Hi, everybody. Andy here. Just before we start this week's show, we have two exciting announcements to make. The first is about who our special guest is this time, and the second is about a live show we have coming up. So firstly, our guest this week is the brilliant comedian Rachel Paris.
Rachel's been on once before, but if you haven't heard of her or you didn't hear that episode, she is a fantastic writer, comedian, presenter, musician, you name it. She's in Ostentatious, the Jane Austen-themed improvised comedy show. She also is in the throes of publishing her first ever book. It's called Advice from Strangers.
everything I know from people I don't know. She toured around for a year asking her live audience for advice, and this book is the brilliant result. It's funny, it's uplifting. The advice ranges from Be Kind to Never Pass Up the Opportunity for a We. It spans the gamut. It's a brilliant book and it's out in paperback now, so do check it out. The second thing to say is that we have a live No Such Thing As A Fish coming up on the 21st of April, and this is a global streaming event.
Very exciting. We're doing a show at the British Library, the world-hallowed British Library, as part of their season, special season, all about animals. It's called Fantastic Beasts, and we're going to be having a very special guest on the show. and the show will be streamed globally. If you go to nosuchthingasafish.com forward slash live, you'll be able to get streaming tickets.
So you can sign up, buy a ticket, and watch from the comfort of your own home wherever in the world you are, from Kettering to Kalamazoo. All the tickets, as I say, at nosuchthingasafish.com slash live. We hope to see... Alright, that's it. On with the show. え? お風呂を沸かします。 Hello and welcome to another episode of No Such Thing as a Fish, a weekly podcast coming to you from the QI offices in Covent Garden.
My name is Dan Schreiber. I'm sitting here with James Harkin, Andrew Hunter-Murray, and Rachel Parris. And once again, we have gathered round the microphones with our four favourite facts from the last seven days. And in a particular order, here we go. Starting with fact number one, that is Rachel. My fact is, Dame Maura Limpenny remains the only castaway on Desert Island Discs to have chosen entirely her own recordings to be marooned.
which i admire me too bold straight in i feel like i should say straight away like in her defense yeah it was her second appearance on the show her first was 22 years and she didn't want to... There probably hadn't been any music in the end. Back in the day, there was eight songs, so that was a big problem. We should quickly say, because our British listeners will obviously know what Desert Island is,
Probably not the young ones. Not the young ones, possibly, yeah. And international people won't know it either. This is children and foreigners. Let me know. A new book by Sally Rooney. Yeah, so it's the UK's, I believe, longest running radio show. If not, it's right up.
the top it's an interview show and the basic premise of it is you bring eight records onto the show songs you love that mean something to you and then at the end you're asked to make a decision you're going to be marooned on a desert island what one song are you going to save while the seven other wash away and you get to bring a book, and you get to bring a luxury item, and it's awesome. It's my favourite radio show. Yeah, and they use that too. So it's really like esteemed, isn't it?
I think it was Dame Elizabeth Schwarzkopf who did a lot. She was a soprano, but it was only Maura Limpenny who chose entirely. I read that Schwarzkopf picks 7 out of 8 featured her voice. And was Dame Maura Limpenny? She was a... She was a pianist. A pianist. Okay, okay. Pianist. Pianist. There's a hinge in pian. Pian. Okay. Pianist. To be fair to her, Limpenny, she didn't pick songs composed by her. They were Mozart's.
and they were Chopin and stuff like that so they were all they're all classical pieces that she was playing on but then you get people like Norman Wisdom who is For children and overseas people, he was a comedian, very big in Albania. I mean, anyone under 80 is going to struggle with a normal race. What about him? Well, he chose five of his... as his own songs but I think his actual own songs don't laugh at me because I'm a fool
Someone who chose three of their own for foreigners and not for children was Rolf Harris. Oh, gosh. Just for the edit. Wow. One weird one was David Frost. 흡해 David Frost interviews. Did he do the Nixon one? I'm not sure that he did bizarrely. With those people, I do wonder if, was it just a matter of having not thoroughly researched what the program was?
it could be in the early days I so eminent these days being invited on Desert Island Desk is basically in Britain it's kind of a minor gong yeah it's like getting an MBE or something yeah I'm sure you guys found out that some people have done it twice that's pretty eminent that's like
And you've got some people who've done it three times. Only two people, as far as I can tell, have done it four times. Oh, really? Yeah. Do we get to guess who? Have a guess. Someone like Maggie Smith. Yeah, I would say even more eminent. Oh wow. And if you guys guessed the other... without having I don't know is it one of the chuckle brothers
Barry Chuckle. Yeah, and his luxury was Paul Chuckle, which was nice. Sorry, is it actually Barry Chuckle? No, no, no, no. Don't do that. I believed you. But it is a comedian, isn't it, from old? Yeah, Arthur Askey. So not a name that cuts a lot of ice today. But like a musical guy, wasn't he? Yeah, yeah, a really, really, really famous comedian.
Yeah. The original host was a guy called Roy Plumbly who invented it. And he invented it during the Sakamore War, actually. It was a wartime commission to cheer people up. which is clearly a good idea. But he was incredibly austere about it. And in fact, he was so controlling that the early shows were scripted.
So he would script each dialogue in advance and then they'd just sit and they'd read the script. And it was largely just about the music, wasn't it? It was basically like being Zoe Ball and sort of going, You know, they were devious.
Also, he would ask about whether you could survive on a desert island, as in he was incredibly interested. Can you build your own shelter? Can you fish? Can you swim? What are you going to do about the sun? That's great. It was almost purely... That feels like that's what it should be. It was really fun. Do you know, before he pitched this, so he was like 27, So he came up with it, did he? He came up with it and he thought that it was going to be six episodes.
was it he thought they they paid him quite well and so it was a shock that it lasted for him like 41 years and became this national institution But before that, he used to pitch shows to the BBC. And one of the shows he pitched was called I Know What I Hate. And it was a show in which guests choose songs that they hated.
And they would just have them, you know, either, you know, Room 101, basically, I guess. The pre-Room 101. Imagine if you got them mixed up on your Dame Mara. Then can they just bring your own songs? Has Desert Island Discs ever had a gap? it has in the early days it had I think these days they only do four But there was a couple of years of like five year gap where it kind of went.
He also did a panel show called Many a Slip, which sounds amazing. So in a typical round, he would read out a piece of text, and there would be some grammatical error in there, and the panel had to find the grammatical error. Bring it back. This is amazing. but I would really enjoy being on the panel for that. Yeah. I was reading the early guests, like the really early, sort of the first 10 guests they had. So did you guys read at all about Captain Dingle? No.
He was unbelievably interesting, so he's just listed as explorer, right? Dan is very interested by this. Yeah, keep talking. Well, Captain Aylward Edward Dingle was born in 1874, and then he was on the show. So it's pretty old by the way. And he was uniquely qualified to be on the show. Can you guess why? He was especially good. Because he'd lived on a desert island? He had lived on a desert island himself. Or he was a desk.
He was both. He was a uniquely circular guy. He had been shipwrecked five times in his life. Brilliant. Wow. Oh my god. In 1893, so he was 19, he was in a schooner called the Black Pearl. He and his shipmate were going to retrieve gold from a sunken ship, which was sunk out 20 years before. It's a black pearl from Pirates of the Caribbean. It's the same one, yeah, yeah. And so then they got shipwrecked, and it was only two of them in this boat.
And they spent 11 weeks on a desert island eating raw penguin and drinking rain. Wow. There's some good news, which is that while on the island, they found some other treasure from a different shipwreck. And the two of them got along so badly, these two, that they weren't speaking at all for like a few days in. They were just not speaking for days on end. This would make such a better episode.
other jokes than how difficult your childhood was. Yeah! Bring it back! Bring it back exclusively, Shepret Gaff. So did Dingle's partner do an episode as well to sort of counter BBC Balance? I don't think so. What a shame. Can I just say one thing about Plumlee? Yeah. His grandfather was called Wright Hayhoe. What? Excuse me? He was called Wright Hayhoe. And his surname was Wig, so his first two names were Wright. W-I-H-E. and his middle name was Hey Ho, H-A-Y.
It's called, right, hey-ho. Do we know the story? it's not one of those bible things is it you know how people were named after just putting just normal names imagine at school like the teacher goes right hey ho everyone would start backing up and let me know That's so good. Yeah. There's an episode that Dan will be especially interested in. Oh, yeah. The Buzz Aldrin episode. Oh, okay. Which we've never heard. Okay. It was during Sue Lawley's tenure. Oh, okay.
Yeah, an amazing broadcaster. And she and the production team went to Buzz Aldrin's house in California, right? And they were setting up, you know, doing all this sort of pre-chat. and Buzz Aldrin left the room. I'm never going back. Oh really? And so they didn't make it. Where did you? Did they do it in 1969? I'm just gonna quickly do something. And that's why Lawley was second on the moon, because she was trying to get the interview. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's amazing. Was he pissed off or do we know? We don't know anything. He just walked out. Okay. I don't know. Someone will know. Buzz will know. Let's ask him. I mean, he came on our show. He came on Museum. Came all the way over here. We didn't even have to go to California. You should have done a reverse glory on him. The entire audience leaves. Alistair MacLean, who's a novelist in the 20th century.
Yeah, thriller, like, Where Eagles Dare and Guns of Navarone. Huge author, right? And Plumlee was a mega He loved Alistair McClain. Really excited. And he arrived, and they were doing the pre-interview. You know, they were talking about, just talking about what they're going to talk about. And as they were doing the pre-interview,
Roy Plumley realised he was not talking to Alistair MacLean, the novelist. He was talking to a guy called Alistair MacLean, who was the head of the European Tourist Bureau of the Government of Canada. LAUGHTER He must have got the letter saying, can you come on Desert Island Discs and thought, finally, my work has been appreciated. Why have they waited so long? I've got so much to say about Canada. That's amazing. Can you guess what? I would say I think you style it out, don't you?
I reckon he just Buzz Aldrin Well, he stuck it out. They just recorded it anyway and then didn't broadcast it. Was it just terrible? I have no idea, but I don't think it was broadcast in the end. That's a shame. thrives on just someone you've never heard of because the songs allow you in. As a Canadian, this guy would probably be quite good at wilderness survival.
like some islands in Canada one of the most islands I think that's absolutely heartbreaking for Alistair MacLean the Canadian like imagine you get And you're so flattered and you're like, I knew actually that my life did mean something to you. This really validates everything that I've had doubts about, I'll be honest. Years of misery being that head of the European Taurus Bureau. Am I on the right path? And then you even record it and it goes fine. And then...
It never airs and maybe you inquire why it's never aired. They must have told her. The tapes were burned in a fire. I hope so. I hope that's what they say. Yeah, the UK's burnt down, unfortunately. And he'll be like, I can come back, I can redo it. And he'll be like, uh... We're back down, sorry. Until 2023, we're back. I was wondering how many islands so well.
Pacific, for instance, if you put one celebrity on each one. Could you fit everyone who's been on Desert Island Discs onto their own? I think even just in the Pacific, you would easily be able to do it. Yeah, but it wouldn't be good for the local flora and fauna. Yeah, why not? Well, desert islands usually, they have lots of species on because there's no humans. So it's quite good.
if you put, you know, Barry Chuckle. The insects will be hurting themselves on the pane of glass he's accidentally smashed, carrying. There's a story, Herbert Morrison, who was a politician, he was sort of under Clement... government. He, when he died, he was found to have his eight songs in his wallet waiting. Should he ever be called at moment's notice to suddenly appear on Desert Island Discs? on purpose land or Is that with Jennifer Hudson?
Yeah. Because I know the chorus. I will be your grey. You can be the general upset and I'll be a news alien. That's very good. same and equal esteem I am a lot of ice skating moves in case I'm ever invited on. Yeah. the name of the show. I've actually been practicing eating kangaroo testicles for the last five years, just in case. It's a mastermind. Specialist subject, kangaroos knackers.
Stop the podcast. Stop the podcast. Everyone, this week's episode of Fish is brought to you by Airbnb. Yes, you may have a home. And you may have thought, I'd love to be an Airbnb host. But I'd also love it to be incredibly easy and to not have to lift a finger while we have the answer for you.
Yeah, that's right, because Airbnb has this amazing system whereby you can have a co-host work with you. They have this co-host network. You can hire high-quality local co-hosts to take care of your home and the guests. Yes, Dan, you've been an Airbnb host. I always think it's incredible that you managed such a feat, given that you can barely put your socks on the right way around or come to the office on time.
But well done. Do you feel like you'll do a co-host next time? I have a secret weapon, which is an incredible wife called Fenella who knows how to do all of this stuff. But you're absolutely right. A lot of people find it overwhelming. They might think they're not up to it. This knocks that out completely because by getting a co-host, You simply have no worries, and you have someone look after all that for you.
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Okay, it is time for fact number two, and that is my fact. My fact this week is that a man called Mike Merrill found making decisions so hard that he floated himself as a publicly traded person and for over a decade now has had over 800 people making his decisions for him. Very clever. So this guy, yeah, so this was back in, I think it was 2007. His career was sort of
at a point where he wasn't knowing fully what he was doing with his life. So he decided to separate himself into 100,000 shares and float himself and ask the people who were interested in purchasing these shares at one buck a piece. would you like to make the decisions for me on my behalf? Ironically, that is quite a big decision to make, isn't it? It is. And he kept the majority shares, right? Yes. But he made his majority shares Ah, I see. So he didn't have any sway. So no one can own
Yeah, no one can own him. But he doesn't have to make the decisions. But they can rule him. Exactly, they can rule him. But he throws up the quest. that he needs deciding. So it's not like they can just say, we've decided this week. We want you to dye your hair pink. He has to say, should I dye my hair pink? So he set up a website. It's called K Mikey.
And you can go, I went to it in the course of doing the research, and I tried to buy some shares, but none are up at the moment because he's very popular at the moment. He sort of releases them in small batches on demand, and they fluctuate with the demand. So they could be anything as low as $19. that they can go all the way.
Shares for you. Has anyone made a big profit on Mike Merrill? Yeah, his brother, who sold when he got to a high point. Really? Yeah, he sold all his shares and bought a new dish. or something he does make the decisions about But when he moved in with his girlfriend, he got a complaint. who've said, this is a decision I think you should have consulted us on. This is definitely going to affect... It affects the value of him, doesn't it? If you get married. Because someone else is then...
Not making decisions, but helping them make decisions. As in, if you're living with a partner, you do chat stuff over with them, they might have an influence on you. Well, the other thing is, shares depend on how much he's valued that, right? And his value... change when his life so the amount of money you have changes when you get married it might change for the best
But are you saying his value would either soar or crater when he moved in with a girlfriend? It's plausible. But it's your value on different markets, isn't it? So on the dating market, your value is where it sinks when you're... Does it say when you pull that up from supply and demand you would think it would increase? Well, some people say that. Some people say, oh, no one's interested in you until then you move in with a partner and then suddenly everyone's after you.
But then, is that your experience? No. That backfired. My experience is total indifference. You maintained very nicely, consistently. Thank you. When this happened and he had to explain to his girlfriend that he had to consult his shareholders, he issued her... which sounds bonkers but I'm reading that this is it is quite bonkers but also related instead of getting married or before marriage are very much on the rise.
in the relationship contract. Do we know any details or is it simply... I don't know the details of that one. I did want to tell you though about another relationship contract that was in the news recently. So the Independent reported that... Shailene, someone called Shailene or Absalami Queen.
Made headlines because she made her boyfriend sign a relationship contract that said that if he cheated on her, he had to pay all her bills. Indefinitely. That's the thing I've put for how long. I don't know what it said. And her comment. I'm so smart or crazy I don't know It was unconscionable. Apparently it was a legal contract and yeah, I don't know. The contract just said...
her bills with no other parameters. You've got to define the terms, haven't you? You've got to define what cheating is. Is it casting a flirty glance at someone? In which case he's going to be paying bills pretty quick. Is it hiding money underneath the barded monopoly? Is it making a cup of tea quietly so you don't have to make the other one a cup of tea?
Is it with sleeping with someone else? We don't know. Something like that. We don't know. Did you hear about Patrick Campbell? No. So he owned a company called ProfitWell. And he sold it in 2022 for $200 million. And he decided to do a hostile takeover of Mike Merrill.
and he has since bought 15% of Mike's shares. And he reckons, because you can tell how often people vote, and usually his shareholders, Mike Merrill's shareholders, don't vote. Most of them, it's just a joke, and they might vote one. it this guy Patrick Campbell reckons that with 15% he has enough power to influence all the shareholder votes and he can basically tell
he wants. Wow. That's amazing. That's exciting. But he's still got to only tell him to do what has been presented. So Mike can still only ask certain questions and it's up to him. he reckons my Well here's the kind of things that he's probably influencing his decisions on so he would have possibly have been part of the decision of whether or not Mike invested in a Rwandan chicken farming business that was approved by the by the shareholders grow a winter must
That was denied. No winter moustache happened. They decided on whether or not Mike believes in ghosts. What? He asked, do I believe in ghosts? They voted on whether or not he does. And? 66% said yes, you do. So he does believe in ghosts. That is silly. I'm sorry. I've been on board with this. Until that makes the whole thing look ridiculous. It does. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I found it interesting that when he made the decision to embark on
valued his life at $100,000 and sold shares on that basis. That was a very low calculation compared to what economists value your life at, because they have to calculate this. the government make decisions on officially economists think the average human life in the us is worth about 8.7 million dollars yeah wow um
It varies a little bit. I'm rich. So like the Environmental Protection Agency uses 7.4 million, another one uses 9.6 million, but there is a figure on it. How does Andy Geller this week? Yeah, I'm theoretically loaded. I don't know that you can... But it has a huge... What if it cuts off his leg? One million. On the open market. Wow. But I found it so interesting what this means to us in terms of rulings in government.
