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Episode 203: Looking for a hot rod
28th August, 2026 • Charlotte Yeung, Iszi Lawrence and Ólafur Waage face questions about Chinese cuisine, Transylvanian turrets and long-term logistics.
Transcription by Caption+
Tom:
Which New England state has a dead animal on one of its vehicle registration plates?
The answer to that at the end of the show. My name's Tom Scott, and this is Lateral.
We bring you now to another thrilling installment of The Mystery Minds of Lateral!
When we last left our intrepid thinkers, they'd been cornered by a fiendish plot twist, armed with nothing but pluck, grit, and a suspiciously convenient clue. But tonight, dear listeners, three new brave adventurers step into the studio, ready to battle logic, challenge reason, and make leaps of deduction without any safety net. Don't touch that dial. Anything could happen in the next 40 minutes.
First, we have Charlotte Yeung. Welcome back to the show.
Charlotte:
Hello, thank you very much for having me again.
Tom:
What have you been up to lately? I always— I feel like I always ask this, but you have so much interesting stuff going on. How's the PhD?
Charlotte:
The PhD is going well, as well as it can be when I'm taking constant days off.
SFX:
(group laughing)
Charlotte:
I hope my supervisor is not watching this.
Tom:
I mean, it is a stereotypical question to ask someone, "How are you juggling everything?" But how are you juggling everything?
Charlotte:
I think I just have a really good support system. So honestly, big love to my supervisor. He always encourages me to do anything and everything that I want to do. And yeah, and you can't really have enough of those people in your life. So I owe it to all the people around me.
Tom:
Well, best of luck to you with all the projects you're working on, and for the show today.
You are joined by another returning player.
Again, how are you balancing everything that is going on? Because you did say you had a book deadline on Monday. Iszi Lawrence, how's things?
Iszi:
Oh, it's great. There's absolutely no problem. It's definitely going to get finished. And then when I say it's a deadline, it's actually a month after the last deadline that I missed. So it's great. Everything's great.
And I'm busy at the moment recording podcasts as well. So I'm recording the third series of Talk Like an Egyptian, which is all about ancient Egypt. And the book I'm writing isn't about ancient Egypt, but it has got pyramids in it.
So, yeah. Things are a bit messed up in my mind, which is why this show is perfect!
Tom:
(chuckles) Just random free association. One of them—
Iszi:
Oh, yes!
Tom:
One of them will be the answer. Well, good luck finding that. Ólafur Waage, the last of our trio here today. Please tell me you have some spare time in your life.
Ólafur:
No! Why would you?
SFX:
(others belly laugh)
Ólafur:
You're gonna have to fill it up with useless hobby projects and side... yeah. I totally don't have eight little programming projects on the side. No, absolutely not.
Tom:
And how is the digital work going? How are the... what you describe, now I feel, perhaps unfairly, as little videos about the Nordics?
Ólafur:
Yeah, I kind of moved over to trying to do stand-up as well, because I had so many video ideas, but this is never gonna work as a video, but it might work as just as a joke.
Stand-up I've learnt, 'cause I've been doing it now like every week since the beginning of the year... it is really hard. And this is like now, any time I see a stand-up clip on TikTok or whatever, I'm like, no, this is— this person is doing a really great job, because now I kinda understand what they're going through.
Iszi:
The trick to stand-up is not to care. That's the thing.
Tom:
(laughs)
Iszi:
If you don't care, the audience loves it. If the moment you want to please them, they go, "No, don't want that." Particularly British audiences.
Ólafur:
The Nordic ones are a little bit more like, "Okay, yeah, this was funny. Thank you."
Iszi:
Boothby Graffoe, a comedian in the UK, well, he's got a brilliant tip for speaking in places like Denmark and Oslo and all of these Nordic places, which is you talk very quickly, because everybody in the audience wants to know, everybody else do, that they speak fluent English well. So you go as fast as you can, and you pause and go like that, waiting for them to laugh, and they don't understand, so they just laugh really loudly to show that they understood.
Ólafur:
Oh, I'm so gonna use that next time. I'm gonna use that, yeah.
Iszi:
(giggles) Exactly. It's a little sneak.
Tom:
Good luck to all three of you with the many other projects, and also for the next 40 minutes of show.
It is now time for the dramatic twist nobody saw coming: question one.
Iszi:
(gasps)
Tom:
Thank you to Tom van der Zanden for this question.
François went to a Chinese restaurant with his visiting friends. When he made a request to the waiter, why did his friends incorrectly assume he wanted some bread?
I'll say that again.
François went to a Chinese restaurant with his visiting friends. When he made a request to the waiter, why did his friends incorrectly assume he wanted some bread?
Ólafur:
Did he tell the waiter that he's in pain?
Charlotte:
(snickers) Stitched me.
Tom:
Ooh!
Iszi:
That's a good French pun.
Ólafur:
Yeah, yeah.
Tom:
Just so quick. So quick.
Ólafur:
I'm guessing it's not that simple, so I just, I had to come up with that one.
Tom:
I mean, it's not that complicated either.
Iszi:
Is there a Chinese food called pain? I mean, pain. 'Cause it's not pain, is it, to be fair? If he was spelling it out to them, that would work. But let's face it, orally, it's 'bah'. 'Eu-bah'. Non?
Charlotte:
No?
Iszi:
You're all staring at me like a newsreader whose autocue's broken down.
Charlotte:
I thought that was it, I'm gonna be honest. (laughs)
Iszi:
Yeah, exactly. So, so if you want some bread, "Je voudrais du pain."
Tom:
Mhm.
Iszi:
So du pain, maybe... a dipping sauce. That's 'dippin'. (laughs) Is it like chili dip?
Tom:
You've got through most of this question in the first minute. You have worked out that François is a clue – it is a French name – and that he's not asking for more food. The pun is not 'pain'.
Iszi:
Okay.
Tom:
This is not a pain pun.
Iszi:
It's not a pain pun.
Tom:
Pain pu— It's really hard to say pain pun. You've got to land a French N and an English N next to each other.
Charlotte:
Is it a bao pun because Chinese bread is bao? (laughs)
Iszi:
Bao bun.
Charlotte:
Bao bun. (giggles)
Iszi:
It could be something to do with bao, couldn't it? I bao su... ba... What do you say to waiters? You say, "Oh, it's lovely, thanks very much. No, please leave me alone."
