Everyone, welcome to this week's episode of No Such Thing As A Fish, where we were joined. by the incredibly funny, amazing Maisie Adam. Now, anyone who is familiar with our parent TV show QI will know all about Maisie. She's burst onto the scene in the last few years and it is no exaggeration to say that I think she is the funniest newcomer that we've had on QI over the last few years. She's absolutely brilliant. It was a great fun doing this show with her.
If you'd like to learn anything more about Maisie, then the best way to find out what she's doing is to go to her website, which is MaisieAdam.com. M-A-I-S-I-E-A-D-A-M. One thing I should quickly mention is that Maisie mentions Ethan in this show. That was a reference to something that happened before the microphones came on, but I had to keep it in. So just to let you know, Ethan is one of the QI elves who does a lot of our tech stuff.
If you are a Clubfish member, you might remember his episode of Meet the Elves where he gave us a fiendish question that we had to solve. We do those Meet the Elves shows every now and then on Clubfish. very good reason one of many in fact that you should subscribe and if you'd like to do that then you can go to of course NoSixSignalsOfFish.com forward slash Apple.
and no such thing as a fish.com forward slash Patreon. Anyway, one final thing before we do the show. Today's episode marks the end of our nine months of Anna replacement shows. Yes, you got it. Next week she will be back. Anna will be back on the podcast.
So whatever you do, don't miss that episode. Listen to it 10 times. You want her to see the figures boosting up when she comes back on the show. But in the meantime, really hope you enjoyed this show with Maisie. And all that's left to say is on with... 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 Hoburn. My name is Dan Schreiber. I'm sitting here with James Harkin, Andrew Hunter-Murray and Maisie Adam.
And once again, we have gathered around the microphones with our four favorite facts from the last seven days. And in no particular order, here we go. Starting with fact number one, and that is Maisie. Okay, here we go. The first fizzy drink tasted of urine Do with that what you will. Do with that what you will. Well, not drink it, first of all. So it was Fanta? No, sorry. What a slam. Wow. Expect a cease and desist from Fanta offices. What a slam on a soft drink that was invented for the Nazis.
Was it really Fanta? I believe it was. It was. But what a good target for me to pick, really, I suppose. Yeah, that's true. If you were going to kick one, yeah, Fanta's the one. I think they couldn't get American soft drinks and so they had to make their own. And it wasn't the Nazis, you know, Hitler wasn't on the floor sorting it out himself, but it was made during the Nazi regime.
Oh, okay. By Nazis. No, by Nazis, for Nazis. That was the slogan. Oh, God. But the first fizzy drink was invented... in my hometown of Leeds, by a man called Joseph Priestley. But crucially, it tasted of urine. Because people in Leeds We know what we like and we like what we know. Here's the crucial question, though. It tasted of urine, but did it have urine?
In it. Yes, it did. So how did he invent this? How did he invent this? Accidentally, as all best things come about. Accidentally, it was at this brewery. He basically accidentally discovered the act of carbonating water, right?
He was like a human soda stream, but by accident. Right. Brilliant. So he's worked out how to carbonate water. And then what he does is he makes a machine where you can get the... co2 and you can squeeze it into some water and it'll make it fizzy but as part of that machine he had a pig's bladder yeah okay just on hand just on hand in those days it was quite common to have pig's bladders you know you used to play football with pig's bladders it was
day-to-day life everyone had a pig's bladder on them like a pen nowadays yeah can i borrow your pig's bladder yeah can i borrow a pig's bladder this one's been chewed so he had a pig's bladder as part of the system And he gave one of his glasses of water, fizzy water, to a friend called John Newth. And John Newth said, this tastes like piss. Like, you can't sell this to people because it tastes disgusting. It tastes like piss.
And he thought that it tasted like piss because it had been squeezed through this bladder. Now, Priestley couldn't taste the piss in his own water. He thought that it tasted absolutely fine. And he claimed that nude servants were maybe urinating in his drink.
because he was such a bad boss. Why? It was a rift between... It really was. You know, this is sharing your scientific discovery with a colleague like Newth. It's a big deal. Yeah. But Newth said... He wrote a paper... He didn't even... quietly say to Priestley I think this tastes a bit pissy.
He wrote a paper for the Royal Society saying, in some trials which I have made with Dr Priestley's apparatus, it always happened that the water acquired an urinous flavour. And it was so predominant that it could not be swallowed without some degree of reluctance.
Priestly first just going can I just double check I'm not the only one tasting weed here imagine if like you know you've got BO and instead of your friends telling you you've got BO they go to the Royal Society and that's pretty bad yeah that's amazing and Priestly claimed that had tried the water and nobody had complained about the Uranus flavour. He's not looking good for noes here. So does history tell us whether or not his servants were?
We don't know. We don't know. That seems unlikely. And then no one else reported the urine flavour outside of it. Well, then Nooth invented a new system that didn't have pig splatters in it. Right, okay. Which effectively was the soda stream. But also... Were his servants involved in making it at all? Don't.
They must have been to a certain extent. He will have had lab technicians. What was the missing factor when it didn't taste of urine? Was it the servants or the pig's bladder? It was definitely the pig's bladder. We're unsure about the servants.
Is this the secret? You know how every one of these companies has a secret ingredient that we haven't been told about? They've just been hiding piss from us this whole time. Yeah, like 11 herbs and spices and piss. Just before we go on on this, can I tell you about one thing about Nooth? Okay. John Mervyn Newth. What a name. It was such a good name. He once had a coughing fit and coughed out a bullet. What? I know. Okay. Did he kill the person sat opposite him?
So he had this terrible coughing fit. He was like, oh, really coughing awfully. He'd been out, and he'd been out in the evening, and he thought, oh, God, and he thought he was going to die. His coughing was so bad. Yeah. This was at about 1799. And he threw himself down on the bed. And then when he got up, he'd coughed out something incredibly hard. Yeah. And it turned out just before he got ill, he'd been having a glass of wine and then he'd been called away. So he quickly drained the wine.
And it had a lead shot in it. Oh, okay. So, okay, right. Not a bullet. Not an actual bullet. Okay. A lead shot. Still a bit of lead shot. So, if you were to buy, in the older days, if you were to buy, like, a partridge for dinner they would often have bits of lead in it from where it had been shot because it's like scatter shot oh okay okay but still shotgun pellets okay exactly Shrapnel of a bullet that he still swallowed. Okay, so the animal was killed with a bullet.