In 1972, the auto industry put a life's worth at $885,000 in today's dollars. And then two years later, the figure was more or less the same, the Department of Transportation. rejected a regulation to install bars at the rear of trucks to prevent passenger vehicles from sliding underneath. So a safety measure for trucks was rejected because they did the maths on it and it wasn't cost effective because the... weren't worth it.
Which is bleak, isn't it? Bleak. It would save so many thousands of lives, but they weren't worth enough for them. I guess there's got to be some kind of Sorry, sorry, sorry. You're making decisions about a limited amount of resources, all your income as a country, and you're trying to maximise the human life. Yeah, we all agree I'm wrong.
But is it like if you're mountaineering and you get lost and the government are like, well, he's actually already had $3 million because we put him up in office? that time. If you're in one ravine and in the next ravine there's a lot of Bitcoin. It makes more sense for the government to go for the Bitcoin. Yeah. Yeah, depending on how Bitcoin's doing. You know, it's very variable. Yeah. Well, food for thought. I mean, big food for thought.
You know, the calculation was actually, there's a bit more to it, the 100K. So it wasn't that he thought that was his full life that was worth that amount. He calculated it based on the fact that he had a day And that this decision making was only going to apply to his free time. So 100k is based on his nights and his weekends. So yeah, there's still, if you round him up, it's still low. It's still, he'd be about a mil, just under a mil.
Well, there's bleed between your, you can't separate those perfectly. As in, if you grow a mustache, that'll affect your job. Yeah. Depending on what you do for a living. If you believe in ghosts. Exactly. It's a 24-7 activity. No, it's a creepy old house. That's true.
I think it's harder to make decisions everywhere for everybody at the moment because there's a thing about how many more decisions you have to make. So there's an economist called Eric Beinhocker. I think it was very eminent or famous, and he wrote a book. was a huge seller about this kind of thing. And he had estimated that between 10,000 years ago and the modern day, human choices had multiplied a hundred million fold. Wow. Oh my God. I have five or six.
creams in my bedside table and every night I choose one of those five or six eye creams. Based on mood? Yeah, based on mood. And I sort of enjoy that process. That's just one of the many examples. I've walked 40 minutes near the office wondering what to have for lunch. Yeah. And I've gone into four places and not had lunch in any of them. Back in the day, Andy, you would have been walking around the jungle going,
Shall I kill that buffalo or shall I go after that? Exactly. That lemon. Perfect lemon, yeah. Returning it when it doesn't taste as good. It's a bit of a habit of Andy's. Sorry? Remember the time you returned that sausage? I once. One time! I once went back to a local restaurant and it wasn't because it didn't taste good, it tasted great. Was it a single sausage? Well, yeah, and I was £11 down on the transaction.
A single sausage, I ask you. They must have the picture of you on the door when you walk in and say, do not allow this man to return his sausage. They gave me another sausage in the end, but by that point the whole transaction was so... I wasn't able to enjoy either of the two sausages I ended up taking away I like the idea of you holding a fork with a in the end. Walking around the restaurant trying to find the manager. Totting.
Well, it was a takeaway, so I actually had to go back in. So you take the box on trust, don't you? I'm sure this is a nice test. You take it away, you open it up. ridiculous. Was it a hot dog? No, it was just a sausage. Rachel, it was a sausage. Why did you buy a sausage to take away? You don't understand the meal? It was a sausage and rice. It was a very nicely spiced sausage, but
was still ridiculous. What's wrong with it? It was too small. It was 11 quid. One small sausage for 11 quid. This was about five years ago, I should say. This was before the cost of living crisis. This was, you know, at the time sausages were going for like two quid. You know, this is ridiculous. This is ridiculous.
I did, and I went back and I remonstrated for quite some time. But you said, I mean, we had a good 20-minute chat here where you were deciding whether or not and building the fury. I mean, this is not me remembering a random thing. This was a big incident. the sausage gate in this office. I've just got a couple of things on decision making. One of the great
is just coin flipping. So many things in history have been decided from just doing a flip of a coin. So you know the company Packard Hewlett. that's right because he won the toinkos and that's why it got named that it could have been the other way round we could have had Paco and Hilo did you say the toinkos Yeah, so we've got Hewlett Packard off the back of that.
Portland, we've all heard of Portland. The city in America, yeah. That was meant to be called Boston, but they lost the toinkos. The toinkos. Stop saying toinkos, but I keep saying it. Should we cause a toink? Great. So that should have been called Boston. Wait, they were trying to call themselves Boston, but what did Boston have to say? I don't think Boston was called Boston at that point. Oh, okay. James thinks it is. Why would I have called it Boston?
Just another Boston. Okay, right, yeah. Yeah, the Wright brothers as well. So, Wilbur Wright. We're gonna be called the Wrong Brothers, right? Should we go in the air or should we go underground? So Wilbur became the first person ever to fly a plane because of a toy ghost. But this was an unfortunate one because Wilbur's first flight didn't go. It didn't work. So the second flight then went to Orville, who then became the first person to fly a plane. So sometimes it can go again.
Yeah, and that's why the duck was called Orville and not Wilbur. Was it? No. He famously couldn't... Wish I could fly way up in the sky, but I can't. You can't? I'd like to pick that Lauren as my desert island. Thank you very much. That one's going out for the children and the foreigners. Okay, it is time for fact number three, and that is James. Okay, my fact this week is that according to a survey of pubs in 1930, the average time someone in Bolton took to drink a pint of beer was 52.
