QI (2003–…): Season 10, Episode 17 - Jolly - full transcript

APPLAUSE AND CHEERING

Well! Good evening, good evening,
good evening, good evening,

good evening, good evening,

good evening,
good evening, good evening,

and welcome to QI, where
we're all feeling rather jolly.

Here to tickle our ribs are four
jolly good fellows.

The jovial Rob Brydon.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

The jocular Tim Vine.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

The jubilant Julia Zemiro.



CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

And Jesus, it's Alan Davies.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Ah, well, so if anyone wants to
go beyond a joke tonight,

they'll have to jingle their jangles
and Julia goes...

LAUGHING KOOKABURRA

- Oh, it's an animal from my country.
- Yeah.

- That's nice, a bird, a kookaburra,
thank you. - It is a kookaburra,

- well spotted. Tim goes...
- LAUGHING HYENA

Oh, it's an animal from my country.

And Rob goes...

GIGGLING BABY

- Aw! It's an animal from the country.
- Yeah.

- And Alan goes...
- BRAYING DONKEY



- Wow. - Fabulous.

So, simple question, who's Hapi?

- He's happy in the picture. - Yes. - Yes.
- Old men with young ladies. Or...

old ladies with young men.

- I was going to say... - Why not?
- They may be gerontophiles.

- Not me. - Not you? No, fair enough. OK.

- It's one of the dwarfs.
- True, as in the old joke.

- Six out of seven dwarfs aren't
Happy. - I can't believe it!

- They haven't got that on the
klaxon? - No, they haven't.

This is a Hapi
whose name is Hapi, spelt H-A-P-I.

- Edwin Starr had a song,
H-A-P-P-Y Radio. - Oh, really? - Yeah.

- Anyway, continue. - No, that's good.
It's good - good information.

We love good information
here, as you know.

- We have to go back to a previous
civilisation. - Is it... Um, no.

- Aztecs. - Egyptian. - Egyptian is right.
- Oh, get stuffed, I can't believe it!

- LAUGHING KOOKABURRA
- When you get it right,

you don't have to insult me.

- No, I know. - You can
accept your points gracefully.

That picture is actually
the backdrop to a famous game show -

I'll Name That Tomb In One.

- Very good.
- What sort of reaction is that?!

- It's one Tim is very used to.
- It's what I'm used to, yes. - Yes.

That's what you sphinx.

- So that is the god... - A very unusual
mind we have on this show. - It is.

This is a god called Hapi,
who was always represented to have

been faintly pot-bellied and sort
of hermaphroditic with breasts.

Hapi had breasts,
though was not considered female,

and had a sort of harem of...?

- Ladies. - Men. - Animals. - No.

- Men. Boys.
- Castrati. - Frogs. - Frogs? - Yeah.

Frogs, Tim.

Er, hang on.

There'll be a pun in a minute.

Do you think if the frogs in the
harem really started to get it on

with each other, and one of them
whipped out a camcorder,

- would that be "frogs' porn"? - Oh!

APPLAUSE

You are a malign influence.

The worrying thing is, I have
actually done that joke in the past.

- It's too late now, it's too late.
- He's the thief of bad gags.

The fact is, Hapi was the god
who was responsible for

the flooding of the Nile, which was
an annual event, took place in July

and was cause of much celebration.

If you've ever been up
or down the Nile,

you will know that it's really just
this great carving of green

through a desert, which is all made
fertile by this river.

So it was... The whole civilisation
was predicated on the flooding

of the Nile
and Hapi was the god who caused it.

So, moving on, what's the jolliest,

but frankly most dangerous thing
you can buy in a joke shop?

LAUGHING HYENA

- Tim? - I went to a joke shop. I said,
"What are you actually selling here?"

He said, "Nothing,
we're not a real shop."

Anyway, I've got some jokes here
that give you an example. Here we
are.

And almost all of these
were invented by one man,

who could be regarded as the father
of the joke shop.

Have some nuts, Tim.

- What happens when you open
the nuts? - JULIA: Oh, no.

I'm guessing I could aim
this at Rob...

- SQUEAKING
- You're guessing.

And it's hours of laughter.

Tim, that reminds me of last
Saturday evening, in an odd way.

It's a man called
Soren Sorensen Adams.

And he started life working
for a coal-tar derivative company.

And coal-tar derivatives have many
uses, one of which was for a dye.

And the particular dye
that came from coal-tar

had the bizarre side effect
of making people sneeze.

So the company managed to isolate
the ingredient

that made people sneeze
and took it out.

And he happened to be passing
and he saw

these great barrels of the stuff
that made people sneeze.
He thought, "I'll have those."

So he founded
The Cachoo Sneezing Powder Company,

and it was a huge, huge success.

He sold 15,000 worth of Cachoo,
just in the first year,

a vast sum in 1910,
which is around the time we are.

But 25 years later, it was
banned by the FDA for being toxic.

- Oh. - But he had meantime...
- After several deaths.

Yes.

Meantime, he had invented
the squirting lapel flower.

- Oh. - Oh. - That would fool anybody,
wouldn't it? - Oldie but a goody, yes.

There we go. It has a little ring.

- I used to have one of those. - There's
a... - Oh... - Hey! Highly amusing.

- Help yourself to a dog turd.
Oops, there we are. - Eurgh.

They're different. The old ones
were hard plastic, that's squidgy.

- You're touching that. Eurgh.
- It's really quite unpleasant.

Oh... Oh, dear!

That is horrible, isn't it?

JULIA: Eurgh!

- Even if that isn't a dog turd,
that's a horrible thing to do.
- Uuuuugh!

Oh, my God!

- Oh! - If you swallow that...

If I swallow it, it's going to come
out the other end, that'll be good.

What is it then? Fake or not?

Then it would be a real false turd.

Oh, actually, Alan,
I'm just getting a...

just getting a message there's been
a bit of a mix-up, apparently.

- This is a real one! - Oh, dear.

And here's a... Here's a...
You can cut your finger off.

Or you could try this pen.
Try writing something with the pen.

Oh, this is going to be hilarious.

- Go on, then. - Oh, dear.

- I never touched it! - Did he get
a shock? - I think so.

That is... I'm really sorry,
because that is quite a severe
electric shock.

- It's not...
- I'll just take your word for it.

It's not insignificant, that one.
That is barely a joke.

- It's not funny at all, Stephen!
- I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry.

- Give it back to me. - That
really hurt. - Aaah. A bendy pencil.

- I don't want a bendy pencil!
- A joy buzzer.

He sold three million of these
during the Depression.

- When you shake hands with someone
with one of those?
- That's right, you put

the sort of ring on your finger so
it looks sort of normal. And then...

- Can you buzz me? - Yeah,
you want to shake hands. Like that.

- It doesn't give you a shock. - It's
a bit of a letdown. - It's just a buzz.

He passed on... I say,
"He passed on this," I don't mean...

He thought this was
too vulgar to sell -

the standard whoopee cushion. You
might want to blow that up. Yeah.

It's not Soren Lorensen, who's
the imaginary friend in the Charlie
and Lola books is it?

No, it's not. It's Soren Sorensen
Adams. It's quite difficult to...

Is this a joke whoopee cushion
you can't blow up?

It is difficult to get
the sphincter open, isn't it?

- SQUEAKING
- Whoa!

Ah, there we go, that's right.

Maybe while Alan isn't looking...
Alan, lean over here for a second.

That's it, take the false egg,
which is hilarious.

WHOOPEE CUSHION EMITS NO SOUND

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

That was possibly
the least convincing whoopee cushion
noise I've ever heard.

- JULIA: Silent but deadly. - Yeah.
- It was strangely realistic. - Yeah.

I just smothered it completely.

- Alan's wearing a whoopee cushion
silencer on his jeans. - Very sensible.

The best one is the fart...
the remote-control fart machine.

- Yeah. - Have you got one of
those? - Of course I have. Yes.

- Has anyone got one?
- How does it work?

- You've got to get one.
- They are marvellous.

You just, at Christmas...

You bury it under the cushion
near your aunt.

Yes, it's funny even if you just
put it under your dog's basket,
because the dog...

- Absolutely. - The dog goes like that.

- I'll take a picture. Alan, smile.
- No, what's going to happen now!!

