Psychological Effects of Winning the Lottery

House of the Dragon is backack, and so is the official podcast. Join hosts, Gretta Johnson and Jason Concepion on HBO Max's official House of the Dragon podcast, as they break down every episode and speak with the show's writers, cast, and crew members. It's an all out war in Westeros, and you never know what to expect when battling with dragons Watch the official Game of Thrones podcast, House of the Dragon on HBO Max, or listen wherever you get your podcasts Summer is a gift the gift of days that last a little longer. Brighter state of mind So giveift yourself a new Kia at the Kia Summer Sticker sales event, Epecially tacked vehicles including the Sorrento, Sportage, Carnival, as well as the Nurohybrid All all backed by a ten year one hundred thousand mile limited powertrain warranty. So the gift of summer can keep on giving for summers to come. Kia Movement that inspires. Call eight hundred three thirty four Ka Freeetails hostosta free event and seven hundred six twenty six S dealer for warranty details Hei everyone, welcome to this week's episode of No Such Things A Fish, where I, James Harkin, was replaced by the wonderful Jamie Morton. That's right. James is away but subbing in is Jamie, who you may know as one of the hosts of the brilliant My Dad Roda Porno podcast. It's so funny, it was an absolute globe straddler and it's still available to listen everywh you get Your podcast so do give that a lesson Biger news though for us personally, because we are returning to the London podcast Festival. We will be there on Saturday the twelfth of September at King's Place in North London and Andy. It's not just gonna be one show. It's gonna be two. We're doing not only a live normal episode of Fish, which we're very excited about, but for the first time ever we're going to be doing a live Drop is a line That is It's our audience feedback show. I present it. There are a lot of wacky format points. It's great fun. and we're going to be doing it live for the first time ever. It's going to be Mayhem. It's going to be great fun for Andy and probably the audience. Not so much great fun for me Dan and Anna, but you know, anyway, if you cannot be in London on that date, then do not worry because both of these shows will be live streamed and they will be available onl But how do people get tickets, Andy? Well, tickets are going to be on sale from the seventh of July, Tuesday the seventh of July. You can get tickets at no such thing as afish. com slash live. And if you are already a clubfish member, there is a twenty four hour pre sale exclusively for you and to guarantee your tickets, all you need to do is go to patreonot com slash Clubfish, join now, get access to that pres sale. Absolutely. so go there to get your tickets. Go to your normal podcast provider to listen to my Dad wrroe topono. But before all that, sit back and relax and enjoy this episode of No Such Things A Fish with Jamie Morton. Okay, on with the podcast. On with the show I know that Hello and welcome to another episode of No Such Th is a Fish, a weekly podcast coming to you from the QI offices in Hoburn. My name is Dan Schreiber, I am sitting here with Andrew Hunter Murray, Anna Tosinsky, and Jamie Morton, and once again we have gathered around the microphones with our four favorite facts from the last seven days, and in a particular order here we starting with fact number one, that is Jamie. My fact this week guys is A Titanic passenger credited swimming in the salt waterater pool the morning of the sinking with helping him survive. As then he'd already he was used to it Well he thought, you know, I've already done this salt water thing. I swimm pool. I didn't realize there was a swimming pool on the Titanic. I should have guessed there would be because obviously it was so luxurious. but very luxurious. onene of the first ever swimming pools to be on any kind of luxury liner. Salt water as well. So you really did acclimatize to the sinking. Does that help? It doesn't matter if you've trained in a chlorinated pool and then you end up in the sea and you're like, I don't how to swim in this one? But we'll never know. There's something quite nice about it because we know that the band kept playing for a long time. I can imagine maybe the lifeguard at the pool kept the pool safe rightight to the end, you know, until the pool just got bigger and bigger and bigger. Yes. actuallyctually because it was a heated pool as well So actually if you were in the pool as it sank, you probably had a better chance of surviving the initial swim because you were still in heated water. As long as you traveveled with that batch of heated water. If you're swimming in the swiming pool, are you technically sinking though? Bea you're just really just still swimming So you can just pretend that I'm just swimming in the swimmingool even though swimmingool is like, you know, right?ic. Yeah yeah. Well this guy, so he his name was Archibald Gracy IV and he came from quite a prominent family. His ancestors had built What is now the mayayor's house in New York. So Mandami lives in Gracy Mansion. Yes go. Yeah, yeah, Gracy Mansion. Yeah. So he came from good stock. He was a first class passenger and said a few things about why he survived it, but he said his swim made him really hungry. so he had a really hearty breakfast. so that might have helped him as well in the survival process later on that evening. when he was in the water itself. energy Yeah, And he'd read a book recently as well about something to do with wreckx and extreme survival. so he felt like, o, that's in my head as well. We've all had that. You come out of the cinema having watched an action film, you think you're James Bond for about twenty minutes. Yeah Yeah really held, is? Yeah. Archibal Gracy IVth, by the way, these are his dates eighteen fifty eight to nineteen twelve Okay. died the same year the Titanic sack He was the first person to die. He was the first adult adult survivor to die. Was he? Yeah. And did he wasas it swimming related again or was it? Did he jump into an empty swimming pool on land? And that was the tragic It's really ye tragic diabetes Okay, o sorry. In fact about this, swimming pools are getting colder in the UK Okay Why?a Wh Why do my Twilight Zone scriptps keep getting rejected Is it a mystery? willle riddle me there? Right, okay. It's not a mystery. Is it environmental reasons very close. Is it because we think the young need to toughen up? No Jen said, Get them used a bit of ice cold water, has? I. Is it because it's more ocean based pools? It's now tidal pools and so on. Oh, very good. That's just because it's very expensive to heat up a swimming pool. huge volume of water to thirty degrees. and all councils are broke and canncils run most of the pools.. But there is one place in Devon, Exmouth Legure Centre, which for three years has had the answer. What is it? What's the answer? Oh you just keep putting the kettle on and running out the swimming pool choppping it up. didnidn't we do a fout about one D you start building them next to Morgues in the cremation Territory? Yeah, yeah yeah there is one. either Reddit or Redding, which is using a no, this one is using the most modern of all things, a data center. Oh, very good. tiny data center. Apparently it's only the size of a washing machine, so I don't know how much data it's pumping out. So AI is heating our pools as well as basically yeah and are computers with the data center' surrounded by oil And that just go through a heat exchanger. pats out the water. Lovely. Brillant idea. Lovely. Maybe they're not so bad after all these data centers. gosh. In the White House, there was a swimming pool in the White House that's the press briefing room is now above it and it's just an empty swimming pool and it's full of data servers. So they keep all of their old computers in the pool But the pool' empty. The pool's empty I should fill it up. Well Well, I know, right But no FDR got this pool built in the White House because he had health issues for Pio. Yeah, I dont think it helped with his you know, whatever. But then Nixon wanted to get rid of it, but he was too afraid of the potential political backlash of demolishing FDR's pool that he just built on top of it So the pool's actually still under there, and they just use to keep lo of like wires anders in there. Yeah. I know Have anyone been to the skypool nearbse power station? Oh no, I didn't think they were allowed. No you be if you befriend a resident Have you I was like, No, I really want to you. If if anyone's listening and wants to have Visa plus one, I'd love to go and swim in it. Right. Be it's how you befriend people, Jamie. Is that you don't announce on podcasts that you want to use people for their facilities. And I'm lonely. Okay p. That'. That's one to look out But It's really cool, if you see it's like it's all glass. It actually isn' glass it's made of Acrylic. o. Oh. I know yeah, very good. And it's so cool. It's like you're swimming in the sky. It's completely see througher. And it's between two buildings right? Yeah it's hanging. Yeah ye Yeah. But it's bad because there's some social housing in that building and they aren't allowed to use it. Oh really? Ego. What is not allowed in French pools? swwimming pools? I know the answer Like swimming shorts. Yes. Oh yes. Beuse I knew there were rules for you know, various kind of restrictions on clothes like sort of they have lots of laws about burkers and things like that. then there are burkinis or there's all sorts of stuff. But for men Just swimming shorts are completely verbotim. They need to go Why France? You need to wear Ansip d bin, which is the extremely small. Speedo stuff G string It's not they are it's a G string. But they're very, very short. You can wear unboxer, but those are also extremely form hugging And this dates back to nineteen oh three. and there are a few just to fceall all any emails. there are a few sort of perverted holiday centers which do allow shorts, but they're extremely unfrench. And most public swimming pools in France, if you go along and try and get in swimming shorts, you'll have to take something from the lost property box. You're talking to someone who's dinner? Get out. No. Yeah, as a small boy, as a child We went holiday and yeah, we didn't have spepeedos And so I My parents didn't say, Oh, it's all right. We'll go and buy some and you come back tomorrow. They said there's a lost property bin fish something out. And so I did. I was wearing some French persons Wow Very, very Sleander Yeah piece of fabric. But it's because what's the thinking behind it? Yeahah? Because they they think that the shorts are kind of unhygienic because people tend to wear them that every day Yeah. it's covered in dirt. So I mean, it is logical It does make sense. also I' literally you guys have never turned up to the podcast wearing the swimming trunks. ever. On holiday though, you would. You'd like maybe go for dinner with them or town Yeah roll around in mud and you guys h the day. Everyone's wearing a t on my. I once got in trouble in a swimming pool in I want to say Romania. I was in the pool with my uncle and my nephew, my nephew really young at the time, who were in the kids pool. and they got out of the pool And suddenly All the children started leaving the pool and all the parents and a man started yelling at me, couldn't understand what he was yelling. So I was just alone in the kids pool and you were a kid as well. I'm like in my late twenties. Okay. And what it was was it's boiling hot. It was an outside pool and I had my rashi, as you wear into the surf in Australia, rash vest The guy thought I was a homeless man who had got into the pool and was washing myself. And so he was yelling out you homeless man. and that's what got translated to me by one of the locals. They think you don't have at home. What's a rashi? Oh, it's like, you know, a body drink sof to wear it. No no. Sorry, just. It looks like a wetuit but a t sht but it's ye Oh right, okay to protect from the sun's rays. Yes, exxactly.. Yeah. What was your vibe generally back then? It was the beard a bit less? Long hair, quite beard. To be fair, I was like, I totally get where you're coming from. And you had all your plastic bags with you right Hey, listen, another thing you're allowed to do in pools is petting. petting. Sorry Heavy ping. Yeah. Have a weew Oh that It's really frowned upon. I don't know if there's official rules that don't allow it, but it feels like a huge oversight because physiologically to pee in pools Sorry? Our body You really are the homeless man actually. We take it back. As I said to the lifeguard, I have built to pee in here. Why do you have an uncontrollable urge to urinate when you're in a pool? It's your body reacting to your surroundings, right? One of the responses is that they let more water out of the bloodstream into our kidneys and that's converted into urine to get out of there so that we regulate ourselves. That's so interesting. That's I've never wondered why you always need to pee in water. This is a big problem, obviously for Olympians who have to get into their swimsuits twenty minutes beforehand. they're locked in, they go in the water. So in most interviews, if they're asked, do you pee in the pool? they also say, yeah, of course, we all pee in the pool. And also it can propel you forwards if it''s strong enough. If you've got a good stream. ye. Do you know what happens You've got a swimming pool and you empty it Let's say it's winter. you think don't need use this anymore. I could use it for likeoring all of your hard drivers. Eact. Thatll make it easier for the police to just parcel them all up when they pop over. Yeah. So as we're establishing, there's no good reason I guess to entty your pool in the winter, but you might want to. But it pops out of the ground D don't do it S swimmingools if you empty the water, it's actually what's keeping them in the ground. It's weighing them down. so it's a bingord. And the swimming pools, it's called like pop up syndrome in the swimming pool engineer world. peopleople empty their pools out and not properly, then yeah, all the walls cave in And they just jump up. They just sound like a complete fff much have too much Yeah. And elitist. And elitist. if anyone does have access to that pool in London, I do go. Swimming pools lost one of its great champions the other day. Oh no. David Hogney. Oh. David Hockney, the artist, famous artist who loved painting swimming pools. in fact, he had a painting which went for ninety million which was to someone swimming, someone standing over it. in all the obituaries, you might have seen that exact painting is quite famously associated with him. But I found out that not only did he love painting pools But he loved painting pools. David Hockney literally painted the inside of the pools as well. So was that just a misunderstanding where someone hired him to do that one He's not realizing repaint my pool. Yeah. nineteen million. Gess out. Yeah, that was a hobby of his. When he moved to his new house at one point, it had a pool and it was empty and he painted these waves underneath and he used to repaint it all the time On his eightieth birthday in fact, he spent the day repainting. So he painted designs on you. Yeah exactly. I thought you just meant like painting a a uniform color like matte all over the. No, exactly. It's like little wave. So in fact, there's a pool America called the Tropcana Pool. It's the Hollwood Roosevelt Hotel. And that still has the Hockney painting underneath of all these lines of blue. It looks really cool. lookooks amazing. I've tried painting underwater, I haven't, but I imagine it wouldn't work. You take the water out first? So he does empty the pool. Yeah. How's he doing it? That man is a magician in so many ways. I have one last thing. One of the great moments in recent swimming popularity is Vimhof. Oh amazing Ice Man. He likes to swim in fountains. so I just want to give you a little warning about swimming in fountains because Quite a few years ago, he was swimming in a fountain in Amsterdam And he decided to give himself an enema on the nozzle of the jet in the fountain. Now he'd done it before and he was meeting his son in that part. He was needed him Can. He decided to give himself another enema What he didn't know is that a few weeks earlier the city had altered the jet be more powerful than it was. Yes. And so when he placed his anus over the jed according to the report, the water cut through his colon and intestine say Oh Oh my God. And he had to be rushed to hospital by his son. Now because he's such a hard man, when he got to hospital, they thought he was fine. He was probably dying in that moment, but they were like, o, he's totally fine. And so he just lay there for ages. they didn't do any proper surgery on him. Yeah, they didn't realize to what the extent of the damage was.. So after a few hours he fainted and they suddenly realized how bad it was and they stitched him up. but it took a long time for him to recover. so do not give yourself enemas. Wh fant phrase, I have no sympathy for that. was it Jesus Christ.use it sounds like it's going to be a funny like he just goes flying into the air, but actually's a very serious medical thing he went. You That's why if you're not a cartoon character, a lot of things are more dangerous. But why to meet his son That's what I'm really. If you've got time to go before an appointment and you think, I'll just give myself a quick anima, you know. Okay. Look I sympathize. D on a whim Oh Really good. Really good. Really good. Let's end on that. Summer is a gift. the gift of days that last a little longer, a brighter state of mind. So givet yourself a new Kia at the KIA Summer Sticker sales event, Epecially tackged vehicles including the Srento, Sportage, Carnival, as well as the Nio Hybrid, all backed by a ten year one hundred thousand mile limited powertrain warranty, so the gift of summer can keep on giving for summers to come Kia, Mment that inspires. Call eight hundred thirty three four K for details, host does a free event and seven six twenty six S deala for wary details Okay, it is time for fact number two and that is Andy. My fact is, in nineteenth century Egypt, one of the sexiest dances imaginable involved pretending you had a bee inside your clothes. go on, let's see. Well I was reading a book about Cleopatra's needeles and how they came to be there are a few of them and two of them are in London and New York, respectively. And it's not as bad a story as you might think from the century they came over in. Anyway, it just contained this side detail, this book, all about the dancers of Egypt And this dance, the dance of the bee, sometimes dance of the wasp Basically, this was catnip to of white middle aged blokes from Europe who were enticed to Egypt by the sound of this unbelievably alluring dance. It The Bangkok of its time. It was the Bangkok of its time. It basically was. and you know, the dancer will pretend there's a bee in her clothes and takes them off one by one. and you can see where that goes hly. cially take them off at a frantic mad speed because that's what you would do isn't it? I imagine she' just ha doing a sort of seductively' the sexiest. I think she probably finds a way of spittning it out and making it a bit more fun than you the sort of everyone has a friend who doesn't like bees at all and know will go a Tonto when there's be anyw near them. So I think she doesn't do that. Are there connoisseurs that can tell the difference between Dance of the Bee and Dance of the Wp? I'm sure there are. Yeah. I'm sure there are. I'm sure this led to a lot of connoisseurs making a journey down to Cairo or whatever. But there was this whole group of women called the Gaazi who lived apart, spoke a different language. They were street performers and they were You quuite controversial in Egypt. They were seen as immodest. were se they were described by one writer, Edward Lane as the most abandoned courarttesans of Egypt. And they were in fact, they were so attractive, they were expelled from Cairo en masse, you know, as a social grouping and they were exiled to upper Egypt which on a map is just below U Northern Egypt. It's belowower Egypt because that's where the nile flows. Be that's where the nile flowes ye yeah yeah. So yeah, the Gaisie and they have this dance of the Be. And was there any It's sort of a pun. Was there the quQeen bee of the dancers that were sort of leading the rage?'t know you don't look so I I really enjoy being pre warned about the fun. Yeah to get that. Yeahah yeah. I wish James would do that, and we can all steal ourselves. Sorry go on. I don't think there was. I don't think it was a quQeen be Well, you may have found differently though. I no, I mean there were a few people, but it was, you know, this is what has been bracketed as well as belly dancing and that used to be seen as vulgar. you wouldn't think that now, but you would say son of a belly dancer if you were insulting someone Yeah, that's a huge insult in Egypt. I think maybe still to this day. in lotth Africa. Yeahah, really. It's very, very controversial ballet dancing. It seems to hold this incredibly odd position in Egypt where it is the quintessential Egyptian dance and it's huge in Egypt and makes lots of money. but Egyptian women Basically kind of don't do it now. I think's Egypt's got increasingly conservative. Obviously it goes in waves. And now, if you're an Egyptian woman, you are really called all manner of things if you belly dance. So all the belly dancers in Egypt come from mostly Etern Europe, I think, and Russia, Ukraine, America, Britain almost all of them. It's like if Morris dancing was unbelievably sexy Do you not find it? Sorry, and obviously I do find unbelievably There is one belly dancer in Egypt called Johara, who's one of the queens of belly dancing. apparently. And she was descended on her nightclub was descended on in twenty eighteen by police to check that she was wearing the appropriate shorts. So I think you have to wear shorts underneath your belly dancing gear and there was a rumor that she was wearing nothing. And she insists that she was and the police said she wasn't, It does feel like it's not hard to check, but' not it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter guys. But she was delighted that she was arrested and put in jail because publicity F such good publicity. Yeah She was invited by the policeman who arrested her and put her in jail. She's now done belly dancing at L loads of his weddings Loads of hisoney Wow. He's a letharian. w. Weddings of his friends and family. Yeah, right wow. Andy, when you were talking about them being kicked out, that was in eighteen thirty four. But more recently in the nineteen sixties government put an actual clause into their rules Oriental dance is not permitted to show the following lying on the back, lying on the ground in a vulgar fashion or making rapid movements in such a way as to cause excitement. The thighs are not to be fully open while on the ground There are to be no wobbling up. And down move moments. And it goes on. We don't always have control over whether they're a wobbling up or down movements inccreasingly. Sumo wrestlers were also banned under these rules. Wow. Yeah, the rulle who banned them in eighteen thirty four was Muhamed Ali Wh? Who just calledght Muhamad Ali? Stings like a bee. Stings like a bee seexy dancing, pole dancing. I don't know if any of you are I'm grade free. Well I've got my blue b. Yeah. Well what. Keep practicing because people are now lobbying for it to become an Olympic sport it's just a bit like the parallel bars.'s just like a po. the. They've got the poles lefto over from the po vaults. exactly. They're not being used ninety percent of the time. Yeah. use them. Yeah. Because it is very technical. I mean, it's sexy, obviously, you know. But it's just very technical, isn't it? you know strength It's. Yes, wow. Yeah. But if you say to a lot of people, John, I come for a night seeing the parallel bars with me, then you don't get as much interest In my experience. And it's very, very hard stuffing a tenet into a pole vaultter's job strap right from the top You mark guys, but when it is an Olympic sport, you're all gonna go. Do you think it will be? I think it will. L a lot of people now do it just as a recreational sport. Yeah.es. Men, women, it's not just a woman thing. it's everyone use it because it's very good for you. It's your crotch now it I it's good excuse me it is good for your crotch. Well this is. This is the thing about Belly dance in particularight, which is that's so different. back to that. back to that. I'm so sor That is good at preventing urinary incontinence in the cohorts of dancers who've tried it. but in a swimming pool I don't think if you're in a swimming pool, then you are just pting yourself as you. Yeah, it improves your pelvic strength a lot, basically. That makes a huge amount of sense. If you do the belly dancing motion, which I'm trying to on my seat now, it does feel like you're doing a perelfect floor exercise, doesn't it? There you go. There go. There was a rumour that's repeated to this day, almost everywhere that it was also used in North Africa in the nineteenth century and twentieth century to help women in labour And everyone repeats this thing where its origin was sort of women would to the woman who was giving birth and belly dance around her as a way of saying, you know do these motions to ease labour, which having the only person who's been through labour around this table. I don't imagine that doing a belly dance would have made it that much easier. And I don't think there's that much evidence for it. There's a couple of mid twentieth century accounts. But I do like academics who really dig into this. So there's an academic who wrote a whole massive thesis on is belly dance a birth dance sort of debunking and saying this wouldn't help. It's just very annoying. say no. But she did describe something else. She was like, it's possible that you know this one account we have in the twentieth century was left overver of something that was really common In the nineteenth century, much like other dances it seemed to have disappeared, and then she described another example of this and I just love this. She said Arabic scholar John Lewis Burkhard described a marriage custom in which a man wrapped head to toe in white wearing a massive male organ made out of cotton, caavorted in the wedding proscession of a bride, and this interesting custom seems to have faded out as well. That's a shame. It is a shame isn't it And she doesn't say where he's wearing the organ and bizarrely I imagined on his head, but having read that out again, he's just wearing it on his R I don't think it's clear. I't think it's definitive. Not clear. Yeah. There is a thing which persists, I think even to this day where the Gaazi women were seen as immodest and they were taboo and they were banned all sorts. There were Kaals who were men who did the women's dance, they dressed as women They I think acted and walked and spoke as women And I think even today Morocco has a few Kowells. I suppose it's sort of analogous to drag in a way, but it's centuries old, it's tolerated and it was a way of think maybe getting around the exclusion of gay men and allowing self expression in that sense because belly dancing and singing in public were both seen as so imodest and so almost akin to prostitution that actually we should just let the fellas get on with this. And that's no They're trusted to do it in a non totally immodest way. That's fascinating, I think That is. You know when we started our podcast in twenty fourteen, it was still the case that you would need a permit if you wanted to do any of this kind of dancing out on the streets of Egypt. And they have a sort of morality police that goes around. and so show me your papers, you know, if you're doing it out. My papers are just in here. Oh no hang We should say Belly Dance is completely Western phrase is a translation of the French dance duantre dancing of the stomach. So it's not an Egyptian phrase at all. and I think in Egypt, people get quite annoyed with it being called belly dance, basically. I was looking into other dancers that had a sort of animal element to it. Crumbs. You had a bee that was running around and there that you needed to take your clothes off. I found the Tarantella Oh, my pronunciation? This is a dance. It's a folk dance that became so popular that classical musicians like Chopin and List wrote songs for it for Tarrantla dances. And its origins go back to the fifteenth and seventeenth century and it's connected to a thing called Trantism People thought if you were bitten by a venomous tarantula that you could frenzy the dance and get it off and it's from it's from Taranto in Italy which is also where the tarantula got its name as well. It sort of from there? Yeah Oh South American things. Well, it's really interesting becausees it's a wolf spider, which's often called a tarantula. So it's not in your head a classic tarantula. It's more a wolf spider. Interesting. Yeah. cool. There's also I came across another animal related dance, which I don't know if it was real, but it was claimed to be real by late nineteenth century anthropologists from the West who were always reliable. And he was in Senegal and he said there is a dance called the Bambula, which is a dance of the Walf people. And he said that it imitated the mating of ducks. but what I was impressed by in what is otherwise quite an objectionable text is that he did specify that The Drake has a member of a corkscrew shape . Absolutely correct. Ds do have their corkscrow Willies and good on this old Bloke for knowing that and he said a peculiar movement is required to introduce it into the hole of the duck And so that is the movement to the hole duck It's the whole duck or the huck. Beuse they're about forty five centimeters long. it does go into the holeuck. The ho, yeah, yeah Another dance that's quite sexy is your classic Irish dancing, Rriver dance style. In which I am trained Of course you are. know, you know. I am. Why are you training to river dance? I just did it for a while when I was younger. Which when you just did it for a while? That isn't a thing. Its That's some river dance. Why are you so core? you mentioned it? ye, I shouldn't have mentioned it. Did you perform on stage? Of course. Have you metross flat? Across Europe. I taught flatly everything he knows No, I did do a bit. How old what age I'm not telling you that. Okay let's just say I had to stop to do my degree. Yeah. And you hold your hands by your sides in Irish dancing, right? Did you do the classic Migael F flatly? hands by your sides, your legs flailing out everywhere. That's right. Very straight. Yeah yeah. Well, nobody knows why that is how you do Irish dancing. So there are just lots of theories that are claimed confidently by various Irish dancing societies. And I just like one of theories which is It is so that you canot not touch members of the opposite sex. it's because it's too sexy a dance and you've got toa keep your hands by your side, otherwise you'll end up groping your partner in the Irish dance. But I also just really like this theory, which is another potential reason why. It's that when the British were trying to dominate Irish culture, basically kind of like flatten it out in the nineteenth century, then they wanted to get rid of all aspects of Irish identity, including their dancing, but the Irish wanted to keep their songs and dances. so compromiseed halfway up and down the bottom. Is that what we say Is it like Ireland in Northern Ireland This is what I think you're going to say. This is the most exciting thing Well, it's that the British would be patrolling outside pubs at night. Oh no they would look through the windows and everyone would be standing still just holding a gl pint of Guinness in their hand chatting. but underneath that window, the legs were roted they were going for us. This is like great They could do it behind hedges, behind bars, where if you like This is weirdly more offensive than anything I imagined you would say It's clever. It's very clever Okay, it is time for fact number three and that is Anna My fact this week is that according to ancient Hindu astrology, if you have matching testicles, you will be a king. Yes, this is in one of the many hundreds thousands of Hindu texts there are. It's such a fun religion because there are so many fun texts you can draw on. and this is in one called the Burhat Samhita which is a sixth century sanskript And there's a chapter called On the Features of Men. and it's sort of like like palm reading or something, you know, predicting your outcomes depending on your body qualities. And one of the bit says, If both a man's testicles be alike, he will be king. If the testicles be not alike, he will be fond of sexual intercourse. A person with a single testicle will suffer death by drowning Is that because of a lack of buoyancy aids? Yeah, you're just always tipping onto your side. I think we can assume Archie Bald Grace I four was a double bald man If they be raised up, a person will not live long And if they hang down, he will live to the age of one hundred. So where do you guys fall as it were? What's confusing is you've read out somehere and it sounds like that's a lot. There is so much more to do with the penis that means I don't even know where you would begin. It starts contradicting itself.. Here's another set of ways you can tell if you'll be rich or poor. If the penis be small person will be rich. Oh congratulations, D This is the nineteen eighties It's great. If large, he will have no sons. If it be so that's okay. So now we've gone size. Okay, so you got so s school. If it be inced but he is It's so confusing. If it be inclined on the left side he will be poor. Oh there we go. If not straight, he will be without sons and without money check this one out. covered with muscles He will have very few sons and I now have on my Google search Can you have a musly penis? And no, you can't. It's a muscle free zone.. So what's going on here that musclely penises existed back in the day. Did evolution get rid of it? Yes, that's what happened. In the past thousand years, evolution has just a very speed speed evolution. Well I guess if covered with muscles, you'll have very few sons. They've died out The muscle penist humans are gone. This one because this one is also an answerable one. If the urine fall in a line and twisted The person will get very beautiful sons. If the urine fall in two, three or four lines and twisting from left to right A person will be a king Interesting, keep predictors.. Yeah, yeah. Two three or four lines does imply that you've got some sort of hole punch Yeah. there's sort of problem there. Yeahah I'd say get it checks out. But it's interesting how many things are predictors of being a king as in there can't be that many kings to go around.. So all of these things are quite rare As because the testical is symmetrical, alsoso if your feet are dry, you'll be a king, but you have to have soft soles, closed toes, beautiful red nails, and invisible ankle raised like a turtle So actually that's very specific. and that presumably narrows down the number of people who are claiming kingship. Be I don't know what you can do, Who do you report would say, exxcuse me, I'm a king. But maybe it's like colloquo, like she's a queen He' a k disappoint literally very possible.y possible. All of this is to do with astrology, isn't it? Yeah to do with divination and you know, this is a very lengthy text written in the what century It was AC, wasn't it sixth century, o And the subjects are unbelievable because the number of things from which you can predict an omen according to this system enormous. So there are omens from slits of garments You know particular well, if you've got a slit in your garment, just literally a slit in your clothing, you know that where it hangs, how it falls, if it's large, small, left, right, all of that, that has particular divination. Omens number eight, the intention of horses. Omen nine, the attitude of elephants. It's just all ss in there. You know Wait, so what a slit in your garment could tell you what the intention of horses was? No, that's a completely separate chapter There's a chapter on the Omens result from Sttz and Garard, and there's a chapter from the intent of the horses It is extraordinarily detailed. It seems to have come from some fevered minds. Well it comes from someone, this particular text comes from a very specific person who lived so long ago that we don't know the proper dates of. but it was someone called Vahhara Mahira, ancient Indian mathematician astrologer slash astronomer, He lived about five hundred, the year five hundred, roughly yeah, we're not hundred percent sure. But this was his text, wasn't it? Yeah. And this is what is so interesting about Hinduism. So there are all these texts. So a lot of Hinduism is based in the Vedas, but then there are all these auxiliary texts and this comes from that, which are about Hindu astrology. It's called Geo Titia, I think and this is one of those texts, but yeah, hundreds of them. so you can kind of pick and choose and they are fun. they are more fun than the bits of the Bible that I've read, which granted aren't that many. Well, it's funny like my sister is married to my brother in law's Indian. and they had an Indian wedding. and u The astrologer dictated what time the ceremony had to be. And it was at three thirty AM On booxing day. And we were like, okay. Well I guess that's what we werere doing though? had they done to annoy him? Which country? This was in India, yeah.'t It's three thirty AM somewhere. You didn't It isn't like a beer, no. Right. Yeah, so it was like everyone' had to get up at two in the morning and get ready. Wow. it was amazing. Funny. It was because of the astrology Yeah. Did you go back to bed afterwards or did you I didn't and do Yeah although that was a dry wedding. Really? Yeah, o. That's an astonishing because any overseas wedding in its own right is annoying when you sent the invitation. you've got I'm flying where to go to this wedding to then see wedding star two thirty AM. I think pushing it. And there's no alcohol. Yeah. we were like, cool Lots of people get married on certain days, don't they? So I think when it's Saturdays it is very common. Saturdays is common, but if it's auspicious than the number of weddings rockets of course. And there obviously there are few different astrology systems, but For the very big ones. So for example, there was a day in two thousand three where twelve thousand couples got married on that one day because it was auspicious And I know there are more than a billion people in India, so I don't knowether it feels like that is reasonably high, but you know. And there is now a trend. onnce you've been married a little while, you might be expecting a baby and there is a huge trend for pregnant women to book Caesareans for auspicious days. What if it's three months in There was a woman who asked to have hers four weeks early to avoid any astrological problems. And I think the doctors creat some more problems, if you. I think doctors don't like it for obvious reasons, which is that you know they're trying to just do what is best for the health and you know the health of mother and baby. You know, women are being asked to be induced, to have their labor induced in particular hours to guarantee the right star sign and things like that. I mean, the planning goes into the conception in a lot of cultures, I know that the Chinese birth chart is often used if people want to have a boy, for example. Yeah That's you don't try for a kid until the chart tells you. You just put a rubber band aroundound one testicle And that's sort of solves it. But you might drown then, you might confuse your body thinking you've only got one ball. Maybe the biggest geopolitical thing that's ever happened as a result of Hindu astrology, Indian independence, the transfer of power fifteenth of august nineteen forty seven. Now that happened a day earlier for Pakistan the other huge area of British territory. Pakistan went a day earlier, fourteenth of August, and India waited a day for an inauspicious period to end Really? Yeah, yeah, and various astrologers have claimed that actually Pakistan paid the price for that because in nineteen seventy one it split off into Bangladesh I don't need to say it was for other reasons as well as astrology the complicated politics happened, ye. I would say if I'd lived through the partition of India, which did not go very well for many people, I'd be asking for a refund from that astrologer. Yeah. Are you sure the inauspicious period had fully ended But ye. Hinduism, polythheistic or monotheistic I would say poly Yeah. You'd think, wouldouldn't you? onlynly seven percent of Hindus say that there are multiple gods. Oh really? Yes.. So the sixty one percent of Hindus say that there is just one god who has many manifestations, whichich I really didn't realize that that was the conception of for most people. And then the other thirty percent just say there's only one god Interesting. Yeahah. Okay, Do you want to talk about deskcals Andy do I feel like you have been, but it's always qu anyway. Okay Jamie, have you ever heard of balls maxing Balls Matt. I I haven't, but yeah I feel I should well I'm about to. So that' the pursuit of bigger balls? That's all That's all it is. Yeah. So it looks maxing but for you ballets. afraides. okay. How do you do it? Injection of silline solution? Oh yeah. Yeah I know. as ever with all of these trends, is it a trend or is it actually a few weirdos on one Reddit thread? Podcast at cQo dot com if you're a keen Balls Maxer do write in and please no photos. Yeah yeah. It's also bought ironing or sccrotox Which is the thing All of I mean, this is this is mostly mad stuff, but basically when studied Scrotums are just not attractive. And this has been studied scientifically. Why? Just ask any human Exactly. Why is that even logged in the scientific study? Why is that a thing? The stetics of the study? There was a specific study. I think it's because more men and again, the numbers are small, but it's rising, I was sort of worried about their personal appearance you know, in that region b the beneath the below the Irish pub window of the Iish pub. And it was just to see whether any of this makes any difference at all. So it was a small sample size, but women a range of women were asked to rank eight unique scrot tai. U on the the Lka scale, which measures how much people like something it was named after someone called Lker. neverever mind that. U but Of the eight scrotums that they were asked to rate, not one of them got a positive ranking. So plus three to minus three was the scoring system, all of them scored below zero. And the researchers concluded, I just love the phrase they used, it was barely possible to identify a quotes beautiful scrotum. We must instead speak of the least ugly.. So I just think there's no point in doing any of this stuff You know if you're ballsmaxing. But we don't know if someone who was ballsmaxing or ironing their balls was part of the study. That might have absolutely skewed the results. Oh were they not part of the study? I thought some people had Ballsmax. No had. Anyways, all that it s is, let's keep funding academia. Okay, it is time for our final fact of the show and that is my fact. My fact this week is that in nineteen eighty, a woman called Maureen Wilcox chose the winning numbers for both the Massachusetts and Rhode Island lotteries Unfortunately, the numbers she chose for the Rhode Island lottery were the winning numbers for the Massachusetts lottery and vice versa Cushing God. That's worse, isn't it? It's so much worse than not winning. Yeah. Do we know how much it was worth? Well it was about a pound, each who cares, but No, no, theseese would have been big psongms. The main source that we have for this is one newspaper as far as I could find. It's been repeated multiple times in books about improbability and luck and so on But it was first published, as far as I could tell, on may sixteenth, nineteen eighty in the Morning Union. It was a little Paceday Oh my goodness. And not the yearit, I'm not that old Jesus Oh yeah, okay. Well Sorry to interrupt but it felt worth saying. Yes, Happy birthday. So This is what the article said. The odds were one in twenty thousand four hundred. and this was calculated by a University of Rhode Island mathematics professor. and this lady, Mrs Wilcox beat those odds So she said it's like buying a new suit with two pairs of pants, getting ready to go out to a special place and getting a huge gravy stain on the jacket. What a labor and unnecessary. It might too a while for me to get it. Yeah. Hang on down. The odds surely are much muchuch longer than one two and a half hour. That's what I thought as well. That seems very short, doesn't it? But this is the original source and it's often used this story as one of those examples of the opposite of luck. N to be unlucky. The kind of person who sits on a fountain to give themselves an enema thinking it is at the same jet No,' that's not unlucky. That's not, Ohh God, how was I possibly to know that I could have in anyway backfired as an idea? Because also youd surely see that the water was blasting out with an unnatural force before you decided to lower yourself onto it. Yeah. I sometimes the fountains take a break, don't they? So he might have positioned himself over ready for the next round. I assume that. becausecause he can't have pulled himself on while it was going it was that Heaviest stream. You'd noticice. Yeah, yeah. Maybe it's got one of those little sensors you have to wave your hand in front of it or your ass. A button like a jacuzi or Yeah a dyson fountain Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway back to this. I do like stories like this And I also like this is bad, but I'd like stories when lots of people think they've won a lottery and then it turns out they haven't. Yeah you those. They happen often enough. So there was a story Qite recently in the Guardian, it was about forty seven thousand Norwegians. All of whom got told they'd won big amounts of money on the lottery. And the terrible thing was it had been got wrong by the lottery company. They had made a mistake converting euros to Norwegian Krona, which have very different values. So people were told, for example, one guy got told he'd won the equivalent of eighty six thousand pounds. He'd actually won nine pounds. And I think when that happens, the lottery company should have to honor it. I think they should have to pay forty seven thousand people one hundred goundames. I would like that Oh well how extent of his plans had got before he realized. I know, I know I got quite obsessed with the lottery curse. Oo. yeah you know people who kind of win a lot of money and then their lives just kind of disintegrate. And have you read about someone called Vivian Nicholson? So she won one hundred fifty two thousand pounds in nineteen sixty one, which is like worth millions today, I think. Yeah. On the pools, the football pools with her husband Keith loveoly couple. And she was interviewed when they won this money and they said, what are you going to do with it? She said. Spend, spend, spend! Well that's a famous quote. It is a famous quote. Yes. and she bought coats and sports cars and holidays and like she just went mad and los at all then a few years Yeah it was pretty quickly. Keith died in the car crash. very sre. with a very nice posh c that he bought. Yeah And then she went through four more husbands U and they all died Uh I thinkable That's was doesn'tious. did. That you wouldn't become the Six husband Right ageight. and and it became a stage musical What was a cold Snden spend. Do you know you producce that stage musical? Oh No, your dad. My dad.! And I'm here to tell you it was not successful. But it did spend spend spend a lot on it. It did And got nothing back. I thought it was a great. loveovely soundtrack, some Kraacken songs. Was it successful in any way? Atistic Critically It was critically successful and no one went to see it too the extent that I think his company bought him a big poster, which we still have somewhere, which says spend spent skkint. A. Nichickolson. And he worked with her. She really Right? Was she involved? Yeah, she was. Her photograph is on the cover of the Smith' song, Heaven knowns I'm Miserable Now Oh really That's her. there's a picture that old lady or not old lady, that lovely lady. That's. That's her. That's so sad. So do you think winning the lottery makes you more or less happy in life More How do you I think it makes you a bit more to begin with Well the vast majority of people say that it makes you less happy because there's such a conception now, because people have claimed there are all these studies about the lottery curse. There's such a conception. So when people are asked Is it destructive to people? They mostly say yes, it is. and I'm afraid for any lottery losers out there. It's not true. winning the lottery does indeed make you happier And there's all this stuff that it's more likely to make you bankrupt. It's not particularly. Although I will say that the only two studies that have confirmed that it does make you happier were in Germany and Sweden I thought might be about their national mentality. So maybe they're more sensible people who kind of invest it and think probablyper about what to do with the money And I reckon lottery winners in Britain arere probably still idiots who spend it all. Not necessarily though, because I think they've identified that. So I was in a cab the other day and the cab driver was telling me that his best mate had won the national lottery. And so I said, o, well, you know about this crazy curse thing where people spend it, How's he doing? And he said the National lottery paired him immediately up with a bank manager or a invest investment consultant. and they put all the money into various different places. He bought a horse For for the races, whichich won its first race apparently? Oh That's how the horses get you in though. That all the horses are great Oh like Jimmy's got a new owner, so we'll impress him today. Get him really on the hook. You'll buy five more horses. Keep that funding going. then Horse racing is a scam by horses. What are they getting? They nose bags full of wheat. And a rosette. rosette. All the carrots you can eat Okay That's very interesting. So this is another thing that happens when you win the lottery. This might be the Swedish study Anna you mentioned, different things happen depending on your sex. So men who win the lottery, again, in this Swedish study 're more likely either to get married or stay married. Ites doesn't make women in the best lu. No, it doesn't. I think canict I think I can predict the fact that's coming next. You do have more children either way, that's play by. If you're a married woman and you win a lot of money on the lottery, the odds of you getting divorced double. Yeah. So clearly. Well it's actually doesn't say a lot of good stuff about men either James We're so unbar. are awful.ur wives want to divorce us, but they don't have the capital together yet. Right. I think that's it. But would any of you guys if you won the lottery, would you admit to it No because it is this big thing of light if you because immediately, great. This is is cry Luse people can't with twenty quids. I'm study letting those other guys get their hands on this I don't even like confessing that I did Irish dancing classes when I was younger. Do you think I'm going to tell you guys about winning the lottery? It's not going happen. Because in some countries you and some states in America actually you have to legally No say that you've. So people go to extraordinary lengths to try and disguise themselves because they have to these press conferences In some countries people dress up So in Jamaica in twenty nineteen there was a guy called A Campbell who won one hundred fifty eight million Jamaican dollars And he arrived at his press conference, and he was legally obligated to go to dressed with a ghost face mask from Scream. P nice. And he's just sat there. Do they make it compulsory so that it's good publicity for the lottery, basically, like that's a condition of winning? My research didn't go that deep, o Someone else came as a giant yellow winking emoji Okay that's a huge I mean, I think that's kind of ingenious. Yeah. I don't know. I feel like if you want a lot of money, you suddenly realize life's going to be a lot classier. You're gonna have the best of life. If I then have to get into a big, I don't know, yogi bear costume to go to confence, that would be humbling. Yeah, that's true. But no one would knowice you. Yes. So it's fine. That's true. Yeah Well, I just think it'll wreck your life w if all your friends know. Well, it's not even that, it's that people you get all of these sob stories people coming up to you constantly. because how could you notot, you know. Um, give money to people that uh need you should then give it to them. Yeah exactly. Yeah. That wouldn't be my answer to anyone who's won the lottery and is pissed off about the people asking them for money. If they need the money, help out There's just this is similar to Dan's fact. I wouldn't. No I'er with you I'd imediately you'd never see me again, in fact. I'd immediately go to hiding. And Ananda doesn't even take a salary from QI' such a good person. I give it to Andy actually. I we signed this thing years ago. Let just give it to him. Okay, cool. It's to me. That's how I have a rof over my head now. alost years ago And yet he still has the beard. I've boughtght him razor after razor. Okay, do you have sympathy for this person? In two thousand seven there was the headline, Court rules womomen who didn't enter lottery not entitled to money from the lottery This was a woman who'd entered a postcode lottery. so Sorry, this is a woman who hadn't entered a postcode lottery, crucially. So the postcode lottery is where if you're in a certain postcode, then you win a certain amount of money can be huge amount of money. Now, I think everyone else or seven other people with her exact same postcode, did decide to opt into the postcode lottery. She decided to opt out. They won thirteen point nine million euros each fifteen million each. thirteen point nine actually, so we're for a rounding But after taxes. even th so it's l. No good point. Is tax free, I think, mostost lottery wins National lottery wins are tax free Are they? Yeah. Yeah, they're tax free. They're not in America, but they are here. I just didt you know that Andy I'm to say I'm going gonna be on this podcast again without my lawyers. And my BR team, okay? And my horse So she sued the postgrade lottery Wow. For emotional distress, she said it had been so upsetting for us. She said one win ostentatiously displayed his new porsche in her very sightline, whichich is hard not to do if you' bought a new porsche. same poste. lives opposite you. So interestnteresting choice of word, isn't it? Andy? Ostentatious? H Who is this She said that it was really difficult because every time she had to write her own postcode, it was just another reminder of what she'd lost. I mean, it is a shitter. like you would feel so stupid, but like surely there were other people in their postcode that didn't win as well. I'm not sure I think she might have been the only one if it's the exact postcode sometimes. I mean, all seven of them will probably have moved house quite soon So that that's true.. That'll make things a bit easier. bortch again, L she. Yeah. What if you find a lottery ticket which wins O On the street. Yeah, you pock it. What can you do about it So this has actually happened. Yeah. happened in two thousand nine, a couple in Swinden found lottery ticket One Not a huge amount, but thirty thousand pounds. notot bad. a huge amount. What's going on here? You definitely have won the lottery. No, but compared millions, you know it was B thirty thousand pounds Ver, very welcome, right. But it was not theirs. It had been dropped by a woman called Dorothy, who was the rightful owner. She had bought it A spent half the money fifteen thousand pounds clearing their debts. they had some debts. But then she took them to court over this. She was able to prove that she had bought it because she kept the receipt And they had to pay back the other half, but they paid it back, I think I'm not sure whether they paid it back to her or to the lottery. Either way, Dorothy only got half the thirty thousand pound winnings and Camelot said, Well, look, if you didn't write your name and address on the back of the ticket as we advise everybody to do, then we can't prove them. Like sheost it. sorry. Yeah ye. Find the keepepers. And also how is the couple supposed to know who it belongs to do you do? Yeah? You might go to Camelot and you'd say, we found this. Right.lease please we haven't. Yeah, well I recet show did lottery receipt show what the numbers were on your lottery ticket to prove it? how does there recet? It might be a serial number that's on the. Oh ye transaction number. Yeah that. Yeah. Did you know that the Sydney Opera house On was able to be built because of a lottery Yeah, so was it needed funding badly went so far over budget. So they did a national lottery. And I know this because my grandfather, who was just over from Australia,'s ninety four, he bought into the lottery multiple weeks And they raised one hundred and two million dollars in total. And that's what built the opera house. And my grandfather never went to it until we, as no such thing as a fish, played there. It's the first time he sat in it Apparently he said to everyone he spoke to, I'd paid for this.