In Liverpool, it was 22 minutes. 52 is a long time. 22 is quite speedy. I'm in the, like... Well, on average, like if you have five... Oh, okay, right. It slows down, doesn't it? Yeah, okay. So I read this in a book called Darts in England, 1900 to 1939, a social history by Patrick Chaplin, which I've mentioned before, which is an amazing book, which is mostly... And he really does talk about darts quite a lot in this context as well, because it was related to a thing called mass observation.
which was, it was this thing in Britain where they got a panel of observers and they made a diary about what was happening in their day-to-day life. And the idea is they do it over time. They would give an idea of what was happening in the country.
Anyway, there was this thing in Liverpool that they banned darts and actually any pub games. And they thought it was encouraging people to go into pubs. And so they wouldn't let you do it. In fact, Liverpool was the only city in the country where no one... but what happened was it had the opposite effect because you couldn't play darts or pool or dominoes or whatever you had no
so you just drank more because you didn't have anything. You know, if you're playing darts, you have to go and collect the darts and come back and stuff and you're not drinking. Whereas in Liverpool, they were just getting drunk. Then eventually they brought... in Liverpool. Is that why? Yeah, because in Bolton was famously at the time a lot. Paul and stuff and still do. That's really interesting.
This is weird, because I was separately reading about pubs in Bolton. But I got a fact from the Mass Observation Study. Ah, really? Yeah. So this one was in 1937 and 1938. I don't know why. Is that about the right time? Yeah, 30. So, and yeah, as James says, massive survey of people. But I think they didn't have many people who were from Bolton doing the studying. So what they did was, they got a lot of middle and upper class southerners.
who dressed as northerners and put on accents and went incognito in pubs in Bolton and just drank. And you reckon they got away with that because I'm from Bolton and I don't think they did that. I just wonder what it was like. So what were they doing? They were observing for the masks? I think observing people's behaviour in pubs and recording and to say, you know, what was said. So just a couple of nice details from this study. One observer who was...
in the notes was rendered incapable of doing any observation after drinking eight pints in an hour and 45 minutes. Whoa! They got into a lot of fights. It was all kind of glossed over. I think it was a pretty inglorious episode. middle class or upper class person from the south going to the north dressed as a norther and doing a fake northern accent you're gonna get in fights I'm sorry
And they also had a covert photographer in the corner. What, dressed as a whippet? Taking secret pictures, I guess, of the fights as they broke out. Do you want some pub slang? Sure. Pint hole. My mouth. It's not the mouth. Oh dear, how are people drinking pints? I need a funnel. Pint hole. Is it like the... This is actually the least good answer of the three that I've got. Alright, a wobble shot. Wobbling like, you know, unsteady because you're drunk. It's just another one.
It's an unlicensed pub, apparently. It's down the wobble shop. Yeah. Well, they're not allowed. But it's quite bold to be calling yourself a boss, isn't it? Alright, this one's hard, but it's good. You're an admiral of the narrow seas. Okay. Does it just mean drunk? It's something you do when you're drunk. You sway like you're on. Bye. Bye. That's it. That's it. No, it's drunkenly throwing up into someone else's lap.
Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh There's a pub in Bolton called the Old Man and Save. We've talked about Bolton before. It's possibly the oldest pub in the country. It's certainly in the top ten. but it's where the Earl of Derby...
chair there. It was the last chair he sat in before he was beheaded. Wow! At the pub? It's in the pub, yeah. It's quite very famous in Bolton, this. And they have 53 go- Do they? In this pub, apparently, including a ghost dog that's known to lick the manager's feet when he lets them hang out of the bed in the middle. God, well, Mike Merrill, if you're listening, you need to get there ASAP. But that's a lot of ghosts for one pub. It's an old pub, though. It's from 1251, so...
Because as I was looking into, there's usually the most haunted everything in Britain, and I couldn't find pub. And then the ones that I read, they had like four ghosts. That's huge. I would imagine with pubs... houses or hotels or anything, because you don't stay there overnight, it's a lot less spooky, isn't it? Because you can just leave. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. I don't know, it's got a lot less spook fandom. But most pubs outside cities would have rooms.
And, you know, there are taverns, you know, Jamaica Inn, that kind of vibe. Spooky old pub up on the moors. And, you know, there's dark business going on there. That's based on Jamaica Inn. Yeah. Wow, you were the real pirate. I know. Well, I went into the bar and told them that I did it. Oh, okay. There was no problem. But yeah, I've been there. And also I've been to what I think is the most haunted, aren't they? What, Ryan Sussex?
on the coast, yeah. Rye is a lovely town. It is, very nice. The Mermaid's a lovely pub. You've been to quite a few supposedly haunted places. Yeah, I'm a big fan of them. Maybe. I don't believe in any of it. Maybe you're a guy. Maybe you're Hayley Joel Osmond. Grown up. Sixth Sense. Oh! Sorry, right. I was watching Clip from The Take Sense the other day and that joke still went over my head. Sorry. No, no, I love it. Thanks for calling it a joke, though.
I was just looking into drinking beer fast, which is related to what you're talking about. So before we get to beer, Fastest. drinker of a fizzy drink, certainly, is a guy called Eric Badlands Booker. Such a sexy, outlawish name for someone who could just drink fizzy drinks. He drank a litre of Mountain Dew, the American fizzy drink. from a measuring cup in 6.8 seconds. And previously his record was drinking two litres in 18 seconds.
But I came across this guy who is a British man called Peter Downey. And he has not only got the record for drinking a pint of beer the quickest, but he's got records in so many food and drinks. competitions so He had to retire a few years ago when he... He suffered back and shoulder injuries as he tried to sink a pint while being held upside down. He was 71. 71? 71? Yeah. He was dropped twice by the men who were employed to hold his legs.
That's amazing. So he holds like all, he's gone through his really like belt and braces and he holds the records for drinking. Beer. Coke. Champagne. Milk. And milk upside down. And he holds records for eating quickly. Raw eggs. Cocktails. Pies soaked in Worcester sauce. Sushi, Weetabix. Sausages upside down. My favourite. Eating quickly sausages on John. Do we know who John Evans is? I don't know who John Evans is. I think we're meant to know. Right.
Actually, I am impressed by that because it's hard, I would imagine, to eat a sausage off someone's head because heads are not plate shaped. Oh, you see, in my head he was sat on the guy's head. I thought he was sat on. I think you're right. I think you're right. Sorry, you're correct. I'm sure you're right. This is probably not a play. I think either could be possible. I don't know. Do you know that the... I was reading about pub quizzes.
and that when they existed when they first came about and if you look at the internet it says that they came about in the 1970s but I found in the newspaper archives there was definitely one happening in 1954 so we reckon around just after world war ii but probably they didn't exist in 1947. because I found an article about a pub quiz in Sunderland. And this was, they advertised it as the pub quiz.
And what it was is young people could go to a pub and ask a panel of married people about the intricacies of sex. Oh, wow. And that was called a pub quiz. That's amazing. Isn't that amazing? Quizzing someone as in asking questions. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's...
with that? Is that still a thing? I think any good pub quiz master will be able to answer some of your questions, but not all of them. I don't have to do it between the rounds as well. But yeah, and I think it's like World War II had just finished. They're trying to get the up, you know, young married couples got questions, so they... That's so cool. Oh my god. Just finished the music round. Any questions? Dan, stick some hands up. Yeah, um... It's foreplay stuff. Essential.
I wonder what the questions were that were asked. I didn't say it was just like, this is a thing that's happened. Wow. That would be great if you could ask married people. Well, can you remember what it was like? I think I remember a question when my mum told me about sex. I think I was nine or something. I think I remember. She described it to me. And I think I remember. How do you both move at the same time? Which I still think is quite a valid question, you know.
I don't know, I've never had sex, but... The answer ultimately, of course, you know, you just sort of... of works most of the time. It just kinda happens, yeah. I've just, did you very first time say to someone, hey, don't worry, I know what you're thinking, but I've got it covered. I spoke to mom, she explained it. It will work. It's a to me, to you situation. The Chuckle Brothers were the greatest lovers in history. Stop the podcast.
Stop the podcast. Everyone, this week's episode of Fish is brought to you by Airbnb. Yes, you may have a home. And you may have thought, I'd love to be an Airbnb host. But I'd also love it to be incredibly easy and to not have to lift a finger while we have the answer for you. Yeah, that's right, because Airbnb has this amazing system whereby you can have a co-host work with you. They have this co-host network. You can hire high-quality local co-hosts to take care of your home and the guests.
Yes, Dan, you've been an Airbnb host. I always think it's incredible that you managed such a feat, given that you can barely put your socks on the right way around or come to the office on time.
But well done. Do you feel like you'll do a co-host next time? I have a secret weapon, which is an incredible wife called Fenella who knows how to do all of this stuff. But you're absolutely right. A lot of people find it overwhelming. They might think they're not up to it. This knocks that out completely because by getting a co-host, You simply have no worries, and you have someone look after all that for you.
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Okay, it is time for our final fact of the show, and that is Andy. My fact is, when he was approached for the role, the first actor to play Mr. Blobby was simultaneously appearing in Shakespeare's Measure for Measure. So, I just imagine him turning up in the wrong outfit. Oh, no. I wish I knew any quotes from Measure for Measure. You're playing the Duke of Venice. No!
So this is about Mr. Blobby, and I think for internationalists we should just quickly say... Our children. Mr. Blobby is kind of like one of the national animals of England, I would say. He's a big pink... humanoid creature and he's pink and yellow he's seven feet tall he wears a bow tie and he screams blobby blobby blobby and he wears a big inflatable suit and he just turns up on TV and causes mayhem and I think he Mr. Blobby doesn't wear
Mr. Blobby is the inflatable suit. It's not like inside Mr. Blobby there's a smaller Blobby. No, inside there's a man who it turns out is classically trained. Inside there's just a very big heart. Thank you. So Mr. Bobby's been having a bit of a moment because he was really big in the 90s and he was on a thing called Noel's House Party hosted by Noel. and he's been sort of back in the news recently just there's been a few sightings of him and there's been a costume put up
And I was reading this piece in the New Statesman, beautiful piece by Stuart McConey, all about Mr. Blobby. And I just wanted to read you this line because it's, I think, maybe the most beautiful thing that's ever been written about Mr. Blobby. Malice and stupidity were never far from Blobby's puce, bulbous surface. There was surely something of Antonin Arthode's theatre of cruelty in Blobby's defiantly senseless nihilistic interventions. His wife. And so basically he would just cause...
sit on people and get in fights. What was the name of this guy who played him? He was called Barry Killaby. Barry Killaby. And he's gone off and done other things. He's done bits of acting. He was in Chuckle Vision, for instance, with the Chuckle Brothers on one stage. And just before COVID, he put on a one-man theatre show about the final days of Harry Houdini.
Again, not in the Blobby costume. He was just doing that. But he has come back and he is doing the Blobby. From time to time, he still goes into the Blobby suit. The reason being that actually there's a lot of acting. to do to get their point across. But recently he was on This Morning on ITV and he was punched in the stomach by Maggie Phil.
And the article said that he let out a piercing scream and fell down like a sack of spuds. Now, what I find interesting about that is that Barry had just done a play about Harry Houdini. How did Harry Houdini die? He was punched in the stomach. stomach. Barry must have thought it was the end of his days, wasn't it? It's happening again. Does Blobby have an appendix?
I think Houdini had appendicitis and that's... We don't know about Blobby's organs. We don't know about the organ structure of a Blobby. No, we don't, no. That's very exciting. That's really... Oh, God, what a spot. That's interesting what your mind... thought that Houdini died from getting trapped in one of his boxes.
chains around it and that's obviously something I've just invented in my head something yeah dramatic irony yeah um barry was just while we're talking about his sort of other life outside of mr blobby um so he he was married once and then he and his wife broke up And then he got together with someone else. And do you know who it was? Miss Blobby. It was Mr. Blobby.
No. Yeah, not Mrs. Blobby, Mr. Blobby. So he was split from his wife and he was invited down to the staging of the Crinkly Bottom Castle show. So Crinkly Bottom is where Noel's house party took place. It's where it kind of- It's a fictional village. A fictional village. And they opened up a theme park. They did three in total, which were basically Mr. Blobby theme parks. And part of it was that obviously Mr. Blobby's a character there. So Barry got invited down to teach all the aspiring blobs.
how to move inside the suit and one of the people one of the blobby apprentices was this woman who he then got on with and they ended up getting together and moving in with each other so yeah He's with another Blobby. Incredible. She stuck it out. I mean, I want to know so much about the story. I want to know what Blobby Academy was like. I want to see a boot camp montage of Blobby School. And then I want to see the moment where she takes off the Blobby head.
And he realises, oh my God, you're the love of my life. And they lean in to kiss, but they can't quite. I looked at other. actors in costumes like that so Teletubbies Simon Shelton played Tinky Winky and he I mean, many of them, you know, they're just classically trained, you know, actors and often dancers because of the movement. And I don't know if...
I've got a girl. Oh, you've got a girl? Oh, yeah. But does anyone... Actually, delete all of this because it's completely irrelevant to what I'm about to say. But In the Night Garden. Oh, yeah. That's my daughter's favourite show. Yes. Yeah, I've always loved it. Iggle Piggle is played by Nick Kellington, who also starred in two of the recent... Is that right? There's quite a range. Wow. I read the other day that Little Monster from Justin...
while we're on there. Yeah. Who's also in Jurassic Park, like one of the new Jurassic Parks. Okay, right. A dinosaur? No, so Little Monster's like a little Muppet thing, but it's the person whose hand is... also on the dinosaur. Wait, so were you watching Jurassic Park and some random guy goes, could I get me? And you're like, I know that hand. Yeah, Barney the dinosaur, he went on to become a tantric sex instructor.
The guy who played the bridge. There was some controversy, wasn't there? Yeah. Was that what it was? I think that's what he did. That's so interesting because there was a New York Times article about Mr. Blobby in the 90s saying what the hell... And they compared him. They were saying...
Yes, he's very similar except with chaos because Barney is a very measured safety health I was reading a piece comparing the two The Fence magazine which is a brilliant magazine it said Blobby was a dark mirror to Barney the dinosaur and a later Blobby called Paul Denson said he was a reaction to that, to Barney the dinosaur, to say, what would England have if it was shite? That's what Mr. Blobby is. That's so funny. He was created by a man called Michael Leggo.
What? Yeah. I just like that. Yeah. Just in keeping with kids, he was called Mr. Lego. Can I just say one more thing about In the Night Garden? Yeah. It's worth just mentioning while we're on this topic that obviously the narration. In the Night Garden is national treasure, multi-award winning Sir Derek Jacoby. Yes, that's right. So you've got this absolutely huge...
famous, fantastic actor going, maca-paca-whaca-whaca-whaca-whaca-whaca-whaca-whaca-whaca-whaca-whaca-whaca-whaca-whaca-whaca-whaca-whaca-whaca-whaca-whaca-whaca-whaca-whaca-whaca-whaca-whaca-whaca-whaca-whaca-whaca-whaca-whaca-whaca-whaca-whaca-whaca-whaca-whaca-whaca-whaca-whaca-whaca-whaca-whaca-whaca-whaca-whaca-whaca-whaca-whaca-whaca-whaca-whaca-whaca-whaca-whaca-whaca-whaca-whaca-whaca-whaca-whaca-whaca-whaca-whaca-whaca-whaca-whaca-whaca-whaca-whaca-whaca
The Clang, is it? Someone really famous. That was Olivier. Late Olivier, was it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Blobby. Please, mister. Sorry, I'm so sorry. How familiar are you, then? I'm not. I'd love to meet Blobby. It's kind of hard to over-egg how much a big thing Bobby was in the 90s in Britain. So was he? So I wasn't here. Huge. Oddly huge. Okay. Dad, you want some stats? Yeah. His Christmas single in 1993 sold 600,000 copies. which is pretty good thank you got the christmas number one yeah
Nearly didn't. Was knocked off the top spot by Take That the week before and then reclaimed it the following week to get the Christmas number one. merch included lemonade bubble bath knitting patterns pasta lampshades um i mean anything you can imagine had blobby put on One of the businessmen involved said that they'd done some research in the night.
and found that every household in the country owned at least one piece of floppy merchandise. That must have been on average. I think it was. Because we didn't have any growing up. I don't think I would have been allowed. Exactly, there we go. How many did you have? None. Yeah, yeah, knowing Anna.
I was trying to look into, I'm sure everyone else did, other similarities between Shakespeare and Mr. Blobby. What a great idea! And I couldn't find many. I found a couple. One is that one thing they share is that so this theme park stuff I was talking about there was an abandoned place of one of them and one of the houses there that survived was called Dunblobben House which is what he is that where he lived Dunblobben House uh
Bobby, if he had a house. Well, this was his house in the place. And so they left it and it was abandoned. And so what would happen is that ravers would come and have parties all night long in it and they would just use it as an abandoned... party house basically and so the local guy who owned the area was so pissed off that people kept coming that he smashed it Not dissimilar to Shakespeare's.
Fuck you know. Is that the link? I thought your link was that dumb blobbing sounds a bit like Dunsinane. Maybe. Oh, yeah. No, so where Shakespeare's house was, there was the owner of it was so sick of tourists coming and taking photos and messing about that he just knocked it down. And so we lost Shakespeare's. Yeah, a place. So there's one similarity. Well, second similarity. Oh, sorry. I worked really hard, Andy, to find this. I'll just quickly get this up. So the 1993 Christmas.
in which there's a very famous video that goes along with it. It was a parody video. parody video it's the link by Shakespeare's sister they parodied that so there's your second Shakespeare connection I was thinking and I didn't put in as much work as Dad. No. How could I? I was just thinking, Measure for Measure, which Barry Killaby was starring in, is a problem.
