ZM's Fletch, Vaughan & Hayley - Fletch, Vaughan & Hayley's Fact of the Day (of the Week!) - Christmas Week!

Episode Date: December 14, 2023

On This FOTD(OTW): Vaughan dons his Santa Suit, and delivers a full week of Christmas Facts!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The ZM Podcast Network. Play ZM's Fletch, Vaughn and Hayley. On today's Fact of the Day of the Week, Father Vaughn Miss loads up the sleigh and delivers Christmas facts all over the world in one night. It's time for... FACT OF THE DAY, DAY, day, day, day. Even though I said I wasn't going to do it, I'm doing it.

Damn it. It's Christmas week. Yay! Fact of the day. He's not a Grinch. I've done Christmas week before and now last week on air in the lead up to Christmas and found out like really awesome.

This is where I learned about the Yule Cat. Oh yeah. Which is like Iceland's got this Yule Cat that goes around and does bad things to people who didn't do their job and stuff. It was just a real, keep people on their toes, keep them working for the greater good of Iceland.

And I love the Yule Cat now. But this week, Christmas week, it's going to be a bit harder having done it before. I like to find a quirky fact that isn't printed on Christmas crackers and such. Well, I have a fact about the world's biggest ever Christmas present.

What do you think is the world's biggest ever Christmas present? An island. A is the world's biggest ever Christmas present? A country. No. A ship. It's something that was made. It was made in the 1800s. And it was a gift from one country to another country.

Oh, the Statue of Liberty. Statue of Liberty, correct. Yeah! Of course! From Paris. I guessed it. Soue of Liberty, correct. Yeah! Of course! From Paris! So France proposed a gift to the United States to say well done on your commitment to democracy. Are they going to take it back in a few years? Yeah, I wonder if they're going to melt it down

because that copper would be worth a fortune now. And to sort of honour Abraham Lincoln. So the Statue of Liberty was a Christmas present. Huh. Because they said to Yuletide greetings, this is our Christmas present to you. And it was actually copper before it went oxidised. Yeah, yeah, it oxidised.

They knew that was going to happen. That wasn't an unexpected by-product. They knew it was going to happen. But yeah, when they first made the Statue of Liberty, it looked more coppery and more gingery and gold. Oh, that's making all of our Christmas presents this season look pretty bad, isn't it? Yeah. I just got a Dilly Pony sandbag, speak for yourself.

I'd rather that than a big, ugly statue. I was going to go to a construction site this weekend and steal a whole lot of copper piping, melt it down, make a statue out of it and give it to... Where's Fletch going to put it? It's really weird because when you say that, you can tell Fletch who's never even probably dealt with the piping in his house versus someone who's dealing with piping.

Don't do that. Don't even joke about that. Why would you joke about that? Don't joke about stealing. No. Yeah. I've had that before. Don't do that.

Yeah. So today's fact of the day is the world's biggest Christmas gift was from France to the United States, and it was the Statue of Liberty. Play. ZM's Fletch Vaughan and Hayley. world's biggest Christmas gift was from France to the United States, and it was the Statue of Liberty. Today's Fact of the Day is about the origins of the candy cane, because somebody messaged me and said- It's Christmas week. It is Christmas week at Fact of the Day.

Sorry, I do apologize if you missed yesterday's show. We've got some new listeners, remember, and we're really, they're on the cusp of turning us off. Yeah, yeah. Well, hang in there. This is Fact of the Day, a little segment where I try to tell you something maybe you didn't know. Maybe you already knew it.

Maybe you didn't. Well, somebody messaged me saying, here's a fact for you, Fact of the Day, Christmas week. Well, they don't talk like that. How dare you? I rang them, and this is exactly what they sounded like. Oh, really? Yeah, yeah.

Oh, thank you. I called them. I said, hello. I'm just, here it is. Did you know candy canes look like a J because the J stands for Jesus? And I said,

absolutely, that is not true. That's not true. It's a shepherd's crook. Crook. A hundred percent. It's based on a shepherd's crook. Yeah.

So I did some research to give you the origins of the Christmas candy cane. Okay. 1670. Yep. That's 1670. Yep. That's a long time ago.

