No Such Thing As A Fish - No Such Thing As Poddyversity Challenge

Episode Date: June 11, 2026

Dan, James, Anna and Andy discuss shamans, humans, theme parks and theme tunes.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/patreonEdited by James HarkinProduced by Leying LeeTeam includes Jack Chambers, Tara Dorrell, Joe Mayo and Ethan Ruparelia

Hi, everybody. Just before we start this week's show, we have a little announcement. Yes, we do. I'm announcing that Andy, you need to just close your ears for a quick moment. I just need to mention something privately to the listeners. Okay. Obviously, I don't want Andy to hear this, but I'm reading a new book at the moment called Bad Deeds by one Andrew Hunter Murray. And it is so annoying because it's kept me up extremely late every night for the last seven days. It's so gripping. It's this new novel. It's a sequel to the last one that many of you might have read, breaking and entering.

It doesn't matter if you haven't read it is also. a brilliant standalone book. And it's an absolute page turner, thrilling stuff, obviously with a lot of the trademark, Andrew Hunter Murray, Witt. I feel like I was watching an action film for parts of it. It's amazing. Get it now. And now pretend I never said anything. Andy, you can open your ears again. Hello. Hi, I was just having a private chat, but you've got a book out. Yes, it's called Bad Deeds. It's out today. We're recording this on the day of publication. It's a thriller set between London's dodgy property market and the wilds of rural Scotland. There's all sorts of skullduggery and mayhem and bad deeds.

And the only other thing I'll say is, if you're an audiobook sort of person, you might like to know that the person who reads the audiobook is friend of the parish and former guest on this show. It's Phil Dunster. And he does an absolutely terrific job. So if you like audiobooks, maybe give that a go. And where can people buy it at grocery stores or... Well, I would say your local independent bookshop,

but I will accept any sale is terrific. Thank you very much. So whether you're buying it offline or on. But no, do pop down to your local bookshop and ask them for... 10 to 12 copies is a good start. There you go. 10 to 12 copies of bad deeds. Seriously do it now.

You will not regret it. Okay. On with the show. 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 Hoburn. My name is Dan Schreiber. I'm sitting here with Anna Tishinsky, Andrew Hunter Murray, and James Harkin.

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, and that is James. Okay, my fact this week is that in 17th century Sweden, Sammy Shaman's had to work in secret. Unfortunately, most of their work involved constant drumming. Sammy Shaman sounds like an end-of-the-peer kind of magician slash psychic. That's true.

Hi, it's Sammy Shaman's. And here is my magical drum, because they did have magical drums. the Sami. They are a group of people who live in Norway, Sweden, Finland and northern Russia, and they still live there today. But they started off as hunter-gatherers, went into reindeer herding, and they move around with the reindeer. But one of the most important people in the community was the shaman, who is known as a no-I-D. And the no-I-D would communicate between the worlds by using this drum. And he would kind of bang, bang, bang, and get into such a rhythm

they would get into some kind of weird sort of trance. And I say he, because it was always a he. And they felt like they could transform into other creatures, transform into the wind, all this kind of stuff. And they were persecuted by Christian missionaries. And the Christian missionaries just basically said, we're having that drum. And they took the drums off them.

Confiscated them. Confiscated them, destroyed most of them. There's not many of them left. But there is one in the British Museum, which is where I read about this whole story. They are engraved or painted with pictures. and I think there's a way you can do divination, as in the Sammy Shaman would strike the drum

with a hammer that is made of an engraved reindeer antler because reindeer is a very big deal. And then that makes a little brass ring that you've got dance across the surface of the drum and how far it goes or what it lands on tells you, or tells him, because it is always a hymn. Woke hasn't yet come for the Sammy Shaman world, basically. And that tells you the future, you know.

Or I did read an account from 1674, which I think is the earliest account we have of more southern people by a guy called John Sheffer, who said they also sometimes use the drums to decide what animal sacrifice to their gods. So he said each drum would be covered in lots of pictures of animals and birds and fish and stuff. And then there was a kind of a pole attached to the drums and at the top of it, a little brass frog and you bang the drum and when the brass frog fell off, whatever animal it landed on, whatever animal the frog chose was the one that you had to kill. It's like a wheel of fortune kind of thing, isn't it?

Yes. You're not proposing taking this ancient sacred ritual and putting it on ITV at prime time. I'm afraid I am. Which of these celebrities will we sacrifice? These images that you said and the Sammy sort of would, once they started getting persecuted by the missionaries, they would like say, oh, this isn't a reindeer, this is a cross. And they would slightly sort of change all the drawings to make them more Christian in the hope that they would. didn't get taken. But they did all pretty much all get taken. There's not that many of them left.

I mean, I heard much of the Sami, but I realized a kind of classic fact is to do with the Sammy, which is the word poron kusema, which is the distance a reindeer can travel before it needs to stop and urinate. That's kind of a classic thing that you see online. Susie Dent tweets about that word quite often. But as a reindeer ages, that distance will shrink. You know. Yes. Yeah, yeah. Many of your middle-aged male reindeer will stop just in case. It's nice to have stop When you can. Also, like, your reindeer will walk for a long time. And then once they break the seal, then that's going to be a much.

When I say breaking the seal, I don't mean, like, with a club or anything. The missionaries really didn't like the way the Siberians used their own urine to guide the reindeer. Because what they would do is they would urinate into a seal skin, carry it around with them. And then if the reindeer wandered off, you would pour a bit of your urine on the floor. And then the reindeer would come back because they like the salt and the minerals and stuff. like that. And so, yeah, the fact that they were doing this urany stuff, the missionaries were like, that's not really an hour buck. I mean, where does the Bible say, don't piss into a bag and then spill it on the floor when your

reindeer runs away? I don't think it says it anywhere. Yeah. It's the one I have red. So the reindeer do eat the yellows, no. Yeah, they do. They like to lick the, that's do a lot of animals. Yeah. It'd be a good way to attract the old man in the coat. be heard of him?

