Little Fish: The Rat Ticklers Need Me

Dej, jag skulle ju köpa några nya palpställd i lagret. Det kanske blev lite mer grejer. De hade ju allt, man hade en skribord, jag köpte en sån här. Och kontorstolar, och så hade de en sitsnygg typcontainer. Vi har inredning för hela arbetsplatsen. Välkommen till AI-produktion.

Hello, welcome to an episode of Little Fish. But before we go anywhere, Andy, there is something quite important that we have to say. Yes, we're gonna be doing a live Show. We're going to be going to Sweden to the Lund Comedy Festival in August. Yes, the 29th of August at 7 pm. Anna will be there too. I know.

Exciting, eh? Oh my god. I'm even surprised she's still here. She's not been in touch with me for the last nine months. But uh if you would like to get involved in the pre-sale, that is for people who are members of club. fish. So you need to go to patreon.com slash clubfish and find out more about it there. That's right. General sale opens at the end of the week, but you can access the ticket pre-sale now, as James says, if you join Clubfish at patreon.com slash clubfish.

Okay, up with the podcast. On with the show. ご視聴ありがとうございました

Hello and welcome to another episode of Little Fish. My name is Andrew Hunter Murray and I'm here with Dan Schreiber and James Harkin and we are going to go through your fact. From the last seven days. Your facts have been flooding into the fish inbox podcast at qi.com, and now we're going to tell you some of the best ones. Who's got a fact? Um, okay, I've got one. This is from Henry Big.

Henry says that in twenty sixteen a Gothenburg man apologised for removing a giant snow penis by replacing it with a much larger snow penis, and this has led to a spin off tradition and even a new political party. Oh. Okay. Some questions. So many questions. Is that a sincere apology, replacing a penis with a much larger snow penis? Yeah, because he was apologizing for removing the original one. Right. Oh I see. Okay. Next question. Can I I I so please add the man in the beanie hat. Thank you.

Um, the penis, um just a bit more on that please. Is it a vertical standing with two testes or what are we t what are we talking? Okay, so the original was a flat drawing. It was done on a river. uh in Gothenburg and the government couldn't remove it until the weather changed because the ice was too thin. Uh and then a local company helped out by getting a giant brush that they used to clean windows on tall buildings.

And they've brushed it out. Now, people on the internet then got really, really mad because they thought that the government had been spending taxpayers' dollars rubbing out this penis. And they, you know, set up Facebook pages saying this is disgusting. And the man who did it, who wasn't from the government, he was just doing what he thought was a good deed, um, then said, Okay, fine. And he went into the north of the country, got a couple of massive snowblowers,

and then drew an enormous penis on the ground, uh which was seventy meters in length. Uh and the tradition, the new tradition, these are three D penises which are on uh roundabout in a place uh called Budro. Okay. Call me Captain Government. But you know, there isn't a there isn't a magical money tree, Andy. Who's not magical? I think that's one of the core functions of a government, if I'm honest. It's like defence absolutely comes first. Second, remove snow penises. Third, ensure prosperity.

Those are my two top priorities. And that's my political party. Yeah. Why is there a political party? The political party is the people who are started doing this uh tradition in the town of Burroughs. Uh and they The political thing, you know, they do put up these penises.

But actually they're kind of an art collective and they started a political party to see how easy it would be to set up a political party. Oh, I see. It's like an art thing, but then part of the art thing is also making these giant sculptures. Uh I should say that the information that I got all this additional stuff from is a YouTuber called Edlund Art who did an amazing video about it. Very cool. Very nice. There's a drawing of a penis on the moon.

As well, which blow it up is blow it up. I think it's big enough already, Andy. I don't think you need to blow it. Uh this was uh this was the Moon Museum. Sure you guys have heard of it. So it was left up there by Apollo twelve, and it was a group of artists. So there was uh David Novaros, John Chamberlain, but Andy Warhol was one of them.

And it's this tiny little it looks like almost like a chip that you would put into a camera. And it's got little bits of art on it. And Andy Warhol drew a penis. And I think at the time he justified saying that it was a W and an A. And if you're being very generous, it kind of does look like that, but really it's a it's a cock and balls drawing. Okay. Well that will be useful if the aliens come. They will know what to expect when they arrive in Sweden.

Let's have another, Dan. Okay, here's one from Magnus Silverwood. Magnus writes, My fact is that Jupiter is not mostly composed of gas, but is in fact largely liquid hydrogen covered by gas clouds. And what Magnus finds really interesting about this, which is unbelievably fascinating because of the coincidence, is how we found this out. Uh, 1995.

The spacecraft Galileo entered the orbit of Jupiter for the first time just in time to witness what has been estimated as a one in six thousand year event. the collision of the comet Shoemaker Levy nine as it crashed into the surface of Jupiter. So the collision threw up a lot of debris into the atmosphere, the composition of which th was studied, and they also opened a small observation window beneath the clouds so that they could see what was going on down there as the smoke was coming up.

Um yeah, and they found out that it's not the case. Oh god, they've got their own tiresome art collectives on Jupiter, have they? But as a result. That's incredible. That is incredible. They got to see this this extraordinary thing though. One in six thousand. And that's that's the story of how we how we discovered that. And Galileo, that that uh mission itself was a very interesting mission because they confirmed for the first time that there is life on earth.

And that was as Galileo was flying away from us, Carl Sagan, who was part of the project, asked for it to be turned around and have all the instruments face Earth and take a reading and And the reading it took showed signs of life on our planet. And that might sound silly, but it served a major scientific purpose. It showed us what you would be looking for if you were looking for life on a planet.

It could measure oxygen and methane in Earth's atmosphere. It spotted a steep cliff in the infrared spectrum of sunlight reflecting off the planet, and it had this red edge to it, which indicated the presence of vegetation. Uh it picked up radio transmissions that were coming from the surface to show that there must be an intelligent life that we're manufacturing artificial sounds and so on. So um what year was it that? Nineteen ninety five was the mission.

Yeah. I was just thinking what radio they might they've they'd have got the archers, I guess. They would have got um Scatman John, maybe. Oh yeah. Yeah, if they were listening to the right music channel.

Boom boom boom, let me hear say whale. That would have been in the air. Not the best musical moment to be discovering Earth, but uh here's one. This came in from Karen Gupta. So thank you very much, Karen. It's that. The Indian Republic Day Parade, held in New Delhi, features 1,270 kilos of boneless chicken. Riddle be this do do do Well there's lots of people there and they need to eat. It's not for people. It's not for it's not these twelve hundred kilos of boneless chicken are not for people.

Um did they leave it on did did they put it on the side of the town so that all of the wild animals go out to eat the chicken and they don't get in the way of the parade? Very good. You've got it. Oh nice. You've got it. The chicken is spread out, says Karen, at specific locations to attract black kites and prevent Bird strike.

Because there are a load of planes that do the parade. Oh and there are also a load of black kites in Delhi and they fly at roughly the height that they might go into one of the engines. and um and ruin their day ruin everyone's day. Uh and ruin an otherwise happy parade. And so

They have been putting out lots and lots of meat. They used to do buffalo, uh, but they've recently changed the recipe uh to chicken. Can I ask, are these um kites really picky eaters that they don't like to eat chicken with bones in it? What a good point. I don't know. I think it I I did look it up a bit and it has to be in pieces of a specific size. It's interesting because I would have thought that they would just eat.

animals normally, right? They would eat like little voles or something. And they definitely have bones in them. Yeah, you're right. I d I don't know what the reason is. I guess They can't just say we'll just throw up any old any old shite for them because this is the you know, it's a big Republic Day parade, it's gotta be every element of it has to be meticulous. And also like you need to put something really nice for the kite.

You can't just put like some chicken thighs out there because they'll be like, Oh yeah, we could get that anywhere. No no no. Oh but look at the amazing boneless stuff we can go and get it now. jerk rubbed um I don't know what I'm trying to I I'm trying to come up with a chicken recipe. I don't eat much chicken. Um but I think it's quite meaningful that it's chickens because of course they can't fly

And yet they, with their sacrifice, are allowing the the aerial parade to happen. So in a sense they can I think chickens can fly a little bit, can't they? Not much, but they could like You know if you throw them in the air they will flap as they fall. I believe that a ch if you have chickens and you have a building like a shed and it's like two meters tall, they can get onto it, I reckon.

Really? I think so. Yeah, I think that's right. They can sort of flutter upwards. Yeah, they can they've they they're I mean not like not the ones that like Bernard Matthews has fed to within an inch of their life. Like those guys can't do much. Very interesting. Okay. What's the highest you've ever seen a chicken fly? Podcast at QI.com Why do I do it to myself? Okay, here is a fact from Jennifer Neal and Jennifer writes about a species of fungi found in the fungarium at Kew Garden.

that does not grow naturally anywhere else in the world. Cool. Riddle means I love our little mystical riddles. It doesn't grow, it shrinks. Uh it's born at a at a full size and then shrinks over the course of its life. Like the there is a paradoxical is it a paradoxical paradoxical frog. Frog, that's it, that's born figure. than it gets as an adult. It's like the the female gives birth to this enormous tadpole and then when it turns into a frog it gets smaller.

