Well, good evening, good evening, good evening, good evening,
and welcome to another voyage to the dark continent aboard HMS Pig Ignorant.
And joining me on the poopdeck this evening we have Admiral Sir Clive Anderson . . .
and Mr Midshipman, Arthur Smith . . .
Stoker Reeves...
and Alan, the ship's cat.
They buzz with anticipation, and this week, they buzz with nautical noises. Clive goes:
"General Quarters! General Quarters! All hands, man your battle stations!"
Arthur goes:
Vic goes:
I want Arthur's.
And I wanted to be a coxswain.
Yes
Don't call me "son".
And Alan goes:
No, but bless.
Er, tonight, our "D" theme is "Discoveries", and to that end,
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.
Er, Arthur, have a look at yours, shall we?
And Clive, yours looks like this.
And Vic.
And Alan, you've got a picture too.
And you've got the next half hour to think about it.
At the end of the show I'll ask you exactly what you think they are for.
And so to our first question, which is something that I've always wanted to know, which is:
Why does it always rain at the weekend?
Is it because cricket matches are played at the weekend and . . . ?
And God doesn't like cricket.
Well, it's just sort of an element of sod's law, isn't it, that you're trying to do something outdoors . . .
er, fates, you know, garden fates happen.
Clive, Clive, sod's law doesn't really exist.
As a practicing sod and lawyer, I, erm . . .
If it doesn't exist, I'm sure this government is going to introduce it fairly soon.
I think more people go out at the weekend and they create a warm front with heat.
Especially if they haven't got hats on. Because a lot of body heat is lost.
But the thing is, though, a week is a man-made construct.
You're right. And which men first made it?
Well, they had it in the Bible, didn't they?
That's right, so it's a pre-biblical civilisation first gave us a seven day week.
But the Romans had an eight day week.
It's Egyptians or Babylonians . . .
Babylonians is the right answer.
The point being that if it's a man-made construct,
what have we done that makes it rain at the weekends?
I'm going to give you points, 'cause you're absolutely on the right track.
It's industry, combustion, all kinds of things like that . . .
builds up during the working week, and on Saturdays, particularly in America,
it rains considerably more than it does on other days.
I remember it raining one Saturday.
That's a lovely story.
Did you like that? I knew you'd like it, Stephen.
That is gorgeous. Anyway, that's the answer.
More rain falls on a Saturday than on any other day.
Recent discoveries show this is due to a seven-day dust cycle,
caused by traffic and industrial activity during the working week.
Now, next question. What connects gelignite, saccharin, and the rings around Uranus?
This is what I call a fantastic night out.
Well, if this is about discoveries, er ...
the only thing I know about gelignite is it was invented by Nobel, of the Nobel Prize.
Exactly. It was, yes.
And this is a safety version of dynamite.
Gelignite is safer than nitroglycerine, which is what's inside dynamite.
Nitroglycerine 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 a bang head.
I learnt that on Brainiac.
You're . . . 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, wasn't it?
The rings of Uhr-anus were discovered in 1977, actually.
When did it stop being called Uranus?
About five minutes ago, I said "Uhr-anus".
I suddenly noticed that it could sound like "your . . . anus". And, er . . .
I can't remember who discovered it, but he . . .
the guy who discovered it wanted to call it George Planet...
He did. ...after the King.
Herschel his name was. Herschel, there you are.
In 1781. Yes.
You can't ask for, erm, Anusol in that way in a shop. You have to pronounce it "Ahn-usol".
It's a slightly embarrassing product: Let's call it Anusol!
"Can I have some Cock-Wart-Go?"
It might as well be, mightn't it? Ridiculous.
"And whilst I'm at it, I'll have a packet of those spunk bags!"
Well, anyway.
Alfred Nobel was trying to make dynamite more stable, and he discovered by adding collodium...
He'd had some on his finger; it was used . . .
I don't know if you ever used it as an actor, if you've ever had to had a scar;
it tightens on the skin very hard, and they used to use it as a sort of liquid plaster.
He 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 nitroglycerine,
and it formed a jelly which you could throw around,
unlike nitroglycerine, which as you know, is very very unstable.
Er, saccharin, er . . .
He forgot to wash his hands after playing with some chemicals and then found his food tasted sweet.
So he's an American, obviously, because he ate with his fingers.
There's a huge number of things that are discovered by accident.
Trousers.
Trousers were discovered by accident, yes.
When somebody accidentally fell into two drain pipes.
Hey presto! No more embarrassing walks.
That's like the story of Roquefort, when a . . . a young shepherd boy . . .
Just picture the scene; he's . . . he's dropped his cheese in a hole.
I've . . . I've often pictured the scene of young shepherd boys dropping their cheese in a hole.
And six months later he's sheltering in the cave and he found this bit of cheese, and he's starving, and it's all rotten.
And he thought, "Oh, well, what the hell, I'll eat it anyway. Mm, 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 their research chemists was so bad at it that 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.
They're not all successful!
So yes. The most serendipitous discovery perhaps was Penicillin, a great cure for diseases,
and while we're on the subject of diseases, who suffered from Chagas Disease?
I did, you know, what I mean? I bloody shagged them all!
Thank you very much! Taxi! I'm off.
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"?
I love that idea, but it's not that.
How are you spelling this Chagas disease?
Ah, now, that's a good question, how you spell it, but it's actually spelt C-H-A-G-A-S. Chagas.
I think it's some sort of virus or a bacterium or a parasitic disease.
It's a parasitic disease.
It is some sort of equatorial disease? I'm sure I've had an injection against this, or something.
If anyone needed an injection against Chagas disease, it's . . .
Well, now you're doing his bit!
- Now you're doing it too! - You hypocrite!
It's infectious!
It was a famous person who had it.
And what's our letter of the series?
D.
D. It's a famous D.
- Darwin! - Charles Darwin.
Charles Darwin had Chagas disease, and he described it. It's pretty unpleasant, I have to say.
Did he get it off the Beagle?
Er . . . He did.
Oh, look how it took him. Oh, look.
The description of Chagas disease is unpleasant:
"Vomiting, preceded by shivering, hysterical crying, dying sensations; half-faint, copious and very pallid urine."
This is pre-menstrual tension.
What about this one, this is an odd one, now: "Vomiting, and every passage of flatulence preceded by ringing of ears."
Mine's followed by ringing of the ears.
And he had this for fifty years?
For fifty years he had that.
Very sad.
Amusing name, but by no means an amusing condition.
Chagas disease is a serious problem still for millions of people all over, particularly, South America.
It was discovered by Carlos Chagas.
It's unique in the history of medicine,
inasmuch as it is the only disease that was entirely described by one single researcher.
Charles Darwin, one of the great discoverers of all time, of course, described many things, with one notable exception.
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 traumatised during a period in the Girl Guides, er . . .
There we go.
Kill me now.
We even predicted your mistake, 'cause I think . . . Isn't Brown Owl Brownies?
Yeah. He must have died before they had . . .
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 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 Gluttons, as it was known at Cambridge,
and their aim in life was to eat as many rare and peculiar animals, like bitterns and hawks,
but brown owl they didn't like at all. And all the others became Bishops and Arch Deacons.
But . . . This is a . . . Does this still exist, this, er, club?
Exist? Stephen's the President of it, for goodness' sake!
I wondered why he's invited me round for fox en cr?me later.
Panda, that's the . . . Ooh, that's lovely.
I've got a book at home . . .
It's the equivalent of the Collins Book of Birds, from 1850, and after describing each bird, at the end it will say . . .
For instance, a buzzard: "It tastes a little bit milder than a golden eagle, but still quite palatable."
Does it have a wine recommendation at the bottom? "We suggest a Chablis or a new world Merlot."
Do you know what you should drink with the beating heart of a cobra?
And 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 round the plate, I suppose!
And then you drink the blood of the snake as the wine.
"Actually, I ordered the lasagna!"
What's the most disgusting thing you've ever eaten, Alan?
Ear wax.
Your own? It was your own.
It's really horrible.
It's bitter.
- I mean even . . . just a tiny bit on the end of your finger. - Sweet 'n' sour.
Imagine if you had to have a sandwich of it.
Oh! Oh, no, no.
And like, really, like a block of it.
Ah! Anyway, erm, a Phylum Feast is held on the 12th February every year by zoologists and biologists,
in which they try and eat as many different species as possible,
in honour of Charles Darwin, whose birthday that was.
Now, what's quite interesting about this sentence?
"Serrated nor'wester sea-breezes caress rambling sea-lion kumquat excursion."
They're all in different colours!
One individual introduced all these words into the English language.
John Macefield.
No, it was earlier than that.
Nicholas Parsons.
James Cook.
Er, not James Cook. Funnily enough, it was the first Englishman to set foot in Australia.
He was a hero to many, many people, and spoke many languages . . . .
He was the first man ever to work out the importance of wind over currents and publish wind maps.
Cook used him; Nelson used him.
All right, we all feel we're thick as hell compared to you. Let's hear the name of the bloke.
I have to confess he was a vague name to me; I knew nothing about him before.
William Dampier his name was.
I was going to say "Dampier"! I've got two first editions of Dampier's Voyages and there he is. 1701.
But I didn't think he went there.
Have you read these books, then?
Yeah, I have! And there's . . . there's no mention of Australia.
For about a hundred years, almost every voyager carried a copy of his voyages around with them.
A New Voyage Round the World was his huge best-seller.
So why isn't he famous, like . . .
He should be, because there's a subsequent question, which you might now get.
How did he influence two of the most famous books in English?
Er, Robinson Crusoe?
Robinson Crusoe is one.
But no, that wasn't him. That was Alexander Selkirk.
One other book.
Peter Rabbit.
Gulliver's Travels.
Yes. Can I just . . . Gulliver's Travels is a sort of fantasy version of his . . .
That's right, it's a kind of parody/fantasy version, and he mentions Dampier in the preface, and, er,
he bases the Yahoos on Dampier's descriptions of the Aboriginals of Australia.
But was he stranded on an island?
No, the voyage on which Alexander Selkirk was a first mate was organised by Dampier, and he was on board as well.
And there was a captain who had furious rows with the young twenty-seven-year-old Alexander Selkirk, a Scot.
And he tried to go round the Horn of South America.
And the fourth time, they arrived on this M?s a Tierra, this little island four hundred miles off the west coast of Chile.
And Alexander Selkirk said, "You can get me off here; I don't want to sail any more with you as captain."
And he took his, you know, mattress and some books and some equipment and . . .
and then on the beach, and then the ship prepared to go and he thought, "I've changed my mind."
And Streadling, the captain, said, "Tough," and went off.
So it wasn't . . . it wasn't a wreck; it was just a hissy fit.
He left him . . . left him for four and a half years on his own there.
And then another ship came, The Duke.
And it had Sue Lawley on board.
But the pilot of the other ship who came up was William Dampier--
--who picked him up and rescued him.
And on the way back, they took charge of a Spanish ship laden . . .
laden Spanish ship, all due to Selkirk's superior seamanship.
And he went onto the ship that they captured and sailed it back; made a fortune from the prize money.
But what happened to him? He couldn't readjust to society after being Robinson Crusoe, as it were,
and he went to live in a cave in Scotland for fifteen years.
And then Defoe wrote the book Robinson Crusoe and he became a huge celebrity;
people came to visit him in his cave and he got very annoyed.
So he joined the Navy, and off the coast of Africa drank infected water and died.
Dampier wasn't well liked either, because he was a privateer.
And, er, also, another person on one of his ships was John Silver,
who was a peg-leg and he was just an ordinary seaman, but he was there.
Israel Hans was real. He was shot in the legs by Blackbeard.
Oh, really?
Edward Teach, was it not his name?
Edward Teach, yes.
I know that there's a bloke in Moby Dick called Starbuck who liked coffee.
There was indeed.
And his best friend was Costa.
I think I know that 'cause you told me.
Yeah, well, no, it's good to know.
There's an extraordinary academic book called Sodomy and the Pirate Tradition. Do you know that book?
I've got it, yeah.
Tom Baker came up to me and said, "Jim, I think you might find this interesting."
It's a fine book and I recommend it.
The name of the show is Quite Interesting; I think Vic here has been more than quite interesting.
I'm going to give you twenty points for this fantastic stuff. Well, done.
Brilliant.
Now, what two discoveries do we owe to this gentleman?
Shorts and socks.
I would say this is the first ever full mince.
He looks a bit like Harry Houdini.
- He is similarly a . . . - Is he a circus performer? Is he a . . . ?
A circus performer is so precisely what he is.
And that's his outfit.
His outfit is his name.
Ted Tights.
Jules . . . He is Ted Tights, but Jules Leotard.
Ah, Leotard...
- His name is Leotard. - Ted Tights by other means.
He is the man about whom the song "The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze" was written.
You said two inventions, though. Two discoveries.
He invented the somersault through the air onto another trapeze.
He also invented hummous, which was discovered when he peeled off the leotard!
And when left to rot, it turns into taramasalata.
It was most unpleasant! . . .
He of course didn't call it a leotard, it was only called that after his death. He called it a maillot. M-A-I-L-L-O-T.
So if I had an unusual item of clothing that had never been seen before, we could call it a Smith.
You could.
You're wearing it now!
So we say thank you to Jules Leotard for the flying trapeze and the leotard.
Lastly, we must come now to a relatively recent discovery.
Name something quite interesting that kangaroos can't do.
They can't drive.
That's kind of true.
I'm going to reduce it, then, to a bodily . . . a bodily.
They can't smell. They can't climb trees.
It's a bodily function, I'm afraid.
- Can't fart. - "They cannot fart" is the right answer.
They're just too polite.
Well done.
But you do wonder how they found this out.
Well, and you . . . Absolutely.
"We've been here for two hundred years and not . . .
not one of those damn kangaroos has farted! I can't believe it!"
The odd thing is that they eat exactly the same sort of diet as cows, who fart an enormous amount.
In fact, cows fart so much that they're a threat to the planet, aren't they.
Oh, yeah, let's blame the cows.
Well, it's our fault for domesticating them and having huge prairies of them, isn't it?
But why can't they fart?
Have they got really big arseholes?
Or very tight ones.
No, that would create a high pitched fart.
Let me tell you, I'm the prince.
Trapped wind is terrible.
Yeah. Well, that's the point, is that it's one of forty different bacteria that are in the kangaroo's gut that aren't in a cow's gut,
and they want to isolate it and maybe try giving it to a cow and see if that will stop cows farting.
Well, these cows will then swell to this enormous size.
Because it would be fantastic to be in charge of a good brutal fart when you jump like that, wouldn't it.
It could give you an extra foot in the area, wouldn't it?
It's cheap, but true, and potentially of world shattering importance,
because if we can get cows to stop farting, we may well save the planet. Who knows?
Now, we will move on, as our flimsy bark of ignorance brings us to the great "terror incognito" that we call General Ignorance.
So fingers on buzzers if you would, please, and let's see what swamps and quicksands lay awaiting.
What did Queen Victoria have to say about her musical bottom?
It was, er, Le Petomane.
Ah, no it wasn't that kind of bottom. It was the kind of bottom that you wear.
A bustle.
Bustles. A musical bustle was made for her for her golden jubilee.
And the tune that it played, when she sat down, was . . . Arthur?
We are not amused.
No, no, press-- Oh, no! You didn't say that, did you?
You forced him into that!
What I meant, Arthur, was . . . press yours.
Exactly. No, it was "God Save The Queen".
Oh, how annoying.
The idea was that, of course, if you'd sit down then it would play "God Save The Queen"
and then everyone would stand, you know, have to stand up. But apparently she was amused, I'm sorry to say.
The mark of a true queen, er, Stephen, apparently--
--is that you never have to look around when you sit down.
And she didn't look behind her to see if there was a chair,
because a chair would always be put underneath her.
So that you could spot if it was a fake queen.
Somebody, at some point . . .
Some teacher of the royals has said,
"Whenever you go out anywhere just look around at anything."
It doesn't really matter what you're looking at, but they're just constantly looking about.
Like there's a fly loose in the room.
But anyway, there you are. That was the musical bottom. Er, what goes "tu-whit, tu-whoo"?
Oh, I'm going to say "brown owl" just to get rid of the points, you know. Just to . . .
Yeah, you see, I just . . . I just . . .
If only you'd said brown owls.
Two brown owls go "tu-whit, tu-whoo", but one never can.
Oh, one goes "tu-whit" and one goes "tu-whoo".
Exactly. We might even be able to whip up the sound of it for you.
That's the "tu-whit". And that was the "whoo".
In legal, er, documents and statutes, you always construe the singular to include the plural.
I'll half the penalty if you can tell me is it the male who goes "whoo", or the female?
I'd have thought the . . . the female would have the last word, so the male would go "tu-whit." "Whoo."
Oh, it's the other way round.
The female goes "twit", and . . . and, er--
And the male goes "Who?"
Anyway, why did Fernville Lord Digby work in the nude?
Ah, is that him there?
No, I don't know, who that is. I . . . God.
Don't turn round!
Because he was a dog.
Because he was a dog?
It was the Dulux dog.
You're absolutely right!
Oh, brilliant.
That was the second one.
Well done.
I always wonder why they have a dog on the Andrex . . . you know, the toilet paper adverts,
as though there's a sort of implication that, really, you'd rather be wiping your arse with a dog.
Thank you very much.
But, actually, what was the French, erm . . . What was that French decadent writer? Rabalet.
Rabalet says . . .
Always wiped his arse with a dog.
No, he did . . . No, with a swan's neck.
That's what he said. The best . . . He did a survey. "Wipe your arse--"
Sorry. Getting seagulls, going like that.
It was the best thing to wipe your arse with.
And then put it back on the Seine. "Off you go!"
That's really . . . That's really flossing, isn't it?
But how astonishingly successful, for all its oddity, as you say . . .
I mean, the fact is, people now, all over Britain,
if they can't remember that that's called an old English sheep dog,
they say, "Oh, they've got one of those lovely Dulux dogs."
I mean, they're actually called that now, aren't they?
It did more for the sales of old English sheep dogs than it did for the paint.
And there's, again, the implication that you could paint using the dog.
Who knows?
I had occasion to hire a theatrical duck once.
A luvvy duck.
In my career I've had occasion to hire many, many an animal.
But the most expensive was a pelican.
Was it an enormous bill?
Hey!
You weren't going to say that were you?
- No, I wasn't, no. - Oh, good.
But do give yourself ten points for that.
Anyway now, it's time to guess your patent, if you'd be so kind.
Alan, what have you got for us?
Well, it's 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, of course.
It's got a motion detection; you hang it amongst your other stockings,
and when Santa Claus comes, it triggers a light and an alarm on it.
There's no such thing as Santa Claus.
I know there isn't.
This is a waste of time.
A waste of time. Clive?
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 that one of her brea--
A woman with no arms.
Oh, yes. 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 inflate the breast.
Oddly enough, your breath was going in the wrong direction. You're 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 . . .
Or what about Ovaltine?
Yeah. "Could I have one of those Ovaltine bras I've heard so much about?"
"She came in here reeking of Ovaltine!"
What's yours, young Arthur?
Ah, yes. I remember Clive Anderson in his thirties.
And, er, I can't hardly believe it, but maybe someone has, actually patented the comb-over.
You're absolutely right.
On May 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 colour of a baboon's arse?
Have you got the full details of this that I could take away and study for . . . just general interest?
If you look at this picture, though, what you'll see is a horse with its tail and that's just the end of it there.
Vic, what have you got for us?
Er, this is, erm, a deVice for sucking those special gasses out of a U-bend.
And it looks like the actual pan is filled with some sort of worms,
which probably create the gas in the U-bend.
Well, 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, erm . . .
So your last moments before the fire burns your backside off are spent sucking in lavatory air.
"Darling, I can smell fire. Where's the toilet snorkel?"
And on that marvellous note, ladies and gentlemen, I think it's time to have a look at the points.
And they are more than a little interesting, because in first place,
a newcomer to the game, and my God did he play a blinder, Mr Vic Reeves!
Sixteen crisp young points he earned.
But look at this. I cannot believe it, ladies and gentlemen:
in second place with zero, it's Alan Davies.
Oh, how you've climbed the giddy heights to zero.
You've dreamt of scoring zero, haven't you? You've dreamt of it.
I come in with zero; if only I could leave with it.
In third place with minus seven, Clive Anderson.
Minus seven! Where did those seven points go?
But I'm afraid the one who fell most into our heffalump traps was Arthur Smith, on minus twenty-three.
Oh. From Clive, Vic, Arthur, Alan, and me, that's all from QI this week.
One last word on discoveries from the plenipotentiary of gobbledegook himself, Ken Dodd.
"The man who invented cat's eyes got the idea when he saw a cat facing him in the road.
If the cat had been facing the other way, he'd have invented the pencil sharpener." Good night.
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