CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
Good evening!
Welcome to QI,
where tonight,
tonight we are telling tales about telescopes,
telephones, and any number of tails.
So let's meet our wags.
Bright eyed and bushy-tailed, it's Rob Beckett.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
Like a dog with two tails, it's Sarah Millican!
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
Shaking his tail feather, it's Daliso Chaponda!
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
And not making head or tail of anything, it's Alan Davies!
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
Let's see what tales the buzzers tell.
Rob goes...
# Tell her about it, tell her everything you feel... #
Oh, we're off! Sarah goes...
# Tell me why Ain't nothing but a heartache... #
I LOVE this radio station! This is fantastic!
Daliso goes...
# (Tell me why)
# I don't like Mondays
# (Tell me why)
# I don't like Mondays... #
Bopping away. And Alan goes...
MUSIC: The William Tell Overture by Rossini.
OK, before we actually start, I'm going to give five points
to anybody who can name the person that Alan's buzzer
was written about.
William Tell Overture. Is exactly right. Five points.
No, see, there's the thing... Well, I was just going to...
I knew that! But you need to be quick, my darling.
That's the thing I tried to explain to you.
But it was a sort of a test. Boomtown Rats!
Do you get points if you know the words to Alan's?
# Da-da da, da-da da, da da da da da! #
That's the words!
# Run away, run away with William Tell!
# Ring your bell and pedal like hell! #
Is that not...?
I like that you called it Alan's song, like he owns it now!
In the 1960s, it was the theme tune to The Lone Ranger,
and it was sort of a test to see where people were
kind of culturally.
Did you think that was the tune to William Tell,
or did you think it was the Lone Ranger theme?
So, what was the nationality of the first figure
to shoot an apple from their son's head?
Danish.
Yes! Yes! Yes!
Was it really? Yes!
I knew it was going to be Danish. I can just tell.
I get a feeling.
Like a little radioactive vibe emanates from a Dane!
When they're talking about another Dane, it's weird.
Was William Tell Danish?
No, but he wasn't the first person. William Tell was...
He was the third person to do it. No. The 12th person!
He was Swiss is what I was looking for.
So the very first person that we know of to do this was a Dane.
There was a guy called Saxo Grammaticus. That's him.
Yeah. There you go. Saxo Grammaticus.
Oh, Saxy! Saxy. Yeah.
And was he being forced into it, like William Tell,
or was it just like...? It wasn't him! ..a punishment?
He wrote a saga about it. Oh, right.
And the person he wrote about was called Palnatoke.
So he's contemporaneous with King Harald Bluetooth.
Is that him? He's very young.
Also, he used a bow and arrow, not like a crossbow? Yes.
So a bow and arrow. Absolutely right.
And he once said, after a few mugs of ale,
that shooting an apple off a stick didn't show much class.
So the king, Bluetooth, ordered this guy Palnatoke
to shoot an apple off his son's head.
So put the apple on the son's head.
And then he plucked three arrows from his quiver.
Then the king said, "Why did you take three arrows out?"
He said, "Well, I'll tell you in a second."
And he shoots the thing, hits the apple exactly.
And the king says, "The three arrows?"
And he says, "Well, the other two were to avenge my son
"against you in case I missed the apple on the head."
And people say iPads are bad for kids! Yeah.
It's not surprising that a Dane was one of the first great archers.
Some of the bows found in swamps in Denmark,
they're over 8,000 years old.
And Danish archers may also have used poison arrows.
They would have put mistletoe on the arrowheads.
Not remotely surprised.
Why mistletoe, though? Because it's...
Make it more romantic?
More poisonous.
Oh!
If you want to kill an auroch - do you want to kill an auroch?
I don't know what one is.
The Lord Of The Rings?
I know it only because I was in a schoolhouse.
We had oryx, kudus and elands.
So it's a kind of deer.
Well, close, it's a kind of cow.
It's an early kind of cow. OK.
Early cow? Yeah.
They're called calves.
Buffalo.
APPLAUSE
I'm only running the show.
They don't exist any more. They're gone. They're gone?
Yeah, 1627 last one died.
We saw some horses in a field.
No, we saw some cows in the field.
My little boy said, "Look at those funny cows," but they were horses.
But I can't remember if it was, "Look at those funny cows..."
..and they were horses or, "Look at those funny horses," and they were
cows. I think it was that.
Why don't you find out for real and then do it next week's show?
Yeah.
Just a thought.
So probably you're thinking of oryx.
O-R-Y-X.
Yeah, and it's not that, it's A-U-R-O-C-H.
So he was right, then. So... It was a deer,
not an early cow.
I'm going to give you a point for the misunderstanding. Wow!
I wish that worked in love.
Just generally.
Misunderstanding?
You get a point.
Not having a good time in the love department? Oh, no, it's dreadful.
Is it? I mean, what are you looking for?
We could put an ad out just now.
Looking for someone understanding and patient.
Oh, God!
Why? Why? Are you a dick?
I'm married, and I'm STILL on the lookout for that!
Absolutely no such thing as that... Doesn't exist. Doesn't exist.
I'm looking for an oryx.
Yes.
Another amazing art show was
an American music guy called Howard Hill.
He's considered to be the greatest archer in history.
He was also a stuntman.
Here he is teaching Errol Flynn,
and he even shot a prune
from a volunteer's head.
Was it a prune or did it just take him ages
and it eventually became a prune?
A bloke in Hollywood with a grape on his head
waiting to do the raisin shot.
The shocking part of that story is "from a volunteer's head".
That shows both understanding and patience.
Yes, you're right!
Would you have a prune shot from your head by an expert archer?
I would. You're the one for me.
That's a good question to ask.
What is it? Is it Tinder profile?
What is it? Is it swiping?
Which is it? Right to like someone?
I don't know, I'm married!
Why are you looking at me?! You're married.
Right is... Oh, you know. Yes. He knows.
I've got carpal tunnel.
I just say, "Yes, yes, yes."
"Yes, yes, yes, yes."
While crying and crying.
Are you patient?!
Do you understand me?!
I love being married. I think it's just the most marvellous thing.
Yeah, and me too... Lou.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
This presupposes, Rob,
that she'll bother to watch.
But her parents will.
The greatest female archer in British history
was undoubtedly Alice Lee.
She was the National Ladies' Champion 23 times.
She first won in 1881,
and then she lost in 1882
to her own mother.
Oh! I know!
Mams are awful. Just let her have ONE thing.
Yes, exactly.
OK, tell me this.
What use is a telepathic rabbit?
What kind of rabbit? Is it the animal.
Yes, it's a rabbit.
For the one you were thinking of,
I suppose it would know when to speed up,
when to slow down. Exactly.
Wouldn't it be amazing?
Ann Summers has gone psychic.
In my limited experience, women don't always want rampant.
They've got to be understanding and patient,
and you're rampant!
And battery-powered!
I don't think I've ever hit rampant. No, I've never hit rampant.
Just plugging away.
Rampant's far too...
I get to tiring quite early.
Tiring rabbit!
I'll have one of the tiring rabbits, please.
Slows down after two minutes.
When your batteries are low...
Anyway, it's too much.
But you know what happens when you book me. I know, I know.
And it's always a pleasure.
So... It's always a pleasure.
So this is a true story, but you sort of can't believe it.
So in the 1960s, the Soviets wanted a method to send emergency
communications to submerged submarines.
You have to imagine... Anybody know the film? Hunt For Red October.
You get that one. Hunt For Red October.
There's a lot of rabbits in that.
Yeah, there was no rabbit. We made that up.
If he's telepathic, why does he have to use a radio to talk to him,
when he's right in front of him?
I will explain.
Can you hear me, Rabbit?
So imagine you want to send a signal to the submarine,
not just communicate within the submarine.
When they're underwater, they cannot receive or indeed send
radio signals, so they turned to rabbits.
This is a genuine experiment.
The hypothesis was that the mother-newborn bond
existed as a sort of telepathic communication, right?
So they took a mother rabbit from her offspring and they put
electrodes on her brain and they placed her in a submarine.
This is a serious experiment.
And then they, on land, killed the baby. I know.
It's horrific. Oh, my God! Horrific.
What did the baby do?
It died.
Just saying, you know, I want to hear both sides of this story.
The idea is that the mother would be able to sense the baby's
distress and that changes to her brain would signal
to the submariners to surface and to radio home and receive instructions.
That's a genuine experiment.
But did they have to kill it?
Could they not have just made it do,
like, hard maths or something?
And it would be like, "Aargh!
"My baby's trying to do maths."
If you've got a claustrophobic rabbit... Yeah.
You'll just keep coming up.
Time to go up. Time to go to the surface.
I think they're all right in holes, aren't they, rabbits? I don't know
much about rabbits, but they don't mind a burrow, do they?
I think they don't mind. I think they're all right with that.
I think that's fair, Rob.
You don't get many rabbits at home going, "I can't be in here."
It's all a bit closed in!
It's all dark!
All dark, little tunnels everywhere. I'm a rabbit,
I can't live like this!
