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Episode 91: A secret base, revealed
Published 5th July, 2024
Robert Llewellyn, Bill Sunderland and Dani Siller face questions about mud mounds, circling canines and priceless printers.
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: Tim de Vries, Katherine Q., Louis Ng. FORMAT: Pad 26 Limited/Labyrinth Games Ltd. EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS: David Bodycombe and Tom Scott.
Transcript
Transcription by Caption+
Tom:
Which 1983 hit can cause dogs to circle on the spot every few seconds?
The answer to that at the end of the show. My name's Tom Scott, and this is Lateral.
Welcome once again to Lateral, the show where sideways thinking is the only way forward. So we encourage you to perform a 90 degree turn before you listen any further. Just not if you're driving.
Our first guest today is new to the show. From the Fully Charged podcast, the Fully Charged Show, and formerly of Scrapheap Challenge and Red Dwarf, Robert Llewellyn. Welcome to Lateral!
Robert:
Thank you very much. No, it's a great, great thrill to be here.
Tom:
Well, it's lovely to have you on.
We worked together for the first time years ago. It was one of the first collaboration videos I ever did on my old YouTube channel. And I just remember you putting your foot down— I couldn't drive back then. I remember you putting your foot down in a fast Tesla and both of us going, "Oh, this is a thing." That was like my first exposure to electric cars.
And it is nearly ten years later, and you have still this huge channel and sort of empire about them. What are you working on at the minute?
Robert:
I've just had an email just now to say that we're delivering the Renault, the new electric Renault Scenic next week.
So, we're still doing cars, we're still— But we do a lot of other... We don't just do cars. We do bikes and home energy stuff and renewable energy, big renewable energy projects. We're doing a lot of stuff like that, battery technology. But the—
And then we do live events around the world. So our next one is in Vancouver in a couple of months' time. And so they are... That's become a sort of backbone of the whole thing. They are extraordinary things to be at.
Tom:
I remember a friend of mine going to one of the first ones you had. I can't remember which airfield it was. Somewhere in...
Robert:
No, Silverstone. We did the first tour at Silverstone Motor Racing.
Tom:
And I remember there not being enough charging for all the electric car enthusiasts turning up!
Robert:
All those things were absolute nightmares for those first few shows. But we ju— I mean, it is— What's incredible is how much that's changed in the time. So that was 2018, the first one.
And we'd just done a show in London at ExCeL, which has some charging in it, but we— There is now technology where you basically bring a massive battery on a truck, and that charges— and we charged literally thousands of cars. Because they do— we do driving, test drives. And we did – I don't know how – we've done 100,000 test drives in our history of live events.
So that gives you some idea of how many. But that— the complexity of that, I— Every now and then, people say, "Oh, it's amazing what you've done." I go, "Seriously, if I was organising this, none of the cars would be charged. No one would come. They wouldn't know what it was or where it is."
So there's an amazing team that do that. It's definitely not me.
Tom:
Which seems like a good time for me to shout out not just the other people on this episode, but also David, the producer. Thank you very much for making all this happen, and also for inviting the other two people we have here.
We have, from episode one of this show, one of our regular returning pairs here. We have, from Escape This Podcast, Bill Sunderland, Dani Siller.
Dani, we'll start with you. How are you doing? What's been going on?
Dani:
(imitates straining) We've clawed our way back in!
Bill:
We're back!
Dani:
We're back! At long last!
Tom:
(laughs)
Dani:
Whew!
Tom:
It is lovely to have you back on the show.
Dani:
(chuckles) Yeah, it's been a great time. We've been keeping busy. We've still got our shows. Still got Escape This Podcast, still got Solve This Murder.
Another exciting thing that we've been working on is we're part of the writing team for an upcoming video game, Rise of the Golden Idol, which is pretty cool, first time for us.
Tom:
So, how's it going?
Actually, I'm going to send that question to Bill. How is being on the writing team?
Bill:
It's been really fun. It's a different experience.
Like, when we make Escape This Podcast, we think, here's a puzzle, here's a escape room, we design it, we go, "Great, that's done". And now we have a creative boss for the first time since making creative things.
So we'll be like, "Here's a puzzle".
Dani:
Some of our stupid ideas don't make it.
Bill:
Yeah, sometimes we have to justify our weird decisions.
He's like, "But that's not how a murder would go".
I'm like, "Ah, that's a good point".
But it's been a lot of fun. We were such fans of the first game, which is Case of the Golden Idol. For people who haven't played it, you should. It's a really fantastic detective puzzle game, and we're super excited to be working on the sequel. It's weird and fun and... and that is also the reason we're behind on releases for Solve This Murder.
SFX:
(Tom, Bill, and Dani laugh)
Tom:
Well, good luck to all three of our players.
As we start the quiz, feel free to let your mind wander, but not too far, because last week, a guest's brain ran off down the street, and we still haven't found it. Please keep your mind on a tight leash as we go into question one.
This question was sent in by Louis Ng.
In the late 1990s, you could speed up the growth of your pet by using a pencil. How, exactly?
I'll say that one more time.
In the late 1990s, you could speed up the growth of your pet by using a pencil. How, exactly?
Bill:
So I'm assuming the pet itself is going to be the relevant part of this. I don't think you were just drawing on your cat and being like, "It's a big cat!"
Dani:
You know, the more lead or graphite that gets added to the cat, technically it's getting bigger.
Bill:
That is true. Did we do it? Is that it, Tom?
Tom:
I'm glad you clarified graphite there, 'cause we were going to get emails.
Dani:
That's fair.
Robert:
I cannot even... I mean, what I've realised immediately, and this is my concern before I came on here is... I might be able to do Lateral.
It's the thinking bit I find really difficult.
SFX:
(group laughing)
Robert:
That is, I mean, I'm gonna— I'm gonna go for the idea that it's not a pet as we might think. I don't know why I'm thinking this, but it's not an actual animal. It's like a pet rock or a pet— you know, something, it's some...
