No Such Thing As Trigger's Stradivarius

0:00Hey, it's Kelly Rowland. You may not know this, but I have Exema. So I get how it can steal your time. But why let Exema take over when you can talk to your doctor about Epglyce? Epglyce, lubricism app LBKZ, a 250-mg per 2-mg leador injection, is a prescription medicine used to treat adults and children 12 years of age and older, who weigh at least 88 pounds or 40 kg with moderate to severe Exema. Also called a topic dermatitis that is not well controlled with prescription therapies used on the skin, or topicals, or who cannot use topical therapies. Epglyce can be used with or without topical corticosteroids. Don't use if you are allergic to Epglyce. A allergic reaction can occur that can be severe. Eye problems can occur. Tell your doctor if you have newer, worsening eye problems. You should not receive a live vaccine when treated with Epglyce. Before starting Epglyce, tell your doctor if you have a parasitic infection. Paid partnership with Lili Respect your time. Ask your doctor about Epglyce and visit Epglyce.com or call 1-800-LiliRX or 1-800-545. 5-9-7-9

1:288-800-LiliRX or 1-800-LiliRX or 1-800-545. Hello and welcome to another episode of No Such Thing as a Fish, a weekly podcast coming to you from the QI offices in Hoburn. My name is Dan Schreiber. I am sitting here with Andrew Hunter Murray, Anna Toshinsky and James Harkin. Once again we have gathered around the microphones with our four favorite facts from the last seven days and in a particular order here we go. Starting with fact number one, that is Anna. My fact this week is that in 2010, thieves stole a strativarius worth 1.4 million pounds, tried to sell it for 100 pounds and couldn't find any buyers. Oh, that is tragic. Is it because people saw the price tag and thought if it was a really good violin it would be more than that so there must be some kind of scab.

2:28That is why I would think. Very smart, maybe this is what this person thought as well. Interesting they have priced themselves out of the market but at the wrong end. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. You know you are not a terrible violin you would think would be more than a hundred pounds wouldn't it? Yes. Not even your ropeiest kids' violin. If I walked into the shop and I saw a pack of sausages was 5p, I would instinctively think, no, not that. Do we know though that they were trying to sell it to very knowledgeable violin makers or was it like a porn shop for example? They absolutely were not trying to do that. So this was a guy called John Morn who did the theft with a 14-year-old and 16-year-old accomplices. That is sort of Fagans gang style. Yeah, really nice. Really nice. This sort of gang of rap scallions went to pret near Euston and this violin prodigy Minjin Kim was having a lunch and she left her violin by the side of her and they whipped it as the telegraph reported as she ate her £2.95 sandwich. Okay.

3:28To the next day the thief and his two little rap scallions went to an internet cafe in Tottenport Road and they were googling the word strativarius and 1696 which is the year the violin was made. Oh, of course. And we know that because the person sitting next to them was a bus driver who saw what they were googling. So they obviously knew kind of what they'd got. I think they'd probably freaked out, turned to this bus driver sitting next to them and said, do you want to buy this violin for a hundred quid? And the bus driver. The bus driver said, it's okay, my daughter already has a recorder. Incredible line. But also these thieves, I'm sorry, they've done no market research on the audience. Like it's just the bloke sitting next to you in the internet cafe, do you want to buy a violin? That's terrible. That's terrible selling. Everyone knows that if anyone on a bus is going to do anything in the orchestra, there will be the conductor. Very nice. Very nice. Were they trying to sell it then because they realised they're in big trouble at least they'll get a tiny bit of cash out of it? Or were they so bad at googling Stradivarius? After an hour they're like, I think this might be worth a hundred if we're lucky. Also the idea of googling 1696 along with Stradivarius is that there's going to be a substantial

4:32difference between a 1699 and a 16... Yeah. It's a Stradivarius. It's obviously unbelievable. But I think they might not have even known what Stradivarius men are. Yes, exactly. And so because quite often Stradivarius is they have Stradivarius written and the year written on them, right? So they will have just googled whatever they've read. It's fair enough, right? I should quickly end this by saying it was recovered three years later and it then sold it auctioned 4.4 million. Very sadly she was unable to buy it back. The original owner, Min Kim, because she had had it underinsured basically. So when she insured it, they hadn't given her enough money for it. It could matter how much it's probably worth. But I don't know if they'd just return it to her. No, because she had claimed on the insurance. So what happened? When something is reclaimed, the insurance owner, if you've claimed. And so it is very sad. I think she wrote a whole book about the experience because it had been her lifelong dream. She had been a child, violent prodigy. She has this thing. She now can't afford one again. I guess on the plus side, everyone in the world's insurance premiums probably went down

5:35by a fraction of a penny because the company got a load of money. Do you know what? That's a really nice way of thinking about quite a sad story. There's spot the accountant. Well, hopefully she's listening and that's reassured her. It's amazing reading about her relationship with the violin. Yeah. That, you know, as proper grief, she got clinically depressed after that couldn't get out of bed. It wasn't about how much it was worth at all. It was about her attachment. She was like, this was like a relationship when someone said to her, couldn't you get another violin? She said, would you say that if my child had died? And, but she did then say after a few years of self-reflection that actually probably a good thing because it was an unbalanced relationship. Like, you know, she needs the violin more than the violin needs her, you know, the violin's in control of things. And now she's got a slightly less expensive one, which isn't as powerful and incredible, but which she thinks is probably better for. Wait, you got another strad? Not a strad and a Marty, I think, which made by one of Stradivarius's, so another big

6:39old posh one. Yeah, we should say Antonio Stradivarius. He was a Lucio. He was someone who mended broken instruments, stringed instruments. And so he lived from 1644 to 1734. So he was very old. And in that time, he built something like a 1100 violins, violas and a few others. And we only have about 600 of them left, but they are to a connoisseur seen as the finest violins that were ever made still to this day. But actually, people have done blind testing of violins. And it seems that generally people can't tell the difference. Yeah. It's really like a really modern one that you get. And Stradivarius, and you put blindfolds on them, you put in a room where they can't see what they're doing, you give them to play. And you say which ones, the Stradivarius, and usually they can't tell. So even violinists can tell? Right, the proper violinists are the ones they've tested it on. And then when it's not blind tested, and you hear reports of a violinist getting a chance to play one, they do report that it's the silkyest, most wonderful thing.

