1 00:00:33,609 --> 00:00:37,009 Well... 2 00:00:37,009 --> 00:00:40,290 Good evening, good evening, good evening, good evening 3 00:00:40,290 --> 00:00:42,010 and welcome to QI, 4 00:00:42,010 --> 00:00:45,571 where tonight we're having fun with flora and fauna. 5 00:00:45,571 --> 00:00:49,171 It's like animal, vegetable and mineral only...without the mineral. 6 00:00:49,171 --> 00:00:50,812 In the flowerbed tonight, 7 00:00:50,812 --> 00:00:53,252 we have a perennial favourite, 8 00:00:53,252 --> 00:00:55,212 Jimmy Carr. 9 00:00:55,212 --> 00:00:57,653 APPLAUSE Thank you very much. 10 00:00:57,653 --> 00:01:00,213 A hardy annual, John Sergeant. 11 00:01:00,213 --> 00:01:01,934 APPLAUSE 12 00:01:03,974 --> 00:01:06,694 A heavily scented late-bloomer, Jo Brand. 13 00:01:06,694 --> 00:01:08,815 APPLAUSE 14 00:01:11,735 --> 00:01:14,376 And a cat having a crap in a flowerpot, 15 00:01:14,376 --> 00:01:15,776 Alan Davies. 16 00:01:15,776 --> 00:01:16,896 APPLAUSE 17 00:01:20,857 --> 00:01:24,818 But before we plunge into my arboretum and bestiary, 18 00:01:24,818 --> 00:01:27,138 let's go wild with our buzzers. John goes... 19 00:01:27,138 --> 00:01:29,178 LION GROWLING 20 00:01:29,178 --> 00:01:30,819 LAUGHTER 21 00:01:30,819 --> 00:01:33,859 Jimmy goes... WOLF HOWLING 22 00:01:33,859 --> 00:01:35,940 Jo goes... 23 00:01:35,940 --> 00:01:37,460 ELEPHANT TRUMPETING 24 00:01:37,460 --> 00:01:38,980 LAUGHTER 25 00:01:40,540 --> 00:01:41,981 And Alan goes... 26 00:01:41,981 --> 00:01:43,901 MONKEY CHATTERING 27 00:01:43,901 --> 00:01:46,381 BANG, CRASH, GLASS SMASHING 28 00:01:46,381 --> 00:01:48,222 Oh, dear. 29 00:01:50,422 --> 00:01:51,502 Well done. 30 00:01:51,502 --> 00:01:54,583 So let's start on our sofa-bound safari. 31 00:01:54,583 --> 00:01:56,303 What does my buttonhole 32 00:01:56,303 --> 00:01:58,063 tell you about me? 33 00:01:58,063 --> 00:01:59,784 TRUMPETING 34 00:01:59,784 --> 00:02:02,064 That you're a closet heterosexual. 35 00:02:04,145 --> 00:02:05,465 How dare you! 36 00:02:05,465 --> 00:02:06,865 I'm sorry! 37 00:02:06,865 --> 00:02:10,506 It tells us that you are what you are. Your own special creation. 38 00:02:12,546 --> 00:02:16,187 It's not going to fire water at me, is it? No, it's a real flower 39 00:02:16,187 --> 00:02:17,947 and it's a member of a family of flowers 40 00:02:17,947 --> 00:02:19,147 and it has a name. 41 00:02:19,147 --> 00:02:20,747 It's a rhododendron. > 42 00:02:20,747 --> 00:02:22,388 It's not a rhododendron. 43 00:02:22,388 --> 00:02:27,109 Camellia. It is! Well done. And you are La Dame Aux Camelias. 44 00:02:27,109 --> 00:02:28,469 Tell me about La Dame Aux Camelias. 45 00:02:28,469 --> 00:02:30,349 It's a novel. It's a novel. Yeah. 46 00:02:30,349 --> 00:02:31,749 About a lady. 47 00:02:31,749 --> 00:02:34,510 Do you know what this meant? Who liked camellias. 48 00:02:34,510 --> 00:02:36,630 Yeah. LAUGHTER 49 00:02:36,630 --> 00:02:41,111 Good. But there is a thing about the red camellia that is very extraordinary, 50 00:02:41,111 --> 00:02:44,352 unbelievably shocking, to mid-19th-century France. 51 00:02:44,352 --> 00:02:45,392 Periods. 52 00:02:45,392 --> 00:02:46,472 You're so right. 53 00:02:46,472 --> 00:02:49,993 Marguerite Gautier, the heroine of the novel La Dame Aux Camelias, 54 00:02:49,993 --> 00:02:53,153 wore for 25 days of the month 55 00:02:53,153 --> 00:02:54,393 a white camellia. 56 00:02:54,393 --> 00:02:59,714 For five days, a red one, to tell her lovers that she was not available... 57 00:02:59,714 --> 00:03:02,955 That Arsenal were playing away! 58 00:03:04,555 --> 00:03:05,995 Playing at home! 59 00:03:05,995 --> 00:03:07,196 At home! 60 00:03:07,196 --> 00:03:09,436 The decorators were in, the...etc. 61 00:03:09,436 --> 00:03:13,757 Are you saying that you ARE available or you're not? 62 00:03:13,757 --> 00:03:15,597 I've got a period on, John. 63 00:03:15,597 --> 00:03:16,797 LAUGHTER 64 00:03:16,797 --> 00:03:18,918 You can't have me, I'm sorry. 65 00:03:18,918 --> 00:03:20,998 Was this in some play? 66 00:03:20,998 --> 00:03:25,239 A novel by Alexandre Dumas fils, the bastard son of the creator of The Three Musketeers. 67 00:03:36,859 --> 00:03:41,140 Can I just say, that was so sweet, cos no woman in her entire life 68 00:03:41,140 --> 00:03:43,780 has ever said, "I've got a period ON"! 69 00:03:43,780 --> 00:03:47,021 LAUGHTER Well... 70 00:03:47,021 --> 00:03:49,141 I either say "I've got a period" or "I'm on". 71 00:03:49,141 --> 00:03:50,221 Fair enough! OK! 72 00:03:50,221 --> 00:03:52,342 You don't conflate them together. 73 00:03:52,342 --> 00:03:54,222 "I've got a period on"! 74 00:04:09,042 --> 00:04:12,003 And anyway, it became a play. 75 00:04:12,003 --> 00:04:14,963 Sarah Bernhardt was in it thousands of times, 76 00:04:14,963 --> 00:04:19,244 in 1854 Verdi saw the play and turned it into the opera... for five points...? 77 00:04:20,764 --> 00:04:22,404 Is that what the opera's called? 78 00:04:22,404 --> 00:04:24,165 No! 79 00:04:24,165 --> 00:04:26,845 It's called Camellia something... the flower. 80 00:04:26,845 --> 00:04:28,125 Audience will know. 81 00:04:28,125 --> 00:04:31,886 < La Traviata. La Traviata. Audience get ten points. That's very good. 82 00:04:31,886 --> 00:04:35,087 It was La Traviata. They're not in the lead again! 83 00:04:35,087 --> 00:04:38,447 So La Traviata, which I've heard of and is a proper grown-up thing, 84 00:04:38,447 --> 00:04:41,608 is about a woman having a period? No, no. 85 00:04:41,608 --> 00:04:46,169 It's the story of a famous courtesan who was in love - and the real one - there were seven men 86 00:04:46,169 --> 00:04:50,689 who were so passionate about her but couldn't afford her prices, they clubbed together 87 00:04:50,689 --> 00:04:55,810 and bought her a chest of drawers with seven separate drawers in so they could keep their own clothes. 88 00:04:55,810 --> 00:04:57,611 It was turned into a film, which was... 89 00:04:57,611 --> 00:05:00,371 Snow White. She's called. 90 00:05:00,371 --> 00:05:04,252 The seven guys with the one girl is a bit... 91 00:05:04,252 --> 00:05:05,732 Very good! 92 00:05:05,732 --> 00:05:07,532 APPLAUSE 93 00:05:07,532 --> 00:05:09,693 Very good. 94 00:05:11,533 --> 00:05:14,213 And the film based on La Dame Aux Camelias is...? 95 00:05:14,213 --> 00:05:16,294 Carry On Menstruating. 96 00:05:16,294 --> 00:05:19,614 Camille. Camille? 97 00:05:19,614 --> 00:05:23,735 Yes, in La Dame Aux Camelias and La Traviata, the heroine indicates her availability 98 00:05:23,735 --> 00:05:25,856 by wearing different-coloured camellias. 99 00:05:25,856 --> 00:05:30,776 The book caused an outrage and made the flower an overnight gardening sensation in Paris and beyond. 100 00:05:30,776 --> 00:05:32,337 Something more wholesome now. 101 00:05:32,337 --> 00:05:35,977 It's good news. Daddy is taking you to the flea circus. 102 00:05:35,977 --> 00:05:40,298 Which bit are you most looking forward to? What do you know about flea circuses? 103 00:05:40,298 --> 00:05:43,059 I had fleas in my flat once. Did you really? 104 00:05:43,059 --> 00:05:45,699 Rentokil quoted 600 quid to get rid of it. 105 00:05:45,699 --> 00:05:48,179 I found a bloke in the local paper did it for 40. 106 00:05:48,179 --> 00:05:49,580 I don't know what he sprayed! 