(Theme music)
(Cheering and applause)
Hello, hello, hello, hello, and welcome to QI
for another handful of pickled herrings
from the groaning smorgasbord of knowledge.
And joining me tonight in the bistro of bewilderment are -
Rich Hall... (Applause and cheering)
..Fred MacAulay,
Jo Brand and Alan Davies.
(Applause)
Well, let's tuck in, shall we? Rich?
(Popping champagne cork)
And Fred. (Pouring drink)
Ah...
Jo. (Fizz)
And Alan. (Burp)
(Laughter)
Naturellement.
"B" is for bottle, Burgundy, barbeque and, as Alan has shown us, burp.
And the start of the day as well, which is "biography".
So, this question - who first discovered that the world was round?
- It's flat, isn't it? - (Laughter)
- Is it gonna be a trick question? - It is.
- You're cagey from the first. - Right from the off.
Right from the off, you're cagey. Any thoughts?
- Copernicus. - Not Copernicus.
- Galileo. - Not Gali...
Someone with a telescope worked it out.
They would be able to work out that the moon was round
but the telescope is not that useful for looking at the Earth.
(Fizz) Yes?
Is it Len Murray?
(Laughter)
- Are you talking about the... - The General Secretary of the TVC?
- ..of the TVC? - Yeah, I am.
- Len Murray? - Not him? No.
- No, it wasn't him. In fact... - He discovered the potato was round.
He discovered the potato was round.
Was it somebody with a boat?
It wasn't, no. Indeed, it's...
We're talking about something perhaps,
or at least, something that isn't human.
- A bird. - Not a birdy.
- They fly... - Fish!
- ..all over the... Fish! - Nor a fish.
- Good, though. You're along the right lines. - Whales?
- Nor whales. - Dolphins? Sharks?
- No, not sea animals at all. - Sea...
- Not the sea. - Land.- Land.
- A panda. - Bees! Flies!
- "Bees" is the right answer! - Using their thing and...
Bees. They can reckon on the position of the sun even at night.
Even whilst eating pollen, they can keep an eye on it.
(Laughter)
Termite mounds go round
in a spiral like that
because as the termites build them in the day,
they stay out of the sun.
So, the sun goes round
- and they go round like that. - Staying cool.
- Quite interesting? - It is quite interesting.
- Very good. - Yes, I know. Well, it is.
It's not about bees, though, is it?
Well, what is about bees is they also have
the most developed magnetic sense of any animal
and if you put a strong magnet next to one of those, a honeycomb,
it completely changes the shape
into something that's never seen in nature -
a cylindrical-shaped honeycomb. If you put a magnet next to it.
Yeah, but you would be stung to death if you did that, wouldn't you?
Well, it's true, it wouldn't be a wise proceeding.
- You could wear one of those amusing costumes. - Yeah.
Can I ask Alan? You know, on a cloudy day,
do the termites really just...
- They really motor upwards. - I bet.
(Laughter)
They probably do. They probably do.
You can see the termite mound goes swervy
and then, whoop suddenly, and then...
Bees are very interesting animals, or at least, quite interesting.
Most bees, what happens when they sting you?
- They die. - No, they don't. Odd enough.
- Only the... - Yes, they do.
Only the honey... (Laughter)
- Yes, they do. - Only the honeybee.
They've got one sting. Wasps have more than one sting.
No. Only one species of bee...
You're not allowed to kill bees. You can kill wasps, though.
(Laughter)
Only one type of bee, which is the honeybee,
leaves its sting behind and dies
but all the other species of bees - and there are many -
can sting you repeatedly.
And, actually, there are several species of wasp
that die when they sting you.
So, if you're stung by an animal that has died,
it's more likely to have been a wasp.
I think you'll find that if a bee has stung me inside my house,
- it's likely to die. - (Laughter)
Exactly. (Laughs)
I'm not surprised.
Honey - Eddie Izzard once observed that it was very odd
that bees make honey.
"Earwigs," he said, "don't make chutney".
Which was... (Laughter)
It takes 12 bees an entire lifetime
to make enough honey to fill a teaspoon.
So, the lifetime of 12 bees...
And you go into a supermarket and you see all those jars,
think how many bees have been working away...
And if it's a 125ml jar, it'll take 300 bees.