Oh. It's supposed to be water.

Anyway, we can probably put
away our little tray of fun toys,

having electrocuted Alan, which
was the purpose of the evening.
Maybe you could pass me your...

- How do you blow it up, then?
- Could you pass me your turd?

Woo. That's meant...
I think if you over, maybe.

Have a go.

FRUITY RASPBERRY

That's better!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

- One of these has never had a round
of applause from 600 people before.
- Yeah.

I read somewhere that this was
"the intellectual quiz show"
and you can see why.

Now, one of the things
I want to prepare you for is to see

if you can,
during the course of today's lesson,

prepare, in any spare moments
you have, a limerick for me.

- You know what a limerick is? - Yes.
- Aside from being a county in
- Ireland. It's a town.

- Yes.
- There was an old man from Limerick,

who was unaware of the short,
often humorous, poems

that shared the same name
as his home town.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

Very, very good. Anyway,
so do be ready for that.

But we've got a quicky for you.
What happens if you put

someone's hand in a bowl of water
while they're sleeping?

LAUGHING BABY

They have a little widdle,
don't they?

Oh, no!

- they don't have a little widdle.
- They don't?

No, it's a total myth.

Total myth, perpetuated by
schoolchildren and others.

All kinds of experiments
have been done.

That splendid programme
Myth Busters tried it.

Zero wetting ensued. There's no
reason why it should happen.

- It must have happened once.
- Well, by coincidence, possibly.
- By coincidence.

That coincidence
was assumed to be causal

and from that moment on
the myth was born.

You can try it at home, I recommend
it, with your spouses and children.

Like the one where
if you wet yourself

while driving, you crash the car.

- I would frankly...
- Has that not happened to everyone?

If I crashed a car,
I think I would wet myself.

- It's the other way round. - That's
what's interesting about the
experiment. - Yeah, it is. Absolutely.

What about when you fall asleep
and you wake up

and you've had half your eyebrow
shaved off?

- Then you have bad friends.
- I do have hideous friends.

- Yeah, cos that's the other thing
that can happen. - Yeah.

It's all right,
I'm over it, it's fine.

- You had your eyebrows shaved off?
- Yeah, you know?

Obviously no-one's had it happen.

Yeah, you fall asleep and someone
goes, "Oh, this will be even
funnier."

Put your hand in a bottle of thing
and voom, voom, you wake up
and you look hideous.

- That's just vile! - I'm Australian.

Anyway, Sorensen didn't
sell whoopee cushions

because he didn't think
flatulence was amusing,

so what is the most amusing thing
to come out of a sewage plant?

- Look at that. That's disturbing.
- That's really very unpleasant.

And there are people in the
background there, bobbing along.

- Is that in the UK?
- That's actually in Ghana. - Ghana.

LAUGHING KOOKABURRA

Poo jokes. Is that the funniest thing
to come out of a sewerage...?

- TIM: Crap jokes? - What jokes?

- Crap jokes. Yeah, really crap jokes.
- Thank you, good on you.

No, there is something that really
does cause laughter that comes out.

Oh, OK, I know, I know.
It's a type of gas, then, isn't it?

It's the same gas...
I've got it, Julia!

- It's the same gas, like what they
might call a laughing gas... - Yes.

..but here, rather than being
in canisters in a dentist's room,

- perhaps, or in another medical
establishment... - Yeah...

Perhaps it's coming out as a natural
by-product of the faeces, the waste,

the faecal matter, that's gushing
forth in a liquidised form.

- So that's what it is. - It is!
- Oh, I love it!
BRAYING DONKEY

Is it nitrous oxide?

Nitrous oxide.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

- I'll accept that Rob did the work
and you... - I got the answer right!

Stephen, can I just say this?

It's called nitrous oxide,
of course.

APPLAUSE

- GIGGLING BABY
- Yeah?

Nitrous oxide.

LAUGHING KOOKABURRA

- Sulphuric acid. - Ha!

Yes, it's a very important
greenhouse gas - N2O, nitrous oxide.

In fact, it's 300 times more potent,
as a greenhouse gas, than CO2.

Its most significant man-made source
is sewage-treatment plants,

alongside agricultural waste
and nitrogen fertilisers.

