The world's most confusing timetable
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 13 ธ.ค. 2023
- Evan & Katelyn Heling and Emily Calandrelli discuss a question about a baffling bus.
LATERAL is a weekly podcast about interesting questions and even more interesting answers, hosted by Tom Scott. For business enquiries, contestant appearances or question submissions, visit www.lateralcast.com
GUESTS:
Evan & Katelyn Heling: @EvanAndKatelyn, / evanandkatelyn
Emily Calandrelli: @SpaceGal, / thespacegal
HOST: Tom Scott.
QUESTION PRODUCER: David Bodycombe.
RECORDED AT: The Podcast Studios, Dublin.
EDITED BY: Julie Hassett.
GRAPHICS: Chris Hanel at Support Class. Assistant: Dillon Pentz.
MUSIC: Karl-Ola Kjellholm ('Private Detective'/'Agrumes', courtesy of epidemicsound.com).
FORMAT: Pad 26 Limited/Labyrinth Games Ltd.
EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS: David Bodycombe and Tom Scott.
© Pad 26 Limited (www.pad26.com) / Labyrinth Games Ltd. 2023. - บันเทิง
Tom was right. I live in the area and was immediately screaming out the answer 😆
I live close to an area with similar tide properties. The danish island of Mandø has a comparable service. The Mandø Traktor-Bus
Northumberland is North-East England, which is roughly the middle of the UK.
Roughly the middle, yes- but Lindisfarne is a bit north of the middle and significantly east of the middle
Tom described its location as north east UK (he meant England)@@marksnow7569
Because of easter holidays as a child there, i thought holy island aka Lindisfarne with the bus crossing the tidal causeway.
"If one of you is Canadian..." It always makes me feel good to realize how much we Canadians have affected the world's sensitivities.
It just sounds like he was apologizing to any of them who happened to be canadians for calling them Americans... I'm sorry to see that being called an American can be that much of an insult... as an American, I apologize.
canadians and mexicans are americans too though ;p
For cutting down some poles ?
I know Tom didn't say it specifically, but E&K so frequently get mistaken for Canadians, probably due to their overwhelming niceness and extreme good manners
This can happen if you put all of your anger and aggression into a single bird species.
I managed to make friends with a pair of Canadian geese once. They were trying to cross a road but the goslings were too little to get up onto the curb.
I pushed my way to the babies with both birds attacking me viciously, but then as soon as I gently lifted the first baby onto the sidewalk they stopped beating me and biting me.
I got all the babies onto the side was and one of the parents started taking the babies to the water while the other, well I assumed he was thanking me.
Three more times later that spring as I walked by that pond one adult bird would fly in and land on the sidewalk and wait for her or her partner to bring the babies up so I could see them getting bigger.
A couple of the babies vanished. But the last time I saw the birds that summer the entire family was flying.
I did see the parents the following spring and they had more babies but then I moved out of the area.
I've had crows express gratitude but I never thought geese were that smart. They remember, and they remember your face. That is just a bit scary.
I've never heard of this island, but the odd timetable immediately made me think of the tides. When I was playing Ingress, there was an island, inaccessible at high tide, but also off-limits between dusk and dawn, that people would compete over, trying to capture it as close to sunset as possible. Never made it down there myself, but it was always fun listening to people figure out the best time to go.
it's where the vikings landed
First I said "tides," and then I thought "No that wouldn't be twice a week" and then I was thinking it was a bus that collects fans to Newcastle and Sunderland games, and it runs whenever either team is at home
In the late 70's I used to post the tide tables calculated by the County Council's mainframe. Oh happy days.
Being a fairly regular visitor to the Island, I got the answer immediately.
I grew up in Southern Louisiana and we could have flood waters coming up the bus steps, but we were still going to school that day.
I guessed it straight away from the "one OR twice" part, but It's so much fun to watch the group working together to figure it out.
Love E&K! So cool seeing them on the show
I would love to see the whole episodes as video...
