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No Such Thing As A Fish
No Such Thing As A Fish

1. Little Fish: Steam Exploded Donkey Bone Powder

November 02, 2025 • 32m

Summary

⏱️ 7 min read

Overview

The inaugural episode of Little Fish, a new Monday bonus show where the QI podcast team reads listener-submitted facts instead of their usual format. James Harkin, Andrew Hunter-Murray, and Dan Schreiber share amusing facts about nominative determinism, spiral staircases, astronaut biology, corpse flowers, historical figures, and unusual food products. The episode concludes by introducing a new feature where Patreon supporters become custodians of facts from the show's 600+ episode archive.

Introduction and McDonald's Nominative Determinism

The hosts introduce Little Fish as a weekly Monday show featuring listener-submitted facts. The first fact discusses Zoe Hamburger, a McDonald's UK executive who worked her way up through the company before moving to lead McDonald's Netherlands. The hosts explore the concept of surnames derived from place names and discuss various examples from different cultures, with amusing observations about journalistic writing conventions.

  • Little Fish is a new Monday bonus episode featuring listener-submitted facts from the [email protected] inbox
  • Zoe Hamburger worked as an executive at McDonald's UK for 18 months before being promoted to run McDonald's Netherlands
  • Despite her surname being the beefy snack item, Hamburger's favorite McDonald's item is the double cheeseburger
  • The surname Hamburger likely originated from ancestors coming from Hamburg, Germany
" despite her name being the beefy snack item "

Spiral Staircases Are Actually Helixes

Wayne Hoyt's fact reveals that spiral staircases are technically misnamed - they're actually helical, not spiral. A true spiral has an increasing or decreasing radius like a snail shell, while a helix maintains constant radius like a line drawn around a cylinder. The discussion leads to fascinating architectural examples, including France's Chateau du Chambord with its double helix staircase possibly designed by Leonardo da Vinci, where two people can use separate staircases simultaneously without meeting.

  • Spiral staircases are technically helical because they maintain the same radius throughout, unlike true spirals which increase or decrease in radius
  • A helix is a line drawn around a cylinder with constant radius, while a spiral's radius changes like a snail shell
  • Chateau du Chambord in France has a double helix staircase, possibly designed by Leonardo da Vinci, where two people can go up and down simultaneously without meeting
  • There's no international body that definitively decides whether helixes are a type of spiral or completely different
" I guess they're called spiral because, unfortunately, most people have no idea what a helix is "

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