No Such Thing As A Fish - No Such Thing As The Number Six

Episode Date: February 23, 2018

Andy, James, Anna and Alex discuss ski lift thefts, the world's largest wine cellar and what would happen if all the bacteria disappeared in the world.

Hey everyone, before we start this week's show, we just want to remind you that we have a little documentary on the internet, don't we? We sure do. It's not quite as hard hitting as Louis Theroux, but there may be a couple more gags in it. It's the behind the scenes look at our tour from last year when we were stalked with the camera and they filmed us doing japes and stuff. Yeah, there's loads of behind the scenes, bits and pieces, there's loads of interviews with us, there's little bits from the show. It's really, really fun. You can get it on the internet. It's called Behind the Gills. You can get it on Apple. Google, Amazon, Ascheves, MySpace, and all those places where you get stuff from. Yeah, okay, I'm on the show. Hello, and welcome to another episode of No Such Thing as a Fish, a weekly podcast coming to you from the QI offices in Covent Garden.

My name is Andrew Hunter Murray, and I'm sitting here with James Harkin, Anna Tosinski, and Alex Bell, and once again, we have gathered around the microphones with our four favorite fact from the last seven days, starting with James. Okay, my fact, that's the first. this week is that if all the bacteria in the world disappeared, we wouldn't notice for about a week. Would scientists notice in a lab if they were studying bacteria? Yes. Would they just think, oh, they must be down the other end of the petri dish today. They are small.

But I think I'm talking more of the day-to-day person going about their life. So this anyway is from a paper. It's called Life in a World Without Microbes by Jack A. Gilbert and Josh D. And it's absolutely brilliant. I love it. In this paper, they say it would take us nearly a week to realize what had happened. And then that they predict complete societal collapse only within a year or so. So the first week, you don't notice anything. And then 51 weeks later. It's all downhill. The whole of society collapses. So that 51 weeks is really horrible. I reckon it would be. It probably get progressively worse. Yeah. And you know the end is not. You know, yeah. They say then annihilation. of most humans and non-microscopic life on the planet would follow a prolonged period of starvation, disease, unrest,

civil war, anarchy, and global biogeochemical asphyxiation. But we're due for 90% of that already with the bacteria. That's true. But for the first week, it's fine. Okay. So the thing is, let's think, what is there that we need microbes for and bacteria? So they're in your stomach, right?

And they help you digest things. Okay. But I found it really weird that you don't need, that humans don't actually need them. We could be unwell without them, or we could find it hard to digest things, but we can survive without bacteria. I read that, and I couldn't quite believe it,

because I thought, sure, we must need them. I think we'd just get constipated, wouldn't we? Yeah. Yeah, but there are some animals which do need them, aren't there? Or loads of animals. Yeah, although now Anna said that, okay, for the first week we might be constipated. Okay.

But at least it's not prolonged a period of starvation disease, unrest, civil war, anarchy, and global biogeochemical asphyxiation. Depends how bad your constipation is as well, you know. So yes, animals do need it. So cows would need it, for instance, because they can't digest cellulose without microbes. And a few other animals would as well.

But basically, eventually what would happen is all the nitrogen wouldn't be able to be fixed. The nitrogen cycle would stop, which is something that we need for life. So all of the... So all plants use that, and then so the plants are going to die out. Yeah. Basically, that life needs nitrogen, and it goes around in the cycle like water does. but without the microbes that would stop, which means that the oceans would get full of nitrogen,

which means all the fish would die. We'd struggle to make oxygen as well because a lot of microbes make oxygen. So a lot of bad things would happen. And in week two. And this entire time, everything is dying, and so nitrogen isn't being produced, but all the dead things just stay there.

Well, yes. It basically means that we need the mushrooms, and I hate to say this, but we need the fungi. If all the microbes die and they can't break anything down, The only thing left to break things down is the mushrooms. They step in and save us. Who'd have thought it?

It's not an action film I especially want to see. Would your poo stop smelling? Well, and your sweat. I think that's one of the real bonuses of week one, is that the smell of sweat is just caused by all the bacteria. That's true. And so we would smell great for a week. You're constipated, so it doesn't really matter whether your poo smells or not.

No, that is true. That would happen. So Louis Pasteur, the famous guy, scientist's, guy. He thought that we needed bacteria to live microorganisms, otherwise we'd all die. And then a bit after him, two guys came along, ten years later, two guys came along called George Nuttall and Hans Thurfelder, and

they disproved it by getting a guinea pig and getting rid of all its bacteria and microbes and the guinea pigs still managed to live. How did they do that? Well, I reckon there was probably a lot of antibiotics involved. Oh. They didn't just give it a shower. I reckon there was a shower involved. Yeah, you might as well soap it down.

There must have been, right? Yeah. And this is called no biotic living. G-N-O. No-biotic. Get this. There is a place in the world where this has kind of happened. Your horror scenario, James. So it's in Chernobyl.

Lots of microbes and fungi got contamination and they died. And as a result, there are loads of trees in this place called the Red Forest, which is where all the trees turned red and died. and they're not decaying. So there's leaf litter, you know, the sort of leaf mulch on the ground. It's three times thicker in the hottest bit of Chernobyl

radiation-wise than it is in areas without radiation. That's quite cool, isn't it? Because leaf litter is quite a nice thing to walk through and kick it up in the air. You can go for some really nice autumn walks. Is it, though, because it's still going to be raining, so it's still going to get wet and soggy and nasty. It's just not going to bring down to dust.

I reckon it's going to be really gross. Yeah, it's going to be mulch, isn't it? It is mulch, I'm afraid. That's not a romantic walk through the woods, is it? when you kick it up. So bacteria are really cool, right? And you do actually, when you do our job, you get really bored, actually, of reading.

All the journalists who say, you get bored of reading. We have to do too much of it. But all journalists say, everyone thinks bacteria just disease-causing bastards and actually some of them are really great. But some of them are really great. And some of them are just cool.

So I learned about this one, which is the, let's see if I can pronounce this, acidithelobaculus, and you find it in caves. and it only comes like a lot of bacteria in kind of microbial mats so they hang out together bacteria often work together comes in these microbial mats with you know many millions of them all squashed up together and it hangs off the ceiling and it looks exactly like a stalic mite

tight scoot I always thought tight was off the ceiling and then someone told me it was the other way around no it's tights come down yeah that's what I always thought and someone told me I was wrong we're telling you you're right static tight hold on tight exactly and stalact might mighty because it grows up or might poke you in the back Or might fall on your head. Oh, yeah. Tight to the ground. It's hard, isn't it?

Nymonyics are hard. Well, anyway, this stuff looks like a stalactite, and it hangs off the roof of caves, but it's got the exact consistency of bogeys. And if you read about it in... Is that a scientific term? Yeah, because bogeys have lots of different consistencies. Of a healthy bogey, James.

A country bogey, not one of these horrible London polluted bogeys. What would happen to your bogeys if all the bacteria disappeared? Great question. Would they get stuck in your nose like your poo? No. Not in your nose. You got stuck in your nose. Nasal constipation is what I'm asking.

They would not be colourful like bogies are now. I know your pink bogeys have always impressed me. But the colours are the bacteria, aren't they? Yeah. So you would still have mucus, but it would be see-through. But what would it gather around? I thought the bacteria was the start of a mucous party. Yes.

Well, you might have hairs in your nose. I have got hairs in my nose. And they could be used as a nucleus. Yes, I see that now. But, I mean, it's cleaner. It's, you're, that first week of your body, it's great. You don't smell, no, no, no, no, no, no, just like, pooing. Like, all these disgusting stuff stops.

It's brilliant. You've got glassy snort. We've gone off topic. Sorry, we have something. We've strayed. What I'm saying is, there's this stuff is, lots of bacteria, which are basically bogeys hanging from the ceiling. And if you read journal articles about them, they're referred to snotites as an stalactites. So, you know, scientific journals, it's talking about the snotites.

And they're actually really cool because they excrete sulphites. fureic acid and that dissolves the limestone and it makes caves so you get really sparkly caves because it creates gypsum which is like you know gypsum crystals that is very cool but they are called snotites that sounds like an ancient people

it's not it does isn't it yeah they were fighting against the Hittites so I looked up a few other what ifs oh good idea so this is a bit off topic I know but I just basically went to Google and started going through what it I just what if X happened and there are loads of amazing results

so what would happen if there was no number six this is on 538.com I just got straight from 5 to 7 well no this is the thing I would you might but basically this was a question asked by a child who was five and a half years old and clearly interested in what happens next and they went to mathematics professors at Duke University

and they said well everything would fall apart they said I imagine they said stop wasting my time I have more important for social beginning on me they said it's really interesting because basically if there's no six there can't be any numbers higher than six. I just don't think that's true. Is it? This is a maths professor who said all the other integers are out.

It's very detrimental. If you think about it, how do you define six? One more than five. How do you define seven? Two more than five. Then you're right. So if you define it as one more than six, you're in trouble. But if you define it as two more than five, you're absolutely fine.

But then if you start working that way, how do you define 11? Six more than five. But there's no six. So now 11's in trouble. Exactly. This is an actual math professor who said, we are screwed if we lose six. I think, to reassure him,

you just... The risk is low. The risk is low. You just bump seven down, don't you? And then you bump eight down. Everyone gets bumped down one. Or you could promote everyone from zero to five. And you promote zero to one.

Zero's always wanted to be one. Yeah. Zero is just sitting there uselessly. The concept of zero is a useless one as established by... All man. But it didn't exist. exist until, you know. Wasn't it about the 7th century?

How did we get to the 7th century without zero? It's impossible. Exactly. It was a 6th century then, or the 8th. I don't know. Anyway, I was looking at some what if stuff as well, mainly because you said you were, and I thought, I'll copy Andy.

That's what I do. So if everyone thinks about if we all jumped at the same time, what would happen? And if we all gathered together in the same place and jumped at the same time, then we would push the earth in the opposite direction to the way we jumped by a, hundred the radius of a hydrogen atom, which I think is actually decent.

Yeah. I think that's not bad. Is it worth the organisation required? Yeah, I think that's not much, actually, Anna. We could jump up. Also, as soon as you come back, as soon as you come back down, the earth comes back up to meet you, doesn't it? Yes, it's not long-lasting.

It's a very rare circumstance in which we need the earth to move that little distance for that shorter time. Would everyone at the other end of the earth go, well, what was that? No, because everyone's at the end of the earth's there. No one's even there to experience. It would be amazing, Alex, if you were the only person on the other side of the earth. He just done it as an elaborate prank. I was like, where is everyone?

I must have missed a memo. You're like, where is everyone? And why have I just moved one half the... The entire world's jumping on a party and I... Click on Facebook. Oh, that's where they are. Seven billion attending. One has not replied.

Can I give you one more? What if? Then I'm done. I didn't know if you shot a powerful gun like a sort of a cannon gun but a gun that exists today, a modern gun on the moon you can shoot yourself in the back. That's so cool.