You and everyone else
Initial thoughts: the bus is serving something that has that weird schedule, like flights to/from remote working locations or planned routes.
3:21 something like Mont Saint-Michel but in the UK instead of France, where the bus can only drive at low tides, and the twice a week is for the weekend tourists.
As someone familiar with the area I knew within the first 15 seconds that this was going to be excruciating watching them stumble around the answer!
wouldn't be mould in sea water, but they might have to scrape barnacles.
USA here; I was immediately thinking tides because of Tom's video about the tiny train that runs along a similar causeway (whose location I'm totally blanking on). :D
th-cam.com/video/NL5sRCRa7AE/w-d-xo.html
I think it's the Netherlands
I used to holiday on Mersea Island (yes, that is the correct spelling) in Essex as my aunt and uncle lived there. It also has a causeway connecting it to the mainland. As my mother used to say, it's one of the few places where a bus could run over a jellyfish.
Has there been a Tom Scott episode where you visit that location? It seems like it fits with other 'Tom Scott goes to an interesting place' vids.
I thought of it pretty quickly because I cycled across a similar causeway from near to Fromentine to the island of Noirmoutier in France. Fortunately there is also a bridge further down if you don’t want to wait for the tide.
They secretly enjoy non-locals getting swamped out
Before reaching the answer: I'm guessing it's dependent on something like a tertiary mode of transportation with inexact scheduling (like a ferry or small plane with only a few seats), possibly volunteer-run, so there's no sense in having it run when said mode of transportation isn't exactly on time.
Edit: At least I wasn't alone in my thinking!
The episode of Vera on 18 December 2023 - "The Rising Tide" - featured the island and the causeway.
Shocked there isn’t a main channel video about this
2:51 Emily's time working at Disneyland shows
- One or two times a day
- "seemingly" random
- affects a bus route
Anyone living in a coastal area would've guessed tides immediately, right? Like, my first thought was that the bus got on a ferry that has a tidal schedule, but still... same difference, innit?
Mersea Island in Essex is like that
I wonder if, Mont St. Michel has a similar, bus schedule.
Not sure about the french one, but St Michael's Mount has an amphibious vehicle that can take you across at low or high tide
The French one has an actual bridge that's above water level these days
I've been there as well, many years ago. There's a similar road to Saint Michael's Mount in Cornwall.
My first thought was that it went to a facility of people who work with Mars stuff and are therefore on Mars time
Reminds me of the bridge to Crammond island in Edinburgh
I'm more impressed that I know what is so important about Lindisfarne.
I knew the answer to this as soon as Tom said it. Have been there!
Never heard about this before, but when reading up on it I was surprised to learn that it was built as recently as the 1950s.
Failing go find more info on it, I have to wonder if it was designed with the intention of having it be flooded regularly, as well as how the construction of such a thing would even work, considering the circumstances.
So good to see E&K on the podcast!
I've not been to that or any similar islands in Britain, but I have in France. Not the most famous one, Mont St Michelle, but another in the same general region.
Guessed at part of it! Has anyone else seen the Anthony Andrews "Scarlet Pimpernel"? Lindisfarne features heavily in the last parts of it. Very cool place.
Huh, I guessed correctly because I know of a road in western France that's also only usable at low tide, but as far as I know it doesn't have a bus line running over it
that sounds like a cool bus ride
I *kind of* got this before they did, because of one of Tom’s previous videos… but I was thinking of the Broomway, which of course doesn’t have a bus 😂
Having come to Hong Kong for many holidays in the past, and now having lived here for over ten years, I finally bothered to check why that place is called Causeway Bay. 😂
People in (insert location), will be screaming the answer - Tom Scott
I live in the very South West of the UK and somehow guessed this right away. I’ve never heard about it before but it’s just the first thing I thought about 😅
Sounds like a great subject for a Tom Scott video! He even lives in the right country already.
After a storm they do have to clear the sand, mud, and debris off the road.
I'm about as far inland as you can go (Midlands), but guessed the correct answer as soon as the question was asked.
Was this question inspired by a recent (or somewhat recent) episode of Vera ?
Paris here, I've started watching this very episode less than an hour ago, only seeing the intro which is pretty much the same situation, and paused it to watch Tom's latest Lateral's.
I don't know if it's been broadcasted in the UK recently or a few months ago, but here it's the online premiere of next Sunday's prime time.
If it's totally independent, that's a nice coincidence to hear about a tide dependent causeway in Northumberland twice in a matter of minutes.
No, complete coincidence.
@@lateralcastProbably also a coincidence that such a causeway is a major plot point in the mystery novel _Flip Back_ , by Andrew Cartmel.
Sounds like a regular Tom Scott typical video idea
"Once or twice" pretty much gave it away for me, but I'd have needed some help putting together the image of the submerged bridge (...why would you build a bridge low enough to get covered by the tides, UK???).
Also, the tides actually DO primarily have to do with the sun, not the Moon! The Moon accounts for about 30ish% of the tides, last I checked, but it's really the ever-changing combination of the Moon's and Sun's gravitational fields that gives us such chaotic tides; if it was just one or the other, we would have extremely regular tides.
It's not a bridge: it's a causeway.
many uk viewers must surely have got this quite quickly. even those not from the region.
Anyone who went to Durham Uni probably got this one. Where my Coopland’s peeps at? 🙌
And here I thought, it might be something to with animals such some birds in in the morning that should'nt be disturbed.
.
5:26 Reminds of a location in Pokemon where you can only access certain parts of a cave depending on the tide.
I'm 37 seconds in and I already know the answer. Being from Tyneside and having gone to a Catholic school has finally come in useful
Time and **** waits for no man.
I didn't realize tides could vary so much day to day!
Didn't Tom make a video about this already? I seem to remember a video about this road, or atleast something similar.
Yes, it is vaguely familiar to me too
Just for once I knew the answer straight away
No clue about anything Northumberland or even where it is or if it was in England or Scotland or whatever
I thought about the plane thing at first but when that was proven false, access to an island at low tide was going to be my next guess
North-East of the UK is an area of Scotland, not Northumberland. Tom means England
Northumberland: Lindisfarne, Berwick, Alnwick, or Blyth. Thats all thats there
Here I was thinking, how can I not know this, then I watch the video and see, ah, it's a bus route in the North East and I'm down south, so yeah, would not have been able to guess though. But it has certainly given me something to do in the future.
Down in my area (Essex) we have a similar but not exact situation where there are two bus routes, the 63/86 which run to Mersea Island, the bridge is known to flood in high tides, thus cutting the island off. So instead both routes terminate at Peldon, which is the village just above.
The tides for the Causeway to Holy Island 2:17
Calls Northumberland "north east UK"....then apologises for calling a Canadian American!
Commenting after only the question: Is it the bus to Holy Island (Lindisfarne), which is accessible only by tidal causeway?
yep. If you're visiting, the best time is when high tide is in the middle of the day when it's much quieter - cross to the island in the morning and return in the early evening after a nice meal.
Is this the same road Top Gear parked the Hilux on to try to intentionally kill it?
That was at Bristol Channel.
The idea of building a vig bridge over to Lindisfarne....yikes!😂
I enjoy how none of them clarify if they're Canadian
I was thinking sports. Two games, maybe a tie breaker, possible overtime, but have a busload of fans whenever the game is over.
"only accessible at certain times"
Just take a boat. It's what we northmen did. Very convenient. Much profit.
Tom: Anyone from the Northumberland area is already screaming this.
Me: Hmmm... County Durham must be too far south, because I have no idea.
Emily: Tides?
Me: Oh! It's [the name of the place, obfuscated because spoilers]!
My answer at 22 seconds: It's the bus that goes to St Aidan's founding (an educated guess and I'm from the Midlands).
Now, let's see how long it takes the contestants who I bet are from landlocked regions...
I've seen this one.
Tom has time travelled to a time when Scotland is no longer part of the UK.
so 2025
Or he's travelled from an alternative timeline.