That was in there. I think that counts, yeah. There's a bullet. Well, it's part of a bullet, right? Do we know if coughing up a bullet makes you taste pig? Yeah. That's a great point. Whoever the bullet went into had that animal wet itself when it died, drenched the bullet in wheat, he swallowed the... He doesn't notice because of the wine. He doesn't notice. He doesn't notice.
Pal, have you ever noticed that everything you taste on tastes of piss? Maybe you've got a piss-soaked bullet. Stuck in your throat. In your taste buds. It's wide open. Wow. It's food for thought. So Newth then went on and made these soda streams, which he called gasogenes or gasogenes. And they were really famous and then basically if you were anyone who was anyone in the when was it in the 19th century? then you would have a gasoline machine.
which is like a soda stream not much has changed really now isn't it it's still quite a power move to have a soda it really is it really is yeah I feel like I feel like they've no I feel like they've recently been overtaken by if you've got an air fryer that's the thing yeah yeah air fryer but
Soda streams were a bit of a power move. You look like you've got a soda stream. I've got a soda stream. You can tell, by the way, you were brewing up to that. I've got one as well. Here's what's embarrassing. Mine's gold-plated. And we haven't used it in, I think, two years now. It just sits there as a display. Why do you have a gold-plated soda strip? My wife likes gold things. Is she? It's your house like Donald Trump's house.
Oh, my God. No, actually, it's probably the only gold thing in our house. Oh, is it? Is it the only thing? The only thing. Yeah. Oh, that's not true, Dan. What about the dining table? Yeah, and the toilet. And the chairs. Did that count? That's real gold. Wallpaper. And the front of the house. And my children. Yeah. Is your wife painted like that woman in gold? Yeah. I think what it was with SodaStreams is when I was a kid, they were really...
One of my friends had a soda stream. It was like they were the coolest kid in town. But now it's because you don't want to buy bottles of fizzy water because it's bad for the environment or something, isn't it? Well, and you can make super sparkling water as well. And you can get the syrup. that you can make your own tonic water. Coca-Cola. Yeah, but it's not Coca-Cola, is it? No, it is, it is. Is it real Coca-Cola? Well, it's not real. Fanta for all those Nazi parties he has.
It tastes like... This is a good thing, and I would, you know, if SodaStream wanted to advertise on fish, that'd be fine by me, just throwing it out there. But it tastes like the Coke you'd get on the ferry. You know that kind of Coke? No. Or like a sort of... Like roller cola. It's not completely... It's a bit like that. Yeah, what's roller cola?
Like bad cold, like knockoff cold. It was like 5p when Coca-Cola was 20p, Roller-Cola was 5p. I just want to reiterate, this stuff is great. I love it. I'm so happy with my SodaStream. I have used mine in the last two years. I actually don't think that SodaStream are going to have on their advertising like the Coke you get on a ferry. Yeah. That's nearly as bad a slogan as buy Nazis for Nazis. But it's really good. It's really good. I use it all the time. Taste of piss?
Good. As he should do. Just like mummy used to make. I think that might be something to do with my servants, though. I just have a hunch. Priestly, just a quick word about Priestly. What a guy. What a guy. So... fluent in six languages uh he wrote over 500 books and pamphlets an amazing scientist. That sounds like someone who's written 490 pamphlets. Yeah, 499 pamphlets, one book listing all of the pamphlets that you can read.
He's credited with inventing or discovering how oxygen is made up. He was a lunatic. Very excitingly. So the Lunar Society, which was this thing with Erasmus Darwin and all these amazing scientists at the time, they used to meet when it was a full moon so they could see their way home.
using the light of the moon in the very dark night. It's really cool, eh? Yeah, what an extraordinary character. The thing about him being a lunatic, that meant he was kind of pro-science. He was also not of the Protestant faith. And he was also kind of sympathetic with the French Revolution. And this meant that he had lots of enemies and lots of people didn't like him. And there's a thing called the Priestly Riots. So he moved to Birmingham after he left Leeds.
and they had a dinner to sort of say how great the French Revolution was, and a load of people in Birmingham decided to wreck their place where they had the dinner and then go to Priestley's house and wreck his house.
Was he in? Crazy. He was in when they started to come with the pitchforks and the whatever. Oh, like proper wreck his house. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I thought they protected it. They did. They did. And his lab in his house. Oh, they didn't just knock the lamp off the mantelpiece. They went full. He and his wife managed to get to the hills so they could see what was happening.
but they were away from the mob but his son was still there and his son was trying to kind of save everything and in the end he had to flee as well and the interesting thing about it is because it was anti-establishment And it was the establishment who were attacking him. We think that possibly some people involved in the Birmingham government might have been involved with this. Right. And Pitt, who was the prime minister then. Yeah.
They asked for help against these rioters and they were very, very slow to react. The government were like, oh yeah, we'll help, we'll help. But it was like days and days and days before they sent anyone to Birmingham to help. So really, they were kind of in on it as well, the government. Wow, that's crazy. Or at least, like, sort of passive on it yeah complicit yeah samuel johnson called him an evil man like he was really a bit harsh he really did not like carbonated drinks yeah
It's sort of weird to imagine now how controversial it was at the time. Yeah, it's man, isn't it? Just to be pro-science. He also supported the American Revolution, and he was a bit... Equivocal on the monarchy. So it was all... He was quite loved by the American government, wasn't he? When he got there, yeah. He was very popular. Hung out with George Washington. Would they love a carbonated drink, then? No. Have you seen the Super Bowl? You can't move for Pepsi brand sponsorship.
Have you ever heard of this school around the area of Leeds? Oh, I think it's around the area of Leeds. Batley Grammar School? I know Batley. You know Batley? I would very much believe that they have a grammar school. Yeah. Well, this is where he went to school. It's a very, very old school, obviously, because he went to it. Yeah. And I looked into it to see if they produced any other sort of interesting drinks through their students. And it turns out...
The co-founder of Innocent Smoothies and Innocent Drinks went to the very same school. Yeah, he went to Batley Grammar School. That's great. And more so than the smoothies, he is sort of the person who is credited with pioneering... on top. Is that what that is? No, it's now when the drink sort of says on the side, put in the fridge. Put me in the fridge. Oh, it gives the personalities to the package. It was them, wasn't it? Who invented that? Yeah, it was specifically this guy from Batman.
