just started firing it around with a wire attached and bringing it up. What a guy. They called him Hombly Mono, which means monkey man in Costa Rica.

because he was using, you know, just using all these wires to get around. So cool. Really cool. And he didn't patent it, I don't think. So someone else came along. But someone else came along and did do that. It was a sort of a businessman who wanted to make money off it. And he was called Darren Horenuk.

And he's a Canadian guy. And when other people then started using ziplines, he used to go around and cut the ziplines down. But he would do it, claiming it in a legal way. So in some cases he would bring, you know, a representative from a sort of official body to sort of say, yes, this is a legal thing. And so he'd go cutting these things down, even though we didn't have a claim to the invention of it, because it was very clearly from this Perry guy.

Yeah. Wow. God. Can I tell you about a bloke called Jack Reynolds. Yes, please. Yes. Now, Jack is the oldest man ever to use a zip line. Okay.

That we know of. It was 2018. He was 106 years old. Very cool. I know. I've got to say, just a shout out to Jack Reynolds. He's very sadly passed away. He died in 208 in a bungee jump accident.

James, you joke. Oh, no. Yeah. But the year before, the zip line, when he turned 105, he won oldest person to ride a non-inversion roller coaster, which I love. That was Twisteraurus at Flamingo Land and Malton. On his 104th birthday,

he got oldest person to receive their first tattoo. I remember this. sky? 1912 he was born. That one, it said, uh, Jack. Can he go skydiving as well? He went skydiving. That was another thing he did.

I think that's a good excuse. Like, if people say, why have you never had a tattoo? You can say, well, I'm holding out to become the world oldest man to have this best tattoo. Yeah. Um, and at the age of 108, sorry, at the age of 107, so the year before he died, he became the oldest person to, I think it was have a cameo in a soap opera. He, a beard in Hollyoaks.

Oh. No. Yeah. It was a work. He, just a year. He had one line. He just said, don't worry,

I'm very old and I've had a great life and you'll be all right and all that. It was his first acting role in a hundred years. So he'd had a previous one when he was seven.

No. Yeah. What was it on? I don't know. He was on a train approaching the Gardener wasn't he? That's amazing.

Hollyoaks. I know Hollyoaks as well which is such a young show. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That IMDB though, just with a hundred year different. two credits

when was he on holly oaks that was the year before he died so it would have been 2019 okay cool yeah watch how lay I have a friend who was who actually died over Christmas in holly oaks

oh in holly oaks in holly oaks yeah she got crushed by a by a bookcase by a hundred and eight year old man whose parachute

didn't I pin 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've said over the course of this podcast, we can be found on our Twitter accounts. I'm on at Schreiberland. James. At James Harkin.

Andy. At Andrew Hunter M. And Rosie. At Josie Rones. And is there anything that you want to mention that's coming up? Yeah. I ran that one to all of my dates are on Rosie Jamescomedy.comedy.com.com. And if you want to see me on telly, turn it on.

And now with that. Yeah, or you could go to a group account, which is at no such thing. or you can email us at podcast at qi.com. That's it for now. We're going to be back again next week with another episode, and we'll see you then. Goodbye.