Do you believe in telepathy? Do you guys, anybody believe in it? Yeah.
So researchers at the University of Washington
and Carnegie Mellon University in 2018,
they demonstrated actual telepathy
while playing the game of Tetris.
They had two players wearing what's called EEG caps,
that's electroencephalography,
and they can detect electrical activity produced by their thoughts.
And so they watched a game happening and they simply thought
about what moves should be played, right?
Then there was a third player wearing the transcranial magnetic
stimulation cap and he received the thoughts
and then moved the pieces, despite not being able to see the screen,
and the experimenters reported
an 81% accuracy in the moves made.
Now, if it could point to a future
where there is brain-to-brain interfaces,
imagine the possibility of direct communication for people
who are deaf or in other ways impaired.
It would be incredible.
Yeah, that would be amazing,
but I don't want anyone knowing what's going on in here. Yeah.
The world would fall apart if people knew
all the deviant thoughts that...
That's just Twitter, isn't it?
That's exactly Twitter.
I can tell when my husband is about to talk.
I don't think that's telepathy, though.
It's a little breathing thing, I think.
I think that's what... You can hear him behind the tape. Yeah.
HE GROANS
What's that under the floorboards, Sarah?
He's genuinely decided to not say
the thing he was going to say... Right.
..because it wasn't worth it... No.
..but because I've gone, "What were you going to say?"
He has to say it and I go, "Why did you say that?"
He goes, "I WASN'T going to say it, and you made me say it."
That's where MY marriage is at.
Yes.
Is it telepathy when you know you need a poo?
It would be telepathy if YOU knew that Sarah needed a poo.
Yeah.
It would depend how far you were from your own arse. So the whole...
Roughly the same distance. Yes.
But tall people might be further.
So telepathy...
We'd call it TELOOPATHY anyway. What? Teloopathy.
Teloopathy. That's a fair point.
Hang on, I got a little bit of teloopathy happening.
Where's your toilet?
But if you know you need a poo later,
that's precognition.
If you could time it... OK, stop!
That would be like if you just had Weetabix.
Is Weetabix, like, instant like that?
No, no, it's you know you're going to have one later,
and it's going to be decent.
Am I wrong?
Am I wrong? No!
I was at boarding school and one of our matrons,
she was a cow, she...
Or was it a horse?
She had Weetabix with jam on it.
Oh, what a nutter. And she'd just chew it? Yeah.
You've got more chance of building a house with that, than eating it.
Telepathy has finally become a reality.
Wow, Alan, that's disgusting.
From telepathy to telescopes,
why do astronomers hate Alan?
What?
What? Is Alan a cloud?
Ooh, we're sort of heading in the...
Hello! Oh! I thought it was THIS Alan.
The most annoying Alan I know is allen key, when you're trying
to put something together, the Allen key.
Oh, the Allen key. I thought you meant a bloke called Alan Key.
He invented it. He WOULD be very annoying, wouldn't he?
Some bloke comes round every time you buy something from IKEA.
"Hello, I'm Alan Key. Can I help?"
So it is an acronym. So...
ALL: Oh!
Is it something to do with the sky?
You're so quick. Yes!
It's artificial...
Low something.
Artificial light at night.
It's a huge problem for astronomers.
And that means that telescopes for astronomers have to be placed
somewhere away from cities
and one of the largest telescopes ever used in the UK
is the Isaac Newton, about two and a half metres,
this telescope, and was moved to La Palma in the Canary Islands in 1979.
You can get an app on your phone now, tells you where everything is.
My first holiday with my now husband
he pointed out things and I thought he knows a bit about it
and I only know a few things.
ALAN GROANS
No, no, he was...
He was allowed to talk then, Alan.
And he said, "There's Orion." And I thought, "I know that one."
Then he said, "There's the North Star." I know that one.
Then he said, "There's the plough."
And I thought, That's me done now, everything else is learning."
And he stood for ages and then he went, "There's another plough."
And I was like, "He doesn't know any more than I do!"
I saw the Northern Lights in Iceland
and it's better on Google.
The cameras are so advanced now,
they're seeing more than my eyes can.
This old bloke showed me his camera. It was amazing.
I thought, "Why don't I just send him and look at it in the morning?"
What's the point?!
It's the adventure of it.
It was cold and dark.
We thought we saw the Northern Lights.
We're driving through Northumberland where there's not a lot of Alan.
Yeah.
And there's green and purple.
I'm going, "Wow, look, the Northern Lights, this is amazing."
And it turned out it was a nightclub
in Newcastle doing lasers.
