No Such Thing As A Fish: 476: No Such Thing As Othello's Casio

Hi everybody, Andy here. Just before we start this week's episode of Fish, we wanted to

let you know that our special guest this week is none other than Cariad Lloyd. Cariad has

been on the show before, of course, you may remember her very funny previous appearances.

This time she's back and she's better than ever. And the good news for those of you who

are Cariad fans is that she has just written a new book. Cariad is the host of the Grief

cast and the book that she's written is all about grief. It's about her grief, about

other peoples, about what we do when someone we love dies and it's brilliant. It's full

of interesting facts for those of you who like facts and if you are listening to this

you probably do. And it's also very heartfelt, it's very personal, it's very moving, it's

very funny, it's all of these things and more so do check it out, it's called You Are

Not Alone. And if you'd like to see Cariad in a live setting she is also part of the

brilliant Jane Austen themed improvised comedy group, Ostentatious. And they are on every

Monday at the moment at the Arts Theatre just near Leicester Square in London. It's a very

funny show, I can personally attest to that. Do book first. Ok, that's it, 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 relocated QI offices in Hoburn. My name is Dan Schreiber, I am sitting here

with James Harkin, Andrew Hunter Murray and Cariad Lloyd 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 Cariad. Hello, my fact is

that if you are having trouble with your grief it might be Bill Murray's fault. Oh, because

he kills, kills, kills again. And then he finds people who are grieving and he hits

them, that's his thing. No, because I should backtrack this and say that the reason it

might be Bill Murray's fault is the very famous film Groundhog Day which is based on

the five stages of grief theory. The five stages grief theory is a very, very famous

theory, began in 1969, created by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross in her book On Death and Dying

and it really has been the most famous grief theory since then. It has now contested heavily,

it's considered not to be that helpful or useful, but it's still the grief that most

people encounter when they enter the world of grief. It's the thing that people will

come up to me still and say, oh, you know, I'm trying to do the five stages, it's not

really working. And it makes me want to scream because it's, I can swear, I can't know, yeah.

It's bullshit. But the film Groundhog Day is based on the five stages, which I think

helps to promote this idea that the five stages of grief is something that you can work through.

Grief is something that will end. Can you give us the five stages? I can, man, give

you the five. You wake up, you wake up, you're playing the same song as they were yesterday.

Yeah. Yes. Something about a weather report, I haven't seen this film. James, genuinely,

have you not seen Groundhog Day? I'm afraid not. Oh, you know what? It is worth, it is

one of those that does stand up to what you know. Yeah, no. James hasn't seen any films

before about 2000 and... Something like that. Well, I've seen some. There's a few that make

it through. Normally, I'm absolutely fine when you say you haven't seen a particular

film and sometimes you'll say, well, you want that? I'm shocked. Groundhog Day is one of

these. I don't think it's like, I haven't seen it on TV much. Is it on TV all the time?

In my childhood, it was a classic. It was one of those ones that would be on the time.

But that was in Australia. So, okay. I reckon it's denial. Oh, yeah. Acceptance. Denial

of the next subject. And that is where people struggle. No, the five stages of grief are

denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance, or the worst boy band in all. Basically. Yeah.

And so that was Elizabeth Kubleros who defined these five stages of grief. But isn't she,

I thought that when she came up with it, first off, it was to relate to the dying as opposed

to grief. Yes. Yes. And then, but then secondly, she also said, this doesn't happen in any

particular order. It's much like the facts on our podcast. Yes. You can have, you could

have acceptance, but then later have denial. Well, they always start with the celebrity,

don't they? So on her book on death and dying, written in 1969, written in 10 weeks, she

had like something like an article in Time magazine where they were like, wow, this woman

is doing amazing work. And then someone was like, you should write a book. And she wrote

the book and it became the best seller that it is. Yeah. I mean, you know, you can write

a book fast. It doesn't mean it's, it will be bad. It's just like, it's very of its moment

of its time. She was an amazing woman. Like she was a founder of the hospice movement.

She was working with people with AIDS in the 80s before that was considered like safe.

She was incredible. And at this time, she was working in hospitals where people were

terminally ill, mainly with cancer. And this was a time when they didn't even use the

word. They were just saying malignancy. And they would also not tell people. So for example,

if a wife was sick, they would tell the husband, not the wife. So she would be being told

she'd be having like radiotherapy and she'd be told it's to make you better. But they'd

all be going to her husband. She's not going to live. So she came into this situation and

was like, hmm, this isn't great. If you told people that they were dying, she observed when

she did that and helped them through it, that they would go through five distinct stages

and they would reach an acceptance. And it would, I mean, that makes sense. They would

deny it first of all, like, Oh, no, I'm not really ill. I'm fine. I can't believe it's

me. Why am I dying? Oh, God, why did you do this to me? This is the worst thing. Actually,

okay, I'm dying. I'm going to pay off my debts and apologize to all those people. So she was

talking about people dying. And I honestly, in my research for my book, couldn't find the

moment that it became about grieving. It just became about grieving because it was like,

well, it's death, it's same room. And it makes no sense for a grieving person, like anyone

who's been through any loss will tell you, like, you don't go through five distinct stages,

you get them pretty much all at once all the time. And it can, you know, hit you five years

later, two years later, 10 years later. So I meet so many people who are like, Oh, God,

I feel so bad, like I need to get to acceptance. I haven't done it. And I'm always raging.

Because I'm like, it, that isn't what we look like. But the reason it works in a film is

that's how films work. They need to end. And we all need to walk away thinking,

I mean, not all films, not all films will do that. Yeah. I'm fingering a few mental suspects.

I haven't seen that film. Hello.

Although Andy McDowell is in that as well.

She plays the doctor. She's really good.

We should just quickly say, because James hasn't seen Groundhog Day. So Bill Murray is a journalist,

he goes to this town to do Groundhog Day. Weatherman. He's the weatherman. He wakes up

in the morning and the day has begun again. He's conscious of it. No one else is. And then the

day of the band. So he's, he's like a Russian doll at a TV show. Happy death day is like,

yeah, yeah, yeah. But he reacts differently. So first of all, he's like, this isn't happening.

He gets furious and he starts experimenting with his day. Like, well, if I do this,

yeah, will I be here tomorrow? And it doesn't matter what he does. Literally everything.

It's a weird moment where he starts fingering. And he's trying to woo Andy McDowell's character.

And eventually he worked like he, he learns everything about her becomes perfect. And it

still doesn't work. That's a bit creepy, isn't it? It's really creepy. That doesn't really stand up

to today's standards. But it was a, it was a great film. It was a brilliant film. Yeah, yeah.

Kubla Ross. Oh yeah. Cubs. Cubs. Cubs. She has a cool phrase. She said later on,

there's no such thing as, any guesses? Death. Yeah, death. Oh, did she? Yeah, she said like,

she became her podcast is great. It's like a mixture of our podcast. Yeah, yeah, my god. Yeah.

