0:01

Hello and

0:03

welcome to another episode

0:05

of No Such Thing as

0:07

a Fish, a weekly podcast

0:11

coming to

0:20

you from the QI offices in Hoburn.

0:22

My name is Dan Schreiber, I'm sitting

0:24

here with Anna Tyshinsky, James Harkin and

0:26

Andrew Antemari, and once again we have

0:28

gathered around the microphones with our four

0:30

favourite facts from the last seven days,

0:32

and in no particular order, here we

0:34

go. Starting with fact number

0:37

one, and that is Andy. My

0:39

fact is that thousands of soldiers

0:41

who died at Waterloo were turned

0:43

into sugar. Incredible. It's

0:45

a horrible fact about a horrible battle.

0:47

Wow. It's incredible. It's really bad this

0:49

one. Yeah, how do you turn a

0:51

person into sugar? That seems very unlikely.

0:54

Well, firstly, asking for a friend. You

0:57

have to lure them to Waterloo

0:59

in 1815, kill them. Oh,

1:01

so I have to be

1:04

French. What? No, well, oh,

1:06

I'm so glad we got onto this already. There

1:08

are so many nationalities who fought at Waterloo.

1:11

Oh, yeah. Most of the English army was

1:14

German. It's not nice. Yeah. Yeah.

1:17

Two thirds were German speaking as a first language,

1:19

lots of Dutch soldiers as well. Belgian. Yeah. Yeah.

1:21

They were just brought in, weren't they? Sort of,

1:23

we don't have enough. If

1:26

you're listening to this in Europe, probably your

1:28

nationality was represented at Waterloo in some capacity

1:30

or another. Yeah. More than the Brits who constituted

1:32

about 12% of the British led

1:35

army. It was about a third. Estimates may vary. Oh,

1:37

they do. They're very, very, exactly. I think at

1:39

the lower end, we think maybe only, you know.

1:41

So what are we saying in case you

1:43

don't like British sugar? Don't worry. There is

1:45

multinational sugar in it. Well, it was,

1:48

they set up a sugar factory on the, pretty

1:50

much on the battlefield. I mean, it's all a

1:52

bit. Can I refer you to my earlier question?

1:54

How does one turn a human into sugar? All

1:56

right. Thank you. Because sugar is a thing

1:59

that grows in the. in

2:01

sugar beet or sugar cane and then you

2:03

harvest it and there are no humans involved.

2:05

That's true, that's true. But what you

2:07

do need to do is filter sugar syrup

2:09

when you're making the sugar. So

2:12

this was something that basically

2:15

very very few bodies have been found on the battlefield

2:17

of Waterloo. Like suspiciously few.

2:20

Two full skeletons of 20,000. Are

2:24

we sure it wasn't just Napoleon

2:27

and Wellington just coming at

2:29

it? And they just really

2:32

over-egged whoever really told a much bigger

2:34

lie about what had happened there. It's

2:36

the greatest prank in history. It hasn't really pulled the wool

2:39

over the 21st century idiot's eyes. No,

2:41

so there were lots of graves. There were

2:43

huge graves but only a few bones

2:46

have been found. Like as you say, two full skeletons.

2:48

They found three legs relatively recently as well recently which

2:50

was near one of the hospitals so those were probably

2:52

amputated legs on the day. So

2:54

it's not that it was Napoleon versus Wellington and

2:56

one of them had three legs. Yeah, that's what

2:58

I was hoping. One of the skeletons was a

3:00

tripod. But you're

3:03

right, there should have been huge numbers of dead people

3:05

or bodies in the ground and the theory

3:07

is, and this is quite a recent theory that's been

3:09

developed, is that in the aftermath of the

3:11

battle the local residents or the local

3:13

peasants they dug up the corpses and

3:15

they sold the bones to

3:17

people working in the sugar beet industry because

3:20

the bones were really valuable at the time

3:22

and normally animal bones were used. You would

3:24

cook the bones, that made

3:26

a powder called noir animal which

3:29

you could use to filter the sugar syrup and make

3:31

lovely clean sugar. So these days noir

3:34

animal is still used but animal bones and also

3:36

not in sugar is used for other products and

3:38

things. So sugar these days doesn't

3:41

have to be any of these bones.

3:43

Sugar is vegan. Don't worry, yeah, vegetarian

3:45

clothes. Sugar is vegan. But the theory

3:47

is that local peasants just dug

3:49

up the bodies and used the bones for

3:51

this industry and it's a pretty compelling theory.

3:53

Because we've known for ages that they took

3:55

the teeth out of people, didn't they? Yeah.

3:58

And they used them for thought. and so

4:00

false teeth were known as water blue

4:02

teeth. Yeah, watery wyvery. Yeah,

4:05

it's so dark. And they did write

4:07

about the sugar thing back in the 1800s. There

4:10

was a German newspaper that actually wrote,

4:12

you should be using honey to sweeten

4:14

food and avoid risk of having your

4:16

great grandfather's acid dissolved in your coffee

4:18

one fine morning. Wow. Yeah. I like

4:20

that. I quite like that idea of

4:22

cycling your grandparents. Yeah. And in 1822, there

4:25

was an article in the Observer that said it

4:29

is now ascertained beyond the doubt by

4:31

actual experiments on an extensive scale that

4:33

a dead soldier is the most valuable

4:35

article of commerce. And they were talking

4:37

about the fact that they were ground

4:39

up and used as fertilizer. Yes, they

4:41

were weren't they? They covered the fields of Europe.

4:43

I suppose in a way, it's recycling.

4:46

Yeah, good on us. Isn't it? Like

4:48

once you're dead, like do you really

4:50

care? Exactly. Hmm. One controversial

4:52

question. Wow. Oh, it's not

4:54

that controversial. Once you're dead, I'm pretty sure you

4:56

don't care. Unless you're a ghost, I

4:59

suppose. Sorry. I believe in does

5:01

one care. Some people care what happens to,

5:03

you know, the dead. Yeah. There

5:05

was a thing called controversial. There

5:08

was a thing called the bone rush. And

5:10

it was partly because it was actually partly because

5:12

of Britain because Britain blockaded sugar, right? Because most

5:14

sugar came from places like the West Indies, which

5:17

were British colonies at the

5:19

time and Britain blockaded that. So

5:21

not much sugar to get to Europe. So Europe

5:23

set up a big sugar beet industry. That was

5:26

the kind of way of making sugar that didn't

5:28

rely on shipping. Yeah. So that and

5:31

then that needed the bones. So yeah, in

5:33

a sense, it's our fault. Yeah,

5:35

yeah. In a sense. In a

5:37

sense. Um, Waterloo, I can't

5:39

believe, I can't believe we've hardly talked about Waterloo before.

5:41

I'm so excited. I can't believe we're only going to

5:43

do one section of it. I got like the rest

5:45

is history guys. They would get eight episodes out of

5:48

the Battle of Waterloo. And we have to cram it

5:50

into 15 minutes. It's not fair. I think you're optimistic

5:52

about 15 minutes. I'll be honest. I'm

5:54

looking at some of the other fights coming up and I reckon they

5:56

might be a bit longer. Oh no. You

5:58

allowed one fight, Sandy. No. We've

6:00

got to go through the whole- What's your fave? What's

6:02

your fave? What's the fact? Apart from the headline obviously

6:04

which my definition is. I'm

6:06

quite interested in the cavalry charges and

6:08

stuff. And the farmhouse at the centre of

6:10

it all and all that. You know, the

6:12

stuff that doesn't make very good stuff for our show.

6:15

You have brought a lot of toy soldiers onto the

6:17

table already. Well,

6:19

there is. Have you heard of the Siborn

6:21

model? No. This is so cool.

