# Episode 079 - Planes, Trains & Automobiles

An episode of [Are You Quizzing Me?](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1663104901), 7 Aug 2024, 1 h 11 min.

Audio: https://anchor.fm/s/d7afa960/podcast/play/90172199/https%3A%2F%2Fd3ctxlq1ktw2nl.cloudfront.net%2Fstaging%2F2024-7-7%2F125e31e1-3372-924b-bf90-a52d8333023a.mp3

Do you know what the call sign on Indian planes starts with? Do you know why some compartments on Indian trains have "LV" mentioned on them? Do you know what was unique about the car model "Badal" released by Sipani Automobiles in India in 1975? Tune in to find out!! You can reach us at Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/areyouquizzingme/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/areyouquizzingme Email: areyouquizzingme@gmail.com Subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/areyouquizzingme Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@areyouquizzingme/podcasts

## Transcript

[0:00] Welcome to our you quizzing me. I am Vineet Nair with my Co host
[0:04] Aditya Kashyap. This is a quizzing trivia
[0:07] podcast show. Join us as we dive deep into
[0:10] history, science, pop culture and so much more.
[0:14] Let's get quizzing and we're back for episode #79 of our You
[0:21] Quizzing Me, Your Favorite quizzing and trivia podcast
[0:24] show. Aditya and I are back for
[0:26] another round of quizzing, and let's start off with a question
[0:30] for our audience. This is a question I ask at the
[0:33] top of every episode, which I will answer at the end of it.
[0:37] This question should tickle the fancy of both our international
[0:40] listeners who speak Romance languages as well as those from
[0:43] India. When he was stationed in India,
[0:47] General Charles James Napier was tasked with stopping an
[0:51] insurrection by Muslim rulers in a province of undivided India.
[0:55] Being a capable commander, he easily won the battle.
[0:59] According to legend, to inform his superiors office success,
[1:03] Napier was said to have sent a single worded message back to
[1:08] England and that word was Pakavi.
[1:12] I'll spell that out for you in case I have butchered the
[1:15] pronunciation. It is PECCAVI Picavi.
[1:22] The question is, which region did Nepia conquer that he sent
[1:27] this response to? I will answer this question at
[1:29] the end of today's episode. So let's go on with our regular
[1:33] quizzing questions. So, Aditya, why don't you start
[1:36] us off for this week? Lovely.
[1:40] So for this week Vineet, I'm going to go back to my question
[1:45] format that I had introduced and I have done 2 rounds of and this
[1:49] is round #3 So for regular listeners, welcome back to this
[1:54] format. For new listeners, it's very
[1:55] simple. I'm going to describe events
[1:58] that happened in a specific year without mentioning which year.
[2:01] Obviously, Vineet, your job is to tell me which year did all of
[2:04] these happen in. So it's very interesting the
[2:07] process about that. I go about choosing this years
[2:10] because obviously every year has something interesting happening.
[2:13] But some years are just astounding.
[2:15] And I think this year, particular year that I'm going
[2:18] to talk about is one of those such interesting and important
[2:22] events happened politically specifically.
[2:25] So let me tell you, the Soviet Union began withdrawing it's
[2:30] 115,000 troops from Afghanistan. So this was on 15th of May in
[2:37] this year. OK, I have the decade now, so
[2:40] then let's move on. August 8th ceasefire between
[2:45] Iran and Iraq takes effect after eight years of war.
[2:48] So after being at war for eight years, on 8th of August
[2:52] ceasefire took place or ceasefire again.
[2:56] Ceasefire became effective on August 11th.
[3:00] Al Qaeda was formed at a meeting between Osama bin Laden.
[3:05] I am an Al Zawahiri and Doctor Fadhil in Peshawar, Pakistan.
[3:09] So Al Qaeda was born a major political player on the global
[3:13] scale for decades to come. Mikhail Gorbachev became the
[3:18] head of state of the Soviet Union on October 1st in this
[3:22] year, October 5th. 4 days later, Chile voted in a referendum
[3:29] against extending Pinochet's regime by eight years.
[3:34] So his regime came to an end after 16 1/2 years.
[3:39] So that was another big moment in politics.
[3:43] December 1st, Benazir Bhutto was named Prime Minister of
[3:47] Pakistan, the first female leader of a Muslim country.
[3:51] So that was obviously a milestone.
[3:54] December 7th, the PLO delegation led by Yasser Arafat proclaims
[4:00] the state of Palestine, recognizing the existence of the
[4:03] state of Israel for the first time.
[4:05] So just insane things happening across the globe, across the
[4:10] world, at every political theatre that you can imagine.
[4:15] Vineet, do you know which year was all of this happening in?
[4:19] Let's just say I'm fairly confident that this is the 80s
[4:22] and I'm guessing it's the second-half of the 80s because
[4:26] the Iran, Iraq war went on for around 8 years starting from the
[4:29] beginning of the 80s till almost the end.
[4:31] Same thing for Afghanistan, somewhere around that.
[4:34] Pinochet again, I know was the late 80s.
[4:38] Al Qaeda obviously makes sense because after the Soviet
[4:41] withdrawal that would happen, but I'm not very sure.
[4:45] My minds oscillating between a few years.
[4:48] So I'll split the difference in say 80.
[4:52] Oh God I'm I'm really torn between 87 and 88.
[4:58] OK, I'm going to give you one last hint.
[5:01] And there's not going to be from politics, there's going to be
[5:02] film, and maybe that will get you there.
[5:06] An iconic film was released this year, Vineet, starring Bruce
[5:09] Willis and Alan Rickman. Just this is die hard Christmas
[5:14] movie. Ever.
[5:15] Yes, a die. Hard.
[5:16] This is die hard. Oh God again. 87 or 88?
[5:20] Oh, I'm going to say 87. Vinny, there was a 5050 and you
[5:27] missed it by just that one, but that's phenomenal that you
[5:33] narrowed it down to two options. I'm very impressed.
[5:35] Yes, it is 1988. By the way, about all the
[5:39] political stuff aside, why was Die Hard, a Christmas film
[5:42] released in July 15th? It was like a 15 July so.
[5:45] That's the thing, Die Hard was never intended to be a Christmas
[5:48] film. It's one of those films that was
[5:49] made a Christmas film, or at least declared a Christmas film.
[5:52] Retrospectively. It was always a summer
[5:54] blockbuster. Yeah, fair enough.
[5:56] Fair enough. But it, I mean, it has become
[5:58] pretty much a Christmas fair at this point.
[6:02] But yeah, what a what a year for a lot of things to happen.
[6:05] I'm also going to just tell you a few things which are so
[6:08] surprising to me that all these people are of the same age.
[6:12] Michael Cera is the same age as Emma Stone is the same age as
[6:17] Rihanna is the same age as Adele is the same age as Conor
[6:22] McGregor. All of them are born in 1988 and
[6:25] this is just. I don't know why it blows my
[6:26] mind they are all born in 1988. Michael Cera's boyish boyish
[6:32] looks just do not convey a 1988 Bond chap.
[6:37] Like he doesn't. He doesn't, No.
[6:40] Yeah. Nice question.
[6:41] Yeah, nice question. I enjoyed that.
[6:43] I am a little peeved with myself because in my head I had first
[6:47] thought of 88. I was like this is 88, eight
[6:50] years. The Iran Iraq war was like 8
[6:53] years. It was definitely around 8
[6:54] years. The thing that really confused
[6:56] me a little was Gorbachev. I for some reason had this thing
[7:02] in my head that he came a little earlier.
[7:04] So 87 if for now, if not forgot Gorbachev, I would have
[7:07] definitely hit for 88. No, I mean you've narrowed it
[7:11] down to 8788. That is very impressive.
[7:13] I would have, I would have, I would have not gone any further
[7:16] than the second-half of 80s. That's the best I would have
[7:19] done. So, yeah, very impressive.
[7:21] Well done, Vineet. OK, your question.
[7:23] OK, so I have one of your favorite types of questions.
[7:28] It is a listicle and it's a pretty long list even though it
[7:32] is not exhaustive, right? So this is not the complete
[7:37] list. I have cherry picked a few from
[7:39] the list and I am giving you those names.
[7:43] So these are all song names and they are also really popular, so
[7:48] I'm not even going to try and hide the artists.
[7:51] So I'll tell you the name of the song and the artist and it's a
[7:53] pretty long list and you have to tell me what these have in
[7:57] common. OK, you ready?
[8:00] As I said, pretty long list, everybody by Backstreet Boys, As
[8:06] Long as you Love Me by the Backstreet Boys.
