489: No Such Thing As A Quiet Whitsuntide

Hey, if you listen to iHeart K-pop with Jojo, let me say thank you and turn you on to something next level.

Hello, Soju's sparkling Soju.

It's light, sparkling, and packed with five delish flavors.

My two faves: peach and Asian pear.

Oh my god, smoother than hard seltzer and much more fun than beer.

This drink is all about good times and sharing vibes.

And trust me, once you try it, you'll get why everybody's talking about it.

Order now and take 15% off your first order.

Just enter code Jojo15 at checkout at hellosoju.com.

Hello, Soju.

Every sip is a hit.

Please enjoy responsibly.

At Coldwater Creek, we take a thoughtful approach to design, giving attention to what matters most to you.

From quality fabrics to the fits you love to artful details that captivate.

Coldwater Creek caters to your wardrobe in every season, for every occasion, and in every size.

We create comfortable, confident styles with endless versatility that reflect the life you live.

Discover why Coldwater Creek is the sought-after choice in women's clothing.

For new seasonal looks, shopcoldwatercreek.com.

Hi, everyone.

Welcome to this week's episode of No Such Things a Fish, where we were joined in the Soho Theatre, London, by the incredible Sally Phillips.

Now, a lot of you will be excited by that, I'm sure, because Sally has been on the podcast a couple of times now and she is so funny.

She is just one of us, really.

She loves doing the research.

She loves facts.

Just for anyone who doesn't know who Sally is, she is basically the the doyen of British comedy over the last however many years.

She was in Smack the Pony, she was in Alan Partridge, she played the Prime Minister of Finland in Veep.

I mean, she's been in everything.

You know who Sally Phillips is.

You're really going to enjoy this show.

I don't really have much more to say, so I might as well quickly say, don't forget to join Club Fish if you want to.

Go to no suchthingsaffish.com/slash Patreon or no suchthingsafish.com slash Apple if you want to do that.

Loads of bonus material, ad-free episodes all sorts of stuff on there a few weeks ago we gave away a cabbage patch doll and actually that reminds me once you've listened to this show do go on to our various social medias because you will be able to see a couple of props that were used in this show i'm sure we'll post them up so definitely go and check those out because they're absolutely brilliant look i don't want to use up any more of your time i'm just going to say on with the podcast

Oh nice

Hello and welcome to another episode of No Such Thing as a Fish, a weekly podcast this week coming to you live from Soho Theater.

My name is Dan Shriver.

I am sitting here with James Harkin, Andrew Hunter Murray, and Sally Phillips.

And once again, we have gathered round 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 Sally.

So I was entranced by the Finnish hobby horse championships that was doing the round on Twitter.

And also, I was in Finland when they were being held.

Unfortunately, didn't make it.

But my fact is that the world's best hobby horse jumper can jump high enough to theoretically clear the first two jumps in the Grand National.

It's amazing.

How many of you saw it?

Did I see it?

It was really amazing.

It's the Hobby Horse Championships, it's mainly girls between 11 and 18 that are interested.

And is it what?

Can't afford a real horse.

Is it on BBC One?

Like, where are they?

The girls are horribly bullied.

Okay.

Yeah, by their compatriots for being into it.

Yeah, there was was a film called Hobby Horse Revolution

2019.

It's a big thing.

It's like, once you look into it, and it is some boys, but many girls, and some adult women, but I think that's a bit strange.

They often go into woodland and do it in secret.

So they don't give away their movies or.

No, so they don't get attacked.

Okay.

And they start off, most people make their own hobby horses because a pro hobby horse costs about 300 euros.

Right.

Yeah.

And the bridle is.

We're talking about the stick with the head of the horse.

Yeah.

So it's the realism that's the expensiveness, is it?

Yes.

Or are they like aerodynamic?

Is it like Nimbus QT?

I don't know.

I don't know.

But my partner and I, because we knew this was live and we love the show very much, this afternoon spent a full 15 minutes each making everyone a hobby horse.

What?

No.

No.

What?

Oh, my God.

Oh, my God.

What?

So, Andy, for the people who can't see this,

for the people who can't see this,

bad luck, because it's indescribable.

It is incredible.

This is amazing.

Yours does look a tiny bit like a bad date night, girl.

So it has.

Mine is, it's a very colourful sock, which is stuffed, and it has a mop hair and some eyes.

And yeah, I love it.

Andy so much.

Mine is ultra-realistic, I would say.

This is a horse.

Yeah, mine slightly looks like he ran out of materials and gave up.

Yours is very cool.

It's very kind of like space horse.

But mine's very space, like glam rock, sort of.

This hair is like very Flint Zeppelin for your 3000.

I did that one.

I'm quite pleased with that one.

And this one's made out of bandages, a planter, and it's got radishes for eyes.

Oh, wow.

This is incredible.

Thank you.

Well I thought, I mean, I kind of thought we could maybe have a go, but that would be

too embarrassing, wouldn't it?

Or maybe I should get the audience to have a go, do a bit of dressage?

Because what would happen is it would be there was loads of different disciplines.

Everyone's putting it down.

Don't make me do it.

Don't make me move.

I'm a geek.

I don't like physical action.

Yeah, they do show jumping.

They do puissance, which is the only time you're allowed to run at

a jump with you're allowed to run at it rather than canter.

And yeah,

that is the one where they've jumped a whole Peter Dinklage.

Oh, is that how to do it?

Four foot seven inches.

Four foot seven.

Four foot seven inches.

But there's also

show jumping.

They do the international is 80 centimetres, the jumps.

Yeah.

But the Finns so dominate that their jumps are one metre, ten centimetres.

Wow.

So 10,000 hobby horses in Finland, in Finland alone.

