1 00:00:01,700 --> 00:00:09,700 This programme contains some strong language. 2 00:00:23,700 --> 00:00:24,700 CHEERING AND APPLAUSE 3 00:00:24,700 --> 00:00:27,700 WHISTLING 4 00:00:29,700 --> 00:00:32,700 Well... 5 00:00:32,700 --> 00:00:34,700 good evening, good evening, good evening, 6 00:00:34,700 --> 00:00:37,700 good evening, good evening, and welcome to QI, 7 00:00:37,700 --> 00:00:41,700 which tonight is a melange of M places. 8 00:00:41,700 --> 00:00:44,700 Joining me on my metropolitan meander are, 9 00:00:44,700 --> 00:00:46,700 the M-inent Sue Perkins! 10 00:00:46,700 --> 00:00:50,700 APPLAUSE 11 00:00:50,700 --> 00:00:52,700 The M-powered Sami Shah! 12 00:00:52,700 --> 00:00:54,700 APPLAUSE 13 00:00:55,700 --> 00:00:58,700 The M-phatic David Mitchell! 14 00:00:58,700 --> 00:00:59,700 APPLAUSE 15 00:00:59,700 --> 00:01:01,700 WHISTLING 16 00:01:01,700 --> 00:01:05,700 And...the frankly M-barrassing Alan Davies. 17 00:01:05,700 --> 00:01:08,700 CHEERING AND APPLAUSE 18 00:01:10,700 --> 00:01:11,700 Their buzzers 19 00:01:11,700 --> 00:01:14,700 celebrate some of the most magnificent Ms on the map. 20 00:01:14,700 --> 00:01:16,700 Sue goes... 21 00:01:16,700 --> 00:01:19,700 ♪ When I was walking in Memphis... ♪ 22 00:01:19,700 --> 00:01:20,700 Sami goes... 23 00:01:20,700 --> 00:01:22,700 # I'm going to Miami... 24 00:01:22,700 --> 00:01:23,700 LAUGHTER 25 00:01:23,700 --> 00:01:24,700 ♪ Welcome to Miami... ♪ 26 00:01:24,700 --> 00:01:25,700 David goes... 27 00:01:25,700 --> 00:01:29,700 # And the lights all went down 28 00:01:29,700 --> 00:01:32,700 In Massachusetts... # 29 00:01:32,700 --> 00:01:34,700 Yeah, the Bee Gees. And Alan goes... 30 00:01:34,700 --> 00:01:38,700 ♪ Glory, glory Man United... ♪ 31 00:01:38,700 --> 00:01:41,700 GROANING AND APPLAUSE Oh, don't you like that? 32 00:01:41,700 --> 00:01:45,700 Don't you like that? Oh, try again. Oh... 33 00:01:45,700 --> 00:01:47,700 # Hate Man United 34 00:01:47,700 --> 00:01:49,700 ♪ We only hate Man United... ♪ 35 00:01:49,700 --> 00:01:52,700 APPLAUSE AND CHEERING You see. 36 00:01:53,700 --> 00:01:58,700 So, which of the following M-places is made up? 37 00:01:58,700 --> 00:01:59,700 There they are. 38 00:01:59,700 --> 00:02:01,700 Messak Settafet. 39 00:02:01,700 --> 00:02:04,700 Er, The Mountains of Kong. 40 00:02:04,700 --> 00:02:05,700 Meedhupparuraa... 41 00:02:05,700 --> 00:02:07,700 LAUGHTER 42 00:02:07,700 --> 00:02:09,700 Merv. 43 00:02:09,700 --> 00:02:10,700 ♪ Miami... ♪ Yes, Sami? 44 00:02:10,700 --> 00:02:13,700 I'm going to say Meedhupparuraa, only because... 45 00:02:13,700 --> 00:02:16,700 it has 'made up', literally, in its name. 46 00:02:16,700 --> 00:02:18,700 ALARM 47 00:02:19,700 --> 00:02:21,700 Failure! There's a logic there 48 00:02:21,700 --> 00:02:24,700 and you're new to QI and I'd like to be merciful, 49 00:02:24,700 --> 00:02:26,700 but I'm not going to be. All right, fair enough. 50 00:02:26,700 --> 00:02:29,700 DAVID: But in a sense, all names are made-up, aren't they? 51 00:02:29,700 --> 00:02:32,700 LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE 52 00:02:36,700 --> 00:02:38,700 HIGH PITCHED: Welcome 53 00:02:38,700 --> 00:02:40,700 to the logically ruthless world of David Mitchell! 54 00:02:40,700 --> 00:02:41,700 LAUGHTER 55 00:02:41,700 --> 00:02:43,700 Not that you sound like that, I'm sorry. 56 00:02:43,700 --> 00:02:46,700 But no, of course you're right, they are. Yeah. You're right. 57 00:02:46,700 --> 00:02:48,700 But which one is not existing? But we have... 58 00:02:48,700 --> 00:02:51,700 The Mountains of Kong sounds like it's from fiction. Kong. 59 00:02:51,700 --> 00:02:54,700 That sounds totally made up. Mountains of Kong? 60 00:02:54,700 --> 00:02:56,700 You're right. You're right. Though... 61 00:02:56,700 --> 00:02:59,700 it was made up in a way that was utterly convincing for 100 years. 62 00:02:59,700 --> 00:03:02,700 It's not like something from Flash Gordon, or something? 63 00:03:02,700 --> 00:03:05,700 No, it's earlier than that. It was a cartographer 64 00:03:05,700 --> 00:03:07,700 who was a highly respected figure... Mm. 65 00:03:07,700 --> 00:03:10,700 ..who was just imagining them. 66 00:03:10,700 --> 00:03:13,700 It was a chain of mountains all the way across Africa, 67 00:03:13,700 --> 00:03:14,700 below the Sahara 68 00:03:14,700 --> 00:03:17,700 and before what you might call 'darkest Africa', 69 00:03:17,700 --> 00:03:19,700 sub-Saharan Africa, as we'd now say. 70 00:03:19,700 --> 00:03:23,700 And this, right up to 1895, this was in atlases. 71 00:03:23,700 --> 00:03:25,700 He was called James Rennell 72 00:03:25,700 --> 00:03:27,700 and he was a very respected figure. 73 00:03:27,700 --> 00:03:29,700 And he... Until someone... Until he made it up. 74 00:03:29,700 --> 00:03:31,700 Until someone went skiing in the Mountains of Kong. 75 00:03:31,700 --> 00:03:33,700 LAUGHTER 76 00:03:33,700 --> 00:03:35,700 Well, the effect of it was that nobody... Should be here somewhere. 77 00:03:35,700 --> 00:03:37,700 The effect of it was that nobody dreamt 78 00:03:37,700 --> 00:03:40,700 or thought of passing this barrier and going through 79 00:03:40,700 --> 00:03:42,700 to the rest of Africa. Yeah. 80 00:03:42,700 --> 00:03:43,700 They had obviously navigated the coast, 81 00:03:43,700 --> 00:03:46,700 there was the slave routes, which were all the way further down, 82 00:03:46,700 --> 00:03:49,700 but everyone thought from the north you couldn't get through. 83 00:03:49,700 --> 00:03:52,700 Did he, what did he do, spill something on the map and..? 84 00:03:52,700 --> 00:03:53,700 That's quite possible! 85 00:03:53,700 --> 00:03:56,700 Oh, bollocks, I've just... I'll call it the Mountains of... 86 00:03:56,700 --> 00:03:58,700 LAUGHTER ..Kong. 87 00:03:58,700 --> 00:04:02,700 But who, who gets to name, who gets the honour of naming a thing? 88 00:04:02,700 --> 00:04:04,700 If you chance upon it, can you call it..? Yeah. 89 00:04:04,700 --> 00:04:07,700 Kong Mountains, or Jimmy Hill, or... 90 00:04:07,700 --> 00:04:11,700 Maybe, in the case David Livingstone, you'd call it Lake Victoria, 91 00:04:11,700 --> 00:04:14,700 after your dear queen and all that sort of thing. 92 00:04:14,700 --> 00:04:17,700 Difficult to name it after yourself, isn't it? It is. 93 00:04:17,700 --> 00:04:18,700 You have to name it after someone and so, 94 00:04:18,700 --> 00:04:21,700 the thing to do, as an explorer, would be to get there 95 00:04:21,700 --> 00:04:24,700 and then ask your assistant explorer if they can think of a name. 96 00:04:24,700 --> 00:04:26,700 LAUGHTER 97 00:04:26,700 --> 00:04:29,700 You know, while reminding them how they got that job. Yes. 98 00:04:29,700 --> 00:04:30,700 LAUGHTER 99 00:04:30,700 --> 00:04:33,700 "Oh, no, me? Really? Oh, you can't be..." Yes. 100 00:04:33,700 --> 00:04:35,700 Well, he called somewhere Blantyre, 101 00:04:35,700 --> 00:04:38,700 for example, which is where he was born in Scotland, Livingstone, 102 00:04:38,700 --> 00:04:40,700 but you do run out, don't you? 103 00:04:40,700 --> 00:04:43,700 It's a bit like the naming of waifs and strays, orphaned children, 104 00:04:43,700 --> 00:04:45,700 at the Foundling Hospital in London. 105 00:04:45,700 --> 00:04:48,700 It's a rather wonderful place to visit. 106 00:04:48,700 --> 00:04:52,700 And there's a plaque with names of all these children who turned up 107 00:04:52,700 --> 00:04:55,700 who were orphans, or babies mostly, left by their mothers. 108 00:04:55,700 --> 00:04:59,700 And after a while, the committee for naming them just got bored. 109 00:04:59,700 --> 00:05:02,700 And so... Jessiah Table. 110 00:05:02,700 --> 00:05:03,700 LAUGHTER 111 00:05:03,700 --> 00:05:05,700 Charlotte Sky. 112 00:05:05,700 --> 00:05:08,700 In a way, it's just awful! "Oh, I can't be arsed." 113 00:05:08,700 --> 00:05:10,700 John Thing. Yes! 114 00:05:10,700 --> 00:05:12,700 John Thing the Second. 115 00:05:12,700 --> 00:05:15,700 John Thing the Third. John Other Thing. Yeah. 116 00:05:15,700 --> 00:05:16,700 Couldn't give a toss! 117 00:05:16,700 --> 00:05:18,700 402. 118 00:05:18,700 --> 00:05:19,700 LAUGHTER 119 00:05:19,700 --> 00:05:23,700 But Meedhupparuraa exists in the Maldives. 120 00:05:23,700 --> 00:05:26,700 That's an island in the Raa Atoll. 121 00:05:26,700 --> 00:05:29,700 Well, it won't exist for long, then. LAUGHTER 122 00:05:29,700 --> 00:05:33,700 Because it's very low. Yes, yes, absolutely, yes. Very low. 123 00:05:33,700 --> 00:05:35,700 A couple more coal-fired power stations 124 00:05:35,700 --> 00:05:38,700 and it'll be Meedhupparuraa again. LAUGHTER 125 00:05:40,700 --> 00:05:42,700 What about Messak Settafet? 126 00:05:42,700 --> 00:05:45,700 Fine tennis player. LAUGHTER 127 00:05:45,700 --> 00:05:47,700 Is it in Egypt? 128 00:05:47,700 --> 00:05:49,700 Not actually in Egypt, 129 00:05:49,700 --> 00:05:52,700 but not so many million miles away. Shropshire. 130 00:05:52,700 --> 00:05:54,700 It's in the Sahara, is what I'm trying to say. 131 00:05:54,700 --> 00:05:56,700 In the Sahara. It's in the Sahara, 132 00:05:56,700 --> 00:06:00,700 and it is known as containing more tools than any other place on earth. 133 00:06:00,700 --> 00:06:03,700 Apart from "insert city." Apart from Made In Chelsea. 134 00:06:03,700 --> 00:06:07,700 LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE 135 00:06:09,700 --> 00:06:13,700 You may say, "Oh, a lot of tools. Well, that's not very interesting." 136 00:06:13,700 --> 00:06:16,700 But 75 artefacts per square metre, 137 00:06:16,700 --> 00:06:18,700 it's almost 200 million per square mile. 138 00:06:18,700 --> 00:06:22,700 It's a staggering amount of man-made objects. These things like hand axes? 139 00:06:22,700 --> 00:06:25,700 Yes. That sort of old tools. Yeah, all those kinds of things. 140 00:06:25,700 --> 00:06:27,700 Over 100,00 years or so. 141 00:06:27,700 --> 00:06:29,700 Local sandstone was ideal. Messak Settafet, 142 00:06:29,700 --> 00:06:34,700 is that Saharan language, whatever it is, for Homebase, or...? 143 00:06:34,700 --> 00:06:36,700 LAUGHTER 144 00:06:36,700 --> 00:06:39,700 It was the right kind of rock. Clay Tools R Us. 145 00:06:39,700 --> 00:06:41,700 They'd bought a lot of flint 146 00:06:41,700 --> 00:06:43,700 the day before the strimmer was invented. Yeah. 147 00:06:43,700 --> 00:06:44,700 LAUGHTER 148 00:06:44,700 --> 00:06:47,700 According to Dr Robert Foley of Cambridge University, 149 00:06:47,700 --> 00:06:50,700 the rock extracted from Africa by humans to make tools 150 00:06:50,700 --> 00:06:53,700 over the last million years would be enough to build 151 00:06:53,700 --> 00:06:55,700 three Great Pyramids of Giza 152 00:06:55,700 --> 00:06:58,700 for every square mile of the entire continent. 153 00:06:58,700 --> 00:07:01,700 Which is one way of expressing that there were a lot of them. 154 00:07:01,700 --> 00:07:04,700 There was a lot more Africa 155 00:07:04,700 --> 00:07:07,700 before early man turned it into tools. 156 00:07:07,700 --> 00:07:09,700 LAUGHTER Well, it's still there. 157 00:07:09,700 --> 00:07:12,700 It's still in Africa, it's just now loose. No, most of it's in museums. 158 00:07:12,700 --> 00:07:15,700 Pyramids and pyramids are in museums 159 00:07:15,700 --> 00:07:18,700 and in a big heap in Messak Settafet. 160 00:07:18,700 --> 00:07:22,700 Probably the Mountains of Kong WERE there. 161 00:07:22,700 --> 00:07:27,700 LAUGHTER They were just... They just made tools out of them. Yeah. 162 00:07:27,700 --> 00:07:29,700 APPLAUSE 163 00:07:29,700 --> 00:07:31,700 Very good indeed. 164 00:07:31,700 --> 00:07:34,700 So, Merv. Where's Merv? Where was Merv? Where is Merv? 165 00:07:34,700 --> 00:07:36,700 Where could Merv be? Usually fielding on the boundary. 166 00:07:36,700 --> 00:07:39,700 LAUGHTER So you're talking about... Merv Hughes. 167 00:07:39,700 --> 00:07:42,700 Merv Hughes, Merv the Swerve. Yeah. 168 00:07:42,700 --> 00:07:45,700 No, it's not that. It genuinely was a place. 169 00:07:45,700 --> 00:07:48,700 Where's Merv? I don't know. Well, it was a city. 170 00:07:48,700 --> 00:07:52,700 Is that Merv... The earliest city is supposed to be Ur, isn't it? 171 00:07:52,700 --> 00:07:55,700 - Yeah, that's just, they're like, "What shall we name it? Urgh!" 172 00:07:55,700 --> 00:07:58,700 - Exactly. Argh! Eeeh! - "Sounds good to me, yeah!" 173 00:07:58,700 --> 00:08:01,700 - It's like the first stage of sophistication beyond Ur, 174 00:08:01,700 --> 00:08:04,700 we've gone Ur, Argh, Eurgh and Eeh. 175 00:08:04,700 --> 00:08:07,700 You need then Merv, Brrf, Prrf. LAUGHTER 176 00:08:07,700 --> 00:08:10,700 And then Seurgh. 177 00:08:10,700 --> 00:08:12,700 Merv was on the legendary Silk Road. 178 00:08:12,700 --> 00:08:15,700 OK. The great trading route. Oh, all right. Yeah. 179 00:08:15,700 --> 00:08:18,700 So China and India. You mean in China and India and Pakistan. 180 00:08:18,700 --> 00:08:22,700 Exactly. Through your... Yeah, it's in my neck of the woods, if you will. Yeah, exactly. 181 00:08:22,700 --> 00:08:25,700 Good old Merv, we used to go there for chai and beverages. 182 00:08:25,700 --> 00:08:27,700 LAUGHTER 183 00:08:28,700 --> 00:08:31,700 There's a guy there who makes an amazing naan. 184 00:08:31,700 --> 00:08:32,700 LAUGHTER 185 00:08:32,700 --> 00:08:35,700 Is it like Knutsford, like a services? 186 00:08:35,700 --> 00:08:39,700 Naan, lovely, but surely chai is disgusting. 187 00:08:39,700 --> 00:08:43,700 Chai is tea! Oh, chai's lovely. It's hot, sweet milky. 188 00:08:43,700 --> 00:08:46,700 It's always sweet... It's only your fault we have that! LAUGHTER 189 00:08:46,700 --> 00:08:49,700 Have you ever asked... There was no chai before the British came. 190 00:08:49,700 --> 00:08:52,700 "..I'll have some chai, please, but without sugar." 191 00:08:52,700 --> 00:08:53,700 Why would you ask without sugar? 192 00:08:53,700 --> 00:08:58,700 That's genuinely an insult which is, yeah, it's punishable. Uh-oh. LAUGHTER 193 00:08:58,700 --> 00:09:00,700 I'd rather not get type 2 diabetes. 194 00:09:00,700 --> 00:09:03,700 Stephen, he's only been here ten minutes and you've insulted him. 195 00:09:03,700 --> 00:09:07,700 If you can't commit to type 2 diabetes, then you shouldn't have chai in the first place. 196 00:09:07,700 --> 00:09:10,700 LAUGHTER I've learnt that, painfully. Fair enough. 197 00:09:10,700 --> 00:09:12,700 Let's get back to Merv. 198 00:09:12,700 --> 00:09:14,700 It was arguably the largest city in the world, 199 00:09:14,700 --> 00:09:17,700 had a population of 200,000 people. 200 00:09:17,700 --> 00:09:21,700 This is, we're going back from 1150s to 1200, that sort of thing. 201 00:09:21,700 --> 00:09:24,700 A bit quieter now, though, by the look of it. Well, yes. 202 00:09:24,700 --> 00:09:26,700 LAUGHTER 203 00:09:26,700 --> 00:09:29,700 Just a man and a donkey. Ever since they built the railway! Yep. 204 00:09:29,700 --> 00:09:30,700 LAUGHTER 205 00:09:30,700 --> 00:09:34,700 Since they built the freeway. He's sitting there like, "They'll come back soon." 206 00:09:34,700 --> 00:09:36,700 That's what happened when they built the bypass. 207 00:09:36,700 --> 00:09:39,700 The bottom fell out of the market for green stuff. 208 00:09:39,700 --> 00:09:41,700 LAUGHTER 209 00:09:43,700 --> 00:09:46,700 But it all sounds a bit George RR Martin, actually, 210 00:09:46,700 --> 00:09:51,700 cos it changed hands between the Khwarazmians of Khiva, 211 00:09:51,700 --> 00:09:52,700 the Ghuzz and the Ghurids. 212 00:09:52,700 --> 00:09:55,700 And the Dothraki. And the Dothraki in the end. LAUGHTER 213 00:09:55,700 --> 00:10:00,700 In 1221, they surrendered to the Mongols, which was a big mistake. 214 00:10:00,700 --> 00:10:02,700 Didn't everyone surrender to the Mongols around then? 215 00:10:02,700 --> 00:10:05,700 I would. I don't think surrendering was the right word, though. 216 00:10:05,700 --> 00:10:07,700 They didn't have a choice in the matter as such. Not really, 217 00:10:07,700 --> 00:10:10,700 and the result was they were all massacred, every one of them killed. 218 00:10:10,700 --> 00:10:13,700 Disaster. Yeah. Except for that person. The Mongols didn't understand the basics, did they? 219 00:10:13,700 --> 00:10:16,700 Yeah, the Mongols were not kind or polite. Yeah, bad Mongols! 220 00:10:16,700 --> 00:10:18,700 We might come to them later, who knows? 221 00:10:18,700 --> 00:10:23,700 But the closest modern city to Merv is in Turkmenistan, 222 00:10:23,700 --> 00:10:26,700 and it's called Mary. I like that. It's a city called Mary. Mother Mary. 223 00:10:26,700 --> 00:10:30,700 Why do you think it's called Mary? Erm, why is it called Mary? 224 00:10:30,700 --> 00:10:32,700 Oh, because Catholic missionaries, or...? 225 00:10:32,700 --> 00:10:36,700 No, it's because they believe that's where the mother of Jee-ee-sus... 226 00:10:36,700 --> 00:10:37,700 LAUGHTER ..was buried. 227 00:10:39,700 --> 00:10:41,700 LAUGHTER BUILDS 228 00:10:41,700 --> 00:10:43,700 Anyway! Why would the mother of Jesus have 229 00:10:43,700 --> 00:10:46,700 gone quite such a long way to be buried? 230 00:10:46,700 --> 00:10:47,700 It's a long way from Nazareth. 231 00:10:47,700 --> 00:10:50,700 Cos she wasn't as much of a celebrity, then... 232 00:10:50,700 --> 00:10:53,700 LAUGHTER 233 00:10:53,700 --> 00:10:55,700 Nowadays, it would be no problem for her to sort it out. 234 00:10:55,700 --> 00:10:58,700 You could get a sponsorship deal, Richard Branson would happily 235 00:10:58,700 --> 00:11:01,700 helicopter her anywhere in the world to be buried, 236 00:11:01,700 --> 00:11:03,700 but in those days it's just a long trek... It was. 237 00:11:03,700 --> 00:11:06,700 ..with no-one really taking any notice of you. 238 00:11:06,700 --> 00:11:09,700 She's just another dead Mary, isn't she? Exactly. 239 00:11:09,700 --> 00:11:12,700 Maybe it was just a random. Are they sure it's the right Mary? Yeah. 240 00:11:12,700 --> 00:11:16,700 Well, it could be, because there was all kinds of Marys around. Yes. 241 00:11:16,700 --> 00:11:19,700 It was like Brighton, it was just full of Marys. 242 00:11:19,700 --> 00:11:22,700 So - thank you for getting that, if you did - erm... 243 00:11:22,700 --> 00:11:24,700 LAUGHTER 244 00:11:24,700 --> 00:11:28,700 The Mountains of Kong aren't real, but Meedhupparuraa is. 245 00:11:28,700 --> 00:11:31,700 Can you give me your best Mummerset accent? 246 00:11:31,700 --> 00:11:33,700 "Mummerset." 247 00:11:33,700 --> 00:11:36,700 THEY MUMBLE 248 00:11:36,700 --> 00:11:38,700 You're hoping for an, "ooh-aar." 249 00:11:38,700 --> 00:11:42,700 Yes, that's correct. That's right. It's not difficult. Oh. Yeah. 250 00:11:42,700 --> 00:11:45,700 Another go. So that's like a generic mumbling. Yeah. 251 00:11:45,700 --> 00:11:47,700 It's not even West Country, is it, Mummerset? 252 00:11:47,700 --> 00:11:51,700 It's sort of like a default kind of... It can be east and west or anywhere. That's right, yes. 253 00:11:51,700 --> 00:11:54,700 You replace an S with a Z, like "zider," all that sort of thing. 254 00:11:54,700 --> 00:11:57,700 F with a V - Vry, Stephen Vry. 255 00:11:57,700 --> 00:12:01,700 Right, so for example, "I haven't seen Alan since Friday," 256 00:12:01,700 --> 00:12:04,700 becomes, "Oi ain't zeen that Alan since Vroiday." 257 00:12:04,700 --> 00:12:06,700 LAUGHTER 258 00:12:06,700 --> 00:12:08,700 Why is it called Mummerset? 259 00:12:08,700 --> 00:12:12,700 Mummerset. What is a mummer? What are mummers? Oh, a theatrical player. A theatrical clown. 260 00:12:12,700 --> 00:12:16,700 Mummers are... Like a clown or something. Actors. Players. Actors. 261 00:12:16,700 --> 00:12:19,700 And it's a word given to the generic West Country accent 262 00:12:19,700 --> 00:12:24,700 that - most West Country people would say - bad actors 263 00:12:24,700 --> 00:12:27,700 give to a clown, a fool... On BBC radio. 264 00:12:27,700 --> 00:12:30,700 ..a rustic, any kind of figure like that, in a drama or a film. Pirates. 265 00:12:30,700 --> 00:12:32,700 They say, "Ooh-aar, you can't come here." 266 00:12:32,700 --> 00:12:35,700 Pirates are bit West Country, aren't they? Yeah. 267 00:12:35,700 --> 00:12:36,700 "Aar. Aaaar." 268 00:12:36,700 --> 00:12:39,700 So, how do you say, "Hay!"? 269 00:12:39,700 --> 00:12:41,700 Like that! I don't know. 270 00:12:41,700 --> 00:12:43,700 LAUGHTER 271 00:12:43,700 --> 00:12:44,700 Hay! 272 00:12:45,700 --> 00:12:47,700 Hay bales! 273 00:12:48,700 --> 00:12:51,700 Whooo! 274 00:12:51,700 --> 00:12:52,700 It's not unique... Hay! 275 00:12:52,700 --> 00:12:55,700 LAUGHTER 276 00:12:55,700 --> 00:12:57,700 It's not unique to English. He's delighted. 277 00:12:57,700 --> 00:12:59,700 I gather, Sami, that... I've lost my needle ! 278 00:12:59,700 --> 00:13:01,700 LAUGHTER 279 00:13:03,700 --> 00:13:05,700 APPLAUSE Help me ! 280 00:13:07,700 --> 00:13:10,700 But I gather, Sami, there is a generic Indian accent? 281 00:13:10,700 --> 00:13:13,700 Well, OK, there is a generic Indian accent - 282 00:13:13,700 --> 00:13:15,700 PUTS ON ACCENT: "Talking like this and everything's OK." 283 00:13:15,700 --> 00:13:18,700 But I realised recently, cos I was doing a Pakistani character 284 00:13:18,700 --> 00:13:21,700 in one of my stand-up shows, where I was talking about my relative, 285 00:13:21,700 --> 00:13:24,700 and I put on a generic Indian accent, and I was like, 286 00:13:24,700 --> 00:13:26,700 "Am I being racist towards myself at this point?" LAUGHTER 287 00:13:26,700 --> 00:13:30,700 PUTS ON ACCENT: "How are you doing?" And I think, but I don't talk like that. 288 00:13:30,700 --> 00:13:33,700 So I don't know why I did that to myself. That is fascinating. Yeah. LAUGHTER 289 00:13:33,700 --> 00:13:36,700 Yeah, on the subject of accents and so on, 290 00:13:36,700 --> 00:13:39,700 who was the first BBC newsreader 291 00:13:39,700 --> 00:13:42,700 to have what you might call a regional accent? Do you know this? 292 00:13:42,700 --> 00:13:45,700 Uh... It was a Yorkshire accent, as it goes. 293 00:13:45,700 --> 00:13:48,700 I don't know. I'm trying to remember one. So from Yorkshire? 294 00:13:48,700 --> 00:13:50,700 It was during the Second World War. 295 00:13:50,700 --> 00:13:54,700 And the idea was, people thought - the BBC and the Government thought 296 00:13:54,700 --> 00:13:58,700 that a local accent would be harder for a German impostor to put on. LAUGHTER 297 00:13:58,700 --> 00:14:00,700 Because the newsreaders had to say their name. 298 00:14:00,700 --> 00:14:03,700 So they'd say, "This is the six o'clock news read by Alvar Lidell," or whatever. 299 00:14:03,700 --> 00:14:05,700 "Read by Wolfgang... Oh, oh!" 300 00:14:05,700 --> 00:14:07,700 LAUGHTER 301 00:14:07,700 --> 00:14:09,700 Exactly. Got you! Got you! Ha, ha! 302 00:14:09,700 --> 00:14:12,700 And it was, "This is the six o'clock news 303 00:14:12,700 --> 00:14:14,700 "read by Wilfred Pickles." 304 00:14:14,700 --> 00:14:15,700 Oh, Pickles. Yeah, Wilfred Pickles. 305 00:14:15,700 --> 00:14:19,700 Unfortunately the public reported that while they may believe that it was Wilfred Pickles, 306 00:14:19,700 --> 00:14:22,700 what they didn't believe was a word he said. 307 00:14:22,700 --> 00:14:24,700 IN A POSH ACCENT: "Because he didn't speak like this." 308 00:14:24,700 --> 00:14:26,700 IN A YORKSHIRE ACCENT: "This was a lot of fuss about nothing." 309 00:14:26,700 --> 00:14:30,700 "So we are winning the war in the Atlantic." "No, that's rubbish." 310 00:14:30,700 --> 00:14:32,700 LAUGHTER 311 00:14:32,700 --> 00:14:35,700 That's how it went. So actors, yeah, have this... 312 00:14:35,700 --> 00:14:37,700 You're an actor as well as a comedian. 313 00:14:37,700 --> 00:14:39,700 I did one stage play a while back, yeah. 314 00:14:39,700 --> 00:14:42,700 I believe it was Romeo And Juliet? Yes. And naturally you played... 315 00:14:42,700 --> 00:14:44,700 I played Juliet, actually. 316 00:14:44,700 --> 00:14:45,700 LAUGHTER 317 00:14:45,700 --> 00:14:49,700 No, it was... The point of the play was to create awareness 318 00:14:49,700 --> 00:14:52,700 about homosexuality and about AIDS awareness in Pakistan. 319 00:14:52,700 --> 00:14:56,700 So we did the play and the goal was I would play Juliet 320 00:14:56,700 --> 00:14:58,700 and we'd have a man playing Romeo as well. 321 00:14:58,700 --> 00:15:02,700 But we did one night and then we got told not to do any more. 322 00:15:02,700 --> 00:15:05,700 When you say told not to do any more, is that a euphemism for... 323 00:15:05,700 --> 00:15:07,700 It's not a, "No, please don't do any more." 324 00:15:07,700 --> 00:15:10,700 It's not like that at all, no. No. It's a, "Please don't do any more." 325 00:15:10,700 --> 00:15:14,700 Well, I mean, they don't ever have to point it, because it's, um... 326 00:15:14,700 --> 00:15:17,700 Because they've got a massive sword. Yeah, it's implied. LAUGHTER 327 00:15:17,700 --> 00:15:22,700 I don't want to make hasty judgements about Pakistan, I've never been, but you've got the Taliban. Hello? 328 00:15:22,700 --> 00:15:24,700 Yeah, but other than them it's nice. LAUGHTER 329 00:15:24,700 --> 00:15:27,700 I mean, how do you go back? Yeah, but Stephen, the naans, the naans! 330 00:15:27,700 --> 00:15:29,700 The naans are amazing. 331 00:15:29,700 --> 00:15:31,700 LAUGHTER 332 00:15:31,700 --> 00:15:33,700 APPLAUSE 333 00:15:35,700 --> 00:15:38,700 But seriously, how do you go back when you do things like this? 334 00:15:38,700 --> 00:15:40,700 You stand up for gay rights. 335 00:15:40,700 --> 00:15:42,700 You're not a gay man yourself, but you stand up for them, which is 336 00:15:42,700 --> 00:15:45,700 completely, as it were, unnecessary, but a magnificent thing to do. 337 00:15:45,700 --> 00:15:49,700 How do you...dare? What happens is you get the death threats 338 00:15:49,700 --> 00:15:51,700 and as long as you're getting the death threats... 339 00:15:51,700 --> 00:15:55,700 Oh, we all get death threats, don't we? Yes! But we get them for silly things like, you know, 340 00:15:55,700 --> 00:15:57,700 not being ever considered to be the host of a motoring show. 341 00:15:57,700 --> 00:16:00,700 You get for doing really serious, humanitarian, 342 00:16:00,700 --> 00:16:01,700 against-the-grain, political work. 343 00:16:01,700 --> 00:16:04,700 Well, it's all just stand-up comedy at the end of the day, 344 00:16:04,700 --> 00:16:07,700 so you're kind of wondering whether, like, is this another penis joke? 345 00:16:07,700 --> 00:16:09,700 Like, you don't know how humanitarian it is. 346 00:16:09,700 --> 00:16:11,700 So is there a thriving stand-up circuit? 347 00:16:11,700 --> 00:16:13,700 There was me and another guy. 348 00:16:13,700 --> 00:16:14,700 LAUGHTER 349 00:16:17,700 --> 00:16:19,700 And he's an undercover agent! Yeah! 350 00:16:20,700 --> 00:16:22,700 And he's German, it turns out. 351 00:16:22,700 --> 00:16:25,700 No, the main thing I realised was as long as the death 352 00:16:25,700 --> 00:16:27,700 threats are coming, you're safe. 353 00:16:27,700 --> 00:16:30,700 It's when they stop coming, that means the people sending the threats 354 00:16:30,700 --> 00:16:32,700 are now coming over. LAUGHTER 355 00:16:32,700 --> 00:16:34,700 They used to say in the First World War, when you hear the 356 00:16:34,700 --> 00:16:37,700 whistle of the shells, it's when they stop you're in danger. 357 00:16:37,700 --> 00:16:38,700 That's right. God. 358 00:16:38,700 --> 00:16:41,700 Well, Mummerset - exactly, it's mummers, 359 00:16:41,700 --> 00:16:43,700 actors and their generic West Country accent. 360 00:16:43,700 --> 00:16:45,700 Now, while we're in the West Country, 361 00:16:45,700 --> 00:16:49,700 the highest point in Cornwall is called Brown Willy. 362 00:16:49,700 --> 00:16:51,700 But can you name an M-word for the part of the body 363 00:16:51,700 --> 00:16:54,700 that Brown Willy is named after? 364 00:16:54,700 --> 00:16:56,700 Hello. I say! 365 00:16:56,700 --> 00:16:57,700 LAUGHTER 366 00:16:57,700 --> 00:17:00,700 Massive man tool. Massive man tool. Massive man tool. 367 00:17:00,700 --> 00:17:04,700 Is it the middle? Midriff, you mean? Is it the pectorals? 368 00:17:04,700 --> 00:17:07,700 Mid...midr... No, just the middle. The middle, general middle. 369 00:17:07,700 --> 00:17:08,700 The middle of a person. 370 00:17:08,700 --> 00:17:10,700 LAUGHTER 371 00:17:10,700 --> 00:17:13,700 Can I just say about that man, he's spent so much time on his torso, 372 00:17:13,700 --> 00:17:15,700 and yet that hair. Yeah. 373 00:17:15,700 --> 00:17:16,700 LAUGHTER 374 00:17:16,700 --> 00:17:18,700 And I say that with this, but you know. 375 00:17:18,700 --> 00:17:22,700 The Brown in Brown Willy actually comes from... A bit of the body beginning with M... 376 00:17:22,700 --> 00:17:24,700 The mind. Ooooh. Oh, yeah. 377 00:17:24,700 --> 00:17:28,700 Aaah. Is that body or is it...? Oh, I say. Well, that's interesting. See what I did there? 378 00:17:28,700 --> 00:17:31,700 It comes from... An internal organ beginning with M? 379 00:17:31,700 --> 00:17:33,700 The old Cornish word Bronn is the Brown bit. OK. 380 00:17:33,700 --> 00:17:36,700 And that means breast. Breast? Breast. 381 00:17:36,700 --> 00:17:38,700 Breast. 382 00:17:38,700 --> 00:17:40,700 LAUGHTER Mammary glands. 383 00:17:40,700 --> 00:17:44,700 Yeah, exactly. Does it make you feel more comforted to say it repeatedly? 384 00:17:44,700 --> 00:17:47,700 LAUGHTER Mammaries, exactly. Breast, breast! 385 00:17:47,700 --> 00:17:51,700 So yeah, and Willy was originally Wennili, meaning swallow. 386 00:17:51,700 --> 00:17:53,700 I mean the animal. The bird. Right, sure. 387 00:17:53,700 --> 00:17:55,700 LAUGHTER 388 00:17:55,700 --> 00:17:57,700 There are lots of places in the UK named after mammaries. 389 00:17:57,700 --> 00:17:59,700 Can you name one? 390 00:17:59,700 --> 00:18:01,700 Um... Boob Town. Boob Town! 391 00:18:01,700 --> 00:18:03,700 LAUGHTER No, can you name a real one? 392 00:18:03,700 --> 00:18:06,700 Oh, sorry. Great Tit-chfield. 393 00:18:06,700 --> 00:18:08,700 The Mountains of Boob. 394 00:18:08,700 --> 00:18:10,700 LAUGHTER 395 00:18:10,700 --> 00:18:13,700 LAUGHING: The Mountains of Boob. Well... 396 00:18:13,700 --> 00:18:15,700 Press your buzzer. 397 00:18:15,700 --> 00:18:17,700 ♪ Man United... ♪ 398 00:18:17,700 --> 00:18:19,700 Manchester? Yes! 399 00:18:19,700 --> 00:18:21,700 Oh. It was Mam-chester originally. 400 00:18:21,700 --> 00:18:23,700 Mam as in mammary. Yes. 401 00:18:23,700 --> 00:18:25,700 And it's got "chest" in it as well. Yeah! 402 00:18:25,700 --> 00:18:27,700 LAUGHTER 403 00:18:27,700 --> 00:18:29,700 It's an incredibly rudely named place. 404 00:18:29,700 --> 00:18:31,700 Full breasts, the mammaries and the chest. Yeah. 405 00:18:31,700 --> 00:18:34,700 And there's Nippleton, as well, isn't there? Yeah. 406 00:18:34,700 --> 00:18:36,700 It's from the Celtic "Mam". 407 00:18:36,700 --> 00:18:39,700 And you've got Mam Tor in Derbyshire. 408 00:18:39,700 --> 00:18:40,700 Jugsford. 409 00:18:40,700 --> 00:18:42,700 LAUGHTER 410 00:18:42,700 --> 00:18:44,700 Racksbury. 411 00:18:44,700 --> 00:18:47,700 Melonford. 412 00:18:47,700 --> 00:18:49,700 Great Titty. Bazookaville. 413 00:18:49,700 --> 00:18:51,700 LAUGHTER 414 00:18:51,700 --> 00:18:52,700 Rackton. 415 00:18:52,700 --> 00:18:54,700 LAUGHTER 416 00:18:54,700 --> 00:18:56,700 Oh, dear, gracious. 417 00:18:56,700 --> 00:18:59,700 The Paps of Anu in Ireland are named after the breasts... 418 00:18:59,700 --> 00:19:00,700 LAUGHTER 419 00:19:00,700 --> 00:19:03,700 And there's a Pap of Glencoe and a Maiden Pap in Scotland. 420 00:19:03,700 --> 00:19:05,700 There's Papworth. Papworth, absolutely. 421 00:19:05,700 --> 00:19:07,700 There's a hospital there. 422 00:19:07,700 --> 00:19:10,700 And what about Titty Hill in West Sussex? What about it? 423 00:19:10,700 --> 00:19:13,700 It exists, but it's not named after breasts. No, of course. 424 00:19:13,700 --> 00:19:17,700 What's it named after? The other tits. Sir Malcolm Titty. 425 00:19:17,700 --> 00:19:19,700 LAUGHTER 426 00:19:19,700 --> 00:19:21,700 It's so silly, it's funny. 427 00:19:21,700 --> 00:19:24,700 His assistant named it when they both discovered it. 428 00:19:24,700 --> 00:19:26,700 "What do you think we should call this?" "Er..." 429 00:19:26,700 --> 00:19:29,700 "I think we should name it after you, Titty." "Titty Hill." 430 00:19:29,700 --> 00:19:33,700 LAUGHTER "You found it, Titty." 431 00:19:33,700 --> 00:19:35,700 "Well, we're not going to name it after you, Big Dick." 432 00:19:35,700 --> 00:19:37,700 Silly Carry On lines. Oh, dear. 433 00:19:37,700 --> 00:19:41,700 It's actually named after, I think you were struggling to say that, what it was named after. 434 00:19:41,700 --> 00:19:44,700 Oh, the birds? The birds, the tits. The blue tits. Blue tits. 435 00:19:44,700 --> 00:19:47,700 Or the great tits. Blue tits, great tits, yeah. Birds. LAUGHTER 436 00:19:47,700 --> 00:19:50,700 Brown Willy is the highest point of Bodmin Moor. Of anyone's life. 437 00:19:50,700 --> 00:19:52,700 LAUGHTER 438 00:19:52,700 --> 00:19:56,700 Anyway, how mad can a mango make a man go? 439 00:19:56,700 --> 00:20:01,700 LAUGHTER Do you see what I did? There's a mango. 440 00:20:01,700 --> 00:20:04,700 This is a story you either know or you don't, but it is actually 441 00:20:04,700 --> 00:20:08,700 genuinely a fascinating story, and rather horrifically repellent, too. 442 00:20:08,700 --> 00:20:10,700 So where a mango made a man go mad? 443 00:20:10,700 --> 00:20:14,700 It made a whole nation go mad, actually, this. Is there something toxic about a mango? 444 00:20:14,700 --> 00:20:17,700 Not toxic. It made them go mad in a fever of worship. 445 00:20:17,700 --> 00:20:19,700 Oh, so they fetishised the mango? 446 00:20:19,700 --> 00:20:22,700 They fetishised the man who gave them the mango. 447 00:20:22,700 --> 00:20:25,700 They made a god of a mango-bringing man? Virtually, yes. Right. 448 00:20:25,700 --> 00:20:28,700 Absolutely right. Was it Del Monte, the man from Del Monte? 449 00:20:28,700 --> 00:20:30,700 LAUGHTER 450 00:20:30,700 --> 00:20:33,700 That would have been relatively sane, in a strange sort of way. 451 00:20:33,700 --> 00:20:38,700 To worship the man from Del Monte? This was the largest nation on earth in the 1960s. 1968, to be precise. 452 00:20:38,700 --> 00:20:41,700 China. China. China. So who ruled China in 1968? 453 00:20:41,700 --> 00:20:44,700 Mao Zedong. Mao Zedong. The hero of the people. 454 00:20:44,700 --> 00:20:47,700 He received a crate of mangos from... 455 00:20:47,700 --> 00:20:49,700 The man from Del Monte! The man from Del Monte. 456 00:20:49,700 --> 00:20:52,700 The man responsible was the Pakistani Foreign Minister. There we go. 457 00:20:52,700 --> 00:20:55,700 Do you know this story? Oh! Yeah, because the Pakistani mango is, 458 00:20:55,700 --> 00:20:59,700 no matter what the Indians say, the best in the world. Yes. 459 00:20:59,700 --> 00:21:03,700 And the fact that I haven't had a Pakistani mango in three years now 460 00:21:03,700 --> 00:21:05,700 is just a point of misery for me. You really miss them? 461 00:21:05,700 --> 00:21:07,700 Oh, my God, they're amazing. They really are. 462 00:21:07,700 --> 00:21:11,700 If you try and eat a mango, usually they've been over-chilled 463 00:21:11,700 --> 00:21:14,700 in Britain, so they're fibrous and that stone in the middle is too close 464 00:21:14,700 --> 00:21:18,700 to the flesh, and you try it with your knife and it squirts over you. 465 00:21:18,700 --> 00:21:20,700 What should you do? Should you just simply bury your head in it? 466 00:21:20,700 --> 00:21:22,700 There's no dignity. Right, so you... 467 00:21:22,700 --> 00:21:26,700 Mangos are like lobsters. You can't look cool and eat a mango. 468 00:21:26,700 --> 00:21:29,700 Like, you decide, "I'm eating the mango 469 00:21:29,700 --> 00:21:31,700 "OR I'm getting laid tonight." 470 00:21:31,700 --> 00:21:34,700 LAUGHTER Those are the choices you make in life. 471 00:21:34,700 --> 00:21:38,700 Well, obviously, then, the Pakistani Foreign Minister in 1968 thought 472 00:21:38,700 --> 00:21:42,700 he was doing a really smart thing by giving such a beautiful fruit, 473 00:21:42,700 --> 00:21:45,700 a crate of them to the leader of the most populous nation on earth, 474 00:21:45,700 --> 00:21:50,700 Mao Zedong, and he instantly re-gifted those mangos. 475 00:21:50,700 --> 00:21:53,700 This is where it gets weird. Awkward. Yeah. He gave them to 476 00:21:53,700 --> 00:21:56,700 the factory workers' peace-keeping squads, who called themselves 477 00:21:56,700 --> 00:22:00,700 The Worker Peasant Mao Zedong Thought Propaganda Teams. 478 00:22:00,700 --> 00:22:02,700 Catchy. LAUGHTER 479 00:22:02,700 --> 00:22:05,700 What's the big deal? He didn't like them, re-gifted them. 480 00:22:05,700 --> 00:22:08,700 No story there. The crate of mangos was split up 481 00:22:08,700 --> 00:22:10,700 and individual fruits were sent to factories, 482 00:22:10,700 --> 00:22:14,700 where they were put on altars - so yes, you were right, worshipped - 483 00:22:14,700 --> 00:22:17,700 preserved in formaldehyde, sealed in wax, 484 00:22:17,700 --> 00:22:20,700 and in one case, boiled in a huge pot of water, 485 00:22:20,700 --> 00:22:24,700 and one teaspoon went to each worker, of the water. 486 00:22:24,700 --> 00:22:27,700 So they didn't eat the mango? No. It gets weirder. 487 00:22:27,700 --> 00:22:30,700 There were mango... Just... There were Mao mango... LAUGHTER 488 00:22:30,700 --> 00:22:32,700 Lots of M's here. Sacrilege! It is! 489 00:22:32,700 --> 00:22:36,700 There were Mao mango medallions. Textiles with mango pictures on them. 490 00:22:36,700 --> 00:22:39,700 Hundreds more mango artefacts - trays, mugs, fabric. 491 00:22:39,700 --> 00:22:42,700 The state even produced Mango brand cigarettes. 492 00:22:42,700 --> 00:22:44,700 Despite all this, most people in China, of course, 493 00:22:44,700 --> 00:22:46,700 had never seen a mango. There was only one crate 494 00:22:46,700 --> 00:22:48,700 to go round a billion people. 495 00:22:48,700 --> 00:22:50,700 LAUGHTER 496 00:22:50,700 --> 00:22:53,700 One man who remarked that it was nothing special 497 00:22:53,700 --> 00:22:55,700 and looked just like a sweet potato 498 00:22:55,700 --> 00:22:57,700 was arrested as a counter-revolutionary... 499 00:22:57,700 --> 00:23:00,700 LAUGHTER As he should have been. 500 00:23:00,700 --> 00:23:02,700 ..put on - wait for it - put on trial, found guilty, 501 00:23:02,700 --> 00:23:05,700 taken to the edge of town and shot. 502 00:23:07,700 --> 00:23:08,700 LAUGHTER 503 00:23:08,700 --> 00:23:10,700 Sorry, sorry. Now, come on! 504 00:23:10,700 --> 00:23:13,700 I'm just saying! Sorry. APPLAUSE 505 00:23:14,700 --> 00:23:17,700 There we go. It's pretty astonishing though, isn't it? 506 00:23:17,700 --> 00:23:20,700 It tells a lot about human nature. It's very unfortunate. 507 00:23:20,700 --> 00:23:24,700 What you want to do, you want to slice the side off and then score it 508 00:23:24,700 --> 00:23:27,700 with horizontal and vertical lines... Oooh. 509 00:23:27,700 --> 00:23:29,700 ..and then kind of pop it inside out... 510 00:23:29,700 --> 00:23:33,700 And then it's like a little hedgehog. Yeah. ..and then you eat the little squares. 511 00:23:33,700 --> 00:23:34,700 AUDIENCE MEMBER CLAPS 512 00:23:34,700 --> 00:23:37,700 You can get a sort of clutter that shape. LAUGHTER 513 00:23:37,700 --> 00:23:39,700 Round of applause for describing how to eat a mango! 514 00:23:39,700 --> 00:23:42,700 The Mango Appreciation Society is in. 515 00:23:42,700 --> 00:23:45,700 I'm very proud to be part of a show in which 516 00:23:45,700 --> 00:23:48,700 we can spend ten minutes discussing mangos. Yeah. 517 00:23:48,700 --> 00:23:50,700 It's very pleasing. Lovely. 518 00:23:50,700 --> 00:23:54,700 Now, who gets best use out of a man engine? 519 00:23:54,700 --> 00:23:56,700 A woman. 520 00:23:56,700 --> 00:23:58,700 LAUGHTER 521 00:24:00,700 --> 00:24:02,700 Can't believe that hasn't gone off! 522 00:24:02,700 --> 00:24:03,700 LAUGHTER 523 00:24:03,700 --> 00:24:06,700 Do you want to know what the forfeit was? No. 524 00:24:06,700 --> 00:24:08,700 "You do, Stephen." 525 00:24:08,700 --> 00:24:10,700 LAUGHTER 526 00:24:10,700 --> 00:24:12,700 Isn't that sick? I said, 527 00:24:12,700 --> 00:24:14,700 "No, no-one's going to say that!" And you didn't. 528 00:24:14,700 --> 00:24:16,700 Yeah, we've moved beyond. Yeah, exactly. 529 00:24:16,700 --> 00:24:20,700 Anyway, what do you get out of a man engine? Is it invented by a Mr Man? 530 00:24:20,700 --> 00:24:23,700 Not a Mr Man, not like... Mr Men. LAUGHTER 531 00:24:23,700 --> 00:24:26,700 Mr Strong or... Mr Inventor. Roger Hargreaves. Yeah. 532 00:24:26,700 --> 00:24:28,700 Mr Brilliant Inventor. Mr Inventor. 533 00:24:28,700 --> 00:24:31,700 But someone whose surname was Man? 534 00:24:31,700 --> 00:24:33,700 No, it's nothing to do with that. 535 00:24:33,700 --> 00:24:35,700 What was the first engine? Steam engines. Steam. 536 00:24:35,700 --> 00:24:38,700 There was the Newcomen engine. The Newcomen engine, where was that? 537 00:24:38,700 --> 00:24:40,700 That was in the early 18th century, 538 00:24:40,700 --> 00:24:43,700 it was for pumping water out of mines. 539 00:24:43,700 --> 00:24:46,700 Where were those mines? Cornwall. Cornwall? Cornwall. Tin mines. 540 00:24:46,700 --> 00:24:49,700 Tin mines. Trevithick, his engine, and Newcomen, as you rightly say. 541 00:24:49,700 --> 00:24:53,700 So, you've got to get men down the mines to hammer away and get the tin. 542 00:24:53,700 --> 00:24:56,700 And there, you can see, there's a ladder that goes a certain way down, 543 00:24:56,700 --> 00:25:00,700 but if you dig down, dig down, dig down, dig down, and then you've got a real problem. 544 00:25:00,700 --> 00:25:04,700 The men have got to get all the way down to the bottom, all the way up to the top, and they'll be knackered. 545 00:25:04,700 --> 00:25:07,700 You're not getting good productivity out of them. So you need... A lift! 546 00:25:07,700 --> 00:25:11,700 Yeah, but there's no technology for a lift. Oh, shit! You need a man engine! 547 00:25:11,700 --> 00:25:14,700 So all you have is a wheel that goes round, like that. Oh, yeah. 548 00:25:14,700 --> 00:25:16,700 That's what you have. It's very cunning, look at that. 549 00:25:16,700 --> 00:25:19,700 Watch the men there going up. That's like two weird ski lifts. 550 00:25:19,700 --> 00:25:22,700 I bet there were never accidents doing that. LAUGHTER 551 00:25:22,700 --> 00:25:24,700 Well, given how many there are in coal mines.... 552 00:25:24,700 --> 00:25:26,700 It's beautifully elegant, isn't it? 553 00:25:26,700 --> 00:25:29,700 And is that when they invented the computer game as well? 554 00:25:29,700 --> 00:25:30,700 LAUGHTER 555 00:25:30,700 --> 00:25:33,700 Well, that's to give you an impression of how it works. 556 00:25:33,700 --> 00:25:36,700 It's actually rather elegant. As you can see, the flywheel or whatever you call it, 557 00:25:36,700 --> 00:25:39,700 the wheel which converts into this downward and upward motion. 558 00:25:39,700 --> 00:25:43,700 And obviously if you reverse, it'll get the men down. 559 00:25:43,700 --> 00:25:44,700 I could watch that for days. 560 00:25:44,700 --> 00:25:47,700 Yeah. I've actually gone into a hypnotic trance now, have you? 561 00:25:47,700 --> 00:25:51,700 As you can see, this one is simply run by water, it's not even a steam engine. 562 00:25:51,700 --> 00:25:53,700 And then they get on a conveyor belt at the top. 563 00:25:53,700 --> 00:25:56,700 LAUGHTER 564 00:25:57,700 --> 00:26:00,700 APPLAUSE 565 00:26:01,700 --> 00:26:03,700 Yes, you're right. 566 00:26:04,700 --> 00:26:07,700 It can't be, they hadn't invented that. It must be an ice rink. 567 00:26:07,700 --> 00:26:09,700 LAUGHTER 568 00:26:09,700 --> 00:26:10,700 These days, mines are... "Argh!" 569 00:26:10,700 --> 00:26:15,700 "Argh! Argh!" 570 00:26:15,700 --> 00:26:18,700 LAUGHTER The Lemmings game. 571 00:26:18,700 --> 00:26:22,700 Now, what are the three manly games? 572 00:26:22,700 --> 00:26:24,700 Rugger, surely. 573 00:26:24,700 --> 00:26:26,700 KLAXON 574 00:26:29,700 --> 00:26:32,700 Not rugby. Spin the bottle? Boxing. 575 00:26:32,700 --> 00:26:34,700 Boxing? Oh... No. KLAXON 576 00:26:34,700 --> 00:26:36,700 David, David, David, David, David... 577 00:26:36,700 --> 00:26:39,700 Is it going to be Tiddlywinks and... Oh! 578 00:26:39,700 --> 00:26:41,700 KLAXON 579 00:26:41,700 --> 00:26:43,700 LAUGHTER 580 00:26:43,700 --> 00:26:45,700 APPLAUSE 581 00:26:45,700 --> 00:26:47,700 That is miraculous, I have to say. 582 00:26:47,700 --> 00:26:49,700 Greco-Roman wrestling. 583 00:26:49,700 --> 00:26:51,700 It's a form of wrestling. It's not Greco-Roman - 584 00:26:51,700 --> 00:26:55,700 it's very much of its own country, which begins with our... M? 585 00:26:55,700 --> 00:26:57,700 ..our guest letter, yes, exactly. Mongolian wrestling. 586 00:26:57,700 --> 00:26:59,700 Mongolia is the right answer! 587 00:26:59,700 --> 00:27:02,700 Oh, I'm bouncing back from the tiddlywinks fiasco. 588 00:27:02,700 --> 00:27:05,700 Yeah, the Mongolians have these games in their biggest festival, 589 00:27:05,700 --> 00:27:07,700 which is Naadam. 590 00:27:07,700 --> 00:27:09,700 So, as you can see, it's archery, it's horse racing 591 00:27:09,700 --> 00:27:11,700 and it's wrestling in tight pants. 592 00:27:11,700 --> 00:27:12,700 And that's what the Mongolians do. 593 00:27:12,700 --> 00:27:14,700 Those aren't pants, sorry. Aren't they? 594 00:27:14,700 --> 00:27:17,700 They're underwear. Oh, yeah! We have a linguistic issue here, 595 00:27:17,700 --> 00:27:18,700 you're right. I'm... Oh, sorry. 596 00:27:18,700 --> 00:27:20,700 Oh, so in England are underwear pants? 597 00:27:20,700 --> 00:27:22,700 Yes. Yes. That explains a lot of confusion I have. 598 00:27:22,700 --> 00:27:25,700 LAUGHTER DROWNS SPEECH 599 00:27:25,700 --> 00:27:27,700 It's... What they're really wearing 600 00:27:27,700 --> 00:27:29,700 is some sort of cheerleader's outfit. Yeah. 601 00:27:29,700 --> 00:27:32,700 It's a sort of crop top and tight underpants and boots. 602 00:27:32,700 --> 00:27:34,700 This is confusing for me, cos this is exactly what Mary Berry 603 00:27:34,700 --> 00:27:36,700 is wearing in this season of Bake Off. 604 00:27:36,700 --> 00:27:38,700 LAUGHTER 605 00:27:38,700 --> 00:27:40,700 And it's... She's got a soggy bottom! 606 00:27:40,700 --> 00:27:43,700 In that outfit, everyone has a soggy bottom. Well, that's true. 607 00:27:43,700 --> 00:27:45,700 The thing is, although they're called the three manly games, 608 00:27:45,700 --> 00:27:48,700 women can enter the archery and the racing, the horsing, 609 00:27:48,700 --> 00:27:51,700 but they can't enter the wrestling with men in it. 610 00:27:51,700 --> 00:27:53,700 Is the jockey tiny or is the horse enormous? 611 00:27:53,700 --> 00:27:55,700 LAUGHTER 612 00:27:55,700 --> 00:27:58,700 A bit of both! A bit of both plus the effect of... 613 00:27:58,700 --> 00:28:01,700 Its vast head! I think that horse is a donkey. 614 00:28:01,700 --> 00:28:03,700 LAUGHTER 615 00:28:03,700 --> 00:28:06,700 Do you really? It does look like a donkey. Yeah, I think it's a donkey. 616 00:28:06,700 --> 00:28:09,700 I don't think that person will win cos his horse is a donkey. 617 00:28:09,700 --> 00:28:10,700 LAUGHTER 618 00:28:10,700 --> 00:28:12,700 But this will interest you, I think. 619 00:28:12,700 --> 00:28:16,700 The winner of the Naadam wrestling contest is given the title... 620 00:28:16,700 --> 00:28:18,700 Oh, there he is. Yeah. Ooh, hello. 621 00:28:18,700 --> 00:28:21,700 Did the man second back ever have his breasts used 622 00:28:21,700 --> 00:28:25,700 to model a tor in, or a mountain in, Cornwall? 623 00:28:25,700 --> 00:28:26,700 Because it... LAUGHTER 624 00:28:26,700 --> 00:28:28,700 What is it with the clothes and the hats, 625 00:28:28,700 --> 00:28:31,700 what are they doing?! Look, this is a culture long established 626 00:28:31,700 --> 00:28:33,700 that murdered all the people of Merv. 627 00:28:33,700 --> 00:28:36,700 Yeah. LAUGHTER 628 00:28:36,700 --> 00:28:38,700 They make fun of their predecessors. Yeah... 629 00:28:38,700 --> 00:28:40,700 When they turned up in Merv, and everyone went... 630 00:28:40,700 --> 00:28:42,700 HE LAUGHS We surrender and your clothes are funny! 631 00:28:42,700 --> 00:28:44,700 LAUGHTER 632 00:28:44,700 --> 00:28:47,700 In Mongolia, nothing's more manly than wrestling another man 633 00:28:47,700 --> 00:28:49,700 in a pair of tiny underpants. 634 00:28:49,700 --> 00:28:53,700 What's the connection between margarine and marriage in Maine? 635 00:28:53,700 --> 00:28:56,700 Oh... Is this like a sort of erm... Is it an anagram? 636 00:28:56,700 --> 00:29:00,700 It's about statistics... Oh, is it about...people less interested? 637 00:29:00,700 --> 00:29:03,700 Well, there's a man called Tyler Vigen of Harvard University, 638 00:29:03,700 --> 00:29:06,700 who describes himself as a "statistical provocateur", 639 00:29:06,700 --> 00:29:11,700 and he's found evidence that... He sounds AWFUL. 640 00:29:11,700 --> 00:29:13,700 LAUGHTER 641 00:29:13,700 --> 00:29:15,700 He's really trying to sex up his dossier there. 642 00:29:15,700 --> 00:29:18,700 Can you imagine getting stuck at a party 643 00:29:18,700 --> 00:29:20,700 with a statistical provocateur? 644 00:29:20,700 --> 00:29:22,700 LAUGHTER 645 00:29:22,700 --> 00:29:25,700 "Are you saying there are more schoolchildren who 646 00:29:25,700 --> 00:29:27,700 "have pencils than don't?" 647 00:29:27,700 --> 00:29:30,700 "Well... Prepare to be shocked!" LAUGHTER 648 00:29:30,700 --> 00:29:33,700 I'd say 75% of me thinks you're a total dick. 649 00:29:33,700 --> 00:29:35,700 LAUGHTER 650 00:29:35,700 --> 00:29:39,700 Oh, I feel sorry for him now, you bastards. No, there is a point to him. 651 00:29:40,700 --> 00:29:43,700 He discovered that the divorce rate in Maine since 2000 652 00:29:43,700 --> 00:29:47,700 correlates with the per capita consumption of margarine in the United States as a whole. 653 00:29:47,700 --> 00:29:50,700 In other words, when margarine consumption goes up... 654 00:29:50,700 --> 00:29:52,700 so do the number of divorces. 655 00:29:52,700 --> 00:29:55,700 But that's a false correlation presumably. Yes! That's the point. 656 00:29:55,700 --> 00:29:59,700 He actually wants us to understand that it's very easy for us to believe 657 00:29:59,700 --> 00:30:04,700 that you get a set of statistics that say... 658 00:30:04,700 --> 00:30:07,700 "as the amount of free milk and orange juice went up in the '50s 659 00:30:07,700 --> 00:30:10,700 "so did the literacy rate in Britain" - 660 00:30:10,700 --> 00:30:14,700 people go, "Oh, that just shows them orange juice and milk are very important to literacy." 661 00:30:14,700 --> 00:30:17,700 It's bollocks. You have to demonstrate a causal relationship. 662 00:30:17,700 --> 00:30:19,700 This is what's known as a correlative one. 663 00:30:19,700 --> 00:30:22,700 And he becomes more and more ridiculous. 664 00:30:22,700 --> 00:30:24,700 And that's why he's a provocateur, he wants to... 665 00:30:24,700 --> 00:30:28,700 SOUNDS provocative. Yeah. It is, kind of. He discovered - 666 00:30:28,700 --> 00:30:29,700 these are just "M" ones alone - 667 00:30:29,700 --> 00:30:32,700 the age of Miss America correlates to the number of murders by steam, 668 00:30:32,700 --> 00:30:34,700 hot vapours and hot objects. 669 00:30:34,700 --> 00:30:37,700 LAUGHTER The marriage rate in New York 670 00:30:37,700 --> 00:30:39,700 correlates with the number of murders by blunt objects. 671 00:30:39,700 --> 00:30:42,700 So the more people get married in New York, the more murders there are. 672 00:30:42,700 --> 00:30:45,700 That might actually be causative. LAUGHTER 673 00:30:45,700 --> 00:30:47,700 George Canning, who was Prime Minister of Britain for the 674 00:30:47,700 --> 00:30:50,700 supreme length of 119 days - 675 00:30:50,700 --> 00:30:52,700 there he is, not the best-known Prime Minister - 676 00:30:52,700 --> 00:30:55,700 he said, "I can prove anything with statistics, 677 00:30:55,700 --> 00:30:56,700 "except the truth." 678 00:30:56,700 --> 00:30:58,700 Mmmm! 679 00:30:58,700 --> 00:31:00,700 That's when they got rid of him. 680 00:31:00,700 --> 00:31:02,700 LAUGHTER Yeah. 681 00:31:02,700 --> 00:31:03,700 They went, "Oh, God..." 682 00:31:03,700 --> 00:31:05,700 I was thinking the... 683 00:31:05,700 --> 00:31:07,700 "Can't you be more provocative?!" 684 00:31:07,700 --> 00:31:08,700 LAUGHTER 685 00:31:08,700 --> 00:31:11,700 Now - describe the morning glory of the rubber people of Mexico. 686 00:31:11,700 --> 00:31:12,700 ALAN LAUGHS 687 00:31:15,700 --> 00:31:18,700 Is there something amusing in that question? Yeah. 688 00:31:18,700 --> 00:31:20,700 The morning glory of the rubber people. The rubber people? 689 00:31:20,700 --> 00:31:22,700 Break it down for us. 690 00:31:22,700 --> 00:31:24,700 What's morning glory? 691 00:31:24,700 --> 00:31:26,700 Well, morning glory 692 00:31:26,700 --> 00:31:30,700 is a delicious vegetable enjoyed by many people in southeast Asia and often put in broths, 693 00:31:30,700 --> 00:31:32,700 and a massive erection. 694 00:31:32,700 --> 00:31:34,700 LAUGHTER 695 00:31:34,700 --> 00:31:39,700 Yeah, a morning glory is indeed a flower, beautiful flower. Vegetable and flower. Yeah. 696 00:31:39,700 --> 00:31:41,700 The rubber people...? 697 00:31:41,700 --> 00:31:43,700 DAVID: Are these where there are rubber trees? 698 00:31:43,700 --> 00:31:45,700 Well, it's the early people of Mexico, 699 00:31:45,700 --> 00:31:47,700 the earliest people we know of... 700 00:31:47,700 --> 00:31:49,700 SAMI: The rubber age. LAUGHTER 701 00:31:49,700 --> 00:31:52,700 The rubber age! Iron age, rubber age. 702 00:31:52,700 --> 00:31:55,700 Well, it was for them a rubber age, exactly. These people. 703 00:31:55,700 --> 00:31:59,700 Because rubber was first cultivated in Mexico. 704 00:31:59,700 --> 00:32:03,700 Not in Malaysia or Liberia any of the other places where it's grown, but in Mexico. 705 00:32:03,700 --> 00:32:05,700 And the people of that time... 706 00:32:05,700 --> 00:32:08,700 Well, I only know the Aztecs... 707 00:32:08,700 --> 00:32:11,700 Or the Mayans? Well, the Aztecs gave them this name. They were called the Olmec. 708 00:32:11,700 --> 00:32:15,700 Between 1200 and 400 BC, so it was a long time ago. 709 00:32:15,700 --> 00:32:18,700 And then they tapped rubber, 710 00:32:18,700 --> 00:32:20,700 and made a ball out of it which they played their ball game in, 711 00:32:20,700 --> 00:32:23,700 which they called in their language "the ball game". 712 00:32:23,700 --> 00:32:24,700 LAUGHTER 713 00:32:24,700 --> 00:32:26,700 And they used one of those hoops, 714 00:32:26,700 --> 00:32:28,700 and versions of it are still played to this day. 715 00:32:28,700 --> 00:32:30,700 So it's really remarkable. 716 00:32:30,700 --> 00:32:33,700 Because it was 3,000 years later 717 00:32:33,700 --> 00:32:37,700 that we in the West learned to do this same thing to rubber, 718 00:32:37,700 --> 00:32:39,700 a process known as... 719 00:32:39,700 --> 00:32:41,700 Do you know what it's called? Vulcanization? 720 00:32:41,700 --> 00:32:43,700 Vulcanization, exactly right. 721 00:32:43,700 --> 00:32:45,700 Invented by Spock and the Vulcans. 722 00:32:45,700 --> 00:32:47,700 LAUGHTER Yeah, exactly! 723 00:32:47,700 --> 00:32:51,700 It was a man called Thomas Hancock in Britain, and a better-known figure 724 00:32:51,700 --> 00:32:55,700 called Charles Goodyear in America - Goodyear tyres still obviously used - 725 00:32:55,700 --> 00:32:57,700 in 1844. 726 00:32:57,700 --> 00:33:01,700 Yes, the Olmecs were making rubber a good few years before Goodyear. 727 00:33:01,700 --> 00:33:04,700 But now it's time for the earth-shattering round 728 00:33:04,700 --> 00:33:07,700 that we call General Ignorance. Fingers on buzzers, if you please. 729 00:33:07,700 --> 00:33:11,700 What's the easternmost state of the USA? 730 00:33:11,700 --> 00:33:13,700 ♪ ..Massachusetts... ♪ 731 00:33:14,700 --> 00:33:16,700 Well... Now... 732 00:33:16,700 --> 00:33:17,700 LAUGHTER 733 00:33:17,700 --> 00:33:18,700 I'm going to say Alaska. 734 00:33:18,700 --> 00:33:21,700 Is the right answer! Well done. 735 00:33:21,700 --> 00:33:22,700 APPLAUSE 736 00:33:23,700 --> 00:33:25,700 Yeah... 737 00:33:25,700 --> 00:33:29,700 Maine sees the first sunrise on the continental United States, 738 00:33:29,700 --> 00:33:31,700 but that's the line of longitude, 739 00:33:31,700 --> 00:33:33,700 and little bits of that 740 00:33:33,700 --> 00:33:35,700 that look like just Russia and things are actually Alaska - 741 00:33:35,700 --> 00:33:38,700 you see those islands at the bottom that curve round... 742 00:33:38,700 --> 00:33:40,700 It's got the weirdest shape, Alaska. Yeah. 743 00:33:40,700 --> 00:33:42,700 The very south of it, the Aleutian Islands, 744 00:33:42,700 --> 00:33:44,700 they cross the line of longitude, 745 00:33:44,700 --> 00:33:47,700 so the bits that go right up to the line are the westernmost parts 746 00:33:47,700 --> 00:33:50,700 but the bits the other side are the easternmost parts. 747 00:33:50,700 --> 00:33:53,700 So there are bits of it that are south of Russia... 748 00:33:53,700 --> 00:33:55,700 Yes. Absolutely, it's all very surprising. 749 00:33:55,700 --> 00:33:59,700 Are they inhabited, any of those, do we know? No, I don't think so. 750 00:33:59,700 --> 00:34:01,700 Most of them are uninhabited. 751 00:34:01,700 --> 00:34:03,700 Any old fishing villages or something? 752 00:34:03,700 --> 00:34:06,700 Millions of sea birds. But no, not many humans. 753 00:34:06,700 --> 00:34:08,700 Alaska's state motto is North To The Future. 754 00:34:08,700 --> 00:34:11,700 Don't know what that means, but there it is. 755 00:34:11,700 --> 00:34:15,700 They all have mottos, these states - 756 00:34:15,700 --> 00:34:18,700 my favourite one is Kentucky. 757 00:34:18,700 --> 00:34:20,700 Kentucky's known really for two things... 758 00:34:20,700 --> 00:34:23,700 Fried chicken. Well, yeah, apart from that. 759 00:34:23,700 --> 00:34:25,700 It's called the Bluegrass State, 760 00:34:25,700 --> 00:34:29,700 but it's bourbon and the Kentucky Derby, the race. 761 00:34:29,700 --> 00:34:33,700 And somebody came up with a two-word phrase for Kentucky, 762 00:34:33,700 --> 00:34:36,700 which encapsulates both those things which I think is rather brilliant... 763 00:34:36,700 --> 00:34:38,700 Pissed Horses. 764 00:34:38,700 --> 00:34:40,700 LAUGHTER That would do it... 765 00:34:40,700 --> 00:34:42,700 No, it's Unbridled Spirit. 766 00:34:42,700 --> 00:34:45,700 Oh...! Isn't that clever? Very good. 767 00:34:45,700 --> 00:34:47,700 That's genuinely clever. No, that's great, 768 00:34:47,700 --> 00:34:50,700 that absolutely shits on North To The Future. 769 00:34:50,700 --> 00:34:52,700 LAUGHTER 770 00:34:53,700 --> 00:34:54,700 It's got to be said! 771 00:34:54,700 --> 00:34:57,700 Cos if there's one place you do not want to head north from 772 00:34:57,700 --> 00:35:00,700 it's Alaska - cos there's fuck all of the world there. 773 00:35:00,700 --> 00:35:01,700 LAUGHTER 774 00:35:01,700 --> 00:35:03,700 You want to go SOUTH. 775 00:35:03,700 --> 00:35:05,700 South to the future. Yeah. 776 00:35:05,700 --> 00:35:07,700 North to the future, maybe, you'd say, from Argentina. 777 00:35:07,700 --> 00:35:09,700 Yes! 778 00:35:09,700 --> 00:35:13,700 But Alaska - south. North, in denial of the rest of humanity. 779 00:35:13,700 --> 00:35:14,700 LAUGHTER 780 00:35:14,700 --> 00:35:17,700 "Head into the snow and die." "North to a massive tundra." 781 00:35:17,700 --> 00:35:19,700 Wishful thinking, exactly. 782 00:35:19,700 --> 00:35:22,700 Yes, East is East, West is West and Alaska is both. 783 00:35:22,700 --> 00:35:25,700 In which country was Mozart born? 784 00:35:25,700 --> 00:35:26,700 Ooh. Mm. 785 00:35:26,700 --> 00:35:29,700 The countries were weird then, most of the countries didn't exist yet. 786 00:35:29,700 --> 00:35:32,700 Places like you think it's always been a country, like Germany 787 00:35:32,700 --> 00:35:35,700 and Italy, didn't exist then. No, that's right. 788 00:35:35,700 --> 00:35:38,700 Was it the Mountains of Kong? LAUGHTER 789 00:35:38,700 --> 00:35:40,700 Well, obviously... Was he born in Salzburg? 790 00:35:40,700 --> 00:35:41,700 Yes! Well done. Good points. 791 00:35:41,700 --> 00:35:44,700 And was that like a republic? It was indeed. It was a state. 792 00:35:44,700 --> 00:35:47,700 APPLAUSE Yeah, it was a Serbian state. 793 00:35:49,700 --> 00:35:53,700 But Mozart HATED it and he moved, as soon as he could, to Vienna. 794 00:35:53,700 --> 00:35:56,700 Called himself German, although there was no such country. 795 00:35:56,700 --> 00:35:59,700 In fact, he died way before there was such a country. 796 00:35:59,700 --> 00:36:03,700 He didn't make Paul McCartney's mistake of, you know... 797 00:36:03,700 --> 00:36:05,700 outliving his cool. 798 00:36:05,700 --> 00:36:07,700 LAUGHTER No. 799 00:36:07,700 --> 00:36:10,700 He didn't. Yep. Very, very true. 800 00:36:10,700 --> 00:36:12,700 APPLAUSE 801 00:36:14,700 --> 00:36:17,700 So, there you are. Yes, Mozart was a Salzburger. 802 00:36:17,700 --> 00:36:19,700 Goethe, as it happens, was a Frankfurter, 803 00:36:19,700 --> 00:36:22,700 Mendelssohn was a Hamburger, 804 00:36:22,700 --> 00:36:24,700 and the Brothers Grimm were Hessian. 805 00:36:24,700 --> 00:36:26,700 So they all came from different lands. 806 00:36:26,700 --> 00:36:28,700 Who invented the aqueduct? 807 00:36:28,700 --> 00:36:30,700 SAMI: The... 808 00:36:30,700 --> 00:36:32,700 DAVID LAUGHS 809 00:36:32,700 --> 00:36:34,700 Go on, Sami! Romans. 810 00:36:34,700 --> 00:36:36,700 Oh! KLAXON 811 00:36:36,700 --> 00:36:38,700 Damn! 812 00:36:38,700 --> 00:36:39,700 You fell into our little honeytrap. 813 00:36:39,700 --> 00:36:42,700 What have the Romans ever done for us? LAUGHTER 814 00:36:42,700 --> 00:36:44,700 They built that beautiful one there 815 00:36:44,700 --> 00:36:47,700 which the Pont du Gard in the Provencal region... So who got there first? 816 00:36:47,700 --> 00:36:51,700 The Etruscans, or someone who came before the Romans. 817 00:36:51,700 --> 00:36:54,700 Even further before actually, you've got to go way back. Adam. 818 00:36:54,700 --> 00:36:56,700 LAUGHTER 819 00:36:56,700 --> 00:36:58,700 Too far back. 820 00:36:58,700 --> 00:37:01,700 That's a bit too far back. DAVID: The Babylonians? 821 00:37:01,700 --> 00:37:05,700 Always a good bet. The first ones that are known about to archaeology 822 00:37:05,700 --> 00:37:08,700 were quite simple little ones, little runnels that allowed water... 823 00:37:08,700 --> 00:37:10,700 Assyrians? ..like that, not great big... 824 00:37:10,700 --> 00:37:14,700 No, we're actually in Greek-ish land, the Minoan culture. Which is Crete. 825 00:37:14,700 --> 00:37:19,700 And they were about the second millennium BC, so it was a long time ago. 826 00:37:19,700 --> 00:37:23,700 And then also earlier was as you said Babylonian - 827 00:37:23,700 --> 00:37:24,700 Sennacherib, 828 00:37:24,700 --> 00:37:28,700 who was a big emperor of the time, celebrated in a Byron poem. 829 00:37:28,700 --> 00:37:29,700 Good hat. 830 00:37:29,700 --> 00:37:32,700 He built really impressive ones, he was extremely rich and powerful. 831 00:37:32,700 --> 00:37:35,700 It was about 691 BC. 832 00:37:35,700 --> 00:37:37,700 Ten metres high, 30 metres wide, 833 00:37:37,700 --> 00:37:40,700 made of over two million stones, his aqueduct. Was used to water his gardens. 834 00:37:40,700 --> 00:37:42,700 (Shut up.) Which many think were the 835 00:37:42,700 --> 00:37:45,700 sort of the origin of... DAVID: The Hanging Gardens. Yes. 836 00:37:45,700 --> 00:37:47,700 Do you think that could possibly be true? 837 00:37:47,700 --> 00:37:50,700 Well, there is quite a lot of archaeology to support it, it's not just description... 838 00:37:50,700 --> 00:37:54,700 Two million stones? It must've taken 100 years to build. 839 00:37:54,700 --> 00:37:58,700 Well, 100 million slaves probably - not that many obviously, but... Yeah. 840 00:37:58,700 --> 00:38:02,700 It was an 80 kilometre limestone aqueduct, it's a long way. 841 00:38:02,700 --> 00:38:05,700 (80 kilometres?) Yeah. Just for a garden. 842 00:38:05,700 --> 00:38:07,700 Just... But gardens are important. 843 00:38:07,700 --> 00:38:10,700 Alan Titchmarsh has got a similar one in HIS garden. LAUGHTER 844 00:38:10,700 --> 00:38:14,700 HE MIMICS ALAN: "But it's made of plastic guttering from B!" 845 00:38:14,700 --> 00:38:17,700 "Decking. Lovely, lovely decking." 846 00:38:17,700 --> 00:38:19,700 It has to be said that those Minoan ones, 847 00:38:19,700 --> 00:38:22,700 the word "gutter" is more appropriate than the word "aqueduct". 848 00:38:22,700 --> 00:38:24,700 LAUGHTER 849 00:38:24,700 --> 00:38:25,700 I would not say I had an "aqueduct" 850 00:38:25,700 --> 00:38:28,700 round the edge of my house to collect the rainwater. 851 00:38:28,700 --> 00:38:30,700 LAUGHTER 852 00:38:30,700 --> 00:38:33,700 "The aqueduct's leaking again!" 853 00:38:33,700 --> 00:38:35,700 "Get out there and clear the aqueduct!" 854 00:38:35,700 --> 00:38:37,700 "Oooh...love." 855 00:38:39,700 --> 00:38:42,700 Now... Ooh, this is exciting! I've got some glasses of water for you. 856 00:38:42,700 --> 00:38:43,700 Ooh! Yes, I know. Be very... 857 00:38:43,700 --> 00:38:45,700 HE STRAINS ..very excited. 858 00:38:45,700 --> 00:38:49,700 Oh, there we go. Here are yours, Alan and David. 859 00:38:49,700 --> 00:38:51,700 Now, before... Don't try them. 860 00:38:51,700 --> 00:38:54,700 Don't, for God...whatever you do, drink any yet! 861 00:38:54,700 --> 00:38:57,700 Until you know what you're doing. 862 00:38:57,700 --> 00:39:01,700 Ah, there we are. There's A, B and C. Can you see that? 863 00:39:01,700 --> 00:39:03,700 Well, A has got something in it. Yeah. 864 00:39:03,700 --> 00:39:05,700 There's some weird detritus in it. 865 00:39:05,700 --> 00:39:07,700 Yeah, that's either some very poor washing up... 866 00:39:07,700 --> 00:39:09,700 LAUGHTER ..or that's... Dandruff. 867 00:39:09,700 --> 00:39:13,700 Well, I'll tell you what it is. A is sea water. A is sea water. Oh. 868 00:39:13,700 --> 00:39:15,700 Oh, it'll kill you. I'll tell you what B is. 869 00:39:15,700 --> 00:39:18,700 Fresh water, because there's bubbles in it. 870 00:39:18,700 --> 00:39:19,700 It's, er, treated sewage. 871 00:39:19,700 --> 00:39:22,700 All right, then. Ooh. LAUGHTER 872 00:39:22,700 --> 00:39:24,700 That's why it's got bubbles in it! 873 00:39:24,700 --> 00:39:27,700 Yeah, are you sure they're bubbles then? And C is ultrapure water. 874 00:39:27,700 --> 00:39:29,700 Right. Can I have C? 875 00:39:29,700 --> 00:39:30,700 LAUGHTER 876 00:39:30,700 --> 00:39:32,700 Is that... That's your choice? 877 00:39:32,700 --> 00:39:33,700 Oh, no. Hey! 878 00:39:33,700 --> 00:39:37,700 LAUGHTER DROWNS SPEECH 879 00:39:38,700 --> 00:39:42,700 But, to be fair, we don't know whether Sue meant C as in C 880 00:39:42,700 --> 00:39:44,700 or sea as in sea. STEPHEN LAUGHS 881 00:39:44,700 --> 00:39:46,700 LAUGHTER Ah, you little devil! 882 00:39:46,700 --> 00:39:48,700 LAUGHTER 883 00:39:48,700 --> 00:39:51,700 But, yes, the point was to trap you into choosing ultrapure water. 884 00:39:51,700 --> 00:39:54,700 Ultrapure water is too pure. Oh. 885 00:39:54,700 --> 00:39:58,700 The kidneys have a real problem here, because we rely on electrolytes 886 00:39:58,700 --> 00:40:04,700 to power, energize our brains and the heart and other bits of ourselves. 887 00:40:04,700 --> 00:40:07,700 And if your blood is drained of all the particles, 888 00:40:07,700 --> 00:40:11,700 because the pure water is taking them away, through osmosis, 889 00:40:11,700 --> 00:40:14,700 then you will die if you have too much ultrapure water. 890 00:40:14,700 --> 00:40:16,700 I'm going to revise now. 891 00:40:16,700 --> 00:40:19,700 Would that amount of pure water kill you? No, no! That's fine, no. 892 00:40:19,700 --> 00:40:21,700 So what is the best out of those three? 893 00:40:21,700 --> 00:40:23,700 Well, what about sea water, what...? 894 00:40:23,700 --> 00:40:25,700 Well, sea water's got a lot of salt in it. 895 00:40:25,700 --> 00:40:26,700 Yeah, the kidneys try and get the salt out, 896 00:40:26,700 --> 00:40:29,700 and, in order to get the salt out, they have to use water. 897 00:40:29,700 --> 00:40:33,700 So you, actually, the effect of drinking sea water is to dehydrate. 898 00:40:33,700 --> 00:40:35,700 Yeah. Right. So we're left with treated sewage. 899 00:40:35,700 --> 00:40:38,700 Well, it's been treated, I suppose that's... It has been treated, yeah. 900 00:40:38,700 --> 00:40:41,700 But someone told me that water that you drink from a tap in London 901 00:40:41,700 --> 00:40:44,700 has been through nine people before it reaches the glass. 902 00:40:44,700 --> 00:40:46,700 Is that true? Yeah, it's not yet... 903 00:40:46,700 --> 00:40:48,700 No, it's not yet true at all. This is a sort of urban myth, that we all 904 00:40:48,700 --> 00:40:52,700 like to think we're drinking... It's been through cows and sheep as well. 905 00:40:52,700 --> 00:40:53,700 LAUGHTER 906 00:40:53,700 --> 00:40:56,700 They're talking about it... I'd like to know which nine people 907 00:40:56,700 --> 00:40:58,700 they were, wouldn't you? That is also very important to know. Yeah. 908 00:40:58,700 --> 00:41:01,700 In Windhoek, which is the capital of Namibia... Namibia. 909 00:41:01,700 --> 00:41:05,700 Yeah, exactly. And there, they have a slightly salty water... Points! 910 00:41:05,700 --> 00:41:07,700 ..because 25% of it is treated sewage, 911 00:41:07,700 --> 00:41:10,700 but only 25%. But it's perfectly OK. 912 00:41:10,700 --> 00:41:13,700 There's no excuse not do what this is, I believe, 913 00:41:13,700 --> 00:41:15,700 which is probably either Orange Country or LA, 914 00:41:15,700 --> 00:41:19,700 which is that they use treated sewage for golf courses 915 00:41:19,700 --> 00:41:21,700 and for irrigation and things like that. 916 00:41:21,700 --> 00:41:24,700 Treated sewage is getting popular, actually, around the world, 917 00:41:24,700 --> 00:41:26,700 so that seems a helpful thing. 918 00:41:26,700 --> 00:41:28,700 But you ought to try. Why don't you try... No, thanks! 919 00:41:28,700 --> 00:41:30,700 LAUGHTER No, I won't let you try the sewage, 920 00:41:30,700 --> 00:41:33,700 try the ultrapure. Cos it's not going to kill you, one sip, 921 00:41:33,700 --> 00:41:35,700 just see if it is noticeably pure. All right. 922 00:41:35,700 --> 00:41:36,700 Hm. 923 00:41:37,700 --> 00:41:39,700 ALAN BURPS 924 00:41:39,700 --> 00:41:41,700 LAUGHTER DROWNS SPEECH 925 00:41:41,700 --> 00:41:42,700 SUE: Oh, my kidneys! 926 00:41:42,700 --> 00:41:44,700 LAUGHTER 927 00:41:44,700 --> 00:41:46,700 It's good. I've messed up on this. You can, yeah. 928 00:41:46,700 --> 00:41:50,700 I would say it does taste like water, but a little bit more boring. 929 00:41:50,700 --> 00:41:53,700 LAUGHTER It's brilliant. Maybe I'm just imposing that on it. 930 00:41:53,700 --> 00:41:57,700 No, you might be... It's not got that chlorine high note, has it? 931 00:41:57,700 --> 00:41:59,700 I don't expect a party in my mouth 932 00:41:59,700 --> 00:42:01,700 with water, but... LAUGHTER 933 00:42:01,700 --> 00:42:05,700 ..that was like a party in my mouth but with a statistical provocateur. 934 00:42:05,700 --> 00:42:07,700 LAUGHTER 935 00:42:07,700 --> 00:42:08,700 Well, I've got treated sewage in this - 936 00:42:08,700 --> 00:42:12,700 and I wouldn't ask you to cos you might not want to but I'm going to have a... 937 00:42:12,700 --> 00:42:14,700 Oh, Jeez. LAUGHTER 938 00:42:14,700 --> 00:42:16,700 Does it pong? 939 00:42:18,700 --> 00:42:20,700 It's shitty but it's pissy as well. 940 00:42:20,700 --> 00:42:22,700 LAUGHTER 941 00:42:22,700 --> 00:42:24,700 Oh, you've put me right off. 942 00:42:26,700 --> 00:42:28,700 "That's lovely!" 943 00:42:28,700 --> 00:42:32,700 It's tap water. We couldn't get any treated sewage - we asked for it, 944 00:42:32,700 --> 00:42:35,700 I said I was up for drinking it but that's just tap water. 945 00:42:35,700 --> 00:42:38,700 So it's only been through... nine people. LAUGHTER 946 00:42:38,700 --> 00:42:43,700 So, drinking pure water can kill you. You're much better off draining a glass of processed sewage. 947 00:42:43,700 --> 00:42:45,700 Good health to you all. 948 00:42:45,700 --> 00:42:49,700 And all that's left now are the scores. 949 00:42:49,700 --> 00:42:51,700 Oh, my gracious goodness... 950 00:42:51,700 --> 00:42:52,700 Crash! ..heavenly me. 951 00:42:52,700 --> 00:42:54,700 In last place, I'm afraid... 952 00:42:54,700 --> 00:42:56,700 but she probably knows it, 953 00:42:56,700 --> 00:42:59,700 by the fact that I've used a feminine pronoun... 954 00:42:59,700 --> 00:43:00,700 LAUGHTER 955 00:43:00,700 --> 00:43:04,700 ..it's Sue Perkins! APPLAUSE AND CHEERING 956 00:43:05,700 --> 00:43:06,700 WHISTLING 957 00:43:09,700 --> 00:43:12,700 Fighting manfully into third place, 958 00:43:12,700 --> 00:43:13,700 Alan Davies! 959 00:43:13,700 --> 00:43:16,700 APPLAUSE AND CHEERING Thank you very much. 960 00:43:20,700 --> 00:43:23,700 In second place, a magnificent debut from Sami Shah! 961 00:43:23,700 --> 00:43:25,700 APPLAUSE AND CHEERING 962 00:43:29,700 --> 00:43:32,700 Which can only mean that our clear winner, with minus four, 963 00:43:32,700 --> 00:43:35,700 is David Mitchell! APPLAUSE AND CHEERING 964 00:43:35,700 --> 00:43:37,700 JINGLE PLAYS 965 00:43:42,700 --> 00:43:46,700 And that's all from Sami, Sue, David, Alan and me. 966 00:43:46,700 --> 00:43:49,700 Goodnight. APPLAUSE AND CHEERING 967 00:44:15,700 --> 00:44:17,700 He brought ground-breaking, subversive shows 968 00:44:17,700 --> 00:44:18,700 to the stage and screen. 969 00:44:18,700 --> 00:44:21,700 He was the most brilliant young producer. 970 00:44:21,700 --> 00:44:24,700 He was the only one that could really keep up with me.