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Episode 144: Let's visit Greenland!
Published 11th July, 2025
Transcription by Caption+
Tom:
In Warhammer 40,000, what is the name of the group of space marines that paint their armour blue?
The answer to that at the end of the show. My name's Tom Scott, and this is Lateral.
SFX:
♫ (new age droning)
Tom:
Hello,​ dear friends. Are you ready to unlock your inner puzzle-solving potential? Are you ready to embrace the power of positive lateral thinking?
You are, because here at Lateral, we believe in you. We know that deep down inside each and every one of you, there's a genius just waiting to break free. It's time to banish those negative thought patterns, to silence that inner critic that says you can't, and to say yes, I can ...probably... maybe solve this weird question about Korean bank notes!
Here to let their mind wander but hopefully not too far, first of all, we have from the Terrible Lizards podcast and author of The Cursed Tomb which is now out in bookstores, welcome back to the show, Iszi Lawrence.
Iszi:
Thank​s very much for having me back. I am here to... be as lateral as possible. I've been copying crap since my last appearance and I'm getting there.
Tom:
(cackles softly)
The last time I saw you was at the book launch for The Cursed Tomb, and what I remember was someone from the British Museum looking through one of your books and looking at an illustration going, "Wait, are those—" and naming an incredibly specific bit of clothing from history, and you going...
Iszi:
Yes.
Tom:
"Yeah,​ yeah, I got the illustrator to do that."
Iszi:
Yes, yes. That was for a different one of my books. That was for The Time Machine Next Door, and I did, 'cause Iron Age Britain, that was famous for their— for selling Rome their slaves, their dogs, and their duffel coats. So the duffel coat was a big export from Britain 'cause it was very waterproof clothing back in the turn of, you know, 1 AD. It was a big deal.
So, yes, that is—
Dani:
(laughs)
Iszi:
(snickers) That's the sort of level of pedantry that I bring to children's literature. So there we go.
Tom:
Histor​ically accurate children's fiction. Well, I don't know if any of that will stand you in good stead for the questions today, but very best of luck.
We also welcome back to the show: from Escape This Podcast, Solve This Murder, from so many other things, it is I think our most regular guests. You were here for show number one. We are back for show 100-and-a lot. It's always lovely to see you.
We will start with Dani Siller.
Dani:
Hi, Tom. I love the intros to these episodes still.
I feel like last time we were here, we have have been convinced to vote for you for mayor or governor or something.
Tom:
(laughs)
Dani:
This time I started to get slight vibes that we were gonna join your cult. But I was happy all the same. I was gonna go for it.
Tom:
The experimental nature of some of these introductions, they always seem to be placed with the returning crew, just to... You folks are comfortable here. We'll try something weird.
Dani:
Oh, yeah. It works for me.
Tom:
(laughs) What are you working on at the minute? What are you putting out into the world?
Dani:
Oh, besides all the normal stuff— god, what have we got?
So, yeah, we're still going regularly with Escape This Podcast. A lot of our video game stuff is now out and available to the world, our Golden Idol work, and we have been doing a big, hard push into Solve This Murder content, so all our murder mysteries are gonna be coming out this year.
Tom:
We also have on the show also returning from episode one and many others, the other half of Escape This Podcast and Solve This Murder, Bill Sunderland.
Bill:
Hey, I'm back! I'm still here. I never left. I've been in every episode since the first one. But you haven't heard me all the time.
Tom:
You've​ just been lurking in the background.
Bill:
Mm, judging. "I got that one straight away."
SFX:
(group laughing)
Tom:
We should have done that. We should have had you just record 100 or so little notes just to put in, just to have some— have the murmuring in the background somewhere.
Dani:
If you ever do a re-release with a guest commentary, you know that we'll be there.
Bill:
Yeah.
Tom:
(laughs)
Bill:
Yeah,​ we'll do the behind-the-scenes even for the episodes we weren't on.
Tom:
Well, very best of luck to all three of you on the show today.
Let's take a deep breath, visualise success, and dive head first into the ocean of opportunity that is question one. You've got this.
Thank you to Alex Rinehart for this question.
For 14 years, Ben posted the same 156 words every day on social media. Why?
And I'll say that again.
For 14 years, Ben posted the same 156 words every day on social media. Why?
Bill:
He was obviously really into those... "When I type this statement, I do not give permission to Facebook –"
Dani:
That'​s exactly where I was going!
Bill:
"– to allow them to see my pictures and use them, and they now—" Doesn't mean anything. That doesn't work.
Dani:
100%.
Bill:
I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry, Mr. Rinehart. It's not gonna help.
Tom:
(laughs)
Dani:
Yep, that was exactly where my brain went. A little furious that you've stolen it.
Tom:
(laughs) I mean, to be fair, he's a little furious that Facebook have stolen all his stuff, so...
Dani:
Mm, makes sense.
Bill:
Yeah,​ true. It all balances out.
Dani:
I wonder, how important do we think which 14 years it is?
Bill:
Ooh. I was—mm.
Iszi:
It sounds like an early thing rather than a later thing. Maybe, and it couldn't have been Twitter, could it, in the early days, 'cause wasn't that— the character count lower?
Bill:
Yeah.
Dani:
Ooh, good point.
Tom:
156 words.
Dani:
Not even close.
Iszi:
Oh, yeah, words. There's no way. Sorry, yes, words. I was listening. Shut up. So...
Tom:
(laughs heartily) No, no, you absolutely were! I wasn't calling you out on that! You—You're correct! The character count's 160 characters, and you said it. It's 156 words. But the words were not all posted at once.
Bill:
Well,​ for people watching the video, you could see Tom's face. He was calling her out.
Tom:
(laughs)
Iszi:
Yeah,​ I mean, it's fine. (chokes up) I'm used to it. It's fine. All I'll say is 156 is 13 times 12. That might be significant.
Dani:
Intri​guing.
Bill:
Ahh.
Iszi:
There​ we go.
Dani:
How much do we have to focus on the maths of this?
Iszi:
Who knows? I mean, there were numbers. That's always a thing.
Tom:
I don't think you'll be able to guess the maths of this but honestly, 13 times 12... (inhales stiffly)
Dani:
Bizar​rely relevant?
Iszi:
After​ 14 years! It's 12, 13, 14! Aahh!