She said, she basically became so convinced that was an afterlife that she said, we don't need

to worry about death. There's no such thing as death. That's why she was great at getting people

into acceptance. It's just like, don't worry about it guys. But the other thing is in her original

book, the 1969 one, she called the belief in life after death a form of denial. So she, she actually

thought that life after death was complete bullshit. And then she went through a change

in her life. So she became spiritual. Yeah. So she met a patient in a hospital who was called

Mrs. Schwartz. And Mrs. Schwartz had been pronounced dead. And then hours later, she was

found alive by a nurse. On during the street. Yeah. So she went to interview her to say what

happened. And she recounted that she said, I remember everything that happened. I remember

being above my body. I remember a joke that the doctor told in the room when I was laying there

dead, all that stuff. And that is what made appropriate report, report that. So Kubla Ross

basically went up. This is interesting and became obsessed with it. And she even went to have

as it were out of body experiences through a guy called Robert Monroe. And then as she got

further into it, she believed that she had spirit guides that she was contacting,

one of whom was Mrs. Schwartz, who did later die and then came back to sort of instruct

Kubla Ross about her ideas about the afterlife. And this woman is in charge of most known grief

theory known to human like Western culture. Yeah. So one thing you write about in the

Bookabit Carrad is the Victorian morning rituals and how although they were very starchy and very

formal, they did give you a kind of structure. And then you mentioned all the different paraphernalia

of mourning. Yeah, they were mad. Yeah, I mean, it was really culture highly focused on that.

I can't remember if you read about this morning stationery. Yes. So yeah, that's really common.

Yeah. Yeah. Black edged card. And when you receive that, you know, send it to you is

I was thinking like rulers and they had in Regent Street, Jay's of Regent Street was

basically like the prime arc of grief and death. So you was where you went and got all your clothes

from and all your hats and like gentlemen's funeral scarves had to be a certain length.

There was like a book that told you like everything like from the length of the bow

around your hat to the staff to the color of the ribbon on your door to your morning jellies.

They like they kind of like made an industry of it. So what is morning jellies that they jellies

that you have when you're morning? Like black? I don't know. Actually, I never saw it. I just

read about it in the book. But is it for serving it awake? I guess serving after a funeral. Yeah.

Or maybe you have it like on a Sunday when you're feeling gloomy. Well, jelly used to be, I mean,

if we're talking London, there used to be pubs where if you saw someone eating jelly, a woman,

that would mean that she was available for sexual experiences. I didn't know that. I need to stop

eating jelly in public. Purchase sexual experiences. Yeah, it wasn't like a traffic light party.

No, but if you're eating a strawberry jelly, you're not up for it. It's like a handkerchief

culture in the Muffin knocker. Knocker muffling. What was this? Say it again. Knocker muffling.

What's knocker muffling? So it wouldn't be too loud to upset the people of the house.

Door knocker on your house. You'd muffle it if someone's died. Yeah. And you'd also,

you'd have different colors as well. So like it was a black crate ribbon outside of an adult

and it was white. It meant a child had died in this house and it would be muffled and

there was, yeah, there was like, it would cost you so much money to do a proper considered

funeral. Like I think they read even a middle class funeral at the time would have been like

a thousand pounds. Like it was really, and they had funeral clubs where you'd all put money in

every week so that you could get like the funeral you like that person deserves because if they

didn't, they considered their soul would wander around forever basically. So it's like your pension,

you know, you'll put in every week and then when you need the money, you can take it. Like a turkey

club. Like a turkey club, but for the dead. Yeah, turkey's dead I suppose. But they don't get anything

out. No, you're right. But they don't pay, I suppose. Would you have like, you know, for a wedding,

you have like a present list. Do you, was there a similar thing where I'd like this at my funeral

and I think it was pretty set. It was your certain standard of funeral. Yeah, it was pretty

set. And you just go. Can I just tell you one very tangible thing about knockers, door knockers.

You told me it was time gentle. Here we go. So I was reading about knocker muffling and then I

just sort of went around a whole of like door knockers. You know that in old Tehran, right,

yeah, houses would have two door knockers, one was square and heavier and the other was more

rounded. Can you guess why? One for the ladies. It's one for the ladies. No. It's one for the men.

The men use the big square one and women use the rounded one and then you know who's knocking at

the door. And so then the woman of the house might not answer the door to a man. That's really

cultural reasons. They might also, I read this, they might disguise their voice behind the door

to ask the business of who's coming around. Oh, is that like saying, oh, I've got some big men here

are going to beat you up if you come in. Is that how you do? Is that what you do? That's what I say

every time someone. Just in case they might be coming into attack. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's good

to let people know what's happening inside. At an imaginary dog. Yeah. That kind of thing,

you know, that really works. That's when Julia Caesar's coming around. That's like great machine,

quantity routine. And she didn't have a sitcom where you order too many pizzas and the pizza guy

done was six and you go, yeah, it's here. I'll bring it in a minute. And then they're like,

it's just for you. I couldn't make it bigger. Couldn't you, Andy, and have lots of different

knockers, like a knocker for your delivery guy and the knocker for the Jehovah's Witness person

or whatever. So don't come in. I've got some big men in here. I don't want to know about eternal

salvation. So how long was mourning? Depends. So they had a rule for every single situation.

So like rule for like your second cousin, your second cousin's child, your sister, your,

but for the most common people know is like for partner. So a widow would have a year in morning

where she had to wear black and then you go into half morning and quarter morning. And if you in

that year got married, you were allowed to like not wear black for the day and then back in your

black dress the next day. So you could have a new husband and be like, sorry, babes. Do you remember

Alfred? He was great. Wasn't he? I'm still pretty sad. When did we drop? It was like a moment where

we dropped this for some reason. Well, that's really interesting. Thanks. I don't think we have

dropped it because I think we still have an expectation that we expect people to be over

things by about a year. And if it goes past a year to two years and with grief, we're a bit like,

oh gosh, three years, like she's still upset. And then of course you get the black armbands, which

was still going up. Like my mum wore a black armband when her granny died in the 60s. But I

would say she's like the last person I've spoken to who's still got soccer players. Yeah. So soccer,

my brain went football in my head. Sports people and like military stuff still wear them.

Okay. But other than that, obviously, you used to just wear it day to day. And that comes up on

my podcast that people wish there was still a thing you could have that would mean like sort

of handle with care. Because it's like you don't want to be a society that says you have to wear

a black armband. But for some people, you know, if you're going to a shop, you're on a tube,

it's a bit like baby on board. It's like, I'm in grief, like just be careful with me. Like if I'm

in a shop or like, you know, I did sell badges. Yeah, but I couldn't keep up with the demand.

What did they say? They said, please be kind. I'm grieving. And it had two little hands. And

then one said, um, DDC member was in Dead Dad Club with DMC. And there was a little amazing

artist called Camille Bacini who designed them. It was like a little purple ghost with a hat

with a flower DMC dead mom's club. No, I was thinking run DMC.

That can't be. I saw it. They're dead. They're dead. It's like that. And that's the way it is.

Yeah. So yeah, it's a shame in a way that we don't have one DMC because you never know what

anyone's going through at any time. Yeah. Yeah. Although I can see why you don't like the Victorians

were very strict. Obviously, like you had to do it. And if a woman couldn't, you would know where

you'd be allowed to walk around in like, you know, a bright yellow dress the next day.

I think we'd have to draw a line on where, what kind of badges you'd have because I definitely

would have like, be gentle, lost an eBay purchase. Like, you know, I feel small bad, isn't it?

I've only got facts about Groundhogs. Let's talk about Groundhogs. Oh, Groundhogs.

You might? No. Groundhog Day is about Groundhogs, is it? Because there's a special

Groundhog who comes up and if he can see his shadow, it's going to snow for a month or so.

If you've seen the film, Groundhog Day, all this stuff, they get him out of his little nest.

Punxsutawneyville, isn't it? Punxsutawneyville. But there are loads of Groundhogs. That's an

interesting thing. I mean, all over, lots of places have a Groundhog celebration.

I was just wondering if Punxsutawney is the most difficult word that everyone knows how to pronounce.

Yes, from the film, Groundhog Day. But it's basically if he, they get him out and if he turns

around and sees his shadow, then there'll be another six weeks of winter. And if he doesn't,

then the spring will come. I don't know if he sees it. Well, what I read was in real Punxsutawney,

there are two scrolls and if Phil picks the scroll that says he sees a shadow,

that's how they know he's seen a shadow. So there's these secret scrolls.

Do they look up the long range weather forecast and lace one of them with Groundhog food?

We must do, right? They must do. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

The, it's, it takes place on Gobler's Knob. Do you know where the name Gobler's Knob comes from?

There's two theories. If you get either of them, you can have a point.

Goblin, Goblin's Knob. No, no, no. Was it, was it somebody was gobbling a man's knob

and they said, we should call this Gobler's Knob because she's always there. She's always doing

that. What, Jelly Sue? Yeah, Jelly Sue. And Jelly Sue didn't stick with me. That's not one of the

two theories that I have. You stick with your theories, I'll stick with mine. Oh, is it where

people ate on mountains? Yeah, like a knob is just like a, it's like a hill. That's why I thought

Goblin's Knob because it looks like a goblin. No, no, no. Your theory was not bad. Oh, he's gonna

get it. So it's, it's where the old shoe mender used to play his trade, Gobler's Knob, and slowly

it became Gobler's Knob. Why? Why did they start going, I'm gonna, I'm gonna call it Goblin.

Offer to sell shoes. Is that like a happy ending for massages, but in the, in the shoe cleaning

trade? You know when he comes down to measure your feet? On his feet. While I'm down here.

No, it's because a group of turkeys might have lived there.

And then another theory is like Dan said, maybe there were hunters and then that's where they

would eat their food after the hunt. So they would gobble up the food. But I think the turkeys are

most likely were. That's good. Yeah, that is good. I didn't know groundhogs. The groundhogs are amazing.

Yeah. So, sure. No, they really are. So I didn't know they were the same as a woodchuck.

And it's the largest member of the squirrel family. What? Oh, no. And they're brilliant diggers. So

they dig, they'll dig several feet down in a row, right? They live in burrows, several feet down,

then a few feet up, and then they level out and go along. And then off the side of that main tunnel,

they'll dig several different rooms, one of which is the toilet room, and they only go to the loo

in there. And then when it's full, they just seal it up and they dig a new toilet elsewhere.

They're very clean. Yeah. I was going to say the first thing that you said they got down

then up is that so they don't drown or like to avoid flooding. What do they do? They go to

dig another room and they're like, oh, no, that's three years ago's toilet. Close up, close up,

close up. You have to hit it eventually. There's how many rooms, how long is, I guess you keep

moving the tunnel down. You really have to hide that when selling it, wouldn't you, to the next

What's that? Oh, don't, don't. We want to extend. No, you can't. You can't extend that.

Okay, it's time for fact number one, and that is Carriette.

Brilliant. It's actually time for fact number two, and that is James.

Okay, my fact this week is that there's a bus tower in Hong Kong, which is specifically run

for people to sleep all the way through. Lovely. Lovely, lovely idea. Sounds great,

doesn't it? Is it because people are tired in Hong Kong? That's part of the reason. What do you

think, Ed? Otherwise, it'd be a terrible place to do this. You just get people out and they're

all like, no, I'm wide awake. We're not sleeping in Hong Kong. Why can't they get a normal bus?

I love sleeping on the bus. Why can't they just get a bus? Well, they could.

It stops, doesn't it? And so they might wake you up and kick you off the bus.

The idea came from this guy, Kenneth Kong, he worked for a bus tour organizer,

and he was chatting to one of his friends, and his friend said he was really stressed,

you know, he's got a really busy job, couldn't sleep at night. But whenever he traveled to

work on a bus, he would always kind of fall asleep. And Kenneth Kong thought this is amazing.

This is such a good idea. I'm going to do a bus tour where people are just encouraged to sleep.

And unlike a normal bus ride, we're going to give you a goodie bag with an eye mask, some ear

plugs, maybe we'll get a very superific tour guide. That's a good idea. But actually, the first time

they did it, they had the upper deck for people who wanted to sleep. And the lower deck was for

people who wanted to have a tour guide chat into them, which feels like the wrong way around,

because if you want to see the site, you want to be on the top. Exactly. Really good point.

But anyway, they noticed that a lot of people found that more difficult and didn't sleep. So

now they're making two separate bus tours, one for sleepers and one for not sleepers.

I also read as well that I don't know if they do this every single time, but they might start

with a huge two hour long lunch. So that's a very good idea. You go into a food coma as you're

getting on the bus. Oh, nice. You could do this for lots of things, because there are lots of

activities where you're put in a, like the cinema, for example, or theater or an opera.

That you go to sleep in it. I'm saying that it's very easy to fall asleep, especially if the

thing is not good. I once went to a Bach concert, which is, you know, it's really sort of deep and

sort of quite long notes and stuff. And about halfway through, I looked around and literally half

the men mostly, I must say, but they were mostly asleep. Yeah. I used to go to lunchtime concerts

at Wigmore Hall. And I thought, oh, this is an exciting London thing to do. But it was full of

people like head nodding. Just like, oh, this is so nice. I'm on my lunch break. Yeah, you could

get like 15 minutes. That's headbangers, you know, at metal concerts. Actually, I'm just about to fall

asleep. Kind of wake it up. Wake up, Gary. This is about to stop. I once went to Brian Blessed's house

and I was hanging out with him and he tells stories that go on and on. And it was just me and him

sitting in his adventurer's shed that he has. And he was, I was so tired and he was telling me stories

and I fell asleep. And I remember waking up with that sudden start and I looked up and he was still

amazing. And we would definitely way further away than where the story was when I fell asleep.

We could hire Brian Blessed to go around to people's houses. Oh, yeah. Well, he must have some audiobooks

you can listen to. I was looking up good bus tours. Yeah. Okay. There was a tour bus for dogs in 2017

in London. But it was a bit of a, well, okay, it was the Rootmaster K9. And there was a live commentary

of Dog Trivia from around London. Okay. Fine. But, and the route was between places where you

could go for walkies. But wait, so the owners with the dogs? Yeah, that's the thing. There are dogs

in Moscow who get on the tube, who live kind of down in the tube and sort of jump on between stops.

Wow. Like the pigeons do. I don't believe the pigeons. I've seen them. I've seen them. I've seen them.

Okay. I've seen them. Okay, guys, pipe down. I've done research on this. I didn't get to read

out a few weeks ago on the podcast. It was all about can pigeons get the tube and do they know

they're doing it? And I literally saw the pigeon do it. No, no, we didn't because he read a research

thing. Oh, okay. A pigeon can be on the tube, but it does not have a conception of the map.

Oh, okay. But I've seen a pigeon on the tube. But you know, there's also the pigeon on the tube.

No, but listen, let me tell you, there's the tube bit that's overground. So then it's getting on

at one stop and going two stops and literally walking on, waiting by the door and then walking

up. That's what I saw as well. So it's like, it's not doing underground tube. It's like,

oh, if I get on at East Finchley. I'd be more impressed to see a pigeon on the

underground tube. That would be dangerous and upsetting for the pigeon and distressing. It'll

be fine. It sort of slides down the escalator. We've seen as much from no one outdoor platform,

pigeon gets on, rides and stops, gets on. For me, it's so normal, it's banal.

It's actually come round to banal. I can't even accept it. I wonder what you think,

Kandy, now that you've read this research, are you trusting your own research or are you

believing the eyewitness reports? I've literally seen it. I just want to close up. I believe what

you've both seen. You've both seen a pigeon hop onto a train, the train girl stop or two,

the pigeon hop off. Wait by the doors. Wait by the doors. No distress, no panic.

Mine did the gap. Pressing button. That button when it's the open button.

That's what makes it clear that the pigeon's stupid. The door's operate anyway.

Not on the overground. Not on the overground. I didn't see it. I saw underground, underground

chain. I think they might be hopping on looking for food or something. I don't think they're

doing any food. They're not commuting home. Andy, this is what I saw. It just waited by the door.

It was playing Candy Crush. It literally got on, stood and faced the doors like a commuter.

Everyone was like, oh my God, pigeon. Doors closed and then it went two stops.

The two is more convincing. If it was the one stop. No, it did two. It did like East Finchley,

to Finchley Central, like to West Finchley. It went out to North London and then got out.

Mine had a baby on board back. If it's the several days in a row within the same half an hour period,

I will believe you've got a commuting pigeon. Okay, so you said there are dogs on the Bosco

jeans. Sorry. Can I just ask on your dog tower? It's basically a way for dog walkers to get from

one walkie's area to another one and they gave them stuff in the meantime. I think so. I think

it was around for a few days as a kind of to promote the firm. Are your Russian dogs commuting

though? Just living there. I think that's the idea is that they do go from one place to another

where they know they can get food from different places, but I can't really quite remember. Yeah,

I believe that. Oh, that's fine. James has never, James has never seen it. But that's

when I went to Moscow, I've been a few times, but whenever I've gone, I've tried to look on

the underground for these dogs. I've never seen them. I was reading about the bus drivers of

history. One significant and very controversial bus driver was a guy called James Blake. Oh,

yeah, of course, Rosa Parks. He was the Rosa Parks bus driver. Here's the thing I didn't know.

So he was called James Blake. It was 1955. This happened. The most famous incident.

But she and Blake had beef already. Oh, I had read this somewhere because she was like a

known activist, wasn't she? Like that was a big thing. But 12 years earlier, in 1943,

she got on a bus, paid, but she'd got on the front entrance and Blake was the driver. And he said,

No, you got to get off and get on the sort of back doors of the bus because that was the rules

segregated buses. And she got off to God's sake. All right, she got off to get on the other entrance

and he drove off, which was a thing they would do sometimes as a kind of prank. So she avoided

his buses for years. You know, when she saw he was a driver and then that day she didn't notice

that he was the driver. She was tired. She was preoccupied. And so that's that's where it happened.

He was a bus driver for 19 more years. 19 more years. Yeah. Wow. Because it was quite she her story

was one that sort of hit the right moment at the right time. There were quite a lot of stories

of people who were refusing to step up from their seats and go to the back. I think even Rosa Parks

is story slightly. Yeah, I was going to say she wasn't tight. She knew it was all planned and

they used her because she looked quite mild-mannered and they thought that it would be like, you know,

a way for it to get on the bus and look like she wasn't going to cause trouble, but they

absolutely she was a super intelligent, brilliant part of the organization. And it was very,

very well. They knew like they were going to do this incident. And lastly, the King was part of

that group. I genuinely actually only know that because of a Doctor Who episode from the Jodie

Whitaker period. So that probably needs a fact check. But I think they would have got that right.

Yeah. Yeah. A lot of seminal moments have happened on buses. So George Harrison joined the Beatles

on a bus. Did he? Yeah. So he was sitting on top, top deck of a bus. He was giving him a

shoulder's ride. Paul already knew him and that's where he introduced properly to John Lennon. And

John said, can you play a song that was a very difficult song to play on guitar? He played it,

nailed it. And that's when they said, you're in the band. So that's important. George Michael wrote

Careless Whisper on the bus. I'm never going to dance again. I was a tour bus guide.

Tour bus guide? Is that sounded wrong? No. I was a tour guide who was on a bus. Thank you.

I was like, tour bus guide is the way. Here's another tour bus. If you look over there, another

tour bus is going past. So many tour buses. I was a tour guide on an open top bus for some time

in London. And I got in trouble a lot. Yes. For what? Making stuff up? No. I never made stuff up.

I made a joke about the Royal Family and someone wrote and complained and said I should be ashamed

of myself and I disgraced my country. Wow. It's about Prince Andrew. It wasn't. At the time,

that sort of thing wasn't known. It was about Prince Harry taking drugs, which was absolutely

known. And it was a really crap joke that every tour guide did on St James's. So the shops have

Royal warrants. So that's where they have a crest in the window that means the Royal Family shop

there. And the whole of St James's. There's like, oh, Berry Brothers, Berry Brothers, Lob and Coases.

There's all like the boot makers, the hat makers. And there's also a pharmacy on St James's. And you

say that's where the Royal Family get their drugs. Although I think Prince Harry probably gets his

from somewhere else. It's a terrible joke. It's fine. And then they got your first comedy review.

We got up at Bucking, I said, this is Bucking Palace and a couple marched up to me and they said,

we're getting off. I said, Oh, okay. They said, we don't want to. I said, Oh, what's happening?

And so it's you. We're getting off because of you. And I was like, Oh, what? I said,

what you just said about the Royal Family was so disgraceful. And then when the letter,

they said I had disgraced Prince William. So they hadn't even been listening to my joke.

You wouldn't make that joke about Prince William. It was so annoying, but yeah, I got in quite

big trouble. Did you apologize? No, they'd gone. They're long gone. Unrepentant.

I'm glad you weren't my boss. I did. You know, London bus, just a London bus. Yeah.

The double-decker red. Big red bus. You know, how long they are in terms of how many London buses

they are. They're one London bus. No, they're 1.2 times the length of a London bus. Okay. And

that's because they're new rootmasters. And if you ever look at like, whatever anyone says,

this is so stupid. But whatever anyone says, this is like 10 times the length of a London bus.

They're talking about the old London bus. Oh, rootmasters. Yeah. But they've got the new one,

such a 1.2 times the length. Brilliant. I genuinely interested in that. Do you know, I bit, like,

I loved, I'm the age of remembering rootmasters and they were great when you could jump on the back

of the bus. Obviously, it wasn't safe, but it was brilliant. Yeah. You never had to worry about

missing a bus. You just ran. You can still jump on. No, because they closed them all, because it

wasn't safe. Do you remember the old ones? Like had no door. Totally open. Yeah. Yeah. No, sorry.

I've jumped on the back of one when the door was open. Wow. And you're so lucky. You jumped on

the bus and it was open. You didn't just run head first into glass. I was sneaking off one bus

and onto another one. It was after a party. Anyway, I don't want to go into my show of his life.

You know, we're familiar with the Spice Bus. Yeah. Spice Girls Bus. From the Spice World

movie. Oh, yeah. You can rent it now. You can stay in it overnight. Is this a hint for your

next birthday? No. Is it still so tedious? I haven't seen this movie, but is it like,

I think it's like Uni and Jack? That's not missable. You have to watch Spice

Bus. Meatloaf is the driver. Does it still look the same as it did in the show? Yes, it's still,

the exterior looks the same, but the interior, unfortunately, obviously in the film, the

interior was this huge three-story. Yeah, it couldn't have been what it was. Was it like bigger

on the inside kind of thing? Yeah, exactly. Well, they never, I don't think they made this kind

of space-time definition about how big it was. Just kept showing you different rooms in it.

Like a groundhog's nest, basically. Exactly. There's one more full of shit from the Spice

Bus girls that if you tap through it. Oh, God. We spoke about the Dave Matthews band a few months

ago. Oh, yes. Did you know the Dave Matthews band? I didn't know Dave Matthews band. There was this

thing in 2004 where they dumped 800 pounds of raw untreated sewage into a river, the Chicago River

while they were crossing the bridge on that tour bus. Yeah, on that tour bus. And they were,

unfortunately, they were crossing a slatted bridge and there was an open top tour boat

passing by beneath the bridge. Can I just say it was the driver rather than the band? Yeah,

I was like the band were there like now. So anyway, that was a huge thing led to a lot of

I think there were apology letters. Yeah, they apologize. Yeah, they apologize. But I was reading

about what happens how you release what they call the Blackwater, you know, the sewage from the

thing. And, you know, buses have changed a bit since then. I think they've been altered a bit.

But I was reading an interview with a bus driver from 2016 about how you release it. And there is

a switch that says dump, which they keep. Supposedly they keep it by the driver's left elbow, which

feels risky. Thanks for the indicators. But these days, there's like a nuclear button,

there is a plastic cap over the switch. So you have to make a conscious decision to dump

the cap before I mean, we all need that in our lives. Make a conscious decision to drop your

shit. They should put the key for it inside a person. This is a call back to something the other

day. Yeah, the idea of a nuclear button, you put the key inside a person. So they had to kill

the person to get to the president had to do it himself. Yes, an initial. But how's he going to

keep that inside him without shitting it out? Under his skin. Oh, okay. I thought you meant

like swallow it and then go through the shit get the key in this case. The missiles in two minutes.

President is sipping a poo. I'll find it. I'll find it. The keys covered in sweet

cudd. Are you sure you want to look at the plastic cover? No, yeah, no, yeah. Oh God, sorry.

Okay, it is time for fact number one. Okay, I'm sorry.

Okay, it is time for fact number three. And that is Andy. My fact is that for many years,

the secret of the British army's balloons was known by a single family of Alsatians.

By which I mean people from Alsatians. Were they all on a bus together?

Um, this is a thing where so the ballooning took off.

If only the people at home could have seen the way that you know the face. You like you lifted

up the plastic button and you dumped. You put a dump on your joke. Took off. I thought I could

do it. I could go for it. Couldn't I? They'll all laugh and we'll just move on. It won't be made a

big thing off. The British army, they were experimenting. They were making hydrogen balloons

and this is in the 1880s. So it's 100 years or so after, you know, the Montgolfier brothers and

so on. And hydrogen balloons are great in lots of ways, but there's a problem. Hydrogen molecules

are so tiny that they escape from almost any bag that you keep them in. Yeah, I'll put them in

the safety bag. Exactly. And so they were looking for a way to improve the balloons and there was

this family, the Weinling family. They were a family of orthodox Jews that came from Alsace in

France and they had their own effectively secret proprietary method of making these balloons and

they'd made some for a scientific toy shop in the east end of London, which is cool called Mr. Herons.

And the commander of the first royal balloon factory was called Major Templar. He hired the

Weinling family. He bought their secret effectively. And then for a few decades, Britain had this big

advantage in balloon technology because the Weinlings were on board and they were kind of

supervising the first balloon factory. They had to be persuaded to tell other people how to make

the balloons because they originally, it seems like they wanted to make the balloons themselves.

We'll do it all. We'll do it all. We just don't want to tell anyone. I can understand that. Yeah,

that makes sense. It's pretty amazing as well. So it was a guy called Henry Coxwell who was

walking through this scientific toy shop and saw this thing. Can you imagine like during the war

effort, you're looking for ways and suddenly here's just a toy for kids that is going to give you

the great advantage of the war. And what did the toy do? It was like, it was like a little

hot air balloon. It was a balloon. Yeah. And it worked basically. Wow. And the method that they

used was a thing called gold beater skin. So it's used, it's made from the lower intestine of a cow.

And what they would do is they would stretch out the lower intestine. And because as you were saying,

Andy, the nothing could escape molecules can escape is what they found. What's amazing is that

when they make the balloon itself, you wouldn't sew it together. So sewing might be a problem

because there's micro holes that if you miss whatever something can escape. But with this

intestine skin, all you had to do was make it a bit wet, a bit damp. And then it would just stick.

And that would be strong enough to make it. It's so cool. It's overlapping. And it just.

How did the Wylings find this out? Like, I'm sorry. How did this one family be like, oh,

you know that cow intestine we've got hanging around? Let's stretch it out, dry it and put

what was going on in that family? It's Mikey's birthday. We got balloons.

Sorry, that's what made me laugh so much because it's amazing. It's like really amazing what they

did and discovered. But what was going on in in Alsace? Well, they were already using this stuff

for gold beating, which is why it's called gold beater skin, right? But what are they using it

in gold beating? So you would put your gold in between two pieces of intestine or paper or whatever,

and then you would whack it, whack it, whack it to make it really, really, really, really thin.

And so then you would have gold leaf instead of a gold bar. And that's why it still comes in as

two bits of paper, the gold leaf. Like it does. Yeah, what do you buy gold leaf? You can buy it

like if you're decorating, people use it for like, if you want to do like a gold effect on tables or

on food or I've had biscuits covered in silver. That's the blue. They're Indian. They're. Oh,

silver leaf. Yeah. Silver leaf. They're really popular. It's not sorry. I'm sorry. I'm like an

emperor of that life. It's doing well with his silver biscuits and two knockers.

But the amazing thing is about this gold beating, right? So you're making gold leaf out of a piece

of gold and you could get a sheet of gold that was two millimeters thick and then knock it down,

make it thinner, thinner, thinner, so there was 100 nanometers, right? And it's hard to say what

that is. But it's basically, it's like if I was squashed into a flat sheet, which is the thickness

of a human hair. We're not going to do that, James. They're just going to do that to you, are they?

They get hit by a bus. But yeah, that's how much they reduce the thickness of a sheet of gold by

99.996%. And they do it using this paper, this ox, you know, this gold beater's paper.

But that's the second process. To get it down to two millimeters, you need to put it through a

different two pieces of paper. And that's called Montgolfier paper. And that was the same paper

as the Montgolfiers used to make their balloons. Isn't that amazing? So the first section of gold

beating was Montgolfier paper. And the second stuff was this gold beater's paper. Because the

Montgolfiers, they came from a family of paper makers. And that's how they got into hot air ballooning

because they had all of this amazing paper to use. And they turned them into balloons.

It's so weird how one invention leads to another. And the reason I knew about this is because we

talked a while ago about jobs in the UK that don't exist anymore. And the last gold beater,

I think, went out in the UK maybe in the last 10 to 20 years. It feels like a very labor-intensive

job. Gold beating. Yeah, it is. Also, for the size of the balloons that they were making during the

war, you needed a lot. So one kind of classic zeppelin would require 250,000 intestines

in order to make the size balloon that they needed in order to do it.

Again, how did they first get it? And it was mostly women, right? Was women doing this work?

Yeah, the Weiling family was... It couldn't have been just them, right? They must have

taught it to... But it was women that were doing all the work, I think.

The skin assembly, the skin treating, and that factory was staffed by women. I think it was

one Fred Weiling. There were a couple of sons, but there was Mrs. Weiling and two daughters who were

the chief balloon makers for the army. And it was such a secret as well that when it eventually got

seen that it was being used by the countries, that was seen as treason. And this guy, Major Templar,

who was the one, he actually got charged with betraying military secrets because they thought

this was so secret, no one could have known it. He was acquitted because I think they worked out

that he didn't do it. But that's how important this was to the war effort. But it kind of didn't

matter for a few countries because what you needed was cow intestine. So they were being

farmed in America and they were being imported to here. But like Germany couldn't get them because

they stopped... Oh, they have cows in Germany? I don't think they had enough at the time.

I think we've mentioned once before that Germany had to choose in the war between

airships and sausages. It's a hard choice to make. You're in total war. Your society needs to survive.

It is the worst choice to make. In fact, they still use balloons in war right now, don't they?

For instance, while we saw in the news with the so-called spy balloons, they're coming back in.

It's a new fashion trend. In the Ukraine war, I think both sides use balloons. They kind of put

them up there so that the other side kind of uses a permunition trying to shoot them. They're

just distractions really, but they are still used. Well, there are barrage balloons in the Second World

War. You saw images of London at war. There are all these balloons floating over and it's to make

bombers have to fly higher to fly over them. And they have steel cables hanging down from them,

so you can't fly around under them. So they're a good air defense. And those were largely

staffed by women. There was the Women's Auxiliary Air Force. They were on the ground. They would

operate the winches, basically, because there's no one actually up there in a barrage balloon,

or how you believe it. And balloon command was set up in 1938. Yes, please. Even at D-Day.

Good morning, balloon command. What color? Rebel? Yes, many of those. How old is he? Seven? Oh,

let's see what we can do. D-Day had the barrage balloon battalion who were specifically bringing

to the Normandy beaches the balloons. Wow. Yeah. They were pre-inflated in the UK and then sailed

over to defend the men on the beaches. I think that's good, because if you're in opposing territory,

you don't want to be like, stretch it, stretch it out a bit. You're absolutely right. They didn't

show that in the beginning of Saving Private Ryan, did they? I'm asthmatic, sir. I can't do this.

Speaking of women in war, the UK's first official police woman was Mrs. Edith Smith of Grantham,

and she became a sworn officer in 1915. And the Home Office weren't very happy about it,

because they said that women were not proper persons. That's what they said.

It's something we have to live with. I know, but this is amazing. Quite a lot of the stuff they

made her do was spy on women on behalf of the husbands who were away at war.

Wow. The power of the patriarchy. You can work for us if you take down your own people.

I was sort of in case you were having affairs. Have we ever mentioned the Hello Ladies? Hello.

Hello Ladies were a group of women. They were in the battlefields of France. They were basically

the operators who connect phone calls. The telephone operating ladies, yeah. But they were

doing it on the front lines. And so, while being bombed, just connecting these phone lines to make

sure that these crucial calls could be made back. And at the height of it, the Hello Girls were

connecting 150,000 calls a day. And there was 223 in total that we're doing.

That's a tonne, that's a lot. Yeah, it's crazy. But a lot of those were calls being made to a

policewoman in Grantham. Okay, what's she doing now? Well, did they look like they were friends,

or did they look like it was more serious? Yeah, and they annoyingly, after the war,

they weren't considered for veteran status and benefits because they weren't seen as part of

the military. And it took until 1977. Oh my God. Petitioning presidents constantly to get them

any kind of compensation. But they finally did it. But they were essential to the war of the Hello

Girls. Yeah, you were there. You know, yeah, you were at the front line. You weren't there,

there. Exactly. Oh my God, that's awful. I just got one more fact about balloons.

There has only ever been one balloon hit and run accident in the UK. Okay, amazing.

2004. Yes. Are we talking hot air balloons? Yeah. Wow. Okam, Cumbria. Retired couple,

sitting in their cottage, having a nice time. Suddenly, bang, hot air balloon. So I stole

the chimney, smashed it into their chimney and their roof, and then flies off. Oh my God. I know.

It was blue, yellow and red. I'm gonna say, in defense of whoever this was, if you, if you're

flying, I used to live in there, if you're flying over and you're out of control enough that you

hit a chimney, you're probably out of control enough that you can't stop. To leave you details.

Yeah. It's quite dangerous because around there, they have quite a lot of ministry of difference

flights they practice around there. Do they? Yeah. Well, it's the only known, known balloon hit and

say never found. They still never. I haven't, I didn't find a follow up to the story. Maybe they did.

So that's interesting because only a couple of days ago, I watched a video on Instagram

of a hot air balloon coming in close to it. There's a whole group of people picnicking on the side of,

in this grassy bit of a hill. Yeah. And they're all, they all turn around and look at it. Everyone

gets up and they're filming it and it just keeps descending and keeps descending and it suddenly

hits the ground and mows through all of them. They're all diving out the way, all their chairs

go through. No one's hit. Everyone's okay. And it takes off again and disappears off into the

distance. And I don't know if they've got their details later. So that might not count as a hit

and run. But could you claim a picnic over a chimney? My picnic was ruined. If they put

everything back together, they noticed there was one sausage on this. Just grab it on the way out.

Just left a sausage skin. Make your own balloon.

Okay. It's time for our final fact of the show. And that is my fact. My fact this week is that

Orson Welles' nose rarely made appearances in his movies. Wow. Can you give me some of his movies?

Yeah. Citizen Kane is perhaps. I've seen Citizen Kane. But I don't remember any

nose-less man in that. Well, he was never nose-less. He never, yeah, he didn't.

I mean, people would talk about Citizen Kane in a different way if there was no nose on his face.

Like he spends his whole time lusting over. What was it? Rosebud.

Rosebud. Memorializing Rosebud. He'd be memorializing his nose. Close bud. No, thank you.

I nearly started watching Citizen Kane last night, but I can't. Have you not seen it? No,

I got quite tired. It's incredible. It's incredible. Why do you only want to hear who hasn't? Yeah.

Oh, the worm turns and builds his little nest down. Sorry, I keep going with that.

He builds his little nest down and then realizes this is full of shit from a ground on.

Carries on. Actually absorbs it because that's his deal. Have you caught what Citizen Kane? It's

classic. I've seen a couple of his. What've you seen? The Magnificent Ambersons. Oh, I haven't seen

that. Very much a B-side these days. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It is great. It's an old

The Third Man, which he did directly. He just is in. Yeah. Oh, it's sorry, but he was such a

director. Yeah. Well, that's okay. So for the people that don't know, Orson Welles, Citizen Kane

is often regarded as one of the greatest movies ever made. I actually was surprised I went onto

IMDb. I expected to see it behind Shawshank Redemption. It was actually 95 on the top 100 list,

but I think, you know, there's three Avengers movies in that top 100 ahead of it. So I think

that's been answered. Yeah, you went onto IMDb. I think you checked like Guardians' Top Films.

Yeah, exactly. It was the Paddingham too of its day. Yeah, it really was. It absolutely was.

Orson Welles was, as Andy says, he was a director. He was a writer. He was an actor. He went from

radio to stage to film, doing iconic things in every single place. He supposedly created a national

terror when he did War of the Worlds on radio. That's been mythologized to be a lot worse than

it actually was. People, you know, claiming they thought aliens were really invading,

were really kind of newspapers just bumping that up. But one thing about him is that for someone

who was so confident and he was known to be so balshy and people would talk about his rage and

his passion, one thing he was absolutely insecure about was the size of his nose, which he thought

hadn't really grown since childhood. And so every single movie that he did, except basically for

one movie, as far as I can tell, which was The Third Man, he always had prosthetics on his nose.

And sometimes applying it himself, there's an account by a guy called Lewis Gilbert,

who was a director, and he did a movie with him in 1959 called Fairy to Hong Kong. And he said

that basically he would do his own nose. And the problem was is that his nose would be quite

different shot to shot. Yeah, they said it was like wonky or green. Yeah, sometimes it was tilting

upwards. Sometimes it was tilting downwards. Occasionally it just went sideways. It was not

a consistent nose for the entire movie. Yeah, I read one quote saying he said that his nose had

not grown one millimeter since infancy, which I don't believe it. Exactly. There's no way he

had an actual baby's nose. I felt bad though, because when you do look at it, I was like,

what? No, he doesn't. And then I saw a picture of him without it. And I was like, I guess it's

small. I think it doesn't fit his personality, because he was known for being this like huge

rack hunter character, like absolute, almost, I guess, Brian blessed style, like fill the room.

Yeah, it doesn't. You expect him to have a much bigger features. And the rest of his features

are quite big. Not there's anything wrong with having a small nose. He allegedly kept, he kept

very fake notes. And he had a glass case for each one. And he also gave them more names.

That's quite common in a prosthetic and wig world on TV. They sometimes give them names.

Really? Yeah, I don't know why. I guess because often you have to look after a wig.

Yes. So you have to kind of like wash it and preen it and stuff or process it. So you would

give it. It's not uncommon to give it a name.

Kerry, you've done a lot of sketch comedy on TV or sort of shows where you're a comedy character

playing a celebrity, like Murder and Successful. Have you ever worn a prosthetic nose?

Yeah, I have. I'm trying to think now. I had to wear loads for Murder and Successful,

but I can't remember which one. I think for Cheryl Cole, I had to wear a prosthetic nose.

I think we called it Cheryl, to be fair. He didn't call them the actual names.

The very weird thing is that he was in a film called Touch of Evil.

Oh, yes. One of his classics.

He knows from that it's called Sandra.

They always women's names.

One of the King Lear one was called Sloan Jr. So I don't know if there's a character called

Sandra in Touch of Evil, but there's no character called Sloan Jr. in King Lear.

No, it's Gona Roll's brother.

And actually when he was making that film, I think they lost his nose halfway through production

and it had been posted and it hadn't come through. And they basically halted production on this big

Hollywood film while they searched every post office in Hong Kong for Find His Nose.

Also was his father. It was called Dickhead. His name was Richard Head Wells.

He's pretty cool. Also was his father. He was a kind of inventor and an engineer.

He invented a glider, get this, which was attached to a steam engine on the ground.

So it's a plane whose engine is on the ground and the plane flies up there.

You know what it feels like? You would have angular momentum on it.

If you just try to go forward, you'd end up going in a circle like those fairground rides.

But it did not work. Well, maybe it worked, but it didn't take off.

Dan, you mentioned the War of the Wells thing. He came a bit depressed afterwards because he

said that he had two lots of friends. One lot of friends had heard the recording and one lot

hadn't. And anyone who'd heard it would want to tell him everything, what they thought about it.

And anyone who hadn't heard it would tell him tediously why they hadn't

near a wireless on the day. So that everyone he spoke to all wanted to speak to him about that.

Is that like how you guys feel? Like people just come up to you with facts or they go,

I've never, don't mean not only into podcasts.

A lot more of the latter than the former, I have to say. I read an interview with him from 1939

and he said that no one has said anything original about that broadcast for at least nine months.

There's a weird coincidence, which is that HG Wells was in America and he was driving around and

he got lost. And so he pulls over and he goes, excuse me, so can you help me to find where I'm

going? And it's Orson Wells. And they make the established, they established that each other

each other. And this was not long after Orson Wells had done War of the Worlds. But of course,

he wasn't a big face back then, Orson Wells. He was a radio guy.

Wasn't a big nose, that's for sure.

You know, he couldn't have gone like, oh, I'm going to pretend I don't know who Orson Wells is.

I wonder if HG Wells was recognizable.

Quite possibly from the back of books. Were people just less recognizable back in the day?

Yeah, I guess so.

You didn't have more, you didn't have author jacket photos in the same way that you do these days.

And as we know, all the jacket photos are not representative of what someone looks like in

real life. Excuse me.

Holding up my book.

Yours is.

I also read some newspaper articles from the day after the recording went out to see,

did it happen or was this kind of craziness, did it exist?

And the Journal Times, I read, they collected articles from all over America about what had

happened. And they said that Senator Clyde Herring of Iowa had called for more regulation of the

press as a result of everyone thinking that the Martians had attacked, which is pretty typical.

Apparently in New York, one person had called the police and said, I want a gas mask. I'm a tax

payer. And the police had said that that definitely happened. And there was a town of concrete,

which is in Washington state. And apparently there was a power cut just at the moment the

Martians put their death rays into action. And this is reported the day after it went out.

So I think it did happen. But the thing was like they did advertise that it was fiction.

They said right at the top. Awesome else comes on at the start and says, this is fictional.

And then they had four times in the middle, they said, just to remind you all, this is fictional.

And then at the end, he comes on and says, by the way, that was a play you just listened to.

So it was a good radio four documentary about what happened and how to, I mean,

there were people who obviously did lose their mind. But it's a tempting myth.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Like the five stages. Like it's nice to believe that that would be true.

Yeah, it's just kind of, it's nice to believe that sort of people back in the day were so stupid

that they didn't understand radio. You think, oh, we've come along some way. We understand radio

now. Yeah. Welles. Welles. So Dan, you mentioned his most famous film appearance, maybe. And

certainly maybe the one he's most famous for these days is in The Third Man. Yeah.

Where he, it's in Vienna. It's after the Second World War. It's, and it's an amazing.

And mate, that is unmissable. So good. And there's a big scene. There's a scene in

the sewers of Vienna where they're chasing. He's playing this mysterious sort of black market

dealer and, and, and, you know, crook. And he's very, very dodgy. But they did the filming in

the sewers of Vienna. And they, you know, they all went down there. They were actually very clean

in lots of places. And the director had his coffee brought down to him on a silver tray by a waiter

from one of the old Viennese cafes, you know, the only person who refused to go down into the sewers.

Awesome. Welles. Yeah. And they had to build a fake sewer in Shepperton. Wow. Is that the famous

shot of him though, in that really, like the really white circle and it's him. Yeah. It's either a

body double or it's Shepperton and everyone else had filmed their bits in Vienna. Yeah. I know.

But he wouldn't have been able to smell it anyway with this. I mean, he was it like,

can't remember what film it was, but it was filmed in the Deep South and that actress was

quoted as saying like, it was so hot and sweaty that his nose was like falling off. His nose is

running. But like he was, if he was a woman, he'd be called a diva, like the things he would refuse

to do. He was a divo. Yeah. And the guy, I think it's the guy who plays Yago or Casio wrote a whole

book about the experience of filming a fellow of like, how insane and awful it was. Like that

was his kind of made his money on this. Yeah, called Casio. Yeah. So one that loves Desmond

and starts off all the trouble. He has that great line, beep. Yes, Andrew. Yes, fellow English

literature scholar. Yes. Apparently when he was directing Othello, was that a film?

Othello is a film. Yeah, yeah. It's a great film. It's really interesting. I think he might have

also staged a stage version of Othello because apparently when he was directing that, he would

push the actors around the stage with a 20 foot pole shouting to hell with the method.

This is the world's way. Act, you sons of bitches. Amazing. Do you know where Orson

Wells is buried? No. No. This is, he's buried. That could be guess. Yeah, have a guess. Have a guess.

Perlachia. Oh, she's just the most famous cemetery ever. That's in Paris. Okay. Let me let me

rephrase. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. You're like, you're like this. I'm going to rephrase

the question because this is actually the wrong angle. Okay. Remember a few weeks ago when we

had Sarah Pasco on, we talked about the guy who invented Pringles being buried in a Pringles.

Yes. Tube. Tube, his ashes. Okay. So where is Orson Wells buried? In a film canister.

A film canister in the Hollywood Hills. Very good. He's in the Hollywood sign. They poured him in.

Into the O. Oh, yeah, yeah. With the three guys. In a well. Orson Wells is in a well.

He's in a well. James got it. James got it. No way. He's buried. He was, this is years after

his death. His daughter brought the ashes of him to Malaga in Spain to a place called Ronda,

where he's now on the property of a retired bullfighter who he really liked. Who was friends with.

I've been to Ronda quite recently. Have you? Yeah. That's the end of the anecdote. Okay. Orson

Wells is in a well. Wow. In Malaga. Yeah. Lovely city, Malaga. Is that the end of the anecdote?

It's surprising because you think like you, you associated with Package Holiday, especially

the ashes are really nice. It's really incredible. The cathedral is called La Manquita, I think,

which means the woman with one arm. And it's because it's got two towers, the cathedral,

but only one of them was completed. So one of them is shorter than the other.

Simon Callow, the actor. Yes. He is a, maybe one of the biggest wells experts on the planet,

because he's currently writing a biography of Orson Wells. He was, he started working on it in

1989 when Orson Wells had been dead a few years. He thought, well, I'll do two volumes, take about

three years, 1992, be done. Great. Book one was published in 1995. Okay. Took a bit longer,

fine. Better, book one, fine. Right. Book two. Volume two was in 2006. Volume three came out in

2015. And he's now working on volume four. It's so, it's such a huge project. He's done

other stuff in between. Four weddings and a few roles in there. He's a busy man.

Pop idol. Is that him? No, no, no.

But who among us doesn't make that mistake? I always make that mistake.

Well, they go to him at the judges chair. He's surrounded by books on wells and he's conducting interviews.

Okay, that's it. That's 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 we've said over the course of this podcast, we can be

found on our Twitter accounts. I'm on at Shriverland, Andy. At Andrew Hunter M. James. At James Harkin.

And Cariad. At Lady Cariad, because I did it a long time ago. And because of your David.

And because of my David or at Cariad Lloyd on Instagram. It's four AM.

Right. And yeah, you can also get us on at no such thing or go to our website,

nosuchthingasafish.com and check out all of our previous episodes. But most important of all,

get yourself to an online bookshop or a real bookshop to pick up You Are Not Alone. Cariad's

book all about grief and it's tied in with her podcast, griefcast. So give that a listen as

well. I'm sure you have already, but get back to it this week. Has anyone died? Get back in there,

guys. But that's it for us for now. We'll be back again next week with another episode. We'll see

you then. Goodbye.

Machine-generated transcript that may contain inaccuracies.