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name. Welcome

2:02

to another

2:05

episode

2:07

of No Such

2:09

Thing as a

2:12

Fish, a

2:14

weekly podcast,

2:17

this week

2:20

coming to

2:22

you live,

2:24

from Auckland!

2:26

I'm sitting

2:28

here with Anna Tshinsky,

2:31

Andrew Hansamuri, and James Harkin,

2:33

and once again we have

2:35

gathered around the microphones with

2:37

our four favorite facts from

2:39

the last seven days, and

2:41

in no particular order, here

2:43

we go. Starting with fact

2:45

number one, and that is Andy.

2:48

My fact is that the German

2:50

order of temperance was founded in

2:52

1600, and members had to pledge

2:54

to drink no more than 14 glasses of

2:56

wine a day. Do you think you find

2:59

that tough Anna? I think so long as

3:01

that only means like before 6 p.m.

3:03

That's vaguely generous isn't it? Yeah, there

3:05

are a couple of extra rules but

3:07

I think you can handle it and

3:10

I think I think it would be

3:12

fine. So this comes from a 1925

3:14

book called The Standard Encyclopedia of the

3:16

Alcohol Problem. Just a little light

3:18

bedside reading for me. I found in

3:21

that there was a reference to an

3:23

1872 paper. So all this is quite

3:25

a way distant. You know, the records

3:27

of the society itself obviously 400 years

3:30

ago, not very easy to find. But

3:32

basically there was terrible drunkenness in the

3:34

16th century all over the place. And

3:36

the rules of the temperance society were,

3:38

firstly, never get drunk. That's rule one.

3:41

Yeah. Rule two, you can only have seven

3:43

glasses of wine at a meal. And

3:45

rule three, you can only have two meals a day.

3:48

Okay, so they didn't mind you drinking a

3:50

little bit. I think that's the idea, isn't

3:52

it? Because temperance is like to temper your

3:54

drinking. So they weren't banning drinking. They were

3:56

just trying to make you drink less. And

3:58

even if you were... had your 14 classes,

4:01

even if you then wanted a bit of

4:03

wine to help you sleep, you weren't allowed

4:05

it. It was very strict. Even if

4:07

you have another meal? Well, they started doing

4:09

things like, okay, why don't we cut out

4:11

certain bits of alcohol? So they set up

4:14

a brewery for people who didn't want to

4:16

drink spirits, but only beer. So they would

4:18

go there instead, and then very slowly it

4:20

would sort of morph into, let's just maybe

4:23

not drink at all? Maybe we'll just stop

4:25

it now. And it was also, wasn't it,

4:27

that the evil that was alcohol wasn't

4:29

really wine and beer. for a long

4:31

time it was spirits and actually a

4:33

lot a lot of beer especially but

4:35

wine a little bit was promoted as

4:37

temperance drinking I think Guinness was promoted

4:39

quite a lot of temperance drink in

4:41

the 1700s because spirits distilled liquor was

4:43

thought to be the evil thing and

4:45

actually temperance I didn't realize it may

4:47

be slightly more sympathetic towards it had

4:49

a bit of a socialist undertone because

4:51

all the distilled liquor was all sold

4:53

by landowners who were exploiting the peasants

4:56

working on their land because they were

4:58

the only people who could grow all

5:00

that liquor and so by... being a

5:02

tea-totiller and only drinking 14 glasses of

5:05

wine a day, you were sticking it

5:07

to the landlords. We're glasses a

5:09

lot, you know how they were

5:11

a lot smaller. Yeah, we're glasses

5:13

smaller back. Yeah, we're glasses smaller

5:15

back. People were not as much

5:17

smaller as the glasses were. I

5:19

know with the land of the

5:21

hobits here, but... Glasses were way

5:23

smaller. This would have been an

5:26

insane glass. The glass I'm pointing

5:28

at now would have been a

5:30

demented volume in the 16th century.

5:32

People would have freaked out. They

5:34

would have freaked out or 14

5:36

of your glasses. Do you think?

5:38

This would probably be a few

5:40

of them. And for anyone listening

5:42

at home, this is not a

5:45

lot of wine at my glass.

5:47

I think it's easy to say,

5:49

picture of wine glass with some

5:51

wine in it. That's what Andy's

5:53

got. Yeah. Okay. Not a lot.

5:56

I'm fine. And I can stop

5:58

any time I like. Okay? source with

6:00

all the rules of this original temperance society.

6:02

There are some other really good ones but

6:05

one of them was that the society wanted

6:07

to ban the practice of drinking to people's

6:09

health. Cheers, here's to you, sir, etc. because

6:11

that promoted drinking and it got to a

6:13

stage where you'd promote everyone's health around the

6:16

table and by the time you started talking

6:18

then everyone's had 15 pines. And so I

6:20

was wondering about toasting and do you know

6:22

why it's called toasting? Oh. Well, it was

6:24

always about putting toast in the beer or something.

6:26

There was, so we, I think we probably have

6:29

mentioned before that people used to put

6:31

toast, soaked toast. in their beer, but

6:33

I liked, and this is just a

6:35

theory about why it was called toasting

6:38

from 1837, a thing I stumbled on.

6:40

This was in Tatler, said, toasting as

6:42

a word, comes from the 1660s when

6:44

a beautiful lady was bathing in one

6:46

of the baths at Bath, Bath's Bar,

6:49

town in the UK, and the men

6:51

around were all admiring her as she

6:53

bathed. so far so good, one of

6:55

them dipped his cup into the water,

6:58

because it's like health-giving waters at Bass

7:00

Bar. So one of them dips his

7:02

cup into the water, holds it up

7:04

and says, cheers, his to the health

7:06

of the lady, and another person who's

7:09

describing the source as a gay fellow

7:11

half-fuddled, which I think he's absolutely hammered,

7:13

swore he was going to jump in

7:16

the water, because though he did not

7:18

like the liquor, he would have the

7:20

toast. So I believe in this instance was

7:22

the lady. The lady. So the toast,

7:24

when you're doing a toast, is

7:26

the naked woman bathing in the

7:28

pool of wine before you. Is

7:30

that a slang term for a hot

7:32

lady? No, it was because, as James

7:35

said, they used to drink their beer

7:37

with a bit of toast in it.

7:39

So it did come from that. This

7:41

is just a sort of fun riff

7:43

on the... No, no, no, no, but

7:45

this is why we call it a

7:47

toast, because someone drank to the toast,

7:49

Very funny. I understand. Because

7:51

I was thinking, is it related

7:53

to the term crumpet for someone

7:55

who's attractive? But it's not that,

7:58

is it? Sure, you could make. Take

8:00

a case. The temperance movement in Glasgow. That

8:02

was quite an interesting one, because it

8:04

banned barmades. It said, we've worked out

8:06

what the problem is. This men are

8:08

getting incredibly drunk. It must be the

8:10

fault of the barmades. So are these

8:12

crumpets that we're toasting? Get them out

8:14

of here. Basically, the idea was men would

8:16

dally in the bar, because they wanted to

8:18

talk to the barmades. Yeah, I mean, and

8:20

if you let a woman into a woman

8:22

into a pub, also, so they're risk of being

8:25

exposed to a risk of being exposed to

8:27

language, and to jests, and we cannot have

8:29

that sort of thing in our society. We need,

8:31

you know, the men to be just getting actually

8:33

an asset in peace. The temperance lobby, who were

8:35

trying to convince people not to drink, started

8:37

with health about sort of what it would

8:39

do to you, and then they just started

8:42

lying about things. So they would say, well,

8:44

you're drinking that, you know what they put

8:46

in it. crunched up cockeraches, they put

8:48

feces, they make it with feces. They

8:50

started just spreading all these rumors about

8:53

what alcohol was mixed with in order

8:55

to get people to go, I guess

8:57

I don't want to drink. Really? Yeah. You

8:59

know what, that wouldn't work on me, wouldn't

9:01

it? Yeah. See, this is why I

9:04

didn't take over. Have you guys

9:06

heard of the Wowsers? Wowza. This

9:08

was a New Zealand thing and

9:10

Australia actually and a Wowser was

9:12

a person who had a real

9:14

sense of morality and wanted other

9:17

people not to do simple things.

9:19

Actually the name originally was a

9:21

loud or an annoying person and

9:23

then it kind of changed to

9:25

that meaning but the Wowsers were

9:27

usually the women's Christian Temperance Union

9:30

in New Zealand and not

9:32

just where they campaigning for

9:34

less alcohol but they were

9:36

really the main people behind

9:38

women's suffrage in New Zealand.

9:40

Oh. Because I don't know

9:43

if the guys in the

9:45

audience know, but it was

9:47

one of the first places

9:49

where women got the

9:51

vote. That's sorry. There's

9:54

a lot of women showing

9:56

there, but not many men.

9:58

What's going on? there was as

10:00

part of the temperance movement, they came

10:03

up with a new law which said

10:05

that all bars and pubs had to

10:07

close at 6 o'clock, so 6 p.m.

10:09

And the thing is that everyone finished

10:11

work at 5 p.m. And so what

10:13

ended up happening is everyone who was

10:16

working just legged it to the pub

10:18

at 5 p.m. and drank as much

10:20

as they could for an hour and

10:22

it was called the 6 o'clock swell.

10:24

And basically you would... Did that lead

10:26

to any problems at all? Or was

10:29

about very fine? I'll be honest, it

10:31

didn't go that well. Some bars changed

10:33

their wallpaper for tiling so it could

10:35

be easily cleaned. Oh my God. A

10:37

lot of people would drink loads of

10:39

drinks and then keep all the glasses

10:42

and then at like five to six

10:44

they would go fill these up and

10:46

then they would all get filled up

10:48

and then they would neck as many

10:50

as they could. But one interesting innovation

10:52

that might have come from this is,

10:55

you know if you ask for Coca-Cola

10:57

in a bar? And they say, we've

10:59

got Pepsi, is that all right? And

11:01

you say, yeah, fine. They sometimes give

11:03

it you out of like a long

11:05

tube with a gun on the end.

11:08

Oh, yeah, yeah. And that was invented

11:10

for this because it made it easier

11:12

to get beer quickly into people's blasses

11:14

without having to get them to come

11:16

away from the table. Really, how long,

11:18

yeah. There were these amazing maps as

11:20

well. Have you heard of these? The

11:23

wet and dry maps of the USA.

11:25

This is very cool. America obviously very

11:27

convex relationship with alcohol. They had their

11:29

anti-saloon league. And this was all pre-prohibition.

11:31

This is when they were still trying

11:33

to do it, just through social pressure,

11:36

rather than through banning it. But there

11:38

were temperance advocates. And this happened in

11:40

the UK as well, actually. Temperance advocates

11:42

would map out pubs. They would produce

11:44

maps of pubs so that people could

11:46

avoid so that people could avoid them.

11:49

Which did not backfire at all. Yeah,

11:51

I'm going to need one of those

11:53

maps just to make sure that I

11:55

don't go near any of these pubs.

11:57

It was, that's basically, it's basically, I'm

11:59

being a bit flippant, but the anti-alcohol

12:02

movement, they printed these maps saying... Look

12:04

at how many pubs that are out

12:06

of this town. We can't need any

12:08

more. And that was like, don't grant

12:10

a license, because look, this place is

12:12

absolutely loaded with. It wasn't for normal

12:15

people, like a trigger warning. So you

12:17

know, if you really don't like pubs,

12:19

if you're offended by them, don't go

12:21

here. No, but it wasn't quite that.

12:23

It was a thing called persuasive cartography,

12:25

which is quite cool. You produce a

12:28

map showing something that you desire or

12:30

something that you don't want. I read

12:32

about, we were recently in Melbourne, and

12:34

I read about a group of friends

12:36

who almost had the equivalent of a

12:38

map. It was the yellow pages of

12:41

Melbourne, and it had every single pub

12:43

listed in it, as you would, and

12:45

this was back in the early 90s,

12:47

and they decided that they were going

12:49

to try and visit every single pub

12:51

on the ultimate pub crawl that they

12:54

could go on, and they managed it.

12:56

32 years later, they had completed all

12:58

400 plus pubs. Some of them had

13:00

shot, so they had to just stand

13:02

outside and have a ceremonial beer outside

13:04

of there. Three of the five pulled

13:07

out, and it was only two that

13:09

made it to the end. And yeah.

13:11

What would we say pulled out? Do

13:13

we mean died of alcohol poisoning? Yes.

13:15

Pulled out of breathing. Yeah. Yeah. Well,

13:17

they still have those maps of the

13:19

US now, don't they? The dry, because

13:22

there are dry counties in America and

13:24

wet counties. But I didn't realize there

13:26

were also lots of moist counties. And

13:28

this is a crucial term, and it's

13:30

nothing disgusting. Well, it depends on your

13:32

opinions. But like in Kentucky, there are

13:35

120 counties in Kentucky, 11 of dry,

13:37

53 are wet, and 56 are moist,

13:39

which is just like some rules. can't

13:41

drink vodka on a Wednesday, you know,

13:43

don't drink beer all night long, that

13:45

kind of just, you know, there's some

13:48

rules around alcohol, but not many, but

13:50

it actually backfired this when there are

13:52

lots of little counties because they did

13:54

a study in 2003 looking at drink

13:56

driving, but they found that a higher

13:58

proportion of dry county's residents were involved

14:01

in alcohol-related crashes and they realized is

14:03

because they're having to drive across the

14:05

bloody border to pick up alcohol from

14:07

the wet county. There was a Greek

14:09

playwright called Eubelus and he wrote the

14:11

three glasses of wine is a perfect

14:14

amount for you to have before you

14:16

go to bed. If you have a

14:18

fourth that will induce arrogance, a fifth

14:20

causes shouting, a sixth causes quarrelling, a

14:22

seventh leads to punch-ups, in the eighth

14:24

furniture was smashed and the police were

14:27

called by the ninth deranged madness set

14:29

in... and by the tenth you pass

14:31

out. And that is very much a

14:33

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all you need. Stop the

15:32

podcast. Stop the podcast. Hi

15:34

Andy, do you ever go

15:36

out and about incognito? I

15:38

always do, James. I've got

15:40

my dark glasses, I've got

15:42

my hat, and I've got

15:44

my gloves. Well, there is

15:47

another analogy to be had

15:49

with incognito, and that is

15:51

online. We all sometimes might

15:53

want to do things online

15:55

which are private, or... More

15:57

likely we don't want people

15:59

seeing all of our personal

16:01

data. So how do we

16:03

do that? Well, there's incognito mode, but

16:05

that does not quite work. It's not as incognito

16:07

as you think. You are largely still visible to

16:09

lots of third parties, which means your data could

16:11

be tracked, you could be advertised to. There is

16:14

a way of solving this problem, and that is

16:16

to use a VPN, and we are sponsored this

16:18

week, by Express VPN. Absolutely Express VPN.

