141: The world's longest poem

In Finland, what food item is sometimes jokingly called moomin meat?

The answer to that at the end of the show.

My name's Tom Scott, and this is Lateral.

Before we start, we'd like to thank the dozens of you who sent in so many kind comments in response to episode 125.

They weren't for me or the show, but for the picture of the producer's dog.

But have no fear, we are not desperate enough to attempt that trip twice.

Unrelatedly, here's some music.

And if you're listening to this show and audio, don't worry, you missed nothing.

Hoping they're not going to have a rough time with the questions.

First, returning to the show, working on a PhD in drug delivery systems, and one of the players, hopefully still.

on ITV's The Genius game.

Charlotte Young, welcome back.

Thank you very much.

You cannot talk about the details.

We're going out about six weeks after the first episode we recorded with you.

So you may still be in, you may be out.

We cannot talk about this.

What I will ask is, what was it like being on The Genius Game?

I think The Genius Game was one of the most exciting points in my life.

It really brought together all the knowledge that I wanted to put out there and I wanted to put myself out there as well.

And we've made a really great collective group of friends.

We still talk to each other.

I attended weddings.

I've attended like puzzle meetups.

We've done a lot together.

So if nothing else, regardless of whether I'm still in the show or not, I'm just really happy to have met everyone there.

Oh, that's just really lovely to hear because presumably like we're going to be a few weeks into the season when this airs.

We will have seen all sorts of arguing and fighting and things like that.

And it is lovely to hear that you're all getting along.

Also joining us, someone who owns a pillow with the face of Lee Sang Min from the the original Korean Genius game, a joke that I'm now going to try and ask him to explain.

Matt Gray.

That was a housemate.

Not mine, so I don't have that in my house anymore.

You don't have it anymore.

No.

A housemate moved out.

I'd completely forgotten about that, though, but I'm going to just gloss over it and let everyone wonder what the hell that's about.

Hi.

How are you doing, Matt?

I'm all good, thank you.

I'm actually quite excited because as we record this next week, I I might be getting to play with a satellite.

Oh.

In space?

Okay, is the satellite in space or are you in space?

I think the answer is neither because

it's a satellite that's about to go to space, maybe.

I don't know the details.

If this actually becomes a video, you can watch it on my series, Matt Gray, is trying,

which may or may not be out now, who knows?

Well, good luck to both you and the satellite.

The third member of our team.

That sounded slightly dismissive of your ability to deal with a satellite map, but I apologise for that.

If you've seen the rest of my Matt Greyer's Trying series, I'm not surprised if you classify me as that bad.

And the third member of our trio today is returning to the show, puzzle and quiz editor and designer, Dan Peake.

Yellow!

No pillow talk from me, I'm afraid.

You have watched, I think, all the original Genius game as well, because I think

a lot of people who enjoy that sort of thing found a way to watch watch it outside Korea.

Oh yes.

Very popular in our circles.

I love a good,

oh, it's almost, it's the closest you can get to board gaming on a TV show, I think.

It's that complex or that intricate with rules and everything like that.

So, Charlotte, at the time of recording, I've not seen any of your shows.

I'm really looking forward to seeing it.

And I hope you do some good backstabbing.

What I think is funny is that today on our team, we have two people who make terrible puns and one certified genius.

So

and me who falls into neither of those groups.

Correct.

I can see you're all begging to get started.

So let's see if you'll be barking up the wrong tree with question one.

Thank you to Mitchell Lapham for this question.

Why are some bags of crisps in Spain referred to as ham-flavoured?

Probably.

I'll say that again.

Why are some bags of crisps in Spain referred to as ham-flavoured?

Probably.

That's interesting.

I think you could get away with that on most packets of crisps anyway, based on food laws.

Yeah, probably ham-flavoured.

Well,

a lot of the flavours in crisps that I've had don't really taste like what they actually are meant to taste of.

I think I heard that

smoky bacon crisps over here used to be vegetarian, despite the name.

It's It's probably not the case these days.

So, yeah, I think the flavouring was mostly smoke and salt there.

I think there's one country where the same flavor that we use for prawn cocktail is labeled as tomato ketchup or something like that.

Well, that makes sense.

That probably makes me think it's like

maybe even they don't know, but that would be a serious food bag.

Do they have to declare

that all their ingredients?

Because I had a tube of

Pringles that was mystery flavour the other day.

And it was branded as Mystery Flavour.