SFX:
(group laughing)
Tom:
Hmm, I'm gonna keep my mouth shut. 'Cause knowing that little bit of times tables, it's not gonna be a big clue, but, mmh!
Iszi:
I mean, maybe does this person have an extra finger? 'Cause that would make sense if you're doing cuneiform counting with 12 times tables.
Dani:
Say what?
Iszi:
Well,​ it's how—why everything's in twelves is because in the olden days, you'd count with your— each little part of your finger. So you'd use your thumb as the counter, and the top of the index, and the middle, and then the end, and so you've got 12. And you've got a 12 by 12 count, which is 144.
So if you had an extra finger on this side, just an extra half little nub, you've got your nub at the end, then you could count to 13.
Dani:
You could get a few more into that. How interesting!
Iszi:
Exact​ly. So it'd be 156. Not really, no, but I'm panicking, 'cause I have no idea of the answer.
Dani:
Well,​ I like what you've done. Because if this was every year, and you've already split this up into 12 times 13, was it actually 13 words a month? Something like that?
Tom:
Now...​ not quite. But you are closer than you might think. 156 words every day.
Bill:
Yeah,​ that's what I was thinking. It's every day.
Iszi:
Yeah.
Bill:
Um, so—
Iszi:
So it can't be the date.
Bill:
Did he start every single day by saying, "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times?" And just go for the whole thing? That's probably 156 words, right?
Dani:
I'm pretty sure I had that as a trivia question tiebreaker once, how many words are in that sentence.
Bill:
156!
Dani:
I don't think it was that many. I want to say it was 80-something, but I can't remember.
Iszi:
Way more than the Lord's Prayer and Paternosteran stuff.
Dani:
Take your word for that.
Bill:
How long's Lorem Ipsum?
SFX:
(group laughing)
Tom:
When you say best of times and worst of times, again, you keep circling the answer in ways that I cannot— I cannot make puns on right now without giving you the answer.
Bill:
It was the 13 times 12 of times. I'm putting them together.
Tom:
(muffles wincing)
Dani:
Howâ€â€‹” I have never heard of so many correct-ish things get said.
Tom:
Right?
Iszi:
I think we might be just missing the whole motivation of this person doing this.
So I'm assuming— we're all assuming that he's like us and therefore wanting to show off in some clever way. So maybe this is just somebody that, I don't know, who misunderstands the use of social media and is just panicking and trying to sort of... Googling the same thing every day but failing. I don't know.
Dani:
Oh. It's Grandma just trying to do her Google searches.
Iszi:
Yeah,​ it could be. It could be that. I dunno.
Tom:
There was only one word, and it was posted 156 times.
Iszi:
So 156 times a day? So what happens?
Bill:
It's one word, 156—
Iszi:
So, and you've got 13— so it's once— no, it's not once an hour, is it? So, oh, hang on. 12—So 13— 13 words every hour? So is it just the time?
Tom:
Uh, kind of, Iszi, yeah.
Iszi:
It's kind of the time?
Tom:
Yeah! It was the best of times and the worst of times, which is why I didn't want to make that joke.
Iszi:
So hang on. So they're posting... roughly on average 13 words every hour. That's what we've got.
Bill:
It's not every hour 'cause we figured out 13 times 12. So it wouldn't be 13 an hour. It'd be 13 for every am hour, or from six to six.
Iszi:
Mm.
Tom:
Yes, it would. Yes.
Bill:
Okay.
Iszi:
Yeah,​ well, I just assumed— I assumed the natural, you know, working hours in a week type thing.
Bill:
Yeah,​ it—to me, this feels like— You know how whenever it's 11:11, you go, "Oh, wow! It's 11:11! Make a wish!"? I think it's like that, but I don't know how many times that occurs in a day. Like, it's... one minute past 1:00.
Iszi:
Or like one, two, three, four.
Bill:
Or, yeah, but— Oh, yeah. One, two, three, four.
Dani:
Are you trying to suggest that he's posting the number five every time a five appears on the clock or something?
Bill:
Every​ time a 69 appears, he comments, "Nice."
SFX:
(Tom and Dani laugh)
Dani:
I'm gonna say, Billy, that happens very irregularly on a clock.
Bill:
At 16:90.
Tom:
(laughs uproariously)
Bill:
Which​ is half past five in the evening.
Dani:
(laughs) No, it's—
Iszi:
That'​s not possible.
Bill:
17:30​.
Dani:
Well,​ no, 90.
Bill:
16:90​ is 17:30 on his metric clock.
Iszi:
No, you're right. You're right.
Tom:
Gonna read you the question again. For 14 years, Ben posted the same 156 words every day—
Bill:
Oh, he says, "Bong," doesn't he? That big—
Tom:
There we go!
Iszi:
Big Ben!
SFX:
(group giggling)
Tom:
Talk me through it.
Dani:
I was going to make a statement saying, "Oh, it's ding-dong every time," but I went, "That's two words. You're being silly."
Bill:
When the clock struck 13, and he bonged 13 times...
Tom:
(laughs) Iszi, do you wanna run us through what this was?
Iszi:
So Big Ben is the name actually of the bell rather than the clock, but it presumably has its own social media accounts.
And Big Ben, if you don't know— been to London— there's big clocks. It's outside the Houses of Parliament.
I actually know it's— what's written around it. I know this—I know the lyrics to the ding-dong ding-dong, by the way. Just so you know. They have lyrics. I mean, as an aside.
Tom:
Unfort​unately, you do now have to quote the lyrics. I'm sorry. You don't have to sing them, but you—
Iszi:
Okay,​ so everybody goes— ♪ Dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah ♪
Tom:
Yeah.
Iszi:
And it's... ♪ All through this hour, Lord be my guide ♪ ♪ And by thine power, no foot shall slide ♪ Is basic—and it's written on the inside of the bell tower, apparently. Anyway, there's a fact. I know something.
Tom:
(laughs) Yes.
Iszi:
Big Ben obviously has its own social media accounts and so therefore is telling everybody the time on social media which roughly adds up to 156 words a day for the past 14 years. And then for some reason it stopped.
Tom:
The maths on it is one plus two plus three plus four, all the way up to 12, twice a day. It posted "BONG". It just posted "BONG" at one o'clock, "BONG BONG" at two o'clock, and so on and so on.
This was an unofficial account. This was just someone who in the early days of Twitter set up a bot to post that and found a lot of people following it. There was a bit of a fuss when the actual managers of Big Ben decided that they wanted the account. A bit of a kerfuffle there.