It's also pumped into bags
of crisps.

Why would it be
pumped into bags of crisps?

All crisp packets are filled
with gas, aren't they,
to keep them fresh?

- Exactly - it's to expel the oxygen.
- They also pump it with gas

so that you think you're getting more
chips than you actually are.

And then you go, "Oh, it's only
a third full! Ripped off!"

- It's almost as if they want to make
a profit out of you. - Almost!
- It's really annoying.

Yes, it was first used
as a dental anaesthetic.

I'll give you ten points if you
are ten years either way right.

- What year? - I don't know when it was
but I did have a general anaesthetic

- quite recently, which I think is,
er... - Interesting.

Interesting. And it was the same one
that killed Michael Jackson.

Oh, good! That's...

No, I mean good that you survived.

- BRAYING DONKEY
- Yeah?

- Propofol. - Yeah, that's one, yes.
- That's what it was, propofol.

- I'm so good on drugs!
- I was lying there and I said,
"Is this the thing?"

APPLAUSE

It is an absolutely
GORGEOUS feeling.

- It's a remarkable sensation,
isn't it? Yeah. It goes in through
your hands... - That's right.

And then, er, the feel...
I don't know if people have had it
recently, but I mean,

if he was using this
to get to sleep,

he was in a bad way because it goes
right... You can feel it.

But your head stays very,
you know, awake,

and, er, I said to the anaesthetist,
"Wow! My arms and my legs,
they're like weights."

They were being pulled into the bed.

I said,
"But my head is completely..."

It's extraordinary!

And the next second, you're going,
"Oh," and you're waking up.

- Wheeled into the recovery
room. - Imagine having to have that
every night to get you off.

- It's horrifying, isn't it? - I used
to go out with an anaesthetist.

She was a local girl.

LAUGHTER

1920.

- No, it's...
- LAUGHING KOOKABURRA

- 1930! - No.

- GIGGLING BABY
- Ah. Ah, ah...

1878.

- No, even earlier. - 1820.

- 1844. Yes, quite early. - That early?

Although it had been used before
that as a recreational drug,

- by, of course... Who were the great
recreational drug users?
- Rock musicians. - No, not...

There weren't many rock musicians
before the 1840s.

There were, but you just didn't
know about it. They were there!

- When was Byron alive?
- Ah, you're in the right area.

We're in the area of Romantic poets.

And who was the great opium eater -
apart from Thomas De Quincey -
of the Romantic poets?

- I'm going to take a stab at this,
Stephen. Pam Ayres. - No!

Can the audience please
provide the answer?

AUDIENCE MEMBERS SHOUT OUT

Casanova?!

- Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
- Of course it was!

He wrote Kubla Khan
while under the influence of opium.

Yes. In Xanadu, did Kubla Khan...

- JULIA & STEPHEN: A stately pleasure
dome decree... - Of course he did.

- It's also that great musical
with Olivia Newton-John. - Indeed.

And laughing gas, as you can see,
was used as a recreational drug

and Coleridge was
one of the ones to use it.

In fact, he described the dreamy,
sedated state.

He said, "The first time
I inspired..." Breathed in.

"..the nitrous oxide, I felt
a highly pleasurable sensation
of warmth over my whole frame.

"The only motion which I felt
inclined to make

"was that of laughing at those
who were looking at me."

So there you can see.
There's a satirical cartoon...

She doesn't look very willing,
though, that lady.

She, it must be said,
is being forced into it.

- LAUGH! - But the others have already
had it and are laughing.

She's about to laugh, clearly.

- Looks like a giant whoopee cushion,
actually. - It does!

The man on the left's got
tiny chicken legs!

And like all lazy cartoonists,
he's written "laughing gas" on it,
so that you know what's going on.

- Is this the inspiration for
the scene in Mary Poppins where they
float to the ceiling? - Maybe it is.

The chapter of the book in Mary
Poppins in which they all do rise to
the ceiling is called Laughing Gas.

There's a book?!

LAUGHTER

You!
And you know who it's written by.

- No, I didn't even know there was
a book! - PL Travers. - Is there?

- Yes, she wrote many...
- She's Australian. - Yes.

Did she adapt the film?
Was it one of those novellas...

No, she disowned the film
completely. In fact, they're making
a film at the moment

about the relationship
between Walt Disney and PL Travers.

And she absolutely loathed the film,

- which is crazy cos it is
one of the greatest films ever made.
- I thought it was super!

..califragilisticexpialidocious.

- In the book, is there a dark side
to Mary Poppins? - Yeah, there is.

There's a kind of world of
weird creatures and so on.

I don't know what
her objection was to it.

- I thought it was absolutely
magnificent. - It is.

So there you go.
What would be the best flavour
for an exploding sandwich?

- LAUGHING HYENA
- Tim Vine?

Cheese and ham grenade.

Very good.
Very good. Excellent. There is...

- No, is it wrong, then? - It's wrong.

Well, I mean it would explode,
obviously.

Sauerkraut and cabbage can make you
explode, on a different level,
also funny.

This one would make you explode on
that level too. It's in fact
a classic English sandwich,

as in
The Importance Of Being Earnest.

- What are the sandwiches that
Aunt Augusta particularly liked?
- Watercress. - Cucumber? - Mustard.

She particularly liked
cucumber sandwiches.

But this a very specific
species of cucumber.

There it is, you see,
it's quite spiky.

- The exploding cucumber of Panama.
- There's the fuse.

- Yes, it's the exploding cucumber.
It's the squirting or exploding
cucumber. - Come on.

It's a Mediterranean plant
and, when touched,

it propels its seeds
in a sticky mucus at over 60mph.

- You're pointing at Rob.
- I'm not pointing at Rob.

I'm just saying
when that picture came up,

we looked across at each other
and we both went, "Oh, testicles."

- I mean it's clear. Didn't we? Were
you? - But can we be very clear,

I do not propel my seeds
in a sticky mucus at 80mph.

And certainly not up to 30 feet.

- No, not... Well, on a good day,
on a good day. - In the teens.

So you can see it's being
touched here

and you can see the effect
of the operation of it exploding.

If you look carefully. Boing! Yeah,
that's... I mean it's a sexual act.

I mean, it is spreading its seed.
And you can see the seeds flying
everywhere. Whoa!

- Does it do that to itself?
- Well, no, it's...

Because that looks like another
bit of it.

Yeah, when it's very, very ripe
and it falls, it will do it,

but otherwise
when touched it will also do it.

Its actual Linnaean name
is Ecballium elaterium,

which translates as "the squirting
squirter". Ecballium as in

"ballistics" - it throws out -
and that's the forceful ejection of
its seeds.

But the elaterium is the fact that
is a violent purgative.

So it's a squirting squirter
that gives you the squirts.

So, yes, it would... It would make
you explode from behind as well.

- So in that sense it's fully
explosive. - Great!

Now, what's the world's
longest-running gag?

- LAUGHING KOOKABURRA
- Yes?

"Look over there!"

- And they look... Pah!
You shoot them. - No!

It's using a particular joke
to displace warfare, actually,

and it's been going on
since the 13th century

in a particular couple
of tribes in Mali, in fact.

The tribes are called the Traore
and the Kone tribes,

and what happens is,

is that you have to take a joke
from a member of the other tribe,

who basically accuses you
of being a bean-eater -

of eating lots of beans,
which is an insult.

And you have to take that insult.

And then you can find another
member of the opposing tribe

and accuse them
of being a bean-eater.

And they just hang around
calling each other bean-eaters.

And that is... That saves them
from killing each other.

- It's not the greatest joke in the
world. - It's better than genocide.
- But it's better than genocide

and is the longest-running gag,
as far as we know, in the world.

It's a rather civilised way
of sorting things out.

Great idea for a panel show,
as well.

Yes, isn't it? Absolutely. Superb.

You're a bean-eater.

YOU'RE a bean-eater.

Alan, you're a bean-eater.

- Julia... - Yes? - You're a bean-eater.

Stephen, you ARE a bean-eater.

You're a has-been eater.

Oh!

APPLAUSE
And is that where it ends?

- A has-been eater's a whole different
thing. - It certainly is.

There are, of course,
the "yo mama" jokes, as well,

which are used in
the African-American community.

"Yo mama's so fat that she could
usefully have a calorie-controlled
diet and regular exercise."

They're probably better than that,
as jokes, but...

But mums are often used.
Like, I remember the first time,

as an adult, I went back to France
to visit relatives

and you know, my cousin driving -
angry all the time.

- "Ta mere, ta mere!"
Your mother, your mother.
- Yeah, "Ta mere est une putain."

So maybe mothers have always been
the butts of jokes.

Oh, absolutely. Back to Shakespeare
you've got, in Titus Andronicus,
"Villain, what has thou done?

"That which thou canst not undo.
Thou hast undone our mother.

"Villain, I have DONE thy mother."

Oh.

And all over the world,
curses against people's mothers
are very, very common.

- Sam Kinison does some fantastic
heckle put downs. - Oh, DID, yes.
- Dead, sadly. Did, yes.

About people shouting,
saying, "Oi!" from the audience.

"Yeah, that was the noise
your mother made...

"when I did her last night.

"You won't recognise her. When I was
finished, I shaved her back!"

That's a heck of a put-down,
isn't it?

- He was a furious, furious comedian,
wasn't he? - A brilliant comedian.

So, yes, the Traore and the Kone
clans in Mali have been calling

each other Mr Bean, essentially,
since the 13th century.

What did the world's first
jukebox have on offer?

Is it going to be a man in a box
and you give him something

and he plays for you?

No. Do you know where the word
"jukebox" comes from?

Yes, I've heard this
and I can't remember it.

- There is a story attached to this,
isn't there? - Yeah. - Er... Oh!

A juke joint was a brothel -

it was Southern American slang
for a brothel,

probably from the African "juk",
meaning "disorderly or unruly".
And so the...

So the popular vehicle
the Nissan Juke is a Nissan Brothel?

Yeah, well, I'm afraid so.
There you go.

And they were called juke houses
or juke joints

and, like all kinds of places of ill
repute and law-breaking, of course

they served all kinds of liquor and
offered dancing and, indeed, music.
And gambling.

And then when the first commercially
available box that you could

put a nickel in
and it played a tune,

people just called it a jukebox,
cos they kind of thought

it was like making your own private
little dance hall or juke joint.

And the manufacturers
resisted this terribly -

they didn't want it to be called
a "brothel box".

But that's what they became known
as. The very first one is,

you'd actually go into a shop
where there was a speaking tube,

and you would speak down and say,
"I would like Foxtrot In Blue
by the..."

You know, whoever, Jelly Roll
Morton. And the person at the other
end would go, "Very good, sir."

And he would go off and find it
and put it in the record player

and attach the speaking tube
to the horn of the gramophone
and you would listen that way.

- Is that a Wurlitzer? - It's a Rockola.

- They are beautiful things, and...
- Really lovely objects.

They are beautiful, and yet,
whenever you go to someone's house
and they have one,

they are almost invariably
people with no taste.

Except for Lee Mack.

He has one and a man with greater
taste you will never encounter.

He had great trouble getting it up
the stairs, as well, didn't he?

Cos it weighs like a small car,
basically.

Yes. The really old ones weigh
an absolute ton.

- Well, the very old ones, of course,
had the band in there as well,
didn't they? - Yes, yes.

Well, they're magnificent devices

and now, of course, the kind of
things, like pinball machines,

that rock stars have in their
lonely drug-infested houses.

Funny you should say "juke"
refers to a brothel because,
of course, rock'n'roll music...

- Rock'n'roll is slang for sex.
- Also for jiggy-jiggy doo-doo.

- Yes, so it's all... - Yes.
"Jiggy-jiggy doo-doo?"

I don't know, it's...

Jiggy-jiggy, DOO-DOO!

Yes, jukeboxes were
originally brothels
in the Deep South of America.

- Now, what's the worst place
to be licked by a goat? - Oh!

At your parents' house.

- The perineum.
- Well, the perineum would be

- a bit unpleasant...
- What bizarre set of circumstances

would result in you being...

Having your perineum well
and truly licked by a goat?

Yeah. A goat rimming is not
necessarily a form of anything.

