# Episode 055 - Churchill, Dyslexia & Taylor Swift

An episode of [Are You Quizzing Me?](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1663104901), 6 Feb 2024, 1 h 05 min.

Audio: https://anchor.fm/s/d7afa960/podcast/play/82299937/https%3A%2F%2Fd3ctxlq1ktw2nl.cloudfront.net%2Fstaging%2F2024-1-6%2F1c45672c-ac28-dcd6-60cd-cdea3ed2c474.mp3

Do you know what it is that Churchill claimed to have saved more lives than all the doctors in the British Empire? Do you know which ironic/appropriately named place is the location for the offices of the Dyslexia Research Trust? Do you know what "name" was given to the improvised fecal incendiary devices used by Venezuelan protestors? 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

## Transcript

[0:00] Welcome to Are 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 #55 of Are You
[0:22] Quizzing Me? Your Favorite Quizzing and
[0:24] Trivia Podcast Show. So let's start off with Aditya's
[0:27] question from last week. All right.
[0:29] So my question last week, and I want to take this opportunity to
[0:33] any new listener who's joining in to specify that this part of
[0:37] this episode is not indicative of what we do for the rest of
[0:40] the episode. So if you do not like terrible
[0:43] puns, please Fast forward for the next 30 seconds.
[0:46] But I'd say let's stay back, because the question I asked
[0:49] last week was there were two satellites which were meant to
[0:55] measure the gravity of Earth and these were given the nicknames
[1:00] of Tom and Jerry based off obviously the cartoons.
[1:04] So I had asked what if they had to be named by an Indian and
[1:10] what Indian pop culture would be used to name the satellites or
[1:16] give them an informal name. And the answer, at least in
[1:20] current context, seems very obvious.
[1:22] Tom and Jerry are constantly chasing each other.
[1:26] Or rather, Tom is constantly chasing Jerry and never able to
[1:29] catch him. So I guess it has to be Poonam
[1:32] Pandey constantly chasing fame and and relevance and and I'm
[1:38] getting very close many times, but just falling short I guess
[1:43] and she comes back again. Now is the new start next time,
[1:46] all right. In case you hated that joke, it
[1:48] is entirely Vineet this time he came up.
[1:52] You send all your hate mail to Vineet.
[1:54] If you're a Poonam Pandey fan is the one you want to blame, And
[1:58] if you're a new listener, please stick around.
[2:00] The rest of this episode is actual facts and trivia.
[2:03] Yes, this is just the amuse Bush.
[2:05] The entrees are still awaited. OK, so before we go to the
[2:10] regular questions, that is the audience question, which I asked
[2:13] at the beginning of every episode, the answer to which I
[2:15] will reveal at the end of the episode.
[2:19] So the question for this week is since 1995 the Dyslexia Research
[2:26] Trust, or DRT, in the UK has been helping to improve the
[2:31] lives of many thousands of young people with reading problems.
[2:34] The DRT was started to provide effective services for children
[2:38] and adults with reading and related problems and to support
[2:42] scientific research into the nature and causes of these
[2:45] conditions. The trust offices are located in
[2:49] a very ironic location given what they do.
[2:53] What is the name of the location in England where their offices
[2:57] currently are? I will reveal the answer to this
[2:59] at the end of today's episode. So let's start off with today's
[3:05] official set of factual questions as opposed to the
[3:09] Aditya question that we asked at the beginning of every episode.
[3:11] I would like to take this opportunity to thank one of our
[3:14] listeners by the name of Arjun Srikumar.
[3:18] Regular listeners may remember his name.
[3:20] He had sent questions before that time.
[3:23] He had sent it to Aditya and making me the bakara or the
[3:27] sacrificial goat. But this time the tables have
[3:30] turned. He has selected Moi to be the
[3:34] question master and he sent some very good questions to be asked
[3:38] to Aditya. Arjun, thank you so much for
[3:40] sending in the questions. But I have to warn you, I have a
[3:43] feeling that Aditya will crack some of these.
[3:46] But then let's see if we can make it a little tough for him.
[3:49] So the first question, Aditya, is this.
[3:51] Winston Churchill once declared that X has saved more
[3:58] Englishman's lives and minds than all the doctors in the
[4:01] Empire. What is X and why did he save
[4:06] say that it saved many lives? Given Winston Churchill's
[4:11] history, my instinct is to say colonialism or state of racism,
[4:20] but I assume that's not the answer here.
[4:23] No. OK, I'm assuming this has
[4:26] something to do with pop culture.
[4:28] Not necessarily, but yes, it does appear in pop culture.
[4:33] OK, it appears in pop culture, but because I was guessing it
[4:36] could be BBC or it could be some form of music or entertainment.
[4:43] But no, you're talking. About No, no, no, nothing of
[4:45] that sort. Yes, in pop culture.
[4:48] OK, interesting. It has saved many lives, way
[4:53] more than all the doctors. OK then.
[4:56] I'm going to guess food, and my first instinct is to say fish
[4:59] and chips. No.
[5:01] You're very close with food, but it is not fish and chips.
[5:05] Oh, then it's tea. No, it's not tea either.
[5:09] Oh, OK wow, I really thought I had it on tea.
[5:11] I'm just going to start naming British things like scones.
[5:16] OK, one clue I would give you is that I have actually asked a
[5:20] question about one of the components of this in the past.
[5:24] We were just talking before this episode started off how we have
[5:27] done one year of episodes. Now we need.
[5:31] Yes, out of the out of the 200 odd questions that I have asked
[5:34] in the past year. Yeah, unfortunately, as much as
[5:39] I love you, I don't keep going back and listening to other
[5:41] episodes and your questions again.
[5:44] I should. I should.
[5:45] Maybe you should be thinking about the Countess of Syncon,
[5:49] the wife of the Viceroy of Peru. He's given a very direct clue,
[5:53] which I think would be too easy for you, so I'm deviating from
[5:57] the script a little bit. He's given a very decent clue.
[6:00] He's given hints for every question, but you know, he's
[6:02] given a very decent, you know, something that a very nice
[6:06] person would say. I'm not feeling particularly
[6:08] nice today. Arjun, This is why you should
[6:10] send questions to me. Man, why is?
[6:12] Any questions? To me, so there are two
[6:14] components. OK, there are two components to
[6:18] this particular answer. Out of that one component I said
[6:21] you could think of the Countess of sink on which was the wife of
[6:27] the Viceroy of Peru. And the 2nd is you could think
[6:32] of 1 Mr. Johann Jacob Schwepp. Tonic, gin and tonic.
[6:39] Yes, it is gin and tonic. Now can you guess why he said
[6:45] that? This has saved more Englishmen's
[6:47] lives and minds and all the doctors in the Empire.
[6:50] Malaria. Yes.
[6:52] And how does it help against malaria?
[6:55] So quinine, Quinine, I believe. I'm not sure how it's
[6:59] pronounced, yes, but the the the organic compound that is found
[7:06] in this Peruvian plant I believe which helped fight off malaria
[7:12] was an antibacterial properties was very bitter so people would
[7:16] drink it with tonic and and that's how I believe the empire
[7:22] spread because when they went to tropical countries a lot of them
[7:25] was stricken with malaria and only with the dissemination of
[7:29] quinine and tonic water they managed to survive malaria and
[7:34] well I guess colonize these places.
[7:36] So you're around 70% right with that explanation.
[7:39] Quinine is a is an ingredient in tonic water.
[7:43] So because it was bitter, they mixed it with gin and lime.
[7:47] OK. Oh, OK, My bad.
[7:49] Right. So they mix it with gin.
[7:50] All right. A little bit of background.
[7:53] Quinine is an alkaloid derived from the bark of the cincona
[7:57] tree. The name of the tree is derived
[7:59] from the counters of Cincon, wife of the Vice Roy of Peru.