But it's spreading.

Is there a reason?

I don't know.

Is there a reason it hasn't got further or that it's got quite far?

It has actually got quite, it's got so much further than you'd think.

Some of them.

All the Nordic nations, Canada, Ukraine.

Yeah, yeah, it's in so many places.

But sometimes.

It's northern, isn't it?

It's quite a north, northern Europe and Canada, like places where you have long, dark nights with not much else to do.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, you say that.

You say that, but I mean, at least they're nice to the horses

in the Nordic nations, whereas our pretend horses have a dark, dark history.

Right.

I'm talking about the none of you came across it, the Padstow, Obiorstow.

Oh, the Obiorsto.

Yeah, but the scariest one is in Wales.

In Wales, they use real horse skulls

on a stick.

Really?

Yeah, with this isn't teenage girls doing it, though, is it?

Well, the video I saw was like

an elderly man with some friends,

goes to the door of someone's house and then sings quite a scary song

in Welsh.

And if you cannot finish the song inside the house, they force their way in.

Okay.

And there's a lot of chasing girls with horses.

It's quite, it's all sort of strange folk.

Very strange folky rituals.

There are loads of these rituals all over the world.

Yes, all over the world.

You said Padstow, which is another one.

There's the Hoden horse in Canada.

Did you see the Padstow?

Did you look at that online?

It doesn't look, I mean, it's really bizarre.

It looks like a grand piano.

Oh, really?

But with a tail and a thing sticking out the front, then they sort of rock it.

Yeah, they're kind of a bit ritual.

Very strange.

Is this where the pantomime horse comes from?

It's a really weird sort of ritual fertility thing, but it's nothing to do with pantomime.

No, nothing to do with pantomime horse.

No, it's really strange.

It's the Lord of Miss Rule.

So it's the spirit of...

Well, that's what Google told me.

I'm talking like a.

It's a pantomime horse, but a kind of, you know, that's a sort of misrule thing, isn't it?

You know,

it's weird.

Who's in the front?

Who's in the back?

Yeah.

Hello?

No one else.

You would get on really well with Kate Beckinsale.

Did you see this?

Oh, really?

She travels with a pantomime horse everywhere.

She does.

And she reckons it's like really good.

Well, it kind of calms her down.

Is she stressed?

Wait, sorry, with people in it.

Well,

like an emotional support animal.

She brings the costume around, and then if she's got a bit of downtime, then she'll get in it and she'll find someone else to get in it with her.

And it's just a nice way of calming down, relaxing.

Yes, very normal.

I think the biggest problem on the sort of a PR level is that no matter how you try and spin it, it always sounds nuts when you say the thing you're actually doing with hobby horsing.

Like I found a quote from someone who said, People assume that it's a game or that we are more or less crazy, said chairwoman of the Finnish Stick Horse Enthusiasts Association.

You're never going to make it past the description, are you?

It's a hard thing, but it sounds like an amazing thing.

I genuinely think, you know, people always talk about at the Olympics, like, why not have someone in the 100 meters who's just a citizen who's just running alongside, and you can really see how fast they're going.

Having a 12-year-old girl at the Grand National make the first two and just stack it headfirst into the third.

That would be amazing.

Actually, imagine you had a pantomime horse, the fastest pantomime horse in the world yeah and they are in the 100 meters you know it's a person

well two people and they're in the 100 meters in the first ever olympics yeah where do you think they would finish so sorry oh in the first ever the first ever olympics 100 meters race you've got the two fastest current yeah pantomime horse people yeah where would they finish in the race because people did run a bit slower didn't they in the first olympics yeah but they didn't have the pantomime horse costume on why i just i just Well, the First Olympics, that was Greece.

Greece, like shoes and I should say, ancient Greece.

Oh, no, sorry, in 1996, the first modern.

Shoes were less good, Dan, and they hadn't, they hadn't like, you know, maybe some, maybe someone died in the right place.

Oh, okay.

Honestly, it's just a straight-up.

I'm going to say bronze.

I'm going to say bronze, but.

No, no, I'm going to say silver and bronze because they count as two people.

Very clever.

Very clever.

I'm going to say gold.

No, well, Dan is right.

They would have got silver.

The fastest is is 12.045 seconds for 100 meters, and that wouldn't quite have gotten gold in the first Olympics, but it would have been the second place.

Does the nose of the person in the back of the pantomime horse have to get over the line?

No, no, okay.

Okay, just the

hobby horsing just because there's one fact I'm just so desperate to share.

Yeah, one of the rules of the hobby horse competition is that only stallions and mares can take part, and geldings are banned.

gelding.

Gelding being a

muted young horse.

Where are the testicles on this?

Well, that's what I mean.

That's what I mean.

Yeah, well, exactly.

That's bizarre, isn't it?

But that's in the rules.

That's amazing.

Incredible.

Pantomime horses.

I mean, that is the worst ever job.

I mean, I know.

Have you ever done that?

No,

I've never done that.

I've never done that.

There were some pantomimes that sometimes use real horses.

Right.

Because John Barrowman was thrown 20 feet off by one.

They supposedly trained horse, they threw him off

in Glasgow in 2013.

And there was a Paul O'Grady who used to tell a story about being in a panto with a trained horse that he had to get into bed with him.

He used to follow him around.

He was playing the fairy godmother in Cinderella.

He used to follow him around the stage with a massive erection.

And

he couldn't say anything because there were loads and loads of kids.

And they're all going, It's behind you.

wow good grief that's pretty cool here's the thing about this is the thing about real horses now yeah if you i don't think we've said this before if you frown at a horse and then go away and then come back it will remember

and be a bit more

james is doing some stunt work for the people listening at home

um it'll remember that you frowned that head it'll remember that you frown that oh and if you but also if you smile at a a horse and then go away, it will think, oh, there he is.