But yes, this was the unofficial Twitter account big_ben_clock, which was closed down in March 2024 when Twitter changed over to X and closed down all the old bot accounts.
Each of our guests has brought a question along with them. We will start today with Dani.
Dani:
Alrig​ht, let's take a look at this.
This one has been sent in by Katherine Q. Thank you so much.
Sometime in the 18th century, Hans arrived at an unfamiliar town in Greenland. Even though he suffered from poor eyesight, he was able to get medical treatment, visit a minister, and stock up on fish without reading signs or asking for directions. How?
And one more time.
Sometime in the 18th century, Hans arrived at an unfamiliar town in Greenland. Even though he suffered from poor eyesight, he was able to get medical treatment, visit a minister, and stock up on fish without reading signs or asking for directions. How?
Iszi:
I've got to assume this has got to do with the fact that Greenland is very far north and therefore it's dark for a lot of the year anyway, and so they're not gonna be able to rely on signs that much for normal people, so—
Dani:
Poor eyesight doesn't make a difference.
Iszi:
Exact​ly, so there must be a way that they're laying things out or indicating things that allows everybody to— but I have no idea what that would be.
Tom:
Greenl​and in the 18th century did not have much of a population. I mean, they—
Bill:
Yeah,​ there was one guy and he was a doctor, a fish monger, and the third thing that he was.
Tom:
Well, even now, Greenland is only just opening up to tourism. Hi, Greenland facts now! (laughs)
Bill:
Yeah,​ let's go for it.
Tom:
They are just expanding the airport in their capital city. Greenland has some US military bases that allow big planes to land. But other than that, only little airports.
I don't know if they've finished it or are about to finish expanding the airport in the capital so it can now have, like, direct large planes coming from America and Europe and land there. So all of a sudden, after centuries of it being out of the way, like Svalbard, like Iceland, it's gonna open up to tourism, and it's gonna change the place fast.
So I'm not sure of Greenlandic history for the 18th century and what was going on there, but it can't be—
Iszi:
18th'​s really weird 'cause I know that Greenland was—obviously it was populated by the Greenland vikings, but basically, when the walrus trade reduced 'cause people didn't want the walrus tusks anymore, basically they all went bankrupt and they all had to leave.
And there are towns where it was really spooky and abandoned. Nobody's really sure what happened.
But ultimately people left because it was rubbish living there if nobody wanted to buy your walrus tusks. So I don't—I think— I don't know if it— Has it got anything to do with walrus tusks?
Tom:
(laughs)
Dani:
In no direct way does it have anything to do with walrus tusks.
Iszi:
Okay.​ That is all my facts gone. (laughs)
Bill:
Yeah.
Tom:
It could be... I mean, there would have surely been Inuit around there as well. But the name is Hans. That... That does not seem like an Inuit name. That seem—That doesn't sound like a viking name. That sounds like someone coming in from...
Iszi:
Germa​ny.
Tom:
Yeah, Germany, Austria, whatever was— my history knowledge is not good enough to know which countries were which at that point in the 18th century.
Dani:
No, yeah, or thereabouts. Just—just trying to give indication that this person was definitely an out-of-towner.
Bill:
Yeah,​ so he arrives, he has bad vision, but that doesn't matter. He can find what he needs regardless of his capacity to read a sign that says, "Hi, I'm a doctor." He sees a doctor, he buys fish. What was the third thing he did?
Tom:
A minister.
Dani:
Yeah,​ visited a minister as well.
Bill:
Is it—'Cause that was my first thought, that it's like that whole fact of, like, "Oh, do you know that barbers and surgeons used to be the same thing? You'd get your hair cut, and then they'd just keep goin'."
But then I obviously, you know... That's why I was saying maybe it's doctors also sold fish and were priests in Greenland in the 1700s.
Dani:
No, this is very likely no trick about that. These are likely he went to visit three different people for these needs.
Bill:
So if you're not using sight, what are you using? Are they yelling their trades? Do they have scent? Is it a scent-based marketplace?
Iszi:
Yeah,​ fish is easy for that one.
Bill:
Yeah,​ fish! We can take that one off. That's okay.
Tom:
The minister, on the other hand...
Bill:
Incen​se.
Iszi:
Well,​ it could be— exactly, Catholic. You never know.
Bill:
Yep. Incense, fish, and blood.
Tom:
So Greenland— I don't know if Greenland had been settled... Inuit would be centuries, probably millennia ago they'd have arrived. If it's settlers from vikings or southern Europe, maybe. What if all the towns were laid out the same? Like, they just had a plan. They arrived. Like, here is the town hall and we for some reason always put the church just north of that, and the market is always just east of that.
It's basically the same town repeated time after time as you go around.
Iszi:
Like ancient Egyptians and breweries and bakeries were always next to each other.
Dani:
Good.​ It's not specifically about layout in that way, but you have identified there would have been some common threads between Greenland towns.
Bill:
What if this was not every town is the same but this is just like, "Hey, we're all from Frankfurt and we've gone over to Greenland, and to feel at home, we've built a scale Frankfurt. It's just Frankfurt but it's— We just rebuilt it here, brick by brick. We copied that town that you're from and we made a new one here in Greenland so everyone feels at home."
Dani:
That does sound like something 18th-century people would do, but not relevant to this.
Bill:
Ah!
Iszi:
I know, I was gonna say that Frankfurt – which is I believe landlocked – would be a really bad idea to put pretty much on a coastal...
Bill:
Hey, I didn't do it.
Iszi:
That'​s true. Nor did they, so—
Bill:
Yeah.​ No one's at fault.
Iszi:
So, okay, maybe this is to do with auditory stuff. So maybe there's some sort of... you know, if we can't see and we can't ask in our language—
Dani:
You know what, to get you on the right track, it is still—it's not about any of the other senses. I think the fact that he had poor eyesight is mainly to say he wasn't gonna be doing any reading.
Bill:
And presumably also not symbol stuff. It's not like how all the inns are called the Red Lion 'cause they had a picture of a red lion sort of thing.
Dani:
That is correct. So that is exactly what we're trying to get rid of. Dismissing the idea of text or symbols.
Iszi:
Is it because he arrived in summer and for whatever reason in Greenland they just get rid of all walls? So they just have it completely open and so you can just see everything? Maybe... I don't know.
Dani:
Ya know what? Actually, I think that that would be a big problem in this case.
Iszi:
Parti​cularly with the mosquitoes you get there, I don't think that'd be a wise move in the summer.
Dani:
I think I get to that to say a line that I do love saying as much as possible, which is, "Iszi, quite the opposite."
Bill:
(gasps)
Iszi:
Eyy!
Bill:
They had so many— Are their houses— Are the buildings all set shapes? Like, the doctor lives in a circle and the fishmonger lives in a rectangle?
Tom:
Or it's all... It's all technically indoors. The town is just—
Bill:
Is one big house!
Tom:
In one building to protect it from the elements.
Bill:
It's one big house!
Iszi:
It's just a big main hall.
Dani:
I wish that were the answer. Shapes is not right but it's certainly pretty close.
Bill:
They'​re not different textures of stone? You build—you build a church out of stone, you build a doctor's office out of sticks, and you build a fishmonger out of straw.
Tom:
And the big bad wolf comes along—
Bill:
And Hans is Hans Christian Anderson and he wrote a—
Iszi:
I love the way you've gone straight to... (laughs)
Bill:
I have cracked it!
Iszi:
You'v​e gone straight to children's nursery rhymes and also the shape block things as well. I love the way your mind is, Bill. It's very cute.
Dani:
What do you picture? If you're picturing Greenland or... perhaps a couple of the other Scandinavian places, and you do picture their buildings, what do you get in your head?
Iszi:
In the 18th century, I'm picturing quite like, you know, I'm—I don't picture a built-up town at all, even though—'cause I know that they got depopulated, so it's only been repopulated in the last of, like, maybe 50, 100 years at this point. So I'm thinking—
Dani:
We are definitely still talking I believe colonial-ish sort of buildings, so this was a deliberate effort to be built—
Tom:
I'm seein' rows of wooden huts and houses.
Bill:
You'r​e making me think of some of the, like, GeoGuessr things, where it'd be like, "Red roofs, that's this place." Is it that sort of— Is it they all have the— Is it colours? They're just painted completely different colours?
Dani:
This is about colours.
Bill:
I forgot about colour. I forgot how colour exists!
Iszi:
Ooh, ooh! Tom's about to burst.
Tom:
I mean, well, yes, but I—it's— it feels like I'm doing a travel brag story. I've been to Greenland.
Bill:
Oh, what a brag! Travel brag.
Tom:
I once got to travel across northern Greenland and northern Canada in the high Arctic, and one of the really big things that the Canadians on the boat pointed out is that you go to far north Canada... and it feels run down. Like everyone's just kind of surviving. It's a lot of shipping containers just kind of sat there. Doing workers is like, "Yeah, we'll store stuff there." It all feels a bit ramshackled.
You go to Greenland, it is sort of beautiful painted doors and painted houses, and it's colourful. It feels like you're in Europe, just a bit colder.
Bill:
Becau​se it's a scale model of Frankfurt!
Tom:
And the colours of the doors and the colours of the houses really stood out.
Dani:
Yeah.​ This is absolutely intentional and nowadays you can have a bit more of whatever you want, though some of this has stuck for tradition's sake. But in colonial times, things were colour-coded. And some of the industries specifically were colour-coded.
Tom:
Wow!
Dani:
I did a Google of this. I specifically Googled, "Greenland hospitals," and some of them indeed – the pictures that showed up – are still yellow, as was their colour code back then.
Tom:
Wow!
Bill:
Yello​w, like bile!
Dani:
Exact​ly. That's why. So yeah, yellow: hospitals, healthcare. Red was churches, schools, or the houses of teachers and ministers. Blue was for the fish factories, of course. And black for policing.
Bill:
How fun.
Iszi:
Amazi​ng.
Bill:
I like it.
Iszi:
It's just like, you know, it reminds me of a worker placement game somehow.
Tom:
(laughs)
Iszi:
I like it.
Dani:
You know what? One of the clues that was possible to give was, "You could argue that the game Sim City did this in a way."
SFX:
(Tom and Bill laugh)
Iszi:
Eyy!
Dani:
So gaming, definitely in the cards.
Tom:
Thank you to Hendrik for this question.
The Chilean government requires all residents of Villa Las Estrellas to undergo a surgical procedure they don't need. What is it, and why is it done?
I'll say that again.
The Chilean government requires all residents of Villa Las Estrellas to undergo a surgical procedure they don't need. What is it, and why is it done?
Dani:
♪ I might get to sit this one out ♪
Bill:
Here'​s the thing. I think I could also sit this one out.
Dani:
(gasps)
Iszi:
Oh no!
Bill:
And that would just be rude to Iszi.
Iszi:
Well,​ I'm going with it's a secret place, and they've just ripped out their eyes so nobody can know.
Tom:
(chortles)
Iszi:
Also taken out their tongues so nobody knows what happ— so that you don't actually know the answer to this question.
Bill:
No hands. They can't feel their way back home.
Iszi:
Exact​ly! So it's unnecessary, but you know, this is why there is no answer to this question because nobody's ever been able to answer it, and therefore I don't feel stupid.
Bill:
Tom just really wants to know.
Tom:
I did worry that this one might fall quickly.
Iszi:
Okay.
Tom:
Dani, Bill, where do you think— I may have mispronounced this. Where do you think Vi-ya Las Estre-yas— Estrel-las, might be?
Dani:
Well,​ let's just say Chile's already pretty far south, but I think you've gotta get even further south.
Bill:
I think you do a big ol' jump across the water. You have—you find yourself in Antarctica in— Is that "estrel-las" at the end literally just for south? A house in the south?
Tom:
Uh, Estrellas. I don't know if that is south.
Bill:
Could​ be connected. Who knows? But—and classically there's a thing for people who are going on Arctic research—
Dani:
Antar​ctic.
Bill:
Antar​ctic research jaunts, is they say, "Hey... We don't wanna make things complicated. While you're over there, wouldn't it be terrible if your appendix started to burst? That'd be—ah, it'd be a hassle for everyone involved, right? You don't need that anyway. It's a pointless organ! Let's just take that out now before you head down, and we'll all be more relaxed."
Dani:
So I actually wrote a trivia question about these Antarctic procedures some months ago, and one of the interesting divisions was a lot of people would be yes if you're going to be there on research over specific months. I think I was looking at the Australian regulations rather than Chilean so I don't know how strict these things are and how much they're the same per country.
