Good evening, good evening, good evening, good evening, good evening.
And welcome to QI, where tonight we are victims of fashion and prey to every passing fad.
And sashaying up the catwalk this evening are the daringly see-through Clive Anderson!
The beautifully cut Rich Hall!
The topless and strapless Reginald D. Hunter!
And an old pair of corduroys we found in the potting shed; Alan Davies!
Of course, fashion is... Something that goes in one year and out the other. Ha!
And predictably... Predictably, ladies and gentlemen, our buzzers tonight are about as fashionable
as a sabre-toothed tiger wearing flared trousers. Clive goes...
"But I'm always true to you, darling, in my fashion..."
Rich goes...
"Cos he's a dedicated follower of fashion."
Reg goes...
"I'm too sexy for my shirt. Too sexy for my shirt, so sexy it hurts..."
I can't complain!
And Alan goes...
"He looks a proper nana in his great big hobnail boots"
"He's got such a job to pull them up That he calls 'em daisy roots!"
Oi! Oh, well, exellent. Now.
Your challenge tonight, gentlemen, is to start a trend, as it's fashion week on QI.
After six years' struggle, this show has never managed to instigate any kind of a catchphrase.
And we think it's time we changed that, so you have in front of you, I hope,
a list of 19th-century catchphrases, as it is QI. You can use one of those, if you like.
- They are genuine 19th-century catchphrases. - Has your mother sold her mangle?
Say that again.
Has your mother sold her mangle?
"Has your mother sold her mangle?" That was a genuine catchphrase.
- Who are you? - Ah!
- That's your catchphrase. - Yes. It is.
This was one of the biggest catchphrases in the nineteenth century, was "Who are you?".
Yeah. I thought "Who are you?" would be a nice, easy catchphrase to get going. It's hard to...
"Who are you?" It's quite a...
- Well, yeah. - Has your mother sold her mangle?
It was used in all circumstances, apparently. If someone walked into a pub, for example.
If you caught someone picking your pocket, you'd go, "Who are you?"
- But it's still a catch phrase. - It's catching on!
At football grounds, if you support, as I do, sort of a big club,
and you're playing a slightly smaller club, you often say...
It's not "Who are you?"; it's sort of, "Who are you? Who are you?" You're so inferior.
- When Norwich, famously... - Norwich, exactly.
For example, when Norwich went up to the premiership, it's said we were sold out for every game...
And the die hard fans would point to the new fans who had suddenly arrived, and said,
"Where was you when we was crap?"
- Which was a reasonable... - Well. They'd get the answer again, now, can't they?
I remember going to Norwich as an away fan, and then we sang a song about sheep-shagging or something...
And they responded with a kind of nine-verse spectacular about sheep-shagging.
We aim to please.
Which really, really put us in our place. We all went...
The best one I ever heard is when I was in Brighton, in the days when there was a Brighton and Hove Albion.
And Norwich were playing, and I just happened to be there so I thought I'd go watch them.
And the Brighton fans had a brilliant chant, which was,
"You're better than us! You're better than us! We're crap, we're crap, we're crap-crap-crap."
And the Norwich fans were going, "How do we respond to that?"
- "No... No, we're not? Oh no, that doesn't work..." - "Thank you!"
Thank you very much, please. Not much, surely.
Now, let's turn to our American friends. Are catch phrases a big thing in America?
- Oh, of course. - Yeah.
My grandfather used to say, "You're dumber than a bag of wet mice."
That's very good. Very good.
Yeah. It was funny the first time I heard it, but you know. Not my whole life.
I didn't see anything on the list that was appropriate for me, but, I have one...
"Do what you do best." And that comes from, I was back home recently and I was visiting my cousin:
40, he's got four or five kids, that we know of, from different people.
And we were watching TV, and there was a woman from Washington, D.C.,
talking about women's rights and, I guess, a woman's right to be able to have children
without having a man, and, in fact, they don't need men to be around. They just sire a child and leave.
And I looked at him and I said, "Get to D.C. and do what you do best!"
Excellent. So we've got "Do what you do best", "Dumber than a bag of wet mice"...
"Has your mother sold her mangle?" I'm losing... I'm losing enthusiasm for it!
- "Has your mother sold her mangle?", and... - "Who are you?"
"Who are you?" All right. If you can work these intelligently, charmingly, and brilliantly into the show,
- I will be awarding huge bonuses... - You're asking for it.
...at the end. So, let's start at the very top. What was the most disastrous haircut ever?
There are some examples for you there.
I've got two answers that'll get the scream going, there. One is my last haircut... No?
Or, Sampson's haircut. Sampson's haircut.
No, Sampson's haircut is a very good answer, actually.
That's me!
Yes!
You've just noticed!
Well, you must have remembered posing for these. Or has this been...
I remember the one in the middle. The other two I have no memory of.
I know for a fact that, in 1928 the New England, Tool and Dime manufacturing company, was looking for,
a new screw that wouldn't slip out of the notch. And a man named Phillips worked for 'em.
Who had one of the most disastrous haircuts ever; it was parted in four different sections.
That would be an example of a disastrous haircut that went good.
This one... Well, I mean, of course, there are many candidates,
and Sampson is one. But do you know anything about Louis VII of France?
There he is on the left. We're talking about 13th century.
His queen became queen of a more famous king, to us, being British.
Aquitaine.
- She was Eleanor of Aquitaine. You're absolutely right. - Long hair, yes...
The point is, Louis VII was very religious, and the monks got to him,
and he cut that hair off. It looks rather good there, but apparently he cut all his hair off.
And she was furious at it. So cross, that eventually she divorced him.
I mean, there were other things too, probably.
- But the hair is mentioned by historians... - He also cut his cock off.
It may be... I don't know, maybe his mother may have sold her...
"Has your mother sold her mangle?"
- Maybe! Maybe that happened, yeah. - "I divorce you!"
But the consequences of the divorce were enormous, because she then went over... She was incredibly rich.
Took her kingdoms with her, married Henry II, and it began the 100 Years War.
So it was essentially that haircut that began the 100 Years War.
Yeah, but that's just something you say in polite company.
When you're telling people you're breaking up with your partner,
you go, "Yeah, I didn't like what he did with his hair, so I left." You can't really say about the king,
"He keep farting in bed", or... "I just don't like his haircut!"
You're right. What is interesting about this poor king is, he definitely wouldn't have had sexual relations
with Eleanor's mother, because he was very abstinent indeed. And he became ill, and the courtiers suggested it was because
he hadn't had sex. And so he consented to have the queen sent for, and they said, "No, no, she is too far away.
If you don't have sex immediately, you will die." But genuinely being told that he would have to have sex
or he would die, he actually said he would rather die chaste than live an adulterer.
See, that leads you to believe that he had a bad sexual experience as a child.
Yes...
And, yes, you know, most men would rather not face death than have sex, so something happened when he was a kid,
maybe a teenager... Maybe his wee-wee got caught in a zipper, or... Or the mangle, or...
Hey! Yes, the mangle.
Or he said, "I'm not ready for this yet. Let me lick your elbow." And the woman just said, "Do what you do best!" And...
Very good.
The Simpsons make a reference to the 100 Years War.
Oh, do they?
Do you know what they call it? "Operation Speedy Resolution."
Anyway, so. We've all had bad hair days, but the one which helped start the 100 Years War takes a beating.
Louis VII's haircut seems to have been a bit of a faux pas. So what's the worst faux pas that you can think of?
I reckon if you wore Calvin Klein to Yves Saint-Laurent's funeral...
Whoa!
- That would be a faux pas. - It would.
There's a famous one. There's the Queen and some other king or potentate in a carriage being driven along.
And, so the horses are in front of them, and there's this ghastly sound... From this horse.
And the Queen sort of says, "Oh, I'm terribly sorry about that."
And whoever this king or potentate there said, "Oh, never mind, ma'am. I thought it was the horse!"
And that's... So... So that's a famous faux pas.
No, this was an engagement faux pas. It's a very famous one. It was in the Guinness Book of Records.
It was, up until a few years ago... It was the Worst, if there is such a category; Worst Engagement Faux Pas.
Get engaged to the wrong person?
No, it wasn't that. It was a man called James Gordon Bennett. Who was a...
Oh, the? The James Gordon Bennett?
Actually, he... Yeah. The phrase "Gordon Bennett" was named after, I think, his father,
who owned a lot of newspapers. Anyway, this one was very rich, this young Gordon Bennett,
and he was engaged to a young New York socialite. And one night, he was very, very drunk,
and he went to the house of his fiance,
where there was a full party of stiff New York socialites. And he went into the room, with an enormous fireplace,
and he went into the fireplace and peed in it, thinking it was a lavatory, and walked out again.
And it ended his engagement; it was a huge scandal,
and the brother of the girl fought a duel with him, which he lost.
And he went to... Had to spend the rest of his life in Europe, almost.
Just because he peed in the fireplace?
Because he peed in the fireplace. Seems rather...
- I mean, in Europe, it's positively encouraged! - I would say.
This man, Gordon Bennett, was extraordinary. He was one of the most profligate men of his age, in terms of his money.
He once tipped a railway porter £341,000. And he pulled out a huge sheaf of money that he had, because he...
If he'd only gone on a Super Saver, off-peak, he'd have got that for a fiver, wouldn't he?
He probably lit it on fire and says, "I can piss on that and put that out. Can you?"
Yes, exactly. No, he would burn money, because it made... It was uncomfortable in his pocket, he'd say.
I mean, he was obviously...
- An idiot. - A complete twat, yeah.
But there were other faux pas. Who said this: "We also do cut-glass sherry decanters,
complete with six glasses, on a silver-plated tray that your butler can serve you drinks on, all for £4.95."
"People say, 'How can you sell this for such a low price?' I say, 'Because...'"?
- "It's crap." - Yes.
- That's Gerald Ratner. - It was Gerald Ratner, yes.
Destroyed his company, didn't he?
£500 million was wiped off the value of his shares after that remark.
He was trying to be amusing. The jewelry he was selling he said was cheaper than a... A Marks and Spencer sandwich.
It was rubbish. And that's why...
Yeah, he said, "These earrings were cheaper than an M&S prawn sandwich, and probably won't last as long."
As they say, half a billion pounds wiped off his...
Yeah, he was caught doing a "funny". His "funny" didn't turn out well.
Many faux pas, are just Freudian slits. Slips! But, what outrageous item of clothing...
got the Duke of Wellington thrown out of a club?
Yes?
I am going to suggest he wore his Wellington boots at the club.
I think it's... I think it's so fantastic, what a career he had,
because not only was he a great, general, winning the...
One of the most important battles of all time, and a few others...
Plus, he was Prime Minister, and he had, Wellington boots named after him!
- Pretty astounding, isn't it? - And they were...
Yeah?
- I think I know. - Yes, go on.
I know exactly what happened. Now, he showed up at this situation,
and it was supposed to be all formal and nice.
But he was a bit of a cook, and he came in and said, "Now look at this wonderful dish I made with beef."
And it was inappropriate to be trying to introduce your cooking at a social occasion like that, and...
His wife tried to say, "Don't do it! Just, you know, save it, and invite some people back! And we can eat, have a smoke,
and then, it'll all be good." But he was like, "No, I know this is good food!" And so he took it there,
and he was just... The people was like, "Oh, we're just drinking here. Oh, he's a general; he should know better."
And just... This is what I believe happened. I might have read it somewhere; I can't remember.
You've reminded us of another thing to chalk up to Wellington. Not just the boots...
- And the food... - Not just the battle, but the pastry.
Putting beef in a pastry.
Yeah. This happens to be just about my favourite club.
If you were to ask me if I could get a time machine and go anywhere,
this is one of the places I would go. It was called Almack's.
It was the club that determined whether or not you were "in" society.
It was run by these fierce women, the Lady Patronesses. And it didn't matter who you were:
If you didn't get a voucher from them, you couldn't enter Almack's.
So we're looking for an item of clothing that Wellington turned up in...
Yeah, because what must a properly-attired gentleman in the evening... What should he wear?
A hat.
He'd have that, but what would he have down here?
Hot pants.
Close! Inasmuch as...
- Breeches. - Knee breeches.
Knee breeches. And Wellington wore...?
- Long trousers. - Trousers!
- A rah-rah skirt. - He wore trousers.
He wore trousers. And so...
So... But he said, "But I won the Peninsular War, for goodness' sake. I can wear any trousers I like."
You'd think. Exactly.
Or did they make him roll them up?
That's my catch phrase! "I can come in any trousers I like." Sorry. But... It's...
Sorry. I do apologize.
I sure enjoyed that long winding story so we could get to that. That was...
The trouser was considered absolutely shocking and, and not to be... Not to be worn in smart society.
"Breeches" of etiquette.
Exactly! "Breeches"... That's good! Nobody liked it.
I bet when they told him he couldn't come in, he looked at them and he went, "Pants to you!"
Ah! The point is, the Duke of Wellington was thrown out of a club for wearing trousers.
On the subject of trousers, as a matter of fact, what's the best way of dealing with a wartime shortage of trousering?
- Wow. - Yeah.
- They ran out of trousers? - I think that's just a serving suggestion, there.
- I don't think that... - They... They ran out of trousers?
Well, they... Obviously, in... In the War, there was a shortage of material.
And how did they deal with it? What's the first thing you would do to save material with trousers?
Put 'em in trenches.
- You're trying to use less cloth in each trouser? - Yeah, exactly.
- Wear lady-trousers! - In Scotland, you wear kilts, to...
Or you take 'em off dead guys. I mean... the enemy!
Yeah. But, no... Generally, the first thing that they banned...
- Pleats, and things like that? - Turn-ups.
Turn-ups? That saves about an inch of...
Out of a million? It's a lot of material.
And they were so serious about this. And if a tailor sold someone extra-long trousers,
longer than they needed, knowingly, really, so that the wife would then make him turn-ups...
- What about... - The tailor would then go to prison.
What about older gentlemen who pull their trousers right up past their nipples...?
Yes! Right up to the nipples.
Right up to the nipples, there. First of all, what's going on there?
Why don't they stop somewhere on the way...?
They've got no pleasure in life left except to give themselves a wedgie every time they...