[8:03] Quinine is effective as a treatment, and again also as a
[8:07] prophylaxis as preventive against the Plasmodium parasite,
[8:11] because malaria is caused by a parasite, not a bacteria.
[8:15] Tonics were carbonated beverages containing different kinds of
[8:18] chemicals. Johann Jacob Schweppe.
[8:21] How do how would you remember Schweppe today?
[8:23] Schweppes tonic water. Exactly Schweppes tonic water or
[8:27] ginger ale. The ginger ale is also very
[8:28] good, was a German chemist settled in Bristol who
[8:32] introduced Shrep's Indian Quinine Tonic in 1870, which
[8:36] contained 30 milligrams of quinine per pint.
[8:41] The British Army and Navy soon adopted the tonic and mixed the
[8:43] product with lime, which had the added value of preventing
[8:46] scurvy. The addition of alcoholic
[8:48] beverages like gin contributed to make the enjoy make it more
[8:52] enjoyable and the bitter and unpleasant taste of this
[8:56] beverage was mitigated by mixing it.
[8:58] A tonic water today however has very low levels of quinine, so
[9:03] please don't take that as an excuse to drink more gin and
[9:06] tonic nowadays it's not going to help you prevent malaria.
[9:10] Now, I've already asked the question about gin in the past,
[9:13] that it's derived from Ginnipa berries and it comes from the
[9:18] old term geneve. You can go back and listen to
[9:20] that episode, which frankly speaking, I don't remember which
[9:23] episode number it was, But you can go back and listen to it,
[9:26] listen to all our podcast episodes so that you can find
[9:29] this one question. Just start from episode one and
[9:32] listen to all of it. And the first listener who
[9:34] points out the right episode number will be sent a special
[9:38] surprise, which will probably be something absolutely free and
[9:44] nothing paid, no gifts coming your way.
[9:46] We are very broke right now. Yes, we are very.
[9:50] We were discussing this as well, how we are a very shoestring
[9:53] podcast, absolutely no budget. Everything is done by the both
[9:57] of us. We we will give that person a
[10:00] lot of compliments on our next episode of the podcast.
[10:03] Yes, yes, yes. So it's a fantastic coincidence
[10:08] that you brought up this thing and I just pulled up another
[10:12] podcast episode that I heard very recently.
[10:15] Stuff the British Stole is a podcast, and usually they talk
[10:20] about about physical objects that the British might have
[10:25] stolen. In this particular episode, they
[10:28] spoke about the bark of the Andean Sinchona tree and how the
[10:33] British technically, in a way, there was a whole colonial
[10:38] skirmish over it, I guess you could call it because Portuguese
[10:40] wanted it as well and the Brits wanted it as well.
[10:43] And I believe the French wanted it as well.
[10:44] Or the Dutch, right. The Dutch wanted it as well.
[10:47] And they all knew the power of this thing.
[10:50] It's a phenomenal episode. It speaks of how colonialism has
[10:54] affected cultures and societies till date, and how the Brits
[10:59] actually stole this as well. So an unofficial recommendation
[11:02] for the week. Check out the stuff the British
[11:04] stole and their episode on how they stole the Andean Cinchona
[11:10] tree, which led to gin and tonics.
[11:14] Speaking of really excellent topics or themes, for podcast
[11:20] stuff that the British stole, they could release an episode
[11:24] every week and have enough material to last them for the
[11:28] next hundred 150 years. Given the level of looting that
[11:34] the British have done, which also they have looted from Hindi
[11:37] because the original word loot comes from Hindi and that's also
[11:41] been appropriated into the English language.
[11:43] So that's another thing that the British stole from India.
[11:47] Oh, the Brits. The Brits.
[11:49] Just give the Kohinoor back. Come on.
[11:53] Yeah, neither they are going to do that.
[11:55] Lovely question. Thank you so much, Vineet and
[11:58] chance for me to plug another podcast.
[12:00] Yeah. So everybody, please check that
[12:02] out. And thank you, Arjun.
[12:03] And also in no small measure, thanks for not asking a cricket
[12:07] question because that would have had me fun.
[12:11] Very intended, stumped. And in this case, thank you for
[12:15] doing that. And since you spoke about
[12:17] Churchill, I guess it is only right that I asked you something
[12:21] from that era. And that brings me as a segue to
[12:25] my first question of this episode.
[12:27] In 1942, the Brits were preparing for an offensive
[12:32] against Nazi Germany in the Second World War.
[12:35] To enable their planning or to assist their planning.
[12:40] How did the BBC help them? By conducting what I would call
[12:46] a crowd sourced activity. So what crowd sourced activity
[12:50] did the BBC do to assist with the Brits in the planning for an
[12:57] offensive against Nazi Germany? This is 1942, you said, right?
[13:02] Yes. The BBC World Service, I believe
[13:06] was used quite a bit to transmit information to resistance groups
[13:11] all across Europe. So there would be innocuous
[13:15] programs during which there'd be certain keywords and other
[13:18] things which would alert resistance fighters to a message
[13:21] coming in. Is it something that?
[13:24] Is it that way? You're not wrong in the sense
[13:27] that yes, the media in general, and BBC perhaps specifically,
[13:32] did help disseminate information and misinformation all in an
[13:36] effort to aid the war because misinformation was supposed to
[13:41] throw off the Nazi intelligence as to where the attack would
[13:44] happen. But no, I'm talking about a
[13:46] specific thing the BBC did which was crowd sourced.
[13:50] It wasn't something they were doing from their end.
[13:53] They were technically asking the people to help them.
[13:57] And what? How exactly did they ask the
[13:59] people to help them, which would then assist the people planning
[14:03] the war? The government.
[14:05] Or the military. So I'm guessing any time you
[14:07] want to plan an invasion you need like accurate maps and
[14:13] enemy positions, details about airfields and things like that,
[14:17] which I'm guessing that locals could provide.
[14:20] Now if it was in the modern day, they could just call it in or
[14:23] send an e-mail, but I don't. I'm a little confused with how
[14:26] they would have been able to do that in 1942.
[14:30] Oh, you're dancing right at the edge of dance and I love it
[14:33] because you're so close. You're right.
[14:35] Yes, they did need Intel as to the layout of the land.
[14:40] And you're also right that there was not the easy mode of
[14:45] transmission that are available today back then.
[14:48] So how would they do it? You're very close.
[14:51] So any any guesses or I'll I'll give it to you if you can't
[14:55] because you're very close so. No, let me guess, because I'm
[14:58] always very interested in World War 2.
[14:59] It's a particular interest of mine.
[15:02] You know, spies used to put in advertisements in classifieds.
[15:07] So maybe the BBC puts out some information and then a
[15:11] classified ad is placed in the newspapers.
[15:15] Or they send a request for an ad.
[15:18] I'm going to stop you there. I'm going to stop you there.
[15:21] Because remember, I said it's Crowdsource.
[15:23] They were asking the general public for something.
[15:26] But then the public has to respond, right?
[15:28] So that's that's. What I was thinking of what did
[15:30] the public respond with? What did they ask for?
[15:33] And you? I already told you that it was
[15:35] to get a sense of the lay of the land to plan the invasion.
[15:40] What did they ask the public to do?
[15:43] I I would either need a clue or if you have no more clues then I
[15:46] would I would ask you to put me out of it basically.
[15:48] OK, so I'm just going to just highlight things that you've
[15:50] already mentioned. They need a lay of the land, so
[15:53] they need visual information. Of.
[15:57] Let's be more specific of the coast of Europe, because they
[16:00] want to know where exactly would be the easiest place to invade
[16:06] Europe from, which was at that point taken over by Germany in
[16:10] vast swaths. They needed visual information
[16:13] and it had to be sent in a way that would be not raising too
[16:18] many alarms. What did they ask?
[16:20] Did they ask them to mail in Maps?