6:23

This is like, I tried

6:25

to stick to mostly the aftermath of the

6:27

battle rather than like in-depth troop movements. You're

6:31

welcome. But there was

6:33

a captain called William Siborn who made a huge

6:35

model of the Battle of Waterloo 15 years

6:38

after it had happened. And he spent

6:40

eight weeks on the battlefield itself just researching.

6:42

He took seven years to make it. He

6:44

made, well he certainly put 80,000 model

6:47

soldiers on this 400 square foot model.

6:49

It's massive. In a way though, what

6:52

we've got is one guy going to the battlefield

6:54

saying, okay, I need to know where everyone was

6:56

so I can make the model. But at the

6:58

same time, all of the locals are coming and

7:00

moving all the bodies around, taking all the bodies

7:03

and stuff. That must have been really awkward. Yeah,

7:05

I'm sure he was very nice. And actually 15

7:07

years afterwards was around the time they were doing

7:09

the sugar harvesting. And he interviewed dozens of soldiers

7:11

saying, where were you at 7pm on the 18th

7:13

of June, 1815? But

7:15

he really went into detail. And then he assumed

7:18

the government was going to pay for it because it was

7:20

his life's work. And the government kind

7:23

of had said we'll pay for it but kind

7:25

of didn't. And Wellington was annoyed because the model

7:27

had too many Prations is the theory. So

7:29

he died poor and broke

7:31

just with this 400 square foot model of the

7:34

Battle of Waterloo at 7pm. We

7:36

still have it. It's in the National Army Museum

7:38

now, which is in Chelsea. So it does still

7:40

exist. Yeah, yeah. It's awesome. But it kind of

7:42

ruined his life. We

7:45

should probably say Waterloo's happened because Napoleon

7:47

had been dealt with, defeated by the

7:49

combined Allied powers. And he'd been sent

7:51

away to Elba where he was given, which is

7:54

a little island off Italy, where he was given command

7:56

of the island. He was also given a small army

7:58

and navy. What are you thinking? This

8:00

is the best military commander in history. He's

8:03

got a small army and navy. He can't possibly... Who

8:06

gave that to him? The British. I think

8:08

it was like a sort of allied decision.

8:10

They just said, it's fine, he'll step down,

8:12

he won't want to come back. What

8:14

a weird... Like a desert island disk

8:17

luxury island. Elba is not

8:19

that far away. That's the crazy thing. It's quite

8:21

close. I've been there. It's quite close

8:23

to Italy. It's really easy to get back. Obviously,

8:25

he does a few... He improves Elba

8:27

a bit to sort of fix it

8:30

in various ways. Then he comes back, straight

8:32

back. But only with a small army. He's

8:34

a small army. And then...

8:36

So this is in 1815, it's called the

8:38

Hundred Days, between him leaving Elba and getting

8:40

to Waterloo, where he's eventually defeated because everyone

8:42

has suddenly scrambled back into action. And

8:45

the Bourbon monarchy has been restored. It's Louis the 18th, I

8:47

think, who's been put on the throne of France. Slightly

8:49

embarrassing, obviously. He's just sort of sidled

8:52

back onto the throne. And

8:54

as soon as Napoleon lands in France, Louis the

8:56

18th sends two big forces, led

8:58

by two marshals, like Napoleon's generals,

9:00

we're all called marshals. So as two marshals, as

9:02

soon as they meet Napoleon, they change sides. Like

9:05

instantly. Oh really? He just

9:07

says, look, it's me. It's Napoleon. Bonie's

9:09

back. Come on, guys. And he just

9:11

changed sides. And he's in charge of France again. And the

9:14

monarchy flees again. And then all of Europe has to wake

9:16

up and scramble and, you know, lure him

9:18

to Waterloo and try to defeat him.

9:20

And they're basically led by a duo

9:22

of Wellington and Blucher. And

9:25

they were really different characters. Oh, were

9:27

they? So Wellington sounds like a

9:29

bit of a dick, maybe, to hang out

9:31

with, but really good general. So his forces

9:34

didn't really love him because

9:36

he was quite cold, quite arrogant. The

9:38

Iron Duke. The Iron Duke, yes. Yeah,

9:40

you're never going to love someone called the Iron

9:42

Duke, go to parties with him. Whereas Blucher was

9:44

more very brave, not a

9:47

good strategist, didn't plan ahead. It was

9:49

the disco ball. Exactly.

9:51

Yes. So

9:54

he was called Papa Blucher

9:56

by his men and they

9:59

loved him. But yeah,

10:01

Wellington quite cocky apparently and the

10:03

interesting thing about blue curl One of the interesting

10:05

things is he invented a type of boot, didn't

10:07

he? So just like Wellington

10:09

did so Wellington had his boots hang

10:11

on that's not his boot Is it

10:14

the Wellington boots named after him?

10:16

Yeah, and he didn't invent it. Well, yeah Wanted

10:20

people to have a special kind of boots

10:22

to go into battle. Yeah, right And it

10:24

was two boots each. Yeah And

10:29

he yeah, he wasn't he didn't do the

10:31

designing or the making of it or anything

10:33

like that, but it was his idea I

10:35

think yeah, and they weren't wellies. Yeah. Yeah,

10:37

they were proper boots. Yeah, it

10:39

wasn't like a farmer Yeah, that's what I'm

10:42

thinking of Imagine squelching in the wall Or

10:45

like some shiny ones like with rainbows on like

10:47

you get a glass of drink Napoleon

10:49

actually lost because he wore his kitten heels on the

10:51

day of the battle And he got fucking some mud Crocs

10:55

Luca had a boot. Yeah, so Wellington had

10:57

his boot But they weren't that hadn't been

10:59

invented at the Battle of Waterloo, but blue

11:01

cars boot had been so the blue curve

11:04

army Went in in blue cars boots But the

11:06

Wellington army didn't go out in Wellington boots because

11:08

they hadn't been invented the idea of generals having

11:10

their kind of their merch Final

11:14

speech on the bonding of the battle and if you put

11:16

in the offer code blue curve, you'll

11:18

get 10 marks Like

11:24

it was 200,000 men crammed into about five

11:26

square miles It was a very very very

11:28

deadly battle like lots of casualties hands all

11:30

the bodies Like 50,000 were

11:32

killed or seriously injured. It was really sort

11:34

of bloody Yeah, it took place

11:36

over about four days. The water was on the

11:38

final day And there were three three small battles

11:41

leading up to the big final conference and not

11:43

in Waterloo as well We should say no nearby.

11:45

Yeah, yeah, like with Roswell said that the alien

11:47

incident All right, you know, it was because the

11:49

aliens were brought back to Roswell. It's called Information

11:53

was sent from Waterloo was safe for me.

11:55

I thought the fact There's

12:00

no way he's gonna be able to get on the tri-pod came down That's

12:06

interesting so that was where his office was that's

12:08

where they were stationed Yeah, and basically the as

12:10

it says it's like the official report had the

12:12

date line and the location on it and Waterloo

12:14

was the location Yeah,

12:16

which is place it was Was

12:20

it was right next door to Corona,

12:22

you know Corona that's where yeah, I

12:24

know right No

12:27

one else has been pushing this conspiracy like I have

12:31

But yes aliens gave us the

12:33

coronavirus Wow, this was the

12:35

end of the Napoleonic war. Mm-hmm. Or

12:37

was it? There was

12:39

actually another battle afterwards which France won

12:42

in the Napoleonic war So France won the

12:44

last battle of the Napoleonic war get out

12:46

the battle of Wavera What

12:49

happened was it was French reinforcements

12:51

coming to Waterloo and they

12:53

met up with the Prussians And

12:55

there was a big battle. But what

12:57

they didn't realize is the Battle of

12:59

Waterloo had already finished Right and so

13:01

Napoleon had lost but there was another

13:03

battle going on to bring reinforcements France

13:05

won that Oh brilliant Let's go. Oh,

13:07

it's finished Wow That

13:09

is so interesting. I didn't know that yeah Technically

13:12

if you win the last battle of the war doesn't

13:14

mean that you win the whole war I reckon if

13:16

it's like winner stays on this last goal win. Yeah.

13:18

Yeah. Yeah, are we trying to get a

13:24

few more minutes There

13:29

are a few Joan of Arc

13:32

types at Waterloo women. Yes

13:35

They seem to be mostly on the Prussian side

13:37

actually there was women called

13:39

Eleanor Prochaska and the Frieda Riek I

13:41

think she called herself Frederick wasn't their actual name Kruger

13:44

and they just cut their hair Freddie Oh My

13:51

god, wow, oh my god I'm

13:54

trying to welcome down back into the conversation.

13:56

Yeah, pretty pretty Kruger. That was where he

13:59

got famous So good, because there's also

14:01

a famous water skier called Freddy Krueger. Really? Because this

14:03

person at the battle, we're only one away from an

14:05

only connect question. Wow. Well,

14:08

there you go, Victoria Curran, if you're listening. Frederick

14:11

Krueger, cut her hair, went

14:13

and fought at Waterloo, gave herself away,

14:15

apparently one account said when she spoke

14:17

in a particularly high voice suddenly. I'll

14:20

find you in your dreams. I'll find you in

14:22

your dreams. Don't go

14:24

there. Not

14:30

the podcast. Not the

14:32

podcast. Hi, Dan. Do you know how many numbers there are

14:34

in the world? Oh, yeah,

14:37

there's infinite. Isn't

14:39

that not right? Yeah,

14:42

it is. There's lots of different types of infinity,

14:44

but we'll go into that later, because there's only

14:46

three numbers that you need to know today if

14:48

you have a small business that

14:50

wants to get a new financial system

14:53

and streamline its accounting, and those numbers

14:55

are 37,025 and 1. Okay,

14:59

what could these possibly mean, then? Well,

15:01

37,000, that's the number of businesses who have

15:04

upgraded to NetSuite. My

15:06

oracle. 25 refers

15:08

to the fact that NetSuite turns 25 years old

15:10

this year. That's 25 years

15:12

of helping businesses do more with less,

15:15

close their books in days, not weeks,

15:17

and drive down costs. And

15:19

one because Daniel Schreiber, you,

15:22

and the business of this theoretical person

15:24

that I'm talking to are one

15:26

of a kind. So with NetSuite,

15:28

you get a customized solution for all

15:30

of your key performance indicators in one

15:32

efficient system. That's right. So

15:34

if your business is absolutely humming, but you've

15:36

fallen behind because all this admin stuff is

15:38

going on, you're buried in all the manual

15:40

work, get NetSuite. It's going to help you

15:42

streamline all your business and just make it

15:44

a simple process. That's the one thing to

15:46

take away from this, as well as the

15:48

fact that James says, I'm one of a

15:50

kind. So if you

15:52

would like to use NetSuite and its

15:55

popular KPI checklist, that's the key performance

15:57

indicators that are designed to keep you

15:59

excellently performing. absolutely free, you

16:01

can go to netsuite.com/fish. That's

16:03

right, so go to netsuite.com/fish

16:05

to get your own KPI

16:08

checklist, netsuite.com/fish. Now Dan, let

16:10

me tell you about all

16:12

these different infinities. Okay,

16:15

let's do it. But first, on with the show.

16:17

On with the podcast. On with the podcast. On

16:19

with the podcast. On with the podcast. On with the

16:21

podcast. On with the podcast. On with the podcast. Okay,

16:23

it is time for fact number two,

16:25

and that is James. Okay, my fact

16:28

this week is that puffer fish don't

16:30

have a functioning stomach, so

16:32

they digest food in their rectum.

16:36

Much like President Garfield. Yes. Oh

16:39

wow. I hadn't made that connection. Or those

16:41

people on a boat one time, you know,

16:43

who like put food up their bum. Did

16:45

they? I don't remember this. Do you remember?

16:47

I don't think Hannah was there. It was one of

16:49

your yacht parties. It

16:52

was, they put turtle blood up their

16:55

anus. Oh, yes,

16:57

the shipwrecked family. That's right, the

16:59

animals, the turtle animals. So we've

17:01

got President Garfield, those guys, the

17:03

puffer fish, we're just one away

17:05

from an only connect question, if

17:07

you're listening, Victoria. So do they, like President

17:10

Garfield, put the food up their bum? No,

17:13

they do not. Okay. Puffer

17:15

fish get the name because they puff up. If

17:18

they're in danger, they make themselves much bigger by

17:20

sucking in a load of water and

17:22

just becoming a big ball. Now, in

17:24

order to do that, they've lost their stomach

17:27

because the stomach would get in the way

17:29

of this skill. You mean evolutionarily or

17:31

just every time they puff up, their stomach

17:33

disappears? Evolutionarily or

17:36

by design from God. They

17:38

have lost their stomach. And

17:40

so the way that they eat is they

17:43

get the food into their body and

17:45

they absorb the nutrients when it's going down

17:47

their throat, when it's going in their intestines,

17:49

and also when it's going into their

17:51

rectum. They have enzymes that break down the

17:53

food. They have, you know, they have an

17:56

acidic mucus all the way down their

17:58

digestive system. stomach

18:00

is to have a stomach you need to have

18:02

a sphincter on either side and it to be

18:04

a bag and they don't have that particular thing

18:06

They've only got one sphincter. They only have one

18:08

sphincter in that system and then the mouth is

18:11

the other one It's really interesting when you

18:13

think you know, we're all dressed a

18:15

bag with two sphincters. We are really

18:17

yeah We're a tutira

18:20

stone. Yeah, as in the

18:22

mouth comes first Yeah, and then the anus

18:24

comes and then all the other bits comes.

18:26

There's the tube stuff. Yeah Yeah, it is.

18:28

Yeah, but they're very good. I

18:30

didn't really they're awesome. I really like That's

18:35

why I think I

18:37

think as a defense mechanism I think inflating

18:40

yourself like a balloon rather and I

18:42

think basically They had to evolve that

18:44

because they're not very good swimmers And so

18:46

instead they just puff themselves up to this too

18:48

big to eat like a comedy animal They're

18:50

the only fish that my daughter can recognize

18:53

the only species of fish. Oh, really?

18:55

Oh, wow That's a good

18:57

fact. I mean if you give her a picture of

18:59

loads of fish, yeah recognize that they're fish But yeah,

19:01

she'll go puff a fish. Oh I

19:05

used to have a puffer fish as a kid. No, yeah

19:08

Really? It was dead, but I was given it

19:10

in Hong Kong on the Inflated?

19:13

Yeah, it was nice It was inflated and a guy

19:15

had caught it and I went to the fishing village

19:17

in Hong Kong and he gave it to me It

19:20

was dead and gave it to me in a

19:22

bag and I brought it home and I kept it

19:24

in that We had a fridge for some reason in

19:26

the hallway of the building that we lived in So

19:28

it was like on the group staircase. So I used

19:30

to go every day and visit my puffer fish I

19:32

just opened it and see it. Does it count as

19:34

a pet if it's dead? I think I because I

19:36

visited it that's how I count it They are kind

19:38

of like yeah, and it stunk out the whole building

19:40

I didn't recognize because I was so used to the

19:42

smell and no one could locate it where the smell

19:44

was coming How could they not locate it if it

19:46

was in the fridge? When someone else opened the fridge

19:48

didn't they say? I guess no one did no

19:50

one open the fridge. No one ever open with our fridge.

19:53

No one Wait,

19:55

how old were you? I Was about eight. So

19:57

How come your parents open the fridge? The

20:00

new parents never say. You. Know a

20:02

balancing. It's like me throughout the dead pulses. This should.

20:04

I just couldn't tell them so they just didn't

20:06

know whether things coming from probably after a while

20:09

it would have got a load of flies and

20:11

worms and stuff in or I was pretty rotten.

20:13

You know your parents would have to after a

20:15

while ago that I've got bad news. you're dead

20:18

puffer fish is alive and ha ha ha ha

20:20

yeah episodes her home and away. the and I've

20:22

actually got up of this anecdote is not as

20:24

good as these two is my daughter to maximize

20:26

less I have a dead pet one for I

20:29

thought I was of men things move get a

20:31

couple months ago and one of the items on

20:33

sale there was a puffer. Fish Lamp. With

20:36

someone has inflated aja pufferfish and

20:38

then. On light bulb

20:40

into his oh one of the things is probably

20:43

over the party of Canada Day but I didn't

20:45

buy it. Did you know I don't regret not

20:47

buying it? Could have pretty macabre say. While this

20:49

may think so and he's got a puffer historic

20:51

you've got one, I've got one. If we can

20:53

get anna one will have another question. Is

20:58

is get of universities. It's Eric episode

21:00

of and already Clay is Eric. there

21:02

are I'd. Seen. As less than of documentary

21:04

on a Find the family. Array and

21:06

are in the blowfish as blowfish the

21:09

same as above This? Yeah yeah yeah.

21:11

another same is who who. I

21:14

think the Cia lodges. The dead as well. But

21:16

let us ralston than than is not. That I'm

21:18

at. this is one of that of as as

21:20

the puffing up but it's not there any defense

21:22

because they're incredibly poisonous. Is it a defense those

21:24

he can't use. The. Consumer live as out

21:26

of themselves right? Which is what is to

21:28

build my results and see. Them. as

21:30

the defense the advertise the opposes with what you

21:33

look like a yeah i said though he does

21:35

the thing in japan were so puffer fish and

21:37

food is this different species of pufferfish right a

21:39

thing as i like two hundred and i assume

21:41

they'll look a bit different on food it was

21:44

a big one in japan is a delicacy we'll

21:46

know it to be dangerous if not prepared by

21:48

the correct sense because of all these toxins and

21:50

poisons you do get trained as a chef it

21:53

you gotta be over twenty that to spend years

21:55

and an academy doing it was can i just

21:57

cook you say yeah you don't exactly this is

21:59

the Regionally specific. Yeah. So in some

22:01

areas of Japan you have to as Dan says

22:03

you do a written test You do a practical

22:06

test you do all sorts of stuff in other

22:08

bits of Japan. Just go to a lecture. Yeah

22:15

Because that'd be great because you could just watch it

22:18

and then put your camera so no one can see

22:20

you I mean I can just go to the pub.

22:22

Yeah So she had to keep

22:24

wanting to have regulations put in place. So I read an

22:26

article 2009

22:28

hundreds of people were poisoned by badly prepared fugu 34

22:31

of them died Yeah,

22:33

there was there was one guy Sorry,

22:36

there was a group of men in northern

22:38

Japan who when they ate grilled blowfish testicles

22:40

found themselves Very

22:42

very ill because of unlicensed chefs.

22:45

Wow. Yeah Just

22:47

realized I've made a mistake that was before

22:49

the new license system in 2019. Yeah, so

22:51

yeah, maybe be reasonably specific Yeah, I believe

22:53

maybe now you can no longer just go

22:55

to the zoom lecture For

22:58

a long time and thousands of people were

23:00

dying. What's wrong with us? So it

23:02

can't is it curiosity? It can't be

23:04

that good. What's wrong with us? We want to eat. I think

23:06

it's tasty Give you a bit of a

23:08

buzz Make your

23:11

mouth tingle fighting and if you eat them the livers

23:13

the best bit and you're not allowed to eat that I don't

23:15

think I don't lie you even if you're serving fugu

23:18

You have to remove the will is meant to be

23:20

they serve it So like in 2011, there was a woman

23:22

in a restaurant who specifically said to the chef, you know,

23:24

please give me the liver I know you're not supposed to

23:26

do it and I think they do so he did and

23:29

then she ended up going to hospital I

23:31

did it there was a famous actor

23:33

a Japanese kabuki theater actor called Mitsugoro

23:35

Bando the 8th and in 1975

23:38

he went to a fugu restaurant and he persuaded one

23:40

of the chefs that he had developed a natural resistance

23:42

to the Toxic he built it up and he asked

23:44

the chef Can you do me some food livers and

23:47

he got the plate? Yeah for fugu livers then he

23:49

died Yeah, I don't think he

23:51

had whether he thought he had built up

23:54

a resistance or not. He hadn't the other

23:56

thing is That these days you can make

23:58

harmless fugu. So they A

24:00

point and place in the special by

24:02

terrier. be at some If you can

24:04

make your Psu goofus grow up in

24:06

a place where there's bacteria doesn't exist

24:08

and it's not poisonous. The main aim

24:10

our say wanna use hangouts. Just say that's

24:13

it. Seems insane. We can now be worried,

24:15

figure that taste the same, but they employed

24:17

needs and one's ever thought about it and

24:19

said none. Openness of the in Obviously more

24:21

than a little exciting to go to a

24:23

restaurant knowing it might be the last meal

24:25

you ever eat. Where's enjoyment anything? I don't

24:27

know where that get. A grip are

24:29

completely agree. You know how you

24:31

said it's different recently in some

24:33

places in that she mono sackey

24:35

area it's not called to do

24:37

is called fuck you oh sees

24:40

more appropriate yeah that's your loss.

24:42

was the the chef when you

24:44

don't. Think

24:46

I didn't. You know that you've been poisoned until

24:49

about twenty five minutes later. Yeah, so I think

24:51

you've got time to get the bill to send

24:53

us a higher and then you realize you're leaving

24:55

applying on a second, much as someone who's been

24:57

sort of fish restaurant. They are very quick with

24:59

the bear other doesn't have that up and we

25:01

only had a south such as was nothing that

25:04

wasn't to go on the measure i think have

25:06

you ever done this before yea and you thought

25:08

you were gonna have a chicken nuggets and over

25:10

the the testicles with the title but now that

25:12

I've had the testicles the poisonous and killed someone

25:15

on the underclass i didn't the so separately often

25:17

they often have like a soul food meal the

25:19

i it and it's start off with some so

25:21

she me slices. So. Just little Rothys

25:23

Five points is arranged to look like

25:25

a crane about the take flight which

25:28

is a symbol of longevity. Have.

25:30

How I regret some shouldn't and did he

25:32

get some food is Sue Sue. Good rice

25:35

porridge and hot sucky with go through Griffin

25:37

in it and the testicle homicides and it

25:39

will be chelios to go ice cream our

25:41

lovely with civilian hundreds of thousands of innocent

25:44

human, other hundred and. Have

25:46

you ever tried of the semen

25:48

which is another delicacy? Kang oh

25:50

no, no no of mayonnaise and

25:53

they will defend. Us

25:55

about a stuff is poisonous probably.

25:57

oh I'd have night at know

25:59

either. You tried milk in the UK?

26:01

Milk on toast? Yeah, it's delicious. What?

26:03

Milk is relatively common, not these days.

