(Applause)
Well, hello, hello, hello, hello and welcome to another edition
of Ql, otherwise known as the British space
between the ears programme.
And boldly going nowhere with me tonight are
Jeremy Clarkson.
Alexander Armstrong.
John Sessions.
And Alan Davies.
So tonight we have three astronauts
and one astro minus 25.
Ha, the things l do with words!
Tonight's buzzer noises all have some relevance
to the questions that will be coming up this evening.
- Jeremy goes... - (Firework rocket)
- Alexander goes... - (Moose mating call)
- John goes... - # Fruity, fruity, fruity!
# Fruity, fruity, fruity, fruity, fruity, fruity #
- And Alan goes... - (Cuckoo calling)
(Gunshot)
(Cuckoo calling)
This week we have something rather exciting going on,
and that is, as you guests are more grown-up than usual,
we're going to do something very daring and we're going to treat you like adults
and we're going to ask you to keep your own scores.
So l have absolute...
You see, l told the producer there would be a flaw in this system.
And you see, what l'm going to do at the end
is l'm going to subtract the amount you lie by,
because we're also going to have an electronic check.
But, if you're very accurate,
l will give an extra 100 points to anyone who's bang on their own scores.
"l like Stephen."
lt's like having your own little performing donkeys.
Now, l have absolute faith in your honesty, gentlemen,
but by coincidence, the first question does happen to be about cheating.
The 1904 Olympic Games were held in St Louis, Missouri,
and they were notable for a number of bizarre events,
including something called Anthropology Days
where so-called "uncivilised" tribes such as Pygmies and Sioux lndians
held mud fights and tug-of-wars against each other in tribal costume.
The Marathon, however, which featured the first Africans
ever to compete in the Olympics, was equally remarkable.
Two of the first four men to cross the line
were disqualified because they'd been poisoned.
And the winner himself was disqualified,
but l want to know why the winner was disqualified.
# Fruity, fruity, fruity! #
Erm, in a moment of inadvisable candour,
he said, "l'm afraid l poisoned the other two contestants."
lt's a good answer.
What sort of poison was it that made them run 26 miles and nearly win?
Do you mean they did it to themselves?
lt was performance-enhancing poison?
Well, that's really very intelligent, because they did,
their trainers gave them and they gave themselves strychnine,
which was commonly used as a rat poison and is very poisonous.
lt was quite legal to do so, it enhanced performance.
- (Jeremy) But it kills you. - Non-fatal doses won't kill you.
- l ran a marathon the other day. - Did you?
Well, l didn't run it, l drove it. But...
l did race against a marathon runner,
from Greenwich on the London marathon course to the Mall
in normal London traffic, and he was faster by eight minutes.
- That's fantastic. - lsn't it great?
And amazingly, gestures towards the answer.
- He had a car. - Yes!
(Alan) He got a lift?
The winner Fred Lorz went most of the way by car.
He was given a laurel by Alice Roosevelt,
the daughter of President Theodore.
- Was he in the car on the podium? - He wasn't actually.
(Stephen) The car ran out of petrol...
and he ran the last 11 miles or so.
He couldn't go on the course, he must have had to go quite round.
- (Jeremy) They'd have seen him. - They'd have seen him
- ln a running vest... - (Alan) Vrrrroom.
Fourth place was awarded to a Cuban postman called Felix Carvajal,
- who rather sweetly... - Delivered the post on the way round.
(Mexican accent) l have a letter for you.
- That's so like... - lt's from Cuba.
lt's so like your famous Mexican accent, but no.
He had to run in street clothes,
which he snipped around the legs to make them look like shorts.
And then he stopped off in an orchard to have a snack on some apples
and they poisoned him and...
The strychnine didn't kill the winner
but the apples nearly killed the bloke that came fourth.
They were rotten, so he had to lie down and have a nap.
But he still... he still came fourth.
The athlete who came ninth was called Len Tau,
and he was a Tswana tribesman, the first African ever to run in the Olympics,
and he had to run more than a kilometre out of his way
because he was being chased by a dog.
ln the 1904 Olympics, the same Games,
there was a fellow called George Eyser,
who won six medals in gymnastics.
And he had a handicap. Can you imagine what that was?
- Blind. - No.
- (Alan) Deaf. - No.
(Jeremy) Mad.
Club foot, two left feet, one leg.
- One wooden leg. - He had a wooden leg?
He had a wooden leg and he won six gold medals.
Maybe he could do brilliant stuff spinning on it.
- (Stephen) Yes. Freestyle hopping. - Take it off, put it on his head.
Put wheels on it, little wheels.
ln 1900 there was a sport where Great Britain won the gold medal,
in which the only other country that competed was France.
Can you imagine what that might have been?
Arrogance?
(Alan) Cricket?
We played France at cricket and beat them.
We whipped their arses. Though the French team
was actually British Embassy officials from Paris.
lt's a way to run the Olympics, isn't it?
They don't have a French team now, do they?
l should think the Embassy has still got a team.
(Stephen) The Embassy will have.
And they do a marvellous Pirates Of Penzance every other year.
1904 Tour de France, interestingly,
what do we know about the Tour de France? A lot of cheating there.
(Alan) Cycling.
Yes, good. Award yourself a point.
Absolutely.
There were some night races and there were some riders
discovered biting cork, on the end of which was a wire,
on the other end of which was a car.
They were being towed by their teeth.
Yeah. Though the winner...
Tie it on the handlebar, you idiot!
You'd think, but l suppose they could, l don't know.
They could, if they were found, they could let go quickly.
Maurice Garin was the first man to cross the finishing line,
but he was disqualified when it was discovered that he had gone
part of the way...
by train.
His main rival fell from his bicycle fast asleep
because he'd been given chicken with sleeping pills in it.
And there were other nobblings...
Yeah, there were other... Laxatives...
Laxative in a water bottle was a very common one.
ltching powder in jumpers and sandpaper in the jockstrap.
(All) Ooh!
You'd notice that when you pulled it on, though, l would guess.
Anyway, there we are. Stop me when you've guessed
what l am now listing.
Challenger.
- Tornado. - (Cuckoo clock)
Tanks.
- (Alarm) - Oh! Tanks.
- Jet fighters. - (Alarm)
Biscuits, types of biscuits. Dragonflies, butterflies.
Moths.
(Stephen) Shall l carry on with the list?
Typhoon.
- Mustang. - (Moose)
Tennis balls.
No, but good.
- (Alan) Cars. - Laser.
Getting good, Marauder.
- (Firework explosion) - Boats.
- No. Hurricane. - They all are boats.
- Star Quest. Apache. - Yeah, all boats. Still boats.
- Buccaneer. - Boat.
Jet Stream and Super Storm.
- Are they air currents? - (Alan) Hovercraft.
l was in one the other day that was actually a Cobra.
- A helicopter. - (Alarm)
Oh, hello, who said helicopter?
lt was him.
- Ferries. Car ferries. - Big ones that you live in.
- (John) You live in? - Barges.
Caravans! Ladies and gentlemen.
- They are all makes of caravan. - (Jeremy) You can't say that word!
(Jeremy) Don't look at it!
Just... take it away!
But, Jeremy, l've got so much to talk to you about.
No, l'm not listening, not listening.
You've destroyed a few in your time, you've done a service, haven't you?
We played conkers with them not that long ago.
l saw that. Now the world record speed for towing a caravan is?
- 140-something miles an hour. - Oh, he's good, isn't he?
(Alan) They tried to beat it on your programme.
lt's 139.113, very good indeed.
- (Applause) - Wrong again. No, wrong.
Miss is as good as a mile.
Now, so, that was fun actually, let's try it again with something else.
Fingers on buzzers again. What am l listing now?
- Patriot. Gladiator. - (Firework explosion)
- Missiles. - (Alarm)
- Best to wait. - # Fruity, fruity, fruity! #
Really big dodgy gay condoms.
Oh, yes, they could be actually, that's a very good name.
l'll keep going, though. Dagger. Javelin.
- (Moose) - Merlin, Archer, Arrow.
Tory Party summer balls for the last ten years.
- (Alan) Apples. - You're in the right area now.
- (Alan) Pears. - Well, it's not a fruit, though.
- Apricot, no. - Tomatoes, radishes.
- Oh, now that's close. - (John) Potato.
They were used as potatoes in Britain before potatoes were discovered,
- if you know what l mean. - Turnips, swedes.
- Oh, you're so in the right family now. - (Alan) Parsnips.
Parsnips is the right answer.
There you go!
- Get some points. - How many do l get?
Well done, l don't know, how many you think you deserve, old thing.
But which parsnip wrote a great novel of the 20th century?
Probably the best-known Russian novel of the 20th century.
- ls it Pasternak, Boris Pasternak? - Pasternak, which is the Russian for?
- Parsnip. - Exactly.
Boris Parsnip wrote Dr Zhivago.
So there you are, parsnips. What else can we say about them?
Sometimes, when you're a kid you think they're chips
and you plunge in and they're not chips.
That is a disappointment.
Bet l'm the only person here that grows their own parsnips.
- (Stephen) Do you? - Yeah.
(Alan) ls that a euphemism?
"They say he grows his own parsnips."
When l say "l grow them,"
they are grown on a piece of soil near where l live.
- And Jess Hardacre, your gardener... - A man comes and leans on a shovel.
"Er, l say there, Mr Clarkson, they come up lovely, Mr Clarkson.
"Maybe if l could have a cup of tea once a week, that would be nice."
Get out, get out, get out with your muddy shoes.
Now, what kind of creature was actually the first
to be sent into space?
- (Moose) - (John) Dog.
- A monkey. - (Alarm)
- And what did you say? - He said dog, sir.
l think he did say dog, didn't you, John.
- (Alarm) - Yes, yes.
l bet it was something that they didn't know had gone into space.
- No, they sent it deliberately. - A fly.
Fly is correct. Do you know what kind of fly?
- (Alan) Fruit flies. - Fruit fly.
You divide points between yourselves.
- Very good indeed. - Why did they do that?
Well, they're very light, so there was no payload.
They sent them up in July 1946
on an American V2 along with some corn seeds.
But fruit flies, why are they used so much in science?
Because they can talk and they tell you exactly what's going on.
lf you're a fly and it's weightless,
what happens then?
Do you suddenly sort of stop flapping and you go, "Hang on."
"This is what l've always dreamed of."
No effort, they just stay like that.
ln space, when they go to do a number two, they do it in the wall,
- they dock into the wall like that. - (Stephen) Yeah, all right.
All right, thank you, Davies.
One of the things about fruit flies is...
- (Fart) - Thank you.
- But there's no sound in space. - (Stephen) No.
So you can't hear your own farts.
He's so amused, that's what's so sweet.
He is absolutely adoring it.
No, 61 per cent of all known human disease genes
have a recognisable match in fruit flies.
Fruit flies also go to sleep at night, rather sweetly.
Do they get a cold, then, do they get the common cold?
- A-zzzp! - They may well do.
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 l want you to tell me why they're called what they're called.
There's a gene strain called the Ken and Barbie fruit fly,
- 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.
Hates the unions, a bit right-wing.
No, because it suffers from arrested development,
- like... Maggie in? - (Alexander) The Simpsons.
Yes. Someone in the audience got there 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.
Go figure. Erm, anyway, what's quite interesting
about the sperm of the fruit fly?
(Alexander) lt smells of guava.
(Alan) The thing is, Alexander actually knows that.
- Fruit fly spunk, what can we say about it? - They don't have any of it.
They... By God, they do.
lt is the most fecund sperm.
The parsnips taste nice in it.
l'm afraid it's size, l'm just going about size.
lt's the largest sperm of any living thing.
Uncoiled, it's 20 times as long as its own body.
lt's 5.8 centimetres long,
one sperm, l'm not talking about its seminal fluid.
- Five centimetres? - Yeah, 5.8 centimetres.
A human sperm is 0.05 millimetres.
So you don't think tadpole, think Loch Ness monster.
lt really is absolutely gigantic.
You could probably have one as a pet, couldn't you?
Well over a thousand times longer than a human sperm.
(Grunts)
(Stephen) Oh dear.
Cos our sperm are the smallest cell in the human body.
- What's the largest? - (Alan) The smallest cell in the body?
- Yes, the human sperm. - The largest. The brain?
(Stephen) No. After all... (Alexander) Cheek.
Only half human beings have the sperm,
which is the smallest, and funnily enough, the largest cell the other half have,
- which is the... - The womb.
The womb is not a cell!
Even l, who as you say, am not exactly an expert in these matters,
do know that the womb is not a cell.
- No, whereas the ovum is, the egg. - The ovary. Ovum, yeah.
lt is kind of a cell, like, for nine months.
(Stephen) Yeah, yeah. Good point.
Very good.
Now, bearing in mind all that has gone before, boys and gentlemen,
what's the connection between
Nancy Kerrigan and Wrong Way Corrigan?
- (Cuckoo clock) - Yes?
She was the skater who had her leg smashed
by Tonya Harding.
- Absolutely right. - And he was another skater
who had his leg smashed by another skater.
