No Such Thing As A Fish: 490: No Such Thing As Whistling At A Fact

Hi everyone, welcome to this week's episode of No Such Things as a Fish, where we were

joined at the Soho Theatre in London by the incredible Cariad Lloyd. Now if you are a regular

listener to No Such Things as a Fish, you will know of course who Cariad is. She's a very good

friend of ours, she's a comedian, she's an actor, she's a podcaster, she's just an all-round genius,

let's be honest. She has a book out which you definitely should check out, it's called You Are

Not Alone, it's about death but that sounds like it's going to be depressing but it really isn't,

it's extremely uplifting that book and there's loads of facts in there as well, it's definitely one

that I think you'll really really enjoy. And the other thing to say is that Cariad does an

improvised show called Ostentatious. Now this is a really amazing show, what happens is you turn up,

someone in the audience gives them a hitherto lost let's say Jane Austen play title that they've

made up, the guys have never heard it before and they do an entire Jane Austen play completely

improvised. It is absolutely stunningly brilliant, if you haven't seen it you can't miss it, if you

have seen it go again because it's different every single night. And they are about to do another

run at London's West End at the Arts Theatre. Now the best way to find out about those tickets

is to go to ostentatiousimpro.com that's a-u-s-t-e-n-t-a-t-i-o-u-s-i-m-p-r-o.com

but let's be honest who types in URLs these days, just go to a search engine search for

ostentatious and you will find all the information there. Anyway really help you enjoy this week's

show with Cariad Lloyd, all that's left to say is on with the podcast.

Hello and welcome to another episode of No Such Thing as a Fish, a weekly podcast this week

coming to you live from the Soho Theatre in London! 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 no particular order

here we go, starting with fact number one and that is Andy. My fact is that the maximum

PDF file you can send is bigger than Belgium.

Can we replace Belgium? Just with a PDF?

Of Belgium, yes we can. Okay in fact it's bigger than that, okay right the maximum

PDF size you can send is the square with sides that are 381 kilometers long, that is bigger than

Belgium, Monaco, San Marino, Liechtenstein, Malta, Andorra, Luxembourg, Montenegro, Slovenia, Albania

and Moldova combined. It is huge, it's mega, has anyone sent something that big?

Unclear, I worked out that if you wanted to print it out on A4 paper it would take 2.3 trillion pieces

and if I did it on my printer at home I could have started it off at the time when the first

human fossils were appearing in the fossil records and it would be just about finishing now.

Subject to jams and cartridge replacements, that's brilliant, that's incredible, I should

say where I got this from, I saw a guy called Steve Bobrick put it up on Twitter and basically

we should say this appears to only be an adobe acrobat limit. Damn them controlling us as always.

Theoretically there could be a bigger PDF out there. What? I know. So this is what in the adobe rules

it says that this is the maximum you're allowed or something. Yeah it's the adobe acrobat, it's

15 million inches by 15 million inches you know. Oh okay. Well it's just the rules, it's not even...

No it's their internal limit but the file format itself might not be bound by the adobe. They

would probably just have to click and write 25 million and maybe we'd be able to get even bigger.

Maybe. But I don't think anyone's ever actually sent one that's this big. No why would you? Why

he'll be insane. Is that an email attachment or are we talking WeTransfer here? Oh I think that's

a dropbox, I don't think you can WeTransfer that. So PDFs? Yeah. Pretty dry. Pretty dry. It's amazing

when we send each other our facts round we have to then go and research them of course

and Andy sent us the PDF and said maybe it's the most boring fact you've ever sent.

Yeah and James said it's not even close. Not even top 10. But I mean we can get on to more general

stuff but I do just want to say that adobe, you know adobe acrobat the program that do the PDFs

is named after some mud. Named after some mud. Adobe it's a building material isn't it? It is.

You make it half like poo and wool I think. Here is mud. James don't attempt poo and wool.

And be like this is it we can make a house. That's the worst three little pigs ever is it?

And the fourth little pig made his house out of poo and wool. And the wolf said I'm all right

actually. You guys you stay in there it's fine. I should just explain the mud thing sorry I want

to call it. Because otherwise I could feel the tension in the room. Oh they were waiting they

were just desperate to know. When's he going to explain about the mud? The founder of adobe. I'm sorry.

You thought you can't do like podcast this is a conference for adobe and this is how they get

their employees in. There's a creek which goes past the home of the founder who's called John