And it said on it, Mystery Flavour.

You could read all the things on the back, and

it was a very onion-y paprika-type taste.

I've got no idea what it was that I was eating.

But you must at least be able to, given that these were sold, you must be able to sell

mystery flavour crisps, but we're not going to tell you what's in them.

Yes, they'll have to mark flavourings on there, but they won't have to say specifically what they are.

And they'll have to mark allergens.

But other than that, they can hide the exact chemical compositions of that.

Especially if they're all e-numbered flavours rather than or like chemical names rather than extracts of real things.

Everyone loves blind boxes and blind bags at the moment when it comes to toys.

All these surprise toys like a Kinderegg, but without the chocolate and more disappointment.

Maybe they're doing that with crisps, so it's

maybe they've got a multi-pack of vaguely meaty, could be ham, could be something else.

Are all the crisps in it ham-flavoured apart from one, which has got like a special different flavour?

And so they're ham-flavoured?

Probably, because there's a different crisp in there.

Like one that fell on the factory floor.

We stuck that one in as well.

A single mustard one.

Yeah.

Oh,

I love ham and mustard.

Oh, yeah, but all the mustard flavour on one crisp.

That's crisp roulette.

Like chip roulat for the Americans, but yes, uh, crisp roulatte.

Oh, I'd do that with a wasabi crisp.

The way my clue here phrases it is it's nothing to do with the dubious quality of the goods.

That implies that the goods are dubious, but it's nothing to do with that.

Unfortunately, I don't know enough Spanish to know the words for

probably.

Hammon.

Hamon, spelt with the J.

Yeah.

It's the word probably similar.

Is it a wordplay, maybe?

I don't know much.

It feels like it's going to be a wordplay.

If you put hamon next to hamon.

Probably.

Probably.

Then it's going to be a pun in some way.

Yes.

Yes, it is.

And

if you knew certain words, this would be a lot easier.

I'm guessing the word for flavoured is something along the lines of flavored.

Would they want something dubious on their marketing?

Like that they wouldn't know, you don't know what it is.

It might just be this.

I don't know.

It could be for the lols, though.

But

Cadbury's over here, a couple of years ago, did mystery-flavoured

chocolate where the insides were like a flavoured cream filling.

And the flavouring, like I tried reading the packet, and the flavourings were just flavourings.

And the two I tried were completely awful.

But you had to guess what the flavour was.

And Fantas done that with their drinks as well.

So it's a trend, isn't it?

Have a think about the geography involved.

These are bags of crisps in Spain.

Okay, Iberian Peninsula.

Oh, have they come over from Gibraltar and someone's just scrawled on them in Spanish over the English?

Wrong border.

Catalan, is it a Catalan issue?

Excellent.

It's a really disputed border.

There's still France and Portugal to go.

Where are you going to go next, Matt?

These are all better guesses than I had.

I was thinking, you know how Italy is the shape of a boot?

Maybe Spain is the shape of a hat.

Oh.

I'm trying to think of the other border, because isn't there a microstate on one of the borders?

Oh, Andorra.

There we go.

That's true.

Is it like the Andorra border?

I've forgotten Andorra.

Wait, is it something like the Portuguese word for probably is the same as the Spanish word for ham and vice versa?

Yes.

What?

Vice versa

is incorrect, but

talk through what might be on that packet then.

It's so that they can sell it in both countries.

So it's got it in Spanish and in Portuguese, and if you read it in Spain, rather than just ham, ham in two languages, it looks like ham, probably.

Yes, that is right.

On there, you have sabor, flavor, and then you have hamon, presunto.

Presunto is the Portuguese for ham.

It is also the Spanish for probably.

So just reading it in Spanish, you have flavor, ham, probably.

Lovely.

I love that I can just say something because I think it's stupid and be

Each of our guests has brought a question with them.

We will start today with Matt.

This question has been sent in by Stefan Teffe.

If you pass in front of the rabbit, you're disqualified.

If you only just pass in front of it, it might be deadly.

Which sport is this and what is the hazard?

If you pass in front of the rabbit, you're disqualified.

If you only just pass in front of it, it might be deadly.

Which sport is this?

And what is the hazard?

Okay, team.

Communal effort here, because I haven't got a clue.

A rabbit, and that it can be deadly.

Yeah.

I'm now thinking of Monty Python and the killer rabbit there.

I was thinking Greyhound racing.

