542: No Such Thing As Darts Vader

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Hi, everyone.

We've got a very special, very exciting guest on the show today.

Someone we've wanted to get on for a long time.

That's the brilliant comedian Paul Sinner.

He was absolutely hilarious on the show, as predicted.

He is, of course, a comedian, as well as being a champion, quizzing, and mastermind on such things as the chase.

And he's got a book out with possibly the best title for a book ever, One Sinner lifetime see what he's done there and that too is fantastic it's very very funny it's also very moving it's a memoir it's about his really truly fascinating and up and down life would highly highly recommend it that's one sinner lifetime look it up get it now hope you enjoy the show we had such a good time with him

Hello and welcome to another episode of No Such Things a Fish, a weekly podcast coming to you from the QI offices in Hoban.

My name is Alan Taszzynski and I'm sitting here with Andreon DeMurray, James Harkin and very special guest Paul Sinnar.

Hi Paul.

Hello, this is very exciting for me.

Finally made it through the door.

Well it's great to have you and we are here again with our four favourite facts from the last seven days and in no particular order.

Here we go starting with you Paul.

Well it's the Olympics at the moment and so this is tangentially connected to the Olympics.

I've always been fascinated by the Olympics and what it means to people but I'm perhaps more fascinated by people who've taken part in the Olympics and it's nowhere near the biggest thing that's happened to them in their lives.

So this is a man called Michel de Carvalho, and I can say with almost absolute certainty that you won't know that Michel de Carvalho was both a British Olympic skier and a British Olympic loser.

But several years after his sporting career came to an end, he got absolutely lucky by marrying the person who is now the Netherlands' richest, not woman, but person, the heir to the Heineken Empire, Charlene de Heineken.

He married her, so he's worth billions, which is good.

But that's not the greatest fact about Michel de Carvalho.

The greatest fact about Michel de Carvalho is he achieved a fame before he was an Olympian.

He is the only surviving cast member of Lawrence of Arabia.

As a kid, he was a child actor.

He appeared as Peter O'Toole's friend and child servant.

Farage, I think his name was.

Spelt differently.

And he's always sort of like sending other tribes people back to the traditional land where they came from.

Yeah, yeah, it's always a very uncomfortable.

He was in Lawrence of Arabia.

And he's not even that old now.

I think he's in his 70s to come.

You know, he's done Lawrence of Arabia Olympics, married the richest person in the Netherlands.

Strictly.

That's it.

That's the only thing left.

That's the only amount left to conquer.

But it's part of a fascination to have with people for whom...

Oh, yeah, they were in the Olympics as well.

By the way.

By the way, as a sort of side category of things they've done.

I wonder what she's most proud of.

I mean, I think in preparation for this, Andy, in fact, you may have browsed a bit of Lawrence of Arabia.

Yeah, Andy sends us a message at WhatsApp at 11pm saying, I'm just starting to watch Lawrence of Arabia.

And we know that 11pm is past his bedtime anyway.

Already I was pushing, you know, I shouldn't have had the Oval Team before I started watching.

Were you searching for female characters?

Not very long.

Right, so just before we start, yes, okay, I am currently halfway through Lawrence of Arabia.

If I'd been watching Rear Window, I would have finished it by now, but I wasn't.

I'm about two hours in, and I'm watching the proper version, which is three hours 47.

So please, can nobody spoil the end of the First World War for me?

I don't want to know how it ends.

Happily.

There's a bit of a spoiler at the beginning, though, isn't there?

The film begins, the opening scene is him getting on his motorbike and then dying.

Oh, no way!

He's like whip pan back to it.

Has anyone else seen Laurence Aradia?

No.

A long time ago.

Okay.

So when I was a kid, I was made to watch it and I've willfully forgotten it.

Do you remember this boy, Carvalho, this friend?

He's a big character, isn't he?

Oh, is he?

Yeah, yeah.

There are two sort of man-servants or sort of like the kind of teenagers, they're kids who are following him around and, you know, they love him and they want to be with him.

They follow him into the desert on their camels.

Oh my god, there are so many camels.

I'm sorry.

If you like camels.

I mean, it fails the Bechdel test, tragically, because the two female camels in it taught nothing under.

They've done nothing under their love lines.

There is not a single woman in it.

Like with a speaking roll, right?

Okay, so

there's a bit where they're setting off into the desert, all the men, and there are some women seen wailing from a distance, but they're seen at such a distance that

you can't tell.

You really can't tell.

They could be men with wigs.

They're shot in silhouette as well, and from behind.

I mean, yeah, those are the only female voices that have made their way into the film so far.

I quite like.

Because, as you've mentioned, you watched the proper one, and there are various versions.

And I think in the longest one, which was released in about the early 80s, I think, which was the original one that David Lean wanted to release, I think there are some women in the big massacre scene.

Apparently, there are some female corpses.

Maybe they'll do a remake, you know, like with Ghostbusters.

An all-female.

All-female Lawrence of Arabia.

I love it.

Laura of Arabia.

Well, that was one of the famous quotes about it.

Was after the premiere, I think it was Noel Coward.

He approached Peter O'Toole, who is unbelievably good-looking in the reliance.

He's really, he's just sort of beautiful.

And Noel Coward went up to him and said, If you've been any prettier, they'd have had to call it Florence of Arabia.

But it is very good, though.

It's very good.

It's a cinematic masterpiece, but it's not one you'd watch twice.

No.

It's one of those ones where you watch it and you're like, oh, that's where they got Dune from.

Oh, that's where Star Wars comes from.

Oh, Mad Max.

That's all.

It's all really.

Yeah, yeah, you can see it's sort of.

You're just saying that.

You've just named a bunch of films that are sort of set in the desert.

Are you just saying that?

Doesn't it?

Priscilla.

That's not my.

Priscilla.

Delwen Louise.

Yeah, okay.

Yeah.

One of the things Lawrence Arabia is responsible for is the King of Jordan.

This is nice.

Oh, yeah.

So I think current King of Jordan was conceived as a result of this film.

Did you find it had that effect on you, Andy?

No, I didn't.

That's a long time, isn't it?

Three and a half hours.

You get bored.

Oh, another camel.

There's genuinely one camel journey which takes 40 minutes.

Is there?

And it is with brief interruptions for conversation, but it is almost all camel.

I don't know what you're expecting from a film called Lawrence of Arabia.

No, you're right, you're right, you're right, you're right, right.

There's not enough car chasers.

Well, it starts with a very exciting motorbike scene.

Yeah, which is great.

It's just going to be chopper action.

No.

So King of Jordan's parents looked at it.

Speaking of humps, darling.

Brilliant.

And then...

It's King Hussein of Jordan, the previous one.

He had lent a load of his soldiers to the film.

So lots of the people you see as extras in the film, playing soldiers, are soldiers from the Jordanian army.

And he visited the set because he was very keen, he was an enthusiast, and he fell for a young woman, a British secretary, who was working on the film.

Obviously not in front of the camera.

She was called Antoinette, and they got married in 1962, the year the film came out, and their eldest son became the King of Jordan in 1999.

Abdullah.

Abdullah II.

Abdullah II.

So that's a happy, happy ending.

So the movie is based on a book, Seven Pillars of Wisdom, which is T.

E.

Lawrence is

biography.

Ultra biography, yeah.

Yeah, we should say he was a real guy.

Just in case any listeners don't know who T.E.

Lawrence was.

He was a British intelligence officer and he had been an archaeologist and a photographer in Arabia.

He loved the area so much.

And then during the war, he joined the army, became an an intelligence officer.

And his big thing was he was lobbying for Arabian independence, but it turned out the sort of British and French had already kind of carved up the area.

There was an agreement called the Sykes-Picot Agreement, and sort of dividing the Arabian world into spheres of influence.

So he felt very, very let down after the war because his Arabian cause had been betrayed and he felt like he'd let everyone down.

But he's a really, really interesting guy.

And what happened to that Sykes-Pico Agreement?

I believe it all ended up well in the end.

Have you seen Lawrence of Arabia 2?

Is there one?

There is one.

Oh, well.

Genuinely.

There's a sequel film.

This ghost emerges from the motorcycle.

It's called A Dangerous Man.

Lawrence After Arabia.

Okay.

Strange video.

Oh, yeah.

Early 90s.

It's him in Paris.

It's Lawrence in Paris, basically.

Guess who plays?

There's just a casting guess.

Lawrence in the 90s version of Lawrence of Arabia.

Paul Nicholas.

You don't know who that is.

Was he in East Anders?

Yeah, yeah.

Paul Nichols.

He was my friend.

Oh, Paul Nicholas.

I'm just good friends.

Oh, Prince Nicholas.

Not Paul Nichols.

Although they're both in East Enders.

Actually, it was Ross Kemp, but you're very close.

No, no, no, Paul Nicholson.

It's perfect casting for, if you're trying to cast piercing blue eyes, golden, shimmering hair.

Pat Sharp.

Jude Law.

Oh, close.

Ray Fiennes.

Oh, Ray Finn.

Oh,

like very young, very handsome.

Ray Fiennes being

the real Lons of Arabia looked nothing like that.

It was foot five, very unprepossessing looking.

Was he really?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Just on the film Lawrence of Arabia, which I think was much more fun to be involved in than the

actual being Lawrence of Arabia.

They had a whale of a time.

Peter O'Toole and Omar Sharif had so much fun together and ended up great friends.

And Peter O'Toole, who claims he slept with 1,033 women in his life, true to form on that film, him and Omar Sharif had women flown out for them.

Yeah, there were none present

at the time.

They must have been so gutted when they took the first look at the cast.

You are kidding me.

Oh no, these are all camels.

Sorry, they're all called flossy, but they are all camels.

No, they did.

They had a great time.

And Omar Sharif sounds like such a fun character.

He was from Egypt and he was sent to a British school there because he was fat and the British food was so bad, his parents thought

this will get him thin.

Best schools in the world.

They'll small him out.

His grandson said he had two areas of expertise: bridge and sex.

And he actually taught his grandson about the birds and the bees.

And he said, making love is like playing bridge.

You either need an incredible partner or a really good hand.

Oh, lovely strong.

And you will need four people.

When I was a kid, I think you did the bridge column in the Sunday Times magazine.

Really?

Oh, he's no way.

When they say he played Bridge, he played Bridge.

I mean, he's one of the best players in the world.

No way.

Oh, no.

That's a proper polymath.

Olympians?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Unusual weird Olympians?

Yeah, go for for it.

Bob Anderson?

Bob Anderson?

The darts player.

No.

This is a problem.

You know so many people, Paul.

I know, it's just two names.

What's interesting is Bob Anderson, the world darts champion of the late 80s or early 90s.

He was a junior javelin thrower.

So I thought maybe I missed the fact that he'd gone to the Olympics.

Actually, I know where you're going with this, Andy, because I found this as well.

We're looking for someone who used an item which is longer than a dart and shorter than a javelin.

Yes.

A knife and fork.

He did eating at the Olympics.

But But the same shape as both.

Yes.

God, that's a very good clue.

Yeah, yeah.

I'm just...

My mind is blown from the fact there's a Bob Anderson who did darts and javelin.

What the hell?

And then there's someone in the middle who did something in between.

So this Bob Anderson, who's not a dart or a javelin player, he was an Olympic fencer?

Bingo.

Yeah.

And he was also in a movie doing what?

For lightsabers.

Bingo.

You played Darth Vader.

Oh, wow.

Oh!

He's the third man who played Darth Vader.

He's a fame.

Wow.

He did all the fight scenes with the lightsaber, as in the the big costume.

I think I would like to see Darth Vader throwing darts, actually.

Darts Vader.

And there's his nickname for the yockey.

Brilliant.

How did I not get that?

And did they hire him solely on his fencing skills?

Because I suppose Darth Vader, he doesn't have a face, does he?

So his face is covered.

So you don't need to build him axe.

Well, he was a major Hollywood sword-fighting choreographer.

I see.

So he did loads and loads.

He would choreograph fights, and sometimes he did the fights himself if it was a costume thing.

And it was because he'd been a fencer in his.

He worked on The musketeers, a princess bride, the mask of Zorro, Lord of the Rings, and Die Another Day.

Which were all inspired by Lawrence of Arabia, weren't they?

Odd Job and Goldfinger.

Yeah, I know about that one.

Was Olympian.

Yeah,

48.

Another famous darts thrower, right?

Hold on, was it him who threw darts?

48 was like, he throws his dots.

He throws his hat.

So discus.

That's not exactly how you throw a discus, how he throws his hat.

He sort of curls it.

He throws it frisbee style.

Yeah, yeah.

Oh,

discus is the other way around.

Yeah, Yeah, yeah.

He was a weightlifter, wasn't he?

Yeah, that's.

Silver medalist, actually.

Silver medalist, 48.

I always like how.

Who's the guy in the Goonies?

The.

Hey, you guys.

That guy.

He was an American football player and won two Super Bowls.

Oh, wow.

The guy who plays...

Is it Chunk?

I have not seen him.

Have you not seen the?

Oh, no.

Okay, if you want to see classics.

The Goonies.

Alan Turing.

Almost an Olympian.

Turing.

Very close.

Chess?

Chess?

Yeah, no, actually.

He was a pretty fast runner.

He came fifth in the Amateur Athletics Association Marathon in 1948, almost qualifying him for the Olympics.

And he actually did beat in a running race the silver medalist that year.

Wow.

What year?

48.

What after that?

48.

48 is a big year.

It was Andre Agassi's dad boxed for Iran

in 1948.

What?

Andre Agassi's dad represented Iran at boxing in 1944.

I remember, Paul, you posted on social media once about Andre Agassi and Ginger Rogers.

What's that for?

Ginger Rogers played in the US Open tennis mix doubles.

Did she look backwards and then high heels?

It's really bizarre.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, she wasn't that good a tennis player.

She just happened to take part one year.

And her partner was Brooke Shields' grandfather.

Something very odd, yeah.

Who was married to

Andre Agassi?

Something really, really odd.

So weird.

So, sorry, 1948 had Oddjob.

Andre Agassiz's dad.

Was Oddjob 48?

48.

Oddjob was 48.

Andre Agassi's dad was 48.

Yaroslav Drobny, who won Wimbledon for Egypt, where men's singles for Egypt in the 50s, played ice hockey for Czechoslovakia in 1948.

We are getting more obscure now, aren't we?

And almost Alan Schuring.

Almost Alan Schuring.

And then I've managed to find somebody who was in the Olympics in 1948, and it's not even mentioned on his Wikipedia page.

A guy called Andrei Vortekin, who is an engineer who designed the atomium in Brussels.

No.

The man who designed the atomium in Brussels played field hockey for Belgium in the 1948 Olympics.

And the first ever international no-such thing as a fish gig was

the atomium in Brussels.

We've brought it home.

And we think it's based on an atom, but it's actually just six hockey balls,

apparently.

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Okay, it is time for fact number two, and that is my fact.

My fact this week is that Samuel L.

Jackson once locked Martin Luther King's dad in an upstairs room, then gave him a ladder to escape out of the window.

We're back to connections.

Yes.

Oh, yeah.

So this is at Morehouse College, which is a black American college, and there was a student protest there.

And Samuel L.

Jackson, he's a very active student, and he's protesting at the idea that it's this black college, but they're being sort of groomed to be very successful in a very mainstream kind of white society way.

So it's extremely high-achieving Morehouse College.

It's, you know, it's turned out extraordinary people.

And I think their demands were things like, look, we want a black studies program, we want a black board of trustees, involvement of black communities.

So a black board of trustees, not a black board of trustees.

It is an educational establishment.

That's where the confusion arose.

And so they bought loads of blackboards.

And then, yes, a black space board of trustees.

And anyway, they decided the best way to achieve this is to kidnap the members of the board.

And one of them was Martin Luther King's dad.

And so they kidnapped them and they locked them upstairs.

I think it was two stories up.

And they bought padlocks and they took chains from Keep Off the Grass signs on campus to sort of padlock them in.

And then Martin Luther King's dad, Martin Luther King Sr., started getting chest pains.

And quite heartlessly, in the interview I read with Samuel L.

Jackson, he was like, well, look, we didn't want to unlock any of the doors because the protests had to go on.

So instead, they got the ladder that the neighbouring girls' school had used to climb up to that window as part of the process, put it up to the window, said to him, slide down that, take yourself to the doctor.

And so he did.

And they were connected, Samuel L.

Jackson and the King family, weren't they?

Yeah, they were.

I know he was at the funeral.

He was at the funeral.

He was a pallbearer, Samuel L.

Jackson, at Martin Luther King's funeral.

And he'd been, because he'd been involved in student protest and student politics and black activism and all that kind of stuff.

And the funeral happened at this college.

He was very politically active, Samuel L.

Jackson, for a while.

He was actually made to leave Atlanta because the FBI were after him.

Really?

This amazing story where the FBI came and knocked on his mum's door and they said, get your son out of Atlanta or someone's going to kill him.

And he went to LA and that was sort of where he picked up some show business.

That's amazing.

All I know about him is he likes playing golf.

Does he?

Yeah.

Yes, he does.

Have you got a list?

I mean, I know one very important fact about him.

Go on.

Which is that when I was on a final chase once, I was asked what is Samuel L.

Jackson's middle name?

And I went, Leroy.

And Bradley said, Correct.

And I've never felt more ashamed of getting a question right in a final chase.

I felt I'd been rewarded for racially stereotyping

in a way that didn't justify reward.

He had a stutter as a child as well.

Yeah.

He said that the one word that he says to get him out of a stutter is.

Oh, I know what this is.

Snakes?

Snakes?

Is that what you associate Samuel L.

Jackson with?

What's the word you associate with snakes?

Snakes on a plane.

Okay, what's the other one?

I'm going to get these snakes off this plane.

Oh, I see.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

These days he doesn't stutter as much, but if he ever does start stuttering, all he has to do is say that word and it will get him out of it.

Okay, I read this on his IMDb, is that he has his own wig consultant.

Oh, yeah.

I did a little bit of digging.

I don't think it's his own wig consultant because I don't think he's on an exclusive contract with Samuel L.

Jackson.

Okay.

He does wigs for loads of people doesn't he?

He had does wigs for loads of people.

He has had lots and lots of ones green hair do's.

If you say my agent, they might be agents for other people as well, but they're still your agent.

That's true.

Yes, but if I said I have a plumber, it'd be weird.

Wait, what do you mean?

The same thing applies, Andy.

Your own plumber is not exclusive to you, is it?

You say my plumber came around.

Yeah, but it would be weird if someone wrote a fact sheet about me saying he has his own plumber.

Elton John is probably the only person I can imagine who has his own plumber.

Not even the king.

Elton John.

Anyway, so I looked up this guy, this hair consultant and stylist, and he's worked for loads of famous people.

Anyway, his name is Robert L.

Stevenson.

Guess what the L stands for?

It's Louis.

He's named.

Robert Louis Stevenson.

That's brilliant.

Yes, he is named after the Treasure Island author.

Is he really?

Yeah.

Well, you must be.

Like, there's no way you would accidentally come up with that name.

He was only the third male hairstylist in the Hollywood Union.

Really?

Yeah.

I see.

So, just stick that in your pipe and spike it.

Yeah.

I could have sworn he was the first

thing you know a subject.

It's amazing what you learn on this show, isn't it?

On a more serious note, I didn't realise until I was reading about him that his life was in ruins, wasn't it?

I did cocaine and heroin.

It made me think that perhaps this is what we need to be doing for all drug addicts.

Make them into Hollywood stars.

Make them into film stars, wasn't it?

Are you saying you should go down to the job centre?

Or at the job centre when people come to you, they say, I'm in a real difficult place, addicted to drug, I'm unemployed.

The advice should be: have you considered becoming a film star?

What jobs have you got?

Well, we've got a role playing Prince Faisal.

No, I'll play Lawrence.

Thank you.

And the other thing is, he wasn't considered an especially good actor until he got into films.

His career wasn't really going anywhere in particular.

Who?

SLJ?

SLJ.

From SLJ to MLK?

Yeah.

Ah, good segue.

Nice.

Love it.

He tried to get sent to school a year early and was foiled by the teacher when he accidentally mentioned that it was his fifth birthday was coming up.

Wasn't he responsible for registering himself at school?

Was it like those First World War things where you say I'm 14 and they say, oh, walk around the block and tell me you're 18 when you come back?

What's nice about that is if he was, then he's proved that he's precocious enough to do it in the first form.

Exactly.

They put him straight into sixth form.

It was him and his dad, senior, in fact, sort of plotted together to get him let in because he was keen to go to school.

Was he keen to start school or was his dad keen to get him out of the house?

Because I couldn't think of any reason I would send my daughter to school early and that would be it.

He kept telling his dad about his dreams.

It was so annoying.

Other people's dreams.

Boring.

He said his main weaknesses were food and women.

So there's.

50% there.

Wow.

Which pissed off his dad, actually.

He said this as a grown man, not as a five-year-old.

Because if a five-year-old boy said that to me, you'd call the social, wouldn't you?

He was precocious.

No,

he had a lot of affairs, didn't he?

He did.

And he loved to dance.

Food, women, dancing.

Loved to dance the jitterbug, which I think we might have talked about.

The fact was very controversial.

And his dad once, cringe, turned up when he was dancing the jitterbug in front of a bunch of women, seized him and dragged him off the dance floor.

This is another really bizarre connection.

Much like the King of Jordan being due to Laurence of Arabia.

Yep.

Martin Luther King is responsible for Julia Roberts existing.

Is that true?

It is.

So someone had sex while he was doing this speech?

He, no.

He.

I had a dream.

Richard Gere came along.

He paid for the hospital bill when she was born.

Oh, no,

no.

He's not responsible for her being born, but her parents are.

But he paid it because her parents had an acting school in Atlanta and they had been very welcoming to King's own children.

So the families knew each other.

And so when Julia Roberts was born, Martin Luther King stumped up for the bills.

See, he's contributed so much.

Yeah, yeah.

The non-violence sort of element of King's philosophy was really interesting.

The Montgomery bus boycott was a really famous one of his campaigns, and it wasn't initially planned as a Gandhi-style campaign of non-violence, but after Rosa Parks,

after she was arrested on the bus, the campaign was kind of adjusted.

And he hadn't originally known much about Gandhi or Gandhi's campaigns, which were famously non-violent.

He had lots of guns, for example.

He once applied for a permit to carry a concealed weapon because he was very worried about his safety, correctly, no doubt.

But once in 1962, at one of his events, one of his rallies,

a 200-pound white Nazi party member called Roy James jumped on stage and hit him in the face, at which point he lowered his hands and kept talking and spoke calmly and didn't try to protect himself, even when he was hit again.

It's just quite striking reading about the

extent of his commitment to non-violence and showing non-violence in front of a a large audience.

I mean, I'm not going to defend this man, but £200 is not that big.

No, you're right, it's not actually.

I don't know.

I mentioned it.

I apologise.

I fat-shamed a Nazi and I shouldn't have done.

Yeah, yeah, no, fair enough.

Wow.

Why have I come out as the bad guy this time?

As someone who's been £200, I take a massive offense here.

You know what?

I actually, I don't know what £200 is in old money.

£14 stone £4.

Oh, that's nothing.

Okay, sorry.

£200 is old money.

It's just lower denominations, isn't it?

Okay.

Okay.

It's just going to buy it by 14.

Sorry, I wouldn't have bothered saying a 14 stone.

Not to find a government because that's totally ordinary.

In fact, Mike Lith King may have been bigger, we don't know.

It's a good point.

Okay.

Personally, I still think it's impressive.

But I take your point, everybody.

Thank you.

The way my brain works as well, I can't get rid of the fact that the march depicted in the film Selma, the march from Selma to Montgomery, is the most famous march that was from one Simpsons character to another Simpsons character.

Such a good point.

That's what it was really about.

That's very funny.

I just have a thing on random celebrity connections that

actually

feels so trivially.

I wonder if Paul knows about it.

Do you know what the Erdos Bacon number is?

Oh yeah.

Paul Erdos, the mathematician and Kevin Bacon.

Yeah, this is so cool.

Star of Foot Loose and the possible reason I'm gay.

Interesting.

Having watched Foot Loose at a very tender moment in my life.

Yeah,

it's a combination, isn't it?

And someone really famous has got an Erdos-Bacon number of two or three.

Is it Natalie Portman?

That's so good.

It's not two or three would be a lot, but Natalie Portman, yes.

Isn't it that you add them together?

Yeah.

Yeah, so it's like if you've been in the paper with Paul Erdos or someone who's been in the paper with him or if you've been in a film with Kevin Bacon or someone who's been in the film with Kevin Bacon.

Exactly.

So how many connections do you make between Paul Erdosh and Kevin Bacon?

And as you say, Natalie Portman has an Erdos-Bacon number of, I think it's seven, but it's still good because

she's the only celebrity I could find who was a genuine academic, and that's her connection, because she actually wrote a paper when she was in school.

There is another one as well, it's much more obscure.

She played Winnie in the Wonder Years.

I'm pretty sure that the actress who played Winnie in The Wonder Years has an Erdos number of some description.

Is she the one with dark hair in the Wonder Years?

I think so, yeah.

She's the reason that I'm straight.

Because that was on when I was like five years old or something.

And is she an academic or was she like, was there a consultant on the film or something?

She's definitely done a maths paper either with him or one connection to him.

Cool, because I thought the most furious one was Colin Firth, who has an Erdogan number of six, because he's credited as co-author of a neuroscience paper after he suggested on Radio 4 that a study could be done about it.

So he mentioned Radio 4, hey, someone should look into this.

The title is, Political Orientations Are Correlated with Brain Structure in Young Adults.

So I haven't actually heard the book radio for, but I'm guessing he says, Oh, I wonder if people with different political views' brains look different.

Shall we talk about mine?

They included him.

And they accredited him as co-author, yeah.

That's fair enough.

You came up with the thing.

Yeah, yeah.

Oh, okay.

Okay.

Credit's a credit.

You're right.

One of Martin Luther King's long-term lovers was Dot Cotton.

What?

Excuse me?

Her name was Dot Cotton.

Her name was Dorothy Cotton.

It wasn't Dot Cotton from East End.

I think of her as the sort of reason that you're straight, Andy, someone like her.

Okay, it's time for fact number three, and that is Andy.

My fact is that top football teams sometimes travel with their own grass.

And you're referring to the drug?

Surface.

Oh, I was thinking of people who tell tales.

Oh, yeah.

Their own copper's narc.

I would say John Terry was probably one.

Oh, yeah.

Do you reckon?

Yeah, the feel of a cop as an arc about it.

He's probably a long-term undercover cop.

Trying to expose, I don't know, socialism.

No, they take great.

This is so weird.

Okay, so this happened just now.

We've had a tournament, right?

It was, what was it, the Euros?

We don't like to talk about it, but yeah, it was the Euros.

But you did all right, didn't you?

Yeah.

You're being Scottish now.

I think I am.

Oh, well, you don't want to be Scottish in the Euros.

This was an initiative by the FA.

So they had a pitch in Blankenheim, which is is where their training camp was, and that was seeded in April, some months ago, with turf that was used in London.

And I guess it was London seed as well, Wembley seed.

It was a full-size pitch, fertilised level, given a haircut.

So they were training on...

Isn't that strange?

Why wouldn't you train on what you're actually going to play on?

Well, exactly.

I think it's pathetic, to be honest.

I think if you can't play on a range of turf, this was the point of like,

what is the point of this?

How they've not got you as a sports pundit

606 special with Andrew Hunter Murray.

That was quite Roy Keene, though, wasn't it?

That's pathetic.

But it worked.

Regardless of the logic, it worked.

That's a good point.

Because they did very well.

A huge waste.

Well, I mean, I'm sure that grass is now being enjoyed at this hotel or golf resort or whatever it was.

What was there before?

Probably some different grass.

Yeah, exactly.

Oh, yeah, sorry.

I'm not sure people are enjoying anybody.

They shipped that grass over to Wembley Stadium.

It's now only good for golfing, actually, because it was a golf hotel job.

The different grass makes a big difference in golf, I have to say.

If you go to play golf in Florida and they have what's called Bermuda Grass, and then you play in Scotland, it's a very different feel.

And you're normally in the rough, aren't you though, James?

If you're not in the bunker, you're in the sort of long grassy bits at the edge, backing away.

Don't try and do golf banter with me, young man.

Sorry.

But it's much sort of more tangly and it's got more of a grain to it.

So if you try and hit against the grain in Bermuda Grass, then it's actually quite difficult to get the club through the ball.

Whereas if you play in fescue in Scotland, it's really easy.

It's very short.

It's not stopping the Americans from winning in Scotland, is it?

No.

Gentlemen, last open.

Sorry, aren't you hitting off the T anyway?

Aren't you?

You hit your first shot off the T, but then future shots, you don't hit off a T.

Do you not?

I thought you were allowed to pop a T in the ground.

Oh my God.

How many times have I spoken about golf on this podcast?

My filters are incredible by now.

I just.

The shutter's come down.

You've learned nothing.

Oh, dear.

Do you want to know know something ironic about pitches?

Oh, yeah.

Football pitches.

An uneven pitch creates a level playing field.

Oh, very good.

Why?

Maybe the best footballer's good at playing on level playing fields, basically.

Very even pitches.

Exactly.

It's a classic sort of FA Cup thing, isn't it?

You get a lower division team with a terrible pitch, and then the big shot Charlie's have to go and play on it and they can't cope.

Yeah, because you've got to do, you know, you rely on extremely fast, precise passing, so they're flatter and more even the pitch.

You've not watched England recently.

No, no, even I got that.

But yeah, as soon as you're on a less even pitch, then it sort of equalises people because it's a little bit bumpy, it's a little bit harder to get those very fast passes in.

I didn't know that.

And it is a hugely refined art, isn't it?

The pitch and grass maintenance in football.

I think there was a manager, Laurent Blanc, who was managing Paris Saint-Germain in 2013.

All his players were getting injured, they were doing badly, and they hired a groundsman called Jonathan Calderwood.

Laurent Blanc credited Calderwood with 16 of that club's points by the end of the season when they won the next season.

And he was from Paris-Saint-Jamain?

Yes.

How many points did he attribute to the massive amount of money they got from Qatar?

It didn't either, actually.

But no, it is a hugely advanced science.

And it is actually one of the things where Britain is world leading, is the field of groundskeeping and turf consultancy.

Jesus Christ.

Why isn't he starting mentioning this in his speeches?

It's changed Wimbledon though, hasn't it?

The tennis.

Yeah.

The tennis as a tournament has been transformed by the fact that the grass is not as fast as it once was.

Absolutely, yeah.

When we were all growing up, you'd have huge six foot six, six foot seven serve volleyers who'd smash the ball, come to the net, volley it.

No one volleys anymore because the balls slow down in the grass and people just hit the ball straight back at them.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And pass them.

And it's like a better game, right?

Would you say objectively it's kind of more interesting?

I think it's gone too far the other way.

And if there's a serve and volley, I'd like to see them do well just because it's now a refreshing change.

Yeah.

And do you know that also they think it's like a groupthink thing because everyone assumed that serve and volley wouldn't work as well on this bouncy, slower grass.

But actually, I think if you do choose a serve and volley, I think you're still proportionally winning the same number of points as you were before.

So they should go back to it.

Should they?

And one does miss the serve and volley.

A women's game has almost disappeared.

Yeah, yeah.

Serve and and volley, you know, the Navretinovas and the various East European Czechs

of the 80s and 90s, all serve and volleyed, they've all gone.

They've been lost in the long grass.

Very strong.

You know, they vacuum it, Wimbledon.

They vacuum the grass every day.

They've got a turf consultant, they've got a, where they measure the chlorophyll index of the...

Yeah, they do.

This is all part of the British groundskeeping revolution.

And British groundskeepers go all over the world.

That's the thing, it's like, okay, if you win the Euros, if you're Spain, fine, you've won the Euros great, but no one can play without a pitch right and if we as Britain are making the best pitches who is the most important team in that tournament exactly exactly and there should be there should be points we should probably start two goals ahead every day just because of our contribution right but the sad thing about Wimbledon Grass is that when you're watching it it is in the process of dying In fact one of the Wimbledon Groundskeepers said you're walking the line between life and death when you maintain that grass.

All right, okay.

You're the one who's elevated them to sort of global renown status.

Let me give you a test on football, Andy.

Yeah.

Stamford Bridge, Goodison Park, St.

James's Park, Emirates Stadium, Anfield, All Trafford, Wembley.

What is the surface they play football on in those places?

Grass.

It is not grass.

Oh, come on.

They play on something called Desso Grassmaster.

Wasn't he one of the pioneers of hip-hop?

Grassmaster Desso, yeah.

So it's 95% grass, but 5% uniquely engineered soft polyethylene yarn.

What?

It's mostly grass.

Yeah, but I didn't say that, to be fair.

I accept the grass.

It's my fault.

You wouldn't accept that on one of your quizzes, Paul.

Well, they wouldn't accept that on the final chase where

even the slightest error is punished.

You're right.

But they're technically hybrid pitches.

Because you've got tiny bits of plastic in it and it just helps the grass stay alive and also makes it more bouncy and it's always perfect.

Leicester City Football Club.

They're very good, aren't they?

Are they still very good?

Not as good as they once were.

No, not as good as they literally once were.

Oh, right, because they were okay.

But they got promoted.

Did they get promoted last season?

I think they were good, didn't they?

They're back in the Premier League.

Well, in sports turf science

fields.

The most important fields.

They're out in front.

Are you Micah Richards?

I don't want.

Who's that?

He's a Pundit Supreme.

Yeah, former footballer, now Pundit.

Oh, great.

He's always on the shopping.

You sound exactly like him.

Really?

Okay.

So Leicester City, so they do a lot of the science behind it.

And they were doing a study in 2021 for the European Space Agency

about turning their grass clippings into...

Because if you pile up the clippings, it creates a lot of methane gas because of anaerobic digestion.

Well, now you are sounding like Nico Richards.

Yeah, you're like for like.

I don't know what's happening.

But then that gas, you could turn it into a liquid and then refine that into fuel.

They also know they have 89 newts and they have to count them.

What?

Because they have to protect their newts because there are all these rules about, you know, habitat and biodiversity and all this.

Yeah.

And if you've got 89 newts.

89.

I could have sworn it was a 99 newt game.

Oh my god.

That just happened.

That's the joke of the podcast.

Like we've done 500 episodes.

That's it.

That's the joke.

Let's end.

Let's end that.

Come on, you said it out with 89.

You must have done.

Have you heard of Heine Alemannia?

Wish I had.

He invented the ironically named Fair Play Spray.

So

Fair Play Spray.

Do you know what Fair Play Spray is, Andy?

Can you guess?

You spray it in the other players' eyes.

They can't see you.

He's got a goal.

Is that it?

No, Paul, do you know what Fair Play Spray is?

No, I haven't.

Think of what sprays you use in football at every game.

Deodruin?

But the line at the right foot is down there.

Yeah, yeah.

So the line, basically, when you take a free kick, the opposition have to be 10 yards away, and they usually make a little wall to stop you from getting it in the goal.

I've seen that.

To make them stand there, you'll put a little line of what looks like shaving foam.

on the ground and this was invented by a guy called Heine Alemanye in 2000 and the reason it's ironically called fair play spray is that FIFA refused to give him any money for it.

They said, Oh, basically, you know, someone else also came up with an idea around the same time, and we're just gonna do it anyway, and there's nothing you can do.

And he went to Brazilian court, who found in his favor in 2018, and ordered FIFA to pay £10,000 for every game they ignored their order.

And since then, they probably owe him about 200 million quid.

Are they paying it?

Well, the ruling was upheld in 2021.

FIFA said that they are not bound by Brazilian law.

And as time of recording, I couldn't find out what had happened with it.

Wow.

But I know that he does sell them now, but he doesn't get paid every time they use them, I don't think.

I trust FIFA as an honest and principled institution who will reimburse this guy.

He called it Spoomy.

the stuff.

FIFA calls it Fair Play Spray.

So Spoomy.

Can you think of a good nickname for a groundskeeper?

Willie.

Yeah.

By Betsy Simpsons.

So this is the sort of uber willy of.

You might have heard of him drames because he's called George Tomer.

No, I don't.

And it's American football.

I'm into American football, but not so much that I know the names of all the groundspeople.

Then are you really into it at all?

He did the pitch for every single Super Bowl until the 57th one.

Oh, he wasn't.

He spent 82 years of his life being a groundskeeper.

He probably did other things.

No.

I don't think he did.

He started very, very young and he retired last year at age 94.

How interesting because they move the Super Bowl to different places every year, don't they?

So, yeah, that must be interesting that he is.

Yeah, yeah.

Was it good, or was it a bit like you know, when you talk to younger doctors and they say the older ones are sort of sticking with the old ways, don't work as well, they're losing it a bit.

It'd be a bit of a twist if he was absolutely shit, wouldn't he?

He mowed it to nothing.

He only mowed half the pitch one year, year.

It's a nightmare.

More hills everywhere.

Oh, that's so funny.

And he said when he retired, When I'm in heaven, I'll be looking at your beautiful field, or I'll be in hell looking at what kind of root system you have.

What a grand quirk.

That's great.

And his nickname is The Sod Father.

Oh, the Sod Father.

Do you know what's better about grass compared to trees?

If you're lovers,

it's hard to have sex while lying on a tree.

You lack ambition.

What's plenty of...

There are an infinite number of correct answers.

I wish I hadn't gone here.

I'm looking for a much more innocent for lovers of innocent variety.

Bark stains don't show up on your chinos as much.

Jesus Christ.

One might a pair of 15-year-olds who are not acquainted with the birds and the bees do around a tree.

Write their initials in it.

Initials.

Oh, sorry.

You can't write your initials in a a blade of grass.

But if you did, it would grow with the blade.

You know, there's always that thing which is like, if you write your initials in a tree, will they grow with the tree?

And your parents always explain.

No, they won't, yeah, because the tree grows from the top.

But grass grows from the bottom.

So if you write your initials on a blade of grass and then come back 50 years later.

Now, what's that blade of grass that we wrote our initials on?

The amount of filth that groundskeepers seen over 50 over 57 years, you should write a book.

We are going where?

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All right, time to fact number four, and that is James.

Okay, my fact this week is that the hiring of the first ever African-American White House secretary was announced on an episode of a quiz show.

Unorthodox.

Was it an unguessable answer, if that was the question?

They didn't get it right.

Okay.

They didn't get it right.

This was in a show called What's My Line, which people who are old enough would remember.

It was like a very posh old American game show.

Everyone would be in dinner jackets and the ladies would be in gowns with gloves and stuff.

And the host would bring in a guest and you would have to guess what their job was, basically, or what they were famous for, something like that.

And if they were really famous, you would have to wear a blindfold.

But if they weren't really famous, you wouldn't have to wear a blindfold because you wouldn't get any visual clues.

LBJ became president and he decided that they were, you know, times were changing and they were going to get rid of segregation.

And he thought, well, the best ways to do that is to start in the White House.

And so he hired this person called Geraldine Whittington.

And rather than doing a big announcement, he thought, if I announce it on national television, maybe that'll be, you know, make a bit of a splash.

So Geraldine came onto What's My Line, and they had to these B-list celebrities had to guess what her job was and they couldn't because no one would ever guess that a black woman would be working in the White House.

That's great.

That's very clever.

I don't think there's such a thing as a B-list celebrity on American television in the 1950s and 60s.

By dint of you being on television,

you're actually huge.

That's true.

I suppose, yeah.

They were interestingly eminent, those guessers.

I think the guess has changed a bit over the years.

But so the panel included people like Bennett Cerf, who won the case against the censorship of Ulysses in 1943,

the former governor of New Jersey, Dorothy Kig Allen, a newspaper columnist who wrote about links between organised crime and US intelligence.

What will these people think when they see one at British, an equivalent of British game show?

Well, that's Keith Lemmon.

He was the first person to report on the Challenger disaster in 1986.

Seems such a contrast.

It is stunning.

It's stunning.

Yeah, very eminent people.

The

celebrity guests, they got huge, weren't they?

Yeah.

They had Walt Disney, Salvador Dali, Marlon Brando, Jimmy Stewart, Gratri Marks, Errol Flynn.

So are these celebrity guesses or somebody guessed?

Celebrity, what's my line?

When the guesses are blindfolded.

Obviously, you would know immediately Dali as soon as you've seen him, so they were blindfolds for him.

So the guesses are blindfolds, and you're allowed to ask, do you work in the Rs?

And he says yes.

And it's yes and no answers.

Dali would be a nightmare, sure.

He was a complete nightmare.

Because everything they asked him, he said, yes.

It's like,

so I wrote down the questions.

Are you associated with the art?

Yes.

Would you have been seen on television?

Yes.

Are you a performer?

Yes.

Are you a leading man?

Yes.

And then the host goes, because I've seen the video of it.

The host goes, okay, I just have to say that

even though he might be seen as a leading man in some parts of his life, it would be misleading for you to think he was a leading man in the normal definition of the phrase.

And then they move on.

It's so funny.

So he wasn't in Gone with the Wind, but he was the leading man of the surrealist art.

Yes, exactly.

Because it's really funny.

He says, They go, Are you a leading man?

He goes, Yes.

The host sort of looks at him and goes, What the fuck are you doing?

And then the two of them have this little conflap where Dali obviously is like explaining why he's such a leading man.

And the host is just going, Yeah, yeah, but that's not what they do.

That's unbelievable.

It's really good.

It shouldn't get Dali on.

If you wanted to go in a straightforward way, don't get Dali on.

Are you an orange?

Yes.

Why have you melted our clock?

Just one more thing on what's my line.

Did you guys hear about the sister show, I've Got a Secret?

No.

I'm aware of its existence.

It's a really fun, it's a tweak on the format, basically.

Someone comes on, they've got a secret, the panel has to guess what the secret is.

So here are some of the secrets.

These are so good.

I discovered the planet Pluto.

Oh, right.

Again, it's very evident.

Was that Claude Tombeau?

Yeah.

Okay.

He was telling the truth then.

You would have ruined this show.

It would have been one minute minute long.

Let's see if you can get this one then, Paul.

My wife's going to have a baby.

That was...

What?

That was Tony Curtis about his wife Janet Lee.

And that was

Jamie Lee Curtis.

Oh, so this was a way of celebrities to announce things.

Like, I've got a new movie coming out.

Best one.

I've got a book coming out, Paul, for instance.

The best one ever on this show was I am the last witness surviving of Abraham Lincoln's assassination.

Oh.

It was called Joe Biden.

It was a guy called Samuel Seymour.

And this was 1956.

Seymour?

He did Seymour indeed.

Very good.

This was 1956, this Ed.

He saw it aged five, and he appeared on the show aged 95.

Although there was some scepticism because he only told anyone about this when he was 94.

It slipped his mind.

It just never came up.

That's so funny.

Wow.

There we go.

Sounds like a great show.

The British show was quite tragic.

What the What's My Line?

Yeah, because you you talk about B-list celebrities, and of course they weren't B-lists because they were absolutely alist on account of being on television at a time when everybody was watching the same thing.

So these people were launched into fame, and there was a guy called Gilbert Harding, who became known as the rudest man in Britain because of how grumpy he was on the show.

He just carried it as an albatross around his neck that he was hated by the British public.

And there's a woman called Lady Isabel Barnett, another one of the regulars on the show, and she

committed suicide two days after a shoplifting scandal

because she couldn't live with the disgrace of Lady Isabel Barnett from what's my line being being turned out that she's been shoplifting for years and it's the danger of imposing that much fame on people that weren't ready for it it was a very real keynote way that TV worked in the 50s and 60s.

Yeah.

And I'm glad that we only get two and a half million viewers anymore.

I got appearing on a quiz show has changed, eh?

Is it a quiz show or is it a game show?

What's my line?

Oh my god, Andy, you are opening up a can of worms here.

Sean, it's incredibly straightforward, isn't it?

If you're asked quiz questions, it requires some knowledge.

It's not a quiz question to be asked, what's my line?

It's like, what's the capital of Armenia?

It's a hybrid, you have to be knowledgeable to solve the puzzles that you're set.

Yeah.

It's a wisdom show.

Like, quiz shows, what's the capital of Armenia?

Paul?

Yerevan.

Yerevan.

I'll change it up there, I'm sorry.

I forgot I wasn't called bowl there for a second.

What's six times nine?

54.

I knew knew that one.

Sometimes you're going to get in advance.

You would be the worst quiz show host ever.

And now this is for the million pounds.

And the answer is Eleanor of Aquitaine.

Let's play.

I think if you go onto online forums of people who like quizzes or people who like game shows and you ask this question, for instance, is Countdown a quiz show?

That's the rest of your week gone.

Oh, really?

I think Countdown is a game show.

And the reason I think Countdown is a game show is you don't have to know what any of the words mean you just have to know that they exist

i think it's a quiz show because i think a game show has to have gunge

if there's no gunge it's a it's a quiz yeah you know like gladiators is technically a quiz

does gladiators have good no no

but does that mean any tv show does

i mean i'm asking quiz i mean i will stress i don't think there's anything better about either format.

They're both as entertaining as each other.

You must know loads and loads and loads of formats for these shows, Paul.

You've watched a lot of

so many.

So this is a slight game where I don't know if you'll just know the answers automatically.

Like, I'm going to name a title of a quiz show.

Okay.

And if you can guess the format, right?

That sounds fun.

This is a quiz?

Well, no, because I've got some gunge in the ceiling.

Repo games.

Okay.

I can't answer this because I know this one.

Okay.

I think it's the only quiz show I know the format, or games show I know the format for because I read about it.

Oh, okay.

Right, Paul.

So the other two know about it because they read about it.

It's quite difficult because we wouldn't have, we don't show you the same thing.

Do you have to come up with the first words of Emily Estevez's films of the 1980s?

Yes, that's it.

No, it's that a couple of guys arrive and repossess your car unless you can answer a set of trivia questions, in which case you get to keep it.

That's like two events of my life combined into one.

Both about circa 1998.

But I think in this case they were always going to have their car repossessed because they hadn't had their payment.

They haven't done their payments.

So they were going to get it repossessed anyway.

And they're like, well, here's a chance to save your car, right?

Yeah.

It's you've fallen behind on your payments.

But the reason I read about it is because didn't someone get shot?

Yeah.

I think that's the story about that.

But weirdly, you'd think that the people doing the shooting, and they were done for attempted murder, were the people who were having their car repossessed.

But they were happy about it.

It was the neighbour who was pissed off that the camera wasn't parked and the driver.

Yeah, exactly.

It was like, get those cameras out of my face.

That's funny.

You're in the picture.

Okay, I don't know this.

It's about weeing.

You wee on a camera, and

you're in the picture.

Oh, you're in.

You're in the picture.

How many photographs can you wee on in a minute?

Is it like, where's Wally?

But...

You're in the picture, so it's you.

Yeah, that is good.

That's very good.

Do they show you a famous painting and the main person has been replaced by you?

And you've got to guess the name of the the original painting?

Oh, that's great.

I think you are almost closest, Paul.

It's the it's celebrities.

They insert their faces into holes cut out, like those things you get at the seaside.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, okay.

And you have to guess the image you're in based on you can ask questions.

Oh, I see.

That's a good, I think that's a good game.

Yeah, that's nice.

You know, it lasted one week.

Oh.

There's an apology the next week saying that was awful.

Sorry.

Can I do one?

Animal crack-ups.

Do you know this one?

Animal crack-ups.

Okay, there is a thing called Animal Crackers.

So it's a jigsaw show, and you have to fit back together pulverized biscuits.

Is that it?

No, it's basically they show lots of videos of animals doing funny things, and then they ask you questions about those animals.

And then if you win, you get a stuffed animal.

But I only really bring it up because it was hosted by a friend of the podcast, Alan Thickey.

Who is

the Thicky that?

Robin Thicky is his father, was like a big one.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

He also wrote the theme to Different Strokes.

Yes, that's exactly right.

And also, one of my all-time favourite facts.

He also sang the theme to Annibal Crackups.

Wow.

You've been on Just a Minute, Paul, right?

Yeah.

You might have been good in 1928 America, where there was a non-stop talking competition.

Only if I was good at Just a Minute.

That's the only way that worked.

You're not good at it.

It's just impossible.

Is it?

Well, this one took four days.

And after four days, there were still two people left, and they just split the prize between them.

And they hadn't hesitated, deviated, or the other thing.

Actually, they did repeat, which is the other thing, because repetition was allowed.

One person repeatedly recited Lady Macbeth's speech until they passed out.

Wasn't Gerald Brenbith, was it?

There was a person who said something so offensive that the person who ran the competition called the police and then had them arrested.

Wow.

In 1928, that's probably pretty offensive.

Yeah.

And the winners were given to the last two people.

One of them was a swimming instructor who ran her own dance marathons and the other one was a man who previously made his name winning flagpole sitting competitions.

Amazing.

That's so good.

Have you ever seen the What's My Line with the Intruder who comes on?

I haven't seen it, but I read about it.

It's so surreal.

So So it was filmed live until the 60s which I think was quite late for shows to be filmed live so anything could happen.

And it's 1962 and the panel's blindfolded as we've explained and the celebrity guest comes on.

It's this Greek actress and as they're asking her stuff this man appears in a suit, a very well-dressed man, and he just walks on very calmly and he says, I'm the second mystery guest.

Guess who I am?

And then he starts talking about a dating service that he runs and the host, what's he called?

John Charles Daily.

Daily.

It's great.

Apparently obviously he had a code for it because he just says into the microphone, we have a small problem.

Gil, will you get the relieving unit in, please?

It won't him off.

And he said, that's all I wanted.

And then he left the stage.

That's the grand prize of this week.

It was always going to be that.

That's why we had to blindfold you.

Wow.

And then he said, Schedule 2, which makes me really want to know what schedule one and three were.

And then you see men hurry past the camera.

But the interesting thing was, this guy was identified as someone called Ronald Melstein, who had a dating company he's trying to promote in this unusual way, apparently.

And he disappeared.

And then, years later, this was in 62, and then in 1987, there's this really dramatic police chase.

And one of the police cars rams into a tree.

The detectors are taken to hospital.

Another police car slips on an oil slick.

They catch up with the guy they're chasing who's running a prostitution ring.

And it is Ronald Melstein.

Oh, at least they found out what his line was.

May have taken 25 years.

The greatest contestant we ever had.

Okay, that's it.

That is everyone's facts.

Thank you so much for listening.

If you want to get in touch with anyone here today, you can get in touch with Andy on...

I'm Andrew Honda M on Twitter.

At James.

My Twitter is at JamesHarken.

Paul, is there anywhere people can get in touch with you?

Yes, on Amazon.

On an advert for the book, Once in a Lifetime, amazon.co.uk.

And you'll reply to every individual person who gets in touch on Amazon by buying your book quickly.

Absolutely.

Every single one.

Great.

Or you can get in touch with all of us as a group by going to Instagram at no suchthing as a fish or on Twitter at no such thing or email podcast at qi.com and of course you can also go to our website no suchthingasafish.com and get tickets for our tour.

We are so excited.

We are kicking off within the next few weeks in fact.

So get there, get your tickets now.

And failing that, we'll be here again next week.

We'll see you then.

Goodbye.

Let's be real.

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