APPLAUSE
Goooooooood evening, good evening, good evening, good evening, good evening and welcome to QI,
where this week we're under doctor's orders as we dissect a Medley of Maladies.
Joining me in the waiting room,
with a 1984 edition of The People's Friend, we have Dr No, Lucy Porter.
APPLAUSE
Dr Strangelove, Matt Lucas.
APPLAUSE
Dr Zhivago, Ross Noble.
APPLAUSE
And Dr Snuggles, Alan Davies.
APPLAUSE
So, buzzers please, nurse. Lucy goes...
DR ZHIVAGO THEME TUNE
For the ignorant nonsenses amongst you,
that was Dr Zhivago's theme tune. LAUGHTER
Matt goes...
DR FINLAY'S CASEBOOK THEME TUNE
For those under 80, that was Dr Finlay's Casebook.
So Ross Noble, he goes...
DR WHO THEME TUNE
Hmm, no, I don't know what that was. And Alan goes...
# Oh, doctor, I'm in trouble
# Well, goodness gracious me... #
Oh, more of that.
- Yeah, Goodness Gracious Me. - Can't get enough of it. - Well, there you are.
So, come in, lie down, pop your feet in the stirrups
and let's see what the trouble is.
What did Typhoid Mary die of?
Oh, don't...start!
LAUGHTER
DR WHO THEME TUNE Yes, Ross?
Was it a lack of circulation to her toe?
That is a possibility.
Yeah. Is it typhoid?
- Oh! - One!
Her name, as the label around that toe said, was Mary Mallon,
and she was known as Typhoid Mary.
What did she die of? It wasn't typhoid.
Er...why am I interrupting you? I don't even know.
- That's QI. - Yeah.
There was nothing wrong with her. Boredom, she'd had boredom from...
- Car crash. - That's what I was going to say. - Waiting to get typhoid and never getting it.
- Boredom. - She had typhoid. She didn't suffer from typhoid.
But she never had symptoms.
Yes, thank you. Thank you, Lucy Porter.
- You're welcome, Stephen Fry. - She didn't have the symptoms, as Typhoid Mary,
round about the turn of the century was a cook in New York.
- An Irish immigrant. - As the name would suggest, Irish.
Yeah. And she had typhoid, but no symptoms, she wasn't ill.
She was immune to it, to all intents and purposes.
But, she was able to give it to others, and she did.
30, 40, 50 people, possibly.
It must have been freezing in that ward with all that snow.
That's normally on the...
It's taking... It's taking his mind off the fact he's being
attacked by an octopus, at the back there.
Something with trailing legs.
Presumably they're, they're all lying there going,
- "Sorry, what did you say your name was? What Mary?" - Exactly.
- "Glad to sharing a ward with you." - Well, the sad thing is that she was not a nice person,
by any way of looking at it.
All right, Stephen, she's dead - come on.
Well, the thing is, she worked in households as a cook
and people would die of typhoid in the household where she cooked,
and she would mysteriously leave and take up a job in another one.
- So she knew that she was a carrier. - Oh, she was a carrier.
Because she was put into quarantine, and then she could go free
as long as she never worked in service again, didn't cook.
Within weeks, she got another job as a cook, and she tried to
hide from the authorities, and so she ended up, the last two
decades of her life in quarantine
and she died of pneumonia, in fact.
Ah.
How did she pass it on? Saliva, fluids, body fluids.
Oh, because she was, yeah, she had typhoid.
- She went... - BREATHES OUT AND MIMES COUGHING
Yeah. But she actually coughed, anything like that. Yeah.
- She didn't have to wee in the soup. - And so her name has become synonymous.
I don't know about it, I thought it was waterborne. Or was that cholera?
Well, it's spread by the...
The germ in question is salmonella typhi.
The salmonellas.
I thought you said that it's spread by a German.
I thought you said, just one German, walking around the place.
Is that the fella there, is it?
There it is, yeah.
- Yeah. - Unpleasant-looking. Why is it called salmonella?
Salmon, that's salmon it's from, so it's fishborne.
They were named by a bacteriologist called Salmon.
- Oh, of course. - Dr Daniel Salmon.
Of course.
Who also died of pneumonia, as it happens, not of salmonella.
Well, I'll tell you what, I'm looking at that, I'm never going to eat Wotsits again.
Now, what's the most deadly thing
you can find in a doctor's waiting room?
- And you can look at that picture. - Oh, a copy of the Daily Telegraph.
LAUGHTER
I'm guessing, looking at that example,
is it the tiny baby bear which has crawled out
from inside that plant there?
Oh, is it going to be that lethal water carrier thing in the corner?
Hang on, right next to a lamp?! Water next to electricity?
That's a Health and Safety nightmare!
- POSH VOICE: - These people are seconds from death, why?
You've got a fire engine there, you'll be fine.
- Oh, yeah, yeah. - That's true. - On an electrical fire?! Are you mad?!
LAUGHTER
- Come on! - Does she take the pen and stab everyone in the waiting room?
- That's another... - That would be dangerous.
- Actually, Ross got it straightaway. - Shut your face!
- It's the bear. - I knew it was the bear. - The bear? - Yeah.
- Why is it the bear? - Ha-ha, the murderer is in this very room!
Well, you can't trust bears. Bears are shifty.
LAUGHTER
- Can I say that isn't ACTUALLY a bear. - Ah.
- It looks like a bear. - Well...
If it were a bear, it would be far and away
the most dangerous thing in the room. It's...
I'd say to you, "prove it"!
It's a soft cuddly toy.
- Covered in germs! It's a carrier of diseases. - Yes.
It's Bear Mary.
LAUGHTER
- Big bear's bear, you're right. - Typhoid bear.
- Typhoid Beary, yeah. - Yeah. Typhoid bearer.
Did you see what she did there?
Typhoid Bearer, eh? Ha-ha!
Because a bear can't...
A bear can't shit in the woods...
A bear can't be cut... A bear can't...
I don't know if I can really say this, because it sounds odd,
but a bear can't be wiped down.
- LAUGHTER - You've tried!
Well, I mean, it can obviously be wiped down.
You've wiped a lot of bears down. Come on, Stephen.
LAUGHTER
APPLAUSE
Not as hygienically as, say, an abacus, is that a Barbie or a Sindy?
- I'm not really... - That's a Sindy. - That's a Sindy. - Sindy...
You've got to wipe them down every 45 minutes.
- Lego tower... Her legs go all the way up. - The doll, of course...
- You can chuck in the machine, can't you, your teddy bear? - I do.
- You can do what? - Chuck it in the machine.
- Chuck it in the machine. On a hot wash, on a boil. - You can, you can.
So, are we coming to the conclusion that Pudsey needs to die?
LAUGHTER
That's how he lost his eye, because somebody...
No, he just needs to be boiled. Not killed, just boiled!
Not too boiled.
That would be the best opening to Children In Need ever,
if it was literally cut to Terry Wogan,
he was just there going, "Ah, good old Pudsey!"
HE YELLS
"Give me the money or Pudsey boils."
There is something very eerie when you put kids' toys in the machine
and wash them and then you just see their little faces
- pressed against the glass. - Aah, and the children sit...
Because you say to the kids, "You next, yeah."
The children sit there watching them going round and round.
- Now we know why it's called Winnie The Pooh. - Hey, you're right!
His real name is "Winnie The Filthy Shit".
LAUGHTER
Oh, dear!
Thank you very much.
APPLAUSE
13.5% of "hard" toys
in GP's waiting rooms...
- Don't google that, whatever you do! - LAUGHTER
- Don't google "hard toys"! - No.
Don't google "wiping down bears".
LAUGHTER
Basically, it's a nightmare, isn't it?
Certainly not "Winnie The Filthy Shit".
She's a lovely girl, but she should never have started that website.
You don't want to see... Not while you're eating, anyway.
A shocking 90% of soft toys
had serious moderate to heavy bacterial contamination.
That's what I want to leave you with.
LAUGHTER Magazines...
Why do you think that the magazines
in doctors' waiting rooms are so dull, so uninteresting?
Because people steal the good ones, presumably!
Is the right answer!
CHEERING Very good!
APPLAUSE
It's as simple as that.
- Yeah. - Yeah. - Well, I'm not the only one, then. That is good...
LAUGHTER
I would never buy Now or Chat, but if it's there...
Yeah. Nobody steals New Statesman or The Economist.
You might be able...
Where do we stand on the gentleman's literature...
in the booths...
at a place of...fluid deposits?
LAUGHTER
- The sperm banks? - That's the word I'm looking for.
- Are they taken away? - What I'm saying is, is that, you know,
- when they provide the... - HE MUTTERS
..where does that stand in the... You know...
Like, on the filth scale, what are we...?
LAUGHTER
Because I've only done that once
and there wasn't literature.
Strictly speaking, it wasn't a sperm bank, but...
LAUGHTER
Hang on, no, no, I... It was a regular doctor...
It was the sperm building society.
- It was a... - It was a regular doctor's?
- It was a... No, wait... - You went to the doctor's for a wank? - Yes!
No, no, no.
What happened was, I used to live right out in the bush,
- right out in the countryside, right, miles away, right. - Yeah, good!
LAUGHTER
- And I needed to do the... - Were you on a register?
LAUGHTER
I am now! But the...
No, but we lived too far away.
By the time you've done the deposit in the beaker...
- Your sperm have died. - Exactly. By the time you drove in.
So, my wife just said,
"Hey, why don't we just go to the regular doctor's
"and then you nip into the... and then have..."
and the only thing that was in there was,
you know on a lady's sanitary bag,
- they have a picture of a woman in Victorian costume? - Yes.
LAUGHTER
There's very few things that I'm happy to admit in public,
but I can't look at Mary Poppins in the same way now.
LAUGHTER
- I fully, to the... With the... - You didn't do it in the bag?
LAUGHTER
- What I'm saying is... - Yes?
What I'm saying is, when a gentleman goes to a sperm bank,
- and they provide you with... - No gentleman goes to a sperm bank, sir!
LAUGHTER
They provide you with a copy of Smash Hits, The One Direction Special...
LAUGHTER
Yeah.
- That's... Yes. - Or whatever, yeah.
I believe that's why Harry Styles's hair goes like that.
- Something about Harry. - Right across like that. Yeah.
APPLAUSE
So, there we are.
The most dangerous thing in a waiting room is a cuddly toy.
Which bits of your bodies could you do without?
I'm going to give you an example of a human body.
So, that you can possibly... That's for you two.
- Kidney, you can lose a kidney, can't you? - This is for you two. This is...
That is one of the most macabre
Bobbleheads I've ever seen. Look at that.
LAUGHTER
- "Good afternoon." - Woohoo!
- Shall we take out the bits we think? - Yeah, take out the...
Take out the bits we think?
Take out a bit that you think we can do without.
- You're taking out the entire intestines. - Stop it.
LAUGHTER
There goes the liver. There goes one lung and another.
I don't know what that is, but it's going.
ALAN GROANS
- You got that right. - He died. It's died. - That's one dead human.
Are you offering me a lung? Half a brain.
No, I was just trying to make a pork pie.
LAUGHTER
Oh!
Fine, it's fine...
There it is!
What have you got there? A kidney.
A kidney. That's what I was looking for!
It's not good surgical practice to get rid of everything else
- between you and the kidney. - I couldn't get to the kidney!
And now, I can't get it back together again.
- I'm going to say... - Nurse! - Right.
I'm going to say, if you're a man, you don't... Do you need a nipple?
It's a very good question, as to why men have nipples at all.
They look hot when they're pierced, but apart from that.
I don't really know why else you would need one.
Well, the fact is that, there are lots of bits you can do without.
- Tonsils, obviously, you knew that. - Appendix, you have those out.
Appendix, you knew that. What else have you come across?
You've given me a kidney, which is good.
I can't get it back together again.
- Gall bladder you could give me. Sinuses. - Head.
- Sinuses? - Yeah. - You don't need a face. - Appendix. Testes.
I mean, obviously, we LIKE having testes, if you're a man,
but you won't die if they're taken away.
- Mine hasn't got any testes, sir. - Uterus. - Uterus, ovaries,
- all that shebang. - You can lose the ovaries.
- Basically, all you need is a neck. - Yeah. Half your brain can go.
In fact, there's an operation, a hemispherectomy.
- Well you've done very well with that, haven't you? - Thanks, yes.
LAUGHTER
- Congratulations. - Thank you very much.
APPLAUSE
- If you remove... - Oh, hang on, hair! What about hair?
Yes. And what do you reckon, Matt?
LAUGHTER
Well, I don't know why you're asking me.
- What happens if I were to remove four fifths of your liver? - Yeah.
It would grow back.
Yes, that's the thing about livers, they do, they regenerate,
you get that back.
- Teeth, obviously. - Bladders can also be regrown, amazingly.
The bones in your leg, the fibula and tibia,
the fibula isn't load-bearing,
so you could lose that and you'd still be able to walk.
Really? I'll have that out. I'm going to do it.
Can you name one of the most famous people on earth
who has gone without a lung since he was a teenager?
- He, so, it's a he. - Justin Bieber.
Possibly more famous than Justin Bieber.
Barack Obama. No, I can't. I don't know.
Hang on a minute, more famous than Justin Bieber?
- Harry Styles? - Argentinian.
"I don't know foreign people, what's all this about?!"
- There's only one truly famous Argentinian. - "Well, I don't know 'em,
"I don't know, I tell you, I don't watch that show."
- Pele. - Diego Mara... - Diego Maradona.
Diego Maradona's the only one I know.
- No. The Pope! ALL: - Oh.
- Oh, yes, he is quite famous! - Pope Francis, there he is.
- The Pope, yes. - Yeah. - He's only got the one lung?
He's gone happily without a lung for a long time.
What happened when they were picking him
and all that smoke's coming out of the top...
Oh, I bet he was wheezing up that bit, wasn't he?
Going "Hey! You're the Pope!"
He's going, "Oh, oh, me lungs! Oh, me one lung's playing up, mate!"
Was he born with one lung, or did he have it removed, he lost it?
As a teenager he had one removed. So, good.
- Can you pop your bodies away. Did I just say that? - Yes.
- Put your bodies away. - And we just reacted as if that was normal.
There's your kidney. OK, so, Alan, I've got a question for you.
It's quite complicated in a way.
If you had kidney failure...
Right.
I would willingly, happily, gladly donate a kidney to you.
LAUGHTER
There you are...
I don't like the way they're looking at me, I must say.
- So, you've got one of my kidneys, I'm glad... - Thank you, Stephen.
There's no greater cause.
That would leave me with one kidney, obviously.
How many kidneys would you have?
Well, I presume that I've lost one,
one's failed, and you've given me one, so I've got two.
KLAXON BLARES Oh!
- It's a strange thing... - 14 years!
..in the world of renology,
is that when someone has a kidney transplant...
- Yes. They take them both out. - The old one stays in.
- Oh, does it? - Yes. So you'd have three. - Oh. - Very odd, isn't it?
- That's greedy, isn't it? - It's greedy, it seems it.
There's a case of a man who had repeated transplants
and he has five kidneys inside him.
- Enough for a pie, isn't it? - He's almost a stew.
LAUGHTER
Oh, I wish I was wearing a hat,
I would have taken it off to you for that.
Here's another handshake.
Well, there are many body parts that anybody can do without.
What's wrong with 80% of medical students?
They're so tired from pole dancing all night...
LAUGHTER
..they can't focus.
They're exhausted from complaining about being tired.
Well, medical students do get a hard time of it,
they get very tired, but they have a condition.
I'm going to say
that they imagine that they're ill a lot, because they...
It's what I have, where you read about stuff, and you go,
"Oh, my God! Totally got that! I've got totally got that!"
Yes, hypochondria is what it's all about.
And medical students tend to believe they have the disease of the week.
Each week, they learn about some extraordinary new condition
and they believe they have it.
And vets get that as well and they think they've got myxomatosis.
LAUGHTER
If you were a vet, then you'd end up just loving your ball.
LAUGHTER
"Oh, he loves his food, don't you, Doctor?" "Yeah!"
"Stop licking that, Doctor, stop licking it!"
"He doesn't mind, he likes it!"
LAUGHTER Yeah, it's called Medical Student Syndrome,
and it was first identified in 1908,
so it's well over 100 years old.
If they read about Medical Student Syndrome,
they will also believe they've got that.
- They'll think they've got everything. - Even if they haven't,
they will then get it. So, it's long been recognised.
The worst case scenario is always death.
It could be, you may just have a headache,
- or it may be a terminal brain tumour. - Yeah.
We just don't know. Good day.
When you smell something that isn't there and no-one else can smell,
Like, "Can you smell burning rubber or burning hair?"
And they go, "No. Oh, you might have a brain tumour."
- Yeah. Or you're pregnant. - Or your head might be on fire!
Oh, yeah.
"I can smell burning hair." "Yeah, you want to put that out, mate."
Yeah, possibly.
Who might be having sex
on your face
right now?
LAUGHTER
Kim and Kanye?
- In your dreams! - They love it!
Who is having sex on your face right now?
- Bacteria. It's usually bacteria, go with me on this. - Mites.
Mites, you said mites. Mites was the right answer.
- Mites. - Mites.
- Well, it MIGHT be. - Let's... Hey!
- Mites, maybe. - Let's consider this.
There are mites that live on the human face.
They, unfortunately...
They're disgusted already, don't go any further!
Only 14% of them are visible to the human eye,
- most of them are not. ALL: - 14%?!
- Yes. - Visible? - Yeah. Listening very closely.
What, just... "I like your moustache!"
And then it starts curling up like that.
HE JABBERS
Not that visible, I mean, they're really, really tiny.
They're very small. They have no anuses.
Oh, thank God for that!
No!
I don't mind the intercourse, it's the shitting I can't stand.
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
Unfortunately, Alan, the fact they have no anuses means
that when they die,
a whole lifetime's waste is deposited on your face.
LAUGHTER
That's what happens.
Is this 14% waste you can see?
No. But what percentage of human...
That's a lovely tan you've got there, Stephen.
LAUGHTER
You may be right.
But what percentage, tracking that waste,
voided at the death of the mite,
on account of its having no anus,
what percentage of human beings
has been calculated to have mites on their face?
- Oh, I know this. - Yeah? - But I'm not going to tell you.
Oh, I'll guess at either 12 or 86.
- Any other thoughts? - High. - 0.1%. - High. - 91%.
No, the answer is 100%.
- Oh... - We all have these mites on our faces.
LAUGHTER All of us, all of us.
And there's nothing... You can't wash them out,
- they're perfectly happy to have water... - Her Majesty the Queen? - Yes.
- Her Majesty the Queen has... - Royal mites.
..has anus-less mites wandering about willy nilly on her face?
Jawohl! German mites!
Unbelievable!
Her Royal Highness?!
Yeah, I know. Hard to believe, isn't it?
But there it is, we all have mites on our face,
but there are also, some people believe two thirds
and other scientists believe 98% of us have eyebrow mites.
Although one of us here,
one of us here won't have eyebrow mites.
Matt might not have eyebrows.
So, he doesn't, so he doesn't!
I don't got no eyebrows, cos...
Mum says it's cos I'm special.
LAUGHTER
- Well, you are special. - I am. - You are.
I lost my hair when I was six.
Was it traumatic? Did you bang your head or something?
- Well you know, Duncan Goodhew fell out of a tree. - Yeah.
Well, it was my head he landed on and my hair...
Hey! No, because.
Why? I think it's an overactive immune system,
that something happened,
then something inside me said, "Right, we don't need no hair!"
- Like I'm not... - And treated your hair as a foreign invader.
Yeah, maybe it was just a warm day,
and we didn't have the window open, I don't know.
Maybe you're just a super-evolved human,
because we don't really need hair and we're all going...
No, we do, this country's cold!
LAUGHTER
We do, we do.
I suffer, I do suffer.
Well, I would say, I mean, I feel your pain,
but I would say that I'm quite a hairy-chested man,
and with small children, when you're holding a small child,
they like to grab a hold of the chest hair and then just lean back.
LAUGHTER Ow. You don't want that.
And it's when you've got a beautiful little face just there,
- just looking at you and you go... - HE SCREAMS - ..into it.
- Apparently, that's not good for raising a child. - Right.
- You're trying to make me feel better? - Yeah. - Well, you didn't,
because I'm gay. I don't have children, I'm very lonely.
AUDIENCE: Ahhh.
All right, then, well here's the thing,
- we'll work out a time-share thing. - OK.
- I will make you a chest wig out of my own chest hair... - Yes.
- And glue it onto you. - All right.
- And then allow my children to rip it off. - OK.
I'm all about equality, I want you to feel the pain
- of having your tits ripped off by a small child. - All right.
And I will arrange for a whole group of men
- to come and have sex with you. - Marvellous!
APPLAUSE
Wow! Marvellous. You were there, ladies and gentlemen.
Now, which of your organs most resembles an elephant's trunk?
Come on.
LAUGHTER
Oh, God.
- Go on, who wants it? Alan, Ross, me? - No, no, no, no.
- Who wants it? - Go on, you go on.
I'm just trying to think of the most humorous way to phrase it.
Yeah, well, no, it's not. It's not penis. It isn't.
- Of course, it isn't. Well... - Isn't it? Nose? - Can your penis do that?
An elephant's penis...
It may, there may be it's a dangling, pendulous appendage, your penis,
and so is a trunk, but really,
truly resembling in structure.
That's not one there, is it? Down the bottom there?
It's swinging, yes.
- That's it, that's the... - He's got tusks down there...
- There's a lot going on... - Stephen, move out of the way.
The, yeah, no, the elephant can...
- It has a... - Yeah.
Good God!
- Yes, all right. All right, class. - It has a...
Very amusing. There's an animal that has organs of generation,
let's laugh at that for a long time.
- Hmm. - Yeah, but it is quite funny. - It is funny, though.
LAUGHTER
HE GIGGLES
The elephant, this is...
And this is true this,
- the elephant is the only mammal that has a chin. - Yes.
Well, what about humans?!
LAUGHTER
Well, yeah, obviously, apart from humans.
- Apart from humans. Bruce Forsyth. - He's got two.
Exactly, if he was an elephant. Imagine that.
But what is it about the trunk that... What is...?
We have an organ that is like the trunk.
Is it the "prehensility", is that a word?
African elephants have almost like lips
which can pick up a blade of grass,
prehensile kind of little bits there,
but the actual tongue itself is interesting, it's a muscle.
- Oh, hang on, so what about the lip? - I mean, the trunk.
- Ah, have you given us a hint? - The trunk is... - Ah, the tongue!
- The trunk and our tongue is the same. - Ah. - So what about...?
Our tongue is also a muscle. It's a muscular hydrostat.
The reason the trunk can take on any shape is because it's all muscle.
And mostly water, which you wouldn't think of a muscle, but it's true.
And water can't be compressed, of course,
liquids cannot be compressed.
I've had a Capri-Sun
and they've got that packet,
- and they carry it around. - You can put them under pressure, but they will burst out.
So, that means like, so you can pull a muscle, so does that mean
that sometimes an elephant will be flicking away and...
And pull his tongue.
And he'll go, "Ow! I've cramped-up me trunk!"
- It's a horrible thought. - And they have to rub a bit of Deep Heat.
You have to go some to pull a muscle in your tongue though, don't you?
Well, while on the subject of muscles,
which of us here has the strongest muscle?
Well, it's bound to be the lady, isn't it?
I don't look like that.
- Yeah, for the birthing. - Yes, so, which muscle would it be?
Pelvic floor? They're always going on about the pelvic floor.
LAUGHTER
- It's the uterus. - Oh, the uterus! - The uterus is a muscle. Yeah. - Yes.
And of all the muscles in the human body,
it exerts the most pressure, pound for pound.
The amount of force that it exerts is the equivalent to a long bow,
- so if you imagine someone... - Good God!
Pray God, I'm looking under the desk going,
"Don't have a long bow under there, please."
I am not prepared to do that!
Is that why when my wife went into labour she put an apple on my head?
LAUGHTER
Well, the jaw can exert pressure which is extremely high
and 500 pounds per square inch, roughly, which is enormous.
And the gluteus maximus is the largest muscle in the human body,
the buttock muscle. But it is the uterus that wins the prize.
Now, you mentioned the gluteus maximus,
the arse muscles there.
This is a true thing, right.
It is physically impossible for the human buttocks to break an egg.
- LAUGHTER - That is true.
That is absolutely 100% true
and I've tried it, and...
- And the beautiful thing... - You put it in the crack in the cleavage?
As much as you want.
He's not allowed to work in kitchens any more.
And he keeps going back like Typhoid Mary.
Yeah, if you put the egg between the buttocks,
and then it doesn't matter how hard you squeeze,
impossible to crack the egg.
Now, here's the thing, I know that to be true,
there might be people watching this who question that.
But I like to think all over the country...
People are now introducing eggs into the area.
Heading for the kitchen,
"Is Noble lying or not?" Hmm.
I mean, if you've got somebody lying there, you put an egg there,
if somebody else is there to go like that.
Ah, but then that's not the muscle doing it.
- Ah, OK, yeah. - That's the point.
It's the muscle, can you by a twitch, a pulling in?
- Exactly. - I'm doing it now.
- LAUGHTER - I think the worry would be...
Underneath... Oh, that Cadbury's Creme Egg is gone.
LAUGHTER
That's probably melting rather than...
The worry is that you do it and the egg could go right up.
- That's a worry? - You see, that's interesting.
LAUGHTER
APPLAUSE
Sorry.
So, yes, your tongue is a muscular hydrostat,
like an elephant's trunk.
What's the difference between "post-orgasmic illness syndrome"
and "floppy trunk syndrome"?
GIGGLING
It was a mistake to choose the blue costume, wasn't it?
- Those pink ones are floppy trunks, technically. - Yes.
He needs a bra, doesn't he, that fella...
- It's show-casing the medal lovely though, isn't it? - Yeah.
LAUGHTER
Are these human conditions?
In the case of floppy trunk syndrome,
I can tell you that it's not a human condition,
- you'll be pleased to know. - Is it an elephant?
It is a condition that affects elephants,
a very unhappy condition, affects African elephants.
They can't do anything, without that, can they?
No, they absolutely can't.
It just seems to lose all power and it flops
and they often push it over their heads to keep it out of the way...
- What, flick it away? - ..to stop it trailing on the ground.
And then the lady elephant says, "Don't worry, it's happened before."
- Yes, leaf through these books. - Doesn't matter.
And they have to half immerse themselves in water just to drink.
They can't eat properly, they get emaciated
and they're very often put to death
as a kind of mercy killing, because there's no cure for it
and there's no understanding of where it comes from.
There must be some kind of erectile dysfunction technology
- that could help. - I suppose, it's a muscle after all, therefore...
What you don't want is it suddenly shooting straight up.
LAUGHTER
That's equally useless.
It's true, that is just hopeless.
"Equally useless" is a very good phrase.
It can't get out from the tree.
LAUGHTER
So that's your floppy trunk syndrome.
What's your post-orgasmic illness?
- I presume that does affect humans rather than... - This is human, yeah.
Is it those feelings of revulsion that you get after...
Yes, yeah, absolutely.
Where you're just saying, "I don't even care what is,
- "I don't know the name, I just want them to leave." - Yeah. - Yeah.
You can say, "Just here, please, driver," and get out.
This is a worse version. These are the symptoms.
After sex, flu-like symptoms,
rashes, itching, exhaustion and concentration difficulties,
Alan.
I'm sorry?
It happens to men
and it's believed to be a result of being allergic to your own semen.
Ah.
Not because you've drunk it or tasted it,
though let's face it, which of us hasn't?
It's...
Oh... Oh, dear.
Did I mis...? Did I misjudge?
Stephen, Stephen, my mum's sitting just up there.
- Oh! I'm sorry. - She told me not to do this show.
I am so sorry.
See if you can guess the cure for being allergic to your own semen?
Introduced onto your skin or anything like that,
it caused the problem.
To solve it, because you know, like, if you're like allergic to cats
- and you slowly bring a cat closer... - Yes. - Is it the same thing?
- Yes. - Do you just...? - Yes, it is. - You stand on your head and, well...?
Well, you don't have to do that,
- you ask a doctor to do it for you. - Oh, God, no!
Multiple subcutaneous injections of your own semen.
Well, I've injected into others, but not into myself.
Oh!
I would...
How dare you?! Your mum's in tonight!
Oh, yeah, sorry, Mum. Sorry.
I'd be less comfortable injecting into myself,
I don't think it would reach.
Right, yes, absolutely, completely.
Oh, don't go coy, now, Stephen Fry! You brought it up!
Why, on this picture of sperm, have they blotted out all the faces?
LAUGHTER
Good question.
Well, that seems to be the problem with multiple...
Oh, post-orgasmic syndrome.
LAUGHTER
I imagine the effort, the physical effort.
Another unfortunate allergy is suffered by Ian Wragg,
spelled W-R-A-G-G,
a Yorkshire magician,
- who is allergic to the rabbits that he pulls out of the hat. - Aah.
Well, why doesn't he pull out cocker spaniels, or kittens or...
That must be brilliant though, seeing his show.
Because the top hat, if he puts his hand in,
his hand comes out twice the size.
He doesn't even need to pull the rabbit out.
- "Look at this, kids!" - HE YELLS
We had a lady who came in to work on Little Britain,
an animal handler, and she was terrified of...
Is that for bringing in David Walliams? "Here he is!"
- HE GROWLS - "Oh!"
It was...
I'm diplomatically not laughing, but I'm laughing inside.
And this animal handler was terrified of mice
and she had mice on the show.
- She was like... "Ugh, ugh!" - No? - Yeah.
And I just thought, "Pick another job, there's a lot of other jobs."
- It's ridiculous. - Yeah, I know. - That's very funny.
I once worked with an animal handler who,
he had a parrot on his shoulder
and he was chatting away
and then every now and again,
the parrot would just steal his hearing aid.
LAUGHTER
And every time he did it, he looked at him as if to go,
"Oh, my parrot's just stolen my hearing aid."
And then he had to try and get it back off the parrot...
"The parrot's got it." "What?"
"The parrot's got it." "What? Oh..."
- Well, there you go. - "I've got it... What?"
That's one of the worst things an elephant can suffer from,
it's floppy trunk syndrome.
Who has the best teeth in the world?
- I really like this question and the answer. - The Bee Gees.
- Bee Gees, they have good teeth. - John Bishop?
- I'm looking for a nation, I'm looking for a people. - Americans.
KLAXON BLARES Who did you say, Americans? No.
No, I didn't say that.
Is it Scandinavian, it must be the Scandinavians...
- No. - Oh, no, it'll be... - The English. - It'll be the...
- Yes! The British. - Yeah! - The British have the best teeth in the world!
CHEERING
It's true. According to...
We win again!
According to the OECD,
the Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development,
- international body. - Well remembered.
They looked at all the different nations of the Earth
and they found that, according to fillings and decay, and so on,
that British children had the best teeth on Planet Earth!
Did they just go to one particular school in Notting Hill?
I don't think so. I think it was...
Yeah, they said that's because we've got less fillings,
it may be because we don't go to the dentist at all.
- "Fewer" fillings. - Fewer fillings.
- Ooh! Stephen... - I was just being silly.
- Knock knock. - Yeah, who's there?
- To. - To who?
No, it's "to whom".
LAUGHTER
APPLAUSE Yes, touche!
- Yes. - Tou-bloody-che!
Yes. Yes.
- Oh, I love that. - LAUGHTER
But, actually, you could argue that the best teeth in the world
- are in fact not human, but the limpet. - The limpet.
- What's so great about limpets' teeth? - They get them stuck in a rock.
Yeah, they're on their tongue
and they're the strongest biological matter on Earth.
Incredible power. To give you an example...
- "Limpets' teeth"? - Limpets' teeth.
Now how do they compare, on the scale, bees' knees, limpets' teeth?
Where are we on the scale there?
Well, it's about hanging things from spaghetti.
- Right. - Right.
The "bees' knees", I have to tell you,
is just an American way of expressing
when immigrants from Italy and other places said, "It's the business."
It's the "beesness".
- Oh. - Became "bees' knees",
So, it's not really anything to do with the knee of a bee, as such.
Oh, what about, "It's-a the dog's-a bollocks!"
LAUGHTER
But their teeth strength is the equivalent of
a single string of spaghetti
holding up 3,000 half-kilo bags of sugar.
- Or 1,500 kilo bags. - LAUGHTER
Aaah, right.
So. Moving on.
And now, as is our general practice,
it's time to prescribe a dose of General Ignorance.
Fingers on buzzers.
What did Gabriele Falloppio call these?
DR ZHIVAGO THEME TUNE Yes, Lucy?
"My bloody tubes."
"My bloody tubes!"
He didn't call them tubes. DR FINLAY'S CASEBOOK THEME TUNE
Are they those, what do they call it, Beats?
Those headphones, the Beats.
LAUGHTER
- Fallopians by Dre. - Yeah. - Dr Dre.
Fallopian tubes, we think of.
- Yeah. - But Falloppio... - He called them something else.
He thought, when he identified these shapes inside the lady person...
A lady's pipes.
Yeah, he thought they reminded him of what were
in those days rather long musical instruments
with an end like a trumpet's bell, these were tubas.
And so he called them "tubas".
And if you have a tuba,
if you have a word ending in A in Italian,
how do you pluralise it? What is two "tuba"?
- Tube. - "Tube." - Tube.
Tube. With an E on the end, spelled T-U-B-E.
So, when it went around the world as his "tube", his "tubas",
people saw the word "tube".
- But, in fact, he had called them "tubas". - Gosh!
So now, when a lady breaks wind,
she can say, "I'm sorry, "it's just my fallopian tubas."
- ALAN PARPS - Just the old tuba.
- HE PARPS - Sorry about my tuba. - Her tube.
That's quite interesting, a reasonably interesting piece.
- That is quite interesting. - Quite interesting, yes.
He also gave the world the condom.
He was 16th century, so it was in 1540s and '50s.
- What were they made of, then? - I will show you. This. Linen.
Oh, is it the old pig's bladder?
- Would you like to play with a condom? - What, is that a real one?
No, that's not a real one.
No, made by our director's wife, as a matter of fact.
HE PUFFS
I love blowing up a condom, don't you?
Falloppio was very...
Didn't answer.
..ahead of his time.
A condom for you, there you are.
He was very ahead of his time.
He reckoned that the use of these would save a lot of deaths
and infections from syphilis.
And he actually gave...
1,100 men, he gave condoms
and none of them developed syphilis.
Not one of those men got pregnant. Very good.
- And I'll tell you what, keep you warm, wouldn't it. - Yeah.
- Yeah, it's... - Not right for the woman, because it's quite abrasive.
- Well, yes. - Well... - LUCY GIGGLES
Yes, I don't know. Oh, Lucy! My!
Well, it seems that a fallopian tube
should really have been a fallopian tuba.
So, which of these couples is most likely to catch a cold?
Couple on the left, because you get more of it from contact with hands.
- You're right. - Yeah, because then you scratch your eyes and you...
- That's exactly the point. - Yes.
Mucus and the nose, and people who do that who've got a cold.
They get left everywhere on door handles.
They shake hands with someone. But saliva is not a problem,
as far as cold transmission is concerned, at all.
- Really? Saliva, what you can't, oh...? - No.
You can osculate as much as you like,
you can give it good French and you won't necessarily get a cold from it.
- You may get another disease, but... - Who's that? I've seen her.
- What's her name? - It's Dame Vera Lynn.
In the blue, I've seen her. Oh, um, on the stamp, that's it.
Look at her face, covered in mites! Look at it!
LAUGHTER
Disgusting!
You disgust me, Your Majesty! You disgust me!
Look at Dame Vera Lynn there, you could eat your dinner off her face!
That's why we won the war.
- She's let the country down with those mites. - Yeah.
Look at Terry Wogan leaning forward going,
"Oh, Jesus, I poked his eye out,
"I put him in a pan and boiled his head!"
LAUGHTER
Anyway, this could go on for ever, but it mustn't.
It mustn't, and it won't, and it shan't and shut up!
So, you're more likely to catch a cold
from holding someone's hand than tickling their tonsils.
Here's an easy question, what's a hip fracture?
It's cracking the hip bone?
Is it not really a fracture and that's why you're asking us...?
KLAXON BLARES
- A fracture of the hip. - Oh, I see.
- A hip fracture is not a fracture of the hip. - Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's weird to say this, but it's true.
A hip fracture is a fracture of the femur, of the long thigh bone,
- there. - OK, but, what if you actually fracture your hip, you'll...
That's a pelvic fracture.
But what if you actually fracture your pelvis? We could go on...
- I know, I know. - It's a different name for every one!
I know, it does seem mad, it's a question that was designed
simply to get points out of Alan and it worked, and so...
God, well, no wonder the doctors are going mad.
Yeah, it is a bit peculiar, I grant you.
And we now come coughing and spluttering
to the most heavily doctored part of the whole evening - the scores.
Oh, my. Well, in first place, with not a cough, not a tickle,
clear skin, free of mites,
on 9 points, it's Lucy Porter.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
I thank you.
I know.
In second place, almost as healthy,
it's Ross Noble on 7 points!
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
On -5, with a tickly throat,
and not looking too well,
it's Matt Lucas.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
Thank you.
And groaning and wheezing
at death's door on -44, Alan Davies.
- CHEERING AND APPLAUSE - What?!
So, it only remains for me to thank Matt, Ross, Lucy and Alan.
I leave you with the words of Rodney Dangerfield.
"When I was born, I was so ugly the doctor slapped my mother."
Goodnight.