APPLAUSE
Good evening. Good evening. Good evening. Good evening and welcome
to QI. The 640-pound gorilla of panel shows.
Joining me in the quite interesting enclosure in the zoo tonight
are a magnificent silverback, Bill Bailey.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
A majestic alpha male, Sean Lock.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
An exotic bird of paradise, Sandi Toksvig.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
And our faithful old curly-haired retriever, Alan Davies.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
But for tonight only, an extra treat, all the way from America, it's Mr John Hodgman.
APPLAUSE
Now, each of their buzzers is more beastly than the next. Bill goes...
APES SCREECH
Sean goes...
CHIMPS SCREAM
Sandi goes...
PARROTS SCREECH
Alan goes...
PUPPY YAPS
And because he doesn't have a built-in mushroom-oid, John goes...
DUCK QUACKS
Tonight, we are on the hunt for G animals.
Any animals that start with a G are fair game.
What use is a goose?
PARROTS SCREECH Sandi Toksvig?
Is it toilet paper? LAUGHTER
No, no. Seriously.
Sandi, that is bizarre. Why did you say that?
I once read this book by Rabelais.
It was called Gargantua.
And he recommended that the best thing for toilet paper was a live goose.
And I have yet to check into a five-star hotel without a sense of disappointment.
I have the quotation from Rabelais's Gargantua.
I'll give it to you in full because it's pretty extraordinary.
"I have, answered Gargantua, by a long and curious experience
"found out a means to wipe my bum. The most lordly, the most excellent and the most convenient
"that was ever seen. I wipe my tail with a hen, with a cock,
"with a pullet, with a calf's skin, with a hare, with a pigeon, with a cormorant,
"with an attorney's bag, with a montero..." whatever that is!
The inside of his toilet must have a whole load of...
"..with a falconer's lure..."
And that's why he was thrown out of the pet shop.
You're barred. Get out!
Come on!
I've told you before. "But to conclude,
"I say and maintain that of all the torcheculs, arsewisps, bumfodders, tail napkins,
"bunghole cleansers and wipe breeches, there is none in the world comparable
"to the neck of a goose that is well-downed,
"if you hold her head betwixt your legs.
"And, believe me, therein upon mine honour, for you will thereby feel in your nockhole,
"a most wonderful pleasure..." Yes.
"..where in regard of the softness of said down and of the temperate heat of the goose,
"which is easily communicated to the bum-gut and the rest of the inwards,
"in so far as to come even to the regions of the heart and brains."
Why do we need swear words when you've got nockhole?
Can I say one thing, is it alive? I fear it probably is.
That adds a frisson to it. It has to be alive.
Then you can turn it and laugh in its face.
Ha-ha!
We are the master race!
People have been saying for years, "What's wrong with geese? Why are they so furious?"
Now we know.
If there were one animal that I would never put anywhere near my bum, it would be a goose.
There's so many other animals you don't want near your nockhole. Scorpion.
No, that could be fun.
Get a scorpion to do it and he can get all those tricky little nibbly bits.
Oh!
He's got the claws.
It's not absorbent enough.
What about a hedgehog? Is that absorbent?
That would get all the bits and it's absorbent.
You could get the bits with the top half and whip it round and get the...
Brilliant. Brilliant. You may be on to something.
Sounds absurd, but we have just heard that a man did wipe his arse with a goose.
So I think you're right - one to wipe, one to polish.
Yeah. Perfect.
There are other things geese can do. Goose fat.
What do you use goose fat for? Frying potatoes.
The best roast potatoes possible.
Another use for goose fat that used to be common.
Ca... Um... David Walliams, if I was to say.
Oh, swimming. Swimming the channel.
They don't any more, because when they rescue people, they slip out of their grasp.
Let's go... Watchdogs. Aren't they good watchdogs? They're great watchdogs.
Better than a dog, apparently.
Anything else? Um, a guide goose for the blind.
A seeing-eye goose.
In the world of weaponry, they were very popular for...?
Aim. They had a brilliant aim.
They have. Very steady hands.
Who made a famous appearance at the Nottingham Goose Fair,
according to legend? Robin Hood. Puff Daddy.