Batley School was credited, yeah, Richard Reed. I was so pro Batley School until you said that. And I think they need to burn it down. But also, though, as soon as you said it, and you said he was the inventor of... innocent smoothie I immediately just pictured him to be wearing one of these knitted hats going round Batley grammar school corridors in a little knitted woolly hat going brr I'm cold put me in the fridge
Oh, there's Richard again. That's bullying. Has anyone heard of the soft drink Gullica Pay? Gullica Pay. Gullica Pay. All one word? No, it's two words. Gullica, G-O-L-O-K-A, and then P-A-Y. Do you want to look and pay? No. What is it from? It's from India. Hmm. Oh, no. Oh, what? Is it irony? It's very irony. Oh, no. Yeah. Whose we is in it? It's cow urine, 5% by volume.
cow urine five percent that's a bit piss heavy for a drink we should say we did a fact ages ago about the fact that cow urine is is drunk more over there is kind of It's more normalised as a drink, isn't it? Certainly more normalised than it is here, I would say. But you'd mop your floors with it. You wouldn't drink it as just cow year. It's an ingredient in something. I'm afraid some people do. Yeah, you just drink it. Straight. Yeah, straight.
So it's... No! We haven't tried it. No! Would you? Yeah. You would try it. Just to be able to say, Ethan, bring in the car, Wayne. Ethan is Dan's gold-covered servant, by the way. He's coming in like Julie Walters with two suits. I love that milkmaid's busy milking the cow one morning. Dan is fractionally behind the milkmaid. Pulling on the penis, yeah. So, yeah, we have said before, there's the cow commission of India, and this is, they're linked to, like, Hindu nationalist groups.
and they think that according to their traditional medicine that cow urine is supposed to be an antidote for all sorts of I mean Anything you can think of. Inflammation, eczema, arthritis, leprosy. Bit of cow piss sorts it out. Bit of cow piss is supposed to sort it out. Currently no concrete scientific evidence that it works.
But you can buy a soft drink called Golokopay, which contains 5% urine, but at least it does contain other herbs. That's nice of them to put those in, isn't it? Yeah, such as Tulsi Brahmi and Shank Pushpi, and orange and lemon as well. So, herbs, orange, lemon, and cow whey. Yeah. That's a drink. I'm afraid so. And a drink not exclusively used for getting better. Like, some people will just have that on the go. Like Lucozine, I suppose. Yeah, yes, yes. Because that is a good illness drink.
It's an illness drink, but some people are having it day-to-day life. Absolutely. Do you think... Sorry to bring the tone down on this quite highbrow podcast. Do you think the... Do you think they taste wildly different, can we, in Pigweed? No, but I reckon probably an expert would be able to. I reckon you'll be able to learn to differentiate. You reckon there's somebody that could have a sip of both and be able to point out how people can point out...
Coke and Pepsi. Someone's out there doing it with pig and cow wee. Yeah, because I could do Coke and Diet Coke, I reckon. Oh yeah, Diet Coke. or Diet Coke tastes like this. I can do tea and coffee, Andy. Oh, Andy, you really thought that was a big thing, didn't you? I don't want to brag, guys, but I know the difference. Like on your first go? Coke and Diet Coke are more similar to each other than I think. You're a big urine witch. He's gone. He's gone.
Okay, it is time for fact number two and that is James. Okay, my fact this week is that Brazilian footballer Formiga is the only athlete to ever compete in a team sport in seven Olympics. But when she was born, it was illegal for women to play football in Brazil. This is such a good fact. This is such a good fact about such a good player. Oh, yeah. Do you know about Formiga? Yeah. And also, as you say, it was illegal when she was born, and so women's football wasn't in the Olympics.
So that means that she has played in every... Olympics where women's football has existed right amazing so The next Olympics will be the first one in women's football history not to feature Formiga. It's like if a 100 metres runner had been in every race since 1896. Yeah. It's like that, isn't it? It's unreal. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, 96 was her first one? Yes, so she was born in 78, I think, yeah? And Brazil had a law from 1941 until 1979, and they didn't really make it.
that girls and women were not allowed to play football, but it wasn't just professional, they weren't allowed to play in schools or even play for fun. So my daughter on Friday will go to her first football lesson. She's 18, 19 months old. And if she was Formiga, it would have been illegal. She could have been arrested for going playing football. It's absolutely insane. Because there's a very famous player called Marta, right?
And she wasn't allowed to play football, actively discouraged. She really wanted to. So she used to just on the street, just have balled up bits of shopping bags, basically to use as a ball, playing on her own. Then she would sort of sneak in to play with other... teams which were boys entirely and it was a horrible experience for her if she ever scored a goal.
it was seen as a terrible thing. Like, you've embarrassed that boy. It's an attack on the men's sport. It's an attack on the men's sport. And so never, ever was she given this moment of sort of, you know, you've done good. It was an incredible press conference Marta gave because she retired after the World Cup just gone. And it was really quite emotional watching because she's touching on it. I mean, women's football across the globe, as we all know, has been...
hugely under-platformed, under-represented, hugely disrespected as a sport. Bad enough in this country with the FA banning it for 50 years. But in Brazil, as you say, with that very sort of paternalistic moralism sort of society existing, it was an actual attack on... And it's all down to that it wasn't... appropriate for a woman with her build to be playing. But yeah, Famigo was 19.
At her first one, 43 at the last of it. 43 representing your country. And she only ever missed one World Cup, which was the 1991. She's done seven of those as well. Unbelievable. The thing is as well that Marta was... Brazil's leading scorer in history. She scored 115 goals. Neymar's the second with 79. Pelé, 77. And Formiga had the highest number of appearances. which was 234.
Which is insane. It's unreal, isn't it? It's more than 100 games more than Cafu, who's got the highest in the men's game. Yeah. And Martyr, just with the stat. She's the current record holder for the most goals ever scored in a World Cup, in one World Cup, which is 17 goals. And that's for both men and women's football. For one World Cup, that's a lot. It's mad, isn't it? Even I know that. Do you? Don't you find it like Neymar recently surpassed Pele's record? And like the huge...
