0:00

Hi,

0:01

everyone. Welcome to this week's episode of NoSuch

0:03

Things A 469. We have another very

0:05

special guest for you today. And that

0:07

guest is our very good friend

0:09

Lucy Carter. You will remember

0:12

Lucy from previous episodes on 469. I

0:14

know you'll love her. She's so smart. She's so

0:16

469. In fact, she's got a stand up show that

0:18

is touring at this very moment, which

0:20

is called wake up call. And

0:23

really, I'll be honest. The best way to find out

0:25

about that is to Google Lucy Potter

0:27

wake up call and you'll find all the dates, but

0:29

she's doing the whole of the UK. It's definitely

0:31

a show that's worth going to see. She also

0:33

has a podcast 469 fingers on

0:35

buzzers. It's all about quizzing

0:38

and she does that with my very good old

0:40

469, Jenny Ryan. It's a brilliant podcast.

0:42

So listen to that. And she has

0:45

a radio 469 stand up special

0:47

called Lucy Potter's Lucky Hip,

0:49

which is going out at eleven thirty on

0:51

March the fifteenth It'll probably

0:53

be on the BBC Sound app after that.

0:55

So again, Google movie characters looking

0:58

at it and you'll find that. And apart from that,

1:00

just enjoy the

1:00

show. So nothing more to say, apart from

1:03

on with the podcast. On with the show.

1:05

Oh, hi, Andy. I've been here the whole time.

1:21

Hello, and welcome to another episode

1:23

of no such thing as a 469 a weekly

1:26

podcast coming to you from the QI offices

1:28

in Cover Garden. My name is Dan

1:30

Schreiber. I am sitting here with Andrew Hunt to

1:32

Murray, James Harkin, and Lucy

1:34

Porter. And once again, we have gathered

1:36

around the microphones with our four favorite

1:38

469 from the last seven days and in a particular

1:41

order, here we go. Starting

1:43

with fact number one and that is my

1:45

469. My fact this week is that it took

1:48

the creator of the Rubik's cube

1:50

a month to solve it the first

1:52

time he

1:52

tried.

1:53

That is my on the mind

1:55

of really trying as well. So crazy. You

1:57

have to I would have thought after about twenty

2:00

or thirty days, you would just make a new one

2:02

if

2:02

inventing.

2:03

I want this doesn't work. So,

2:06

yeah, invented nineteen seventy 469. He

2:08

was a professor and he just had this

2:10

idea dear, what if I could make

2:12

something that was static on the inside, but fluid

2:14

on the outside, and that's what gave him the idea.

2:16

Yeah. And he had bashed it. It's later been

2:18

worked out. Quite a famous number if you know Rubik's

2:21

cubes, that forty three quintillion is

2:23

the number of permutations that

2:25

you can make on the Rubik's

2:28

cube. And so luckily, he got there within

2:30

a month.

2:30

Yeah. That

2:31

is pretty good. Well, I'll tell you what's weird. His prototype

2:34

wasn't three by three. His prototype

2:37

was two by

2:37

two. So I've got And that took him

2:39

a month. That's the thing. Well, I'm curious to know

2:41

if this is the one that took him a month because

2:44

this is Okay. So Dan's showing as an

2:46

image and it's like four wooden

2:48

blocks --

2:48

Yeah. -- that I've got various colors

2:50

and numbers on it, and they're held together almost

2:52

by bits of wire. Yeah. There's a wire

2:55

meshing inside. And he

2:57

took a month to do Hey Rubik's

3:00

must be the three by three. It must be the three

3:02

by three. That one's piss

3:03

easy. Yeah. Because we're tough 469 to make that.

3:05

You're

3:05

clever enough to solve it. Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

3:07

You can

3:08

do a reverse cube,

3:09

James. I can. I think

3:10

you can Lucy. I well, I yeah.

3:13

My children are obsessed with them. We've got the hundreds

3:15

in the house and all those weird, you know, there's,

3:17

like, weird, different shaped ones

3:19

and mirror ones where there's apps

3:21

absolutely know --

3:23

Oh. -- colors on it and stuff. So this is

3:25

a long way of me saying I should

3:27

be.

3:28

And I have at one point been Wait a second because

3:30

Jane you know, I don't wanna do this one. Why

3:32

that one's tough because it's got, like, dance

3:35

mixing up one from the transport museum.

3:37

I'd rather do the one with the colors. James, you did

3:39

the one with the with the colors. I think it's about

3:41

the Rubis cube is that I find that

3:43

when you're under

3:44

pressure, it's almost impossible. Yes. Because

3:46

you do it kind of with muscle memory.

3:48

Yes. And then as soon as

3:50

you start thinking about it, you can't really do it

3:52

at all. Yeah. I made a terrible decision when

3:54

because I did learn to do it when my kids got into

3:56

it. And then I decided we were doing a live

3:58

podcast recording 469 fingers on buzzers.

4:00

And I I said, oh, I see what'll be fun. I'll

4:02

solve for you this key role. We did this throughout.

4:05

And it took about fifteen minutes.

4:08

That's an algorithm, basically. It's like a

4:10

set pattern of moves that will help you

4:12

work on the side you're working

4:13

on. But layers, that's the key. Yeah.

4:15

Exactly. Lay is not so idea. So he's gonna

4:17

see at the moment

4:18

that I've done the bottom layer -- Right. -- on

4:20

the bottom layer. Right. Right. And then you do the middle one, then

4:22

you do the top one. I

4:23

remember when we went on the only connect and

4:25

they asked you the 469 about yourself. And

4:27

my fact was that I could do a Rubik's cube in less

4:29

than a minute. Mhmm. And the team that we are playing

4:32

with apparently one of them said that you could do

4:34

three Rubik's cube and thirty

4:35

seconds. They

4:37

decide they weren't gonna use that 469. They

4:40

do look pretty foolish. Yeah. But it's

4:43

it's huge. This speed queuing because we had

4:45

to get a timer so that

4:47

we could record my kids' time. And

4:49

also, my kids said, oh, can we

4:51

have some cube lube?

4:54

And that's the moment that I was like, well,

4:56

I'm sorry.

4:56

It's a mother you got or worried.

4:59

Could we have some cube cubes.

5:00

there a brand? Is it a specifically sold

5:02

lube?

5:02

There is one of the best cube lube. We didn't

5:04

get good cube lubes.

5:05

We got cube lubes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We got

5:07

dodgy cube blue. And

5:08

it's allowed as well. It's it's allowed in competition.

5:11

Yeah. Yeah. You're like chalk

5:12

on your hands 469 you're an ass. Yes. Well,

5:14

there's just over a piece about the

5:16

know, there are so many cubes. The world There you

5:18

go. But let's say James have just completed

5:20

the

5:20

reveal. That's why

5:21

I've been silent for the last three minutes. Yeah. But

5:23

by the time I've had it this. It'll be about twenty

5:25

seconds. But

5:28

the the and it just listed the the GaN 356I

5:30

carry, the Moiou RS three m Maglev,

5:33

the GaN eleven m Pro. And it's all there's

5:35

there's kind of a 469 of cubing --

5:37

Yep. -- the

5:37

Worldcube Association. It's

5:40

like corrupt. You should get

5:42

corrupt millions and millions of dollars change

5:44

hands. So nineteen eighty

5:46

one, the top selling book America

5:48

was a book that was called the simple solution

5:50

to Rubik's cube. Sold six million copies,

5:53

and it was the number one book of the

5:55

year. It was massive. Guy called James Gene

5:57

Nord He was a professor. He did it as a pamphlet

5:59

for his university, and then someone saw it.

6:01

So can you expand that into a, like, sixty

6:04

four page book? So it wasn't that page? And

6:06

it was double the expansion of the pamphlet.

6:08

And so he published it and in

6:10

it, he gives categories

6:13

of what you're labeled as as Cuba

6:15

469 you managed to do it in certain times. So

6:17

this is nineteen eighty one, twenty minutes. If

6:19

you did it in that time, you were a whiz. Ten

6:21

minutes, you were a speed demon. Five

6:24

minutes, you were an expert in three minutes,

6:26

you were an MC, the master of the q.

6:28

Oh, that's why and then I can do that. Yeah. You're a master

6:30

of the q. Well, in the eighties, you In the eighties.

6:33

It's not it's actually been updated.

6:35

So two thousand and thirty, you're now adult.

6:37

Oh, yeah. 469.

6:39

Well, you James, if you take longer than

6:42

sixty seconds,

6:42

I do. It takes probably about a a minute

6:44

and a half. Okay. I'm afraid you don't even qualify

6:47

as a whiz at this point. Whereas

6:49

a whiz was twenty minutes, it's now sixty

6:51

seconds.

6:51

Oh, my god. Demon has gone from ten minutes

6:53

to forty seconds. Oh my god. A expert

6:55

has gone from five minutes to fifteen to

6:57

twenty five seconds and the master of the

6:59

cube, which now called World Champion 469 three

7:01

minutes to three to five seconds.

7:03

Amazing the 469.

7:04

Isn't it? I can't even pick it up within three

7:07

seconds. My old arthritic

7:09

fingers.

7:09

But I because I remember, you know, I remember

7:12

the original craze.

7:13

In the eighties, I'm old enough for that, and it was but

7:15

it was one of those things that boys

7:17

would learn to

7:18

do, and this is a terrible sexist generalization, but

7:20

it did tend to be boys would learn to do it thinking it will

7:23

really impress the girls. And

7:24

-- Yeah. -- we will

7:25

go girls just went, man. I

7:27

found that I've never ever impressed a girl with

7:30

the Rubik's cube. I impressed the QA's

7:32

accountant

7:33

once. Oh, yeah. With a few Rubik's Cube's

7:35

tricks. Yeah. It wasn't my type.

7:38

I did because I brought mine in today, so I did

7:40

sit on the tube doing it.

7:42

And you people don't look you with

7:44

admiration. Oh, yeah. It's

7:47

it's pity. No. We're going no.

7:49

Honey Honeywell just have to get up with the next time

7:52

I need her. Is she gonna the

7:55

the craze just as unbelievable

7:58

the eighties craze. So it was the UK

8:00

toy of the year in nineteen eighty and then again

8:02

in nineteen

8:03

eighty one.

8:03

Wow. Is it they just thought, we're gonna give it to the

8:05

queue again? Yeah. Give nothing

8:07

better. So, Dan, you're mentioning the books

8:09

that sold

8:09

them very really

8:10

well. So at one point in nineteen

8:12

eighty I think it was four or five different books

8:14

on the New York Times bestsellers list were Rubik's

8:16

cube books. Yeah. There

8:18

was

8:18

a boy called Patrick Bossett who

8:21

was thirteen years old and wrote a book called you can

8:23

do the cube and

8:24

sold nearly a million copies of it. He was the

8:26

youngest ever author on the New York Times bestseller

8:29

list. And it kinda came from nowhere. Right?

8:31

Like Dan says it was invented in nineteen seventy

8:33

four and this was nineteen eighty and nineteen eighty

8:35

one though it was absolutely huge. I looked at

8:37

some of newspaper archives and the first mention

8:39

of it. It doesn't even call it the Rubik's cube. It

8:41

calls it Hungarian magic cube.

8:43

And this was in nineteen seventy nine.

8:46

This is in the observe other. And they said that

8:48

at 469, most people tried to take the Cuba

8:50

Parts, but that is not the object. And

8:53

it said 469 you even get one 469 done,

8:56

of the cube in twenty minutes than you've

8:58

done well. And it says, but there are

9:00

several people brackets well at least three

9:02

that are able to solve the cube in less 469

9:05

minutes. Right. Oh, wow. Dan, you mentioned

9:07

that there were forty three quintillion different

9:09

states that you can have. The

9:11

newspaper said and this was in nineteen seventy

9:14

nine, At one per microsecond, a

9:16

computer would take around three thousand

9:18

million years to count up the number

9:20

of states. Wow. And

9:23

in twenty twenty two, we

9:25

got the first ever quintillion per second

9:27

computer. So today, a

9:29

computer could reach it in just under a minute.

9:32

I think what's extraordinary? The numbers

9:34

are so bamboozling big. It's about like

9:36

those I remember reading an interview with Erna

9:38

Rubik where he was talking about the fact that

9:40

he'd invented more kinds of Rubik cubes

9:42

now. And there

9:43

was a snake Rubik's cube that he'd invented.

9:45

Did you buy that Lucy

9:46

up?

9:47

did have a

9:48

Rubik's snake, which sounds a bit dodgy.

9:51

Yeah.

9:51

Yeah.

9:51

Why don't the colors look on all the Rubik's tube?

9:54

Sorry. It's very nice to that. But

9:56

he he said that and this one has potentially

9:59

even more permutations the guy writing

10:01

the article this way. Man, once you've once

10:03

you've hit forty three quintillion, I'm

10:05

not impressed, anymore. But what's

10:07

interesting? I so very randomly,

10:10

day before yesterday, I bumped into

10:13

a Rubik's cube Guinness World record holder.

10:15

Mhmm. He's a guy called George.

10:17

He holds two records, one which he just

10:19

done, which I'm not allowed to reveal. Oh,

10:21

no. I don't. called that. I've got secrets like

10:24

Rubik's cube gosh. I'll tell you guys after the

10:26

show. The other one is that

10:28

he has the most Rubik cubes

10:30

solved while riding on a skateboard or

10:33

I think like an hour or

10:34

something. He did like five hundred of them just going

10:36

around the skate park. Quick question then. Yeah.

10:38

Does it did he have on him a a

10:40

bag of five hundred Rubik's cubes? Which

10:43

he then had to get out of those gate

10:44

boards. No. He's a big sack of yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

10:46

He wasn't yeah. He wasn't like Santa. Yeah.

10:48

He was Sure. He what he was was he had people

10:51

stationed around the skate park. So he'd hand the

10:53

salt one to the post and they would mix it back up

10:55

and he'd grab a new one because he was traveling around.

10:57

Yeah. So

10:58

they mix them back up again so use the same

11:00

one. Yes. Exactly.

11:01

feels kind of pointless.

11:02

It's like a punishment 469 the gold tax. Yeah. It's

11:04

disappear and this is Yes. Yeah. That's right.

11:06

Yeah. So he demonstrated one thing I found

11:08

amazing, which has to do with the bamboozling numbers.

11:10

If I took this right now and I mixed this

11:12

up to give to him to solve, whatever

11:14

I've just done here is a combination

11:16

that he will have never seen --

11:18

Yeah. -- in his life. Every combination

11:20

is unique because of the forty three quintilians.

11:22

Yeah. It just can't happen. Sorry.

11:29

I think what's extraordinary? Like when it started

11:31

getting big, there was a big concern

11:33

that is this thing solvable. So there was

11:35

a world fair that he was taken to.

11:37

And he's not a particular he's quite a philosophical

11:39

guy. He's quite sort of very serious and he

11:41

wasn't the best ambassador of

11:43

what this item

11:44

was, but they needed him there to prove

11:47

it could be solved. Otherwise, it was it

11:49

was the Americans? Was it yeah. They got

11:51

sent to an American toy company, and they thought this

11:53

is a good toy, but it probably can't actually be done.

11:55

And I think they sent a a new executive

11:57

to Budapest and Meet Rubik. So

11:59

if you can solve

12:00

this, we'll make it and we'll manufacture it and we'll distribute

12:02

it. And then they sold, what, hundred and

12:04

fifty million Yes. But they sold it

12:06

thanks to the most famous Hungarian at

12:08

the time. So Rubik obviously couldn't

12:11

really do all the press and 469. Great

12:13

questions. I have to go to Shajal

12:15

Gabor, but I can't admit was it? Absolutely.

12:18

Shajal Gabor. Yeah.

12:20

It's

12:20

really not a venn diagram amazing.

12:23

Right? So this is the earliest mention of

12:25

the actual phrase Rubik's cube I could find.

12:27

This was from nineteen eighty and Jaj

12:29

Algarve had put on a party for the Rubik's

12:32

cube, where she invited all of

12:34

her Hollywood friends with

12:36

a buffet of Hungarian delicacy said,

12:38

but it didn't say what I suppose Goulash, but I'm

12:40

not sure what else was there. And,

12:43

yeah, that was she was hired

12:45

by the ideal Thai operation to

12:47

promote the to promote the Rubik's

12:49

cube. And she said even if you can't solve

12:51

it, the cube tube 469 so good in your

12:53

hands, it may replace worry

12:55

beads. Oh,

12:56

nice. Oh, yeah. Like the original --

12:58

Right. -- fidget spinner or like a There's

13:01

a new that is true. 469 do

13:03

just play with the Rubik's cube, even if you don't solve

13:05

it, it's fun to play with

13:06

us. Yeah.

13:07

Yeah. Well, especially if you've got cube lube,

13:09

because really oh, it 469, you know.

13:11

I saw an interview with him from quite early,

13:13

and he said that children are better than adults

13:15

at solving it, which would you agree with

13:17

that, Lucy?

13:17

My own and total experience would bear that

13:19

hair. And who was saying all this? Was it Rubik? That was Rubik

13:22

was saying that he had a couple of reasons why

13:24

he thought that kids would be

13:25

better. No. It's more nimble,

13:27

risks. I think I think

13:30

469 terms, smaller

13:31

hands, so so, you know yeah.

13:33

I suppose 469 feel like, I always think with

13:35

technology. Mhmm. My kids will

13:37

just pick up anything and

13:39

go blah blah blah blah blah

13:40

blah. Whereas I am

13:42

hovering --

13:42

Yeah. --

13:44

and think I we overthink it a bit. So

13:46

maybe there's a sort of an incontinence.

13:49

I think overthinking is kind of one

13:51

thing he said. So he said it requires certain

13:53

innocence that children had. Because

13:56

adults will try out a pattern

13:58

and it doesn't quite work out and they'll just

14:00

never do that again. Whereas kids will keep

14:02

trying things and the fingers with the

14:04

Rubik's cube is it is all algorithms and it's just

14:06

repeating things again and again and again. And

14:08

so kids are good at that. He also said

14:10

that kids, and think this is probably quite

14:13

true, is certain kids anyway will get

14:15

very absorbed with one thing and

14:17

won't let anything else distract them. They'll just

14:19

kind of concentrate on it and do it. And the other

14:21

thing he said is that kids have good visual

14:23

memory, and that is true. Yeah. Children

14:25

can have much better visual. Until

14:28

around ten or 469 or

14:29

twelve, they have almost idetic memories

14:31

that they can just remember things really

14:33

well. Oh god that's interesting.