But it was, yeah, if you're going to be there during the especially cold, dark months, you're probably gonna be stuck there. You definitely have to get this procedure done. If you're bringing your family, they should probably have it done.
Also, look into your wisdom teeth as well, 'cause that would be annoying, too.
Tom:
Yep, this is on King George Island. It's a permanently-inhabite​d Chilean territory off the coast of continental Antarctica. All the inhabitants since 2018, including children, must have their appendix removed, because the nearest hospital is 625 miles away.
Iszi:
That'​s not that far.
Tom:
(laughs)
Bill:
(snickers)
Tom:
The average temperature there is about -2, -3, so we're talking about 27 Fahrenheit. The population ranges from about 80 people in winter to 150 in summer.
Iszi:
And penguins.
Bill:
There​ you go.
Tom:
And probably some penguins, yes.
Iszi, it is over to you for the next question.
Iszi:
This question has been sent in by Jordan Cook-Irwin.
One morning, Margot opened her door to see the message, "Hard work! Please mumble softly to me. I can't make a pirate ship. Unable to draw a parabola." What did each part mean?
One morning, Margot opened her door to see the message, "Hard work! Please mumble softly to me. I can't make a pirate ship. Unable to draw a parabola." What did each part mean?
Bill:
Did anyone take down all those acronyms?
Tom:
No! No, I—
Dani:
I really didn't!
Tom:
(wheezes)
Iszi:
We could go one by one. Hard work.
SFX:
(group laughing)
Bill:
Hard work. HW's a pretty bad acronym.
Dani:
Right​, and the fact that we were said, "What does each chunk mean?" suggests that we should be able to look at that "hard work" and get something out of that without the others.
Tom:
I—
Iszi:
Sure.
Tom:
I immediately started writing down first letters, which would be HW... PMS—what was it? Please mumble softly—
Bill:
With his song.
Dani:
I can't draw a parabola. If I were you, I would think about the situation before you think about trying to decipher it.
Tom:
Okay.
Bill:
Yeah,​ so what was the situation? Someone just opened their door and saw the message.
Tom:
The message. The message.
Dani:
Well,​ it said the door. It didn't s— It certainly didn't specify what door this was.
Iszi:
Her door.
Tom:
Her door.
Bill:
Her door.
Tom:
Okay.
Dani:
Hmm.
Iszi:
Her door.
Tom:
And saw "the" message.
Iszi:
One morning. One morning.
Bill:
It's the morning. This message comes from the sun.
Iszi:
Margo​t opened her door to see the message. That's right, the sun often says, "Hard work. Please mumble softly to me." This is a known fact—no.
Bill:
Pleas​e, mumble softly! Hard work.
Iszi:
So why would this message be outside Margot's home?
Dani:
So what's outside her home? That is pretty weird, 'cause I was going into all sorts of other doors and places where you might see weird words. Not just... when you're looking at anagrams, but, you know, people who do voice software, and they're trying to capture every sound in the language. So they make them say nonsense sentences and combinations of words. But if it's outside her front door... it's less likely.
Iszi:
It is outside her front door. So when would you see a message outside your front door?
Tom:
You live opposite a giant billboard outside Picadilly Circus and—
Iszi:
Unfor​tunately—
SFX:
(both laughing)
Dani:
The only other thing that I'm going is in a... "put Smarties boxes on cats' legs, make them walk like a robot." It feels like with—
SFX:
(others laughing)
Dani:
If there's a sign outside their door, has someone taken the letters and rearranged them into remarkably coherent sentences?
Bill:
Oh, she lives opposite Fawlty Towers! But they're getting really creative by this point.
Iszi:
Alas,​ alas. I want you to think... What I will say is the words were above four pictograms.
Bill:
Ohh.
Tom:
(cackles) That's helped! No, go on! I definitely got it now! Definitely got it now.
Bill:
It's some kind of cursed tomb and these are the hieroglyphs drawn on—
Iszi:
It's a modern-day situation. I'll give you that. So you don't have to go back to ancient Egypt.
Tom:
I did see someone – it was on TikTok or some short form thing recently – going 'round touring what they called Japan's most English... Which was... T-shirts and things in the wild where in the same way that stereotypically, some English and American people will just get tattoos of Chinese and Japanese characters that don't really make sense but they think they do, just T-shirts with things like, "I can't draw a parabola". Or, "Hard work".
Bill:
That'​s true.
Tom:
Or, "Please mumble softly to me". They're just... They have taken sentences out of context, and they are being used as placeholder text because it looks good.
Iszi:
So, I'm gonna say that Tom's very, very close to the answer here.
Tom:
Okay.
Bill:
Okay.
Dani:
That'​s exciting.
Bill:
A message. It's a—on a— in the sky. It's really poor— That's a long message to do skywriting for.
Tom:
(laughs)
Bill:
On signs. On, like, pickety—like, protest signs or picket signs or—
Iszi:
It's not technically a sign. It's just a message.
Bill:
Not a sign.
Iszi:
Think​ about the situation. One morning – it's the morning – Margot opened her door. Why did she open her door? And why did she see this message?
Bill:
Paper​.
Dani:
Yeah,​ that feels like a newspaper getting situation.
Iszi:
So close.
Dani:
Ooh, the mail.
Iszi:
Dani said something.
Bill:
The mail.
Dani:
The mail. Alright. What can we do with this?
Tom:
These are on packages. These are on some sort of package that's being delivered to her some mornings. But what on earth are you receiving—
Bill:
That would have these—
Tom:
Every morning or some mornings that will have weird, badly translated or nonsense phrases on it?
Iszi:
I think you've almost got there, Tom. You just need to put what your previous thought was with this thought and you got it.
Dani:
So the idea of interesting translations. 'Cause it is possible that those first two, like, "Hard work, please mumble softly to me," could I suppose theoretically have gone through some language to be, "This is fragile. Please handle with care."
Iszi:
Boom!
Bill:
Oh!
Tom:
Oh!
Iszi:
Dani'​s pretty much got it. (laughs) So, you're correct.
Dani:
What'​s the parabola?
Tom:
"Hard work". Okay, no, let's try and work these out.
Iszi:
Let's​ do it.
Tom:
'Cause​ "Hard work" must be heavy.
Iszi:
Yes. Exactly that.
Bill:
Yeah,​ it's heavy, yep.
Tom:
What was the next one?
Dani:
Pleas​e mumble to me— please mumble softly to me.
Bill:
Handl​e with care?
Tom:
Fragil​e, yeah.
Bill:
Fragi​le?
Iszi:
Fragi​le. Fragile. Don't be loud. Mumble softly to me.
Tom:
What's​ the next one?
Iszi:
"I can't make a pirate ship."
Dani:
Oh, right. I forgot about that one.
Bill:
Oh, "I can't make a pirate ship."
Tom:
It's dang—um, it's got a skull and crossbones on it and they've gone through Jolly Roger?
Bill:
Non-p​oisonous.
Dani:
Do not... something.
Iszi:
It's a tricky one, this one.
Tom:
Do not bend? No.
Iszi:
Not that.
Bill:
Oh! This is—Is it "This side up," and they've drawn a picture to make it look like the sail of a ship?
Iszi:
Oh, that'd be so cute. No, alas not.
Bill:
Aw, okay.
Iszi:
Alas not. What's things about a pirate ship that isn't true about a spaceship?
Tom:
You can get it wet.
Iszi:
Boom!​ So—
Dani:
Ohh!
Bill:
Okay.
Dani:
You do not want this package to be a pirate ship.
Iszi:
Dani'​s got it. There you go. Do not get wet!
Dani:
(laughs squeakily)
Iszi:
And the final one— and you've already said it— is, "Unable to draw a parabola". Oh, a parabola. I got one say "parabola," and that's wrong, isn't it? It's par-ab-ola.
Tom:
That's​ "Do not bend."
Dani:
Ah.
Iszi:
There​ you go.
Tom:
You can't make the flat thing into a parabola.
Iszi:
There​ you go.
Tom:
That's​ wonderful!
Bill:
But why were they written this way?
Iszi:
The message was printed on the box of a kitchen gadget that was made in China. However, the message had not been translated into English very well.
An online forum reached this consensus for the translations. So we don't actually definitely know, but that is generally what people think.
Bill:
I love it.
Dani:
Amazi​ng.
Tom:
Thank you to James Bailey for this question.
People training to use the Valsalva Manoeuvre are sometimes told to imagine being in a swimming pool, to protect their back. What are they doing, and how does this metaphor help?
I'll say that again.
People training to use the Valsalva Manoeuvre are sometimes told to imagine being in a swimming pool to protect their back. What are they doing, and how does this metaphor help?
Dani:
This sounds familiar. I think this is ringing something, but I'm not getting there.
Tom:
When I first read this question, it was exactly the same. I know I've heard Valsalva Manoeuvre. It's somewhere in the back of my head, and I couldn't quite remember it.
Iszi:
I'm just thinking about why a swimming pool would protect your back and what you do in a swimming pool to protect your back. And I'm only thinking of diving.
Bill:
I think it's not like— I think if you were in a swimming pool, this wouldn't protect your back. But if you emulate the movements that you would make in a swimming pool, when you are in the situation to do the Valsalva Manoeuvre, it will protect your back, not—that's my—
Dani:
That'​s how I'm interpreting it.
Bill:
So it's like, if you look like you're you're trying to... tread water... then you'll stay the appropriate angle during a skydive, perhaps. Or, like—
Iszi:
I mean, manoeuvre obviously— the only manoeuvre I know of is three-point turn and Heimlich.
Dani:
Yeah.
Tom:
(laughs)
Iszi:
That is the two manoeuvres.
Tom:
Of those two, Heimlich's the closer one in this situation.
Iszi:
Okay,​ so Valsalva Manoeuvre must be to do with something lifesaving or to do with the body.
Bill:
Someâ​€”yeah. To protect your back.
Iszi:
But not choking, 'cause we've already got Heimlich for that. He's wrapped that up. That's his thing.
Tom:
(chuckles)
Dani:
There​, now, obviously, when people talk about protecting your back, usually that has something to do with lifting, I feel.
Bill:
Oh!
Dani:
That tends to be the biggest time.
Iszi:
So why would you need to lift somebody, to save their life, or to save them from damaging themselves? I'm presuming if we're going Heimlich—
Dani:
If you're a firefighter, perhaps? That's—That would involve lifting people.
Iszi:
But that's a Fireman's Lift! We've got a name for that.
Dani:
Yeah,​ that's true. That's true!
Iszi:
That'​s bottom by the head and walk. That's not—
Bill:
I've seen a— There's a thing that, like, you can teach carers to do for people who have... who are caring for disabled or immobile... patients to lift them up and get them onto chairs and things like that, which is a very specific and complex manoeuvre of, like, you get them on your knee and you lean yourself back, and then you can move to thi— But I don't know how swimming would help.
Dani:
Well,​ we could all hear from your mic quality that you did the lean back
Bill:
Yes.
Dani:
as you—
Iszi:
That was good.
Dani:
You had to act it out.
Iszi:
Oh, I've seen people lift people up, in terms of, they do a sort of weird forward roll over the top of them, and it's like a fireman's thing for that.
Bill:
Yeah,​ the ranger roll or—
Iszi:
Yeah,​ they do— That's not the Valsalva Manoeuvre, I take it.
Tom:
In this case, the Valsalva Manoeuvre helps them achieve the thing they're trying to do without hurting their back.
Dani:
I definitely thought back to one of my first early industry training things, where the very first test that you had to pass was just pass or fail.
And it was, there is a box on the ground. It doesn't weigh anything, but you have to demonstrate the appropriate way to pick up this box. And it was essentially, "Don't lift with your back". It was, "Bend your knees, that's it". If you use your knees, you pass. If you don't use your knees, you fail.
Bill:
I think—Is this— Is this a... squat technique about where you breathe during a squat? And it keeps you—
Tom:
Keep going, Bill.
Bill:
You have to picture that the water— I've seen this technique being taught.
It's like you have to picture there's water at, like, chest height or whatever. So that once you go down to lift the bar during a dead lift, you have to hold— you hold your breath when you're down and you only breathe at the top. And it keeps your core tight and full of breath or whatever, so that you don't relax halfway and then injure your back.
Iszi:
You brace yourself.
Bill:
Yeah,​ you brace yourself. Keeps you braced to only breathe at the top.
Tom:
Yes. You've got it, Bill.
Bill:
Yeah!​ Valsalva!