Why don't they pull their trousers right, right up to just under their eyes?
They then would save... They would save on shirtings.
They could have a really long fly, like that.
They must have an enormous fly, and the fly must be about two feet long.
By the time you've undone it, you've forgotten where you were going.
You just zip there, "Oh...".
- Stop it. - "Nurse!"
Also, boys under twelve couldn't have long trousers. They had to have shorts.
And of course, women couldn't wear stockings, so they... What did they used to do?
Oh, they used to draw a seam on the... Oh, there you are. Draw a seam on the back of their leg.
Yeah. 'Cause they thought if their legs were bare, it was considered it made them look available.
What?
I don't know if the boys in the shorts thought the same.
It was...
Firstly, they would stain their legs to make them look tanned,
with gravy browning and things like that. And then they would draw a line down the back,
which looked like the seam on nylons. I mean, it seems crazy, but...
Why didn't the soldiers just draw pictures of trousers on their...?
Exactly!
"I'm in pinstripes!"
Pinstripes... All kinds of things like that. Well, anyway, during World War II,
it became acceptable for women to wear trousers,
but men weren't allowed turn-ups and boys were made to wear shorts.
Now, as a fashion accessory, what would you rather have on you head?
Would it be a cauliflower, a rhinoceros, or a pigeon's wing?
Clive.
Now, I have some friends in Scotland, and this was their expression for older women with, sort of, white hair,
that sort of curly, you know, very tight perm. They used to call them "cauliflowers",
because they thought their hair looked like a cauliflower. So, working from that,
I'm saying that's a hairstyle, a cauliflower style. Pigeon wing could be a sort of swept back look...
I can't work out why the rhinoceros. The rhinoceros is only famous because of the huge horn,
so I can't quite make that into a hairstyle.
Well, not a hairstyle exactly, but you're very close. In the 18th century, all your clothes put together,
the expense of them, wouldn't add up to what you spent on this part of your fashion.
Well, your sort of... Your wig?
"Wig" is the right answer, in fact. So it is your hair. But... They used to have ships.
I mean, literally, their hair done into huge sailing ships.
You could have a rhinoceros horn.
And a rhinoceros horn, and pigeon wings. You see there, these preposterous creations people had.
Where do you think the idea came from?
Because they got nasty hair lice and things like that, so they turned it...
Unless you happened to lose your hair naturally, and effectively... You used to chop your hair off anyway, so...
And then replace it with fake hair, false hair, a wig.
An element of that. Generally speaking, it became enormously fashionable in the reign of Louis XIII...
And what was it you were saying about trouser turn-ups?
Oh, it was set by the Prince of Wales, so this king must have decided to wear a wig, so everybody else...
- Why did he wear a wig? - Because he was bald!
Exactly. He went bald quite early on, and was annoyed by it. So he wore this expensive wig,
and the rest of the Court used to flatter him and imitate him. They wore wigs too, and from then on,
for the next 200 years, almost, wigs became more and more... It was really the French Revolution that ended wig-wearing.
Well, once you had your head chopped off, there was no real need for a wig, was there?
- Basically! - It's a wasted accessory.
It's a pretty drastic haircut.
Well, it still hasn't gone away, quite, in the law courts. Everywhere, apart from criminal courts,
they're gonna get rid of wigs for judges and barristers. But in the criminal courts,
they decided to stick with wigs on the basis that the judges are more anonymous if they wear a... A wig, which...
So why not just have the judges wear a mask? In fact, that would be kind of cool, really.
Wouldn't it? I think they wouldn't want to look stupid, is the answer. They don't want to look silly.
Why can't they be concealed bashfully behind a fan?
"I sentence you to 25 years in prison. When you come out, you'll never find me."
Of course, everyone assumes that in court, people wear long wigs, but they don't.
They always wear little... Little wigs, as do the barristers and QCs, but, in their sort of formal,
becoming a QC, all those formal processions, you wear this, sort of, long wig. But they never wear them in court.
And they have to wear two... Two pairs of tights?
- You don't have to, but it's a... - But apparently...
- It's a... It's an option, you know. - Apparently, there is a tradition,
because Queen Victoria was offended by seeing
the hairs poke out, so they were told to put two on so there were no hairs.
And they're black because the court went into mourning when Queen Anne died,
and they never quite got 'round to changing it. So that's why barristers' robes and judges' are all...
What kind of a country do we live in?
A wig-wearing, faux-pas worrying-about, tea-drinking...
- Fireplace... - You said it! You said it.
I was at a party here, and this guy was telling me this story about when he wore corduroy.
And he says, "You're American. Do... Do... Do you know what corduroy is?" And I said, "Nooo..."
And then he went in and was trying to explain it.
And eventually, four or five people were around me, drunk, trying to explain to me... What corduroy was.