Warnock and it has this it has this mud in it. It's this very malleable clay. I did go on a little

while goose choice trying to find out who the original adobe acrobat actually was. There wasn't

one there wasn't. Right. That would make it an interesting story. Okay and so you named it after

some mud. Some mud by the. Yeah exactly yeah. But it's malleable but PDFs are famously inflexible

you're right completely untangible. Are you just like I'm just sending you paper like why did you

think oh yeah this clay this reminds me of mine. An acrobat's so flexible as well. Yeah everything

is completely wide open. The rules the idea that this is what they would say this is the limits

to what you have. I find it kind of funny when there are computer rules that just are just so

makeshift and and sort of seemingly why would you ever say that out loud. Apple three I don't know

if anyone is old enough to remember Apple three but so it was there it was their third. No wait Apple

three was the third. This is crazy. Yeah it was a it was a hard drive basically that suffered

because there was no fan on it and Steve Jobs had this thing where he just hated the sound of fans

and so he was like let's not include going yeah and so it overheated all the time and when it

overheated it meant that any disk going in would suddenly just melt and so you're pulling out the

hard drive disk and so yeah so it was a big big problem and one of the employees of Apple was

so angry with it that he slammed it down out of frustration onto his desk and discovered that

that made it work again so if you called up Apple saying it does not work their official line was

lifted up lift the computer up by two inches and just drop it on the table and that's what

fixed it that was the official line that came from them. Percussive maintenance they call that

don't they? What's that? Just whacking something and hope it works. Oh yeah right yeah yeah. I don't

I don't think we've mentioned this before we might have done do you know what the longest a

computer has been left running is or the longest running computer ever? I haven't turned my laptop

off since 2016. You don't need to just rest it's asleep then it wakes up again. Yeah yeah

nothing works. Do you mean not even closing the lid? I reckon this one might not even have a lid.

Whoa. Right. James is right. I didn't and I was about to say the longest uh like the running

computer on earth but then I didn't say that. Clue. So it's not an earth. That's right. Right.

Is it at a spaceship? It's in a spaceship right? It's the Voyager ones. The Voyager ones which

have been on since um what with more than 40 years now. The 70s I guess? Yeah since the 70s yeah

and they're still working. They're still working. There are it's a pair of link computers on board

Voyager which just sent towards the edge of the solar system and it's it's still going. Each one

has 70 kilobytes of memory. I mean they're really tiny. Are they like 1970s computers though? Are

they like old school? They're not huge. They're not room size. Oh right. But they're much smaller

than that. If they stop working they'll slam them into Pluto won't they? They've got a big monitor

and you have to run like CS DOS on it. Yeah yeah um but no they they had a I know some things about

computers. Um they had this really big problem in 2015 because the last of the original programmers

was a guy called Larry Zottarelli and he retired and they were stuffed because it was like they

you need to learn ancient cuneiform of computer languages. Right. To get it. To get this. Like

no one is teaching these computer languages. He's still alive. You're not dead. Just call him up.

He's retired. He's old. He's retired. He doesn't want to be. Get him to write out a hand oversheet.

People know. I'm sure NASA know about. He's like no I'm done. That's it. You've had my time.

It's hard. It's hard to learn the systems required. No. Okay. Yeah. There was a computer that analyzed

4,000 computer science papers and it came up with what they call the best computer scientists in

the world. They describe them as the Michael Jordan of computer science. Wow. Do you know who it is?

No. It's Michael Jordan.

Is it someone with the same name or is it the actual name? Okay. The Michael Jordan of computer

science. It's Michael Jordan. Call your kids Michael Jordan. That's clear. It's nominative

determinism. Just Michael Jordan. That's really fun. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Do they refer to Michael Jordan as the Michael Jordan of basketball?

Have you had a Fernando Corbato?

I can't tell until you pronounce it properly.

I want to be the Fernando Corbato of something. Yeah. Well, he was. He was the Fernando Corbato of

he died in 2019. He was 93 years old and he invented something we all have. Oh, and we've got loads

of them. Oh, personalities. Daddy issues.

Not yourself closer to the topic at heart. I'll go for transistors. No. Passwords. Oh,

did he? He invented the computer password. Always his mother's maiden name. Michael Jordan. Michael

Jordan. But with the numbers changed for the letters. I think it was the fifties that he invented

it. And it was because most computers worked on one thing at a time because they were the size

of rooms and they were, you know, they had processing power, but not much. And he was

trying to work out a way like a timeshare system so lots of people could work on the same computer

different tasks. And so he just reasoned that that's the best way of hiding your files from

each other inside the computer. Wow. And I've entered that. Yeah. In 2003. That is, you're

right. It was a sexy fact. But the thing is we don't whistle at facts anymore.

Well, wait, I mean, it's just, it's not okay. I'm sorry. I don't want to be a downer, but

actually, Carrie, it made me feel empowered. There's always one working against the movement.

What can I say? In 2003, a survey found that 90% of office workers passing through Waterloo

station would give away their computer password in exchange for a Byro.

Really? Just a Byro, not even a chocolate. Well, another one, another survey in 2003 found that

70% of people would do it in exchange for some chocolate. 100%. 34% of people just gave their

password without even needing the bribe. So once your password, they just told them. That's so good.

But that was in the past when you, you only needed like four, right? There's no way you can even

remember them. Yeah, that's amazing. I got a quick story about a Microsoft laptop that there was

a mystery. It kept crashing. This is 2005. So the culprit of the problem was Janet Jackson.

Is it the real Janet Jackson? The real Janet Jackson. And it was her song Rhythm Nation.

And what it was is that the frequency of it was at such the same level of which the disc was

spinning that it would send the disc into a wobble and it would crash. And even if Rhythm Nation

was playing from one laptop, but being heard by another laptop, that would crash as well.

