2 00:00:00,080 --> 00:00:59,609 One's loyal subjects. Colin Lay. Queen's shilling. David Mitchell. Queen's uniform. Sarah Millican. 3 00:00:59,609 --> 00:01:28,299 Doom of the stool. Alan Davis. Queenly quartet. Sarah Goes. Colin Goes. Love a bit of Scandi 4 00:01:28,299 --> 00:02:02,629 music. David Goes. Goes. About the royal. It doesn't smell. You're off and running. 5 00:02:03,390 --> 00:02:12,960 They're edging his first delivery slip. Right, yes. Was that an Australian accent? Oh, come on! 6 00:02:12,960 --> 00:02:21,039 I've been working on that since you were last here. Really? They don't open their teeth up. They, they, they, they. 7 00:02:21,039 --> 00:02:33,789 I've busted my crown, you see? I'll go over to the side. What can you talk about the royal mean? There was something weird about 8 00:02:33,990 --> 00:02:42,069 George III's wee. I think maybe it was purple and then they thought he had porphyria. Yes. And then now they think he didn't have porphyria, 9 00:02:42,069 --> 00:02:47,509 but they were definitely saying there's something up with this guy's wee. Yeah. Also, he's gone mad. Yes. 10 00:02:49,150 --> 00:02:57,229 That is entirely correct, but I am heading in a different direction. Why might a royal person say wee? Our first person plural? 11 00:02:57,270 --> 00:03:04,590 It is the majestic plural. It's known as nosism from the Latin, nose, for wee. It's the idea that the royal person, 12 00:03:04,590 --> 00:03:09,550 instead of referring to themselves as I, in fact, says wee. Implying there's more than one of them. Yes, well, 13 00:03:09,550 --> 00:03:14,310 we can trace it back to Henry II, and it used to mean God and I. That's what it really comes from. 14 00:03:14,310 --> 00:03:19,349 We've got Henry II there and his successor, Richard I, and it's Richard I that introduced the motto, 15 00:03:19,349 --> 00:03:23,590 Dieu est mon droit, God in my right, and that remains the royal motto ever since. 16 00:03:23,830 --> 00:03:29,270 It's got your crown on it, it's got your crown. I like to think this is like a working crown. 17 00:03:29,270 --> 00:03:34,789 This isn't like a parliament opening coronation crown. This is a crown. Daily. Yeah, you can wear it all the time. 18 00:03:34,789 --> 00:03:42,789 You can go into battle. Yeah. Going to get a paper and some fags. Yeah. Going to the garage at 3am for munches. Yeah. 19 00:03:44,789 --> 00:03:52,789 The Queen doesn't actually use the pronoun one as much as you would think. They analysed all her speeches since 1952 20 00:03:52,789 --> 00:03:57,750 and she uses I six times more often than she says one. It's a parody, really, of how she speaks, 21 00:03:57,750 --> 00:04:02,870 because it isn't. Unless she got bored of it. Yeah, one's not doing that anymore. Must be boring being Queen, so it just makes it a bit. 22 00:04:02,870 --> 00:04:07,110 It must be quite dull, do you not think, constantly having to open and close things? 23 00:04:15,740 --> 00:04:21,339 I don't think, to be fair, you mean opening as in launching? Yeah. I don't think she closes many things. 24 00:04:21,339 --> 00:04:38,680 When BHS went under, I didn't know. You're in charge. The whole approach to pronouns can be quite complicated. 25 00:04:38,680 --> 00:04:44,680 So the very first Qin emperor, so the guy who unified China, his guy called Shi Huangli, 26 00:04:44,680 --> 00:04:50,680 and he announced when he became emperor that the character, Chen, which was the normal singular 27 00:04:50,680 --> 00:04:56,680 pronoun, so I, was for his imperial use only. And it meant everybody else had to come up with other ways of... 28 00:04:56,680 --> 00:05:02,680 I am Chen. I am Chen. People used to refer to themselves often as you, meaning this foolish one, 29 00:05:02,680 --> 00:05:06,680 or not refer to yourself at all. In terms of things that you might refer to yourself if you're 30 00:05:06,680 --> 00:05:11,800 in charge, Kim Jong-il, he had more than 1200 titles with which he used to refer to himself, 31 00:05:11,800 --> 00:05:18,360 including Heaven Sent Hero, Guardian Deity Of The Planet, and my personal favourite, 32 00:05:18,360 --> 00:05:20,120 Eternal Bosom Of Hot Love. 33 00:05:23,850 --> 00:05:26,250 1102, Deluded Maniac. 34 00:05:28,250 --> 00:05:33,209 This is a great title. In Swaziland, Queen Mother Of King Musquati III has enjoyed the title of 35 00:05:33,209 --> 00:05:39,370 In Lo Vucasi, The Great Shi Elephant. I think I'd like to be that. Don't you think it's a good title? 36 00:05:39,930 --> 00:05:47,720 No. Sometimes I just want to feel like when I'm in the bath. Who chews the Queen's food? 37 00:05:47,720 --> 00:05:48,439 Beef eaters. 38 00:05:50,439 --> 00:05:58,120 Bacteria. 39 00:05:59,079 --> 00:06:03,480 Oh. Yes, I think we're going to accept that, except that we are in the land of honey. 40 00:06:03,480 --> 00:06:07,720 It's a bee. The worker bees. The worker bees? The worker bees are the other bees. 41 00:06:07,720 --> 00:06:11,240 It's not all the other bees because they divide up into lots of categories. So there's lazy 42 00:06:11,240 --> 00:06:16,040 ones as well. There are drone ones, there are scout ones, there are worker ones. 43 00:06:16,040 --> 00:06:21,000 There are product development bees, aren't there? Yeah. They've achieved very little recently. 44 00:06:21,959 --> 00:06:25,160 I mean, it is just honey, isn't it? Yeah, it's just honey. 45 00:06:25,160 --> 00:06:29,160 Unless it's Manuka honey and then it's 15 quid. Yeah. What are those bees doing? 46 00:06:30,199 --> 00:06:35,800 But when you compare them to KitKat, I mean, there's orange KitKat berries. I mean, 47 00:06:35,800 --> 00:06:39,480 they've really worked on the product development compared to honey is just honey. 48 00:06:40,360 --> 00:06:43,720 So worker bees, they pre-digest the Queen's food because she doesn't have 49 00:06:43,720 --> 00:06:47,800 the necessary glands to digest it herself. Even more unpleasant than that, they have 50 00:06:47,800 --> 00:06:53,959 the power to put her on a crash diet. What? Yes, I know. So she gets really big and heavy. 51 00:06:53,959 --> 00:06:58,680 She's too heavy to fly and when they want to swarm, which they do once a year, 52 00:06:58,680 --> 00:07:03,000 they put her on a crash diet so that she loses a third of her body weight and so she's ready 53 00:07:03,000 --> 00:07:08,040 to take off. Is there a committee or something? There's some level of management that goes, 54 00:07:08,040 --> 00:07:13,639 you know, the Queen's getting a bit porky. Well, you generally don't know how these 55 00:07:13,639 --> 00:07:19,399 decisions are made. So, for example, choosing a new Queen, they seem to select rather randomly 56 00:07:19,399 --> 00:07:23,879 a bee at the larva stage and they give it a special diet different from all of the workers. 57 00:07:23,879 --> 00:07:29,240 So these are Queen cups. These are new Queens being developed. Most larva are fed honey and 58 00:07:29,240 --> 00:07:34,839 pollen by worker bees, but occasionally one is fed only royal jelly, which is a sort of 59 00:07:34,839 --> 00:07:39,319 protein that's secreted from the glands in the worker bees' heads and this one is elevated 60 00:07:39,319 --> 00:07:42,600 to royal status and becomes Queen. But I like that you asked the question because the 61 00:07:42,600 --> 00:07:46,600 truth is we don't know. Oh, thank you very much. Yeah. Thank you. So we used to think it was the 62 00:07:46,600 --> 00:07:49,480 royal jelly that made the Queens develop differently and we now think it's not what 63 00:07:49,480 --> 00:07:55,079 she's fed but what she is not fed. So the fact that she does not get pollen and honey like the 64 00:07:55,079 --> 00:08:01,639 others, it actually makes her ovaries grow large while the other reproductive organs, the ones 65 00:08:01,639 --> 00:08:06,439 that get the pollen and honey, they actually shrink. It's a terrible life actually because 66 00:08:06,439 --> 00:08:09,959 when it comes time to get rid of her, she's sick or she's unproductive, she's not having 67 00:08:09,959 --> 00:08:15,480 any more babies. The workers kill her by balling her. Oh, I don't know if I want to know what 68 00:08:15,480 --> 00:08:22,040 that is. No, that's not what I think it is. No, a large group swarms tightly around her. 69 00:08:22,040 --> 00:08:27,480 It's better than I was thinking. It raises her body temperature until she is fatally overheated. 70 00:08:29,079 --> 00:08:33,720 I love that we're all feeling sorry that it is Queen Bee. But actually we say Queen Bee, 71 00:08:33,720 --> 00:08:38,279 since Aristotle's time it was always assumed it was a king. It took until the 1670s 72 00:08:38,279 --> 00:08:43,559 there was a Dutch scientist called Jan Svammerdam and he dissected a king bee under a microscope and 73 00:08:43,559 --> 00:08:48,759 rather shocked to discover the size of the ovaries which represent a quarter of a mature 74 00:08:48,759 --> 00:08:54,279 queen's body weight. He also learnt this great thing. If you remove the queen from the hive on 75 00:08:54,279 --> 00:08:59,960 a stick, all the other bees will follow you and this is a beekeeping trick that people use now 76 00:08:59,960 --> 00:09:03,559 and the most bizarre use was in the 18th century in show business. There was a beekeeper 77 00:09:03,559 --> 00:09:09,320 called Daniel Wildman and he had a honey shop in London and he promoted it by riding horses 78 00:09:09,320 --> 00:09:14,919 standing up while wearing a beard of bees. And that made people buy from his shop rather than 79 00:09:14,919 --> 00:09:18,759 just thinking he was mad. It's pretty startling if you have a look. This is not him but these 80 00:09:18,759 --> 00:09:23,720 are other people who have the skill of getting bees to do as they please. Did they all have 81 00:09:23,720 --> 00:09:27,320 honey shops as well? They were just selling tickets in the end because there was a woman 82 00:09:27,320 --> 00:09:31,240 called Patti Jones so she was the wife of the inventor of the modern circus Philip Astley 83 00:09:31,240 --> 00:09:35,480 and she used to perform horse riding stunts but she used to have a swarm of bees on her hand 84 00:09:35,480 --> 00:09:49,429 imitating a lady's muff. I mean a hand warmer. So do I. Who has sex for 15 years and gets 85 00:09:49,429 --> 00:09:55,909 licked to death by their own children? It's got to be an insect. Is it something like a 86 00:09:55,909 --> 00:09:59,350 like a termite? It is a termite. You're absolutely right. Yes. 87 00:09:59,830 --> 00:10:13,190 Just to be warned even if you like insects I think this is a bit gross okay. And I don't really like 88 00:10:13,190 --> 00:10:19,750 insects. I accept they're necessary. Yeah they are necessary but this is honestly a yellow pulsating 89 00:10:19,750 --> 00:10:24,230 mass. So the termite queen just like bees is the only fertile female in the colony and she 90 00:10:24,230 --> 00:10:30,230 gives birth to all the rest but unlike other insects mates for life and I mean literally. 91 00:10:30,230 --> 00:10:38,070 So after choosing a king spends 15 years incessantly mating to produce the nest colony. 92 00:10:38,070 --> 00:10:44,950 She produces one egg every three seconds. No. I know. So over a quarter of a billion in her 93 00:10:44,950 --> 00:10:54,629 lifetime. It's like a paintball machine. So you can just see her head at the front and that is 94 00:10:54,629 --> 00:11:00,950 her body and that her egg producing organ becomes so massive that she's rendered entirely. 95 00:11:00,950 --> 00:11:05,029 There she is. I know she's played by Olivia Colman in the film. 96 00:11:11,740 --> 00:11:15,740 Producing eggs the whole time. She grows to be too large to leave the cell. She can be a 97 00:11:15,740 --> 00:11:20,940 hundred times the size of the other termites. Is that the king there on the end? No that's her. 98 00:11:20,940 --> 00:11:26,940 The black bit at the end there. That's her. The rest is egg producing organ. I said it was gross. 99 00:11:26,940 --> 00:11:31,659 Is she having sex and producing an egg at the same time? Yes so she's endlessly shaking. She goes 100 00:11:31,659 --> 00:11:37,980 through about five to ten kings in her lifetime. I think they just get exhausted. I mean does she 101 00:11:37,980 --> 00:11:44,059 do it the same way every time? Like do they have to experiment with the sex life to keep it 102 00:11:44,059 --> 00:11:49,899 fun? No I think she just gets rid of the king and she can't move so her babies tend to 103 00:11:49,899 --> 00:11:54,539 her. They feed her, they clean her, they drink the secretion that she sweats. Look at 104 00:11:54,539 --> 00:11:59,419 this. I did warn you it's revolting but when she has outlived her usefulness so she's not 105 00:11:59,419 --> 00:12:04,379 producing enough babies anymore the children surround her and they lick her to death. They 106 00:12:04,379 --> 00:12:08,779 literally suck the fluids and fats from her body. Who would have thought that there was such a 107 00:12:08,779 --> 00:12:11,740 disgusting story behind something as lovely as a termite? 108 00:12:15,179 --> 00:12:19,580 But here's the weird thing when she dies gradually the whole mound dies away. So they 109 00:12:19,659 --> 00:12:24,940 lick her to death and then everybody dies? Well what you need now is to start a new termite mound so 110 00:12:24,940 --> 00:12:31,100 what'll happen? What I need now? No I mean when she's died you need to start a new mound and 111 00:12:31,100 --> 00:12:34,700 so what happens is once a year virgin queens will fly out of the mound and they'll land on 112 00:12:34,700 --> 00:12:39,019 the ground and they instantly shed their wings so they never fly again and they meet a king and 113 00:12:39,019 --> 00:12:43,899 they go underground and they start a new mound. And how quickly can she change the king? 114 00:12:43,899 --> 00:12:48,940 Well does she have to wear them out? Yeah I mean so in her lifetime she'll go through 115 00:12:48,940 --> 00:12:54,139 between five and ten kings. As one king finishes does she sort of go quick I need another one. 116 00:12:57,179 --> 00:13:01,500 Talking about royalty there was a study in 2018 and termite workers you have to understand 117 00:13:01,500 --> 00:13:07,659 termite workers are generally blind. They perform a kind of curtsy when they can scent 118 00:13:07,659 --> 00:13:12,460 royalty so there's a wax coat like substance that is over the king and queen and when the 119 00:13:12,460 --> 00:13:17,019 workers smell it they pause and start shaking. Look see them shaking because it's 120 00:13:17,019 --> 00:13:22,940 almost like a curtsy like being in the presence of their leader. Anyway moving on what's wrong 121 00:13:22,940 --> 00:13:28,220 with the queen in this picture? Nothing at all. Oh no it's kissing her hand. Sorry. 122 00:13:30,539 --> 00:13:40,730 Did you think that was a clean shaven gentleman? 123 00:13:44,409 --> 00:13:50,409 Is she dead? She is dead. This is Innes de Castro so we are back in the 14th century. 124 00:13:50,409 --> 00:13:54,409 She was the mistress of the then future king of Portugal Peter the first. He had a wife 125 00:13:54,409 --> 00:14:00,090 called Constance and she died. It was very sad so he immediately moved Innes in and they had three 126 00:14:00,090 --> 00:14:05,370 illegitimate children. Now his dad was still king then Alfonso the fourth. He was furious so 127 00:14:05,370 --> 00:14:09,850 he had Innes killed. Well obviously Peter didn't like this very much so he caught two of the 128 00:14:09,850 --> 00:14:15,210 killers and he had their hearts torn out and pulverized before him while he ate dinner. So 129 00:14:15,210 --> 00:14:20,570 quite cross I mean on the whole quite cross. Six years later he became king. He announced 130 00:14:20,570 --> 00:14:27,850 that he and Innes had secretly married. He dug her up and yes and placed her on the throne 131 00:14:27,850 --> 00:14:32,889 and forced the court to swear allegiance to her and kiss her hand. So she's not only dead 132 00:14:32,889 --> 00:14:37,850 darling she's been buried for six years. Well in which case they've done a great job. Yeah 133 00:14:39,450 --> 00:14:43,450 she looks pretty good. Yeah absolutely I mean I look worse than that many days. 134 00:14:45,129 --> 00:14:48,809 This is a magnificent coffin which you can still see it's at the monastery of Alcobarca 135 00:14:48,809 --> 00:14:53,929 but there's a modern Portuguese expression agora Ines é morta now Ines is dead. It basically 136 00:14:53,929 --> 00:14:59,370 means it's too late you can't turn back now but there she is finally linked by her children 137 00:15:00,809 --> 00:15:04,009 well it's such a horrific story lots of people thought it was a myth but in fact 138 00:15:04,009 --> 00:15:08,250 there is plenty of evidence to suggest that it is in fact a fact but actually in this 139 00:15:08,250 --> 00:15:14,330 country we had a similar sort of thing so in 1667 230 years after Catherine of Valois 140 00:15:14,330 --> 00:15:18,009 she was the queen consort of Henry the fifth died her tomb was disturbed they're doing some 141 00:15:18,009 --> 00:15:24,649 renovations in Westminster Abbey and after that if you paid a little bit extra to your tour guide 142 00:15:24,649 --> 00:15:28,090 they would take you to see the corpse it became a sort of tourist attraction 143 00:15:28,090 --> 00:15:32,009 and Samuel Pepys took his wife and daughters to see it and this is really weird he wrote in 144 00:15:32,009 --> 00:15:37,210 his diary I did kiss her mouth reflecting upon it that I did kiss a queen that this was my 145 00:15:37,210 --> 00:15:43,850 birthday 36 years old that I did first kiss a queen she was 230 years dead 146 00:15:43,850 --> 00:15:46,970 it still counts 147 00:15:49,769 --> 00:15:54,330 if it was his first queen was it his first corpse though maybe he couldn't say it was 148 00:15:54,330 --> 00:15:57,690 his first corpse because he's already done that so he had to say it was his first queen 149 00:15:57,690 --> 00:16:00,490 awkward yeah yeah oh the corpse thing oh that 150 00:16:04,330 --> 00:16:09,289 is that the dead uh I would suggest that that's a wooden car it looks wood yes 151 00:16:09,289 --> 00:16:15,529 oh yeah if that's her dead body it's had work yeah yeah there have been a couple of 152 00:16:15,529 --> 00:16:19,529 instances of royals who were crowned before they were born uh king louis the tenth of 153 00:16:19,529 --> 00:16:24,490 france he died on the fifth of june 1316 he was succeeded by his son uh john the first 154 00:16:24,490 --> 00:16:30,809 but he wasn't born until the 15th of november so he reigned for five months in utero did 155 00:16:30,809 --> 00:16:35,929 did they have a coronation well he died five days after he was born so he was 156 00:16:35,929 --> 00:16:39,610 yeah but I mean in that dynasty he's the one who reigned for his whole life 157 00:16:42,330 --> 00:16:46,090 he must be the only king to have reigned for five months longer than he actually lived 158 00:16:46,090 --> 00:16:50,250 yeah innister castro was a bit of a stiff you know even for a royal now 159 00:16:52,169 --> 00:16:54,730 what would you have to do to a mannequin to get yourself arrested 160 00:16:55,289 --> 00:17:01,129 have sex with it for 15 years and then lick it to death I would say that if it's your 161 00:17:01,129 --> 00:17:06,009 mannequin that would not be a legal issue would it if you want to pump it for years and years 162 00:17:06,009 --> 00:17:10,569 and then lick it to bits then that's fine as long as it doesn't belong to marks and spencers 163 00:17:10,569 --> 00:17:18,890 and you're not doing it in the winter so if that happens to me I can say David said it was 164 00:17:18,890 --> 00:17:24,569 fine yeah I've said I promise you that you will not have a legal problem have you trained 165 00:17:24,650 --> 00:17:31,690 in any way in in the legal fraternity no no I have no training but I am right 166 00:17:38,700 --> 00:17:42,700 that's all it takes yeah so different kind of queen we're talking about drag queens 167 00:17:42,700 --> 00:17:48,460 1941 there was a drag queen called Julian El Ting he was arrested simply for pointing 168 00:17:48,460 --> 00:18:03,829 at a mannequin so this is really hard for us what with well that's him on the left and 169 00:18:03,829 --> 00:18:07,349 that's him on the right as well and it's impossible for us to imagine but he was one 170 00:18:07,349 --> 00:18:11,509 of the highest paid actors in the world in his day he was paid three and a half thousand 171 00:18:11,509 --> 00:18:15,990 dollars a week so that's nearly sixty thousand dollars now in 1912 he had a Broadway theatre on 172 00:18:15,990 --> 00:18:20,630 42nd street named after him everybody loved his drag act he was always doing lots and lots 173 00:18:20,630 --> 00:18:25,029 of costume changes but then after world war one there was a spate of morality laws and 174 00:18:25,029 --> 00:18:30,230 men were banned from dressing as women and shortly before his death he was reduced to 175 00:18:30,230 --> 00:18:34,869 performing in a tuxedo with a mannequin next to him dressed as he would have done when he 176 00:18:34,869 --> 00:18:39,190 dressed as a woman and he was arrested in a Los Angeles nightclub for simply pointing 177 00:18:39,190 --> 00:18:46,710 it was thought to be too much in what year was that 1941 41 yeah so they banned drag acts yeah 178 00:18:46,710 --> 00:18:51,829 they banned drag acts when it started after the first world war and then it increased and 179 00:18:51,829 --> 00:18:56,309 increased to the extent that in 1941 he was arrested for simply pointing at a mannequin 180 00:18:56,309 --> 00:19:01,349 I know it's bonkers isn't it in wartime drag acts would have been very helpful 181 00:19:01,750 --> 00:19:07,190 yeah for morale I know it's different from moral grounds but on morale grounds more drag 182 00:19:07,190 --> 00:19:12,309 police yes in terms of morality probably the worst story about cross-dressing was a man called 183 00:19:12,309 --> 00:19:17,430 William T Sloper he was on the Titanic and he was invited into one of the lifeboats by an 184 00:19:17,430 --> 00:19:22,630 actress he had just met that evening Dorothy Gibson when only a third of the lifeboats 185 00:19:22,630 --> 00:19:26,789 were filled to capacity the whole women and children thing hadn't kicked in he did survive 186 00:19:26,789 --> 00:19:30,630 he got to the United States and he refused to talk to reporters because he had said 187 00:19:30,630 --> 00:19:35,990 he would give just a story to his local newspaper and one journalist took umbrage at this and wrote 188 00:19:35,990 --> 00:19:40,950 an article anyway and invented the notion that he had in fact escaped because he was dressed as 189 00:19:40,950 --> 00:19:45,430 a woman and it wasn't true at all but he lived under the curse of this accusation for 190 00:19:45,430 --> 00:19:49,829 the rest of his life there was somebody who did escape sort of by cross-dressing a 191 00:19:49,829 --> 00:19:54,230 steerage class passenger called David Buckley he made his way into a lifeboat and then all 192 00:19:54,230 --> 00:19:58,069 the men were ordered off but a woman he was sitting next to threw her shawl over him 193 00:19:58,069 --> 00:20:01,750 and he stayed in the lifeboat and he did survive but I don't think it's strictly 194 00:20:01,750 --> 00:20:06,869 speaking cross-dressing just was covered with the thing it's where cross-dressing meets hiding 195 00:20:06,869 --> 00:20:16,549 yes now who was the first queen to get a Brazilian oh Cleopatra why do you think 196 00:20:16,549 --> 00:20:23,109 she used to bath in milk she was up for stuff ass's milk yeah not even normal milk no she 197 00:20:23,109 --> 00:20:27,750 married several of her brothers she was a you know what we'd call now a weirdo 198 00:20:30,789 --> 00:20:36,789 no it is not a Brazilian husband we are heading indeed to Brazil if that helps 199 00:20:36,789 --> 00:20:42,150 I had to have this picture explained to me when I first saw it well we know more about 200 00:20:42,150 --> 00:20:51,660 you than we thought we did I'm in the same gang as you honestly I thought it was caramel I had 201 00:20:51,660 --> 00:21:00,460 no idea we're going to 1807 we are going to Portugal the crown prince Dom João Napoleon 202 00:21:00,460 --> 00:21:05,180 is approaching and he takes his entire court including his queen Carlotta and he thinks 203 00:21:05,180 --> 00:21:09,900 let's go to one of our colonies and they head off to Brazil so they go off in a convoy of 204 00:21:09,900 --> 00:21:14,859 ships from Lisbon to Brazil 10,000 people go with him and it's unbelievably overcrowded 205 00:21:14,859 --> 00:21:20,460 and hygienic and a lice infestation breaks out so in order to get rid of the lice they 206 00:21:20,460 --> 00:21:24,619 all including all the women they have to shave their heads they have to throw all their 207 00:21:24,619 --> 00:21:30,299 powdered wigs away and cover their heads in pig fat now they're about to arrive in Brazil they 208 00:21:30,299 --> 00:21:36,539 want to make a bit of a stir but they've got bald heads and pig fat I think that'll that'll 209 00:21:36,539 --> 00:21:43,339 do the job they arrive at a place called Guanabara Bay and Carlotta and all the other 210 00:21:43,339 --> 00:21:49,660 royal women emerged with their bald heads covered with improvised turbines and apparently 211 00:21:49,660 --> 00:21:53,660 so the story goes the Brazilian women thought this was the height of European style 212 00:21:53,660 --> 00:21:59,420 and it became the local fashion the problem is that Brazil is full of a wonderful African 213 00:21:59,420 --> 00:22:03,019 Brazilian population and I would have thought that the turban thing would have come 214 00:22:03,579 --> 00:22:07,740 from that part of the world originally but we don't know so they were bald everywhere then 215 00:22:08,380 --> 00:22:19,240 are you worrying about it's growing me when it's caught in this one looks not unlike David 216 00:22:19,240 --> 00:22:29,819 Mitchell I think she looks a bit like Marty Feldman yes cross with David Mitchell 217 00:22:30,779 --> 00:22:38,059 this is building up into quite the compliment whether the story is true or not about the 218 00:22:38,059 --> 00:22:42,700 Brazilians there is a long history of commoners imitating royals there was a man called Guillermo 219 00:22:42,700 --> 00:22:47,660 duke of Manchua he was a hunchback so we took a 16th century and so all of his courtiers 220 00:22:47,660 --> 00:22:53,900 put humps on to compliment him you've got to judge that carefully yeah it might look like 221 00:22:53,900 --> 00:23:00,619 you're taking the piss yes the princess of Wales Alexandra she had a limp because she had 222 00:23:00,619 --> 00:23:04,140 a stiff knee joint and it became fashionable to limp in the same way it was known as the 223 00:23:04,140 --> 00:23:09,819 Alexandra limp isn't there a thing about waistcoat buttons as well what's the thing about waistcoat 224 00:23:09,819 --> 00:23:14,539 buttons in Britain you're supposed to leave your bottom button of a waistcoat undone and 225 00:23:14,539 --> 00:23:19,339 i'd heard because of some fat bastard some fat bastard yeah some king who couldn't do all 226 00:23:19,420 --> 00:23:23,819 his buttons up so everyone went around with leaving some of their buttons undone like yes 227 00:23:23,819 --> 00:23:28,859 just normal it's just really stylish and you had to have food around your mouth and all down 228 00:23:28,859 --> 00:23:34,940 your tie yeah the waistcoat buttons is true edward the seventh when he was prince of wales 229 00:23:34,940 --> 00:23:39,019 oh her husband her husband in fact yeah here's another interesting fashion for 230 00:23:39,019 --> 00:23:43,740 royals louis the 14th he had a fashion that courtiers should have one long fingernail 231 00:23:43,740 --> 00:23:48,140 why was that my husband's got one special toenail for scratching his eczema it's awful 232 00:23:48,140 --> 00:23:51,259 isn't it 233 00:23:56,759 --> 00:24:03,190 in this show you and i are in danger of ever sharing 234 00:24:05,750 --> 00:24:08,869 and you seem to be fine with that though that's yeah as long as he 235 00:24:08,869 --> 00:24:13,190 he keeps it to himself i'm all right right yeah yeah he hasn't really has he now 236 00:24:17,980 --> 00:24:21,259 he's only told me quite recently and we've been together for nearly 15 years 237 00:24:22,380 --> 00:24:26,380 so there's nothing i can do about it now is what i'm saying yeah except maybe pay 238 00:24:26,380 --> 00:24:31,500 more attention in the future so the one long fingernail what do we reckon 239 00:24:31,500 --> 00:24:34,619 is that as cain that he's leaning on or is that the fingernail 240 00:24:37,420 --> 00:24:41,019 no he didn't have the fingernail so it was the courtiers everyone else had to have the 241 00:24:41,019 --> 00:24:44,059 yes is it to do with his anus let me just get that out of my head 242 00:24:46,940 --> 00:24:48,380 what's it doing in your head 243 00:24:49,180 --> 00:24:51,180 oh my goodness 244 00:24:52,140 --> 00:25:04,140 away from this show 245 00:25:05,980 --> 00:25:09,980 pulsating termites with a fingernail up louis the 14th's ass now 246 00:25:11,740 --> 00:25:21,579 so he's in this in this reality he said i want any of you to be ready yeah there's no telling 247 00:25:21,579 --> 00:25:27,099 who i'm going to ask now to stick their fingernail up my aida i want you all to grow 248 00:25:27,099 --> 00:25:37,059 it i don't want it to be a specialism i want to say you now no so he decreed that nobody was 249 00:25:37,059 --> 00:25:47,940 allowed to knock on his door so instead they had to scratch really gently with one finger 250 00:25:47,940 --> 00:25:54,019 and so it became a thing that you grew a fingernail especially to scratch on the king's 251 00:25:54,019 --> 00:25:59,059 door and it really rather suggested you had the king's ear i know weird rules honestly 252 00:25:59,059 --> 00:26:01,380 would have been better off if they'd done it up his ass i just think 253 00:26:03,700 --> 00:26:08,740 anyway moving on what was your best chance of seeing the queen's ass in the 18th century 254 00:26:09,460 --> 00:26:17,539 asking really really really nicely she's standing underneath some sort of a vacuum 255 00:26:22,150 --> 00:26:28,980 those are bees i think if you send a big parcel you have to get the biggest stumps 256 00:26:29,059 --> 00:26:33,940 yes that got the ass on oh what the stamps yeah like because you see more of it on the stamp 257 00:26:38,019 --> 00:26:41,859 so you're saying that stamps are like those things that they used to have peanuts on 258 00:26:41,859 --> 00:26:46,259 these pumps and the more expensive the stamp the more of the queen you think 259 00:26:48,099 --> 00:26:58,819 i'm gonna send a really big parcel we'll see the whole of it is it a donkey yes it is 260 00:26:58,819 --> 00:27:04,339 not the queen's bum is it it's not the queen's bum this is queen charlotte she was the wife of 261 00:27:04,339 --> 00:27:09,220 george the third george the third absolutely right and she's very good he's very good 262 00:27:09,220 --> 00:27:23,740 yeah i'm tickling it out of him yeah an anus full of facts anus of fact 263 00:27:25,259 --> 00:27:32,299 actually the working title of my memoir but it wasn't donkey it was a zebra was known as 264 00:27:32,299 --> 00:27:37,579 the queen's ass given to her by the governor of the cape in south africa in 1761 it was a 265 00:27:37,579 --> 00:27:42,059 wedding present he sent a pair he sent a male and a female unfortunately the male no stamina 266 00:27:42,059 --> 00:27:47,099 died on route but the female arrived only a year late for the wedding but hey and it was a 267 00:27:47,099 --> 00:27:51,259 very popular attraction lots of people never seen one before and she had stables at buckingham 268 00:27:51,259 --> 00:27:55,819 gate and george stubs the great painter produced a marvelous large painting and apparently 269 00:27:55,819 --> 00:28:03,420 she bred it i mean not say not her personally but apparently they painted white stripes on the 270 00:28:03,420 --> 00:28:10,779 backside of a male donkey to persuade her to mate with it and it worked and gave birth so 271 00:28:10,779 --> 00:28:18,299 what would that be a donkey and a zebra a donkara donkara zebri it sounds like a condition 272 00:28:18,299 --> 00:28:22,779 it's a zebroyd you know he can't sit very well he calls me zebroyd 273 00:28:29,339 --> 00:28:30,940 for 18th century technology 274 00:28:34,940 --> 00:28:39,019 it does look like a donkey in leggings doesn't it donkeys in tie 275 00:28:40,380 --> 00:28:45,019 i use it to the same technique for breeding your race horses some stallions will only mate 276 00:28:45,019 --> 00:28:49,339 with mayors of a particular color i wear a george clooney mask quite often 277 00:28:54,380 --> 00:28:55,740 on my bum you understand 278 00:28:58,220 --> 00:29:01,980 the very first giraffe to arrive in britain was again it was a present to royals it was sent 279 00:29:01,980 --> 00:29:07,180 in 1827 was a gift from egypt to george the fourth i like this the ship that it was 280 00:29:07,180 --> 00:29:12,460 transported and they had to cut a hole in the deck at about the same time egypt gifted 281 00:29:12,460 --> 00:29:17,019 another giraffe to france and it was called zarafa it became so popular it created a craze 282 00:29:17,019 --> 00:29:26,700 in paris for having your hair done a la gira so not like hair like horns yes more like horns 283 00:29:26,700 --> 00:29:29,740 that's not i would say the most noticeable thing about a giraffe 284 00:29:33,980 --> 00:29:38,539 that was their takeaway thing oh yeah notice the little horns i'm gonna have my hair done 285 00:29:38,539 --> 00:29:47,430 like that it's got a four meter neck of the most astonishing tongues i went to a 286 00:29:47,430 --> 00:29:50,950 feeding station once where you would go up into a tower and feed the giraffes and honestly it's 287 00:29:50,950 --> 00:29:53,829 terrifying was it a tower for everybody else so just for you 288 00:30:00,019 --> 00:30:04,900 willis but the second has received lots and lots of exotic animals two sloths from brazil two 289 00:30:04,900 --> 00:30:10,019 pygmy hippopotamuses from liberia a crocodile from zambia an elephant from cameroon six 290 00:30:10,019 --> 00:30:15,460 kangaroos from australia thank you and a pig from fiji which decided to remain on fiji 291 00:30:17,059 --> 00:30:23,539 why fiji sent a pig maybe they don't have many giraffes there yeah we expect a giraffe 292 00:30:23,539 --> 00:30:28,900 but we haven't got one so embarrassed we can't send her a pig she'll have a pig 293 00:30:33,849 --> 00:30:40,569 we've got a dog collar a hound tether a game noose and you've got the horn what game can 294 00:30:40,569 --> 00:30:45,369 we play what noose have we got a game noose oh a noose that's up for anything 295 00:30:48,809 --> 00:30:53,130 well let's just try and work it out uh what might you do with a game noose so that's the 296 00:30:53,130 --> 00:30:57,529 third one is it where you know you don't want to shoot pheasants but you might encourage them 297 00:30:57,529 --> 00:31:03,529 to commit suicide you sort of say maybe i mean you're a pheasant what is there to live for 298 00:31:03,849 --> 00:31:11,690 you know anyway there it is i mean to be honest yeah if the pheasants killed itself it's not the 299 00:31:11,690 --> 00:31:15,450 same thing as eating it having shot it is it you could probably make an argument that it's 300 00:31:15,450 --> 00:31:22,549 like a vegan pheasant it's kind of what david is talking about is about pheasants but you 301 00:31:22,549 --> 00:31:27,430 want to be able to carry them home like little soft handcuffs or something well i think before 302 00:31:27,430 --> 00:31:33,269 you put it around its neck darling and carry it home on your belt it's like a pheasant clip 303 00:31:33,349 --> 00:31:37,509 exactly darling yes where the hell am i going to put my pheasant i know i've got my game noose 304 00:31:37,509 --> 00:31:44,470 yeah so all of these things come from one game a dog collar a hound tether a game noose and a horn 305 00:31:45,190 --> 00:31:52,069 from somewhere around 1470 this game is it a sex game depends how you play it i suppose 306 00:31:53,670 --> 00:31:59,190 let's not limit ourselves is it cards it is absolutely gods uh so the world's oldest 307 00:31:59,190 --> 00:32:03,190 full set of playing cards it's called the hoffier hunting pack it's currently at the 308 00:32:03,190 --> 00:32:08,789 metropolitan museum in new york city what's the top one looks like a balloon whisk so instead of 309 00:32:08,789 --> 00:32:14,150 the suits that we have today if we go through them the dog collar on the bottom and then the 310 00:32:14,150 --> 00:32:19,349 game noose and then the horn and then a hound tether okay there weren't any rule books until 311 00:32:19,349 --> 00:32:22,789 the 17th century so we don't know what kind of games they would have played but this would 312 00:32:22,789 --> 00:32:26,390 have been one of the first packs to have a queen in europe they originally had no queen 313 00:32:26,390 --> 00:32:30,710 they had a cavalier on horseback instead but around the 15th century they start to swap them 314 00:32:30,710 --> 00:32:35,190 out and start to have a queen we're not really sure why it may be that there's a slightly 315 00:32:35,190 --> 00:32:39,029 biblical influence so if you look at the queen of hearts there she's got the name judith from 316 00:32:39,029 --> 00:32:44,549 the books of judith then the queen of diamonds was called rachel the favorite wife of jacob 317 00:32:44,549 --> 00:32:49,589 the queen of spades was linked to the goddess athena clubs i think they ran out of ideas 318 00:32:49,589 --> 00:32:53,190 okay so this was the name for the queen of clubs have a quick look and see why you think 319 00:32:53,190 --> 00:33:00,710 she might have been called this it's regina it is regina it just means queen but lots of 320 00:33:00,710 --> 00:33:05,269 things have changed in games because the queen in chess was originally the vizier so the sort of 321 00:33:05,269 --> 00:33:09,990 advisor the minister the chess board was a battlefield and then it eventually became the 322 00:33:09,990 --> 00:33:13,990 royal court so you get the vizier the infantry the cavalry the elephants the chariots they 323 00:33:13,990 --> 00:33:17,589 become the queen the knights the bishop and so on in the 15th century it was thought 324 00:33:17,589 --> 00:33:20,869 inappropriate to promote a piece that you had more than one queen on the board why might 325 00:33:21,430 --> 00:33:25,269 there some queen who didn't like even the suggestion that there might be another queen 326 00:33:25,269 --> 00:33:31,109 and banned the practice it's thought to symbolize adultery oh yes and in monopoly when did they 327 00:33:31,109 --> 00:33:37,829 start having the little dog and the hat that is a very good question they were in fact all 328 00:33:37,829 --> 00:33:43,349 just charms off a charm bracelet oh i know sorry yeah that's a shit answer sorry 329 00:33:45,349 --> 00:33:49,430 i don't know sarah but let's hope one day somebody finds out they'll just edit the bit 330 00:33:49,430 --> 00:33:55,589 out where i tell you okay i believe they were charms from a charm bracelet 331 00:34:04,059 --> 00:34:11,639 yes yeah i just popped into my own anus now it's time for the short walk the chopping 332 00:34:11,639 --> 00:34:17,320 block we call general ignorance fingers on buzzers please what's the oldest object in 333 00:34:17,320 --> 00:34:35,210 the crown jewels is it the queen it's not a bad guy i'm sorry i turned the volume right 334 00:34:37,929 --> 00:34:52,969 it's an old spoon yes you are absolutely right it is an old well most of the crown jewels 335 00:34:52,969 --> 00:34:58,570 were lost at the civil war so almost everything is post civil war and there's the odd thing left 336 00:34:59,050 --> 00:35:07,320 well the anus speaks there's only a very few things from before that so from before then 337 00:35:07,320 --> 00:35:12,760 so it's late 12th century so it's a 10 and a half inch long anointing spoon it's one of only 338 00:35:12,760 --> 00:35:16,920 four things that we have which predate the restoration and the other three are some 17th 339 00:35:16,920 --> 00:35:21,320 century swords it's from about the time of edward the confessor you get a set of coronation 340 00:35:21,320 --> 00:35:25,400 regalia which gets passed down from ruler to ruler but then of course as you say the 341 00:35:25,400 --> 00:35:29,079 monarchy was abolished and the new government decides to melt everything down but there was 342 00:35:29,079 --> 00:35:34,280 a guy called mr kinnersley he was the yeoman of charles the first's wardrobe and he bought 343 00:35:34,280 --> 00:35:40,199 the spoon for 16 shillings about 11 days wages at the time so it's not a complete fortune 344 00:35:40,199 --> 00:35:45,159 and when the monarchy was restored uh he returned the spoon did they give him 16 shillings 345 00:35:45,159 --> 00:35:49,639 or no he just gave it back he just returned it what a lovely gesture yeah now what's the 346 00:35:49,639 --> 00:35:55,719 best thing to eat to help you with your hay fever is it an antihistamine that would be 347 00:35:55,719 --> 00:35:59,400 the best thing yes but what is the thing people often think they say well this is a 348 00:35:59,400 --> 00:36:04,760 the klaxon one yeah people say honey but it isn't you're absolutely right it's a long-standing 349 00:36:04,760 --> 00:36:08,440 myth that it would help with hay fever why might you think it would help with hay fever 350 00:36:08,440 --> 00:36:13,559 get the bees on site uh the idea is it's got pollen in it and it desensitizes you 351 00:36:13,559 --> 00:36:17,079 to the pollen that's in the air in fact it's not going to help you at all it's really nice 352 00:36:17,639 --> 00:36:19,639 honey i love it on toast or 353 00:36:23,699 --> 00:36:28,099 porridge i like it on porridge i never understood why you would put it on a carrot 354 00:36:29,139 --> 00:36:33,539 who puts it on a carrot people put it blaze it don't they oh i thought you meant like 355 00:36:33,539 --> 00:36:48,809 yeah it's uh just to make it you know easier i don't know what to dislodge a particularly 356 00:36:48,809 --> 00:37:13,079 hard fact 357 00:37:16,469 --> 00:37:21,429 back to honey uh the vast majority of seasonal allergies they're caused by wind pollinators 358 00:37:21,429 --> 00:37:26,070 that release the pollen into the air and bees generally pollinate plants that need insects 359 00:37:26,789 --> 00:37:32,469 so the pollen you get in your honey isn't pollen that's giving you your allergies why is 360 00:37:32,469 --> 00:37:36,869 some of it runny and some of it hard it depends on how you treat it after it has been gathered 361 00:37:36,869 --> 00:37:42,789 not the bees choice not the bees don't go as i said the product development section they've 362 00:37:42,789 --> 00:37:49,030 come up with nothing no peppermint flavored honey no strawberry honey you get clover honey 363 00:37:49,030 --> 00:37:56,389 and lavender honey you do get some kind of yeah do you what you've never heard anybody more 364 00:37:56,389 --> 00:38:00,949 disinterested it's like none of you have heard of jam that's the problem 365 00:38:03,510 --> 00:38:11,190 uh eating honey won't help your hay fever who wrote the queensbury rules the marquis of cream 366 00:38:11,590 --> 00:38:19,590 he endorsed them he did not write them they were written by a welshman called john graham chambers 367 00:38:19,590 --> 00:38:24,070 so he founded the amateur athletic club he's probably famous for the fact that he rode beside 368 00:38:24,070 --> 00:38:28,789 a man called matthew webb anybody know what matthew webb did he was in a sketch double act 369 00:38:28,789 --> 00:38:35,349 sketch double act yeah he was a really funny one he was really really funny 370 00:38:35,829 --> 00:38:36,309 yeah 371 00:38:42,489 --> 00:38:46,809 matthew webb first person recorded to swim the channel in 1875 you said the first person 372 00:38:46,809 --> 00:38:49,929 recorded does that mean that the people did it and just didn't tell anybody 373 00:38:53,929 --> 00:38:58,250 i mean we don't know do we because they didn't tell anybody yeah just kept it quiet yes like 374 00:38:58,250 --> 00:39:04,650 the moon who knows how many people have been popping up to the moon it wasn't columbus that 375 00:39:04,650 --> 00:39:09,449 discovered the americas the vikings went there ages ago the vikings probably went to the moon 376 00:39:09,449 --> 00:39:15,769 yeah i read the other day after columbus discovered america well he didn't but when 377 00:39:15,769 --> 00:39:22,170 well when he went there there were 55 million native americans and within a hundred years 378 00:39:22,170 --> 00:39:28,489 90 percent of them were dead yeah mainly from disease it's pretty astonishing that much 379 00:39:28,489 --> 00:39:33,050 worse than i had yeah not to mention nearly all the bison yeah carnage of that 380 00:39:33,929 --> 00:39:44,969 oh i've been i'm just it's the way i mourn the suffering 381 00:39:53,449 --> 00:39:55,929 some of my facts are attracting flies 382 00:39:58,090 --> 00:40:01,289 i think the strangest adoption of the queensbury rules boxing was a sport 383 00:40:01,289 --> 00:40:05,130 um it was called horse boxing and it was the invention of a guy who entered 384 00:40:05,130 --> 00:40:10,409 in berlin an african-american boxer called bobby dobbs and it is it's essentially a boxing match 385 00:40:10,409 --> 00:40:13,130 but but you just sit and punch each other 386 00:40:16,250 --> 00:40:18,489 horse while the horses have a little chat yeah 387 00:40:21,449 --> 00:40:25,050 can you think of a quicker way of making horses despise humanity 388 00:40:27,289 --> 00:40:31,610 in 1912 it was demonstrated as a tournament in germany and they thought of putting this 389 00:40:31,610 --> 00:40:35,610 into the german army's you know proper officer training the new sport will be 390 00:40:35,610 --> 00:40:39,610 valuable for the soldier on horseback in time of war as when he loses his weapons he will 391 00:40:39,610 --> 00:40:44,010 have to fall back on his natural means of defense it didn't work out as a sport anybody 392 00:40:44,010 --> 00:40:51,369 know why can't hold the reins horses did not want to stand still uh the marquis of queensbury 393 00:40:51,369 --> 00:41:10,840 didn't make the rules what were tarot cards invented for uh is it tell in the future 394 00:41:11,480 --> 00:41:18,489 no it isn't at all what they really are they're like an extra fifth suit to the pack is is really 395 00:41:18,489 --> 00:41:22,489 the idea and lots of people want to trace it back to ancient egypt and the occult and 396 00:41:22,489 --> 00:41:26,730 kabbalah traditions and so on there's no documentary evidence whatsoever to support 397 00:41:26,730 --> 00:41:32,570 the idea of using it for divination until about 1760s in france before that they like trumps 398 00:41:32,570 --> 00:41:37,369 in a game and then they were also used as an aid to creating a story and even then what 399 00:41:37,369 --> 00:41:41,849 you think each card means it varies tremendously depending on what tradition you follow and 400 00:41:41,849 --> 00:41:48,329 once had my tarot cards read i was quite an old virgin and uh and and she got the conclusion 401 00:41:48,329 --> 00:41:55,769 of the reading i was well aware of that and i got the naked card and i got really excited 402 00:41:55,769 --> 00:42:00,170 thinking what's gonna happen and she just kept saying it's new beginnings it's so frustrating 403 00:42:00,170 --> 00:42:04,570 that they don't mean what they didn't look like they mean i just had a cock on it 404 00:42:04,570 --> 00:42:11,449 i've had somebody explain it to me and they say well the death card doesn't necessarily 405 00:42:11,449 --> 00:42:15,769 means death that means a change yeah at the end of a stage in your life okay you've got a 406 00:42:15,769 --> 00:42:20,650 card system that's well it's the death card don't why do you have to complicate it you 407 00:42:20,650 --> 00:42:24,650 know that's death right it upsets people that's really we don't have the card then 408 00:42:26,170 --> 00:42:27,929 change it for the new job card 409 00:42:28,809 --> 00:42:30,809 yeah 410 00:42:33,210 --> 00:42:35,929 you're going to be moving house sometime in the next 12 months yeah 411 00:42:37,530 --> 00:42:44,730 which brings us to the final fanfare of the scores in first place oh with a sovereign 412 00:42:44,730 --> 00:43:01,260 eight it's sarah second place with minus one it's david third place with minus seven 413 00:43:07,500 --> 00:43:11,099 fourth place with a magnificent minus 25 it's alan 414 00:43:11,980 --> 00:43:25,900 we need to thank sarah david collin and alan and leave you with this queenly quotation 415 00:43:25,900 --> 00:43:30,380 when edward the seventh was asked if his mother queen victoria would be happy in heaven he 416 00:43:30,380 --> 00:43:37,980 replied she will have to walk behind the angels and she won't like that good night