Get ready to laugh nonstop with the best of CLASSIC QI! This ultimate compilation brings together 4 hours of hilarious moments from Series A, B, and C of the iconic British quiz show. Watch Stephen Fry, Alan Davies, and all your favorite guests tackle obscure facts, witty banter, and absurd questions that will leave you in stitches.
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Classic QI Compilation!
What color is the universe? Magnolia. Everything’s magnolia. It’s
um it’s very spacious, you see. So, you want a light color, but you don’t it wouldn’t
be overpowering if it was white. You might do a dark ceiling just to bring it in a bit. It’s
deceptive the universe cuz from the outside, if you’re God, it looks quite small, but when
you’re in there, it’s really quite spacious with plenty of storage. You’re very very
very close. I have to say it’s not quite Magnolia beige. Absolutely right. 10 points.
It is in fact beige. The universe. Brilliant. I can naked eye though. Not to the naked eye. I
quite agree. But it is official. Last year after analyzing the light from 200,000 galaxies,
American scientists announced the universe was pale green. not black with silvery bits as
it appears to us. Taking the Dulux paint range as a standard was somewhere between Mexican
mint jade cluster and Shangrila silk. However, to the embarrassment of the American Astrophysical
Community, a few weeks after announcing their discovery to the American Astronomical Society,
they had to admit that they actually made a mistake in their calculations and the universe was
in fact more a sort of taupe or beige color. I I thought it was gay whisper with a touch of amber
glow. Um, which is my favorite. This is my pancake color. It’s called gay whisper. Did you know
that? It actually is literal truth. Gay whisper. Gay is gay whispers like
Chinese whispers. Only more fun. What was the job of Aristoles? Aristocles better
known to his friends as wide boy. It also means flat oddly enough means wide and flat. Flat
flatulent flatulence. What’s a flat build sort of animal called? Duck build platypus. Plato is
the answer. Plato is the answer. Yes, he was his real name was Aristocles and he was known as
the white. Plato’s real name was Aristocles. Aristocles. He was nicknamed Plateau. There he
is. Oh my word. He went to a terrible sculptor. It must be so upsetting when you when they put the mirror behind you. Pull
it out like ask who sculpted you last. Yeah. Well, Plato was indeed the school boy
nickname of Aristocles from the Greek wide and it was given to him because of his broad shoulders.
His real name was Aristoles and Aristocles taught Aristotle. And what did Aristotle teach us the
world about buzzards? Oh, this will be something absurd because he did say something absurd. It’ be
ridiculous. It’ll be something mind or something like that. No, he he um felt he felt that some he
felt that there were there were birds who didn’t realize they were buzzards and it was building
up inside that they were latent buzzards. Lat five for something that I don’t quite know what
it is, Rob, but you get five something. I’ll tell you the answer actually. What? He thought they had
three testicles. Oh, you see this is the sort of thing he comes out with all the time. He’s very
overrated. Even though he knew a good sculptor, he looks all right there. Look at the robe on him.
There’s a really interesting thing I can tell you about buzzards. On the other hand, the Latin for
buzzard, the it’s it’s, you know, taxonomical name iso bouteo. Right now, there’s a sort of, as it
were, a subspecies of buzzard called a hobby, and it is subo. Oh god. Zabutia and the man who
invented a game wanted to call it the hobby and when he tried to patent it they wouldn’t let him
use the word the hobby so he called it after the Latin name for the hobby which is sabutia and
that’s why one is kicking a little testicle around the ball if you like how it all comes back
that’s where the name sabutia comes from it must be great to be a philosopher none of us could
sit there and count the testicles on a buzzard and really explain it or justify it What are you
doing? I’m counting the balls on a buzzard. Some better things to do. I’m a philosopher. Oh, well,
go ahead. Did you know that the pope when the pope is elected still has to have this ceremony in the
Vatican? After the pope is elected, the pope is carried over a group of the cardinals. And now, of
course, the pope actually doesn’t display himself. But in days gone by, he would display himself.
And the cardinals, this still happens to this day, when the pope is crowned, the cardinals, the pope
is carried on a chair over the cardinals and they look up and they say testicular habit at ben
pendentes. And this is Yes, it is. He has balls and he’s well hung. No, means that they are well
hung. They are hanging well. And it goes back to the time of Pope Joe when a girl masqueraded as
a young pope. And since that’s when the ceremony was introduced and so the tradition continues
to this day. Fabulous. Five points. Brilliant. I love it. Well done. What do you think is the
largest thing that a blue whale can swallow? Another blue whale. Surely this then would lead
one to think you’re leading us down a line there of a very small thing because it’s so big and
it really really tiny thing. But uh I’d say uh something huge kebab. Yeah, a kebab sideways.
Maybe it’s a conceptual question. The blue whale a very vain animal. Perhaps the largest thing it
has to swallow is its pride. Very good. Very good. or a very gullible animal that swallow anything.
Vegetarian though, aren’t they? Blue. No, they’re not vegetarian. No, it’s But they eat fish. But
you know, krill in fact is particular system. They do sit because because little krill are very
very small. In fact, it comes from the Dutch meaning very small thing. It takes ages. I didn’t
know you did a well. I was doing a blue sitting. It’s everything right except you know what? I’ve
never seen that. Everyone right except the hands. Very good. I reckon I could they could probably
get a ping pong ball down their neck. Yes. Ping pong ball. Something like an egg. Egg. You’re on
the right. They’re on the wrong lines. Nothing. Nothing bigger than a grapefruit. Really? They
have tiny tiny throats and they they can’t expand them much. Well, they’re the same size as their
navls. About the size of a small side plate. So they could be a supermodel. That’s their kind of
same diet, isn’t it? basically great except that they do eat three tons krill every day. It’s
good because they have the the biggest brain in the world, don’t they? They’re mostly in. And
but all they do with this huge brain is to lie in the water with their mouth open sits little bits
of food. Well, they’re really each other covering 10,000 miles. Their voices can be heard. That’s
pretty impressive. I’ve never mobile phones whale. Have you listened? I Well, 10,000 mi
underwater. Yes. Yeah. But not 6 ft up to the surface. Nothing. There’s a blue whale
about a mile away going. All right. I’m only here. Whale song. Shouting. Very indulgent jazz.
Do you think preform? Next question goes to Alan. What is the connection between the Archbishop of
Canterbury’s left ear and Adam’s belly button? his the ear and the belly. God, just as you said
that, there was a painting came up. How would we do this? I’m afraid. Yeah. Like, I’m not going to
ask the painting. That would be an insult. Adam’s on the left. Yes. Well done. That’s his belly
button there, it would seem. And the Archbishop of Canterbury’s ear. Yeah. The only time I can
ever think where you’d put your ear to someone’s belly button would be to hear if their tummy was
rumbling. You go, “Your tummyy’s rumbling. You’re hungry, aren’t you? True. Is that Is that what
it is? I’m afraid. I don’t want to astonish you, but I’m afraid it isn’t. Is it because Adam
wouldn’t have had a belly button? Would he been the first man and neither of the other You’re
really So, he’s good, isn’t he? I’m going to give him three points for that. The the fact is
they’re both purely decorative. Adam, of course, cannot have had a navl because he was created. He
wasn’t born. So there wouldn’t have been umbilical cord. You’re saying the artificial Canterbury’s
left ear is purely He describes it himself. He was born deaf in the left ear. So it has no if
his left ear is purely decorative. Yes. It’s very unimaginative for him just to have an ear there.
It really could have had anything he wanted there at all. donut or another another organ like a hand
racket or a shock a road sign a little chicklet or rather sort of surreal a portrait of Van Go.
Yeah, he could have had Van Go was missing. Yeah, he’d have a little Van Go there saying as if to
say, “Do you see?” Very good. Well, we’ve got something out of the wreckage. I I’m Who painted
that picture? 1475 till 1564. I hate myself for saying that. Those are his dates. He’s quite
correct. Michelangelo Bunarati. We have to give five points to Johnny Sessions for knowing the
birth and death dates of Michelle. We also have to hate him. Incidentally, we are very impressed.
You can do this. I’ve done this with John Sessions at parties. When was Brookner born? 1824. Died
1896. You see, it’s white. Is it wonderful? Mara 1860 born July the 7th in Kalist in Austria
died 1911 in Kistri. [Music] [Applause] I met a man the other day said he was a naval doctor. I
didn’t know they specialized that much. According to Rita May Brown, if Michelangelo had been
heterosexual, the cysteine chapel would have been painted basic white and with a roller. What
noise does the largest frog in the world make? Very good. Very good. That’s your
answer. Excellent. What’s that? Any other thoughts? Ribbit. Really loud. Ribbit. Ribbit. How do you spell ribbit? Oh, like that. That’s apparently how he’s
now. That’s rabbit in New Zealand. Ribbits. I will um I will tell you what the uh
the sound of the I actually give you to do it. I will give you my party impression. A
metallic noise like I was thinking about. No, there are frogs that do that. No,
I’ll give you This is it. It’s that it’s not that at all. No, that’s the
sound people being amusing because in fact the 3-ft long Goliath frog of Cameroon
and Equatorial Guinea is mute. Entirely mute. Makes no noise at all. There are 4,360
known species of frog. But only one of them, in fact, Alan goes ribbid. Uh each species
has its own unique call. The reason that everyone thinks all frogs, and this is true, the
reason that everyone thinks all frogs go rivet, is that rivet is the distinctive call of the
southern Pacific tree frog, this is the frog that lives in Hollywood and recorded locally, it
has been plastered all over the movies for decades to enhance the atmosphere of anywhere from the
Everglades to Vietnamese jungles. Frogs actually make a huge variety of noises. They croak, snore,
grunt, trill, cluck, chirp, ring, whoop, whistle, and growl. They make noises like sheep. Yes.
They also say it’s not easy being green. Less frogs make noises like sheep, like cattle, like
squirrels and crickets. The barking tree frog yaps like a dog. The carpenter frog sounds like
two carpenters hammering nails out of sink. And Fowler’s toad makes noises like a band of
red Indians whooping. Most female frogs, like the Goliath frog, make no noise at all.
cuz we can’t get a bloody word in edgeway. So, this round is all about
antelopee or antelopes. Uh, A is for antelope and B is for bongo. Apart
from the obvious, what is a bongo? Dude, um, uh, I’m assuming that apart from the
obvious, assuming that the obvious is, uh, some kind of African antelope, then the the
less obvious answer would be it’s a percussive instrument. Well, now we assumed that the
obvious was a drum. But the answer is yes, it is indeed a type of But if you introduce the
subject as this round is all about antelopes, you’re right. It’s a spectacular African forest
antelope with a caramel and white striped body as you see there. Um much prized by poachers. There
only a hundred reckon to be left on the planet. Can I just say there’s only a hundred people on
the planet that understand the works of Jacqu Derrida. So do you think they’re all bongos? That
is what philosophers call a false syllogism. Ah um this program’s gone beyond me. Who is
Jack Der first of all? Well, you can explain. He’s a French philosopher
and I don’t understand a wordy. What’s a syllogism? Um I know. Um, all men have
have um bollocks. All men can talk. Therefore, all men talk bollocks. Yes. [Applause] [Music] Antelope is very bad at plastering, isn’t
it? Look at that. That’s absolutely He’s not let the first coat set before the
second coat. Is there such a thing as silly Jism? Oh dear. Well, like a like
a cheap version of Play-Doh, you mean? There’s a there’s a film called Jism has
just um and I was in I that’s just come out, but it’s a Can I just say something?
It’s very strange because there’s um there’s some German chewing gum called Spunk
and um you be careful you don’t swallow it, but um In fact, I I actually talked about that
chewing gum on um Clive James’s show with you and Princess Diana. Do you remember?
Seriously, that was a dream. It was orange with purple. Ah, it’s like orange. Nothing
does. Oh dear. Oh dear. Oh dear. Oh dear. Oh dear. Oh dear. Oh dear. Oh dear. Oh dear. No. No. There
are two words in the English language that rhyme with purple two. Burple. I won’t say everyday
words, but there are two words. Now, I’m afraid you have to lose 10 points there. Okay, I’ll tell
you the answer. Lle, you will get there. If you go through all the sounds known to man, you will
get there. Maple circle doesn’t count. Circle dle carp. Do you know what you’re
doing on national television? Mrs. Davis’s little boy has grown up to go nerple circle. Not a fun word. If you had a
swimming pool and you you covered it in fur, it’d be a fur pool. Fur it would.
It would. It would. I’ll tell you the answer. It’s purple is one
word. I think I said you did. [Applause] Five points, Daniel. Five points. But
five points taken away if you also mentioned any other sound. Uh topple is to hobble along with one
leg dragging behind the other halfway between a walk and a crawl. Uh the other word of course you
could have had was kurple. Um I think you’ll find Didn’t I say I’d take 10 points away
if there was a second one that you’d already said? Yes. Yes. But I’m going
to take that back. I’m not going to uh kurple is the leather strap
passing under a horse’s tail. Tail. Is buckled to the saddle. Yeah. To stop
it slipping forwards. It’s better known as a cropper. Uh it’s also kerol. Uh it’s the
rump or hind quarters of a horse. Uh, now known now known as an I’m an idiot. Uh, or now known as the croo. Uh, the word appears
in a rhyme in the work of Scotland’s national poet and I shall give it to you. Abonte or mahap
deuce hanging or kerpel then on man everlap or proud imperial purple. What begins with A
has six C’s and no B’s. Clive. Uh well uh is it the is it the Welsh alphabet? I’m going to
guess mention the L’s which are there. No no L’s mentioned that the clincher. No B’s.
No B’s as in No B’s like that or is it is it C’s as in the ocean? Six C’s starts with A.
It’s American. There are no states in America being with B and then there are six C’s. There
must be California. There are two Carolinas, Connecticut. I think there are six. So I
think I’ve come up with the right right though. Possibly also wrong answer. But I’m
perfectly pleased. I don’t care if I get your points or not. No, you you don’t get points.
But I certainly get the admiration of us all. No, you you you work better at it. But but
on the other hand, let’s turn our attention to the question. Antarctica. Brilliant.
Thank you very much. It is the way. Oh, see I think I’m right. I’m not I’m not
accepting it because that’s not strictly true, is it? Because of course you have the uh the
Antarctican ice bee. If you did, then the question would be meaningless. Yes. I wouldn’t
put it beyond you to go now to Antarctica. Be in a match box just so you would get a point. B and
honey. He worked out the thrust of the question. Bes as in buzz buzzb and C’s as in oceans. He
is bordered by the Ross sea, the Davis sea, the Wedell sea, the Bellingusen sea, the Lazarf
sea, and the Ammonson sea. But not one, as I say, not one little member of the 92,000 himoptal bees
and wasps exists or has its being in Antarctica. That’s they they form part of the group. It means
wedding in in Greek. And there was a myth about the bees officiating at the wedding of Zeus, which
I told you about a few weeks ago. And I remember you being very bored by it then. I’m disappointed
that you haven’t remembered. The bees in charge of the wedding. Yes. They they catered for the
wedding. Now they mainly honey. They invented honey specifically for him. Where the diamonds
come from in the world? South Africa. Oh no. No. No. No, no. All the diamonds in the world
come from volcanoes. All diamonds are formed under enormous heat and pressure hundreds of
kilometers beneath the earth and aborted the service in volcanic eruptions. 20 countries in the
world produce diamonds. Just now South Africa is only the fifth largest producer after Australia,
the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Botswana, and Russia. You did well done you. Now, here’s a
quite interesting thing. Diamonds are made of pure carbon. Uh, and so is graphite, the stuff that
pencils are made from the lead of a pencil. Uh, but with the carbon atoms arranged slightly
differently. So slightly differently that diamond is the hardest known substance on earth with a
score of 10 on the mo hardness scale. But graphite is one of the softest like as in mo better blues.
No, as in m the name of the fellow who gave us this hardness scale. Diamond score 10 and and
graphite scores very very low 1.2 or something like that. about Harrison. He is well. How many
wives did Henry VII have? Number four, please. Six. All the six fives of Henry VII.
Just because other people have made the mistake, it’s no excuse for
you to make it too. He had six fives. He had major major commitment problems, didn’t
there? I imagine every time he said, “Oh, it’s not you, it’s me.” I suppose they had a trial
separation which involved a brief trial and a very major separation of head and shoulders. Exactly.
Right. Must have been very difficult for the new woman in his life each time. She’d say, “Oh,
I don’t know, Henry. Every everywhere I look, I just see her face cuz it’s on a pole.”
Absolutely no. Yes. Can I just say something interesting about Henry VI? Right. When he died
and his body was moved from Greenwich up to um wherever it went, Selfridges or somewhere
maybe Westminster Abby. We’ll maybe Westminster Abby. Possibly Kentucky Fried Chicken. I don’t
know. But um his his guts were so rotten and it was such a hot day that his stomach exploded.
Oh, what a Isn’t that a nice image? Yes. He was syphilytic and he was huge and he was he was a
mess of a man. Bloody gorgeous as a young man. He was as a young man. He was considered one of
the most attractive men in in all of Renaissance Europe. He was he was much admired. Athletic,
musical, poetic, bloated myself. Yes, he did get a bit. I can’t understand people who do. No. Yes.
It’s an interesting fact this answer is three or four. Henry’s fourth marriage to an of Cleves was
enulled on two grounds. It was never consumated. uh and she was already betrothed to Francis Duke
of Lorraine. This was uh correct in law at the time and all parties agreed that no legal marriage
had ever taken place. That leaves five wives. Uh the pope declared Henry’s second marriage to Anne
Berlin void because Henry was still married to his first wife, Katherine of Aragan. And the king
himself as head of the new church of England declared that his first marriage was invalid
on the correct legal ground that a man could not marry his brother’s wife. And Katherine
Aragan had been married to his brother Arthur. Did he or did he not have six weddings? Yes, he
did. But that wasn’t the question I asked. Did he say this is my wife? Six different people,
six different mothers-in-law. All said of him, he is my bloated syphilitic son-in-law. But by
his second marriage, he said he’d never be married because he’d never had a wife. Because his first
wife, he could not be married. All the family say, “Yes, you did. We were there. You heard the
speeches. They’d wake up in the morning dead, wouldn’t they? But there was no legal spousal
status. That’s the point we’re trying to make. But of course, how many tow strikes did he
have? That’s the That’s the way. Count the tow strikes and you’ll find out. Can I ask a
question about that painting? Yes. Is it all wrong in perspective? It looks 2D to me.
All Hobbines’s pictures are a bit flat. He did one on Martin Luther. It’s very flat.
Yes. Like a pancake or No, he did. He could certainly do perspective tricks because he did a
marvelous one which you have to see from below, didn’t you? We may find a picture. Oh,
yeah. That’s what he said. Often polit elongated skulls and things and
then when you move underneath it, the forcehortening effect of actually being
under the painting, it suddenly becomes exactly the right proportions. Michelangelo painted
the ceiling of the cyine chapel. Good lord, you are extraordinary. How do you do these things?
It took four years. Yeah. Which is the same length of time it takes to paint the fourth bridge in
Scotland. You you’re struggling towards being interesting. I can give you two points. Does
anyone remember there’s a wonderful line in that film, The Agony and the Ecstasy, which
is about where Charlton H plays Michelangelo and Rex Harrison plays Charlton H plays
Michelangelo. The beat Italian homosexual. Yeah, that’s the one. The president of the gun club.
He was an athletic. He was an athletic Italian homosexual. I thought he was a wussy one. He
may well have preferred man on man action. That doesn’t mean he was flurry. I don’t like when I
say wussy one, I don’t mean he was he was gay. I mean he was a bit of a I thought the other way
around. I thought Da Vinci was the hard case. No, no. My country was an animal. He was he was
physical was he never washed very strong beard and and and Alan Yento said this but but he
preferred to take it up with Gary bit never now depending on whether you believe the pope or
indeed the king or both of them together Henry VII therefore had either four wives or three. What did
the ancient Greeks use blackberries for? Um tarts, pies and occasionally a nice salad. Is
it to do with health or beauty? It is to do with health. Not really beauty I think
would be pushing it but health they used to push them up their backside comfort them
from the radish when the radish came in the blackberries would cush in the blow. It’s
sort of almost true because they they used it as as a specific against piles and I dare
say having a few radishes hammered up you would would probably induce piles. Now one in
10 ancient Athenians did it regularly until the Macedonians put a stop to it in 322 BC.
What am I talking about? They’re not doing it there incident in that picture behind. They
pay their utilities bills by direct debit. Would you recommend the direct debit route? It
takes the hassle out of it. Does it? It takes a hassle out of it. You can’t put a price on
peace of mind. So, what do Greeks is it Greek or something that something Greeks invented?
Something we do. Something we do. We do it. Something we do. Oh, elections. have yet. They
voted they voted for all their chieftainers, all their leaders, all their all their
wise men. They voted for their justice at the Aropagitica and uh democracy was born.
It was snatched crudely away from them by the Macedonians. Uh invented though in ancient Greece,
Speaking of crude, lasted only 180 years. Pinto, the Greeks regarded small testicles as
rather artistic. I’m a man out of his time. You get five points for being British. Uh,
only 10% of the population ever had the vote. Greek women had to wait another 2,274 years
until they finally got theirs in 1952. The patron saint of Qi is the ancient Roman gas
pinusundas, better known as Ply the Elder. His natural history is the great encyclopedia
covering all human knowledge at the time. Life, he said, is my subject. and he estimated that
the 37 volumes that he wrote contained 20,000 important facts derived from 2,000 books. The
28th book of his magnumopus is what concerns us now. Uh packed as it is with antidotes,
state-of-the-art remedies culled from the great medical minds of the ancient world. So Danny,
what does Plenny confidently expect to cure by recommending that the patient eats the heart of
a black jackass outside out of doors that is on the second day of the moon? MS have no idea. So
um here here’s there was a suggestion once that uh there is the key to eternal life lies
in the elbow and if it can be consumed uh if then you would live forever which is why
nobody no matter how hard you try can actually lick their own elbows even though clearly I know
the audience desperate to have a go so attainable until you come to here and whether the theory came
first or the or the curse came second you can the idea that you cannot lick your elbow but they If
you can, you will live forever. But isn’t that how socialism was invented? That someone said, “Come,
let us lick each other’s elbows.” He doesn’t have the thing. So, that no young man of licking age
spent any time at all trying to lick his elbow. The question was, why would you eat the heart
of a black jackass by the light of the Well, it must be something awfully serious you’d have
wrong with you. Yeah, because because the heart of Where do you get a black jackass anywhere
these days? These days Kentucky fried jackass. Well, I’ll tell you the answer. Gout. It’s not
gout. It’s not gout. It’s actually epilepsy. Um although he also uh prescribes for epilepsy the
consumption of lightly poached bears testies. um a camel’s brain dried and taken with honey
or in extremist a draft of fresh gladiators blood. He doesn’t he doesn’t mention Tegrl
then. No. Is that the specific you favor? It is. That’s a specific drug for epilepsy. Do do
you have epilepsy yourself? Uh no. No. But you those who do knows about drugs, does she?
Yeah. Cuz she’s a nurse and a drug addict. Do you think um you could teach an octopus? But
there’s an octopus. Well, I could Could I teach an octopus? Well, yeah. What What can I have seen an
octopus? Yes. Good. I went scuba diving. I’ve seen one on a plate in a restaurant in Greece. They
use the ink to make risad. They do. Do you know how octopus is mate? Tell they mate with their
third right arm. Do they? We all do that. Yeah. [Applause] Um, yeah, they use their third right arm to
transfer the sperm to the female, which is kind of handy because it leaves the other seven free
to hold the kebab and the remote control. Is it right they’ve got a brain per tentacle or have I
am I making that up? No, you’re not making it up, Clive. It’s it’s it’s it’s a matter of some
debate amongst students of of the octopus. Let’s join in then. It doesn’t have a a sort
of discrete separate brain, but some believe that it needs such extraordinary um neural power
in order to control the thousands of different suckers separately, which it can do. That the
sort of intelligence is located somewhere, not exactly a brain as we know it, but it they
are very bright and they can be made to recognize colors. But there’s a particular trick they can be
made to do which is quite impressive. And this is what we need to teach you. Yeah. Which it can be
taught. Play the drums. You can no good. assemble a drum kit really quickly. You can unscrew I
can unscrew the lid off a bottle or or or some sort of container. Yes. And it can take up to 10
seconds or an hour depending on how tight the lid is. But the odd thing about girls can’t do that.
They loosen it first. As you well know, the one thing that the one thing that men can do now that
the women can ask everything else apart from open jars. And once once women work out how to do that,
we’re finished. Yeah, that’s true. Now you got to do it. You don’t need we’re doomed as a as a sex.
Um the odd thing about them is they have very they don’t have very good memories. So they have to
learn every day. So scientists can teach them, but they have to teach them each time how to do
it. And they’ll they’ll pick it up very quickly, but the next day the same octopus will forget
it. They’ve got three hearts and they’ve got three hearts. I can do five points because that’s
quite interesting and true. Very good. Because if you cut one of the tentacles off, it will still
reach for food. If you can keep it in the kitchen, take the lids off all your jars. Very good. Now,
this third round is about actors. After weeks of being pointedly ignored on tour by Sir John
Gilgood, Clive Morton, the character actor, plucked up the courage to knock on his dressing
room door. Gilgood opened it. “Thank God it’s you,” he said. “For one dreadful moment, I
thought it was going to be that ghastly bore, Clive Morton.” “Now, why, Hugh?” Yes. Why does the
actor Edward Woodward have four D’s in his name? No. What are you doing? What are
you doing? Edward spasm. Go. Can’t do that. I’ll put it out. Just carry
on. You know, it’s quite interesting. Yes. Good. That’s what we’re here for. As
you know, very good. Kiwi fruit uses more than its own weight in aviation fuel
to get from New Zealand to Europe. Five points. Wonderful. Another
five points. It sounds mad, but is it? Of course. True. Absolutely.
And regarding the Edward Woodward. Yes, that’s how you speak. Oh, no. You know, really,
that’s fine. I was going to say exactly that, that it’s got that many D’s in it because
that’s his name. If you took the D’s out, it would be a different name. Woo. Woo. Exactly.
It bewoo. It’s a sort of structural device like a like a joist which which starts his name
collapsing into the sort of spongy mass of Iwu. You’re mentioning Edward Woodward and before
that I mentioned John Gilgood. John Gilgood when he first heard the name Edward Woodward said it’s
an interesting name. It sounds like a fart in the bathwood. It does talk a little about Alexander.
He’s worth it. Um according to one book though God knows what kind of book it was. who was the 33rd
most influential human being who ever lived. I don’t know what sort of cast him there would write
a book there. That’s a representation of Oh, he was great because there were four of him. No, he
was just in an early boy band and he could do that trick where he puts his eyeballs down and go, you
just see the eye on. What did Alexander the Great do with the banana and the ringnecked parakeet
party? Was he like a hell of a night going to those people that go into casualty and say, “I
was just hoovering and I slipped and it went like I put the parrot in to get it out.” Well, no. The answer is actually that Alexander
the Great introduced them to Europe. Yes, he brought along uh the banana, the
ringneck, parakeet, sugar, cotton and crucifixion. All of these useful commodities
uh or practices came from India. In fact, apart from crucifixion, which was invented
by the Persians. Persia is in Iraq now, isn’t it? No, it’s Iran. God,
you’re like George Bush, aren’t you? Now, uh, back to Alexander. What was uh his hair
regime? Um, and which part of him was dipped in honey? Henna, lemon juice. Like henna, because
of course red heads very common that part. Hoba, not like him, brother. What’s the month
after September? Very good. Very good. Very good. Billy Connley. Yeah. Well, the
answer is actually he he he washed his hair in saffron uh to keep it lustrous
and shiny orange. Quite right. Saffron, which was a seriously up market type of shampoo
cuz at the time saffron was as rare as diamonds and more expensive than gold. And all of him
was dipped in honey is the answer. When he died, he was imbalmed in honey. What is the youngest
age? Think carefully. What is the youngest age that a child can knock back a pint of mold wine
or a couple of double bries in a restaurant beer garden in the UK? 18. Oh dear. No, no, dear.
No. Yes. 12. If you met him on the internet, you can’t have double brandy in a pub unless
you’re 18. She’s 5 years old. Yeah. What? What? 5 years old. Yes. It’s only illegal for children
between five and 18 to consume alcoholic drinks in the bar, a place defined by the law as chiefly
or exclusively for the sale and consumption of alcoholic drinks. Pub restaurants and gardens
don’t count provided the child has the drink bought by an adult. Oh, they’re not the bar.
How does the child get around in there? No, that’s the beauty of being a child. That’s why
our practice died out. that wouldn’t get around. Drink treat. Five. Describe either James Bond’s Bradford or his
Vesper. Well, is James Bond’s Bradford a bit like uh is it James Hwitt as Yorkshire um or um Thomas
Hardy’s Wessex? Is they’re just rebranding it. So, so in describing it wrong, sorry, it I
sense I got it wrong here, but I couldn’t couldn’t quite put your finger. Is it an item of
clothing or a briefcase or a pair of shoes? No, it’s that’s closer than than it’s closer
than the city in Yorkshire. Certainly. Is it What is he almost best known for?
Martinis. Yes. Ian Fleming worked in naval intelligence during the war. He did. He
did indeed. Is that interesting enough? Uh, it’s pretty well known though, isn’t it? Dear
really good. Sorry. Did I call you dear? Just sorry. So sorry that happened. Do apologize.
It’s It is in fact the official name for a martini that is shaken and not stirred. Most
martinis are stirred, but when it’s shaken, it’s called a Bradford. They’re very specific
names. If you put two olives on a stick, it’s called a Franklin after Franklin Roosevelt.
Yes. If you put a a cocktail onion on the stick, it’s called a It’s called a cocktail onion on a
stick. Well, obviously it’s called something. Yes. It’s called the Gibson. Yes. But in fact, because
the Bradford contains three measures of Gordon’s, one measure of an extraordinary sort of vermouth
called Tina Llette, it says when you’re looking at it, I’m sure it must be lipos. I mean, you
put a lin in there, you wouldn’t have any drink. Why would you if if someone said to offer
me a drink called a Bradford? I’d assume it’s like vodka and a rash of streaky bacon
sticking out. Maybe a pork pie on a knitting needle something. Well, is there an official
place name? Why Why is a rusty nail called a rusty nail and all the Collins family have
drinks named who is there a clearing house? There are histories of this. I mean the um the
first uh the first bloody Mary was actually was in St. hotel in New York and was actually
called a red snapper which is not a good name for in Australia they call they call a Virgin
Mary they call a bloody shame which is good [Applause] cocktails developed during prohibition
because the the bathtub gin was was so notoriously gut rotting and and tasted so dreadful that
all kinds of additions were made to but Bond insisted on a shot of vodka so he had his it’s
usually six to1 six six gin to one of vermouth or vermouth whichever you prefer and uh he added
this vodka which makes it strictly not a martini so the uh bond actually gave his own name which
was a vesper there’s a rather good phrase in one of the bond books to bond the best drink of the
day was the drink he had in his head before the first drink of the day good we sort of know
I don’t really like James Bond no he’s cruel cruel man I don’t think I’d like him if I met him
I think I’d think he’s a bit of a prat yesah blah blah blah blah blah blah What? I’m undoing your
zip with my magnet. Yes. And you should read the read the books cuz I don’t have time to read
the books. I haven’t read all yours yet. Well, no, that’s Nobody’s done. Read Fleming first. We
read Fleming first. Yeah, they’re awfully good. They really are. Chapter Casino Royale begins.
Bond lit his 80th cigarette of the day. Now, how can you dislike a man? I mean, that’s
it’s full of interesting stuff. For instance, Bond has these strange ideas. Um, he has this
idea that homosexuals can’t whistle, for example. I think they’re always in their mouth. Yeah.
[Applause] I want you to go and stand in the corner. You just put your lips together and
blow. I’ve had a [ __ ] You can easily say the word boom. Yeah. Which is a cocktail and
you get it in a shooter glass and it’s got something like drami or baileies or something
in it. Oh, how sophisticated. And then just got it’s got whipped cream out of a
can on the top of it and you get it put on the you get it put on the
counter like that and you’re not allowed to use your hands to drink
it. Just cuz someone grown it up. You have to put your hands behind your
back and I’ve never been to Essics. Anyway, [Applause] where do all the diamonds
come from in the world? South Africa. Oh, no. No, no, no, no. All the diamonds in the world
come from volcanoes. All diamonds are formed under northern heat and pressure hundreds of
kilometers beneath the earth and aborted the service in volcanic eruptions. 20 countries in the
world produce diamonds. Just now South Africa is only the fifth largest producer after Australia.
The Democratic Republic of the Congo, Botswana, and Russia. You did well done you. Now, here’s a
quite interesting thing. Diamonds are made of pure carbon. Uh, and so is graphite, the stuff that
pencils are made on the lead of a pencil. Uh, but with the carbon atoms arranged slightly
differently. So slightly differently that diamond is the hardest known substance on earth
with a score of 10 on the mo hardness scale. But graphite is one of the softest. Like as
in mo better blues. No, as in m the name of the fellow who gave us this hardness scale.
Diamond score 10. And and graphite scores very very low 1.2 or something like that. about
Harrison. He is well. Who discovered Australia? [Applause] James Cook. Oh, Joe, I’m so
sorry. No. Um, apart from the Aborigines, it was the Chinese who reached it as early as
1432. When Cook arrived, James Cook in 1770, not only was he not first, he wasn’t a captain
either. He was left tenant cook nor was he the first European. The Dutch had got there 150
years before that. Nor he was he even the first Englishman uh who was William Dampia in 1688.
What’s wrong with the Chinese and the Dutch? The Dutch have discovered almost everything
first. But they’re just thought of as being people homosexuals who who smoke joints. Actually,
there’s a lot more to them than that. A lot more. But what is it with the Chinese that they went
round really early on and then never went anywhere to stay at home and bred ferociously? We’re we’re
wandering happily around the globe and this is a good thing but I’ll just return us to Australia.
It has of course been inhabited by aboriginist for at least 40,000 years possibly as many as 60,000.
Uh so if anyone gets the credit it should be them. But what nationality were the original aboriges?
[Laughter] Yes. Um they came ac they came across a land bridge which was later separated with
by shifting of tectonic plates. [Music] So they will have come from Southeast Asia
probably. So I would say they were Chinese. I know what you I know what you think. It’s
certainly true, isn’t it? Australia was was connected separated which is why they have
marsupials and why they have all their own brands of laga. Exactly. I want you to think
not Australian. The first Aboriginals were not Australian or anything to do with Australia. Where
was the term Aborigin first used for peoples? Was it in the aisle of white? A wild stab. It could
so easily have been right. No, it wasn’t. It’s the word for the indigenous population. The origin.
Yes. The original aboriginalists lived in the part of Italy where Rome now stands and they
were called aboriginalists and and so it it’s for some reason has stuck most with the Aboriginal
Australasians but there are Aboriginal Canadians. You you could call the American Indians or Native
Americans. You could call them Aboriginals if you want. You could but it was more fun to call
them Redskins. Yes. I wouldn’t try it though American. Thought you’d have your balls turned
into a small purse. You’re doing very well. Now, what does a very big purse I think you’re What
am I thinking? My balls turned into a rucks sack. Now, Sean, in 1913, the world long jump champion
was an Englishman who could leap backwards from the floor onto a mantelpiece without losing his
balance. What interesting position was he offered after the First World War? There he is. But he’s
very he was an extraordinary sportsman. He could and he could what when you say he could leap he
could backwards from a stationary position onto a mantle piece just leap. He was uh described
by John Allard as the most variedly talented Englishman uh ever born. He was captain uh England
and sorry for cricket. He appeared in a FA Cup final. He had the world long jump record. This
isn’t your relative is it? It is CB Fry. Yes. What I want to know is how did he discover he
could do that? I suppose he interfaces. Yeah. How do you find out you can do that? You can just
be standing in front of the fireplace and go. Is it a really boring party? Lord Delont was
turned for a canopy. I’m out of it. Maybe there was a rattlesnake on the floor or something like
that. Well, he was he was somebody came to for a [ __ ] and said, “I fancy a blowjob.” And he would
have no he was a fry. He would have welcomed him. just put himself in a better position. Charles
Burgess Fry, CB Fry, the greatest allrounder the country’s ever produced. What extraordinary
position was he offered after the first world war? And also, was that a mantle piece with or
without ornaments? Any time had a big tank of tropical fish? Yeah, competitive mantel
piece leaping. You just clear it. Yeah. just moved most of the stuff off it. Maybe he
was on the mantelpiece. Mhm. Lost his balance and thought I must get back up before anyone’s
noticed. Lost his balance, fell on the sofa, bounced back up. Yeah, me. Did you just jump
backwards onto that man? Or was it one of these sports we play? It’s a very old English pursuit
jumping backwards. Yes. And there’s a famous canal jumper from the black country, sound like Jack
Derby, and he could leap 32 foot across a canal from a standing jump. There’s a statue of him
on one of the canals. And the way he did it was weights. He had two weights in his arms and he’d
swing them like that. And then throw them and they take him across and he’d go to the other side. And
his name is something like Jack Derby. And there’s he was he died in the 30s. He died in the canal.
He could also he had the word statues of the the world jumping backwards record 13 foot. Oh,
there you are. Well, there you are. You see, it means something. Will he be fright to
bring us back to Charles B. Did he not feel, you know, once he’ done the mantle piece
thing and everyone that’s fantastic, right? That is so brilliant after that. You think
he maybe started to pull a bit? They think, oh, they’re doing the mantle piece thing again. It’s
the thing he did. It was just a party piece he did three or four times. It wasn’t enough that
he headed the class list at Oxford. He had the world long jump record. He played in an FA Cup
final captain England and headed England batting averages for four years in succession. Spoke
five languages. And what was this extraordinary position? Well, he was he’s obviously a
member of the Fry family. You find Well, that is extraordinary. The
quiz master on a panel game position by a governmental thing. By the most
governmental thing that existed after the first world war, League of Nations. The League of
Nations. No, he was head of the League of Nations. He was referee. He refereed the playoffs for the
League of Nations. President of the League. King of the League of Nations. No, not of the League
of Nations. One of the nations within the League of Nations. King of Albania. It was offered the
throne of Albania. Yes. There you are. Finally, we got that. He said, “I don’t want the throne.
Just give me the mantle piece.” Stop. I’m sure they never mentioned the bloody mantr. It was just
one of the many things he could do. All right. Let’s not refine on it. Let’s not make it too
big a deal. He did it once or twice. The reason he was offered it was his great friend was Prince
Rangjit Singi. Um together he and Fry dominated the cricketing world. It was known as the golden
age of cricket still. Um and Prince Rantit Singi was an important officer in the League of
Nation when it was founded. And uh he brought uh Fry along as a speech writer to the League
of Nations and they met the Albanian delegation which was rather unhappy because the uh the king
of Albania had been deposed and run away and uh so they offered try uh the throne and he accepted
but his friend Hilair Bellow the the poet said no. He said don’t accept it. He said all you need
is a cellar full of wine and the society of those who love you. Turn it down. So he did. What are
atoms mostly made of? Well, they’re m they’re they are not most they are just made of the thing that
they are in that they are not combined with other atoms. They are alone. Therefore, they are just
an atom. It’s it’s not exactly a trick question, but they’re mostly made of nothing by a very
very long way. Even even the atom of stone or diamond is more nothing than it is anything solid
things like a tiny really small little piece of nothing. Does it have protons and electrons or is
that a molecule? You’re right. No pro protons and neutrons in the middle there which is the nucleus
and then the electron which whizzes around the I remember that from physics. Yeah. An atom in fact
is uh much much emptier relatively speaking than the whole solar system. Ernest Rutherford, the
first man to describe the inside of an atom, likened uh it likened it to a few flies in a
cathedral. That’s what those little particles are inside the atom. The simplest element in the
universe is hydrogen. It has a nucleus of just one proton around which orbits a single electron.
Now, if the proton were the size of a drawing pin Yeah. Yeah. Uh the electron would be the size
of a pin head and it would be 1 kilometer away. Yeah. But if I were to put a pineapple on my head,
I’d look like Carmen Miranda. But I don’t I don’t think you’ve quite entered into the screen.
Well, they’re really hard to divide up into more than one part. Yes. Because the word means
that it means it means no cut. Can’t tom Yes. I think it’s tomo is the Greek for I cut and as
in appendecttomy to cut cut the appendix and so on. And the rather wonderful English word tisis
which as far as I know is the only English word that begins with the letters TM. TM Sis which
is rather wonderful which is that when you cut a word in half by putting another word inside
like saying absolutely or send [ __ ] station to me or scanthorp. Thank
you very much. [Applause] Who was the first man to claim that the
earth goes round the sun? Um Capernicus. Oh no. very old. Not not not Cabernacus.
Galileo. Nor Galileo. Galileo. Galileo. No, we will not do the No. What’s the
play? Right. You rip his trousers. No. Stop please. Archimedes. No.
No. Not Archimedes. Og the clever. His name is Arisus. Yes. Yes. Arisakus of Samos.
He runs a restaurant on the 7th. He was born in 310 BC. Uh still alive whole 1800 years before
Nicholas Capernicus. Not only uh did Aristocus suggest that the earth and the planets traveled
around the sun. He also calculated the relative sizes and distances of the earth, moon and
sun and worked out that the heavens were not some celestial sphere but a universe of almost
infinite size. How many planets are there in the solar system? Nine. Oh, sorry. Once again, nine.
Not the right answer. There’s another forfeit of 10. I’m afraid I’m afraid the answer is actually
eight. I’m going to write them down. You carry on. Okay. Mars. Yes. Mars is one. Pluto. No. Oh,
here we go again. Pluto is a planet. Goofy. It was discovered in the 1930s. It was the most recent
planet to be It was discovered by by Clive Tombbor in 1930. Exactly. Yes. Well, it’s a it’s a it’s
a collection of gases. It’s not actually It’s not a planet. By no criterion by which planets are
judged could Pluto be said it’s really really big and it goes around the sun. Yes. So it’s
not really at all. It’s tiny. Well, that’s why it took so long to find that. Don’t be hard on it.
No, there are many others. There are many others of the same size that are going around the sun
which are which are not classified as I watched an entire BBC series called the planets called
the planets banged on and on about there being nine. Um there was a great movement of foot to
discover the ninth planet. Hubble the astronomer had predicted there would be a ninth planet and
Clive Tombbor in 1930 discovered Pluto and claimed that it was a planet. But almost everybody now has
agreed that it isn’t. What is it then? It’s a tiny ball of ice. They’re the the sort of earthy solid
planets like Mars and Venus and but they’re not both solid because Uranus and uh is is known as
one of the gas starting to say there are the four Earth ones and there are the four gas ones. That’s
what I’m saying. But Pluto is neither. On the other hand, if Pluto can be said to be a planet,
then so can the asteroids already technically known as minor planets. in the year 2000 71,788
of these with more being discovered every year. Pluto is only twice as big as the largest of these
which is series and is not only much tinier than all the other planets uh but is smaller than
seven of their moons as well. Is there a rest stop between you and the indust? What man-made
artifacts can be seen from the moon with the naked eye? Yes. Someone said it in the audience.
What was it? Great Wall of China. Oh, you’ve done it again. I can’t believe it. [Applause]
[Music] Which moon are we talking about? Oh, Rich Hall, I think. I love you. That’s a
damn good. You’ve got to have 10 for that. Um, the fact is nothing man-made could be
seen on Earth. uh from the moon too far away. Uh it it’s much much too far away.
Even the continents are quite different. What’s invisible and travels at 38
miles an hour? Number four, please. I think it is it the uh the air that we
expel from our nasal passages. It isn’t that. I’m sorry to say. 38 miles an hour and
it’s invisible. Yes. It’s got to be a ghost on a moped or a stealth scoder or a virgin train.
No, is it all right? Okay. Is it a wind like you know the Sorco or the Mistral or something like
that? One of those winds. Not one of those. If this is something that often travels a great deal
faster, but it has been recorded as traveling at 38 mph. You could overtake it free willing
on a bicycle. A fart. It usually goes much much faster. I mean really fast. How fast is
a fart though? Well, please. It’s not very No, because they they’ve measured how fast you
sneeze. Well, they’ve measured maximum speeds of No one’s ever measured how fast so varied
up there as we know. Do you wonder why you’re working in laboratory conditions all day? Pumps
and burners around. Exactly. You could fart and someone could be on the other side of the lab with
a stopwatch and they could go, “Yes, it’s here. I think is it is it can I drag this I estimate
can I drag this above the level and they think this is all over or whatever it is a tiny way
and tsunami no something goes even faster what’s the fastest thing you can think of light is the
right answer is it absolutely right light usually as you probably know 186,000 miles a second
very good I’ll give you a few points for that that’s quite great wait a minute someone slowed
it down didn’t they put was it so they could into bed before the light went out. [Applause]
Top work. No, you’re quite right. They they put a laser light through I don’t know, ice,
glass, something like that. Frosty. Even closer. Much much colder than that. Much much
fridge. No, really. Even colder than frozen. So cold. Vodka. So, so much colder than that
black pole. We all did well. Now, astoundingly, light is first invisible. You can’t see it. Only
what bumps into it or it bumps into. If you could see it, you wouldn’t be able to see anything else.
Um, it’s often said that the speed of light is constant, but it isn’t. Only in a vacuum when it
is 186,000 miles a second. In any other medium, uh, the speed of light varies considerably. As
a matter of fact, through diamonds, for example, it goes less than half as fast. 80,000 miles.
Yeah, exactly. This is the hardest thing. But the slowest it is, the slowest it’s ever been recorded
at is through sodium atus 270° uh where it travels at 38 mph. Where does Santa Claus come from? From
St. Nicholas. St. Nicholas. Yes. What place? And the Bohemia Czechlovakia. No. Not quite. No.
Any thoughts? Russia. No. Uh, he’s an aborigy. Woking. No. Mac. Bavaria. Did you say L? Oh dear.
Oh dear. Oh dear. Oh dear. Oh dear. And I just saw North Pole. Yes. You’re not going to say that. I’m
going to say that. No. Syria. Turkey. Yes. Turkey. Yes. And that was sent to St. Nicholas. Happy
Christmas. Yeah, but he was vi uh center class as they call him in in in the Netherlands. Yeah,
Santa CL class is an comp is their little song. Uh I’ll give you uh some points if you can tell
me where precisely our modern view as it is of Father Christmas comes from. Does it derive from
the the gimmut kite culture of the Prince Albert brought to Britain in the 1840s? Again, you’re
just chiming with the thought that fills the room, but no, no, it’s the the [Applause] no. The
Schles Holstein gimmutic kite culture is not an issue. It is a very extraordinary thing. I
I want to take you to the year 1822. Oh, when Schubert wrote the unfinished symphony. Something
else happened. poem was written which absolutely gave us for the first time ever printed or ever
recorded as far as we know the idea of the white beard the red coat the stockings the the chimney
the presents on Christmas Eve the whole thing Americans still quoted every Christmas time was
the night before Christmas was the night before Christmas Clement Clark Moore who was a professor
of Hebrew and the poem is called a visit from St. Nicholas off his face on Lordenham just sitting
there a big fat man with a beard and a red coat. This is fantastic. And he’s got a sack full of
gripples. From apples to something as American as apple pie dodgy presidents. Richard E.
Grant. This is for you. What ghastly blot on his reputation did your namesake Ulyses S.
Grant share with John Prescott? Uh they both had a condition called erectus permanantis. No,
it’s serious. It is it is absolutely true. from, you know, the age of five, it’s been at full Woody
mast the whole way through, which is why John had to get into that Jaguar and travel that one mile
distance because Ulyses did the same thing in a carriage trip from a very small 18th century mile
to um Washington. You’ve mentioned John Prescott’s Jaguar, right? And you’ve mentioned Ulyses Srant
in a wooden cart, right? Stick with that thought. Try and expune woody masks from your mind for the
moment and and run with the idea of vehicles. Um, parking effect speeding speeding. Two jagged
Prescott, right, was banned from driving for 21 days in 2001 after he admitted going more than
100 miles an hour on the M1 and was fined £200. In the three previous years, he earned nine points
on his license for speeding. The best reason he could come up with was that he didn’t want his
constituents to catch cold waiting for him. Now, uh, three buggy grant received a speeding
ticket while driving his horse and buggy in Washington DC in 1869. He had to persuade the
officer in charge that he was guilty and he was uh he was fined 20. God, was that a spade
camera like a bloke, you know, with a big? No, it was a sketch artist. There’s something very odd also that they both
had in common. They both won rather extraordinary prizes. Ulyses Srant as a boy won a prize for
taming a a pony in a circus. Um but the prize that the press got won very odd 1951 in Brighton.
The Prescuit family won second prize. Nobody needs the most typical family in Britain compet but
second. Yeah. went second but should have been first because the winning family was found out
to be distantly related to the organizer of the competition. So there was corruption but not on
the part of of John Prescott but he there you are. Who invented the airplane? It’s Orville and Wilbur
Wright. Oh I’m sorry to say I’m very sorry to say that that is the wrong answer. Is it the wrong
brothers? It’s not the wrong brothers. Very good, Peter. Thank you very much. No. Um, John
Stringfellow of Chard in Somerset successfully flew the first enginepowered airplane in 1848. It
was a model airplane, but it was an airplane. It went quite a long way. The Wright brothers from
your lovely country of the United States of of so on. Um, they they flew for less than 12 seconds
a journey that actually would have covered less than half the wingspan of a of a Boeing jumbo
jet. Orville and Wilbur. What about the hot air balloon? Hot air balloon that I I think is usually
seeded to the Mongolia brothers, isn’t it? I would think that would have been before the plane. It
was. It was. It was in the in the 18th century. But didn’t the Chinese invent the hot air balloon
in like hoppinging on about the wrong brothers. The Chinese invented a lot of things. We may we
may indeed come to some of the Chinese inventions later on in the program. Darts, darts, football,
and of course, China. It sounds sounds odd, but it’s true. What struck me about your statement
was that he was from a place called Chard. Chard. It’s not. It sounds like the kind of town
you’d want to get away from. Yes. Charard. Yes, he did run away and he moved to the village
of badly burned in Boston. Who invented, ladies and gentlemen, the telephone? I’m
not going to say I’m not going to say no. Aristocus. You’re quite right. You’re quite
right and suspicious because the answer is certainly not Alexander Grand. Who’s the first
person to do two B bean cans and a bit of string? Who did? Not record as far as I know. Valerie
Singleton invented the phone. Valerie Singleton. I know that Louis de Gare who invented the
photography. Um he this he typical bloke. He invented photography and uh couple of
days later persuaded a local barmaid to take a top off. Then you take a picture that’s
bloss invented photography. This wonderful well it was ever who invented the
telephone. Do you want to know? All right, I’ll tell you. Antonio, Italianorn scientist
invented the telephone. He perfected it by 1871. Couldn’t afford the patent. But
do you know what happened? It was being assessed for a patent in the offices of
Western Union. It fell into the hands of a young Scottish engineer called Alexander
Gra. He grabbed the chance and patented it in his own name. She took him to court but
died before the judgment was given leaving Bell to claim his place in history. What
do we say to Alexander Grab Bell? Boom. Isn’t that wicked? Isn’t it as wicked as you get? Isn’t
that It’s wicked. That’s what we said. Look at him. I don’t even like
the look at him. Look at him. He doesn’t even know how to use
it. Don’t even use this. [Music] No, that’s this poor man. Thank you. This poor man deserves respect. A quite
interesting thing Alexander Greg Bell said. Um he said uh he said when he was asked
what the future of the telephone was, he said, “I truly believe that one day there will
be a telephone in every town in America.” Which hand did King Henry VIII of
England wipe his bottom with? Ambolins. Lovely image. Yes. Joker. Can I suggest in the
hope that I get a that he used someone else’s the servant? He didn’t. No, you get your full I’ll
give you five points that absolutely right. I I bet that is one of those jobs. It’s so unpleasant
and awful it’s actually given really high status in the royal household. You are absolutely right.
You make it bearable. You get all kinds of cats would fight over this job. Were you the keeper of
the king’s chocolate starfish? Well, not called the groom of the stool. Uh, palace assistant.
Despite its disgusting sounding nature, it was a hugely important position as Anna has intimated
and gets two points for doing so. The auto says uh it was a big job, but I’m not going to read
Incidentally, there is, ladies and gentlemen, the uh the groom of the stool. The groom of the
stool, Sir Anthony Denny, who was the longest running groom. Did he do he think he bent over and
put his bottom out or did he roll on his back and put his knees right, you know? I’d rather not
think about him. Did they have a kind of royal changing mat for the king to lie down? I’m sure
they they had the get a bucket of water and go. Well, it was a much prized job because the amount
of access, the amount of time one got to spend with the king. Another sought after and rather
cushier task in the king’s chamber was warming his shirt. Here’s a question for you. What makes a
festive balloon like this go up? Helium. It’s the right answer. Two points. Put it into your voice.
makes it go higher pitched if you inhale it. Oh, it doesn’t make your voice go up. No, it doesn’t
go up in pitch at all. It’s the tambber that changes. The tambber. The tambber. That’s a stamp
stamp, isn’t it? We wanted to give you all some helium to show it by having you sing. But I’ve got
the three worst words in the English language to offer you. And safety. It’s four words. It’s four
words that I’m afraid. health and safety wouldn’t let us do it on tele. What do they think could
possibly happen? By the way, no, it’s it’s it’s exactly it’s it’s not a poisonous gas for
heaven’s sake. You dive, don’t you? Yes. You breathe compressed air for scuba diving. Yeah, but
it’s oxygen and helium for deep sea diving. That is. So why didn’t Jacqu Kust when he was always
on the wild go we was his real voice was like Paul Robson we have been There is a gas you can breathe
called xenon which is I think one of the inert gases where you do actually go John Wayne like
when you freon is like that also freon does that does it refrigerate yeah you can suck the back
out of a refrigerator and your voice will be much lower did it all the time as kids did did you know
is this what maybe if you’re on East Enders every character has to have this before they start doing
a bit like that and then they go we’ve got a chalk I don’t ask for all The optics are behind the bar. Yes. The fact is sound travels faster in helium
which increases the frequency but not the p. It brings me onto a question for you. What is the
difference between a cake and a biscuit? Oh, that’s easy. Tell. Well, a cake is soft and a
biscuit’s hard. Cakes are soft and squidgy and spongy and biscuits you can snap them. What’s
a Jaffa cake then? Very interesting. You should say that. Well, quite interesting. Well, quite
interesting. Exactly. Exactly. Let’s stick to our brief. It’s just the exception that proves
the rule. Well, no, it isn’t an exception. See what happens on this show, Dar, is he thinks I’m
an idiot. But you think my name is an anagram of diarrhea. Yes, exactly. I’m really on their side
if you know. Well, actually, I mean, you used the right words. Technically, the difference is that
when they go stale, a cake goes hard and a biscuit goes soft. In 1991, the British government,
Customs and Excise, decided they wanted to reclassify the Jaffa cake as a biscuit. The weird
thing is there is zero VAT on cake and biscuit, but there is VAT on chocolate biscuits as a luxury
item. So, McVitis went out of their way to try and prove that Jaffa cakes are not chocolate biscuits,
they are cakes, and they did so by demonstrating in front of the VAT review board that they went
hard when they were stale. And they also cooked a great big 12-in one to show that it was really
was a cake that they had baked. I always think uh King Alfred uh you know he was a great man who
cop ring that’s a really early ring made stone that had big knobs there but uh King Alfred who I
believe was in invented I’m determined to carry on he invented the the Navy he did all he made
all sorts of differences. He was an important political figure, but all we remember him for
is some business involving cakes. Yeah. You, for example, may yet, Steven,
be remembered for something pathetically insignificant. Absolutely.
I once dropped a pack of Abby Crunch. So, they’re not biscuits. Poss ones that are
cooked for you by your by your pastry chef. [Applause] Actually, there’s a true story about the Duke
of I think it was the Duke of Devonshire, but it may not have been. In the Second World War, they
would have people from the Ministry of Labor going around checking on everybody and particularly on
the big estates to see if all these people someone could be released for essential war work. And
they went to to Chadzsworth where Duke’s estate was. And they, you know, stopwatch and clipboard
and they checked everybody. And eventually they had an interview with with the Duke and they said,
“Well, your grace, we can understand it. You need 47 gardeners and 13 undergarders and you need
grooms and you need chauffeers and you need uh upstairs maids and downstairs maids and in between
maids and laundry room maids and steel room maids and kitchen maids and nurse maids and housemaids
and parlaids and we can understand that. So you need the boy to scrape the knives and boots
and you need the butler and the forootman and the underbutler. But we wonder if a man economy
might be made. Do you does your grace necessarily need two pastry cooks? to which he apparently
replied, “Oh, damn it. Can’t a man have a biscuit, which was I mean, you know, we’re all prepared
to make sacrifices. Beat the hun, but I mean really on the buzzers for another round of general
ignorance.” No, no, not I don’t want to do general ignorance. Why not? Because I always get them
wrong and I will not be humiliated at Christmas. Well, you don’t know anything. That’s the problem.
Well, it’s that you have all the answers. So why? There’s no point telling me I don’t know
anything. Well, you think it’s easy for me, do you? Yes, I think it’s quite easy for you. All
right. Why don’t you sit here and I’ll sit there? I just Yeah. Well, it’s Christmas.
It’s traditional at Christmas time for servants to be served by the master.
Everything swaps around. Go on. So, I see. Oh, it’s easy now. You see this
is just loads back and forth to Phil. Okay, Steven. Oh, yes. Oh, hello. I’ve
been waiting for this opportunity. A question just for Steven. Yes.
Who plays in goal for Aston Villa? Um well I do know you’ve got a suite called
Thomas Sorenson who plays in gold but has he been taken over by Stefan uh Poss. Yeah. Which
is which is the actual which is your number one. Tom Sorenson’s the number one Senson. It’s
actually Danish but I’ll give you that. I guess you played against England. Yes. This isn’t
this isn’t going to work. Okay. I just happen to uh another question for Steven. You probably
uh all know this one that um what was Mozart’s middle name? This is going to be a trick question,
isn’t it? You I don’t know. You’re the smarty. Oh, bollocks have Well, it’s you want me to
say Amadeus, so I’ll say Amadeus. [Music] Wolf Gang. His full name was Johan Chrysos Wolf
Gangus Theophilus Mozart. He usually call himself Wolf Gang Amard, not Amdus or Wolf Gang Gotly.
This question for Steven Fra. How many states of matter are there? Oh, hello. Well, if
you count plasma, I suppose four liquid What is wrong? Six. I’m surprised at you, Steven. They are, of course, solid, liquid, gas, plasma, Bose, Einstein condensate, and firmionic
condensate, sometimes known as filament. D. This question is for Steven Fry. Adam
Davis punched in front of his pub trivia machine and that’s a I’ll add that. I’ll add
that. Which way does the bath water go down the plug hole in the northern hemisphere? What’s
quite interesting about digestive biscuits? Well, it’s a hardworking biscuit, the digestive. You
know, you put cheese on it. It’s got chocolate on it. Uh it’s a it’s a base for cheesecake.
It’s really is a sort of Renaissance biscuit. It’s a great dunker. It’s a It’s a very
very hardworking biscuit. But have you ever noticed there is a slightly fishy taste about a
digestion? What have you been dunking them in? Who have you been dunking them in? Lord, we’re
we’re in the world of misnomers with things that are are wrongly called. Do they give you
wind? They they were called digestive because they were supposed to be an antiflatulant biscuit
when they were designed in the 19th century. No, that’s right. In America, you
better have one of these. Sorry. Maybe you stuffed it up. I don’t know. But in I’d like to see I’d like to see an
advert for this flat express. Hey, don’t heading right back down the diarrhea
highway. Welcome to the United Kingdom. The fact is uh they are not aids to digestion. In
America it is illegal to call them digestives. Of course in America. Do you know what we’re
talking about? Cookies. Yeah. From the which is from the Dutch coochia meaning a cake is
why you call them cookies. What you call a biscuits more like what we would call I don’t
know a kind of scony thing. You have biscuits and gravy. Explain to the ladies and gentlemen
what that is. Oh, traveler from an arcane land. What do your people eat? Everything. Biscuits are biscuits made from self-rising
flour and then they just slap gravy over and it just takes up room on the plate. Right. And
it’s a breakfasty thing or or a lunchy thing or uh it depends on what trailer park you live
in. Sometimes it’s three meals a day. Fair enough. But 450 digestive biscuits are
baked every second in the United. Yeah, they are truly the mule of biscuits. Look at this
picture. Uh what does a rainbow look like from the other side? Slightly different. Yeah, just
slightly different. Not. It’s not. It’s nice, but it’s not as you’d rather be on
the proper side. It’s all right. I wouldn’t bother going around to look at it.
Go. No, it’s better this side. Long jersey. I can’t really concentrate on it cuz there
are people going come around look at it from this side. But your first answer was correct
for which you would get. You can only see it from from the side that you’re on from. Yeah.
Otherwise, you wouldn’t be out there. There is a very particular way to do with where the rain
is and where you are. Where the sun is. Where the sun is and the rain and where you are. There
has to be sun and the sun has to be behind you. Yeah. Because they’re light coming from behind
your head and they’re going through a raindrop. They’re bouncing off the back of a raindrop and
coming back to your eye. And it can only happen at an angle of 42 degrees, which is why it’s
in a in a bow. Can you tell me at what point in time human beings were actually able to
sing a rainbow? Is there a song about sing There’s loads of different ones, wasn’t there?
Gray and gray and gray and gray. Gray and gray and gray. I can sing a wood loud, you know.
I see. Very good. Very good. In Estonia, they believe that if you point at a rainbow,
your finger will fall off. Oh god. I know. Estonians aren’t stupid. What are they?
They aren’t. They’re very stumpy. I know. Indigo, incidentally. What do
you know about indigo? Blue, isn’t it? Purple. Purple. It’s a funny color. Do
you remember it? It’s a color of um silence. No. Can you sing that song instead? No, I can’t.
It’s the color of audacity. See, I’m doing it now. I’m talking about that. It’s the color of a
Stop it. It’s a sort of [ __ ] [ __ ] but blue, isn’t it? No. Isn’t it a fertility thing?
Well, it’s it’s it’s an it’s an Indian plant that was used for dying. In what in what sense
would it be a fertility thing? It’s a color, doesn’t it? Doesn’t it come up on women’s
legs in circles when they’re ready? That may be that band. I was thinking of him. Garters. Garters. What? Well, indigo
is indigo. It’s it’s it’s a dark blue dye used for such things as jeans and
um police uniforms. Why do bees buzz? Go. Because they can. and they buzz so that when
they’re trapped in the living room, you know, to open the window, it’s a thought. Is it to um
to sound industrious? You have to look at bees as as uh as aerospace workers and uh stay with
me. Yeah. [Music] So, uh, when you’re flying, you want to make a lot of noise because,
uh, a quiet aircraft is, uh, crashing. I think it’s it’s their their knees knocking
that makes the buzzing, isn’t it? Cuz they hate flying. Terrified of flying. What
is it that makes the noise? The wings. No, no, it isn’t. I’m afraid. Not the
wings, then. No, it won’t be the wings. Uh, testicles. They’re little tiny mouths. Well,
it is sort of little mouths. It’s through what they breathe. They’re called spiracles. They have
them down the down their sides through which they breathe. All buzzing insects, boo bottles,
the same. It’s not the wings. Less than 1% of the buzz comes from their wings. Bees breathe
through 14 holes. along the sides of their bodies and they’re called spirals. Uh and each one has a
valve to limit the flow of air which the bee can do and they can tune it rather like a a trumpeter
sort of using his lips. What’s that called? Omber and in the same way that one human lung on a
trumpet can fill a vast hall with a great sound um more than it can with its own vocal cords.
So so a bee can make this extraordinary noise just just through controlling its breathing.
Isn’t science marvelous? It is. Are humans the only uh species that make unnecessary noise?
Oh, that’s an interesting idea. Now, dogs, I mean, do you think any animals just
sit around and hum or just whistle or talk inly at all? That’s why there are no
panel shows in the animal kingdom. comes from. How long would it take you to drive to
outer space? Outer space? Yes, outer space. What is officially outer space? That’s uh 23 minutes.
I can believe that actually. Is outer space outer as in from Earth or is it from the sun? No, from
it’s just from us and it’s just above where I am. If you’re tall, I’m nearly at the edge. 600 miles.
