1 00:00:22,160 --> 00:00:24,800 APPLAUSE AND CHEERING 2 00:00:33,680 --> 00:00:37,800 Welcome to tonight's QI, where 3 00:00:37,800 --> 00:00:41,600 we'll be looking at ticks, tax and toes in the company 4 00:00:41,600 --> 00:00:43,440 of the ticklish Rose Matafeo... 5 00:00:43,440 --> 00:00:46,080 APPLAUSE AND CHEERING 6 00:00:47,280 --> 00:00:49,040 ..the tactile Ross Noble... 7 00:00:49,040 --> 00:00:51,080 APPLAUSE AND CHEERING 8 00:00:52,960 --> 00:00:57,320 ..the TOE-tally transcendent Lou Sanders... 9 00:00:57,320 --> 00:00:58,480 APPLAUSE AND CHEERING 10 00:01:01,000 --> 00:01:03,120 ..and the tax-deductible Alan Davies. 11 00:01:03,120 --> 00:01:05,480 APPLAUSE AND CHEERING 12 00:01:09,120 --> 00:01:11,520 And, for their buzzers, Rose goes... 13 00:01:11,520 --> 00:01:13,680 MUSIC: Tick Tock by Clean Bandit 14 00:01:14,960 --> 00:01:16,960 # Tick tock, tick tock... # 15 00:01:16,960 --> 00:01:18,720 Ross goes... 16 00:01:18,720 --> 00:01:20,680 MUSIC: Sunny Afternoon by The Kinks 17 00:01:20,680 --> 00:01:22,600 # The tax man's taken all my dough... # 18 00:01:22,600 --> 00:01:24,080 Lou goes... 19 00:01:24,080 --> 00:01:26,960 MUSIC: Love Is All Around by The Troggs 20 00:01:26,960 --> 00:01:30,040 # I feel it in my fingers, I feel it in my toes... # 21 00:01:30,040 --> 00:01:31,280 And Alan goes... 22 00:01:31,280 --> 00:01:33,760 MUSIC: Tiptoe Through The Tulips by Tiny Tim 23 00:01:33,760 --> 00:01:37,880 # Tiptoe through the tulips with me... # 24 00:01:39,280 --> 00:01:41,320 Wow. Wow. 25 00:01:41,320 --> 00:01:42,880 Was that Tiny Tim? It WAS Tiny Tim. 26 00:01:42,880 --> 00:01:45,080 And, yes, I do look exactly like him. 27 00:01:45,080 --> 00:01:48,120 I don't know why I turned to you in that moment, I'm so sorry. 28 00:01:48,120 --> 00:01:50,440 Right, I'm going to start with question one. 29 00:01:50,440 --> 00:01:55,600 Why might a Parisian taxi ride be electrifying? 30 00:01:55,600 --> 00:01:58,680 So it was an experiment in Paris... With electricity. 31 00:01:58,680 --> 00:02:01,400 ..with electricity. And taxis? Were taxis involved? 32 00:02:01,400 --> 00:02:03,720 Yes. Nothing gets past you. No. 33 00:02:05,080 --> 00:02:08,240 They've got the flying ones, haven't they? They're talking about bringing them in. 34 00:02:08,240 --> 00:02:09,640 The heck?! The huh! 35 00:02:09,640 --> 00:02:11,400 Yay! Whoa! 36 00:02:11,400 --> 00:02:13,480 You're talking about flying taxis?! Yeah. 37 00:02:13,480 --> 00:02:16,200 The French are developing flying taxis. 38 00:02:16,200 --> 00:02:17,800 What? Sorry. 39 00:02:17,800 --> 00:02:19,840 No, it's just like some sort of circus thing. 40 00:02:19,840 --> 00:02:21,360 Hey, hey, hey, HEY! 41 00:02:22,680 --> 00:02:24,960 That's how I do all my thinking. 42 00:02:24,960 --> 00:02:27,160 Hup! Here it comes! 43 00:02:28,240 --> 00:02:31,320 First time anyone else has actually done it to help me into the 44 00:02:31,320 --> 00:02:33,200 "hup, hup!" It's in! Right, now, go! 45 00:02:34,320 --> 00:02:36,880 If you just shout "the heck?!" every now and then... 46 00:02:36,880 --> 00:02:38,920 The heck?! The heck! Hup! ..he'll be off. 47 00:02:38,920 --> 00:02:42,400 1987, they decided to experiment in Paris, 48 00:02:42,400 --> 00:02:45,920 so they had a number of passengers who maybe didn't behave very well 49 00:02:45,920 --> 00:02:47,640 or a bit rude or whatever. 50 00:02:47,640 --> 00:02:49,640 Zap them?! Yes. 51 00:02:49,640 --> 00:02:51,960 An electrified seat. 52 00:02:51,960 --> 00:02:53,240 GASPING AND GROANING 53 00:02:53,240 --> 00:02:54,800 Wow. Nonfatal! 54 00:02:54,800 --> 00:02:56,400 They said. 55 00:02:56,400 --> 00:03:00,200 To be fair, it's in the rudest city in the world. Yeah. Yeah. 56 00:03:00,200 --> 00:03:03,400 So it's operated by a foot pedal in front of the driver's seat. 57 00:03:03,400 --> 00:03:06,520 The idea was to protect... You'd never stop, would you?! 58 00:03:08,280 --> 00:03:10,080 Just holding it down! 59 00:03:10,080 --> 00:03:11,680 See them in the mirror. 60 00:03:13,760 --> 00:03:16,840 But you need one the other way around so that when they start 61 00:03:16,840 --> 00:03:19,360 being a bit racist, "The thing about the foreigners..." 62 00:03:22,560 --> 00:03:24,400 That guy, he was the head of the taxi union 63 00:03:24,400 --> 00:03:26,240 and he's showing off one of these things. 64 00:03:26,240 --> 00:03:28,640 And apparently the drivers said it would be perfectly safe 65 00:03:28,640 --> 00:03:30,760 and they could tell if somebody was going to be violent 66 00:03:30,760 --> 00:03:33,280 cos they could see it in their expressions. 67 00:03:33,280 --> 00:03:37,120 OK, so the seats were 52,000 volts. 68 00:03:37,120 --> 00:03:41,280 Yeah, that is slightly more powerful than a police stun gun, 69 00:03:41,280 --> 00:03:43,520 which is sort of 40 to 50,000 volts 70 00:03:43,520 --> 00:03:45,880 and, weirdly, eventually banned. 71 00:03:47,560 --> 00:03:51,480 What it means is, on the second-hand market, some of them taxis 72 00:03:51,480 --> 00:03:53,200 are still knocking about. 73 00:03:53,200 --> 00:03:54,800 Yeah. Yes, please. Yeah. 74 00:03:54,800 --> 00:03:57,000 I'll have one of them. Pick up your mother. 75 00:03:57,000 --> 00:03:59,200 When you haven't got a passenger in the back, 76 00:03:59,200 --> 00:04:00,800 bit of cheese, bit of baguette. 77 00:04:00,800 --> 00:04:03,240 Chuck it in the back. 78 00:04:03,240 --> 00:04:05,400 Croque monsieur! 79 00:04:09,080 --> 00:04:10,480 Thank you very much. 80 00:04:10,480 --> 00:04:12,200 Sorry. Can I just say - the heck?! 81 00:04:12,200 --> 00:04:13,520 Yeah. 82 00:04:13,520 --> 00:04:15,840 The heck?! Hick-hick, hickety-hock! 83 00:04:15,840 --> 00:04:18,720 That's a great idea, Ross. Jeez Louise. 84 00:04:18,720 --> 00:04:21,120 CHEESE Louise. CHEESE Louise! 85 00:04:21,120 --> 00:04:22,920 That's LIKE a croque monsieur. 86 00:04:22,920 --> 00:04:24,640 Could I have a cheese Louise? 87 00:04:24,640 --> 00:04:27,040 That's a Peugeot. What's a Peugeot? On the left there, 88 00:04:27,040 --> 00:04:28,360 that's a Peugeot. 89 00:04:30,680 --> 00:04:32,280 I was overlooked for Top Gear. 90 00:04:34,040 --> 00:04:36,280 In favour of three total idiots. 91 00:04:37,440 --> 00:04:40,040 So one of the things I love about the whole subject about taxis 92 00:04:40,040 --> 00:04:44,760 in Paris is the women who drove the taxis. From 1907, the first 93 00:04:44,760 --> 00:04:46,000 coachwomen appeared. 94 00:04:46,000 --> 00:04:49,960 This is horse-drawn. And the two first women to become coachwomen, 95 00:04:49,960 --> 00:04:52,600 Clementine Dufaut and Eugenie Charnier, 96 00:04:52,600 --> 00:04:54,200 there was a huge crowd. 97 00:04:54,200 --> 00:04:55,760 They thought it was so exciting. 98 00:04:55,760 --> 00:04:57,360 Here's the sort of downside of it. 99 00:04:57,360 --> 00:04:59,320 The female drivers were often heckled, 100 00:04:59,320 --> 00:05:02,000 and the heckle that they used to get is "et les chaussettes?" 101 00:05:02,000 --> 00:05:04,120 Anybody know what it means? She's a shoe. 102 00:05:04,120 --> 00:05:05,560 LAUGHTER 103 00:05:05,560 --> 00:05:06,800 What about the socks? 104 00:05:06,800 --> 00:05:09,240 In other words, who's going to darn the socks 105 00:05:09,240 --> 00:05:11,600 if you are driving a taxi? 106 00:05:11,600 --> 00:05:14,520 Urgh, that's sexism, Sandi. I know. 107 00:05:14,520 --> 00:05:17,920 It's shocking. Just another example. Shocking. Yeah. 108 00:05:17,920 --> 00:05:20,800 That's why you were overlooked for Sock...Top Gear. 109 00:05:20,800 --> 00:05:22,520 Sock Gear?! 110 00:05:24,200 --> 00:05:26,440 I love the sound of Sock Gear! 111 00:05:28,000 --> 00:05:30,640 If you're going to make THAT show, I'm in. 112 00:05:30,640 --> 00:05:33,760 We review different socks every week. 113 00:05:33,760 --> 00:05:36,600 But look at this woman just darning a sock whilst being. 114 00:05:36,600 --> 00:05:38,840 She's sewing it onto a horse's face. 115 00:05:40,120 --> 00:05:44,040 This was a craze for postcards and newspaper cartoons depicting 116 00:05:44,040 --> 00:05:47,520 the female cabbies or mostly satirising them, showing the women 117 00:05:47,520 --> 00:05:50,400 that they couldn't control their horses or the women looking, 118 00:05:50,400 --> 00:05:54,240 I don't know, overly sexualized or overly masculine. This man, 119 00:05:54,240 --> 00:05:58,080 he's saying, "All women cab drivers - myself, when I'm bored, 120 00:05:58,080 --> 00:06:00,880 "I spend an hour alone with a woman for 40 sous." 121 00:06:00,880 --> 00:06:02,160 He looks lovely. 122 00:06:02,160 --> 00:06:03,400 He looks a charm. 123 00:06:03,400 --> 00:06:06,000 Everything about him, he seems gorgeous. 124 00:06:06,000 --> 00:06:08,360 Wouldn't you have loved to be with him all lockdown? 125 00:06:08,360 --> 00:06:11,000 And on top of it all, he's bloody French. 126 00:06:11,000 --> 00:06:12,400 See, Top Gear! 127 00:06:15,200 --> 00:06:18,560 Lots of French postcards of the time showing women in male occupations 128 00:06:18,560 --> 00:06:20,960 because it was thought to be so sort of amusing. 129 00:06:20,960 --> 00:06:23,960 So you get women hanging up bill posters and that kind of thing. 130 00:06:23,960 --> 00:06:25,080 There, look, like that. 131 00:06:25,080 --> 00:06:27,680 QUIETLY: Is that a ladder or are they her legs? 132 00:06:33,200 --> 00:06:36,360 I like how you whispered that as if she could hear you. 133 00:06:37,640 --> 00:06:41,560 Might the other woman suddenly shoot up on her own version?! 134 00:06:41,560 --> 00:06:45,240 You asked it gently, like "Women are a mystery". 135 00:06:47,920 --> 00:06:52,400 Now, what noise is this clock making? 136 00:06:52,400 --> 00:06:54,240 TICKING 137 00:06:52,400 --> 00:06:54,240 Tick-tock! 138 00:06:54,240 --> 00:06:56,320 KLAXON, LAUGHTER 139 00:06:59,880 --> 00:07:02,960 Is that wrong?! It is wrong. Yes. Oh. 140 00:07:02,960 --> 00:07:05,680 So NO clock goes tick-tock. 141 00:07:05,680 --> 00:07:08,320 It's actually just tick, tick, tick, tick. Oh. Oh! 142 00:07:08,320 --> 00:07:11,480 But what we do is we automatically organise repeating sounds 143 00:07:11,480 --> 00:07:16,880 into music. And generally, the brain gives the second note in a pair 144 00:07:16,880 --> 00:07:20,320 a slightly lower tone. And so we put the emphasis on the first. 145 00:07:20,320 --> 00:07:23,760 So we go tick-tock. But you can overrule this conditioning. 146 00:07:23,760 --> 00:07:25,480 OK? So if you try and say 147 00:07:25,480 --> 00:07:28,720 tick-TOCK-tick, tick-TOCK-tick aloud, 148 00:07:28,720 --> 00:07:31,080 as you listen to the clock, you will gradually hear 149 00:07:31,080 --> 00:07:33,400 the ticks become tocks. Now, look. What? 150 00:07:33,400 --> 00:07:37,000 Clocks, they do...don't... It's not always the same sound 151 00:07:37,000 --> 00:07:38,960 on the way there as the way back. 152 00:07:39,960 --> 00:07:43,000 Wha-a-at? Are you talking about time machines? 153 00:07:44,120 --> 00:07:45,440 That's what it is. Are you saying 154 00:07:45,440 --> 00:07:47,720 a pendulum takes longer to come back one way? 155 00:07:47,720 --> 00:07:51,240 No, I'm saying, I feel, I feel in my head... Yes. 156 00:07:51,240 --> 00:07:54,160 ..that a clock makes a tick and a tock sound - doesn't make the same 157 00:07:54,160 --> 00:07:57,320 sound twice. It makes one sound one way, a different sound the other. 158 00:07:57,320 --> 00:07:58,960 On the journey, it kind of changes 159 00:07:58,960 --> 00:08:01,120 and it comes back a different person. Yeah. 160 00:08:01,120 --> 00:08:03,000 Anyone else feel that way? 161 00:08:03,000 --> 00:08:04,880 No-one! Shit! 162 00:08:06,040 --> 00:08:08,680 What if you were eating Tic Tacs while you said it? 163 00:08:08,680 --> 00:08:11,920 Would that change it? The truth is, most clocks go tick-tick, 164 00:08:11,920 --> 00:08:15,240 but we want to hear it as tick-tock and we do this in changing vowels 165 00:08:15,240 --> 00:08:18,240 all the time. So we have flip-flop, ping pong, mishmash, 166 00:08:18,240 --> 00:08:20,360 tiptop. It's something that we do. Oh, right. 167 00:08:20,360 --> 00:08:21,960 But what about bring-bring? 168 00:08:24,320 --> 00:08:27,200 What is bring-bring? Bring-bring! Oh! 169 00:08:28,480 --> 00:08:30,800 I thought it was like... No-one said "bring-brong"! 170 00:08:32,040 --> 00:08:35,240 "I can't handle bring-bring!" I thought bring-bring was something 171 00:08:35,240 --> 00:08:36,760 you said to the butler. Hey...! 172 00:08:38,200 --> 00:08:40,360 Now I'm thinking of dick pic. 173 00:08:42,520 --> 00:08:45,000 Ross, welcome to MY world. 174 00:08:46,680 --> 00:08:49,560 On the phone - would you like me to send you a DICK-pic? 175 00:08:51,280 --> 00:08:53,960 Pick-a-dick. Pick a dick for the dick pic! 176 00:08:55,160 --> 00:08:57,080 It's basically a trick of the mind. 177 00:08:57,080 --> 00:09:00,080 The same thing can happen with car indicator noises, that we think 178 00:09:00,080 --> 00:09:02,960 that there are two different notes because we automatically try 179 00:09:02,960 --> 00:09:06,280 and make it a little bit more musical than it actually is. 180 00:09:06,280 --> 00:09:09,080 That also works if you're listening to The Prodigy. 181 00:09:09,080 --> 00:09:10,720 What is The Prodigy? 182 00:09:10,720 --> 00:09:12,520 LAUGHTER 183 00:09:12,520 --> 00:09:14,840 It's a small child who plays a violin. 184 00:09:19,760 --> 00:09:22,880 Yes. Quite a lot of posh people get a bit confused. 185 00:09:22,880 --> 00:09:25,880 They turn up to a Prodigy gig, they're expecting, 186 00:09:25,880 --> 00:09:29,320 "When is this young boy going to say, Smack My Bitch Up?" 187 00:09:32,240 --> 00:09:35,360 So there's another clock-based trick of the mind. 188 00:09:35,360 --> 00:09:37,280 What I want you to do is glance 189 00:09:37,280 --> 00:09:41,600 at the second hand of an analogue clock as it's ticking, OK? 190 00:09:41,600 --> 00:09:45,920 And there is an illusion, which is called the stopped-clock illusion, 191 00:09:45,920 --> 00:09:49,040 that, when you glance at it, the very first tick, 192 00:09:49,040 --> 00:09:53,120 as you look at it, seems to take a little bit longer than usual. 193 00:09:53,120 --> 00:09:55,960 And it's a thing called chronostasis. 194 00:09:55,960 --> 00:09:58,200 You know that thing, it's an old-fashioned thing, 195 00:09:58,200 --> 00:10:01,800 but if you have the receiver in one ear and it's ringing... Bring-bring. 196 00:10:01,800 --> 00:10:05,440 Bring-bring, of course. Bring-bring. Oh, now we all want bring-bring. 197 00:10:05,440 --> 00:10:08,200 If you switch to the other ear, then for a brief moment, 198 00:10:08,200 --> 00:10:11,160 you can hear silence. It's as if the phone has been answered, 199 00:10:11,160 --> 00:10:14,440 and then the ringing starts again. There is no extra gap there, 200 00:10:14,440 --> 00:10:19,320 it's just that that's what it feels like to us. Actually, the most... 201 00:10:20,960 --> 00:10:24,120 You just...! I was just overwhelmed by the concept of time, 202 00:10:24,120 --> 00:10:27,960 I think! It's just, it's all... Cos time is just made up, isn't it? 203 00:10:27,960 --> 00:10:29,280 Well, OK. 204 00:10:31,000 --> 00:10:32,960 What about when you go on holiday? 205 00:10:32,960 --> 00:10:34,360 When you go on holiday... Yeah. 206 00:10:34,360 --> 00:10:36,920 What seems to happen, if you're on holiday for two weeks. 207 00:10:36,920 --> 00:10:39,440 Yeah. What seems to happen in the second week? 208 00:10:39,440 --> 00:10:41,600 Everyone's hair gets slightly longer. 209 00:10:46,160 --> 00:10:49,200 The second week, you sort of drop the offensive accent. 210 00:10:51,480 --> 00:10:54,320 And you've finished with the waiter, already. 211 00:10:54,320 --> 00:10:57,000 You're sort of, you're done with the waiter. Done with the waiter. 212 00:10:57,000 --> 00:10:58,480 How do you get your food? 213 00:10:58,480 --> 00:11:01,040 Well, no, he's not bringing you food. 214 00:11:02,760 --> 00:11:06,240 Wow. So basically, time seems to be quicker on the second... 215 00:11:06,240 --> 00:11:09,720 And that's because you're used to everything or used to where you are. 216 00:11:09,720 --> 00:11:13,000 You see the inflatable just next to the steps there? 217 00:11:13,000 --> 00:11:15,560 Only the Queen is allowed to ride on that. 218 00:11:17,360 --> 00:11:20,240 He's actually been dropped from an aeroplane. 219 00:11:20,240 --> 00:11:23,560 Doesn't it depend on how much you like your family? 220 00:11:23,560 --> 00:11:25,440 When the time is quicker or slower? 221 00:11:25,440 --> 00:11:27,720 Well, I mean, it sort of depends on whether you're being 222 00:11:27,720 --> 00:11:30,800 overstimulated or not. Time apparently seems to slow down 223 00:11:30,800 --> 00:11:32,440 on a person's first skydive, 224 00:11:32,440 --> 00:11:36,320 by 36%... Really? ..because you're so overwhelmed by all the stimulus 225 00:11:36,320 --> 00:11:39,880 that you're taking in, and it seems to make time slow down 226 00:11:39,880 --> 00:11:42,160 for you. Here's the thing about skydiving, you know 227 00:11:42,160 --> 00:11:45,040 when you pull the thing like that and you would think 228 00:11:45,040 --> 00:11:46,960 that you go woosh up in the air. 229 00:11:46,960 --> 00:11:50,200 But that's because when it's filmed, you go woomph like that, 230 00:11:50,200 --> 00:11:54,800 and the camera person's there and it, whoosh, and they keep falling, 231 00:11:54,800 --> 00:11:58,080 so you think that it's an up, but it's just a "oh!" 232 00:12:00,200 --> 00:12:02,360 Can I just ask, have you ever been skydiving? 