Charlotte:
I think only if we're British, we would say that. (laughs)
Iszi:
What do they say? Le ticket or le billet, What do they say for the...
Ólafur:
A recette? Or...
Iszi:
Le recette.
Ólafur:
I don't know.
Iszi:
Receipt? What do they say when you—
Ólafur:
Or they could ask for the special as well. Speciale, no?
Tom:
Mhm.
Iszi:
Yeah.
Ólafur:
I think...
Tom:
These are all good kinda things to think of here. This is a Chinese restaurant.
Iszi:
It is a Chinese restaurant, so he wants a noodle. I don't know the French for noodles. I really want to hear the word 'noodle' in French.
Tom:
(laughs)
Iszi:
(with accent) Noodle. Is this... The... I'm guessing...
Charlotte:
I was gonna say something so bad. I wanted to say maybe he was asking for a knife and fork.
Iszi:
Well, that would make sense.
Tom:
Oh, now. Now, no, but again, close.
Iszi:
Okay. A serviette, a glass of water. What else might you ask for?
Tom:
Well, it would be a bit of a faux pas to ask for a knife and fork.
Iszi:
It would be, but chopsticks.
Tom:
Mm.
Iszi:
Les...
Tom:
Chopsticks, Iszi.
Iszi:
So le chopstick. Oh, stick is a baguette. Le baguette is— means stick. So if you ask for his ba— Le baguette is chopsticks because—
Tom:
Yes, it is. Specifically 'baguette chinoise', 'Chinese baguettes' are chopsticks in French.
Iszi:
I hate to say the reason why I know that is because I happened to pick up a Harry Potter book in French, and the word 'wand' is 'baguette'. So...
SFX:
(group laughing)
Iszi:
It's just that Harry is there waving baguettes around. It puts completely the wrong image in your head.
Tom:
Yes, the word 'baguette' comes from the shape and not from... it's just 'stick'. It just means 'stick'.
Iszi:
Which is just, but it's so much sexier than stick.
Tom:
So yes, this is François, who was eating at a Chinese restaurant in France. He politely asked the server for the baguettes. And to his foreign visitors, this sounded like he was asking for French bread to go with the noodles.
Iszi:
Très bien.
I— it also— that whole book is giving me— I've got to do The Domesday Cows as an audiobook, and I'm not an actor, right? And I've written 'Domesday Cows', 'cause it's Anglo-Saxons versus Normans. I've written the Normans speaking to us— each other in French in English, but in a different font, which basically means...
Tom:
(laughs) You've gotta do a silly voice.
Iszi:
I've got to 'ello 'ello. I've got to be like...
Tom:
You've got— yeah.
Iszi:
It's gonna be really bad. And I, yeah. I'm already dreading. But, you know, that's gonna be a couple of days of my life that I'm not getting back. But please download it on Audible when it's free. (laughs)
Tom:
Ólafur, we will head over to you for your question, please.
Ólafur:
This question has been sent in by Luciano.
How has 40% of Argentina's population been affected by the arrival of a Swedish ship in Buenos Aires in 1907?
And I'll say that again.
How has 40% of Argentina's population been affected by the arrival of a Swedish ship in Buenos Aires in 1907?
Iszi:
Okay. Now, Swedish men are good-looking.
Ólafur:
Correct.
Iszi:
But I don't know if they're 40% of the population good-looking. So...
SFX:
(guessers laughing)
Ólafur:
Oh, totally. They absolutely are.
Iszi:
Oh, they probably are. They probably are. Yeah.
Ólafur:
Yeah.
Iszi:
But I don't think that's the answer. And this is—
Tom:
I'm also not convinced that would take effect in 120 years. That's...
Iszi:
I don't know. It could. If it's a good enough looking Swede, it could take place in one generation.
SFX:
(Tom and Charlotte laugh)
Iszi:
You don't know.
Charlotte:
And it's a boatload of them, so...
Iszi:
Exactly.
Charlotte:
It's going places.
Ólafur:
Oh, quite literally. Oh, that's good. That was a good one.
Iszi:
Okay, so what do we know about Buenos Aires, Argentina? I just— ugh. I'm trying to think.
Tom:
It is where the course for the British version of Wipeout, or Total Wipeout was. But I don't think that's a 1907 thing.
Iszi:
I mean, they have some amazing Titanosaurs over in Argentina, but I think since 1907, none of them are about.
Tom:
We have very different ranges of obscure knowledge, Iszi.
Iszi:
It's great, innit? (giggles)
Charlotte:
Meanwhile, I'm thinking 40%, maybe it's, like, 40% is their aging population. Like, it's all about the old people.
Tom:
Ooh.
Charlotte:
Maybe they had wheelchairs on board. I don't know. (chuckles)
Iszi:
The 40— I don't think 40% of the Argentinian population needs a wheelchair. That would be too many.
Tom:
No, but that is the kind of demographic you're looking for, particularly in countries with an aging population. You're starting to look at high percentages that are in that demographic.
Iszi:
The only other thing I know really about Argentina is they eat a lot of beef. This is... They've got a huge amount of beef and cattle, and they eat a lot of it.
Yeah, and that's my answer. Is it to do with cows?
Ólafur:
No.
Iszi:
Plugging the book. Is it to—
SFX:
(guessers laughing)
Iszi:
It's nothing to do with cattle. Okay. It's from Sweden. This is pre-IKEA, isn't it?
Ólafur:
Correct.
Iszi:
Mm... okay. What else could it be?
Ólafur:
So it wasn't the BILLY bookshelves that inspired the Argentinians.
Iszi:
Oh, I know. I was gonna say.
Ólafur:
No.
Iszi:
It's the introduction of the Allen key.
Ólafur:
Mhm.
Iszi:
(chuckles) Okay, 1907, turn of the 20th century.
Ólafur:
You initially mentioned like, "Oh, is it old people or young people?" This affects most people.
Charlotte:
Most people?
Iszi:
Most people.
Ólafur:
Men and women, young and old. It's something.
Iszi:
Okay.
Tom:
But 40%, and it's not a demographic distinction there.
Ólafur:
I would also... It says 40%... Yeah, it's not very hard on that percentage. It could be 39, 41.
Iszi:
I mean, it could be the number of drivers. You know, roughly 40% of the population drives maybe. I mean, that'd be... If you're including kids as well, that kind of makes sense. So it could be... or 40% may be in work? But that seems a bit low, but then maybe not.
