503: No Such Thing As Meat Cute

So, what do this animal

and this animal

and this animal

have in common?

They all live on an organic valley farm.

Organic valley dairy comes from small organic family farms that protect the land and the plants and animals that live on it from toxic pesticides, which leads to a thriving ecosystem and delicious, nutritious milk and cheese.

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Hi, everyone.

Welcome to this week's episode of No Such Things as a Fish, where we were joined by the incredibly funny, amazing Maisie Adam.

Now, anyone who is familiar with our parent TV show QI will know all about Maisie.

She's burst onto the scene in the last few years, and it is no exaggeration to say that I think she is the funniest newcomer that we've had on QI over the last few years.

She's absolutely brilliant.

It was a great fun doing this show with her.

If you'd like to learn anything more about Maisie, then the best way to find out what she's doing is to go to her website, which is maisieadam.com, M-A-I-S-I-E-A-D-A-M.

One thing I should quickly mention is that Maisie mentions Ethan in this show.

That was a reference to something that happened before the microphones came on, but I had to keep it in.

So just to let you know, Ethan is one of the QI Elves who does a lot of our tech stuff.

If you are a Club Fish member, you might remember his episode of Meet the Elves, where he gave us a fiendish question that we had to solve.

We do those Meet the Elves shows every now and then on Club Fish.

It's one very good reason, one of many, in fact, that you should subscribe.

And if you'd like to do that, then you can go to, of course, no such thingasafish.com forward slash Apple and no such thingasafish.com forward slash Patreon.

Anyway, one final thing before we do the show.

Today's episode marks the end of our nine months of Anna Replacement Shows.

Yes, you got it.

Next week, she will be back.

Anna will be back on the podcast.

So whatever you do, don't miss that episode.

Listen to it 10 times.

You want her to see the figures boosting up when she comes back on the show.

But in the meantime, really hope you enjoyed this show with Maisie.

And all that's left to say is on with the podcast.

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

My name is Dan Schreiber.

I'm sitting here with James Harkin, Andrew Hunter Murray, and Maisie Adam.

And once again, we have gathered around the microphones with our four favorite facts from the last seven days.

And in no particular order, here we go.

Starting with fact number one, and that is Maisie.

Okay, here we go.

The first fizzy drink tasted of urine.

Do with that what you will.

Do with that what you will.

Not drink it, that's first of all.

So it was Fanta.

No, sorry, that's what mankind is.

What a slam!

Ouch!

Expect to cease and desist from Fanta officers.

What a slam on a soft drink that was invented for the Nazis.

Was it really?

I believe it was.

It was.

But what a good target for me to pick, really, I suppose.

Yeah,

you know.

If you were going to kick one, Phantas, the one.

I think they couldn't get American soft drinks, and so they had to make their own.

And it wasn't the Nazis, you know, Hitler wasn't on the floor sorting it out himself, but it was made during the Nazi regime.

Oh, okay.

I believe.

By Nazis.

No, by Nazis, for Nazis.

That was the slogan.

Oh, God.

But the first fizzy drink was invented in my hometown of Leeds by a man called Joseph Priestley.

But crucially, it tasted of urine.

Because people in Leeds...

We know what we like and we like what we know.

Here's the crucial question though.

It tasted of urine, but...

But did it have urine in it?

Yes, it did.

So how did he invent this?

How did he invent this one?

Accidentally, as all best things come about, accidentally, it was at this brewery.

He basically accidentally discovered...

the act of carbonating water, right?

He was like a human soda stream, but by accident right brilliant so he's worked out how to carbonate water and then what he does is he makes a machine where you can get the co2 and you can squeeze it into some water and it'll make it fizzy but as part of that machine he had a pig's bladder yeah okay just on hand just on hand in those days it was quite common to have pigs bladders you know you used to play football with pigs bladders it was part of day-to-day life everyone had a pig's bladder on them like a pen nowadays yeah

Can I borrow your pig's bladder?

Dan, can I borrow a pig's bladder?

This one's been chewed.

So he had a pig's bladder as part of the system.

And he gave one of his glasses of water, fizzy water, to a friend called John Nuth.

And John Nuth said, this tastes like piss.

Like, you can't sell this to people because it tastes disgusting.

It tastes like piss.

And he thought that it tasted like piss because it had been squeezed through this bladder.

Now, Priestley couldn't taste the piss in his own water.

He thought that it tasted absolutely fine.

And he claimed that Nude's servants were maybe urinating in his drinks because he was such a bad boss.

Really?

It was a rift between them.

It really was.

You know, this is sharing your scientific discovery with a colleague like Newth.

It's a big deal.

Yeah.

But Newth said, he wrote a paper.

He didn't even...

quietly say to Priestley, I think this tastes a bit pissy.

He wrote a paper for the Royal Society saying, in some trials which I have made with Dr.

Priestley's apparatus, it always happened that the water acquired an urinous flavour.

That's fair.

And

it was so predominant that it could not be swallowed without some degree of reluctance.

And he didn't run that by Priestley first, just going, can I just double check?

I'm not the only one tasting weed here.

Imagine if, like, you know, you've got B.O., and instead of your friends telling you you've got B.O., they go to the Royal Society, and that's pretty bad.

Yeah, that's amazing.

And Priestley claimed that many ladies had tried the water, and nobody had complained about the urinous flavour.

It's not looking good for no thing.

Does history tell us whether whether or not his servants were saying?

Well, we don't know.

We don't know.

That seems unlikely.

And then no one else reported the urine flavour.

Well,

then Newth invented a new system that didn't have pig's bladders in it.

Right, which effectively was the cell.

But also, were his servants involved in making it?

They must have been to a certain extent.

He will have had lab technicians.

What was the missing factor when it didn't taste of urine?

Was it the servants or the pig's bladder?

It was definitely the pig's bladder.

We're unsure about the servants.

Is this the secret?

You know how every one of these companies has a secret ingredient that we haven't been told about?

Have they just been hiding piss from us this whole year?

Yeah, but like 11, herbs and spices and piss.

Just before we go on on that, can I tell you about one thing about Newth?

Okay.

So John Mervyn Knuth.

It was such a good name.

He once had a coughing fit and coughed out a bullet.

What?

I know.

Okay.

Did he kill the person sat opposite him?

So he had this terrible coughing fit.

He was like, oh, really coughing awfully.

He'd been out and he'd been out in the evening and he thought, oh, God, then he thought he was going to die.

His coughing was so bad.

Yeah.

This is in about 1799.

And he threw himself down on the bed, coughing with great violence.

And then when he got up, he'd coughed out something incredibly hard.

Yeah.

And

it turned out, just before he got ill, he'd been having a glass of wine.

And then he'd been called away, so he quickly drained the wine.

And it had lead shot in it.

Oh, okay.

So, okay, right.

Not a full bullet, but a bit of bullet.

A lead shot.

Still a bit of lead shot.