Okay, the horse remembers you frowned.

How is it then showing that data on, yeah?

Exactly.

So it's bizarre.

It's which eye it looks at you with.

Oh.

So horses look at negative or threatening sights with their left eye and positive ones with their right eye.

Really?

So if you come back, you know what the horse thinks of you, depending on which eye it looks at you with.

That's really interesting.

So horses understand human facial expressions.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's interesting because a lot of animals, if you smile at them, they'll see see the teeth and they think you're being aggressive, for instance.

Right.

So interesting.

Like most comedians.

Do you know that it was illegal to dress up as a horse in Scotland in the seventh century?

Really?

Okay.

In fact,

it was forbidden for any man to dress as a horse or a wild beast and dance anti-clockwise during January.

Yeah, it was demonic.

But that's the thing about dressing dressing up as an animal: to let your demonic side out.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

It was seen as very anti-Catholic and stuff.

St.

Augustine wrote that anyone carrying on that most filthy practice of dressing like a horse should be punished most severely.

Oh, wow.

But as soon as the 1st of February hits, knock yourself out.

We're doing no horse January this year again.

That's fine.

John Grisham explores the dark side of the criminal justice system in his number one New York Times bestseller, written with innocence advocate Jim McCloskey, Framed, 10 true stories of innocent people framed for murder.

In Framed, you'll be astonished as you witness the incompetence, racism, and corruption that all play a part in the miscarriage of justice.

And you'll be inspired as you witness these wrongfully convicted people fight for freedom against all odds.

Read Framed Framed by John Grisham and Jim McCloskey.

In stores now.

Also available as an audiobook.

Tired of spills and stains on your sofa?

WashableSofas.com has your back, featuring the Anibay Collection, the only designer sofa that's machine-washable inside and out, where designer quality meets budget-friendly prices.

That's right, sofas started just $699.

Enjoy a no-risk experience with pet-friendly, stain-resistant, and changeable slip covers made with performance fabrics.

Experience cloud-like comfort with high-resilience foam that's hypoallergenic and never needs fluffing.

The sturdy steel frame ensures longevity, and the modular pieces can be rearranged anytime.

Check out washable sofas.com and get up to 60% off your Anabay sofa, backed by a 30-day satisfaction guarantee.

If you're not absolutely in love, send it back for a full refund.

No return shipping or restocking fees.

Every penny back.

upgrade now at washable sofas.com offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply

okay it is time for fact number two and that is my fact my fact this week is that this june of 2023 the six million six hundred and sixty six thousand

six hundred and sixty sixth English language Wikipedia article was created and that page was an entry for SatanCon.

Ooh, yeah.

You've got to imagine, obviously, that they were aiming to land that, but that's really hard, right?

So SatanCon being is that like Comic-Con, but with devils?

It pretty much is.

Yeah,

it's set up by the Satanic Temple, who are a non-theistic organization.

And they have this annual convention.

It was in Boston this year.

It was on April 28th, which is my birthday.

So that's very exciting.

Congratulations.

Thank you very much.

It's quite new, SatanCon.

And it's only been held twice, I think.

And

this year was in Boston at the Boston Marriott Hotel.

So good on the Marriott, because you would think,

oh, maybe there'll be a reputational concern if we host SatanCon.

But they said, no, you come and have the conference here.

And I think that's really good.

Because the first one got lots of...

Placards and it got lots of protests outside SatanCon 1

in 2022 denouncing Satan and this sort of thing.

Even though the satanic temple they don't believe in Satan.

They say they lie.

That's the point.

That is the point of the tale.

Yeah, really good point.

Oh, that's worth it.

That's a really good point.

Because they do run Satan after school clubs.

And

I was thinking for my kids.

Even if they don't believe in Satan, they're not helping themselves by calling themselves a Satanic Temple, are they?

No,

they're sort of more of a free speech organisation.

That's what they say.

But no, you're right.

It's all you're being sacked in.

Oh, God, I've fallen right in.

Satan, Prince of Lies.

That's his name.

Why do I get this pentagram tattooed on my back?

They use the proper Latin greeting

instead of saying hail Satan, who they don't believe in.

I'm really on the temple side.

They say ave satana.

What's that mean?

Hail Satan.

Hail Satana.

Yeah.

But it scounds the same as have a banana, which I really like.

That's how you can remember it.

Yeah, yeah.

I like it.

I think they're good.

I do.

Yeah, they're kind of racking.

But there's a few of them around, aren't there, who claim to not be interested in Satan, but are called the Church of Satan or whatever.

Yeah.

And they're all a lot of them are like just trying to take the piss out of the government, out of the church, out of all that kind of stuff.

In lockdown, I started presenting a religious programme on Sunday mornings called Sunday Morning Live.

And we under the BBC had to interview every religion that's recognized as a religion.

So I didn't actually do it, but they interviewed the Satanists

after.

Is that like a proper religion then in the UK?

Yeah,

yeah, Wiccan.

And the lady who came, I didn't talk to her actually, but she came, she'd been up all night

doing what?

In the woods.

Having satanic sex in the woods.

Basically, yeah.

And the big issue for Sunday Morning Live was that she wasn't wearing a bra and you could see really see her nipples really, really clearly.

Was it radio or TV?

TV.

So it was like.

Why would that story be relevant if it was radio, Andrew?

How are we going to gaffer tape the witch's nips up?

Wow, so the wicked thing is a bit different, yeah.

Was she satanic?

Like, did you feel that she was pushing?

I didn't particularly talk to her.

No, I didn't.

I think they did.

Yeah, no, no, I didn't, no, I don't think so.

