QI (2003–…): Season 1, Episode 8 - Albania - full transcript

(applause)

Hello and welcome to QI,
the quiz that asks the question:

if ignorance is bliss, why aren't there
more happy people in the world, then?

Joining me tonight,
I am delighted to say,

are four people who don't even know the
meaning of the word "ignorance". Alan Davies,

Linda Smith, Sean Lock

and Clive Anderson.

The rules are as short, simple
and memorable as my underwear.

Out of the generosity of my heart,
I give the panel points for being interesting.

None of us will be any the wiser,
but at least we will all go home cheerful.

There are no wrong answers,
only boring ones,



predictable ones,
which attract this hullabaloo...

(alarm bells)

The panel can also draw attention
to themselves more discreetly like this -

- Clive goes...
- (fanfare)

- Sean goes...
- (bus bell)

- Linda goes...
- (bicycle bell)

- And Alan goes...
- (creaking door)

- (Stephen) Oh, Alan.
- (man) Hello?

I go, "Gozo is the second largest town
in Malta", and that sort of interesting stuff.

So, let's have the first question.

Alan, an elephant walks into a bar.
What do you offer it to drink?

- An actual elephant?
- Imagine. Let's suppose.

- It's not a euphemism for something else?
- No, no. No.

One of those, as in behind you.
A pachyderm.



- Should a pachyderm go into a bar...
- Yes, it's a convoluted way...

- They don't drink.
- What don't they drink?

They don't drink anything.
They get all of the moisture they need

from the grass that they eat...

which is the only reason
you never see them in the pub.

I don't think they get enough moisture,
because they've got very wrinkly skin.

Very wrinkly skin,
because they don't drink.

So all those shots of them
round water holes, they're just acting there?

- Drinking water, they're just putting that on.
- No, they squirt it on each other.

Perhaps it is some kind of euphemism,
in that case.

No, drinking... when we say, "Do you drink?"
you see, a drinker, we mean alcohol.

They do... they do drink alcohol.
They have alcohol.

They get fruit, which ferments,
and they eat it and they get drunk.

Clever soul. You're so right,
you've got yourself five points.

- Is that the answer?
- It is.

But you shouldn't offer them alcohol,
because, rather like humans,

elephants get incredibly stroppy.

They can smell ethanol fermenting in fruit
from up to ten miles away.

- And the effect is catastrophic.
- So you can offer them anything.

Well, that's right, but they become
uncoordinated, they become aggressive.

Do they take it down the trunk?

(laughter)

- (Stephen) Why does that sound so awful?
- After a few drinks, they'll take it anywhere.

(Stephen) Oh, dear.

But I think I actually have seen
an elephant with a bottle of beer,

tipping it back and drinking it down.

It's all fruit-based like alcopops.

- So it would be a Breezer, not a Guinness.
- (Alan) Bacardi Breezer, they'd have, yes.

Do they see pink human beings
when they're hallucinating?

- But human beings are pink.
- Well, that's true, yes.

- It would be scarcely odd.
- They'd see blue ones.

They have little miniature
frozen human beings in their drinks.

That's right,
it's a mistake to offer them alcohol.

200 people every year die from elephant
rampages, many of which are caused...

- When they're drunk?
- Many of them, not all, obviously.

They drink to forget, obviously.
Because they're notoriously...

Very good, very good.

Excellent. Now we're going to have a question
straight from the National Curriculum -

grade 4, section 14,
English language, literature and ring roads.

Clive, describe either
James Bond's Bradford or his Vesper.

Well, is James Bond's Bradford
a bit like... is it James Hewitt's Yorkshire,

or Thomas Hardy's Wessex?

Is it just rebranding it,
so in describing...

James Herriot, rather than James Hewitt.
James Hewitt Spencer.

- I sensed I got it wrong, but I couldn't...
- You couldn't quite put your finger on it.

Is it an item of clothing
or a briefcase or a pair of shoes?