14:34

Do you say

14:35

anything about the risks? You

14:36

didn't mention their health failure. In Sweden.

14:41

Quezada, Rubik was Hungarian in

14:43

nineteen eight one, the spokesman at the Hungarian

14:46

embassy in London said the cube

14:48

is our secret weapon to pacify

14:50

the west. Wow.

14:53

There was even a cartoon. Did you guys see the cartoon

14:55

-- Yeah. -- Rubik's cube? It's a sentient Rubik's

14:57

cube that is a alien. Yeah. Yeah.

15:00

So great. And it was a a Rubik's cube

15:02

that was completely useless if it was out of position.

15:04

So and that could happen quite easily 469 a passing

15:06

pigeon knocked

15:07

it, you would just sort of go and it would become

15:09

useless. But if it was in its rightsold

15:12

state. It was this powerful

15:14

sentient thing. Did he change? Could he solve

15:16

himself or did he require He required.

15:19

Yeah. That's nice. That's good. So it's

15:21

called Rubik, the amazing cube. And

15:23

it has and there's I love it. It's IMDB page.

15:25

It has, you know, 469. One of the goofs

15:28

is even in its salt state the colors of

15:30

Rubik are often in the wrong

15:31

position. White is always across from yellow.

15:34

Correct? Yep. Yep. Yep.

15:35

Yeah. And so it says in

15:37

many of its souls States. The colors are sitting

15:39

next to each other. They shouldn't

15:40

be up.

15:41

So yeah. What a blue Big blue.

15:43

But yeah. But it was it was

15:45

actually it was not a long lasting series,

15:47

but

15:47

very much praised because the --

15:49

Yeah. -- bizarrely, it's like it's such a

15:51

long lasting 469. But

15:54

it would the family that the when trusted

15:56

with the Centimeters cube was a Latino

15:58

469, and that was not shown on TV

16:01

really back then. It was so it was a very progressive

16:03

show. It was seen as, you know, it's

16:05

nice to see a family who aren't white. You know, it's

16:07

the leads in a cartoon. But bring

16:09

it

16:09

back. That's what I'm saying.

16:11

They didn't answer 469 film in twenty ten, which I'm not

16:13

sure. Did they ever saw the lion's

16:15

eye? With loads of them. Lots of

16:18

them. They Lots of them. They made loads of ties, and they made

16:20

one or two like battleships they made patpatients got

16:22

made. Oh, yeah. But they also announced Ridley

16:25

Scott's monopoly, which I don't

16:27

think that happened, unless I really

16:29

missed it. But they're about to do Tetris

16:31

is a big series. Oh, yeah. That's a big Netflix

16:33

series, but Tetris

16:34

is a

16:35

I think Guess who would be a very good

16:37

one. Yeah. You

16:38

know, Very recognizable characters.

16:41

A mystery.

16:41

Do you him like a mystery? Yeah.

16:44

Because Did the suspect

16:46

wear a hat.

16:49

It's the weirdest follow-up

16:51

to knives out. Yeah. Operation,

16:55

that'd be another good one.

16:56

That'd be great one.

16:57

Operation. Yeah.

16:59

Gooling, harrowing medical shock.

17:02

It's this funny bowel movement. Yes.

17:05

Get the tweezers.

17:12

Stop the hookers. Stop the podcast. Hi,

17:15

everybody. Just wanted to let you know we are sponsored

17:17

this week by Gusto. Gusto.

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two months. Okay. I'm with

18:24

the podcast.

18:31

Okay. It is time for fact number

18:34

two, and that is Lucy.

18:36

It is this fact. On at least

18:38

three occasions in the last sixteen years.

18:41

The government of Shanghai has tried and

18:43

failed to stop people wearing pajamas

18:45

outdoors. Which

18:47

seems I mean, famously Chinese

18:50

authorities are

18:50

so, let's say, fair. Oh, man. I I

18:52

kind of felt me. Right. They've tried to 469 failed

18:55

is quite interesting. And it doesn't seem

18:57

much for the all powerful machinery of the state.

18:59

You can't even stop wearing the dominoes

19:01

out. I don't

19:01

think they sent the army in. I think

19:03

I don't know. Okay. But it's just

19:05

disapprovingly

19:06

said you shouldn't do this. That

19:07

way, haven't really tried then.

19:08

I think Yeah. There's been several attempts

19:10

because it's it's got a big thing particularly

19:12

in Shanghai for people to

19:15

wear pajamas out and about. And

19:17

it's they think it's partly

19:19

because in the early twentieth century, it was real

19:21

estate a simple to be able to afford

19:23

imported pajamas. So people would

19:27

take to the streets and 469 finally going, look, I can

19:29

afford these and slippets and -- Well,

19:31

They've got little teddy bears on them all

19:33

ever. And so it's it was

19:35

sort of a space symbol and then it's just become

19:37

a a thing. And, I mean, I'm all into

19:39

it because I wear pyjamas all times,

19:41

I'm doing tour at the moment, in which I wear

19:43

pyjamas. So I'm very much on the side. On

19:45

stage, you're at the pyjamas. Yes. Yes. Because I

19:47

decided during lockdown, there's nothing you

19:49

can't. Like, if I do as well

19:51

and the other person is wearing something smart,

19:54

I think you absolutely lose why

19:56

would you dress up to have a meeting in

19:58

your own home? Especially now, you think if they're

20:00

not wearing three layers in a blanket,

20:02

you think, oh, showing off can afford meeting.

20:05

So what you're doing then is possibly what they're doing

20:08

in China as well, which is you've

20:10

got daytime pajamas. And

20:12

then you'll go home and you probably have nighttime

20:14

pajamas. That you wear. Right? This is what they do in China.

20:16

So these aren't the pajamas they're waking up in

20:18

and just going out onto the

20:19

street. They'll get out their pajamas to

20:21

put on some pajamas to then go out to

20:24

really

20:24

Yeah.

20:24

They aren't the day wear 469 dramas. And I can't

20:26

say that for everyone, but that's for lot of being

20:28

just

20:29

it. To be honest, I would try and get away

20:31

with going, no. No. These are my fancy pyjamas.

20:33

They haven't why have they got Xtanes

20:35

all day long? No.

20:36

No. 469 didn't sleep in these. 469. Didn't

20:38

You

20:38

haven't done a school run or anything in your pajamas

20:40

recently? Would you know, I was on them five live

20:43

the other day because the prime minister's

20:45

wife had gone and done the school run-in her slippers.

20:48

Except they were, like, five hundred pounds

20:50

lip gloss over this. And 469 live phone mess

20:52

at all for our breakfast day tomorrow, if you want to do it,

20:54

get, you know, phone in should you be allowed

20:56

to wear slippers on the school around? And

20:58

of course, I'm desperate to break my tour. So I said

21:00

yes. But the great thing was

21:03

nobody cares. And it was one of those it's lovely

21:05

when you're part of a sort of supposedly controversial 469

21:07

that is not at all

21:08

controversial. Did

21:09

people just phone in and say, I don't care.

21:11

Yeah. They just said, well, you what you want. This is

21:13

a tangent. Do you know the most amazing radio phone

21:15

that I've ever heard? I was in a a,

21:17

like, a cab on the way somewhere or something. It was quite

21:19

long journey. This is twenty twenty. And

21:21

it was 469 we get a new

21:23

royal yacht. Right? Yeah. Should

21:26

prince Andrew be allowed to go with it.

21:28

Okay.

21:29

Yeah.

21:29

It's not

21:30

gonna be a New Royal yacht. It

21:31

was just not. No. Yeah. And people

21:33

had such strong 469. This

21:36

must have been in the first two months of twenty

21:38

twenty was. Yeah. Yeah.

21:42

The event overtook that

21:44

one. Well, how where

21:46

do you stand on which a prince Audrey

21:48

be allowed to be all you're

21:49

allowed. Oh

21:51

god, he's actually thinking about it. And

21:54

tricky, but isn't it? Because it's a 469 funded

21:56

yacht. Yeah. You 469? If they're buying their own yacht,

21:58

they can deal with the lion's

21:59

lives, I guess.

22:00

Yeah. But if we're if I'm paying for this yacht,

22:02

yeah, I think I am actually true about it. He

22:04

shouldn't be allowed to go on it.

22:07

What

22:07

if he's not allowed to come above decks? What if

22:09

he's only allowed in the I

22:10

think you should be allowed to be in steerage. That's

22:13

fine. That's

22:14

more work. You can't keep them, like, hidden in the basement.

22:16

You don't wanna get on that yacht in the discover Andrew.

22:21

Oh, god. No. They used the Tsai language on

22:23

the old royal yacht. Did they? Yeah. Because they

22:25

wanted to keep it quiet for the royals. So

22:27

they had this complicated system

22:29

of, like Waving at each other. Oh,

22:31

that's that's what the hell it is. Yeah. That's

22:33

not

22:33

you said that typical DSL sign language.

22:35

No. Sorry. They had a specific, like, a royal

22:38

yacht based hand language. Like

22:40

the people on Rainer when they need a new

22:42

set of

22:42

Pringles, they have a actual sign that they

22:44

make. Do

22:45

it? Yeah. Yeah. The attendance,

22:47

they have a secret sign language code

22:49

amazing. Whatever they 469 out

22:51

of. And just notice it now. Next time

22:53

a flight you'll Yeah. Yeah.