- You're squatting... - In the bush!

Yes. This the excuse you give
the doctor, isn't it?

- You're caught short
out on a country walk... - Yeah.

And you squat down
onto a discarded sandwich.

And a passing goat...

- ..licks it. - This is never going
to have a happy ending.

Licks it off your perineum.

So has this happened, then?

Has somebody been...
Has somebody been licked?

- Well, somewhere in the world,
it's happening right now. - Yeah.

What he said is not the right
answer, I ought to tell you.

- So it's not the perineum? - No, it's
not. - Is it to do with the tongue

because it's so raspy and...?

It is to do with
the raspiness of the goat's tongue.

It was used as a torture.
You would tie someone to a tree,
so their legs were sticking out.

- Not licking the feet? - Bare feet
and cover the feet...
- They did it with pigs too.

Cover the feet with honey
and the goat would lick it.

At first it would be a pleasant
tickling sensation,

and then it would
rip off layers of skin.

- It was horrible. - Ugh. - I know.
- It would have livened up that
scene in Goldfinger, wouldn't it?

He's tied down and the laser beam
comes between his legs.

If he'd said, you know,
"Oh, my God, no! Not the goat."

"Ah, Mr Bond, I put some honey on to
the underside on your foot.

"You might call it your sole!
Ah ha ha.

- "Bring in the goat."
- BLEATS LIKE GOAT

And he goes, "Oh, no, no, not the
goat. It's a furry goat. No. Oh."

And then he goes,
"Actually that's quite pleasant."

And he says, "Soon the pleasure
will turn to pain,

"Mr Bond." And then he said,
"You expect me to talk?"

- "No. I expect you to die."
- Well, yes.

But Franciscus Brunus,
a late Medieval jurist

and expert on torture, said in 1502,

"I hear this is a very hard torture
and totally safe."

Tickling was used in
the stocks, as well.

You tickled people's
feet in the stocks.

And in the Han Dynasty in China,
they used tickling a lot.

In The Old Curiosity Shop -
I don't know if you've read that...

It's the only Dickens novel
I've read.

- Oh, well, you might remember.
- Can't remember any of it. - Oh, dear.
Well you might remember...

- I seem to have no memory function
whatsoever nowadays. - No.

There was Little Nell, who died,
and Oscar Wilde said of that,

"You would have to have
a heart of stone

"to read the death of Little Nell
without laughing."

Cos it is Dickens at his
most sentimental, unfortunately.

But there was a
Mr Jasper Packlemerton,

and Jasper Packlemerton
apparently killed 14 wives by
tickling them to death.

- And Dickens... - With a knife.

- Tickle tickle!
- Dickens may have got this from an
Illustrated Police News of 1869,

where a wife was driven insane
by her husband tickling her.

She was fooled by her husband
into thinking that by being tied to

a plank it would help her back,

and he then proceeded to tickle
her toes until she went mad.

- Which is not nice, to be honest.
- How long did it take?

- It would take a while, I think, yeah.
- Days? - Yeah, it would.
- It would basically take a while.

Now let's see how your J
for "jeography" is.

Lots of points for the right answer

and a measly minus ten for a wrong
one, so try and be right.

What's the name of
the largest mountain in Japan?

- Fuji. - Is the right answer!

Yes. It's an active volcano,

although it hasn't
actually erupted for 200 years.

- So it's probably about due. - Yeah,
it probably is. - Vesuvius is overdue.

It's right next to Naples
and it's overdue

and there's no way of predicting
when it will erupt.

- No, I know. - They told us this when
we went to see it on a school trip!

That'll cheer you up, won't it(?)

They said... This is in the days
before 'Ealth and Safety. They took
you up into the crater to...

Any minute now we're expecting it.

It's overdue, we're standing in
the crater of it -

a party of schoolchildren - and to
get there you had to walk across

- a lava flow that had a sulphur crust
that was about that thick. - Whoa.

And so you walked across it
and there were places where

it had fallen through and had
just a small fence round it

and underneath was - blurp,
blurp - a volcanic mire.

- Yeah, I know, it's amazing, isn't
it? - And they said to us, "Walk in
pairs and don't jump up and down."