Yeah, so if you were to buy, in the olden days, if you were to buy like a partridge for dinner, it would often have bits of lead in it from where it had been shot.

Because it's like scatter shot.

Oh, okay.

Okay, but still pellets.

Trapnel of a bullet, then you still swallow it.

Okay, so the animal was killed with a bullet that was in there.

Yeah, I think that counts.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

As a bullet, well, it's part of a bullet, right?

Do we know if coughing up a bullet makes you taste piss?

Yeah.

Did the part

where whoever the bullet went into had that animal wet itself and it died?

Yeah.

Drenched the bullet in wee, he swallowed the button.

He doesn't notice because of the wine.

He doesn't notice because he doesn't notice.

And everyone's like, Pal, have you ever noticed that everything you taste up tastes piss?

Maybe you've got a piss-soaked bullet.

Stuck in your throat.

In your taste buds, haven't you?

Yeah.

It's wide open.

Wow.

It's food for thought.

So Newth then went on and made these soda streams,

which he called gasogines or gasogines.

And they were really famous.

And basically, if you were anyone who was anyone in the, when was it, in the 19th century, then you would have a gasogien machine, which is like a soda stream.

Not much has changed really now, isn't it?

It's still quite a power move to have a soda.

It really is.

It really is.

Yeah,

I feel like they've, no, I feel like they've recently been overtaken by if you've got an air fryer, that's the thing.

Yeah, that's an air fryer.

But soda streams were a bit of a power power move.

You look like you've got a soda stream.

You can tell by the way you were brewing up to that.

I've got one as well.

Oh my god.

Here's what's embarrassing.

Sounds is gold plated.

Mine's gold plated.

And we haven't used it in, I think, two years now.

It just sits there as a display.

Why do you have a gold plated soda stream?

My wife likes gold things.

Does she?

It's your house like Donald Trump's house.

Oh my God.

No, actually, it's probably the only gold thing in our house.

Oh, is it?

Is it the only thing?

The only thing.

Oh, that's not true, Denny.

What about the dining table?

Yeah, and the tie light.

And the chairs.

do you know does that count that's real gold wallpaper in the front of the house

and my children yeah is your wife painted like that woman in gold

i think what it was with soda streams is when i was a kid they were really if one of my friends had a soda stream it was like they were the coolest kid in town but now it's because you don't want to buy bottles of fizzy water because it's bad for the environment or something isn't it yeah well and you can make super sparkling water as well and you can get the the syrups that you can make your own tonic water.

Coca-Cola.

Yeah, but it's not Coca-Cola, is it?

No, it is.

It is.

Is it real Coca-Cola?

Well, it's.

Well, it's not real.

No, no, no, it, but it would have.

It's a answer for all those Nazi parties he had.

It tastes like the this is and this is a good thing and I'm I would you know if Soda Stream want to advertise on fish that'd be fine by me just throwing it out there but it tastes like the coke you get on the ferry you know that kind of coke no or at a like a sort of like roller-cola it's not

it's it's a bit like that yeah what's roller-cola like bad cold like knockoff coal.

It was like 5p when Coca-Cola was 20p, Roller Cola was 5P.

I just want to reiterate: this stuff is great.

I love it.

I'm so happy with my Soda Stream.

I have used mine in the last two years.

I actually don't think that Soda Stream are going to have on their advertising like the Coke you get on the ferry.

Yeah, that's nearly as bad a slogan as buy Nazis for Nazis.

But it's really good.

It's really good.

I use it all the time.

It's great.

Tastes a piss?

Yeah.

Good.

It should do.

I am happy.

Just like Mama used to make.

I think that might be something to do with my servants, though.

I just have a hunch.

Yeah.

Priestley.

Just a

quick word about Priestley.

What a guy.

What a guy.

So fluent in six languages.

He wrote over 500 books and pamphlets.

An amazing science.

Sounds like someone who's written 490 pamphlets.

Ten books.

Yeah, 499 pamphlets, one book listing all of the pamphlets that you can read.

He's credited with inventing or discovering how oxygen is made up.

He was a lunatic, very excitingly.

So, the Lunar Society, which was this thing with Erasmus Darwin and all these amazing scientists at the time, they used to meet when it was a full moon so they could see their way home using the light of the moon in the very dark nights.

Really cool, eh?

Yeah, what an extraordinary character.

The thing about him being a lunatic, that meant he was kind of pro-science.

Yeah.

He was also not of the Protestant faith, and he was also kind of sympathetic with the French Revolution.

And this meant that he had lots of enemies.

And lots of people didn't like him.

And there's a thing called the Priestley Riots.

So he moved to Birmingham after he left Leeds.

And they had a dinner to sort of say how great the French Revolution was.

And a load of people in Birmingham decided to wreck the place where they had the dinner and then go to Priestley's house and wreck his house.

Was he in?

Crazy.

He was in when they started to come with the pitchforks and the

proper wreck his house.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

They did.

They did.

Oh,

and his lamp and his house.

Oh, they didn't just knock the lamp off the mantelpiece.

He and his wife managed to get to the hills so they could see what was happening, but they were away from the mob.

But his son was still there, and his son was trying to kind of save everything.

And in the end, he had to flee as well.

And the interesting thing about it is because it was anti-establishment.

and it was the establishment who were attacking him, we think that possibly some people involved in the Birmingham government might have been involved with this.

Right.

And Pitt, who was the prime minister then,

they asked for help against these rioters and they were very, very slow to react.

The government were like, oh, yeah, we'll help, we'll help.

But it was like days and days and days before they sent anyone to Birmingham to help.

So really, they were kind of in on it as well, the government.

Wow, which is crazy.

Or at least like sort of passive on it.

Yeah, complicit, yeah.

Samuel Johnson called him an evil man.

Like he was really

a bit harsh.

He really did not like carbonated drinks.

Yeah.

It's sort of weird to imagine now how controversial it was at the time.

Yeah, it's like

the French Revolution.

Pro-science.

But he also supported the American Revolution and he was a bit

equivocal on the monarchy and on the idea of virgin birth.

So it was all he was quite loved by the American government, wasn't he?

When he got there, yeah, he was very popular.

He hung out with George Washington.

He did love a carbonated drink there.

Have you ever seen the Super Bowl?

You can't move for Pepsi Ground sponsorship.

Have you ever heard of this school around the area of Leeds?

Oh, I think it's around the area of Leeds.

Battley Grammar School?

I know Batley.

You know Batley.

I would very much believe that they have a grammar school.

Yeah.

Well, this is where he went to school.

It's a very, very old school, obviously, because he went to it.

Yeah.

And I looked into it to see if they'd produced any other sort of interesting drinks through their students.

And it turns out that they did.

Yeah.

Richard John Reed, the co-founder of Innocent Smoothies and Innocent Drinks, went to the very same school.

Yeah, he went to Batley Grammar School.

That's cool.

And more so than the smoothies, he is sort of the person who is credited with pioneering wackaging.

Wackaging.

Like putting the little hats on top, is that what that is?

No, it's now when the drink sort of says on the side and say, I'm in the fridge.

Put me in the fridge.

Oh, it gives the personality.

Giving the personalities to the package.

That was them, wasn't it, who invented that?

Yeah, specifically.

This guy from Batley School was credited, yeah, Richard Reed.

I was so pro Battley School until you said that.

Now I think they need to burn it down.

But also, though, as soon as you said it, and you said he was the inventor of Innocent Smoothie, I immediately just pictured him to be wearing one of those knitted hats, going down Batley Grammar School corridors in a little knitted woolly hat, going, Brrrr, I'm cold, put me in the fridge.

Oh, there's Richard again.

That's bullying.

Has anyone heard of the soft drink Golaka Pay?

Golaka Pay?

Golaka Pay.

Golica.

Oh, one word.

No, it's two words.

Golaka.

G-O-L-O-K-A, and M-P-A-Y.

Jollicape.

Jollicape.

Where is it from?

It's from India.

Oh, no.

Oh, what?

Is it uriny?

It's very uriny.

Yeah.

Whose we is in it?

It's cow urine.

Oh, yeah.

5% by volume, cow urine.

5%.

That's a bit.

A bit piss heavy for a drink.

We should say, we did a fact ages ago about the fact that uh cow urine is is drunk more over there, as kind of it's more normalized as a drink, isn't it?

Certainly more normalized than it is here, I would say.

You'd mock yourself.

You wouldn't drink it as just cow urine, it's an ingredient in something.

I'm afraid some people do.

Yeah, you just drink it straight, yeah, straight.

So it's um no,

we haven't tried it.

No, would you?

Yeah, you would try it for just to be able to say Ethan, bring in the cow wave.

Ethan is Dan's gold-covered servant, by the way.

He's coming in like Julie Walters with two suits.

Well, look at the milkmaids busy milking the cow one morning.

Dan is fractionally behind the milkmaid.

So yeah, we have said before there's the Cow Commission of India.

And this is, they're linked to like Hindu nationalist groups.

And they think that, according to their traditional medicine, cow urine is supposed to be an antidote for all sorts of, I mean, anything you can think of: inflammation, eczema, arthritis, leprosy.

Bit of cowpist sorts it out.

Bita cowpist is supposed to sort it out.

Currently, no concrete scientific evidence that it works.

But you can buy a soft drink called Golakape, which contains 5% urine, but at least it does contain other herbs

to put those in, isn't it?

Yeah, such as Tulsi, Brahmi, and Shank Pushpi, and orange and lemon as well.

So herbs, orange, lemon, and cow wee.

Yeah.

And that's a drink.

I'm afraid so.

And a drink not exclusively used for getting better.

Like some people will just have that on the go.

Like Lucasane, I suppose.

Yeah, yes, yes.

Because that is a good illness drink.

It's an illness drink, but some people are having it day-to-day life.

Absolutely.

Do you think...

Sorry to bring the tone down on this.

It's quite a highbrow podcast.

Do you think the

do you think they taste wildly different, cow wee and pigwe?

No, but I reckon probably an expert would be able to.

I reckon you'll be able to learn.

You reckon there's somebody that could that could have a sip of both and be able to point out like how people can point out Coke and Pepsi.

Someone's out there doing

it with pig and cow we're because I could do Coke and Diet Coke, I reckon.

Oh, yeah, eat diet cakes.

Or diet coke cakes, like Pips.

I can do tea and coffee, Andy.

Yeah.

Oh, Andy.

You really thought that was a big thing, didn't you?

I don't want to brag, guys, but I know different things.

But like, like on your first go.

Coke and Diet Coke are more similar to each other than like think

you're an abyss figure in your change.

Please do.

Please do.

So what do this animal

and this animal

and this animal?

have in common?

They all live on an organic valley farm.

Organic valley dairy comes from small small organic family farms that protect the land and the plants and animals that live on it from toxic pesticides, which leads to a thriving ecosystem and delicious, nutritious milk and cheese.

Learn more at OV.coop and taste the difference.

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

Okay, my fact this week is that Brazilian footballer Formiga is the only athlete to ever compete in a team sport in Seven Olympics.

But when she was born, it was illegal for women to play football in brazil this is such a good fact

this is such a good fact about such a good player oh yeah do you know about formiga yeah so and also as you say it was illegal when she was born and so um women's football wasn't in the olympics so that means that she has played in every olympics where women's football has existed right amazing so

the next Olympics will be the first one in women's football history not to feature Formiga.

It's like if a hundred meters runner had been in every race since 1896.

Yeah, it's like that, isn't it?

It's unreal.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So 96 was her first one.

Yes, so she was born in 78, I think, yeah.

And Brazil had a law from 1941 until 1979, and they didn't really make it proper until 1981 that girls and women were not allowed to play football, but not wasn't just professional, they weren't allowed to play in schools or even play for fun.

So my daughter on Friday will go to her first football lesson.

She's 18, 19 months old.

And if she was Formiga, it would have been illegal.

She could have been arrested for going playing football.

That's absolutely insane.

Because there's a very famous player called Marta, right?

Yes.

And she wasn't allowed to play football, actively discouraged.

She really wanted to.

So she used to just on the street just have balled up bits of shopping bags basically to use as a ball, playing on her own.

Then she would sort of sneak in to play with other teams, which were boys entirely.

And it was a horrible experience for her.

If she ever scored a goal, it was seen as a terrible thing.

Like, you've embarrassed that boy.

We're trying to make

an attack on the men's sport.

And so, never ever was she given this moment of sort of, you know, you've done good.

It was an incredible press conference Marta gave because she retired after the World Cup just gone.

And it was really quite emotional watching because she's touching on, I mean, women's football across the globe, as we all know, has been hugely under-platformed, underrepresented, hugely disrespected as a sport.

Bad enough in this country with the FA banning it for 50 years.

But in Brazil, as you say, with that very sort of paternalistic moralism sort of society existing, it was an actual attack on and it's all down to that it wasn't appropriate for a woman with her build to be playing football.

But yeah, Famigo was 19 at her first one, 43 at the last and

amazing thing, 43 representing your country, and she only ever missed one World Cup, which was the 1991.

Yeah, she's done seven of those as well.

Unbelievable!

Well, the thing is, as well, that Marta was Brazil's leading scorer in history, she scored 115 goals, and Neymar is the second with 79,

Pele 77, and Formiga had the highest number of appearances,

which was 234,

which is insane.

Unreal.

More than 100 games more than Cafu, who's got the highest in the men's game.

Yeah.

And Marta, just with the stats, she's the current record holder for the most goals ever scored in a World Cup, in one World Cup, which is 17 goals.

And that's for both men and women's football.

Oh, yeah,

for one World Cup, that's a lot.

It's mad, isn't it?

Do you?

Don't you find it like Neymar recently surpassed Pele's

record?

And like the huge

notice that that gets that it's always like screamed from the rooftops who's the goat in football and we like we always end up talking about men.

The goats are often in the women's game because they've had to be.

It's truly incredible.

I watched

go on, you watch some football.

I watched last night, just as a nice bit of timing, the series Welcome to Wrexham is currently airing its second series.

And one of the episodes that comes up mid-series which I watched last night's latest episode as of recording

it was all about the Wrexham women's team yeah so good at it far better than so good

they they make it to the as far as we are in the series right now they've just made it to the top of their league but they take on the closest ranking team and they beat them 11 to 1 I think it was and yeah it's just astonishing and it's so good I guess that it's now changing isn't it it's ever growing but it's thanks to players like Famiga like Marty

like like in our own country, like Kelly Smith.

Well, even if you go right far back to sort of Dick Kerr ladies, who were all sort of

early 20th century team, Dick Kerr ladies, yeah, basically the ones pre-war that were getting all of the big crowds, and then the war happened, and everyone was like, no, we need to make the men feel good.

Yeah, so it was banned in the UK, women playing football.

Basically, they weren't allowed to play on FA-affiliated grounds, which was all the grounds.

And that ban was from 1921 until the 70s, so like you say about 50 years but there was also bans in France in Norway in Germany and usually the case was that this they thought that sport was unsuitable for the female body like you say but in West Germany's case they specifically said that it was the women's soul that would be injured

and I think that's quite nice as a sort of novel way of like oh we've had loads of complaints about the body and all damage your wounds what are we gonna say though

they might have meant the sole of their feet but

that's not how it's spelt but you don't get footballers who are like, oh, they're not playing this week because they've injured their soul.

I think that would be nice.

And also, I think spiritual stuff should be taken, like the referee should be able to say

immoral.

Immoral play.

Yeah.

I didn't see the play, but your aura has turned a nasty shade of red.

And just a reference going, I'm getting bad vibes.

Yeah, exactly.

Red card.

That would be really fun.

Of all the countries as well,

to say bad for the soul of a woman.

You wouldn't wouldn't expect germany that's not very it's not particularly germanic to say is it of like

you'd expect that from one of the more romantic language uh countries nietzsche wouldn't agree

well well

or wouldn't he

um

um here's it here's the thing yeah so there was a recent study and i like i quite like this it's assessed that women's football is better to watch than men's uh-huh um

so it's a swedish sports company who conducted this they're called spideo And they compared the women's Euros and the men's World Cup.

And they tried to do it as mathematically as possible.

So what they found is that women are less risk averse than men in the style of play.

And again, they're just comparing women's Euros and men's World Cup.

So but those are two obviously big international targets.

Okay, so for instance, the men's teams might deliberately hold back and try and not concede goals, whereas the women's teams aren't bothered.

That's it.

So in the women's Euros, passes moved teams forward 3.7 meters, and

in the men's World Cup, it was 2.5 metres.

Really?

That doesn't sound like a lot, but yeah,

that's a big, you know, that's a difference.

I would love you to be the commentator

on the World Cup.

I believe that was a 2.6-metre pass.

Still running along the sidelines with that wheel, that pizza cutter wheel.

Massive, great spreadsheet.

I'm trying to keep track of everyone.

Yeah, yeah.

So, is that a massive difference?

Well, I mean,

dang, 2.5, 3.7.

Sorry, I forgot I'm talking to a man who can tell the difference between coke and diet coke.

Of course, you would know the meters differentials.

That's 50% more per pass, you know, almost 50% more.

Yeah, it's not like 10 centimeters shy of being 50% more, but still.

But one status expert said, I just love this, it's almost like the men are playing a game of chess and the women are playing something a bit more interesting than chess.

Can I say piss off?

Because actually, some of us like watching chess.

Like 3D chess, like they have in

Star Wars.

Wars.

Shit.

No.

Oh, yeah.

It's probably both.

Yeah.

Well, it's it's now we're on my home.

You're all wrong.

You're all wrong.

It's Harry Potter one, remember?

They're all the big statues.

Moving forward.

We will get emails.

Just to say, in Star Wars, they have the hologram chest, don't they?

Okay.

With the monsters.

And I think in Star Trek, I don't know what they have.

You've lost me here, lads, I'll be honest with you.

You've lost me.

I think so.

It is definitely like quite a different game in terms of like it feels at the ground.

It's a very different experience watching the game.

It's a far more inclusive, positive atmosphere.

But actually, on the pitch, that's interesting.

So, you play, don't you?

Yeah.

How far do you normally pass?

Or I reckon I'm working at the moment with a good 2.7.

I would say, yeah, 2.7.

Now, I think we heard a lot in the World Cup, a lot of people observing that there was a bit less diving and a bit less sort of going to get emails here from blokes, as we always do, but going, you know, we don't dive.

Actually, no, you, you, on this podcast, you won't.

You probably get quite nice people.

No, no, it's the first time

learning about football.

I think the toxic masculinity is probably quite low on the listenership.

I'm currently doing the inbox, and I tell you, the number of laddy-laddy emails.

Not all men's.

Yeah, it really is.

One thing I found about watching women's games as opposed to men's games is that everyone who's at the ground is watching the game.

Oh, yeah.

So, like, if you go and watch a men's football match, quite often you're watching the opposing fans.

Yeah.

Or, you know,

they're watching you.

Yeah, you're kind of singing and chanting.

Rehearsing the chants.

What's the new chanting?

That's not very much.

It's not singing and chanting.

It's doing a lot of hand gestures at each other,

regardless of what's happening.

Unsupported ones.

Yeah,

it's not thumbs up.

It's not thumbs up, actually.

It's not a heart shake from across.

Yeah,

because you could.

I mean, your whole end of the stance could do a great big heart.

If you haven't gone and watched Leeds, that's what they do.

I'd love it.

Andy's just there shouting across, going, I love your shirt.

Your shirt, where's that from?

But yeah, I went to watch, I think it was the World Cup in France, but everyone there was watching the game.

Literally, no one is doing anything else.

But it is interesting to hear the actual clinical differences of the on-pitch play.

Maybe if the men's players kicked the ball a bit less far, or further, actually, then it might improve the mood in the stands.

Yeah, maybe they wouldn't need to make all those hand gestures.

Formiga is Portuguese for aunt.

Oh, yeah.

Because she's got

six legs.

She's got six legs.

And she can can carry 19 times her own body weight, can't she?

Yeah, and actually I just realized that an old word for ants was pissmire because they smell of urine.

Oh yeah.

Look at this.

There we go.

So she's called ant.

That was a nickname that was given to her when she was at school.

And it was when she was playing football.

They said that she used to play tenaciously and unselfishly, much like how an ant would operate within its own colony.

Yeah.

So she was very much busy all the time.

and always helping out.

And she hated it.

