1 00:00:22,600 --> 00:00:24,640 CHEERING AND APPLAUSE 2 00:00:33,920 --> 00:00:35,720 Hello and welcome to QI 3 00:00:35,720 --> 00:00:38,280 where tonight's show is one, long 4 00:00:38,280 --> 00:00:41,560 exercise in procrastination. 5 00:00:41,560 --> 00:00:44,040 Struggling to meet their deadlines, 6 00:00:44,040 --> 00:00:46,240 we have the purposeless Holly Walsh... 7 00:00:51,560 --> 00:00:54,920 ..the prevaricating Nikki Bedi... 8 00:00:58,880 --> 00:01:01,480 ..the postponing Aisling Bea... 9 00:01:06,720 --> 00:01:09,880 ..and the never knowingly premature Alan Davies. 10 00:01:15,120 --> 00:01:18,200 Right, their buzzers. Holly goes... 11 00:01:18,200 --> 00:01:19,800 TICKING CLOCK 12 00:01:20,840 --> 00:01:22,360 Nikki goes... 13 00:01:22,360 --> 00:01:23,520 FAST-TICKING CLOCK 14 00:01:23,520 --> 00:01:25,840 Oh, yeah. Aisling goes... 15 00:01:25,840 --> 00:01:27,280 FASTER-TICKING CLOCK 16 00:01:27,280 --> 00:01:28,600 And Alan goes... 17 00:01:28,600 --> 00:01:30,240 SNORING 18 00:01:30,240 --> 00:01:33,560 LOUD ALARM 19 00:01:36,120 --> 00:01:37,720 I do dream that noise. 20 00:01:39,080 --> 00:01:41,720 Question one, of course, is all about procrastination itself. 21 00:01:41,720 --> 00:01:44,600 So, I just... I'm sorry, hang on... 22 00:01:44,600 --> 00:01:48,520 Ah, the elves are telling me that they haven't got around to writing 23 00:01:48,520 --> 00:01:50,800 the procrastination questions yet. 24 00:01:50,800 --> 00:01:54,520 So, we're going to have to use the emergency back-up questions 25 00:01:54,520 --> 00:01:57,240 that I've got here, just a second. 26 00:01:57,240 --> 00:01:59,200 I don't think these have ever been used. 27 00:01:59,200 --> 00:02:00,560 Wow, OK. 28 00:02:01,880 --> 00:02:03,600 Ah! Here we are. Ooh! 29 00:02:03,600 --> 00:02:06,080 Got some questions... Oh! 30 00:02:06,080 --> 00:02:07,640 What else is in here? 31 00:02:07,640 --> 00:02:10,840 Oh, Alan, it's a picture of Arsenal winning the Premier League. 32 00:02:10,840 --> 00:02:14,880 LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE 33 00:02:17,840 --> 00:02:20,160 It won't be a picture of Tottenham Hotspurs winning it. 34 00:02:20,160 --> 00:02:22,680 AUDIENCE: Ooh! 35 00:02:22,680 --> 00:02:24,360 I have no idea why that's funny. 36 00:02:25,880 --> 00:02:28,440 I'm pleased with my small footballing joke, there. 37 00:02:30,600 --> 00:02:34,760 OK, so, instead, a question on parenting. 38 00:02:34,760 --> 00:02:38,840 What's the best thing to do about a crying baby? 39 00:02:38,840 --> 00:02:40,800 Call the NSPCC if it's next door. 40 00:02:42,000 --> 00:02:44,640 Or move, I think, if it's next door. Yes. 41 00:02:44,640 --> 00:02:48,400 Or if it's on a plane, put it in a soundproof box. 42 00:02:48,400 --> 00:02:53,240 What we started doing was my son had quite bad nappy rash and we... 43 00:02:53,240 --> 00:02:54,640 You clean it, just clean the baby. 44 00:02:54,640 --> 00:02:56,840 Yeah. 45 00:02:56,840 --> 00:02:59,760 All right, Supernanny! 46 00:02:59,760 --> 00:03:01,920 How did you work out to soothe your child? 47 00:03:01,920 --> 00:03:03,560 No, well, he had really bad nappy rash, 48 00:03:03,560 --> 00:03:05,720 so what we started doing was, before we put him back 49 00:03:05,720 --> 00:03:09,320 in his nappy, we'd get our hairdryer and we'd just blow-dry 50 00:03:09,320 --> 00:03:11,360 his naked bum like this. Right. 51 00:03:11,360 --> 00:03:14,240 And then that started to work too well. 52 00:03:14,240 --> 00:03:16,280 Yeah, burns? No, it wasn't... 53 00:03:18,680 --> 00:03:24,280 Then we realised that if we just blow-dried his balls with 54 00:03:24,280 --> 00:03:27,000 a hairdryer, he would go to sleep like that. 55 00:03:28,720 --> 00:03:30,040 The trouble is now I... 56 00:03:30,040 --> 00:03:32,800 It sound like a very good idea. 57 00:03:32,800 --> 00:03:35,240 You could rig it up on a sort of a hook at the end of the bed... 58 00:03:35,240 --> 00:03:38,640 I'm thinking by myself, now. 59 00:03:38,640 --> 00:03:41,360 I'm saying this out loud, aren't I? 60 00:03:41,360 --> 00:03:44,000 You realise when he is grown-up, darling, there's going 61 00:03:44,000 --> 00:03:46,520 to be so much trouble. 62 00:03:46,520 --> 00:03:49,160 I think we have almost certainly given him a fetish. 63 00:03:49,160 --> 00:03:52,080 He's going to be unable to walk past the hairdressers. 64 00:03:53,800 --> 00:03:57,080 He'll be standing over... You know those Marilyn Monroe grates? 65 00:03:57,080 --> 00:03:58,560 You'll never get him off! 66 00:03:58,560 --> 00:04:00,480 Did you go full hairdresser, Holly? 67 00:04:00,480 --> 00:04:04,160 Were you like, "So, are you going anywhere nice on your holidays?" 68 00:04:04,160 --> 00:04:07,080 I have to say that things have changed very much in terms 69 00:04:07,080 --> 00:04:08,960 of how we actually approach the whole thing. 70 00:04:08,960 --> 00:04:12,960 There was an American paediatrician called Dr Walter J Sackett Jr, 71 00:04:12,960 --> 00:04:16,480 and he basically suggested that you should ignore crying babies. 72 00:04:16,480 --> 00:04:20,280 He wrote a bestseller in 1962 called Bringing Up Babies, 73 00:04:20,280 --> 00:04:23,360 A Family Doctor's Practical Approach To Child Care. 74 00:04:23,360 --> 00:04:26,000 And he said if you didn't ignore crying babies, 75 00:04:26,000 --> 00:04:28,520 they would grow up to be socialists. 76 00:04:30,080 --> 00:04:34,920 "If we teach our offspring to expect everything to be provided on demand," 77 00:04:34,920 --> 00:04:39,520 "we must admit the possibility of sowing the seeds of socialism." 78 00:04:39,520 --> 00:04:42,480 And, as a parent, that is your worst nightmare. 79 00:04:44,520 --> 00:04:47,400 So, it was 1962, it was the year of the Cuban missile crisis, 80 00:04:47,400 --> 00:04:49,960 and America was paranoid about the communist threat 81 00:04:49,960 --> 00:04:51,040 from around the world. 82 00:04:51,040 --> 00:04:55,080 And their solution was leave all the babies crying on their own. 83 00:04:55,080 --> 00:04:56,960 But he also prescribed early feeding. 84 00:04:56,960 --> 00:04:58,360 He recommended that you give 85 00:04:58,360 --> 00:05:01,560 babies cereals at two days, vegetables at ten days, 86 00:05:01,560 --> 00:05:04,240 meat at 14 and finally, at nine weeks, 87 00:05:04,240 --> 00:05:06,480 "Bacon and eggs, just like Dad." 88 00:05:08,440 --> 00:05:11,840 Can a baby digest all that? No, darling. No, it's a terrible idea. 89 00:05:11,840 --> 00:05:14,760 I don't have any children so I'm just checking. 90 00:05:14,760 --> 00:05:16,840 Anyway, he disliked milk intensely. 91 00:05:16,840 --> 00:05:19,520 He said, "To my mind, the dairies of America constitute" 92 00:05:19,520 --> 00:05:21,400 "the number one health hazard." 93 00:05:21,400 --> 00:05:27,000 He recommended giving babies black coffee from six months. 94 00:05:27,000 --> 00:05:28,360 That's all you want, right? 95 00:05:28,360 --> 00:05:29,760 A child that won't sleep. 96 00:05:29,760 --> 00:05:31,560 Did he have any children, I wonder? 97 00:05:31,560 --> 00:05:33,440 He did have children. He did, yeah. 98 00:05:33,440 --> 00:05:35,920 And where are they now? They're all communists. 99 00:05:37,320 --> 00:05:39,200 There are other books that are even worse. 100 00:05:39,200 --> 00:05:43,480 1916, A Mother And Her Child by Drs Leena and William Sadler, 101 00:05:43,480 --> 00:05:46,560 they advised avoiding physical contact with infants 102 00:05:46,560 --> 00:05:48,160 except when spanking. 103 00:05:50,160 --> 00:05:53,440 Crying, again, should be ignored unless the baby cried hard enough 104 00:05:53,440 --> 00:05:55,960 to go black in the face or burst a blood vessel. 105 00:05:55,960 --> 00:05:57,920 Black? Yeah. In the face? Yeah. 106 00:05:57,920 --> 00:06:01,360 At which point, a sound spanking should be administered. 107 00:06:01,360 --> 00:06:04,400 Marvellously titled, The Science Of Eugenics, 108 00:06:04,400 --> 00:06:06,520 who doesn't want to read that? 109 00:06:06,520 --> 00:06:10,320 Written in 1920 by Dr BJ Jeffries and JL Nichols, 110 00:06:10,320 --> 00:06:14,040 warned pregnant women not to look at or think about ugly 111 00:06:14,040 --> 00:06:18,040 things or people or their child would turn out ugly. 112 00:06:19,400 --> 00:06:21,360 And the best way to quiet a crying baby? 113 00:06:21,360 --> 00:06:22,400 Gin. 114 00:06:23,600 --> 00:06:26,160 You have the gin, or the baby? The baby. 115 00:06:26,160 --> 00:06:28,600 Apparently it's also good for infant flatulism... 116 00:06:28,600 --> 00:06:29,920 Erm, infant flatulence. 117 00:06:29,920 --> 00:06:31,880 I like flatulism! It sounds good. 118 00:06:31,880 --> 00:06:32,960 Maybe, erm... 119 00:06:32,960 --> 00:06:36,440 It sounds like, kind of, the politics of flatulence. 120 00:06:36,440 --> 00:06:38,000 I am a flatulist. Yes. 121 00:06:39,680 --> 00:06:43,960 The heir to the Budweiser dynasty or whatever you'd call it, 122 00:06:43,960 --> 00:06:47,080 every time a baby's born, the first thing they have is 123 00:06:47,080 --> 00:06:50,640 five drops of Bud dropped on their tongue. 