Ventriloquists dominated the airwaves, grown adults smashed chestnuts for dubious glory and even stone-skimming competitions have their own cheating scandals. This week, we’re diving into the delightfully bizarre world where stage tricks work on radio, nut-bashing gets competitive and skipping stones is anything but innocent. Turns out, the stranger the pastime, the bigger the drama.
When Radio Had No Pictures but Plenty of Dummies
Let’s start with a fact that is almost too weird to believe. In the 1940s, one of America’s top radio shows starred a ventriloquist and his dummy. No pictures, just voices. The main skill of ventriloquism, making it look like you are not talking, was completely useless, but listeners still tuned in by the millions. Edgar Bergen and his dummy, Charlie McCarthy, outdrew even Orson Welles’ infamous War of the Worlds broadcast.
It gets stranger. Ventriloquism began as a religious practice called gastromancy, literally talking with the belly, with oracles channeling the voices of gods through their stomachs. Fast forward a few millennia and people were glued to their radios, imagining a dummy’s lips not moving. Proof that humans have always loved a good illusion, even if it exists entirely in their heads.
The Chestnut-Bashing Championship Gets Cracked
Next up is the odd world of chestnut-smashing, known in England as conkers. Once a kids’ game, now it’s the domain of nostalgic grown-ups and world championships. Enter David Jakins, also known as King Conker, who found himself at the center of a cheating scandal in the 2024 finals. His opponent’s chestnut exploded in a single hit, raising eyebrows everywhere.
Turns out, Jakins had a steel chestnut in his pocket. He insisted it was just a lucky charm, not the one he used to play, and after much scrutiny, he was cleared of wrongdoing. The lesson is simple. If you are competing in a nut-smashing contest, do not carry around the cheating paraphernalia. It’s like showing up to a weightlifting meet with steroids in your gym bag and saying, "It’s just for luck, mate."
Stone Skimming: More Than Meets the Eye
Finally, we head to a flooded Scottish quarry for the World Stone Skimming Championships. Skimmers have to choose their stones from local slate, pass the ring of truth test and compete for distance (not bounce count). Recently, the contest was rocked by a cheating scandal. Contestants were caught grinding their stones to make them suspiciously circular.
In true low-stakes, high-integrity fashion, the organisers asked anyone who had done a bit of illicit stone-sculpting to fess up. A few did, apologies were made, and the competition was saved. Sometimes, honesty really does prevail, even when the prize is eternal glory in stone skipping.
So there you have it. People once listened to dummies on the radio, grown men risk scandal for nut-smashing fame and even stone skimming is not safe from creative cheating. The past is weird, the present is weirder, and humans will always find a way to turn even the silliest competition into a drama.
CHAPTERS:
00:00 Introduction
02:27 The Curious Case of Radio Ventriloquism
05:18 King of Conkers Controversy
08:53 Stone Skimming Championships and Cheating Scandals
12:18 Conclusion and Listener Engagement
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[00:00:00]
[00:00:04] WILL: It is time for a little bit of science. I'm will grant an associate professor in science communication at the Australian National University.
[00:00:13] ROD: and I'm Rod Lambert. I'm a 30 year science communication veteran with a mind of a teenage boy.
[00:00:18] WILL: and today. Well, we've been at the Beach Large Hadron Collider.
[00:00:23] ROD: Yeah. Drinking in swimming cocktails. In fact, I'm still there. I dunno where you
[00:00:28] WILL: are of, uh, isotopes and science and stuff like that. So rather than giving you our regular pile of science, we've
[00:00:35] ROD: saved you something delicious. We've been scrolling away little snippets throughout the millennium and you're gonna get a bunch of those right now.
[00:00:42] It's gonna be fab.
[00:00:43] WILL: Enjoy. I got a little tiny fact from the past. Uh, or, or the pa The past is weird. I'm reading at the moment, a book that
[00:00:55] ROD: many of us should read.
[00:00:56] Oh, wonderful. Yeah,
[00:00:57] WILL: I have that one. Amusing Ourselves to Death, which is, uh, Neil Postman, uh, basically old man sociologist, media theorist, yelling at tv. He spends, uh, he spends exactly how many pages have we got? I'm just gotta flick through the index here. 163 pages yelling at tv. He's, he is like, tv, shit.
