No Such Thing As A Fish - No Such Thing As 'What's My Spoon?'

Episode Date: September 25, 2025

Live from the London Podcast Festival, Dan, James, Andy and Richard Osman discuss saving birds, saving money, celebrity spooning and unoriginal crooning.  Visit nosuchthingasafish.com for news about live shows, merchandise and more episodes.  Join Club Fish for ad-free episodes and exclusive bonus content at apple.co/nosuchthingasafish or nosuchthingasafish.com/patreon

Hey everyone, Andy and Dan here. Hello. The four week, yep, there he is. So this week's episode, we just want to let you know, is a live recording. We did this a few weeks back at the London Podcast Festival, and as Anna is away on maternity at the moment, we had a very exciting guest join us, and that was Richard Osmond. Yes, Richard is here, partly for the love of the game,

but partly because he's also got a new book out. It is the fifth in the Thursday Murder Club series. And if you haven't heard of this, I'm amazed, because it is a global multi-million selling series. It's absolutely fantastic. I have read all four previous outings of the Thursday Murder Club. They're all great. I cannot wait to get my teeth stuck into the new one,

which is out right now. It has just come out. It is called The Impossible Fortune. And it's going to be terrific. I know it. Yeah, it really is an amazing series. I like Andy, I've read them all. Really excited for this one.

And on top of it, you know, Richard arrives to do our show in the craziest of weeks, because not only is his book coming out, But also, the Thursday Murder Club has been converted into a movie. It's on Netflix. It stars Helen Mirren. It's got Pierce Brosnan. It's directed by Chris Columbus of Home Alone and Harry Potter.

Spielberg's got his name as an exec. It's an amazing cast and collection of creatives. So if you want to check out the first book in movie form, that's up now. Yeah. But Dan, speaking of all this book stuff, are we going near any book world events anytime soon? I believe we are, Andy. I believe we are back on stage live. Yes!

Doing something similar to what you are about to hear, except as it's in the future, you can come and be in the audience for it. It's the Cheltenham Literary Festival, and we are going to be doing it live with special guest, Rachel Paris. Yes, it's going to be on the 16th of October, 8pm, Cheltenham, live, unplugged, we will be plugged in, there will be electrics. It's going to be so much fun. You can get your ticket right now at no such thing as I fish.com slash live.

But hurry, tickets are going like hot books. Hot books? Yep. Just go along with it, mate. All right, well, listen, if you want to see us live and you'll get a little taster of it now, go to the website as Andy says, book your tickets, and join us in the room for the recording. So let's hear this one now. It is Richard Osmond with No Such Thing as a Fish.

On with the show. Hello and welcome to another episode of No Such Thing as a Fish, a weekly podcast, this week coming to you live from the London Podcast Festival. My name is Dan Schreiber. I am sitting here with James Harkin, Andrew Hunter Murray, and Richard Osmond. And once again, we have gathered round the microphones with our four favorite facts from the last seven days. And in no particular order, here we go. Starting with fact number one, and that is Richard.

One nominee for Best TV Show at the first Emmys was the masked spooner. It was like the masked singer, except the celebrity was spooning rather than singing. So that was what year, Richard? 1949. And you've got to guess who's spooning you? Yeah. Which celebrity is spawning you? Yeah.

Feels like a format that wouldn't get made these days. Big spoon or a little spoon, do we know? Spooning is sort of a misnomer. Nobody was cradling anybody at this stage. Spooning was a mixture of spoken word and crooning. So the masked spooner, who is a, well, or get onto who it was because you had to try and guess who it was

but they never told you and that's why the masked spoon I think didn't be quite as well as the masked singer because you'd have a whole episode and at the end you wouldn't have Jonathan Ross going is it Bono and then you go

no it's former Home Secretary Alan Johnson I was sure I could have sworn it was Bono next week I bet it's Bono next week no it was it's someone from Emmerdale so he would essentially turn up at places

and he would sing to people in a mask and you would constantly be asked who he was and you would go, oh gosh, I bet it's Alan Ladd. And they go, no, guess again. Oh, I don't know any other celebrities from the 1940s. Well, I'm lucky. But then at the end, they go, see you

next week. And that was the mask spooner. It won't surprise you to know it didn't win the Emmy. Yes. It did not. Pantamine Quiz won the Emmy that year, I believe. I don't know it didn't. That was a charade. thing basically. So you would have two teams that were four people in each team. Three of the members

of one team would always be the same and they'd have a rotating guest and then you would have them acting out like charades. And 1949 that probably was mind-blowing. Yeah, I mean, to have a rotating guest for a start. They're like they haven't seen that before. To a spit in the middle of the studio. These are by the way the other shows that were nominated. You had armchair detective, which sounded really great actually. I don't know if you read into that, but armchair detective. Can I guess? upholstery crime every week. Someone's been killed but in a chair. You're right so far.

Oh, no. What? Is he? Okay, so someone's killed it. Great. Just go with it, go with it. Actually, that was just a pun you missed. You're right, so far. You're right, I was just trying to... Oh my God.

So it's, we're in Los Angeles. The city of sin. You see, and that's how you do a pun, Dan. Yeah, yeah. Well, it sounds like an armchair cop. as somebody specialised. Like a very specialist unit in the police, I would say. What it was is it was a show where they would put on

a drama in which someone is murdered and you at home had a chance to guess who it was. And they had a panel as well live who would sit there. So you would watch the drama and then they would stop at a moment for you to deliberate and then they would actually show you what happened. There was an actual show on TV in Britain

about two or three years ago with the exact same name and the exact same format that Susan Kalman hosted, wasn't that? Is there no such thing a new idea, Richard. Well, I would say that the mask spooner at the time was a new idea. But today, is it like a lot of the new formats are kind of old formats that are... Of course, yeah. People want something that's a tiny, tiny, tiny bit different to what they've seen before. That's all you want. Like when the traitors comes out, every single

channel goes, I tell you what people would like, something that's a bit like the traitors, but worse. And that's how TV has always worked. When we did deal or no deal, my God, the next five years, some of the worst television programs in the history. of the world came out where people just went oh people just like random stuff do they okay we'll do that and channel five did heads or tails which is a whole week of Justin Lee Collins flipping a coin

and then Simon Cowell did the same thing with red or black which was choose red or choose black and I'll give you a million pounds that was um Ante-Deck yeah it was Anton Deck it was a million pounds and still nobody watched can you imagine wow I watched a clip of that earlier today while researching this and I found it compelling I really like if I'd known at the time I would have been hooked.

But no, but comparing in that sort of, you know, a Netflix documentary about a poop cruise rather than I would love to watch this live. Yeah. Have you got some more of those? Yeah, yeah. There was one called What's the Name of That Song? Can you guess what that format was? Go on, Andy, you could do it.

I love that. It was quite nice. The first ever Emmys, there was only about five awards that were given out. But the special award was my favorite. The special award went to Lewis McManus, who was awarded the Emmy. for designing the Emmy statue. That's clever.

For the Emmys. Yeah. Does anyone know why the Emmys are called the Emmys, by the way? Named after a person? No. Oh. So the Tonys are named after a person. The Oscars are sort of named after.

I mean, there's all sorts of versions of why the Oscars are called the Oscars. But the Emmys, I thought maybe it would be like M.E or something like musical and entertainment awards. But it's not Artelli. You know the Cathode Ray in your television? Yeah. They have the same sort of thing. but in video cameras, and there were two competing versions of this

in the 30s and 40s. There was the RCA image orthicon tube. That was the first one. And then there was the EMI Emitron. Okay? So we've got the RCA image orthocon tube and the EMI Emitron. Now, you've been doing this show long enough

that if I ask you the question, which of those two were the Emmys named after? What would you go for? I go for the Emitron. The Emitron, yeah. You'd be wrong. It is named after the RCA Image Orthicon Tube, which they used to call an IME.

So someone said, oh, we should call these the Emmys, because that's the industry we're in. And then because the Louis McMannis made the statue into a woman, they said, oh, why don't we call it Emmy instead of Imi? So it became the Emmys. But named after the orthocon tube rather than the Emmetron, which, by the way, was made by EMI, which also... What it should have been called was the Dorothy,

because that's who Louis modeled it after, his wife. But everyone's always modeling after their wives, weren't they? Yeah. But all those statues. Yeah. I think the Rolls Royce is a bit racier. Isn't the Rolls Royce a mistress or something?

Yes. The silver sprite figure on the front of a Rolls-Royce. Isn't the statue of Liberty like the face is his mother and the body is his wife? Wow. That is a very, very niche fetish, isn't it? Yeah. And you know what? I'm going to make a 200 feet high.

I'm sure we'll move on to talk about. more TV formats and things like that, but I have a little quiz for you of spoon-related slang. Oh. Because we were on the masked spooner. The mask spooner. Actual spoons. Well, you'll see. So part of the reason that the masked spooner was a bit cheeky was that spooning to mean cuddling up to someone was dates from 1887, I think.

So he knew it was a double on top. He knew it was a bit cheeky, yeah, yeah, yeah. And there are all these references. It's also a cricketing term dating back to 1837. meaning a weak stroke. But anyway, it's spooning dates to 1887. Now spoon me. Sterling stretched himself out on the warm flagstone

and the boy nestled up against him. I don't know the context. I just know that that's what was happening. You know what? That's my favourite of your novels. That is. A bit cheap to promote it on the show, but... Okay, to stick one spoon in the wall.

What does that mean? Are they from Urban Dictionary? Are you sure it's not to stick one spoon in the walls? Because that's an ice cream reference. That's easier. That's much easier. To stick one spoon in the wall? Yeah.

To stick one spoon to... Is it to try and do something that's almost impossible? No, it's very possible. We all do it. Oh, we do? Yeah. Oh, is it like Shawshank Redemption? Oh, yeah.

Oh, it's older than that. It's from the 19th century, so it's pre-Shawshank. Okay. Shall I tell you? Yes, please. It's to die. Oh. As you're doing on stage right now.

Okay. I'm not sure we even want round two. I'm not sure we've earned round two. Definitely do. I mean, good luck topping that. I put the strongest one first. To stick one spoon, I'd love it if a doctor ever said that you, Mr. Hunter-Mory, I'm ever so sorry. We did everything we could, but I'm afraid your mother has stuck a spoon in the wall. Oh, my God. To fill the mouth with empty spoons. To fill your mouth with empty spoons.

False promises. Wasting your time. Lying. Lying. It's someone in the audience said it's just being hungry. Weird these didn't catch on. Yeah. Well, a spoon can also be a second-rate coachman, a penis, a shovel,

1-16th of an ounce of heroin, or a newly qualified prison officer. Okay. Yeah. There's lots of times when you can say sticking your spoon in the wall, and depending on which spoon you're talking about, it could mean something very true. Very true. Richard, just as someone who's created some of the most defining quizzes of our time.

And some of the worst, to be fair. Okay. Where does Andy's What's My Spoon rank on? I would say fairly highly up, when I think of some of my stuff. I mean, yeah, it feels that maybe I'm not sure it's a runner. Like Series 2, I don't think people are going, I wonder what more spoon stuff Andrew has for us

this week. Yeah, that sort of work. But if you moved it out to other utensils, so the first one is, what the spoon, second one, what the fork?

Yeah, see, that's the fore. You got ourselves something. Is that the end of your quiz, Andy? I'm afraid. Okay. I just want to quickly say a little bit more

about the mass spooner because this was a kind of thing. It started off as a bit of a meme. So there was this guy who was going around like restaurants and bars and he was always wear this outfit where it's like got a mask on,

he's got a hood, you can't really see what he is. And then all the Hollywood magazines started writing about him and saying, who is the masked spooner who's going around? And actually it became a bit of a thing where people were guessing in magazines and newspapers, who he was. And then the TV show was almost a spin-off. Okay.

Yeah, and he got like, he was getting marriage proposals from people, and yet he never gave away the secret. And in the end, it felt like he was kind of holding on to give it away, give it away. But in the end, everyone just gave up and didn't really care anymore. But do we know who he was? We do know now, yeah. Because when he was going around to all these restaurants and the newspapers were writing about him,

they heard about him from his friend called Jack Rourke. And Jack Rourke would say, oh, the Mast Spooner is going to be in the O Bar in Soho tonight. And actually, it was him. Yeah. And here's the thing, Jack Rourke was big in his own right at the time. He wasn't an anonymous character that you would just, when you heard, his name, it was like Jack Rourke, it'd be like saying Richard Osmond, he was a huge force in the world of entertainment in America. He effectively created, or at least popularized from massive scale

telephones. And I think the word itself was almost coined by Jack Rort telephone. I think it was, yeah. The Mars Spooner invented telethons. Yeah. He also invented the political debate on camera, on screen. So when, was it Nixon? I think it was Nixon. He did a big show with Nixon, yeah. Yeah, big Nixon fan. Did a telethon for Nixon and raised lots of money for his election. Can I just say a sad thing about this, though? In 1994, Jack Rourke finally stuck his spoon in the wall. Yeah.

It's going to catch on. Isn't it a shame? It's going to catch on. I don't know how else to put it. I was trying to find TV shows where everyone is in a mask or someone is in a mask. And there was an amazing TV show that you may or may not have heard of it. It was called Mr. Personnel. right? 2003,

American, it's a dating show and there was one woman called Haley Arp who was going, she wanted to she was, you know, wanting to get married, wanting to find love and there were 20 suitors, guys and they were

trying to, you know, catch her eye and wanting to be picked by her in the show but they were all wearing intense iron masks or sometimes like rubbery quite gimpy mask throughout the series. And was that her thing?

No, no, not at all. It wasn't their thing either. Like, it was nobody's thing. And it was... Apart from one of them. One of them was like... She'd go, do you know what? I might not go for number seven?

He has been erected the entire series. It was actually won by a man called Will Dick. Funny you say that. And they were only allowed to... to remove their masks in a pitch black room and she would feel their faces and then they put the mask back on. Monica Lewinsky was the host obviously. No. Wait,

and frankly the second worst decision she's ever made was to host this show and it was a absolute disaster. Amazing. The men didn't even know they were going to be in masks until they turned up on the first day of shooting. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Can you pop this on for the next five weeks? Right. Disastard. They all would have said yes, though. Yeah, okay. That's the thing where people can't tell you, especially in 2003,

anyone would have done anything. Yeah. Yeah. We pretended to send people to space. A show called Space Cadet. Were you part of that? Was you part of it? It's a good question.

What's your view on it? No, I, with two of us, we're going, what's the biggest practical joke you could ever pull? And we said, I wonder if you could convince people they'd ever been to space. And any time when we pitched it, they said, yeah, but you're not floating. And you go, yeah, you don't float in space

because of the vacuum seal. They went, okay. And like two weeks later ago Is that true? You go, no, but you believed it. Okay, it is time for fact number two. And that is Andy. My fact is, in 1990, most of the red kite birds in England

had arrived here by British Airways. So this is about the red kite. This is a beautiful bird. And they're kind of all over the place these days. In the 90s, they were absolutely not. At the worst, I think they got down to like five breeding pairs in Wales. And you had to go to Central Wales to have even a sniff of a red kite. And they had this project. Mike Pienkowski was a guy from the Joint Nature Conservation Committee and his colleague

Colin Goldbraith and lots of colleagues. They knew this bird was declining a bit across Europe. But in England, there hadn't been any for about 400 years. It was about to put its spoonbill in the wall. Oh my God. Oh my God. Andy, lean into it. He's going to get you a TV show at the end of this. You're right. You're right. And they thought, well, maybe we could restore them in England. and they imported maybe a dozen from Navarre in Spain and they arrived on British Airways. Amazingly, they were flown in the main cabin with paying customers.

So as you got on, there was a load of boxes on the seats strapped in. Now, that's a film, that's a film. What, boxed red kites on a plane? I think something happens, right? No, my film is about the conservation effort. It's not, nothing happens. And basically the population has grown 2.5,000% since 1995 and it's a massive story.

Now they're, now they're like reaching seagull status in the country. I read that they're getting to the point where schools aren't allowing the kids to eat lunch outside because they're swooping down and trying to steal their lunch. Is that right? Yeah. I read that they, when they did come over, they spread initially along the M40 corridor because there were so many dead animals by the side of the road. And that's what they love to eat.

Yeah, they're scavengers. That's a lovely thought, isn't it? And the reason that there weren't so many of them is because they were all killed, basically, right? So they like to eat dead things, but if a farmer sees them eating like a dead lamb or something like that, they haven't killed the lamb,

but the farmer thinks that they might have done. And so during the Tudor times, there was a thing called the Vermin Act of 1566, and that said that if you killed a red kite and you could prove it, you'd get some cash. And so people basically went out and killed as many of them as they could. And the idea was to help the farmers,

but of course we now know that it didn't really help them at all. Also, if you killed a hedgehog, you could get up to four pence, which doesn't sound a lot, but that could buy you 20 pints of beer in Elizabethan prices for one hedgehog. Really? Wow. Getting you a certain number of pints

means nothing to me recently since I discovered weather spoons, because up until recently, you could get a pint of ruddles for 99P. 99p I could go to the bar with a 20 pound note and come back with 20 pints or one hedgehog yeah

Danny have you taken another advertising gig on the side no but Ruddles is a fine fine beer and affordable it's actually gone up controversially to like a pound 49 now or something like that it's me and the other guys at

9 a.m. in the weather spoons are furious Anyway, back to Red Kites. Yeah, sure. That's the most animated I've seen Dan in any episode. Finally discover what he's interested in. Do you know one other thing Red Kites do? Now, there's been a big vogue for wild swimming, as I'm sure you know, and a lot of people like to swim O Nattrell.

Where's this going? We know they can kill lambs. They sometimes will steal your clothes. if you're wild swimming in a river, they will nick your clothes to line their nest. Oh, yeah. And then some red kite chick has a, you know, lovely pair of white fronts. I've heard this. They've found nests with a teddy bear's head in it, a tea towel in it.

And in 2006, they found a nest with a St. George's flag in it. It might have been painted in by a local. But it was discovered less than an hour before England's World Cup match against Paraguay. and so it hit the newspapers that this was a very patriotic red kite. Did we win that match? Against Paraguay, I can't, I think we did, yeah. Do you know what their Latin name is?

Red kite? Yeah. Milvis Milvis. Do you know what Milvis means? No. Bird. They're called Bird, bird, bird. Linnaeus called them Falco Milvis,

but then Milvis became its own genus, and so then it got renamed and Milvis was put in front of it. So they're Milvis Milvis Milvis. That's very funny. Yeah, bird, bird. Very good. It is a problem, we should say.

It's a great story of reintroduction of a really precarious species, but they are eating people's lunch, and that is a problem. Article this spring from the Henley Standard, Red Kite Stole My Hummus. Jeff Hay, 72 years old, was having some nice hummus in his garden, and got swooped on, predated, and scratched. And it was the third time. in five years that a red kite has snatched food from him while he was eating outside.

He sounds careless. I got some stuff on things that have been on airplanes that feel quite out of place. I'm a big comedy fan and Tony Hancock, you must have loved Tony Hancock growing up. I mean, I'm literally, I'm not 70, but move on. When did he die? When did he die? I can't actually remember. I mean, it certainly was before I was 10. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think.

No, sorry, I'm not suggesting. that you saw it live. I think Hancock's Half Hour was on TV when I was at Cannes. Yeah, I think a lot of us grew up on Hancock's Half Hour. Yes, I don't think I grew up watching Hancock's Half Hour. Okay, sorry to... No, good lesson to just say the fact and not accuse you of a childhood memory you don't have. So basically, Tony Hancock, for anyone who doesn't know him apparently...

Oh, Tony Hancock. I thought you meant Nick Hancock. I'm so sorry. Tony Hancock was one of the great British comedians. He was the one who said, um, in the blood donor, he said, he said, um, he said, um, said, you know, a pint, that's nearly an armful or something. Yes. He was the one who had an affair, wasn't he, with the wife of the guy he ran Oliver bonus during COVID? Have I got it right now?

That's the right Hancock. Yeah, yeah. That's the right Hancock. I think what's my Hancock could be the next game show. There you go. And it's called Hancock's half hour. It's a half hour format. Oh, my God.

Roll it. Roll it. So, he, he was. This would better be spectacular. Given the investment we've all made. Yeah. If this was just Tony Hancock was once on a plane, it is going to be very disappointing. Tony Hancock was coming back from Australia. He was sitting next to Willie Rushden, who's another, you must have grown up on Willie Rushden, Richard. So you hear him, he I did. He I did.

And so they were sat on a plane and one of the stewards came over and said, Mr. Hancock, you belong in first. class. And so Hancock went to first class, but Willie Rushden stayed in economy. And the interesting thing about that is Hancock was dead at the time. So he had sadly passed away in Australia. He took his own life. He was quite a depressed character. And Willie Rushden happened to be in Australia. And he was cremated. He was put in an urn. And they bought him a seat in economy. And an air steward came over and said, someone would like to move seats to sit there. And they said, you can't. This is Tony Hancock. And she said, what the hell is he doing in economy? He needs to be first class. So she took him

in an urn off to first class while Willie Rushden just had to sit to a random person. So he went to pick up Tony Hancock at the end of the flight and there was a red rose and a little note saying thank you for all the laughs on the seat next to it. That was quite good. That's annoying, isn't it? That was all right. The same thing happened to Eric

Morecam didn't it? Did it? Eric and Ewan were on a flight together. Come on guys, he's a guest. Thank you, James. Do you know what the world record is for the number of yaks on a Boeing 747? Wow. Eight? Oh, it must be more.

Nine. Even higher. High than a nine. 14. It's triple figures. No. 116. 116 yaks on a Boeing.

No. Yeah. Not for fun. It was for a relocation program, but it was, yeah. That was last year. So it feels like it's a B-C-6. record. Like it feels like it's innovation in the space right now. What's the fun version of that number of yaks on a plane? Well, I'm scripting something. I don't want to talk about it, but I did they go in the seats?

Yep. Or did they go in the hold, I guess. I think they always have to go in crates and custom-made crates and things. When you're moving like megafauna, you have to, you have to, yeah, do that. Yeah, when you're moving megafauna, James. You know what? James is such an idiot My God Have I ever met a man who knows less about moving megafauna than James? Can I tell you something Just to change the subject about moving megafauna

So there's a company called Cargo Lux It's a Lux and Boguars company And they have the tagline You name it, we fly it And they fly, if you need a big animal moving from one place to another These are the guys you go to And a couple of years ago, they moved a beluga whale from China to Iceland. Okay.

For fun? Or? No, it was very serious. It was in a sanctuary, like an ocean sanctuary. They wanted to move it to Iceland where it could live in the wild. And to cut a long story short, they just put it in a big hammock and keep pouring water on it. Yeah, okay. But they did.

they kept it in very, very cold water for a couple of months beforehand, so its blubber would get thicker for the journey because... Because it's cold on a plane? Yeah, well, you have to regulate your temperature, and that's how they do it. Yeah. And I guess it would be moving to cold the waters as well, if it's going to say...

To Iceland, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's just a thing that happened, but... And when they arrived in Keflavik, the locals gave them a salute of water, like they got hose pipes so that the plane could go through them, which sounds dangerous. especially in Iceland Yeah, true, yeah

Just on reintroducing things Oh yeah Would you guys like to see Animals introduced to the UK Show of Cheers Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, which animals? And now we come to the meat Okay, so animals that have gone extinct

That used to live in England But have gone out of business here Okay Beavours That always gets a cheer I know, and beavers against Boo. Okay.

No beavers. Who would like moose back? Did we ever have moose? We had moose. Did we? Yeah, we did. So lots of people want beavers and birds. 37% of people want moose back.

37% want wild boar. Can I have a cheer for wolves? I think that's more than beavers or moose. That's a lot of people who don't live in houses made of straw. But 31% of people would be up for wild wolves in the UK Which I think I'm up for Okay, what about bears? And again, these are people who are not living with the consequences

What about wasps? You see? You know what I mean? They'd rather have bears than wasps. Honestly, I think a bear would ruin your picnic quicker than a wasp with, I think. Okay, it is time for fact number three and that is James.

Okay, my fact this week is that this year at Poundland, if you had one pound, you could buy a tin of pilchards, a water pistol, or all 825 UK Poundland stores. That's, yeah. So yeah. I mean, you wouldn't be able to go in with your quid and say, can I have them? There has to be some lawyers involved in stuff.

But the fact is that Poundland was sold this year for one pound. Wow. Plus 10p for the bag. And this is a thing, like it's a thing in UK law if you want to buy a company. And let's say they have loads and loads of debts. So they're not really worth very much, but you want to buy the brand or whatever. In theory, you'd think you could just pay nothing for that because, you know, you're taking on debt. But in actual fact, you have to swap something between you in order for it to make a contract.

And usually when they do that, they do one pound. And there's been lots of things that have been bought and sold for one pounds. Ken Bates bought Chelsea Football Club for one pound in 1982 and then sold it to Roman Abramovich for 140 million pounds Oh About 20 years later So you know that's a good investment

I thought you could buy half a defender with that couldn't you Portsmouth Swansea City Hull City Baltimore and Knott's County have all been bought for one pound in their history North County the oldest football team as well Oh yes Aston Biddle they were bought for a pound But if you buy a tin of pilchards, no one says that does come with 200 million pounds worth of debt. Exactly.

Right. That is the difference. So, yeah, they were sold by a Polish firm called PEPCO to a US investment firm called Gordon Brothers. Do you know what's really sad about this is that I could buy 825 UK poundland stores with my pound. Yeah, I wouldn't be able to buy a single pint of ruddles anymore because of this mad inflation that's gone on. This just pisses me off more. Yeah. Panlund is very interesting. The idea of setting up a shop where everything was a pound. And it did have to buckle because things did go up. So obviously things were more than a pound. But just the very idea of setting up a shop and going everything is a pound is a pretty remarkable thing. Yeah. Because a lot of things are a pound. Right. That's the clever thing about it. Yeah. You're going one, my God, everything's a pound. You go, yeah, but I mean, they cost a pound. Yeah. You're not selling iPads for a farm. Yeah, exactly. But there at Panland was a bit of a pound. You're going to be a pound. You're going to be a pound. Yeah. But there at Panland was a bit of a pound. a Nipo store because they were founded with a 50K loan from a guy called Stephen Smith's father

who had, he had a cash and carry business and he gave his son a loan so that they could set out of this new company. A loan of one pound. But in fairness, the whole family had come from a market stall background. And the business idea for Poundland came because on their market store, they had a box where everything was 10p and people would just go in and grab something and put their 10p in a thing. They thought we could make. We could make this a big thing.

And actually, I think in the UK, there's quite a lot of companies, especially supermarkets that began in the markets, didn't they? Tesco's, Morrisons, and Marks and Spencers were all originally market stalls. Right. There's a Poundland Museum. No. There's a Poundland Museum. And even better than that, you can buy it if you want.

You can buy it for $4.25 million. So Keith Smith, who set up Poundland with his son, He went off to the Algarve after Steve Smith was building this thing and he and his wife came back to England and bought a house. I've got the name of it. Luddstone Hall. Luddstone Hall. And in Luddstone Hall, it has the Poundland Museum in one of the barns there.

And it's on right move right now. If you look at Claverly in Shropshire, you can take a look at Luddstone Hall. There isn't actually a shot of the Poundland Museum. But I feel like they're tricking the buyer because it's not only a Poundland Museum. It's also a Luddstone Hall Museum. So you've got all these amazing bits. of archaeology that they've dug up sitting next to poundland items right right but they say you get the house which is unbelievably beautiful but they're going to take all of the stuff in the poundland

museum and bring it to headquarters so you actually don't get wow yeah i bet if i've made them an offer and i'd say that i'm buying it but i want the poundland museum they go yeah fine because it's still for so it's been sold a long time yeah they've had to half the price yeah so if i'm saying to them full asking price is it you and me on zoopla just constantly looking up One other person interested, it says. It started at about 9.5 million. Then it was down to 7.75. Not that I'm obsessed with White Move.

Now, as you say, it's about 4.5 million. And it's a really nice house. It's got one of those swimming pools where you can put a dance floor over the top of it. And they actually, they reduced the price over a Christmas period for a while, thinking that that would be. I didn't know you were so into this. But if you said I want all the poundland stuff, they're not going to say no. It's really important to us that that goes to our head office. Listen, if you want to go halves, I am...

Yeah, right. If you want to go... Let's re-address that balance. Yeah, let's do it. Richard, would you give a TV show to the concept of Poundland? Would I give a TV show? Would you think that's a good TV show to make? Sorry, what's you talking about?

I've got a format called Poundtrop Wars, which is all about rivalry between different kinds of Okay, that's different to what you said when you walked in the room, which was, would you like a game show and it's about Poundland? Sorry, because there was a real TV show called Poundshop Wars. Wow. Okay. And it sounds quite fun. So I'm just going to give you a few episode pictures and see what you think of them, Richard.

So someone's already made this? Yeah. Yeah. So I might not buy it from you, but go on. When Poundland reduces its prices, Pound World retaliates by launching the one pound bra. Is that a weight thing or a price thing? It's a price. Rival stores compete for the crown of best Halloween pound shop in South Wales.

No, I genuinely would like, I would watch that. If I watched the first two minutes of that. Was it on Channel 5? I think I even saw it. Oh, I'm not sure. Almost certainly with John Thompson doing the voiceover. Okay. It does sound good.

Did they have any stuff about the 99P stars? No, absolutely not. No, really? I love it. It tells you everything. you ever need to know about economics, you do not need to go to university. You need to know that whenever a 99P store opens next to a pound store, it takes a lot of their business. Right. Yeah. Panland even bought the 99P stores for 55 million pounds in 2015. But then there was also

when the 99P stores came out, then you started getting 97p stores. And embarking in Essex, there was the 99P store and then on the same street opened a 97P store, which had, had an introductory 95P sale. That is good. That's really good. Economics 101. Do you know who was the father, kind of the father of all of this stuff?

So this is a guy called Frank Woolworth of Woolworth. Of Woolworth. So he was the father of discount stores, basically. Where was he from? Because you get that in multiple countries now. Yes, he was American. Woolworth was a big brand in Britain as well, till it went bust.

But he grew up in the States. And there were already some budget stores in big cities. and they were called nickel and dimes because everything was either a nickel or a dime and he opened a thing called Woolworth's great five cent store in Pennsylvania and it became unbelievably successful as in he had about a thousand branches

no more probably a couple of thousand all across the states went international and he took the opportunity to go absolutely bananas with the money so he paid for the biggest building in New York to be built the tallest building in the world at that time was the Woolworth building in New York and he paid for

paid cash for it. He didn't muck around with mortgages or anything. He just said, I'm building, I'm commissioning this. And then he became obsessed with Napoleon Bonaparte. That was his thing. So his private office, sort of 50 floors up here, was an

exact replica of Napoleon's private office from his castle in France. He would walk around his private estate in an old Napoleon uniform, like a legitimate old Napoleon uniform. The gate of the estate is based on the Arc to Triumph. He bought Napoleon's old bed. There was an old sleigh bed that Napoleon had had. And there were rumours that he believed he

was Napoleon. Towards the end. And you're saying he wasn't? I'm saying he... What evidence do you have that he wasn't? Just out of interest. Do you know what? He was also interested in time travel. So there's a very good chance of what he's here today. That's amazing. Frank Woolworth's just one of the most eccentric, effectively pound-trop owners, you know. Do you know what is the biggest, um, fastest growing, let's say grocery chain in the US today. It's one you've heard of. Target? Is that one in the America?

It's not Target. It's one that's bigger in the UK and Europe, I should say. I was going to say. Lidl's very close. Aldi is correct. And so they're starting to learn about the Isle of Shame now. Oh, sorry. I thought that was Britain.

For anyone who doesn't know the Isle of Shame, this is the Middle Isle of Aldi, where they just put some absolutely crazy things in there. Basically, they do something called overstock where if a company has a lot of ironing boards that they're trying to get rid of, then Aldi will buy them all for really cheap and then sell them in their shops.

So America is starting to find this. And so if you go on the internet, you get lots of people asking what's the weirdest thing you've ever found in the Ilisha. So things include bucket hats for dogs, a light for the inside of your toilet bowl. Okay, hang on Let's pause on that

Okay Yeah So what's going on there? I would give you £400,000 for 20% of this campaign If you want to go to the toilet in the night I think it's a brilliant idea You might need something to wear Matt Like runway lights

In an airway lights Exactly The team of the airbox didn't used to have those Then I can get rid of the guy with a ping pong batch In my toilet But hang on You don't want to turn on your main bathroom light What if the main bathroom is right next to the bedroom

and you don't want to wake up your partner or whatever? As in you don't have a door. Sorry, we don't all have doors, Dan, all right? If you get up to the toilet in the night, do you turn all the lights on? I just feel my way to the bathroom. That's really selfish if you're doing that. Hang on, no, I'm sorry.

I don't turn on the main life. I bet you flush as well, don't you? I do. What I do is I get out of bed. I go right up to my wife's ear and I go, where's the toilet again? Hey, you would go into the toilet It's a separate room

I'm so sorry, what on earth are you using your iPhone light for? That's very personal a question You don't turn the light on at night You guys are nuts, what are you talking about? It's in a different room altogether Oh, well, someone's doing all right for himself, isn't he? I'm just going to the West Wing to have a wee Fucking out

Some of us are still on the old trusty ceramic bowl under the bed It's honestly like sitting next to Prince Andrew All right, what else is there? What else is there? So that's a good, that's good I think that's not an insane idea

No, no, none of these are like people bought these things dessert hummus Desert hummus? Desert hummus. It's made of chickpeas but it's sweet. Okay. Do the red kites get pissed off when they taste the difference?

And then one person on Reddit when they asked what's the weirdest thing you found in the Isle of Shame said, I work at Aldi, so my take is a bit different than the shopper, but the weirdest thing I have found that the Isle of Shame is a turd lying on the ground. And that's what happens when you don't turn the light on, so I take it back. It is time for our final fact of the show, and that is my fact. My fact this week is that not long after he released his song all by myself, the musician Eric Carmen was taken to court because as it turned out, he did not write it all by himself.

We all know the song. It was in Bridget Jones' diary. Celine Dion covered it. It's a massive tune. And Eric Carmen put it on his debut album, and he decided to incorporate the second movement of a piece by Rachmaninov. And he thought, because in America, it was out of copyright, that that would be the case globally.

But it wasn't. And so he had to give over 12% of the royalties forever on. And so Rachmaninov has a co-write credit on all by myself. Crazy. I mean, it is, in fairness, it is identical, isn't it? Yeah, and he wasn't trying to steal it. It wasn't a plagiarism thing. He thought it was out of copyright.

He was a massive Ratmaninoff fan, I think. And when they asked him about it, he said, I thought it's a crime that there are some spectacular melodies in classical music that the general public doesn't get exposed to. But it turned out that the actual crime was plagiarism. The irony of the title that all by myself and he didn't write it or by it himself reminds me of the absolute classic case of Gary Portnoy. I grew up with him, yes.

Who's that? I know the name. You know Gary Portnoy? Gary Portnoy? He's the man who wrote when everybody knows your name. Oh. Cheers. Cheers.

Yeah. Which one of the most famous songs in our culture, but no one knows who wrote it. It was Gary Portnoy. Yes. That's great. There you go. really good. James did know his name. I'd heard the name before because I've watched

every episode about 20 times that comes up doesn't it? Gary Portnoy. Does this work when you're on quizzes if you just say, oh, I did know it? Yeah, if you're like honest. Yeah, there should be benefit of the doubt points at the end of every round. Oh, I was going to say that. Well, if you were going to say it, then I'm going to give you the points. I'm taking notes for what's my spoon.

Don't worry, guys. So this is a really big thing in lots of songs. Songwriters who will get sued later on, because some similarity has been found. So one of the most famous recent cases of that was the song Blurred Lines, if anyone remembers that. Friend of the podcast. Right. Ti, Pharrell Williams and...

Robin Thickey. They had to pay... They had to pay $5 million of the proceeds of Blurred Lines, which I mean, I'm naive about how much an individual hit earns you, clearly. They had to pay $5 million to Marvin Gay's estate, not because of a particular melody or anything. It was because of the, basically the feel of the song. The vibe.

Like, they had borrowed the vibe. To be fair, when you listen to it, you can kind of see where they're coming from because it's like a kind of funky bass and some cowbells. Yeah, but I mean, that feels really harsh. I know. Because they were going for a kind of old school funky hit. I think that one did feel like, that's, yeah, that's an odd one.

Because there's very obvious ones where it absolutely is the case. There was one that I read about, which was, I don't know if you all remember, but Louise Rednapp had a song a long time ago called Naked. The lyrics are, I can feel your eyes all over my body, I can read the signs, they're sexual, I can read your mind, I can see you want me. And basically, someone effectively ripped the entire melody and the bounce of the tempo of the song, and they sued them. And so the co-writers of Naked by Louise Rednapp are now the co-writers of Pepper's Party Time from Pepper Pig, who... sang a song about jumping in muddy puddles. Yeah, and again, it does sound, if you listen to them both, it is the same song. It's pretty much for much, lyrically as well, yeah.

I was listening to one, Viva LaVida by Colplay, which I love. That's the Roman cavalry, guises singing, all that kind of stuff. There's a song by Joe Satriani called If I Could Fly, and I was listening to the first minute of that. I thought, this is nothing like it. And then it gets to a bit, you go, oh, that is exactly like that song. But that's called If I Could Fly. Can I do a very brief sidebar? Yeah.

Because instead of putting it, if I could fly up it, and I wish I could fly, which is the Keith Harrison Orville song, if anyone remembers that, which is, I wish it could fly right up to the sky, but I can't, Keith says, you can. It's called Orville's song. And so I googled Orville's song. I originally wrote Orville's dong, but fortunately, it said, do you mean Orville's song? So a lot of people know, a lot of people know the first verse of Orville's song. The second verse, I think might be the bleakest thing ever written. in any medium ever. So the first verse is, you know, you've sort of roughly

know where you're going. I wish you could fly right up to the sky, but I can't. Keith, you can, Orville, I can't. I wish you could see what folks see in me, but I can't. Keith, you can, Orville, I can't. Second verse. So Orville, I wish that I had a mum and a dad,

but I don't. Keith, you don't. Orville, I don't. And here we go. Back to Warville. I'd like to pretend my sadness will end, but it won't.

Keith, it will. Orville, it won't. And that was number four. That was like a big hit. Wow. I mean, that's quite something, isn't it? It's quite something. Yeah, I'd like to pretend that my sadness will end.

I mean, that's an Iris murder. God. It's the only people who've ever been allowed to confer on pointless celebrities, Keith Harris and Orville. Very nice. They came on together.

We were like, yeah, this is fine. None of us were a problem with that. How did they do? They did great, actually, because they were up against Tommy Cannon and Bobby Ball, who scored 600 points

in the first round, which to this day is a pointless celebrities record. Wow. Taylor Swift. Yeah. Singer. So she has a song.

called Look What You Made Me Do, which is a great song. It's an absolute banger. But it has a single cadence, which was pretty much the same as one used in Right Said Fred's, I'm Too Sexy. Which was a really bad hit. Like, it was great, but it was sexy. I'm too sexy. Come on, mate. Okay, all right.

I mean, it's no deeply dippy, but it's not bad. But basically, the writers of Right Said Fred, or Right Said Fred themselves, I suppose, have now got a credit on Look What You Made Me Do. because their cadence ended up in it. And this is a really common thing. Like, if a big star has a hit coming up or a song coming up for release, they'll have people check over it and they'll say,

it's quite similar to this existing thing. Do you want to change a few notes? So people actively make the songs arguably worse because they'll say, I'll just change these songs so it's not like, I don't know, yesterday or whatever it is, you know. Because there's only so many notes.

I feel like it's all fine. I feel like it's all fine to do. Do you? A lot of... Thank you, Your Honor. Yeah. No, but it's an interesting point because the line that often

gets said from the old generation of rock stars, John Lennon, period, they would say steal from the best, and they did sometimes get busted, but if you look at the modern... And busted are the best. Yeah. And the modern crop, you've got Olivia Rodriguez, who was sued multiple times for her debut album

by various people, but the old crop, Elvis Costello, said, no, go for it, this is great. The Strokes, with their biggest hit, that was a Tom Petty song, almost literally ripped right of the night. Last night by the strokes. Yeah, exactly. Did Petty, I don't think he ended up. I think he was cool. I think they came to an arrangement. Oh, okay. He was quite cool about it. Yeah. So he wasn't, that's nice. He wasn't Petty. Sorry,

just to, like, yeah. Phil Manzanera, who was there in Roxy Music. Every now and again, he'd be sent a royalty check for like 1.5 million pound. And every time you'd have to go, sorry, this is Ray Manzorak from the doors. This happens every now and again. So he sends it back. Then he gets a royalty check for $1.5 million. He goes, sorry, this is Ray Man's wreck. They said, oh, no, someone took a riff you did from a 1970s album, and it's on the new Kanye and JZ album. And so it was his money.

And he hadn't known it, just one of their kind of scouts, found an old record, thought this is an amazing riff. Found out who'd done it, sent him the money. Wow. Yeah, it's worth having, isn't it? Yeah. That's great. I found a really weird moment in pop history.

So Blame It on the Buggy was written by Michael Jackson. a very different Michael Jackson, who was also a singer who would trade under the name Mick Jackson, but then it got taken to America via his people, and it was played to a bunch of different people. One of the people who heard it was the Jackson Five. They recorded their own version, and they released it in America. Meanwhile, Mick Jackson is getting to release his own version in England, and no one knows who is who, because it's the same name. BBC Radio One would only play the Jackson Five version, whereas Capital Radio,

would only play the Mick Jackson version and they were battling it out in the charts with people being confused about who is who. That's cool. It's just the most random name connection, yeah, that you could get. And he so happened to be an artist in his own right. Very cool. All my stuff's about Rap Maninoff.

Oh, let's hear about Rak Maninov. He... Who did he rip off? Dido. His first symphony, he played it to Rimsky Kosukov. He like went to the rehearsals. And Rimsky Korskov said,

I do not find this music at all agreeable. I was going to translate it, this is shit. But it was basically that's why he said. Ramaninoff suddenly thought, oh my God, this isn't very good. But he couldn't call it off. So he spent the whole of the first symphony hiding in a staircase backstage.

Yeah, but then like... Was it a success? Oh, no. No, no, no, no, no. It happened once. The one reviewer wrote that if the devil had written a symphony based on the 10 plagues of Egypt

and it was like Mr. Ratmaninoff's then he would have fulfilled his task brilliantly and would delight the inhabitants of hell. Three stars. And Ratmaninoff refused to let anyone perform it again in his lifetime and when he left Rush because he fled Russia and went to America afterwards

and when he did that he left his manuscript behind. He just didn't want anything to do with it. Right. Boy. Yeah. Was that the one that was used in all by myself? No, different one. No, no. The one that all by myself is his second symphony, which is an absolute classic and which is regularly voted on Classic FM, you know, our favourite symphony.

But is that because most people listening going, oh, that's the Celine Dion song. Generally, it is. I think it is, yeah. Rack Maninov, massive hands. Is that so? Yes. He can go 12 notes or something. He could do 12 notes, but he could play a five-note chord with 12.

So it's not just reaching. Yeah. He could play. Five-note chord? Yeah. He could play the first one. then the second one is 12 notes away, and he could also play the three in between. So that means your hand has to be even longer than the...

But surely he's impossible to play, then, for normal pianists with normal... Actually, I think that is a problem that, like, people with smaller hands find it difficult to play a rat man enough, and also female pianists find it difficult to play right enough because they, on average, have smaller hands. Right. Yeah. It's weird, because this is, Richard, you don't know the full history of our show, but this is probably the third...

I know the full history of your show. Okay, okay. Then, as you will very well be aware... of this is the third historical figure I found who has massive hands. George Eliot, the author. Stonewall Jackson, the Confederate General. He was convinced he had one giant arm, so he used to go into battle on horse with his arm in the air

so he could distribute all the blood that that was hogging to the rest of his body. This is now the third. Rachmaninov is in big hand territory. Big hand or not the quiz. They said that about Vladimir Putin. Vladimir Putin when he walks. You see, he's sort.

swings his left arm and he doesn't swing his right arm. So his right arm stays absolutely by his side. And for ages, people said that he's had a stroke. Something has happened with Vladimir Putin. But you talk to anyone with any kind of knowledge of spying. They go, no, that's KGB because that's where your gun is. So you wouldn't be kind of doing that. You'd always have your hand.

No, fake arm. Fake arm. No, no, it's real. Fake, no. Shush. Right hand is like holding the pistol. Yeah, yeah. And then you've got the fake arm.

That happens. I'm with Andy. You see this all the time. there's photos. But I don't think Putin has a fake arm, that's what I'm saying. Well, agree to disagree. But I know he listens, so he perhaps he can let us know. Guys, I was listening to the show.

I won't do the voice. That would be offensive, yeah. I think he's all right. Oh, I don't want to offend Putin. Oh, my goodness. After all the good things he's done. No. We do need to wrap up.

You see photos now where all the security detail that are walking around major prominent politicians and leaders have their hands just stuck in a position and it's because they're wearing underneath their jacket fake arms while they hold a little gun. This is genuinely true. And it brings us back to Keith Harris with Orville. Of course you did because he's got one hand that's up Orville's. You know Orville wasn't real, right? Yeah. You know it was Keith who wasn't able to pretend that Is Sanders was going to end. You know that, don't you? Are you saying that he was holding a gun inside? At all time.

Was all the working under duress? Yeah, I'll go on pointless with you, absolutely. Yeah, I wish I could fly right up to the sky. You fucking wouldn't in a minute, mate. That is 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 on our online accounts. I'm on Instagram. I'm on at Shreiberland, James. My Instagram is no six things as James Harkin. Andy. Mine is Andrew Hunter. And Richard, you're online. I don't know what I am. Mr. Osman. Mr. Osmond. On Instagram. And September 25th, the latest book is out. It is the impossible fortune. Yeah. And if you... What could that be? An impossible fortune? Huh? You'll have to read it

to find out. And listen, if you want to ask us any questions about the things that we've said over the course of this podcast, podcast at QI.com, give us an email. Andy reads literally every single one of those emails and if he finds them worthy to bring to our special club, they will appear on Jewel Drop Us a Line, which is our secret hidden members club episode that we like to do. So do send it to us there. Otherwise, thank you London Podcast Festival. Thank you everyone who has been with us here tonight. Thank you everyone who's been watching us overseas on the live stream.

We're going to be back again next week. We'll see you with another episode then. Goodbye!