[16:23] Oh. OK, you know what?
[16:24] I'll give it to you. Very close.
[16:25] They asked them for postcards and photographs of the coast of
[16:28] Europe. Oh.
[16:29] Nice. Nice.
[16:30] Nice. Yes, nice.
[16:32] We were asking people to send in postcards, which is.
[16:36] A relief. On little piece of trivia and
[16:39] all the research pointed to one region beneath you.
[16:42] And tell us what region that was.
[16:43] That would be the Normandy coast, I'm guessing.
[16:46] Absolutely. The D-Day landings on Normandy
[16:49] were a direct result of this exercise carried out by the BBC
[16:53] to aid the war effort beneath you.
[16:56] You basically crack that. So I have to give you props for
[16:59] that. I don't know how to phrase the
[17:01] next part of this as a question, so I'm just going to share it as
[17:04] trivia because it is so fun. In September 1943, it was
[17:09] decided that all personnel granted access to top secret
[17:13] documents should be given an ID card stamped with a single word.
[17:17] It was assumed that no sane person was likely to brag about
[17:21] that particular classification. They were trying to make sure
[17:25] that security was maintained all the way till the invasion
[17:29] happened, right up until D-Day itself.
[17:33] What word did they use? If you want to take a guess,
[17:35] it's a bit tough, so I'll I'll give it to you immediately.
[17:37] But if you want to take a guess or two, I'll I'll let you have
[17:39] the chance. I'm guessing it would have to be
[17:42] something very rude and very like a shite classification or
[17:46] something like that. You are, in a way, I guess,
[17:50] close enough, but no, it was bigot.
[17:53] The classification was bigot. Yeah.
[17:56] OK. Nobody was gonna brag about
[17:58] having the classification of bigot in the government.
[18:01] And that is what the personnel were granted to make sure that
[18:04] they won't be going around telling people.
[18:06] The secret documents were stamped with the word bigot on
[18:09] it to make sure that people knew what it referred to.
[18:14] One last piece of trivia in regards to this.
[18:16] So again, in an effort to maintain secrecy, Terence Otway,
[18:21] who was somebody higher up in the British military, had to be
[18:25] certain that his men wouldn't spill the beans ahead of June
[18:28] 1944. So he sent 30 of the prettiest
[18:32] members of the Women's Auxiliary Air Force, dressed in civilian
[18:36] clothes, into village pubs where his soldiers would be training.
[18:41] And the. Women were encouraged to
[18:43] discover the men's mission. None of the men gave anything
[18:46] away, so he was trying to make sure it was called the pub test,
[18:50] to make sure that the soldiers would keep their secrets with
[18:54] them. The fact is the British were a
[18:57] master of disinformation during World War 2.
[19:00] So much so that their disinformation has had an impact
[19:03] even today. During World War 2, when radar
[19:07] was first starting to be used, the British pilot were getting
[19:12] guidance and they were getting pretty good at shooting down
[19:15] aircraft. Now they did not want the
[19:18] Germans to know that how advanced their kind of detection
[19:22] capabilities had become. So the British Broadcasting
[19:27] Corporation, Radio and other sources were used to put out
[19:33] this kind of legend. Or basically they presented as
[19:35] fact that the British pilots were so good because they used
[19:40] to eat carrots and these carrots were good for your eyes and that
[19:45] is why the British pilots were so good at shooting down the
[19:49] enemy aircraft. The fact of the matter is,
[19:51] carrots do have vitamin A, which technically does have an effect
[19:54] on your eyesight, but nothing to that extent.
[19:57] You can eat all the carrots you want, it's not going to improve
[20:00] your eyesight anymore. But that particular myth has
[20:03] persisted. Wow, I did not know this is a
[20:06] trivia. That is phenomenal.
[20:08] Well, I always assumed it it was.
[20:11] As the joke goes, you know why carrots help with good eyesight?
[20:16] It's because the rabbits eat carrots.
[20:18] And have you ever seen a rabbit with a pair of glasses on?
[20:21] No, exactly. Carrots help with.
[20:28] Do you know there's a, there's a, there's an entire cartoon, a
[20:31] legendary cartoon, which had come to be because this is a
[20:34] question I'm giving away, but I don't care.
[20:36] That has come to be and has become so popular because of a
[20:41] wrongly placed decimal point. Popeye with spinach.
[20:45] Yes, yes, yes. When the first study was
[20:50] published describing the iron content as finished, there was a
[20:53] decimal point which went one digit to the right.
[20:57] So that presented the iron content of spinach as being 10
[21:01] times more than it actually was. Which is why you have Popeye the
[21:06] Sailor Man eating a can of spinach and suddenly becoming, I
[21:09] don't know, obelisk or Asterisk after drinking the potion, but
[21:14] yeah, so that's another nutrition based myth.
[21:18] You you said it was a question that you were giving away.
[21:21] It was a question on my list as well.
[21:23] At some point it would have feature.
[21:25] We both lost a question tonight. Yeah, fair enough.
[21:30] We have regular fans like Arjun to shore us up.
[21:33] So the second question for Arjun is a little longer question.
[21:36] This is frankly was a question that was on my list of
[21:41] questions, but then he sent it. So then I'm giving the credit to
[21:46] him. In 1880, Mambali Bapu, who was
[21:50] originally a trader based in Burma and involved in the export
[21:54] of milk, tea and bread to British troops in Egypt,
[21:58] returned to his hometown in Tellicherry or to all the
[22:02] Malayali's in listening Talisherry, which is in modern
[22:06] day Kerala. And he opened up the royal
[22:09] biscuit factory which became an instant hit among both the
[22:12] locals and the British. Cut to three years later,
[22:16] Murdoch Brown, a Scotsman who owned a large cinnamon
[22:20] plantation in Anjara Kandi, which is in also in present day
[22:23] Kannur, met Bapu and put in a request to replicate a dish that
[22:28] was native to England. He handed over the ingredients
[22:32] for the dish and asked Bapu to add another ingredient which was
[22:36] to be sourced from mahi. Since mahi was a bit far, Bapu
[22:40] modified the recipe to include local ingredients and a brew
[22:45] made of cashew, apples and bananas.
[22:47] On tasting the dish, Brown declared the dish the best he
[22:51] had ever had and even better than what was made in England.
[22:55] He ordered a dozen more. Since then the bakery enjoyed
[22:58] great success and today is I think the oldest functional
[23:01] bakery in India. So the question again is what
[23:04] was this dish which was hugely popular especially in the state
[23:07] of Kerala and those supposedly seasonal is currently available
[23:11] and consumed there throughout the year.
[23:14] I can attest to the fact that yes, it is consumed through
[23:16] almost throughout the year. OK, so if I got that right, he
[23:21] was given a British recipe that he was supposed to adapt.
[23:25] An English recipe? Yes.
[23:27] OK, an English recipe. He was supposed to adapt and he
[23:30] was told to use an ingredient which wasn't very close, so he
[23:34] decided to use another ingredient.
[23:36] Yes. So he had asked to.
[23:38] He was asked to add an ingredient from nearby mahi.
[23:42] But because Mahi was a little far nowadays, not very far, but
[23:46] in those days, yes. He modified the recipe to
[23:48] include local ingredients and a brew made of cashew, apples and
[23:52] bananas. Cashew, apples and bananas.
[23:54] Why? I can't think of anything which
[23:56] would be that, but because we nowadays.
[23:59] Nowadays, I think they've gone back to the original ingredient
[24:03] to an extent. Or maybe a different ingredient,
[24:05] but it's slightly different. And nowadays, I think again, the
[24:08] commercially available variant maybe omits this ingredient
[24:13] altogether. This isn't the Stew, right?
[24:16] No, no, no. So those listening ishtoo is a
[24:20] Stew. Basically it's I believe it's a
[24:22] bastardization of the English word Stew.