It's an elaborate suicide method, isn't it? If you want to fox the detectives. One of Agatha Christie's later brainstorms that she never wrote up. The man is found dead alone on the moon. So hang on, hang on, does the bullet go all the way around the moon? It does, so the moon's small enough that the gravitational The pool isn't too much.

It basically goes, you have to be on top of a hill or something. On a mountain, yeah. And it kind of stays in very, very low orbit if you get the right velocity. You obviously have to have a very precise shot to make sure you do hit yourself. Does it only work its ray on once? But if you shot it and then you felt it go past your ear, would it go around again? So you'd have time to stand one thing to that? No, I think you've only got one chance.

Really? Because then you'd lose momentum, wouldn't you? And then it does still have a gravitation. Yeah, it might still hit you, but it might hit you lower down. Mike in the testicles. Oh, yeah. In high. This is getting better.

Man is found shot in the testicles on the moon alone. That is a great what if. That's incredible. It was probably all from Randall Monroe. Who knows when you're looking at stuff, hypothetical stuff on the internet, how many of them were originally Randall Monroe. So we should credit him just in case. Randall Monroe basically invented the two words what and if. He did, yeah.

Yeah. That's ridiculous, James. He just invented putting them together. Yeah, but what if he did? Okay, it's time for fact number two, and that is my fact. My fact is the world's largest wine cellar has tunnels 150 miles long, and it's so big it has to have traffic rules for people who drive through it. That is very cool.

It's so cool. It's in Moldova, and it's got streets, and all the streets are named after different grapes, and you can drive a car through it, and a lot of employees there, they just cycle around all the time. We should say what it's called. It's called Milestimichi, and it's near the capital of Chisnau. It's incredible. Yeah. Who knew, I mean, James, obviously, but who knew of the rest of humanity about Moldova's wine industry?

I know because I've had Moldovan wine. Yeah, you don't. You love it, don't you? Well, I do not rate it very highly on my list of wines by country, I must say. It's drunk a lot in Russia. They drink it a lot of Russia and the same way they drink Georgian wines. I was reading that they really messed up the Moldovan wine trade. In fact, I think it was about 2005, when Putin, imposed some sanctions on Moldova and he banned all imports of their wine

from going into Russia because they were a bit too pro EU for him. Or I think he said it was some other reason, but I think it was because they were too pro EU. And they're just loosening it. So that really damaged their wine trade because about 40% of their exports went to Russia. That's so weird because Vladimir Putin, he has his own cave in the second

largest wine cellar in Moldova. That must really piss him off. No, no, no. It's fine. That's only 120 kilometres. But he has his own cave there and lots of celebrities or wealthy people have their own special little zone. It's like Beverly Hills, but for wine. Yeah, but he had his 50th birthday party in that second largest wine cellar.

It's in Cricover. So cool. The wine cellar at Cicover, have you heard about this? They have a race there? No. So it hosts a 10-kilometer race around the wine cellar, and you wear a headlamp because obviously it's quite dark, a lot of the place. And at the end of it, you get a glass of mulled wine.

But during the race, they hire someone to dress up as the Grim Reaper and chase you. No way. It sounds to me like the prizes get in the wine, right? Yeah. Kind of. But you're running around next to a load of wine. No one ever gets to the end. They all realise.

It's like building an Olympic stadium out of gold medals. We should say that that second largest wine tunnel or cave or cellar in Moldova is also the second largest in the world. It majors in this thing of having big wine cellars. And this one, the biggest one, Milesti mitsi. 2 million bottles it has which is more than the next 10 sellers combined Wow It's a big seller mate

That is really big Could you try some We are actually drinking wine now Aren't we to celebrate this fact We are I was thinking it to celebrate Nice one James You've earned yourself another glass for that That's good

That's really gonna help my performance later on I'll cave in and have a glass too Very strong Alex have you got a pun that will earn you a glass of this red wine. I don't have to have one because I'm the banker. I've got nothing.

Oh, well, I've got some beer here. Yeah. What else can we say? So in Moldova, you will find the world's largest building in the shape of a bottle. And it is, it hosts the Strong Drinks Museum.

Wow. It sounds like an awesome museum, right? Yeah. Hello, welcome to this. Would you like an audio guy? The audio guy is the same guy. My wife. She never understood.

When you say the largest building shaped like a bottle, it's not that it's the largest building in the world and it's shaped like a bottle. No, mate. It's just that there are some buildings in the world shaped like bottles and Moldova has the biggest one. Yeah, so the largest building in the world is somewhere in Dubai or something, isn't it?

Or Taipei. And we would probably know if it was shaped like a wine bottle. They kind of are. Aren't skyscrapers all shaped a bit like wine bottles? No. It's a great philosophical point for another time. The gherkin isn't. No, that's true. That's shaped like a gherkin.

The walkie-tarky. No, true. The Empire State Building is shaped like a novelty liqueur bottle, I would say. Deshaad is shaped like a tiny bit of broken wine bottle. But we didn't bottle wine until 1860, I think it was. So it was illegal to sell wine by the bottle between 1636 and 1860. And the reason was that people who were doing it before that when glass first came in, It was really easy to cheat on the size, so you could sell someone a bottle that wasn't enough wine.

So you sold it by the barrel, and then you took it home and you put it in your own bottle. There were bottles of wine. Yeah. They existed. Yeah, yeah, they had them at home. I don't know how you siphon it in. You couldn't buy a bottle. Yeah.

Because I get a bit annoyed when there's not a reasonable size option at a bar. And if I had to choose between a glass of wine and a barrel of wine, I'd be very annoyed. I'd like a large glass, please. No, we don't do that. We do 125 mils or a barrel. I'll have a barrel, and I'm like, have you heard about. the government's wine cellar. No. So the government of this country has a wine cellar and it's for when they host parties or receptions or digatories or big dinners, you know, they do loads of

official occasions. And so they have to have a wine cellar and it's got about 34,000 bottles of wine in it valued, I think about £800,000, but it's really clever. They try and self-fund by selling off every year or every few years. They sell off some really good wines. You know, they sell one bottle of a great wine which allows them to throw an in entire party with rubbish wine. And during the Second World War, one of the first aggressive actions of Britain in the entire war was to requisition the wine from the German embassy. Similarly, I didn't know about the Bolshevik revolution and it's running into wine problems.

So this was when the Bolshevik stormed the Winter Palace. The Winter Palace obviously had this enormous wine cellar, which they all discovered, all the Red Guard had been sent in and they got really drunk immediately. Was there a rosé guard as well who were not as popular? So, yeah, they went and got really drunk, and then they'd send others in. So the leaders, the Bolshevik leaders, your Lenins, they're quite annoyed because they really want to get on with the job. And they keep sending in more guards and more people in their revolutionary lot. And they kept getting drunk.

And I was reading an extract from this guy called Antonov of Sienko, who was a Bolshevik commander. And he remembered repeatedly sending troops in and them succumbing. Eventually, he said, we sent armored guns. cars to drive away other crowds, but the armoured cars started weaving suspiciously after a short amount of time. And then he said, they tried to flood the cellars so that this wine issue was totally removed. And the firemen they deployed to flood the cellars ended up getting drunk, so they failed to do that. It was just havoc. That is amazing. Yeah, very undisciplined. That's so funny. Have you heard of Octavian vaults? No. It's another mine, actually, and it's in

Wiltshire, and it's got five million bottles of wine in it. What? No. But this one that's the world's biggest has got two million. No, you're right. I'm looking at that

and doubting it now, but it's under caution in Wiltshire. I mean, it's not... Wait, caution's where the secret nuclear bunker is as well. They've got a lot on the ground there. It's basically for

wealthy people or famous people, but it's the size of 20 football pitches and they hold a huge amount of wine there which people have as investments and things like that. I think I should go and check it out. Yeah. For research purposes.

If I don't come out for a while, I don't come along. Just make sure I'm okay I think they'll send in Alex as well I'll send down an arm of car We'll send it back and find that Anna's finished it all off The only way to end one of these things If Anna had been in the Russian Revolution

It would have all been over a lot faster Well I quite like about wine Is how French wine has just always been the best wine So even from This is the wankiest thing you've ever said on a podcast What I'll all right When the Greeks first met the Gauls And tasted what the grapes were like

What the wine was like they were like, this is obviously the only wine we're going to drink. Same with the Romans from the start of the Roman Empire, the invasion of the Gauls in like the 50s, BC. They immediately started making sure all their wine was imported from there. To the extent that by 92 AD, the Emperor Domitian said that he wasn't going to allow any new planting in France. So they possessed France in France by that point.

He said, you're not allowed to plant vines here because it's ruining the industry back home. It's ruining the Roman industry because people only want to drink French wine. Wow. So there must be an objective quality to French wine that must be better. Well, there's an objective quality to Moldovan wine that says it's not as good. In my opinion. They weren't banning any Moldovans from growing their own vines and exports.

Sure, feel free to try to sell us your wine. Yeah. So obviously, wine cellars can have rat problems. Yeah, they can, as in because they're sellers. And a lot of French wine cellars have rat problems. and you get populations of alcoholic rats to the extent where there is a traditional Bordeaux recipe for rat that you grill alcoholic rats.

It specifies alcoholic rats as part of the recipe because they've drunk rats. Is that true? I think you identify whether a rat is an alcoholic or not. If you notice the rat drinking in the morning, is that when you know that you can cook the rat? They've got shaky paws. Can the rats identify that it's...

it's an alcoholic. I think there's a lot of it's fine. It doesn't even though it's a rat. Admitting you have a problem is the first step. Admitting you are a rat. Well, stage 12, the cooking, is you skin them and eviscerate them, brush them with a thick sauce of olive oil and crushed shallots and grill them over a fire of broken wine barrels.

So, I mean, there is a sort of element of romanticism about the wine, including them there because you have to find a wine barrel as well. But like, that's kind of cool, right? It's very sad. Yeah, romanticism. It does sound post-apocalyptic as well. I think it's a shame Valentine's Day is over. Otherwise, we'd all be serenading our partners with this exact recipe.

Okay, it's time for fact number three, and that is Anna. Yep, my fact this week is that before they settled on the name Windsor, surnames that were considered for the royal family included Gelf, Whipper, Wettin, Tudor, Stuart, and England. I like Chudor Stewart because it's like a double barrel where they've taken the both sides of the family I know but I think they were worried it might sound a bit posh and the royal family know how they like to not give that impression I'm really old good old wins of your people are they like I like gulf and wetting especially I've been in a lot of first idea brainstorming meetings where it's just there's no bad ideas and that really sounds like it's in one of those

what is gulf how do you spell gulf so it's g-u-el-pH so I don't know if that's the right pronunciation Actually. Guelph. The House of Guelph sounds so rubbish. So there was reasoning for all of this. This was in 1917. So the royal family descended from Queen Victoria

who had married Albert were really officially the Saxe-Coburg Gotha family, which had a bit of a German ring to it. And in 1917, for obvious reasons, Germany wasn't everyone's favourite country. And they decided to change their name. And they changed it to Windsor. And all of these other names

genuinely were justified. So Albert's house, the Saxon Royal House had the names Wetin and Whipper in it and then Guelph came from the Hanoverian Royal House and then yeah people threw in Tudor Stewart why not everyone love the Tudors everyone love the Stuart

The thing is Haddoward is in Germany Right so people would have picked up That's probably why it was dismissed quite early on I think you've buried the most hilarious lead in the story In the story that they took the name from Windsor Castle So the Royal Family is named after Windsor Castle rather than vice versa I think that's insane

That is very weird It's so funny But nobody knew what the official surname was because they had never been used. They didn't really know if they had a surname or not. Yeah. And when they got rid of the surname, it wasn't just the surname. It was the use of degrees, styles, dignitaries, titles,

and honours of dukes and duchess of Saxony and princes and princesses of the Saxe, and Gotha and Gotha, and all other German degrees, styles, honors and appellations. Because they have all this crap like at the beginning and the end of their name. So they had to completely rebrand themselves. It's not just case changing your name. But isn't the queen now Windsor Mountbatten? Yeah.

Yes. Because Philip took, he wanted his name. No, it's her favourite cake. Is it even like... You always always always always. Mount... You'll think of Mountbattenberg. Which is like two normal Battenbergs on top of each other.

That is weird though, because the Mountbatten's were the Battenbergs, but they changed to the Mountbatten's family. And at the same time, they thought we need to sound a bit less German, so they changed to Mountbatten. So, get this. Do you know the exact thing which prompted them to change? Because, I mean, we'd had three years of total war against Germany before they thought, oh, maybe we shouldn't be sounding said German.

The thing which prompted it was that there was a bombing raid on London. And before that, there were some bombs from Zeppelin's, but this is the first time that was a bomb, a heavy bomber plane dropping bombs on the British population. June 1917. And the bomber planes were called Gotha Plains. That was the name. And people looked and thought, hang on, if they're called Gothen's, and those guys are called the Saxocoba Gothers, something's not right.

And it was within a month, they changed the name. That was how fast the turnaround was, which is quite a speedy rebranding. We still have goths. Yeah, that's true, yeah. Why didn't they rebrand? Is that what you're saying? Imagine, oh, look, there's a pack of Windsors over there on the stream. But the other thing is, why didn't the Germans then just rename their planes, Windsors?

Every time the Queen changed her name, they just rename the planes. I don't think the priority of the German Luftwaffe was to gently troll the royal family of Britain into submission. I think they were trying to just blow up the whole country. I agree with that. But then on the other hand, there is a certain kind of propaganda thing that they're trying to do all the time, isn't it? So I reckon it would work that. I do agree.

They missed the trick. Do you know why Elizabeth is Windsor Mountbatten rather than just Windsor, which was the suggestion? No, is Mountbatten something to do with Prince Philip or something? It certainly is, but they were the Windsor House and actually when they were born, Charles and Anne, weren't born Windsor Mountbatten. But then, what's described as an expert amateur,

wrote to the royal family or wrote to the government and said, if this Prince Andrew, who was about to be born, if this baby that the Queen's pregnant with is born not with his father's name, then he will have the badge of bastardry upon him. Because, you know, it's a bit embarrassing to not have your father. It implies your parents might not be married. And this caused this huge consternation

and there was an official parliamentary investigation into it where they decided eventually that they had to add Mountbatten to the name because otherwise people would just, assume Prince Andrew was a bastard born out of wedlock. I mean, clearly people knew, didn't they? Literally his parents were the Queen and Prince Philip. You would have thought. At least with that point on, the Royal Family went

on to avoid any control of his heritage. Thank God, that's the last trouble Prince Andrew ever caused. But Prince Charles calls himself Charles Wales, doesn't he? Yeah, they still play it pretty fast and loose with their surnames, don't they? Which would have been even more embarrassing if they'd been called England. Yeah. Yeah, you're right.

Would he have hyphenated to England, Wales? They would sound like a football match. What was that thing that you said they would have if the child was born with... The badge of bastardry. That, weirdly, is my only Boy Scout achievement. All the other lads club together and got over me. Pretty proud.

What was the guy was... What was he an amateur or what was he called? Expert amateur. They just referred him as an expert amateur. I feel like we get quite a lot of those actually writing in QI and we love them, by the way. He was a real expert, as in he had, I think he'd previously embarrassed the government

on other occasions by pointing out, actually, if you do that, then genealogically, you're screwed. So he was good. Yeah, and always in that tone of voice, which I wouldn't enjoy. Did you know that another royal surname, Stuart, way further back, like Mary, Queen of Scots kind of time, was originally steward, as in like an air steward,

as in steward. That's where he got it from. He's worth for Ryanair, didn't he? Yeah, he would, after his coronation, he would push the royal trolley all the way down Westminster Abbey offering duty free on the left and the right.

To the pews. So Mary Queen of Scots changed her name from Stuart to Stuart, S-T-U-A-R-T because the French wouldn't have been able to pronounce and they would have pronounced the W as a V and it would have been Stuart. She would have been

Mary Stewart. Are you serious? That's why Stuart doesn't have a W now? Yeah. That's amazing. And it was just because people weren't pronouncing it correctly so they were just like, well, fine.

But the French wouldn't pronounce the D or the T at the end of that word, would they? Because they miss out the... So it doesn't really matter if it's steward or steward. No, it's weird that she changed the D to a T. Yeah, that makes sense.

But then we should be steward. It's just the steward. But maybe it was just those Ryanair jokes that just got to her in the end. I think there may be a change in the royal family's name coming up soon. Oh, hello. So I'm not certain about this.

Okay, but when... Sorry, you do say that. I know he do. Go on. We do. What are you saying the old? other day that I say I use the word hello to sometimes to mean oh hello did you do that I didn't believe him I didn't believe it yeah I do sometimes yeah but I think that that was the original meaning of the word hello

wasn't it yeah yeah I'm not making a point it's just what I say no I know I just didn't believe you and I'm really sorry for interrupting Andy when you guys are quite finished so when the throne is inherited from a queen i.e. down a matrilineal line yeah right the royal house often changes to reflect the patrilineal descent of the new monarch okay? It's a bit naughty. But so Prince, so Queen Elizabeth is in the Wettin dynasty, as you say,

from a branch of the House of the Saxe Cobra-Gotha line, okay? But Prince Charles, his father's line is Prince Philip, obviously, and Prince Philip is a member of the House of Schleswig Holstein Sonderberg Gluxburg.

So genealogically. Goodness, we won't have the German problem again. So Charles William, everybody down that line, because of that sort of ancient, slightly sexist, you know, tradition of the patrilennial thing.

They are all members of that dynasty. They probably will not change to make themselves the Schledsvier-Colstein, Sonderberg, Gluxburgs, but there's an outside chance. That's like all of the names they brainstormed put together

into one big super name. It's really weird that they have a hype their surname is a hypothetical surname. They're like, well, this is what our own name would be if we ever really used to. Yeah, because they don't use them.

They don't because they have time they literally never use them. So the whole thing is pointless. Don't need them. It's like Madonna. Don't need a surname. Yeah. Same thing.

Madonna Chikoni, you mean? Oh, sot off me. Hey, in Royal News, this is the thing that's happened this week, which you probably read about, is the thing about Prince Henrik, who was the Danish Queen Margaret's husband who died this week or last week.

But it's just a thing that's in the news this week, so I was reminded of it. But I find it really weird that Prince Henrik of Denmark has been annoyed his whole life that he hasn't been promoted to the same level as his wife. Like, he has made no secret of the fact that he's furious,

that he's not king consort, he's prince consort. No, that's weird. He doesn't have the same status as his son or his wife. So he's just died, and he has refused to be buried next to his wife, the Danish Queen Margaret, because he's like, well, if you don't think we're equal in life, I guess we're not equal in death. Wait, is she still alive? Yeah.

Well, I think she can make the decision for her now, can she? I'm sorry to be crude about it, but... She's done the graceful thing and allowed him not to be buried in the great space for her. compromise and he would just be buried facing away with his arms crossed. Clutching the TV remote. Did you know all Spanish people have a secret surname? I'm not even joking. Is it the same for everyone?

No, it's different for everyone. Right, okay. Children. For everyone? Well, no, logically. I've boxed myself into a corner there. Do you know the Thai in Thailand, sorry to interrupt, I'll get back to that. But in Thailand, every family has to have a different surname.

You just knocked Andy off the fact store. with your feet and then jumped on it. What was that? It's extremely relevant. Yeah. You don't know if it's relevant or not. I haven't told you by the fact. I think that would have been a nice follow-on fact.

Had Andy finished his? No, it's relevant to the little stupid joke that I made in the middle of Andy's thing, which wasn't really relevant. Yeah? Yeah, but a single family has to have a given family name, but it's not allowed to be the same as anyone else. Wait, so everyone's got a different surname.

How do you know someone's your cousin? You don't. Oh. One day they're going to run out? Well, they're quite long tie names, aren't they? They are. That's why they're so. probably why they're so long.

It's like your password for your computer. If you make them long enough, no one else is going to have the same one. I was going to live with this issue online every day. We have to have unique codes for it. But you then have to have a surname plus one, two, three, and then your cat's name. What's your name?

It's Andrew Smith, 1986. Right. Did you know that all Spanish people have a secret second surname that no one outside Spain knows about? Wow. Yeah. So children inherit two surnames,

one from their mother, one from their father. So there are Spanish people who are called, you'll have heard of them, Rafael Nadele Pereira, Enrique Iglesias Prasler, and Fernando Alonzo Diaz. These are all their actual names. So those third ones, why aren't they, why don't we know about the third ones? It's not common, it's not reported. And how did you get the scoop? Did he leaked this?

Okay, well, here's the interesting thing, is that until recently, automatically the first one would be from the husband, from the male parent, and the second one from the female parent, the mother, and children would only inherit properly. the first surname of each parent. So over time, there's a trend towards keeping male surnames and not female ones. And as of last year, parents get to choose. So that will now be balanced out of them.

True in Russia as well. They have secret surnames. So Vladimir Putin, that's his real name. I can see why he cut the unnecessary. Yeah. That's why Russian novels are so confusing to read. Yes. There's so many different bloody names.

The Spanish was quite interesting because it's kind of like natural selection through surnames because the nicer surname from now on the nicer surname will be picked so you'll get lovely surnames that's true actually because it's unlikely you're going to be called

you know dickface cockhead and then you'd be like our two shit names to pick from which one I do yeah that is an unlikely name rude names are dying out so in 1881 there were 3,211 cocks in the UK and now there are only 785 and they're all in the House of Commons

yay! That's a joke, it's 650 capacity sorry it doesn't work It doesn't make any sense. Wow, only 785. Yeah, same with a lot of surnames like Shuffle Bottom. That's massively declined. Only 322 of those left. Dafts are going down.

It's about 75% decline in these names. It's a shame. I tell you where you to protect a name is by giving people money to have the name. The University of Glasgow office... How much money would you need to be called Alex Cock? That's a good point. If I gave you £10,000, but you

had to keep Alex Cock for the rest of your life? No. You serious? Are you kidding? James, I'll do it for a tenor. Oh, I'm not going to bargain enough to a tenor immediately. We have a winner.

Oh, okay. Great. I mean, to just the name cock. There's not even something. No, no, I'm not. I'm not. Yeah, but that's still. Like in Bolton, that's just a nice way of saying

hello to Anna. All right, Anna, got. Okay. Is it? Yeah. That sounds like the kind of thing you're telling me now. Yeah. It's true.

It's important. Punch in the face. Anyway, the city. The University of Glasgow offer a grant of up to £500 for anyone with a surname Graham. It's called the Graham Trust. And they offer it because traditionally Graham was a name for poor people a long time ago. Are you joking? I know.

You still get that? It's just on their website. And there's just a paragraph saying that the original aim from 1759 was the distribution to persons of the name of Graham or descendants of persons of that name, such sums that they shall just requisite and to put poor boys at the same name or descendants of such blah, blah, blah, blah, to enable them to be. It's not a poor name now, is it? No, but it's carried on. You can still do it at 500.

Is it? So it's, how much money? 500 pounds. That's not like much. Well, Heather Graham, if you're listening, and we know you do, your quid's in now. Former Arsenal manager George Graham.

Yeah. For another reference, in case you didn't get the Heather Graham one. Do you know any of the Grahams? I was trying to think of, like, a rich Graham. I can't really think of him. Heather Graham's got to be worth a bubble, too. I don't know who that is.

Heather Graham's got to be worth a bubble, too. Austin Powers. She's in the second Austin Powers film. She plays Felicity Shagwell. That's an unusual set. There aren't that many Shagwells these days. Actually, if you're called Shagwell, you can get a £50 pound grant from the University of Kiel. Okay, it's time for fact number four, and that is Alex. My fact of this week is that in 2012, Thieves stole an entire ski lift from the Czech Republic. I'm glad that you specified it was thieves

because imagine if it was law-abiding people who stole and it has to be thieves. Yes, I'm sorry, you're right. Yeah, that's amazing. Sorry, just one of the things on the lift or the entire lift mechanism. So all of the pylons, the cables, all of the gonzola chairs on it,

the whole thing was just taken away overnight. Over night. Was there another ski resort that opened its magical new lift two days later? But the thing is, okay, I reckon more than one, one person was involved in this theft, right? Yeah, I would...

Pretty big accusation to chuck around, James. I just don't think... James walking around with his notepad and his pieces can't. I think this is a work of more than one person. Exactly. I'm putting my Sherlock Holmes hat on, but I think, you know... You can't do it on your own. No, that would be another great Agatha Christie,

where Poirot calls them all together in the drawing room. Actually, you all stole the chair. And where is the Chellab now? On the moon. that's incredible. Yeah, I don't know how they did it. I don't, surely you'd need sort of like jumbo eject to take it away and stuff or huge lorries.

It's unbelievable. I think, well, I think, because if you think about skiliffs, you can take them apart, I suppose you have the right equipment and you're able to chop up all the pylons. A lot of it, you know, getting... If you have the right equipment, you can take anything apart. That's true, that's true, but it is, it's all... Like, if you think about it, they're quite simply made things.

They're huge, just bits and lots and lots and lots of metal. It's not rumbly, really complicated, dense stuff. You've got hollow pylons. You've got long, long strands of cable. And you've got lots of individual stackable gondolas You can just wind up the cable onto a reel or something, can you? Well, I'd wind it around one of the gondolas I think that's probably the easy thing like,

when Christmas lights when you wind it around the bug. But as soon as you put it away, it gets nothing. And then you open it out. That's why they haven't set it up yet. They're still trying to get it parked. They sort of got all the pylons together and tied it together with a string. Yeah?

Yeah. So that happened. Are we going to talk about ski lifts or massive things that have been stolen? Can I tell you my one favorite, amazing, my favourite fact about lifts and then that's the only thing I've got. Ski-lifts, yeah. Well, cable

cars specifically, because there's no skiing involved in this one, but this is potentially my favourite fact, if it's true. And I rang TFL to find out today and they haven't got back to me yet, so Coco may yet run in with a note telling me it's true. Although it's the last fact, so it's not looking good for this confirmation.

Well, either way, it's a cool idea, and it's sort of half interesting anyway, is that the Emirates cable car, Emirates airline, the gonzola which goes from Greenwich to the Docklands over the River Thames, it's about 90 metres above the water. The fact that I read was that that's tall enough for most ships to go under, but, you know, just like with Tower Bridge, they have the capability to lift the road for taller ships to get through. The same capability exists with this cable car, which is that if you take off all the gondolas off the cable car, then the

reduction in weight means that the cable raises by a few metres, meaning that even ships are taller than that can get through. I would say if you're wanting to steal that cable car, then you turn up and you take all of the bits first, don't you? You take all of these bubbles first and you say, oh no, I'm just doing it because there's a ship on its way. And then after that, all you have to do is wind up the rope. I think the easy way would be to put a hook on top of a 90 metre high ship and just drive it as fast as you can.

And actually, to be honest, if we're doing this in a cartoon universe, then you probably would stretch and then you go, right away straight back into central. That's the old dog taking a string of sausages. Yeah, exactly. All you need is one of the sausages to be in your men. I googled biggest things ever stolen and the internet seems to think it's a mountain. Oh, a mountain called Humta Pahad, which is in eastern India.

And apparently what's happened is locals have just climbed up there and start chisling bits off the top. So now if you go there, it's like got a flat top, but it used to have a peaked top. And so they've stolen the top of the world. That's different from stealing the whole mountain, though. They've stolen some of them out. That's like stealing one gondola and saying I've stolen the whole... You've got to make a start somewhere. Not all these things can be stolen overnight.

I wasn't stolen in a day. Actually, Scarfell Pike had a bit of a theft problem as well. Speaking of Stealing Mountains, yeah. This is in 2015, and an artist took the top of Scarfell Pike. He took a bit of rock, which I think was about an inch squared. It was in an art exhibition called The Intruder about how humans imposed our own categories on nature. And so he mounted this rock that he taken from the top of Skulliver. Garfell Pike and he got a nose of trouble for it.

And the head of Cumbria tourism said, this is taking the Mickey and we want the top of our mountain back. Yeah. Yeah. What are you going to say if you're the head of Cumbria what are you going to say, yeah, come and have a bit more of Cumbria. He's got to preserve Cumbria. That's his job, isn't it? It's his job. He can't have a laissez-faire attitude to this.

His neck is on the line here. He's probably got the DA busting his ass over losing the top of Scarple Pike or right. He's the most important part of Cumbria. If the worst part of Cumbria is a lose to find in, we come into work and find that you're missing, It's not unreasonable to think that he's going to be pissed off with this. Headline from the bomb Mepheco in 2013. Stolen prosthetic arm discovered in second-hand shop in Bonner.

Jesus, no. It's true. It's true. In 2012, police apprehended a woman after she hobbled to the exit from a shop in Oslo in Norway and she was wearing a long skirt covering a 42-inch television that she was carrying between her legs. I think you go for a smaller TV, don't you? I think her eyes were bigger than her groin in this case. In 2012, Jamie Oliver complained that 30,000 napkins were stolen from his restaurants every month.

And so I was looking at restaurant thefts and people do steal stuff from restaurants. So the Jamie Oliver ones, just to say, they have his branding on, don't they? They're nice, kind of, they look a bit like tea tiles, but they got Jamie Oliver branding on them. So the police should go for people who were also called Jamie Oliver. No, no, it's people who like Jamie Oliver, not people who are named Jamie Oliver. But people are called Jamie, you know. It's not a name tag. Jamie Oliver doesn't put that name on all his towels so that if he loses and they get returned to him.

Do you put your name on all your napkins? Yes. I put it on all my tissues. It takes ages to monogram it in and then you play those ones. Have you heard of the South American endoscopy gangs? Are they thieves? They must be because they're in this section. And what are they stealing with their ends?

Well, no, they are stealing endoscopes. Oh. This is a gang who go around hospitals in Europe stealing specifically endoscopy equipment, i.e. things that you put up people's bottoms to look inside them. Are they really daring theft while they're in use? No, they're not. That's weird. I'm not getting a feed on the end of the next. Wait a second.

It's like when all the lights go out. It's like all the feeds go down. You know, in the hospital they've just got a massive bank of monitors. They're all going out one by one. Massive bank of monitors all showing bottoms. Security guards like, what's going on? I mean that is the worst security guard job in the world, isn't it? 2005 in York, 300,000 pounds worth of endoscopes.

Leicester the same year, 250,000 pounds. How much are they, do you reckon? I don't know. They must be expensive. But 2017, last year, a gang took 1.2 million, I think it was Canadian dollars worth of kit. 2014 to 17, 16 million euros worth in Germany. Well, what they think is that it's so that you can check that drug meals have swallowed the drugs. Got it.

Oh. Wow. I know. I was thinking, who's getting back street endoscopies in this day? Epi endoscopies are back alleying. Should we wrap up? Yeah. Do you want to know one amazing thing about a ski lift?

I would like to know that, yes. Okay, cool. So one amazing thing about a ski lift I learned is that in the last couple of years, a snowboarder got stuck on a ski lift. He was stuck for six hours, and this was in the Austrian Alps. It was incredibly cold. It was minus 18 degrees. He was going to be,

He didn't know how long he was going to be stuck for. They closed it for the night. So, yeah, he's been there for six hours. And he's getting really, really cold. He said he kept falling asleep into some cold-induced stupor. And he realized that he had a lighter on him. So the only thing he could do was burn anything flammable on him. And so he started burning everything he had.

So he burned, he had a bunch of tissues. He burned them. Then he burned some business cards he had. And then... He takes business cards on a snowboarding trip. Oh, you might meet an executive. Sorry. Oh, I'd like to give me an orange.

He must have had them in his wallet or something, right? Yeah, yeah. But I mean, you probably will meet an executive. You're on a skiing holiday. I agree, right. You start off with tissues less important than business cards. Yeah, right. Both my tissues and my business cards have my name and phone number monogrammed on it.

Okay, so what did he burn next? Then he had about 100 euros in banknotes, and he burned each banknote one by one. And he was on the last banknote when someone on a snowmobile saw him. The bad news is he was then stolen by a banknotes. some guys from the Czech Republic. Okay, that's it. That's all of our facts. Thank you so much for listening. If you'd like to get in contact with any of us,

we can be found on our Twitter accounts. I'm on at Andrew Hunter M. James. At James Harkin. Alex. At Alex Bell. Anna. You can email podcast.com. There's also our group account, which is at no such thing.

There are details there about our tour. We're going all over the UK, the Republic of Ireland and Australia and New Zealand in May. There are details there of our book. and of course Behind the Gills documentary about us. That's it for this week. We will see you next time

with another bunch of facts. Until then, goodbye.