The thing about light pollution,
it has a devastating effect on animals.
So birds, for example, that migrate at night, they usually navigate
by moonlight and starlight, and that can put them off course.
And it's sad as well because turtle hatchlings,
if there's too much light beside the seashore, they get confused
because they're guided by the reflection of the moon, stars
and water and they go the wrong way.
Idiots.
But why don't the turtle mums lay the eggs a bit nearer the sea?
It's always right at the end of the beach.
Why are you always blaming the women, Rob?!
Why don't they just go to the maternity ward? Yeah.
Just lay them in the sea.
Why don't they just lay them where they want to,
and the man turtle move them along?
Where the hell are YOU in all this?! I'D move it.
If I was a man turtle, I'd move it.
"If I was a man turtle, I'd MOVE IT!"
There's a special thing about the Essex village
of Theydon Bois.
Does anybody know what it is?
They don't have any street lights. Yes.
They don't have street lights at all.
They decided against street lights when they were offered them in 1926.
And since then, they've had numerous referenda
to decide whether or not they're going to have them.
And each time they have voted to keep Alan out.
Wow. True. My Uncle Pat lived there.
We used to go there for Sunday lunch. It's terribly nice.
That up there, that's the golf... that's the golf course.
I didn't know WHAT that was! No.
All those sand bunkers! I know.
And they're houses. Yeah.
I'm just looking to see if there's any "cows".
They used to have funny-looking cows at the end of their garden.
Who did? My aunt and uncle.
When you say funny-looking...
Horses. Horses?
Right. Which are the most interesting tales of the sea?
I would have said mermaids.
Because you're like, oh, a human with fish at the bottom.
It's just, I don't know where this mythology came from.
It's fascinating. So I'm not talking about stories.
I'm talking about a different kind of TALE.
Oh. Oh! Ahh!
T-A-I-L. What I nearly said was,
what's that fish that's shaped like a horse?
Do you mean a seahorse?
Sea cows?
It's like a funny cow fish. Yeah.
In the aquarium in London,
they have them in a long tube and they just go up and down.
My mum didn't think they were real.? What did she think...
She thought they were some sort of magical Disney character.
And then we went to the London Aquarium, saw a seahorse,
and lost her mind.
It's like the equivalent of going to London Zoo and seeing a Shrek.
We were like, yeah, it's a seahorse. And she was like,
"No!" I went, yeah, they're things!
Is that her introduction to the natural world, through Disney?
Yeah, pretty much, when you grow up in Abbey Wood.
But they hang on to things with their tails.
That's what came to mind.
They do, darling, and there are lots of amazing things that
sea creatures can do with their tails that maybe we didn't know.
So humpback whales, for example, talk to each other
by slapping their tails onto the water.
So a single whale sometimes jumps clear out of the water
and slams its body down like that.
It does it when it's approaching a large group.
And the large group tends to do smaller repetitive tail slaps
just before a new whale joins the group.
So when you say single, you mean one on its own, not...
Yeah. Sorry, I was just thinking, for you.
Just looking out for me.
I'm not picky, I'll take a whale.
They also slap more often when the wind picks up.
And I guess it's probably because... I'm the same.
So what's fascinating is that most likely they could be passing on
information related to migration, to breeding, to feeding.
This is not something I ever thought I'd say out loud,
but humpbacks also slap their bodies on the water
to dislodge pubic lice,
which can grow alongside barnacles on their genital slit.
Wow. Whoa.
That is more likely.
How big are whale pubic lice?
They're probably like this gigantic... As big as you, Daliso.
As big as me.
One of them could be good for you.
"He's dating a pubic lice!"
Whales, they can talk to one another.
They can communicate over vast distances. Yeah, they're amazing.
Why do we assume that when one slaps its tail in the water,
that's a conversation? He's clearly shaking his lice off.
But it feels like gossip, doesn't it?
It feels like they were chatting to each other... Come here...
..like, "Oh, see her over there?
"She's getting rid of her pubic lice."
Are they just cleaning themselves up to meet a new group,
like, you know, like a sink wash at the end of a day?
Yeah.
GROANING What are you putting in the sink?!
I knew that was a risk on this show.
Find the line. And the line is, washing your cock in a sink.
Do you remember there was a 1990s fashion, Sarah, for a whale tail?
Do you remember what a whale tail was?
I sort of sidestep all fashion, but sure.
Yeah. It's showing your knickers above your jeans. There we are.
Oh, is that what it's called?
My knickers don't look like that, Sandi!
Mine are sometimes tucked in my bra, sure. But it doesn't...
