APPLAUSE
CHEERING
Hey, hey hey hey, hey hey, hey, hey, hey,
hey hey hey hey, and welcome to the QI H-anatomy lesson,
where we're discussing heads, hands, hips, hearts,
and indeed any other part of the body beginning with H.
And joining me with scalpels at the ready are four prime specimens of the human body.
So give a big hand for Sue Perkins!
APPLAUSE AND CHEERS
And a hearty cheer for Bill Bailey.
APPLAUSE AND HEARTY CHEERS
And a hip-hip-hip replacement hooray for Gyles Brandreth!
- AUDIENCE: - Hip, hip, hooray!
Wahey! Very good. And a hair-raising scream for Alan Davies!
- AUDIENCE SCREAMS - Wow.
I like the way it stopped dead.
That was good. And now, thanks to the handiwork of my audio elves,
your buzzers should be ready. And Sue goes...
- APPLAUSE - Ooh!
I think it was a round of applause. And Bill goes...
- CHEER - And Gyles goes...
- HIP-HIP-HOORAY! - And Alan goes...
- SCREAM - Oh!
- We recorded, cleverly, the audience. - GYLES: Isn't that clever? Wow.
- So, let's start with H... - This is already one of the weirdest shows I've ever been on.
- LAUGHTER - We try and do our best.
- This sounds like a pensioner sitting on a bag of Rice Krispies. - APPLAUSE
- LAUGHTER - You're right!
APPLAUSE
It's certainly not someone under 65 sitting on Rice Krispies, is it?
Or somebody putting their fingers in a socket. Do it again.
APPLAUSE Slow way to go, but nice!
- Ooh, lovely. - Easy, tiger.
- Easy. - Careful. - Pleasure delay, remember?
Well. Let's start with H for h-h-h-hands.
What can you tell about someone from their palms?
- How long they're going to live, whether they'll get married, children... - BILL: The future.
KLAXON
I didn't say "the future"! He said "the future"!
He started it! I just joined in!
Maybe we'll halve the forfeit between you.
Oh, I can't believe I get...!
But no. Empirically and obviously it's never been proved that any such thing
could ever be demonstrated, but there ARE things you CAN tell.
- GYLES: Forgive me. When you say it's never been proved... - Yeah.
- But there are people who feel they've done it. - Feeling you've done something is not quite the same
as empirical... Thank God you're out of government.
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
They sweat, that's all they do.
- To varying degrees. - But they have ridges.
We'll ignore the lines of palmistry for the moment, but there is such a thing as palm diagnosis.
There is a way of finding out predispositions towards
- rather important and life-threatening... - Oh, good God. - ..happiness-threatening illnesses.
- Oh. It actually will spell something? - LAUGHTER
- "You're going to..." - Alphabetic! "You're going to d..."
- GYLES: And where do we see this? - Do they swell up? Go red?
It's the ridges of the palms.
Who was responsible for discovering fingerprints?
- No. - It was a very famous scientist called Francis Galton,
whose name was rather ruined by the fact that he believed in eugenics,
- which was rather discredited. - That's always a shame. - It is.
But he also noticed the ridges and whorls on the palm,
and 30 years later in the 1920s it was discovered that those with Down's Syndrome
have completely different palms from anyone else.
And then by the 1960s, at least 20 conditions
were shown to present themselves on the palms.
How gullible are we?
We're just like this, Gyles and I, like that. "Heal us!"
- "Make us whole again!" - There are also indications... - "Tip us!"
- LAUGHTER - "We work for food!" - Yeah.
Going back, if I may, to the palmistry,
all I will say is this. That you dismiss palmistry,
but there were people 100 years ago,
perhaps the wisest people of the time, who consulted palmists.
Indeed there were. Including, of course, our mutual hero...
Our mutual friend, Oscar Wilde. And Mark Twain did. Queen Victoria, I think, did. Edward VII did.
- Gladstone. - And they... - Who was the palmist they consulted?
They consulted a man... Oscar Wilde certainly consulted a man called Cheiro,
- based on... - Called "cheiro" from... - From the Greek meaning "hand". - But his real name was?
- His real name was William Warner. - You're right. There he is.
- He was Irish. - He was Irish, and his great-great-grandson's brother
married Elizabeth Taylor - Senator Warner.
- But that's just incidental. - No, it's good to know. He also called himself Count von Hamon.
That's a really good answer on William Warner and superb to hear.
Splendid answers all round. Thank you very much.
The fact is, palmistry won't tell you your future,
- but it can tell you your past... - RIPPLE OF LAUGHTER
in the form of genetic markers that were set down while you were in the...womb...
There's somebody playing with me...
It sort of looks funny with what you're doing.
There is a piece of wire.
LAUGHTER
APPLAUSE
I've been goosed by the palm of a skeleton.