Like dog whistles, just be like, is it me? Yeah, yeah, exactly. So it was, yeah. So,

so Janet Jackson was responsible for a whole software update or whatever of a Microsoft

laptop. She's constantly innovating. She is. Do you know the, you won't know this, but can you guess

the picture? What is it? What is it? We need more. We need more. That was almost a sentence,

but not quite. Sorry, sorry, sorry. So the picture which has the most pixels in it,

so the image that has the most pixels in the world has 102 terapixels. Okay.

Security, security. No. It feels nice, doesn't it? No, no, that did not feel nice. That fact was

just minding its own business. Okay, get ready to whistle. Can you guess what the picture is of?

Belgium. Is it like Tetris, just to give you a t-shirt? Or is it like very pixelated?

No, it's, it's pixelated in the fact that it has a lot of pixels in it, but it's not like,

oh, okay, okay. But basically, if you made it really small, it would be really clear. That's

the point. I'll say a big telescope thing like the universe. Mona Lisa. Oh gosh, no, it is the

world's biggest penis. Wow. Well, welcome to the whistle. This is your perfect partner. Wait,

do you mean it's the world's biggest picture of a penis or the world's biggest penis?

Clarify, we need that. It's a picture of a normal sized penis, but it's the world's biggest image.

And what's a normal sized penis? Just asking for a friend. So many issues. If they, if they made

each pixel one inch. That's not a normal sized penis, you see. That also wasn't really an inch,

but we'll not go into that. If you made each pixel an inch, it would wrap around the earth

2.7 times this image. And if you, if you are printed it out to the same specs as a billboard,

it would be as tall as 16,408 Empire State buildings. Right. And if you 3D printed that,

you would be able to poke the International Space Station. And you need permission before you do

that. Okay. It was invented by a former NASA intern who does, does not wish to be identified.

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We need to move on to our next act guys. It is time for fact number two and that is Cariad. Cariad.

During the 17th century when you died, your relatives were legally forced to bury you

wearing wool whether you liked it or not. And there was for no other reason than to support

the ailing wool industry. I love this fact. Okay so basically there was an act by parliament

in 1666 that overnight said everybody has to be buried in wool. And it sounds like oh okay but

previously to that nobody was buried in wool ever. Ever. That was like an unusual thing to happen.

You were buried in a linen shroud like Jesus in the Bible. And no coffin. No coffin right.

Sometimes they did have coffins. Sometimes they had coffins. It was unusual. But it was very

unusual. You would mostly be wrapped in a shroud and just shoved in the earth. Yeah.

And because the wool industry was so important and they were so worried about linen coming from

France basically. Classic fucking French linen coming over here taking our coffins.

The government basically said I know. How is your GB news show coming on?

Very well. Listen the British wool. I am sweating but I am British. So so many people

employed in the wool industry. Twelve percent of the population worked in the wool industry.

And it bought in a huge amount of money. So they said well we'll just make it a law that you have

to be buried in a wool suit in a coffin lined with wool. And if you weren't you were fined five

pounds which is the equivalent of 550 pounds today. Yeah. So and you had to then because so

basically initially everyone was like no fuck you. Why would we where are we going to get this from

no one has this. We have a history of this. And like the linens they used to wrap them in would

be like your family linen. You know so you would have something that's been like a table cloth

and you would keep it all night and then you would sew them together. The women would sew it

together and wrap everybody up. So it's like a very like nice thing. And so people weren't following

the law. So then they made it that you had to go to the keeper of the peace. Two members of your

family had to sign an affidavit saying we have done this otherwise you'd be fine. So you had to go

to the church and swear like based on the Bible go we buried them in wool. Sorry. Yeah there was

an oath you had to read right. Yeah a special oath which I've got here saying no corpse or any person

except any person that shall die of the plague. Fuck them. That's because they thought it lived

on in the wool. Shall be buried in any shift sheet or shroud or anything whatsoever made or mingled

with flax, hemp, silk, hair, gold or silver in any stuff or thing other than what is made of sheep's

wool only. That's yeah and they had to say that. But the fine that you mentioned the five pound fine

you if you grasped someone up as being buried in non-wool yeah then you could get half of the five

pounds. Yeah and this is the really clever thing if you had buried your relative in linen and

you knew that you were likely to be caught anyway you could go and grasp up on your own

relative get half the fine back into the family you've only paid half the fine. Did they do that?

Yeah they did. So rich people did that. So some people who like there were certain areas where it

was very much didn't they didn't approve of it and so rich people be like well fuck it was a bit too

fine. Well you said that like one of the rules was you couldn't bury in gold. Yeah. So I think if

you're burying someone in gold probably you can afford the five pounds. Yeah yeah yeah exactly.

So there was a study that was done between 1678 and 1707 less than one percent and this was in

Henstridge. Yes. Less than one percent of burials in the churchyard were in linen so following this

rule but then when you went inside the church itself it was between nine and 13 percent that were

then rich people who were in the church. Yeah yeah exactly. One interesting part of this is that

okay so you started to have loads more extra linen and extra cloth around because you were using

the wool for the burials and newspapers were made out of recycled cloth. So that's why you call

that a rag now because they used to use the rags turn into newspaper and then make newspapers.

And so they had all of these extra bits of linen which meant they could make more newspapers

and there was a huge boom of newspapers around that time and this sort of fed into that.

They were pleased about it. Everyone else was pissed off. And there's amazing have you heard

of Deca Mittford and I've talked to you guys about her before. Yeah one of the one of Jessica

Mittford Jessica Mittford the Mittford sisters who are like these social like 20th century British

figures who were involved in every single thing that happened. She went to America she was a

communist went to America kind of disowned her family. In the 60s she wrote this book called

An American Way of Death. Okay. It was like it's very odd because she was a British socialite

that had like gone to fight in Spain and then moved to America very unusual story.

But the book that she wrote basically changed the American funeral industry

because what was happening was they were just basically rinsing people for money

and when someone died they used to kind of perform plastic surgery on them

and then barmed them and so make them look I mean or she describes like basically

nip and tuck the tissue across the body with implants pins and fillers to mask blemishes

and swellings that come with age and illness before sewing the face into the most attractive

and youthful expression possible. Sewing it. Teeth were whitened makeup applied and the corpse

was dressed in its final outfit. Yes I would like all of this. There was a special kind of bra

designed for post-mortem form restoration. I'll pass on that. So she wrote this book exposing.

Why is it handy in a bra? It was part of the package. She wrote this amazing book that exposed

basically they were they were preying on the vulnerable so these poor people who had no

money would end up paying like thousands of dollars for what was considered like a proper

funeral and her book was like in the bestsellers for years. David Bowie listed it as one of his

favorite ever books top 100 books because she changed everything and they were putting so many

chemicals in at that time. It was so dangerous and that's why like funeral makers were dying of

cancer from inhaling on the formaldehyde. Grim. There's one kind of fun thing they used to do.

I bought it down as I do. Bring this back to the fun stuff and this is in ancient Roman funerals.

You could pay an actor and a lot of people did this. You would pay an actor

to dress up and wear a mask as the person who died and then in the party they'd kind of mingle with

everyone. Yes. Pretending that they were still alive and like parodying the things that they did.

Oh wait. Wait is it. I don't want to be parodied but I would love someone to be

doing some of my good stuff. You know like some I'd even write some lines for them to

I think that's a great idea for Andy at a funeral. Some dude walking around going did you know the

largest PDF file? God thank God. Thank God he died.

That's amazing. Look wool. I'm sorry bring it back to wool. We went off to death.

Wool is an amazing material. It's like a super substance that I had no idea about. So have

you not heard of wool before now? I didn't know how good wool was basically. So it's covered in

scales. If you look if you zoom in you look at it with a microscope it's covered in scales so liquid

water slides off the outside right. So it's very hydrophobic I guess so it's good at protecting

you from water but it not absorbs it adsorbs water easily right. So if you have water vapor

near it it kind of makes its way into the wool like underneath the scales. So once the water

gets in that keeps you nicely cool for example. Wait so sorry it's pushing off water. It pushes

liquid water but it takes in water vapor okay and that releases heat. So you're supposed to wear

like a wool jumper in summer and then in winter as well. It releases heat so that can also warm

you up even if it's got water vapor inside it so that's the way of keeping you warm. So if you fall

in a river that's freezing cold and then you get to dry land be wearing wool. Like don't wear cotton

if you've done that. Right. Basically it's like because you'll be much less harmed if you're

wearing wool which has repelled the outside water it's not wet on the inside. That's a top tip.

It's a top tip. If there's two of you on like a raft and only one of you can stay on the raft

the one who's wearing wool gets pushed in is what you're saying. Yeah exactly right.

No, don't be on a raft with James. They've invented a new kind of sheep this year that's

exciting. A new kind of sheep. They've bred a multifunctional sheep for the first time which

is very exciting. Let's go for the functions. Does it do your diary organised on a cook?

It just does wool and meat basically. That's new. And have the two been mutually exclusive

before that? I think this is the most multifunctional sheep they've ever come up with. Wow. The sheep

three. It's a sheep three. Is it not working? Just drop it. Drop it from a short height.

Well yeah that's incredible. I knew shakes. That's amazing. Oh I saw an amazing picture online

which I want to go see in person. If you go to which museum is it? I think it's in the Science

Museum. Yeah so Science Museum. There's a jumper there made of wool which is on display. Can you

guess why the Science Museum would have a notable jumper of wool? Knitted by expedition. That's

good. No no so it's not not been to the North Pole. Not been to the North Pole. Knitted by

Einstein. Knitted by some famous scientist. No. Was there a famous sheep? There we go.

It is it is wool from the first mammal ever cloned Dolly. The sheared wool turned into a

jumper. And they've only made one. It is. Yeah and it's got sheep on it. It's really beautiful.

That's not beautiful but it's you know it's it's a bit cartoony. Pretty cool though. It's very cool.

The wool industry was so important for Britain that they they had to do loads of laws for it so

there was this thing with the with the burials but there was another thing where they tried to get

rid of all the wolves because obviously the wolves were killing the sheep so Edward the first paid

one guy Peter Corbett to destroy all the wolves in Britain which he managed.

And William the Conqueror would grant land to people in Northumberland and Cumberland

on the condition that they would defend the land from any wolves and any Scotsman.

Just mean putting them second. Did you know I'm sure you knew about the wool sack?

That is in the House of Parliament. Oh it looks like a sort of giant cushion called the wool sack

and it's where the Lord Speaker sits and that is was introduced by some I just had it written down.

I've lost it. Some king basically a long time ago to commemorate how important the wool trade is

and now it's stuffed with wool a blended wool from Britain and the other wool producing nations

of the Commonwealth the ones we stole and now it's there. Common wolf more like

a slow hand clap. It didn't feel empowering I didn't feel. No just on the wool sack they

I think that it was it's centuries old like it's really really old and in 1938 they opened it up

and they found out oh it's horse hair completely full of horse hair full of wool scandal that is

so now they filled it with the Commonwealth wool. Do you know where we almost had wool?

Where? It's such a like on our bodies. Do you mean like humans used to have? On our bodies yes.

The legs. No. The arms. No. What do you mean almost like wool? The teeth. The teeth. The teeth were

more. No no inside the body. Yes. Oh. What? How drunk are we? We used to have some kind of

order. No no no we didn't used to we almost had. We almost had wool in our in our

in lungs. Lungs. Hearts. Boobies.

We almost had woolen boobies. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. So

in the 1950s there was a lot of experiments going on. In the 1950s? Yeah we didn't get boobs in

the 1950s as a species. Oh we did. We did. But what we did have was plastic surgery where people

were having their breasts enhanced and there were many materials that were tested out as what we

would be using for breasts. That is an itchy tit. You do get itchy tits if that is made of wool.

Itchy on the inside. They tried wool. They tried sponges. They tried ivory balls.

Yeah they tried a lot of stuff and then eventually it was the silicon implants that

they worked in. Sponges so you could maybe decrease and increase and putting how much water you put.

Yeah yeah. Sounds good. Anyway I need to move us on to our next fact. Do you want to say

one more thing before we do? Well I was just going to talk about the wool factories that we had. So

a lot of the wool factories in the north they would have families who basically lived in the

shadow of them and their factories would kind of look after them feed them. They would go to

church with the factory owners. All that kind of stuff. And I was reading about one called

the fox's woollen mill. They invented khaki. The thing you used to get into your car.

That's not what I thought you said. No the khaki material. Cool. And they said that the children

would get free woollen clothing and they would be sewn into their woollen underwear in September

and then let out again in May. Wow. I think they must have had an opening. Yeah there's

an engineering problem there. I think so. Wow. But yeah imagine that. Put a tube in. You stay warm.

But being sewn into your underwear for six months of the year. Livie Newton-John was sewn into those

trousers in Greece. That's true. And they had to unpick her every time she needed to. There was a

story wasn't there that Franz Ferdinand when he was shot he'd been sewn into his uniform.

You went the bad. I was like what? They're going take me out. Take me out.

It is time for fact number three and that is my fact. My fact this week is that in 1914

women were only allowed to visit the Natural History Museum if a man agreed to sign a note

promising that they would behave themselves. So this is yeah this is as I say 1914. I got this

fact by the way from Dr. Fern Riddell. She's a historian. She's written in books about suffragettes

and and the history of sex and all that sort. She's brilliant. You can find her on Twitter.

And she she put up this link which was for one of the museums by an author called Kerry Lotvaz.

And it was the story of suffragettes and during 1912 to 1914 there was so much damage that was

going on in the name of trying to get their message out much as much the way that we see

modern protesting that they would take they would they would do quite sort of big acts when they

have destroying things and museums were a particular target. And so museums basically had to shut

down for a while. You had to go by appointment in some cases. But women specifically had a note

that was presented to a man and they would have to hand in at the door that then gave them access.

And if they did damage something the man would be liable for the damage that they did

and the woman. Yeah. Honestly. Yeah it was it was wild wasn't it. The Natural History Museums

weren't sure exactly what they might target. The head of the museum said that unless explosives

are used the large mammals are not likely to suffer very seriously. But they did like they

were bombing things at the time. So there was a chance. They're not worried about women's rights.

They're like fucking hell those elephants. Oh yeah. They need protecting. Well they were mostly

bothered about the coral apparently famously order priorities men coral women. Yeah. But it was it was

such a big deal. Lloyds of London actually started issuing householders comprehensive insurance

policies that covered damages by airplanes riots and suffragettes. No. Yeah. That was part of your

insurance. If as a woman you did go to a museum you had to surrender your parcels your muff and

your umbrella at the door because they were all they were all used to conceal objects you

tried you did. Well the suffragettes they actually the suffragettes came out saying that we're going

to put hammers in our muffs. Yeah. Like you'd be amazed what some women can do.

Muff hammer is a good cool nickname for a suffragette isn't it. WWE Muff Hammer.

Making her way to the ring. She's got a note from her husband.

But he hasn't signed it. Sank. Oh also we should all be saying suffragettes. Oh really. Because

they were very very initially with the world was coined by a newspaper writer and they were

originally referred to as suffragettes because and they took it on because they said we're going to

get to the vote. It was the Daily Mail. Yeah. The Daily Mail coined the word suffragette jet

as a slam. It was because they were not the nice ones distinguished from the

yet women's social and political union. The suffragists were the ones who were being peaceful

campaigners. But then it became like yeah we are suffragettes. Fuck you. Yeah. Just on the museum

it's just one last thing. The assistant keeper of the National Portrait Gallery who was called

James Milner said that if women are to be admitted into public galleries there seems to be no

alternative but to handcuff their hands behind their backs and to put up a grill in front of all

the pictures to stop them headbutting them. Sensible policies for a safer Britain. Wow. Wow. Isn't

that amazing. Very impressive. Yes they really really got up people's noses I think so to say.

That's one word for it. Do you know about Emily Wilding Davidson. Yeah. Davidson the one who threw

herself under the King's horse famously she was the first human casualty. But I was reading about

her and she was actually like super violent and had been for a very long time was like throwing

rocks. She kept trying to throw rocks at Lloyd George but kept mistaking someone. And she was

so violent that Pankhurst was like get her out. Like this is too much. Really. We think she's going

to do something nuts. Yeah because she was just like attacking people throwing herself at people

because they all did jujitsu didn't they. They were trained in jujitsu by one of the suffragettes

Edith Garrard. Garrard led the teaching because she knew how to do jujitsu. And the idea behind

the training was that appointed bodyguards would surround leaders like the Pankhurst basically

so that they had people in front of them to do jujitsu. But they also had big wooden clubs

concealed about their person. In their muff hammers. Well I don't know. Like no muff is big

enough to hide these clubs. They have to hide them in their dressers. I don't know. I was reading

about the slow pace of female emancipation. Just that Saudi Arabia gave women the right

to vote in 2015 leaving Vatican City as the only place where women's suffrage is still denied

today. Right. Yeah well Switzerland only got it in 1991 as the whole country. So it was 1971

that the country had universal suffrage. But all the cantons were allowed to vote on it themselves.

And they're like the sort of counties. They're like the counties yeah but they have a lot of

things that they can kind of decide by themselves. And there was one canton the Appenzell inner

Holden canton that voted against women's suffrage in 73, 82 and 1990. Fuck you now.

Come on canton get with it. I know. And the thing is it's slightly weird because the way that

they vote there they don't like go into a voting booth. They all go into the town hall square

and kind of shout. Fuck women. I said it 15 years ago and I stand by it. Shut up Sandra.

Yeah and then in 1991 the federal government had to step in and say look this is the rule guys.

Guys you're embarrassing us. You're embarrassing uncle. He's getting really embarrassing.

Have you heard of the board game suffragetto? No. Have you heard of the board game pankersquith?

Yeah they came out roughly at the same time. Really? Yeah yeah. What's yours? My one is a game

whereby it kind of looks like a chess board and you have all these pieces and on one side

your team suffragette and then the other side your team police and you need to get as many.

I want this game. This sounds amazing. Yeah well there's only one remaining copy of it and it's in

the Bodleian library. I'm gonna go with my Marfan Steele before I headbutt a painting. I think it

used to be able to like download I was going to say PDFs but I think you could like download

the board and stuff. Yeah right of course. Yeah but pankerswith because it was Asquith the Prime

Minister. So Asquith was the Prime Minister at the time and this was 1909 and it was a board game.

You had to you had to get across the board and avoid arrest. It was the same kind of premise.

But the violence of the suffragette movement was part of this game of suffragetto because

if you caught one of the suffragettes they went to prison and if you caught one of the policemen

they went to hospital. Yes. Yeah and this was this was made by the suffragettes I think the board

game. Yeah so it was their own issued game. They had a lot of merch. They had a load of merch. Women love

merch. We'll buy a tote bag. We don't care what's on it. We do not care. What other merch did they have?

Oh they had sort of scarves and they had badges and they had there were lots of postcards. Well the

colours the big thing was the purple one and then they put that on jewellery as well and you'd

have it on rings and it was like a secret you could wear the colours separately and everyone

would be like oh I know what you vote for. That was one of the things of the at the 2012 Olympics

they had a suffragette display as part of the opening ceremony and someone came out as Emily

Davison wearing the purple sash that was Emily Davison's that's the genuine article yeah which

is pretty cool. We should probably say there is a bit of a debate about whether suffragette tactics

won the day in the end because they suspended all militant activities at the start of the

First World War and then by the end of the war women were so integrated in industry factories

all of that. Are you saying war's good? Is that where there's going? Or are you saying the suffragettes

are bad? Yeah which one Andy? Because the live audience and the people listening at home would

like to know. Well actually I'm probably saying both. Welcome to Jim Beanie's. But no there is a

debate isn't there about did actually actually did they achieve anything because they made themselves

very very hated at the time and then the impression was that by the end of the war that women had

just were just so much more in society. And then would that have happened without them doing that

movement in the first place? I don't know yeah it would be four long years yeah yeah but it's

definitely like the tosses argue. Can I quickly just speaking of people hiding things in their

muffs. It just like just reminded me of my favorite headline of all time. So the author Cormac McCarthy

died earlier this year and it was a headline that I saw years ago this is the headline so he only

just makes a cameo and this is not really to do with him. Cormac McCarthy's ex-wife pulls gun from

vagina during argument over aliens. Tell me you're clicking on that link immediately. The daily

telegraph has changed hasn't it. What was that? Where was that? It was in a newspaper. Oh great yeah.

In Iraq. Yeah by Vince Mancini yeah. Flex out. Anyway yeah I've been wanting to say that for

years on this podcast. Okay it is time for our final fact of the show and that is James. Okay my

fact this week is that a designer from Indonesia who recycles cow dung has found a way to make stools

from stools. Very nice. Thank you. Yeah it's just a joke that stools and stools are the same thing

but this is a thing that happened this was a display from the last Singapore design week

which I read about. It's all about upcycling so they made lighting from old washing machine

pipes. They made rugs from dog hair and this guy called Adhi Nugraha has his team basically at his

university has taken this dung. They remove the water that gets rid of the smell. They add a load

of wood glue and stuff like that and then they mold it into into anything you want. You can get

speakers. You can get stools. You can get flower pots all sorts. That's very cool. That's interesting.

It's a good way of recycling poo. A lot of it is burned isn't it? Cow dung in India which is

really bad for the environment. I mean cows themselves are very bad for the environment and

the dung like is full of methane and it just burning it just is a bad idea but it can be used to coat

walls. Yeah that's another thing. Adobe for instance. Yeah adobe. Pooh and wool combined.

Well so I was reading a thing about astronaut poo and what it might be used for for. Oh yeah and

this is an exciting development so it might it might be in future that astronauts are able to

power their own spaceship using polymers from their own poo. So that that's thrilling as in you

can send astronauts to Mars and be like make your own way home when you hear some fruit and fiber.

Yeah exactly yeah six months and the other thing is they might be able to grow their own.

This is a bit is a bit of a gross factor but trying to disregard it so they might be able to grow

their own food from well I said control control the effect. No one's ready. There were scientists

at Pennsylvania in 2017 they researched this thing a bioreactor right uh-huh so you effectively you

you poo in the tube and then the puh tube puh tube that's a good name for it that's actually going

to make it much more palatable to people I think and it produces gas it sort of gives off various

biological gases and that fuels a microbial goo. Oh god that's the worst word you've used so far.

We were all on board until microbial goo. Be squeamish. Microbial goo chief. They create a

reactor and the good news good or bad news as I suppose it works and so that. So what is the

reaction is it power or is it what are they getting out of it. This is to produce the

Vegemite like microbial goo. Oh you're going to eat it. You're not and I should stress you're not

eating anything that you have it's completely safe. You're filtering it. It's like it's all

filtration. If I go to a restaurant I don't want to go it's just completely safe. Yes it was once

your shit but it's not anymore people change. I thought as well when you said about spearing

stuff on walls I thought that was a thing that they were talking about deep space exploration

because one of the problems that you have when you're flying further into space is that you go

into these radiation bands where suddenly you're just getting smashed by it and if you put poo

all over your walls. On the outside of the spaceship. Oh is it on the outside. I believe so.

Who's doing that. I thought it was on the inside. Yeah who's who's. Who's going outside. You go on

a spacewalk. You can go on a spacewalk. What does your son do at NASA again.

Cleanest PDFs actually. Just tell them Arthur. You smear shit on the outside of a spaceship

and we should be proud of him. Jesus Christ. You can imagine slowly you're sort of like 30 years

into an intergalactic mission. You're outside your spaceship. You're smearing your later batch of

shit on the outside guy. They're taking the fucking piss aren't they. I should have done that drama

degree man. It's not worth it. Go to space they said. See the universe they said.

I like the use of it was on the inside. That was normal. You were like yeah yeah living in like

a shit hole. Well it makes more sense. Should we. They're going on a spacewalk. Dismiss shit all over

your ship. Yeah I think it does. I could just imagine NASA checking in with you dad. A few months

into the mission. Sorry sorry astronaut Shriver. We lost control and have you been.

Okay send send him home. Send him home.

Astronaut Shriver you're going to need to turn your entire spaceship inside out.

No Dan you need to poo into the tube. We're meant to filter it before eating.

The video on poo tube isn't loading. I couldn't see it. Recycling. Recycling.

Recycling. Paper. Paper right. Paper. Well this is insane. Like okay you recycle paper.

Sure. And then. If you don't shame on you. If you don't and then you have recycled paper. It's

one of the easy ones. You recycle it again right. It's one of those things that you can

just keep recycled. It turns out that you can only recycle paper seven times. The same number of

times. You can fold it. Yes. Isn't that spooky. That is spooky. The tree knows. The tree is like no more.

Wrap me in wool and put me in the ground. It's kind of like the sort of Doctor Who regeneration

limit isn't it. Can I ask you a question though. When you recycle. So I want to recycle this paper.

Yeah. Put it in my recycling bin. How do I know if it's been recycled seven times and I'm wasting

just wasting more recycling. This is nice paper as in the paper that you get. Thank you.

Like it gets a bit rougher doesn't it. It does. Like the sort of rough low quality pulpy paper.

Cheap notebooks will be made of that and then there are probably some industrial uses. Yeah but

then if you've got a cheap notebook should you put. What should you put in there. I'm not the only one

who's stressed about this right. Absolutely. Because you put so much in there then you go

to the big bin on the estate right and it's full of fucking plastic bags because no one reads the

sign properly. And then is it worth me doing it. Yes. Someone contaminates the bin. I don't think

we're saying don't recycle. I think I don't care. I'm going to really bite down on this.

No you should do it. And I do it but it's frustrating. I know. I know. You have to be

careful what you recycle. Wind turbine blades. They were out sometimes. Yeah. And they're really

difficult to recycle. Okay. Because they're made of lots of different polymers and stuff.

Yeah. They've got a new one. A new kind of material that they might use for turbine blades

and you can recycle it by eating it. Oh wow. You just get some microbial goo

and then you spread it on top. And so what's it made of. It's made of fibreglass. Yeah. But

as well as fibreglass it's got some plant derived polymers. It's got some synthetic polymers in

and once it's been working for ages and you need to replace it you can kind of dissolve it

and all the constituent parts separate and you can reuse all those different bits and the plant

based ones you can turn into gummy bears. And the guy who invented it has made a wind turbine

then dissolved it turn it into a gummy bear and eat those gummy bears. I mean I like gummy bears

already. If I find out that I'm eating gummy bears which are made from renewable energy

turbines I'm going to be over the f***ing moon. That would be so good. One thing that can be

recycled that has been a bit of a bane of the recycling industry for a while is nappies. Oh yeah.

Because sometimes they contain lots of different components and it can be hard to separate them.

This is a really good study from this year. It's researchers from Indonesia actually just

whether your original fact is from James and it's researchers have found a way of taking

nappies, used nappies, washing, drying, sterilizing, treading them right and then putting them into

concrete and mortar. Wow. And they have successfully built a home that is 10% old nappies. Wow. And

it's completely sterile. It's completely like it's and it can use two cubic meters of used nappies,

one single story home without any weakness of structure or integrity or anything like that.

And it's completely safe. It uses up a load. I think that is about the amount a baby gets

through in a year or two. Not my baby. We could build half of Milton Keyes at work this week.

And so that's just a trial so far. But even in the UK, half of the Welsh

A487 road is made of 100,000 nappies. Amazing. And they would just recycle it. I know plastic

pellets that are then part of the road material and then he tarmac over the top. So when we were

talking about the three little pigs earlier blowing down a shithouse, that actually could be a

reality in the future. We're going to have to wrap up in a sec guys. We are at the end of the party.

Oh. Yeah, so sorry. It's time. It's time. Yeah. Anything before we do? You can recycle rare

earth metals using fish sperm. We're done. We're done. No one can tell me that's it.

Is that the stuff you get those in your phone, don't you? The rare earth metals, yeah.

This is a thing. It's, you know, Milton, Milton's the technical name for fish sperm, basically. So

scientists use some, again, it's at the experimental stage. This is not widely used.

But they made a powder out of some salmon milk because that is like largely composed of DNA,

which largely is made up of phosphate, right? And that is, it's charged in a way that it

attracts rare earth metals to it. Cool. So if you put it in a solution with some rare earth

metals, because they obviously they're very important to recycle. And you want to recycle

as much as you can keep it in the system going around. And if you put it in a solution with

some salmon sperm, then it can be extracted. How much sperm do you need? Like, are we going to

have to farm fish and make them ejaculate millions of times? I think that is the problem of scale

in this. You're absolutely right, because it's like a salmon is quite small and it's, it is a

waste product for the fish industry, but it's not. Not if you're a Mrs. Salmon.

How are you getting the milk? Like, how do you collect milk? I'm just asking for a friend.

I don't know. The milk man just comes round.

Okay, that's it. That is all of our facts. Thank you so much for listening. If you'd like to get

in contact with any of us about the things we have said over the course of this podcast,

we can be found on our Twitter accounts. I'm on at Shriverland, James. At James Harkin.

Andy. At Andrew Hunter M. Cariad. At Cariad Lloyd on Instagram. And you can also get us

on our group account on Twitter, which is at no such thing. Go to our website as well. No

such thing as a fish.com. All of our previous episodes are up there. And you can also join

Clubfish. We've got any Clubfish members. And yeah, very nice. Very cool. It's a secret society

for dorks. And it's, and it's awesome. So do join that. Otherwise, join us again next week

for another episode. We'll see you then. Thank you so much. Soho Theatre. That was awesome. Goodbye.

Machine-generated transcript that may contain inaccuracies.