[24:24] It's a coconut milk based Stew made fully completely
[24:27] vegetables, usually carrots and potatoes and onions and whatnot.
[24:33] Very flavorful, Goes very well with upper, which you would know
[24:36] by the name of hoppers. Could you repeat those two
[24:40] ingredients that they substituted with again?
[24:43] He substituted local ingredients and the item that he was asked
[24:47] to source from Mahi. He replaced that with a brew
[24:51] made of cashew apples and bananas.
[24:54] No, I need a clue. I'm very lost right now.
[24:57] OK, so the this is actually a clue which will kind of give it
[25:01] away, but the ingredient that he was asked to source from Mahi
[25:06] was because the mahi at that time was a French enclave.
[25:12] So there was specific French ingredient.
[25:15] French ingredient. This particular ingredient was
[25:18] so popular on its own that even during the Napoleonic Wars there
[25:23] were smugglers smuggling it from France to England, even during
[25:27] the Napoleonic Wars, when Britain was completely against
[25:31] everything French. But people loved this so much
[25:35] that they had it smuggled across the Channel.
[25:39] French ingredient? Well, I cannot think of a single
[25:42] right now. I'm I'm blanking on so much.
[25:44] Yeah. So this particular ingredient,
[25:46] as I said currently if you go to any major bakery in Kerala,
[25:51] you'll get this particular dish, but it will probably not have
[25:55] this French ingredient or this ingredient.
[25:57] Vanilla is not French, right? No, it's.
[26:01] Not, not French. I can only think of French
[26:04] dishes. I can't think of French
[26:05] ingredients. This would not be technically
[26:08] exclusively French, you could find it in many countries in
[26:10] Europe. I don't imagine.
[26:12] Let me just give you another clue.
[26:13] Let me give you another clue, this ingredient.
[26:16] So now, as I mentioned, the majority of these dishes that
[26:20] you would get commercially available exclude this
[26:23] particular French ingredient. But nowadays, it's actually more
[26:27] popular to use another ingredient in place of this,
[26:33] especially during a particular season.
[26:35] And that ingredient is more associated with the Caribbean
[26:39] rather than any other country. Wow, that is a lot of
[26:42] information. I'm being very, very vague.
[26:45] Yeah, because that's a lot of information that I'm not able to
[26:47] do anything with. OK.
[26:50] But let's, OK, I'll give you the ingredient, I'll give you the
[26:51] French ingredient. It was Brandy.
[26:54] I was just going to say, is it rum?
[26:56] Because he's at Caribbean. So then we're talking about a
[26:59] rum cake. A Christmas.
[27:02] A plum cake, Yes, plum cake. They call it a plum cake.
[27:05] It's called a plum cake. Yes.
[27:07] So in Kerala, plum cakes are available throughout the year.
[27:11] You will find a packet of plum cakes in practically every
[27:13] household. When guests come up, our mothers
[27:16] would chop it up into small pieces, not small pieces like
[27:20] slices like bread slices, and then give them with tea or
[27:23] coffee to our guests. And you find it throughout the
[27:26] year, during Christmas and around the Christmas and the
[27:29] holiday season, you would actually get rum soaked or
[27:32] Brandy soaked raisins and whatnot, which are used in the
[27:36] making of the plum cakes. The commercially available ones
[27:39] usually don't have Brandy anymore.
[27:42] Going back to the question Mambali Bapu, he started the
[27:45] Royal biscuit factory. Murdoch Brown Scotsman
[27:49] approached him to replicate a Christmas cake which is native
[27:54] to England. So he gave him a list of
[27:55] ingredients and asked Bapu to add French Brandy, which was
[28:00] sourced from Mahi, which is a French enclave currently part of
[28:05] the Pondicherry Union territory. Since Mahi was a bit far in
[28:09] those days, nowadays it's just a short Dr. Bapu modified the
[28:12] recipe to include local ingredients and a brew made of
[28:15] cashew apples and bananas, which is Aric Country liquor.
[28:20] And on tasting it, Brown declared it to be the best he
[28:22] had ever had, the better one than what was made in England,
[28:25] and it became very, very popular among the British population.
[28:28] I usually after you tell us the answer, I would share another
[28:32] piece of related trivia if I had one.
[28:34] But this isn't trivia. This is just I'm going to call
[28:36] out somebody from my own life. I have a very dear friend of
[28:39] mine who's Malu and who for years told me that when she used
[28:44] to live with the family because she was living away from family
[28:46] when I met her. So when she used to live with
[28:48] the family, she would always make the rum cake and I was very
[28:51] impressed. I was like, oh wow, that's
[28:52] amazing. This year round she was in
[28:55] Mumbai and her family lives in Mumbai.
[28:57] When I went to her house for Christmas, turns out she helped
[29:00] her mum once. Once she had her mum and making
[29:03] a rum cake and she'd be lying to me and telling me that she used
[29:07] to do it every year. And aunty was like, I was like,
[29:10] Oh yeah, did did my friend make it?
[29:13] And aunty was like, she's never made it.
[29:15] What are you talking about? There's no clue.
[29:17] How can you do the entire thing? She helped me mix the batter
[29:19] once, many years ago. So I do know the importance of
[29:24] rum cake during Christmas for Mallus and I also know, I guess
[29:28] calling out my friend here, she knows who she is or being a
[29:32] liar. So just a follow up kind of
[29:37] question. If you were to listen, or to
[29:40] watch rather the cooking programs of, say, Gordon Ramsay
[29:47] or Anthony Bourdain or any of these Michelin star chefs, the
[29:51] name Telly Cherry would be appearing in a very specific
[29:54] context, especially in their ingredient list.
[29:57] Would you know what which one it was?
[30:00] Because many of the chefs particularly prefer this variant
[30:03] of ingredient coming from Tellucheri.
[30:06] Also, they prefer a Tellucheri version of some ingredient.
[30:11] Yes, I have to apologize to again to all Malayali's watching
[30:14] or rather listening to this podcast because I'm using the
[30:19] now obsolete name for the city. It is Talischeri.
[30:24] Nowadays, Telli cherry is the obsolete English name for it,
[30:28] but this particular ingredient in my defense is still called
[30:32] the Telli cherry blank, and I've heard Gordon Ramsay mention it
[30:36] more than once in some of his recipes.
[30:39] Something traditionally Indian? Yeah, and I'm gonna guess cuz I
[30:45] was inclined to say something along the lines of bananas and
[30:50] like something like an Elaichi banana.
[30:51] But I don't think I've and I've watched enough Gordon Ramsay
[30:54] videos to know that he doesn't use bananas very often.
[30:58] I'm going to make a wild guess. Is it a spice?
[31:01] Is it peppercorn? Yes, it is the Delhi Cherry
[31:04] Pepper. It's fantastic even.
[31:07] I prefer to use that particular variant.
[31:10] It's got a beautiful balance between that spicy heat as well
[31:15] as flavor. The spiciness does not kind of
[31:18] overpower the flavor of the pepper either, and if you're
[31:21] ever making a carbonara, trust me, this is one of the best
[31:25] variants of pepper to use. I will have to put my weight
[31:28] behind Sichuan peppercorns. They are very different from
[31:32] black pepper, obviously. Yeah, they are pepper.
[31:34] Technically, they just look like pepper.
[31:37] Yeah, yeah. But I have recently been using
[31:39] it in my dishes a fair bit, and I just somehow changed things
[31:43] and made it so much nicer. Yeah, because.
[31:45] Szejuan, it has an added kind of citrusy, I would say component
[31:50] to the flavor, which to be fair, they're not peppercorns per SE,
[31:54] like they're just named peppercorns.
[31:56] It's a misnomer. So there is no comparison.
[31:59] All right, we need pipe down, pipe down.
[32:01] Let's not take away my my Calgary opinions just because of
[32:06] your technicalities. And before this becomes a food
[32:09] podcast, let's get back to trivia.