Is it— It's not ABBA, it's before ABBA.
Ólafur:
Also before ABBA. Yeah.
Tom:
Oh, yeah, but... Well, the abbreviation for 'before ABBA' is of course 'BA'.
Iszi:
Nice.
Tom:
Which...
Ólafur:
Oh, Tom, no.
Iszi:
B-A, A-B-B-A.
Ólafur:
No.
Tom:
Yeah, yeah. You see where I'm going with that?
Iszi:
Like that.
Ólafur:
You said something about work. I would inverse that.
Iszi:
So, pleasure? Leisure, not pleasure. That sounds wrong.
SFX:
(guessers laughing)
Charlotte:
With the good-looking Swedish men.
Iszi:
With the good-looking Swedish men. There we go. Okay.
So it's to do with a leisure activity that 40% of the Argentinians do, that was introduced by the Swedes in 1907.
Ólafur:
Yeah. Yep.
Iszi:
Yeah. There we go. We solved it.
Tom:
That sounds right.
Iszi:
It's fine.
Tom:
We have. We just need to identi— Okay, okay. I'm thinking Argentinian stereotypes here. Soccer.
Ólafur:
Mhm.
Tom:
Is this the ship that introduced soccer to Argentina? I don't know why that's 40%, though.
Iszi:
Well, it's 40% of the population's... Buenos Aires fans.
Tom:
(chuckles)
Ólafur:
I would actually have more fun in the soccer area, yeah. You're on the right pitch, I would say so.
Iszi:
Eyyy.
Tom:
Eyyy.
Charlotte:
Yeah, no, I was thinking, I mean, it has to be something... something physical that you can put on the board, right? On board. There probably had to be a lot of them as well, so it can't be too big. And what are the Swedes known for?
Ólafur:
I'll say that it does not matter what kind of ship it was. It does not matter what was on the ship, like the cargo on the ship.
Tom:
Oh?
Iszi:
So it was...
Tom:
Huh. It's the— Is it the ship itself?
Ólafur:
No.
Charlotte:
Is it the Swedish people themselves?
Ólafur:
In a way.
Charlotte:
The culture that they can bring?
Ólafur:
In a way.
Iszi:
Is it meatballs?
SFX:
(guessers laughing)
Charlotte:
It's not cows, not meatballs.
Tom:
You're still stuck on cows. We've established it's not cows.
Iszi:
No, I don't know why, Tom. I don't know why.
Ólafur:
It matters that it's Sweden.
Iszi:
It matters that it's Sweden, okay.
Tom:
The flag is blue and yellow, and they brought...
Ólafur:
Mhm.
Iszi:
Oh, 'cause— Isn't Buenos Aires's flag blue and white, so... Or like the flag of Argentina, blue and white? Am I thinking that right?
Ólafur:
You're a couple of pixels away.
Charlotte:
A couple of pixels.
Ólafur:
You're very close, I'm saying, basically. You're very, very close.
Iszi:
Is this making their costumes for the football team?
Ólafur:
There we go.
Iszi:
There you go.
Ólafur:
Yeah. Blue and yellow are the colors of the team Boca Junior. That's where they got the colors from, the Swedish flag.
Tom:
Wow! Wait, why 40%?
Ólafur:
Having lost a match with a rival, the founders of the football team Boca Junior decided to use the flag colors of the first ship that would come into port. It was a Swedish vessel, so blue and yellow have been the Boca Junior's colors ever since. And various surveys say that around 40% of the Argentinian population support the Boca Junior team.
Tom:
Thank you to Michael for this question.
Every March, Michael drives to Schell's Bockfest in New Ulm, Minnesota. Several times during the day, why does he look for a hot rod?
I'll say that again.
Every March, Michael drives to Schell's Bockfest in New Ulm, Minnesota. Several times during the day, why does he look for a hot rod?
Ólafur:
Because they're cool and make cool sounds. Seems kind of obvious, right?
Charlotte:
I don't think I know what a hot rod is. I was thinking it's like, it's literally an iron that, you know...
Ólafur:
It's a big noisy car.
Charlotte:
Okay. Okay.
Iszi:
And is that definitely what we... It's not a pun on something else, so we're not looking for— It's definitely the car he's looking at?
Tom:
Well, honestly...
Iszi:
Ooh.
Ólafur:
Oh?
Charlotte:
Or is it an actual rod that's hot?
Ólafur:
Ooh.
Iszi:
Exactly.
Tom:
(giggles) I was hoping no one would clock onto this this early, but Charlotte, it is an actual rod that's hot.
Charlotte:
That's great. That's great. When you don't know things, you're good for Lateral.
Iszi:
So good.
SFX:
(Tom and Charlotte laugh)
Tom:
I even pronounced it as hot rod rather than hot rod.
Charlotte:
(snickers)
Iszi:
Mm. Okay, so the only hot rods I can think of are uranium, 'cause they're obviously cool. You know, uranium rods and obviously cooled into— And is Minnesota, is there a lot of nuclear activity going on? I have no idea.
Charlotte:
I'm not sure what a Bockfest is, but if I'm thinking of a hot rod, I'm thinking of blacksmiths trying to make a sword or something. And I know that there's loads of these fairy festivals that people go to, and it could be some sort of cosplay event.
Iszi:
Buck is a type of d— you know, a breed of deer that, you know, not breed of deer. It's a male deer that you can shoot at certain times of year. So a buck fest implies that they're going to this particular place to shoot them at this time of year, 'cause they're in season is what I would have thought, but I'm wrong.
Tom:
This is Bockfest. With an O.
Iszi:
Bock— Oooh! But not Bookfest?
Tom:
Not Bookfest.
Iszi:
Okay.
Tom:
B-O-C-K.
Ólafur:
But you mentioned that it was Schell's Bockfest. 'Cause that's why—
Tom:
Mhm. It could be 'skell'. I don't actually have a pronunciation guide here, but...
Ólafur:
Ah, okay. 'Cause I initially— that's why I went initially for the car. You're like, oh, it's Schell, it's hot rods, car stuff.
Tom:
Mhm. No, S-C-H-E-L-L. If we're doing the spelling out here, that's what we got.
Iszi:
Ooh. Okay. So it's people who can't spell school book festival.
SFX:
(Charlotte and Iszi giggle)
Iszi:
Okay. So, so is it... So I'm thinking the word 'fest' is going to be some sort of celebration with a lot of people there doing stuff. But actually, is this just the name of a place? 'Cause I know it's in New Elm, or Ulm, whatever you said, but is this an actual sort of party time happening?
Tom:
Yeah. Fest, spot on.
Iszi:
Good. Okay. The word— I've understood the word fest.
Tom:
If you can figure out what Bock is, if there's any reference in your head, that will help a lot.
Iszi:
Okay, so burgers or kangaroo? Badgers, oranges, koala.
Tom:
Are you just naming nouns here?
Iszi:
Yeah! I'm just basically things that start with B-O-K is what... B-O-K, it's a Be Okay festival. Are you okay? Is that...
Charlotte:
(wheezes)
Tom:
Or color, shape.
Iszi:
Be okay! Don't be good, be okay. Don't be bad, be okay.
Charlotte:
Is there a C?
Tom:
(laughs)
Charlotte:
Is there a C in Bock? Or is it B-O-K? It's B-O-C-K?
Tom:
There is. B-O-C-K.
Iszi:
B-O-C-K. Okay, sorry. So Bock.
Tom:
Yeah.
Ólafur:
And he looks for a hot rod multiple times during the day. I'm guessing, is this...
Tom:
Yes.
Ólafur:
It is a... let's say a shooting festival. Maybe it's not that. Like, and they have to fire something out, and it becomes hot because it was just fired out of a cannon or something, and then he has to go and find it. It's gonna be hot, and he has to look for it.
Tom:
Iszi, you did say party time.
Iszi:
I did say party time.
Tom:
I'm gonna pull that back to the forefront of your mind.
Iszi:
Okay. What do we do at party— Ooh, glow sticks. So that's what I'm thinking now. They're not hot though, glow sticks.
Charlotte:
What about cooking food?
Iszi:
Okay. A poker. P-P-P-P— A poker Bockfest.
Tom:
Yeah.
Iszi:
Maybe.
Tom:
Yeah. This is a metal poker.
Iszi:
Okay.
Tom:
Heated until it's glowing red.
Iszi:
Nice. Are they actually branding things? 'Cause that's the things that I associate with the south of Ameri— well, with, you know, like Texas and the branding cattle with a hot rod.
Tom:
Now, this is Minnesota in March. And I don't know how much American geography you've got.
Iszi:
Not enough.
Ólafur:
Minnesota, March, that's snow.
Tom:
That is snow. Yes. It is cold in Minnesota in March.
Iszi:
So it's gonna be before, obviously, cattle. I don't know why I have cattle in the brain so much.
SFX:
(group laughing)
Iszi:
But it's before you'd like, you know, brand cattle 'cause the calves are coming and that sort of thing. So it's nothing to do with that.
Tom:
But that's the sort of heat we're talking about here.
Iszi:
Ooh, is it like fishing? Are they going fishing and having to make holes in the ice with really hot rods in order to not scare away the fish? 'Cause you can't hit the ice 'cause that'll do that, but you're making holes in ice.
Tom:
That is close in a way that will only make sense when you have the answer.
Iszi:
Great.
Tom:
But surprisingly close.
Iszi:
Okay.
Tom:
What might happen when you're doing something like that? Picture the scene for me.
Ólafur:
You might as well just drop it, 'cause you're finding the thickness of the ice, and so you need to poke through it or cut through it. So maybe a hot thing to cut through the ice to measure the thickness.
Tom:
It's not ice, but that's the gesture we're sort of going for here.
Iszi:
Are you basically... just using the steam to cook with? Is this a weird cooking technique?
Tom:
Very close now.
Iszi:
Very close again, okay. I'm basically like I'm circling. I'm like a marble circling a drain.
SFX:
(group laughing)
Iszi:
This is...
Ólafur:
Is this just a way to cook fish? You just impale it on a hot spike, and then you cook it from the inside?
Iszi:
Ooh, that sounds delicious.
Tom:
You have the consumable thing wrong, and I'm phrasing that so carefully.
Charlotte:
The consumable thing is wrong, so it's not food?
Tom:
Charlotte, you're right. It's not food. And if I tell you that Minnesota has quite a big German immigrant culture as well?
Iszi:
Okay. So hang on. It's not food and it's consumable, it's drink.
Tom:
It is.
Charlotte:
Mulled wine.
Tom:
Close. German, remember.
Iszi:
Beer. Hot beer?
Tom:
Beer. Yes.
Iszi:
Okay.
Tom:
This is hot beer. Bock. And I was hoping someone would have this. Bock is a traditional German lager...
Iszi:
Okay.
Tom:
that has a lot of caramel and a lot of— And so it's a winter and a spring beer. And if you get a cup of that and plunge a red hot poker into it, as is tradition at Bockfest, it will caramelise a load of the sugars in there. It will create this thick foam, and you end up with this centuries old tradition from German blacksmiths of hot beer.
Theatrical, old school, at the March Bockfest.
Iszi:
That sounds lovely.
Charlotte:
That sounds so good. So yummy.
Iszi:
I don't think it does, to be honest. I think less around the beer—
Charlotte:
Caramelised?
Tom:
(laughs)
Charlotte:
(grimaces) If— maybe get rid of the alcohol, but, like, caramelised.
Iszi:
I mean, yeah, but there's nicer ways of eating caramel than, like, you know, risking your lips on a hot beer.
Tom:
Iszi, we will take your question please.
Iszi:
This question has been sent in by Aaron.
According to a Transylvanian legend, people were sometimes sent to a tower with a table, small bed, plate, and a set of cutlery. They stayed there for several weeks, although they could leave earlier. What was this for?
According to a Transylvanian legend, people were sometimes sent to a tower with a table, small bed, plate, and a set of cutlery. They stayed there for several weeks, though they could leave earlier. What was it for?
Ólafur:
Well, I have to get it out there to see if they'd gotten eaten by a vampire.
Iszi:
Ah.
Ólafur:
Just to throw it out there. Just so we're done with that.
Tom:
Yeah, we were all thinking it. So like you mentioned Transylvania specifically.
Ólafur:
Yeah.
Iszi:
Indeed. I don't know if it's in Sighișoara though, so I don't know if it's precisely where Vlad the Impaler was. But the location itself isn't actually that important for this.
Ólafur:
I figured, I figured.
Charlotte:
So they get sent to the tower. Is that from their own kind of free will, or they're being forced, like some people have been chosen and have been forced to do that?
Tom:
It said they could leave of their own free will.
Ólafur:
That's true. I'm guessing it's— it could be a monk that has been sent there to, like, they have to finish a manuscript or finish some work, and like, oh, you have to get some focus time. Let's...
Tom:
(blurts laugh) Well, we all need— We could all use a tower with a table and a bit of food and a bed just isolated from the world to get us to—
Ólafur:
Yeah, this old school ADHD focus. Just, let's finish the book please.
Tom:
It's just away from where the Wi-Fi is.
Iszi:
Exactly, there is an element of focus there. But we're not talking a Julian of Norwich situation. They're not doing it for religious purposes specifically.
Ólafur:
Would you say that they enjoyed their time there? It's maybe an open question.
Iszi:
I would say probably not. But... I might be wrong. I think they would've appreciated it, but maybe not enjoyed it. Enjoyed is the wrong...
Tom:
Okay. Other modern reasons you would be sent off for something like this. Well, it sounds like a rehab centre or a detox clinic, just old and Transylvanian.
Like, you must go here until you have broken your terrible... (cracks up) What's the... I don't know what century this is, 14th century Transylvanian equivalent of a cocaine habit. I don't know, but that'd be a way to beat it.
Iszi:
It's a– You're thinking alo— sort of al— You're doing the circling the answer thing, Tom. You're quite far out.
Tom:
Alright, okay.
Iszi:
But you're getting— The gist is there.
Tom:
(laughs heartily)
Iszi:
The gist is there.
Tom:
I'm caught in the gravitational attractor of the answer. Okay.
Charlotte:
So they're all going there for a healing journey, and when they feel like they've healed, they could leave, but they choose to stay longer.
Iszi:
Pretty much. You're very, very close.
Ólafur:
I'm thinking this is like a parental punishment. Like, their kid needs to do something, so they sent them out there on a journey or to do something because they don't behave at home. Maybe they behave in a tiny room.
Iszi:
You're so close, but you've got the wrong people. You're talking about families here, but you've got the wrong— it's not for the kids.
Ólafur:
Then for the old people. You send grandma there. Grandma has to focus, work on her book, no.
Tom:
Grandma is sick of the kids. Grandma just needs to go and spend some time on her own, away from the kids.
Charlotte:
Oh, is it for, like, couples going through, couples trying to reconcile, and they get kinda locked up? You just spend one-on-one time with each other. There's literally nothing else to do except talk it out and fix your problems like grown adults?
Iszi:
Charlotte, you are correct. This is exactly what it is.
Ólafur:
Wow.
Tom:
Wow!
Iszi:
I mean, specifically there was a table, small bed, plate, and set of cutlery. So they were forced to share these objects with somebody that they wanted to divorce, and so they had to get along. It was kind of, you know, part of the whole, you know, the way it worked really.
So in the village of Biertan in Transylvania, now Romania, it's said that local authorities once used a reconciliation room to settle marital disputes. Couples who wanted to divorce were confined inside a small chamber in the church's fortified complex, typically for several weeks. Inside were deliberately sparse furnishings, meaning everything had to be shared.
This practice was introduced after the Protestant bishopric moved to Biertan in the 16th century.
Legend claims that over roughly 300 years, only one divorce was recorded. So this is a thing that works apparently.
Charlotte:
It works.
Tom:
Seven murders, but only one divorce.
Iszi:
Exactly, and that is better in the eyes of religion. No.
SFX:
(Iszi and Tom laugh)
Tom:
Thank you to Punn Siwabutr for this next question.
During World War II, why was it important for German Tiger tank crews to give each other a brief piggyback ride occasionally?
I'll say that again.
During World War II, why was it important for German Tiger tank crews to give each other a brief piggyback ride occasionally?
Ólafur:
I would imagine not for entertainment, because those can be really fun.
SFX:
(Charlotte and Tom chuckle)
Ólafur:
Right?
Iszi:
You know, get morale up a bit. It wasn't going well for them towards the end.
Charlotte:
Maybe it helps with their flexibility and dexterity if they've been sitting in a tank for so long, and it can really str... I don't know. You can stretch out on top of the other person.
Iszi:
I know that... in the First World War, the tanks had their exhaust actually empty out into the tank, 'cause it was a weak point in the structure of the tank.
Ólafur:
Oh.
Iszi:
And so therefore when you're in a tank, you were there with the fumes. So having a piggyback ride, you might be able to get above the fumes inside the tank itself, but I think by the Second World War, they'd solved this problem.
Ólafur:
I'm also thinking, these tanks, I've seen videos of inside of these tanks, and they are tiny. You are really cramped in. So doing a piggyback ride inside would, I think, either just poke your head out, but I wouldn't imagine that would be useful at all. So this, I can't imagine this—
Tom:
Kind of defeats the purpose of the tank, really.
Ólafur:
Yeah.
Iszi:
Okay, okay. This is a weird one, right? But I know, it was a Panzer, not a Tiger tank, but I know there was a guy... Now who was it? It's something like Walton Dewalt or something. He had a really cool name, but it was a British guy, and he killed a German in a Panzer tank by getting an umbrella and pushing it through the eye hole.
So I'm thinking maybe, as he's called something like something Anton de Waart. He was a crazy guy. He brought an umbrella into battle. Why not?
But I believe, if it is a case that you don't wanna look out of the little eye holes where you're aiming your guns, you might need to end up, and you would actually have to carry somebody to sort of get out the top and look out the top maybe.
Tom:
Thank you to Producer David. Digby Tatham-Warter.
Iszi:
Digby Tatham-Warter, sorry. Not Anton de Waart, but there we go. So was it—
Tom:
Pretty sure that's a horrible transporter accident that's combined him with Anton Du Beke.
Iszi:
There we go.
Tom:
And...
Iszi:
It's— There's loose words in my brain that occasionally make sense.
Tom:
(laughs)
Iszi:
But thank you, Producer David, for proving that I'm not mad, that he did exist.
Tom:
Lateral – loose words in my brain that occasionally make sense.
Iszi:
I think that's how the human brain works, isn't it? (giggles)
Tom:
Yeah, yeah.
Ólafur:
Could it be that, like, yeah, 'cause it's gonna be, like, if you do the piggyback to peek out the top hole, that is of course dangerous. So then I'm thinking... there's not a person you're doing a piggyback. It is some sort of potato sack or some sort of, I don't know, maybe not a cardboard cutout thing. It's like a fake, like, "Oh, we're looking now." So you'd get shot, and there they are, and we can now proceed.
Charlotte:
Maybe there's two tiers within the tank, and you can operate both parts at the same time simultaneously, but only if...
Iszi:
Is this... Are we thinking we're in the tank, and we're actually outside the tank, and we're cleaning it?
Tom:
You are outside the tank for this piggyback.
Iszi:
But we're not cleaning it, and we need to reach it, so we needs, like—
Tom:
But you're not cleaning it. But that is a key insight there, Iszi.
Iszi:
Okay.
Tom:
You are outside the tank doing this piggyback.
Iszi:
Okay. But I really like the image of, like, some German soldiers giving each other piggyback rides so they can clean the windows of the tank. That'd be lovely. (snickers)
Ólafur:
Just end it here. Let's not learn more. Just, yeah, that's what they did.
Iszi:
That's what they did. I like that. Yeah. Yeah, it makes sense. Okay.
Charlotte:
Alright, we're done. Next question.
SFX:
(group laughing)
Iszi:
Okay, so piggyback rides. So there's two reasons to give somebody a piggyback.
One, they can't walk for some reason.
Two, they're trying to reach something which they can't get.
Three, you don't want to have, for whatever reason, four sets of boots on the ground. You just want the one set of boots. You know, I'm thinking of Jesus walking along the beach, and, you know, you have to carry him or something when you're down. I've never known how that works.
Tom:
More than that, Iszi, you'd only have one boot on the ground.
Ólafur:
Are they hopping while they're doing a piggyback?
Iszi:
(blurts giggle)
Tom:
Mhm. Yeah.
Ólafur:
That's a strong soldier.
Charlotte:
Those are some strong guys.
Tom:
They wouldn't need to do full hop here, but yeah, they're on one leg giving a piggyback.
Iszi:
That's just... Is this Cirque du Soleil origins that we don't know of?
SFX:
(group laughing)
Iszi:
Okay, so, is it anything to do with mines? 'Cause you want to have a few feet on the ground as possible when there are mines around, as a rule.
Ólafur:
Which is a good rule. That is a good rule. I like that rule.
Tom:
(chuckles)
Charlotte:
What about to cover tracks if they were going to leave?
Ólafur:
Well, the tank is gonna make the main tracks, so...
Iszi:
Exactly!
Charlotte:
(laughs)
Iszi:
And also it's just a case—
Charlotte:
They'll leave that behind too.
Iszi:
It's also a case that, you know... Is it... Oh, hang on. Hang on. Is it— Is— Are these tanks designed with a certain tread, where you just don't know which direction they're going, and therefore when you get out of it, in order to do something to the tank, you don't want to sort of like indicate which way you're going, so you get on your mate's back, and he hops around like a kangaroo? I...
Tom:
I'm... The look on your face and the way you said that, the first few words, I was like, "Iszi has got it." Iszi has not got it, but...
Iszi:
(giggles profusely)
Tom:
Keep thinking about the tracks
Iszi:
Okay.
Tom:
and the things that are left behind in the ground.
Iszi:
Okay.
Ólafur:
'Cause the tank tracks are angled, because that's how they get the grip when they're moving.
Iszi:
Is it just a way of avoiding the enemy knowing how many men you've got in your tank, and therefore not giving them bad information about if they're trying to follow you?
Tom:
No, no. Definitely not.
Iszi:
Okay.
Tom:
There are other problems that tanks might have with those tracks, and with the ground.
Charlotte:
You're trying to avoid sinking the mud as much as possible... around the tank... so that when it moves, it has a fresh set of ground to go through.
Tom:
First half of that, absolutely right, Charlotte. They are trying to avoid the tanks sinking. So why does giving someone a piggyback and standing on one leg help with that?
Iszi:
Are they in water when they're doing this?
Tom:
Not... Well, not quite. Hopefully not.
Iszi:
Okay.
Ólafur:
So, the tank then seems to be stuck in some way. Could it be that they're going up a hill, and the back half of the tank is stuck, and they have to— 'Cause if then you give a piggyback, then you can reach up... change the configuration of the track or something.
Iszi:
It's the one leg that's really doing it for me. 'Cause why would you need to be on one leg?
Tom:
What does that change? Right, what does that change?
Iszi:
It changes the pressure on the ground. It increases it, so you're trying to push the ground down. Are you trying to compact the ground so that the tank can roll over the top? But...
Ólafur:
That's what you would do a piggyback 'cause you're heavier, so you could hop
Iszi:
Exactly.
Ólafur:
on the ground then.
Iszi:
So you're trying to hop on one leg. But you're gonna do your knee in like that. That's really silly.
Tom:
(laughs)
Charlotte:
(snickers)
Tom:
They are, mm, you're identified the pressure on the ground. That's the reason they're doing it.
Iszi:
Yes. Okay.
Tom:
I think, Charlotte, you talked about getting stuck in the mud, right?
Charlotte:
Yeah.
Tom:
Keep thinking about that.
Iszi:
Presumably, is this a way to measure how stuck in the mud it is, 'cause it's to do with the pressure of the boots? 'Cause it gives you an idea of, like, how far you're sinking is how much pressure there is, and so you get an idea?
Tom:
Yes, absolutely right. The German commanders did the maths, and in the manual for the Tiger tank, translated it says, "Explore the terrain on foot. Give a man a piggyback ride and stand on one leg. If the ground supports the weight, it will support the tank."
Ólafur:
Oh.
Charlotte:
Ooh.
Iszi:
I want to say thank you to Mr. Gentry, my physics teacher, for putting the image of an elephant in stilettos in my head.
Tom:
Yep, it is exactly that sort of thing. If you take the weight of the tank and you divide it by the area of the treads, that is roughly equivalent to the weight of two men divided by one foot. Well, one area. The area of a shoe, let's say, rather than one foot.
Iszi:
Where we messed up is not exploring the German mindset and the need for maths. That is where we messed up on that one.
Tom:
Charlotte, it is over to you, please.
Charlotte:
This question has been sent in by Andy H.
While on holiday in Japan, Andy's father pointed at a soft toy and exclaimed, "It's only 777 yen!" What was being advertised, and why wasn't it actually that cheap?
And again.
While on holiday in Japan, Andy's father pointed at a soft toy and exclaimed, "It's only 777 yen!" What was being advertised, and why wasn't it actually that cheap?
Iszi:
Ichi, ni, san, shi, roku. I don't remember.