Must at least not be irritating for the mum. Um this is a clue. It is this fungus is called Golfbolia Ambusta. Ah. The reason that it doesn't grow anywhere is because it is an actual golf ball. It's a golf ball that has been burnt. And it was sent to Kew Gardens in nineteen fifty two from Lancashire as a joke. Uh I think actually, like, to be honest, it's not certain whether the people who found it thought it was a joke or whether they thought it was an actual fungus.

But definitely the guy who took it in was called R. W. G. Dennis, who is the head of mycology at the Royal Botanic Gardens. And certainly he was in on a joke of giving it an official name. Uh and described. Yeah, he just he's a fun guy. He described Oh my god. Oh my god. Sorry, I couldn't help that. I'm really sorry. I feel like I would have to hand back my comedy gun and badge if I didn't make that joke. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Um but he uh described it in an official paper.

Uh as small, hard but elastic spheres enjoyed by the Caledonians in certain tribal rites. Uh and he was one making a joke, but two kind of making a point that there was no definition of what a mushroom was at that time and some mycologists or people who've studied mushrooms said that a fungus should be anything that's studied by mycologists.

Uh as in if we study it, it's just automatically a fungus'cause it was so hard to define. And he said, Well, you can't really do that because if you do that, then I'm gonna call this golf ball a fungus. And what I'm really interested in is that it was sent from Lancashire

I have played I would most golf courses in Lancashire, I would say, but I can't for the life of me find out which golf course it's from, this ball. Mm-hmm. And I'm just really excited to find out which that's what I'm really interested in. Yeah.

Feels like you missed the point of the whole story. Yeah. Um, I got another one here. This is from Brian Simpson. The band, The Postal Service, was sent a cease and desist letter from the United States Postal Service, but were then allowed to keep the name after agreeing to perform for the USPS. Um I actually used to listen to this band. They had one album. It was a sort of supergroup. Um the lead singer was from the band Deathcab for Cutie.

And the reason that they were called the Postal Service is because that's how the album was created. One of them would put a bed of music down, put it in the post. One of them would write a note. E sharp Is there an E sharp? No, there's not. Bollocks Of all the notes you could have gone for. God damn it. F sharp He'd wait for a return of post. Is that how they did it? Yeah.

That's exactly how they did. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um yeah, no, so they had they just had conflicting schedules. So they were sent it to each other through the post. Um it was slightly annoying uh when it was revealed that they didn't in fact use the US Postal Service as their

method of posting, but used others like FedEx and the United Parcel Service. Um but yeah, so they got sent this cease and desist letter. They went and met up with them and they agreed that if they would play at their national executive conference, in Washington, DC, then they would be allowed to use the name. The they struck up a good relationship then. The band CDs were then sold on the USPS official website. Wow. So they got a lot of uh publicity off the back of this moment.

So yeah. The lead singer's married to Zoe Dechanel. There's a little bonus fact there. The reason his band's called Death Cat for Cutie is that was a song by the Bonzo Dog Doodah band and it was performed in Magical Mystery Tour, the Beatles film. Always comes back to the Beatles. Yeah. So because when you're talking done

Dej, jag skulle ju köpa några nya palpstält i lagret. Det kanske blev lite mer grejer. De hade ju allt, man hade en skribord, jag köpte en sån här. Och konstorstolar, och så hade de en sitsnygg typ container. Vi har inredning för hela arbetsplatsen. Välkommen till AI-produktion. Yeah, go on. This is from Nick Saiz. I thought you might find it interesting, he writes, that the French learned how to make the nuclear bomb.

by playing 20 questions with American scientists. No. Way. So basically, America's got the nuclear bomb. France doesn't. American law forbids America from sharing nuclear secrets. But they're both allies. I I think this is after NATO is set up. So th America wants France to have the bomb, but legally they can't say this is how you make a nuclear bomb. So instead they use this system called negative guidance. where the French would say, Here's what we're doing and the Americans would say

Hotter, colder, oh don't do that. And basically they just sort of re reverse guided them to having a nuclear bomb. Isn't that crazy? And you can and you can do that in twenty questions? Doesn't seem likely. Exactly. No more than twenty, yeah. Because like you use the first one up with like animal, vegetable or mineral, right? So like that's holding nineteen after that. Yeah, but you know the mineral, which is uranium. So you're laughing.

It feels like they probably had the plans but they had to go through the diplomatic process of asking twenty Questions. I think they were probably allowed a few extensions to the twenty. I think Yeah. Yeah, I think so. Like twenty thousand. France got to the end of the twenty questions and the Americans were like, Oh, well, that's a shame. Sorry. The West's nuclear umbrella will just have to have a little panel missing, won't it? Oh well.

Okay, here is one last one from me. This is from Matt Sousa. And Matt Sousa writes that my significant other, this is Matt's significant other, is a vetin veterinary technician who just informed me of a fact you all might enjoy. There exist online courses to become a certified rat tickler. And this is amazing. There's um basically tickling rats is a very important thing in science.

Because the pathways in rats' brains are very similar to the pathways in humans' brains, especially when you're being tickled. Uh and so whenever they want to do any tickle science. Then do it on rats first. Uh and rats absolutely love it. And they're, you know, if you're a rat tickler, you only need to walk into a room and all the rats are gonna jump around going, Oh my god, the rat tickler's here. We can't wait to be tickled.

James, are you about to tell us that you have completed this course and become a certified rather?'Cause I'll be so happy if you have. I w only wish that I thought of it. Uh no, I think it probably takes a bit longer than we had in the day and a half since you said these fights over. I feel how hard can it be to tickle a rat? Sounds like they're up for a tickle. We all all of us should have you know how um people who chase meteorites

they get a report that one's landed and they just have to go immediately to go and find it. They all have a bag ready at the door for these moments. I think we need the equivalent where it's like rat tickling course available. We're recording tomorrow. See ya, honey. Out the door. Sorry, Polina. The um Harkin signal is in the sky. The radicklers need me. Right. That is enough of your facts. Let's have some

Facts being dished out to you. Because if you join uh Clubfish, which is our members' club on Patreon, at the highest tier. Uh which is friend of the podcast. Then you will get a shout-out on the show and we will allocate you a fact and send you a certificate confirming that you are forever the custodian.

of this fact. So we're gonna do a bunch of those now. Uh if you wanna check it out, go to patreon.com slash clubfish. You can join any of the tiers and there's great stuff on all of them, frankly. But let's have some custodians. Who wants to go first? Uh I will. Okay, this one is now under the custodianship of Melinda Frederickson. Melinda, your fact is that in Kentucky in March 1876, It rained mutton tasting meat.

Lovely. I think what happened was um it was fed to a load of black kites and they were there like what's this disgusting stuff? And just spat it out over this time. No, I don't remember. I think um basically what happened was this um so called mutton tasting meat fell down to earth. And we still don't know what it was. And it could be that some frogs were sort of sucked up in a water spout. And then flown over

sort of Wizard of Oz style and then landed in this place in Kentucky and then people ate the frog and thought, Oh, this tastes a bit like mutton. Or it could have been something else. We don't really know what it was. No, you're right. We'll never know. But I do love it. I love the fact. Yeah. Um I'll I'll do a another fact now. This goes out now to Grapefruit Street.

Congratulations, Grapefruit Street. This is your fact. It is that Victorian inventor Peter Halcott invented a coat which doubled up as a boat. Yes. Love this. And it could take coat. And it could take eight people. He could you could fit eight people in his boat coat. It's amazing. It's like a modern day Noah, you know. Yeah. And if it's eight people, I think you can fit Mrs. Noah and Ham Shem and Jaffet.

Right. Someone dropped out before the third Noah child, James. Yeah. Where were you in Sunday school? Um Uh and three of their friends. So they can all bring their their girlfriends or their wives if they like. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Shame about the animals, but I'm sure some of them can swim and uh see you c see you later, everybody. It was a boat all the time, not just a coat. He said Oh Happy Days. Um

Here's another one. This one goes out to Hayden Freeman. Congratulations, Hayden. Your fact forever is now that. In eighteenth century France, tooth pullers were entertainers. One fired a gun while pulling teeth with his head in a bag. Fact about ancient dentistry. Amazing. Great. Yes, I remember I remember this fact. Was it'cause we didn't have any of the anesthetics?

So it was a sort of distraction? I don't think it was for the patient's benefit, I'll say that much. Um I think it w I think it was to draw crowds. They went from town to town, didn't they? And they would sort of turn up and say, I'm here, uh, who needs their tooth polied out? And they'd also sell their kind of

the balms and and quack medicines and stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Um so they're just trying to get people in, really. And also like you've got someone screaming'cause you haven't given them any anaesthetic. You've got to distract the crowd somehow from that. Yes. And you can do that by shoot shooting a stranger on the other side of the crowd. See, this guy isn't hurt as much as that guy. Yeah. You could be worse off. Look at him.

Um okay, here is another fact. This one is now under the custodianship of Adam Webb. And the fact is that in the First World War the Romanian army issued an order saying that only officers above the rank of major had the right to wear eyeshadow in battle. Very strict. I think uh we kind of looked at the use of uh make up in history, uh, in the army and and for the fact that men used to wear makeup a lot more than women and and all sorts of stuff like that. Yeah.

Actors used to wear green makeup in films. Am I making that up? Do you remember early days of Hollywood? Makeup. Yeah, black and white films. Yeah. Yeah. Well that's great, and that's why the Romanians who fought on good question. Um I think they fought on our'cause Hungary were not on our side, were they? So I assume that the Romanians who border Hungary probably were. Andy, you can Google it. Romania?

joined the Allied powers. Yeah. They were on our side. Yeah. Very nice. I've always liked them. Always liked those Romanians. Uh here's another one. This one goes out to Molinol. Molinol, your fact is, Daisy Meadows, the most borrowed children's author from British libraries.

doesn't exist. Ah yeah. I myself had never actually heard of Da Daisy Meadows and still have not heard really of Daisy Meadows. Um If I think of all the books in my house or the books I see in bookshops, I I don't spot Daisy Meadows, but She is a a brand, basically. It's a group of authors that write underneath the name Daisy Meadows, much in the same way that

Tom Clancy novels are now ghostwritten under that name or Virginia Andrews of Flowers in the Attic. It's that thing you can't let go once a once an author is nail the genre, you just start writing using their name. Yeah. Michael Crichton is another example of that. So yeah, um pretty amazing for someone who's the most borrowed yet.

least heard of of all the big children's authors. Very cool fact. Uh here's another one. This goes out to Luke. Congratulations, Luke. It's the fact that it would cost eight hundred and fifty quadrillion dollars to build a Death Star. And that was built by your father, Luke, interestingly. Really nice. Really nice. Spoiler a lot. Yeah. Um yeah, this is just a fact about um budgets, I suppose. And uh project overreach. Project overreach. You know, on time and under budget. Dream on.

number to get the response, which was can you build a Death Star? It would only cost 850 quadrillion and someone had done The math. So that's really good because um it's good that it happened under a previous administration.'Cause I think if someone if someone pitched it now, might might well might well go through. I think you might be right. Okay, here is another fact. This one is now under the custodianship of Meredith Baku.

And Meredith, your fact is, oh, it's a festive one. Before going on stage to read a Christmas carol, Charles Dickens drank a pint of champagne mixed with two tablespoons of rum and sherry with raw eggs. Lovely. Now there is a story behind this. Um this was a live show at the Aces and Eights that we did and

Well, Anna wasn't gonna let Charles Dickens get away with being the only person to drink a pint of champagne before a show. And if you listen back to episode forty one, you can almost pinpoint the exact moment that those bubbles hit Anna's head. Yeah. Yeah, we ran out just before the show started and bought a couple of bottles, I think a prosecco in the end, and poured a bunch of pints. I drank mine the whole way through the show'cause I couldn't do it. Anna

absolutely downed it before we went on. And um yeah. Amazing fact about Dickens generally though, that fact and his live shows that he used to do and how this is how he operated. Yeah. Um Um right, let's have one more. Yep, this goes out to James McDonald. Crap Christmas jumpers date back to the Romans. Yeah. So like this was it was a live show, wasn't it? And it was um it was our Christmas special. Yeah. And yeah, this was basically Marshall who wrote back in the Roman times and he wrote about

I think it was was it Saturnalia or it was one of those um nice one of those festivals that they did, which we now say is kind of similar to a modern Christmas. Uh and he said that one of the things they did would be they would give each other sort of quite garish. So good. I've never worn a Christmas jumper. You've never not. I'm sorry, what? Why not?

Is it a th like now that you've gone this far, has it become a thing that you just refuse to? No, it's I've never refused to. I've never been asked to. I've never I've just never engaged with that whole scene. I've got I've got you know, I've got a tr I've got a couple of fun jumpers, but but they're not Christmasy. They're just and when I say fun, I just mean they've got a slightly bolder knit.

Than I'm happy with. I suppose like you you do wear fun jumpers all the time. Like we all call you fun jumperandy, so like doing something special over Christmas doesn't really make sense for you. Absolutely, I'm a fun jumper guy the other three hundred and sixty four days of the year. Right.

That's enough of this stuff. Let's have one final round of thanks to our wonderful new fact custodians and friends of the podcast. They are James, Meredith, Luke, Molinol, Adam, Hayden, Grapefruit Street, and Melinda. So thank you so much to all of you. Thank you to all of you who are listening, who have joined Clubfish at any of the tiers. It makes a massive difference. If you would like to give that a go and get ad-free episodes and bonus content and much more besides, just go to patreon.com

Flash Clubfish. Until then it's bye from all of us and we'll see you in a few days' time for another video.