Dani:
I agree.
Bill:
I was on the same train of thought, right? I was thinking pet rock, but I think pet rock, if it was a question about the...
Dani:
Late '80s.
Bill:
'70s, '80s.
Robert:
Exact— I don't know when pet rocks were. That's the thing. I do remember—
Bill:
I think the pet rock of the '90s was sea monkeys.
Dani:
Oh, you think— I was going a different direction again.
But I would love to hear how pencils can help sea monkeys.
Bill:
Sea monkeys, as we all know... are an animal that no one understands.
SFX:
(others giggling)
Bill:
They're technically an animal. It's freeze dried in a packet. Someone's like, "Oh, it's a type of crustacean". "No, it's a sea monkey, and it's magic".
Tom:
(chuckles)
Bill:
I wouldn't say that they don't eat graphite. 'Cause, who knows?
Robert:
(cackles)
Tom:
These are the tiny little— I think they're brine shrimp. They're just in a desiccated package that you put in an aquarium, and they grow, right?
Bill:
Yeah.
Tom:
They are, I think, slightly before my time, but only just.
Robert:
I do remember them from my late teens. And so that is going back a very, very large number of decades. We don't need to go into detail.
SFX:
(Tom and Dani chuckle)
Dani:
I feel like late '90s is peak our childhood, miscellaneous obsessions time.
Bill:
I feel like they were coming back, 'cause I think I had— I think they were both before and after your time, Tom. I think when we were young...
Tom:
That's true.
Bill:
there was a resurgence. There was cartoons on TV of like, "Look at these little guys! They eat pencils!"
Dani:
Oh, you're not wrong! Or maybe Australia is just that far behind.
Bill:
Yeah, took us that long.
SFX:
(group laughing)
Tom:
You are right that it is not a pet in the traditional sense.
And Bill, I thought you were going straight towards it. I was like, "On the target, on the target". And then the last words were "sea monkeys", and I was like, "Oh, you veered off!"
Dani:
I think I've got an idea.
And Bill, I'm surprised that you haven't thought of this, because I think there's a chance we've got some in our room right now.
Does that help?
Bill:
No!
Tom:
Apparently not. (laughs)
Bill:
There's a stash of strange martial arts weapons, clothing...
Dani:
Old video game collections. Very old childhood game things that certainly don't work. Their batteries have long since died.
Bill:
Oh, like a Tamagotchi?
Robert:
Yeah, what about a Tamagotchi, yes.
Tom:
Like a Tamagotchi.
I saw, Robert, I saw you go, "Oh, it's that", and then Bill got to the name slightly earlier. This is not—
Bill:
Which means I win.
Robert:
Yeah.
Bill:
That's a point to me.
Tom:
This is not strictly a Tamagotchi. But there is no way—
Dani:
Is it the Digimon?
Tom:
Oh! I was about to say there's no way you're gonna get this.
Dani:
Can I get mine out and show them off?
Bill:
Go grab them!
Dani:
I can do that.
SFX:
(group laughing)
Tom:
Yeah, that'll absolutely work in audio format(!)
Bill:
Just describe it.
Tom:
Actually, that is one of the things I've got here. Could you describe what the Digimon is?
Dani:
So a Digimon, it is a very small handheld thing, just a small rectangle. The Tamagotchis were more egg-shaped. But they are just a very tiny digital screen, three buttons, and on this digital screen, when you first turn the device on, it starts out as an egg. And then some real-world time passes, and it hatches into a little baby creature.
And much like a Tamagotchi, you have to care for it. And then in Digimon form, it grows up, it evolves, it Digivolves. And you keep feeding it, you strengthen it up, you play with it, and then you can attach it to other people's Digimon temporarily to battle with each other.
Bill:
I wonder... Robert, I have an electricity question I'd like to ask you.
Robert:
(wheezes)
Bill:
As senior electricity man on this show.
Robert:
Oh lord.
Bill:
Can a pencil complete a circuit well? Does graphite complete a...
Robert:
I mean, it is a conductive material. It can certainly be, so maybe.
Because I'm assuming you prep— Yeah, did you poke a switch with a pencil or something? Is that— I don't know what the device is like.
Bill:
They basically had two little metal prongs on the side, which you would connect up to the other, and I think that completed some kind of circuit between—
Can you just put a pencil on those prongs? And it's like, "I'm battling, I'm battling somebody. They seem to be a pencil." Does it trick it?
Tom:
(laughs)
Dani:
I never did that.
Tom:
That's really close. It's not quite on the prongs.
You might need a screwdriver as well for this.
Bill:
Prong to a...
Dani:
It's right there. I wanna get it and look.
Bill:
To a battery.
The pencil goes from the Digimon to a potato and then back out again.
Dani:
Like so many electronic devices, I'm pretty sure it did have one of those, you know, a pinhole thing that you could press. But I assume that that was just a reset button and things like that. I don't know of any other functions.
Tom:
Yeah, you wouldn't need graphite to do that. You wouldn't need something conductive.
What might the screwdriver help you do?
Dani:
Oh, so the conductivity does matter.
Tom:
Yeah.
Dani:
Was it something to do with the battery itself?
Bill:
Do you break the tip of the pencil off and stick it inside and it...
Robert:
Does something clever. (snickers)
Bill:
Does some magic?
Dani:
Yeah, a lot of electronics are magic.
Robert:
Yeah, it is basically magic, I think. All electronics are.
Tom:
So you've got a screwdriver. You can take this thing apart. And you've got a pencil.
Robert:
Right.
Tom:
What is the one thing we haven't talked about that you could do with that pencil and a disassembled Digimon?
Bill:
Write on it?
Tom:
Yeah!
Dani:
What?
Bill:
"Dear Digimon, please grow larger."
Tom:
(laughs)
Bill:
"Thank you very much."