I realise that putting you in a question for that is a bit weird, given there's three humans involved here, but I think the thing on a dog track that flies out in front of the dogs for them to chase is called the rabbit.

And I'm thinking that, like, if the dog somehow overtakes the rabbit, I don't see why that would disqualify them, but if they get just in front of it and trip up, it could be deadly.

I'm worried because either this is something that I've just nailed it, or I'm completely and utterly wrong, and it's nothing to do with greyhound racing.

What one slight question here?

Yep.

Would you call greyhound racing a sport?

Because I don't know either.

It's not greyhound racing.

Okay.

Fine.

Fine.

He had me, Tom.

I thought, home, he's got it.

He's nailed this.

This is perfect.

Thank you to producer David, who has told me it's actually called the mechanical hair, not the rabbit.

Fine.

Fine.

You don't want to confuse that with a mechanical rabbit.

There would be hell to pay for that.

Hair.

Hair.

Hair.

Yeah, no, Rabbit.

Right, so pass in front, you're disqualified, but pass just ahead of it was deadly.

Yeah.

What are you passing, wind or water?

That's the next question.

Oh, yeah, passing water on something with an electrical.

Oh, it could be an electrical.

No, no, let's not go there.

Maybe there's something, something spiky or something like that can trip you up, but only if you were to stand on it at that moment.

But if you take like a rather large leap, you would be in front and you wouldn't get tripped up.

No.

So it could be some sort of extreme sport, like something that involves parachutes or something like that, where deadly really means if you mess this up,

you're at higher risk than a footballer might be.

I would say that is the case.

It's not the nickname for sort of the

secondary shoot that you have with your parachute, is it?

Or something.

Let's deploy the rabbit!

I'm gonna give you a clue here.

So when you said about passing water, you're completely nowhere near it, but you are slightly closer.

The rabbit is an alternative system to something else.

So it's not a physical rabbit, it's not a cute little bunny.

Yeah, it's not an animal, but it is moving at some speed.

You said far from water, is it the air then?

Water's closer.

Okay.

so uh sailing or um water skiing or something like that try one of those his eyes look brighter at sailing so i think we should go with sailing it's matt his eyes always look bright for some reason i don't know how he does it

there's a lot of nautical terminology the rabbit could easily be some form of device on the boat Is the aim of the race or the sport to try and catch up to the rabbit?

Are we following the rabbit?

But not overtaking it, because that would disqualify you.

Yeah.

So does the rabbit lead us to some place if it's a moving

part?

A different boat, say.

You're going in the right lines here.

So just to recap the question here,

it was, which sport is this?

And sailing's close enough for me.

And what is the hazard?

Oh.

I'll give you another little hint here.

In the Olympic version of this event, the race starts differently.

Where

you can catch a crab in something, can't you?

Is that wrestling instead?

That's not sailing, is it?

No idea, Dan.

You definitely catch a crab at something, or is that where the line snags in something?

Or am I thinking of something entirely different here?

I mean, the other three of us are all thinking of the same joke, right?

Yeah.

Think about a type of sport where it's hard to mark the course.

We're going to be on the water here.

So, how do you is oh, right, okay.

Oh, are we dealing very specifically with the start of a race here?

Is this where we're going?

Okay.

So if you're starting a sailing race, if you all need to be lined up, it's really difficult to judge.

So would it be something in either the water or just underneath it that will raise to start a race, to mark like the starting lines?

You were going so close to the right direction there, and then you took a little swerve.

You're so nearly there.

Is it rather the boundaries of the race?

And if you were to go outside of it, you would either completely sink a ship because it's something sharp and it will poke holes into your boat or if you went straight and state like sailing straight outside of it you would be disqualified because you're no longer inside the range of the race

you are so close um it's it's a way of marking the start of the race you were talking about something that raised up Dan, maybe it's something that that lowers down or gets out of the way?

That would probably make more sense.

I was thinking like the Grand National where they sort of have to do a sort of a running start and

they have something in the way that

rises to get out of the horse's way, but that would make less sense for like deadly is a heck of a thing to use to start a race.

If you pass in front of the rabbit, you're disqualified.

If you only just pass in front,

it might be deadly.

Because it could somehow tip your boat upside down.

I think.

Is it just another boat?

Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.

It is.

It is.

Right at the start, when I was on about the mechanical hare, it's the same thing.

You're chasing the rabbit.

The rabbit is a speedboat which sails on a known path from offshore towards the beach.

And so if you pass just in front of it...

You get hit by a speedboat.

That'll hurt.

That'll hurt.

If you pass quite a bit in front of it, you're just setting off too early.

Ah, so...

Is the speedboat going across the line?

Oh, so the speedboat is literally making a wake, which is the start line.

That's how you're painting on top of the sea.

But why is it called the rabbit?

Same reason that the greyhounds chase a rabbit.

It's the thing in front that everyone else is chasing.

Oh, I see.

In races where there may be 50 windsurfers or more, it's not practical to use the Olympic system where you mustn't cross an imaginary start line between a boat and a boy before the race begins.

Instead, a speedboat called the rabbit is used.

It sails on a known path from offshore towards the beach.

If you pass in front of the rabbit boat, you're disqualified.

If you pass just in front of the boat, you'll be injured or worse.

Though popular in windsurfing, this type of start is also used in other sailing competitions.

Thank you to Hugo Bomer for this next question.

To the west of Rotterdam in the Netherlands, you can read a 61-word poem.

Why has it been described as the longest poem in the world?

And why is the first half usually read faster than the second half?

I'll say that again.

To the west of Rotterdam in the Netherlands, you can read a 61-word poem.

Why has it been described as the longest poem in the world?

And why is the first half usually read faster than the second half?

Rotterdam's the Netherlands.

Yes.

On the coast.

Yes.

I suppose the whole of the Netherlands is on the coast when it's not under the coast.

Rotterdam, to be clear, is a little bit inland, just because if you go west from the Dutch coast, you do in fact find the ocean.

So just, yeah,

west of Rotterdam.

61 words isn't very long.

I'm not a poet, but I could make a longer poem than that.

Perhaps it's longest when it's verbally said.

Maybe, maybe, maybe.

Wait, is the...

Oh my god, it's going to be embarrassing, but is the language spoken German?

Dutch.

Dutch.

Netherlands, but it doesn't necessarily mean that

the poem is in the language of the country that it's written in.

True.

It could be be in Welsh.

In which case, I think some Welsh words are very, very long when

both German and

Welsh can compound their words.

A deliberately, a poem written using deliberately long words to trip up the reader.

That'd be fun.

That sounds like a good puzzle, but it is, unfortunately, in Dutch.

That's not very fair on the Dutch, Tom.

I've had a silly idea and I'm kind of worried because the last few times I've had silly ideas on this podcast, it's been right.

And it's not fully formed, so I can't see how it would be right.

But you said the first half is quicker than the second half?

Yeah, it's usually read faster.

And I'm thinking

it's kind of coastal round there, so I don't know how

the first half could get covered up by the tide before the second half.

So you're running along with the water to read it.

But that's the first thing that's popped into my head why it could be faster at one end than the other.

Oh, but then it would be physically long.

I see where you're getting where you're going with that.

So there's some form of physical length that it's written out.

Yeah, long.

Like in Anthony Gormley, lots of stuff on the beach going out to see.

He's a sculpture person who puts effigies of himself on beaches.

You have solved the first part.

This is a physically long poem written down about 900 meters, nearly a thousand yards.

So, why is the first half usually read faster than the second half?

Because you're still enthusiastic at that point in time.

I do like that you described the west of the Netherlands as it's a bit coastal round there.

It is.

They're very proud of it.

I think I've got the topic.

Is it, would you say it was a stellar poem?

Why do you you say that?

I was trying to think of things that are regularly depicted as long public art

with stuff bunched up at one end and spread out at the other.

And it's planet trails where you have all of the planets down like a cycle path or whatever.

And to get from

Mercury to Earth is pretty quick, but to get all the way to Jupiter takes forever.

So I don't know if it's a poem about the

stars and planets that's laid out with each line at the same relative distance as the distance between the planets.

It's such a lovely picture.

And it's entirely wrong.

I'm sorry.

I'm sorry, Matt.

We've definitely had questions about

model solar systems before on this show.

This is unfortunately not one of them.

There is one part of your answer that's right though, Matt.

Okay.

You did say a...

couple of key words in there and another Dutch stereotype.

A Dutch stereotype.

Oh, cycle paths.

I said cycle paths.

You did.

Is it going to be.

The Netherlands is quite flat, but is it going to be on a hill in some way so that you read the first half a bit quicker because you're going down the hill and then the sort of the second half is on flatter ground?

Yes, this is the Benelux Tunnel in Rotterdam, which carries a motorway, a metro line, and a bike path under the Neuermas River.

Along the bike path, the wall tiles form the words of a poem by the famous Rotterdam poet Jul Deilder, stretching 900 yards from south to north.

The middle of the tunnel goes down to 24 meters.

The first part of the poem is read more quickly, and then you're going uphill to leave the tunnel.

And that's the second half of the poem.

That must be the biggest slope grade in all of the Netherlands.

Yes.

Yes.

I like Matt's idea with the stars better.

We should commission it.

We should go do it ourselves.

I'll go get a bit of chalk and write it out.

Yeah, to be fair, that's the sort of thing that you can just build and probably no one's going to complain about it.

What rhymes with Uranus?

And we move on!

Charlotte, we will go over to you for the next question, please.

Okay.

This question has been sent in by Elena and Alessandro.

Officials in the Brady region of the Czech Republic were frustrated.

Seven years of red tape had held up the permits for a major restructuring of the Voltava river basin.

Suddenly, the job was done in a few days, for $1.2 million less than planned.

How?

And again, officials in the Brady region of the Czech Republic were frustrated.

Seven years of red tape had held up the permits for a major restructuring of the Voltava River Basin.

Suddenly, the job was done in a few days, for $1.2 million less than planned.

How?

Restructuring of a river basin.

Pull the plug out.

There you go.

Done.

That sort of happened happened once in history.

Yeah, we're doing a question on it, right?

This happened?

Well, okay, the plug thing.

There was a salt mine

in

somewhere, I want to say Louisiana, but they don't have salt there.

Somewhere in the US,

and they mined a bit too much, and they punctured something somewhere.

And an entire lake drained itself through the salt mine over the course of a couple of days.

Just the colossal whirlpool.

Because, of course, it starts small, but it's salt.

So the water just keeps washing it and washing it and washing it.

And by the end, you no longer have a lake, you have a cavern.

It's the salty equivalent of the Darvatza crater in Manister or wherever the way they go.

Oh, there's a bit of gas here.

We'll set it on fire.

It'll go away and it's still burning.

Yes.

Oh, thank you, Producer David.

That is Lake Pena, a brackish lake in Louisiana.

I didn't get that right.

I didn't know there was salt in Louisiana.

All right.

Not anymore.

so

a restructuring of a river basin i'm assuming they're not uh changing how you wash your hands in the toilets

um and it's in checkia

the brady region

the only thing i know about that is that he played uh american football

yeah i made a sports joke and it was terrible yeah you made a sports joke but uh i was thinking natural disaster i was thinking that like 1.2 million was the entire budget for this thing.

And actually, by luck,

a flood happened, something happened, a giant rainstorm just restructured the basin for them, coincidentally, the exact way they wanted.

But that's getting very close to act of God there.

Or it could be what you were saying about mining.

Maybe someone was mining nearby and dug up.

So I will say

you're very much on the right track.

It is natural, less a disaster.

and bang on the original budget was 1.2 million dollars okay because what in terms of restructuring there's not many ways you can really restructure a river you can make it flow the other way if you really wanted to

that has been done in history uh i think it's uh in in Illinois, the Chicago River initially went into one of the Great Lakes,

but they were, due to pollution reasons, they went, okay, we need to actually reverse the flow of this.

So it can be done, but it requires a heck of a lot of effort.

That doesn't feel like that's what's going on here.

You couldn't do that for a million.

And continuous effort.

Yes.

And the only thing I can think of restructuring river basin-wise is,

well, I'm not fully certain of the term river basin.

All I can think of is the LA River, where that was just a concreted sluice.

Is that the term?

It's just a channel for the water to run down.

But that, you know, you can't have an act of God do that unless there's a lot of fly of concrete.

That would be an act of God, though, wouldn't it?

There's the river.

All of a sudden, it's channelized with neat concrete and no one knows why.

That, honestly, that happens overnight.

It's pretty good evidence.

It's a miracle.

I would say, Daniel, you're pretty close.

Like, you, you, instead of having the river turn completely 180,

what other things could be used to kind of redirect the water, do you think?

Oxbow Lakes!

Yes, that's the only term I learned in geography at school.

It's Oxbow Lakes.

So sort of cutting one off, or you wouldn't want to make one.

You'd want to cut one off, wouldn't you, really?

Oh, so if there was a big heavy flood, that could easily be the final thing that cuts off the Oxbow Lake and makes the river straight again.