It's like herding cats, isn't it?
I once opened the goose fair. It was Robin Hood. Thank you. You're teacher's favourite tonight.
And he was a goose? No, but what was Robin Hood famous for?
Killing geese.
Do that lovely mime again.
This is wiping his bum with a goose.
On the arrows. The fletching, exactly. The goose feathers on the arrows.
Goose feathers for arrows, so that's a good one. Why has it got orange feet?
Because they eat oranges. It's like flamingos with prawns.
Geese eat oranges. Air safety. Air safety.
So they can wave each other in.
There's the bar-headed goose. They can fly unbelievable distances.
Up to ten miles. They... And they can fly backwards.
Thousands of miles, they fly. Their eyes tightly shut.
They have a technique for increasing their range by 70%.
What is it? Landing on a boat.
Landing on what? On a boat.
Uh, no. It's not...
Imagining that before man had any method of technological transport.
Gliding on hot air. Grabbing on to other...
Lying. Birds used to lie about where they'd been.
Yeah. I've been miles over there. They'd fly over the mountain and just wait there.
HE WHISTLES
When you see geese in the air, there's a shape.
A V. A V formation.
It reduces wind shear.
Extra points to our popular American visitor. Exactly right.
You're right. It's the vortices. It calms the air and all the ones behind have less to fight against.
How do they take those photographs? Is it a passing parachutist, who says, "That's a bit of luck"?
There's a goose going like that.
He's got his phone out.
That's a good one.
Did I mention chimney sweeps? Oh, yeah. They fly up and whoosh!
They're used as chimney sweeps. How?
Don't you drop them from the top? Yeah. They used chickens for that.
As they flap their wings, they clear the chimney.
Mad badgers, as well.
Do they use horses for that? Clean as a whistle.
No, they don't use horses. It's a squeeze, but they get them down there.
But the uses for gooses, or the "eese" of geese...
Is the next question the habits of rabbits?
Oh, I wish that it were.
How far can you shove a dove?
Hats of cats.
That's my offer.
Anyway the uses of gooses range from burglar alarms to chimney sweeps,
not to mention excellent roast potatoes as John pointed out.
Which brings us to giraffes.
Tell me why giraffes have such short necks.
Short necks? Mmm. Uh... Uh...
Is that...? They've got long necks.
Are you telling me that that long thing, leading up to their head is not their neck?
No. That's their neck. Why would I say they had short necks? Because it's annoying.
It's in relation to their legs, their necks are short.
In order to drink water, most animals, like deer,
they don't have to splay out in that very vulnerable and unbalanced
and quite tricky position in order to have a sip of water,
but if their necks were longer, they would just dip down and drink.
Because their legs are so long is the point.
I have had a stance like that, myself, in the odd public house.
It looks familiar.
Is that when you spill your pint on the floor? And I thought, "I'm not wasting that."
It's important for it to have long legs, why is it important to have long legs?
That might bring us to the next question - why do giraffes have such long necks?
I presume so they can eat things in the trees.
CLAXON SOUNDS
Oh! To reach tree tops.
Is that not true?
Actually, they don't eat from the tops of trees. They bend their necks to eat.
The giraffologist community is rather split along two lines.
The real reason is, many people believe... See if you can guess.
So many things...
Seeing a long distance. Seeing over things. It's useful to see each other and over things.
See who's on the top deck of the bus.
People used to think they were solitary,
but the groups were just very spread out because they can see each other.
A lot of animals have things about them, the most notable thing about them is there for what reason?
Why does a rhino have a horn? Why do deer have antlers?
Do they fight? They fight. They fight other males.
Ooh, ow! That's what they do.
It's unbelievable. They can kill each other with one swipe of their neck.
ALL: Ooh!
Isn't that a shock? Come on!
They're such graceful animals, but look at that.
Quite a stupid sport, really.
They haven't got the fundamental ducking principle.
Just duck. Duck, now.
This is like that footage show on ITV of town centres on a Friday night.
People fighting at bus stops.
They should clear Horse Guards and have this at the Olympics. Marvellous.
Much better. Much more interesting.
Can you imagine being a baby giraffe, on your way out and you think, "That's a long way down."
Six foot. What? Six foot, they...?
They are born the size of six foot and they drop head first out of their mother's...passage.
That would affect you for life, I would have thought.
Their necks are so long to stop the fall.
Maybe you've got it once and for all.
They plant those horns in the ground and stand on their heads until they can walk.
Wait a minute. Evolution is amazing. >
There are these beautiful animals. they're graceful and sweet and long-eyelashed
and sexy and rather desirable in many ways.
And they use their necks... It's a good job you're tall.
Yes and giants use them in the latrines.
What do giraffes eat? What is their main staple?
Children.
Not children. Leaves, plants.
Particular plants. It's not tree tops?
Acacia. Acacia. Which is a thorny plant,
which has developed a brilliant strategy for trying to put the giraffes off eating them.
It gives out a very bitter taste. But more impressively, it warns its neighbours when giraffes are coming.
What, by going, "Psst, giraffe."
Basically, yeah. It sends out chemical signals and that provokes the bitter...
And what do they do? Run away?
That's one thing they can't do. "There's a giraffe coming." "Brilliant, thanks."
"Thanks."
"Now, I'll be all fearful before I die." "I'm just telling you."
It's the wind-borne warning burst.
Have you ever done a wind-borne warning...? Oh, never mind. Oh, yes.
But enough of giraffes, I feel.
What's the commonest cause of death...?
DUCK QUACKS
APES SCREECH Wow!
Is it snowboarding accidents?
Almost. With those horns, you'd have a devil's own job getting a helmet on.
Is it assassination? Not assa... Some of them are assassinated.
You said it. Falling off? Falling off mountains.
Are they clumsy? They're not clumsy. They are unbelievably nimble and secure and sure-footed, but...
They show off. No. It's worse than that. They're big drinkers.
Three to four times every hour, they...
They flip over like those toys that you wind up.
They try and fly!
They use their horns to...
Scratch their arses.
Fight. Fighting. Fighting.
Fight! They fight. Fighting.
There they are. Look at that.
And that's what... Knock each other off the mountain.
They know each other off each other's perches. Oh, heavens.
Who put them up there?
So that is an example... Help! Help!
It's the fastest-growing tree in the world. They all stand there and it goes...
Oh, dear.
Well, I think we've cleaned this tree off. Let's go, shall we?
Very little left here.
I used to be a goat herdsman. So I could get them down for you.
Wouldn't that just be a goatherd? Sorry? Wouldn't that just be a goatherd?
Rather than a herdsMAN? Yeah, sorry.
When I was a goatherdsman...
When I was a goatherd man, manny thing, I could have got those down for you, no problem.
What goat-herding technique would you use?
Doo-doo-doo be-gat!
Really? That one moved!
Why do we say, "He's a bit of an old goat?" Are they randy? I think they are quite randy, goats.
I could sense after a few weeks, they found me more and more attractive.
Do you know why? Is it because they know we've got money?
Money and cars. They're actually quite shallow.
They see the cars and the sexy clothes and the music and the gold.
They're like WAGs. Wives and goats.
What it is, is our sweat. Under our arms,
we have a sort of goaty smell and female goats go mad for it.
So if you wish to attract a female goat, a nanny, yup. Waft a bit of your underarm at her.
I used to be in a forest with 26 goats and I never got one approach. Not one.
Not a nibble. Nothing.
Now I feel quite hurt. Because you were using the Lynx.
What did seagulls contribute to the war effort? Seagulls?!
You give a television technician Photoshop...
Did they steal food out of the hands of the enemy soldiers so they'd starve to death?
Is it like parrots in the Eiffel Tower? They kept parrots in the Eiffel Tower
to warn when aircraft were coming and they'd go, "Aircraft coming."
That's true. They did.
Surely they'd say, "Des avions viennent," or something?
Yes, obviously. I was translating for the audience. Fair enough.
No, it's not that, but again, we have to be in the right war.
First World War? The First World War, '14 to '18. A message service?
No. There was a new threat which had never been seen in warfare before.
Aeroplanes. That was one.
In another medium. Submarines.
Submarines, yes and... What good is a seagull with a submarine?
Well, let's try and put it all together, shall we?
LAUGHTER
Now, one of the problems with a submarine,
is that you can't see it. There was no sonar in the First World War so how do you know where they are?
If they surface. Before they surface another thing that a submarine does is pop up...
Pop up a periscope.
So if you could train a seagull to flock towards periscopes,
by putting food all over the periscopes on your own submarines,
so that it would associate the submarine with food and flock to it,
whenever there was a submarine, the seagulls would flock towards it.
You'd be on the ship and go, "There must be a submarine over there."
Did they train every seagull in the world to do this?
This is the problem.
Did they keep flocks of seagulls, so to speak, on ships?
The flaw in the plan is putting food all over your periscope so you can't see where you're going.
They'd only do that in the training area. Oh, I see, sorry.
But while they were there, they got them, not just to recognise the enemy's periscope,
but to poo all over it so that it would blank out the lens.
THEY GIGGLE
That's a terrible plan. It will never work.
Sounds like something out of Blackadder. "That will do it. That will work."
IMPERSONATES LORD MELCHETT
It was a grand plan. Did not work, I'm afraid.
The gulls couldn't distinguish between enemy... They were idiots.
They couldn't distinguish between enemy submarines and home ones.
More importantly, when I said seagull, I was making an ornithological mistake.
Um, albatross. No, they're not seagulls. Terns.
Terns? Gulls. They're just gulls.
They're not seabirds, gulls. They're land birds.
They don't go far out to sea at all. They live on the edge of the land, admittedly, on cliffs.
Do they have webbed feet?
They don't go that far out. So if you're looking for a submarine...
Is this upsetting your world view?
Seagulls!
If you're looking for a submarine in the middle of the Atlantic, the birds say, "I'm not going that far."
Yes. They don't go that far out.
During the First World War, seagulls were trained to find German submarines
and crap on their periscopes. Pretty clear message, but what is this camel trying to tell you?
What's going on?
ALL: Eurgh!
A very disgusted audience. They don't like what they see.
Is he saying Jeremy Kyle's on in a minute?
What are we looking at there?
I presume it's a tongue. Or is it a sausage?
It's not his tongue, amazingly. Is it his stomach? No, it's his palate.
He can blow part of his soft palate out. It's called the palatinus diverticulus.
It's known as a "gula" and it's used in mating. It's used to attract females.
Oh, you sexy beast, you.
It's a heck of a thought. It's not working for me.
It appears to be sticking out its tongue.
The camels with the most testosterone have the biggest gula. That's what they tell you.
It's like that nonsense about bald men being full of testosterone.
Bless!
But, you know...
What? Oh...
Way-hey!
He's not insulted cos he doesn't know. Bill doesn't know he's bald.
He's convinced he's got a big, thick, luscious head of hair.
Down my back there is.
I've got that.
Anyway, they blow out their gula and they make a blib-blib noise.
That's the best they've come up with after all these years.
In Saudi Arabia, why would they cut the gula out?
To stop it... So they breathe better for camel racing.
Oh, camel racing.
Actually, in Saudi Arabia, they import camels from... Kent.
You set them up so well, Stephen.
That's very kind of you. No. Not from Kent.
From... BILL: Hertfordshire.
Let's disabuse ourselves... Australia. Australia is the right answer, yes.
Thank you. But why would they import them? What do they need them for?
Um...
They're very good at cricket, the Australian ones.
Australian camels are much fitter than the...
AUSTRALIAN ACCENT: We like sports. The big outdoors.
No. They don't use them to race. They don't use them for transport.
They import them for... Food. Breeding?
Meat. Camel meat.
They tell them they're going to have a lovely camel race.
AUSTRALIAN ACCENT: You'll love it over there, mate. Away you go. Good luck.
Give us a call when you've won your first race.
They also import from Australia, the Saudi Arabians... Something else. Barmen.
That would be stupid, barmen in Saudi Arabia.
Sand. Sand? Sand?
They love irony, don't they?
They always see the other side of a joke.
It's because the sand in Saudi Arabia is the wrong kind of sand for...
Golf. Throwing in people's eyes. Building.
Male camels impress the ladies by blowing a balloon called a gula out of their mouths.
Speaking of blowing bubbles, why don't goldfish swim into the side of their bowls?
They're not stupid. Because they're not stupid?! Yeah.
They don't use their eyes to know it's glass, so what do they use to know it's there?
The pressure of the water or... The pressure of the water is the right answer.
They have pressure sensors, similar to the ones we have in our ears and they activate little gelatinous caps
that activate hairs in the same way as our cochlear fluid to tell us there's pressure in our ears.
Goldfish don't have hairs. You don't see them with different styles.
Emo fish.
Love what you've done with your goldfish.
It seems they do. Sharks have the same thing. They have neuromasts as well.
They're called the ampules of Lorenzini.
And they detect not pressure, but...
Fear.
Well, no. Electricity.
Because a lot of fish give off electricity as a weapon.
They know when you've left a light on.
He's really beautiful, look at him. He's a biggie. He's a biggie.
There's a nurse. Is that a nurse? Is that a nurse?!
Well, obviously, I was referring to the brand of shark.
I suddenly had an image of you in a home.
Nurse! Aah!
Oh, Lordy, bless. Anyway,
instead of their eyes, fish use a system of pressure detectors along the side of their body to navigate.
So the light fades and our guests head bravely for the waterhole
in the full knowledge that any moment, they are likely to be dragged underwater
and devoured by the savage ghillie monster of General Ignorance, so fingers on buzzers.
Why are there no insects in the sea?
LAUGHTER
APES SCREECH Yes, Bill.
Because the... It's too far...
JOHN: Yes. Yes. That's right.
Because it's too far.
It's too far.
Because water makes them explode.
But there are insects in rivers. Saltwater.
It's not the saltwater because there are saltwater spiders.
Plenty of sea spiders.
The currents are too strong.
Spiders are not insects. Ha-ha!
That's what I'm saying. There are spiders.
No, it seems to be because there are no trees and no flowering plants.
Nothing that they have evolved to deal with exists in the sea.
Spiders could live in the sea because they hunt.
It's a shame, really. Yeah. There you go.
Who goose-stepped their way across Europe in the 1940s?
PARROTS SCREECH
Was it a goose?
No.
CLAXON SOUNDS
It was worth a try. It was.
Who goose-stepped their way across Europe in the 1940s? Well, I mean...
You know. What? What?
What are you reluctant to say, Alan?
Any reference to the, uh...
Hitler! Hitler! Hitler! Oh, Hitler? No.
CLAXON SOUNDS
The Nazis didn't goose-step in the 1940s. The Russians. That's right.
But why?
Because they had incredibly stiff starch.
No, but why was the Nazis wrong?
Surely they did goose-step? They didn't do the goose-step.
They did do the goose-step, but not in the 1940s. They stopped it in the 1930s.
They only goose-stepped in the early years in the Nuremberg rallies. Did it fall out of fashion?
No new recruits were asked to do it.
They called it their "stechschritt".
Very high impact.
That's Chinese or Korean. That's Korean.
North Korean. That's the point.
It's very hard to do and it shows just how butch, disciplined and clever you are.
You need tremendously flexible hamstrings to do that.
You'd all have to be the same height. You do have to be the same height.
And Korean, apparently.
Well, Korean or Russian or Chinese or Cuban or Vietnamese or Chilean or Iranian.
The Nazis dropped the goose-step in 1940.
Only the Soviets goose-stepped for the rest of the war.
So I know all you care about now are the scores
and I have them in front of me and my word, they are fascinating to behold.
In equal last place on minus seven, Sean and Bill.
APPLAUSE
In third place, on minus four, it's Alan Davies. How respectable is that?
APPLAUSE
In second place, with minus three, it's Sandi Toksvig.
APPLAUSE
Oh, my God.
Which means that our glorious winner is John Hodgman.
APPLAUSE
Well, that's it from Sandi, John, Sean, Bill and Alan and me.
I leave you with a simple truth gleaned from the blogosphere.
"Friendship is like wetting your pants - everyone can see it, but only you can feel its warmth."
Goodnight.
Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd
E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk