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Episode 167: Animals carrying sausages [LIVE]
19th December, 2025 • [Audio only] Ria Lina, Alasdair Beckett-King and Iszi Lawrence face questions about selfless speeding, donated dots and Clapham curries. Recorded at the Clapham Grand, London, as part of the Cheerful Earful festival.
Transcription by Caption+
Tom:
In Southend-on-Sea, England, there is a French restaurant in a converted public restroom. What's it called?
The answer to that at the end of the show.
My name's Tom Scott, and with a live audience in London, This is Lateral!
Audience:
(cheers excitedly)
Tom:
Once again, we're delighted to be invited back to headline, the Cheerful Earful comedy podcast festival. We decided it was a better fit for us than the festival for gossipy video podcasts, the Spiteful Eyeful.
Audience:
(laughs)
Tom:
We're recording this at a variety theatre in southwest London, the Clapham Grand, which is just down the road from its smaller cousin, the Clapham Adequate.
Audience:
(laughs)
Tom:
The Grand is opposite a pub that has a famous bar designed by the Dutch artist, MC Escher. The bar is lovely, but it is impossible to get to the toilets upstairs.
Audience:
(laughs)
Iszi:
Heh.
Tom:
I'm confident that our guests today are going to be one step ahead.
First up, new to the show, a stand-up comedian, actress and writer who also has a PhD in virology. So please sanitise your hands and then put them together for Ria Lina!
Audience:
(applauds)
Ria:
Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here. I think. I'm not sure. I don't know.
Tom:
(snickers)
Ria:
I'm here.
Audience:
(laughs)
Tom:
Next: His own website calls him a legendary comedian and writer.
SFX:
(Ria and Iszi laugh)
Tom:
In that there's very little historical evidence he exists.
Please welcome the man, the myth, the possibly fictional Alasdair Beckett-King!
Audience:
(applauds)
Alasdair:
Hello. Thank you for having me.
Tom:
And finally, one of our Lateral regulars. Her historical children's books are so well researched that the British Library has given her a gold membership card.
Let's hear it for Iszi Lawrence!
Audience:
(applauds)
Tom:
Who has actually brought her books on stage.
Iszi:
Obviously, this is a chance. If you've got pedantic children, please do.
Time Machine Next— I literally have all the facts correct in my novels, and any children who can find any mistakes get to write to me and make me feel small.
SFX:
(Tom and audience chuckle)
Iszi:
So far, none of them have, because there aren't any. (growls)
SFX:
(Alasdair and Tom chuckle)
Audience:
(laughs heartily)
Ria:
I was a pedantic child. Can I?
Iszi:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Please, please do.
Alasdair:
I also write children's novels, and mine are full of mistakes, and I don't care.
Iszi:
They're fun though.
Audience:
(laughs)
Iszi:
And murder.
Alasdair:
Murder.
Iszi:
Yes. There's quite a lot of murder in your books.
Ria:
Of the children?
Alasdair:
No! By the children.
Tom:
By the children?
Ria:
By the ch—
Audience:
(laughs heartily)
Tom:
Thank you so much to all of you for joining us. Iszi, it is your first time live here, but you have been a guest on the show before.
Iszi:
I have. I know what to expect.
Tom:
(wheezes)
Iszi:
And I'm sorry, everybody. This is... It's particularly bad to do this on a Sunday morning. This is— Oh, it's technically afternoon now, but to arrive anywhere, we're all comedians, and to make us do anything before sort of, you know, 6 pm is just mean.
Tom:
Do you have any advice for our new players?
Iszi:
Yeah. Can you please not get the answers completely right and make me look stupid?
Alasdair:
That won't be difficult at all.
Iszi:
Okay, good.
Ria:
No problem.
Tom:
Well, good luck to all of our guests today.
The game works the same as always, but with the added pressure of immediate judgment from complete strangers.
Audience:
(chuckles)
(scattered whooping)
Tom:
Oh well, let's see what fresh hell awaits with question one.
Why did Katie and Suzanne choose to go for a curry at the Clapham branch of Banana Tree on the 25th of September 2025?
I'll say that again.
Why did Katie and Suzanne choose to go for a curry at the Clapham branch of Banana Tree on the 25th of September 2025?
Now, before we go to the question, last year, Stuart Goldsmith, our guest, invented the Whoop-O-Meter that I'm now gonna call the Goldsmith Whoop-O-Meter, which is very simple. If you think you immediately know the answer to this question in the audience, give us a whoop.
Audience:
(faint whooping)
Tom:
Only two or three. This is one of the hardest questions by that Whoop-O-Meter that we've had.
So, why did Katie and Suzanne go for a curry at the Clapham branch of Banana Tree on the 25th of September 2025?
Alasdair:
Can I ask, the banana tree, is this a tree...
Audience:
(mild giggling)
Alasdair:
or a restaurant?
SFX:
(Tom and audience laugh)
Tom:
I'm gonna let y'all figure that one out yourselves.
Alasdair:
Oh, okay, no.
Iszi:
I would imagine bananas can only produce fruits when they've been, I think, about six to seven months, a year above 26° centigrade.
Thank you Martin from my gym to tell me that.
SFX:
(Tom and audience laugh)
Iszi:
That's how I know that. So, they couldn't be used in Clapham, which doesn't have an annual temperature average of above 26° to produce enough fruits for Suzanne and Katie to actually get a meal.
Alasdair:
Ergo, it must be a restaurant and not a tree.
Ria:
No.
Iszi:
Yes.
Ria:
Because nobody said it was a banana curry. They just said it was at the banana tree. So it could be a dead tree that's not fruited in years.
Iszi:
Then why would you go there for lunch? Unless, are they beavers?
Ria:
I think—
SFX:
(Tom and audience laugh)
Ria:
A woodchip curry? Bit dry. I mean, I think it has something to do with the fact that it was a Thursday.
Iszi:
Oh.
Ria:
Wasn't it? It was the 25th.
Iszi:
Did he say Thursday?
Tom:
It wasn't. 25th of September.
Ria:
25th of September. 25. That was a Thursday.
Alasdair:
What?
Iszi:
Wow!
Ria:
It was a Thurs—
Iszi:
Wow!
Ria:
What? No. Come on, people!
Alasdair:
How can you po— Oh, PhD, oh.
SFX:
(Tom and audience laugh)
Ria:
(cracks up)
Alasdair:
Ohh! PhD in knowing things, ohh.
Ria:
Well, I mean there's only seven things to know. Monday through Sunday. I mean, it wasn't—
SFX:
(Tom and audience laugh)
Ria:
I learned that before the PhD, to be fair.
Alasdair:
But they have—
Iszi:
How did you know—
Alasdair:
How can you know what day of the week that was?
Ria:
That was only like three or four weeks ago.
Iszi:
Yeah! Surely—
Ria:
I was in Rickmansworth. Where were you?
Alasdair:
What day is it today?
