On The Road Compilation of Sketches

Rob Bell:

All right, hopefully I've got everything.

I'm on my way.

For any potential burglars, this thing, this is a pre-recorded podcast, so if you're thinking of breaking in, I'm probably home.

As per usual, I'm a little bit behind schedule, so I have to get a bit of a jog onto the station.

 

I wish I was more like Jono.

No, made it.

Oh, thank goodness, I've got three minutes before I try and make this.

 

Tom Pellereau:

So, I was trying to understand if it was an official change or just a short term change, because she hadn't made that clear to any of you.

 

How long have we got on the clock?

 

It's about five hours, isn't it?

 

Rob Bell:

I think about two and a half hours.

 

Tom Pellereau:

Two and a half, what?

How long does it usually take for one episode?

 

Jono Hey:

All the dumb insects got squashed on the windscreens and all the smart ones.

 

Tom Pellereau:

Exactly, they just worked out you got to fly above cars and not through them.

 

Rob Bell:

There it is.

 

Jono Hey:

We're not expecting an accident, so if you hear the horn, let's call the emergency services.

 

Rob Bell:

Not planes, not trains, but automobiles.

 

This episode's all about life on the road.

 

Hello, and welcome to Sketchplanations, The Podcast.

 

Crawling, walking, running, riding a donkey, riding a horse, riding an elephant, riding in a horse-drawn carriage, the bicycle, the tricycle, whatever happened to bicycles?

 

The motorbike, the truck, the train, the hovercraft, the ski, and of course, the roller skate.

All means and methods that humans have evolved to get themselves and their stuff across land from A to B.

 

But hang on, something's missing in this list.

The motorcar, la voiture, das auto.

Ever since Carl Benz designed and marketed the first series production automobile in 1886, the world has never looked back.

 

I'm Rob Bell, past first time, up in the passenger seat, reliable, sporty, and not just a little bit sexy.

He's the Porsche 911 of audio.

It's Jono Hey.

 

And here in the back with me, he's fast.

He's a one-off, and he's sometimes impossible to control.

He's the bloodhound land speed project of podcasting.

It's Tom Pellereau.

 

Hello gents.

 

Tom Pellereau:

Hello everybody, and good afternoon.

 

It's afternoon, it's lovely outside.

 

Rob Bell:

I know, well look, something's different, isn't it?

 

Tom Pellereau:

Yes, a bit.

 

Very.

 

Rob Bell:

I mean, firstly, we're all together in the same place, but only the second time in our short podcasting history, but more importantly, we're in a car on the motorway.

 

Tom Pellereau:

We are in a car.

 

Jono Hey:

Getting some funny looks.

 

Tom Pellereau:

Yeah, we've just overtaken Tottenham Hotspur's coach, in fact.

 

Rob Bell:

Why aren't they off too?

 

So Tommy, what's going on?

 

Why are we in this situation for the podcast this week?

 

Tom Pellereau:

So brilliantly, we are all going away together.

 

We're meeting a number of other friends, and we're going for an activity weekend of cycling, mountain biking up in Buxton, which can't wait.

 

Rob Bell:

Yeah, lovely.

 

Now, it's very important for me to stress at this point that we have a willing and able driver in charge of all the mirrors, signals and maneuvering.

 

And that will be making sure we don't impede his operations at any point.

 

Ben, say hello.

 

Ben:

Hello.

 

Rob Bell:

There he is.

 

More willing than able.

 

I say willing than able, yeah.

 

Did you pass your test first time?

 

Ben:

I did.

 

Rob Bell:

He obviously doesn't say anything about how good he's driving.

 

Why am I so surprised in the back?

 

That's a genuine surprise.

 

I mean, we're all very comfortable in your very spacious Volvo XC90, Ben.

 

I have to say, it's probably one of the best vehicles to record a podcast in from an audio perspective.

 

I mean...

 

Tom Pellereau:

It's brilliant.

Spacious.

 

Rob Bell:

Volvo don't seem to market that much, do they?

 

Tom Pellereau:

I know, we should be in their adverts.

 

Jono Hey:

Drive and podcasting.

 

Rob Bell:

Drive and podcast, yeah.

 

Jono Hey:

This is the Podmobile at last.

 

Rob Bell:

At last, to the Podmobile.

 

I mean, it's obviously gonna sound a little bit different for you, our listeners, because we're doing the podcast in the car, but you know, relax into it.

 

Come with us on the journey.

 

Enjoy the ride.

 

Tom Pellereau:

I'd expect a lot of people will probably be listening in the car though.

 

So maybe we're making it a complete experience.

 

Rob Bell:

That's a good point.

 

Ben, do you ever listen to Sketchplanations, the podcast when you're driving?

 

Ben:

I do listen to the podcast.

 

Rob Bell:

Oh, hang on.

 

I mentioned the Bloodhound land speed project in my intro there.

 

Do you know what the current land speed record is, anyone?

 

Tom Pellereau:

I know it was something like 594.

 

I think that was broken.

 

The Bloodhound were trying to get to 800 or 1,000.

 

I think they got to something very high.

 

Jono Hey:

Sorry, what is the Bloodhound?

 

Rob Bell:

So the Bloodhound is, you know, it's an engineering, I guess it's almost entirely academic, right?

 

Engineering project with loads of different companies coming together.

 

It's this jet powered vehicle that you race across like the sands, flats basically, and get as fast as you can.

 

And the current effort is going into something called the Bloodhound project, which was really kind of gaining guns before the pandemic.

 

And then I think that put a bit of a...

 

Tom Pellereau:

Yes.

 

And I presume a lot of the Virgin Galactic team who are based in Newquay as well are probably from the Bloodhound project.

 

Rob Bell:

Okay, yeah, that makes sense.

 

Tom Pellereau:

Because it's all from Newquay, from that airport there.

 

And I think it was Noble.

 

Rob Bell:

Yeah, it was.

 

Was it Richard Noble's?

 

He did the chief keynote when we graduated, right?

 

Tom Pellereau:

Because at the time he was talking about air taxis.

 

Rob Bell:

He was, he was.

 

I remember that talk.

 

Ben:

I went to school with his daughter.

 

Did you?

 

Little input from Fender.

 

Tom Pellereau:

Check this out.

 

We should do this with the crowd more often.

 

Rob Bell:

So the current holder of the outright world land speed record is, it was another project similar to Bloodhound called Thrust SSC.

 

As I said, it's a twin turbofan jet powered car.

 

It was driven by Andy Green, who I think is still involved in the Bloodhound.

 

That achieved 763 miles per hour.

 

Tom Pellereau:

700.

 

Jono Hey:

Imagine being in that.

 

Rob Bell:

Imagine that.

 

You're not doing that on the M1 today.

 

Well, and they do it over one mile, and that was back in October 1997.

 

Now, Tommy, you mentioned that.

 

Do you know how long the journey we're doing today would take at that speed?

 

So we're doing 139 miles, and according to Google Maps, it's gonna take two hours and 42 minutes.

 

How long would it take?

 

Tom Pellereau:

25 minutes.

 

Rob Bell:

10 minutes and 54 seconds.

 

I mean, the only thing is they don't...

 

Tom Pellereau:

It would take you a long time to stop, though.

 

You'd have to start...

