Questions from the quixotic quagmire of series Q. After all, it's about quality, not quantity.
How good are you at multitasking?
Excellent.
Here we go.
Oh, I see.
Yeah.
I didn't know it was going to be tested on.
You just volunteered yourself.
OK.
So I want you to take this stack from here and recreate it exactly the same
on this one.
And you're going to have to move them one at a time.
Oh, right.
While you're doing it, I want you to recite the alphabet backwards.
Ooh.
Well, I can't do that anyway.
I mean, I don't think I can do it forwards.
A, B...
No, no.
So you don't understand how the game functions.
We're going to find out that Andrew's a toddler.
Just took him off and put him on the counter.
A, B, C...
And put them on the...
Here we go again.
Z, Y...
Keep them on the backwards.
They're backwards.
X.
Move them one at a time.
No, middle one.
What's wrong with this?
Don't help him.
I love this.
Z, Y, X, W, U...
Why did you say that you are good at multitasking?
I'm a man and I like to brag.
I had a moment on a flight last week, actually,
when I was flying from Aberdeen to Shetland.
And I was with my tour manager, who's also a big chap,
and we sit next to each other because we're pals.
And there was hardly anyone else on the flight.
It was only a small plane.
And the stewardess came over and she said,
Mr Manford, Mr Isaac, she said,
would you mind separating and sitting
on either side of the plane?
Oh, no.
Weight distribution.
Weight distribution!
You're as heavy as a wing.
What, are we going to land like this?
That's what you should have done.
We will at the start.
Yeah.
During the flight, we're going to set you a series of challenges.
Zigzagging about the plane.
First time in the history of the world
where turbulence is a person.
Doctor, you only have to know how one, like, organism works.
But when you're a vet... Yes.
..people come in with like,
oh, my sticky insect's got eczema.
And then someone else is like,
this horse is going to explode!
Is it ticking?
That's the ultimate Trojan horse.
I think animals are like cars.
They all work the same way, really.
We've spent a fortune on my cat.
I've spent over £1,000 in the last two years on my cat.
£1,000.
Trying to make it into a dog.
So what's wrong with the bloody thing
apart from it's a cat?
They're hard to come by, cats, aren't they, after all?
You know those bits of elastic
that keep chicken legs together like that?
It swallowed one of those
and it went all through its system, tied up,
like, tied it all up.
Anyway, she died, so that's fine.
Oh, my God.
Well, I'm just going to pay a grant.
Up until 1826, the Palace of Westminster
kept all its financial records on something called tally sticks.
So you had a stick and you split it in two
when you issued a debt.
And when the payment was made,
the two sticks were tied back together again.
But eventually, of course,
paper records superseded the need for these.
And now they've got a lot of old wood.
So they decided to get rid of it.
The obvious idea was to burn it.
So on 16 October 1834,
the clerk of the works,
who's in various records called Mr Wibbly or Mr Woobbly,
he ordered two cartloads of these tally sticks to be burned.
Mr Wibbly Wobbly?
Mr Wobbly Wobbly, yes.
Mr Wibbly Wobbly, get rid of the sticks.
Get rid of them, Mr Wibbly Wobbly.
Get rid of the sticks, you waltz!
So Mr Wibbly Wobbly decided to burn
two cartloads of these tally sticks
in the basement staves at the Palace of Westminster.
And the resulting fire burnt down
both the House of Lords and the House of Commons.
What? What an idiot, Mr Wibbly Wobbly.
Didn't feel good about it.
He should have known. Yeah.
What have I done?
Who did you entrust this job to?
Now, don't get angry.
It had better not have been Mr Wibbly Wobbly.
So here's a nice thing, apart from the toad sausages,
one of the ways they're thinking now of saving the quoll
is to turn them into pets.
There are people who say you should have them instead of a cat.
And in fact, they're rather sweet.
They can be trained, they can use a litter tray.
They weigh about the same.
Yeah, sweet, really sweet.
Ah!
Have you got your foot sticking out from under the duvet
and that gets hold of you?
You have the second biggest bite force quotient.
So how hard they can bite relative to the size of any animal.
Good for children, then.
Second only to the Tasmanian devil.
What's the one on the right doing
to the one on the right?
That's the beginning of improv.
One on the left's not keen on it.
The second left's going,
look at him, look at him!
I will torture you!
There used to be a thing called the group of 60
and they were Athenian wits who got together
and exchanged jokes and so one of the ways
you would tell a joke in Athens, you would say
the 60 said and so on.
But the very first joke book that Europe ever had
was published by, anybody have a guess?
We are talking the mid 1400s.
Lazy Bird.
Well, the Vatican published it.
It was utterly obscene.
They had a sort of joke club called
the Bugeali.
It was literally a fib factory.
There was a papal secretary called Poggio Bracciolini
and he kept a record of all these jokes
and he published it at 273 puns
and jokes.
Mostly the usual stuff, farts,
erections, obesity, drunkenness.
Rubbish at reading, isn't he?
Excuse me, is that Athena?
The frame of my picture has
fallen on my head.
For what sort of business
would you want to use a queer plunger?
I once had a nightmare with a plunger.
So we had a New Year's Eve
party and then the next day our toilet
was blocked and I thought
I'll un-nail this.
I'd never used a plunger before.
Difficult to use. Yeah, I thought I'd just whack it down there.
Wiped it down and it
suctioned just onto the bottom of the toilet.
Brought it up, all that was the piece of stick.
Now I didn't
just have to unblock the toilet, I had to get my hand in there.
Can't I hear you
do in space?
So you can
hear screaming.
Well, it's a vacuum, right? Sound can't reverberate.
But there are conditions where you could
hear a scream and that is what I'm going to come to.
Oh, she got you there!
No, she has not got me there
because the question I was presented
by my learned friend was
what can we do in space?
And so scream and I said, because space is completely
silent, which he said, and I went,
did I just talk to myself?
No, because I thought I just said that!
What I did not say... Oh, God, I wish
I was in space!
I did not say what you might be
wearing. Oh, well, for the love of
God, Sandy!
This picture was a clue. So,
sound is caused by the vibration of molecules
and if you didn't have a space
suit on, it would be almost impossible
to hear anything at all. However,
astronauts can talk to each other
by touching helmets.
So...
So the sound vibrations, they
travel through the air inside the space suits
and inside the glass, enough for them to be
able to communicate with raised voices. And in fact,
NASA teach this to the astronauts as
a sort of backup in case radio
communication fails. So we're going to try it.
But why you don't get any lesbians in space?
You've both got
helmets. Pop them on.
It smells
really bad.
They're enormous,
much bigger than mine.
It's much bigger,
but mine looks exactly like Susan. Stand up
and touch helmets and see
if it helps you to hear.
Now talk to each other. Hello.
Can you feel the vibrations through the helmets?
But I don't really understand her at the best
of times, so... No.
To meet vomiting
Larry. No. What?
I've just closed my eyes. You continue.
No, no, we're not actually going to show vomit.
We're just going to talk about it a lot. Oh, I thought
somebody called Larry was just going to come
be...
It's going to be a volcano
or some kind of weird... Of course!
...beetle or something. It's not a volcano.
It is a humanoid simulated
vomiting system
developed by UK's Health and Safety Laboratory
in Derbyshire by researcher Dr Cat
Makison Booth. And there is Cat
and there is vomiting Larry, right? Oh, sorry!
Cat, I believe that Larry
can vomit on command. He can.
Why would you invent such a thing?
So we're looking at infection
transmission, so we want to identify
how far vomit spreads so that
we can help clear it all back up again
and prevent transmission of fluid.
Presumably, I'm going to guess it's further than
we think the little pool of vomit is.
Yeah, it'd kind of fill with all the droplets and splash
most of this bit
of the studio. No. Wow.
Yeah, but you wouldn't be able to see it, so when you come to clean up
the main bulk, you'd stand in it, spread it
everywhere. So you're just carrying on, even when
you think you've cleaned it all up? Yeah, yeah.
Why is he called Larry?
Because the head of the system is called Airway
Larry. So it's for when medical students are
practising laryngoscopies. Yeah,
obviously.
Do the medical students not provide enough
vomit? I mean...
It's on command, so, you know.
It needs to be one, two, three, go. Yeah.
OK, so now
we can't have Larry actually vomit, you'll be very
pleased to know. Oh, man. However...
Oh, man.
Come on, Lawrence.
We do have a film of Larry.
We're going to have the film without sound, but
if any of you lovely people would like to
join in and create the sounds
that you imagine Larry might make, then
help yourself. Why, of course. Yeah.
You only had to ask once.
Here we go.
Arse is right.
Quick enough, because you know it's going to...
Another interesting fashion for royals, Louis the
14th, he had a fashion that
courtiers should have one long fingernail.
Why was that? My husband's got one
special toenail for scratching his eczema.
It's awful, isn't it?
So you and I are in danger of oversharing.
And you seem to be fine with that, though.
Yeah, as long as he keeps it to himself,
I'm all right. Right. Yeah, yeah.
He hasn't really, has he, now?
No. He told me quite recently, and we've
been together for nearly 15 years.
So there's nothing I can do about it
now, is what I'm seeing. Yeah.
Except maybe pay more attention in the future.
So the one long fingernail, what do we reckon?
Is that a cane that he's leaning on,
or is that the fingernail?
He didn't have the fingernail, so it was the courtiers
who had the fingernail. Everyone else had to have the fingernail.
Yes. Is it to do with his anus?
Let me just get that out of my head.
What's in your head?
Away from this show.
Punctuating termite
with a fingernail up Louis XIV's
arse, now.
In this...
In this reality, he said, I want
any of you to be ready. Yeah.
There's no telling who I'm going to ask
to stick their fingernail up my
anus. I want you all
to grow it. I don't want it to be a specialism.
I want to say, you,
now. Why do you put a mirror
next to a lift?
Any thoughts about this? We're talking about waiting?
Next to a lift or in a lift?
No, next to it. It's to do with you looking
at yourself. People dislike waiting in line, but
they do like looking at themselves.
People don't complain if the lift takes a long time
to arrive, if they can constantly see themselves.
I love this picture, though.
So we had an experiment to see if we could recreate
this with all of you. So let's have a look.
Are we able to do that?
What do you think? I know!
Top of the Pops from the 70s.
Brilliant.
That's really good fun. A swimming thing where we go
like this.
This is beginning to look like a Bollywood
movie. Have you heard
about the carrot swindle?
Do you know about the carrot swindle?
When you go to your
self-serve checkout, everything
you put on for way, you just
press carrots.
Really? Yeah. So you'd be like buying an anvil
and you'd press carrot.
So you put down, what's an expensive
vegetable? Prosecco.
Are you paying everything
for his carrots? I'm not doing it, Josh.
I'm a very honest customer. Where did you learn
this? From a reindeer.
Because what
they found in supermarkets,
the reason they started to become suspicious,
was because they were
selling millions of tonnes of carrots.
And that thousands and thousands
of bottles of Prosecco were being stolen.
And they started to watch people and sure enough,
people just putting all their washing on the thing, pressing
carrots and putting it in.
Or their washing.
They were putting all their shopping
on the thing, pressing carrots.
They've got six bags, they paid 12 quid.
Theft from self-service
tills has doubled in the last four years.
So you should not put this information up.
I'm doing it for Sainsbury's.
Alan, Alan, when you put your washing on,
what should you press?
So, you've each got a
quilt and a cover.
Right. Oh.
So we're going to have a very quick competition.
Couldn't be easier. To see who can
be quickest.
Hang on, hang on, I haven't done the bow yet.
I haven't got my key. Get your quilt out.
We're going to do it all at the same time.
OK.
Is everybody... I can't find the opening,
Sandy. Can we open it?
Where do we start? I can't find my thing.
OK, ready? One, two, three, go.
I'm not ready, I'm not ready.
I think I'm probably the only one
who's amazed it stayed on.
So when you are on the phone.
Oh, yeah. What's the worst thing
about that, do you reckon? It's when the computer
doesn't get your accent. I get that a lot.
I used to ring the Odeon film line.
I used to work for them.
Be careful. The Odeon film line to find out
this is a going back, isn't it? Yeah, it is.
That's the job I have. To find out the times
of the films. This is even before DVDs.
Yes.
So which Odeon cinema are you
interested in? Yeah. And I would say
Holloway. Yeah.
And it would say, did you say Manchester? Every time!
No similarity
between the two words. There's almost no
letters here in this day.
Actually, that was just one of us.
Bolton, did you say Baghdad?
Ancient Greek
Kylex. So this is a wonderful thing.
It's a shallow drinking cup for wine.
It's similar to one of these cups.
But it had obscene pictures painted
on the inside which were gradually
revealed.
We've censored this because
you know, they would have things like a couple
having sex, a man wiping his bottom,
naked people
and then an eye cup.
So it's a wide mug with eyes
and sometimes a nose painted on the outside. It looked like
you were wearing a mask
when you drank it. And sometimes they painted
ships on the inside so it looked like the ships were sailing on the wine
as you drank it. I think we should have more
fun with cups. Yeah.
It's great that you're drinking, you're getting pissed
and at the bottom of the cup is something that you're probably
going to do.
Like an instruction manual?
Yes, like, you know what, this is heading.
I feel like that just kind of cuts
to the chase. I would be really annoyed though if I got to end my
cup and I was like, so what, now I have to learn the flute as well?
Okay, so I just want to see what kind of audience
we have in tonight.
Who would like us to remove the pixels?
Put your hands up.
I'm quite happy with it being censored.
Right, let's remove the pixels
and see what's behind.
It's going to be a flute. Literally nothing.
Anyone disappointment?
What a deal.
Especially for him.
Cueing advice is to really rile people
up by ignoring the instructions at an airport
and standing on the left of an underground
escalator.
Really upset you.
No, no, no. That's the only thing I care about
after Brexit. Yeah.
Well, that's only down here.
That's a problem. That is London.
Only London. It's not even
questioned anywhere else.
Stand wherever you want. You stand wherever you want.
Yeah, it's not a thing.
It's just a thing down here.
Stand on the right. Not
anywhere else. Fucking stand on the right.
Your normal temperature.
Isn't it lower if you're a woman
than a man? Slightly higher for a woman. Slightly
higher. Yeah, it was one or the other, wasn't it? Yes.
Yeah.
Go all the way with that.
Because, you know, there's that stereotype
of like, turn up the heating, but I'm
too hot, babes.
It is an issue that office temperatures are set
to male averages. Yeah.
Do you know a fact about Christine Lagarde
who's a head... I don't know any facts about Christine Lagarde.
Well, you're about to bloody
get one, Sandy. Let's swap chairs.
Um...
Do you want some cards?
Oh, no, that's got all the answers on there.
Of course, the
interesting about Christine Lagarde that she used to do
was, um... I'm
trying to get through the fact.
What's the most dangerous thing to do in bed?
Tell the truth.
Anybody else?
Reverse cowgirl?
They had that locked and loaded?
You might say that, darling.
Is it a particular favourite?
Yeah, how do you... Am I the only
person who noticed that you said DVD?
I did say DVD, yeah.
Who uses DVDs? Whoa!
I just glanced over that like that wasn't
a crazy thing to say.
DVDs!
I'm still on VHS.
I played the cassette only
yesterday, and you know what happened? It got stuck.
Do you remember when cassettes used to stretch if you played
them for too long?
Did you get a little pencil inside?
Oh, it's good times.
You'd be driving
and you'd pop one out when you're driving
and then the whole of the tape...
Do you remember the planets in order?
Yes. Mercury,
Venus,
Earth, Mars,
Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus,
Neptune. Thank you, darling, that's perfect.
That is the order and...
Pluto doesn't count, it's actually a Disney
character. Yes, that's right.
That is the order of the planets and one
is often taught it at school, so
many volcanoes emit
mulberry jam sandwiches under normal pressure
or my very easy method just speeds
up naming planets, so there were... I couldn't get
past vagina, though.
I've got moist vagina expected,
might just steam up nighty.
So weirdly, that's probably the one I'm going to remember.
Anybody else? Alice,
you've got one? Mine's quite depressing.
OK. Mum's vacant expression means
Jane sulks and less noticed.
Wow,
you were a jolly girl at school.
My favourite is Mary's
virgin explanation made Joseph suspect
upstairs neighbour.
Right, Alan and Ashling,
I've got an EastEnders style
script for you. I'm actually
going to take a small part in this myself.
Ooh. I know.
So, you know, big gestures, big pausing.
Here we go. OK.
Oh, Ashling.
I'm having some real barney rubble with me.
Old trouble and strife.
It's you, it's you.
You're not my mum.
If you're alright tonight, I'll leave you with a quip from
French poet Joseph Roux.
A fine quotation is a diamond
on the finger of a man of wit
and a pebble in the hand of a fool.
Goodnight.