Audience:
(laughs)
Tom:
I used to know the algorithm. Well, I mean it's still somewhere in my head for working out day of the week from everything. I would never have got it that fast.
It unfortunately, is utterly irrelevant to the question.
Ria:
Okay.
Alasdair:
Yeah. So the people who don't know how, level the playing field.
Audience:
(laughs)
Ria:
Restaurant or tree was your question.
Alasdair:
Yeah, yeah. And now we know it was a restaurant.
Iszi:
No, we don't!
Alasdair:
You're welcome!
Tom:
We do, we do.
Iszi:
It could've been a café.
Tom:
Banana Tree is a restaurant, yes.
Alasdair:
Yes!
Audience:
(laughs)
Alasdair:
So one point to me? In the game with no points?
Ria:
And they serve curry all the time? Or is it like a Wetherspoons where like there's only curry on a Thurs— I'm still sticking with Thursday. I mean, because don't you have Steak Tuesdays and Curry Thursdays?
Iszi:
Oh my god, it wasn't a curry and comedy night, was it? Have you done those comedy and curry nights?
Ria:
I have done curry and comedy nights.
Iszi:
Oh!
Alasdair:
I think it's the best. I think essentially you want an entire audience and all the comedians to be experiencing acid reflux during the show.
SFX:
(Tom and audience laugh)
Alasdair:
They work so well.
Ria:
Was it free for people called Katie and Suzanne?
Tom:
Yes, it was.
Alasdair:
(gasps)
Audience:
Oooh.
Alasdair:
That's an incredibly— Do you know the answer to this?
Ria:
No, but it's lateral thinking. And if it wasn't about the Thursday, it was about Katie and Suzanne, wasn't it?
Alasdair:
Alright. What is lateral thinking?
Tom:
A brand new—
Alasdair:
Should I have asked before we started?
Tom:
Well done. On the first question, the first show, well done, you've got that. But that's just the first half of the question. That is why they went there that day. But why was it free for Katie and Suzanne?
Alasdair:
Katie and Suzanna.
Iszi:
I mean, their names both start with 'constonance'.
Audience:
(snickering)
Iszi:
So maybe, but then, you know... I like to annoy people called Albert and Anna. And Usman. But, yeah, I think that'd be quite— I don't see how the restaurant would benefit from giving away free food.
Tom:
Their names definitely start with something, Iszi.
Alasdair:
So, K and S. Was there anybody else in the group?
Iszi:
Was there
Alasdair:
Did it spell a word?
Iszi:
an Isabel and a Simon, and this was celebrating the band Kiss?
SFX:
(Tom and audience laugh)
Alasdair:
Or a William and an Albert and a Nigel.
Audience:
(laughs in crescendo)
Ria:
Tarquin? Was Tarquin there?
Iszi:
(laughs)
Ria:
How posh are we going?
Audience:
(chuckles)
Tom:
Katie and Suzanne are... some of the people who would be eligible.
Ria:
People? They're people.
Tom:
They are definitely people, yes.
Ria:
They're people.
Iszi:
Okay.
Ria:
That wasn't actually— They could have been dogs.
Iszi:
Are they girls not mentioned in the song "Mambo No. 5"?
Tom:
(chuckles)
Audience:
(laughs)
Alasdair:
(cackles)
Tom:
You've nearly got it.
Like, Ria, you've nailed it's their names that are important. Ria, you nailed they got to eat for free.
You, Iszi, talked about the names, starting with. And it's not quite starting with K and S... but Katie and Suzanne.
Ria:
Kay and Sue.
Iszi:
Is it— Are these names that people often get wrong? So Katie could be Catherine or Carolyn. Like, Catlin, you know, get really annoyed if you get 'em wrong?
Tom:
Catlin would be fine.
Iszi:
Okay.
Tom:
Katherine, Katie.
Ria:
They're all getting free curry on a Thursday.
Tom:
Yep, yep. So, Susie, Suzanne.
Iszi:
So it's 'sus' and 'cat'.
Alasdair:
Is there an element? Is there—
Audience:
(laughs and jeers)
Tom:
Try that in a slightly different order, Iszi!
SFX:
(Iszi and audience laugh)
Iszi:
Cat and Sue?
Alasdair:
Oh, katsu, like the curry.
Iszi:
Eyyy!
Audience:
Eyyy!
Alasdair:
So you didn't work that out.
Audience:
(applauds)
Iszi:
Nope.
Alasdair:
You'd worked that out, but like a teacher, you allowed me to think I had thought of it.
Iszi:
This is where my brain always lets me down.
SFX:
(guys and audience laugh)
Iszi:
It's that last step.
Tom:
Yes. Banana Tree offered a free katsu curry to anyone named Kat or Su if they ate after 4 pm between the 22nd and 25th of September 2025. National Katsu Day... is the 27th of September?
Iszi:
(putters)
Audience:
(laughs)
Iszi:
'Cause you get it in before then.
Ria:
That's a Saturday. You don't give stuff away for free on a Saturday.
Tom:
That's why!
SFX:
(Alasdair and audience laugh)
Tom:
This is where I'm stumped, because literally the only other notes I've got is other food-related observances, so...
Ria:
(laughs) That's the note they give you?
Tom:
If you wanna know about National Lima Bean Respect Day...
SFX:
(Alasdair and audience laugh)
Ria:
Ooh, is my name close enough to get free lima beans? And I thought it was lima.
Iszi:
That's nice, yeah.
Tom:
I've also got National Ice Cream for Breakfast Day and National Baked Bean Month.
Alasdair:
A month seems like too much.
Tom:
It does.
Ria:
That's a very smelly month.
Tom:
You can just start a day. There's no central agency that depicts which day is which the— Literally anyone here, just get enough people behind you, declare it, it is that day.
Ria:
Well, why don't you do— come on. We've got enough people. We've got 500 people. Let's declare a day. What day do you want? Lateral Thinking Day?
Audience:
(cheers)
Tom:
Which means our next question comes from Ria. Whenever you're ready.
Ria:
Okay.
This question has been sent in by Maarten de Vries, who is either Dutch or South African. I love it. Maarten de Vries.
Alasdair:
Are you going to read it in the accent?
SFX:
(others laughing)
Tom:
Which accent?
Iszi:
She can do Dutch. I know she can do Dutch.
Ria:
Een beetje. Ik kan een beetje Nederlands praten. But I'll do it in English.
Audience:
(cheering)
Ria:
Oh, do we have Dutch people in?
Spectator:
Ja! (waves)
Ria:
Hallo! That— You're very enthusiastic for a Dutch person. They're normally— That is—
SFX:
(Tom and audience laugh)
Ria:
That is more than I get in my comedy gigs over there. Yeah. "Woo!" I love it, ja. I am Dutch. Read the question, okay.
SFX:
(others laughing)
Ria:
Okay.
In 2007, a New South Wales government agency ran a safety campaign where people could potentially save the lives of others by using their little finger. How?
In 2007, a New South Wales government agency ran a safety campaign where people could potentially save the lives of others by using their little finger. How?
Tom:
We're gonna go to the Whoop-o-Meter. Who here thinks they know the answer to that?
Audience:
(loud scattered whoops)
Ria:
Oh!
Tom:
Well, a few more. Maybe 5-10% of the audience there, alright. Are they all Australian?
Audience:
(mixed chuckling and distant singular whoops)
Tom:
Okay, yes, right.
Ria:
Okay. (laughs)
Tom:
Wait, no... Not wishing to stereotype Australians too much... but are you just whooping because I said, "Are you Australian?"
Audience:
(cheers)
SFX:
(guests laughing)
Alasdair:
(continues laughing)
Iszi:
Bonza.
Alasdair:
So this is— okay, I may be being thrown by the Dutch thing, but in Holland, don't they have the story of the little boy with his finger in the dike? The...
Matt Gray:
(laughs)
Ria:
Yes?
Audience:
(laughs loudly)
Alasdair:
It's 2025!
Tom:
Now look.
Alasdair:
Come on!
Tom:
Here's the thing. That was a chain reaction of laughter. It wasn't set off by most of the audience. It was set off by Matt Gray...
Audience:
(laughs uproariously)
Matt Gray:
(waves to crowd)
Audience:
(cheers excitedly)
Tom:
Sat up in the box...
Matt Gray:
(pinky-gestures at Tom)
Tom:
who laughed once and set the whole chain reaction off. Well, well done.
Iszi:
Now, the old thing with little fingers is, you know, if you drink your cup of tea with a little finger erect as it were, this is... supposed to be a sign that you do not have syphilis.
I believe this is completely apocryphal, but it is a way of signaling to people that you don't have some sort of communicable disease, sexually communicable disease.
Audience:
(laughing)
Iszi:
Sexual, right? That stops your joints from working. And I believe that is a false thing, but we are talking about Australia. So...
SFX:
(Tom and audience chortle)
Iszi:
Easy, easy.
Tom:
This wasn't as offensive last year!
Iszi:
(laughs)
Ria:
We are indeed.
Alasdair:
Notice Tom drinking with flacid little finger there.
Audience:
(laughs uproariously)
(cheers and applauds)
Tom:
The thing is, I deliberately put my finger out like that for the start, and then I was like, actually, this mug of water's a little bit heavy. I'm just gonna—
SFX:
(Iszi and audience laugh)
Iszi:
Are any of us near it?
Ria:
No, because—
Iszi:
Fair enough. is it to do with measuring?
Ria:
So the little finger, much like Tom's, didn't do anything practical.
Audience:
(guffaws)
Iszi:
He just said! Without that little finger, his wrist would collapse.
Alasdair:
(chuckles) So it's not like taking a blood sample by pricking the little finger. If the finger isn't actually practical, it's symbolic.
Ria:
Actually, you know what? You are laterally in a correct ballpark now.
Iszi:
Ooh.
Ria:
With those words.
Alasdair:
Okay, I'm laterally in the correct ballpark.
SFX:
(Tom and audience crack up)
Ria:
With the words.
Alasdair:
I've never done any kind of sports, so I feel nervous.
Ria:
Oh no, not the sports, but you were talking about the pricking.
Alasdair:
Is it the word 'prick'?
Ria:
The prick of the— yeah.
Alasdair:
It was the phrase 'little prick' that you—
Ria:
Yes.
Audience:
(laughs)
Alasdair:
We're getting warmer here.
Tom:
So, there are those little lancets that you get if you have to do an at-home blood sample, where you can... the horrible spring loaded things where you have to put your finger onto them, and they just stab you.
Iszi:
I had to use them during COVID. This is too early for COVID, 'cause it's 2007, but the amount of—
Tom:
I was like, you've got a good memory for this question. You're the only person on stage with a notebook.
Iszi:
I've played this game before.
Audience:
(laughs)
Ria:
(cackles)
Iszi:
I know I need to remember stuff. But yeah, so... Did you find— Did you do that with a blood sample and having to— The amount of time it took me just to prick my finger. It takes like, at least— You have to build up to it. It's like getting in the cold sea. You can't just stab yourself really quickly. It's traumatising.
Ria:
Yeah, and you gotta— you wanna go on the side of the finger, where there's slightly fewer nerve endings, and then you gotta wind your hand around, which I did, but I did it to get the, you know, 'cause you wanna use centrifugal force to get the blood to the end of the finger.
But then it sprayed blood all over my bathroom.
SFX:
(others laughing)
Iszi:
That's the most Pete Townshend medical test.
Ria:
But I didn't have syphilis.
Spectator:
Woo!
Iszi:
Woo!
Ria:
Well, think it this way. Think, what major departments do local governments operate? Think of it— Think about it that way.
Tom:
Local government?
Alasdair:
Swimming pools? You could get all kinds of diseases in a swimming pool, I imagine.
Tom:
And Australia, you can get all sorts of weird creatures in a swimming pool. Or in the sea. Like you could be trying to avoid being stung by a jellyfish.
Iszi:
Yeah, could you coax a jellyfish towards you using your finger?
Tom:
I mean, you're more likely to coax a shark if there's blood involved.
Iszi:
I mean, maybe.
Alasdair:
Is it like distance—
Iszi:
Think more inland.
Alasdair:
Oh, inland.
Ria:
More inland.
Alasdair:
Ponds.
Ria:
Different—
Iszi:
Hedgehogs!
SFX:
(scattered snickering)
Ria:
Just name some more—
Iszi:
Rather than echidnas.
Alasdair:
Yeah, hedgehogs or ponds.
Ria:
Name more departments. I think local could be misleading, but just think about what major departments governments operate.
Iszi:
They could— The trouble is they've been closing them all now. I was gonna say the rail system, postal service.
SFX:
(guys and audience chuckle sardonically)
Iszi:
No.
Tom:
Health, transport.
Ria:
Mm, mm.
Alasdair:
National parks?
Iszi:
Transport your finger. So instead, were a load of hitchhikers losing their thumbs?
SFX:
(Tom and audience chuckle)
Iszi:
And so they trans— they— Instead, they went for little fingers as a better way of, you know, or... Yeah, sorry.
Ria:
Yeah, well, no, I was gonna say. So the safety campaign was targeted at younger males.
Iszi:
Younger males.
Tom:
Younger males?
Alasdair:
So is it like, during COVID, we had to stay like an arm's length apart, but is it just like, on the train, that's not practical. So a single...
SFX:
(Iszi and audience laugh)
Alasdair:
little finger's distance apart will keep us healthy. Is that the idea for the young men?
Ria:
I'm being honest, as a woman who travels in public transport a lot, I'd like a lot more than a little finger's worth of distance.
SFX:
(Iszi and audience chuckle)
Ria:
Between me and a lot of other people.
Tom:
It could be public transit, or it could be on the roads. There could be some road safety thing that is... prevent speeding by...
Iszi:
Ooh, ooh!
Tom:
using your little finger on the accelerator?
Ria:
Oh, oh, oh!
Iszi:
I think I have an idea!
Ria:
I'm just—
Iszi:
About— About— Maybe it's the size of a person crossing the road. So if the person is bigger than your little finger in the distance, put out, you know, because I'm thinking about measuring the moon or you know, the atomic—
Ria:
No, that's where you squish their heads. It's head squishing.
SFX:
(others laughing)
Ria:
Squish-squish-squish.
Iszi:
Is about judging distance on the roads?
Ria:
No, Tom was closer.
Iszi:
Oh.
Tom:
How do you stop someone speeding with their little finger? I mean, the only thing is you said young males, and those are the people who are gonna be speeding. Those are the people who are gonna be careless on the roads. So how do you...
Ria:
So what is the one thing that you could... take 'em down a notch by doing?
Iszi:
Oh, doing this. So... curling your little finger and implying that they don't have a big enough manhood. That is...
Audience:
(laughs)
Ria:
That is exactly correct.
Iszi:
Boom!
Audience:
(applauds)
Ria:
It was a gesture to insult a speeding driver's small penis.
Tom:
(cackles)
Audience:
(laughs)
Ria:
The authority ran a campaign with the tagline: "Speeding. No one thinks big of you."
SFX:
(Tom and audience laugh)
Ria:
It popularised a little pinky hand gesture to suggest that speeding drivers, most often young males, were compensating for having a small wiener.
Tom:
Thank you to Nate for this next question.
In 2025, a doctor's assistant was fined 30 Euros for driving at 38 kilometres per hour in a 30 km/h zone in Witten, Germany. Why was this case featured in the national press?
I'll give you that one more time.
In 2025, a doctor's assistant was fined 30 Euros for driving at 38 kilometres per hour in a 30 km/h zone in Witten, Germany. Why was this case featured in the national press?
We're gonna go to the Whoop-o-Meter. Anyone?
Audience:
Woo? (laughs)
Alasdair:
I don't think you can woo with a question mark.
Tom:
(laughs) I don't think you can woo with a question mark!
Okay, we've got a few questionable woos for this one.
2025, a doctor's assistant was fined 30 Euros, driving 38 in a 30 in Witten. Why did that make the national press?
Ria:
Is the doctor's assistant human?
Audience:
(laughs)
Iszi:
Oh, that's very lateral.
Alasdair:
(cackles)
Iszi:
I like that.
Tom:
You have immediately cracked some of the metagame of Lateral, which is always just check if it's a human.
SFX:
(others laughing)
Tom:
This was a human doctor's assistant. They were doing the driving. They had a licence.
Ria:
For a car, but were they driving a car?
SFX:
(others laugh uproariously)
Alasdair:
So it's an extremely small fine.
Tom:
It is.
Alasdair:
And they weren't going that much over the speed limit. So was— They must have been doing something else that was newsworthy?
Ria:
Operating, to having— There was a woman having a baby.
Alasdair:
And the baby shot out, increasing the speed of the—
SFX:
(Tom and audience laugh uproariously)
Alasdair:
Just tipping it over the limit.
Ria:
It was the umbilical cord. It pulled it along behind it.
Audience:
(laughs and groans)
Tom:
I'm not sure cars work quite like rocket ship thrusts, where you can decompress an airlock and/or have a baby.
Alasdair:
I am trying to do lateral thinking, Tom!
SFX:
(Tom and audience laugh)
Tom:
Yeah, sorry, I should yes-and that, shouldn't I? Yeah, but if you are in space, what you could do is go to an airlock and have a baby, and that would...
Alasdair:
That's exactly how I travel through space.
Ria:
If only Sandra Bullock could have gotten pregnant in that movie.
Alasdair:
Yeah.
Iszi:
(giggles)
Alasdair:
Miss Congeniality, yeah.
SFX:
(group laughing)
Alasdair:
So I'm wondering— Obviously I don't wanna bring the mood down. We're all having a lovely time. But I was hearing, I think, about the far right marches in Germany, like the AFD, you know. 'Cause they're all like, "Hey, what if we had a right-wing German government? Would that be interesting?"
Audience:
(laughs heartily)
Alasdair:
And I'm sure I heard a lot of people driving along behind them playing funny music, like the Benny Hill soundtrack or whatever the German equivalent... probably much less funny equivalent to the Benny Hill soundtrack is. Or playing the tuba.
So was the car engaged in something heroic and honourable while inadvertently speeding?
Tom:
Of that entire thing?
Ria:
(snickers)
Audience:
(laughs)
Tom:
Heroic and honourable, yes. Yeah, I'll give you that.
Alasdair:
Ohh, yeah.
Iszi:
So it wasn't just the case that this is Germany, and everybody obeys the rules. And so going at 38 is unheard of.
Alasdair:
I had never seen a car travelling so quickly. I was amazed.
SFX:
(Iszi and audience laugh)
Iszi:
It's not the autobahn.
Alasdair:
Achtung: Drei-zehn.
Tom:
The only time I've got— actually got caught by a speed camera was in Germany, because I missed the sign. And I was like, okay, maybe like, you don't have to give away who the driver is. They have strong privacy laws. Maybe it didn't ca— Get the email through... and there is a car. It was like, oh, this speed, this speed. I was like, maybe they didn't spot— And there is a perfect photo of my face.
SFX:
(Alasdair and audience laugh)
Tom:
With an expression that I can only describe as "Is that a speed camera?"
SFX:
(others laughing)
Iszi:
Okay, so he's doing something heroic.
Ria:
And I think it's 'cause he's in a car. And everyone in Germany bikes.
Same as Holland, but you know, they're all about ze biking and ze hiking and ze walking, and it's healthy, and he's a doctor's assistant, and vhy is he driving? Zis is not a good example to be setting for ze rest of ze people.
My father is German before you write in and complain.
SFX:
(Tom and audience laugh)
Ria:
And also no one has quite decided whether it's racist if an Asian does a white accent. Just the other way around.
SFX:
(Tom and audience laugh)
Tom:
Doctor's assistant is... a little bit important here.
Iszi:
Yeah, why isn't this a nurse?
Alasdair:
A medical emergency?
Tom:
It was, yes. It was a medical emergency.
Iszi:
Okay.
Alasdair:
An Australian's penis.
SFX:
(others laughing)
Alasdair:
Had become caught in some way? Did the doctor's assistant have a penis that was too large?
SFX:
(others laughing)
Alasdair:
And therefore the laws could not constrain them?
Iszi:
Germans tend to not find penis size funny. They tend to find it completely normal.
Alasdair:
Germans?
Iszi:
Yeah, Germans. Have you not done gigs in Germany?
Alasdair:
No— yes, in—
Iszi:
All my cock material went out.
Audience:
(laughs)
Iszi:
They didn't like it.
Tom:
Let me review where we are. You're right. Responding to a medical emergency is absolutely right. The assistant's car wasn't as well kitted out as the doctor's might be.
Ria:
Was he trying to— You know how when you dislocate your shoulder, you got— no, you gotta pop it in. No, when you, you know, when you have to dislocate a hip, you gotta pull it in order to pop it back in? So he was pulling, he was using the car to pull someone's hip back in, because he didn't—
Audience:
(scattered cackling)
Ria:
Do you know what I mean? I'm just trying to— I'm just trying to think of—
Iszi:
She's a virologist, not a medical practitioner.
SFX:
(Alasdair and audience laugh)
Tom:
I think it would be better to say they were responding to a medical emergency. They were trying to get there.
Ria:
Oh, they're trying to get there.
Alasdair:
So, was there an injured person in the vehicle, or was...
Tom:
No, they were just heading to the scene of the emergency. So what might they have been doing?
Alasdair:
Hurrying?
Tom:
Yep. Yes.
SFX:
(Iszi and audience laugh)
Alasdair:
Is that lateral thinking?
Tom:
Well...
SFX:
(Iszi and audience laugh)
Tom:
They were expecting to be let off the fine. But what did that vehicle lack, that the main vehicle—
Alasdair:
Oh, a signal.
Ria:
Oh, a nee-na-nee-na!
Tom:
Yes.
Ria:
So are you saying that he got fined— or they, she got fined, 'cause they— it wasn't clear that they were responding to a medical emergency?
Tom:
No, they should have got a medical exemption. They were rushing to an emergency. That should have been a good enough reason.
Ria:
Is that a thing? 'Cause I'm autistic. Can I also get out of speeding?
SFX:
(Tom and audience laugh)
Iszi:
(chuckles)
Tom:
I will leave that between you and the German government.
Alasdair:
Did they accidentally hop into an ice cream van and just play the music?
SFX:
(Tom and audience laugh)
Alasdair:
I think it's basically the same as an ambulance.
Iszi:
Was the ambulance that they were in not working? The siren just was, you know, got defunct?
Tom:
No, they didn't have one. They were just in a car.
Ria:
So they just did the noise themselves.
SFX:
(others laughing)
Iszi:
Was it an outrage piece, the news story?
Tom:
Yes it was.
Iszi:
Saying they shouldn't have got the fine?
Tom:
Yeah, many people thought this was unfair.
They went through the speed camera. They got flashed, they got the ticket. They should've been able to claim the medical exemption. You've got all that.
But the court turned them down.
Ria:
Was the doctor already there? So the doctor's assistant wasn't actually needed for the emergency, so they had no need to rush?
Tom:
It was kind of a catch-22 situation here.
Ria:
The patient was gonna die anyway?
SFX:
(others laughing)
Iszi:
So the exemption would be for emergency services going to respond to an emergency. So either they weren't considered emergency people, or it wasn't considered an emergency.
Tom:
It was an emergency, but their driving wasn't considered that.
Ria:
Oh, they were going fast enough.
Tom:
Correct!
Iszi:
Eyy!
Audience:
(applauds)
Ria:
Sorry, I had to channel my dad there for a moment. I was just like, what would my father have a problem with?
Tom:
Yep. The court ruled—
Ria:
This is what my father would have a problem with. This was not fast enough. Ze person would have died. Why would they going 38? They should have been going 45, 50. Zhey could've been zhere three and a half minutes earlier, and ze person wouldn't have lost as much blood. Egh.
Tom:
The court ruled that the exemption—
Ria:
Strike zhem from ze medical record.
Tom:
only applied if there was a measurable gain in time, which was not the case with an excess of 8 km/hr.
Ria:
Yeah.
Audience:
(chortles)
Iszi:
But you're told— You know this, Tom, 'cause you've been done by a speed ticket. On your speeding awareness course, they say actually, you know, you're saving a certain amount of time in the lower speeds, but on the higher ones, you don't save any time. So don't speed on the motorways.
Tom:
You know what a speeding awareness course involves?
Iszi:
What?
Tom:
Alasdair, whenever you're ready, it's your question.
Alasdair:
This question is from David Turner.
In the UK version of a 2016 action film, a scene had to be cut because it showed an animal carrying some sausages. Why?
And I think the question means, why did the scene have to be cut? Not why was an animal carrying some sausages?
In the UK version of a 2016 action film, a scene had to be cut because it showed an animal carrying some sausages. Why?
Tom:
Whoop-o-Meter?
Audience:
(light whooping)
Tom:
A few, okay. My immediate thought goes to... the BBFC, the kind of... depending on how you call it, ratings bureau, censorship bureau for the UK... who will frequently ask for cuts that other countries don't have, because we have some specific things.
Like, if you wanna get a 12 rating, I don't think you can show a headbutt, 'cause that's like imitable behaviour. So I wonder if there's some rule under the UK rating system that means that... you can't show...
Iszi:
(guffaws)
Alasdair:
Keep going.
Tom:
Mm! You can't show a dog running with some sausages? It was great until the last bit of that. I was really—
Iszi:
(laughs)
Alasdair:
Because that's the offensive part of Punch and Judy, isn't it?
Iszi:
That's what I was thinking. I was thinking this might be a copyright issue with a crocodile. From Punch and Judy. It might be a thing that you can— Somebody's got the right to a crocodile with sausages, and it's to do with like people who perform on Brighton Pier. That's, you know, Punch and Judy show.
Tom:
This isn't gonna land for anyone who is younger than 40 or not British.
Audience:
(laughs)
Alasdair:
So just to explain, it was a fun puppet show about domestic violence.
SFX:
(group laughs uproariously)
Alasdair:
For kids!
Iszi:
And hanging! (giggles) With a sort of kazoo noise.
Ria:
Did you say 2016?
Alasdair:
2016.
Ria:
That was the year that we had the Brexit referendum. So, were they European sausages?
SFX:
(others laughing)
Alasdair:
I— well— oh, sorry. That was a real question.
SFX:
(group laughs uproariously)
Alasdair:
No, I don't believe the national— I'm not sure the nationality of the sausages is relevant, but I believe they were not Euro saus.
Ria:
Were they even saus? Because, you know, the EU have suddenly banned the use of meat names with plant-based products.
So were they actually plant-based? And therefore it was a misleading scene, because they weren't real meat?
Alasdair:
(cackles)
Tom:
I think there's plenty of misleading scenes with food in movies.
Ria:
Okay.
Alasdair:
Yeah, no, the vegans weren't to blame on this one occasion.
Audience:
(laughs)
Ria:
But every other time!
Tom:
No animals were harmed apart from, for these sausages.
Alasdair:
I believe they were traditional meat sausages. I can't say whether they were kosher or halal. I don't know.
Tom:
Is this a BBFC thing? Is this a cut to make a rating, or...
Alasdair:
You may be in the right area when it comes to what is and isn't allowed, yes.
Iszi:
Is it an animated film?
Ria:
(gasps loudly)
Alasdair:
I don't remember.
SFX:
(others laughing)
Alasdair:
I... erm...
Ria:
Is there a rule against cannibalism, and the animal carrying the sausages was the same animal as in the sausages?
Alasdair:
That— Oh— Oh, yes. No, but—
Ria:
Okay.
SFX:
(others laughing)
Alasdair:
I love it when that happens. Like when all the characters in a cartoon are animals, but then they go to the zoo. It's like, what is this?
Iszi:
Was it only cut in Britain?
Alasdair:
Yes.
Iszi:
Okay. So it's just a British—
Alasdair:
So what don't we like in Britain?
Iszi:
Oh...
Alasdair:
Well, let's not list everything.
SFX:
(others laughing)
Tom:
Okay, could the substitute have been made of... There are countries where you can get horse meat sausages.
Iszi:
How could you tell?
Tom:
That feels like a really specific joke. Also an animal running away with sausages?
Alasdair:
An animal. It— yeah, yes. And, they were tradi— They were traditional link sausages.
Tom:
Okay.
Ria:
What was the animal?
Alasdair:
Made of meat. Well, if you get it...
Tom:
(cackles)
Ria:
Ah.
Alasdair:
That will be good. But if I tell you, then to some extent, the whole format falls apart.
Iszi:
Okay, so...
Tom:
Now...
Ria:
Right.
Iszi:
Was it— So at the moment, we've had dog or crocodile or pig, presumably. So was it a dog?
Alasdair:
No.
Iszi:
Oh? Was it a crocodile?
SFX:
(group laughing)
Alasdair:
It was not.
Iszi:
Oh!
Ria:
But we think it's animated. So it could be anything.
Iszi:
It could be.
Tom:
There were episodes of cartoon shows that got cut in various countries.
There's an episode of Peppa Pig that got cut in Australia, because it was like, "Be friendly to spiders. They're your friends." Not true in Australia!
Iszi:
(guffaws)
SFX:
(Alasdair and audience laugh)
Tom:
So is there some British—
Alasdair:
When I see a spider, I just do this little finger gesture.
SFX:
(group laughing)
Tom:
Is there some British cultural sense of— Can we get a clue?
Alasdair:
It is based on a British taboo. And the animals were the stars of the film. And there are four of them. Four animals make up the main characters.
Iszi:
It's three blind mice, so it's not them.
Ria:
It's not the three little pigs 'cause cannibalism was ruled out.
Iszi:
There's four Musketeers, but they're French.
Tom:
There's the Beatles, but they're humans, not beetles, so.
Alasdair:
I would say that the characters you're looking for are exactly between the Four Musketeers and the Beatles.
Iszi:
Ooh?
Audience:
(laughs)
Alasdair:
If you can plot that on a graph and go right in the middle...
Tom:
They are musicians.
Iszi:
Monty Python.
Tom:
And— Or they're musical, and they have swords?
Audience:
(scattered laughter)
Tom:
They have swords.
Alasdair:
I'm using what eyebrows I have to indicate that swords are more relevant than music.
Tom:
Animals with swords.
Iszi:
Animals with swords.
Alasdair:
Well, perhaps—
Iszi:
That's—
Alasdair:
Perhaps weaponry.
Iszi:
I mean, technically we know that snails actually use a sort of spearing thing when they're mating. But again, we've talked about that too much today.
SFX:
(guys and audience laugh)
Alasdair:
I think if you were to keep thinking about weaponry, it might help you.
Iszi:
Guns, swords, knives. Stabbing is bad in this country.
Ria:
Salmonella.
Audience:
(giggling)
Iszi:
Well, it's— Don't laugh at that!
Audience:
(laughs heartily)
Iszi:
I was saying the sort of things we'd be sensitive to. Stabbing, we're in Clapham. And we're going "Huhahah."
SFX:
(Tom and audience laugh)
Iszi:
It's not a fun thing to do, guys!
Alasdair:
Let's imagine that the sausages were used as a weapon. What kind of weapon might that be?
Tom:
Oh!
Iszi:
Oh, hanging.
Tom:
No, nunchucks! Nunchucks! This is... (clacks hands) Right, the...
Audience:
(laughs)
Tom:
(mutters anxiously)
Iszi:
How many nuns could a nunchuck chuck?
Tom:
Are the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles relevant to this?
Alasdair:
They are indeed. Exactly between the Four Musketeers and the Beatles.
Audience:
(laughs and cheers)
Tom:
Yeah, you know what? You're right. You're right. Right.
So when the original series came over to the UK, it was the Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles, and they had to censor the nunchucks because of imitative behaviour from kids. They didn't want kids thinking that you could pick up a couple of things, swing 'em 'round. It was too deadly a weapon to be used in a kids show.
Iszi:
Didn't this say, though, 2016, rather than like, '92?
Tom:
Yeah, but there's been a new version of it. Loads of them.
Ria:
I mean, what were the sausages made of, lead?
Tom:
Were they using the sausages as a nunchuck, and that was enough for the BBFC to go, "That's imitable behaviour, cut it from the kids film"?
Alasdair:
Correct.
Audience:
(cheers and applauds)
Alasdair:
The BBFC were... a little bit snippy here.
In the film Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows, the heroes foil a band of robbers.
Michelangelo doesn't have his trademark nunchucks, his trademark nunchucks, so he improvises by grabbing two links of sausages instead. The British Board of Film Classification said that the sausages would look like the real weapon, quote, "to any streetwise 8-year-old."
SFX:
(Tom and audience laugh uproariously)
Alasdair:
The scene was removed so that it could get a PG rating.
Tom:
Iszi, we will go straight to you for the next question, please. ^1Okay.
Iszi:
This question is from Daniel Peake.
Lucy painted six dots in a corner of the Westminster Abbey. Or of Westminster Abbey, because there was no— only one. What were they for, and why were six required?
So, in 2024, Lucy painted six dots in the corner of Westminster Abbey. What were they for, and why was six required?
Tom:
Whoop-o-Meter?
Audience:
(scattered whooping)
Tom:
That's very sparse.
Alasdair:
(whistles)
Tom:
Alright.
Alasdair:
Is this like... when a surveyor uses a theodolite, they put markers on a building and the dots—
Iszi:
Can you say that word again?
Alasdair:
Theodolite.
Iszi:
Mm... mm! That's a good word.
Tom:
Pleasing.
Alasdair:
One of the best words. I only ask this to say, to get the opportunity to say theodolite. Is it like that, you might need to put— create little markers around a building in order to measure it in some way?
Iszi:
It is not to do with measuring.
Alasdair:
Ah.
Ria:
Did anyone—
Alasdair:
Theodoling failed me.
Ria:
Did anyone die in 2024 that would've had their funeral there?
Tom:
I mean, quite a lot of people, to be honest.
Ria:
Yeah, but that would've had their funeral there.
Iszi:
Last year.
Alasdair:
In the Wabbey. Westminster Abbey.
Audience:
(laughs)
Alasdair:
I say "Wabbey". It saves time.
SFX:
(Iszi and audience laugh)
Iszi:
I like the Wabbey. As far as I know, it has nothing to do with any funerals that might have occurred in the Wabbey.
Ria:
Okay. 'Cause I was gonna say, it's where you would put the people that carry the coffin, tell 'em where to stand. But... I guess the coffin kinda helps determine that.
Alasdair:
Six dots.
Iszi:
Six dots.
Alasdair:
Six dots in Westminster Abbey.
Iszi:
Specifically—
Alasdair:
And painted as well, painted.
Ria:
You said painted.
Iszi:
Painted? I– yep. Lucy painted them.
Alasdair:
And Lucy's a human?
Iszi:
Lucy is—
Alasdair:
Yeah, we gotta check. You gotta check.
Iszi:
As far as I know, a human. It could be short for Lucifer, who knows?
SFX:
(others laughing)
Iszi:
Unlikely to be in the Abbey though, so—
Alasdair:
Six tempting dots. Oh, what a lovely dot.
Iszi:
Indeed. I will say, this is a very, very specific thing in a corner of Westminster Abbey.
Alasdair:
In a corner.
Ria:
When we say dog... it immediately makes you want to think teeny-tiny small, but how far out are we zooming?
Iszi:
Well...
Ria:
To be considered a dog.
Tom:
It could be one of those things where if you see it from a certain angle, it lines up into a picture of something. You know, the thing about when they paint picture—
Alasdair:
A trompe-l'œil.
Tom:
A what?
Alasdair:
A trompe-l'œil, I believe—
Tom:
Yes!
Alasdair:
Is the name for... I'm surprised nobody in the audience is backing me up on this. is backing me up on this.
Audience:
(laughs) (two whoops)
Alasdair:
Thank you. I don't know if I'm pronouncing the French correctly. But yeah, an optical illusion that looks right from a particular angle, like the skull in Holbein's Ambassadors.
Tom:
That's what I was trying to explain and doing very badly. Thank you.
Alasdair:
Or is it six portraits of Dot Cotton from EastEnders?
SFX:
(group laughs uproariously)
Iszi:
If only. If only it was DotCotton.com. That'd be lovely.
Ria:
Were they all the same colour?
Iszi:
They were. Didn't even have to check my notes for that.
Tom:
Was it a giant dice? And they were going turn Westminster Abbey over to...
SFX:
(Alasdair and audience laugh)
Tom:
They were gonna roll Westminster Abbey down the Thames and see which way up it lands.
Iszi:
It was not.
Tom:
Awh.
Iszi:
I will say that the dots were painted on stone, and someone had spotted that the dots were missing.
Ria:
Were they dotting 'i's that were missing?
Iszi:
Very close, very close, but not correct. Very close, but not correct.
Alasdair:
Were they painting the eyes into the pictures of saints...
Iszi:
(laughs uproariously)
SFX:
(Tom and audience laugh)
Alasdair:
to make them all look like they were being slightly sarcastic? Giving a bit of side eye to Jesus?
Tom:
No, they were just giving some of the disciples just acne. Just to...
Ria:
Those are spots, not dots though.
Alasdair:
Were they putting dots on the— yeah, on the J, like of Jesus. Doing dots on top of the J.
Iszi:
I believe you capitalise 'Jesus'. Even in Westminster Abbey.
Audience:
(laughs)
Ria:
Well, the Catholics certainly capitalised on Jesus.
Tom:
It depends. If it's in the group chat, and you can't bother to text, you just kind of, you know.
Iszi:
Ria is closest. But I want you to specifically think about why six dots, and why the corner.
Ria:
I've never really paid attention to— Is there a religious thing that should happen in the corners of the Wabbey?
Iszi:
There isn't. There's a specific thing that occurs in the corner of Westminster Abbey. And it's known by this— by the corner. It's the something's corner.
Ria:
Traitors' Corner. Lovers' Corner.
SFX:
(Tom and Iszi laugh)
Alasdair:
Pogs? Do they play Pogs in the corner?
Iszi:
Other than— Other— Pogs is amazing. I love you.
SFX:
(Tom and audience laugh)
Iszi:
I've got that in my head now. Smash! Anyway, so. The shiny ones are so good.
Alasdair:
Kiwis.
Iszi:
Not kiwis, alas, although you know, but do not get distracted by kiwis, Iszi. Let's try and help these people. Okay, I'm gonna see
Tom:
(laughs) We need it.
Iszi:
if there's another clue. There were three pairs of two dots.
Tom:
That's the first time we've had a clue where everyone's been silent, and there wasn't a single damn mutter from the audience on that one.
Ria:
I mean, I wanna say braille, but if you painted it, it's not in relief, and therefore they're not gonna be able to feel it.
Iszi:
No, but dots are important. What happens in Westminster Abbey other than funerals and... other than the actual events going on there, what goes on in the Abbey? What do people go there to see?
Alasdair:
Just a normal church service? I genuinely don't know.
Tom:
The Abbey itself. The stained glass windows. The—
Iszi:
Yeah, what else than stained glass windows?
Ria:
Gravestones?
Iszi:
(blabbers)
Ria:
Yeah.
Audience:
(laughs)
Ria:
(blabbers)
Iszi:
(blabbers)
Ria:
Gravestones. And so there's six pairs of two dots in the corner.
Iszi:
Missing.
Ria:
Which—
Alasdair:
Miss— Someone stole the dots.
SFX:
(Iszi and audience laugh)
Alasdair:
Someone went to Westminster Abbey and stole the dots from the gravestones. Yes, correct answer.
Tom:
Colons in the middle of times. Some typographical thing.
Iszi:
Some typographical thing, yes. What's on a gravestone?
Tom:
Years.
Iszi:
And?
Tom:
Names.
Iszi:
Names.
Alasdair:
Did they add umlauts to someone's name?
Iszi:
You're very, very close!
Alasdair:
Colons?
Iszi:
No, no-no-no-no, no, you're right. It technically isn't an umlaut, but yeah.
Alasdair:
Oh.
Iszi:
(laughs) It technically isn't an umlaut. But I called it an umlaut. And then I had a look at the questions thing, and it's called a different thing, but yes.
Alasdair:
Right.
Tom:
(chuckles)
Alasdair:
Okay, so...
Iszi:
There are...
Alasdair:
Some Swedish people in—
Iszi:
(cackles)
Oomfchella:
(cheers excitedly)
Audience:
(laughs uproariously)
Tom:
Much more enthusiastic than the Dutch!
Alasdair:
I think a Swedish person has just died.
Iszi:
That was amazing.
Alasdair:
We're gonna be so ready to make this gravestone.
Iszi:
Okay, I'm gonna tell you that the corner in question is known as Poets' Corner.
Tom:
Poets' Corner.
Iszi:
It is where famous writers are buried. And there are six dots that were missing, and now been put in. Can you guess whose dots they were? And, I think I will just underline the fact that there are three people we're talking about with the same last name. Come on!
Ria:
And they're all in the corner—
Tom:
Oh my god! The Brontës.
Iszi:
Yes!
Audience:
(applauds)
Tom:
It's the umlauts on the Brontës.
Iszi:
Technically, for all the pendants in here, and I know you are here... it's diaeresis. They're diaereses. There we go. Yes, exactly. They're not umlauts, they're diaereses. But yes, you are correct.
In 1939, a memorial plaque was added to the Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey, where many of Britain's most famous literary figures are buried or remembered. Despite it being in the original design, the diaeresis, two dots, over the final letter of Brontë were never added.
This mistake was noticed by historian Sharon Wright.
The conservator Lucy Ackland painted the missing dots in 2024, two dots for each Brontë sister: Charlotte, Emily, and Anne.
They are not buried there, I might add. Charlotte and Emily are buried in Haworth, West Yorkshire. Ann is buried in Scarborough, North Yorkshire. In case you wanted to visit their graves.
SFX:
(Tom and audience laugh)
Iszi:
You freaks.
Ria:
Can I just say that being autistic really gets in the way of some of this, just because I'm sitting there, I was sitting there going, "But they're not buried there. But they're not buried there."
SFX:
(Tom and audience laugh)
Ria:
"Why are we doing this? Why are we doing this?" You know, it really sometimes gets caught in a loop.
Alasdair:
Can I say, not knowing anything is also a problem.
SFX:
(Tom and audience laugh)
Ria:
(cackles)
Audience:
(applauds)
Tom:
One last thing then. At the start of the show, I asked you this question.
Thank you to Will for sending it in.
In Southend-on-Sea, England, there is a French restaurant in a converted public restroom. What is it called?
Before I give the answer, first of all, Whoop-o-Meter?
Audience:
Woo!
Tom:
Just a few, alright. Southend-on-Sea public restroom. Anyone want to go for this from the panel?
Ria:
I would call it Gastronomic Enteritis.
SFX:
(others laughing)
Tom:
A— just be clear, a converted public restroom.
Alasdair:
If it were a gallery, you would call it like the Loo-vre.
Audience:
(groans)
Iszi:
Yeah. I was thinking.
Alasdair:
But if it's a restaurant, then that pun doesn't work at all.
Tom:
You've got the second syllable.
Alasdair:
Vre?
Iszi:
Ve. Vre.
Audience:
(laughs)
Tom:
Loos. Loo.
Iszi:
Hoo-vre.
Alasdair:
Loo?
Tom:
Mhm. Lou is definitely part of this. Our second syllable is 'Loos'.
Iszi:
Loo-ange— Loo-boulangerie— No, that's, sorry. Je ne sais pas.
SFX:
(Alasdair and audience laugh)
Iszi:
Qu'est-ce que le mot pour... le toilette serviette ?
SFX:
(Tom and Iszi laugh)
Tom:
Have a think—
Alasdair:
Où est la bibliothèque ? Le bibliothèque ?
Iszi:
J'ai quinze ans.
Tom:
As you walk up to a public restroom, so kind of outdoors one, what are you gonna see?
Ria:
Toilets?
Tom:
As you walk up.
Iszi:
So I walk up, we gonna see the little sign of the little man and the little lady. So...
Ria:
And it says "Loos".
Iszi:
On the door. And it says "Loos". So it's gonna say "Two loos".
Tom:
It's gonna say "two loos".
Iszi:
Toulouse.
Ria:
Toulouse.
Tom:
Toulouse. Exactly right.
Audience:
(applauds)
Tom:
That is our show for today. Thank you very much, everybody.
Before we go, thank you very much to the Cheerful Earful festival and the Clapham Grand for hosting us once more.
Audience:
(cheers and applauds)
Tom:
To our wonderful behind-the-scenes team at the Clapham Grand. Thank you to all of our tech crew.
Audience:
(cheers and applauds)
Tom:
To Producer David!
Audience:
(cheers and applauds)
Tom:
And to our guests. Where can people find you? What's going on in your lives? We will start with Iszi.
Iszi:
I can be found at ISZI.com, where can get links to my podcasts – Terrible Lizards, all about dinosaurs, and also Talk Like an Egyptian, all about ancient Egypt.
My books are The Cursed Tomb, is out this year with Bloomsbury, and also the Time Machine Next Door series. There are six books in it. They're all for pedantic children. I know you know some. Buy the books, thank you.
Tom:
Alasdair.
Alasdair:
I have a podcast called Loremen, which is about local legends from mostly the United Kingdom, which I do with my podcast pal James Shakeshaft. And—
Spectator:
Woo!
Alasdair:
Thank you for wooing, James.
SFX:
(group laughing)
Alasdair:
I do stand-up. I do sketches online.
If you search my name, nobody else is called this, so I'll come up.
And I also write a series of kids books, the Montgomery Bonbon mystery series, which are impossible locked room mysteries for children.
Tom:
And Ria.
Ria:
I'm on tour at the moment. I think I'm coming back to London in February.
But I'm also on Patreon doing Paper Jam on Sundays, which is basically group therapy for the news. So if you're finding it traumatic, then come and join us, and we'll learn together what's happening in a nice, easy way every Sunday. And that's on Patreon.
So just find me— I mean, if you search my name, I'm probably on most of the socials. 'Cause you know, a bit of a...
Tom:
And if you wanna know more about this show—
Did I just cut you off there?
Ria:
That's okay. I was saying slut. It's alright. Cut it.
SFX:
(others laugh uproariously)
Tom:
And if you wanna know more about this show, or send in your own ideas for questions, you can do that at lateralcast.com. We are at @lateralcast basically everywhere, and there's full video of our regular episodes on Spotify.
Thank you very much to Ria Lina!
Audience:
(cheers and applauds)
Tom:
Alasdair Beckett-King!
Audience:
(cheers and applauds)
Tom:
Iszi Lawrence!
Audience:
(cheers and applauds)
Tom:
And of course, to our wonderful live audience!
Audience:
(cheers and applauds)
Tom:
I'm Tom Scott, and that's been Lateral!
Audience:
(cheers and applauds)
Episode Credits
| HOST | Tom Scott |
| QUESTION PRODUCER | David Bodycombe |
| EDITED BY | Julie Hassett at The Podcast Studios, Dublin |
| MUSIC | Karl-Ola Kjellholm ('Private Detective'/'Agrumes', courtesy of epidemicsound.com) |
| ADDITIONAL QUESTIONS | Will, Nate, Maarten de Vries, David Turner, Daniel Peake |
| FORMAT | Pad 26 Limited/Labyrinth Games Ltd |
| EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS | David Bodycombe and Tom Scott |