No Such Thing As A Fish - 512: No Such Thing As A Dirty Bar Of Soap
Episode Date: January 4, 2024Dan, Anna, Andy and Rhys James discuss soap, style, naps and novelists. Visit nosuchthingasafish.com for news about live shows, merchandise and more episodes. Join Club Fish for ad-free episodes a...nd exclusive bonus content at apple.co/nosuchthingasafish or nosuchthingasafish.com/patreon
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Hey everyone, welcome to the very first episode of Fish in the year 2024.
This is going to be a really big year for us.
We're incredibly excited.
It's our 10 year anniversary.
10 years of fish this March.
That's over 500 episodes, 29,000 facts.
Actually, so far 29,597 facts to be exact.
We know that because Andy keeps a spreadsheet.
So thanks to everyone who's been tuning in all this time.
I hope you had a great holiday break.
Hope you had a great new year's.
We got a great episode for you today.
James is away on holiday at the moment, so in his place we have another James.
A Reese James.
I'm sure you're all aware of Reese James.
He's an amazing standup comedian.
He's appeared on multiple TV shows and radio shows.
Most predominantly I would say as a regular or mock the week, where for years he was a
panelist. And actually, if you go to Reese's Instagram account, which is at Reese
Jamesy, that's Reese James, but with a Y at the end, you'll find the funniest
Instagram account out there in my personal opinion. It's the reason I basically
stayed on Instagram for a long time. He's uploaded all of his single one-liners
that he's delivered on the show mock the Week from over the years, and honestly
you will be in tears laughing.
So get that into your life, follow him there, and if you want more long-form stuff by him,
you can go to his YouTube account where you'll find an entire radio show that's been
uploaded there, and that's called Research, as in Reese's name, but mixed with research.
Reese's Search. And to describe that show the best way, but mixed with research, Reese's search.
And to describe that show the best way would be to say it's answering all of life's big
questions, but done in a sort of brass-eye mold.
It's incredibly funny, and you must check it out, but in the meantime, don't go anywhere
because you can enjoy him here on no such thing as a fish, so here we go, on with the
show.
Hello and welcome to another episode of No Such Thing as a Fish, a weekly podcast coming to you from the QI offices in Hobern.
My name is Dan Schreiber, I am sitting here with Anna Toshinsky, Andrew Hunter Murray,
and Reese James.
And once again, we have gathered around the microphones
with our four favorite facts from the last seven days,
and in a particular order, here we go.
Starting with fact number one, and that is Reese.
Soap is the best way to move a building.
How do you feel about that?
That was so dramatically presented.
I really enjoyed it.
And I actually, my brother, I had other options,
I had other options of ways to introduce that headline.
I went with that basic, really simple one.
But I was gonna say something like,
washing, removing stains, moving buildings.
Just three of the hats, soapwears.
You know, that's what I was gonna go with. But twice the first fact, you know, I keep it simple.
Just what you know I had that in the locker.
No, no, absolutely. I think you played it right though.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, so what's the story here then?
So in Nova Scotia, at last, it's very, very, very local news this story.
And there was like a local news video about it, but basically, an old Victorian building that was mostly used as a hotel for about 100 years,
was going to get knocked down, then a company bought it because they wanted to attach it to a planned apartment block,
sort of 30 feet away, and instead of moving it the traditional way with rollers,
they used 700 bars of ivory soap, because that's the softest soap, and that's for the Slypheus.
And they did that successfully to then get it onto new foundations, have 100 bars of ivory soap because that's the softest soap. And that's for the slippiest.
And they did that successfully to then get it
onto new foundations.
And then once that is complete,
they are going to move the whole thing back.
Good.
What?
Yeah, why?
I don't know.
They're going to move,
because basically it's now it's like a protected landmark
of this old building, I think.
Yeah.
And so they were going to restore the whole thing
and put it back to where it was,
which to me just suggests you wanted to move it with soap. You didn't need to put this.
Yeah, if it's protected, but we've also proved beyond doubt that it's mobile.
Yeah.
It doesn't matter where it is as long as we're protecting it.
Yeah, yeah.
On the road.
I found it amazing how little soap you need to move.
Yes.
I mean, I looked at a photo.
There's a big building.
700 bars of soap.
It's obviously lots of bars of soap, but it's not that many ways.
Surface area wise, it doesn't.
But it didn't even use 700 bars.
Oh, really?
Yeah, they took some home, didn't they?
I think some of the builders took, there was 20 to 40 bars left.
So they used most of it.
Yeah, they estimated quite well.
Yeah, no, but I mean, last.
Oh, my God, don't hear that.
What the crazy thing is, this is not the first time that soap's been used to move buildings,
but it's clearly an essential ingredient
as part of the process of what they're doing.
And it was as they were getting ready to move it,
that's they went, we don't have any soap.
So it's not even like they've bought it
in industrial bulk amounts.
What ended up happening was the guy who is in charge of it,
his wife Leanne, had to run to 15 shops around the area
and buy using 970 something box,
the equivalent of 700.
It's only 70,000.
When you put it like that,
it's only, it's the sounds quite task master, doesn't it?
It's like a panic there.
I'm like, oh my god.
And he, wasn't this guy, Sheldon Rushden,
the lead builder guy, said, I think he said at first,
he thought, I'll just ask my wife if we can use some of our soap from home.
And there was only when she said, we're absolutely not doing that.
I'm not giving up our personal supply that she offered to drive around.
Which made me think, how many bars of soap are you stopped piling in your house?
Yeah, exactly.
But also how precious are you about where the soap is your personal supply?
Absolutely.
Sorry, surely, if it was like, yeah, you can use some viral soap,
but use some of the budget to get us some new soap.
It's just the only the same thing.
You're right.
But it has sentimental value, her own personal soap.
I think once you're mixing work with pleasure,
it's a very attractive day.
Yeah.
And it's some, we are not actually sponsored
by Ivory Soap this week, but it is very, very soft apparently and that's great
So you do use the opa code fish
But so what the basic method you use to move the building is you so you dig under the building
Don't you and then you put steel beams under the building then you lift the whole thing up by one inch
On hydraulic jacks you put steel beams under the building. Then you lift the whole thing up by one inch
on hydraulic jacks, just jack it up one inch
and you slide the soap underneath it on trays.
And then I think you lower, then you lower an inch
and it just kind of squishes the soap,
but it's incredibly soapy now.
Yeah, so then you leave it overnight to squish the soap,
right, you sit it on the soap overnight,
which I feel like a building's heavy enough
that you only need to sit it on the soap for 10 minutes.
These guys are experts, haven't they?
They know what they're doing.
And then what you're trying to create a sort of slip and slide aspect to it.
I bet they can just push it, and it's just about the weight you push it, where it's
curling.
And then it just does it land, isn't it?
You want the building to be an eventually like, no, I pushed it too hard, it's not
in the sink.
It's a thousand of them with brooms.
Try and slow it up.
Any of you curled? Never. I curled. I curled. Sorry, but I curled. It's a thousand of them with broomstick. Try to slow it out.
Any of you curled?
Never.
I curled.
I curled.
Sorry, but I curled.
I was trained by the British Olympic curling duo for the Winter Olympics just gone.
Yeah, curled?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I'll big time.
Whose names are, and then just insert them if you were.
They were lovely.
Why were you hoping to be the third member of the team? If you were three more than... ...um... ...they were lovely. And, girl...
Why were you hoping to be the third member of the team?
Yeah, I did, I think, four team GBs, like YouTube thing,
I went and had to do four Winter Olympic sports,
because in the Summer Olympic podcast, I had said,
as a joke, I reckon I could master any Olympic sport in a day.
Right.
And I was just, you know, I was being hyper-volic,
and then suddenly, the next series, I said, go go on then and I mastered none of them in several days.