22:54

Do they make the shape of a hyperbolic paraboloid

22:56

for a

22:57

pickle? I don't know. I'm not

22:59

party to the coach. I just I

23:01

know that's

23:01

so good.

23:02

Like bookmakers, bookmakers, like

23:04

a tough air crew, though. Oh,

23:06

nice. Perfect hands. I can get us back to pajamas.

23:09

Gone. The other thing they did on the royal yacht was think they

23:11

wore soft sole shoes, the crew,

23:13

so they weren't stamping around the decks and presumably

23:15

infuriating princess Margaret or something. So

23:17

they they had a

23:18

specific, you know, everything was fine too.

23:20

Well, speaking of pajamas -- Oh, yeah. --

23:23

they did use to be 469 didn't they? Oh.

23:26

Well, they originated in, like,

23:28

Persia, Ottoman Empire, and

23:31

they were just basically loose

23:33

fit trousers, which you would tie around the waste.

23:36

They were taken by the colonial

23:38

British -- Mhmm. -- and they realized that actually they were

23:40

quite nice to sleep in. So that's how they became

23:42

pajamas. But Coco Chanel thought

23:44

that we should wear them down the

23:46

beach. And they became really 469, people

23:48

wearing pajamas down the beach in the nineteen

23:50

twenties and thirty Really?

23:52

Yeah. There was a place called I

23:54

don't know how to pronounce it. It's in 469, so

23:56

it's

23:57

JUAN. So is it Juan?

23:59

Juan LaPanda. It is. Juan LaPanda.

24:01

think it's Juan LaPanda. I've seen it and not been able

24:03

to pronounce it, but I won't go with yesterday.

24:05

It feels like Juan LaPanda feels like the nice

24:07

way to say it. Right?

24:09

But it was called pajamas land in

24:11

English and pajamas in

24:13

French because there were so many people in pajamas

24:16

on the beach in that town.

24:17

Think it does come and go as a fashion. Isn't it?

24:20

And there's pockets of it. I remember being

24:22

in Cardiff for quite a long time and

24:24

there was one area of Cardiff where everybody went

24:26

out in their pajamas all the time because that

24:27

right. Really? Take

24:28

pajamas or or the ones they slept in?

24:31

I think those are the ones they slept in, but it's a

24:33

fine line between leisurewear. But the there's

24:35

been shall I tell you about the various attempts

24:37

to shut down a pajama wearing

24:39

in Oh,

24:40

yeah. Yeah.

24:41

So it the nineteen nineties,

24:43

there was a education campaign

24:45

and they put signs up in Shanghai saying,

24:48

please don't wear your pajamas. Two

24:50

thousand and eight, the ricks and they head in

24:52

northeast Shanghai had a public

24:54

campaign saying don't wear your pyjamas. But then

24:56

twenty twenty in Suzhou

24:59

city, which is near to Shanghai,

25:01

there was a social media post entitled exposing

25:04

uncivilized behavior, increasing

25:06

the quality of residents, and

25:08

the local government put out various pictures

25:10

people who were engaged in social behavior,

25:13

including seven people in

25:15

pajamas, and they

25:17

used facial recognition technology to

25:19

find out who they were and put their names. So Which

25:23

what you need there is you need pajamas that have

25:25

got some sort of the

25:26

club.

25:26

Oh, that's just lovely. Yeah. A sleep mask.

25:29

Oh, lovely.

25:31

But yeah. It does seem extraordinary. I think

25:33

around the Shanghai World Expo in twenty ten

25:35

as well, there was quite campaign to stop

25:37

people wearing their

25:38

pajamas. Yeah. That was a big one. Wasn't it? They the

25:40

government at that one hired sort of

25:42

five hundred members of the public who volunteered

25:44

to sort of stand at bus stop. And just

25:46

just if someone in pajamas came home, know,

25:48

hey, that's looks daggy. You need to change

25:50

out of

25:51

that, mate. That makes

25:52

up hundred bollies. Yeah. Yeah.

25:55

Do you know what kind of Pajamas, James

25:57

Bondwares,

25:58

or what he wears to bed.

26:01

Surely doesn't wear anything. I mean, because I don't

26:03

think Pajamas a sexy Are they? Can they be sexy?

26:05

Well, great point. Because they're obviously

26:07

fancy silk pyramids, which might be sexy,

26:10

or they're sort of grubby cotton

26:11

ones, which might not be, or might be. Okay.

26:13

But the

26:13

pyjamas aren't sexy because they're clinging. It's like

26:16

you're getting started. And this is possible.

26:18

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So that's

26:19

that's a problem. I mean, all the balloons in the house,

26:21

which you

26:22

had, you know, takes these out of town here.

26:24

Yeah. So, basically, Anthony Horowitz is a

26:26

a thriller writer. You write you know,

26:28

and lots and lots of books. And he for a while

26:30

was you know, James Bond sequels.

26:32

He was the official -- St. James.

26:35

-- state's choice for and he wrote a couple of bond

26:37

And one of them was called a good mortise. Right? Mhmm. And he

26:39

wanted to stick right then. And then the start of

26:41

the book in pretty much the opening chapter, Anthony

26:43

Horowitz wrote description of Bond jumping out of bed

26:46

naked and he sent this off to the fleming's

26:48

date and they got back in touch and they said, you can't

26:50

have that because it's official Bond canon

26:52

in one of the books. Account, which one it is. I think it's

26:54

you only lived twice or something. Bondwares

26:57

a bed jacket, which is -- Wow.

26:59

-- it's maybe the least sexy item

27:01

of clothing you could possibly imagine. It's buttons

27:03

up to the neck and it goes down to the knees. And

27:05

I I think it's like a sort of wee, winky,

27:07

winky night

27:08

style. So he just rewrote it not

27:11

saying the bond was naked. He just didn't he didn't

27:13

describe jackets. We thought that would be a wave of fun

27:15

and destroy

27:15

Bond undid the top bunk of his

27:18

night jacket. Bond

27:19

hung up his night cap on the side.

27:22

A very little pocket of unease in the bottle.

27:25

Oh, there's a hanky

27:26

in there. What's happening there for Interestingly,

27:29

for a very long time, the classic

27:31

browser pajama with the the the

27:33

jacket button up kind of thing. Yeah. For a long time,

27:36

worn by men, and that changed during World

27:38

War one. This is where women started wearing

27:40

it. This is according to a 469 the University

27:42

of Glasgow called Lucy Whitmore, who talked

27:44

about the fact that Zeppelin raids meant

27:46

that whenever you heard the alarm and

27:48

you needed to run out of your house. It

27:50

got to a point where you became quite conscious

27:53

of what you were wearing. You would --

27:55

Yeah. -- come

27:55

out in your night tea, you might look a bit disheveled,

27:57

and also it's not the most practical thing to be running

28:00

around in a nice season. So

28:02

to begin with this at the start of it,

28:04

it would be people would leave very

28:06

nice looking jackets in a very good spot

28:08

so that as the raid was happening and they

28:10

would grab it and go out and look 469, there

28:12

was an old lady who suggested leaving leaving

28:15

an emergency to pay by

28:17

the door as well so you could grab that on the

28:19

way out. And then eventually people started

28:21

wearing women rather started wearing

28:23

pajamas and the popular color

28:25

was dark blue because if you're

28:27

outside, you obviously don't want any

28:29

That's what saying.

28:31

You don't wanna give away

28:33

I I guess if you're being bomb you wanna do everything

28:35

to stop

28:35

yourself from being seen. Right? Is

28:37

that also why you need the toothpaste to stop the

28:39

bulb? Yeah.

28:40

You know, I'm flying back up.

28:42

Yeah. Dan Whitley, I found the same Zeppelin based

28:45

festival fact in it. I was I went

28:47

to the library to do a bit of research this one, and I got

28:49

a there are couple of books about the history of

28:51

under clothes. And I sat there looking like a sexy

28:53

old

28:53

man. This is doing the library. Well, you did

28:56

have your penis. On

28:59

the cube later.

29:03

But almost every page of the book had a an

29:05

an a line drawing of some corset

29:08

or something, so girdle or something.

29:10

And I just I was quickly flipping so much. I'm

29:12

just different with the pajamas actually. Yeah.

29:15

You know what their anyone looking at that would go, that

29:17

is the most adorable thing 469 that's how you're

29:19

getting your kicks. I'm gonna get

29:21

line drawings of lady's credit credit credit

29:24

scores. 469 not

29:27

and you tight. Is it let's be honest, you're you're you're

29:31

And what did you find anything extra on

29:33

the on the under clothes because they were the onesie

29:36

was sort of invented in that period as

29:37

well. Wasn't it?

29:38

We know Winston Churchill, he's still wearing a

29:40

onesie, and that was a world war one. He

29:42

called his like a biolus. Siren

29:44

sirens out of the air

29:46

raid. It's lumber

29:47

suits

29:47

that think that was later. I think

29:48

he just realized he meant siren suit because of the air

29:50

raid time. Yeah. I was thinking that he would

29:52

sit on a rock and sing. Imagine

29:56

if he had a lovely singing voice,

29:57

we never really heard any singing. So I wanted

29:59

to meet them on the beach.