[32:10] That was a lovely yes question. I loved it.
[32:13] Yes, shout out to Arjun Srikumar again.
[32:16] That was his question. All right, before we do the
[32:19] third from his list, This is such a terrible segue and you'll
[32:24] know when you know the answer. But let us now move to Venezuela
[32:30] and their long standing President Maduro, who has had,
[32:37] well, let's just say a controversial time in his
[32:41] office. He has contributed to a fair bit
[32:45] of economic hardships on the people of Venezuela.
[32:49] Venezuelans have for a very long time now been protesting and
[32:53] unfortunately haven't been able to remove him from power because
[32:57] he just holds a stronghold over the country.
[32:59] Things were especially heated up in 2017, where both Maduro and
[33:06] his potential rival had encouraged their supporters to
[33:10] come out on streets and protest and fight for their side.
[33:14] I guess so. In 2017, the protesters were
[33:18] protesting against Maduro started using, let's say a
[33:23] rather crass version of the Molotov cocktail.
[33:28] Now if you don't know what the Molotov cocktail is a Molotov
[33:31] cocktail. And I believe we have done a
[33:34] question based on Molotov cocktail, so go find that
[33:36] question as well. Molotov cocktail is incendiary
[33:39] device that is used by usually civilian protesters to fight
[33:44] against powers. And it it basically means
[33:47] lighting up a piece of cloth attached to the top of a bottle
[33:51] containing alcohol, which obviously then bursts into
[33:55] flames when thrown at enemy combatants.
[33:57] So they use a version of Moldov cocktail, except that in this
[34:02] case there was no alcohol in it. They fill it up with the feces.
[34:07] So yeah, like I said, it's not a very pleasant question, but I
[34:14] had to ask because it is in the family of those ridiculous
[34:18] questions which happened to be true right after takes right
[34:21] after my heart. What do you think the protesters
[34:24] called this, this particular thing that they were throwing
[34:29] at, at at the forces, at Maduro's forces?
[34:33] What did the protesters call this?
[34:35] This has got to be some sort of clever word play, which again, I
[34:39] am very poor at. Let me remind you, the last time
[34:42] you said this, the answer was Air Horse One and clever at all.
[34:48] So this is the realm of exactly the realm of Air Horse One.
[34:51] So Molotov's cocktails? I'm guessing it's something like
[34:54] Maduro something something. No, it doesn't.
[34:57] It is even Maduro. Nope.
[34:59] Nope. Nope.
[35:00] No. OK, now, now, now I've got Air
[35:04] House One in my mind, and I'm just laughing at Air House One.
[35:07] OK, basically this is like a flaming bag of feces delivery
[35:12] system, right? So.
[35:14] Exactly that, yeah. And this would help you with the
[35:17] answer, but there was this viral image floating around back then
[35:21] which said they have gas, we have excrement gas, of course,
[35:33] referring to tear gas that is often used to.
[35:37] So the protesters came up with, they have gas, we have
[35:39] excrement. But no, come back to the
[35:42] question, what did they call this incendiary device that they
[35:45] were throwing at Maduro's forces?
[35:48] Wow, I don't have any idea right now I'm I'm completely blanking.
[35:52] Any clues that you could possibly give me?
[35:55] I'm not going to give you any clues in this case, and
[35:57] honestly, it reflects really well upon you that you don't
[36:01] know the answer to this and you can't get to the answer.
[36:04] It is so stupid. I love it.
[36:07] I love it. I.
[36:09] Love a civilian cocktail. I I I'm sorry, this is just
[36:13] beyond my grasp of. All right.
[36:16] So, Vineet, let me introduce you to what the Venezuelans are
[36:20] using in 2017 to protest against Nicolas Maduro.
[36:25] They were using a very quote, UN quote, clever word play on
[36:30] Molotov cocktail. They called it the puppet of
[36:32] cocktail. No, I would not have guessed
[36:44] that in 100 years. I'm happy for you.
[36:49] You are the father of a young child.
[36:51] You should be more mature in life.
[37:04] You realize that this is the episode that you chose to
[37:07] announce at the beginning, that after the first question we are
[37:11] going to be very factual and serious.
[37:15] Honestly, that's what I love because this is an actual fact.
[37:17] I I I wish I was that creative and that funny.
[37:20] You can't make this shit up. Seriously, you just literally
[37:23] cannot make this shit up. Quite literally, yes, You cannot
[37:27] make that up. Cocktail.
[37:36] Yes, that is the answer. All right.
[37:38] Let's move on to something, hopefully a lot more mature with
[37:44] Arjun's question. OK, there is the one Fact Check
[37:49] I have to do when Aditya, the innocent little boy that he is
[37:55] an innocent man that he is, mentioned the creation of a
[37:59] Molotov cocktail. He didn't.
[38:00] He did make one small factual error in it.
[38:03] You need a glass bottle with a narrow neck in which you would
[38:07] fill petrol halfway through so that half of it would be with
[38:12] petrol fumes and half of it would be with the liquid petrol.
[38:16] Through the mouth of the bottle you would insert a petrol soak
[38:19] rag which would then set on fire and throw.
[38:22] When the bottle lands it would shatter.
[38:25] The fire would ignite the petrol fumes, which would then also
[38:29] ignite the liquid petrol, which because of the blast would have
[38:33] splashed everywhere causing massive damage and fire damage.
[38:37] It's not alcohol. You can't do the same thing with
[38:39] alcohol. Alcohol won't have the same
[38:40] effect because alcohol burns off at lower temperatures and it
[38:45] burns for a very short time. Vineet, why today do you insist
[38:48] on ruining my ideas with my technical accuracy and question
[38:53] the ingredient choice that I have with peppercorns and now
[38:57] with alcohol? I I I don't know what is that
[38:59] mean? No.
[39:05] Fair enough. Yes, I stand corrected.
[39:07] It is petrol. Yeah.
[39:08] All right. Let's move on to the next
[39:09] question. OK, so this is also a question
[39:12] sent in by Arjun. This is the last of his
[39:15] questions for today. So the movie Titanic, have you
[39:18] heard of it? The there was a small movie
[39:21] called Titanic which was released in 1987.
[39:23] I I can't believe I've I've ever heard of such a movie.
[39:27] No. No.
[39:28] OK. So let's just say that, yes, let
[39:34] us stipulate that there was a movie called Titanic which was
[39:37] released in 1997, which was re released on the 100th
[39:41] anniversary of the actual sinking of the ship in 2012.
[39:45] OK, I believe it was a 3D version in which director James
[39:49] Cameron changed something in the scene where Rose is lying on a
[39:55] piece of driftwood in the middle of the ocean.
[39:58] Can you tell me what was changed and why he did it?
[40:02] Almost 15 years after the original movie was released.
[40:05] So I know there was an acknowledgement from Cameron
[40:08] about the fact that the plank of wood was large enough to carry
[40:12] both rows and. No, that came March later.
[40:15] That was just a few years ago. That was just a.
[40:17] Couple of years. Yeah.
[40:17] There's a few years. Oh, OK.
[40:19] All right. I was hoping that that would
[40:20] give me the answer, but is it related to the size of the plank
[40:26] of? Wood.
[40:26] No, it's not related to the size.
[40:28] No, it has nothing to do with the debate of whether Jack would
[40:30] have lived. I am of the belief that he would
[40:33] not have lived even if he had gotten on it.
[40:36] So but you you are saying it had nothing to do with the size of
[40:40] that plank of wood. So what did he change?
[40:44] And this is the scene where where Rose survives and Jack
[40:48] dies, right? Yes, yes.
[40:50] Spoiler alert for anybody who's not seen Titanic, I guess.
[40:54] Oh yeah, definitely they have. Ruined that horribly.
[40:57] OK, so Jack sinks to the depths of the ocean, freezes to death.
