0:13

Hello! And welcome to another episode

0:16

of No Such Thing As a Fish.

0:18

A weekly podcast cummings you from the

0:20

Queue I offices in Holborn. My name

0:22

is Dan Schreiber. I'm sitting here with

0:24

Anna to Shinskie, James Harkin and John

0:26

Lloyd and once again we have gathered

0:28

round the microphones with our for favorite

0:30

facts from the last seven days and

0:32

in no particular order here we go.

0:34

Starting with Fact number One that is.

0:37

Johnny. My

0:40

fight is when the Impressionists Claude Monet

0:42

lived. As you have any, he had

0:44

six gardeners, one of whose whole job

0:47

was to dust and wash the water

0:49

lilies and clean the surface of the

0:51

water footprint on. I

0:54

guess if you're famous, painting was a

0:56

little easy. ones look as good as

0:58

by other than they aren't exactly they

1:00

need to be picturesque other maybe you

1:02

wouldn't paint the bits of dust on

1:04

them anyway. With yeah, Adidas the water

1:06

lily would easily. And Hoover

1:08

I think he just went to Rise.

1:10

we are. Yeah, yeah wow, but these

1:13

are very special water lilies they've especially

1:15

imported from Japan. Mother was crazy about

1:17

Japanese art which you probably know. Just

1:19

arrived in France when Japan opened up

1:21

a nation. Fifties to the west are

1:23

all these prince starts arriving. Normally impressions

1:26

for crazy about them and Monet go

1:28

a real bargain. Amazon damn he was

1:30

in the. Holland. Forbid and the

1:32

was a porcelain De Lo didn't know that these

1:34

Japanese prints were going to. Come on, we'll find

1:36

his knee wrapped old his china or in them.

1:39

And. The wanting some cheap china

1:41

or these amazing grins by hook

1:43

or sigh And he was. Wow.

1:46

And. I were in the Haka side jumper

1:48

said i can't so you know if

1:50

a deliberate now. The you know and

1:53

Haka. Size for poker sites famous for

1:55

this a wave painting people will now

1:57

as kite was on my journey around

1:59

it. Around and it comes from

2:01

a set of paintings cold. I think this

2:03

call thirty six views of Mount Fuji for

2:05

apple does actually forty six views of Mount

2:08

Fuji and not set read because he did

2:10

thirty six and they were so popular he

2:12

did another ten but he didn't taste and

2:14

I prefer. The current. It's too much effort. Did

2:16

he run out of energy to. The end it

2:19

doesn't think of some money. Also

2:21

was famous for doing lots of paintings

2:23

of the same thing not does

2:25

more to lose steam trains he did

2:27

Palmer's Haystacks was very popular now same

2:30

the says and who. A great

2:32

mates of Malays and says and painted

2:34

Molson Victoire i think two hundred times

2:36

and never thought the why right

2:38

is an extraordinary life because he struggled

2:41

hugely with poverty and depression all his

2:43

life. But by the time with

2:45

them talking about the water lilies he

2:47

suddenly. Got rich you know her? I

2:50

think the this thing that really kicked

2:52

it off the heiress to the Singer

2:54

Sewing Machine fortune I think I went

2:56

name's swing like Way net or something

2:58

levels as well as a Slant Magazine

3:00

unless you go and when arrest a

3:02

singer. she was cool I and she

3:04

came to see Monet's and Eighty Six

3:06

and she loved his staff and bought

3:08

a painting. Suddenly though place is full

3:10

of Americans have kept coming and was

3:12

a with Americans was there was an

3:14

American money that came in and does

3:16

it cost Murray cassette who. Was one

3:18

of the Impressionists and she is arguably the

3:20

most important mom because she was one who

3:22

got all the Americans really interested in that

3:24

riot and then the American side buying all

3:26

this stuff and then the Impressionists just had

3:29

loads of money and that the what they

3:31

wanted. Yeah. And if it's I've

3:33

I've found a real sense to me because I should

3:35

be disarmed. I'm I'm fat, I bought a boat and

3:37

some dumb and and I know it is there for

3:39

us. Sonos have any me man kind of story and.

3:43

A half from a Serious Effort is

3:45

often quotes Monday who had this great

3:47

line after twenty years, the wall is

3:49

still there By which he meant to

3:51

do things really well. You got to

3:53

get the other side of this block

3:56

into the zone into groaning and I've

3:58

often quote that is something. Then I

4:00

feel berkshire that this is a guy

4:02

who age twenty eight. He threw himself

4:04

into the same and I'm tempted drowns

4:06

himself. Yes, live with a

4:08

plan that because it was unsuccessful. Yellows and

4:11

I'm if you can swim I think it

4:13

is quite. Well I was on room and

4:15

he jumped in, men regresses and majored in

4:17

remembered he was an incredibly good swimmer to

4:19

visit all current stance take you under and

4:21

from getting back up fine. Of you've gotta

4:23

tell you that you bit like is your hands

4:26

when and I think it's quite hard to does

4:28

not. Leave. Your body and old, it's

4:30

a pain. To Water Lily, You need

4:32

to be a water lily. Thrive on

4:34

the phone number and consider. Fuel

4:36

cells reducing the he say identify with him

4:38

Jones has a he kind of reminded me

4:40

of you as I was reading This occurs

4:42

as he say he was such a perfectionist

4:45

and like obsessive and did seem to have

4:47

this conviction he wasn't doing well enough and

4:49

another quote that was my life has been

4:51

nothing but a failure and all that fluff

4:53

for me to do is to destroy my

4:55

paintings the for I disappear so. You. Have a

4:57

huge on fitness center and other seasons

5:00

he didn't say destroyed five hundred of

5:02

these points a while and scenery that

5:04

the council exhibition cause he slashed sixteen

5:06

of the plane into the life of

5:08

and seriously annoying for the gallery he

5:11

races for. This is worrying and a

5:13

because. I. Rather go home for three.a theory was

5:15

that was I supposed, my. Boss. Don't

5:19

know. Daughter does the desensitized to

5:21

doesn't have you read Save Jobs

5:24

is a biography by Walter Walter

5:26

Isaacson yes, and a searing book

5:28

about this terribly complicated and Ruth

5:30

he said mad personalized Sunday thought

5:32

Jobs as perfectionism it lent me.

5:34

And I came. I said to

5:36

front of human. The. Steve jobs by

5:38

and he said yes I said. Do.

5:40

You think I'm like Steve Jobs? They

5:43

went. I'm. genuinely

5:48

go through period of wearing poland x shirts

5:50

with that after that biographies are you know

5:53

i always one them have the right as

5:55

you were there is he gonna need a

5:57

summary thing here ah right i'm like the

5:59

thing about the number, the volume

6:02

of paintings that he did, back to

6:04

Monet, there's accounts of where he'd be

6:06

painting a scene, and almost like filming

6:08

a movie where your lighting changes and

6:10

that's it for the day. He'd go,

6:12

get me another, you know,

6:15

canvas, and they might bring another canvas that

6:17

he was painting yesterday at that exact time,

6:19

so then he could continue on that. So

6:21

he was constantly swapping in and out canvases

6:23

of work in progress. And he also used,

6:25

because he had so many children, because a

6:27

very complicated private life, as I'm sure you've

6:29

discovered. Yeah, so similar to you again, Simon. That's so

6:31

not true. But yeah,

6:39

and he would, there were eight children in the

6:41

house, and he would get

6:43

a swarm of them, each to carry a canvas, and

6:45

he'd trot off to the beach with all these children,

6:47

work on all the canvases at once. Yeah. It

6:50

sounds like chaos, and actually this element of

6:52

his life reminds him more of Dan Schreiber, in

6:54

fact. There we go. Too many kids. The next in

6:59

told this level this way, it's

7:01

just a chaotic number of children, because yes,

7:03

he was quite poverty stricken

7:05

for a long time. Yeah. And then the

7:07

art dealer who sold his art,

7:12

who was Ernest Hochaday, he was also

7:14

poverty stricken, went bankrupt, so moved in

7:16

with Monet. Ernest brought his wife, and

7:19

I believe they're six children, in

7:21

with Monet and Monet's wife and their two

7:23

children, and then Monet fell in love with

7:26

Ernest's wife, and all of them, they can't

7:28

pay rent, and it just sounds like hell,

7:30

God knows how he was putting together these

7:33

really peaceful, blissful paintings. Yeah, Dad. Where

7:35

am I? I imagine

7:38

stepping into that household would fill me with

7:41

the same sense of anxiety as like stepping

7:43

into your house on a normal Saturday afternoon.

