Nearly went with the alternate title: "Birch ply is good ply". It's true.

Fun fact about Tolkien: When he wrote The Lord of The Rings, editors corrected his plural of "dwarf", "dwarves", they claimed it ought to be "dwarfs". Tolkiens reply was essentially "I wrote the dictionary, don't you correct my plurals". Today, "dwarves" is considered the correct plural of "dwarf".

I'm now imagining a Monty Python sketch where Haiti and Liechtenstein keep adding things to their flags, and coincidentally add the same thing each time.

I love how Gary brought up a bunch of countries' national anthems having the same melody as "God Save The King", 'cause you know what country to this day has an anthem with the same melody? Liechtenstein.

There is the story that Tolkien got into an argument with the editor of the publishing company regarding the spelling of dwarves and elves vs. dwarfs and elfs, the editor's argument was that the latter method was the one used in the dictionary, to which Tolkien replied to the effect of: "I wrote the Oxford English Dictionary".
The accuracy of this event is of course debated, but it makes for a fun story.

I do hope the next edition begins with the end of 'that' round of applause.

Hilariously the National Anthem of Liechtenstein also uses God Save the King

A non-standard duration non-standing ovation?

Matt the tiktok you watched wasn't wrong. Your thyroid in particular requires iodine and your body absorbs it from what you eat and drink. Decaying uranium emits a radioctive isotope which can get in the water and soil, thus contaminating your food as well. If your body absorbs that iodine it sticks around for a long time and you get a lot of radiation over a long time. Taking lots of stable iodine prevents that from happening.

I can imagine Tolkein fighting the urge to just put in a picture of C.S. Lewis.

Rumor has it they are still applauding to this very day.
I'm glad it was edited the way it was 😊

All I could think of with that “OED” joke was :“You’ve won an "Abrevieviated Australian landmine that doubles as a standard dictionary: A.U.S.-O.E.D.-I.E.D”

The iodine tablets are used to preload the thyroid, so you don't take up the radioactive isotope when it comes along.

Oxford explosive dictionary is just a alphabetical list of explosives.

Thanks to Garry's clothing choices, I just now realised the one-letter difference between Yorkshire and Orkshire, which is quite appropriate for the Tolkien segment.

18:02 what Matt is thinking of is Luxembourg, not Liechtenstein. The other tiny country in Europe starting with L. It's all right across the border of the French nuclear power plant Cattenom.

11:55 Good to see that Tom is still putting Beth Roars' vocal lessons to practice. That was wonderful

The Entirely-prescriptivist dictionary, where we make up new words and insist that you start using them.

Blackadder moment. "They'd got as far as A and B". And I quote (from memory) ... "Baldrick, what have you got for C?" "Big blue wobbly thing"

When the original Geneva convention was signed  they nominated the red cross symbol as a neutral banner not representing any nation. What they didn't realise at the time was that the same symbol had been adopted as the national flag of Tonga a year before and as soon as somebody noticed they had to ask the Tongans very politely to change it.