- No, it's... That's closer than...
- Than anything I said, yes.

It's closer than the city,
in Yorkshire, certainly.

- Is it....
- What is he almost best known for?

- (Alan) Martinis.
- Yes.

Ian Fleming worked
in naval intelligence during the war.

- (Stephen) He did. He did indeed.
- Is that interesting enough for a point?

It's pretty well known, though, isn't it, dear?
Really, you know.

Sorry, did I call you dear just then?
I'm very sorry.

So sorry. So sorry.
How that happened... I do apologise.

It is in fact the official name
for a martini that is shaken and not stirred.

Most martinis are stirred,
but when it's shaken it's called a Bradford.

They're very specific names.
If you put two olives on the stick,

it's a "Franklin",
after Franklin Roosevelt.

If you put a cocktail onion
on the stick it's called a...

- A cocktail onion on a stick.
- (Stephen) Oh, don't be...

- Well, obviously it's called something.
- Yes, it's called the Gibson, yes.

But, in fact, because the Bradford
contains three measures of Gordon's,

one measure
of an extraordinary sort of vermouth

called Kina "Lillet",
it says when looking at it.

I'm sure it must be pronounced
"Li-lay", I suppose.

I mean, put a Lil-let in there,
you wouldn't have any drink left, would you?

Why would you... If someone
offered me a drink called a Bradford,

I'd assume it was vodka and a rasher
of streaky bacon sticking out the top of it.

Maybe a pork pie on a knitting needle,
something like that.

Is there an official place for these names?
Why is a Rusty Nail called a Rusty Nail

and all the Collins family
have drinks named after them?

- Is there a clearing house...
- There are histories of this.

The first Bloody Mary was actually
in the St Regis Hotel in New York,

and was called a Red Snapper,
which is rather a good name.

- Fish, though. If you order red snapper...
- In Australia...

a Virgin Mary they call a Bloody Shame,
which is rather good.

That's very good.

(Australian accent)
"Ah, a bloody shame."

And cocktails developed
during Prohibition,

because the bathtub gin was so notoriously
gut-rotting and tasted so dreadful

that all kinds of additions
were made to it.

But Bond insisted on a shot of vodka,
so he had his... It's usually six to one.

Six gin to one of vermouth,
or "ver-mooth" - whichever you prefer -

and he added this vodka,
which makes it strictly not a martini,

so Bond actually gave his own name,
which was a Vesper.

There's a rather good phrase
in one of the Bond books:

"To Bond, the best drink of the day
was the drink he had in his head

before the first drink of the day."
It's rather good that, isn't it?

- (Alan) I don't really like James Bond.
- No, he's cruel. He's a cruel man.

No, I don't think I'd like him. If I met him
I think I'd think he was a bit of a prat.

(mumbles as James Bond)

"I'm undoing your zip with my magnet,
haw-haw-haw."

- You should read the books because...
- I don't have time. I haven't read all yours.

- Nobody's done that.
- (Stephen) Read Fleming first.

Read Fleming first.
They're awfully good, they really are.

The chapter for Casino Royale begins,
"Bond lit his 80th cigarette of the day."

Now, how can you dislike a man...
I mean, that's...

It's full of interesting stuff.
For instance, Bond has these strange ideas.

He has this idea that homosexuals
can't whistle, for example, which occurs...

Because they've always
got a cock in their mouth?

I want you to go
and stand in the corner.

You just put your lips together and blow,
everyone knows that.

- I've had a blow job...
- You can easily say the word "Wimbledon".

..which is a cocktail,
and you get it in a shooter glass

and it's got something like Drambuie
or Baileys or something in it.

- Oh, how sophisticated.
- And then it's got...

And then it's got whipped cream
out of a can on the top of it.

(Linda) That sounds a lovely drink, Alan.

You get it put on the counter like that. You're
not allowed to use your hands to drink it.

Hence, it's called...
There's someone groaning, "Oh, God!"

So you have to put your hands
behind your back and go like that.

