1 00:00:33,065 --> 00:00:39,288 Good evening. Good evening, good evening, good evening, good evening, good evening, good evening, and welcome once again to QI. 2 00:00:39,761 --> 00:00:45,922 Tonight on the panel we have four people who look uncannily like someone else. Please welcome Tony Blair! 3 00:00:49,291 --> 00:00:50,068 Tommy Cooper! 4 00:00:54,374 --> 00:00:55,216 Ruby Wax! 5 00:00:55,362 --> 00:01:00,178 "I am so pleased to be here. I can't tell you. Really I am. So pleased." 6 00:01:00,481 --> 00:01:02,246 And Alan Davies. . . . 7 00:01:05,542 --> 00:01:10,319 Well, you do. In certain lights you do. 8 00:01:11,172 --> 00:01:12,470 All right, Brian May then. 9 00:01:12,511 --> 00:01:17,494 So, we start this evening with a "dictionary" theme. "D" for "Dictionary". 10 00:01:17,511 --> 00:01:20,815 So the buzzers are in alphabetical order too. Ronni, give us an A. 11 00:01:23,340 --> 00:01:24,448 A B please, Rory. 12 00:01:26,618 --> 00:01:27,532 A C please. 13 00:01:30,407 --> 00:01:31,684 And a D. 14 00:01:37,681 --> 00:01:38,680 Thank you. How nice. 15 00:01:39,556 --> 00:01:45,293 "A", of course, is for "Alan". So, Alan, where's the best place to start writing a dictionary? 16 00:01:45,594 --> 00:01:48,707 With . . . Er, well, I would say at the As? 17 00:01:51,315 --> 00:01:52,880 How can that be wrong? 18 00:01:52,953 --> 00:01:59,972 Well, it seems in lexicography, the art of dictionary writing, they like to start with M. 19 00:02:00,010 --> 00:02:01,042 Oh, for . . . 20 00:02:02,079 --> 00:02:05,507 The theory is that they've got their eye in by the time they get to A, so-- 21 00:02:05,722 --> 00:02:06,941 So you mean the Ms are probably rubbish. 22 00:02:06,949 --> 00:02:08,379 That means they've started with the "I", then. 23 00:02:08,420 --> 00:02:13,819 Hey! No, no. When I said "eye", I meant E-Y-E, and you thought-- 24 00:02:13,820 --> 00:02:14,620 Yeah, yeah . . . 25 00:02:14,621 --> 00:02:19,221 --possibly for comic effect, but if so, disastrously, er, that I was saying "I". 26 00:02:19,357 --> 00:02:23,207 And that wasn't what was happening at all! It was completely something else. 27 00:02:23,326 --> 00:02:27,220 It was one of those laughable misunderstandings, and I use the word "laughable" quite wrongly. 28 00:02:28,203 --> 00:02:33,276 So, erm, anyway, from "dictionaries", we turn and plunge into the heart of darkness. 29 00:02:33,323 --> 00:02:42,185 Name, if you can, the subject of the three volume book whose first volume is entitled "The Long Years of Obscurity". 30 00:02:44,099 --> 00:02:45,619 The career of Phil Collins. 31 00:02:49,369 --> 00:02:54,369 I did a show once with Phil Collins... well, not just me and him; there were loads of people on... and, er, 32 00:02:54,380 --> 00:02:59,403 he did a song called Where's My Hat?, and he was wearing his hat throughout! 33 00:03:01,518 --> 00:03:05,165 It was ridiculous. "Do another song. It's rubbish!" 34 00:03:06,667 --> 00:03:14,155 Is this book about the word obscurity before it got famous? How it was beaten by its adjective father? 35 00:03:15,410 --> 00:03:22,354 And... And left on the doorstep, abandoned by his mother, and then it was the only noun growing up in a house of verbs. 36 00:03:22,479 --> 00:03:27,303 But the verbs.. They're always going out doing lovely things, 'cause they're doing-words, 37 00:03:27,404 --> 00:03:31,604 and poor old obscurity was stuck inside suffering from asthma. 38 00:03:31,671 --> 00:03:36,506 And then after school... after school it was surrounded by quotation marks; 39 00:03:36,620 --> 00:03:42,812 it got beaten up terribly, and then one day it entered into a reality TV show and it became very famous 40 00:03:42,904 --> 00:03:48,561 and it was much in demand and used to describe all the people that leave Big Brother house. 41 00:03:50,572 --> 00:03:53,334 That's brilliant! Absolutely amazing. 42 00:03:56,856 --> 00:03:59,166 God, I wish that were true, Ronni, I really do, that is... 43 00:03:59,265 --> 00:04:00,858 Is it Chairman Mao? 44 00:04:00,946 --> 00:04:03,310 It's not Chairman Mao, "The Long Years of Obscurity". 45 00:04:03,382 --> 00:04:07,463 This begins with "D"; it's got two Ds in it, in fact. That's your clue. 46 00:04:07,465 --> 00:04:10,213 D . . . Double Diamond. Double Deckers. 47 00:04:10,469 --> 00:04:13,625 It's the sort of thing that railway enthusiasts . . . 48 00:04:13,729 --> 00:04:17,550 They always try and make their steam trains sound more exotic than they are. 49 00:04:17,686 --> 00:04:19,185 Well that's very odd. You're... Railways... 50 00:04:19,190 --> 00:04:22,746 I do actually know this, because it is my local station. Er, it's about Didcot. 51 00:04:22,766 --> 00:04:26,303 It is about Didcot! You're absolutely... How extraordinary you knew that. 52 00:04:26,476 --> 00:04:30,077 Well, Didcot is only a station 'cause the people of Abingdon are so snooty they decided, 53 00:04:30,151 --> 00:04:33,179 "We can't have a station! Don't want a station: all that noise, all the steam, all that sort of stuff." 