Fun facts and sidetracks
Into random facts? This could be the podcast for you. Good mates Al & Marty take a fun look at all sorts of pop culture stories they’ve discovered.
Fun facts and sidetracks
Twists of Fate and Ten Pound Poms
Al and Marty chat about all sorts of fun facts and take a few side roads along the way.
The ones that got away
The boys discuss songs that were passed on by famous artists. We all know who ultimately made these songs a hit but who were they offered to first? Call me, Toxic, Umbrella, Physical, We built this city, Don’t you forget about me and Golden Years.
Ten Pound Poms
A fun discussion about the scheme initiated by the Australian Government in 1945 after the Second World War to increase our population. The Ten Pound Poms were British citizens who migrated with assisted passage to Australia on chartered ships and aircraft. Paying the princely sum of ten pounds for adults and free travel for kids.
As a Ten Pound Pom himself, Marty recalls his family’s adventure of making the big move from London to Brisbane in the sixties. And we chat through a list of famous Aussies from the fields of sport, music and public life who we’re glad also made the trip to this wide brown land.
Dangerous toys
We discuss dodgy and dangerous toys from our childhood. Especially Click Clacks and the Slip ‘N Slide. Of course, Marty has a cracking story to share about some highly dangerous fun from when he was knocking around in The Gap as a kid.
Random facts that changed history
These events prove that the truth really is stranger than fiction. You can’t help but wonder how things might have been if they hadn’t happened.
Bill Murray becomes a stand-up comedian.
A key moment in the Titanic disaster.
The man who survived two atomic bomb blasts.
Elanor Rigby’s grave.
Random fun facts
The Night's Watch cloaks
Lemons and limes
A T-Rex with feathers?
Say ‘Prunes’
A crazy Pulp Fiction fact
Apparently Quentin Tarantino’s favourite Bewitched scene. Here’s the link:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3cFkXSgfjg
If you have a fun fact you’d like us to share, send us an email to: funfactsandsidetracks@gmail.com or leave us a comment online at our social pages on Facebook or Instagram Thanks for listening and never be afraid to get sidetracked.
The boring disclaimer: We do try to double-check all of the facts we talk about. If something isn’t quite correct, we humbly apologise. Credit to our many sources including, A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs, Tim from Kicking Harold, Mental Floss, Wikipedia and so many more.
Hello and welcome to Fun Facts and Sidetracks. This is the podcast where we take a look at those things that often make you think, how did that ever happen? or more to the point, what even possessed someone to think that that was a good idea. My name's Al, and with me as always is my good friend, Mart. How are you, mate?
Speaker 01:I'm very well, Al. Very well. Good week? Great week. Yeah. Lots of hard work done, and now it's good to be here.
Speaker 00:Got some fun facts to bring to the show?
Speaker 01:Certainly. Excellent.
Speaker 00:Now, quick disclaimer before we get started. We don't claim to be experts. We're just mates chatting about all sorts of things that interest us. For each episode, we spread the net far and why using our limited knowledge of all sorts of things that amuse us. And we rely on web searching and we also delve into our memory banks for some funny stories that usually take us a little off track, just like whenever we catch up, mate.
Speaker 02:Yeah.
Speaker 00:So the facts we discuss are correct, as we know. But please don't sue us. So we've got some fun stuff to chat about. Let's wade into the wonderful world of history and pop culture. And if you think we've got it wrong, send us a message. Absolutely. Send us a message to funfactsandsidetracks at gmail.com. Love to hear it. But we'd much rather hear positive feedback. Because usually I'm full of shit. So first up, Mark, we both love our music. Definitely. You were a professional musician for a long time. Well, yeah, I was a
Speaker 01:professional musician for 16 years, but a solo musician.
Speaker 00:And I'm a terrible guitarist, but I love music. So over the years, we've amassed a bit of history with music. So we thought we'd have a pretty regular segment that is called The One That Got Away. And this is really about... those songs or those bands that were offered something, and for whatever reason, it never really happened. So the classic example would be the record company exec that didn't hire the Beatles. Bit of an epic career fail there. But equally, there's a whole bunch of songs that have been offered to people, and for whatever reason, they didn't take them. First up. It's
Speaker 01:just the whole chemistry. It's like... it's like it all falls into place. Like the things line up to get that chemistry. Yeah. You know, whether it's someone who's got the wrong song or whatever, but it's, it's so fine line that things line up and then it takes off. Yeah. And it's an incredible thing really when you think about it.