I've never been to Essex.
Anyway...

(applause)

Anyway, that's enough of alcohol for me.

I'm ready for athletics.

Now, Sean, in 1913, the world
long-jump champion was an Englishman

who could leap backwards from the floor
onto a mantelpiece without losing his balance.

What interesting position was he offered
after the First World War? There he is.

- But he's got a cricket bat in his hand.
- He was an extraordinary sportsman.

He could what?
What did you say there? He could leap...

He could leap backwards from a stationary
position onto a mantelpiece, just leap...

He was described by John Arlott as the most
variedly talented Englishman ever born.

He captained England
and Surrey for cricket.

He appeared in an FA Cup Final.
He had the world long-jump record.

- This isn't your relative, is it?
- It is CB Fry, yes.

(Sean) What I want to know is,
how did he discover he could do that?

I suppose, in phases.

How do you find out you can do that?

You can just be standing
in front of the fireplace and go...

Was it a really boring party?

Lord Delfont was chatting and he turned
for a canape. "Whoop, I'm out of it."

Maybe there was a rattlesnake on the floor,
or something like that.

Somebody came for a cocktail and said,
"I fancy a blow job" and he went, "Oop!"

No, he was a Fry,
he would have welcomed it.

He was just putting himself
in a better position, that's it.

Charles Burgess Fry, CB Fry,
the greatest all-rounder...

What was the question?

What extraordinary position
was he offered after the First World War?

- Chest of drawers?
- A mantelpiece with or without ornaments?

- (Clive) Without, afterwards.
- Say someone had a tank of tropical fish...

Competitive mantelpiece leaping,
you just clear it, move most of the stuff off it.

Maybe he was on the mantelpiece,
lost his balance and thought:

"I must get back up
before anyone's noticed."

Lost his balance,
fell on the sofa, bounced back up...

They went, "Blimey, did you just
jump backwards onto that mantelpiece?"

- "Oh, yeah, yeah."
- (Clive) Or was it a sport we played?

It's a very old English pursuit,
jumping backwards.

And there's a famous canal jumper from
the Black Country, somebody like Jack Derby,

and he could leap 32 foot
across a canal from a standing jump.

There's a statue of him on one of the canals,
and the way he did it was weights.

He had two weights in his arms
and he'd swing them, like that.

- Like a bouncing bomb.
- And then throw them.

And they'd take him across,
and he'd go... to the other side.

And his name was something like Jack Derby,
and he died in the '30s.

He died in the canal, didn't he?
That's what it was.

The statue is at the bottom
where he was commemorated.

I think he had the world
jumping-backwards record, 13 foot.

There you are, it means something.

Well, CB Fry,
to bring us back to Charles Burgess Fry...

Did he not feel,
once he'd done the mantelpiece thing,

and everyone went,
"Wow, that's fantastic. That is so brilliant."

After that, do you think
it started to pall a bit, they'd think:

"Oh, he's doing
the mantelpiece thing again."

It's a thing he did... It was just
a party piece he did three or four times.

It wasn't enough that he headed the class list
at Oxford, had the world long-jump record,

he played in an FA Cup Final,

captained England and headed
England batting averages for four years,

spoke five languages, and what was this
extraordinary position that he was offered?

He was obviously
a member of the Fry family.

Maybe he was offered to be quizmaster
on a panel game to demonstrate his...

Who was he offered the position by?
A governmental thing?

By the most governmental thing
that existed after the First World War.

League of Nations.
So he was Head of the League of Nations?

He was referee. He refereed
the play-offs for the League of Nations.

It wasn't sport...

- President of the League of Nations.
- No. More important.

- King. King of the League of Nations.
- No, not of the League of Nations.

One of the nations
within the League of Nations.

- Oh, he was King of Albania.
- He was offered the throne of Albania.

- Yes.
- There you are. Finally we got there.

He said, "I don't want the throne,
just give me the mantelpiece."

Now, look, stop. I wish I'd never mentioned
the bloody mantelpiece now.

It was just one of the many things
he could do, all right?

Let's not refine on it, let's not make it
too big a deal. He did it once or twice.

The reason he was offered it
was his great friend was Prince Ranjitsinhji.

Together he and Fry
dominated the cricketing world,

It was known
as the golden age of cricket, still is.

Prince Ranjitsinhji was an important officer in
the League of Nations when it was founded,

and he brought Fry along
as a speech writer to the League of Nations.

They met the Albanian delegation,
which was unhappy,

because the King of the Albania
had been deposed and run away,

and so they offered Fry the throne,
and he accepted.

But his friend Hilaire Belloc, the poet,
said, "No." He said, "Don't accept it."

He said, "All you need is a cellar full of wine
and the society of those who love you."

- "Turn it down." So he did.
- And became a raging alcoholic.

He was talking Bellocs, wasn't he, because
it would have been a great thing to be king.

Well, I don't know. The next king was King
Zog, who had a very short tenure and fled.

Anyway, one of the things,
on the subject of Albania and its throne

that might have attracted the Albanians
to Fry, was his moustache, his tache.

The Albanian language
has an extraordinary richness of vocabulary,

as far as facial hair is concerned,

with 27 different words to describe the shape
of moustaches and 30 for eyebrows.

For example, vetullan
means someone with very bushy eyebrows.

Vetullor means
"slightly arched eyebrow",

vetullosh is someone
with very thick eyebrows,

so, Linda,
what is vetullushe, do you imagine?

Well, no,
you say they've got 30 words...

(Stephen) 30 words for types of eyebrow.

Well, we've obviously got
more words than that, haven't we,

because they've got one word for
"very bushy eyebrow", we've got three words.

"Very bushy eyebrow."

Yes.

Good thinking. I like that.

I'm rather unimpressed
with their 30 words for eyebrow.

(Clive) Are they
short of conversation in Albania?

They probably are. It's a poor place.
It's the poorest country in Europe.

I bet the Albanian police
always get their man, don't they,

because that Identikit picture
would be pretty accurate.

I think they use the magnet man
with the iron filings.

An eyebrow that meets in the middle.

- True. There should be a word for that.
- Well, there must be, in Albanian.

Josephus, the Jewish historian,

reckoned that Jesus had a monobrow.

I thought there was
something shifty about him.

Where did he get that?
There's no description of Jesus in the Bible.

- (Sean) Too good to be true.
- Exactly.

It's actually, vetullushe, is the Albanian
for a goat, but a special kind of goat,

one with brown eyebrows.

- (Clive) They're obsessed.
- (Stephen) They are very obsessed.

With goats like that, you should imagine
they'd be very happy people, wouldn't you?

- Why would goats need eyebrows, really?
- To express surprise.

To look quizzical.

What's that called?
That there?

- (Linda) I've no idea.
- The philtrum.

Yeah, but why is it a groove?
Like guttering.

Because nothing actually comes out of
that middle bit, does it? It goes either side.

- (Clive) It runs into there.
- No. It goes either side.

Nothing goes in there.
It's got a big lump of fat. It's stupid, that is.

All right,
Albania is the poorest country in Europe,

with more than 60% of its population
living in mountainous rural areas.

Animals and facial hair
are all they have.

Albanian may be the only language in Europe
where the word for male sheep, dash,

is the same word for a well-turned-out
and attractive young man.

Now, fingers on the buzzers for this one.

What is the difference
between a pink fairy and a green fairy?

La fee verte, the green fairy.
Does that ring any bells with you?

Oh, yes. Absinthe.

Absinthe. Well done, Linda.
I'll give you ten points. Absolutely right.

Absinthe is the green fairy.
The pink fairy is a type of armadillo.

Ah, right.

What sort of animal, I'll give you five points
for this, what sort of animal is an armadillo?

- Is it an anteater?
- It is an anteater.

I mean, is it a reptile,
is it a mammal...?

- It's the same as a badger, that sort of...
- (Linda) It's a mammal.

It's a mammal. Absolutely right.
Five points. It's unusual in many respects.

It's the only mammal,
apart from mankind, that can get leprosy.

Armadillos give birth to four identical,
same-sexed baby armadillos,

all from the same egg, all coming from
the same egg, which is unique.

The male armadillo has a penis
two thirds the length of its body.

- (Clive) Right, yes.
- (Alan) You're joking.

I think you'll find, Clive,
that that is the normal proportions.

Is it?

You lucky girl.

What alteration to the human anatomy

did Benjamin Franklin think
would vastly increase human happiness?

- Well, is it something to do with health?
- (Stephen) Not really.

Like smoke-proof lungs
or something like that.

- It's as mad as that.
- Self-cleaning arsehole.

Almost. You're so close.

- What...
- (Linda) Oh, farts.

- Farts.
- No farting?

- No, he thought...
- (Alan) More farting.

- A small exhaust pipe.
- ..the ability...

To run up, like diesel lorries,
that little sort of cap on them.

(Linda) Hoot, hoot.

Parp, parp, parp.

- No.
- (Sean) Steam-powered trousers.

Yes. Why not?

Look at him. He looks like
he's just smelt a fart, doesn't he?

Yes. Somebody else
has just done it in front of him.

And therefore... therefore he thought,
"Wouldn't the world be a better place

if we could all discharge wind freely
from the bowels without it smelling",

if he could find a drug to render all farts...

There's no need for that.

- ..to be perfumed.
- (Clive) The visual aid.

Geri Halliwell's not looking
so thin these days.

Lawks-a-lumme. Anyway,
he believed that this would do more good

than the works of Descartes,
Aristotle and Newton put together.

Franklin was an extraordinary man,
scientist,

philosopher, inventor of bifocals
and of the fire brigade.

He also helped Washington and Jefferson
prepare the American constitution,

but they refused to let him draft it, because
they worried that he would put jokes in.

- (Alan) Fart jokes.
- Yes, fart jokes. Perfumed fart jokes. Exactly.

Incidentally, while we're
on the subject of Americans,

if any of you do find any weapons
of mass destruction under your seats,

if you could forward them to the government,
cos they've looked everywhere.

- Oh, it'll be the last place they look.
- (Stephen) That's right.

Well, we have sent a probe to Mars,
haven't we, so...

I'm like that with scissors.
I turn the house...

Mind you, the difference is I have been
stockpiling scissors for the last 20 years.

That's worrying. Now, what was the first
processed food produced by H J Heinz in 1869?

- Fingers on buzzers.
- (cuckoo noise)

- Ketchup.
- Oh! Oh, no!

- (alarm bells)
- Oh, finally. Finally, goddammit.

Tomato ketchup
is not the right answer, no, no.

- No, we predicted that.
- (cuckoo)

- Baked beans.
- Oh, Alan, Alan, Alan.

(alarm bells)

- Oh, dear me. That's minus at least 20. Yes?
- Mayonnaise.

No, you're safe on that one.
A big German...

- Mini chicken Kievs.
- Not mini chicken Kievs.

- (Alan) Pickle.
- No, it's a hot one. A hot one. Not mustard.

- Horseradish.
- Horseradish is the right answer.

Well done.
There you are. Horseradish.

(Clive) The...

If I may chip in,
as far as I know, there never were...

when they had that slogan "57 varieties",
there were many more than 57 varieties.

They just used 57
because it sounded such a good...

You're absolutely right, Clive.
I'll give you five for coming in with that.

They've never had 57. In fact, now they have
more than 6,000 varieties, so they claim.

There you are.
They just like the number 57.

They're rather obsessed with it.
Their phone number is 5757,

their address is PO Box 57, Pittsburgh,
if you wanted to write to them.

They've milked that idea.

Who do you think might have been
the first customer in Britain who bought...

I mean, a retailer,
not an individual...

- It's Fortnum & Mason.
- Fortnum & Mason is the right answer.

He sold them door to door
in glass jars, did Heinz,

so his customers could see it was free from
such fillers as wood fibre, turnip and things.

Heinz tomato ketchup
followed in 1875, actually,

and it wasn't until 1895
that he perfected the perfect baked bean.

To this day, supposedly, only four members of
the Heinz family know the baked-bean recipe.

Now that we're within sniffing distance of the
end, as Benjamin Franklin might have said,

fingers on the buzzers, please,
for another round of general ignorance.

How long do your fingernails
and hair grow after you're dead?

- (cuckoo)
- Alan?

- Two foot.
- (laughter)

- No, no, no.
- (fanfare)

I'm just fascinated to know
that your hair grows after you die,

because I'm looking forward to that, so...

- But it's...
- (applause)

This is discussed at great length
in Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead,

and I think it's about two hours,
or something.

Yeah.
In fact, it doesn't at all.

Neither fingernails and hair,
which are the same substance, keratin.

It's a complete myth. The skin merely
tightens, creating an illusion of growth.

Anyway, what do bananas grow on?

- (all buzz at once)
- Yes?

They're monocotyledons
and they grow up like that.

They grow on banana trees,
they call them, but they're not...

- They're not trees.
- (alarm bells)

Let me explain.

No, take it back, take it back, studio.
15 for that.

They are a herb, distinguished
by not having a woody stem, essentially,

and by dying back after seeding.

- (Sean) They walk.
- (Stephen) I'm sorry?

Banana plants,
whatever you want to call them, walk.

Nurse!
Nurse, he's out of bed again.

They do, they walk. They move. I travelled
to Colombia and I went to a banana...

Yes, well, if you go to Colombia,
you see, these things will happen.

I went to a banana plantation
and I was admiring this banana area...

(Stephen) "Sniff my bananas."

I said, "Hold on a minute."
I said, "Hold on a minute", to the guy.

"Why is there that big patch
to the left of the field?"

He said, "Because the plants,
they walk and they need a lot of room."

So basically you need lots of room,
because plants, they move, they walk.

So they have to
make the fields slightly larger.

You plant the strip then you leave a strip,
because they move across like that.

We shall... I shall have...

You know like Betty and Keppel
when they walk...

(Stephen) Sean. As Clive said,
the banana plant is actually a herb,

because the stem
does not contain woody tissue.

And the banana fruit is technically a berry, in
fact, or a juicy ovary containing seeds, to you.

Now, what sort... Yes.

Stop it!

Oh, giggling in the back row, Miss.

The intelligent voice in my ear tells me
you're absolutely right, Sean. They do walk.

They walk up to 40 centimetres
in a lifetime.

- Yes!
- (applause)

(Clive) Well done.

What sort of mother gives birth
to either a baby lili or a baby titi?

- Maybe it should be "lie lie" and "titi".
- (fanfare)

- Yes?
- Well, it's obviously armadillos.

- No, it's not.
- Except there'd be four names.

Yes, you see, exactly.
No, no.

- Pandas?
- Not pandas. No, no.

- Dogs, cats, horses, cows, sheep.
- Well...

- (bus bell)
- Mice, rats, gerbils...

- (Linda) Bluebirds.
- (Stephen) Not bluebirds.

No, if I say it should be
"lie lie" and "tie tie",

it's because it's something
to do with "lie" and "tie".

What animals
begin with "lie" and "tie"?

- Lions and tigers.
- (Stephen) Lions and tigers.

Exactly. And if a lion mates
with a tiger, you get a...

Scandal.

(laughter)

(Sean) Very nice.

A liger.

You should call them sergeant
because they all have three stripes.

What happens is you also get a liger
that mates with a lion and produces a lili,

and a tigon which mates with a tiger,
which produces a titi.

Lions and tigers, never encounter
one another in the wild,

because lions are from Africa and tigers
are from Asia - different continents.

- They have bred successfully in captivity.
- I thought you meant a club they went to.

(Stephen) No. A cross between a female lion
and a male tiger is called a tigon,

which is an even rarer animal.

- Teflon is a nonstick pan.
- (laughter)

Developed by?

- Someone in Iceland.
- (Linda) No.

- (Stephen) DuPont.
- Yes.

(Clive) But not
for the space programme. The...

If you... if a lion mates with a lorry tyre,
it comes out as a lilo.

Hey! Very good.

That wasn't worth waiting for.
Carry on with whatever you're doing.

Who coined...
Fingers on buzzers.

Who coined the phrase, "survival of the
fittest" and what was his greatest discovery?

- (all buzz at once)
- Yes?

I know...
I'm going to avoid saying...

It must have been the guy called Wallace,
who sent in the stuff to Darwin...

- (Stephen) No.
- (bus bell)

- (Stephen) Yes?
- Kevin Keegan?

No.

And that stuff
that keeps your perm tight.

- Alan uses it.
- (Stephen) I'm sorry?

- Darwin.
- Oh, Alan, Alan, Alan, Alan!

(alarm bells)

Why do you do it to us and yourself,
to anybody? Not Charles Darwin, no, no.

(Clive) I've worked out the logic.
You couldn't say Charles Darwin.

It can't be that obvious. The phrase "survival
of the fittest" was, in fact, Herbert Spencer,

and his greatest achievement, Herbert
Spencer, was the paperclip, which he invented.

He was just sitting twiddling with another
paperclip and he came up with that one.

He was an engineer, a philosopher and
a psychologist, who was as famous as Darwin.

He coined the phrase
"survival of the fittest",

which doesn't appear in the original
Origin of Species, by Charles Darwin,

though Darwin adapted it,
or adopted it, for later editions.

Norwegians will tell you proudly,
very proudly,

that the paperclip is a Norwegian invention -
Johann Vaaler, in 1899 -

but Spencer patented
his design for paperclips

almost 30 years before Vaaler in the 1860s,
but his supplier went bankrupt

and he became ill for 20 years of his life
and never followed it up.

He sent in his patent application with the
sort of papers all neatly attached together.

"What is your invention?" "See
left-hand corner." "There's nothing there."

"There was."
"No, there's nothing written."

Today more than 11 billion paperclips
are sold annually, as a matter of fact,

but a recent survey claimed
that out of every 100,000 sold,

only one in five are actually
used to hold papers together.

The rest are used as poker chips,
pipe cleaners, safety pins, toothpicks.

The others are dropped and lost or bent
out of shape during awkward phone calls.

Have you ever bought a paperclip?

- I don't think I've ever bought a paperclip.
- They don't sell them in ones.

- (Stephen) "I'll buy one paperclip."
- "One paperclip."

"I have a hundredth of a penny there."

- "There you go."
- "Would you like it wrapped, sir?"

But on that merry note,
we must pause, hold hands

and contemplate
the mystery of the final scores.

- (Alan) Oh, no.
- In last place, I fear...

with minus 30 points,

uh...

I'm so sorry.

Well, if I got minus ten, three of those,
that means I didn't get a point all night.

No, I'm sorry, you must put your belly on the
ground, as they say in Albania, for being last.

I'm sorry about that.

In third place it's Sean, with 25.

- In second place, Linda with 30 QI points.
- Not bad.

Means our runaway winner today,
with 37 points, is Clive Anderson.

Oh, thank you very much.

So, as we bid a tearful farewell
to Clive, Sean, Linda and Alan,

a final reminder of why
the battle for interestingness matters.

When a market-research team was
asked recently to come up with a new name

for the merger between
a university and a college in Bradford,

they took three months, this company,
to suggest the following alternatives:

University of Bradford,

The University of Bradford,

or Bradford University.

Their fee was 20,000 pounds.

- Good night.
- (applause)