Because Oxbow Lakes are when

a river gets all wiggly and then it gets even wigglier and then suddenly it finds a shortcut which leaves a random bit of water which is wiggly when the river's gone straight again and that's the Oxbow Lake.

But yeah, a flood can force that to happen.

As anyone who's done year nine geography knows and understands, it's the one thing everyone remembers.

I also do remember that, and I always think about like a little, you know, something like this.

But how about instead of making it straight, we're literally boom, boom,

you know, redirection.

Oh, it went around a corner.

Not

exactly.

I'm imagining it flooded and then it found a new course because it turned whatever natural ground was in the way into sediment.

And then that became an easier way for it to go.

So it took a different route thanks to the flooding moving all of the earth out of the way.

Or it could be the opposite, that it's a rock fall or something like that.

Like the river is going this way.

We've been intending to block it and move it.

And then all of a sudden this mountain's collapsed.

Beavers!

Beavers!

Beavers!

Beavers!

Continue!

Oh, no!

No!

No!

No!

Oh, I'm not having this.

Being silly strikes again.

So it is the opposite.

They wanted to not have a straight river, but move it away from being a straight river.

And then suddenly some beavers built a dam themselves without anyone noticing.

And they woke up one morning and the river was now doing chopped up it.

And then they put the $1.2 million in their pocket and walked away whistling.

That is exactly it.

You don't need an environmental impact study when the environment is doing it for you.

The beavers were like, I don't care about any permits.

I'm just going to go do this.

Oh, yeah, you said seven years of red tape.

No one was there.

It's just all blocked off and no one allowed in because they're planning this thing.

And then suddenly the beavers turn up in their hives and their hard hats.

Yeah, so a colony of eight beavers had built the dams in the same places that the administration actually wanted in order to redirect the water.

And it turns out that the way that the beavers did it was even better than the way that they had designed it in the first place.

Oh, amazing.

They must have bribed them.

They must be must have bribed the beavers somehow.

Thank you to Ben Kitchen for sending this question in.

In 2023, rookie NBA player Nick Smith Jr.

signed with the Charlotte Hornets where he'd wear shirt number eight.

Why did this have the potential to reduce the team's expected revenue?

I'll say that one more time.

In 2023, rookie NBA player Nick Smith Jr.

signed with the Charlotte Hornets where he'd wear shirt number eight.

Why did this have the potential to reduce the team's expected revenue?

Terrible player.

He's actually a golfer.

That's a reverse Michael Jordan.

I'm just thinking,

does his name or initials and then the number eight spell something that might not be allowed oh it's it's it's gonna be something on that isn't it that number eight is important eight's a lucky number though so for in Chinese culture so I feel like The Charlotte Hornets are going to have a nickname and that nickname is going to be something, isn't it?

And we're going to need to know the nickname and if you put the number eight after it, it's going to be like a rude word.

No?

Well, maybe.

But then the number, having the number eight on a shirt is not unusual.

So it must be this very specific person plus team combo.

Smith eight is what it'll say on the back of the shirt, right?

Uh, Smith Jr.

eight, but yes.

Smith's a very common name.

Eight's a very low number.

Maybe there's been a Smith Jr.

in number eight position before when they don't need to buy more merch or something.

Or yet again, Matt, you have nailed it.

What?

Really?

Talk through what might have happened here.

Nick Smith's dad was on the Charlotte Hornets before, and they already sold his jersey with Smith and the number eight on it, and no one else wants to buy new ones.

It wasn't a relation, but that's basically it.

There was already a Smith Jr.

the previous season, Dennis Smith Jr., who had also worn number eight.

Why would they give them the same number?

That's terrible for revenue.

Yes, indeed.

Yes, you're absolutely right.

Usually, when a new signing occurs, some fans will buy shirts with the new player's name on it.

They didn't need to.

They already had a shirt that said Smith Jr.

and eight.

Matt, you're on fire.

Can I have your brain for the day?

I realize the way this game works is to make silly jokes around the questions to make them last longer.

And that's what I've been trying to do because I hadn't thought any of these would actually be the answer.

Sorry.

Then we will go to Dan for the next question.

Whenever you're ready.

Okie-doke.

This question has been sent in

by Dan Peake.

Oh, no.

All right.

Oh, God.

I delight in this question.

In 1652, a new door was installed in the wall of a church.

As a result, someone had their feet chopped off.

How?

I shouldn't, sorry, I shouldn't laugh at the phrase someone had their feet chopped off.

It was the way you said it.

In 1652, a new door was installed in the wall of a church.

As a result, someone had their feet chopped off.

How?

What?

This is one of my...

I've listened to lateral affair bit.

This is a classic lateral question that starts perfectly normally and then ends with, and then someone had their feet chopped off.

It's classic.

So it's not a real door, they're not real feet.

Church actually means something else.

And chopped is actually a non-English word that sounds like the English word chopped.

No comment.

I don't know where to start with this.

Construction crew were really bad, and you need some new people.

I suppose health and safety standards in 1652.

Yeah.

I did once, sorry, I'm going to drop a travel story in here.

I once visited Guedelon Castle in France, which is a

medieval castle.

They are building with medieval techniques as like experimental archaeology.

And there are just little things they've had to make and do to comply with this century's laws.

Like, they are wearing hard hats, but they're camouflaged so they look like something that might fit in in that century.

They are wearing steel toe-cap boots, but you wouldn't know it because they've got overshoes over, so it looks right.

But with the exception of that, you know, there's maybe a few more railings around than there might otherwise be.

I'm just imagining hard hats with wigs on

in the 1600s.

Doors to churches, and and in fact, to the present day, tend to be wood.

Yes.

If it's a real door.

Churches can have

normal-sized doors, and they can have ridiculously huge, ornate ones.

Knowledge bombs from Matt.

Matt Gray's Knowledge Bombs is actually his competing podcast.

That sounds way too laddy and misinformation-y for my liking.

Churches have

famous people buried in them.

Maybe someone got exhumed and didn't fit in through the new door.

Matt, I have the horrible feeling you've just solved it again.

Sean,

no, I am taking the piss here about exhuming someone.

How can that be the answer?

If this is Westminster Abbey, I.

Matt, you're absolutely wrong.

You sold that so well, Dan.

Oh, dear.

So I was thinking that it was somewhere like Westminster Abbey, where there's a lot of famous people interred and they had to move a grave.

And in the 17th century, the easiest thing to do was just go, ah, just crop that bit off.

Yeah,

lovely cropping is a great term here.

Not that that's a good idea.

I will say, many people today wish that this hadn't happened.

What I do like is I made a joke about someone being exhumed and you were all shocked.

Not because I made a joke about someone being exhumed, but they were shocked because I might have got the answer right.

Many people wish that this didn't happen now.

Yeah.

Was the person alive when their feet was chopped off?

No.

So it is from a dead body as well.

And maybe it was the body of a rather famous

person?

Feet can also mean accomplishment.

Oh,

you had your accomplishments chopped off.

Well, that sounds painful.

Well, the door could have been an ornate one listing someone's

that have achieved a thing and the person at the bottom of the door, the door could have been the wrong size and they could have chopped their feet off this list of accomplishments written on the door.

Clever.

And again, absolutely wrong.

It is F-E-E-T.

So why would someone need to chop the feet off a dead body to install a door?

I'm going to steer you away from the dead body part.

Oh.

You did say they were dead, though, right?

They certainly weren't alive.

Was the new door like a protective casing to keep hold of like a mummified body that you would want to that you would want to preserve for years to come?

Just an ordinary door.

Hmm.

I was going to say you can have doors to tombs as part of

churches.

I will say that no actual injury took place.

Uh, statue?

Not quite, but we're getting there now.

Taxidermy?

Is it Jeremy Bentham?

That's a taxidermied human.

It is, yeah.

He's in UCL too?

Oh, yeah.

Wait, have you seen Bentham's body then, Charlie?

Yes, it's on the main campus.

Yeah.

Well, most videos, I think his head's stored somewhere else.

It's a bit too gross.

But it's a wax head on Bentham there.

But the rest of his body is sat in that cabinet.

It's just in a corridor as well.

You can just walk in and look at it.

So it wasn't Jeremy Bentham.

Oh, he was probably not even born by then.

Could this be someone depicted on stained glass or something like this where they have to crop off part of the artwork to install the door?

We're getting there now, yes.

Okay.

Did the door get installed first, and then on the other side of the door, some windows needed going in, and for some reason, the

art needed to go through that door, and then it wouldn't fit because the room was small, so it needed to be chopped.

You know, when you're trying to get your bike gear furniture around the corner of the stairs, Pierre.

No stained glasses involved, just

this door.

The person was dead at this time, but this could still be a depiction of the person when they were alive.