SFX:
(group laughing)
Charlotte:
Oh, no.
Iszi:
What's seven in Japanese, guys?
Ólafur:
No clue, but...
Charlotte:
Don't know.
Ólafur:
If there's... What... divide by 10, or what's the...
Tom:
That's roughly about £3, $4 in current exchange rates.
Ólafur:
Okay, that low, okay.
Iszi:
Okay. And it's a soft toy.
Charlotte:
Soft toy.
Tom:
777 makes me think of a slot machine, like an old-school traditional, like, pull the lever one-armed bandit slot machine. Because you had the fruits on the reel, and you had the symbol, and then you had the seven symbol. And I'm wondering if this is like... if the reels line up, and you get 777, you win the soft toy.
Ólafur:
Or yeah, this is just an advertisement for a gambling area, and what they do is use... the jackpot icons for the thing, and if you get this, you win the toy, but it says 777, which is the symbols you need to get to win the toy.
Tom:
I'm not sure, now I've said that, slot machines are legal in Japan, 'cause they have the pachinko parlours, and the sort of the... I don't think a prize where you get money out is actually legal there. So I'm gonna backtrack, but not before asking Charlotte if it's anything to do with slot machines.
Charlotte:
It's sadly not anything to do with slot machines.
Tom:
Agh!
Charlotte:
It is a sign that... on the toy. It is a sign on the toy, yes.
Iszi:
So, I mean, with the obvious thing, is it some sort of lucky symbol? So like, you know, obviously sevens are quite lucky in this country. Is the toy itself— I know you said it's a soft toy. Is it a plushy of a particular type of, like, Boeing plane? 'Cause they've got a 777. So it could just be the label.
Tom:
(laughs heartily)
Charlotte:
It's not, but it's a very specific soft toy that has been very popular recently.
Iszi:
Oh.
Ólafur:
Oh, Labubu.
Charlotte:
(widens eyes)
Ólafur:
Ah.
Iszi:
Labubu.
Charlotte:
Oh, I love how you just whipped that out.
Ólafur:
Yeah.
SFX:
(Charlotte and Tom laugh)
Charlotte:
That is so good. That— Yes, it's a Labubu. Please carry on.
Tom:
Do those make noises? Because I'm thinking that there's a lot of Japanese... is it katakana characters, the ones that represent individual sounds? Like, does one of those look like a seven... and...
Ólafur:
Ahh.
Tom:
So it— the toy makes this noise, and it's just showing you the noise it makes.
Iszi:
That's a bit like... I was told by a French person that in the olden days when music was sold in shops, that you could get it on a cassette, but they never wrote the word 'cassette'. They wrote the letter K and the number 7, Ka-sept.
Ólafur:
Oh, that's good.
Tom:
Ka-sept. Ahh.
Charlotte:
Tom, that was actually so... so, so, so, so, so close. It's not the sound that it makes that would look like 777, but if you mix that with what Ólafur was saying.
Ólafur:
Is it just how you write Labubu in like Japanese... text?
Tom:
(laughs breathily)
Charlotte:
It is.
Ólafur:
Yes.
Tom:
It's the katakana for Labubu.
Charlotte:
It is, it is. (laughs)
Ólafur:
(laughs heartily)
Iszi:
Nice.
Ólafur:
Oh, that's so good.
Charlotte:
So, the soft toy was a Labubu, and— the popular designer character, and in certain blocky and angular display fonts, those katakana characters can resemble the number seven.
So Andy's father mistook the label for 777 yen, which is about $5, and thought he'd spotted an incredible bargain because Labubus are actually being upsold for a lot. This was not in the notes, sorry. But in reality, the sign wasn't showing a price at all. It was simply showing the product's name.
Ólafur:
I have a similar story, which is embarrassing, and I'm gonna tell this publicly. The first time I ever went to the US, I went to New York, and my family asked us, "So where should we eat?" And I point, and I say, "Let's go to Subway."
Iszi:
Oh, no.
Ólafur:
And that was the... Yes, that was the actual subway.
Iszi:
You got to— Yeah, not, you know, going, "Let's go and eat at the tube. And we can brush our teeth there."
Ólafur:
Yes.
Tom:
We have unlocked the shiny bonus question, so good luck with this, folks.
Thank you to anonymous.
The 2012 experimental film Logistics is 857 hours long. What are viewers most likely to see if they watch a section from the middle of the film?
I'll say that again.
The 2012 experimental film Logistics is 857 hours long. What are viewers most likely to see if they watch a section from the middle of the film?
Ólafur:
I know this one.
Charlotte:
Pitch black darkness.
Iszi:
Bright white light.
Charlotte:
Oh, complete opposites there.
Iszi:
Exactly. I thought I'd just... Okay, so it's called Logistics. I don't know this film. 857 hours, is that roughly a week? No. Four... I can't re— I can't do long division, sorry. I fail.
Tom:
(laughs)
Ólafur:
I think it's two weeks, the length of the movie.
Iszi:
It's two weeks.
Ólafur:
I think so.
Iszi:
Okay. So, so it's two weeks long. So we're looking at if we start on Monday, we're looking at another Monday. So does it start again in the middle? Is that's what it does as a sort of...
Tom:
Oh, frankly any section.
Iszi:
Any section.
Tom:
From around the middle of the... Yeah. You'll see mostly the same thing.
Charlotte:
I guess this would be really easy if we knew what the film was. (laughs)
Tom:
Yes. Yes.
Iszi:
Yeah.
Tom:
But the name is a very big clue.
Iszi:
So, so when I think of logistics, I think of trying to get to different places and working out the order of... that you do things in order for it to work. So I presume, are they planning the movie in real time of what they'll do? And so they're just... I have no idea, unfortunately.
It's 2012, so it could be about the Olympics, 'cause there was definitely an Olympics event that year. In which case, and it roughly last two weeks. So...
Tom:
It's actually 36 days, having done the maths here.
Iszi:
Oh, 36 days. Okay. Then that's over a month, so it w— I was—
Tom:
Mhm. And it would be a very boring film to watch.
Charlotte:
I feel like 'logistics' is like something, wrapping up boxes and taping things and following like something mechanical.
Tom:
Yeah.
Charlotte:
So maybe inside a warehouse, and they're just filming...
Iszi:
Warehouses are cool.
Tom:
Yeah, getting a lot closer now.
SFX:
(Charlotte and Tom laugh)
Tom:
Yeah, that's the thing. There's less going on for a lot of this film than you might think from a warehouse or something like that.
Charlotte:
So they've just plopped the camera on a conveyor belt, and they just let it do its thing.
Tom:
Apart from conveyor belt, you're getting very close, yes.
Iszi:
Is it a case of they put like a, like the slowest post or something, and they put a camera on the package, and they send it and sees how long it takes to get somewhere, and it spends most of its time in a black sack?
Tom:
Oh, okay. So yes to all of that, apart from black sack.
Iszi:
Shelf.
Tom:
Think bigger logistics than this.
Iszi:
All that you've made me do is just think of like a truck. So... (laughs) Bigger than a truck.
Tom:
Bigger.
Charlotte:
A plane.
Tom:
Bigger.
Iszi:
A ship. A cargo ship.
Tom:
Yes! This— So for most of this film, what can you see?
Iszi:
You can see the sea in the cargo ship.
Tom:
Yes.
Iszi:
Just the distant sea. Nice.
Tom:
Yes. This is the experimental film Logistics, which, Ólafur, presumably you've heard of.
Ólafur:
Oh, yeah, yeah, 'cause I went down the rabbit hole of what are the longest movies ever, and this is a Swedish movie from 2012, which is the manufacturing of a step counter in reverse order.
Tom:
Yeah.
Ólafur:
I think it's from the shop back to the factory, or the other way around.
Tom:
It's China to Sweden, from manufacturer to the actual delivery. Most of the film, which is in real time, takes place on cargo ships in the open seas.
Now... Me being a massive nerd, I had looked at this film. The whole thing is on YouTube, and it is not one continuous shot, because they have to move the camera around to each location. And more than that, you... 'Cause you skim through, don't you? You look through on the YouTube link, 'cause it's all on YouTube, and you go, "Okay, nothing's changed, nothing's changed, nothing's changed," and there is a jump cut to a train that is already in motion.
Iszi:
Ooh, that's annoying.
Tom:
It's annoying. You were like 12 hours into it, and you've already—
Ólafur:
I think the project would be ruined then. Like, "No, we have to do this in one go."
Tom:
I'd be like, "We gotta go back and do this again. Sorry, folks, I can't have that."
Iszi:
Or at least I would— You guys are very honest filmmakers and documentary makers. I would just fake it. So I'd just go out and film that little bit. You know, get somebody to just do that bit so we can have a smooth transition. Thanks, guys. Yeah.
Ólafur:
A funny, nerdy fact about the Nordics, 'cause it's a Swedish movie, the second longest movie ever is from, I think, a couple of years before, and it's Danish. So I feel like the Danes got the longest movie, and the Swedes are like, "Oh, no, no. We're going to one-up them."
Tom:
(laughs)
Ólafur:
"The Danes cannot have the longest movie."
Tom:
Which just leaves us with the question from the start of the show.
Thank you to Inbaayini for this question.
Which New England state has a dead animal on one of its vehicle registration plates?
Anyone want to take a guess?
Ólafur:
Is this Massachusetts?
Tom:
Why would you think that?
Ólafur:
Beavers, clo—
Tom:
Sorry, I said that in the manner of, "So why would you think that?"
Ólafur:
How dare you think that?
Charlotte:
Why did you speak?
Tom:
How dare you think of Massachusetts?
Iszi:
I mean, you're thinking beavers. I'm thinking turkey. Because obviously that seems to be the obvious— 'Cause then you can ha— show a roast turkey, and that's a dead animal, so that's fine.
Ólafur:
Is that at Thanksgiving that it counts as the... 'Cause where's the Plymouth Rock? Is that Plymouth? I don't know where that is.
Iszi:
It's in Plymouth.
Ólafur:
Yeah.
Tom:
You're right that it's food.
Iszi:
Excellent. Okay.
Tom:
And a chef could tell at a glance that this thing was dead.
Ólafur:
A salmon filet.
Charlotte:
A deer.
SFX:
(group laughing)
Iszi:
A cow... for Iszi. Oh, it's an open clam... or open sea. It's open shellfish of some sort.
Tom:
That's close, Iszi, very close.
Ólafur:
It's like shrimp or lobster.
Tom:
Yeah. It's a lobster. So what's on the licence plate?
Iszi:
Lobsters?
Tom:
Depicted on the shore as if it's just there, just been pulled out of the ocean, just come up to say hi. What is the giveaway of this lobster?
Iszi:
It's red.
Tom:
It's red.
Iszi:
Therefore it's dead. 'Cause– Or therefore— Well—
Tom:
Well—
Iszi:
Sorry.
Tom:
Therefore, or more than that.
Ólafur:
It's cooked.
Iszi:
It's cooked.
Tom:
It's cooked, yes. Lobsters in the wild are dark green. If this is a genuine freshly fished lobster, it would be dark green, dark brown, blue, black. But once they have been cooked, they turn red and are therefore quite dead.
Unfortunately, the question was, which New England state? Which one's famous for the lobster?
Charlotte:
(cracks up)
Iszi:
Um... uhh...
Ólafur:
No clue.
Tom:
(laughs)
Iszi:
Like, literally, a New England state. I mean, New Hampshire.
Tom:
It is Maine. It is Maine lobster. But I think you got the important parts of that.
Where can people find you? What's going on in your lives? We'll start with Charlotte.
Charlotte:
You'll find me hard at work on my PhD and also at mikichar on Instagram.
Tom:
Ólafur.
Ólafur:
You can find me at @olafurw on all the social medias.
Tom:
And Iszi.
Iszi:
You can find me on iszi.com. And if you like dinosaurs, you might want to listen to Terrible Lizards, a podcast all about paleontology.
Tom:
And if you want to know more about this show or send in your own ideas for a question or join the Lateral Producer's Club, you can do that at lateralcast.com. And we are @lateralcast basically everywhere, and there are full video episodes every week on Spotify.
Thank you very much to Iszi Lawrence.
Iszi:
Good bye.
Tom:
Ólafur Waage.
Ólafur:
Good bye.
Tom:
Charlotte Yeung.
Charlotte:
Bye-bye.
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 | Inbaayini, Andy H., Aaron, Luciano, Tom van der Zanden, Michael, Punn Siwabutr |
| FORMAT | Pad 26 Limited/Labyrinth Games Ltd |
| EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS | David Bodycombe and Tom Scott |