233 00:12:02,360 --> 00:12:04,120 No, never. But... 234 00:12:05,320 --> 00:12:09,080 I've never done it. But I did talk to a cameraman once. 235 00:12:10,840 --> 00:12:12,480 Brave. Brave. Love that. 236 00:12:12,480 --> 00:12:13,800 Yeah. I did it. 237 00:12:13,800 --> 00:12:16,400 I strapped onto a bloke and he jumped out. 238 00:12:18,840 --> 00:12:20,760 Why would you do that? 239 00:12:20,760 --> 00:12:22,720 I mean, really, when I thought back, 240 00:12:22,720 --> 00:12:24,560 I thought, I didn't even know him. 241 00:12:26,720 --> 00:12:28,120 How did you know he could do it? 242 00:12:28,120 --> 00:12:32,480 Well, he was offered up as, you know, the person you strap to. 243 00:12:32,480 --> 00:12:34,040 Yeah. And I don't know. 244 00:12:34,040 --> 00:12:37,080 I mean, he could have been in ANY sort of mood, couldn't he? I know. 245 00:12:37,080 --> 00:12:39,480 Yeah, but to be fair, you were just strapped to him 246 00:12:39,480 --> 00:12:40,960 for the whole holiday and he went, 247 00:12:40,960 --> 00:12:42,560 "Shall we jump out of a plane?" 248 00:12:44,320 --> 00:12:47,120 Yeah, we did a lot of activities. 249 00:12:47,120 --> 00:12:49,640 But did time seem to stand still in that moment 250 00:12:49,640 --> 00:12:52,080 that you launched yourself from the plane? 251 00:12:52,080 --> 00:12:54,320 It was the most frightening thing ever. 252 00:12:54,320 --> 00:12:56,720 Did you do it for charity or just for yourself? 253 00:12:56,720 --> 00:13:00,920 I did it because I'd broken up with a girlfriend who told me 254 00:13:00,920 --> 00:13:04,440 that her previous boyfriend was much braver than me! 255 00:13:06,280 --> 00:13:08,480 And cleverer and more...and funnier! 256 00:13:08,480 --> 00:13:09,800 That was really wounding. 257 00:13:09,800 --> 00:13:13,000 And I thought, "I'm going to jump out of a plane. I'll show you." 258 00:13:13,000 --> 00:13:15,960 And they said, "Right, put your foot out on the wheel strut," 259 00:13:15,960 --> 00:13:17,920 and I absolutely shat myself. 260 00:13:17,920 --> 00:13:20,360 If I hadn't been strapped to this fella, 261 00:13:20,360 --> 00:13:21,800 I would never have gone. 262 00:13:21,800 --> 00:13:24,480 And just be clear, as you shat yourself, was he behind you 263 00:13:24,480 --> 00:13:26,080 or in front of you? He was behind. 264 00:13:26,080 --> 00:13:27,560 He took it in his stride, Sandi. 265 00:13:27,560 --> 00:13:29,120 Literally. 266 00:13:31,400 --> 00:13:34,800 And did you land safely into your ex-girlfriend's wedding or...? 267 00:13:36,920 --> 00:13:39,000 Right. How do you hide - 268 00:13:39,000 --> 00:13:40,320 think carefully - 269 00:13:40,320 --> 00:13:42,480 ..17,000 swimming pools? 270 00:13:42,480 --> 00:13:44,360 OK. I'm going to give you a clue. 271 00:13:44,360 --> 00:13:45,600 LOU: I don't need one. 272 00:13:45,600 --> 00:13:47,120 No. Oh! 273 00:13:49,720 --> 00:13:53,160 I've got it, I've got it! No, no, everybody watch and learn. OK. 274 00:13:54,360 --> 00:13:57,160 Well, what you do, Sandi... 275 00:13:59,120 --> 00:14:01,360 17,000 blankets. 276 00:14:01,360 --> 00:14:03,320 Well...camouflage might help. 277 00:14:03,320 --> 00:14:05,440 Are we talking about aerial photography? Yes. 278 00:14:05,440 --> 00:14:07,040 So in 2008, the Greek government - 279 00:14:07,040 --> 00:14:09,400 famous for being able to collect taxes - 280 00:14:09,400 --> 00:14:13,040 they decided to put a tax on swimming pools in Athens. 281 00:14:13,040 --> 00:14:17,160 324 households checked the box on the form, to say, 282 00:14:17,160 --> 00:14:19,720 "Yes, indeed, we have a pool." 283 00:14:19,720 --> 00:14:23,480 So they looked at some satellite images of the city, 284 00:14:23,480 --> 00:14:27,680 and they found 16,974! 285 00:14:27,680 --> 00:14:30,880 And so there was a swimming pool builder in Athens, 286 00:14:30,880 --> 00:14:33,400 and all he did was get requests from people saying, 287 00:14:33,400 --> 00:14:34,880 "How can I hide my pool?" 288 00:14:34,880 --> 00:14:39,680 So all kinds of things, blankets that mimicked grass, frankly, 289 00:14:39,680 --> 00:14:43,680 floating tiles, camouflage nets, anything that they could think of. 290 00:14:43,680 --> 00:14:45,240 Wow. So I was kind of right. 291 00:14:45,240 --> 00:14:47,440 I think I'm going to give you a point, because I do think 292 00:14:47,440 --> 00:14:50,360 you were sort of heading in the right direction. Thank you. 293 00:14:50,360 --> 00:14:52,360 APPLAUSE 294 00:14:55,760 --> 00:14:58,520 France has got the highest proportion of privately owned 295 00:14:58,520 --> 00:15:00,840 swimming pools in Europe, and they're taxed there too. 296 00:15:00,840 --> 00:15:04,200 How do you justify taxing a hole in the ground with water in it? 297 00:15:04,200 --> 00:15:07,760 Yeah. "You've got a hole there, with water in, so that'll cost you." 298 00:15:09,480 --> 00:15:10,880 You think this guy looks married? 299 00:15:10,880 --> 00:15:12,400 I think not, I'm going to go... 300 00:15:13,480 --> 00:15:15,920 That's my husband you're talking about! 301 00:15:17,480 --> 00:15:20,560 So the swimming pool is considered a luxury tax. 302 00:15:20,560 --> 00:15:25,080 And there was a time in history when being a bachelor was also 303 00:15:25,080 --> 00:15:27,400 considered to be a luxury. 304 00:15:27,400 --> 00:15:30,440 Yes! And single people should pay the government 305 00:15:30,440 --> 00:15:32,640 for their failure to marry. 306 00:15:34,480 --> 00:15:37,800 Damn! When might it have come up as a thought that maybe some 307 00:15:37,800 --> 00:15:39,080 of those single men...? 308 00:15:39,080 --> 00:15:41,240 Oh, is it just men, or women as well? It's men. 309 00:15:41,240 --> 00:15:43,760 Women can do what they like. Is it to do with conscription? 310 00:15:43,760 --> 00:15:45,680 It is around the war. 311 00:15:45,680 --> 00:15:47,960 So we are talking about 1920. 312 00:15:47,960 --> 00:15:50,600 It was seen as sinful, it was seen as not doing your duty after 313 00:15:50,600 --> 00:15:53,480 the First World War, that bachelors were just having a good time. 314 00:15:53,480 --> 00:15:55,280 Sandi, love is a war. 315 00:15:57,400 --> 00:16:00,280 It is, the way YOU do it, Lou Sanders. 316 00:16:04,680 --> 00:16:07,400 From what I've heard, it's more of a skirmish. 317 00:16:09,200 --> 00:16:12,280 1920, a group of women in Perigueux, France, 318 00:16:12,280 --> 00:16:14,560 formed the Anti Bachelor Society... 319 00:16:14,560 --> 00:16:16,560 They could just marry them, 320 00:16:16,560 --> 00:16:18,280 they don't need a society! 321 00:16:18,280 --> 00:16:21,200 Get out there and marry some of these poor bastards! 322 00:16:21,200 --> 00:16:24,120 The problem was there were so many casualties from World War I, 323 00:16:24,120 --> 00:16:26,240 that there weren't enough men to go around. 324 00:16:26,240 --> 00:16:28,360 And what these women demanded was that the bachelors 325 00:16:28,360 --> 00:16:29,600 should pay extra tax, 326 00:16:29,600 --> 00:16:32,480 they should be banned from voting, or holding public office. 327 00:16:32,480 --> 00:16:34,920 - I love it. - I'm all for that. Yeah. 328 00:16:34,920 --> 00:16:37,200 I have to say, it didn't quite work out, but the government 329 00:16:37,200 --> 00:16:42,040 did introduce a 25% tax surcharge on unmarried men and women 330 00:16:42,040 --> 00:16:44,960 over the age of 30, because they wanted to boost 331 00:16:44,960 --> 00:16:46,480 the ageing population. 332 00:16:46,480 --> 00:16:51,040 The English Parliament in 1695 passed the Marriage Duty Act, 333 00:16:51,040 --> 00:16:53,160 which taxed bachelors over 25 334 00:16:53,160 --> 00:16:56,040 in a bid to raise funds for war with France. 335 00:16:56,040 --> 00:16:58,040 And I have to say, we're not the only country 336 00:16:58,040 --> 00:17:00,440 that has had this discussion about a bachelor tax. 337 00:17:00,440 --> 00:17:02,800 The United States, there was a big discussion about it. 338 00:17:02,800 --> 00:17:04,120 It didn't actually happen, 339 00:17:04,120 --> 00:17:06,320 but here's a cartoon suggesting 340 00:17:06,320 --> 00:17:09,360 what would happen if this law came into effect. 