Welcome to Are You Quizzing Me. I am Vineet Nair with my Co host
Aditya Kashyap. This is a quizzing trivia
podcast show. Join us as we dive deep into
history, science, pop culture and so much more.
Let's get quizzing and we're back for episode #82 of Are You
Quizzing Me? Your favorite quizzing and
trivia podcast show. Aditya and I are back for
another round of quizzing and let's start off this episode
without any further ado with the audience question for those who
came in late and for those who are new.
The audience question is a question I ask at the beginning
of every episode, the answer to which I gave at the end of the
episode. So try and guess the answer and
stay tuned till the end to see if you're right.
So the audience question for today is which word meaning to
plan together secretly is derived from the Latin for to
breathe with or breathe together having the same root as the word
respiration? Let me repeat the question,
which word meaning to plan together secretly is derived
from the Latin for breathe with or breathe together having the
same root as the word respiration?
I will answer this question at the end of today's episode.
Now it's time for our regular round of quizzing.
And Aditya Kashyap, why don't you start us off for this 82nd
episode of Are You Quizzing Me? Fun it it feels like it's been a
while since we did a good old regular are you quizzing me
episode Vineet you and me kicking it old school styles
yes, 82nd episode my every time I say a number, I'm just like,
how have you managed to reach this?
So that is a question for us to ponder upon, which perhaps
doesn't have an answer, but there are some questions which
do have an answer. The first of those questions I'm
going to be asking for this episode has to do with one of my
absolute favorite things. And no, it's not a listicle this
time. It is a pun.
Oh, God, I have a pun for you, my good son.
No, you have to guess the pun. In this case.
I'm going to name three people. I'm going to tell you what these
three people are famous for. You might have heard of some of
them. I'm sure you have heard of some
of them. And you have to tell me, what
was this group of three people called?
What was the nickname that was given to them, which is a pun.
So the first that I'm going to mention is Dian Fossey.
Dian Fossey, for anybody who doesn't know, was an American
primatologist and conservationist who is known for
undertaking an extensive study of mountain gorillas from 1966
until her unfortunate murder in 1985.
Absolutely devastating. A lovely human being, I imagine
doing some great work for the planet, was murdered, but did do
a significant contribution to science and hopefully will be
remembered for that. The first person is Diane
Fossey. The next person I want to talk
about is Beirut Galdicas. Beirut Galdicas, who is a
Lithuanian Canadian anthropologist, primatologist,
conservationist, ethologist and author.
Also a professor at Simon Fraser University.
She is recognized as a leading authority on orangutans.
Now, Vineet, I'm going to let you guess the third person.
I think you perhaps have an idea of who the third person in this
list might be. The first one was lady, who is
known for studying gorillas. The second one, scientists known
for studying orangutans. The third one would be the most
famous of them all. Chimpanzees.
And who would that be? OK, Am I supposed to know
somebody? Big scientist.
And among the chimpanzee community?
I don't know. I'm.
I'm blanking. Who are we talking about?
All right. But well, hey, points for
getting chimpanzee of the fly. This would be Jane Goodall.
Yes. One of the most famous people
who has studied chimpanzees. Yes.
So Jane Goodall, who was
formerly the Baroness Jane Goodall is an English zoologist,
primatologist, anthropologist, consider the world's foremost
expert on chimpanzees. After 60 years studying the
social and family interactions of wild chimpanzees.
It is breathtaking and it is mind boggling just the amount of
work this one single person has done for the field of chimpanzee
study. Now three people I mentioned
Vineeth, tell me what these three people are known as
collectively. The first one was Dan Fossey,
who has studied mountain gorillas.
Second one was Berut Galdikas, who has studied orangutans, and
the last one Jane Goodall, who has studied chimpanzees.
What is this group of three called?
This is going to be some climber upon which I'm never going to be
able to guess. OK, this is what I hate.
When you give me these fun questions it just exposes me for
the straight thinker that I am. OK Monkey, monkey men, monkey
Kong, monkey women. 3 monkeys. Is it like a play on 12 monkeys?
Like 3 monkeys? No, that I don't think they
would be called monkeys. No, no, no, not at all.
Not at all. I'll give you the other name
that they're known by, which is not really going to lead you to
the answer, but it's just an interesting side trivia.
So all three of them were kind of, I guess, mentored by a
Kenyan British paleontropologist and archaeologist who was also
very interested in this particular field of study, who
went by the name of Louis Leakey.
So these women were also called Leakey's angels.
What are they called apart from Leakey's angels?
We need to think of what were they studying?
Who were they studying? They were studying primates.
And how many of them were there? 3 Trimates trimates.
Yeah, there we go. Oh God, they called 3 mates.
The trimates. The trimates.
Oh, oh God, oh God. Trimates was the name that was
given to these three women, Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey, and Brute
Daldikas, 3 women who have changed the study of primates
and have contributed significantly to that particular
science. And just because it combines my
love for nature and for sciences with my absolute devotion to
puns, I had to ask you this, Vineer.
You know, I don't even think this qualifies as a regular
trivia question. And I'll tell you what, my dad's
favorite, who is a regular listener, shout out to my
father. My dad's favorite question, I
think so far, the one that he has made a point to call me up
after listening to the episode and telling me how much he loved
it, was the pun on air Horse one.
I knew it just had to be it. The plane that was used to
transport these, these race horses.
Race horses, Yeah, it's called Air Horse One.
To be fair, that is a much superior pun to trimates.
I'm going to put it out there. That's a come.
On Trimates is a great fun as well.
Vineet, I challenge you on that. Trimates is a phenomenal pun.
No air horse one. Now that that brings me a
chuckle every time. You know what I say to that
vineet? I say nay.
Oh God. OK, that was a fantastic pun,
but I'm going to go the most serious route.
Have you heard of the International Organization for
Standardization, also known as ISO?
I have heard of that. Yes.