26:05

No. Like 100 years ago in the

26:07

northeast of England, you would eat milk

26:09

for sure. Stop it. Definitely.

26:11

Scanning my mum always eats them and goes,

26:14

it's ridiculous that people don't have this every day these days.

26:16

What is that? That one

26:18

is kombai actually. It's a chicken then. Kombai.

26:20

You know, milk in teens. Yeah.

26:24

That was named after, you know, the economist,

26:26

teens. Stop it, yeah. He was ejaculated on

26:28

by a fish. His

26:30

name is Tom Haptorin. God,

26:33

that is torture. I

26:37

feel like we should talk about live puffer fish.

26:39

Yeah. OK. They're quite nice when they're alive. And

26:42

they make crop circles. Oh, yes. Which

26:45

are stunning and worth looking at. And we

26:47

only realised this recently, so we found it.

26:49

It's amazing they can get that far inland.

26:51

It's stunning. Well, there is a theory that

26:53

the roswell aliens actually were puffer fish. Yeah.

26:56

Yeah, there's not. But they do

26:59

make these extraordinary. They look like

27:01

perfect fossils. You know, yet the

27:03

typical... Like ammonite. Like ammonite fossils,

27:05

yeah. On the floor of

27:07

the ocean, they're perfectly symmetrical. They're concentric

27:09

rings with kind of spokes coming out

27:12

from them. And beautiful patterns. And they

27:14

were discovered in 1995. And

27:16

no one knew what they were. They were just these

27:18

mysterious things on the floor of the ocean. And it

27:21

was only in 2013 that someone was down there doing

27:23

a dive off the coast of Japan somewhere and went,

27:25

hey, there's this puffer fish. Flapping its

27:27

fins weirdly and making the pattern.

27:29

It was an amazing thing. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

27:31

It was amazing. It was amazing. It was a female. It was,

27:33

wasn't it? Yeah. So the female gets to

27:35

sit in the middle of these concentric circles.

27:38

Yeah. She likes it. She gives

27:40

an egg up and he gives a sperm up.

27:42

And in that one second, that's amazing done.

27:44

Yeah. And if not, she doesn't. There is

27:46

one theory that all she cares about is how

27:48

much sand is there. Yeah, right. And she doesn't

27:50

care about all these beautiful kind of circles and

27:53

that. And the fact is that the circles are

27:55

byproducts of the fact that you have to do

27:57

that to get all the sand in the middle.

28:00

You just have to do it in a certain

28:02

order. So is it like, it's like the

28:04

equivalent of actually my wife isn't interested in

28:06

my model railway, it's that I've got a

28:08

nice home which the model railway is in.

28:10

Is that it? It's a really good fight.

28:12

Yeah, that's almost flawless analogy. I've got a

28:14

couple questions to ask when I go home

28:16

actually. Okay,

28:22

it is time for fact number three, and

28:24

that is my fact. My fact this week

28:26

is, as there used to be no way

28:28

of duplicating a record, one of the best-selling

28:30

songs of the 1890s had to be recorded

28:33

over 10,000 times by the same singer. Isn't

28:37

that amazing? What is it in the recording

28:39

studio? It must have been. Well, days, eight

28:41

days, eight days, eight days, and weeks and

28:43

months, because basically every single record that you

28:46

used to make back in the day was

28:48

a master copy. That's what got sold. There

28:50

was no way of then recording that into

28:52

being another record in the way that we

28:54

have now. So it's quite nice

28:56

in a way because your record's different to

28:58

everyone else's. Yeah, exactly. You literally have a

29:00

bespoke record. If there's a little fart in

29:02

the background, that's just for you. So

29:05

there were no mics, there were no amplifiers, you had to

29:07

just yell into the horn of the phonograph. And

29:10

if you were particularly wealthy, you were

29:13

able to get four or five horns

29:15

around you, and so you could make

29:17

up to five copies of a single

29:19

song. So it's thought that the best-selling

29:22

single of the 1890s

29:24

was sung by a guy who

29:26

was an African-American called George Washington

29:28

Johnson, and he was a street singer

29:30

on the New York streets. He was just doing it

29:32

for pennies, and he used to sing a couple of

29:34

songs which were very, very backward and racist. And I

29:37

think that's why people didn't mind a black

29:39

singer being that well distributed. It was called,

29:41

you know, one that was... We

29:44

don't need to reach that out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You did some lyrics.

29:47

Yeah. No, but there was a

29:49

lot of... He was a lot of taking himself down

29:51

within the song. But one of the songs, which was

29:53

the laughing song, that was the biggest song of the

29:56

time. It sold 50,000 copies. So

29:58

It's said that... He did copies

30:01

that were like four to five horns

30:03

in one go. And it's old.

30:05

Fifty thousand so minimum. he sang at ten

30:07

thousand times in the maze and ah, but

30:09

when probably morning. Yeah, let's. The laughing.

30:11

Some just laughing. Know that the

30:13

chorus So people my no actually I

30:15

reckon people listen to this. Some of

30:18

them will know it because it was

30:20

covered loads of times, especially in the

30:22

Uk. A slightly different version called the

30:24

Laughing Policemen Songs were Hurting I love

30:27

Alleyways. He submitted name is the same

30:29

song but obviously they removed all of

30:31

the races stuff and replaced it with

30:34

a Fat Policeman. He was lot of

30:36

ah ha ha ha ha ha ha

30:38

ha ha ha. And that's the song

30:40

is great. Yeah a lot of money

30:43

really grow Not. Really about this I thought

30:45

how cavalese the things and the same even the

30:47

eighty nineties. And now you're right what we found

30:49

out there and sending our childhoods. Going

30:51

on. And yeah. Johnson. George Washington

30:53

Johnson headed the head of. The.

30:55

Of the Corsair then because yeah, they

30:58

works out how to replicate music And

31:00

he was no, he no longer had

31:02

a job for Life by Jerry. Yeah,

31:04

no royalties. Know you got paid for

31:06

doing your recording. Yep. But once they

31:08

managed to just copy stuff, that and

31:10

you never got any money anymore. Yeah,

31:13

yeah. like spotify of it's that. Yeah.

31:15

Oh, Controversy for our

31:17

largest distribution other. About

31:22

people are you fill out about

31:24

us as. He

31:26

had he had a the middle bit where

31:28

he was singing the song might have in

31:30

the only kind of peaceful bit of is

31:32

really because he was born in eighteen forty

31:34

six into slavery. He was made to be

31:36

the best friend of the child of the

31:38

family so he sort of hides playmate to

31:41

the way made for the white family as

31:43

a he then he was freed and he

31:45

went to New York. where he lived in

31:47

hell's kitchen and he with dual december he was

31:49

sort of you know on the street singing then

31:51

this big moment happens where he gets the single

31:53

the songs as james points out then they work

31:55

out a duplicate it's a his career is dead

31:57

after you know sitting in a booth twenty thousand

31:59

times minimum singing this stuff

32:02

and then life gets really weird for

32:04

him as Andy points out he he

32:06

was charged with murder he was never

32:08

convicted yeah it was brought on to

32:10

him. Both of his wives died suddenly

32:13

when living with him yeah he was charged with

32:15

trying to murder one of them yeah actually murdering

32:17

one of them I did read a report of

32:19

an altercation he had

32:21

with his wife this is in

32:24

the earth newspaper in 1899 and

32:26

its headline was too much whistling because his

32:28

main thing was whistling right he and he

32:30

was famous on the streets of New York

32:32

for whistling and it said George

32:35

Washington Johnson is in trouble because he couldn't

32:37

restrain his disposition to whistle at all times

32:39

he crawled with his wife because she got

32:41

tired of him whistling all over the house

32:43

so she shot him and he

32:46

thumped her and died the next night so

32:48

that was a story in what I assume

32:50

was a tabloid equivalent he whistled too

32:52

much she shot him yeah he

32:54

hit her and then she died and

32:56

then she died right in the olden days you

32:58

could just make a living from being really good

33:00

at whistling like you don't have to code

33:03

or anything no you just whistle there

33:05

was a guy called Freeman Davis who

33:07

was known as brother bones who was

33:10

a shoeshine boy and people noticed how

33:12

good he was at whistling and he

33:14

would also play his shoeshine instruments like

33:16

you know spoons like the spoons you

33:19

might do he became really famous and

33:21

his whistling became the theme song of

33:23

the Harlem Globetrotters it was

33:25

Sybil Sanderson Fagan who was one of the

33:27

most famous whistlers in America in the 1920s

33:31

and she would do whistling of

33:33

birdsong so you'd buy a vinyl

33:35

and it would just be a

33:37

thrush or something she

33:39

left her husband who was a playwright called

33:42

Eugene P. Barden because she claimed that he

33:44

had drugged her on her wedding day and

33:47

so she got married because she said that she'd

33:49

been drugged into getting married he drugged her into

33:51

the marriage I thought you meant after the wedding

33:54

had happened then he drugged her oh my goodness

33:56

there was Fred Lowry who was a professional

33:58

whistler in the 40s and 40s who

34:00

was blinded by Scarlet Fever at the

34:02

age of two, then became a Whistler,

34:04

and then he later went away from

34:07

pop music and became a religious Whistler.

34:09

Oh, a religious Whistler? Yeah, he would

34:11

go to churches and whistle hymns instead

34:13

of whistling pop songs. Nice. But yeah,

34:15

it's just amazing that you got all

34:17

these people who, all they could

34:19

do was whistle. I'm not, all we could do

34:21

is podcast, so... Exactly, yeah, yeah. Well, I can

34:24

whistle, I can whistle. Oh

34:26

yeah? Let's see your thrush. Oh, my thrush. Oh,

34:29

shit, I've got thrush! Wasn't

34:32

the first Eurovision, the

34:34

half-time act, was a troupe of Whistlers?

34:36

Was it? The rosinoles, I think, yeah.

34:38

That means Nightingale in French. Oh, there

34:41

we go, okay, well, that is all

34:43

coming together. Yeah, yeah, so it's a

34:45

big deal. If you say in French,

34:48

j'ai le rosinole, which I think means I

34:50

have rosinoles, it means there's a problem with

34:52

your car, because it's like you have Nightingales

34:54

in your engine and it's making a weird

34:57

tweeting noise. Wow. The

35:00

only sound recording we have, we actually only

35:02

heard a few years ago, but it was

35:04

from way earlier than we thought, like 20

35:06

years before Edison in 1857, and it was a French guy

35:09

called Edouard Leon Scott de Ma

35:11

Tambi, and he basically

35:14

recorded sound, but he didn't have to

35:16

play it back. He hadn't invented the instrument

35:18

to... Right. ...transmit it

35:20

in. He just recorded it onto a bit

35:22

of paper. That takes a lot of

35:24

trust when you go to the Dragons. No,

35:27

we didn't. No, honestly, I have recorded sound,

35:29

man. I can't hear it. You can show

35:31

them the paper and go, this would sound

35:33

amazing if you tried to imagine it. And

35:35

we managed to engineer it in 2008 to

35:37

play one of the... It

35:39

was a piece of paper. His piece of paper is 1860 piece

35:42

of paper. Indegrated. Yeah, it was

35:44

covered in soot and the sound

35:46

waves were etched in. So

35:48

vinyl is PVC, right? And

35:52

that was invented or first synthesized by

35:54

a guy, a German chemist called Eugene

35:56

Bauman in 1872. And

35:59

he... He had been making some vinyl chloride

36:01

in a flask and had just left it

36:04

on a shelf for a few days, maybe a

36:06

few weeks, the sunlight had got on it and

36:08

then there was a white compound in there and

36:10

he thought, I wonder what this is? And

36:13

that turned out to be PVC. Wow.

36:18

Did he then stick his arm

36:20

in the flask to try and

36:22

get it out and it formed

36:24

a sexy PVC glove? Yeah. I

36:26

realised it has huge implications for

36:28

the erotic clothing industry. Well

36:30

that is the story, that's greatly what

36:32

happened. Eugene Powerman

36:35

also identified the source for

36:37

the smells in urine and

36:40

proved the active ingredients in your thyroid

36:42

gland which is what stops you from

36:44

getting gliders. Oh!

36:47

So just a few things that has.

36:49

Wow. What a range. Cool

36:51

back. It's all chemistry. What do

36:53

you lead with though? On the TV. Oh

36:55

I know why pee smells. I know why

36:58

piss smells. If you're sat next to someone

37:00

at a wedding and they say,

37:02

what do you do? You say, I'm a chemist and

37:04

they go, oh if you chemists did anything that I might

37:06

know, then what is the first spot?

37:08

Have you ever smelled some piss? I

37:12

know why. Your best man is very rude. Oh

37:15

dear. I

37:18

don't think we've ever mentioned Chichester

37:21

Bell before. I didn't know

37:23

about him anyway. He's

37:25

Alexander Graham Bell's brother. Stop it.

37:28

Really? He's also

37:30

a phonograph pioneer. Chichester

37:32

Bell. What a name. He

37:35

invented the earliest voicemail. Around about the time

37:38

his brother Alex was working on phones. He

37:40

invented voicemail and the way it worked was,

37:44

it was a phonograph cylinder that you

37:46

recorded your voice onto so

37:48

the grooves are all in the right place and

37:50

then you just posted it to your friend. The

37:53

problem is that they would get it and they'd be like,

37:56

oh who's it from? And they go Chichester Bell and they

37:58

go fuck on. That's

38:00

just spamming. Stop

38:09

the podcast. Stop the podcast. Hey

38:12

everyone, this week's episode of

38:14

Phish is sponsored by ExpressVPN.

38:17

Absolutely ExpressVPN. If you're not using

38:19

it and you're going online, it's

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with the podcast. On with the show. Okay,

39:53

it is time for our final fact of the

39:55

show and that is Anna. My

39:58

fact this week is that the US government... maintains

40:00

a database of dad jokes.

40:05

What an excellent fact. We're

40:08

off the blocks looking. Three

40:12

guys absolutely straining for a dad joke there.

40:15

I don't know why I presented this fact because it promises

40:17

to be held in the next 20 minutes with you guys.

40:20

But this is on

40:22

a website that's run by the Office of

40:24

Family Assistance which is a government

40:27

resource for fathers basically for

40:29

families. And they have a website

40:31

within that called the National Responsible

40:34

Fatherhood Clearinghouse. And if you

40:36

go to that website, which I would

40:38

recommend, then you can click on, you

40:40

know, dad resources and you can

40:42

submit your own dad jokes. And you can

40:45

click, give me a joke and they'll give you a dad joke

40:47

and click, give me another, they'll give you another. I don't know

40:49

how long it goes on for. I sat there for about half

40:51

an hour. If you go to the

40:53

mum section of this website, is it all

40:55

practical stuff? Like how to feed a baby,

40:57

how to change a baby, how to keep

40:59

a baby alive? It's a load of your

41:01

mum jokes. Yeah,

41:07

I thought that was really interesting. And I guess

41:09

the idea is that being a father

41:12

is perhaps something people need help with, of course, as they

41:15

do with all the parenting. And it's a useful skill to have

41:17

in your back pocket as a dad, being able to whip out

41:19

a really bad, really an offensive joke, which

41:21

seems to basically be the definition is that they're bad and they're

41:23

not offensive. Yeah. So

41:25

they give you a bunch of the jokes with the reveals

41:27

on the side. Okay. What

41:30

do you call a man with a rubber toe? Oh,

41:34

rubber toe. Yeah. I

41:37

don't think that's a dad joke, actually. I

41:39

kind of agree. So my definition of a

41:42

dad joke is a joke where it is

41:45

in response to something the child often says. And

41:48

you always repeat it all the time, all the time,

41:50

all the time. So, for instance, Anna's mum joke, which

41:52

is, can you turn on the light? And then your

41:54

mum goes and flirts with the lights and she's like,

41:56

are you turned on yet? Yeah. I

41:59

think that's the definition. dad joke because it's something that

42:01

kids will always say. I have an actual dad

42:03

joke that I do and I've been doing for

42:05

six years now, every single time it's said and

42:08

it's whenever it's kind of getting to the evening

42:10

and Sinella says can you draw the curtains, I

42:12

always say can I have

42:14

a pencil? I'd love to but I

42:17

don't have a pencil. Yeah that's a dad

42:19

joke I think. Interesting I think

42:21

they're two strands of dad jokism which you know

42:23

is a complex being I agree that is one

42:25

but then I think I remember you know my

42:27

dad's whole jokes and they seemed to very much

42:29

fall into the dad joke category of what does

42:31

a dog call the thing on top of a

42:33

house? Riff! Will

42:35

he regularly say it? Yeah, yeah I

42:37

think these are things that you regularly

42:39

say. I kind of feel like they're

42:41

more cracker jokes like Christmas cracker jokes.

42:43

Well there's a thin line, there's a

42:45

really nice theory about why dad jokes

42:47

are good, this is great okay. Why

42:49

they're good. Well no not sorry

42:51

why they happen. They are good. Well

42:56

no I read your what about the curtains

42:58

with a pencil please. Brilliant. Gets

43:00

a laugh every time. So the idea is that

43:02

this is from the British Psychological Society I personally

43:04

am not sure I buy it but I like

43:06

it is that by continually telling their children jokes

43:08

that are so bad they're embarrassing fathers may be

43:11

pushing their children's limits of how much embarrassment they

43:13

can handle. So you're showing

43:15

your child that embarrassment isn't fatal

43:17

because the child is mortified to

43:19

hear and if you're you know your child is adolescent

43:21

which feels again a bit like the ship that sailed

43:23

in terms of you know dad jokes normally when a

43:25

child is five or six years

43:28

old. But there's a sort of

43:30

theory built because the theory is if your child

43:32

has been exposed to years of awful jokes by

43:34

this point and has shown that dad

43:36

can cope with people not caring that people think dad is

43:38

an idiot the children will be

43:40

able to be themselves better. How interesting. So

43:42

that's it but it's more for the benefit

43:45

of the dad. I don't know I feel

43:47

like well James I feel like you wrote

43:49

this up in a book. I did yeah

43:52

yeah yeah. So I read

43:54

quite a few theories that one included. Another

43:56

one about why they happen is when you

43:59

have a kid who's two years old

44:01

like I do almost, basically they'll laugh

44:03

at anything. Like literally anything. If I

44:05

say to my daughter, like she wants

44:07

to read Mog and I say, do

44:09

you want to read Mog? She will

44:11

piss herself laughing. And then if I'm

44:13

like, oh, do you want to read

44:15

the very hooray-coot-a-poody? She'll just find

44:17

it the funniest thing in the world, right? And

44:20

the idea being... You're making her racist against Beldrens.

44:25

I'm still not over water leaving,

44:27

truth be told. The thing is,

44:29

the kids will laugh at almost anything. And

44:31

then as a dad, that kind of builds your

44:33

confidence. And then as you get older,

44:35

you're like, did he laugh at everything? And she always

44:37

laughed at whatever I said, Moog instead of Mog. So

44:40

I'm going to keep doing it. And you just keep

44:42

doing it and keep doing it. And then as the

44:44

kids get older, they realise this isn't funny at all.

44:46

And that's when they realise that they're dad jokes. Wow.

44:49

Does the sadness of the joke depend on the

44:51

child understanding it's not funny? I think someone has

44:53

to be on the outside knowing that it's not

44:55

funny. It might be my wife. She

44:59

would know it's a dad joke. But the

45:01

other thing is, quite often they're kind

45:03

of word play-ish. And there's a theory

45:05

that by doing this word play again

45:07

and again and again, it helps to

45:09

teach language skills. Yeah. Yeah, exactly

45:11

that. And I think also it teaches them joke

45:14

structure and it just brings

45:16

funniness to the house. It's just a great way to

45:19

keep things funny in the house. I still

45:21

think that I really like them. I'm very fond

45:23

of them. I think by definition, a dad joke

45:25

isn't funny. That's what it is. It's a joke

45:27

that's kind of predictable. So I read an article

45:29

by a linguist about dad jokes. And I thought

45:31

the example that she used was not a dad

45:33

joke for me because it was actually funny. It wasn't the

45:35

Bunga Bunga one, was it? We can't have that again. The

45:37

left- Leggers last time. Oh,

45:42

it's perfectly inoffensive. Okay, it doesn't cross that boundary.

45:45

But the joke is that a man comes up

45:47

to a widow at the funeral of his old

45:49

friend and he says to the widow, do you

45:51

mind if I say a word? And she nods and

45:54

the man clears his throat and says gently, Clethera.

45:57

And the wife smiles sadly and replies. That

46:01

means a lot. I think that's a

46:03

very good joke. It's a good joke. It's

46:05

too good. It's too good. Can

46:08

I give you some examples of dad jokes? When I was

46:10

writing this article for the QI buck, I

46:12

asked my followers on Twitter for some dad jokes.

46:15

So I'll give you the kid saying something,

46:18

and you have to say what the dad says as a

46:20

joke. Oh yeah. So Adam Seer

46:23

said that he would say, Are you

46:25

alright dad? No,

46:28

I've got a left hand side as well. No,

46:30

I'm half left. Yeah. Chris

46:34

Emerson, our friend Chris Emerson, said he would

46:36

say to his dad, I'm

46:39

off. Off what? Offcom.

46:44

And the dad would reply, I

46:46

wondered what that smell was. Oh

46:49

that's good. Cardinal Grumpy, I think perhaps

46:51

not his real name. If they said,

46:53

I'm thirsty, so

46:56

their dad, what would be the reply? I'm dad.

46:59

Nice to meet you. Pretty close. Oh

47:01

no, it's Wednesday. Oh, put

47:03

them together. Hi, I'm Wednesday. Change

47:06

the day. Friday. I

47:08

know you're not. You're Friday. You're pretty

47:10

much that. Who else is Friday? Okay, I'm

47:12

going to give it to you. So

47:14

he says, dad, I'm thirsty. Dad says,

47:16

please to meet you Thursday. I'm Friday, and

47:19

he's Robin's son. Oh, wow, that's a really well-read kid.

47:23

Do you want to hear one of the first ever Your Mum

47:25

jokes? Yeah, go on. Yeah, I was just like Babylonian, is it

47:27

like as far as that? There are, there is one, and it's

47:29

from a, there's

47:32

one which is from a partial bit of text. So

47:35

it's not really clear what the entire

47:37

joke is. Right.

47:40

But there is another one from 100 A.D. which

47:43

is Rabbi Eliezer, who

47:45

is a very famous guy. 100

47:47

A.D., which is Rabbi Eliezer,

47:51

was said to have gone and interrupted a

47:53

man who had been reading a banned text,

47:55

which was Ezekiel 23, by asking

47:57

him, why don't you go out and proclaim the

47:59

abomination? of your mother. Is

48:03

that a your mum joke? It's a prototype. Yeah.

48:06

You can do funny, extremely funny, judge

48:08

about the look on your face. The

48:12

sad thing is, I'm afraid for the listeners, is

48:14

that you'll all now remember all of these really

48:16

bad jokes that we've told more than you remember

48:18

a good joke, because studies show that you remember

48:20

bad jokes more than good jokes because

48:23

of the way they work because they are predictable. The

48:25

reason that we can kind of guess the endings to

48:27

the dad jokes that James asked for is that they

48:29

are formulaic, good for teaching

48:31

kids how these patterns work. But the definition

48:34

of good humor that makes you actually laugh

48:36

is that you subvert that, like pull the

48:38

rug out from under someone's feet. It's unexpected.

48:40

So you never remember them. So it's so

48:42

annoying. You'll only ever remember shit jokes. So

48:44

it's like, are you all right, dad? No,

48:47

I have a terrible, incurable disease and I won't be

48:49

with you in a week's time. You

48:52

got that from the new ricochets of age. Special, don't you?

48:56

That subverts the norm.

48:58

It does. I think it does still have to be

49:00

funny. They

49:03

exist in other languages. In

49:05

France, as a child, if

49:07

you say what, what, what, what, they

49:09

wouldn't understand you because they're French. But

49:12

if they say it in French, they

49:14

say, and any self respecting dads

49:16

will reply, which means

49:18

her dresser. And

49:22

in Spain, if a dad sees some

49:25

soy milk, he might

49:27

say, hola, milk soy, papi. Lovely.

49:29

Because soy means I am. So

49:32

it means hi, milk. I'm dad.

49:34

Nice. That's the I'm hungry. Hi,

49:37

hungry. I'm dad is in nine

49:39

states of America, the most ticked

49:41

as used dad joke. Yeah,

49:45

yeah. The parenting test you get

49:47

after your kid's one or something, you're back to

49:49

the GP, please check this box. Can they walk?

49:51

Can they talk? How many times have

49:53

you talked about this? I

49:55

nearly got got researching this fact. Oh, yeah.

49:58

And report on NPR. Obviously, really well. respected

50:01

radio station and great source of lots of stuff and

50:03

it was about a list of

50:06

Roman jokes ancient Roman jokes that have

50:08

been found yeah and it was it

50:10

was a scroll found in an amphitheater

50:12

and they'd done some amazing like analysis you

50:14

know the you know with the x-rayer scroll

50:17

and they managed without unrolling it to scan

50:19

what's inside and it was all these phrases

50:21

found in Lassen and it's like a

50:23

translation was did you hear the rumor about butter oh well

50:25

I'm not gonna spread it and then

50:27

you're gonna say butter I actually knew I

50:30

got really far into this article

50:38

and then eventually I got to the claim

50:40

that Caesar had turned up and addressed a

50:42

crowd of senators who were angry with him

50:44

by asking them what did the cucumber say

50:47

to the pickle and I realized I looked

50:49

at the date it was an eight-brother first

50:51

article you mean a great deal to me

50:54

it's weird that these

51:04

exist all around the world though this

51:06

stereotype or in so many different countries

51:08

like Japan has old man jokes which

51:10

are OYAGI old man then Kiyagu

51:13

joke like

51:15

gag yeah like gag that's how they make a

51:17

lot of words in Japanese don't know they take

51:19

an English word of learning you at the end

51:21

nice in Japanese every word has to end with

51:23

a vowel or an N that like

51:26

very new yes it's like a new word

51:28

they've yeah he shut to his

51:30

t-shirt okay crazy

51:33

to guess Korea

51:35

they have middle-aged man jokes literally middle-aged man

51:37

jokes Danish has

51:43

various different versions they've got uncle

51:45

humor uncle humor we've been

51:51

advertising babble for quite a long time

51:53

you could just say words though

52:00

because my step-grandfather's Danish and he always

52:02

used to do whatever their version is.

52:04

Oh well, uncle humor is uncle humor

52:06

but for him I think he would

52:08

be Morfar Vitigeda. Yeah. Which is grandfather humor.

52:11

Father humor. So at the end of every meal,

52:13

whenever the waiter came over to get our plates, they'd

52:15

say, are you finished? And he'd say, no I'm

52:17

Danish. Every single time. Wow.

52:19

That is very good. Yeah. Would you like

52:21

some water? No, fish fucking it. You know.

52:24

I was a bit young today, I was

52:26

aged. That's a WC Fields joke, isn't it?

52:28

Yeah. You have it for right. Guys,

52:31

do you know what a BJ joke is? Dude,

52:33

yeah. That's true. I

52:36

don't think you do. BJ

52:40

joke. So what could it be? I

52:42

don't think you're going to guess this just before we- Boris Johnson.

52:45

Yeah, I mean it is technically one of those as well, I suppose.

52:47

Just shot the bad joke. It's one of

52:49

those. No, it's none of those. This is

52:51

in one study at least, which seemed to

52:53

use the officially accepted academic terms for jokes.

52:55

It's a 2016 study because I was looking

52:57

at whether men and women do find different

52:59

jokes funny because it's such a gender-based

53:02

concept, the bad joke. And there was

53:05

a study that looked at whether they

53:07

did and they divided jokes into EJs,

53:09

AJs and BJs, which are-

53:11

Excellent, adequate and bad. It

53:14

should be that. It's exaggeration jokes, ambiguity

53:16

jokes and bridging inference jokes. And so

53:18

BJs are bridging inference and that basically

53:20

means that they require you to actually

53:23

get the joke. So when you listen

53:25

to the joke, you have to attribute

53:27

an intention to another. So an example

53:30

would be, Jack's dream of

53:32

becoming a writer comes true when his

53:34

books finally publish. He asked his friend,

53:36

have you read my book yet? His

53:38

friend said, yes, and I bought one.

53:40

And Jack happily responded, oh, that was you.

53:44

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, right. Yeah, that's kind of bad joke that

53:46

we've sort of all made about the rest books. How you tell

53:48

them. You

53:50

really didn't sell that one. I

53:53

think even well would have been like, I'm sorry,

53:55

Auntie Anna. It wasn't good. Why

53:58

is that a BJ? because

54:01

we're inferring from the joke that he doesn't sell many of

54:03

his books and he's only sold one. And you're so thankful

54:05

he gave him a blowjob. You

54:11

did that with every book that you sold

54:13

didn't you? 10,000 blowjobs, a bit like George

54:15

Washington Johnson. You

54:17

could do five at the same time. Okay

54:30

that's it, that is all of our facts. Thank

54:33

you so much for listening. If you'd like to

54:35

get in contact with any of us about the

54:37

things that we've said over the course of this

54:39

podcast we can be found on our various social

54:41

media accounts. I'm on Instagram at Shriberland. James? My

54:43

Instagram is no such thing as James Harkin. Andy?

54:46

I don't have Instagram but I'm on Twitter at Andrew Hunter-M.

54:48

Yeah or if you want to get to us as a

54:50

group where do they go Anna? You can

54:53

email podcast.qi.com or you can tweet

54:55

at nosuchthings. That's right yep or

54:57

you can just go to our website

54:59

nosuchthingasafish.com. All the previous episodes are

55:01

up there. A link to the gateway to the

55:03

portal that is Club Fish is up there as

55:06

well. Do check it out. Lots of really fun

55:08

bonus episodes are pumped out every fortnight. Otherwise

55:10

just come back here because we'll be back with

55:13

another episode and we'll see you then. Goodbye. you