Random Facts With… Sean Johnston

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Sean Johnston is a big R$N favourite, whether it’s slowing everything down with Mr Wetherall as ALFOS or soundtracking our lives as one of the Hardway Bros, we genuinly love the man. When the opportunity arose to fire off random points of interest at him, it was too good to refuse. We had planned to undertake said fact-ness whilst dangling our feet in the Adriatic drinking Pina Coladas but one of the two of us weren’t a little the worse for wear to make the appointment… we’ll not say who. So instead we sat down last week, turned on Google Facts and began a meandering conversation on sharks, cats, marijuana, redheads, collar bones and the Equator…..

Sean: Right then, random fact no. 1; for every human being killed by a shark, humans kill 2 million sharks.
Wil: Wow, I didnt know that!

Sean: I didnt know that either! (laughs) Youve gotta feel sorry for a shark…

Wil: Massively! To read this tweet youre hearing your own voice talking in your head. Thats not very good, let’s move on.

S: The probability of a woman giving birth to a baby girl instead of a boy increases significately when the mother lives closer to the equator.

W: Wow!

S: How does that work?

W: I dont know… some sort of probability?

<Clicks the link> S: Oh no. We dont get an answer, we just get another fact! (Laughs)

W: That needs to be researched a little bit more surely… (Laughs) Owning a cat at home reduces the risk of heart attack by 40% and stroke by 30%. How do even justify that? How do you know that?

S: Its stress relief isnt it. Having said that I own a cat thats caused me all manner of stress!

W: Oh yeah?

S: It was a Bengal, and I bought him for my ex-girlfriend and then she departed but left the cat and he lived with me for a year and hated me! And his favourite trick was if I went to work, hed get up and piss on my pillow. So, Im not entirely convinced that thats the case!

W: (Laughs)

S: We did sorted it out and buried the hatchet in the end.

W: Did she take him?

S: Yeah she took him in the end. We did sort out our differences.

W: A person of average size and weight burns about 60-70 calories each hour just by sitting and watching television.

S: Thats shit.

W: Thats bollocks. Thats just nonsense!

S: On the subject of bollocks. For most men the left testicle hangs lower. However, in some men and most commonly left handed men the right one hangs lower!

W: (Laughs) Thats amazing, I didnt know that!

S: I dont think were gonna get into this infront of the general public Wil!

W: Yeah we are! (Laughs)

S: (Laughs) Im not discussing my testicular information for the benefit of the readers of Ransom Note!

W: Lets move on to Pringles, which are named after a state in Finneytown. No, thats a shit fact.

S: Now back to cats! A group of cats is called a cloud or a clutter or a glarey. And a male cat is called a Tom and a female is called a Molly or a Queen.

W: Symbols such as exclamation mark, hash tag, @ that are used to indicate swearing in comic strips are called grawlicks.

S: (laughs) The first movie to use to use the word vagina on film was the 1946 disney animated film called The Story of Menstruation

W: What?! The Story of Menstruation in 1946. Fucking hell, Ive gotta see that, it sounds ridiculous! The black pirate flag known as the Jolly Roger was originally a bright red French surrender or die banner known as the Jolly Rouge. Minus 40 degrees Fahrenheit and minus 40 degrees Celsius are identical as thats the point at which both temperature scales converge. Thats interesting.

S: French Poodles did not originate in France, but in Germany. Poodles comes from the German Pudel or Pudelhund meaning splashing dog! (Laughs)

W: (laughs) Brilliant! Back to testicles. The word avocado derives from a Nahuatel Indian Aztec word ahuacatl which means a testicle.

S: Alright… A teaspoon full of seamen contains 5 calories. Sperm takes 1 hour to swim 7 inches! (Laughs) We need more booze for this, I dont know what Ive got…

W: This is fucking brilliant! (Laughs)

S: Oh my word.

W: According to a report it would take 800 marijuana joints to kill a person. However the cause of death would be carbon monoxide poisoning.

W: Shakespeares pipe contained cocaine cannabis and acid.

S: Now, he is the man.

W: Thats amazing. (Laughs)

S: A cat has 230 bones in its body, a human has 206. A cat has no collar bone, so he can fit through any opening the size of his head.

W: A cat has no collar bone… Is that why theyre so alert of what theyre going through?

S: Yeah, so anything they can fit their head through they can go through! Sounds a bit like my brother…

W: Why? What abut your brother?

S: Well, anything he can fit his head through hes going through. (Laughs) Ah, they were 124 midgets hired to play munchkins in the 1939 Wizard of Oz. One had to be rescued when it became trapped in a toilet! He must have forgotten about his collar bone…

W: Haha! Oh, collar bones…

S: Yeah.

W: The wedding ring goes on the left ring finger because its the only finger with a vein that connects to the heart. That is interesting.

S: I never knew that. Dancers and choreographers report the highest divorce rate, followed by bartenders and massage therapists.

W: Bartenders?

S: Yep. But dancers and choreographers are the most likely to divorce.

W: Why dancers? Oh, because theyre spending so much time close to each i guess or close to other people.

S: Back to cats. On average, cats spend two thirds of every day sleeping. Which means a nine year old cat has been awake for only 3 years of its life.

W: Two thirds? That sounds just like my cat.

S: Sounds like most cats…

W: Yeah. During the middle ages a child with red hair was thought to be conceived through unclean sex during menstruation! (Laughs)

S: (Laughs)

W: Brilliant.

S: Right, okay. After pornography, ancestry websites are the most commonly websites visited on the internet.

W: Ancestory? I guess that makes sense.
S:The most tattooed man in the world is Gregory Paul Mclaren, who is 100% tattooed including the inside of his foreskin, mouth and ears!

W: 100% tattooed.

S: Yep. Thats a little bit excessive Mr Mclaren.

W: Only 70% of people will understand the following. 2 + 2 = fish, 3 + 3 = 8, 7 + 7 = triangle. I dont understand that.

S: I dont understand that either. Hang on, run that past me again.

W: 2 + 2 = fish, 3 + 3 = 8, 7 + 7 = triangle. No, I dont get it. Im definitely one of those 30%.

S: I dont get it either.

W: A Proper handshake should last for about 3 seconds.

S: The FBI estimates that there is a sex offender living in every square mile of the United States. Fucking hell, they should come and live in Hackney. Theres a sex offender for every square meter in Hackney! Okay, in the online dating world women are afraid of meeting a serial killer. Men are afraid of meeting someone fat! (Laughs)

W: (Laughs) Its like kinda life in general.

S: Oh my god.

W: Thats brilliant.

S: What have you got for me Wil?

W: The growth of cancer cells can be slowed down by smoking marijuana.

S: The name marijuana is belived to have come from the Spanish pronounciation of Mary and Jane, which were military slang for prostitute.

W: That is quite interesting. A woman will base 55% of her initial impression of a man on his his appearance. 38% on his style of speaking and 7% on what he actually says. Haha! All the pandas in the world come from China. When a baby panda is born, by the agreement that it is sent back to China via FedEx.

S: Back to menstruation. 70% of women of menstruating age use tampons and a normal woman uses 11 thousand 400 tampons in her life.

W: 11 thousand 400. Wow.

S: If you laid them out end to end, thatd probably go from here to the London Eye.

W: (laughs) Fucking hell. Oh, Ive got the right handed testicle one again. Don’t need to go over that again. The further back you sit on a airplane, the greater your odds of survival in a crash. Ive always naturally done that.

S: Yeah. I actually read somewhere that between the wings is the safest place. I used to gravitate towards the back, but that was in the days when you could smoke at the back!

W: Yeah yeah. Fucking hell that was mad, I remember.

S: Its hard to believe really. You cant smoke anywhere now.

W: No!

S: You cant even smoke in a pub anymore.

W: I was watching something, I think it was in America youre still able to smoke in some bars or something. But yeah, I remember sitting on the back of a plane on the way to Australia once just with a bottle of something and smoking myself to death basically!

S: Yeah, I did the same on the way to Los Angeles once.

W: The largest flying animal ever to have lived, Quetzalcoatlus, had a wing span of 52 foot and was as tall as a giraffe.

S: Wow. Thats very big. Hang on, what was the wingspan?

W: 52 foot. Fucking hell.

S: Thats pretty big.

W: 99.99% of people backspace their whole password when they mess up one letter. (Laughs) Bruce Lee was so fast that they actually had to slow him down whilst shooting so you could see his moves. Thats quite amazing.

S: Hagfish are some of the slimiest animals on earth. An Atlantic Hagfish can make enough slime in one minute to fill a bucket.

W: What?! Thats amazing. Hagfish?

S: Yeah. It can make enough slim to fill a bucket in a minute. Sounds like some of my colleuges.

W: Thats insane. Windows 95 was the second most installed piece of software on computers in 1995. The video game Doom was first.

S: Oh wow.

W: Never knew that. After an hour after waking up you have already forgotten 90% of your dreams.

S: To achieve shimmering effects most lipsticks contain fish scales.

W: Yeah! I read that somewhere.

S: Oh, here you go. Back to redheads! This is a good one. Mark Twain once quipped, whilst the rest of the human race are descended from monkeys, redheads derive from cats.

W: That is fucking brilliant. (laughs) That is great. Really good. You can actually buy land on the moon.

S: Yeah, I was aware of that!

W: I wasnt. People who stay busy, even with pointless tasks and activities tend to be happier than those who dont.

S: Yeah but how do you justify that?

W: It makes sense I guess.

S: I dont think thats a scientifically proven fact. I think they just rolled that one out…

W: Just sort of stuck it in there.

S: Men have a faster urine flow than women up to the age of 50, and then women urinate faster.

W: That is interesting!

S: (Laughs)

W: Very interesting.

S: Oh, back to testicles.