I barely remember. In Bad Sleham. In Cologne, Germany. Oh, okay. Now, I'm not sure. I've never been to Cologne, Germany. In Cologny. It may be Cologny,

but I also think, was it the place where Cologne was invented? Oh, maybe it was was hence why it's called cologne because germans famously if they invent something they just name it after where it was invented hamburg invented the hamburgers cologne frankfurt yeah the frankfurters madrid invented the madrid's in spain madridi daddy duty colognedooty Is the fourth largest Have you been to Cologne? It looks lovely No I have not Was

Sight This is another thing You'll enjoy new listeners About Fact of the Day Often during Fact of the Day We get a little bit Side-tracked Yeah we get sub-facty

Don't we? Yeah was Cologne Invented in Cologne? The answer is Cologne is named after The place where it was invented The city of Cologne In Germany

There you go Traditionally It uses a lot of citrus And natural floral scents The original Cologne From Cologne in Germany. There you go. Traditionally, it uses a lot of citrus and natural floral scents. The original cologne from Cologne was designed to smell like an Italian spring morning of that morning daffodils, mountain daffodils, and orange blossoms after the rain. Lovely. Full noise.

We're learning today, aren't we? There's going to be a week next week, next year, for Fact of the Day, and it's going to be places named after where they were invented. Oh, yeah, great. I love that. Great, we've got Cologne and Champagne. Write that in your calendar because you will forget that. I'll write that down.

Carwin! I'll write that down, Carwin. Take a note. You're on your phone. The others are working. Get off your phone. No. Get off your phone. I'm on my phone taking a note. Are you doing it on your phone? This is how the kids take notes.

On their phones. Yeah, good. Wild. Making a check. Good onist. Are you doing it on your phone? She's taking a note. This is how the kids take notes, on their phones. Yeah, good. Wild. Wild. Making a check. Good on you. Thank you very much. Next week. Origin Week.

Named after where it's from. We're not here next week. Back to the candy cane. Next year. Next year. I mean, next year. I'm not coming in next week. Hey, hey, I'm not coming in next week.

It's 1670 in Cologne, Germany, and the choir master at the Cologne Cathedral, which I can only imagine smells lovely. Yeah. and the choir master at the Cologne Cathedral, which I can only imagine smells lovely, has a problem with the nativity scene, the live-in Christ tradition of Christmas Eve. Their little baby Jesus and all the kids sit around and there's three wise men and it's a cute little dress-up situation. Well, those kids wouldn't shut the hell up.

And there was a choir singing and these kids are like, I didn't want to be Jesus. I wanted to be Mary. Shut up. And they're talking and they're chattering. So he's like, I need something for them to suck on to shush their mouths. So he went to a local candy maker and said, I need a sugar stick to keep the children entertained.

So it needs to last. I can't give them a quick hit lolly. I can't give them a fruit burst. A minty won't do. I can't give them a fruit burst. A minty won't do. I can't give them a jube. A minty, we're heading in the right direction. Your minty's five minutes max. I'm imagining when it was invented,

because they've always been peppermint flavoured, is that that was quite a nice flavour. But nowadays it's not the best. Yeah, wouldn't be your number one. So he goes to the local candy maker and he says, I need a sugar stick. I want it to be different. And I want it to have a tie in.

So he's like, well, there's shepherds everywhere in the Bible in a very easy shape to make. Or shepherds watch their flock by night. Would be the crook of the shepherd's crook. So he did that. And then the kids could hold it by the crook and suck on the end. I wonder if that point if they realized that if you twist it in your mouth, you could make a sharp end and stab another kid.

So apparently he just took off. Yeah, you can. They got these kids, and they were quiet, and the choir sung, and everyone was like, great. And he's like, I might start selling these. Not like the church to want to make a bit of money on the side. And he started selling it, and it took off, so it spread from Germany to other parts of Europe

and that's the origin story of the candy cane. That's a good fact of the day from you today. It's really good. So today's fact of the day is the candy cane isn't a J for Jesus.

It's a shepherd's crook and it was invented in Cologne, Germany. Today's fact of the day. You probably actually just need to check if there's been an update on Ancestry.com actually, guys. Because we're going to Norway. And I know that's a big... We compete regularly for our...

Nordic roots. So many downgrades to my Nordic roots in the last year. I know. It's horrible. I'm sweet in Denmark, so I'm next door to Norway. Yeah, okay. And I'm rocking at 11%.

That might have popped up. I'm as much Irish as I am Swedish now. Well, there has been a state though. Who to talk it? Who to talk it? Okay, I'm 2% Norwegian and I'm 3% Swedish Denmark. Well, then this Christmas you're going to need to hide your brooms.

Oh, no. I don't actually own a broom. I don't own a broom. You don't own a broom? Or a mop? I own a mop. Is it an electric mop? What kind of mop is that?

It's just you hold it with your hands and push it back and forth. Is it a sponge one? Yeah, it's a sponge one. You push it and you fold it in half. No matter how many times you squeeze the sponge, still water comes out. More water will come out. That's sponges, baby.

They're super absorbent, man. They're absorbent, man. Well, Christmas Eve is massive in Norway. Hlaften. What? He's just having a shot at that. Hlaften. Sure.

J-U-L-A-F-T-E-N. Hlaften. Sorry to the national government. I'm speaking the language they probably don't understand. Or be able to comprehend. So it's a massive night. It's sort of the bigger event than Christmas itself. You have a main Christmas feast that evening.

You open presents that evening. You sing Christmas carols. And it is very important You hide your brooms As this is the night the Norwegian folklore says Witches and mischievous spirits Will come down To your house

But they need to make a speedy getaway So they can't because you hide the broom Oh fantastic Could you still leave the broom out in the kitchen But tie it with string or a rope? So the witch is like flying away and then it jams and she goes... Falls down.

Well, she'll be able to fly though. She's a real witch. And if she's not, well, she's dead anyway. That was the same process for the witch trials. If she drowns, then she's not a witch. But if she survives, she's a witch and we'll kill her another way. And they're all drowned. Dead other way. She's not a witch. But if she survives, she's a witch and we'll kill her another way. And they're all drowned. Dead other way.

Well, at least she's not a witch. It was a weird time. Apparently Norway had quite intense witch trials too. Did they? You didn't hear about them as much as the Salem witch trials. Yeah, right. So today's fact of the day for Christmas week is on Christmas Eve, Norwegians eat lots, sing carols, and hide their brooms from the witches.

Now, this one, right up your alley, Mr. Don't point at me like that. Don't talk about his alley like that. Don't talk about my alley like that, sis. You don't know his alley. Well, no, Mr. Duolingo. Oh, he's been doing his CPAP because he doesn't know what dolphin is in Spanish. Oh, dolphin.

No, it's got an S in it. Delphin. I don't think it's dolphin. I think it's a dolphin. It's a dolphin. We've got a dolphin. There's a dolphin on the loose. Maybe next time.

I will ask the troops. The Luftwaffe will hunt the dolphins. Maybe next time we'll do German on Duolingo. It's just a lot of yelling. You just yelled at it. Just a lot of yell. So what would C-A, write this down. C-A-G-A-N-E-R. Now this is from Caginger.

Catalan. I don't know. It's a Spanish. Yeah, but Spanish, that's different than Latin Spanish, slightly. Is this the poop thing? It's the poop thing! Dude, I read this. It's the poop thing.

This stumbled across me yesterday and I was like, what? Used to me. Every fact of the day this week is Christmas. It's Christmas. It's Christmas. Yes. So let me tell you about, how would you say that? I don't know.

I haven't done that onto a lingo yet, Vaughan. Haganah is a figurine depicted in the act of taking a dump appearing in nativity scenes in Catalonia and neighboring areas with Catalan culture, such as Andorra, Valencia, and Northern Catalonia. Yeah. And Southern France. So this- They're in like nativity scene.

El Cagara. Literally means the pooper. Or what have you got there? You got the pronunciation. Hit it. Oh, the pronunciation videos always have a bit of silence at the start. Oh, there he is. Kagane.

Al-Kagane. Al-Kagane. He was too smiley. Calm down. It's just a YouTube video. It's this tradition of putting someone in the nativity scene. You've got your baby Jesus, sometimes in the arms of the Virgin Mary, but predominantly in the straw manger. Yep. You've got Mary. You've got your baby Jesus, sometimes in the arms of the Virgin Mary, but predominantly in the straw manger.

Yep. You've got Mary. You've got Joseph. You've got an array of donkeys and sheep and animals that were in the stables. And you've got the three wise men. And you've got someone taking a dump in the corner. That's brilliant. They're just like, this is just a Christmas tradition.

Yeah. It's so good. So the possible reasons, because everybody's just like, don't know, we've just always done it. The haganai is creating feces and fertilizing the earth.

According to the ethnographer, Joan Amadeus, it was a customary figure in nativity scenes in the 19th century because people believed that this deposit symbolically fertilizing the ground of the nativity scenes, which became fertile and ensured the nativity scenes in the 19th century because people believed that this deposit symbolically fertilising the ground

of the nativity scenes, which became fertile and ensued the nativity scene for the following year. And with it, the health of body and peace of mind required to make the nativity scene with the joy and happiness brought on by the Christmas near the half. They're so weird, that little figurines.

And you can buy them. You can buy, there's so many online, there's famous people that you can buy. Yes. That's a Real Madrid football one of a football day in a shed. So that's... That's so many online, there's famous people that you can buy. Yes. That's a Real Madrid football one of a football attention. So that's... That is so weird.

That's the other thing is that it became, if you would imagine if someone made a small miniature of you doing a poop, it would be an insult. Au contraire. No, it's not. What's that, French? More Duolingo. Oui.

Au contraire. It is an honour to be the El Cajonere. Like if we were a radio station in Spain, we would each have a figurine probably. It would be a sitter. I wish we did. That would be so cool. It would be so cool.

Yeah. It would be a sitter or a squatter. A squatter and a pooper. So today's fact of the day, and I just, I am 100% adopting. Ding the bell. I'm adopting this. Gone. You can't.

But absolutely, a Vaughan 10 out of 10. What was I talking about? The pooper. This is a tradition I think we should get on board with. I don't even have a nativity scene but now I just want one to then have a pooper. So today's fact of the day is the Spanish have a cultural

practice amongst their nativity scene to have someone there doing a poo. Play ZM's Fletch Vaughan and Hayley. Play ZM. Eggnog, ladies and gentlemen. Boys and girls. Yuck. Humans of the world. So yuck. I like egg whites and frothy, like sour cocktails and stuff

because it's about the texture. But an egg-based drink. Oh, yeah. It's real eggy. We were, it was 1995, and my friend Orban was, we were at high school, end of first year of high school, and he came and stayed at my house before Christmas. And he said to my mum, can we make eggnog?

And my mum, never heard of it, was like, yeah, help yourself. So we made boozy eggnog, and us 13-year-olds were just like, I like my eggnog. And my mum was like, that's boozy. I think we were making it with brandy or rum. Right. So the original eggnog is derived from a drink that was massive in Britain called POSET, P-O-S-E-T.

It was the drink of, like, wealthy people because of the ingredients in it. Oh, yeah. It needed eggs, which, you know, weren't easy to come by to just chuck in a drink. If you had eggs, you were generally trying to feed your family with them, not just using them willy-nilly in a drink. It also had alcohol. It had dairy products. Oh, yeah.

Which were very expensive and, again, used for practical purposes, not willy-nilly, a fun little drink. So in England, it was like the drink of the upper class, the pusset. Ew. Now, when America really made eggnog pop off, because when it got there, the tariffs on the booze that was part of eggnog were too because when it got there the tariffs on the booze that was part of eggnog were too expensive so they started using Caribbean rum

for the eggnog and so you can use rum and eggnog and due to just being like everybody there saying we're so much better than back home and this is the land of the free and the plenty everybody would save up all of their bits

and just before Christmas make this luxurious drink. Right. To be like, ha-ha, it's the festive season and we're showing look how well we're doing by drinking eggnog. So that's when it became like associated to Christmas rather than just a posh dessert drink that you might have. And so people would save up all of their resource to the eggs and everything to be able to have it at Christmas.

Wild. Just give me an RTD any day, I'll be happy. Yeah. Yeah, do you know what I mean? Or just like pop a little salve or whatever. Yeah. Happy with literally anything else other than eggnog. Eggnog's gross.

Americans spend, they buy 53.5 million bottles of eggnog a year. You can buy it pre-bottled and that's even worse. $185 million on eggnog and that doesn't include the Americans that would be making their own eggnog at home which is you know

the tradition of it. I looked up a recipe and it was like six large egg yolks and you're like oh yuck really? It's a creamy, it's a custody, creamy, boozy, syrupy mess. But the Americans can't get enough of it. So today's fact of the day is eggnog became associated with Christmas because everybody wanted to basically put their best foot forward at Christmas and look a little bit bougie.

Fact of the day, day, day, day, day.