No Such Thing As A Fish: 499: No Such Thing As Old Testament Podcasts

Hi everyone and welcome to another episode of No Such Thing as a Fish where we were joined

by none other than Lou Sanders, one of the funniest people I know.

You'll know Lou from all sorts of TV stuff.

She was on Taskmaster, she's been on QI many times, she's just a really, really, really

funny person.

We had such a good laugh with her making this show in the Soho Theatre last month, but what

I really want to say and what is very important is that Lou has a brand new book out.

The book is called What That Lady Doing.

It's a really, really great book about how she maybe used to be a little bit unhinged

and now channels all that unhingedness into amazing comedy.

It's so well written, I really highly recommend it, but one thing I should also say while

we're talking about books is that Anna and I have written our own book.

It's called Everything to Play For, the QI Book of Sport.

It's for people who like sports, it's even for people who don't like sports, who just

want to read a load of interesting stories and fun facts.

I mean, it's from me and Anna, you know what you're going to get.

And it comes out next Thursday, but the reason we wanted to mention it now is because if

you go to Waterstones and you put in the offer code QISport23, then you will get 25% off

and that is a deal for pre-order only, so you need to do that before Thursday if you

want to get our book for a quarter off.

Anyway, more importantly really for this week is you must go and check out Lou Sanders book

What That Lady Doing, that's available right now in all bookshops and all online places

where you get your books.

Hope you enjoy the show.

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 and I'm sitting here with James Harkin, Andrew Hunter Murray

and Lou Sanders 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 my fact, my fact this week is that names of

registered competitive roller derby players include Skatebush, Venus Thytrap, Camille

Toe, Alice in Wunderland and Weird Owl Spankabitch.

That's rude.

Very rude but this is the most fun naming convention I think I've ever discovered which

is the amazing sport of roller derby largely takes place in America.

They have this huge registry of names where when you join you almost get like a WWF wrestling

name.

You pick it for yourself, you put it forward and you get added to this big register and

then when you're out there that's who you are, that's who you embody and it's there's

something like 40,000 names that have been put over various different lists over the

years.

That's so good.

The names are so good.

It's a huge list and you can waste a lot of time as I did.

So HP Shovecraft, Roll de Mort, that's a good one and some of them are just like pure

on like there are some just violent ones.

Affirmative Smaction, Agatha Crushty, Al Strapone, a bit of a stretch but Strapon I think they're

going for there are they?

I think it's Al Capone but with the Strapon.

Got it.

There's also Adolf Glitter, Adolf Hitzer, Adolf Whistler and Adolf Hitter.

I'm sure I think flirting with the taste line.

Yes.

But they are good.

Flirting and winning.

It's an amazing spy, I say it's mostly women who do it, in fact it's almost exclusively

women.

Fine, I know.

Well you do it, you're not roller derby but you're a roller skater.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I know some roller derby people, yeah.

And do you have a name?

What do we call it?

Loose Ends.

Loose Ends.

Loose Ends because you view a skating term is to send it.

Loose Ends.

I've actually found roller derby names for each of us, just going through the database.

So for you, Lou, there is Lou Brickendt and Luzya Daddy.

Luzya Daddy's lovely.

And there's Andy Clockwise, James Bondage and...

Do you know what they do in roller derby?

Did you think it's Bondage?

In his fantasy, it's a little bit different.

Dan Halen or Dansyn Queen.

Dansyn Queen.

Ah, that's good.

Yeah, so yeah.

But the sport is basically you roller skate around the rink, right, and you've got one

person who's kind of in charge and who you're trying to protect while the other team are

trying to get them, basically, it's like that kind of thing, isn't it?

And it started off, the whole sport started off as endurance races, so in the 1880s there

was this huge thing in America, I think we might have mentioned it before, of women doing

six-day races where they would just walk and walk and walk and walk again and again and

again until basically there was one person left who would just keep walking, keep walking.

And then they started to do it on roller skates and what they found is that some of the people

who were faster would get round the circuit and start overtaking people and then the people

who were being overtaken would really hate it and so they start knocking them over and

they found that people enjoyed that way more than they enjoyed the rest of it.

They didn't really quite like people just going round in circles, loads and loads of

times, but they loved it when people beat the shit out of each other.

Yeah.

Well, I can see why though, because the very first one that they did, this is what you

would come and watch, people skating, roller skating around a ring, 57,000 times.

The idea was that they were going across America, that's the thing, they'd worked out how many

times around the thing was to get from New York to LA or whatever.

So they'd stop for breaks though, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Not much, you wouldn't stop for much breaks.

You'd stop for just like 20 minutes here or there and you'd go 24 hours just with the

occasional just stopping for the up and down.

I think it's a lot more fun now, they're sort of bashing each other out the way.

You've done that?

Have you tried that?

No, but so many people have told me, so basically it's quite aggressive sport, like my friends

do it and it's like you end up with a lot of breakages and stuff and it's often like

big units that do it and so many people have told me that I'd be really good at it.

It's so many, but you should do that.

Do you know what your friends have particular names that?

Yeah, but I can't remember any of them, but I only write down two, C unit, but the I is

very small.

C unit, oh yeah, yeah.

And Captain Beaver and I thought, sounds like my love life.

I was chatting to someone called Lynn Quinn who was England captain.

Hang on, is that a joke name or that?

It's not, it's real.

It's her real name.

What's say the name again?

Lynn Quinn.

Oh, OK.

I did think you said Lynn Quinn, that's why I have questions.