Speaker 00:Well, sometimes it seems like it's timing as well. Like a song comes along and somebody says, no, my album's already full. Yes. So thanks very much, but I'll pass. And then obviously, you know, when it wins a Grammy, they're going, oh, doh! Yeah, but then they probably could have done it with a sound crap. Well, might have too. I mean, here's the first really good example. Fun fact, the song Call Me by Blondie. And that wasn't offered to Blondie initially. That was offered to Stevie Nicks. Stevie Nicks. Wow. Yeah. And she might have done a great job of it. I'd like to hear the version. Yeah, it's Blondie's song. Yeah, totally. And You know, it was written by Giorgio Moroder. He was just like a hit machine in the 70s and early 80s. Offered it to Stevie Nicks. Her people said no. I think there was some sort of contractual thing. And Blondie, of course, were just red hot at the time. And it landed in Debbie Harry's lap. And she said, yep, we'll have that. She was very punky, wasn't she? Yeah. i remember her being very punky yeah she came out of that new wave scene yeah so a lot of of her stuff if you ever see footage of CBGB which was the the club in New York yeah the little club the grungy club yeah so you've got you've got Blondie and you've got Talking Heads and you've got The Ramones you've got Television all these bands if you ever see vision of that it's just great because it's this funny little stage in this funny little club but there's tiny little club awesome music coming out of it
Speaker 01:lots of drugs Lots of
Speaker 00:alcohol.
Speaker 01:Lots of
Speaker 00:so-called creative people.
Speaker 01:Probably.
Speaker 00:Probably. But awesome music. Yeah. And, you know, it's a bit like if you see footage of the Cabin Club or something in Liverpool or like, you know, Studio 54 or something. Yeah. It's just a moment in time, you know. Anyway, so Blondie just, they made that song their own and that was it. Yeah. I love Blondie. I think pretty well every guy loves
Speaker 01:Blondie. Yeah. Like you don't expect her to be punky.
Speaker 00:Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's right. Yeah. But she had that edge. She did. And in fact, first fun fact for the episode, although not such a fun fact. is that Debbie Harry in the mid 70s was a massive fan of a band called the New York dolls and New York dolls are pretty out there i think they were they kind of dressed up in the glam gear well before kiss did you know yep but she was going to one of their gigs she was wearing shoes that didn't really suit walking a long way to get to the gig yeah this guy pulls up in a v-dub pretty handsome guy offers her a lift and she goes no no go away he circles back and keeps driving along next to her eventually she gets in as soon as she gets in she goes something's not right here there's no door handles on the inside right wow I'm picturing this he hangs a big u-turn and starts speeding off she somehow manages to get the window down she must have opened the door from the outside and kind of tumbles out wow how did she think of that yeah I know like how did she think of that in that moment well the bizarre thing of course is years later she sees an article about serial killer Ted Bundy and she recognises that that's the guy who offered her that lift wow Ted Bundy that's just scary right wow yeah Not
Speaker 01:so fun fact. I wonder if he was related to Al Bundy. Because that's who I thought it was when I heard. I thought, wow, Al Bundy. Right Peg.
Speaker 00:Yeah. Okay, here's another one for you. So, Toxic, which was one of Britney Spears' most famous hits. Wow. That was actually offered to Miss Kylie Minogue, who I think at the time... already had an album full of songs and decided that that wasn't for her. It was actually written for Janet Jackson, who also passed on the song.
Speaker 01:So was Kylie... She'd gone through the locomotion stage. She was a star.
Speaker 00:Yeah, it's well after that. Yeah, sort of Showgirl tour sort of territory. I think it might have been when, you know, she was going through breast cancer and stuff. So not really a super expert on Kyles. But nevertheless, it's a massive song to pass up on. And, you know, again... Songs like that, another really good example is, if we go back a few more years, Physical. Yeah. Which, you know, everyone knows is Olivia Newton-John. Yeah, Olivia nuclear bomb. Exactly. Olivia neutron bomb. Her biggest hit, best-selling number one. That was actually written for Rod Stewart. so yeah tights I know it's not hard to imagine in leotards and you know animal prints and all that from yeah long hair blondes have more fun and all that stuff yeah but yeah that was written for Rod Stewart and apparently he passed on it and Livvie's people went, yep, we'll have that. And the rest is history.
Speaker 01:Yeah. Yeah, I suppose. Rod Stewart singing that in the raunchy, raspy voice. I can see him bouncing around the stage with leg warmers on. Can't see him in
Speaker 00:the gym, though. Anyway, here's another one for you. So we mentioned Britney Spears before. So Rihanna's, probably her biggest hit, Umbrella, was actually offered to Britney. And again... she didn't want it because her Blackout album was already full. Yeah. And so she passed on it. And of course, Rihanna, who's obviously got a good ear for a hit. Yes. I'm going to have that no matter what. Apparently, even at the Grammy Awards, the person who wrote it, she just went up to them and went, you're not giving that song to anyone else. I'm taking that. And again, the rest is history. Wow. Massive hit.
Speaker 01:It must be really exciting to actually visualize a song that's going to be a hit.
Speaker 00:Yeah.
Speaker 01:You know?
Speaker 00:Yeah,
Speaker 01:yeah. Yeah. And these people that write these songs... It's incredible when they write it and they don't think it's a hit, but they just play it and then someone will listen to it. I think Cliff Richard was listening to a Beatles at the studio once. He was at the studio at the same time and he and Paul McCartney, I can't remember what the song was. It could have been I Will. Oh, yeah. You know, who knows how long I've loved you. And he played that to Cliff Richards. He said, what do you think of this? And he just thought, wow, what a song. Yeah. Yeah. As you would. Yeah, yeah. And a hit, a hit, when you hear a hit, it's like you've heard it before. Yeah. I don't know, with me, when you hear a song for the first time, you go, wow, like when you hear Dire Straits or you hear The Beatles or, and the song, you've only got to hear it once and you go, wow.
Unknown:Yeah.
Speaker 01:It's as though you've heard it before because it stays in your mind.
Speaker 00:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 01:And you just want to hear it again. Yeah. Well, that's the way it used to be on the radio.
Speaker 00:Well, I mean, a really good example of what you're saying, Don't You Forget About Me by Simple Minds, right? Again, you hear that song and you go, how did anyone ever think, oh, no, I don't want that. That's rubbish. But apparently John Hughes, who was directing The Breakfast Club, wanted to smash it for the soundtrack. and he had to basically just hammer Simple Minds over and over again to say, I want you to record this. And they just kept saying no. And it had been offered to people like Brian Ferry, Billy Idol, Chrissie Hynde, all these people, and they all passed on it. And eventually, you know, Jim Kerr from Simple Minds went, we'll do it. It's not going to go anywhere, but we'll do it just to shut him up. And of course, it's, you know, number one in America, top 10 in Australia. Great song. Great song. And again, you hear it and you just go, well, how could you never... And even though, you know, that bit at the end where there's no lyrics and Jim Kerr's just going la, la, la, la. Yeah, yeah. Apparently he said, oh, we'll work out some words for that later. And to John Hughes' credit, he went, you're not changing that. Wow. That's got hit all over. I'd love
Speaker 01:to hear the Billy Idol version of him punching the camera with that lip up. Like Billy Idol. Oh, man. He is so good.
Speaker 00:He is pretty good, isn't he? Yeah. Now, here's one that we'll move on in a minute, but Elvis. Elvis. We'll talk a fair bit of Elvis on the podcast because there's just so many terrific... Well, he's such a unique character, isn't he? Terrific Elvis stories, right? Uh-huh. Uh-huh. So, Colonel Tom Parker, Elvis' manager. Yeah. He asked David Bowie to write a song for him, right? Oh, yeah. And Bowie wrote Golden Years. And apparently Elvis just passed on it. He sent him a note that said, all the best, have a great tour. So he was really gracious about it. But, you know, even the king of rock and roll, didn't necessarily recognise. But how would Elvis do it? That's an orphan. Well, yeah, that's an orphan song. How would he do it?
Speaker 01:With the big, big, like, girls in the background and sex and brass. Yeah, it might have been a big brass section. I don't know. And him doing the karate stances on stage.
Speaker 00:I know that one of your passions is also karate, so we'll probably talk karate at some point too, because there's a direct line between Elvis and karate.
Speaker 01:Oh yeah, and a lot
Speaker 00:of musicians. Yeah, so we'll get to that one. And celebrities. Totally. Anyway, good fun?
Speaker 01:Yep.
Speaker 00:Hey, speaking of Elvis, here's a fun fact. People make fun of Elvis a bit, but I reckon this shows that he had a massive heart. So he was walking into a car dealership, This is in the 70s, this mid 70s. And this... Want to buy another two cars? Yeah, probably. A car that consumes as much gas as possible.
Speaker 01:Yeah, and had a telephone.
Speaker 00:Yeah, that's it. Anyway, this black woman was walking out of the dealership crying because they wouldn't sell her a car because she was black. But she needed a car because she had to get a job to pay for her college tuition. So Elvis, being the dude that he was, marches back in. He was cheesed off. He walked back in with her, made them sell her a car, which he paid for. And then he said to her, well, you need a job. How about you come and stay at my house every day? You can study there and answer the phone and be my sort of PA, if you like. Yeah. So the lady, her name was Maggie Smith. She became his executive assistant from 1974 until he died in 1977. Wow.
Speaker 01:Yes, yeah. Yeah, like he was huge and he thought, but he did have a lot of money, but really didn't. Like he was trapped.
Speaker 00:Yeah, that's right. He was trapped because... Colonel Tom Parker did Elvis no favours, let's face it. No,
Speaker 01:not at all. He may have made him a star, but he was trapped. In fact, he was caught in a trap.
Unknown:Yeah.
Speaker 01:He can't get out. Are you going to set up jokes like that for me? I'm trying to. But yeah, he was trapped. But he had a big heart, obviously. Yeah. He was like a big kid, really, wasn't he? Totally, yeah. Just like a big kid that money didn't mean anything. He didn't really know what money was.
Speaker 00:No, that's right.
Speaker 01:Yeah, it was money. Well, yeah, that's just a thing. Yeah. He must have done that to so many people. I heard he did it to a lot of people. Yeah. You know, his friends and whatever. He just had a sideshow that was following him around it hangers-on. Yeah. Which a lot of these rich people that don't know, celebrities, sports people.
Speaker 00:Yeah. Yeah. There's so many terrific Elvis stories and we'll dive into a few more of those in future episodes, I think. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, a lot on Elvis.
Unknown:Uh-huh.
Speaker 00:We're going to have a change of pace in a minute. Okay, where are we going? We're going to talk about 10-pound poms, which I know you come from a good family of 10-pound poms.
Speaker 01:Yeah.
Speaker 00:Okay, Mart, let's just delve back into fairly recent history. and talk about the idea of 10 pound poms now after the second world war obviously the governments of Australia and New Zealand were pretty keen to populate the country yeah and they set up a scheme that was kind of called populate or perish and in that scheme it allowed people from a number of different countries, not just from the UK.
Speaker 01:That's right. Yeah. Greece.
Speaker 00:Yeah.
Speaker 01:All. Yeah. European. I know there's a lot of Greeks, a lot of Italians, German and Dutch.
Speaker 00:Yeah, and they were allowed to come to Australia to resettle.
Speaker 01:Yes.
Speaker 00:And for the princely sum of £10 for adults and it was free for kids, right? Free for
Speaker 01:kids, yeah.
Speaker 00:Now you are a 10 pound pom. I am actually a 10 pound
Speaker 01:pom, which is amazing. I couldn't imagine living anywhere else. Australia is such a great country and Like I was six years old when I came out. I came out with my two brothers, my father and his new wife and my nan and my granddad. We had three aunties living out here at the moment in Brisbane and dad decided to ship us over here and start a new life. I left coming up for Christmas. It would have been probably around the end of November we left, because I think it took about three weeks, maybe a little bit more, to get to Australia. And the only way we came was by ship.
Speaker 00:Yeah, right. Now, you lived in Tottenham, didn't you? That's right.
Speaker 01:Yeah. So coming from Tottenham, freezing cold. I remember snow or sleep, but I remember it. And it was very, very cold. But then arriving in Australia...
Speaker 00:It was
Speaker 01:very, very hot. And we were living in a tent in the backyard of my auntie's place for probably about two months. And yeah, I loved it. It was just so marvellous. It was like Huckleberry Finn. But being six, I was actually six on the ship in the middle of the Indian Ocean. So we came from England and we travelled down through the Mediterranean, through the Suez Canal, which was open at the time. Yeah. But P&O actually built a ship and it was on the postcard with the Sydney Harbour Bridge. It was always on the Australian postcard. This ship with two funnels, yellow funnels. So it was a white ship with yellow funnels and two swimming pools. So they had a beautiful holiday through the Mediterranean, through places like Aden and Port Said. Going through the Suez Canal, I remember flying fish, and Arabs on camels. But anyway, coming to Australia, across the Indian Ocean and around to Perth, that was the first place we landed, which a lot of people got off, and then Sydney and Melbourne. And then it didn't come up to Brisbane. We had to catch a train from Sydney up to Brisbane, an old train. Okay. Yeah. And arriving in Brisbane with the City Hall was the tallest building. Wow. Yeah. It's amazing. There's so much that happened between then and then.
Speaker 00:And it sounds like you were probably, well, I mean, you were living in a tent, but you were probably lucky because the whole Bring Out of Britain campaign kind of promised jobs and prosperity and all this stuff. Yeah. in truth a lot of people sort of were put into camps yes yeah
Speaker 01:and the jobs weren't well you it's like going actually going back in time because you think of London, London my father was uh, he used to do neon signs you know the fancy and that was rebuilding England and it was big warming up to the 60s everything was happening it was lots of money to be made and then coming to Australia was I think Melbourne and Sydney might have been different but coming to Brisbane was it would have been a very big shock to a lot of English people because if you didn't stay for the year you had to pay for your fare out. Yeah, right. Yeah, because the £10 was for each adult, but the children
Speaker 00:were free. Yeah, because I think there's a fairly well-known saying where they talk about boomerang poms where people came out here and didn't really like the weather, didn't really like the job prospects, and a number of people couldn't wait to get home. But fortunately, you weren't one of them. No,
Speaker 01:well, I remember Dad doing the neon signs, saying that he did neon signs, fancy big Coca Cola ones and airport.... all this fancy stuff then he came to Brisbane and he said that this job that he had was this guy was going to give him a job turned up and they had like an old place where it was there where they took off from a big old truck and they were drawing on the ground and on the dirt with a stick what they were going to do. Whether it was a Bank of Queensland sign, you know, that they're going to drive up to Ipswich. But everyone's just jumping in the back of the truck and Dad thought, I'm not sitting in the back of a truck for like an hour and a half drive. You know, like...
Speaker 00:Yeah, wow. Yeah. Yeah. Different life. So fortunately, a whole bunch of people did come out and there are some fairly famous 10-pound poms. Oh, there's loads of them. Loads of them. I mean, there's been some terrific documentaries about people like The Easyb eats. Yeah. Who all kind of met in a... In one of those camps. One of those Villawood camps, I think it was. Yeah. In South Australia, perhaps. But so here's some names for you. So we've got John Farnham. Yep. Jimmy Barnes. John Paul Young. Colin Hay from Men at Work. John English. Kylie Minogue is the daughter of two 10-pound pilots.
Unknown:Yes.
Speaker 00:The Gibbs, obviously, Red Symons.
Speaker 01:Wow.
Speaker 00:I didn't know Red Symons was. Yeah, there you go. Julia Gillard migrated with her family back in the day in 1966, as did Tony Abbott in 1960. A couple of English fast bowlers from back in the day, actually, when they retired, took advantage of the scheme and stayed in Australia and loved it. People like Harold Larwood and Frank Tyson, who were really big names in cricket back in the day.
Unknown:Yeah.
Speaker 00:Obviously, the Gibb brothers, who they were born on the Isle of Man, which is where my family's from. Yeah. There you
Speaker 01:go. You could be related.
Speaker 00:I could be. You look a little bit like them. Well, minus the hair. Yes, all five members of The Easybeats. Obviously, the Young Brothers, who... Formed the twin guitars of ACDC. ACDC. Awesome. As was Bon Scott, so. Yeah. So the old Ten Pound Ponds project certainly brought a lot of really talented and interesting people to Australia. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 01:which brought,
Speaker 00:I'd
Speaker 01:say
Speaker 00:it's like
Speaker 01:a bit of culture, I suppose, came from.
Speaker 00:Oh, totally, yeah. You
Speaker 01:know, they wanted to prove themselves. Yeah. You know, because really the Australian thing, whether it was going bush or surfing or whatever, surfing wasn't huge back then I suppose in the well no when did surfing really take off
Speaker 00:yeah well I suppose you know everything the beach kicked off the 60s did a whole lot didn't it but it's the new frontier it is yeah and certainly there's a series I think it might be on Stan or something which is I think has a couple of seasons now called 10 Pound Poms. Y eah I saw that they paint a fairly, I guess a bleak picture, about some of the experiences that people had when they arrived the
Speaker 01:whole culture of Such a culture shock. Well, they're so used to like the pubs and not leaving the suburb that they live in, you know, because there's the pub they go to and that's where they go and their football team and that's their life. All of a sudden they're in 35
Speaker 00:degree heat.
Speaker 01:Travelling huge amounts. Driving a long way. To go to places and yeah.
Speaker 00:Yeah, anyway.
Speaker 01:We could talk about that a lot because there's so much... you know that i remember Aussies being like especially like in the 70s like so when i was 17 18 and Neil diamond was the big thing in barbecues but Poms were sort of like closer people in close and dancing and yahooing. Whereas Aussies tend to be women on that side and men on this side drinking beer and fighting. It's that whole cultural thing where it comes together. It's not like that now. Australia is
Speaker 00:so different. It's funny, isn't it? You think back to when you were a kid playing soccer or football or whatever. Certainly in Brisbane even, all the soccer clubs were all aligned with Irish. Irish Scottish and they're all named that like Hollandia hello you know Polonia and they're all very much aligned to one ethnicity and I'm sure you were the same, our team we'd have two or three kids who were you know inverted commas Australian but you had all these parents turning up and they were you know they could be from Italy or Greece or Spain or wherever a lot of English a lot of Scottish but yeah a real melting pot sort of made the country what it is yeah it's
Speaker 01:really good I remember this guy Pacini his name was it was quite a wealthy fellow and my younger, my elder brother Benny, he was a great sportsman and he played soccer really well well. This Pacini guy used to get him and get him to play for Bardon Latrobe pay him to play like it wasn't a lot of money but the fact is he saw potential in him and he wanted him on that team so obviously you know it was profitable for him to inject a good player yeah yeah on that low level
Speaker 00:yeah get a 10 pound Pom and yeah turn them into into something
Speaker 01:yeah and you remember yeah i remember because i was on that border where i wasn't really playing football or anything because i was only six and coming here and school it was like oh the you play soccer that girly game when you play rugby league so i played rugby league yeah and i grew up with rugby league so i was on that that fringe where you made the choice but i remember it was all English kids and European kids that played soccer.
Speaker 00:Yeah, right. Well, speaking of rugby league, Ian Roberts moved to Sydney with his family in 1967, so there's another £10 pom for you.
Speaker 01:Yeah. Anyway.
Speaker 00:But
Speaker 01:there was loads more, I'm sure. Yeah. Good fun. It is good fun.
Speaker 00:Mark, one of the things we love here at the pod is coincidences. Yeah. And particularly coincidences that probably changed history. And, you know, some of those are fun and some of those are crazy in terms of what might have happened. Yeah. It only takes a little thing, doesn't it? It sure does. There was one that I came across about Bill Murray, which I think we both love as an actor. Brilliant. He's pretty funny. But when he was young, I'm talking when he was 20 in 1970, he got arrested at The Chicago airport, because he was trying to smuggle a bunch of cannabis back to where he went to uni. Sounds like he might have been funding his uni through dealing in some drugs. But for whatever reason, he told the flight attendant that he actually had a bomb in his suitcase. She, of course, told the police and he got arrested and actually quit college before he could get expelled. So that's the moment where he took up stand up comedy. But had that not happened, he's probably never in any of these movies that we love. Caddyshack. Caddyshack and Groundhog Day and Ghostbusters and all that stuff. Life Aquatic.
Speaker 01:He's pretty good in the serious movies too. Yeah. Later on in his career. Steve
Speaker 00:Zissou, yeah. Yeah. He
Speaker 01:always plays weird offbeat characters, hey? The movies are usually weird and offbeat. What was the one where he was in Japan and he was like a James Bond type guy? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But he was off and they got paid to promote this whiskey.
Speaker 00:Yeah, I know. I should know the title. Yeah, so should I. I love... Scrooged. Yeah. I just love how they have the Robert Goulet Christmas hour and all that stuff. It's so cheesy. Yeah. But it's just, it's a terrific movie with Karen Allen in it.
Speaker 01:And how good is Groundhog Day? Yeah. Like, that's a terrific movie. Yeah, it is. Why you get so blasé about getting up in the
Speaker 00:morning and just being a pig? Yeah. So, you know, the point being, none of those things probably would have happened had he not decided to smuggle some dope. Or be a comedian at the airport. Yeah, I know. What a dumb move. Yeah. Anyway, that was a good one. Worked out. Here's another one for you. And this is going back to the Titanic. Yes. And this is a real sliding doors thing. So the watchman is assigned to the crow's nest, right? On top of the Titanic? Yeah. The guy... who's in that job needs binoculars to keep an eye out for large things like... Icebergs. Icebergs, that'd be it. But they're locked inside a locker. Yeah. So when, right before the ship sailed, the guy who was supposed to be in that role, that role was given to another guy. And so he didn't hand over the key... to the did he do that the locker vindictively or he didn't I don't think so I think he just forgot but basically the guy who's supposed to be on lookout for icebergs with said binoculars wasn't because the locker is locked so wow
Speaker 01:doh! I knew that about the binoculars because you know a son Luke did a project on it and said the reason is because there was no binoculars in the in the watchtower yeah the crow's nest crazy that is crazy
Speaker 00:yep So, yeah, a guy called David Blair forgot to hand over the keys to this other fellow called Charles Lightroller. Good name. I wonder if David ever thought about that. Probably. I don't know. Oh, man. Okay, here's another one for you. And this may be the luckiest and unluckiest person in the world at the same time. So in the Second World War, when America... dropped the nuclear bomb on Hiroshima. A fellow by the name of Tsutomu Yamaguchi was working in Hiroshima. He was thrown in the air by the impact, but he survived. Jeez. Yeah. Anyway, he went back home to Nagasaki, where he lived. You know where this is going. Wow. And he was trying to tell his boss about... This bomb that he just survived, and this guy was saying, no bomb could take out a whole city, I don't believe you. And with that, there's a massive white blast. And this guy was involved in the Nagasaki bombing as well, survived that, and lived to be like 93. But far out. What are we talking about? Wrong place, wrong time, right?
Speaker 01:Like twice. Twice. He could have been a guinea pig, couldn't he? He could have been like... like what have they tested on
Speaker 00:him or anything I don't know like how do you survive that I mean it's a horrible topic, but yeah what an amazing story. I t is amazing you know yeah. Got one more for you yep and this is all about the name Eleanor Rigby the Beatles the Beatles yeah so yeah 1957, John Lennon and Paul McCartney meet. They're at the St. Peter's Church. I think everyone knows the story about how they met at the church fair. And, you know, from there it was history. Apparently, just meters away from where they met was the grave of a lady by the name of Eleanor Rigby. Yes. Now, McCartney always claimed that he named the character after an actress called Eleanor Bronn and a store in Bristol that was called Rigby and Evans. But who knows? There might have been something subliminal there. Point is, Eleanor Rigby's grave was auctioned off, but it failed to sell. She died alone, and nobody went to the funeral. Oh, wow. Yeah, so, I mean, what's the coincidence that... It writes a song. They meet. Yeah. Meters from where this song is from Revolver. It's a terrific song, too. Oh, yeah, amazing, yeah. I heard a stat about the Beatles the other day. This blows me away. If the Beatles were still together today, their first album would have been in 2018. Wow. That's how short of a time they were
Speaker 01:together, right? Yeah. And it seems like a lifetime, their music.
Speaker 00:But also how quickly it progressed, right? Yeah. So from, you know, She Loves You and I Want to Hold Your Hand and all that stuff to... Yellow Submarine. Through Yellow Submarine and Sgt. Pepper's and into Let It Be and Abbey Road. Incredible. How much they grew. 12 albums in 7 years. Yeah. But I don't know about you, but for better or worse, a song that was made in 2018 pretty well sounds the same now as a song that's Yeah. Yeah. it was Herman's Hermits, Cliff Richards yeah yeah yeah and Frank Sinatra and so they've gone from there to 1970 and all the kind of the next round of stuff that was coming through yeah that was just crazy you know hard rock and all that sort of stuff but I just find it
Speaker 01:amazing that well yeah they gave so many like they opened up the door didn't they yeah this massive door opened up
Speaker 00:totally yeah and so many terrific bands and artists just went beautiful we'll we'll have some of that thanks
Speaker 01:and again it was it's just the timing isn't it like they worked really hard to be who they were which people don't realize you know that they in that early stages you know touring Germany Europe, eight h our gigs
Speaker 00:in Hamburg every day, yeah
Speaker 01:yeah to become this success and then to become who they were it was just amazing
Speaker 02:yeah
Speaker 01:there you go
Speaker 00:Okay, welcome back. The great thing about fun facts, I reckon, is that you can always retain one or two of these things just to annoy people with, you know? So I'm going to give you some rapid fire facts here, Mark. Yep. I'm ready. You're ready. Okay. So Game of Thrones. Yes. The Night's Watch. Yes. The outfits that they wore were made from rugs from Ikea. Great. How good.
Speaker 02:It's terrific, isn't it?
Speaker 00:You see all the sets on that show and stuff, but basically they're Ikea rugs. All right, here's another one for you. A lemon floats, but a lime sinks. Really? Yep. Yep. Limes are denser than lemons, so they drop to the bottom of a glass whilst lemons float. So go figure. Here's another one for you. The T-Rex likely had feathers. Yeah, I saw that. Those crazy Chinese apparently have discovered that the ancestors of the T-Rex had feathers. So, yes. A
Speaker 01:bit
Speaker 00:hard to think. Was it a bird? Was it a
Speaker 01:plane?
Speaker 00:Was it a T-Rex? It's a very messed up dinosaur. Okay, here's another. So, it's kind of tradition now when people are having a photo taken or a selfie to say cheese. But back in the day... It wasn't the done thing to be smiling. They used to say, say prunes. Say the word prunes. Prunes. Hmm. It was seen as childish to have a cheesy grin in the 1840s. So London photographers used to say, say prunes to keep your mouth closed tightly as people should back then. So when you look at those old photos, it kind of makes sense.
Unknown:Yeah.
Speaker 00:Prunes. But how'd they do it when they did, okay, wanna pull a
Speaker 01:face?
Speaker 00:Well, if that had too many prunes, maybe. Mart, Last fact, and this doesn't apply 100% of the time, but most of the clocks in the movie Pulp Fiction are set to 4:20. So I think we're going to have to go and rewatch that to make sure that it's true, it's a good movie to watch. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 4:20. 4:20. Okay. I wonder why that was. I don't know. It's maybe a quirk from Tarantino just to put a little Easter egg in there. He's good. I love his movies. I was talking to my wife, Carol, last night about From Dusk Till Dawn.
Speaker 01:Yeah.
Speaker 00:And just the whole idea of just flipping on its head from one minute to the next to become a vampire movie.
Speaker 02:Yeah.
Speaker 00:I mean, he was so good just at taking a genre and going, all right, I'm going to do a vampire movie and we'll do a car movie and we'll do a road movie. Yeah. Yeah. It's pretty cool. Yeah. He is
Speaker 01:a very cool guy.
Speaker 00:He
Speaker 01:is. His favorite clip from the past, so I've heard, was from Bewitched, you know, the sexy witch. Samantha? Yeah. Was it Derwin? Darren, yeah. Darren. Was it? Did she have a twin sister? The mother-in-law used to call him Derwin. But she had a twin sister, didn't she? Yeah. Sort of like more evil. Yep. But she does. And if you Google it, it's really quite good. She plays this song with a guitar and what she's wearing is pretty, yeah, pretty for that time.
Speaker 00:Yeah. Okay. So Google that one. I think that's probably a good point to end the show. Yeah, I've enjoyed that. Yeah, it's been good fun and we've covered a lot of territory and I'm now off to Google bewitched evil sister. Playing guitar. Actually, we'll put a link in the show notes for that one, Mart. That's good.
Speaker 01:Good idea.
Speaker 00:Yeah. Okay, well, look, that's about it. Thanks for listening, everyone. And if you want to get in touch with us, ask us a question or give us a topic you might like us to talk about, then get in touch on Facebook or Instagram or send us an email at funfactsandsidetracks at gmail.com. See you next time.
Speaker 01:See you.
Unknown:Bye.