And it could be some famous artwork that is now missing its feet because in the 17th century it wasn't considered sacrilegious to chop off a bit of an artwork because you need to put a new door in.

Tom's getting there.

You're getting there.

Okay.

So the question is, what's the church?

What's the the artwork?

Michelangelo's David?

Nope, could be the Sistine Chapel, though.

Could be Michelangelo's one of

it, could be Adam and the creation of Adam because the Sistine Chapel needs a new door.

Getting close, it's not the Sistine Chapel, and it's not Michelangelo, but we're in the right realm of things now.

My brain just said Botticelli, and part of me is thinking, is that an artist or an F1 driver, or both?

I'm thinking both.

It's a different ninja turtle, if that helps.

All I can think of is the bloody chick mumps now.

Alvin, Simon, Theodore,

the famous artists.

Raphael?

No.

Charlotte, help us out.

What are the other ninja turtles?

I'm so sorry.

I think I was for April O'Neill.

Oh, no.

April O'Neill.

Leonardo.

Leonardo da Vinci.

It's going to be Leonardo da Vinci.

Uh-huh.

Oh, the man.

The man.

The Vitruvian man.

The Vitruvian man.

Not that one.

The other man.

The man without his feet.

This took place in Milan.

The Milan man.

There is a very famous work by Leonardo that's on a wall.

People think it might be a painting.

It's a mural.

Just a sec.

I've been to the cathedral in Milan.

Is it that cathedral?

Basilica is what it says here.

Oh,

it's the painting with the

disciples and the.

Oh!

Where's the Last Supper?

Thank you!

There it is!

Are Jesus's feet not in the Last Supper because someone needed to install a door?

Correct.

Wow.

Correct.

It's like

any women posting photos of themselves on the internet these days because of Greeks, but with Jesus and in the 1600s.

If you take a look at the Last Supper,

Jesus's feet are not there and they would have been there, but the church wanted to put a door there instead.

And it's this giant mural, so

it easily fits there.

Is there just a little gap in the painting so then the door can fit in underneath it?

It's underneath the table.

I encourage you to take a look at it because it's something you just won't have spotted about the picture.

Fortunately, the Last Supper is definitely out of copyright these days, so in the video version, I think we can actually see it.

And now I'm looking at it.

Oh, yeah, that's a door.

That's a door.

There's no feet there.

You could see other decisions of it.

How have I never noticed the door at the bottom?

I mean, just like content aware films, it'll be fine.

So Leonardo da Vinci painted the Last Supper in the 1490s on a wall of the Basilica di Santa Maria delle Grazzi in Milan.

And then in 1652, they just put a door in the wall and they put it in this lower centre of the fresco so that Christ's feet are now no longer visible.

Which brings me to the question from the top of the show sent in by the very Finnish-sounding Leo Tanila.

In Finland, what food item is sometimes jokingly called moomin meat?

Does anyone want to take a quick guess at that before I tell the audience?

Tofu!

Oh.

Yeah, it'll be something white and squishy because moomins are white, so I'm assuming

something.

What are the Moomins?

For the audience that don't know?

They're white hippo-like creatures that live in a mysterious area in the north of Finland.

Yes, you did miss the word fictional there, but yes.

It's like the haggis in Scotland.

What?

They're fictional.

They sell cards, you know, like greeting cards.

Moomin.com.

Yes, there's a huge number of novels, comic books, TV adaptations.

They are white, soft, and round.

Mozzarella.

Yes!

Whoa!

Yes!

Why?

But they've got big round noses

and mozzarella balls are spherical and white and squishy.

Yep, Moomans are known for their white, soft and round physique, which can jokingly be compared to the texture of mozzarella cheese.

Congratulations to all our players for running the gauntlet.

What's going on in your lives?

Where can people find you?

We will start with Dan.

You can find me on Twitch at QuizzyDan and various social medias.

Just search for QuizzyDan.

That's where you'll find me.

And Matt.

Go to mattsg.co.uk to find links to all of my social media and my YouTube.

And Charlotte.

You can catch up on episodes of the Genius Game on ITBX.

And if you want to know more about this show, you can do that at lateralcast.com.

We are at lateralcast basically everywhere.

There are regular video highlights at youtube.com slash lateralcast.

And there are full video episodes on Spotify.

Thank you very much to Charlotte Young.

Thank you.

Matt Gray.

Also soft, round, and white.

Dan B.

Thank you.

I've been Tom Scott.

And that's been later all.