That might have been her fake name, no, her fake name was Shaolin Scarlett and she was

a captain of the England team in the World Cups in 2014 and 2016 and I was asking her

about how it works.

She said it's lots of teamwork is really, really important, the teamwork and where they

came up with a new tactic, they all get matching tattoos of their tactic of Lynn.

That's pretty hard.

Well, we do that with our facts, don't we?

Yeah, we are absolutely coated head to toe.

They've had to make the font smaller and smaller as the years go by because they keep thinking

we'll stop, but we won't.

Have you got any tatties?

Have a guess.

No.

I'll never tell.

I knew this is a podcast, you can say what you want.

Oh yeah, I got 16 huge ones.

Got all the lingo.

16 big ones.

That's why you walked into the tattoo place and said give me 16 big ones.

I don't mind what they're of as long as they're big.

Teenage Mutant Inja Turtle, there's another one.

Oh, very nice.

I thought that was your tattoo.

Two-pack Shanker.

That's clever.

That's good.

Twat Rocket.

I think that one's so clever.

I love that one.

The events as well.

Night of the Rolling Dead, Noctober Fest, Spank's Giving, Season's Beatings.

Okay.

Great.

But there were these big mass events earlier, like even in the 19th century before they

started doing proper skating, before these sort of like formal events.

So in 1884 there was a guy called Victor Clough who skated 100 miles in 10 hours, like around

a course, which was very impressive.

And then in 1885 there was a six-day event where they had 36 skaters, again, roller skates

competing.

And then soon after that, the winner of the race, who was a guy called William Donovan,

and another competitor, died.

Oh.

Yeah.

And they said, oh, maybe we shouldn't do this for 10 hours a day all the time, because

people just weren't up to it and they just kept going.

I was reading about the walking version that came before the skating.

And this was, like I said, it was women doing this for six days at a time.

And it became so popular that there was one stage, I can't remember where it was, but

there was a load of kids went missing in an area and everyone thought, oh, shit, all these

kids are gone missing.

And what they found is they were in a warehouse and they started their own event of walking

around in circles for days on end.

Wow.

And they just were trying to copy what these women were doing and were like, yeah, let's

do it ourselves.

And they'd been walking around in circles for three days when they were found.

God.

I thought that was going to take a darker turn.

I thought it was going to be like a roller-skating Pied Piper situation where the Pied Piper

had skated through the town and all the children had danced.

Yeah, we thought it was a Jimmy Saffle direction.

I didn't think that.

Did you hear of Rinkomania?

No, what's that?

This is the Edwardian craze for rinks, skating rinks.

Loads of venues around everywhere used to be rinks that are now converted, just because

it was so crazy.

Basically because you could meet the opposite sex.

That was the, you're a bit less chaperoned.

You're able to skate away from your chaperone.

I read one article saying, Mother Grundy dare not trust herself on skates, which meant

that some, you know, all the person isn't going to be watching you and making sure what you're

doing with the other, the opposite sex.

Yeah.

My wife started, I can't believe, I've just thought of this just now, but my wife decided

to start roller-skating.

And her skate instructor is very upset.

What's her street name?

Oh, I'm not sure.

I don't want to say anything that will mean I can't go home tonight because she's here.

So, but here's the thing, right?

So she bought a pair of roller skates.

She hasn't done it since she was a teenager.

And we're leaving the house and she starts putting them on.

And I said, what are you doing?

And she was like, I'm just going to go and do it now.

And I was like, you've got to test it out in a park.

We're on a main road here and you're going on your own with our child in a buggy.

Wulf was like only a few months, like, you know, nine months old or something like that.

So I said, listen, I better come with you.

And she was insistent that she does it.

So she put the roller skates on.

She took the buggy outside.

And you live at the top of a very steep hill, don't you?

We do.

We do have a bit of an incline on the street.

And you go everywhere by unicycle as well, don't you?

So I closed the door and all I hear is, ahh!

And I turn around and Fenella and the buggy have just gone off.

And she can't stop because she doesn't know how to use the brake on the back.

And I have to chase them down the road as they're heading to oncoming traffic coming on the road.

There's two guys with some glass going across the road.

Wow.

I love that spirit, though.

That is amazing.

Oh, can I ask you, have you seen Roller Limbo?

No.

This is amazing.

Okay, so it is literally, as it sounds, there's limbo on roller skates.

And you, oh, yes, yes.

You think you know what it is and you're wrong.

No, no, no.

So what you're imagining maybe is someone skating towards and then bending backwards.

That's what I'm imagining, yeah.

It's not how you do it.

You basically, it's so hard to describe because I'm behind a desk,

but basically your legs go out to the sides, you go down into the splits.

I'll be honest, Andy, I don't think the fact there's a desk here

is what makes that difficult for you to imagine.

I so wish I could show you all.

Well, we have put some skates for you.

So you're doing the sideways splits.

Sideways splits, but you're moving forwards and you're holding onto your, your, your calves.

I know.

And you're going under these bars, which are about, I don't know, 20 centimetres high

and you're so low as you head for it.

You've got to look it up.

It is so good.

Wow.

It's the most amazing thing.

Those people need to grow up a little bit.

Competitors are mostly children, so.

No, good on them.

Have you heard of Jean-Yves Blondeau?

So Jean-Yves Blondeau has invented a new suit made of plastic

that has 30 roller skates attached to it in all different parts of his body.

So wherever he, if he falls over on his back, he can roller skate.

If he falls on his front, he can roller skate.

Brilliant.

If he falls on his head, he can roller skate.