As in, there are these three categories of Shakespeare plays, the tragedies, the histories, the com- they're all clear and then there's this fourth quasi-capitalist which is called the problem. and it's basically they don't obey any of the rules of... Right. So Measure for Measure is kind of... It has comedy elements, but there's also a really serious death penalty plotline. So it's a problem that you can't put it into account.
Yeah, it's just, it's more problematic for scholars studying it. It's kind of one of these weird, and lots of the later plays are more problem play-ish. I think people say The Tempest is one as well. And I, in a way, blobby. Jesus. Well, he doesn't calculate comedy and tragedy, I would say. Exactly, exactly. He is comic and tragic at the same time. He puzzles scholars. Exactly.
So I think that's watertight. I got a link between Blobby and Dickens. Oh my god. Well, this is cool because actually, like, the thing about Noel's house party is they were just looking for something for Noel Edmonds to do, so they gave him 18... They chose this one because it was the best one. But they had complete autonomy, so they could do what they wanted, and they didn't have a commissioner telling them what to do. They didn't have someone at the BBC saying you can do that.
could do whatever they want and quite often when you find that in tv it's like a lot of care about things and there's lots of like hidden jokes and apparently there's a bookcase or there was a bookcase on the side of the set. that you never saw, you couldn't read any of the books, but all the books had got blobby titles. Oh, cool. And so there was like Blobfinger instead of Goldfinger. Oh, I love it. And Martin Blobblewit. That's one of the books.
didn't Dickens have a fake bookcase in his house? He did. He did. He had a bookcase in his house which had fake book titles and it was hiding the door to another room or a panel or something or it was above a doorway and so both Bobby and Charles Dickens had the same idea. Amazing. Wow. Bobby is basically a literary great, is what we're saying. Yeah, he's huge. Interestingly, we'll never know what Barry Keller will be thinking. Because he's never done it. Isn't that weird?
Sorry. I only thought you were going to a really macabre ending. Because he's dead. Yeah. No, I don't think he'll ever do an interview about it. As in lots of people have tried to make contact over the years. and I think either he just thinks of it as a job and he just doesn't want to become a personality associated with it whatever the reason he's never ever done it and it seems like he never will interesting I was just going to say I like the idea
The people who don't know about Mr. Blobby and Noel's house party Googling it and seeing what it was. Yeah, such a traitor. Such a traitor. And also, if you just see, like, say, a... That will in no way explain what happens in the rest of the show. We really have to watch our series. I have no idea when I see what it is. One of the things you were saying about how so much weird stuff happened on that show, one of them was NT.
I don't know if you remember that. So what it was is they would go into someone's house and they would put a camera on their TV and they would talk to them live. Oh, wow, cool. Oh, yeah. It was amazing. It was so cool and they could win. And did they know? Did they know that was it? No, they didn't know. And the amazing thing was, when you see interviews with Michael Leggo, he basically said, every day we didn't know.
if it was going to work and you would be stressed out all the way through the week and the only time you could breathe is when that person swear or say something terrible live on air. Stop masturbating. Oh, blobby. But apparently there was a reset go and meet this person.
before surreptitiously and pretend that they were just randomly meeting this person. Didn't tell them they were on TV or anything. So get into their house, set up the camera. Yeah, exactly. Were they applying the camera to the TV? Yeah, so someone would have to nominate. and that person would have access to the tv so they make sure you weren't in at the time but a researcher would just come up someone you've never met before and you
come up with some story that they would chat to you to make sure you weren't, you know, a person who was going to do something terrible live on TV. I feel like if you flunked out of MI5, That would be a job that you could take. As in, it's by a Jason. but you're not actually I feel like you would get picked because the Cold War was finished at that time in the 1990s. A lot of those spies went on to do MTV and Bobby. There was a lot of gunjing as well.
Oh, yeah. On it, the gunge tank, where sometimes guests, wouldn't they, would get gunge. Right, okay. But Gunj featured fairly heavily on British TV. Gunj was big in the 90s. Yeah, Get Your Own Back with Dave Benson Phillips, a great Gunj heavy. So good. There's someone, this won't make the edit, but there's someone. it's only on instagram who um i sort of assume it's all women but I mean, I know constantly...
Rachel, will you get gunged? Are you willing to get gunged? Please respond. Just back on the gung question. Would love to see you get gunged. Are you willing? Always very polite. Like wants it to be fully consensual. and very persistent like to be fair I don't think I've ever replied But the comments to everyone are the same. He just wants to see. Sutton people. Does he have the capacity to gun? I don't think I should ask. I think he'd take that as a...
Is he using a classic 90s gunge recipe, or is this him, has he recreated his own gunge in a sort of... Oh, I don't like to think of that. Oh, God. Or is it someone who works? on 90s television and has kind of It reminds me of the story. This isn't my story, so I'm not sure if I should keep it in, but you know Rich Turner, our very good friend, who Dan and I work with a lot. He worked on a kid's show in the 70s for the BBC and he said that there was a child
It wasn't gunged, but there was like a flower fight, you know? So they're covered in flower like this. And then someone on set had to shout out, Can someone deflower this child, please? And that was the only time that was ever heard of the 1970s at a BBC.
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've 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, will you be gunged? At Rachel Power.
Yeah, and remember, as we said at the top of the show, you can see Rachel live on stage as part of the great ostentatious ensemble. It is such an amazing night. It's live, improvised, Jane Austen novels that... have never been performed before. They've been written. I think 6,000 of them or something like that that were lost to time have been found. They perform a new one each night, and that's on in the West End, so do check out.
online to find tickets for that or make sure to get her book it is now out on paperback advice from strangers it's out march 23rd It's where Rachel spent basically a year of stand-up life going around the UK and in Edinburgh taking advice from strangers and...
working out the answers and working out the philosophy of what they were saying meaning. It's a brilliant book. It's out now in paperback. So do check it out and do come back next week. We'll have another episode waiting for you. We'll see you then. Goodbye.