124 00:06:50,640 --> 00:06:53,040 That's the first thing they consume. Really? 125 00:06:53,040 --> 00:06:56,840 My nanny used to put whisky on my gums when I was teething 126 00:06:56,840 --> 00:06:59,720 and holy water, that classic cocktail combo. 127 00:06:59,720 --> 00:07:02,200 Looking forward to the drinks at the weekend. 128 00:07:02,200 --> 00:07:05,520 And used to rub it on our gums, and I told that to a dentist 129 00:07:05,520 --> 00:07:07,840 recently, and they were like, "It's not actually good." 130 00:07:07,840 --> 00:07:09,240 Because loads of people are like, 131 00:07:09,240 --> 00:07:11,040 "Oh, yeah, it's a great pain reliever." 132 00:07:11,040 --> 00:07:13,800 It's that it burns your gums more so that you forget 133 00:07:13,800 --> 00:07:17,360 about the pain in your teeth and you focus on the burn in your gums. 134 00:07:17,360 --> 00:07:18,400 So... 135 00:07:18,400 --> 00:07:20,440 MUMBLES: But it hasn't had any effect on me, so... 136 00:07:20,440 --> 00:07:22,120 AUDIENCE LAUGH Yeah. 137 00:07:22,120 --> 00:07:24,800 And there were lots of books around the turn of the 20th century 138 00:07:24,800 --> 00:07:27,640 that advised giving babies lard baths, 139 00:07:27,640 --> 00:07:33,320 so you'd put lard or butter all over the baby once a week after birth. 140 00:07:33,320 --> 00:07:35,240 And then you'd spin it. Yes. 141 00:07:38,480 --> 00:07:40,760 Can you imagine how much fun you'd have if you had twins 142 00:07:40,760 --> 00:07:42,400 and you were like...like curling? 143 00:07:42,400 --> 00:07:44,000 Whoa! 144 00:07:44,000 --> 00:07:47,280 And someone would then go doo-doo-doo-doo 145 00:07:47,280 --> 00:07:48,920 all the way along. 146 00:07:48,920 --> 00:07:51,560 You're not supposed to wash a baby for weeks and weeks now. 147 00:07:51,560 --> 00:07:53,640 They recommend that you don't let anything near it 148 00:07:53,640 --> 00:07:54,920 for a good few weeks. 149 00:07:54,920 --> 00:07:57,080 But that's why your baby had nappy rash. Yeah. 150 00:07:57,080 --> 00:07:58,400 No, but seriously, they say... 151 00:07:58,400 --> 00:08:00,280 Top and tail... Top and tail, yeah. Really? 152 00:08:00,280 --> 00:08:02,400 You do the tops and the tails, and then you leave them 153 00:08:02,400 --> 00:08:04,760 for about two and a half years, and then... 154 00:08:04,760 --> 00:08:06,280 What is the theory behind this? 155 00:08:06,280 --> 00:08:09,040 The oils... Because they get dry skin and then they get broken skin 156 00:08:09,040 --> 00:08:12,240 and that's why there's so many allergies. Ah! Oh! 157 00:08:12,240 --> 00:08:13,520 OK. 158 00:08:13,520 --> 00:08:17,760 Right, now, Alan, I would like you to put this on, please. 159 00:08:17,760 --> 00:08:19,840 Oh! Why, certainly, Sandi. 160 00:08:19,840 --> 00:08:21,760 Thank you very much. Is it a hat? 161 00:08:21,760 --> 00:08:23,040 It is a hat, yes. 162 00:08:23,040 --> 00:08:24,200 Put that on. 163 00:08:24,200 --> 00:08:29,280 Now, my question is what activity is Alan now perfectly dressed to do? 164 00:08:30,520 --> 00:08:32,000 Is it a taco hat? 165 00:08:32,000 --> 00:08:34,160 At parties, sometimes they get people 166 00:08:34,160 --> 00:08:37,840 to walk around, put a dip in the centre and some tacos 167 00:08:37,840 --> 00:08:40,680 and then you dip the them into the man's head. 168 00:08:40,680 --> 00:08:42,520 Feels like a bicycle tyre. 169 00:08:42,520 --> 00:08:43,720 When you do know what it is, 170 00:08:43,720 --> 00:08:46,520 you'll be horrified at the thought of serving dip from this. 171 00:08:46,520 --> 00:08:48,080 Is it a contraceptive? 172 00:08:50,920 --> 00:08:54,760 It's exactly the reverse of a contraceptive. 173 00:08:54,760 --> 00:08:56,400 It's an erection hat. 174 00:08:56,400 --> 00:08:58,000 It is kind of an erection hat. 175 00:08:58,000 --> 00:09:01,040 OK. Yes. So, this is... 176 00:09:01,040 --> 00:09:02,360 It's not working. 177 00:09:09,400 --> 00:09:12,680 Patience, everyone, I'm 52. 178 00:09:12,680 --> 00:09:16,480 I am very pleased because it's for a falcon. 179 00:09:16,480 --> 00:09:18,080 It's a falcon sex hat. 180 00:09:18,080 --> 00:09:22,000 It was invented to save the peregrine falcon from extinction. 181 00:09:22,000 --> 00:09:27,080 So, the peregrine trainer wears this hat and encourages the birds to mate 182 00:09:27,080 --> 00:09:29,200 with his head. 183 00:09:29,200 --> 00:09:30,240 Come on. 184 00:09:31,960 --> 00:09:33,840 Come on, you, you know you want to. 185 00:09:36,520 --> 00:09:39,240 Argh! Well, it's that! 186 00:09:39,240 --> 00:09:42,880 So, in the 1970s, the whole species was threatened to be wiped out. 187 00:09:42,880 --> 00:09:45,800 The pesticides were damaging their eggs and so a captive... 188 00:09:45,800 --> 00:09:47,080 Oh, look, it works! 189 00:09:47,080 --> 00:09:48,520 It does absolutely work. 190 00:09:48,520 --> 00:09:50,960 A captive breeding programme was set up. 191 00:09:50,960 --> 00:09:52,200 So, here is the problem. 192 00:09:52,200 --> 00:09:54,640 Falcons are usually more attracted 193 00:09:54,640 --> 00:09:56,960 to their owners than they are to other birds. 194 00:09:56,960 --> 00:09:58,880 It's a phenomenon called imprinting. 195 00:09:58,880 --> 00:10:01,560 So, when a young falcon comes out of its egg, it gets attached 196 00:10:01,560 --> 00:10:02,960 to the very first thing it sees. 197 00:10:02,960 --> 00:10:05,560 It could be a rubber boot or it could be an electric train, 198 00:10:05,560 --> 00:10:07,920 it could be anything. How about a hairdryer? 199 00:10:07,920 --> 00:10:08,960 Yes. 200 00:10:09,960 --> 00:10:12,120 But, quite often, it is the owner. 201 00:10:12,120 --> 00:10:13,800 So, they want to mate... 202 00:10:16,440 --> 00:10:20,280 They want to mate with their carers, and the hat is invented to catch 203 00:10:20,280 --> 00:10:22,000 the resulting semen. 204 00:10:22,000 --> 00:10:26,440 Oh, God. It can be collected... I know, the thing you're wearing... 205 00:10:26,440 --> 00:10:28,680 It's why I said you don't want to eat dip out of it. 206 00:10:28,680 --> 00:10:31,240 The thing you're wearing... It's not falcon ejaculate, is it? 207 00:10:31,240 --> 00:10:33,240 ..it's got little tiny pockets in it. 208 00:10:33,240 --> 00:10:37,680 The falcon wants to mate, and it goes onto the hat because it likes 209 00:10:37,680 --> 00:10:40,520 the owner, and you can catch the semen 210 00:10:40,520 --> 00:10:43,000 from those little tiny pockets. Wow! 211 00:10:43,000 --> 00:10:45,040 HE MIMICS AN EJACULATING BIRD 212 00:10:45,040 --> 00:10:47,480 It totally works! The 1970s, the population... 213 00:10:47,480 --> 00:10:48,920 HE MAKES SNORING NOISES 214 00:10:48,920 --> 00:10:50,360 ..the population... 215 00:10:50,360 --> 00:10:52,320 LAUGHTER 216 00:10:52,320 --> 00:10:53,800 APPLAUSE 217 00:10:55,000 --> 00:10:59,080 The population in the 1970s was down to 324, over 6,000 218 00:10:59,080 --> 00:11:02,360 peregrine falcons have now been released into the US 219 00:11:02,360 --> 00:11:03,480 through this programme. 220 00:11:03,480 --> 00:11:06,960 Let's have a quick look at an actual video of the hat working. 221 00:11:06,960 --> 00:11:08,440 HIGH-PITCHED SCREECHING 222 00:11:08,440 --> 00:11:10,560 So, that noise is being made by the owner. 223 00:11:28,320 --> 00:11:30,840 I'd say this is the most niche pornography. 224 00:11:33,600 --> 00:11:35,360 I love how bored the guy looks! 225 00:11:35,360 --> 00:11:38,520 It looks like he's knobbing a potato waffle. 226 00:11:40,960 --> 00:11:44,000 That hat has seen a lot of action because it is practically 227 00:11:44,000 --> 00:11:46,320 worn out in places. 228 00:11:46,320 --> 00:11:48,760 It copulates into one of the indentations, the same as 229 00:11:48,760 --> 00:11:51,800 you've got on your hat. It comes in a range of colours, the hat. 230 00:11:51,800 --> 00:11:53,600 Comes in a range of colours? Yes. 231 00:11:58,240 --> 00:12:00,120 One of the best things about a falcon. 232 00:12:02,080 --> 00:12:04,720 It's one of those things where I congratulate the person 233 00:12:04,720 --> 00:12:08,040 who invented it, but I never want to meet them in a pub. 234 00:12:08,040 --> 00:12:10,040 Well, how'd you come up with that? 235 00:12:10,040 --> 00:12:13,680 I'm going to come up with, frankly, a jizz hat for falcons. 236 00:12:13,680 --> 00:12:16,160 Why don't you just get a job, Barry?! 237 00:12:16,160 --> 00:12:20,880 You have two degrees, and you're living with me, I'm 84! 238 00:12:20,880 --> 00:12:24,480 There must have been an incident... 239 00:12:24,480 --> 00:12:26,440 LAUGHTER AND GROANING 240 00:12:26,440 --> 00:12:28,240 ..that prompted the idea... Yeah. 241 00:12:28,240 --> 00:12:31,280 ..like a falcon on someone's head, or someone's normal hat... 242 00:12:31,280 --> 00:12:33,920 And they thought... "Well, if you're going to keep doing this", 243 00:12:33,920 --> 00:12:36,280 "we're going to have to invent some sort of a receptacle." 244 00:12:36,280 --> 00:12:37,440 Yeah, well... 245 00:12:37,440 --> 00:12:40,200 Do you have to make that noise, though, to encourage? 246 00:12:40,200 --> 00:12:43,240 So the UK's leading falcon breeder, a man called Bryn Close, 247 00:12:43,240 --> 00:12:46,240 he uses his hat and he imitates falcon vocalisation, 248 00:12:46,240 --> 00:12:48,280 and there's a marvellous photograph... 249 00:12:48,280 --> 00:12:50,400 He had 80 of his falcons, 250 00:12:50,400 --> 00:12:53,760 and they were photographed on a plane to the Middle East in 2017, 251 00:12:53,760 --> 00:12:55,760 and there they are. 252 00:12:55,760 --> 00:13:00,320 Hunting them is hugely popular, so, in the United Arab Emirates, 253 00:13:00,320 --> 00:13:03,640 all peregrines on planes have to have their own passport to 254 00:13:03,640 --> 00:13:05,080 combat the illegal trade. 255 00:13:05,080 --> 00:13:07,800 28,000 were issued in the ten years after 256 00:13:07,800 --> 00:13:10,200 they were first introduced in 2002, 257 00:13:10,200 --> 00:13:13,040 and all sorts of airlines like Emirates and Qatar, 258 00:13:13,040 --> 00:13:16,840 they have pages on their websites about their falcon policy. 259 00:13:16,840 --> 00:13:19,320 So, with Emirates, if you buy a first-class ticket, 260 00:13:19,320 --> 00:13:22,080 you may take two falcons with you. 261 00:13:22,080 --> 00:13:24,040 Probably one in economy. 262 00:13:24,040 --> 00:13:27,200 And Lufthansa now offers a Falcon Master - 263 00:13:27,200 --> 00:13:31,280 it's a sort of a bird perch with a poo-catching tray 264 00:13:31,280 --> 00:13:33,520 that can be installed above the seat during the flight. 265 00:13:33,520 --> 00:13:35,000 But why can't they fly? 266 00:13:35,000 --> 00:13:36,880 Yeah. Why don't they just fly? 267 00:13:36,880 --> 00:13:38,400 Yeah... That is a very fair point. 268 00:13:38,400 --> 00:13:39,720 Yeah, well, as you say... 269 00:13:39,720 --> 00:13:42,080 Just go behind. Yes! Yeah. 270 00:13:42,080 --> 00:13:44,880 "I'm going to London. See you there." Yeah! 271 00:13:44,880 --> 00:13:47,240 What I love about that photo is there's an air steward 272 00:13:47,240 --> 00:13:50,160 who's still insisting on going through the safety... 273 00:13:53,040 --> 00:13:57,880 Would you rather sit next to a baby or 150 birds? 274 00:13:57,880 --> 00:13:58,960 Oh, wow. Neither. 275 00:13:58,960 --> 00:14:01,560 It depends. If I was single, I'd probably want the 150 birds. 276 00:14:01,560 --> 00:14:03,480 I'd wear my hat. I'd get them all... 277 00:14:05,520 --> 00:14:08,200 And you'd just see a falcon going to the loo, rather sheepishly, 278 00:14:08,200 --> 00:14:10,800 with a hat, being like, "Mile-high club, here we go!" 279 00:14:13,440 --> 00:14:16,040 And they did a genetic study in 2011 - 280 00:14:16,040 --> 00:14:19,600 peregrines are more related to parrots than to any other Raptor, 281 00:14:19,600 --> 00:14:21,480 so hawks or eagles... 282 00:14:21,480 --> 00:14:23,720 And they look so different. They look so different. 283 00:14:23,720 --> 00:14:26,080 They also discovered that flamingos are one of 284 00:14:26,080 --> 00:14:28,280 the pigeon's closest relatives. 285 00:14:28,280 --> 00:14:29,440 Oh, wow. 286 00:14:29,440 --> 00:14:33,680 "Have you seen my cousin? She's not at all like the rest of the family." 287 00:14:33,680 --> 00:14:37,760 But what is the closest relation to all birds? 288 00:14:37,760 --> 00:14:39,520 Dinosaurs. There! 289 00:14:39,520 --> 00:14:41,960 Sort of heading in the right direction. 290 00:14:41,960 --> 00:14:43,040 Bill Oddie. 291 00:14:43,040 --> 00:14:44,200 Bill Oddie?! 292 00:14:46,160 --> 00:14:49,440 So, what's a very ancient creature that we still have? 293 00:14:49,440 --> 00:14:50,880 A lizard or something like that? 294 00:14:50,880 --> 00:14:52,120 It's a crocodile. Oh! Really? 295 00:14:52,120 --> 00:14:54,480 Oh. The crocodile is the closest relation... 296 00:14:54,480 --> 00:14:58,080 They share a 240-million-year-old ancestor. It's a... 297 00:14:58,080 --> 00:14:59,920 It's a big tree that you'd have to use 298 00:14:59,920 --> 00:15:01,960 in order to get from the crocodile to the birds, 299 00:15:01,960 --> 00:15:03,760 but, yeah, that's their closest relative. 300 00:15:03,760 --> 00:15:08,280 Right, who's wearing the crotchless pants in this relationship? 301 00:15:08,280 --> 00:15:10,560 Oh, sorry, I thought we had to buzz in because it was us. 302 00:15:15,840 --> 00:15:18,240 No, no, in this relationship. 303 00:15:18,240 --> 00:15:21,080 I'm going to go the one on the right. Albert? 304 00:15:21,080 --> 00:15:22,560 Oh, is it Victoria and Albert? 305 00:15:22,560 --> 00:15:24,280 It is Victoria and Albert, yes. 306 00:15:24,280 --> 00:15:26,200 Well, maybe it's Victoria, then. 307 00:15:26,200 --> 00:15:28,960 It is Victoria. When do we think underwear began? 308 00:15:28,960 --> 00:15:31,320 When people first started wearing underwear? 309 00:15:31,320 --> 00:15:34,040 The loincloth, the early loincloth. 310 00:15:34,040 --> 00:15:37,960 Certainly in Roman times, people had underwear. 311 00:15:37,960 --> 00:15:41,960 But it fell out of favour for centuries, and in Britain 312 00:15:41,960 --> 00:15:44,480 men got underwear, so you're talking about drawers, 313 00:15:44,480 --> 00:15:48,880 knickerbockers, but for centuries women did not wear it at all. 314 00:15:48,880 --> 00:15:52,000 And, when they did, finally, so we're talking 19th century, 315 00:15:52,000 --> 00:15:54,720 it was crotchless. So, two separate legs 316 00:15:54,720 --> 00:15:58,920 hanging open underneath and held together by a belt around the waist. 317 00:15:58,920 --> 00:16:02,720 And you don't get them sewn together until 1876. 318 00:16:02,720 --> 00:16:04,600 I have no idea what happened that year. 319 00:16:04,600 --> 00:16:07,760 Someone went, "I am not having this breeze." 320 00:16:07,760 --> 00:16:09,400 But it didn't become the norm 321 00:16:09,400 --> 00:16:12,040 to have a crotch in your underwear until 1910. 322 00:16:12,040 --> 00:16:14,360 But it wasn't someone's sexual peccadillo to have 323 00:16:14,360 --> 00:16:15,840 crotchless panties at that point? 324 00:16:15,840 --> 00:16:17,840 No, it was practical, really, as well. 325 00:16:17,840 --> 00:16:19,920 Going to the toilet was very difficult when you had 326 00:16:19,920 --> 00:16:22,080 multiple layers of clothing, and it would have been 327 00:16:22,080 --> 00:16:23,320 considered very unhygienic. 328 00:16:23,320 --> 00:16:25,680 There's very early evidence about the Roman underwear. 329 00:16:25,680 --> 00:16:28,000 So, there's a fourth-century mosaic which is found 330 00:16:28,000 --> 00:16:31,520 in the Villa Romana del Casale in Sicily. 331 00:16:31,520 --> 00:16:35,400 I'd say I think it looks more like a bikini, don't you think? Yeah. 332 00:16:35,400 --> 00:16:38,400 No Roman woman wanted large or sagging breasts 333 00:16:38,400 --> 00:16:39,960 cos they thought it made her look old, 334 00:16:39,960 --> 00:16:43,560 so you bound your chest very tightly with a thing called a strophium. 335 00:16:43,560 --> 00:16:47,760 But there's a possibly even earlier one, which is from Upper Egypt. 336 00:16:47,760 --> 00:16:51,960 6,000 or 7,000 years ago, it is called the Badari figure. 337 00:16:51,960 --> 00:16:55,280 Do you think it looks more like it's just got a big bush? 338 00:16:55,280 --> 00:16:57,200 Yeah, it's definitely a thatched pattern... 339 00:16:57,200 --> 00:17:00,760 Some sort of a brick wall, by the looks of it. 340 00:17:00,760 --> 00:17:03,200 "Do you want a dry-stone wall round there, madam?" 341 00:17:07,240 --> 00:17:09,960 It must be tight. Look at her eyes. Yeah, she's in pain. 342 00:17:12,520 --> 00:17:13,640 I remember - 343 00:17:13,640 --> 00:17:16,480 and this just shows you Catholic sex education in Ireland - 344 00:17:16,480 --> 00:17:18,840 one of the things the woman who came to talk to us about 345 00:17:18,840 --> 00:17:20,720 the birds and the bees said, 346 00:17:20,720 --> 00:17:23,280 "Erm, now, girls, erm, what you could do, now," 347 00:17:23,280 --> 00:17:25,720 "in the evening when you go to bed is take your knickers off" 348 00:17:25,720 --> 00:17:27,360 "and let it all air out." 349 00:17:29,120 --> 00:17:30,320 So this does make me think, 350 00:17:30,320 --> 00:17:34,040 "Oh, maybe it was for trying to keep dust out." 351 00:17:34,040 --> 00:17:35,640 Oh. And that's why you have underwear. 352 00:17:35,640 --> 00:17:37,840 Genuinely, though, I thought that's why... Dust?! 353 00:17:37,840 --> 00:17:39,240 Yeah, like if you're walking... 354 00:17:39,240 --> 00:17:41,120 Back in the day, they didn't have much roads 355 00:17:41,120 --> 00:17:43,600 and you'd be walking along, the dust and stuff... 356 00:17:45,120 --> 00:17:47,320 Like, do you know? You wouldn't want to get it... 357 00:17:47,320 --> 00:17:50,080 What if there was a dust storm? 358 00:17:50,080 --> 00:17:53,560 What you'd want to do is get a hairdryer... 359 00:17:53,560 --> 00:17:56,240 You could get one of those little hand-held vacuum cleaners, 360 00:17:56,240 --> 00:17:57,960 couldn't you? Oh, they're good. 361 00:17:57,960 --> 00:18:00,720 A car-vac, yeah. Yeah, sort yourself out. 362 00:18:00,720 --> 00:18:05,960 In 2015, a pair of Queen Victoria's underpants sold for £12,000 363 00:18:05,960 --> 00:18:08,800 and they were exactly able to date these pants. 364 00:18:08,800 --> 00:18:11,960 How do you think they could date them? 365 00:18:13,560 --> 00:18:15,320 I don't want to guess. 366 00:18:16,920 --> 00:18:19,560 So, here's one of the extraordinary things about Victoria, 367 00:18:19,560 --> 00:18:22,480 is the detailed photographic record of her life. 368 00:18:22,480 --> 00:18:25,840 And, so, they could work out by the waistband when it was 369 00:18:25,840 --> 00:18:27,840 cos she just got fatter and fatter and fatter. 370 00:18:27,840 --> 00:18:30,320 She got bigger and bigger, and she got massive hips in the end. 371 00:18:30,320 --> 00:18:31,920 Yes, so these are nearly 45 inches. 372 00:18:31,920 --> 00:18:35,120 So, this is a waistband in this kind of region, 373 00:18:35,120 --> 00:18:38,560 which means it was definitely towards the end. The waist was 45? 374 00:18:38,560 --> 00:18:41,200 Yes, so, we're talking 1890s by then. 375 00:18:41,200 --> 00:18:44,000 Albert was dead, she didn't care, she's just having cake... 376 00:18:44,000 --> 00:18:45,520 She's just eating. 377 00:18:45,520 --> 00:18:47,880 All those lovely puddings, though. 378 00:18:47,880 --> 00:18:50,280 You wouldn't regret a minute of it, would you? 379 00:18:50,280 --> 00:18:52,160 What would you like for breakfast? 380 00:18:52,160 --> 00:18:54,320 Jam roly-poly and custard. 381 00:18:55,880 --> 00:18:57,840 Victoria sponge, please, again. 382 00:18:57,840 --> 00:18:59,480 And a larger pair of briefs. 383 00:18:59,480 --> 00:19:00,640 Yes. 384 00:19:00,640 --> 00:19:03,040 The first recorded phrase of, "She wears the trousers", 385 00:19:03,040 --> 00:19:04,680 that dates back to the 1880s, 386 00:19:04,680 --> 00:19:06,840 although they used to say "She wears the britches", 387 00:19:06,840 --> 00:19:09,720 and then you can go right back to the 1630s. 388 00:19:09,720 --> 00:19:11,600 The word "pants" is just comic, isn't it? 389 00:19:11,600 --> 00:19:13,600 There's just something funny about it. 390 00:19:13,600 --> 00:19:15,360 And even the word is rooted in comedy, 391 00:19:15,360 --> 00:19:16,960 cos it comes from Pantalone, 392 00:19:16,960 --> 00:19:19,480 who was one of the main characters in the commedia dell'arte. 393 00:19:19,480 --> 00:19:21,480 He famously wore red trousers. 394 00:19:21,480 --> 00:19:24,280 There he is on the left, there, and Harlequin and the Captain, 395 00:19:24,280 --> 00:19:26,160 famous characters from commedia dell'arte. 396 00:19:26,160 --> 00:19:27,960 And we still say pants, the plural, 397 00:19:27,960 --> 00:19:29,720 because it was once two separate things. 398 00:19:29,720 --> 00:19:31,600 It was separate legs. 399 00:19:31,600 --> 00:19:33,800 Now, a question on pronunciation. 400 00:19:33,800 --> 00:19:37,680 Who would like to hear my Katharine Hepburn impression? 401 00:19:37,680 --> 00:19:39,400 Yes, please. Yes, please. 402 00:19:39,400 --> 00:19:42,200 AS HEPBURN IN ON GOLDEN POND: Listen to me, Mr, you're my knight 403 00:19:42,200 --> 00:19:45,840 in shining armour, and you're going to get back on that horse, 404 00:19:45,840 --> 00:19:48,440 and I'll be right behind you. 405 00:19:48,440 --> 00:19:50,480 CHEERING AND APPLAUSE 406 00:19:56,520 --> 00:19:58,360 Where is that accent from? 407 00:19:58,360 --> 00:20:00,240 The south in America? 408 00:20:02,280 --> 00:20:05,320 Oh, no, not from America at all. 409 00:20:05,320 --> 00:20:06,560 Is it going to be Danish? 410 00:20:07,840 --> 00:20:09,480 No, but if you were somewhere 411 00:20:09,480 --> 00:20:11,760 between Denmark and the United States? 412 00:20:11,760 --> 00:20:13,240 Mid-Atlantic! 413 00:20:13,240 --> 00:20:14,920 Yes, absolutely right, Nikki! 414 00:20:14,920 --> 00:20:16,480 It is the Mid-Atlantic. 415 00:20:16,480 --> 00:20:18,440 That's not a country! No, it's not. 416 00:20:18,440 --> 00:20:20,400 So, the point is it's not from anywhere. 417 00:20:20,400 --> 00:20:24,000 It was so named because it was halfway between the US 418 00:20:24,000 --> 00:20:28,000 and the British accent, and it was the accent in Hollywood films 419 00:20:28,000 --> 00:20:30,160 before, sort of, 1950. 420 00:20:30,160 --> 00:20:33,600 It was designed to be vaguely sort of British and aristocratic, 421 00:20:33,600 --> 00:20:37,080 and it was thought that it sounded appropriately posh. 422 00:20:37,080 --> 00:20:39,480 There's quite an earlier recording of Katharine Hepburn. 423 00:20:39,480 --> 00:20:41,200 Let's have a quick listen to her. 424 00:20:41,200 --> 00:20:44,480 Silk is vital to national defence. 425 00:20:44,480 --> 00:20:48,840 Its most important use is for parachutes and powder bags. 426 00:20:48,840 --> 00:20:52,120 New substitutes are being perfected in the laboratory to meet 427 00:20:52,120 --> 00:20:54,160 the growing demand. 428 00:20:54,160 --> 00:20:58,720 So, clearly, I was doing the On Golden Pond version, clearly. 429 00:20:58,720 --> 00:21:01,720 They used to, in drama schools, train accents out of people. Yeah. 430 00:21:01,720 --> 00:21:03,640 Like, when I went to drama school, they didn't. 431 00:21:03,640 --> 00:21:05,920 Though I still have this strong English accent now. 432 00:21:05,920 --> 00:21:07,200 LAUGHTER 433 00:21:07,200 --> 00:21:10,120 Yeah, but they used to, like, knock off all the edges so people ended... 434 00:21:10,120 --> 00:21:12,520 FAUX POSH ENGLISH: ..up speaking all of the time like this. 435 00:21:12,520 --> 00:21:14,040 That's how British people spoke. 436 00:21:14,040 --> 00:21:15,760 It was a thing in Hollywood films. 437 00:21:15,760 --> 00:21:17,640 There was a voice coach called Edith Skinner. 438 00:21:17,640 --> 00:21:18,920 She was actually a Canadian. 439 00:21:18,920 --> 00:21:20,880 And, in the 1930s, she taught this as good speech 440 00:21:20,880 --> 00:21:23,760 or Eastern Standard speech. You're talking about Katharine Hepburn, 441 00:21:23,760 --> 00:21:25,840 you're talking about Betty Davis, Vincent Price, 442 00:21:25,840 --> 00:21:27,440 and they all learned to speak that way. 443 00:21:27,440 --> 00:21:30,520 Probably my favourite movie of all time, Some Like It Hot, 444 00:21:30,520 --> 00:21:33,880 Tony Curtis in that movie, he pretends doing a sort of 445 00:21:33,880 --> 00:21:35,480 Cary Grant impression. 446 00:21:35,480 --> 00:21:38,040 It still occasionally surfaces today. 447 00:21:38,040 --> 00:21:40,520 So, Kelsey Grammer used it in Frasier. 448 00:21:40,520 --> 00:21:42,600 That was one of his things. 449 00:21:42,600 --> 00:21:48,400 I got told that I had the worst Hindi accent that an English person 450 00:21:48,400 --> 00:21:50,760 had had on film. I am half-Indian, by the way. 451 00:21:50,760 --> 00:21:52,560 I am not going to be racist right now. 452 00:21:52,560 --> 00:21:56,200 But I was doing films and TV in Bombay, 453 00:21:56,200 --> 00:21:59,200 and I was told that my accent was... 454 00:21:59,200 --> 00:22:01,120 IN HINDI ACCENT: ..totally the EP-i-tome 455 00:22:01,120 --> 00:22:04,080 of a Britisher's bad Hindi accent. 456 00:22:04,080 --> 00:22:08,080 And that's from somebody who used the word "EP-i-tome," 457 00:22:08,080 --> 00:22:10,480 and it's like, get your em-PHA-sis right, 458 00:22:10,480 --> 00:22:12,560 and then we can talk about that. 459 00:22:12,560 --> 00:22:14,200 Yeah. 460 00:22:17,040 --> 00:22:20,080 You couldn't record synced sound cos there's too much noise in Bombay. 461 00:22:20,080 --> 00:22:21,960 So, it would all be done in the dubbing. 462 00:22:21,960 --> 00:22:23,720 So, if you make a mistake, they just go... 463 00:22:23,720 --> 00:22:25,320 SPEAKS HINDI 464 00:22:25,320 --> 00:22:26,680 So, it'll be done in the dubbing. 465 00:22:26,680 --> 00:22:29,400 Actually, you could pretty much do anything if you could lip-sync, 466 00:22:29,400 --> 00:22:31,640 but I had somebody sitting there who would deliver me 467 00:22:31,640 --> 00:22:34,280 the dialogue and I was told to look into middle distance 468 00:22:34,280 --> 00:22:36,080 and say things like... 469 00:22:36,080 --> 00:22:39,560 SHE SPEAKS HINDI 470 00:22:39,560 --> 00:22:42,480 ..which means, "His steel sword is very strong." 471 00:22:42,480 --> 00:22:44,160 God knows what that actually meant. 472 00:22:44,160 --> 00:22:46,600 And then I'd wait and stare a little bit longer, 473 00:22:46,600 --> 00:22:49,920 listen to the next dialogue and deliver it, and that's how I acted. 474 00:22:49,920 --> 00:22:51,720 What kind of things were you in? 475 00:22:53,840 --> 00:22:55,920 Don't you want to see them? I want to see them. 476 00:22:55,920 --> 00:22:58,400 I want to see the rushes with the other person. 477 00:22:59,440 --> 00:23:01,920 Well, the Mid-Atlantic accent was used by lots of villains, 478 00:23:01,920 --> 00:23:04,720 so you've got Jafar in Aladdin, Cruella de Vil has it, 479 00:23:04,720 --> 00:23:08,440 Darth Vader has it, the Evil Queen in Snow White... 480 00:23:08,440 --> 00:23:11,560 I mean, not to be outdone, the BBC certainly had their own committee. 481 00:23:11,560 --> 00:23:13,080 It was set up by Lord Reith, 482 00:23:13,080 --> 00:23:15,800 and devoted to ruling on the pronunciation of words. 483 00:23:15,800 --> 00:23:17,520 So there's Lord Reith on the left there, 484 00:23:17,520 --> 00:23:21,360 and the Advisory Committee On Spoken English, it ran from 1926 to 485 00:23:21,360 --> 00:23:25,000 1939, and that's George Bernard Shaw on the right and he was one of the 486 00:23:25,000 --> 00:23:28,200 many people who advised what they thought was correct pronunciation. 487 00:23:28,200 --> 00:23:33,120 So, in 1926 they ruled that ga-raj was better than garage, 488 00:23:33,120 --> 00:23:35,640 although they changed their mind in 1931 489 00:23:35,640 --> 00:23:39,080 and decided to recommend garage instead of ga-raj. 490 00:23:39,080 --> 00:23:42,720 Most controversially, that margarine should have a soft G. 491 00:23:42,720 --> 00:23:46,200 It comes from margaron, so it's Greek for pearl. 492 00:23:46,200 --> 00:23:48,160 So, it was originally made from margaric acid, 493 00:23:48,160 --> 00:23:50,120 so it makes more sense that it would have a hard G. 494 00:23:50,120 --> 00:23:52,200 But it was very controversial, as you can imagine, 495 00:23:52,200 --> 00:23:53,240 at the time, margarine. 496 00:23:53,240 --> 00:23:55,520 When I worked in Marks & Spencer's, the amount of people 497 00:23:55,520 --> 00:23:59,720 who asked me for the lingery department was quite extraordinary. 498 00:23:59,720 --> 00:24:00,960 Yeah. 499 00:24:00,960 --> 00:24:02,400 I had that with misled. 500 00:24:02,400 --> 00:24:04,520 You know when you see misled written? Yeah. Yeah. 501 00:24:04,520 --> 00:24:06,680 I thought it was misle'd. 502 00:24:06,680 --> 00:24:08,200 Aw... 503 00:24:08,200 --> 00:24:11,080 I was an actual grown-up in my 30s 504 00:24:11,080 --> 00:24:13,400 before I found out that that word was misled. 505 00:24:13,400 --> 00:24:15,880 Well, the BBC committee had some very strange rulings. 506 00:24:15,880 --> 00:24:19,080 They pronounced that ski should be pronounced she, 507 00:24:19,080 --> 00:24:22,600 so you'd go she-ing as opposed to skiing, 508 00:24:22,600 --> 00:24:25,120 and armada should be pronounced ar-may-da. 509 00:24:25,120 --> 00:24:27,680 And there was a big row apparently between George Bernard Shaw 510 00:24:27,680 --> 00:24:31,040 and a BBC executive over whether to plant it acoustics or a-cow-stics. 511 00:24:32,480 --> 00:24:33,760 Anyway, there we are. 512 00:24:33,760 --> 00:24:37,080 In 2009, British Airways passenger plane was delayed 513 00:24:37,080 --> 00:24:40,800 because what vital component had gone missing? 514 00:24:40,800 --> 00:24:41,840 Yes? 515 00:24:41,840 --> 00:24:44,040 The soundproof box for the baby. 516 00:24:46,840 --> 00:24:48,320 The wings. 517 00:24:48,320 --> 00:24:49,920 Yeah? Oh... 518 00:24:52,320 --> 00:24:53,800 Pilot? 519 00:24:53,800 --> 00:24:55,800 LAUGHTER No, no. 520 00:24:55,800 --> 00:24:58,880 Not the pilot. It's not the wings. 521 00:24:58,880 --> 00:25:00,120 So there was a plane due to fly, 522 00:25:00,120 --> 00:25:02,280 it was 2009, from Heathrow to Mexico City - 523 00:25:02,280 --> 00:25:05,680 it was missing its ashtray. 524 00:25:05,680 --> 00:25:08,720 GASPING Even though smoking has been banned 525 00:25:08,720 --> 00:25:12,000 on all commercial flights since the end of the 1990s, 526 00:25:12,000 --> 00:25:15,240 they could not take off without an ashtray. Why? 527 00:25:15,240 --> 00:25:16,880 Because people still smoke on planes. 528 00:25:16,880 --> 00:25:19,480 And you've got to have somewhere to put the cigarette out. Yeah. 529 00:25:19,480 --> 00:25:20,600 That is the reason. 530 00:25:20,600 --> 00:25:22,240 So the captain, he was desperate. 531 00:25:22,240 --> 00:25:25,680 He suggested borrowing one from another plane, even replacing 532 00:25:25,680 --> 00:25:29,840 the entire bathroom door because they're set into the bathroom door, 533 00:25:29,840 --> 00:25:31,520 but they were not allowed to take off 534 00:25:31,520 --> 00:25:34,800 until an ashtray had been fitted on to the plane. 535 00:25:34,800 --> 00:25:36,240 And there are lots of these rules. 536 00:25:36,240 --> 00:25:39,320 Does anybody know why when a passenger plane lands at night, 537 00:25:39,320 --> 00:25:41,080 they always dim the lights? 538 00:25:41,080 --> 00:25:42,720 What is the reason for that? 539 00:25:42,720 --> 00:25:44,320 If you have all of the lights on, 540 00:25:44,320 --> 00:25:47,160 it reflects in the pilot's rear-view mirror. 541 00:25:49,080 --> 00:25:53,120 It makes things very difficult for him if he's reversing. 542 00:25:53,120 --> 00:25:54,280 So here's the thing - 543 00:25:54,280 --> 00:25:57,440 when they dim the lights, your eyes get used to the fact 544 00:25:57,440 --> 00:26:01,000 that it's gone a bit darker, and in the event of an emergency, 545 00:26:01,000 --> 00:26:03,520 they don't want people to be temporarily blinded 546 00:26:03,520 --> 00:26:05,000 by it being pitch-black. 547 00:26:05,000 --> 00:26:07,080 Seems like a bit of, really, clutching at straws, 548 00:26:07,080 --> 00:26:09,080 when the plane's hit the side of a mountain. 549 00:26:09,080 --> 00:26:12,960 "Well, at least I can see that everyone's dead." "I can see." 550 00:26:12,960 --> 00:26:16,040 OK. "Oh, my legs have come off. Brilliant." 551 00:26:16,040 --> 00:26:18,960 Well, speaking of seeing things, here's another safety feature - 552 00:26:18,960 --> 00:26:23,320 all windows in aeroplanes have a small hole in them. 553 00:26:23,320 --> 00:26:24,600 Does anybody know why? 554 00:26:24,600 --> 00:26:25,760 Glory hole. 555 00:26:27,920 --> 00:26:29,520 Oh, the little one at the bottom? 556 00:26:29,520 --> 00:26:31,400 Yeah. They do. What's that for? 557 00:26:31,400 --> 00:26:32,600 Condensation. 558 00:26:32,600 --> 00:26:33,920 Sort of. 559 00:26:33,920 --> 00:26:36,920 So, there are three panes that make up an aircraft window, 560 00:26:36,920 --> 00:26:39,000 and it's a way of easing the air pressure 561 00:26:39,000 --> 00:26:41,960 pushing against the window, and it does also stop it from fogging up. 562 00:26:41,960 --> 00:26:44,680 Aeronautical engineers would much prefer the planes didn't have 563 00:26:44,680 --> 00:26:47,360 windows at all because it makes the planes structurally weaker, 564 00:26:47,360 --> 00:26:50,240 but passengers don't like flying in a windowless air compartment. 565 00:26:50,240 --> 00:26:53,240 Just one sunroof would be nice, though, wouldn't it? 566 00:26:54,800 --> 00:26:57,160 You know how they always make you put the window blinds up 567 00:26:57,160 --> 00:26:59,080 when you're landing? Again, why would... Why? 568 00:26:59,080 --> 00:27:00,640 That's so they can see in if you crash. 569 00:27:00,640 --> 00:27:03,000 That is exactly right. It's another crash landing thing. 570 00:27:03,000 --> 00:27:05,640 They want to be able to see in... The emergency services need to be 571 00:27:05,640 --> 00:27:07,400 able to see whose legs have come off. Yes. 572 00:27:07,400 --> 00:27:09,720 AISLING LAUGHS This photo... 573 00:27:11,280 --> 00:27:13,000 There's lots of smoke coming out of there. 574 00:27:13,000 --> 00:27:16,200 The other one, the second one's going, "Where are you going?!" 575 00:27:16,200 --> 00:27:18,200 "There's smoke coming out of my pants!" 576 00:27:20,120 --> 00:27:25,080 She's been on a very dusty road and she's getting all of the dust out! 577 00:27:25,080 --> 00:27:27,040 LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE Yes! 578 00:27:27,040 --> 00:27:29,080 APPLAUSE DROWNS OUT SPEECH 579 00:27:30,040 --> 00:27:32,960 "Get out on the wing - you're filling the plane up with dust!" 580 00:27:34,720 --> 00:27:38,000 OK... This is Pickering's Harem. 581 00:27:38,000 --> 00:27:43,840 What huge discovery did they help make? 582 00:27:43,840 --> 00:27:46,120 Yes? Was it like a different type of hairstyle? 583 00:27:46,120 --> 00:27:49,000 Cos there's a lot of people rocking out different ones there. They are. 584 00:27:49,000 --> 00:27:51,480 The woman in the foreground has got a different-coloured bun 585 00:27:51,480 --> 00:27:53,480 to the rest of her hair. Mmm. 586 00:27:53,480 --> 00:27:55,000 Is it Braille? 587 00:27:55,000 --> 00:27:56,320 Is it Braille? 588 00:27:56,320 --> 00:27:57,680 No, a very interesting choice. 589 00:27:57,680 --> 00:27:59,720 Well, because they're all working very closely. 590 00:27:59,720 --> 00:28:01,640 They're definitely researching something. 591 00:28:01,640 --> 00:28:03,800 It is one of the most astonishing discoveries. 592 00:28:03,800 --> 00:28:07,800 It is thanks to these women the universe was discovered 593 00:28:07,800 --> 00:28:10,200 less than a century ago. 594 00:28:10,200 --> 00:28:14,280 So, in 1923, Edwin Hubble found evidence that a universe existed 595 00:28:14,280 --> 00:28:17,600 outside the Milky Way, but he couldn't have done it without 596 00:28:17,600 --> 00:28:21,800 Henrietta Swan Leavitt, and that is her at the back. 597 00:28:21,800 --> 00:28:23,680 And she was a member of a group of astronomers 598 00:28:23,680 --> 00:28:25,800 known as Pickering's Harem. 599 00:28:25,800 --> 00:28:28,400 So, basically what she did, she worked out how to measure 600 00:28:28,400 --> 00:28:31,320 distance from the Earth with pulsating stars, 601 00:28:31,320 --> 00:28:34,640 and when Hubble spotted one of those stars, he used her methods 602 00:28:34,640 --> 00:28:38,000 to calculate how far away it was, and he learned it was much 603 00:28:38,000 --> 00:28:41,600 too distant to be part of the Milky Way. It's unbelievable. 604 00:28:41,600 --> 00:28:43,920 It's less than a century ago he discovered the universe, 605 00:28:43,920 --> 00:28:45,600 but he couldn't have done it without her. 606 00:28:45,600 --> 00:28:47,560 So, when does she get co-credit on that? 607 00:28:47,560 --> 00:28:49,520 OK, so that is one of the extraordinary things. 608 00:28:49,520 --> 00:28:52,080 So, Leavitt was employed by a man called Charles Pickering. 609 00:28:52,080 --> 00:28:53,400 There's Charles Pickering. 610 00:28:53,400 --> 00:28:56,640 He was the director of the Harvard Observatory from 1877 611 00:28:56,640 --> 00:29:00,400 and, originally, he hired male staff in order to analyse all of the data 612 00:29:00,400 --> 00:29:03,440 that was being collected from the observed sky, and he got so angry 613 00:29:03,440 --> 00:29:05,800 with the staff because he found them incompetent, 614 00:29:05,800 --> 00:29:08,080 and he said, "My maid could do it better." 615 00:29:08,080 --> 00:29:09,880 And, so, they said, "Yeah, go on, then." 616 00:29:09,880 --> 00:29:13,240 So, he brought his maid in and she could do it better. 617 00:29:13,240 --> 00:29:15,560 In fact, she did it so well, he hired other 618 00:29:15,560 --> 00:29:17,960 what were known as female computers, 619 00:29:17,960 --> 00:29:19,880 or, more insultingly, Pickering's Harem. 620 00:29:19,880 --> 00:29:23,000 And it's a classic thing in science, the harem effect. 621 00:29:23,000 --> 00:29:26,480 It's a phenomenon whereby a male scientist in a position of power 622 00:29:26,480 --> 00:29:28,520 predominately hires female assistants, 623 00:29:28,520 --> 00:29:30,280 probably because he has to pay them less, 624 00:29:30,280 --> 00:29:31,960 so you get more assistants for... 625 00:29:31,960 --> 00:29:34,360 That's why this episode was so cheap to make. 626 00:29:35,920 --> 00:29:38,280 Alan Davies' QI. 627 00:29:38,280 --> 00:29:40,880 But the fact that she didn't get the credit is really important. 628 00:29:40,880 --> 00:29:43,160 So, unaware she had in fact died four years prior, 629 00:29:43,160 --> 00:29:46,360 the Swedish mathematician Gosta Mittag-Leffler, he wanted to 630 00:29:46,360 --> 00:29:49,520 nominate her for the 1926 Nobel Prize for Physics... Yeah. 631 00:29:49,520 --> 00:29:52,240 ..and he wrote to the new director of the observatory, 632 00:29:52,240 --> 00:29:53,520 a man called Harlow Shapley, 633 00:29:53,520 --> 00:29:56,720 and said she ought to be given the Nobel Prize for this work. 634 00:29:56,720 --> 00:29:58,520 And he wrote back and said she'd died, 635 00:29:58,520 --> 00:30:01,280 so nobody can get the prize posthumously. 636 00:30:01,280 --> 00:30:03,480 And Hubble often said that Leavitt should have had 637 00:30:03,480 --> 00:30:05,200 the Nobel Prize for her work... Mmm, yeah. 638 00:30:05,200 --> 00:30:07,160 That we wouldn't have known about the universe, 639 00:30:07,160 --> 00:30:09,400 the existence of the universe... That is astonishing. 640 00:30:09,400 --> 00:30:10,640 That is incredible, isn't it? 641 00:30:10,640 --> 00:30:12,080 Yeah, and also in that photograph, 642 00:30:12,080 --> 00:30:14,160 the woman with the bun with two different colours, 643 00:30:14,160 --> 00:30:15,800 sitting at the front of the photograph - 644 00:30:15,800 --> 00:30:18,160 equally crucial to astronomy, Annie Jump Cannon. 645 00:30:18,160 --> 00:30:19,320 There she is. 646 00:30:19,320 --> 00:30:21,640 She developed a new way of cataloguing stars. 647 00:30:21,640 --> 00:30:26,440 She manually classified 350,000 during her lifetime. 648 00:30:26,440 --> 00:30:28,600 One, two... I know, honestly! 649 00:30:28,600 --> 00:30:31,000 And someone comes in and goes, "Annie, are you all right?" 650 00:30:31,000 --> 00:30:33,120 "Hold on, I'm just...counting stars!" 651 00:30:33,120 --> 00:30:34,840 Damn you! "Got to 102!" 652 00:30:34,840 --> 00:30:37,360 Actually, Hubble himself, odd character. 653 00:30:37,360 --> 00:30:38,720 He claimed he'd fought a bear, 654 00:30:38,720 --> 00:30:40,720 he claimed he'd saved two women from drowning, 655 00:30:40,720 --> 00:30:43,480 and he claimed he'd set up a successful law practice in Kentucky. 656 00:30:43,480 --> 00:30:45,360 No evidence for any of these things. 657 00:30:45,360 --> 00:30:48,240 And he smoked a pipe because he thought it looked British, 658 00:30:48,240 --> 00:30:49,640 which he rather liked. 659 00:30:49,640 --> 00:30:51,320 He had a, sort of, fake British accent. 660 00:30:51,320 --> 00:30:53,240 He had a Mid-Atlantic accent as well, then? 661 00:30:53,240 --> 00:30:54,360 He did. Yeah. 662 00:30:54,360 --> 00:30:56,760 He adopted a sort of fake quasi-British accent 663 00:30:56,760 --> 00:30:58,080 and smoked a pipe. Mmm. 664 00:30:58,080 --> 00:31:01,440 Now, I have totally run out of questions, 665 00:31:01,440 --> 00:31:03,080 but I'm being told that my elves 666 00:31:03,080 --> 00:31:05,680 have finally finished the procrastination questions. 667 00:31:05,680 --> 00:31:08,120 So, have we got the...? There's my elf, Anna. 668 00:31:08,120 --> 00:31:10,760 Thank you very much. No, no, it's fine. Better late than never. 669 00:31:10,760 --> 00:31:12,200 Thank you, Anna. Yeah. 670 00:31:12,200 --> 00:31:14,240 APPLAUSE 671 00:31:15,680 --> 00:31:19,520 Right... When should we celebrate Procrastination Week? 672 00:31:20,720 --> 00:31:25,640 Erm... Well, erm, we could do, I mean, I would say... 673 00:31:25,640 --> 00:31:27,320 I need to clean my house, so... 674 00:31:27,320 --> 00:31:29,120 ..after that? After that, yeah. 675 00:31:34,880 --> 00:31:37,880 It is celebrated every year by the Philadelphia-based 676 00:31:37,880 --> 00:31:40,880 Procrastinators' Club of America. 677 00:31:40,880 --> 00:31:44,240 It takes place at slightly different times each year. 678 00:31:44,240 --> 00:31:47,000 Usually the first couple of weeks in March, 679 00:31:47,000 --> 00:31:49,000 depends, you know, how long it gets put off for. 680 00:31:49,000 --> 00:31:51,560 The club was formed in 1956. 681 00:31:51,560 --> 00:31:53,600 It's 20 membership, if you're interested. 682 00:31:53,600 --> 00:31:56,560 This buys you a licence to procrastinate and access 683 00:31:56,560 --> 00:31:59,760 to the monthly publication called Last Month's Newsletter, 684 00:32:02,120 --> 00:32:05,040 It lists upcoming events that have already taken place. 685 00:32:06,280 --> 00:32:10,160 They celebrate Christmas in June, he fourth of July in January 686 00:32:10,160 --> 00:32:14,440 and they have a Be Late For Something Day on September fifth. 687 00:32:14,440 --> 00:32:17,320 Their motto is "Behind you all the way." 688 00:32:18,760 --> 00:32:21,520 In 1966, they went on a bus tour, brandishing a banner, 689 00:32:21,520 --> 00:32:23,880 Excursion To The New York World Fair, 690 00:32:23,880 --> 00:32:26,880 which had closed a year and a half earlier. 691 00:32:26,880 --> 00:32:30,360 They recently ran a campaign to get the late President James Buchanan 692 00:32:30,360 --> 00:32:32,440 re-elected. He died in 1868. 693 00:32:34,160 --> 00:32:36,040 There are lots of famous procrastinators. 694 00:32:36,040 --> 00:32:38,800 The playwright, this is one of my favourites, Richard Sheridan 695 00:32:38,800 --> 00:32:40,200 who wrote The School For Scandal, 696 00:32:40,200 --> 00:32:42,920 he finished writing it as it was being performed 697 00:32:42,920 --> 00:32:44,440 on the opening night... 698 00:32:45,720 --> 00:32:48,960 ..in 1777, bringing down lines to the actors 699 00:32:48,960 --> 00:32:51,680 as they were on the stage. 700 00:32:51,680 --> 00:32:54,240 That is quite late, isn't it? That is leaving it a bit late. 701 00:32:54,240 --> 00:32:55,480 Where does it come from? 702 00:32:55,480 --> 00:32:57,920 I really suffer from it. 703 00:32:57,920 --> 00:33:00,240 I just always clean the house or do whatever it is. 704 00:33:00,240 --> 00:33:02,560 Where does it come from in the brain, or why do we do it? 705 00:33:02,560 --> 00:33:05,440 Well, it's interesting because lots of people suffer terrible shame 706 00:33:05,440 --> 00:33:08,240 and anxiety about it, and one of the things that they now 707 00:33:08,240 --> 00:33:10,640 think is that they're often perfectionists. 708 00:33:10,640 --> 00:33:13,520 They find it psychologically more acceptable never to tackle 709 00:33:13,520 --> 00:33:16,280 the task rather than to face the possibility of falling short. 710 00:33:16,280 --> 00:33:19,120 To try and fail. Yeah, you don't want to fall short on a performance. 711 00:33:19,120 --> 00:33:22,440 They have looked into ways to try and improve people's habits on this. 712 00:33:22,440 --> 00:33:25,040 So, they did a report on the effectiveness of internet-based 713 00:33:25,040 --> 00:33:29,000 cognitive behavioural therapy in improving procrastination behaviour. 714 00:33:29,000 --> 00:33:31,640 The main problem with the study 715 00:33:31,640 --> 00:33:36,600 was that people kept putting off doing the treatment. 716 00:33:36,600 --> 00:33:39,320 But lots and lots of artistic people... 717 00:33:39,320 --> 00:33:41,600 Victor Hugo, he promised his publishers he'd write 718 00:33:41,600 --> 00:33:44,320 The Hunchback Of Notre-Dame and then he spent a year doing 719 00:33:44,320 --> 00:33:45,560 pretty much anything else - 720 00:33:45,560 --> 00:33:49,120 entertaining guests, going out for walks, having a good time - 721 00:33:49,120 --> 00:33:51,360 and then his publishers told him that he had to have it 722 00:33:51,360 --> 00:33:55,000 in six months, so what he did was he locked all his clothes away 723 00:33:55,000 --> 00:33:57,840 and he kept himself only a grey shawl to wear, 724 00:33:57,840 --> 00:33:59,640 which obviously he couldn't go out in it, 725 00:33:59,640 --> 00:34:01,760 and that is how he managed to sit down and actually 726 00:34:01,760 --> 00:34:03,040 get on with writing the book. 727 00:34:03,040 --> 00:34:05,080 He was incapable of going out. 728 00:34:05,080 --> 00:34:07,520 So the way to get through procrastination is to 729 00:34:07,520 --> 00:34:09,680 just type naked in a scarf? 730 00:34:09,680 --> 00:34:12,040 Apparently. 731 00:34:12,040 --> 00:34:16,480 But isn't there also some sort of psychological buzz 732 00:34:16,480 --> 00:34:18,240 from that doing things last minute? 733 00:34:18,240 --> 00:34:20,440 That may be. I don't know. Aisling, do you find that? 734 00:34:20,440 --> 00:34:23,760 Like, I love making lists, and then I love turning over a new page 735 00:34:23,760 --> 00:34:24,800 and doing a new list. 736 00:34:24,800 --> 00:34:27,280 Like, I've had, like, "Call man RE washing machine" 737 00:34:27,280 --> 00:34:30,680 for about a year and a half, on every turn over of a new page. 738 00:34:30,680 --> 00:34:32,760 And someone said to me that you shouldn't do lists, 739 00:34:32,760 --> 00:34:35,960 because he says what happens is you make a new list, 740 00:34:35,960 --> 00:34:39,560 and you get your dopamine hit from putting it down on the list, 741 00:34:39,560 --> 00:34:43,600 which is like your happy hormone, but you don't get the happy hit from 742 00:34:43,600 --> 00:34:45,200 actually doing the task. Ah. 743 00:34:45,200 --> 00:34:47,440 Sometimes what I do is I put down something on the list 744 00:34:47,440 --> 00:34:50,200 I've already done, like, you know, "Buy bananas". 745 00:34:50,200 --> 00:34:52,280 And I'm like, "Tick!" 746 00:34:52,280 --> 00:34:55,040 "You're having a hell of a day, Aisling Bea, once again!" 747 00:34:55,040 --> 00:34:56,400 You're in fine company. 748 00:34:56,400 --> 00:34:58,880 Leonardo da Vinci, so the ultimate Renaissance man, 749 00:34:58,880 --> 00:35:01,920 he took 25 years to finish the Virgin Of The Rocks. 750 00:35:01,920 --> 00:35:05,640 Is that a painting or is that an actual woman? 751 00:35:05,640 --> 00:35:07,240 It's the one in the Louvre. 752 00:35:07,240 --> 00:35:09,240 There's another one in the National Gallery. 753 00:35:09,240 --> 00:35:12,400 The Mona Lisa took 15 years and he lived to be 67. 754 00:35:12,400 --> 00:35:16,560 He actually only completed 15 paintings and a handful 755 00:35:16,560 --> 00:35:17,880 of architectural designs, 756 00:35:17,880 --> 00:35:21,240 and patrons going mad had to call in other people to come and finish. 757 00:35:21,240 --> 00:35:23,320 I have to say, this is absolutely true. 758 00:35:23,320 --> 00:35:26,120 We wrote to the Procrastinators' Club because we were 759 00:35:26,120 --> 00:35:28,760 doing this question and they haven't got back to us. 760 00:35:31,760 --> 00:35:35,920 Now, if you're feeling clueless, we won't postpone it any longer. 761 00:35:35,920 --> 00:35:38,120 It's time for the soul-destroying chore 762 00:35:38,120 --> 00:35:39,840 that we call General Ignorance. 763 00:35:39,840 --> 00:35:41,920 Fingers on buzzers, please. 764 00:35:41,920 --> 00:35:45,560 If you are settling something mano a mano, 765 00:35:45,560 --> 00:35:47,280 how are you doing it? 766 00:35:47,280 --> 00:35:48,320 FAST TICKING CLOCK 767 00:35:48,320 --> 00:35:49,520 Yes? Man-to-man. 768 00:35:50,520 --> 00:35:54,520 No, it's not man-to-man. 769 00:35:54,520 --> 00:35:55,800 Ah, yes. 770 00:35:55,800 --> 00:35:57,400 Hand-to-hand. It is hand-to-hand. 771 00:35:57,400 --> 00:35:59,400 That is the literal Spanish translation. 772 00:35:59,400 --> 00:36:01,400 So, that dates back to the 1950s, 773 00:36:01,400 --> 00:36:05,040 but in fact it used to refer to a very particular Spanish sport. 774 00:36:05,040 --> 00:36:06,360 FASTER TICKING CLOCK 775 00:36:06,360 --> 00:36:07,960 Er, arm wrestling. 776 00:36:07,960 --> 00:36:10,160 Is that a very particular Spanish sport? 777 00:36:10,160 --> 00:36:12,000 Oh, sorry. 778 00:36:12,000 --> 00:36:14,200 FAUX SPANISH ACCENT: It is arm wrestling. 779 00:36:14,200 --> 00:36:15,640 Would it be bullfighting? 780 00:36:15,640 --> 00:36:17,360 It would be bullfighting, absolutely. 781 00:36:17,360 --> 00:36:21,120 It used to refer to two bullfighters in a rink competing 782 00:36:21,120 --> 00:36:24,640 for the audience's attention by killing three bulls each, 783 00:36:24,640 --> 00:36:27,600 and it was used to imply that they were on equal footing to each other. 784 00:36:27,600 --> 00:36:30,160 Wait, so they had to kill three each before the audience 785 00:36:30,160 --> 00:36:31,840 would even start watching? 786 00:36:31,840 --> 00:36:33,520 I mean, I've never been to a bull... 787 00:36:33,520 --> 00:36:35,920 That wouldn't be my thing, to go to a bullfighting thing. 788 00:36:35,920 --> 00:36:38,200 Don't go in that top, whatever you do! 789 00:36:41,120 --> 00:36:44,160 Can you imagine? It does look terrifying. 790 00:36:44,160 --> 00:36:46,960 Well, his trousers look terrifying. 791 00:36:46,960 --> 00:36:50,400 Do you think his arse is always that tight? 792 00:36:50,400 --> 00:36:52,040 I think it's the sight of the bull. 793 00:36:52,040 --> 00:36:56,280 I think his arse is acting on those trousers even as we speak. 794 00:36:56,280 --> 00:36:59,000 Bull-fighters in Spain are not usually called matadors. 795 00:36:59,000 --> 00:37:02,160 They are called toreros, from the Latin for bull. 796 00:37:02,160 --> 00:37:03,400 Matador actually means... 797 00:37:03,400 --> 00:37:05,720 Carpet layer. Yeah. 798 00:37:05,720 --> 00:37:07,240 Mat to the door. Yeah. 799 00:37:08,960 --> 00:37:10,120 That means killer. 800 00:37:10,120 --> 00:37:13,560 If I was a fan of bullfighting, I would be an aficionado - 801 00:37:13,560 --> 00:37:16,520 that is the correct word for a devotee of bullfighting. Really? 802 00:37:16,520 --> 00:37:19,560 So aficionado came from bullfighting first? Yes. 803 00:37:19,560 --> 00:37:21,800 Yeah. Wow. There have been a few British bullfighters. 804 00:37:21,800 --> 00:37:24,080 There was a man called Frank Evans, El Ingles, 805 00:37:24,080 --> 00:37:27,200 and because he was British, and it's difficult to get a bull to 806 00:37:27,200 --> 00:37:30,280 practise with, you know, for a British person, he would 807 00:37:30,280 --> 00:37:34,040 attack a supermarket trolley filled with hay with a sword. 808 00:37:35,920 --> 00:37:40,480 Mano a mano means hand-to-hand, but speaking of hands, 809 00:37:40,480 --> 00:37:45,200 what physical feature distinguishes humans and apes from other animals? 810 00:37:45,200 --> 00:37:47,840 Using your opposable thumbs. 811 00:37:51,120 --> 00:37:52,160 No. 812 00:37:52,160 --> 00:37:55,720 So there are frogs and koalas and pandas, possums, opossums, 813 00:37:55,720 --> 00:37:59,240 even birds which have opposable digits of some sort. 814 00:37:59,240 --> 00:38:02,000 Lots of dinosaurs had opposable digits. 815 00:38:02,000 --> 00:38:04,600 We're not even, frankly, up to the standard of other primates 816 00:38:04,600 --> 00:38:06,320 in the opposable digit stakes. 817 00:38:06,320 --> 00:38:08,520 So, great apes, they not only have opposable thumbs, 818 00:38:08,520 --> 00:38:11,600 they have opposable big toes as well, 819 00:38:11,600 --> 00:38:14,960 so the bit that makes us unique is that we can do this. 820 00:38:14,960 --> 00:38:19,400 We can bring our thumbs all the way across our hand to our ring 821 00:38:19,400 --> 00:38:22,840 and our little fingers, and we can also flex the ring and the little 822 00:38:22,840 --> 00:38:25,920 fingers towards the base of the thumb, and that makes us dextrous. 823 00:38:25,920 --> 00:38:27,200 It gives us a powerful grip. 824 00:38:27,200 --> 00:38:29,840 It makes us able to manipulate tools. 825 00:38:29,840 --> 00:38:32,080 And the other thing that sets us apart is brain size. 826 00:38:32,080 --> 00:38:34,040 Gorillas are often larger than human beings, 827 00:38:34,040 --> 00:38:36,640 but the brain is only about a third of the size. 828 00:38:36,640 --> 00:38:38,040 So there are some non-primates, 829 00:38:38,040 --> 00:38:40,280 so whales and elephants have larger brains than us, 830 00:38:40,280 --> 00:38:42,880 but our big brains are problematic in some way. 831 00:38:42,880 --> 00:38:44,080 What is the main way? 832 00:38:44,080 --> 00:38:45,280 Giving birth! Giving birth! 833 00:38:45,280 --> 00:38:48,920 Absolutely, yeah. It makes labour unbelievably painful. 834 00:38:48,920 --> 00:38:50,960 And human babies are also helpless, 835 00:38:50,960 --> 00:38:54,200 cos they have to be born at a stage when they're still relatively 836 00:38:54,200 --> 00:38:57,920 helpless because if they didn't, the head would grow too large. 837 00:38:57,920 --> 00:39:01,480 And then they'd be able to work out how to get out on their own. Yeah. 838 00:39:02,760 --> 00:39:05,040 Just follow the trail of dust! 839 00:39:10,800 --> 00:39:13,640 Now, here's a brainteaser. 840 00:39:13,640 --> 00:39:15,000 What am I describing? 841 00:39:15,000 --> 00:39:18,480 Known as the Great War, the poppy is used to represent...? 842 00:39:18,480 --> 00:39:19,600 FAST TICKING CLOCK 843 00:39:19,600 --> 00:39:21,640 Yes? 844 00:39:21,640 --> 00:39:22,920 World War I? 845 00:39:25,000 --> 00:39:27,080 No, just let me finish. 846 00:39:27,080 --> 00:39:32,880 The main combatants were France on one side and the UK on the other. 847 00:39:33,960 --> 00:39:35,920 Was it the World Cup in 1982? 848 00:39:37,040 --> 00:39:38,240 It's Napoleonic. 849 00:39:38,240 --> 00:39:40,800 The Napoleonic Wars were the original Great War, 850 00:39:40,800 --> 00:39:44,480 and the poppy was the emblem of that war. 851 00:39:44,480 --> 00:39:47,880 Before battle, so, in the case of the Napoleonic ones, 852 00:39:47,880 --> 00:39:50,160 particularly the land was often empty and barren. 853 00:39:50,160 --> 00:39:54,080 And, afterwards, these blood red flowers would flourish. 854 00:39:54,080 --> 00:39:59,000 The reason that scarlet corn poppies do so well on battlefields 855 00:39:59,000 --> 00:40:02,320 is because their seeds rely on light in order to grow. 856 00:40:02,320 --> 00:40:05,440 So, if the soil is disturbed tremendously, they emerge 857 00:40:05,440 --> 00:40:08,120 out of the dark earth and are exposed to the sun's light 858 00:40:08,120 --> 00:40:11,520 and poppies abound. So, there was an American professor 859 00:40:11,520 --> 00:40:14,360 and humanitarian called Moina Belle Michael. 860 00:40:14,360 --> 00:40:17,240 She was the one who conceived of using the poppy as a symbol 861 00:40:17,240 --> 00:40:19,440 of remembrance for World War I. 862 00:40:19,440 --> 00:40:23,200 She taught disabled servicemen at the University of Georgia. 863 00:40:23,200 --> 00:40:26,200 She began to sell poppies to raise funds for them. 864 00:40:26,200 --> 00:40:28,960 And, then, in 1921, her idea was adopted by the American Legion 865 00:40:28,960 --> 00:40:32,080 and later, in that same year, by the British Legion. 866 00:40:32,080 --> 00:40:36,960 So, the poppy is an American idea from the Napoleonic Wars, 867 00:40:36,960 --> 00:40:39,120 which is not what you would think. 868 00:40:39,120 --> 00:40:43,400 Right, we'll end on a question about love and partnership. 869 00:40:43,400 --> 00:40:46,120 What do opposites do? 870 00:40:47,600 --> 00:40:48,960 SHYLY: Attract. 871 00:40:53,040 --> 00:40:55,840 Nope. They did a survey, and there's 80% of people who believe 872 00:40:55,840 --> 00:40:58,760 that to be true, but they examined the digital footprints 873 00:40:58,760 --> 00:41:00,240 of over 45,000 people, 874 00:41:00,240 --> 00:41:02,760 and it's really rare that opposites attract. 875 00:41:02,760 --> 00:41:05,440 On the contrary, it's people with similar personalities. 876 00:41:05,440 --> 00:41:08,560 So, based on likes and word choices in posts, you're much more likely 877 00:41:08,560 --> 00:41:11,360 to be become friends and much more likely to be romantic partners. 878 00:41:11,360 --> 00:41:13,960 That's why your partner's more likely to shag your friends, 879 00:41:13,960 --> 00:41:15,680 cos they're like you. 880 00:41:19,480 --> 00:41:22,080 That didn't come up in the study, but I think that'll do. 881 00:41:22,080 --> 00:41:25,280 It's fine. We've all had an experience like that. 882 00:41:25,280 --> 00:41:27,160 And he was my best mate! 883 00:41:28,800 --> 00:41:29,960 So, here's bad news. 884 00:41:29,960 --> 00:41:32,760 Dating apps are terrible at pairing up people. 885 00:41:32,760 --> 00:41:34,120 No shit. No! What? 886 00:41:34,120 --> 00:41:36,760 I know, it's shocking to be attracted to each other... 887 00:41:36,760 --> 00:41:39,280 They can pair up murderers and victims though, can't they? 888 00:41:39,280 --> 00:41:42,840 AUDIENCE GROAN Sorry, is that...? 889 00:41:43,920 --> 00:41:45,440 Is that an app? 890 00:41:45,440 --> 00:41:49,240 It might as well be. Are you a murderer or a victim? 891 00:41:49,240 --> 00:41:51,760 I'm sort of a victim. What are you? Murderer. Oh! 892 00:41:54,560 --> 00:41:57,760 We have a house deep in the woods in Denmark and I've been splitting 893 00:41:57,760 --> 00:42:01,080 some wood for the stove, and I'd left the axe outside, 894 00:42:01,080 --> 00:42:03,880 and my mother said to me, she said, "You'd better bring the axe in." 895 00:42:03,880 --> 00:42:07,240 I said, "Why?" She said, "What if an axe-murderer happens to pass by?" 896 00:42:07,240 --> 00:42:10,320 I said, "I'm going to guess, by his job description", 897 00:42:10,320 --> 00:42:12,120 "he's got his own axe." 898 00:42:14,320 --> 00:42:18,120 He's coming in with a butter knife and he's like, "Wait a minute." 899 00:42:19,480 --> 00:42:22,000 He's already like, "I'm going to leave the axe because" 900 00:42:22,000 --> 00:42:23,760 "I'm a butter knife murderer." 901 00:42:23,760 --> 00:42:26,280 "I'm going to spread you to death." 902 00:42:26,280 --> 00:42:28,640 They did a study and they asked participants to answer 903 00:42:28,640 --> 00:42:31,480 100 questions about their own personalities and what they were 904 00:42:31,480 --> 00:42:34,640 looking for in a partner, and then they sent them on a series 905 00:42:34,640 --> 00:42:37,080 of speed dates, and they did a sort of algorithm based 906 00:42:37,080 --> 00:42:39,520 on the answers they'd given to predict how well the dates 907 00:42:39,520 --> 00:42:40,800 would go romantically, 908 00:42:40,800 --> 00:42:44,360 and it was no better than chance at predicting whether two people 909 00:42:44,360 --> 00:42:46,600 would be attracted to each other. 910 00:42:46,600 --> 00:42:49,280 Opposites don't attract, so, if you're a procrastinator, 911 00:42:49,280 --> 00:42:51,880 best to date another procrastinator, er, you know, 912 00:42:51,880 --> 00:42:53,680 when you get round to it. 913 00:42:53,680 --> 00:42:56,200 Well, we've been putting it off, but it's time for 914 00:42:56,200 --> 00:42:58,200 the off-putting matter of the scores. 915 00:42:58,200 --> 00:43:01,280 Busy on the deadlines this week with -4, 916 00:43:01,280 --> 00:43:03,560 in first place, it's Holly! 917 00:43:03,560 --> 00:43:05,600 CHEERING AND APPLAUSE 918 00:43:08,200 --> 00:43:11,960 In the nick of time in second place, with -12, 919 00:43:11,960 --> 00:43:13,440 Alan! 920 00:43:13,440 --> 00:43:15,480 CHEERING AND APPLAUSE 921 00:43:17,440 --> 00:43:19,600 Just a tad too late with -13, 922 00:43:19,600 --> 00:43:20,840 it's Nikki! 923 00:43:20,840 --> 00:43:22,880 CHEERING AND APPLAUSE 924 00:43:24,880 --> 00:43:29,040 And watching the last bus disappearing over the horizon, 925 00:43:29,040 --> 00:43:31,240 in last place, at -14, 926 00:43:31,240 --> 00:43:32,680 it's Aisling! 927 00:43:32,680 --> 00:43:34,720 CHEERING AND APPLAUSE 928 00:43:42,640 --> 00:43:45,440 That's it from Nikki, Aisling, Holly, Alan and me. 929 00:43:45,440 --> 00:43:49,000 I'm going to end on a wise and witty quotation just as soon as 930 00:43:49,000 --> 00:43:51,320 the elves get round to giving me one. 931 00:43:51,320 --> 00:43:53,920 In the meantime, in the words of Mark Twain, 932 00:43:53,920 --> 00:43:57,400 "Never put off till tomorrow what you can do the day" 933 00:43:57,400 --> 00:43:59,080 "after tomorrow just as well." 934 00:43:59,080 --> 00:44:00,360 Goodnight. 935 00:44:00,360 --> 00:44:02,400 CHEERING AND APPLAUSE