And eventually, this girl who we didn't know just left the room, and she went upstairs to her apartment.
And she just dashed in the room with a corduroy jacket. "Here! This is what it is! This is what it is!"
And, you know, it's just... I went along with it, because...
That's very sporting of you.
There's nothing like the warm look on white people's face when they feel like they teaching you something.
Oh! Dear me.
You used to be a king, once upon a time, to wear corduroy. You used to... It was restricted to kings.
- "Cord of the king." - Yes.
"Corde du roi."
Sumptuary. Rules of.
Yeah. Then there's... Now we have needle cord, and jumbo cord, we have needle cord, we have all kinds!
Yeah. Yeah. Anyway...
Look how pleased he looks!
Well, this is my normal look. It's my QI look.
The cauliflower, the rhinoceros, and the pigeon's wing were all 18th century wigs. All very good form, no doubt,
but here is the most interesting form I have played with. I just wanted to show you this.
This item here is a very extraordinary item. It's the only mono-monostatic item in the world.
It's self-righting. Whichever way you put it, it will always right itself, like this. And...
- What about Weebles? - Yeah, it's like a Weeble.
Oh! Heavy!
And there's a glass one, here. Here's one made of transparent material to show that it's not weighted in any way.
It's much more extraordinary than it looks, as it were, when you get the hang of it. It always ends up like this.
Be careful with it, because it's so... It's... Well, it's...
-Is it extremely valuable? - We're very honoured because we actually...
We actually have... Have you dropped it?! You haven't.
You put it under your hat. Lift your hat.
- Oh, you're cunning. - Yeah!
- God, it was like Kingdom there, for a minute. - No, listen. We are actually very...
You were way ahead of me.
We have Gabor Domokos, the inventor, here with us. Gabor?
- Good evening. - Hi.
It's very good to see you. He's from Hungary, and he and his colleague Peter Varkonyi invented this.
Can you explain to me exactly what it is?
Well, this is like a Weeble, without the weight.
It is like a Weeble! You get a point. You see?
It is just the shape. But you have to get it right. The tolerance of the shape...
- Yeah. - Is about one-hundredth of a millimetre.
Do you mean to say, if this... These edges here were one-hundredth of a millimetre out, it wouldn't right itself.
- It wouldn't. - You'd actually be able to keep it in one position.
- Right. That's correct. - Hey, Gabor...
It always goes back to its own...
Have you thought about making these into salt and pepper shakers?
That's a brilliant idea, Gabor!
Then you might make some money off of it.
Yeah, Gabor! Dragon's Den! Come on!
You're actually scientists, mathematicians, yeah?
- Engineers, yeah. - Engineers.
Yeah, sort of.
And did... How... How did you come to build it? What gave you the idea that this could be done?
Well, we got the question first. First we got the question from a mathematician,
and we thought about it, and then we thought we should build it.
But after we built it, we realised it's already there.
In what way is it already there?
Well, some turtles seem to have similar shapes.
So, you're saying evolution got there first?
Evolution got there a couple of million years earlier, yeah.
So do you feel like you've wasted your life?
You so have not! Well, Gabor, thank you very much for coming all the way from Hungary to explain.
Thank you very much indeed.
Köszönöm.
It's called... It's called a "gomboc", or a "gömböc".
- It's a rather beautiful object. - Does it have any practical application?
I d... No, I don't think it does have a practical application. That's what's so beautiful about it.
Didn't they invent the...
- The Rubik's Cube in Hungary as well? - Rubik's Cube is a...
- A Hungarian invention. Absolutely. - And the Biro.
- Laszlo Biro invented the Biro, didn't he. - Absolutely.
My grandfather was a Hungarian Jew. He said,
"A Hungarian is the only man who can follow you into a revolving door and come out first."
So there you are! It's the gömböc. It's the world's first mono-monostatic shape. It isn't weighted in any way,
but whichever way you place it, it will always turn itself up the right way.
Now, I'm not a great follower of fashion myself, as you can probably tell.
Oh, Stephen.
No, I'm something of an old fossil, as it happens.
But what would you say if I told you that this was the first fossil ever identified?
I... Well. Is it? I'd say, "Is it?"
Thank you for not falling into our trap, and... You wouldn't say, "bollocks."
Oh, "bollocks".
It does look like a handsome pair of human plums, but it isn't.
Robert Plot who was the first keeper of the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford...
He recognized it to be a thigh bone. But it's huge.
You can't quite tell its scale here.
So he assumed it was the thigh bone of a Roman elephant, or of a giant race of humans.
But he also, as I say, recognizing its shape being as it is, called it "Scrotum humanum".
'Cause that's pretty much what it looks like, let's be honest. But it turned out to be a Megalosaur.
There is one. A real one.
It's a shame they're not still about...
- It is, isn't it? - Up and down the M1.