Tom:
One very specific bit of writing. What's inside that case?
Robert:
There's going to be a little battery, I would assume, and then some... microelectronics of some sort.
Bill:
Yeah, a little tiny circuit board?
Tom:
Have a think about that circuit board.
Bill:
You can just rewire it?
Is it like you just leave, you just like draw— leave graphite as a conductor, and you're basically just rewiring the circuit board of the Digimon?
Tom:
Yep, there were two little squares on the circuit board. And if there was an electrical contact between those, you would then press the C button a lot, and time would just speed up for the Digimon.
It would just skip it forward past days in minutes, and it would grow up, and you could effectively... well, cheat, skip time forward.
There is a theory that this was put in by the manufacturer as a debug mode. So if you wanted to test later things, you didn't have to play it through.
But at some point, someone disassembled it and realised, "Oh, if you just connect that, then suddenly time flies by."
Dani:
I was a Digimon... possibly the biggest Digimon queen of my primary school. That bit of knowledge would turn you into Digimon god!
I'm very upset I didn't know this.
Tom:
This is just as the World Wide Web was coming in. So if you weren't quite online, that wasn't going to happen.
Each of our guests has brought a question with them.
We're going to start today with Bill. Whenever you're ready.
Bill:
Alright, so this question was sent in by Tim de Vries. Thank you, Tim.
In 1905, Giovanni Gerbi sculpted a small mound of mud next to a large metal bar. This would help him to victory when he sped over this location later the same day. How?
And once again for you.
In 1905, Giovanni Gerbi sculpted a small mound of mud next to a large metal bar. This would help him to victory when he sped over this location later the same day. How?
Tom:
Alright, well one of us knows about cars, and it ain't me. (laughs) Robert? Like 1905, was... Is that early enough for the Model T?
Robert:
I mean, there were cars around. I mean, they were very crude. They were essentially horse-drawn carriages with either electric motors or very simple piston engines. Combustion engines and steam. There were steam cars. 1905, there would've been, yeah, so...
But I mean, the metal rod... The metal rod, and a mound of mud.
I mean, I'm thinking he did the first Evel Knievel style jump over a stream or something in a... which just...
Dani:
I feel like I wasn't thinking dramatic enough now.
I wasn't even thinking car. I was thinking that it was a very early prototype skateboard, and he was doing the first grind on a rail.
Tom:
Sunday, Sunday, Sunday at the Greenwich Pleasure Gardens! Come and see a man leap over a small brook!
Robert:
A very small, narrow stream. And then the car will immediately collapse on the other side into pieces.
Tom:
Yeah. (laughs) Also, what was that voice?
SFX:
(group laughing)
Tom:
That was meant to be newsreel announcer, and it ended up as just a bad Alan Partridge impression.
SFX:
(guests laughing)
Robert:
I know, I was there with the newsreel. I could see it, the flickering black and white.
I can't tell. It's— That's so annoying. Lateral thinking is one of the most annoying things I've ever experienced.
Tom:
(laughs) Welcome to the show, Robert!
Dani:
Tagline of our show.
Bill:
Come on, Tom!
Dani:
New expert quote.
Robert:
Yeah, oh dear. That is so difficult to know what that is. Because when you tell us, I'm going to go, "Oh god!" and I bet it's really painfully obvious.
Tom:
Small mound of mud. Did you say over a large metal bar?
Bill:
Next to a large metal bar.
Robert:
Next to.
Dani:
But then he went over both of them later?
Bill:
He went over both of them later.
Dani:
And it said it was to victory, so there's some sort of competition aspect to it. Annoyingly, not quite an Olympic year, so I can't rely on that.
Robert:
But it's also, I mean, it wouldn't be that he did it in sort of June, and then he had to wait till January, so it was covered in snow, and then he used it as a jump for skiing, no. Because then the metal bar wouldn't— doesn't play any part in it.
Bill:
And actually, the question did say the victory was later that same day.
Robert:
Ah, sorry, later that same day, okay.
Tom:
I assumed cars, but now you've said skiing, it could be... It could be a horse race, it could be a downhill... I was gonna say bobsleigh. And I was like, "No, it's not snow". And then it was like mudsleigh, and I'm like, "That's not a word".
Robert:
Yeah.
Dani:
(giggles)
Bill:
It's in the question. My first clue is, it's a mudsleigh.
No, that's not right.
Robert:
(laughs)
Tom:
Don't use your authoritative voice for that, Bill!
Bill:
I'll use whatever voice I want.
Tom:
(laughs)
Bill:
This is my question.
Robert:
But it's also mud, so I'm thinking, I can't help thinking, like, if you'd said rocks or earth, then I can see a sort of solid lump of stuff.
But mud, I just think of as like soup. You know, so you— Building a pile of soup is quite difficult.
SFX:
(scattered snickering)
Tom:
Oh... Could this be a train? Like, some sort of railroad race or something like that.
Dani:
Is that a thing?
Tom:
I'm just thinking they had to take on water or something like that. Maybe it was something that sped up the train somehow or sped up some process of that?
Bill:
I will say... It isn't, like if you just said, "Is it a train?", we're not at the answer at all. But there is trains or train-like devices are relevant to this question.
Tom:
(cracks up) Train-like devices.
Robert:
'Cause there's a very wide range of train-like devices.
Tom:
(laughs)
Robert:
There's trains, and then there's trains. (giggles)
Dani:
To me, that implies— The first place that my head goes for train-like is that something is being dragged. There is something trailery attached at the back. 'Cause that's what trains are good for. Either that or steam.
Robert:
Yeah, or a tram, 'cause there would have been a lot of trams around, all over the world, in 1905. And a tram is sort of train-like.
And you then have a big metal bar that you grab, and then you slide down and fall in some mud. Why would you do that?
SFX:
(answerers giggling)
Tom:
Have you ever seen the European Tram Driving Championships?
Robert:
Oh, no!
Dani:
I was going to ask. Is there competitive tramming?
Tom:
There is. That is a thing that exists in Europe every year or so. A load of cities that have trams send their best drivers. And there is a competition for things like precision stopping.
Robert:
Right.
Tom:
And tram bowling. They do tram bowling with a big inflatable ball and inflatable pins.
Robert:
Wow.
Tom:
It is live streamed every year, and it is one of those weird sports that... Just, there's a lot of nerds there.
Robert:
Yeah.
Tom:
I'd love to have a go.
Robert:
Sounds great, yeah. I want to go and see it, yeah. We're not a million miles away with trams then?
Bill:
Trams, trains, that is relevant to the question.
Robert:
Right.
Bill:
I believe, I'm checking now whether it is tram or train. I think it's an...
Robert:
Okay.
Bill:
...urban train. Which is kinda like a tram.
Tom:
Alright. Alright, so how do you get victory in something like that?
Robert:
Yeah. 'Cause also, I mean, I'm assuming it's— we're talking about something that took place in Italy because of the name of the person who did this. But is that, is it in Italy?
Dani:
How old are monorails? They need a bar.
Tom:
(laughs)
Bill:
City, but yes, Italy is relevant.
Robert:
Okay.
Bill:
I will give you a hint here. The train is relevant as to the metal bar.
Robert:
Okay.
Bill:
But not so much—
Tom:
Oh, is it just the train tracks? The large metal bar is— it's just the tracks?
Bill:
Yes, so why would you have a little mound of mud? Let's say we talk about the consistency of it. It is earthy enough that you could stand on it.
Robert:
Right, okay.
Bill:
Walk on it.
Tom:
So is he trying to vault the train tracks on a race or something like that? These are gonna slow him down, and he's gonna try and...
Dani:
Get some style points.
Tom:
It's a bicycle race around Italy, or something like that, and he knows that he's gonna have to slow down for these brand newfangled train tracks that Italy has just had installed.
nd he's just gonna try and belt downhill, hit the mound of mud, (wshoof) through the sky!
Dani:
He's doing the first Getaway movie.
Tom:
He's doing the first aerial trick ever recorded in order to win a bike race. Come on, that's gotta be it!
Bill:
Tom, you were quite close...
Tom:
(laughs)
Bill:
But I'm going to say you're vastly overestimating the size of this little ramp.
Tom:
Okay, fine! (laughs)
Dani:
Was it just something silly like the bumps of a train track were annoying enough that they slowed you down? They slowed you right down?
Bill:
We're getting really close around this. It is a bicycle race. Bicycles are great, and... tracks slowing you down is also very relevant. But how would one small... mound of earth deal with train tracks? And how can train tracks slow you down if you're on a bicycle?
Tom:
Oh, I mean, you can fall off your bike. You can— That's tram tracks. That's the things embedded in— never mind.
Dani:
I mean, train tracks, to my understanding of them, can be pretty hefty. I wouldn't want to ride my bike over them.
Bill:
Yeah, what would you do instead?
Dani:
Not go near the train track. That's dangerous.
SFX:
(others laughing)
Dani:
I don't understand how that's a question.
Robert:
But if it's, you know, if it's a jump, that's the thing, is it? Because if the amount of mud is not that big, then it wouldn't really— You need a big ramp to do, you know... You need a big truckload of earth or mud.
Dani:
He's not trying to jump over it. He's just trying to get high enough that he is on it appropriately.
Tom:
He's just trying to cross the tracks without having to get off his bike.
Bill:
That's basically it. He just wants to get out from between the two train tracks without needing to get off his bike, pick it up, heft it over the track, get back on, and keep on cycling.
Tom:
Out from between the two? Had they not invented sleepers at this point? Because I imagine—
Bill:
So, let me try and paint the scene because you've basically solved it.
It is to win a bicycle race... building a little ramp to get yourself out to avoid having to... lift your bike over the train tracks.
This was for the inaugural Giro di Lombardia in 1905. And Giovanni Gerbi was a famous cyclist, and his big skill was research... and what people have called "tricks", but he refuses to acknowledge are tricks.
But in one of these cases, he makes— he always scouts the exact route before the race starts, and he scouts and he looks and he looks. And he realised that at one point of this race... there is a very, very bumpy road and a very smooth bit of road right between two new train tracks. It's all smooth, very easy to ride, but... once you get to the end, where the train tracks swerve off to the left, and you still have to go forward... you gotta get off your bike, lift it up. And all the competitors know this.
Well, he gets in early in the morning, builds himself a little mound. So he knows there's one secret area where you can just take your bike right up, keep driving, and go forward. So, when they get to that part, he's leading the track, he gets in between the train tracks, he's picking up speed, everyone goes, "Oh, he's faster in the train tracks, we're all gonna have to get out somehow. Let's jump in behind him."
Follow him through the tracks, smooth road, get to the end, turns left, everyone's getting prepared to get off their bikes, and he shoots forward, and he gets a 15— he gets a 45 second lead, and he never gets caught up again.
And he's been known for it, interviewed about it. He talks about finding these exact little tricks. And he's done it on a lot of different races. It's a pretty good strategy, and it worked well for him in 1905.
Robert:
Wow, wow.
Bill:
So this is not the only time he did this.
He also managed to win the 1907 race using ruses like having two associates slow down the chasing pack, persuading a signal man to close a railway line behind him.
SFX:
(others laughing)
Bill:
Liberal sprinking of nails on the road.
Dani:
What?!
Bill:
Also meeting up with three training partners to ride alongside at the end of the race. He was disqualified and banned for two years.
Tom:
Is this just Dick Dastardly?
Bill:
He is just Dick Dastardly.
Oh, it does also say, sorry. There is another note that says he had a little dog that rode on the back of his bike and went (kehehehe) all the time. So I don't know what's going on with that.
Tom:
Next one's from me, folks. Good luck.
Why were the words "A HIDDEN BASE" printed on one step of an escalator?
I'll say that again.
Why were the words "A HIDDEN BASE" printed on one step of an escalator?
Dani:
I mean, I've never done geocaching, but that feels like there's some shenanigans going on there.
Bill:
My brain is immediately going to, like... Don't worry about the concept of a hidden base. A hidden base has no relevance at all to the thing.
What it is, is that in French, "Achidon Basse" means "This is an escalator". And it's just how they label escalators in France.
And it's like, "Oh, isn't it fun? I'll write this in for Lateral. Because isn't it fun? It sounds like 'a hidden base'."
I don't know if that's close or whether there really is a hidden base down there. But I like the idea.
Robert:
But I'm also thinking... not a secret hideaway of a James Bond villain hidden base. You know, there could be like a base unit in an escalator mechanism that is hidden.
Why would you put a label though, to say there's a hidden base?
Bill:
Maybe so that if you see it, you're like, "Oh, that's a broken escalator. I shouldn't be able to see the hidden base. It's been yanked up out of the ground by the sheer force of the escalator. This is bad!"
Dani:
I feel like I'm now going to reveal how little I know about the mechanics behind escalators and how they work. And now just visualising in my head what the hidden step of an escalator that is never meant to be revealed where that normally goes.
It's a very uneducated picture in my head.
Bill:
(laughs) It's true.
Tom:
I love that idea that there is something hidden there, but in this case, nope. Plain to see for the world here, just those words.
Capital letters, vertical bit of the escalator.
Robert:
On the vertical bit, the front-facing bit. Okay.
Tom:
There is a word for the flat bit and the back bit of a step, and I cannot remember what either of those words are. So I'm just gonna say the vertical part.
Bill:
Just make them up.
Robert:
Right. Yeah.
Dani:
In your authoritative voice.
Tom:
Of course. Thank you, producer David. Riser and tread.
Robert:
Riser and tread, absolutely, yes.
Bill:
So it's called a riser.
Robert:
Thank you for that, yeah. I didn't know that.
Bill:
Oh! I have a question.
Tom:
Oh... yes?
Bill:
I have a question. Does anybody know all of the words...
Tom:
(chuckles softly)
Bill:
to the Star Wars: A New Hope screen as it comes in?
Dani:
Oh my god!
Bill:
And is one of those "a hidden base"?
I can imagine that 'cause an escalator has many steps. One of them says "a hidden base", but the other ones say, "A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away".
Robert:
Far away, yes.
Tom:
"It is a period of civil war. Rebel spaceships striking from a hidden base."
Robert:
From a hidden base! Oh my god!
Dani:
Well done!
Tom:
Complete the picture for us. What's going on here?
Robert:
Here's the most important thing. It would only be visible on an up escalator.
Because if you went on a down escalator, you're not going to see it. So it's an escalator you're going up on, and you're seeing— and presumably if you wait for the right time, there's the beginning of that disappearing text will go, and it will also disappear.
So just like in the movie, I'm assuming. I mean, I would love to see it.
Tom:
Yeah, this is, or at least at some point was, on the escalator in the City Hall of Tel Aviv.
Someone had stencilled in the entire first bit of the Star Wars text crawl on the escalator that goes up.
Robert:
Wow.
Dani:
That's a lovely bit of fun.
Robert:
That is amazing. That is amazing.
Dani:
Thank you, Bill. I was very much about to start writing out the words "a hidden base" and try to anagram them. And that wasn't going to go well.
Tom:
(laughs)
Bill:
Unnecessary.
Tom:
Dani, over to you for the next question.
Dani:
Excellent. This question has been sent in by Katherine Q. Thank you so much.
The Egyptian king Pepi II Neferkare reduced his annoyance by ordering other people to be covered in 'liquid gold'. Why?
One more time for you.
The Egyptian king Pepi II Neferkare reduced his annoyance by ordering other people to be covered in 'liquid gold'. Why?
Bill:
He's a freak.
Robert:
I mean, if you were covered in liquid gold, you would also be dead because you can't have liquid gold without it being quite hot. (laughs)
Tom:
Gold suspended in liquid, sure. Gold paint on liquid gold.
Robert:
Yeah.
Tom:
That's... yeah.
Bill:
I guess those people were his annoyances.
SFX:
(group laughing)
Bill:
He reduced them by killing them by covering them in liquid gold.
Tom:
Still a valid strategy these days, apparently(!)
Robert:
Yeah, yeah.
Bill:
Apparently.
Robert:
I've met some people I'd like to have covered in liquid gold in my time.
SFX:
(Tom and Bill laugh)
Tom:
It does seem a waste of perfectly good gold, though.
Robert:
Yes. (laughs)
Dani:
It's a difficult balance, because on the one hand, you get rid of them. On the other hand, there they are, immortalised in a very glorified sort of way.
Robert:
Yeah, yeah.
Bill:
Maybe that was it. Maybe he loved to sculpt golden statues, but he did find it very annoying.
So he streamlined the process, like, "You're my model. I'm gonna cover you in liquid gold. Look what I made! What a great pharaoh I am."
Tom:
Isn't there some TV series? I'm thinking a Game of Thrones thing or something like that, that used it as a... as a torture, murder plot or something like that?
Bill:
Yeah. They kill Daenerys' brother, giving him a crown of gold. And they pour the molten gold on his head, and he goes, "Ah, my head! I'm all golden! I'm dead now!"
Tom:
(laughs)
Bill:
I believe is what he says.
Dani:
Very luckily, before we get too elaborate into the murder methods... this is not quite as macabre as all that.
Robert:
Ah, okay.
Dani:
It is not that intense. And the people certainly weren't happy, but they did survive.
Robert:
Ah, okay.
Tom:
Alright.
Robert:
Okay so, it wasn't molten gold, then? It can't have been.
Bill:
Mm, just liquid.
Tom:
It must be in a suspension or something like that, so you can apply it as paint, alright.
Robert:
Paint? But why would you do it? I mean, that's the other thing. If you don't like them, you know...
Bill:
Yeah, what's gonna annoy you so much that you think, "You know what? I'm just gonna cover people in gold. I've been trying, I'm just gonna cover them in gold. Can we just get this done? Just cover some people in gold."?
What's the annoyance that leads to that?
Dani:
That's a good question. What annoyance?
Bill:
What problem does this solve?
Dani:
And annoyance is a very appropriate term.
Robert:
But he's— This is a pharaoh that's doing this, an Egyptian pharaoh type person.
Bill:
Hmm.
Robert:
Who I've never heard of. Because I thought you said Pepe, which I then... (cracks up) What was his name again? Pe—
Dani:
Yeah, he is Pepi II Neferkare to give it fully.
Robert:
Okay.
Tom:
Okay, I'm thinking about annoyances here. I am annoyed by mosquitos.
Dani:
Yeah.
Tom:
Is he... really consistently bugged by mosquitos in the... Cairo and the Nile Delta where he lives? And, honestly, this was a random guess, and I'm starting to believe this in my own head.
Bill:
Chase it, chase it.
Tom:
There's so many mosquitos, they're annoying him, and mosquitos are attracted to shiny things. That's crows. Never mind, that's crows.
SFX:
(Robert and Dani cackle)
Robert:
And magpies.
Bill:
The mosquito's just the crow of the bug world. Keep going, keep going!
Tom:
(laughs)
Dani:
We can keep rolling with this, because you are incredibly close.
Not mosquitoes, but flies. Flies is exactly what was annoying him.
Tom:
Alright.
Bill:
Is "liquid gold" just another term for honey?
And they were just sticky honey people, and all the flies landed on them and went, "Mmm, I'm not going to bother the pharaoh, there's honey"?
Dani:
You are 100% right. You're on a roll today.
Bill:
(laughs triumphantly)
Dani:
Liquid gold, the very poetic phrasing for it.
Robert:
Yeah.
Dani:
It was indeed. This was— This pharaoh— I don't know when this was particularly in his reign, but he started his reign very young.
So for all I know, this was a thing that he came up with when he was a 12 year old.
Robert:
A kid, right.
Dani:
A pharaoh who didn't mind bothering other people. But boy, those Egyptian flies, they really got to him.
So to make the flies go to other people instead, what better way than to cover them in honey?
SFX:
(Tom and Bill crack up)
Robert:
Wow, wow. But then I don't—
I'm now intrigued because are flies... I mean, I accept the explanation, but I'm just wondering, are flies attracted to honey? I think of flies as being attracted to really quite unpleasant things, like rotting meat, faeces... You know, that's what flies like. Bees like honey.
Bill:
Yeah, I've heard that you can catch more flies with vinegar than with honey.
SFX:
(group giggling)
Dani:
Yeah, I do grant you. I have nothing in here that mentions the level of success.
Robert:
Yes. (laughs)
Tom:
We need a control group covered in honey and one group covered in vinegar.
Robert:
Yes, to see.
Tom:
And... (laughs)
Dani:
In addition, like we say, maybe he did this when he was 12.
But he also had a potentially extremely long reign, this pharaoh. Sources differ, but there are some that go as far as a very optimistic 94 years.
So maybe it's the exact opposite. He was a really crotchety old pharaoh, and he was getting his revenge on those around him.
Tom:
(laughs) Sometimes I look at a question, and I'm like, "Oh, this is..." We'll see how this goes. Good luck.
A company sold printer ink for £40. They were able to sell their ink bundled with a free colour inkjet printer worth £100 and still make a substantial profit. How?
I'll say that again.
A company sold printer ink for £40. They were able to sell their ink bundled with a free colour inkjet printer worth £100 and still make a substantial profit. How?
Robert:
I mean, the thing that confuses me, having just been through some printer trauma...
SFX:
(guys crack up)
Robert:
is that that is the business model.
That is the business model of the printing industry, is you buy a, you know, an amazingly good, very, very cheap printer, and you go, "Oh my god, this is amazing. And it only costs 150 quid. And look at that, that's incredible! It's like a beautiful colour photograph."
And then you go, "Oh, we need some more ink. Aaagh!" When you see how much the ink is.
Dani:
We absolutely, we buy a new printer when we run out of ink.
SFX:
(Tom and Bill laugh)
Robert:
It's cheaper to buy a new printer. It is cheaper, yeah, yeah.
Bill:
It's cheaper.
Dani:
Just with the ink that's already built in there. It's probably not much, but it's enough.
Tom:
There was a wonderful guide on which printer to buy, that I can't remember which site put it up, and it's just: buy whichever this brand printer is currently on sale. They're the ones that haven't been ruined by expensive ink, terrible software, everything like that, just buy that one.
And then it follows with, "And now, here is 500 words generated by ChatGPT on the subject of printers, because my boss won't let me file an article this short."
SFX:
(guests laughing)
Bill:
Printer ink, I feel like printer ink is... always at the forefront of all the really, really, kind of... evil capitalism stuff. I think it's always at the forefront of like... "Oh, we've set it up so that the... you have to buy this ink, even though you don't need it because you've run out of one colour, and the computer will not allow you to print without that colour."
Tom:
Yeah.
Robert:
Yeah.
Bill:
And, like... "Oh, we're going to make subscription ink services, or this one's gonna scan QR codes on your ink" and just like...
Tom:
Yes.
Bill:
...tell you every bad commercial thing that spreads to other industries, I feel starts in the ink world.
Robert:
(cackles)
Dani:
Even the tracing you, 'cause don't printers have really good identifiers for which printer a document came from and things like that?
Bill:
Yeah, forensics could use them.
Tom:
Yep, to avoid counterfeiting and forgery and things like that.
Honestly, Robert, you sort of nailed the business model thing at the start here. This is to do with the printer ink business model. But in this case, they're selling their ink and a free printer. So there's some shenanigans going on here.
Dani:
I feel like for a lot of printers, you have to buy their ink. You have no other options. I don't know, again, don't know anything about how the interiors of any device works. So I don't know what magic it is to do that.
But I would really assume that it's just, yeah, they can afford to give away a $150 printer because you're gonna have to spend $10,000 on ink for it, and it has to be theirs. You can't get it anywhere else.
Tom:
That printer that they were selling... box had already been opened. It was as new, but it wasn't completely new.
Bill:
This is what I was wondering. I wonder if the— 'Cause we gotta think. We're just thinking very straightforward. "I don't like ink companies."
Dani:
Yes, this is true.
SFX:
(Bill and Robert laugh)
Dani:
It's hard to get past.
Bill:
We're just barreling straight down into the HP and be like, "get outta here!"
But we've got to think. We've gotta jump off to the side. We've got to be lateral. And I wonder, like you said, Robert, you can just get these printers, right? It's very easy to get them. They're cheap.
Robert:
Yeah.
Bill:
Is this how the printer, the ink company... Is the ink company going to a local Officeworks... And enter whatever your region's Officeworks is. I don't need to Google what this is in America. And just going, just getting all the cheap, cheap, cheap, cheap printers, grab it, and then just reselling them with their ink in it?
Is that, they just take it off the shelves, and you're like, "they're free"?
Tom:
Spot on.
Bill:
(laughs) That cannot be legal!
Tom:
So, they bought the printers at wholesale prices, so probably for less than £100, extracted 120 quid's worth of ink from each of them, sold that, then also sold their original ink cartridges for a profit as well...
Bundling in a free printer, because at that point, you're doing them a favour by taking the printer off their hands. Also, we try and have sourcing on these questions.
The question writers and David, the producer try and put together something that says, "This is the source of this." Source on this: "personal anecdote". David has bought one of those printers.
SFX:
(guests laughing heartily)
Tom:
Last guest question of the show, then.
Robert, over to you. You get to find out here that it is a lot more fun asking the questions.
SFX:
(group laughing)
Robert:
Well... thank you very much.
This question has been sent in by an anonymous listener. This is the question:
In the 18th century, people living on New England's coast would bury something in their yard instead of throwing it in their trash. This was so their neighbours would not know how poor they were. What were they hiding?
In the 18th century, people living on New England's coast would bury something in their yard/garden, we might call it instead of throwing it in their trash. This was so their neighbours would not know how poor they were. So what were they hiding?
Bill:
You know, sometimes... you don't— you have an idea, and you think... "I've done it. I've cracked this one. I've got this." So, I'm not even going to say it, because I don't want to ruin the show by getting it right quickly. But if I don't say it...
Tom:
I'm having the same thing.
Bill:
I might just be like, well, I could just be wrong. Maybe I meant to say it so they can go, "No, dummy".
Tom:
(laughs) I'm thinking exactly the same thing here.
Bill:
Who wants to go first? 'Cause they're probably different ideas.
Dani:
I'll let you battle it out. I got nothing.
SFX:
(group laughing)
Tom:
Because this is always the awkward thing with these shows. Someone thinks they know, it's like, "Oh, I think if I go in on this, it's gonna get it."
Alright, Bill, what did you have?
Bill:
Okay, my only fact about things in New England that used to be for poor people, but is not necessarily for poor people now...
Dani:
That's where I was going.
Bill:
...is lobster.
Tom:
Yep. Yeah, we were all going for this one.
Bill:
Years ago, everyone was like, "Lobster, that comes from the ocean! I wouldn't eat that. I only eat things that graze on grass! Only the poor eat lobster! All the rich folk eat nothing but guinea fowl and pheasant!"
Right?
SFX:
(others giggling)
Bill:
That was going on in New England. And they hadn't lost the accent yet, because that's how all English people said.
Tom:
And I was thinking they don't have any municipal trash pickup or anything like that. It's the 18th century.
Robert:
Yeah.
Bill:
Yeah, so—
Tom:
You've gotta get rid of your waste somehow.
Bill:
Mm, and if you put it in just a normal— even if they had rubbish pickup, you'd put it out the front.
And your neighbours would look over and be like, "Geoffrey, Geoffrey, do you see? They've got a lobster in their trash! Oh, look at the poor person eating lobster!"
Tom:
Genuine 18th century accent there. Spot on, Bill.
Bill:
This is how they sounded! Talk to a linguist! This is the accent!
SFX:
(others giggling)
Bill:
In the South, that's how— Shakespeare sounded like Southern England, and New England sounded exactly like this.
Dani:
Tom, I hear you know nothing about linguistics.
Bill:
Yeah, you dummy!
SFX:
(Tom, Bill, and Dani laugh)
Tom:
Robert, have we done the thing where we've given you a question, and then immediately solved it?
Robert:
You've immediately solved the question. You've got it absolutely 100% right, yeah.
SFX:
(others laughing)
Robert:
Yes, it was lobsters. Which, yeah. And it was—
Bill:
But does it say anything about the voice?
Robert:
It doesn't mention the voice, no, no.
I have been in New England. I sat in a bar in New England and listened to people speaking. And I didn't understand what they were saying, because their accent was so weird in comparison with my boring British one.
Yeah, but anyway, yes, no, I mean it is... When I read it, I went, "I don't think I'd know that". And then I went, "Actually, I think I might've worked that one out".
SFX:
(others laughing)
Robert:
That whole story about... you know now that lobsters got him.
And I love those things that were like... Caviar. Caviar was like, yeah, whatever, you know. Now it's become this incredibly expensive thing. There's quite a lot of foodstuffs that have done that over the years that were...
Bill:
I feel like the other really interesting one specifically, if we stay in that corner of the world, geographically, was New York and oysters.