..doesn't look like that.
If it goes any lower, you'll show your blowhole. That's...
Oh! Oh-ho-ho!
If it's thin that down the back, is it thin like that down the front?
In my experience, I'd say it's a mixed bag.
It's all different.
Sorry, did you call it a mixed bag? It's a mixed bag.
It's all different.
Um... Let's go back to fish tails.
What does this animal use its tail for?
Wow. Oh, wow. Yeah.
That bird, though, that's not...
The horrible thing is, that's been dropped.
Oh!
This is called a thresher shark. And it's astonishing.
It hunts with its tail, which makes up half its body, OK?
And it actually accelerates towards a shoal of fish.
It then lowers its snout and flips its tail over its head
at speeds of up to 80mph.
And it not only tries to hit the fish, but it creates shock waves
to knock unconscious any fish that it misses.
It's incredible.
I can't even peel a satsuma while I'm driving at 70mph.
Just big orange thumb where you've been trying.
This fish is called a dusky frillgoby. Hello!
Those are very kissable lips, I think. They're nice!
That's just a very apologetic face.
Yeah. "I've just done something."
Yeah. He's going, "Excuse me. I've got a contact lens.
"Can you see it anywhere?"
So this is a dusky frillgoby.
It uses its tail to sweep something away.
What do you think it might be?
The sand at the bottom of the sea?
No, it's not sand. So this fish found in
the coastal waters of the Indian and Pacific oceans.
Litter.
Getting rid of rubbish?
Yes. Well, it's what they consider to be rubbish.
So heading in the right direction.
When mating, a female lays her eggs in a nest
and the male then spawns over the top of them. Right?
And then he just walks away.
He does.
He does, because he doesn't do childcare.
Anyway, there are what are known as sneaker male frillgobies,
and they lie in wait.
They are smaller but with larger testicles.
It's an important detail.
One for your profile. Yeah.
Smaller with larger testicles.
Looking for someone patient and understanding!
So anyway, so these sneaky ones, the smaller ones,
they will sneak onto the nest
and ejaculate their own sperm over the eggs.
But if the original male notices, he will chase the sneaker away
from the nest and use his tail, so it's like a brush,
to sweep the sperm of the other.
Oh, God. It's like a biscuit at boarding school, this.
GROANING
Now, here's another quick tale of derring-do.
What's the most heroic thing ever to happen in Argos?
Ooh! Ah, what?
The president of Gambia... Yes.
He used to be a security guard at Argos.
Well, that's wonderful!
That's fantastic, isn't it? Yes.
I imagine when he was elected, they didn't write names.
They just wrote down numbers.
So was he massively overqualified for Argos,
or really underqualified...
I am actually talking about the city of Argos.
Is the country of Argos like the shop,
where it's inside the country of Sainsbury's sometimes?
There is a city called Argos... City, sorry.
It is the oldest continuously inhabited city in Europe.
Stop it! Yeah, it is in the Peloponnese.
Do you know where that is? Nah, what's going on?
So this is a marvellous story. It's the story of Telesilla.
So she's an ancient Greek poet.
We're talking around 500 BC.
The Spartans were advancing on the city of Argos
and they had defeated the Argivian army.
So if you're from Argos, you are Argivian. If you go shopping,
you could say "I'm going to do some Argivian shopping." OK?
And Telesilla decided to create a makeshift Dad's Army.
Actually, it was more of a Mum's Army.
She dressed all of the townswomen in men's clothes,
she gave them makeshift weapons,
and she stood them on the walls of the city
alongside all the young boys and the old men too old to fight.
The Spartans arrived thinking it's going to be an undefended city.
But they were forced to halt in front of this huge
women's battalion. And they tried making chilling battle cries
to intimidate them and so on, but the women stood firm
and the Spartans realised that they might lose.
And then, even if they did win,
who wants to win against a whole mass of women?
And so they retreated.
And Argos celebrated with an annual festival
where all the women dressed in men's clothing.
I think it's a wonderful story.
So the store name Argos comes from that very Greek city.
I know this, it's because they all had tiny little swords.
That's why they have little pens in Argos.
These little swords.
Isn't it disappointing they don't have little pens any more?
It's all... I know. It's all digital these days.
The glory days of the pen. They don't even have the catalogue.
Do you think they shaved their armpits?
What I like is the detail that you are focused on...
We've got that recycling food bin.
One hand in the air.
This is not how you make a speech.
It's very distracting.
Going, "Has anyone seen my other leg?"
"It's behind you." "What?"
So the store name comes from the Greek city.