It's very hard to try and get a grip on how old life on Earth is. But if life on Earth began on January 1st,
and we are now literally the very end of the year, when did the dinosaurs appear?
- Hang on, I've got lost there. - Tuesday.
That's no good.
The dinosaurs are 200 million years ago... About mid-November.
Not bad. A little later; December 5th.
- Yeah, not bad! - It's a very... Very good.
So we... And we come in at sort of five to midnight on December 31st, or something, do we?
We come in a few minutes before midnight on December 31st. But they became extinct on December 24th, on Christmas Eve.
So December 5th to December 24th.
- They became extinct on December 24. - Yeah.
Then that's saying the human race got, what, about six days before, you know...
Clocks go back, or something? What... What... What...?
- Here's a year. - Okay.
And that year represents the totality of time there's been life on Earth.
- Totality of time. - That's the beginning...
- That's beginning, over there. - And this is now.
- Uh huh. - Assuming that time is a linear...
Yeah. Exactly, yeah.
Thank you.
So...
Let's suppose that it's a long pair of trousers, time.
Man appeared at the top of the fly...
You unzip your trousers and a dinosaur comes out.
Yeah, basically. That's sort of what happens, isn't it.
Oddly enough, "sauros" was ancient Greek slang for "penis".
Was it?
"Sauros" means "lizard", yeah. And they would call it your "lizard". Your knob.
Just thought you'd like to know that.
I do. I'm pleased to know that. Why is "thesaurus", then? Is that Latin? That's not ancient...
That's a different word. "Thesaurus" means a "treasure house", or "repository". In this case, a treasure house of words.
So you might refer to your backside as a "thesaurus".
I'd like to think my bottom is a treasure house, yes, Alan! Thank you for that!
"My bottom is a treasure house" is a really good catch phrase.
I'll... It will be my billing matter, on my post.
Stephen "My Bottom is a Treasure House" Fry. Yeah. I could go with that. All right.
So, the Megalosaurus. It's deader than the dodo, but... Name a living fossil. Name a living...
Yes.
The ginkgo tree is a living fossil.
The ginkgo is a type of tree tree which is a very... There's only one type of ginkgo.
It belongs to its own family of trees, and they used to rule the Earth, like the dinosaurs.
They used to be about a hundred million, maybe two hundred million years ago, ginkgos lived everywhere.
Now they're down to these...
So you're saying that there was a time that these trees just walked around the countryside...
- They... They might... - Drinking gin, and killing...
I think so. I don't think they walked around much. They just stayed where they were. But there were lots of them.
As in ginkgo biloba?
Yes, and that's it. That's the... The... And I don't think you can find it in the wild anymore.
It's planted a lot; it's quite an attractive tree. But it's a very ancient type of tree.
It's used enormously and extensively by herbalists, isn't it, as a... Supposedly as a memory-enhancer, ginkgo biloba.
- I'd forgotten that, but, er... - Hey!
How can anything be a living fossil? Because a fossil has to be dead, doesn't it?
Well, it's a phrase termed by Darwin, reference to the duckbill platypus.
And it's applied to crocodiles and coelacanths and things like that.
But there are very few species that are identical to their fossilised predecessors. Literally identical.
- That have not... - And you're not going with me; I'm...
- I'm going with Lomatia tasmanica. - Tasmanian devil.
Not the T... No, the "King's Holly". It is from Tasmania, and it's a plant.
It is a very extraordinary plant. We've got a picture of it.
It looks a bit like a crocod... Oh, no, it doesn't.
It doesn't look extraordinary, but that plant there...
Yes?
Is 43,600 years old. And it is genetically identical to a fossil that is near it, a genuine fossil,
which is Pleistocene. Which is millions and millions of years old. And it is exactly the same.
So it just stuck to the... You know, it decided on a design that worked for it. It has a good look.
It has three... Exactly right.
- It has three X-chromosomes. - It's a bit spiky.
It is sterile. It just, basically, doesn't do what other life forms do, which is, you know,
try and vary itself and change. It just stays like that.
All the other plants are going, "Look at us, we've got oranges now. You've got nothing."
They might provide the answer to eternal life. You might think, well...
'Cause they... They virtually have it, 'cause they've got no need to age.
Is that a good idea, though, eternal life? It depends when it starts, doesn't it?
Because if you get to the point where your trousers are just under your nipples, and then you live forever from there...
Yeah.
The point is, this is simultaneously a fossil and a living thing, which is pretty astounding.
Now, how did the canals on Mars get there?
- Oh, that's one of the canals on Mars now! - No, that actually isn't, to be honest.
- They've sent that probe up there. - I think that's in, er...
That's Little Mars, in the west of London, isn't it?
This is when, if they ever had, temperature changes, the... The... The...
The surface has expanded and contracted and left, sort of, little ridges like that.
I mean, the short answer is, there aren't any canals on Mars.
- Oh. - There's no water on Mars.
They discovered some water recently on Mars. They was happy as hell about that, too.
And there's a bottle of Evian that no one can explain.
Well, the... The point of it is, it was most fashionable to believe in life on Mars,
well over a hundred years ago. There was an Italian astronomer called Schiaparelli,
who called these things "canalli", that he saw. He thought he saw a number of long, straight lines on Mars, which...
He named them after rivers on Earth. But then, one of the greatest astronomers of his age, Percival Lowell,
after whom an observatory telescope is named... And actually, after whom Pluto is named,
because they chose that planet because it begins with P-L. But he drew amazing maps of Mars,
looking through his powerful telescope, showing all these straight lines and connecting these things.
- But you're saying they're not there? - They're not there.
So was the original Italian... Was he looking through a... Fishnet stockings, or something, at the time?
Well, you've almost got it. He... 'Cause was a great astronomer. He was not an idiot.
He had a dirty lens.
- He kind of had that, but in his head. - Ah.
He had a condition which is named after him, it's called Lowell's Syndrome,
in which the various blood vessels and things, and the...
And the nodes where the blood vessels meet, seem to become straight lines.
It's a thing that comes and goes, but particularly on the small surface of Mars...
On the big surface of the Moon, you'd see that it didn't make sense.
And he'd draw all of this, and it's all absolute nonsense.
And so we arrive, fashionably late, at the bring-a-bottle staircase party of General Ignorance.
Fingers on buzzers, please. In deference to our two American guests this week...
Yankee Doodle put a feather in his cap to look fashionable. But why did he call it "Macaroni"?
He was "dumber than a bag of wet mice".
Well, oddly enough...
Strangely enough, you're kind of right.
Well, it's about, erm, a kid traveling to see General Washington's troops. The song.
There was General Washington upon a silver stallion, giving orders to his men; there must have been a million.
That's the next verse. So I think he was conscripted, and he was purposely trying to look insane.
Well, it was a British song. It was an insult to the Yankee. The idea... Because a Macaroni...
It was... Just to be Italian. Just to be fashionably Italian, wasn't it?
Well, there was a Macaroni Club in London at the time, which was full of dandies.
A "Macaroni" was another name for "dandy", for someone who took exquisite trouble over their dress.
Are you telling me that a Brit wrote "Yankee Doodle"?
Yeah. The idea was that the Yankees were so dumb...
- "Dumber than a..." - Well, I guess we are, because we play it all the time!
No... No, you... You take something that's supposed to be an insult, and you make a virtue of it.
You throw it back in the oppressor's face.
That's how you show 'em that they can't hurt you!
Exactly! Exactly!
My mama taught me that one. "Just look at 'em and just laugh at 'em. Just take they...
Take... Take... Take they insults, and don't show them your pain."
That's what we did. That's why we beat you.
Yes! So. The point is, at the end of the 18th century, the "Macaroni" was a dandy.
The song was a British attempt to make fun of unsophisticated Yankees.
What rhymes with "month"?
- Bunth. Dunth. Yunth - This word, I would have to say,
- is probably not known to you. - Junth!
It's Sikhism. It's, er, what the Qur'an...
- "Sikhism" does not rhyme with "month"! - No...
I'm telling you... I'm taking you into the world of Sikhism.
What the Qur'an is to the Islamic faith, this thing is to the Sikh faith. It's their text.
And it's called the Granth.
There, you see!
- I did every bloody letter except "gunth"! - But we should know...
Yeah.
But we should know that. I mean, that's not... It's not that obscure.
No, it isn't. That's what I mean. It's a perfectly reasonable word.
So loads of Sikhs watching this programme have been screaming...
- "Gunth! Gunth! You idiot!" - "For goodness sake! Gunth! Gunth!"
- No, it's a "Granth". - Ah.
A "Garr-anth".
Not "Garr-anth". Just "Granth". There are a lot that supposedly don't have rhymes,
and "month" was one such word. There you are. So, the holy text of Sikhism is the Guru Granth Sahib.
Which city has the most Michelin stars?
Paris. Oh.
Oh! I'm sorry.
Wait, wait! That don't count. I said "Paris"... Before I pushed the button. So I get a free...
I get a free guess! Hey, I'm... I'm... I'm black.
Oh! Don't you try that.
- I know for a fact it ain't London. - It's not in France.
New York, then.
Oh! New York, I'm afraid, has been...
Wait a minute...
- Canada? - London. Oh, that's...
- Who said "London"? - Alan said "London".
- I didn't say "London"! You did! - Oh, I said "London". Sorry. Sorry.
- Or Rich said "London"! - I didn't say anything.
He didn't say a word!
- And frankly, you should be glad. - Wait a second. You said "London".
No, I would never say "London". No, what I did say... I said, "Definitely not London." That's what I said.
No, I did! I actually said... I did! What?
I will believe you. I will believe you.
Okay, let me tell you why I said "definitely not London". And I'm not just trying to offend London.
Um, I'm trying to offend the UK in general. But I feel like any country that can produce Marmite...
They... They started later than everybody else in trying to make food taste good. Um...
This, from the country that has spray-on cheese!
But you're right. It isn't Britain.
No, man, you can't cut me off! You gotta give me a chance to insult you back!
Oh, right. Sorry.
Marmite tastes like there's a naked man with hairy legs in your kitchen...
Yeah.
And every now and again, you take a plate with some toast and you walk under his butt and you go,
"Okay, Fred! 'Do what you do best!'"
Very good.
- No, the place that has the most Michelin stars is... - Germany. Holland. Belgium.
- Tokyo. - Tokyo, is the right answer.
Oh, yeah, man. Yeah. I should have thought of that. I should have thought of that.
It went straight to number 1. It was only put in in 2007.
And it leapt to the front with 150 stars amongst its different restaurants...
Which is two more than London and Paris combined.
I could also point out to you that if you put spray-on cheese on top of Marmite...
You still get something that tastes fucked-up.
That's all I want to say. In fact, you can take your favourite food. And if you put Marmite on it,
it's fucked up.
- Why don't you just keep away from Marmite?! - Yes!
Hey, look, man! When you was talking earlier, I didn't say,
"Hey, why don't you stay away from ginkgo trees? I ain't say nothing!" I just...
I just let you talk about trees, man! Weren't nobody else talking about trees but you.
That's the way it works on this programme, but...
- To be fair, Clive... - "Who... Who are you?"
All right, moving on! Tokyo has the most Michelin stars, twice as many as Paris, and three times as many as New York.
What colour is a nicotine stain?
Sort of yellowy-brown.
Yellowy-brown, eh?
Yellowy-brown, yes. Not "yellow". Just...
You're going to tell us that the stain comes from the tar. The yellow or brown is from the tar.
Nicotine itself is green or something.
The nicotine stain has no...
- No stain at all? - No. It's completely colourless.
So, it just kills you quietly on its own.
It's very, very poisonous. But it is... It's colourless, odourless, and more or less invisible and untracable.
It's a brilliant poison. Do you know why it's called nicotine?
"Nicotine. Just one puff, and you're mine."
- I remember that at school! - Yeah!
He was. He was the cigarette devil. He was like an Irish cigarette devil.
Why is it called "nicotine"?
Oh, it was a Frenchman called Nicot... Was the, sort of, Walter Raleigh of France,
- Ah, Nicot. - who introduced tobacco to the French.
"Nicot", spelt: N - I - C - O - T.
- Wow, I sure didn't know that. - Yeah. Well, now you do!
Which dictator definitely only had one ball?
It's not the... Well, I'm not going to give my points away on that. 'Cause I know that was, er...
It was made up about the one we mustn't say. So we're looking for another dictator.
- Yes, you're quite right. It wasn't Adolf Hitler. - Pol Pot.
It wasn't Pol... Oh!
Stalin. You haven't got "Stalin" up?
Oh, yes.
Ceausescu. Chairman Mao?
"Chairman Mao" is the right answer!
- He only got one ball? - Yeah.
- But he used to have lots of girls. - He was, uhm...
He looks proud of it.
Monorchidism, it's called. One orchid.
Yes. Only one flower display, and also...
Exactly. Orchid is the same root, is the same word. It's the Greek for "testicle".
Whose "testimony"? Another word which derives from the same source.
His doctor. Yes, "testimony". Yes. Dr. Li Zhisui was his doctor.
In his memoirs, he describes how Mao had an undescended testicle, and was infertile.
Had venereal disease from the late '50s, and then in the '60s, he contracted herpes. '67.
He never brushed his teeth; he rinsed his mouth with tea. So his teeth were... Green.
He also slept on a wooden bed and used a bed pan.
That's just convenient, though. That's just convenient. Yeah.
Yes. No, Hitler's reputation for being uni-globular is, is... Apparently has no justification at all.
But, Mao most certainly was.
And that... That, ladies and gentlemen, brings us to the scores. And first...
After a "fashion", with a plus score...
Four points, Rich Hall!
In second place, with minus five, only slightly passe, Clive Anderson.
I was playing to lose!
I can't even... I'm rubbish at losing.
Oh, and doing what he did well, with minus six,
Reg D. Hunter, ladies and gentlemen.
And positively paleontological in his outmodedness is tonight's living fossil,
on minus thirty-five, Alan Davies.
And so, it's good night from Rich, Reg, Clive, Alan, and me,
and we leave you with this thought from Oscar Wilde.
"Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months."
My name is Stephen "My Bottom is a Treasure House" Fry; thank you, and good night.