Hey everyone, welcome to this week's episode of Fish. Before we begin, just to let you know that we have a special guest on this week.

Andy is away looking at fatched roofs around the UK. And so in his place, we have got the brilliant Ella Al-Shamahi.

Ella is a national geographic explorer. She's a paleoanthropologist, an evolutionary biologist, a stand-up comedian. She's extraordinary.

And she's written this new book, which is called The Handshake A Gripping History.

It's all about as it says on the tin, The Handshake. You know, where did it come from? How long have we had it? Is it dead? After this pandemic, it really is an awesome book.

It's got amazing chapters. I mean, take this as a chapter headline. Chapter number three, finger snaps and penis shakes. Who doesn't want this book?

So do go out and get it. It's available online. You can go back into physical bookshops as well to pick one up.

And do follow her adventures online as well. She can be found on Twitter on at Ella, underscore Al-Shamahi. Do that because she is packed with facts.

That's right. And you'll be getting a bit of a taster of those in the upcoming episode. But sadly, of course, Andy is going to be back next week.

And he's also going to be joining us for our upcoming tour. We couldn't convince Ella to come on that instead.

But yeah, we've got a tour coming up. Please join us. We are going to lots of fun places.

Belfast, Birmingham, Nottingham, Peterborough, Richmond, Dublin, and then loads more.

Go to nosuchthingasafish.com to get tickets right now. Okay, on with the show.

Hello and welcome to another episode of No Such Thing as a Fish, a weekly podcast coming to you from four

undisclosed locations in the UK. My name is Dan Schreiber. I am sitting here with James Markin,

Anna Tishinsky, and our special guest in his paleo anthropologist Ella Al-Shamahi.

And once again, we have gathered around on microphones with our four favorite facts from the last seven days.

And in no particular order, here we go. Starting with fact number one, and that is Ella.

My fact is that an anti-hand shake society was formed in Baku Azerbaijan in 1894 because of a

cholera outbreak. You paid six rubles as membership. You wore a pin to identify yourself.

And just in case you did slip up and shake hands, you have to pay three rubles as a fine.

You're volunteering to be fined. If you didn't join the society, you didn't have to be fined.

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