7:40So that's such an interesting psychological thing. There's a journalist called Emma John, who also happens to be a violinist. And the Ashmolian Museum in Oxford had a Stradivarius there. And she played it, and she said every time someone would pick it up and play it, a crowd would gather around them. Yeah, that's how she described it, just astonishing, different to any kind of thing. She's a little bit more. That one is the Messiah, right, in the Ashmolian. Of course, that's the one we're talking about. That's the big one that they have there now anyway. It's supposed to be the one that's in the best condition out of any Stradivarius, but in fact, it has been modified as they all have. So around the 18th century, people changed what they thought violin should be like. They got a bit bigger, they got a slightly different body, slightly different neck. And all the Stradivarius has got changed slightly. I really. And the Messiah, which is in the Ashmolian, which like I say, is supposed to be the most close to the original. It's had its neck lebthand, its base bar has been replaced, its bridge has been replaced, its tail pieces have been replaced, its pegs have been replaced, and its soundpost has

8:43probably been replaced, and its strengths have probably been replaced. The theory is. Is this Trigger Stradivarius? Exactly. You know why it's called the Messiah? I think it was called the Messy, which it means Messiah, and I think it's because Lionel Messy. Yeah, that's a great use of current owner. They're normally named after people who used owned them before, so there's one called the X Huberman, which used to be owned by someone called Huberman. There's a joke behind it basically. It's a half legendary joke, whether or not it's true, but it is called the Messiah, and it was a person who was called Luigi Tarisio, was the owner of it. He kept it in Italy and he used to visit his friends and say, I'm going to show you the Messiah, and he just kept it, never brought it along. And so people like, do you actually own it? So the idea. He didn't say at the time, I'm going to show you the Messiah, right? Because it wasn't called the Messiah yet. No. I'm going to show you my violin. I'm going to show you my violin exactly. Yeah. Because like the Messiah, it was eagerly expected, but would never appear. And so that was the idea behind it. I see. Yeah. But you can see why she was very into the idea and connected to her violin. I think the name has something to do with it, because these have individual names, the

9:45Messiah, the beach back. There's the Bennett, there's the Canadian. There was a golden period that he used to make them, and in that golden period, 1713 is one of the big years. And he produced two violins in that year, one called Daniel and one called Shriver. What? No, he didn't. Yeah. And obviously named retroactively, that he didn't name them himself, but you can get a Daniel and Shriver. Any called Craig or Indiana? No, I looked into that. I could find that. Not for your middle names. No, but the only other connection to the podcast I could find is that there is also a violin called Lord Boric. Now he, I believe. Hang on, he wrote in? Yeah. A number of times on our club fish shows about Big Ben, right? Lord Boric wrote in about the numbering on Big Ben and whether it is actual Lord from the House of Lods. Yes, he's a real Lord, yeah, yeah. Yeah. And so there was a strad called Lord Boric. And I looked into it, and I'm pretty sure that his great grandfather was the owner and now the person named after the Stradavarious. Really? Yeah. You should have written back to him before the show, see if we could borrow it.

10:46borrow it. I reckon I can get Twinkled Twinkled out of the violin. There was Mother Stroud thefts. Yeah. Over the ages, my favourite one is a theft of one that belonged to a guy called Roman Totenburg. And this was taken in 1980 and I just kind of like the chutzpah of the person who took it. So Roman Totenburg was a good violinist. He was the teacher of a guy called Philip Johnson. And actually Philip Johnson was a very talented but very troublesome, naughty, annoying student who got expelled in the end. Totenburg was the only person who defended him at the time. So a bit unfairly, Johnson turned up at one of Totenburg's shows in 1980, nicked his strad, and people actually saw him. And a lot of people said, look, there's a guy who looks a bit shifty around here. We think it's that guy who was really misbehaving. He was ranting about how he doesn't think Totenburg deserves his strad. We saw him walk past Totenburg's office a number of times where the strad is. And even given all of that circumstantial evidence when Totenburg went back and found it with Stolen, they weren't allowed to search his house because it's all circumstantial.

11:48I think even the guy who stole it, his girlfriend slash wife said, I think he stole it. And they still didn't say it wasn't it. I remember when my laptop got stolen and I could see with five my phone exactly where it was. I could see the building where it was, but the police wouldn't go and get it. Yeah, really? Was your laptop worth 2.1 million dollars? Well, it had all of my facts on it. So it's right, we go. It's actually a weird, you social relationship I have with my laptop. You know, sometimes I think I need the laptop more than the laptop needs me. It's a cold Daniel Schreiber. It's called Daniel Schreiber. That's probably Daniel, that's my password. But this guy was so brazen once he nicked it and everyone knew he'd nicked it. He didn't want to sell it. So he ended up being so poor he had to shoplift to eat food, but he still didn't vlog it. Also quite hard to vlog a strut because everyone knows it's stolen. But he would turn up to his local orchestra and just play it. And then people would say, oh, that's a nice filing. Can I have a look? I need quickly shove it back in the box and make some excuse.

12:51Yeah. If I was him, I'd hide it in a machine gun case. I think you could get even more trouble. Yeah. Yeah. And then the end of that story is that Totemberg never gets to find out where it was. He dies. The year before this guy, Johnson died and the wife found it in all his belongings. So there was a one year overlap between the deaths where if someone had just gone through his stuff, they could have got the end of the story. Yeah. But he died. Oh, that's tragic. And they had a ceremony returning it to the family after it was discovered. Yeah. It takes ages when someone's died to go through all that stuff, you know, blame the poor woman. Yeah. There is a theory about why they're so good. As partly that Stradivari was a genius. Sure. And partly that they're not that good. Part of that they're rubbish. But in between that, there is this theory that it's due to the weather at the time, because Europe went through this period called the Little Ice Age from about 1300 to about 1850.

13:54And the idea is Stradivari got all of his word from a particular forest in Italy. And it came from particular spruce trees. And those spruce trees during this period of colder weather grew more slowly and the wood is more dense. And as a result, those are supposedly the golden period ones where he didn't turn out some actually quite good violins. And I just love the science that's gone into it. And either the scientists did, they compared ring patterns in the violin to the international tree ring data bank, which is a huge like vault of tree records from 6,000 different places around the world. 6,000. And they clustered patterns and they did a lot of clever analysis and they found these master chronologies of trees across Europe. And they traced it down to this particular bit of this particular forest. That's an amazing time. And so that's one of the reasons why they... There's quite a few different theories as to why they're so good. So one idea is that the word was treated with borax to prevent worms from eating it. And that supposedly made it better.

14:56There's another idea that they made the varnish with volcanic ash. So that made it better. Really common one is the varnish itself was cotonille varnish. It's made out of insects, I think, cotonille. But this was supposed to really help the resonance of the instrument. The thing is that he was the only one using cotonille because he was making instruments for extremely wealthy, powerful people and had everything at his disposal to make the best violins, which is why I think probably they were the best ones. Right. You know, like he just had every chance to make the best ones because he was making them for the royal family. Yeah. Also, there weren't that many. It wasn't like a violin that existed for thousands of years. You know, they'd just been invented. He was one of the early inventors of the violin. I really. And that, yeah, basically, the violin had that century, yeah. And it was him and then a bunch of other people whose violins are also very famous, like Guarneri, who had the most expensive one and then Amati. But I do love, do you always feel a bit juggling hide when you read about these experiments? We think how cool that scientists have found this and given that we know it's a load of

15:58old bollocks anyway and no one can tell the difference, why are people wasting their time? Don't we still have malaria? Oh. Do you find yourself doing that? That's not really. Yeah. I think it's been done. Yeah. If you're not every scientist can try and cure malaria, otherwise there's going to be lots of other parts of the science that, sorry, we can't fix your computer because we're trying to, you know, like, him and his laptop again. I think it's more like people are so unwilling to believe the results of the study. I mean, there's poor women who did their study that show people can't tell the difference in the sound. People laid into it. Didn't they? And they said the methodology's all wrong. She went back and did it again better. She found exactly the same thing. Really? You were wrong. Still they just sell for so much and people say, what's the key to how good they sound? And it's obviously that you're holding a strand. I don't think we've ever talked about the thing in 2019 where there was a city in Italy called Kermona still is. And they had a strata various that they wanted to record the sounds of because they were making a library of strata various sounds. Oh, yeah. So that I presume in the future you can get it on a synthesizer and just play it like

17:01that, you know? It's where he's from, by the way, as well. Kermona. Yeah, he was from Kermona, strata various. This all starts to make sense. They were making the strata various sound bank and they had to record this one violin in particular and they had to make the whole city go quiet for ages while they were recorded the sound. So they called and off five blocks right in the middle of town. And in the auditorium they were in. They turned off the ventilation, you know, because that might make a slight noise. They turned off the lifts just in case in a different bit of the building, a tiny bit of sound came in. Ding! They unscrewed the light bulbs in case there was a slight electrical hum. They just did absolutely everything to make it as quiet as it could possibly be for literally a hundred metres around. I love it. And then did the person complete the fuck the piece up? Yeah. Just really squeaky. They got a ten year old to play it. You play on the synthesizer now, but there's a cough in the middle of the main night. I imagine someone did cough at some point, you know, when there's a Remberance Day silence and have you ever walked into a room not realizing it's a two minute silence? I've never been there before.

18:02How are you doing to the cup of tea? I'm pretty sure I've done that to you at the airport, actually. And everyone turns around and goes, shh. Oh, yes, yes. And then when we were on tour, that happened. Yeah, I think it did. So I imagine someone did that to the strad and got a similarly ego-destroying response. Is anyone not why the aircon's been turned off? I had to come up with stairs. It's really dark in here by the way. Hey, it's Kelly Roller. You may not know this, but I have eczema. So I get how it can steal your time. But why let eczema take over when you can talk to your doctor about eczlas? Eczlas, lubricism app, LBKZ, a 250-mg per 2-mg leador injection, is a prescription medicine used to treat adults and children 12 years of age and older, who weigh at least 88 pounds or 40 kg with moderate to severe eczema. Also called a topic dermatitis that is not well controlled with prescription therapies used on the skin or topicals or who cannot use topical therapies. Eczlas can be used with or without topical corticosteroids. Don't use if you are allergic to eczlas.

19:03A allergic reactions can occur that can be severe. Eye problems can occur. Tell your doctor if you have newer, worsening eye problems. You should not receive a live vaccine when treated with eczlas. Before starting eczlas, tell your doctor if you have a parasitic infection. Paid partnership with Lili. Respect your time. Ask your doctor about eczlas and visit eczlas.com or call 1-800-LiliRX or 1-800-545-5979. Stop the podcast. Stop the podcast. Hi everybody. Just wanted to let you know we are sponsored this week by CarGurus. Yes. So are you wanting a new car but you don't really know what kind. Who knows about cars? No one. Well, with Discover on CarGurus, you can search in your own words and get personalized listings that fit what you want so you can say, oh, fun car to fly into space for me and 17 friends please. Hit return and it'll tell you. Yeah, or you can search for something like a safe car for the whole family. I mean, it completely depends what you want. Even I have both bought cars in our time. Yeah.

20:04I don't know about you. I did find it quite confusing and upsetting experience. It's impossible to know. It's a world west out there. There are a million cars. It's very, very hard to narrow it down to exactly what you want. Unless you do have something like CarGurus where you can describe what you're looking for in your own words. There's a search feature called Discover. You type what you want. It instantly shows you real available cars that perfectly match what you're looking for. That's right. And you'll get things like real-time alerts for price drops or for new listings so you're never going to miss out on a good find. And so join the many millions have already found these gurus. Get your fair deal. Go to cargurus.co.uk for complete vehicle details without any surprises. That's right. That is cargurus.cagus.co.uk. Cargurus.co.uk. Search by sorted. Oh, with a show. Okay, it's time for fact number two and that is Andy. My fact is there is a testing body in America which makes sure bins are bear proof by testing

21:06them on live grizzly bears. Makes sense? Yeah. Absolutely does. Yeah. This is the work of the Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee, the IGBC. And just a quick shout out to what I got this fact. I got it from a book called How to Keep a Plane in the Sky. It's by a guy called Alex Davies and it's all about test engineering basically. It's the way in which engineers make products safe. Things are tested to destruction and beyond to try and make sure they work in the real world. And it's such an interesting book. So big shout out to the author Alex Davies, the Bear Agency Committee. This is an American thing. Basically, if a bear gets into your bin or your food canister when you're camping, that's a problem, you know. Yeah. Because it makes a mess. But it means they're more likely to go towards places where humans are, right? Exactly. If they know they can get a pick and neck basket from the humans, then they're going to go towards the humans are what? Yeah, I might attack them. Exactly. So they test all these products which are sold as bear resistant. And there's only one way to prove of its bear resistant which is to get it in the ring

22:08with a bear. So they have a bear on staff called Kobuk, the destroyer, who is their MVP. He's really, really good at it. But they have a few bears they tested on. And the thing has to survive. There's one hour of bear contact time. Yeah. Then they get a sticker. Then they get a sticker. And it's taken from the IGBC. And that sticker means that it can go in like... Yeah, absolutely. They're not going in the bear. They're not going in the bear. Yeah, yeah. But bear gets a little like you go to the dentist. Bear gets in the bear. You tried really hard. Yeah. I like to say, I read an article about these guys and I like it that they're all problem bears that they use. They only use problem bears. Right. It's every bear not a problem bear with it. It's quite neat, you know. These are bears who have previously gained access to unsecured foods. So they know that they're up for it. Yeah. And co-buckers like their code breaker. This is the one who's just got into things that the bear has managed. And that worked just very quickly because you've given a shout out for the book. That is the name of the book in America. A co-book, the destroyer. Just for any Americans who want to get it because it's coming out just now.

23:08And I do like... There's a point that Alex Davies makes which is that it's... We're so obsessed with inventors and we remember the name of the inventors. What this book is trying to say is there's a whole other level of innovators who, once they get the product, have to refine and fix it. They are kind of a silent genius that we never get to see. Yeah. We have the same on our British bins, but with the less interesting foxes. Oh, they get tested on foxes. Yes, coral products who make food caddies. They have their own fox fondly called philics, they say. And they also have a bunch of rodents that they have named. And they try all of their bins on philics and their rats. They did not know that. Yeah, it doesn't seem to work. Foxes seem to get into bins, they're frightened to enter. Yeah, exactly. It doesn't seem to work at all. My wheelie bin, they absolutely worked out to get into that. Have to hate you. They're very clever aren't they? You can't outwit a fox in the end. We've all read fantastic Mr. Fox. Yeah. Yeah, I do keep live chickens in my wheelie bins.

24:08I was looking at quite a lot of bin. I got really sidetracked by bins. Oh, great. And are the testing on bins? There's a company called Simple Human, which I really like actually. It's a environmentally friendly company that makes stuff. It tests its pedal bins with a massive robot called the Punisher. I mean, it's not that massive. It's like human size, but the Punisher, or can you guess what it does? It opens the pedal bin repeatedly and violently. I don't actually know if it has to be too violent. What's the punishment part of it? I think it's just punishing for the bin once it has been open and closed at least 150,000 times, which is what it does. That's incredible. Which is the equivalent of doing 20 open shots a day for 20 years. Ah. So that's what the Punisher and I think. That's why you do open your bin quite a lot, didn't you? Absolutely. Yeah, and 20 years seems like a... Actually, that's quite long to have a place. That's really long. I've had my bin for 12 years. Have you? Yeah, my main bin in my house. Oh, wow. I'm so confident about how long you've had your bin for. I got it when we got the house, and I knew where we got the house. I know, it was the equation.

25:09I got married at the same year, so... It was just as if... The bin was the best man. LAUGHTER A big thing in the book is like, how you replicate real-life conditions, but you're also trying to do standardized experiments. Do you not mean? And those things are slightly intentional with each other. So, for example, planes are tested with having chickens fired at them, even though chickens do not typically go into plane engines because they're mostly on the ground. Yeah. Right? They're easy to get hold of, and also there's not going to be a bird that's much bigger than a chicken. Well, I mean, geese are much bigger. That one that went down in the Salenberger, a miracle on the Hudson. Yeah. Yeah. It was a flock of geese, all of which are much bigger. That's true, actually, and it's not that hard to get frozen geese. Oh, and off-fish. Yeah, Christmas. Christmas. Yeah, and off-tricks, but on a date. I've got a list of misdiscrued here. Oh, yeah. And get me the biggest turkey fight, because I've got a Boeing engine here. When the Hudson not have happened if it was a flock of regular-sized chickens? Chicken chickens. I don't know, because it's, again, they... There was the number of them that went in there. It was the number, and it was the size. So, it was... They're always trying to find out a thing where you can do the test repeatedly.

26:12The chicken is perfect, because you can get four-pound chickens really readily. But even these days, they're using artificial chicken, bird-simulent material, which is just a sack of gelatin. So, again, it's like, that's not a real world thing, but it is completely standardized. So, I think that's really interesting, you know. I think I've seen that in the vegetarian section. I'm a local test person. Yeah, yeah, lovely. Basted bird-simulent. Fire some tofu into the engine. They call it torture sometimes, don't they? When you're testing one of these products, again and again and again. And torture's been used in advertising quite a lot of the years. So, RCA Victor radios, they would take two different radios and do torture tests on them, and show that there's was the one that would last for the longest. TimeX did the same where they would sort of whack their watches with hammers and stuff and say, look, how is this the one that's survived? And there's a web, a YouTube series called Will It Blend. Have you ever seen that?

27:12Oh, how do I get it? Yeah, so I have seen that. Yeah, it's just, it's an app for basically for a blender. I didn't realize it was an app actually when I've seen it in the past. Oh, it's for the blender. Yeah, yeah, and the idea is that the blender's so great that it can blend all these different things. And so, they get like a rock and they put it in and they go, Will It Blend? And then an iPhone and then what? I thought it was going to be an app for the iPhone that it couldn't blend. No, it's not. It's for the, yeah, for the... But they could do a partnership, I guess, with the iPhone and the blender. But it's always going to lose. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I like the, because a lot of the stress tests are about quite large things, about plane wings and the turbines and all that. I like the really simple ones and there's an example in the book, which is the Zilgean symbol. And we've spoken about this symbol before. It's the symbol that every drummer uses on the drum kit. You love these so much. Yeah, and I bet I've pronounced the name wrong. But they have someone who up to 4,000 times a day takes every single symbol and just gives it three taps and they know the quality of what should be out there. And that's when one is free to go.

28:13So it's just someone in a room going, tt, tt, tt, tt. Oh, I'm the same symbol. No, no, every individual symbol up to 4,000 a day of these symbols come through and he does three taps on each and he says, yes or no. He's the quality control. He's the quality control. That's quality control. Do you think that would be incredibly boring today? I would send you mad with order, but fortunately it's a drummer doing it so they don't know it's boring. Just a drummer joke for you there. There you go. Yeah, very good. Is he testing the quality of the sound then? Like, oh, this sound is a bit of a... Yeah, it is. What the sound is he expecting? Find a look at! So much for a chicken in this one. It's like the person at the Maltese's factory who looks at every single Maltese that goes past and makes sure that there's none there too big or too small. It was back. It was back. I'm not... I can treat faster than the camera. Do you guys know what a tenderometer measures? Oh. The tenderness of something? Yes, meat. Of what though? Meat. Should be meat, shouldn't it? Meat, erm... James Blunt singles. Yeah. What needs to be tender?

29:14You actually don't think your guest is based on that question. Turkey tenders, like, erm, they're like turkey strips are called turkey tenders, aren't they? Oh, I didn't know that. I thought they were turkey twizzlers. I am. Turkey dinosaurs? You've all gone to meaty. That's how the classic is, isn't it? That's how the sensitive of the product... Oh, yeah. What needs to squish? Something that tells you how bruised you are. It's actually something that you want it to be almost less tender. It's misnamed. It's peas. I'm going to put you out, you misery. Okay. It's peas. This big machine, the tenderometer, invented in 1937 and still used the exact same machine copies of it today and it's to make sure, you know, exactly how much force they can withstand because you don't want your peas to be too melee. So actually, it should be called like the crunchometer or something. Yeah. It's a waste. It is smashed. Yes, but what it does, I know what you're thinking, you can't use the peas. But... You have the problem, yeah. You have some ashes. That's a problem with all of these things. It's like, okay, we've smashed this mobile phone 200,000 times. Now we'll sell it. That's not how it works. We need a better system.

30:14Yes, I think you're usually smashing one in the back, aren't you? And then you say, all right, the rest of the batch must be good if that one works. Mobile phones, I tested. What is the highest that anyone has ever dropped a mobile phone and for it to survive? Oh, I'm sorry James to do this with the guessing game. I'm going to say from space. Oh, wow. Okay. From the International Space Station. I've definitely seen a video of someone filming themselves on a parachute jump and it fell out, but it happened to land somewhere on like bales of hay or something. Okay. Unfortunately, the person did not land on a bay of land. It did not land on a bay of land. It was very sadly for the phones of I've forgotten. It's somewhere in between space and a parachute. Okay. A very high plane. It was from the stratosphere. It was from a hundred thousand feet above Sweden. Sweden, particularly hard surface. Is there a reason they chose? The reason they chose it is I think because mobile phones are made in Sweden. But it was definitely near the S-Range Space Center, which is in Northern Sweden.

