Episode 302: No Such Thing As A Hedgehog Circus

**No Such Thing As A Hedgehog Circus** is the 302nd episode of No Such Thing As A Fish, the 42nd episode of the sixth year, and the 1st episode of 2020. It consists of clips removed from the previous episodes of the podcast.

It features regular presenters James Harkin, Andrew Hunter Murray, Anna Ptaszynski, and Dan Schreiber. Clips of QI Elf Anne Miller and special guest Richard Herring can also be heard.

## Description

>  Happy New Year! Enjoy a bumper compilation of deleted bits from 2019 - all the facts, flubs and terrible terrible puns that somehow didn't make the edit.
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> Visit nosuchthingasafish.com for news about live shows, merchandise and more episodes.
>
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## Facts

* The first Siamese twins to be documented in the west had a system where, as they were both married, they would spend three nights at one wife's house, then three nights at the other. (Ptaszynski)
* Sunny days are best for asking someone out on a date. (Ptaszynski)
* Robots have been designed to predict and prevent fights at football matches. (Schreiber)
* There was another Elizabeth Taylor, who often receieved fan letters intended for the other one. (Harkin)
* The man with the world's largest collection of Nazi memorobilia sleeps in Hitler's bed, and owns 88 tanks - more than the Danish and Belgian armies combined. (Murray)
* The rapper Coolio released a cookbook called "How to Become a Kitchen Pimp". (Schreiber)
* One of Gerald Ford's bodyguards enters his pet hedgehog in the Hedgehog Olympics. (Ptaszynski)
* Male silkworm moths can sense a single molecule of female sex hormone from a mile away. (Schreiber)
* The ISS is battery-powered. (Murray)
* Some clouds may go extinct due to climate change. (Murray)
* The Dothraki language from Game of Thrones is full of hidden easter eggs. (Murray)
* When the Queen has a bath on the Royal Train, the drivers are told to avoid any bumpy bits of track. (Murray)
* On his wedding day William of Orange drank "Benediction posset", which was a mixture of warm milk, eggs, cream and ale, topped with nutmeg and custard. (Harkin)
* In Scotland, if you catch a boot while fishing, it can either be good or bad luck depending on whether it's left or right. (Schreiber)
* For his book *Fuck You Very Much*, Danny Wallace asked people what they had done in retaliation to rudeness. Answers included "I rubbed fries on their windshield", "I turned all their possessions upside-down", "I let a dog lick a sausage I was serving them", and "I slept with their partner". (Harkin)
* The world's flattest floor is owned by NASA. (Harkin)
* A scientist got 90 students drunk to disprove the "beer before wine" saying. (Murray)
* Japanese train drivers are obliged every five minutes to point at something they can see and shout about where they are and what they are doing. This keeps them from losing focus. (Harkin)
* In order to make it rain, Indian farmers would sew hooks into a person's back and hoist them into the air. (Murray)
* People used to think chess was not an intellectual pursuit. (Harkin)
* Between 1885 and 1893, baseball players could use a bat with a flat surface like a cricket bat. (Schreiber)
* There is a hedge in Liverpool that has been trimmed to look like the four Beatles. However, due to his unpopularity, Ringo's head is frequently removed by vandals. (Schreiber)
* People in the deep south traditionally eat clay-rich dirt. (Ptaszynski)
* Sumptuary laws limited the length of Crackow shoes to 2 inches. (Ptaszynski)
* Burglars can be identified by their microbiome. (Ptaszynski)
* In 1956 the English composer Malcolm Arnold wrote an overture for vacuum cleaner. (Schreiber)
* There was a scandal in 1959 when the Rain Queen of the Lobedu people of South Africa refused to commit ritual suicide. (Ptaszynski)
* Kansas has a museum commemorating the losers of every presidential campaign. (Schreiber)
* Scientists are now using drones to estimate the weight of whales in the wild. (Harkin)
* In France in 2016 two armed robbers attempted to rob a branch of McDonald's, only to find there were eleven off-duty elite counter-terrorism agents. (Murray)
* Monks in the middle ages assigned jobs to every chess pawn. (Schreiber)
* Daniel Turner named Syphilis after the lead character in an epic poem. (Ptaszynski)
* James Harrison donated blood almost every week for 60 years. (Schreiber)
* Pavlov used to put holes in dogs' throats to see what would happen if they couldn't digest food. (Ptaszynski)
* During the Bubonic plague kissing became taboo. Alternatives included licking, sniffing, and nibbling their eyebrows. (Schreiber)
* Sanal Edamaruku has had to flee to Finland after being accused of blasphemy after proving that "holy water" leaking from a statue of Jesus in Mumbai was actually moisture from an overflowing drain (Ptaszynski)
* During civil wars in Medieval Scandinavia, families would often ensure that they had one child on each side to make sure one of them was safe. (Harkin)
* In 1999 San Marino banned female domestic servants younger than 50. (Murray)
* Roger Babson started a foundation to try and destroy gravity. (Murray)
* Some of the weirdest things searched on Lovehoney include "Peperami lube", "pies for women to get horny", and "pickled onion condoms". (Harkin)
* Pope Gregory IX issued a decree saying that Satan was half-cat. (Murray)
* Kirk Douglas' son was heckled in London by audience members parodying *Spartacus*. (Schreiber)
* If Krakatoa had errupted in Ireland, you could've heard it in New York. (Murray)
* Vacuum cleaners used to be immobile - you would add longer and longer pipes to the end to reach different parts of your house. (Murray)
* Hedgehogs can suffer from balloon syndrome. (Murray)
* The Campaign for North Africa is a board game that takes 50 days to complete. (Schreiber)
* At one time if a couple had fallen out, they would be given transfusions of each-others blood. (Harkin)
* In 1756 David Garrick was criticised for his acting style being too realistic. (Harkin)

## Trivia

* This is the first episode of 2020.
* This is the fifth New Year's Special compilation, and the second to be a numbered episode.
* It is the fifth compilation episode after No Such Thing As Unbroadcastable Material, Extra Bits, No Such Thing As Wasted Material 2017, and Episode 249: No Such Thing As A Pint of Wine.

* This episode features audio from many episodes, and thus many locations, primarily the QI Offices.
* The Queen bathing on the Royal Train was discussed in TBA.
* The world's biggest door was mentioned in TBA.
* Sumptuary laws were discussed in TBA.
* Schriber mistakes an audience member's joke for them correcting his fact.