Hello and welcome to another episode of No Such Thing as a Fish A Weekly Podcast coming

to you from the QI offices in Covern Garden.

My name is Dan Schreiber, I'm sitting here with Anichesenski, Andy Murray and James Harkin,

and once again we have gathered around the microvote with our four favorite facts from the

last seven days and in no particular order, here we go.

Starting with you, Shazinski.

My fact is that instead of being one of the founders of the USA, Benjamin Franklin almost stayed

in Britain to found a swimming school on the Thames.

This was his big idea in his early 20s, so he lived in London, he was working for a printer

as the printer's apprentice, and he liked to swim, and he nobleman used to queue up along

the size of the Thames and be like, what is this guy doing?

Swimming.

Which bit of the Thames?

Is this sort of London?

So he used to swim from Black Friars to Chelsea, which was three miles, I think, roughly

three miles, so that bit of the Thames.

How long was he here for?

He came back and forth, I think, so he was here initially for a few years, and then

he considered selling up a swimming school because he was teaching all these nobleman's

kids to swim, and he asked a friend for advice as to whether he should and this friend said,

I don't know if that's a regular idea, why don't you come and work for me in America

again?

...