No, that's not right, but the link is what was Tonya Harding doing?
l mean, essentially in a very violent and appalling way.
She was trying to eliminate her rival from the competition.
She was cheating.
Wrong Way Corrigan was a shamed porn star...
in the '70s.
He looks like Edward Fox there, doesn't he?
- He's a jockey, isn't he? - (Stephen) No. He was a famous cheat.
He had a ticker-tape parade in Manhattan
where more than a million people turned up in the streets.
He was inspired by a man called Lindbergh.
He was determined to fly across the Atlantic,
although Lindbergh had already done it.
They told him he wasn't allowed to,
because his aeroplane 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 had 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 Wrong Way Corrigan.
Did he ever look out of the window, because, hey?
He couldn't see, it was night, it was foggy, he says.
lt can't have been night for 3,000 miles.
He does look like Eddie Fox in the Day of the Jackal.
When he said, "lt's going to cost you a lot of money."
He does a bit.
Eddie Fox, the only man with a bicep in his face.
"Wallace, l'm going to have to abdicate."
l was in a play in Chichester years ago, 20-odd years ago,
first play l was ever in,
and he was in another play, but l got to know the DSM,
as they call the deputy stage manager, very well,
and she'd not met him,
and he suddenly appeared and put a hand on either shoulder
and lent into her ear and said,
"lf we do go to bed together, it'll be strictly on my terms."
Hell of a pick-up line, isn't it?
Edward is one of these guys, he just stares into space
and suddenly says something.
And he was sitting in a dressing room,
possibly at Chichester again actually, and he said,
"l'm so glad there are no homosexuals in this company."
And everyone just sort of looked at him.
"The other lot in the Anthony And Cleopatra play
"were an absolute fleet of Berties."
Now, one last chance to even things up
by awarding yourselves a few points in the mad sprint for the finishing line
that we call General lgnorance. Buzzers.
ln which year did the Second World War end?
- (Cuckoo clock) - 1945.
- No, what a pity! - (Alarm)
- Who was the war between and against? - Germany and Britain.
- Germany, now, what happened... - America and...
There was a peace accord of Paris in 1947,
but where was Germany? There was no Germany, was there?
- Well, there was. - (Stephen) There were two.
So it ended in 1990, when they unified Germany.
ls the right answer, when Germany became one country again.
3rd September 1990.
That is officially when the war ended against Germany,
because Germany didn't exist until then again.
l know it's weird, but it's technically true.
That is silly and l lost 20 points for it.
(Laughs) Oh dear.
- l knew that was going to happen. - All right, we'll make up for it this way, Alan.
Name something, fingers on buzzers, invented by the Swiss?
- (Cuckoo clock) - The cuckoo clock.
- Oh dear! - (Alarm)
Oh, no!
(German accent) lt was a Tcherman invention, l fear.
- Chocolate. - Not chocolate itself, no.
l'll give you a few. Well, Velcro is a good one.
Well, milk chocolate, you see, l think you should give yourself some points,
because milk chocolate they did invent.
What, got some chocolate and put milk in it? That's not an invention.
- (Stephen) But it was certainly impressive. - lt's not even close to being an invention.
- Cellophane, that was important. - (Jeremy) Oh, wow!
(Stephen) Now...
Dr Jacques Brandenberger in 1908 invented cellophane.
Rayon, the first of the proper man-made fibres, rayon.
And the Swiss army knife. What can you tell us about the Swiss army knife?
You can use it to cut your toenails?
- lt's always got a name on it. - Equinox or something like that.
Oh, very close. Victorinox. Named after Victoria, the inventor's mother,
- and inox, which is the... - (Alan) Half a point.
...international symbol for stainless steel.
But that was only the German-speaking Swiss army knife.
A few years later, the French invented one...
- (John) With a little white flag on it. - Well... No. (Laughs)
Very good.
Well, oddly enough, they both have got the Swiss cross on it,
but they're bitter rivals, one calls themselves the original
and the other the genuine.
And the Swiss army meticulously buys 50 per cent from one company
and 50 per cent of its supplies from the other.
There you are. The only difference is the very first one has the shield stamp
of its flag and the other one just has the flag.
The first cuckoo clock was designed and made by Franz Anton Ketterer
in the village Schonwald near Triberg in the Schwarzwald.
Black Forest. ln about 1738.
The Swiss have the highest
motorcycle ownership in the world.
- (Stephen) Do they? - And the highest gun ownership.
Eight million guns in private hands from a population of six million.
l once had the pleasure of being stopped in a car in Switzerland,
which l was told by the policeman was too loud.
They measured it and said, "lt's too loud, you're not allowed to use this car any more."
And at no point mentioned the machine gun on my driver's seat.
A loaded machine gun, no, just not interested.
"This exhaust, on the other hand, matey boy,
"you're on foot from here on in."
Well, that brings us to our last question.
Now, the year is 1792.
lt was a notable year for a number of reasons.
lt was the year the guillotine was first used.
(Alan) Which was last used in 1960.
- A point for that. - No, because it's not true.
- You're wrong. - lt is true.
(Stephen) No, it isn't. We'll come to that, l'm afraid. 1977.
The last French... Sorry, no.
lt was a one-legged French criminal
who was guillotined 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 Nora Buttie, was it?
(Jeremy) Charles Babbage.
Charles Babbage, you're right, is the inventor of the computer,
- so you've all added to that. - Difference engine.
- Yes, the difference engine. - l know how many were at his funeral.
- (Stephen) Oh, go on. - Three.
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.
- Which was only recently... - They rebuilt one, didn't they?
Science Museum, and turned it, and it works.
ln Vietnam, the guillotine was last used in 1960.
However, in France, in 1977...
En France.
En France, exactly, en France.
Has anyone survived it?
Well, do you remember Jim Dale in the film...
- lf you survive it, you can go. - That smarts. That smarts.
Savlon! Bit of Savlon! Anything!
- (Stephen) Guillotine be gone. - The head just flopping over like that.
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 the French Revolution and they say, "There's a note for you from Robespierre,"
and he says, "Leave it in the basket, l'll read it later on."
Well, there's a horrible truth to that, because of course it was maintained
by contemporary witnesses that a lot of the heads
were quite sentient...
- for some time after decapitation. - They twitched.
They're going, "You bastards!"
lf they were there long enough, you'd get some weirdo who'd want to marry them.
- Well, the tricoteuses, who sat knitting... - Start writing to them.
"Ooh, l love you.
- "Will you marry me?" - Our question is,
what was invented at Cambridge University in 1792?
Was it girls?
Not... No, we had to wait about a hundred years before girls arrived.
(Jeremy) Was it homosexuality?
That had been going on at Cambridge and still, l proudly claim, to this day.
- What goes on at Cambridge? - Studying.
Studying, and at the end of studying is?
- Exams. - ls exams.
How do you know when someone's done well in an exam?
- The person who marks it. - Who marks it.
And where did this idea of marking exams come from?
- (Jeremy) 1792. - lt was invented in Cambridge, right.
So the written exam was invented there in 1792?
ln Cambridge in 1792
by professor of chemistry, Farish his name was.
Before that you would speak in Latin, you'd be asked questions, you'd answer.
But they were starting to be paid in piecework with the industrial revolution,
and they decided they'd process a lot more students
if they got them to write down what they knew and then someone would mark them
and give them an award according to how well they'd done.
l've learned one thing that is quite interesting.
You see?
ln fact, if this show had been made before 1792,
it's scoring system would have been regarded
as even more weird and innovative, wouldn't it?
Which brings me to wonder what scores you have given yourself.
So, let's have a look, let's start with you, Xander.
- Minus seven. - Minus seven, right.
- Minus 29. - (Stephen) Minus 29.
- John, what have you got? - Plus seven.
- Plus seven, he's given himself. - l've got minus 85 and a half.
This is very interesting.
Now, l did say if anyone was spot on the money, what did l say would happen?
They'd have sex.
l think the wish is father of the thought there, young Alan,
l know how... But no.
Someone around this table has got their score exactly right
according to our scoring computer
and that person is Alexander Armstrong with minus seven.
- (Applause) - Honest. Honest John.
- Which means you get another minus 40? - l think so, yeah.
So, your plus score takes you definitely into the lead,
you're the winner with 93 points.
ln second place with zero is Jeremy, did a lot better than he thought.
And in third place, because he did fall into a few of our traps,
with minus ten is John Sessions.
But only 33 out, in last place,
with minus 52, Alan Davies!
Well, there we go.
That's just about it from Ql.
My thanks to fellow invigilators Jeremy, Xander, John and Alan.
Till next week, l leave you with this quite interesting question.
What do lawyers and sperm have in common?
One in fifty million has a chance of becoming
a human being. Good night.
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