The guy who founded it, Richard Tompkins, was holidaying there
and he was trying to think of a name and he realised
if he called it Argos, it would be really high up in the alphabet.
Should have called it Aardvark.
But we no longer have the great catalogues.
2021, they went. I do like,
in 2018, when Alan Carr was on Desert Island Discs,
he chose the Argos catalogue as his book. Did he?!
I used to cut all the stuff out for Christmas.
That was how you did your Christmas list.
What, you just cut them out, and instead of presents, you got just...
We'd cut them out and stick it on the letter to Father Christmas.
Did you? Yeah. Could you not just write a list, darling?
Seems like a lot of work.
Well, yeah, I've got to learn to write, then, haven't you?
Seemed like a lot of hassle.
Anyway, moving on, now...
Why would a telephone company ask their customers
NOT to use the phone?
Well, nowadays, the phone is just a relic in your flat
because we're all on mobile.
But you still have the physical phone.
I don't have a landline.
I once had to do an interview on it and it's so awkward.
I had to lie on the floor because it's just there.
I don't know why it's there. Pick it up, can you?
But it doesn't ring!
No wonder you're struggling with dating.
"Hello, do you want to go for a drink?"
Well, then when he has a drink,
it's just he has to get down to it.
You know they're going to phase them out?
What?! The landline. They're going to phase it out.
I haven't got a landline.
You've said that, Rob. We ignored it the first time.
Tell us one of your dreams.
Do you know, when I was a child,
we had a small holiday home in rural Denmark,
and our telephone number was 5.
And if you wanted to ring Copenhagen,
you had to book three days in advance. No. Yeah. Wow.
Have I told you? I haven't got a landline.
Have you?
Do you have a mobile? No.
I just sort of...just wait.
See what happens.
Do you just get it telepathically?
I sometimes... "Everybody needs a poo."
Anyway, the question was, "Why...? - a long time ago -
"Why would a telephone company ask customers not to use the phone?"
Is it something to do with the phone box in the picture?
No, that's... So...because people
always have to have a wee, as well, don't they?
Cos they go in for a wee, and they're like,
"Might as well ring somebody."
For a wee? Oh, yeah.
They always... Well, somebody has,
cos if you go in one, they always smell very strongly.
They smell. That's true.
Superman, I feel sorry for.
They should just be connected directly to the sewers.
Yeah. Just have a drain in the bottom of them. Yeah, yeah.
I once went into a phone box, and I held the phone up at my ear,
and when I pulled it back,
somebody had squashed half a mince pie into the... No!
GROANING
Yeah? THAT was a lucky find!
Was it Christmas?
Not that kind of mince pie.
Like, proper mince. Proper mince? Yeah.
Beef? Yeah, gravy and everything.
Er, uh, uh, uh.
Imagine the angry phone call.
Just rubbing a pie into the phone.
"Don't you shove that pasty in my ear!
"Don't you dare shove that pasty in my ear!"
We are talking about the Spanish flu outbreak in the 1910s.
And what happened was telephones became such a crutch
for the isolating population that when operators started
to get sick as well, the whole system began to creak.
Up until then, lots of US phone companies, for example,
had encouraged people to chat, and people were encouraged
not to go to the shops, but to order by telephone.
That had never been done before. That was brand-new.
Some kids received their education via the telephone,
and people were even encouraged - love this - to ring their local
newspaper to get the news of what was going on.
And the phone system, then, was operated manually
by...entirely by women, actually.
And when they started to get sick,
there was nobody there to connect the calls.
And so, they sent out cards, and even they had newspaper ads,
saying, "Please don't use the phone
"because the system simply can't cope with it."
Now, here's something incredible about telecommunications.
When he was on campaign,
Napoleon had a mobile device that could send text messages.
How do you think that worked?
Did he have a long line of people who just passed it down?
SARAH LAUGHS
all the way along? Well... OK, so...
..so, you are heading... Stop it. Stop it.
A point? Stop it. Am I sniffing around a point?
It's like having a Labrador on the show. Yeah.
OK, it is to do with a line of something.
Did he...? He'd watched whales, so he got the tail of his jacket,
and he flapped it.
And everybody in the army all flapped it,
and the message went. Did he just write on a bit of paper,
"I need a poo," and then pass it along?
Was it flags? Whack up a flag. Pass on the message.
Another flag, another flag, all the way home.
OK, I am going to give you a point,
cos that's as close as we're going to get, I think. Wow!
Yes! Yes! Yes! CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
The Labrador's in!
Come on. As early as 1791,
France had means of sending messages across the country,
and they used a system called optical telegraph.
