Good evening tonight's episode of QI is even more ridiculous than usual partly because
Ridiculous is our theme and partly because we're filming in March 2020 without an audience because of the corona virus outbreak
So bear with us as we bring you a show replete with ridiculous riddles
Ridiculous episode of QI Walsh, Posterous Maisie Adam
Um
The ludicrous david mitchell
And no, but seriously alan davison their buzzers are a right laugh holly goes
And macy goes
Uh david goes
And alan goes
Extra point who's that jimmy car
Is that a fox on heat no point in saying anything amusing there's no one to hear it
Jimmy car that's the factual
Get an extra point. Thank you
Uh, what is the funny thing about not having an audience?
That exact noise that noise that silence. I mean, it's a sort of interesting experiment
I mean i've definitely done shows in the edinburgh fringe where this would count as quite a good audience
Yes, there's nearly 10 of them and you know
Only some of them are part of the team
I did the smallest audience i've ever paid to I did a gig once in which uh, my mother-in-law turned up
Oh god, just your mother just my mother-in-law. No, i'm sure that wasn't an intervention. I said
Sandy's still calling it a gig
What's the smallest gig you've ever played? Oh, it was probably a preview just before edinburgh and then
My flatmate from uni hazel turned up
And it was just her and then these two guys had come to exit flyer my show
But obviously my audience was just hazel. Yeah, and well hazel went home with about 40 flyers for a show
Yeah, and both the guys. Yeah. Yeah both guys. It was a great night for hazel
This does have the feel of like, you know when you used to put a play on for your mom and dad in the front room
Yeah, it does sort of feel a bit like that only to really you have david mitchell
Yeah, yeah
So there is canned laughter, but not for us
We never use it on the qi. Um, but laugh tracks for tv shows were first created in 1950
And there was an american sound engineer called charlie douglas and he invented what is called a laugh box la
Double f and it was just loads of different laughs that you could use if you weren't recording in front of a live audience
We're still not there and without wishing to blow my own trumpet because it was only one of a team of contributors
But I had a radio show in the late 90s
And we were so funny
But the people at bbc comedy said we can use those laughs on nearly every other program we make and sell them on
Sell them on
You've been feeding off that laughter bank. That was the best compliment I ever had in my whole career
We've kept your laughs and we use them on other shows. There's real joy in those laughs
That will that'll save a load of programs. I think most of them were for kevin elden
Thank god
But this guy charlie douglas he monopolized the hollywood laugh track market
And apparently there was a limited number of laughs and you could recognize them
They came up repeatedly the same laughs over and over again. Some people don't like it
But the research suggests it works in principle the ucl's institute of cognitive neuroscience
They expose people to a list of deliberately weak dad jokes. So they ran the jokes with no laugh at all
They ran them with a recording of being told to laugh at nothing in particular
So a fake laugh and then with another recording of people who were genuinely laughing
So a real laugh and the ones with the real laughs rated higher than the fake ones
And even the fake ones rated higher than the no laugh. So we're going to have an experiment now
So i'm going to tell you the actual joke that the researchers used and we'll try it with and without a laugh track
Okay, so what do you call a sleeping dinosaur?
I don't know
a dino snore
Wow
Okay, uh, I think it might have been the delivery. Do you think it was my fault?
Okay, we should have got a professional comedian. I shouldn't if only I could have found somebody who can tell a joke
It's not fair to do in front of comedians because I don't know about you
But i'm just so hardened to watching comedians say jokes so someone could do the best joke in the world
And i'm like, yeah, that's great. Yeah, no i've lost all sense of joy in comedy. Yes
Most of my fans, yes
But uh, but that would be a great way of testing comic delivery because there's virtually no
Humor in the joke yet. It is a joke people know where they're supposed to laugh. Yeah, you've got a terrible joke, though
Well, it's yeah, I do have a this is a joke I tell sometimes for radio recordings
Um, I didn't even think of it and and the amount of thought that goes into it is so small
But it is not mine. The joke is
What's a ghost's favorite country?
Uh, what is a ghost's favorite country france?
All right did better than dinos nor did way better than dinos
Okay
I think I was more laughing at david's pure commitment to the I think that's it
It's the way he tells us delivered yours like I know this is bad
But it's for the experiment yours was this can work by willing it to work
Okay, let's try my joke with a laugh track, okay if that goes better
What do you call a sleeping dinosaur?