I think,

but it's just like whatever spell she put on you, it's just suddenly kicked in.

Honestly,

I'm a bit scared of witches and satans.

So was David Bowie, so it's fine.

He was once exercised.

He got someone to do spells of protection.

Well, he used to collect his urine in little bottles, kind of like how Hugh Hefner did, because he was worried that witches were going to steal them and do black magic on them.

No, he went.

He collected all of it.

What do you mean?

He can't have collected all of his urine in bottles to prevent theft.

Because that's such an unsustainable.

I mean, I know he was rich.

I know he was like a wealthy guy.

Someone had enough money for jars to sustain every passing.

Imagine how much it would fetch now.

And I absolutely would buy something.

Oh, yeah, yeah, of course.

But I also think, like, if you just piss it down the toilet, that's probably safer than keeping it in bottles in your house.

It's so much safer.

Yeah.

Yeah, it must be, right?

Because once you've got got it in bottles, people...

No, but you're forgetting about filming trailers.

Because

there was a, I think I might have made this up.

But I feel like

there was an issue of people going to Justin Timberlake's filming trailer and trying to steal his tower.

Because it's held in a tank.

Yeah, yeah, of course.

Did I dream that?

That would be so worrying if I did.

I feel that was a thing, though.

And what were they going to do with it?

Were they going to clone it?

All right.

No, no, just use it and use it for spells, I guess.

We've got to remember that this is a guy who was so coked off his head that he was collecting his own piss in bottles.

I don't think there was logic to his reasoning.

I think he just was scared of a...

Well, there is a whole thing of collecting, you know,

hairs and stuff, isn't there?

Yeah, I mean, so that's a thing.

Yoko Ono used to be seen as someone that potentially, you know, she had an album called Yes I Am a Witch because she was presented as someone who might be a witch.

And she bought a single mustache hair off of Salvador Dali.

She paid him for it, and he sent it over in a box.

And years later, it was revealed by the partner of Salvador Dali that he was so scared that she was going to use it for witchcraft that he ended up sending a painted bit of blade of grass that he picked from his lawn.

But she never noticed, according to the story.

But so he was petrified that Yoko Ono.

Yeah, well, there was the whole satanic panic, wasn't there?

Is it 70s and 80s?

Yeah.

Where they thought McDonald's were haunted?

Possessed?

No, the whole satanic panic where McDonald's got a letter from a woman in Ohio asking why the owner, Ray Kroc, was a financial supporter of the Church of Satan.

And it was a rumour that just spread.

She said she'd seen him on the Phil Donahue show saying he supported the Church of Satan.

And he hadn't said that, but she told her pastor, and her pastor put it in the church's newsletter, which was called Moments of Sunshine.

and very quickly that spread across America via church newsletters.

Wow.

So McDonald's had to send executives out to these churches with sworn statements insisting that Kroc never said those things.

It was a real panic wasn't it?

And the expert on it these days is a guy called Dr.

David Frankfurter

and what he thinks is it was basically like a sort of a loop where you would have these evangelical Christians saying this is happening and then people using hypnotic regression techniques to try and remember things that they supposedly suppressed in their lives and then really what they would do is kind of say what the hypnotist wanted them to say you just had this kind of feedback loop that eventually there was you know in theory in some of the newspapers they were saying there were thousands of these satanists around America doing this yeah um I've got a fact for you okay in 2021 in the UK more babies were named Lucifer than Nigel

do you have the numbers do we know how many 15 Lucifers Yeah.

No more than two Nigels.

No.

My words.

It doesn't appear on the list.

You know that thing where if there are under three, they don't say how many there are.

And do we think that it's because Nigel is associated with evil these days?

Did you come across the thing of 666, though?

Yeah.

So I'd always thought that 666, the number of the beast, was about

the number of perfection being seven, and so six being imperfection.

That's what I thought it was.

But then today, I discovered that there's a thing called isocephi, which is letters equivalent to numbers.

And apparently, this was very, very common in the first and second century CE.

So you would quite often refer to people with a number.

So a joke was by Suetonius, a calculation new Nero his mother slew.

And in this case, the emperor

Nero equals 1005, which is the same value as the phrase his mother slew.

And apparently most people think if you say 666, it stands for Caesar Nero.

So in some early versions of the Bible, in Revelations, from Revelations 13, the Latin version has the number as being 616.

Right.

And that's because in Latin, Nero is 616, not 666.

And the reason we think that is because Revelation was written by very early Christians.

It's one of the earliest of the New Testament books.

And really, they were just being persecuted by Nero, so they saw him as the devil.

But he was actually a good

guy.

Well, I wouldn't go quite that far.

I mean, it depends what side you're on.

If you're on Nero's side, he's a great guy.

He used to drink an energy drink that was made by soaking roasted dung in vinegar.

No, no, but that's still how they.

That's Red Bull.

That is.

That's Stephen Seagal's energy drink.

Have you seen those adverts?

Oh, yeah.

They're unbelievable.

I've not seen the ads.

You've got to see the ads.

You've got to see the ads.

What's it called?

I can't remember.

I used to drink it all the time.

What?

Yeah, I don't know why.

I went through a period.

Well, my local corner shop just stocked things like Marley's Mellow Mood, which was a Bob Marley energy drink, but it was sort of an opposite.

Bob Marley energy drink.

Yeah, it was a sort of Bob Marley anti-energy drink.

And it said on the side, whatever you do, don't drive a truck after two of these.

And

the store, I just, it had all like the collection of every celebrity's weird, you know, know, it had a.

What's amazing, Dan, is that this was at the end of your street.

You would be the only person in the world who would buy this stuff.

Yeah, exactly.

They probably only were like, oh, we accidentally ordered this one time.

