143: Mind-altering coasters

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Have a great day. What nine-letter word means someone to break bread with? The answer to that at the end of the show.
My name is Tom Scott, and this is Lateral.

On the show today, we are delighted to be joined by a trio of stand-up comedians, all of whom are off to the Edinburgh fringe.

I am not sure what the collective noun for comedians is: a punchline, a heckle, a therapy session.

Whatever it is, our guests could beat any courier company in the world because they all have excellent delivery.

I'm sorry, all right, I'm just, I'm

being outclassed by three.

Thank you, thank you for the one non-professional here who is. I I believe the collective noun is a threat.

And on that note, we start first. Stuart Laws, welcome to the show.
Thanks so much for having me. I can't wait to laterally think all over the gaff.

What sort of things are you doing up at the fringe? I'm doing like a play slash stand-up hybrid, which is lateral thinking, if you think about it, because normally you do one or the other.

But I said, you know what?

No genre can confine me. I'm doing both in a show about the time I worked as the caretaker of an island of puffins.
One went missing, and I had to solve

the mystery of its disappearance. That's incredible.
And I have to ask where the island was. In the North Atlantic, but I can't say any more because it's not a real island.

For a moment, I was genuinely convinced that you were Puffin Island Guardian there.

And between you and me, I was.

Well, very best of luck both with the Puffins and the show today. You are also joined by Bella Hull.
Welcome to the show. Hello.
Thank you so much for having me. Are you doing anything at the fringe?

And is it to do with puffins? I'm doing stuff at the fringe. Whether or not puffins will be involved is kind of an issue for the legal team, I think.

I'm doing my third hour of stand-up. It's called Doctors Hate Her.
It's at Monkey Barrel at 1:55 p.m. Oh, get the time and location in there.
Well done. Hell yeah.
It's at Hive 2. So

have a disgusting hot dog or pizza that costs costs you £25 in from a kiosk and then come to the show. Wow.
And nurse your stomachache while you listen to my new jokes.

Stuart, do you want to get the time and date in while you have the opportunity? You can actually do the double. You can do the Bellaharla Hive 2 155.
You come out of there.

You've got five minutes to make it up the road to the Tron for a 3 p.m. start.

And if we've done our research, which to be clear, we haven't, then hopefully the third member of our panel today will round this out. Olaf Falafel, welcome to to the show.

Where and when are you at the fringe? Hello, and thank you for having me. So I am doing two shows at The Fringe.
I'm doing a kids' comedy show, which is at 11.30 at the Counting House Ballroom.

So you can go to that because it finishes at 12.30 and then you can leg it down to the monkey barrel. Unfortunately, I'm also, unfortunately, I'm doing an adult grown-up show.
And that clashes.

That's at 2.30. Oh,

you'll just have to go to the fringe for multiple days. Yes.

What is your style? I mean, I have in my notes here, like, multiple time winner of best joke at the fringe. Wow.

Not multiple. I've won it once.
Won it once. Multiple time nominee, right? Multiple time nominee.
But due to COVID, I'm actually the person who has held the title the longest. Right.

Because I won it in 2019, and then I capitalised on all of that great PR by not going to the fringe for a couple more years. It was you that ate that bat.

You wanted to hold the title for as long as possible. Exactly.
It's a bit like when Portsmouth won the FA Cup before the war broke out.

That's what I was liking it to. But I've also got a, I need to plug this as well.
I've also got a joke book coming out

July the 10th, which will be my merch for my kids' show. Ah.

And that has a lot of really bad jokes that I've written. You will get on very well with our producer.
Good luck to all three of you on the show today.

Let's see who can deliver the best answer for question one. A Cessna 150 plane went right through michelle letito and yet he lived to tell the tale how

i'll say that again a cessna 150 plane went right through michelle lotito and yet he lived to tell the tale how can you spell michelle letita for me i can m-i-c-h are you googling

m-i-c-h-e-l-l-o-t-i-t-o So I know what happened. Basically, it was one of those shrinking rays that we've all seen, you you know, advertised in the back of newspapers.

They shrunk that Cessna down and it went straight in through the mouth and out of one of the other exits that

you can get out of the human body. I love the reference to shrinking rays advertised in the back of newspapers, which I feel is a reference that predates both of us.

Yeah, it does feel like classic golden age of like Americana 50s, 60s. It's like you want a shrinking ray, some x-ray specs,

and then some sort of mini spaceship.

Jetpack. Jetpack.

Those are technically a real thing now. It's just they're not advertised in the back of newspapers.
They're advertised in weird adverts on Twitter.

Yes.

Excuse my ignorance, but what is a Cessna?

How dare you? How dare you ask what a light aircraft is?

Is it some kind of hot point washing machine or dishwasher?

Look, when I was younger, I flew a Cessna. It is a wonderful, wonderful single-prop airplane.

And I think the 150's got the wings above the fuselage. Is that correct? I don't know.
I'm going to have to look up a Cessna 150 now.

It's not strictly relevant to the question, but I love that someone has come in with that sort of painter. Glassware in the top or the bottom rack.

It's all obvious in the top rack. Who's putting glassware in the bottom rack? Maniacs like me.
Sometimes I put put a long pint glass in the bottom rack just because

it doesn't fit in the drawer.

I've got a really long.

It's a glass.

God, why is it blue moon? Is it blue moon, guys? And that only fits in the bottom. Yep.
Yeah. Of my Cessna.

I think that the Cessna is like a curry.

It's one of these curry places that's all of their dishes. It's like a different aeroplane.
You know how they differentiate to do that?

I think the Cessna is like a really spicy curry and it went right through the guy yeah well it'll make you spit fire yeah exactly if you know what i mean it will make you evacuate

the thing is you're not that far away from the truth between you um is it a chili pepper um no this is genuinely a plane uh stuart's right it's it's a cessna 150 is a two-seat high-wing airplane just one of those that's that gets taken off from uh little airfields flown by individuals.

And you're right, the wings are up at the top. But it is a proper full-size one.
Oh, okay.

Go on, Olaf. Go on.
No, I was going to say, did it come free in a pack of Kellogg's cornflakes or something? And the comedy kind of,

what was that? And then

you just have to wait for nature.

Well,

regretting the high wing.

You've sort of got it.

You've got the manner in which the plane passed through him. Digested it.

Yes.

Is he one of these weird people who eats things and takes them to bits? And then, like, there's a guy who used to like eat a car, but you would take it to...

He is.

That guy. That is the guy.
Yes, he ate the plane piece by piece. Not a.
What?

This is... Age nine, Michelle Lotito accidentally broke a glass in his mouth and noticed that he didn't suffer any consequences.

Please, if you are nine years old and listening to this, do not try this at home. I thought you were going to say, age nine, he accidentally ate a Cessna.

Yeah, yeah.

I took my eyes off him for a second. He's eating a Cessna.

So, as a stunt, he subsequently ate

all manner of weird things, including 18 bicycles, seven televisions, six chandeliers, two beds, and a coffin.

Right. And what did he do with the partridge in the pear tree?

Just gave it a nice peck on the cheek.

Between 1978 and 80, he ate an entire Cessna 150 light aircraft that had been cut into manageable pieces, around two pounds of metal, so about a kilo of metal a day. How big is a manageable piece?

Like, it's manageable to eat

titanium that's this big.

And on the side of the plane, that's our justice unmanageable.

On the side of the plane, did it have a little graph that said the calories per plane and then per portion? And then it was like red or green. Yes.

Afterwards, you know how they get little decals on fighted planes for the ones they've shot down? He just got a tattoo of a Cessna.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. To go next to the coffin.
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, sorry, that's not true, to be clear. I wasn't reading that from my notes.
I just accidentally used my authoritative voice for a joke, which isn't generally a good idea.

What's the biggest thing you've eaten that you shouldn't have eaten? Six Portuguese tarts? Six. Right in a row.

I don't want to show off here, but I have had the biggest Toblerone that you can get at the airport. The 4.5 kilos.
I know about it.

How long did it take? It took me a few days, but

I was hallucinating after.

That was big, and that was good. There is one more note here, which is that Michelle Lotito was awarded a plaque by Guinness World Records.
What did he do with it?

Yes, he did. Absolutely right.

Each of our guests has brought a question with them. We will start today with Bella.
Whenever you're ready. After celebrating St.

Patrick's Day at a Toronto bar, a man changed his mind about something because his drinks coaster was made of metal. What was it and why?

After celebrating St Patrick's Day at a Toronto bar, a man changed his mind about something because his drinks coaster was made of metal. What was it and why?

Okay.

Okay, so the key details we're looking at here is St Patrick's Day, he's changing his mind. And it required something light.

Otherwise, it was dangerous. So he was going to do like an odd job style flinging the beer coaster across the room.
And then he realised, no, this is taking someone's head clean off.

And that would not be right on Sir Patrick's Day unless it was a snake. Unless he was attacking a snake.
Oh, good St. Patrick reference.

He can't be doing that thing where he's just flicking the beer mat up and trying to catch it in mid-air. You mean beer mat flipping? The thing that I tried a world record for? I'm sorry, you what?

Yeah, I tried for the world record of most beer mats flipped in 60 seconds, and I came up short by about eight. Oh, wait, you came up short by eight on like a hundred or eight on like nine?

So you do single beer mats. Yep.
The most you can do in 60 seconds. The record's something like 74.
Okay.

If the record was like 10 and you came up eight short, I was going to be like, Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That is less impressive.

See, I always thought it was how many you could flip. Well, it's different, there's different

categories, yeah.

Yeah, I've done 50 in one hand. Wow.
Wow. Yeah, and I'm not

blessed with big hands.

Oh, don't worry about it.

No, you'll see it on all of my profiles. I've seen your glass.

He's got to be drunk at this point, right? He's been celebrating St. Patrick's Day and he's in a bar in Toronto.
Unlike North America. Yeah, the famously Irish city.

Well, North America tends to go harder for St. Patrick's Day than parts of Ireland do.
He probably started off in Ireland and ended up in Toronto.

How did I get here? Is the fact that it's metal something to do with it? Is it, I'm thinking magnetic? Oh, so he had an MRI plan. Yeah.

And

he was going to use that to sort of like fool the people into thinking his, like, you know, his liver was bigger or something.

He got a shard of the beer mapped just embedded in him and couldn't have the MRI anymore. Exactly.
It's not a million miles away from that. Well, this is why you say the stupid ideas.

It's kind of like it's, you know,

the harmfulness of an object made of metal

is not irrelevant to this discussion.

So he couldn't get through airport security afterwards or something like that. Or not let you on a plane with a beer mat.
That's not a metal one, anyway.

I'm trying to think of alternative uses for a beer mat because you can use them to fix a hole, a temporary hole in a shoe, but then that turns your shoes into tap shoes, which is like river dance.

So that would be completely appropriate. I I love everything about that last sentence.
That was wonderful.

So hang on, let's just go back. This was Michael Flatley in Toronto

trying to work out the tap shoes.

It's Irish Cluedo.

He changed his mind about whether or not to self-fund a spy movie.

Do you know about that?

That's a deep Michael Flatley cut there. I'll keep doing deep cuts.

Yeah, Michael Flatley funded and starred in his own spy movie, right? Yeah, yeah. Like, it is like, what is it, Operation Midnight,

whatever. Threat level and midnight from the office.
But it's Michael Flatley did do that.

And I get that, right? I'm not, you know, he's not content with just being, you know, one of the world's leading dancers, romancers of women.

He was like, I need to also be a spy in a film that I direct and write myself. You know, I've moved in.
Thank you, producer David, who's just told me that Flatley's film was called Blackbird.

It cost 3 million Euro and had box office receipts of 130,000 Euro. Blackbird romancing women in the Sky Terranide.

I mean, Michael Flatley, if he wants to lose that amount of money, he should do a fridge film.

He wasn't satisfied just having the Guinness Book of World Records for romancing women.

Yeah, and I connect with that because I've moved from stand-up to stand-up slash theatre. So, you know,

and romancing women. Stand-up slash romancing women

you stood on that podium holding a silver medal and above you was michael flatly

okay so hang on that's maybe a clue a silver medal is it metal was the metal silver

the coaster was made of something

that

uh was i suppose a recite it used to be something else aluminium it's going to be aluminium

surely mercury it was a liquid

it doesn't say what exactly the material was, but it was made from

a part of an old thing.

And it made him change his mind about something. It was an old Cessna that had previously been eaten and excreted.
No.

So it could be a beer mat made of old beer cans.

That's got to be it. It's not it.
Oh.

That was one of those moments. I'm like, ah, it's great.
He's changed his mind about recycling. No, okay, fine.

So he's changed his mind about doing something at the end of the night because of what this coaster is made of.

Getting a kebab and regretting your life decisions.

Why would you change your mind about something because you suddenly got a thing that you didn't have before? Wow, apart from you know, like a blood-borne virus. But

could it have been he was going to do something bad?

And then this

acted like a

correct drink like

so. The beer coaster is made from wrecked vehicles from

drink driving accidents, Correct.

Oh, well done, Stuart. Yes, very good.
I get why this show is called lateral.

In 2017, a whiskey bar in Toronto served used coasters made from metal salvaged from crashed vehicles. The coasters carried the message: this coaster used to be a car, that car never made it home.

The metal was sourced from a body shop which repaired cars that had been in collisions, was part of a campaign by Arrive Alive, an organization that raises awareness about the impact of drunk driving.

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Thank Thank you very much, folks. Next one's from me.

The film critic, Mark Kermode, placed five pound bets on the winners of five major Oscar categories before the 1992 nominations had been announced.

Why was he distraught when he discussed this some months later after all five bets had won? I'll say that again.

The film critic, Mark Kermode, placed five pound bets on the winners of five major Oscar categories before the 1992 nominations had been announced.

Why was he distraught when he discussed this some months later after all five bets had won?

Wow, I'm thinking straight away that he is discussing it on a show with the person who was up for all five and didn't win.

So is it one of those Oscar things where you've got like two movies that are like really going for all of the things? And he bet on, I don't even know what 1992 would have been.

Pulp Fiction was 94, isn't it? Dancing with Wolves, or is that 91?

And then whoever the other one was was on his radio show and

were still quite sore about it. What about if Mark Kermode himself was up for every single one of those awards?

And he was distraught to not win best actor, best actress. Because he was

actually best supporting male actor in Michael Flatley's Blackbird. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, he swept the board. Yes, yeah.

You're right about part of that, Olaf, which is there was a time delay delay between the win and the discussion. He was actually on Danny Baker's show talking about it when

he discussed it later. So Danny Baker was up for all.

Did the films later turn out to be sort of evil? Hang on, yeah. I remember that.

Hitler the good guy. I remember.

Yeah, Hitler the good guy.

It was the hangover, but with Mussolini, Hitler.

The films themselves actually don't matter. Oh, well.
Why are you gutted that you've won £12.90 times five?

Yeah, so each bet would bring in about 25 quid. So he'd made about 120, 125 quid, more or less.
Was he talking to somebody about like betting and how unethical it is?

He would have had some qualms about that. He actually had a Methodist upbringing.
and was really not certain about gambling. He definitely wasn't used to betting.
And that's important here.

So he was a Methodist upbringing. The Methodist specifically isn't important, but like he was not used to going into a bookies and putting bets down.

So he didn't know that he could go back and get money. He just thought he'd go in, put the money on, and then was like, yeah, I won.
He didn't know something.

He didn't know what the way around the odds are. So he thought he'd won way more than he had.
You know where it's supposed to be, it's three to one. You put on five pounds, you get 15 back.

Yeah, they're about five to one one on average.

In'91, there's a film called Last Boy Scout with Bruce Willis, where it's an action film where the plot of it revolves around illegal sports betting and like a cabal that are doing that.

And he's like, and it's such a weird watch if you're from the UK because the villain is someone who organises betting on sports, which is a cornerstone of the UK. Yes.
And now a cornerstone of the US.

Now they've legalised it. I remember an American friend telling me that they were confused about a plot in lockstock and two smoking barrels because

there's a plot in there about a betting shop and they just assumed that the concept of a betting shop was illegal by definition.

How could you have placed that bet more wisely? Doing an accumulator. That's the key word.
Yes. So he's got it that he didn't put an accumulator on.
He did. Well, more than that.
He thought he had.

What might Danny Baker have told him about?

About the multiplier effect of an an accumulator. Yeah, could you talk me through the accumulator? Like, what is it?

Well, basically, the winnings from one goes on to the next, and that goes on to the next, and then that goes.

So, it would be he would win a million rather than he would have won 70,000 pounds, which given you know, 1992 is now old enough that I think I kind of have to adjust that for inflation.

That would have been, you know, decent low six figures these days if he had known the concept of an accumulator.

He could have put a heinz or one of those uh multiple bets that does the singles the doubles i i don't know about

a heinz

it's got it's 57 different bets

from from five i think it's five selections yeah i used to really like betting on horses

yes mark comode was so naive for betting that he went in he placed five bets that he was sure were going to win they did all win and he made about a hundred quid when he could have made 70

That's gutting. Well, it wasn't at the time.
He was happy. He got his hundred quid in, and then he goes on Danny Baker's show after the Oscars ceremony.
He says all his bets had won.

And Baker says, You did do an accumulator, didn't you?

And he replies, What's an accumulator? What an idiot.

And now we know that everything he said about films was said by an idiot.

So, anyone listening whose film's been torn to shreds. Michael Flackling, are you listening? But I've got a great idea for a movie.

Stuart, we will go over to you for the next question, please. So this question has been sent in by Thomas Irwin.

When retired La Liga official Jose Luiz Pajarz Paz appeared on a Spanish TV sports show, his pet caused a minor controversy which called his integrity into question. How? I'll ask it again.

When retired La Liga official jose luiz pajaras paz appeared on a spanish tv sports show his pet caused a minor controversy which called his integrity into question how

i'm instantly thinking of a parrot that yeah basically grasses him up that says something about how he would take money in brown envelopes i was thinking his parrot might have someone else's voice like his mistress or something like that

or his parrot reveals him as actually not a spanish man, but like

his real accent that he uses at home. Yeah, he's from Birmingham, which is Birmingham.
Or his parrot reveals him as a pirate.

Yeah.

Because you know, parrots, if they don't have, it's kind of sad, if they don't have any voices to repeat, they'll just start mimicking like the sound of a microwave. Huh.
I'm the same.

So maybe if he went on being like, oh, I hate microwaves, it's all about healthy eating, and the parrot went

and exposed him as a consumer of fast food. I know they're incredibly smart birds.
Like buying one as a consideration. So am I.

Yeah, Michael Flatley is not interested.

We're just unjustly mocking Michael Flatley, the multi-millionaire womanizer there. So, you know.

Can I just interject that I do have a joke in my book about a pirate's parrot? Oh. And that is when the pirate's parrot died, he was sad at first, but at least it was a weight off his shoulders.

There we go. That's that's the level.

Was it a parrot?

Can we ask that? Can we rule that out? Or are we I can confirm at this time it was a parrot. Hey! Of course it had to be a parrot, didn't it? And he so it he appeared on what did he appear on?

Was it a TV show? Spanish TV sports show, and it caused a controversy because it called his integrity into question. So how could you call a referee's integrity into question?

Did he also have an eye patch and a dilapidated map?

He has buried treasure in several La Liga stadiums around and apparently given away the locations.

Did the parrot start chanting?

Oh, yeah, that's

songs of his favourite team that made him sound biased. I'm going to have to just give it to you because that is

absolutely bang on. His parrot sang the anthem of the Real Madrid football team.

Wait,

how often is he listening to the anthem

for the parrot to pick that up? I'm a Spurs fan, and I would say I do not listen casually at home to the anthem of Spurs.

Not like waking up like, oh, how can I get

exhausted? Get myself ready for the day. So Dubai, the greatest team, the world of LC.

Just standing up, saluting every morning to

my crow, just staring at me.

So, he was taking part in a discussion on El Chiringuito, which is a show that the retired referees parrot began to whistle the anthem of Real Madrid, revealing the love for that particular team.

Now, the host found it particularly hilarious, and the flustered Jose tried and failed to sort of quieten down the bird, which gives vibes of of that zoom when

the kid walks in in the background. I mean, it's giving vibes of Rod Hull and Emu to me.

And part of the problem is that there has been alleged bias of referees in La Liga for years.

Maybe the parrot was a plant.

The parrot reminds me of, you know, that video of Nigel Farage, like, and that little girl, and the girl says, my mummy says you hate foreigners.

It's like that.

Why did you bring the parrot yeah that's sort of like you know when you're walking out of the you know out of your house and you like you know testicle spectacles wallet watch parrot yeah yeah

it's like a wrap stuart testicle spectacles

thank you to otto forzbon for this next question Little House on the Prairie was a gentle TV show about a family of Minnesota settlers in the late 1800s.

Why were children in Finland banned from watching it when it was first released on DVD in 2008? I'll say that again.

Little House on the Prairie was a gentle TV show about a family of Minnesota settlers in the late 1800s.

Why were children in Finland banned from watching it when it was first released on DVD in 2008?

Did it make them give them ideas above their station? About, you know, churning milk and so on. And wearing Hessian.
And wearing Hessian.

And manifest destinying over some other continent. Exactly.

Are there Moomins from Finland? There are, yeah.

So is there something to do with it giving like an unreasonable expectation of body types to people from Finland who are all sort of modelling themselves after Moomins?

They all have to become nebulous blobs. Well, that's what the aspiration is, but seeing Little House on the Prairie was like, oh, we could look humanoid.

And that caused consternation in the government.

I used to go out with someone who looked like a moomin.

Please say more.

In what context? She was self-diagnosed. And I know that, like, you know, people talk about whether self-diagnosis is acceptable.

You know, I think it's obviously how you identify is very important and that's important within your soul.

She self-identified as a moomin

lookalike.

They're like cute hippos, aren't they? So, yeah, and she was one of the most dangerous animals on earth. Oh, my God.

I will happily not yes and this conversation and just say that no, this has nothing to do with moons.

Oh, okay, all right, okay. Well, I think it's quite interesting that we've we were talking about dishwashers earlier, and now we're talking about Finnish, which is my favorite dishwasher tablets.

Hey, what else is Finland known for?

Nokia, mobile phones?

I guess Minnesota and Finland share snow.

They probably share sort of like an isolationist sort of quality, like they are. You know, cabins probably are

de rigueur in both countries. So is there an unreasonable portrayal of how humanoids and non-moomons can live in cabins? No, we cut the movements, we cut them.

Hashtag not all moomins.

That's what my back tattoo says.

I don't know.

I mean, I've I've gotten into phases where I've watched a lot of or I've read a lot of books from the 1800s or the 1900s, and I do start using words that aren't appropriate for prémangé, you know.

I'm going to give you a note off my card here quite early, just in case we go down this path. There wasn't anything in the show that had dated particularly badly.
Okay. Okay.

And I'm not saying I dated particularly badly. I think me and Ella looked all up really.

It was previously shown on finished TV with a PG rating. So is it something something about the DVD then itself? Did it have director's commentary from someone

not good? It was something about like selling it on the DVD. Oh.
But it wasn't about the contents of the disc itself. Nothing on there had aged particularly badly.

So is it the design on the actual DVD itself or the cover?

It's something to do with that process, yes.

Has it was the translation, was it, did it get trans the name got translated to mean something offensive? My favorite mistranslate, or like, not mistranslation, translation that is funny in English is

another Scandinavian. I think it's Sweden, the end of finding Nemo.

Yeah, the beautiful end of finding Nemo, and then the camera's just drifting back through the ocean, and then it just comes up on screen, slut

because the English version says fun.

Fin. Yeah.
It's great pun.

The equivalent in Swedish is, I think, slut or something like that. Yeah,

it's really.

We found him. I think it'd be good to talk through the process of what do you have to do to get something on DVD? Compress it.

Just phone up the people and say,

we want this on DVD, and then it comes back with your... It's like when you used to get your photos developed with boots.
I'm sure. I'm sure that's the process.

But it's not that. It's everything to do with the laser.
So a laser reads it, but to do it,

it's a pressing thing right you press uh the the disc yeah and all the data is on it there's certain loopholes that a dvd manufacturer would have to jump through and they were being cheap skates i've had an idea i don't know whether it's right but

i used to have old vhs and i'm pretty sure they work in a similar way where you can record

15 to 1 or whatever it is you used to like watching and then you could record the fa cup final and then when that had stopped stopped you'd get the rest. Were these DVDs previously

adult movies? Oh,

no, it wasn't that.

And then when they'd stopped watching Little House on the Prairie, it was some hard graphic DIY. It's like a house full of sluts, yeah.

It wasn't that, but how would you prove that it wasn't? By watching it.

There's one other stage of the process to get a DVD on sale. Oh, when it has to be classified, but you know, the rated BBFC.

Yes.

And in that process, did they get sent the wrong thing and they got like sent little house on the other P word? Oh my God.

Was it the fact that the people who have to watch the thing were just like, this is rubbish. We're not going to watch this.

There's no way we're going to certify this

24 hours of.

And yes, there's 200 episodes to go through. Oh, so no one wanted to.
They were bored. So they just

would happily have done it. But they couldn't for some reason.
So you're right, you've identified it's the rating.

It got a K-18 rating, which is adults only. Because they sent the wrong thing, or they sent the porn parody of it, like Little Kiss on the Prairie.

I appreciate you somehow making that joke too adult and not adult enough for us at the same time. It's great.

Wicked brains to want some romances.

Little house on the Derry Air.

You're very, very close,

but it wasn't the ratings agency who was saying, We can't bother to do this. The ratings agency would have happily done it.
So,

the distributor was like, We can't be bothered to put this together because who's going to buy it in Finland?

Um, basically, yes, they were being cheap skates. So, they gave

a couple of episodes, they gave discs that just had all of the same 10 episodes on. Cheaper than that.
One episode. One episode.
Cheaper than that. No episodes.

So talk me through what they did.

They sent a blank disc and just went,

this is Little House on the Prairie. Give us a PG.
See you later, mate. That's close enough that I'm going to give it to you.

The Finnish authorities charge two Euros per minute to watch and rate anything. I do remember that that used to.
So they just sent like 10 minutes of it and just went. They sent nothing.

They just accepted an 18 rating because who's going to buy DVDs of Little House on the Prairie? And then his pet parrot flew in and started singing this internet. Yes, you more or less got there.

Finnish authorities charged two euros per minute to assess the age limit. There were 200 episodes to go through.
Each one is,

I don't know how long, but enough. Sexier than the last.
That is thousands of euros. We imagine that was when they started.

They were like, we're going to do this, but each episode will be sexy, but a minuscule amount by another 200 episode. Wow.

Universal Pictures realized that the only people who were like to buy these DVDs were older adults, so to save money, they just skipped the process altogether.

So the DVDs were released with the default rating and stickers saying banned for under 18s.

They later paid the money and got the rating switched back. Now that's lateral thinking.

Close your eyes, exhale, feel your body relax, and let go of whatever you're carrying today.

Well, I'm letting go of the worry that I wouldn't get my new contacts in time for this class. I got them delivered free from 1-800 contacts.
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Olaf, whenever you're ready, your question, please. Okay, so this question has been sent in by Omak Maker,

which

is the most Scottish name ever. And the question is as follows: Odd and even are in a room full of posters.

The posters are different

and bear several patterns of dots on them. Where is this and what is the significance of the dots?

What?

Oh, right, I know, I'm confused and I know the answer.

I'll read it one more time for you. Odd and even are in a room full of posters.

The posters are different and bear several patterns of dots on them. Where is this and what is the significance of the dots?

Where do you begin, eh?

All right, so odd and even, are they

animals in any way? Oh, you've got how this show works. The common thing of like, is everyone in this question human? Like, well done.

Is everything I say a twisted, trickery bit of lies? Yes, you.

I mean, they are animals in as much as people are animals. Ah.
okay, good. Are they?

Are they moomin-esque?

Because I'd like their number. How many of those people have Stuart David? Yeah.

Well, their phone number is a combination of odd and even numbers.

I made that up.

Oh, yeah, you've got to be careful not to use the authoritative voice for jokes. It's so important.

Okay, a room full of posters with dots on them. Yeah.

And odd and even are humans. Morse code? Something about Morse code?

I mean,

that's the train.

It's not. Braille.
Braille. No, no, no.
That's not a clue. I mean, that's the chain of thought.
Well, hang on. Now we're on a train.
We're on a train.

So is but it's not the correct train. It's not the correct train.
It's still at the platform. So we need to change at Reading.

So yeah, you want to get off at Morse and head on to another pattern of dots. But not to Braille.
Ah, no, not Braille.

There's currently planned engineering works at Braille.

Braille does sound like the name of a station when you put it like that.

The only dots I can think of is like, you know, those photos of aeroplanes leaving Turkey full of men that have had hair transplants

and they've got so many dots on their head. That's the only thing I can think of.
Or like ladybirds have dots on them.

When you said aeroplanes and dots, I was thinking of the famous image of

when they analysed where the damage on returning fighter planes was in World War II.

Most of them had holes in the wings, but that's not the bit you need to shore up because those are the planes that made it back. You need to show up the bits that weren't.
So

I'm trying to think of any sort of dot pattern like that. Your eyes lit up when I said ladybirds.
Well, no,

sorry, I'm giving you too much encouragement there, Bella.

I'm just an encouraging story of my life.

But you were kind of thinking of dots, and I'm just thinking, yeah, keep it. Okay,

man.

Leopards,

ellipses,

dots. I'll give you a little clue.
So, odd and even, they're visiting a specific type of building. Okay, so it's a railway station.
You've already said that per accident.

Is it something to do with science? Is it a lift? Oh,

no, it's not a lift. Oh, that's a shut up.

One of those lifts where there's, yeah, where there's there are lifts where there are two going up at the same time. Like, one stops on odd floors, one stops uneven.

And so you can be in the even section of the lift, and the doors just won't open. It will stop.

There is some efficiency gain, apparently, to this, and it just confuses everyone.

But you can't straddle the two. No, you can't.
You can't go from an odd floor to an even floor without going via the ground.

The odd lift is just for freaks only.

I go to get in the even one, and

the bell hoppers there. Get out of here.

Get in the ad one, you little freak.

Was it a stadium, a sports stadium? No, it wasn't a sports stadium. A theatre of some sort.
Ooh.

Now we're cooking. Now we're cooking.

Okay. An auditorium.
Ooh, oh, what about one of those,

one of those places, you'd know, Stuart, the places where you go to look at space, stars? A planetarium. Yeah, planetarium.
Colder, colder, colder. You were warmer with theatre in traditional sense.

So it's odd and even. It means you're going to a different section in odd and even are people.
Yeah, yeah, but they're going to different areas, right?

So one is sat in the odd section, one sat in the even section. No.

Well, then why is that their names? It's just sort of like this is in Finland again.

Odd.

Tell you what, well,

rewind.

They are names in Norway. Oh,

okay. Okay.
This gives gives us a location. So Odd and Even are apparently quite common first names in Norway.
Right, okay.

And is it in like Lillehammer where they did the Winter Olympics or something like that? And it's something to do with that. No, you already said it's not sports.

What's going on in Norway where you're going to have a room full of posters? Vikings?

A post, posters?

Theatre.

But not theatre close. Cinema.

Odd and even are in the cinema. Person A and person B, who just so happen to be Norwegian, are in a cinema full of posters.
The posters are different and bear several patterns of dots. Where is this?

A cinema in Norway. And what is the significance of the dots? So now we just need to work out what are the dots.

So the posters are movie posters, presumably. Yes.
Advertising what's coming up. Yes.
Oh, do they have like a different film rating where instead of stars, it's dots? Bang on. But what are the dots?

What is the rating precisely?

Where else? Not ladybirds. Oh,

dots. On the back of like a bug or a...

What's an insect that reviews...

Instead of ratings one to five stars, their rating goes one to six. Legs.
Legs, dots, big bugs. Stitch.
Stitch has got six legs and then loses two of them to look more like a dog, but it's still blue.

It's Lilo and Stitch. All right.
see you later, everyone. I'm off for call.

Dice?

Oh, you've got it. That's it.
Dice. Dice.
Norwegian film ratings are shown with dice? On their film posters,

they have dice to rate how popular or how good the film is. So they will have the different people who rate films, and they will give it a three with the three dots in a diagonal.

So a little white square with three dots. So the film posters are covered in dice.

You can literally be like, should should we roll the dice with this one it's three out of six three out of six and here I've got the everything everywhere all at once poster and it has one two three four five six dice and they've all got a six on them

in hindsight that's such a good question and I hate it

well thank you very much who was it omac maker So yeah, in 1952, the Norwegian newspaper Verden's Gang began to use dice throws to score films as part of a visual redesign.

And films were rated from one to six instead of out of five stars.

And then film posters will often show a row of dice showing fives, sixes, fours, along with the names of the media outlets who have reviewed those films.

And then other sections of the media have also borrowed this metaphor, but will often use more critical scores. And odd and even are just common male names in Norway used to throw you off the scent.

Which brings us to the last order of business, the question I asked right at the start of the show. What nine-letter word means someone to break bread with?

Before I give the audience the answer, does anyone have a quick shot at that? Nine-letter word. Yep, someone to break bread with.
Angry baker.

I'm guessing it's, yeah, break bread.

It's derived from Latin and Old French, which is quite a big clue there. Oh, now I used to go out with someone who was old French.

So it should be easy for me. Is it pan something then? Is it pan?

Pan, it's definitely in there.

Panobulator.

Pan-Catidienne. What prefix usually means with

in French? Avec.

A pan-a-vec.

Pan-aux chocolat. It's pan-a-chocola.

There is annoyingly a different word for with we're going on here.

Gone, what word have you got? That will help us. Well, if I tell you that the other French bid name, like someone to break bread with, it would be com

someone.

Companion. Companion.
Exactly right, Olaf. You break bread with someone you're sharing a meal with.
The Latin for bread is panis. That became pin in French.

So someone to break bread with would be a companion. Thank you very much to all our players for running the gauntlet today.
Get your plugs in. Where can people find you? We will start with Olaf.

You can find me anywhere on social media. Just type in Olaf Falafo.
It's quite a unique name. I don't think there's many people trying to steal it.
And you can find me up at the Edinburgh Fringe

doing a kids show at 12.30 to

11.30 to 12.30, get the time right. And then my slightly more grown-up, but not too much more grown-up show at 2.30 to 3.30.
Bella! You can find me every day at the Edinburgh Fringe.

I'm 1.55 at Monkey Barrel Hive 2. My show's called Doctors Hate Her.
I'm also on social media. I'm at Bella Bella Hall on everything.
And Stuart.

You can find me in Finland looking for a moon in type person.

And also,

you could Google me. I reckon that would work.
That would work. Is that okay to say?

Sure.

I mean, I thought you might want to tell people where the Edinburgh Fringe show was, but it's up to you if you want to skip that part.

Look, I want you to want to see me. I don't want to put it on a plate.
Like, if you can't work it out, how have you watched this video? I want you to not want to see me, but to come anyway.

I want you to not see them too and come and see. No.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And if you want to see this show in full video, you can do that every week on Spotify.

We are at lateralcast basically everywhere. And if you want to send in your own idea for a question or find out about a book or many other things, you can do that at lateralcast.com.

Thank you very much to Stuart Laws.

You should say something. We go in audio as well.
Something quick by me. I've said it.
Bet La Hall.

Thanks very much for having me. Oh, thank you.
I I should have said thank you. And oh Laffelaffel.
Thank you very much. And thank you for Stuart as well.
Oh, I should have said thank you.

I messed it up so bad, Tom. I've been Tom Scott.
That's been lateral.