He can walk along the wall and roller skate along the wall as he's going.

I can't make it.

He can.

There's videos on YouTube.

Wow.

Is he using it as powers for good or for evil?

I would say neither good nor evil.

He's just using them for more hits on YouTube.

Can he do it on his head?

Yeah, the head one, I probably maybe exaggerate a little bit.

But he could do it in theory, yeah.

And he basically goes down all these really big hills around the world

as quickly as he can on his suit.

How does he stop?

Does he have a break on his elbows or something?

You know what?

I'm not sure.

He must have some breaks.

He's just still going somewhere right now.

Eventually, but one gets to the bottom of the hill.

You don't need to stop.

The reason you stop yourself is in case you fall over.

He's already fallen over.

You don't need to stop.

There's a big wall there.

You can just go up the wall and then on the side and then on his head and stuff.

He cannot be stopped.

He should be stopped.

He should be stopped.

He also has one of his suits which, these ones you can buy, these 30 ones.

I don't know how much they are, but they are available.

But he does have one suit which isn't for sale, which also features samurai blades and spike horns.

Oh my God.

What is that useful for?

Probably evil, I reckon.

I give him six years life expectancy.

Yeah, exactly.

I need to move this on very soon.

I've got a couple of other names that I found.

So here's the thing.

There's a lot of extremely rude names on this registry.

And it's done in a kind of empowering way.

I think it's exciting to have these real badass names, but God damn it, they really go for it.

So some of them I discovered.

Bitch Hiker is one.

Okay.

Vagina Might.

Oh wow.

Is that like Marmite?

Yeah, you love it or you hate it.

It's some kind of yeast extract, I'm not sure.

Oh my God.

This isn't what I expected from this podcast.

Stop the podcast.

Stop the podcast.

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I'm with the podcast.

I'm with the show.

It is time for fact number two and that is Lou.

OK.

My fact this week is that the TikTok singer who went viral with The Seashunty is unable

to perform his song on the boats because he suffers from terrible seasickness.

Yeah, it's typhonic.

That's what that is.

It's sweet as well.

It's lame.

No, it is sweet.

It is sweet, actually.

It was an amazing thing, wasn't it?

Basically, it was 2021.

He suddenly releases this seashunty called Wellerman and it went to number one, which

is, yeah, it went to number one in the UK charts.

It's a song about a whale trawler and they're looking for a whale and this was 2021.

So you would think by now maybe it's died down a bit, but I went on to his Spotify

listens.

He still, as of today, gets five million listens a month on his Spotify account.

That's the same as Tom Jones.

Wow.

So it's not unusual, though.

Don't shake your head at your own.

That is really good.

It's not even a seashunty, is it?

No, not really, no, isn't it?

No, it isn't.

None of these are.

Is it River Shunty?

What is that?

It's just a song.

A seashunty has to be something that you sing when you're working.

So like Drunken Sailor is like, what would you do with a Drunken Sailor?

You're pulling the rope and you're bringing them to sales.

If he's getting a record deal, he's working sort of on that.

That's a really good point.

Checkmate, Harkin.

That is the cool thing about seashanties, like the old seashanties, is that because

on a vessel you only had a very skeleton crew that had to do multiple things, the

song is the beat of allowing you to know how we all work as a group.

So the rhythm of it, the lyrics of it would mean you have to pull at that

moment and pull at this or whatever places and whatever.

So people often see it done on like Navy ships.

It never really would have happened on Navy ships because they had so much crew.

You didn't need this.

They were banned, the UK Navy, they were banned seashanties because you wouldn't be

able to hear commands if you're singing too much.

But you're having a laugh.

So it's like merchant ships.

When wailing ships, things like that.

And there were specific songs for different things you were doing on board.

So there was hauling shanties, running shanties, pump shanties, swabbing shanties,

capstan shanties.

Capstan is that thing you turn around in the middle of the ship that pulls the anchor up.

Oh yeah.

And all these had their own songs, really.

That's pretty cool.

Yeah, I love it.

But it's been like that song that he sang.

It's not like it's an obscure song that's not been around for ages.

It's one of like the better known sea songs.

And you can read a list of places that's appeared.

So it was in 2013.

It was on the album Now That's What I Call Sea Shanties.

Volume one.

Yeah, I found that.

Did you find the volume two?

Yeah, I did.

No.

Yeah, it's on Spotify.

Not as many listeners as Tom Jones.

But it's doing OK.

To be fair, it's a great title.

And it's not multiple different sea shanty acts.

It's just the one band from Wellington in New Zealand called Wellington Sea Shanties Society.

But there is a whole genre.

How did they get that name?

There is a whole kind of niche genre of pirate metal.

And they sing Wellerman as well, this song.

It's a Scottish band called Ale Storm and Stormseeker.

They've been known to sing this song.

So it's been around.

So how come he gets all the money for it then?

Just because he made it popular.

It's a traditional song.

And so traditional songs, I don't think there's any copyright over.

I'm not sure if that's right.

I think that's what's right.

Yeah, you're right.

I think you do get royalties, but you have to bury them on a remote island.

That's quite a pain in the arse, actually.

OK, a little quiz question for you.

When did the last actual proper shanty man, not like modern singers,

when did the last proper shanty man die?

Oh.

Oh, well, I would have thought probably 18th century.

OK, any advance on that?

1992, 1992.

1992, OK.

Good guess.

Yeah, 1993.

We're just having a laugh.

Well, Lou, you're correct because you died in 1992.

Are you joking?

No.

Are you joking?

No, I'm not joking.