Oh, it's selling every week for this one guy.

Let's keep getting it.

It was really powerful, his drink, yeah.

Yeah, the Stephen Sugar one, it's the most misogynistic advert I've ever seen.

Oh, really?

He's not even bothered to turn up.

You just have to watch it.

Okay, that wasn't on the

careful.

I can't believe I was the sole funder of that ad.

It is time for fact number three, and that is Andy.

My fact is that roughly 3% of our entire planet is called Jason.

How much is called Nigel?

Shrinking amounts.

Yeah.

So this is an amazing...

Okay, this is amazing, right?

No, this is not 3% of all people on the planet are called Jason, right?

This is 3% of the Earth itself is named Jason.

By whom?

By

geologists and seismologists.

So there is, okay, this is a bit technical, but there are these two mysterious.

I sound like Dan when I read this out.

There are these mysterious structures inside the Earth, right?

There are two of them, okay?

And they are these massive blobs.

They're called LLSVPs, large low-shear velocity provinces, right?

Now, there's one beneath Africa and there's one under the Pacific, and that's obviously a very, you know, technical name for them.

And they're not very well known about.

They're not very well researched because they are where the mantle of the Earth meets the core of the Earth.

Okay, so the Earth goes crust, not very much, mantle, quite a bit, core, quite a bit more.

And they're at the junction point between the

mantle and the core.

So they're really hard to research.

And the researchers have named them Tuzo and Jason.

They are billions of years old, and between them, they are.

They're both blokes.

It's true.

They're named after two geological scientists, so they are.

Yeah.

And we don't know what they are.

They might be offcuts from another planet, which is exciting.

There's a theoretical planet called Theia from four and a half billion years ago, which might have crashed into Earth and might have been subsumed.

That's possible.

Yeah, we don't know exactly what they are.

But they are incredible, and they're there.

And this...

I don't know why I'm having to justify their existence.

This is proper.

I spent 15 minutes talking about Satan.

These are real geological structures in the planet.

They're awesome.

No, yeah, it was wonderful.

Why aren't you more excited?

In all honesty, it's because an eBay auction came up on my phone saying you've got three minutes to bid, so I suddenly was focused on that.

Are you joking?

Well,

I didn't bid in the end.

How much was it for that swimming pool of David Bowie's bottled urine?

Are we saying that there's because the description I read is that it's there's mountains there that are taller than Mount Everest?

Yes.

Yes.

But what does that mean?

As in then, there's no space, it's not the hollow Earth we're talking about, right?

There's no space around the mountains.

No, it's just different, it's different rock that might have been this other

mystery planet.

Yeah, in fact, near Jason and Tuzo, there are these enormous mega mountains, and they're at that junction point as well.

They are called ultra-low velocity zones.

And it's this weird boundary zone.

I did read something, I can't get my head around this scientists claim that the gap between the core and the mantle is bigger than the change between rock and air.

No, I can't understand that, but okay.

It's because of the high pressure rate.

Yes.

Yeah yeah.

That is amazing.

And they're only found because scientists can track earthquakes through the earth and you spot where the reverberations, how long they take to get through the earth, and you can build up a profile very slowly and carefully of what the different structures are based on how fast

waves are.

This is just news to me that right because i'm and last time i did geography i was a child and i thought it was uh then there was magma

the mantle is much more fluid and then the there's an outer liquid core and an inner solid core so yeah um there's space around jason no that was me that was me no space at all that was dancing

a mountain it's a different type of rock like it's you've got the sort of quite liquid uh mantle but you've got much more solid rock which is this jason stuff is that right that's what i say yeah yeah But I think it's really interesting these are named after blokes because actually quite a lot of this science was done by women.

Right?

So a sorry, did you say you were surprised?

It's so weird.

It's so against everything else that's happened in history.

It's bizarre.

One person, for instance, Inga Lehman, she was the first to work out that the Earth had a solid core.

And what it was, again, it's like the vibrations going through the earth.

And they realized there must have been a core there because the vibrations will come after an earthquake.

And and then if you were exactly opposite the earthquake you wouldn't see them and so there must have been something liquid there but actually she noticed that if you looked at seismographs there were really really tiny amounts of vibrations so it wasn't completely dark and what she realized was that this was because there was also a solid core inside the liquid core and but they all thought that no she must be wrong and it must have been like a discrepancy in the seismographs the seismographs must be wrong because this woman can't possibly be right that there's an extra core in there but it turned out like in 1970.

I think she was still alive, but we found out, yeah, we found out that it was true.

Wow,

amazing.

So, I've got a couple of things on Jason Statham.

Me too.

I don't know.

Is it like a sandwich you got from your local shop?

I was just looking into notable Jason's because I thought that's the territory.

Are you joking?

I've got eight pages of dense geological data.

Jason Statham is in Meg 2.

He's massive.

Yeah, he is.

He's incredible.

So he was filming Expendables 3, I think it was.

I've got this.

Have you got this amazing story?

Amazing story.

We're literally going from the structure of the entire

all life, all of everything we've ever known, these amazing scientists.

I'm sorry, the Expendables 3.

He's in a, go on, yeah.

You listen to this and tell me you're not amazed.

He's in a car and

he's doing a scene, and suddenly he needs to.

He likes to do his own stunts.

He loves to do his own stunts, Jason, doesn't he?

Yeah.

And he needs to hit the brakes because he needs to stop before there's a cliff, which drops 60 feet into the Black Sea.

Gosh, 60 feet.

60 feet.

That's nearly as much as the 2,000 miles of mantle

between the crust and the core.

So the brakes fail.

Statham's in the car

and it goes off the cliff.

This is a Hollywood film.

He's plunging 60 feet into like just a three-ton stunt truck.

A three-ton stunt truck.

Sorry, he's driving the truck.

He's driving the truck.

He's driving the

crash.

Anyone else, any other of the expendables, you put Stallone in there, you put Schwarzenegger, you know, they would die in that moment, right?

Statham manages to leap out of the car and successfully dive into the ocean and then comes up and he's all okay.

And why is he okay, Sally?

He's okay because before he became an actor, he was a competitive diver, genuinely.

And he's done a lot of free diving and has got a lot of scuba experience.

Exactly.

He was very, very good at diving, but not quite good enough to make the Olympic team, so he decided to branch out.

Exactly, but he did represent Britain in the Commonwealth Games in the 1990s.

So it's not like scuba diving, it's highboard diving.

Highboard diving, which he used to practice in Crystal Palace.

There's a highboard there, and they have a pool there where Tom Daly would practice as well.

And before Tom Daly, Jason Statham.

He would be there.

Yeah.

That's really interesting.

So Jason Statham, that's really interesting, because Jason Statham, that means, might have been helpful in the first attempt to dig down into

the Earth's mantle in 1961.

So this was a thing called Project Mohole, okay?

It was an attempt to find the lower limit of the Earth's crust, which is very, very thick on land and much thinner over the ocean.

The USA was losing the space race in 1961.

The Soviets were way ahead.

And so the USA said, wait, we'll just dig instead and we'll do better at digging.

And that'll be our new thing.

And so

they tried to get down beyond this thin layer of crust where it meets the mantle, which is a point called the Mohorovichic discontinuity.

It didn't work.

So they went into the ocean.

The weirdest thing was, there was a ship which was sent to do the drilling operation.

And to keep it stable in the same bit of the ocean, their solution was they fitted propellers all the way around the outside and then just fired them all at the same time.

Wow.

That's brilliant.

It's very cool.

They probably needed marine biologists on the boat, right, in order to do this stuff.

I'm not falling for it.

Because they didn't need

Digi No, no, no.

Jason Momoa.

Absolutely not.

Who became Aquaman later in his career, first studied marine biology when he was at university before transferring to wildlife biology.

That is so interesting, Daddy.

Isn't it?

Yeah.

Well, they did have a kind of hero of beginning with Jay, and Jay named hero there because John Steinbeck was present.

Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck.

He was there kind of

writing about it,

but it didn't work.

Sadly, it didn't work.

Gosh, you weren't kidding.

In the dressing room, he said, I've got 15 minutes.

Brilliant material on Jason.

There is a bit of advance this year.

So this is quite sort of geeky now, but...

Scientists have just extracted a chunk of the mantle for the first time, and they were trying to work out Earth's mantle.

Wow.

They were trying to work out how to do it, right?

And they realized they don't go to the mantle, go to where rock from the mantle has been pushed above its normal resting place.

So they drilled into an underwater mountain, but like a normal underwater mountain is in at the bottom of the mid-Atlantic ridge.

And they drilled in slightly sideways, and they have a core of mantle rock which is a kilometer long.

Right.

And they've extracted that core.

And that'll allow them to study all sorts of things about the deep earth.

So cool.

Yeah, amazing.

That's incredible.

Wow.

All I've got going on here is you could keep it on your mantelpiece.

I just can't join in with the science stuff, really.

Well, Jason Statham, I do have a fact about Jason Statham.

Oh, look who goes crawling back to the other side.

He fits very well, as in he would be a great action hero, even with his, you know, his

human name, as in his name is a good name for an action action hero.

Right.

So is it not his real name, Jason State?

No, it is his real name, as far as I know.

But my point is that action heroes tend to have names beginning with Jay.

Oh, that's easy.

James Bond, Jason Bourne, John Wick, Jack Reacher, John McLean, John James Rambo.

Oh, yeah.

And there was a study, a brilliant study, by a writer at Slate called Demetria Glace, or Glass, and she studied 2,000 action movies, pretty much every modern Western action movie with a male sort of single everyman protagonist.

A third of them had names beginning with Jay.

Really?

Which is very unusual.

So do you know that the Earth is younger on the inside than it is

on the outside?

So when you get to the mantle level of

Judas,

that would be a good name for you.

Judas, great action star.

This is like freaky Friday.

So as we saw in the movie Interstellar, where when Matthew McConaughey is traveling out into space, gravity distorts time, doesn't it?

And there's a reason that we say that when astronauts are in space, they're almost time travelers because they age differently, because time travels differently.

If you were at the core of our planet, and that means then the core of our planet itself is traveling at a different time.

So it's two and a half years younger than the rest of our planet because gravity is so intense down there that it slowed down time.

That's pretty cool.

Whatever.

Okay, let me tell you one thing about geology, which will, this will totally blow your mind.

So there's a place called the Hart Mountain in Northwest America.

And I'm talking quite a lot of millions of years ago, but at one stage, that mountain moved 62 miles in half an hour.

Really?

The entire mountain.

What?

Isn't that amazing?

So, there's a load of basically magma.

There's a big sort of river of magma there.

A load of water got into it.

There was a massive explosion.

And the entire mountain moved at 100 miles an hour.

Oh, my word.

No.

In half half an hour.

We're talking millions and millions and millions a year.

Oh, this was the last year.

You're just going skiing and you're like, oh my God.

Are we there yet?

It's right.

Oh, fuck.

Sorry, kids.

Time for a sofa upgrade?

Visit washable sofas.com and discover Anibay, where designer style meets budget-friendly prices, with sofas starting at $699.

AniBay brings you the ultimate in furniture innovation with a modular design that allows you to rearrange your space effortlessly.

Perfect for both small and large spaces, Anibay is the only machine-washable sofa inside and out.

Say goodbye to stains and messes with liquid and stain-resistant fabrics that make cleaning easy.

Liquid simply slides right off.

Designed for custom comfort, our high-resilience foam lets you choose between a sink-in feel or a supportive memory foam blend.

Plus, our pet-friendly stain-resistant fabrics ensure your sofa stays beautiful for years.

Don't compromise quality for price.

Visit washablesofas.com to upgrade your living space today with no risk returns and a 30-day money-back guarantee.

Get up to 60% off plus free shipping and free returns.

Shop now at washablesofas.com.

Offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply.

Love espresso, drip coffee, and cold brew?

With the Ninjalux Cafe, if you can crave it, you can brew it.

Espresso, balanced.

Drip coffee, rich.

Cold brew in a flash.

With barista assist technology, you brew with no stress and no guesswork.

And make perfect silky microfoam hands-free from dairy or plant-based milks.

Bring the coffee house home and unlock your favorites with the Ninja Lux Cafe.

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

Okay, my fact this week is that you could tell the social status of an ancient Egyptian man by the color of his condom.

I mean surely

you would have an inkling before you got to see

or it's a shock isn't it?

You told me you were a pharaoh.

It's bizarre isn't it?

Yeah I mean this I've read this in a couple of places.

One is an article in the Indian Journal of Urology called The Story of the Condom.

one is from an article from the Egypt Museum who have one of these very very old condoms and basically they didn't use them for contraception they used them to stop diseases but they also and insect bites weirdly

but they also use them as an insignia of rancor status

and it was just when I say condom I think some of it might have been more like almost like cod piece

but they were used against diseases as well so you know we can technically call them condoms.

And they were made of linen soaked in olive oil.

Okay.

And with different colours.

The problem is, of all the sauces, maybe you guys found this, but of all the sauces that I found, really good academic sauces, none of them told you what colour you're aiming for.

So I don't know if red was a good one or blue was a good one.

They've got Tooton Carmoon's condom, haven't they?

Do they?

No, they do.

No.

Yes, they do.

Linen soaked in olive oil, impregnated with his DNA.

And it would tie round his waist.

Tied round his waist with string.

But

didn't mention what colour it was.

But they didn't mention the colour.

Why are we not getting the colour system?

Sometimes the colours don't

yeah right

okay gosh that's very interesting

in the course of researching this I read probably the weirdest thing I think I've ever read which is in ancient Rome condoms and and by the way I haven't found a legit source but it appears in so many no it appears in so many places they used to apparently a ancient Roman who was victorious in a battle and had slain his opponent would then make a condom out of the muscle of the opponent don't be daff

source

well they did used to make condoms out of animal intestines and bladders in Rome yeah so it's not impossible it's not impossible it's not impossible feels a bit grizzled it is a bit grizzlied it's sort of one of those facts I'd prefer I'm just gonna prefer not to believe yeah I know

The ancient Egyptians used to use crocodile dung as spermicide.

Did you?

How would you use that?

You would use...

I don't want to think about it.

Why is no one sleeping with me?

I'm covered in crocodile shit.

William Buckland, you know, the naturalist.

Yeah, who ate everything.

His kids had a hobby horse made out of a dead crocodile.

Wow.

I don't know why that came into my head.

My friend Cindy used to have the crocodile that was used in Crocodile Dundee as a, like, they had prop crocodiles.

and as you went into her house she had the prop crocodile pretty cool from crop dundee there's no more iconic prop i think

was it a real crocodile no no

no i think it was a pretend crocodile yeah um condoms just quickly yeah so the condoms of the 18th 18th century were quite interesting because that was the sort of getting towards modern condoms but they're still very uh primitive so they were made of sheep kaicum okay which is the pouch that connects the small and the large intestine to each other of of the sheep

And they had to be treated, and there was a whole nine-step process to make a proper condom out of a sheep's thing, kaikum.

And they were really scarce, they were very hard to come by, partly because butchers could not be bothered to collect, you know, each sheep has one kaicom, so that's one potential condom per sheep, and it was just not worth collecting, basically.

So people would just use the sheep instead.

Do you know the first condom in literature was used by the wife of of King Midas of Crete who's called Pacify?

And she used it to stop herself being harmed by King Midas's semen because it contained scorpions and serpents.

Maybe we could just watch something tonight actually.

Let's watch another episode, actually.

Yeah, actually think about it now.

Yeah.

I discovered that there's a there's a condom make in China called Gizbon,

which

which

is called Gizbon because it's it's after James Bond no

the name's Bond

yeah

and in 2006 a German entrepreneur launched a spray-on condom yes did you come across that yes yeah but it was stopped

yeah the phrasing was a bit unfortunate there

did you come across that idea

and it was stopped it was stopped short by EU regulations.

Oh, I read something slightly different.

I think about what stopped it.

So he was called Jan

Klauser, and he got the idea for it in a car wash.

Because

he was, I don't know, he must have been in the car and it was just being sprayed.

And he thought, oh, maybe

your penis is the car, as it were, and you spray it from every angle with the latex, then you have a perfectly fitted condom.

Right.

You know, perfectly fitted every time.

And he got 30 men to test it.

And apparently it had exclusively positive reviews.

It went really well.

But the drawbacks were that it was quite cold, very cold, to be just sprayed with this sort of latex liquid, and it takes two full minutes to dry.

Yeah.

Which time is probably not the right size anymore.

Yeah.

It still ships internationally, though.

Really?

So it's still not approved by the FDA.

Oh, no, that's the galactic cap.

Sorry.

What's that?

What is that?

The galactic cap.

Sorry, that's just titchy-titchy, like a beanie for your penis.

Oh, okay.

What, like a hipster?