One of them is curling though which was the easiest but it's like insane at first because
also they're not very technical with their language so they literally just call it grippy
shoe and slippy shoe and you have one of these.
Oh that's like bowling.
Right, you're being in the slippy.
Yeah, yeah.
So you have, and they gave me like this thing that goes under your shin as you slide
along at first.
There's basically like a little ice skate, but just rest
I think you just have that at first and then you're supposed to just slide on your actual shin
But it felt they give you that at first. That's like barriers in bowling. I reckon all like the thing you push the ball down
Pretty badly I think but it was better than what I had to do speed skating and smashed open my chin. On the last shot of the whole thing.
Oh wow.
That was much worse.
Good ending though.
Good ending though.
Little ski for the bottom of your chin.
You're going to need a curling.
Yeah, that's a tradition.
That's a tradition.
We just come in today dressed fully in skis, but they hate the toe of the skis for every
then.
Well the only issue with the idea with this building being the curling system is you
could probably get it into place with one big push, but then you might have a rival building behind you, knock you out
using the same system.
You know the Titanic was put on soap.
I think we've said before that the Titanic was put on soap to go down the slipway.
Yeah, like the oil, oil, bilber and all that sort of stuff.
Yeah, it was tallow and oil and soap and it was 20 tons of it that was used.
It was kind of amazing, but obviously that's more than 700 bars, isn't it?
Yeah, but I did, so I was just reading a bit more about that.
I'd never read this before that workers, they would go to the slipway afterwards and try and gather up any spare soap that was left over.
Oh, to use themselves.
Interesting.
But it was also covered in sort of oil and...
You could probably wash it, right?
You could probably wash away that and then you've got the soap sitting underneath.
I guess so. Yeah, I don't think soap gets... You probably will. You probably will. You probably will. You probably will. You probably will. You probably will. You probably will. You probably will. You probably will. You probably will. You probably will. You probably will. You probably will. You probably will. You probably will. You probably will. You probably will. You probably will. You probably will. You probably will. You probably will. You probably will. You probably will. You probably will. You probably will. You probably will. You probably will. You probably will. You probably will. You probably will. You probably will. You probably will. You probably will. You probably will. You probably will. You probably will. You probably will. You probably will. You probably will. You probably will. You probably will. You probably will. You probably will. You probably will. You probably will. You probably will. You probably will. You probably will. You probably will. You probably will. You probably will. You probably will. You probably will. You probably will. You probably will. You probably will. You probably will. You probably will. You probably will. You probably will. You probably will. You probably will. You probably will. You probably will. You probably will. You probably will. You probably will. You probably will. You probably will. You probably will. You probably will. You probably will. You probably will. You probably will. You probably will. You probably. You probably will. You probably will. You probably will. You probably will. You probably. You probably will. You probably. You probably. You probably. You probably. You probably. You probably. You probably. Probably. You probably. You probably. You probably. You probably. You probably. You probably. You probably. You probably. You probably. You probably. You probably. You probably. You probably. You probably. Probably. You probably. You probably. You probably. You probably. You probably. You probably. You probably. You probably. You probably. You probably. You probably. You probably. You weigh in on this debate. Please. Of course you can get so dirty. Of course you can get so dirty, but it doesn't stop it
cleaning you.
So it doesn't matter if you're so dirty,
doesn't make it different.
Yeah, I love the dirty.
You would have to be for the dirt on it to make you dirtier.
Yeah.
And outweigh the cleanliness of the soap being applied to you.
It's so dirty.
Yeah.
So you're at that point, right off that bar of soap.
Sometimes in horrible pubs, there will be a bar of soap,
you know, at the sinks, and you look at it and you think,
oh, I'm actually, I'm not sure.
Well, this is a thing.
They've, there was a report that was done,
a sort of a research project to look into how clean
actually are in bathrooms like pubs and stuff,
how clean is the soap that you're getting?
And they've worked out that some of the dispensers
are left for so long, whether not maintained
and they get cracks in it,
that you can go to the toilet,
wash your hands with the soap
and leave with dirty your hands,
then you arrive to it.
Yeah, because they found 15 types of bacteria
that were sitting on these dispensers
that would make it onto your hand
as part of the soap.
And they would say,
and yeah,
they're like,
yeah, same pool handles,
yeah, toilet,
yeah, I know what people are doing in here.
No, no, no, no. I'm gonna I'm going to make a call on this toilet thing
and say it doesn't make your hands dirty
at the end of the washroom, because it doesn't matter
if there's bacteria on the soup dispenser.
So on the soup dispenser, it does matter.
Well, it doesn't even seem.
But on the soup dispenser, it's in the point of soap
that it gets onto your hands and then it makes the water
and the dirt on your hands more slippery.
And so gets them off. And it doesn't matter if there's bacteria on the dispenser.
It does that.
It does that.
It does that.
It does that immediately get us all of that off.
So which is why it doesn't matter if a bar of soap is dirty.
No, but that's the amazing thing about soap.
And that's why it's so incredible that we, you know, as a species discovered it was just
millennia ago.
It not only makes the dirt and stuff on your hands slippery to slide off, but it also has
this structure
which tears open bacteria and viruses.
It's amazing.
Yeah.
I want to read this because I don't want to get it wrong.
Each molecule of soap has a head which bonds with water and then a tail which hates water,
and it's hydrophobic and tries to avoid it at all costs.
That's horrible identity crisis.
I know.
It's poor molecule.
And there's so the tail seeks oils and facts and things.
And basically, bacteria and viruses,
they're surrounded by a lipid membrane, a fatty membrane.
And when they touch soap, the soap kind of envelops it
and also the soap molecule tails,
which are trying to avoid water,
realize there is a fatty layer on that bacterium
and burrow into it, they sort of wedge themselves in and that wraps the bacterium apart. So that's the other thing that's going on as well as making things slippier
Yeah, it's just amazing. It's amazing. That's incredible. Yeah, and it smells nice. That smells nice
And less we forget
Actually, that was the main comment of the builders after they moved that building
Honestly, they said they went away smelling great
Do you know though? Honestly, they said they went away smelling great. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Do you know, though, what is better out of...
I feel like I've presented this in a really obvious way now,
out of antibacterial soap and just a bar of soap.
Antibacterial?
Done, you idiot!
I mean, I even said it, so the answer was clear.
No, there's a serious worry that people are converting
to antibacterial soap a lot and hand soap.
And there's a guy called Professor Lysko who works at Monash University in Australia.
And he says that he thinks they should all be banned antimicrobial soaps because they're
not better than just a bar of soap, even though we've got them all over our house now,
there's a COVID hangover.
Not better than a bar of soap.
Hand soap is where you don't use water are significantly less good because, you know, when you get a hand sanitizer, that's a lot less good because the water
doesn't, you need the water to scrub away and wash off that layer. And he says that they're
causing a huge amount of antibiotic resistance because we're shoving this antibacterial soap
at our hands and all the bacteria is becoming kind of super bugs on our hands.
Yes.
And he explains exactly, we're all going to have just these super bugs living on us.
So really, and this really surprised me,
it's not about the antimicrobial chemical properties really,
as much as it is about the scrub,
but actually the key is, as long as you scrub your hands really hard with the water,
it scrapes them off. And with the soap? And with the soap. Water does all right, the soap is, as long as you scrub your hands really hard with the water, it scrapes them off.
And with the soap.
And with the soap.
Water does all right, the soap is the thing that really can do.
Yes, there's definitely something psychological about the smell and presentation, though, right?
Of how clean you feel, because natural soaps don't feel...
They obviously are better, and you could make soap out of just oil and...
Mm-hmm.
...mard, basically, on you.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You know, I find rubbing oil on my body.
I don't feel...
