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Episode 192: Picnic by the prison
12th June, 2026 • Michelle Wong, Bill Sunderland and Dani Siller face questions about stamp selections, diplomatic diagrams and worrisome wordings.
Transcription by Caption+
Tom:
Why is it often a good idea for coin collectors to buy stamp collections?
The answer to that at the end of the show. My name's Tom Scott, and this is Lateral.
Good day to you. Before we begin, I'm required to inform you that this episode has been approved by the Department of Questions, countersigned by the Subcommittee on Mild Confusion, and rr-rubber-stamped by the Office of Tangents and Adjacent Thoughts. Form Q1A has been completed in triplicate. Form Q3B was misplaced, but we're calling that part of the process. Guests Alpha, Beta, and Gamma have passed a basic background check, confirming they can sit in chairs and respond audibly.
Please remain seated until the questioning light turns green.
SFX:
(long silence, then ding)
Tom:
First today, we have:
From Lab Muffin Beauty Science, welcome back to the show, Michelle Wong.
Michelle:
Lovely to be here. I don't see this green light though, so I'm a bit worried.
Tom:
I'm reliably informed it will be added in post.
And... no, I'll be honest, I just made that up, and I've just given the editor a hard job to do. Sorry about that.
SFX:
(Bill and Dani giggle)
Tom:
Welcome back.
There is a question I've not asked you before, which is: why "Lab Muffin"?
Michelle:
(sighs loudly)
Tom:
Okay, maybe I shouldn't have asked that question.
Michelle:
I ask myself this all the time.
SFX:
(group giggling)
Tom:
'Cause you're a cosmetic scientist, right?
Michelle:
Well, kind of. I started off in medicinal chemistry actually. I was doing a PhD, and I was like, I really wanna start a blog on some sort of science, and it ended up... It was actually a toss-up between cosmetic science and at the time I was also doing a lot of pole dancing. Pole dancing classes.
Dani:
Yay!
Michelle:
I was like, one or the other. And it ended up being cosmetic science, and I was like, I wanted to start for ages, and then eventually I was like, I'm never gonna start. I just need two words that will give me good SEO.
Tom:
Yep.
SFX:
(Dani and Tom laugh)
Tom:
There are worse ways to gain a name. Well, what have you been working on lately?
Michelle:
Ooh, I've been actually doing a really interesting sunscreen study. I'm trying to convince the government to let sunscreen— influencers talk about sunscreens again, which actually isn't allowed in Australia.
Tom:
Huh.
Dani:
It's a loaded topic here right now.
Bill:
We take sunscreen very seriously.
Tom:
Well, very best of luck with that, Michelle.
And joining us and chiming in there on this all-Australian – apart from me – episode of Lateral, which of y'all wants to go first? We'll start with Dani. Welcome back to the show, from Escape This Podcast, from many other things, from our very first episode:
Dani Siller, welcome back.
Dani:
Hello, thank you so much.
You triggered me hard with that rolled R because I cannot roll my Rs.
Tom:
(laughs)
Dani:
But then Michelle brought me right back into my comfort zone with pole dancing. So I feel great now.
Michelle:
Australia, we've got skin cancer and pole dancing.
Tom:
What have you been working on lately, Dani? 'Cause it's been a while since you've been on the show.
Dani:
Oh, goodness. We've been having a bit of a return to normal this year. We're just plugging along with our shows and trying to make them consistent and good.
So, trying to get more murder mysteries out there. I've done a nice medieval inheritance themed series of escape rooms that's about to finish up.
Tom:
Oh, brilliant. Well, let's talk to your partner in crime: Bill Sunderland, also from Escape This Podcast, and many other things, and our first episode. Welcome back to the show.
Bill:
Yeah, was I supposed to mail this in? 'Cause I've got form Q3B here. And I just... I figured someone would come collect it, and they never did.
Tom:
Technically part of the process. But also, I appreciate you calling back to the intro that... I was gonna say most of our audience have already forgotten about. I'd forgotten about, and was briefly confused when you held that up, Bill.
Bill:
And I remembered the num— the form number too.
Tom:
You did! I've got it written down in front of me. I didn't remember that. This is why you create the escape rooms and the murder mysteries, and I sit here with a script.
Bill:
(chuckles) Yeah, yeah, that's it. Ability to memorise three numbers in a row is all you need in an escape room.
Tom:
(laughs)
Bill:
It's a four-digit code. What am I gonna do?
Tom:
Well, good luck to all three of you on the show today.
Your application for curiosity has been accepted, and processing begins with question one.
This question was sent in by Lucas Waldhauer.
While stationed in West Germany in 1958, Elvis Presley had his ivory-white BMW 507 repainted. What colour did he choose, and why?
And one more time.
While stationed in West Germany in 1958, Elvis Presley had his ivory-white BMW 507 repainted. What colour did he choose, and why?
Dani:
Elvis is not my strong suit, but I'm pretty sure he was known for a somewhat pink car. But I don't think that was a BMW. I think that was a Cadillac, wasn't it?
Bill:
Could be. If I'm trying to think of—
Dani:
And we've hit the most that I know about cars now as well.
Bill:
If I'm trying to think of colours that are Elvis associated, there's also, I feel, blue. Did he do Blue Hawaii, or what was his...
Dani:
Yeah, I think that's it.
Bill:
One of the movies? "Blue Suede Shoes", obviously.
Michelle:
And like, Danube, I feel like that's blue, or some sort of blue.