 

Rob Bell:

You'd end up in Edinburgh.

 

Jono Hey:

Totally fuel efficient, I should imagine.

 

Tom Pellereau:

Yeah.

 

Rob Bell:

Has it been past driving test first time?

 

Same with me, Tommy?

 

Tom Pellereau:

Not first time.

 

Ah, second time?

 

We've got quite a long time in this car.

 

I was fourth.

 

Ben:

Really?

 

Which is quite staggering.

 

Rob Bell:

Great.

 

Jono?

 

Jono Hey:

Yeah, I passed first time.

 

Ben:

He wrote the test.

 

Tom Pellereau:

He wrote the test.

 

Rob Bell:

Does that mean we should feel safer driving with Tommy because he's really learned all that practicing is.

 

Okay, look, the lights have turned green.

 

We've checked our mirrors and the pedestrians have cleared the crossing.

 

Jono Hey:

Let's drive.

 

Tom Pellereau:

Did you know that before?

 

Rob Bell:

No, I didn't.

 

Tom Pellereau:

I should have just said first.

 

Rob Bell:

My money was on Nolz.

 

Four?

 

Yeah.

 

Tom Pellereau:

That wasn't until I was like 25.

 

Rob Bell:

Oh dear.

 

This week, back by genuinely popular demand from last series, we're going to bring you another quick fire episode, and nothing if not topical, we're going to cover a sub collection of Jono's sublime sketches that feature or focus cars and driving, complete with sound effects left, right and center.

 

I'll list all of the sketches that we cover in the podcast description so you can follow our journey as we go from stop to stop.

 

And needless to say, you can find all of Jono's sketches at sketchplanations.com.

 

Thank you for all the correspondents you've continued to send in.

 

We'll be going through some of those at the very end of this episode.

 

And we'd love to know what you have to say about anything we talk about here.

 

I mean, driving can be quite an emotive subject, shall we say.

 

So I'm sure you'll all have a lot to say about it.

 

And send your emails to...

 

Tom Pellereau:

Hello at sketchplanations.com.

 

Rob Bell:

Thank you, Tommy.

 

Right then, Jono, do you want to kick off, kick things off for us?

 

Jono Hey:

Love to.

 

The one I wanted to kick off with, was something called Marchetti's Constant.

 

It's one of my favorite sketches, actually.

 

And it's just such a cool thing, I think.

 

Such a really interesting observation, which is basically that, as we manage to travel faster and faster, so by that, I mean, we went from, you know, we used to walk everywhere to eventually, you know, we had horses and then trains and subways and cars.

 

The constant is that we maintain our average travel time of about an hour's travel a day, no matter what that is.

 

And so what that meant and what that is in the sketch, it's like a little diagram showing the radius in kilometers of Berlin as it expanded alongside our means of travel.

 

And the means of travel was it went from electric trams to subways to cars.

 

As they got faster, Berlin could essentially get bigger.

 

But we weren't spending less time traveling each day.

 

As our speed of travel got faster, the city just got bigger.

 

It just enabled a constant journey time on average of about 30 minutes in and 30 minutes back.

 

And there are a couple of other really interesting observations alongside that.

 

For example, if you looked at ancient Greek cities, which had walls on them, they were about two and a half kilometers.

 

And at five kilometers an hour, if you're walking, that was about half an hour in and back.

 

Rob Bell:

Like from one side of the city to the other type thing, or from to the extremity, like as far as you can walk.

 

Jono Hey:

It's a radius, yeah, yeah.

 

If you're going from the outside to the inside, it would take you about 30 minutes.

 

And then there's even this observation, which was even people in prison for a life sentence, who've got nothing to do and nowhere to go, still walk around for about an hour a day in the open.

 

So I think, yeah, it's just so interesting that even though we managed to speed up our transport over the last century or two, by so much, we're still just traveling them at the same time.

 

Rob Bell:

It's good, isn't it?

 

Tom Pellereau:

I wonder if now a lot of people are working from home two or three days a week.

 

Rob Bell:

Oh yeah.

 

Tom Pellereau:

If it's been averaged up over a week and the fact that if you're only going in to the office two or three times, you're therefore prepared to go quite a lot longer so it sort of averages out across the week, maybe.

 

Rob Bell:

I mean, that's one of the beauties, isn't it, of more working from home.

 

You're getting all that time back.

 

Well, I say getting it time back.

 

It depends how you use that time, whether actually some people probably quite enjoy the commute because it's a bit of quiet time, bit of alone time, nodding from the front of the car.

 

Tom Pellereau:

My cousin works for himself and he used to live about 10 minutes away from his work and his wife was like, it's just not long enough for you to decompress.

 

You come back and you start talking to me like I work for you.

 

She was like, you've got to move your office further away because you need that kind of half hour of chilling out so that we can have a relationship and maybe that's a part of it.

 

Rob Bell:

I know, Jono, you're very good at making good use of your time on your commute.

 

I know you're normally, it's with your nose in the book.

 

Is that right?

 

Jono Hey:

I try as much as possible.

 

Yeah, it's a nice reading time on a commute or it can be, depending on what you're doing or if you're driving now, you might listen to audio books.

 

I remember my wife had a commute where she used to do all her reading and then she got a new job which was essentially just around the corner and she found she just didn't read anymore and really missed it, that reading time.

 

And of course, in principle, I suppose, if you've lost that time, you can just get up earlier and spend it reading, but nobody does that.

 

It's funny, isn't it?

 

You appreciate it when you do it, but you don't actually make time for it yourself.

 

Tom Pellereau:

I currently drive as part of my commute, which means I'm on the phone the whole time I phone my sister one day, my other sister, my parents, friends, so I'm like, whereas Sarah commutes on the train and she can't phone anyone, so she finds she can't talk to her mom at all.

 

It's really difficult for her to find a space, whereas I talk to my parents a couple of times a week, every week.

 

Rob Bell:

Yeah, making use of that time.

 

Jono Hey:

Can I just say before we move on with this, because I think it's an interesting thing generally with technology.

 

And in principle, technology made us more effective.

 

In this case, it made us faster.

 

But there is a bit of a history of whenever we put these labor saving appliances, like washing machines, dishwashers and better vacuums or whatever, actually, we don't spend less time doing the chores.

 

We just do them more often.

 

So even though you've added more power to be able to do all these things, we haven't necessarily managed to make our lives easier.

 

Tom Pellereau:

So I wonder, Jono, you know, we were talking previously about the number of friends that you could have your friend circle.

 

And I wonder if with technology now, sort of Facebook, where you can communicate with more people, that has also filled that gap a little bit more or stretched that previous rule in a similar way to how this is stretched.

 

Rob Bell:

I guess that, yeah, it's a similar principle, isn't it?

 

It is a similar principle, the use of technology to improve the efficiency of an activity, whatever that might be.

 

And instead of you having more time from those efficiencies, you just fill that time with more of that activity.

 

Yeah.

 

Jono Hey:

The amount of WhatsApp chats you might be on, yeah.

 

You can definitely believe that.

 

Rob Bell:

And it's interesting, so all three of us live in and around London.

 

I mean, London's a big place.

 

I mean, in my view, and I think you touched on this in the sketch as well, actually Jono, that the hour is probably a bit more in London.