So it's an independent non governmental international
standard development organization composed of
representatives from the national standards organizations
of member countries. It was founded on 23rd February
1947 and as of July 2024 has published over 25,000
international standards covering almost all aspects of technology
and manufacturing. So what the ISO does is it
develops and publishes international standards for
easiness on end user or commerce market like availability in
technical and non-technical fields including everything from
manufactured products and technology to food safety,
transport, IT, agriculture and healthcare.
Just to give you a few examples. ISO 9001 which is the one that
most people must have heard is a quality management system for
organizations. So if an organization is
certified to or accredited as to having passed the criteria for
ISO 9001, you can be assured that they have great quality
management systems in place, right?
Similarly, the medical laboratories we follow or the
standards of ISO 15189, which is quality and competence in
medical laboratories. So this is the background to the
question. Now coming to the question
itself, ISO 3301 was originally laid down in 1980.
That's 1980, and a revision was published in December 2019.
This standard is not meant to define the proper method, but
rather to document a procedure where meaningful sensory
comparisons can be made. The protocol has been criticized
for omitting any mention of pre warming.
Ireland was the only country to object and objected on technical
grounds. The work was the winner of the
parodic IG Nobel Prize for Literature in 1999.
So what does ISO 3301 set the standard for?
I can see that stupid grin on your face, which just tells me
I've wasted a lot of time coming up with this question just to
have it bomb and you just crack it on the first try.
But go ahead, make your own day. I will make my own day.
It is the standard for making tea.
ISO 3301 is the standard for making tea.
This is a piece of trivia I encountered weeks ago.
And here's a little bit of a look under the hood for how this
podcast is made. Because whenever I decide that
OK, I'm going to ask these questions this episode, I always
keep a couple of them backed up. And I'm like, OK, all of these
3-4 are great. And this extra one, just in
case, you know, one of them I can't use.
And ISO 3301 has been on my list for the last 20 episodes, I
believe. I always have it open and I've
just like, OK, you know what, it's a great question, but I'll
ask it at some point in the future.
So last 20 episodes, I've not asked this question.
Then you just went for it this time.
So I can't really take too much care for it.
I just encountered this piece of trivia a while back, and I want
to ask you this. So it's the standard for making
tea. Yes.
So for the benefit of our audience, ISO 3301, or rather
the new one is ISO 13103, sets a standard for brewing tea.
Now the standard is not meant to define the proper method for
brewing tea intended for general consumption, but rather it is
made to document a tea brewing procedure where meaningful
sensory comparisons can be made. An example of such a test would
be a taste test to establish which blend of teas to choose
for a particular brand or label in order to maintain a
consistent tasting brewed drink from harvest to harvest.
It may not be the best way of making tea, but they defines a
specific order and method in making tea so that you can make
a consistent comparison each and every time.
So there's an actual standard for that.
There's an somebody actually sat down and made I don't know how
many 10s of pages, just a standard to internationally
follow on how to brew tea, which I found quite nerdy and
interesting at the same time. So I thought I'd stump you with
it. But then you are unstumpable.
You have no stump. Honoured that you think that I
can't be stumped because that will be proven wrong pretty
shortly I'm sure in this episode.
But Speaking of people who do contribute a lot to this podcast
without sometimes coming to the fore, that would be a lovely
listeners. And one of them has sent me a
question. So thank you so much to this
listener, Arjun Sree Kumar. Arjun Sree Kumar sent me a
couple of questions. I'm going to ask one of them
today, Vineet. And I'm very excited, not
because the question is great, because the question is a fun
question, but more importantly, Arjun Sree Kumar said, I'm going
to quote him here his his e-mail to us.
Shout out to any of our listeners who want to send us an
e-mail with a question. You can say it, right?
Are you quizzing me@gmail.com? So Arjun Sreekumar's e-mail to
us said, hi, Aditya, great work on the podcast.
For me. This is hands down the best
trivia or quizzing podcast I have heard.
That is very sweet. Thank you, Arjun.
The next line goes. I also appreciate the fun aspect
of the podcast, including your question of the week, which I've
noticed you're not posing anymore in recent episodes.
For the benefit of any of our listeners who have only joined
us in the last few, perhaps weeks, maybe in a couple of last
months. They might not know that at one
point this podcast used to end with me asking a question, which
is not a trivia question, which is just a stupid pun, and I
didn't even have an answer for it.
And I would just think of it in the intervening week before we
recorded the next. And then I would give that
answer at the beginning of the next episode.
And we have stopped doing that because some of the listener
feedback was that they didn't know if that was real trivia or
they were getting confused. Yeah.
But hey, at least I know there was one fan.
So Arjun, from the bottom of my heart, thank you so much.
You have made my day, my week, my month, probably my year, just
with that compliment. But coming to the real meat of
the matter, Arjun's question. And I'm going to read it
verbatim. OK.
X is a term used for a mercenary in the Ottoman army.
Recruited by sultans to boost the regular army, they did not
receive payment or wear a uniform.
They lived off of the loot seized from civilians, forming a
formidable, undisciplined cavalry with a reputation for
brutal violence. They were especially active in
the Crimean War and the Balkan Wars of the 19th century.
The term in Ottoman Turkish itself means one whose head is
turned or it could also mean damaged head or crazy head.
What is this term X? The first thing that comes to
mind when you say that is Janissaries.
They were like the shock troops of the Ottoman Empire to the
Janissaries. Am I anywhere close?
No, it's not the Janissaries. OK, no, I'll need some kind of
clue then. At this point I have to tell you
why I really like this question and I had to pick this question
to ask is because the hint is a really fun hint provided by
Arjun himself. The hint reads it's a commonly
used swear word or insult by Captain Haddock in the Tintin
comics. Blistering billion.
Blistering blue barnacles? No.
That is the allitration that you want to focus on.
Yes, yes, yes. Give me.
Give me two seconds. Give me two seconds.
What is it called? Something I keep remembering
bazooka for some reason something similar right it I I
can't remember the exact one it. Agonizingly close.
It is very close to the word bazooka.