Tom:
So, yes. Filling in the details:
Valsalva Manoeuvre – which was at the back of my head, which was I think at the back of a few of your heads – is exhaling against a closed throat, a closed glottis. So you just kind of: (grunts exaggeratedly) That kind of— You're trying to exhale, but you are stopping yourself doing that.
That is the Valsalva Manoeuvre, which is used for a few things. It can lower your heart rate. It can... There's a few other medical things it can do. But in this case, it is the correct thing to do when you are weightlifting – when you're squatting with weights like you said, Bill.
Dani:
Gotch​a.
Bill:
Mm, okay.
Iszi:
I mean, just basic— if you do— if you're doing, like a, you know, high-intensity weight— like, doing lots of, like, you know, goblet squats and stuff, don't do that 'cause you will die.
Tom:
(laughs)
Iszi:
Your lack of breath will kill you.
Tom:
We all will eventually(!) I mean, we can hope not to, but—
Dani:
It might as well be while squatting!
Iszi:
I know, but I just think it's a bit extreme. You can still breathe and brace your core. I mean, if you're doing it for a big lift, then yeah. But if you're doing, like, you know, "I've got a 12-kilo kettle bell and I'm just doing some squats," yeah, you can brace yourself and still breathe. I just want people to know that. Don't collapse 'cause you've got ten reps to do
Tom:
(laughs)
Iszi:
and you're not breathing until you have to go
Dani:
(gasps loudly) (giggles) I mean—
Tom:
Yes. This is when serious weight lifters are training to do squat techniques, where they can do injuries to themselves if they get the breathing wrong.
And beginners often get the breathing wrong.
Iszi:
Yeah.​ But also maybe there's a sort of psychological element to it 'cause you're thinking, "Hang on. I'm in the water, therefore everything's lighter." Maybe there's that.
Tom:
(laughs) It might well be. But yes, they are trained to imagine standing in a neck-high swimming pool, so that as they go under, they hold their breath, they perform (grunts) the Valsalva Manoeuvre, and then sometimes it's exhale on the way back up.
Iszi:
Or just don't. It's hard.
SFX:
(others blurt laugh)
Tom:
Bill, it is over to you for the next question.
Bill:
Alrig​ht.
This question was sent in by Nick Huntington-Klein.
Benny Blanco is a successful songwriter and producer, with credits on hits such as Katy Perry's "Teenage Dream" and Ke$ha's "TiK ToK". Why are all of his early songs set to a tempo of 120 beats per minute?
And I'll give you that again.
Benny Blanco is a successful songwriter and producer, with credits on hits such as Katy Perry's "Teenage Dream" and Ke$ha's "TiK ToK". Why are all of his early songs set to a tempo of 120 beats per minute?
Tom:
The minute you said Benny Blanco, I was like, "Oh! He's a songwriter and he's a producer!" And then you said the words "songwriter and producer," and, uh, that's—
Bill:
Yeah,​ stole that knowledge right out from under ya.
Iszi:
I think I've got a solid guess at this—
Tom:
I think I've got a solid guess here as well.
Dani:
Oh, no! I hate that!
Tom:
The thing is, I don't know it.
Iszi:
No, I don't know, either.
Tom:
Alrigh​t, you—
Iszi:
I don't know it, either.
Tom:
Should​ we start with Dani, then?
Dani:
My best guess is, are we still on the safety train, and he really wanted one of his songs to be the next "Stayin' Alive" for resuscitation?
Tom:
On the assumption that our guesses are gonna be close, I'm gonna drop in a pop fact here, which is that 128 BPM is known—I think it was— I can't remember. I think it was the Popbitch newsletter that came out with this. 128 BPM is like the kiss of death for Eurovision songs.
Because it's the easiest one to write in. Eurovision songs have to be three minutes or less. And if you want to do verse, chorus, verse, chorus, middle eight, final chorus... in three minutes, it's 128 BPM. It fits exactly.
So you choose that 'cause it's the easiest one to choose, and your song sounds like everything else and blurs into the background.
Iszi:
So I think—my guess would be it's got something to do with certain songs at certain beats per minute being saved for a particular reason on certain playlists, and therefore getting a lot of playtime.
Tom:
Oh.
Dani:
How does that work?
Bill:
Oh, he's trying to game the algorithm.
Iszi:
Yeah,​ kind of. So, it's to do with that, but there is— for example, when do people listen to a lot of music? And when do you get streamed a lot and played a lot? What are you doing? And that is—shall I just say what this is?
Tom:
Oh, in the gym. Like, you're looking for a playlist that's a certain BPM, so you can run to it.
Iszi:
Boom.​ So I think 120 beats per minute is a really good pace to run at maybe. You know, with steps. I don't know. I don't run. That might be ridiculously quick.
Dani:
That would make sense to me. I've run the City2Surf a couple of times years ago now and I couldn't have done it without a couple of very specific songs in my earphones keeping me going at a beat.
Iszi:
So that's why I think, you know, there is a particular thing, sort of maybe 80 beats per minute if you're going on a slight slow jog, but 120 you can go quite slow 'cause it's 60, and also that's probably a sprinting pace as well, is my guess, but I don't know.
Bill:
I will say you're building a world in which... Benny Blanco set out and went, "I've crafted—I've found this perfect number. I'm feeding into this number. It's perfect." That is... not at all what happened.
Tom:
Okay, so my guess is that this was his early work, right? He was just... I don't know his history. But I assume like a lot of producers, he started out in his bedroom with pirated software or free software or something like that and that his software was just locked to 120 BPM because the free version only lets you create songs of 120 BPM.
Dani:
(cackles)
Tom:
And that...
Dani:
Awh.
Tom:
You need to pay the 30 bucks to unlock it, and he was, like, 15 at the time?
Bill:
Now, no, no. I'm debating whether or not to give it to you. (wheezes)
Tom:
No, not this soon. It's close. But the way your face is looking, it's not right.
Bill:
What I will say is money was not— It wasn't that he didn't buy the software that could do it. It wasn't refusing to buy it.
Like, by the time— Look, once you've done one of "Teenage Dream" or Ke$ha's "TiK ToK", you've got enough money to do the other one with whatever you need. It was not a commercial limitation.
Tom:
So it is like the default setting. He's just not changed it.
Iszi:
Is it he's using the same— so, like, there's a free track on each keyboard that you could use, and he's just using the same free track that's the rock beats, yeah?