So, giant wooden towers with long arms,
and at the height of the optical telegraph's popularity,
there were 556 towers across France.
So, on a clear day, you could send messages 75 miles per minute.
So, basically, each one had an operator who moved the arms
to represent a letter, and then the person at the next tower
would spy the symbol through a telescope
and then relay the message on to the next tower.
But what's amazing, Napoleon took a small version of this system
with him on his invasion of Russia,
and it meant that he basically owned a mobile device
that could send text messages.
Wow. I mean, it is astonishing, really.
And the arms of the telegraph, in that instance, the mobile one,
were attached to the tent in the camp.
I have to say, it had limited practical use.
You'd need hundreds of manned stations
if you're going to send a message from Moscow to Paris, or whatever.
And apart from the sketches,
we don't have much evidence that it was used.
But I still think it's amazing.
The first two optical telegraphs, they were invented by an engineer
called Claude Chappe,
there he is, trialled at the Place de l'Etoile in Paris.
They were destroyed by angry mobs who thought they were communicating
with royalist sympathisers.
Like the first 5G tower.
Exactly. Exactly like that, darling.
I don't know if it's an urban legend...
OK, go for it. I'm probably at the right place to find out.
Did Napoleon also invent mayonnaise?
Er...
There we go. This is what I'm here for.
I'm afraid that is an urban myth.
But he certainly was very concerned about food.
But mayonnaise, no. Oh. I'm going to go no.
SARAH: Maybe it's all the messages, "I've invented mayonnaise!
"Tell them."
Cos he was trying to make horseradish.
Cow radish.
Silly cow radish, yeah. Silly cow radish.
Now, it's time for the tall tales that we call general ignorance.
Fingers on buzzers, please.
Who won the last battle of the Napoleonic Wars?
# Tell her... #
Wellington?
KLAXON
Wasn't it Duke of Wellington won the Battle of Waterloo?
Yes, that is correct.
But it wasn't the last battle.
Oh, no. Oh, no, Daliso. How embarrassing.
You're never going to get a partner now. No.
I think, Daliso, that even Napoleon
looks embarrassed by your answer, doesn't he? He's like... Yeah.
"Oh, I can't believe he said that."
Was his last battle with himself?
Oh, wow. Deep.
The final battle of the Napoleonic Wars
was something called the Battle of Wavre.
So, French reinforcements were on their way to Waterloo,
which they didn't even know had already ended.
And the Prussians tried to stop them,
and the French technically won the battle.
But by then, since Napoleon had already retreated,
there was no need for any soldiers to advance.
And contrary to what Abba claim...
..where I get my history from,
Napoleon did not surrender at Waterloo.
What?! In fact, he's still... Yeah, he still... I know.
I've had a word with Bjorn about it. LAUGHTER
No, Napoleon did not surrender at Waterloo.
He retreated to Paris to rally support for a counterattack,
but he wasn't able to get the support.
And then, in the end, he boarded the HMS Bellerophon and headed
for St Helena and exile.
When the Temperance Movement was formed, what did they want to ban?
Well, I'm going to say booze, Sandi.
Yeah.
The answer is nothing. They didn't want to ban anything at all.
Didn't want to ban anything. Oh. No, it began in the 1820s,
and the whole idea was that they didn't want to ban alcohol,
they just wanted people to temper their alcohol. Oh.
So, it was booze, then? Well, they didn't want you to...
They were fine with things like beer.
Yes, booze.
Yes.
They just wanted you to drink less, not ban it.
Drink less what, Sandi? Er...
LAUGHTER
Just booze, was it? It was just booze.
You know what you're driving me to here, don't you?
Anyway, the whole thing about the Temperance Movement,
it was very much taken up in the United States
as a sort of proto-feminist issue, because women were seen
as bearing the brunt of the problem of male drunkenness.
And the Women's Christian Temperance Union,
they adopted the mantra,
"The lips that touch liquor shall never touch mine."
DALISO: That picture does not make you want to drink the liquor.
"Say cheese."
"No."
Have they had the drink or not had the drink?
Which one do you like the look of, Daliso?
Yeah.
If I had to...if I had to... Look at that as a picture
of patience and understanding. If I had to, there is...
Yeah. The lady at the centre, with the hat.
Yeah, she's got something.
I like Griff Rhys Jones next to her.
LAUGHTER
This is probably a short film parody.
Oh, so that's not the original? Yeah.
And I would guess there's a lot of men dressed up as women.
It was called the Kansas Saloon Smashers.
It was a satire of an activist called Carrie Nation.
