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1:29

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1:33

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1:54

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1:56

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1:58

and I have written a a load. old

2:00

balls. Our of sport. So there you

2:02

go, that's Christmas done for you.

2:04

You're welcome. go. I am now

2:06

off to audition for the shopping

2:08

channel. On with the show. welcome.

2:11

I am now off

2:13

to audition for the

2:15

shopping channel. On with

2:18

the show! Hello

2:29

and welcome to another

2:31

episode of No Such a

2:33

Fish, as a a weekly

2:35

podcast. This week,

2:38

I'm here this week coming

2:40

to you! Mario

2:46

is David Shriver, and sitting here with Anna Tashinsky,

2:48

Andrew and James Murray, and And

2:51

once again, and the four

2:53

of us are the four of

2:55

us are gathered facts from the

2:57

last seven days. with in

2:59

no particular order, here from

3:01

go, starting with fact

3:03

number one. And that is

3:05

here we go. my fact. fact

3:08

number one, and that is James. Okay,

3:10

my fact this week

3:12

is that that can make

3:14

you go make you go bold.

3:16

But people at home, we've put up a

3:18

picture of the at home,

3:20

we've put up a

3:22

picture of the greatest

3:24

Australian sporting person. Ever,

3:27

perhaps. yeah. Yeah, Ray Gunn. But this is a new

3:29

this is a new study that's

3:31

been done recently that describes Breakdancer's

3:33

bulge, which is... It sounds so much sexier than much

3:35

sexier than it is. It's

3:37

really you know, Well, you know, sorts,

3:39

all sorts, doesn't it? a like, it gives

3:42

gives you a bit of

3:44

a cone head, okay, OK, because your

3:46

breakdancing too much. too This was

3:48

about a guy in his early

3:50

30s who'd been doing for

3:52

more than for years. years. With breaks

3:54

in between, right? right? Yes,

3:56

definitely. Although Although it's five times. a

3:58

for for one half hours at a

4:00

time. time. So doing a hell of

4:02

a lot of of a lot of head spins.

4:04

was it was the case all about him,

4:06

but in the middle of the

4:08

paper it of that they it other

4:10

breakers, especially in Germany and they

4:12

found that and they had had some

4:14

kind of hair loss. of hair loss. It's

4:16

really, you get this sort of lump

4:19

of sort of lump on top of your head,

4:21

which is all you, but it's just

4:23

which been redistributed upwards, basically. It's like,

4:25

you, like, been does it, where does it

4:27

come from? you think? Where does it

4:29

go? That's amazing. Where does it come

4:31

from? Where does it, where gravity, basically. You're heading think?

4:34

Where does it go? you're upside down. So upside

4:36

gravity still wins, actually. Oh, from? upside down.

4:38

that's That's doing all the work. work, yeah. It's

4:40

really neat. So this guy had this guy had an

4:42

operation it can can be dealt with with

4:44

an operation. He was really happy because

4:46

he said he can go out in

4:48

public again go out in public again and lot better than

4:51

when he had this cone better than when he had

4:53

this conehead, but Some will wear two hats to

4:55

deal with hair loss. That's one strategy. one strategy

4:57

really why not white one hat? They do

4:59

wear one one and they wear another hat on top of

5:01

that. hat on top make you look even less like

5:03

you've lost your hair. even less to cover lost

5:05

your the spinning. It's to stop you

5:07

going bold because it's the friction on

5:09

the floor bold because it's the the on

5:12

the floor. Sorry, so it's not to conceal

5:14

the make the first hat not transparent. not

5:16

got to say, Anna, look, I'm a

5:18

man in my a man in I've got

5:20

12 hats 12 hats on this one. Yeah,

5:23

so it's called, more called, more broadly, it's

5:25

called Overuse Syndrome, this thing. this

5:27

thing. loss, And with the hair

5:29

loss, with the bald thing, it's

5:32

basically that become hair follicles become damaged

5:34

because you're rubbing them on the

5:36

floor so much the hair hair just

5:38

refuses to grow. Yeah, I I went

5:40

to Google it and I put

5:42

bulge and Breakdancing in. in. Okay. Yeah, and I

5:44

and I and I I think we We

5:47

probably will all remember, but it's worth just

5:49

saying one of the finest moments of

5:51

the recent Olympics of the guy who lost

5:53

the poll vote was the guy

5:55

who lost the poll vote because bulge

5:57

down the poll the way

5:59

over. are more were more

6:02

embarrassing bulges in the the Olympic, is

6:04

of won the moral victory there,

6:06

doesn't it? He may have lost

6:08

the victory that's true it? He may

6:10

it's not a safe pursuit, spinning around many,

6:12

many times on your head. I don't

6:14

think it's very bad for you. much more

6:16

long -term thing is break dancing neck, which

6:18

has been known about since the 1980s,

6:20

which basically comes from putting so much weight

6:22

on your neck the whole time. It's

6:24

spinal cord injury, but people do it about since

6:26

the times the spinning round, that is. is.

6:28

The record for the most spins

6:30

and that both the male and female

6:33

records are held are held by B-boys be

6:35

girls, as I think they're cool. But that

6:37

is called. But that is Yeah. the spins on that.

6:39

Well, you could just be into spinning around on your

6:41

head. Well, you could just be into spinning around on your head. retract

6:43

my calling. Apologies. Imagine if in the Olympics in the

6:45

the Olympics, in the B

6:47

came someone came in who'd

6:50

never done it before but just

6:52

loved spinning around on their heads. Are they getting

6:54

gold if they just the whole time

6:56

they just do one big spin do

6:58

i think the record is 137 spins is

7:00

137 spins. Wow. Yeah. Complete. Completeful. Yeah. You're

7:02

yeah, yeah. were allowed to use your hands

7:04

to keep the spin going. are Oh, you?

7:06

Okay. Yeah. This year it was year, was because it was

7:08

the Paris Olympics. was it was I really I

7:11

really just like this, in the Place de

7:13

la Concorde, which is where? is where Marie Antoinette

7:15

was guillotined 230 years ago. And that's just

7:17

just just that just sort of matches,

7:19

doesn't it? you think her head

7:21

spun around as it came up

7:23

it came up there? Probably did. you think if

7:25

she had more head they would

7:27

have just head, that bit off just

7:29

lobed of bit off and she a little

7:31

face on the painted a little face on the top

7:33

cone? I gather it's one of the four just

7:36

say, I think we're showing

7:38

ourselves up as massive dogs

7:40

showing it isn't up as it

7:42

is called b -boying and b

7:44

-girling. isn't called breakdancing. very is called word

7:46

to use. and You say breaking, Yeah. And

7:48

break-dancing know. is

7:50

a it's one of

7:52

the four pillars of to

7:55

use. Breaking. You say breaking. You say breaking.