I was, as you said it, I was like, keep the poker face.

Keep, like, don't give away shit.

She's got it.

Yeah, that's insane.

I didn't look at his notes or anything.

He was a guy called Stanley Hougill.

And he was...

Yeah, he knew that.

Yeah.

He was born in 1906.

He was at sea in 1922 when at the end of 16.

He's got to be.

Yeah.

And then he was the shanty man on the last ever British sailing ship,

which was called the Garth Pool.

And that was on its last voyage.

And that ship was wrecked in 1929.

And then he lived his whole life.

He was in the Sack of a War.

He settled down.

You know, he wrote down all his shanties

because they're all traditional.

There wasn't this proper songbook.

Wow.

And he died in 1992.

Wow.

Yeah.

You won't like this,

but this is not really your sort of bag.

But I do think I'm a bit psychic.

We're talking about sitting right next to the person

who absolutely loves hearing that kind of stuff.

Why do you think you're psychic?

You think you pulled that out of Andy's head just now?

Yeah, basically.

And I'm very emotionally intelligent.

But you don't even believe in UFOs,

so I'm not going to continue.

I said that to you in private backstage.

That's true.

He said he doesn't believe in UFOs and he hates women.

Only one of those things is true.

He's a lovely lad.

Oh, dear.

Oh, wow.

Just joking.

Punishment.

Anyone?

Actually, I can't feel like I've had enough.

This is to do with music and the army,

so corporal punishment in the British army

was often meted out by drummers and bands people.

You were the drum.

In a way.

I suppose, in a way,

you were.

The cat of nine tails is the drumsticks.

It was like rhythm.

Well, no, it wasn't so much that.

It was probably, there was two possible reasons.

One, that other musicians would play music

and it would drown out the screams of the person being punished.

But probably because just the people who were drummers

or in the band, they were not proper sailors.

And so they were like the lowest of the low

of the, as far as, you know, who's the most senior.

And so the idea was, if you were a sailor,

you wouldn't want to be meeting out punishment to your,

to your peers.

And so maybe you would get the person at the bottom to do it.

And that apparently is where we get the idea of being drummed out.

So being drummed out of the army is because it was a drummer

who would do the, do the beating.

So they're actually beating you.

Yeah.

With the cat of nine tails.

Oh, I see.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

And do you know what a boy's pussy is?

So it's a former champion roller derby winner.

No, just on topic.

It was a cat of nine tails, but for younger recruits.

So if you're a young person who joined the army,

you weren't of age, perhaps they would have a,

like a cat of nine tails would have nine like whips on it

and there would be knots on it.

But yours would only have five and it'd be made of smooth cod.

Oh, that's nice.

Isn't it?

Wow.

Yeah.

Boy's pussy.

Crikey.

Have you ever heard the sea shanty come all your tongue is?

No.

Sing it.

It's good.

I can't sing it.

Is it the same as come all you faithful there?

It's about the tongues with the guys on board ship who collected

stray intestines of whales floating around.

Wow.

Yeah.

I think in a well and then he says we'll get the tonguing done

or something like that.

He does.

Exactly.

So that's what that means.

That's what that means.

Yeah.

That's very cool.

Not a lovely job.

I got a fact about whales singing actual whales and whale songs.

So I love this.

Okay.

Whales song spreads like human songs.

So the scientists found there was a basically there was a hit whale

song among humpback whales in the west coast of Australia.

It was only found there.

But then several months later, they heard that same song on the

east coast.

Right.

And this happens in the Atlantic too.

And basically hit whale songs make their way from west to east.

So you will get whales in the east, which are still singing the old

songs.

But the whales in the west have a new song by now.

And it gradually spreads across.

And it's always west to east.

And they don't, we don't know why.

Wow.

Yeah.

That's amazing.

Just imagine like the radar was singing.

It's not on you.

It's got to get those photo fun numbers from somewhere.

This is a cool thing.

There's a lot of fun.

It's got to get those photo fun numbers from somewhere.

This is a cool thing.

There's sea sickness we're talking about.

But there's other kinds of sickness that you can get.

Motion sickness.

Sea sickness is one of the motion sickness.

Love sickness.

We don't know who the person loves sickness.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Sorry.

Yeah.

Go.

I thought you were joining us to join in with more kinds of sickness.

Is that a sickness?

Yeah, it was.

Is love sickness not a thing?

This is this lucky guy.

It was a proper thing in the 19th century.

Wasn't it love sickness?

Yeah.

Right.

They thought that it meant you, if you had like a pallid expression and like just deep

sunk eyes and stuff, that's because you were love sick.

It was supposed to be a thing.

Right.

Okay.

So with all the sicknesses, it's probably impossible to ever say this was the first

person who ever had sea sickness.

This is the first person who had love sickness, right?

But we do know the person who had the first sickness of one kind.

So I'll give you the name.

He's called German Titov.

What did Titov have the sickness?

Okay.

Herpes.

Herpes sickness.

Titov presumably space race.

There we go.

What?

What?

Space sickness.

First person to ever have space sickness.

How do you know that?

I feel I'm a bit psychic.

It could be all the Russian history I've read, but I think it's a psychic sickness.

So Titov, he was...

Live it.

Wow.

I can't read minds yet.

I know what you're thinking right now.

Yeah, but you're saying that because you've read it, you're not psychic, but I've never

read a book about that.

You've written one, yeah.

Yeah, I've written one.

So 1961, August, German Titov is the, I think, the fourth human, certainly one of the first

batches of human to go up and orbit the Earth, and he's the first person who up there gets

space sickness and vomits, the first ever human to vomit in space.

Oh, really?

So it's a landmark thing, and it affects so many people, so many astronauts who go up

there, and it's for the opposite reason that you might get sea sickness or any kind of motion

sickness on Earth.

You have an opposite effect, right?

I don't know the proper science, but to put it in context, if you were in a car and you

were reading your phone or a book, you might get motion sickness because what you're staring

at is counter to everything else that is in your normal life to be...

Like a movement around you, you're trying to keep that still.

Yeah, exactly.

In space, to get rid of everything moving around because of the lack of gravity, you should

read a book and to get yourself...

My book is now available for all the bookshops.

It's called What's That Lady Doing Full Starts and Happy Endings.

Cheers.

Have NASA expressed any interest, Lou?

They've not not expressed interest.

So here's the thing, they were very worried when it happened to him because he came back

down to Earth and was space sickness something that's going to carry through on into life?

And then suddenly they noticed huge changes in his personality.

He suddenly was sort of like sleeping around with different women.

He was being really rowdy in bars.

He was like all these different personality traits and they thought, God, the space sickness

has come down, so they studied him.

Hang on, did my dad go up to space?

That's the missing chapter in your book, isn't it?

But here's what they worked out.

It wasn't space sickness, it's just he was a dickhead.

All right, cool.

We need to move on to our next fact.

It is time for fact number three and that is Andy.

My fact is that the people of Iceland can think of a good use for 95% of a cod.

So this is a fact about recycling.

Do we know, can you tell us what part of a cod's there?

Yeah, I'm thinking that.

That's stubborn the last few percent.

Basically the blood and the eyeballs are quite hard to monetise and make, you know...

I've always said that, I've always said that blood and the eyeballs are hard to monetise.

We have said that the aqueous humour in the eye can be drunk in an emergency.

Yes, it's just hard to monetise, yeah, it's hard to...

Monetise emergency?

Yeah, and like there is a use for the blood as well, it can be used in sausages or as

fish food, but it's hard to collect the blood from the...

Basically this is from a magazine called Hakai magazine which we've mentioned before.

Anna's favourite.

Anna's favourite magazine.

It's all about the sea and everything, nautical and all about water basically.

And Iceland catch loads of cod and they didn't use much of it until recently.

They used 40% of the cod in the early 2000s.

Nightmare.

Lots of waste.

Yeah.

You know, you're using the fillets, you're eating the meat, but not really using it properly.

So there is a project called 100% Fish which aims to put all of the cod caught to good use,

you know, just use the whole thing which is much more sensible.

So the skin, if you've had a burn, the skin can be grafted onto people now.

So there are people who are part cod.

No.

Yeah, you can see the imprint of the scales as well.

But it's a really good thing for skin grafts, like it's really...

Thousands of people have been treated with cod skin.

Would it make you swim faster?

No.

Absolutely not.

Why not?

You're recovering from a major operation, you've been through hell.

Suddenly there's Dr. Harkin at the door saying,

In your speeders, come on.

But what I'm thinking is, is there not a way in the Olympics, the next Olympics,

we put this cod skin on all of our swimmers?

Yeah.

No?

You're right.

Well, maybe it would.

Maybe it would work.

That's a good point.

I don't know.

But then you retire like age 27 and you're just covered in cod for the rest of your life.

Smelling of fish.

No one wants to hang out with you.

Yeah.

No, you're right.

Tom Scaley.

Yeah?

Tom Scaley.

Do you get it?

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

There's a guy called Tom Daly.

Daly and he's got...

Yeah.

Do you get it?

Tom Daly and then put the cod on him and it's Tom Scaley.

He dives though, which would presumably be a nightmare

if he was plunging downwards and then just like hit the bottom at torpedo speed.

Yeah.

No suit for Tom Scaley.

Anyway.

Some uses of a cod.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

So if you are a professional fisher person and when I say professional, I mean you're

doing it in competitions.

So you've seen who can catch the biggest fish.

Yeah.

The way that they tell which fish is the best is they weigh it.

Now, some people will put some like metal or something inside the fish to weigh it down.

Now, what if you bought some cod on the way and you shoved it inside your fish?

You'll never find it because it's fish inside fish.

Amazing.

And that's what happens.

There's this big scandal in fishing, which people have been buying fillets of cod and

shoving them inside the fishes to make them heavier.

That's disgusting.

Wow.

That's so disgusting.

It's true.

And there was a notorious case really recently last year which was uncovered by a judge called

Jason Fisher.

Brilliant.

Wow.

How desperate do you have to be to win an angling competition that you're busy shoving cod up

another fish's arse?

Like, what is the...

You must have a look at your life then and think, I've lost my priorities.

I'd go down the mouth.

Would you?

I probably would, yeah, as opposed to the small opening.

Which is more plausible.

But which is more fun, you know?

You've got to get some fun out of it.

God, that's really clever.

Yeah?

It's good, isn't it?

It's really clever.

Plus, on this stage, I've been to Iceland.

I haven't.

I know you haven't.

I've been a few times, yeah.

Yeah, you went.

You did a TV thing, though, didn't you?

What was it?

Dangerous roads.

And it is good to go to Iceland when someone else is paying for it because it's so expensive.

Is it really?

Yeah, it's so expensive.

I was like, this is really good.

Oh, okay.

I'll have another sandwich.

Yeah, it's good.

What did you see?

Like, what...

Oh, yeah.

I suppose it wasn't about the sandwiches.

Saw Ed Campbell.