It’s actually to the top of the ionosphere. And that’s widely considered to be the start of space.
But whether that’s considered to be outer space, I don’t know. You counting that as outer space?
No. Outer space begins according to the Federation International Dispass or something. Who are
French? Yes. It’s actually only 62 miles to No, it isn’t. Straight up. No, it isn’t. Oh,
okay. We’re going to depend on the traffic. 62 miles is what you’re saying is out of space.
Did you know there was a man called Joe Kittinger who once jumped out of a hot air balloon at that
height? 1961. Oh, dead Joe Kittinger. No, he’s [Applause] just flag up one small thing. Um,
there isn’t actually any sort of road system. Well, I’ve often wondered, why could you not, if
it’s only 62 miles to what people call space, why can’t you just build a ladder? I mean, it can’t
be beyond the wit of man to build a ladder that just goes straight and then you could walk up it.
Save a lot of bother. Yes. Oxygen pack necessary, but well, you’ve got an oxygen, maybe a lift.
Oh, lift would be good. Once you get out there, there’s nothing really there, is there? Not
much. It’s a bit like Norolk, isn’t it? No. You just be careful. There’s a rule with asking
directions though, which men tend not to do, I think, as much as women. But if the person you
ask says, um, drive on. I parked on their foot. Or they or they say, “Do you
want the easy way to get there?” be tortured and left for dead on the
side of I was in Canada once and I’m asking directions this I was trying to find
this friend’s farm and they stop this farmer and he and he he says you go down the road
about three miles and then you’ll see a big dead possum in the middle of the road and go
left there how do you know the dead possum will be there and he said would you pick
up a dead possum I was getting directions once on the And I was actually writing them
down. And I realized after about a minute, I’d stopped listening and started drawing. I
like big elephant, big bollocks on it. And I just realized someone said, “We were actually
driving up.” So said, “Where is it?” I said, “Well, you go down the left.” Oo. You ask a lady
for directions. She’ll ask you a question back. So if you say, “Do you know where the post office
is?” She’ll say, “Do you want to buy a stamp?” Sweet. You find you’re having a nice chat and
everyone’s friends. Yeah. But you no idea where the post office is. So there you are. Um if you
could drive straight upwards and it would take under an hour if you were going in about 60 odd
miles an hour. Outer space is defined as anywhere outside a planet’s atmosphere. According to the
federique antale, this is 62 mi above the surface of the earth. Apart from the obvious, what’s
unusual about the New Guinea singing dog? You say apart from the obvious? Well, the obvious
being that it’s a singing dog. Yes, it’s the only singing dog never to have been on Esserance.
It’s a tiny little dog in a huge bath of poperri. He sings so high that no one can hear.
Well, we don’t you can actually hear him sing if you want to. I think we’ve
got him singing. Go on then. [Music] That’s like Gracie Fields falling off a cliff. A pretty little dog. It’s a mixture supposedly
between a fox and a dingo, but it has no feet. Actually never moves. Stuck in the ground. Now
that’s where you’re wrong, young Davis. It’s the only dog that climbs trees. Yes, she’s
the right answer. Oh, absolutely brilliant. Well done. Absolutely spot on. You know,
like tigers, the New Guinea singing dog is also extremely rare in the wild and is
best known from the 150 examples living in the US. There are more of those in the
US than in its natural habitat. Again, dogs like chickens have an amazing How many
chromosomes have you got as a chicken? Do you remember? 78. 78. Well done. You really
are absolutely on fire, young David. Jimmy, how many burglaries are committed in
the UK by koalas every day? Every day? Yeah. Well, I’m guessing it’s quite a low figure. Now, are we talking breaking and entering
or planning to deprive of property on a continual basis? Because they’re different
charges. Yes. The thing about koalas is they are the most lawabiding of all the bears.
They’re not bears. [Music] They’re not bears. Got a very long intestine. They sleep
22 hours a day. I tell you what though, all the indigenous mammals in Australasia are
marupials. Uh, are there for non mammals? No. Yes, fantastic. You know that they’re
cats. They’re cats. All of them. I think they’re trying to say something
clever. Sorry. Back to the knob gags. Well, no. No. No. Fair point. The things
that are almost like furry. If you mean, but but aren’t. Well, if I said almost like furry,
I would have sounded like Allan. There. I was trying to be. Sorry. That Koala looks like he’s
waiting for the fire brigade. Look at his paws, though. I was going to say, what’s your favorite
bit of the koala? The paws are gorgeous. Do you like the little hand? I like the [ __ ]
Oh, I told you. Ears or the little hard nosy bit. I want you though to concentrate on
the paws. I like the lips toasted. Concentrate. Yes, Jimmy. Got it. Fingerprints because
koala fingerprints are indistinguishable from human fingers. Fingerprints is right, Jimmy. Well, let’s have a look. Let’s see some human
prints. some koala prints and maybe some chimpanzeee prints. Which is which would
you say? Human print is on the left. No, it’s not in the middle. So, was that human in
the middle? Yes. Right. And chimpanzeee and Oh, chimpanzeee is on the right. And that one
over there, that’s a koala. I’m mistaken. Oh, I wonder if you’re right. No, it’s a human
on the left and a koala in the middle and a chimpanzeee on the right. And even under a
scanning electron microscope, it’s incredibly hard to see any difference between a koala print
and a human print. And the chimpanzeee is very closely related. Extraordinary because the koala
evolved in isolation in Australasia. It’s called convergent evolution where where where things
that are evolving completely separately come up with similar solutions or they were all
made by God or they were all made by God. So anyway, koalas have fingerprints almost
identical to human beings. And this was discovered by a Polish man called Hennter who
is an anthropologist and paleopathologist but also a dermatoglyphic expert. And the
word dermatoglyphics means the study of fingerprints. Yeah, of course it does. And
I’ll give you 10 points if you can tell me what’s unusual about this word. It shares
particular property with only one other word in the English language. Does it have
all the um letters of the word demoglyphic? The only other word that shares it this
property is the word uncopyrightable. Is it the vowels in the right order? No,
they’re the longest words in the English language. 15 letters with no repetition of a
letter which all the letters are different. Simple as that. Each of the panel also has,
I believe, a swizzle, a small device used by professors of Punch and Judy. And what
what do they say with it? Oh, very good. [Applause] Which way in does it go? [Applause] [Music] [Applause] Now, you’ve also each got a joker and you will
find it has a squirrel on it. So, when you think the right answer to any question this evening
is squirrel or anything to do with squirrels. You press your buzzer, you play the card, and
you shout squirrels. All right. Yeah, swizzle, Steven. Without swizzles. Without No, no, don’t
shout squirrel with a swizzle. You’ll swallow it. No, that if you want to do that, it
will take time. You don’t want me. If you don’t take your swizzles out very
soon, I will kill you. Thank you. Yes. Well, you haven’t swallowed it. You have
to swallow one at least twice in order to be called the professor of
punch and judication. Apparently, they have to be there when you defecate.
Yes, there it is. Congratulations, professor. I think are you [Applause] cat derives from
the Latin catulus? Catalus. Um, Clive, that’s the angriest looking cat. I want you to tell me what the word catulus means.
Well, it means cat. There obviously be something else before that. We took the cat from Catulus
and described cats with it. The Romans didn’t call their cats Catulus, but if we Yes, is the
right answer. Catulus was there. Say what you see now. Say what you picture. Hang on. Another
one. What have you done to that cat, you filthy dog? The word rabbit’s an interesting word on the
because that comes from the Latin for giraffe. Although you all know cat, it comes from kata
meaning down in Greek as in all kinds of words beginning with ka. So it was described for
puppies first because the little things that hit the ground with the catulus and became
a word for a puppy and then for a dog and we took the cat bit and called cats with it.
Do you know what catagotism is? You get a cat stuck in your throat. It’s a very old
word, a much older word than the word you might use for French kissing. It means
put your tongue down someone’s throat. Literally put your tongue down. Cat down.
Glot glottis tongue. Why is that cat so cross? It is, isn’t it? Something
is stapled to that table. It’s been made to pose for that photo.
I’ll do a picture with two other cats. I’m going to get on to my agent.
I am not a dog. Second time this week. I’ll do this one more and then
I’m carrying. It’s a wonderful period because the more you look into its eyes,
the crosser it seems to get, doesn’t it? Puss is actually from the ancient Egyptian
pash meaning cat or moon in Why is [ __ ] another word for front bottle? I don’t
know. It’s not my area of expertise before. Now, this is the big one. 200 pointeries
at stake. Uh, for those 200 points, what is that? That’s a cuttlefish.
[Music] I know what that is. That’s That’s a text message from
someone who’s very pissed. It’s It’s a process. It’s a happening. It’s
a as it were, a chemical episode. Is it some sort of an an explosion? That’s brilliant. She’s
right. Is is there some sort of food food stuff involved in it? This is brilliant. My god. Well,
no, no, no. You did you do this at school? Yeah, I did domestic science at school and I know
an explosion when I see one and I think and I’m and I’m only going on a hand. I think it’s an
explosion in a custard. [Applause] How would you know that? I have to give a 200. Yeah, there’s
an old phrase, an explosion in a custom factory. That is what happens when custard explodes.
There was a explosion in Norwich, in fact, my old man on the 21st of July last year. It’s
the oxidization of glucose is what happens and it can be pretty nasty. What custard facts can I
offer you? Um, there was a food survey conducted in the year 2000 and it was discovered that 99%
of all British people recognized the brand Bird’s Custard. Bird invented it. Sir Alfred Bird an
eggless custard powder because his wife was allergic to eggs. It was a kindness to his wife.
He also gave the world baking powder in order to keep our boys in Crimeir in good bread. Remarkable
man. What do the French call custard? Gouta but no. No. They don’t really have a word for
custard. They don’t believe it exists. I mean that’s to say they just don’t make it. So I
would pour it on. Well, what we call custard, they call creme on glaze, but they don’t.
And but what we call confectionist custard, they just called creme and what they make.
You know what? I was in a restaurant today and they said apple pie with creme on. Yes,
that’s custard. And I thought pathetic. I’ll have it anyway. What would you say if you
thought I want custard on it? I’m afraid, sir. It does not exist. You have
placed me into an existential quandry. I’m afraid I’ll have to leave the restaurant. You
sir, you are proud. Why would this restaurant in London? Why would they do that in London?
Pons. They don’t want custard on the menu, do they? Yeah, exactly. They think it’s
um infred. I bet they make proper real custard instead of nice custard out of a
packet. Third. I prefer real and you know what I love about custard? Viscosity. I love
this because when you put the spoon through, you have exactly the amount of push with the
spoon. You use the same amount of energy as you would if you were pouring water onto your
pie. Well, except in France where you just do that over an invisible. Did you know that if you
have musli, you can have it with water. Tastes the same as it does with milk. Exactly. Except
less milky. It’s a lot better with lambrisco. I have a son tonight. Any flamnco you give in pong
score and I’ll also give you two sundos. [Music] Eats cockney rhyming any flamnco flamco
dancy answers in pyong pyongyang pongyang slang score rubble double yes I’ll give you
two Sunday Sunday roasts post Sunday joins points if at any nickel and dime time you
woman woman woman woman who does buzz buzz woman who does All I can do. Oh. Oh. So we’re
doing middle class copy right now. Woman does woman who does. Who does? Was to lubricant
me. Yeah. Lubricant gel. Tell lubricant. Who can tell me what I’m on about? It’s a
whole new genre of argo. Yeah. A Labrador groomer. Groomer. [Music] What do you think your
pantomimes would translate as? Pantomime Dame’s names. Yes. Uh Phil Jubius is Cotney Ry saying
for hyperondriac. Ill dubious. Ill dubious. Very good. I like it. Rory. Well, there are two
official Rory McGraths apparently. There’s having a laugh. Rory McGrath is having a Rory.
I’ll have a Rory. That’s a half. And Bill. Uh, well, I imagine the only thing I think probably
might be scaly. You know, your skin’s gone a bit Bill Bailey. Scaly, you know, bit you’ve got
a bit of an Arthur ash uh on your Robera. Uh, you know, it’s gone a bit Bill Bailey. What
does Alan Davis give for someone? Doesn’t really rhyme with anything apart from Mavis. Unless you
know someone called Mavis. Yeah. Is Alan Davis. Maybe this is the old word for a thrush. Thrush.
Y. So you could say I’ve caught a bit of Alan. Yeah, that’s true. It’s gone a bit. Bill Bailey,
what’s the commonest metal in the human body? Oo, that’s a very good question. Iron.
Iron. Oh dear. Oh dear. No. No. I’m I’m going to I think it’s mercury.
Oh dear. Oh dear. Oh dear. Oh dear. I think it must be calcium. Oh no, he’s got his
He’s going to use calcium. Absolutely right. Cuz the bones are mainly calcium phosphate
crystals, aren’t they? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Wood. calcium atomic number 20. Last year, I learned all
the atomic numbers of all the elements. Good lord. Because I was helping my son to revise and I’ve
actually tried to forget them as much as I can since then because it’s just been so embarrassing
to know them all. Selenium 30 something. I have no idea. I know it’s close to arsenic because I
saw it in the film evolution. It’s 34. Selenium is 34. Arsenic is 33. Very good. Good. Calcium
really put railings around you and have children. I presume because calcium phosphate is the
main constituent of bones. Indeed, calcium is is as a metal is almost never found in nature.
Phosphorus is of course um I think 15. Yeah. Let’s move aside from the slightly more. We’re
doing we’re doing atomic number wheelies. Now you pull up outside pubs and go selenium 32. Um calcium comes from that in calcs, isn’t it?
meaning a stone or a pebble from which we get calculus and calculation and recalcitrant and
all kinds of words. There you are. Um it was discovered in 1808 by I think recalcitrant
actually comes from calcs meaning a heel not calcs meaning it’s kicking back. You’re right.
You should have points to that. It is indeed from a heel. You’re quite right. Yeah. This is
a team game, isn’t it? I’m on his team. What’s another name for the common corrant? Yes.
Ry Cro. Oh. Oh, very good. It is. That’s the right answer. In the other The latter name is
Felacroorax. Can I just give the latter name? The corrant is the felacroorax carbo. Shag is
facorax aristatilis. It doesn’t have the white face and the cat. This is brilliant. Is it?
I mean, this is everything I’ve got. Tosser only. Oh no. Poor Rory. It’s a fair question. It’s
a fair question. I only get called tosser by other people. The reason the Cro is the actual word
corrant comes from corvvis marinas which is the Latin for secro old swatty. It’s not a cop grculus
would be it’s the crested corrant isn’t it because the graculus is a jack door. No a jackd door
is um corus monula. Yes but it’s another word. It’s the actual Latin name. The actual Latin
name for a jack door was okay. Let’s not fall over this Steven. No it’s what the No. No, I’m
saying real nuts. It might be interesting. The moment people actually pull birds things before
they [Applause] Oh dear. Oh dear. [Applause] Sorry about sorry about that. There’s a port and
there’s the underworld here. It’s ridiculous. Anyway, I’m impressed with Rory and
I think everyone else is too. No, I’ve got a feeling, Rory, that you have pulled. You all know what to do with
a custard pie. But Alan, what’s a custard pile? It’s
sort of yellow hemorrhoid. Shot in the dark buildings in a geologically
unsafe some sort of liquid foundation. That’s a wonderful thought. Absolutely nothing like the
answer. But it’s squirrel. Is it squirrel? No, it’s not squirrel. [Applause] [Music] It is an
animal on the other hand. Pile recognized color from a breeders association of not a cat. Not even
a mammal. Not a mammal. A goldfish. No lizard. Not a fish, neither. Lizard. Some sort of lizard.
And we’re running out of major animal. It’s a bird. Canary. Not a canary. Parrot. A fighting
bird. A [ __ ] It’s a [ __ ] It’s a fighting [ __ ] A game [ __ ] What have you got? I’ve got
killer lungeons. And you? I’ve got caster pile. Okay. You can have [ __ ] in mouth. You can
have You can have tassel spangle [ __ ] legs, milk and water legs. Do anything about cocking at
all? Well, I don’t like to blow my own trumpet. For 2,000 years was Britain’s national sport.
Every village would have at least one cockpit. Can you think of any phrases that come from
[ __ ] fighting? We use cockpit is one. Y clean pair of heels well healed. To pit someone
against you to describe someone as game as him being up for it. That’s from [ __ ] fighting.
Yeah. It says here, “A good cocker would think nothing of cleaning his cock’s wounded head
by sticking it in his mouth and sucking it clean.” Yeah. Yes. You’re watching Qi for the
straight guy. It says first prime minister team panel friends. Was it Walpole? Walpole? Oh,
no. Shame on you. No, it wasn’t. Nord Snooty. Uh pit. Oh, but you met the younger. Yes, he
met. The elder was a tree, wasn’t he? Was it some sort of um king that proclaimed
himself the prime minister before he handed over power? No, he was a politician. It was in the last
It was 100 years ago almost exactly that he became prime minister. 100 years ago. Oh, one of mine.
No. Um um 100 years ago would be would be 1905, wouldn’t it? This show favors people who
know stuff. Someone like um Ros McDonald. No, he was a bit later. 1905 to 1908. Campbell
Banaman. Campbell. Campbell Bannerman. Well done. Thank you. Absolutely. Henry Campbell
Banaman. He’s not perhaps the best known of our prime ministers, but he ought to. He was one
of triplets as well. He was actually a very good he introduced old age pensions. He fought for
the poor. He was the first prime minister. What were they called? They were called first lord
of the treasury before that. He was the first one to be called prime minister. First lord of
the treasury. Yeah, they’re still first lords of the treasury if they’re prime minister, but
they’re prime minister and first lord of the treasury. Now before they were simply they use
the word prime minister sometimes as an insult, but they were never called prime minister until
1905. What was Ethel Red the unready? He was a king. Yes. Yes. Um his last words, Henry Campbell
Benjamin were, “This is not the end of me.” The term prime minister was
first officially used in 1905, just 5 days after Campbell Bannerman
became one. Sir Robert Walpole generally recognized there were seven Roman
emperors who bore the name Caesar, uh not counting Julius, who started the whole
thing, but of course wasn’t himself an emperor. We all know what he did. He came, he saw,
he conquered. But what did Nero do? [Music] Oh, did you s Oh, Joe. He didn’t
fiddle while Rome burn. No, he had a concrete swimming hat. He was very very he was he built most of of Rome.
Not the Rome you see. Well, he rebuilt it after it was burned down.
Indeed. Did he have an enormous gold statue of himself built? incredibly vain and
stupid. Vain is the word. His his dying words are what an artist dies in me. Um and he
played there someone in him and of course the small faux east painter has just perished
inside my inside my being. Well anyway no of course the fiddle didn’t exist in in Roman
days. The fiddle was invented for in the 15th century I think something like that.
So he would have played Cisera or something, a sort of liar like thing. But was he doing it
like a sort of fire engine alarm? Like Well, there’s some evidence he did try and put
the fire out actually. He blamed a small sect of people for the fire. It was a very
useful scape. The gays? No. Even smaller, slightly less well-dressed. And oddly, oddly
enough, to this day, enemies of the gays. It wasn’t the Chavis. No, even worse than the
It was those damned Christians. Yes. Um, Nero played by Christopher Biggins of
course in TV’s popular IC Clavs. Um, but I chapd. Yeah. Some people think he
may have even been playing bag pipes when when he was uh watching Christopher
Biggin. No, he is actually that sonic. Bag pipes. I’m sorry. Yes. No. Can’t
be having it. They have this tuning and it’s on the Scots do that when
they talk. Yeah, I’m not sure. It’s very odd though. So anyway, there we
are. There’s old Nero, whatever he was, he was eventually booed off, of course, and
succeeded by a more popular entertainer who was called Galba Serious, Galba Caesar Augustus to be
precise, and he got rid of um bagpipe performances and uh he replaced them with tightroppe walking
elephants. What are the contents of the queen’s handbag? [Music] I don’t think I’ve ever seen
the queen get anything out of her handbag. She’s certainly never done that thing that women
do, you know, where they go, “It’s in here somewhere.” I know. So, my suspicion is that she
probably has nothing in her handbag. I think it’s probably a kind of social defense and it means she
doesn’t have to hold Prince Phillip’s hand. Look. the little book of calm and mace spray
because there’s a lot of people around her who get too close in big hats. It’s
like, you know, back off. Back off. Apparently, the queen does carry money. A lot of
people think she doesn’t, but apparently she for Sundays she always has money, an unspecified
denomination folded in her handbag there. And also she has a comb apparently, a
handkerchief, a small gold compact, and a tube of lipstick. Maybe she gets upset with if
she carries a fiver. God, I used to be so pretty. She’s got a deep fried curly
whirly in there. She’s got to have some pleasure. She sits in
the Oh, yes. Like that quietly. She crams it all in when no one’s looking. I’m
all right. What’s the connection between Nancy Carrian and Wrongway Corrian? Yay. She
was the skater who had her legs smashed by Tanya Harding. Absolutely right. He was
another skater who had his legs smashed by another skater. That’s not right. But
but the link is what was Tanya Harding doing? I mean essentially in a very violent
and appalling way trying to eliminate her rival from competition. She was cheating.
Wrongway Corrian was a ashamed porn star. He looks like Edward Fox there, doesn’t he? He’s
a jockey, isn’t he? No, he was a famous cheat. He had a ticket parade in Manhattan where more
than a million people turned up in the streets. He was inspired by a man called Lindberg. Um he
was determined to to fly across the Atlantic, although Lindberg had already done it. They told
him he wasn’t allowed to because his airplane wasn’t up to snuff. It was a mess. It was an
old crate. So what he said happened was he flew from New York to California. But he ended up in
Dublin airport and he flew across the Atlantic, but claimed that he’d just gone the wrong
way by mistake. And to his dying day, he claimed that it was just an error in that,
you know, he’d lost one of his compasses, but he was known as Wrongway Corrigon. Did
he ever look out of the window because hey, he couldn’t see. It was night. It was foggy. He
says it can’t have been night for 3,000 miles. It does look like Eddie Fox in the day in the Jackal,
but he said it’s going to cost you a lot of money. Eddie Fox, the only man with a bicep in his face. Wallace, I’m going to have to advocate. He was I was in a play in Chittyist years ago,
20 20 odd years ago. first play I was ever in and uh he was in another play in but I got
to know the DSM as they call the deputy stage manager very well and uh she had not met him and
he suddenly appeared and put a hand on on either shoulder and lent in here and said if we do go
to bed together it’ll be strictly on my terms line isn’t it Ed was one of these guys
he says that he just stares into space and suddenly says something and he was
sitting in a dressing room possibly at Chicha again actually and he said I’m so glad
there are no homosexuals in this company just looks at the other lot and the Anthony and
Cleopatra player an absolute fleet of birdies which who was the first president of America
uh another true [Music] no surprisingly not he was probably the 15th. See, he was the first
president of an independent United States of America, but there had been many presidents
of the United States in Congress assembled, presidents of the Continental Congress of America.
And the first one was called um Randolph, Payton Randolph. The second one was called John Han
Hanok. And what does John Hancock mean? Fingers on buzzes quickly if you’re in America. Oh, you
got the name. It it means signature. Yes. I was just very alarmed when I first went to America and
was told to put I just don’t giant Hancock on the what hand down the world. That’s what it
means. They use it all the time. Well, it’s the reason being is that on the Declaration
of Independence, they all signed it and everyone went sort of that’s me. Hancock came along.
John Hancock Hanok. It is. You can actually see it from space. But you’re right. was his
was his is the big signature on the Declaration of Independence. So they were there were 13
others after Payton and then on 30th of April um 1789 George Washington was sworn in as the first
president to be independent holding a pen. That’s brings me cleverly to the Fisher pressurized
space pen which you may have heard tell. It was developed after a lot of expensive research to
enable astronauts to write in zero gravity. What alternative writing implement could they have used
instead? Here comes the big noise. A pencil. No. Yeah. There is a kind of urban myth that
the Americans spent millions on building a pressurized gravity-free fire while the clever
Russians just used a pencil. But in fact, they started off both of them using pencils.
And the tip broke. And when the tip breaks, it floats around and it gets into short
circuits things, gets into people’s eyes and bodies. Is very dangerous indeed. But what a
laugh that must be to have a pencil sharpener on the spaceship. [Music] [Laughter] Funny things to
do in zero gravity. So it’s sadly not true that story. An ordinary bar would have worked. You
didn’t need a special pressurized one. You need to write upside down. It needs to be pressurized
when there’s gravity. But when there’s no gravity, an ordinary one will work. Now the year is 1792.
was a notable year for a number of reasons. It was the year the guillotine was first used,
which means last used in 1960. Point. No, because it’s not true. It is true. No, it
isn’t. Um, we’ll come back, I’m afraid. 1977, the last point. Sorry. No, it was a onelegged
French criminal who was guillotine in 1977. 1792 was the year the guillotine was first used and
the year of birth of the inventor of the computer and the death of the man after whom the sandwich
is named. What was invented? Lord Sandwich. Yes. Well, it wasn’t going to be Norah Buty, was it?
Charles Babage. Charles Babage, you’re right, is the inventor of the computer. So, you’ve
all added to that difference engine. But yes, the difference engine. And how many people were
at his funeral? Oh, go on. Three. Really? Yeah, only three people went to his funeral.
None of his friends turned up because he was a laughing stock by the time he died
and he’d invented the computer. Yeah, I know. Which was only recently re, you know,
they rebuilt one, didn’t they? Science museum and turned it and it works. In Vietnam,
the guillotine was last year’s in 1960. However, in France in 1977, France.
All France. Exactly. France. Has anyone survived it? Well, I said Jim Dale in
the film. You survive if you go. That’s smart. That’s smart. That’s snack on anything. Guillotine
be gone just flopping over. Do you remember? Do you remember Jim Dale in the Carry On film? You
know, don’t lose your head and he’s just being guillotined. It’s in the French Revolution. They
say there’s a note for you from Rob Spear says, “Leave it in the basket. I’ll read it later
on.” That’s there’s a horrible truth to that because of course it was maintained by
contemporary witnesses that a lot of the heads were quite sensient. Yeah. For some
time after decapitation. Coal as everyone knows is made from ancient forests. Any
of you used coal to brush your beexleys? [Music] Never. Hello. Are you going back to the heath? Yes, that
was teeth. Yes, I know it’s Amstid’s usually, but Steven. Steven. Oh, Steven, my love. Steven,
the toothpaste is so twinkly and sparkling white. How can it have coal in it? It doesn’t. It’s the
brush. What are the bristles made of? Coal. here. Well, they are something which is a mixture
of coal and air and water. Oh, it’s all easy when I’ve set the siren off, isn’t it? We’re
talking about some complicated hydrocarbon, which is a derivative of a petroleum. Not
petroleum. No, no, coal. It’s fossil fuel, which is coal, as we know. Toothbrushes
used to be alive millions of years ago. The point is we’re looking for a substance
that man developed which he uses to nylon is the right answer. Well done. Do I get points for
saying it was developed in New York and London at the same time? No, you get points taken
away from you because that’s not why it’s Oh, you did fall into that one Rory. Thank you
for that. No, it’s a myth. It was originally called no run by its inventor. He was called
Kurthers Dupont. The company for whom he was developing it want to call it nylon. though
they didn’t trademark the name. You can use the word nylon unlike another of their
famous products. One that is used quite often to describe human characteristics. Teflon
or nonstick. Teflon is a Dupont invention. You’d have thought that you could just get a new
head for your brush. You could have a handle made for you just perfectly molded for your
own grip. Yeah. So you use ivory or Oh no, hang on. Um Yes, you you rhino horn. Oh,
yes. Or panda fur. I use the panda bone. The beak of an osprey. Yes. Steven
Fry’s all endangered species bar from Oh, I use Sheila. No. Or others. He gave us neoprene as
well. He was a Harvard professor at the age of 28. Wet suits. Wets suits men
in neoprene. Exactly. And he invented that. you and a very young man and then
unfortunately committed suicide by taking saliva when his wife was pregnant. He must
have been very miserable. Did I say saliva? Freudian [ __ ] I slept on the poor man Kathers
took cyanide and killed himself. And obviously that’s funny. Why did he take Simon? Had he run
out of saliva? I don’t. Where is the bottle of spit? I’ve been saving. Oh dear. I’ve made
a bit of an answer myself. Who is this? Yeah. Well, thank you for falling into our
little healer lump trap there. Um, it’s actually the angel of Christian charity. Aos. OS was the
Greek god of love. This is the angel of Christian charity. Why is it called Aeros? H because people
mistakenly thought it was Aos because it had a bow and arrow. OS’s Greek for Cupid and they
thought it was like Cupid’s dart. Originally the arrow pointed up a particular avenue and
the idea was the shaft it was burying its shaft up Shaftsbury Avenue which was named after Lord
Shsbury Ashley Cooper the great I know who he was tell he was the bloke that passed all those acts
in the 19th century to stop children having to work 95 hours a week. Exactly right. Uh it was a
first that particular statue. Do you know why? Uh, first one on one leg. No, not that. The material
we’re after. Oh, bronze, copper, metal, steel, wood. Metal certainly not wood. It wouldn’t be the
first wooden or metal statue, would it? Aluminium. Aluminium. There you are. Take five points, young
David Mitchell. Very I know something about um statues of military personnel. Yes. On horseback.
If they’re up on their high legs like that, it means they died in battle. And if they got one
leg up, it means they died on service but not in a battle. And if they got all four down, it means
they just died after years later. Is that really true? I If that’s true. That’s really true. I
shall have the little elves, the QI elves. Um Oh, they’re flashing me now. This is an urban
myth and not true. It says they’re very quick. It feels like everything that I know is
wrong. Oh, I’m so sorry. Is that subat? That’s what comes when you you acquire
your knowledge by overhearing bloss. It is a general rule that if any fact given
you starts with the word apparently. What kind of creature was actually the first to be
sent into space? A a monkey. Oh dear. Monkey. And what did you say? He said dog. I think
he did say dog, didn’t you, John? [Music] I bet it was something that they didn’t know had
gone into. No, they sent it deliberately. Fly. Fly is correct. Do you know what kind of fly?
What sort of flies they always fly? You divide points between each other. Very good indeed. Why
did they do that? Well, they’re very light, so there was no payload. They sent them up uh in July
1946 on an American V2 along with some corn seeds. But uh fruit flies, why are they used so much
in science? Because they can talk and they tell you exactly what’s going on. If you’re a
fly in and it’s weightless, what happens then? You suddenly sort of stop flapping and go,
“Hang on. This is what I’ve always dreamed of. No, no effort.” They just say like that. in space when they go do number two, they do
it in the wall. They dock into the wall. You’re all right. All right. Thank you, Davis. One of
the things about fruit flies is they Thank you. But there’s no sound in space. No. So, you can’t
hear your own part. It’s so amused. That’s what’s so sweet. He is absolutely adoring it. No. 61% of
all known human disease genes have a recognizable match in fruit flies. Fruit flies also go
to sleep at night rather sweetly. If they get a cold then they get the common cold. But
they well be wonderful. And the other thing is every two weeks you’ve got a new generation.
So any experimentation you do you can observe very fast what happens. Scientists who work
with fruit flies give them jokey names. And I want you to tell me why they’re called what
they’re called. There’s a breed a gene strain called the Ken Barbie fruitfly. Why is it
called that? They’ve got no penises. Yes, they have no external genitalia. Quite
right. There’s one called the Maggie. Why would that be called the Maggie? Handbag.
Bit bit. Hates the unions. Bit rightwing. No, because it suffers from arrested development
like Maggie in the Simpsons. Yes. Someone in the audience got that before you, they must
award themselves a point. So there’s the Maggie one. There’s the cheap date which
is sensitive to ethanol intoxication. China, the city of China, spelled Kuan but
pronounced Chinan in China is about the same size as Corby. You can see it behind us and is also
by coincidence the site of one of the country’s largest steel works. But what quite interesting
material do they make their houses from? I don’t know. Is it dinosaur eggs? I’m almost inclined to tear up the real
Lance and say yes. But but cuz I’ve got one. A Chinese dinosaur egg. A Yes, it was a birthday
present. Um from from my wife every evening, Bill, 4 hours on the egg just in case. Yes, [Music]
I’m thinking about taking it abroad. taking it through the airport, you know, see if I can
get it scanned for free, you know, just put it. My god, what the I thought of doing that when the
tortoise was ill. Couldn’t get it. So, it’s stone. It’s fossil obviously stone weighs. I thought it
was a skull at first when I opened it. I thought that’s a bit of a weird present, but uh I’ll go
along with it. Yeah, great. And they’re huge and they make very good building blocks. So they
It wasn’t as jibberingly dribblingly stupid an answer as it at first time. No, it’s not that. It
is a very famous Chinese thing that these houses. Oh dear. Not bamboo. No. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh.
Sir. Bootleg Coldplay CDs. [Applause] bits of the Great War. Yes, is the right answer.
Help yourself to 10 points. Absolutely right. Um, yeah, it’s a rather sad thing. This
Great Wall of China is disappearing. There’s only 20% of it left. Where has it
gone? Well, people have just cut bits off to build pigsty and walled barns and farmers
just take bits because it’s handy material. The Gobi Desert is encroaching upon the Great
Wall. Is it? Yeah. Unfortunately. How rude. I know. How does the desert encroach sort
of like you sort of look away and then play grandmother’s footsteps? I’m sure it’s
the same way you get the armrest on a train. They should convert it into flats or something,
you know, something useful. Wouldn’t that be brilliant? They converted it into flat. Look,
it’s thick enough for flats. You just need to knock a few windows on either side and
then you could probably have, you know, four or 500,000 flats all the way along it and
then people would look after their own bit with, you know, window boxes and everything or a retail
opportunity. The great mall of China would do it. But no. Um, tell you what, there are points all
round to everybody who deserves them and none to those who don’t. In the Middle Ages, what shape
did people think the world was? Clatt [Music] did, but there’s absolutely no evidence
whatsoever. They all thought it was round. They all wrote about it as round. The Greeks knew
that it was round. Round and flat. No, I thought it was a sphere. Terry Jones the Python who who is
something of a medievalist as you may know he said he blames Washington Irving the American writer
for for one of those being who started this lie as he puts it the Greeks knew it was round he says
Chson knew it was round Roger Bacon wrote about the curvature in the earth in the 13th century so
majority of people didn’t really care no but they started as indeed we don’t now actually care that
it’s round if it was square it wouldn’t bother I’ve rushed to the edge. I’d want to go right
to the corner and sit on the corner. How do we know it’s round? Yeah. Huh? Round the
world. Tickets. One is photographing. Photographing it was a very big help. We
took a photograph and we saw that it was round. Yes. But then you could say that about
anything about people going to the moon and we know they didn’t. If it weren’t run, all the
flights of airplanes, if it weren’t round, were we just nothing that we How do we know?
They just don’t fly just circle around for a bit and let you think that you’re going miles
and miles and miles and just come down like, you know, a couple of hours away and they’ve set
Russia up a lot nearer than it is. It’s a really, really, really, really long oblong shape
on a track like a like an electric bike and they move it whizzing around. Plane goes
up, plane doesn’t move. They move the country. Are all the stars round? I can’t answer
that. Um, I think probably most But yet, you know what people thought 500 years ago? Can
I read books? Yes. Have I visited every star in the universe? No. Is that something
you find difficult to understand? Um, you set me off. You set sir off again. Don’t
you think that this series has reached the point with such with a dedicated following
who trust us that this would be the point where you could say just one thing in
a show you say just like this the world isn’t round it’s been proven most people will
now believe it who watch this show well I can say with some confidence ladies and gentlemen
the world is not round it is an oblate spheroid that’s not what I meant pine cone if you’d said
The world is shaped like a pine cone. Just to see how many letters we get. Yeah, it’ be interesting
to see, wouldn’t it? Get some at last. Anyway, apart from the Well, you know who you are, don’t
you? And I tried it and it was a disaster. Um, yes. No. Since the 4th century BC, almost no
one in the history of the world has believed that the earth is flat. It’s a common
misconception. And indeed, the song lyric, they all laughed at Christopher Columbus when
he said the world was round. But he didn’t think uh that the world was round. He thought it was
actually pear-shaped, funnily enough. Who was the only survivor of the Crimean War? When
did it officially end then? That’s what you have to find out. Sebastapole and Balaclava and
the charge of the light brigade. It’s that war. Yes. And we got their cannons and made the VC
out of them. It was around the time the cannon was being invented. It was around the 1850s,
1854. Um, but in those days when Britain went to war because of a very peculiar law, there
was one part of Britain that was exempt from being called either England or Scotland. Beric.
Beric upon tweed. Yes, you’re absolutely right. Beric upon Tweed was given a special status
as being of the United Kingdom but not in it. So when the British went to war with Russia,
it was Victoria, Queen of Britain, Ireland, Bericapon Tweed in the British dominions beyond
the sea was in the phrasiology of the declaration of war. But in 1856, they didn’t mention Beric
upon Tweed in the in the peace treaty. So it was still technically at war until 1966 when the the
mayor of Beric conte actually signed a treaty with Russia saying now at last you can tell the Russian
people that they may sleep easily in their beds. I thought cleric still was separate isn’t it?
They’re in England but they play in the Scottish League. Is that right? Excellent. So there we have
it. There’s a war that went from 1854 to 1966. A creature that had been on a ship at Sebastapole
in the war was still alive when the war ended. It was the only thing. A tortoise is absolutely
right. Was a naval tortoise called Timothy the tortoise. Isn’t he just the one that just died?
No, there he is. He’s fine. Um, he carried on living until 2004. Survivor of the Crimean War.
He was ship’s mascot of the HMS Queen during the first bombardment of Zastapole. Did he actually
fight in the war? No. survived the war but was in it involved in it on in nature fighting crawl
back to your your line then you chuck him again fighting tortoises army they
didn’t use him to send messages that’s the enemy coming has he has he delivered the peace treaty yet he’s on That’s
right. Is the largest lake in Canada? Width or depth? Not dep. Can I attempt an answer
at this? Yeah. Who cares? Oh dear. Oh dear. We were predicting that one. Yeah. Who cares? There
are so many lakes in Canada. More than a million in Manitoba alone. Yes, you can buy a lake and
have it named after you. It’s cuz the water doesn’t drain away. It’s no water table. You
can, but one’s really, really big. It’s bigger than Albania. It’s bigger than one of the great
lakes. Technically Canadian are they all? No, you’ve avoided our little trap there actually,
which Joe didn’t by saying he who cares. If you’d said one of the Great Lakes, it would have
been you would have been a big noise because this lake has to be entirely in Canada. What’s the
difference between largest and biggest? Well, in other languages, largest mean widest, I
suppose. And biggest being just greatest in size, but largest we now mean to mean biggest. It
originally meant wide. Large is wide in French, isn’t it? Right. Thanks. I mean, we are very
lucky because we have we have both Latin and and and the romantic languages and the
Anglo-Saxon languages to draw on. So, we can say big and large. Yeah. Say little and
small. Little and large. Little and large. Funny enough, when you said the deepest lake there
is, the deepest lake is Lake Manitu and Lake Manitu is a weird lake because it’s also got
the largest lake island in the world in it. Um, and that island has got a lake in it, which is
the largest lake in an island that’s in a lake in the world. Goes on to infinity. It does,
doesn’t it? No. The answer is the Great Bear Lake. None of the five great lakes is entirely.
Why did big beard Wang regularly shave his [ __ ] Well, I’m afraid I’m disappointed that we’ve
um got a cheap laugh from the word [ __ ] Wang. Actually, I think it’s a person perhaps. You’re
right. Big beard Wang who one could assume he had a large beard. Uh and he shaved his cat.
M well he was a barber. He was a barber to a very famous man. Was he a Chinese barber? He was
a Chinese barber. An emperor. Was there a kind of emperor? I suppose though he would certainly
not call himself one. But chairman Mao. Chairman Mao indeed. And Mao is the Chinese for cat.
Cat. Exactly. Meow. Meow. You would think, but no, it really is. Mao is cat. Is
that cat on the end of chair and mouse? That’s why I’m smiling. I don’t remember
that as one of those communist posters. It means cat mau and it also means hat,
oddly enough. So ma le ma means the cat in the Titanic sank. What was the first thing
that happened to the crew? [Music] Terrible luck for them. But they actually had
their six-month review and uh [Applause] They drowned. Did you say they drowned? I
said they drowned. Oh dear. No. No. I was going to say they were fired. Every
single member of the crew had their wages stopped at the moment of the sinking. The moment
a ship sinks, it is no longer a ship. Therefore, you can’t work on it. Therefore, the White
Star line paid them up to the minute of the sinking and not. I would imagine that in a
sinking situation, you’d hope to be getting time and a half. This is it. Frankly, double
bubble. Just a little something back. As soon as you’re in the water, you’ve got to be looking
for work. Get on your pedal and look for work. But apparently at the time, White Star were
considered one of the more generous employers. I think it was £5 a month. Not very much. Do
you know about the Duff Gordon family on the Titanic and their terrible gin? Very good. No,
they offered the crew of lifeboat number one £5 to save their lives. Um, nobody’s quite sure
whether this was just greed saying I give you £5 if you save my life or whether it was a thank
you because their lives were saved. But whatever the result, the crew themselves were in terrible
trouble for accepting a bribe. And one poor lad, Albert Horsewell, survived. He was one of the
lifeboat crew, got home, went to see his mother, who slammed the door in his face and
never spoke to him again because she was ashamed that he had taken a bribe. She
was also bonkers. I was Mrs. Horse. Well, this is the truth. Someone dressed as a
lady. Supposedly someone did because it was women and children first. I thought
you said somebody dressed as a baby. Baby. Yes, Goooo. Indeed, I have a lollipop and uh
I have no control of my bowels or urination. I am indeed an infant. And I know you think
I’m Lord’s Alamal. That is little baby with a beard. Woohoo. Ah, and madam, might I
tell you, I’ve been a very naughty baby. So along that path, the the ones
who were paid £5 were only the able seaman. How how can you tell able
from ordinary seaman? Well, um, when you applied for a job
as seaman on on on mercenary, you either registered as an able seaman or an
ordinary seaman, and they accepted your word, but you kept a log of your work, which was the
real proof of it, and it was called a certificate, a certificate of continuous discharge. Tell me
all about the 12 Frenchmen and the 12 mosquitoes. Dar. Once upon a time, there were 12
Frenchmen called a sleepy arrogant fur. Uh, of course, and Jean, the twins, and
they used to travel with mosquitoes, solving adventures. And what were
the mosquitoes called? Sticky. It was a very, very low 1950s French
detective season h that involved at some point the extraction of a tiny amount
of blood from one of the suspects. Yes. Do you know what else a mosquito can be
other than a It was a World War II plane. Made out of wood. Made out of wood. Exactly. Made
out of balsa wood and plywood. What was their great raid? Tuck shop. I don’t know. Was it made
into a film? It was. There were 12 members of the resistance and they were due to be shot by the
Gestapo. And the allies would send in these 12 mosquitoes to bomb the chatau in Amy so all the
prisoners would escape. I can’t believe that they just blow the bloody doors off basically
the whole place with 12 bombers. You’re right. What happened was they had to go down an avenue
of popular which was so narrow they had to popul um there were 700 prisoners in the prison.
102 were killed by the raid to start with. 74 were wounded. Yeah. Then 258 escaped,
of which 179 were rounded up within the next few days by the Germans. Again,
my girlfriend’s grandfather flew one of those. And he actually goes now and
visits in Germany with a Luftvafa pilot whose plane he shot down during the war. And
they go and they sit around and you know go, “Aha, great days.” Yeah. And uh but neither
of them speak the other language like the uh like he doesn’t speak German and L doesn’t
speak English but they sit there and say yeah the temptation if you’re standing behind a whole [Applause] and for over 50 years that
German man has been peeing in your granddad’s tea. We had an air fix model of one of those
and gave it to my dad for his birthday and he made it before breakfast. You put the
transfers on. Yeah. Painted it and everything. That’s a pain cuz you had to put them in
hot water and wait for them to slip off. And then of course with chubby six-year-old
fingers, you just end up covered in swastikas. You go to school and they think you’re
in the BMP and it’s no, I’ll be trying to make a hind call. Sir, what happened?
This is my question to you. What happened to 3/4 of the people accused of witchcraft
in England? Drowned, burned, killed. Oh, we were much gentler than you might think. They
were acquitted. Really? Yeah. It’s saying the wrong message to witches. who apparently
rather resistant to the idea of destroying witches in in England and unlike um views
espoused in so-called books and I use the word book very loosely like the Dainci coat
[Music] it is complete loose stool water it is ass gravy of the worst kind [Applause] he’s
a blues singerly welcome loose stall water. [Applause] Very good. Excellent. Well,
that particular panful of that material did claim that about 5 million women were
burned or hanged around Europe for being witches. There’s absolutely no evidence there’s
anything like as much that probably about 500, probably less in England. And they
weren’t burned, they were hanged. The lawyer would have said maybe
not go to court dressed like that. Two possibly burned. That’s the only evidence
that two were burned. The rest were hanged. Probably about four or 500 at the most.
Lots of hammer films. The devil rides out and those kind of things. Usually Peter Cushing
and sometimes if you were very lucky they would have Charles Gray in a huge white smock.
Where do most tigers live? Asia. Most I think you got in there first, didn’t you?
No. No. Not true. Not true. No, not zoos at the same time. A couple of points. No,
not zoos. Neither Las Vegas. Well, America, certainly in America. Private hands. Most big cats
are in private hands. Yeah. I had to do a photo shoot once with a tiger and these two BS turn up
with a big enormous chain and a tiger on the end of it. And they said, uh, shouldn’t really handle
them, uh, after the age of 10 months. I said, how old was that one? He said, 11 months. was
a wonderful animal handler woman, you know, very gruff sort of woman. We were doing
a scene when this dog was just shagging everything and this woman very odd mixture
of severe and unbelievably twe any more of their behavior. She said to the dog have
a short sharp visit from the smack fairy. It sounds like a drug dealer. Exactly. Extraordinary snack. Snap fairy. The answer to our
tiger question is the United States, especially Texas. According to the National Geographic,
there are more tigers kept as pets in the USA than there are remaining in their wild habitats
in Asia. As many as 500 lions, tigers, and other big cats in the Houston area alone. Who invented
the theory of relativity? Oh, this is one of your Oh, so little trust in the world. It was Albert
Eggmont. I’m not going to say he was a very great physicist. Do you Which one? Theory of relativity.
Which one? Uh the theory of relativity. Not the special one, not the general one. Very good
question. The first theory of relativity that put to rest Aristotle’s theory of absolute
rest. In fact, because you you’re a bit of an old science bod. Yeah. But you know, not in
a way that like to be quizzed on television. I bet it turns out to be Einstein in an elaborate
bluff. Do how much do you want to risk the cloak of doubt? Big big hitter. The biggest
really. Newton. Newton. Second biggest then. Einstein. Oh, did you say Einstein? All that care.
You took so much care not to say Einstein. Fish bite hooks. No. Galileo. Galilee. I’m thinking
of Galileo. He just did telescopes. Tell him put him right about Galileo. Just founder of
more modern physics. Could he make a good pasta source? Anyway, there we are. Einstein was
responsible for the special and the general theories of relativity. 1905 and 19 15 or 16. 15.
I think you’re right. Yes. Respectively. But the original idea of relativity. Alan, if you were
kned, what would the queen say to you? Arise. No, no, she wouldn’t. Are you sure she doesn’t
say no? I’m sorry. I have to draw the lines. [Applause] Well, after his name, for which we’ll
say Alan, after Alan’s name is announced, the night Alan kneels on a nighting stool. What
are the chances? Never know. I wouldn’t turn it down. I’m not P in front of the queen who then
lays the sword blade on the knight’s right and then left shoulder. After he has been dubbed, the
new knight stands up. Contrary to popular belief, the words arise, sir, dot dot dot are not used.
The queen then invests the knight with the insign of the order to which he’s been appointed, a star
or badge, depending on the order. By tradition, clergy receiving a knighthood. What’s
the difference when clergy nighted? If they happen to be they kneel on a corgi. No,
there’s no sword. No sword. You can’t take a sword to a clergy. Exactly. Without you take
a dagger, wouldn’t you? Exactly. Exactly. The strict meaning of the word accolade is
the salutation given on the bestow of a nighthood from the Latin meaning of an embrace
around the neck around the coal as in collar. But you know about degradation and that’s when
you have your knighthood taken away. The last public one was in 1621 when Sir Francis Mitchell
was found guilty of grievous exactions and had his spurs broken and thrown away, his belt cut and his
sword broken over his head and was then pronounced to be no longer a knight but a nave. All by
the king. Yeah. It would have been James first, wouldn’t it? Yes. Wow. When she did Alan Sugar,
did he go? You’re fired. You’re degraded. You are a nave. What does the moon smell like? Yes,
Joe. Does it smell of Buzz Aldrin’s underpants? It might. Did he crap himself there and buried
some? Well, one of them obviously did, didn’t they? Wouldn’t crap himself there and buried some.
I did that as a child. I I pooed in my pants and buried them in the garden. But when I went back
to check on them a few weeks later, they’ve gone. People have sold them. People advertise dirty
underpants in the backs of magazines. Not in the spectator. They don’t. All I can say.
What’s the moon smell of? Cheese. Oh, Joe, you are. I thought it was hanging over
it. It was hanging over it. You get some points if you know how many humans have
walked on the moon. 12. Absolutely. You both said it simultaneously and you both
get five points. He says, “I guessed.” Well, well, you still get the point. Anyway,
apparently smells of gunpowder. Lots of moon dust came back in the module back to Earth. And it’s
that mixture of silicon and iron and magnesium and calcium that marks out special K amongst other
things, I think, but is also present in moon dust. What’s it taste of? Winsley Dale. But
uh what was Darwin’s problem with brown owl and why did he not describe it? Now clearly
if one makes a joke about girl guides here like he was traumatized during a period in the girl
guides before we help him now. We even predicted your mistake cuz I think Brown is Yeah. Yeah.
He must have died before before the brownies existed. Exactly. He probably ate it or something.
Ah. So he ate brown owls. You’re saying? Well, actually he didn’t because he he described it as
indescribable, which is why he didn’t describe the brown. Well, actually as food he meant because
Charles Darwin, one of the greatest scientists, one of the greatest men really of any age, was
considered a very dim pupil and couldn’t spell and was terrible at arithmetic and went to Cambridge.
The only subject his father thought was fit for him was divinity. and he spent his time chasing
rats and shooting and looking at animals and eating strange animals. He was a member of the
gourmet society or the glutton as it was known at Cambridge and their aim in life was to eat as
many rare and peculiar animals like bittens and hawks. The brown alowl they didn’t like at all
and all the others became bishops. This is this still exists this uh club. Is this Steven’s the
president of other writing around for fox on cre? I think panda. That’s the Oh, it’s love you panda.
I’ve got a book at home. It’s equivalent to the Collins book of birds from 1850. And after
describing each bird at the end, it will say, for instance, a buzzard. Tastes a little bit
milder than a golden eagle. Yes. But still quite palatable. Does it have a wine recommendation at
the bottom? You suggest a shabby or a new world melo? Do you know what you should drink with
the beating heart of a cobra? This is a dish in China where you get a cobra and it’s brought
to the table alive. They then slice it open, rip the heart out and it’s beating on the plate
there. You have to chase it around the plate, I suppos. And then you drink the blood of the
snake as the wine. Actually, I order the lasagna. What’s the most disgusting
thing you’ve ever eaten, Alan? Ear wax. your own. It was your own. That’s
all. It’s really horrible. I mean, if just a tiny bit on the end of your fingers.
Sweet. If you had to have a sandwich of it, really like a block of it. Anyway, um a phylm
feast is held on the 12th of February every year by zoologologists and biologists in which they
try and eat as many different species as possible in honor of Charles Darwin whose birthday that
was. Why do children play with their food? The sixth child of Sigman Freud was called Anna
Freud and she took up her father’s beacon of battiness. She was the first person to write about
denial. That’s Sigman on the right. Um, for me, playing with food came out of being deprived
in Liverpool when there were no toys. So, did you make sort of things out of meatballs
instead of Lego? Mom used to put a plate of turnip tops and cocktals. So, as a youth, your
toys were cockals. My first toy was toy cheese for Christmas. Honestly, honestly, I was a metal
like cheese portion which you wound up used to wind up. I remember this on the lino and put
it down. I used to make like cheesy movements. Cheesy movements. That is a very good reason to
play with foods. And it makes me all the sicker at the weirdness of Anna Freud. Anna Freud
believed by playing with their food they were really playing with their excrement. The thing is
a child could play with its excrement. wanted to if it wanted to. Of all human phases that you’re
in, lower infancy is the one where you can most get away with playing. Oh, he’s got his hand in
his nappy against. But that’s what the one thing that we don’t touch. The Freud family is a good
example. Anna Freud suffered from depression all life and never had children. Sigman Freud was
terrified of the number 62 and so he refused to ever stay in a hotel that had more than 61 rooms
in case he got number 62. And the first time after he’d made this rule, the first room that he
was booked into was number 31. And he went, “Oh, see half of 62.” Yeah. But 62 rounds with
poo. Six looks like a poo pursued by a swan. You know, one of the things that people say sort
of a test of whether you’re anal is whether you keep your records in alphabetical order, all
that. But and I think, well, surely it depends on how many records you’ve got. If you’ve just got
two and you keep going back and check going, “Oh, abbera zz top. They’re still there. That’s all
right. I’ve got a room full of bloody records. I keep them in alphabetical order so I can
find the one I want.” Apparently means I got a problem with me ass. How is that? I shouldn’t
think in her time they had alphabetic spaghetti. That’s true. Which was the main reason I play
with my food every breakfast. I just insert my meatballs at me [ __ ] whenever they turn up on
the plate. And if they want to call you anal, it’s up to them. It’s in their court. The ball is in
their court. The ball is up your ass. Ineffably, imponderably stupid. And in front of each one
of you here, you should find you have a picture, which is a picture of a genuine United
States patent office patent application. Uh, Arthur, have a look at yours, shall
we? And climb. Yours looks like this. And now, you’ve got a picture, too. Some sort of
electrified Christmas stocking. It’s a shoe bomb. Why would you want an electrified Christmas
stocking anyway? It’s a Santa Claus detector. Oh, it’s got a motion detector. You hang it amongst
your other stockings and when Santa Claus comes, it triggers a light and an alarm. There’s no such
thing as I know there isn’t wasting time. Wasting time. This looks like a bra where you’ve got a
little nozzle and you can blow down it to inflate the bra. So, this is clearly designed for a woman
who maybe thinks one of her with no arms. Oh, yes. Uh, I wasn’t going to mention that.
She’s got one breast she feels is slightly smaller than the other, but she doesn’t make
a big thing of it. Except when she’s walking past somebody who she fancies, so she can quickly
and surreptitiously and inflate the breast. Oh, no. Your breath was going in the wrong direction.
You were blowing when you should be sucking. So, you suck. You basically have drink in your
bra and you you can surreptitiously suck your drink out of it. It’s only going to be
for red wine though, isn’t it? Because it’s going to be too warm for white wine or beer
or Oh, what about Ovaltine? Oh, can I have one of those Ovaltine bras? I’ve heard so much
about she came in here wreaking of Ovaltine. What’s yours, young Arthur? Uh, yes. I
remember Clive Anderson in his thesis and uh I can’t hardly believe it, but maybe
someone has actually patented the coma. You’re absolutely right. On May the 10th,
1977, Frank Smith from Orlando, Florida, filed a patent for a method of styling hair to
cover partial baldness using only the hair on a person’s head. But why is his head the color
of a baboon’s ass? Have you got the full details of this that I could take away? study in. If
you look at this picture though, what you’ll see is a horse with its tail. That’s just the
end of it. Thick. What have you got for us? Uh, this is um a device for sucking those special
gases out of a U bend. And it looks like an actual pan is filled with some sort of worms
which probably create the gas you bend. But you’re more or less right. It is a device for
allowing you to breathe in the event of a fire in a hotel room. You pop it’s called the toilet
snorkel. Um so your last moments before the fire burns your backside off spent sucking in basically
lavatory air. Lavatory air. Darling, I saw fire. Where’s the toilet snorkel? The Great Fire of
London destroyed 13,200 houses, 87 churches, 44 livery halls, and over four fifths of the
city of London with a capital C. How many people died in that 5day conclation? I think it’s four
people. It’s some very low figure of I’m going to give you the points because it’s five people.
Five people. Well, well, very good. Very good. Only five are recorded. The maid of the
baker who started the fire, Paul Lel, a shoelane watch maker, an old man who rescued a
blanket from St. Paul’s but succumb to the smoke, and two others who fell into their cellars
in an ill- fated attempt to recover their goods and chattles. The mayor, actually, Thomas
Bworth, went back to bed on the first night, saying, “A woman might piss it out.” The previous
great fire in 1212 killed 3,000 people. What are the four main religions of India? Yes, Alan.
Uh, Sikhs. Yep. Buddhism. Oh, no. It’s not Hinduism. Hinduism. Yes. Christianity. Yes. And
one more. You’ve only said Islam. Muslim. Islam. Islam. Yes. In in correct order, they are Hindu,
Islam, Christian, and Sik. No Buddhist. There are Buddhists. was invented in India. Of course, the
Buddha was an Indian, but it’s not one of the four main religions. There are 805 million Hindus.
There are 134 million Muslims. There are 23 million Christians, which is 23, which is 22 and
a half million more than there are in Britain. And there are 19 million Sikhs. Buddhists, there
are 7 million of them. 0.7% of the population. Although Buddhism was founded in India, its
spiritual home today is of course Tibet. The blah blah seal to La Bastile. You see what
I’ve done there? It’s in Paris. Paris is good. Yes. Very good. Can you tell me anything else
interesting about La Bestel? Either of you. It was a prison. It was a prison and it was stormed
on July the 12th. 14th. 14th, but closed two days out. You say two days out, but I’d have stormed
it two days earlier. I’d have been on my own. There were only seven prisoners, weren’t there?
Is exactly the right number. There were only two lunatics. Two thieves. Oh, two two lunatics, two
forggers, two thieves, and a very bad martist. Wasn’t he convinced he was Julius Caesar, one of
them? Oh, this is good. You’re getting points, too. I’ll come to this. This is impressive.
And uh listen to this. We have four forggers. We have the contange who was inside for sexual
misdemeanors of an unspecified kind. Two lunatics, one of whom was an Englishman or an Irishman,
they’re not quite sure, called Major White with a waistlength beard who thought he was Julius
Caesar. You know, the marquee dard would have been in the prison at the time of the storming
of the Bastile. It’s a very tragic story this because he was in there for a long time, but
a week before the storming of the Bastile, he was transferred to another prison because he’d
been upsetting passers by by shouting obscenities at them through a tube out the window. This is
it’s as if you’ve been reading my card, Mark. And so all this stuff, it was tragic cuz he spoke to
his wife and he said, “Look, can you make sure you go around there and pick all this writing? I’ve
spent years writing in there.” But she thought, “Well, you know, no rush, is there? It’s the bast
safest place of character after that. And I think she went down there on the day of the storming of
the Bastile and thought, “Oh shit.” And absolutely right. 10 days before the storming was when he
was moved to Vansen and the authorities were upset because he was shouting not just obscenities
but anti- monarchist sentiments that passes by. So they moved him to Vansen and otherwise he would
have been released. It was rather like the Tower of London. Even at the Tower of London’s height,
it was quite a civilized place to be a prisoner. I mean, you got wine and food and you got an
allowance. You got tobacco. You could move around as much as you like. So, this was like the grouch
show of the prison world. Yeah. Tell me why the Cray twins were imprisoned in the Tower of London.
Were they ravens who were No, that’s a cunning answer. The ravens do have weird names and they’re
literally prisoners because they’re kept in cages at the moment because of the warriors of bird
flu. They’re called Guillam, Thor, Eugene, Munin, Branwin, Bran, Gandalf, and Baldrick. and Dave.
So they did actually have the CRA. They had Ronnie and Reggie of the of the three CR officers strike
or something when there’s nowhere else to put them. No, they were a bit younger than that. Did
they go on a school trip? No. National service. Very good. Absolutely right. There was a barracks
there, wasn’t there? There was a barracks there and that was their one. It was the City of London
regiment of the first battalion of the Royal Fuselers, which is where people like Michael Kane
had gone when they’ done their national service. people in the east end. That was their local
barracks. But they were actually imprisoned there because when they did their national service, they
don’t like it. Ron and Reggie didn’t like it. And they beat up their training sergeant and and went
home to go tea with their mom. The weird thing about Ronny is he was pretty pretty psychopathic
and as most people know, he was gay. But he had this weird thing that everyone had to admire his
boyfriend. So they’d have a meeting of the firm and there’d be the heads of Plasto and Hackne and
Dston and all the local branches of the firm and there’d be Ronny the colonel and there’d be a
17-year-old youth called Cyprien or something. And and Ronnie would go, “Hello everybody, this is
Cyprien.” And hello Cyprian. And Ronny would go, “I he gorgeous.” And they’d all go, “Oh, he’s
lovely, Ronny. Oh, how you pick him? Oh, you happy dog.” David Putnham of all people used to manage
them for a very short period of time. I know. It’s weird. Yeah, he did. They wanted to go legitimate.
And he tells the story of how they were with David Bailey, who took those famous photographs of the
two of them in suits, you know, the standing one behind the other. And they were all in this pub.
It wasn’t the blind beggar, but it was a cray pub. Ronnie had gone off. He was the insane one. So,
they left with Reggie, who’s supposedly the the normal one. And these couple of drunks come in
and they suddenly spot David Bailey. And they go, “Oh, you’re David Bailey, ain’t you? Go take
me photograph.” And David Bailey goes, “No, no.” I said, “Oh, don’t be a [ __ ] [ __ ] Take me
photograph.” Said, “No, no. I’ve run out of film. Don’t be give me that. Take my photograph.” Reggie
gets up, looks at himself in the mirror across the bar like that and suddenly goes baff like that and
knocks him right across the room and he bangs his head against the piano and blood starts to trickle
down. And his mate goes to him and they just flee. And David Bailey, to his credit, is very angry,
says, “Reggie, you are a tosser. For God’s sake, I get this every day. I’m a photographer. People
know what I look like. I can handle you.” You didn’t have to do that. You could have killed him.
There was this terrible silence that Reggie had been shouted at like this. And he gave a little
shy smile. He said, “Well, to tell you the truth, Mr. Bailey, I’d have my eye on that all
afternoon. He’d been eating my sandwiches.” Very. Anyway, we can move on. Anyone fancy a
game of arrows while we’re in the pub on the occ and is something you always see the players
doing in darts matches? Johnny. A dangly wrist. Dangly wrist. The great dance player always before
they wobble their stomach, they they they do this with a wrist. I’m sorry. It’s an unfortunate What
kind of pubs have you been playing dance? Well, hello. Yes. Very nice. No, Jimmy. No, it’s
2006. What did uh We can’t be doing Hello Ding, can we? Is there some word that they use that
means throw in the dart? or is it darting? Well, what you’ve done is you’ve cleverly avoided our
trap, which was drinking because that’s what they don’t do. It was actually against the rules of
competition darts to drink during a game of darts. When they first televised it, they would drink
quite a lot while they were playing. Then the game fell into decline and it was that fell [ __ ]
comedy that was responsible. Darting. You join us during the final stages of this truly titanic
struggle. between die fat belly gut bucket and the English champion Tommy even fatterbelly belchure.
It’s game on. It’s a good start. Double vodka. Single paint. Another double vodka. 100 mg. 100 mg. This was such a problem, the sketch, apparently
for the public perception of darts that it fell into decline and became regarded as a sloppy game
for drunkards. You know, in Holland they play in schools. Well, they have the great Raymond Van
Barnavvelt who’s won the darts many times. I remember the commentator saying he’s quite a man.
He is in his spare time he studies the universe. Who’s the famous Darts commentator? Do you
remember? Sid Wedell. Sidell. Who is a double first history? Something like that. He certainly
read history at Cambridge University and has said some famous and extraordinary things in his
time. There’s only one word for that. Magic darts. That’s the greatest comeback since Lazarus.
Alexander the Great conquered the world at 33. Eric Bristo is only 32. Absolutely. He actually
was slightly more poetic. When Alexander of Macedon was 33, he cried salt tears that there
were no more worlds to conquer. Eric Bristo is only 27. And then you have the rather odd one,
he’s as happy as a penguin in a microwave. What was the most dangerous military strategim
ever devised? Vehicles reversing. Was it Hannibal’s first crack at the Alps with Chihuahua?
The purpose of this one was to terrify the enemy. Imagine you’re in the front line of an army and
you’re massing against the front line of another army and the front line of the opposing army
does something so extraordinary that you think, “Oh my god, we are never going to beat them.” Is
it from a carry-on film? Is it when they lifted their when they lifted their kilts and they
didn’t wear pants? It was amazing. Carry on Braveheart. No, it’s neither of those. Um, they
flagagulate themselves. They insert something within them. They chop their own heads off.
They chop their own heads off. The front line of the army chops their heads off. How How you
do that? Grab your hair and just slice with a very sharp sword. Who was that then? The Scots
guards. This was This was in 496 BC. It would be the Swiss army cuz they’d have something on one of
those little knives. No, it is. Self decapitation. It’s a country you know well and you’re wearing it
flag at the moment. as the flag of Vietnam. Well, that’s right. We’re talking 496 BC, the army of
King Gujian of U and he had convicted criminals in the front line and told them they had to
cut their own heads off. You may say, well, why would they do that? What’s the worst that
could happen? The worst that could happen is if they didn’t, then all their families and all
their children would be massacred as well. It they didn’t seem to worried. They knew they’re
going to die anyway. They were condemned to death. What do we know about decapitation? Does it
kill you straight away? I know if you cut a duck’s legs off, it can still swim. It can It
can float, but it can’t swim. Floating. I’ll leave a little bit of stumpage. It wouldn’t be
a It would have to catch the currents. It would evolve into a whole different animal. It would
probably get a wing up as a sail or something. Did they discover like for example at the French
Revolution with the guillotine that like heads could kind of like chat carry on? So Well, no,
you’re right. There was a story during the terror of the French Revolution that two members of
the the National Assembly were guillotined and their heads put in the same bag straight away
and one bit the other so hard they couldn’t be separated. What? Just the heads? That’s holding
a grudge, isn’t it? For all intents and purposes, you’re dead. Let it go. Yeah, you didn’t get on.
Whatever. They were friends. The bravest species of animal. Um I think it might be the ick Newman,
the the mongoose. Yes. Um because the mongoose is basically like a sort of glorified ferret and it
goes out of its way to kill cobras and cobras can kill you just by looking at you the wrong way.
So I think that’s pretty brave. Why does it kill cobras? Cuz if it can only eat cobra, it’s not
brave. It’s just sensible. It’s just, you know, but cobras, you know, they come out of baskets.
They sing. They dance. Sort of less Dennis of the snake world. They’re literally the hoodie of
the snake world, aren’t they? They got the little hoods. They’re not that brave though cuz as far
as I’m aware the mongoose nearly always wins. I’ve never seen a David Atenburgh where he suddenly
goes oh dear the mongoose has cpped it. What’s difficult about this question I think is you need
some kind of comparative unit of bravery. I think and we have one. How do we show how brave people
are in in a graded order? Sals medals right? There are bound to be loads of horses and dogs that have
been ridiculously given medals if they understood what they were doing at all. Pigeons get they
get medals. I’m going to give you the points and you said pigeons, didn’t you? Pigeons. Yes,
pigeons mean points. Brilliant. Mariah Dickin, who founded the people’s dispensary for sick animals
in 1943, she instituted a medal called the Dickin, which is the equivalent of a Victoria Cross
for animals that serve in the armed forces. She sounds really bonkers. I think you start giving
the animals medals. You got to start promoting the animals and at some point you get a pigeon in
charge of the whole army. To be brave, you need to know the element of risk. So I reckon probably the
bravest is something like a robin. Cuz I’ve seen robins mob cats. You know, that’s the equivalent
of of us running towards as in Batman a tiger. Well, that’s just not fair, is it? Well,
anyway, the Dickin Medal has been awarded 60 times and 32 times it’s gone to a pigeon
once to a cat. Cat on board as amethyst. The Yangy incident. Yansy incident in 1949.
Entire crew saved by a cat. Yeah. Well, he let all the rats on ship. That’s not
bravery though. That’s just greed. It is really fat logging. that babies have that
adults do not. I’m above heads. Horns. Horns. Horns. Almost close. They have a cranial
cap. They have a divot there that you can store things in. The bones in the head haven’t fused
together yet, have they? They haven’t. Not only in the head. That’s the point. They’re
completely spongy babies. You can bend them pretty like plasterine. You can just like
make if it’s an ugly baby, you can just make it slightly better looking. You know, just give it
horns if you want. What’s the protocol for when you see a really ugly baby? Do you know? I’ll
tell you. People show you their babies on their phone now and it’s like a cashew with some hair
coming out of the thing to say is nice phone. That’s what I think. I I think babies have
the ability to know that they are ugly, which their parents don’t. They don’t have
kneecaps, do they? That’s Aren’t you mixing them up with merr babies? Their kneecaps are
not made of bone while they’re babies. And they’re all kinds of parts of them. What are
they made of? So, they’re not made of bone, but are made of cartilage or Play-Doh. And
they have 94 more bones than adults. No, they’re not. Yeah, you’re making this up. No. A
baby’s body has about 300 what are called soft bones that haven’t actually formed bone material.
They are actually cartilage a sort of soft gooey thing and they eventually fuse to form the 206
bones of the average human body. Where are a quarter of those bones housed? Foot feet. The
feet is right. Yeah. A quarter of your bones. 52. Very good. Yeah. Very good. How long do you
have to wait for your baby to harden? It’s in the natural course of You put it somewhere like with
airfix kits. I used to put them in the airing cup. I’m going to kill a kill. Bake it. You fire the
baby. If you can imagine what a kamicazi pigeon unit did. Fly into things. Fly into planes.
Engines. You’re getting there. It’s a very complicated fly down guns. It’s a nest. Terrible
nuisance to get out. Was to fly. It was to fly at ships, but in a very particular way inside um a
missile. It’s got a window. Right. I’ll explain it to you. Here’s a pigeon. I’ve got a pigeon here.
Voila. And I have a ship. Yeah. And you train the pigeon to peck at a ship. And every time it does,
it’s rewarded with grain. Then you put it inside its missile with a glass front, right? And a ship
comes into view. but it’s slightly on the left. Well, the pigeon’s behavioral response is to peck
towards where it is and this activates a relay. And as it gets nearer the ship and it gets bigger
and bigger, it pecks more and more and more and more and more which tells them that they’re on the
right track. They get really really close and it explodes in a ball of flame destroying and that’s
the thanks it gets. That’s the thanks. Maybe get showered with grain at the last second but thank
you. Who knows? But it’s a guidance system. Did it work? It wasn’t used, right? But what
they did using this man’s skin, this behavioral psychologist’s experiments, was they instead they
got a bit of glass and instead of having a target on it or anything like that, it was just plain
piece of glass with an orange dot on it. And every time the pigeon hit the dot exactly like
that, it would get rewarded. Can you imagine why that would be useful? I was thinking about this
just the other day. It’s funny you think very slow form of execution for someone. You put an
orange dot on, you’ve got a pigeon in the room, you can activate 12 years. No, Pete have very
good eyesight. And if an air rescue helicopter is searching the sea and someone’s in a little orange
dingy or in an orange life jacket, the pigeon will always see it. There’s a little dot in it screen.
So, let’s go like that thinking it’s going to get fed. And that will alert good lord the pilot.
And it works. And that’s beneficial. And no one dies. Someone might even get saved. Yeah. Yes.
And then you eat the pigeon on the way back. The passenger pigeon. Is that a familiar species
to any of you? It’s one of the saddest stories. There were flocks of them in America. And I’m not
kidding. That were one mile wide and 300 miles long. Good lord. That have 2 billion of these
birds. They were just the most extraordinary sight in nature probably. So they’re [ __ ] whole hills.
Yeah. Absolutely. Caught under that. You are dead. You are seriously dead. In 1896, they killed the
final flock of a quarter of a million in one day. Who knowing it was the last American sportsman and
I used the word sport quite wrongly. Did you know about the pacini gun? The composer was a great
shooter of birds as a lot of Italians are. When I was in his house at to de lago, there was the
pini gun which he made himself and he’d be sitting there writing, you know, lovely opera, lovely
opera, and he hear a snipe outside the window. He grabbed this thing which had the bore on it like a
drain pipe and he could bring down 50 snipe in one go. Oh, you see is that sport? He’s Italian.
Italians, Americans. I mean, really, that’s horrible. But can you imagine that? And then
on one day knowing you’re wiping out an entire species to kill a quarter of a million birds in a
day. Did Did they know it was the last quarter of a million? And they sort of thought, “Fantastic.
Let’s finish them off.” Yeah, that was the last flock. And then the last bird itself died in the
Cincinnati Zoo in 1914. She was called Martha. So the pigeons in Trafalga Square, they’re wild rock
pigeons. Wild rock doves. Wild rock doves. Yeah. Do they know that? Because they you don’t tend
to see them on the cliffs at Beachy Head. They’re confused by our rock cliffs, aren’t they? That’s
the problem. Pablo Picasso was a keen pigeon fancier. His father was a painter of pigeons. It
was a style in late 19th century Malaga instead of like flower genre painting in France, whatever.
His father was a piona or whatever it was called. And when he discovered how good his son was, he
gave him his brushes and never painted again. Fantale pigeons he collected himself. And of
course he called his daughter Paloma, which is Spanish for a darled Paloma Blanca. You may
remember. There we are. Um, so BF Skinner was the name of the man who designed these missiles aimed
by pigeons who were tapping in the nose and it was tested successfully but never actually saw action.
What is the most dangerous sport in in fact the most dangerous country in the world? Contemporary
dance in Scotland. Hopscotch in Afghanistan. I don’t know. You’re very close. Well, it’s going
to be Afghanistan or Iraq, isn’t it? I quite in between those two. Kabakistan. No, no, a much
better known one. Subzakistan. It’s another stan, but a very the best known. Pakistan. Pakistan.
Pakistan. Pakistan. Pakistan. They play a lot of cricket. They do play cricket there, but they
also have this very dangerous sport. So dangerous, it’s been banned for all but 15 days of the year.
It’s a child’s pastime that has become aggressive and extreme. Conquers. No, it’s mentioned and
indeed sung about in Mary Poppins. Bakaroo. Mary Poppins. Flying a kite. Flying a kite.
The idea of extreme kite flying is dangerous. You have to sever your competitors. You have to
sever your competitor’s kite from its string. And so the string is actually made of metal with
glass, sharp ariding glass. And motorcycles get gared cuz hundreds of people do it all over
the country. Who told you this, Stephen? This is This doesn’t happen. I’m afraid it does.
No, I saw it. Channel 5 when kiters go bad. They shout bokata kite down. What about when they
could rot someone? What do they shout then? Oops. Yes, probably. It’s the spring festival of Vasant
Panchchami or Basant is when it happens and there are people against it. The kite flying effectes
committee. People who are affected by kite flying have tried to ban it completely. Do all the kites
have to have the face of Dez line among them. He is a god in Pakistan. Yeah. How big can
the kite be? What’s the heaviest kite? They could weigh anything up to four tons. Well, the
largest kite ever made is weighs nearly a ton. Um, 100 m, 48t by 36t. And how many people does it
take to fly that then? 50. 50 people. 50 men, it says. Yeah. 50 men or 25 fat birds. It has
200 strings. The smallest is 1.25 in across. You can get them in the market and stuff. You
see those spokes? They’re in those tiny kites. Have you seen them? No. Miniature kites. That’s
right. On bridges and things or something. Do they? You started using electric fan. One of
those little handheld electric fans. It just fires up. Invisible string. Which makes it
very pleasing cuz it’s Then you go and cry. What am I doing? What the hell am I doing
my life? I want to be a doctor. [Music] Look everybody. Oh, what’s that point? What would
you use to make a difference engine? Do you know what a difference engine might be? It’s a machine,
a 19th century, 18th century design uh to solve equations. Yes, a calculator. A computer one of
the first computers. Yeah, indeed. And there is cogs and stuff. Charles Babage, he never completed
it. He ran out of money. Only in 1991 was it fully reconstructed from his plans and it worked
perfectly. It’s thought that he put a couple of mistakes into it so that if anyone stole the plans
and tried to make it, it wouldn’t work. Mr. Dor, well done. Presumably, this is a bit like when you
go out at night, uh, going to the back of your DVD and jamming a fork into it repeatedly and then
going, “Well, if they can steal it, it’ll never work.” [Applause] That’s slashing your own tires
before your holidays. [Music] The joke’s on you, T. Okay. But in fact, in answer to the question,
the reason he couldn’t complete it was it was so vast with these huge cogs in. There is a material
he could have used to make it if only it existed which was invented in 1901 by one Frank Hornby.
The bloke who did the model railway. Yes. Lo, who did the model railways also invented another
staple British child’s toy, fake hedges? They that was all part of the but this is a totally
separate invention. Action mano macano is the right answer. It was the only toys I remember
having. Yeah. And there is a macano difference engine at work. It really does work and it can
do trigonometric functions, logarithms. And the point about it is it’s programmable. It’s not like
a clock or something which is simply dedicated to one analog task of telling you the time. This is
actually programmable. He was an odd man though, Babage, and he does rather live up to the idea
of an early computer nerd. Tennyson wrote a poem which included the line, “Every moment dies a
man, every moment one is born.” And he wrote back, “If this were true, the population of the
world will be at a standstill. In truth, the rate of birth is slightly in excess of
death.” I would suggest that the next edition of your poem should read, “Every moment
dies a man. Every moment one and 116th is born. Strictly speaking. Strictly speaking, the
actual figure is so long I cannot get it into a line. But I believe the figure 1 and 116th
will be sufficiently accurate for poetry. What a man. That’s the best impression I’ve ever heard
of him, though. It is a good impression, obviously. Um he also invented the cow
catcher thing that goes on front of a locomotive. I’m presuming by the fact that
this is the design it didn’t succeed in catching many cows as much as dividing. Tell
us something interesting about door hinges. Door hinges used to be made out of wood.
Yes. Um but they weren’t very effective and so then they started making out of metal
and it’s it’s got a lot better since then. You can clean them with brown saws. That’s true.
That is true. Have you ever hung a door on its hinges? Have you ever fitted hinges to a door?
Yeah, we have. We have. You have? All right. So, how do you space the hinges out? Let’s say the
top hinges Yeah. 6 in from the lintful. Yes. Where would the bottom hinge be 6 in from the floor? But
he’s actually taking seriously that we really have hung doors. I I have hung. She has really hung a
door. I’ve hung a blade. I hung it wrong. Yeah. The point is this. Let’s say this is the the
jam. So the up one that’s 6 in from the top, but that’s 9 in up in order to create the
effect of them being equally spaced because you’re always looking down at the bottom one and
there’s forcehortening. If you actually equally space them, it looks wrong. It looks as if the
lower one is too low. So you have to do it to that. But in America, it’s 5 and 10. And in some
western states of America, it’s 7 and 11 like yes 7 in down 11. I know it’s a shocker.
You heard it here first. Joe, I’m frightened. I bet you are. Is there a
doctor here? I want to imagine you measuring your door hinges when you get home and say,
“Steven was right.” I’m going to send you a picture of me measuring my door hinges naked.
Yes, indeed. I want it. But the middle one, the middle one goes exactly in between the
two. So there’s the six, the nine, and then in in the middle. There’s the interesting thing
about doors. Doors are 78 in long. All doors, domestic doors generally you might have to That’s
6’6. How do you know that? Bought a door recently. You see, who hang it? Who hung it on its hinges?
Uh my friend Keith is a carpenter. Well, he’ll know about that. He’s also a stand up comedian, so
it’s a right laugh having him around. Oh my god. Uh, the door handle kept turning like that and
turning and turning and turning and I couldn’t get into the L and I really needed to go. So,
I kicked the door in. It’s the only time I’ve ever kicked a door in. Brilliant. And it feeling
cheap flimsy door and it smashed like that and it exploded and the door bit fell down. There
was wood everywhere and I burst in and had a crack. Love you. Heard of the aisle of dogs.
But what famous islands are named after birds? Any thoughts? There quite a few. Puffin Island is
correct. Any others? Uh, Penguin Island, Sparrow Island, Blackwood Island, Eagle Island, Heron
Island, Thrush Island, the Canary Island. Open the Canary Islands. Are there There is an example.
That’s not the Canary Islands. That is actually Bird Island we’re looking at. You’re absolutely
right. That’s in the Seells. In the Sey Shells. You’re quite right. Yeah. No, the Canary Islands
are named after dogs. Insia Canaris means the aisle of dogs and the birds are named after the
island. Do you know about Canary wrestling? No, it’s just a form of wrestling in the Canary
Islands. How does it work? Well, you stand in a sand circle called the Terrero and basically like
sumo bit. Your feet have to be in the sand. If any other part of your body touches the sand, you’re
beaten. Is it you? Is it Canaries wrestling? No. No. people from Canary Islands. Oh, I thought it
was Canaries that were I just didn’t see why they did. Why would they wrestle? Well, you have [ __ ]
fighting. Well, you know, they’re angry animals. Do you know about Lagomera? Obviously, not having
been to the Canary Islands, there is an island called Lomera. Do you know how they communicate
across valleys? They don’t shout mobile phone. They don’t go nothing. It’s a language they use,
but instead of using their vocal cords, they part No, they whistle. See if you can
tell what they’re whistling. It’s in Spanish. [Music] That is John milked the
goats. I’m not making this up. The next one that was Domingo was sick. Honestly, let’s see that one again because you can
hear the Domingo now. You know, listen. or can’t help noticing. Although it’s his
Spanish, he does have a Liverpool accent. [Applause] Why did they just talk to each other? Because
it’s bouncing off the canyons of the gorgees of the valleys of the Gulra. This is still on the
Canary Islands now, is it? Yeah. Is this the one that’s going to fall in the sea and wipe out
the whole of the eastern seabboard of America? I’m glad you asked me that, Mr. Clarkson, because
that is La Palma in the Canaries. The volcano on La Palma is said that if it goes off in a big
way, it will cause a tsunami that will engulf the whole of the eastern seabboard in the What’s
the most interesting thing a dog can smell? Yes, Neil. A dog’s dinner. Yes. To a dog. That
is the most interesting thing a dog. Well, that the dog’s bottom. Yeah. Oh,
there you are. Oh, no. My crotch. They all do. They do. Oh, dear. Can you blame them? They’re only flesh
and blood. Um, this is really interesting because it’s terribly touching really that they
can smell this and cancer. It’s cancer. No, really. Yeah. There was a woman who her dog
kept pouring at her leg and she had nothing on her leg that was peculiar. Normal number of
moles, but it was only interested in one of the moles and when she wore shorts, it tried
to nip it. And so she went to the doctor and the doctor found that this was a malignant
melanoma taken out and doctors have found that dogs can smell bladder cancer, lung cancer.
99% um efficiency rate at smelling people’s breath. Lung cancer quite extraordinary. So
have I got cancer of the bollocks then? Well, that’s what I was wondering. Let’s not discuss.
No, let’s not. Same. We have something like 50 million of these old factory cells up here and
they have 220 odd million. But their sense of smell is infinitely better than that. It’s not
just 220 odd times better. It’s thousands of times better. We have machines that can smell a part in
a billion, which are fantastically sensitive and complex. Dogs can smell one part in a quadrillion.
I’m worried about this dog. Has it been nailed? You can smell my crotch. We all can. [Applause] It is. What is three
times more dangerous than war? Three wars. [Applause] Is it doing a UI on the A40? This is according to
the United Nations. Is it? It’s probably something really name like cycling, trampolining. It’s
work. More likely to die at work than you are at war. Does that include soldiers? What if you
work in a shoe shop near a war? Almost guarantee you will find some cunning way to make me not know
anything. And I don’t know what the statistics are for people who work in shoe shops near wars.
How many times have they actually had a war in a shopping center? It’s very rare that first
world countries get invaded, but if they did, you could have a shootout in a multiplex, couldn’t
you? If you lived in South London, you’d you’d find a lot of wars in shopping centers. I’ve been
arrested in a shopping center. Have you tell us why? For an act of war. I knocked a security
guard’s hat off. Very Bertie Worcester thing to do. I didn’t do it on purpose. I was taking my
jumper off. I was absolutely [ __ ] as well. And you’re very much hearing my side of the story.
I called it actually rather the story a defense. I read a thing once that said a third of all
accidents at work go unreported. How do they know? Numberjs have the most dangerous job
in America. It appears 122 deaths per 100,000 employees. So that song’s entirely wrong, is it?
Yes. Exactly. How could you die doing that? Just trees falling on you that you’re saying trees
falling on you like that’s a bit of a pansy way to go. That’s that’s a legitimate way to
die. It’s just the only real sort of peril, isn’t it? There’s a lot of chainsaws,
but also you’re not very well protected in panties and a bra, are you? And also,
if you’re lumberjack, you’re supposed to be good at it. Supposed to chop down trees
and go, “Oh, it’s the other side, isn’t it?” Well, now, yes. According to the United Nations,
more than 2 million people die from work rellated accidents as opposed to 650,000 people a year
who die in what was Darwin’s problem with brown owl. And why did he not describe it? Probably
or something. Ah, so he ate brown owls, you’re saying? Well, actually he didn’t
because he described it as indescribable, which is why he didn’t describe the brown owl.
Well, actually as food he meant because Charles Darwin, one of the greatest scientists, one of the
greatest men really of any age, was considered a very dim pupil and couldn’t spell and was terrible
at arithmetic and went to Cambridge. The only subject his father thought was fit for him was
divinity. And he spent his time chasing rats and shooting and looking at animals and eating strange
animals. He was a member of the gourmet society or the glutton as it was known at Cambridge and their
aim in life was to eat as many rare and peculiar animals like bittens and hawks. Brown they didn’t
like at all and all the others became bishop this is is this still exists this uh club exist
Steven’s the president of yeah otherwise you write me around for fox on cred I think panda
that’s the oh it’s lovely I’ve got a book at home it’s equivalent to the Collins book of birds
from 1850 and after describing each bird at the end it will say for instance a buzzard tastes
a little bit milder than a golden eagle Yes, but still quite palatable. Does he have a wine
recommendation at the bottom? This is just a shabby or a new world. Which religion causes harm
by sticking pins into dolls? Oh, I don’t know, but I bet he set it up. Pins into dolls. Who do
that? Voodoo. Oh, he did. He said voodoo. Thank God he takes it. No, it isn’t. Voodoo has never
involved sticking pins into dolls. What? What? So, a religion does. European witchcraft. Oh, I
was thought it was the Methodists. Do you know a bunch of heretics? Do you know what the dolls
are called in European? They’re made of wax or they’re made of ceramics, made of wood, straw,
all kinds of things. But there’s a word for them. Do you know it’s rather nice? Poppit poppets. Oh,
isn’t that lovely? The closest anyway that voodoo ever comes, they do have these little empowered
figures called botche which have small holes in into which you put tiny pegs to channel healing
energy. So it’s a generous kind thing voodoo to help people. It had made its way through slavery
from West Africa to the Caribbean in particular of course Hades where it’s most associated with
the missionaries and so on came and they wanted to discredit the local religion in order to raise
up the claims of Christianity. So they said it was full of cannibalism and zombieism and and
things that they actually gotten out of European witchcraft. So it was really poor old voodoo has
rather suffered from it. We should get you to redo their image for Yeah, why not? New double-action
voodoo. Take two puppets into the shower. Yes. What’s a vomit comet? Yeah. Is it a new alcoholic
snooker player? There it is. Or is it a branch of electrical retailers in slow? Good. If you don’t
do very well in space and you throw up out of the window, you started so well and then Then you
suggested the idea of a window that you could open in a space. Well, I’m assuming there’d
be an airlock or maybe you just have your own helmet and then vomit out. It’s a plane that they
train astronauts. You are absolutely right, Phil. Jupiter’s help and they throw up and they bring
them down again. Exactly right. It’s covered in their own business. It’s exactly right. Well done.
It’s a a military spec 707 and it does parabola flights. It does about 30 or 40 in in a minute.
They shot about 20 minutes of footage for Apollo 13 in it, but they could only do it in 60-second
chunks because that’s as much as you’re allowed to be weightless before they have to bring you back
down. You’re absolutely right. It’s actually even less than 60 seconds. Yeah, it’s about 40 seconds.
It must be padded. Well, you don’t need to because you don’t really hit it with any force when you’re
weightless. Well, I imagine when you stop being weightless, it it comes back slowly, I guess,
because your problem you go also covered in six zero g interesting point from a personal point of
view. If you weigh a lot, are you more weightless? We have the interesting physical
question of the difference between mass and weight. Weight is a phenomena
that doesn’t exist except by virtue of gravity because we are live in one
gene. Tell that to society, right? Fatness on the other hand is a completely
different issue. Doesn’t alter. I I can do that. It doesn’t alter whether you’re weightless
or not. So if you went into space in a spaceship, quite a large spaceship, and you had a mouse
and an elephant, they were both weigh the same because they were both weighless at the same time
or would the mouse lift off quick and then tor the Well, anyway, you’re absolutely right
about the vomit comic and it was used to train astronauts in weight listers. About
a third of them would get incredibly sick, about a third moderately and a third not at
all. But supposedly it was the anxiety rather than the actual experience that made them sick.
Name a saint who comes from Ireland. Patrick. Oh bother. He went to Ireland, but he didn’t come.
None of the patron saints of Britain are from where they’re supposed to be from, are they?
George is Palestinian. St. George. Yes. Patrick is Welsh. British certainly came from around the
river 7 area. St. Bernard was from a shelter. But you must be able to name some gen
column kills, St. Bridget, St. Kevin, St. Bridget. Do you know what her great miracle
was? H she laid down a cape cuz she said, “I want some land to build a convent.” Said, “Well, you
can have whatever land your cape covers.” And she laid it down and the cape grew like ginger beer
and Eddie had taken over an entire field. That is one of her great miracles. The other one was that
she could transform her used bath water into beer. Irish sort of miracle. That one wasn’t taught to
us in primary school in Ireland. Kevin Kevin lived halfway up a mountain in Glendelock in Wikllo and
was like an Irish Francis of Cece. Small animals would nest in his hand and rather than crush the
fecker and get on with his day. H would let the bird rest there and and heal or whatever and he go
please I’ve got stuff to do. Do you want to bring up any more of these scars of my childhood right
here? It is astonishing to imagine an education like that. I will say this for like I do remember
once going out with a lady who was raised atheist and an utter chore to walk around a gallery
with. They go, “Who’s the guy on the sticks?” Is he the same guy who was in the shed earlier on? Who is St. Bartholomew? Because I went
in the museum in Venice and there was a painting of him and he’s a spit of
me. I was just a bit of him. Anyway, it was a virtually fulls size picture
and it was uncanny and a little bit frightening because he was only wearing
a nappy and he’d been shot with an arrow. I his day is the 24th of August. I know
that. That’s in Bartholomew’s day. And there’s obviously a famous hospital in London,
St. Bartholomew. But he’s probably the reason why they say always wear clean underwear
h if in case you’re in an accident because he had to go to A&E with an arrow and a nappy
on. for so long they named the hospital after Lord you are a lot of them had arrows and
Seb Sebastian was a famous one to be shot with arrows but maybe it was St. Sebastian
maybe it wasn’t there is a mantenius and Sebastian that does look not unlike you has
to be said do you know what I think it might be Staint I think it was St. Sebastian S.
Bartholomew’s death was that he was flayed alive. And most paintings of S Bartholomew
have him with his skin draped over his arm, his own skin. No, that wasn’t him. That
wasn’t him. So, I’ve seen that statue in church. I always used to think when I was a kid
that he just had a sort of beige colored coat. His own skin. Anyway, the patron saint
of Ireland went to Ireland, but didn’t come for he was kidnapped as a child, sold into
slavery to Ireland. Then when he went on to the continent became a monk, he wanted to come back
to Ireland to convert it to Christianity and cast out. What was particularly clever about Clever
H the horse who was rather famous in his day? Couldn’t it count or give answers to something?
Yeah. Not just count, it could do square roots, but it wasn’t quite a con. It was something else,
wasn’t it? They could read body language bas and they’re going and they much much subtler. It’s
basically what Darren Brown often does. And if you train yourself to know how to read someone’s
body language, the tiniest movement of an eye, the tiniest flexing of a muscle somewhere,
all those sort of things, you can, as it were, read someone’s mind. And this is what the horse
was doing. But Darren Brown’s a bit brighter than a horse. He’s a lot brighter than the horse.
Turns out, you know, he’s got a one great trick. You know, when you got an empty seat by in a
train and you don’t want anyone to sit there, he says, “You’re insane to put things on the
chair to stop people sitting there.” The trick is as they approach, you smile at them and pat
the seat. That’s That’s very good. Yeah. Horses are just stupid. I’m afraid that every day they
have to reinvent the world. You know, you go, “Oh, what’s that?” It’s a piece of paper. What’s it?
It’s a hedge. You saw one yesterday. Right. So, get a grip. Everything. You look
so much like my nan then when you It’s a hedge nan. What connects jellig night, saccharine, and the rings around Uranus?
This is what I call a fantastic night out. Well, if this is about discoveries, uh,
the only thing I know about jelly is it was invented by Noble of the Nobel
Prize. Exactly. It was. Yes. And this is a safety version of dynamite.
Gelignite is safer than nitroglycerin, which is what’s inside dynamite. Nitroglycerin
escapes from the dynamite and it blows people up, including Nobel’s brothers. If you get that
on your hands, you can get a headache and they call it having banged head. I learned
that on Brainiac. You’re absolutely right. I have reason to believe that it was invented
by mistake. Hooray. Top marks. Absolutely right. They’re all serendipitous accidental
inventions. When were the rings around Uranus discovered? Quite recently, I think. The
rings of Uranus were discovered in 1977, actually. When did it stop being called Uranus?
About 5 minutes ago, I said Uranus. I suddenly noticed that it could sound like your anus.
And uh I can’t remember who discovered it, but the guy who discovered wanted to call
it George Planet after the king, but Hersel, his name 1781. You can’t ask for um anosol in that
way in in a shop. You have to pronounce it anosol. It’s a slightly embarrassing product. Let’s call
it anusol. Can I have some cockwart go? I mean, it might as well be ridiculous. And whilst
the m I’ll have a packet of those spunk bags. Well, anyway. Okay. Alfred Nobel was
trying to make dynamite more stable and he discovered by adding collodon. He’d
had some on his finger. It was used I if you ever used it as an actor if you ever had
to have a scar. It tightens on the skin very hard. They used to use it as a sort of
liquid plaster. He’d cut himself and he thought this is a very odd stuff. And he just
thought he’d try mixing it with lots of other things and he accidentally mixed it with his
nitroglycinine and it formed a jelly which you could throw around unlike nitroglycinine
which as you know is very very unstable. Saccharine. Uh he forgot to wash his hands
after playing with some chemicals and then found his food tasted sweet. So he’s an American
obviously cuz he had with his fingers. Um there’s huge amount number of things that are discovered
by accident. Trousers. Trousers were discovered. When somebody accidentally fell into two drain
pipes presto, no more embarrassing walks. That’s like the story of Rockall when a young
shepherd boy just pictured the scene he’s he’s dropped his cheese in a hole. I often picture
the scene and 6 months later he’s sheltering in the cave and he found this bit of cheese. He’s
starving and it’s all rotten and oh well what the hell? I’ll eat it anyway. It’s delicious.
And that’s how blue cheese was discovered. children. The 3M company were after a
paper glue that would stick cards and paper together really strongly. And one of the
research companies was so bad at it that he he just but it sort of stuck but it just you just
peeled it off and so came up with the post-it note which was an accident as well. Caffeine
silly putty Viagra and another accident of course the Americas. Yes. They’re not all
successful. That’s Gandhi’s first name. Oh, Jeffrey, wasn’t it? Jeffrey. Was he Jeffrey?
I don’t know. Indira Gandhi. That was his granddaughter, was it? No, they weren’t related.
She was Neru’s. Oh, she’s not even related to it. No. Well, at least you’ve avoided our trap of
not saying Mahatma. That’s not a name. Gaz is not a name. Do you know what Mahatma means?
It means can I have my hat, please, mother? funnily enough, WC Fields almost
got there before you because he wrote one of his films under the
pseudonym of Mahatma Kain Jes. So there you are. It means great soul in
Sanskrit and it was the title awarded him by a follower as early as 1915 he was called
that. Was it Andy? It was it was Andy Gandandy his older brother Randy Gandandy. Oh, you
said Randy Gandy, didn’t you? Oh, we did. I think we we had decided it was minus 150
for anyone who said Randy Randy Gandhi. No, it was actually Mahandas K. Gandhi, the K standing
for when you know about whom I am talking. Had she been eligible, she might have been elected
US president. She’s a trained scientist. She has larger breasts than you might imagine. Jonathan’s
alert. Uh, maiden name Roberts. Thatcher. Oh dear. Margaret That’s maiden name was Roberts,
but this particular nay Roberts has over a billion pairs of shoes and yet stands
only 11 in tall from above. Thumbelina, not Fumbelina. This one exists. 11 in tall.
Yeah. Barbie. Barbie is the right answer. Yay. She was named after one Barbara
Minisent Roberts from Willows, Wisconsin. If Barbie was a real person, she
wouldn’t be able to stand. Yes. Anatomically. Yeah. Exactly. If you sort of blew her
up to 5’6, her feet would be size three. Her breasts would be 39 in, and she would
just But you wouldn’t ever stand up anyway, would you? You’d only want her supine anyway,
wouldn’t you? If she had, is that right? Um, it’s also it’s also apparently true according
to researchers at University Central Hospital in Helsinki, Finland, that her body shape lacks
this 17 to 22% body fat which would enable her to menstruate. But what was it she managed finally
to get in the year 2000? Pregnant. It was a a piece of something that the shroud of, not a
bra, some part of her body. Nipples. Nipple. Not nipples. Thank you. Enable. A naval is the
right answer. She finally got a tummy button. Very good. Absolutely right. Barbie philosophy.
Barbie spoke in 1992 for the first time. Do you know the kind of thing she said? Where’s my navl?
You should have said that. No means no. Well, stop looking down there. I don’t have
bits. Will we ever have enough clothes was one of the first. It’s a
paradoxical frog, Ken. Yeah, I love shopping. Do you? But what did
Barbie say, Steven? Math is tough. As we know, Barbie, whose full name was Barbara
Millison Roberts, was born in 1959. She’s done everything, including running for president three
times. What was the second communist cause of death for women up to the year 1800? Yes. Uh,
kestrels a wild stab in the dark. Child birth. Child birth was number one. Oh, right. Very good.
That was was kels number two. It was number two I was asking for and I took that to be your answer.
Was it dehydration from having to lick the carpet clean? Cuz hoovers haven’t been invented. Were
these for these deaths at night? Cuz I could go with owls. Let me say it’s no kind of bird of
prey. Not even a swan. Not even swans flying at women really hard. What a with stiff necks until
they went through their bodies like a javelin. No, it’s a nice line all over the British countryside
with your no horse riding accidents. No, that’s if I may say so a great more intelligent. And
I don’t mean that in a patronizing way by their husbands. Oh, hello. No, domestic violence
was not it. It was domestic by their sons. That would still be domestic violence. Falling
down the stairs. It was trying to do something. It was engaged in a domestic activity. Cooking is
the right answer. Death by cooking. Yeah. Largely because their dresses would catch fire. That’s
funny. It is. The second most common cause of death after child birth amongst. What happened
to your set to herself? I bet a lot of their husbands came and went, “Blime me, that’s a
big roasty. What is the first computer ever to beat a grandmaster at chess now doing
anybody there? Is it filtering calls for BT? You’re so close to being right. If you have
a billing query, move knight to bishop three. Oh, very good. It’s actually slightly more disturbing. It’s
working for United Airlines as a reservations clerk. Didn’t Casp say actually that it he found
it actually had intelligence. It was shifting. It was actually Deeper Blue, I think, when it beat.
You’re absolutely right. Deep named after isn’t IBM called the big blue? Is that his nickname?
Yeah, it is. And that and the amalgam of of Deep Thought. Deep Thought which is in the Hitch
Guard. Yeah. I thought it was split in half actually. It was in museums. They took Well, yeah,
they did. I mean, they’re only using part of it. It was immensely powerful. But didn’t they cheat?
And actually what what Casper pointed out is that it was it managed to spot his trap in the sixth
game or something. Absolutely right. He set a trap in game two which the computer could only have
avoided by thinking creatively leading Kasparov to accuse IBM of cheating and leading Steven Fry to
accuse Johnny Vaughn of cheating and reading his cards. It was so accurate. Well done. Very much.
Yeah. Excellent. I watched Gary Boff playing the match against Nigel Short and done it. It really
is absolutely terrifying. could feel this energy coming out of him. It hunches over the board. He
moves the pieces. They even the way they move the pieces have names. You know, Vasili Smizzloff who
was a very great grandmaster for a long period in the 50s. He used to move his pieces like that and
give a slight twist and still to this day known as the Smizoff screw. So little screwing it into
the board. It’s really extraordinary. But he did complain that it was actually starting out show
intelligence rather than just cold logic. Exactly. 200 million permutations. It can think ahead or
200 million positions a second can be analyzed. Yeah. Why don’t we phone United Airlines and
set a trap? Yes. Brilliant idea. Me to seat A7. Doesn’t it kind of restore your faith in the
human mind rather than being cynic about IBM? The fact that you know he’s going up
against something that can do what 200 million processes a second. It’s amazing.
It’s close to autism though what he’s got, isn’t it? He happens to be more intelligent
than most. Some of them you wouldn’t trust. right way in a laboratory to be honest. But you
that much of your brain is taken up with the processing you’re doing. It’s not surprising
you’re not safe to use the street unattended suffer from shaggers disease. Oh, did you
know what I mean? Oh, bloody shag. [Music] We didn’t see that one coming. Is it something
to do with shag pile carpets and the dust that comes from the shag pile that is drawn in through
the nasal passage into the lungs perhaps called woolly lung that idea but it’s not that. How
are you spelling this shaggers disease? No, that’s a good question. How you spell it’s
actually spelled C H A G A S. Shagas. I think it’s some sort of virus or a bacterium or
parasitic disease. It’s a parasitic disease. Is it some sort of equatorial disease? I’m sure
I’ve had an injection against this or if anyone needed an injection against Shaggers disease.
What now? You hypocrite. It’s infectious. He’s a famous person had it. And what’s our
letter of the series? D D. It’s a famous Darwin. Charles Darwin had Shaggers disease
and he described it. It’s pretty unpleasant, I have to say. Did he get off the beagle?
Uh, he did. Oh, look how it took him. He did. The description of shag disease is
unpleasant. Vomiting preceded by shivering, hysterical crying, dying sensations,
half faint, copious and very palid urine. This is premenstrual tension.
What about this one? This is another one. And now vomiting and every passage
of flatulence preceded by ringing of ears. Mine is followed by ringing of ears.
He had was for 50 years. 50 years he had that very sad amusing name but by no means
an amusing condition. Shagas disease a serious problem still for millions of people all over
particularly South America was discovered by Carlos Shagas. It’s unique in the history of
medicine in as much as it is the only disease that was entirely described. What’s the best
thing to do with a dead donkey? Yes. Christmas dinner. A lovely Christmas dinner. If you’re
having the big family round, a donkey will go a long long way. A big old cavity. Plenty of
stuffing. Can you be hung like a dead donkey? People had this idea that donkeys knew
when their death was coming and went away and apart from everyone else like
elephants are said to do and therefore to see a dead one was apparently very rare
although they’re common. So it was considered very lucky and you have to jump over it
one two three times. The word donkey when did it come into the English language?
When was donkey hot published? Oh, yay. So, it’s very odd. The word of ass all the way
through the 16th, 17th centuries, most of the 18th century. In the late 18th century, it suddenly
appeared the word donkey. It was pronounced donkey like monkey. If we wiped out every single mule
on this planet today, all of them. By next year, there’d be 10,000 of them. Really? At least.
How would that work? Because they’re hybrids. They can’t breed amongst No. No. Exactly. Yes.
They can’t actually breed amongst themselves, though. So, they rely on that. You can whack them
out. You still have horses getting donkey. So, you still get the mule population up. You’ll still
have horses getting donkeys. Yes. I wanted to put it mildly. I didn’t want to say boning them. Which
way round is it though? It’s the female horse is correct. And the male donkey. So, it’s the donkey
that does the shing. The donkey’s little. Yes, I know. So, donkeys are quite intelligent. They
have to find a box. And because in one department, Phil, the donkey is blessed. Oh, you see.
Oh, that’s a long reach though. Still, in fact, the donkey can do it from
a different field. You just [Music] if it chooses, [Applause] and they have a very Leslie Phillips
way of treating their lady. They go he that’s right. Yeah. And the other way round is
called a hinny. The what? Hinny. A male horse and a female donkey. It’s called a henny. A henny.
They’re much rarer. When the female horse gives birth to a mule. 99.99% of female mules are
sterile and the males are invariably sterile, but they don’t know they are. So they have
to be gilded so that they don’t shag all the time. What about donkey’s milk? Do you
know anything about that? Donkey milk. Yeah, it probably makes an amazing cheese. Well, oddly
enough, it’s the one thing it doesn’t. No. Oh, come on. You naive sometimes.
Honestly, I want donkey cheese. In India, they have always in the country fed
babies on donkey’s milk. It’s very nutritious indeed. It contains oligosaccharides which are
very, very good for you and have all kinds of imino helpful things, don’t they, Dr. Garden? I’m
sure they do. They’re good for bathing in too, isn’t Cleopatra in Ass’s milk? She was in Ass’s
milk. Absolutely. In pure donkeys milk. Papa, the wife of Nero. 300 donkeys were
milked to fill her bath. Big girl, was she? Big girl. Yes. What sort of hair
does an underground fluffer deal with? [Applause] Is it anything to do with the tube?
Is it underground as in? Is the right answer. You avoided our trap. Nothing to do with films
and pornography or anything that kind. Is it to do with cleaning the rails? Cleaning the
rails. Gangs of six every night go down, gather up the hair. 30 mph winds come when a train
enters the station and a lot of hair gets blown down into the tunnels. Really? And yeah, that’s
how I lost mine actually. Most of it is Tottenham Court Road on and it’s statically attracted to the
real, isn’t it? Well, it’s and it’s a prime cause of fire. I don’t understand why you can’t have,
you know, like you used to have a a cleaning tape for your cassette bit. You can’t have a cleaning
tube. You just send a big furry train down. Well, that’s the fluffers. What’s
happened to fluffers in the porn industry? They’re no longer used. Yes.
Why would that be? I wish David why is that porn industry I feel it’s
your question it’s a VAT issue as well I think it’s something else beginning
with V Viagra done the matter of business the fluffer for those who don’t know was the
person in a porn film whose job it was to excite the membr of the male artist
and then turn it into an apron that’s Yes, fluffers clean the tracks, they save lives, and they stop trains running late. It’s
a really tough and underappreciated job, and I think they deserve a round of
applause from us. Hooray. [Music]
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