And there used to be so many oysters. They got to Manhattan, and they're just like... there's nothing but oysters here. That a lot of the old roads in Manhattan used to just be made of oyster. There's an oyster street, and it was called "oyster street" because the entire road was made with just crushed up oyster shell.
Because there was so much of it until they overfarmed it.
Robert:
The other one is the Dickensian times, I didn't know this, that... London pie companies would bulk out their beef pies with oysters that were caught in the River Thames.
Which, if you can imagine the state of the River Thames now, it's not that good, but back in that time...
Dani:
Oh boy.
Tom:
Oh... And they're filter feeders, aren't they?
Robert:
They are filter feeders.
Dani:
(cackles)
Tom:
Oh!
Robert:
Do not... Why anyone eats a thing that lies on the bottom of the sea and is a filter feeder... what does that tell you? I've never had an oyster—
Dani:
Mrs. Lovett doesn't seem so bad anymore, does she?
Robert:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SFX:
(Bill and Robert laugh)
Robert:
Anyway, yes, so there you got it very, very, very quickly. Annoyingly quickly, I'd call that.
SFX:
(Dani and Bill laugh)
Robert:
So, no, you're absolutely right.
It was the poorer people couldn't afford, you know... I suppose it's turf. They couldn't afford turf. They could only afford surf.
SFX:
(Dani and Bill laugh)
Robert:
So, they were ashamed of it.
And also, I think, because I do remember the— in my grandmother's house, she said that's where the midden was. And the midden was where you chucked— because you didn't have dustbins, and you only threw away, basically, you only had organic stuff to throw away. But when people dig up middens now, they'll find stone jars and some glass things will survive.
And so I suppose if you threw your shells on the midden, everybody would go, "Oh my god, look at the lobster shells on their midden".
SFX:
(Robert and Dani laugh)
Robert:
So it would be a way of you— but you'd bury it in the hope that they wouldn't see it.
It is odd because I think there's other clues to the state of your wealth. Not just shells in your backyard, you know.
Tom:
Which brings us to the question I asked right at the start. I asked the audience:
Which 1983 hit can cause dogs to circle on the spot every few seconds?
Before I give the answer, does anyone have any pop memories of 1983 that they want to suddenly bring to the table?
Robert:
I'm afraid I do, because I'm that old.
SFX:
(Dani and Tom laugh)
Robert:
The one I'm thinking of, and I don't know whether it would do that with a dog. I can't imagine a dog doing that, it's 'Too-rye-aye', and I'm trying to remember the name of the band. (hums repetitive riff) That one.
Tom:
That is Come On Eileen by Dexys Midnight Runners.
Robert:
Come On Eileen by Dexys Midnight Runners. Thank you. Was it that?
Bill:
♪ Come on Eileen, you know what I mean? ♪
Dani:
♪ How many songs can we sing before getting censored? ♪
Tom:
Before I get a copyright claim.
Bill:
But I had to get to the line:
♪ Now my dog, he is circling ♪
Tom:
Heyyy! There we go.
Dani:
What makes a dog circle?
Robert:
Yeah, I don't know.
Dani:
Just being tired and wanting a good flat place to sleep.
Bill:
Something too high-pitched freaks the dog out.
Robert:
Or chasing its tail. Could be...
Bill:
Chasing its tail.
Dani:
I have no idea what sound would prompt a dog to do that.
Tom:
There's a certain two-word phrase in the lyrics here.
Bill:
Is there a command to make a dog circle?
"Circle up! Hey, circle up, dog!"
SFX:
(Tom and Robert laugh)
Robert:
Circle up.
Tom:
It's not "circle up".
It's two words that, honestly, you could ask a human to do this with. You wanted someone to just, kind of...
Bill:
Get down.
Tom:
circle on the spot... what would you tell him to do?
Robert:
Spin around.
Bill:
Turn around. Jump around! Jump around! For House of Pain.
Robert:
You spin me right round, baby, right round?
Was that '83? That was probably around there.
Tom:
Oh, I thought you got—! Close, you actually said the words. You said the words. Bill said "turn around".
Robert:
Oh, turn around, turn around!
Bill:
♪ Turn around, every now and then I get a— ♪
Dani:
It's Total Eclipse of the Heart! (laughs)
Tom:
There we go! Yes, there are several viral videos of dogs who hear Total Eclipse of the Heart.
Dani:
No!
Robert:
(wheezes)
Tom:
Whether they've been trained to do this or not, I couldn't tell you, but there are several videos of dogs being played Bonnie Tyler and turning around.
Dani:
That's outrageous.
Tom:
On that, thank you very much to all our players.
Bill, Dani, we'll start with you. Where can people find you? What are you up to?
Bill:
If you want to check out all of our shows, you can check out Escape This Podcast for audio escape rooms, including a recent episode with Tom and the producer, David, if you want to actually hear his sultry voice, which is a wizard barbershop room.
And we also have a show called Solve This Murder where we do murder mysteries.
You can check 'em all out. Google the names, they'll pop up.
Tom:
And Robert.
Robert:
Oh, well, you can listen— If you Google the Fully Charged Show on YouTube or whatever you do, and there's— we do a podcast called the Fully Charged Show podcast. Incredibly imaginative title.
And we also do another channel called Everything Electric, which is everything electric that isn't a car.
So there you go. That's— Those are the things I'm working on.
Tom:
Thank you very much to all of you.
If you wanna know more about this show, you can do that at lateralcast.com. We are at @lateralcast basically everywhere, and there are video highlights multiple times a week at youtube.com/lateralcast.
With that, thank you very much to Robert Llewellyn.
Robert:
Thank you very much. Good bye.
Tom:
Dani Siller.
Dani:
Thank you. Always a pleasure.
Tom:
And Bill Sunderland.
Bill:
I'd never eat a lobster!
Tom:
(laughs) I've been Tom Scott, and that's been Lateral.
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