7:57

You know, break. Yeah. Five of Islam. Four

7:59

of hip-hop. for any sort of

8:01

podium. Anyway, and the others, I

8:03

mean I don't need to say

8:05

it to you guys, but they're

8:07

DJing, MCing and graffiti. Oh, is

8:09

that Islam still? Because with the

8:11

breakdancing it was, that was coined

8:13

by the newspapers. Whereas the B-byes

8:15

and B-girlers themselves wouldn't call it

8:17

break-dancing. Did they call it breaking

8:19

at the start? Yes, because it's

8:21

the break in the music. It's

8:23

where you don't have lyrics, right?

8:25

Yeah, so you have the song,

8:27

song, song, song, song, song, song,

8:29

then you have a little break

8:31

where it's just the music. Drum.

8:33

A lot of drum, right? Just

8:35

drum, stuff like that. And then

8:37

the DJs would just repeat that

8:39

again and again and again so

8:41

that people could dance in that

8:43

little break. I don't think we've

8:45

ever looked so uncool in our

8:47

lives. I don't know. I'm going

8:49

to talk about the coolest person

8:52

who ever happened. I'm right here.

8:54

I know, I don't want to

8:56

embarrass you James. No, your second

8:58

coolest, coolest is the person who

9:00

invented hip-hop or the person because

9:02

of whom hip-hop came about. I

9:04

just think it's amazing that it

9:06

was a schoolgirl who wanted to

9:08

raise money to buy some new

9:10

clothes for school. Really? It's so

9:12

cool, 1973, there's a school girl

9:14

called Cindy Campbell, and her parents

9:16

have migrated in the previous five

9:18

years or so from Jamaica to

9:20

the US, and she wants to

9:22

look a bit cooler, buy some

9:24

new school clothes, she's like, I'll

9:26

just throw a big house party.

9:28

Now I tried to throw parties

9:30

when I was 15, and what

9:32

happened to her did not happen

9:34

to me. Everyone in the neighborhood

9:36

came. She asked her brother, her

9:38

big brother to DJ, a guy,

9:40

a guy called DJ Cool Hook.

9:42

which is not a cool name.

9:44

And that was the birth of

9:46

hip-hop. And everyone in the hip-hop

9:48

movement knows that this, like this

9:50

is the origin story, a 16,

9:52

15, 16 year old girl, when

9:54

I'm gonna have a little party

9:56

in my parents' house. And that's

9:58

where hip-hop is born. Everyone says

10:00

that they were there, don't they?

10:02

start of breakdancing, they all say,

10:04

well I was at the party

10:06

of course, yeah I was there.

10:08

Yeah, yeah. And weirdly, in parental

10:10

connections, there's another one, because I

10:12

think Australia's best male breakdances, Jeff

10:14

Dunn, is that correct? Jay attack?

10:16

Oh, so you guys aren't cool

10:18

either, that's good. What a surprise.

10:20

Jay attack. Jay attack, as he's

10:22

known, or Jeff, is 16, and

10:24

his mum is present at all

10:26

his gigs. He's the best in

10:28

the world, oh best in Australia.

10:30

Best Australian man. Yeah, yeah. But

10:32

the thing I didn't know about

10:34

Olympic breaking, I'm just Australian man.

10:36

Yeah, yeah. But the thing I

10:38

didn't know about Olympic breaking, I'm

10:40

just going to break, in breakdancing,

10:42

the DJ selects the tune, and

10:44

you just have to adapt to

10:46

that. to improvise, sir. You have

10:48

to improvise, sir. You have to

10:50

improvise, sir. You have to improvise,

10:52

sir. You have to improvise, sir.

10:54

You have to do your vocabas

10:56

moves, say. I'm desperately trying to

10:58

get it back to something vocabulary-based.

11:00

But so for the Olympics, there

11:02

was a problem. They couldn't just

11:04

let the DJs play whatever they

11:07

wanted, because it's going out on

11:09

tele. So it has to be

11:11

music that they've cleared the rights

11:13

to. So they had a library

11:15

of 390 songs, which the rights

11:17

have been cleared. So 390 is

11:19

a lot of songs. You probably

11:21

couldn't learn, you know, all of

11:23

them and react in time. And

11:25

also, the DJs were not allowed

11:27

to spend any time at all

11:29

with the breakdancers, in case the

11:31

breakdancers later said, oh, can you

11:33

play, like, Eleanor Rigby, or whatever.

11:35

Like, yeah, yeah. Have you thought

11:37

about entering? You know, it's weird

11:39

Andy, you mentioned Eleanor Rigby. Paul

11:41

McCartney, who wrote that song, spends

11:43

five minutes every morning upside down

11:45

on his head. Wow. Even at

11:47

this age. Spinning? I think it's,

11:49

I think it's static. I think

11:51

he's, yeah. That's pretty good. So

11:53

he does yoga and every morning.

11:55

He's in, he's hit 80s, you

11:57

know. He's, he's. down on his

11:59

head for five solid minutes, and

12:01

I want to see if the

12:03

cone has arrived. Possibly has, right?

12:05

Can I just talk about the,

12:07

if you're too cool even for

12:09

breaking, as I am, what you're

12:11

really into is crumping. Do you

12:13

guys know about crumping? Crumping? No.

12:15

Can I just get a poll

12:17

to judge how cool this audience

12:19

is? Who knows about crumping? They

12:23

all know. Quite a few. Do

12:25

they? It's basically clowning. But I

12:27

find this so cool because hip-hop

12:29

is the epitome of cool, right?

12:31

But crumping is a key kind

12:33

of new part of hip-hop dance

12:35

culture. And it was invented by

12:37

a children's birthday clown called Tommy

12:39

the Clown in the 1990s, who

12:41

wanted to liven up kid's birthday

12:43

party. So it started like jerking

12:45

his body in kind of really

12:47

asymmetrical ways. And he'd keep, it's

12:49

where you keep one bit of

12:51

your hand on stage. And it

12:53

became huge, and it's the big

12:55

thing in hip-hop now, and people

12:57

go and do it in full

12:59

clown gear. I'm really interested to

13:01

know what the people of the

13:03

audience thought it was, who all

13:05

said they knew what it was.

13:07

Was that it? Well, they're all

13:09

in clown suits. You all came

13:12

in one cart, didn't you, today?

13:16

Stop the podcast. Stop the podcast.

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of the moment. Okay, on with

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the show. I'm with the podcast.

16:17

Hey, we need to move on now

16:19

to our next fact. It is time

16:21

for fact number two, and that is

16:23

Anna. My fact this week is that

16:25

in North Korea, it's illegal to rest

16:27

your cup of tea on a newspaper

16:30

if that newspaper has a picture of

16:32

Kim Il-Sung on it. And how many

16:34

newspapers don't have a picture of Kim

16:36

Il-Sung on them? That's the question, I

16:38

think quite a lot of them do.

16:40

And in fact, it's the two subs

16:42

and kimbs as well, I believe. So

16:44

it's probably quite hard in North Korea

16:47

to avoid a newspaper with any of

16:49

their dear leaders in it. And it's

16:51

very, very illegal. So I read this

16:53

in an interview. It was an interview

16:55

in 2010, but I've checked it out.