(Laughter)
(Applause)
Fantastic.
What a loss to the accountancy profession.
(Laughter)
- Those are hexagons. - They ARE hexagons.
Little six-sided bee cells. Brilliant.
- Why? - (Laughter)
But why do they make hexagon shapes?
The hexagonal form uses the minimum amount of wax
for the maximum amount of storage in a given area.
I'll just finish off this thing.
Honeybees have evolved a complex language
to tell each other where the best nectar is
using the sun as a reference point.
Amazingly, they can also do this on overcast days and at night
by calculating the position of the sun on the other side of the world.
This means they can actually learn and store information...
Has it occurred to you that they may not be using the sun?
(Laughter)
That whoever has worked that out is wrong.
(Laughter)
And he's now saying, "Even when you can't see it,
or it's on the other side of the world, they still use it."
And the bees are thinking,
"No, we don't, we just remember where we live!"
(Laughter and applause)
Why is it so remarkable that they know where they live?
Well, because they have only 950,000 neurons
as opposed to our 10 billion neurons in our brains.
But, they've only got one thing to remember - where they live.
(Laughter)
They've got a lot more to remember!
(Applause)
How come I've got 10 billion and sometimes I forget where I live?
Exactly!
Which brings us to our next question, which is - why do bees buzz?
(Fizz) Jo.
Because they can.
(Some laughter)
They buzz so that when they're trapped in the living room,
you know to open a window.
(Laughter) It's a thought.
Is it to, um, to sound industrious?
Yeah, could be.
You have to look at bees as aerospace workers.
Right.
- And... Stay with me. - Yeah, I'm with you.
(Laughter) It's all right. I'm still there.
When you're flying, you want to make a lot of noise.
Because a quiet aircraft
- is...crashing. - (Laughs) Yeah...
- Well... - I think it's their knees knocking
that makes the buzzing, isn't it? Because they hate flying.
- (Laughter) - Terrified of flying.
- What is it that makes the noise? - The wings.
(Klaxons)
No. No, it isn't, I'm afraid.
- Not the wings, then? - No. It won't be the wings.
Ah...testicles?
(Laughter)
Their little tiny mouths. Bzz!
Well, it is sort of little mouths.
It's through what they breathe and they're called spiracles.
They have them down their sides, through which they breathe.
All buzzing insects - bluebottles are the same -
it's not the wings.
Less than one percent of the buzz comes from their wings.
Bees breathe through 14 holes along the sides of their bodies
and they're called spiracles 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 trumpeter
sort of using his lips. What's that called?
- Embrouchere or whatever it's called... - Yes.
- Embouchure. - (Laughter)
And in the same way that one human lung on a trumpet
can fill a vast hall with a great sound
more than it can with its own vocal cords,
so a bee can make this extraordinary noise
just through controlling its breathing.
- Isn't science marvellous? - It is!
(Laughs)
Are humans the only species that make unnecessary noise?
Oh, that's an interesting idea.
Nah, dogs. (Barks)
I mean, do you think any animals just sit around and hum, or just...
- Whistle? - (Blows a raspberry)
(Laughter)
Or talk inanely. Alan?
(Laughter)
Do you think that happens at all?
That's why there are no panel shows in the animal kingdom.
(Laughter)
As to other animals also beginning with Bs,
"Can barnacles grow wings?" is the question.
I do know one thing about barnacles. I'm afraid it's rude but...
Go on.
..that relatively speaking,
they have the biggest penis of any existing creature,
which is five times the length of their shell.
Seven times the length, I've got down here, but maybe it was...
Oh, you're exaggerating, like blokes always do.
Typical barnacle.
Well, up until recently, it was thought that barnacles
were the embryos of the barnacle goose.
What fool thought that?
(Laughs) I'll tell you...
It IS a bit silly-sounding. There's a barnacle goose,
which is named "Anser hiberniculae" after the Latin
and that got shortened to "hiberniculae" became "bernica",
which became "barnacle".
These geese breed in the Arctic
and so no-one had ever seen them mate or lay eggs.
When they arrived in the summer,
at the same time there would be a lot of driftwood
coming in off the sea covered in barnacles
and people just made the weird assumption
that the barnacles must be the baby barnacle geese.
But barnacles growing on ships can increase
the inefficiency by a huge amount.
- Barnacles growing on chips? - Ships, dear. Ships.
(Some laughter)
- That really worried you. - Oh, it would.
How long would you have to leave a chip lying about
for a barnacle to grow on it?
It's not going to happen in my house!
The way they glue themselves to things are very, very tough,
and scientists are currently looking at it as a kind of dental cement.
Better than, you know, Poligrip, or whatever these things are,
that they advertise round about during Countdown, for some reason.
They always advertise these strange things taht keep teeth together,
and ways of lowering yourself into a bath.
You know, when WH Auden got old, the poet...
- Oh, yeah, yeah. - Yeah, alright.
This is a good one, this.
When he was old, he had an incredibly lined face,
- really like a native... - JO: Jowly.
..really, kind of, craggy lines, you know,
like Chief Joseph, or one of those really, kind of...
..David Hockney, one of his first commissions...
- Painter. - ..yes, well done.
One of his first commissions as a young artists
was to do a series of drawings of WH Auden,
and Hockney just took one look at Auden, and said,
'Blimey. If that's his face, what can his scrotum look like?'
(Groans)
How did Nelson keep his men's spirits up after he died?
(Bottle of champagne pops)
Did he allow Hardy to use him as a ventriloquist dummy?
No, it wasn't that.
I would think the men would just be inspired
by the fact that he just basically slowly dismantled,
instead of dying all at once, you know?
I mean, there was an arm, then there was an eye,
then there was, like, a testicle, right?
He's, like, dropping parts like a Volkswagen.
The thing is, most sailors, when they die, were thrown overboard -
burial at sea - and he asked not to be buried at sea.
So he was gonna be taken back from Trafalgar,
which is, sort of, off the Spanish coast, to Britain.
So what were they gonna do with his body to make sure it didn't rot?
Put it in beer.
- Well, not beer, but brandy, actually. - Wine. Brandy.
He was pickled in a barrel of brandy.
And they were allowed to drink him, were they?
- Well, they weren't allowed to... - They wanted to.
..but supposedly, using tubes of macaroni,
they would have a go at this brandy,
and by the time it got to Portsmouth, there was no brandy left...
..and a slightly unfortunate-looking Nelson.
And to this day, in the navy, they use the phrase 'tapping the admiral',
for having a surreptitious slug of anything alcoholic.
You can just picture them with a macaroni straw,
going...(Slurps.) 'Ooh! Oh, God. That's the...
..I think that's the other one out!'
'Have we got another patch?'
But, in fact, sadly, like all these good stories,
it supposedly isn't true.
Now, why are male anglers so pathetic?
(Bottle of champagne pops) Jo Brand.
Because they like fishing.
Well, yes. Rich?
'Cause they spend £2,000 on equipment,
when you can go to the market, and buy the same thing for £1.89.
There's a good book in this country -
Fly Fishing, by JR Hartley.
Absolutely! The classic.
Why are they pathetic, though?
Well, what we don't need is human male anglers.
There's another type of angler that isn't human.
- Oh. - Anglerfish.
Anglerfish. Male anglerfish truly are pathetic.
But you can eat them, can't you, anglerfish? I'm sure I've had one.
Well, there are shallow anglerfish, and there are very, very deep ones.
You wouldn't want to eat that - it's a bit spiny.
I wouldn't go calling that pathetic to its face, I'll tell you.
- That's the female. - Oh, right.
- The female is very impressive. - Ah.
The male has a sad life. It must be the feeblest male in nature.
- Six times smaller than the female... - Aww!
..when they find a mate, they latch onto them with their teeth,
and immediately start to disappear -
scales, bones, blood vessels all merge into those of the female,
and after a week, all that's left are two tiny, little testes,
which leak sperm into the female.
I have to say, that sounds very much like my marriage.
(Laughter)
Your husband has entirely been subsumed into you?
He has. And he's six times smaller than I am.
There are some of those female anglerfish
going around with about eight testicles hanging off them.
It's like an Essex disco.
'That was wine...'
That thing coming out of the top of its head, like that,
is why it's called an 'anglerfish'. It's its little rod, as it were,
and it's bio-luminescent - it lights up.
Attracting other innocent, edible fish?
