(Applause)
Oh, hello, hello, hello, hello.
Good evening and welcome once again to Ql,
the reality show where four people are held in a queue,
until one of them becomes interesting.
- Clive Anderson. - (Applause)
- Phil Kay. - (Applause)
- Johnny Sessions. - (Applause)
- And Alan Davies. - (Applause)
First of all, you have a special project, members of the team,
and that is to draw and colour in,
if you so choose, a wigwam.
And as this is Series B, um, we'd like you to do it
in the style of artists beginning with B.
So, Clive, if you'd do it in the style of Botticelli.
Phil in the style of William Blake,
Johnny, you're rather good at drawing, so, in the style of Braque.
- Braque. - Alan, l don't need to tell you
that you'll be Bosch.
- So, er, that's your task. - What?
Hieronymus Bosch? Painted scenes of hell.
(Alan) Did he? - Yes.
You don't really have to do it in the style, any old wigwam'll do.
Thank God!
l didn't know what l was gonna do then.
Now, in case you need to be excused,
you need to attract my attention.
- Clive does it like this... - (Vibrating ruler)
- And Phil does it like this... - (Mobile phone ringtone)
And Johnny does it like this...
Alan does it like this...
l'm glad that you went before you came.
You all know me, l'm one of those ''Johnny-jump-up,''
''meet-me-in-the-corner'' and ''tickle-my-fancy'' types.
Right? So what am l?
You're the sacked lyricist for Lindisfarne,
because those were the original lyrics for
Meet Me On The Corner, that hit of 1972.
- (Stephen) Does sound like it. - Yes.
You're a hoarder of many hyphens.
- l am a hoarder of many hyphens. - You've almost got them all.
l could add that l'm also a ''love-idol''.
- Right. - (Clive) Are these fishing flies?
- They're not fishing flies. - (Alan) Roses?
l'm also a ''meet-me-in-the-buttery''. (Chuckles)
Or ''kiss-me-in-the-buttery''.
Are they types of flowers?
They are, all one type of flower,
- also known as ''pink-of-my-John''. - (Laughter)
- l'm not making it up. - Carnations?
- (Stephen) No. - Tulips
No, Johnny might get it, because there's a Shakespearean reference.
''The flower that men do call love in idleness.''
- Yes. ''Some dead men's fingers call.'' - lt's in Romeo and Juliet.
- No. The Dream. - (Clive) The Dream.
- Midsummer Night's Dream. - Oh yes.
Come back, you've all floated up like in a balloon above us.
So it's a flower called ''kiss-me-in-the-buttery'', ''jump-up-Jack'',
''tickle-my-fancy'', ''love in idleness'', ''heart's ease'', ''pink-my-John''.
- What am l, if l'm all those things? - (Alan) Forget-me-not.
- Pansy. - (Stephen) Pansy, yes!
- l am a wild pansy. - (Alan) You are, aren't you.
And there are more folk names for the wild pansy,
than for every other flower.
The word pansy actually comes from the French ''pensée'',
it's a thought or an idea,
because they're supposedly good for the memory.
(Alan) What, eating them?
Well, yes, indeed, a refreshing tea, supposed to be good for the complexion,
and clearing phlegm can be made from pansies.
And yet Pascal's book, Pansies, didn't sell very well, did it?
One person in the audience knows that Blaise Pascal,
There were 200 names for the wild pansy at the last count.
That was, of course, a question about botany,
so your next question is, what is bottomry?
- (Vibrating Ruler) - lt's the opposite of topiary.
- (Stephen) Very good. - You take a...
Topiary, as you will know, is you take a tree or a bush,
or whatever, and you shape it into a beautiful shape.
- (Stephen) Absolutely. - An animal, or something.
Bottomry is the opposite, when you see a tree that looks like a horse
and then you cut it back to look like a wild tree.
lt's...lt's not much fun, to be honest...
Um, there's... another argument for it,
that it's the website in Tokyo for all the Japanese men,
who are crazy about Virginia Bottomley.
- (Laughter) - And they go ''Bottomry! Bottomry...''
(Vibrating ruler) (Clive) l know what this is.
Was it in France - ''droit de seigneur'' -
when the local lord had a right to have his evil way
with any girl or milkmaid in the village.
lf you were a minor lord or a baron or something,
you had a right of bottomry, you could just slap them on the bottom,
that was all you were entitled to, no more than that.
ln a nice way, if there is such a thing,
which l deplore... l would... These days absolutely forbotten. But...
(Stephen) Forbotten? (Clive) Yeah, Forbotten.
- No, bottom being a ship in this case. - A ship?
(Stephen) You sort of mortgage the ship in order to raise money,
to go off on a trading voyage or merchant ventures.
Yeah, they call ships ''bottoms''.
The ships are called bottoms in the marine commerce world.
Of course there's a line in Henry V, from the chorus,
before they set off for France, where Shakespeare talks about them
drawing their bottoms through the water.
He's referring to the ships, not to the soldiers.
Excellent. Now, next question, then.
So, what did Buffalo Bill do to buffaloes?
l don't actually know the answer to this but what l do know, is that...
..my grandmother was born in 1875,
and she saw Buffalo Bill and Annie Oakley...
- (Alan) Down the shops. - Not d... No.
She might have done and not been aware of the fact.
- (Stephen) She saw his Wild West show? - Yes, at the Kelvin Hall in 1892.
- (Vibrating ruler) - That's the sound of a hurtling arrow.
l hope l've got the right drift on this but l think l can see a trap,
The American buffalo isn't strictly speaking a buffalo, it's a bison.
- You're absolutely... - So he did nothing with...
(Stephen) You're absolutely spot on, indeed,
- he should've been called Bison Bill. - Yes.
They're not buffaloes, or even related to the two kinds of buffalo that exist.
At a philosophical level, which l know you like to operate at,
- if something is called... - (Stephen) l agree...
lf they are called buffalo... lt's like the Bayeux Tapestry,
strictly speaking, isn't a tapestry. But it's the only tapestry -
it was an embroidery - but it's the only one we know,
So, if you say, ''That isn't a tapestry'', what shall we do?
These are the only buffalo we come across...
- Apart from water buffalo, in Asia, - ln Africa, you see buffalo.
My wigwam is (BEEP)...ing huge!
- (Laughter) - (John) l was in the city of Buffalo,
when l heard of the death of Elvis Presley.
- (Clive) lt should've been the city of Bison. - lt should.
(Stephen) There they are. (Clive) The buffalo's on the right.
(Alan) lts ears are really low down.
- (Stephen) Aren't they? - They're well below the eyes,
right by the nose.
(Clive) lt likes to keep its ears close to the ground.
- (Alan) lts ears are there. - Why is the one on the right wearing...
- an advocate's wig? - (Laughter)
- But he killed a load of them... - (Stephen) An astonishing number,
ln 18 months he killed 4,280 bison.
Why?
Well, he used to work for the Pony Express as a boy,
and this is a rather good letter, or advertisement the Pony Express took...
- (Clive) Arckle used to write for that. - This is the ad.
''Wanted - young, skinny, wiry fellows, not over 18,
''Must be expert riders, willing to risk death daily.''
(Alan) You wrote that.
- You wish you had. - (Stephen) lt goes on.
- (Laughter) - ''Orphans preferred.''
(Laughter) (Alan) You won't get sued.
''Wages $25 a week.''
Well, anyway, that only lasted... it only lasted 19 months,
the Pony Express, because of the railways,
and the Kansas-Pacific Railway needed food for its workers
and so they employed Buffalo Bill to kill bison,
or buffalo as they call them, to feed the construction crews.
But in Dances With Wolves, they just kill buffalo for fun.
The native Americans, the lndians - whatever you prefer to call them -
used to lure them over cliffs, which was their way of killing a lot.
They used the hides and meat, so they didn't kill them for fun.
They only lured exactly the right number that they needed...
No, they didn't. Don't have that sentimental view of them -
we're nasty but all native American tribes are peace-loving philosophers.
We were all like drunk and badly behaved,
- They'd never lure a pregnant one over. - (Laughter)
The way they lured them over was to cause them to stampede,
and once they're stampeding, they all go mindlessly.
When they had enough, then they'd go, ''Stop!''
lt was that moment when... When's a stampede over?
you know, you're stampeding and then you're not stampeding.
That nice, gentle...
When you hit the ground at the end of the cliff, you know it's over.