I can't remember it. I can't remember it.
I I remember it something very similar to Bazooka, but I can't
remember the actual thing. OK, the word basically goes
bashi bazook. Bashi bazook.
OK, bashi bazooki. Bazook.
So for any of our Tintin fans, you would remember Captain
Haddock in his rage fits would list of alliterative expletives
or close to expletives as you can for a children's comic.
And a lot of them were crazy sounding words that were just
bunched together. Blistering barnacles, billions
of blue blistering barnacles comes to mind.
Thousands of thundering typhoons.
And Bashi Bazook was another thing that he used to say.
Wow, what a lovely piece of trivia.
Right? Like what was he actually
talking about? Bashi Bazook who were
mercenaries in the Ottoman army who used to be renowned for the
brutality and violence and also were paid by the loot that they
would gather from civilians. That is the origin of the term
Bashi Bazook. I also have to, on behalf of
Arjun, give a unofficial PCR. I love PCR.
I never thought of that pop culture recommendation.
OK. Which is Blistering Barnacles,
which is an A-Z Dictionary of the rants, rambles and rages of
Captain Haddock. It's a coffee table book by
Albert Gold and I haven't read it, but from the sounds of it I
think it is probably going to be brilliant.
So it's something I think people should know that Arjun wants to
recommend. Blistering Barnacles, an A-Z
Dictionary of the RAD Samples and rages of Captain Haddock.
A coffee table book. Unofficial PCR.
Nice, nice, very nice. OK, I see your Bashi Bazook and
I'm going to raise you to another level of pop culture.
Basically, you give me a clue on comics and I'm going to go one
step further where you have one comic, which is Tintin.
I'm going to hundreds of comics. So a comic book convention or
Comic Con is a fan convention emphasizing comic books and
comic book culture, in which comic book fans gather to meet
creators, experts and each other.
Though the San Diego Comic Con is the most famous, it is not
the oldest. The first recorded official
Comic Con comic book convention occurred in 1964 in New York
City. Known as the New York Comic Con,
it was held on July 24th, 1964 at the Workman Circle Building,
a one day convention organized by 16 year old Bernie Bupness
and fellow enthusiast Ron Fratkin.
Official guests included Steve Ditko who you may know as the Co
creator of Spider Man and creator of Doctor Strange, as
well as Tom Gill who was the artist of The Lone Ranger comic.
There were reports of over 100 attendees.
My question to you Aditya, is who was the first person to sign
up for and buy a ticket to the first ever Comic Con?
Let me repeat that last part. Who was the first ever person to
sign up and buy a ticket for the first ever Comic Con?
Would it be a very, very strange answer to just say, was it Spike
Lee? No, Why Spike Lee?
I'm just curious. Oh, I'm sorry, what am I saying,
Spike Lee? I'm like what?
What is the? What is the director of Inside
Man I have to do with this? Can you cut that part out?
Because I wanted to say Stanley and I want to sound like such
an. Idiot.
No. No, we are.
We are. We are.
We are not this. Is what I mean.
I was sounding smart so far. We were 20 minutes in and I was
sounding really smart. And then I have to shoot myself
in the foot and say Spike Lee instead of Stanley like a
absolute buffoon. Billions of blistering buffoons.
OK, yeah, I meant Stanley. Would it be ridiculous to say
Stanley? And not ridiculous.
But it's not Stanley. OK, but am I in the right space?
Is it like somebody famous in that comic?
Book this person is famous in. Yeah.
I mean, like, he's not just exclusively comic book, but pop
culture. This person is very famous in
pop culture. Some of his works have been
wrapped into comics. I would put it that way.
Could you tell me, sorry again, which year was this first ever
Comic Con? This was 1964. 1964 Some of his
work has been adapted into a comic book.
A pop culture legend from the sounds of it.
Just to say that, you know, you are not completely wrong in that
Stanley did have a connection to the first ever Comic Con.
This is a piece of slide, But yeah, his secretary, who was
quite famous in her own right, was called Flo Steinberg.
She was known as the fabulous Flo Steinberg.
She was Stanley's secretary. And she also was one of the
guests at the first ever Comic Con held in New York in 1964.
But the person who was the first ever person to sign up for the
first ever Comic Con was not Stanley.
Do you want a clue? Yeah, that would be great.
OK, so Star Wars Chewbacca. The appearance of Chewbacca was
based off an illustration from one of the books written by this
person. Oh interesting.
No, I have absolutely no clue who Chewbacca is based off.
I was going to say, is it the person who played Chewbacca,
which I know is some actor, but. Peter Weller, I think his name
was. I will also give an additional
Clue, who was almost a fixture at later comic cons in the 2000
and 10s, but at that time, instead of being an attendee, he
was up on stage. I'll just give you a little more
detail on Chewbacca's appearance.
Chewbacca's final appearance in the movie Star Wars was based on
a 1976 piece of concept art by Ralph Mcquarrie, which in turn
was based on illustration by John Schoner for this person's
novel, which was called and Seven Times Never Kill a Man.
And seven times never kill a man.
Yeah. Is that the book that Satkun
Math is based on? I don't think so, because it's a
science fiction thing. I was going to say that that is
based of a Ruskin Bond novel or book or.
Whatever story. Yeah, Something, something,
yeah. Coming back to this, this person
that we are talking about started off his career as a hard
science fiction writer, but today is known more for fantasy,
high fantasy. The only person who fits that
bill is George RR Martin. I know he started off with
science fiction and has moved to fantasy.
Is he the one? Yes, George RR Martin was the
first ever person to buy a ticket for the first ever Comic
Con. He confirmed this had an
interview in his words. It was held in New York City in
1964. It cost a 1 1/2 dollars to sign
up for it, which is a lot of money, like a dozen comic books.
And I had to spend more money taking the bus from Bayonne, NJ,
hoping I could find this place in the depths of Greenwich
Village. Nice.
So George RR Martin was the first person.
I have to ask though, because I have heard this piece of trivia
and you are a bigger Star Wars nerd than I am, so you probably
will be able to correct me if I'm wrong.
I thought Chewbacca was based off of Lucas Dog, no?
No, they wanted a kind of shaggy doggy Wolfie appearance, but
they wanted it to be in kind of physically imposing humanoid
structure. So the final appearance was
based off this particular illustration, the whole
bandelier and being 7 feet tall and all those things.
OK so This is why probably I was confused.
I just pulled up this piece of trivia.
Chewbacca was inspired by Lucas Dog and Alaskan Malamute named
Indiana. She would sit in the passenger
seat of his car while he was driving and he referred to her
as his copilot. Chewbacca's name was derived
from the Russian word Sobacca, or however it is pronounced in
Russian, which means dog. So this is this is a little bit
of Chewbacca trivia for any of our Star Wars fans over there.
An interesting effect. Yeah.
So I guess the final appearance, obviously.
The final appearance, yeah, of the, you know, but the basically
if you look at the original illustration, I've seen the
illustration from Laurence Mccorry's concept art that he
was inspired by John Schoner's illustration for GRR Martin
Novelette. So that concept of a 7 foot 8
foot tall kind of shaggy dog like creature with a band
earlier that comes from a George RR Martin book illustration.
I love that. Cool, So Chewbacca originated
from a dog but inspired by George RR Martin.
Wow, it's like I love these worlds colliding.
Yeah. Great piece of trivia.
History is amazing and that is my segue.
History is amazing to my question and this is a question
from the 18th century, Vinit, so we are going way, way back.
How much do you know about the thoroughbred race horses from
18th century? Absolutely.
Nothing. I love it.
Great. Hopefully this will take you a
little effort. A particular racehorse who won
over 25 races. Let's call this racehorse X 1 /
25 races and place higher than some of the most prominent race
horses of this time was an important sire whose leading
runners included Epsom Derby winners Waxy Champion, Tyrant.
These are names perhaps famous among the racehorse community.
He is best known apart from his racing credentials, he is best
known for the unusual spelling of his name.
So I'm going to tell you the origin of the name, and then
you're going to tell me the name of this particular horse.
There are many different theories of how this name might
have originated. According to the most common
one, Bertie, who was the breeder, Bertie intended to call
the young colt Y. He instructed the stable boy to
write the name on a feed bin. So he instructed the stable boy
to write Y on the feed bin. The stable boy spelled the name
phonetically and hence ended up with the name X.
So he misspelled it, and he ended up calling it X, which
amused Bertie so much that he adopted that name X instead.
Or he adopted that particular spelling instead.
What is the name? Do you want to take a wild guess
to begin with? Because right now I don't think
I've given you enough clues. But take a wild guess to begin.
See The thing is when it comes to race horses, I know just a
few like Secretariat and Sea Biscuits, but those are like
from the 20th century and maybe late 19th century.
But this is the 18th century. I can't think of anything from
the 18th century. Nothing.
The only other kind of famous horse that comes to mind is
Black Beauty, but it was not a racehorse.
OK, you might not have heard of this particular horse.
I had never even heard of this name before, but this piece of
trivia is just too good to pass up on.
He was named after a vegetable, the first to be grown in space.
Lettuce no. What's the first vegetable to be
grown in space and nothing comes to like like beetroot?
Also famously portrayed in a science fiction work.
Potato. Yes.
So Y is potato. Do you want to take a guess as
to what X is? So potato.
Potato. Is it something to do with that?
No. It's a little, little stupider
than that. OK, potato, Potato.
Be potato, potato. I was think of it as if he was
trying to spell it or he was trying to break it down
phonetically and he ended up with the spelling.
Potato. You're saying it like you're
saying it. I don't know if you're hearing
it. I wonder if our listeners can
tell what the answer is right now because you're literally
saying it out loud. Wait, I'm just saying potato
differently, that's all. OK.
Let me try to say it once with the emphasis and let's see if we
figure it out. OK.
Pot 8 OH. Part 8 O.
Yeah, if that had. Part Eight.
Part 80. Close, close, close.
I don't. Know OK Part 80.
Part 80. I will put you out of a misery.
The stable boy heard it as part 8 O.
So he wrote the word part followed by 8 OS.
He thought the guy was saying part followed by 8 OS.
That is just so dumb. So what did they call him?
Patu. So he was Patu, Patu.
I don't know, Patu. I guess Patu Patu.
That's also the sound he made when he rushed past you on the
race course. Do you remember the time when
our podcast actually used to be much more serious?
Yeah, neither do I, but still, I just hope that was at some point
that, you know, some listeners listening to this might think
like, OK, I just want to show you we do have serious episodes,
but this is a particularly silly.
One and I take my comedy seriously also I should have
done this earlier but let me do it now.
This question was not my question.
This was provided to us by another lovely listener Vishnu.
Vishnu reached out to me on Instagram, so another place that
you can reach out to both Vineet and I, and he give me a couple
of questions. I picked this one to ask.
So thank you. Vishnu, who's also a regular
listener, and he says he really loves it and enjoys it.
And he's always waiting for the next episode to drop.
So Vishnu, hopefully in the next episode you get to hear your own
question. This was Vishnu's question.
For two, for two, for two, whatever.
It is OK. OK.
I see you. I see you.
So you had a lot of O's, a lot of letters.
So now I'm going to go to something also, which has a lot
of letters, which is a poem. Now how's that for a segue?
Have you heard of Alexander Pope?
I have heard of this person. Yes, so Alexander Pope, famous
author and poet, had many famous poems.
I'm just going to focus on one poem in particular, and this
poem is called Eloisa to Abelard.
The name of the poem is Eloisa to Abelard.
So there are 4 lines. I'm going to specifically focus
on one standard from this poem. I'm going to tell you what the
words are and I'm going to leave out one line and I want you to
tell me which line I'm leaving out.
OK, You with me so far. Yep.
OK, so the first line is how happy is the blameless Westel's
lot. The second line is the world
forgetting by the world forgot. And then the line I want you to
identify and the last line is each prayer accepted and.
Each wish resigned. You already know this.
I have heard of this firm. Such a smug look.
It it's not, it's not a good look on you.
No, I, I, I can't even take credit for this.
This is like, you know, you, you encounter some things in life
that just move you at such a deep level that you can't help
but remember these things. OK, that that that's enough
grandstanding. I mean, like, see, he's he's
he's quite smug. He's just come from the gym and
he's looking ripped and kind of, you know, all jacked up and
wearing a muscle muscle tee and showing off all muscles and all
and the smug look, it's not going to work.
Don't know what to say to that, so I'm just going to tell you
the answer. The answer is Eternal Sunshine
of the Spotless Mind. Yes, yes it is.
Right. OK, so for our audience who may
be impressed with the fact that it took me some digging to get
this, but there is a poem by Alexander Pope which is called
Eloisa to Abelard. It was published in my 1717 and
is based on a well known medieval story inspired by the
12th century story of Elouise. The Aljum tells illicit love for
and secret marriage to a teacher, Peter Abelard, who was
a famous Parisian philosopher some 20 years her senior.
After their affair and marriage, her family took brutal vengeance
on Abelard and castrated him, following which he entered a
monastery and compelled Elouise to become a nun.
Both then LED comparatively successful monastic careers.
Years later, Abelard completed the Historia Calamitatum, which
is the history of misfortune, cast as a letter of consolation
to the fend. When it fell into Eloise's
hands, her passion for him was reawakened, and there was an
exchange of four letters between them, written in an ornate Latin
style. In Pope's poem, Eloisa confesses
to the suppressed love that his letter has reawakened.
So this is the kind of context in which Alexander Pope has
written this poem and the complete stanza in continuation
so that you can appreciate the sheer beauty of this poem goes
as followed. How happy is the blameless
Westel's lot. The world forgetting by the
world forgot. Eternal sunshine of the spotless
mind. Each prayer accepted, each wish
resigned. That's where the Jim Carrey
movie get it to get its name. Yeah, that's the whole summary
of this entire thing that I had to say.
That Jim Carrey's movie came from a line from an Alexander
Pope poem. And I was hoping that Aditya
would be stumped. But this muscular man in front
of me, he was just too smug. Might I remind you I also said
Spike Lee instead of Stan Lee just a while back.
Yeah. And I said it with so much
confidence. I was like, I think I've cracked
this for the first one. No close.
OK, that's a lovely question. Probably because it is a
beautiful poem. These few lines are just so
beautiful. And also that movie.
Oh God, that movie. Yeah, the movie is great.
If not for The Truman Show, this would be by far my favorite Jim
Carrey movie. But then, Truman Show is also a
pretty phenomenal movie. How dare you?
The best Jim Carrey movie ever is Dumb and Dumber, followed
very closely by The Mask. Oh, I'm.
Surprised you didn't say Ace Ventura.
Oh, now you've got me confused. I'd have to put the mask and Ace
Ventura side by side. That's, that's a pretty valid
list right there. I, I, I'll give you props for
that. I actually think one of his
underrated movies is Liar Liar. I think Liar Liar is just a
hilarious movie. It is hilarious.
So is me, myself and Irene. Also.
Yes, man. Yeah, there we go.
We agree on that. 1A phenomenal movie.
I mean, like Jim Carrey is one of those people.
He just everything he touches turns to gold.
He had to be the Grinch in The Grinch Who Stole Christmas.
And the prosthetic work was so time consuming and so
suffocating that they actually had to bring in This is a true
story. They had to bring in Acia expert
who had to teach him how to resist torture just so that he
could get through this prosthetic experience.
Putting on the prosthetics for becoming the great.
No way, you're kidding me. Is that a real piece of trivia?
It's a real thing. It's a real thing.
You look at the movie, that's actual process.
It's not CGI, right? They've actually spent hours,
something, six hours, 7 hours in the makeup chair every day just
to get that on. And it was so bad that they had
to actually bring in a torture expert to teach him how to
resist torture techniques, to resist torture, so that he could
just stand putting on all that makeup and whatnot.
And he still gave a stellar performance.
My God, that that's, that's painful.
That sounds painful. OK, great.
So some lovely Jim Carrey movies as recommendations, pop culture
recommendations. I'm moving from your question
about an English author. I'm going to move to something
else that is English and in this case it is the Court of Criminal
Appeal, which was an English appellate court for criminal
cases established by the Criminal Appeal Act Nineteen O
7. Eventually it was superseded by
the Court of Appeal of England and Wales in 1966.
So it it was around for close to 60 years.
OK. This particular court came to be
because there was a lot of disquiet, a lot of public
turmoil over the convictions of two people.
And both of these convictions, perhaps even by common logic or
common sense, seem to be wrongful convictions and were
proven eventually to be wrongful convictions as well.
The first of which was a gentleman by the name of Adolf
Beck. A very quick background on the
Adolf Beck case, which was a notorious incident of wrongful
conviction by mistaken identity brought about by unreliable
methods of identification. But the other cases what we are
interested in, which was the case of George Idalji.
Now George Idalji was an English solicitor and a son of a vicar
of Indian Parsi descent in a village in England.
He became known as a victim of a miscarriage of justice for
having served three years hard labour after being convicted on
a charge of injuring a pony. He was initially regarded having
been responsible for the series of animal mutilations known as a
Great Riley Outrageous, but the prosecution case against him
became regarded as weak and prejudice, probably because of
racial overtones. He was pardoned on the grounds
of the conviction being an unsafe 1 after a campaign in
which X took a prominent role. And that brings me to my
question. Who is X responsible for
overturning this criminal conviction and restoring justice
and eventually leading to, I guess, indirectly setting up
this Court of Criminal appeal? England and males.
Since they're the same, Court of Criminal Appeals is going to be
quite long. I'm going to shorten it to COCA.
So when did you say that Koka was established?
Koka was established in 19 O 7 and stuck around in 1966.
These two cases that I mentioned happened close to that time.
I think George Dalti's case happened in 19 O 6.
OK, nineteen O 6. OK.
So given the fact that this is still during the colonial era
and you said somebody of Parsi dissent, I'm guessing this was a
barrister of Indian origin. That is a very solid guess.
I give you props for trying to read my mind, I guess, because I
would ask you a question where it would be an unexpected
person. But no, it is not an Indian
barrister fighting for the justice of a man of Indian Parsi
origin or dissent. No, it isn't Mahatma Gandhi, OK.
No, I was actually thinking of Jinnah, but.
OK, yeah, neither Jinnah nor Gandhi nor it's.
Because by 19, by the 1900s, Gandhi was already in South
Africa. That is true.
Yes, you are right. No, it's neither Jinnah nor
Gandhi. Nobody Indian at all.
Nobody Indian. OK, then I would probably go
into the Spencer family. Churchill.
OK, so at this point I'm going to give you a clue because this
clue is also so beautiful. It has to be part of the
question, OK? X arrived to meet with Adalji at
a hotel after becoming interested in the case.
X recalled that he paused to study Adalji, who was passing
the time reading a newspaper while waiting in the lobby.
On observing how Adalji held the paper at an angle inches from
his face, X was convinced that Adalji was innocent.
He believed it impossible for someone with eyesight as bad as
the Dalgies to have moved through the countryside after
nightfall, attacking animals and successfully evading the police.
OK, now my next question too is very, very, very important.
Is X actually a barrister? No, no.
So then my first guest to you after all of that would be Sir
Arthur Conan Doyle. Oh, brilliant crack.
And I knew that hint would get you there.
I'm I'm very impressed. Yes, it is so Arthur Conan
Doyle, who apart from he wrote a couple of books like, I don't
know if you've heard of it, like Sherlock Holmes here and there.
Yeah, he wrote a book about Professor Challenger and a few
of his friends visiting a lost world where they find dinosaurs.
No, this is actually true. What?
I thought you would make some weird reference to Jurassic
Park. Or something.
So The Lost World, if you did not know, is an actual science
fiction novel written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
It's about an expedition to a plateau in the Amazon basin
where they find prehistoric animals.
And there was a character called as Professor Challenger.
Like Sherlock Holmes was created by Saratha Connor died, but he's
like the direct opposite of Sherlock Holmes.
Holmes is controlled, very clinical.
And Challenger is, you know, big, strong and query aggressive
and angry and hot tempered and whatnot.
Very cool. That is a lovely piece of trivia
side trivia. But coming back to the question,
Arthur Connor Doyle, apart from writing some landmark and path
breaking books, also was interested in criminal justice.
And much like his celebrated character Sherlock Holmes, he
was known to pay close attention to detail and drawing logical
inferences, as he did in this case with Adalji, which I love.
It's such a brilliant way of showcasing that talent in the
real world, where he noticed something about a person who was
accused of a crime and just by their mannerism, realized that
they couldn't have possibly committed that crime because Ed
Alji wasn't able to read the newspaper at a distance, so he
had to bring it up close to his face.
And Doyle assumed or surmised accurately, that he would not
have been able to commit those crimes on animals in the dead of
night and escape the cops as well.
So that is how this particular landmark case was overturned.
Ed Alji and his conviction was overturned and the Court of
Criminal Appeal, which stood for 60 years, was established as
pretty much a direct result of that case and Adolf Beck's case.
What a great way for trivia and pop culture and all of it to
sort of mishmash and intertwine. Yes.
And Koka was the result of all of that.
OK, that was a very good question.
And moving on from Saratha Conran Doyle who was a very
talented person to another very talented person, XX is a multi
talented artist who had the following to say during their
SNL monologue. And this is the line I'm going.
OK, people assume that I am like the character X simply because I
wrote it sexually. Depraved, foul mouthed.
I am not a sex addict because I wrote X.
But I did write. Why?
Because I am a psychopath. So who's X?
That's my question. OK, no, I have no clue right now
at all. I can't think of and like, is it
a film character? No, so this is an actual person.
So this is an actual person. And they have written 2 very,
very famous modern day pieces of pop culture and two very good
characters and let's say 2 very good shows.
I'll, I'll give you that much. 2 very good shows.
They're talking about those two shows, the show X.
It's about a very sexually depraved and foul mouthed
character. And why about a psychopath?
Sexually depraved? I don't know if Barney Stinson
fits that bill, but again, he was not foul mouthed.
I don't remember Barney Stinson being foul mouthed, so probably
not the right answer there. A sexually depraved character?
No man, I can't think of anything.
Wow, you probably have to clue me in with some sort of a hint.
OK, so this person has also been involved.
I'm not going to tell you in what capacity in the following
movies and TV series, right Broadchurch, The Iron Lady,
Goodbye Christopher Robin, Solo, A Star Wars Story, No Time to
Die, and Indiana Jones in The Dial of Destiny.
OK. You didn't tell me in what
capacity you'd so not necessarily as a writer.
It could be in different capacities.
Yes. Another sexually depraved and
foul mouthed character did make me think of Bojack Horseman, but
I don't think that guy has. Good guess, but no.
Yeah, yeah. I would kind of suggest that you
focus on the last three things I mentioned the last three kind of
shows and movies, because this person was in the news for being
involved in these projects, which is Solo, A Star Wars
Story, No Time to Die, which is Daniel Craig's final appearance
as James Bond, and the final one is Indiana Jones in The Dial of
Destiny. Was this person, by any chance?
Because you're mentioning it and I don't think a lot of writers
are that famous. So was this person an actor in
some of these projects? Yes, let me just clarify again
that they were an actor in some of these projects, not all.
See, I noticed something now, because you said that last
particular sentence. You didn't say he, you said
they. Which I have been saying.
I just noticed it now. So which somehow leads you to
the fact that it's probably not a man.
And because you had said sexually depraved and foul
mouthed, I had automatically assumed I was just thinking of
male characters and a male writer.
But perhaps it's not a male character or a male writer.
It's a woman. Let's take a wild guess and wild
stab at fleabag. Is it Phoebe Warner Bridge?
Because I know she's appeared in Indiana Jones.
Yes, she has. OK, OK, OK, wait.
OK, so I get that X is probably fleabag.
X is fleabag. What is?
Y. Yeah.
So she has written something else which was a psychopath.
Yes, yes, fantastic show. No, I don't know.
Unfortunately, I don't know much of Fibiola Bridge's other work,
which is she has written. I do love Fleabag, but I haven't
seen the rest of her work. OK, one final clue.
The show Why is a spy thriller series spy?
Thriller series? Is it a famous series?
Oh, very, very, very famous. Multiple Emmy and Golden Globe
nominations. Oh OK, no, I don't know.
What is the name of this? So the one that I'm talking
about is Killing Eve. I've heard of it but I've
literally never even seen like a single episode.
You will have to watch at least the first couple of seasons.
Jodie Comer is a revelation in that I became a big fan of Go
Jodie Comer after watching the show.
So Killing Eve, which I'd also make a pop as a pop culture
recommendation. Killing Eve is a fantastic show
and X is Fleabag. And as you rightly guessed, the
author that I'm talking about is Phoebe Baller Bridge, who, if
you did not know, also contributed to the screenplay of
No Time to Die. Oh, OK.
And she voiced a character in Solo.
So let me just put all of that into context so you can actually
hear the actual quote. People assume that I'm like the
character Fleabag simply because I wrote it sexually.
Depraved, foul mouthed. I'm not a sex addict because I
wrote Fleabag, but I did write Killing Eve because I am a
psychopath. That does sound like something
Phoebe Waller Bridge would say. Yeah, I love it.
Very cool. And Fleabag.
It's another recommendation. Fantastic show.
Perfect. And also, you know what?
I need to do better. I need to learn better.
I should not assume that the answer would be a man just
because it is sexually depraved at former.
Women can be sexually depraved at former too.
I don't know. I don't know if that is a
feminist stance or not, but I guess that's that's something I
should remember and take away. Yeah.
Lovely. OK, so I think that's all the
time we have for our regular questions.
So let's move on to the end of our episode.
And the audience question which I asked at the beginning of
today's episode, which word meaning to plan together
secretly is derived from the Latin for breathe with or
breathe together having the same root as the word respiration.
So Aditya. I would imagine it is conspire.
Yes, conspiracy or conspire. The noun conspiracy came into
English from the Anglo Norman French word conspiracy, which
derived from the Latin word conspirar, meaning to agree or
plot. The prefix con means with while
spirar means to breathe, suggesting an image of people
who are so close together while plotting that their breaths.
Mingle. OK, so that is a pretty great
audience question because it reminds me of this trivia I
encountered about how breathing and the Latin for spirar has led
to so many different words, Right.
So obviously respiration and perspiration, which perspiration
is breathe through because you're breathing through your
skin. But there are so many other
words. There is also when you're
striving and reaching for something, you're breathing to
that thing that becomes aspire. So that is where aspiration
comes from. Yeah.
And if you found yourself influenced by an idea or
purpose, that is an idea breathed into you, that is
inspired. So that is how it was breathed
into you. Breathing with a person,
obviously, like I said, conspire because you're doing it with,
con with. And when you die, you literally
and figuratively breathe out your last breath, which is why
you expire. Yeah.
So breathing was associated with the concept of life.
It's a lad. And that's where the word spirit
also comes from, by the way. So a lot of interesting
etymologies from just that spirar.
Yes. So what's your pop culture
recommendation, Adya? Oh, I'm going to do a few.
I'm very excited this week because a lot of lovely things
have happened. I firstly started off by
watching Angry Young Men, which is on Amazon Prime.
It is ATV series and this talks about Salim Khan and Javed
Akhtar, two people who have featured as a question on our
podcast before Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar.
And it talks about their meteoric rise and pretty much
how they changed the face of Bollywood and Hindi cinema in
India with their series of hits. I believe 22 out of the 24 films
that they wrote together were smash hits and some of the most
iconic names that you can think of.
Sholay, Shan. Zanji and Deewar and Dawn, just
all of these very very iconic films pretty much established
that angry young man, which is also where this name of the show
comes from. Angry young man trope of Amitabh
Bachchan, which solidified him as the superstar of his era.
Turns out, and this is just a little bit of a spoiler from the
show, but hey, it's a docu series so spoilers don't count.
But in one of the films, they asked the producers that they
want to be paid ₹1,00,000 more. And a lakh back then was a big
deal ₹1,00,000 more than the highest build star, which in
this case was Amitabh Bachchan. So they got paid.
I think Amitabh Bachchan got paid 21 lakhs 20,00,000 and they
got paid 1,00,000 which is 21 or 22.
Whatever. They were paid more than the
lead actor who at this time was the peak of his stardom, and
that's the kind of money that they could command because they
were pretty much guaranteed to produce a hit at the box office.
That's just a taste of the kind of fun, interesting history that
you get to see in this particular shows.
I would highly recommend Prime Video, Angry young men, the
story of Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar.
Salim Javed as they were known. The other pop culture
recommendation I have is a movie I watched Choked.
I had not even heard of it, just showed up on my Netflix
recommendation. Great film, I really enjoyed it.
I don't want to give too much of A spoiler, but it is talks about
society and culture and politics in a very interesting way.
Also has some lovely allegorical, metaphorical sort
of representation of how society struggles.
And this is directed and Co produced by Anurag Kashyap.
Wow. And I was surprised.
Yeah, just like you, I had no idea that he made this film More
than the direction. By the way, I gotta give a shout
out to the actors. Just phenomenal acting all
across the board. Sammy Care and Rosh and Matthew
just stole my heart in this one. Phenomenal acting.
The other two recommendations I'm going to make from pop
culture are going to be two things that are back.
They are happening again and I'm extremely excited about it.
Crash Course, which is how John Green and Hank Green shot to
fame. Well, they also shot to fame
with the Blog Brothers, but Crash Course also gave them a
lot of prominence on YouTube back in the day.
John Green is hosting Crash Course all over again, and this
time it's a crash course on Religion.
I'm very excited about this. Watch Crash Course, all of those
stuff that they've posted in the past, especially the John Green
stuff. I've always enjoyed that history
and whatnot. And look out for Crash Course on
Religion, which is going to be released soon.
The other thing that is back on, and I think I've recommended it
in the past, but here's another shout out to this is Every Frame
of Painting, a YouTube channel which talks about movies and the
guy who used to make it, Tony. So I believe a Canadian editor,
he had stopped making these videos 6-7 years ago.
And I remember there was a post on Medium or some blog where he
talked about how he was done with it because it was too
taxing and took too much of effort and you didn't want to go
back to it. And it broke my heart because it
was one of those first video essay channels which just purely
dedicated to film on YouTube that I loved and I used to the
cinefile and me used to love. Looking forward to any new
video. And he posted a video very
recently just out of the blue. And there's a new video of every
show painting out again in the last, I think week or two weeks.
And I'm very excited. I'm hoping Tony Zoe is back to
posting videos again. So check out the old videos.
Check out the new video. I think it's a video called two
shot. So he's talking about the two
shot where it's a short where there are two people in the same
short. And he talks about that.
The last recommendation I'm going to make, and I don't even
know if this is a pop culture recommendation, but I'm going to
say this is a food item. It's called Notch chips.
And what if you live in, if you live in India and you have
access to blanket or dunzo or whatever, you should order
yourself some Notch chips. I trust me.
They're not paying me for this. I've just been eating so much of
this recently that I want people to try it out.
It is prohibitively expensive. It is going to break my bank
very soon because a single packet cost like ₹300.00.
So yeah, don't, don't buy them too much, but buy one packet and
check it out. It is truly something worth
checking out. And as we have never done
before, I'm going to do this one time.
I'm going to recommend a food item.
Notch. NATCH, Notch chips.
Go check those out. Wow, that was different.
But hey, right is the spice of life.
Get it? Get it?
Spice chips. Yeah.
Right. OK.
So my recommendation is already including two of the things I've
mentioned, which is Killing Eve and Fleabag.
And coming back to the kind of things that I've consumed
recently, there is a show which I really wanted to recommend
called Gara Gara, which is the Hindi for 11:11.
It is an adaptation of the Korean series Signal.
Now, I'd watched the original Korean series Signal many years
ago and I really loved it at the time.
And this is a very, very good adaptation and starring Raghav
Junior, who I think we have mentioned on the podcast before
about the movie Kill. And I recently kind of just put
it together. I don't know if you remember
Aditya. Do you remember around 10 years
ago there was this viral clip of this dude who appeared on a
dance show and started doing this kind of slow motion walk?
I believe you were talking about crock.
Rose. Yes, crock rose.
I did not put together that Crock Rose was Raghav Jayal.
I used to dance a lot more back then, I don't as much anymore.
So being on YouTube and watching dance videos was pretty much
like most of what I did with my day.
And the Crock Rose videos were something I obsessed already.
I tried to do it so many times in my dorm room in my college.
Just keep a class. I'm just trying to do that move
where he walks, slow motion walks up and I believe it is
Madhuri Dixit or somebody who is a guest judge in that episode.
And he gives her a flower and does that in this beautiful slow
motion move. And I thought, oh God, if only
one day I can do it. And who knew this man had so
many other talents as well? Yeah, I mean, he's quite
natural. So Gara Gara.
I would also recommend that you can try and watch the original
Korean show on which it is based.
It's called Signal. Another one I wanted to
recommend actually. This just came off the top of my
head because of Aditya's question about Sir Arthur Conan
Doyle using his powers of observation to prove the
innocence of a wrongly convicted person.
And there's a movie that I was immediately reminded of called
Primal Fear, which is starring Edward Norton in one of his
first few roles and Richard Gere as an attorney.
I'm going to say nothing more. Just watch the movie.
You are not going to be disappointed.
It's one of those movies that was ruined for me because I saw
the Hindi adaptation of it. Oh, there's a Hindi adaptation
of it. There is a Hindi adaptation of
it and it is a bad adaptation. It was very annoying.
That movie was ruined for me in this terrible, terrible way.
Let's not put out the name of the Hindi adaptation here.
So Primal Fear Gaara Gaara, which is basically the Hindi for
11:11, which is a remake of the original Korean show Signal and
a Fleabag and Killing Eve. That's, I think, quite enough
from me this week. That is a lot of pop culture
recommendations and I feel bad, but I have to give a shout out
once more to Arjun's recommendation, which was
blistering Barnacles, The Rambles and Rages of Captain
Haddock, A coffee table book sounds interesting.
I haven't seen it, but I didn't recommend it.
Check it out. And the other thing that we
spoke about extensively, some Jim Carrey movies.
So literally just go Google best Jim Carrey movies and watch.
All of them. Many Jim Carrey movies, Yeah.
I'll give you a non recommendation.
You already said the Bollywood film that is an adaptation of
Primal Fear. Don't watch that.
I'm not going to name that. You know, another movie that was
ruined for me? Usual suspects Vineet.
Usual suspects. You watch was chocolate.
Oh God I feel so bad for you when it comes to movie watching.
For me, there was a time before I watched Usual Suspects and the
time after I watched it. Kaiser Soze literally blew my
mind. I did not see that ending
coming. Anybody who says that they did
is lying. That is straight up lie perfect.
Lovely long list of recommendations.
We do this for you. We watch it so that you also
have to. So that's all for this episode.
Thank you for listening in. We hope you enjoyed the show and
learned something new. If you liked what you heard,
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