Well, that's what used to be thought.
They now think it may be the way of attracting the male towards it,
which then gets absorbed.
That brings us on, bio-luminescence,
to what comes from Glasgow and glows in the dark.
(Champagne bottle pops)
Is it Sir Alex Ferguson's nose?
- Is it the River Clyde? - It's not the River Clyde, neither.
We're talking about food.
- Luminous food? - Yes, luminous food.
It's an idea that comes from creatures like the anglerfish.
Is it a deep-fried Mars Bar with a torch attached to it?
Deep-fried torch?
Well, you're in the right area with deep-fried.
What I believe you call 'carry-outs' - the food to go -
what is the most popular food in Britain, supposedly, these days?
- Chips. - (Glass of water is poured)
Chicken tikka masala.
Chicken tikka masala, which was invented in Glasgow.
- Oh! - And there is one.
Oh, that's a particularly fine example of one!
(Laughter)
Maybe a used one, one that's...
..been through the system, I have a horrible feeling.
'Morag! Get me a bed of rice.'
(Laughter)
- Yes. - 'The children shall eat.'
Well, there is a company called BioLume,
which is planning to have food, including curry,
that glows in the dark,
using extracts of marine creatures that glow.
And they want to make beer, in particular, that glows in the dark,
children's fizzy drinks that glow in the dark.
Chicken tikka masala is not something that exists in Bangladesh, or India.
The story of it goes
that there was a restaurant called The Gaylord, in 1966,
that was the first place to serve a proper chicken tandoori.
In Glasgow, or London?
It became rather popular...no, in London. Mortimer Street, in London.
And, the story goes,
somebody came into a restaurant in Glasgow
where they were serving this new tandoori chicken,
and asked for some gravy to go on it.
And the chef improvised with tomato soup, and cream and spices.
And up grew this strange creature that is chicken tikka masala,
that has no definition -
it can be hot, it can be mild, it can be brown, it can be orange,
it can be grey - but, according to Robin Cook,
is the great British national dish.
Glad to say, I had a curry once on the Isle of Man,
where I was doing a gig.
It was served with a cup of tea, and some bread and butter.
Which I think is fantastic. Don't you?
Can I just mention that -
since we're being disparaging about the Scottish diet -
that we don't all eat chips every night.
Sometimes, what we do is, we have some chips,
and leave them aside till the morning.
And we have them cold the next day, and that's a salad.
(Laughter)
Deep-fried pizza is the... and the Mars Bars...
- It's a myth. - It's a myth, is it?
- It's not a myth. - And the Mars Bar, as well.
It happened once.
He dropped his Mars Bar. 'I'm not wasting that.'
He scorched his hand getting the wrapper off.
(Screams)
Fantastic.
Supposedly do have the worst teeth, and worst hearts in Europe, though,
- the Scots, don't you? - Yes.
- Oh, your teeth are fine. - They're alright, yeah.
I've started a wee company in Scotland.
Using barnacle cement?
Well, they're OK, but the cement comes off, and the penis comes out.
We run bus trips to Eastern Europe to show Scottish people worse teeth.
Well, while we're in the Balti belt,
where is it possible to live on a diet of smut
without the neighbours complaining? (Champagne bottle pops)
In the green room in Channel Five.
'A diet of smut' is the clue, however.
Is it some sort of Norwegian food, or something?
Not Norwegian. It's called 'smut' 'cause it's a sooty, black thing,
in its most primitive form.
- Caviar? - No. Really sooty, and smutty, in that sense.
- Bits of coal? - No. But a living thing.
- Fungi? - A fungus, exactly. It's a fungus.
- Like a little... - Why did the mushroom go to the party?
- No! No! - Oh, not that joke.
Why did the mushroom go to the party, Alan?
'Cause he was a fun guy.
Lovely.
- Lovely. - What's wrong with that joke, then?
That's a joke for, like, an imbecile.
(Laughter)
You know, of, kind of, 0.7 years old.
- What's brown, and sticky? - Oh, no...
- ..I don't know. - A stick.- Yeah. - (Laughter)
I'm worried by the audience reaction here.
What do you call a boomerang that won't come back?
- A stick. - A stick.
Do you have any other jokes where the punchline's 'a stick'?
- Loads. - Oh, right.
What's orange, and sounds like a parrot?
A carrot.
(Laughter)
What's red, and silly?
A blood clot.
Oh, don't look at me like that!
You (BLEEP) pig-eyed sack of shit!
(Applause, laughter) Don't you do that!
You've spoiled it.
Oh! What's red, and sits in the corner?
A naughty strawberry.
- Very good. - Rich: What's green, and sings?
Elvis Parsley.
Now, the smuts.
Smut fungus - Ustilaginales, or something similar -
is found in Mexico. Particularly where it's prized as a food.
(Accented) Why did the mushroom go to the party?
He was a fun guy!
(Laughter and applause)
There we are. (Chuckles)
How do you think the word 'smut' is used to allude to pornography?
- 'Cause it's dirty. - Well, where does slut come from?
- Essex. - (Laughter)
So there's a particular slut, the corn smut, which is edible.
And corn smut's been known to the Aztecs for centuries as huitlacoche.
And there it is, a picture of an engaging young corn smut,
which has grown a sort of berry, which is the bit you eat.
There you are.
Try the magisterial Illustrated Genera of Smut Fungi by Kalman Vanky.
It's a hell of a book.
(Laughter)
Uh, so, with that rather obscure piece of information,
let's plunge yet deeper into general ignorance.
Fingers on buzzers, please.
What contains the most caffeine -
A cup of tea or a cup of coffee?
(Burp)
Ah, tea.
(Siren)
(Laughter)
Oh.
In fact, about three times more caffeine in a cup of coffee
than a cup of tea.
Why did someone tell me it was tea then?
Well, because weight for weight, a pound of tea leaves
contains more caffeine than a pound of coffee beans.
Oh.
But in a cup of same, we get much more... As we know from drinking.
You know, it's kind of experience.
People always say, "Oh, there's more caffeine in tea."
Drink it, you'll get that buzz.
But there's actually more caffeine in tea?
Weight for weight, but not in a cup of tea.
- Not in a cup of tea. - No.
- But there is more caffeine in tea. - Yep.
But not in a cup of tea, which is the question.
- But not in a cup of tea. - Not in a cup.
Which is what you drink.
You don't tend to just eat tea like that, in huge quantities.
You have a cup of tea,
which has a third as much caffeine as a cup of coffee.
Exactly. Quite right.
What's the only ball game invented entirely in the USA?
- Ball game? - Yeah.
They haven't invented any ball games.
- We invented all ball games... - (Laughter)
..here in England.
Baseball?
(Siren blares)
(Laughter)
No. As Alan rightly knows, it is an English invention.
No, the English invented that for you.
(Laughter)
It was mentioned by Jane Austen in Northanger Abbey.
- Rounders? - Rounders neither, I'm afraid.
- Netball? - Netball, yes. I'll give you netball.
- Basketball. - You're right, Rich.
Fantastic. Well done.
(Applause)
Basketball and netball were invented by the same person.
Dr James Naismith. University of Kansas.
In fact, he was actually teaching at Springfield, Massachusetts.
- Yeah. - You got lots of points there.
And he was, in fact, Canadian but he invented it in the USA. Yeah.
If you'd said lacrosse, of course, that's also a ball game
but it wasn't the United States of America when that was invented so...
But there it is, basketball specifically invented...
The weird thing about it is, you used an old peach basket.
For 21 years, they played the game
without putting a hole in the bottom of the peach basket.
Someone had to get a step ladder every time there was a basket
and take it out.
You can't play basketball with a peach.
- No, a peach basket. - Peach basket, they used.
- A basket for peaches. - A peach wouldn't bounce.
(Laughter)
No, that's right. (Laughter)
As a short-arse,
I think there should be different divisions for basketball,
different height divisions.
'Cause, obviously, if you're 7'4",
you've got an advantage over somebody like me.
I mean, you don't put little boxers, like Prince Naseem Hamed,
in against Mike Tyson.
Oh, I'd like to see that, I have to say.
I think there should be several baskets you can aim for.
(Laughter)
A really high basket for 10 points
and then a lower basket and then one on the floor.
(Laughter)
Did they invent netball as well then?
What happened was, a woman from Louisiana wrote to Naismith
- and said, "Uh..." - We've got quite a girly version.