Do you know a fact about Iceland?

Everyone's...

Loads of people are called Daddy.

So it was my heaven.

Because that's the name of...

That's Dave.

They're called...

If your name's Dave in England, you'd be called Daddy in Iceland.

Chasen Daddy.

Yeah.

So our fixer was called Daddy.

So we had to keep saying Daddy, Daddy.

Wow.

It was good fun.

So in Iceland, you're like...

They're like, oh, my God, the winner from Taskmaster.

From Daddy.

Channel Daddy.

Yeah, Channel Daddy.

Yeah, Channel Daddy.

Channel Daddy.

Wow.

Dave.

Oh, I've just understood that.

Sorry.

I was thinking...

It's on Channel 4, isn't it?

No, got it.

Oh, sorry.

No, it did get 4 by day.

But Series 8 when you were on.

Yeah.

Which is the more of in Iceland?

Rabbits or Rabbis?

Oh, that's cool.

Rabbis.

Rabbis.

You're saying Rabbis?

I think so.

Audience have pitched in with a vote for Rabbis, okay?

Well, Rabbits.

Rabbits, thank you.

Yeah, I would say probably...

A lot of countries don't have any Rabbits, so I'll say Rabbis.

Rabbis.

One Rabbi, no Rabbits.

You're half right.

They've got loads of Rabbits and only one Rabbi.

I know.

I know a really good fact about Iceland.

Here we go.

They've got a dating app because...

Because it's such a small country, everyone's sort of related.

So you could sleep with someone in the pub and it could be your first cousin.

Oh, my God.

And so they've got a dating app, which...

This is true.

I don't know why everyone's looking at me like this.

And they've got a dating app where you can tell how far removed the person you've just got off with is.

Wait, wait, wait.

Don't you do it before?

Yeah, maybe do it before.

Maybe do it before.

It's not like they're going to turn the lights on and you're like, Daddy!

So they don't know...

Like, you don't know all your cousins or whatever.

Because so many people are related and it's caused problems with babies coming out odd and stuff.

That someone developed this dating app so you can tell.

Wow, that's amazing.

So imagine if you were in the throes of passion and you're like, oh, God, I've just turned the app, maybe.

Oh, no, maybe I won't bother.

Iceland is home to the hottest hole on the planet.

The hottest hole.

Literally the hottest hole.

OK.

It's a geothermal hole.

It's the Iceland Deep Drilling Project.

And it's 5,000 degrees Celsius at the bottom.

It's really hot.

I think I've been there.

You've been there.

I think I have.

I think so.

And then there's a big factory on top of it where you can go and visit.

That's very cool.

I think so.

Yeah.

And basically, the pressure is too high.

You put water down there and it becomes something called supercritical, which I do not fully understand.

But it's basically neither liquid nor gas.

I don't know what it is.

Solid.

It's ice.

If you heat water up enough, it becomes ice again.

Very new science.

Yeah.

It's so useful because they use it to heat everything.

They can have underpavement heating from the geothermal heat.

So people don't fall over on the ice because obviously it gets really icy, but you don't slip over and fall.

So it's very hot.

But they use it for so much, don't they?

Like most of the houses that the hot water comes literally from the core of our earth.

It's heated by geothermal.

Not literally from the core of our earth.

We can edit out the literally from my word there.

But it's like they got round problems.

But what about that dating app?

Have we ever spoken about the day that all the women went on strike in Iceland?

I think so.

We have.

1975, basically, there was a thing.

The United Nations proclaimed it women's year.

And basically, the women of Iceland got together, this group of women as a sort of representative

and went, we should go on strike and make a point about the fact that we're paid less.

We should make a point about we're doing all the domestic stuff at home.

We're doing all this stuff.

Let's really let them know that this is something that we disagree with.

And Iceland back then in 1975, there's 200,000 people that live in Iceland.

25,000 women were at one single event to hear the speeches that were in the lead up to this.

And so instead of calling a strike, they thought we might piss off too many people and it won't happen.

So they said, could we have a day off?

And they went, oh, a day off sounds nice.

Yeah, have a day off.

So every woman in Iceland had a day off and the country went into chaos.

Supermarkets sold out of sausages because dads didn't know what to cook their kids.

Everyone was working jobs that they didn't necessarily knew how to do because they thought they were at a higher level

and they were suddenly having to be the teller at a bank rather than the bank manager at a bank kind of thing.

The men refer to it still the long Friday because it was such a night there.

Hey, I need to move us on to our final fact of the show.

Can I tell you one last thing?

Yeah, of course.

This is something that happened to an American visitor to Iceland in 2016.

He was called Noel Santillan.

He was on holiday and he arrived, hired his car.

He wanted to go to Laugavegur Street.

I'm sure I'm pronouncing that wrong.

45 minutes from the airport, thought no problem.

He misspelled it by one letter and Iceland sent him six hours, 265 miles away to a tiny fishing village.

So he got there.

Bloody hell.

But the people were very friendly and they were like, oh, what a funny mistake to make.

Oh, well, he stayed there for a few days like making friends.

Oh, it's the funny American on the way back.

He was trying to get to the Blue Lagoon geothermal spa.

It happened again.

He ended up in the coastal town which is home to the office of the company which owns the spa.

So he just ended up in an office building.

He literally, he walked into a staff meeting rather than anything.

And they said, ah, you must be the American.

I need to move us on to our final fact of the show and that is James.

Okay.

My fact this week is that there is an app that can tell you when your fly is down.

It's just useful, isn't it?

Right.