And large. That's why I'm easily clean. a load, basically, on you. Yeah, yeah. I find rubbing oil on my body.
I don't feel, and large,
lean massively clean.
No, no.
Yeah, no.
It's like that, and the scrub of that
is what actually makes you clean.
Why am I getting so turned on?
I need a seat, so.
Well, I shouldn't be rubbing myself.
But, um.
You need, I need a seat, it has to have a scent.
Oh, I won't feel.
It does it.
Well, also, I've not used a bar of soap for years,
and I find a bar of soap disgusting.
How many are you always only using?
Never a bar.
Never a bar.
Come on.
I don't mind a bar of soap.
Are you a cartoon?
Are you all cartoon?
What did you do?
I don't use, in our house, we have liquid soap
as opposed to a bar of soap.
But I'm using a little pump.
No, I have a shower gel type situation.
You've got to give me a lot of pumps soap.
Yeah, it's really a concept.
But you should just feel very guilty,
because of course you are single-handedly destroying the world.
No palm oil.
We always say no palm oil, please.
What is the issue plastic?
No palm oil.
Yeah, plastic.
Is it around?
What are you saying it to?
Are you saying your personal social?
Is it no palm oil, please?
So much to my luck. Sorry tell me to wipe out that.
Sorry, I don't make that clear.
And it's most soaps, I have, again, I actually haven't bought bar
in the ages. Aren't they covered in quite a plasticky kind of wrapping?
Uh, yes, Dan, but...
Is it paper these days?
Ah, okay, there's a spectrum.
Right, there is a spectrum.
What we see there's a spectrum is here, from Anna, who uses only old-fashioned bars of soap that
have to be cut from the mother block.
And it wrapped in, who's proof paper.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Up to Dan, who has like those auto dispenses at every doorway in his house.
Yeah, yeah.
So the other board, this is such a part of the thing to say, but actually, if you use bar soap,
it's got slightly lower carbon footprint
in the travel emissions.
Cool, because you're not, you know,
with liquid soap, you're mostly transporting the water.
You know what I'm about, okay.
But what about the satisfaction of a foam burst?
You're gonna use the foam burst?
I've okay briefly obsessed with foam burst.
What is a foam burst?
It's just the soap that is literally designed
to become extra foamy when you're
in your lathering.
And so you know, feel, it's exciting.
It's very exciting where to start or end your day.
Just feel like you're not engaging with the ethical issues here.
Listen, very much set and foam based.
And I'm happy this got record.
I couldn't give a fuck about the ethical issues.
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Okay, it is time for fact number two and that is Andy.
My fact is that the 19th century author Thomas Hardy had two funerals at the same time.
Did you say 19th century author so we didn't confuse him with the 21st century actor?
Yeah.
Because he's still alive.
Yeah.
This is Tom Hardy, Thomas Hardy, who wrote, I'm confusing it already, Jude the Obscure,
Tassel the Derbyvilles, Mare of Castle Bridge.
We don't need the full bibliography.
About 900 poems, he was a big deal.
He was.
He was mega famous, actually.
And that was sort of what led to this problem.
Basically, he was meant to be buried in Dorset
in his native Stinzford with his first wife, right?
And it was all ready to go.
There was a space on the tombstone for him, his name
to be added, you know. And then he died. And then his friends, including James Barry of Peter
Pan, Peter Pan, and Sydney Cockrell, who slightly less well treated by history, but you know,
I'm sure a big deal at the time. They went to his home basically on his death and they
said, we think he should be buried in Poets Corner in Westminster Rabby, he's huge, huge deal and they kind of bullied Tomas Hardy's second wife Florence into going
along with it, you know, she sort of said, oh okay fine. So they struck a deal whereby he went
to Poets Corner and his heart went to Stensford and then they both had a funeral at 2pm on the 16th of January 1928.
I mean real Syfie's choice for his second wife. Sorry you're going to be buried in
Poets Corner which is not where he's supposed to be or with your other wife, your previous wife.
And oh no we'll just take your heart to your previous wife.
No it's really. What's your mother's mother's father?
No I got in all of this. You've taken it with my end of art.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's true.
And also, like, well, I think reading into it more,
I think his family was there as well.
So that was kind of...
Stinson, yeah.
Exactly, yeah. No, not though it's Gordon.
Yeah.
And so, because his wife, his first wife,
they didn't particularly get on to well,
like, deep into the marriage, to begin with, they didn't particularly get on to well, like, deep into the marriage.
To begin with, they did. But there was a lot of...
No, it was a painful marriage according to a lot of the friends and close relatives and so on.
And her, herself. And him, himself.
Yeah, all right. Yeah, yeah.
Why did he want to be there?
Well, the family, I guess. She just happened to be there.
Right.
He felt huge regret about what a dick he was to her.
It was said.
He treated her quite bad.
She kept a book.
Oh my God, it's the greatest title I've ever heard.
Yeah, so he found after she died,
and they did have this difficult relationship, didn't they?
And she's a very interesting, weird character.
But he found in the attic after she died,
a diary that she'd written basically
called something like, what I think of my husband.
Oh, yeah.
Just loads of bitching about him.
And he did, and he'd feel so awful.
And he felt really guilty reading that.
And I think he burned it, so don't know.
Immediately.
Yeah.
Yeah, I'm sorry.
I feel so bad about it.
Okay, let's just talk more than the fire.
Don't you want the gas light.
Yeah.
I think that's every husband's nightmare.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's like a bird. Oh my god. It's not a dream for every wife. I'm that's every husband night. Yeah. It's like a bird.
It's like a bird. Oh my god.
It's not a dream for every wife. I'm going to tell you.
You're not picking up a book called What I Think of a husband
expecting positive review. He is great.
End of book.
Oh, I do.
Always hell. He always listens.
She lives in the attic.
She just moved into the attic after a while.
A while after their relationship started to go really wrong.
Oh. She was kind of the, she was the same woman in the attic.
Well, I mean, the source is different on the sanity of the source.
And then you remarried, you married Florence,
who was 39 years his junior.
There's a big difference, though.
The list of not even guests at the funeral of Tomas Hardy,
but the Paul Barres.
You had, just before I mentioned, James Barry, James Barry was one of the Paul Barres. You had, just before I mentioned, James Barry,
James Barry was one of the Paul Barres.
You had George Bernard Shaw.
You had the Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin,
is one of the Paul Barres,
and then various other names that were obviously massive.
Two Prime Ministers being Paul Barres,
but one of them wasn't Prime Minister yet.
That's right, leader of the opposition at the time.
Ramsay McDonald, who was then the first Labour Prime Minister.
Yeah. Ruddia Kipling and Kipling, yeah. Paul Barre. Ramsay McDonald, who is then the first Labour Prime Minister. Yeah. Ruddy Kippling.
And Kippling, yeah.
Paul Berra.
I mean, I guess is this not surprising?
Like if Richard Osman dies, I wouldn't be massively surprised if like Sebastian folks
Ian McEwan.
Yeah, but this is the equivalent of Richard C.
And Keir Starman was turning up.
Yeah, I tell you what.
I don't think you get a lot of volunteers to carry that coffin.
He's a big lad.
Yeah, your pawn,
Yeah, I don't think you get a lot of volunteers to carry that coffin. He's a big lad.
Yeah, your pawn,
Yeah, your pawn,
there at least would be very long, wouldn't it? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. lad. Yeah, your poor, very less would be very long wouldn't it? Yeah.
I want to have tall Thomas, I didn't want to,
because he had ten.
Did he?
It feels like a lot.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Normally you can fit six.
Oh, I'm okay.
Yeah, I'm a good point.
You know.
Very squeezed in.
I don't know.
I know.
I know.
I think he was definitely quite puny as a baby.