107 00:05:49,580 --> 00:05:52,900 The cat was going like this for a few days. 108 00:05:54,060 --> 00:05:58,101 Do you know what the biggest destroyer of human fleas has been - 109 00:05:58,101 --> 00:05:59,661 much bigger than pesticides? 110 00:05:59,661 --> 00:06:02,462 I know the answer. It's vacuum cleaners. 111 00:06:02,462 --> 00:06:04,422 You're right. It's their woof-woof-woof. 112 00:06:04,422 --> 00:06:05,783 And the fleas don't like it. 113 00:06:05,783 --> 00:06:08,423 Do you think your vacuum cleaner may be broken? 114 00:06:08,423 --> 00:06:10,503 If it's going woof-woof-woof? 115 00:06:10,503 --> 00:06:12,784 You might want to take that back and get a new one. 116 00:06:12,784 --> 00:06:15,224 They're not specialised, these vacuum cleaners. 117 00:06:15,224 --> 00:06:17,385 They kill lots of fleas? 118 00:06:17,385 --> 00:06:22,305 The other thing you've got to know about them is that the back legs of fleas are incredibly powerful. 119 00:06:22,305 --> 00:06:26,186 And if a human being had as powerful legs, 120 00:06:26,186 --> 00:06:28,867 they could jump over the Eiffel Tower. 121 00:06:28,867 --> 00:06:32,387 You're right. Eighty times your own height is what you'd be able to jump. 122 00:08:43,167 --> 00:08:45,728 These flea circuses, though, 123 00:08:45,728 --> 00:08:47,888 we don't have them in our time, 124 00:08:47,888 --> 00:08:50,009 but they were amazingly popular 125 00:08:50,009 --> 00:08:52,169 in the 1920s and '30s, 126 00:08:52,169 --> 00:08:56,250 because they had to find something interesting to do between the two world wars. 127 00:08:56,250 --> 00:08:57,810 Exactly. They were filling in. 128 00:08:57,810 --> 00:09:01,251 So fleas were very exciting... 129 00:09:01,251 --> 00:09:05,171 a lot more of them about. In fact, they died out in the early '60s, probably. 130 00:09:05,171 --> 00:09:07,852 But you will see, there's some film here showing you that - 131 00:09:07,852 --> 00:09:10,012 you're right, these strong legs 132 00:09:10,012 --> 00:09:13,173 allow them to pull - they were harnessed to wire... 133 00:09:13,173 --> 00:09:14,333 Are they real? Yeah. 134 00:09:14,333 --> 00:09:17,333 They... I thought it was... No, you're thinking Michael Bentine's 135 00:09:17,333 --> 00:09:19,694 mechanical ones with little automatic machines that... 136 00:09:19,694 --> 00:09:22,774 You thought you could see the fleas but... No, there were fleas. 137 00:09:22,774 --> 00:09:24,575 Genuinely people-trained fleas? 138 00:09:24,575 --> 00:09:27,455 No. Unfortunately, they were basically tortured. 139 00:09:27,455 --> 00:09:30,696 You would glue them to musical instruments and other things 140 00:09:30,696 --> 00:09:33,696 and then heat the underpart where they were 141 00:09:33,696 --> 00:09:38,857 so their attempts to make themselves free would look as if they were playing instruments. 142 00:09:38,857 --> 00:09:41,938 That's like Britain's Got Talent. That sounds horrible. 143 00:09:41,938 --> 00:09:44,338 Almost as horrible as Britain's Got Talent. 144 00:09:44,338 --> 00:09:46,058 But let's see some film, 145 00:09:46,058 --> 00:09:48,259 if we can, Mr Man In The Gallery. 146 00:09:50,899 --> 00:09:52,259 There we are. 147 00:09:52,259 --> 00:09:54,100 JIMMY: Why are they performing on his arm? 148 00:09:54,100 --> 00:09:55,980 They get fed with his blood. Ah! 149 00:09:55,980 --> 00:09:58,541 JOHN: That's to show how small they are. 150 00:09:58,541 --> 00:10:00,661 He's going to burn them with the sun. 151 00:10:00,661 --> 00:10:02,461 It's Ben-Hur. 152 00:10:02,461 --> 00:10:05,342 Robot Wars. 153 00:10:07,022 --> 00:10:10,023 Why have they got a serial killer operating the... 154 00:10:11,503 --> 00:10:14,743 JOHN: That reminds me of a very old joke. 155 00:10:14,743 --> 00:10:18,344 Are you ready for a very old joke? I'd love to hear one. 156 00:10:18,344 --> 00:10:21,345 How do you build a flea circus? 157 00:10:21,345 --> 00:10:24,265 You have to start from scratch. 158 00:10:24,265 --> 00:10:25,665 Hey-hey! Excellent. 159 00:10:27,346 --> 00:10:29,946 Is that stuck into the flea or glued on? 160 00:10:29,946 --> 00:10:32,266 It's glued or they make wire harnesses for them. 161 00:10:32,266 --> 00:10:35,867 And people like Michael Bentine invented these mechanical ones. 162 00:10:35,867 --> 00:10:38,388 He did one in a Royal Variety Performance in the '60s. 163 00:10:38,388 --> 00:10:39,828 And that's when I first saw it. 164 00:10:39,828 --> 00:10:45,509 I realised there were no fleas and, like you, I thought there was no such thing and it was just a joke. 165 00:10:45,509 --> 00:10:50,590 It was part of an idea that you had freak shows. You'd have all sorts of daft things... 166 00:10:50,590 --> 00:10:53,830 It's awful to raise this. You two aren't related, are you? 167 00:10:53,830 --> 00:10:57,391 Are you suggesting we're some kind of freak show... 168 00:10:57,391 --> 00:10:58,831 No, I just... 169 00:10:58,831 --> 00:11:02,312 ..that should be next to the flea circus? 170 00:11:02,312 --> 00:11:06,112 There's not a... There's a bit of a likeness, we're brother and sister. 171 00:11:06,112 --> 00:11:08,113 That explains it! 172 00:11:26,113 --> 00:11:29,073 Flea circuses covered a range of acts, including chariot races 173 00:11:29,073 --> 00:11:32,194 and fencing matches as well as acrobatics and... 174 00:11:32,194 --> 00:11:37,075 Techniques included glueing the fleas to musical instruments and then heating the floor 175 00:11:37,075 --> 00:11:39,235 so they seemed to be playing as they struggled. 176 00:11:39,235 --> 00:11:42,396 What is the really odd thing about the only fish in the world 177 00:11:42,396 --> 00:11:44,716 that lives in a tree? 178 00:11:53,856 --> 00:11:56,697 Is it going to be an underwater tree...thing? 179 00:11:56,697 --> 00:12:01,497 Like fish that can live in anemones cos they're the only ones that aren't poisoned by them? 180 00:12:01,497 --> 00:12:03,898 These are trees above the surface. 181 00:12:03,898 --> 00:12:09,419 Stephen, is that meant to be a perfect picture of...? No. 182 00:12:09,419 --> 00:12:11,779 I know that's a salmon for a start. 183 00:12:11,779 --> 00:12:14,900 It does not like to live in a tree, I know that. 184 00:12:14,900 --> 00:12:17,860 We can actually show you the real fish in a tree. 185 00:12:17,860 --> 00:12:22,381 There we are in the mangrove swamps of Florida. Where is it? 186 00:12:22,381 --> 00:12:25,102 You can't see it yet, but this is its habitat. 187 00:12:25,102 --> 00:12:30,983 These pools shrink and it goes up these little grooves made by insects, 188 00:12:30,983 --> 00:12:36,504 whole groups of them go up into the tree. We can see one poking its eye out. 189 00:12:36,504 --> 00:12:42,345 And what's the unusual thing? Can it whistle one tune while it hums another? 190 00:12:42,345 --> 00:12:45,985 Kind of almost an erotic version of that. 191 00:12:45,985 --> 00:12:50,506 It is the only vertebrate that is a hermaphrodite that self-fertilises. 192 00:12:56,506 --> 00:12:58,626 That's how it breeds. 193 00:12:58,626 --> 00:13:02,267 It pleasures itself and... Why don't we all do that? 194 00:13:02,267 --> 00:13:06,468 In terms of natural selection, why don't we all, because that'd be fun. 195 00:13:06,468 --> 00:13:10,989 My teenage years... You're right. ..there would've been thousands. 