1 00:00:01,760 --> 00:00:04,206 This programme contains some strong language. 2 00:00:30,140 --> 00:00:32,920 Good evening, good evening, good evening, good evening, 3 00:00:32,920 --> 00:00:35,510 good evening, good evening, good evening, good evening, 4 00:00:35,510 --> 00:00:38,880 and welcome to QI. 5 00:00:38,880 --> 00:00:43,790 Tonight...we are musing on the medieval and the macabre. 6 00:00:43,790 --> 00:00:48,550 Joining me in the Dark Ages are King of the Castle, David Mitchell! 7 00:00:52,270 --> 00:00:54,760 Queen of the May, Julia Zemiro! 8 00:00:57,910 --> 00:01:00,510 Lord of the Manor, Matt Lucas. 9 00:01:02,961 --> 00:01:05,750 And a knight on the tiles, Alan Davies. 10 00:01:11,200 --> 00:01:15,910 And their buzzers are all very much connected with middle age. 11 00:01:15,910 --> 00:01:17,270 David goes... 12 00:01:22,490 --> 00:01:23,800 Julia goes... 13 00:01:28,040 --> 00:01:30,360 It's the Middle Ages, all right. Matt goes... 14 00:01:34,770 --> 00:01:36,250 And Alan goes... 15 00:01:36,250 --> 00:01:40,841 Dear Sir, why, oh, why, oh, why must we always have endless monks 16 00:01:40,841 --> 00:01:42,440 chanting on the BBC? 17 00:01:47,330 --> 00:01:52,320 Which of these did they not have in the Middle Ages? 18 00:01:52,320 --> 00:01:54,230 Oh. Swee... No. 19 00:01:55,961 --> 00:01:57,760 Iron maiden. Well... 20 00:01:57,760 --> 00:02:01,680 They didn't have Iron... I am aware there is a group. 21 00:02:03,040 --> 00:02:06,150 The most medieval thing seems that thing with the spikes that you put 22 00:02:06,150 --> 00:02:09,550 someone in. That'll be the thing they didn't actually have then. 23 00:02:09,550 --> 00:02:11,990 You are absolutely right! 24 00:02:19,140 --> 00:02:23,430 The iron maiden, as you say, that sort of sarcophagus with spikes, 25 00:02:23,430 --> 00:02:27,971 they weren't even thought of, or imagined, until 1793. 26 00:02:27,971 --> 00:02:32,050 Oh, I was going to say, I thought they were invented by Paul Daniels or someone. 27 00:02:32,050 --> 00:02:35,040 The Spanish Inquisition, must be the Spanish Inquisition. 28 00:02:35,040 --> 00:02:37,000 They weren't used in the Spanish Inquisition 29 00:02:37,000 --> 00:02:40,120 because they weren't invented until 1793, which was... 30 00:02:42,360 --> 00:02:45,040 My favourite one from the Spanish Inquisition... 31 00:02:45,040 --> 00:02:48,320 was they put a pole up your anus, 32 00:02:48,320 --> 00:02:50,150 and they do it in such a way that it 33 00:02:50,150 --> 00:02:53,760 avoids all of your vital organs and comes out by your shoulder. 34 00:02:53,760 --> 00:02:56,680 And then just leave you there for people to look at. 35 00:02:58,320 --> 00:03:00,400 I like the first part of that. 36 00:03:04,930 --> 00:03:07,520 Actual poles, not a Polish gentleman, it is 37 00:03:07,520 --> 00:03:10,591 an actual pole. 38 00:03:10,591 --> 00:03:12,510 Less keen, less keen. 39 00:03:12,510 --> 00:03:16,430 I thought an iron maiden was a chastity belt. No. 40 00:03:16,430 --> 00:03:18,870 They call that a chastity belt. 41 00:03:21,160 --> 00:03:23,440 So, they didn't ever exist? 42 00:03:23,440 --> 00:03:29,160 Well, in 1793, an archaeologist by the name of Johann Siebenkees, gave an account of one, which was a hoax. 43 00:03:29,591 --> 00:03:34,510 And then 100 years or so later, a guy called Matthias Pfau, had one 44 00:03:34,510 --> 00:03:37,961 installed in Kyburg, his Swiss castle, as a visitor attraction. 45 00:03:37,961 --> 00:03:40,790 It became the prototype for all the other iron maidens that were 46 00:03:40,790 --> 00:03:42,950 used in museums and movies. 47 00:03:42,950 --> 00:03:45,560 So they hadn't really been used as a method of torture. 48 00:03:45,560 --> 00:03:48,150 No, that's what I mean. They were just a hoax for centuries. 49 00:03:48,150 --> 00:03:50,690 "Here's one for you. Here's one for you." 50 00:03:50,690 --> 00:03:53,050 What a weird hoax. 51 00:03:53,050 --> 00:03:54,800 Actually, if you think about it, 52 00:03:54,800 --> 00:03:57,640 what they wanted to do in the Middle Ages is find a way of killing 53 00:03:57,640 --> 00:04:00,490 people as gradually as possible, which is essentially... 54 00:04:00,490 --> 00:04:02,591 Because it is going to kill them immediately, 55 00:04:02,591 --> 00:04:05,000 and you don't even get to see it happening. 56 00:04:05,000 --> 00:04:08,410 And they don't recant their heresy or whatever it is they were guilty of. 57 00:04:08,410 --> 00:04:12,210 Yeah, they hadn't invented Perspex until 1974. 58 00:04:12,210 --> 00:04:14,650 It would be a dead giveaway they weren't medieval 59 00:04:14,650 --> 00:04:16,330 if they had a Perspex front. 60 00:04:18,280 --> 00:04:21,050 Made by the people who brought you stripper heels. 61 00:04:22,950 --> 00:04:26,690 If we go back to my little manuscript word cloud, 62 00:04:26,690 --> 00:04:29,350 maybe the other ones didn't exist in medieval times. 63 00:04:29,350 --> 00:04:31,280 There wasn't much cardboard about. 64 00:04:31,280 --> 00:04:33,680 If there were greeting cards, they wouldn't have been... 65 00:04:33,680 --> 00:04:37,120 Not big readers, either, not many people could read. Exactly. 66 00:04:37,120 --> 00:04:39,591 But in fact, there were single sheet woodcuts 67 00:04:39,591 --> 00:04:43,070 found from the mid-15th century, with pictures on them, 68 00:04:43,070 --> 00:04:45,800 wishing the recipient a very good year, even. 69 00:04:45,800 --> 00:04:48,150 It seems a rather modern idea. Sorry... 70 00:04:50,920 --> 00:04:54,920 But those banderoles with the little bubbles were very popular. 71 00:04:54,920 --> 00:04:57,990 And they would say things, not, "Sorry you've been unwell," 72 00:04:57,990 --> 00:05:00,640 but things like, "A very good year." So they did exist. 73 00:05:00,640 --> 00:05:04,510 What else might have existed, or did exist, in that era? 74 00:05:04,510 --> 00:05:06,570 Sweet-and-sour sauce, definitely. 75 00:05:06,570 --> 00:05:10,120 Yes, they called it sour-sweet, in fact. Aigre-doux. 76 00:05:10,120 --> 00:05:13,240 And they used vinegar and sugar, cinnamon, orange, onions. 77 00:05:13,240 --> 00:05:15,350 Whatever they could get their hands on. 78 00:05:15,350 --> 00:05:18,120 Didn't they use onions to sweeten things? 79 00:05:18,120 --> 00:05:21,080 Onions do contain more sugar than sugar beets, 80 00:05:21,080 --> 00:05:22,800 as long as you cook them. 81 00:05:22,800 --> 00:05:26,490 Hence the caramelised...you know. They are a bit oniony, though, as well. 82 00:05:28,160 --> 00:05:29,520 They can be sweet, 83 00:05:29,520 --> 00:05:34,130 but you wouldn't want too many puddings being that oniony. 84 00:05:34,130 --> 00:05:37,880 It's true, they're not that sweet. Because if you ever go to the freezer 85 00:05:37,880 --> 00:05:41,880 and you go for a Mini Milk, and you've left a bag of onion rings 86 00:05:41,880 --> 00:05:44,150 next to the Mini Milks in the freezer... 87 00:05:46,591 --> 00:05:49,050 It doesn't taste too nice. 88 00:05:49,050 --> 00:05:51,880 The Mini Milks taste a bit oniony. 89 00:05:51,880 --> 00:05:55,150 What I do when I, you know, 90 00:05:55,150 --> 00:05:59,731 slow roast a belly of pork is I take 91 00:05:59,731 --> 00:06:02,930 an onion, a large onion, 92 00:06:02,930 --> 00:06:06,880 and the juices from the pork go down, and the onion roasts, 93 00:06:06,880 --> 00:06:10,601 and it is so sweet, it is... I swear you'll believe 94 00:06:10,601 --> 00:06:14,130 you're eating...a Haribo..Har... 95 00:06:18,440 --> 00:06:21,130 Haribo? Are you possessed at the moment? 96 00:06:24,010 --> 00:06:27,010 We'll find a medieval cure for it. 97 00:06:27,010 --> 00:06:30,520 During the Spanish Inquisition, they put a Mini Milk up your arse... 98 00:06:34,130 --> 00:06:36,721 What is a Mini Milk? What is a Mini Milk? 99 00:06:38,670 --> 00:06:40,331 Oh, dear. 100 00:06:43,160 --> 00:06:46,030 Is it one of those sweets that looks like a tiny bottle of milk? 101 00:06:46,030 --> 00:06:49,480 No, it's an ice cream on a stick, basically. It is basically... 102 00:06:49,480 --> 00:06:52,160 When you want a Magnum and your mum won't buy you a Magnum, 103 00:06:52,160 --> 00:06:56,731 you get a Mini Milk. And you keep those with onion rings? No, I didn't! 104 00:06:58,570 --> 00:07:02,410 I have separate shelves. You've got to keep sweet... Put me on camera. 105 00:07:02,410 --> 00:07:05,000 You've got to keep... 106 00:07:05,000 --> 00:07:07,601 You've got to keep sweet and savoury separate in freezers, 107 00:07:07,601 --> 00:07:09,210 guys, come on! 108 00:07:11,010 --> 00:07:14,490 Mini Milks are nice. They are like, I don't know, if you can't get a Sparkle, 109 00:07:14,490 --> 00:07:18,400 get a Mini Milk, I don't know. What's a Sparkle? Oh, dear. 110 00:07:18,400 --> 00:07:22,211 What's your ice cream of choice? I used to like Mivvis when I was a boy. 111 00:07:23,770 --> 00:07:28,370 That's the point! Now I'm an adult! Right. I eat olives. 112 00:07:28,370 --> 00:07:30,240 And I eat cheese. 113 00:07:32,130 --> 00:07:36,650 This has all gone very weird. You started it. 114 00:07:36,650 --> 00:07:39,721 We are a long way... I want to live in the Middle Ages now, 115 00:07:39,721 --> 00:07:42,030 because they seem to have grown-up food. 116 00:07:43,570 --> 00:07:46,601 Question from the floor, Mr Fry. What is a prefab? 117 00:07:46,601 --> 00:07:48,440 Oh, don't you have those in Australia? 118 00:07:48,440 --> 00:07:52,000 I don't know. It means a sort of modular building that is made outside 119 00:07:52,000 --> 00:07:55,440 the site and then brought to it and assembled. 120 00:07:55,440 --> 00:07:57,810 It is associated with low-cost housing. 121 00:07:57,810 --> 00:08:01,160 The Duchess of Cambridge grew up in one. Did she? 122 00:08:01,160 --> 00:08:02,400 No. 123 00:08:05,320 --> 00:08:08,130 Because she grew up on an estate. 124 00:08:08,130 --> 00:08:12,440 I just like the fact that people think she was common as muck. 125 00:08:12,440 --> 00:08:15,731 William the Conqueror had prefabs, didn't he? Did he? 126 00:08:15,731 --> 00:08:19,019 Didn't they bring prefab castles over with... 127 00:08:20,210 --> 00:08:23,030 Not the Normandy landings, the other way round. 128 00:08:23,030 --> 00:08:26,040 The Hasting landings. They brought... 129 00:08:26,040 --> 00:08:28,160 Because all the plug sockets are different here, 130 00:08:28,160 --> 00:08:29,731 and they wanted their own... 131 00:08:31,370 --> 00:08:34,851 An example of prefab housing that we have is the Vikings, in fact, 132 00:08:34,851 --> 00:08:38,200 who, when they invaded Orkney, found there was virtually nowhere to live, 133 00:08:38,200 --> 00:08:43,960 and so they came back with supplies, on longboats, of prefab little houses. 134 00:08:43,960 --> 00:08:48,680 And that's presumably where Vikings got the idea of flat-pack... 135 00:08:51,880 --> 00:08:55,320 Have you noticed that the current Vikings have decided 136 00:08:55,320 --> 00:08:59,080 it should be described as "ickier", not IKEA. It is ridiculous. 137 00:08:59,080 --> 00:09:02,000 As in, "more icky"? "More icky", yes. 138 00:09:02,000 --> 00:09:04,721 There is a voice-over now that goes on about "ickier". 139 00:09:04,721 --> 00:09:06,800 Strange. Oh, they can fick off, then. 140 00:09:14,130 --> 00:09:17,050 That leaves us, I think, with official commemorative merchandise. 141 00:09:17,050 --> 00:09:19,010 Would that be if you went to... 142 00:09:19,010 --> 00:09:23,010 They used to be very keen on seeing a rotting old bit of a saint. 143 00:09:23,010 --> 00:09:25,731 Very much so. If you were medieval, there was 144 00:09:25,731 --> 00:09:29,120 one saint who was more or less contemporary, who was a martyr. 145 00:09:29,120 --> 00:09:32,940 And they would stop off at this cathedral where he was murdered, 146 00:09:32,940 --> 00:09:36,890 famously. Who would that be? Thomas Becket. Thomas Becket. Points! 147 00:09:36,890 --> 00:09:41,930 Points! Points! Solid points. In the 12th century, Thomas Becket was killed by Henry I I. 148 00:09:41,930 --> 00:09:44,650 And they immediately tried to sell his blood, 149 00:09:44,650 --> 00:09:48,520 and that ran out rather quickly, so they diluted it. 150 00:09:48,520 --> 00:09:53,650 But also they sold little swords, little simulacra of the sword that 151 00:09:53,650 --> 00:09:56,960 had stabbed him, and you could buy one of those. And it was official. 152 00:09:56,960 --> 00:10:00,731 It was, as it were, stamped. It's still got a shop in the cathedral. 153 00:10:00,731 --> 00:10:02,096 Exactly. 154 00:10:03,170 --> 00:10:06,930 The Middle Ages, in fact, featured lots of very useful inventions, 155 00:10:06,930 --> 00:10:09,970 but tell me, what has been called "the wickedest, silliest, 156 00:10:09,970 --> 00:10:14,110 "most insane and most disastrous book in world literature?" 157 00:10:14,110 --> 00:10:16,210 The Liar by Stephen Fry. Ah! 158 00:10:17,880 --> 00:10:19,880 It probably is. Mein Kampf. 159 00:10:19,880 --> 00:10:22,170 That would be a very sensible guess. 160 00:10:22,170 --> 00:10:25,280 And in the interests of balance, The Da Vinci Code also. 161 00:10:34,930 --> 00:10:36,280 These self-help books. 162 00:10:36,280 --> 00:10:37,570 The books that say, 163 00:10:37,570 --> 00:10:39,880 "If you just change the way you think, you'll be fine." 164 00:10:39,880 --> 00:10:43,520 I mean, you know, everyone has got a mood board for something. 165 00:10:43,520 --> 00:10:46,240 So, maybe there was a medieval mood board of some kind. 166 00:10:46,240 --> 00:10:48,120 You're right to mention the medieval era, 167 00:10:48,120 --> 00:10:52,580 because it was a book of the 15th century. Foxe's Book Of Martyrs. 168 00:10:52,580 --> 00:10:55,611 No, that was a little later. But let me give you its title. 169 00:10:55,611 --> 00:10:58,330 Malleus Maleficorum. MeleficARUM, I beg your pardon. 170 00:10:58,330 --> 00:11:00,880 That's the point. If you know your Latin, that means... 171 00:11:00,880 --> 00:11:03,450 Malleus, does it...? If you take the US off 172 00:11:03,450 --> 00:11:07,520 and put a T... Mallet. Mallet. Hammer. Malleus is hammer. 173 00:11:07,520 --> 00:11:09,731 Timmy Mallett's autobiography. 174 00:11:11,400 --> 00:11:15,040 Sorry, I'm bringing the tone down, I know. 175 00:11:15,040 --> 00:11:19,450 Is it... Mal... Is that like "the bad-doing hammer" thing? 176 00:11:19,450 --> 00:11:21,800 It is "of the". That's genitive. 177 00:11:21,800 --> 00:11:23,601 Come on, boy, that's genitive. 178 00:11:25,320 --> 00:11:28,160 So, it is "the hammer of...the bad-doing people." 179 00:11:28,160 --> 00:11:31,170 But the "arum", not "orum", tells you it's bad... 180 00:11:31,170 --> 00:11:33,170 Doing women. Yes. 181 00:11:33,170 --> 00:11:35,601 Bad-doing women and their hammer! No. 182 00:11:35,601 --> 00:11:40,320 The hammer of. I want to be the hammer of them. I want to beat them down. 183 00:11:40,320 --> 00:11:45,611 The crazy Witches of Eastwick. Witches. Witches. You said it. You said it. We got there. 184 00:11:45,611 --> 00:11:49,450 We're supposed to hammer them? The hammer of the witches is what that means. 185 00:11:49,450 --> 00:11:53,370 So it's not... They don't own the hammer. No. We own the hammer and we hammer away at them. 186 00:11:53,370 --> 00:11:56,400 I am more confused than when I talked about Mini Milk. I... 187 00:11:59,120 --> 00:12:06,010 We had a Latin parsing essay in which The Malleus Maleficarum turned out to mean The Hammer of Witches... 188 00:12:06,010 --> 00:12:12,601 Wow...the way to beat witches, and this was a textbook about how to destroy 189 00:12:12,601 --> 00:12:16,800 and find witches. It was strange because it was mid-15th century. 190 00:12:16,800 --> 00:12:21,290 In the mid-15th century, the Church banned belief in witches. 191 00:12:21,290 --> 00:12:24,440 So this wasn't a time of witch burnings or anything of the nature 192 00:12:24,440 --> 00:12:29,560 but the very nature of the success of the book meant that a slow 193 00:12:29,560 --> 00:12:34,380 movement grew in which witches should be found, burned and tortured. 194 00:12:34,380 --> 00:12:38,090 This book was therefore called the silliest, most wicked book written 195 00:12:38,090 --> 00:12:41,840 because it made appalling claims about women, that for example, 196 00:12:41,840 --> 00:12:45,760 that they dispossessed men of their penises. As if 197 00:12:47,170 --> 00:12:51,040 They would take their penises, put them on a tray and the penises would 198 00:12:51,040 --> 00:12:56,650 wander around of their own volition eating...eating oats and corn. 199 00:12:58,560 --> 00:13:01,550 Not maize corn. With a simple pecking motion. 200 00:13:03,530 --> 00:13:05,170 Or with a suction. 201 00:13:05,170 --> 00:13:07,930 How would they do it? There's a theory. 202 00:13:07,930 --> 00:13:10,760 Do you know the theory about the witch's broomstick, 203 00:13:10,760 --> 00:13:12,611 about how it might have developed? 204 00:13:12,611 --> 00:13:14,400 Yeah, they put it up your anus... 205 00:13:16,330 --> 00:13:18,380 It's funny you should say that 206 00:13:18,380 --> 00:13:22,330 cos, yes, they put them up their anus. What? 207 00:13:22,330 --> 00:13:27,680 You may say, why would a woman stick a broomstick up her botty? 208 00:13:27,680 --> 00:13:30,890 I'm so glad we're having this conversation. 209 00:13:32,800 --> 00:13:37,721 But anyway, the point is there is a substance that has been accused, 210 00:13:37,721 --> 00:13:40,920 if you like, throughout history, of being behind a lot of episodes 211 00:13:40,920 --> 00:13:43,800 of mass hysteria and hallucination and so on 212 00:13:43,800 --> 00:13:46,110 and the substance is called ergot. 213 00:13:46,110 --> 00:13:49,250 Have you heard of ergot? No. Where can you get it? 214 00:13:49,250 --> 00:13:52,330 You can get it if you live near a field of rye. 215 00:13:52,330 --> 00:13:55,611 Where rye grows. It is a fungus that grows on rye. 216 00:13:55,611 --> 00:14:00,330 Its spores can be breathed in and it is not unlike lysergic acid, 217 00:14:00,330 --> 00:14:03,840 which is the L of LSD, and it causes weird trips. 218 00:14:03,840 --> 00:14:07,130 Now, with any drug there are different ways of ingesting it. 219 00:14:07,130 --> 00:14:11,020 Intranasally, orally... Or on a broomstick up your arse. 220 00:14:11,020 --> 00:14:14,200 ..intravenously or in a suppository form. 221 00:14:14,200 --> 00:14:18,320 Right. So one way would be to take it and to grease up your... 222 00:14:20,050 --> 00:14:23,530 I'm not making this up. Grease up your pole with ergot. 223 00:14:23,530 --> 00:14:26,741 Grease up your pole and scatter it with bits of ergot and then, "Whoo!" 224 00:14:29,100 --> 00:14:32,690 And you only... You feel like you're flying. 225 00:14:34,840 --> 00:14:36,890 That's basically it. You then get your... 226 00:14:36,890 --> 00:14:40,570 What does that mean? How much ergot are those kids at Hogwarts getting through? 227 00:14:43,050 --> 00:14:48,100 It's not appropriate to encourage that kind of drug taking in the young. It isn't. 228 00:14:48,100 --> 00:14:51,100 And there is another theory that it was actually intra-vaginal 229 00:14:51,100 --> 00:14:53,050 - rather than intra-anal... - Lovely 230 00:14:53,050 --> 00:14:56,741 ..so that it was covered on the broom and then it went smoothly up. 231 00:14:56,741 --> 00:14:59,010 I can't see anything smooth about this at all. 232 00:15:00,970 --> 00:15:03,040 I don't know. Owww! 233 00:15:03,040 --> 00:15:06,611 Do you want to apply it, do you? Do that yourself?! 234 00:15:06,611 --> 00:15:09,160 You'd be a great gynaecologist, though, Stephen 235 00:15:09,160 --> 00:15:12,000 cos because you're very calm the way you're explaining everything. 236 00:15:13,120 --> 00:15:17,840 Let's get more decent here. What did old Mummy Pettigrew do? 237 00:15:17,840 --> 00:15:24,611 Wow. Is there a clue in the picture? No. The picture is there to deceive. 238 00:15:24,611 --> 00:15:30,560 The key is in the M word, this being the M series. Was she a Mother Superior of a nunnery? 239 00:15:30,560 --> 00:15:34,178 No, she wasn't. No. Was she a Morrissey fan? 240 00:15:35,200 --> 00:15:37,731 This could take a long time, couldn't it? Yes, it could. 241 00:15:37,731 --> 00:15:41,170 Madonna.... I'm assuming she wasn't a dead Egyptian. 242 00:15:41,170 --> 00:15:43,640 Ah, no, SHE wasn't. 243 00:15:43,640 --> 00:15:47,250 All right, Mummy Pettigrew - not female. Oh, right. 244 00:15:47,250 --> 00:15:53,000 If I was very interested in beetles, you might call me Beetle Fry, 245 00:15:53,000 --> 00:15:56,130 and if I was very interested in mummies, you might call me Mummy Fry, 246 00:15:56,130 --> 00:15:57,611 so, Mummy Pettigrew... 247 00:15:57,611 --> 00:16:00,050 ..was a Mr Pettigrew who was obsessed with Egyptology. 248 00:16:00,050 --> 00:16:01,330 On the money. Ah. 249 00:16:01,330 --> 00:16:04,090 And here you are, exactly, and there is a picture of him. 250 00:16:04,090 --> 00:16:05,560 He was quite well-known. 251 00:16:05,560 --> 00:16:08,100 He was Thomas "Mummy" Pettigrew. 252 00:16:08,100 --> 00:16:10,611 He was a 19th-century anatomist, and what he would do, 253 00:16:10,611 --> 00:16:11,970 he would issue invitations, 254 00:16:11,970 --> 00:16:14,890 cos this was a period in which mummies were coming into Britain 255 00:16:14,890 --> 00:16:18,090 from all over - mostly Egypt, obviously, but North Africa, too, 256 00:16:18,090 --> 00:16:21,320 and other places where mummification was what happened. 257 00:16:21,320 --> 00:16:23,731 We went and robbed the world. We robbed the world. 258 00:16:23,731 --> 00:16:26,491 It was a pretty awful kind of cultural violation that went on, 259 00:16:26,491 --> 00:16:29,000 there, I'm afraid, but... Not like the British to do that, 260 00:16:29,000 --> 00:16:30,890 through history, is it? Americans, too, 261 00:16:30,890 --> 00:16:33,361 and it was... French, also. It was a big deal in America, 262 00:16:33,361 --> 00:16:36,120 and France almost invented Egyptology. All right, hang on. 263 00:16:36,120 --> 00:16:38,560 Well, all the countries of Europe, essentially - 264 00:16:38,560 --> 00:16:40,970 the powers, as they were known in the 19th century - 265 00:16:40,970 --> 00:16:44,570 Ioved Egyptology, and these mummies would come in, 266 00:16:44,570 --> 00:16:48,730 and rather than unrolling them carefully in the British Museum, 267 00:16:48,730 --> 00:16:51,560 these were public events and Pettigrew was the chief of it. 268 00:16:51,560 --> 00:16:54,820 You would pay to see a mummy unrolled for the first time. 269 00:16:54,820 --> 00:16:56,690 You had no idea what you'd see inside. 270 00:16:56,690 --> 00:16:59,890 That'd be amazing. And there were hundreds of them coming in, yeah, 271 00:16:59,890 --> 00:17:02,250 and the more you paid, the closer to the mummy you got, 272 00:17:02,250 --> 00:17:05,040 and some of them were so popular that... People were betting. 273 00:17:05,040 --> 00:17:07,690 "Will it be a dead body? Will it be a robot?" You know. 274 00:17:07,690 --> 00:17:11,900 Yeah, or someone going, "At last!" Well... 275 00:17:11,900 --> 00:17:15,361 There was an Egyptologist called George Gliddon, who, in 1850, 276 00:17:15,361 --> 00:17:18,410 proudly unrolled, before his paying public, a princess. 277 00:17:18,410 --> 00:17:21,130 Cos he'd been able to read the hieroglyphs 278 00:17:21,130 --> 00:17:23,560 and tell that this was important - a princess. 279 00:17:23,560 --> 00:17:27,320 He unrolled the mummy and this huge, great todger poked out, 280 00:17:27,320 --> 00:17:30,640 so it was quite clear he wasn't exactly right. 281 00:17:30,640 --> 00:17:33,650 It was clear that he wasn't yet dead. 282 00:17:33,650 --> 00:17:36,470 And there was one occasion where the Archbishop of Canterbury was 283 00:17:36,470 --> 00:17:38,540 pushed out cos the press of people was so great 284 00:17:38,540 --> 00:17:40,010 that he couldn't even get a view. 285 00:17:40,010 --> 00:17:42,210 These were very popular events, 286 00:17:42,210 --> 00:17:45,340 and one of the greatest fans of them was the Duke of Hamilton, 287 00:17:45,340 --> 00:17:46,650 who loved these things. 288 00:17:46,650 --> 00:17:48,210 He became very obsessed, 289 00:17:48,210 --> 00:17:52,050 and asked Pettigrew that he might be mummified, himself, when he died. 290 00:17:52,050 --> 00:17:55,250 Although he looks younger in that picture than Pettigrew, I suppose... 291 00:17:55,250 --> 00:17:57,081 Was that him with his wife? 292 00:17:58,900 --> 00:18:02,410 Well, anyway, when he died, he was duly mummified 293 00:18:02,410 --> 00:18:04,760 by Thomas "Mummy" Pettigrew... Yeah. 294 00:18:04,760 --> 00:18:07,611 ..and they rather got the proportions wrong of the sarcophagus 295 00:18:07,611 --> 00:18:09,560 in which he was going to be placed as a mummy, 296 00:18:09,560 --> 00:18:11,721 and so they had to cut his feet off. 297 00:18:13,481 --> 00:18:15,810 Did they put his feet in a little shoebox? 298 00:18:15,810 --> 00:18:18,650 Yes, probably. I'd like to be mummified. 299 00:18:18,650 --> 00:18:20,090 I mean, obviously, 300 00:18:20,090 --> 00:18:22,540 once I'm dead, but I would... Yeah, I was going to say. 301 00:18:22,540 --> 00:18:24,611 It'd be good, cos I'd look like the Michelin man, 302 00:18:24,611 --> 00:18:26,460 cos you know... It'd be nice. It'd be nice. 303 00:18:26,460 --> 00:18:29,361 Let's see if we can guess where the northernmost mummies were found. 304 00:18:29,361 --> 00:18:31,540 That's not eccentrics like the Duke of Hamilton, 305 00:18:31,540 --> 00:18:32,970 who asked to be mummied, 306 00:18:32,970 --> 00:18:37,090 but proper mummified creatures according... Wigan. Erm... 307 00:18:37,090 --> 00:18:39,900 No, a little further south than Wigan, but certainly north. 308 00:18:39,900 --> 00:18:42,180 Kent. No, north... 309 00:18:42,180 --> 00:18:43,410 Nottingham. 310 00:18:43,410 --> 00:18:46,690 Ian McNeice. I think I'm right in saying Michael Parkinson. 311 00:18:46,690 --> 00:18:49,720 Barnsley. Barnsley is right. That's right, Barnsley. 312 00:18:49,720 --> 00:18:54,090 Now, why would there be found ancient mummies in Barnsley in 300AD? 313 00:18:54,090 --> 00:18:57,570 There was no room in the car park in Leicester. 314 00:18:57,570 --> 00:18:59,820 Good. 315 00:18:59,820 --> 00:19:03,080 No, who was stationed and garrisoned in Britain? 316 00:19:03,080 --> 00:19:04,930 Oh, was it Egyptian Romans? The Romans? 317 00:19:04,930 --> 00:19:07,820 North African, yes, who observed mummification... Right, yeah. 318 00:19:07,820 --> 00:19:09,260 ..and they are the furthest north 319 00:19:09,260 --> 00:19:11,440 of any mummied remains. They were in the Roman army? 320 00:19:11,440 --> 00:19:12,980 Yes. Stationed here? Absolutely. 321 00:19:12,980 --> 00:19:14,491 They mummified folk? 322 00:19:14,491 --> 00:19:17,250 Either as conscripts, or, you know mercenaries, I don't know. 323 00:19:17,250 --> 00:19:20,170 Were there, sort of, British legionaries in Egypt 324 00:19:20,170 --> 00:19:22,050 who played bagpipes? 325 00:19:22,050 --> 00:19:23,260 Maybe. 326 00:19:23,260 --> 00:19:26,180 So, we went all the way to Egypt and ransacked the pyramids 327 00:19:26,180 --> 00:19:28,182 and then we had some in Barnsley? 328 00:19:29,800 --> 00:19:31,260 It was a bit of a surprise. 329 00:19:31,260 --> 00:19:35,410 Can't ransack Yorkshire, though, can you? They won't have it. 330 00:19:35,410 --> 00:19:37,970 Was it a certain class of people only that were mummified? 331 00:19:37,970 --> 00:19:41,080 Was that the, like...? No, actually, one of the most beautiful things 332 00:19:41,080 --> 00:19:43,540 you could see when you go up the Nile, if you do, 333 00:19:43,540 --> 00:19:45,080 is, there's the Valley of the Kings, 334 00:19:45,080 --> 00:19:47,970 but behind it is the Valley of the Artisans and Artists, 335 00:19:47,970 --> 00:19:51,000 and they're the most touchingly extraordinary ones because they were 336 00:19:51,000 --> 00:19:55,450 the artists and artisans who worked on the great tombs of the Pharaohs. 337 00:19:55,450 --> 00:19:58,140 I guess, if you had the art, you could do it yourself. 338 00:19:58,140 --> 00:20:01,371 Hilda, get to t'mummy. 339 00:20:01,371 --> 00:20:05,350 Enough. Mummy Pettigrew was very much a mummy's boy. 340 00:20:05,350 --> 00:20:07,550 Now, for a mile-high question - 341 00:20:07,550 --> 00:20:10,621 how do you get a whole row of seats to yourself 342 00:20:10,621 --> 00:20:13,700 on a Virgin Airways flight? 343 00:20:13,700 --> 00:20:15,850 Oh, if you're really fat. 344 00:20:15,850 --> 00:20:18,900 That would... Yeah, I think they might be able to get rid of an arm... 345 00:20:18,900 --> 00:20:21,270 but I don't think they'd let you on if you were any fatter. 346 00:20:21,270 --> 00:20:23,900 No, but, like, really fat. Oh, I see what you mean. Die! 347 00:20:23,900 --> 00:20:26,621 Is the right answer. You'd have to die. Oh... Die. 348 00:20:26,621 --> 00:20:27,890 We asked. 349 00:20:30,770 --> 00:20:34,850 You can't... I mean, you can't make people sit next to the dead. 350 00:20:34,850 --> 00:20:36,491 That's... That's the truth, isn't it? 351 00:20:36,491 --> 00:20:38,501 Basically, I think that would be what it was, 352 00:20:38,501 --> 00:20:41,440 and if you're flying, say, from London to New York, 353 00:20:41,440 --> 00:20:43,260 if you're near enough, and someone dies, 354 00:20:43,260 --> 00:20:46,130 you'd turn around and all the other passengers would be going, 355 00:20:46,130 --> 00:20:50,260 "Oh, really! Please, have some consideration." 356 00:20:50,260 --> 00:20:53,080 But once you've passed that point of no return, as they call it, 357 00:20:53,080 --> 00:20:56,300 then there's nothing you can do, except go on to New York. 358 00:20:56,300 --> 00:20:57,980 But what if the plane's full? 359 00:20:57,980 --> 00:21:00,460 Well... Do they keep a row for the dead, just in case? 360 00:21:01,501 --> 00:21:03,700 And, in which case, if they keep a row for the dead, 361 00:21:03,700 --> 00:21:06,170 what if two people die? There's always a row at the back... 362 00:21:06,170 --> 00:21:08,260 Exactly, if there's an outbreak of sickness. 363 00:21:08,260 --> 00:21:10,730 ..and the crew use it for having a kip. Oh, that's true. 364 00:21:10,730 --> 00:21:13,050 What it means is the crew will then have to be awake. Yes. 365 00:21:13,050 --> 00:21:15,090 The dead bloke - that'll piss him off. 366 00:21:15,090 --> 00:21:16,520 Does it happen a lot, though? 367 00:21:16,520 --> 00:21:18,290 Oh, now, this is what's interesting. 368 00:21:18,290 --> 00:21:21,440 British Airways have about ten deaths a year in flight. 369 00:21:21,440 --> 00:21:22,907 Well, that food is just... 370 00:21:24,260 --> 00:21:27,530 And amongst the 36 million passengers, 371 00:21:27,530 --> 00:21:32,910 so if you extrapolate out to the rather amazing 3.5 billion passengers 372 00:21:32,910 --> 00:21:37,530 that fly every year, that means there must be around 1,000 deaths a year, 373 00:21:37,530 --> 00:21:39,980 and different airlines have different ways of doing it. 374 00:21:39,980 --> 00:21:42,460 Singapore Airlines have a corpse cupboard. 375 00:21:43,780 --> 00:21:45,690 I don't know why it's funny, but it is. 376 00:21:45,690 --> 00:21:49,262 So no-one need even know there's a dead person. "Oh, I'm sorry." 377 00:21:50,930 --> 00:21:53,340 It's all so Fawlty Towers, isn't it? Yeah. 378 00:21:53,340 --> 00:21:55,290 If I ever die on the plane, 379 00:21:55,290 --> 00:21:58,100 I should like to be stored in the overhead lockers. 380 00:21:59,580 --> 00:22:01,890 For the rest of time. Brilliant. 381 00:22:01,890 --> 00:22:04,371 British Airways, though, you get a good deal if you die, 382 00:22:04,371 --> 00:22:06,090 because you go to first class. 383 00:22:06,090 --> 00:22:07,780 Yeah. Excellent. Yeah. At last. 384 00:22:07,780 --> 00:22:09,570 One long established steward said, 385 00:22:09,570 --> 00:22:11,890 "Many years ago, we used to give them a vodka and tonic, 386 00:22:11,890 --> 00:22:14,930 "a Daily Mail and eyeshades, and tell the passengers they were fine. 387 00:22:14,930 --> 00:22:18,850 "We don't do that any more." Yeah, I think... 388 00:22:18,850 --> 00:22:20,930 It's bad enough being dead 389 00:22:20,930 --> 00:22:24,540 but having to hold the Daily Mail?! The Daily Mail! 390 00:22:24,540 --> 00:22:26,747 Oh, trash! 391 00:22:31,381 --> 00:22:35,420 The Daily Mail and other newspapers, not just the Daily Mail, 392 00:22:35,420 --> 00:22:38,170 when they talk about their circulation, 393 00:22:38,170 --> 00:22:41,140 they are also including the newspapers that they give away 394 00:22:41,140 --> 00:22:42,530 for free... Oh, really? 395 00:22:42,530 --> 00:22:44,780 ..and so I don't think the airlines or any of those 396 00:22:44,780 --> 00:22:47,340 kind of institutions actually pay for the newspapers. 397 00:22:47,340 --> 00:22:48,810 Oh, really? So it's mainly... 398 00:22:48,810 --> 00:22:51,570 The Daily Mail is mainly dead people on aeroplanes. Yes. 399 00:22:51,570 --> 00:22:52,650 But they are... 400 00:22:52,650 --> 00:22:56,450 The dead are very, very right-wing. 401 00:22:56,450 --> 00:22:58,140 Oh, that is true. 402 00:22:58,140 --> 00:22:59,241 All right. 403 00:22:59,241 --> 00:23:02,340 When do you think - I'll give you five years either way - 404 00:23:02,340 --> 00:23:04,440 was the first airline stewardess? 405 00:23:04,440 --> 00:23:07,251 I think 200 years before the first aeroplane, 406 00:23:07,251 --> 00:23:11,430 and I think it was a weird pointless scheme by a futurologist, 407 00:23:11,430 --> 00:23:15,820 who just went up and down a field with a trolley, 408 00:23:15,820 --> 00:23:17,708 asking the cattle, "Drink, sir?" 409 00:23:20,010 --> 00:23:22,140 1962. '62? 410 00:23:22,140 --> 00:23:23,580 1958. 411 00:23:23,580 --> 00:23:25,020 '58. I'm going much earlier. 412 00:23:25,020 --> 00:23:26,650 I'm going to say 1924. 413 00:23:26,650 --> 00:23:28,010 Ooh, you're so close. 414 00:23:28,010 --> 00:23:29,770 It's 1930. 415 00:23:29,770 --> 00:23:31,890 There she is, Ellen Church. Aw... 416 00:23:31,890 --> 00:23:35,690 The very first. She wanted to be a pilot but she wasn't allowed. 417 00:23:35,690 --> 00:23:37,860 She and her colleagues, who were all nurses, 418 00:23:37,860 --> 00:23:40,140 were known as "sky girls", in those early days. 419 00:23:40,140 --> 00:23:42,580 That was United, as you can see - United Airlines. 420 00:23:42,580 --> 00:23:47,501 Their duties included screwing down loose seats - 421 00:23:47,501 --> 00:23:49,700 not loo-seats, loose seats - 422 00:23:49,700 --> 00:23:51,980 helping to fuel the plane... Wow. 423 00:23:51,980 --> 00:23:54,938 ..and pushing the plane into its hangar at the end of the journey. 424 00:23:57,060 --> 00:23:59,501 All that and flogging the perfume, as well... Yeah. 425 00:23:59,501 --> 00:24:01,450 ..and the scratchcards, 426 00:24:01,450 --> 00:24:04,930 and going up and down with a bin liner saying, "Is that rubbish?" 427 00:24:04,930 --> 00:24:07,210 I don't think they sell scratchcards on aeroplanes. 428 00:24:07,210 --> 00:24:10,660 Not on the ones you go on, Stephen, but, yes, they do. 429 00:24:10,660 --> 00:24:13,730 I would say a scra... a lottery card on an aeroplane, 430 00:24:13,730 --> 00:24:16,540 you do not want to sell something when your chances of winning 431 00:24:16,540 --> 00:24:21,501 are so much less than your chances of dying on that aeroplane. 432 00:24:21,501 --> 00:24:23,140 So, good, now, 433 00:24:23,140 --> 00:24:27,140 how would this man make your mouth water? 434 00:24:27,140 --> 00:24:28,994 Oh, old Captain Saliva. 435 00:24:30,890 --> 00:24:32,700 Is the stick relevant? 436 00:24:32,700 --> 00:24:34,940 Well... Hmm... 437 00:24:34,940 --> 00:24:38,170 By making... Hit you in the nuts with his walking stick. 438 00:24:38,170 --> 00:24:41,090 Maybe if I told you his name, it might help. 439 00:24:41,090 --> 00:24:43,890 Hang on, now dogs have appeared - walking sticks and dogs. 440 00:24:43,890 --> 00:24:46,251 His name was Ivan... Doggie-stick. 441 00:24:46,251 --> 00:24:48,220 ..Petrovich... 442 00:24:48,220 --> 00:24:50,600 Pavlov, as someone shouted in the audience. Pavlov. 443 00:24:50,600 --> 00:24:53,170 Oh, Pavlov's dogs. So how would he make drool appear? 444 00:24:53,170 --> 00:24:54,340 By ringing a bell. 445 00:24:54,340 --> 00:24:56,241 Wrong! 446 00:24:56,241 --> 00:24:57,371 You said it. 447 00:24:57,371 --> 00:24:59,100 Thank you for saying it. 448 00:25:00,300 --> 00:25:03,610 Aww. Your fault, "Pavlov." You see, it's so unfair. 449 00:25:03,610 --> 00:25:06,704 You led me astray there. Would he make a pavlova? 450 00:25:08,700 --> 00:25:11,860 Did he invent that as well? No, that was Anna Pavlova. 451 00:25:11,860 --> 00:25:13,020 Anna Pavlova, yes, exactly. 452 00:25:13,020 --> 00:25:15,241 They'd feed the dogs and they'd do something, well, 453 00:25:15,241 --> 00:25:16,930 they'd ring a bell, wouldn't they? 454 00:25:16,930 --> 00:25:19,090 And then the dogs would think the food was coming 455 00:25:19,090 --> 00:25:21,511 and then they would get all excited. 456 00:25:21,511 --> 00:25:25,960 That is what we think of when we thought of Pavlov and his dogs. 457 00:25:25,960 --> 00:25:28,251 They were trained to recognise particular bells. 458 00:25:28,251 --> 00:25:31,220 When he rang the bell, they would start immediately to salivate 459 00:25:31,220 --> 00:25:33,970 because dogs salivate when they're about to eat because it helps 460 00:25:33,970 --> 00:25:39,300 them digest but the weird thing is, he did everything except ring bells. 461 00:25:39,300 --> 00:25:41,501 He did things that showed the extraordinary 462 00:25:41,501 --> 00:25:43,251 sophistication of dogs' hearing. 463 00:25:43,251 --> 00:25:46,170 They could distinguish between rhythms of 464 00:25:46,170 --> 00:25:48,060 96 and 104 beats per minute, 465 00:25:48,060 --> 00:25:51,501 so if he gave 104 beats per minute on a metronome, 466 00:25:51,501 --> 00:25:54,660 there would be no food, 96, there would be food. 467 00:25:54,660 --> 00:25:58,650 A day later he would go 96, they'd drool. 468 00:25:58,650 --> 00:26:01,501 He tried also ascending and descending musical scales. 469 00:26:01,501 --> 00:26:02,700 If a scale was going up, 470 00:26:02,700 --> 00:26:05,540 they're going to eat, it was going down, they weren't going to eat. 471 00:26:05,540 --> 00:26:08,460 All that and he could've just rung a bell. 472 00:26:08,460 --> 00:26:11,020 Followers of Pavlov used bells but he didn't. 473 00:26:11,020 --> 00:26:14,860 Is this a sort of victory of the journalist who reported it? 474 00:26:14,860 --> 00:26:18,512 "It's like he rang a bell?" "No, no, there's a metronome." 475 00:26:19,820 --> 00:26:22,020 "You know, basically he rang a bell." 476 00:26:22,020 --> 00:26:24,220 And then they just reported it as a bell. 477 00:26:24,220 --> 00:26:26,251 But do you want to know the weird thing? 478 00:26:26,251 --> 00:26:28,010 Yes, I do, I want to know the weird thing. 479 00:26:28,010 --> 00:26:32,930 In 1904, he became the first ever Russian to win... 480 00:26:32,930 --> 00:26:35,740 the NO- BELL prize. 481 00:26:42,261 --> 00:26:45,381 I've always wondered why it was called that. 482 00:26:45,381 --> 00:26:49,070 He became a Nobel laureate for his contribution to medicine, 483 00:26:49,070 --> 00:26:51,070 particularly to digestion and so on. 484 00:26:51,070 --> 00:26:55,060 And he decided to sell gastric juices of dogs 485 00:26:55,060 --> 00:26:56,780 and I suppose his name was helpful. 486 00:26:56,780 --> 00:26:59,020 And he felt that these would help people as 487 00:26:59,020 --> 00:27:01,220 a digestive cure of some kind. 488 00:27:01,220 --> 00:27:04,381 So you would drink the gastric juice of a dog to help your own 489 00:27:04,381 --> 00:27:05,501 gastric business? 490 00:27:05,501 --> 00:27:10,050 He would stick a catheter in a poor dog, up into its tummy to milk it 491 00:27:10,050 --> 00:27:13,501 of its gastric juices and, yeah, he sold them. 492 00:27:13,501 --> 00:27:16,780 We've got a picture of a dog giving his all here. 493 00:27:19,330 --> 00:27:20,342 It's only a drawing! 494 00:27:22,940 --> 00:27:25,610 So, if you think Pavlov rings a bell, you're barking. 495 00:27:25,610 --> 00:27:29,810 Now, Matt, what's dense, slimy, lives at the bottom of the sea 496 00:27:29,810 --> 00:27:32,501 and is called...? David Walliams. 497 00:27:41,940 --> 00:27:46,140 He's a very strong swimmer, isn't he? 498 00:27:46,140 --> 00:27:48,381 Oh, dear. 499 00:27:48,381 --> 00:27:51,690 Matt, what's dense, slimy, lives at the bottom of the sea 500 00:27:51,690 --> 00:27:52,890 and is called Matt? 501 00:27:52,890 --> 00:27:54,539 David Walliams. Wa-hey! 502 00:27:55,790 --> 00:27:59,391 And called Matt? Is it just a mat? 503 00:27:59,391 --> 00:28:00,980 Oh, yes. 504 00:28:00,980 --> 00:28:05,310 Yes. It's a mat. So I AM clever. 505 00:28:05,310 --> 00:28:08,750 Is it some kind of sea vegetable? 506 00:28:08,750 --> 00:28:12,820 It's...it's...it's sea life, sea matter that's cohered. 507 00:28:12,820 --> 00:28:14,700 Algae. How big would it be, the mat? 508 00:28:14,700 --> 00:28:17,530 Huge, huge, hundreds of thousands of square miles. 509 00:28:17,530 --> 00:28:20,970 Certainly the biggest we know of, it's about the size of Greece. 510 00:28:20,970 --> 00:28:23,050 There you are, you see. You see. You ARE clever. 511 00:28:23,050 --> 00:28:26,690 It's not in Greece or near Greece, it's off the coast of Peru and Chile. 512 00:28:26,690 --> 00:28:28,794 Oh, look at David Walliams. 513 00:28:30,780 --> 00:28:32,870 Stop it! 514 00:28:32,870 --> 00:28:35,310 No, don't stop, carry on. 515 00:28:35,310 --> 00:28:38,060 It's microbial. It's a whole load of microbes. 516 00:28:38,060 --> 00:28:42,060 So many of them that they can create this matter that's thick and... 517 00:28:42,060 --> 00:28:44,980 Mat matter. Mat matter, exactly. 518 00:28:44,980 --> 00:28:48,890 Don't say anything bad about them because we owe the photosynthesis 519 00:28:48,890 --> 00:28:52,899 and the oxygen-rich nature of our own atmosphere to these. 520 00:28:52,899 --> 00:28:54,409 We couldn't live without them. 521 00:28:54,409 --> 00:28:57,378 I've been served that in a motorway service station. 522 00:28:58,649 --> 00:29:01,729 They eat hydrogen and they breathe nitrates. 523 00:29:01,729 --> 00:29:05,289 And they live in streams and lakes as well as the ocean. 524 00:29:05,289 --> 00:29:07,569 They're very, very exciting and here, 525 00:29:07,569 --> 00:29:09,889 I know you like wonderful information, 526 00:29:09,889 --> 00:29:13,539 the total weight of microbes in the ocean is equivalent 527 00:29:13,539 --> 00:29:18,069 to 240 billion African elephants. 528 00:29:22,789 --> 00:29:26,269 The good thing about that is that really helps me visualise that. 529 00:29:26,269 --> 00:29:28,979 That was very, very helpful. Let me help you more, then. 530 00:29:28,979 --> 00:29:33,499 35 elephants made of microbes for everyone on the planet. 531 00:29:33,499 --> 00:29:37,269 So each of us have got 35 elephants made of microbes surrounding us now. 532 00:29:37,269 --> 00:29:39,899 We're rich! 35, that's a lot of elephants. 533 00:29:39,899 --> 00:29:44,350 The time has come to rule out lifting all that in one go. 534 00:29:44,350 --> 00:29:46,230 Right. 535 00:29:46,230 --> 00:29:47,739 You learn a lot on this show, 536 00:29:47,739 --> 00:29:53,009 I never knew that the ocean was made up of 35,000 billion elephants. 537 00:29:53,009 --> 00:29:55,269 I've really been educated. 538 00:29:55,269 --> 00:29:57,470 No wonder elephants are endangered 539 00:29:57,470 --> 00:30:00,779 when you think of the number who have been drowned. 540 00:30:00,779 --> 00:30:03,419 To create a mat at the bottom of the sea. 541 00:30:03,419 --> 00:30:08,340 That's probably why the trunks... They were trying to evolve snorkels. 542 00:30:16,139 --> 00:30:17,659 Oh, dear. 543 00:30:17,659 --> 00:30:20,739 I can see that I've not really explained myself very well. 544 00:30:20,739 --> 00:30:22,629 And now for something slightly mucky. 545 00:30:22,629 --> 00:30:27,069 Alan, have you ever had your dirt hole burgled without your knowledge? 546 00:30:35,019 --> 00:30:38,139 Do you know what? I'm not going to answer that. 547 00:30:38,139 --> 00:30:39,699 Fair enough. 548 00:30:39,699 --> 00:30:42,862 I'm actually writing to Points Of View now in this book. 549 00:30:44,649 --> 00:30:49,090 It's a question to do with the macabre side of human life, muck. 550 00:30:49,090 --> 00:30:54,340 Oh, is this something like, in some context, excrement has a value? 551 00:30:54,340 --> 00:30:56,369 Yes, where there's muck... 552 00:30:56,369 --> 00:30:58,649 Yes, they need it for fertiliser or whatever 553 00:30:58,649 --> 00:31:01,369 and so people would sell their, erm, you know, their shit. 554 00:31:01,369 --> 00:31:03,269 So obviously other people would steal it. 555 00:31:03,269 --> 00:31:05,579 Which gave it a value, and if something has a value, 556 00:31:05,579 --> 00:31:07,659 there will always be some who wish to steal it. 557 00:31:07,659 --> 00:31:09,379 Is this in medieval times or now? 558 00:31:09,379 --> 00:31:12,459 No, actually, it's not medieval, it's 18th and 19th century. 559 00:31:12,459 --> 00:31:15,100 I think the question is flawed. How so? 560 00:31:15,100 --> 00:31:18,059 Because if I'd have had my dirt hole burgled without my knowledge, 561 00:31:18,059 --> 00:31:19,993 I wouldn't know about it, would I? 562 00:31:22,739 --> 00:31:25,939 Touche. You're absolutely right. 563 00:31:25,939 --> 00:31:28,929 So I don't know. Is the right answer. Possibly. 564 00:31:28,929 --> 00:31:30,369 "Possibly." Yup. 565 00:31:30,369 --> 00:31:33,869 So people kept their rubbish in holes that could be collected. 566 00:31:33,869 --> 00:31:35,459 It was a bin collection. 567 00:31:35,459 --> 00:31:38,379 The dustman and the dustcart were actually often collecting 568 00:31:38,379 --> 00:31:41,779 dust as well because it was simply dirt that people had swept up 569 00:31:41,779 --> 00:31:45,090 and poured into a little hole or into a bucket in a hole, 570 00:31:45,090 --> 00:31:47,659 the dirt hole, because everything was recycled. 571 00:31:47,659 --> 00:31:50,579 Even family pets, when they died, had a value. 572 00:31:50,579 --> 00:31:54,419 White cat, sixpence, multicoloured cat, fourpence. 573 00:31:54,419 --> 00:31:57,289 In those days, the Flying Dustmen, as they were called, 574 00:31:57,289 --> 00:31:58,729 the people who came to collect it, 575 00:31:58,729 --> 00:32:03,389 they were paid to get it rather than you paying rates to have it removed. 576 00:32:03,389 --> 00:32:05,559 There was hardware and software. 577 00:32:05,559 --> 00:32:07,459 Software would be things like a dead cat 578 00:32:07,459 --> 00:32:10,659 and the hardware was broken crockery, oyster shells, things like that, 579 00:32:10,659 --> 00:32:12,579 which road builders could use. 580 00:32:12,579 --> 00:32:14,629 Anyway, from muck to mugshots. 581 00:32:14,629 --> 00:32:19,419 What heinous crime was committed by Baby- Face Bertillon? 582 00:32:19,419 --> 00:32:21,990 He stole the faces of babies. 583 00:32:23,419 --> 00:32:25,023 And then wore them himself. 584 00:32:26,369 --> 00:32:28,869 I don't know if you're a Sherlock Holmes buff. 585 00:32:28,869 --> 00:32:31,629 I... I'm quite buff but... 586 00:32:31,629 --> 00:32:33,379 no, not so much with Sherlock Holmes. 587 00:32:33,379 --> 00:32:36,269 Sherlock Holmes talks about the Bertillon system at one point. 588 00:32:36,269 --> 00:32:37,782 It was a famous system. 589 00:32:38,899 --> 00:32:42,100 And it did involve, really, what you're looking at. 590 00:32:42,100 --> 00:32:45,350 Mugshots. Mugshots is the right answer! 591 00:32:45,350 --> 00:32:49,019 So Bertillon took a photograph of his young son, 592 00:32:49,019 --> 00:32:51,459 hence the Baby- Face Bertillon. 593 00:32:51,459 --> 00:32:54,009 And what he did there was he exhibited his technique, 594 00:32:54,009 --> 00:32:58,299 which may seem obvious to us but what are we looking at? 595 00:32:58,299 --> 00:33:00,909 Taking a front and profile. 596 00:33:00,909 --> 00:33:05,069 He realised that ears were very, very good ways of identifying people, 597 00:33:05,069 --> 00:33:07,419 and so you couldn't just have a full-on 598 00:33:07,419 --> 00:33:09,529 but a side view is very important. 599 00:33:09,529 --> 00:33:12,709 And, over the years, the French police 600 00:33:12,709 --> 00:33:17,709 and the British got huge collections of pictures of criminals. 601 00:33:17,709 --> 00:33:19,949 And these became the rogues' galleries, 602 00:33:19,949 --> 00:33:21,659 the mugshots that are famous 603 00:33:21,659 --> 00:33:24,090 in films and TV shows where some witness says, 604 00:33:24,090 --> 00:33:25,899 "Oh, I'd know him if I saw him." 605 00:33:25,899 --> 00:33:28,009 "Hey, show him, show him the mugshots." 606 00:33:28,009 --> 00:33:30,899 You know. And the witness would go through the book 607 00:33:30,899 --> 00:33:34,829 and each book would be... 608 00:33:34,829 --> 00:33:37,949 That was days after I'd had my dirt hole burgled. 609 00:33:40,069 --> 00:33:41,957 Was it by Hugh Grant above you? 610 00:33:43,360 --> 00:33:46,429 Hugh Grant's trying to look cross there. 611 00:33:46,429 --> 00:33:50,139 And the crime that Bertillon's son had committed was nibbling all 612 00:33:50,139 --> 00:33:51,743 the pears in a basket. 613 00:33:53,989 --> 00:33:57,739 Trying one and putting it back. Yeah. My little boy does that. 614 00:33:57,739 --> 00:34:00,419 It drives me mad. Which, to a Frenchman, is a grave sin. 615 00:34:00,419 --> 00:34:01,819 Sorry, is it a euphemism? 616 00:34:01,819 --> 00:34:04,299 Maybe it's a euphemism, have I missed something? 617 00:34:04,299 --> 00:34:08,369 "I admit I nibbled all the pears in the basket. 618 00:34:08,369 --> 00:34:09,870 "And she bloody loved it." 619 00:34:12,699 --> 00:34:15,299 That's terrible. Anyway, yes. 620 00:34:15,299 --> 00:34:19,429 Francois Bertillon was the notorious Paris pear nibbler. 621 00:34:19,429 --> 00:34:22,669 And talking of delicious things to eat, one last medieval question. 622 00:34:22,669 --> 00:34:26,389 How many uses can you think of for a monk's earwax? 623 00:34:27,669 --> 00:34:29,899 Oh, it's endless. Candles. Candles, yeah. 624 00:34:29,899 --> 00:34:32,379 Polishing wood. They might have done. 625 00:34:32,379 --> 00:34:34,659 That definitely sounds like a euphemism. 626 00:34:34,659 --> 00:34:36,789 Yeah. 627 00:34:36,789 --> 00:34:38,149 I meant it... 628 00:34:38,149 --> 00:34:40,799 There's not much else to do in a monastery, is there? 629 00:34:40,799 --> 00:34:42,149 Polishing their own wood. 630 00:34:42,149 --> 00:34:44,179 What have monks handed down to us mostly? 631 00:34:44,179 --> 00:34:46,539 Bibles. Bibles and manuscripts, illustrated... 632 00:34:46,539 --> 00:34:48,819 Spent their lifetime writing, copying them out. 633 00:34:48,819 --> 00:34:50,819 Doing lines, basically. Yes. 634 00:34:50,819 --> 00:34:54,199 There we are, there's a picture of a happy monk doing his illuminations. 635 00:34:54,199 --> 00:34:56,187 And that side of it, the painty side of it, 636 00:34:56,187 --> 00:35:00,427 they used a substance called glair -G-L-A-I-R- 637 00:35:00,427 --> 00:35:06,827 and it tended to get bubbled but they found if they added earwax to it, 638 00:35:06,827 --> 00:35:10,517 they could get a really smooth, beautiful lustre and sheen 639 00:35:10,517 --> 00:35:12,517 to the illustrations they were doing, 640 00:35:12,517 --> 00:35:14,677 which have lasted us down the centuries. 641 00:35:14,677 --> 00:35:17,667 How do you think of that, though? To go, "Hmm, there it is." 642 00:35:17,667 --> 00:35:22,267 A thing you might try at home is you could take a pint of foaming beer 643 00:35:22,267 --> 00:35:27,437 and then pop earwax into the head of your foaming tankard 644 00:35:27,437 --> 00:35:29,947 and the bubbles should collapse. 645 00:35:29,947 --> 00:35:32,632 If you're watching TV, don't listen to this man. 646 00:35:36,307 --> 00:35:38,437 I think you're right. 647 00:35:38,437 --> 00:35:40,477 It would be better if it was the other way round. 648 00:35:40,477 --> 00:35:43,267 You had a flat liquid and then you put a bit of earwax in it 649 00:35:43,267 --> 00:35:45,307 and then it went, fzzeee! 650 00:35:45,307 --> 00:35:47,907 Chuck some sodium in your beer. That should do it. 651 00:35:47,907 --> 00:35:50,080 And which orifice does sodium come out of? 652 00:35:52,547 --> 00:35:56,177 They left other little things for us, little maniculae, little hands 653 00:35:56,177 --> 00:35:59,358 that pointed to certain sections of the text in the Bible. 654 00:35:59,358 --> 00:36:00,827 You can see one on the left there. 655 00:36:00,827 --> 00:36:02,667 Well, if you've read The Name Of The Rose, 656 00:36:02,667 --> 00:36:04,467 they left clues everywhere, all sorts. 657 00:36:04,467 --> 00:36:07,257 Yeah. And octopuses as well, you can see an octopus at the top there. 658 00:36:07,257 --> 00:36:09,027 They, for some reason, liked octopuses. 659 00:36:09,027 --> 00:36:13,077 Is that a person with a huge sort of trumpet up his bottom? 660 00:36:13,077 --> 00:36:15,197 It's something odd, isn't it? Yeah, it is. 661 00:36:15,197 --> 00:36:18,717 I don't know what they're doing there. They're praising the Lord. 662 00:36:22,358 --> 00:36:24,797 It's so boring in those monasteries. Exactly. 663 00:36:24,797 --> 00:36:27,607 The old fart trumpet was the favourite... 664 00:36:28,677 --> 00:36:32,118 I was going to say on a Sunday but perhaps not. 665 00:36:34,437 --> 00:36:36,234 "Dinner!" 666 00:36:37,727 --> 00:36:40,757 They used to leave little remarks like, "Oh, God, it's cold in here," 667 00:36:40,757 --> 00:36:42,108 or, "I'm so bored." 668 00:36:42,108 --> 00:36:45,157 Round the Bible. Just like schoolkids on their desks. 669 00:36:45,157 --> 00:36:46,507 Exactly like that. 670 00:36:46,507 --> 00:36:48,747 So why are they fighting snails? 671 00:36:48,747 --> 00:36:53,437 No-one is quite sure. But it's a common feature - knights vs snails. 672 00:36:53,437 --> 00:36:54,877 They seemed to like... 673 00:36:54,877 --> 00:36:57,597 Some people may think it was a symbol of the struggle of the poor 674 00:36:57,597 --> 00:36:59,157 against the aristocracy. 675 00:36:59,157 --> 00:37:01,762 I think people shouldn't watch this show any more. 676 00:37:03,437 --> 00:37:06,747 Do you think they had loads of snails in these cold, 677 00:37:06,747 --> 00:37:08,947 damp monasteries and there were snails everywhere 678 00:37:08,947 --> 00:37:11,157 and they were hoping a gallant knight would come 679 00:37:11,157 --> 00:37:14,077 and help them deal with the snail infestation problem? 680 00:37:14,077 --> 00:37:16,397 Possibly! 681 00:37:16,397 --> 00:37:19,317 Which means it's time... 682 00:37:19,317 --> 00:37:22,597 ..to place various intimate parts of you into the thumbscrew 683 00:37:22,597 --> 00:37:25,477 of general ignorance. Fingers on buzzers, please. 684 00:37:25,477 --> 00:37:28,913 Where are most missionaries positioned? 685 00:37:33,157 --> 00:37:37,477 I'm going to guess that most of them are in Utah where 686 00:37:37,477 --> 00:37:40,707 the Mormons tend to kind of congregate 687 00:37:40,707 --> 00:37:44,347 because they haven't yet been assigned their places to go to. 688 00:37:44,347 --> 00:37:46,807 Interesting, interesting answer but I'm 689 00:37:46,807 --> 00:37:49,988 talking about which is the country that receives the most incoming? 690 00:37:49,988 --> 00:37:52,957 Well, I'm not talking about that. 691 00:37:54,477 --> 00:37:56,887 I'm talking about them before they've gone. 692 00:37:56,887 --> 00:38:00,197 So I'm not asking you where the most missionaries come FROM, I'm asking... 693 00:38:00,197 --> 00:38:02,317 I know but... 694 00:38:02,317 --> 00:38:04,947 I'm trying to get a point. 695 00:38:04,947 --> 00:38:08,597 By you answering the question that I haven't asked. 696 00:38:08,597 --> 00:38:10,827 My guess is China. 697 00:38:10,827 --> 00:38:12,807 Ah, it's a possibility. I mean, it's not... 698 00:38:12,807 --> 00:38:14,837 Well, it IS a possibility but it's not a fact. 699 00:38:14,837 --> 00:38:17,797 Is it in Africa? It's not Africa. Is it England? No. 700 00:38:17,797 --> 00:38:20,988 Is it South America? England is much, much closer. 701 00:38:20,988 --> 00:38:23,677 South America. Not South America, not SOUTH America. 702 00:38:23,677 --> 00:38:26,067 Central. Not Central... North America. North America! 703 00:38:26,067 --> 00:38:29,517 America, United States. Well, I think you'll find Utah is in America. 704 00:38:36,357 --> 00:38:39,557 But I specifically said, "Where are the most 705 00:38:39,557 --> 00:38:41,988 "missionaries who've come from outside one country?" 706 00:38:41,988 --> 00:38:45,397 I know, but I didn't choose to answer that. Argh! 707 00:38:45,397 --> 00:38:48,527 I've got to give you points, you deserve them for sheer tenacity. 708 00:38:48,527 --> 00:38:50,667 The fact is, we don't quite know why missionaries... 709 00:38:50,667 --> 00:38:53,477 Some think they just want to go to a very rich country, 710 00:38:53,477 --> 00:38:57,197 others think these missionaries believe America has lapsed into sin. 711 00:38:57,197 --> 00:38:59,988 You're absolutely right in one way, certainly, which is 712 00:38:59,988 --> 00:39:02,267 that America produces the most missionaries. 713 00:39:02,267 --> 00:39:04,837 I've gone, I'm passed it. 714 00:39:04,837 --> 00:39:06,267 For me, it's gone. 715 00:39:06,267 --> 00:39:07,767 32,400 missionaries went to 716 00:39:07,767 --> 00:39:10,317 the USA from other nations. No, not interested. 717 00:39:10,317 --> 00:39:14,925 Whereas 127,000 go out of the US. No, it's too late, too little too late. 718 00:39:16,267 --> 00:39:19,168 And I think he's a Mormon. No, we're not looking. 719 00:39:22,597 --> 00:39:25,387 In 2003... 720 00:39:27,797 --> 00:39:30,248 ..in 2003 the residents of a Fijian village... 721 00:39:30,248 --> 00:39:32,277 Don't listen to him. ..apologised... 722 00:39:33,477 --> 00:39:37,037 ..apologised to the family of an English missionary who had, 723 00:39:37,037 --> 00:39:41,197 in 1867, been eaten by their ancestors. 724 00:39:41,197 --> 00:39:43,961 Well, again, too little too late. 725 00:39:45,397 --> 00:39:47,707 It's not known why the missionary was killed. 726 00:39:47,707 --> 00:39:49,907 Because he looked bloody tasty, I should expect. 727 00:39:51,397 --> 00:39:55,747 The villagers said that they had been suffering bad luck ever since eating 728 00:39:55,747 --> 00:39:59,707 the missionary and hoped it would change their fortunes to apologise. 729 00:39:59,707 --> 00:40:02,627 A year later, there was an earthquake. 730 00:40:02,627 --> 00:40:04,108 Maybe they should have... 731 00:40:04,108 --> 00:40:08,118 I wouldn't apologise for anyone my ancestors had eaten. 732 00:40:08,118 --> 00:40:11,277 I don't think it's my fault. No, exactly. 733 00:40:11,277 --> 00:40:13,317 And I wouldn't expect a descendant of mine 734 00:40:13,317 --> 00:40:16,407 to apologise for anything I'd eaten, either. 735 00:40:16,407 --> 00:40:19,637 I think what you eat, it's you to apologise, no-one else. 736 00:40:19,637 --> 00:40:22,677 Ridiculous for having pan-generational responsibility 737 00:40:22,677 --> 00:40:24,793 for ancestors' diets. 738 00:40:26,477 --> 00:40:29,677 But they thought it brought them bad luck, they were superstitious. 739 00:40:29,677 --> 00:40:32,627 So they weren't really sorry at all. 740 00:40:32,627 --> 00:40:34,677 If they thought it would bring them good luck, 741 00:40:34,677 --> 00:40:36,837 they'd probably eat another one. 742 00:40:36,837 --> 00:40:40,907 OK, more missionaries go to the United States than anywhere else. 743 00:40:40,907 --> 00:40:43,757 Do an impression of someone in the stocks. 744 00:40:43,757 --> 00:40:44,963 "Fuck off, fuck off!" 745 00:40:48,677 --> 00:40:50,248 It's like that, isn't it? 746 00:40:50,248 --> 00:40:53,557 Ah-ha! Points to Mitchell. Yes, absolutely. That the pillory. 747 00:40:53,557 --> 00:40:56,607 That's a pillory or fuse, as they were also known. 748 00:40:56,607 --> 00:40:59,837 That's stocks. Oh, stocks are feet, are they? 749 00:40:59,837 --> 00:41:01,767 I 'm into public shaming, though. 750 00:41:01,767 --> 00:41:03,988 If you've done something bad people can go, 751 00:41:03,988 --> 00:41:05,787 "Oh, don't do it again," and then you go, 752 00:41:05,787 --> 00:41:08,347 "Oh, that was awful, I won't have friends if I do this again." 753 00:41:08,347 --> 00:41:10,887 And then you go back into society. I don't think it's so bad. 754 00:41:10,887 --> 00:41:13,427 You're very right. They could be quite forgiving. 755 00:41:13,427 --> 00:41:15,787 Sometimes people had flowers thrown at them. 756 00:41:15,787 --> 00:41:17,637 Daniel Defoe, when he was in the stocks 757 00:41:17,637 --> 00:41:20,327 because he defended the church, people threw flowers at him. 758 00:41:20,327 --> 00:41:22,056 Those aren't stocks, so... 759 00:41:23,527 --> 00:41:25,397 No, he wasn't in the stocks there, 760 00:41:25,397 --> 00:41:27,467 he was pilloried, I think is the safest way to... 761 00:41:27,467 --> 00:41:30,677 People threw horrible things at you, big heavy things, 762 00:41:30,677 --> 00:41:33,147 and actually you could die. Yeah, no, absolutely. 763 00:41:33,147 --> 00:41:36,207 Some people took great lengths to protect themselves as a result. 764 00:41:36,207 --> 00:41:39,327 There was a gentleman here, Charles Hitchen, who was convicted 765 00:41:39,327 --> 00:41:43,366 of attempted sodomy and he went into the stocks wearing a suit of armour. 766 00:41:45,197 --> 00:41:47,037 What happened to successful ones, 767 00:41:47,037 --> 00:41:50,256 ones that managed to bring it off, as it were? 768 00:41:53,827 --> 00:41:57,707 Presumably you have to pay a lot for that when you were in the stocks. 769 00:41:57,707 --> 00:42:00,907 The stocks weren't for your head and arms, just for your legs. 770 00:42:00,907 --> 00:42:02,277 And, with that, 771 00:42:02,277 --> 00:42:06,327 our mosey through the medieval macabre must come to an end. 772 00:42:06,327 --> 00:42:09,558 We have scores. Mercy, mercy me. 773 00:42:10,647 --> 00:42:14,917 Well, in joint first position, with minus six, 774 00:42:14,917 --> 00:42:16,757 Matt and Julia. 775 00:42:24,197 --> 00:42:26,477 In third place with minus ten, 776 00:42:26,477 --> 00:42:27,757 David Mitchell. 777 00:42:33,847 --> 00:42:36,767 But the witch we shall be burning this evening is 778 00:42:36,767 --> 00:42:39,487 Alan Davies with minus 25. 779 00:42:47,637 --> 00:42:50,757 Well, it only remains for me to thank, Matt, David, Julia 780 00:42:50,757 --> 00:42:55,317 and Alan and the last word on the Middle Ages comes from Bennett Cerf. 781 00:42:55,317 --> 00:42:57,998 "Middle age is when your contemporaries are 782 00:42:57,998 --> 00:42:59,757 "so grey and wrinkled and bald 783 00:42:59,757 --> 00:43:02,118 "they don't recognise you." 784 00:43:02,118 --> 00:43:05,406 Good night.