It's the work of a guy called Guy Dupont who is a YouTuber and a hacker.

And he's invented loads of things.

He's invented like a baby monitor which vibrates when the baby cries so it's more accessible.

He hacks his fridge so it tells him when he accidentally leaves it open.

But this is by far his most useful invention.

It's a pair of smart pants.

And whenever your fly has been down for, let's say 30 seconds or maybe a bit longer,

maybe a minute or two, then you'll get a beep on your phone saying your fly is low.

You need to look at it now.

Is it called the Wifi?

It's called the Wifi.

Oh, beautiful.

It's really good.

I read an article about James.

It did sound like there were a couple of disadvantages.

Yeah.

I like to gawk around with my flies undone, for example.

That's why.

It's constantly monitoring so your phone battery lasts about half an hour while you're using it.

Also, you can't watch the jeans anymore because there are powerful magnets inside the zip.

But it's teething troubles.

I'm trying those out.

What's the problem with your flies?

It's not that big a thing that you'd...

Would you ever get an app just to...

I mean, who cares?

Someone will tell you, right?

I guess so.

You usually want to go sort that out.

If you're somewhere quite...

If you're somewhere quite urban, though, often people don't tell you

because people talk to you like you're strangers.

Yeah.

If you're a primary school teacher, that's a problem.

Yeah.

But just day to day.

Yeah, I don't know.

I do see that.

But yeah, like you say, because you can't wash it, that's going to be a problem.

And it reminds me of they did make some robotic trousers for old people.

Do you remember this?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And they were really good.

Obviously, they wanted to stop old people from falling over.

So they made this kind of exoskeleton, which would help them to walk.

And it was absolutely brilliant.

It worked really well.

But the problem was that you couldn't wash them

and they couldn't stop the old people from trying to wash them,

no matter what they said to them.

They just kept putting them in the washing machine.

They're often shitting themselves.

We're really living in a sort of golden...

Unrecognized, I would say, golden age of innovation in the app world.

So one that I found is Airbnb.

So like Airbnb, but Airbnb is for people who hate public toilets

and there are people in the local area who've put their apartment listed

just as the toilets.

So you can go and you can just...

It's like me being at home and someone knocking on the door and go,

we got an Airbnb appointment and they come in and take a piss in my toilet

and then head off and we give each other a review.

What's the review?

I think that is run by perverts.

It's got to be.

As a woman, there's no way to go to a stranger's house to use the toilet.

I don't think so.

No, good point.

Not even if they were like 4.9 stars.

Have you never killed anyone?

Oh, I've popped in.

Yeah, no, it's a really good point.

I think it's more the ideas that I find interesting than the practicality of it.

Have you put your home on Airbnb?

No, not yet, but it was my...

Because it was my dream.

I had a...

Well, I was in a bit of London once, it was near a park

and there were no toilets around and I thought, you know what I should do?

I should just open up a toilet and I'll sit in there like I'm Ted dancing in Cheers

and people will come in and they'll have a pee and we'll chat and then they'll go out.

I'll charge them, I don't know, 20 quid a piss or something like that.

Well, they're getting a good chat, aren't they?

Yeah, exactly.

Who would pay 20 quid to have a brief chat with you and then a piss?

Yep.

I mean, you've invented the public toilet there.

I don't think you can say you've invented that.

No, no, no, because that's dirty and disgusting, the public toilet

and there might be people in there who are naughty.

And so this is...

Point at me when you say that.

I was referring back to your point.

So this would be guaranteed a high-class...

No one ever opens a public toilet.

Exactly, nobody ever opens a public toilet saying,

well, in two weeks this is going to be a disgraceful...

No, no one opens a toilet thinking,

God, what have I got to do in there?

I could do with a chat, actually.

Have you heard of the app Car Matey?

No.

It tells you where your car is, but in a pirate voice.

Cool, that's nice.

Good app.

Have you heard of Wakey?

Yes, because I've written those two down as well.

Go, go, go, give it to us, give it to us.

What's Wakey?

If you struggle to get our bed in the morning,

someone will call you as an alarm, a stranger.

And you can call other people to wake them up as well.

That's nice.

Yeah, so it's an alarm call.

It's like, it's a call, you pick it up

and it might be just like a fisherman in Iceland

going, hi, how's it going?

And that's your wake-up call.

I think they've now removed the waking-up bit.

It's now just random calls with strangers.

Oh, right.

So if I go to a public toilet,

might someone chat to me while I'm there?

I'm just thinking...

On Wakey?

Wakey, yeah.

That's Wanky, I think.

That's a very different app.

There's a few other apps which I think are really cool.

So there's an app that can blow out candles.

What?

Yeah, isn't that really cool?

So it's called the Blower app and it's a...

You must have been disappointed when you downloaded that.

Your mum designed it.

It's basically...

It's an extraordinary kind of innovation

where certain frequencies are generated by the app.

That means that the phone itself shakes in such a way

and where there are the holes for the speakers,

it turns the air that's inside into being propelled out

strong enough that it can blow out a candle.

Wow.

So you can use it, yeah.

But why can't you just blow out your own candles?

Well, it's...

That's not the spirit that, you know,

conquered the American frontier, is it?

Let's do things the way we've done them in the past.

No, let's make the phone app do it.

Let's make the phone app conquer the American frontier for us.

We did say in the past that when you blow out candles on a cake,

it puts loads of germs all over the cake,

so it's a bad thing to do.

You don't think that's covered in germs?

Well, I did read there was a study of 3,500 swabs

taken from people's phones,

and they found nine unstudied branches of bacterial life,

including many species of bacteria that were unknown to science.

Wow.

And they found one species of Edwards bacteria

that had only previously been known in an underground water aquifer

and another one that was only found previously

in abandoned gold mines.

Wow.

And they're just on your phone.

That's amazing. Isn't it?

Like, that's quite nice, in a way.

I feel like I'm harboring interesting things.

Oh, yeah. We all feel that.

No, I know what you mean.

It is kind of nice in a way,

but we don't know whether how safe it is.

No, I guess.

Do you know the word fly?

For your zip.

Oh, for anything?

Yeah, fly.

Do you know what the word fly originally meant?

Did it mean a zip?

Did it mean the insect?

Or did it mean to fly around somewhere?

Oh, looking cool.

Oh, looking cool.

There's four options.

Which one do you think came first?

I'd guess to fly.

Fly as in the verb.

Yeah.

Well, weirdly enough, it was the insect that came first.

And then it came to mean like flapping your wings,

or flapping things.

And then it came to mean flying as in the verb to fly.

And the reason that you have a fly on your trousers,

the fly is not the zipper.

It's the bit that covers the zipper.

And that's because it kind of flaps in the wind

like the front of a tent.

So where you have the zipper of a tent,

you have a little bit of cloth,

and that flaps in the wind.

Yeah.

And that was named a fly because it flaps.

And then the front of your trousers was named a fly

because it looks like the front of a tent.

So tents came before trousers?

Before flies were named, yeah.

Well, that in itself is a very exciting fact.

Do you not think?

Oh, yeah.

I'm aroused.

I found a couple of new apps that are launched.

One new app that's launched this summer,

which is quite exciting.

I've actually got it on my phone now,

so I can answer questions about it.

It's called Text with Jesus.

Oh, lovely.

And it's recreated, our Lord,

as a chat GPT guy.

And you can write, you can ask questions,

and he'll answer you.

And you get lots of people.

You get Jesus, Moses, the Virgin Mary,

Abraham's nephew, Lot.

You get absolutely...

But was he the one who got turned into a pillar of salt?

That was Lot's wife, I think.

But you can ask Lot what was it like

when your wife was turned into a pillar of salt?

And basically, they write back quite convincing answers.

Wow.

They're quite realistic.

Got any examples?

Hang on, I have to dig out.

Sorry, because I have been chatting to them.

Like, Mary Magdalene cost $2.99 a month.

Because various people are locked on the thing,

so you can't access, you know.

How much is Jesus?

Jesus is free.

Jesus is part of the package.

Wow.

That's a good message.

Jesus is free.

Of the Apostles, only Peter is free,

and everyone else is locked.

Wow.

You get John the Baptist, Abraham.

Judas Iscariot is on there.

How much?

He's...

Oh, 30 pieces of silver!

Oh!

Don't get so much Judas material these days, do you think?

I chatted a bit up to Drobe.

Oh, God, is he having a tough time with me, I guess?

He is when he's chatting to me.

That legendary Patreons' cover is wearing very thin.

He's finally given up on God now, hasn't he?

Also, when you look at the messages,

he's written quite a lot.

That's Drobe!

That's Drobe!

That's Drobe!

Drobe is a single-line answer,

and he's like 10 lines per message.

My opening gambit with Drobe was,

what Drobe should I get?

Sunglasses emoji.

Drobe replied,

I see what you did there.

Get that guy into some detail, we're playing.

Yeah.

Hang on, who is...

Is that all the long message?

Is that Drobe?

No, the long message was Drobe.

I'm not writing an essay to Drobe!

What does Drobe think of the podcast?

Can you ask?

I can ask, yeah.

Yeah, do that live, and let's find out.

Also, can you ask Drobe why he's so clingy?

As an ancient figure,

I must admit that I'm not familiar with modern podcasts

like no such thing as a fish.

Oh, modern!

What's going on in the poster?

It's no my dad wrote a porno, of course, but...

Is that what he's put, seriously?

No, it's not what he's put, seriously.

He says, from what I gather, this is what it is,

and they discuss interesting and unusual facts.

Podcasts like these can be great for expanding your knowledge,

discovering fascinating tidbits,

and even sparking curiosity.

If you enjoy learning new things,

you don't laugh sarcastically at that.

If you enjoy learning new things in an entertaining way,

it sounds like no such thing as a fish could be right up your alley.

Nice.

Of course, everyone stays stiffer.

OK, that's it.

That is all of our facts.

Thank you so much for listening.

If you'd like to get in contact with any of us

about the things that we've said over the course of this podcast,

we can be found on our Twitter accounts.

I'm on at Shriverland, James.

At James Harkin.

Andy.

At Andrew Hunter M.

And Lou.

We think.

What do you mean?

Well, I don't know what my Twitter name is,

but also you looked at me like that was incorrect

and I trust you more than me.

That alone, myself, was doing.

Or you can go to our group account,

which is at no such thing, or our website.

No such thing as a fish.com.

All of our previous episodes are there,

so do check them out.

Of course, definitely, definitely pick up,

lose amazing new book.

What's that lady doing?

Out in bookshops now or online.

And do check out all of our previous episodes.

They are on no such thing as a fish.com.

Thank you so much, everyone, for being here.

We so appreciate it.

That was really fun.

We'll see you again another time.

That's the end of our Soho run.

That's it.

This is, yeah.

Well, hopefully play here again.

But until then, we'll see you around.

Goodbye.

Bye.

Machine-generated transcript that may contain inaccuracies.