196 00:13:10,989 --> 00:13:13,909 It'd be fun to tell yourself you've got a headache. 197 00:13:15,989 --> 00:13:18,070 "No, I can't tonight." 198 00:13:18,070 --> 00:13:22,991 Isn't it asexual reproduction? No, it's hermaphroditic. Parthenogenesis you may be thinking. 199 00:13:22,991 --> 00:13:24,911 Oh, right, I was. 200 00:13:24,911 --> 00:13:26,871 LAUGHTER 201 00:13:29,512 --> 00:13:31,952 He's new. 202 00:13:35,233 --> 00:13:40,954 It's called a killifish and there are 1,270 different species of them. 203 00:13:40,954 --> 00:13:44,314 That's not the same one we've seen. 204 00:13:44,314 --> 00:13:48,235 That's his sister! It's not, but it's certainly a killifish. 205 00:13:48,235 --> 00:13:51,756 Now, while we're at the water's edge, 206 00:13:51,756 --> 00:13:54,276 why does a flamingo stand on one leg? 207 00:13:54,276 --> 00:13:56,477 JOHN'S BUZZER 208 00:13:56,477 --> 00:14:00,357 I think I have the answer. Because it wants to go to sleep. 209 00:14:00,357 --> 00:14:01,797 Yes. Is it? 210 00:14:01,797 --> 00:14:04,158 You're right! Ah, well. 211 00:14:04,158 --> 00:14:07,198 I was going to say land mines! 212 00:14:07,198 --> 00:14:10,079 APPLAUSE 213 00:14:10,079 --> 00:14:14,800 Are they pink because they're on their period, but it's not a very heavy flow? 214 00:14:14,800 --> 00:14:18,920 No, you're right. They have, like other animals, the ability 215 00:14:18,920 --> 00:14:22,641 for half of themselves to go to sleep. 216 00:14:22,641 --> 00:14:24,962 So the half with the leg up is asleep. 217 00:14:24,962 --> 00:14:30,683 That whole half of their body is in a torpid state and the blood flow's less. 218 00:14:30,683 --> 00:14:34,923 When that has had enough sleep, they swap over and the other leg goes up. 219 00:14:34,923 --> 00:14:40,204 There must be an in-between moment when they fall on their arse. You wonder, don't you! 220 00:14:40,204 --> 00:14:44,645 How does that work? Does it go naturally down the middle of their face and neck 221 00:14:44,645 --> 00:14:48,046 or does their arse go to sleep, and then their face wakes up? 222 00:14:48,046 --> 00:14:54,927 One assumes... I don't know. The phrase "my leg's gone to sleep" has a whole new thing. Precisely. 223 00:14:54,927 --> 00:14:56,967 And they are pink because...? 224 00:14:56,967 --> 00:15:00,568 It's...not crayfish, prawns or something. 225 00:15:00,568 --> 00:15:04,128 KLAXON It's not prawns. It's a common fallacy 226 00:15:04,128 --> 00:15:07,089 that they're pink cos the eat pink food like prawns... 227 00:15:07,089 --> 00:15:09,729 Or Angel Delight. Or Angel Delight. 228 00:15:09,729 --> 00:15:15,770 No, they eat a blue-green algae which is full of carotenoid that makes them pink. 229 00:15:15,770 --> 00:15:22,172 In zoos they give them supplements to make them pink. The flamingo version of Where's Wally is hard. 230 00:15:22,172 --> 00:15:24,132 LAUGHTER 231 00:15:24,132 --> 00:15:27,012 Interestingly, they can drink boiling water. 232 00:15:27,012 --> 00:15:29,373 How did they find that out? 233 00:15:29,373 --> 00:15:33,374 A very cruel man found that out. "Here you go!" 234 00:15:33,374 --> 00:15:36,894 They live near geysers where the water is that temperature. 235 00:15:36,894 --> 00:15:38,934 They can eat a McDonald's apple pie. 236 00:15:38,934 --> 00:15:41,335 The only species that can! 237 00:15:41,335 --> 00:15:45,016 Which is the hottest substance known to man. Yeah. 238 00:15:45,016 --> 00:15:47,776 Verified by NASA. 239 00:15:47,776 --> 00:15:50,096 LAUGHTER 240 00:16:43,096 --> 00:16:46,617 I think we've sucked all the nutrient out of the flamingo. 241 00:16:46,617 --> 00:16:50,898 Now, what kind of tricks could you play on a naive rhinoceros? 242 00:16:50,898 --> 00:16:53,258 Ooh! JIMMY'S BUZZER 243 00:16:53,258 --> 00:16:57,139 You could tell it it's a unicorn that just needs to moisturise. 244 00:17:00,339 --> 00:17:02,180 Poor thing! 245 00:17:02,180 --> 00:17:05,980 You could tell it that you are the wife of a Nigerian ambassador 246 00:17:05,980 --> 00:17:09,541 and that if it sent you 4,000... 247 00:17:09,541 --> 00:17:12,302 It would probably go for it, wouldn't it? It might! 248 00:17:12,302 --> 00:17:17,502 So this is a naive rhino? As opposed to... Sometimes you get a rhino that's quite worldly-wise. 249 00:17:17,502 --> 00:17:21,183 It's the zoological or natural history meaning of the word "naive". 250 00:17:21,183 --> 00:17:25,704 It has a special meaning when applied to animals. Do you know what that is? Naive animal? 251 00:17:25,704 --> 00:17:29,625 Just, he's a bit...? Is it very old? 252 00:17:29,625 --> 00:17:34,385 No, it's to do with an animal that is suddenly put into a terrain or an ecosphere 253 00:17:34,385 --> 00:17:36,986 which its evolution has not prepared it for, or... 254 00:17:36,986 --> 00:17:42,667 Like a rhinoceros going to Peckham, for example? Exactly. ..or the other thing that can happen, 255 00:17:42,667 --> 00:17:46,908 that into, for example, the classic example is an island, a new species arrives 256 00:17:46,908 --> 00:17:52,429 that can cause absolute havoc. Something like a dodo, for example, or all kinds of birds and animals 257 00:17:52,429 --> 00:17:57,790 in Bermuda and various islands that had literally evolved with no sense of fear whatsoever. 258 00:17:57,790 --> 00:18:02,230 Because a sense of fear uses up energy - constantly running and looking and being nervous. 259 00:18:02,230 --> 00:18:06,991 If you live on an island where all the species are friendly, none of them wants to eat you, 260 00:18:06,991 --> 00:18:10,432 you completely over the thousands of years lose any sense of fear. 261 00:18:10,432 --> 00:18:13,392 So when people first arrived on Bermuda, for example, 262 00:18:13,392 --> 00:18:18,473 all these birds would wander into their hands, you could pick them up and put them in a cooking pot. 263 00:18:18,473 --> 00:18:21,834 The other birds would cluster around quite happily. The point is 264 00:18:21,834 --> 00:18:26,475 you can play almost any kind of trick on a naive rhinoceros - the term is applied to animals 265 00:18:26,475 --> 00:18:32,276 that meet threats their environment hasn't prepared them for, such as a new predator. Now... 266 00:18:32,276 --> 00:18:36,796 as night falls on our expedition, the evening chorus starts up from the waterhole. 267 00:18:36,796 --> 00:18:42,557 It's spring and love is in the air. What are these toads saying to each other? 268 00:18:42,557 --> 00:18:46,238 CROAKING 269 00:18:49,239 --> 00:18:51,479 It's very repetitive. 270 00:18:51,479 --> 00:18:53,319 These are natterjacks. 271 00:18:53,319 --> 00:18:57,280 Natterjacks, like a lot of toads, have explosive sexual engagements... 272 00:18:57,280 --> 00:19:04,441 Not just toads. ..when suddenly it's ready and the male toad will jump on anything - 273 00:19:04,441 --> 00:19:06,882 animal, vegetable or mineral. 274 00:19:06,882 --> 00:19:12,643 But hopefully a female toad. But very often it will jump on a male toad. That's OK, too. 275 00:19:12,643 --> 00:19:14,963 Which is fine. Yeah. 276 00:19:16,723 --> 00:19:19,764 But the male toad underneath often doesn't like it... 277 00:19:19,764 --> 00:19:23,165 Well, you know, reach around! 