[41:02] Rose survives by floating on a piece of wood.
[41:06] Oh, I I I don't know why, and I have no reason to think this
[41:10] except vague memories, but is there a teardrop streaming down
[41:14] her face which he decided that shouldn't be there, whether it
[41:18] would freeze? No, because by the time that
[41:21] Jack is gone and she left her his arm.
[41:23] Go. I believe the next scene that we
[41:25] see when the rescue lifeboat is going among the dead, she's got
[41:30] frozen icicles over her eyes, over her eyelashes and things
[41:34] like that. So I don't think any tears would
[41:36] have survived in that sub 0 temperature.
[41:39] No, I have no clue. Then you'll have to help me out.
[41:42] OK, so there is only one hint I can give you.
[41:44] OK, let me give you a vague hint first, because I'd love to talk
[41:46] to you. This change had nothing to do
[41:50] with Rose, or the driftwood or the sea.
[41:53] OK, so did it have something to do with the Titanic, the ship
[41:58] itself, and the orientation? Titanic was already down in the
[42:03] depths of the Atlantic by that. Yeah, because I remember reading
[42:07] about how accurately that was. Fairly accurately.
[42:10] It was the breaking apart of the Titanic was because initial
[42:15] older movies, especially from the 50s and the 60s, and
[42:17] anything prior to that, would have shown the Titanic sinking
[42:20] is a single piece all the way to the ocean floor.
[42:23] But they were able to, through computer modelling, predict that
[42:26] after a certain point, because of the weight they read, the
[42:30] Titanic would have broken in half and split in two, which is
[42:34] what actually happened. Right.
[42:36] Yeah. So you're saying it isn't that
[42:39] either? It's got nothing to do with the
[42:41] Titanic, it's got nothing to do with Jack.
[42:43] It's got nothing to do with the Rose.
[42:45] It's got nothing to do with the driftwood or the sea around
[42:48] them. Did it have something to do with
[42:51] the music? No.
[42:53] The night sky. Oh, now you're close.
[42:57] OK, again, it it could be one of those false memories that you
[43:03] feel like you have heard, but you probably haven't.
[43:05] But did it? Happen the Mandela?
[43:06] Effect. The Mandela Effect?
[43:09] Yeah, but I'm going to try to take a guess.
[43:12] Did it have something to do with a certain star being visible in
[43:16] the night sky in the original film?
[43:18] Which shouldn't have been there because it was a supernova or
[43:22] something that happened much later.
[43:25] I'm going to read your mind that you're thinking of the scene
[43:28] from Sherlock where he's looking at the painting and saying The
[43:30] Van Buren Supernova, which was like literally the silliest
[43:34] scene of more very lot of silly scenes in that show.
[43:39] But I'm thinking that's what you're guessing.
[43:42] I that's what I was thinking. I might be a false memory in
[43:46] context of titanium because I do remember the Sherlock scene, but
[43:49] I also feel like there is something to do with the night
[43:51] sky and there was some constellation which was
[43:53] different or or or some. So I'll give it to you.
[43:57] I will give it to you. So James Cameron did actually
[44:02] replace the entire night sky because he had received a letter
[44:08] from astrophysicist by the name of Neil deGrasse Tyson.
[44:14] So Neil deGrasse Tyson had sent him a letter saying that the
[44:18] night sky is wrong. This is not how the night sky
[44:20] would have appeared at 2:00 PM on at this particular time of
[44:24] the year in the North Atlantic at this particular time.
[44:27] So when he got the chance to remaster the special effects for
[44:32] the 3D version, Cameron replaced the night sky to make it more
[44:36] accurate to what the night sky would have actually looked like.
[44:40] That is, that is a lovely question.
[44:41] OK. That makes a lot more sense,
[44:43] Yeah. So he replaced the star field.
[44:45] So that is what was replaced for the 2012 re release of Titanic.
[44:51] Very cool, very cool. I have a controversial hot take
[44:54] opinion. It asked with it.
[44:56] I don't know if it's going to be controversial, it's just my
[44:57] opinion. I'm just hyping it up.
[44:59] The movie Titanic, fun though it is, failed in one very big
[45:04] aspect. I feel Cameron just wasn't able
[45:08] to show the scale of the ocean. Interesting.
[45:12] See The thing is the ocean. If you ever been on the open
[45:16] ocean or the open seas, at least beyond the point where you can
[45:20] see land, it is very scary. It is very scary because this is
[45:24] water and by the time it gets to evening and it even gets a
[45:26] little dark, it is really scary to see.
[45:30] So that kind of Calasophobia, which I have, which is fear of
[45:33] the sea, was not properly depicted because it was a very
[45:37] sanitized kind of view of the sea that Cameron presented.
[45:44] The entire. The severity of the tragedy was
[45:47] because of how unforgiving the North Atlantic was at that
[45:50] particular time of the year. And that was not depicted at all
[45:54] at anywhere. And frankly speaking, most
[45:57] movies have not been able to do that.
[45:59] But my controversial opinion is there has been one movie which
[46:01] has done that and shown the scope of the.
[46:04] Let me try to get read your mind.
[46:07] OK. And I might be completely off
[46:09] the mark here, but are you thinking of Life of Pi?
[46:11] Oh. Yes, yes, Life of Pi.
[46:15] The sinking of the ship where he's underwater and he can
[46:19] actually see the ship sinking. That is one of the scariest
[46:22] shots in my opinion. Up off the sea that has been to
[46:25] that is like Stylasophobia just shown and that like literally
[46:30] scares you. The scares the pants of you.
[46:31] That was a beautiful scene. Cameron could have done a little
[46:35] better, I feel, because he has actually done it quite
[46:38] effectively in the Abyss, which I think has been remastered now
[46:42] recently. The Abyss.
[46:44] Fantastic movie. I love that movie.
[46:47] It's one of James Cameron's better movies.
[46:49] I in my opinion. So that's also an unofficial pop
[46:52] culture recommendation. Go watch The Abyss.
[46:55] Yep, do that. Lovely.
[46:58] You know what? Not even that controversial and
[47:00] opinion. So I agree with it.
[47:01] I think you do have it bang on. We should definitely give
[47:04] feedback to James Cameron as to how he could have done.
[47:09] And I really think he would listen, you know, being the
[47:11] director that he is, and he seems like the guy who would
[47:14] listen to people take their feedback and then do what
[47:17] exactly what they tell him to do.
[47:19] Definitely won't have strong opinions of his own, yeah, no.
[47:22] I don't get that. You have given me a very solid
[47:26] set of questions and I guess Arjun deserves a fair bit of
[47:30] credit for that. So thank you, Arjun.
[47:32] No, all of the credit, all of the questions today has been
[47:34] his, have been his, except for the audience question.
[47:37] Well, thank you, Arjun. And because you challenged me a
[47:41] fair bit today, beneath, I'm going to ask you a question
[47:43] which I think might be a slight challenge to you because we do
[47:47] go to the realm of sports here. Oh no.
[47:52] And let's go to the US of A, which is where the Titanic was
[47:57] headed as well. And we are in present day
[48:01] America and American Airlines recently announced that they
[48:05] would be having two flights temporarily which aren't going
[48:11] to be permanent flights on their roster, but temporarily 2 new
[48:13] flights. And the two new flights are
[48:16] flight 1989 which is scheduled to run twice from Kansas City to
[48:21] Las Vegas and Flight 87 which is leaving Las Vegas for Kansas
[48:27] City. Can you tell me what prompted
[48:31] these two numbers specifically for these specific flights by
[48:36] American Airlines? 1989 and 1987, you're saying?
[48:40] 1989 and eight 7. OK.
[48:43] So 87 and 1989, yes, this doesn't have anything to do with
[48:48] Con Air, right? No, it doesn't have anything to
[48:50] do with Conair I did mention. Sports.