Yeah, yeah. Notice that that gets, that it's always like scream from the rooftops, who's the goat in football? We always end up talking about men. The goats are often in the women's game. Yeah. Because they've had to be. go on you watch some football I watched last night just as a nice bit of timing the series Welcome to Wrexham is currently airing its second series and one of the episodes that comes up mid-series which I watched last night's latest episode as of recording
It was all about the Wrexham women's team. Yeah, so good at it. Far better than any. They make it to the, as far as we are in the series right now, they've just made it to the top of their league, but they take on the closest ranking team.
And they beat them 11 to 1, I think it was. And yeah, it's just astonishing. And it's so good, I guess, that it's now changing, isn't it? It's ever growing, but it's thanks to players like Formiga, like Marta, like... in our own country like Kelly Smith or well even if you go right far back to sort of Dick Kerr ladies who were all sort of
Early 20th century team. Basically the ones pre-war that were getting all of the big crowds and then the war happened and everyone was like, no, we need to make the men feel good. So it was banned in the UK women playing football. Basically, they weren't allowed to play on FA-affiliated grounds, which was all the grounds. And that ban was from 1921 till the 70s, so like you say, about 50 years. But there was also bans in France, in Norway, in Germany.
And usually the case was that the they thought that sport was unsuitable for the female body, like you say, but in... West Germany's case, they specifically said that it was the women's soul. that would be injured. The women's soul! And I think that's quite nice as a sort of novel way of like, oh, we've had loads of complaints about the body and it'll damage your womb and all this stuff. What are we going to say then? What are we going to say? They might have meant the soul of their feet.
but that's not how it's spelled but you don't get footballers who are like they're not playing this week because they've injured their soul I think that would be nice and also I think spiritual stuff should be taken like the referee should be able to say Immoral. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Immoral play. Yeah, I didn't see the play, but your aura has turned a nasty shade of red. I'm just a ref going, I'm getting bad vibes. Yeah, exactly. Red card. I think that'll be really fun.
Of all the countries as well, to say bad for the soul of a woman, you wouldn't expect Germany. It's not particularly Germanic to say, is it? No, it's not very quantifiable. You'd expect that from one of the more... romantic language countries. Nietzsche wouldn't agree. Well. Well. Or wouldn't he? Here's the thing. Yeah. So there was a recent study, and I quite like this. It's assessed that women's football is better to watch than men's. Okay.
So it's a Swedish sports company who conducted this. They're called Spideo. And they compared the women's Euros and the men's World Cup. And they tried to do it as mathematically as possible. So what they found is that women are less risk-averse than men in the style of play.
And again, they're just comparing women's Euros and men's World Cup. But those are two obviously big international tournaments. Okay, so for instance, the men's teams might deliberately hold back and try and not concede goals, whereas the women's team aren't bothered. That's it. So in the women's Euros...
passes moved teams forward 3.7 metres, and in the Men's World Cup, it was 2.5 metres. Really? That doesn't sound like a lot, but yeah, that's... that's a big you know it's a difference i would love you to be the commentator yeah on the world cup and i believe that was a 2.6 meter pass you're running along the sidelines with that wheel that pizza cutter wheel massive great spreadsheet I'm trying to keep track of everyone yeah yeah so is that is that a massive difference well I mean
2.5, 3.7? Sorry, I forgot I'm talking to a man who can tell the difference between Coke and Diet Coke here. Of course you would know the meters differential. That's 50% more per pass. Almost 50% more. like 10 centimetres shy of being 50% more, but still. But one status expert said I just love this. It's almost like the men are playing a game of chess
and the women are playing something a bit more interesting than chess. Wow. Can I say piss off? Because actually, someone's like watching chess. Like 3D chess like they have in Star Wars. Star Wars. Was. Shit. No. Oh, yeah. Well, it's... Now we're on my hometown. You're all wrong. You're all wrong. It's Harry Potter 1, remember? There are other big statues moving forward. We will get emails just to say in Star Wars, they have the hologram chat.
don't they with the monsters and I think in Star Trek I don't know what they have you've lost me here lads I'll be honest with you you've lost me here can we go back to football I think so it is definitely like quite a different game in terms of like it feels At the ground, it's a very different experience watching the game. It's a far more inclusive, positive atmosphere. I agree. But actually on the pitch,
That's interesting. So you play, don't you? Yeah. How far do you normally pass? Well, I reckon I'm working at the moment with a good 2.7. Oh, OK, OK.
No, I think we heard a lot in the World Cup, a lot of people observing that there was a bit less diving and a bit less sort of... I'm going to get emails here from blokes, as we always do, but going... on this podcast you won't you probably get quite nice people no no it's the first time I think the toxic masculinity is probably quite low on the list
Oh, excuse me, I'm currently doing the inbox, and I tell you, the number of laddy, laddy emails... Is it full of not all men? Yeah, really. One thing I found about watching women's games as opposed to men's games is that everyone who's at the ground is watching the game. Oh, yeah. So if you go and watch a men's football match, quite often you're watching the opposing fans
They're watching you. Yeah, you're kind of singing and chanting. Rehearsing the chants. What's the new chant? It's not singing and chanting. It's doing a lot of hand gestures at each other, regardless of what's happening on the pitch. Unsupported ones. Yeah, yeah, it's not thumbs up. It's not thumbs up, Andy. It's not a heart shake from across the stands. Because you could, I mean, your whole end of the stands could do a great big heart. If you haven't got much lead.
That's what they do. I love it. Andy's just there shouting across, going, I love your shirt. Your shirt, where's that from? But yeah, I went to watch, I think it was the World Cup in France, but everyone there was watching the game. Right. Literally no one is. doing anything else. But it is interesting to hear the actual clinical differences of the on-pitch play. Maybe if the men's players kicked the ball a bit less far, or further actually, then it might improve the mood in the stands.
Yeah, maybe they wouldn't need to make all those hand gestures. Formiga is Portuguese for ant.
Oh, yeah. Because she's got six legs. She's got six legs. And she can carry 19 times her own body weight, can't she? Yeah. Actually, I just realised that an old word for ants was piss mire because they smell of urine. Oh, yeah. Look at this. There we go. So she's called... that was a nickname that was given to her when she was at school and it was when she was playing football they said that she used to play tenaciously and unselfishly much like how an ant would operate
within its own colony. So she was very much busy all the time and always helping out. And she hated it. hated it as a kid she learned to just accept it but she said in the beginning I didn't like it very much you know thought it was weird she's small doesn't it I guess yeah the actual reason for it is nice but to be called and
Yeah. Well, she said, I don't have an antennae. Like, why would I? That's true. She's getting a bit hung up on the... Where are my mandibles? Can I see if... Macy, I wonder if you've seen this movie. Okay. It's called... It's called Titanic. Send it right back. Star Wars. It's called Escape to Victory. No, I've not seen this film. Has no one seen this film? It's very famous. Is it? I've never heard of this film before. It stars Sylvester Stallone, Michael Caine, Pele, and Bobby Moore.
I mean, that is the real expendable. So is it a football, or it sounds like a prison? It is. It is. It's a prison movie whereby... They skate through football. They set up a match. and during the match as part of the match prep. But I just love there's a Stallone, Michael Caine, Bobby Moore. That's mad. Yeah, I know. Oh my God. I need to see this film. I know, I really need to see it. Is it any good?
It's a classic. I can read between those lines. They used to show it on Sunday evenings. Can I just say, if anybody ever went, Maisie Adam, I've not seen her comedy, what's it like? And somebody went... I think that would be absolutely harrowing. You'd rather be made by Nazis for that. One for the tour poster. One last thing on Pele, just while we're on him very quickly. Pele's last ever match, 1977, he played, and it was an exhibition match, and it was the New York Cosmos against Santos.
two teams that he used to play for. So, in order to make sure that he wasn't siding with any particular team In the first half, he played with one team. And in the second half, he played with the other team. Lovely. That's a final match ever. Absolutely love that. Only Pelle could get away with doing that, though. Yeah, so he didn't change ends.
oh yes which must give you a slight advantage right possibly also probably being Pele gives you a slight advantage yeah that's why he was so good when I was at school we used to obviously play football for the schools and a lot of the schools would have
pitches that were on massive slants oh my god so like you'd be in the first half you'd be winning 5-0 you'd end up losing like 21-5 I play in a league in Brighton and we played on one the other day if you've ever been to Whitehawks ground it's a fantastic club it's Whitehawks
but their ground is on a slope, sort of left to right and up to down. You could ski down it. There was one that I played at at school in Bolton. I think it was in primary school, and it was like... slanted like you say from one wing to the other you can imagine that and we were all primary school kids so we didn't really know how to play football and so the ball would just
always end up rolling to the bottom and all 22 kids at the bottom of the pitch. A lot of corner balls from one specific corner. Okay, it is time for fact number three, and that is Andy. My fact is that American schools have a sport of competitive meat judging. No. No. Wait. Meat judging. Meat judging. It's less dodgy than it sounds. I should say this was sent in by an audience member called Kevin Feigen. So thank you, Kevin. Kevin Feigen. Feigen. Yeah.
Yeah, like Kevin Keegan, but with an F. Yeah. Oh, right, but he's not a vegan. Yeah. He didn't say in his email. He's a vegetarian. God, come on. Kevin, if you think I'm better than that, Maisie, you've not had many episodes. I loved it, I loved it. What's Kevin saying? Kevin's saying, that's what it is, that's the fact. That there's meat judging. And I think this might be the most American sport.
How do you judge me? What's the criteria? Is this a pig or is it a cow? Step one. That's the absolute baseline. No, no, no. This is, okay. It's a college sport. It's an intercollegiate sport.
right so it's sort of students who are playing it and they like all over the country teams of students practice all year and then they get to the competition and what you have to do is you're presented with a range of meat carcasses and you have to judge the yield how much meat you'll get out of it how much fat there is in it, the consumer experience, the age of the carcass,
And you have to do all this by sight only. Sight only. Oh, so they don't just put a slab of meat in front of you and you go, pork. No, no, no, no, no. I'm not just guessing it's beef or pork or lamb. I was going to say, I reckon I'd be all right at this. Andy, do you think as someone who can tell the difference between Diet Coke and Noel Coke that you would be good at this spot? I think I might. Yeah, I think... It sounds amazing. It's like meat.
chess basically it's really like you get 10 minutes to inspect each carcass You know, they're hanging up in front of you. You're not really touching them much. You're in like a big cold fridge. You're in a butchers. You're in that. And then you're asked to guess.
Yield? Yeah, I mean, all sorts. How many portions you'd get? My favourite one is, and this is purely by sight, you have to go and evaluate whether a table of 10 cuts that are laid down fit a checklist of the United States Department of Agricultural Standards. who's revising this oh people put so much work in they train sometimes for 12 hours a day leading up to the competition whilst they're in college yeah
Have you seen how expensive college is in America? How fuming would these parents be if they knew? Are you revising? Well, I've been looking at my chickens. They must get a scholarship. I guess right you know like you can't get a meat scholarship surely surely not you only play also they're kind of competitors they're kind of like the mayflies of the sporting board they get you get one season that's it you can't play twice
You can't play in two consecutive years. Not like Farmiga. You can't be the Farmiga. Absolutely not. No. Which is a nightmare for the coaches that pick their star meter. examiners. You train them up for one season and then they're out. Yeah, you're just back to the start finding fresh blood. Why would you bother?
Genuinely, why would you bother pursuing this if you can't become one of the great meat judges, if you can't do it year in, year out? There are talent scouts who come to the competitions. You're lying. No, I'm not. I swear, I swear. They... I mean a lot of the students are already studying agriculture, that kind of thing. So a lot of the competitors will end up going into meat.
professionally, you know, the US... Oh, so they might be scouted to go into these top jobs because of how well they did at the meat. Exactly. If you're the head of a meat company... You really want the best meat judges to be part of your company. You'll pay lots of money. So you'll go to some intercollegiate competition and be like, wow. Stephen's very good at clocking. And 80% of them go into food and livestock industry jobs after college.
That means 20% don't know. There might be some savants who are studying... 20% just doing it for foot. They're going into recruitment. Studying poetry. The meat is pure passion for them. And then, yeah, exactly. It's just a side hobby. I just love it. I love it. But you do get the formiga of this, even though the span is just one season. So there is one person called Maddie Ainsley. And Matty Ainslie did seven.
competitions, like Formiga. Because around the country, there are seven different competitions. Within the year. So this is taking up a lot of your year. This is not like one meet competition. And she won five of the seven. She's the all-star. Wow. That's great. There was one guy called Rhodey Hawkins, who was a former meat judge from Tennessee. That can't be a sentence. Brodie Hawkins, meet Judge from Tennessee.
This is like if ChatGPT wrote a novel. He was a former judge from Tennessee. Write an American novel. Brody Hawkins from Tennessee. He's the only famous The first one I could find who went from meat judging to greater things. He co-invented Lunchables. Which is a famous... Sorry. They're good. No, no, no, come on. He's judging the quality of meat and he came out with Lunchables. It's like a little plastic tub. Processed. With some squares of processed ham.
and some squares of processed cheese and some crackers. all right yeah must have been up all night thinking i read a sports illustrated article on meat judging that was great it's an amazing article and there's a bit that explains exactly what it takes to enter these competitions and be a meat so to be a meat judge yep quick decision making critical reasoning, self-assurance, and above all, the ability to quiet one's mind for up to six hours standing in frigid temperatures in total silence.
And according to a judge from 2015... Feels like the fourth point is quite a big step up. I was like, self-assurance? Yeah. And then you read the fourth one and I was like, ah, no, it's not me. Fifth ability to judge me. Exactly. But what the quote from the judge from 2015 said, and this is to... do with the total silence, you have to fight your own demons.
in the meat judging cooler. I don't want to fight demons in the meat judging cooler. Who are the demons in the meat judging cooler? All yours. It's just the internal voices. The internal voices in the six hours of silence as you stare and try and work out of it. It's agriculturally sound. There are moments where, so this might have been in the same piece. There was a student from Texas Tech.
she was a second year student what's that too sure again I do I think a rom-com set in the meat judging world would be genuinely would be good meat cute meat cute there we go oh god their heads bump over a frozen beef carcass no so she at one point was the foremost meat judge in the country and I think I don't know what year this was she was competing but there was a competition in Houston this just shows you how brutal meat judging is right
She was in the top 10 nationally. She was doing brilliantly. And then she misjudged the age of one beef carcass and plummeted down to 36. Wow. 36th position. So, you know, just... how wrong did she did she get it really wrong this meat is from 1743 I think this meat's alive I don't know it doesn't relate but it's it just goes It's tough. I think they have some in Australia too. I think there is meat judging there too. Wow. It sounds like you have to judge the hot carcass weight.
Yep. The amount of kidney fat, amount of heart fat. Area of ribeye muscle. All from just looking at it. Yeah. If you got stuck in a freezer, like one of these big butcher freezers, let's say you kind of, the door... closes itself but you put your foot there to stop it from closing but then you slip on a sausage or something and your foot goes out of the way and the door closes It doesn't open from the inside. What's the best thing inside the freezer to help you get through that door?
Do you know the answer? Yeah, this is a real thing that happened last. Yeah, wasn't there a guy who beat his way out with something? Is there a bone? Oh, a bone. Interesting. The skeleton key bone. that you can yeah he carves he is a whittler oh you get the wishbone and you wish that you can go it's not having a poo and using the frozen poo to
No. Dan, you're in a freezer. Everything's frozen. There's no need to have the food. If only I had something to freeze. Guess I gotta take a shit. That's the only logical thing to do here. Shit. Shit my way out. This lift has been stopped for just 30 seconds. Let's wait to see it. No, no, no. I insist. I'll get us out of this. I must freeze the food to fashion into a presser to press the button to help.
A room full of frozen meats. I'll provide my own tools, thank you. Why did I never broadcast your Desert Island Dips episode, Dan? No music for me. Thank you, Laura. My next track. So your luxury item is... No, it wasn't that. What happened? So, apparently, now this really happened to a guy called Mr. McCabe, who's a butcher.
And apparently the beef is too slippery. If you grab a frozen beef, it's kind of too slippy to bash your way out. If you get a big sort of... chunk of lamb you can't really you can't get any purchase on it and it's often too big But the perfect thing is a black pudding. If you get a full black pudding, especially one made by the royal butcher, H.M. Sheridan of Balota, Aberdeenshire.
These are exactly the right size. That's specific. Did he tell you this fact? What a weird secret sponsorship. Are you getting money on the side? Apparently, it's almost exactly the same size as, you know, one of those police battering rams that you knock down. Wow. It's like that. And this guy managed to knock his way out of the freezer. And he said... He said, I'm really lucky we sell about
two or three each week and this was the last one we had. Oh wow. So if he'd have sold one more he would have been stuck there forever. That's brilliant. Are they buying them as bastards? It's like Aberdeen police. As he leaves the freezer, he looks back. He's down in the corner. Tony, are you coming? No, thank you. I'll get myself now. 20 more shits. I should have a battered ram out of this. The time we went to an escape room with you, Dan, it was... Yeah, no lad back there.
How about this? How about putting a door handle on the other side of the door? Yeah, I mean... Why do we not? Honestly, most of them do have... Ah, okay, most do. Any that I've been in have got a big red button that you can press and get out. Ooh, that's cool. Sorry, how many freezers have you been in that the door's shut and you have to let yourself out of? A couple. Okay. I used to work in kitchens and stuff. Oh, okay. Okay. Have you guys heard of Retch Tub Clan?
Wretch Tub Clat. The rapper. I don't even know. I don't even know what you're saying there. Wretch Tub Clat. Clat. How do you spell Clat? K-L-A-T. Oh. This sounds like it's something from the Netherlands. It's actually Australia. Oh, okay. This is wrong. Is it a kind of meat? A rare meat? No. Is it a town, like one of those weird sort of outback towns? No. A society. No. It's part of a kangaroo? No. Is it anything to do with anything we're talking about? Is that a way of cheating at cricket?
James single-handedly lowering our Australian audience to zero as the weeks go by no what is it it is a secret butcher language. No wonder we haven't heard it. It's a butcher language. There's a secret butcher language. Okay, so what do you think the secret language is? Oh, it's in meat displays in the window.
Oh, I see. So you arrange the sausages. And it means I'm available. Yeah, it's like a traffic light party, but for butchers only. Yeah, but for butchers. Well, the clue is in the name. Retch-tub-clat. Oh. if you read it backwards or is it an anagram? Butcher. Talk butcher. Butcher talk. Butcher talk is the secret language that is shared. And this has been going since the 1960s. Butchers all over Australia use this. And it's been in Australian movies as well.
whereby they talk backwards to each other so that they can say stuff that the customer can't hear. in order to... Yeah, absolutely. Quick, get the age sauce. In order to what? So you might say... And that means no cutlets in the shop.