278 00:19:23,165 --> 00:19:27,765 ..and it makes a noise, and that is the noise you hear during the mating season. 279 00:19:27,765 --> 00:19:31,366 A boy at my school used to catch frogs and skin them and let them go. 280 00:19:31,366 --> 00:19:32,886 Oh...! 281 00:19:32,886 --> 00:19:38,447 Well, he let them GO! Why have you always got to focus on the negative stuff? 282 00:19:38,447 --> 00:19:40,408 He was a humanitarian. 283 00:19:40,408 --> 00:19:43,328 He said, "It's amazing, you can see all their insides!" 284 00:19:43,328 --> 00:19:47,329 Just one word comes to my head - Essex. I don't know why. 285 00:19:48,849 --> 00:19:52,490 He says it was a school - it was a Borstal! 286 00:19:52,490 --> 00:19:57,491 Well, he said he did that, anyway. Said you had to leave a little bit around their eyes. Oh...! 287 00:19:57,491 --> 00:20:00,331 Yeah, you don't want to be cruel. 288 00:20:00,331 --> 00:20:04,452 So you're saying the sound we heard there was a lot of frogs going... 289 00:20:04,452 --> 00:20:06,132 "I'm a bloke!" 290 00:20:06,132 --> 00:20:10,333 I can't understand the idea that this toad would have evolved and gone, 291 00:20:10,333 --> 00:20:14,294 "When the mating season comes round, just go for your life," 292 00:20:14,294 --> 00:20:18,334 rather than trying to chat a girl up...in a froggy way. 293 00:20:18,334 --> 00:20:21,575 Do you know the difference between a frog and a toad? 294 00:20:21,575 --> 00:20:24,815 Spelling. LAUGHTER 295 00:20:24,815 --> 00:20:27,336 Very good! 296 00:20:29,256 --> 00:20:32,297 You might as well be right - there's no definitive difference. 297 00:20:32,297 --> 00:20:36,897 Generally speaking, toads have dry skin and dry lives, 298 00:20:36,897 --> 00:20:38,858 but there is no real difference. 299 00:20:38,858 --> 00:20:45,139 I used to have an Alsatian and she came to wake me up one morning. Normally she'd wait for me. 300 00:20:45,139 --> 00:20:49,020 She came and put her head under the duvet and pulled it off me. 301 00:20:49,020 --> 00:20:51,260 I said, "What are you doing?" 302 00:20:51,260 --> 00:20:54,100 She went to the bedroom door and looked at me like that. 303 00:20:54,100 --> 00:21:00,742 I got up and she went to the kitchen door still looking at me and led me to her water bowl by the back door. 304 00:21:00,742 --> 00:21:03,462 She was looking at it and looking at me. 305 00:21:03,462 --> 00:21:05,703 I looked at it and there was a frog in it. 306 00:21:06,903 --> 00:21:08,903 That's so sweet. 307 00:21:08,903 --> 00:21:14,504 It must've come in the back door the night before, then found itself in the kitchen, 308 00:21:14,504 --> 00:21:18,345 and then got in the water bowl and sat there all night like... 309 00:21:18,345 --> 00:21:20,985 with this huge dog staring at it! 310 00:21:23,706 --> 00:21:27,266 He said, "I'm going to get Alan, this isn't..." 311 00:21:27,266 --> 00:21:31,307 I love the idea of the relationship between you and your dog. 312 00:21:31,307 --> 00:21:35,108 You're on quite a level... "Have a look at this, Alan." 313 00:21:36,308 --> 00:21:41,989 We shared a flat. Thing was, I had a walled garden, I don't know how the frogs got in, 314 00:21:41,989 --> 00:21:43,789 but they did every year. 315 00:21:43,789 --> 00:21:48,750 The odd thing, you're saying... A huge quantity of toads are killed every year on the roads. 316 00:21:48,750 --> 00:21:52,151 About 20 tons of toad lose their lives. 317 00:21:52,151 --> 00:21:56,871 We're trying to make it less with toad tunnels. Do you know why so many die on the road? 318 00:21:56,871 --> 00:22:03,753 It's mating season. They have ancient mating ponds they've had for hundreds of years. 319 00:22:03,753 --> 00:22:06,833 Whether there's a road there or not, that's the way they've always gone. 320 00:22:06,833 --> 00:22:13,634 You used to have them in a pond in Buckhurst Hill. People would go out with frying pans... 321 00:22:13,634 --> 00:22:17,995 They'd hop into a frying pan, and then you'd flip 'em. 322 00:22:17,995 --> 00:22:21,836 There's scores of them. It combines fun with doing good. 323 00:22:24,396 --> 00:22:27,957 They land on another toad and it's all done. 324 00:22:27,957 --> 00:22:31,998 Did you hear an extraordinary story in Hamburg in 2005? 325 00:22:31,998 --> 00:22:35,398 About the exploding toads? Vaguely, yes. 326 00:22:35,398 --> 00:22:38,799 Toads started exploding during the mating season. 327 00:22:38,799 --> 00:22:43,720 More than 1,000 toads swollen to three times their usual size crawled out of the water, 328 00:22:43,720 --> 00:22:49,081 making screeching noises, and blew up, propelling their entrails up to a yard away. 329 00:22:49,081 --> 00:22:53,721 People thought it might be a virus or pollution, but do you know what was the cause? 330 00:22:53,721 --> 00:22:55,202 < Al-Qaeda. 331 00:22:55,202 --> 00:22:56,402 No. 332 00:22:56,402 --> 00:22:58,282 Suicide toads. 333 00:22:58,282 --> 00:23:02,323 It wasn't... They were all fundamentalists and misguided... 334 00:23:02,323 --> 00:23:06,404 They go to a busy market place and splatter everyone with toad entrail. 335 00:23:06,404 --> 00:23:08,244 "That'll learn ya!" 336 00:23:08,244 --> 00:23:10,444 "Toad rights!" 337 00:23:10,444 --> 00:23:11,565 It was crows. 338 00:23:11,565 --> 00:23:18,726 Crows had discovered how to fly in and, in one swift movement, remove the liver of the toads. 339 00:23:18,726 --> 00:23:21,086 They'd go in and pull out the liver. 340 00:23:21,086 --> 00:23:23,127 Are these ninja crows? 341 00:23:23,127 --> 00:23:27,167 What are you talking about? They come in, scalpel ready... 342 00:23:27,167 --> 00:23:33,568 No, they use their beak. And just...? Birds have worked out how to do that with a single strike. 343 00:23:33,568 --> 00:23:39,369 The toads' defence mechanism did the rest. They puffed themselves up to intimidate their foe, 344 00:23:39,369 --> 00:23:45,331 forcing their intestines out of the hole that had been made and had a kind of fatal hernia. 345 00:23:45,331 --> 00:23:50,611 The other thing about toads is it sometimes does rain toads, doesn't it? That does happen. 346 00:23:50,611 --> 00:23:53,972 It rained fish once in Knighton in Wales. I do know that. 347 00:23:53,972 --> 00:23:56,813 Cos what happened, there was like a mini tornado 348 00:23:56,813 --> 00:24:00,813 and it just picked a load of fish up out of the river and blew them along 349 00:24:00,813 --> 00:24:03,294 and rained on the town, so that can happen. 350 00:24:03,294 --> 00:24:07,774 D'you know that joke about the librarian who sees this hen come into the library, 351 00:24:07,774 --> 00:24:11,295 and the hen comes up and says, "Book!" 352 00:24:12,775 --> 00:24:16,656 And the librarian gives her a book. Tucks the book under her arm. 353 00:24:16,656 --> 00:24:19,537 The next day the hen comes in and goes, "Book, book, book!" 354 00:24:19,537 --> 00:24:23,377 Librarian gives her three books. Puts them under her arm, takes them away. 355 00:24:23,377 --> 00:24:26,658 Next day, comes in, "Book, book, book, book, book!" Five books! 356 00:24:26,658 --> 00:24:31,099 Librarian thinks, "This is weird I've never known of a hen that's this fast at reading. 357 00:24:31,099 --> 00:24:33,539 "I've got to find out what's going on." 358 00:24:33,539 --> 00:24:37,740 So she grabs her macintosh and follows the hen out of the library to a house. 359 00:24:37,740 --> 00:24:39,820 She looks in through the keyhole 360 00:24:39,820 --> 00:24:45,341 and there's the hen sitting on a bed. And there's a frog in the bed with a thermometer in its mouth, 361 00:24:45,341 --> 00:24:47,902 obviously not very well. 362 00:24:47,902 --> 00:24:50,582 The hen is tending it, and offers a book, 363 00:24:50,582 --> 00:24:53,703 and each time, the frog goes, "Read it, read it, read it..." 364 00:24:53,703 --> 00:24:56,103 LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE 365 00:24:56,103 --> 00:24:58,783 Silly joke, but... 366 00:24:58,783 --> 00:25:01,584 What's this? 367 00:25:01,584 --> 00:25:04,624 That's a seagull. 368 00:25:04,624 --> 00:25:06,665 And what's this? 369 00:25:06,665 --> 00:25:10,625 That's a seagull coming back from the library. 370 00:25:10,625 --> 00:25:13,786 Wanna hear my library joke? Go on. A man walks into a library, 371 00:25:13,786 --> 00:25:17,227 "Fish and chips, please." The librarian says, "This is a library." 372 00:25:17,227 --> 00:25:19,867 (WHISPERED) "Sorry, fish and chips, please." 373 00:25:19,867 --> 00:25:23,348 Excellent! But the reason I mentioned my particular joke 374 00:25:23,348 --> 00:25:27,068 is that there's something very odd about this perception we have 375 00:25:27,068 --> 00:25:29,909 that frogs go "reddit, reddit" or "ribbit, ribbit". 376 00:25:29,909 --> 00:25:35,550 D'you know why it is that all around the world people do jokes or imagine that frogs make this noise? 377 00:25:35,550 --> 00:25:39,471 Because there's only one species of frog that actually makes that noise. 378 00:25:39,471 --> 00:25:41,391 D'you know where it is? Ah... 379 00:25:41,391 --> 00:25:43,751 JIMMY: In Hollywood, California? Yes! 380 00:25:43,751 --> 00:25:48,552 It's the Pacific tree frog. And when sound came into movies and they wanted to do soundtracks 381 00:25:48,552 --> 00:25:53,713 to everything from Sanders Of The River to Tarzan movies, anything that basically was an outside... 382 00:25:53,713 --> 00:25:58,434 they'd send their sound recordist out to record frogs and things for their archives for sound. 383 00:25:58,434 --> 00:26:02,635 All the frogs down the coast of the Pacific sound like "ribbit, ribbit, ribbit". 384 00:26:02,635 --> 00:26:06,635 They don't in Africa, Europe, Central America, Asia... 385 00:26:06,635 --> 00:26:09,156 So in all American films for about 30 or 40 years 386 00:26:09,156 --> 00:26:13,437 you would hear this "ribbit, ribbit" noise, and it became the sound of a frog. 387 00:26:13,437 --> 00:26:18,757 But it just happens to be - as you rightly said, five points, Jimmy Carr - in Hollywood, California. 388 00:26:18,757 --> 00:26:21,038 Anyway... APPLAUSE 389 00:26:23,038 --> 00:26:27,599 The most common tone of a toad is "get off" because it's the high-pitched croak of protest 390 00:26:27,599 --> 00:26:30,039 it makes when a male accidentally mounts it. 391 00:26:30,039 --> 00:26:33,640 Now, what's the worst that can happen in the middle of a fairy ring? 392 00:26:33,640 --> 00:26:35,840 Well, I'm not taking that! 393 00:26:35,840 --> 00:26:39,721 You know what, there's a time and place for this sort of thing - 394 00:26:39,721 --> 00:26:42,082 10:30, Graham Norton Show. 395 00:26:42,082 --> 00:26:46,682 Thank you for not saying "sand in the Vaseline" or something obvious like that. 396 00:26:46,682 --> 00:26:50,883 No, I'll get to that! All right. I'll talk over him. 397 00:26:52,683 --> 00:26:56,724 It'll be some sort of flora or fauna, I'll wager. 398 00:26:56,724 --> 00:26:59,965 Oddly enough, it's neither. But it is a living thing. 399 00:26:59,965 --> 00:27:04,085 It's a living thing? And if it's a living thing and it's not flora or fauna... 400 00:27:04,085 --> 00:27:07,366 Oh - leprechaun! LAUGHTER 401 00:27:07,366 --> 00:27:10,046 Fungus. Fungus! 402 00:27:10,046 --> 00:27:15,127 They're magic, aren't they, fairy rings? They're said to be magic... ..by simple people. 403 00:27:15,127 --> 00:27:19,368 Exactly. ..because fungus can grow in these circles. 404 00:27:19,368 --> 00:27:22,089 And when the mushrooms shrink back, 405 00:27:22,089 --> 00:27:24,969 you get discoloured grass in a ring as well. 406 00:27:24,969 --> 00:27:28,010 Some of them... There's one in France up to 700 years old. 407 00:27:28,010 --> 00:27:30,490 What's the thing that happens, then? 408 00:27:30,490 --> 00:27:35,331 There are myths and legends about it. For example, Jo Brand, if you were a young lady... 409 00:27:35,331 --> 00:27:38,211 Don't know why you're looking at ME! 410 00:27:38,211 --> 00:27:40,772 I was trying to be gallant! 411 00:27:40,772 --> 00:27:42,612 It doesn't suit you. 412 00:27:42,612 --> 00:27:46,653 Fair enough. All right. Imagine a young lady, Jo Brand... I'll try. 413 00:27:46,653 --> 00:27:49,493 Apparently, if she goes into a fairy ring 414 00:27:49,493 --> 00:27:54,454 on a May Day morning and washes her face with the dew from the grass inside, 415 00:27:54,454 --> 00:27:56,655 she will turn into a hag. 416 00:27:56,655 --> 00:28:00,015 So, are you saying that obviously I'VE done that?! No! 417 00:28:00,015 --> 00:28:02,416 I'm saying whatever you do, don't do that. 418 00:28:02,416 --> 00:28:04,736 Don't go into a fairy ring. 419 00:28:04,736 --> 00:28:07,056 And don't do that again. 420 00:28:07,056 --> 00:28:09,097 LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE 421 00:28:09,097 --> 00:28:13,858 That's mean! There are worse things that can happen to a fair young maiden these days 422 00:28:13,858 --> 00:28:16,858 at the swings with half a bottle of cider. 423 00:28:16,858 --> 00:28:22,899 Anyway, supposedly you might turn into a crone or get stuck in a time vortex, all kinds of superstitions. 424 00:28:22,899 --> 00:28:27,820 Actually, fairy rings aren't caused by dancing fairies, they are a fungus. 425 00:28:27,820 --> 00:28:31,101 Now, what use is a frog after a one-night stand? 426 00:28:31,101 --> 00:28:32,941 JOHN'S BUZZER 427 00:28:32,941 --> 00:28:37,222 I think I have the answer. It's about sex, isn't it? 428 00:28:37,222 --> 00:28:38,902 It kind of is. 429 00:28:38,902 --> 00:28:40,902 I knew it. 430 00:28:40,902 --> 00:28:44,063 Some sort of natural morning-after pill effect? 431 00:28:44,063 --> 00:28:45,263 No, not that. 432 00:28:45,263 --> 00:28:49,824 For 30 years, between 1930 and 1960, this was used by Western science 433 00:28:49,824 --> 00:28:53,225 in a serious way to perform a very important function. 434 00:28:53,225 --> 00:28:56,305 Do they turn a different colour if a woman's pregnant? 435 00:28:56,305 --> 00:29:01,186 It's not exactly that, but that is the use they were put to. Pregnancy tests. Not really?! 436 00:29:01,186 --> 00:29:04,867 Pregnancy tests? Yes. A woman pees on that?! 437 00:29:04,867 --> 00:29:09,907 No, a woman's urine is injected into it. How? 438 00:29:09,907 --> 00:29:11,628 With a needle? How else? Oh, OK. 439 00:29:11,628 --> 00:29:13,708 No wonder he looks so pissed off. 440 00:29:13,708 --> 00:29:16,469 That's an African bullfrog, I think, 441 00:29:16,469 --> 00:29:19,309 but actually they use the clawed toad as much. So hang on, 442 00:29:19,309 --> 00:29:24,190 that frog's just had another frog on his back trying to bum him, suddenly there's a woman's pee 443 00:29:24,190 --> 00:29:27,671 being injected into him. He's having a horrible day. LAUGHTER 444 00:29:27,671 --> 00:29:32,431 Point is it's a female clawed frog. If the woman was pregnant, the female frog, within 8-12 hours, 445 00:29:32,431 --> 00:29:33,712 would ovulate. 446 00:29:33,712 --> 00:29:36,752 It's as simple as that. I wonder if they have a little blue line 447 00:29:36,752 --> 00:29:39,073 on their back so you look at like this... 448 00:29:39,073 --> 00:29:40,113 LAUGHTER 449 00:29:40,113 --> 00:29:42,313 A plus or a minus! But it was a standard pregnancy test. 450 00:29:42,313 --> 00:29:46,954 The best way to test if a woman is pregnant is leave it nine months, see... 451 00:29:46,954 --> 00:29:48,874 if it gets a flat. 452 00:29:48,874 --> 00:29:50,235 That's a cruel test. 453 00:29:50,235 --> 00:29:52,875 If it gets a house, it's twins. 454 00:29:52,875 --> 00:29:56,316 There was a terrible outcome having these African frogs around. 455 00:29:56,316 --> 00:29:59,876 The National Health Service in Britain kept a lot of them, 456 00:29:59,876 --> 00:30:03,677 and some of them escaped. Unfortunately, they had a disease... 457 00:30:03,677 --> 00:30:06,197 They were full of piss. LAUGHTER 458 00:30:06,197 --> 00:30:08,438 ..called chytridiomycosis. 459 00:30:08,438 --> 00:30:11,278 It's threatening a third of the world's amphibians now. 460 00:30:11,278 --> 00:30:14,599 It's spread around the world. It's actually a deep tragedy, 461 00:30:14,599 --> 00:30:17,479 and these frogs have caused part of it. 462 00:30:17,479 --> 00:30:22,880 So our Western desire to know whether we're pregnant before nine months has caused 463 00:30:22,880 --> 00:30:25,281 huge damage to lots of amphibians. There we are, 464 00:30:25,281 --> 00:30:28,441 African clawed frogs ovulate if injected with the urine 465 00:30:28,441 --> 00:30:30,602 from a pregnant woman. Until the 1950s, 466 00:30:30,602 --> 00:30:32,962 this was the only available pregnancy test. 467 00:30:32,962 --> 00:30:38,683 From frogs to hogs. Why should we feel particularly sorry for the pygmy hog-sucking louse? 468 00:30:39,763 --> 00:30:42,164 JOHN'S BUZZER Yes. 469 00:30:42,164 --> 00:30:45,444 I think we've got to worry about this, because... 470 00:30:45,444 --> 00:30:47,605 the louse goes onto the hog, right? Yeah. 471 00:30:47,605 --> 00:30:52,565 But the hogs are very small and they're not very interesting. 472 00:30:52,565 --> 00:30:56,046 And they're dying out. Is that the answer? Absolutely right. 473 00:30:56,046 --> 00:30:59,847 It's an easily forgotten fact that when a species that we care about - 474 00:30:59,847 --> 00:31:02,607 as humans we tend to care about big woolly species - 475 00:31:02,607 --> 00:31:07,768 when they become endangered, we forget there are many other species that depend on them. 476 00:31:07,768 --> 00:31:11,769 Such an example is the pygmy hog of which there are only 150 left in the world. 477 00:31:11,769 --> 00:31:15,049 And there is a whole species of louse which is only able to live on... 478 00:31:15,049 --> 00:31:19,730 I can't belief it's able to sustain that louse, cos they're about the same size. 479 00:31:20,770 --> 00:31:26,251 It's... You get a couple of those on your back, no wonder they're dying out. We have lice, 480 00:31:26,251 --> 00:31:28,372 human lice. We have... Well... 481 00:31:28,372 --> 00:31:32,853 we didn't want to discuss that in front of other people. Go and see a specialist. And they're... 482 00:31:32,853 --> 00:31:37,253 quite interesting. They tell us a lot about ourselves. For example, the body louse 483 00:31:37,253 --> 00:31:40,694 only lives in human clothing. It's only 70,000 years old, 484 00:31:40,694 --> 00:31:43,294 as a sub-species of louse. 485 00:31:43,294 --> 00:31:47,335 And that sort of tells us that humans started to wear clothing 70,000 years ago. 486 00:31:47,335 --> 00:31:52,216 And we didn't mention this about our fleas. We were talking about the flea circus... 487 00:31:52,216 --> 00:31:55,296 they only used human fleas. Oh, did they? 488 00:31:55,296 --> 00:32:00,137 And the human fleas are now dying out and may be extinct. Because of... Vacuum cleaning and all that. 489 00:32:00,137 --> 00:32:02,018 Going woof-woof, yeah. 490 00:32:02,018 --> 00:32:05,938 That is odd, isn't it? Absolutely right. 491 00:32:05,938 --> 00:32:09,939 It is a bizarre thing, where we care a lot more about the little fluffy things 492 00:32:09,939 --> 00:32:12,780 than the horrible...that beastie-looking thing. 493 00:32:12,780 --> 00:32:17,060 Isn't there the thing about the panda? It is the emblem of the World Wildlife Fund. 494 00:32:17,060 --> 00:32:22,021 So a disproportionate amount goes to saving the panda, because it looks like a battered wife. 495 00:32:24,342 --> 00:32:29,022 The pygmy hog-sucking louse is the only species of louse classified as critically endangered. 496 00:32:29,022 --> 00:32:33,423 It's co-endangered with the dwindling pygmy hog population in northern India. 497 00:32:33,423 --> 00:32:38,824 Now, whilst the pygmy hog-sucking louse is in decline, it's up, up and away for ferrets. So tell me, 498 00:32:38,824 --> 00:32:41,825 how does a ferret build an airliner? 499 00:32:41,825 --> 00:32:43,265 JO'S BUZZER Yes. 500 00:32:43,265 --> 00:32:44,465 Really weasily. 501 00:32:44,465 --> 00:32:46,385 Oh! Oh, no. 502 00:32:47,386 --> 00:32:50,066 I'm sorry, we've got there before you! 503 00:32:50,066 --> 00:32:51,666 APPLAUSE 504 00:32:51,666 --> 00:32:54,387 Oh, dear! 505 00:32:54,387 --> 00:32:57,627 If it's any consolation, I was seconds behind. 506 00:32:57,627 --> 00:32:59,308 LAUGHTER 507 00:32:59,308 --> 00:33:01,828 Boeing used them. What? Sorry? Boeing used ferrets. 508 00:33:01,828 --> 00:33:02,908 To build a plane? 509 00:33:02,908 --> 00:33:07,269 To help build a plane. Not the whole plane... They don't put that in the ads, do they? 510 00:33:07,269 --> 00:33:10,510 They're not ashamed of it. They were used for the wedding of Charles 511 00:33:10,510 --> 00:33:13,430 and Diana, for the Millennium Party In The Park... 512 00:33:13,430 --> 00:33:15,471 Looking for things? Nope. 513 00:33:15,471 --> 00:33:16,791 Their fur? 514 00:33:16,791 --> 00:33:21,352 Nope. To get something down a very long tunnel, you tie it... Brilliant! 515 00:33:21,352 --> 00:33:24,912 Absolutely. That's precisely what it is. You use it for wiring - 516 00:33:24,912 --> 00:33:29,113 it happily goes through the narrowest spaces, and it comes out the other end 517 00:33:29,113 --> 00:33:31,953 and you've got the wire through. It was used by Boeing 518 00:33:31,953 --> 00:33:33,834 right up until the 1960s, and... 519 00:33:33,834 --> 00:33:36,434 It's a brilliant idea! Isn't it? Very clever. 520 00:33:36,434 --> 00:33:40,955 Anyway, they are now the third most popular pet in America, after cats and dogs. 521 00:33:40,955 --> 00:33:44,356 They welcome you when you come back from a day's work like puppies. 522 00:33:44,356 --> 00:33:46,676 They're very like puppies. Come in! 523 00:33:46,676 --> 00:33:49,036 Yeah. They're thrilled to see you, very pleased. 524 00:33:49,036 --> 00:33:51,117 Do they run up your trousers, though? 525 00:33:51,117 --> 00:33:53,197 The trouser business is interesting. 526 00:33:53,197 --> 00:33:55,838 There are people who claim this is a Yorkshire sport, 527 00:33:55,838 --> 00:33:59,118 of having ferrets in your trousers, but no-one's sure if it is. 528 00:33:59,118 --> 00:34:03,519 It's become one, but it kind of started as a hoax in a famous interview... 529 00:34:03,519 --> 00:34:06,960 Always in '70s sitcoms, someone with a ferret up the trousers. 530 00:34:06,960 --> 00:34:09,520 Ferret up your trousers, that's right! Ooh, aah! 531 00:34:09,520 --> 00:34:11,840 You'd laugh at home. LAUGHTER 532 00:34:11,840 --> 00:34:15,281 They're used now for pet therapy, cos they are very friendly animals. 533 00:34:15,281 --> 00:34:17,161 You mean they sit opposite you... 534 00:34:17,161 --> 00:34:19,162 And talk you through your problems. 535 00:34:19,162 --> 00:34:21,922 "How does that make you feel?" LAUGHTER 536 00:34:21,922 --> 00:34:25,603 Interacting with them reduces your stress hormones. Helpful for 537 00:34:25,603 --> 00:34:30,364 the elderly, depressed and children recovering from severe illnesses. 538 00:34:30,364 --> 00:34:32,964 And they're used for that. So, get a ferret. 539 00:34:32,964 --> 00:34:36,125 And so once more we plunge, ferret-like, 540 00:34:36,125 --> 00:34:39,525 into the black hole of general ignorance, fingers on buzzers. 541 00:34:39,525 --> 00:34:42,126 What's the fastest thing in the natural world? 542 00:34:42,126 --> 00:34:44,526 ALAN'S BUZZER Alan. 543 00:34:44,526 --> 00:34:45,846 Blue whale. 544 00:34:45,846 --> 00:34:48,887 Ho-ho-ho! Every time! 545 00:34:48,887 --> 00:34:51,007 APPLAUSE 546 00:34:51,007 --> 00:34:55,048 It's never gonna be a blue whale, is it? Never gonna be blue whale. 547 00:34:55,048 --> 00:34:56,448 Any other thoughts? 548 00:34:56,448 --> 00:34:58,169 Fastest thing. ALAN'S BUZZER 549 00:34:58,169 --> 00:34:59,369 Cheetah. 550 00:34:59,369 --> 00:35:01,889 Oh! Alan Davies... 551 00:35:01,889 --> 00:35:06,130 I don't know... It's got to be alive. OK. 552 00:35:06,130 --> 00:35:08,370 Something like a cheetah but it's not? No. 553 00:35:08,370 --> 00:35:10,131 It's not an animal. It's a flower. 554 00:35:10,131 --> 00:35:13,691 So you're on a road, and suddenly it overtakes you? 555 00:35:13,691 --> 00:35:15,452 No. We're talking ejaculation. 556 00:35:15,452 --> 00:35:20,372 Ah! We're talking again, sex. It's the sex obsession! What do they do? 557 00:35:20,372 --> 00:35:24,173 Sorry, the fastest thing on Earth? Is this a personal slight at me? 558 00:35:24,173 --> 00:35:25,493 LAUGHTER 559 00:35:25,493 --> 00:35:29,454 Because I'd had a very busy week. No, it's not! It's not that. 560 00:35:29,454 --> 00:35:32,455 It's a flower called the white mulberry, 561 00:35:32,455 --> 00:35:38,016 and it pushes out its pollen at half the speed of sound. 562 00:35:38,016 --> 00:35:44,017 Mach 0.5. Pow. Over 350 miles per hour. Gosh. 563 00:35:44,017 --> 00:35:48,097 It's the fastest thing in biology. Nothing moves faster. 564 00:35:48,097 --> 00:35:50,738 But what about an aircraft? Oh. In biology. 565 00:35:50,738 --> 00:35:52,378 LAUGHTER 566 00:35:52,378 --> 00:35:55,579 What about a naturally reared organic aircraft? 567 00:35:55,579 --> 00:35:57,979 LAUGHTER Made out of ferrets. 568 00:35:57,979 --> 00:36:03,260 It's the morus alba, and what do I have on me that owes itself to...? 569 00:36:03,260 --> 00:36:04,780 Your flower, surely? 570 00:36:04,780 --> 00:36:08,741 No, something owes itself to the white mulberry I'm wearing. Silk tie? 571 00:36:08,741 --> 00:36:11,902 Silk, of course. There are thousands in China in particular, 572 00:36:11,902 --> 00:36:15,782 cos the silk worm lives on the white mulberry leaves. 573 00:36:15,782 --> 00:36:19,383 But it pollinates, it pushes out its pollen at this astounding speed. 574 00:36:19,383 --> 00:36:22,943 Stored elastic energy in its stamens. 575 00:36:22,943 --> 00:36:26,224 So if you've got hay fever, you've got no chance of escape. 576 00:36:26,224 --> 00:36:28,744 Coming out quite a pace. Have your eye out! 577 00:36:28,744 --> 00:36:30,625 LAUGHTER 578 00:36:30,625 --> 00:36:33,425 No wonder it's itchy. Wow. STEPHEN GROWLS 579 00:36:33,425 --> 00:36:36,746 So there you have it. What is...? JIMMY: What was THAT noise?! 580 00:36:36,746 --> 00:36:40,787 I was just... Nice. I was just growling. R-R-R-R! R-R-R-R! 581 00:36:40,787 --> 00:36:42,307 I want it as a ringtone. 582 00:36:42,307 --> 00:36:44,467 R-R-R-R! 583 00:36:44,467 --> 00:36:48,548 There you have it. We move on, fingers on buttons. 584 00:36:48,548 --> 00:36:51,989 What do you call a slug with a shell? 585 00:36:52,989 --> 00:36:54,549 I'm not falling for that one! 586 00:36:54,549 --> 00:36:56,109 LAUGHTER 587 00:36:56,109 --> 00:36:59,390 Er, I'll take the bullet. JIMMY'S BUZZER 588 00:37:00,390 --> 00:37:01,950 Snail? 589 00:37:01,950 --> 00:37:04,791 Oh! Just for a moment, I thought you'd say, "yes, you do" 590 00:37:04,791 --> 00:37:06,751 and then carry on. No. 591 00:37:06,751 --> 00:37:09,192 So you asked what do I call? 592 00:37:09,192 --> 00:37:11,472 A-ha! No, you can't get out of it that way. 593 00:37:11,472 --> 00:37:14,993 No, a snail with a shell is a snail, a slug with a shell is a slug. 594 00:37:14,993 --> 00:37:18,193 Some slugs have shells and they are slugs, not snails. 595 00:37:18,193 --> 00:37:23,154 Vestigial snails, small snails, snails like the glass slug, and slugs we think of 596 00:37:23,154 --> 00:37:26,475 as being sort of shell-less snails, but they can have little 597 00:37:26,475 --> 00:37:31,315 things on. They eat each other's slime as an act of foreplay, then afterwards... 598 00:37:31,315 --> 00:37:33,996 So do I. LAUGHTER 599 00:37:33,996 --> 00:37:38,117 Does the female then bite off your penis? 600 00:37:38,117 --> 00:37:40,317 Huh? 601 00:37:40,317 --> 00:37:43,078 Well, it nibbles. 602 00:37:43,078 --> 00:37:45,958 We can but hope! 603 00:37:47,198 --> 00:37:50,959 They're obviously terrible garden pests, but they are, after insects... 604 00:37:50,959 --> 00:37:54,239 Used to live in our kitchen, when we were students. 605 00:37:54,239 --> 00:37:57,040 There'd just be trails across the floor in the morning. 606 00:37:57,040 --> 00:37:59,080 We didn't do anything about it. 607 00:37:59,080 --> 00:38:03,641 LAUGHTER Just had bits of cornflakes stuck... Eurgh! Carry on. Yeah! 608 00:38:03,641 --> 00:38:06,682 There are 37,000 species of gastropod. 609 00:38:06,682 --> 00:38:10,842 After insects, they're the most common class of animal on the Earth. 610 00:38:10,842 --> 00:38:12,723 37,000? Mmm. Write that down. 611 00:38:12,723 --> 00:38:15,643 Yep, if you would. I will test you next week. 612 00:38:15,643 --> 00:38:17,804 How do peacocks impress the ladies? 613 00:38:17,804 --> 00:38:19,004 Again... 614 00:38:19,004 --> 00:38:22,084 Hm? This... I'm... Yeah? 615 00:38:22,084 --> 00:38:26,165 By doing the thing, by doing the... No. So what? I don't know what you're saying. 616 00:38:26,165 --> 00:38:27,645 LAUGHTER 617 00:38:27,645 --> 00:38:34,807 Do they say to the female peacock, "How do you like your eggs in the morning?" "Protected from foxes." 618 00:38:36,687 --> 00:38:42,168 It's good that you've avoided our trap, because you're right. You'd think it was fanning. Look at that. 619 00:38:42,168 --> 00:38:45,648 That's astonishing. It's real, not made up. Phwoar. 620 00:38:45,648 --> 00:38:48,889 But some Japanese scientists at the University of Tokyo 621 00:38:48,889 --> 00:38:52,490 have discovered, much to everybody's surprise after a long study, 622 00:38:52,490 --> 00:38:58,011 that peahens seem to select peacocks according to other criteria. 623 00:38:58,011 --> 00:39:01,691 It seems to be... Sense of humour. Exactly! That's it! 624 00:39:01,691 --> 00:39:07,892 It's personality and sense of humour, not colour and the drama of fanning. 625 00:39:07,892 --> 00:39:11,013 Often I find they SAY that, but when it comes down to it... 626 00:39:11,013 --> 00:39:13,173 they go off with a much hunkier guy. 627 00:39:13,173 --> 00:39:17,974 They took seven years to do this and they observed 258 matings. 628 00:39:17,974 --> 00:39:20,895 It seems a very surprising result, but... 629 00:39:20,895 --> 00:39:25,696 they've been wasting their time growing their tails, if we're to believe these Japanese people. 630 00:39:25,696 --> 00:39:28,936 They took their tails off? How did they experiment with them? 631 00:39:28,936 --> 00:39:32,977 I don't know how the experiment was done. They judged tail quality in two ways - 632 00:39:32,977 --> 00:39:37,978 by simply measuring tail length, and by taking photos of each male during the fanning ritual, 633 00:39:37,978 --> 00:39:42,739 counting the number of eye spots. They examined whether females chose mates with the best-quality tails. 634 00:39:42,739 --> 00:39:46,459 According to those criteria, but that may not be the peahens' criteria. 635 00:39:46,459 --> 00:39:49,780 I think it's dodgy research. I sort of agree with you, 636 00:39:49,780 --> 00:39:53,700 I have to say. We have to do the whole thing all over again, 637 00:39:53,700 --> 00:39:55,541 and dress them in raincoats. 638 00:39:57,381 --> 00:40:02,902 Anyway, what happened after Captain Cook shot an albatross? JOHN: Ah... 639 00:40:02,902 --> 00:40:06,583 So this fella shot that fella? I can see why he's looking right at him. 640 00:40:06,583 --> 00:40:11,664 That's Captain Cook, supposedly. He looks rather like Roy Dotrice, the actor, for some reason. 641 00:40:11,664 --> 00:40:14,584 But it's Captain Cook. And the answer is, they ate it. 642 00:40:14,584 --> 00:40:18,345 Joseph Banks, the great botanist, after whom Botany Bay is named, 643 00:40:18,345 --> 00:40:22,666 he served with him and describes in his diary, he said everybody commended them, 644 00:40:22,666 --> 00:40:26,786 the albatross steaks and ate heartily of them though there was fresh pork upon the table. 645 00:40:26,786 --> 00:40:31,547 So this idea that it was bad luck to eat albatross seems to have come after Captain Cook. 646 00:40:31,547 --> 00:40:36,148 In fact, it probably came from the poem, The Ancient Mariner, the Coleridge poem, 647 00:40:36,148 --> 00:40:41,869 with which you're all familiar, of course. What do we know about...? ..Of course you know it! 648 00:40:41,869 --> 00:40:45,910 What do we know about albatrosses? Anything interesting about them? They get caught up in fishing lines. 649 00:40:45,910 --> 00:40:49,310 They do. Everyone gets very upset about it. Hm. 650 00:40:49,310 --> 00:40:53,271 Cos they're rather extraordinary birds. And they fly thousands of miles? 651 00:40:53,271 --> 00:40:56,671 The young wandering albatross will set off and will be in the air 652 00:40:56,671 --> 00:41:00,352 for ten years before it lands again. That one's looking at me. It is! 653 00:41:00,352 --> 00:41:07,273 It's looking at the camera, shall we say? Feels like it's looking at me. Ten years without landing... 654 00:41:07,273 --> 00:41:11,794 Why does it land after ten years? It must feel a fool. It must go, "I think I could go 11." 655 00:41:11,794 --> 00:41:16,035 Mating. Mating - the eggs can't be laid and hatched and incubated with its mate. 656 00:41:16,035 --> 00:41:20,836 You couldn't lay the eggs on the move? No, darling. Do they fly into the water to get food? They dive in 657 00:41:20,836 --> 00:41:24,156 and get fish. And airborne food they might pass by? No, it's fish. 658 00:41:24,156 --> 00:41:29,157 They dive, but they don't actually land. And they can go for six days without flapping their wings. 659 00:41:29,157 --> 00:41:30,717 They can glide for that long. 660 00:41:30,717 --> 00:41:34,238 They preserve their energy amazingly. JOHN: They're on thermals. 661 00:41:34,238 --> 00:41:38,719 Actually, they're not like... JIMMY: They hire thermals?! No. They take the wind 662 00:41:38,719 --> 00:41:42,079 off the surface of the water. Try and listen to the headmaster. 663 00:41:42,079 --> 00:41:44,760 LAUGHTER 664 00:41:44,760 --> 00:41:47,120 And finally, before we stagger back to civilisation, 665 00:41:47,120 --> 00:41:49,241 is a mushroom an animal or a plant? 666 00:41:49,241 --> 00:41:51,161 A plant. 667 00:41:53,601 --> 00:41:55,722 Or an animal. 668 00:41:55,722 --> 00:41:58,042 Or a... 669 00:41:58,042 --> 00:42:00,683 It's not either, it's a fungus. 670 00:42:00,683 --> 00:42:03,123 Which is it closer to? If that makes any sense. 671 00:42:03,123 --> 00:42:05,724 Animal or plant, you mean? Yeah. 672 00:42:05,724 --> 00:42:09,164 There, it's closer to a plant. Very good(!) Next to that grass. 673 00:42:09,164 --> 00:42:11,605 You'd think it was a plant, so I'll say animal. 674 00:42:11,605 --> 00:42:13,485 You're correct. Absolutely right. 675 00:42:13,485 --> 00:42:18,566 It recently was discovered it has more in common with animals than with plants. Now, 676 00:42:18,566 --> 00:42:24,047 it's time to have our guests gassed, stuffed and mounted in glass cases, as we come to the scores. 677 00:42:24,047 --> 00:42:26,567 Taking the laurels of victory this week... 678 00:42:26,567 --> 00:42:28,768 is the audience with plus ten! 679 00:42:28,768 --> 00:42:32,528 CHEERING 680 00:42:36,089 --> 00:42:39,409 How about that? Well done, audience. 681 00:42:39,409 --> 00:42:42,210 You see? It pays to know about opera. 682 00:42:42,210 --> 00:42:44,730 Just that Traviata, and there you are, they win. 683 00:42:44,730 --> 00:42:48,451 But in a creditable second place with minus one, Jimmy Carr! 684 00:42:48,451 --> 00:42:50,972 APPLAUSE 685 00:42:51,972 --> 00:42:56,052 In third place, with an excellent score for a beginner...minus four, 686 00:42:56,052 --> 00:42:57,573 John Sergeant! 687 00:42:57,573 --> 00:42:59,573 APPLAUSE 688 00:42:59,573 --> 00:43:00,933 Thank you. 689 00:43:00,933 --> 00:43:05,094 And in his usual fourth place, but oddly not last... 690 00:43:05,094 --> 00:43:06,654 with minus 18, Alan Davies! 691 00:43:06,654 --> 00:43:09,495 APPLAUSE 692 00:43:10,495 --> 00:43:12,135 And... 693 00:43:12,135 --> 00:43:14,656 in this F series, finally and fifthly, 694 00:43:14,656 --> 00:43:18,616 it's the filthily fabulous Jo Brand with minus 27! 695 00:43:18,616 --> 00:43:20,977 APPLAUSE 696 00:43:27,258 --> 00:43:31,139 So...that's all from this florid and faunal edition of QI. 697 00:43:31,139 --> 00:43:34,099 It's good night from Jo, John, Jimmy, Alan and from me, 698 00:43:34,099 --> 00:43:38,900 and I leave you with those floral tribute from Richard Brinsley Sheridan, a great pick-up line. 699 00:43:38,900 --> 00:43:42,581 "Won't you come into the garden? I would like my roses to see you." 700 00:43:42,581 --> 00:43:43,901 Good night.