(Alan) lf you're at the front you've got to keep stampeding
because everyone behind is stampeding.
lf you stop, boom! Straight over you.
May l come to the aid of the hippy party here?
These buffaloes, or bison,
they lived quite happily with the American lndians,
eating a few, killing a few,
and then they were got rid of and replaced with cows.
And the cows have caused a dust-bowl in that part of America, twice now.
They're discovering the only thing to have there are bison,
- so they're re-introducing bison. - And crossing them with cattle...
- What they go up to in their private life... - (Laughter)
From 60 million bison in the 1 7th century,
they went to just a few hundred in the late 19th century.
There are now about fifty thousand.
l'll read the next question.
Buffalo Bill's famous Wild West Show,
included a famous Native American chief, Sitting Bull,
Sitting Buffalo Bull, who, of course, defeated Custer
at the Battle of Little Big Horn,
but what was his real name, do you know?
Er, Bison.
lt worked for the last question.
Well they're always named after the first thing
that the squaw sees when she...
(Alan) Two dogs (Beep)-ing, that's the term.
l was gonna let the audience think of that joke for themselves.
Well, Buffalo Bill, although he's always,..
He had to kill thousands of buffalo or bison,
in order to acquire the nickname Buffalo, to go with the rather dull name Bill.
But old Sitting Bull, all he had to do was sit around a lot...
- and talk, you know, rubbish... - (Alan) Hang on...
- bulls don't sit. - (Laughter)
- Do they? - Ferdinand did.
- Ferdinand? - (Clive) Ferdinand?
(Stephen) Ferdinand the bull. (Clive) Oh, yes...
He used to sit under the cork trees, smelling the flowers.
(Clive) And then a bee got him.
- What?! - lt's a book.
lt's a book you happen not to have read, it doesn't make us mad that we have.
Because the bee stung him, he ran around like crazy
and they thought he's a fine bull. Then they got him the bull ring...
- lt's a children's classic. - (Alan) Called?
Ferdinand the Bull. Yeah.
(Clive) Ferdinand forgets to take his drugs test and is disqualified...
- from the bull fight. - (Stephen) Exactly.
Bulls sit down when it's going to rain, don't they?
- Yes, supposedly. - Yes, very much like cows.
- (Alan) So they have a dry patch? - Yeah.
- (Laughter) - lf you like, well...
(Alan) Standing Cow, he was called.
Actually, he was called Jumping Badger,
He acquired his father's name when he was a teenager,
his father was Sitting Bull,
and because he'd done great exploits,
he'd killed his first buffalo/bison at the age of ten,
and then he took part in a raiding party
on a crow lndian settlement, and was a great hero,
and his father gave him his name, Sitting Bull.
His mother was called Her Holy Door, interestingly.
They were rubbish at names in that family.
Sitting Bull was scarcely OK but Jumping Badger!
Why Dad? There was a film character,
he was very popular with your mother.
Who made pots and pots from Bill and Ben?
- l think that somebody like... - (Alan) Weeeee...
- You do Bill and Ben now. - All right, ''flobbadoyl lubbly''
ls it someone like Greg Dyke or Michael Grade?
- Well, in fact, do you know? - l don't know who it was,
but l mean Greg Dyke did the rat thing, didn't he?
(Alan) Roland Rat. (Stephen) He did.
So that's a good guess, l'd say, for...
Well, it's simply that the BBC have of late,
made two million pounds from video sales of Bill and Ben,
and they paid the creator, Hilda Wright...
the magnificent sum of three guineas.
Three guineas, for the whole thing, which was three radio stories.
She named Bill and Ben after her own, er, brothers,
- l thought you were gonna say breasts. - (Laughter)
She's suffered enough, this woman!
Breasts do kinda go ''flobbalob, flobbalob,'' l'd say, don't they?
And when they were naughty, the mother would say -
or something bad had happened - ''Was it Bill or was it Ben?''
And that was the catchphrase of the programme.
- And their little sister Phyllis was Weed. - Was it?
The voice of Bill and Ben - in a language which is called ''Flobadob'' -
was a Peter Hawkins, who went on to great fame,
as both a Dalek and a Cyberman.
ln 1999 he was Associate Producer on a program called,
The Lifestyle - Group Sex in the Suburbs.
That's where l remember him from then, yes.
(Stephen) But where did this language ''Flobadob'' come from?
lt was their nickname for the sound a fart made in the bath.
- Ah. - lt literally was a flobadob.
Now, what does Billy the Kid have in common with Ben Hur?
- (Mobile Phone ringtone) - Phil?
- Capital B. - l can't really fault you on that.
They have me in common, l know them both,
l've been to where Billy the Kid was shot and l've seen Ben Hur.
Ben Hur is in the Scottish Highlands?
- it's in the Hollywood range. - (John) Ben Affleck.
Glen Close is nearby, they're all up there.
Glen Close! (Chuckles) Do you know who wrote Ben Hur?
- Gore Vidal claims to. - He wrote the screenplay.
- Who wrote the novel? - When was it written?
lt was written in 1880,
- or published in 1880. - (Alan) ln America
- (Stephen) ln the United States. - Someone thought,
l'm gonna write a book about Roman chariot racing.
Yeah. W-What should he have written about?
''Ugh, you're writing a book about something that's not particularly close to you!
(BEEP)...ing Shakespeare writing about Romans? God!
(Clive) lt's not only about chariot racing, to take another point...
(Stephen) lt's about Christianity, it's about loyalty and betrayal and friendship,
- and all kinds of things. But anyway... - (Clive) Leprosy.
The phrase ''What are you really angry about?'' springs to mind.
The man was called Lew Wallace, who wrote the novel
and he was governor of New Mexico.
His connection with Billy the Kid, is that he also wrote Billy the Kid's death warrant.
So, while he was being Governor of New Mexico,
he was able to write a best-selling...
''lt was a warm morning in Rome.''
(Stephen) What's all that?
There's one other thing l think is interesting,
and it involves a staggeringly hideous name-drop.
l was at the Sundance Film Festival, a few years ago,
when it was my great good luck, to have supper with Robert Redford. And...
lt's a special little forfeit for Johnny, the Luvvie Alarm.
- l told my very close and personal... - (Alan) Do you call him Bob?
- Bobbity is what he prefers. - (Stephen) Bobbity Bedford.
And as l was towelling him down after our bracing game of shuttlecocks...
l happened to mention to him that... that the Sundance Kid -
l don't know if any of you know this, was in fact Welsh.
The family's stock was certainly Welsh.
(Attempted Welsh accent) This town ain't big enough for the both of us.
(Attempted Welsh accent) He's right stuck-up, that Billy the Kid.
''He's gonna come to no good!''
Now, from Bills to buildings.
What happens to your thoughts when you go upstairs?
Gravitationally, of course,
the pressure changes, your blood varies in its aspect,
in its circulatory aspect,
so your brain becomes less fuelled by the blood,
affected by altitude and therefore becomes less clever.
And hence hostesses - ''tea/coffee, coffee/tea.''
(Stephen) That's a very good answer indeed.
- Deep physics. - (Clive) Deep physics.
Deep, deep, real, theoretical physics.
Your thoughts are allowed to float upwards.
They go upwards... they're sucked downwards.
You start thinking about physics, you're so clever ...
They run faster, everything is faster, you breathe faster, metabolism is faster,
because time slows, the weaker the gravity.
Talking of going upstairs in buildings, what is the best floor of a building,
- Out of which to throw...a cat. - (Ringtone)
Blimey, that's impressive.
A lovely mahogany.
(Stephen) A mahogany floor is best.
lt's only a guess, l'm guessing, but l reckon it must be about the fifth.
Assuming you're trying to do the cat some harm,
which l would object to but if you want to kill the cat,
if it was only the first floor, it would survive because they're very springy animals,
and if you go too far up, l'm guessing,
they form a sort of parachute with their... and they float down.
But the fifth floor would be about right and they'd be still hurtling,
- and the parachute effect wouldn't come in. - Right, but we don't want to harm them,
- we want them to survive. - The very high floor, then.
The seventh, anything higher than the seventh,
They experimented by studying, not by throwing cats out of the window,
They studied 132 cases of cats falling out of windows in New York -
the American Veterinary Centre - 132 cases of cats falling,
or being pushed out of windows and surviving.
(Stephen) And the injury rate went up.
The averages were about the fifth floor.
The higher you went towards the fifth floor, the more injuries there were,
but the moment you got to seven, the fewer injuries.
Because they reach a terminal velocity, of sixty miles an hour, from whatever floor -
from an aeroplane, cats have survived -
and like a squirrel they spread themselves out and parachute,
Out of the sixth floor they haven't time
to get to that terminal speed and to get the position right.
(Clive) Have they done this with other animals?
- Have they done hamsters, dogs? - (Stephen) l'm not sure.
Cows, l'd like to see them do cows.
(Stephen) A man in Shropshire catapults cows,
he puts them on a catapult and flies them through the air,
hundreds of yards.
(Clive) Does that not harm them? (Stephen) Dead cows.
- Meat, you mean. - But l would urge people at home
not to try it with your cat, if you're a young person.
Not, er, because it isn't valuable and scientific,
but because of the mad letters l get from (BEEP)...ing cat people if l mention one.
Do not throw your cat off anything, just let them be is the answer.
Or at least not from lower than the seventh floor.
That's the idea. So, General lgnorance.
What is the commonest material in the world?
(Clive) Jim Davidsons.
(Stephen) Very good indeed.
You must have a real answer.
- No, l can't better that, that was it. - (Clive) Oxygen.
(Stephen) Material as a substance (Alarm)
(Clive) What did l say? (Stephen) Did you say oxygen?
- (Clive) Damn. - Substance, material matter.
- (Alan) Water. - (Alarm)
(Phil) l think it's just matter.
lt's perovskite.
That was on the tip of my tongue.
Named after Count Lev Perovski, a mineralogist,
A mineral compound of magnesium, silicon and oxygen,
and accounts for half the planet's total mass.
lt's what the earth's mantel is supposedly mostly made from,
He reckoned he'd be famous by giving his name to the most common stuff
and no one's heard of him.
He's got such a good name for a scientist who discovered things
and probably had a wonderful accent,
just the same as the man who used to go,
''lncredible, tyrannosaurus rex.'' you know.
Heinz Wolff.
Yes, it's like Heinz Wolff, exactly.
''Yes, a very elegant solution to a problem, as always...''
''That little bow tie, always, yes''
Now, what happened to Pompeii in 63 AD?
- (Laughs) His eyes narrow. - (Clive) Ah, yes.
- l've been to Vesuvius. - (Stephen) Have you?
- (Laughter) - What happened to Pompeii?
l'm really trying to remember.
- ls there a time limit? - (Ruler)
l can't remember if that's when it got covered in lava.
(Clive) They had an earthquake before.
(Stephen) Quite right, it was destroyed by an earthquake
and they'd just started to rebuild it when 12, 14 years later, in 79 AD...
Oh, l bet the air was blue when that thing went off.
''l have just-a finished it!
'' l cannot believe it, it's all finished now.''
The air was actually black.
''All the tiles, l just put the tiles up. Oh ho ho''
One of the things that was preserved,
almost every household had an extraordinary number of pots of plaster,
because they were re-plastering...
- Artexing the inside. - Artexing the inside,
- Expecting another earthquake. - You can walk across,
there's a sulphur crust, which is about that thick.
and there are places where it's fallen through...
- (Clive) ls this a type of pizza? - And it's going, ''Bloop, bloop.'' Big bubbles.
- (Stephen) Extraordinary. - There are fences
and you go across in your school party, and they say,
''Go in pairs, not in big clusters, you might go through.''
''And don't... '' They say to you, they say this to a school party from Essex,
''Don't jump up and down.''
Oh, what's a mistake! Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.
Have they never heard of, reverse psychology?
What did you say that for?!
This is the kids at the back...
- Certain death. - (Stephen) Oh, lordy Lord.
So it's gonna go again is it? lt's about to...
Well it's really, really overdue, massively overdue.
Can you imagine, being an estate agent trying to sell a house,
and then there's lava coming towards...
lmagine how good you'd have to be to sell all the houses...
(Alan, quickly) Here's the keys, thank you very much.
(Stephen) lt's not central heating, it's exterior heating.
Didn't the Phoenicians... Phoenician civilisation, end the same way?
''lt's a volcano, we're phoeneeshed.''
Still in Rome, how did Roman emperors order the death of a gladiator?
No, you're right, it was a trap.
They didn't put their thumbs down, they put their thumbs up.
(Mexican accent) ''Take him out and kill him.''
''Hey gladiator!'' - (Laughter)
''lt is over for you-u.''
lt's all right to joke about it
but it was life and death to some poor gladiator.
(Stephen) Exactly, they ought to know.
Why do they go like that in the films, then?
Well, because we have this up and down idea, and...
So when we go like that, we mean death to you.
So what was the saving symbol? Did they have one?
lt was called pollex compressus, where you put the thumb,
the pollex in that way, as opposed to pollex infestus...
A little mouth and eyes on as well...
To this day, that's the rudest thing
- you can do in Sicily. - (Stephen) ls it?
Which is why so many hitchhikers are killed.
- Really? - They stand by the road like that
Russell Crowe, he's going for the knob there, isn't he?
- (Stephen) The knob shot. - He's gonna to bite it off.
(Stephen) He's holding his gladius, which is why they're gladiators
Small flattish sword.
Now were the Romans really the only people
who had that kind of men killing each other for sport?
Very interesting question, l've never heard of it in Chinese culture.
- Other cultures? - (Clive) The Greeks didn't do it.
They had naked wrestling instead, which is much more the thing.
What was the name of the organisation the Americans fought in Vietnam?
- The Vietcong, the Gooks? - (Alarm)
(Stephen) No. We want the proper name of the organisation,
Even l can work out that, when you know the answer,
never give it because it's always the one they're hoping we'll say.
Gooks and Charlie and Vietcong are all made up by Americans.
The Vietcong doesn't exist, it was made up by the ClA.
Vietnamese People's Liberation Front?
- Which was known as? - Vietnamese Popular Army.
(Alan) PLO, PLF, Tooting Popular Front.
- lt's the name of their great hero. - Ho Chi Minh.
(Stephen) Ho Chi Minh Viet Minh, (Clive in silly voice) Viet Minh, ah.
The Americans gave a huge amount of money to the Viet Minh,
because at one point they were on the same side.
Never heard of this happening, ridiculous!
And then having armed them to the teeth,
the war then ends and again, a huge historical surprise here,
the French surrender, extraordinary, to Ho Chi Minh,
in 1954, and that's the end of their rule in lndo-China.
And the Americans are fighting them with the weapons they gave them
just ten years earlier.
But what is this term Vietcong? ls that supposed to be a term of abuse...
Yes, the ClA believed it sounded more kind of menacing and ugly
and also associated with communism,
- Vietcong, communists. - Minh doesn't sound good either.
''Hello, white boy, you want slippy slippy?''
''l'm sorry, l'm a missionary.''
ls there a nationality that hasn't been cruelly abused
in the course of this half hour?
So was King Kong his real name, or was it really King Minh?
Oddly enough, the Danish for King is Kong,
so in Denmark the film is called Kong King.
lt's time to hold up your work, please, and be judged.
(Alan) Look at my buffalo.
(Stephen) A good buffalo. There's the wigwam.
(Stephen) Oh, and there's Johnny's.
- That is a Cubist wigwam. - (Audience) Ooh!
A slight vari... l misunderstood,
l've got Whamwigs, this is George Michael
and Andrew Ridgeley,
- and they're wearing wigs - (Applause)
- What's wrong with that? - (Stephen) Very good indeed.
Very good, and what have you got there?
Oh, this is William Blake's, you know, God.
But God as a white man with a holster on, man, yeah.
A tiny wigwam - these are the red lndians, that's the blue lndian, the beige lndian,
and this is thunder and stuff.
lt's very apocalyptic,
l'm sorry that nobody did a wigwam, though.
(Stephen) No, that's not a wigwam. That's a tepee, you've done tepees.
What's the difference then?
l'll show you a picture of a wigwam.
(Clive) lt's a haystack.
That's not very polite to the eastern Native Americans,
who, that's where they lived. The plains lndian lived in the...
Buffalo hide and the sticks poking up,
So, what do you think the scores are?
My goodness, we have a clear winner and we'll go from first to last, l think.
Clive, runaway winner with one point, fantastic!
- Phil's second with zero. - (Applause)
- Johnny third with minus ten. - (Applause)
And way out the back there, with minus twenty six,
That's it from Ql this week,
and so from Clobalob, Philalob, Jobalob and Alan Daviesalobolob,
and from little meeee, good night. Good night.
(Applause)
www.tvsubtitles.net