 

Jono Hey:

Yeah, but London is unfortunately, or at least it was when I did the sketch, a bit of an outlier of an hour and a half each day.

 

Rob Bell:

I mean, I'd say when I leave the house, if I've got something going on somewhere else in London, in my mind, it's basically an hour there and an hour back.

 

Tom Pellereau:

Yeah.

 

When was this research based on, Jono?

 

Because it feels that it's like half an hour is the ideal commute time, but a lot of people are much more like 45 minutes to an hour each way.

 

Rob Bell:

Or is that just because it's what we know in London?

 

I'm sure other huge metropolises, metropoli, around the world have similar findings as well that maybe it goes up a little bit.

 

But I reckon on the whole that the hour, half hour there, half hour back is about right.

 

Jono Hey:

Well, it was based on Berlin, but yeah.

 

Tom Pellereau:

I hate commuting.

 

Rob Bell:

I really don't like commuting.

 

Tom Pellereau:

I've managed to, for a long period of my life, I basically didn't commute.

 

I managed to get my work within five minutes walk and I used to love that.

 

But my record was 45 seconds to work, I think, once.

 

I was just not in the same building.

 

But it does mean I get to speak to my family, which is really nice, but commuting, yeah, it's a struggle.

 

Rob Bell:

Right.

 

It's a quick fire episode.

 

So let's move things along.

 

Tom, we're going to come to you next.

 

What have you got for us?

 

Tom Pellereau:

We are now moving on to Use of the Horn Sketch 348 for those collectors out there.

 

And firstly, it's unintended and intended.

 

And unfortunately, whilst on the commute, this I do find this can slip out with myself.

 

It's those things which happen.

 

And you sort of say something or you react in a way that you might not really mean to.

 

But often it sort of comes out.

 

And I think there's a great book called Chimp Paradox, which I'm sure both of you heard of.

 

If you haven't read it or heard of it, the Chimp Paradox is a brilliant, brilliant book to read.

 

And I think this, his kind of framing of this would suggest that the red parts on the sketch, where you react quickly and you yell maybe at someone back, like road rage is one of the best examples of this.

 

You're driving along the road, you're all being calm.

 

And the kind of what the author would describe is the computer is in charge, you're in autopilot, right?

 

And then someone cuts you up and you're, oh, and the chimp then kicks in and the chimp is an aggressive, powerful part of you.

 

And you might find yourself getting really angry and maybe like charging up behind and maybe swearing.

 

And then you're like, the human then cuts in and you're like, oh my gosh, I almost like, I almost charged into that person, what was I thinking, you know?

 

And often times the human in this framing sort of spends a bit of time apologizing for some of the bad behavior of the chimp that could come in.

 

So use of the horn is a very good representation of this.

 

And sometimes we all can have it.

 

But I suspect Jono never has this, because he's always incredibly calm.

 

Jono Hey:

I can't remember doing those.

 

But I guess one of the things I wanted to show in this was basically that although the horn is meant to warn people that there's about to be an accident or something like that, most, the majority of the use of the horn is actually...

 

In the UK?

 

Yeah, in the UK, for other purposes, one is like expressing your dissatisfaction of what somebody else just did.

 

Another one is to tell the car in front that the light's gone green and that they should move.

 

And the last one is like, hey, I've turned up outside your house, come on out.

 

And there's only a small proportion of horn usage, which is actually what they probably had in mind when they...

 

Rob Bell:

On that note, can I bring up rule 112 of the Highway Code in the UK?

 

Tom Pellereau:

Which you just happened to be flicking through.

 

Rob Bell:

Well, I never go anywhere without it.

 

We're on the car, Tommy.

 

Jono Hey:

Come on.

 

Rob Bell:

Preparedness.

 

I mean, it's very clear on the purpose of vehicle horns.

 

So they're only to be used in order to warn another road user of your presence.

 

So that means you should never honk as a greeting or as an expression of annoyance, as you say.

 

So you must not use your horn while stationary on the road, rule 12 goes on to say.

 

And when driving in a built up area between the hours of 11.30pm and 7am, except when another road user poses a danger.

 

That's it.

 

That's rule 112.

 

Tom Pellereau:

Do you find you use your horn?

 

By the time I...

 

Rob Bell:

Rarely.

 

Tom Pellereau:

I almost never think of...

 

Rob Bell:

The only time I do, and I do have to think twice before I do it, is to give someone a beep at traffic lights if they haven't seen it.

 

And I do think, oh, I don't really want to do this.

 

Tom Pellereau:

So I wish there was a more pleasant version of it.

 

Rob Bell:

Yeah.

 

Well, so Jono, what I love in your little description of the sketch is that you talk about it being an almost caveman-esque communication method.

 

Jono Hey:

That is so blunt, isn't it?

 

Rob Bell:

The verbal equivalent would be, oi!

 

Jono Hey:

That's all we can apparently manage.

 

Tom Pellereau:

I bet there's some kind of law meaning that there can't be slightly more pleasant horns, that it would be dangerous.

 

Jono Hey:

You think of like, you know, the development of emojis that went from like a smiley face and angry face to like about a billion emojis.

 

And a horn is still just like, you're either shouting at somebody at the top of your voice or you're off.

 

Rob Bell:

Yeah.

 

Remember, it's intended use is just to go, hey, hey, hey, I'm here, look, look, look, watch out, watch out.

 

Tom Pellereau:

Have you been to India much?

 

Rob Bell:

Well, yeah, this is a good point for me.

 

Jono Hey:

Yeah.

 

Tom Pellereau:

This is just constant.

 

Rob Bell:

Different rules.

 

Tom Pellereau:

It's a very different method of driving.

 

Rob Bell:

Yeah.

 

I've noticed that when I've been in, I think Thailand and Vietnam.

 

Yeah.

 

It's different cultures have used to the horn, right?

 

Tom Pellereau:

Yes.

 

Jono Hey:

I remember, I think it was in Lima in Peru, which realizing that when the light was red, it didn't mean that you couldn't go through it, it just meant that you had to go through it, hitting your horn, and that was the difference.

 

The traffic keeps moving, it's quite funny.

 

Rob Bell:

I'm happy to report that so far we haven't had to use it in the car, Ben is keeping everything caught.

 

The chimp is safely locked away in his cage and we have Hume and Ben in control of our safety.

 

Jono Hey:

We're not expecting an accident, so if you hear the horn, please call the emergency services.

 

I've thought if you're going really slowly in a car, and we have this because we bought an electric car and it's very quiet, and it's often that people, as expected, don't necessarily hear you coming if you're coming slowly from a car park and you basically need a bicycle bell.

 

I've thought about having a bicycle bell on the rear view mirrors or the side mirrors and just going a little ding.

 

Rob Bell:

That would be lovely.

 

Jono Hey:

And I don't want to use the horn and threaten them and make them jump and that's good.

 

Tom Pellereau:

I know what to give Jono for Christmas now.

 

Rob Bell:

That is lovely.

 

I wonder if you can get plugins to change the noise, but you definitely can change the noise of your car, can't you?

 

Tom Pellereau:

Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if it's illegal to do it.

 

Rob Bell:

Yeah, it probably is.

 

You can give it one if you want, Ben.

 

Probably.

 

Jono Hey:

It's a quick fire.

 

Rob Bell:

There it is.

 

Yes, right.

 

Quick fire round.

 

Thanks, Tommy.

 

Use of the horn.

 

Hopefully, that's clarified stuff for everybody.

 

I liked the sketch.

 

Time you're passing on an inside bend, right?

 

So this is about, we're on a motorway now, we're on it.

 

It's a multi-lane highway and we have options of which lane to be in.

 

I mean, I say that, again, the highway code talks about, actually, it's the outside lane.

 

The left-hand lane is the driving lane, which you should be in the whole time, unless you're overtaking, in which you move out.

 

And then you use the other lanes outside of you, then, oh, we've just moved back a lane.

 

You use the other lanes for overtaking and then when it's all clear, you come back.

 

But what you can do to assist with that is use an inside bend.

 

You know, this comes back to classic physics.

 

Speed equals distance over time.

 

So if you've got a shorter distance to go on the inside of a bend at the same speed, you will do it in a faster time and you can get past cars that are in front of you that are maybe going at the same speed or probably slightly slower, which is means which is why you've caught up with them in the first place.

 

But if you don't really want to accelerate to above the speed limit to get past them, what you can do is just wait for that bend, then go for the overtake on the inside of that bend and you should get past them much quicker than you would if you're waiting on a straight road.

 

Because it does always feel a bit weird when you're overtaking somebody with a net difference of plus half a mile an hour.

 

For me, it's uncomfortable.

 

Jono Hey:

Yeah, like you're crawling past them.

 

And this is the inspiration for this for me was that scenario where you're basically going just a tiny bit faster than the person in front, but not enough to like get round them quickly.

 

And I don't know if you've ever had the opposite of this is where you go to overtake somebody who's already going quite fast and you go round them.

 

But then the bend goes the other way.

 

Now you're in the outside bend.

 

And actually, you're not overtaking them at all.

 

You're going backwards and you're going faster and faster.

 

You go, this is faster than I want to be.

 

And you're not going to overtake.

 

So actually, it was a really dumb, simple thing, isn't it?

 

Just actually, just like on a running track, taking the inside line is much faster.

 

So wait for those sometimes.

 

It can really help.

 

Rob Bell:

I must hasten to add, though, that this is not applicable on single lane roads, where overtaking on a bend is a stupid idea at any time.

 

Just wanted to make that clear.

 

Something I occasionally do on multi-lane highways, if it's late at night and you've got a long journey, what I tend to do if there's nobody about is actually just take the inside line when I'm not overtaking, just to have a shorter road, have a shorter route, save fuel.

 

Tom Pellereau:

Use the road.

 

Rob Bell:

Use the road, is there?

 

It's not its intended purpose of the lanes, but...

 

Tom Pellereau:

Save battery in your case.

 

Rob Bell:

Exactly, exactly.

 

Does anyone else do that?

 

Jono Hey:

I do that.

 

You do?

 

Yeah, if you look behind in the mirror, there's nobody around at all.

 

Then you can just sort of go the straightest line, keep in to the lanes roughly.

 

Rob Bell:

And if it is late at night, what I also find that it helps you stay focused as well, because you're always looking out for people behind you, like more than you might do if you weren't switching lanes the whole time.

 

That's my one, I love it.

 

I think it's great.

 

Jono Hey:

Cool, thanks for the sketch, Jono.

 

Tom Pellereau:

Let's move on.

 

When you say that's my one, as in you, Jono...

 

Rob Bell:

They're all Jono's sketches.

 

Tom Pellereau:

Oh yeah, I did that one, you know.

 

I helped Jono out on a couple of these, no.

 

Jono Hey:

All right, cool.

 

The next one's dead simple.

 

It's a really straightforward point.

 

Basically, I read in an article and it had a few things, because in London at any rate, there's a couple of places which have introduced like no idling boroughs, for example, so you're not allowed to sit out on the street or outside a house and idle.

 

And in particular, the thought was like idling around schools, for example.

 

That was, I think, the first place where some of these signs came up for it.

 

And the article talked about the idea that actually every minute, an idling car can produce enough exhaust emissions to fill 150 balloons.

 

Tom Pellereau:

Wow.

 

Jono Hey:

Yeah.

 

It was really just, yeah, cause a minute's not that long, right?

 

If you're sitting there waiting for something and I can understand that, you know, if it's really cold, you often, people will keep their engine on to keep the heating on, for example.

 

But if you imagine 150 balloons of exhaust coming out of the back of the car, every minute.

 

Tom Pellereau:

Every minute.

 

Jono Hey:

I was just trying to go, well, what does that look like?

 

And I actually drew 150 balloons for this.

 

And some of them wouldn't quite fit on the Sketch, which is more or less very roughly to scale.

 

And it's just a remarkable amount.

 

And so obviously places are introducing no idling regardless, but as a way for me just to go, oh yeah, that is actually really quite a lot.

 

Maybe I should consider turning my engine off.

 

That was what really the Sketch was about.

 

Just trying to visualize.

 

Because it's so, I always think that exhaust emissions, like you never, wait, you see them occasionally, but most of the time you don't see them at all.

 

And so I just thought it would be really interesting.

 

Imagine if, out of every car right now, were balloons of exhaust and they were going up.

 

Wouldn't that be a fascinating little visual to see?

 

Imagine from a motorway, a busy motorway, all of these balloons of exhaust coming up.

 

And obviously the message here is about idling and not seeing outside on the streets by your house, for example.

 

But yeah, interesting way of visualizing it.

 

Rob Bell:

It is, and you know, with a lot of messaging around sustainability and fuel efficiency and climate change, it's really difficult because we can't see it, right?

 

We can't see those emissions.

 

And so any way to help visualize that does help people's understanding of it.

 

It is a phenomenal number, those 150 balloons.

 

But I think what's important, well, what I'd like to talk about with this is that within those emissions, you've got your climate change gases, but then you've also got the pollutants for air quality as well.

 

And they are kind of two different things.

 

And in a big city like London, yes, climate change is always an issue, but air quality is becoming an increasingly significant issue for people's wellbeing, people's health.

 

Tom Pellereau:

Of that balloon that's coming out, I wonder how much of that is CO2 in that balloon?

 

How much of it is other, you know, carbon monoxide, soot, other bad things?

 

And how much is just water vapor and air?

 

You know, nitrogen that's coming out.

 

I'd be interested to know how much of that balloon...

 

Jono Hey:

Yeah, and to be fair, I don't know.

 

And actually, you know, a number of people asked me when I first posted this, well, you know, what size are the balloons?

 

And it depends on the temperature of the gas coming out.

 

And these are all, these are all fair questions.

 

I feel like it's a normal size balloon, but, and you might well be right, there's a bunch of it's fine, but I do know that I wouldn't like to be breathing the stuff that's coming out of a car's exhaust, no matter what.

 

Rob Bell:

So one statistic I do have which is related is that nearly half of air pollution in London is due to road vehicles.

 

So it doesn't answer your question, but it does kind of set that up a little bit more.

 

And Jono, as you said, we've got kind of pedestrianized zones, no idling zones, you've got lower speed limits now more in London.

 

I could keep talking about London because that's what I know.

 

There's obviously congestion charging and ULEZ, highly controversial at the moment, but it does a job for air quality.

 

And technology does move along as well.

 

You have start-stop technology with a lot of vehicles as well now, traffic lights.

 

Tom Pellereau:

It's so brilliant the way that cars automatically turn off so quickly now.

 

I really love that.

 

Rob Bell:

So apparently cars 10 years old, cars around 10 years old use more fuel when they start up than just idling after about 10 seconds.

 

So 10 seconds is like the rule.

 

If you're gonna be stopped for more than 10 seconds, then turn it off.

 

But modern cars, that doesn't apply.

 

So the start-stop technology works really, really well.

 

Jono Hey:

You know, I put a little note in the description.

 

I said, if you have an electric car, this won't apply.

 

And I got a bit of stick for it.

 

Rob Bell:

Did you?

 

Jono Hey:

As if I was implying that everybody can afford an electric car.

 

And of course I was just saying that it doesn't do any emissions.

 

I didn't mean that at all.

 

But that's what I was gonna say.

 

I'm not implying that everybody can go buy an electric car.

 

Rob Bell:

Absolutely, we're just talking about reality here.

 

This is what happens.

 

I do get quite angry when I see people just idling.

 

Tom Pellereau:

Yeah.

 

Rob Bell:

And so I saw someone at the supermarket the other day.

 

It was a hot day and there was a guy in a car.

 

He was actually parked in a car park space.

 

He was parked right outside the supermarket.

 

So obviously somebody who was with has popped in for something quickly.

 

So my assumption is he had the air conditioning on and he had a seat right back and he was asleep.

 

I was very tempted to go and bang on the window, wake him up and say, boy, turn your engine off, son.

 

I didn't, but it made me angry for about two hours afterwards.

 

Tom Pellereau:

So you and I spent quite a lot of time in Canada and America.

 

In Canada especially, they would leave their cars on alone and massive trucks and partially because it's so cold, partially because they got so much fuel, partially it was just a thing.

 

And I really struggled in these lovely parts especially where you've got these trucks, small trucks, big trucks, left idling, it was like, come on, turn it off.

 

Rob Bell:

It is annoying.

 

Tom Pellereau:

The noise, the emissions, it's just wrong.

 

Rob Bell:

That said though, I bet we've all done it once or twice when it's really cold or it's really hot and you just need a bit of escape from the conditions.

 

Tom Pellereau:

And when the temperatures get to minus 30 in Calgary, you can understand it.

 

So it's all...

 

Jono Hey:

I think the one which I think really needs to happen is ice cream vans.

 

Tom Pellereau:

Ah, so there is something about these though, in the fact that the ice cream van engine is actually providing the ice cream.

 

Rob Bell:

Yeah.

 

Jono Hey:

Yeah.

 

And you have like queues of kids standing outside the window of a vehicle sucking up the fumes all day long.

 

Like it doesn't make sense to me, but well, I'm sure it will change.

 

But yeah.

 

Tom Pellereau:

But the engine is actually providing the ice cream.

 

It's making the ice cream.

 

Rob Bell:

I know, I think what we're saying is let's start Sketchplanations' The Podcast campaign for ice cream van drivers to convert to electric.

 

I'm not going to say that.

 

I'm not going to say that because you'll get even more people emailing Jono.

 

Jono Hey:

Well, no, I mean, I think you'll look back and you'll be like, this is mad.

 

Rob Bell:

It is mad.

 

Jono Hey:

I've got 20 kids queuing outside this thing and I don't care if it's making the ice cream or not.

 

Find another way to make the ice cream.

 

Tom Pellereau:

Find another way.

 

I watched a program about ice cream machines and what I didn't realize is that the compressor, you know the Mr.

 

Whippy that sort of makes it as you pull the handle down?

 

That ice cream is being made from water and air simultaneously, basically as he pulls the handle.

 

And that requires a huge amount of compression to do it.

 

And there's an American guy invented this compressor to do it.

 

But the amount of power you actually need to create that resulted in this huge machine.

 

And this British guy invented a way of basically using the truck's engine to provide the power to do it.

 

Which is why, which is a clever idea, which is why ice cream trucks with the Mr.

 

Whippy could be created in the first place kind of thing.

 

Now, I agree, Jono, it is horrible when you're at a beach and there's an ice cream van and the lorry's just on and there's fumes coming out the back and you're getting ice creams on the side.

 

I completely agree.

 

But it isn't just because they've left the air, you know...

 

No, no, no, I wasn't blaming it.

 

Jono Hey:

I was just saying it's a bit crazy.

 

Tom Pellereau:

And I don't know if they can do it with a...

 

Well, I'm sure they can do it with a...

 

Rob Bell:

We've put men on the moon, for goodness sake.

 

Surely we can find a way of making Mr Whippy ice creams with less energy.

 

Tom Pellereau:

With less energy or with greener energy.

 

As you say, there must be a way of doing it with greener energy.

 

Jono Hey:

Anyway, this is quick fire.

 

We're getting off track.

 

Rob Bell:

If you want to listen to our episode on Mr Whippy ice creams, do you like Mr Whippy ice creams?

 

Tom Pellereau:

Or can we do an episode where we're eating Mr Whippy ice creams or any ice creams?

 

Rob Bell:

That's the beach episode.

 

Right, let's move on.

 

Jono, thank you, Idling Cars.

 

Tom, we're going to come to you.

 

What's your second choice of sketches relating to cars or being on the road?

 

Tom Pellereau:

The Doppler Effect.

 

Now, the Doppler Effect is that thing that when a police car, an ambulance is coming towards you, the sound coming out of the siren makes a different pitch, a different noise as it's coming towards you in comparison to when it's going away from you.

 

And that's because the speed of the car is being added to the speed of sound.

 

And Jono, I really hope that I'm not destroying that.

 

Rob Bell:

That's not bad.

 

That's not a bad description of the Doppler Effect.

 

It is the phenomena of, the best example, a siren as it comes past, it changes pitch.

 

And that's the sound waves being squashed towards you as the source of the siren comes closer, and then being stretched as it heads off a further distance past you.

 

Tom Pellereau:

It's also got a very cool name.

 

Like, this Doppler just sort of, doesn't it, Robbie?

 

Rob Bell:

It's named after the Austrian physicist who discovered it.

 

Tom Pellereau:

Which is lucky.

 

Rob Bell:

Christian Doppler.

 

Tom Pellereau:

Christian Doppler.

 

It just sort of seems to fit with the kind of wave and sound in my mind.

 

Rob Bell:

There's an interesting little anecdote about its discovery though.

 

So yeah, so discovered by our Austrian physicist Christian Doppler in 1842, the theory of which, but it was a Dutch mathematician who has an even better name, Christoph Hendrik Diedrich Beisbalot, who successfully proved the Doppler Effect, using brass musicians on board a steam train in 1845.

 

So someone with a trombone or a trumpet on the steam train, in it comes, as it comes through the station, and then people on the station observing it as it comes in and heads off, and I think they measured it as well.

 

Brilliant.

 

There's a brilliant little video clip on the BBC website you can see about this as well.

 

It's fantastic.

 

Jono Hey:

I think trains are really interesting because before the invention of trains and train travel, it was quite difficult to do any of those kind of experiments.

 

Imagine somebody trying to run along and play a brass instrument, or somebody on the back of a horse.

 

We just didn't have steady travel in a straight line to test things about acceleration and speed.

 

Tom Pellereau:

And before trains, no one had ever gone beyond the speed of a galloping horse.

 

There was such concern that all our brains were going to get splattered out when you got to 50 miles an hour and we'd all die.

 

Rob Bell:

Some great evidence of this is obviously in Back to the Future 3, 1885, you need to get up to 88 miles per hour.

 

There's no fuel in the DeLorean, so what are you going to do?

 

You've got to stick it onto train tracks and figure it out that way.

 

Tom Pellereau:

Wait for the trains to arrive.

 

As you say, it's highly scientific evidence there.

 

Rob Bell:

Highly scientific evidence.

 

And had you been there, you would have witnessed the Doppler Effect as it came past.

 

Jono Hey:

I should say it's not just sound, though.

 

It's a property of waves in general.

 

Basically, if a wave is coming out of a source and it is coming towards you, it's basically catching up with the waves which it's sending out.

 

And so they're becoming sort of squished in comparison.

 

And same opposite if it's going away.

 

They get stretched.

 

And so it doesn't have to be sound traveling through air.

 

So the Doppler Effect is using all sorts of stuff.

 

It was using some of the early GPS things.

 

It's also used in speed cameras.

 

I remember I read a really interesting book about precision, I think it was.

 

And it talked about the early experiments that led to GPS.

 

And some of the things where they put basically an emitter in the back of a car and drove it away.

 

And by checking the receiver how the pitch was shifted, you could tell the speed of the car, for example.

 

And of course they do that in reverse when you have like a speed camera at the side of the road, like a speed gun, for example, that kind of thing.

 

And so yeah, like the Doppler Effect as a whole has just tons of different applications.

 

I think it was also used, has some uses in like measuring the speed of the bloods traveling through your veins.

 

You can sort of shine rays into your body and see how the reflections are coming back differently based on the speed of the blood.

 

All sorts of applications for the Doppler Effect.

 

Very practical.

 

Rob Bell:

Right, moving on.

 

My second one is about the piston.

 

Interestingly, this is one of, I don't know if it's the only one, Jono, but it's one of very few sketches on Sketchplanations where you have an animation instead of a stationary sketch depicting the piston, a reciprocal motion back and forth, a piston inside a cylinder connected to a wheel.

 

So the piston is brilliant for translating reciprocal motion into rotational motion.

 

And the animation is wonderful, Jono.

 

Have you got any other animations up there?

 

Ben:

Are you having images?

 

Jono Hey:

Just a couple.

 

I think I've got like three animations.

 

And the plain fact is I'm not an animator.

 

I don't use animating software all the time.

 

And it just takes so much longer to do an animation than anything else.

 

And I will say also, they're not always quite as practical.

 

Like, it's great if your thing shows, whatever you're viewing it on shows an animation.

 

But you can't print it out and get the same thing.

 

You can't put it on a poster or whatever and still get the same view.

 

So anytime I've done something where I've had multiple frames, you still have to think about, OK, well, if this was a static image, what would it be?

 

But I do think for the piston, it's quite nice.

 

I quite like just loading it up and looking at it, going round.

 

Rob Bell:

It is.

 

It's quite hypnotic.

 

I mean, it's so widely used, right, the piston.

 

We're using them now.

 

I don't know how many.

 

Tom Pellereau:

Probably six?

 

There are four.

 

Rob Bell:

Four?

 

Tom Pellereau:

Four, yeah.

 

Rob Bell:

Ben, as a non-engineer, are you aware of a piston and a cylinder?

 

Kind of the basics of what that is?

 

Ben:

I think it's a basketball team, isn't it?

 

Tom Pellereau:

Ben's got three pedals and a steering wheel.

 

Rob Bell:

I'm just interested because I know what a piston is because I've spent loads of time around them and that's the kind of stuff I enjoy, but probably not everybody does know exactly what a piston is and how it works.

 

Tom Pellereau:

And how common they are and how they created the Industrial Revolution steam engine piston.

 

Rob Bell:

Incredibly, the first piston is thought to date back to around 150 BC.

 

For use in metal works, pumping air to create the heat to melt metal.

 

And it's been developed and pushed on.

 

Tom Pellereau:

A syringe is almost half of one.

 

Rob Bell:

But the piston here is where we're very much talking about reciprocal motion, back and forth, back and forth, to get rotary motion.

 

Obviously used in internal combustion engines is probably what we most know it for.

 

Where it's been refined and refined so that you get more efficiency, more power, cleanliness of emissions.

 

Jono Hey:

For me, I think the genesis of bothering to do this sketch for me was reading one time that what a piston does is convert linear motion into rotational motion.

 

And I just, you know, I'd seen pistons on the side of steam trains and I knew that they were in cars.

 

But I just never thought about it so clearly that you're just taking something which is going back and forth along a straight line and what the piston does is it turns that into rotating a cylinder instead.

 

And I just think that's really clever.

 

And then if you take, yeah, as you'd say, if you take four of those and you time it all correctly and then get them all out, you know, operating at the correct sync, then you have a car with constant movement.

 

It's just really clever application of a super simple principle.

 

Rob Bell:

I think going back to the driving test, my driving instructor, when we're, you know, when you're in a manual car, you're changing gear, he taught me to think about the clutch plates coming together as I'm lifting the clutch pedal.

 

And I did, I visualized that.

 

And then I visualized that for ages.

 

And as a continuation of that, a lot of the time I spent in the car when I had an internal combustion engine car was thinking about the different moving parts, the clutch plates, the piston, suspension, what's happening when you go over a bump with your tires and your wheels and brakes, actually visualizing what's going on.

 

I mean, that's, I don't know, that's probably just me, I don't know.

 

Tom Pellereau:

You did end up as an engineer and a very good one.

 

Rob Bell:

I enjoy that visualization.

 

So this sketch for me is lovely.

 

It's just a, it's a lovely simple engineering principle, isn't it?

 

You can also use it the other way around, right?

 

Rotational for linear.

 

Tom Pellereau:

Yes.

 

Rob Bell:

You turn a crank around, around, around, and what you get out is a linear back and forth motion.

 

You can use that.

 

Tom Pellereau:

Yes.

 

Rob Bell:

Yeah, you can.

 

Tom Pellereau:

I'm trying to think of an application where you use it.

 

Rob Bell:

Well, you might use it like cutting.

 

You're having something like a blade that's slicing back and forth.

 

Jono Hey:

Pump.

 

Rob Bell:

Or pump, yeah, you might use.

 

Tom Pellereau:

Yes.

 

Rob Bell:

Yeah, there are other methods for that.

 

One's called a scotch yoke, I think.

 

Yeah, anyway.

 

Tom Pellereau:

Sounds tasty.

 

Rob Bell:

The piston.

 

Jono Hey:

Have a look.

 

Rob Bell:

If you don't know what it is, you'll know straight away.

 

Let's move on.

 

Should we go one more round each?

 

Jono, we're back to you.

 

Jono Hey:

Yeah, so I was going to touch on something, a really simple sketch.

 

It's called the windscreen phenomenon.

 

And I don't know if you've heard about it, but essentially, it's a very tangible observation.

 

And the sketch just has essentially two trucks.

 

And maybe it's showing my age, but even when I started driving, it's actually from before that.

 

So the example gives 1970.

 

If you were to go drive on the roads or the motorways then, it was a very common thing to be, if you were driving on a long journey, that your windscreen would get splattered up with dead bugs.

 

And so the common thing, you stop at a service station, you clean your windscreen of all these bugs or your headlights of the bugs.

 

And I do remember some of that as a kid.

 

And the windscreen phenomenon is that that doesn't tend to happen anymore.

 

And that if you go on a long journey, you won't tend to have to clean off loads of bugs from your windscreen.

 

Rob Bell:

In case in point, look ahead.

 

Jono Hey:

Yeah, it's a perfectly clean, clear windscreen with not a single dead bug on it, which obviously is sad for any dead bugs.

 

But what it shows is that there are way fewer, potentially, insects, flying insects around than there were 30, 40 years ago.

 

And insect numbers, I think, are quite a difficult thing, as you can imagine, to keep track of.

 

Tom Pellereau:

Very.

 

Jono Hey:

So, like, you know, how do you know how many of any particular type of fly there is around in the world at any one point?

 

And the answer is it's very difficult to find out.

 

But the windscreen phenomenon is this thing, which is a really gradual observation that if you go driving now, you won't tend to have to clear off many windscreen, bugs from your windscreen, whereas if you did that in 1970, you'd be all smeared up and you'd have to clean them off.

 

So that's what it is.

 

But it's about a potentially troubling decline of insect numbers.

 

Rob Bell:

It is.

 

Jono Hey:

In the wild, yeah.

 

Rob Bell:

I find it really interesting and want to know more about it because of that, what you're saying, Jono, that it is actually very difficult to measure this metric.

 

And so it's something that's quite, it's almost quite perverse way of trying to track it or have any kind of measuring or monitoring of it.

 

Jono Hey:

It's not the nicest way to measure it, but you know, I often think about that of any biologists or ecologists.

 

How on earth do you get the data on what these animals are doing?

 

I think we still don't know where blue whales go to breed or something like that, but you know, these things are really difficult.

 

You've got to be there somewhere in the middle of the ocean at some particular day for that one.

 

But yeah, how do you count insect numbers?

 

I don't know.

 

Rob Bell:

With the windscreen phenomenon, we've got all of these cars on the road all the time.

 

I read a couple of studies about this.

 

There was one in Denmark between 1997 and 2017 through a concerted look at the number of dead bugs on windscreens along two stretches of the same road.

 

An 80% decline was measured between 1997 and 2017.

 

That was on this one road in Denmark.

 

Maybe there were special considerations to take in there.

 

And another one in the UK.

 

In 2004, 40,000 people attached sticky films to their license plates.

 

And from that, it was kind of averaged out and concluded that you'd get one insect collision every five miles on average.

 

But then they did it again in 2019, or Kent Wildlife Trust did it again in 2019.

 

50% reduction in splats.

 

And then the Kent Wildlife Trust did it again in 2021.

 

It showed a 72% reduction since 2004.

 

So, I mean, if you look at those two studies, a definite decline.

 

Jono Hey:

Yes, and I think insects are the base of the food chain in many ways.

 

And so much eventually relies on them, just like plankton in the sea.

 

It's insects on land and in the air.

 

Rob Bell:

The plankton of the air.

 

Jono Hey:

Yeah, and so I don't know, when I read about this, I guess it's easy to think about insects as like pests or annoying, or they bite you or they land on your food or whatever.

 

But actually it gave me a slightly different perspective actually to treasure them and realise how important they are.

 

And actually you should be really...

 

I mean, it seems really weird to say it, doesn't it?

 

You should be really glad if there's loads of flies buzzing around or lots of insects in some area.

 

And nobody ever says that, but actually it's really important.

 

Rob Bell:

Exactly, a necessary inconvenience, right?

 

Tom Pellereau:

Yeah.

 

Rob Bell:

For a sustainable world.

 

Tom Pellereau:

As you said, Jono, I think it's very difficult to measure certain insect levels.

 

It does seem to be pointing to the fact that there is a large reduction happened in the last 20 years and certainly probably the last 50 years.

 

There's also a lot more cars on the road, and so I wonder if that has any kind of effect.

 

And what's hilarious is you could read into that, that insect intelligence has clearly increased significantly because they're that much better at dodging cars.

 

Rob Bell:

You read it as you wish.

 

Tom Pellereau:

It seems unlikely that that is the case, but that is sort of an example of how data has to be...

 

Yeah, obviously it's not that, but it could point towards that conclusion.

 

Jono Hey:

All the dumb insects got squashed on the windscreens and all the smart ones dodged it.

 

Tom Pellereau:

Exactly, they've just worked out, you've got to fly above cars and not through them.

 

I do genuinely sometimes think about, you know, when are the animals going to kind of work some of this stuff out?

 

Like, why cats?

 

Rob Bell:

Why is it all down to humans to prevent the decline of the Earth?

 

Tom Pellereau:

How come?

 

Obviously it's well known as to why humans are improving in our intelligence and improving in stuff.

 

But at the same time, you're kind of like, but the orcas recently, the killer whales, are one animal that do seem to be, you know, having a bit of a go.

 

Rob Bell:

Is this the attacking the boats?

 

Tom Pellereau:

Yeah.

 

Yeah.

 

And finding and nobody really knows why they're doing it.

 

But imagine, though, if all the animals decided to fight back against us, including the insects, including the insects.

 

Rob Bell:

Christ.

 

It doesn't bear thinking about it, does it?

 

Tom Pellereau:

Yeah.

 

But and we don't have to think about it because it's not really going to happen.

 

But.

 

Rob Bell:

Well, so one proposed explanation for at least in part the reduction in insects is an increased use of pesticides in agriculture, I guess, and farming and probably domestically as well, actually.

 

Tom Pellereau:

Yeah, very likely.

 

Rob Bell:

But I did read another stat that with modern design of vehicles that are more aerodynamic than, say, 20, 30 years ago, actually it could be found.

 

No, it's found the opposite, that the more boxy vehicles had fewer splats on their windscreen than the aerodynamic.

 

I know.

 

Tom Pellereau:

That's because the speed of the air, I suppose, around them was faster.

 

Rob Bell:

I don't know, that was part of the findings from the sticky license plate stuff they did down in Kent.

 

Interesting.

 

Curious.

 

Curious.

 

Right, let's move on.

 

That was the windscreen phenomenon.

 

Thank you very much, Jono.

 

Right, I'm going to round things off with a bit of advice to anybody driving.

 

Tiredness can kill.

 

Take a break.

 

It's estimated that around 4% of fatal road crashes and 2% of all collisions in Britain are down to fatigue at the wheel.

 

There we go.

 

There's a bit of braking going on, a bit of traffic.

 

Thankfully, our driver, Ben, doing an expert job, by the way.

 

Thank you, Ben.

 

This is great.

 

Keeping his eye open.

 

No tiredness there, despite the many miles he's travelled to pick us up and still miles to go.

 

We'll probably pull into services yet.

 

So those statistics, 4% fatigue responsible, 4% of fatal road crashes and 2% of all collisions.

 

It's likely that those factors are probably quite a bit higher, though.

 

It's very hard to test for the decline of bugs.

 

It's very hard to test for fatigue, unlike drink driving or drugs or whatever else it might be.

 

Jono Hey:

It's funny, though, isn't it?

 

It's interesting that there's not a straight up tiredness test.

 

I can't be like, I'm 50% tired.

 

And you're objectively 60% tired.

 

Tom Pellereau:

Yeah, there genuinely isn't any way of testing tiredness, is there?

 

Like, you can do a breath test for alcohol.

 

Jono Hey:

Press ups.

 

Rob Bell:

Physical tiredness, yeah.

 

Tom Pellereau:

You can give them a multi...

 

Here's an iPad, you've got to do this test.

 

Jono Hey:

It reminds me of...

 

Rob Bell:

You're clinically knackered.

 

Jono Hey:

I did a really simple sketch of, like, comparing Fahrenheit and Celsius.

 

And there's obviously stories behind the scales.

 

But it's interesting to think that before you had those scales, stuff was either just hot or cold or really hot or really cold.

 

And, you know, if I say something's really hot, your thing might be way hotter, but who knows?

 

Because there was no actual way to measure it.

 

But we're still just like that, we're tiredness, aren't we?

 

We are.

 

Rob Bell:

So what Jono very helpfully suggests in the sketch is that caffeine can help with that, help keep you awake.

 

But I guess you need to be aware of the effects of caffeine as well.

 

Different for different people, how long that might be able to last.

 

But typically when you're on the road, isn't it, take a break every two hours on long journeys?

 

Is that the recommended amount?

 

Tom Pellereau:

I believe so.

 

I don't know.

 

Rob Bell:

If you do take a break and you want some caffeine, that caffeine can take a little while to kick in.

 

So, you know, you could have a little nap.

 

Tom Pellereau:

Or get someone else to drive you.

 

I really do like this.

 

It's excellent.

 

Jono Hey:

So I learned that it's called a nappuccino.

 

Rob Bell:

Nice.

 

Jono Hey:

Which is like you drink the coffee, but it takes a little while for the caffeine to really get into the bloodstream and take effect, wherever it goes.

 

And so you drink the coffee, you sleep for 15 minutes, and that's given the coffee time to do its thing, and then you can carry on going.

 

I'll link to it in the comment, but talk about the half-life of caffeine, because the length of time that it stays in your body.

 

So if you drink a coffee, it takes about up to 45 minutes to get the maximum effect of that.

 

But then it takes a long, slow time for that to come out of your system, which is why, obviously, they recommend not drinking too much coffee late in the afternoon.

 

Otherwise, you won't get to sleep.

 

Especially my parents, who can apparently have double espressos after dinner and they're fine.

 

Rob Bell:

Yeah, it's different people.

 

Jono Hey:

I don't know how they do that.

 

Rob Bell:

I don't mind a coffee late at night.

 

There we go.

 

Thank you.

 

And good to end on some very sound advice on the road.

 

Great.

 

That was very fun, boys.

 

Ben, how's that for you as a very willing and very able driver?

 

Well, able definitely.

 

He's still awake.

 

Get that guy a coffee.

 

Tom Pellereau:

Good start.

 

Rob Bell:

Ben, anything we've talked about there that you might consider differently now on the road?

 

Ben:

One thing that's made me feel very guilty is the idling because, yeah, I thought it would affect you more than most, Robbie, because we sometimes with our four month old and our two year old idle them outside of the house if they're sleeping.

 

Because if you turn the engine off, they wake up, and that's not going to happen again.

 

I promise you.

 

Tom Pellereau:

Wow.

 

When they start screaming, you can blame Uncle Rob.

 

Rob Bell:

Yeah.

 

Yeah, but what good is that going to do?

 

I'm not there.

 

Yeah, fair enough.

 

Here we are on our high horse, actually quite high up in the horse of the Volvo XC90.

 

It's a lovely driving position, I must say.

 

But yeah, everyone's got their stuff to deal with, right?

 

Jono, Tommy, anything you want to add on what we've talked about on road issues, road safety, road worries, concerns?

 

Tom Pellereau:

Good question.

 

Rob Bell:

Now, I know to leave long silences there now, because it just could be people thinking.

 

Jono Hey:

Do you know what?

 

There was one sketch which I thought you would pick out.

 

I won't go into it too much, but it's really short, which was that our sensors, the idea that our sensors are built to take in information at human pace.

 

And I think it's a really nice observation from the Art of Travel by Alan de Boatain, who talks about trains being just perfect for thought.

 

But in general for our sensors, in some ways like being in a car, it's just too fast to take in everything that's going on.

 

He says that's quite a nice thing with the train because you can't actually focus on the outside and what's happening, so you get to focus in on your thoughts.

 

But the idea is that our sensors actually take in information best at walking and maybe at cycling sort of pace, and beyond that, you're not really engaged with the outside world.

 

Anyway, it's a really simple sketch, but it's a really lovely point, I think, and I think about it quite often when you're, if you're whizzing along, was it 736 miles an hour in the Bloodhound or something?

 

Obviously, you're not taking things in fully versus if you go for a walk or a cycle, that's the way you take in your surroundings the best when you're travelling.

 

I did, there's another sketch, it's not directly related at all.

 

I never actually connected it, but there's one about the middle floors being the best in apartment buildings.

 

Rob Bell:

I remember you talking about this when you lived in San Francisco in My Rise.

 

Jono Hey:

Yeah, exactly.

 

And my experience was if you were right on like the first or second floors, you're basically still fully connected to the road and the people and the things that are going on right outside.

 

And if you're right at the very top floors, you're completely disconnected from them in that you might as well be in a plane just like looking down at a city or like a map.

 

Whereas if you're in the middle, you're just connected enough that you can sort of see everything that's going on and you're associated with it.

 

But it's also not enough to like disturb you in any way.

 

You're disconnected from it.

 

And it's actually some parallels to the sort of speeds of travel there.

 

Rob Bell:

There we go.

 

Jono Hey:

Anyway, there you go.

 

Rob Bell:

Food for thought.

 

Food for thought.

 

Well, that's nine sketches on driving that we've covered there, ten or eleven actually, if you count those last two.

 

And as we're approaching our destination of Buxton here in the car, the podcast is also reaching its conclusion.

 

What a ride.

 

Thank you all very much for listening.

 

Don't forget to subscribe to the series if you haven't already.

 

And just like an Uber driver, you can always give us a rating too.

 

That'd be nice.

 

Please continue to keep winging your comments and messages our way as well.

 

Always fun.

 

And we'll be going through this week's postbag in just a minute.

 

Next week, we'll be back to the standard single sketch format.

 

And as this episode was a little bit of a bonus one for us, I'm not actually sure what's coming up next week.

 

But at the very worst, I'm sure it'll be fine.

 

For now, we're going to pop in to the next services.

 

We've got four Nappuccinos on order.

 

We'll find a place to park, handbrake firmly on.

 

Don't forget to bring the litter out with you, Tommy.

 

Come on, mate.

 

Until next week, stay well, go well.

 

Tom Pellereau:

Cheers.

 

Rob Bell:

Bye, Ben.

Thanks for driving us, mate.

 

Rob Bell:

All music on this podcast series is sourced from the very talented Franc Cinelli.

 

And you can find loads more tracks at franccinelli.com.