16:20

It is the VPN that I use.

16:23

I use VPNs when I'm abroad because

16:25

it lets me get to content that

16:27

I wouldn't normally be able to get.

16:29

So I was in Montenegro recently and

16:31

managed to watch the darts using my

16:33

express VPN. And basically as well as

16:35

watching the darts, which is fun, it

16:37

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16:39

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17:18

is time for fact number two, and

17:20

that is my fact. My fact this

17:22

week is that Bob Dylan found Jimmy

17:25

Hendricks' cover of one of his songs

17:27

to be so much better than the

17:29

original that whenever he plays the

17:31

song live now, he plays a cover

17:33

of the cover. That's

17:35

such a rare thing for a musician.

17:38

He plays the restructured. How do we

17:40

know? Does it sounds different? He's restructured

17:42

it. So yeah, he's moving lyrics around

17:45

and so on. What's the song? It's

17:47

all along the Watchtower. So this was

17:49

a song, oh, thank you, yeah. You

17:52

didn't write it. I felt like I

17:54

did in that moment. You are welcome.

17:56

So this appeared on an album called

17:58

John Wesley Harding. it was 1967, and

18:01

it's a great song. Hendrix heard it.

18:03

Hendrix actually did a few covers of

18:05

Dylan's songs. He really loved how Dylan

18:07

was expressing himself. He said, sometimes I

18:10

played Dylan's songs and they're so much

18:12

like me that it seems that I

18:14

wrote them. And that's what Dylan felt

18:16

when he heard Hendrix playing his song.

18:18

He was like... I feel like that's

18:20

his song now. When I play

18:23

it, it's tribute to him. And

18:25

so yeah, so I mean, I

18:27

mean, Dylan concerts, I don't know

18:29

if anyone's been to any recent

18:31

ones, they have got a bit

18:34

weird. And I find them really

18:36

fun. I've seen him quite a

18:38

few times live, and it's all

18:40

because he messes around with this

18:43

song so much. It's always a

18:45

case of working out what an

18:47

earth song he is playing, and

18:49

you'll go, I am. It's, yeah.

18:52

He's a very interesting guy, isn't

18:54

he? For someone who's, you know,

18:56

very, very iconic and still alive.

18:58

Yeah. Or be it old. He

19:00

is old, but he is alive.

19:03

So that's the- He's still very

19:05

active. Carding. But he's incredibly unreliable.

19:07

Okay. In terms of- That's

19:09

the wrong term. Unreliable suggests

19:12

is a bit disorganized. He's

19:14

hard. He's a hard person to have to

19:16

have hold off. He lies. He's done so

19:18

many different versions of events of his own

19:20

life. And he's like all of them are,

19:22

well a lot of them are provably wrong.

19:25

So was he sent to reform school? Was

19:27

he claimed? Was he foster parented? Did he

19:29

run away from home age 12? No. He

19:31

was brought up by a completely normal middle

19:33

class family when he played Carnegie Hall for

19:35

the first time. He told a reporter he

19:37

had lost contact with his parents and he

19:39

didn't know them anymore. They were in the

19:42

audience at the game. Well he was incredibly

19:44

private so I know he was but

19:46

I'm still saying he fibs fibs fibs

19:48

was he really a chess hussler in

19:50

Greenwich Village in the 1950s right well

19:52

now I'm not worried by all of

19:54

the research because I don't know anything

19:56

about popular and I've been researching him

19:58

going this is amazing I didn't even

20:00

know he tried to get to

20:02

Mars. That's incredible. The Wimbledon final,

20:04

really? 75! I couldn't believe the

20:06

naivety of a journalist who interviewed

20:08

him after he was awarded the

20:10

Nobel Prize. He remember he won

20:12

the Nobel Prize for Literature in

20:14

2016. And he didn't say anything

20:16

about anything about it. He didn't

20:18

say anything about it. When it

20:20

was announced, he won it. There

20:22

was a tiny announcement that came

20:24

onto his website and then vanished

20:26

very quickly. with him and he

20:28

wrote, poor guy, he wrote, I

20:31

can now put people out of

20:33

their misery because everyone was saying,

20:35

is he going to turn up

20:37

to the ceremony? Is he going

20:39

to come? The journalist went, I

20:41

can put people out of their

20:43

misery. Yes, of course, he's planning

20:45

to turn up to the award

20:47

ceremony. I asked him about that

20:49

and he said, absolutely, if it's

20:51

a tool possible. Now obviously he

20:53

didn't turn up to the award

20:55

ceremony because of pre-existing commitments. So

20:57

like this one, wiggle wiggle wiggle

20:59

like a bowl of soup, wiggle

21:01

wiggle like a rolling hoop, wiggle

21:03

wiggle like a ton of lad,

21:05

wiggle you can raise the dead.

21:07

That was one of his. Yeah,

21:09

it's genius. It's how he tells

21:11

it. Yeah, weirdly. Wiggle, wiggle, yeah.

21:13

Okay. That's what the pull it's

21:15

so sorry. I see it now.

21:17

He's just taking the piss his

21:19

whole life, isn't he? Like someone,

21:21

and I appreciate so much the

21:23

research genius who found this out,

21:25

that the lyrics from Tweedle D

21:27

and Tweedle Dumb, which is a

21:29

very good song, are poached from

21:31

various places. So it's on like

21:33

Proust and Hemingway, fine, a Time

21:35

magazine article from 1961, bit weird

21:37

to take your lyrics from there.

21:39

Is that allowed? Isn't that copyrighted

21:41

or something? Do you know what?

21:43

I don't think anyone would have

21:45

the balls to sue. But there

21:47

were, there was, you know, so

21:49

if you hear lines in that

21:51

song, like... dripping in garlic and

21:53

olive oil or parade permit and

21:55

police escort just think they're just

21:57

they're just a guidebook three stars

21:59

yeah wow Nicholas Cage is grave

22:01

that's all I know about New

22:03

Orleans very good Nicholas Cage yeah

22:05

he bought a grave in New

22:07

Orleans is like this amazing pyramid

22:09

yeah he's not dead unlike no

22:11

like Rob Dylan yeah I get

22:13

a timer for a car. Oh

22:15

God, I really hope you don't

22:17

curse anything because he is an

22:19

incredibly valuable guy to the world.

22:21

Do you think we have that

22:23

power? I don't know. We might.

22:25

You know the song Mr. Tamberine

22:27

man? Yeah. Very, very beautiful, mysterious

22:29

song. What do the lyrics mean?

22:31

Can I just say James was

22:33

actually shaking his head at that?

22:35

This is how he and James

22:38

is about Bob Dylan music. It's

22:40

one of his really, really famous

22:42

early songs and it's very beautiful.

22:44

The lyrics are very sort of,

22:46

you know, rhythmic and poetic. Turns

22:48

out it was just inspired by

22:50

a musician he knew who owned

22:52

an enormous Tamberine. You know what,

22:54

I would have guessed that actually.

22:56

If it was from, you know,

22:58

a greengrocer who had an enormous

23:00

marrow, I would have been really

23:02

surprised. That's Mr. Tangerine man, you're

23:04

thinking the greengrocer one. He was

23:06

good. But he was called Bruce

23:08

Langhorn, and he just had a

23:10

big old... Really? Yeah, he went

23:12

on to start Brother Brew, Bruce,

23:14

African, Hot Sauce. So, you know.

23:16

Wow, amazing. What a career. He

23:18

never had a number one hit

23:20

in the UK, Bob Dylan. Okay.

23:22

And his highest ever charter was

23:24

one that's called Leica Rolling Stone.

23:26

There it is. Yes, I think

23:28

a couple of people in the

23:30

audience might have had that one.

23:32

You might know it. It got

23:34

to number four in September, 1965.

23:36

And that was his highest ever

23:38

charting. But when that was at

23:40

number four. The number two and

23:42

number one, where I got you

23:44

paid by Sonny and Cher and

23:46

I can't get no satisfaction by

23:48

the Rolling Stones. That's a tough

23:50

week, isn't it? Isn't it? He

23:52

should have waited until 2019 to

23:54

release, like a Rolling Stone, when

23:56

it would have been up against

23:58

the Saucid Roll. So the song

24:00

was up there. But he is

24:02

largely his most popular songs are

24:04

the ones that are covered. So

24:06

like. Hendrix doing all along the

24:08

watchtower or Adele doing make you

24:10

feel my love. Not many people

24:12

know that that's a Bob Dylan

24:14

song from a much later album,

24:16

which was a big hit for

24:18

her. Like for someone who's as

24:20

famous as he is, he's not

24:22

a fame chaser. In his early

24:24

days, he had to do interviews.

24:26

You had to do them. He's,

24:28

by the way, if you haven't

24:30

read his autobiography, it's incredibly good.

24:32

him as a sitting at home

24:34

just like, oh, don't see anyone.

24:36

Just he sits on his own

24:38

not wanting to do anything. But

24:40

he's got all these multitudes of

24:43

interest that I didn't know about.

24:45

One is he loves comedy. He's

24:47

really into Jerry Lewis slapstick style

24:49

comedy. And he approached a guy

24:51

called Larry Charles, who wrote a

24:53

lot of Seinfeld episodes and was

24:55

a big collaborator with Larry David

24:57

on curbure enthusiasm. And he said,

24:59

I want to write a sitcom

25:01

where I'm in it as a

25:03

slapstick comedian star. And Larry was

25:05

like, really? And he said, yeah.

25:07

And he took out... He took

25:09

out a box that he has.

25:11

You've got a very good

25:13

Dylan on you. Yeah, man. Well,

25:15

it'd be funny. Honestly, as someone

25:17

who has no idea who this

25:19

person is, this is very funny.

25:21

What's that person? What do you mean,

25:24

man? Probably the most mysterious incident in

25:26

his life was his bike accident, because

25:28

it changed the course of his career.

25:31

This is in 1966, he had an

25:33

accident on his most bike, and it

25:35

was quite bad, and he ended up

25:38

having to have healthcare for a period

25:40

of time, and it meant that he

25:42

sort of became... recluse for a long

25:44

time, he didn't work for a bit,

25:47

no one heard from him, but the

25:49

thing is we don't know what actually

25:51

happened in the accident, we don't know

25:53

how badly injured he was, we don't

25:55

actually know if it happened at all,

25:57

but it's the most debated thing ever.

26:00

any Bob Dylan fan has opinions on

26:02

it. So, and he always has a

26:04

different thing about what caused the accident.

26:06

The sun got in his eyes, his

26:08

bike slipped on some oil, sometimes he

26:10

broke his back, sometimes he was concussed,

26:12

sometimes he was fine. But all we

26:14

know was, he turned up, a doctor's

26:16

house, and he stayed there for about

26:18

a month sleeping on the sofa or

26:20

whatever, and that was it. And I

26:22

think he has admitted since that he

26:24

basically was trying to get out of

26:26

the whole fame thing, didn't like... the

26:28

best of rat race. So baked a bike

26:30

accident? Wow. I think you can walk into most places if you're the level

26:32

of Bob Dylan. And if you know where the doctor lives, you just go

26:34

to their house. They're not going to go, sorry, Bob. Yeah, it was rural,

26:36

wasn't it? It was no woodstock. Yeah. And do you think you just

26:38

let them stay for a month? How many months could they stay before you

26:40

kick them out even if they're Bob Dylan? How many months can you stay

26:42

at a doctor's house? A doctor's actually a rejected line from how actually

26:44

a rejected line from how many roads, how many roads, how many roads,

26:46

how many roads, how many roads, how many roads, how many

26:49

roads, how many roads, must a doctor's, must

26:51

a, must a, must a, must a, must

26:53

a, must a, must a, must a, must

26:55

a, must a, must a, must a, must

26:57

a, must a, must a, must a, must

26:59

a, must a, Before he will chuck you

27:01

out. James has no idea what I mean.

27:03

I guess you've missed one of his songs.

27:05

Could I do another thing that, another bit

27:07

of James baiting here? I'll see if you

27:09

like this, okay. Because you will like a

27:11

bit of it. There is a big, there

27:13

was for 20 years at least, there was

27:16

a huge competition between some academics. In 1997

27:18

there were two researchers in Stockholm, they released

27:20

a paper called nitric oxide and inflammation and

27:22

inflammation. Which is clever. And then several

27:24

years later two other researchers coincidentally published

27:26

a piece called Blood on the Tracks,

27:28

a simple twist of fate, which I

27:30

think might have been genealogical. Anyway, they

27:32

decided to compete to see how many

27:34

Dylan lyrics they could get into their

27:36

papers before retirement. And then a fifth

27:38

one joined after he wrote something called

27:40

Tangled Up in Blue, molecular cardiology in

27:42

the post-molecular era. And this has just

27:44

been going on for a very long

27:46

time. Did you come across Carl Gornitzki

27:48

when you were reading about this? We

27:50

don't think so. So Carl Gornitzki is

27:52

a librarian who found out about this, and he

27:54

thought, well, what I'm going to do is see

27:57

how often people use Bob Dylan lyrics in all

27:59

of the papers. And he found that

28:01

there are at least 200 examples

28:03

of papers that unequivocally use Bob

28:05

Dylan's words in their titles. And

28:07

he found that they are cited

28:09

slightly less often than other similar

28:11

articles. And he said in his

28:13

papers he thinks that there will

28:16

be fewer Dylan references in the

28:18

future because, and I quote, researchers

28:20

can see they weren't quite as

28:22

clever as they were intending. Maybe

28:24

he didn't write them in order to

28:26

be included in the scientific papers. Or

28:28

maybe they were trying to quote an

28:31

old tourist guide that actually they've never

28:33

heard of the songs. Do you know

28:35

the oldest recording we have of Bob

28:37

Dylan at least according to my research?

28:39

So this was one that was made

28:41

in St Paul in 1960 and it

28:44

resurfaced in 1978 and a fanzine writer

28:46

called Brian Stibel went to the person's

28:48

house who found it and said oh

28:50

can I listen to this Bob Dylan

28:52

tape? and the guy and the owner

28:54

insisted that his partner did the dishes

28:56

while they played it because he was

28:58

so sure that they were going to

29:01

record the tape when he played it

29:03

for them. So you'd have to, so

29:05

you'd have all that background noise. And

29:07

sure enough they did record it. And

29:09

the bootleg is known as the armpit

29:11

tape because it's such bad quality. Lovely.

29:13

It still exists. You can get

29:16

so weird about him. There's an

29:18

institute of Dylanology in the University

29:20

of Tulsa, which is not officially

29:22

called that, it's the Institute for Bob

29:24

Dylan Studies. But they bought his archive

29:26

in 2016 for about $15 million and

29:28

it's 100,000 documents from his life. It's

29:31

really intense. Those people get... People get

29:33

so far into it. They do. But also, you know,

29:35

he's not the easiest person to recognize sometimes,

29:37

which works in his favor, because he does

29:39

all of these weird things in public. Like,

29:41

he went through a face in 2008-2009 of

29:43

wanting to turn up at the houses where

29:45

musicians had lived in their childhood. Oh, yes.

29:48

He turned up in this random house in

29:50

Winnipeg, where Neil Young had grown up, and

29:52

it was now occupied by just a couple

29:54

called Kianenenen and Passi, who came home from

29:56

their shopping tripine their shopping trip to find

29:58

a guy on their doorstep. they didn't recognize.

30:01

Is that your holiday home, James?

30:03

Don't you, didn't he get on a

30:05

magical mystery tour bus in Liverpool and

30:07

go around all of the Beatles? I

30:09

think he might have. I think he might

30:11

have. Yeah. He's a big fan of musicians.

30:13

He loved the Beatles. He said

30:15

that Beatles transformed America at a

30:17

time when it desperately needed to

30:19

come out of a depression and

30:21

have a hit of happiness. And

30:23

when Elvis died, he stayed silent

30:25

for a week. He was so

30:27

distraught from his death. Yeah. I'm

30:29

just showing my own tribute there.

30:32

Oh yeah. He was going to

30:34

play for the Pope in 1997

30:36

and then the next Pope nixed

30:38

it. So he was going to play

30:41

for John Paul 2 at

30:43

the second in 1997. That's

30:45

John Paul 2 squared isn't

30:47

it? John Paul 4. But

30:49

then Cardinal Ratsinger tried to

30:51

stop it happening. Benedict,

30:54

the... He said it was inappropriate, thought

30:56

it was wrong, he thought it was

30:58

wrong, he thought it was sort of

31:00

a bit profity, but John Paul second

31:02

did give a sermon saying, you asked

31:04

me how many roads a man must

31:06

walk down before he becomes a man?

31:08

I answer, there is only one road for

31:10

man and it is the road of Jesus

31:12

Christ. Doesn't scan as well, does

31:14

it? Doesn't. See why you didn't

31:17

incorporate that. Time

31:22

for fact number three, and that

31:24

is Anna. My fact this week is

31:26

that the US government runs a lottery

31:28

where if you win, you get to

31:31

go and watch fireflies light up. Oh!

31:33

It's so sweet! Not as good as

31:35

winning, you've had a million quits.

31:37

Well, you know, in some ways

31:39

it's better James, because what's richer

31:41

than nature? That's a good

31:44

money. You could buy that

31:46

forest. She would just cut

31:48

to you guys waving your

31:50

wallets at a firefly. Light

31:52

up! Well, millionaire Dan, you

31:55

can't buy the forest because

31:57

it's in a national park.

31:59

The National Park is the Great Smoky

32:02

Mountains, National Park in Tennessee, and a

32:04

bit of North Carolina. And the fireflies

32:06

every year put on this incredible display,

32:08

not for the humans, just for each

32:10

other, but it is amazing. It's two

32:12

weeks early June, and it's the synchronous

32:15

fireflies. It's one of the only places

32:17

that it happens in the US, and

32:19

the only place that happens on this

32:21

scale. And basically, it started happening in

32:23

about the mid-1990s, when the National Park

32:26

removed the streetlight. really dark there and

32:28

fireflies love darkness because their lights show

32:30

up and people realize it was a

32:32

thing and they started flocking to this

32:34

national park to see these fireflies all

32:37

lighting up in synchrony. It's extraordinary, millions

32:39

of them. you know, like a Mexican

32:41

wave going on and off, and there

32:43

were so many that at first they

32:45

decided to do a first come, first

32:48

serve thing with ticketing, and the cues

32:50

were just insanely long, so now there

32:52

are 1,800 parking passes given out every

32:54

year, and you can apply for them,

32:56

about 30,000 people applied in 2019, so

32:58

it's around that level, and you might

33:01

win. And if you win, you bring

33:03

your foldable chairs, you bring your inflatable

33:05

sofas, some people do, you bring your

33:07

teddylips, you really settle in for the

33:09

night. and then you wait for the

33:12

fireflies to light up. It's pretty cool.

33:14

Are there rules about what you can

33:16

and can't bring? Are you not allowed

33:18

to bring a torch in case that's

33:20

confusing to them? You have to have

33:23

red light so that they can't see

33:25

it. You certainly can't have normal white

33:27

light, yes. Because they get confused by

33:29

the lights, don't they? Yes. If you

33:31

get a load of fireflies and there's

33:33

like streetlights around, they just won't mate

33:36

with each other. And it's so much

33:38

so that you can get two fireflies,

33:40

and you can put them right next

33:42

to each other, and they might be

33:44

really horny, but they won't make. And

33:47

we don't really sure why they won't

33:49

do it, but we think what it

33:51

is, is it's because they think it's

33:53

daytime, and they only do it at

33:55

nighttime. Oh, sensible fellows. Doesn't it look

33:58

a bit like, like, Godzilla to them?

34:00

Isn't it just like a giant version?

34:02

I reckon if you and your wife

34:04

are there and a huge yeti walks

34:06

in, I can only imagine that's

34:08

going to help things

34:11

in the bedroom. I think in

34:13

a very one-sided way, sure. I

34:15

mean you can leave, we'll tell

34:18

them. You know what they say

34:20

about big feet? They're pretty amazing

34:22

fireflies. I've never looked into them

34:25

before. They're astonishing. I mean, the

34:27

fire in them is, it's guys,

34:29

it's not a real fire. It

34:32

is like a, it's like, yeah,

34:34

I know, right? It's like a

34:36

bioluminescence. It's a thing that is

34:38

made in them as a combination

34:41

of chemicals that combine together.

34:43

The main thing that people

34:45

try and extract is a

34:47

thing called luciferase. like Lucifer's being

34:50

used as the etymology term there.

34:52

Yeah, well Lucifer means light bringer,

34:54

which is where Lucifer the devil

34:56

comes from. Yeah, yeah. So I

34:58

was correct. Sometimes I like to

35:00

assume and have it confirmed on

35:02

stage by the others. And it's

35:04

amazing what they can do with

35:06

it. It's used for mating reasons,

35:08

it's used for competitive advantage. You

35:10

will have female fireflies of one

35:12

species, and there are many thousands

35:14

of different species, and they will

35:16

mimic the light of the male

35:18

species in another subspecies to attract the

35:20

female from mating, only to eat them

35:23

up, so that they can steal certain

35:25

bits of them. That's not feminism hasn't

35:27

got to the firefly community, has it?

35:29

But do you know, why they do

35:32

that is not only for food? It's

35:34

a toxin, right. predator-repelling toxin and part

35:36

of the firefly flash Gee whiz. I

35:38

know it's really tough. Just hadn't had

35:40

a run-up at that. Part of the

35:43

firefly flashing is to attract a mate

35:45

but a part of it is also

35:47

to say to predators I am toxic

35:50

and they have this it's lucubufegan

35:52

toxin. Why can I say that

35:54

first time? Don't know. But these

35:56

the females, the sort of fan-fatal

35:58

females, they can't... make their own version

36:01

of that toxin. So they have to eat

36:03

the males. They gather and harvest it from

36:05

the corpses of the males they devour. And

36:07

I just think that's pretty cool. It's cool.

36:09

If you order a hamburger that I wanted, it's

36:11

like me eating you to get it. Yes. Yes.

36:14

But these poor males are trying desperately

36:16

to find females of their own species.

36:18

And they know it's a risk as

36:20

well. And sometimes it takes them a

36:22

week to find an actual female of

36:24

their own species. They're just constantly dodging

36:26

dodging. Yeah. You know, put it to file

36:28

flags. False flags. Oh, we just asked a

36:30

quick, sorry to cut you off, but Andy,

36:33

well you've just raised a good point, which

36:35

is to eat Andy if he's had the

36:37

hamburger, right? We were coming into New Zealand

36:39

and you obviously aren't allowed to bring in

36:41

fruit, right? So I had a banana just

36:43

before we came in, right? So I ate

36:45

it on the plane and I got off.

36:47

And the sniffer dogs went past us

36:49

and I just thought, why can't? Why

36:51

can't it smell it in me? Why

36:53

can't I? Like it's still quite fresh.

36:56

But you didn't rub it all over

36:58

your... Or if you wanted to sneak

37:00

something into the country, if you could

37:02

get the stomach of a person, it

37:04

seems like you could put it in

37:06

there. Yeah, it was a good idea.

37:09

I think you need to put, smuggling,

37:11

that's it. Oh yeah, and a bottom

37:13

might be even better. Oh my, you've

37:15

blown this shit wide open? No, I'm

37:17

not sure you have. We should say

37:19

the ones, the fireflies, that are visited

37:22

by all these tourists, and for whom

37:24

the lottery is run, that is just

37:26

flirting, the flashing. But it's quite, it

37:28

was quite confusing at first, I think,

37:30

because it's not usual. The vast majority

37:32

firefly species species just flash as individuals,

37:34

and these ones. flash in unison and

37:36

it starts off like one will do

37:39

a flash and then another will pick

37:41

up on it and it starts off

37:43

looking quite random and gradually it's more

37:45

and more do it they manage to

37:47

tune like an orchestra and do it

37:49

all together but the reason they're doing

37:51

it in unison is because it's all males doing

37:53

that flashing the females flash back but it's very

37:56

dim you can't really see it if you're a

37:58

human it's all males doing the flashing and it

38:00

tells the female that that is the right

38:02

species, because if there's any other species flashing,

38:04

then it'll not be flashing in time. But

38:06

it's quite a shit show for the males,

38:09

because I think the ratio is about 100

38:11

to 1 off on males to females. So

38:13

if you're the male, you're just accepting as

38:15

you flash in unison, it's like we have

38:17

to work together on this, even though probably

38:19

I'm not gonna be the one who gets it. Isn't

38:22

that sad? In a way, it's also a

38:24

kind of lottery lottery. Isn't it? Oh my

38:26

God! Yeah. There's a lottery to see the

38:28

Firefly Lottery. Wow! How deep does

38:30

this go? Yeah. Well, the females,

38:32

they can have dialogues with 10

38:34

males at once. If they're... Some

38:36

species chat back and forth. Really?

38:38

Oh, they're flashing, right? Yeah, yeah.

38:40

And so... Only, they're slags. No.

38:42

And they make with only one

38:44

they pick, they sort of winnow

38:46

down from... It's a bit love

38:48

island, actually. They start with... 10

38:50

males who they're chatting to and

38:52

then they end up. But are

38:55

they sending them for the same

38:57

mess? Is it kind of like

38:59

when you go onto a chatbot

39:01

thing and you think you're flirting

39:03

and then you realize it's automated answers?

39:05

So this is an insurance website. Yeah.

39:07

No, I've never seen Godzilla. One

39:09

thing about these, the flashing, it's kind

39:12

of like, I guess it's like

39:14

dancing because it's in rhythm, isn't it?

39:16

But if you get two fireflies next

39:18

to each other, and they're from

39:20

the same species, and they're supposed to

39:23

be able to do it in

39:25

rhythm, they can't. They just get all over

39:27

the place. If you get three, they still can't. And

39:29

if you get 10, they still can't. And it

39:31

takes about 20 of them to get

39:33

together. And suddenly, they all start doing

39:35

it in rhythm together. That's really interesting.

39:37

It's true of dancing, isn't it? You know,

39:39

if there's just two of you on a

39:41

dance floor, it's incredibly awkward. But as soon

39:43

as there's 20, it feels like it. We are the

39:46

same. There's a scary thing which is that

39:48

their population is declining globally, and one of

39:50

the main reasons is, let's say there's a

39:52

group of fireflies over in an area, and

39:55

then that gets urbanized, and it gets concreteed

39:57

over it. They don't then fly and find

39:59

another place. just disappear. The species just

40:01

dies. It has this thing in it

40:03

where it just goes, all right, that's

40:06

us done. We can't move over there.

40:08

So that's really sad as we

40:10

continue to open eyes. But also, we

40:12

kind of don't know how many

40:14

fireflies there are necessarily, because a lot

40:17

of them hang out in the day.

40:19

So we can't see them. And don't

40:21

glow, right? And don't glow. So

40:23

they use pheromones instead of their

40:25

glow. There could be a million

40:27

in here right now. Another reason

40:29

why they're endangered is that we

40:31

used to farm them, not farm

40:34

them, is collect them. So there's

40:36

a company called the Sigma Chemical

40:38

Company that harvested about 3 million

40:40

of fireflies every year and they were

40:42

trying to get this luciferase which Dan

40:44

was talking about because you can use

40:46

it in food safety testing and research.

40:49

Oh, cool. Well, they have come in

40:51

very useful to science generally. They are

40:53

particularly useful in energy efficiency. So I

40:56

think they let out the most efficient

40:58

light we know of. It's the most

41:00

efficient light in the world in the

41:03

universe that we're aware of, because when

41:05

they let off their light, almost no

41:07

heat is emitted. So almost 100% of

41:10

the energy is emitted as light. And

41:12

so... Wait, do you mean the like

41:14

LED, as in the not hot? Yeah. Well,

41:16

yeah, exactly, exactly, but LED is a bit

41:18

hot. They are not hot. But they made

41:20

LEDs better. So there's a so cool thing

41:23

where there was a physicist called Jean-Paul Vinier,

41:25

who, when he was Belgian, and he went

41:27

on a trip to Central America in, I

41:29

think, about 2012, and he saw a bunch

41:31

of fireflies glowing, and he thought, I wonder

41:34

how they do that. And this is a

41:36

science brain. He took some, he brought them

41:38

back to his lab, and he looked inside

41:40

them. And he saw that the way they

41:42

were making their light so efficiently was that

41:44

they had these really jagged irregular scales on

41:47

their abdomen, and that meant that the light

41:49

was shining really efficiently, so that meant that

41:51

you could get the maximum light coming out

41:53

for the minimum amount of energy. And that's

41:56

how LED lights are designed now. And he

41:58

increased the energy efficiency by 50%. You're

42:00

joking. Wow. That is insane. I

42:02

know, it's good off fireflies. Could

42:04

we ethically replace LEDs with them

42:06

somehow? Like picture your Christmas tree,

42:08

right? We had like some kind

42:10

of pheromone that meant they were

42:12

happy hanging out by the tree

42:14

and you had flying LED lights

42:16

around your entire tree. Is that

42:18

possible? I think the audience doesn't

42:20

like the sound of it. I think

42:22

it's less convenient, I do. They

42:25

have to be, if your lights

42:27

had to be in the mood,

42:29

to be on, probably, you might

42:31

have a few dark Christmases, you

42:33

know. Can I tell you one

42:35

more thing about the dangerous lady

42:37

fireflies, the ones who eat the

42:39

males? Them fatals, yeah. So not

42:41

only do they eat males of

42:43

a different genus, genus, they will

42:45

sometimes eat males of their own

42:47

genus if they're merely hungry. Fair.

42:49

Some of them will break off

42:51

mid-sex to eat their partner, mid-sex.

42:54

But wait, that can't

42:56

be mid-sex, that's just

42:59

the end of sex.

43:01

It's just... Fair point.

43:03

Fair point. It's an

43:05

unexpectedly abrupt ending, I'm

43:07

sorry. The poor man,

43:09

the honest is the

43:11

end, is it? Is

43:13

it the end? I've

43:15

got more, I've got

43:17

more booms. Some males

43:19

in this genus, the

43:21

prey genus of fireflies, they

43:24

have special arms on either

43:26

side of their penis that

43:28

remain outside the female for

43:30

copulation. And some scientists believe

43:32

this might be an incoming

43:34

cannibalism alert system. And if the

43:36

female stars wriggling around because she's

43:39

started to feel a bit peckish,

43:41

the male is notified that this

43:43

is a risk and it

43:45

gets a sort of early warning.

43:48

Amazing. I think they just stick

43:50

out at the base, if you

43:53

like. Maybe they tap her on

43:55

the shoulder from behind to distract

43:57

her. And then they're off. Oh

44:00

well, shit! I was mid-sex!

44:02

With New Year's resolutions, many

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by name. It is now time for

45:13

our final fact of the

45:16

show, and that is James.

45:18

Okay, my fact this week

45:20

is that the scientific paper

45:22

detection of nodavirus in Baramundi

45:25

was co-offered by Dr. Barry

45:27

Monday. I feel

45:29

like that shut down the show,

45:31

that's the greatest fact ever. Good

45:33

night, everyone. It is amazing. So

45:36

I found out that this guy

45:38

called Dr. Barry Monday worked in

45:40

Tasmanian fisheries, and I know that

45:42

he'd done some studies. So I went

45:44

through a list of all of the

45:46

studies they'd done. Hope in the dream

45:48

that one of them was about barramundi

45:51

and sure enough he did do this

45:53

one very obscure one. It's incredible. He

45:55

um he passed away a few years

45:57

ago. Yeah 2003. Yeah 2003 and he

45:59

um I found this really beautiful

46:01

obituary of his entire career online

46:03

and it's as so detailed. They

46:06

do not say he wrote a

46:08

paper on a fucking Barry Monday.

46:10

It's unbelievable. He was really important.

46:12

Do you have any idea if

46:14

he, sorry, I do want to

46:17

know about the important things he

46:19

did, but mostly I want to

46:21

know if he wrote this paper

46:23

because his name is Barry. I

46:26

don't think so, genuinely don't think

46:28

so. I'm sure. to every fish

46:30

name I could think of to

46:32

see if there are other people

46:34

like this. There's a guy called

46:36

Stephen Haddock who's working on Deep

46:38

Sea Gelat and Azur Plankton. John

46:40

Salmon was a fish spotter in

46:42

the 1980s. Yeah he would fly

46:44

over in his plane and go

46:46

there's one. Really? No, he wouldn't

46:48

say that as well. He said

46:50

like there's a school of fish

46:52

and then he would give the

46:54

coordinates and people would be able

46:56

to go and catch them if they

46:58

want. Do you know so weirdly?

47:01

I thought when he said fish

47:03

potty meant someone who puts bots

47:05

on fish and I don't know

47:08

why they would do that. That's

47:10

what I thought. Courtney Pike was

47:13

the angling correspondent for the Suffolk

47:15

Gazette. That's brilliant. Jack Trout was

47:17

the person who read the fishing

47:20

report show from San Francisco's K&BRBR

47:22

680. Jesus wept, James. Frank E.

47:24

Fish. Is everyone still here? Frank

47:27

E. Fish. Wrote lots of papers

47:29

all about fish, especially the biomechanics

47:31

of maneuverability and jet propulsion in

47:33

fish. Wow. That took you most

47:36

of 2024. We know it.

47:38

Courtney Trout. Oh, they'll cartely

47:40

pike. Oh, sorry. Courtney pike?

47:42

Yeah. The question that an

47:44

angling correspondent would ask. It's

47:46

brilliant, that, isn't it? What

47:48

you mean? Courtney pike? Have

47:50

you pike? Courtney pike? Got

47:52

that? Beautiful. Beautiful. Baramundi, the

47:55

fish itself. Oh yeah. Hugely

47:57

popular. In Australia, it's massively

47:59

popular, right. They're obsessed with it.

48:01

But one of the issues is that

48:03

they're discovering that a lot of barramundi

48:06

is being imported that aren't barramundi. It's

48:08

almost like they're a fake. cosplaying

48:10

fish. Not the fish aren't doing it,

48:12

it's the humans that are selling it.

48:14

But there are rules in Australia that

48:16

mean that the food service is under

48:18

no obligation to label whether or not

48:21

it is a local or imported fish.

48:23

So people don't know the better, they're

48:25

being misled. And so this is a

48:27

big problem according to the head of

48:29

the Northern Territory Seafood Council, who's called

48:31

Rob Fish. So, brilliant. Do you want

48:33

full 15 minutes of these? No, please no.

48:35

Do you know one of the main fish

48:38

that scandalous is being disguised as

48:40

baramundi is from New Zealand? It's

48:42

a New Zealand grouper. Why do

48:45

you have a fish called a grouper? I

48:47

imagine it's from the same origin as

48:49

grouper, which is the normal fish we

48:51

have in the Northern Hemisphere. But

48:53

yes, a New Zealand grouper has

48:55

tiny arms on its penis, doesn't

48:58

it? It's actually, it's, do you

49:00

guys know, do you guys know,

49:02

do you eat grape or a lot? Not

49:04

many, but it's really popular and

49:06

it was very popular in Maori

49:08

culture and in Maori is called

49:11

hapuka. But I think hapuka, the

49:13

word means that it means to

49:15

stuff your face with food because

49:17

it's so popular. Paramundi, a

49:20

couple more things about them.

49:22

They can eat food up to 60% of

49:24

their own length. Which is the equivalent

49:26

of me eating a four foot long

49:28

sausage. So that's food at all, isn't

49:31

it? Wow. Yeah. What is... What's the

49:33

longest sausage you've ever eaten? I did

49:35

go. There's a restaurant in Vienna called

49:37

Centimeter where you order your food by

49:40

the length. Really? Really? Really? And we

49:42

ordered the special, which is a wheelbarrow,

49:44

full of sausages. Wow. It's unbelievable. They

49:46

bring this wheelbarrow. It's a small barrow,

49:49

but you don't realize how big a

49:51

small wheelbarrow is, because you know what

49:53

I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And

49:56

it's big, so I probably got through

49:58

a meter of sausages then. a four

50:00

foot sausage. In one go? One go?

50:02

Well, you can chew it. You're allowed

50:04

to chew. You're allowed to chew,

50:07

but you can't watch. I mean,

50:09

it's just going to get clipped

50:11

out, that sentence. Don't even

50:13

cross my mind. Four foot

50:15

of sausage. Come on, even

50:17

a Cumberland's only about eight.

50:19

If it's very thin. It's not

50:21

thin, it's a sausage, it's no.

50:23

You can't just turn it into

50:26

a pepper army and wolfet. I'm

50:28

talking a thick old cumblin. We're

50:30

talking about it. Please guys, we

50:32

are talking about sausage, this is

50:34

not, there's no sight to this.

50:36

We need to start. So four

50:38

foot, that's the length, third. No,

50:40

because I read varying accounts of

50:42

what the largest barramundi that's ever

50:44

been quarters, and one went as

50:47

far as saying it was five

50:49

foot ten. And that's

50:51

massive, I can't

50:53

believe that's true.

50:56

That's, if you

50:58

want to picture

51:00

that size, that's

51:03

the same height

51:05

as Neil Finn.

51:07

That's how big,

51:10

a five foot

51:12

nine, five foot

51:14

ten. Who's that,

51:17

sorry? There's a

51:19

there's an incredibly famous New

51:21

Zealand band called Split Ends

51:24

which became crowded house and

51:26

Neil Finn is the Is from crowded

51:28

house, but Dan would have said Neil

51:31

Finn because of the word Finn. Exactly.

51:33

Well, I'll tell you my working I

51:35

found out it was five foot ten

51:38

and I sat at the computer and

51:40

went please tell me Neil Finn is

51:42

five foot ten and he is And

51:45

he is? No, they are very cool

51:47

though. They sometimes eat baby crocodiles by

51:49

Monday. I mean, they're really... Yeah, they'll

51:51

eat any old stuff. They have a

51:54

relation called the Antarctic toothfish, and they

51:56

eat lots of rocks. And we're not

51:58

really sure why they do it. It seems like

52:00

the reason they do it is because they

52:02

just want to eat everything and the rocks

52:04

get in the way. Really? Yeah, that's pretty

52:06

simple. It's not as they eat a thing,

52:08

they don't. No, it doesn't seem that way.

52:10

It seems like it's just useful for them

52:12

because they're so rare for them to get

52:14

food, just that if they see anything, they

52:16

just go for it. Right. When you get

52:18

really greedy people and you look at their

52:21

finished meal and all the cutleries gone and

52:23

everything. It's amazing. They do this

52:25

extraordinary thing as well, Baramundi, which is

52:27

the males, they will start off as

52:29

male, and then there's a first wave

52:32

of in their life cycle of mating

52:34

that goes on, and they'll go around

52:36

impregnating as many female baramundi as possible,

52:38

and then once that's done, and they

52:40

grow a bit bigger... they then turn

52:42

into female themselves. And the reason they

52:44

do that is partially because they can

52:47

store more eggs inside of them to

52:49

give birth more. So it's the equivalent

52:51

of like, if you picture like NFL,

52:53

it's like being a quarterback, throwing the

52:55

ball, and then running up and catching

52:57

it yourself, because they're impregnating and then

52:59

they're becoming the ones that are being

53:01

impressed. It's an extraordinary thing. Although what

53:04

I find quite sad is that scientists

53:06

think that they can't transform into the

53:08

female until they've done their first. kind

53:11

of copulation, which fair enough is just

53:13

releasing sperm, but it does make you

53:15

think, like, what if you can do

53:17

it? You know, and you're like a

53:20

59-year-old barramundi who's still male, and all

53:22

the other ones, age three, have changed.

53:24

I just think that's embarrassing.

53:27

I'm sad. Have you not

53:29

seen that film, the 40-year-old

53:31

barramundi? It's good. And it's

53:33

actually a lot more interesting

53:36

than you think it is.

53:38

Just on Australian fish. Plecto

53:40

Rinchus, Cariolinthus, but it's better

53:42

known as the blue bastard.

53:45

Can you guess how it

53:47

gets its name, the blue

53:49

bastard? From the poetic minds

53:51

of the Australian people. It's

53:54

blue. It's blue, that's half of

53:56

it. Is it a bastard to

53:58

catch? It does. the other

54:00

half. This fact

54:02

was about nominative

54:05

determinism, right? So Barry

54:07

Mundy is doing a thing

54:10

that his name is associated

54:12

to. And I found a

54:15

few New Zealand examples of

54:17

that. So there is a

54:20

composer who wrote a Romeo

54:22

and Juliet opera who is

54:25

called Peter Van de Flute.

54:27

which is very sweet. It's just

54:29

a very sweet name. There's an

54:32

activist who's quite a famous actress

54:34

who's been being, she's getting arrested

54:36

for all her climate change protests

54:38

and that's Lucy Lawless. Xena warrior

54:40

princess! Lawless! She's constantly getting taken

54:43

to police stations for what she's

54:45

doing. But I was, so I

54:47

was sitting in a room today

54:49

in New Zealand, and a guy

54:51

randomly overheard me talking about this,

54:54

called Wade, and he came over,

54:56

and he said, my grandfather is

54:58

an example of nominative determinism.

55:01

Can I tell you it?

55:03

So his grandfather was the

55:05

first person in New Zealand to

55:07

artificially enseminate a B.

55:09

They've been trying for

55:12

years and years and

55:14

years, hadn't they? We

55:16

just can't find anyone

55:19

with a small enough

55:21

penis. We won't keep

55:23

looking. Is this guessable

55:25

or is it? Oh,

55:28

he's called Richard Bibi.

55:30

Like that's his name

55:32

and he did it

55:34

on a kitchen table

55:37

in Balclutha. It's called

55:39

Dick BB. Come on, mate.

55:41

Oh my goodness. So yeah. The only

55:43

thing I have, because what I

55:45

like about this original fact is

55:48

that it's a double normative

55:50

determinism. It's Barry Monday, twice

55:52

as unlikely. And I think

55:55

my favorite example of that

55:57

is probably the world's league.

56:00

expert in peat bogs was

56:02

called peat glob. We got

56:04

a couple in the fish

56:06

inbox if you don't mind

56:08

me sharing that. This was

56:10

sent in by Pruma

56:12

Kutchin. She had a

56:14

dentist called Ginta Gumbite.

56:16

Pretty good. Peter Drake

56:18

sent in the fact

56:20

that John Ram's bottom

56:22

invented a new kind of high-speed

56:25

piston. It's brilliant. Okay,

56:27

we need to get

56:29

out of here. That

56:32

is it. That is all

56:34

of our facts. Thank you

56:36

so much for listening.

56:38

Auckland, you were awesome.

56:41

That was amazing. We

56:43

will be back. We'll

56:45

see you then. Good

56:47

bye!