[8:09] Cloud #9 by Bryan Adams Tearing Up My Heart by **NSYNC Baby One
[8:17] More Time by Britney Spears. I Want it That way.
[8:21] Backstreet Boys Show me the meaning of being lonely.
[8:25] The Backstreet Boys It's My Life by Bon Jovi, Justin Bieber
[8:31] Beauty and a Beat. I knew You Were troubled.
[8:34] Taylor Swift Roar by Katy Perry Bang Bang.
[8:38] Jessie J Ariana Grande Nicki Minaj Can't Feel My face The
[8:44] Weekend Love me like You Do Ellie Goulding from 50 Shades of
[8:48] Grey, God Is a Woman, Ariana Grande, Bad Blood, Taylor Swift
[8:55] and Blinding Lights, Which is the most streamed song in
[8:58] history by the Weekend, What do all these songs have in common?
[9:04] Very interesting. So there's a bunch of Backstreet
[9:07] Boys that really tickle to my 90s nostalgia.
[9:11] I must say, I'm a I wouldn't even call it a guilty pleasure.
[9:16] I think it's doing disservice to Backstreet Boys.
[9:17] I love Backstreet Boys. I still do.
[9:19] Yeah. OK, so Backstreet Boys weekend
[9:22] featured twice. I think Taylor Swift did too, as
[9:24] well. There was Bieber.
[9:26] There was. More Taylor Swift entries like I
[9:27] Knew you, I knew you were troubled by Taylor Swift.
[9:30] Also features on the list like there are multiple Taylor Swift
[9:34] songs, there are a few Katy Perry songs.
[9:36] I mentioned 2 I think I mentioned only one.
[9:38] Hot and Cold and rawr, both I've mentioned.
[9:41] But there are more Katy Perry songs, There are a bunch more
[9:43] Britney Spears songs. There are a few more Kelly
[9:45] Clarkson songs and many other artists that we've not heard of.
[9:50] Maybe are you? I've not heard of at least.
[9:53] OK. Because you said weekend and
[9:56] that's probably not the best way to approach this question, but
[9:58] I'm just going to get it out of the way as a guest.
[10:00] It does it have to do with Super Bowl half type shows?
[10:03] No. OK.
[10:05] Doesn't think you'll probably kill me because this is one of
[10:08] those like, stupid questions, but it just fascinated me that
[10:12] the fact fascinated me, so I made a list.
[10:15] OK, cool. Yeah, no, I don't think Justin
[10:18] Bieber has performed at Super Bowl half time so.
[10:21] And a specific song. Not all Justin Bieber songs.
[10:24] I mentioned one specific, one beauty and a beat.
[10:27] Yeah, no, I don't even remember this song.
[10:30] That's one of the few Bieber songs I do know.
[10:34] Do they have somebody in common, like a lyricist or a music
[10:36] producer or something like that? Oh, very, very close.
[10:40] You're almost there. Actually.
[10:42] I could now give it to you, but you mentioned two or three
[10:45] different choices, right? So stick to one and I'll tell
[10:48] you if that's right or not. OK, I'm going to ladder down to
[10:51] lyricist. They have a common lyricist,
[10:54] yes, so. All these songs were either
[10:57] written or Co written by the same person.
[11:00] OK Max Martin now. Oh, OK.
[11:04] No, I havent heard of this guy. OK.
[11:06] Unsung hero like literally unsung hero.
[11:11] So for those of you who havent heard of him, which is
[11:14] practically everybody outside the music industry.
[11:17] Carl Martin Sandberg known professionally as Mar Max Martin
[11:21] he's a Swedish record producer and songwriter.
[11:24] He has written or Co written 27 billboard Hot 100 number one
[11:31] singles, 25 of which he has produced or Co produced an all
[11:37] time record as of the as of March 2024.
[11:40] As I mentioned, there are some other songs.
[11:42] I Kissed a Girl by Katy Perry, One More Night from Maroon 5,
[11:48] Taylor Swift, Shake It Off. Whoa.
[11:50] Taylor Swift's Blank Space, Save Your tears, Blinding Lights.
[11:55] So He Blinding Us obviously is the best performing song of all
[11:59] time. According to the chart, Martin
[12:01] has written the second most #1 singles on the Billboard Hot
[12:05] 100, having surpassed John Lennon with his 27th number one
[12:11] in March 24. There's only one person who's
[12:14] ahead of him having written more #1 singles than Max Martin.
[12:19] Can you guess who #3 is currently John Lennon #2 is Max
[12:23] Martin who's number one with 3232 #1 singles number.
[12:29] One single. Is it a famous person?
[12:33] And I'm guessing it's a famous person.
[12:34] Very, very famous person. So this person is as number one
[12:37] with 32. Max Martin at 27.
[12:40] John Lennon at 26. Is this artist?
[12:43] Is this? Is this an artist who has
[12:44] written songs only for themselves or like for other
[12:46] people as well? I do.
[12:48] I think he has written for other people as well, but majority for
[12:52] himself, like the lion's share. You wouldn't kind of think of
[12:55] him as somebody who writes for people, other people, and he was
[12:59] famously part of a songwriting duo.
[13:01] Oh, Simon and Garfunkel. No.
[13:04] Yeah, I don't think they have that many Number one song.
[13:09] I know. Yeah.
[13:09] So. He's got many as a as a solo
[13:11] artist as well, not just as part of the duo.
[13:14] Is it McCartney? It's McCartney.
[13:17] Paul McCartney with 32 #1 singles.
[13:20] Wow, OK, that's that's insane. And coming back to Max Martin,
[13:25] he's one Songwriter of the Year from the ASCAP for a record of
[13:30] 11 times, the maximum anybody he has ever won.
[13:33] He's won five Grammys, including Producers of the Year,
[13:35] nominations for an Academy Award and two Golden Globe Awards as
[13:38] well. I wonder how this works because
[13:42] Swifties will swear by the fact that Taylor Swift writes most of
[13:45] his songs. I'm assuming the artist does
[13:47] write a A. Bit of it, but that there is a
[13:51] this is a Co writing portion. So most of these songs he's Co
[13:55] written with somebody else, but he's a legend in the industry.
[13:59] Obviously like if you've gotten so many number, but that's so
[14:02] insane, like at #1 McCartney, at #311 and in between this guy
[14:06] that maybe most people outside of the music fanatic group might
[14:10] not have heard of. That's that's very cool.
[14:12] Exactly, it came to notice because I was curious whether
[14:17] the weekend had written blinding lights.
[14:21] Right. So I saw that it's been Co
[14:22] written by a bunch of people and for some reason I just clicked
[14:25] on this guys name and his Wikipedia page opened up.
[14:28] Like I just ended up on his Wikipedia page and he there was
[14:32] an entire page listed separately with the number of songs he's
[14:36] written, Co written and produced.
[14:39] And that is just insane. There are so many songs I've not
[14:43] mentioned which are just so popular and from especially from
[14:46] the 90s. But he's done an amazing job in
[14:49] the music industry. So yeah, if you chances are if
[14:52] there's an amazing song that you love from a favorite artist of
[14:54] yours, its either been written by Ed Sheeran Ferrell or Max
[14:59] Martin. I was actually going to get
[15:01] guess both Ed Sheeran and Ferrell Williams as the people
[15:04] before you gave me the name. But the 90s, I think, yeah, the
[15:07] 90s would have the. 90s, nineties.
[15:10] Yeah, you're right, You're right.
[15:12] Wow. Lovely.
[15:15] Now actually the whole reason I suggested some say, same song
[15:19] writer was because of Pharrell, because I know Pharrell has
[15:21] written a bunch of songs for other people and so has she run.
[15:24] But you're right, the 90s wouldn't have worked for that.
[15:26] Lovely. Wow, that was a pretty great
[15:29] question. I enjoyed that tremendously.
[15:32] OK, so going from enjoying things tremendously, a listener
[15:40] of the podcast, Swaroop, reached out to me and he was very
[15:44] generous with his compliments. So thank you Swaroop.
[15:47] It's really encouraging to hear from people who like the
[15:49] podcast. So if you do like the podcast,
[15:51] please reach out. It's lovely to hear from you.
[15:53] Swaroop not only was telling us what we do well and what we can
[15:57] do better, but also gave us questions.
[15:59] And that part is obviously a favorite cause honestly, it
[16:02] reduces my work for every episode when listener sends in
[16:06] questions. So Swaroop sent it to me on
[16:09] Instagram. So yeah, you can reach out to us
[16:12] on Instagram, on our private Instagram, or you can reach out
[16:14] to us on our e-mail. Are you using me@gmail.com?
[16:17] Coming back to Swaroop's question, this was very
[16:20] interesting. I had no idea.
[16:22] I had no context at all before I read about this.
[16:25] So Vineet, I'm going to test you out.
[16:28] Sipani Automobiles. Does that ring a bell?
[16:32] Absolutely not. OK, they were an Indian car
[16:36] manufacturer established in 1973.
[16:40] They they went defunct in 2002. They were located in Bangalore,
[16:45] so they were active for a few decades over there.
[16:48] They were famous for some things, amongst which the most
[16:54] famous of their outputs was a car named Badal.
[17:00] Badal was an interesting and quirky design for its time and
[17:03] featured A10 horsepower engine placed in the back.
[17:07] It wasn't a it wasn't a huge hit.
[17:10] It wasn't a huge hit as you can imagine, but it still managed to
[17:13] sell a decent number. The most iconic moment for the
[17:16] car would have been when it featured in the movie Ram
[17:20] Balram, which starred Amitabh Bachchan and Dharmendra.
[17:24] Can you tell me what was very, very unique and probably one of
[17:29] its only kind in terms of design that made Badal stand out?
[17:35] What design feature, what feature of Badal was so unique,
[17:39] was so rarely seen in automobiles that made it stand
[17:43] out? Apart from the 10 horsepower
[17:45] engine, which is ridiculous but. Yeah, I know motorbikes which
[17:50] have bigger horsepower that this is ridiculous.
[17:55] OK, OK, So this is some kind of quirky design.
[17:57] First of all, I have never heard of Sipani.
[17:59] I have never heard of Badal. I have not seen Ramble Ram.
[18:02] So this is just me blindfolded throwing darts in a dartboard.
[18:07] OK, So you sort of something that's very quirky about the
[18:11] design. Is it that it is unique to India
[18:14] or are there other automobiles around the world which are of a
[18:17] similar design or have existed? There are there are other
[18:20] automobiles and that will be my hint to you if you need one.
[18:23] I'll give you an example of another one of these automobiles
[18:26] from outside of India, an English model.
[18:29] But for now, I will leave it at that, that there are other
[18:33] automobiles as well with this design, but it's very unique
[18:36] across the world and in India as well, like it's barely ever
[18:39] seen. Would that English model be the
[18:43] Robin? You need man.
[18:46] Oh God, just making a mess out of this recording space because
[18:53] I have my head blown all over the floor now.
[18:58] Yes. You should mention English car.
[19:00] No, when you said to be honest, the whenever the way I worked it
[19:04] out, you told me it's a design thing, something very, very
[19:07] different. So it's either the seating or
[19:09] the wheels. I'm like, rearranged cars are a
[19:11] dime a dozen, right? So then I was thinking of,
[19:14] there's a thing in the Netherlands which has like a
[19:17] bike, like seating and you get 3 wheels, right?
[19:21] And then the other one was the, the Robin, which is famously
[19:25] like out of the like a, it's like a punch line on Top Gear.
[19:27] I mean like the original Top Gear, the one with Jeremy
[19:30] Clarkson and everything. I don't accept what came after
[19:32] that. It's just an abomination.
[19:34] So the original run of Top Gear with Jeremy Clarkson and the
[19:36] bunch, this was how do I put as a punch line where a lot of
[19:41] these kits would end with this car, you know, on its side
[19:44] somewhere because it just couldn't stable with its number
[19:47] of wheels, Yeah. Well, Vineet did mention that
[19:51] it's the tyres that make it different and I don't know if
[19:54] you specified it but let me just do it for audience sake.
[19:57] It is India's first three wheeled car.
[20:00] Badal was India's first three wheeled car.
[20:02] So there are only three wheels. A lot of people had assumed or
[20:08] or insinuated that it was inspired by Robin.
[20:12] Robin is the English car that I was mentioning and that Vineet
[20:15] said that is big punchline on Top Gear.
[20:17] I don't know, you know what? This is one of the things that's
[20:19] missing in my pop culture knowledge.
[20:22] I have never watched Top Gear. Like it's almost a shame how how
[20:26] much I've missed. I think they had around 16 or
[20:28] 718 seasons with Jeremy Clarkson, the original bunch.
[20:32] I watched all of them, including the first revival.
[20:35] Because most people don't know that Top Gear actually existed
[20:37] in the 70s and the 80s. And then it stopped after some
[20:41] time and then it was revived with James May, Jeremy Clarkson,
[20:47] and there was another person in the first few episodes and
[20:51] Hammond, Richard Hammond came in later.
[20:52] And in the first couple of episodes, if you can watch the
[20:55] revival first couple of episodes, which are very 90s by
[20:58] the way, they actually discuss getting good deals on cars, like
[21:05] getting cheap cars in different parts of England and they're
[21:08] like OK, you can go for this model, the second hand model
[21:11] would cost you only this much and whatnot.
[21:13] Compare that to the end of the series or towards the end of the
[21:16] series where almost every skate was like which supercar can we
[21:20] take where? Interesting.
[21:24] Its massively different, but I believe the first few seasons
[21:27] were more creative because they were mostly in and around
[21:30] England and some surrounding countries.
[21:33] And then once the Top Gear special started coming out, you
[21:36] had them driving through Bolivia, the Amazon episode in
[21:40] Bolivia, that was fantastic. India was really good.
[21:43] Vietnam was one of their best episodes and then they created a
[21:46] record by driving to the North Pole which was just fantastic.
[21:50] Again, they did that in a Toyota.
[21:52] So like Top Gear is one of my all time favorite watch.
[21:56] This this this has been a question on our podcast Driving
[21:59] to the North Pole Innovator. Yeah, you know that.
[22:03] OK, so that is obviously a pop culture recommendation as well.
[22:05] So you should definitely check that out.
[22:09] Top Gear all seasons. So so should I.
[22:11] But coming back to the question itself, Reliant Robin, the
[22:13] English model, people insinuated that was the inspiration for
[22:18] Badal by Sipani Automobiles, but that insinuation is tenuous at
[22:24] best because it was Sibani was mostly like an auto rickshaw
[22:28] clothed in a passenger car body work.
[22:30] So they didn't really need to be inspired by Reliant Robin.
[22:33] We had enough of that on our streets already.
[22:36] So yeah, it was a interesting design.
[22:39] Go check out pictures of Badal, the 1st 3 wheeled car and it was
[22:45] also a three door model. By the way, did you know that
[22:48] Reliant Robin originally it was possible to drive the Robin with
[22:51] a motorcycle permit? So, and that eventually changed
[22:56] and they're like, I think, I guess a car is 4 wheeled.
[23:01] So let's split the difference and you can have it.
[23:03] But I think they have changed it since then in UK.
[23:06] But yeah, there was a little side trivia related to the Robin
[23:10] and that is thanks to Swaroop. So thank you so much, Swaroop.
[23:13] This question was brought to you by Swaroop's interest in Sipani
[23:18] Automobiles, apparently. Very nice, very nice.
[23:22] Thank you, Swaroop for that wonderful question.
[23:25] I am now going to go to another music related question.
[23:32] So, Aditya, if you were to look at a list of the fastest selling
[23:41] albums in the United States of America, in the top ten, you
[23:47] would have one artist featuring three times.
[23:51] Let's call that artist X. Another artist featuring twice,
[23:55] let's call them Y. Now, X's albums, which feature
[23:59] on this list, came out in 2000, 2002 and 2004.
[24:04] OK. Y is on the list for albums
[24:09] which were released in 2023 and 2024.
[24:13] OK. Now if you take the list of
[24:15] fastest selling albums worldwide, there's only one
[24:19] artist who features more than once that is Z, and that is for
[24:24] albums released in 97 and 1991. Can you identify XY and Z?
[24:34] Sorry I need to clarify, you said the X&Y record the top 10
[24:39] is for the fastest selling albums in the US.
[24:42] In the US and Z is for worldwide.
[24:45] And what do you mean by fastest selling?
[24:47] Like fastest 2 million fastest 2?
[24:50] What does that fastest mean? Why is it to a number?
[24:53] So the sales occurring in the first week of release?
[24:59] Oh. OK.
[25:01] So a number of sales occurring, highest number of sales in the
[25:04] first week of release. Oh, OK, OK, fine.
[25:08] So it's not really fastest as much as like I guess you can
[25:10] call it fastest also, but most number of records sold in the
[25:13] first week of release. Artist.
[25:16] Why was 2003, 2023 and 2024? Was it 2022 and 2023?
[25:20] What do you say? 2324.
[25:24] I would have to go with Taylor Swift for that.
[25:27] Bingo Bango, you are right, it is Taylor Swift at 20 for 2023
[25:32] and 2024. So the album in relation 2023
[25:37] was 1989 Taylor's version, and that is on #8 on the list.
[25:44] And at #3 on the list is in 2024 album the Tortured Poets
[25:48] department which sold 1.9 million record albums in the
[25:53] first week. So you've got right why who
[25:57] features on the list twice. So who's the only other artist
[26:00] who features more than once? And this person has done it 3 *
[26:05] 1 upping Taylor Swift. And this was 2002 thousand one
[26:09] and 2003, isn't it? 2000, 2002, 2004, two years ago.
[26:16] 2004 was dominating in the early 2000s.
[26:23] It can't be Britney Spears. I don't think she was.
[26:26] Oh, Britney Spears is number 10 on the top ten list for the
[26:30] United States. She's at #10 but she's not the
[26:34] one. OK, 2000, 2002, 2004.
[26:41] I don't think it's Backstreet Boys.
[26:44] Backstreet Boys is at #6. It's too early for Eminem to
[26:47] have gained that kind of prominence.
[26:50] It is Eminem. I'm not going to, I'm not going
[26:52] to deceive you much longer. It is Eminem.
[26:55] Wow. Wait.
[26:56] No way. Yes, Eminem features on the
[26:59] list, first at #5 for his 2000 album The Marshall Mathers LP,
[27:06] then at #7 again for his 2004 album Encore, and that #9 for
[27:14] 2002 The Eminem Show. Why did I do this?
[27:17] Because I remember buying Encore.
[27:19] It was my first rated explicit album that I had somehow
[27:24] convinced my parents to buy it. I don't think they noticed that
[27:27] R rating on it. And it was on a cassette tape
[27:29] and I remember playing blasting it on on the stereo at home.
[27:33] And I, I don't know, my parents didn't pay attention to what
[27:36] lyrics they were. They were just like, this
[27:38] doesn't make any sense. They didn't rehear the
[27:39] expletives. So yeah, I got away with that,
[27:42] and I can't believe I didn't catch that.
[27:45] Yeah, Eminem. Yeah.
[27:45] Makes sense. Makes sense.
[27:46] OK, so we have X&Y, which is Eminem and Taylor Swift.
[27:51] Now that brings me to Z, which is 19.
[27:53] What are the years for Z? So Z, as I mentioned, is
[27:56] worldwide. So we are now moving from the US
[27:58] and we are moving worldwide. So I've already given you a
[28:01] clue. This purse, this artist is at #1
[28:03] and #3 on the list. 87 and 91 Is it a solo artist, not a band?
[28:11] This person has been part of a group and as a solo artist as
[28:14] well, but these albums were as a solo artist but he has been part
[28:20] of a group as well as performed as a solo artist.
[28:24] Can we sting? Oh nice guess police and Sting,
[28:29] yeah. But no, for those youngsters and
[28:32] Gen. Zers living listening to us,
[28:34] Sting was a really popular artist from the 90s and the 80s.
[28:40] If you ever heard Desert Rose, that Sting, he used to belong to
[28:43] a band called The Police, which I don't know, they've
[28:46] disappeared from public consciousness now.
[28:48] Sting now is more known for his views on tantric sex rather than
[28:53] his music. So.
[28:55] That is true. I've heard that as well.
[28:57] OK, 8791 who was the 8781? Also part of a band at some
[29:04] point, but these were solo 00 Is it Michael Jackson?
[29:10] Yes, it is Michael Jackson. Of course it is Michael Jackson.
[29:13] Yes, that makes. Sense 1987 is Bad is at #1
[29:16] having sold 7 million albums in the first week, and 1991's
[29:21] Dangerous is it NUM as #3 for having sold 5 million records or
[29:26] albums in one week. So, fun question.
[29:31] Love it. Wow, Vineet, you've done a few
[29:33] listicles now in just like roundabout ways.
[29:35] I like it. I like how you're sprung this
[29:37] upon me. OK, fine.
[29:42] Before you give me my listicle back at me, I'm going to give
[29:46] another audience question today. Wow, I'm just so lucky this
[29:49] week. I have a bunch of audience
[29:51] questions to rely on. This is courtesy Rakesh.
[29:55] Rakesh has reached out to us. Rakesh reached out to us on our
[29:59] e-mail from his official e-mail account.
[30:00] So I know where Rakesh works. But anyway, I won't go into all
[30:03] of that, though I must mention Rakesh is Doctor Rakesh, who is
[30:09] a PhD holder. So as a really smart man that
[30:13] we're dealing with over here, and if he's listening to our
[30:16] podcast, that means it's a good podcast.
[30:18] So guys, please make sure you you stay.
[30:21] Tuned when you listener audience listeners are very smart.
[30:24] Yeah, that is the exact criteria you need to fit.
[30:29] Very fact that they're listening to our podcast means they're
[30:32] discerning intelligent people of taste.
[30:35] I'm OK, sorry this is a random sidetrack, but I should.
[30:40] I really want to tell this to people because very often when I
[30:42] host trivia nights, I have all the answers in front of me.
[30:46] So when I'm asking questions and I know the answers, people
[30:49] automatically assume that I know so many things and I would like
[30:53] to tell that I have the answers in front of me.
[30:56] So, and that the same thing with this podcast.
[30:58] When I, you know, a friend of mine finds out about it and
[31:01] they're like, oh, wow, how do you know so much trivia?
[31:03] I'm like very often I just like, I'm searching for trivia.
[31:07] It's not like I know these things just out of the blue.
[31:10] And let me just clarify something from what Aditya said.
[31:13] He knows the answers to the questions that he asks or he
[31:17] answers on his trivia nights. When I'm asking question, he
[31:21] does not know what I'm going to be asking.
[31:23] This is a completely blinded process that we do.
[31:27] I've had many questions regarding that.
[31:29] People think it's scripted. It's absolutely not scripted.
[31:34] If it was scripted I would. Really want to be portrayed as
[31:37] smarter than what I am because I make some very stupid guesses in
[31:40] this vodka. Same here.
[31:42] Same here. I would hope that scripting
[31:44] could be better if it was scripted.
[31:47] OK, so moving from some not very intelligent people to somebody
[31:52] very intelligent. Doctor Rakesh, PhD holder, who
[31:56] sent us questions. Thank you so much, Rakesh.
[31:58] He gave me 3 questions. I'm going to pick two of them to
[32:01] ask you. So we're just going to do 2 of
[32:03] them at a go, OK. OK.
[32:06] There is a sign at on the on one of the compartments of a train
[32:12] usually which says LV. What does LV stand for and why
[32:16] is it there? I think I know what it stands
[32:19] for but I don't know why it's there.
[32:22] Is it last vehicle? Oh, lovely.
[32:24] Yes, you got that very quickly. But what is interesting to me
[32:27] was why is it there because LVI also guessed last vehicle was
[32:31] not a very tough question, but why is it there?
[32:33] It was very interesting and something that if you think
[32:36] about it. Oh wait, because it doesn't have
[32:39] a link for another to identify the train which does not have a
[32:43] rear link to attach another bogey too, is it?
[32:47] That is it that. Yes, it doesn't have it, but
[32:51] what would it help in terms of, let's say safety and security?
[32:56] How would it help somebody in terms of safety and security,
[32:59] especially a station guard or other people who are who are
[33:05] monitoring a train from outside the train?
[33:08] I don't know and. Probably back in the day when
[33:12] when you didn't have as good connectivity and and as good
[33:16] ways of means of efficient means of communication.
[33:19] So how would this help? I can't think of anything
[33:25] unless. But then why would you need to
[33:27] have it? I was thinking of somebody who's
[33:30] on the last compartment, but then why would you need to label
[33:35] it for that? I mean, like you would just see
[33:36] the person is on the last one and they can jump off or they
[33:39] can climb on accordingly. Why would you need to mark it?
[33:43] I have no clue. Yeah, so.
[33:45] By the way, LV is one of the things that very often I think
[33:49] in Indian trains I've noticed there's also an X sometimes.
[33:51] So X or LV. Both of these signify the same
[33:54] thing. Any guesses you need any guess?
[33:58] I'll give you one last clue and maybe you'll be able to figure
[34:02] it out from that. This would help avoid any
[34:06] incident with any other trains just having the LV printed.
[34:11] The purpose it served would be to avoid any untoward incident
[34:16] with any other trains. I but you see what's really
[34:21] tripping me up is when you have the last compartment of the last
[34:23] bogey, that's always the last bogey like you would, you would
[34:28] see that, right? So then there's what's the need
[34:31] to specifically label it? OK, all right, I'll help you out
[34:35] over here. Lovely piece of trivia, I would
[34:36] say. One of the TIL moments for me
[34:39] was that LV is written on a train or X is on the train at
[34:43] the last compartment. Because if it passes by a train
[34:46] station and the train station guard notices that there is no
[34:50] compartment, or the last compartment doesn't have an LV
[34:53] or an X, that means one of the compartments has been disengaged
[34:57] and is lying somewhere earlier in the tracks.
[35:01] And that could lead to collision.
[35:03] So the lack of an LV is what would.
[35:07] OK, now that makes sense. Yeah.
[35:10] That makes sense. That makes sense, yeah.
[35:12] Simple, simple solution to what could be a catastrophic problem.
[35:16] So I love that. Yeah.
[35:17] What a lovely piece of trivia. Nice.
[35:19] OK, so Rakesh over here has chosen to talk more about
[35:25] transportation systems. So the next one has to do with
[35:28] airlines and airplanes. OK.
[35:31] OK. So each country in the world is
[35:34] assigned a unique call sign to identify the aircraft registered
[35:39] in its territory. OK.
[35:41] For the US the call sign is N for Russia it's RA.
[35:49] Do you know what India's Co unique call sign is?
[35:54] See, I think you want me to say IN but.
[35:59] That would be too easy. Yeah, I there is, there is a
[36:02] piece of trivia I know about this particular fact which will
[36:06] which allows me to tell you that India's, I think they've changed
[36:10] it or they're changing it now. But it used to be, at least I'm
[36:13] guessing because you've asked it, now that it's you're looking
[36:16] about the older designation, which is Vt.
[36:20] We need, we need the Vt. Well done, well done.
[36:24] It is exactly Vt. Do you want to tell us what Vt
[36:27] stands for? So if I remember, it's something
[36:30] to do with Queen Victoria, because the fact that I remember
[36:32] was when Queen Victoria died, they kind of, I think it was
[36:38] radio call signs to colonies were All Star made starting with
[36:43] V because they wanted to commemorate Queen Victoria.
[36:47] So there are other places, other Commonwealth countries also
[36:50] which have the same kind of V designation which started and
[36:54] then that went to because they were using them as radio call
[36:58] signs. I think that transferred to
[37:00] aircraft when that became a big thing, something like that.
[37:03] But there is a, there is a trivia behind that.
[37:05] It's it's to commemorate Queen Victoria.
[37:08] That's what the V stands for. So I'm guessing T must be
[37:11] territory or something like that.
[37:13] It is Victorian territory, you're right.
[37:15] And I again, I'm looking at a news article.
[37:18] Of course, Dr. Rakesh did say that this continues to be the
[37:22] case even now. And another news article which
[37:25] specifies that there was a petition in 2022, the Delhi High
[37:30] Court refused to entertain that petition because it said it's a
[37:33] government job to fix it. Like it is not something that
[37:35] should be changed by the judiciary.
[37:37] So I'm not sure if the government has gotten around to
[37:39] it. Interestingly enough, it can be
[37:41] changed like it has been done in history.
[37:43] Pakistan used to have Vt as well and they are now AP.
[37:48] So obviously, it can be done. So I don't know.
[37:50] I guess we are probably going to do it at some point.
[37:54] No, if I remember correctly, there is some process going on
[37:56] to change it. It's part of the, I think the
[37:59] current governments decolonization, you know, drive
[38:03] where they've changed colonized names back to their original
[38:08] ones or two Indian forms of it. So this is one of those things
[38:10] that's happening. I thought it had already
[38:13] happened. But yeah, I must be mistaken in
[38:15] that case, but. Maybe I also, I'm not quite sure
[38:19] doing the UPA tenure, India also had made an effort to do this
[38:22] and they were given the option or they rather wanted the option
[38:26] of BA or IN. But B was already taken up by
[38:30] China and I was taken up by Italy.
[38:32] So I think these were not possible.
[38:34] So yeah, I'm not sure where that particular.
[38:37] Thing stands. Surely thing stands right now.
[38:40] But yeah, Vt is the OR has been for a very long time the
[38:44] registration number of all airplanes in India and it stood
[38:47] for Victorian territory. It was the registration system
[38:50] of British and under the British rule, and it is has continued
[38:55] for decades thereafter. So these two questions were by
[38:58] Doctor Rakesh. Thank you so much for reaching
[39:01] out to us and giving us some lovely trivia.
[39:04] Yeah. Yeah, great questions, Rakesh,
[39:06] great questions. So thank you and keep sending us
[39:09] these questions preferably to me so that I can step out of here.
[39:16] So, OK, moving on. I'm going to leave my listicle
[39:20] for as last question, so I'm going to ask you a non
[39:23] realistical question for now. One of my favorite kind of
[39:25] straightforward, bring something out from history which people
[39:29] have forgotten, right? So I'm going to introduce you to
[39:33] George Carl Julius Hackenschmidt.
[39:37] He was an Estonian strongman, professional wrestler, writer
[39:42] and sports philosopher who is recognized as professional
[39:45] wrestling's first World Heavyweight champion.
[39:51] As a classical Greco Roman wrestler, he was unbeatable, and
[39:55] in that style he won nearly 300 consecutive matches and several
[39:59] world tournaments. Known as the Russian Lion, he
[40:03] reigned supreme until defeated by Frank Goch in Chicago in
[40:08] 19/08. He retired in 1912 with a
[40:12] reputed record of nearly 2000 wins and only 5 losses.
[40:17] Handsome as well as powerfully built.
[40:20] He was adopted by women and admired by men.
[40:23] Personally a soft spoken, cultured and intellectual young
[40:28] man, he could speak 7 languages fluently and became a noted
[40:33] author, speaker and philosopher. Teddy Roosevelt, himself a
[40:38] proponent of physical culture and exercise, proclaimed, If I
[40:41] wasn't President of the United States, I would like to be
[40:44] George Hackenschmidt. He remained physically fit well
[40:48] into old age and at 56 years of age he could jump a four foot 6
[40:54] inch high board 10 times. Even in his mid 80s he would
[40:59] jump 50 * / a chair once a week, bench press 150 lbs and run 7
[41:05] miles in 45 minutes and this was in his 80s.
[41:10] He died in 1968 in London at the age of 90.
[41:14] Largely forgotten except by those with the point shown for
[41:18] turn of the century wrestling history.
[41:20] Hackenschmitt's greatest legacy is something that he created,
[41:25] something that is now prevalent in every country, almost every
[41:28] country, and something so ingrained in modern sport,
[41:32] fitness and masculine culture that practically everyone has
[41:35] heard the name of what he created.
[41:38] So my question to you is this long forgotten hero, and at
[41:43] least forgotten by the vast majority of people, created
[41:47] something that is so ingrained that practically everybody has
[41:50] heard of this. What did George Hackenschmidt
[41:54] create? So I know he is.
[41:57] So I had heard of him and very interestingly I've heard of him
[42:01] from my gym trainer who is a big Hackenschmidt fan so.
[42:07] So I'm guessing he makes you to the hack squat.
[42:10] He did make me do the hackscot, yes.
[42:12] And I am not a fan. I'm not a fan at all.
[42:16] Sorry, hackenshit, good Sir. Yeah, Yeah.
[42:19] But I've done it. And it is interesting because he
[42:22] would be telling me about all of this while I'm in the middle of
[42:24] a school of whatever a set and struggling to do whatever
[42:27] exercise he has assigned to me. So I remember this and I'm
[42:30] confused. I'm.
[42:32] It's been a while. It was either the deadlift or
[42:36] the bench press, one of these exercises that he is credited
[42:39] with, have invented or basically have come up with.
[42:43] So it's one of these very famous ones.
[42:44] I can't for my life remember if it's the deadlift or the bench
[42:48] press, it's one of them. Is that what you're looking for?
[42:51] It is. It is the bench press.
[42:52] He invented what we call now the bench press.
[42:56] And his own record for the bench press stood for 18 years, by the
[42:59] way. Nice.
[43:02] Wow. And if you ever, I mean, this is
[43:04] again, one of those people I just love there is these, you
[43:08] know, like individuals, so these fascinating individuals peppered
[43:12] throughout history, right? Like you read their life and
[43:16] their life story and it just you're like, how is this not a
[43:19] movie? Why hasn't Hugh Jackman been
[43:22] hired to play this guy? That's true, yeah.
