No Such Thing As Ultrasonic Shark Welding

0:00Stop the podcast! Hi everybody, we are sponsored this week by Progressive. That's right. So, everyone talks about how challenging it is to raise kids, but what about protecting them? I'm talking outlet covers, kitchen cabinet locks, baby gates. Where do you even start? Yes, it is a nightmare. Well, protecting your home and your auto is a great place to start. Progressive offers customised coverage options so you can be sure you have the right coverage for you and your loved ones. They're basically the outlet covers, kitchen cabinet locks, and baby gates of insurance. Don't wait, get your quote today at progressive.com. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company affiliates and other insurers, not available in all states.

0:39On with the show. Hey there, it's Ryan Seacrest for Safeway. Fall is here, which means it's time to stock up on vitamins for the show. Nature-made multivitamins and nature's truth ashwagandha gummies. And save more when you buy more. Offer ends December 1st. Restrictions apply. Offers may vary. Visit Safeway.com for more details. Hello and welcome to another episode of No Such Thing As A Fish, a weekly podcast this week coming to you live from the London Podcast Festival! My name is Dan Schreiber. I am sitting here with Anna Tyshinsky, Andrew Hunter-Murray, and James Harkin. And once again, we have gathered round the microphones with our four favorite facts from the last seven days and in no particular order, here we

1:48go. Starting with fact number one and that is James. Okay, my fact this week is that in the 1920s you could buy bathing suits made of wood. Oh. There they are. For people at home, there is a picture on the screen and they look like they're in barrels, don't they? Quite kind of cinched in barrels. Pinched in barrels. Yeah. I would say that's about as comfortable as you can make wearing wood look. Yeah. I can imagine the splinters were probably not very nice. No. I guess it was rot. It's a very confusing substance to make stuff that you get wet a lot out of. But then on the other hand, when there's a big sort of shipwreck, what do you get? Floating bits of driftwood. Exactly. Yeah. And that actually was one of the things they advertised it as the fact that the wood floats.

2:34And so it made swimming much easier. Okay. I see. But if there was a shipwreck, wouldn't the other passengers use you as the thing to lay on top of? As the door. As the door. And there was Leo, and then there was just this random person. I go, God, this is so awkward. There is enough space for him, actually. There is. So I saw this on a website called thevintagenews.com, where they find old news articles. And these were spruce veneer bathing suits. And they were described as simple, cheap, and easy to make, but fashionable and modern. I think one part of it was they were bathed in the part of America where they had a wood industry. You know, people were chopping down trees, making spruce panels,

3:18and they thought we can advertise it slightly by having them wear these swimsuits. Wow. They were also once used to encourage people to vote in the election. So they said that someone was going to be coming down to the sea in a wooden bathing suit and people should come down. They announced that in the newspapers. And sure enough, when people did come down, they handed them like little cards saying, if you want to lift to the voting booth, then ring this number. Wait, they thought a wooden bathing suit would be that much of a pull? They'd get enough people to the polling booth? Yeah, but it was the 20s. It was a happier and simpler time. It wasn't the day where you could just offer people $5,000

3:58to vote for you. I've seen a very old swimming suit from 1767, and it is Martha Washington's wife of George Washington. They have her swimming suit, and she had a swimming suit that came from a time where they sewed weights into them so that when the women were in the water, it wouldn't flow it up and make them lose their modesty. So someone thought, let's put weights into the swimsuit. And to be fair, none of them are going to swim, presumably. So they're just paddling. Surely, surely Martha Washington's not swimming, is she? I think in those days there was a lot of paddling going on. So much paddling. The Daytona Beach News Journal, I saw an article about these bathing suits, and they said you should avoid wearing them in a forest lake

4:42where woodpeckers are known to live. Yes. Controversial swimming costumes? Yeah, go for it. And they said you should avoid wearing them in a forest lake where woodpeckers are known to live. Ah. Yes. Controversial swimming costumes? Yeah, go for it. Name one. The one in the Olympics that made people swim faster. That's good. But that's not the one I'm thinking of. The Annette Kellerman we've mentioned before. You know, because any women's swimsuit back then was very controversial, wasn't it? That wasn't a full head-to-toe covering. No, you're right. That's another really good one, yeah. Because people were arrested initially if they went in a swimsuit back then was very controversial, wasn't it? That wasn't a full head-to-toe covering. No, you're right. That's another really good one.

5:05People were arrested initially if they went in a swimsuit, yeah. I should have said my fact, but I I've got a lot of good stuff out of you guys now which is also good. The bikini. Oh yeah. Was controversial at first. Partly because in the place where the bikini atoll after which it's named, it was seen as being immodest, but not for the reason you would think. Okay. So the Marshall Islanders are the people local to that area. Yeah. And they have a tradition where women go topless, but they do cover up their thighs with a muumuu. And so the bikini... With a muumuu here and a muumuu there. I would have thought a muumuu is like it's something that covers your whole body now. Yes, I think there are different versions of the muumuu.

5:56And the Marshall Islanders one is a leg thing. But they called it a muumuu. Yes, it's waist and below. But basically... Sorry? Just a muumuu. And the reason the bikini was controversial there is because it reveals the thighs. Yes, okay. Really? Yeah, yeah. Not because it was skimpy, but... Ironic, because you'd think it would be about the udders, if you know what I mean. Wow. Oh, moo. Is that a moo-moo joke? It's the moo-moo. Yes! Yeah. Very nice. And I think we should just quickly say that the bikini, it was named after the Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands because they were doing nuclear tests there and because it was like a cool, trendy thing at the time that, you know, it was quite controversial, obviously.

6:38Well. Is that right? He insists not. So there's this very famous contest between these two guys and Louis Rayard was the guy who invented the bikini that was called the bikini. He says that he called it the bikini because at that time, everyone spoke of this island bikini in the Pacific, and it was an enchanted, tiny little paradise. Now, it was the case that he invented it four days after the well-publicized massive nuclear test on Bikini Atoll, but he insists either that passed him by, or he's now lying and saying, I didn't name it sort of insensitively after something that led to 50 years of very awkward almost war. Right. He couldn't get anyone to model it, by the way. It was seen so controversial.

7:18So he went to all the classic models. They all said no, and all their agents said no. So he eventually went to a former nude model. Her name is Micheline Bernardini, and she did it. all said no and all their agents said no so he eventually went to a former nude model her name is micheline bernardini and she did it and uh she's still alive is she definitely i was trying to track her down from yeah wikipedia doesn't list a date of death i can't find an obituary for her and everything is referred to her in the present and so she she was born December 1st, 1927. So she's 98 going 99. And wow. Still looking hot in that bikini. Yeah. She did actually model it again in the 80s, didn't she? For someone in about 1986, I think it was.

7:55Age 58. And she did look different to how she looked age 20 modeling it. No offense, we all will or do. So that was just an unnecessary slam on Michelle. Yes. Poor 98-year-old woman. You've been mentioned on the show! I thought she was dead! Looked shit at 58! All I'm saying is don't model it now, hon. Oh, God. So the other thing about the bikini is that it was associated for years with sort of Miss whatever competitions, like Miss World or Miss, you know, countries and things like this. And this led to a really surprising controversy. So it was in the, I think in the 50s. What year did the Frenchman invent it? Was it the 40s or was it? I think 46. Okay, so this is 1951. The reason that we have the Miss Universe contest

8:46that we all know and love today is because of an argument over swimwear. So there was Miss America, which was sponsored by a particular company called Catalina, right? I think they made cosies. And the winner was a woman called Yolande Bezi, and she was told when she won Miss America, you're going to have to go on the tour and you're going to have to wear a swimsuit, a bikini on the tour. And she just refused. She said, I'm not going to wear a swimsuit in public unless I'm going swimming. I just don't, that's, you know, that's ridiculous. She didn't really like all these promotional appearances she was asked to do. So the firm Catalina flounced off and created Miss Universe instead oh really

9:31so the reason it came out of it was her kind of principled stand about not just turning up in a bikini in places she was being approved she was okay have you guys heard of Miss Gary Cigarette no Gary Cigarette? No. Gary Cigarette. Is that why Miss Universe refused to wear just a cigarette over her crotch? It's kind of related to that. So it was a beauty contest held in Gary, Indiana in 1944. So Gary is a city in Indiana or a town. And you voted for who you thought was the best looking person. And when you voted, you had to pay five cents and all the money was used to send cigarettes to American soldiers. But the reason I would bring it up is the winner was Irene Kuchner and she had to then go on a promotional tour

10:18wearing a bathing suit made of cigarettes. Oh, really? Can I say something about science trunks? Okay. So swimming outfits that are designed to help you go faster. So for the Olympics, this is a big thing. You may have heard of LZR. This was a huge thing in the noughties. They were invented by... Is it Speedo? Speedo, laser ones, yeah. And I just can't believe how good... Because I naively thought it's only a bit of your body that's covered. But of course you do get fuller. They were like based on shark skin or something, weren't they? All of this. The fabric was bonded together using ultrasonic welding. Like how sharks work. Like how sharks... So that was so they had no seams. So no seams means no drag.

11:04They had an internal core stabilizer so you couldn't flop about in the water very much. They sort of held you in place. So you would use less oxygen when you were wearing it because it just made it easier. The only downside is it takes 20 minutes to put it on. And everyone knows in swimming races, your time is when you start getting changed, aren't you? You're actually timed from when you're trying to find a pound for the locker. Yeah, were they banned after that? They were banned, yeah, I'm pretty sure. But basically every world record, they beat every world record one year. It's weird because they are LZR, which sounds like it's loser. What do you think, let's say, for instance, you were on a water shoot, water flume,

11:53and you wanted to get down as quickly as you can. What swimsuit do you think would be the best? Oh, I can tell you what it's not. It's not the one that I recently wore in Croatia. Oh, dear. Where I had kids waiting for five minutes as I shimmied down what was a ten foot tall water slide. Wait, what are you saying? I'm saying I had the most embarrassing ten minutes of my life. Having to literally like a dog wiping its ass on the ground shimmy down this thing. But are you saying that gravity didn't do the job? Gravity left the slide. It just, whatever my shorts were, I need to send them back. Yeah. So is it that? I think like Dan said, that's not it. Right, yeah. Well, I'm imagining something

12:41smooth and slippy, something coated with a substance. Yeah, so this is something called speed shooting, which does appear to possibly be a thing. I've seen reports on an online magazine called Outside Magazine and nowhere else on the internet, but it does appear to exist. It seems to be a German thing. And you try and go down the water chute as quickly as you can. And they've tried all sorts of things, like different swimsuits, soaps, oils, waxes, gels, types of cream, like you say, Andy. But the truth is that the quickest you can go down is basically no swimsuit at all. Uh-oh. But the rules don't allow you to do that. Then you really are going down after that. Well, what you have to do is you have a small, very small. Well, what you have to do is you have a very small swimsuit,

13:26but you cross your legs, and then you put your heel on the chute and your two shoulder blades on the chute, and the rest of your body is planked as much as possible, so you only have three bits of contact onto the chute, and that apparently helps you go down. If you'd have done that in Croatia, Dan, you'd have been a kid. I can't believe I didn't think of that. And what are you supposed to do if you want to really emergency slow down halfway because you're really scared? Well, one thing that they do say is like, it's these very, very fit men who are very good at it because they can clench all of their muscles and get really tight. And then, but it's, and it's always them, up against what they call the cannonballs,

14:09which is the really, really fat guys who just fly down and use momentum to get down to the bottom as quickly as possible. That's great. It's kind of those clenching bullshit. Just eat a lot of pies. We've got to move on, guys. We're running out. I bet we've all got so much more stuff. The monokini. Have you heard of the monokini? It was invented. So the bikini is bikini, two parts. Monokini was just the bottom bit, kind of like what you were talking about with the muumuu earlier. Oh, yeah, yeah. And you had two straps that went across. But it was for bare naked women on the top to go out. And it caused huge controversy. But it also kind of- Sorry, it was a pair of pants. And also kind of sorry it was too sorry it was

14:45a pair of pants and then you just had straps going around your neck you didn't have any boob covering kind of like suspenders exactly but they didn't do anything to cover the breasts um and this was invented by a man uh who's called rudy no kidding this was invented by a pervert called it was rudy gernreich and this is he's a very famous name in the world of fashion because in 1964 when he did this he sort of started a lot of the sexual revolution of the 60s and he invented multiple different things and near the end of his life he invented the pew bikini which is a normal bikini but where you're the bottom bit of the bikini, there's a little kind of see-through window where your pubic hair is for you to sort of just show people as part of a...