[48:53] OK, so then my next guess would be that was the last time the
[48:58] Kansas City Chiefs won the Super Bowl.
[49:02] This is a confluence of sports and.
[49:05] Pop culture? Anything to do with the Wizard
[49:08] of Oz? Dorothy, you're not in Kansas
[49:10] anymore. No, I'll take you back to your
[49:12] previous guess you were kind of warm with the Super Bowl.
[49:15] OK. Were these like scores like 1989
[49:20] and 87 zero or something like that?
[49:23] No. But another hint that I can give
[49:26] you is that we have talked about one of these numbers in another
[49:30] podcast episode or a similar context even there.
[49:35] So the reason for that answer and that piece of trivia was the
[49:38] same as the answer for this piece of trivia.
[49:41] Ladies and gentlemen, this is what is meant by using the Uno
[49:45] reverse card. He has reversed my own comments
[49:49] on. To me, the locations and the
[49:53] direction of travel is important when it comes to these numbers.
[49:58] No, not necessarily no. But it OK tell you to go a
[50:02] little bit more into detail. Kansas City team, the Chiefs
[50:07] they are playing in the Super Bowl this time and the Super
[50:10] Bowl, Super Bowl will be in Las Vegas.
[50:13] So it is meant for Super Bowl fans to attend the Super Bowl in
[50:18] last week. Yeah, you were very close, but
[50:21] why the numbers specifically is my question.
[50:23] And let me give you another hint.
[50:24] It has to do with love. Low It has to do with low low.
[50:31] OK, let's be more specific. It has to do with a specific
[50:34] couple that has been romantically linked and in the
[50:40] tabloids. For a while now.
[50:41] OK, this is Taylor Swift and that other guy.
[50:44] And the other guy, Yes, Taylor Swift and Taylor Swift's
[50:47] boyfriend is how we refer to them.
[50:50] Let's be honest, anybody Taylor Swift's on a date is going to be
[50:52] known as Taylor Swift, boyfriend.
[50:54] And if she does get married, it's going to be Taylor Swift
[50:56] and her husband. Yeah, as as they would be lucky
[51:00] to be referred as. Kelsey something right his name
[51:03] is. You are right, Travis Kelsey,
[51:06] Taylor Swift and Travis Kelsey who are.
[51:08] In oh 87 is the her album. In 1989 is the album the album
[51:15] 87 is the jersey number, 87 is the jersey number. 1989 is also
[51:20] the year of birth for Taylor Swift.
[51:22] The trivia that we last used this in was there were reports
[51:27] of her album 1989 being banned in.
[51:31] China. Rather not the album but the
[51:35] merchandise that she was selling alongside of the album because a
[51:38] lot of the merchandise said ES 1989 which of course can also
[51:43] different square which happened in 1989.
[51:46] So Taylor Swift 1989 was also referential to Thurman Square in
[51:50] 1989. But coming back to this piece of
[51:52] trivia, Taylor Swift who was born in 1989, yes, you got that
[51:55] right. And Travis Kelsey, who's jersey
[51:57] is number 87 and who is part of the Chiefs?
[52:01] The Kansas City Chiefs. To celebrate this couple who has
[52:05] been dominating the news for quite a while now, a lot of
[52:10] apparently a lot of these games have gotten way more viewership
[52:15] recently just because people are trying to catch a glimpse of
[52:18] Taylor Swift in the audience somewhere.
[52:20] Yeah, I mean, like, it's crazy. I read somewhere that between
[52:23] Taylor Swift and Beyoncé, their concerts and shows pumped in
[52:28] something like $3.5 billion into regional economies all across
[52:33] the US. Just crazy.
[52:35] I I will just add on a little bit of trivia, which is not
[52:38] really well known, but I thought it was interesting.
[52:40] Travis Kelsey wears the jersey 87 and I was curious why the
[52:44] number 87. He wears the jersey 87 even
[52:47] though he's not born in 87, he's born in 1989 like Travis, like
[52:51] Taylor Swift herself. Travis Kelsey wears it and honor
[52:55] of his brother who was born in 1987 because they both used to
[52:58] play football together. So to honor his brother, it's a
[53:04] 87 jersey, so he's not born in 87 himself, but he wears just
[53:07] the 87. And those are the two temporary
[53:10] flights which are only flying exclusively for the Super Bowl
[53:13] days, or rather before and after the Super Bowl, to cater to the
[53:17] crowds who will be flying in and flying out.
[53:19] And it is to, like I mentioned, honor this particular couple.
[53:23] Which is weird, because they've been dating what, like two
[53:25] months? When you're Taylor Swift,
[53:29] whoever you're dating, however long you're dating, is something
[53:32] the media is going to focus on. It is inevitable.
[53:34] So I do have to take this opportunity again to make an
[53:38] unofficial podcast recommendation, another pop
[53:41] culture recommendation, which is going to be a podcast.
[53:44] So as a lot of people might know, US 50s would know, Taylor
[53:47] Swift was Person of the Year for 2023.
[53:49] Her movie, The Era's Concert Movie brought in so many people
[53:53] back into theaters. And of course, the era's concert
[53:57] tour also pumped in a fair bit of money into the economy.
[54:01] So to honor that Time magazine selection, the New York Times
[54:07] podcast, the daily pretty decent podcast.
[54:10] I do listen to it very often. I do listen to it daily.
[54:13] Ha ha. They released an episode on 15th
[54:16] December the year of Taylor Swift.
[54:19] Now I even if you're not a fan of Taylor Swift, I assure you
[54:23] that episode is worth listening to.
[54:25] It is by two people who are self declared Swifties, but the way
[54:31] they talk about why there is such a huge fandom I think goes
[54:34] to show how artists do gather that kind of fan mania and
[54:40] support and I would highly recommend checking out The Year
[54:43] of Taylor Swift. That's the name of the episode
[54:45] from the podcast The Daily. It was at the end of last year,
[54:49] so check it out. It is a really fun podcast worth
[54:51] listening to regardless of whether you like or hate Taylor
[54:54] Swift. And who hates Taylor Swift?
[54:56] Come on. All right.
[54:58] Lovely set of questions today. I had a lot of fun.
[55:00] This was a fun episode, Yeah. Same here, same here.
[55:03] So that's all the time we have our regular questions.
[55:06] Aditya, what is your question for next week?
[55:10] Which again, let me preface by saying is not a serious
[55:13] question. It is simply a bit of fun.
[55:16] We have to keep ourselves seen. So I will riff off of one of my
[55:20] own questions, the last question to be precise.
[55:24] And since American Airlines was celebrating Travis, Kelsey and
[55:28] Taylor Swift, if it was Indian Airlines, what number would they
[55:34] choose to celebrate which Indian star couple?
[55:38] That is my question and the answer will be revealed next
[55:41] week. Fair enough, and we shall wait
[55:44] with bated breath for that answer.
[55:46] Now going back to my audience question for this week.
[55:51] Since 1995, the Dyslexia Research Trust, or DRT in the UK
[55:56] been helping to improve the lives of many thousands of young
[55:59] people with reading problems. The DRT was started to provide
[56:03] effective services for children and adults with reading and
[56:05] related problems and to support scientific research into the
[56:09] nature and causes of these conditions.
[56:11] The Trust's offices are located in a very ironic location given
[56:15] what they do. What is the name of the location
[56:17] in England where you can find their offices?
[56:21] Aditya, do you have any guesses? Does it have a lot of PS and BS
[56:24] in it? No, it's not that way.
[56:27] It's not that way, no. But am I on the right track with
[56:30] that? It would be tough for somebody
[56:31] with dyslexia to. Read No, it's no, no, it's not
[56:33] that. Maybe I phrased the question a
[56:36] little a little wrong. It's not maybe ironic on one
[56:39] level, and at the same time you might actually think it's quite
[56:42] appropriate on another level. I see.
