Good evening. Good evening. Good evening. Good evening and welcome to QI.
The 640-pound gorilla of panel shows.
Joining me in the quite interesting enclosure in the zoo tonight are a magnificent silverback:
Bill Bailey!
A majestic alpha male: Sean Lock!
An exotic bird of paradise: Sandi Toksvig!
And our faithful old curly-haired retriever: Alan Davies!
But... But for tonight only, an extra treat, all the way from America, it's mister John Hodgman!
Now each of their buzzers is more beastly than the next. Bill goes:
Sean goes:
Sandi goes:
Alan goes:
And because he doesn't actually have a built-in mushroomoid, John goes:
Excellent. Now, tonight, we are on the hunt for "G-animals".
Any animals that start with a G are fair game.
What use is a goose?
Sandi Toksvig?
Is it toilet paper?
No, no, seriously, is it?
Sandi, that is bizarre. Why do you say that?
Well, because I once read this book by Rabelais.
I think it was called Gargantua.
And he recommended that the best thing for toilet paper was a live goose.
And I have yet to check into a five-star hotel without a sense of disappointment.
I have the quotation from Rabelais's Gargantua.
I'll give it to you in full because it's pretty extraordinary.
"I have answered Gargantua, 'by a long a curious experience,
found out a means to wipe my bum. The most lordly, the most excellent, and the most convenient
that was ever seen. I wiped my tail with a hen, with a cock,
with a pullet, with a calf's skin, with a hare, with a pigeon, with a cormorant,
with an attorney's bag, with a montero..." Whatever that is...
In the inside of his toilet, there's a whole loads of...
"With a falconer's lure..."
And that's why he was thrown out of the pet shop.
- "You're barred!" - "Get out!"
"Oh, I'm having a wipe, come on!"
- "I've told you before..." - "But to conclude..."
"I say and maintain that of all the torcheculs arsewisps, bumfodders, tail-napkins,
bunghole cleansers and wipe breeches, there is none in the world comparable
to the neck of a goose that is well-downed,
if you hold her head betwixt your legs."
"And, believe me, therein upon mine honour, for you will thereby feel in your nock hole,
- a most wonderful pleasure..." - Yes.
"Where in regard of the softness of said down and of the temperate heat of the goose
which is easily communicated to the bum-gut and the rest of the inwards,
in so far as to come even to the regions of the heart and brains."
Why do we need swear words when you've got "nock hole"?
- Can I clear one thing out, is it alive? - I fear it probably is.
- I believe that adds a frisson to it. - It has to be alive, doesn't it?
'Cause then you can turn it and laugh in its face.
Ha-ha!
We are the master race!
Imagine now, 'cause there's Sharmin, there's double layered toilet paper now, isn't there?
There is.
The Americans will probably use two geese next, wouldn't they? For that extra softness.
People have been saying for years: "Why are geese so angry? What's wrong with geese? Why are they so furious?"
Now we know.
If there were one animal that I would never put anywhere near my bum, it would be a goose.
There's certainly many other choices of animals,
- you don't want near your nockhole. - Scorpion.
No, that could be fun.
Get a scorpion to do it and he can get all those tricky little nibbly bits.
He's got the claws.
It's not absorbent enough. It's not absorbent enough.
What about a hedgehog? Is that absorbent?
- That would get all the bits and it's absorbent. - Yes.
You could get the bits with the top half and whip it round and get the soft part...
Brilliant. Brilliant. You may be on to something.
- Yeah! - Yeah.
Sounds absurd, but we have just heard that a man did wipe his arse with a goose.
So I think you're right, one to wipe, one to polish.
- Yeah. - Perfect.
- There are other things geese can do. - Goose fat.
- Goose fat. What do you use goose fat for? - Frying potatoes.
- Weapons? - Frying potatoes. It's the best roast potatoes possible.
- It's the best fat. - It is.
- It burns at a higher temperature. - Exactly!
So that you can roast things more adequately.
But, there is another use for goose fat that used to be common.
- Ca... Um... - David Walliams, if I was to say.
- Covering yourself in... - Oh, swimming.
Swimming the channel.
They don't any more, because when they rescue people, they slip out of their grasp.
- Let's go... - Watchdogs. Aren't they good watchdogs?
Ah! Yes. They say they're great watchdogs, as you rightly say.
- Better than a dog, apparently. - Yes
- Anything else? - Um, a guide goose for the blind.
A seeing-eye goose.
In the world of weaponry, they were very popular for...?
Aim. They've got brilliant aim.
- They have. - Very steady hands.
Who made a famous appearance at the Nottingham Goose Fair, according to myth and legend?
- Robin Hood. - Puff Daddy.
It's like herding cats, isn't it?
- I once opened the goose fair. It was Robin Hood. - Good girl. Robin Hood. Thank you.
You're teacher's favourite tonight.
- And he was a goose? - No, but what was Robin Hood famous for?
- Killing geese. - Killing geese.
Do that lovely mime again.
- Stretching a goose... - And where would the goose come in use?
- This is wiping his bum with a goose. - Yeah!
- The feathers on the arrows! - The fletching, exactly.
- The feathers. The fletching. - Oh!
- Goose feathers for arrows, so that's a good one. - Why has it got orange feet?
Because that's what they eat: Oranges. It's like flamingos with prawns.
Geese eat oranges.
- Air safety. - Air safety.
- So they can wave each other in. - Yeah! That's it.
What about gooseberries? Why are the called gooseberries?
That was the mood, the guy who named them was in that day.
- Yeah. - Right.
"It's all right, I'll just call them gooseberries."
- Yeah. - Is it...
It could have been raspberries. Or strawberries...
- That would have been taken. - They where taken.
Is it before the storks took over the whole baby delivering thing?
Ah! Now, why the gooseberry bush?
I don't know, I started and had no idea where I was going with that...
19th century slang, "gooseberry bush" meant...?
- Was it a girl's front area? - Pudende. Yes, exactly!
A girl's bush was known as "the gooseberry bush".
Therefore, babies came out of the gooseberry bush, basically, 'cause they do.
Is this pre-Brazilian times?
It surely was.
- Now... - There's more of a landing strip now, with the geese...
Oh, dear!
Now I made myself feel unwell...
So that's good. No, apparently gooseberries just tastes very good with goose. I was often served as a condiment.
There's the bar-headed goose. They can fly unbelievable distances.
- Up to ten miles. - They can...
And backwards. They can fly backwards.
- Thousands of miles, they fly. - With their eyes tightly shut.
They have a technique for increasing their range by 70%.
- What is it? - Landing on a boat.
That's what I'm asking you.
- Landing on what? - On a boat.
Uh, no. It's not...
Imagining that before man had any method of technological transport.
- Gliding on air. Hot air. - Grabbing on to other...
Lying. Birds used to lie about where they've been.
"Oh, I've been miles over there."
They'd fly over the mountain and just waiting...
No. When you see geese in the air, there's a shape, isn't there? What is it?
- A V. - A flying...
A V formation.
- It reduces wind shear, when following... - Oh! Extra points to our popular American visitor.
Exactly right. Yes. It's the vortices.
It calms the air and all the ones behind have less to fight against.
But do they take turns?
- I think they do take turns. - 'Cause the front goose's gotta take a lot of...
- Yeah. - It's gotta be the worst.
No, he's scared. He's got no one protecting him.
- Exactly. - Or she.
Or she, exactly. I could be a gander or a goose. Ehm...
Well, what's good for the other is one...
It's all equal.
- I believe you're right. - Yes. It's... Yeah.
How do you suppose they take those photographs? You think it's it a passing parachutist, that goes,
"That's a bit of luck, there's some geese going by"?
There's a goose going like that.
He's got his phone out.
"That's a good one. That's a good one."
- Did I mention chimney sweeps? - Oh, yeah. They fly up and whoosh!
Exactly! So they're used as chimney sweeps. How?
Well, actually, now don't you drop them from the top? Isn't that what you do?
- Yeah. - They used chickens for that, as well.
- Yeah. And as they flap their wings... - As they flap down, they clear the chimney.
- Yeah. - Mad badgers, as well.
- Are horses used for that? - Clean as a whistle.
- No, they don't use horses. - It's a squeeze, but they get them down there.
But the uses for gooses, or the ease of geese...
- Range from... - Is the next question the habits of rabbits?
Oh, I wish that it...
I wish that it where.
"How far can you shove a dove?"
Hats of cats. That's my offer.
Stop it!
Anyway the uses of gooses range from burglar alarms to chimney sweeps,
not to mention excellent roast potatoes as John pointed out.
Which brings us to giraffes.
Now. Tell me why giraffes have such short necks.
- Short necks? - Mmm.
- Uh... - Uh...
- What? - What?
Is it...
They're tall... They've got long necks.
As my old uncle used to say, "The other man's arse is always cleaner", because I used to dream...
Look at that giraffe there! Look where he's going! Look where he's going! Look at that! Look at that!
No!
Oh!
- He's going there... - And he's doing it again! He's going again!
Oh, my!
- Awww! - Yay!
Get off his knock hole!
I like the other giraffes going, "What are YOU looking at?!"
He's gonna... He should... You're supposed to use a goose for that!
They're on lookout.
The other one's going, "Go for it, Gary. Go for it!"
They have got a really, really, really long tongue. A giraffe.
They really have!
It's about two feet long.
A giraffe's tongue is long enough to clean out their own ears.
Did you know that? And that is why you never them in Boots buying cotton buds...
- I wondered what the reason was... - That's not where a giraffe's ears are.
No, he's just...
- It's another giraffe's bottom. - It's an anagram...
-"Ears" is an anagram. - Yeah. Thank you.
- So, that's why. - Oh!
As we watch the loop of shame, perhaps...
...you could favour me with answers to why they have such short necks?
Are you telling me that that long thing, leading up to their head is not their neck?
No. That's their neck.
The thing about that clip, is the fact that there must be something a lot weirder going on,
that THEY'RE looking at.
It's probably...
Like a wildebeest, just pleasuring himself on a rock.
And then... People going, "He's licking that one's arse, nevermind about that!"
What we can see is disgusting!
Just out of shot, there's a big branch of Dixons, and they're all just looking in the windows...
- At themselves. On a screen. - Yes.
"I heard there's a problem on the tail, maybe I should fix it just here?"
I once knew a couple who... Who got stuck in their car in Kenya.
They imported their Mini into Kenya. And they where driving along and they stopped
to look at some animals. And a giraffe... Fancied the look of this Mini.
And he tried to mount it, from behind. This is true! He tried to mount it from behind.
Yes! And he got stuck over the... And they couldn't open the doors.
This is... I don't know how they got out in... I mean, I think he'd finished his pleasure...
Did they have a rear wiper? That might have helped.
It might have brought things to a conclusion.
"Oh! That's doing it! Oh yeah! I like that!"
And is that what they put on the insurance claim, is it?
Now, when I say that they have short necks, why would I say they have short necks?
- Because you're wrong. - Because it's annoying. I don't know.
It's in relation to their legs, their necks are short.
In order to drink water, most animals, like deer,
they don't have to splay out in that very vulnerable and unbalanced
and quite tricky position in order to have a sip of water,
but if their necks were longer, they would just dip down and drink the water instead.
Because their legs are so long, is the point.
I have had a stance like that, myself, in the odd public house, I have to say.
It looks familiar.
- Is that when you spill your pint on the floor? - Yeah, and the thing, I'm not wasting that.
So, I mean, it's important for it to have long legs, why is it important to have long legs?
Well, that might bring us to the next question: Why do giraffes have such long necks?
I presume so they can eat things in the trees.
- Yeah! On the tops of trees. - So they can see?
Oh...
Is that not true then, Stephen?
Well, actually, they don't eat from the tops of trees. They bend their necks to eat.
But the giraffologist community is rather split along two lines.
The real reason is, many, many people believe, is... See if you can guess.
What... I mean, so many things...
Seeing a long distance. Seeing over things?
That is very useful to see each other, to see other things.
- See who's on the top deck of the bus. - Yeah. They're in large groups.
People used to think they were solitary, but they realised they're in groups,
but the groups were just simply, very spread out because they can see each other.
But a lot of animals have things and objects,
and the most notable thing about them is there for what reason?
Why does a rhino have a horn? Why do deer have antlers?
So people will put them in zoos.
Which is all they want in their life.
If they didn't have long necks, people wouldn't go and see them, would they?
- Do they fight with their necks? - They fight. They fight other males.
- Ooh, ow! - That's what they do.
And it's unbelievable. They can kill each other with one swipe of their neck.
- Isn't that a shock? - Come on!
- They're vicious! - Yeah!
They're such graceful animals, gentle animals, you'd think, and then, look at that.
That's quite a stupid sport, though, really.
Do you think... Earlier on, he was licking his...
They went from "goosing" to "necking".
They haven't got the fundamental ducking principle. That's really what they've...
Just duck. Duck, now. Duck!
Now, they're like that!
This is like that footage show on ITV of town centres on a Friday night, isn't it?
People fighting at bus stops.
Don't you want that in the Olympics?
Do think they should clear Horse Guards and have this kind of fighting?
I think it would be marvellous.
- It would be good. - Yeah! Much better. Much more interesting.
They are incredible. Can you imagine being a baby giraffe, and just on your way out and you think,
"Oh, hello! That's a long way down." That must be...
- Six foot, they... - Six foot, what? They...?
They are born the size of six foot and they're dropped head first out of their mother's... Passage.
That would affect you for life, I would have thought.
That's why their necks are so long. To stop the fall.
Maybe you've got it, finally, once and for all.
They plant those horns in the ground and stand on their heads until they can walk.
Wait a minute...
- Evolution is amazing. - It is, isn't it?
So, there you are. There are these beautiful animals.
And they are graceful and sweet and long-eyelashed and sexy and rather desirable in many ways. Um, but...
- They use their necks, it seems, as weapons of war... - It's a good job you're tall.
Yes, and giants use them in the latrines.
What do giraffes eat? What is their main staple?
- Children. - Or, staple, in fact.
- Not children. - Leaves, plants.
- Yes. Particular plants. - It's not tree tops?
No.
- Acacia. - Acacia. Exactly, yeah.
Which is a thorny plant, which has developed a rather brilliant
strategy for trying to put the giraffes off eating them.
It gives out a very bitter taste.
But more impressively, it warns its neighbours when giraffes are coming.
What, by going, "Psst, giraffe."
Basically, yeah. It sends out chemical signals and that provokes the bitter...
And what do they do? Run away?
- Sadly, that's one thing they can't do. - "There's a giraffe coming." "Brilliant, thanks."
"Thanks."
"Now, I'll be all fearful before I die."
"I'm just telling you."
Yeah, it's "the wind-borne warning burst". Which is the name of this particular...
My favourite type of burst.
A warning burst.
Have you ever done a wind-borne warning...?
- Oh, never mind. - Oh, yes.
But enough of giraffes, I feel.
What's the commonest cause of death amongst mountain...
Wow!
Brian Blessed.
Very good!
It's... It's not...
When you put that... When you put that beard on, that noise turns into words.
It does!
Absolutely.
- That's a fabulous... - It's a translator.
Mountain goats. What is the most common...
- Falling off! - Is it snowboarding accidents?
Almost is, actually.
I would think that with those horns, you'd have a devil's own job getting a helmet on.
- Is it assassination? - Not assa...
- Some of them are assassinated. - Yeah!
- You said it. - Falling off?
- Falling off mountains. - Accidents?
Would you believe it? They fall of mountains.
- Clumsy? - They're not clumsy.
They are unbelievably nimble and secure and sure-footed, but...
- They show off. - No. It's worse than that.
They're big drinkers.
Three to four times every hour, they...
They flip over like those toys that you wind up.
They try... They try and fly!
They use their horns to...
Scratch their arses.
- Fight. Fighting. - Fight.
- Fighting. - They fight.
- Fighting. - They flip them over.
- There they are. Look. - Look at that.
- And that's what... - Knock each other off the mountain.
They know each other off each other's perches, there you are.
Now, if you could tell me what's quite interesting about the American mountain goat.
Two things are quite interesting about the American mountain goat.
- Found in... - Of course, I'm an expert on it.
Naturally, because you're American. Or you...
- Exactly. Found in America. - It's found in America.
- Largely around the mountains. - Indeed.
- Cascades and the Rockies. - And it never falls off.
Because that they're glued to the top.
Would you recognise an American mountain goat? What's its colour?
- Surely, it's... - Red, white, and blue.
Take two of those away, and you've got it.
- It's blue. - Um...
- Oh, poor little blue... - It's like being on National Geographic.
- White! - It's white.
- Red! - It's the purest white.
- It's the purest... - It's the purest white of these things.
It's the only pure white ruminant, in fact.
- But... - I was wondering.
Yeah. It's not... A goat.
Oh? Heavens!
Who put them up there?
- So that is an example... - "Help! Help!"
It's the fastest-growing tree in the world. They all stand there and it goes...
Oh, dear.
And they're going, "Well, I think we've cleaned this tree off. Let's go, shall we?"
"Very little left here."
I used to be a goat herdsman. So I could get them down for you. If you want.
- Wouldn't that just be a goatherd? - Sorry?
Wouldn't that just be a goatherd? Rather than a goatherdsMAN?
- Yeah, sorry. - That's all right.
When I was a goatherdsman...
I was a goatherd manner, manny thing, I could have got them down for you, no problem.
Could you... What goat-herding technique would you've used?
- Really? - That one moved!
You do that!
Why do we say, "He's a bit of an old goat?" Why do we say that? Are they randy?
I think they are quite randy, goats.
I could sense after a few weeks, they found me more and more attractive.
- Do you know why? - Is it because they know we've got money?
Money and cars. They're actually quite shallow.
They see the cars and the sexy clothes and the music and the gold.
- They're like WAGs. Wives and goats. - Yeah! "Hey! Maybe I'd get a..."
What it is, is our sweat. Under our arms.
We have a sort of goaty smell and female goats go mad for it.
So if you wish to attract a female goat, a nanny, yup.
That's it. Just waft a bit of your underarm at her.
Cheese.
I used to be in a forest with 26 goats and I never got one approach.
Not a nibble. Nothing.
- Now I feel quite hurt. - Yeah.
- Because you were using the Lynx. - Yeah.
They're very clever, the goats. About half of them could use a calculator.
- In Kenya... - They weren't just like, bashing around on it.
They knew what they were up to. They where doing sums.
In Kenya, there's a sort of male chastity belt.
A little object that they put on, called an "olor", which they put on male goats
to stop them from being able to mate.
I think we have a picture. There you are.
It's this kind of thing.
And... So they mate in the right season for the Kenyan farmers. And the kids are born at the right time.
He's not looking to happy about it, is he?
No, well, would you if you had to, exactly, wear one of those?
- I bet it chafes. - Yeah.
I bet it chafes something horrible.
I'm sorry to say that recently, in 2007, Nepalese Airlines...
Slaughtered two goats because there was a technical fault...
And so, they slaughtered the goats to a Hindu god. In order to...
Where they in the pilot seats?
They should've got me there. I would've gone...
I don't believe that is a goat.
- That is not a goat call. - It is. It's a goat call.
- It is not! - How do you know it's not?
See? Just how cool am I about it?
'Cause I know it is.
What is he... What are you saying? Are you saying words?
Yeah! It's a call. It's a fre...
- I was a goatheardsman in France. - Is it French?
- I was a French goatheardman... - What does it mean?
- What does it say? - "Piquet" is... French for goat.
- "Baguette"? - You have to go back...
- "Baguette"? - No!
You've had...
- ...a goat under your arm every morning? - Yeah!
- It is just a very well bread goat. - It was, it was!
"He wants to put it in a sandwich..."
- "Stay away from me!" - "This way!"
Seriously, it's the most stressful job I've ever had in my life!
- Being a goathearder? - I would... I would...
It would make a futures dealer in London stock exchange, you know, seem laid back.
You just... 26 goats, and they just go wherever they...
If you're used to see it, like I was... They go wherever they want.
That's because you where making that ridiculous sound.
I'd just throw a rock at them, or something. Something they'd respect.
- Where you REALLY a goathearder? - I was, yeah!
How did you get the job? You clearly know nothing about them. Shouting "bread".
Well, it was during the eighties. Thatcher was in power, there wasn't a lot of work.
- I put "goatheardsman" on a job application form... - For a laugh!
No, it was in France. I just got a job in France, on a farm.
- How long did you do that for? - About three months.
Where these goats... For dairy goats, or where they for meat?
- For cheese, yeah. - Cheese. Dairy.
They used to take them to different parts of the forest, and the farmer would say,
"Find these leaves, 'cause it'll make the cheese taste..."
- Right! - More savoury. Yeah.
And I'd say, "Yeah! Of course, I will!"
Basically, it was Boursin, Boursin the whole way.
Oh! "Du vigne, du pain, du Boursin". That used to be their advert.
Now. What did seagulls contribute to the war effort?
- Seagulls?! - Seagulls.
You know, you give a television technician Photoshop...
Did they steal food out of the hands of the enemy soldiers so they'd starve to death?
Is it like parrots in the Eiffel Tower?
They kept parrots in the Eiffel Tower in World War II to warn when aircraft were coming and they'd go,
"Aircraft coming."
That's true. They did.
Surely they'd say, "Des avions viennent," or something?
- Yes, obviously. I was translating for the audience. - Fair enough.
No, it's not that, but again, we have to be in the right war.
- Which war? - First World War?
- The First World War, '14 to '18. - A message service?
No. There was a new threat that had never been seen in warfare before.
- Aeroplanes. - That was one.
- In another medium. - Submarines.
- Submarines, yes and... - What good is a seagull with a submarine?
Well, let's try and put it all together, shall we?
Now, one of the problems with a submarine, is that you can't see it.
There was no sonar in the First World War so how do you know where they are?
- When they surface. - Well, if they surface, you can see them,
but before they surface, another thing that a submarine does is pop up...
- A periscope. - Pop up a periscope.
So if you could train a seagull to flock towards periscopes,
by putting food all over the periscopes on your own submarines,
so that whenever it saw a periscope, it would associate the submarine with food and flock to it,
then, whenever there was a submarine, with its periscope up, the seagulls would flock towards it.
And you'd be on the ship and go, "There must be a submarine over there." Because the seagulls...
Did they train every seagull in the world to do this?
- This is the problem. It didn't work. - Did they keep flocks of seagulls, so to speak, on ships?
Surely, the flaw in the plan is putting food all over your own periscope so you can't see where you're going.
- They'd only do that in the training area. - Oh, I see, sorry.
But they thought, "While they were there", they thought, "Let's get it... " Not just train them
to recognise the enemy's periscope, but to poo all over it so that it would blank out the lens.
That's a terrible plan. It'll never work.
Sounds like something out of Blackadder. "That will do it. That will work."
It was a grand plan. Did not work, I'm afraid.
- Partly because the gulls couldn't distinguish between enemy... - They were idiots.
They are stupid creatures.
Well, they couldn't distinguish between enemy submarines and home submarines, so...
More importantly, when I said seagull, I was making an ornithological mistake.
Um, albatross.
- No, they're not seagulls. - Terns.
- Gulls. - They're just gulls.
They're not seabirds, gulls. They're land birds.
They don't go far out to sea at all. They live on the edge of the land, admittedly, on cliffs and things.
Don't they have webbed feet?
- So they don't go that far out. - So if you're looking for a submarine...
Is this upsetting your world view?
- If you're looking for a submarine... - Seagulls!
If you're looking for a submarine in the middle of the Atlantic, the birds say, "I'm not going that far."
Yes. Basically. That's the problem. They don't go that far out.
When the weather's bad on the coast, they all come into London,
that's how you know the weather's bad on the coast, and not to go to the seaside.
- Yes. - That's the only thing I know about gulls.
That's true. Why did gulls suddenly appear in 1956?
- Why did the population explode? - The Hungarian uprising.
- No. - Suez Crisis.
No. Something happened in 1956, that caused gulls to absolutely... Wow!
- Go nuts. - Ferries...
- Go nuts... - Trains?
- People put food all over their periscopes. - No, there was a disastrous event,
- that took place here in London. - Smog.
- Smog.
Smog. It was the worst smog ever. I mean, so bad, literally thousands
and thousands of people died. And this caused an act of Parliament called...?
- The clean air act. - The clean air act, of 1956.
Which made it illegal, amongst other things, to burn rubbish.
So, what could you do with rubbish?
- Just leave it out for the birds? - Landfills.
As you know, landfills track gulls like nothing else!
And this is why the gull population absolutely exploded in Britain,
because of The clean air act.
- It's a strange thought, isn't it? - They eat old rubbish?
Yeah.
I was one carrying a pizza, in a pub by the seaside,
a whole pizza out to the table, and gull came and took the whole thing.
I was lucky not to be taken as well!
They're big! They're quite big, aren't they?
- They are big animals. - Did you come to the table with just,
a tiny little shred of pizza, like that?
Just thumb-shaped?
There's a gull... A gull flying 'round like this...
Right. So, yes, during the First World War, seagulls were trained to search out German submarines
and crap on their periscopes. Pretty clear message, but what is this camel behind me trying to tell you, here?
What's going on?
- Oh, dear! - Uh...
A very disgusted audience. They don't like what they see.
Is he saying Jeremy Kyle's on in a minute?
D'you know... What are we looking at there?
I presume it's a tongue. Is it? Or is it a sausage?
It's not his tongue, amazingly.
- Is it his stomach? - No, it's his palate.
He can blow part of his soft palate out. It's called the palatinus diverticulus.
It's known as a "gula" and it's used, as again, we'd been discussing, used in mating. It's used to attract females.
- "Oh, you really sexy beast, you." - Yeah!
- It's a heck of a thought, isn't it? - It's not working for me.
It appears to be sticking out its tongue.
- The camels with the most testosterone have the biggest gula. - That's what they tell you.
It's like that nonsense about bald men being full of testosterone, isn't it.
Yeah. I know. Bless!
Um... But, you know, the size...
What? Oh...
Way-hey!
He's not insulted cos he doesn't know.
Bill doesn't know he's bald.
He's convinced he's got a big, thick, luscious head of hair.
Well, down my back there is.
I've got that.
Anyway, they blow out their gula and they make a blib-blib noise, apparently.
That's the best they've come up with after all these years.
In Saudi Arabia, and other countries, they often cut the gula out. Why would they do that? Do you know why?
- To stop it... They cut it out... - So they breathe better for camel racing.
Oh, camel racing.
Actually, in Saudi Arabia, they import camels from...?
- Kent. - Yeah.
You set them up so well, Stephen.
- That's very kind of you. - No. Not from Kent.
- From... - Hertfordshire.
- Let's disabuse ourselves... - Australia.
Australia is the right answer, yes.
Thank you. But why would they import them? What do they need them for?
Um...
They're very good at cricket, the Australian ones.
Australian camels are, actually, much fitter than the...
AUSTRALIAN ACCENT: "We like sports. The big outdoors."
No. They don't use them to race. They don't use them for transport.
- They use the camels they import for... - Food?
- Breeding? - Food. Meat. Camel meat, yes.
They tell them they're going to have a lovely camel race.
AUSTRALIAN ACCENT: "You'll love it over there, mate. Away you go. Good luck."
"Give us a call when you've won your first race."
They also import from Australia, the Saudi Arabians... Something else.
Barmen.
That would be stupid, wouldn't it? Barmen in Saudi Arabia.
- Sand. - Sand?
- Really?
- Yeah. - They love irony, don't they?
Yeah!
They always see the other side of a joke.
It's because the sand in Saudi Arabia is the wrong kind of sand for...
- Golf. - Camels?
- Throwing in people's eyes. - Building.
Yes, male camels impress the ladies by blowing a balloon called a gula out of their mouths.
Speaking of blowing bubbles, why don't goldfish swim into the side of their bowls?
- They're not stupid, are they? - Because they're not stupid?!
Yeah.
They don't use their eyes to know it's glass, so what do they use to know that there's something there?
- The pressure of the water or... - The pressure of the water is the right answer.
They have pressure sensors, which are similar to the ones we use in our ears
and they activate little gelatinous caps that themselves activate hairs in the same way
as our cochlear fluid activates hairs to tell us there's pressure in our ears.
Goldfish don't have hairs. You don't see goldfish with different styles.
- Emo fish. - Little, tiny hairs inside.
- Yeah. - Love what you've done with your goldfish.
Well, it seems they do. Sharks have the same thing. They have neuromasts as well.
They're called the ampoules of Lorenzini.
And they detect not pressure, but...
Fear.
Well, no, oddly enough. Electricity.
Because a lot of fish give off electricity as a sort of weapon.
- So, they know when you've left a light on. - Yeah.
- He's really beautiful, look at him. - He's a biggie. He's a biggie.
- There's a nurse. Is that a nurse? - Is that a nurse?!
- Well, I was referring to the brand of shark. - Obviously.
- What hospital where you born in? - I suddenly had an image of you in a home.
"Nurse! Aah!"
Oh, Lordy, bless. Anyway,
fish don't use their eyes to navigate, they use a system of pressure detectors
along the sides of their body.
How did the gerbils let us down in the war on terror?
- They're notoriously insubordinate. - It's true. That's true.
- Can't take orders. - They mouth off. Talk back all the time.
- They're thick, all. - Ironically, they're easily terrified.
Which made them the worst possible candidates...
...to wage their war on terror.
The first sight of terror, they...
- Well, it's odd... - A hat falls of...
- Let me say... - Just need to do that, don't you?
- Yeah. - Shits themselves.
They're well acquainted with terror, put it that way.
Well, they don't live very long, so by the time you train them for something, presumably, they drop dead.
That wasn't the reason they where a failure, or that they didn't work out.
It's that they can smell terror.
And how would you be able to smell that?
- What are they smelling? - Pheromones.
Not exactly pheromones. But almost.
- I'm sticking with pheromones. - Yeah.
- What is the plan? You'd have a booth at the airport? - Underpants!
- Yes! - No?!
To have a booth at the airport? People would walk through, the gerbils would go...
No, not a booth. But a fan behind the people, so that the air is blown towards...
The gerbil, in a cage...
And if they've got adrenaline, which is...
Stephen, now that we talk about the mad seagull idea from the First World War, where you think,
"A bit balmy in those days, when they didn't have technology..."
Now, we're all computed up to the eyeballs...
- These are... - A big fan blowing your wift towards a gerbil.
What's the gerbil gonna do? "He's one..."
- A gerbil's little sign. - Of course, you'd have adrenaline going,
if they're made to go in a cage, and there's a great big wheel, to go round...
The gerbil looking at you, "I'm terrified!"
They don't see the gerbil. The person just don't see the gerbil.
- Two-way mirror. - But, yeah, it doesn't...
They don't, they just... The gerbil just... The air...
- A tiny, little mirror with each gerbil. - Anyway, the gerbil is trained...
To press a button when it smells the adrenaline...
- Yeah. - Like that.
- Nonchalantly unharmed. - Nonchalantly, exactly.
What else can you tell me about gerbils, to cheer us up?
The most popular gerbil, is the Mongolian.
Yes! It's the right answer! That's the gerbil that we use as a pet.
And it's small, and what other advantages does it have as a pet?
- Uh... - Doesn't live very long.
That's a strange kind of advantage!
No, your kids say, "I want a pet",
you'd say, "Well, get a gerbil, it won't last very long."
- "You'll learn about life and death." - Yeah, quite marvellously.
But also, because they're desert animals, their poo is dry an non-smelly...
- Oh! - So, unlike mice and rats and these other pooey...
'Cause you know how bad mice... Yeah.
You could freeze them, and then hit them over a wall with a cricket bat.
You CAN do that.
- You wish you had a bat now, don't you? - That's why he was banned from the pet shop.
Yeah!
Dreadful man.
- Yep. - Yet another potential Olympic sport, I think.
"Pull!"
And so the light fades and our guests head bravely for the waterhole
in the full knowledge that any moment, they are likely to be dragged underwater
and devoured by the savage Gila monster of General Ignorance, so fingers on buzzers.
Why are there no insects in the sea?
Yes, Bill.
Because the... It's too far...
Yes. Yes. That's right.
- Because it's too far. - It's too far.
- Hello! - It's simply, too far.
- Because... - Too far out!
Uh... Water makes them explode.
But there are insects in rivers.
Saltwater, is it?
It's not the saltwater because there are saltwater spiders.
Plenty of those. Plenty of sea spiders.
- The currents are too strong. - No...
- Spiders are not insects. Ha-ha! - Exactly! That's what I'm saying.
There aren't any insects, but there are spiders.
No, it seems to be because there are no trees and there are no flowering plants.
Nothing that they have evolved to deal with exists in the sea.
Whereas spiders could live in the sea because they just hunt, and they can...
- It's a shame, isn't it? Really. - It is.
- Yeah. - There you go.
Now, who stopped flying the Jolly Roger in 2003?
There's the Jolly Roger, yes? The skull and crossbones, yes?
- Ehm... The Queen. - The Queen?
Not the Queen. No. No.
Clarkson.
- Not Clarkson. - It is the British navy?
The British navy. One particular individual in the British navy, on particular part...
- Pirates! - Oh, when they have the plague, or something?
- The submariners. - Oh!
Submariners, right up until 2003, flew the Jolly Roger, the skull and crossbones,
when they came back from successful missions.
Submarines where regarded as dishonourable, and, indeed, piratical. Unworthy of us.
They where cheating, and Admiral Sir Arthur Wilson, in 1901, found few opponents,
when he characterised them as, "Underhand, unfair and damned un-English."
- They've gathered a submarine in. - Yeah! Submarines.
The opinion shifted, obviously by the war, the 1914 war. And...
- "Un-English." What are you on about? - And so, they...
They deliberately flew piratical flags, because they where sort of proud
of the fact that they where piratical.
- It was their roguish nature. - Why did... Why did they stop, then?
They stopped for reasons, apparently, well, sort of not exactly political correctness, but...
You know. Is it... Is it making fun, and vainglorious... Is it glorying in war?
Which we're not allowed to do. Obviously. Apparently for good reason,
war is nasty, and hell, and so on, but it seems a bit...
Because of all the seagull guano showed up on the black cloth.
Yeah. That's true. Maybe it was that. They just couldn't keep them clean.
And the other reason being, I suppose, they want to keep the intelligence gathering
special forces element of submarining, was rather by them flying a flag around all the time.
They became very secret.
Who goose-stepped their way across Europe in the 1940s?
- Was it a goose? - No.
- Worth a try. - It was.
- Who goose-stepped their way across Europe in the 1940s? - Well, I mean...
- Erm... - Well?
- The Dutch! - Erm...
- You know.... - What's the name?
- Him? - Oh, erm, reluctant to say...
What? What are you reluctant to say, Alan?
- Any reference to the, uh... - To...?
- Hitler! Hitler! Hitler! - Oh, Hitler? No.
- The Nazis didn't goose-step in the 1940s. - The Russians.
The Russians is the right answer. But why?
- Because they had incredibly stiff starch. - No, but why was the Nazis wrong?
Why was the Nazis the wrong answer? Surely they did goose-step?
They didn't do the goose-step.
They did do the goose-step, but not in the 1940s. They stopped it in the 1930s.
They only goose-stepped in the early years in the Nuremberg rallies, and so forth.
- New year's resolution. - Did it fall out of fashion?
It fell out of fashion and no new recruits were asked to do it.
- They called it their "stechschritt". - Very high impact.
- That's actually Chinese or Korean, I think. - That's Korean, yeah.
North Korean. And that's the point.
It's very hard to do and it shows just how butch, and clever and disciplined you are.
You have to have tremendously flexible hamstrings to do that, I think.
- You'd all have to be the same height, as well. - Yes. And Korean, apparently.
Well, Korean or Russian, or Chinese, or Cuban, or Vietnamese, or Chilean, or Iranian. There you are.
The Nazis dropped the goose-step in 1940.
The only people goose-stepping in Europe, for the rest of the war where the Soviets.
So I know all you care about now are the scores,
and I have them in front of me and my word, they are fascinating to behold.
- In equal last place on minus seven, Sean and Bill. - Thank you.
In third place, on minus four, it's Alan Davies. How respectable is that?
In second place, with minus three, it's Sandi Toksvig.
Oh, my God.
Which means that our glorious winner is John Hodgman.
Well, that's it from Sandi, John, Sean, Bill and Alan and me.
I leave you with a simple truth gleaned from the blogosphere.
"Friendship is like wetting your pants. Everyone can see it, but only you can feel its warmth."
Thank you, and goodnight.