No. Is it you? It sounds like Dan with his with his creepy coat. I'm pushing my new business. Your business? Do you need a kid's birthday party? Absolutely ruined.

Well, you need the old man in the coat. All you need to do is piss out the front of your house and I will come in a lick it. Isn't that once they know you as in hamster teeth? Yes. It's what they call polar bears, the Sammy. Or God's dog. Is it because it's a taboo?

It's a taboo. They don't want to give it its real name. God's dog is very good. God's dog is wonderful, yeah. Yeah, there's definitely a belief that polar bears can speak English, but not very well, kind of as well as a toddler. So the belief is that they don't understand metaphors. So when you're talking about how you're going to hunt a bear, that's why you have to use metaphors,

like the fur-clad one. Do you also say, oh, it looks like over there they're selling I-C-E-C-R-E-A-A-A-N-S? I was reading just another thing on how the Christian missionaries dealt with them in this early account from 1674, John Sheffer. He was Christian, so he had lots of comments about the Sami and how they weren't very good at being Christians. And he said, they stick at several points of Christianity, namely the resurrection of the dead and the immortality of the soul. And I just like that immediately afterward he said, and they worshiped the sun chiefly for its light and its heat, believing all things are made by its means.

Oh, idiots. Such a brilliant tone of captionizing disdain. I don't know why they can't get the whole resurrection of the dead thing. Also, they think the sun's really important. That's really funny. So Linnaeus was a big fan of the Sammy. Linnaeus, the guy who named all the animals, basically. He used to say God creates and Linnaeus puts into categories.

But he went to visit them, and they had a big effect on him. So after that, he decided to just walk. around in Sammy clothing all the time. Even when he was back home. Yeah, yeah. He loved it, didn't he? Like, it obviously was a different time. But if I

have just been to China and then I come back dressing like a Chinese person, it's not going to work, is it? I think, to be fair, he basically wore, he basically thought this whole reindeer coats for coats works and wore a lot of reindeer head to toe, didn't he? And he did carry the drum, which to be fair

would seem a bit appropriatory. I think we all know somebody who's had a gap here and got a bit too into it. Yeah. Why are you looking at me like that? I've got. I never had a gap here. I just have a gap two weeks every year.

You're the guy dressed in the kimono today, Andrew. Dan, by the way, that Papua New Guinea gorge that you're wearing. Thank you. I know it's hidden by that big coat. But yeah, Linnaeus, one thing that he really liked about them is that the men would carry around a sweet-smelling fungus to attract women. Just in the same way that I might spray links Africa on myself. They would do this with a fungus.

And he said, in other parts of the world, you must be wooed with coffee and chocolate, preserves and sweets, wines and dainties, jewels and pearls. Here you are satisfied with a little withered fungus. Well, it is very cold. Just a thing about drumming and drums, as we were on the Sammy and their drums, I found this absolutely wild Drums are many thousands of years old Right? Yeah

I mean We found ancient ancient drums From civilizations all over the world But the drum kit Wasn't invented until the 20th century Are you telling me No one had ever thought of Like I can use my other hand for this as well

When are the first drum solos That you can think of They're all quite recent I just think maybe people did them And didn't manage to record them onto cassette tape back in the day Maybe, maybe. It's interesting.

It's wild, isn't it? Yeah, maybe. I think the jury's out on that one, I would say. That's crazy. You can speak in drum, if you're a certain type of person from a certain type of place, with a certain type of language. In West Africa, drum languages were quite common, probably less so now. But this is in languages specifically, which they're very tonal. So you can make a drum that can play lots of different tones.

and so I think the Bulu dialect of the Bantu language is a very good example of this where they'd have a drum where if you bang it at a different place along it, it makes a different tone and therefore you can transmit messages up to 20 miles apparently and everyone would have a drum name so you'd give someone their drum name, you'd bang on the drum their drum name so you know they're talking to you. It's like having a special knock on the door. Like I always knock on the door the same like... Yeah.

I mean it's not like a lot of people would do a similar thing, but... if you heard that knock there's a good chance it's going to be really interesting and if you don't hear a knock at all that's Dan in a big coat outside of front but you're then knocking to yourself if I were a Bantu person

I'd use that knock for you then that would be my way of saying Boy James if we were on University Challenge I would buzz in and they go and they'd know it was me to answer then yes exactly Harkin fish

why have we never done University Challenge as a team we've just never been asked Andy, and also they don't do podcast teams. We're not a university. The university teams. Yeah, but what the hell? And we'd be very bad.

There's a broader truth that I think we're missing, which is that it would be so much fun. And our insistence on being addressed by our drum names, I think, is also. Podcast challenge, on the other hand, seems like a good idea. Edit this out of the podcast. We're going to do, we're going to do pod-aversity challenge. University Pod Challenge. We're going to do it.

We'll think of a name. Yeah. Don't edit this out. I don't want to do that. Keep it in so someone else steals the idea. One thing I read about these. drumming languages in Africa is you drum a phrase or a song

or something that everyone knows what it means and everyone knows the context of it rather than just doing individual words. Yeah, I mean. It's very weird because it already seems difficult to convey stuff via drum rather than words and the fact that they've overcomplicated it by then saying you can use these metaphorical phrases

but it does seem to work. For instance, like let's say I wanted a cake I could go, da, da, da, da, da. And you would know, like, Maybe it is simpler. Okay. Or you'd be like, Badooch,

the local comics here. Like that would be a good drum name for a local comedian. Here comes Sammy Shaman. One of my close friends is a drummer, professionally. One of the big things about drummers is that they have a bad reputation.

Yeah. Not a bad reputation, but just a reputation maybe for being not the brightest member of the band. I'm not saying they are. I'm saying that's what their reputation is. Right. And besides, they won't be listening to this podcast.

It's way too highbrow. So I asked him for some drummer jokes. Oh yeah. I just thought you might like some of that. Yeah, go on then. What do you call someone who hangs around musicians? A drummer. A drummer.

How can you tell if the stage is level? The drummer is dribbling out of both sides of his mouth. How do you know when there's a drummer at the door? I don't know. The knot gets faster and they don't know when to come in. What's the difference between a drummer and a savings bond? I don't know. One of them will mature and make money.

I think what this needs is a badum tish. Okay, it is time for fact number two, and that is Andy. My fact is, from 1990 to 2018, there was an award given out every year for the most human human. You sounded so robotic. This was a prize that was given out. It was a subsection of a bigger price. And it's all to do with the Turing test. So for anyone who hasn't heard of that before,

that's the idea that Alan Turing, brilliant computer scientist, proposed in the 50s that the way you would be able to tell when we had artificial intelligence is if a human is conversing with someone who's unseen and they are unable to tell whether they're talking to a person or a computer, that's when we'll have true artificial intelligence.

Which I would say is now, right? Oh yeah, people are falling in love with AI's left, right? We've way past the Turing test. So by that metric, certainly when we started this podcast, it wasn't true. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah.

So that's the idea of the Turing Test. And there was an annual prize during those years, starting in 1990, called the Lerbner Prize, where people would bring along their own chatbots, and they would be training them and improving them every year. And if your chatbot managed to fool a human judge, you would win a prize.

There would be several thousand dollars for the most human computer. But as part of that, you obviously had to have some humans being on behind the screen chatting back for the judges to have any sense of like are you talking to a computer or a human sometimes you'd be talking to one sometimes the other and as a separate prize the judges would pick the human chatter who was most convincingly human and give them a hundred dollars or some small small prize i think this is a problem with the experiment because if the human is then changing their attitude and the way that they respond because they're trying to get a prize then that changes the experiment, right? And that is what happened, right? Brian Christian, who won the most human, human prize, he wrote a whole book about it, and part of the book was telling how he prepared to be human

as part of the test. And so he did study to be human to win it. That feels like it's kind of cheating. Isn't the whole point that you've got to be yourself? Revising for an exam is not cheating. And if the exam is, are you a human, it's completely reasonable to prep. But we're testing the computers, right?

Yeah. If the whole point of the exam is to test the marking system, and you change your answers to make them completely wrong or completely right, then that's not a very good way of testing the marking system. I think he was just practicing being himself and being authentic in conversation and being truly human. How would you do it? I prep several hours a day for all of my conversations.

You used the same person as Kirstarmer, don't you, for this? If you wanted to pretend to be human, what would you do? Because I feel like you would just do something really dumb, right? Yeah. That's a great question, James. I'm so glad you asked me. But what do you think? Here's the issue though.

If you've got very specific loves and so on as you're as a person and you bring them to the exam, you might lose. So one person was outed as a robot when they were a human because they knew far too much about Shakespeare. They said no human could possibly know this much about Shakespeare. It just so happens. It was a Shakespeare expert on the other side who was a human. Really the way to do it now.

And this is my optimistic theory about where the world's going. The only way to convince people you're human is to actually see them because the only place that robots haven't managed to achieve anything like human resemblance is in the physical world, right? They still can barely move. I mean, I know there's all sorts of claims every year when they play football and they fold laundry and whatever, but if you watch them trying to even run marathons,

they still don't look for a human. But they just won the marathon. I know, but they didn't look like humans when they did. So I would say... Pop a big coat on that guy who run the marathon. People all think Dan's achieved a wrecking time. I would say if you put that robot, because it was all over the news in China,

it was the top story in the news that day. If you put that robot next to Phoebe from Friends running, you would not be able to distinguish the two of them. It's a real slam on Phoebe. But this is a thing about robot technology, right? Is that they've managed to mimic our brains unbelievably well. But physically, actually, it turns out that it's very, very difficult still. And so I think people are going to be driven off their computers back into the real world. It's a nice optimistic idea.

Hopefully not by driverless cars. Because there's a situation in Atlanta earlier. this year where 50 Waymo driverless taxis drove through the same area between six and seven o'clock because someone had put a children at play sign in the road which wasn't supposed to be there and they would drive into the road and then they'd try and get out and they'd see that side and they'd go back in the other direction again and they'd just be driving in circles and circles and circles and circles so it kind of works as in they can see a children at play sign and know that that's something I shouldn't yeah but it's like you can kind of hack it to kind of make them drive around

his circles and get lost because they're not thinking. Can I tell you just a quick thing about this guy Lerbner who set up the prize? Yeah. Because he was, I don't know if you read into him. He was very eccentric. Yeah. So it was treated like serious AI people said this is just a stunt. You know, he gave out a medal with Alan Turing on one side and him on the other.

You know, he was this amazing. He sadly died about 10 years ago now, but he was a very interesting cookie. So there was this piece about him in 2011. He had made his living in portable crowd control fencing and roll up disco. dance floors. That was his main line of work. I know, cool, right? Um, that is, yeah. And he wanted to sponsor the price because his idea was true artificial intelligence will free the world from work. You know, very optimistic that there won't be any work anymore. But his other speech after the competition was all about his plans to revolutionize public transport using roller coasters.

He says a roller coaster is the ideal transport system. It would, it could work and it would solve many of society's problems, whether it could be implemented as another matter. What's the driverless car except a kind of slightly shit roller coaster? What's a tube apart? What's the underground apart from a roller coaster really? Yeah, the key difference with the roller coaster is that you always end up where you started. That feels like the tube is a bit better than a roller coaster. Well, circle line functions. Imagine if like every time you came into work, you could buy a photo up yourself on the way to work.

That would be great. Worth it. Yeah. I interviewed Lerbner. I met him. Did you? Yeah, it was online. I met him. Are you sure it was him? Yeah, it could have very well have been a chatbot. But it was him who I interviewed alongside Mitsuku,

who was the chatbot that had won the Lerrna Prize or got first place in the Lerner Prize five times. And is the final champion because it stopped in 2019, I think. But yeah, very eccentric character even to look at, you know, like a Dalai-esque mustache. And he had two big passions. It was roller coasters and it was making prostitution seen as something as a normal day-to-day thing

that you would just go within your marriage and go, I'm just going to go to the brothel. You must be this tall to go on this ride. Don't take a photo of me halfway through. I know we're focusing on the prostitution. Scream if you want to go faster. I know you want to carry on, Annette, but we've got a few more of these.

Oh, not good. I was sick twice and my hat fell off. You must keep your arms in. side at all times. Oh God. Just let them get it out of their systems. Oh, you can't get in a minute. Here's an interesting thing. I shouldn't have had that hot dog just before.

Here's an interesting thing with talking about love and talking about AI. There was a guy called Robert Epstein. In 2006, he was looking online for love, and he found and fell in love with a Russian woman. They exchanged love letters. changed love letters and so on. And for about four months, it was going back and forth until he finally realized, hang on, is this a real person? And it wasn't. It was an AI bot. And he was an expert in the field of... He is the co-founder of the Lugner Prize, Robert Epstein. This is a good 16 years after this prize had been set up. He fell in love with an AI bot online. Yeah. Basically,

almost anyone's susceptible to it, I think. Yeah. On time, the difference between humans and robots, How good are you at proving you're a human online with the recaptures? Oh, you mean like which of these is a boat kind of thing? Exactly. How many traffic lights in this? Click the traffic lights. You know what I think? I reckon I've got it wrong before and it's let me pass. That's because robots are better at it. Really?

Yeah, the constant problem they have is trying to get ahead of the AI because AI works out how to hack it over and over again. And basically, by 2014, 99% of bots could solve the distorted letter ones, where they said, you know, type the letters you see. And in 2023, there was a study that found that box are better than people at the picture one, by some degree. So when you're showing the image, 78% of the time people got it right,

100% of the time the bots got it right. But I thought the point was that they'd get you to do this, but while you're doing it, they're checking your browser history to make sure you've not been going on the same website 500,000 times. Oh, really? Well, I thought it was. Sometimes usually the reason you get a capture is because your browser history isn't human enough.

So the only way to get around it now, really, is to allow cookies, browse the internet for five minutes, and then go on to the website that you want to go on, because then they see that you've brows the internet like someone. Because it used to be that they could tell if you were too slow clicking the mouse. You're a human. I'd like deliberately wobble my mouth a little bit, so it looks more human. None of that works anymore. The robots have learned to act like an idiot like a human. I thought we were just training it. I mean, I know that that was the idea.

The idea was we were teaching the AI what traffic lights look like in every single world. We are as well. So that's still happening? We're still training them? Right, okay. Is this sometimes why when I get to the end of page 18 on a Google search for Moss, let's say, it says, come on, are you a human? Do you ever get that? Yes.

You get to the end of... Oh, really? Because nobody clicks through 18 pages of Moss results. I think that will be why, yes. Remember there was the big thing where Watson, the IBM AI computer, went on Jeopardy, and there was a whole thing about Jeopardy. There was a big complaint from the makers of Watson who said they rewrote the question. so that it didn't allow for it to do it.

So, for example, an example given is, in 2002, M&M signed this wrapper to a seven-figure deal, obviously worth a lot more than his name implies. 50 cent. 50 cents. What's his 50 cent? Damn it. And Watson would be able to figure that out,

but they rewrote it to lose 2002 and Eminem in there. So it relied on you to make a connection of a pun. I see. From the second half of the... But surely the quiz question is basically, do you know that 50 cent is one of MNMNM? M&M's stable of rappers, isn't it? No, I think any name any musician with money in their name, a low denomination in their name.

Because I didn't know that about the stable of rappers, but I didn't know that 50 cents. I suppose, yeah. The thing is with those questions is they give you two different ways of getting to the answer, right? Yes. Either with the pun or with the knowledge. Yeah, and that's why they complained. But it's interesting. I put it into chat GPT this morning just to see what it would give if I gave the question

without 2002 and Eminem. And it, you know, of course, immediately came up. probably 50 cent, a seven-figure deal is worth far more than 50 cents, was its logical answer. So it can do that now. So it over-exposed the jokes? Yes. Oh, dear. Maybe I, too, have an AI.

I gave AI a lateral thinking puzzle, and it couldn't crack it. So that was satisfying. This was triggered by the fact that I was wondering if Roaldahl was a vegetarian because I just read a book of his that was very anti-hunting. So I said his role is Al a vegetarian. And Google AI said, there were many clues in his books that suggest he's a vegetarian. For instance, Fantastic Mr. Fox is vegetarian. And obviously, I thought, well, the whole plot of Fantastic Mr. Fox is like him eating meats.

I don't think he is. That's a bit when he breaks into a bomb, just kills two chickens instantly. I'm a flexitarian, chicken basically. It's not real meat, is it? Like, obviously the carbon footprint of chicken is a lot better than beef. That's faulty. So I tried Claude, the Anthropica AI, on this riddle, which I always just love. So it's, and you have to write it down, but imagine you have one, three, and four.

five in a row and then directly beneath it, write two, four. The words? No, the numbers has to be numerical, two and four. And then a question mark directly beneath the five. Okay. Yeah. And it's like, what's the question mark? Six.

So you think it's six. So obviously that's what AI says to me first. But you can see, Claude tells you it's working. So it's like it says sussing out lateral thinking options. No, is it six? Then you say, no, it's not six. I think it's five again. I gave it so many clues.

Still didn't get it. I'll give you guys a clue. It's not a number and it's related to cars. And this is kind of an example of something the AIR. It's an R for reverse. It's an R. Oh, come on. And that's because robots don't drive cars.

They don't drive manuals. In fairness, I think six is a legitimate answer to that question. Completely. But it's when you tell it, it's not six. And the thing about AI is it's overconfidence. So at one point it said, I've got it. It's F. You know when AI is really, I've done it now. Sorry, AI's overconfident.

Maybe I too are an AI. Isn't Dahl a vegetarian curry? Oh yes. So roll Dahl, if not a vegetarian at least. Why? Is a vegetarian curry. Very good. And AI can't make proper jokes.

Maybe you two deaths are an AI. Okay, it is time for fact number three. And that is Anna. My fact this week is that the only ride at France's second. most popular theme park is a two euro carousel. Well, I have just taken my daughter to Disneyland in Shanghai, 10-hour flight, however much money it costs, trains, all that stuff, and all she wanted to do was go on the carousel.

Oh, really? We went on the carousel four times. Right, now back on the plane. So this sounds perfect. There you go, we'd have been a slightly cheaper carousel than the one you went to. Well done. And that's all it is. So why is this such a shit theme park?

It's Pruidufu and it's the second best after Disneyland Paris, obviously, which trumps everything. But this is a theme park that was set up in the 1970s. It gets over three million visitors a year. It's the eighth most popular in Europe. And it's basically a place where they do historical reenactments. And it began in the 70s when this guy, Philippe de Villeilleux, who I'm sure we'll come on to talk about, found a ruined castle,

as he do stumble upon a lot in France. And he thought, I'm going to stage a reenactment of this thing called the Vondei Rebellion, which was a counter-revolutionary rebellion roundabout the French, well, at the time of the French Revolution. So he staged a reenactment.

It got bigger and bigger, and now it's 60 shows that act out historical events from all across history and all across geography. It's got these four period villages. So when you stay there, you stay in a period village.

It does so. It sounds amazing. It sounds absolutely incredible. I'm desperate to go. I went to stay somewhere recently that didn't have any of this, but it was faintly medievally theme. And the restaurants were things like the Knights Taferran. And that wet your appetite did it?

Yeah, what are you saying? Yeah, I'm saying I could see myself. This sounds better is what you're saying. I'm saying this sounds better. Yeah, yeah. Even than Tavern. I think there is plenty available for people like you in the UK right now if you want to get involved in the medieval scene.

Yeah. There's all sorts of reenactments going on. Really? I'll put you in touch with something like all. But none of them are this level, though. And this, I suppose, is less like you reenact it as you watch other people. So there's shows that it's all. You were just watching.

Did anyone else watch an hour-long YouTube video of someone going from each of the reenactments? No. Okay, I did. And to begin with it's... I like the way you're reenacting the reenactments by watching my YouTube. I thought you would get a bit fatigued with the amount of reenactment that you're watching if you decided. Come on. Yeah, I think it loses...

About 35 minutes in, I sort of regretted my decision to watch the four hour. But that's what the carousel is for. Yes. It's like a palate cleanser. Surely live is more exciting. And you know, you're caught up in the sweep of French history. Kind of. I think so.

You're quite far away. So it's sort of like watching a very, like, well-produced panto at a distance. I mean, it's epic. Three million people a year can't be wrong, them. Have you read the TripAdvisor reviews? They're very strong. They're very strong. They're going to build one in the UK.

They are. In Oxfordshire. In Bister. And we're going to have hotels, three hotels, each themed around different periods in British history, just wondering if you had any favourites. I was thinking COVID era. No toilet paper.

Also, General Strike. General Strike. Just three days for the price of five. Lovely. I mean, there'll be a two to one, won't there? It's British. It's English history. Yeah.

British history. So weird that people are obsessed with the Tudors when the revolution happened the next century. I'll go revolution. Yeah? Yeah, everyone shaved their heads. Which revolution? Do you mean? The round head one. Civil war. Yeah. So half of the people shave their heads. Sorry, yeah. If it's everyone, there's no war, is there? Everyone just agreeing

all the time. Swinging 60s, I think. I think that'd be a cool one. I bet they would do that, wouldn't they? Like, have a little Soho vibe. I would say, outrageously, the French one, Pue de Fu, has the King of. Arthur stuff. I have no idea how they've managed to swing getting the rights to King Arthur. He's not very litigious. The estate must be trading, surely. I just think what? Like, is there an estate? For King Arthur?

No, I'm joking. I do. It feels like there could be. Who's an AI now? I can't tell. I think, like, there was quite a bit of Frenchy stuff going on in those Arthurian tales. Yeah. And the Mort D'Arthur is written, half in French and all of this. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, the normal. Okay, yeah, yeah. And it's famously a historical this place, to be fair. The makers tend to say we're just trying to entertain. Are they trying to entertain? Well, there's the big question. It's quite controversial. Are they trying to sneak in right-wing propaganda to families?

Because that's what some people say. It's what some people claim, and the fact that it was founded quite quite an extreme right-wing politician is neither here nor there, I don't think. Well, he's not there anymore because it's run by another guy, his son, I think, called Nicla, who, described Vladimir Putin as having sweet eyes and sweet words. Cool, cool, cool. I saw, by coincidence, because we've been

planned to do this for a week or two, there was an article in Harper's magazine this week where author Nat Segnit went to this place. And he said it was a bit like hanging out with an exceptionally charismatic and entertaining friend whose opinions only strike you

as objectionable in retrospect. So what is the Is it that it's presenting a particular slant on history? It's very pro-Catholic. It's very pro-French monarchy. It's very sort of like looking back at the past and wasn't France great in the past and shouldn't we go back to France being great again? Yeah.

It's very into old-school France. But fun. And that's how the right wing get you. They make it fun. The craziest thing about this theme park, in my opinion, is when you get there, you get a little booklet, you know, the free booklet that tells you the map of everywhere that you're going to go. And it's in multiple languages. And at the top of each one of them has the date of the day that you're going on,

which means they print them every single day for the day that you're visiting the thing. To you, that's the craziest thing about this insane place. It has deep, weird, like, political. How much ink are we, are we waste in here? How many trees have been chopped down so that we can go. Yeah, but they probably are quite good at knowing how many people have booked him for that day. So they just had no how many to press on the printer. That for you is the weirdest thing.

That's the weirdest thing. Also, surely they can print all of them. and then just print the date separately. You think it's like an additional stamp as well. There could be a little man in a booth who just stamps on the date. It doesn't look it. It looks very printed on, right. I don't think it's that.

I think, Dan, this implies you think whenever you squunch up a brochure and throw it away, you think someone's going around all the bins, taking them all out, ironing them and reusing them the next day. No, I'm thinking they've got a big batch in the warehouse. They don't have to go, where's the guy with the printing for today? We've got 10,000 people in today. How many guys should we print do you think? Should we do about 10,000? Yes.

Oh, yeah, let's print 10,000. every day. Because Dan, this is the amazing thing about time. They know which date is coming. So if today is the ninth, someone's there together. What if there's huge cancellations because it's raining too much or something? What if COVID happened and they've got suddenly 365 days worth? For 2026, do they put 2026 or just 26? Because if it's just 26, they can reuse it in a hundred years. See? Okay, now we're talking. Okay. Maybe it's not so weird. By which time, the great French government will have risen. taken over the world again.

The bourbon monarchy will be restored again. I mean, yeah, it's very interesting and strange. And I think the reason that it's not very well known about, certainly in the UK, is that 85% of the visitors are French. You know, loads of French people holiday within France. And obviously, it's so about France that it's naturally appealing to the French people. Yeah, yeah. I think so.

I think there is one in Spain as well, isn't there? Yes, there is. So they've done one in Spain, they've done one in France. They're going to do one in the UK. Yes. Apparently the Spanish one is quite politically conservative on just how good a thing

the colonization of the Americas was. Oh, is it? It depicts the Europeans saying, well, we'll only go ahead and colonize if you guys really want us to and as long as we're going to treat you really, really nicely. That's sort of written into the

show, yeah. It's like the weather spoons of theme parks. They're all, you know, you get your cheap ruddles but you've got a political agenda. You've got to sift through when you're in that. I can't believe it. What about weather spoons are can. I can't believe it.

But the Wellespoons often, they dish out magazines that have the proprietor views in them, which is quite rare for a pub. You know, you don't normally get a strongly angled magazine. Wait, wasn't that your point? Yeah, I'm over explaining. I just think people won't know that there's a Weatherspoon's newspaper. Sorry, got it, yes. International listeners.

No, international listeners may not. By now everyone internationally knows about Wellespins. Sorry to keep talking about it. You know what they don't do? They don't stamp the date on every single newspaper, because they're not nutcases. Do you know who does? Newspapers, Dad. It's a weekly newspaper.

It's not a daily newspaper. I'm crazy. I'm just quickly on the one in the UK, which should be fine because we don't have an awkward colonial history, so I doubt it would be anything controversial in that. But it's planned for, yeah, Bucknell, which is near Bista. And there are obviously residents who are very against it and residents who are very pro it. And I just like the fact that it is in Oxfordshire. And the residents are led on the pro.

side by a woman called Caroline Chipperfield Twitty and on the anti side by Flo van Demon Van Thor which shows how really Oxfordshire Speak for England, Flo. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's very interesting.

On reenactments in 2014 there was a World War II reenactment that were going to do in Barnsley in Yorkshire but it had to get cancelled because people would be wearing Nazi insignia and so the council stopped it but said that they would be able to to reschedule if they did a World War II reenactment with no Nazi elements whatsoever.

Right. That's very funny. That's very good. I think reenactments really interesting, like for example, civil war reenactments quite often that as they're sort of digging holes in the ground, they'll actually find the bones of a fallen soldier from the Civil War. This is in America. Okay.

And that will then be brought back to a museum and so on. And so they're digging up artifacts as they are doing reenactments on. Why are they digging holes as part of Civil War reenactments? Was there a lot of tunneling in the Civil War? I'm not sure. Some of them maybe just dig a hole. Maybe to pooing. I don't know.

I don't know what the outdoor latrine situation is. I'm not using that Partaloo. They did not have that in the Civil War. Oh my God. I have a fact about Portalo's in war reenactments. Yeah. You know how in the American Civil War, and in fact in loads of wars,

some women have donned men's clothes and they've gone into war. You know, that's a thing that happens. And some women in the American Civil War dressed as men and fought in battles, right? In 1989, there was an American woman called Lauren Cook Burgess, and she had to fight a discrimination lawsuit because she had been banned from taking part in a US civil war reenactment. She had dressed as a male soldier to try and sneak into the reenactment of the war,

and then she was caught coming out of a women's loo and was told off and told to go and put a dress on because there were no female soldiers in the war. She said, yes, there were female soldiers dressed as men in the war. I'm doing that. And she had to fight a four-year court battle and won the case. She eventually won and was allowed officially to be on the pitch. It is a bit mad that they're saying you can only do it if it's really true to what happened in the past. But she is coming out of a portal.

I know. Exactly. Yeah. I know. Civil war renauments are obviously a big deal. But there's one particularly moving one I read about, which was in 1913, an early one. This is in a Ken Burns documentary. And two armies restaged the pickets charge,

which was when Confederates tried to break through Union ranked. The Unionist descended on them and defeated them. Anyway, it was reenacted by veterans from the Civil War. What year? 1913. So that's 50 years? 50th anniversary. And they came.

And it's an amazing moment. So they all knew how to do it. There was no arguments about accuracy. So it was veterans from both sides? Veterans from both sides and the ones who were on the Union side were there waiting behind trees and stuff ready to ambush and the ones on the Confederate side charged through the fields and were descended upon. But as they descended when they met rather than killing each other, they all hugged each other and burst into tears. Was it much of a chart? How old were these men?

It was a little bit of a charge. 50 years later, yeah. Yeah, it wasn't as fast as they had once been. Gosh. That's cool, that. That's really cool. That's a very nice moment. Unless you were there on the sidelines

to watch the reenactment, that would have sucked. What just was this? Mushy shit. You're not watching an hour of that, are you, on YouTube? Imagine 57 minutes into your YouTube video. You're like, finally they're going to kill each of them. What is this? This is woke, gone mad.

The first 57 minutes is the charge. Here we go. Okay, it's time for our final fact of the show, and that is my fact. My fact this week is that John Williams, the composer of soundtracks like Jaws, Star Wars, and Indiana Jones, doesn't actually like film music. Oh, doesn't like it. This is probably the finest, certainly the most decorated person in the world of Hollywood soundtracking, and he says, I never liked film music very much. He said, it can be good, but it usually isn't, other than maybe an eight-minute stretch here and there. I think that the music just isn't there, that what we think of as this precious gift film music is,

we're remembering it in some kind of nostalgic way. Well, he's like a proper composer of non-film music as well as film music, right? Yeah. Is that right? His main, well, his main hobby from the day job of the film music is composing concertos and symphonies. And I think he sees the film music as just a job, but the concertos is the main thing that he likes to do that. He does see it as just a job, yeah. But he's very good at his job.

He's had 54 Oscar nominations. That's more than any other living person. I think he's only won five, though. So that's a lot of losses. Not that good, Josh. So the only other person who's had more is Walt Disney, who had 59. Right. But like Walt Disney's, a lot of them were for cartoons.

And they were all like, for instance, in 1938, he was nominated four times in the same best cartoon category. So like he boosted up his numbers basically. by just being the only person who is making good cartoons. Did they count to like four different shots on the screen of Walt Disney from different angles? And when it's announced, three of them look really pissed off and one of them look thrilled. In that 1938, there were only five nominations for Best Cartoon, and he got four of them. And the only one he didn't make was Paramount's hunky and spunky.

Right. That's my favourite. He is right, John Williams, isn't he? Like, it's always so annoying when Classic FM, if anyone who works so resisting, does Classic FM at the movies. Because the point is, film is only good when you're watching the film. Because it's meant to be background

to the thing that's happening. I'm not sure everyone agrees with you, Anna. Oh, really? I disagree. I will sometimes pop on the score of Mission Impossible 6. Can I just say, I agree with you. But I think a lot of our listeners might not. And listener, if you're hearing this

and you don't agree with Anna, a lot of people are like you, you don't need to write in. Right to, Andy, feel free. It's a growing thing. Lots of concerts are put on of exclusively film music. And I mean, the ones John Williams has come up with, when you think of the theme tune of Jaws or Jurassic Park, they're so memorable and they're so easily called to mind.

And people like music that they've heard lots of times. A lot of people do. It's some kind of effect, isn't it? Like the exposure effect. The more you hear something, the more you like it. And so if people hear a lot of film themes a lot of times, they're going to like them. Yeah.

He doesn't even like films very much, John Williams. He says, I was never a movie buff or movie fans. then as now. Yeah, he says he's never sat through any of the Star Wars films. Sat through. But like, in fairness to him, he says, in the interview I read, he said he'd not watched them, but I'm not particularly proud of that, I have to say. So he's not like one of these people's like, oh, I'm just too smart to watch Star Wars.

I've never seen Star Wars. Yeah, but like, because there are a lot of people like that, right? But he's like, well, you know, I feel a bit embarrassed that I haven't watched it, which I think is quite a nice stance. Yeah, I think it's more common as well than we realize that, directors and people who have to watch the footage so much because he does compose to the footage. He's watched it probably more than anyone else, just not in the final package, right? Yes.

He was a session musician, by the way, before he properly got into composing his own stuff. And there's one iconic song that I just didn't know he played a part in. He was the piano on the song Peter Gunn by Henry Mancini. Dundun, dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun. That's him on the piano. I don't know what that is. No, neither do I'm afraid. Even with your amazing rendition.

It's used as the theme tune or the kind of motif in the film The Blues Brothers. It crops up again and again and again in that. So that's interesting you don't. Well, maybe it's my singing of it, but it's used in a lot of adverts. To be honest, it sounded like one of those drum names. Yes. Yes, somewhere out there, a Sammy person just went, yes? Who said that? His son, Joseph, is the lead singer in the band Toto.

Oh, cool. Although not when they did the only song that Toto. known for. That's true. He wasn't there when they released Africa. But he was the singing voice of Simba in The Lion King. Yeah. And he has also scored some films like his father. So he scored Embrace the Vampire, The Legend of Gator Force, Soccer Dog, Real Estate Superman, and Fat Beach, which is considered one of the, one of the best hip-hop beach movies of all time, according to Wikipedia. Dan's nodding.

Dan's thinking, why aren't we talking about this guy? He's the real legend. Finally, real estate Superman is getting some air on our podcast. Real estate Superman sounds just like one of Andy's ideas for a cup show. No, hear me out, guys. He goes into a modest, too-better with potential and he comes out as Superman, spins around. The first person to produce a record from a film score was

someone called Anne Ronell, with a film called Ladies in Retirement. And we have slightly come across her before, almost, because she wrote additional lyrics to the song Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf? But arguably the first female person who did a score of a movie was Friend of the Podcast. Oh, oh, Alice Guy. A Guy? A guy. A guy, yeah.

No way. So A guy, she made some sound films. And the hers were more like soundscapes than the music. But she would like, there's one that she did called Canned Harmony where a guy comes in and tries to persuade the father of a girl that he wants to marry that he should be allowed to marry her. And he pretends to play the violin while someone underneath the table is actually playing the violin.

And that was a guy who came up with that. Was that really early days? Was that really early days? Well, she was the first female director. I think you talked about her last time I was away but yeah she was like almost the first director wasn't she yeah she's come up on the podcast a few times yeah so early if we're talking early film

there is a theory that goes that the reason soundtracks happened at all was to distract the audience from getting annoyed by the amazing amount of ruckus being caused by the projector so it gave you something to focus your attention away and cover up that noise it's a theory that other people say that no it's also So you're trying to reflect what the world is like in a film. Yeah.

That's the other theory. It's quite cool that original soundtracks were sheet music that was handed to the local, the in-house musician who would just play the tune. Would they have the day to show it? Oh, gosh. Nope, not. They tended not to play it, right?

So it was always women. This is in the old Nickelodeons. And they'd be given sheet music. And generally, they ignored it. And they would improvise. So you got to see the film and improvise along. So you didn't know what kind of a film you were getting. One day you might get.

a horror the next day it might be a comedy because basically the genre of a film is almost dictated by the music isn't it? If you put funny music over a horror film it's no longer a horror film and the lady at the piano and the Nickelodeon could just determine that. That's really cool.

The power. I've got a fact about another very big soundtrack film guy. Van Gelis Big name within the world. He did Blade Runner, chariots of fire, stuff like that. His music's very sought out. He's just loved as a musician, did a lot of stuff separate to a soundtracking. But there's one piece that he did, which was roughly 12 hours long, that fans have been trying to find because it's quite scarce.

And it was when he did a straight-to-VHS thing, it was three VHSs that the music was spread over, called micro-neurisurgery with videotapes, spinal space occupying lesions by Dr. Sturgios Tegos, medical publications. And it was a friend of his who was a spinal surgeon who wanted to show all of his techniques. And so he got Vangelis to make a soundtrack. Score it. Yeah, because it's incredibly boring watching him just do it. That's what he figured. And so this has only ever been released on these VHSs, but obviously it wasn't a big print run of the videos. Yeah, yeah. But have you managed to buy one? eBay is, I'm going to have to finish soon because the, uh, the auction's about to end and that like that, um,

Territ So Fire theme tune, even as a skeptic of. movie soundtrack, Anna, that is pretty, it's a top one, isn't it? Hold on, give it to me. Do do, do, do, do, do. Yeah. It starts with the dumb, dum. So I think the problem, just to cut,

just a circle back around to the start. The problem with this is that everyone knows the little hook, right? So everyone knows the bit they like. And I agree, that was fun to hear, but the rest of the tune is often a bit crap background. And you have to listen to all of it when they do classic FM at the music. But all the great composers have probably, there's one bit of the hour-long symphonies.

They think, I've really nailed that bit. If you've ever been to the opera, everyone sits there through four hours of the fucking thing. And then they get to the bit that goes, and then everyone in the crowd just sits up because they got to a bit that they recognise. And then...

Just leave after. Da-da-da-da-da. This podcast is like that, I know. It's an hour long. There'll be one bit where Dan's explaining something. What is the hell is? And you're saying that was the highlight? And I'm saying that that's what people are tuning in for.

That's when they set up, you know. Can I tell you one of my favorite scoring stories? All right. So, we all know the snowman. Of course. We're walking in the air. Beautiful. Thank you.

Totally beloved in the UK. I don't know if it's famous around the whole world, but it's a really iconic, beautiful story about a boy who makes a snowman, the snowman comes to life, and they go walking in the air. They fly through the air. It was scored by a guy called Howard Blake.

And he came up with the idea because he had been seriously overworked, right? He was composing so much and working so hard. He went down to Cornwall and he lived for three months in a single hut with just a bed and a one bar fire, living a really rustic, much slower pace of life. And one of the last jobs he was offered before it,

before he decided to do this, was a comedy called Percy about a man with a 14-inch penis. And he just thought, maybe I need a break from work. Was Alan Jones also in that one? I think that was written by Michael Palin and Terry Jones. I think. Oh, wow.

Pulling from knowledge. Python knowledge. Yeah, incredible. I mean, who knows that much about Python? You must be AI. Ironically, massive Python. And he wrote it, he literally, he was walking along the beach when he thought of walking in the air and he jotted it down on an envelope.

Really? Because not many snowmen in, even in winter in Cornwall. No, no, no, no. But I was thinking, you know, we talked a little while ago about the Bailey Bridge, that kind of bridge called the Bailey Bridge. It might have been on a little fish. Yeah, yeah. Because the guy who came up with that, it was an amazing pre-fad bridge that was incredible

in the Second World War. He jotted his design down on the back of an envelope. Oh, yeah. So my pitch is, is maybe a museum of all the envelopes. Oh, no, it's a book of the envelopes. Right. Right? Like all the things that have been drawn on an envelope.

You get those envelopes. Specifically envelopes? Well, about napkins. Like, people are drawn a napkins. That's a rival museum. Five packets. Yeah, I think it's got to be. I think back of an envelope is the...

Because you remember the Welcome Institute, we saw the paper of which the first DNA sequence, the drawing of how that would look, the DNA strands. That was just on the back of a discarded bit of paper. Yeah. But not an envelope. So you're... I'm sorry.

I think... That's not allowed. Yeah, fair enough. Why do you do this to yourself? Make it a little bit broader and it'll make it so much easier to write. It just won't be the same book. Because the title is back of an envelope, you know.

Yeah. And the gag is like... Just call it back of a dot, dot, dot. And then that kind of encapsulates them all. I don't think it works. Because I came up with the idea for the book and then wrote it down on the back of an envelope, right? No, you wrote it on your notes here.

We saw you do it. So anyway, that's, yeah. What was the fact? I forgot now how we got here. guy Howard Blake who came up with walking from the snowman wrote it down on the back of an envelope. Was he walking down to the post office to post the envelope?

I don't know. Why is he walking with an envelope? Yeah. Like that's weird. Good question. So many questions. No one carries it. Even in the 80s, no one was just walking around with

envelopes. No, you might have a receipt in your pocket or like a bit of paper or something. I think that's what's going to make my book so special. Yes. the mystery of it all yeah what who's got these envelopes why is it always upelows what's going on but it never is that's why you can't fill the book

that's a problem well that's that's a second order problem I think first order is meeting publishers I think there's a photo of you in every publishing house in London saying do not let this man in 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 all be found online. I'm on Shreiberland on Instagram, James. No, this thing is James Harkin on Instagram. Andy. At Andrew Hunter. And you can get to us as a group. Anna, how?

You can email podcast.u.com or on at no such thing as a fish on Instagram. Yep, that's right. So, yeah, if you want to take part in one of our other shows, for example, Little Fish, podcast at QI.com, as Anna says, is the place to send your best facts. that you found out. Or perhaps you have feedback about things that we've said, experiences related to the podcast. Do write into us because we will bring those emails

to drop us a line, which is our special bonus episode that sits within Clubfish, our private members club, and you can find out all about Clubfish by going to patreon.com slash clubfish. Check it out now. Otherwise, just come back next week, because we will be back with another episode and we'll see you then.

Goodbye.