30:04

We will seduce them on the beaches. Most

30:09

men claim not to wear anything

30:12

to bed. Mhmm.

30:16

But you're doubting them. Okay. I'm just

30:19

I'm doubting them, I think. So this is to

30:20

almost have a reputation of being a bit cozy

30:22

and a bit comfy and a bit, you know. Yes. I

30:24

think there is a sense that men want

30:27

thought of as being tough and regular and

30:28

like, oh, I don't wear anything to bed even if it's minus four

30:30

in the house or whatever. Are you saying not? And

30:32

now listen. I know nothing of

30:34

the mail letter me. I'll put that right out there. But is

30:36

there not do things not get a bit twisted and

30:39

I I would imagine discomfort if you

30:41

slept completely naked as a

30:42

man. Do things not Is it not

30:44

nice? That's

30:44

alright. That's okay. Is it alright?

30:46

Okay. Good to know. Good to know. Thanks for

30:48

that. Yeah. I've never been

30:50

woken I don't

30:51

even know if you just did anything with her.

30:53

It's got a trap under the bed again.

30:59

Honey, you're gonna have to phone the fire brigade

31:01

again.

31:05

Well, if you try to leap out for an air raid,

31:10

I

31:10

don't think that was one of the weirdest moments. Everyone,

31:12

I apologize for that. You had three guys

31:14

sitting here, picturing ourselves they can.

31:18

The more listeners there or Joseco. The

31:20

ventil images, please send in your fan

31:22

fiction.

31:30

Okay. It is time for fact number three

31:32

and that is Andy. My fact

31:34

is, the flow of the Amazon is so big

31:36

that even a hundred miles into the

31:38

Atlantic, you could drink over

31:40

the side of your ship and the water would still

31:42

be fresh.

31:43

Amazing. That's

31:44

incredible. I love it. Oh, she'd say we got

31:46

the fact first was 469 a a guy called Thomas

31:48

Poyer on Twitter, And I'd

31:50

so I thought that's

31:51

I couldn't believe it when I first read it. And so I did

31:53

a bit more, you know, looking. And some sources

31:55

say the water's gonna be a bit brackish, you know,

31:57

might be totally sparkling

32:00

Evian style fresh, but it would definitely

32:02

be noticeably less salty. Mhmm. So you would

32:04

not be able to see South America if you were

32:07

And you would still get water that was so much less

32:09

469.

32:10

If you were let's say you were

32:12

sailing across the ocean.

32:14

Yep. Before you knew where you

32:16

were, you could keep tasting the water.

32:18

Yeah. And

32:18

as it got less and less salty, you could almost

32:20

find your way to was

32:21

an incredible idea, yeah, to navigate

32:23

your way. Yeah. Well,

32:24

sailors must have worked that out. Yeah. Because

32:26

they're very wide. There'll be some sort

32:29

of say to, you know, say to rhyme. If

32:31

if the water tastes nice 469

32:34

the water tastes nice, Brazilians being

32:36

in a tribe. 469 they

32:38

were to taste salty, then your

32:42

compass is salty. Really isn't

32:44

that? There you

32:45

go. It's so every single

32:47

day, the water that we're talking about, that

32:50

sort of pushes out into the

32:51

Atlantic. Yep. It's seventeen billion

32:54

metric tons of water that

32:56

flows out.

32:57

It's hard to work out what that is. What

32:59

that equates to 469 you were getting freshwater

33:01

in New York City, that's the daily

33:03

amount for nine years that would be

33:05

used. Nine years' worth of

33:07

fresh water in New York City

33:09

is set to be built --

33:11

Holy. -- into the Atlantic.

33:12

I should make of New York. Yeah. It's weird

33:17

that that's practical.

33:18

But It's weird that

33:19

we can't somehow harvest it. It's just

33:21

going into it's just disappearing -- What?

33:22

-- becoming salty. It's

33:24

useful. Yeah.

33:25

Because

33:25

it goes into the water cycle and eventually,

33:28

you know, rains down on us

33:29

But we could keep the planet

33:30

alive. No. I don't think I think we've done enough

33:32

mucking around. Actually,

33:34

maybe we should just move the outside. I actually

33:36

disagree. I think a huge pipe. Yeah.

33:38

The Amazon -- Yeah.

33:39

-- that just takes it all the way to New York --

33:41

Brilliant. -- not New York, but somewhere that needs fresh

33:43

water. There's lots of places where they don't have

33:46

water.

33:46

Yeah. So it's closer.

33:48

Yeah. Exactly.

33:48

Like New Orleans.

33:50

Yeah. There you go. New Orleans. can't see it

33:52

all working. What you're

33:54

saying? It's a bit of a

33:55

waste. That's seventeen billion

33:57

metric tons. This is

33:58

waste. I really don't think it's a waste.

34:01

Donald Trump listening to this. We love it.

34:03

Into his golf

34:04

courses. Yeah.

34:07

Anyway, the Amazon is big. It's big.

34:08

It's big. It's big. It's big. It blows my mind.

34:11

In fact, my mates got a new Brazilian

34:13

469, and he he was saying, you know, you go to Brazil.

34:16

It's just massive mate. It's just massive. The

34:20

other thing I always find interesting about the

34:22

Amazon is that you can't build bridges.

34:25

Yeah. Because it's

34:27

too because it it the

34:30

width of it vary so much, and it's

34:32

sort of so soft crumbly in the

34:33

edges. Yeah. So it would have to be

34:35

such a massive British

34:37

accent to start. And so what

34:39

they just go across on boats and

34:40

stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So and there's

34:42

yeah. Because they've built one now.

34:44

There is one, but it's right up as well. It's

34:46

all of that. It's of a tributary. Right.

34:48

It's the Rio Negro, which is a which

34:51

is a distributor the

34:51

Amazon, but it's before it joins the river proper

34:54

-- Yeah. --

34:54

basically. So there are no bridge across the Amazon

34:56

Amazon. And, yeah, like you said, it's

34:58

here. During the wet season, the Amazon

35:00

is a hundred and ninety kilometers wide.

35:02

It is widest. That's why.

35:04

This is really wide.

35:06

Imagine 469 here to stoke. Yeah. Somewhere

35:08

in there, but maybe 469, somewhere in

35:10

there. In fact. My electric car

35:12

wouldn't be able to drive. If there was a bridge, they

35:17

would have to be a charging point on that

35:19

bridge. Otherwise, wouldn't be able to get that one.

35:21

That is insane. I like that the

35:24

Amazon River is part of effectively an

35:26

Amazon River sandwich.

35:28

It's the it's the meat of

35:30

of a sandwich in that

35:32

go on. This is a touch and

35:34

metaphor.

35:35

I know what you're talking about. Even I'm struggling to

35:38

do that. Well,

35:38

there's a river below it. The Hamda.

35:40

And there's a river above it.

35:42

Oh, is there? Well,

35:43

there's more there's more water of above

35:45

the

35:45

Amazon River in the clouds above

35:47

the actual Amazon itself. Did the results

35:50

kind of follow the shape of the

35:51

river? Yeah. I believe so. Yeah.

35:53

It's it's water vapor stream, isn't

35:56

it? Yeah. Mhmm. It's amazing. Yeah. I think

35:58

it's twenty billion tons. Twenty billion metric tons

36:00

of water. Yeah. And that's more water

36:02

than it's actually in the in the river

36:04

itself, they say. Yeah. Isn't it something like

36:06

every tree in a like a big tree in the Amazon

36:09

perspires or trying bars, whatever it

36:11

is, a thousand liters of water in a day.

36:13

Yeah. That's right. One tree. Sweats it out.

36:15

Yeah. Yeah. One tree. And then underneath,

36:17

you've got the the Hamzah.

36:19

Yeah. So secret underground river. It's

36:22

the you you can only get to it if

36:24

you defeat

36:26

an aesthetic cost on the

36:28

fire level.

36:30

So yeah. So under the Amazon, there is a

36:33

sort of aquifer that is

36:35

even wider, even bigger, even

36:37

bolder, even freshen. It's Amazon

36:39

too, the river And it's yeah.

36:41

The riverhams are named after the strict

36:44

the winner this year

36:45

obviously. Oh, not happy with Hamzah. It's

36:48

gotta be hooking it. Yeah. Yeah. Ranger

36:50

Hamzah.

36:50

Yeah. It's very it's quite recently

36:53

discovered, isn't it? It happens. It was the name of the

36:55

head of the team that discovered

36:56

it. And it's very

36:58

low down four thousand meters for

37:00

moving. The river itself. Super

37:02

slow moving. Yeah. To the point where you can't really call

37:04

it a

37:05

river, like, it's it's not flowing. It

37:07

moves at one millimeter an hour.

37:09

Yeah. Yeah. That's slowing.

37:10

I relate to this river very much. It's

37:12

a very slow lowdown. Yeah. If you

37:14

drop something in it, you'll

37:17

be reunited with it quite quickly. It won't

37:19

be swept away

37:19

suddenly.

37:20

But you gave a boost. It would be quite

37:23

low stakes in there.

37:26

The giant Amazon leech, which you find in

37:28

the Amazon River. Uh-huh.

37:29

Do you think it's longer or

37:31

shorter than the world's longest,

37:34

cat tail. No.

37:37

I actually know the length of the leech, but

37:39

I have no idea. That's ridiculous.