7:45

Fair call. Fair call. We

7:48

should say his gardens were unpopular with

7:50

a certain cohort, basically his

7:52

neighbours, right? Who were not

7:54

fans, because he subsumed everything to his art,

7:56

which went to the extent of him rerouting

7:58

a lot of his art. local river

8:01

to feed his

8:03

pond. And so all the neighbours who needed

8:05

the river for their cattle farming and other

8:08

things were like, well, this is our water.

8:10

And then they all panicked because they thought

8:12

the lilies would poison the water supply because

8:14

they were foreign and exotic. And the

8:17

lilies are really interesting because they

8:19

had been invented very recently because

8:21

all the lilies in France were

8:23

white. And there's a guy called

8:26

Borry Latour Maliac, who came

8:28

up with the idea of crossing French

8:30

lilies with Japanese lilies. And

8:32

he kind of crossed two together and came up

8:35

with this new version. And then

8:37

he crossed that new version with some from

8:39

North America to make all these different colours

8:41

of lilies. And actually, the in between version

8:43

of lily that he made is now extinct.

8:45

So we can't make that bit of science

8:47

that he did ever again because the in

8:50

between step has gone. Wow. Monet's

8:52

first order from this guy, we have

8:55

it. And he ordered a load of

8:57

water lilies from him. But he also

8:59

ordered some water smart weed, a

9:01

horn nut and some broad leaved

9:03

bud cotton. So

9:05

those paintings could have been paintings of

9:08

broad leaved bud cotton. You know, if

9:10

that had taken better than his water

9:12

lilies. Yeah, the thing about him was

9:14

that he was such an incredibly determined person.

9:17

Renoir said if it wasn't for Monet, we'd

9:19

have all given up because we went on

9:21

beyond the pain barrier all the time. They

9:23

weren't massively like to the very start, whether

9:26

the impressionists. No, no, it was incredibly unpopular.

9:28

They were booed and laughed at. Yeah, the

9:30

word impressionism came as an insult. It was

9:33

one of Monet's paintings was

9:35

called Sunset and Impression. Impression Sunrise. Yeah.

9:37

Yeah. But then one of the critics

9:39

made some funny joke about it.

9:41

I haven't written it down. I have is

9:44

he was called Louis La Roy. And

9:46

one of his lines on Impression Sunrise

9:48

was wallpaper in its original state is

9:50

more finished than this seascape. Wow. Oh

9:52

my God. And then and then when

9:54

the impressionists became famous, he then took

9:57

all the credit for it. He was

9:59

very proud. Men to the name

10:01

bodied rubbish them. Her L A how yes,

10:03

friends and really rude about them. And then

10:05

the second time they did an exhibition, it

10:08

was described by a critic called Albert Wolf

10:10

as a horrifying spectacle. Five or six lunatics

10:12

one of whom is a woman. And

10:17

the woman he south vice that's a

10:19

moreso and sees really interesting because see

10:21

and her sisters were learning to paint

10:24

and they had a private tutor called

10:26

Joseph qui charge and he won their

10:28

mother. Considering the characters of your daughter's

10:30

they will become painters. Do you realize

10:33

what this means in the upper class

10:35

New Year? to wix you belong? This

10:37

will be revolutionary I might say almost

10:40

catastrophic. The idea that one of these

10:42

goals might become a professional pain so

10:44

as to see this Yahya not unacceptable

10:47

profession via people said they have declared

10:49

war on beauty. That was the kind

10:51

of idea when they were doing and

10:53

Zola said they should be called impressionists.

10:56

they should be called actual lists are

10:58

because that's what they're doing. They were

11:00

painting the actual saying. Kind of like

11:02

losing a beauty filter I guess. They're

11:05

not apps and eight a divorce that is lit

11:07

by that than one thing I got something on

11:09

the minds I think well as black as blurry

11:11

only painting their. Impress. I think you are

11:13

used as a dusty water lilies, seven like

11:15

a cast as a that paints in that

11:17

we'd and names which was the impression sunrise

11:19

in I think he he didn't have a

11:21

name and he was gonna call it like

11:23

sunrise and sunset some we got really call

11:25

as and my as it does it really

11:27

looked like A summarize I said okay we'll

11:30

just for impression sunrise them. And. That's

11:32

kind of eventually. After the and so

11:34

were impressed his gear. I'd the thing

11:36

about Malays that he was famous and

11:38

immensely rich in his lifetime. quite unlike

11:40

Van Gogh of yeah don't pollute woods

11:42

month when forgets that he but they

11:44

was So who is such a disaster?

11:46

The beginning. So the exhibition that Louis

11:48

Le Roy commented on yeah and when

11:50

the old and figures came in the

11:52

impressions found that each owed one hundred

11:54

ninety four francs to the gallery. The

11:58

last month and a guy the Edinburgh. I'm

12:02

so they had another go one of

12:04

their funds few financial supporters decided to

12:06

hold a lottery in which the yeah

12:08

the first prize was one of from

12:10

on his friend run was paintings. And

12:13

that they have the sloshing A local send

12:15

go one named the Big Prize she didn't

12:18

one the painting couldn't decide everyone birds as

12:20

she got cake. I dunno if

12:22

you may obtain saying it be impressionists not

12:24

or okay I know there are days when

12:26

I guess. The Cake. Yeah,

12:28

short termism. Is not a six year

12:30

studios because the tone of selling the painting or get

12:33

the money to buy lots. Of. Cake or you wanna

12:35

die and employees quickly just to get the

12:37

cake. Really good. By the thing I love

12:39

most about money and I didn't really know

12:41

anything about what he was painting on he

12:43

the water lilies. I didn't know about this

12:45

garden and the maintenance of the Gordon was

12:47

so that he had the perfect thing to

12:49

paint. there was nothing left to the imaginations

12:51

of wasn't just the water lilies. If trees

12:53

that you are painting suddenly came into bloom

12:55

and foliage as I hit high gardeners to

12:57

chopper awakens getting in the way of what

12:59

I had is the perfect paintings. Nice it

13:01

is to the garden have use of and

13:03

the yeah ah. It's is just the.him with lots

13:05

of tourists and it but it's like time. When

13:08

he always painted the towards our. Citizens. Sydney

13:10

but it was like a was a Japanese

13:12

garden thusly called I think ah that's

13:14

why he was aiming in laws He has

13:16

out of undies, bread and as gotcha fees

13:19

bracelet you say on on says now

13:21

if you go to Japan I com on

13:23

boys town it's and but there's like

13:25

a replica of it called them on a

13:27

pond and so is like see copied

13:29

the Japanese gardens and now Japan has copied

13:32

his garden and called it the on I

13:34

got out things go on and so

13:36

the garden itself I didn't immediately become a

13:38

public now place. It was. It was many

13:40

years in the family and then the son. when

13:42

he passed away nineteen sixty six he handed it

13:45

over and it became part of a museum and

13:47

then open to the public. And they've had these

13:49

amazing gardeners have been working there ever since to

13:51

preserve as close as possible to what he had.

13:53

And so as he said james they can't manufacture

13:55

some of the plans anymore because a Sap is

13:57

missing and so they have to find alternatives basis.

14:00

It's a wonderful reading the accounts of how they

14:02

go through all his letters. They take the paintings

14:04

and they hold them up exactly in the spot

14:06

the right happens and try and match the palms

14:08

to walk as in the painting. The doing the

14:11

exact same thing that he did and with. I. Can

14:13

see us isn't really nice place to go.

14:15

almost like Disneyland I would say is a

14:17

is quite say who plays like it's really

14:20

really peaceful is definitely worth as thing he

14:22

I'm he was almost killed in eighteen sixty

14:24

five all painting. Or. Yeah yeah.

14:26

Robe discuss. Not the mouth

14:29

blind eye to the sixty five hour

14:31

Seth A from sixty fives he was

14:33

painting in the open and they were

14:35

bunch of picnickers and some children and

14:38

a discuss suddenly came to saw and

14:40

the to discuss the english tour as.

14:43

A that so as as and Zola he ran

14:46

to protect the kids but in doing so took

14:48

the it's kind of like a secret service agent

14:50

something on another as an attacking the boy he

14:52

took the discuss that so far they say if

14:54

it had hit him any higher in might have

14:56

enough in particular number it'd. It knock them

14:58

out and he was and he was bedridden

15:00

for a while. Since I exactly illustrates the

15:02

queue I principal done because I have read

15:04

an entire book on Monday at three hundred

15:07

page book on Monday in great detail to

15:09

research this thing and I didn't know that

15:11

thing about the discourse and time. Got it

15:13

from the bus space. Ah,

15:17

Yes, with suppressing this are you

15:20

most likely. Not

15:28

the podcast still of August.

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Do it. Now on with this

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a non with the podcast. Okay,

16:57

it is time for fact number two

16:59

and that is Anna. My thought

17:02

this week is that nearly six

17:04

Europeans regularly burned their houses down

17:06

for no apparent. Reason why

17:09

somebody is. Unbelievable!

17:11

So this is A codes A cool

17:13

the A cuckoo tenney it for telia

17:16

culture was is that he's in a

17:18

significant to this of name's often Elise

17:20

and where the evidence of them as

17:22

found and they lived in south east

17:25

and Europe and like Romania mulled over

17:27

Ukraine that kind of area between bouts

17:29

five thousand and one hundred Bc in

17:32

two thousand and eight hundred B with

17:34

lots of variation in our faces. But.

17:37

It's a bizarre thing about the men.

17:39

from all the evidence we have every

17:41

sexy to ac is they just burned

17:43

down all the houses. So with yeah.

17:46

An entire pounds Really. So they

17:48

were a lot building there was

17:50

like the first civilization because they

17:52

suddenly have these huge towns. The

17:54

settlement sizes increased by twenty time.

17:56

they sometimes called them says he's done they yes

17:58

and yes optimist. How do

18:00

you know it was them burning them down

18:03

rather than the neighbours coming along? Well,

18:06

I know, I've done some extensive archaeology and

18:09

I have learned a

18:11

few things. A lot of people have said it might be

18:13

that. I think the reason they say it's not is that

18:15

it would have taken such a huge amount of fuel

18:18

to do it. So a settlement of 100 houses would

18:21

require like four square miles of

18:23

forest. And also it's so regular.

18:25

It's this weird 60s, 80s cycle.

18:27

Yeah, the weird theory as well that

18:29

they were actually reinforcing the structures when

18:32

they were burning it because they found the

18:34

walls actually hardened just like let's reset our

18:36

houses. Get everything out, let's burn the house

18:38

down. And then well, almost like firing a

18:41

pot. Exactly. You know, have your clay and

18:43

then you've set it on fire and it

18:45

makes it becomes hard. But I think I

18:47

read one thing saying that might not be

18:49

true because eventually you would

18:51

burn it and it would become really, really

18:53

hard. And then if you wanted to build

18:56

another house on it, it just made it

18:58

really difficult because you can't put any foundations

19:00

down because you just can't drill into it.

19:02

Yeah. In those days, they didn't have the

19:04

tools for it. Yeah. One idea is that

19:06

it might have been ceremonial like they were

19:08

burning these down, right? Yeah. Because if you

19:10

look at Chateau Huygens, Turkey, which is an

19:12

area we've spoken about before, it's like a

19:14

really old town. They did this

19:16

as well. And we can find out

19:18

exactly how they did it. And every time they

19:20

would take all the goods out of the house,

19:23

then they would clean the house, then they

19:25

would put arrowheads on the floor, and then

19:27

the oven would be deliberately sort of knocked

19:29

in and broken down. And then they would

19:31

set fire to it. And it seems like they

19:33

always set fire from the south of the house,

19:35

no matter when they did it. So perhaps seeing

19:38

as it was always the same in this particular

19:40

part of Turkey, at least, maybe there was a

19:42

ceremonial reason behind it. Yeah. And it does seem

19:44

to have happened in a few other cultures as

19:46

well. So perhaps that was just a dumb thing.

19:49

They'd wonder why we don't burn our houses down. It's

19:52

pretty amazing looking at drawings of what

19:54

these places, cities, if we use that

19:56

term, look like, because they were massive

19:58

buildings. And I don't know. place

20:00

massive buildings to 5000. How massive are

20:02

we talking Dan? Well okay. Del Khalifa?

20:05

Yeah no not that but multi-story they

20:07

would have multi-story and some places would

20:09

be if you can picture the the

20:11

example that's given is two entire basketball

20:14

courts would be the size of a

20:16

place and that maybe that's

20:18

my ignorance of history. Certainly if you had that

20:20

in Central London we're talking quite a few mil.

20:25

I can find many examples of near

20:27

lithic housing but Jericho is interesting supposed

20:30

to be the oldest city in the world did

20:32

you know that is on the Palestinian West Bank

20:34

and the Tower of Jericho is

20:36

the oldest stone building in the world 8,000 years old.

20:38

How interesting. And the

20:40

near lithic housing in Jericho they had

20:43

the doors were in the roof did

20:45

you know that? Oh so they would

20:47

enter. You had a ladder up you went in through

20:50

the door and there's a ladder inside

20:52

to go down to the ground floor.

20:54

That's super fun. Because of defence the

20:56

whole thing is what's fascinating about I

20:58

had to look up remind

21:00

myself what near lithic meant and

21:03

as far as I can gather it

21:05

basically starts with the invention of farming about 12,000

21:07

years ago and ends

21:10

with when bronze is invented about 4,300 years

21:12

ago. So it's about 8,000 years

21:16

so not that long but

21:19

the first humans came to Britain around 7,000

21:23

BC. So for six

21:25

hundred and eighty eight thousand

21:27

years human beings are just

21:29

sitting about eating fruit. Or

21:32

wandering around. They were wandering

21:35

yeah. Yeah hunting gathering yeah and near

21:38

lithic basically describes the time that humans

21:40

became I suppose what we are like

21:42

civilisation we'd set off we found farming

21:44

we discovered farming and so we just

21:47

started sitting there farming stuff our diets

21:49

got much worse. Jared

21:51

Damon says it was the worst thing that

21:54

humans have ever done. Yeah I think there's

21:56

something to be said for that and everything

21:58

moves terribly fast so six 188,000

22:01

years doing nothing and then suddenly you got farming 12,000 years

22:03

ago chickens

22:05

domesticated 10,000 years ago roasted

22:07

walnuts first eaten in France 6,000

22:12

years ago, there were no white people

22:14

then everybody was dark-skinned Right and

22:17

then the first known pair of shoes is

22:19

5,500 years ago So,

22:21

you know, oh my god, and sorry the game

22:23

changer was the invention of the agriculture Agriculture

22:26

is where we're talking about Everything follows from

22:28

agriculture because first of all you get a

22:30

class system because somebody's got to be in

22:32

charge Somebody's got to decide things you get

22:34

religion starts growing up. Yeah Having

22:38

grain and so your teeth get bad.

22:40

That's right. Terrible teeth. Yeah, and then

22:42

you've got property So people there's defense

22:44

there's warfare. There's you know, what we

22:46

call civilization But the problem is the

22:48

real problem is is basically Anna's short-termism

22:50

of cake versus Renoir By

22:52

farming you can get lots of calories very

22:55

easily So you don't have to work so

22:57

hard to get your calories, but it's really

22:59

bad in the long term But it's really good in

23:01

the short term. One of the unfun

23:03

things about it was that it introduced

23:05

overwork So people have looked

23:07

at the lives of hunter-gatherers and it was dreamy They

23:10

were only working a few hours a day and then they

23:12

would just be lying around in caves or whatever and it

23:14

was with agriculture Where suddenly it became all

23:16

about production productions that people started working

23:18

their arses off And

23:20

we haven't come far since then How

23:25

was your month off Yeah,

23:30

they hadn't invented holidays and weekends yet

23:32

sure this

23:34

particular culture were amazing though the Kukuteni

23:37

at Repilier people I extraordinary

23:40

thing about them is that they there are

23:42

lots of symbols on their pottery that have

23:44

been uncovered completely well preserved and They

23:47

include and this is from as I think

23:50

I said like 5,000 BC They

23:52

include both yin and yang symbols. So

23:55

there's perfect in young symbols and swastikas

23:57

swastikas. Yeah, I saw that as well Okay, we've seen

23:59

to accomplish with both and I can't really

24:01

find out. So they had Nazis. Yeah,

24:04

it's very tense. That's

24:07

where they get burning each other's houses down. The swastika, one

24:09

of those sort of universal symbols is found all over

24:11

the world, isn't it? What commonly people

24:13

think it came from the east,

24:15

like you know, it was in

24:18

Indochina, yeah, and Hinduism, but it

24:20

seems to have come from here, but I don't

24:22

know if they did come about independently. It's quite

24:24

specific shape. Yeah, and I think what they're

24:26

saying about this one is it's the earliest

24:28

examples of consistent usage and so other places

24:30

they're quite sporadic and maybe just fallen through

24:32

the... I kind of think it is a

24:34

thing that is quite a natural thing. Like

24:36

if I'm just kind of sitting here sort

24:38

of scribbling on a piece of paper, sometimes

24:40

I look down and draw an aspostic I

24:42

was really, it's really worrying when we see

24:45

that thing. And

24:47

I just think it's because it's like a geometric

24:50

figure, it's just like a few crosses and whatever

24:52

and you're like, oh, I'm gonna cross that out.

24:55

Do write in anyone if you

24:57

have the same thing, Mr. James. I'd rather say

24:59

I always find myself so consciously drawing swastikas. Well,

25:01

it's a sour sticker as well, isn't it? That's

25:03

a factor front one, is it? That's

25:06

what James always tells people. There's

25:08

an interesting guy. Did you come across the

25:11

John Lubbock in your... No. So

25:13

he was the guy who coined the word Neolithic

25:16

and Palaeolithic actually. Extraordinary

25:18

guy, I'd never heard of him before.

25:21

Amazing scientist. And when

25:23

he was about 12, his

25:25

father came home and said, I've got some very

25:27

good news, Johnny. Very, very good news. And he

25:29

thought, oh, I'm getting a new pony. But

25:32

it was actually the idea that Charles Darwin was

25:34

going to come and live in the next village.

25:38

So they became very close friends and

25:41

Lubbock was the guy who persuaded the

25:43

Dean of Westminster that Darwin should be buried

25:45

in Westminster Abbey. And was one of his

25:47

pallbearers. I thought that was rather charming. That's

25:49

very interesting because in a weird mirroring

25:52

of that, a couple of generations later,

25:54

the person who came up with the

25:56

term Neolithic revolution as an Australian

25:58

called... Gordon Child

26:01

and he was very good

26:03

friends with another Charles Darwin,

26:05

the grandson of Charles Darwin.

26:08

They both heavily influenced each other as

26:10

well and he was very interesting child.

26:12

He was a person who excavated Skara

26:14

Brae which is an extraordinary

26:16

village. That's kind of the oldest Neolithic

26:19

village in the UK right? One of

26:21

the Orkneys isn't it? Yeah it's in

26:23

Orkney and it is. I have

26:26

actually been there and it's an amazing

26:28

place because it's so well preserved and

26:30

it's about nine houses and

26:32

they're you know thousand years older than

26:34

Stonehenge and they're all still furnished. It

26:36

was all stone furniture because famously not

26:39

really any trees on Orkney so everything

26:41

was stone and they have

26:43

as you walk into the doorway you've got a fire

26:45

in the middle you've got a chest of drawers opposite

26:47

and you've got two beds on either side. What

26:49

were the chest of drawers made of? I was going

26:52

to say that stone chest of drawers. That's pretty cool.

26:54

Yeah I've used chest of drawers. It's a

26:56

place where you put yourself. Yeah

26:58

you've done the estate agent.

27:05

It looks like a rock but it looks

27:07

correct. Imagine this rock it could be a

27:09

office, it could be an

27:11

exercise room and

27:14

they also all had limpets soaking tanks.

27:16

That's the other Christmas. It could be an exercise

27:19

room, it could be an Olympic. I

27:26

mean obviously the answer is to

27:28

soak your limpets but what is an Olympic

27:30

soaking tank for? Apparently as you've

27:32

correctly assumed it is for limpets soaking and

27:34

the reason they limpets soak was not as

27:37

you might think because they ate limpets. We

27:39

believe they used limpets as bait and if

27:41

it soaked them they would soften a bit

27:43

and be better bait and then

27:45

they tracked other things. There's another theory by

27:48

the way just jumping back to the burnt

27:50

house horizon as it's been coined.

27:52

Oh the chikillion ones. Yeah exactly.

27:55

There are many theories as to why they

27:58

were burnt. We've already mentioned a few. One

28:00

other theory is that... I can

28:02

just hear it sometimes when Dan is

28:04

coming up with a time travelery, alien,

28:07

the hee, what's it going to be today?

28:10

It's not any of that. Go

28:12

on. So the theory that Bigfoot

28:14

would... What it is is that

28:17

it's thought that if someone died in the house, then

28:19

the house has gone from a house of the living

28:21

to the house of the dead, and so you burn

28:23

it down to respect the dead. That's

28:25

a rational theory, actually. I take it back, Dan,

28:28

no Bigfoot involved. Talking of spooky mysteries,

28:30

shouldn't we talk about Stonehenge a bit? Sure.

28:32

That is really one of the biggest reasons.

28:35

That's sort of late Neolithic, isn't it? What's it

28:37

about? Between 3,100 and 1,600 BC. 1,500

28:41

years it took them to finish it? I think

28:43

it's late Neolithic for the world, but we were

28:45

actually quite slow to farm in Britain, weren't we?

28:47

Yeah. So yes, we were... Everything

28:51

took... It took thousands of

28:53

years to reach farming. Well, you know, it's

28:55

just like a European thing, isn't it? Yeah,

28:57

in a life... Yeah. They

29:00

recently... They think almost certainly that Stonehenge

29:02

was built by the Welsh. Did you know this? Hmm.

29:06

Hey. They knew the stones came

29:08

from Presley Hills in Wales. Mm-hmm. But

29:10

they assumed that the English went there, collected the stones,

29:12

and brought them back in. Yes, yes. But

29:15

now they think the thing was actually built in Wales. Hang

29:17

on. So built in Wales, and then

29:19

they did an IKEA style, took it down

29:21

and shipped it over. Yes, exactly. Wow. I

29:24

went to Stonehenge. Like,

29:26

there was a thing where you could go, like, early

29:29

in the morning before it opened for the tourists. And

29:31

we did that, and they do not like it if

29:33

you touch the stones. Mm-hmm. Did you touch it? No.

29:37

Oh. You could have done when I was a child.

29:39

You definitely couldn't touch it. I know. Well, you

29:41

used to be able to, right? Like, you used to even be able

29:43

to chip bits off them, I think we might have said, but, yeah,

29:45

you don't know. I didn't think they'd feel when you scratched that swastika

29:47

on here. I love that story. In

29:51

1915, a wealthy, barris-cicled, successful chub, he

29:55

went to an auction in Salisbury intending to buy a pair of

29:58

curtains that have not been found for a long time. and

30:00

then it's up by my stone hen. Yeah.

30:03

Darling, don't be angry. They've been remarried.

30:05

They've been remarried. They've been remarried. It's

30:07

that time that you bought the life-size

30:09

Barbie doll. Yeah, the Christmas tree Barbie

30:11

for my daughters. I've lost the story.

30:14

It was the Save the Children auction.

30:17

And I was directing ads at the time. We had

30:19

plenty of spare money. And I bought this seven

30:21

foot tall Barbie dressed as a Christmas tree

30:24

for the girls. And Sarah

30:26

came back from the loo. I just bought this

30:28

thing. She was so angry. It seems to me

30:30

that three months. It could have been worse.

30:33

It could have been stone hen. It

30:36

could have been. Because similarly, successful

30:38

child bought this thing. He came home and said,

30:40

darling, and he told his wife

30:43

that he bought it as a birthday present for her.

30:46

He was improvising, but she didn't want it. She said,

30:48

well, what the hell do I want those for? Where's

30:50

my... They're not going to keep the life out? No. So

30:53

that's how it gave it to the nation in

30:55

1918. He gave it to her. Wow.

30:58

That never ever happened to the curtains. That's exactly

31:00

what he said. Yeah. OK,

31:07

it is time for fact number three. And

31:09

that is my fact. My fact this week

31:11

is that despite warning us that everything we

31:13

say would be recorded, we have

31:16

lost all the recordings of

31:18

everything that George Orwell said. Ironic.

31:21

Yeah. I allowed it on YouTube.

31:23

It's all no clips. There's

31:26

literally nothing. That was a BBC broadcaster. He

31:28

was famous in his day, obviously, as a

31:30

writer. Of course he was. Yeah. Yeah.

31:33

He did multiple, multiple panels. He was always

31:36

on broadcast. So we should have his voice

31:38

somewhere. Thank God Alex Bell is not

31:40

on this podcast because he gets very upset

31:42

about the BBC's case of locking systems. And

31:45

you can understand it when you hear

31:47

things like this. Yeah, exactly. And actually,

31:49

we have no video of him as

31:51

well, except in 2003, some

31:53

footage of him was unearthed of him when he was, I

31:55

believe he was 18 years old. You

31:58

see him at a school sort of. like

32:00

Sportsfield and he's the fourth kid in a

32:02

line of kids who are holding arms linked

32:04

up and that's the only footage that we

32:06

have of him before he was actually famous.

32:08

So we don't have any footage. We got

32:10

photos obviously. And he was someone who was

32:12

being monitored as well because he was seeing

32:14

a lot of contentious stuff. So you figure

32:16

just something would have survived. Yeah. And it's

32:19

such a shame it hasn't because I think his voice would

32:21

have been hilarious. It sounds like it was.

32:23

Yeah, really. Well, I guess he was super

32:25

posh. And you know how

32:27

when you watch old films like Brief Encounter

32:29

about kind of not even that posh

32:32

people and they all worked. You can

32:34

barely understand them. And George Orwell at

32:36

the time, even his posh friend said this guy

32:38

sounds incredibly posh. So I think he

32:40

would have been virtually incomprehensible to us.

32:42

Yeah, there's quite a few people who described what

32:44

his voice was like. And something to take into

32:46

account is the fact that when he was a

32:48

soldier in the Spanish war, he

32:51

was literally shot through the neck like a

32:53

bullet when in one side and out the

32:55

back. It somehow missed all the main arteries

32:57

that would have killed him. He survived, but

32:59

that affected his voice forever on in terms

33:01

of volume. So he could never talk loud.

33:03

It was hugely exhausting. He did dinner parties

33:05

and he tried to say something and everyone's

33:07

like what? And he was just like, and

33:09

he just couldn't get the volume. So do

33:12

you think maybe we do have some

33:14

recordings of him, but it's just very

33:16

badly leveled. Yeah, exactly. I didn't know

33:18

in somewhere that BBC research interviewing said

33:20

he sounded like Alan Rickman. Alan Rickman.

33:22

Yeah. Yeah. Wow. So the thought is

33:25

there is one bit of audio of

33:27

him out there because it's this BBC

33:29

researcher who found it in the archives,

33:31

but then kind of lost it. And

33:33

one day we will get it. These

33:35

things do turn up. Yeah.

33:37

Well, that's very exciting. In

33:40

a way, this actually is a fitting fact because he

33:42

actually said in 1984 that everything,

33:44

every record is destroyed, right? It was like the

33:46

end of history. He did actually. So this

33:48

is like history has been wiped out. Winston

33:51

Smith says everything has been destroyed or falsified.

33:53

So now all we need is for an

33:55

Alan Rickman to come along and fake his

33:57

voice and create that as the new career.

33:59

Yeah. He also

34:01

used to fake his voice, which is really

34:03

interesting, when he was living in various guises

34:05

during his life. So one of his most

34:07

famous books, Down and Out in Paris and

34:09

London, so he decided he wanted to live as

34:11

someone on the streets and sort

34:14

of put himself into the real people's

34:16

world. And he would put on,

34:18

apparently, a sort of cockney accent that he would

34:20

put on the guy. Yeah, well you've got to

34:22

find yourself, right? If he's talking like Jacob Rees-Mogg,

34:24

he's not going to like work out well in

34:26

Paris with the criminals, is he? Yeah, that's true.

34:29

I've got some ironic facts about

34:31

1984. I love

34:34

the core facts. Within

34:36

200 yards of the flat in Islington, where

34:38

Orwell had the idea for 1984, there are

34:41

now 32 CCTV cameras. Oh,

34:44

very good. And the

34:46

most common book people lie about having read is

34:49

Orwell's 1984. Yeah, yeah. And how would

34:51

they do that? Well,

34:53

James, you used to. You used to lie a lot,

34:56

didn't you? But in our live

34:58

fish shows, you had a thing about people, the

35:00

top 10 books that people lied about, and Tolstoy

35:02

was on there. Yeah, but 1984 is the top

35:04

one. I've heard that before.

35:06

Yeah, yeah. No one's lying about, you know,

35:08

J.K. Rowling, are they? No one's lying about

35:10

having read Chamber of Secrets. You know what

35:12

I think it is? I think it's quite

35:15

easy to lie about, because Big Brother as

35:17

a concept is quite easy to understand. Room

35:19

101 is quite easy to understand. If

35:21

people say, have you read it, you can kind of

35:23

get away with it, I think. Maybe you sort of

35:25

think you have. In Thailand, you know

35:27

you can be arrested in Thailand for reading 1984. Really?

35:31

And for having picnics. Those are the

35:33

two really serious things in Thailand. What

35:35

was the second one, sorry? Having picnics.

35:37

Oh, gosh. I thought you said, I slightly

35:40

misunderstood, you said family picnics. You could only be arrested

35:42

for reading it if you're really after family picnics.

35:44

It's very rude and you should be

35:46

interacting. It's interesting you said about where

35:48

he got the idea was in Islington.

35:50

I think he's partly got the idea

35:52

from his wife, Eileen, who'd already written

35:54

and published a poem about 1984, 15

35:57

years earlier. Really?

36:00

Yeah, cool 1984

36:02

the year like her prediction. Yeah. Yeah exactly now

36:05

hers was a bit more optimistic It was

36:07

about that the world would sort of sort

36:09

itself out and you know She

36:11

thought the knowledge of the past can't be wiped out

36:13

So 1984 that he wrote was

36:15

almost the opposite of what she wrote right and

36:17

her one was written in 1934

36:19

so it's exactly 50 years behind and

36:22

she yeah wrote about what the future would be like and even

36:24

it would be great Well, she's saying

36:27

yeah kind of you know things might go

36:29

downhill things might be a bit bad But in the

36:31

end everything will work itself out Yeah,

36:33

yeah, and he also based it on a

36:37

Soviet book called muy which was

36:39

written by Yevgeny Samyattin Which

36:42

is basically the same story Kind

36:45

of it's like it's all about mass

36:47

surveillance and stuff like that and it

36:49

was banned by the Soviet Union But

36:51

Orwell read it and he did say

36:53

that his next book would be similar

36:55

to this we fair enough Sure enough

36:57

it was so he kind of I wouldn't say he

37:00

plagiarized it because he put lots of his own ideas

37:02

in but I think Like if you take his wife's

37:04

poem about 1984 and this

37:06

Soviet button put them together It

37:08

wasn't a huge leap to come up with what he came

37:10

up with. Yeah, I read 1984 when I was at school

37:14

Well, thank you claim. Yeah, big brother and

37:16

the rooms 101 rooms Absolutely

37:21

altered my life I do remember it being a

37:23

game changer and then the other book that changed

37:26

my view of things and it was part of

37:28

the module We were doing at school was brave

37:30

new world by all the sudden. Yeah, me too

37:32

Those two were always paired together as these kind

37:34

of dystopian books So it was the most joyous

37:36

thing to discover that Orwell studied under Huxley

37:39

at school. I had eaten. Yeah, he told

37:41

him French. Yeah, I mean that is just

37:44

Incredible and Huxley wasn't an author yet. He

37:46

wasn't well He certainly wasn't published and famous.

37:49

So these are just two guys who would

37:51

go on to change the world Yeah, it

37:53

is very delight. Isn't it? Yeah, it's an

37:55

echo of the impressionists really because Not

37:58

just that extraordinary but

38:01

Orwell was a contemporary at Eton

38:03

of Cyril Connolly, Anthony

38:05

Powell and Ian Fleming. They're all contemporaries. So

38:07

it's like a sort of nexus, like the

38:10

fact that Renoir and Emile Zola and Beaudelaire

38:12

and the people are all famous with just

38:14

young people in Paris. Who would have thought

38:16

he could return out? I know, I was

38:19

like, that's what people do. You kind of

38:21

helped when you're all extremely rich posh white

38:23

people. Although to be fair to Orwell, yeah,

38:25

it wasn't, you know, he sort of got

38:27

a scholarship or something, didn't he? He did.

38:30

His mother was, she had a really exotic

38:32

name. She was called Ida

38:34

Limousin. No. She was born in

38:36

Penge. That's right. You still live. Yeah. Wow.

38:39

Cool. Well, I was actually just

38:41

saying that Penge is not a very exotic sounding

38:43

place. It's not. And

38:45

they tried to change that in Penge by calling it

38:47

Ponge. Genuinely, yeah.

38:49

Genuinely, yeah. Hello. You live in Ponge.

38:52

To be fair, she was only on holiday in Ponge. Right.

38:56

She was actually grew up

38:58

in Moer Lamyen in Myanmar.

39:02

On 1984, the process of writing it sounds

39:04

really horrible. Fun, though, it is

39:06

to read. He was really sick, wasn't he? Oh,

39:09

yeah. So he had terrible TB, and he

39:11

went to the island of Jura, a very

39:13

remote spot on the Scottish island of Jura,

39:15

to write 1984 after he'd been widowed. I

39:21

think the island had died very unexpectedly. It's

39:23

a very sad time. He'd taken the son he'd just

39:25

adopted. I think they adopted the son

39:27

about six months before she died. So he

39:30

took the son, went to Jura, and

39:32

it just sounds like agony. And he'd

39:34

write that TB was gradually killing him

39:36

as he forced out this awful book.

39:38

But again, he sounds a little bit like

39:41

Moer is so determined and

39:43

kind of gutsy. So he did things

39:45

like once a bunch of cousins came to visit, and

39:48

he took them all on this fishing

39:50

trip. And,

39:52

you know, he's got a bad TB. The

39:54

boat cap sized. They really nearly drowned. I

39:56

think he just managed to scramble him and

39:58

his son to a rock. and

40:00

drag them out. So very nearly died

40:03

but made his TB a bit worse. But

40:06

yeah it sounds like he's really living the awful

40:08

life that they lived in 1984 at least suffering

40:12

wise. Yeah because he was he had TB all his life

40:14

didn't he suffered from all the time and again

40:16

like Monet incredibly determined you know going

40:19

to the Spanish Civil War as a

40:21

reporter and then joining up on the

40:23

socialist side and then

40:25

in the Second World War he really tried to get

40:27

into the army but they wouldn't let him because of

40:30

his TB in fact some one friend said he tried

40:32

harder to get into the army than most people tried

40:34

to get out of it and so instead

40:38

he joined the home guard famously you

40:41

know because he thought that once Hitler

40:43

had been defeated it might be transformed into

40:45

a Catalan style revolutionary militia to overthrow the

40:47

British ruling classes. Wow. The home guard was

40:49

gonna have a coup. Considering he was so

40:51

anti-fascist he did have a Hitler mustache when

40:54

he was young. Yes. But he was also

40:56

oddly anti-communist did you know that talk to

40:58

him? Yeah he was. Because he hated the

41:00

communists having met them the Russians in the

41:02

Spanish Civil War. He was a socialist but

41:05

he didn't like the communists. Yes that's right.

41:07

Well the line that you thought was about

41:09

how communism had gone wrong. I

41:12

think anyway. He kept a sort of McCarthyite list

41:14

of people who were communists or fellow travelers which

41:16

he then just before he died he gave it

41:19

to the foreign office. Did he? Yes that's right.

41:21

He was kept secret for 54 years and on

41:23

that list are JB Priestley,

41:29

Michael Redgrave the actor and Charlie Chaplin.

41:31

Are we sure he didn't just not

41:33

like these people? Maybe. Yeah

41:35

he also is responsible for

41:37

Wetherspoon. Yes I read that. Oh yes

41:40

he wrote that. I've forgotten this essay on the

41:42

perfect pub didn't he? He wrote his essay

41:44

on a perfect pub and he said. It's called Moon

41:46

on the Water or something? Moon Underwater. The

41:48

Wetherspoon is called that I think. A lot

41:50

actually. He said that it should have

41:52

a very convenient location. It

41:59

should have a very good atmosphere without any

42:01

loud music so you can chat to each

42:03

other. There should be fights every Saturday night.

42:05

No, he didn't say that one. He said

42:07

you should be able to get a variety

42:09

of different beverages including non-alcoholic ones. But then

42:12

having said that, some of his friends said

42:14

that whenever he went to the pub with

42:16

them he would only allow them to drink

42:18

dark ale no matter what they ordered. They

42:20

would say, oh Alan,

42:22

a gin and tonic and then he'd come back from the bar

42:24

with some dark ale and say, well, that's what happened. I'll

42:27

get around. What are you having? What are you having?

42:30

Roman Coke? Yeah, don't let George get a date. 12 dark

42:32

ales please. He

42:40

did say this is what of

42:42

him reminds me of Yu-Jung which

42:44

is no. He believed this was

42:46

according to the ODMB. He believed

42:48

that no meaningful idea was too

42:50

difficult to be explained in simple

42:52

terms to ordinary people which

42:54

is basically the QI style of right-wing, isn't it?

42:56

I think that's very true. I think he's a

42:58

very QI person actually because here's one. To see

43:01

what is in front of one's nose requires

43:03

constant struggle. That's very QI, I think. There

43:06

are some ideas so wrong that only a

43:08

very intelligent person could believe in them. That's

43:12

great. So, John, I

43:14

wonder if you have any insight into this

43:16

but Orwell historians

43:18

have claimed that they believe Room

43:21

101 was based off his experience

43:23

at the BBC as

43:25

being in such torturous conference rooms

43:27

and meetings. Really

43:29

went to the Spanish Civil War, suffered

43:31

from TBs, years of his life, struggle,

43:34

lived down on Paris and London but

43:36

working at the BBC. This

43:40

is really an unannounced Studio One. There's a

43:42

particular echo for this to me because I

43:44

used to have the next door office Douglas

43:46

Adams for me, both young radio producers, and

43:48

we looked across at Broadcasting House but the

43:50

back of it from 16 Langham

43:53

Street and there was a

43:55

window in there that was all blacked out

43:57

and we thought that must be Room 101.

44:00

in there. We fantasised about all this and we were

44:02

going to write a story about how the BBC had

44:04

a coup in London. Because you remember how weird things

44:07

were in the 70s, the three-day week and the Labour

44:09

government impounded everyone, thought there was going to be a

44:11

counter-revolution. I think James of the stretch might remember that

44:13

if he remembers the first six months of his life.

44:16

Other than that, no. I didn't even do three

44:18

days work in those days. That's the way it's

44:20

all worked. It felt

44:23

like Big Brother was happening. Big Aunty.

44:25

Yes, we thought there was going to

44:27

be some sort of counter-revolution. Right. And

44:30

the idea was the BBC was going to

44:32

lead this from this secret room. And they're

44:34

basically going to take down all the telephone

44:36

lines and done it as a drama. They've

44:39

got tanks in Trafalgar Square. It was all

44:41

a completely fake coup where nothing had taken,

44:43

but we thought it had. So they all

44:45

stayed home. Right. How big was

44:47

the black-tat window? It was just David Attenborough's dressing

44:49

room. The spookiness

44:51

goes on because about

44:54

that age, it was 24, something like

44:56

that, I had a call from a

44:58

very senior BBC executive. You had a strange

45:00

voice like that, Ojai. And

45:03

asked if I'd like to go to dinner. So I went to my

45:05

head of department, just having come out of an English public school, that

45:07

a man 30 years old of me had asked me to do. I

45:10

said, do you think this is all right? I said, well, be very

45:12

careful what you say. That's the managing director's

45:14

hit man. I thought, what? Because

45:17

it's well known that everybody in BBC had

45:19

a file on them. And if you were

45:21

a communist, I'd have Christmas tree in the

45:23

corner. Oh, yeah. If you were left. So

45:26

I went out for dinner with this bloke and I

45:28

had too much to drink before I was terribly nervous

45:30

that I was going to say something wrong. And

45:33

he would say, do you like football?

45:35

And I go, not really. Do you?

45:37

No. Do you enjoy opera? I'd say,

45:40

not really. Do you enjoy it? So

45:43

it was a very uncomfortable dinner. And

45:46

I went home and nothing happened. And years later,

45:48

I was talking to the guy who started Channel

45:50

4. And I told him this story. He said,

45:52

oh, that was you were definitely being recruited for

45:54

MI5. And he blew it. If only he said

45:56

he supported wolves, avidly. That

45:59

was the key. So I was actually being recruited

46:01

for the Secret Service and I didn't realise it.

46:03

Wow! But Blackadder wouldn't have existed

46:05

if he had been. So, you know, it was

46:07

better that you ended the Cold War ten years

46:09

early or... If you had been recruited, you

46:12

wouldn't tell us. You might tell us

46:14

the story and then it might end with,

46:16

and then I was never recruited. Mm-hmm. That's...

46:21

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On with the show. for

48:00

our final fact of the show and that is James.

48:02

Okay my fact this week is that

48:04

in 14th century London one

48:06

punishment for selling unclean spices was

48:08

to be put in the pillory

48:10

and have the spices set on

48:13

fire beneath your nose. What

48:16

would that do? Like do we know how mad? Because it's hard

48:18

for you to be quite nice. Is it like one of those

48:20

scented sticks you get in your house sometimes that really gives you a

48:22

nice smell? No, no. Have

48:24

you ever seen on the internet when they do like

48:26

the nutmeg challenge or the cinnamon challenge or whatever it

48:29

is and they try and eat one spoonful of spices

48:31

and it all goes terribly wrong.

48:33

Yeah. I reckon it's that times a thousand.

48:35

Yeah. You're just going to get it

48:37

in your sinuses, in your eyes. It

48:39

would burn like a thousand. It would burn like mad in

48:41

your face. Yeah, it would be awful. So

48:44

I read this when I was trying to nail

48:46

something about eating fish on a Friday for QI

48:48

this year. I reckon that

48:50

people in the UK eat fish on

48:52

a Friday for economic reasons not for

48:54

religious reasons. It can't work out

48:56

if that's true. So if you know this, if you're a

48:58

historian, you know this, get in touch with me. But while

49:00

I was doing that research, I found a paper called

49:02

Buttering in Medieval London by Ernest

49:05

L. Sabine. And I read that

49:07

and it gave loads of good info about the food trade

49:09

in the 14th century. And

49:11

in 1393, when John Hadley was the

49:13

mayor, he was a grocer, he came

49:15

up with this new law. You

49:18

said when John Hadley was mayor, like we looked, do you remember when John Hadley

49:20

was mayor in 1393? Yeah, you must

49:22

remember that. The John Hadley era. Of

49:24

course. For years. Sorry,

49:26

go on. So he was a grocer, as we

49:28

all know, and obviously had

49:30

lots of ideas about the grossing trade.

49:33

I mean, I'm telling a lot of people

49:35

what they already know here, but I'm going

49:37

to go through the basics. He came up

49:39

with a law about adulterated spices and said

49:42

that basically you should be not selling spice

49:44

which isn't pure. And there

49:46

was one particular guy, a foreign merchant who

49:48

had come over to London and was selling

49:50

dodgy spices and he was sent to the

49:52

pillory and had his false powders burned underneath

49:55

him. Wow. And that

49:57

pillory, by the way, is where you put your head in. It's

50:00

like stocks. Yeah, people might throw tomatoes at

50:02

you, but in this case he was being

50:05

burnt. Yeah, the stocks are different because the

50:07

stocks are just your feet. Yeah, they're better

50:09

because you can dodge the missiles because you

50:11

can move your upper body. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

50:14

You're doomed over the pillars. And Hadley as

50:16

well, he prescribed that all spices must henceforth

50:18

be garbled by an official garbler. Oh,

50:21

was that for a little bit? Oh, I

50:23

don't know. A purple color. So,

50:26

garbling. So, I didn't know what

50:28

this was. Garbling.

50:31

So, a garbling is where you sift through a

50:34

spice to get rid of all the stuff that

50:36

isn't a spice. So, let's

50:38

say you've got a load of peppercorns, but

50:40

there's loads of little ant legs and little

50:42

bits of flies and stuff in there. You

50:45

sift through it and you just get the

50:47

good stuff and that's garbling. And it comes

50:49

from an old Anglo-Norman word garblet, meaning to

50:51

sift. And the garbling that you were doing,

50:53

Anna, comes from an old thing

50:56

where you would get a text and you would

50:58

take out all of the bits that you don't

51:00

want to say and you would just include the

51:02

bits that you do want to say. So, let's

51:04

say you took something from the Bible. You might

51:06

say, well, actually, I quite like the adultery part.

51:09

So, I'm not going to mention that, but I

51:11

will mention the stuff about not coveting my neighbor's

51:13

ox. And that was known as garbling

51:15

because you were sifting through the words. And

51:17

then it eventually became like garbling your voice

51:19

and garbling. So, it's almost become the

51:22

opposite because now garbling is more like

51:24

including extraneous stuff. It's certainly not the direct

51:26

kind of communication. Exactly. Weird.

51:30

This seems to be a bit of a theme,

51:32

this means of punishment for adulterating spices.

51:35

I actually read that in 1444 in

51:37

Nuremberg, an adulterator of saffron was burned

51:39

at the stake over a fire of

51:42

his own saffron. Yeah. Wow. It's been

51:44

incredibly expensive fire. Yeah. Yes.

51:47

And... The most expensive spice saffron, I think,

51:49

isn't it? Yeah. Because you can only get

51:51

it a tiny bit from each saffron flour,

51:53

can't you? So, you have to get like

51:55

200,000 saffron flowers. And

51:58

then you can't taste it anyway, guys. Yeah,

52:00

Mike's doing some of it guys. Yeah,

52:02

exactly. This was the Saffron

52:04

shell code wasn't it in Nuremberg

52:06

about saffron? Sounds like it. Yeah

52:10

And you could be hung drawn and

52:12

quartered For selling

52:14

dudgy saffron really they're

52:17

really hard on saffron. I guess because it is so

52:19

pricey Yeah but if you were

52:21

a woman you wouldn't be hung drawn and

52:23

quartered because it was seen as as bad

52:25

to hang draw and quarter women Because you

52:27

might be able to see that belly as

52:30

you're pulling out the Maybe

52:32

someone might get done by that. I don't

52:34

know really you weren't allowed to show some

52:36

a woman's stomach Yeah, couldn't hang drawn quarter

52:38

someone and so they would be buried alive

52:40

instead. Yeah a special kind of pillory for

52:42

women Did you know that no few? Thw

52:45

which is a Stocks

52:51

that kept the legs together This

52:57

is like a rich thing. Um, there's

53:00

a company called spices pillory in Nantwich,

53:02

Cheshire It's

53:07

not just called spices but it's in

53:09

38 pillory Street, Nantwich So

53:13

just checking this out on Wikipedia and it says

53:16

In on the pillory entry that people

53:18

who were put in pillories were called

53:20

pillocks I

53:23

think she needed Wikipedia. I think it does

53:25

say No,

53:28

that's never gonna last I think Philip comes

53:31

from bollock basically doesn't it? Yeah, I think

53:33

yeah But do you think that people with

53:35

the spices burning under the nose were also

53:37

pelted with fruit and things? Oh,

53:39

I would think so. Yeah. Yeah, that's one of the things

53:41

I Likes about the pillory

53:44

was that it was kind of quite a democratic

53:46

thing So the crowd decided what

53:48

they threw so if

53:50

it was a minor offense you get soft fruit

53:52

or whatever And if they really

53:54

didn't like if you've done something horrible They

53:57

throw the stones and sauce and some people

53:59

were actually killed in the pillory. Dead dog,

54:01

really? There was one guy who in 1727 was convicted

54:03

of attempted sodomy,

54:09

he's called Charles Hitchen, and he went into

54:11

the stocks wearing a suit of armour because

54:13

he was so worried that people would throw

54:15

heavy hard things at him. That's amazing and

54:17

did you read about Daniel Defoe, the guy

54:19

who wrote Robinson Crusoe, he did

54:21

a satirical pamphlet which somebody

54:23

took literally and he was put

54:25

in the pillory for seditious libel,

54:28

which is a really serious political offence. And

54:31

the crowd all turned up and they thought he was

54:33

absolutely great, so they just threw flowers at him. Oh

54:36

nice, yeah that's very sweet. It's

54:39

really interesting, this is

54:41

a punishment that fits the crime I

54:43

suppose, which quite often

54:45

happened in the olden

54:47

days. So in

54:50

1482 in Bebrych,

54:52

which I think was a village in Germany,

54:54

there was a Vintner who adulterated his

54:57

wine with something else and he was

54:59

condemned to drink six quarts of it,

55:01

of his own wine, which is

55:03

six litres. That is a

55:05

lot. Well the article about it

55:08

which was written in 1952 just

55:10

said from this he died. What

55:13

a way to go. Yeah, that's

55:16

so interesting. People think, you know, you

55:18

sort of think, oh that's the sort of thing

55:20

they did in the middle ages, they cheated by

55:22

making, in terms of saffron, they did some, it

55:24

still goes on today, adulteration of spices. And

55:28

I'm just reading in Tassa, the

55:30

big Indian multinational, the insurance branch

55:32

has a thing on that, of

55:34

typical adulteration of spices in India

55:36

such as you put

55:38

sand or powdered chalk in sugar,

55:41

brick powder is added to red

55:43

chilli powder, papaya seeds for black

55:45

pepper, chikorita coffee, sawdust to

55:47

ground cumin seeds and used tea leaves

55:49

to tea, so that's how they do

55:51

it. And in

55:53

the, they also, they put mud

55:56

stones, pebbles, marbles and filth apparently

55:58

in some spices. More than

56:00

ever going to fit through those tiny holes. The

56:04

rules from the US Food and

56:07

Drug Administration on filth in adulterated

56:09

spices are really specific. So

56:12

for example, the maximum amount of filth permitted

56:14

by the FDA in 50 grams of ground

56:16

paprika is 150 insect fragments and 22 rodent

56:18

hairs. In

56:24

all spices, 300 insect fragments

56:26

and 10 rodent hairs. Somebody checks all

56:28

these. And in cinnamon

56:30

it's 400 insect fragments and 11 rodent hairs.

56:33

What you really want to get into

56:36

if you're a food adulterer is canned

56:38

or frozen spinach because they're much more

56:40

generous with their limits there. So

56:42

for every 100 grams of canned or frozen spinach

56:44

you are allowed 58 FIDS and

56:47

or thrips and or mites

56:49

for 100 grams, or

56:52

two or more, three millimeter

56:54

or longer larvae or larval

56:56

fragments or spinach worms whose

56:58

aggregate length exceeds 12 milliliters

57:00

per 24 pounds. That's how

57:02

much you get a lot of mites and

57:04

thrips in there. Spinach is very light though,

57:07

isn't it? Yeah. Like how many kilos of

57:09

spinach was it? That was 100 grams. Oh

57:12

yeah, okay. That's quite a lot of ant. The

57:16

most adulterated spice slash herb

57:19

in the EU according to

57:21

a 2022 report is oregano

57:23

or oregano. You're

57:26

American. It's the most adulterated. Yeah, it is.

57:29

48% of samples that were

57:31

checked were contaminated with... with... Oh,

57:35

erm... Sage. Sage.

57:37

I think you'd be able to taste that, do you think? Time?

57:39

No. Mariana.

57:44

No, it is olive leaves. So

57:47

they just basically add olive leaves to the

57:49

oregano leaves and then mush it up. I

57:51

mean, if you're not noticing, sort it. You know,

57:54

who can even taste herbs and spices anyway? They're

57:56

just so aren't they? There

58:00

was a huge thing. There's

58:02

just to make your covers look fancy. Just

58:06

get some ketchup and mayonnaise and stuff in such

58:08

a snob. No, I'm

58:12

just saying this because there was a big sting

58:14

in 2021 of a criminal gang in

58:16

Spain. Oh, I thought that was something they found in

58:18

some spinach. How much

58:20

of a bee is this thing? Just

58:24

a thing. It's a spice

58:26

as it goes down. No, this was 2021. There

58:29

was a criminal gang in Spain that

58:31

was done for making fake saffron. So

58:33

Spanish saffron is incredibly expensive sought after

58:36

saffron. And there were 17 people

58:38

arrested and it was found that a huge

58:40

proportion of it was actually fake. So it was

58:42

mixed up with other stuff. Yeah, but

58:44

mostly mixed up with Iranian

58:46

saffron, which have been imported. Feels

58:49

okay. And which I think does taste

58:51

the same. I'd be amazed if people could

58:53

tell the difference. So there was one Parisian

58:55

chef who said that making sure you've got

58:58

legitimate saffron is as time-consuming as checking all

59:00

the other produce in your food combined.

59:03

And I would say don't worry about it. No, I

59:05

don't think I'm going to go to a

59:07

restaurant and go, this is Iranian saffron. Wow,

59:12

that's amazing. That bread is one that was

59:14

adulterated a lot in history, wasn't there? And

59:16

you could be really badly punished for being

59:19

a baker and yeah. Henk bakers doesn't I

59:21

guess. Yes. So the idea you make a

59:23

13th bun so that the weight of your

59:25

12 buns is

59:28

actually like a yeah, from non-English

59:30

because exactly you make a 13th bun and that's

59:32

what a baker doesn't as opposed to 12 because

59:34

you're in so much trouble if you'd made 12

59:36

buns, but they were just a little bit like it's

59:38

like to be safe Chuck another one. It's

59:40

a serious matter because bread is

59:42

what people live on and you

59:44

can't cheat on that. But as

59:46

in 2017, I think it was

59:48

they sensured a Massachusetts bakery for

59:50

listing love as an ingredient of

59:52

their granola. This is

59:55

made with love and they took them a court. I

59:57

think that's fair enough. life

1:00:00

center. Chuck a

1:00:02

dang dog at them. So just

1:00:04

on baking as well, in the 18th

1:00:07

century in Turkey,

1:00:10

if you undersold your bread, you would get

1:00:12

in trouble and

1:00:14

you might get hanged. And that was

1:00:16

common enough that if you were a master baker,

1:00:19

I said master baker, you

1:00:22

might imply an assistant who got more

1:00:24

wages, but they were the one who

1:00:26

would take the fall if you got

1:00:28

in trouble. Right. Yeah,

1:00:32

would you pay that job? Yeah. I'd

1:00:36

be more concerned if I saw a master

1:00:38

baker list love as part of the agreement.

1:00:40

Okay, that's it. That

1:00:42

is all of our facts. Thank you so

1:00:44

much for listening. If you'd like to get

1:00:47

in contact with any of us about the things that we

1:00:49

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1:00:55

found on various social media accounts. I'm

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on Instagram with at Shribaland James. I'm

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on Instagram. No, six

1:01:02

fingers, James Harkin. John.

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I'm on Instagram, John Lloyd, QI. That's

1:01:08

right. And Anna,

1:01:10

you can get in touch with the podcast as a

1:01:12

whole by emailing podcast at qi.com or tweeting at no

1:01:14

such thing. Yeah, that's right. Or

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1:01:19

such thing as a fish dot com. All

1:01:21

of our previous episodes are up there. We're going to

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our podcast. And there's also lots of bits

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of merch and so on. Do check it out or

1:01:29

just come back here for another episode. We'll be back again

1:01:32

next week. We'll see you

1:01:34

then. Goodbye. I

1:01:38

just like to draw geometric figures on

1:01:40

bits of paper. That's my Google are

1:01:42

always geometric figures. And okay. Explain

1:01:46

yourself to yourself at Nuremberg. Thank

1:01:53

you.