I don't know a dino snore
It's like we're an american sitcom. Yeah, david. Let's try your joke with a laugh track. Okay, go ahead
What's a ghost's favorite country? I don't know
People just love the whole vibe of it
It's like the best of ronnie corbett you get laughs on the way
This is what i'm talking about women are not as funny as men
Um, we did have a complaint last year from a viewer about canned laughter
Which we do not use as you can hear
And there wasn't any and we investigated the confusion about why this woman was so upset and it turned out
She didn't like the sound of jimmy car's laugh
Really? I know it was his girlfriend
um
In argentina, they have teams of professional laughers
Arredores who are employed to go to television recordings and laugh
That's quite common though. That's an old tradition. What's the actual tradition? This is called a clack
Which is a french word
So if you open a play or an opera or something there'll be people scattered around who would encourage
Really know when to laugh or when to cry or you know cry
Yeah, because it's like you don't understand the opera. You don't know when it's getting sad. So if people are around you go
Things like that i'd be good at it
I'll do that on ferries
We're too close
Apparently we're too close
Just yeah, it's so vicarious. Otherwise ferry journeys can be boring. Really boring last time I was on a ferry
I was 45 minutes queuing with a tray for the worst meal of my life
And if someone had been causing a panic because we were too near a tanker. Yeah
Or the government going such a long wait and yet so disgusting
People who'd eaten could be going don't bother
Look out the window
The island wide is 10 minutes away. Just wait
I'm now thinking back to every show i've seen though where people have cried in it and wondered
If they were where they moved
Yeah, you know those like edinburgh shows where they're funny but about 40 minutes in there's a really hard-hitting moment
And people I hate I went to go and see one and everyone around me was crying
And now I think were they a plant were they the equivalent of canned laughter?
No, because you don't need it because people are very suggestive and let's be honest
There isn't canned laughter used in british television and it sometimes gets accused of it and it's very very annoying
To those of us who feel that we've elicited a genuine laugh
But the truth is we've elicited a genuine laugh from people who've come along excited
It was free and they want to be helpful
Yeah, so they they know they're supposed to laugh it's a british manner people are nice
So they said well, that was really ill-tempered exactly that was clearly meant to amuse me
I'm not going to sit around working out whether it actually did i'm going to make the required noise
And that's what they reliably do and god bless them
There is an interesting thing though
There's a guy who's the world's leading expert on laughter which is sort of interesting job a guy called robert provine
And he found that we are 30 times more likely to laugh when we're in company, uh than we are on our own
Oh, that's definitely true. I can watch like films or tv shows that I find genuinely hilarious
But if i'm on my own like nothing will come out also that inverse is true
Because you are probably 30 times more likely to cry on your own than you are in company. Yes
That is true. I made myself laugh so hard the other day
Did you hold? Yeah, because I did I did a fart and it sounded like it sounded like somebody was calling
Like out my name as though they were dying like
Holly like that. It was the funniest part i've ever done in my life. I once did a poo that made me cry
Maisie i'm really sorry cry for ages. Maisie's new to the show. Feel free to join in
Maisie have you ever pooed and cried at the same time?
I feel like when I know i'll know yeah, yeah, I'll look forward to it. It's like love
Yeah, i'll text you all when it happens you might cry out as well
Just hear canned laughter over it as well. I think farts are funny
But I don't find my own funny and I don't know if that's a failure as a comedian
No, it's just a failure of timing. It's a failure of timing. Sorry. It's a failure of
Extra point to david
Failure of timing. Yeah, I don't find my farts funny because I don't fart
What that's not true there's almost a continual release of gas. It's not what you would call a fart. It's a wit
I'm gonna it's an emission a constant emission. I don't fart and I think it's a worry
I I think that is a worry. Yes
I don't let gas out. Are you able to dive to the bottom of swimming pool or you just constantly floating?
No, I think what's gonna happen is that one day something will ping like that and i'll just float around backwards out
Oh one day you're gonna fart. Oh my god. I hope it's not in isolation
You know what if you if you're gonna go what a way to go, I know just go flying back around the room
Um laughter you return to denmark like a salmon
Where does she learn denmark, of course
Anyway salmon would go to norway. That doesn't matter a sleeping dinosaur is a dino snore
And anyone who finds that funny must be having a laugh
Oh, I like the applause the applause is good. That was nice
Here's a
Riddle iculus question
Why is a raven like a writing desk? That's a quote, isn't it? It is from what I think it sounds sort of lewis carroll or something
It is lewis carolley. So where are we going lewis carroll narnia alice's adventures in wonderland who did narnia?
C.s lewis. Yeah, I always get them two mixed up as well. Yeah, and lewis collins. I'll get mixed up
Alice in wonderland narnia and the professional
Are those your three cultural goats? Well, I think if I was to self-isolate for three months, it wouldn't be a bad start
Uh, so it's a question that the mad hatter poses in alice's adventures in wonderland
Why is a raven like a writing desk?
And it wasn't originally meant to have an answer and then in a later edition carroll included this note
I may as well put on record here
What seems to me to be a fairly appropriate answer because it can produce a few notes
Though they are very flat and it is never put with the wrong end
front
So what happened was it was supposed to be an internal joke because look at the way he spelt never
He spelt it like that, which is
backwards is
Raven but the publishers
Incorrectly corrected the spelling so the joke was completely missed and in fact nobody noticed the error until 1976
But it's a meta riddle. It doesn't mean anything. I mean, is that really a riddle?
It's just a stupid thing. You just find it annoying. Yeah, it's just like too smart
There was a very popular one in the 1890s. When is a mouse if it spins?
To which the answer was because the higher it gets the fewer
I mean, they're just ridiculous. They don't really particularly this is the sort of humor that develops in non studio audience conditions. Yes
One time lewis collins and martin shaw were on a stakeout in a hotel room
And you could hear the professionals theme being played very very slowly on
A heavy brass instrument think possibly a tuba
So it was going
And then martin shaw went to the window
To look out like that
And if there'd been a man there with a tube, yeah would have been the funniest thing that had ever happened on itv
And I know that's not a high bar
But as it was they didn't even cut to the outside
So we never knew if there was someone with a tuba and judging by his reaction i'd say there wasn't that would have been great
Joke would have been a great joke, especially if lewis collins had said I hate the tuba
Yeah, or something and then it had a cigarette
Tonally would it have been right for the professional? Oh, that's the question
No, no
earlier on he'd been in a capri and on a date with a young woman and they'd got a call to say
this is urgent terrorism
And he just dropped her off at a bus stop
Yeah, he didn't even run her home when it's your next big birthday
I think we should all club together and film
You playing a tuba and cut it in. Yeah
Whenever it goes out on gold or whatever
It'll or everyone will be like what it could totally supersede the original cut of that epitaph. Yeah
Like with blade runner, it's impossible to get the non-directors cut the version without alan dave
Playing a tuba 40 years later. Yeah, it's no longer. Yeah, it'll make people furious
Yeah, and in fact, they'll want to see where's the guy with the tuba. He should crop up in everywhere
There will be an opportunity
It's like where's wally in 70s tv shows, but it's always
I don't think you need a tubing just make that funny noise
Um most famous riddle of all must be the riddle of the sphinx which is in edipus rex
Does anybody know what the riddle is?
Is
Walks on four legs in the morning
Is that right what has four legs in the morning two legs at noon and three legs in the evening?
To which richard osmond has suggested a poorly organized dance match
But you needed to get it right because the sphinx would strangle and eat anybody who couldn't answer it correctly
There's some pressure. Yeah, I think what if you were like, I don't care. It'd just eat you
Yeah
What is it then man who crawls on all fours as a baby then walks on two feet as an adult and then uses a
walking stick in old age
There's always like more than one answer though to every riddle, isn't there?
Like the one that goes i'm tall when young
And i'm short when i'm old
What am I? Yeah, what? Well, it's a candle
But it could also be like my auntie sue. You're right
Like also what happens is you get the answer and you think I can't believe I paid attention for that long
Because I don't care it gets really in your head and then the payoff is so very little
You really need the extra not being eaten by the sphinx. Yeah
You need to be pressured into thinking i'm gonna shit myself if I don't get this right
Yes, or like so you'd be you'd be fine because you don't pass wind
No, no nothing. You'd be you'd be fine. You could just go. Well, I mean that's the reason itself, isn't it?
Does you be your way off never not funny
Sandy
And now for a really arousable question who was doing the best stand-up 500 years ago?
Was it you?
Well ken dodd must be on your claps
I sat next to ken dodd at the most glorious dinner one time when we were together for about four hours
He didn't stop he'd just done a show and he just carried on. Yeah
Astonishing we saw him like two months before he died or something and he it was about three hours
After the time it was meant to it was about one in the morning
Oh, yeah people frequently coach loads of pensioners with a driver saying i've got to drive you back to the hotel
But we haven't seen the diddy men. It was one of the best evenings of my life
Was it endearing or was it quite irritating? Well, I had julian fellows on the other side
So it was terribly endearing
Again
What is this dinner?
It's a dream. Yeah
I was on the other side of the table with martin shaw and louis colling
The best stand-up 500 years ago 1500 so we are talking 16th century
Martin luther well german priests
German priests, so we're in the right like henry the eighth's time
Is it yeah henry the eighth because germany went a bit crazy in the early
16th i'm not the craziest it's ever gone. No
I mean they've got form. Yeah, but relatively because there were huge horrible
Um wars and fighting between the various
Protestants and catholic bits weren't there there were but this is a proper thing called rhesus pascala
So the easter laugh and the idea was to put jokes into the easter sermons
It supposedly reflected a perception that the resurrection was a practical joke played on the devil. He's not going down well
So look at him. He's fantastic
We've all had an audience like that. He's going stop
Um, so the sort of schtick that they would do from the pulpit
There was a preacher who ate pancakes while doing cuckoo impressions
Oh brilliant. Uh, there was one who lay in cow dung and pretended to give birth to a calf while hissing like a goose
Oh, that's a tryhard
I know really and one church where the priest got a layman to dress in a hood and convinced him
He was a priest which I think that's not that's not as good
Um, but there were loads of lewd jokes about nuns that was general bad language
And lots of serious-minded churchmen at the time people like erasmus. They thought it was a dreadful thing
Erasmus denounced the sermons so full of obscenities that a decent man could not tell them at a dinner party without shame
So this practice of rhesus pascalis was banned jesus stand and obscenities
Is there a view expressed in the gospels about obscenities? He must be a bit annoyed. His name is used
As an obscenity. Yeah
I mean that if everyone's like
Alan davis off. Yeah, alan dave. I know this is jesus
It counts as taking the lord's name in vain yeah, jesus. Oh christ there was someone went. Oh davis. I wouldn't go
We need to start that being
Will you tell someone to go away but come back three days later? Yeah, was he easily offended who jesus?
No, he was pretty
It's pretty cool because the anglican church is so easily offended. I don't think they are
My mom's a vicar didn't they are she's not easily offended. No
Is your mama vicar yeah, my mom's a vicar
The elves have just given me a quote from matthew 534, but I tell you not to swear at all
There are lots of f words in the bible. I know f words or c words. It's your mother an anglican priest
Yeah, cv
Is that that's anglican? Yeah. Wow, you've really paid attention while you were growing up. That's
I get muddled up between all the different denominations and sort of trip
But it's good to know what which one your mother is. I just well, she's church of england
So I suppose yes, that's anglican in answer to your question. Yes, my mother is i suppose in a way it is
Okay, um, there are lots of excellent, uh
Hilarious anglican priests who were in the church of england. I'm trying to help you here
Uh, there was a guy called the reverend robert hawker. He was a cornish anglican priest
He particularly I mean look at him you can tell by the pasty on his head, isn't he great?
Um, he liked to moonlight as a mermaid
So for several months he dressed in a seaweed wig and he sat every evening on a rock in butte harbour singing mermaid songs
Obviously start raving mad and needed help. No, i'd be in church every week if that was would you know?
That's not where he's doing it in church in church. He's doing the normal stuff
You know, he was not doing the normal stuff in church
So he he first of all, he did this mermaid singing he was naked apart from a cloth
A waterproof cloth wrapped around him for his tail. I'm out like dragons dead. I'm out
And then apparently there was a local farmer who was so irritated by the singing that he threatened him with a shotgun
So he concluded his time as a mermaid by doing one rousing rendition of god save the king and then swam home
But in the church his ten cats made up most of the congregation
At his church services and he saw one of them catching a mouse on a sunday
So he excommunicated the cat
He's marvelous. Um, and then I like this one very much. Reverend edward drax free
He was the rector at uh, sutton in bedfordshire
Um, he impregnated a succession of housemaids. I mean, it was very busy. He was perpetually drunk
He did yeah, he stole the lead off his own church roof. Has he got the biggest head in christendom or have they got tiny tiny?
It's not pleasant. Is it he was fantastic?
He kept the church locked because he didn't want anybody to try and attend a service
Anyway in 1830 a party was set by the local bishop to remove him and they found he'd barricaded himself into the rectory
Together with his favorite serving girl and two pistols and they tried to to to lay siege on him
Uh, he held up for two weeks until his claret ran out. Oh my um, then he gave himself surprise
The claret lasted two weeks. So they're looking. Yes. Yeah. Anyway sad story. He died a penniless
No shit was all going
To do that
It's a sort of it's a sort of down in 1843
It's a sort of lovely detail from history was run over by a varnish maker's cart
Of course, he was going to go in a weird way. Yeah, he was not going to go quiet
Uh, what's improved by extra rhubarb extra custard?
Uh using rhubarb in a different sense. Well rhubarb as in the noise
Make it sound like a crowd is talking you get an extra point. That is exactly right
It's actors jargon for the chats that extras do in the background
Does anybody know why the rhubarb things started?
Is it a good sort of noise that sounds like talking I think so I mean more talkingy word than other words
Sorry, so is it do they do it so that it sounds for a sound thing?
Or is it that no it's that your mouth your mouth is moving when they were doing japanese
Prisoner of war films after the war they were all shot in the uk
They got anyone in who looked remotely asian because they just needed to fill the background with extras who might be in a
Um japanese prisoner of war camp and uh, obviously these people were from many different countries and nobody spoke japanese
So they just got them to say I tie your shoe you tie my shoe
I knew a comedian from dublin and he
Told he taught me how to do a northern irish accent
And you just say body for the war body for the water water fire water water fire
A good way to say spice girls in glass. We all it's so good. Isn't it say space ghetto?
In an american accent in an american accent right space ghetto
Space ghetto space ghetto good, isn't it? Oh, yeah, that is good blows your mind. Yeah blows your mind
Extras are not highly paid individuals, but if you have a large crowd, that's obviously extremely expensive
So lots of films use something else now
What do you think they use instead of hiring extras for if you've got a massive crowd scene computer graphic people
No, it's inflatable dolls. No, yeah, like what you get on a hen party. No, no, they are look
This is the film seabiscuit
Another one about the horse race. I'm not a sex doll. I'm an extra
So genuinely that's easier blowing up a load of sex dolls. Well, it's easier than computers
You can get a crowd of 10 000 in a truck
And they can be reused. I mean, i'm sure they've got pumps. Yeah, I don't think somebody go
But still i'd you if you were an extra and you could send an inflatable version of yourself
You'd be foolish not to I think i've been on panel shows where I might as well have
Sorry, we're supposed to just go no. No
Not this one
Lots of films that it's been used and I think the king's speech was another one. I thought they always cgi'd them nowadays
Very expensive. I thought it was sort of just like copy and paste
I thought they used crowds from adam davis's show in the 90s. They just used them as cutaways for gladiator
If it was my film, they just copy and paste hazel hazel over and over and over in the background
So from the height of ridiculousness to the ridiculousness of height, how will short people save the world
Is it by going on a baking show and becoming a national treasure? Oh extra point. Oh, there we go. We got it
Eating less
Yes, it is sort of breathing less. It is yes. It's to do with all of those breathing less
Yeah, it's got to be better basically overall because broadly speaking a short person
Functions like a medium height person or a tall person and takes less fuel and uses up less space
That is exactly right. They'll be the heroes of the moment with the stockpiling. Yeah, they're not going for the top shelves
They can't get there. No, exactly if we all die out. It's my lot's fault. Are you very tall? Yeah
So there's a theory called reventropy, which is that humans ought to be shorter
There's a guy called thomas samaras in 1994
He wrote a book called the truth about your height and he argued that people getting taller because they had excessive proteins
In their diet and this was leading to much greater consumption of everything
So you needed more land for farming get more waste you get more pollution and in order to preserve resources
Really?
You need to control the size of human beings and that being shorter is good for you because it's look at that
That's me. I was
Being short is good for you. It slows aging. Uh shorter people have do have longer lifespans
Yeah, so you get your head a lot less though. Probably that's true
I've never hit my head on a doorway
Not once but on that you've probably caught the corner of a table a few times
And the lid on a toilet, yes
Uh, anyway this idea of reventropy as in reversing entropy
Um, it seems to be that his means of restoring order in the world specifically was by making people smaller
Not working because all of my nephews and nieces are all massive
Yeah, I think we were shorter because we only had biscuits for tea
People got shorter when we started to farm didn't we and live in cities because we were basically healthier
and
Taller when we were hunter-gatherers and then when we started to you know, as it civilized as
City dwell and farm and all that our population numbers were able to expand but our
Basic level of nutrition went down and we became shorter people but it's gone up again
We've got gradually taller and taller as the nutritional demand malnutrition is the key
We malnourish a generation. They'll shorten right up macy. How old how tall are you? Uh, five foot 11
Do you have like strict rules about people you go out with or marry or whatever who is taller or shorter than you?
Because my tall girlfriends all will refuse to go out with somebody who's shorter than me
I think shorter men can be really like attractive, but I would just feel cumbersome. I reckon my boyfriend is six foot
And was that a deal breaker as it were you had to eat i'd love to say no, but it absolutely was
I like the shallowness of it. I'm really shallow. No, i'm fine with that. I'm very tall very shallow. Yeah
That's mark. I'm like a candle. Yeah
There's another lonely voice campaigning against something the rest of us take for granted
There's a man called roger babson. He was an american stock market guru
He was the guy in the q series that invented little hammers so that typists could wear mittens and work outside
Yeah, he was obsessed with fresh air and he got his secretaries to work outside on typewriters and they the hands were too cold
So he invented a series of little hammers that so they could wear mittens while typing
Do you think that's crazy? His real passion was that he campaigned against gravity
Oh, wow
So he had a couple of very disturbing events his sister and then later his grandson died from drowning
And he devoted his considerable fortune to fighting against the evil old man gravity
Which he argued killed millions of people every year and he paid three investigators to sit permanently in the u.s
Patent office scanning incoming applications for anti-gravity inventions anything costumes shields, whatever it might be
So that could be used to insulate people from gravity because he hoped one day to eliminate airplane accidents
It was drownings in his yeah, and he blamed gravity gravity not water
No, no, he didn't have an anti-water thing. Yeah, in fact, he set up the gravity that pulls you under isn't it?
Yeah, i'm not sure that the water's trying to help them. There's no gravity
It'd float and also the water would be if there was gravity the water would be in the air
So he started something called the gravity research foundation and the idea was to give out grants to universities
But it had to be used specifically for anti-gravity research and lots of people didn't know how to do this
So the money didn't get used tufts university used it to set up their institute of cosmology
And what they do is they acknowledge this grant from the gravity research foundation every year in a ceremony in which the doctorate graduates have an apple
Dropped on their head in front of a monument to babson
I mean he wasn't he wasn't completely crazy. He was in a way he was also a good guy
He set up the very first women's business school in the united states
But I like these campaigns that you just think wow
Is that a thing there was a campaign in the united states called sinner s-i-n-a?
And it was the society for indecency to naked animals
It was founded in 1959 with the slogan a nude horse is a rude horse
And it campaigned for clothing of any animals any animal that stands higher than four inches always longer than six inches
There were campaigns right across the united states. So they're tiny little needy animals. Yeah, you can have a nude hamster
Yeah, but no that dachshund. Yeah should be dressed just
It went on for four years this campaign and then time magazine found out it was a hoax perpetrated by a comedian called
Alan abel, but I quite like think I'd have joined in I think it's true that the penises of horses and dogs
Yeah are very prominent in society. You see them more than you see the penises of humans
That is true in general life you walk around you don't see many penises
No, and i'm fine with that if you see one it's likely to be a dog's penis
Yeah, that could be a horse's penis. There'll be so many more horses in the edwardian era
That penises would go past like scooters
On oxford street imagine it 1910 penis penis penis penis and this is the victorian age not long-ended
Which was very very anti-penis
As we know and yet all these horses penises all the time everywhere
Well, it's logical. Let's get some pants on those horses just pants not not not clothes
No, I think just start with a pant
If you ignore a penis it will go away
That's certainly been my experience now
Short people are just better fact
Why can't a robot work out how to tick a box marked i'm not a robot
That is a that's a very good question. Also, why can't it tell what a traffic light looks like?
I don't know. I'm not a robot
I don't think i'm a robot, but I find friendly text messages stressful. Yeah, i've got a lot of the signs of a robot
So it doesn't make any sense the elves quoted letters page of viz
Surely robots can figure out how to tick a box on a website saying i'm not a robot
i've seen terminated two and that one could fly a fucking helicopter, so
Ticking the box is not the point
It's how you behaved before you ticked the box that is analyzed
So to be honest
I can't tell you all the details because they keep it secret because they don't want people trying to cheat the test
But broadly speaking you tick the box and it prompts the website to check your browsing history
So let us say for example just before you tick the box you watched a couple of cat videos
You I don't know liked a tweet about gretta thornburg. You checked your gmail account before you got down to work
All of that makes them think that you must be a human and checking the box
Can even spur it to analyze the way in which you moved your mouse across the screen. It's slightly spooky. I think
Um essentially when you are clicking
I am not a robot who are instructing the site to have a look at your data and decide for the poor itself
If the machine is not sure that's when it directs you to click on either pieces of fire hydrants
Aren't there and sort of secondary?
If that comes up, it means that your browsing history is slightly worrying. It looks like you're a robot
You're in a russian warehouse. Yeah, you regularly clear your browsing history or you browse in incognito mode
Then why would you do that? That is not the sign of a robot. That's the sign of a wanker
Yeah
But it's a bit weird, isn't it? It's an automated humanity check. It's called captcha
Captcha and it stands for completely automated public turing tests to tell computers and humans apart
But you can do some good with it. You know those distorted letters that you sometimes have to say
What is that word? It's quite a good way to digitize old books
Okay
So if you've got an old or torn piece of paper from an old book and you're not entirely sure
What the word is?
Sometimes we'll capture they'll give you two words to solve you get one after the other
One test is to establish whether you're human and the other word they're just looking for your opinion
So if a thousand people say that the word is catagoum, then the chances are it is catagoum
So it's a way of analyzing text. They can't fold towels very easily though, can they?
No, that is the major flaw in robots. Yeah now for a ridiculous loser. What can we say about mr? Irrelevant?
1991
It's a sought-after title in some ways
Mr. Irrelevant, is there some sort of like a paradox? It's like being the you know, the most boring person
Well, there's that's something interesting if you're the most boring person
So the second most boring person is more boring than the most boring person
Which makes them the most boring person which would be something interesting about them. I love that. I think that's fantastic
Uh, all I can say with confidence, uh, is that he was wanky
Which is his name. Mr. Wanky. Mr. Wanky. Yeah, Mr. Wanky. Well, that's so relevant
Yeah, so every year in us football professional teams choose new players from that year's college leavers
So it's called the draft and the last placed team from the previous year gets the first choice
The idea is to even out the team's prospects and so it's not like you can just buy the top players
They try and keep it kind of the opposite of the premier league
Yeah, so the player chosen last from the pool. So the least sought-after player in that year is called. Mr. Irrelevant
Uh, and it's a rather dubious honor it fell to larry wanky
In 1991, I was really hoping he had a better first name. Larry is not good. Is it? What would a better first name be?
Barry willy is better
But they get they get a prize they get flown out for a relevant week with their family to california and uh,
They have you know introducing the wankies because of a warm round of applause for the wankies as they join us
But it's a thing in sport the last place competitor in the tour de france, for example
Since 1920 been awarded the lantern rouge, but there's so much publicity with being that person
Yeah, um people want to be it when they know they're not going to win
Yeah, they know they're right at the back. They sometimes hide in barns and things when i've watched the london marathon
There's so much attention on who wins it, but I am interested often as to who is the last person
Yeah, like like five days later, yeah and a man in an iron lung
It's fine rolls over the finish line
But there's loads of wonderful things that you get a salted anchovy if you're the loser of this
Sienna paleo horse race and it used to be that you got a wooden spoon at cambridge
If you got the worst honours degree in the maths tripos
No, this is the last one ever awarded to the magnificently named cuthbert lemprea halt house
He then went on to become prime minister
He became an anglican vicar, which is like being in the church of england and so what he
And so what he he got the worst score on his degree
He got the worst degree
They in fact they made the spoon out of a rowing ore because he blamed him on the fact
He spent so much time rowing. He's amazing that they actually gave um degrees to borrow us
Well, also nobody is going to ask a question about who came first in the maths tripos, right?
Yeah, it's just so lovely. I think it's much more interesting to talk about cuthbert
Yeah, and now for the bit where our panel accidentally fall into a lens grinder and make spectacles of themselves
Uh general ignorance fingers on buzzers, please
Uh, watch this have a look at the screen
Uh, that text has got the entire answer the question. Can anybody pick out any of it?
Okay, it's going at
1500 words per minute. What do you call?
Someone who is able to read at that speed fast
My mother fast is good. Yes is your mother-in-law very fast. She goes on holiday
She literally can read a book a day. Can she understand it? Yeah, she's incredible
It's insane. How good she is at it
I mean you can in principle train yourself to read um pretty quickly but speed reading that they used to talk about
It was a thing that people thought you could be taught. Uh, in fact there was an american proponent eveline wood
She was an educator from utah and she made a fortune. Uh, these reading dynamic workshops
She said you could increase the speed of reading three times
Maybe as much as 10 times and she had hundreds of outlets across the united states the 1950s and 60s
And it was partly because jfk had a reputation for being able to read 1200 words per minute
Nixon and part of both presidents both endorsed it 1200 words a minute
Well, there are various techniques four pages of a novel. It's I mean, it's it's slightly mad
Um, one of the techniques is reading down the middle of the page rather than yeah
I mean it makes you wonder as a writer why you bothered with the words at the side
The other thing is to eliminate sub-vocalizations in your head reading aloud will slow you down
I think i'm quite a slow reader because I I worry i've missed a bit
Yeah, i'm forever going back and doing a paragraph again
And you're worrying about the comprehension and that is the thing about speed reading is that probably people are reading quite quickly
But they're not really fully taking in all the detail but the technique now of speed reading has been pretty much debunked
It is not a thing. What did it say that fast moving everything? I just told you
Oh, so your whole all of that was just yeah, everything i've just told you
But basically people get to the gist but not the nuance if they're speed reading so they sort of go
Well, there's something about tigers in that paragraph. Yeah, this one's all about cheese. Exactly. I've got it tigers and cheese
I've got that book. Yeah, uh, i'm afraid speed readers are missing the point
Who made the most expensive and best sounding violins ever?
Stradivarius
One for the team. Yeah, what a guy marx dispensers
Yamaha sports direct. It was a guy called Bartolomeo Guarneri
He was the grandson of one of Stradivarius apprentices. So Stradivarius did make beautiful violins
Um, but this guy has the edge in 2010. Uh, one of his went for more than 18 million dollars
This 18 million dollar violin is on land a brilliant woman called an akiko mayers
I think we have a little tiny bit of her playing
That sounds like a normal violin to me
Uh, well, so that is the thing about it because they did a test
To see whether people wanted to buy one of those very expensive ones or whether they wanted a modern one
They got 21 professional violinists to play in a dimly knit room wearing goggles and only 38 percent
So eight out of the 21 chose to take the old ones and the rest chose the modern instruments
So not necessarily
Actually, does it sound any better?
That's like those taste tests when people think they're drinking some incredibly expensive wine, but it's just from aldi
Yeah in 2016 a violin made from winston churchill's cigar box was sold for six and a half. No
Didn't have any strings, but yeah probably smelled nice and finally a ludicrously easy one
What the dickens was the first name of the famous english writer who gave us the expression?
What the dickens?
Yes
William yes, you're absolutely correct. William
Shakespeare William Shakespeare indeed. Uh, do you know what play?
Is it merry wives of Windsor? It is indeed merry wives of Windsor. How did you know that he is William Shakespeare?
Do you like this picture?
That's yeah, that's me from the recently closed show
Uh, yes, uh, so merry wives of Windsor. Mrs. Page is referring to Falstaff
She's on the cusp of stuffing him in a laundry basket
Uh, where had you this pretty weathercock says ford mrs page says I cannot tell what the dickens his name is
Do you know why dickens? No, I don't it's a diminutive of dick. It's a euphemism for the devil
So what the dickens just means what what the devil it hurts like the dickens we used to say
It was an old expression
So it hurts like the devil there was a sort of tradition in medieval plays that if you spoke the devil's name
Then he would appear that's where we get the
Uh expression speak of the devil. Oh really? Yeah, there's just so many fantastic
Words that shakespeare invented. Um, merry wives actually get the first appearances of hot-blooded the world's my oyster that phrase
That's shakespeareian. It's shakespeareian. Yeah, absolutely. So it it was not charles dickens people might think what the dickens
Uh, it was mr. Shakespeare. He was the first to come up with scott lead
Yes
That is correct enough
Dickensing about it's time to reveal this week's scores in last place
Oh, it's a it's a noble thing with minus seven. Uh, it's mazy
In third place with minus six, it's alan
In second place with minus three david
I know with one whole point ridiculous number of points. It's holly
It makes me to laugh in the faces of mazy david holly and alan and thank them all for their good humor
And I leave you with these words from dostoyevsky
There is no idea and no fact that could not be vulgarized or shown in a ridiculous light and that
Pretty much explains qi's existence. Good night
The show you've just seen was recorded without an audience because of social distancing rules next week
We're back to normal. So see you then and in the meantime mind how you go