And his mother gave birth and they went, well, we'll set that side, because it's not a
life and we'll retrieve them other.
Oh.
And they put him to one side thinking that he wasn't alive.
And then the midwife, who probably wasn't doing a job
particularly well, said after a few minutes,
oh hang on a second, this baby's alive, we should keep it going.
Great.
And he was very, and for the first few weeks,
everyone assumed that he would die.
And he was quite weakling, I think, when he was younger.
Are you guys fans of his stuff?
Yeah, I read Tessa the Dermabils at school,
and it was the first as it
were literature book that I'd write up until then I was reading Spinoff Indiana Jones
novelizations and I it blew my mind. I thought it was fantastic. Yeah. And he
wrote my favourite poem, the Darkling Thrush. Amazing poem. Do you want to read it?
Well, he considered himself a poet more than a author, didn't he? Despite these
like seminal, it's a classic of successful as an author, right?
That's just like, yeah.
He was extremely successful as a poet as well.
And the last 30 years of his life,
he only wrote poetry, didn't he?
Well, he had success, but this, to me,
is like, Ant and Deck, considering themselves musicians.
But they, you know, they've taken successful
in the charts, but you wouldn't say,
yes, the famous, yeah, the repertoire.
Musicians, Ant and Deck have died, is not what's going to be yeah exactly
but he just this to me is just like you know his Twitter bio would just you want those ones
just like a list poet or son father husband twice for anyone who's listening is not a fan
they're basically the books are they're amazing but it was incredibly gloomy, as in their, their, their, their feature all sorts of, you know, terribly unhappy people be, you know, making poor decisions.
Yeah. And getting on badly with each other. That's, I don't know what I think that he
has a reputation.
Far from the Madden crowd is not a gloomy book. Everyone always says such sad books, but
yeah, don't read Jiu-Jitsu. If you, what? So Jiu-Jitsu got the god in a few years ago,
then produced this fantastic infographic
on what each book contains in terms of various traumas.
Right, so Jiu-Diabskir was by a long shot the winner,
but it features, they just listed like
in little bullet points what it features.
An unhappy relationship, a death,
another unhappy relationship, another unhappy relationship,
grinding poverty, suicide, murder, murder.
That's one child who kills two others and then himself.
Miscarriage, alcoholism, another death, and animal genitalia related injury, which I
had forgotten about, which does feature indeed the obscure.
Does it?
What happens?
Dude, he meets his wife, Aarabella, when she throws a pig's pizzle, a pig's penis at him,
and it wallops him on the bonts.
When you said animal related genital injury, I'll never have guessed that I was going to something biting
I never would have I never would have thought it was the animals genital that was doing the cause of it
It's a different part of his body
Yeah, this member pig dick was not
Yeah, this membered pig dick was not. Yeah, yeah.
Oh my bingo can't hurt in 1894.
LAUGHTER
I got the train in today to King's Cross, and I had a bit of time on my hands,
and I went to see something pretty incredible.
The tree? Yeah.
I went to see the Hardy Tree.
What's that?
The Hardy Tree is Old St. Pancras Church, which is just up the road from St. Pancras Station
International, and it's a church where you have a graveyard there.
And when Hardy prior to becoming a full-time writer, I think maybe he was dabbling in writing
at that point, but he was an architect beforehand, and he used to work in London, and he worked
for a company which was called Blumfield.
And one of the things that Blumfield
needed to do was they needed to move a lot of the graves that were in the area to make room for
a new rail track. It was the mainland, midland Grand Railway and so they had to exume bodies and
there were something like thousands of bodies that they had to exume and they had all these leftover
tombstones and Hardy did this thing where there's about a hundred of them of these tombstones, and Hardy did this thing where about a hundred of them
of these tombstones, they are all sort of layered in towards the tree.
It's so hard to describe.
It's like so, so the tree.
Is the tree, because the tree fell down, is it?
The tree fell down the tree.
The tree fell down the tree.
Oh, how's it fall?
I saw it years ago, but it was like, the roots were growing over the tombstone.
Yeah.
It's almost like, give the illusion that the two sides were sinking
because like we're starting to grow over the top of the again short to be short. Yeah, so we're
still not felled out. So what is it? A storm took it out but they've left, there's big fence
around it at the moment, they're working out what to do in which way to restore it, but yeah,
that is literally a bit of art slash architecture by Thomas Hardy, as you say, you saw it when it's
full, full place. And God, just generally, by the way,
what an extraordinary cemetery that is
with such notable people.
Mary Wollstonecraft is buried there,
who was the mother of Mary Shelley.
And there's this story, which all academics think
is almost definitely true.
It's one of those ones where it's like,
there might be a tiny grain of untruth.
It's where she used to go and sit and read her mother's books
against the tombstone.
And it's where her and Percy Shelley first had sex on the tombstone.
That's the kind of thing they would have done.
Yeah, but so.
But so.
It's not a smart.
I think that's fair.
I highly recommend it though.
Of course you are, don't you recommend those awesome stuff.
I mean, going to the cemetery.
Darn sex advice podcast. It's's gonna go down like a little bit.
But also, incidentally, one of the people who were buried underneath, supposedly, all those
tombstones, is the writer who wrote the vampire who was part of that weekend with Mary
Darling. Oh, Poladori. Yeah, Poladori. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Can I shatter your illusions, though, about that lovely concentric circle,
Gravestones and Tree?
OK.
Tree has nothing to do with him.
What?
Yeah.
Everyone calls it the hardy tree.
There's no evidence.
It was planted in his life, like,
when he was in architects.
There's no evidence.
They think it was planted about 50 years after he died.
It only started being referenced in the fight.
I just said he just made the circles.
He made the circles.
He, all we know, I'm pretty sure,
is that he was indeed employed
because he was low down the Architects firm.
So the Architects said, could you dig up all these bodies?
So he did dig up the bodies.
Yeah.
And he, in fact, he remembered later in his life
when they were digging out the bodies,
opening one grave that had two heads and one body.
And that was a fun memory for him.
Oh. And he said some of them were just skeletons
loose in the ground, some of them like crumpled up. He was taking them up personally. He was there
overseeing it and other people under him were digging them up. Two heads, one body. Yeah, we don't
know he made this don't circle. We don't know he doesn't. He just let some gravestones. It just
doesn't. The story has loosened the marker in fact. It's like a jetty like a natural phenomenon.
Some poor person, probably a woman, came after and said,
hey, it would look nice if we did this.
And then everyone's gone, oh, it was too early, didn't it?
It's such a classic.
So, yeah.
Oh, come on guys, how interesting.
Can I give you guys a quiz?
Oh, yeah.
Sure.
So, we all know Tom Hardy.
And we all know about Kiss Me Hardy.
Yeah.
And we all know about Tom Hardy, the Yeah. And we all know about Tom Hardy, the actor.
Yeah.
So, which Tom Hardy, I've renamed these headlines all,
so they'll say Tom Hardy, so that's not a click, right?
Which Tom Hardy are these about?
Yeah.
Okay.
Goldfish removed from Tom Hardy pond to protect newts.
Which Hardy is that about?
The actor.
Arthur?
Arthur?
Arthur. You're both right.
Sorry, Dan.
It's a bit loose calling him Tom.
I've changed the headlines.
I've changed the headlines, so they also Tom Hardy.
So that's not to avoid being a client.
I see.
Because people are going to say Tom or Tom.
Yeah.
Tom Hardy fuels James Bond rumors.
Ha ha ha ha.
Well, no, let's go back to when the first James Bond was written.
Let's do the dates a lot.
Flaming was a port there at the end.
I'm locking that in.
OK.
No, I'm so sorry, Dan.
That's about the extra top one.
I think.
Last one.
Tom Hardy wins due jitsu contest in Milton Keynes.
I don't think it's any of them.