54 00:04:33,199 --> 00:04:37,867 So the local Lord, Wantage, said, er, "No, no, we won't have it. We'll have it up the road in Didcot." 55 00:04:37,888 --> 00:04:41,200 So they built a station next to the power station you see there, 56 00:04:41,213 --> 00:04:44,723 which is the third worst eye-sore in the country; it was a Country Life thing. 57 00:04:44,790 --> 00:04:45,814 Do you know what the first one was? 58 00:04:45,968 --> 00:05:04,895 "People! Public people. The working class. Poorly-groomed servants. The ill-bred ponies. That Blair fellow." 59 00:05:08,869 --> 00:05:13,760 If I find out you've been intercepting my mail, I shall be... 60 00:05:14,861 --> 00:05:19,061 Erm, so. Let us know what was. 61 00:05:19,180 --> 00:05:20,668 Wind farms. It was wind farms. 62 00:05:20,669 --> 00:05:21,469 Oh, really? 63 00:05:21,470 --> 00:05:25,370 Yeah. But the power station was designed by the same guy that did Liverpool Cathedral, so... 64 00:05:25,441 --> 00:05:27,053 You must have some points for knowing about Didcot. 65 00:05:27,131 --> 00:05:30,262 So am I... Do I get a little point for the railway? 66 00:05:30,392 --> 00:05:36,659 You get five points for the railway and your astonishingly moving story about the early abuse suffered by the... the word obscurity. 67 00:05:37,912 --> 00:05:42,193 And you also get the telephone number of a therapist. So, erm, no. Wonderful. 68 00:05:42,216 --> 00:05:43,426 Too little, too late, Stephen. 69 00:05:47,931 --> 00:05:52,849 A didcot, though, is "the small, oddly-shaped bit of card which a ticket inspector cuts out of a ticket 70 00:05:52,950 --> 00:05:54,750 with his clipper for no apparent reason. 71 00:05:54,796 --> 00:05:58,150 Er, it's a little known fact that the confetti at Princess Margaret's wedding 72 00:05:58,151 --> 00:06:03,151 was made up of thousands of didcots collected by inspectors on the Royal Train." 73 00:06:03,500 --> 00:06:04,920 That's just lovely. 74 00:06:05,290 --> 00:06:08,159 Princess Margaret just got the second best of bloody everything. 75 00:06:09,463 --> 00:06:12,270 "Just get some didcots together for the girl." 76 00:06:15,870 --> 00:06:21,152 It's not number one on a young girl's wish list: a big white wedding, lots of didcots. 77 00:06:22,718 --> 00:06:25,853 That particular fact I gave you is not so much a fact as a made-up thing. 78 00:06:25,900 --> 00:06:31,236 - Oh! Porkie pies. - It comes from the book The Meaning of Liff, which, oddly enough, was co-written by Douglas Adams 79 00:06:31,337 --> 00:06:36,237 and the producer of this programme, and he somehow smuggled it onto my card. 80 00:06:36,357 --> 00:06:39,940 Erm, anyway, there you are. Didcot does have... and this is so typical of Didcot... 81 00:06:39,987 --> 00:06:44,440 the second-oldest ewe tree in the country. Not the oldest, no. The second oldest. 82 00:06:44,517 --> 00:06:47,795 Sixteen hundred years old, though; that's quite an old ewe. 83 00:06:47,882 --> 00:06:52,365 Third-ugliest, second-oldest... Always the bridesmaid, Didcot. 84 00:06:53,583 --> 00:06:58,746 Anyway, from Didcot, the Gdansk of Oxfordshire, to the Bubi people of Bioko. 85 00:06:58,808 --> 00:07:04,224 What can't the Bubi people of Bioko do in the dark? 86 00:07:04,312 --> 00:07:07,706 "See very well." I would imagine. 87 00:07:07,811 --> 00:07:10,750 I want something that's specific to the Bubis. 88 00:07:10,759 --> 00:07:12,175 Go to the lav. 89 00:07:12,187 --> 00:07:13,560 Can't go to the lavatory in the dark? 90 00:07:13,689 --> 00:07:15,270 No, they're scared of it. 91 00:07:16,872 --> 00:07:24,064 Well, the fact is, yes, the Isle of Bioko used to be called "Fernando Poo": spellt "poo", but pronounced "poe". 92 00:07:24,100 --> 00:07:25,385 Do you know where Bioko is, the island? 93 00:07:25,463 --> 00:07:29,896 - It's Equatorial New Guinea. - Equatorial New Guinea is the right answer. Five points, that's very good. 94 00:07:29,897 --> 00:07:36,997 I'd never heard of it. I'm impressed. There it is. There's Equatorial Guinea and it belongs to it-- 95 00:07:36,998 --> 00:07:42,098 it's in that sort of bite there... and the Bubi make up about ten percent. Er, there are forty thousand of them. 96 00:07:42,197 --> 00:07:46,535 They sound like the sort of tribe that those old intrepid colonial-type women travellers 97 00:07:46,671 --> 00:07:48,735 that you hear on Desert Island Discs used to stay at. 98 00:07:48,836 --> 00:07:54,410 "Yes, I stayed with the Bubis for three years. Happy, happy days, really. 99 00:07:54,422 --> 00:07:57,994 And you know, they look so wonderful in their bright colours, 100 00:07:58,095 --> 00:08:03,695 and I get so terribly annoyed the way they're patronised and their attributes dismissed. 101 00:08:03,795 --> 00:08:06,795 It is very hard to wear yellow well, you know." 102 00:08:07,351 --> 00:08:10,798 It's rather bizarre because, oddly enough, er, 103 00:08:10,806 --> 00:08:15,170 the information we have about the Bubis not being able to do this thing that they can't do at night 104 00:08:15,189 --> 00:08:17,436 comes from one of the great female explorers of our times-- 105 00:08:17,437 --> 00:08:21,137 Talk. Eat. Sing. Walk. Climb. 106 00:08:21,462 --> 00:08:23,028 - Fish. - The first one you said. - Talk. 107 00:08:23,029 --> 00:08:24,629 - Yes. - They can't talk at night? 108 00:08:24,630 --> 00:08:27,930 - No, because their talking is mostly gesture. - Ah. 109 00:08:27,931 --> 00:08:29,531 They can't see what they're saying. 110 00:08:29,532 --> 00:08:31,832 So they could talk about each other behind their backs at night. 111 00:08:31,977 --> 00:08:33,959 Yes. Like that. 112 00:08:34,019 --> 00:08:35,000 "Are you talking about me?" 113 00:08:36,989 --> 00:08:41,532 But the great Mary Kingsley, who was the sister of-- 114 00:08:43,371 --> 00:08:45,393 I learnt it all from the Bubis, you know! 115 00:08:48,333 --> 00:08:49,926 But this was . . . It had-- 116 00:08:59,656 --> 00:09:04,434 Mary Kingsley, writing in 1897. The sister of Charles Kinglsey, who gave us the Water Babies. 117 00:09:04,483 --> 00:09:07,927 This is her description of her encounter with a crocodile. Erm . . . 118 00:09:07,945 --> 00:09:08,667 Get Ronni to read it out. 119 00:09:08,720 --> 00:09:09,862 I will get Ronni to read it. 120 00:09:09,893 --> 00:09:12,127 It's the bottom one there. I've highlit it in pink. 121 00:09:12,191 --> 00:09:17,733 Yes, that's right. "He chose to get his front paws over the stem of my canoe... 122 00:09:17,858 --> 00:09:22,628 over the stern of my canoe, rather, should I say, I haven't got my glasses, so sorry... 123 00:09:22,727 --> 00:09:27,462 and endeavoured to improve our acquaintance, and I had to retire to the bows 124 00:09:27,595 --> 00:09:30,467 and fetch him a clip on the snout with the paddle." 125 00:09:30,526 --> 00:09:32,621 That's it. That's the way. 126 00:09:38,454 --> 00:09:42,711 These women, they always have this extraordinary oppressive story. It always finishes up with, 127 00:09:42,812 --> 00:09:47,112 "Yes, I was interned in some ghastly camp, quite brimming over with typhus; 128 00:09:47,213 --> 00:09:50,413 survived on nothing but an ostrich egg for four years." 129 00:09:50,477 --> 00:09:53,711 If you read the Telegraph obituaries, they're full of those sorts of people. 130 00:09:53,786 --> 00:09:54,885 Oh, aren't they wonderful? 131 00:09:54,921 --> 00:09:58,008 Or retired army officers. "Spent the war underground." 132 00:09:58,067 --> 00:10:02,786 That's right. There was . . . There was an extraordinary Scottish Peer, 133 00:10:02,887 --> 00:10:06,287 who had one of those weird double titles, like "Lord Elgin and Duncan", or... 134 00:10:06,375 --> 00:10:09,125 and he was an extraordinary hero, because he was the only man 135 00:10:09,226 --> 00:10:12,626 apart from General Roberts ever to be a Knight of the Garter and to have won a VC. 136 00:10:12,699 --> 00:10:19,086 And it described in his obituary how, er, he dropped the second part of his title in the 1960s or early '70s 137 00:10:19,099 --> 00:10:24,030 when social fashions and acceptability was beginning to change, and he arrived at a dinner, 138 00:10:24,129 --> 00:10:28,773 and he looked at the place cards to see who was sitting next to him. And he saw his own place card said "Lord Elgin", 139 00:10:28,874 --> 00:10:32,474 and then to see who was next to him, he just saw "Duncan". 140 00:10:33,575 --> 00:10:37,475 Someone had said, "Who's coming to the...?" "Well, we've got Lord Elgin and Duncan." 141 00:10:37,823 --> 00:10:44,553 "Where are we going to put Duncan? Oh dear. We'll put him next to him. He'll be... He'll be happier there." 142 00:10:46,428 --> 00:10:49,539 Talking of those strange women on Desert Island Discs, did you ever hear Diana Mosley? 143 00:10:49,648 --> 00:10:51,694 Now she liked a bit of Wagner. 144 00:10:51,784 --> 00:10:54,384 - She did like Wagner, I'm very... but she... she liked Hitler and... 145 00:10:54,426 --> 00:10:58,404 and, erm, met him many times. She said, "Well, what people don't understand is... 146 00:10:58,476 --> 00:11:02,625 is... is how funny he was. He was very funny. You know, his eyes were quite blue. 147 00:11:02,626 --> 00:11:05,626 - Oh, yes. Oh, yes, they were quite blue." - It makes it all all right, doesn't it, really? 148 00:11:05,758 --> 00:11:08,437 "Quite blue. Once seen, never forgotten." 149 00:11:10,238 --> 00:11:11,738 Well, that's all right, then! 150 00:11:12,342 --> 00:11:16,975 Diana Mosley was a Mitford girl, of course, and then married Oswald Mosley, the fascist. 151 00:11:17,020 --> 00:11:20,565 I met her and she said to me, "Of course, you never knew Hitler, did you?" 152 00:11:24,472 --> 00:11:27,281 An extraordinary . . . extraordinary thing to say. 153 00:11:27,330 --> 00:11:32,633 "I once pleasured a donkey to buy dinner in Belgium. No reason for saying that." 154 00:11:35,074 --> 00:11:37,868 They are... They're really highly sexed, these women. They're all like, 155 00:11:37,869 --> 00:11:42,569 "I first crossed the Gobi Desert when I was seventy-five and that's when I met Abdul, 156 00:11:42,619 --> 00:11:47,525 who was fifty years my junior, but went at it like a rabbit; always on the ball." 157 00:11:48,185 --> 00:11:56,034 "Curved like a scimitar it was." Anyway. Enough. No. 158 00:11:56,111 --> 00:11:59,801 That's right, they can't talk because their language is so dependent on gestures, 159 00:11:59,878 --> 00:12:04,221 according to Mary Kingsley in 1897, that they can't communicate meaningfully if they can't see each other, 160 00:12:04,333 --> 00:12:09,097 which is slightly worrying, because the president is actually from the same tribe, the Bubis, so whether he... 161 00:12:09,131 --> 00:12:11,544 It's great if they get a visit from Margaret Beckett, as Foreign Secretary, 162 00:12:11,643 --> 00:12:13,500 'cause of course, she can't move below the neck! 163 00:12:13,640 --> 00:12:19,610 Whereas, actually, Blair is all gestures, isn't he? All that sort of stuff. "People of Bubi!" 164 00:12:19,760 --> 00:12:21,888 And George Bush. He does a lot of that. 165 00:12:21,938 --> 00:12:22,725 He does. 166 00:12:22,758 --> 00:12:25,127 You know, he walks as if he's carrying two sheep for some reason. 167 00:12:30,209 --> 00:12:31,615 He does, doesn't he? He has the oddest walk. 168 00:12:31,777 --> 00:12:34,500 And uses the odd word merkin. Do you know what... You know what a merkin is? 169 00:12:34,544 --> 00:12:36,100 - Pubic wig. - Well, it's a... it's a chest or pubic wig, yes. 170 00:12:36,170 --> 00:12:41,438 It's a pubic wig. And George Bush uses it all the time in his speeches. "I'm proud to be A-merkin!" 171 00:12:48,058 --> 00:12:52,295 He also... He also beats the Cornish for his dislike of tourism, doesn't he? 172 00:12:52,319 --> 00:12:58,650 So, "I will not put up with tourists; I do not approve of tourists and tourism. We have a war against tourism!" 173 00:12:58,752 --> 00:13:04,467 So, erm, from the darkness in which the Bubis cannot communicate, to Dartmoor. 174 00:13:04,542 --> 00:13:05,615 Who owns Dartmoor prison? 175 00:13:05,627 --> 00:13:07,756 Prince Charles. 176 00:13:07,757 --> 00:13:11,757 You're on sparkling form! He does! 177 00:13:13,453 --> 00:13:17,156 - Oh, bog off! - Oh! Not bad. 178 00:13:18,858 --> 00:13:19,712 There he is. 179 00:13:19,803 --> 00:13:20,541 Does he really? 180 00:13:20,642 --> 00:13:22,386 Having a visit. Yes. It belongs to the... 181 00:13:22,423 --> 00:13:24,438 - Duchy of Cornwall. - "Duchy of Cornwall" is the right answer. 182 00:13:24,499 --> 00:13:26,818 Does he have them all making organic yoghurts or garlic bread? 183 00:13:27,904 --> 00:13:30,892 No, no, he's... he's a snout baron down there. 184 00:13:31,693 --> 00:13:40,493 "Norman Stanley Windsor. You are... ?" "Hello, Grouty, erm... " 185 00:13:41,610 --> 00:13:44,095 As an ex-jailbird, I can tell you that "snout" is very very old-hat. 186 00:13:44,295 --> 00:13:45,655 - Very vieux chapeau. - What do they call it now? 187 00:13:45,820 --> 00:13:47,970 Very vieux chapeau. "Burn." Just "burn". 188 00:13:48,263 --> 00:13:49,955 - Burn? - Yeah. Yeah. "Two's up on your burn." 189 00:13:50,730 --> 00:13:51,580 Two's up on your burn? 190 00:13:51,730 --> 00:13:54,640 - "Two's up." - I swear I'm getting an erection. 191 00:13:55,580 --> 00:13:59,230 I have to say when I first arrived in prison, I was a little discombobulated by the entire experience, 192 00:13:59,450 --> 00:14:02,255 as you can imagine; you have to give your finger prints and take your clothes off 193 00:14:02,400 --> 00:14:05,080 and it's all very... It's just like public school, it's lovely. But the... 194 00:14:06,720 --> 00:14:08,350 the first person who came in; he said, "Two's up." 195 00:14:11,570 --> 00:14:13,820 I said "Is it? What? Where?" 196 00:14:14,150 --> 00:14:15,450 "Two's up. Two's up, mate. Two's up. On your burn." 197 00:14:16,040 --> 00:14:18,370 "Two's up" means when you've finished your cigarette, 198 00:14:18,570 --> 00:14:21,745 you give it to the guy who's first to say "two's up" to you. 199 00:14:22,060 --> 00:14:25,290 And he gets the rights. It's like saying "bags have your fag end," basically. 200 00:14:25,760 --> 00:14:28,890 And then they collect about six of those and then they make a new cigarette out of it. 201 00:14:29,100 --> 00:14:30,810 Do you think Prince Charles says that to his mum? 202 00:14:31,000 --> 00:14:33,200 "Two's up on your throne!" 203 00:14:35,450 --> 00:14:39,100 Absolutely. Anyway, yes, Prince Charles, or strictly speaking, the... the Duchy of Cornwall, 204 00:14:39,230 --> 00:14:41,350 does indeed own Dartmoor. 205 00:14:41,580 --> 00:14:43,780 And while on this subject of royalty and Alan... 206 00:14:43,782 --> 00:14:47,080 Alan, if you were knighted, what would the Queen say to you? 207 00:14:47,350 --> 00:14:49,360 "Arise ... " 208 00:14:54,020 --> 00:14:55,440 No. No, she wouldn't. 209 00:14:55,670 --> 00:15:01,300 Are you sure she doesn't say, "No, I'm sorry. I have to draw the line somewhere!" 210 00:15:04,510 --> 00:15:06,100 How very dare you. 211 00:15:08,270 --> 00:15:09,990 Well, after his name - for which we'll say "Alan" 212 00:15:10,180 --> 00:15:12,870 after Alan's name is announced, the knight elect, 213 00:15:12,880 --> 00:15:15,160 Alan, kneels on a knighting stool 214 00:15:15,161 --> 00:15:17,860 What are the chances? 215 00:15:17,920 --> 00:15:21,170 - You never know! - I wouldn't turn it down. I'm not posh. 216 00:15:21,980 --> 00:15:26,220 in front of the Queen, who then lays the sword blade on the knight's right and then left shoulder. 217 00:15:26,490 --> 00:15:28,070 I'd go like that. "Watch it ..." 218 00:15:28,780 --> 00:15:31,140 After he has been dubbed, the new knight stands up. 219 00:15:31,340 --> 00:15:35,570 Contrary to popular belief, the words "Arise, sir ..." are not used. 220 00:15:35,860 --> 00:15:37,875 The Queen then invests the knight with the insignia of the order 221 00:15:37,876 --> 00:15:40,630 to which he has been appointed, a star or badge, depending on the order. 222 00:15:40,830 --> 00:15:43,160 By tradition, clergy receiving a knighthood... 223 00:15:43,380 --> 00:15:45,915 What's the difference when clergy are knighted, if they happen to be? 224 00:15:46,110 --> 00:15:48,810 They kneel on a corgi. 225 00:15:49,950 --> 00:15:50,680 No, there's no sword. 226 00:15:50,870 --> 00:15:53,460 - No sword. You can't take a sword to a clergyman! - Exactly. 227 00:15:53,500 --> 00:15:55,200 - Daffodils. Daffodils. - Baton. Baton. 228 00:15:55,584 --> 00:15:57,240 - You'd take a dagger, wouldn't you? Yeah, exactly. 229 00:15:57,270 --> 00:16:00,250 - A scimitar. - Or an axe. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. 230 00:16:01,150 --> 00:16:04,540 The strict meaning of the word "accolade" is the salutation 231 00:16:04,970 --> 00:16:06,500 given on the bestowal of a knighthood, 232 00:16:06,650 --> 00:16:11,800 from the, er, Latin meaning of an embrace around the neck. Around the col, as in collar. 233 00:16:12,460 --> 00:16:14,320 But do you know about degradation? 234 00:16:14,740 --> 00:16:16,490 And that's when you have your knighthood taken away. 235 00:16:16,690 --> 00:16:19,665 The last public one was in 1621, when Sir Frances Mitchell 236 00:16:19,666 --> 00:16:22,250 was found guilty of "grievous exactions". 237 00:16:23,090 --> 00:16:25,550 and had his spurs broken and thrown away, 238 00:16:25,730 --> 00:16:29,010 his belt cut and his sword broken over his head, 239 00:16:29,230 --> 00:16:32,315 and was then pronounced to be no longer a knight, but a knave. 240 00:16:33,000 --> 00:16:34,460 All by the King? 241 00:16:34,500 --> 00:16:36,400 Yeah. It would have been James I, wouldn't it? Yes. 242 00:16:38,140 --> 00:16:42,030 When she did Alan Sugar, did he go,"You're fired"? 243 00:16:43,180 --> 00:16:45,810 "You're degraded, you are a knave." 244 00:16:47,550 --> 00:16:50,410 Anyway, now, a cluster of questions about drips, drops and dribbles. 245 00:16:50,700 --> 00:16:52,270 What shape is a raindrop? 246 00:16:52,600 --> 00:16:56,970 I'm doing a shape that I think would be a possible raindrop shape. 247 00:16:57,110 --> 00:16:59,760 You are doing... Oh, dear! 248 00:17:00,500 --> 00:17:02,120 You've been doing so well. 249 00:17:02,125 --> 00:17:04,400 It's not pear-shaped or tear-shaped. 250 00:17:04,830 --> 00:17:07,180 I'm going to do another one. 251 00:17:11,630 --> 00:17:12,880 I don't think we even thought of that one! 252 00:17:13,170 --> 00:17:15,920 No? Should I do a cock and balls? 253 00:17:18,610 --> 00:17:22,120 It will be your coat of arms if you decide to be knighted, won't it? 254 00:17:22,330 --> 00:17:24,740 It's been so long... 255 00:17:27,630 --> 00:17:31,620 - A perfect circle? - is the right answer. They are completely spherical. 256 00:17:33,420 --> 00:17:36,770 They used to use this thing that gravity made liquid completely spherical. 257 00:17:37,070 --> 00:17:39,300 They used to have huge towers. 258 00:17:39,570 --> 00:17:41,420 They were called shot towers. There was one in Waterloo until they built... 259 00:17:41,600 --> 00:17:43,520 - To make shot. - Oh, right. - Lead shot, exactly. Yeah. 260 00:17:44,160 --> 00:17:45,550 A huge one in America, in Baltimore, 261 00:17:46,020 --> 00:17:48,890 which was the tallest building in America until they built the Washington monument. 262 00:17:49,050 --> 00:17:52,040 And they literally drop molten lead and it hits the water 263 00:17:52,042 --> 00:17:53,985 and it's just completely round by the time it hits the water. 264 00:17:54,290 --> 00:17:57,140 It seems extraordinary. You'd think when it hit the water it would get flattened, but... 265 00:17:57,390 --> 00:17:59,570 Maybe someone will write in and explain. But not to me! 266 00:18:02,680 --> 00:18:05,750 And, erm, ball bearings and various other things have utilised this marvellous fact 267 00:18:05,920 --> 00:18:08,385 about liquids turning spherical as they fall. 268 00:18:08,680 --> 00:18:12,395 Er, where might you bump into the world's biggest drip? 269 00:18:13,330 --> 00:18:15,870 Oi! No! 270 00:18:16,860 --> 00:18:18,630 The biggest drip is in a cave? 271 00:18:19,110 --> 00:18:22,320 - It is in a cave, as it goes. - It would be a stalactite. 272 00:18:22,321 --> 00:18:25,215 - is the right answer. Well done. Absolutely right. - Oh, well done. 273 00:18:29,570 --> 00:18:33,980 The Gruta Rei do Mato in South America has the biggest of them all. 274 00:18:34,130 --> 00:18:36,750 - How big is it? - "Vast." Is the answer. 275 00:18:38,620 --> 00:18:42,010 Thanks for that. "How big is it?" "Oh, very big. 276 00:18:42,900 --> 00:18:46,960 If I was to quantity its bigness would be doing it a disservice! 277 00:18:47,100 --> 00:18:49,225 To say just how bigly big, 278 00:18:49,400 --> 00:18:52,540 the vastly big bigness of the dripping thing..." 279 00:18:53,280 --> 00:18:57,950 I want feet, metres, anything. Throw me a fucking bone, Fry! 280 00:18:58,920 --> 00:19:00,840 - Oh! The answer is actually about twenty metres long. - Thank you. 281 00:19:00,970 --> 00:19:03,315 And they're between eighteen- and twenty-thousand years old. 282 00:19:03,470 --> 00:19:06,300 - And the ones that go up are called ? - Stalagmites. 283 00:19:06,710 --> 00:19:08,585 They've got a "G" in 'cause they're in the ground. 284 00:19:08,920 --> 00:19:11,430 Stalactites are in the ceiling. 285 00:19:11,640 --> 00:19:15,150 I was always taught "tights hang down" was the... was the thing, but anyway. 286 00:19:15,500 --> 00:19:17,150 - Public school again. - Ah, there you are you see. 287 00:19:17,390 --> 00:19:19,265 I don't really understand about those things, but anyway. 288 00:19:19,266 --> 00:19:27,090 - "Fry, put on the 15 denier and see me in my study." - Oh, Lordy me. 289 00:19:28,210 --> 00:19:29,570 What does that mean anyway, denier. What's that? 290 00:19:29,930 --> 00:19:36,550 - It's... It's a unit of sheerness of ladies' underparts. - It's... It's... It's... - Your stockings are sheer. 291 00:19:36,700 --> 00:19:38,940 - However sheer they are is rated in denier. - That's right. 292 00:19:39,000 --> 00:19:40,960 - What's the sheerest you can get? - Bare legs. 293 00:19:41,170 --> 00:19:44,770 - Well, that is very sheer. - No, 10. You can get 10, er... 294 00:19:44,860 --> 00:19:45,980 - That's sheer. - That's sheer. 295 00:19:46,460 --> 00:19:49,330 After 30 denier they go into opaque. 296 00:19:49,570 --> 00:19:51,870 - So, I see. The higher the denier, the less sheer they are. - Yes. 297 00:19:52,260 --> 00:19:55,755 - I understand. - "Fry, you oaf! Those are fishnets!" 298 00:20:00,590 --> 00:20:03,855 Yeah, the biggest drip is in the cave of the Forest King 299 00:20:04,100 --> 00:20:06,595 in the Gruta Rei do Mato in Brazil. 300 00:20:06,850 --> 00:20:09,880 So can you identify the world's biggest crashing bore? 301 00:20:10,440 --> 00:20:13,950 Is this something to do with the River Severn? 302 00:20:13,951 --> 00:20:18,730 A sort of tidal wave. It's forced down a narrow inlet against the direction of current. 303 00:20:18,731 --> 00:20:20,200 Yes, absolutely right. It's a bore, 304 00:20:20,205 --> 00:20:25,570 and a crashing bore is the term given to a very high bore that crests and foams. 305 00:20:25,950 --> 00:20:29,820 - People surf on them. - They do surf on them, and in fact a man called King from Gloucestershire 306 00:20:30,060 --> 00:20:32,860 He has the world record for surfing seven-point-six miles. 307 00:20:33,240 --> 00:20:35,780 - Oh, seven-point... - It took him over an hour and a half to go up the Severn. 308 00:20:36,100 --> 00:20:38,340 But it can't be the biggest. We never have the biggest of anything. 309 00:20:38,342 --> 00:20:40,290 That's not the biggest. No, the biggest, you're quite right, is in China. 310 00:20:40,670 --> 00:20:44,160 - Yangtze? - It's not the Yangtze. It's the Qiantang. 311 00:20:44,760 --> 00:20:47,080 The Seine had one; Paris had a very good one. 312 00:20:47,340 --> 00:20:50,200 It was called Le Mascaret, but they dredged it in the 60s, 313 00:20:50,450 --> 00:20:52,100 and the bore stopped happening. 314 00:20:52,530 --> 00:20:56,040 Now, where is the largest floater under the sun? 315 00:20:57,580 --> 00:20:59,670 In the office of the Deputy Prime Minister? 316 00:21:02,420 --> 00:21:06,200 Blue whale. It's always the blue whale; one day it will be the answer to something! 317 00:21:08,390 --> 00:21:10,270 - It hasn't been yet, has it? - No. That isn't it, then? 318 00:21:10,300 --> 00:21:11,990 No, you've lost a lot of points. 319 00:21:12,210 --> 00:21:14,740 The largest floater under the sun is... Well, the sun is gaseous... 320 00:21:15,940 --> 00:21:16,860 a gaseous ball. 321 00:21:17,010 --> 00:21:18,855 But under the sun, so not the sun itself. 322 00:21:19,050 --> 00:21:20,580 It might be one of the gas giants. 323 00:21:20,850 --> 00:21:22,530 Jupiter? Uranus? 324 00:21:23,100 --> 00:21:26,120 - What's the other one? Neptune? Saturn. - "Saturn" is the right answer. 325 00:21:27,650 --> 00:21:31,340 Saturn's density is only seventy percent of that of water, 326 00:21:31,600 --> 00:21:34,165 and therefore would float if you found a large enough amount of water. 327 00:21:34,640 --> 00:21:37,350 Huge amounts of helium and liquid hydrogen and so on. 328 00:21:37,580 --> 00:21:40,000 It really is impossible to distinguish its atmosphere from its surface. 329 00:21:40,620 --> 00:21:42,410 It's just a great gassy thing, Saturn. 330 00:21:42,700 --> 00:21:49,000 Anyway, we'll never go there; at least I won't. Even if I could, I wouldn't; I'd say, "No, I'm not going to go there. No." 331 00:21:51,240 --> 00:21:53,645 You can't get him into Suffolk. 332 00:21:54,060 --> 00:21:55,600 Now that is true. 333 00:21:55,800 --> 00:21:58,900 Anyway, after that astonishing lack of knowledge, except on the part of Alan, 334 00:21:59,180 --> 00:22:02,520 for a no lesser thing than the third largest object in the solar system, 335 00:22:02,920 --> 00:22:05,340 we move easily into the orbit of General Ignorance. 336 00:22:05,460 --> 00:22:07,630 So, palms on mushroomoid buzzers. 337 00:22:08,130 --> 00:22:13,960 The current edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, as it happens, lists some 290,000 sparkling words, 338 00:22:14,510 --> 00:22:17,840 and 615,000 word forms. 339 00:22:18,050 --> 00:22:20,180 If you add in all the proper names, which dictionaries omit, 340 00:22:20,380 --> 00:22:24,180 estimates of the total number of words in our language exceed three million. 341 00:22:24,570 --> 00:22:26,110 So bear that in mind when I ask you this. 342 00:22:26,100 --> 00:22:29,580 How many different kinds of plant are there in the world? 343 00:22:29,580 --> 00:22:31,030 Is it more than you think? 344 00:22:31,890 --> 00:22:33,400 Fewer than you think? 345 00:22:33,900 --> 00:22:35,050 Or about as many as you think? 346 00:22:36,710 --> 00:22:39,345 I can't think. Does that rule me out? 347 00:22:41,200 --> 00:22:42,420 One. 348 00:22:42,970 --> 00:22:49,000 - You think there's one type... - It's going to be... It's going to be one, or it's going to be two billion. 349 00:22:49,180 --> 00:22:51,790 Fewer than I think. Trees, plants, grass... that's it. 350 00:22:52,310 --> 00:22:53,700 Yes! 351 00:22:56,590 --> 00:22:59,610 Trees, flowers, weeds, and grass. 352 00:23:04,560 --> 00:23:06,830 The answer is certainly fewer than anybody ever thought. 353 00:23:07,210 --> 00:23:10,120 Kew Gardens reckoned there were a million types of plant, 354 00:23:10,590 --> 00:23:12,000 - but when they look back in the records... - There are four. There are four! 355 00:23:12,030 --> 00:23:15,045 almost every single plant has been named four times. 356 00:23:15,660 --> 00:23:19,390 So there are probably only a quarter as many plants as we thought there once were. 357 00:23:19,840 --> 00:23:21,890 - Vegetables. - And there are vegetables. 358 00:23:22,680 --> 00:23:27,690 - Maybe as few as 223,000. - I've lost interest. - Yes, I agree. 359 00:23:27,940 --> 00:23:31,215 Erm, now tell us who fought whom in the Battle of Culloden. 360 00:23:34,330 --> 00:23:38,990 The Battle of Culloden is quite complicated, because it was basically 361 00:23:39,000 --> 00:23:42,030 an Italian fop with a Polish accent 362 00:23:42,900 --> 00:23:47,170 with a bunch of Highlanders, some Irish, a few French, 363 00:23:47,850 --> 00:23:51,775 fighting some Scottish low-landers, English, 364 00:23:51,776 --> 00:23:53,150 led by a fat German from Hanover. 365 00:23:53,850 --> 00:23:56,810 is a very good description of the Battle of Culloden indeed! 366 00:23:57,050 --> 00:24:01,180 There were the... the Campbells and the Rosses and the Grants and the Gunns and many of the lowland families. 367 00:24:01,440 --> 00:24:05,370 There were more Scots there beating Prince Charles, Edward Stuart, than there were English. 368 00:24:05,870 --> 00:24:08,680 It's so weird that these national heroes are... 369 00:24:08,920 --> 00:24:10,600 are not from the place that they're supposed to be. 370 00:24:10,930 --> 00:24:13,470 William Wallace was from, erm, Kenya. 371 00:24:14,130 --> 00:24:17,490 His mother was Masai. No, not really. 372 00:24:18,180 --> 00:24:20,540 Just for a second, I was going, "Wow!" 373 00:24:22,150 --> 00:24:24,000 David Beckham is definitely from Chingford. 374 00:24:24,170 --> 00:24:25,310 Yes, that is true. Yeah. 375 00:24:26,030 --> 00:24:28,350 But you see, I was educated in Scotland 376 00:24:28,840 --> 00:24:32,640 - and all English history is omitted as a matter of course. - Yeah. Mm. 377 00:24:33,100 --> 00:24:35,410 The only thing that will be mentioned is Bannockburn. 378 00:24:35,790 --> 00:24:37,990 - Yes. - "When we beat the bastards!" 379 00:24:38,820 --> 00:24:43,030 And the irony is, of course, that the Tories have never been voted for in Scotland for the past twenty years, 380 00:24:43,060 --> 00:24:44,870 and the Jacobite was a Tory rebellion. 381 00:24:45,290 --> 00:24:49,830 It was the Tories who were the pro-Stuart, Catholic, high-church Anglican party, 382 00:24:50,310 --> 00:24:53,000 and it was their fight, and indeed the Tories were out of power 383 00:24:53,100 --> 00:24:56,355 - for the next fifty and sixty years in Britain - But didn't... It led to... 384 00:24:56,450 --> 00:24:59,000 - because they were Jacobites. - It led to being... tartan being banned. 385 00:24:59,200 --> 00:25:02,430 - After the first rebellion. Absolutely. - You weren't allowed to deep fry pizza any more? 386 00:25:03,610 --> 00:25:05,840 You're quite right, and it was... they were very savage in their reprisals 387 00:25:06,030 --> 00:25:10,680 - and "Butcher" Cumberland earned his name - "He cut off your tongues if you spoke Gallic, aye." 388 00:25:10,770 --> 00:25:12,740 - All prisoners were killed. - Yes. 389 00:25:12,850 --> 00:25:14,295 Do you know what the soldiers were called? 390 00:25:14,650 --> 00:25:16,370 - The soldiers were called Tommy Lobsters. 391 00:25:16,500 --> 00:25:20,355 And also it was the first battle they were trained to use bayonets for the first time. 392 00:25:20,450 --> 00:25:21,920 You couldn't have a war like that in Scotland now. 393 00:25:22,480 --> 00:25:24,580 - Why is that? - Smoking ban. 394 00:25:24,680 --> 00:25:28,680 Oh, yes! Hey. Very good, indeed. So, Culloden was really more of a local difficulty; 395 00:25:28,850 --> 00:25:31,865 it was Highland versus Lowland; it was like Celtic and Rangers. 396 00:25:32,090 --> 00:25:34,190 Catholic versus Protestant, essentially. It's that kind of fight. 397 00:25:34,640 --> 00:25:36,910 - Yes, it was. - And it goes on to this day. 398 00:25:37,170 --> 00:25:38,865 Will we never learn? 399 00:25:39,280 --> 00:25:46,210 Who knows? Religion. Shit it. Anyway. Erm, so. Erm... 400 00:25:48,210 --> 00:25:50,965 "You're watching The Moral Maze!" 401 00:25:51,720 --> 00:25:54,590 There were more Scots in the force which finally defeated Bonnie Prince Charlie 402 00:25:54,592 --> 00:25:57,760 than there were in his own army. It was basically a local derby. That's the point. 403 00:25:58,240 --> 00:26:01,000 And lastly, what do dolphins drink? 404 00:26:02,250 --> 00:26:05,165 - Oh, aren't they beautiful. - They don't. I bet they don't drink anything. 405 00:26:06,190 --> 00:26:08,970 He's right! They drink nothing. Nothing at all. 406 00:26:09,900 --> 00:26:11,370 Excellent. 407 00:26:14,000 --> 00:26:16,240 As mammals like us, their kidneys can't process sea water, 408 00:26:16,390 --> 00:26:18,140 - so they can't, certainly, drink sea water - They can't drink seawater. 409 00:26:18,420 --> 00:26:20,230 and they're a bit far away from fresh water, 410 00:26:20,231 --> 00:26:24,720 unless they're two of those rare species in China and South America 411 00:26:24,820 --> 00:26:28,150 that are river dolphins. So they just metabolise everything they eat. 412 00:26:28,500 --> 00:26:31,450 The fat gives them enough water. But when they haven't eaten enough, 413 00:26:31,720 --> 00:26:34,580 then they usually die of dehydration rather than of hunger. 414 00:26:34,920 --> 00:26:39,090 Yeah, I don't know why we haven't realised that before, because there's that... 415 00:26:44,900 --> 00:26:47,650 "He's trying to say something. Oh, it's a primitive language." 416 00:26:47,880 --> 00:26:50,390 "Put it in the hole, put it in the hole! Put funnel in the hole!" 417 00:26:51,320 --> 00:26:55,620 Funnily enough, in captivity, if you point a hose of fresh water at them, they will drink it, 418 00:26:55,830 --> 00:26:57,480 but then they won't eat for two days. 419 00:26:57,540 --> 00:26:59,600 They can't distinguish hunger from thirst. 420 00:26:59,870 --> 00:27:01,770 - "Fuck off, I'm full." - Yeah, exactly. 421 00:27:02,980 --> 00:27:07,610 A lot of people say that they are, in fact, smarter than people, 422 00:27:07,900 --> 00:27:11,010 but if they were, wouldn't they be saying that? 423 00:27:12,470 --> 00:27:14,545 The reason dolphins don't drink is because with these... 424 00:27:14,550 --> 00:27:17,440 they can't get the fridge open in the supermarket. 425 00:27:23,230 --> 00:27:25,810 "Dolphin in aisle 4. 426 00:27:26,750 --> 00:27:30,225 Can we have a mop-up? There's a dead dolphin in aisle 4. 427 00:27:30,490 --> 00:27:34,570 This keeps happening. He's by the Tizer..." 428 00:27:36,400 --> 00:27:40,050 "Get the nets out. No, mind the tuna! Don't get them as well!" 429 00:27:41,940 --> 00:27:44,575 Anyway, it must be time for the scores, 430 00:27:44,700 --> 00:27:47,290 so let's have a little bit of a look, shall we? 431 00:27:47,550 --> 00:27:49,240 I literally do not know what to say. 432 00:27:50,090 --> 00:27:52,890 Second equal, with minus seven, 433 00:27:54,430 --> 00:27:55,680 are Rory Bremner, 434 00:27:56,590 --> 00:27:57,830 Phill Jupitus, 435 00:27:58,160 --> 00:28:00,020 and Alan Davies. 436 00:28:05,120 --> 00:28:06,635 Which means 437 00:28:06,900 --> 00:28:15,030 that our outright winner is first timer Ronni Ancona with thirteen! Wow! How brilliant. 438 00:28:16,410 --> 00:28:18,150 I can't believe it. 439 00:28:21,520 --> 00:28:23,745 - Brilliant. - Well, my fevered thanks go 440 00:28:23,950 --> 00:28:27,825 to Phill, Rory, Ronni, and Alan. And speaking of what dolphins don't drink, 441 00:28:28,140 --> 00:28:30,985 I'll leave you with this topical photograph. Good night. 442 00:28:30,990 --> 00:28:32,990 "WATER METER FOR EVERY HOME". 443 00:28:33,000 --> 00:28:38,000 Перевод этого фильма на Нотабеноиде: http://notabenoid.com/book/30290/104146 9999 00:00:0,500 --> 00:00:2,00 www.tvsubtitles.net