Bill:
You are ab—You are dancing around it. It is incredibly close.
Tom:
Did he just not know how to change the BPM?
Bill:
He just didn't know how to change the BPM.
SFX:
(Tom and Dani laugh)
Iszi:
Beaut​iful.
Dani:
He had all the money in the world but not one friend to help him.
Bill:
(wheezes) Yeah!
Iszi:
Why change something that works, eh?
Tom:
That's​ true.
Bill:
Exact​ly.
Iszi:
He could find out if he really cared, but it doesn't matter 'cause he's a massive success, and none of us have written amazing songs for Ke$ha, so—
Bill:
Ah, yes, no, look. You're 100% correct, Tom.
120 beats per minute is the default. In this case specifically the default in Pro Tools that he was using to construct his songs. And a couple years into making hit songs... He didn't realise he could change the BPM setting. So he just let it go by default, matched it to that.
Apparently in general, Benny Blanco is not good with technology. He doesn't like flying. He doesn't have an email address. He's not good with computers, and this was a symptom of that.
And he just went, "Look, it's wor—" Eventually he figured it out, but yes. He did not know that he could change the default beats per minute in his music software.
Dani:
How did he think everyone else was doing it?
Tom:
(laughs)
Bill:
As—​Could I just say, for Escape This Podcast and for Solve This Murder, I make original music and I write, like, two songs every episode to fit in.
Iszi:
Oh, wow.
Bill:
I get it. I get it. I get it. Sometimes I'll get to a point where I really think the song should slow down nicely and go from 120 down to, you know... slow down, get to 90 by the end of that scene, and then I go, I don't know how to make it do that, so I guess that'll just be for—
Tom:
(laughs)
Bill:
That'​ll just be good in my mind, but I'm not gonna try and figure it out now."
Iszi:
I have very specific techniques involving Photoshop and making layers and making masks of the layers and changing them up, and I'm almost 100% certain it's probably the most inefficient way of doing it, but because it's the way I've always done it, I don't wanna change it 'cause it works. And you just don't have that half a day to learn everything.
Bill:
For the first six months of making podcasts, I didn't know what compression was, and I kept normalising to a certain thing and then reducing it, then normalising it down, and then cutting the peaks until I could manually compress the audio to get it even-sounding. (laughs) I was just doing it by hand. And then six months in, it was like, "You know there's a button for that?" (laughs) Ah, right. Cool.
Iszi:
It's sickening.
Bill:
So for the first few years of his hit-making career, Benny Blanco did not know that he could change the default beats per minute in Pro Tools, the music software that he used.
Tom:
Which leaves us with the question that I asked the audience at the very start of the show.
Thank you to Jordan Cook-Irwin for sending this in.
In Warhammer 40,000, what is the name of the group of space marines that paint their armour blue?
Now, we have had some Warhammer fans on the show before, Simon Clark most notably. Does everyone know what Warhammer is?
Iszi:
I'm very aware of Warhammer because there is a lot of stuff— very light packages with no Chinese weirdly-translated descriptions on them that get delivered to my house and then I move them to the kitchen table and they get taken to a shed in the garden where the nerds are. So...
SFX:
(others laughing)
Iszi:
So I'm aware, but I have no understanding. I know orcs are in there, but that's as far as I go.
Bill:
I inherited a whole big Tyranid army at one point from a friend. I had a couple of Eldar troops at some point.
Dani:
Okay,​ so you know some of the names.
Bill:
I know the answer. I know the answer to this question.
Tom:
Okay, these are miniatures that get painted when they arrive and then get used for fantasy wargaming in a far science fantasy future.
Iszi:
Can I just encourage any of you who've got friends that you never know what presents to get them, to get them into Warhammer because suddenly Christmas, birthdays, it's so easy.
Dani:
So easy.
Iszi:
They want paint, they want brushes, they just want this specific thing.
Tom:
Before​ you kick this one home, then, Bill, Dani, Iszi, do you wanna take a shot at the name of the group of space marines that paint their armour blue?
Iszi:
Yeah,​ the Blue Tax.
Dani:
Yeah,​ I assume there's gotta be— there's gotta be some way in here.
Tom:
There is. There is.
Dani:
What can we associate with this? And blue? The Neptunians? I don't know where this goes. I don't know their naming conventions outside of what Bill's just said.
Tom:
The key words are marines and blue.
Iszi:
Marin​es and blue. So, the Sea Teals.
SFX:
(group laughing)
Dani:
The Navy Teals.
Tom:
Oh, that's good! That's really good!
Iszi:
I wish I'd thought of that.
SFX:
(group laughing)
Bill:
But I believe unlike— there's so many different types of marines, lots of different orders. I know the names of almost none of them. But I do know that the blue ones... well, they're pretty cool marines. They're Ultra Marines.
Tom:
Yes. This is a pun on ultramarine, the blue pigment that was traditionally made using ground-up lapis lazuli stones.
Thank you very much to all our players. Let's find out, what's going on in your life? Where can people find you?
We will start with Bill.
Bill:
Yeah,​ if you wanna check out what we're doing, you can get Sins of New Wells, the new DLC for Rise of the Golden Idol, that is—that we worked on and we're very proud of, or what—and Dani can tell you the other one!
Tom:
Dani!
Dani:
I think that the best thing you can do if you wanna hear some murder mystery podcasts— Everyone loves murder mysteries right now. Check out Solve This Murder on wherever you get your podcasts. Wherever you're hearing this now.
Tom:
And Iszi.
Iszi:
You can find me at iszi.com. If you basically put I-S-Z-I in any search engine you'll find me, and yes, if you want your children's fiction pedantic, this is for you. The Cursed Tomb out now. Thank you.
Tom:
And if you wanna know more about this show, you can do that at lateralcast.com where you can also send in your own ideas for questions. We are @lateralcast basically everywhere. And there are video highlights regularly at youtube.com/lateralc​ast.
Thank you very much to Iszi Lawrence.
Iszi:
Thank​s. Sorry! I don't know what to say!
Tom:
Dani Siller. (laughs)
Dani:
I'm doing finger guns at the screen!
Tom:
And Bill Sunderland.
Bill:
Thank​ you for having me.
SFX:
(Tom and Dani laugh)
Bill:
That'​s how it's done!
Tom:
I'm Tom Scott, and that's been Lateral.
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