And you would say that out loud so that everyone, sometimes massive butchers in Australia might have 20 butchers serving people, and they would know to just immediately eliminate that as part of the process. Ah, I see, but you don't upset the customer. Exactly, and you don't want to upset the customer. It's no good, fuckface. Really good that they've worked that out. It's pretty, like the rest of it, as the examples, is pretty misogynistic, I have to say. Why is it needed, though?
largely because if there's a difficult customer, they want to be able to say difficult customer. To be rude about it. Misogynistically. But there's loads of customer-facing roles that haven't had to do this, has there? Yeah. No, but I guess you're all in one line. And if you need to get a message down the line to... everyone hears it in the shop. So you're already sticking up for these sexist butchers. I'm not. I'm telling you that it exists.
That's what I'm trying to say. Actually, in my rom-com now, the meat judging rom-com, I think there should be a nice, like maybe the lovers speak to each other using butcher talk, whatever it was called. Something clad. Yeah, wretch tub. Subclap. Subtitled the entire movie so that you can see what the... makes it more classy, I guess. Yeah, but it just says no good.
Fuckface along the bottom of the... That's nice and romantic, isn't it? That's the closing line of the film. That's it. Then they kiss. And frankly, my dear... I undo, Cooke Club. Okay, it is time for our final fact of the show, and that is my fact. My fact this week is that the first wireless headset microphone was made for Kate Bush, and it was made out of an old coat hanger.
Oh, wow. First of all, how? Well, you're just making it sort of go around the ears, aren't you? And then you need the perfect bit that actually that you use the hanger. Yeah. you would attach the microphone, which would be Oh, so you're just wearing a coat hanger around your head. Exactly. Oh, okay. It's basically those Madonna mics, right? Yeah. Those Steps mics, I would call them. Yeah. Britney Mike? A Britney Mike. It should be called a Bush Mike.
Mike, basically, because she is the founder of her. Doesn't quite roll up so well, does it? At best you're thinking of a problematic president. At worst, you're thinking of something much, much worse. But yeah, so this is, so it's interesting to know that we know the very first time anyone wore one of these Madonna, Britney mics. And it was Kate Bush. It was on her tour, the Tour of Life in 1979. It was a song called Moving, which was the opening number.
And the reason that she needed it was because there was so much choreography, there was so much costume change and everything, movement, that she needed her hands for everything that she did. She couldn't hold a microphone. So it was one of the sound engineers. Two names come up when you look into it. It's a bit hard to nail it down. But one person was called Martin Fisher.
A lot of people said it was him. Some people say it was Gordon Patterson. It was definitely one of the two. And it was on this tour that it was done. And it was done on Kate Bush's only ever tour that she did. Has she only done one tour? She's never done another tour. She's done a residency. She don't like to travel does arcade. Oh, really? Yeah, she's not into it. And it's a shame because it sounds like she might have been one of the greatest.
What would she have invented on her future tours? Exactly, yeah. but listen so this this uh the tour of life as i say it was called um this is like a few highlights that you would have seen in that show right so we opened with whale song that was playing with kate bush's shadow projected, dancing while the curtains were starting to part and revealing the stage. And then after a song or two, the whole theater was filled with the sound of heartbeats and red lights.
There was large, oval, upholstered, red satin, egg-womb-like ball that would be rolled onto stage with Kate inside, where she would sing the song Room for the Life as she was rolled around the stage, hence not being able to use her hands. There was a moment where she was singing a song called Violin, where she was chased around the stage by two dancers dressed as giant violins. There was poetry readings from her brother. A magician came out and did an act with a floating wand.
pilot. She came out as a wild western. cowboy-esque looking thing with a rifle and she would shoot ribbons at the dancers. I mean, the whole thing with every song had a theme and a production to it. and it was a spectacle, basically. She's probably still writing the second talk. Yeah, exactly. I did go and say, do you know about... what would it have been about 2016 maybe 2015 something like that nearly 10 years ago uh she did a night
of about 20 nights at Hannah Smith Apollo. Yeah, that was the resume. And me and my mum managed to get tickets. It was like, you know when you get set up all the laptops? It's like NASA Space Station trying to get tickets. F5, F5, F5. And we got them, literally, we got them.
Pretty good. It was the first time she performed live in something like 25 years. Unreal. And she flew. She flew at the end. No, she did. She flew. So she did this song at the end where suddenly a big crash of thunder happened. And I don't, I mean, obviously she'll have been attached to it. But like, you know the room I'm talking about, the Apollo, right?
I don't know, because she wasn't attached to the ceiling directly above the audience, but she flew right out to what looked like touching distance to touching the circle. And she's... She's getting, I think, you know, she wouldn't mind us saying this, she's getting on his arcade. Right. She's 50-something now. I gasped purely out of admiration, purely out of concern for her welfare as she flew directly towards us. We were in the circle. Oh, wow.
Like, absolutely terrifying and incredible and mesmerising. Yeah. I think she's in her 60s now. Blimey. Yeah. Yeah. Was that, by any chance, Wuthering Heights? When she was doing that song? No, it wasn't that song. Oh, okay. No, no, it was like a, it was terror, it was a really aggressive, it was that big crash of thunder and then she just sort of,
I think it was called The Dawn of something, and she just flew out at us, and she looked like a big crow. And at the time, did you think, she's flying? Yeah. You did? Yeah, I did. I would as well with Kate Bush. She has mystical qualities. Yeah, yeah. It was so good. Maybe she invented something that we don't have yet, like the Bush rocket. which kind of flies her up in the air. Something hidden. Maybe that's why she doesn't talk, because she's like, you know, don't want everybody.
I've invented flying, but I don't want to... so she Kate Bush shares A birthday with Emily Bronte. Who wrote Wuthering Heights. No. That's interesting. I'm not going to say it's her big song, but it's one of the biggest, isn't it? That is big. That was the breakthrough song. Yeah. That is big. 30th of July. 1818 and 1958, respectively. That's amazing. And can I just tell you a quick thing about the word wuthering? Oh, yeah. Yes, please. What does it mean? Yeah, no idea. Any guesses? Wuthering.
Wuthering Heights. Is it to fly to the circle of a venue? That's it. The Wuthering Heights. It feels, onomatopoeically, it feels like weathering almost. Like the wind, especially because of the book. It feels like the moors are blowing stuff. That's pretty much it, is it? But it's pretty much... She, I think, was just about the first to say Wuthering. Is it weathering but with a Yorkshire accent? It's not. Was her book dictated but not read? It was previously used much more as withering.
Yeah. With an H, an extra H, or whithering, which meant rushing along. And it was usually a reference to wind, just like you were saying, James. And... was a lusty, a strong or a stout person. Really? Because like wither now is the opposite of lusty and strong. And it's again with an extra H. So it's a witherer, you know, that was in the Francis Grose dictionary of the vulgar tongue his one was. And there was also... a word to make a whizzing or a rushing noise, which was to wudder.
So it could have been Waddering Heights, which I love. It sounds like something Elmer Fudd would write. Waddering Heights. It does sound like, watch out, I'm watering here. She hadn't read the book when she wrote Waddering Heights. Really? She gets a lot of the plot points in. She must have read the spark notes or something. She'd watched the adaptation on the BBC.
which was really big the year before. It was absolutely massive. And she wrote the song based on the book and then later on read the book. Oh, but that's dangerous because sometimes they really change the plot. I did... In the A-level drama, we had to do... What's that Noel Coward play with Elvira? Blythe Spirit. In the film, there's a car crash at the end.
and I hadn't read the rest of the play and I just wrote about the car crash at the end and got called into Mrs Bray's office and she was like, so can you just tell me again which bit inspired you to talk about the car crash scene? And I was literally just chatting pure. I was woodering on. She was like, yep, yep. And so it's not in the play, Maisie. That's incredible. It's only in the film.
maybe write it all again. I had the exact same experience with Winnie the Pooh and the blustery day. Oh, come on. In your A-levels. Unfortunately, the... Did you think Winnie was a Pooh? LAUGHTER piglet uses him to beat his way out of a freezer doesn't he no fortunately in my case the screen adaption was very close to the source material so i got away with it but it was it was i really i know that fear yeah i searched on the newspaper archives um
newspapers.com and the British newspaper archives for the first mention of Kate Bush and the first mention I could find was from the Burton Observer and Chronicle and it was from the week that Wuthering Heights came out because she was pretty unknown at that stage and in the first week it went to, I think, number 29 in the charts. It wasn't huge, but it was there.
The review said, how do we stop Emily Bronte spinning in her grave? The easiest way would be to call back in all the copies of Kate Bush's Wuthering Heights. Singing the role of ghostly Kathy, she appeals for Heathcliff to let her in. he'll plug his ears with cotton wool and go to bed. What a tit. I believe that's the first review of that. Who wrote that?
it was in the Burton Observer and it was just initials I think it was said A-H or something so it didn't say who the person was oh god I bet A-H is just constantly hoping they never get revealed. I think so. Oh, it must be a different AH. There was loads of people with AH at the Burton Nerd. I really tried to look at the Burton Observer and Chronicle history to see if
if anyone who'd worked there had these initials and I couldn't find them. Wow, you were trying to get a witch hunt going. I was going to email them and say, what do you think about it now? Yeah. But this is so weird because there's another connection there. The novel got shocking reviews when it came out. Yeah. So one said... The only consolation which we have in reflecting on it is that it will never be generally read.
How a human being could have attempted such a book as The Present without committing suicide before he had finished a dozen chapters is a mystery. Wow. I mean, admittedly, I do own a copy and haven't read it, so... Did you not read it at school? No, we didn't. Really? No, we didn't either. Really? I've read it. It is... Look, I'm an Anne Bronte fan. I'm going to put my cards on the table. I prefer Anne.
I think Emily's a bit overrated. Wow. See, this is what we'll get ladies about. I'm A-H-M. Yeah, he is. That is his initials. I mean, is it possible that A-H was paying tribute to he actually or she actually loved the song and just wanted to reflect the original review for the book itself. No way.
No way. Nah, seems implausible. AH is listening at home going, yes, yes, buy it, buy that, yes, please. But a wireless mic born from a coat hanger. Yeah. That's exciting, because now they're everywhere. Yeah. Yeah. Just on microphones. Yeah. In the 1930s, the BBC had a special microphone which was only for the use of the royal family. Oh. In the BBC to this day, it's an artefact of...
So that was when they started doing royal broadcasts at Christmas. I think that was in the 30s. I think it was George V who started doing that. And I think a BBC sound engineer saw the standard microphone that they were going to do it with. and thought, this is not good enough for the king. And quickly put some regal blue velvet cloth over it, which you would think would slightly dampen the... It might help. It actually might be a good point.
And anyway, as the years went by, they got more and more elaborate. And so they ended up with this beautiful, weird looking thing, which was, in a kind of gilded cage. Wow. Was it from Dan's home? It was from Dan's home. That's really cool. Was it because they worried that, like, non-regal spits might get into it. I think it was just that we have to make it fancy for the king or queen to use. Kate Bush met the queen. Went to Buckingham Palace in 2005. She asked for her autograph.
Who asked for whose autograph? Bush asked for Queen. Oh, okay. Yeah. Huge fan. I mean, it's plausible, isn't it? It is plausible. And what did the Queen do? Fuck off. Yeah, exactly. The Queen's not allowed to give out autographs. I think. She not. In case someone tries to do credit card fraud. You're not allowed to, yeah. Imagine scamming the Queen. No, what is it? There is a thing. Oh, thank you.
If you were going to try and scam the Queen, you'd need the mum's maiden name. Yeah, Bo's Lion. Oh, she did have a... And then the name of her first hat. Street she grew up on? Is it the actual heirs that just have, like, first names? Like Charles Windsor and stuff like that, I guess. Yeah. I think...
If you had the Queen's autograph, you might be able to start wars against other countries. Yes, that's true. Oh, yeah, that's a big thing. And Kate Bush, as we know, she does want to do that. She has tried several times. I would say that poses a bigger threat as well than just logging into the Queen's Amazon Prime. I can't imagine anyone called Bush starting a legal war. Seems very unlikely. No.
Okay, that's it. That is all of our facts. Thank you so much for listening. If you'd like to get in contact with any of us about the things that we'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. At Andrew Hunter M. And Maisie.
at Maisie Adam I was up all night thinking of that one yeah or you can go to our group account which is at no such thing you can write into us at podcast at qi.com or you can go to our website no such thing as a fish All of our previous episodes are up there. Do check them out. Otherwise, we're going to be back again next week with another episode. And we'll see you then. Goodbye.