She was a woman who went round bars and smashed them up with an axe,
and it still had an effect.
I was having dinner in a very nice restaurant in Maine,
and the woman said, "Can I help you?"
I said, "Well, first, we'd like to see the wine list."
And she said, "Honey, we're dry for 30 miles."
And there are still counties in Maine where there is no drinking
because of Carrie Nation -
30 miles to the nearest liquor store.
I managed it there and back in 40 minutes. Well done.
LAUGHTER
There are some very strange places where you can't drink.
So, Jack Daniel's, very, very famous drink from Tennessee,
you can't drink it in Lynchburg, where it's made.
Oh. I know. It's just weird.
There are still what are known as alcohol restrictive counties
in the United States. Oh, I thought it was just
you couldn't drink Jack Daniel's,
but you could get plastered on everything else.
Now, which is the world's longest animal?
Oh. # Tell me why... #
The Loch Ness Monster.
We hadn't even thought of that.
Well, I think you need a new guy on the firm.
Yeah.
# Tell me why... #
I'm going to get a thingy, but is it a blue whale?
KLAXON
Oh, for God's sake, Sarah.
At least mine exists! Thanks for taking that one for the team.
Giraffe. Is it a jellyfish?
Is it...? Did you say jellyfish? Yeah. I said giraffe.
KLAXON
So, series A, which is 20 years ago, on QI,
the lion's mane jellyfish was indeed the longest.
Yeah, I remember. Cos it's got tentacles that go on for miles.
But we keep discovering new things.
So, in series C, it was the bootlace worm.
But in 2020... Drum roll.
Let's have a drum roll. OK, here we go. Dog.
A new siphonophore was found in the deep ocean,
off the coast of Australia, that is...
..120m long. Woo! Ooh.
WHOOPING AND APPLAUSE
A siphonophore? Thought that was a brass instrument.
One of the big, massive ones. Always got backache on the Tube.
How much does length really matter?
This is why you're single.
Don't put that on your profile.
Basically, it's a long string of thousands of smaller
creatures called zoids, and their only job is to keep
the larger creature alive,
and some of them propel it along,
and some might feed the other animal,
others act like the gonads, and so on.
And they can't live on their own, which is why the large collection
is seen as an individual, OK?
A sophinophore? A what?
Siphonophore. Yeah.
It was in Lord Of The Rings.
Lots and lots of little creatures,
but because they can't live as individuals,
they are seen together as a single.
Like Tottenham supporters. So, like...
Can't survive on their own. "Uh!"
A siphonophore.
What I like is they're found along the coast of Australia
and New Zealand, and the locals call them
long, stringy, stringy thingies. LAUGHTER
So, cos they're all lots of different things, all together,
they make one. Yeah.
Two blue whales mating -
what are we talking about now, then?
If that went over 120m, is that a thing?
Cos there's two together? Yeah, I don't think
whales mate end to end, that's the thing.
What about, like, a whale human centipede?
I think that... I didn't want to bring it up
because of the dick-in-the-sink stuff earlier,
but that's a fair shout. Thanks.
Five blue whales banging - how long are we talking?
Blue whale orgy? Yeah.
Do you know what? It's been my great first and last appearance.
LAUGHTER
Just got to imagine all these going, "Left a bit. Left a bit.
"Right a bit. Where you going?
"Where we going now? Where we going now? Where we going now?"
"Ask the ones down the fr..." "Where we going now?
"I can't function on my own."
Like a big conga.
# Ay, ay, ay, ay, musi... #
Actually, not necessarily funny, but, accurately, humans,
we cannot exist alone.
So, actually, all of us together beat that. You could if you...
..if you lived alone
in a branch of Asda.
Yeah.
Survive for years, just grazing.
Yeah.
You know, you're allowed to graze in a supermarket.
You can eat as much as you want,
as long as you haven't left.
I used to eat kilos of Bombay mix in Safeway's.
LAUGHTER
All of which, plumbing the depths, leaves us staring at the abyss
of the scores.
In last place, a bit of a wreck with -27.
Wow, that is bad. It's Alan!
Oh, what?! CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
In third place, sailing close to the wind at times, with -12,
it's Daliso!
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
In second place, barely keeping her head above water
with -9, it's Sarah!
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
And our winner, who had a blue whale of a time,
with four whole points, it's Rob! What?!
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
So, it's thanks to Sarah, Rob, Daliso and Alan,
and I leave you with a thought from the brilliant Mark Twain.
"Why shouldn't truth be stranger than fiction?
"Fiction, after all, has to make sense."
Thank you and goodnight.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE