Eddie Izzard: Live at Madison Square Garden (2011) - full transcript

"Life, the universe, and...everything. Here's what the critics are saying about Eddie's tour: Eddie makes us believe we can surf World 2.0 instead of just being swallowed up by it. As search engines go, he makes us feel lucky. - Los Angeles Times Izzard is a force with which to be reckoned. His rise is fundamentally cheering, not least because his material is rich, savvy and, at its best, still quite deliciously idiosyncratic." - Chicago Tribune

[ cheering ]

[ music ]

madison square garden.

[ cheering ]

new york city.

[ cheering ]

i started my career in london
at covent garden

as a street performer.

covent garden
is an area in london.

we used to call it the garden.

we used to go out
and do shows in the garden,



and now i'm at the garden.

[ cheering ]

a long fucking way.

and it's
the american dream, baby.

it's the american dream.

but in fact, i'm european
so it's the european dream.

so, god,
i'm actually nervous.

[ cheering ]

[ humming ]

yes. So, tonight,
i thought i'd talk to you

about everything that's
ever happened

with some gaps.

and that's because you people,
you are the chosen people.

not chosen by god, but
self-choosing chosen people.



but i'm happy
if there would be a god.

if there is some rhyme
and reason to what he's doing,

i'm happy
if he can come down right now

and explain himself.

never comes.

he's never come
to any of my gigs.

we send invites.
We put them up the chimney.

santa claus came one time.

i'm hoping
that if he did come,

he'd come there
and i'll be looking like this.

he'd turn up there.

that'd be to show
he has a sense of humor.

but i can prove
there is no god.

there's two little proofs
i have here.

one, that he doesn't
fucking come down ever.

and two,
if there was a god,

he would have flicked
hitler's head off.

don't you think?

you see, now,
some people say,

"oh, god's
not supposed to intervene."

well, fuck off then,
you know?

a lot of people have gotten
to a lot of cold stone buildings

and mumbled very
positive things towards him.

he could at least have
flicked hitler's head off,

don't you think?

hitler left clues.

that book, "mein kempf,"

which is german for
"i'm gonna kill everyone."

i mean, it was
during those speeches,

he looked--you know,
he doesn't look like

he was talking
about happiness, was he?

he was going,
"i'm gonna kill them.

i'm gonna blow them up.
I'm gonna cut them up."

and during
one of those speeches,

if god had just put his arm
through the building

in a monty python style
and just go...

thumpf.

and all the nazis
would go...

hey!

"god, we got a leader
who can do that with their head.

"hey, nazis.
Number one, nazis.

"number one, nazis.
Number one, nazis.

"number one, nazis.

his head has come off.

"let's join the farmers'
party, shall we?

"no, we're just going
for a weis. thanks."

which means pee.

i was an agnostic,
which is, you know,

it was a good place to be
in case he is there.

and you go, "no, i really did.
I was with you.

i was, you know."

i decided i'm an atheist
or nontheist.

i just don't believe
in the floaty boat.

and--yup.

[ cheering ]

apparently,
there are a billion people

who don't believe in god
in the world,

so quite a big
sort of congregation.

i don't know if that's
the right word, is it?

what a big group.

if we all get together
and do nothing.

what's he doing?

if there is a god,
he has more than one son.

i'm pretty sure of that.
I think jesus proves that.

aesus, besus, cesus, desus,
eesus, fesus, jesus.

just logic, yeah?

hesus, iesus,
jesus, kesus, lesus.

pesus, pesus,
the deliveries. Pesus.

jesus, always fucking around.
Fuck off, jesus.

he's fucking tied
me bits together.

cesus was a roman emperor.

oh, fuck.

dictator, i should say.

and then besus,
covered in bees.

[ cheering ]

so, yes, there's god.
God must be crazy.

i just--well, the beginning
of the world, right?

beginning of the world
is 4,500 million years ago.

if you're very religious,
it's 6,000 years ago.

they're on
a totally different thing.

i just--i can't go
with the religious boys,

'cause the science boys,
they've got glasses.

they've got almanacs.
They've got petri dishes.

they've got bunsen burners
with two speeds.

that one and that one.

[ humming ]

they're working at it.

they're looking
at magnetic fields.

4,500 million years ago,
the world--

place your bets.
Place your bets.

start spinning.

we turn up
five million years ago.

why the long pause?

if a god created the earth,

i wanted the seventh day
for prayer.

"why the long pause?"
as the barman said to the bear.

and the bear replied,

"'cause they've gotten stuck
in the lift door."

it's an old joke
from the beginning of time.

so, now, the dinosaurs,

i thought between us
and the beginning of time,

the dinosaurs ruled
the earth during this time.

but no, dinosaurs right up close
to us, 165 million years.

so a long time.

we've been doing five,
they did 165.

and the dinosaurs are crap.

165 million years
of these bastards,

they all got up in the morning
and all of them,

without even saying--
even the flying ones,

they got up in the morning
and they just went...

rawrrr!

that's it.
There's no other bit.

there's no--later on,
they did some serious work.

they're just big dogs
and not friendly.

not with the licky-face
friendly stuff.

they're rubbish.
Except the raptors.

i must admit, the raptors,
they are, you know,

in the spielberg film,
those raptors,

they got in, they open
the door, they quite glow,

downloaded porn from--

playing card games.

i don't know what they do.
But they seem quite clever.

and they look
at about our height as well.

you put a little porkpie hat,
little small trilby type hat

on a raptor
and i think, you know,

it looks like one of us.

it could pass as one of us.
"Is this your car, sir?"

"yeah."

"do you realize
how fast you were going?"

"ooh. Oh."
[ laughs ]

[ groans ]
"very busy."

"i realize you're very busy,
but there's rules."

[ groaning ]

"you're doing
53 miles an hour."

"53?"

"45."

"no, it was 53.
I've got a...finger."

"now, laughing
at your own jokes, then."

"could you show me
your license?"

[ groans ]

"look, it's a raptor.
It's a raptor.

sarge, sarge, sarge.
Where's sergeant?"

there's always extra police
in here.

"sarge. Sarge.
Give me the bazooka."

[ bazooka fires ]

poof.

shit.

thanks so much.

i never knew
how to end that scene.

so i just kill things
with bazookas now.

i got that from you.

it's kind of an american
foreign policy thing.

"hi, how are you?
Yeah. Good to see you.

all right, bye."

[ fires bazooka ]

"why did you kill me?"
"i didn't know what to say."

[ humming ]

what? What? Yes, and then?

so dinosaurs, dinosaurs crapolla
and they didn't pray.

no dinosaur churches.

we're pretty damn sure.

we've talked to a lot of people
who dig things out of ground

and they said no dinosaur--
very few dinosaur vicars

or priests going--

[ groaning ]

thank you very much.

a few used to do that.

when you had to go
to church, you go in

and some people go down
and do--praying on their own.

"what are you doing?

"he hasn't started yet.
Getting some in early?

oh, you wanna go to heaven,
don't you?"

i don't think i'm going
to heaven, by the way, guys.

anyway, so--
[ mumbling ]

and then dinosaurs--
[ mumbling ]

"welcome to the days.

now sing hymn 409, all things
bright and beautiful."

[ humming ]

? great and small ?

? all things wise
and wonderful ?

? they don't live on the planet
at the moment ?

who would make that?

what god would create monsters
for 165 million years

that just go rawrrr?

a god on crack cocaine,
ladies and gentlemen.

[ inhaling ]

"jesus. Besus,
desus, ensus, look.

look at this crazy ones."

[ inhaling ]

"dad, they're monsters."

"i thought i'd start
with monsters."

"you've done nothing
for four billion years

and they're monsters."

"you got to try this stuff."

[ inhaling ]

"it's called crack."

obviously, after 165 billion
years--come on now."

"missed."

"oh, that'll work."

"who did that
with my dinosaurs?"

"it wasn't me.

besus, ensus,
i didn't fucking do anything."

"ensus, elsus, kasus,
get zedsus over here."

"uncle jesus."

"oh, you're fucking
in england now."

the ez pass, the ez pass.

i--we say zed.

so the e-zed pass 'cause i kept
going through the tunnel and--

the e-zed pass, why the fuck
is it called the e-zed pass?

could not get that
for a few years.

e-zed pass, the e-zed pass.

the e-zed pass. The e-zed pass.
The e-zed pass. E-zed pass.

a bloke called e-zed
built it. I don't know.

that must have been the--
what are they called?

the--who's the guys
in the boat?

the pilgrims.

-what?
-The pilgrims.

who?

no, the guys who came over
in the plymouth rock?

the pilgrims. Pilgrims.
Thanks.

this is scripted.
This is scripted.

all these people
telling me stuff,

i planned for that to happen.

i can't remember
what i was gonna say now.

obviously the pilgrims,
they gone on a boat

and they said, "all right.
Fuck zed, okay?

"we're not gonna say
zed anymore.

"we're gonna say zee,
all right?

"let me get
the whole ez pass.

"it'll make sense,
all right?

"come on, we're gonna
talk like this now. Yeah.

"whoo. Yeah.

"we're gonna pray
in such an extreme way

"that maybe we'll set fire
to witches. Yeah."

"salem, that sounds good.
Let's head up there."

when salem happened,
we weren't doing anything.

we were being really nice.

so dinosaurs, bye-bye.

we turn up
five million years ago

and it gets interesting
around the stone age.

before the stone age,
i'm not sure how we hunted

'cause we didn't have stones
to hit things with.

so it must've just been,
you know?

and sometimes, an ox.
"There's an ox stuck in the mud.

"we could kill it and eat.

"guys, i'm starving.
Help me.

"where is everyone?
Fuck it.

"oh, help my hand.

"oh--ah, fuck. Fuck.

son of a--stupid stone."

[ pounds rock ] aah!

"that'll work.
That'll work.

"hi. You're stuck in the mud?

"this is rough, isn't it?
It's the rainy season.

it's april, rainy.
I--we haven't got words

for it yet.

is that a badger--"
[ pounds rock ]

"yes. Guys, guys."

"what is it, steve?
What is it?"

"i've invented something."
"what?"

[ pounds rock ]
"ow. That's genius."

"i thought
we should call it something.

"actually, this could be
the beginning of an age.

do you realize that?"

"well, that's what i thought."

"we'll call it
the age of big things

"that fall over
when hit by small,

"dense things
that are much denser

on the periodic table."

"stone age."

"stone age, yeah,
that's more pithy."

so the stone age began,
probably on a tuesday

at about half three.

the stones were used
as hitting tools, cutting tools.

you could cut the skin off an
animal that no longer needed it.

[ cutting sounds ]

-"are you sure?"
-"yeah, i'm fine."

[ cutting sounds ]

"steady."

[ cutting sounds ]

"thank you so much.

"i'll wear it with pride.

people of these caves--"

[ groans ]

"people--"
[ groans ]

"people of the caves
where i live by the hill

with the thing--"
[ groans ]

"i have killed--"
[ groans ]

"and now--"
[ groans ]

"i wear--"
[ groans ]

"steve, you're gonna hang it up
till it dries.

otherwise, you're just gonna be
lord of the flies."

"shut up, piggy."

"oh, oh, now everyone thinks
you're very literate now.

i see you grabbed the book
that you got for christmas."

"shut the fuck up.

i'm doing a show
at madison hexagonal arborie."

so the stone age began.

now, stone napping is the art
of getting a stone

looking for the folds
in the stone

and you chip away.

it's not just a haphazard
chipping thing.

you chip away
with the natural faults

in the stone
and then you make arrowheads

and ax heads
and stuff like that.

and they believe
that stone napping,

the art of it, was passed on
with the use of language.

they think that language
was developed to pass this on

about a hundred
thousand years ago.

now before language, i don't see
how you can have religion.

i think we've been searching
for god every since then.

but before that,
you can't have a god

with religion.

i think--
this is my analysis here--

because how can you articulate
a vengeful god,

a merciful god
with no words?

how can you go--
[ speaking gibberish ]

and i have learned all this
stuff through wikipedia.

yes.

now people frown and moan
a bit about wikipedia.

oh, the information
can be tampered with.

but before wikipedia,
we just had conversations

that went like,
"how do you make jam?

"steve, freddie, sally,
mr. Mingi, lady bad crumble?

kenny? Rogers?"

two people.

and if they didn't know,
if all your friends didn't know,

that was it.

you wouldn't know about jam.

you wouldn't join a library
and get the books.

you'd just forget it.

but now you can look up
on wikipedia.

jam, wikipedia,
'cause jam was invented in 1497

by mr. And mrs. Jam.

and after about five lines,
you get bored out of your mind,

have you noticed?

and then there's something
in blue and it's underlined,

then you click
and then goes helicopters.

helicopters was invented in 1783
by mr. And mrs. Helicopter,

often used to transport
jam around.

helicopters, spoon.

spoon is often--make
helicopters out of spoons

if you're really clever.

and sometimes you click
on the blue thing and it says,

"there is no page
for this thing."

and we go,
"why did you put it in blue?

don't put it in blue
if you haven't got a page."

because we have trained--
self-trained we are.

like pavlov's dog, remember?

pavlov would ring a bell and
the dog would make a pavlova.

[ tick, tick, tick, ding ]

pavlov go,
"that's a big crap."

and the dog go,
"i've got no thumbs."

but we learn about this stuff
all on our computers.

i have
an apple macintosh computer.

you may have a pc.
It doesn't really matter.

that's right.
[ Laughs ]

is that the future wars?

there's gonna be people
coming up hitting each other

with computers.

but apple macintosh, you know,
it's very smooth and sexy.

you can touch it
and have sex with people

and they're fine.

and you're tip-tapping away
these days,

and the thing come says,

"would you like
a software update?"

and you go,
"yeah. I don't see why not."

it's like a latte thing.

it says,
you just carry on working

and we'll update it
while you're doing it.

okay.

"would you like to know details
of the software update?"

you go, "no."

well, sometimes you go,
"yeah," and it goes--

[ swoosh ]

and you go, "i don't
know what that means.

there's just--"

updating security.
"Oh, that's pretty good."

spoon-bending monkey chaps
and they go,

"oh, okay,
we'll take them all."

and then it puts up
the blue line,

the blue line of time
appears on our screens

and the blue line
controls our lives.

it has controlled time
in a way that einstein

never believed possible.

for we're sitting there
tapping away and it says,

"8 minutes to download,
7 minutes to download,

"6 minutes to download,
8 minutes to download,

"2 minutes to download,
9 hours to download,

6 seconds to download,
8 minutes to down--"

einstein would have gone,
"what the--"

e does not equal mc squared.

e equals pn to the 5
times 10 to the monkey 9.

and then it says okay, download,
all the numbers count out,

and then it does that
stripy one and it goes,

"ooh, thinking about it,
thinking about it.

"oh, i don't know.

"shall we give him
the update? I don't know.

i'll think about it."

someone's putting things
in drawers and shit.

and before you're gonna get
the update, it says,

"sign in your agreement
with itunes."

and i don't know about you,

but i have signed
many agreements with itunes.

i don't know what
they want from us anymore.

don't they realize
we agree with them?

they must be paranoid at itunes
going, "we must ask them again

one more time
if they really, truly--"

"we've asked them 38 times."
"no, one more."

"i'm just not sure
if they agree with us."

and they have made us liars.
We cannot tell the truth.

you cannot reprimand
your children.

"no, johnny, you said
you didn't have a biscuit,

"but there's crumbs on your face
and you did have a biscuit.

you have lied."

"but you said you had read
the terms and conditions

"when you tick that box.

"it was too quick for you

"to read the terms
and conditions.

you read them
in a blink of an eye."

the truth is
no one in this room

has read
the terms and conditions.

no one in new york has read
the terms and conditions.

no one in the universe.

even god has not read
the terms and conditions.

that's probably the big gap

between the beginning
of the earth

and when we fucking turned up.

he was reading
the terms and conditions

of the thing he just made.

'cause anything could be on the
terms and conditions. Anything.

"we'll take your buttocks and
sell them to the chinese. Fine."

"we're going to re-arrange your
toes and number them." yes, yes.

"we're gonna put your underpants
and shoes around--yes, fine."

'cause you get to that point
you want the update.

you didn't know what it was,
but now you want it.

"give me
the fucking update."

and then you got the update
and nothing has changed.

if you have a pc, i think
it's a very similar thing.

you open the computer.
You switch on the computer.

you put the handle in,
and you turn the handle.

[ engine chugging ]

then in a loud voice,
in a clear voice,

you have to say, "chucks away,"
and they pull away wooden wedges

from your computer
and it begins to rumble.

and a man walks ahead of you
with a red flag,

then you put on the 78 record
and on the needle.

and an opera singer tells you
about the updates.

[ singing opera ]

i've worked up--by the way,
anyone could do opera.

just get a huge pa system,
an aircraft hangar

and a microphone.

anyway, we were hunter-gatherers
and we were killers.

we were killers.

and i think we have decided,

without the power of god
telling us,

just naturally, you know,

just decided that killing
is not necessarily good.

'cause people in the old days
like assassins,

very interestingly,

they used to take hashish
to alter their minds.

they took off
and do killings.

and that's where
the word assassin comes from.

they took hashish and they
were initially called ashashins.

this is true.

this is in wikipedia,
so do check it out.

it's even on the west wing,
if you watched that.

i saw an episode.

it is. It's true. Yeah.

so obviously someone was going,
"help yourself to hashish.

and then we'll go do
ashashinations."

what? Are you sure?

'cause for my money,
you know,

it's the wrong drug to take
before you go do anything.

it's the right drug to do
when you're gonna do nothing.

surely, more cooky, speedy
type drugs rather than...

[ inhaling ]
and then someone saying,

"we're gonna knock off
a mars bar factory right now.

i am in position."

[ sighing ]

"this is..."

"oh, what?
I'm here, i'm here. Yeah.

"i've got a briefcase.
I'm on the roof.

"i just hope
it's the right roof.

"this is a lot of roofs.

hang on, hang on.
I'm putting it together."

[ click, click, click ]

"what the fuck is this bit?

"see, i have five--
doing the thing.

"glue wing to the fuselage--
transverse--

"what the fuck is an air--

"hang on, i've got
the wrong instructions.

i'm gonna test it."

[ whirring ]

"all right, i got some
good news and bad news.

"good news is it works.

"bad news, it's not a gun.

"it's a vacuum cleaner.

"shall i throw it at him?

"no, it's not very accurate,

but it's got a fantastic
element of surprise."

then there's the nature
of killing of war.

nowadays we have films
and television.

we can get,
maybe not a visceral sense

of what war is like,
but we get an emotional sense.

back in the old days, we had
the famous battle in england

called the battle
of hastings,

1066, a thousand years ago
almost exactly,

and you were either
at that battle or forget it.

you hadn't got a clue
what was going on.

you had to look at the tapestry
to find out what went on there.

the bayeux tapestry,
they made.

weavers were photojournalists
of the day.

they were the--
they were obviously

at the frontline going,
"come on."

"don't look at the weavers.
Don't look at the weavers.

just keep moving."

"weave, motherfucker.

"more red thread,
bring up red thread.

it's a battle.
For god's sake."

"just, can you slow down a bit?

you're going too fast."

"shoot someone in the eye.

"we've already done
that panel, would you?"

"william, give a big wave.
Give him a good haircut.

these haircuts
are fucking weird."

around the time
of henry viii,

he's one of our more
famous kings,

the six wives of henry viii.
He kept going through them

like a strange marrying man.

the first one
was catherine of aragon,

second one was anne boleyn.

by the time of anne boleyn,
they were paparazzi.

weavers were paparazzi.

"all right, anne,
how are you doing?

"you gonna marry--
you gonna marry henry viii?

"just push your breasts up
just a little bit.

"what about your sister?
Is she gonna marry?

"ooh, that would be bigamy.
Is she a virgin?

"oh, hell,
i'm sewing this to my leg.

"hang on.
Keep your hair on.

keep your head on."

[ laughs ]

"i've sewn this to my leg again.
Is that a problem?"

so we were hunters.
We were gatherers.

i would have been a hunter,
not a gatherer

because gatherers
are incredibly boring.

gathering is essentially
going, "12, 13,

"12, 13,

"12, 11, 12.

"fuck it,
i'm not getting anywhere.

how many have you got?"
"i got three."

"the warriors are gonna kill us
when they get back."

and when they returned,
"we have killed buffalo

"and bison and beavers
and badgers and balloons

"and bees,
which is very difficult.

how many berries
do you have?"

"a total of seven."

"it's a bit shit.

"we've been away for two moons.

"that's almost three years
or something.

never mind.
Make us a smoothie."

that's what we lived on,
raw meat and smoothies.

but then the ice left,
the ice fucked off and said,

"good luck.
Invent fridges."

so the ice went,
and then we became farmers.

and farmers is a step up
in civilization

and a massive step down
in sexiness.

it really isn't sexy,
you know?

there's no farming films.
That's how you can tell.

there's no bruce willis
in farm hard.

[ humming ]

farm hard 3.
this time it's arable.

they've taken over
the nakatomi farm, man.

bruce mcclane is in the roof.
He's got all the manure.

we've got no methane
to do any--the bang thing.

it wouldn't work, you see?
And farmers, they grow crops.

we eat the crops.
We need farmers.

they do this wonderful job,
but it's not exciting.

so that's why
they keep animals.

i'm pretty sure
that farmers keep animals

to make it more exciting
or rock and roll

'cause they keep
the noisy ones.

have you noticed,
old macdonald's farm?

full of noisy animals.

they don't keep otters.
They don't keep beavers.

they don't keep weasels.
They don't keep rabbits.

none of the quiet ones.

all the quiet animals,
"fuck off, quiet ones.

we want big, bulky,
noisy ones."

cows go moo and sheep go baa
and dogs go woof

and cats go ping

and chickens go
cock-a-doodle-doo,

which is stupid.

it's just such an odd noise.

it's supposed to wake up you
in the morning

but they do it all day.

i've been in their farms.
I've been quite near farms.

if i was a farmer,
i'd go nuts.

i'd just wedge a trumpet
on their face.

and then they'd go...

[ imitates trumpet ]

and the farmer's wife go,
"what is that?"

"there's a jazz chicken."

"what the fuck
is jazz chicken?"

"oh, a trumpet
fell on his face."

"fell off a shelf?"

"no. Well, i wedged it
on his face

"'cause he was making
cock-a-doodle-doo

"all the time,
cock-a-doodle.

i want to get some music."

"but he's got no lips.

how does he make
an embouchure?"

"i sewed bacon rind
onto his beak."

that is insane.

but that should be
on discovery channel.

'cause then every morning
he'd be woken up by...

[ imitates trumpet ]

and then donkeys
would get their tails and go...

[ imitates cymbals ]

[ imitates trumpet ]

and passing frogs maybe--

might stand on their tongues
maybe and go...

[ imitates bass ]

i don't know quite how frogs
get into a farm situation

but i was looking
for long-tongued animals.

maybe that's what happened
to baby j

who was born
in the manger and...

[ imitates jazz band ]

three wise men came.

"oh, it's a jazz club.
That is--"

[ imitates jazz band ]

now, noah,
he knew about animals.

noah built an ark
and there was a flood.

they say that god told him
to build an ark,

but i don't know.

i think a number of us
in this room,

if it was raining

and there was a huge flood
about to happen,

i think a number of us
would have said,

"fuck it.
I'm building a boat."

you know, he built a boat.

and it wasn't an ark.
It was a boat.

an ark, it always look silly
'cause it's a big u-shape

with a little shed on the top

and out of that is a lion
and tiger doing this.

and obviously, you never see
any of the compartments

or anything that went on
or where the toilets were.

so he made a boat.
He made a boat.

what did he put in the boat?
His family.

what else?
All the animals he could find.

did he put two of every animal
in the world on the boat?

no. How can i be so sure?

try it.

i'm happy
to be proved wrong.

i just need discovery
channel to say,

"and today, we're gonna do
two of everything on this boat.

then let's visit
the toilets later."

it will be a nightmare.

everything had to be
on the boat,

from two dung beetles
to two giant squid

and everything in between.

all the fish,
they never get mentioned.

it was supposed
to kill two--

you know,
kill all the bad things

and start again
with two of everything,

including the fish.
I mean, sharks.

sharks are bad.
Very few good sharks.

very few sharks going,
"we found a child.

"he was thrashing around

"in that area of danger,
don't you see?

"we thought
we'd bring him in. Yes.

"well, it's a new thing
we're doing.

"we're trying to--
and public relations. Yes.

i'm sharky,
the friendly shark. "

? sharky, the friendly shark ?

"you've seen my program,
have you?

"no, he only had one leg
to begin with,

"so i don't know what
that means."

that ark would be a nightmare.
Two of everything on the boat.

giant squids
sticking out of cupboards,

going, "is she there?

"is mrs. Noah there?
There's no towels.

"can't find any towels
and the mini bar doesn't work.

"it's not stocked.
Some sort of non-stocking--

well, it's got socks
in there anyway."

oh, for fuck's sake.
Giant squid diary.

"day one.
Long time to go.

"dear trip adviser,
got to the ark.

"everything rather damp
and a little disappointing.

"i've seen two cats, two dogs,
two squirrels, two mice,

"two chipmunks.

"eat them later
as hors d'oeuvres.

"must wikipedia what that means,
just the etymology.

seem to be running...

out of ink."

then there's
the two-by-two thing.

that doesn't work.
All right.

there's noah and his sons.
All right shem, ham, japheth.

here we go.
They come two-by-two.

two lions, two tigers, two cats,
two dogs, two squirrels,

two mice, two llamas,
two unicorns, two zebras,

two chipmunks,
two of those things.

"how many is that so far?"

"so far, two lions,
two tigers, dad."

"should be--
oh, for fuck's sake."

it wouldn't work, would it?

lions and tigers
will eat everything.

it's like putting
four students on a boat

with a load of cake mix.

do you remember cake mix?
You made it as a kid.

your first time you made it
and you made it,

and you put the stuff in
and you didn't put the stuff in.

and now, well, your mom
probably put the stuff in

and then
you did all this stuff.

and then you pour it out

and then they said
you could lick the spoon.

and you went, "all right--
[ mumbling ]

does this happen to--
is it..."

[ mumbling ]

and there's
a whole plate of it,

and then it was put
into the fire

and it came out less good
than it went in.

it was cheese when it went in,
and it came out, ooh.

the whole ark story
doesn't make sense.

and when--after 40 days
and 40 nights of rain,

which is only 40 days
of rain, isn't it?

40 days and 40 nights.

the nights are implicit,
aren't they?

it's all built-in.

i mean, you know,
when you go to hotels, you say,

"i'm gonna stay
for three days."

"will you stay
for the nights?"

after a month and a bit of rain,
they'd be there from the bible.

"we're here from the bible.

"it's the day when the ark--

"the ark is just coming
into view,

40 days and 40 nights
of rain."

"wonderful. Welcome.

"the audience
from around the world here

"on bbc world service,

"and i wonder if we can have
a word with noah and his wife,

"and here he comes.

"mr. Noah,
could you just tell me--

"sorry, ladies and gentleman.
He's not stopping there.

"maybe there's
some sort of reception

"he has to go to.

"the lions and the tigers
are coming.

"hey, lads, how was it?
How was it on that--

"i can't seem to stop the lions
and the tigers either.

"obviously maybe going
to the toilet or something.

"i'm not sure
what all that is about,

"so we're waiting for
one of the other animals.

"there's a lot of--
i can see on the top deck

"what looks like
strawberry jam.

"a lot of strawberry jam.

"so they obviously had
a lot of sandwiches.

"and here's a squirrel.

"mr. Squirrel, mr. Squirrel,
could you tell me

how it was on the ark?"

"it was a nightmare, man.
It was a fucking nightmare.

"it was the biggest nightmare.

"those stripy bastards,
they killed everyone, man.

"they're all dead.
They're all dead.

"there's no one there.
Oh, my god.

i hid in a biscuit tin, man.
It was fucking insane."

"were they chocolate hobnobs?"

"i didn't fucking know.
Why the hell you wanna know?

are you a biscuit freak?"

"well, what happened
to your wife?

why isn't she on the boat?"

"she got away, man, on a boat
with an owl and a pussycat."

"did they take some money
and plenty of honey?"

"i don't know.
I didn't see.

i think they took a gatling gun,
some soap, and a razor,

some chain mail
and some iodine."

"that's not very poetic."

"it wasn't poetry, man.
They were fucking escaping.

who are you?"

"this is the bbc world service,

broadcasting
from some-fucking-where."

let me tell you about giraffes
'cause giraffes are interesting.

they're one of the silent ones.
They don't have a danger call.

if a giraffe, when it's spending
it's time in africa,

if it sees a tiger,

it would experience two
emotions, fear and surprise,

two of the emotions
of the spanish inquisition.

as monty python have taught us,
fear because it is a tiger

and surprise because
there are no tigers in africa.

what's it doing there?
It must be on holiday.

i've tried this scene
with lions,

and it doesn't fucking work,
so just go with me, okay?

so he sees a tiger,
and the giraffe turns,

and there's no noise.
There's no...

[ imitates trumpet ]

there's no...

[ caw, caw, caw ]

there's no danger sound.

if they had a jazz chicken
around his neck,

at least it'd go...

[ imitates trumpet
playing reveille ]

and then they'd all retreat
into twos,

break into fours,
pull back.

this joke is very funny
a hundred years ago.

back in the early 1800s,

when a lot of that shit
was going on,

this really kills.

no, there's nothing of that.

all the giraffes can do--

if you look in wikipedia,
giraffes can cough,

so they must cough
using the ancient british method

of coughing to express
alarm, distress,

and the end of empires.

so the giraffe sees the danger,
turns, and goes...

[ cough, cough, cough ]

other giraffes...

[ cough, cough, cough ]

[ cough, cough, cough ]

tiger.

[ cough, cough, cough ]
tiger, tiger.

there's a tiger over there.

[ cough, cough, cough ]

there's a bloody
great big tiger over there.

[ cough ]
tiger at 4 o'clock.

tiger.

tiger. Tiger. Tiger.

[ cough, cough, cough ]

[ cough, cough, cough ]

that's how they do it.

[ cheering ]

so what am i talking about?
What was i talking about?

i am talking about,
ladies and gentlemen,

what is the meaning of life?

i don't know
if there's a meaning of life.

i think there isn't
a meaning of life.

why are we here?
I have no idea why we're here.

but while we're here,
we may as well do civilization.

it just means being
a little bit british, you know?

a little bit, good morning
and how are you?

walk on.

can't stand the man myself.

civilization kicked off
with the egyptians

and the sumerians.

i don't know much
about the sumerians

'cause i haven't
wikipediad them.

but the egyptians,
they did stuff.

they worshiped the sun god ra,
which is slightly more logical

than worshiping
an invisible god, chris,

as the christians do.

if you're a christian,

you should be worshipping
chris, shouldn't you?

dear chris,
i'm a christian and...amen?

they quite like that,

but not really
like that, okay.

but he's invisible.
But the sun god is there.

he's there every day--
well, not the sun god,

but the sun is, every day,
and it's something more logical.

i think--i think
they call them ra,

and they had a song for ra.

? hurrah for ra,
he lives just over there ?

? he comes up over there,
and he goes down over there ?

? i'm an egyptian, not a cowboy,
they've really gone too far ?

? hurrah for ra,
he's a bit of a star ?

[ cheers and applause ]

you're just applauding
'cause i sang a song.

that's how easy it is.

these singers get a way
with a hell of a lot.

they go ding-dong-bang,
ping-pong-pang.

hey, motherfuckers.

you see?

that song is on sale.

also in cd.

fuck it up, motherfuckers.

along with the ra,
hurrah for ra song.

i think hurrah for ra
would work.

they also have
a written language.

the ancient egyptians
had a written language,

which was a nightmare
for these news readers.

here is the news
in ancient egypt:

dog with a cat's face,
cat with a dog's face,

man with
a beautiful woman's face,

eye with legs,
a pot with legs,

two dogs, rabbit with
enormous--what is that?

i think a cat, a dog
or some sort of thing,

a mammal, one of those.

it seems the orgy
in the zoo continues

into its fourth century.

here is janine
with the weather.

thank you.
It'll be sunny forever.

thanks, janine.

now we're going over
to our studio in ancient greece.

and the greeks, they're more fun
than the egyptians.

i like
the ancient egyptians.

they did some great stuff,

but the ancient greeks,
they got into athenians.

they invent democracy.
It's a greek word.

demos means people,

ocracy is a kind
of inflatable cat seat.

we think. We're not sure.
The translation's a bit tricky.

they had city states,
the athenians, the thebans,

the bingibangians,
the spartans.

the spartans were fantastic.

the spartans were, you know,
elite troops,

a nation of elite troops
or a city state of elite troops,

bastards, complete nut bags.

they attack the country
next to them,

enslave those people
for 400 years,

and humiliated them
for 400 years.

bastards, really.

and they--the men,
of course, were... [ Grunts ]

you know,
the spartan men...[ grunts ]

spartan women...[ grunts ]

spartan children...
[ Grunts ]

spartan dogs, woof.
Spartan cats, meow.

spartan moles, aah.

spartan sheep, shh, silence.

they were ninjas.
They were ninjas.

they would wear
bandannas around the head

with the japanese writing
that they didn't understand

'cause they were sheep.

and they would creep up
on their prey.

they would creep up--

no, they creep up
on their predators.

the sheep would creep
on their predators.

how insane is that? They were
just mad. They had signals.

they would just creep along
in the dead of night.

[ poof ]

how are the sheep doing?

and they'd creep.
They'd creep up on the wolves.

the wolves would go, whoa.

he's a sheep.

we eat sheep.

is this delivery?

but the sheep,
they had no fear.

they would sit up
on their hind legs

and they'd remove a rusty blade

from out of their...
Fancy swaths.

and they would shear themselves
in front of the wolves.

[ scraping ]

come on.

and they'd pull up the skin on
their legs, just a little bit.

and the wolves will go,
this is all wrong.

grab their clothes and run.

so the wolves
in sheep's clothing

would run down the hill.

that's right.

they'd run
into local markets,

and they'd order smoothies
and never pay.

"why didn't you take
their money?"

"they said they'd invoice me."

they were wolves
in sheep's clothing.

and it started the whole
spread of that wolves

in sheep's clothing,
dog's in cat's clothing,

rabbits in buffalo's clothing,

mice in ant's clothing,

and the voles
in mole's clothing.

the voles are very small moles,

so voles in mole's clothing
is gonna...

and then mole in voles'
clothing, which is much more...

the spartans fought
a famous battle,

the battle of thermopylae,

made into a film
by shirley temple

called
on the good ship lollipop.

it's an anagram.

on the good ship lollipop,
battle of thermopylae.

it's exactly
the same letters.

it's almost exactly
the same letters.

shirley temple, of course,

known many years ago
for mop-top songs.

? i'm little mop top
i'm a tip-top top ?

? i've got a mop top
on my top ?

they said you know,

"why do you wanna do
with in these films?"

she said, "i wanna
kill people in this film.

i wanna stab them with forks
and spoons."

but shirley, you do
mop top, tip-top.

i wanna--

and she was very powerful
in those days.

not in hollywood terms
but just big form,

and...a lot of spinach.

and so they let her do
the film, and she filmed it.

on the good ship lollipop
and the battle of thermopylae.

those two merged together.
On...[ swoosh ]

stop. Stop.

[ swoosh ]

? lollipop ?

they filmed it.
They edited it.

they tested it on kids
in america.

the kids exploded.

and so they took it back
and they re-edited it

and they took
all the violence out.

and now if you watch
on the good ship lollipop,

you can't tell that it was once
about the battle of thermopylae,

except in some scenes
where shirley temple

just got a little bit of blood
coming out of here.

[ humming ]

her left eye is all wrong.

i can see too much.

? i love you.
I love-- ?

oh, the horror!

[ whispering ]

? singing a song sunshine,
sunshine ?

anybody spilled blood?

? lollipop, lollipop ?

spikes.

but the spartans were crazy,
tactically very clever.

they would oil themselves
before battle

so they could never
be taken prisoner.

i got one.

it's like fighting fish
over here.

and strategically
very clever.

they were fighting
the persians, you see?

they got the persians to attack
in a very narrow place,

which was the corridor
of the student union party.

get all the beer out
the back.

and this is 300 spartans
against 10,000 persians,

100,000 persians.

no one knows
how many persians.

scholars now think
it was all the persians.

if you're around on that day,
you could just nip into persia

and help yourself
to cats and carpets.

[ meow, meow ]

move it back there.

hey, man,
what are you doing here?

put the carpet
in the back, man.

forget the cat.

[ meow, meow ]

i don't understand
that scene.

so, yeah.

now, the greeks, they fought
in a organized group of battle--

group of men, rectangular
group called the phalanx.

and alexander the great's dad,
whose name was phil,

and--she knows him--
phil of macedonia.

you married him, actually.

just a guy called phil,
or actually phillip of macedonia

'cause that's just--
they're different things.

and he said, "i know.

i'll give the phalanx
18-foot spears,"

which, in metric terms,
is 7,000 meters.

now--long spears, right?

so you couldn't get at them.

you couldn't get at them
'cause they had 18-foot spears.

the only way to get at them

is if one of your group
sacrificed himself

to break up the group.

[ swoosh ]
ha ha ha ha.

? hello ?

? i don't know why
i'm here ?

? or who am i ?

ha ha ha ha!

[ foonk, foonk ]

[ swoosh ]
ha ha ha ha!

this started out
as such a good day.

"it works, it works.

"18-foot spear.

"god, he's heavy.

wiggle him down
the other end."

"huh?"

"wiggle him down
the other end."

"all right."

just like a really lonely game
of table football.

[ foonk, foonk ] shit.

he's caught on the stopper.

"it's not a stopper.
It's a spearhead."

"i don't know.
I've never seen the other end."

hang on.

this reminds me
of something.

well, it gives me an idea.

have we ever put screens
on the front of chariots?

something like this
could remove the excess water

from the screen.

"what?"

"it's just an idea."

"fucking bonkers, you are."

okay, that's better.

i can have him
closer to the fulcrum.

a little bit intimidating.

hang on.

okay, i got it.

[ humming ]

[ cheers and applause ]

then the romans came,

and the romans, they cut
through the whole phalanx

with short swords.

how did they do it
with the short sword?

they became bacon slicers,
ladies and gentlemen.

they went...[ swoosh ]

hang on, hang on,
hang on, hang on.

my fucking spear.

bong.

bastards.

good afternoon.

[ grunts ]

"where are you from?"

[ grunts ]

"very far.

just down the road."

"hey, man,
what are you doing here?"

"fucking loads of them."

et tu, you brute.

"can i keep this?
Can i keep this?"

"no, it's mine. Fuck off."

"no."

"okay, good."

the romans,
they took over everything.

they could do that.
They had aqueducts, viaducts.

they can move ducks around
faster than anyone ever had.

and the romans did all this
with a language

that we know from school
is silly.

it's a silly billy
language.

it has a nominative, a vocative,
accusative, a genitive,

a dative and ablative.

fuck off.

how did they do so much
with a language so silly?

how did they do that?

when hannibal,
the famous general,

hannibal, from carthage,

whose father was called
hamilcar,

a famous general as well.

and so hannibal,
he knew what he was doing.

he was a trained general,

and he came with revenge
in his heart.

and he crossed
across the mediterranean,

through spain,
up over the alps on elephants,

which is crazy.

and you know the story,
so you're,

"yeah,
he came on elephants. "

but it's like coming
on pandas.

yeah, it's that weird.

and he did this--i mean,

how could the elephants
get over the alps?

they must have been going,
"fuck, yeah."

"it's all right for you,
dumbo. You can fly."

and then they must have--
and 60 started off.

only one made it.

there must have been
just one elephant.

when they started
falling down the alps,

most of them dying
tragically, just one,

one elephant
who just had it, just...

hannibal going, "look
at that fucking elephant."

extreme elephant, baby.
Look at him go.

with his tail--his tail?
His trunk going all over

like a businessman's tie.

hannibal going,
"i'm with him."

but it must have scared
the shit out of the romans.

the romans hadn't lost battles,
and now they were losing.

and how did they get
the message out?

'cause the military,
roman military,

famed for its organization,

with a language
that was silly, silly, silly?

how did they do it?

messengers come running,

"centurion, centurion,
centurioni.

"centuriatus.

"sawe, centurion.
Sawate? Sawawe?

sawe, sawawe, sawawi,
sabibi, sawawe."

[ mumbling ]

sawate? Sawate? Centurioni?
Sawawe? Centuriatus?

quid pro quat.
Quid pro quo.

[ speaking gibberish ]

huh?

wait a minute.

[ speaking gibberish ]

"arrivederci?
No, that's bye-bye."

"veni vidi vici.
Veni vidi fucking vici."

"si." i know.
"Veni vidi vici."

oh, for fuck's sake.

[ speaking gibberish ]

"xxixivmm...

"hang on, xicmm...

what was it? Cixxxid."

"12?"

"a million?"

[ speaking gibberish ]

wait, wait, wait.
[ Speaking gibberish ]

"don't believe us,
ask panthagoratus.

huh? Infinitatus?
Fucking impossible artist.

i just tried and his
fucking fingers fell off."

"pi?"

"oh, thanks, man."

[ speaking gibberish ]

hannibal is coming 'round
the mountains when he comes.

he's coming 'round the mountains
when he comes.

he's coming 'round
the mountains,

coming 'round the mountains,

coming 'round the mountains
when he comes.

? singing ?

[ speaking gibberish ]
"pink pajamas?"

"don't think so."

[ speaking gibberish ]

"quad the fuck?"

[ speaking gibberish ]

"front passes elephantine,
maximum squirrel,

"upside downus,
back to frontus.

"back partus, biggest
piggus ever seenus."

"fuckus duckus."
"motherfuckus."

"run, motherfuckus."

now, that is half an hour
of conversation.

now, here it is...

here it is in english.
Here it is in english.

"hannibal's coming."
"hannibal? What with?"

"with soldiers."
"how many?"

"lots."
"what else?"

"elephants."
"what are they?"

"pigs and squirrels."
"run."

seven seconds.
That's what happened.

english, the language
that you speak and i speak,

the language that's become
the lingua franca,

whatever the fuck that means,
around the world.

it's taken off because
on it's basic level,

it is terribly simple.

you know, we have
apple and apples.

i wanted apple.
I'm gonna give you an apple.

that apple came to me.

i'll send you an apple
of the apple

to the apple,
by the apple, both.

it's just fucking apple
and apples.

and it will be applor,
appleatus, applatus--

fuck all that.

but someone,
one of us, years ago,

a bunch of them
got together.

i don't know who it was.

but clever, clever--
no masculine.

is it masculine or feminine
or neuter, the apple?

it's a fucking apple.
Stop fucking around.

[ cheers and applause ]

yeah, the english language,
it's crazy.

oh, in it's simple level.

on it's more advanced level,
english is very complicated,

of course.

if you said a complicated line
of english, like,

mr. Stevenson transgressed
the dictatorial nature

of his surrogate friend

when he intimated

the explosive nature
of the conundrum.

that's quite complicated,
isn't it?

i don't know what
the fuck means.

but, you know,
it's just--

you try adlibbing
a difficult line.

they're difficult.

that's why they're called
difficult lines.

there's a whole page
on difficult lines.

lost everyone. Okay.

anyway, the romans,

they all died
in a chariot crash

on the appian way.

where the appian way,
meets the b459.

there's that
really nasty turn-in.

see, all the roman citizens
were trying to get on--

they were on the chariot.
They were trying to do that

"how many can you get
in a mini" thing?

and suddenly,
the windscreen wipers failed

'cause the hamster
burnt out.

it could have happened.

and so the classical thinking
died in 410 of the common era.

and then, it went
into the dark ages

and the dingy ages,
and the i-can't-really-see ages.

and then you got
the medieval period,

and then the medi-good period,

and then the medi-thinking-
in-a-proper-sense-way thing,

and then you get renaissance
and the enlightenment.

and charles darwin,
in 18...[ mumbling ]

charles darwin wrote
that famous book,

great expectations.

the story of an amoeba
called pip,

who went to stay at
lady bad crumble's house.

and she had
a very hot daughter.

this daughter
was not that good looking.

she just lived
on a radiator.

and pip the amoeba said, "will
you marry me, hot daughter?"

and she said...[ pblblt ]

and he said, "i say again,
will you marry me, hot daughter?

i'm too small to be crushed
by your snackahidis."

and she went...
[ Pblblt, pblblt ]

and he said, "you're
just making that noise.

it's not really working,

for i am a single-celled
organization."

and she said,
"don't you mean organism?"

he said, "both. We have
formed an organization."

anyway, he showed it
to his wife.

his wife said,
"charlie, this is shit.

"you're losing your edge.

charlie dickens, i don't think
you're doing anymore."

he says,
"i'm not charles dickens."

"who are you?"
"i'm charles darwin."

"you don't live here."
and it was true.

charles dickens
and charles darwin

lived two vowels away
from each other

on dictionary lane
back in hobbyton,

just south of england.

so it's a true story.

so later on, in 18...
[ Mumbles ]

charles dickens wrote
a very good version

of great expectations

where the expectations
were great.

and charles darwin
wrote his famous book,

which was called

monkey, monkey, monkey, monkey,
monkey, monkey, you.

[ cheers and applause ]

and that was the book.

it caused an outrage,

an outrage
in the monkey community.

monkeys were furious.

"we're not linked to those
human jerks," they said.

and monkeys were flinging
their poo

at anyone who would stick
a microphone in their face.

and there was a money trial.

you've heard of
the famous monkey trial?

charlton heston was put
on trial by monkeys.

and there he was sentenced
to two monkey films

to be served back to back.

the first film was called
planet called monkey town,

and the second one
was called

let's all go back
to monkey town,

with similar people
and do similar things.

so evolution.

you can see evolution
very clearly with fish.

fish fly. We don't fly.
We're so bloody advanced.

fish fly.

how do they get
to actually fly themselves?

they're in the sky.
They must love it.

they're, like, "oh,
it's brilliant up here."

and they must stop
in trees, occasionally.

and they stop in trees.

when they stop in trees,
birds will be in trees.

and birds will be going,
"who the fuck are you guys?"

and they'll be going, "we're
the new fish on the block."

and then it just becomes
like west side story.

[ scatting ]

and the birds start...
[ Chirping a song ]

and the fish are going...
[ Gurgling a song ]

fish can't do that,
can they?

so the fish are probably...
[ Humming a song ]

and the birds going...
[ Chirping ]

you let me, i was gonna
do it for an hour.

anyway, that explains evolution
quite well, i think.

then there is creationism.

creationism
is when god went shazam.

[ whoosh ]

and created
an iphone application.

to tell what music
was being played

as the world was created.

if i was god, i wouldn't do
six days to make the earth,

i just go...[ whoosh ]

"there it is, it's blue.
Don't fuck it up.

i don't wanna do it again."

imagine six days,
it's like, you know,

my dad made a train set

for me and my brother
when we were kids.

i think it's like that.

i think he's making
the train set.

got six days.

after about three days,
small animals are going,

"who are you?"
"i'm god."

"why are you taking so long?
Are we there yet?"

"well, i fucked up
a few things.

have you seen venus
and mercury?

they're fucking out there."

"we got no food.
You didn't make us food."

"all right.
So what are you, badgers?

badgers shall eat bok choy."

"no, we won't."

"why not?"

"don't like it. It's all
phlaaa."

"it's like it died
in a watery grave."

"fuck. All right, badgers
shall eat asparagus."

"no, that makes
your pee smell weird."

"well, who told you that?"
"wikipedia."

"all right.
Badgers eat creme brulee."

"all right.
We would eat that.

"we would eat creme brulee,
but you didn't brulee that.

"you just went--[ whoosh ]
and it's creme--

it's like toast that's
under--it's like weird."

"i see badgers
can be choosers."

you try and get groans
and applause on the same joke.

now, think,
why are you groaning?

'cause you've
heard it before?

i think not.

new york--
you may be new york

and you may have heard every
fucking thing that's going,

but you have not heard
the creme brulee-asparagus-

bok-choy-badger-god-creation
joke, i don't think.

i don't think so.

anyway, it wasn't my joke.

it was god's joke.

they don't like you, god.

new york does not like you.

"well, it's no surprise."

so now creationism is that.

creationism, of course,
has magic in there.

but through the mind sieve
of a sarah palin-type woman,

it turns--

[ cheers and applause ]

that kind of person,
that kind of oh-oh-type person,

you get this intelligent design
where--you know in america,

and it is not really known
in europe.

i don't know
for the rest of the world.

intelligent design,
we don't really use it.

but it's quite clever
because you look at humans

and think, "well, there's
some sort of design thing

going on there."

well, it works
and it's complicated.

it's complicated
and it works

it does not mean
intelligent design.

there's also cancer.

what part of intelligent
design is cancer, eh?

she is crazy.
Cows have four stomachs.

what part of intelligent
design is that?

when we all have one stomach,
and they could just--they eat--

cows eat it and bring it back up
and eat it and bring it back up

and eat it.

then it comes up
for the full stomach.

cows should be going...
[ Inhaling and exhaling ]

"i don't know why
this came back up.

it just--it should've gone
the other way, really."

"are you okay, daisy?"

[ vomiting ]

cows should be
throwing up mostly.

2/3 of all cows in all fields
should be going...

[ vomiting ]

i mean,
real proper throwing up,

not like film throwing up
where they throw up once

and that's it.

throwing up is an opera.

you can't understand a word
anyone's saying

and it goes on forever.

and there's at least
three to five acts.

there's...[ vomiting ]

and then there's a whole
period of...[ breathing ]

"do you want a glass of
water? " "No, fuck off."

[ breathing ]

[ vomiting ]

and when you throw up,
everything wants to come out.

you're entire body is saying,
"abandon ship. Abandon ship."

if we didn't have
an internal skeleton,

your toes would be out there.

[ vomiting ]

your body's going, what
the fuck what did you do?

there's intelligent
design for you.

now, the one rule i found--
which is do unto others

as you'd have others
do unto you,

i can't do it all the time.
I fuck it up.

i get angry and stuff.
But i think it's all you need.

treat others as you'd like
to be treated yourself. Voom.

if everyone did it tomorrow,
boom, we'd make it.

it's in the bible.
It's in the bible,

and i'm pretty damn sure
it's in the koran.

it's called the golden rule.
It's all you need.

the ten commandments
comes from moses,

who was
a charismatic individual.

- he was in...
- Hello.

and he's here tonight
and he's dressed as a cow.

now, moses, he was the one
in the bed of reeds.

he was brought up as--
he was a hebrew person,

brought up as an egyptian,

killed a slave owner
and then took off to hide

'cause it was bad news
in those days.

and then he went up
and he became a shepherd.

so he's looking after the sheep,

going, "yes, spartan sheep.
They're crazy."

"oh, really."

"yes. We have bandannas
with japanese writing."

"what does it mean?"
"no one knows."

"not even japanese?"
"no, the japanese forgot."

suddenly,
a bush caught fire.

"okay. Come on. "It's gonna
be a bit biblical.

come on, lads.
Let's get out of here."

and the bush that was on fire
said, "moses, come back here."

he goes, "ooh,
he knows my name. Hang on.

"don't accept sweets
from children, all right?

what is it, o, bush?"

vocative.

"what is it, o, bush?"

at any time
you use the vocative.

and the bush went, "moses,
you must leave this place."

"i was leaving,
and you told me to come back

"to tell me to leave,
you stupid bush.

you're not
the last one we had."

[ cheers and applause ]

"no, i mean, you must--
moses, you must leave here

in a short to midterm future
on a geopolitical basis."

"oh, hang on.

"no, you're totally different
than the other one.

"he couldn't say that.

"all right. I'll do it.

"i will leave here
on geopolitical--

whatever you said."

now, think about it.

a burning bush told him
to do this, and he did it.

if you were down your way and
you're walking down the road

and a hedge--
'cause a bush is a hedge.

so a hedge just went...
[ Whoosh ]

"that hedge caught fire."

if the hedge then went,
"steve."

"hey, it's talking to me.

hang on.
What is it, o, hedge?"

vocative.

"you must leave this place.

leave this place
and go to timbuktu."

"i'll do it."

"you must take everyone
you've ever met."

"of course.
I'll get them to pack."

"and call the fire brigade
as well."

"thank you."

"oh, for you.
I see. Right. "

you wouldn't do it,
would you?

you wouldn't listen
to a hedge.

he listened to a hedge.

why did god send
a hedge on fire?

what about a hedge
that's not on fire?

'cause then you would think,

"oh, there's someone
in the hedge

who had books and stuff
and a map."

they believe
it was a mistranslation,

and the burning bush means
he was a volcanic mountain

when he decided
to have the epiphany moment

and decided the--

i don't know,
mistranslation,

'cause everything
was written in greek

'cause of alexander the great,
the hellenic thing.

and they do believe that--

well, they know that
the ancient greek for virgin,

ancient greek for young woman
was the same word.

the whole mary thing?

so a virgin had a baby.
Wow, start a religion.

get some posters,
do the curly thing.

or a young woman had a baby.

wow. Cigars, congratulations,
have a rest, let's move on.

because i would say
it takes away from the bloke

'cause i think
he really exists.

i think the jesus guy,
the yeshua guy--

his real name was yeshua
back before was, you know,

hellenizing the jesus--
i think he was a real bloke.

i think he did stuff.

and then he was the son
of a mystical thing

and that devalues
what he did, you see?

moses abased the burning bush,
runs down and says,

"come on, lad.
Let's get out of here.

"let's take
all the hebrew people.

"and then i will lead you.

"i will lead you
from this desert,

and we shall go
to a desert. "

"it sounds fantastically
different. Let's do it."

all right. We'll go tonight
under the cover of frogs."

"i'm sorry?"

"frogs."

there were 10 plagues
that landed on egypt,

and one
was a plague of frogs.

and i'm sorry,
but that is not a plague.

you can't have
a plague of frogs.

you can only have
more frogs than usual.

not a fucking plague.

a plague of flies
you can have.

a plague is a disease,
isn't it?

you know--plague.

so a plague of flies
is a synonym.

whatever the word is.

'cause it's flies,
flies, flies.

a plague of flies.

okay. I'd go with that.

locusts.
A plague of locusts.

frogs are on the floor.

a plague of--you'd have to--
a plague of frogs.

the frogs are a plague.

a plague.

[ mumbling ]

"you're just sticking them
down your shirt."

"it's a plague."

if that was from god,
he had ran out of ideas.

"besus, desus, cesus,
run another plague."

"we've had nine, dad.

"a plague of flies,
a plague of locusts,

"a plague of cheese makers,
a plague of helicopters.

what the fuck?"

"i want frogs."

yes, indeed.
So they must have just said,

"look, there's
lots of frogs, lads.

strap one on your head
and let's run."

and then the hebrew people
with frogs on their head

ran to the desert.

and the ancient egyptian
said, "wait.

i've been drinking
far too much."

and they ran to the red sea

'cause a giant squid
held the water back.

"good luck, lads.
All right."

giant squid diary,
day 3,000,009.

helped the hebrew people escape
from ancient egypt.

saw my old friend
mr. Squirrel.

"hey, man.
What you doin' in here?"

"oh, god. "I was enslaved
in fucking egypt, man.

"it was a nightmare.
I met up with this guy."

[ grunts ]

he's the manager
of this band.

[ imitates jazz band ]

"i can't find my wife, though.
Have you seen my wife?"

"no, i haven't seen her."

"if you see my wife,
will you call me?"

"do you have a number?"
"yeah, three."

"okay. Bye."

early days.

so then the hebrew people
wandered in the desert

for 40 years.

and if i had been with them
after 23 years,

i would have said,
"where are we going?

"we're just wandering
in the desert.

i'll give you 17 more years
and that's it."

and after 17--after 40 years,
after 40 years,

they were obviously going nuts.

everyone was going nuts.
I'm gonna have sex with my feet.

i'm gonna cut my buttocks off
and use them as headphones.

i'm gonna fill myself with sand

and sell myself
to a taxidermist.

and moses said, "no, you can't
do this. There are rules."

"there are no rules."
"all right, i'll get 10."

"just one would do fine."
"no, 10 it shall be."

so he runs off
and comes back the next day,

"here they are.

"number one,
never piss in a toaster.

"number two,
don't eat barbed wire.

"number three, never put
your poo in your hair.

number four--"

after--

"you're just making this up."

"no, we want better rules.

"rules you can write on
rocks, for fuck's sake.

rock rules.
The three rs."

"all right."
and he runs off.

this time he's gone for months.
Months he's gone.

they think he's been
eaten by badgers.

so what did they do?
What would you do

if your leader
you followed for 40 years

suddenly disappears
and never comes back?

they smelted metal.

that's absolutely
what i'd do.

i would fire up a thing
and melt things down

to make an effigy
of a cow's friend.

i have nothing else to do,
not try and find him

or any shit like that,
or set up, you know,

or go for help or shit.

i'd smelt metal.

that's my--

it's the metallurgist
in all of us.

it's just the way it is.

and it's really tricky stuff.

if you've seen
discovery channel,

if you just do a little bit
of smelting and you say,

"look, a golden calf.
Like, i don't know.

it look's like
a badger who exploded."

that looks like
seven weasels

attached together
with each other.

"it's a calf or a dog
or some--it's called kenny.

let's worship it."

"dear, kenny, how are you?

you've done great so far.

you haven't done much,
but anyway,

we're expecting big things
of you.

please bring us plum cake
and cheddar and--"

and suddenly, moses came back
and say, "what the fuck?"

smelting metal.

"i've got 10."
and he had 10.

and you don't need 10,
but he had 10.

one of which is

"thou shall...
[ Mumbling ]...god, "

which is, okay, duh.

i think that's--
that shouldn't even be one.

but then it's
"thou shall not kill,

thou shall not steal,"
which is built into

"do unto others as you would
have others do unto you."

do you want others to kill you
or steal your stuff?

no, probably not.

so don't steal, you know?

it's self policing.

and then the other seven are all
"don't eat wood and stuff."

i mean, no one can remember
them, but there's one in there

which is just
a wild card thrown in.

you know, like they put it in,
you know, like, in a contract

just to make sure you're reading
it that no one ever reads.

"thou shalt not covet
thy neighbor's ox."

what?

"thou shalt not really, really
like thy neighbor's ox."

not steal it, kill it,
shoot it, have sex with it,

blow it out of a cannon.

just like it, want it.

you can offer money, but
what's the fucking problem?

they've got people
killing each other

and stealing stuff

and you're worried
about coveting oxes?

maybe there was a whole plague
of that going on.

steve likes freddie's ox.
Freddie likes jack's ox.

jack likes roger's ox.

"ah, the ox is always
greener around here."

people going around,
"have you seen steve's ox?

"it's fantastic.
It's got such a big face.

just--i can't put it out--it's
the most amazing ox i've seen."

bloody coveting oxes again.
I can't stand it.

"thou shalt not covet
thy neighbor's ox."

"he's not my neighbor.

he lives across the road,
in number 23."

it must be a typo or a scribo.
It must have been.

yes, oh, please,
repeat the word "scribo."

i just came up with that.
It must be.

it was not
"thou shall not covet."

it's "thou shall not cover
thy neighbor's ox."

don't cover them up.
Don't hide them.

"where's my fucking ox?

"i've got 10 fields to plow
or the kids will die.

"we have no food.
There's no bloody ox.

"jim, have you seen my ox?
Oh, for fuck--

"where's your duvet?

"you've lost a duvet
and i've lost an ox.

"i'm gonna talk to the militia
'cause some thing,

"some duvet-ox stealer.

"i mean, what kind
of crazy--oh, no.

there's your duvet.
Hang on there, man."

[ whoosh ]

"that's my ox.
You've covered my ox.

"though shall not cover
thy neighbor's ox.

"oh, jim.

i think you're gonna go
to hell on a technicality."

now, i'm gonna finish up by
talking about going to the moon,

because you went to--
not you guys, but i guess,

you know,
it'd be the squash.

the whole madison square garden
is a spaceship.

now, when you landed
on the moon,

that was the point

where god should've come up
and said, "hello,"

because if you invent
some creatures,

you put them on the blue one

and they make it
in the grey one,

then you fucking turn up
and say, "well done."

it's just a polite thing
to do.

he should've been there,
going, "well done.

"kneel. Kneel.
Well done. You nailed it.

"you made it to the moon. Yes.
Buzz, are you buzz lightyear?

are you buzz lightyear?
Are you buzz lightyear?"

"nah."

"well, relax.
Take your shoes off.

"relax. This is the moon.
This is where i live.

"i live on the dark side
of the moon, yes.

i live here with darth vader
and pink floyd, yes."

[ imitating darth vader
breathing ]

"good afternoon."

that's pink floyd...

and this is darth vader.

[ imitating darth vader
breathing ]

[ high pitched voice ]
"hello.

"my voice box is fucked up.

hello."

also on the moon we have
mr. Squirrel here.

"hey, man.
What are you doing here?

there's no atmosphere, man,
except for these guys."

[ imitates jazz band ]

ha ha ha!
[ Grunts ]

"hello, is that a child?

i've lost it again."

and also, we have our wise
old scribe, the giant squid.

giant squid diary,
day 5,000,927.

star date, monkey,
cheesecake, helicopter.

"so the humans made it
from the blue one

"to the grey one, well done.

"but will they make it
to the end of the 21st century?

"it's up to them, man.

"they've got to think
out of the box.

"it's up to them
and that audience

"at madison square garden
at that gig in new york.

"they have to think big.
They have to make it happen.

i hope they do,"

says the giant squid
from the ship nostromo,

signing out.

that's all for me.
Thank you very much.

madison square garden,
new york. Good night.

[ cheering and applause ]

[ music ]