Bill:
Yeah.
Michelle:
But it— He's American. So did he take his car with him to Germany? Like, was he with the car, or did he just send it off as, you know, pop stars do?
Bill:
He's Elvis. He's got car people to take that thing anywhere.
Tom:
(chuckles)
Bill:
He can get— If he says, "Get my car to West Germany", they'll get his car to West Germany.
Dani:
Was it Elvis who wanted to go to war at some stage, but then America, the leaders said, "No, you're too valuable. We can't send you"?
Tom:
Ah, the reverse BTS.
Michelle:
And he's like, "Well, I need to go to Germany anyway to get my car painted."
Dani:
(laughs)
Bill:
Yeah, it did say he was stationed in West Germany.
Tom:
Yes, he definitely joined the army for a while, 'cause I remember that being quite a big story. Also it's a BMW in West Germany. So, while I don't have the history there, it may have been the car he bought locally.
Bill:
Yeah, that makes sense.
Michelle:
Filled in the right form.
Tom:
(laughs)
Dani:
Started out white, ivory white.
Tom:
Ivory white, yes.
Dani:
For reasons. Very curious that it's that detailed. And that was, either that was bad, or some other colour was real good.
Bill:
I mean, he's stationed in West Germany. It's a military thing. It's what, '58? So this is—
Tom:
Yeah, '58.
Bill:
So I remembered two numbers this time.
Tom:
(laughs)
Bill:
But... Is he not meant to have his own— Like, if you're stationed there in a military capacity, you're probably not meant to be driving around in a white...
Dani:
Did he paint it camouflage coloured?
Bill:
Yeah. Did he make it camo? He's like, "Now it's a military vehicle. I have to, you gonna let me keep driving it."
Tom:
Oh, I thought you were saying, now the top brass can't see it.
Bill:
(blurts laugh) Wouldn't that be terrible? They keep turning up to army base and be like, "Where is everybody?!"
Tom:
(laughs heartily)
Bill:
"This is terrible. No one's at the base!" "Everybody take your shirt off. The generals are here."
Tom:
This wasn't about any sort of fashion or resale value or anything like that. It was more to stop a recurring problem.
Bill:
Is it people noticing that Elvis is there? People like... people just coming up, "Oh my god, that's Elvis's car, the iconic ivory-white BMW. We all love Elvis. Let's rush the base."
Tom:
"We all love Elvis" would be the—
Michelle:
Did birds poop a different colour?
Bill:
(laughs) That's a big—
Tom:
Oh! Now...
Bill:
That's a completely different direction. I love it.
Dani:
Interesting.
Tom:
Well, here's the thing. It is a completely different direction. It's nothing to do with birds, but that sort of... temporary cosmetic damage, let's say.
Bill:
Oh, yeah.
Tom:
Ivory white would get camouflaged by that, unless the birds pooped a different colour. These are not the birds, and they are not pooping, but it is a different colour.
Bill:
Yeah.
Dani:
I was debating. Elvis had pretty dark hair, right? Did he wear hair stuff, and he would his head on his car a lot?
Bill:
Well, I don't know. Tom tried to correct me on "We love Elvis". So maybe it was instead "We hate Elvis. Let's throw these tomatoes at his car."
Tom:
Oh.
Michelle:
Oh.
Tom:
Now, not a correction there, Bill. It really was people loving Elvis.
Dani:
Did they kiss his car a lot?
Bill:
They kissed the car red!
SFX:
~[?](pen body flies off)
Tom:
By g— Did you see that?!
Dani:
You threw that at me!
Tom:
No, I didn't! My pen just came apart in my hands!
Dani:
(giggles profusely)
Tom:
Sorry, Dani. You were right, and in my enthusiasm, I threw my pen at your— well, half of my pen at your face. Would you mind saying that again?
Dani:
They loved Elvis so much that people just couldn't stop kissing his car?
Tom:
Yes. The female fans were kissing the car. So, what colour did he paint it?
Dani:
Big, bright red or pink or whatever the prevailing lipstick colour was.
Tom:
Yes, to camouflage the kisses from the fans.
During his US Army service in West Germany, fans quickly learned where Elvis was stationed. His recently purchased BMW originally came in ivory white, but admirers repeatedly covered it with lipstick kisses and messages. So Elvis had it resprayed bright red, discouraging further decorations.
Dani:
Do you think it actually worked, or do you think that they really wanted their lips there, and they compensated?
Michelle:
And that's when goth started.
Tom:
I was gonna say.
Dani:
Yeah, right?
Tom:
If there was a goth fad in 19— actually... I imagine 'goths' in sort of that area of Europe means something very different, but...
Dani:
Yes, good point.
Tom:
With half a pen in my hand, Dani, it is over to you.
Dani:
Amazing. Alright.
This question has been sent in by Vic Chao. Thank you so much.
A chef prepares a hearty stew called 'chankonabe' for his athletes. However, especially during tournaments, many athletes will only eat the chicken version of this stew and avoid beef, pork, or fish. Why?
And one more time.
A chef prepares a hearty stew called 'chankonabe' for his athletes. However, especially during tournaments, many athletes will only eat the chicken version of this stew and avoid beef, pork, or fish. Why?
Bill:
I've got some knowledge of this, but not an answer.
Dani:
I suspected that might be the case.
Tom:
Then start us off, Bill, 'cause I've got nothing.
Bill:
So I'm pretty sure that chankonabe is what sumo wrestlers eat. It's like famous sumo food. I think that is true.
Michelle:
I was going French. Oof, terrible at languages.
SFX:
(Bill and Tom chuckle)
Bill:
I'm not 100% sure of the title. It could be something different. Maybe people are like, "No, you're thinking of some very, very similar word," but I think that's like a traditional sumo food. I have no idea why before a sumo tournament, you wanna eat... Oh, hmm, well, now I have a vague idea, but I don't think so.
Tom:
(laughs)
Bill:
You wanna eat chicken instead of beef or pork.
Tom:
I just— I like that Bill has just been steadily going, "I think— Ooh. I think— Ooh." While, I'll be honest, I've got nothing here. Have you got anything, Michelle?
Bill:
I was about to refer to the wrestlers as 'sumotori', which I think is the word for sumo wrestlers, which... And 'tori' is also the word for chicken. So I didn't— I wondered if there was a fun connection there, but I think maybe that's nothing.
Dani:
It is the word for bird, right? Just in general.
Bill:
Yeah, tori is bird. And I— But I think it might be sp— written— Well, it's obviously written differently, but I think it might be 'touri'. I don't know. I don't know! Someone who knows more about sumo can tell me that I'm wrong.
Tom:
Dani, how close is he?
Dani:
You've definitely got the main thrust of it, that the sumo part is correct. I don't think the linguistic similarity of the word 'tori' is part of it, though.
Bill:
No, I don't think so.
Michelle:
I'm drawing a blank, but like I'm going, what is special about food in Asia? And it's like, well, we're very lactose intolerant.
SFX:
(group chuckling)
Michelle:
But I don't think that can be it.
Bill:
No. 'Cause it's basically chicken instead of any other meat. Instead of pork, instead of beef, instead of fish, you eat the chicken version.
Dani:
Exactly.
Bill:
So is there some association... either culturally or religiously or actual sport scientifically... with why chicken is best for people before they wrestle? Chickens are light on their feet, and sumo wrestlers have to be... light on their feet.
Michelle:
Not light.
SFX:
(Michelle and Tom laugh)
Bill:
Heavy in their waist and light on their feet.
Tom:
If it was about what the animal is like, I feel like chicken is not the creature that you want to imitate if you are a sumo wrestler. I filmed a thing years ago with a flock of chickens in Australia, actually. And I... There's just— There's not much going on up in the head there.
Dani:
(guffaws)
Tom:
I try to have sympathy for animals, and there just wasn't any light behind the eyes. They may have been the least intelligent appearing creatures I've ever seen or worked with. They just kind of bobbed around. So, l don't feel like chickens would be attacking each other and trying to... You— Surely you want cows.
Dani:
I think that's a pretty famous crime— series of crime rings that do do that.
Tom:
Oh, oh.
Michelle:
There are...
Dani:
But...
Michelle:
Cockfights.
Dani:
I'm not— That wasn't leading. Just a point.
Tom:
Oh, you make an excellent point. I was... (laughs) I was gonna say chickens don't... chickens just run around and avoid each other. But yes, quite famously, Dani, you're right, that's not what happens!
Dani:
(laughs)
Bill:
(wheezes)
Tom:
I also don't think a cockfighting question is quite right for Lateral, but we'll see.
Dani:
I wouldn't necessarily go in that direction. But some of the sort of general vibes that you've been floating have actually been very good and very close to... a good eloquent way of putting what we're going for here.
Michelle:
Is there anything about how cooked the f— the meat is? Because what was it? Beef, fish, and...
Tom:
Pork.
Dani:
Beef, fish, pork compared to chicken.
Michelle:
Ah, pork, you would fully cook. Never mind.
Dani:
It is definitely less about the science than the sort of general animally vibes that you were going for before.
Bill:
Yeah. Is it basically saying if you're a sumo wrestler, you wanna be like a chicken? So eat chicken, so you can be like a chicken, because chickens when you move them around, their head stays still... 'cause they have really good balance, and they're... self-balancing animals.
Michelle:
They're like a gimbal.
Bill:
Yeah, yeah.
Dani:
(laughs)
Bill:
If you put an iPhone on the head of a chicken, and you held its body, you get a perfectly smooth shot.
Dani:
Look, I would say you're in a good place, and you're in the right direction. I would say more, like, you don't even need to go that specific. Just compare it to some of those other animals.
Bill:
Two legs.
Dani:
Two legs is kinda it.
Bill:
Sumo wrestlers, you gotta be pretty two-legged.
Dani:
Think about the positions of the other animals.
Tom:
Oh! Yeah, you just—
Michelle:
They have to stay on two legs.
Tom:
You have to stay on two legs and squat down, and that is a chicken-like position?
Dani:
Yeah, you absolutely can't— You certainly can't be like a four-legged animal, and you definitely can't be like a fish.
Bill:
No.
Tom:
You can't put your arms down in sumo.
Bill:
You can't put anything— No, sumo, you can't put anything other than the sole of your foot on the ground. Even the top of your foot, even if you drag your toes on the ground... you'll lose, because it's only soles of your feet. So you have to be very staying upright, hopping on one leg, while you try and throw the person off the side in whatever sumo wrestlers call a—
Tom:
And thus, so does the chicken.
Bill:
Yeah.
Dani:
Yeah. So it is essentially emulating the animal that is good and stable on its two legs, and nothing that needs any other part of its body to be touching the ground.
Tom:
(chuckles)
Bill:
That's fun.
Dani:
So yeah, Bill, you were absolutely right at the beginning that the chankonabe, it's kind of one of the big staples eaten by sumo wrestlers. It really keeps up their weight as well, is a big thing. Sumo wrestlers, you can probably tell a little bit, they have to be really diligent about their diet to maintain this sort of weight.
So some fun facts: They'll eat this twice a day. They will then sleep immediately, so that everything they've just eaten will do its best to turn straight into body fat, and they'll also have about six pints of beer with these meals.
Bill:
(chuckles)
Tom:
(deflates)
Michelle:
That seems counterintuitive to the whole staying on your feet thing.
SFX:
(group laughing)
Tom:
This question was sent in by OMacMacca. Thank you very much.
In 2016, New Zealander Chloe Phillips-Harris arrived in Kazakhstan with the correct paperwork. Yet, border officials detained her, insisting her documents were wrong. When they brought her a diagram to prove a point, Chloe realised she was in serious trouble. Why?
I'll give you that one more time.
In 2016, New Zealander Chloe Phillips-Harris arrived in Kazakhstan with the correct paperwork. Yet, border officials detained her, insisting her documents were wrong. When they brought her a diagram to prove a point, Chloe realised she was in serious trouble. Why?
Dani:
(chanting) ♪ I, I get to sit one out ♪
Tom:
(laughs heartily)
Dani:
♪ I get to sit it out ♪
Tom:
I appreciate you doing your own cheerleading. That was wonderful.
Dani:
(chanting) ♪ It doesn't happen often! ♪
SFX:
(others laughing)
Dani:
♪ It doesn't happen often ♪
Tom:
Alright. Michelle, Bill, this one's on you two.
Michelle:
Oof.
Bill:
So, going from New Zealand over to Kazakhstan, you've got the correct documents, but a chart shows you, "Mm, deal with it. Sorry, go home."
Michelle:
And they drew this chart?
Bill:
Or they at least brought it out. Maybe they had it on-hand.
Michelle:
Mm.
Tom:
Yeah.
Michelle:
Do you know what's on the New Zealand passport? I feel like, I don't know, New Zealand's such a small country, my brain's going to, like, there's something weird about New Zealanders, which I'm sure there's lots of weird things, but...
SFX:
(others snickering)
Michelle:
Sorry, we have to diss them. They're like our younger brothers. No one else is allowed to diss them.
Dani:
Their former prime minister is coming to live here. Come on, Kazakhstan.
Tom:
Oh, wow, okay.
Bill:
I mean, is it a New Zealand thing? Do you think it's a Kazakhstan thing? Like, what was going on? When did Kaz— Kazakhstan had a thing recently of changing their capital and then changing it back again. They went from... is it, was it Astana?
Dani:
Yep.
Bill:
To Nur-Sultan. And then they're like, "Nope, we're doing— We're going back." Either location, or did they just change the name of the city? I can't remember.
So maybe it's just like, "You could go anywhere in the capital, which is Astana."
And then they went, "Oh, here's our chart that says it's now Nur-Sultan. Sorry, you're not allowed to do anything here. You have to go home until we change it back in a few years."
I don't think so, but this is one of my few Kazakhstan facts.
Tom:
(laughs)
Bill:
And apparently, as you can hear from I'm saying it, not much of a fact.
SFX:
(group chuckling)
Bill:
Half-remembered fact.
Dani:
I would say you're not gonna require much Kazakhstan knowledge for this.
Tom:
No, no.
Bill:
Awh. But I had one piece. Okay, is it the fact... that on a lot of world maps... they don't even put New Zealand? It's a famous thing New Zealanders complain about, where they leave New Zealand off the map.
Tom:
That is extremely relevant, Bill.
Bill:
Yeah. So do they have a chart of all the countries that are allowed to come to Kazakhstan, and they're like, "New Zealand isn't a country"?
Michelle:
Oh, it's just, like, coloured green for everything except—
Bill:
Yeah, we've coloured in every country based on what they're allowed to do. You're not coloured in 'cause you're not on the map, sorry.
Tom:
I think I have to give you that, Bill. It wasn't so much coloured in on the map.
Bill:
They said, point to your country?
Tom:
Pretty much, yes. The guards did not know that New Zealand was a country.
Bill:
Sure.
Tom:
Chloe insists that, "Yes, it is, and here's my visa." The guards go and get the map that they have, and New Zealand, as you said often happens, is not on the map.
Bill:
Yeah, that sucks. Yeah, what are you gonna do at that point? Just draw it in with a pen. Here I am.
Dani:
It was a similar sort of thing that some Americans seem to go through when they're told— they're from New Mexico. And they'll show their detail— their credentials to someone, and they'll say, "Eh, you're from Mexico? I'm gonna need to see a bit more information to show that you're allowed to work in this country."
Tom:
Michelle, earlier you said that New Zealand was kind of like Australia's little brother. You were actually very close there with what the guards thought was going on. What might they have thought about New Zealand?
Michelle:
It's a state of Australia?
Tom:
Yes, they thought it was part of Australia.
Michelle:
Oh, they hate that.
SFX:
(group laughing)
Tom:
Yes, they do.
Dani:
And yet apparently technically somewhere that's true that we can just accept them as a state if ever they agree to it?
Bill:
We've pre-accepted that New Zealand's allowed to be like, "Okay, we'll be a state," and then they're allowed in.
Tom:
Wow, really?
Bill:
Yeah.
Dani:
Which is weird. I'm currently reading the Australian Constitution, and I haven't reached that part yet. That'll be where it gets really juicy.
Bill:
How long is your constitution?
Dani:
They're not that long. Every section of it— There are 100 and something sections, but each section's a tiny paragraph of one to two sentences, so it's nothing crazy. It just sounds really academic when you say that's what you're reading.
Tom:
(laughs)
Bill, we will head over to you, please.
Bill:
This question was sent in by Thomas. Thank you, Thomas.
At the 1987 F1 German Grand Prix, Ferrari driver Michele Alboreto wore a seemingly normal helmet. When he opened his visor before the race, other teams complained and the helmet was banned. Why?
And I'll give it to you a second time.
At the 1987 F1 German Grand Prix, Ferrari driver Michele Alboreto wore a seemingly normal helmet. When he opened his visor before the race, other teams complained and the helmet was banned. Why?
Dani:
Had kisses all over it.
Tom:
(laughs)
Bill:
No, no. He painted it to get rid of all the kiss— No, that's not true.
Dani:
Oh, man. Already said, car stuff, not my forte.
Michelle:
No, it's all you, Tom.
Tom:
Oh, no, this is worrying. I mean, my suggestion was that it was just an imposter inside. He had one of those tinted visors on the helmet.
Dani:
That would be so good!
Tom:
And he actually couldn't be bothered to do the Grand Prix that day, so they got the substitute in. Substitute flips up the helmet, and they're like, "You are not..." name I didn't write down and therefore I can't remember it.
Dani:
Michele?
Bill:
Michele. It's like Michelle, but in a... presumably in a masculine form and pronounced Mih-kay-lay.
Michelle:
I'm trying to think what you can add to a helmet. Because my husband has a motorbike, and he's obsessed with adding stuff to his helmet.
Dani:
This sounds juicy. This sounds relevant.
Michelle:
Stickers. He's trying to make me enjoy riding on the back of his bike, so he's added stuff to mine as well. He's got a— Did it have a microphone? Did it have a little speaker so he could listen to advice from someone?
Dani:
That'd be pretty sus.
Tom:
Oh, that's a point. These days in F1, that's a thing that happens. All the teams are radioed up. They do the broadcast. But this was 1987. Maybe they flipped it up, and they're like, "You've got a microphone under there, and none of us have."
Dani:
Oh, so it's not like tennis, where they say, "No coaching from the side!" But it might have been back then?
Bill:
That's not true. That's not correct. I would say in general, the helmet generally was within safety regulations. It was within normal helmet specifications.
Dani:
It does feel like rules loopholeiness.
Tom:
Mm. There's a lot of that in F1.
Bill:
Rules loophole is a very good thing to think about.
Tom:
Rules Loophole is actually RuPaul's full name. Sorry. I regret that joke.
SFX:
(guests laugh heartily)
Bill:
That's good.
Michelle:
Oh, it would be easy if this was a RuPaul question.
Tom:
(chuckles)
Dani:
So what do we think? I don't know. The helmets have to be there to... save you if you're in a crash and not let horrible... racing G-forces hurt you too bad.
Tom:
Yeah.
Dani:
Physics.
Bill:
And this helmet would do both those things.
Tom:
The helmet was the thing banned, right? Not the visor?
Bill:
I mean, both together. The visor was a big part of the problem.
Michelle:
Was it not actually a visor? Was it, like, the party guy grids?
SFX:
(others laughing)
Tom:
They could put, like... you know, put a racing line on it 'cause it's gonna change. Again, too early to have some kind of magic heads-up display in there, but maybe, like, there were markers in there to help him guide on difficult turns?
Bill:
You're in the right place with... markings on the visor. In fact, the issue was a single red stripe along the top of the visor. And they were worried about it in terms of fairness issues, but not about race performance.
Dani:
That's interesting. You've mentioned a line across the top, and I was going, you know, like, to block out extra sun or something like that. But that would all be performance-based, surely.
Bill:
What it's blocking out is also very relevant, but not for performance.
Michelle:
Is it blocking out the crowd?
Bill:
No.
Michelle:
No?
Dani:
What could it be blocking out that isn't go— about affecting his performance? It's just—
Tom:
The sweat dripping down his face.
Bill:
I will say... Tom has made a fatal mistake at the start of this question.
Tom:
Oh, no.
Bill:
And he'll never solve it because of that.
Tom:
Wow, I have no memory of what I said. So good luck to the other two. What have I assumed?
Bill:
It's not what you'd assumed. It's what you'd forgotten, Tom.
Dani:
That the name was Michele.
Bill:
The name was Michele Alboreto. That is... M and then Alboreto, A-L-B-O-R-E-T-O.
Tom:
Ohhh. Yeah, you're right, Bill. Yeah, that was—
Dani:
What?
Tom:
That was a fatal mistake to... (chuckles) to forget the name 'Malboreto'.
Dani:
Huh?
Bill:
Ooh, now Tom's got it, and he's made his wonderful success, and Dani will never get it.
Tom:
Well, it is, and I wonder if this might be because I'm in my 40s...
Bill:
(snickers)
Tom:
And I remember the days when you had cigarette advertising.
Bill:
Follow that.
Dani:
What? Does 'Malboreto' sound like a little Marlboro?
Tom:
It does, and their brand colour was red.
Dani:
Okay.
Tom:
Did he just have 'Malboreto'? 'Cause you can have your name on your helmet.
Bill:
Yes.
Tom:
Did he have his name in the Marlboro font and colour to get around the advertising rules?
Dani:
It looked like he was advertising these cigarettes.
Bill:
He did. He did have it in the exact same font. But Tom, his name is 'Malboreto', not Marlboro. And you never addressed that red line on his visor either.
Dani:
(laughs) Was it covering up the last couple of erroneous letters?
Bill:
It covered up the E-T to make it say Marlboro.
Tom:
(laughs heartily)
Bill:
Straight up in the original text on the side of his helmet when he lifted his visor.
Dani:
Ah.
Bill:
Yes, so yeah. 1987, Marlboro had been sponsoring the Ferrari F1 team, but Germany had banned cigarette ads. So because this was in Germany, they couldn't advertise cigarettes, since 1975.
Ferrari decided to get creative with it and set up Michele Alboreto to lift his visor and have it say 'Marlboro' right across the side of the helmet.
Dani:
Was that even his real name?
Bill:
"Hi, my name is M. Alboreto."
"Oh, and my name's Gramel Cigarettes."
SFX:
(Tom and Dani laugh)
Tom:
Thank you to Karen Zheng for this question.
Lee is reading a book and comes across something he doesn't know. After carefully writing it down, he finds out its meaning in a dictionary. Which two pieces of information did Lee need?
I'll say that again.
Lee is reading a book and comes across something he doesn't know. After carefully writing it down, he finds out its meaning in a dictionary. Which two pieces of information did Lee need?
Dani:
I feel like there are some straightforward ways to go here.
Bill:
How to spell it. Where the dictionary was.
Dani:
That could help.
SFX:
(Bill and Michelle snicker)
Dani:
Bill, you and I were doing this just last night. Because, we have some Japanese copies of a couple of books, and... you know Japanese better than I do, so I was looking at the Japanese book and trying to work my way through it. You were helping me out. But occasionally you needed to look up some of the kanji yourself, so... you know how to look up things.
Bill:
Occasionally is very, very generous. Constantly, I think.
Dani:
I just went straight— for some reason, reading a book in your own language, totally not the first thing that came to my mind. I went straight to, "Oh, it must be something in another language."
Bill:
I went the same way. I thought that he needed to know what language it was, first of all, and then—
Dani:
Maybe it was the writing it down carefully part that said that to me.
Bill:
He needed to know what it meant in Italian, and then what that meant in English.
Michelle:
I wonder if it's... Oh, I don't know if... maybe... Is it something that doesn't have an alphabet, so it's not as easy to look up in a dictionary?
Dani:
I mean, yeah.
Bill:
It could well be.
Tom:
Yeah, keep going.
Dani:
Ooh, excellent. Again, Bill, you have a Japanese dictionary on your phone. What do you do when you need to look something up?
Bill:
Yeah, because they use Chinese characters, it'd be the same for looking it up in Chinese, I'm assuming, which is you sort of break them down, break symbols into their radicals, and then those are organised by how many strokes it takes to write them. So everything's listed numerically rather than alphabetically. So it's like...
Michelle:
The first stroke, I think it's like, yeah, first stroke and how many strokes in the radical and then how many strokes in the other one.
Bill:
Yeah. So my—
Tom:
Yes.
Bill:
Yeah. Oh, beautiful. So he needed to know how many strokes it took to write it.
Tom:
It is odd to read a Lateral question and then find out that not only did Lee in the question do this, but two of our guests were doing this yesterday.
SFX:
(Dani and Bill laugh heartily)
Bill:
And, well.
Tom:
He is reading Chinese.
Dani:
Amazing.
Tom:
I will, to avoid letters coming in, I will say that while Chinese, Japanese, and Korean glyphs are similar, they are not identical, and that is... oh, that is a really contentious issue in the Unicode Consortium, and we'll just...
Dani:
Fair.
Tom:
We will flag that, and we will move on. But yes, the two items are the number of pen strokes required and the order of those strokes.
Dani:
Amazing.
Tom:
And in order to figure that out, you have to write down the character.
Dani:
Oh, yeah, that makes sense. That checks out. That's a good way to do it, to know it.
Michelle:
Fun random trivia: So my Chinese name, the last— Like, Chinese names are three characters. The last character, because my parents went to a numerologist – this is like a whole thing – they go to a numerologist because of the stroke— number of strokes and stuff, you want an auspicious number of strokes in your child's name. It didn't— They couldn't find a name with the right number of strokes, so they just added a dot to my last one.
SFX:
(Bill and Tom laugh heartily)
Dani:
Ooh.
Michelle:
Read the same, just added a dot.
Bill:
I love it.
Michelle:
So I guess it's like the Chinese version of those made-up names that people keep mocking.
Dani:
(cackles)
Michelle:
Every time I went to Chinese school, I'd see the roll, the class roll, and everyone's got, you know, normal computer-printed names. And then you'd see the teacher had added a dot there to the photocopy, and so I just had this blob in my name.
Bill:
That's nice.
Michelle:
Embarrassing.
Bill:
(laughs heartily)
Tom:
Michelle, over to you please.
Michelle:
This question has been sent in by James Dominguez.
Established in 1851, Melbourne's notorious Pentridge prison stands beside a scenic park that's long been a popular picnic spot with locals. Why is this prison next to a park?
Let's go through that again.
Established in 1851, Melbourne's notorious Pentridge Prison stands beside a scenic park that's long been a popular picnic spot with locals. Why is this prison next to a park?
Dani:
Alright, we get to get out all our horrible Melbourne stereotypes that we are now.
Tom:
(laughs)
Bill:
I have interesting Melbourne prison trivia.
Tom:
Ooh?
Dani:
Ooh?
Bill:
I have interesting 1800s Melbourne prison trivia.
Tom:
This sounds like it might be relevant.
Bill:
It's completely irrelevant.
Tom:
Oh.
Bill:
But for a while, because of prison population and setup and infrastructure in Melbourne, I think early in early white settlement, in the area, they had prisons. They just had two big floating prison ships that they sat in the harbour in the bay of... Melbourne Bay. And they would just fill them full of prisoners. And it was hellish and terrible. But they just had these giant ships, and they barred off everything. They turned every room into a brig, and they filled them, and they chocked them full of prisoners, 'cause they didn't have the infrastructure to do every— all the prisoners on land.
Dani:
You're right, that is interesting, but seemingly irrelevant.
Bill:
Interesting and completely irrelevant.
Michelle:
Sounds a bit like what they did with COVID with the people on cruise ships.
Dani:
Little bit.
Bill:
Yeah.
Tom:
And the good news is, if they need to throw an officer in the brig, he was already there, so that's...
Bill:
Yeah, exactly.
Michelle:
Mhm.
Bill:
So why is it next to a park? Did people love to watch the hangings?
Dani:
Ugh. Yeah. How grim can we be?
Bill:
How grim is this?
Tom:
(chuckles)
Dani:
If the prisoners escaped, we wanted a long, clear space for them to be running through with nothing in the way. Where are we going here?
Tom:
There are other prisons next to parks. I mean, Wormwood Scrubs in London is a famous prison, and there is Wormwood Scrubs Park next to it.
Bill:
No, I'm sorry, Tom. No, it isn't.
Tom:
I promise that's the actual name.
Bill:
It's a Dickens villain. That's a Dickensian villain, Wormwood Scrubs. "And I'm Wormwood Scrubs. No, I haven't seen any boys around here, no. Don't look in my basement for the boys that you're looking for."
Dani:
Is this why the family in Matilda are the Wormwoods?
Bill:
"It's me, Wormwood Scrub." That's— I'm sorry, Tom.
Tom:
I'm now doubting that I've got the name of this right, by the way, despite the fact that it's famous in British pop culture. It's definitely a prison. There's definitely a park next to it.
Bill:
The British loved parks and prisons. It's so you could build more prisons, and the clear space, and you're like, "Well, we're definitely gonna have more prison. We'll just keep building down the parkway."
Michelle:
I feel like what you were saying before about locations for prisons is kinda dancing around the answer.
Bill:
Do people not wanna live near a prison? So like, "Well, no one's gonna live here. May as well put a park. Make it a park. Make a park. Can't build a house. Gonna make a park."
Dani:
Definitely seems believable.
Tom:
Or the land was... contaminated for some reason. You can't build on it because...
Michelle:
Think about not all parks are going to have people having picnics on them, and not all prisons. So there's gotta be something nice about the place which might be linked to prisons.
Dani:
It's the only place in Melbourne that has sun.
SFX:
(Tom and Michelle laugh snidely)
Michelle:
Similar. (chuckles)
Bill:
So, you put in a park. So is the idea this isn't a nice public park for people to hang out? There's some other—
Michelle:
Oh, it is.
Bill:
Oh, it is.
Michelle:
It is.
Dani:
Yeah, it seems like there was something in particular that would draw people to this park that would not necessarily draw them to other places.
Michelle:
Apart from prisons, yes.
Bill:
Is it a psychological thing, right, where you put a park and a prison in the same— with the same purpose, which is, look at the beautiful view. And if you're a park-goer, you go, "What a wonderful view. I'm so free. I'll enjoy it tomorrow." And if you're a prisoner, you go, "Oh, what a wonderful view. I'm so trapped. I can never get out to that beautiful place. Oh, the psychological– Oh, I repent! I'll change my ways. I'll never do it again. Just let me go out into that beautiful view." Is that the idea?
Michelle:
Kind of. It's like...
Tom:
(laughs uproariously)
Michelle:
the reason the view is nice is because it's a prison. Or it's next to a prison. So there's some— There's a link there. And I guess maybe think about, in the 1800s, what... how might you make a prison really secure?
Bill:
Big bricks and...
Dani:
Lots of dogs.
Tom:
Is this like Alcatraz?
Michelle:
Very close.
Dani:
What? What, a moat?
Michelle:
What—
Bill:
Oh, it's in the bay!
Tom:
It's out—
Bill:
It's next to prison ships!
Tom:
It's out on a big island, and it's a lovely spot for picnicking. You can see all of Melbourne from it, but also it's quite difficult to swim from it.
Michelle:
It's very close, really close. I think this is quite inland, if that helps.
Tom:
It needs to be something that is difficult to break out of, but easy to go to for picnicking. So I'm thinking a high cliff, on a tower, on a viewpoint.
Michelle:
It is so close. What Bill said about bricks, it's very linked to the bricks.
Bill:
You just stick it in a quarry. You—
Michelle:
Yes. Well, there is a quarry.
Bill:
A quarry.
Dani:
What is good about big rocks, solid—
Michelle:
What do you do with a quarry? How might you make a quarry into a nice picnic spot?
Tom:
You flood it.
Michelle:
(nods)
Tom:
You have an old quarry lake.
Michelle:
They're all over the place.
Tom:
Yes.
Bill:
So you quarry the rocks out to build the prison, so you don't have to take the rocks very far, and then you're like, "Well, we've got this big rock quarry. Let's fill it with water, make it a lovely— Now it's a beautiful park. It's a beautiful lake. People wanna hang out because we've got this quarry lake."
Tom:
The only reason that there's a park and a lake there and a beautiful picnicking spot is because that lake was excavated to make the prison.
Bill:
To build the prison.
Michelle:
Exactly, yeah. So the basalt rock that was there, they used it to make the prison. And then obviously, they had a hole. They filled it full of water, and it became Coburg Lake. So that's the centrepiece of the park. Everyone goes there for picnics, even though it's right next to a maximum security prison.
Although the prison closed in 1997, so I guess it's maybe a bit nicer now? More mentally anyway.
Tom:
Have they turned it into a tourist attraction yet?
Bill:
Yeah, now it's all ghost tours.
Tom:
Which means we just have that audience question from the start of the show.
Thank you to Melvin from New Zealand for this one.
Why is it often a good idea for coin collectors to buy stamp collections?
Anyone wanna take a guess at that before I give the audience the answer?
Bill:
Gotta diversify your portfolio.
Michelle:
Is it like one is cheaper, so it's like training, sort of like those stock market games? Like, you play a fake stock market game, and then you go into the big guns?
Bill:
Then you're not a coin collector anymore. Then you're a multifaceted junk collector.
Tom:
(laughs)
Michelle:
You've got too interesting a personality now.
Dani:
It does feel like there is somehow some sort of numismatist laundering going on, and I don't know what that would be. But I don't understand regular money laundering at the best of times.
Tom:
Not that, but it's closer.
Dani:
Ooh.
Tom:
'Cause this wouldn't work in every country. It wouldn't work in the UK anymore. We've changed our stamps, but there are still countries where this would work.
Bill:
I got a stamp. It's a rectangle. It's got a picture. It's got a cost in dollars and cents in the corner.
Tom:
Always?
Bill:
Every time! I have no idea.
Tom:
Not in every country.
Dani:
Really?
Bill:
Oh, what do they have in other places? They have... a distance that it can go.
Tom:
Well, British stamps until a couple years ago just had first or second class a lot of times. They didn't— Or some of them had prices on them for bigger things. And these days they all have little barcodes attached, so they can be tracked, but... up until a few years ago, it was just first or second.
Dani:
God, I love it when I feel too young for a question.
Tom:
(laughs)
Dani:
Yeah, is there some way of separating them out into your collection's various... importance based on—
Tom:
They're not really keeping them.
Dani:
They're not keeping the stamps, did you say?
Bill:
Oh, you just use them to send your coins places?
Tom:
Yes, you just use them to send your coins, Bill. That's absolutely right.
Bill:
Alright, great.
Michelle:
Oh.
Tom:
(giggles) Do you wanna talk through why that might be?
Bill:
That's what stamps do, Tom! Stamps let you send these places! There's nothing to talk about! That's a stamp!
Tom:
Coin collectors will often find themselves in flea markets or estate sales where there is already a stamp collection being sold off cheap, and the value of that stamp collection may be lower than the value of all the individual stamps inside it.
Bill:
Oh, that's so sad. I'm so sorry, stamp collector.
Dani:
Oh, man.
Bill:
Your hobby's just subtracting value.
Tom:
In many countries, those old stamps still can be used, particularly if, like in Britain up until recently, they just said 'first'. Doesn't matter if you bought them for four pence, 50 years ago. Some postal services will still honour that stamp.
Bill:
That's cool.
Tom:
Thank you very much to our players. Thank you for running the gauntlet.
Where can people find you? What's going on in your lives?
We will start with Bill.
Bill:
Yeah, check out Escape This Podcast if you wanna see fun guests. Maybe even Tom Scott, playing through, and David Bodycombe, the producer, who you can't see, the invisible man, playing through audio escape rooms. Check it out at Escape This Podcast. It's a good show.
Tom:
Dani Siller.
Dani:
You can also find our murder mysteries at SolveThisMurder.com probably. We have websites. Don't send us mail. We don't know what stamps are.
Tom:
(laughs) And Michelle Wong.
Michelle:
I'm at @LabMuffinBeautyScience. I'm on all the platforms. Yeah, I talk about the science behind beauty products.
Tom:
And if you wanna know more about this show and send in your own ideas for questions and join the Lateral Producer's Club, you can do that at lateralcast.com. We are at @lateralcast basically everywhere, and there are regular weekly video episodes in full on Spotify.
Thank you very much to Michelle Wong.
Michelle:
Thank you very much. I'll fill in the forms on my way out.
SFX:
(others crack up)
Tom:
Dani Siller.
Dani:
Thank you so much!
Tom:
And Bill Sunderland.
Bill:
Thank you for having me. It was great.
Tom:
I've been Tom Scott, and that's been Lateral.
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 | Melvin, James Dominguez, Vic Chao, Thomas, Lucas Waldhauer, OMacMacca, Karen Zheng |
| FORMAT | Pad 26 Limited/Labyrinth Games Ltd |
| EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS | David Bodycombe and Tom Scott |