That's just a different bloke.
No, it's the actor.
He, last year, he just turned up in Milton Keynes.
The Brazilian due jitsu open championship held just turned up in Milton Keynes the Brazilian jujitsu open championship
Hell that a school in Milton Keynes
And kicked everyone's ass he won champion. He was champion in his school. It was adults
Went through year eight like a dose of salt no, he has a blue belt in jujitsu and and just destroyed
Because quite intimidating if you turn up as he's Tom Hardy, you know, Ben
Yeah, no shit, Max
Yeah, you're like to just wonder in surely you have to have entered an advance
He did enter an advance, he registered
He just registered like a normal like a normal person, you know
I bet someone who works at that school who is organising the whole thing
Red it went, it went, it went, that top
Yeah He walked in like a fuck.
Yeah, that's amazing.
That's terrifying.
Do you know, I just want to bring up
the second wife very quickly, Florence Doug Dale.
So that was her name.
She was an author herself, published author.
And there was, as you say, huge age gap.
Apparently they got really well though,
according to friends who also said
that the first wife and Thomas didn't get on.
She wrote a biography of him, and he didn't burn it.
It was called the early life.
Is that because he died?
No, it's because it turns out he actually wrote it
mostly himself.
No, right.
And it was published under her name.
So.
Oh my God.
Yeah.
That sort of thing you do if your first wife released a book, say.
In the Rebusage, then you go,
Hmm, how can I protect my reputation here?
LAUGHTER
Isn't that a star of the show?
Yeah, that's a... That's a vibe.
Yeah, yeah, because a lot of stuff didn't.
A lot of stuff was burnt. A lot of his correspondence was burned.
Almost immediately after his death, which has really vexed a lot of biographers, obviously,
because... Yeah, right.
So much burning of books went on back in the day, didn't it?
Like, they were constantly burning books,
so he burned most of his own diaries, I think,
as well as burning his wife's diaries.
She burned, like, his second wife burned the courtship letters
between him and his first, or I think maybe his first.
And everyone was burning letters and books left right and centre.
Why don't we do this anymore? I do.
I do. I do. I said, if I had only left at last only laptop. It's a nightmare. All of your life diaries.
There you were, Chris, I was in my car.
I've heard in every book he's ever read. Paul Berra is obviously celeb Paul Berra is
very cool. Oh yeah. There's a modern version of it, I'd say, of like having lots of,
well I'm not famous for being Paul Berra poor, but like something cool to do, which is, um,
two pack, you know, this about two pack in two packs dead. Uh-huh. Then two packs gang members
smoked his ashes. Oh, no way. As was requested in a two pack lyric, he said in the lyric,
when I die, smoke my ashes, basically, in slightly slightly different words that I won't use.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I've got a question. Yeah.
How can you smoke them if they're already ashes?
Well, exactly.
Do you know what I mean?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Like, he wasn't made of tobacco.
Well, I did say smoke is remains, but I'm doubting this like an arm.
I didn't know.
I didn't say cigarette.
You gave a very big fire pipe to get an arm into, wasn't you?
Yeah.
No, it was ashes.
I don't know, I guess they just...
You just shot me in with...
You just shot me in with...
Mixed in with... Mix it in with...
Mix it in, yeah.
Yeah.
And I'll just...
And I'll just say, yeah.
Yeah, I don't think it was that bad.
Okay, it is time for fact number three,
and that is my fact.
My fact this week is that the UK literally have fashion police.
Quite literally.
So, it turns out that one of the things, there's a lot of things that happen within police
work with forensics and a very important bit of it is trying to identify when a body
might, you know, if you find a body, how long has it been there,
diagnosing all that stuff, and one of the things that might help you with that is the clothing that the person is wearing. And so there's this fashion historian called Amber Bishar, and she
basically goes around, and she worked for Beyond Retro, and she was a fashion historian,
she liked to find where products were coming from, what point they were using certain materials,
and so on. And there was a police forensic investigator who saw what she was doing after hearing her
on a radio foreshow and thought, I wonder if that's going to be interesting for me in terms
of trying to diagnose how all the body is or just give us a bit more detail.
So that's what she does.
She goes around for the UK police.
She'll go to a murder scene and she'll look at the exact fabric that they're wearing.
And obviously, as we know, like, you know, if you were going to die today, you might be wearing old clothes
from... I was going to say it. I mean, Andy's going to look like we're from the 50s because
we just have never bought new clothes for ourselves. Yeah, that's the issue, right? But I suppose
it just plays into a bigger picture of what they're doing. So there's one story which is a bit
upsetting, but an old lady passed away and they found a body
that was wrapped up in a branch.
She was able to look at the branch
and work out exactly when the branch was from
to be able to say so it must have been this year
that the body was in there.
And she does it, by the way,
there's a lot of amazing archives of clothing.
And one big one is M&S have a massive archive
of clothing that she can look through
and find the history of items. Because a lot of Brits are going to be, you know, dying in M&S have a massive archive of clothing that she can look through and find the history of items.
Because a lot of Brits are gonna be, you know,
dying in M&S clothing.
Sorry, I hope you one day.
I don't see.
I don't really mind when the day comes.
As long as I'm in my trusty M&S.
That's what people say, isn't it?
Yeah, it's like people often, you know,
how they want to die, they often say,
in my sleep or in my M&S cooking.
You just find with me.
Yeah, and we should add that this is also not a sponsor
that we're doing right now.
I reckon there's certain eyes are clothing where I could tell you
when that person died.
Oh yeah.
Buryed in a Von Dutch cap, I'm going 2001.
Straight away.
Lips, lips, strong band.
Come on, you're getting a five year period.
Yeah, okay.
What about the cycles of fashion though, every 30 years? It could always be the B like, you know, it was last year or 31 years.
So it has to be so, yeah, so it has to be something that hasn't yet come back.
Okay.
Yeah, right.
Oh, there's not registered.
It's like, white guy dead in a Wu Tang 36 Chamber's top.
Sure.
97.98.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Exactly.
So, I've always worn flares at some time.
Well, I've confused the hell out of police at other times.
It's perfect acceptable.
I don't know what phase we're at.
Now, are we in a flares phase?
Yeah, we are actually. Oh, there we go. I think often she just goes, well, all the times. It's perfect acceptable. I don't know what phase we're at. Now, are we in a flares phase? Yeah, we are actually.
Oh, there we go.
I think often she just goes, well, what we have here,
it's a time traveler.
Yeah.
I recruited a bit of a help like this.
I wrote to an expert.
Val McDermard, the author, aka Queen of Crime.
Holy shit, that's a clang.
We thought the old curling team was a clang.
Unnamed curling team.
No, I just...
No, very slightly, and I just asked her about this kind of stuff.
She's written a book, as well as all her novels.
She's written a book about forensics.
Oh, right.
And she said that natural fabrics decay when you're buried,
as buried in the woods, that kind of thing,
if you've been killed.
But labels are usually man-made fibers, so they survive.
So they can provide a clue if it's foreign,
label or a designer label or whatever.
So she says, if you're planning a murder,
go for mass-produced cotton and snip those labels
when it comes to dressing your corpse.
Oh, it's a knife, it's very helpful.
Right.
Thank you, Val.
Yeah.
That's good, because you can tell how big the person was,
even if the whole body's disintegrated, right?
You can still be like size eight.
Size 14.
This does feel like this story feels most like, you know,
Netflix are on the phone buying the rights to this series,
surely of like the person who solves crimes based on labels.
You're wearing, yeah.
Yeah.
Sorry, I think you went buying rights to this podcast,
but it's just so far.
They are available.
No.
And she's cool.
Amber, if you see a photo of her, she dresses like someone
from Beyond Direction Wood, right?
Like she's got like old school clothing.
