CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
Good evening and welcome to QI,
where tonight we're going to be rummaging around an assortment
of parts and generally having a right old knees-up, hint-hint.
So park your posterior as we meet tonight's panel.
Joining me are the perfectly profiled Sara Pascoe...
APPLAUSE
Thank you!
..in the pinky, Johnny Vegas...
APPLAUSE
..the very palate-able Ed Balls...
APPLAUSE
..and a part of the furniture, Alan Davies. Hello.
APPLAUSE
And let's preview their body parts.
Sara goes...
JAZZ MUSIC PLAYS: ♪ Dancing cheek to cheek. ♪
Oh, nice. Johnny goes...
EASY LISTENING MUSIC PLAYS: ♪ You need hands. ♪
LAUGHTER
Ed goes...
ROCK MUSIC PLAYS: ♪ I've got big balls, I've got big balls. ♪
LAUGHTER
Wow. I think I'm blushing.
And...
..and Alan goes...
GLAM ROCK MUSIC PLAYS: ♪ Little Willy, Willy won't go home. ♪
LAUGHTER
APPLAUSE
Now, here's the thing. There may be a question about a pig, all right?
So look out for that, and if you spot it, then you should all...
Have you got pigs? You've all got pigs. Yeah.
You shout, "Pig!" and then you get extra pig points, OK?
LAUGHTER
ED OINKS
Oh, yours is slightly aggressive, Ed, I think.
LAUGHTER Anyway, so...
What is the most useful organ of the body?
I'm going to give you a clue. OK. It begins with a P.
LAUGHTER
Penis?
KLAXON AND LAUGHTER
Can I just say, that picture of that gentleman...
LAUGHTER
..is he wearing something underneath or is that...?
Are you going to make us explain the male physique to you?
Perineum. Perineum is very good.
Is that an organ on its own?
It's an area. Yeah.
Just something beginning with P on the body, Pascoe.
How about a paunch? Paunch? A paunch.
LAUGHTER How is that useful?
I've always felt a bit sorry for people who've not got a paunch.
Yes. Nowhere to put your beer.
If you're reading in bed, you can rest your book. Yes.
LAUGHTER
And actually, it's really important for dancing.
Why?
Er, my dance partner from Strictly, Katya,
was on the show this year with a thin person.
Right. And they gave her a very bad back
cos she was always leaning in, trying to find him.
Right. Whereas I was...
Readily available. ..always there.
LAUGHTER
At all times, bang!
I'm going to give you an extra point.
That's probably why so many professional dancers
approach me in nightclubs.
LAUGHTER
"If I dance with you, I'll live to be 100."
LAUGHTER
I'm sure that's not...
A paunch can so easily lead to crying on your own.
LAUGHTER
If not managed properly.
Yes, that's so true.
But, um...
I think you've curated yours very well.
I haven't created it, I've just mismanaged it. Curated, curated.
You know when the Woodland Trust will sell you a forest?
Yeah. And then it gets a bit overgrown...
LAUGHTER
Right. So what I'm looking for...
We've all had one... Oh. ..we don't necessarily have one now,
but we've all had one.
Who?
LAUGHTER
It's the placenta.
In its time, it has performed the roles of the kidney, of the lungs,
of the liver, the guts, the endocrine glands, disposed of waste,
it is...of course, it's made by a woman, it is a multi-skilling organ.
LAUGHTER AND CHEERING
And it's also a superfood. Well...
SARA: It's not scientifically proven...
- No. - ...the whole eating the placenta thing. It's very trendy.
The idea is that it's full of protein
cos it's done all these things, but it's waste matter.
Do you know who eats placenta in the world?
- Idiots. - Idiots.
LAUGHTER
Can you combine it with anything else?
Well, yes, you can.
There are recipes and I have some advice for preparing a placenta,
if anybody's interested.
Clean it, first by draining all the blood,
then rinsing it until it's pink.
Then you'll have to cut away the umbilical cord and membranes.
Once it's prepared,
it's no different from something you'd get at the butcher's,
so go ahead, roast, steam, saute, flambe,
whatever the culinary winds take you.
Add herbs or garlic, if you like.
So essentially, it's like fish fingers.
LAUGHTER
You don't really often wash the blood off fish fingers.
LAUGHTER
I do, but quite often I've fallen over before deciding to cook them.
LAUGHTER
The only tribe that actually routinely eats the placenta
are affluent people in, um...
LAUGHTER
..in the USA.
In fact, the Royal College of Midwives
says there is absolutely no evidence
that it does you any good whatsoever.
So it's total trendy garbage?
Generally, it's a stupid idea.
I'd be more concerned...
..because it's not readily available on the shelves...
Right. ..that if I ate it once and it became the food for me...
LAUGHTER
Which major chain... Yeah.
You know, I don't want to end up in a conversation going,
"I'm not keen on Tesco's."
You know, "I don't think theirs has been corn-fed."
LAUGHTER
Where can I get a placenta that had a happy...?
A free-range placenta. Yeah. That's had a happy life.
I'm worried you'll be following heavily pregnant women around
just with your hands out, waiting.
"Have you finished with that? Have you finished with that now?"
LAUGHTER
Body-builders believe that breastmilk is really,
really high in protein and helps you grow muscles,
because it helps human babies grow so quickly.
There are websites where body-builders buy what
they call liquid gold... Buying breastmilk?
Yeah, and women advertise their breastmilk to buy,
with a picture of the baby
that they are denying milk to.
LAUGHTER
And people pay a lot of money for it.
As a body-builder, Johnny, have you, um...
LAUGHTER
I'm fortunate, cos I can lactate.
Yes, that is definitely possible.
But I did not know that stuff was being sold. Yes.
So, the other thing I didn't know about.
In France, once the pregnancy's over,
the government pays for something called "la reeducation perineale".
So it's a physical therapy and it is designed
to retrain the pelvic floor muscles, so that all sounds fine. Yeah.
Part of the course involves using an electronic vaginal re-educator.
Now, it measures how hard the particular muscles are working
and teaches the mother, you know, to control them.
But it can be hooked up to video games, so...
LAUGHTER
There was a journalist called Clare Lundberg at Slate and
she wrote, "I played a Pole Position game at my last session"
"and a friend played what I can only call Cooter Pac-Man."
LAUGHTER
Yeah. I don't think it's a game I want to play in front of my mother,
that's what I'm thinking. LAUGHTER
Womb Raider.
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
Now, then.
Which part of the body did Painless Parker specialise in pulling?
SCATTERED GIGGLING
I'm not saying penis again.
KLAXON AND LAUGHTER
APPLAUSE
Painless Parker, what do you think?
He did some pulling. With pulling, it makes you think of teeth.
Yes, you're exactly right.
He was America's only ever dentist-cum-ringmaster.
Don't you love this?
Yes! Do you think he looks a bit like Stephen Fry?
LAUGHTER
With no teeth. Yeah.
So his very first business plan, a very simple technique -
ply patients with cocaine before pulling their teeth out.
Sometimes he would use a tumbler of whisky.
But he thought this wasn't enough cos he did about six weeks
and he hadn't had a patient and he thought he would promote himself,
so he got sort of a horse-drawn flatbed with a dentist's chair on it
and he charged 50 cents per extraction
and you got given 5 if it hurt, OK?
So he wore a top hat and tails and a necklace made of teeth.
Eventually, he had a live audience, a brass band,
contortionists and dancing women
and he would sometimes enter on an elephant,
throwing coins to the ground
and the brass band was there to drown out the cries of the patients.
I'm currently involved in a lawsuit because I woke up at my dentist's
wearing clothes that weren't mine.
LAUGHTER
I went in as a working-class gentleman and left as a toff
and my horse and trap was not to be found.
Do you mind going to the dentist, Ed?
I don't mind it, but I worked for many years with Gordon Brown
when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer,
who was a very brave, tough guy,
who was totally afraid of needles.
But he had lots of dental work,
and he had it all done without any anaesthetic,
and he used to come in, having had his teeth done,
in the blackest mood you could possibly imagine.
I'm not surprised!
It was the one thing he could not blame Tony Blair for at all!
So, ever since then, I just figured whatever the pain,
I'll have an injection. And it's been fine.
Yeah. So, before forceps, people used to have their teeth removed
by something called dental pelican.
That's what it looks like.
AUDIENCE GROANS It sounded nicer than that. Yeah.
It sounded like a bird. They didn't have a dentist's chair,
so the patient had to sit on a low seat
with their head between the dentist's thighs.
But, like, looking upwards at them? Yep, yeah.
LAUGHTER
Didn't people, if they were going on international trips,
like, you were going to be a missionary in Africa,
the only safe way to go was to have all of your teeth pulled out
before you went? Yeah.
Because the chances of catching something and it being
deathly were so bad, you'd just have the lot taken out. Yeah.
I was in the dentist's the other week,
and he explained to me that both his grandparents had their teeth
removed for their 21st birthday, as a present.
My Nanny Babs was exactly the same.
Her 21st birthday, it's much, much cheaper just to get all your
false teeth put in at once, rather than it kind of going on,
you know it's going to be expensive and an ongoing thing,
so, exactly the same, all of her teeth out.
You don't get any Nanny Babs any more, do you? Marvellous name.
There is no more Nanny Babs, actually. Sorry!
I'm glad we've paid tribute to her today.
Yes! Old Gummy Babs!
But she wasn't going to be a missionary?
No, she didn't give a shit, mate.
LAUGHTER
OK, while we are in the mouth, we're going to try something.
So you have plastic discs at your disposal and some blindfolds.
And I want you to put the blindfolds on, please.
OK.
There we go.
And I want you to see...
We can't!
That's the one thing we can't do.
"Put the blindfold on, I want you to see." "What?!"
I want you to experiment with the disc... OK.
..and see whether your fingers or your tongue
are better at working out the size of the holes in the disc
and the shape.
See which you think is actually more adept at working out which is...
TALKING WITH TONGUE OUT: It's the tongue. Sorry?
The tongue. For me, it's the fingers.
It's tongue. It's the tongue. No, it's the fingers.
I can feel different edges.
LAUGHTER Can you?
I can get the tongue further in than you think possible, Sara.
LAUGHTER
Something I see in a new and more positive light, Alan.
LAUGHTER
The tongue is much more pliable.
It's called the oral size illusion
and cos your tongue is much more pliable, it will bend around
different surfaces more easily and it should give you
a more accurate picture of what you're looking at.
So when I'm measuring up to put some shelves up, I should...
Yeah. Measure with your tongue.
I should go into B&Q and go, "About that big."
LAUGHTER
"I need some screws about that big."
LAUGHTER
Do not... "I do two and a half mil." "I don't know."
LAUGHTER
Right, what's interesting to me, Sandi,
is that there's three shapes on here. Yeah.
I did not successfully identify what they are with either my fingers
or my tongue. Ah.
I knew two of them with my tongue.
You were right, the tongue was better.
Well, you know when you've got a little thing in your mouth
and it seems, feels so much bigger to you...
I do know about that, Sandi. I thought they were all the same.
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
Stop making it us!
Stop telling her about everything!
LAUGHTER
So, is that why dogs lick us, to find out what shape we are?
"When this one dies, I'll eat it."
"This one's delicious."
As a lover, should you always be looking for two alternative shapes?
Cos the semicircle is like a happy mouth. Right.
The other one is like an angry eye. I like that.
I like a woman saying to you, "Look for my happy mouth," and then...
"No, not the angry eye, not the angry eye!"
"The happy mouth!"
So, what are your toes best at identif... Oh, the ground.
LAUGHTER
Now, how can you tell the time of year using part of a ruddy duck?
There's a beautiful ruddy duck.
Is it actually a thing, a ruddy duck?
It is an actual... I thought it was just rhyming slang.
No, no, no. LAUGHTER
It is a North American bird. It's named after its colour.
Does the beak change colour?
Er, nope, stays that beautiful blue. It's stunning, isn't it?
It starts with a P. OK.
Plumage. It's not the plumage.
Tail. Well, it's the...
..Latin word for tail...
Penis.
Penis, finally! LAUGHTER
There we go.
It's got the most enormous penis, but only for...
Oh, well done. There, it's grotesque.
Oh, look at that! I know, it's astonishing.
But it only has it for a very small period each year.
So, can you see at the top in the middle there,
you can see that it's being measured out.
It looks unwell, doesn't it?
LAUGHTER
So that's the penis
and then the vagina goes, as it were, the other way.
It screws in? Yeah, so they fit together.
Does it have to spin its way in?
Yeah. LAUGHTER
Take a breath and go around again, take a breath and go around again.
LAUGHTER Oh!
Can they choose between them who's going to spin this time?
"You spin. You spin, I'm exhausted. I'll go under. You spin."
LAUGHTER
HE SCREAMS
Does the duck lay little screw eggs that's...
HE MAKES WHOOSHING SOUND
Yeah. LAUGHTER
It only has that long penis exclusively for the mating season.
The rest of the year, it practically has nothing.
It withers back, it's a tiny...
So that's the picture on the far... Tiny little stumps. The little one?
Yeah. The penis size depends on their social circumstances. Mm.
So males who are kept with females, they grow to full size.
If males are kept with other males,
only the dominant male is the one who gets a full-size penis.
It's like duck prison.
LAUGHTER
Well, except that other males will get one for four to six weeks,
so it's a bit more like time-share. Right. Yeah.
LAUGHTER
So nature does that so that they don't all kill each other.
Yeah. Cos if they were too competitive,
so it has a kind of biological hierarchy.
That's exactly right. It's very clear.
But if you are the non-dominant male and you get the big penis,
then you are a target, so what they try and do
is they try and grow one, sneak in some sex,
then quickly shrink it back again
so that the duck in charge didn't even notice that it had happened.
So I should go back to living in a house share?
LAUGHTER
If I live with five other blokes, I might just have that "rurr"...
If you're the alpha male,
so you have to be very careful who you choose to live with.
That's true. I'm not by nature an alpha male,
but I will kill them in their sleep and just enjoy that brief moment.
LAUGHTER
Take some pictures. Yeah. Some selfies.
LAUGHTER "Five guys dead, but look at the..."
LAUGHTER
There was a TV programme on when I was little called Why Don't You?
Yeah. Why Don't You Just Turn Off Your Television Set?
And they once had a thing which you could do at home
called the dying duck. What was it?
HE QUACKS
HE IMITATES GUNSHOT
HE QUACKS RAPIDLY
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
I can remember...
I was five years old and I've been doing that duck ever since.
You were wasted in Parliament. That's fantastic.
LAUGHTER
I can remember hearing that George Osborne
used to find you irritating...
LAUGHTER
..across the bench because, you know, you'd get on his nerves...
Did you do the duck call? ..and I never knew what you were doing.
I never did the duck call.
Although we did use rhyming slang. Did you?
Yeah, there was one time where he did a Budget which he claimed
was a Robin Hood Budget,
cos it took from the rich to give to the poor,
and I said in Parliament, "It's the opposite way around,"
"he's taking from the poor to give to the rich,"
"and he doesn't give a Friar Tuck."
He sat there kind of looking at the Speaker, saying,
"Call this out of order!"
Yeah! The Speaker loved it.
So there's only one other animal that adjusts its penis size.
It's the acorn barnacle, OK?
So, the acorn barnacle, it lives in the intertidal waters
and it can't move and it's stuck on the sea rocks,
but it still has to get its penis to its neighbours,
it's a hermaphrodite.
And it grows the penis for the mating season every autumn
and then it throws it away the next time it moults,
and the length of the penis depends entirely
on how close you are to the neighbours,
and then the type of penis you grow depends on the water.
So, if choppy waters, you want it to be a little bit more muscular,
and in calm waters, bit longer, bit more flexible.
I'm still processing that you said
he throws it away when he's finished with it. Yeah.
Yeah, they moult. Is there some other sea creature going,
"You'll never guess what I've found"?
LAUGHTER
"I thought you were coming out with me."
"Nah, I'm going straight home."
LAUGHTER
Does it definitely always grow back? Yes.
Is it like a Christmas tree,
where you've got to wait for the council to come and get it?
Is there some kind of tiny undersea... Mound?
..organised thing that comes and collects them and says,
"Please don't leave them out the front of your house"?
When you get in with your penis, there will be a collection day...
Yes. Which of your bins do you put your penis in?
I don't think it's recycling,
I don't think anyone wants it afterwards.
Well, it's organic.
ED: It depends upon your local authority. That's true.
It's not like jellyfish.
You're not going to get a warning in Wales -
"Don't go in the water, it's full of tiny penises."
Or maybe you do!
It has the longest penis in relation to body length
of any animal in the world. SARA: Yes. the whole of nature.
ED: Are female ruddy ducks generally more contented?
Yeah, other ducks from other breeds fancy them.
It's part of sperm competition.
Having really strong sperm matters,
so birds started evolving labyrinthine vaginas
which meant that sperm would have to travel further,
which means it would be the strongest sperm
that would impregnate the duck,
and then penises started getting longer and windier
so the sperm would have less to travel, so it's kind of...
Is that the video game you've been playing?
LAUGHTER
This entire time, yeah.
Nobody can tell.
We're both playing video games while we're sitting here.
LAUGHTER
Whoa! Score. Um...
Right. Whose internal parts are most like yours?
Oh!
Playing the pig? Playing the pig? Yep.
♪ Little Willy. ♪
Yes, you're absolutely right.
This is a very odd thing,
but between the lips and the anus, basically,
there is very little difference between a pig and a human.
Yeah. So we're both generalists when it comes to eating,
we have evolved to eat nuts, roots... Anything, yeah.
..meat, fat. Pretty much anything at all.
In fact... HE SNORTS AND OINKS
LAUGHTER
HE OINKS
LAUGHTER
I wanted to be a puppeteer all my life.
LAUGHTER
That looked like a cheaper version of Alien then.
LAUGHTER
Ahhhhh!
Oh, my God, Davies!
LAUGHTER
APPLAUSE
Don't shake your head! I'm sorry, I was just thinking, if this was...
..if this was school, you'd get told off,
but they let you do it on television. I know.
Grow up and you do what you like.
So some people, cannibals...
That's why they called us long pigs because human meats taste like...
Yeah, apparently, we taste a bit like pork
and it's because we eat roughly the same sorts of things.
We have the same sort of construction in our mouth,
we have incisors, canines and molars, we have a single stomach,
we have a colon that tries to extract all the water it can
from whatever we eat. Also, before they had synthetic insulin,
they used pig's insulin for people who were diabetic.
Yeah, they've used lots of things.
They've used pig valves in operations and so on.
But it's not the best model of the human immune system.
I think the best model is actually a mouse,
because they are, I think, a better model of humans
than primates, for example.
So, if you're going to test for drug reactions,
you're much better off using mice. Yeah, yeah.
But I do believe that two chimpanzees are better...
LAUGHTER
..two chimpanzees are better at moving a piano.
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
Here's the bit I did not know...
We've lost Alan. LAUGHTER
We've lost Alan. He's having the best day of his life!
The thing I did not know is that pigs also suffer
from the same genetic and protein malfunctions
that account for lots of human diseases,
so they get Alzheimer's and they get Parkinson's.
How do they identify that?
Does the pig start putting the car keys in the fridge?
LAUGHTER
Going to the trough and going, "What have I come here for?"
LAUGHTER
Between the mouth and the anus,
you're more like a pig than anything else.
Pigs away, please.
IN HIGH PITCHED VOICE: Bye, everyone. Bye.
LAUGHTER Argh!
Right, can you spot the personality in this picture?
Oh! You look like you're constipated. I do! Cockroaches?
They are cockroaches. And they're around Alan. Yes.
I want you to spot the personality in this picture.
The personality? The personality? Yeah.
So, in biology, a personality is a set of behavioural differences
between individuals in a group, that stays consistent over time.
So, for example, researchers at Universite libre de Bruxelles,
they studied cockroaches. Mm-hm.
And they found they had two basic personality types.
Half of them are shy and cautious,
and the other half are bold and explorers.
Humans, however - really complicated, really unpredictable
and change how they behave, their traits, over their lifetime.
So, in a biological respect, humans have no personality whatsoever.
That's absolutely true, because we're plastic,
we respond to environment and each other all the time.
So, we don't have what's called a personality.
Bees have a personality, they can either be flighty,
so they never settle down, or they are very diligent,
so they are one of two things.
Hermit crabs can be bold or they can be shy.
Even fruit flies have different personalities.
Doesn't this just show that
the biologists don't know what the word personality means?
If you look in philosophy
and, say, Wittgensteinian stuff about language,
he would say you can only be a person if you have language,
which means you can talk and reflect upon what you have said. Yeah.
Which means that only humans
can have a personality, and an animal never could,
because they don't have that language capacity.
That seems to make much more sense.
But if a personality is something completely
definable and predictable, and that's what we're looking for.
Yeah, so, like a horoscope always has a balanced sentence,
it goes, "You're a quiet person, but you sometimes like to go out."
So, this is not the anthropomorphic kind of personality,
as we take the word, it's a kind of behaviour
that is then replicated by all of the rest of the...
Cos Johnny is, as far as I can see, entirely unpredictable...
LAUGHTER
..and has kind of no discernible, consistent,
predictable traits through time, and that makes him a big personality.
Yes, but I think we're not using the word in the biological sense.
I know, but it's ridiculous.
There are some consistent things. Like the drinking.
Yeah, that's consistent.
LAUGHTER
This is Sara's glass of wine, by the way...
Shut up!
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE You dropped me in!
There were two cardiologists in the 1950s,
Meyer Friedman and Ray Rosenman,
and they divided human beings into type A and type B,
you might have heard of this...
Honest people whose lives haven't gone to plan,
and liars.
LAUGHTER
So, a type A, competitive, highly organised, ambitious,
impatient, that kind of thing,
and type B personalities are much more relaxed.
And part of the reason why this theory became so popular
is a lot of the research was funded by cigarette companies,
who wanted to prove that it wasn't cigarettes that were causing
heart attacks, it was people who were of a type A personality,
that in fact there was no link at all.
Now, you mentioned astrology, that's another way in which
human beings try to sort of divide themselves up.
So, you'd say, "I'm just like this, so I'm a Taurean."
So, let's have a look. Sara, what... I'm a Gemini.
KLAXON
OK, did you mean, like, my rising?
No, no. Johnny, what star sign are you?
Oh, er, Virgo.
KLAXON
Johnny Virgo!
OK. What are you, Ed?
I'm a Pisces. Pisces?
Oh! OK. And what are you, Alan?
Well, now, I think I know what's going on here. Oh! Ooh!
Thank God somebody does! Yeah!
Because all the stars and the alignment of where a planet is
were set by astrologers a long time ago, but actually,
everything's moved a little bit,
so you think if you're born at that time of the year that you're
born under those stars, but you're not.
The modern star signs are all based on those of
ancient Babylon, and the night sky has completely moved.
It turns out I'm not a Taurean at all, I'm actually an Aries.
Can I borrow that phrase? Yes.
If I chat to somebody in the pub and she says, "What's your star sign?"
Can I say, "You're just talking absolute Babylon"?
You absolutely can. You're actually a Leo, in case you wanted to know.
I'm really not.
So, that means I'm a Taurus? So, you, Sara, are actually a Taurus.
And Alan, you were actually born under Aquarius.
Oh, cool. And what am I?
I think we got the date of your birth entirely wrong, so...
LAUGHTER
We might have gone into Wikipedia... KLAXON
APPLAUSE
Didn't get that one before. That's so good!
So, in Japan, there is even a word for playground bullying
based on blood type stereotype, and it's called bura-hara,
and it means blood harassment.
There's also an Oxford philosopher called Parfitt,
who wrote a book called Reasons and Persons,
and what he said was that who we are as a person changes through time,
so that your personhood is a succession of past and future selves
so your different from yourself aged 20 and yourself aged 60,
but you can only be a person if you have that sense of self
which evolves through time. They did a study,
and it was this thing of going, for a certain amount of your life,
you're stuck in a certain time period,
and they actually worked it out, they brought it down to 28.
Like, 28 is the age that apparently you feel that you've become,
you know... A human being.
..a fully rounded person, you're not looking constantly...
..for acceptance from anybody else.
And then you stay in that age... Until when? ..within your head.
Well, until I was told this advice,
and I was being pulled out of a river.
LAUGHTER
It was a fascinating conversation in the back of the ambulance.
And I realised I wasn't a pole vaulter.
I pole vaulted for Nottinghamshire Under 15s.
Did you really? Mmm.
What on earth did they... Under 15 pole vault,
Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire.
Because I went to the county trials, only three of us turned up
and only two of us got over the qualifying height.
Straight in the team!
It turned out the under-18 high jumpers
were going over a higher height, WITHOUT a pole...
..than with a pole at 15. Didn't matter. County pole vaulter.
SARA: Ed, Ed!
Can I have the film rights to this?
ED: What was this segment about?
Don't worry about it.
There are two types in this world, those with the personality of
a cockroach and those with no personality at all.
Now, from parts to parties.
How can children's parties cause you to age prematurely?
LAUGHTER
Speaking as a parent... Yeah.
..the amount of carrot batons that you eat at a children's party,
cos they won't touch them for love nor money,
and there are always bowls of them and it's inexplicable -
just put Smarties out. Yes. They don't want carrot batons.
LAUGHTER
Do they age you?
Er, yes, but it isn't the adults that we are worrying about.
So, it's the children, not the adults? Yeah.
It is the sweetest thing.
At the age of about four or five,
lots of children think that it is the birthday party
that makes you older.
The party is the thing that causes them to age. Aww.
Isn't that the sweetest thing? It is sweet.
So some researchers in Israel asked children,
they said there was a child celebrating their birthday
after one year, and then they celebrated after two years,
but in their third year,
their mother was not well and they didn't have a party,
how old is the child?
And 80% of the children aged four
thought the child was still two because they hadn't had a party.
My niece has just turned four and she's actually...
She's put things together in a different way.
She asked me, "Are you coming to my birthday party?"
I said, "Yes." And she went...
SHE WHISPERS: .."Father Christmas will be coming."
LAUGHTER
What are the dangers of blowing out the candles on a birthday cake?
Oh, God, all of the...spit. Yes.
And the older you get, the more you blow,
the more germs that are left on the cake.
They have invented this thing for older people,
who still want to celebrate their party but do not want to eat
the cake after they have dribbled on it...
So, they have invented this plastic sheeting you can put
underneath the candles, you put the candles on, then they...
SHE BLOWS RASPBERRY
Thanks, Nanny Babs. You know I don't want any!
- And then you take the plastic off... - It's absolutely right, it's a birthday cake cover.
There it is. You can increase the level of bacteria
by an average of 1,400 percent.
- Oh, come on! - Yes, no, no. - Isn't this the equivalent of children playing in the mud in the garden?
That part of developing their young immune systems is to...
- Spit on their cake! - ..for their bodies to deal with all that stuff...
There is nothing wrong with the bacteria, darling.
- It's all the perfectly harmless stuff that is in your mouth. You've got to process it. - That's true.
Now, let's head to foreign parts. Can you tell me what's wrong with this boat?
Well, it's not in the water.
LAUGHTER
It's not boat-shaped. It's not boat shaped is exactly right.
It is called a popovka and they were circular battleships.
Only two were ever made, in Russia in the late-19th century.
So there was a Russian Vice Admiral called Andrei Popov
and he thought it was a marvellous idea to have a round ship
because it could deflect shells, it would require less armour,
and he got the idea from a Scottish shipbuilder called John Elder.
And he thought that circular hulls
would offer greater level of displacement of the water,
so you could have a greater ratio of guns and so on.
So why did it not work? What do you suppose was the reason?
Did it go round in circles? It just went round in circles!
So, the minute you fire a gun, the boat went...
"Whoaa!"
LAUGHTER
So you had to fire in all directions equally?
Yes, you'd have to fire at everything all at the same time.
So therefore, if you're totally surrounded, it's really useful.
Yeah, you'd have to be right in the middle of the enemy.
But if you've got your guys behind you, they're screwed.
One of them was called the Novgorod
and it got stuck in an eddy in the River Dnieper
and spun round and round, making everybody incredibly sick,
before it was swept out to sea. LAUGHTER
That's the thing. The whole thing with naval stuff is kind of
the starboard, the directions, you don't have that either.
Yeah, and the other thing is heat as well,
because it concentrated all the heat inwards.
It made the decks incredibly hot.
There was so much water resistance,
cos it's not cutting through the water,
that they could hardly make any speed at all.
So, for the Russia-Turkish War 1877-1878,
the ships were anchored on the shore
in order to not make them spin round.
What they should have done was twin hulls.
You could have a circular top.
Yes, you could. As long as you... You need a catamaran...
Yeah, with a catamaran thing underneath.
You're absolutely right. I've got a degree in marine engineering.
It's too late to try and impress me, Alan.
LAUGHTER
If your penis is not growing seasonally, she's not interested.
LAUGHTER
lots of ships have what's called a bulbous bow,
so that's the sort of bulbous bit at the front of the keel. There it is.
What do you think that does? What is the purpose of that?
It's a penis.
LAUGHTER
KLAXON AND APPLAUSE
I think it's for breaking icebergs.
No, it's a really clever piece of physics.
So normally the protruding bit is underneath the waterline and
what happens is
it creates its own wave and the actual bow creates a wave and
they are in different phases, and they cancel each other out.
- Wow. - So, it basically stops the wave at the front from slowing the ship down.
That's amazing. This is what you mean about human beings not having a defined personality.
- You can have some people going, "wouldn't it be great if a boat was round?". - Yeah.
And other people going, "Or, we can just work with physics."
And make it much easier to go through the water."
But I love that because it's really straightforward and simple.
- Yeah. - And you wouldn't know from looking at it unless you understood water and physics. - Yeah...
It should have a window in it and you should be able to sit in there.
LAUGHTER
The Popovka, one of the world's least ship-shaped ships,
which brings us around again to the perilous part of the show
that we call General Ignorance. Fingers on buzzers, please.
Can you name a body part that babies are born without?
♪ Hands. ♪ Yes?
Remorse.
LAUGHTER
APPLAUSE
Fair enough. Body part.
I'm looking for a body part.
Teeth. Yeah, it is their permanent teeth.
A lot of people think that they are born without kneecaps,
that is not the case.
I've never... That's not a thing that people think, do they?
Yeah, cos they don't show up on X-rays.
What? They've got invisible knees?
They're made of cartilage. Up until about three to five...
So there you are. You can see that you cannot see, as it were.
I can smell that nappy from here. I just know...
LAUGHTER
It's not until you're 10 or 12 that you have a firm kneecap
and that's why it doesn't hurt so much
when you fall when you're younger because it is sort of cushioned.
I see! That's amazing. Ooh!
In fact, the human foetus, when it's in the womb,
it's almost all cartilage, it's a bit like a sort of giant ear.
When I was in Australia once, in the Northern Territory,
a very stupid man got eaten by a crocodile
and when they killed the crocodile to get his body back,
because he'd been partially digested and one of the first things they digest is calcium,
his bones were all rubbery...
Yeah!
LAUGHTER
But it is the permanent teeth.
They take a while for the baby teeth to fall out.
It begins around the age of six.
Anybody know, 2017, UK survey,
what's the average amount the tooth fairy leaves for a tooth?
♪ Cheek. ♪ Yes.
I'll go £2.
It's 88p. Oh, OK.
Who leaves 88p for a...?
LAUGHTER
It's an average, it's an average. Yeah.
Ostriches are the only animals in the world
that have a double kneecap.
They have an upper kneecap which looks like that of most species,
but it also has a lower kneecap. Anybody know why?
Nope. No, that's correct. Nobody knows why.
LAUGHTER Oh, wow!
Is it to do with trying to take off,
like the amount of weight when they used to fly?
Well, if you could figure it out, everybody would be thrilled.
I'm going to dedicate my life to it. That's it.
What is this man's official title?
Is it the Pope?
KLAXON
Head of the Catholic Church.
Yeah, it's not his official title.
So, we rang... I love this.
We rang the Papal Nunciature. Guess where they are located.
Lowestoft.
LAUGHTER
Wimbledon. Are they?
LAUGHTER
And the spokesman translated the Pope's titles
from the Vatican's official directory.
They are Bishop of Rome, Vicar of Jesus Christ,
Successor of the Prince of the Apostles,
Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church, Primate of Italy,
Archbishop and Metropolitan of the Roman Province,
Sovereign of the State of Vatican City,
Servant of the Servants of God,
but not Pope.
Try fitting that on a name badge. I know!
LAUGHTER
It's a colloquial term from the Italian "papa", so it's a style,
rather than an official title.
Why do you think those guys all round the back
are looking in the air?
Cos their hats haven't landed yet. And the Pope's looking forward?
LAUGHTER
"My hat came first! Ha-ha-ha!"
Supplementary question, is the Pope Catholic?
I mean, literally, is the Pope a Roman Catholic?
He's a Roman Catholic, yes.
KLAXON
Because the Pope, that is this man, is not called the Pope,
then he is a Roman Catholic, this one is a Roman Catholic,
but the actual Pope is the Pope of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria
and his official title is
Pope of Alexandria and Patriarch of All Africa on the Holy See of St Mark the Apostle.
So he is definitely the Pope but he isn't a Catholic.
He's the Pope of the Coptic Orthodox Church.
So the Pope, the man whose actual title is the Pope, isn't a Catholic.
The Pope isn't officially called the Pope
and the man who actually is the Pope isn't a Catholic.
LAUGHTER
Clear? Yeah.
Name the third largest political party in the UK.
♪ Balls. ♪
The SNP.
No. KLAXON
Now, you ought to get to this one.
Any other guesses?
Can't be the Liberal Democrats, they're...
KLAXON
It can't be.
It can't be Ukip.
KLAXON AND LAUGHTER
Can't be the Green Party.
KLAXON AND LAUGHTER
So, no, it's a party that you ought to know about.
Co-operative Party? It is the Co-operative Party.
And which party did you stand for?
The Labour and Co-operative Party.
So were you a Co-operative Party person
or were you a Labour Party...? Both. You were both?
Yeah, the Co-operative Party is affiliated to the Labour Party.
There's no Co-operative MPs who aren't also Labour Party MPs,
and so you're always both.
But it currently has 38 MPs and 17 peers,
seven members of the Scottish Parliament.
So there was a pact with Labour in 1927.
What was the reason for the pact?
I mean, cos it made the Co-operative Party sort of disappear.
I mean, even you, who is a Co-operative Party member,
didn't say Co-operative Party. You came up with lots of other ones.
I wonder why it has disappeared.
This has suddenly become Paxman.
LAUGHTER
No, I'm just curious!
Ask him again, he hasn't answered it.
SARA: Answer the question!
I don't know!
APPLAUSE AND CHEERING
That is the most refreshing thing any politician has ever said.
LAUGHTER
It's a party founded in 1917 by hundreds of different cooperative societies.
Do you not think it's due for a resurgence?
It has more representation in Parliament now than it's ever had.
So, 38 is the biggest it's ever been.
But might it break away from Labour if it doesn't agree with the direction Labour takes?
Well, it absolutely could.
But...it never has and nobody has ever stood as a Co-operative Party
member who is not also a Labour Party member. Yeah.
So, other parties that people may not have heard of,
there have been over 700 different ones in UK general elections
since the 1950s, including the I Want To Drop A Blancmange Town Terry Wogan's Y-Fronts Party.
LAUGHTER
How did you get on?
In the local elections, fine.
Pamela Stephenson stood for them.
The Rainbow Dream Ticket Party. In 2005, they got one vote.
LAUGHTER
and the woman who stood said, "I didn't vote for myself."
The Highlander IV Wednesday Night Promotion Party.
It was a pub landlord and he worked out that if you pay your deposit,
you get free postage for one piece of campaign literature to every
registered household in your constituency
And it was worth spending the money for his pub, Highlander IV, Wednesday Night Promotion.
LAUGHTER
He got 48 votes. He narrowly lost to the Buy The Daily Sport Party
but he did beat the Alfred Chicken Party, so well done.
LAUGHTER
The Co-operative Party has the third most MPs despite the fact that most people don't know about them.
Name a movie the owner of this Hollywood star starred in.
♪ Hands. ♪
Oh, it's a trick one, isn't it?
Raiders of the Lost Ark. Raiders of the Lost Ark.
KLAXON
Is there another?
There are two Harrison Fords on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
What?! So, the original...
Wasn't he gorgeous? Silent movie star.
Isn't he stunning? Made more than 80 films from 1915 to 1932
and got his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960.
In fact, the modern Ford initially called himself Harrison J. Ford
because people were still talking about the old Harrison Ford,
although the initial one had actually been dead for ten years.
Maybe people were really spooked out when he turned up for auditions.
Wargh! LAUGHTER
What I like about the current Harrison Ford, his USP,
his kind of great selling point in Hollywood is apparently that he looks good scared.
In other words, when he's frightened, he still looks handsome.
Which, I quite like that, as a thing.
And so it's time for the walk of shame that is the scores.
In first place, ahh,
part woman, part human encyclopaedia,
with no points at all...
LAUGHTER
..it's Sara!
APPLAUSE AND CHEERING
No points. Thank you. No points.
In second place, excellent in parts,
with -27, Johnny!
APPLAUSE AND CHEERING
And in equal last place,
the coalition of chaos, with -36, Alan and Ed.
APPLAUSE AND CHEERING
APPLAUSE DROWNS SPEECH
So it's a big thank you to Ed Balls, Johnny Vegas, Sara Pascoe and Alan,
and I leave you with this.
George Bernard Shaw found himself sat next to a tedious windbag
at a party. Eventually, he got a word in edgeways.
"I think, between us, we know everything in the world," he said.
"How's that?", replied the man. "Well, you seem to know everything,
"apart from the fact that you're a bore, and I know that."
Thank you and goodnight.
APPLAUSE