37:42

Of this quiz question, you actually need to quite

37:44

arcade bits of knowledge to even

37:46

make a

37:47

guess.

37:47

I think the longest cat stand is not that long.

37:49

Really

37:50

Really? This is the domestic

37:52

cats. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Sorry. Because I alright.

37:54

Here here we go. I think the leech is about a

37:56

469. I think it's about eighteen inches.

37:58

Okay. There.

37:58

They're, like, the biggest giant leech.

38:00

Yeah. Yeah.

38:00

So is the cats is the longest ever cats down longer

38:02

or shorter than eighteen inches.

38:03

Let's take cats. This gives it away a bit. It's

38:05

a 469 down l cut. Fun

38:07

day. So

38:08

we'll know you've made it too easy on that. I don't

38:10

want submit an answer anymore. I

38:12

didn't exactly same length. Well, Andy

38:15

has spun on with the eighteen inches for

38:17

the medium and leech, and

38:19

the longest cat tail according to Guinness

38:22

is seventeen inches. Do

38:25

you think that the giant Amazon

38:28

leech? Is

38:30

Londoner charter than the height of

38:32

the world's tallest doughnut. Right.

38:36

So it's good now. We know we've got eighteen

38:38

inches Yeah. Don't don't don't flat.

38:40

Yeah. So not the diameter.

38:42

Not the diameter. This is

38:43

how tall it goes.

38:44

I think the doughnut's taller. I

38:46

Yeah.

38:47

No. I think it's still the leach. Yeah. Andy knows

38:49

his stuff. Yeah. I don't know. Tal is done

38:51

at sixteen inches tall. It was quite wide

38:53

in

38:53

fairness. Right. Yeah.

38:55

What's that 469 fitness and that? I mean, that's

38:57

a tall this tall doughnut.

38:58

I could eat that then. That's not the idea. I

39:01

want the world's biggest doughnut to be a doughnut

39:03

that I was like, can make

39:05

it. Because I know it's yeah. You can make bubble tea

39:07

doughnuts that

39:07

big. Or

39:08

like the

39:08

ring road of a small

39:09

town. It's a big business.

39:11

Oh, this is great quiz. That's the end of it. Well,

39:13

I love to have a great time. Have you heard

39:15

of the Amazon tall tower observatory? This is

39:17

a cool thing. Okay. So this is and it's a really new thing

39:19

as well actually. So it's an observatory. Tree. It's but

39:22

not a space observatory. It's to observe it's to look

39:24

down at the Amazon. And so it's

39:27

in the middle of the rainforest and

39:29

the trees are What toll trees, about eighty to

39:31

a hundred meters, aren't they? Like, good toll trees

39:33

up to you know, it's a really toll tree, hundred meters.

39:35

Under tower. That's yeah. I think the taller

39:38

trees about a hundred twenty meters. Like, the taller I've ever

39:40

measured, you know. Okay. But this tower is

39:42

three hundred and twenty five meters. It's

39:45

a it's a tall. It's about as tall as the Eiffel

39:47

Tower. Which actually is really tall when you when you look

39:49

at it.

39:49

You know, the Eiffel Tower. Yeah. Wow. Busting

39:51

some myths tonight. I don't

39:54

think of it as That's big. I went there. Exactly.

39:56

I totally see it

39:58

from a long way away. Exactly. Yeah. And this

40:00

is is much thinner than the after hours as

40:02

one needle going up. Okay. On the

40:04

app. Like, it looks and it looks mad this

40:06

thing. And I was up the Eiffel Tower ones.

40:08

Got it. In a restaurant, and we

40:10

had a table next to the window, which is really

40:12

nice. Yeah. It was

40:13

over a look in the bridge. And what you would

40:15

see is they have these guys playing, you know,

40:17

we have three cups and you have to hide the

40:19

bowl and just taking loads of money. And then

40:22

about every twenty minutes, police would

40:24

turn up and they would lag it.

40:26

And then you could watch them go all the way down

40:28

the river over the next

40:29

bridge, back over again, and then back on the bridge

40:31

and then snap again. And then the police would turn

40:33

up. It was like a cut and mouth of I

40:35

really thought you were gonna say that from your perspective. I'll

40:37

be honest.

40:37

You can say you wish to stop it with somebody.

40:39

I just yelled out.

40:42

That's what I was thinking. Your wife's down

40:44

there looking at your special football

40:47

sign language in the valley.

40:50

How are they it. You too. You know? We

40:52

have never been 469 before.

40:57

We've just done that restaurant too. We didn't get a window

40:59

seat.

40:59

No. Well, you think

41:00

469 what? Boy. The

41:03

tables were done in the winter season.

41:05

It's just

41:06

looking that big piece of iron. The

41:10

reason are you coming? Was it on the ground floor? Was

41:12

it having did you get the basement

41:14

table? This is a stupid

41:17

sundries.

41:20

Did no pizza

41:21

express? Was it France? Wow.

41:24

that's study. I didn't didn't is the restaurant

41:26

still good? Is there a special flavor? It's a chill there.

41:28

I think it was cold. I wasn't even I didn't even get into

41:30

the restaurant. We need it, we'll go

41:32

together. Yeah. I love

41:33

that. Observeatory. Oh,

41:36

yeah. This observatory is is three hundred and

41:38

twenty five meters and it's it's actually one meter

41:40

tall of 469 tower. And it's

41:42

got fifteen hundred steps up to it. It's you

41:44

know, it takes about an hour to walk up on the tuckers.

41:46

don't I don't know if there's a lift actually. And

41:48

basically, it's just to sniff sniff

41:50

the breath of the 469. Snipples, you know, they're

41:53

they're measuring all the chemicals in the air, whether

41:55

forest fires, you know, they measure the concentration and

41:57

how dangerous that is and 469,

41:59

they can, you know, they can tell things about that and

42:01

-- Yeah.

42:02

-- the tree

42:02

emissions. And it's just I just think it's amazing.

42:04

Yeah. When you go

42:05

up forgot any glasses. I can't even see the guy with cup

42:08

of the ball. I can't even see the guy

42:10

with a cup of the ball.

42:17

Okay. It is time for our final fact

42:19

of the show and that is James.

42:21

Okay. My fact this week is that while playing

42:23

a psychiatric patient in one

42:25

flew over the Cookoo's nest, Danny

42:28

DeVito ended up becoming a psychiatric

42:30

patient himself.

42:32

Oh. Was

42:35

he was he going method?

42:38

Some people did go method. We might get to that.

42:40

But the Vuitton's problem really

42:42

is quite

42:43

sweet, actually. He had recently

42:45

gotten together with Ria Perlman, the

42:47

at the

42:49

amazing room. And Charles, right, just to

42:51

put -- Yeah. -- head in your

42:53

in your

42:53

car looking shoes. Yeah. And

42:56

obviously, they were filming or not obviously, but they

42:58

were filming a long way away from where she was.

43:01

Three thousand miles in 469, and so

43:03

he was really missed her. And in

43:05

order to deal with that separation he invented

43:07

an imaginary friend to talk to at

43:09

night and he became little bit concerned

43:12

about his mental health perhaps because they were making

43:14

this film and there was a lot of it in the air. Mhmm.

43:17

And so he decided to see the doctor

43:19

onset who was called doctor Brooks and asked

43:21

for his

43:21

advice. And doctor Brooks said, yeah, don't worry as

43:23

long as you're aware that it's an imaginary 469, imaginary

43:26

friend is a

43:26

perfectly normal thing to have. It's

43:28

no problem at

43:29

all. Oh. But also that doctor, the

43:32

on-site doctor, was at she in the movie,

43:34

of course. Was he -- Yes. --

43:37

to to Brooks. Yeah. So he but an amazing

43:39

record, he owned the clinic in which they filmed

43:41

it. So it's no wonder were were all a little

43:43

bit crazy because they're in a natural mental

43:45

institution filming this very

43:47

intense

43:48

movie. He's the one

43:50

who's of checks in Jack Nicholson's character,

43:52

Mc Murphy, at the start of the 469, and interviews him. And

43:54

he I say I think I don't know if he was going to be in

43:56

it, but he was really insistent that everyone in

43:58

the institutional patients got involved with the film.

44:00

Mhmm. He was quite 469 thinking, you know, he took

44:03

lots of the patients on expeditions. He took them

44:05

white water 469, and he taught them kind of

44:07

to raffle down cliffs and things like I mean, like,

44:09

really this was in the seventies they were

44:11

filming. It pretty progressive at the time. And think about

44:13

ninety inmates ended up involved in the film

44:15

in some capacity or

44:17

another. Yeah. That's

44:17

really good. I must say I haven't seen the film.

44:19

It's pretty amazing.

44:20

Yeah. I've heard very good things about it, so I will

44:22

try and watch it. And I started

44:25

reading the book this week and gone out and thrown the

44:27

way through. But the Brooks, I'm amazing.

44:29

Yeah. Yeah. And

44:30

apparently, the film's even better. So

44:31

The they're they're both Say it was even better.

44:35

It was put on about twenty

44:37

years ago. Two thousand and

44:38

469, I was in. Oh,

44:41

I'm breaking up. Who are you? Who are you? Excuse

44:43

me. I will use the giant

44:45

next available That's me. That cheap

44:47

469 in that respect. What note?

44:49

You know what, though? So we did this basically. So

44:51

it was Christian Slater

44:53

from Heather's, etcetera. Yeah.

44:56

Came over and was Mc

44:57

Murphy. So Yeah. And it was amazing

45:00

because was at that time there weren't that many Western

45:02

shades with big Hollywood

45:03

stars. Mc Murphy being That is his

45:05

role too. Exactly. Yes. The main guy.

45:07

And and I played

45:09

I played nurse who had about two lines. And

45:11

I some of my friends came to see it and

45:14

they said, oh, we just thought you were being modest

45:16

because I'd said I'm playing a nurse, you mambo over the 469

45:18

nest. And we thought you just being modest and you're

45:20

playing nurse ratchet. You really were just a

45:23

nurse who has two lines because France

45:26

is Barbara's nurse ratcheted and Mackenzie

45:28

Cook was in it and

45:30

Like, that's a crook. Yeah. Yeah. He played

45:32

Billy, the sort of

45:33

Oh, he's good that's a good role for him, I

45:35

guess. Yeah. Yeah. And should we super quickly say what

45:37

the basic premise is. Just for anyone who hasn't seen

45:39

it is a bit 469. That's what we should, shouldn't

45:41

Yeah. It's it's Jack Nicholson is could

45:44

I it's been so lucky. Yeah. Jack

45:46

Nicholson placement 469, who is this

45:48

sort of tear away, who

45:50

is sent to this secure psychiatric

45:52

facility at which nurse ratcheted

45:55

is this horrible nurse who sort

45:57

of rules with the reign of terror over

45:59

everybody. Anything

46:00

else? It is one nice nurse though, isn't that who

46:02

He just has a couple of hires. To

46:05

star of the entire production

46:07

is that niceness. Yeah. And

46:09

then the Indian chief

46:12

Oh, spoiler, are we worried about

46:13

that? think it came out quite a long time

46:15

ago. Yeah. So anyway, Jack Nicholson

46:18

kind of creates this era of of some rebellion

46:20

in the place and rebels against nurse

46:22

ratchet. And then the 469

46:24

the Native American 469, some other and

46:26

with the pillow.

46:27

We we should maybe say that Jack Nicholson's

46:29

character suffers a lobotomy.

46:30

Oh, yes. No worries. Not just the chief 469 was

46:33

still order in the hospital. Exactly.

46:36

It's it's a mercy killing, basically.

46:38

Yeah. And the whole sort thing is it's

46:40

not hey, we're not mad, society's mad,

46:42

and who -- Yeah. -- you know, all of

46:44

that. That's his

46:44

point. And and there's a bit of a bit where Mac Murphy finds

46:46

out that all the patients are allowed to leave if they want to. They

46:48

just don't. He he's

46:49

incredibly freaked out by he says, why don't you just go

46:51

home? You're allowed? And he says, what? I'm not

46:54

ready to, you know, the the person it's amazing.

46:56

Anyway, it sounds like it was a very

46:58

tense filming experience in lots of ways as well because

47:00

you had a lot of big personalities. You had

47:03

Ken Casey who wrote the book and then ended up hating

47:05

the 469. Never watched it. He once

47:07

he once started watching it when it was just on TV then

47:09

he realized what 469 he was watching and

47:10

changed. I mean, I love that.

47:13

Just point like me. He was channel flipping.

47:15

Yeah. And he was channel flipping. Yeah. And he was channel flipping. Yeah. So that's

47:17

great. It's great. Oh, no. And

47:20

then to the director was Milos 469 and

47:22

Jack Nicholson and Milos Forman had

47:24

a big disagreement about Murphy's character

47:27

and basically, it's

47:29

very ordered, and then Jack Nicholson arrives,

47:31

and he turns the place upside down. And

47:33

middle 469 wanted it to be more like, it was already

47:35

chaotic, and then he arrives and he sort

47:37

draws the patients together and they become a team. They had

47:39

a big fool again over there, and they would end up they end up. They

47:41

were only talking to each other through the cinematographer. 469 it

47:43

would have to kind of so can you tell

47:47

technically to act this way, the

47:49

sit I mean, it just so so sense.

47:51

But Danny Davito as well because he I

47:53

mean, I'm a huge fan of Danny Davito

47:56

and remembered him as Lou

47:58

in tech

47:59

actually, the pseudo

48:00

Oh, okay. Yeah. Do a dispatcher. But

48:02

he when he was in Matilda, he

48:04

actually played Matilda, said that actually, although he was

48:06

playing a horrible dad, she he she

48:08

became like a really lovely 469 figure

48:11

to her. And then, you know, in mum play over the

48:13

cook who says she could argue that he actually

48:15

was playing a sort of psychiatric patient, but he

48:17

taken care of his mental

48:18

health. Yeah. What I'm saying is he's always the opposite

48:21

of how he appears. And actually, in

48:23

twins,

48:24

if you put him in on the shorts together, he tolling.

48:30

Water 469. Watercraft. Watercraft. He

48:32

was inducted into the New Jersey

48:34

Hall of Fame in twenty

48:36

ten. Mhmm. So I thought I'd look at some other

48:38

people here in New Jersey

48:39

holiday season.

48:41

So you've got Buzz Aldren, Frank

48:43

Sonatra.

48:44

Oh. Do you have to be

48:45

from New Jersey closer to us? Well, Thomas

48:48

Edison is there, born in Ohio. Okay.

48:50

Yogi Berra, born in Missouri,

48:52

Harry Tubman, born in Maryland, and

48:55

Albert Einstein, not even born in

48:57

America.

48:59

So we've all got a shot at the New Jersey holiday

49:01

of New Jersey.

49:02

think you have to have lived there for a while because

49:04

I stay at work in Princeton, of course. So Oh,

49:08

that's great. On one

49:10

469.

49:11

Yeah. It was nearly defeated by

49:13

the Cold War. And then it got didn't get turned into

49:15

a film because of the iron curtain. Oh, yeah. You

49:17

know this? Yeah. This is cool. So I

49:20

in that so the the book came out in the early sixties.

49:22

And Michael Douglas. No.

49:24

Sorry. Kirk. Kirk Douglas. Yeah.

49:27

Bought the right rates. He was in the

49:28

play.

49:29

He was in the first play version. And then 469

49:31

film is actually based on the play, not on the book, which is

49:33

maybe why Ken Casey hated the film. But

49:35

so Kirk Douglas was the initial Mc 469, which

49:37

is mad. It's so strange 469 imagine now because

49:39

it's so ridiculous in his role. And then

49:41

he bought the rights, and he wrote to Milos

49:43

469 in Czechoslovakia and said, got

49:46

this great play. Got the rights to it. Think

49:48

it should be a film. I'll send you a copy of the book.

49:50

Mittelstand's great. The book was

49:52

then seized by Chegg Customs in

49:54

nineteen sixteen sixty three. And

49:56

it took more Informa was really annoyed because

49:58

Kellogg has said I'll send you a book never sent a book

50:00

rude. Kella Douglas is very annoyed

50:02

because Meals Fourman never said thank you for but

50:04

rude. It took a decade to sort

50:06

out this misunderstanding between them. The film was made in

50:08

something like nineteen seventy five, I think. I mean,

50:11

it took a long time and eventually

50:13

Kirkwriters gave the rights to his son Michael who

50:16

then

50:16

said, should we just try again with this book thing?

50:18

Do we think that the sorry to interrupt. Do

50:20

we think that the Chegg Customs didn't

50:23

let the book go initially because they were worried

50:25

that it was

50:26

seditious. So

50:27

maybe it's not clear. It's not it's not what

50:30

I was seeing is maybe they just wanted to read it. I

50:32

don't know. I don't know if

50:33

469 was, like, the Rubis cube but going in the opposite

50:35

direction. Yeah. No.

50:37

I have no idea Yeah. I gen don't know what there is.

50:39

But Jesse was quite notorious as a

50:42

LSD proponent. He was quite famous

50:44

with the counterculture of America at that point.

50:46

He had a bus that he used to take everyone

50:48

on in these What us a

50:50

radical free

50:52

system? Psychedelic bus. Oh my

50:54

god. A multicolored bus. No. We've

50:56

all the time. We've got London buses are bright

50:58

red. That's

51:01

what it represented. He he had they

51:03

were called the merry pranksters and they used to and

51:05

469 for a whole book about

51:06

this. It was a non 469 book about these guys

51:09

who just would go around. They used to do things like

51:11

they would have people playing flutes on the top

51:13

of the us

51:13

who fill buses where people have been playing the flu.

51:17

Probably.

51:18

Public safety warning do not take acid

51:20

on London. But It's

51:23

not a

51:23

friendly environment either. But it is

51:25

possible. It was the counterculture thing, and his name was

51:27

very much associated with it. That's a good point

51:29

as it was. It's possible. It's

51:30

interesting because he was an author already at this point,

51:33

Cassie, before he wrote one clue of the KUKA's

51:35

nest. And he was working on

51:37

a book called Zoo, and in order 469 it. He

51:39

needed a job. So he worked at a psychiatric ward

51:41

in order to fund it. And the book idea came

51:44

to him when one night he was in there, I think he

51:46

was cleaning, and he was on Peyote,

51:48

and he was tripping and he saw

51:50

a full blown

51:52

469 boondan there as a sort of

51:54

vision Just

51:55

a And I could tell it, miss Peyote. Yes. Sorry.

51:57

Oh, sorry. Is it like a cactus sauce? Yeah. It's like

51:59

a cactus, which you Yeah. It's a

52:01

it's a

52:02

drug. So I know it is that I know is a drive back.

52:04

I can't tell you this for so

52:04

long. That's big old squares.

52:06

Sorry. Not at home. Yeah. Yeah.

52:09

But he said he saw a full blown native

52:11

american. He said Indian. Chief broom, the

52:13

solution, the whole mothering key to the

52:15

novel. And that's how he wrote.

52:18

The novel. Because it's a novel is the main, like,

52:20

the narrator. Right? Yeah. The

52:21

narrator, sorry, and in

52:23

the movie nut. He's not That's why

52:24

Kessie immediately hated it. wasn't

52:27

told from the perspective of him. He is a big

52:29

character in it, but he's he's not. Yeah. Yeah.

52:31

Interestingly, the guy who got the role

52:33

of 469 Bronden got it because Michael

52:36

Douglas was sitting next to a used car dealer

52:38

on a plane, and the used car dealers'

52:40

dad was an acting agent who had a load of

52:42

Native American actors on his books. And and

52:45

the thing about chief problem is he's about eight feet tall

52:47

in the -- Yeah. -- and and so and Michael

52:49

Douglas got a phone call saying, I was just the

52:51

tallest Native American guy you've ever seen.

52:53

And it was Will something. I can't remember his name.

52:55

Yeah. Yeah. But anyway, he got the rollers and stuff for

52:58

Simpson. Will. Will Simpson. So I'm so old. A size

53:00

name. So I'm incredibly tall. And he's got long hair.

53:02

Wow. Oh

53:03

my god. It's perfect. So this this movie was

53:05

made in in an actual,

53:07

as we've said, hospital that

53:09

was originally it was called the

53:11

Oregon State Mental Hospital. It's

53:13

since been renamed as now Oregon

53:15

State Hospital. And it's a

53:18

it's an inch stink place in its own right.

53:20

It had a really controversial bit,

53:22

which was they found five thousand canisters of

53:25

unclaimed and remains in there. Mhmm.

53:27

And this was

53:28

yeah. This was a lot of the patients who had been

53:30

cremated, but no one

53:31

had time to collect them. And

53:33

they they put out the list. They found all the names of

53:35

the people and a lot of relatives, distant

53:37

relatives,

53:37

k,

53:38

and reclaim them.

53:39

Yeah. And there was a a documentary called

53:41

The Library of Dust that was Made About It.

53:43

This is tragic. Yeah. Yeah. It was pretty it was

53:45

pretty mad, but also they had a railroad underneath

53:48

the hospital, specifically built one,

53:50

so that they could deliver items to different

53:52

bits of the hospital, but also to transport for

53:55

patients that they didn't want the members of

53:57

the public to have to come across if they were visiting

53:59

the hospital because they were worried something might

54:01

go wrong

54:01

there. Dangerous, you know, all that sort

54:03

of stuff. And

54:04

some of the town possibly, are still there, but

54:06

you just walk them now or use bicycles.

54:09

Just print Andrew and then don't don't

54:11

know. So I don't like Yeah.

54:14

And then they a horrible thing. I'd I'd found just

54:16

horrible things about it. Unfortunately, nineteen

54:18

forty two, there was a mass poisoning by

54:20

accident. They were serving scrambled eggs.

54:22

And they accidentally and

54:24

and forty seven people died from this. They

54:27

used instead of powdered milk. They used

54:29

sodium 469, which is a poison you would

54:31

use to kill cockaraches. And that was

54:33

accidentally added to the scrambled eggs in

54:35

forty

54:36

seven. And I used to work as a in

54:38

a kitchen. We had a Christmas

54:40

party and instead of putting white

54:43

sauce on the Christmas

54:44

pudding, they put garlic sauce on which

54:47

is very less problematic version

54:49

of what just sat on

54:50

you. Well, it's good to

54:53

know you can relate.

54:55

Yeah. Having just said it's easily done.

54:57

Yeah. Easily done. Gosh.

55:00

I want to use cube lube instead

55:03

of instead of what? It

55:06

twisted sideways, didn't it? Should

55:13

we just quickly mention Louise Fletcher who was actually

55:15

played nurse Fletcher a day. Oh, cool.

55:17

In the 469. And died last year. Sadly.

55:20

But she was amazing. And she I

55:23

think she kept herself separate from the to the cast,

55:25

didn't she 469 a lot of the filming so that she could

55:27

be an icy authority

55:30

469? And did you do that when you

55:32

and the the players I was always nice to

55:34

authorities. In

55:36

every situation, I keep myself. What didn't

55:38

you also take all the clothes

55:40

off, though, at one point? 469 could leave Yeah.

55:42

At

55:42

the end of filming, wasn't it?

55:43

Yeah. Should go look. Hey, guys. Look at this

55:46

all along. I was fun. What's

55:49

that saying? I'm on. That's right. Yeah. Gotcha.

55:52

I think she had her underwear on. I don't think she

55:54

was fully

55:54

naked, but she

55:55

469 fully naked. She wasn't that much 469.

55:57

I'm 469. I'm not that mad at all.

55:59

Phil,

55:59

like, there must be a better way, like, bring in some

56:01

cupcakes and not something

56:04

appreciate yourself with their colleagues.

56:06

Just wait till the end of this program.

56:10

Yeah. She there were two others.

56:12

So was Anne Bancroft and Angela Landbury

56:14

were both offered the role, but turned it down because they didn't

56:16

wanna appear so evil on screen. Wow.

56:19

This was in a obituary of Louise 469 I

56:21

read. And also, they said

56:23

in this that she was repeatedly turned

56:26

down from roles because she was five

56:28

foot ten. And in those days, a lot of the lead

56:30

of men were much shorter than that, and she

56:32

couldn't play roles opposite who

56:34

were shot at or about the same

56:35

heights.

56:35

I

56:36

mean, actually, the nurse's capture will be more than six

56:38

foot, you know. And Jack Nelson is quite I think he's quite

56:40

a short

56:40

guy. Yeah. Really

56:41

works. The authority So that's that's power

56:43

struggle happening between them. I just and she's brilliant.

56:45

Yeah.

56:46

She's on Star Trek. That's right. She

56:48

Yeah. She's on Star Trek. Oh.

56:50

Yeah. That's right. Wow. And she

56:52

she said that she found her

56:54

role. So disturbing that she

56:56

also couldn't watch the film. In Star Trek. Or

56:58

Yeah. Yeah. The

57:01

aliens are scaring.

57:03

She as in as as in as as in such Gotcha. Yeah.

57:05

She she found

57:06

it really hard and she she just around

57:08

it too disturbing to watch as a -- Wow. -- as

57:10

a royalty. And it's accredited. Actually, the last time I watched

57:12

it, which was a couple of years ago, the person I was watching

57:14

it with sided with nurse ratchet, which 469

57:16

make me they no. Hang on. You're taking

57:19

a wrong message there. And she said, no. No. No. Look.

57:21

The the point

57:21

is, she's someone's gotta keep order. Oh.

57:24

She's just doing a job. She's just

57:25

doing a job of McAfee was the place, it would be

57:27

absolutely meghan. One

57:29

last thing just about Ken Cassie, the author because

57:32

he was a pretty amazing author. His

57:34

method for a certain period when he was writing

57:36

was to be completely off his head on

57:38

drugs, and he would write a

57:40

crazy amount. Then in the morning, he'd sober

57:43

up and become his own

57:43

editor. So it's sorta say, okay. What? Who let's

57:46

see what the author's written. Stop

57:48

out all the junk and get down to the

57:50

good meat

57:50

of this. That's clever. Yeah. To know that.

57:52

Yeah. Apart from presumably, the first

57:55

draft was absolutely optional.

57:56

Yeah. It didn't make any

57:58

sense at all.

57:59

And then you'd think but, hang, what if the

58:01

editor was drunk

58:02

as well. But it's different.

58:05

Oh, yeah. But then I'll make the churag. The editor

58:07

will be so far. So that would be fine.

58:10

Okay. As long as the printer is so blank,

58:13

that'll be fine. Okay.

58:19

That's it. That is all of our facts. Thank you so

58:21

much for listening. If you'd like to get in contact

58:23

with any of us about the things that we said over the course

58:25

of this podcast, we can be found on our Twitter

58:27

account. So I'm on at Schreiberland. Andy.

58:30

At Andrew Hunter m james at james

58:31

harkin. And Lucy.

58:33

At Lucy Porter comic. That's where you can

58:35

go to our group count, which is at no such thing, or

58:37

you can email us at podcast at q

58:39

I dot com. Also, check out our website

58:41

no such thing as dot com. All of our previous

58:43

episodes are up there, so you can listen to those.

58:46

But most importantly of all, if you'd like to

58:48

see Lucy in her pajamas, make sure

58:50

to get out of your house

58:52

and into a comedy club to see

58:54

wake up call. It's the show that she's touring,

58:57

and she's gonna be going around the UK

58:59

doing that. So go, Google it, see she's

59:01

going and try and see it. Okay. That's it.

59:03

We're gonna back again next week with another episode.

59:05

We'll see you then. Goodbye.