[43:27] Yeah, I mean, like his, his Wikipedia page is a fascinating
[43:30] read. His rivalry with Frank Koch is a
[43:34] completely like mind blowing thing.
[43:37] It's it's just fantastic. I would recommend everybody to
[43:40] please go, you know, immerse yourself in the life of Jean
[43:43] Carl Julius Hackenschmidt. There is a very smart man, 7
[43:47] languages, philosopher, author, speaker and he was a wrestling
[43:52] heavyweight champion. And and lived to a very ripe old
[43:56] age also. And extremely fit.
[43:59] Come on, surrounding 7 miles in 45 minutes in your mid 80s?
[44:04] I don't know many people in their 20s who can do that. 7
[44:09] miles in 45 minutes. 7 miles is what?
[44:11] close to 10/11/11 kilometers? How much is it?
[44:14] Something like that. So one mile is around
[44:17] approximately 1.6. So yeah, 11.2 something like
[44:21] that. Wow, 11 kilometers in 45
[44:24] minutes. That is insane.
[44:27] I run regularly. I run at least once a week.
[44:30] I run once a week. I can't do 7 kilometers in in 11
[44:34] kilometers in 40. I can't do 11 kilometers in an
[44:36] hour. What is this man?
[44:37] Wow. In his 80s.
[44:40] Insane. Not that I'm not that I'm very
[44:42] benchmarked for very good running speeds, but still.
[44:45] That is I'm. I have got a few decades on this
[44:48] man and I still can't. Yeah, they're very impressive.
[44:51] Very impressive. OK, from an very impressive man
[44:59] to somebody else who has left quite the mark on history.
[45:03] I'm going to give you a little bit of context to this person's
[45:06] early life. So X was born on New Year's Day
[45:11] in 1895 in Washington, DC. He was also known to have a
[45:18] stutter as a child and eventually overcame this by one
[45:24] of the ways that he overcame it was by speaking very quickly.
[45:27] So he decided to speak very quickly and that had remained
[45:31] with him for the rest of his life all the way till his death.
[45:34] He was known to be very, very fast when he spoke.
[45:38] He was a consultant with Warner Brothers for a film that was
[45:44] released in 1959, The FBI Story, and was also given a Co producer
[45:50] credit if I'm not wrong and also appeared in the film.
[45:55] Do you know who this individual is that I talk about, Maneet?
[45:59] I have the very sneaky feeling, a kind of deja vu, when you were
[46:04] explaining this, because I have read about this guy somewhere.
[46:08] It's somewhere in the back of my head.
[46:09] For the life of me I cannot remember what this is, but I'm
[46:12] fairly sure this is not an actor.
[46:15] This is somebody. Am I thinking politician?
[46:18] For some reason there is some. This is not an actor.
[46:21] I'm fairly sure of that. You are in the right realm, I
[46:25] guess. It's not an actor.
[46:26] It is in the space of, let's say, geopolitics and, and yeah,
[46:32] in that particular area. It's not Henry Kissinger, right?
[46:37] No, not Kissinger. The starter thing.
[46:40] I've read the starter thing somewhere.
[46:43] God, I'm not getting anything. Clues please.
[46:47] This is a clue. I don't even know if it's going
[46:48] to be useful, but it's just a very interesting trivia
[46:50] associated to this guy. OK, this particular guy, this
[46:54] gentleman, gentleman might be a stretch here, I guess.
[46:57] Kept a very large collection of pornographic material.
[47:01] Possibly the world's largest largest collection of
[47:05] pornographic material of films, photographs, and written
[47:09] materials, with particular emphasis on nude photos of
[47:13] celebrities. 1895 you said right?
[47:17] Yeah. Pornographic materials.
[47:19] There are so many people who would fit that bill.
[47:24] Errol Flynn comes to mind, but I don't think you'd be asking me a
[47:27] question about Errol Flynn. No and.
[47:29] You said he was born in New York, but Errol Flynn was born
[47:31] in Australia, so then not him, and also lived.
[47:34] Till the age of 1972, was active in the world of geopolitics for
[47:40] pretty much his entire adult life. 1970 he lived till 1972,
[47:44] you say? Yeah, he died in 1972.
[47:46] Born in 1895. New Year's Day died in 1972.
[47:51] Oh wait, this is Hoover J. Edgar Yes.
[47:56] Yes, yeah, I'm largest pawn collection should have it should
[47:59] have clicked immediately. Yeah, but yeah, this is J Edgar
[48:02] Hoover. J Edgar Hoover So again, the
[48:06] whole pawn collection thing, while it does have some
[48:10] evidence, there is some evidence to support the claim.
[48:11] The largest in the world is obviously an an assumption.
[48:15] It potentially is. He reportedly, again not
[48:18] completely verified, but he reportedly used this for his own
[48:21] titillation and pleasure, but also very importantly held them
[48:24] for blackmail purposes. So he had like this all in his
[48:30] back just to blackmail celebrities and politicians
[48:33] whenever he needed to get his. Way around, civil rights
[48:36] leaders. Civil rights leaders he was
[48:39] apparently on. He hated MLK and reportedly,
[48:44] again, not verified, but he reportedly hated MLK because he
[48:48] once called up MLK and MLK didn't take his call.
[48:50] And since then, he just hated him.
[48:53] And the more you know about Edgar, who were you more you
[48:56] realize that he was petty enough for that story to actually be
[48:59] true. Whether it's true or not, you're
[49:01] not sure, but it can be very much so.
[49:04] Yeah. And like I mentioned, he was a
[49:06] producer, or at least he was a consultant on the FBI story, the
[49:11] movie by Warner Brothers. He was actually very involved in
[49:14] films that were made, especially if they had anything to do with
[49:17] literally nation or security. And he would want what he called
[49:22] G Men government meant to be portrayed in a positive light.
[49:26] So you would have often in these films, his rewrites or his
[49:30] recommendations, which said like, oh, there had to be a
[49:32] dialogue which commended the G men or said stuff like they'd
[49:36] get the job done or they're always so efficient and they're
[49:39] always so good and stuff like that.
[49:41] So he was literally relying on Hollywood to create his
[49:45] propaganda. And well, the these guys
[49:46] complied. So that is J Edgar Hoover very
[49:50] well cracked Vineet. Interestingly enough, my first
[49:54] exposure to the conspiracy theories surrounding Jayed Jayed
[49:59] Kahua, some of which later turned out to be true, was this
[50:03] novel from Robert Ludlam called the Chancellor Manuscript, which
[50:09] it doesn't hold up as much as say for example The Bourne
[50:11] Identity, which is also written by Ludlam.
[50:14] But it was one of my first Expo. I actually read the Chancellor
[50:17] Manuscript before I read any of the other Ludlam novels.
[50:21] I wouldn't say it's great, but because Ludlam was one of The
[50:27] Pioneers of the genre, we should kind of place his novels in the
[50:31] context and at the time in which it was written.
[50:34] But I do recommend him as a read.
[50:37] He's still enjoyable, even though I wouldn't say he's the
[50:40] greatest at anything. But he he does make some really
[50:42] fast-paced novels, a few of which I would recommend include,
[50:48] as I mentioned, the Chancellor manuscript, The Osterman
[50:51] Weekend, The Bourne Identity, of course, right, and The Hallcroft
[50:57] Covenant, which had a really good ending, I thought, which
[51:00] was a completely atypical ending.
[51:02] And he has also, surprisingly enough, written comedies.
[51:08] So if you've not read a geopolitical spy comedy, I would
[51:13] recommend The Road to Gandolfo and The Road to Omaha.
[51:16] Interesting. OK, alright, well, pop culture
[51:19] recommendations galore. OK, so I'm going to now ask you
[51:23] the last question of today's episode, which is again, a
[51:28] listicle, right? So this is, these are not,
[51:32] again, this is not a what can be considered a completely
[51:37] exhaustive list, but let's just say that the most prominent of
[51:41] them are included in what I'm about to say.
[51:46] OK? I'm going to give you 4 names,
[51:48] Wilfred Biffy Dunderdale, Dwayne Hudson, William Stephenson and
[51:55] Dushko Popov. Yeah, I've definitely heard of
[52:00] all of them. Yeah, no, I'm kidding.
[52:03] Obviously sarcasm. Can you repeat the names?
[52:06] I don't even. What?
[52:07] What? So you have Wilfred Biffy
[52:11] Dunderdale, Dwayne Hudson, Dushko Popov and William
[52:16] Stephenson. Wow, no idea at all.
[52:20] And did you say it's an exhaustive list?
[52:23] It's not an exhaustive list, but these are the most prominent, or
[52:28] at least the most likely. There are others on the list
[52:32] which were slightly less likely, but maybe more famous, so that
[52:36] I'll give you one of those as a clue.
[52:38] If you're not able to guess what this is, I'll give you one of
[52:41] the other names on the list. But this interesting most.
[52:46] The general consensus? These four are the most likely
[52:49] ones. Is it possible suspects for the
[52:53] Zodiac killer? Oh well, no, not at all.
[52:59] OK. Because then most likely I'm
[53:01] trying to think of hidden identity.
[53:03] OK. So I'm going to go with what is
[53:06] the Banksy, is it possible people who are?
[53:09] No, no, no, no. But you said most likely, so I'm
[53:13] guessing it, am I on the right track?
[53:15] Is it somebody who the larger let me?
[53:17] Put it this way, let me put it this way, that all of them are
[53:23] somewhat likely, but none of them fit 100%.
[53:26] Again, am I on the right track then?
[53:28] Is it like a Banksy or is it like the guy who came up with
[53:31] Bitcoin or, or is it one of these people who you're?
[53:34] You're you're you're length. Let's say you're walking the
[53:39] right Rd., but in the wrong direction.
[53:42] That is the least helpful suggestion you've ever given.
[53:46] Me. OK, I'll give you one more name
[53:47] on the list which is a little more topical.
[53:49] So that might help you because this name has been in the papers
[53:52] and it's been in social media, so in association with the
[53:57] connection to the list, So that might help you out.
[54:00] So the fifth name and the last name, which I will give you, but
[54:04] it again doesn't make this an exhaustive list, but the fifth
[54:06] name is Gus March Phillips. Wow, don't know that name
[54:12] either. So that didn't help at all.
[54:14] OK, Gus. March.
[54:16] Phillips, if you follow entertainment like I do, that
[54:20] name has been in the like, you know, public discourse or at
[54:25] least around entertainment for the past maybe 5-6 months on and
[54:29] off. Oh, interesting.
[54:31] OK, no, no idea what is relevant to Gus March Phillips in the
[54:38] public discourse, but OK. No, I have like I have literally
[54:42] no context of which domain am I supposed to be looking.
[54:44] At OK, I will William Stephenson, I mentioned that I
[54:50] mentioned many names, right? So out of that, William
[54:52] Stephenson was the subject of a book called The Man Called
[54:58] Intrepid. Man called intrepid.
[55:03] Intrepid like. The second clue I would give you
[55:08] is to think of World War 2. Are these but that's not it
[55:14] because I remember there's some other story I was thinking
[55:17] there's a unnamed soldier that that this the America has given
[55:23] an award to the remains of an unnamed.
[55:25] People are very well known. The thing is they were OK.
[55:29] I will give you now a very big clue.
[55:32] This is practically give away the answer, but these are all
[55:35] people whose some aspects of their lives have been taken as
[55:40] inspiration for something. Oh, OK, OK, OK so it's like
[55:46] something somebody was inspired by and did they is there like
[55:49] some fictional character created off of them?
[55:51] Something like that? Yes.
[55:53] Oh, interesting. So, and you said World War Two,
[55:58] so army, military, some famous enough character that people
[56:04] have speculated so much upon that is military based.
[56:07] And I can't think of any character that is that famous.
[56:10] Like is it a is it a but no, that's the Vietnam War.
[56:14] I was going to say Apocalypse Now Marlon Brando's character,
[56:20] but. No.
[56:22] OK, I'll give you a clue. This is the last clue.
[56:25] You will 101 percent get this. So I'm going to tell you about a
[56:29] real life incident involving one of these people, namely Dushko
[56:35] Popov. Dushko Popov hit me, Yes.
[56:38] Yeah. So Dushko Popov once went into
[56:43] the Estoril casino, where he bluffed by placing a bet of
[56:48] $40,000 in order to cause a rival to withdraw from a Bakara
[56:53] table. OK, OK.
[56:55] I got it. I got it.
[56:56] I think casino itself got me that.
[56:59] This has to be Bond, James Bond. Yes, it is Bond Dreams Bond.
[57:07] These are. People who've been inspirations
[57:08] for James Bond and some of them are like just fascinating.
[57:13] The first person I mentioned is Wilfred Biffy Dunderdale.
[57:17] He was the MI 6 head of station in Paris.
[57:20] He would regularly dine at Maxim's restaurant, which is his
[57:23] high dining hot culture. In a hot cuisine restaurant in
[57:26] Paris. He drove an armour plated Rolls
[57:29] Royce dressed in handmade suit suits and Cartier cufflinks.
[57:35] He was a born beware who enjoyed attractive women, fast cars and
[57:39] was a friend of Flemings. During the Second World War.
[57:42] He also played a role in the cracking of the Enigma code.
[57:45] Dwayne Hudson spent much of the Second World War behind enemy
[57:49] lines in Yugoslavia, initially with the British Secret Service
[57:53] and subsequently with a Special Operations Executive.
[57:56] He survived assassination attempts and recruited a network
[58:00] of agents to blow up access shipping, blowing up an Italian
[58:03] ship single handedly. Dushko Papa, the practically the
[58:08] most fascinating person among this bunch, was a Serbian triple
[58:12] agent. He at the same time was an agent
[58:16] of the VO AM I6 and AB Ware, which is the Germans.
[58:22] Fleming knew Papa and followed him in Lisbon, Portugal as an
[58:25] escort appointed by MI 6, witnessing an event in the
[58:29] Estoril Casino where pop off bluffed by place, placing a bet
[58:33] of $40,000 in order to cause a rival to withdraw from a Bakara
[58:37] table. Fleming used this episode as the
[58:40] basis for Casino Royale. Finally, you have William
[58:44] Stephenson. He was an international
[58:46] spymaster best known by his code name Intrepid.
[58:49] He was a Canadian soldier, fighter pilot, entrepreneur,
[58:52] inventor and international millionaire businessman.
[58:57] By 1940 he became the head of the British Secret Coordination,
[59:00] which is an MI6 organization based in New York, and was an
[59:03] advisor to Churchill and Roosevelt regarding him.
[59:07] Fleming wrote in the Sunday Sunday Times.
[59:09] Ian Fleming wrote in The Sunday Times of 21st October 1962 that
[59:13] Bond was a highly romanticized version of a true spy.
[59:17] The real thing The man who became one of the greatest
[59:19] agents in the Second World War is William Stephenson.
[59:23] Now the clue that I gave you was Gus March Phillips.
[59:29] Gus March Phillips was a British commando on whom parts of James
[59:35] Bond was based. Because Fleming knew Gus March
[59:38] Phillips directly, he was is been in the public public
[59:44] discourse recently because fictionalized or at least
[59:48] slightly fictionalized version of him was played by Henry
[59:53] Cavill in the movie The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, which
[59:58] I really do recommend. I don't know why that movie did
[1:00:01] not run. I really enjoyed it.
[1:00:03] Henry Cavill looking fantastic and you know he you can just see
[1:00:08] that he had a great time shooting the movie.
[1:00:10] Alan Rickson amazing. Isaac Gonzalez is thermonuclear
[1:00:17] hot in that movie. The entire movie is a lot of
[1:00:21] fun. Please go watch it.
[1:00:22] That's another recommendation. I have a lot of recommendations
[1:00:25] again, and also because of talking about James Bond, I
[1:00:30] would also recommend this podcast called the spy who,
[1:00:33] which has a series of five episodes based on the real life
[1:00:37] exploits of disco pop off. So again, please go go listen
[1:00:42] about listen to that those episodes about disco pop off.
[1:00:45] It's just fantastic. They have episodes about other
[1:00:48] spies as well and it's a really good podcast recommendation from
[1:00:53] my side as well. OK, lovely.
[1:00:55] So I guess that brings us to the pop culture recommendation
[1:00:59] section of the broadcast. But before that, we have the
[1:01:02] audience question we have to clear.
[1:01:04] So talking about General Charles James Napier who was tasked with
[1:01:08] stopping an interaction by Muslim rulers in the province of
[1:01:12] undivided India, he easily won the battle and to inform his
[1:01:16] superiors allegedly. And this is part of his legend.
[1:01:20] He was said to have sent a single worded message back which
[1:01:24] was Pakkavi PECCAVI. The question was which region
[1:01:30] did Napier conquer Aditya. Any idea?
[1:01:34] Does I'm assuming the word Pakkavi has significance in
[1:01:36] which region you conquered, right?
[1:01:39] No, no, actually, no. It has nothing to do with that
[1:01:42] region absolutely whatsoever. Wow.
[1:01:45] That was quite derailed. Heading OK, I'm guessing it is
[1:01:49] something to do and don't know why but it just rings a bell
[1:01:52] with something to do with the subcontinent.
[1:01:55] So I'm guessing it's somewhere in II Pakistan.
[1:02:00] Yeah, I've already mentioned it was a province of undivided
[1:02:03] India. Oh, right, right, right.
[1:02:06] Or our current government likes to call it.
[1:02:12] Political controversy non withstanding.
[1:02:16] Did you mention which time period?
[1:02:19] I'm not particularly significant, but this was around
[1:02:22] 1812 if I'm not mistaken. 18121814 around that region.
[1:02:28] No, no, no 1812. OK, then I'm going to say
[1:02:31] somewhere in the north. So is it like a Punjab or or
[1:02:37] somewhere there? Yeah, but then what is the
[1:02:39] connection with Pekkavi? It's not Punjab, by the way.
[1:02:42] That's not the right answer, but the ANS the way to go get there
[1:02:45] would be to go through pakkavi. I was not expecting anybody to
[1:02:48] answer this unless you know this specifically.
[1:02:50] So I will give the answer. Pakkavi is the past tense in
[1:02:54] Latin for to sin, SIN to sin, so sin the past sin.
[1:03:03] So basically the past tense of to sin can be translated as I
[1:03:09] have sinned. Or I have sinned.
[1:03:13] I have sinned. Oh man, OK.
[1:03:16] Now this is again, as I mentioned, a part of Napier's
[1:03:20] legend, but I also have, how do I put this a responsibility to
[1:03:26] tell the truth? So the fact is, Napier actually
[1:03:30] never said this. This pun has gone down in
[1:03:32] history as a clever line from Napier, but it's actually a
[1:03:35] misattribution. A 16 year old girl, Catherine
[1:03:40] Winkworth, sent the one word line into the humor magazine
[1:03:43] Punch, and it was published on 18th May 1844 and later on was
[1:03:49] misattributed to having been said by Napier himself.
[1:03:52] So yeah, I wish he had actually done it, but he.
[1:03:55] Didn't. Yeah, Yeah.
[1:03:57] I mean, good for that, that that woman who sent it in.
[1:04:02] Very funny. But I was hoping that Napier had
[1:04:04] a sense of humor. I guess when you're a colonial,
[1:04:09] understand that. But I guess he didn't.
[1:04:11] So all right. Well, that's a great pun,
[1:04:14] though. I love it.
[1:04:15] Yeah, I thought you'd enjoy that one.
[1:04:18] I did. I did.
[1:04:18] Very much so. So, Aditya, what's your pop
[1:04:21] culture recommendation for this week?
[1:04:23] Oh, fun. OK, so I got to recommend two
[1:04:27] podcasts, and I'm going to recommend not just generally the
[1:04:30] podcast because I've done that in the past as well.
[1:04:31] I'm going to recommend specific episodes.
[1:04:33] And the first one is Taylor Swift versus Scooter Braun.
[1:04:38] And I was reminded of that obviously, when Vineet was
[1:04:40] talking about Taylor's version. So Scooter Braun is the person
[1:04:43] that she was in a tussle with to get her own own songs and the
[1:04:49] ownership of her songs back. And that's why she ended up
[1:04:52] releasing her own versions of it eventually.
[1:04:53] So Taylor Swift was a Scooter Braun, which was a series of
[1:04:57] episodes by Business Wars Podcasts that both Vineet and I
[1:05:01] have recommended in the past. They do phenomenal episodes on
[1:05:06] on what would well as easily exemplified by its name,
[1:05:11] Business wars. So this is one of them and check
[1:05:13] out the Scooter Braun and Taylor Swift episode by Business Wars.
[1:05:16] And my J Edgar Hoover question was actually inspired by stuff
[1:05:22] you should know, another podcast that I've recommended in the
[1:05:24] past and they recently did two episodes on J Edgar Hoover.
[1:05:29] So that is worth checking out and very interesting.
[1:05:32] I did not even know the history of the man apparently had some
[1:05:35] very strong anti-gay sentiment and allegedly was gay himself.
[1:05:42] So yeah, some stranger self hatred over there, I guess.
[1:05:48] But yeah, there's some interesting, some disturbing,
[1:05:52] but definitely historic significance to that man's life
[1:05:56] and the things that he did. So those are to my podcast
[1:06:00] recommendations. I also want to recommend
[1:06:02] something which I don't think I have so far and I I maybe most
[1:06:08] of our listeners don't know, but I do do a lot of theatre and a
[1:06:10] lot of improvised theatre. So I would recommend something
[1:06:12] in that space and not theatre because obviously that would
[1:06:15] depend on where you live, but something online.
[1:06:17] So if you have never seen it, definitely check out Whose Line
[1:06:20] Is It Anyway? The 1st, the 1st introduction to
[1:06:24] improv that most people have in their life.
[1:06:27] Three of the most famous improvisers, Ryan Styles, Wayne
[1:06:30] Brady and Colin Mockery and it's a great show.
[1:06:32] The other one that I would recommend is Middleditch and
[1:06:34] Schwartz. This is on Netflix and these are
[1:06:37] three episodes and they are one hour long somewhere along there
[1:06:41] and they do an hour long improvised.
[1:06:44] I guess play is the best way to describe it, improvised show,
[1:06:47] but it's a whole hour of them just improvising on stage in
[1:06:49] front of a live audience and it's really funny, especially if
[1:06:53] you do like something in the vein of improvised comedy.
[1:06:55] So I would recommend these two shows that people should check
[1:06:58] out Whose Line is it Anyway? The original series I think is
[1:07:03] better and Middle ditch and Schwartz on Netflix.
[1:07:07] Those are my 4 pop culture recommendations for the day.
[1:07:10] Great recommendations, Aditya. I have heard of a couple of them
[1:07:14] but the one hour long what is it called Middle switch and
[1:07:17] Schwartz what is it again? Middle Ditch and Schwartz.
[1:07:20] Which is the name of the two improvisers who do it?
[1:07:22] Thomas Middle Ditch and Ben Schwartz, Yeah.
[1:07:25] Nice, that's that's that's new to me.
[1:07:27] I'll definitely check that out. I've already bench mentioned a
[1:07:31] bunch of recommendations this week.
[1:07:33] Top Gear. Please go watch Top Gear
[1:07:35] wherever you can get it pirated if you have to, but it is just
[1:07:40] an amazing show. It's an amazing show.
[1:07:43] I would not recommend watching the series post the exit of
[1:07:47] Jeremy Clarkson, but then again that's up to you.
[1:07:51] The second recommendation I have is obviously some of the novels
[1:07:54] by Robert Ludlum, which I've mentioned, the Chancellor
[1:07:57] manuscript, The Austerman Weekend, The Hallcroft Covenant,
[1:08:00] The Bourne Identity. Yes, it still stands up a little
[1:08:02] bit. So these are some of which you
[1:08:04] can you can read and two of his comedy novels, The Road to Omaha
[1:08:08] and The Road to Gandolfo. Those are also pretty fun.
[1:08:12] They he has a lot of others which frankly can get a little
[1:08:16] boring and repetitive, but these are pretty solid.
[1:08:21] And most of these are all some of his earlier works.
[1:08:23] So those are good. I would also recommend the
[1:08:26] podcast which I mentioned, The Spy Who, which have series which
[1:08:30] have small kind of episode blocks, each episode block
[1:08:35] concentrating on one particular spy, Dushko Popov I think was
[1:08:39] the first one in that podcast series.
[1:08:41] So definitely go listen to that. And finally, I would also like
[1:08:45] to recommend the movie The Ministry of Ungentlemanly
[1:08:48] Warfare by Guy Ritchie, starring Henry Cavill, a darling of the
[1:08:53] Internet, Alan Richland, who have recommended earlier for his
[1:08:56] work in Reacher. So he's also playing a homicidal
[1:09:01] murderous Swede in the movie. And all together a lot of good
[1:09:05] looking men and women in a really fun fictionalized version
[1:09:11] of an actual World War Two operation called Operation
[1:09:15] Postmaster. So go watch that as well.
[1:09:19] Cool, lovely recommendations so. That's all the time we have for
[1:09:25] the episode for today. Thank you all for listening in.
[1:09:29] I hope you enjoyed the show. Sorry.
[1:09:30] We hope you enjoyed the show and learn something new.
[1:09:33] If you liked what you heard, please consider subscribing to
[1:09:35] our podcast and leaving us a review on your favorite podcast
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