Maybe it was the UK-sounding name but my mind went straight to tides 😃
0:25 Is it a tide thing? of maybe a weather thing?
3:27 a tourist thing you say? is it like that ocean wave that goes upstream some very specific rivers?
4:42 AAAh! I did think about that at the start! But I figured it was too obvious.
I'm guessing they bus people to and/or from the match?
Northumberland "in the North East of the UK" Scotland "am I a joke to you"
Lindisfarne is in the north half and east half of the UK however you measure it
Has Tom not done a video on this?
Cool
To the question about why not build a new bridge. Whilst it incorporates a small bridge it's a causeway, a road laid across the sands. A new bridge would have to be well over a mile long and ruin an area of natural beauty. The island itself is tiny and the current system works perfectly well for 99.99% of users. It would be a wildly disproportionate and costly change for the sake of the occasional idiot.
It's clearly sign posted and yet I've seen people literally drive their cars into the sea at >20mph and then have to abandon them. I've not personally seen the RAF helicopters have to winch people to safety from the roof of their flooded car but a close friend has.
"North East of the United Kingdom". Is this Tom Scott from the alternative timeline where the 2014 Independence Referendum went differently?
Treating the UK as a whole, it is in the NE of the UK. -- David
first question: does the moon have something to do with this?
Northumberland should be a give away. Maybe more difficult for non UK folks
Maybe more difficult? I’m guessing 99% of the people who don’t live in the UK don’t know anything about this bus service or causeway.
@@joshl4111 I trust Tom's audience to be nerdy enough to know this
@@RossParker1877 I’m sure Tom’s audience is plenty nerdy, but that’s just a really specific, localised geographic fact, and the world is a big place.
Non UK folk here - can confirm that I didn't know this
As a Dutchie, I don't know Northumberland, but as soon as Tom read out the full question I guessed it to be because of the tides, with the bus road getting submerged, and the bus only running during daylight (hence 'once or twice a day").
If you're aware of how tides work the formulation of the question ('seemingly random times, once or twice a day') makes this obvious, even if you don't know any further details about this specific situation.
I have a vague feeling I’ve seen a Tom Scott video about this many years ago…
Is calling a Canadian an American like saying Northumberland is the north east of the UK and not the north east of England?
No, because Canada is in America.
It's like calling a Scotsman English. If you're lucky, you'll get an explanation of the many cultural differences...
the bus will get a bit wet, Tom the bus would get very wet
tides or something
Uses a tidally covered road?
Damn, I'm good.
I had no idea Americans pronounce "ferry" as "fairy".
Tides I'm thinking
✌
The question about the cat-owning cleaning lady in this episode was rather bad, and it's good you didn't upload it to TH-cam.
The question was that a cleaning lady cleans a house, and the catless home owner returns afterwards and figures out that the cleaner is a cat owner. How/why?
Without significant spoilers, the players figured that she rearranged something in the house in a cat-compatible way. The thing is that the thing was so arbitrary, they basically had to go through each room of the house to reach it, because there are so many things that could be changed in a house so cats don't break them. Then, the answer was, in fact, an inconclusive hint at best, not something to surely identify cat owners, as people just... do set things that way. Regardless of cats.
Just an arbitrary question all around. Even the cat owning player didn't get it.
Pro Tip: never read comments before watching.
three north americans
My guess is that it has something to do with tides. Maybe it runs along the seaside and the road is flooded sometimes.
I was going for football matches, since, you know, Britain?
Tides?
Editing the commentary on the screen - I notice the word 'like' is often omitted as it's become such a lousy habit lately. But sometimes I think it certainly shouldn't be. It's like, distracting, for want of a better word. (When I was young, saying 'you know' inappropriately was the bad habit, you know. But in person-to-person conversation it adds to the two-way communication, you know what I mean, don't you.)
Canadians live in America. "America" is a Continent, not a country. "American" is a nationality for citizens of the United States because "Usavians" is just an ugly stupid sounding name. Though it would be fitting for many of us, sadly.