One of the stories is she actually misinterpreted the rules
'cause he laid out the dimensions of the basketball court
and she thought, given the various areas,
she thought the players had to stay within those areas,
which, I believe, is one of the things about netball.
You can't travel. You can't dribble in netball.
Once you've got the ball, you've got to stand still.
It wasn't as hard as the basketball we played
'cause we would nail the basket to a truck, the side of a truck.
The game went on for miles.
(Laughter)
Can I just say that, that little kid with the purple shirt
is really beginning to annoy me?
Will you sit still? Look, it's... Sit down!
(Laughter)
- This is very old footage because... - There are white people.
- Yeah. - (Laughter)
Oddly enough, though, volleyball was invented
in exactly the same college in Springfield, Massachusetts
as netball and basketball.
This guy's number is zero.
There's no confidence at all in him, is there?
(Laughter)
Anyway, I think we've seen enough of that looped game.
It's going to drive us all nuts.
So, what were Nelson's last words?
(Burp) (Laughter)
The last words of someone who sucked at Nelson's body.
(Laughter)
- Yes? - That's my answer.
That's your answer.
"Kismet Hardy". But did he say, "Kiss me, Hardy"?
(Siren blares) Oh, dear.
Well, whatever it is, it's rubbish.
It's not "kismet" and it's not "kiss me".
"I'll race you to the bottle of brandy."
(Laughter)
"Last one in's a kipper."
Hardy kissed the admiral twice apparently -
Once on the cheek and once on the forehead -
when Nelson was struggling to remain conscious.
He then said, "God, I've done my duty,"
and then he said - it is rather peculiar -
'Drink, drink, fan, fan, rub, rub."
Those were his last words.
He was thirsty, he was hot...
That was navy lingo for, "Give us a quick hand job."
(Laughter)
Those were... According to the reliable witnesses at the scene,
they were all agreed those were...
Why don't you ever hear that at school then?
Because the famous lines that he said are, "Thank God. I've done my duty,"
and "Kiss me, Hardy," but, "Drink, drink, fan, fan, rub, rub"...
That's what's wrong with schools.
Final words are not to do with how interesting they are.
They've got to do with what people actually said.
Myths build up, I'm afraid.
- Did he say "kiss me," or "kismet"? - "Kiss me."
It's almost universally agreed he said, "Kiss me".
- The kismet idea is nonsense. - Rubbish.
Yeah. He was hot and thirsty.
So he had his steward standing by
to fan him and feed him lemonade and water and wine,
while the ship's captain Dr Scott massaged his chest to ease the pain.
If you were to go in a time machine, would you go there?
You see, people always say, "Oh, I'd go here, there and everywhere,"
but you wouldn't go back.
I'd go back and see myself.
- Well, that would be fascinating. - So would I.
I would go back... I had a rolled up ball of socks
and a hamper all the way across the room.
And I just went like that.
Hits the wall, bounces off the ceiling, off this wall,
back across that wall, right into the hamper.
From, like, 40 feet away.
I would go back and watch that again.
(Laughter and applause) Brilliant.
It was fantastic.
I hope that when you die, they play back something from your life.
- Yeah, yeah. - Those moments. And no-one saw it.
Stonehenge, the erection of. I'd go back there.
- Yes. - "Ooh, well done."
(Laughter)
If you'd just waited a few thousand years...
Go back with a power drill and a JCB.
(Laughter)
Become worshipped as a god.
(Laughter)
And we've come to the end of the round, the end of the competition.
My last words are not "drink, drink, fan, fan, rub, rub"
or anything close to it.
They are l'addition, s'il vous plait.
Let's see how the scores are.
And rather meagre rations they are too, I'm sorry to say.
Rich scored a lightly battered five points.
Which is very good. Puts you in the lead.
(Applause)
Fred is next on a gently poached four points.
(Applause)
Jo managed a reheated -8 points.
(Applause)
Alan, once again, it's the kebab van for you, I'm afraid, with -19 points!
(Cheering and applause)
Well, that's all for this week.
I leave you with the thought that
while most of us drink at the fountain of wisdom,
others merely gargle.
From Rich, Fred, Jo, Alan and me, it's goodnight. Goodnight.
(Applause)
Closed Captions by CSI
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