Episode 3 No Such Thing as the News

CHEERING APPLAUSE

Well, to the third edition of No Such Thing As The News, coming to

you from up the creek in Greenwich, London, I am Dan Schreiber sitting

here with Anna Ptaszynski, Andrew Hunter Murray and James Harkin.

Each week we will be taking a look at the most interesting things we've

found in the news of the last seven days. For example you might not have

known that the bus Labour users in the EU referendum campaign was the

same bus used on tour by S club seven. In the interest of balance we

should also tell you that last week the Vote Leave battle bus got up

parking ticket in Harrogate. Let's begin and in no particular order

here we go, starting with my back, which is the reason Winston

Churchill looks so grumpy on the new white banknote is because someone

has taken away his cigar. -- the new ?5 banknote. The Bank of England

released the new ?5 note and the photograph you will see, the image

they use is of Winston Churchill and it is taken from a photograph from

1941, a very famous photograph and basically the way it happened was

that the photographer only had a few minutes with Winston Churchill. He

came into the room and was smoking a cigar, he was holding it but the

photographer asked to lose it and he said no. So the photographer went to

tinker with a few things in the photograph and he just took the

cigar. To get out of his mouth, and quickly went back and the look on

his face was, are you kidding me? The press to click and that's how we

have the photograph. That absolutely true which is why we have a angry

looking Winston Churchill. It's one of the most used photographs of not

just Winston Churchill but of any politician. It is made out of

plastic, do you know how you make them? It's amazing. That's it. No,

it's made out of by actually orientated polypropylene. They make

a bubble the size of a four-storey building, this massive bubble and it

collapses on its self duty the heat or whatever and then it is a really

thin film and it that film they use. 14-mac story building per note?

Yeah, they haven't come out yet but they are enormous. There are

actually a bit smaller, I think they are 15% smaller and Ireland member I

was working out how many biplane notes you could get in a briefcase

-- and I remember I was working out how many ?5 notes you could get in a

briefcase. It turns out it's about ?60,000 worth, and with the new ones

it will be about ?70,000. Good news. Good news for crying! Other things

made out of the same substance, thermal underwear, the hinges on Tic

Tac box lids. The stickers on Rubik 's cubes, but only the stickers! And

some parts of Tenerife Cathedral! So if you ever forget to bring a change

of underwear, you can just saw some of the ?5 notes together. That is

lavish! American money is made of linen, cotton and linen, a

combination and I think they used to repair American notes up until the

19th century by sewing them back together. If you have one which gets

torn up there is a bank of England service Corby mutilated notes

service. I didn't know this happened but if you have put it in the

washing machine for example you can set it to them, they test it and

look at the serial numbers and they will tell you if it is actually

probably at ten and last year they replaced about 22,000 notes. Of

which 5364 were chewed, or eaten. So even if the dog has had it for a bit

you can send it off and get a new one back. Do you know what they used

to do with banknote which were no longer fit for purpose? They were

incinerated and then the heat was used to heat the Bank of England

site in Debenham, how cool is that? Imagine knowing you were being

burned so that other versions of yourselves could live on. Going back

to the new money we will be getting, there is a picture of Jane Austen

which is going to be on ?10 notes coming out in September, and it's

maybe a picture of Jane Austen but it might not be because we have one

picture which was drawn at the time by her sister Cassandra and they

have decided it's not an attractive in a picture of horror so they have

instead used an engraving of Jane Austen drawn 50 years later which is

much prettier. Her sister actually drew two pictures in her lifetime

and the first one was a complete picture so it could have been

amazing and fortunately the picture was of her facing the other way,

looking. So we know what the back of her head looks like. And the second

picture was unfinished but relatives at the time said it was hideously

unlike our. So I think Cassandra just wasn't the best artist. She

hated her sister. While ago the reserve bank of Zimbabwe started

upping the right of money they had, the highest amount we have in this

country is a ?50 note, Australia it's the $100 note. The reserve bank

of Zimbabwe published this which is $100 trillion. It's become so

popular that each of these are worth about ?40 online so they have become

a collectors item. This has had an inflation of something like 1500%

because suddenly it's a collectors item. This was meant to be, I have

another note from the reserve bank of Zimbabwe, for 1 cent. From 1 cent

to $100 trillion. I don't know, that will be 100 trillion and 1p. Dammit.

It's time to move on to the second fact, that is... At its opening

ceremony this week in the world's longest tunnel was ceremonially

breast by a priest and then ceremonially not blessed by an

atheist. -- was ceremonially blessed by a priest. This is a new tunnel,

the world's longest rail tunnel, it goes through the Alps, under the

Alps, obviously. We had an opening ceremony where they had a lot of

people blessing at a catholic priest, Protestant minister, a rabbi

and an imam who all did the blessings and they also had an

atheist to not pray for anybody or anyone! I have a photograph of the

blessing, the five people standing here in the tunnel. One of those

five has no real function! Only kidding, four of them have no real

function! LAUGHTER Anyway, they have had, it's an

amazing tunnel and they've had an incredible fiesta. It was an

incredible ceremony, it was to rival all Olympic opening ceremonies. I

started looking into it and the first BBC article I opened about the

opening ceremony had a warning saying contains nudity. But it does!

At topless gymnast. You can see on the video is that the people in the

room were thinking what is going on. I think they expected just a ribbon

to be cut or something like that and then people wearing workers outfits

started walking through and started, nudity, people dressed as animals.

It was bizarre but great, really exciting. This is a cool tunnel.

Although we have all missed the opening ceremony, don't worry

because this weekend there is a festival happening! They anticipated

about 100,000 people will go to the festival and the stuff on display,

the entertainment they have laid on sounds amazing. They say there will

be a train simulator, you get the chance to view the maintenance and

intervention centres, you get to hear specialists telling about the

fire and rescue train. It's going to be live Swiss watchmaking. At 200

square metre display about freight transport. And on the website it

says are festival without music would be like a tunnel without

trains! The fun doesn't stop at the festival! I went on to a website

that was run by them that they were promoting of things you could do in

anticipation and excitement of getting ready for the opening of the

tunnel and they had created and a least a game you can play which you

can download onto your phone am an app you can download, and the idea

is that you yourself can dig the longest tunnel in the world. I am

playing it at the moment and it's just this big wall and you start

tapping the screen and it starts digging into the tunnel. So to dig

forward you have two tap and each finger tap goes one millimetre into

the tunnel. You complete it when you have done 57 million taps. The idea

the winner, the top 1015 would get to ride on the very first inaugural

train ride. You would probably be able to spot them because they just

had a stub where their fingers should be. It's an amazing

achievement, the tunnel was conceived back in the 1940s I

believe and they didn't start construction until the 1990s, 17

years of going through this mountain. The machines are huge, the

ones which dug the channel panel were the length of two football

pitches, they are essentially movable factories. About 900 metres

long. 400 metres long. I saw two together. Anything more? Can I show

you a picture of a cool tunnel? LAUGHTER

Of course! I assume that is why everyone came to light. This is our

tunnel in Norway, the design is very cool. What it does, because it's so

long there was a concern that drivers would get bored and start

falling asleep so they have three huge car burns along the way which

simulate daylight. It looks a bit like sunrise so they have tried to

make it so they have glowing yellow light at the bottom and blue light

at the top as if the sun is rising on a nice day and they deliberately

could bend in the rows so you keep your attention. They have stuff to

keep drivers entertained. That's interesting, putting bends into

tunnels, we are recording in Greenwich and not far away is the

Blackwall Tunnel, do you know why there is a bend in that tunnel? It's

so interesting, it's because when it was originally built it was used to

have horse carriages go through and the idea was that if horses see

light at the end of the tunnel they will bolt for it so the idea was put

a bend in the tunnel and at least we can get about halfway through before

the horses cause chaos. The original reason there were bends in tunnels

was you don't break the speed on it, I guess. So when horses tell each

other that little thing, like you've had a hard week and they say there

is a light at the end of the tunnel, the Goldwater! -- legal!

We are halfway through, and it is time to look at the stories you have

sent in by e-mail and social media. James I like this one by Ian will.

He said that this week it was discovered that Tutankhamen had a

dagger that came from outer space. That's good, isn't it? The eye and

then it came from a meteorite, apparently. He did so much stuff.

Every oldest version of Aberdeen, Tutankhamen had a version of it. He

had socks, and he also wore sandals, so as far as we know, he was

British. The Ramsgate inshore lifeboat scrambled this week into

the sea near Dover to rescue a leather sofa. Did they bring it out?

No, they drowned it. What? What about all the change? Andy, what

would you send? I was sent this. A 24-year-old man has been given a

fine and community service after throwing a lively and a foot long

alligator through the door of a Wendy's drive-through in Florida.

Wow! Shall we move on? It is time to move on to fact number three, and

that is Anna Ptaszynski. My fact is that the judge who just ruled that

all UK packets of tobacco have to be green is called Mr Green. I'm not

saying he has a vested interest, but it does seem suspicious. This is a

fact about World No Tobacco Day, which I'm sure everyone is

celebrating. We have recently been told that plain packaging would be

released in the UK. This was Mr Justice Green, who ruled that all

tobacco packaging will be plain and in this muddy green colour. The

tobacco companies challenged in the UK Government who said this would

have to be the case, because it would damage their brands. He said

that was nonsense and rejected the challenge. We will get green tobacco

packets. Not a nice green, it is kind of disgusting. I will show it

to you, because there might be some debate about whether it is green or

brown. In Australia, they have these already, and in other parts of the

world. They did a colour on this study and it is the colour that most

people find revolting. It has been a big week for no smoking news, I have

fun. I looked online, and there is a lot of stuff. In North Korea, the

president has quit smoking. Kim Jong Un. I have a picture of him here,

not smoking. APPLAUSE

And look how happy he is! Here trying to get all of North Korea to

quit as well. It is they new thing. They had put out an announcement

saying that they will set up new facilities, hand out nicotine

patches. They'll arrest anyone who smokes... Did anyone see this week

about the North Korean Facebook? It is supposed to be a thing where you

can't break in. There is a student in Scotland who tried to login with

admin and password, and sure enough, he managed to get in. He was an

administrator and he managed to delete people's profiles, could

check all the advertising, censored certain words. This hacker managed

to get in and found out in the meta data the official name of their

version of Facebook, which is best careers social network. The slogan

is - best career, and the rest career. China has been making some

moves to reduce smoking levels. They will ban smoking in public places,

apart from restaurants, bars, hotels and airports. You can also smoke in

your workplace and inside individual officers. But they have come a long

way for stopping 2009, the Chinese Government actually encouraged

people to smoke, so this was a provincial Government. It was during

a recession and they wanted to boost the economy with cigarette taxes.

They main public employees buy cigarettes. Schools? Teachers had to

buy them. Just on this Australian dark green packaging colour, it is

actually a Pantone colour, 448 C. They hired a marketing research

agency to find something disgusting. I read an investigation that Vice

magazine did recently asking people what they thought of the colour, and

the first person the art was this guy called Tom, who was 22, and the

asked what the colour reminded him of, and he said, gunge, super slime,

it reminds me of this overflowing drain around the back of my house.

In some way, it's a nice colour. I would consider using it to decorate

a bathroom kitchenette, if it works well in the space. One good thing.

And people from smoking in public areas is this little guy, if you can

see it. That's nice, isn't it? This is in a town in Germany. He rolls

around, looks kind of sad, and then he notices when people are smoking,

and he has a little sign saying, this area is non-smoking, or please

follow me towards a non-smoking zone. I don't smoke, but I would

kick his head in. This reminded me of a study at Georgia Tech where

they simulated a fire in a room, a few rooms, actually, and there was

smoke appearing to come out of one room, the alarm went off and people

had to leave. There was a door that said fire exit, and everyone went

out the fire exit. Then they did it again with the little robot that

said on it, emergency guide robot, and that robots took people into the

room that was obviously on fire. Even though there was a door that

said emergency exit right next to them, and 26 out of 30 people

followed the robot. Into the room that was obviously on fire. I think

I might have done. Just to kick his head in? Don't you tell me not to

burn to death. It is time for our final fact. That is James Harkin. My

fact is that cicadas who have lived underground in West Virginia for 17

years have finally emerged, only to be immediately eaten as an ice cream

topping. They are called prime number cicadas, and they have a life

cycle where they live underground for a prime number of years, 17

years, then they come up and go back underground for 70 more years and

then come back up again. Say you came up every six years and you had

animals that bread every two years, every three generations they would

find you and eat you. If you come up every 17 years, the animals who

breed every three years would only ever see you every 51 years and they

would not rely on you for food. They are disgusting in their luck. The

idea of it on ice cream... People love to eat them, though, but even

the woman who wrote the best recipe book for cicadas that there is, an

entomologist called Jenna Jade in, she opens the book by saying that

the University of Maryland and sick at the influence -- and interest

groups do not recommend eating them. I have some cookies made from

cicadas. This is what they look like. Thank you for sending these,

Rising Creek Bakery in Pennsylvania. But not for making them. They sell

locus in New Zealand, but they have rebranded it so that if you don't

want to eat locusts... They call it sky prawns.

APPLAUSE To you how -- do you know how to

catch a cicada? The only reason they come up is to breed and then die.

They'd bite, they just sing and scream as they look for sex before

dying. Is that there are Tinder -- is that there are Tinder profile?

You can catch them if you are quick enough in your response. If you hear

a male singing, it will fly over Berlin 20 seconds and try to have

sex with you. Top tip their! -- top tip there! There are problems with

machinery sounding like the male cicadas, which make the noise, and

the females try to make with. Lawn mowers are flooded with female

cicadas because of the noise they make. It makes it very easy to

crunch them up and put them on your ice cream. Cicadas do something

interesting during sex. They will have sex, and then in a lot of

cases, the male will just put a plug into the females so that she doesn't

have sex with anyone else. Also, they have STIs. It is a fungus that

makes them but to. Imagine if that transferred to humans! Basically, it

is a fungus that gets into their backside, and it takes it down. Can

they tell and they having sex with a cicada that doesn't have a bottom? I

never asked. A public information campaign, with a picture of cicada

with no bottom. Well we are at the end of a cicada, have you heard of

cicada rape? When they hatch, they spend all their time underground

feeding on tree roots, that is how they survive for 17 years. And they

take on a lot of water. When they hatch, they sit on trees and they

are constantly excreting, so a lot of entomologists say you have to

take an umbrella otherwise you will be constantly during a on by

cicadas. The cicada Mania website... Try some sky prawns honey. No one is

buying locust honey. The website says, be sure to wear a hat or use

an umbrella when booking under trees if that sort of thing bothers you!

LAUGHTER Insect wheeling on you. I have one

last fight before we go, which is that 17 years ago, the cicada

started their 17 year cycle, which means that they started at the exact

same time as the Gotthard base tunnel. No!

APPLAUSE So, that's it, that's all of our

facts. Just time to share with you for mac stories that we didn't have

time to cover, and we'll start with you, Andy. This is from Business

Insider, and it is that a former director of Barclays has been

arrested and charged with fraud for paying his plumber with tips about

forthcoming mergers and acquisitions. Anna? This is from

Signs News, and it is a story that physicists have discovered that

Schrodinger's cat is not only alive and dead at the same time, it is

also in two different boxes at once. My fact is from MSN news. You should

not... LAUGHTER

That is exactly the right reaction to that. Some of us still use it.

You should not use ketchup on your hot dog when over the edge of -- age

of 18. That is a new ruling from the US National hotdog and sausage

Council. Finally, James. Mine is a US Senate press release, and it is

that Arizona Senator Jeff Flake has reported on what he calls wasteful

research, including $5 million spent on finding out whether drunk birds

slow when they sing. LAUGHTER

-- slur, money spent on whether gold fish think they are sexy, and

research into how long it takes to P like a racehorse.

-- you're in it like a racehorse. Now Robert Jayne Hill in the studio.

Gotthard, sounds a little bit like got hard. -- now over to Jane Hill.

We will see you next week with facts about the stories of the week.

Thanks for watching. Goodbye.