She looks like she could be in a sort of agatha
Christy.
She's your vintage detective.
She could recall it.
What the series?
Yeah, series called.
Drop dead gorgeous.
Drop dead gorgeous.
Love dress.
Yes.
Brilliant.
Oh, yes.
Yeah.
All right, we've got two films.
Yeah. Have you heard about
this thing of the principle of interchange or the principle of transference? So one of the
fathers of forensics was a Frenchman called Edmund Lockhart in Leon and his basic theory
is that any two objects interacting will leave a trace. So when you commit a crime, you
will leave something behind that wasn't there before, like a bullet in a person,
and you will take away something that was there originally.
So that's just like a founding principle.
So all you have to do is work hard to find those.
Well, so you'll take away like a bit of dust or something.
It's not like you always...
Exactly, yeah, or a fiber on your shirt.
No, a super neater shirt.
No, it's a scoy gun on the finger.
Yeah, yeah.
But this, now, we are so good that that sometimes makes things difficult for forensics people.
So, for example, if I hug Reese and then I am murdered, Reese will have my DNA...
Oh, sorry, my body's tested, it'll have DNA from Reese's clothes on it.
Yes.
Despite the fact he had nothing to do with it. So that suddenly means that he might have to be questioned or involved or whatever it is.
So that's the extent to which forensnsics is a violence these days.
It's so good now.
You can recreate so much stuff.
Yeah, so surely it's got to the point where it's so good.
Now the list of suspects is way too big and makes this way harder.
So to be, is it sort of eating itself?
It's sort of, yeah, like those detective closed room things.
It's only like there's 5,000 people going to the room.
Yeah, but they all want to do that.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
So obviously they've got good methods to winnow it down.
And you probably will be released for that charge after a day or two, Reese.
But I don't know, I'll give up a voice.
Yeah.
I've got those sort of eyes.
The most of them there.
You've spent two hours with them now, so we'd all understand.
I would be cool.
I mean, I've got to, I've read about how cat hair is like one of the main things, right?
Like murderers who have cats get caught quite quickly because if anyone, if anyone got a cat,
you know, you basically constantly have cat hair on you.
Right.
That's of everywhere you go, you're just, you're melting like a cat and cat hair is coming
off.
But then I have ginger cats, so you know, that's just the most visible one, basically.
Yeah.
But the police now go around, someone's murdered, they're now going around
everyone's house testing not only other people
in the house, but their cats as well.
You'll get an awful doll to say.
Maybe that's a double match.
You got you and your cat.
Right.
We're looking for a British short hair.
Great fur.
Yeah.
Do you know you can catch people by different prints
that aren't fingerprints, various other prints?
Tom? Tom prints on the U.K. Because that's individual. Although I'm not sure how many people by different prints that aren't fingerprints, various other prints. So, tongue prints are
that you could, because that's individual, although I'm not sure how many people lick the
murder scene before leaving. Oh, you said tongue, I thought I heard time, which
time prints would be as well. Time print. Time print, do you leave a time print?
Yeah, if you, if you, your mobile phone leaves a signal on the...
Oh, yeah, that's a lot of modern detective work. Is that a time print?
Did he leave a time print? Well, I thought that's a lot of modern detective work. Is that time print? Did he leave a time print?
Well, I thought that's what Risa and I was just trying to help.
It's cool.
I like the sound of this.
Yes, if you punch in and out, you would at work factory.
For every murder, you would at work.
That's a lot of times that.
You know, you're supposed to have to check into a building
to buy a record.
There's the comments.
Work on the way out.
Um.
Died lovely.
Really easy to kill.
He left the two star reviews.
It's terrible.
That's a real crime.
Crime goes, there's a lovely hotel.
None of this is what I said.
Um,
Prince.
Prince, Glove Prince.
So,
Wow, what?
That's the whole point of
going in this context.
No, really.
First, what you hugged Andy on the way in,
Andy wearing gloves, none of this can work.
So, yeah, people can take glove prints,
and because people think what you guys think,
which is that wearing gloves, I'm safe,
they leave a lot more, they're much more cavalier
than they are with fingerprints.
But now there are various police forces
that have made databases of glove prints,
so if they can match it to another glove print,
found a different place, then they'll know that it's the same person.
Just fibers that come off the gloves or...
Yeah, from the fibers that come off the glove and the pattern that the glove makes on,
you know, it'll make an imprint and even...
That's so clever.
And it's even, it doesn't matter if it's the same brand of glove that I'm wearing
compared to you and me because I'll be doing different things with my glove to what
you're doing with your glove and so it'll wear in a different way.
Stop it.
It's just nuts.
It's absolutely nuts, what can be done.
Ear prints.
If someone was caught in France by their ear prints
because they'd been listening up against the key holes
of lots of student halls doors.
Wow.
And you're probably, that's incredible.
That's amazing.
Yeah.
Yeah, footprint or a shoe print, I imagine,
as well would be a thing.
You would see a size 12 Adidas. You might have sort of mugs and stuff that you can stuff. Yeah, that's because that yeah, footprint or shoe prints. I imagine as well would be a thing You would see a size 12 adidas
You might have certain mods and stuff that you can stuff. Yeah, but ear print. That's like yeah, eyebrow print or
Me, you get a bum print
What do you mean get it but what if you photo?
Silphoto copy? You have a bum print. Yeah, I just wonder if that's ever been used
Sorry, sorry
You mean if you put if you're the murderer,
you have to put them there after something happened to the scene.
They could go,
oh, you know who's bomb that is.
It's a classic calling card.
Yeah, it is.
The police line up for those.
Yeah.
Don't around.
I'm made to the side.
Can bomb number two move around?
Please. Have you, this is a very cool thing. Can button number two move around please?
Have you, this is a very cool thing. Have you had a forensic ecology?
Forensic ecology.
This is a, a written interview with a woman called Rosie Everett.
She uses materials found in the natural world to solve crimes, right?
So specifically micro fossils.
Oh.
There are these things called diatoms. We've spoken about them I think ages ago. Basically, their microscopic single cell algae, and she can use these, the presence of these,
to come up with a profile of the soil in an area, which can then solve a crime.
So, there was, there's a castle in Chateau called Beast and Castle, right, which is a protected area,
and there were some metal detectorists, night hawks, dirt sharks, who'd gardened, nicked, arrow at like bronze age artifacts
from the soil around there.
And when they caught, they just say,
oh, we found them somewhere else, can't prove anything,
you know, except for Rosie Everett,
who came up with the profile of the soil
based on the microscopic algae found there, approved.
That's the soil they've been taken from.
Oh, what a lot.
Looked at the objects, I might not have had this soil.
Yeah, there's a bit of soil found on the Bronze Age artifacts.
They'd neck from there and there's a bit of soil around the castle.
Like just so.
Wasn't one of the ways they caught Ian Huntley from nettle disturbance.
Really?
So nettles, he trampled nettles that meant
that they were now growing outwards in a way they don't naturally.
It sort of proved that he was there
in the woods at that time or something.
Well, so his next generation,
nettles still affected by the previous...
Yeah, it's like months later they had grown in a certain,
like, because they would've been,
and then they went outwards instead of up
or something like that, they was like, yeah.
That's incredible.
That's mad.
And slightly less,
just quickly, so he was slightly less
technologically advanced one of this guy I read about
who got caught
doing a crime after he got the crime scene very in a lot of detail tattooed on his chest.
So he literally was like he'd like mode of someone outside a liquor store or something as if he got the liquor store like a painting on his chest with him doing the mode of the
murder. The body says the name of his gang, which was Rivera.
He said Rivera kills above it.
And it was like a revenge killing.
And he had that on his chest.
And one day the police were just like
flicking through a book of gang tattoos.
Apparently.
And they were like, wait, that's that liquor store.
We've been trying to figure out where they got
who killed that guy.
That's that guy killed that guy.
And then he was just trying to then.
That's brilliant.
We've spoken about in the past how the Yakuza
would be busted because they all have very individualistic tattoos.
If they're on the run, they might show up on Instagram,
sort of like, you know, topless.
I mean, if you follow the Hound Side-O, okay?
Yeah.
And they'll be like, hey, that's him, that's the guy.
Like tattoo spotting is a big way of busting criminals.
Yeah.
Did you say your one and you happened in Beeston?
Yeah.
Well, that was when we did our first book of the year,
there was a crime there committed,
which was thousands of bees were stolen from Beeston.
I wonder if she can solve that crime now
using this new technology, maybe.
Wow.
I just, I'd sort of forgotten that.
But as soon as you said we'd had it in our book,
I thought, I thought, we've all been a story.
About bees won't it?
That level we operate out. We put it on the back. It's'd had it in our book, I thought, with all of the story about bees going to the level we operate out.
We put it on the back.
It's the same with our burp.
That was our leading fact.
Stop the hot girl.
Stop the podcast.
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OK, on with the show.
On with the podcast.
OK, it is time for our final fact of the show and that is Anna.
My fact this week is that parents of newborn penguins take thousands of naps per day.
Um, I'm just slackers.
Lazy, right?
Yeah.
To be fair to them, there's a few very short naps.
These are Chinstrap penguins, so they live in the Antarctic and around South Pacific.
And they, they were scientists studying them recently on King George Island and they found
that they nap over 10,000 times a day
But they only nap for about four seconds at a time on average
But still they get something and I mean they managed to top 11 hours of sleep a day
That's insane amazing. It's basically really blinking. It's very basically every time they blink they do four seconds and fall
Yeah, it's like when you fall asleep at the cinema or the theatre.
And you have that kind of...
Yeah, I'm trying to get that jolt.
I've never left one of those occasions feeling noticeably rested.
No.
Despite doing that kind of semi-sleep.
But I wonder if you had a thousand of them.
Yeah, true.
Yeah.
You just haven't been to a long enough play.
Oh, how do you know?
You know, he gave those those sort of rise and grind influences
these days for all about, you know, getting up at 5am,
doing a gratitude journal, you've got to like,
circadian rhythm and all that stuff, you know,
you've got to get sunlight before coffee and all this.
I mean, do you think if they read this pretty soon,
everyone would be like, no, no, no, don't go to bed.
Just stand there.
I'm only four seconds at a time.
No, you just feel perfect.
You'd see it never asleep.
We're doing never asleep. We're doing everything.
You're never asleep.
You're never asleep.
It'll become a thing.
And so, yeah, and they go into deep sleep, which I'm not sure
we're doing within four seconds, but they look to their brain.
Wow, really?
Yeah, so it's like a bungee jump into sleep and then back.
You just feel so rapid to get that deep sleep.
But yeah, they go into slow wave sleep.
They really rigged them up these penguins.
It's amazing they could sleep at all.
There was this researcher, Wang Yang Lee,
who I think was leading the research.
He said it was exhausting for them
because they had to catch 14 penguins
and they had to get equipment on their brains
to measure their brain activity.
And then they had to get accelerometers to see how fast, to measure their brain activity, and then they had to get accelerometers
to see how fast, to record their muscle movements, see how fast their muscles are moving and
they're positioned, and then they film whether their head start nodding and then it's
actually completely normal.
So the patients actually sleep completely normally, but when they're manipulated by scientists,
they can't sleep at all.
I think so.
They do say this is probably serving the purpose of meaning that they can guard their young.
So it's when they guard their newborn children because one parent will be off getting food,
the other parent has to look after the kid.
So it's like, so you never sleep for so long that the kid can get in trouble.
It's like having a baby monitor.
And they said it's probably because of that, but it could also be because you know penguins,
when they're looking after their young, they hang out in these massive groups of just thousands of them and it's
really loud and busy. Like these researchers said we couldn't sleep because it was just
so hectic there because so many penguins.
These researchers are so complaining a lot about their own sleep.
I have to say, because someone else is studying about something else.
Four seconds I wish.
But they said it could just be that the penguins can't sleep for longer than that.
They might be able to see Veya as in a row, but it's just that they've been working out every four seconds.
It's so noisy in bustling, yeah.
It is crazy. There are lots of animals in the world that do when they've had a baby
forced into a position of just being awake. Like dolphins, for example, are awake for like a month, a full month.
They just can't go to sleep.
Cause they're, because their baby dolphins can't sleep.
So they're just awake the whole time.
So they're just following, yeah, for a month.
And they basically, they just have to be awake.
And with them, part of the dolphin not being asleep
as a baby is, as they keep movement,
they're building up blubber, they're building up all the things
that they need to make them into a bigger dolphin.
That's like, and then after like a month or so, they all building up blubber, they're building up all the things that they need to make them into a bigger dolphin, that's like, and then after like a month or so they all
start sleeping again, but the mum is just solidly awake.
But don't they do the half of their brains at the time?
So I'm not sure that's what I tried to find out, but I couldn't find anything that said
they go to half asleep, because yes dolphins shut half their brain asleep.
Yeah.
But as far as I could see that wasn't part of it.
And as they go to the naughty the half.
Yeah, I've got you know
Don't have all bears, but don't polar bears do a similar thing where they basically just attach the children to them for the whole
Time so the children don't really walk around following them like you see like elephants you see them following
Mm-hmm, but polar bears is just like you see a picture of a new mom in the polar bear community
There's just kids just like strapped
I think they, yeah, I don't like duckies out of the poos.
But they're just like grabbing hold of them
and they just have to walk around with that
and then just do everything from there
until they like to sit down against.
So they just don't walk.
Like tassels, you've got a lot of baby tassels.
You know, 11 seals.
Yes.
Which is a huge, great, massive, big things.
Yeah.
We got sent, actually, by Victoria Piedardi.
So thank you for that, Victoria.
Which is that sleeping elephant seals,
they fall through the sea as they nap.
So they are mammals.
They do not have gills.
They can last up to about half an hour underwater,
but sometimes they will just nap.
And it seems like they just spiral downwards
through the water of sleep.
Wow.
That's an absolute nerve.
It's in my brain quite a lot.
You gotta get to sleep.
You know, you jolt away because you felt like you were falling.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Imagine if you woke up and you had actually
your energy in the form to see it.
Yeah, I'm just kidding.
Because it is fast.
They drop 400 meters in 10 minutes, which,
if you get that, it's like we're talking
the highest buildings in the world.
That's like the full height of them almost.
And it takes quite a long time.
You know, if you go to one of those skyscrapers,
the lift takes about that long some time.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So they're going that far.
If you wake up when you've only got three minutes of oxygen
and let that's presumably quite stressful.
I would have thought so, yeah. What's the protocol? What do they do?
You can't really do that dad thing of faking that you weren't asleep on the sofa during a Sunday afternoon meeting.
You don't have to add to always be like, I'm not asleep, I'm watching, I'm watching.
I'm resting my eye.
Dad, you're at the bottom of the ocean.
Does anyone have you ever met Penguin?
Oh.
Because I've got another client. Oh, here we go.
Which of your winter sports were you taking part in
with the Olympic team?
Well, I did do the Skeleton, which is basically how
penguins travel.
Oh, yes.
Did you?
They go, you know, it's like, had the head first one
where you just put it in.
Yeah, yeah.
That was terrifying.
Well, I did it.
They train on just on a track.
So just on wheels on a track rather than on ice.
Right. And this is the context where, so there were penguins doing it. Is this where you were? I did. Obviously, it's just a track, on wheels on a track rather than on ice. Right.
And this is the context where...
Because this was not the thing we actually think was just...
Oh, this is just a bracket to tell you.
I did.
Yeah, you mentioned the original image.
I can't believe Jason.
I'm not a penguin in Australia, actually.
Okay, right.
I can't...
I was a child.
They're all photos of it.
But I'm trying to get my head around what it was,
because from memory, it was like in our hotel.
Like, where the various pools were.
There was a different pools, but it was presented
in a sort of like, go over to this section.
It was like quite a kid-friendly hotel.
It was like, this section is meant to be the Arctic or whatever.
And then in between two of these pools of the walkway,
we're just like this bit where these penguins were.
And they would do like feedings at a certain time every day.
And you could go and hang out.
And then I was a penguin favorite animal. I was obsessed with penguins as a kid
It's penguin is actually one of the many nicknames. I tried to start for myself
That's a child in some communities
And then like I got picked as the volunteer for this sort of penguin feeding and so I was like doing the whole
You know, I was picked as the volunteer for this sort of penguin feeding and so I was like doing the whole, you know, I was chucking the fish.
Yeah.
That's right.
It shook his fin.
Should the penguin fin?
Oh.
What do they have there?
Wing, wing, yeah, wing.
It shook his wing fin.
It shook his fin, yeah.
I got right.
It shook his wing, yeah.
That's lovely.
That's very cool.
And now your DNA is on that penguin.
And if it's murderous.
If that penguin goes missing, I'm absolutely shocked. Yeah. My cat's also a suspect because there's your DNA is on that pen. And if it's murderous. If that pen goes missing, I'm absolutely fucked.
Yeah.
My cat's also a suspect, because there's definitely
cat hair on that pen.
Have you seen the penins at the zoo, the London zoo?
No.
Oh, well, I recommend.
I guess only they knew.
Because you make them to us geographically.
I don't think you can meet them as far as I'm aware.
There was something about them, wasn't there, though?
There was something, isn't there,
isn't there enclosure?
It's the only grade two listed.
Oh yes, it's got that amazing,
we do it for the first time.
I was in a Harry Styles video.
I think that rings a bird.
I think it was from the first time that enclosure
that is grade two listed.
That spiral thing in the middle is where
the as it was video is filmed.
He's like stood on that thing and all these women are sort of circling.
Are they dressed as Frank Goods?
They're wearing toxido.
I wonder what they did with the pet goods when they were filming that video.
I know, right.
I think the lot of people on the internet were wondering about as well.
I mean, supposedly it's just the time when they weren't using it.
How can they not be using the album that made you have an enclosure?
The album is called Harry's House. So it does feel like you might show it away.
This is Harry's House.
Harry's House.
Get out.
Yeah.
Oh.
Something that sleeps quite weirdly, it's spiders.
Hmm.
And they actually are unique in the animal world, I think, in that they don't have the right
body clock.
Right.
And with all, they're the only things we know about that don't have the right body clock.
So you know we're all in the basically 24 hour body clock,
although sometimes when people go and live in caves, they sort of stretch to 25 hours,
or 23 or whatever, but mostly...
So that was such a dismissive role of the island.
There's a thing that's personally inconvenient to you on more than one occasion.
That's okay, you're always late.
And it's waiting outside the cave.
You've got the table for two.
God's sake.
So I'm circadian rhythm-mire.
So mostly, even bacteria operate on a 24 hour body clock,
but spiders don't.
And we don't really know why exactly.
They're far up to up.
So they have the shortest body clocks ever known.
Some spiders have been found to have 17 hour body clocks,
but this should really mess with them
because spiders left their own devices
and these are specifically trash line orb weavers,
which sounds...
Slap.
Yeah.
I mean, rosin' it or what?
They're actually cool that because they hide
in their webs in a pile of crap.
So they like will put dead bodies and feces and dirt in their web and then they hide in their webs in a pile of crap, so they will put dead bodies and feces
and dirt in their web and then they hide amongst it.
Wow, it's not dissimilar to my room.
That's how you catch flies.
Anyway, they need to wake up at night and get super super active in the dark and they
spin their webs at night time and they erect this big pile of trash to live in.
And then the daytime spiders fall asleep still, which is why when you see them in daylight,
they're usually just motionless. And then they go nuts at night in the dark. But it turns out,
if you subject a spider to full darkness, it starts waking up and weaving its wig,
where many hours before night would actually fall. So it wakes up like on the 17-hour mark rather
than on the 24-hour mark. So that means up like on the 17 hour mark rather than on the 24 hour mark.
So that means they're constantly kind of jet lags, right? Because they're constantly, their bodies are
going, hey, we've got to wake up now. And they're like, no, no, you've got to stay asleep because
it's not night yet. And then night comes, and then they have to go to sleep and they're wide awake.
But they manage to just reset themselves every day.
Do they get cranky? Well, maybe that's why they're such bastards.
And they're always eating each other
and hanging out in the corner of the room
to liberally scaring people.
Oh, I feel for them.
That sounds very rough.
Doesn't it?
But apparently you can't catch up on sleep anyway, right?
So there's a myth, the whole idea of like,
I only got six hours sleep last night,
so I'm gonna now have 10 hours sleep or whatever.
It's a myth.
You're better off just having seven or eight every time.
Oh, so you can't, it's impossible to catch up on sleep.
You're always being a bit more tired.
No, you're just keeping it.
Yeah, so I don't mean it's impossible.
God, this economy is probably impossible to catch up on sleep.
I just mean that it actually makes it worse.
Really?
So it's like, it's not a totally for the week
where you're trying to guess.
It's like, no, just every day try and get 7 or 8.
I just not know how to try and improve it with.
The way you put it in.
Because the way to avoid being under slept
is then just have 7 or 8 hours, rather.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Because I assumed it was the other thing.
Me too.
And there's a ratchet and it only gets worse for your life.
Yeah, exactly, but it's like there's a certain amount
of hours you must sleep in your life.
And if you're not getting to the total,
like you're filling it in like one of those thermometer
so you're not school, you're trying to get donations.
Well, you can actually trick yourself into thinking
you've had more sleep, can't you?
Remember we did that thing about the placebo sleep experiment
that was done in America where they told people
that they'd had more sleep than they actually had
and they performed better in tasks.
I always use this as the life hack
to try and tell myself every morning
if I had loads of sleep if I haven't.
It hasn't worked yet.
All right.
You need someone else to tell you that.
In order for you to actually believe it, right?
Yeah.
Because you know, what if, yeah.
How can you ever do that?
Because you know, if you're employing someone
to do that, you would also know.
Exactly.
It was like, if your phone told you, I believe it.
Yeah, those apps, sleep apps, you just lie. They should just lie. Yeah, those apps sleep apps They should just like
Yeah, maybe they are lying because they wouldn't tell us would they because that defeats the object so
Yeah, I bet if you have it and you work for the app it always tells you that you got loads
Yeah, so that you're more productive in the day
Everyone else I think do you want?
If they know from your phone that you work for a rival app
Yeah, if you weren't the same phone
They just go,
sorry mate, that was terrible, you're not gonna say that.
Oh, do you know what I'm talking about?
[♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪
OK, 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 all be found on our various social media sites. I'm on Instagram, on
at Shribaland, Andy.
Oh, Twitter at Agronteram, Penguin.
That's the app, Penguin.
And all the forums and at Reese Jamesy on Instagram.
Yep, or if you want to get through to us as a group, where can they go, Anna?
You can go to atnosuchthing on Twitter or you can email podcastacui.com.
Yep, or you can go to our website, which is no such thing as a fish.com.
All of our previous episodes are up there as well as links to Club Fish and various other bits of merch.
Do check it out, otherwise just come back again next week and we'll be here with another episode.
And we'll see you then. Good bye. Goodbye.