[00:01:17] Shit,
[00:01:17] ROD: shit. But he was yelling from what, the eighties? Yes. Yeah.
[00:01:20] WILL: Yes. From, from the mid eighties. He's yelling at TV and, and you know, I've gotta say in two ways, one. Neil Postman, hold onto your boots. Wait until how much worse the world gets. Um, but two, it is actually prescient for, for our world. You know, basically his, his argument is that, politics, discourse thinking used to be better when we did a lot more reading.
[00:01:42] Uh, and then, uh, then the TVs came along and now the tiktoks and, uh, we've all gotten a bit dumber. Maybe it's true, maybe it's
[00:01:49] ROD: He was, it wasn't, he was also Medium is the message
[00:01:51] WILL: guy, right? Yeah. I think he says in
[00:01:52] ROD: But he, but these, these kinds of stories focus very much also, and when we all used to share the same few media
[00:01:59] WILL: [00:02:00] sources. Well, I think that's actually, that's a, that's a very different and, and huge problem than Postman even acknowledges. Like, if you've got, if you've got, most people are watching the same tv, like
[00:02:09] ROD: then you've got a basis for
[00:02:10] WILL: dialogue, right? Yeah, exactly. We're amusing ourselves to death, but we're all watching at least family Feud.
[00:02:14] Mm-hmm. But now, no, you know, we're, we're all, you know, all off on the, on the Nets. So look, prescient book got a lot to say, worth a read, but I just wanted to, I just wanted to fly. Like, I'm, I'm reading that and there's one little bit here, and I'm like, you're fucking
[00:02:26] ROD: kidding me. Oh,
[00:02:27] WILL: Oh yeah. so in the, this is the throwaway line in the 1940s, the top radio
[00:02:32] ROD: uh,
[00:02:33] WILL: Not just one of the top, but you know, it's, yeah. In, in America was a
[00:02:39] ROD: show. Whatcha talking about radio? No, no, that's not me. That's little
[00:02:45] WILL: key. And this, this is what I'm like, I'm like, what? What are you doing? Like I get ventriloquism as a stage thing. Like you're up on stage and it's like
[00:02:55] ROD: of gear. Go of gear. Gottle of gear.
[00:02:56] WILL: exactly. I, I, I don't even have a ventriloquist bit to do
[00:03:01] ROD: radio ventriloquist. Okay. I'm a radio
[00:03:05] WILL: juggler. Yeah, exactly. Look at, look at this. Look at this.
[00:03:08] ROD: Great. There's a seven cats of chainsaw in a building.
[00:03:11] I can
[00:03:11] WILL: juggle them more. So the bit of me that says, okay, the past is a little bit weird, but, um, I, I thought, well, who is this?
[00:03:17] And so the ventriloquist at, was Edgar Bergen, obviously, and, and his, his favorite dummy, Charlie McCarthy was, uh, a sort of, that's Charlie McCarthy as
[00:03:27] ROD: sort of Oh, the fancy Monopoly man.
[00:03:29] WILL: Dummy, yeah. I think the other guy's Smedley or
[00:03:31] ROD: something like that. Yeah. And he's, he's definitely intellectually
[00:03:33] WILL: impaired.
[00:03:34] Um,
[00:03:35] ROD: as well
[00:03:35] WILL: As well as, look, look, this is the 1930s and 1940s. They, then they,
[00:03:40] ROD: Categories were
[00:03:41] WILL: clearer. Things they couldn't say on radio and things. They definitely did say on radio that we wouldn't
[00:03:45] ROD: say now.
[00:03:46] They didn't say it. The
[00:03:47] WILL: ventriloquist. No, indeed. But remember, this is radio. Radio number one thing.
[00:03:55] Young people. Young people, if you're listening, radio doesn't have [00:04:00] pictures. And like the number one, the number one skill of ventriloquism
[00:04:03] ROD: is Yeah. Looking like you're not talking
[00:04:06] WILL: are. Yeah. but they were number one for quite some time. And in October 30th, 1938. Yeah.
[00:04:14] They were credited with saving the world. Because from, well, that was the day that Awesome Wells ran his, ran his War of
[00:04:22] ROD: the world. Yeah,
[00:04:23] WILL: Yeah. And uh, you know, apparently everyone panicked went out into the streets. They didn't, it didn't, it
[00:04:27] ROD: didn't happen.
[00:04:27] Yeah. Shot things with three leaks.
[00:04:29] WILL: Yeah. But the show that everyone was still listening to that, that no one flicked over to a wells for was the ventriloquist
[00:04:36] ROD: dummy, because how the hell did
[00:04:37] WILL: they do it?
[00:04:39] ROD: How is
[00:04:39] WILL: doing it? He's talking on radio.
[00:04:41] ROD: I can't even see his
[00:04:42] WILL: lips moving on radio.
[00:04:44] ROD: No.
[00:04:45] WILL: Uh, so there's a tiny little fact for you. Uh, uh, if you want to know, ventriloquism obviously, like all things weird started as a religious practice.
[00:04:53] the ancient Greeks, you know, they're, they're doing what's called gastro mancy, talking with the
[00:04:57] ROD: belly. I
[00:04:58] WILL: That's, that's, that's how the oracles, that's how the Oracles would do it. So, so there's a, there's a tradition of the Oracle at Delphi
[00:05:04] ROD: saying, you know,
[00:05:06] WILL: golly, here I. But there you go. 1940s. Tune in to listen to a
[00:05:13] ROD: ventral equipment. God bless you. Nearly a hundred
[00:05:15] WILL: years ago.
[00:05:17]
[00:05:18] ROD: David
[00:05:19] Kins. Jakins. Jakins.
[00:05:21] Is he American?
[00:05:23] WILL: No, he is not. And he seems to be potentially another, another guy hard done by, but uh, David Jakins, he goes by the nickname King Conker, not because he's conquered a lot, but because
[00:05:35] he plays the Conkers the Conkers, the English sport or activity or amusement, uh, that children play.
[00:05:42] Now I feel like this is, this is like Morris dancing. This is one
[00:05:45] ROD: of
[00:05:45] those
[00:05:45] WILL: bits.
[00:05:46] What, this is one of those bits of English culture it's sort of like's England. Distilled into, uh, that's more, that's too English for even the English.
[00:05:54] ROD: Like,
[00:05:55] it's
[00:05:55] WILL: just ridiculous. Like it's, it's, it's
[00:05:57] ROD: Anglo overdo. What is
[00:05:58] WILL: it?
[00:05:59] Okay. So [00:06:00] Conkers, mostly paid by kids, but obviously it's not played by kids. It's played by kids like in Victorian times and now it's played by old men who want
[00:06:08] ROD: to
[00:06:08] remember well cause for if they're born then they're probably
[00:06:10] WILL: quite
[00:06:11] old
[00:06:11] Yeah. Kids these days are definitely not playing conkers. What do you do? You get a, you get a, a Conker which is a, what is it? Chestnut seed.
[00:06:19] ROD: I see. Grab something from the ground
[00:06:21] WILL: out there. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:06:22] And then you put it on a string.
[00:06:23] Yeah. And it's like, it's like a little, a seed, like, you know, one inch across or
[00:06:27] ROD: something A a rock
[00:06:28] WILL: on a
[00:06:28] string.
[00:06:28] And you've both, but not a rock. Not a rock, definitely. It's, it's the seed pod and you've each got one and one person holds it, holds theirs, still dangling, and the other person's got a swing.
[00:06:38] Theirs. And,
[00:06:40] and
[00:06:40] you whack it and then you take turns and whoever breaks the other person's seed wins. it's a strange little game
[00:06:47] but there is a world
[00:06:48] ROD: championships.
[00:06:49] Of course there is,
[00:06:50] WILL: there is,
[00:06:50] there is. a world championships. but, uh, David Jakins, was accused. Cheating in the 2024 World Champions Championships because, uh, Jakins had been entering the championships for a long time, maybe
[00:07:03] ROD: decades.
[00:07:03] Did he have, I'm just gonna guess He's got a chestnut, but inside he's got like a massive plutonium.
[00:07:09] WILL: Uh, so here's the problem, here's the problem. So in the final, his opponent, Alistair Johnson Ferguson had his, his conker.
[00:07:20] And Jakins took the swing and Johnson Ferguson's conker disintegrated in just one hit.
[00:07:27] And that never happens. Never
[00:07:30] ROD: what a champion would
[00:07:30] WILL: do.
[00:07:31] And the problem. Yeah, well, yeah, but the problem is inside Jakin's
[00:07:34] ROD: pocket
[00:07:35] Oh, it was plutonium,
[00:07:36] WILL: steel cpnker
[00:07:37] Like like one that he, and and
[00:07:40] ROD: if you can prove it grew on a tree, you can
[00:07:42] WILL: use
[00:07:42] it.
[00:07:42] Yeah. Well, I dunno if that's technically the rules, but, uh, don't, don't follow us for your conquering advice.
[00:07:48] But, but, uh, he did have a steel one in his pocket and everyone's like, dude,
[00:07:52] ROD: but I didn't use that one.
[00:07:53] WILL: Yeah. He said this was just my like, lucky charm. My,
[00:07:56] ROD: my,
[00:07:56] oh, normally it's
[00:07:58] around
[00:07:58] WILL: neck. I, I admit I had a [00:08:00] steel conquer in my pocket, but I didn't play with it. I show it to people as a joke, but I won't be bringing it again.
[00:08:05] ROD: He didn't
[00:08:05] WILL: inhale.
[00:08:06] He
[00:08:07] didn't
[00:08:07] ROD: it, but he didn't
[00:08:08] WILL: I had, you know, here's the thing. Jakes has been cleared, um, of any
[00:08:13] ROD: at the Hague.
[00:08:14] WILL: It, it, we've studied the photos and videos, the matches. It seems that there's no evidence that the steel conquer was actually used. But here's the lesson. Don't, like if you're, if you're a weightlifter, don't walk
[00:08:24] ROD: around.
[00:08:25] I've got steroids, but I
[00:08:26] WILL: I've got steroids with some steroids in your
[00:08:26] pocket. Just to, just to say No. This is a practical joke.
[00:08:29] Yeah.
[00:08:29] ROD: It's coke. It's coke. But I don't use coke. That's for after. It's after what I mean, then I have the
[00:08:32] WILL: coke.
[00:08:34] ROD: Yeah, yeah, yeah. No,
[00:08:35] I'm,
[00:08:35] I'm I'm carrying explosives. But not for
[00:08:37] WILL: this.
[00:08:37] I mean, maybe, maybe the world is on the lookout for cheats in weird sports.
[00:08:41] I know I am, but, uh, he seems to be hard done by, but dude, don't, don't be carrying, just don't have it. Don't be carrying, cheating
[00:08:49] ROD: paraphernalia Hand it to the nudge.
[00:08:51] WILL: Exactly. So the world's Stone Skimming Championships has been held on and
[00:08:56] ROD: oh, I already know all of
[00:08:57] WILL: on and off since 1983 on the tiny Scottish island of Easdale. Uh,
[00:09:03] ROD: E or E dial
[00:09:06] WILL: Dale. Dale. Um, it's in a, it's in, um, an abandoned quarry that's by the edge, but it was flooded by a tsunami in 1881. So it's got, it's got peachy, beautiful flat Scottish water. And a big pile of slate.
[00:09:21] Like, it's
[00:09:21] ROD: it's not stagnant, horrible water.
[00:09:23] WILL: It might be stagnant, I dunno about that. But it's,
[00:09:24] ROD: cheating. Then it wouldn't skip 'cause it'd a solid service of fungus.
[00:09:27] WILL: looks too cold to be stagnant. Uh, it, it looks chilly.
[00:09:30] ROD: that a thing?
[00:09:31] WILL: I dunno. I dunno. anyway.
[00:09:34] They've been holding it since 18, 19 83 on and off. Um, and it's pretty popular. like, um, 2,200 people, um, joined in last year. they go there, they have to pick a stone, um, from the, the local area, a slate from there. Uh, it's held up against the ring of truth to, you it's, it's a legitimate stone.
[00:09:53] So, so it's gotta be within, uh, it's gotta be three inches maximum. Right.
[00:09:56] ROD: can smaller or
[00:09:58] WILL: it can be, it can
[00:09:59] ROD: they're more about [00:10:00] max
[00:10:00] WILL: well, I think, yeah, like getting, getting a one millimeter stone is not gonna, you're not skimming that. Like, I think you want, you want as much girth as you can.
[00:10:10] Obviously a boulder is not a great skimming stone.
[00:10:13] ROD: lot of girth.
[00:10:13] WILL: Yeah. It's got a lot of girth, but there, there is a maximum. There's, you so, um, they gotta pick it against the ring of truth. And then they skim it, they get three skims and they add up their total, total measurement. What's
[00:10:25] ROD: your best,
[00:10:25] WILL: what's my best?
[00:10:26] Well, I always thought, I always thought. See they're, they're qualifying in, in distance here, but I thought it was number
[00:10:33] ROD: of
[00:10:33] WILL: of bouncers. You know, you get like one of those 11 bouncer, you know, ch
[00:10:37] ROD: Yeah. That's the Australian way. It's not How far did it bounce once and then disappear into the stratosphere? No, it bounced 400 times in a meter.
[00:10:44] WILL: Yeah, that's what I'm there for. It looks cool where it goes. So
[00:10:48] ROD: so they're on distance,
[00:10:49] WILL: It's dis,
[00:10:49] ROD: so it could bounce once and that would, as long as it went the furthest one.
[00:10:53] Skip and
[00:10:53] WILL: go. Yeah. Like theoretically you could throw it super hard and it skips off the
[00:10:56] ROD: water bullshit contest. Nah, I'm disappointed this garbage.
[00:11:01] WILL: As
[00:11:02] ROD: As if it's not. Number of
[00:11:03] WILL: skips. Leave 'em alone. Leave 'em alone. Leave 'em alone. You, you'd like to win it. Who wouldn't? You know,
[00:11:07] ROD: Scots are a Dao people though.
[00:11:08] Of course we don't go with numbers. Make us too happy. Alright.
[00:11:12] WILL: But this year it's been rocked by a cheating scandal.
[00:11:16] Uh, it appears. It appears well, uh, honesty. Honesty prevailed here that a number of contestants had been grinding the stones.
[00:11:25] ROD: I've, I've done that
[00:11:26] WILL: to make them suspiciously circular. So the organizer, so there'd been some rumors and mumblings where people in the crowd said, oh, it is not looking.
[00:11:37] ROD: so you, you don't, you don't have to pick it up on the shore there, and
[00:11:39] WILL: doesn't to be there. And then you can have like a bucket, like it has to come from the island. but it's meant to come from the area
[00:11:47] Uh, so there and then, but you could pretty easily
[00:11:50] ROD: Oh, you got, so yeah, I picked up this rock.
[00:11:51] I've just gotta go and take a bog. And then you get out your angle grinder behind the rocks. And,
[00:11:56] WILL: but because this is a charity con competition and, and the stakes are not too [00:12:00] high. After this mumbling, the organizers said, anyone, uh, maybe ground your stones a little bit. A few of them. We don't have the official numbers. Raise their hands and and, and apologize. Stone skimming has been saved.
[00:12:18] Well, that was your little bit of science for the week.
[00:12:21] ROD: holiday edition. You're special by the pool wearing a bikini edition.
[00:12:24] WILL: But because you're on holiday, you know that you still have the power to give us the rating that you need to give us. Yeah,
[00:12:32] ROD: seven stars on every app. Even things that don't do podcasts.
[00:12:35] Yeah.
[00:12:35] WILL: Go out there and write it on like a recipe app
[00:12:37] ROD: an Uber and Yelp. Is it Yelp still a thing?
[00:12:40] WILL: I think so. I'm
[00:12:41] ROD: I don't know. I'm at a restaurant where Don't ye
[00:12:42] WILL: listener, if you've got some topics that you want us to explore,
[00:12:46] ROD: tell Will.
[00:12:47] WILL: How would you tell Will his
[00:12:48] ROD: number is? 0 4 0 5 oh. Uh, cheers. At a little bit of science Do com
[00:12:55] WILL: au.
[00:12:56] ROD: au
[00:12:56] WILL: Do that. We want your stories.
[00:12:58] ROD: we wanna hear from you.
[00:12:59] WILL: Lovely listener. Enjoy the pina colada.
[00:13:02] ROD: Oh and the
[00:13:04] WILL: col. Pin colada.
[00:13:05] ROD: Pini Kaia Pina Pia
[00:13:06] WILL: Pina Kaia of
[00:13:07] ROD: of the Clade
[00:13:08] WILL: Penai. Cate.