[56:45] So it would make it easier for somebody with dyslexia to read
[56:47] the address. No, that's not it either.
[56:51] OK then. All right.
[56:51] No, then I'm. I'm quite lost.
[56:53] Tell me the answer. I'll give you the answer.
[56:56] The DRT offices are located in Redding in Berkshire County.
[57:03] Redding, if you don't know is written.
[57:05] The spelling of Redding is READING.
[57:09] If not pronounced as a name would be pronounced as reading.
[57:13] The biggest difficulty that most children with this face is
[57:16] reading. They're unable to read because
[57:17] numbers appear jumbled and turned upside down or mirrored
[57:20] image to them. So it's I found it quite ironic
[57:23] and somewhat appropriate that the DRT offices are located in a
[57:27] place called reading. It's actually pronounced
[57:29] reading, but. Interesting.
[57:31] Well, that's a pretty cool question.
[57:33] Yeah, I like that lovely audience question.
[57:36] OK, And what about a pop culture recommendations for the week we
[57:39] need? Exactly.
[57:41] So my pop culture recommendation is going to be ATV Show.
[57:45] As you already know, Aditya, I watch and read a lot of
[57:49] detective fiction, so one of I wouldn't say my favorite, But
[57:55] one of the series, which I used to follow sometime in the past,
[57:58] was a series of novels by Karen Slaughter featuring the
[58:03] detective by the name of Will Trent.
[58:06] So now there is a show by the name of Bill Trent.
[58:08] It's available to everyone on Disney Plus, Hotstar and the
[58:13] second season of which is releasing this month in
[58:17] February, so you can go and watch the first season.
[58:20] There are 13 episodes eminently bingeable over the weekend and
[58:23] it's a fantastic show, great acting, the story is obviously
[58:27] great and Karen Slaughter, you can hardly ever go wrong with
[58:30] one of her works. And just another recommendation
[58:34] is another mini series which was based off one of Karen
[58:37] Slaughter's works called Pieces of Her.
[58:39] It is quite action-packed, so Pieces of Her and Will Trent,
[58:43] Those are my recommendations for this week.
[58:46] Very cool. To summarize some of the other
[58:48] unofficial recommendations, there were two podcasts
[58:51] mentioned, One about the stuff the British stole which had to
[58:55] do with gin and tonic, and the other one was The Year of Taylor
[58:59] Swift from The Daily and Vineet and Vineet mentioned the movie
[59:04] The Abyss. Those are the unofficial
[59:06] recommendations for the week. The official recommendation from
[59:10] my side would be something different from what we've done
[59:14] traditionally, and this has a fascinating story, so it could
[59:18] also satisfy your trivia nerd in you.
[59:21] If you want to go check it out, dear listener, there is a song
[59:24] called Aaj Shanibar spelled AA JSHANIBAR Aaj Shanibar, which in
[59:32] Hindi would be Aaj Shanibar. It is by this singer Roopa.
[59:37] It is a fantastic track. Somebody recently introduced it
[59:41] to me and I have been blown away by it.
[59:43] It is a very different sort of music.
[59:45] If you like Indian instruments being used in a creative way,
[59:49] check out this track. It is a really old track and it
[59:52] came into prominence in the recent few years.
[59:56] It is from the 80s, I believe, when it came into prominence in
[59:58] the last couple of years because people discovered it and started
[1:00:00] sharing it on social media. And there is a very interesting
[1:00:04] history behind how the track came to be made.
[1:00:06] So for both the trivia nerd inside of you and the music nerd
[1:00:10] instead of you, go check out Aaj Shanibar by this artist by the
[1:00:14] name of Roopa. We don't usually do music
[1:00:17] recommendations but this is my first one.
[1:00:19] The other thing I want to recommend Poonam Pandey for
[1:00:23] anybody who followed the case is very much alive.
[1:00:27] But somebody who is pop culture legend I would say did pass away
[1:00:31] on the 1st February was Carl Weathers.
[1:00:34] Carl Weathers came to prominence in the movies Rocky.
[1:00:38] He played the famous role of Apollo Creed who was a Rocky's
[1:00:43] that the titular characters Nemesis turned friend turned
[1:00:47] mentor and was immortalized by Carl Weathers.
[1:00:52] But what I'm not recommending here is Rocky, because Rocky's
[1:00:56] great and everybody knows about it.
[1:00:58] People might not know that Carl Withers played a very lovely
[1:01:02] role in one of my favorite sitcoms, Arrested Development.
[1:01:06] So check out Arrested Development.
[1:01:08] Carl Withers features in it playing a fictional version of
[1:01:11] himself, somebody who's really broke and has to figure out Ways
[1:01:15] and Means to feed himself because his film career is not
[1:01:17] going anywhere. A fictionalized version,
[1:01:19] obviously, and he plays it beautifully.
[1:01:22] He plays it to the tee. That show has phenomenal
[1:01:25] performances by the entire cast, especially the first three
[1:01:28] seasons, and Carl Weathers as a guest appearance in that show
[1:01:31] stands out brilliantly amongst the sea of lovely actors.
[1:01:36] So yeah, check out that is to development the first three
[1:01:39] seasons, especially the Carl Weathers parts.
[1:01:41] And check out our Shani Badam song.
[1:01:43] And those are my pop culture recommendations.
[1:01:45] Let me also add something to that.
[1:01:47] Carl Weathers is also part of 1/2 of the most epic handshake
[1:01:53] in movie history when he came together with Arnold
[1:01:57] Schwarzenegger in the first few frames of Predator to make, I
[1:02:01] think, the most muscular handshake in history.
[1:02:03] Yes, I I think it is possible to be impregnated just by watching
[1:02:08] that scene. The amount of masculinity in
[1:02:15] that scene, well, viewer beware, but Carl Withers will be
[1:02:19] remembered for some great performances.
[1:02:22] He also is part of the Star Wars universe, so go check out Carl
[1:02:26] Withers filmography. Because I don't think there is a
[1:02:29] chance of this recurring again, because I've already mentioned
[1:02:33] my Thalasso, Thalassophobia and we mentioned Life of Pi, right
[1:02:38] So and The Abyss, which again does do this well, very well.
[1:02:43] I would also like to add one more thing to this list.
[1:02:46] There is a book by the name of Sphere which was written by
[1:02:51] Michael Crichton Sphere as in SPHERE the Shape Sphere.
[1:02:56] It was a 19 late mid to late 1990s novel which was made into
[1:03:01] a movie. My recommendation is skip the
[1:03:04] movie, read the book. Cool.
[1:03:07] That's all for today's episode. I want to thank everyone for
[1:03:12] listening in. We hope you enjoyed the show.
[1:03:14] You hope you learned something new like we do every week.
[1:03:18] If you like what you heard, please subscribe to our podcast
[1:03:21] and leave us a review on your favorite podcast platform.
[1:03:24] Wherever you're listening to us right now, the moment you stop
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[1:03:36] discover and enjoy the show. We'd also love to hear from you
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[1:03:43] featured on the show like Arjun's Today.
[1:03:45] All you have to do is to send us an e-mail with the name of the
[1:03:49] quizmaster who you want to ask the question in the message.
[1:03:53] You can reach us at areyouquizzingme@gmail.com.
[1:03:57] You can also send us feedback, suggestions, anything you want.
[1:04:01] You can also reach us on Instagram at Are You Quizzing
[1:04:03] Me? We appreciate your support and
[1:04:05] look forward to sharing more episodes with with you in the
[1:04:07] future. Another round of thanks to Arjun
[1:04:10] Srikumar who made my life a lot easy or easier this week because
[1:04:14] I had didn't have to come up with any questions apart from
[1:04:17] the audience question. So thank you again Arjun and
[1:04:20] thank you everyone for tuning in.
[1:04:22] I hope you have a great day. See you guys next week.

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