16:57

It still is the case from what

16:59

we know, but an interview with a

17:02

teenage girl who'd escaped from North Korea

17:04

across the border into China. and she

17:06

was saying that any defacement of the

17:08

image of Kim Ilson, of course, the

17:10

founder of North Korea, was punished. So

17:12

if you destroyed any notes, any banknotes

17:14

with his face on them, you're shot,

17:17

and it's, yeah, the newspaper thing, illegal

17:19

to put anything on that newspaper, which

17:21

I don't know if there's a coaster,

17:23

I don't know if that excuses you.

17:25

Yes, is it illegal to put your

17:27

tea on a coaster with the face

17:29

on? No, you should put it on

17:31

the coaster. In fact, it's punishable to

17:34

not put it on the coaster. In

17:36

my house, it's punishable not to use

17:38

a coaster. And again, that's just short,

17:40

straight up, isn't it? Yeah, that's right.

17:42

So these laws are actually quite coming

17:44

around the world to various degrees, right?

17:46

They're called less majestic. Are they called?

17:49

And it's basically insulting your leaders. And

17:51

in the UK, in fact, the treason

17:53

felony act of 1848 makes it an

17:55

offence to say that you want the

17:57

monarchy to be abolished. You can get

17:59

life. under the act

18:02

or in theory you could be transported

18:04

to Australia. Is

18:08

that too soon? That's true. Is that still

18:11

on the books? It's still on the books,

18:13

but obviously they would never do anything about

18:15

it. Very rarely prosecuted. It would never be

18:17

prosecuted, but they keep it on the books

18:20

because of, you know, just ceremonial reasons. Just

18:22

in case. Just in case. Just in case.

18:24

You know, just be a bit more careful

18:26

about what you say these days, Australia. We've

18:29

heard some of the rumblings. This

18:31

is, I mean, so as you say,

18:33

this is around the globe. Remember when

18:35

we did, so back in the UK,

18:37

we did a BBC Two show version

18:40

of our show called No Such Thing

18:42

as the News. And yeah, that's roughly

18:44

how many people watched it as well.

18:46

But we were told there was at

18:48

one point that we were going to

18:51

do a fact about the King of

18:53

Thailand and they said to us, the

18:55

BBC, you can't, you can't do it

18:57

because if anyone who's connected to your

18:59

family lives there and they make that

19:01

connection by you insulting the King of

19:04

Thailand, you'll go to jail if you

19:06

go to Thailand or one of your

19:08

family well. Yeah, and they would have

19:10

to bring all of the BBC reporters

19:12

out of Thailand, they told us, if

19:14

we did that we did that. And

19:17

let's have some laughs. I still have

19:19

family there. Okay. Well, okay. Well, sorry

19:21

for them, Dan. I don't like them

19:23

that much, so I'm sorry. You knock

19:25

yourself out, buddy. It's so, it's still,

19:27

it's still very much on the books.

19:30

And the weird thing about it is

19:32

anyone can complain about anyone, and the

19:34

police have to start an investigation. I

19:36

could just go to the police say,

19:38

I heard James being a bit rude

19:40

about the king. I didn't. I didn't.

19:43

And then an investigation is automatically opened.

19:45

So one guy got his brother locked

19:47

up for a year with a laser

19:49

magist accusation and actually their dogs had

19:51

just got into a fight and he

19:53

was annoyed with his brother. It's an

19:56

inefficient system. There used to be a

19:58

system in ancient Rome whereby the person

20:00

in power needed to... reminded not to

20:02

go too far. They were known as

20:04

humblers. If the Roman Emperor was speaking,

20:06

the humbler behind would go, yeah, but

20:09

you're still a bit shit, mate. Like,

20:11

they would just say things to bring

20:13

them back down. Australian version of an

20:15

ancient Roman cousin have ever heard. You

20:17

know, you're not great at all? Yeah,

20:19

yeah, yeah, yeah. And that used to

20:22

be a thing. Was it real? I've

20:24

heard in multiple places that it's been

20:26

a long time, Andy, I don't know.

20:28

Well, it's the same rule as a

20:30

gesture, I suppose, really, wasn't it? Yes.

20:32

That it's a fine line you have

20:35

to walk. Your job is sort of

20:37

to take the piss out of the

20:39

king, but be very careful when you

20:41

do it. I think that was one

20:43

of my favorites is Francis the first

20:45

16th century jester. I'm sure we all

20:48

remember. Trebule. You used to do quite

20:50

fun things, so once he slapped the

20:52

king on the buttocks. And that was

20:54

one step too far. The king said,

20:56

sorry, one step too far, going to

20:58

execute you now. Unless you can think

21:01

of something more insulting than that slap.

21:03

And so, of course, he replied, I'm

21:05

so sorry, sir. I didn't mean to

21:07

do it. I mistook you for your

21:09

queen. Nice. Got that off. You know,

21:11

you've got to hand it to him.

21:14

Yeah, that's pretty good. Is it even

21:16

more insulting to imply he's got a

21:18

womanly bottom? Is that, I'm struggling to

21:20

work out why that's an insult? I

21:22

think he's saying that his wife is

21:24

so disgusting that her bare-offs looked like

21:27

that he there. Why were the answers

21:29

bare? They all went around dressed like

21:31

Donald Duck in the 16th century. I

21:33

didn't know that. That's amazing. No, you're

21:35

right, they probably weren't naked. One of

21:38

the things, just jumping back to North

21:40

Korea quickly in Kimil Song and the

21:42

descendants of him, is that you're not

21:44

allowed to insult, but the flip side

21:46

of it is you actively constantly need

21:48

to praise. There are over 34,000 statues

21:51

of King Kimil Song, who is still

21:53

the president of North Korea. despite being

21:55

dead for many many years. He's still

21:57

an actively running president. Well he's not

21:59

actively running. He's hardly walking these days.

22:01

he's still listed as the president. And

22:04

so even the tourist phrase book has

22:06

helpful icebreakers in a section when you're

22:08

citing the city. It'll say things like,

22:10

why don't you just randomly say to

22:12

someone, comrade Kim Il Song was the

22:14

most distinguished leader of our times. That

22:17

will break the ice. And then there

22:19

was a journalist, a Western journalist, who

22:21

went over there, and he went to

22:23

the zoo. And the first thing that

22:25

they showed him was a parrot who

22:27

has learned to squawk, Long live the

22:30

great leader, Comrade Kim I'll song. That's

22:32

what you see at the zoo, which,

22:34

by the way, sounds like the most

22:36

fucked up zoo I've ever read about.

22:38

They've got basketball playing monkeys. They've got

22:40

a dove that is part of a

22:43

figure skating routine. They've got a dog

22:45

who is trained to manipulate an abacus

22:47

and just do sums in the corner.

22:49

And then there's a monkey that just

22:51

smokes siggies all day long. You just,

22:53

you walk up, I've seen photos, it's

22:56

just got a pack of siggies, and

22:58

it just pulls out a new one

23:00

each time, lights it up, and it's

23:02

like... I'm not really enjoying this basketball.