15:30Perfect. We don't need to go further into it. Fair enough. All right, let's move on. Stop the podcast. Stop the podcast. Hi, everybody. We are sponsored this week by Progressive. That's right. So everyone talks about how challenging it is to raise kids, but what about protecting them? I'm talking outlet covers, kitchen cabinet locks, baby gates. Where do you even start? Yes, it is a nightmare. Well, protecting your home and your auto is a great place to start. Progressive offers customised coverage options so you can be sure you have the right coverage for you and your loved ones. They're basically the outlet covers, kitchen cabinet locks, and baby gates of insurance. Don't wait. Get your quote today at Progressive.com. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company

16:13affiliates and other insurers. Not available in all states. On with the show. Hi, I'm Jenna Oshkowitz. You might know me from Glee. This is At The Table, the food allergy podcast. A show the food allergy podcast, a show about food, connection, and what it really looks like to live with food allergies. Each episode, we hear stories from real people like Daniel. People would always think I was lactose intolerant, so I just kind of shortened my explanation to I'm deathly allergic, in a big way that defined a lot of my childhood. And while there are challenges, there are moments that remind you, you're not alone. One of the best guys that I dated, he made a point to memorize all my food allergies. So join us and hear their stories and more.

16:58Because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat. It's about still having your seat at the table. Brought to you by Genentech and Novartis. Listen to At The Table, the food allergy podcast on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow At The Table and start listening on the free iHeart Radio app today. Okay, it is time for fact number two. And that is my fact. my fact this week is that before she goes on stage for the opening night of the play west end actress rachel sterling will always make sure to eat the ashes of a bond girl that was a great reaction by whoever went what very confusing absolutely um but let's let's unpack it um this is Rachel Sterling. If you're a fan of shows like The Detectorists, she's in that.

17:49So Mackenzie Crook's girlfriend-turned-wife is Rachel Sterling. She also happens to be the daughter of Diana Rigg, who is a very famous actress who passed away a few years ago. She was in a James Bond movie and multiple other things, The New Avengers, all that sort of stuff and she passed away she was cremated and they gave her ashes to some people her friends one of them flew it over a field in a biplane and let it drop and so on and Rachel Sterling noticed that not all of the ashes left this little vial there's like dregs that are just kind of sitting in there and she was very nervous on opening night for the first time she had to go back on stage after her mother's death. And she had it on her and she thought, I need some Dutch courage and I want to bring her on stage with me.

18:32So she put her finger in. She took a big old swipe of the ashes and she ate it. And that's now become her lucky thing. So anytime she does opening night, she'll eat a bit of her own mum. So you said she will always be sure to eat the ashes of her own mum. Okay, so you said you said she will always be sure to eat the ashes of a Bond girl. Yeah. It's this one specific Bond girl, Diana Rigg, right? Yes. Because presumably she's going to run out of those ashes at some stage. And then not then going to look for Ursula Andress's ashes at all. She'll start murdering other Bond girls. Oh my god, that's a good plot. That's a good plot. It is a good plot. No, it's just one. But she did say she's mentioned it to other actors

19:08and they say, oh, I do that too. Oh, come on. With her mum? Yes, no. No, other mums are used. What? Sorry, this is a normal thing in the thespian community. I don't think we can say normal. Eating your mother's ashes. No, but more than one person does it is what she's saying. Wow. Yeah. I mean, it's not unheard of for you to read in the news that a rock star or a celebrity has famously Tupac's friends after his funeral when he was cremated, they rolled him up into a joint and they all smoked him, and his mum was there as part of that. Keith Richards snorted his dad. He claims. No, no. It was claimed that he did it with cocaine and he wrote in his book. It was not cocaine. It was my late father's

19:53ashes. He mixed it in with cocaine was the idea. I'm sorry. I thought. He later said, I didn't use cocaine. I just snorted it outright. And he scattered it in his garden and the trees growing in his garden now are in the spots where his dad's ashes were. So it's not uncommon. It is uncommon. If it wasn't uncommon, all these people in this room wouldn't be looking at you as if to say, what the fuck are you talking about, Dad? But it's not uncommon when you say a lot of examples really closely. Alright, here's a thing that you can have done with yourself after you die. Just see if you would like this. Would you like to become a mug? There was, a few years ago, there was a New Mexico artist who put you into a glaze,

20:36mixed a bit of your own ash into a glaze after you die, and then that's made into a mug for your relatives. I quite like that. Dishwasher safe, or? Handwash only, I think. Why take the risk? You can get turned into a bit of a coral reef. I love this. Being turned into an artificial reef. I'm not big enough to be an artificial reef. You will be part of it. It's mostly concrete, I'm going to tell you the truth. But there is this thing where instead of being cremated, you can be aquamated, which is a new method that all the cool kids are doing. And it's lower in carbon emissions, and it's a bit more... The temperatures are lower, and you're just kind of chemically shuggled down. And they put it under water and coal grows on it.