31:16And the main problem was once they dropped it, finding it. Yes, I've been truly just got a thing in there. I've been trying my phone. I've been trying my phone. It's not my signal up there, I think. Harken would have found it if it was laptop. That could have been a joke. But they managed to use tracking to narrow it down to about two kilometers. Right, yeah. I've still a lot to do. And it took the five hours searching and the wilderness to find it. And then later on it did work. And it did. Oh, that's great. So that's what a hundred thousand feet, that's sort of three times the plane, isn't it? Three times the normal 30 feet. Yeah, now we're flying a 30 thousand feet. Yeah. So yeah, three times that. So it's basically in the stratosphere. Wow. And it had a special rhino shield case on it, which is what helps the impact. What is this rhino shield thing? It's the name of the company that makes the case. Oh, yeah, you wouldn't have it without a case at a hundred from a hundred thousand feet. You're asking for trouble, aren't you? So if you're over the age of 55 and you drop your phone, it was to buy anything because you always keep your phone

32:17and one of those leather cases that pop us up, don't you? Yeah, and also you've got a Nokia 3310 still at there. I think we'll actually go all the way from space. Absolutely. Okay, it's time for fact number three. And that is James. Okay, my fact this week is that Van Gogh sometimes ate his paint. Was it on the canvas? On the paintings where you say this is from his hungry period, where this is a little nibble missing. No, it's not that. There is a myth that he ate yellow paint to cheer himself up. I have never heard this myth before. But the Van Gogh Museum debunks it on the FAQs. You've got to have something to fill up the FAQs, have it you? And it does seem like he ate the paint, but it seems like he did it because he had a thing called pica, which means you sometimes, you just feel like you have to eat something and it's something that's not normally eaten by humans. And he seems to have a craving for something called terpenes.

33:17And terpenes are also found in absent, which we know he drank a lot of absent. And we don't really know exactly why he had this cravings. His doctor thought that he was deliberately trying to poison himself because he was so depressed. We don't think it's that either. It just seems to have been a thing that his brain just told him that he needed this. And it is not common, but a not uncommon thing for people to have. Peekers think. Isn't peekers think when you're pregnant? Yeah, you can get coal and stuff. Soil and coal. Yeah. And it's good for you, isn't it? And broccoli. Soil and brockery. It's take to spinach. I think it's like sometimes it can be good for you if it's broccoli. That's going to be good for you. There are some of these edible. That's where it starts being pica, I guess. So yeah. So did Van Gogh go to his doctor and say, I keep eating paint. What do I do about it? He did, too, a few doctors actually, because he had quite a lot of problems. They thought he had epilepsy, but certainly he was having all sorts of health issues. And one of them thought it was due to turbine time poisoning.

34:18Another one thought it was due to too much sun. What, he was eating his paint? No, he was just having these mental disorders. Right. But did he say to the doctors, I'm eating paint. Or did the doctor say to him, I think you're eating paint. Well, they want to round his mouth and he had a little bit. I'm not sure exactly who said what, but certainly the doctors did know about it. Yeah, because he was a... I didn't know anything about Frank Arthur really, but he was quite unwell in the last couple of years of his life in particular. Yeah. And sometimes he was in institutions. I mean, he's still painting at an incredibly rapid clip. But when it did happen that he was discovered drinking the paint, he was restricted to pencils for a little while. Yes. And then, but he had himself committed to an institution, I think, partly because of this. The health issues that he had couldn't have been due to turbine time toxicity because before it gave him any convulsions on mental problems, he would have also had giving us redness and burning of the face and throat, itching and burning of the anus, and painful, urinating and defecating. So he would have noticed before the convulsions and mental problems began.

35:23I don't know. But there were some vanguard paintings and they could have been done by someone with a very burning anus. That sort of frantic. That would be great. That would be great. That would be great. That's what I get. That's not that period's called the burning anus period. Exactly. I think he's a bit of an icon for late starters in life. Oh, yeah. Because he only decided to become an artist at the age of 27. I think he died in his late 30s. Didn't he? I don't think he saw 40. Yeah, 37, I think. 27, he had done so much other stuff and it hadn't really taken. And so he'd been an art dealer and his brother Theo was an art dealer. He was a big part of his story. Yeah. He'd been a teacher in Ramsgate. Yes. Not paid. So I don't know what the deal was with his employment. He was just not paid for it. But that didn't work. And then he became a preacher and that didn't work. And eventually at the age of 27, he took his brother's advice. His brother kept saying, I think he should become an artist. And he did. Yeah. And he was from a huge, arty family. Family of art dealers wasn't he? His brothers, I think, down as an art dealer maybe. But, yeah. The thing that struck me about Van Gogh reading up on him is that he was such a nice guy.

36:24Yeah. Like genuinely seemed like the most unbelievably gentle. In fact, the whole family, very gentle, very sweet in the time when you think everyone has to be very masculine. You know, you said he became a preacher. What he did when he went to preach, he went to a mining district of Belgium, I think, the preacher. And was working with lots of very poverty-stricken communities. And he did the all-well thing of he gave away his clothes, his bed. All of his money. And he went and he lived as them, preaching to them. He tended to the sick all the time. He was actually fired from his preacher job ostensibly because he wasn't very good at public speaking and organising people. But we think because the clergy thought, this is a bit weird, this bloat's kind of making friends with the poor. And what you mean he's living too like Christ? Yeah. That was certainly his version of events. I don't know. What's quite nice is you don't often hear about who the man was. You often just have these bigger ideas that he cut off his ear, that you know, he was in the institutes and so on. There's an amazing book that I'm reading at the moment by Bonadette Murphy called Van Gogh's ear.

37:26And there's a description of what he was like from his friends. They said he had a strange gate. He had distinctive, rapid footsteps. Due to the loss of 10 teeth in 1886, he had a slight speech impediments, spoke quickly, which combined with his Dutch accent apparently made it for it hard to follow. He spoke multiple languages. He spoke English, so hence Ramsgate, he spoke Dutch, and yet in French. You never hear that kind of side of Van Gogh, just the day-to-day stuff. I want to know how you know 10 teeth in one year. We've all picked up the same detail. I want to know what the language is, mate. I want to know what the language is, mate. He spoke French, didn't he? Yeah, 10 teeth. I know. You know what's weird about his name, Vincent Van Gogh. I always thought, well, that's just his name, right? But he's like Da Vinci. That's of Gogh. Yeah. But he signed the paintings, Vincent. But he signed the paintings, Vincent, because I think he wrote an ad to his brother, no one can say Van Gogh. Yeah. So he just said, I'll just sign the things. Well, it's true, no one can say that. No one can say that. He's definitely right.

38:26His main influence. I love this artistically, was his cousin. Did you guys find his cousin's name? No. Anton Moe. I did find that. Yeah. Who's a successful artist? And do you know that Anton Moe was famous for painting in Grey and Blue Tones? He never painted in Moe. Wait, but if you put Grey and Blue together, isn't that sort of Moe? Kind of dirty blue. Yeah, you got that. You got that. You got that. That's a red in it, mate. But yeah, isn't that funny? That's very cool. That's very cool. Moe means Mallow, like Marshmallow, in French. That's where that comes from, yeah. It's really interesting, because we all have this impression that totally underappreciated in its time. This post-impression more like... It's good stuff. Because he was a post-impression. Yeah, no, no, he understood it. And I tried to say something, Andy. Thank you, Dan. We all have this impression that he was unappreciated in his time. And I guess I thought, you know, he died in an age as later. He lots of his paintings were sold.

39:26But actually, first of all, he went to art school and the students who met him a lot of them said he's clearly a genius. You know, he worked insanely fast. He created these extraordinary canvases. He's just hated him because he didn't do what they asked him to do. So they'd say paint this statue in the middle of the room. And he'd like paint the walls and the floor and the chairs and the other people. Legend. But, you know, people who remember him said, yeah, he was pretty damn good. And his whole family said he's a genius. Theo, his brother, devoted his life. And then Theo's wife devoted her life to making the world realize he was a genius. And also, it was literally straight after he died that he became famous. Right? It was like within five years there were these big exhibitions. He was already, oh yeah, he's good. He was kind of almost famous, wasn't he? He was so on the car. He was part of a group and he did have some exhibitions of his work before he died. And even ones that were shown to the president of France at the time. So it was, you know, I think if he did not die, he would have been famous within two or three years. Right. I think. Yeah.

40:26But dying helps an artist. But yeah, and he only, he sold just one, didn't he, in his lifetime to Anna Bach. It was the red vineyard and it was sold for 400 francs. And she was, she was the only female member of a group called Livang, which was a group of Belgian artists. But they were Pissaro, Monet, Gogan, all became quite famous because these Belgian artists really like them and start putting on exhibitions for them. She was one of the first people to own a car in Belgium. Wow. It's got an in Belgium. In Belgium. And well, this was in there, well, in the 1890s, like turn of the century. So, but more importantly, she would drive alone or with her female friends. Like she wouldn't have a man with them all the time because they like to drive around doing outdoor paintings. So what, who was this? She was the one who bought. She was the woman who bought the only van Gogh in Van Gogh's life. Wow. I saw a few claims that actually he sold a few more than that, but it's never... Yeah.

41:26I have been to Texas. It's more like he sold six. I've done thing we have like absolute evidence for any apartment this one. Yeah. Some of them apparently he would barter for more paint. Which is kind of amazing. Who's supposed to be? Who's supposed to be? Who's supposed to be? What do you mean he'd get a wire painting for more paint? Well, he'd paint and then he'd sell the paint he'd for paint. Oh, right. And then he'd turn that paint into another painting. Yes. Actually, that is perfect. Oh, so we did sell them. We can't, if we're carrying those assails then. Well, you would have to pay tax on that really on the paint. I think so. If you're if you're bartering, you still have to pay tax on the amount you're joking. I'm afraid so. I'm in big trouble with the authorities. My little barter shall it home. Fates for if you do. Speaking of the authorities, the FBI, they have an art crime unit. And as part of their art crime unit on their website, they have produced a list of the ten most wanted missing pieces of art that are out there or things to do with art and culture. And there was a big moment where a bunch of paintings were stolen from the Van Gogh Museum, which is in Amsterdam.

42:27And they caught the guys, but they've never recovered the paintings. So those are still it's still up there on the site. And there's ten. They've got their top ten list. And one of the other ten is a strativarius. So yeah, two of our topics today are sitting on the top ten list of the FBI's most wanted missing. So cool to be sitting in prison. I'm always jealous of those guys. I take that back. I'm not jealous of them. But it's cool to be sitting in prison thinking, I know where this is, but I'm not telling you. Is that what they're doing? They must be right if they took it. And is it, are you thinking when I get out, I'll get it back and then. I'm not thinking you've got one over on these dickheads who put you in prison. I think these are the police. The authorities that I'm sorry, I'm sorry to sound like a cop. It's unjustified in Prisman just for sealing the old prices painting. Oh my god. Well, a lot of them were stolen by Nazis. I don't know what you think about those, Sarah. Oh, look, once you're a Nazi and a Nazi, maybe a couple of years. Yeah. And so basically, Van Gogh was very popular in the Jewish community in the 30s and 40s

43:31when he hadn't become really, really popular yet. Because they were a bit less conservative than the non-Jewish collectors. And Van Goghs were like still, they were expensive, but they were still kind of affordable at that stage. And so a lot of the Van Goghs were in Jewish collections. And of course, the Nazis basically stole all of those. And by 2021, I haven't got the current figures, but the Nazi era, Nazi era provenance internet portal, which goes through all of the paintings and sees if they might have been stolen. They list 73 Van Goghs in American museums. They say have questionable provenance. So there's quite a lot of them on display, which might have been plundered in the war. Interesting. You would think that there would be records going back that far that would be able to nail it, but it is just a bit. Yeah, it's difficult. Especially because you painted so many, I imagine that's part of it, you painted it sort of a thousand. Yeah, and you can't really tell what any of them are. Yeah. Because they're all just squiggles, are they? Oh, just squiggles.

44:31He's a hundinsky. That's something about the squiggles. So the squiggles that I was referring to as Starry Night, so it's no night, it's the famous one, you all have seen parodyed everywhere. But scientists have looked at it and found that the squiggles that he put between the stars are an exact model of turbulence. Like let's say you're testing an aeroplane by throwing a chicken into it. You need to see where all the winds going. Yeah. And you can see the little eddies and the little walls that the air makes. And the Starry Night is almost exactly what scientists would see if they fed that into a computer. But the really interesting thing is he did loads of these similar paintings, but some of them were done in the institution and some of them were done when he was not having his mental issues. And the ones that were done when he was having his bad periods, they're the ones that are more correct. Wait, are we saying he could see turbulence in this guy? It's kind of weird. I'm not saying that, but there is kind of like, if that was possible, that does seem to be

45:32what it's suggested. I like it. I like it. It's all too late. It's extraordinary. No wonder he was a genius. Do you want a few bonuses on Van Gogh? Yeah, go on. I just want you to guess what these things are. Van Gogh. It's an app where you put in the sound of your fart and it gives you, it turns it into a beautiful painting. That's really cool. That's very good. Is it the type of sound that an exhaust on a van makes? Oh, you're all good. It's just a logistics company. Based on the UK, it's sadly been liquidated. Van Gogh. Van Gogh. Okay. Van Gogh. Vincent Van Gogh. It doesn't really help you. Oh, nobody. It's okay, but it's not a van there. I'm just a van every time. Yeah, maybe it's a comedian or something or someone who goes on stage and does lots of coffee. Can you remember that phater roll in the phater? Yes. Lepetamine. Pettamine or whatever. Yes. So this guy can cough the national anthem. Or put paint in their mouth, swelves it around and spit it out onto a canvas.

46:34Oh, yes. The guy who coughed the air. I've never had a very bad COVID, didn't he? Very good. Very good. Very good. The work is really dry, though. No, it's Don Caster's drop-in health van. It is a van, Dan. I'm sorry, it's called Van Gogh. I'm looking at it. If you've got a minor ailment, you can drop in. That's very good. That's very good. Well, it's obviously a free-t van somewhere. Cabab van or something. No, I thought there was someone who takes a piss out of post-impressionism. Lovely. It is a food waste recycling truck in Merseyside. It's very loosely connected to the painter itself. Anyway, the others in the Merseyside fleet are bin diesel, Oprah Binfrey and the bin credible Hulk. It's good. I can't follow Sam Abid Laden. I know. I might have sped it. Yeah? Woke. Oh, that. It's fall in Jeep Country. And during the driving to fall sales events, get a great deal on four by fours that refuse to be contained, like Jeep Wrangler.

47:34Confidence built into every drive with the most awarded SUV ever, Jeep Grand Cherokee, and freedom that can't be denied, with the open-air freedom and Jeep Gladiator. After 85 years, it's no surprise that Jeep became America's SUV brand. Get a great deal during the Jeep driving to fall sales event. Jeep is one more awards over its lifetime than any other SUV brand, Jeep and the Jeep Grill or Register Trademarks of FCA US LLC. Kitchen and bathroom professionals know what goes behind the tile matters. That's why Trade Pro's trust Fiber-Sement Party Backer Board to keep tile firmly in place, resist cracking, and help block moisture. Chosen in over 40 million kitchens and bathrooms. Party Backer Board. What the best build on? Shop now at participating Home Depot, Lowe's, and Florida core stores. For more information, visit JamesHearty.com slash HeartyBacker. Okay, it's time for a final fact of the show, and that is my fact. This week is that the author Thomas Hardy proposed to his second wife by taking her to the grave of his first wife, pointing at the vacant plot near it and saying,

48:42that's for you. Romance. She inferred that that was a proposal, and she was sort of pro-it, and then they sort of just got engaged off the back of it. They started talking as if they were engaged. So, yeah, he was not the most forward of men when it came to that kind of thing. So, his first wife had died. His first wife had died. Yes, I mean, she was so grave. Yeah, yeah, she was in the ground there. That's well inferred, Andy. Yes. I don't know if you would have got the implications of his statement inferred and interred. But no, you can have a grave without being dead yet. Absolutely. What? You can. You can buy the plot, come and see it. Sure. That would have become, shall we kill my first wife together? And then you'll get the next one. And then I'll nod to you. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's creepy. It's a very creepy proposal. It was. It sounds like a murder threat. Yeah, yeah. In fact, is it possible that it was, and then he felt too awkward to say, oh no, you've misunderstood.

49:42And so, he just said, okay, let's get married when she assumed that was what he was asking. So, he married her in to just soften the awkwardness life. Yeah. Well, I got this fact from a book, which is really good, actually. It's called Six Poets by Alan Bennett. And it's best poem, so it's curated by him, but then also a little bit of biography in between each poem. It's a really easy read, and he's very interesting with it. And so, she was called Florence Doug Dale. She became the second wife of Thomas Hardy, so it did work as a proposal. And I think he was a slightly, um, socially quite held back character, because in the book, it also explains that he used to walk in the road, so that he didn't need to bump into people on the sidewalk. He just hated having contact with people. The people who were the help in his house, if they needed to put his jacket on. Maybe back in the day, people would literally put your jacket on. They would just drop it on his shoulders, and then he would do the rest, because he wouldn't want any contact. So, you're in fucking jacket off from the start, Thomas. You should have learned that Montessori technique that Kets can do where you put it on the ground backwards,

50:43and you kind of shove your hands in. Yes, it's so cool. So, do you think the reason people put it on his shoulders is because he didn't actually know how to do that bit? I reckon so. Yes, so this is about proposals. So, proposals. I found a place that is cool to propose, and we've just seen a lot of proposals. The London Eye. I think within the first decade of it opening, it had about 5,000 wedding proposals. So, that is more than one per day. Wow, how do they know? You can just go up, right? But then you'll tell people as you get off, or you'll tell the staff, won't you? We just got engaged. Oh, yeah. So, basically, they now offer a proposal pod with three different packages. And I think these are so funny, because they sound so mad, right? Right. There is a musical proposal where I'm just quoting from the website here, as the pod reaches the top of the arc, our musicians, hidden as tourists, begin to sing and play your special song. Oh, my God.

51:43And the idea is, they've smuggled their instruments onto the pod with you. So, for everyone, guys, walking very, very straight. Darling, darling, that guy sees the polygonal ball out of his ass. Don't look over there, don't look over there. It's a surprise. Look at that, I was a parliament. Is it? Because I would make sure, if I were proposing someone on the land tonight, right before you're about to get off, because you obviously don't want to do it. No, the staff. You want to do it at the top? No, because then when they say, no, you have to wait for half an hour for it to come down. Yeah, I just think it's a funny place to propose, because yeah, if you're stuck, you're stuck. Yeah, sure. It's 15 minutes, you know. If they say, no, you've got to do the whole down, going back down, which is the worst thing, because you've already seen all the going up there. Yeah, yeah. I think you've said, yes, and then say, no, at the bottom. I thought, that would be why. And then run off as the thing opens. No, but presumably that's part of the pitch, is that's the opposite. Proposes early as possible, if a nose on the way, you've now stuck in the space, like usually whoever says no, gets up and leaves the dinner table or goes,

52:45oh, Brian, and runs off. You've got half an hour now with that turn. Turn it around. Turn it around, yeah. Oh, maybe if you say, will you marry me? And they say, no, the guy pulls a Trump phone out of his ass, and goes, oh, no, no, no. David Bellamy. Do you remember David Bellamy? The pollutes. No, not the pollutes, isn't he? He was a naturalist. Oh, yes, yeah, yeah. Yeah, the big beard. And he would go around. Oh, who knows, he was a lovely, lovely, spoiled, poor, poor, poor. He was on TV in the 80s. And he was not a naturalist. Sorry. Naturalist. I'm thinking, where's he going to hide the Trump belt under the big beard? So naturalist. He was naturalist. And he proposed to his partner, Rosemary Fry, in the middle of a waterlogged, Spagnum Bog. Oh, lucky lady. And this is according to the Oxford Dixie of National Biography, and he used to call Rosemary his Fagnum Widow because he loved Moss so much.

53:47Fantastic. And this year, Widow, when he's still alive, presumably when he's called a school. So people would say like a golfing widow because they play golf all the time. So it's as if I died playing golf. And for him, it's as if he's died. He's actually going looking at Moss in Bogs. Oh, right. I don't know. Or something with it, like a FIFA widow or whatever. I think maybe I have. I think in the context of Spagnum Moss, even I can stress my understanding how that would take up all the other time. And yet I know you. And all these romantic proposals, very old-fashioned, obviously, if I dated this day and age. But we're even dated in the 1960s. I read an article in the Aberdeen Evening Express from 1961, which was all about the tradition of the romantic proposal and how it was over a century out of date, saying that the idea of proposing someone by moonlight or by candlelight over a century out of date. So they're saying even in 1862, this was two-old fashion. But I found, and I thought this was really interesting, proposed means to offer to marry someone. Sure.

54:47Ask someone to marry you. But when did, so that's an old word, when did pop the question come to mean that? Ah, so he's either going to be like 700 AD and it's in the venerable bead or it's going to be 2012. What are you going to plan before? 700 AD. I think 2012, outside of things. But I think if it did exist, it meant something very different. It wasn't. You were popping a question that was not to do in marriage. So I mean, it did originally mean you would pop any question, but the phrase pop the question used specifically just to mean, ah, someone to marry them, is older than propose. So it was 1722. It was first used in a magazine and in fact, it's really interesting because in this reference, it's about whether a woman should propose to a man. So 1722 in a magazine, there's an exchange and it says, I should be glad to know your sentiments about whether it would be improper for the lady to pop the question first. That's stunning. Isn't that amazing? So good. There would have been people in life who remembered Oliver Cromwell being in charge who

55:48were reading about popping the question. Oh, women popping the question, no less. That's crazy. And to propose without having to specify to propose marriage as in using that to mean offer of marriage is 1771. So half a century later. Right. And you used to shorten it. You'd say, has he popped? Has he popped yet? Has he popped yet? Has he popped yet? Has he popped yet? Has he popped yet? Has he popped yet? Has he popped yet? You know, Tomas Hardy's way of doing it with his second wife to be. It might not be as bad as it sounds if you were living in a different culture. And who knows? Maybe he had read about this in Japan. But that is one of the ways that you would propose to someone in Japan. You would say to them, do you want to be buried with me? Or words like that. I want to be buried with you, maybe, as a softer way of saying it. I read this on a Japanese website. The idea is that when a married couple's die, there's a lot of family plots in Japan and you would often be buried with the family plot. And that was a way of saying, I want to be with you till the end of our days.

56:48And you will be buried with my family. So be comfortable in my family. Let's get buried together. Might be a bit out of date, but it definitely existed. I mean, we say till death to his part, there's just a way of saying till death, do ask continue not parting. Or something that makes forces us. That's really nice. It's really beautiful. It's really beautiful. Yeah. I've had a lot of refusals. I did read, we've all been doing corrupted crosswords together recently, about a proposal in the Times Crossword, which is quite nice. This was about a decade ago. The Crossword editor was a guy called Richard Rogan, who I actually met. He was a very nice guy. And he helped a guy propose to his girlfriend, Delith. So he put her name in the crossword as an answer. It's such an unusual name that I feel that even if I knew someone called Delith, and that looked like it must be the answer to the clue, I'd be like, it must be Delilah or something. It can't be Delith. Yeah, yeah. Pretty well-scheduled, widely thought, not to be all there. So it's in the middle of a widely thought. The name Delith is in there.

57:49I love those ones. And the guy drew it to her attention, because I think it had Delith, and it had William Armingme, as two phrases in Crossword. But the guy had to solve the crossword, and then pointed out to his girlfriend as his way of proposing her response, when they wrote this out was, this was a typical gesture by her Newfiance, who she said was a smart-ass at the best of times. She didn't say yes. It's not very romantic to say, hey, look, I've managed to do the crossword. And stop the stopwatch. Right, 2734. Pretty good. In China, you can propose to a dead person. Or people someone who's proposed to dead people. Okay. And dead people get engaged to each other. Are they both dead? Yes, they're both dead. This is the tradition of ghost marriage, which has been going on since at least the third century. We've got evidence statement of the third century. And it's when the family members of a dead person find someone of the opposite sex, also dead, to marry them for various reasons. Or sometimes you'll marry a dead person to an alive person.

58:52And so the reasons are... Tax. Tax in France for sure. We have talked about it in France. But you need permission off the president or something to it in France. Yes. And that again, that's a legal thing. If your husband dies and you weren't married, that means you get none of the money. But then the president says, oh, you should have gotten married. Yes. So you get some of the money or something. So it's slightly different in China. And this isn't all over the China. This is just in a lot of parts of China. Culturally, if a woman dies and she's single, then no one looks after her in the afterlife. Because it's your husband's descendants who look after you. Got it. So there's no one to care if you... We can't, we're your family. So we'll have to find you a dead man to marry. And then you'd go and propose to this dead man's family and say, can your dead son marry our dead daughter? So this is going to be good? Because otherwise there's no one to look after her. Okay. Bridget Jones' five should be afterlife-based. Yeah, I like that. Like that's cool. Okay. He's still running somewhere. You know, it's still... It's dead. It's a way of getting Colin Firth back into the series because he died.

59:52He's Darcy. Yes, so they meet in the afterlife. They meet each other, but it's like, oh, our families have just set us up. We have to spend eternity together now. This is a film. I'm sorry, but it is. That's good. Or the other one is actually if a man has died, then... Bridget Jones is dowry. Sorry, you're still trained storming on with your minute. Bridget Jones is dowry. It's good. It's good. It was worth it, actually. Sorry. Sorry to come across you. What about Bridget Jones' die? That's a die. Is it that someone's going to go back into the underworld to get her out? No, no, no. She's staying. You can actually marry a dead person if you're alive. So this also could be another sequel. Because if a man's died and he's got no descendants and his family need descendants, they can marry him to a live woman. Then that means his family can adopt children of this marriage. That's the pose of him, guys. I'm going to go out there. I think they should have stopped Bridget Jones at the first one.

1:00:52Wow. I don't think we're helping the world to make a few words. What? What? That's a big deal. No way, mate. Someone hasn't seen Bridget Jones' baby. Okay, that's it. That is all of our facts. Thank you so much for listening. If you'd like to get in contact with any of us about the things that we've said over the course of this podcast, we can all be found online. I'm at Shri Beland on Instagram, Andy. Andrew Hunter. James. I've noticed these things. James Harkin. And if you want to get to us as a group, Anna, where should they head? Instagram at noesupptthing or email podcastacquy.com. Yeah. Podcastacquy.com. That's the most important address of all because if you have something to say to us, if you've got an extra fact that you want to add to what we've just said, well, we'll go through the inbox and he picks out the best bits of those and he brings it to drop us a line. That is a bonus show that we do. And you can only access that if you're a part of Clubfish, which is our secret members club.

1:01:53Go to patreon.com slash clubfish. There's multiple tiers of stuff that you can get there. Do check it out. Or if you're emailing because you have a great fact that you want us to read out, send it to us and Andy will pick those out for us to read on little fish, which is our bonus Monday show. We put down our facts. We read yours. We love it. So please do send them in. Otherwise, check out our website for any upcoming live gig. Or just come back here next week because we're going to be back with another episode. And we'll see you then. Goodbye. Kitchen and bathroom professionals know what goes behind the tile matters. That's why trade pros trust fiber cement, party backer board to keep tile firmly in place, resist cracking and help block moisture. Chosen in over 40 million kitchens and bathrooms, party backer board, what the best build on. Shop now at participating home depot, lows and floor into core stores.

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