23:04

The one person who is very positive

23:06

to the leaders of North Korea is

23:09

their poet laureate and he became very

23:11

very close to Kim Jong-gill and so

23:13

much so that when he wrote a

23:15

really long poem he got immediately turned

23:17

into the law of the land. Isn't

23:19

that amazing? I find poems hard to

23:22

interpret the best of times. I don't

23:24

know how I translate it into a

23:26

door. Say something about like no lettering

23:28

or what it's more, it's kind of

23:30

tells like the history of the great

23:32

leaders and stuff like that and it

23:35

becomes part of the national history. So

23:37

it's become kind of calendar. Yeah, yeah.

23:39

He's got to be careful when he's

23:41

writing because it is illegal. If you're

23:43

writing any of the Kim's names, Kim

23:45

Jong-un's name, it's illegal to let it

23:48

run over two lines. So you know,

23:50

if you're publishing a book and you

23:52

know, you have to let a word

23:54

fall over two lines, that's very illegal.

23:56

Don't do that. If you're writing a

23:58

letter and you're getting up close to

24:01

the edge. You've got to start a

24:03

new line, mate. split those guys up.

24:05

I'm always doing that. Is it really

24:07

insulting if you start raising it and

24:09

you realize you're running out of space

24:11

and rice it's smaller and smaller and

24:14

smaller? I think that's extreme torture. Oh

24:16

my god. Do you know what the

24:18

people's instrument is in North Korea? Can

24:20

we hazard a guess? You can have

24:22

as many guesses as you like. I'll

24:24

be impressed if you get out. So

24:27

what was the question. Sorry? What is

24:29

the people's instrument? High attack. Synthesizing? Nearly.

24:31

Accordians, someone chatted out in the audience

24:33

and it is the accordion. Okay. There

24:35

he goes. Wow. Okay. If you wanted

24:38

to be a teacher in North Korea

24:40

in the 1990s, you had to first

24:42

pass an accordion exam. Wow. Because it

24:44

was for songs, basically, so you could

24:46

lead propaganda songs, things like that. Wow.

24:48

There's one very famous story about Kim

24:51

Jong-il, that he played 18 holes of

24:53

golf, scoring 34, including four holes in

24:55

one, which would be 20 shots better

24:57

than the best guy ever shot by

24:59

anyone else on earth playing golf. Yeah.

25:01

But actually, there's been more recent stories

25:04

about it. And what we think is

25:06

that they used a different way of

25:08

scoring. So a part would be zero

25:10

points. A bogey would be one. So

25:12

like, if you do what you're supposed

25:14

to do, you would get zero. If

25:17

you're slightly worse, you would get two,

25:19

etc, etc. etc. And if that's true,

25:21

then he would have actually shot 106,

25:23

which is quite good for someone in

25:25

the first game, but not impossible. So

25:27

are you saying it could be the

25:30

case that with this whole North Korea

25:32

thing, we've just been misunderstanding them the

25:34

whole time? Well, the truth is that

25:36

a lot of it comes from South

25:38

Korean propaganda. A lot of the things

25:40

that we say and that we learn,

25:43

it comes through South Korean press, who

25:45

have an extra grind of course. Yeah.

25:47

Well, this is from people in exile.

25:49

That's basically the place you get actual

25:51

information as people who have got away

25:53

and said, oh, absolutely. So it might

25:56

be that Kim Jong Hill was not

25:58

lying about his golf. He

26:00

claims to be scoring 73 on a

26:02

regular basis at golf and if he

26:04

did that he would be the best

26:06

golfer of his age in the world.

26:08

Oh, okay. That's fair enough. Well, he's,

26:10

yeah, he's pretty good at stuff, isn't

26:12

he? Just

26:15

for clarity, I didn't vote for him.

26:17

I didn't get a vote. Wish I

26:19

could have! But Kim Jong, Kim Il-sung,

26:22

by the way, I think the North

26:24

Koreans are very good at sometimes saying,

26:26

actually, do you know what, we were

26:28

lying about that? Because recently, they revealed

26:31

that Kim Il-sung cannot, in fact, managed

26:33

to teleport by folding space, which previously

26:35

they suggested he absolutely could. Yeah. Yeah,

26:38

so they do. Since he's died, he's

26:40

stopped being able to teleport by folding

26:42

space. That's probably what that is, yes.

26:45

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, so he still

26:47

could do it while he was alive.

26:49

He was born supposedly, again, who knows,

26:51

on the day the Titanic sink, which

26:54

is a harbinger of the fall of

26:56

Western imperialism. Oh, is that why? Is

26:58

that why? It's what they say it

27:01

is. And he wrote an eight-volume memoir

27:03

about his life. You read it? I

27:05

haven't read it. I think that's too

27:08

long. Well, don't judge. Okay? I think

27:10

it could have done on the day.

27:12

That's too many, yeah. We're going to

27:14

have to move on in a minute,

27:17

guys. Okay, well, just quickly back to

27:19

insulting leaders. Yeah. There was someone called

27:21

Danny Lim, who people in the audience

27:24

might remember. About seven

27:26

or eight years ago he had

27:28

a sign that said people can

27:30

change Tony you can't referring to

27:32

Tony Abbott Abbott but the letter

27:35

A in the word can't had

27:37

been turned upside down and sort

27:39

of rounded at the bottom weird

27:41

and with the cross kind of

27:43

not very visible strange That must

27:45

have made it very hard to

27:48

understand what the sign was. Yeah,

27:50

people, I'll be honest, people misunderstood

27:52

it quite a lot. No. But

27:54

he did get off because the

27:56

judge ruled that he hadn't unequivocally

27:59

used the word... enough.

28:08

It is time for fact number

28:10

three, and that is my fact.

28:12

My fact this week is that

28:15

in the UK, there is a

28:17

football competition called the Tolstoy Cup,

28:20

in which the War Study Department

28:22

at King's College London takes on

28:24

the Peace Studies Department at the

28:27

University of Bradford. Peace is currently

28:29

beating war 10 to 3. It's

28:34

not real life guys. Let's not get

28:36

too excited. It's very much the opposite

28:38

is true in the actual world. Oh,

28:40

it's pretty... What is a lovely tournament?

28:42

It's a lovely tournament. It's been going

28:45

for years. It was a break during

28:47

the pandemic and then they had one

28:49

very recently and we got to meet

28:51

the four of us, the captain of

28:53

the peace team, Dr. Alex Waterman. And

28:55

so what's really great is they all

28:58

represent someone who represents war and peace,

29:00

and that's the name that appears on

29:02

their back. For example, the match that

29:04

happened recently, it was like real nail

29:06

biting, three to two in the end.

29:08

Mother Teresa got a yellow card. Yeah,

29:11

and Martin Luther King made it to

29:13

one for peace 22 minutes in. Some

29:15

controversial choices. I mean, Jesus, for instance,

29:17

did he belong on the peace team?

29:19

A lot of people would say some

29:21

wars are based around Christianity. Did Tony

29:24

Blair belong on the war team, which

29:26

he was. Or did he actually bring

29:28

peace to a formally troubled region? Uh...

29:30

We're not here to decide. Yeah,

29:32

no, it does it does sound really cool

29:35

as in it's a nice they're both interesting

29:37

institutions in different ways So the Peace Department

29:39

of Bradford they actually they have the original

29:41

studies for you know the piece symbol the

29:44

Oh, yeah, the upside down Mercedes with the

29:46

extra one Yeah, that was designed in 1958

29:48

and by a guy called Gerald Holthom and

29:50

they have the originals there Oh, the Unsea

29:52

nuclear thing exactly. Yeah, very cool. That's Bradford.

29:55

Yeah, yeah, it's not at the war studies

29:57

one is really interesting though. They do big

29:59

war game trying to work out

30:01

what would happen if a war broke out

30:03

and they actually I mean they're kind of

30:06

on the side of peace they're not they're

30:08

not gunning for it they're trying to avert

30:10

wars despite the name but there are a

30:12

lot of really interesting people there a lot

30:14

of spooks as well actually oh really in

30:17

Bradford no at the war studies department well

30:19

let me talk about a real sort of

30:21

rivalry in sport okay a cricket between England

30:23

and Australia There was

30:25

a few interesting things about this. After

30:28

World War II there were some things

30:30

called victory tests that were held between

30:32

English and Australian servicemen. And there was

30:34

one Australian bowler called Graham Williams who

30:36

had only been released from prisoner of

30:39

war camp a couple of weeks earlier.

30:41

He was 35 kilograms below his pre-war

30:43

weight and he had to take glucose

30:45

tablets throughout the match. He was given

30:48

a standing ovation whenever he did anything

30:50

on the pitch. That's incredible. There was

30:52

a guy called, an Ozzy called Keith

30:54

Miller, who's got a century in the

30:56

first of those tests. And when he

30:59

was asked about the pressure of playing

31:01

against England, he said, pressure is a

31:03

meshersmith up your ass. Playing cricket is

31:05

not. I

31:08

mean, cricketing rivalries are obviously a

31:10

big thing in both of our

31:12

respective countries, but university rivalries, which

31:14

this is, also are everywhere, and

31:16

one of the most famous British

31:18

university rivalries is a cricket one,

31:20

and it's the annual cricket match

31:23

between Eaton and Harrow, which are

31:25

just two, just very common man

31:27

schools back in England. No, they're

31:29

two incredibly posh schools, and they've

31:31

been playing the same cricket match

31:33

at Lords since 1805. Not the

31:35

same one, they do a different

31:37

one. They do go on a

31:40

while, those cricket matches, don't they?

31:42

Well, it's test cricket, so God

31:44

knows when it's going to finish.

31:46

It's the oldest cricket picture played

31:48

at Lords, still played today, and

31:50

I really like the account of

31:52

the first one, so it was,

31:55

Harrow actually thrashed Eaton in the

31:57

first one, but one man you

31:59

might have heard of who participated

32:01

who participated, was Lord Byron. Really?

32:03

Yes, he did indeed play. played

32:05

for Eaton, he went to Eaton,

32:07

didn't he? I think he went

32:09

to Harrow. Cool, he played for

32:12

Harrow. One of those will be

32:14

correct. I think so. And he,

32:16

so he appeared in the game,

32:18

but he had a club foot,

32:20

so he needed a runner to

32:22

run for him. He did some

32:24

batting, and then he had someone

32:26

else run for him. He batted

32:29

really badly, but it's quite endearing.

32:31

No, saying that he played, he

32:33

said, look, our team did dreadfully,

32:35

awfully, but I, you know, comported

32:37

myself quite impressively by comparison, and

32:39

only batted the third best of

32:41

everyone, which still meant he only

32:44

scored about six runs. It's just

32:46

so sweet, knowing him, this is

32:48

great ego, desperately trying to say,

32:50

I'm good a cricket. And then

32:52

he said, later, to be sure,

32:54

we were most of us very

32:56

drunk and went together to the

32:58

Haymarket Theatre, where we kicked up

33:01

a row, as you may suppose,

33:03

when so many herovians and Atonians

33:05

meet in one place. Which please

33:07

that shanj. Speaking quite similarly, actually,

33:09

kind of similly. In 1908, the

33:11

Ozzy Rules League, the Ozzie Rules

33:13

League, they were all workers, but

33:16

this team from Melbourne University you

33:18

can only play for them if

33:20

you'd matriculated or if you had

33:22

a higher class degree otherwise you

33:24

weren't allowed to play for the

33:26

team and they left the league

33:28

in 1916 after losing 51 games

33:30

in a row. Australia has quite

33:33

a lot of great rivalries I

33:35

think not just like with other

33:37

places but also internal ones so

33:39

for example which is better to

33:41

live Sydney or Melbourne See,

33:43

it's very mixed. Canberra! Well,

33:46

I mean, 40% of Australia's

33:48

population live in one of

33:50

those two cities. And obviously

33:52

neither have you got to

33:54

be the capital. rivalries are

33:56

very tight on either side.

33:58

So for example, Sydney has

34:00

been named the world's best

34:02

city, eight consecutive times by

34:04

Conde Nast traveler. Oh yeah.

34:06

Pretty good. But Melbourne has

34:08

been named the world's most

34:10

livable city seven times by

34:13

the economist. So is it

34:15

rather to live in the

34:17

best city or the most

34:19

livable one? Let's ask the

34:21

room. Which one would you

34:23

rather? Sorry, the room is

34:25

curdling like milk as I'm

34:27

reading the stuff out. Which

34:30

city is best at

34:32

Great Hopkins? The

34:34

great Australian rivalry number one is

34:36

the Atlantic Giant Pumpkin Growing Championship.

34:38

And this is amazing. The two

34:40

guys called Gary Smith and Dale

34:42

Oliver, and they try and grow

34:44

heavier pumpkins than each other. The

34:46

Australian record is 743 kilos. For

34:48

a pumpkin, they're a pumpkin for

34:51

a pumpkin, but they're very relaxed.

34:53

What about Gary Smith, this guy

34:55

who's trying to beat you? And

34:57

he replied, well, I hope he

34:59

does. He puts a lot of

35:01

effort in, so that would be

35:03

great. That was actually a type

35:05

of, it was I hope he

35:07

dies. I think we can't talk

35:09

about rivalry without talking about the

35:11

longest-term rivalry of all-time. And it's

35:13

just so epic, blues versus greens.

35:15

I don't think we talk about

35:17

it enough. Ancient Rome, blues versus

35:20

greens, went on for 400 years.

35:22

What do you mean? What's that?

35:24

So they were the two sports

35:26

teams, basically. It was the chariot

35:28

races. There's been four teams, originally

35:30

it was reds, whites, greens and

35:32

blues, and then eventually it became

35:34

blues and greens, and reds and

35:36

whites joined one each respectively, and

35:38

they were fanatical. And it really

35:40

reached its climax by about the

35:42

6th century, when it was the

35:44

Byzantine Empire, and it was things

35:46

like, you'd be in a big

35:49

stadium and 3,000 people would be

35:51

massacred, as a result of this

35:53

just like hot-headed rivalry rivalry. was

35:55

just kind of people who were

35:57

either blue or green running on

35:59

and beating each other up. And

36:01

this epic moment in early, by

36:03

example in history, the Niko riots

36:05

happened because of this weird sports

36:07

rivalry, which was, it was the

36:09

most violent disturbance in Constantinople's history.

36:11

It was the year 532. There

36:13

was a massive fight between blues

36:15

and greens, and the Emperor was

36:18

like, you're all, you're all... detentioned

36:20

you know you're all doing lines

36:22

oh I'm punishing you all the

36:24

leaders of both of you are

36:26

being executed come along with me

36:28

get executed two of the executions

36:30

were botched but it was one

36:32

from the blues and one from

36:34

the green side oh good so

36:36

that was a lovely coming together

36:38

moment Because they were both like,

36:40

oh you pushed our executions and

36:42

everyone was like, oh well let

36:44

them go. You fucked up their

36:47

executions, you know, just let them

36:49

free. How do you mess up

36:51

an execution in nature? Oh, it's

36:53

a lot more complicated. The scaffold

36:55

broke. Oh, that'll do it. It's

36:57

a project management problem. Okay, yeah,

36:59

sorry. I'm sure a carpenter was

37:01

fired. But there was still battles

37:03

between the blues and the greens

37:05

and the whites and the reds,

37:07

right? The Calcio Fiorentino tournament still

37:09

goes on, which is like, it's

37:11

like soccer slash rugby slash lots

37:13

of different sports, and they play

37:16

in Italy, and it's very, very,

37:18

very violent. There was a guy

37:20

called Mirco Cardelli who broke both

37:22

his hands during a game, but

37:24

carried on playing. and complained afterwards

37:26

that the main problem was he

37:28

couldn't urinate properly for weeks. Right.

37:30

I think it meant he couldn't

37:32

hold his, not that he was

37:34

urinated through his fingers. And they

37:36

brought in new rules about, maybe

37:38

about 10 years ago, saying that

37:40

convicted criminals are not allowed to

37:42

play in the tournament. And the

37:44

Green team lost 20 players due

37:47

to that rule. No! Is it

37:49

a descendant of the bison team

37:51

one, do we think? Not really.

37:53

The calcios only goes, well, it

37:55

goes, but it's about the 13th

37:57

century. because this one actually did

37:59

end in them being wiped out

38:01

during this botched execution thing, 30,000

38:03

people died, 10% of the population

38:05

of the city killed, because they

38:07

got together and rose up against

38:09

the Emperor, they were like, hang

38:11

on, I bet we're better together.

38:13

Do you know why we are

38:16

rivals with each other? Ushed here

38:18

today, we're not, we're all on

38:20

the same team, Andy. That's loser

38:22

talk. Is it not like a

38:24

sexual selection thing? Oh. Not tonight.

38:26

Okay. And we sexually selected each

38:28

other. Wow. There is, I just,

38:30

I like... You know, sometimes you

38:32

forget there's two and a half

38:34

thousand people in the room. I'm

38:36

just thinking how is it possible

38:38

for three people to have lost

38:40

this competition between three people? But

38:42

go on. Why

38:45

are we rival something? There's a theory

38:47

that it's from the Unheimlich, which is

38:49

the German for the uncanny, right? So

38:51

Freud had this theory that the rival,

38:53

it's a double who reveals uncomfortable truths

38:55

about ourselves. You sort of see yourself

38:57

reflected in them. You know what I

39:00

mean? You see the similarities between you,

39:02

which creates a sense of, you know,

39:04

unhappiness and unease within you, therefore you

39:06

react with kind of hostility and aggression.

39:08

You know, like those bastards in Melbourne,

39:10

whatever. That's the... That's the principle, like

39:13

you hate you undermine them. I must

39:15

be the true one. It can't be

39:17

these guys, because they're so similar to

39:19

me that I find out. Which I

39:21

quite like. I just think that word

39:23

is too close to Heimlich, which is

39:25

a very important maneuver, which I don't

39:28

want anyone in a restaurant going, does

39:30

anyone know the Heimlich and you getting

39:32

up going, oh, the Unheimlich, yes, it

39:34

is a... The Unheimlich maneuver is when

39:36

you put more things inside their mouth

39:38

inside their mouth. Stop

39:41

the podcast. Stop the podcast. Hey

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on with the the podcast. On with the show.

43:12

It is time for our final fact and

43:14

that is is Andy. My fact My fact is

43:16

that Spanish people have no way of telling

43:18

the afternoon from the evening. Come

43:21

on. on. be can't be done.

43:23

until now, until now because we're here to tell

43:25

them Spain, when it gets a little bit darker a

43:27

bit more difficult to see a bit of

43:29

facts. There you go. to see. End of the

43:31

hell are you talking about? You're welcome, La

43:33

the hell is great. is okay. You are based

43:35

on a brilliant piece that was in is

43:38

Times by so this is to him. on a So

43:40

there is a word. that was right? Financial Times by

43:42

the weather evening? and Kudos him. So there is

43:44

a word, Latade. Latade is as far as far

43:46

as I as can gather, either from

43:48

soon after 12, not actually at

43:50

12. at 12. It's It's either soon after 12 or potentially

43:52

from 4 4 p.m. Right? So there's a gap. But if you

43:54

But if you have lunch at 4 p

43:56

.m. or maybe 5 p .m., which is

43:58

very common, it's it's not us... 5 o'clock

44:01

and then you go back to work

44:03

at 6 o'clock but if you say

44:05

Buenos Noches to someone before 11 p.m.

44:07

they'll look at you like you're insane

44:09

yeah they'll say that's the sort of

44:11

an ultimate faux-par it's like calling your

44:14

teacher mom it's just so embarrassing so

44:16

it's a whole country grind to a

44:18

halt every single day well it's not

44:20

for me to say what's grinding to

44:22

a halt or not or are they

44:24

just able to tell everything by context

44:26

Why do we need to tell? The

44:29

question I found myself asking is when

44:31

you mention this, why on earth do

44:33

we need to? You know, it's afternoon

44:35

and it's pre-noon. That's there. I spoke

44:37

to my brother-in-law who is Spanish and

44:39

that is exactly his attitude. And I

44:42

was like, no, but then say it's

44:44

like you're reading a novel and they

44:46

say these words. How do you know?

44:48

And he went, we know. No! They

44:50

just know! I know! It's quite baffling

44:52

as a non-Spanish speaker to try and

44:54

get your head around this. But I

44:57

think it's great problems, because when do

44:59

you have your tea? When do you

45:01

have your afternoon tea? Yep. What if

45:03

you have it at 7 p.m. by

45:05

mistake? You screwed up. Disaster! Because they

45:07

know. But Spain is really mixed up

45:10

about time in general. So Spain is

45:12

on the wrong time zone. I think

45:14

we've mentioned before. In about 1940, General

45:16

Franco was trying to kiss up to

45:18

Nazi Germany and set Spanish time pegged

45:20

it to Germany. And that means that

45:22

for half a year, they're on the

45:25

same time as the very eastern edge

45:27

of Germany. The other half, they're like

45:29

halfway across Ukraine, is where the sunshine

45:31

and midday matches the clock. So everyone

45:33

is pretty out of the world. They

45:35

don't have a random bit of the

45:38

country that's half an hour different than

45:40

everywhere else today. No, that would be

45:42

insane. I think I read something that

45:44

said it's probably has a lot to

45:46

do with the fact that it's lighter

45:48

a lot more often and it's not

45:51

so it stays light later and it's

45:53

the same in Arabic. You don't really

45:55

distinguish between afternoon and evening in the

45:57

same way. You have you have the

45:59

specific prayer times which referred to five

46:01

specific times of day but you basically

46:03

have something that means good afternoon and

46:06

something that means good night and that's

46:08

I guess know, it's light. And maybe,

46:10

because in the UK, because it gets

46:12

dark much earlier, you know, basically whether

46:14

it's the afternoon or the evening. So

46:16

Spanish people get very annoyed if you

46:19

suggest they all have a siesta for

46:21

three hours a day, because they actually,

46:23

they really don't. Yeah, I think only

46:25

about 20% of them do these days,

46:27

don't they? And it's much shorter. And

46:29

it's, yeah. Okay, this is the maddest

46:31

thing I found. In 2017, in Spain,

46:34

Master Chef Junior ended at one in

46:36

the morning. And like

46:38

MPs complained about it saying could

46:40

they possibly turn off the Children's

46:42

TV by 11 p.m. Everyone is

46:44

underslept. Yeah. It's amazing. Yeah. My

46:46

brother-in-law, he keeps telling me that

46:48

Spanish is the superior language whenever

46:51

we're talking about our respective first

46:53

languages and... Well, I mean, compared

46:55

to your language, yes Stan, but

46:57

he should compare Spanish to English

46:59

one of these days. Okay, I

47:01

mean, the language I speak is

47:03

Australian, Australian, so that's a bold...

47:05

Old little statement there mate. But

47:07

I don't know, do we have

47:09

Spanish speakers in the crowd? Okay,

47:12

a few, right? Because while hunting,

47:14

it's so hard to tell sometimes

47:16

whether a translation is a bit

47:18

too wild or not. So for

47:20

example, I read that the Spanish

47:22

don't have a distinct word for

47:24

toes, for the feet, right? For

47:26

your toes. They call them dez

47:28

dz la spaz, which means the

47:30

fingers of the feet. Makes

47:33

sense. You know how we always

47:35

say you have three-toed sloth and a

47:38

two-toed sloth? Yes. But actually they

47:40

all have the same number of toes,

47:42

but they have a different number of

47:44

fingers. Oh wow. Yeah. But the

47:46

problem is that it all came from

47:49

a Spanish translation, where they called

47:51

everything fingers. So the three-fingered sloth, and

47:53

we assumed it was three-finger of the

47:55

footed sloth. Exactly. But it's just

47:57

three-fingered sloth. So it can be a

48:00

problem. big a problem has that

48:02

been? The Sloth world, honestly, is ground

48:04

to a halt every afternoon. An amazing

48:06

language thing relating to day times

48:08

between Spanish and English. I've always loved

48:11

the English word day and the

48:13

Spanish word dia. You know, they're completely

48:15

unrelated to each other. Really? Isn't

48:17

that so cool? The Spanish is from

48:19

Latin dias, which all the other romance

48:22

languages are. Our day has absolutely

48:24

nothing to do with that. So there's

48:26

come from heavenly sky, you know,

48:28

it's raised to the lightness of the

48:30

sky, which is why it's quite similar

48:33

to daius, God. Whereas the English

48:35

word comes from old English dyg. Nothing

48:37

to do with Latin. Isn't that

48:39

so cool? That's weird. That's very cool.

48:41

In Spanish, they use reflexive verbs

48:43

quite a lot. So if I knock

48:46

over this water, you might say James

48:48

knocked over the water. But in

48:50

Spanish, you would say the water knocked

48:52

over itself by James. And

48:55

then your brother-in-law says this is a

48:57

superior actually. That's what I'm talking about,

48:59

right? But what actually means is when

49:01

you show someone from Spain like a

49:03

drawing of something that's happened, like there's

49:05

a vase on the floor and there's

49:07

one person looking guilty and one person

49:09

not looking guilty, they find it more

49:11

difficult to work out who knocked over

49:13

the vase than English people, because as

49:15

far as that concern, the vase broke

49:17

itself. And

49:20

they can still do it, but it just

49:22

takes the brain a bit longer to process.

49:24

That's so interesting. Does it also mean murder

49:26

mysteries are a little bit more exciting because

49:28

there's the waiting that he was killed by

49:31

da-da-da-da-da? Whereas we just go, oh, Barry killed

49:33

him. Where is the

49:35

suspense there? But there's a thing about

49:37

how the Spanish speakers and English speakers

49:39

think about time, which is just the

49:42

same. You get a different conceptual universe

49:44

by the way your language is shaped.

49:46

So English speakers think of time as

49:48

a length. It was a long time,

49:51

right? Oh, okay. That's a length stretching

49:53

out. It's centimetres, you know? It's a

49:55

sausage, right? Spanish speakers. Everything comes down

49:57

to sausages with you, doesn't it ending.

50:00

In Spain, it's a volume. a swelling.

50:02

It's a... Again, a sausage. It's an

50:04

orb sausage, if I could put it

50:06

that way. Yeah, like a hagas. It's

50:09

a constantly growing hagas, that's right. So

50:11

does that change things? Maybe, a bit.

50:13

Yeah. It's funny when I talk to

50:15

my brother-in-law about his impressions of English.

50:18

We could equally be doing a fact

50:20

about how weird our languages, right? One

50:22

of the first things is when he

50:25

started dating my sister-in-law and they eventually

50:27

got married. There was a bit of

50:29

religion going on at the time. They

50:31

used to go to church a lot.

50:34

His impression of how we generally spoke

50:36

to each other was to speak in

50:38

a voice like this. And so that

50:40

just used to be his thing at

50:43

the dinner table, can you pass me

50:45

the Sol Damio? He just saw that

50:47

was- Why? Because he just sort of

50:49

was a beautiful invention. No, because he

50:52

just used to hear the speeches, I

50:54

try. So does that mean he was,

50:56

when he heard you and he didn't

50:58

really know what he was hearing, that's

51:01

just the sound that made in his

51:03

head? Yeah, he was trying to adopt

51:05

certain accents in ways that were spoken.

51:07

In the same way that if you

51:10

were speaking Spanish, you might put on

51:12

a slightly racist Spanish accent. Now,

51:15

I know you're referring to a

51:17

previous episode in which I tried

51:19

to explain that I find their

51:21

lisp very sexy, that sort of...

51:24

Oh, yeah. Petit patato. That kind

51:26

of... Because it's not a speech

51:28

impediment. It's a thing that they

51:30

purposely have trained their language to

51:33

be, right? Well, I think it's

51:35

important that we move on. Can

51:37

I teach you sort of Spanish?

51:39

Yeah, sure. Okay. Can you spell

51:42

the word socks in English? S-O-C-K-S.

51:44

S-O-C-S is Spanish for that's really

51:46

what it is. S-O-C-S. Oh really?

51:48

These are really cool. Can I

51:51

just cook? I don't think that's

51:53

racist right? Like that is the

51:55

thing that they've built into the

51:57

language. my cool with this? Are

52:00

we all right? It's really? No

52:02

there. I'm going to stop it.

52:04

I'm going to stop it. Okay,

52:07

let's try this time. Say I

52:09

meant to kill you, but in

52:11

a slightly Irish accent. Nope. I'll

52:13

do it. I'll take this one.

52:16

No way. I'll hear you on

52:18

all the Irish. Republic. Oh, he

52:20

meant to kill, yeah. Oh, he

52:22

meant to kill you. Oh, he

52:25

meant to kill you. Well, I

52:27

meant to kill you is, is

52:29

there butter in Spanish? Oh, he

52:31

meant to kill you. How does

52:34

that, how does it break down?

52:36

Why is that, why, why he's

52:38

being so falsetto about it? I've

52:40

only ever heard them when the

52:43

sing inquires. Just

52:46

two more of those, fireman

52:48

Derek sounds like thank you

52:50

in Albanian. Say it again,

52:52

fireman Derek. Fireman Derek. Fireman

52:54

Derek. And 12 months in

52:57

Estonians sounds exactly the same

52:59

as Cox tastes good. Lovely.

53:02

There's one word in Spanish that

53:04

can be spoken, but that cannot

53:06

be written down. Oh. And this

53:08

has been stated by the Royal

53:10

Spanish Academy, which is, you know,

53:12

the French has the Academy Francaise,

53:14

which monitors their language. Spain has

53:16

exactly the same thing, which monitors.

53:18

the Spanish language, made up of

53:20

immortals, who tell you what the

53:23

rules are, and there's this word

53:25

which I find fascinating, and it's

53:27

the word that means, get out,

53:29

and you like, get out to

53:31

him, or get out to her,

53:33

you know, get out to him,

53:35

help him out. It's not super

53:37

common, but it is used a

53:39

fair bit, and it's written, S-A-L-L-E,

53:41

or it should be, but if

53:43

you pronounce that you'd say Sae,

53:45

Sae, Sae, and it's incredibly confusing,

53:47

and the Royal Spanish Academy have

53:49

said, because this word has no

53:51

spelling that matches the way we

53:53

say it, this word is not

53:55

allowed to be written down. So

53:57

this is the one word. You

53:59

can say solle. there is no

54:01

correct way to spell it and

54:04

it suggests if you do want

54:06

to write it down find an

54:08

alternative. They're crazy. They are so,

54:10

they're so hardcore. I love the

54:12

Royal Spanish Academy. I think they're

54:14

brilliant. So they, a few years

54:16

ago, they printed an 800-page guide

54:18

to the proper use of Spanish.

54:20

Like they really care. Last year,

54:22

only last year, they finished a

54:24

13-year battle over the word solo,

54:26

and whether it should have an

54:28

acute accent over the first O.

54:30

Okay? That was a 13-year struggle

54:32

in Spanish linguistics linguistics. And I

54:34

think they concluded, no. A cute

54:36

accent sticking out in solar. But

54:38

a very famous Spanish author called

54:40

Arturo Perez-Reverti, he declared, I will

54:42

put solo with an accent until

54:45

the cold of the grave. Wow,

54:47

people care. Which he has met

54:49

prematurely and mysteriously, has it? A

54:51

huge acute accent sticking out. They're

54:53

great. Can I tell you guys

54:55

a quick thing? I've just suddenly

54:57

remembered, speaking of my brother-in-law, so

54:59

he's Spanish. Is he Spanish? Wow?

55:01

Yeah. So he got married in

55:03

Spain, and two nights before he

55:05

got married, he decided to throw

55:07

a stagdo. And so I was

55:09

invited to the stagdo, and it

55:11

was him and all his Spanish

55:13

friends, and me, who speaks no

55:15

Spanish whatsoever. So we went to

55:17

this bar, and my soon-to-be wife,

55:19

Fonella, and I should say what

55:21

I'm about to say next, put

55:23

the whole idea of marriage and

55:26

jeopardy. She and her family went

55:28

home and we stayed out and

55:30

we were having one more drink

55:32

and just before we were going,

55:34

one of the bartenders, spoke Spanish,

55:36

I didn't understand anything, slammed a

55:38

drink down as a courtesy bottle

55:40

for us to have for free

55:42

and it was called Thunder Bitch.

55:44

And... Sorry, is that Thunder Bitch

55:46

but you're doing the sexy accent?

55:50

Yeah, it was called Thunder Bitch and that is all I remember from

55:52

the end of the evening, right? I woke up, I woke up in

55:54

a hut in a farm with holding a a of

55:57

of over me going, get up! And I up. where

55:59

I was like, where am I? there

56:01

Fortunately, the groom was there as

56:03

well. I called my wife, she's like,

56:05

where the fuck are you? We're

56:07

in rural Spain and you've disappeared. I was

56:10

like, oh, I and I was like, oh,

56:12

I was trying to look after

56:14

him, but I had no memory of

56:16

the night. of the So two days

56:18

later, we went back to that bar

56:20

bar, I thought, I thought, be fine be

56:23

we couldn't speak to each other. There's

56:25

no chat that would have happened,

56:27

right? chat I get to the bar happened,

56:29

I've told her to had a very

56:31

casual night. told her that I've had a woke

56:33

up and we say, hi, can we

56:35

get a couple of glasses of

56:38

wine? And the bartender looks at me

56:40

glasses of wine? And the bartender Dan is back? goes,

56:42

oh my God, crazy Dan is back? And he went to

56:44

everyone, guys, crazy party Dan is back. And they

56:46

were like, And they were like, we

56:48

were amazing. the You were on all

56:51

the tops of the dancing and stuff. And was

56:53

like, you fucking you fucking what? And I can't believe

56:55

a I can't believe

56:57

a conversation about the intricacies

56:59

of the beautiful Spanish language

57:01

has descended into a stag into

57:03

a stag-do story from dad's writer. And that was

57:05

one incredible afternoon. LAUGHTER

57:09

Okay, that's it. That is all of our

57:11

facts. Thank you so much for listening. Sydney,

57:13

that's it. That is

57:15

all of our facts.

57:17

Thank you so much

57:19

for listening. having you

57:21

have been amazing. house. you

57:23

for having us at

57:25

the Opera House. We

57:27

will be back again

57:29

next week with another

57:31

episode. And we'll see

57:33

you then. and we'll see you

57:35

there.