I've been sitting for ten minutes thinking "When shall I do it?
"They're talking about palms! It should be now! It should be now!"
Wahey!
Oh! Oh!
You see?
It had to end...
Oh, dear. Oh, dear.
GYLES: You just don't know your own strength!
"Sorry!"
BILL: Keith! Keith, man, me head's come off.
- GYLES: Oh, my heavens! - That'll do it!
- Carry on, carry on. - LAUGHTER
They actually look a little bit like the Cheeky Girls.
LAUGHTER
They do. Yes. Er... answer me another question.
- Marcel Proust. - BILL: A La Recherche Du Temps Perdu.
Very good. Now why did Marcel Proust have such a limp handshake?
There he is. There's Marcel.
- He hasn't slept for five years. - APPLAUSE
- I feel bad saying this, but he was a known homosexual. - He was well gay.
Now I don't... He was well gay. But I don't want to say
that he had the limp handshake because he was gay...
It's like saying he... loved to buy scatter cushions and throw them around the gaff.
I mean, it seems a really reductive thing to say. But I don't know if...
There are types of gay who go round in muscle vests and are very butch,
and there are types of gay, like Marcel, who are rather limp-wristed and who like ornament and design.
He famously wrote only in a cork-lined room, he was very sensitive.
- But... - BILL: He was very buoyant.
- Buoyant... - LAUGHTER
- Exactly! He was very buoyant. - He could go cruising at any time.
- He could set sail. - He could write anywhere in the world. Oceans, anywhere.
- HIP-HIP-HOORAY! - Yes.
- I'm going to offer a thought. - Yeah. - OK? - Right.
He, being gay, spent a lot of time in North Africa.
- BILL: Tangiers? - North Africaaaah.
- One of the things that I discovered when I spent time in Africa... - Are you coming out?
Is this a coming-out statement?
Cos if it is, that'll be the picture, so just watch out.
Why not? Tonight could be the night, you're right.
- I know your party's behind you. - Indeed. LAUGHTER
APPLAUSE
- It's time. - Yes, Gyles.
I'm going to suggest this. When I went to Africa,
I was quite disconcerted to find that traditionally, the African handshake
is not simply very soft, but it lingers.
- Shake my hand. - Oh, this is just an excuse. Again! - No, no!
- The injunction, Gyles! - In Europe we shake hands... BILL: Don't touch him!
In Europe we shake hands like that. I think in Africa, we shake hands
- like this...and we hold there. - Stop. - I have a lot of experience of this.
Stop it... He's glued me! I can't get out.
I don't wish to name-drop, but I went to interview Archbishop Desmond Tutu
- and he held my hand like this for a long, long time. - Did he?
BILL: And he was saying to his aides, "Who is this again?"
I'm thinking that Marcel Proust spent time in North Africa and rather liked this tradition,
and brought it back with him to Paris.
It's an interesting idea, I have no evidence that proves it. I know that Andre Gide went to North Africa...
That's who I'm thinking of!
APPLAUSE
You sweated on my hand for that?
Andre Gide was out and proud.
He was probably the man who invented the word "homosexual", as it were, in his book Corydon.
And he was out. Marcel was not out.
Marcel was embarrassed and ashamed of being gay
and indeed, he went to brothels to try and cure himself.
Oh, we've all tried THAT.
LAUGHTER
You heard it here first, folks.
"The North Africans hold their hands like that, my darling."
It was sort of double-bluff is the only way I can explain it.
He had a friend, a Romanian count, who said to him,
"Look, I can teach you how to do a more manly handshake, then people won't think you're an invert."
- As the word was then. - Invert? - An invert.
- That was a gayer. - A gayer, yeah.
And Marcel Proust said, "No, if I do that, people will think I'm trying to look straight."
- Whereas, if I, confidently am all limp... - It's a double-bluff! - A double-bluff. - Good Lord.
I've been spending too much time just drinking cider.
I should have been reading the novels of Proust.
- I feel I've missed out. - It's famous for people never actually having read it, isn't it?
- GYLES: Has anybody finished it? - It's enormously long.
- There's a famous scene that opens in Du Cote De Chez Swann... - GYLES: The biscuit scene!
- Describe it. - I can't describe it, but it is to do... - Does it involve touching?
- It could, it could. If you want to be the biscuit. - Don't touch him!
- If you want to be the little biscuit. What are they called? - I don't want to be your little biscuit!
- Madeleine! - I don't want to be your madeleine!
- No, I don't want to! - The smell of the madeleine
- evokes for him always, it takes him back to the past. - Yeah.
The whole book springs from one moment. It's an epiphanic moment
when the narrator has a cup of tea and he dips a biscuit in it,
a little madeleine, the scallop-shaped biscuits, he dips it in,
and as he's just bringing the biscuit to his lips,
he gets the smell of the tea and the biscuit.
And the entire world of this seven-volume novel
comes into his head. It evokes a memory. You know the way smells do.
- You get a smell... - Wait a minute.
- This whole thing's based on a dunking incident? - Yes. Exactly.
That is... You will find, often, people referring to, "That was my madeleine moment,"
where suddenly something triggered a whole series of memories they never knew they had.
GYLES: The joy is, you don't need to read the book.
You just need to buy the biscuit. Dunk!
- Ah, yes...! - No, it only worked for him because he, as a child, sat with his aunt...
- So we can do it with a HobNob. - It might be a HobNob for you.
It might be the smell of who-knows-what for you, Bill.
- Like the inside of a tennis ball, or something. - Yeah. Absolutely.
- The inside of a tennis ball? - Inside of a tennis ball!
- Oh, it's got a very rubbery... Specific smell, yeah. - You slit it and just...work it.
- It's good. - Like Why Don't You?
- Oh, yeah! - Just bringing it back to my level for a moment.
Talking tennis balls on Why Don't You was the highlight of my childhood.
- I may write a seven-volume novel about it. - LAUGHTER
Now, to handshakes. We said that palms don't reveal personality - do handshakes?
I don't like a feeble handshake, gives me the creeps.
- BILL: It's not right, is it? - I don't like a sweaty hand.
I don't like when there's something left on your hand after...
- Residue! - I don't like the other hand coming in to clasp, either.
That's a power thing.
Isn't that like a dominance thing?
- Is it? - When you see people holding hands, the dominant figure, if you see them walking down the street,
the dominant figure is the figure with the hand on the outside. Hold my hand.
- Oh, is that right? - Close your eyes and hold my hand. - Not again, Gyles!
It's over in a moment, just take my hand.
- I'm looking away. - All right.
You do it, you've got to take my hand.
Oh! You let me dominate you.
You've let me dominate you.
- Oh, Sue, you've let the sisters down! - You chose, you chose!
You chose! I just...
Please tell me what you... You want to be submissive or dominant? I mean, with...
Stop stroking me on the thing...
LAUGHTER
Who does that? Who does that? He did...he did inverted crab.
- Earlier you said you liked it. - No... - You said you liked it!
Oh, God. Oh, God. They're having a row.
- I've now got two soiled... - Did it tickle? - It did tickle! - The crazy spider. - He did do the crazy spider.
Handshakes do tell us a lot, don't they? Individually we instinctively respond, as we've just shown.
- I don't like a cruncher. - Handshakes that repel us. Exactly. Paul Flynn,
a Labour MP in Wales, actually suggested that people who gave really strong handshakes
should be charged for assault.
- He's not a busy man, is he? - No.
So anyway, Marcel Proust used a limp handshake because he wanted to conceal the fact that he was gay
in an elaborate double-bluff.
I want you to imagine you've been transported to the 19th century
and the trip has given you a banging headache.
You want to have a hole drilled in your head to get rid of the pain and the pressure.
So where's the best place to have it?
- Umm... - The trepanning? - Germany?
KLAXON
APPLAUSE
I'm slightly worried they can now read my mind, these people.
Yes, that's amazing!
- It is the eighth series, I suppose. - It basically is.
Germany, you said, no. Germany probably not the best place.
- The top, they trepan in the top. - Where is the best place to go?
It's the 19th century. Should it be Europe, should it be America?
GYLES: Harley Street.
Harley Street was a very bad place to go.
- They would go to... - Margate.
- France. - France?
- Didn't they, in Africa, they trepan. - Africa, probably a better bet than Harley Street.
But it seems that Papua New Guinea would be the best place.
- In the 19th century, if you had this, what's the word? - Trepanning. - Trepanning, yeah.
78% of those who had it done in London and the West died.
From blood poisoning?
But in Papua New Guinea... Yes, from cross-infections.
Why did people keep going? Eight out of ten people die. "I'm up for it."
It wasn't because they had a hole drilled in their head, it was because they got infected.
What was it for, the trepanning?
To relieve pressure, supposedly.
It's the original form of surgery, as far as we know from archaeology, the oldest form that ever there was.
And we know that it was, well, I won't say "successful", we know that it wasn't a failure.
There's a way of knowing that it didn't kill people, which is...?
- Some of them survived. - A little bit of tissue grows.
You see the skull has re-healed, because people have lived for years afterwards.
Didn't they used to put coins in the hole and things like that?
Because you're left with a big, gaping hole...
- You are... - You could put a dispenser in and turn your head into a Pez machine.
LAUGHTER
Just press your ear.
Originally, in older cultures, you'd clamp the victim's head between your legs - eh -
and you just get a stone, a sharp piece of obsidian or flint,
and you'd scrape on to the scalp. until it grooves and grooves. You can see this in old skulls,
- and here, even there... - He's not happy about that. - He's not happy.
But Prince Rupert, nephew of Charles I...
- played by Timothy Dalton in the film Cromwell... - Ah, now I remember! - Yes.
Yeah, he had a trepanning, he had terrible headaches.
But there was Prince Philip of Nassau in the 1590s -
in 1591 alone, he was trepanned 27 times.
His head would look like a tea-bag, he'd be so perforated.
His head would look like a colander, frankly! But it didn't kill him.
In fact, he went on later to win a drinking competition against
someone who died from drinking too much, and he carried on drinking.
- So the 27 trepans in one year... - The beer was pouring out of his head.
- Beer hair. - The point is, in New Guinea, they used found sharp things to do the hole
and then poured coconut milk over it, which is sterile.
In the 19th century in Britain, they were in hospitals where all kinds of cross-infections were possible,
and it was a lot more dangerous for that reason.
Do you know about open craniotomies?
Open-brain surgery where someone is conscious.
- Why would you want someone to be awake? - So you know that they can use their fingers... - That's right.
So you're not... Because we still know so little about the brain,
there is every chance you're an inch out
in where you're operating and you can ruin the speech or motion centre.
There's a man called Eddie Adcock,
I think his name was, he's quite a senior figure in the world of bluegrass music.
He had a hand tremor and they decided to do one of these conscious craniotomies on him
- and we have film of it. He plays the banjo... - No!
..while they're operating on his brain to check they're not interfering
with his... Can we see Mr Adcock? There he is.
How about now? No problems?
ADCOCK SINGS
That's pretty astonishing, isn't it?
- That is mental. - I saw in Star Trek, they took Spock's brain clean out
and replaced it with another one. They did it all...
He lay on his back and they put a board over his head
and a man stood behind, going... "The brain's out now.
"The new brain's in." They took the board up and his head was absolutely fine!
The fact is, trepanning IS the oldest known form of surgery.
In the 19th century, you were better off having it done in Papua New Guinea
than in the hospitals of London.
From hole-y heads to holy heads.
Now, can you tell me where the halo should go on this saint?
Oh.
- Can you see that her head is separated from her body? - BILL: It's gone. She's holding it.
It looks like the fella with the beard's done it by accident.
- LAUGHTER - Oh, God, it's come off!
The little bloke behind him's going "I told you. I told you."
She asked for half a kilo of Roquefort and he was clumsy with his cheese-cutter.
"I'm so sorry!"
GYLES: Does it depend on where we think our soul was?
Well, yes, it's up to the artist, but it was a really moot point.
- Do you put it... - The stump? - Oh! Or maybe two, could she have two?
- That might have been a much... - A diplomatic solution.
Yeah. Some artists depicted her with it over the stump, as it were, where her head was,
and others where her head is now, in a sort of ring. An aureole.
- Do you know any other names for halos? - Nimbus.
- Nimbus is a good name. - Gloriol-y. - Gloriole is one, yes.
- No, gloriol-y! We say gloriol-y. - Do we?
- It's a shame, because gloriole is somehow better. - LAUGHTER
Gloriol-y sounds more like a biscuit.
Describe the Pope's gloriole.
- Ah. - Ah, now, I've seen this. As a Catholic it's something you have to look at.
- Um...it's sort of square! - Popes do have square haloes, you're right!
- Pope Gregory had a square gloriole. - My goodness!
I was...Catholic.
And...yes, you're absolutely right. He was the first pope, Gregory the Great,
to declare that he should have a nimbus, he should have a gloriole.
- GYLES: Gloriol-y. - Gloriol-y.
- Gloriol-y. - But gloriole is so much funnier.
You're too innocent to know what a glory hole is.
- Oh, I see, it was a rude joke! - Oh, dear.
Sweet, sweet boy.
Can you have any shaped gloriole? Can you have some square ones and...
- Yes. - GYLES: Triangular ones! - Triangular ones for...
- Have you got a triangular gloriole? - BILL: Triangular gloriole?
- Somebody's shoved a Toblerone through it! - Whoa!
- Wow. - LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
It's been done... If one's allowed to be a little bit rude,
there is a church in Mexico that people visit
in order to see the gloriole of St Joseph...
- Right. - ..the father of Our Lord. Nominally.
Where his private part has a little halo above it.
Being Jewish, he would have had the real halo removed, so I suppose that makes sense.
The mohel would have come and removed, taken that halo off.
BILL: It was known as the ring of confidence.
Extraordinary.
How extraordinary. Really? And is that common? GYLES: It's on his member.
- Like a sort of angelic Prince Albert. - It's on...
LAUGHTER
- One would assume... - Whatever that may be, possibly.
that it is a local pre-Christian cult idea.
I mean, for example, in Nigeria there are parts where it used to be common
as a kind of handshake, in some tribes, to touch the...
- The penis... - Don't do it. - ..of the person...
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
I didn't realise that was a possibility, but how interesting!
So... And I'm sure there may well have been some Mayan or Aztec thing...
GYLES: I feel I've seen paintings with animals with halos.
The oxen in the stall of the Nativity, or the donkey on which Christ rode into Jerusalem.
- So donkeys can have them? - Yeah. - Ooh, who's that fella?
- Oh, look, there we are. There's another one. - There's a sparkler.
- That's St Denis, the patron saint... - There is a sparkler in his head.
He's got a sparkler on his head as well as a halo on his decapitated head.
St Denis is the patron saint of Paris. And indeed headaches.
It's the same fella, going "I've done it again!"
Yes, it is! It seems to be...
- It's come clean off! I told you! - That's the second time this week.
- I'm so clumsy! - BILL: This keeps happening.
Just swinging the thing around, not thinking...
It's a clumsy barber, isn't it?
"I'll just give a little... Oh, no. Oh, sorry."
"That's why I've got such a long beard - I don't trust myself."
- There's a member of the Chippendales, just looking on. - Exactly!
- Which is always nice. - Lovely. Lovely display.
What's not to like?
- So... - LAUGHTER
Good. Excellent.
When a saint has his head chopped off, his main worry seems to be where to put his halo.
How would you know if you had a shrunken head? Ah.
- I'm going to give you... - LAUGHTER
- Oh! - Oh! - Oh, yeah.
Is it real?
That's my question. How can you tell whether you have
an authentic shrunken head?
Oh, I see. How can you tell if you actually have a shrunken head yourself?
Does it come with a certificate?
ALL TALK AT ONCE
Is one of these real?
What do you know about shrunken...? Where would you get one? There are some real ones.
- Ecuador. - Ecuador is exactly right. This is brilliant.
You're on fire. That is impressive.
- Do you know the name of the tribe? - No. - The Shuar people. - Shuar? - Shuar people.
- They are a clan... - Bush monkeys. - Fish monkeys!
Oh, look, you put this in the back of your car!
- Yes! - So you think this is an early nodding dog? - Yes.
- That feels like horse hair or something to me. - It doesn't feel...
- It smells. - Are they still doing it? - Well, no, not officially. It's against the law.
But in every Ripley's Believe It Or Not! museum, there's at least one.
29, by our count.
Oh, that's lovely!
SCREAM
- How would you do it? - SCREAM
How would you shrink a head?
Put it in the washing machine at a very high heat.
So I mean, it's a normal human head, but it's reduced to the size...
- Those are real size. - You'd have to take all the skin off someone.
You take all the skin off in one go, including the hair. You throw away the skull and the eyes
into a river, if you're Shuar tribe. So you've got the skin, this whole skin.
Then you turn it inside out and you scrape it.
SCREAM
I didn't invent this.
- Get it back the right way, keeping the features as perfect as you can... - Like skinning a rabbit.
Yeah. You bind the lips together, you sew them together,
- and sew the eyelids, right? Then you pop in hot stones and sand. - Mmm.
- To give it shape? - I'm making note of this. - Then you simmer it.
- How long do you simmer it for? - Boiling water.
- Gas mark 2, my darling. - Bay leaf? - Yeah.
And then you kipper it, you smoke it, essentially.
- Voila. - To what purpose?
They're a pretty ferocious group of people, these Shuar.
- They're the ones who are famous... - Oh! For the man with the molten lava.
Are these the cruellest people in the history of the world?
- They're certainly... - I remember the teacher who taught us this.
He was pretty vicious himself.
- And there was a Spanish general who tried to tame this Shuar tribe... - Yes.
They had the last laugh. They took him, they pulled open his mouth,
they poured molten gold down his gullet until his bowels burst.
- Right. Sounds like a good repayment for his greed for gold. - Indeed.
- That's why they used gold. - Indeed.
- Why are they so unpleasant? - They're the tribe famous for dipping darts in curare, the poison beloved
- of detective writers. - That's the one that gets your central nervous system? - Absolutely.
- They've got lovely hats, though. - It's a good look.
Yours are not human, they are goat or alpaca.
These are available in Ecuador as tourist knick-knacks.
So that's a goat's face?
Goat skin. You can usually tell, one that's done by someone
imitating the tribesmen has lips too neatly sown up.
In the originals, they were pretty basic.
Is it to preserve relatives?
It's a kind of gleeful, joyous, gloating, "I own you."
- Take the spirit out of you. - But it's not a compliment,
- it's not, "Granny's gone, let's keep her at the end of the bed." - Oh, no.
- What do you really think about Uncle Bill, Grandma? - I hated him!
If you hand them back, I've got another little experiment.
I've got something else to give you. All we want you to do,
I'm going to hand you these blank £2 coins.
Just try and draw the Queen's head as she is on the coin.
- The Queen's head on the coin? - Yeah.
Is she wearing a crown, is she... An outline.
Which way does she look?
No-one knows.
No, don't ask for help! Oi!
Alan Davies, I'll take points away if you cheat.
How do you think I got through school without asking for help?
- Everyone done? - She looks like Lenny Henry in mine.
Well, that's all right.
OK, done.
Oh, Alan's done. You...
Mine looks like a triceratops.
Let's look at yours there.
LAUGHTER
And yours? Extraordinary.
The point is, you've all, especially Bill,
you've all made the fundamental error that everybody makes
in thinking she faces left. She faces right.
KLAXON
Yeah, because most people think that.
Sorry, it's too late now.
88% of people think the Queen faces left on her coins.
On every coin that ever was stamped since she was Queen,
it's always face to the right.
- Never ask for help. - Do they take it in turns?
- Did her father face the other way? - Yes.
- And Prince Charles. - He's straight on, with the ears, like that.
They've alternated since Charles II.
But does she not face the other way on the paper money?
No, on the stamp. That's one theory.
Whoa!
One theory as to why 88% of people seem to think she faces left
is because she does on the definitive edition of the stamps.
We're all familiar with that image.
On the other hand, that's true in Denmark,
Queen Margrethe, they also think she faces left, but on the stamp
she looks out, and on the coin she looks to the right.
But if you ask a Dane which way she faces, they will say left.
It's something to do, probably, with right-handedness. We just picture a profile that way.
It's really strange, cos we handle these things every day,
unless you're Gyles, when you have someone to do it for you.
It's bizarre that we just don't notice.
- That's all coins, is it? - All coins with the Queen's head on.
- How long has that been? - Since the beginning of time.
It alternates between monarchs, so her father faced left.
Oh, I see.
And his father, George V, not counting the abdication,
George VI.
If you could get all the coins of all the monarchs together,
alternating monarchs, and could just flick through them, they'd be...
It would. It would be like a tennis match. It'd be exhausting.
So the Queen has always faced to the right on all her British coins of her reign
and yet tests have shown that up to 88% of people draw her facing the other way.
What happens if you try and comb a hairy ball?
Ask Bill.
- LAUGHTER - Ask Bill?
Bill, what happens when you try and comb a hairy ball?
I have a hairy... I have a hairy ball.
- Let's see! - You have to focus.
You have to concentrate and not...
Your hand mustn't slip at any time.
You can't do it.
Well, you can sort of, obviously, have a combing action.
Why would you do this? Why are we combing hairy balls?
Because it's an interesting, mathematical, topographical...
Look at this. It's Don King! Look at that!
Yeah! I just want you to comb it so that it all lies in the same direction,
- perfectly combed. - So you can't actually... It keeps going round
- if you comb a hairy ball. - So you can't actually do it.
There's a mathematical principle. A trichoglyph is bound to occur,
which is like a cowlick,
- like a crown, where... - I see. It all goes into one little bit that'll stick up like that.
Yeah, it twirls. It's actually like a cyclone.
- If it was the earth, it would be a cyclone in... - Mine looks like Anne Robinson.
- There it is on a man's head. - Oh, yeah. I see, right, yeah.
- So it's mathematical. - It's a mathematical thing - you can't...
If it was a doughnut or bagel shape, a torus,
you could comb it all the way round in the same direction without this twirl,
but it's because it's a sphere, you have it.
In theory, every planet, even if it weren't going round,
would have a cyclone, which is what that swirl is.
GYLES: That's why there are no hairy planets.
- No hairy planets. - It's an impossibility.
Yeah. Do you have...?
- Very nice. - Look at that. Wow.
Some people have double crowns.
Your barber says, "You've got a double crown, sir."
Oh! You've combed it...
Oh, no! Alan!
- I'm going to do some trepanning. - Oh, no!
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
Whoa!
And now, to keep thematic, you've got to shrink it.
Yeah! Turn it inside out and scrape it.
I've got the recipe if you want it.
An interesting thing about this cowlick is that
on most people, do you think clockwise or anti-clockwise, most men?
- Clockwise. - Clockwise. - You're right.
Only 8% of men have an anti-clockwise one,
but 30% of gay men have an anti-clockwise one.
Is that a double-bluff, Proustian style? Everybody's combing it round?
You can't... You're born with it - it goes one way or the other from birth.
There's no... You can't force it the other way.
It's almost as if it's a physiological proof, at least a certain percentage of gay people...
- Nature's assigned it. - You and your Conservative Party who go,
"We mustn't have lessons in being gay or it'll turn everyone gay," it's all there in the hair.
This is why most of my friends have double crowns -
cos they're Tommy Two-ways.
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
- It says everything! - Tommy Two-ways!
So, the comb-over, we covered. What is so extraordinary about the comb-over?
Look, that's lovely.
Historically, in America...?
It was patented.
It was patent number 4,022,227
for how to disguise baldness by combing over your hair, so if anybody...
- LAUGHTER - Yeah!
You are in breach of... You will be sued!
Wow! Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
- APPLAUSE - Oh!
- WOLF WHISTLE - Yeah! - Hey!
- That is some sexy stuff, there. - Can I just say, butch and gay. Mmm.
I'm a Tommy Two-ways.
I can go this way... Actually, I can get it to go all the way round.
Oh, you're a Thelma Three-ways!
LAUGHTER
Oh, you've done it all now.
- That's nice. Over the ear is lovely. - How's that?
Delicate. Delicate.
LAUGHTER
SCOTTISH ACCENT: Hello! I'm the constituent for Stornoway.
LAUGHTER
- Oh, heavens above. - SCOTTISH ACCENT: I'm the Tory MP...
and homosexuality is a disease.
It can be cured by excessive combing.
LAUGHTER
Out, vile demon! Out, vile demon!
Fabulous.
It's a terrible curse!
APPLAUSE
Right, hand them back. Hand them back.
You...are in trouble.
- Oh, he's in trouble! - Yes, you are.
Now what can you tell me about the Chinese Hula Hoop-la?
I know they do massive demonstrations of it with thousands of people...
Ribbons of various kinds and so on, but there was a particular time...
- What is so famous about the Hula Hoop in our culture, or at least in England? - 1958.
- Tell us about 1958. - Well, in 1957 I got my David Crockett hat. - Right.
In 1958 I got my first Hula Hoop.
- That was the year of the Hula Hoop. - It was.
You should have seen me. I was called Dizzy Hips Gyles.
- Oh, good God... - LAUGHTER
- We all began doing it. - The "all" thing is extraordinary
because it was a one-year thing, it was a HUGE craze.
I mean, we all remember various toy crazes perhaps and game crazes when we were younger,
but this one was THE mother of...
- BANG! - Oh... Sorry.
This one was the mother of them all and...
it...it...
The extraordinary thing was, it disappeared as fast as it came.
And it was a disaster. My uncle put money into it because it was so big
and lost it all. The Hula Hoop, the greatest craze in the history of the world,
actually failed to make any money.
Everyone on the planet owned one and still they lost.
- Particularly the company, Wham-O, who made them... - Maybe the name.
- It still exists, it's a successful company. - They made the Frisbee.
That's the one year they made a loss,
cos despite the fact that millions of people bought a Hula Hoop...
There they are. It ended so quickly. They'd stockpiled,
expecting it to last till Christmas and it completely ended.
I suppose the thing is, they don't really wear out,
- so once you get one, that's it then. - You don't want another one. - What does wear out is the fun.
- And your hips, which degenerate over time. - They should make them out of something else,
- something biodegradable, cheese or something. - Cheese!
Cheese? Brilliant. But in China,
they had a similar fad in the early '90s.
Millions of people bought them
and then there was a hysteria because
there were three people went to hospital with twisted intestines.
They obviously tried to eat them. The Hula Hoop thing was lost in translation!
The Chinese State Media said you should stop Hula Hooping because of... But you're right,
it was nothing to do with Hula Hooping.
- Even old Dizzy Hips Gyles. - Even you never twisted your intestines.
I didn't. I must say, it's difficult to Hula Hoop and it's boring.
It's not. It's nice.
Actually, if you can do it also on your arms... I had three...
- That's a skipping rope. - Is it? You're right.
BILL: Here we go! Now cut live to the hula party!
Ah, that's the hula bit!
This is the home of the hula. This is Hawaii.
This is the dance itself, called the hula.
She knows what she's doing.
A hula is a whole celebratory thing, you have...
That guy's having brain surgery, playing the guitar.
I do love the band, they're great.
They're thinking, "This is the best gig ever!
"Since I joined this band, I've never stopped smiling."
Can you suggest a theory as to why the Hula Hoop was so big in '58?
- Er, post-war optimism. - Mm-hm.
End of rationing. No, it ended mid-'50s.
- There's a thought maybe it was Elvis. - Elvis the pelvis?
It would make you do things with your hips.
- Gyrating. - And there was the whole Hawaiian thing through him as well.
And the Hawaiian thing he liked.
He was not allowed to be filmed below the waist or something. Was that true?
- On television, The Ed Sullivan Show, I believe. - Too sexy for the '50s.
Gyles has the same thing. He's not allowed to display.
Dizzy Hips Brandreth can't bust them out on TV!
He's actually hula-ing right now.
LAUGHTER
Quite subtly, yes.
Which brings us to the unappealing nether regions of our show,
the place that we call General Ignorance. Hands on horns,
if you'd be so kind.
What should you do with your head if you have a nosebleed?
HIP-HIP-HOORAY!
Yes?
You have to answer.
I'm doing it.
You should do that with your head?
- Pressing... - Your lip.
No, pressing the bit below the nose.
No.
Because the nose...
Actually, not worry. A nosebleed won't harm you.
OK, you might stain your clothes.
You might stain your clothes, but a nose bleed is all right.
- You could lie back. - No!
KLAXON
Oh, you're so angry, so competitive, I like it.
- The point is, most people think... - No, I remember this.
- Because, do you know. No! - And you can get it in the lungs.
Worse than that,
this is why I should've remembered this. You lie back, it goes into you,
but you can also have a nosebleed through your eyes.
It is possible to have a nosebleed that comes out of these bits.
- An eyebleed? - Yes,
but it's a misdirected nosebleed. Wrong to call it an eyebleed,
- cos it's coming out from the nose part. - Just tilt your head forward
from now on, love.
So the point is, forwards, not back.
If it lasts longer than 20 minutes, it is very much recommended to seek medical advice.
And if you've caused it from anything other than the most common causes, which would be...
- Bouncy castle. - LAUGHTER
- Classic. - Inevitable.
Another one is being punched in the face. That's one, yep.
That can bring it on. There you are.
That would do it. Tilt your head forward.
- Can you name them? I think that's Larry Holmes and... - Spinks, is it?
Ray Mercer. Merciless Ray Mercer.
There are various others. Blowing your nose too hard, picking it.
Yeah. You shouldn't tilt your head back if you have a nosebleed,
it can be dangerous. Tilt your head forwards and pinch your nose,
then eventually, after 12 minutes or so, it'll clot naturally.
What might happen if you swallow your tongue, however?
HIP-HIP-HOORAY!
Nothing. I don't believe you can swallow your tongue.
Is the right answer.
Absolutely.
APPLAUSE
That sort of busybody person who says, "Lots of hot, sweet tea,"
when someone's fainted or had a seizure and say, "Do this,"
and they pull the tongue down cos they might swallow, it's nonsense.
- What do they mean then? - It might obstruct an airway, possibly...
- It's very rare. - If you have a bash and you bite it or something...
You can bite it, yeah, but you can't swallow it.
There was literally this idea that it goes backwards, down your throat,
causes you to choke. That cannot happen. And, finally!
Why shouldn't you crack your knuckles?
Ooh.
Can you do lasting damage?
- The bone... - HIS KNUCKLE CRACKS
- Oooh! - Oh, no!
There's a... I think it's an old wives' tale,
that if you do that, it causes arthritis.
Because there was a famous doctor called Dr Unger,
who believed that it did, and for 50 years, this doctor, every day,
cracked the knuckles on his left hand
- and didn't on his right. - But the story is that his mother,
when he was very young, he cracked the knuckles on both hands,
his mother said, "You do that, you'll get arthritis."
And he thought, being of a scientific turn of mind...
- REDNECK VOICE: - You gon' get arthritis!
He thought, "I'll test this by only doing it on the left hand."
I ain't gettin' no arthritis, and I'll show you how!
So he did it on his left hand only, and for 60 years he cracked,
and then he had various tests and there was no suggestion of arthritis
on the left hand more than the right. Apparently he shouted,
- "You were wrong, Mother, you were wrong!" - BILL: "I wasted my life."
- You were wrong! - Well, there we are!
That is indeed the answer. You can't get arthritis
from cracking your knuckles. At worst, you could end up
with a limp handshake, and goodness knows what impression that'll give people(!)
Which handily brings us to the heart of the matter - the scores.
And the winner, who really used his head...
They're two heads, because, ladies and gentlemen,
we have a tie for first place.
On -8, it's Gyles and Sue!
APPLAUSE
Oh, but missing out on a hair's breadth with -12, Bill Bailey!
APPLAUSE
Throwing his hands up in the air on -25, Alan Davies!
APPLAUSE
So all that's left for me is to thank Sue, Gyles, Bill and, of course, Alan.
And I leave you with this. It's an anatomy lesson.
In order to accustom medical students
to the business of getting used to dead human flesh,
an anatomy professor basically said to the class,
"Look, you've got to get used to doing this, I need one of you to come forward."
They were first year. Stood him by the body, said, "Do what I do."
He put his finger up the rectum of this dead body,
like that, and then just sucked it.
- AUDIENCE GROANS - He said, "I know, I know,
"but you've got to learn how to be a doctor."
So this medical student puts the finger up like that.
He said, "The other thing about being a doctor is you must be observant.
"I put my middle finger up the rectum and sucked my index." Thank you and goodbye.
APPLAUSE
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