341 00:17:09,360 --> 00:17:13,280 But anyway, it has been common across lots of countries, 342 00:17:13,280 --> 00:17:16,560 this idea that bachelors have some kind of duty to get married. 343 00:17:16,560 --> 00:17:20,120 Up until, from the late 19th century until World War II, Denmark 344 00:17:20,120 --> 00:17:24,080 had a thing that women aged between 13 and 20 could take out 345 00:17:24,080 --> 00:17:26,040 insurance against celibacy, 346 00:17:26,040 --> 00:17:29,160 and if they were still unmarried at 40, then you got a pension 347 00:17:29,160 --> 00:17:30,880 from your insurance policy. 348 00:17:30,880 --> 00:17:33,640 Wow. Bring it back! Bring it back! 349 00:17:36,120 --> 00:17:39,480 If you can disguise your swimming pool as a spouse, you've got 350 00:17:39,480 --> 00:17:41,520 the ultimate tax dodge. 351 00:17:41,520 --> 00:17:44,280 What's wrong with this creature? 352 00:17:45,600 --> 00:17:47,120 It's not in my lap. 353 00:17:47,120 --> 00:17:48,760 Does anybody know what it is? 354 00:17:48,760 --> 00:17:50,440 It's an echidna. Yes! 355 00:17:50,440 --> 00:17:52,200 Have you seen an echidna? Oh... 356 00:17:52,200 --> 00:17:54,680 Not only have I seen echidnas, I'm obsessed with them. 357 00:17:54,680 --> 00:17:57,840 Why obsessed with them? Well, cos they crawl about in my garden. 358 00:17:57,840 --> 00:17:59,600 OK, let me get this out. 359 00:17:59,600 --> 00:18:01,000 They're great. 360 00:18:01,000 --> 00:18:03,040 Oh... No, the, er, 361 00:18:03,040 --> 00:18:04,680 the echidna has... 362 00:18:04,680 --> 00:18:07,120 I know you're going to get annoyed when I say this 363 00:18:07,120 --> 00:18:08,440 because it's... 364 00:18:08,440 --> 00:18:10,280 It's got four penises. 365 00:18:10,280 --> 00:18:11,800 Not ANOTHER one! 366 00:18:16,080 --> 00:18:18,120 He's got one penis. Yeah. 367 00:18:18,120 --> 00:18:20,120 With four ends on. 368 00:18:20,120 --> 00:18:21,560 Yeah. So, you know, take your pick. 369 00:18:22,760 --> 00:18:25,560 So, like, eco, sport... Yes. 370 00:18:28,600 --> 00:18:30,960 You're thinking of Cock Gear. 371 00:18:36,520 --> 00:18:39,560 So they live in Australia and New Guinea, is where they live. 372 00:18:39,560 --> 00:18:43,200 And they're a mammal, but they lay eggs. 373 00:18:43,200 --> 00:18:47,000 Yeah, that's true. This is an extraordinary example of an echidna. 374 00:18:47,000 --> 00:18:49,160 It dates back to 1828. 375 00:18:49,160 --> 00:18:50,920 It's from the Grant Museum at UCL, 376 00:18:50,920 --> 00:18:53,360 and it was lent to us by Tannis Davidson. 377 00:18:53,360 --> 00:18:55,080 WHISPERS: Is it sleeping? 378 00:18:56,560 --> 00:18:58,160 It's dead. 379 00:18:58,160 --> 00:19:00,720 You started this question by saying what's wrong with it? 380 00:19:00,720 --> 00:19:02,880 What's RIGHT with it is it's got four dicks. 381 00:19:04,200 --> 00:19:07,800 But it's got four something else, which are wrong. Legs. 382 00:19:07,800 --> 00:19:09,440 Yeah. In what way are they wrong? 383 00:19:09,440 --> 00:19:11,920 They're facing the wrong direction. How do you know that? 384 00:19:11,920 --> 00:19:13,840 Cos I'm guessing, Sandi, I'm guessing. 385 00:19:15,160 --> 00:19:18,680 They've had to nail its feet down, to stop it flipping over 386 00:19:18,680 --> 00:19:20,560 and giving you all four. 387 00:19:22,200 --> 00:19:24,880 Is it that the toes should go that way? 388 00:19:24,880 --> 00:19:28,280 Yes. So it's got its feet on back to front is the thing. 389 00:19:28,280 --> 00:19:30,840 So they have what looked like backward feet 390 00:19:30,840 --> 00:19:33,200 on their rear legs. So can you see the one on the right? 391 00:19:33,200 --> 00:19:34,680 That is correct. OK? 392 00:19:34,680 --> 00:19:37,040 It's to make predators think that they're going towards 393 00:19:37,040 --> 00:19:38,800 them or something. It's like 394 00:19:38,800 --> 00:19:40,840 when you paint a face on your bum. 395 00:19:42,760 --> 00:19:46,440 It's to enable you to dig properly, so that you can scrape earth 396 00:19:46,440 --> 00:19:49,880 out of the hole much more efficiently as you go downwards. 397 00:19:49,880 --> 00:19:54,000 So the problem with this, clearly, the taxidermist had never seen 398 00:19:54,000 --> 00:19:57,560 an echidna, OK? Oh! And it arrived, didn't know what it looked like, 399 00:19:57,560 --> 00:19:58,880 and thought, "Well, those feet 400 00:19:58,880 --> 00:20:01,000 "for a start, they must be on the wrong way around." 401 00:20:01,000 --> 00:20:04,200 And it just put them where you'd think feet ought to go, 402 00:20:04,200 --> 00:20:06,440 but it's completely back to front. 403 00:20:06,440 --> 00:20:08,800 So, in those days, an exotic specimen would arrive, 404 00:20:08,800 --> 00:20:10,880 you wouldn't have a photograph or whatever. 405 00:20:10,880 --> 00:20:13,400 It would probably be pickled and it would be incomplete, 406 00:20:13,400 --> 00:20:16,720 and the taxidermist's job is to put it back together and then stuff it. 407 00:20:16,720 --> 00:20:19,880 And if you've never seen the animal before, you would have no idea 408 00:20:19,880 --> 00:20:22,040 whatsoever how it ought to be displayed. 409 00:20:22,040 --> 00:20:25,840 The most famous example of that is one of my favourites. 410 00:20:25,840 --> 00:20:29,520 It's the Gripsholm Castle Lion in Stockholm. 411 00:20:29,520 --> 00:20:31,640 Have you seen it? Yeah, it's amazing. 412 00:20:33,320 --> 00:20:34,440 Yeah. Wow. 413 00:20:34,440 --> 00:20:35,600 Yeah. 414 00:20:35,600 --> 00:20:38,560 He was a present in the 1730s, to King Frederick I of Sweden. 415 00:20:38,560 --> 00:20:42,280 But clearly, the guy who received the bundle of bones and whatever, 416 00:20:42,280 --> 00:20:44,040 had never actually seen a lion! 417 00:20:44,040 --> 00:20:47,720 What he's done there, he's got the lenses from a pair of sunglasses. 418 00:20:48,880 --> 00:20:50,440 I LOVE him. I love him. 419 00:20:50,440 --> 00:20:54,560 And I have just discovered that Leo the Lion has his own Facebook page. 420 00:20:55,920 --> 00:20:58,920 He has 7,500 followers. One more today. 421 00:21:00,120 --> 00:21:02,320 And I found his last posting. It was from Christmas. 422 00:21:02,320 --> 00:21:05,160 Have a look at this. This is a really pleasing thing. 423 00:21:05,160 --> 00:21:06,600 Aww! 424 00:21:08,000 --> 00:21:09,560 That is terrifying. 425 00:21:11,840 --> 00:21:14,600 I think I'm becoming a fan of bad taxidermy. 426 00:21:14,600 --> 00:21:17,760 This is a wonky ocelot, which I REALLY like. 427 00:21:17,760 --> 00:21:19,120 Look at that! 428 00:21:20,680 --> 00:21:23,840 Isn't that great? So the first one is from 1880. 429 00:21:23,840 --> 00:21:25,160 The one on the left is 1880 430 00:21:25,160 --> 00:21:26,520 and the second one, 1934. 431 00:21:26,520 --> 00:21:29,200 I think they thought that didn't go so well, that first one. 432 00:21:29,200 --> 00:21:31,240 There is a taxidermied blue whale 433 00:21:31,240 --> 00:21:33,480 I have discovered for you. 434 00:21:31,240 --> 00:21:33,480 ALAN GASPS 435 00:21:33,480 --> 00:21:35,600 Yes. I'm very excited about this. It's a juvenile, 436 00:21:35,600 --> 00:21:38,080 it's not the full kind of size... Acceptable. 437 00:21:38,080 --> 00:21:39,960 ..but it's in a museum in Gothenburg. 438 00:21:39,960 --> 00:21:41,520 It was caught in the 1860s. 439 00:21:41,520 --> 00:21:44,640 And what they did was they took the skin off and they stretched it 440 00:21:44,640 --> 00:21:47,440 over a frame. And to make it more attractive to visitors, OK, 441 00:21:47,440 --> 00:21:49,880 they hinged the jaw, and you could go inside. 442 00:21:49,880 --> 00:21:52,560 And that's just about 25 people having dinner, 443 00:21:52,560 --> 00:21:54,880 on the left there! That picture on the right, 444 00:21:54,880 --> 00:21:56,560 is that it breaking out? 445 00:21:58,480 --> 00:22:01,000 Well... "I've had enough of this!" 446 00:22:01,000 --> 00:22:04,760 They moved the museum, the Natural History Museum, to a new building, 447 00:22:04,760 --> 00:22:08,720 and this was how they got the whale, the taxidermied whale out. 448 00:22:08,720 --> 00:22:11,840 Surely if it's stuffed, you just let it out. 449 00:22:11,840 --> 00:22:14,520 You just... Re-inflate it? 450 00:22:14,520 --> 00:22:16,600 ..schhhhloop it down and then... 451 00:22:16,600 --> 00:22:19,160 I would have loved to have had dinner inside a whale. 452 00:22:19,160 --> 00:22:22,000 Do you not think that's an amazing look? Does look quite good fun. 453 00:22:22,000 --> 00:22:25,040 They stopped doing it in the 1930s, because they discovered a couple 454 00:22:25,040 --> 00:22:26,600 having sex inside the whale. Ugh! 455 00:22:26,600 --> 00:22:28,880 One couple spoils everything! 456 00:22:28,880 --> 00:22:31,240 I know! Jonah and the moaner? 457 00:22:34,800 --> 00:22:36,880 APPLAUSE 458 00:22:38,520 --> 00:22:42,640 Anybody in the audience remember seeing stuffed dogs at train 459 00:22:42,640 --> 00:22:45,160 stations with coin slots in them in order to collect money? 460 00:22:45,160 --> 00:22:47,880 Put your hand up if you remember. At Wimbledon. Wimbledon. 461 00:22:47,880 --> 00:22:50,800 Yeah. So they were real dogs that had been taxidermied 462 00:22:50,800 --> 00:22:54,200 and then they had coin slots for donations either in their backs 463 00:22:54,200 --> 00:22:55,600 or in their heads. 464 00:22:55,600 --> 00:22:58,160 And it dates from a Victorian tradition, which I think lasted 465 00:22:58,160 --> 00:23:01,400 until about the 1950s, that dogs, they were called charity dogs, used 466 00:23:01,400 --> 00:23:04,360 to roam around British railway stations collecting for good causes 467 00:23:04,360 --> 00:23:06,360 and they'd have a collection box on them. 468 00:23:06,360 --> 00:23:09,000 And then some of them were stuffed after death so that they could 469 00:23:09,000 --> 00:23:11,680 go on collecting. There's a very good example called 470 00:23:11,680 --> 00:23:15,400 London Jack, and London Jack was a black dog, a flat-coated retriever, 471 00:23:15,400 --> 00:23:17,800 but he went... That's him on the left there. 472 00:23:17,800 --> 00:23:21,960 He'd gone blond in the sunlight and a taxidermist looked at him, 473 00:23:21,960 --> 00:23:23,760 discovered he'd got dark roots, 474 00:23:23,760 --> 00:23:25,920 so they re-dyed him on the... 475 00:23:25,920 --> 00:23:29,320 Every woman will appreciate this can happen. This can happen... 476 00:23:29,320 --> 00:23:32,000 There was a load of real Labradors that died 477 00:23:32,000 --> 00:23:33,800 from getting coins jammed in their head. 478 00:23:34,800 --> 00:23:36,640 I used to have a... 479 00:23:36,640 --> 00:23:39,080 I had a stuffed otter, and... 480 00:23:39,080 --> 00:23:40,800 LAUGHTER 481 00:23:40,800 --> 00:23:42,720 It's not a euphemism, calm down! 482 00:23:43,720 --> 00:23:48,080 So I was in Kilkenny, and I won some money on a horse 483 00:23:48,080 --> 00:23:50,000 and I got this money. 484 00:23:50,000 --> 00:23:53,440 I was walking past this sort of junk shop and I saw this stuffed art 485 00:23:53,440 --> 00:23:56,040 and I thought, "Well, hang on, there's a stuffed otter, 486 00:23:56,040 --> 00:23:58,480 "I have got some money. This is a match made in heaven." 487 00:23:58,480 --> 00:24:01,800 So I got this otter, I spent three days just having fun with it 488 00:24:01,800 --> 00:24:05,320 around Kilkenny, you know, playing pranks on people, that sort of thing. 489 00:24:05,320 --> 00:24:07,080 And then I wanted to bring it back. 490 00:24:07,080 --> 00:24:09,280 I was living in London at the time and I thought, 491 00:24:09,280 --> 00:24:13,040 "Are you allowed to import animal products, that sort of thing?" 492 00:24:13,040 --> 00:24:17,360 So I went to the police station and I walked in with it under my arm, 493 00:24:17,360 --> 00:24:19,960 and there was an old Irish policeman sat there like that 494 00:24:19,960 --> 00:24:21,360 and I said to him, 495 00:24:21,360 --> 00:24:23,440 "I want to take this otter to London." 496 00:24:23,440 --> 00:24:25,960 He went, "Oh, that'll be nice for him." 497 00:24:25,960 --> 00:24:28,400 LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE 498 00:24:35,200 --> 00:24:36,440 Have you still got it? 499 00:24:36,440 --> 00:24:37,640 No. 500 00:24:37,640 --> 00:24:39,160 What happened to it? 501 00:24:39,160 --> 00:24:40,520 It died. He went... 502 00:24:42,440 --> 00:24:44,360 He returned to his homeland. 503 00:24:44,360 --> 00:24:46,160 What? Did you return him to the sea? 504 00:24:46,160 --> 00:24:48,720 No. If you must know, Sandi, my house burned down, 505 00:24:48,720 --> 00:24:50,920 I lost everything I owned. But let's not mention that. 506 00:24:50,920 --> 00:24:52,400 GROANING 507 00:24:52,400 --> 00:24:54,280 Is that true? Yeah. Yeah. 508 00:24:55,600 --> 00:24:56,840 And you know what? 509 00:24:56,840 --> 00:24:58,720 I suspect the otter. Yeah! 510 00:24:58,720 --> 00:25:02,200 LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE 511 00:25:06,480 --> 00:25:10,080 Now, what do elephants and ballerinas have in common? 512 00:25:11,840 --> 00:25:13,640 Costumes. Look. Yes. 513 00:25:13,640 --> 00:25:15,720 It's really unethical to ride either 514 00:25:15,720 --> 00:25:17,600 of them for entertainment. 515 00:25:19,080 --> 00:25:22,480 You shouldn't do it. If you go to the Royal Ballet 516 00:25:22,480 --> 00:25:24,600 and try to ride one of the ballerinas, 517 00:25:24,600 --> 00:25:29,080 only the Queen is allowed to ride the ones 518 00:25:29,080 --> 00:25:30,480 from Swan Lake. 519 00:25:30,480 --> 00:25:33,200 You nearly made it through there. I nearly did! 520 00:25:33,200 --> 00:25:35,120 I started laughing before...! 521 00:25:35,120 --> 00:25:37,320 You thought of the mental image of it. 522 00:25:37,320 --> 00:25:40,560 I've got it. If they look at you in a certain way, 523 00:25:40,560 --> 00:25:42,160 they're going to charge at you. 524 00:25:43,760 --> 00:25:45,720 Is it to do with the laws of physics? 525 00:25:45,720 --> 00:25:47,240 Oh! NOW this is interesting! 526 00:25:47,240 --> 00:25:49,640 Is it to do with how unlikely it is that you could stand 527 00:25:49,640 --> 00:25:53,920 on your toes...as elephants stand on things in circuses? You are heading 528 00:25:53,920 --> 00:25:57,080 in the right direction, and it is to do with their toes. 529 00:25:57,080 --> 00:26:01,800 Elephants naturally walk on their toes, which are positioned 530 00:26:01,800 --> 00:26:04,200 at the front of their feet, but their heel bones 531 00:26:04,200 --> 00:26:05,600 are off the ground. 532 00:26:05,600 --> 00:26:09,920 And if we have a look at a drawing, they also have this large fatty pad 533 00:26:09,920 --> 00:26:13,600 behind the toes, and that structure - so, toes in front 534 00:26:13,600 --> 00:26:16,240 and the fatty pad behind - it gives them a longer step 535 00:26:16,240 --> 00:26:18,560 and it enables them to spread out their massive weight. 536 00:26:18,560 --> 00:26:20,840 It does put enormous pressure on their feet. 537 00:26:20,840 --> 00:26:23,720 So if there's a hard surface, they often get very sore feet. 538 00:26:23,720 --> 00:26:26,000 And the ballet tiptoe technique is something 539 00:26:26,000 --> 00:26:27,280 that they have in common. 540 00:26:27,280 --> 00:26:29,640 It actually first started in the early 19th century, 541 00:26:29,640 --> 00:26:32,920 it was considered a stunt until a wonderful ballerina turned up, 542 00:26:32,920 --> 00:26:35,000 called Marie Taglione. 543 00:26:35,000 --> 00:26:37,400 And before that, ballerinas had stood on their toes 544 00:26:37,400 --> 00:26:39,680 with the aid of wires. I'm sorry to give it away. 545 00:26:39,680 --> 00:26:42,560 And she was just a superstar. 546 00:26:42,560 --> 00:26:46,320 There was Taglione mania, there was cakes, hairstyles, dolls 547 00:26:46,320 --> 00:26:47,960 named after her. 548 00:26:47,960 --> 00:26:51,840 She was a kind of star that it's hard to imagine today. 549 00:26:51,840 --> 00:26:55,040 And after her last performance, which was in Russia in 1842, 550 00:26:55,040 --> 00:26:58,920 a group of ballet fans supposedly bought a pair of her shoes. 551 00:26:59,960 --> 00:27:01,920 They had them fricasseed, 552 00:27:01,920 --> 00:27:04,680 and they ate them, washed down with champagne! 553 00:27:04,680 --> 00:27:06,200 Wow. Werner Herzog. 554 00:27:06,200 --> 00:27:09,560 That's great. But here is a lesson about celebrity. 555 00:27:09,560 --> 00:27:12,160 She could not have been more famous, more revered, 556 00:27:12,160 --> 00:27:15,800 and she ended her life poor, giving deportment lessons in London. 557 00:27:15,800 --> 00:27:21,040 Right, I want you to name a completely futile game. 558 00:27:22,120 --> 00:27:23,720 Golf. 559 00:27:23,720 --> 00:27:26,920 I played hide-and-seek on my own, once. That was quite futile. 560 00:27:26,920 --> 00:27:28,120 AUDIENCE: Awww! 561 00:27:28,120 --> 00:27:30,920 Were you seeking or hiding? 562 00:27:30,920 --> 00:27:33,040 Sort of sat behind the sofa. 563 00:27:33,040 --> 00:27:35,320 "I'm never going to find me here!" 564 00:27:36,400 --> 00:27:39,200 Any thoughts, what might a futile game be in game theory? 565 00:27:39,200 --> 00:27:41,720 One with no end, one with a middle? 566 00:27:41,720 --> 00:27:45,920 A futile game is one, if both sides play it absolutely perfectly, 567 00:27:45,920 --> 00:27:48,080 it will always result in a draw. 568 00:27:48,080 --> 00:27:51,520 So the best example of that, what the Americans call tic-tac-toe, 569 00:27:51,520 --> 00:27:53,960 but which we call noughts and crosses. Noughts and crosses. 570 00:27:53,960 --> 00:27:56,040 So unless somebody makes a mistake... 571 00:27:56,040 --> 00:27:58,520 Well, they have - they've put a kid in the middle. 572 00:28:00,680 --> 00:28:04,400 The weird thing about this game is it's fairly universal and has also 573 00:28:04,400 --> 00:28:05,920 been around for a really long time. 574 00:28:05,920 --> 00:28:11,000 So this grid, you see it on roofing tiles dating from around 1300 BC 575 00:28:11,000 --> 00:28:15,000 in ancient Egypt, you see the same grid chalked all over Rome 576 00:28:15,000 --> 00:28:17,240 around the first century BC... 577 00:28:17,240 --> 00:28:19,200 And you see it on stock cubes. 578 00:28:21,080 --> 00:28:23,000 LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE 579 00:28:26,480 --> 00:28:30,480 So I'm going to make a connection between noughts and crosses, 580 00:28:30,480 --> 00:28:33,040 and an ordinary box of matches, 581 00:28:33,040 --> 00:28:35,760 and artificial intelligence. 582 00:28:35,760 --> 00:28:37,560 How are we going to get there? Any thoughts? 583 00:28:37,560 --> 00:28:40,280 Well, don't put the box of matches near Ross because he's already 584 00:28:40,280 --> 00:28:42,000 set his house on fire once. 585 00:28:42,000 --> 00:28:43,560 LAUGHTER AND GROANING 586 00:28:43,560 --> 00:28:44,800 It was the otter. 587 00:28:46,720 --> 00:28:50,760 So, in the 1960s, there was a former Bletchley Park code-breaker 588 00:28:50,760 --> 00:28:52,080 called Donald Michie 589 00:28:52,080 --> 00:28:54,840 and he decided what he really wanted to do was to build a computer 590 00:28:54,840 --> 00:28:58,000 that would never lose at noughts and crosses. 591 00:28:58,000 --> 00:29:03,080 What he did was he built it out of matchboxes and coloured beads, 592 00:29:03,080 --> 00:29:04,440 and it was called MENACE - 593 00:29:04,440 --> 00:29:07,200 the Matchbox Educable Noughts And Crosses Engine. 594 00:29:07,200 --> 00:29:11,320 It consisted of 304 matchboxes because 304 is all the possible 595 00:29:11,320 --> 00:29:14,320 situations that there are in noughts and crosses, OK? 596 00:29:14,320 --> 00:29:17,960 And each box contains different-coloured beads. 597 00:29:17,960 --> 00:29:21,600 Now, I have to tell you, we are going to show you such a machine. 598 00:29:21,600 --> 00:29:24,360 It has been built by the mathematician Matthew Scroggs. 599 00:29:24,360 --> 00:29:26,680 I do not fully understand it. 600 00:29:26,680 --> 00:29:29,200 So, Matthew, I'm going to hand over to you. 601 00:29:29,200 --> 00:29:31,080 I'll take this one. OK. 602 00:29:32,200 --> 00:29:34,880 Matthew, I'm going to take it over to you. But this is a replica 603 00:29:34,880 --> 00:29:36,880 that you've built yourself, isn't it? 604 00:29:36,880 --> 00:29:39,480 This is the replica I've built of Donald Michie's original MENACE. 605 00:29:39,480 --> 00:29:41,760 So it's built from 304 matchboxes, as you said. 606 00:29:41,760 --> 00:29:45,760 The first important thing is we have a key here, which tells us 607 00:29:45,760 --> 00:29:49,080 each of the nine squares I've given a colour to. 608 00:29:49,080 --> 00:29:52,480 So the coloured beads inside the boxes tell me where MENACE 609 00:29:52,480 --> 00:29:54,920 would like to play, using the colour code. 610 00:29:54,920 --> 00:29:57,080 So we started the game earlier. 611 00:29:57,080 --> 00:29:58,680 MENACE made three moves, 612 00:29:58,680 --> 00:30:01,240 you made two moves. OK. Which means it's your move. 613 00:30:01,240 --> 00:30:02,640 You're playing as crosses. 614 00:30:02,640 --> 00:30:05,040 LOU: Who's Menace? ROSE: And is he single? 615 00:30:06,680 --> 00:30:08,840 Right. So on the front of each matchbox, 616 00:30:08,840 --> 00:30:11,720 we have pictures of all the positions in noughts and crosses. 617 00:30:11,720 --> 00:30:15,000 So shortly I'm going to be looking through the pile to find the one, 618 00:30:15,000 --> 00:30:18,200 but you first need to make a move, so I know which one to look for. 619 00:30:18,200 --> 00:30:20,440 So I don't want you to win. 620 00:30:20,440 --> 00:30:23,720 So I am going to put a cross. 621 00:30:23,720 --> 00:30:25,960 Classic move, Sandi. Thank you, darling. 622 00:30:25,960 --> 00:30:27,560 APPLAUSE 623 00:30:30,040 --> 00:30:32,760 OK. Could you turn the board upside down? 624 00:30:34,440 --> 00:30:36,360 There we go. There we go. The board now matches 625 00:30:36,360 --> 00:30:38,640 the picture on the front of my matchbox. 626 00:30:38,640 --> 00:30:40,400 OK. So this is the box we use. OK. 627 00:30:40,400 --> 00:30:42,600 Inside this box, there will be three beads. 628 00:30:42,600 --> 00:30:46,480 They will be coloured white, red and orange. Yeah. 629 00:30:46,480 --> 00:30:49,320 Because those are the three places MENACE can move next. 630 00:30:49,320 --> 00:30:52,040 Right? So those are the three empty spaces. Yes. 631 00:30:52,040 --> 00:30:53,280 Up here on the, on the board. 632 00:30:53,280 --> 00:30:56,000 So I'm now taking one of the beads out. Yeah. 633 00:30:56,000 --> 00:30:58,840 And it is a red. Which is here? 634 00:30:58,840 --> 00:31:01,560 Middle-right, which is there. So a nought goes there. This one? 635 00:31:01,560 --> 00:31:03,000 Yeah. 636 00:31:03,000 --> 00:31:06,440 Nought, which means I am going to go here. 637 00:31:06,440 --> 00:31:09,560 So I seem to have won. Does that spoil it? No. 638 00:31:09,560 --> 00:31:12,400 So actually it's not surprising you've won because this MENACE 639 00:31:12,400 --> 00:31:15,120 is quite a young MENACE. So it's not very intelligent so far. 640 00:31:15,120 --> 00:31:17,960 But what we're going to do now is we're going to do the learning step, 641 00:31:17,960 --> 00:31:20,360 which makes it a machine-learning machine. 642 00:31:20,360 --> 00:31:22,360 So because MENACE lost, 643 00:31:22,360 --> 00:31:25,240 if we take the last matchbox we used, 644 00:31:25,240 --> 00:31:27,080 we picked a red bead. 645 00:31:27,080 --> 00:31:29,800 Mm-hm. This was a bad move cos this let you win. 646 00:31:29,800 --> 00:31:31,880 So I'm going to take this red bead away. 647 00:31:31,880 --> 00:31:35,040 So now, next time MENACE uses this box, it doesn't have a red bead, 648 00:31:35,040 --> 00:31:36,320 so it will try something else. 649 00:31:36,320 --> 00:31:38,840 So it's not going to make the same mistake and lose again. 650 00:31:38,840 --> 00:31:42,720 But this was the beginning, was it not, of understanding 651 00:31:42,720 --> 00:31:46,000 that it was possible somehow to develop the concept 652 00:31:46,000 --> 00:31:47,360 of machine learning? 653 00:31:47,360 --> 00:31:49,680 Is this the same principle as 654 00:31:49,680 --> 00:31:52,760 tick all the boxes that have got traffic lights in? 655 00:31:52,760 --> 00:31:55,360 They work on a similar system. 656 00:31:55,360 --> 00:31:57,600 The whole idea is that it's all about trial and error. 657 00:31:57,600 --> 00:32:00,440 So you try lots of things and you keep the things that work. 658 00:32:00,440 --> 00:32:02,000 So this looks like it's learning. 659 00:32:02,000 --> 00:32:03,960 It's not actually thinking or learning, 660 00:32:03,960 --> 00:32:05,720 but it behaves like it does. 661 00:32:05,720 --> 00:32:08,400 ROSS: It's a long way from that to the Terminator, isn't it? 662 00:32:09,880 --> 00:32:12,800 Thank God! We're only at the matchbox! 663 00:32:12,800 --> 00:32:16,440 I tell you what, when they do the prequel to the Terminator, 664 00:32:16,440 --> 00:32:18,440 that's going to be a boring film, isn't it? 665 00:32:20,040 --> 00:32:21,880 A box of matches lands out the sky! 666 00:32:23,160 --> 00:32:25,720 But you know what's amazing about it, and I get 667 00:32:25,720 --> 00:32:28,400 that it's really complicated and I have not fully understood it, 668 00:32:28,400 --> 00:32:33,080 but I love that a man by himself with a series of matchboxes 669 00:32:33,080 --> 00:32:37,360 and some beads was the founding person to come up with the idea 670 00:32:37,360 --> 00:32:40,480 that a machine could learn. It is amazing, isn't it? 671 00:32:40,480 --> 00:32:43,520 It's incredible. So if you want to know more about it, 672 00:32:43,520 --> 00:32:45,400 which I really hope what we've done is 673 00:32:45,400 --> 00:32:48,920 we've sort of tickled your interest in it, WHAT can we do, Matthew? 674 00:32:48,920 --> 00:32:51,960 So there's a blog post on my website and a playable version 675 00:32:51,960 --> 00:32:55,040 of it, so you can play against it to kind of really see that it does 676 00:32:55,040 --> 00:32:56,600 get better at noughts and crosses. 677 00:32:56,600 --> 00:32:59,120 How many times does it need to play it for it to get intel, 678 00:32:59,120 --> 00:33:02,080 like smart enough to...? After about 30 games, 679 00:33:02,080 --> 00:33:04,280 it will draw half the time and lose half the time. 680 00:33:04,280 --> 00:33:07,240 After about 60 or 70 games, it will pretty consistently draw. 681 00:33:07,240 --> 00:33:08,640 Oh, my God. 682 00:33:08,640 --> 00:33:11,880 How good is that against five Zippo lighters? 683 00:33:13,800 --> 00:33:16,160 Matthew, thank you so much indeed. 684 00:33:16,160 --> 00:33:18,240 APPLAUSE AND CHEERING 685 00:33:23,000 --> 00:33:24,960 What is the curse of knowledge? 686 00:33:24,960 --> 00:33:27,040 Oh, go on, ask me. 687 00:33:28,440 --> 00:33:30,720 What is the curse of knowledge? Alan? 688 00:33:32,360 --> 00:33:35,640 Well, ignorance is bliss, Sandi, isn't it, you see? 689 00:33:35,640 --> 00:33:37,880 OK, I'm going to demonstrate what I mean by it. 690 00:33:37,880 --> 00:33:39,920 OK. So let's start with you, Ross. 691 00:33:39,920 --> 00:33:41,760 You've got a stick beside you. 692 00:33:41,760 --> 00:33:43,160 Oh, have I? Oh, sorry. 693 00:33:43,160 --> 00:33:44,680 And there is a card next to you, 694 00:33:44,680 --> 00:33:46,760 which, I do not want you to say it out loud, 695 00:33:46,760 --> 00:33:49,120 but there's the name of a well-known tune, 696 00:33:49,120 --> 00:33:52,560 which I'm going to get you to tap out on the desk with your stick. 697 00:33:52,560 --> 00:33:54,960 OK? OK. What do you think are the chances, 698 00:33:54,960 --> 00:33:57,240 like percentage-wise, the chances of us guessing 699 00:33:57,240 --> 00:33:58,840 what you're tapping out? 700 00:33:58,840 --> 00:34:00,400 I would think 2%. 2%? 701 00:34:00,400 --> 00:34:02,440 Why, are you really rubbish at tapping? No, 702 00:34:02,440 --> 00:34:04,720 it's just because you've only got the rhythm, haven't you? 703 00:34:04,720 --> 00:34:08,080 You haven't got the... Give it a go. Give it a go. I'm ready to be proved wrong. OK. OK. 704 00:34:13,240 --> 00:34:16,200 If you get down to the woods today you're sure of a big surprise. 705 00:34:16,200 --> 00:34:18,040 Yes! Oh, yeah. Wow! 706 00:34:18,040 --> 00:34:19,440 Wow! 707 00:34:21,240 --> 00:34:23,120 Wow! Can I just say... 708 00:34:23,120 --> 00:34:24,760 He's a wizard! Burn him! 709 00:34:24,760 --> 00:34:27,400 ..also overlooked for Never Mind The Buzzcocks. 710 00:34:29,760 --> 00:34:31,320 That was VERY impressive. 711 00:34:31,320 --> 00:34:34,560 There was a famous experiment done by a psychologist called 712 00:34:34,560 --> 00:34:36,520 Elizabeth Newton in the 1990s, 713 00:34:36,520 --> 00:34:38,760 and so she got people to tap out tunes, 714 00:34:38,760 --> 00:34:42,040 and the tappers used to estimate beforehand how much success 715 00:34:42,040 --> 00:34:46,000 they were going to have. And so, they mostly guessed things like 50%. 716 00:34:46,000 --> 00:34:49,480 In fact, their success rate was about 2.5%. I said 2, didn't I? 717 00:34:49,480 --> 00:34:51,280 I said 2! Yeah, you did. 718 00:34:51,280 --> 00:34:53,520 I said 2. But he's a wizard, so... 719 00:34:54,720 --> 00:34:57,840 But what happened was the tappers were astonished that people 720 00:34:57,840 --> 00:35:00,080 couldn't get it from the tapping 721 00:35:00,080 --> 00:35:02,360 because they knew what the answer was, 722 00:35:02,360 --> 00:35:04,640 so they rather imagined that the listeners must know 723 00:35:04,640 --> 00:35:07,040 what the answer was. And it's known as the curse of knowledge. 724 00:35:07,040 --> 00:35:10,640 We all overestimate our ability to clearly convey information, 725 00:35:10,640 --> 00:35:14,520 and we find it very difficult to remember or know that somebody 726 00:35:14,520 --> 00:35:16,000 doesn't actually know the answer. 727 00:35:16,000 --> 00:35:17,640 And you see it in young children. 728 00:35:17,640 --> 00:35:21,000 And the thing about young children is they haven't yet learned to try 729 00:35:21,000 --> 00:35:23,000 and compensate for this effect. 730 00:35:23,000 --> 00:35:25,760 So, show a four-year-old a box of sweets, or what looks like a box 731 00:35:25,760 --> 00:35:28,600 of sweets on the outside, and you say, "What's inside this box?" 732 00:35:28,600 --> 00:35:29,920 And they'll say, "Sweets." 733 00:35:29,920 --> 00:35:33,160 If you open it and show them that there are pencils inside, 734 00:35:33,160 --> 00:35:36,200 then immediately they go, "Oh, yeah, yeah, it's pencils," right? 735 00:35:36,200 --> 00:35:39,080 So when the next child is asked, "What do you think is in this box?" 736 00:35:39,080 --> 00:35:40,560 And the child says, "Sweets," 737 00:35:40,560 --> 00:35:42,520 the other child goes, "Idiot. Idiot." Yeah. 738 00:35:44,840 --> 00:35:48,200 "You're an idiot, it's pencils. Everybody knows it's pencils." 739 00:35:48,200 --> 00:35:49,880 Because they can no longer imagine 740 00:35:49,880 --> 00:35:52,400 not knowing that it's got pencils in there. 741 00:35:52,400 --> 00:35:54,720 Well, kids are thick, aren't they? So... 742 00:35:55,720 --> 00:35:59,160 I've got one, you know, I've got one. What are the percentages of us 743 00:35:59,160 --> 00:36:01,800 having a guess? 100%. 100%, OK. Get real. 744 00:36:08,160 --> 00:36:09,640 National anthem. 745 00:36:18,560 --> 00:36:20,080 Come on, everyone. 746 00:36:21,440 --> 00:36:25,920 AUDIENCE: # Twinkle, twinkle, little star 747 00:36:25,920 --> 00:36:30,160 # How I wonder what you are. # 748 00:36:30,160 --> 00:36:32,760 I KNEW you were getting it! 749 00:36:37,760 --> 00:36:40,960 So what I think is, ten points for the audience. 750 00:36:40,960 --> 00:36:42,960 CHEERING 751 00:36:45,800 --> 00:36:47,520 You know what this means. 752 00:36:47,520 --> 00:36:49,520 Brand-new TV format - 753 00:36:49,520 --> 00:36:51,120 Tap Gear. 754 00:36:51,120 --> 00:36:53,200 LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE 755 00:36:54,680 --> 00:36:56,640 Come on! 756 00:36:56,640 --> 00:36:59,320 Now, we've toed the line, ticking every box along the way, 757 00:36:59,320 --> 00:37:03,440 let's tack in the direction of general ignorance. 758 00:37:03,440 --> 00:37:06,680 What are those little bumps you can see on your tongue, called? 759 00:37:06,680 --> 00:37:08,120 Herpes. 760 00:37:15,400 --> 00:37:17,000 Papillae. 761 00:37:17,000 --> 00:37:18,680 They ARE called papillae. Yes! 762 00:37:18,680 --> 00:37:21,920 You're so clever today! 763 00:37:18,680 --> 00:37:21,920 APPLAUSE 764 00:37:24,840 --> 00:37:26,920 And what do you do with those? 765 00:37:26,920 --> 00:37:31,680 Well, cats scrape the skin off animals with them. 766 00:37:31,680 --> 00:37:35,240 I've seen a lion eat horse meat, and its papillae are so sharp, 767 00:37:35,240 --> 00:37:39,200 it can lick a lump of horse meat and it'll hang off its tongue. Wow! 768 00:37:39,200 --> 00:37:42,680 So, though, for us, they're not really serving a lot of purpose. 769 00:37:42,680 --> 00:37:45,720 Do you know what the purple bits are? Make 'em look pretty? 770 00:37:45,720 --> 00:37:48,160 Those are our taste buds. Taste buds. Yeah. 771 00:37:48,160 --> 00:37:50,600 Which most people think are the little bumps, but they are, 772 00:37:50,600 --> 00:37:53,680 in fact, ALL taste buds are entirely invisible to the naked eye. 773 00:37:53,680 --> 00:37:57,840 25% of the population, mainly women, are what are called super-tasters. 774 00:37:57,840 --> 00:38:01,120 They're specifically good at detecting bitterness. 775 00:38:01,120 --> 00:38:04,360 This is the sort of thing you should have on a Tinder profile. 776 00:38:07,400 --> 00:38:10,480 And then there's 25% of people are non-tasters and these are people 777 00:38:10,480 --> 00:38:12,640 who can't detect bitter tastes at all. 778 00:38:12,640 --> 00:38:14,720 Equally good on a Tinder profile. 779 00:38:14,720 --> 00:38:16,840 "I can't taste, I can't detect anything." 780 00:38:16,840 --> 00:38:19,800 It is worth knowing because super-tasters tend to be 781 00:38:19,800 --> 00:38:23,200 fussy eaters because they can taste so many more things. 782 00:38:23,200 --> 00:38:25,640 Children are more sensitive to bitterness than adults, 783 00:38:25,640 --> 00:38:28,400 so when a child says, "That Brussels sprout tastes disgusting," 784 00:38:28,400 --> 00:38:30,760 it probably to them is absolutely disgusting. 785 00:38:30,760 --> 00:38:33,160 Also, Brussels sprouts ARE disgusting. No! 786 00:38:33,160 --> 00:38:34,880 Whoa. I'll stop you there. 787 00:38:34,880 --> 00:38:36,840 I love them! I'll stop you right there. 788 00:38:36,840 --> 00:38:38,240 I'm a super-taster! 789 00:38:39,240 --> 00:38:40,720 Anyway, moving on. 790 00:38:40,720 --> 00:38:43,480 Where would you find the world's oldest boomerang? 791 00:38:43,480 --> 00:38:45,280 Oh, it's still out there somewhere. 792 00:38:48,720 --> 00:38:51,040 Where would you find it? Come on, what's the obvious...? 793 00:38:51,040 --> 00:38:52,640 Australia. 794 00:38:52,640 --> 00:38:53,680 KLAXON 795 00:38:56,920 --> 00:38:59,600 Kent. Yeah, it's probably in a British museum 796 00:38:59,600 --> 00:39:02,440 because they bloody stole it from Australia. 797 00:39:02,440 --> 00:39:06,200 So the oldest surviving Australian boomerang comes from a peat bog 798 00:39:06,200 --> 00:39:08,400 in South Australia. It's about the same age as boats. 799 00:39:08,400 --> 00:39:09,640 It's about 10,000 years old. 800 00:39:09,640 --> 00:39:14,160 But in 1986, archaeologists found a boomerang in southern Poland. 801 00:39:14,160 --> 00:39:17,840 Uh! Mm! At 23,000 years old, either it was Polish 802 00:39:17,840 --> 00:39:19,160 or it had come a bloody long way. 803 00:39:19,160 --> 00:39:21,760 That is a fingernail, I'm so sorry to say. 804 00:39:21,760 --> 00:39:24,960 It's the exact same shape as the Australian boomerang, but made 805 00:39:24,960 --> 00:39:26,560 of a mammoth tusk. 806 00:39:26,560 --> 00:39:28,360 And there are carved ancient boomerangs. 807 00:39:28,360 --> 00:39:31,240 They're found all over the world, from North Africa to Arizona. 808 00:39:31,240 --> 00:39:34,360 They were probably used in hunting and in warfare. 809 00:39:34,360 --> 00:39:39,400 Almost all of the non-Australian ones are non-returning, as it were. 810 00:39:39,400 --> 00:39:42,520 If you want a returning boomerang, you have to find an Australian one. 811 00:39:42,520 --> 00:39:44,600 Have you tried a boomerang? I have. 812 00:39:44,600 --> 00:39:46,680 Have you tried catching a wooden boomerang? 813 00:39:46,680 --> 00:39:48,440 Is it painful? Take your fingers off. 814 00:39:48,440 --> 00:39:50,360 Cos you go, "I've done it! I've done it!" 815 00:39:50,360 --> 00:39:51,840 Oh, shit! 816 00:39:53,000 --> 00:39:54,840 I don't want it to come back. 817 00:39:54,840 --> 00:39:58,120 I had one that my auntie in Australia sent me as a present 818 00:39:58,120 --> 00:40:01,040 and I opened it up, went in the garden and threw it, 819 00:40:01,040 --> 00:40:03,040 and it looped right round and 820 00:40:03,040 --> 00:40:05,040 into next door's window 821 00:40:05,040 --> 00:40:06,880 and set the burglar alarm off. 822 00:40:08,560 --> 00:40:10,440 My ex-boyfriend used to call me Boomerang 823 00:40:10,440 --> 00:40:11,720 because I kept coming back. 824 00:40:13,280 --> 00:40:15,600 Oh, sweetie. 825 00:40:15,600 --> 00:40:17,800 That, and other names. OK. 826 00:40:19,280 --> 00:40:21,680 They tried it out on the International Space Station. 827 00:40:21,680 --> 00:40:24,040 I don't know how there was room, but they wanted to prove 828 00:40:24,040 --> 00:40:26,320 that a boomerang would work the same in zero gravity. 829 00:40:26,320 --> 00:40:29,080 So in 1992, the astronauts had a go. I don't see why it wouldn't work. 830 00:40:29,080 --> 00:40:31,800 They rely on air - there's air on the International Space Station. 831 00:40:31,800 --> 00:40:34,760 They just seem to be up to random shit up there. They're like 832 00:40:34,760 --> 00:40:37,680 "Ooh, what does chocolate milk look like in no gravity?" 833 00:40:37,680 --> 00:40:39,320 You're like, "Do your job!" 834 00:40:40,480 --> 00:40:42,840 They're up there with 300 matchboxes. 835 00:40:46,040 --> 00:40:48,920 And then the beans all float out! "Oh, no! 836 00:40:48,920 --> 00:40:50,360 "No!" 837 00:40:50,360 --> 00:40:53,040 Two things I did not know about boomerangs - 838 00:40:53,040 --> 00:40:54,640 Boomerang World Championships, 839 00:40:54,640 --> 00:40:57,680 the Germans and the Americans win nearly all the titles. 840 00:40:57,680 --> 00:41:00,960 Australians have not won since 1984. 841 00:41:00,960 --> 00:41:03,720 And Britain exports over 50,000 842 00:41:03,720 --> 00:41:05,320 boomerangs a year. 843 00:41:05,320 --> 00:41:07,560 But they keep coming back. No... 844 00:41:09,480 --> 00:41:14,000 Now, who invented the talking cure? 845 00:41:14,000 --> 00:41:15,440 Freud. 846 00:41:15,440 --> 00:41:16,480 KLAXON 847 00:41:19,520 --> 00:41:22,240 Not Freud. It's the person who doesn't get the credit 848 00:41:22,240 --> 00:41:24,000 and ought to get the credit for it. 849 00:41:24,000 --> 00:41:26,400 LOU SIGHS 850 00:41:24,000 --> 00:41:26,400 Oh, a woman...probably. 851 00:41:30,800 --> 00:41:33,040 The Bitter Feminist - the new podcast. 852 00:41:34,680 --> 00:41:37,400 Every week, "It was a woman, probably." 853 00:41:38,560 --> 00:41:42,640 Anna O was a famous client of Freud's. Yeah, I know. 854 00:41:42,640 --> 00:41:45,640 She was a woman called Bertha Pappenheim. 855 00:41:45,640 --> 00:41:49,440 She had headaches and blurred vision and hallucinations, memory loss, all sorts of things. 856 00:41:49,440 --> 00:41:52,240 And she went to a physician called Josef Breuer and asked for help, 857 00:41:52,240 --> 00:41:53,560 and he decided she had hysteria 858 00:41:53,560 --> 00:41:55,800 because she had uncontrolled emotions. 859 00:41:55,800 --> 00:41:58,960 And she suggested that what she would like to do is to talk 860 00:41:58,960 --> 00:42:00,760 through her symptoms in detail. 861 00:42:00,760 --> 00:42:03,360 She called it the talking cure or chimney sweeping, 862 00:42:03,360 --> 00:42:04,680 which I quite like. 863 00:42:04,680 --> 00:42:08,920 And Dr Breuer and his young colleague, Sigmund Freud, 864 00:42:08,920 --> 00:42:11,560 co-wrote a landmark work of psychology, called 865 00:42:11,560 --> 00:42:13,400 Studies In Hysteria, in 1895. 866 00:42:13,400 --> 00:42:16,680 And they wrote about her case under the pseudonym of Anna O, 867 00:42:16,680 --> 00:42:19,280 and used her term, "The talking cure". 868 00:42:19,280 --> 00:42:22,120 But it was her idea. Is he in a high-heeled shoe? 869 00:42:23,400 --> 00:42:26,240 Where are you...? 870 00:42:23,400 --> 00:42:26,240 LAUGHTER 871 00:42:28,320 --> 00:42:31,360 Cos you know women - the two things they love is 872 00:42:31,360 --> 00:42:33,320 yapping away and high heels. 873 00:42:33,320 --> 00:42:36,000 I'll tell you what, with that stick, she can be the first 874 00:42:36,000 --> 00:42:38,440 celebrity guest on Tap Gear! 875 00:42:39,800 --> 00:42:43,760 "Our star with a reasonably priced stick, bring her on! 876 00:42:43,760 --> 00:42:45,920 "Get in your shoe!" 877 00:42:45,920 --> 00:42:50,080 Right, talking of talking, it's time to talk about the scores. 878 00:42:50,080 --> 00:42:53,160 Finishing last, with a taxi for one, with -20, 879 00:42:53,160 --> 00:42:55,120 it's Alan. APPLAUSE AND CHEERING 880 00:42:57,760 --> 00:42:59,680 In fourth place, with two points, 881 00:42:59,680 --> 00:43:01,600 it's Rose. APPLAUSE AND CHEERING 882 00:43:04,280 --> 00:43:05,800 In third place, with three, 883 00:43:05,800 --> 00:43:08,640 it's Lou. 884 00:43:05,800 --> 00:43:08,640 APPLAUSE AND CHEERING 885 00:43:08,640 --> 00:43:11,160 In second place, with four points, it's Ross. 886 00:43:11,160 --> 00:43:12,920 APPLAUSE AND CHEERING 887 00:43:14,560 --> 00:43:18,080 Which means, in first place, and getting a big tick from me, 888 00:43:18,080 --> 00:43:20,320 with ten points, it's the audience! 889 00:43:20,320 --> 00:43:22,560 APPLAUSE AND CHEERING 890 00:43:28,160 --> 00:43:30,840 Thank you to Rose, Ross, Lou and Alan. 891 00:43:30,840 --> 00:43:34,040 And we leave you with this tactical solution to a tough problem 892 00:43:34,040 --> 00:43:35,440 from Albert Einstein. 893 00:43:35,440 --> 00:43:39,120 When I was young, I found out that the big toe always ends up 894 00:43:39,120 --> 00:43:40,760 making a hole in a sock. 895 00:43:40,760 --> 00:43:43,400 So I stopped wearing socks. Goodnight. 896 00:43:43,400 --> 00:43:46,080 APPLAUSE AND CHEERING