Hated it.

Yeah, as a kid, she learned to just accept it, but she said, in the beginning, I didn't like it very much.

You know, I thought it was weird.

It's that she's small, doesn't it?

I guess.

Yeah, the actual reason for it is nice, but to be called ant.

Well, she said, I don't have an antennae.

Like, why would I?

That's true.

She's getting a bit hung up on

the where are my mandibles.

Can I see if, Macy, I wonder if you've seen this movie?

Okay.

It's called.

Titanic.

Send it like Becky.

Star Wars.

It's called Escape to Victory.

No, I've not seen this film.

Has no one seen this film?

It's very famous.

Is it?

I've

never heard of this film before.

It stars

Sylvester Stallone,

Michael Kane, Pele, and Bobby Moore.

What?

I mean, that is the real expendable.

So is it a football or it sounds like a prison?

It is.

It is.

It is.

It's a prison movie whereby...

They escape through football.

They set up a match and during the match as part of the match prep.

But I just love this.

A Stallone, Stallone, Michael Kane, Bobby Moran.

That's mad.

Yeah, I know.

Oh my god.

I need to see this film.

I know, I really need to see it.

Is it any good?

It's a classic

I can read between those lines.

It's one of the things they used to show it on like Sunday evenings.

Can I just say, if anybody ever went, Maisie Adam, I haven't seen her comedy.

What's it like?

And somebody went, it's classic.

I think that would be absolutely harrowing.

We'd rather be made by Nazis for the

tour poster.

One last thing on Pele, just while we're on him very quickly.

Pele's last ever match, 1977, he played, and it was an exhibition match, and it was the New York Cosmos against Santos and two teams that he used to play for.

So in order to make sure that he wasn't siding with any particular team, in the first half he played with one team, and in the second half he played with the other team.

That was the first final match ever.

Absolutely love that.

Only Pele could get away with doing that, though.

Yeah, I think so.

So he didn't change ends.

Oh, yes.

Which must give you a slight advantage, right?

Possibly.

Also, probably being Pele gives you a slight advantage.

Yeah, that's why he was so good.

When I was at school, we used to obviously play football for the schools, and a lot of the schools would have pitches that were on massive slants.

And so, like, you'd be in the first half, you'd be winning 5-0, and you'd end up losing like 21-5-0.

I play in a league in Brighton, and we played on one the other day.

If you've ever been to Whitehawk's ground, it's a fantastic club, it's Whitehawk, but their ground is on a slope sort of left to right and up to down.

Like it's

you could ski down it.

You could ski down it.

There was one that I played at at school in Bolton.

This was, I think I was in primary school and it was like slanted like you say from one wing to the other.

You can imagine that.

And we were all primary school kids so we didn't really know how to play football and so the ball would just always end up rolling to the bottom and all 22 kids

a lot of corner balls from one specific corner.

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

My fact is that American schools have a sport of competitive meat judging.

No.

No.

Wait.

Meat judging.

Meat judging.

It's less dodgy than it sounds.

I believe, okay.

I should say this was sent him by an audience member called Kevin Fegan.

So thank you, Kevin.

Kevin Fegan.

Fee in.

Yeah.

Kevin Fegan.

Like Kevin Keegan, but with an F.

Yeah.

Oh, all right.

But he's not a vegan.

Yeah.

He didn't say in his email.

He's a vegetarian.

God, come on.

Kevin, if you're...

If you think I'm better than that, Maisie, you've not had me.

I loved it.

I loved it.

What's Kevin saying?

Kevin's saying,

well, I've just, that's what it is, that's the fact.

Imagine me judging.

And it's made, I think this might be the most American sport possible.

How do you judge meat?

What's the criteria?

Well, is this a pig or is it a cow?

Step one, that's the absolute baseline.

No, no, no, this is okay, it's um, it's a college sport, it's an intercollegiate sport, right?

So, it's sort of students who are playing it, and um, they like all over the country, teams of students practice all year, and then they get to the competition.

And what you have to do is you're presented with a range of meat carcasses, and you have to judge the yield, how much meat you'll get out of it, how much fat there is in it, the consumer experience, the age of the carcass.

And you have to do all this by sight only.

Sight only.

Also, they don't just put a slab of meat in front of you and you go, pork.

No, no, no, no, no.

Not just guess if it's beef or pork or fat.

I was going to say, I reckon I'd be alright at this.

Andy, do you think as someone who can tell the difference between diet cut and no one coke that you would be good at this part?

I think I might.

Yeah, I think it sounds amazing.

It's like meat chest, basically.

It's really like you get 10 minutes to inspect each carcass.

You know, and they're hanging up in front of you.

You're not really touching them much.

You're in like a big cold

fridge.

You're in a bush.

You're a bunch of butchers.

You're in that.

And then

you're asked to guess yield.

Yeah, I mean, all sorts.

You have to get a lot of money.

How many portions you get?

My favourite one is, and this is purely by sight,

you have to go and evaluate whether a table of 10 cuts that are laid down fit a checklist of the United States Department of Agricultural Standards.

Who's revising this?

Oh, people put so much work in.

They train sometimes for 12 hours a day leading up to the college.

Whilst they're in college.

Yeah.

Have you seen how expensive colleges in America?

How human would these parents be if they knew?

Are you revising?

Well, I've been looking at my chickens recently.

They must get a scholarship, I guess, right?

You know, like.

You can't get a meat scholarship, surely.

Surely not.

You only play, also, they're kind of the competitors, they're kind of like the Mayflies of the sporting world.

You get one season.

That's it.

You can't play twice.

You can't play in two consecutive years.

Not like Farmiga.

You can't be the Farmiga of the meat you have.

Absolutely not.

No.

Which is a nightmare for the coaches that pick their star meat

examiners.

You train them up for one season and then they're out.

Then you're back.

Yeah, you're just back to the start finding fresh blood.

Why would you bother,

genuinely, why would you bother pursuing this if you can't become one of the great meat judges, if you can't do it year in year out?

There are talent scouts who come to the competitions.

You're lying.

No, I'm not.

I swear.

I swear.

I mean, a lot of the students are already studying agriculture, that kind of thing.

So a lot of the competitors will end up going into meat professionally.

You know, the U.S.

Oh, so they might be scouted to go into these top jobs because of how well they did at the meat judging.

If you're the head of a meat company, and you really want the best meat judges to be part of your company, you'll pay lots of money.

So you'll go to some intercollegiate competition and be like, wow, Stephen's very good at

the top.

Yeah, wow.

And 80% of them go into food and livestock industry jobs after college.

That means 20% don't, though.

There might be some savage.

20% just doing it for fun, then going into recruitment.

Studying poetry, the meat is pure passion for them.

And then, yeah, exactly.

I just love it.

I love it so much.

But you do get the formiga of this, even though the span is just one season.

So there is one person called Maddie Ainslie, and Maddie Ainslie did seven competitions, like Formiga.

Because around the country, you go around the country seven different competitions within the year.

So this was taking up a lot of your year.

This is not like one meat competition, and she won five of the seven.

She's the all-star.

Yeah.

Wow.

Wow.

That's great.

There was one guy called Rodie Hawkins, who was a former meat judge from Tennessee.

And this is the only.

That can't be a sentence.

Rodie Hawkins, meat judge from Tennessee.

This is like if Chat GPT wrote a novel.

He was a former meat judge from Tennessee.

Write an American novel.

Rodie Hawkins from Tennessee.

He's the only famous one I could find who went from meat judging to greater things.

He co-invented lunchables.

Yeah.

Which is a famous sorry.

They're good.

No, no, no, come on.

He's judging the quality of meat and he came out with lunchables.

It's like a little plastic.

Processed.

With some squares of processed ham and some squares of processed cheese and some crackers.

All right.

Yeah, must have been up all night thinking.

I read a Sports Illustrated article on meat judging.

That was great.

It's an amazing article.

And there's a bit that explains exactly what it takes to enter these competitions and be a meat judge judge.

So to be a meat judge, quick decision making, critical reasoning self-assurance and above all the ability to quiet one's mind for up to six hours standing in frigid temperatures and total silence and according to a judge from 2015

i was like self-assurance yep and then you read the fourth one i was like ah damn it's not me fifth ability to judge meat

exactly but what the quote from the judge from 2015 said and this is to do with the total silence you have to fight your own demons in the meat judging cooler

I don't want to fight demons in a meat judging cooler.

You are the demons in the meat judging cooler.

It's all yours.

It's just the internal voices.

The internal voices in the six hours of silence as you stare and try and work out if it's agriculturally sound.

There are moments where so I this might have been in the same piece.

There was a a student from Texas Tech.

She was called Taylor Schertz.

She was a second year student.

What's that?

Again, I do I think a rom-com set in the meat judging world would be genuinely would be good.

Meat cute.

A meat cute.

There we go

their heads bump over a frozen beef carcass

no so she at one at one point was the foremost meat judge in the country um and i think i don't know what year this was she was competing but there was a competition in houston this just goes shows you how brutal meat judging is right she was in the top 10 nationally she was doing brilliantly and then she she misjudged the age of one beef carcass and plummeted down to 36

the 36 position so you know just how

did she get it really wrong?

I thought she was saying this.

Since it's from 1743.

I think this meat's alive.

I don't know.

It doesn't relate.

But it just goes to show it's

tough.

I think they have some in Australia, too.

I think there is meat judging there, too.

Wow.

It sounds so like you have to judge the hot carcass weight.

Yeah.

The amount of kidney fat.

amount of heart fat, area of rib eye muscle.

All from just looking at it.

Yeah.

If you got stuck in a freezer, like one of these big butcher freezers, let's say you kind of the door closes itself, but you put your foot there to stop it from closing.

Okay.

But then you slip on a sausage or something.

And your foot goes out of the way and the door closes.

Yeah.

It doesn't open from the inside.

What's the best thing inside the freezer to help you get through that door?

Would you say?

Do you know the answer?

Yeah, this is a real thing that happened.

Yeah, wasn't there a guy who beat his way out with something?

Is there a bone?

Oh, a chisel.

A skeleton key bone that you can.

Yeah, he carves,

he's a whittler.

Well, you get the wish bone and you wish that you can carve it.

It's not having a poo and using the frozen poo to.

You're in a freezer.

Everything's frozen.

There's no need to have the poo.

If only I had something to freeze.

Guess I gotta take a shit.

That's the only logical thing to do here.

Chip my way out.

This lift has been stopped for just 30 seconds.

Let's wait to see.

No, no, no, I insist.

I'll get us out of this.

I must freeze the food, a fashion into a presser, to press the button for help.

A room full of frozen meats.

I'll find my own tools, thank you.

So you say no to that.

No music for me, thank you, Laura.

My next track.

So your luxury item is.

No, it wasn't.

So

now this really happened to a guy called Mr.

McCabe, who's a butcher.

And apparently the beef is too slippery.

If you grab a frozen beef, it's kind of too slippy to bash your way out.

Okay.

If you get a big sort of chunk of lamb, you can't really you can't get any purchase on it and it's often too big.

Um, but the perfect thing is a black pudding.

If you get a full black pudding, especially one made by the royal butcher H.M.

Sheridan of Balata, Aberdeenshire, um, these are exactly the right size.

What a weird secret sponsorship.

Are you getting money on the side?

Apparently, it's almost exactly the same size as you know, one of those police battering rams that you knock the cars off.

It's like that.

And this guy managed to knock his way out of the freezer.

And he said,

He said, I'm really lucky.

We sell about two or three each week, and this was the last one we had.

So, if he'd have sold one more, he would have been stuck there forever.

Are they buying them as battering rams?

Is that Aberdeen Police?

As he leaves the freezer, he looks back and sees Dan in the corner.

Dad, are you coming?

No, thank you.

I'll get myself out.

20 more shits, I should have a battery ram out of this.

Time we went to an escape room with you, Daddy.

Yeah, not loud back there.

How about this?

How about putting a door handle on the other side of the door?

Yeah, I mean,

why do we not?

Honestly, most of them do have

any that I've been in have got a big red button that you can press and get out.

Oh, that's cool.

Yeah.

Sorry, how many freezers have you been in that the door's shut and you have to let yourself out of?

A couple.

Okay.

I used to work in kitchens and stuff.

Oh, okay.

Okay.

Have you guys heard of Wrechtub Clat?

Wretch Tub Clat?

The rapper.

I don't even know.

I don't even know what you're saying there.

Wretch Tub Clat.

How do you spell clatt?

K-L-A-T.

Oh.

This sounds like it's something from the Netherlands.

It's actually Australia.

Oh, okay.

This is from.

Wretch Tub Clat.

Is it a kind of meat?

Rare meat?

No.

Is it a town, like one of those weird sort of Outback towns?

No.

A society?

No.

It's part of a kangaroo.

No.

What?

Is it anything to do with anything we're talking about?

Is it a way of cheating at cricket?

It's.

James single-handedly lowering our Australian audience to zero as the weeks go by.

No.

What is it?

It is a secret butcher language.

No wonder we haven't heard it.

It's a butcher language.

It's a secret butcher language.

Okay, so what do you think the secret language is?

Oh, it's in meat displays in the window.

So you arrange the

centers.

And it means I'm available.

Yeah, it's like a traffic light party, but for butchers.

Yeah, but for butchers.

Well, the clue is in the name, Retch Tub Clat.

Oh, if you read it backwards, or is it an animal?

A gram retub.

Butcher, but talk butcher.

Butcher talk.

Butcher talk is the secret language that is shared, and this has been going since the 1960s.

Butchers all over Australia use this, and it's been in Australian movies as well,

whereby they talk backwards to each other so that they can say stuff that the customer can't hear in order to

quick get the age sauce.

In order to what?

So you might say, on stelktuk ni et pus.

And that means no cutlets in the shop.

And you would say that out loud so that everyone, sometimes a massive butchers in Australia might have 20 butchers serving people and they would know to just immediately eliminate that as part of the process.

But you don't upset the customer.

Exactly, and you don't want to upset the customer.

On dug kuf ik gaf.

All good

food.

Fake.

It's no good, fuckface.

Really good that they've worked that out.

It's pretty, like the rest of it, like as the examples, is pretty misogynistic, I have to say.

Why is it needed, though?

Well, largely because if there's a difficult customer, they want to be able to say difficult customer to give to be rude about

misogynistically customer facing roles that haven't had to do this has there yeah no but i guess you're all in one line and if you need to get a message down the line to everyone hears it in the shop nobody's sticking up for these sexist butchers i'm not i'm telling you that it exists that's what i'm trying to say actually in my rom-com now the meat judging rom-com i think there should be a nice like maybe the lovers speak to each other using yeah

butcher talk whatever it was called yeah something clat yeah wretch tub Rich Tub Clatti subtitled the entire movie so that you can see what that makes it more classy, I guess.

Yeah, but it just says no good, fuck facts.

Along the bottom of the smart romantic, isn't it?

That's the closing line of the thumb.

That's right.

And they kiss.

And frankly, my dear,

I undo cooker club.

Okay, it is time for our final fact of the show, and that is my fact.

My fact this week is that the first wireless headset microphone was made for Kate Bush, and it was made out of an old coat hanger.

Oh, wow.

First of all, how?

Well, you're just making it sort of go around the ears, aren't you?

And then you need the perfect bit that actually you use the hanger.

Yeah,

you would attach the microphone, which would be oh, so you're just wearing a coat hanger around your eyes.

Exactly.

Oh, okay.

Yeah, it's basically those Madonna mics, right?

Yeah.

Steps mics, I would call them.

Yeah, Britney mic,

a Britney mic.

It should be called a Bush mic, basically, because she she is the the founder does it quite wrong

does it

at best you're thinking of a problematic president at worst

you're thinking of something much much worse

But yeah, so this is, so it's interesting to know that we know the very first time anyone wore one of these Madonna Britney mics, and it was Kate Bush, it was on her tour, the tour of life in 1979.

It was a song called Moving, which was the opening number.

And the reason that she needed it was because there was so much choreography, there was so much costume change and everything, movement that she needed her hands for everything that she did.

She couldn't hold a microphone.

So, it was one of the sound engineers.

Two names come up when you look into it.

It's a bit hard to nail it down, but one person was called Martin Fisher.

A lot of people said it was him, some people say it was Gordon Patterson.

It was definitely one of the two.

And it was on this tour that it was done.

And it was done on Kate Bush's only ever tour that she did.

She only did one tour.

She's never done another tour.

She's done a residency.

She doesn't like to travel to R.K.

Oh, really?

Yeah, she's not into it.

And it's a shame because it sounds like she might have been one of the greatest touring acts that you could ever see.

I mean, this...

What would she have invented on her future tours?

Exactly, yeah.

But listen, so this

the tour of life, as I say it was called, this is like a few highlights that you would have seen in that show, right?

There you go.

So it opened with whale song that was playing with Kate Bush's shadow projected, dancing while the curtains were starting to part and revealing the stage.

And then after a song or two, the whole theater was filled with the sound of heartbeats and red lights.

There was large oval upholstered red satin eggwomb-like ball that would be rolled onto stage with Kate inside, where she would sing the song Room for the Life as she was rolled around the stage, hence not being able to use her hands.

There was a moment where she was singing a song called Violin, where she was chased around the stage by two dancers dressed as giant violins.

There was poetry readings from her brother.

A magician came out and did an act with a floating wand.

She came out as a World War II pilot.

She came out as a wild western, cowboy-esque looking thing with a rifle, and she would shoot ribbons at the dancers.

I mean, the whole thing with every song had a theme and a production to it.

And it was a spectacle, basically.

She's probably still writing the second tongue.

Yeah.

Exactly.

I did go and see.

Do you know

about

what would it have been about 2016, maybe

2015 something like that nearly 10 years ago uh she did a night of about about about 20 nights yeah Hannah Smith Apollo

and me and my mum managed to get tickets.

It was like, you know, when you get to set up all the laptops, it's like NASA space station trying to get tickets.

F5, F5.

And we got that, literally, we got them.

And that was pretty...

Pretty good.

Like, it was the first time she performed live in something like 25 years.

Unreal.

And she flew.

She flew at the end.

No, she did.

She flew.

So she did this song at the end where suddenly a big crash of thunder happened.

And I don't, I mean, obviously she'll have been attached to it.

But like,

you know, you know the room I'm talking about, the Apollo.

Yeah.

Right?

I don't know, because she wasn't attached to the ceiling directly above the audience, but she flew right out to like what looked like touching distance to touch in the circle.

And she's, um, she's getting, I think, you know, she wouldn't mind us saying this.

She's getting on is RK.

Like, it was 50-something.

I gasped purely out of admiration, purely out of concern for her welfare as she flew directly towards us.

We were in the circle.

It was like absolutely terrifying and incredible and mesmerising.

Yeah, I think she's in her 60s now.

Blimey.

Yeah, yeah.

Was that by any chance Wuthering Heights when she was doing that song?

No, it wasn't that song.

No, no, it was like a, it was terrible.

It was a really aggressive song.

It was like a big crash of thunder, and then she just sort of, it was, I think think it was called the dawn of something, and she just flew out at us, and she went, she looked like a big crow.

And at the time, did you think she's flying?

Yeah, you did, yeah, yeah, I did.

I would as well with Kate Bush, yeah, she has mystical qualities, yeah, yeah, yeah, it was so good.

It was really,

maybe she invented something

that we don't have yet, like the Bush rocket, which kind of flies her up in the air.

Yeah, something hidden.

Maybe that's why she doesn't talk because she's like, you know,

don't want everybody to know about it.

Yeah.

Invented flying, but I don't want to remember that.

So she, Kate Bush, shares a birthday with Emily Bronte, who wrote Wuthering Heights.

No, which is her.

That's interesting.

I'm not going to say it's her big song, but it's one of the biggest, isn't it?

That is her biggest height.

That was the breakthrough song.

Yeah, yeah.

And it was the 30th of July, 1818 and 1958, respectively.

That's amazing.

And can I just tell you a quick thing about the word Wuthering?

Oh, yeah.

What does it mean?

Yeah, no idea.

Any guesses?

Wuthering.

Wuthering Heights.

Is it

to fly to the circle?

That's it.

At the weathering height.

It feels onomatopoeically, it feels like weathering almost.

Like, you know, like the wind, especially because of the book, it feels like the moors are blowing stuff and that's pretty much it, is it?

But it's pretty much.

She, I think, was just about the first to say weathering.

She said weathering, but with a Yorkshire accent.

Exactly.

Exactly.

With her book dictated, but not read.

It was previously used much more as withering.

Yeah.

with an H, an extra H, or withering, which meant rushing along, and it was usually a reference to wind, just like you're saying, James.

And a witherer was a lusty, a strong, or a stout person.

Really?

Because like wither now is the opposite of lusty and strong.

And it's again with an extra H.

So it's a witherer, you know.

That was in the Francis Groves' dictionary of the vulgar tongue, his one was.

And there was also

a word to make a whizzing or a rushing noise, which was to wadder.

Tawada.

So it could have been waddering heights.

That's what I love.

That sounds like like something Elmer Fuck would write.

Waddering Heights.

It does sound like, watch out, I'm Waddering you.

She hadn't read the book when she wrote Wuthering Heights, Kate Bush.

Really?

She gets a lot of the plot points in.

She must have read the Spark Notes or something.

She'd watched the adaptation on the BBC, which was really big the year before.

It was absolutely massive.

And she

wrote the song based on the book and then later on read the book.

Oh, but that's dangerous because sometimes they really change the plot, don't they?

they?

I did in the A-level drama, they had to do what's that Noel Coward play with Elvira, Blythe Spirit.

In the film, there's a car crash at the end,

and I hadn't read the rest of the play.

And I just wrote about the car crash at the end

and got called into Mrs.

Bray's office and she was like, So, can you just tell me again, like, which bit inspired you to talk about the car crash scene?

And

I was literally just chatting pure, I was woodering on, and she was like, yep, yep.

And so it's not in the clay maze, it's

only in the film.

And she made me write it all again.

I had the exact same experience with Winnie the Pooh in the blustery day.

Oh, come on, on your O-levels.

Fortunately, the...

Did you think Winnie was a Pooh?

Piglet uses him to beat his way out of the freezer, doesn't he?

No, fortunately, in my case, the screen adaption was very close to the source material, so I got away away with it.

But it was, it was, I know that fear.

I searched on the newspaper archives,

newspapers.com and the British newspaper archives for the first mention of Kate Bush.

And the first mention I could find was from the Burton Observer and Chronicle, and it was from the week that Wuthering Heights came out because she was pretty unknown at that stage.

And in the first week, it went to, I think, like number 29 in the chart.

So it wasn't like huge, but it was there.

And

the review said how do we stop emily bronte spinning in her grave the easiest way would be to call back in all the copies of kate bush's wuthering heights singing the role of ghostly kathy she appeals for heathcliff to let her in if heathcliff has any sense he'll plug his ears with cotton wool and go to bed what a tick

i believe that's the first review of that

it was in the burton observer and it was just initials i think it was said ah or something so it didn't say who the person was god i bet bet AH is just constantly hoping they never get revealed.

I really must have a different AH.

There was loads of people with AH at the Burton.

I really tried to look in the Burton Observer and Chronicle history to see if anyone who'd worked there had these initials and I couldn't find them.

So you were trying to get a witch hunt going.

I was going to email them and say, what do you think about it now?

Yeah.

This is so weird because there's another connection there.

The novel.

got shocking reviews when it came out.

Really?

Yeah.

So one said, the only consolation which we have in reflecting on it is that it will never be generally read.

Oh, wow.

And another wrote,

how a human being could have attempted such a book as the present without committing suicide before he had finished a dozen chapters is a mystery.

Wow.

Wow.

I mean, admittedly, I do own a copy and haven't read it, so.

Did you not read it at school?

No, we didn't.

Really?

No, we didn't either.

No.

Really?

I've read it.

It is.

It is.

Look, I'm an Anne Bronte fan.

I'm going to put my cards on the table.

I prefer Anne.

Do you?

I think Emily's a bit overrated.

Wow.

See, this is what we're doing.

I'm AHM.

Yeah, he is, yeah.

That is his initials.

Yeah.

I mean, is it possible that AH was paying tribute to he actually or she actually loved the song and just wanted to reflect the original review of the book itself?

No way.

No way.

No.

Sounds implausible.

AH is listening at home going, yes, yes,

tell us why that.

Tell us yes, please.

But a wireless mic born from a coat hanger.

Yeah.

That's exciting because now they're everywhere.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Just on microphones.

Yeah.

In the 1930s, the BBC had a special microphone which was only for the use of the royal family.

Oh, and it's in the BBC to this day.

It's an artifact of...

So that was when they started doing royal broadcasts at Christmas.

I think that was in the 30s.

I think it was George V who started doing that.

Yeah, yeah.

And I think a BBC sound engineer saw the standard microphone that they were going to do it with and thought, this is not good enough for the king.

And just quickly put some

regal blue velvet cloth over it which you would think would slightly dampen the it might help it stop actually helping yeah maybe a good point and anyway as the years went by they got more and more elaborate and so they ended up with uh this beautiful weird looking thing which was in a kind of gilded cage wow it was from dancer it was from dan's

that's really cool it was because they worried that like non-regal spits might get into it or something no i think it was just that we have to make it fancy for the king or queen to use yeah yeah yeah, yeah.

King Bush met the queen.

Went to Buckingham Palace in 2005.

She asked for an autograph.

Who asked for whose autograph?

Bush asked for a queen.

Oh, okay.

Huge fan.

I mean, it's plausible, isn't it?

It's plausible.

And what did the queen do?

Fuck off.

Yeah, exactly.

The queen's not allowed to give out autographs, I think.

She's not.

In case someone tries to do credit card, you're not allowed to, yeah.

She's scamming the queen.

No, what is it?

She said,

first of all,

if you were going to try and scam the Queen, you'd need the mum's maiden name.

Yeah, Bose Lynn.

Oh, she did have an

she grew up on?

The actual heirs that just have like a first name.

Charles Windsor and stuff like that, I guess.

Yeah.

I think if you had the Queen's autograph, you might be able to start wars against other countries.

Yes, that's true.

Oh, yeah, that's true.

That's a big thing.

And Kate Bush, as we know,

she does want to do that.

She has tried several times.

I would say that poses a bigger threat as well than just logging into the Queen's Amazon Prime.

I can't imagine anyone called Bush starting illegal wars.

No, no.

Okay, that's it.

That is all of our facts.

Thank you so much for listening.

If you'd like to get in contact with any of us about the things that we have said over the course of this podcast, we can be found on our Twitter accounts.

I'm on at Schreiberland, James, at James Harkin, Andy, at Andrew Hunter M.

And Maisie, at Maisie Adam.

I was up all night thinking of that one.

Yeah, or you can go to our group account, which is at no such thing.

You can write into us at podcast at qi.com, or you can go to our website, no such thingasofish.com.

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Do check them out.

Otherwise, we're going to be back again next week with another episode, and we'll see you then.

Goodbye.