Yeah.

Kind of like.

Leaving the shaft.

It's not been approved by the FDA, but it does ship internationally.

I don't know how it stays on.

Right, okay.

It's very exciting.

You mentioned China earlier with the James Bond thing.

I was reading about ancient Chinese contraception, and because in the early days,

there was a story that tortoise shell in the same way that the beanie was used was kind of used for.

I know it doesn't quite make sense, and you can't get any further with it.

And like, full disclosure, the

article I got this from used the word dude a lot.

So I don't know

how reliable this is.

Were you on the scientific journal Rad Monthly?

Yeah, that is five.

No, no, this was this because it has weirdly, it has sources, but um, it's saying that there used to be a thing where you would you were told to reserve ejaculation, so that basically is with you know, coitus interruptus, right?

But the other thing that they said was to move the semen back into you, basically.

So that was a method that was taught.

So the method was, as point of ejaculation was happening, to press a thumb against in between the scrotum and the anus, and what it would do was...

My parents are in tonight.

You're kidding.

This happens every time.

Oh, no, okay, right.

It's because you mention it in every show we do.

So where do you stick your thumb?

So you put your thumb between your scrotum and your anus, and you push, and then the idea is that it redirects.

I'm playing the hokey cokey with you.

It redirects the semen to go up the spine through the chakras and into the brain is the idea.

Because sex...

I'm sorry, is there a tangible benefit to this procedure?

What's that you haven't said by it?

Because there's an idea that you're expelling something from your body, which is energy, and unless you were receiving the other energy from the human that you're having sex with, that was a wasted energy.

So why not?

you're losing your essence exactly again from somewhere that says awesome a lot in the article and i don't know if it's legit but it seemed it seemed legit at the time

i found that really scary that the penis can suck things

suck things in i don't know if it can

yeah i mean they've got a problem people are stopping using them

so we've got the highest syphilis and gonorrhea rates in the uk for years and years and there was a study done about

men who believe they're attractive, who rate their attractiveness high, are much less likely to use a condom.

Really?

Yeah.

Well, that explains why I've got three on right now.

How do you enjoy that one, Mr.

and Mrs.

Murray?

You can also use condoms as a bungee rope.

Can you?

What?

What?

No, you can't.

How much weight can they take?

Short bungee.

They can take the weight of Carlo Mosca Dodioso, who did a 30-meter bungee jump using a string of 18,500 condoms.

And they didn't snap.

Which brand?

Yeah.

Yeah.

They didn't snap.

It took him four months to tie them together.

Slippery.

Well, that's what he said.

The condoms are slippery.

Whenever they tied a knot, it would just slip out.

Testing you'd have to do on that rope to be confident of it.

Yeah, well, you know what?

They used mathematical formulas to work out how strong it would have to be.

So they worked out how many they would need using maths rather than using applied stuff.

Right.

But he did say he was 99% sure it would work, but his stomach was in the knot for a month before the jump, but it worked and he did manage to do it.

That's incredible.

That is really cool.

You know, Trojan condoms in the States.

It's a brand in America.

They have, it's part of it, because they've got a guy there who's like the great, you know, the Steve Jobs of condoms, basically.

Like, he came into the company, he's innovated, he's made them thinner than ever before.

You know, he's one of those guys who's just like constantly.

And so, when they have an invention that's gone through the science side of it, kind of like this bungee,

then they have people who they have on their list 20 to 30 couples who are known as the bedroom panel, and the condoms get given to them.

So, once or twice a month, they'll get given a sort of new condom test design that twice a month?

The deviance.

It's a whole other world isn't it?

One for Whitsumtide, one for mickleness and you're fine.

They're slightly smaller Trojans aren't they apparently?

Oh are they?

Apparently yes.

Well I read that on the internet today dude.

I also read like the flavours where just blew my mind.

Okay.

This is a penis flavoured condom.

Are you sure you're wearing a condom?

Yeah, it's penis flavoured

Okay, that is it.

That is all of our facts

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

I'm on at Schreiberland, James,

Andy, Andrew Andrew Hunterm.

And Sally.

Don't contact me.

We can also be found on our group account at No Such Thing or our website, no such thingasofish.com.

You can find all the previous episodes there.

I'm just fucking let's end it and we get out of here.

Goodbye!

There's nothing like sinking into luxury.

At washable sofas.com, you'll find the Anibay sofa, which combines ultimate comfort and design at an affordable price.

And get this, it's the only sofa that's fully machine washable from top to bottom, starting at only $699.

The stain-resistant performance fabric slip covers and cloud-like frame duvet can go straight into your wash.

Perfect for anyone with kids, pets, or anyone who loves an easy-to-clean, spotless sofa.

With a modular design and changeable slip covers, you can customize your sofa to fit any space and style.

Whether you need a single chair, love seat, or a luxuriously large sectional, Anibay has you covered.

Visit washablefas.com to upgrade your home.

Right now, you can shop up to 60% off store-wide with a 30-day money-back guarantee.

Shop now at washable sofas.com.

Add a little

to your life offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply

when you think about businesses that are selling through the roof sure you think about a great product a cool brand and brilliant marketing but an often overlooked secret is actually the businesses behind the business making selling simple for millions of businesses that business is shopify

Nobody does selling better than Shopify.

They're the home of the number one checkout on the planet and the not-so-secret, ShopPay, that boosts conversions up to 50%,

meaning way less carts going abandoned and way more sales happening.

Businesses that sell more sell on Shopify.

Upgrade your business and get the same checkout all birds and skims use.

Sign up for your $1 per month trial period at shopify.com slash start selling.

All lowercase.

Go to shopify.com slash start selling to upgrade your selling today.

Shopify.com slash start selling.