APPLAUSE AND CHEERING
Goo-oo-oo-oo-ood evening, good evening, good evening, good evening,
good evening, good evening, good evening, good evening,
good evening, good evening, good evening, and welcome to QI,
where tonight we're cantering through the whole kit and caboodle.
It's a catch-all that can cover anything and anyone,
including the wild expanse of Ross Noble.
CHEERING
The far reaches of Noel Fielding.
CHEERING
The sweeping vistas of Colin Lane.
CHEERING
And the frozen wastes of Alan Davies.
CHEERING
So, catch my attention if you can. Ross goes:
SCHOOL BELL RINGS
Noel goes:
TRAIN HORN
Colin goes:
WIBBLE WOBBLE
LAUGHING
And Alan goes:
MAN'S VOICE: Stephen, Stephen! I want some points!
LAUGHTER
Now, in case anybody's wondering, because he hasn't done that
much television in Britain, we found Colin in Australia.
- Colin, in 1994, you won the Perrier Award, didn't you? - Yes.
- For comedy at the Edinburgh Fringe. - Yes.
Which is an incredibly distinguished award to win, as...
- HE COUGHS - ..I know.
And, no, ignore that.
- But you haven't won the Perrier Award, Stephen? - Yes, I did win it, yes.
- Oh, you did? - I was the... My group was the first to win it, ever.
- Yeah. - The first? - As it happens, yeah.
But I wonder who you beat in 1994? Who came second or third?
There were a few other nominees.
- Yeah, who were the other nominees? - Er... Um..
I think the main competition came from a little fellow....
ALAN YAWNS
- ..his name was Alan Davies. - Alan Davies.
- Oh, no, whatever. - Yes. - Oh.
Alan Davies, yes. Yes.
Then I went to Melbourne and I stayed at Colin's house
and he'd put the Perrier Award on the bedside table!
He said he had to look for it, he had to look in the loft for it.
And the Perrier Award, Alan, was a...
In case you want to know what it looks like.
Was like a piece of wood with like a silver Perrier bottle on top,
with a little cap on it,
that kind of just fell off a couple of days after we got it.
And the award for Best Newcomer, was a lovely...
- Really, you? - Did you?
- That was you? - Did you win it? Yeah! - That was you!
It's a better trophy, isn't it? It's like a sort of big cube.
It's a much better, it's like an oblong Perspex.
Yeah, like a Star Trek thing.
With the shape of a Perrier bottle made out of bubbles inside it,
it's really, it's really, really nice.
I gave it to my mum, yeah.
Anyway, that's enough inspecting our own bottoms, it's embarrassing.
So, suggest, if you may,
some uses of kitty litter that don't involve a kitty.
Aaah. There's a kitty. I've got some kitty litter here.
Anyone could use it for absorbing their urine, couldn't they?
Well, you could use it in the same way that a kitty would use it,
yeah, because it does soak up liquid.
Can you - when you drop your phone in the loo - you're supposed to put it in a tub
- of rice to get the moisture out. - Indeed. - Can you do that with cat litter?
There's an episode of Elementary which is based on that very fact.
There's an episode of Jonathan Creek where I wee'd in some cat litter.
I say "I"- the character Jonathan.
Let's work backwards as to how that could possibly be a plot line
that you pee'd in cat litter.
I just got trapped in the cellar for ages and I needed a wee.
Oh, I see, well, that's fair enough.
When you're at school, when people throw up, don't they put cat,
- I don't know... - Sawdust. - That's a good thing to do. - Ah. - That, exactly, anything like that.
We used to have a sort of weird brown sand.
Yeah, and they say, "There's nothing to see here,"
but there is, isn't there?
Yes, there really is.
- It's a really good spectacle. - There's a lot to see there.
There's a lot to see.
Also they would draw a chalk line round it, like it had died.
Yes. The scene of a body.
The skill was to make it in the shape of a dead body.
Make it look like a mammal.
Oh, look, a racoon has died in the playground.
It's always a bit of fun to put it in a sugar bowl,
so that when somebody adds it to their tea, just, phoom, tea's gone.
Probably the most profitable use, bizarrely,
was by the American tobacco industry.
Can you imagine why that might be?
There's a tax on tobacco, obviously, there was
a tax on small cigars and American tobacco companies...
Filters, in filters?
They bulked-up their small cigars to become big cigars...
..using, amongst
other things, the ingredients of cat litter, which is disgusting.
That's a big cigar.
No, I think that's someone's leg! She's just eaten someone.
That is enormous.
I think they've bulked that one up too much.
That's a normal-sized cigar, I think, but she's just a very small woman.
They apparently reduced their tax take on tobacco by over
a billion this way, by bumping small cigars into the big-cigar category.
But unfortunately a lot of cats leapt up and wee'd on their faces.
"I'm going to celebrate the deal. Aaaah."
Why did they choose kitty litter as the filling?
Oh, it was because it's a kind of neutral stuff that burns,
that doesn't really taste of anything unpleasant,
- and is cheap and isn't tobacco. - It burns?
- So it doesn't have a tax on it. - What about just some soil, maybe?
That would be cheaper than kitty litter.
The trouble with soil is, it wouldn't burn
- and it would taste unpleasant. - What about air?
- Just a foot pump. - Yeah.
Or better still, some helium, so that you can just have your cigar
and you don't have to hold it, you just take your hand away and it just
floats there like that, and then you can just go back to it and go...
And then you go...
HIGH VOICE: "This is a lovely cigar.
"It's enormous!"
So it's highly flammable, so basically, if a kitten...
It's not highly flammable. You can just burn it, like tobacco.
It doesn't go, whoomf!
It's probably apocryphal, but there was a story about Churchill,
or if you are an American, about Clarence Darrow,
the famous lawyer, if you remember the Scopes Monkey Trial,
he was the great lawyer who defended the teacher who was teaching evolution.
I can see why Winston Churchill was so angry.
He's the Prime Minister and he's got a cigar with a dent in it.
That's from where a small kitten landed on him.
And then leapt off.
They had they had a trick, supposedly, which withdrew
people's attention from what they were saying and made them agree with them.
And that was, they would stick a needle or long pin
into their cigar lengthways which has the effect of keeping
the ash from falling, and so at meetings, people would just stare at
the cigars and they would say things like,
"We shall not give independence to India," and they go, "Yes, fine, absolutely, I agree with you."
Because they just couldn't take in what was being said.
It was a brilliant strategy.
It was like just now when you said monkey trial.
I couldn't hear anything else you were saying.
Just imagining a trial with monkeys.
- A monkey challenge. - It's like gorilla warfare. Gorillas!
- None of the information going in. - Or a kangaroo court. - Exactly!
It's very confusing, but there are other uses for kitty litter.
A small jar of clean litter in the fridge
will get rid of unwanted smells.
- Will it? With the lid off. - Yes.
You seal it in a vacuum!
People would put it in with the lid on! You know that? Not me!
I know the lid off,
but other people, they would put it in and say, "The fridge still stinks, right!"
- You've got to help people! - Kitty litter doesn't come with a lid.
It doesn't come in a jar, either, does it?! You brought the jar up!
No, you put it in a jar.
- Yes, but not with the lid on! - All right, pointlessly I will concede you that.
- Does it have to be a jar? - It doesn't! It could be a cup! A teacup.
- A saucer. A simple saucer. - Some sort of vessel or receptacle.
You've got to be very careful not to use the vegetable tray,
because if you fill that full of kitty litter, very confusing.
Yes. You can put a cup full of litter in a pair of tights,
bear with me,
tie off the top and leave it in your shoes overnight for freshness.
There's a hint, yes, audience going "ooh!"
Someone's going to try that in the audience.
- Someone's got a teenage son with smelly... - GEORDIE ACCENT: - ..trainers.
- "Trainers?" - Is that what went wrong... "Trainers."
- Ross? "What are you doing to me? I said "trainers". - Trainers.
- GEORDIE ACCENT: - I've got to put some tights in me shoes with kitty litter in them.
Oh, yeah, he's laughing now, any minute now I'll go...
So when you see the male ballet dancers in their tights,
is that what the, is that what's down the front there?
Absolutely. Yeah.
When they're lifting, they'll go, "Hmm, fresh. Fresh."
"Go on love, smell that, eat your dinner off that."
"I'm not eating me dinner off that."
"I got it out the fridge 20 minutes ago.
"There's a jar down there."
Yeah, the point is, the last thing that kitty litter needs is
a kitty, really, you can use it for so many other things.
Name the product which put Kendal on the map.
ALL: Ah, oh, aaah...
- I'm being pointed at. - Let's do it one letter at a time.
- Yeah. - M...
I just I love saying that word as well. Those words together.
- Do you? - Yeah.
I have no idea what you're talking about.
You're the only one who doesn't, we're all desperate to say it.
- Kendal Mint Cake. - What?
- KLAXON BLARES - Oh, that's so unfair!
There is a mint cake which went up Everest for the first,
the conquering of Everest, and Scott took on the...
- High sugar, for giving you energy when you're up a mountain. - It's rather delicious.
- I see. - But it's not what put Kendal on the map, as it were.
Kendal became famous for another product.
And it's actually extraordinary, it's a machine that was built
in 1750, and is possibly the oldest still working machine in the world.
It's still producing the same stuff now.
It was actually built to make gunpowder,
but quite early on in its life, it was schlepped down to Kendal by ass
or donkey, and then started to make what it still makes to this day.
Which is of the same consistency as gunpowder.
- Sherbet Dip. - Sherbet Dip!
That map's only of any use really if you're going, driving to Kendal.
If you're, it is, exactly. You're absolutely right.
- It's not much use for anything else. - It's for walking.
And even then it's pretty vague.
I used to sell those maps and people would come in and they'd go,
"I'm going to Birmingham," and I'd go, "No, you can't."
- "Yeah, I've only got a Kendal map." - Do you use it in the home?
We nowadays very rarely use it.
It was the most popular form of delivery of this drug,
up until about 1900.
Nicotine?
Nicotine is the right answer. How was nicotine most delivered?
- Snuff. - Snuff.
Kendal has a snuff mill that has been going
- since 1750 and still produces snuff. - Ah, the old Kendal snuff mill.
- The old Kendal snuff mill. - I think I knew that. - Exactly.
I have some snuff for you to try, in different flavours.
You can see whether the lid is lying or not.
Arrgh!
In special QI lids. You can take it if you want.
- You obviously inhale it up the nose. - You do it all, right?
Oh!
You're going to spill...
Don't do it all, no. It's very sharp.
It is, it's sharp.
Nothing. Nothing.
Oh really! No!
Nothing.
- Oh, you're licking it. - Woooooo!
On the gums. Oh, a moustache. It is quite sharp.
You've had a go. What's your flavour saying, Alan?
The only time... it says Christmas pudding.
You've got Christmas pudding.
The only time I've had a...
Ross Noble!
Honestly, it's fine, it's good, put it in your eyes.
It's good.
This is probably the only time my nan's going to watch me
on telly and I'll be like that the whole show.
What do you reckon, Colin?
Oh, that is the... the flavour says "kitty litter".
Ah-ha-ha.
- That is awful! - You're not a fan?
- I'm not a fan. It says "champagne". - Yeah, they're different.
There are so many, I mean hundreds,
- thousands of different flavours or sorts, as they're called. - Ugh!
What does yours say on the lid, Noel?
- What flavour? - Yeah. - Jealousy.
- By Calvin Klein. - Whisky and honey.
- Whisky and honey. Does it taste...? Yours, Ross? - No, not really.
- When you've come down? - I can't see!
I can't see anything.
- Noel will read it to you. - Who's talking to me?!
- Your flavour's madness. - It says "peanut butter"!
- No, it says "Perrier". - Oh, does it? Arrgh!
Ah, Perrier smells of victory.
The problem is, it makes your snot brown,
so there are snuff handkerchiefs which are brown silk
handkerchiefs or dark coloured silk handkerchiefs.
But that will, really, you'll see, you'll get a...
It'll look as if you've wiped your arse, I'm afraid.
Ugh!
That, from here, looks like the Turin Shroud.
I can see the face of our Lord! You're right!
Even though you know it's snuff, you're like, "Urggh!"
- Even though, exactly. - "He's shat in his hanky!"
Even though they know.
Aaarggh!
It's like your eyeball comes out in the wet wipe.
It's fine.
What are the advantages, if one can put it that way, of taking snuff instead of smoking?
Sorry.
- Well, there's no smoky stinkiness. - Yeah, that you... - It's very self-contained.
Lung cancer, emphysema, heart disease are unlikely.
- Not bothering other people. - It doesn't bother other people.
- It doesn't make your clothes smell. - It could be perfumed.
- But it will rot inside your nose, sinuses and... - Nasopharyngeal...
- NASAL VOICE: "It affects the way you talk as well, Stephen." - Yeah, well there is that.
It does slightly increase your chances of nasopharyngeal
- cancer, but only slightly. - Oh great, thanks very much(!)
Not one pinch, I promise.
It is, of course, necessary for me at this point not to
recommend snuff, or any other tobacco products.
Is that Little Mix?
I don't want to alarm anyone, but the one at the top left is me.
It is! Oh, my goodness.
There's no doubting it.
Members of Parliament, you may be pleased to note,
get a free ration of snuff.
There's a bit snuff box kept in Parliament for them.
A freedom of information enquiry showed that one box lasts two years
and costs £6, so it's hardly an expenses scandal.
They've been bulking that out with cat litter, surely?
This'll last you two years, this will.
Anyway, s'nuff said about Kendal.
Why isn't the tiny woman in your snuff box wearing any pants?
There's a picture in the lid of your snuff box.
Wow! I think the snuff's kicked in.
- I've only got a head shot. - Well, it's only a head shot.
But as it happens, she wouldn't be wearing any pants.
- I've got a full...a full... - Have you? - No. - You liar.
I've taken her face and arranged the snuff
so it looks like she's a bearded lady.
- Like that magnetic thing with the iron filings. - Yeah, yeah.
- I used to love that. - Pants as in undergarments? Those sort of pants?
Well, it's a woman who was probably you could regard as almost
the first celebrity, in a strange sort of way,
in as much as she wasn't an aristocrat, a politician,
an artist, a warrior, she had no accomplishment whatsoever.
Katie Price.
Basically, she was...
That's quite extraordinary.
She was an 18th-century courtesan, which is not a word we use any more.
So she really rose to fame in the mid-18th century,
when she fell off her horse in St James's Park,
and it was revealed to the astonished onlookers...
She was going commando.
She was going commando, she had no underwear.
There is a picture, which is slightly overdone,
but it's an example of how famous...
Slightly missing the crucial aspects as well.
Yeah, exactly, somewhat.
- That's what going commando is? No...no pants? - No pants.
Yeah.
- Kitty Fisher, for such was her name. - Kitty Fisher?
Kitty Fisher. She went commando, and she exploited it enormously.
And there were snuff boxes produced with pictures of her in them, and...
Muff boxes?
Well, ah, ah, and...
- Just for her. - And there were watches,
called montres lubriques, lubricous watches, which used
the clockwork to show her doing rather pornographical things, in
a sort of like a sort of automaton kind of thing, a little movement.
Oh, God, you wouldn't want the grandfather clock with
a pendulum version, would you?
No, you certainly wouldn't. She led a sensationally dissolute...
I don't even know why that's funny.
No, but it is. We'll just sort of imagine.
- Just don't over-think it. - No. - That's my approach to life.
Her life was sensationally dissolute.
Casanova describes a moment when she ate a 1,000 guinea note,
with butter spread on it.
- And 1,000 guineas in those days could buy you, you know, an estate. - The kingdom of...
It could buy a country house with servants and...
- I mean it's staggering. - So, she was an idiot.
Well...just incredibly carefree, I suppose you'd describe that.
She had portraits painted of her by Reynolds,
the great portraitist of his day, and she, apparently...
The one in the middle doesn't really look like her.
No, that... No, that...
The one in the middle looks like Alan Sugar.
These are...these are...
IMITATES ALAN SUGAR: "I started with nothing! I had a van."
"I have taken... I've taken my wealth and I've swallowed it.
"And I'll tell you what, you're going to get down on your knees
"and you're going to wait for that note to come out."
Is that why she didn't have the knickers on?
She was waiting for...she was just waiting... That's all it was.
- People thought she was... - Oh! - There it is! There it is!
Here it comes, I can see the Queen's face!
- Oh, it's gone back in again. - It was a king in the mid-18th century.
- Oh, was it a king? - Yes.
So, Reynolds... These are not examples of paintings of her, but she got through
so many lovers that he had to keep all the paintings he did,
because a man would say, "I'm in love with Kitty and I want you
"to do a painting of her," and about halfway through she was onto a new man.
- She was extraordinary. - So he made a flick book.
Basically a flick book of pictures of her. Yeah, she was pretty extraordinary.
Perhaps the first celeb, but like some modern celebs,
she sometimes forgot to wear any pants.
Name some features you really don't want in a submarine.
Holes.
You do want holes
- for the torpedoes and for getting... - I thought I was onto a winner there.
Is it patio doors?
That's certainly one you probably could do without.
- Something you really, really don't want. - Decking?
There is a class of British submarine. I think we're seeing the interior.
Gas. You don't want gases in there. Odours.
Absolutely. And there was an occasion...
Got it - bouncy castle.
Bang! Bang!
- That really is... - A trampoline.
We have to stick to our letter and we're in the First World War.
- Um...something beginning with K. - Kennels!
There was a K class submarine in the First World War.
It was British
and it was...?
Oh, it was...it was entirely soluble!
That's right. They didn't realise. They built it in a dry dock
and went, "This is going to be a winner."
Pss-ssh!
Oh, no!
It was made out of berocca!
It took ages to go!
All the U-boats went, "There is fizzing on ze horizon!
"Set the course for a big orangey thing fizzing in the..."
It was known as the calamity class
because it was such a disaster.
Almost everything about it was wrong.
It wouldn't go under the water. It wouldn't come up again!
Of the 18 built, six were sunk in accidents,
only one ever engaged an enemy vessel -
hit it midships with a torpedo but the torpedo didn't go off.
They key problem was that it had to keep up with a convoy of surface vessels and couldn't go fast enough.
It needed a steam engine in order to go that fast,
so it was a steam-engined submarine.
- Wow. - Which meant it needed funnels.
- A really, really, really long funnel? - Yes.
Unfortunately, they found out, when they tried to manoeuvre,
- seawater poured down the funnels and put the boilers out. - No shit(!)
- You really think they would've... - Could you hear it coming?
Cos instead of it going, "Toot, toot!",
it'd go, "Brr-blle, brr-blle, brr-blle!
It'd sound like a phone going off!
IMITATES PHONE RINGING
Hello? This type of phone won't be invented for several years.
To the future!
K1 manoeuvred to avoid a sudden turn by the leader of the flotilla,
HMS Blonde, rather wonderfully named...
K9 was a floating dog!
- She flooded her boilers and lost engine power... - ALAN BARKS
..so her sister sub, K4, piled into her,
seawater poured in, and it reacted with the batteries
and produced clouds of chlorine gas,
and the crew, which was 56 men...
Wrote a letter of complaint!
Sternly worded!
They had to be transferred to the Blonde, which then sunk the K1
with gunfire, so it wouldn't fall into enemy hands.
Cos the Germans would want to copy it(!)
- They should have given it to the Germans. - I don't think that was the way they were thinking.
- "Let's actually blow this shit up." - They were so annoyed with it.
It was also 339 feet long
and could only dive to 200 feet in depth,
which meant it would have its tail poking up,
- which is really stupid! - It'd be easier to get inside a whale!
It basically would. It basically would.
So, moving on now, we have some kits.
What would you use these kits for?
Window cleaning.
That's the first one. Well, no, they go together.
Scratching a window and then cleaning it.
Well, this has a very specific ecological purpose,
rather bizarrely.
A wire-wool brush affair?
It's a scourer, it's a pan scourer.
Which you get from your average high street pan scourer shop.
- Indeed. - Yeah. - No-one's ever held a scourer like that. "Arrrgh!"
- Yeah, they haven't, have they? - "Come and do the dishes. Arrgh!"
That sounds like a scouring super-hero.
"By the power of scour!" Also, the man on the right
doesn't really need the extended squeegee for that.
No, he doesn't.
With a little more effort, I think he could have got to the top.
"I'd better get the extension out. Oooh, that's better!"
We're in a world of ecology.
- Right. - And we're in a world of the second largest fish in the world, in fact.
Oh, is it getting the barnacles off of a whale?
Fish. Fish.
- Book one, chapter one, line one, QI... - Whoa, whoa, whoa!
- Whales are not fish. - Hang on, I didn't finish.
They train fish, they put scourers on the backs of fish,
and they have them swim up to whales, which we all know are fish,
and then they take the barnacles off, smart arse!
Ah! Very good wriggle, very good wriggle!
They won't come off. The way you get barnacles off of whales is with sarcasm.
The second-largest fish in the world is...?
- Is it a big squid? - Fish.
- A jellyfish? - A fish!
- The great white. - Basking. Basking! - Basking!
- The basking shark! - Basking shark.
- For the last time, a basking... - I WANT POINTS!
In your dreams.
There it is, with its rather wonderful mouth open.
- Wow! - Whoa! - Isn't that fabulous? - "I've got a coat hanger stuck in my mouth! Help me!
"I've got a coat hanger in my mouth!
"I feel so vulnerable!"
- It's a beautiful animal and unfortunately... - Not really.
Well, it is. Unfortunately, it's hunted to the verge of extinction.
So we need to know a lot about them, because they're so in danger,
and to take a core of their DNA is difficult, you need to...
It's like tagging them, so what they've come up with is...
- Is that one being examined now? Is that why he's got his mouth open? - Say "ah".
No, what you do is you get a window-cleaning rod,
you shove a pan scourer on the end
and you scrape off the slime from each particular one,
which has got its DNA, and you send it to the University of Aberdeen,
where it's marked and then you check its progress by marking other ones.
Can you not just use the head of the hammerhead?
Because it's the same shape.
Except that it's a different species.
- It's not the one you're trying to... - No, but I'm saying it's like a squeegee. It's the same shape.
- You could get an octopus to hold it, like that! - You train one!
Oh, you train one!
- You train a hammerhead... - You train an octopus to keep still
- and the octopus holds it, like that. - Forgive me for being so stupid(!)
- I should have guessed what you meant(!) - Exactly!
It makes such zoological sense.
It comes up under the shark, scrapes along its underside...
Occasionally, do they swallow slightly smaller sharks?
Yes, I hope they do.
Like Russian dolls - there's 19 in here.
- Just pull them out. - It's a lovely thought. Yeah.
It's a couple, Graham Hall and his wife Jackie.
Is that the name of that shark?
- No. - Graham Hall? It's not quite as frightening when you say, "Quick, there's a Graham!"
- There's a Graham. - Here comes Graham.
- Graham Hall and his wife Jackie. - Ooh, lovely.
From the Isle of Man, go out into the Irish Sea and scrape...
basking sharks with pan scourers.
- Disgusting! Filthy, filthy! - And send the DNA to Aberdeen.
And it's been jolly useful. It's jolly, jolly useful.
Would anybody like to know how you know that you're being
followed by a gay shark?
- Yeah, go on. - How do you know you're being followed by a gay shark?
HE HUMS: "Jaws Theme"
CHANGES TO: "Can't Take My Eyes Off You"
That's very good. I like that. And here's another kit.
What's that? It's luminous pins and reels of cotton.
- What would they be used for? - Sewing in the dark.
That would certainly...
Disco nanas?
That is popular.
HE HUMS
You know when John Travolta was doing that?
- Yes. - He had wool around that one...
HE SINGS: "Staying Alive" by Bee Gees
"Thanks, love."
- This was part of the kit of a man called Dr Eric Dingwall. - Oh.
Dr Eric Dingwall specialised in exposing something.
Not his own dingwall.
But...?
The wall of his ding.
Yeah. Fake mediums. In other words, fakes.
People who pretend that dead people speak.
- Is it to do with Ouija boards or anything? - Yeah.
There are people who pretend, quite wrongly,
that dead people can speak, which they can't, they're dead.
They won't talk to you, they're dead.
But there are people, a class of fraud,
but I'm saying this directly into camera, you are a fraud
if you are a medium, you are fraudulent, and...
APPLAUSE AND CHEERING
Hang on, hang on, hang on. My grandad says, "Shut your face."
Dr Eric Dingwall cunningly used...
Stop it, Grandad, stop it!
It's quite weird, because we look like we're in a seance.
Yes, you do actually.
You always look like you're in a seance!
Yes, you do, let's be honest. Whoo-oo!
I'm getting a basking shark.
What's that?
You were touched inappropriately by a man called Graham?
I know someone whose husband passed away,
and went to see a medium,
and the medium said, "Your husband is fine, he's with your father."
And she said, "My father's still alive."
And she said something along the lines of, "Not for long."
LAUGHTER
In an attempt to dig her way out of it!
- Pathetic. - And it massively worked.
She still gave her the £40 at the end!
ALL GASP
It is extraordinary. Anyway, no, Eric Dingwall
specialised in exposing mediums,
and he would tie thread to their legs
so that he could feel what their bodies were doing in the dark.
He would also attach luminous pins to them, so again when it was
dark, he could see where they were moving and what they were doing,
what machinery they were operating, what tricks they were up to.
Looking at that picture,
it looks to me like there are probably too many hands.
- I haven't counted, but... - LAUGHTER
I feel like there are too many, don't you?
I think those hands are on the table, aren't they?
- Part of the table. - It spins round and you just get a pair.
None of those people in that room have got hands.
They're trying to contact the dead, but that girl looks dead.
I might have got off with about four years ago.
- In a club in Camden. - It's your look! - Isn't that you in drag?
I've seen you with that amount of goth make-up on,
I have to say, Noel. It's definitely a very you look.
So, what comes flat-packed and takes four months to assemble?
IKEA dining table.
KLAXON
I'm afraid, sorry, sorry.
Is it going to be something enormous like a space shuttle or something?
Well, it was jolly big and it was modular and it was genius.
- It was in the 1850s in Britain. It was war. - Was it France?
We weren't at war with France, amazingly, in the 1850s.
No, I meant France in a flat-pack.
- I see! - Flat-pack enemy!
- Erect your own enemy in only four months! - It wasn't that.
With whom were we at war in the 1850s?
- Down in the...Crimea? - Crimea. It was the Crimean War.
- And who was the most famous figure really, apart from, I suppose... - Florence Nightingale.
Florence, as you rightly said, Nighting, as you pointed out, Gale.
- There she is. - Flatpack foreign. - Flatpack foreign.
She was furious at the conditions. She thought they were dreadful.
And she demanded of the British Army that they produce a proper hospital.
And so the finest engineer of his day, possibly finest engineer
who ever lived, designed in just six days a modular, flatpack hospital.
- Oh. - Brunel.
Isambard Kingdom, as you rightly said, Brun, as you pointed out, El.
LAUGHTER
When they set it up, they went,
"Oh, it's a school. We've got the wrong one!"
"This is ridiculous. It's a dance hall, you idiot!"
They set it up and there was a piece missing.
They had to take it back.
We can actually see a picture of the...
There they are. And what's brilliant is that you could add to them.
So it started off with one which fitted about 500,
- and ended up with 1,000 patients. - What, in that?
No, you added another module. That's the point.
When he was 36, Brunel was doing a party trick for his children
and he nearly choked on a half-sovereign coin.
- But it stayed in his throat. - For 40 years. - No! For quite some time.
And they had to do a tracheotomy,
they had to cut his throat so he could breathe.
And they tried pulling it out with forceps, and that didn't work,
so he designed his own rack on which he would go upside down
and they then slapped him very hard on the back for a while
and eventually it came out!
He should have just dropped his trousers
and then put his arm down like that.
Kajing kajing kajing!
Did he need some money for a phone call, or something?
He was just showing a trick where a coin disappeared,
- presumably put in his mouth and... - It was a hell of a trick,
because when the coin went in, didn't have his face on it.
LAUGHTER
So, on the subject of flatpacks, though,
and IKEA, which you mentioned, Colin,
can you give me within five years
when the flatpack was invented for the purposes of furniture?
- IKEA flatpack? - Yeah. - 1980...
Hopeless. No.
- 56. - That was my second guess! - Take the pen out of your lips.
Thank you.
Yeah, it was 1956.
There's Mr IKEA, or whatever his name is, the founder of the company.
Ian Kevin Edward Aldershot.
ONE MAN CHEERS
Ooh! There's an Ian Kevin Edward Aldershot,
by amazing coincidence, in the audience!
That's Ingvar Kamprad, the founder of the IK bit.
Ingvar Kamprad.
So who was Ian Aldershot, then?
That was you who raised Aldershot, don't look at me!
But it was one of his employees,
one of their first salesman, Gillis Lundgren.
He accidentally fell on a table, and went, "Oh, shit!"
Then he went, "Don't worry, it's flatpack! I've done it on purpose!"
Well, almost. He took the legs off in order to transport it in a car,
and then had a sort of lightbulb moment and thought,
"That's rather good, we can sell it that way,
"put all the bodywork in the hands of the people who buy it!"
I've got an IKEA table and chairs, it's lasted me 21 years.
Really? Colour me impressed. That's very good.
Where is the world's largest branch of IKEA?
- Wembley. - No. - Australia? - Yes.
- Which city? You'll be annoyed. - Sydney. - Yes, Sydney.
- As a Melbourner, you'll be annoyed. - Great city! Lovely people.
Yes, he said through clenched teeth. I've never seen clencheder teeth.
Charming. Absolutely, yes.
The world's largest is said to be in Sydney.
I was actually, I went and did some gigs there, in Sydney,
and I played the opera house,
and I was in the opera house doing some press,
and I looked out the window, thinking,
"Where's the opera house?" LAUGHTER
Actually scanning the horizon. "Where's the opera house gone?"
"You're in it, you idiot!" Oh, yeah!
You should've gone like this - "Whoa!"
It's so refreshing that the biggest IKEA is in Sydney,
because whenever there's something big in Australia,
- we say it's the biggest in the southern hemisphere. - Yes.
In fact, it probably isn't the biggest in the world,
- I suspect it is the biggest in the southern hemisphere. - The IKEA.
You go to a hotel and they go, "biggest swimming pool in the southern hemisphere!"
- The IKEA in Sydney is the biggest in Sydney. - Yes, it is that!
The best whatever is in, have you been to Narrandera,
where they've got the southern hemisphere's
second-largest playable guitar?
LAUGHTER
"We've got the world's biggest guitar! No, it's not.
"Playable guitar. Southern hemisphere.
"They've what?
"The southern hemisphere's second-largest playable guitar."
You can see the sign's been crossed out and crossed out and crossed out.
So, moving on. Now it's time for a bit of General Ignorance,
so fingers on buzzers please. What was a Roman soldier's salary?
- Wine, prostitutes? - The outfit, just the outfit.
- Audience? - Forty quid a week.
- AUDIENCE MEMBERS: SALT. - Salt, oh, dear! - KLAXON BLARES
Audience, minus points.
Losers!
Whoa, ha-ha-ha-ha!
Is there joy in trapping the audience there?
Yes, it's true that the word derives from the Latin for salt,
but it is never true that they were paid in salt.
The money would go towards the buying of salt, but also towards the
buying of their uniform, the buying of almost everything else, because,
a bit like British officers, they have to buy everything
themselves out of their salary.
But they were never paid in salt.
We're getting paid in salt though, aren't we?
You're getting paid in salt, oh, yes. Oh, yes.
- Kitty litter. - And kitty litter, in fact.
Yeah, the Romans, in fact, planted vineyards, as you may know,
in parts of Britain, so here's a question.
Where does British wine come from?
- Somerset. - Somerset, no.
- Kent. - No.
Kendal?
Kendal, no. Which country does it come from?
France.
It might do.
The point is, British wine is made from grape concentrate,
which comes from abroad.
Whereas English wine is proper English wine from English vineyards.
And so English wine gets a very bad reputation,
because people have tried British wine and think it's the same,
and it isn't. Just to big it up for English wine.
That's not uncommon, though - when the French had a lot of wine
they would ship tankers of it down to Australia, for example,
and they'd use it. Because people stopped buying French wine
- because they didn't understand it. - That's the problem,
because it didn't have the varietal labelling.
- Of course, here, we just have dry or sweet. - Yes!
Which is an improvement on your old definition,
which was just red or white.
- Or warm or hot. - Warm or hot, yeah!
Good or shit.
- We've made giant strides. - In a box or in a bottle.
Ooh, a bottle, fancy! He's a bit up himself!
- He's got a corkscrew! - Yeah.
The point is, British wine, unfortunately,
has besmirched the good name of English wine.
There is a very good sparkling wine that won a big prize,
- it beat all the French ones. They didn't like it. - No.
There are over 400 vineyards in Britain now,
and maybe global warming will see an increase in that.
But certainly in Roman days, in the medieval warm period,
as it's called, wine was commonly made there.
So, anyway, English wine comes from England,
but British wine can come from anywhere.
And now...
This is where it gets scary,
I'm going to try and impress you with my martial art skills.
- Really? - Karate.
Let's break stuff with our bare hands,
and we're going to begin with you.
- You should have a piece of paper and a ruler. - Yes.
And what I want you to do is put the ruler on the table,
two-thirds of the way, something like that,
and put the paper on top of it.
Mm.
Like so. Not wholly over it, leave the bit out.
That's it.
Yeah, Colin's got it right. Thank you, Colin.
- Yes. - OK. Very good. - All right.
Now, without putting your hand over the paper...
That's how he got that award.
..simply karate chop and break the piece of wood,
because the air pressure over the paper will act as a...
You think that can't be possible, so, Colin, you try.
- Really? - Yep.
- Oh! - APPLAUSE
Isn't that surprising?
CHEERING
Who'd have thought?
Who would have...?
And I didn't believe you, so I really put my shoulder into it.
- Yeah, you have to, a nice bit of follow-through. - Yeah.
Alan, you have a go.
Yeah - oh, well it is in half,
you can see, but it slipped out, unfortunately.
Go on, Ross.
- Is it in half? - Yeah!
Noel next. All right, Noel.
- Yah! - Ah!
There it is.
It's very surprising.
- It feels good though, doesn't it? - It feels good.
- You feel like Bruce Lee for about four seconds. - Now, I...
What I'm going to do is, I've got three bricks here.
HE GRUNTS WITH EFFORT
And it is, ahh...
It's like the first ever game of Jenga.
It is.
All right, OK.
Yep.
- It's Kendal Mint Cake. - Kendal Mint Cake. OK.
Oh, God...
I have to focus my energy.
I know, it's... All right, it sounds...
But I have to focus.
Have to go through... I have to - oh, God.
I'm so nervous now.
Ah!
Ooh...
CHEERING
Ow! Didn't get them all.
Last time I got them all.
OK. But, even more...
Oh, I've got another one.
Another load here and this time, in theory...
You're going to do it with your penis.
Ah-ha-ha!
In theory here... Ow.
Er...
So, choose top, middle or bottom.
- Middle. - Oh, no!
OK.
I'll try and break just the middle, then.
I'll bet you Chuck Norris is crapping himself.
I'm going to try and break just the middle one.
Again, this takes extreme focus and extreme pain.
(Go through.)
I just don't want to do this.
You don't want to do it again.
Oh!
CHEERING
That was the middle one.
Oh, thank you very much indeed.
Thank you.
Ow.
I can't believe I've put my hood on
in case there were shards flying around.
What, shards of his splintering wrist?
Kendal Mint Cake.
The truth is, there's no mystique to karate-chopping bricks,
just good old physics, and in our case, to be honest, trick bricks.
So don't try and do it at home.
I'm still very strong and hench and butch, though.
But anyway, it must be time for the scores.
And it is fantastic.
In first place, wow, with a plus four, is Ross Noble.
Yeah!
The Noble Prize.
In second place, with a plus one, Noel Fielding.
How did that happen?
There's been a mistake.
It's incredible.
In third place, with minus six, Alan Davies!
Thank you very much. Great.
And certainly worth the airfare, in fourth place with minus nine,
- it's Colin Lane. - Yeah!
But...
But, in last place, with minus ten, the Audience.
Hey!
Well.
And it only remains for me to thank Noel, Ross, Colin and Alan.
Whatever you do, keep your kit on. Good night.
Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd