Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! - Dan Snow

Episode Date: March 26, 2022

British historian Dan Snow, a member of the team that discovered Ernest Shackleton's lost ship, plays our game about the artists lost at the bottom of the Lollapalooza lineup. He is joined by panelists Luke Burbank, Emmy Blotnick and Roxanne Roberts.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

From NPR and WBEZ Chicago, this is Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, the NPR News Quiz. You're about to get defamed. I'm committing lie, Bill. I'm Bill Curtis, and here is your host, a man who just got wait-listed for Mensa. It's Peter Sagal. Thank you, Bill, and thanks again, fake audience. You may have heard that a couple of weeks ago, explorers discovered the long lost wreck of the HMS Endurance, the ship commanded by famed Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackleton. Well, in a feat just as impressive, we have discovered one of the people who did that. Historian and broadcaster

Dan Snow. And after we give him a few minutes to dry off and warm up, we'll ask him about how they did it. But first, we want to hear about your epic discoveries. Give us a call at 1-888-WAIT-WAIT. That's 1-888-924-8924. Let's welcome our first listener contestant. Hi, you are on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. Hello, this is Sammy Seguir, and I'm calling from Fairfax, Virginia, right outside our nation's capital. Right outside our nation's capital. I think I should say far enough outside our nation's capital. Yeah. What do you do there? Are you part of our nation's permanent government, as many people in Fairfax are?

I am actually a freshman at George Mason University studying hospitality management. However, when I'm not studying, I work at an indoor ice skating rink. All right. You know what I'm going to ask? Do you get to drive the Zamboni? I am in the process of learning right now. Let's just say it's going somewhat well. So I guess I can, I don't know if you've advanced far enough in your Zamboni studies to answer this, but is it as fun as it always looks like it is? I think the thing that makes it most fun is the kids along the glass telling you to honk the horn. That's the most fun. Why does that thing have a horn? Like, so if you're in traffic and someone tries to merge into your lane, you hit the horn? You get stuck behind a slow hockey player?

That is, I think so. I think it's like a get off the ice kind of signal, but I think it's mostly for show. a signal. But I think it's mostly for show. Well, welcome to the show, Sammy. Let me introduce you to our panel this week. First up, a comedian you can see at the Vermont Comedy Club in Burlington this weekend. It's Emmy Blotnick. Hi, Emmy. Next, it's the host of the daily podcast TBTL and the public radio variety show Live Wire, which will be live at the Alberta Rose Theater in Portland April 7th. It's Luke Burbank. Hey, Sammy. Hey, Luke. How are you doing? And finally, a feature writer for the style section of The Washington Post. It's Roxanne Roberts. Hey, Sammy. I'm also in Fairfax County, so we're just a stone's throw away. That's a short Zamboni ride. Good to hear from you, Roxanne. Sammy, welcome to the show. You're going to play Who's Bill this time.

Bill Curtis is going to read you three quotations from this week's news. If you can correctly identify or explain two of them, you will win our prize. Any voice from our show you might choose for your voicemail. You ready to go? Yes, I am. Here we go. Here's your first quote. There's no point in responding.

They're just going to interrupt you. That was Senator Dick Durbin giving advice to someone at their big confirmation hearings this week. For what job? This is Supreme Court Justice nominee Katonji Brown. Yes, exactly. Katonji Brown Jackson. She was testifying this week before the Senate Judiciary Committee about her nomination to the Supreme Court. Everybody agrees how historic this is, the Democrats, because she'd be the first black woman on the Supreme Court and the Republicans because she'd be the first black woman on the Supreme Court. Senator Marsha Blackburn, among her many incisive questions, asked her, quote, what is a woman? And Lindsey Graham followed

up by saying, yeah, what is a woman? The Democrats, of course, didn't have to ask her what a woman was. Patrick Leahy was actually friends with Adam when they made the first one. You failed to mention Ted Cruz's deep, deep concern about a variety of various things that could be chopped up into 30 second sound bites for Hannity. Yeah, exactly. He's sort of like a producer for Hannity. Yes, Ted Cruz asked the nominee if she thought babies were racist, which is so hilarious. He thinks the reason all babies hate him is because he's white.

He had a busy week. You know, he missed his flight in Montana. Yes, he did. They had to call security because he was getting testy with the airport staff. He was determined to get to DC to get to the bottom of this racist baby situation. Exactly. And I believe if I'm not mistaken, he actually was filmed shouting the words, don't you know who I am? And they said, oh, you're Ted Cruz. And then they treated him worse. But honestly, these questions are crazy.

If they came out in any other context, you'd think the person was high. Like, what is a woman, though? Dude, what if babies were racist? Like, could I become really tall, like, later in life? Or just there was one he asked that was like, could I decide that I'm an Asian man? That was one where I was like, this is philosophical. It's Kafka-esque. It really is.

I believe Kafka did write the story about Gregor Samsa awakened one morning to find that he had been transformed into a giant Ted Cruz. So much worse than a cockroach. All right. Here is your next quote from an office worker speaking to the Wall Street Journal. What am I going to do? Not eat something? That was one of the many people returning to the office and finding out that what's gotten a lot more expensive at lunchtime. Is it, I would say, pizza at lunchtime?

No, not pizza. I'll give you a hint. The price of croutons drives the price even higher. Oh, your salad. Yes, the salad. The prices of salads have been skyrocketing. You've been working and eating at home, and you're looking forward to going back to that fresh salad place next to your office, you know, instead of eating a sleeve of Oreos for lunch again. Well, you'd better get pre-approved for a loan because according to the Wall Street Journal, those overpriced salad places from before are now over overpriced.

You know, I'll just bring my own salad to work. It'll be cheaper. I just go to the refrigerator and open it and huh. Well, that's just a bag of brown liquid there in my refrigerator. there in my refrigerator. I've never, ever, ever gotten to the end of a bag or a box of salad in my private life. It always turns into some sort of science experiment. You should ask Ketanji Brown if salad is a liquid. I feel like she's got to answer that. One Chicago man interviewed for this story says he is spending $50 more per day on food and commuting than when he was working at home. Dude, how much salad are you eating? This is what happens when you go out to find a man in the street and interview a rabbit. I think it's a $10 salad and $40 for gas, Peter. Maybe. Although it is, I have to admit, like there's one of these, you know, high, you know, cool salad chains near our office in Chicago.

And I've started going there and I was like, oh, this will be great. This will be a healthy and inexpensive lunch option. Right. And then I realized like all their salads, it's on the, on the big menu in the wall. It says market price. Our romaine of the day. You know, that would be a good name for a salad shop. Romanes of the day.

I mean, we're halfway there. We almost have this business off the ground, y'all. Well, here is your last quote. New boot goofing in the Dundag Snakeskins. Those were the lyrics to Wyoming's entry into a new competition dedicated to finding the best what in America? The best? I watched it. The best song in America? Yes, the best song!

As you know, Europe has been enjoying their annual Eurovision Song Contest where bands from each country there compete to see who has the most cringeworthy pop song. But finally, the new world will surpass the old. NBC has launched the American Song Contest with each state entering a musical act with an original song to finally determine, I don't know, which state is the musicist. It's hosted by Kelly Clarkson, who famously won American Idol in 2002, and Snoop Dogg, who famously can't remember anything he did during that entire decade. decade it's good to see snoop dogg finally getting some work i feel like it's been tough for him um you know there was one television program he wasn't on and it was this one and now he can

just a clean sweep i i also i just i mean if you would if you'd gone back to like the late 90s early 2000s and said which of these been who here is going to end up hosting game shows on network tv i don't know if you would have picked the gin and juice guy is what I'm saying. You would have gone with Dr. Dre? Yeah, I think. I think. Who'd have thought? Like Ice-T is solving crimes on TV.

And LL Cool J is also solving crimes. There's like a real kind of... Deeper into the TV you can find LL Cool J. By the way, the show finally completes the ancient prophecy. Every single show on network television is now a singing competition. Were you guys watching last Sunday when Leslie Stahl won 60 Minutes with an amazing version of Someone Like You?

She was dressed like a panda. I mean, that's what's so great about that show. Yeah, I know. Who knew it was her? It's on Fox. It's called I Can Smell You Sing. And you have to be in a costume. But based on your smell, we try to decide who's singing

coming to fox sunday night bill how did sammy do in our quiz three in a row sammy's a winner congratulations sammy thank you very much good luck getting that zamboni license i feel you're gonna earn it thank you everyone take care bye-bye right now panel it is time for you to answer some questions about this week's news. Emmy, this week, a lucky buyer won an auction on eBay paying $12,550 and became the owner of the first artificial diamond made from what? Oh, God. Bones? The bones of his enemies? No.

No, Emmy. is it the bones of his enemies no no i mean they they make diamonds in labs now but i don't know what they're made of is that one of those things it's like yes this is an artificial diamond artificial diamonds are now pretty common they can be made pretty much relatively easily in labs beyond meat i'm not gonna get this right i can feel, I will give you a hint. We don't know if this diamond was mined in the Hidden Valley. Oh my God. Is it made of ranch dressing? It is made of ranch dressing. Wow. That was an amazing hint. It really was pretty good. I think, by the way, yes, there's a diamond made of ranch dressing. So I think I know how salads got so expensive. The diamond was made by taking a bunch of Hidden Valley ranch dressing, roasting

it to carbonize it, and then putting it under immense pressure. And then they finally put it, this diamond, in a beautiful setting with a crew town crown. It's a two-carat diamond, plus four cucumbers and a tomato. That is incredible. Now I'm going to be Debbie Downer here, but theoretically, you could take anything, carbonize it, and make a diamond out of it. So you could have peanut butter diamond, or you could have grandma diamond, or you could have anything that if you can carbonize it, you can turn it into a diamond. You went right from peanut butter to grandma? I mean, they both sound delicious, but in different ways. Those just happen to be the two things that Rox has in her cabinet right now. So that's what she thought of them.

Coming up, it's time for a change in our Bluff the Listener game called 1-888-WAIT-WAIT-TO-PLAY. We'll be back in a minute with more of Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me from NPR. From NPR and WBEZ Chicago, this is Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, the NPR News Quiz. I'm Bill Curtis. We're playing this week with Luke Burbank, Roxanne Roberts, and Emmy Blotnick. And here again is your host, hallelujah, it's raining Segal, Peter Segal. Thank you, Bill. Right now it's time for the Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me Bluff, the listener game. Call 1-888-WAIT-WAIT to play our games in the air.

Hi, you're on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. Hi, Peter. This is Colin from Ypsilanti, Michigan. Ah, Colin. Ypsilanti, my favorite city that starts with an unexpected Y. What do you do there in Ypsilanti? I'm an engineer at Ford Motor Company. I work on their autonomous fuel coal

program, actually. Are you basically, I mean, since you work on these things, are you, how confident, seriously, are you that they're not going to become self-aware and kill us all? I'm not entirely sure. I don't think I'm high off and up in the food chain to be spared. Yeah. I think the most important thing is that you never give them the ability to, like, change their own oil. Because as long as they need us for that, eventually they'll seize up, right? Right, maintain some sort of control. I like that. Building a fail-safe is what I'm saying. Colin, welcome to the show. You're going to play the game in which you have to tell truth from fiction.

Bill, what is Colin's topic? Pivot. Sometimes a company decides to go in a new direction. For example, Amazon went from bookstore to everything store. Instagram went from exotic pet marketplace to photo sharing site. NPR went from respected news organization to making things up about Instagram. Our panelists are going to tell you about another company suddenly going in a surprising new direction. Pick the one telling the truth.

You'll win the weight waiter of your choice on your voicemail. You ready to play? Yes, I am. All right. First, let's hear from Luke Burbank. Apple has changed so many aspects of American life from how we communicate to how we pay for things. I mean, if not for Apple Plus, would we even know what a Ted Lasso is? And now there's news this week that Apple wants to revolutionize another consumer experience, how we buy actual apples. In an all-staff memo that leaked this week, CEO Tim

Cook described what he sees as a, quote, tremendous opportunity to become the dominant player in the fresh fruit space with a project titled Apple Macintosh 2. This time, we're literally talking about the fruit. Consumers tell us they're tired of walking into a grocery store and choosing from various giant piles of apples, Cook explained in the memo. What they want to do is go into a gleaming glass box where a person in a blue shirt disappears into the back for up to an hour while retrieving a single apple

in either gold, graphite, or space gray. Cook is expected to officially announce the Macintosh 2. This time, we're literally talking about the fruit. At the next company meeting in June, the apples will retail for $199 each or $250 with the charger, which doesn't work with any other existing Apple products. The Apple Macintosh 2, an actual Apple this time, the newest product from Apple Computers. Your next story of a company mixing it up comes from Roxanne Roberts. Last month, three luxury goods stores named Bon Velante opened. The stores feature American

vintage items and decor ranging from mid-century modern furniture and $900 used Levi's. It took about a week for savvy shoppers to figure out that Bon Velante, French for goodwill, is actually the high-end spinoff of the country's largest thrift store chain. Quote, we know there are people who would never step foot in a thrift shop, but will pay huge amounts for vintage chic, CEO Steven Preston told the Wall Street Journal. If someone wants to give us hundreds of dollars instead of $6.99 for old jeans or a lava lump, I'd be an idiot to say no. But not everyone is happy with the company's new direction. Workers at the new boutique say some of the customers are, well, a little spoiled. One woman yelled at me because she didn't have complimentary champagne

while she spent $3,000 on stuff she could get at the Trenton store for under a hundred bucks, one former staffer said on condition of anonymity. What a moron. Bon Volante, the upscale boutiques that are actually run by Goodwill. And your last story of a corporate change comes from Emmy Blotnick. The Japanese company Kawasaki is mostly known for its motorcycles like the Ninja, but those hogs better bear left because now Kawasaki has introduced a goat, a robotic goat. The robot goat's name is Bex, based on the animal Ibex. They took the one goat that already sounds like a tech product and dropped the i, leaving just bex. This feels like an unnecessary riddle, especially when they could have just called it a goater cycle. But speaking of unnecessary riddles,

wait until you hear the performance package that comes with this robot goat. It walks. It kneels. It has no eyes. Unlike real goats that can essentially jump up a mountain, this thing maneuvers like a stoned person trying to parallel park. It is literally faster to walk. Watching this goat robot work the runway feels like when you're at a baggage claim at an understaffed airport and just one lonely suitcase keeps going around and by its fifth or sixth lap you start to feel kind of bothered by the bag anyway if you want to ride this thing you got to wear a helmet all right here are your choices some well-known company has taken a shift in a new direction from luke was it apple computers now introducing the Apple Macintosh 2, an actual Apple this time, $199 custom piece of fruit.

From Roxanne, Goodwill goes upscale with their boutique Bon Volante. Or from Emmy, Kawasaki, famous for making fast sport motorcycles, now making an electric goat robot you can ride. That is a tough one, but I think I'm going to have to go with the goat. The goat robot, the electric rideable goat from Emmy Blotnick is your choice. All right. Well, to bring you the correct change in corporate strategy, we spoke to a reporter covering the real story. The future was supposed to be all like flying cars and jetpacks, but instead we have this robotic goat walking around. There you go. That was Tony Tran of futurism.com talking about Kawasaki's rideable robotic

goat. Congratulations, Colin. You got it right. You earned a point for Emmy and you have won our prize. The voice of your choice on your voicemail, not sadly a ride on the electric goat. Although I have to tell you, having watched the video of the electric goat, you're not missing much. Congratulations. Thank you so much. This was a lot of fun. Thanks so much, and please make sure our cars don't kill us. Will do. Alright, thanks a lot. Take care. And now the game where people who do great things take a break and do just an OK thing by playing our game, Not My Job. About three weeks ago, the wreck of Sir Ernest Shackleton's boat, the Endurance, lost since 1915, was found on the Antarctic seabottom.

Our guest, Dan Snow, was there. He was a historian on the Endurance 22, the ship which found the Endurance. And if you're a little confused, just remember, the Endurance 22 was the one that did not sink. Dan Snow, welcome to Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. Thanks. I'm glad I'm here. I'm glad we didn't sink or get stuck in the ice. That would be bad. Yes. Well, you know that. You're a historian. So let's get right to it. Tell us about this expedition to find the Endurance. I grew up watching those amazing TV

shows where they, the early days, I guess, of TV history, where they just went, you know what, we're going to go, we're going to recreate the great journey of X or Cortez or Alexander the Great. So I've spent my whole career trying to replicate those early pioneers of broadcasting. This is by far the biggest. This was an expedition of 50 crew members and 50 scientists and expedition members. So 100 people all sailing from Cape Town, 10 days through the Southern Ocean, gigantic storms, very exciting. They delivered, the Southern Ocean delivered nicely. Then we got down to the Weddell Sea, choked with sea ice, Antarctic sea ice, then found this shipwreck 3000 meters down the seabed below. We got through COVID. We got through geopolitical, you know, disharmony.

And we actually found the wreck as well, which is unbelievable. That's always nice when that pays off. I don't, just judging from the reaction to the news of the discovery, I just don't think that in America we appreciate how admired, I once read that he was among the 10 most admired Britons in history, Ernest Shackleton was. Because in this, despite the fact that he was technically a failure, right? He went on four expeditions to the Antarctic. He failed absolutely all four of them. He died starting out, which is not really his fault, but starting out on the fourth one.

He is, we love heroic failures here in the UK. And he was the ultimate heroic failure. And it's because the point is his heroism shines when it's because everything goes wrong that you become a hero. It's easy to be a hero when everything's great. It's like, it's not, I don't find it super exciting. Like getting super pumped about Tom Brady or Wayne Gretzky.

Like you guys are just amazing, right? But Shackleton, he messed up. He screwed up. Like, it all went wrong all the time. And when it went wrong, he showed greatness. He showed toughness and spirit, and he showed compassion. He got everyone out. And that's why we love him in the UK.

So very briefly, he had the idea of sailing his ship, the Endurance, to Antarctica to eventually get to the South Pole. I assume that's what he wanted to do. And instead they got stuck in the sea ice, frozen in. So now more than a hundred years later, you guys set out to find the ship. How did you know where it was? Well, there was a very brilliant New Zealand captain of endurance

who was Shackleton's kind of number two called Frank Worsley. He was taking celestial navigation readings every day on the ice. As the ship was crunched in the ice, they were living on a camp beside the ship. And then when it eventually sank through the ice, he was taking readings. Whenever he saw the sun, which is not very often, he got his sextant out and he did a lat long. He used the stars and the moon, everything he could use. And he was brilliant. And we ended up, so he fixed this position and we found it around four and a half miles away from where he fixed that position.

Unbelievable. And bear in mind- Unbelievably far away or unbelievably close? I think it's unbelievably close, right? All right. You're using kind of, Celestia, it's a tough crowd. Jeepers. I don't know anything about this.

Four miles away and you're using the old sextant method. And by the way, it's cloudy. So he's only doing the day after it sank now, but every day the ice is moving. You don't know where it's moving, but it's on a kind of current. It looks like it's static, so you could have moved 12, even 20 miles over 24 hours. So he had to guess where the ship had been when it sank. And he did that so brilliantly that it was within four miles from where we actually found it. Okay. I have a question then. We're talking about brilliance, but didn't they anticipate in advance that the ship would get surrounded by ice? They were not told it was icy, Roxanne. That was a major failing on the planning part.

Roxanne, you raised a very important point here. And this is the thing about Shackton, is he was completely useless in many respects. And this is why he's a hero for our time. This is why he's a relatable hero. So Shackton was hopeless at raising money. He was a hopeless husband. He was a hopeless planner. His expeditions were wildly underprepared. The Norwegian whalers on South Georgia, this island down there near the Antarctic, they said, do not go into the Weddell Sea this year because it is full of ice. He said, I'm not listening to you Norwegians who know all about it and have all your local knowledge. I'm going to overrule you and I'm going to go to the Weddell Sea anyway. So he needed to be brilliant because he kept getting his crews in these terrible situations, right?

So his great skill in life was saving other people from his utter lack of skill. There it is. That's exactly right. I'm just going to write that down and steal it. So I have a lot of practical questions. So you said that it was four and a half miles away, and you said it was 3,000 meters down. Translating that into American, that's way deep. Yeah, 10,000 feet. And now that you have found this long-sought ship, which no one ever thought would ever see again, what are we going to do with it? We're going to do absolutely nothing with it. That's the excitement, isn't it? I mean,

we're going to marvel at it. But isn't it amazing? You're right. Your first point is these ships would sink beneath the sea 10,000 feet 100 years ago. You think, well, that's that. That story's over. Now, because of technology, that story's beginning. It's got another chapter. The ship's being beautifully well-preserved. We're not allowed to touch anything, nor would we wish to. But the amazing thing, we did take laser scans to within quarter-inch resolution. So we've got a 3D model of that.

There are shoes. There are boots. There is a flare gun on the deck. All of that is going to be brought to life. This ship is going to become alive, I think, like no other shipwreck on the planet. So that's amazing. You and your colleagues found the Endurance, which was one of the, I guess, great lost wrecks. What's next?

Well, I mean, that is so interesting. I mean, I get now, there are other shipwrecks out there, of course. There's some very well-known US shipwrecks and British shipwrecks around, a Russian shipwreck in the Arctic. I have a pair of prescription sunglasses that fell off my face on a boat once, and I'd really like to find them. I don't know if there's anything we can do about that. Could you put that on your list? They were nice glasses, right, Emmy? They were pretty nice.

I was like, I should ask Dan about this. All we need is the position with the four and a half miles and a few million dollars. Oh, yeah. True. Well, Dan Snow, it is really fascinating to hear about this expedition, which I thought was really cool. But we have, in fact, as we must, we've asked you here to play a game that this time we're calling... I've just discovered Bucky Ched. So you helped discover the endurance at the bottom of the Antarctic Sea, but we discovered Bucky Ched at the bottom of the just-released lineup of the Lollapalooza Music Festival 2022.

So we're going to ask you three questions about Bucky Ched and other acts you can discover at Lolla this summer here in Chicago. Answer two out of three of them correctly, you will win our prize for one of our listeners, the voice of anyone they might choose on our show for their voicemail. Bill, who is adventurer slash presenter Dan Snow playing for? Emily Hunter of Phoenix, Arizona. All right. You ready for this? Yeah. I love Phoenix.

Yeah. Here's your first question. Very basic question. Who or what exactly is Bucky Ched? Is it A, a backup goalie for the Los Angeles Kings hockey team who moonlights as a DJ, B, a classical music ensemble that only plays Sex Pistols covers, or C, a computer running an AI program that generates random folk songs? Random word generator there.

I think it is A. A, yes it is A. A. Yes, it is A. Very good. Oh, my goodness. 2022 is my year. I know. Yes.

But it's also very weird to hear a great Oxbridge accent express uncertainty. Right? That's not how it usually works. Listen, overconfident Oxbridge men is what got us all into this mess. It's true. That's what got Jack stuck in the ice for nine months. It's what gave us Boris Johnson. Never listen to the –

Never listen. If you hear this voice, disregard anything it says. Exactly. Yes. In fact, Bucky Chad's real name is Garrett Sparks, and he's apparently an excellent hockey goalie when he's not spinning records. All right. Here's your next question. There's another DJ playing Lala this year,

a guy named DJ D. Saul, who spins electronica music. What is DJ D. Saul's other job? A, he's the assistant to Lala Palooza's graphic designer and he stuck his name onto the poster. B, he is the head of investment bank Goldman Sachs. Or C, it's DJ Bucky Chedd trying to double up his gigs. Wow, that is a tough one. I've got a feeling. or C, it's DJ Bucky Ched trying to double up his gigs. Wow.

That is a tough one. I've got a feeling. I'm going to go B. You're going to go B. He's the head of Goldman Sachs. You're right. That's who it is. His real name is David Solomon, and he's not spinning electronica.

He is the CEO of this very large influential investment bank. That is bonkers. Isn't it, though? Yeah. Well, you're doing very well. You have one more question. Rapper Joyner Lucas is in the Lala lineup, but he is threatening to drop out this year.

Why? A, he's concerned about the lax COVID protocols, which he feels are premature given the progress of the virus. B, he wants to quit in protest of the female performers getting paid less than their male peers at the festival. Or C, because his name on the poster is in smaller type than, quote, that goofy ass Machine Gun Kelly. On this one, I'm going to have to go C. I feel confident on this.

You're exactly right. He's very upset about that because he should have bigger type than Machine Gun Kelly, as I'm sure we all do, ultimately. Bill, how did Dan Snow do in our quiz? He was no Shackleton, because he got them right the first time. There you go. He did not lead his crew into disaster. Dan Snow is a historian and part of the expedition that discovered Shackleton's endurance. You can also see and hear more from him at the Dan Snow History Hit Podcast and TV channel. Dan Snow, thank you so much for joining us on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me.

Thanks, guys. That was super fun. Thank you so much. It was a joy. Take care. Bye-bye. In just a minute, we boldly step forward into 2020 in our Listener Limerick Challenge. Call 1-888-WAIT-WAIT to join us on the air. We'll be back in a minute with more of Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me from NPR. From NPR and WBEZ Chicago, this is Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, the NPR News Quiz. I'm Bill Curtis.

We are playing this week with Roxanne Roberts, Emmy Blotnick, and Luke Burbank. And here again is your host, a man who also just discovered a ship, Friendship. It's Peter Segal. future in our listener limerick challenge if you'd like to play give us a call at one triple eight wait wait that's one eight eight eight nine two four eight nine two four right now panel it is of course time for more questions for you from the week's news luke there's a new dating app out there but it's not for everyone only who can use it um who let's see oh animals uh like non-human animals no no they're for humans but humans in a particular situation. In prison. No. Can I get a hint?

Yes. Hopefully there's a hire a babysitter link once you hook up with somebody. Specifically single parents. Single parents. Exactly right. Dating as a single parent, as they know, it's very hard, but thanks for the new single parent dating app. Now it's frustrating too. The app is called Stir.

Who knows why? And it comes from the makers of Tinder. It's the perfect way to meet the man or woman your kids will soon hate. Presumably people's profiles will include pictures and information about their kids. So it's an exponential increase in the ways you can be rejected. Oh, no, look, it's not you. It's your weird kid. increase in the ways you can be rejected. Oh, no, look, it's not you. It's your weird kid.

So, I mean, obviously, the regular dating apps, lots of people are on there and they are, in fact, single parents. But this is you have to be a single parent. Apparently, yes. I mean, apparently a lot of people go on the dating apps as single parents and try to hide the fact that they have children because that's not that the presumption is that makes them less attractive to sometimes if a guy's like holding up a salmon it's just like hiding his three-year-old that's behind the salmon right exactly roxanne we got some exciting news from the metaverse this week a startup in japan uh has developed technology that will allow virtual reality users someday soon to experience what um fear terror um you're close

inadequacies you know i'm thinking that all the like the fun stuff right it seems so realistic you're so close i'll give you a hand it's like wow this this combat game is so exciting this orc is really hitting me ow ow oh you can Oh, you can feel pain! Exactly, you can feel pain. HTL technology is developing a wristband that stimulates your arm muscles while you're in VR to create various sensations, like, say, having a bird peck at your skin. This technology will finally address the common complaint about, say, the Nintendo Switch system. It just doesn't hurt enough. And by the way, the example of a bird pecking at your skin was theirs. That's what they say they'll be able to do. That's really weird and

strangely specific, as if it's the only thing they have figured out. It's not that specific. I'm starting a dating website for people who have been pecked by birds. So they need a way to find each other. I think we could roll that into deal breaker, honestly. I think you might be right. It's a synergistic opportunity. I have to say the great thing about that idea for a dating app is you absolutely know what you're going to talk about when you first meet, right? How big was it? Yeah, how big was it?

What kind of bird was it? How many times did it peck you? Why did you piss it off? How many times? How big was it? What kind of bird was it? How many times did it peck you? Why did you piss it off? How many times?

If I go through the rest of my life never being pecked by a bird, I'm good with that. Really? That sounds like an incredibly unpleasant experience. Well, good luck finding a partner. Yeah, geez. On Peck Your Poison, Emmy's new dating app. Roxanne, in Japan, you can rent people to be wedding guests or mourners at a funeral. But one man there is making a very good living by renting himself out in order to do what?

Nothing. He's a do-nothing guy. Of course you know this. It was reported by the Washington Post. So if you're in Japan and you don't want to go to dinner alone, but you don't really want to talk to anybody either, then you hire Soji Morimoto, the do-nothing guy, who will come and silently hang out with you

for about $85. He does not initiate conversation, but he offers polite and brief reactions if you decide to do that. So it's sort of like your spouse, but you don't have to invest the 10 years before it reaches that point. When you ask him where you want to go to dinner, he'll just say, I don't know.

Right. Exactly. I don't. You choose. I've been doing that for free for years. Multiple marriages. You didn't realize you were giving up that source of income. Yeah.

The one thing about this that bothered me is that apparently one of the things he often does for people is he greets people at the finish line of road races. Right? Because this is something that people want. They're going to go out and run a 5K or 10K, whatever, and they want somebody waiting for them. So they hire this guy to wait for them. And I'm like, wait a minute. You're telling me that none of my friends really ever wanted to do that? And it sounds like that is doing something.

And he's supposed to be the do nothing guy. If you're positioning him to greet you, it's like. Why would you hire this guy for doing that? You run in, let's say you're running your first marathon and you're like, you finish this thing. And you're like, oh my God, I did this impossible thing. And he's like, huh. I just want to see an unfamiliar face at the end. Exactly.

Coming up, it's lightning fill in the blank. But first, it's the game where you have to listen for the rhyme. If you'd like to play on air, call or leave a message at 1-888-WAIT-WAIT. That's 1-888-924-8924. You can always click the Contact Us link on our website, waitwait.npr.org, where there you can find links to our upcoming shows in Northern Virginia at Wolf Trap on August 25th and 26th. We promise we are not inviting you there to be the wolf bait.

Hi, you're on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. Hi, this is Julia from Hattiesburg, Mississippi. Hattiesburg, Mississippi. Now, I haven't been there. Can you tell me about that place? Um, we have a very nice zoo. That's great. And that's about it. That's about it. Well, that's nice. And what do you do there? Um, I am a cell phone repair technician.

Oh my gosh. Whoa. Well, that's a useful thing to be because everybody has one. Yes. Have you ever had somebody lie about the fact that the phone was dropped in a toilet, but they tried to tell you it was dropped in some less gross water? Is that a deal breaker? The industry term we use is liquid damage, and we don't ask further questions. Well, Julia, welcome to the show.

Bill Curtis is going to read you three news-related limericks with a last word or phrase missing from each. If you can fill in that last word or phrase correctly and two of the limericks will be a big winner. Are you ready to play? I am. All right, let's do it then. Here is your first limerick.

I keep wondering, what did they bake? Those Air Jordans, I think they are fake. Though they started as dough, there's a leathery glow. So the question remains, is it... Fake? No, fake was one of the rhyming words. There's a word that rhymes with fake. Cake!

Cake! Cake, yes! Cake, there you go. This week, Netflix announced their latest game show, Is It Cake? That's right, the hot new show is the meme that took the Internet by storm for two weeks in July of 2020. It's the best new show of the year based on old Internet memes. Definitely better than Peacock's new game show, Is This Dress Blue or Gold? look a lot like a real object, like a cheeseburger, say, or a purse. And then they put their cake on a table with four of the real things somewhere in there, right?

And a panel of judges tries to choose the real one. They have 20 seconds to do it and they have to do it from 10 feet away. Some of them get really mean. One judge was like, oh, that's my long lost dog. But no, it was cake. Yeah, they made the cake boss out of cake and put him next to the cake boss, and it was mystifying. Here is your next limerick. In Venice, the gulls make us hurt.

They're just avian rats who track dirt. So fancy hotels like to arm clientele. Here's a water gun. Give it a... Squirt! Squirt, yes! The sea gulls apparently are a squirt. Squirt, yes. Seagulls apparently are a huge nuisance in Venice, Italy, so one hotel there has started

handing out squirt guns to their guests to drive them away. They'd previously tried handing out shotguns, but sometimes the seagulls were able to grab them and fight back. The guns, squirt guns, are also orange because the owners say that the gulls don't like orange.

So why not just paint your whole hotel orange and save a lot of trouble? I think this is a flawed premise because if you've got seagulls who, and I have watched videos of them dive bomb to steal someone's lobster sandwich. They're fearless and they're big. They are rats. You think a squirt gun is going to scare them? Well, that's the thing. I mean, maybe, apparently, they don't like being squirted with water. But eventually, one of these days, the seagulls are going to look at each other and go, wait a minute.

We're seagulls. Water is in our name. All right, Julia, here is your last limerick. I am smacking my lips with a bang. With large primates, I'm learning to hang. I'm finding the joys of colloquial noise. Orangutans speak using slang. Slang, yes.

It turns out orangutans use orangal slang. Researchers in Borneo and Sumatra, where the apes live, studied the alarm calls of multiple orangutan populations and found that the apes will come up with a new version of their calls in order to stand out and be heard in the noisy jungle. Then the popular versions of the calls spread in the population just like slang does. That means somewhere there's an orangutan teenager rolling his eyes like, oh, my God, Dad, no one says that anymore. What? Son, it's bananas is that not what we're doing now um do they know what words like did they have any examples

of well apparently they have they have as many um naturalists have done with various species is they have listened very carefully to their vocalizations and come up with a kind of language of kinds of calls do they talk about stuff being lit? All the time. Yeah. Maybe they're like really retro and they're like, 23 is skidoo. That's the cat's pajamas. They're flagpole sitting.

Yeah, exactly. Eating goldfish, which they normally probably would do anyway. So, you know, it's not really a fad. Bill, how did Julia do on our quiz? Even in orangutan slang, Julie did very well. Three and a half. Congratulations, Julie. Thank you so much.

Thanks for joining us. Take care. You as well. Okay. Bye-bye. Now it's time to move on to our final game, Lightning Fill in the Blank.

Each of our players will have 60 seconds in which to answer as many fill-in-the-blank questions as they can. Each correct answer now worth two points. Bill, can you give me the scores? Roxanne has two. Luke has three. Emmy has three. That means, Roxanne, you are in third place for the moment. The clock will start when I begin your first question. Fill in the blank. On Wednesday, the U.S. formally accused Blank of war crimes. Vladimir Putin.

Right. Well, Russia, on Tuesday, Justin Trudeau reached an agreement to remain prime minister of Blank until 2025. Of Canada. Right. This week, a recently resigned Manhattan prosecutor said that Blank was indeed guilty of numerous felonies, in his opinion. Donald Trump. Right. On Wednesday, the U.S. consulate in Russia said that WNBA star Blank was in good health.

Gritty? Gritty? No, it's Brittany Grinner, but I'll give it to you. This week, a burglar in Miami broke into a shoe store and got away with Blank. Shoe store got away with candy. No, 20 shoes, all of them left-footed. They're the ones they display, right? On Monday, Shanghai Disneyland closed as China continued to battle a new surge of blank.

COVID. Right. On Tuesday, number one-ranked Ashley Barty announced her retirement from blank. From professional tennis. Right. This week, a woman in Brazil was rushed to the hospital after she refused to blank in front of her boyfriend. Pass gas. Yes, indeed.

And thank you for being so genteel about it. The 27-year-old was hospitalized with trapped gas buildup because she was too embarrassed to pass the gas in front of her boyfriend. Still, her boyfriend was super supportive about the whole thing, saying, don't worry, babe. I do it enough for both of us. Bill, how did Roxanne do in our quiz? Very well. She has seven right for 14 more points. She now has 16 and the lead.

All right. Arbitrarily choose Ms. Blotnick to go next. Here we go. Fill in the blank. On Thursday, the White House announced it would be accepting 100,000 blanks from Ukraine. Refugees? Right. This week, Moderna said that a trial showed that their blank was safe for use in young children. Vaccine? Yes, on Wednesday, Donald Trump pulled his endorsement of Alabama Representative Blank in the race for Senate there. Mo Brooks? Yes, this week it was revealed that the Miami City government spent $350,000 installing lights in a public park that blanks. Closes? At sundown, that's right. This week, the governor of California proposed offering free blank cards for struggling drivers.

Uh, gas? Yeah, prepaid gas cards. This week, a couple in North Carolina returned their new dog to a local shelter because they were worried that it was blank. A cat? No, they were worried that it was gay. A male dog was adopted by a couple in North Carolina who were shocked to see their dog humping another male dog. And they decided that dog must be gay rather than, just as experts would have told them, a dog. Bill, how did Emmy do on our quiz?

She got five right. For ten more points, she now has 13. But Rox still has the lead with 16. All right. How many right does Luke need to reach out and grasp that crown? Seven come 11, Luke. All right. All right, here we go.

This is for the game, Luke. Fill in the blank. On Sunday, the Supreme Court announced that Justice Blank had been hospitalized with an infection. Clarence Thomas. Yes. On Tuesday, a Russian court convicted Putin critic Blank to an additional nine years in prison. Navalny. Right. On this week, Madeleine Albright, to an additional nine years in prison. Navalny. Right.

On this week, Madeleine Albright, the first female blank, passed away at 84. Secretary of State. Yes. On Monday, the chair of the Federal Reserve said they were taking the necessary steps to address blank. Inflation. Right. This week, a completely paralyzed and speechless patient communicating to a revolutionary brain implant blanked. Said, leave me alone no he

asked to listen to the band tool on thursday health officials said the human risk of catching the blank flu remained low um avian yeah bird flu according to a new report u.s blank claims dropped to their lowest level since 1969 unemployment right while in the middle of a live broadcast the reporter in oh Ohio was interrupted by blank. His mom driving by. Yes, indeed. The man was in the middle of doing a live report from the street when his mom pulled up and yelled, Hi, baby.

The reporter seemed a bit flustered by the interruption, but fortunately the story was on breaking news about super awesome mom, so it actually worked out perfectly. Bill, did Luke do well enough to win this? We're still calculating because it's very, very close. He had seven right for 14 more points, which means with 17, he's this week's champion. Whoa!

Whoa! That's like, you know, when you win a game that Roxanne is a part of, that is you know, that's like beating the goat, and I don't mean the like robotic one that kind of sucked them, Bill. No, no, you know, when you win a game that Roxanne is a part of, that is, you know, that's like beating the goat. And I don't mean the like robotic one that kind of sucked them built. I mean the greatest of all time. I know. In just a minute, we're going to ask our panelists to predict what ridiculous question will be asked of the next Supreme Court nominee.

But first, let me tell you that Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me is a production of NPR and wbez chicago in association with urgent haircut productions doug berman benevolent overlord philip gotica writes our limericks our tour manager is shana donald bj liederman composed our theme our program is produced by jennifer mills miles dorn boss lillian king and nancy seichau our production assistant is sophie hernandez the munithis special thanks to vinnie thomas peter gwynn is pedantic baker technical direction is from Lorna White, our CFO is Colin Miller. Our production manager is Robert Newhouse, our senior producer is Ian Chilog, and the executive producer of Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me is Michael Danforth. Now panel, what will they ask the next Supreme Court nominee? Roxanne Roberts. Coke or Pepsi? Thin crust pizza

or deep dish? Cats or dogs? And does the paper on toilet rolls go over or under? Luke Burbank. The original and reigning dumbest question of all time. Is a hot dog a sandwich? And Emmy Blotnick. Are you ready for some football? If any of that

happens, we'll ask you about it on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. Thank you, Bill Curtis. Thanks also to Roxanne Roberts, Luke Burbank, and Amy Blotnick. Thanks to all of you for listening. I am Peter Sagal, and we'll see you right here next week. This is NPR.