21:17Yeah, it gets mixed into a sort of artificial reef block, and that's really good for fish, obviously. Or how about this? This is my pitch there was an archaeologist called juan angulo who was looking in a crypt that had been uncovered in southern mexico and found 400 urns in there containing ashes coal rubber and plant roots and the mayan people at the time had the game you might remember they had a ball game yeah where you played a big rubber ball and it might have been a religious thing. It might have been something else. The theory is that the ancient Mayan kings were turned into balls for the ball game. Okay. Their ashes were turned into Wait, because in their graves they found. These urns

21:59containing all the ingredients for a ball and the ash. So they just hadn't got round to making the ball. Yeah. This is like the ingredients the pantry. and the ash. So they just hadn't got round to making the ball? Yeah. This is like the ingredients, the pantry? Exactly. I see, wow. You would feel a lot of pressure not to accidentally kick that ball onto the roof, wouldn't you? I think it sounds to me like you can put ashes into anything that's made out of concrete, right? Yeah. It seems like it. Well, it's a very, very unromantic way of... What I'm thinking is like those big stanchions that hold up water flumes, Dan, maybe when you die, you can put it into that one and then just make it slightly steeper so people don't have

22:35your issue. Here's Dan Schreiber still stuck on this water flume. For eternity. That's so nice. I couldn't save myself, but I will save future generations. Love it. For eternity, yes. That's so nice. I couldn't save myself, but I will save future generations. Love it. In China, they're doing a big push for these sea burials, I think. Sea burials and tree burials is the big thing in Chinese government pushes at the moment because there's not enough room left for full-body burials. So they're mainly doing a really big push for cremations. And I think to make it sound jazzy, they're what about a tree burial which is not sadly where you get left up a tree which would be cool and really terrify the kids who tried to climb it it's it's where like they bury

23:16your ashes at the bottom of a tree and then a tree grows or a potential tree we keep saying that ashes it's not ashes that you get in those urns and that people sprinkle around. Okay. Because what happens is when the body goes through the crematorium, the heat is so, so high that any part of your body really just turns into vapor. And what's left is your bones, and they are processed to resemble ashes. Right. So it's not like the ashes at the end of a fire. No. It's basically burnt bones that are crushed down by something called a cremulator. And it pulverizes the bones down and that's what you get in the end. You've said that in such a cheerful and positive way. I just thought the word cremulator was quite right.

23:59Again, they've made it as fun as they can. It sounds like it should be an offshoot movie series of Terminator. Cremulator. Wow. What about cre-cycling, guys? Which is what happens if you have, a lot of us have metal in our body, like your fillings or any part of it. It might be pacemakers or something like that. Well, what do you do? You can't really put those through the... You can't put a pacemaker through the crematorium for sure. They have to be removed. That's like metal in the microwave, isn't it? It's bad and it breaks the thing. It is, basically. Wouldn't want to damage the cremulator. But there's a company called Ortho Metals which will recycle any metals out of the body and then they give the money

24:46to charities, and more than £24 million in about 20 years were given to charities in the UK through metals that were saved from bodies. And they often recycle those metals into things that go into, like, airplanes and buses and stuff, so you might be on a flight one day, and without knowing it, Grandma's with you, because the metal from her hip replacement was reused and turned into a tiny little... That is actually very nice. Yeah. Yeah. You can also be turned into fish bait, which is something that... So there was two... That's what the mob do to you, isn't it? I think I've heard of this. Yeah. Well, no, what it was is this was a very specific case. It was two friends who were meant to be going on a fishing trip

25:29with their third friend called Ron, but Ron passed away. And they thought, well, let's not cancel the trip. Let's still go on it and we'll bring a bit of Ron with us. So they had his ashes, or his ground bones, into a fishbowl and they went fishing with it and they called it the purple Ronnie and they threw it into the Into the lake where they're at anyway This shouldn't be a notable story except for the fact that that bit of bait caught a Siamese carp That is the biggest ever caught on record a hundred and eighty pounds The current record as it stands in the books is 134 pounds. And to be fair, they have just stopped counting. So it could be that people have caught much larger ones, but that's technically the record.

26:13So they're in the papers because their dead mate, Ronnie, was the bait for the biggest carp ever caught. Wow. Is it a cheek? Because it's a Siamese carp, so it's actually two carp but joined at the hip. I know that. We call them conjoined carp these days. Sorry. Just on actors and dead bodies. Okay. There's a very famous actor who has held a dead body on stage. Many of you might have seen him do it. And that's David Tennant. Okay. And he's in tonight. Look, we're all fans, but this was actually the skull of a Polish composer and pianist called Andrzej Tchaikovsky. No relation. But Andrzej Tchaikovsky, famous composer, but always wanted to be an actor. Genuinely, no relation. I think it's quite a common name and common enough in, you know, Russia.

27:03He died in 1982. He was 46. Very sadly died. He left his body to science, but he said, I'm going to leave my head to the theatre. I'm going to offer my skull to the Royal Shakespeare Company for use in theatrical performance. I actually don't think he specified what use, but I think everyone assumed, well, you've got to be the Alas, poor Yorick, Hamlet scene where famously a skull is held up. Anyway, he did this in 1982, and all actors wussed out of it from then onwards. And people kept saying, so does anyone want to use Andre's skull? And they said, I'll just use the prop, please. And then in 2008, David Tennant played Hamlet and said, yes, I will use it. And then they needed to jump through lots of hoops, so he couldn't use it until

27:42the first night because they needed government clearance from the Human Tissue because who regulate tissues and organs um and then he had it in it was in stratford every night he would hold up this real skull and then he moved to the west end doing it and the paper said they're not using the skull anymore it's too distracting the audience keep on kind of pointing and weeping and go, all right, Andre. And then when Are you any relation to the Russian guy? Yeah. There's two composers with the name Tchaikovsky. It just seems like there would have been some connection. People saying that kind of thing. Did they stop using it? No. They just said they did. Brilliant. And then, end of the round, they said, in your face, puncture, West End audiences.

28:30What did they do, like put a fake moustache on it? It is time for fact number three, and that is Anna. My fact this week is that in Spanish, much ado about nothing is translated as a lot of noise, not many nuts. I would watch that play, wouldn't you? They should rename it here. To any Spanish speaking people, I think this will be quite a familiar term. It literally just means much ado about nothing or it figuratively means much ado about nothing. Mucho oído y pocas noices. It's their version of the same phrase. Exactly. It's like, so it's basically, there's trees making lots and lots of noise, but I'm not getting many walnuts. It's specifically walnuts. But hang on, much ado about nothing, I presume that wasn't a phrase before Shakespeare made it into a phrase.

29:24Or was it? Was it a phrase in existence? I suppose we never sort of know, but I assume, no, I mean, wasn't a phrase before Shakespeare made it into a phrase. Or was it? Was it a phrase in existence? I suppose we never sort of know, but I assume, no, I mean, not to us, no. No, I imagine it wasn't. But that's interesting, because they have a phrase. So there it's more like they've called it a mountain out of a molehill. Yeah. And if Shakespeare had called it that after the phrase a mountain out of a molehill had existed. Yeah. But we don't know whether a much-do about nothing was a phrase already. No, no. And we never will but the thing about the much ado about nothing is it's got jokes in it

29:52that we don't understand because we're not from Elizabethan England so nothing in those days sounded a bit like noting which meant eavesdropping on someone and there's quite a lot of that in the play. Yes. And also, nothing was a euphemism for the vagina. Wasn't everything in Shakespeare's time. Well, no, everything was a euphemism for the penis. Usually something, actually. So something would be the penis and nothing would be the vagina. Really? Yeah, much ado about nothing. It's got all sorts of layers that only English teachers understand now. So they're actually reintroducing those layers by saying not many nuts, aren't they? They're adding a little more euphemism than we have. Very strong.

30:35It's a bit like all talk and no trousers, I would say, is our equivalent. All fur coat and no knickers, I would say. All fur coat and no knickers. Which I have never understood as a phrase. Why? What's not to like? What's the downside? That's two good things Maybe it's the fur coat is the bad thing Because we don't wear fur anymore That'll be it Yeah Anna So you got this fact from a book that was called If This Be Magic by Daniel Hahn. And it's an amazing book because he basically looks at the world of translation and he talks to multiple people who are translators globally. And how do you do it if you're translating him? You know, how do you do the puns, for example? And unanimously, it seems they all come back to say, we have to just write new jokes because we

31:23can't translate the puns. In Maori, when he spoke to the translator of that, the one thing she really got stuck on was the question, are you a man? She just couldn't work out how you would translate are you a man? This is Lady Macbeth. This is it to Macbeth. Are you a man? Yeah, and something... Got any nuts? I guess would be the... That was basically it it the question had to become have you got balls that was right that was it because it just she couldn't find the right way to do it that would make sense in the language yeah it's actually an advantage sometimes listening to shakespeare in another language supposedly i mean not that i ever have done but the point is that so much shakespeare is so well known in English. There was a Shakespeare scholar, Dennis Kennedy,

32:06who was interviewed, I think, in context of this book, who said, in English, Hamlet is a series of well-known quotations. In Chinese, it is a new play. So you don't have all the freight of all the... You don't have the audience going, oh, this is a good bit, or whatever. They're just engrossed in the story. Exactly. In fact, I happened to be messaging my mother last night about a fact I learned in this and she said the problem with Shakespeare is it's so full of cliches which is exactly that point isn't it there are some other quite fun translations in foreign languages where they've adapted them I really like Taming of the Shrew in Finnish which is how a temper bag is tamed and I just like the fact of the Shrew in Finnish, which is how a temper bag is tamed.

32:46And I just like the fact that akapusi in Finnish is a temper bag. Stop being such a temper bag, you akapusi. It's a good word. Like Chris Akapusi. I think that's why he's called that, yeah. There's in Japan in 1885, the Merchant of Venice was Cherry Blossom Time, A World of Money. Wow. Okay. Which is odd. And then the Chinese seem to be incredibly literal. So they just literally just describe the basics of the plot. And this is the early Chinese translations in Shakespeare. Too long. They called Merchant of Venice was borrowing money by cutting flesh. Which is a spoiler. And King Lear was, I think this is probably more catchy in Chinese, but lip service filial piety and heart filial piety. It's no load of old nuts, is it?

33:48Here's a question that everyone really wants your opinion on who really wrote shakespeare oh well like who wrote who really wrote henry the sixth parts one two and three there's lots of theories isn't there there's lots of theories yeah yeah but do you agree with them no i don't i think it was a guy called William Shakespeare. Well, the... But not the same William Shakespeare that you're thinking of. Billy Shakespeare. Was it the first person to get the Covid vaccine? That's right, yeah. Well, according to the Oxford book of Shakespeare, that's not exactly what it's called, but it's the main Shakespearean collection done by Oxford University, Henry VI, VI parts one two and three were written by Christopher Marlowe

34:29and William Shakespeare and actually they found recently that quite a lot of his works have been collaborative and the way that they've done it is they look at things called Shakespeare plus words and Shakespeare minus words so there are certain words that Shakespeare uses way more than any other writer. So gentle answer, beseech, spoke tonight. Shakespeare used tonight way more than any other. I don't know what the others say when it's something that's happening that evening. But then there are also Shakespeare minus words that are less likely to be used by him. And Marlowe wrote lots of plays and stories with the words familiar spirit, forsake me, droopeth to, miscreant, change my shape, enchantress.

35:14And Shakespeare didn't really use those that much. And so they use that kind of analysis. It's like mathematical analysis to say, actually, we think that this was written by two people in various parts. That's great. I do buy that, because people have such distinctive ways of speaking and writing. Do you know something Shakespeare did write? We're pretty sure, and collaboratively, like you said, James, this was a thing, was part of the play Sir Thomas More. So this is a play that was mostly written by a couple of other playwrights, but Shakespeare, it's the only handwritten playwriting we have from him. He wrote three pages. It's known as The Stranger's Case Speech. The whole play was banned at the time

35:48because it was about the people of England being very anti-migration and anti-refugees, and it was thought to be too controversial a topic at the time. But because it's not now, I thought I would just quote some of it because it is truly fantastic. So it's a speech shakespeare wrote in his own hand thomas moore goes to quell these rioters who are rioting against refugees in england and thomas moore basically says is this really how you think human beings should behave towards each other as if anyone has any more right to this land than anyone else and you know he says if you were in their position would you be pleased to find a nation of such barbarous temper that breaking out in hideous violence would not afford you an abode on earth?

36:30Would you spurn them like dogs? This is the stranger's case and this is your mountainish inhumanity. And I just thought, wow, in the week. And I'm not making a point because we're not political podcast. But it's very strange to read about protests in Psmouth uh and elsewhere whilst reading this 400 years ago yeah thinking well we haven't come very far have we um can i tell you something about the the theories yeah go for it so obviously hamlet has been done in klingon obviously obviously there was an outfit called the Klingon Shakespeare Restoration Project. It was all a thing to do with some people who were very into Star Trek, obviously, and that is obvious. And there's a line in one of the films where a character says,

37:19you have not experienced Shakespeare until you've read him in the original Klingon. And the argument runs, there's just no way Shakespeare can have been human. These plays are so good. Yeah, right. Which is basically taking the mickey out of the Earl of Oxford. You know, there's no way a sort of middle class guy from Warwickshire can have done this. Yes. I just love it. That's very funny. Can I tell you a fact about Shakespeare in Love as well? The movie? Well. Well. What a quick mind you have, Dan, because no. Quick and wrong. You're wrong faster than anyone else. Yeah, it's great. So this is just so interesting. I like it so much. So Shakespeare in Love, we know as a film starring the other Fiennes brother, Joseph.

38:03Joseph. Who I'm sure is more successful than we'll ever be, but it's just fun, isn't it? It's just a bit of fun, Joseph, if you're listening. He's got nothing else to do. He happens to be at the house of the 98-year-old bikini lady going, apparently we're both mentioned in this week's episode. Let's just give it a quick go. Basically, I just like the fact that there is a play called Shakespeare in Love, which is 200 years old. Oh. So Shakespeare Amoureux is a play that was written in 1804 for Napoleon's birthday, bizarrely, by a playwright called Alexandre Duval. And Shakespeare falls for an actress who is playing Richard III. Really? Yep. And I just think that's kind of bizarre that that's a 200-year-old.

38:56So it's a different plot to the modern one. Wow. There are no new things. Sounds pretty similar. So she falls in love with an actress in the film. I haven't seen the film. They sneak Gwyneth Paltrow in Under the Guides of Being a Man and they fall in love as it's pretty similar. So he falls in love with the actress in the film? I haven't seen the film. They sneak Gwyneth Paltrow in under the guise of being a man, and they fall in love as it's going along. It's the same plot. Oh, it's the same plot. Same thing. Same idea. Probably out of copyright if it's 200 years. They're probably fine. They can't sue. You know Henry V? Yeah, man. Just going back to translations, actually, for a moment. Hal, he was Prince Hal when he was younger

39:25is what he's called and Hal means fish in Hungarian and so in Hungarian they had to change Prince Hal's name to Ricky all the way through Ricky! and they say it, Ricky! all the way through and that of course is in the play Henry V Nope, obviously is in the play Henry V nope obviously it's not in Henry V Andy he's called Hal in Henry IV part one and two isn't he yes he's just called Henry in Henry V so that was just like if you know if I were Jeremy Paxman that's where I could make you feel stupid by asking that question you really shut the door on my head though I did hey what about Macbeth we talked about superstitions earlier didn't we yeah asking that question. You really shut the door on my head there. I did.

40:08Hey, what about Macbeth? We talked about superstitions earlier, didn't we? You're not really supposed to say Macbeth on stage. Macbeth is a very bad thing to say on stage. And in fact, if you say Macbeth on stage, then something could go terribly wrong. You're looking at me all the time when you say it. Well, the idea of this ancient curse of Macbeth, we think it was invented by a theatre critic called Max Beerbohm, who we've mentioned on the show before, actually. And he really didn't enjoy Shakespeare that much, and he was reviewing Macbeth, and he just was a little bit bored by it and thought, oh, he'll just make up this story of a guy called Hal Berridge who died over on the first performance in 1606 but we don't

40:46think that actually happened. But then of course once he gets a reputation as being unlucky as soon as anything dodgy happens, like if this light falls on my head now everyone's going to be like it's because he said Macbeth. But it was probably because one of you guys did it earlier. Or you were so committed to the bit you rigged it yourself. And then the other thing is, because Macbeth is such like a banker of a play, like it's the one you go to if you really need a play that's going to do really well. So often theatres are already going downhill and they think, what are we going to do? Oh, let's put Macbeth on. And so Macbeth ends up being like the last thing that plays, or is being played in the theatre

41:25where all the people who do all the work have already been fired and so things go wrong so that seems to be why Macbeth is now seen to be unlucky I think that makes sense no theatre in its right mind that's on the skid says let's do the Merry Wives of Windsor Stop the podcast Hi everybody we are sponsored this week by Progressive. That's right. So everyone talks about how challenging it is to raise kids. But what about protecting them? I'm talking outlet covers, kitchen cabinet locks, baby gates. Where do you even start? Yes, it is a nightmare. Well, protecting your home and your auto is a great place to start. Progressive offers customized coverage options so you can be sure you have the right coverage for you and your loved ones.

42:09They're basically the outlet covers, kitchen cabinet locks, and baby gates of insurance. Don't wait. Get your quote today at Progressive.com. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company affiliates and other insurers. Not available in all states. On with the show. Hi, I'm Jenna Oshkowitz. You might know me from Glee. This is At The Table, the food allergy podcast, a show about food, connection, and what it really looks like to live with food allergies. Each episode, we hear stories from real people like Daniel. People would always think I was lactose intolerant. So I just kind of shortened my explanation to I'm deathly allergic in a big way that defined a lot of my childhood. And while there are challenges, there are moments that remind

42:52you, you're not alone. One of the best guys that I dated, he made a point to memorize all my food allergies. So join us and hear their stories and more. Because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat. It's about still having your seat at the table. Brought to you by Genentech and Novartis. Listen to At The Table, the food allergy podcast on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow At The Table and start listening on the free iHeart Radio app today. All right, let's get to our final fact of the show, and that is Andy. My fact is Rome's hot priest calendar was busted this year because it turned out the men in it were neither Roman nor priests. But were they hot?

43:39They were so hot. This is a great thing that I hadn't heard of called the calendarioario Romano. Also known as the Roman Beefcake Calendar. And it features a lot of unbelievably handsome young men in dog collars. That kind of dog collar, not the other kind of dog collar. It's been going about 20 years and the weird thing is this came up in the news this year. They have actually been busted once or twice before. Have they? Do you mean police kicked their doors down? That's right. There are a lot of people doing jail time now. No, the guy behind it is a photographer called Piero Pazzi. And he's actually a cat photographer mostly. But he's opened cat museums in two separate cities, which is quite extraordinary.

44:24But he would go to Rome and Seville, and he'd snap fit young men, and he would say, look, can you sort of look a bit priesty? And they're not all priests. One of them was a Spanish estate agent. But it sells in huge numbers, this calendar. It sells, I mean, I've read between 8,000 and 75,000 copies a year. All the little kind of newsagents, tobacconists, that kind of thing in Rome. Yeah, I think if you're in the Vatican and you go just outside the Vatican, there's loads of little sort of souvenir shops and stuff, right? They all sell it. And an individual shop will sell hundreds of these in a year. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because there's nothing wrong with it. No. Well, I've been lied to, and I'll be getting a refund.

45:05There's nothing wrong with it. They're all going to hell. And there was a big interview this year with one of the cover priests, actually, for many editions, a guy called Giovanni Galizia, who is now a Viennese flight attendant. Oh, yeah. And he did this great interview, because he's never seen any royalties from it. He was maybe 20 or 18 when the shot was taken. And he did this great interview because he's never seen any royalties from it. He was maybe 20 or 18 when the shot was taken. And he does look quite priesty in it. I think he's just wearing all black. But this guy has seen multiple theories about himself online because it's been 20 years since the photo was taken. So he's seen a rumor that he was a priest, but he gave up the habit for love.

45:43And another says he's now 80 and living a quiet, retired life. He's 39 in that one. One says he wrote Shakespeare's work. Yeah, there's a few of them. They tend to make the news and get in trouble when they're connected to a religion. So there was one that was in the news a while back, which was a similar hot Mormon's calendar. The men on a mission calendar did not go down well with the community. And these were all former Mormons who had left. Why didn't they call it missionary position? That's the stupidest. I've actually found this the worst fact we've ever had to research publicly in a cafe. Researching naughty, sexy calendars and looking for facts about them. I looked over my shoulder every half minute.

46:27Did you guys find that? I was researching it on a train and it was bad. So many boobs. Too many boobs. What was the one that you were most embarrassed? I was most embarrassed that people thought I was genuinely Googling the film Calendar Girls out of curiosity. Come on. Well, they were kind of the ones that started the modern sort of idea of people doing a charity calendar right the real calendar girls it was the women's institute yeah and then eventually got turned oh quite soon afterwards actually it got turned into the movie calendar girls but it wasn't actually a women's institute calendar it was done outside of the women's institute because it's illegal for one charity to raise money for another charity and the money was going to leukemia research

47:11so they had to do it kind of outside of the rules a little bit just on calendar girls the movie oh yeah i was reading an interview with the director and it sounds like so much fun to make helen mirren yeah helen mirren julie Walters, like all the great women with female actors of that age. From the 90s, was it? Celia Imri. I think it was made in the early 2000s because the real WI people who they were based on was 1999. But the director just said they loved being naked, these women. So they were quite nervous at first, but then he said they, like Helen Mirren, Celia Imri, Julie Walters, they all insisted on being naked at all times filming the calendar scenes, even when they didn't need to be. And I don't mean in scenes where they had to be

47:50wearing clothes. They didn't have to Photoshop clothes. It's the first use of CGI, isn't it? To put a top on Helen Mirren. I'm sorry, you speak truer than you know. What? The director, Nigel Cole, said, even after we'd finished and cut the film, there were things popping out that shouldn't have been. And a young man from digital remastering had to spend four weeks removing all the private parts. So when this calendar girls thing all kicked off, it was around 2004, and I read an article in the Sunday Telegraph from November 28th that year, and it was naturists complaining that naked calendars were giving nudity a bad name. Interesting. And they said that basically when you get a comical depiction of a woman from the WI sort of

48:33like leaning over to put some toast in the toaster and a cat jumps in front of her and tastefully covers her breasts then what you're saying is that nudity is something that we should be ashamed of. And the commercial manager of British naturism, Andrew Welch, said the whole market has been flooded with nude calendars. And really, they are not nude. They still cover themselves with cider presses or whatever. Quite right. Such a specific cider presses or whatever. They were really annoyed about it. And can I just read a quote from this article? So this is from The Telegraph in 2004. There are now approximately 100 naked calendars published every year. Recent examples include a calendar celebrating Scotland's first gay-friendly rugby club

49:22and an Embrace Men in Wellies calendar sponsored by a Wellington boot manufacturer that features Alan Duncan, the Labour MP for Rotland and Melton, dressed as Father Christmas, preserving his modesty with a cutout of Margaret Thatcher. That sentence just goes where you absolutely have no idea where it's going to go. Yeah. Was the Wellies one called Welly Wanging? No, it's called Embrace Men in Wellies. Oh, sorry. But it should have been. Was the rugby one called Tackle Out? I think you have a job just naming things. I missed a call in, haven't I? Yeah, yeah. Well, this is the weird thing was that there was this period in British life, and it was from Calendar Girls coming out until, I'd say, 2012 or 13,

50:09when austerity put an end to it, where basically almost half the national life seems to have been producing and starring in nude calendars, and they all had to be for charity. That was a very strict rule. But you couldn't just say, I am an exhibitionist and I desperately want to get my kiss off and be in the calendar. So, the saucy Cumbrian young farmer's calendar where they're posing in a silage clamp. There was a lot of farming, wasn't there? A lot of farming. Ryanair, of course, their cabin crew stunners led to 8,000 complaints, which is impressive. The Greggs, what were Greggs? The Greggs nude calendar. Wow. Really? And you're covered by a sausage roll. which is impressive. The Greggs nude calendar.

50:45Really? And you're covered by a sausage roll-on. There were casualties, we should say, of this movement. What do you mean? Well, in 2011, Doncaster Rovers sacked their mascot, Tracy Chandler, a.k.a. Donnie Dogg, after she stripped off for a tasteful photo shoot. And it was especially cruel because Doncaster Rovers had just done their own charity calendar where all the players were stripping off. And they sacked the mascot. Why? For taking off her dog costume. Did she still have the big fluffy head on? I don't know. Was it in her contract she had to keep the dog costume on all year round? I don't think that's how it worked. Never be seen without. I think I read about the most naked, naked calendar that's been produced.

51:27So this was a Japanese company, and they did it purely to promote a new bit of tech they wanted to get out there. So they got a bunch of female models. They got naked, except for high heels, and they took X-ray shots of them. And so every shot is a naked model, but so naked that you can only see her bones and high heels. And the photos look amazing. Do they? Yeah. We're going into very strange territory, aren't we? Yeah, you can see all the creminators going, oh, look at those bones. No, it's very cool. I recommend looking at images. It does feel like it's going to be a letdown if you say, darling, do you want to see me the most naked you've ever seen me? And you get someone's skeleton. Yeah.

52:08Works for some people. Actually, speaking of skeletons, do you know the Linda calendar in Poland? No. A lot of these naughty calendars are kind of promotional things by random companies, you know, a tyre company, an insurance company. At the end of the year, they'll put out a calendar. And this is put out by a family-owned Polish coffin and casket manufacturing company. At the end of the year, they'll put out a calendar. And this is put out by a family-owned Polish coffin and casket manufacturing company. And it's a calendar of naked people lying in coffins. It's good to know what you'll look like in the coffin if they forget to put clothes on you. No, the Catholic Church says it's not appropriate.

52:42Yeah, they agree with the Catholic Church. And they don't like the hot priest calendar, just to bring us back to that either. Do they not? Well, because they're not appropriate. Yeah, they... Once I agree with the Catholic Church. And they don't like the hot priest calendar, just to bring us back to that either. Do they not? Well, because they're not priests. And also because even if they were priests, they wouldn't be approving a hot priest calendar. There is apparently a gym over the road from the Vatican where you do get actual hot priests working out. And the gym owner said, we had one American bishop who was more muscular than a bodybuilder. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, the current pope was at some point an American bishop, right?

53:08Right. Oh, he was, yeah, Robert Provost. Right, so he's an American pope. So you reckon he's the ripped one? I'm not saying he's definitely the ripped one, but we could have our first shredded pope, and we might not know. Wait a minute, wasn't Francis was a bouncer in Buenos Aires, wasn't he? Yes, he was. So he must be pretty buff. Yeah, that's true. So it's possible there have been two shredded posts. How do you get more muscly than a bodybuilder? Isn't that exciting? There's another layer above bodybuilder. It's like a muscle halo that's over you. Just a ring of biceps around your head. Yeah. Can I tell you a brief thing about the calendar? Just to get us off all the naughty stuff. Okay. This is really exciting. This is about the invention

53:54of the page a day desk calendar. Oh yeah. This is really exciting, you said at the start of that sentence. Just to remind you. Yep. Strap in, guys. It was invented by a guy of... Paul... Sorry. I've got so excited, I've laughed at... It was... You can hear... I feel like if we got one word a day of this fact, we might get there a bit quicker. Now I'm crying, so thanks a lot. For context, I'll start again. The page-a-day desk calendar was invented by a guy called Paul Hanson who worked at a company called workman publishing in 1979 you know the cool thing about it gone the company workman publishing was run and owned by a man called Peter workman you where it was going yeah well I think the entire fucking room knew where that was going.

55:10Okay, that is 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're all online. If you want to send us any facts, podcast at qi.com. Send it there because we're going to pick out the best facts and take it to Little Fish, our Monday show, which is really fun. Or if you've got little bits of feedback, experiences, we'll take that and put it on Drop Us a Line, which is our secret behind-the-scenes Club Fish episode that you get if you're a member of that. That's patreon.com slash clubfish. Check it out. Otherwise, come back here next week because we're going to be back with another

55:42episode. But for now, thank you everyone around the world watching us. Thank you everyone here in the room with us at london podcast festival and we'll see you again goodbye hey there it's ryan seacrest for safeway fall is here and your busy days are just getting started power through every chris morning and weekend adventure with your favorite nutrition brands now through december 1st fuel your fall with savings and stock up on items like cliff builder protein bars cliff bar 10 packs luna bars and cliff snack bars for on the go snacking plus take on your day with five hour energy offer ends december 1st restrictions apply offers may vary visit safeway.com for more details. Can the V6 Nissan Frontier tow a 6,000 pound boulder? Sure it can. Can it pull a stuck ATV

56:33out of a ditch? One? Make it three. Can it find the path when the map ends? What map? Can it out-truck the Tacoma and go off the off-road? Oh, my guess can. Can the V6 Nissan Frontier? For sure. No problem. Towing capacity varies by configuration. See Nissan Towing Guide and Owner's Manual for additional information. Always secure cargo. You can imagine what the world needs. You just need a chance to make it real. Bring your ideas to life at Pacific University. You'll learn and study in a vibrant environment that stretches from campus into the Northwest. And you'll be supported by a welcoming community that stays with you long beyond graduation. Unlock your potential at Pacific, where you can pursue your purpose.

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