That was the safety brief.
We gathered together
and jumped up and down together.

Of course you did.
Because they told you not to.

Because as 12-year-old boys,
what are we doing to do?

Anyway, so can you name a Caribbean
island group beginning with B?

Bahamas.

KLAXON BLARES

Oh, Alan got there first.
And I'm afraid

- they're not Caribbean,
no, they're Atlantic. - What?

They're not in the Caribbean, the
Bahamas, they're in the Atlantic.

- I've been on holiday to them.
I've done a lot of holidays.
- Yes, you have.

There is an island group beginning
with B in the Caribbean.

- British Virgin. - Very good in the
audience. - That was a superb accent!

Someone shouted out one of
the rarest things you could
possibly imagine, British Virgin!

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

I wouldn't have accepted Barbados
because it's a single island.

- It's only one island, Barbados.
- Exactly. There you go.

- The Bahamas are not in the
Caribbean? - No, I know, big surprise.

This bloke came up and said,
"I'm going to dress up as a small
island off the coast of Italy."

I said, "Don't be SO SILLY."

Excellent!

Now, which is the largest of
the Great Lakes of North America?

Ontario.

- KLAXON BLARES
- No, it's not Ontario.

Is it a slightly trick question
and is it Hudson?

- It's not Hudson, no, Hudson Bay.
- That big... Oh, that's Hudson Bay.

Most of us were brought up
to believe Lake Superior was
the largest lake in the WORLD.

- That was the other one
I was going to get wrong. - Yes. - Yes.

In fact, all Americans
are taught now that it's actually

Michigan-Huron,
which are two lakes together,

but now considered one lake
for various technical reasons.

- Michigan-Huron.
- They were formed - I know this...

They were formed after an ice age
when the ice melted and retreated

and they left a big puddle,
a very big puddle.

A very big puddle indeed.

It's connected by the Straits
of Mackinac, along the top there.

But they're considered a single lake

because they lie at the same
elevation and rise and fall
together, so they are one lake.

- They're bigger than Lake Superior.
- It is but one lake! - Exactly.

So, now, who can name
a Shakespeare play set in Verona?

- LAUGHING KOOKABURRA
- Yeah?

- Romeo and Juliet?
- Yes, perfect, well done.

- Ah, thank you. - Well done.
- APPLAUSE

Oh, thank you.

Yes, you avoided the trap of saying
Two Gentlemen Of Verona,
which is not set in Verona.

- He really looked like he was
enjoying sitting for that
portrait(!) - Yes, he did!

- Do you know where Two Gentlemen
Of Verona IS set? - Birmingham.

Not in Birmingham.

- But Two Gentlemen Of Verona
IS in Italy? - It is in Italy -
- it's actually set in Milan. Great.

The gentlemen themselves are
FROM Verona. But well avoided,
well avoided, well avoided.

I went to see The Merchant Of Venice
on Broadway, with Al Pacino,

and that seemed to be
set in Brooklyn.

Yes, that would...

AS PACINO: "Does a Jew not have...

"FEELINGS?"

I remember I said to this bloke,

"I'm appearing in Hamlet
at the Globe Theatre."
He said, "Are you being facetious?"

I said, "No, Polonius."

- LAUGHTER
- Very good.

Finally on "jeography", which
country crosses the most time zones?

- Is it... Oh. - Yeah, go on, go on, do
it, do it. - Come along. - Oh, all right.

- LAUGHING BABY
Go on, hey. - Wales.

You see, I told you!
I knew not to do it.

- And yet you won. - And you're,
"Go on, do it." - At least you
didn't get a klaxon.

Well, it was my first...

- Yeah? - Canada. - No, it's not Canada.
- KLAXON BLARES

- I'm afraid we did... - I think it's a
trick, because I think it's going to
be a country that's got outposts.

Possessions, you're correct.

- Is it the United Kingdom?
- It's not the United Kingdom.

We don't count our possessions
as all being part of
the mother country,

but one ex-colonial power

does regard all its outlying
possessions as being

- part of the mother country.
- LAUGHING KOOKABURRA

- France. - France?

France is right.
Oh, yes, you got the buzzer,

I'll have to give it to Julia.

- Yes. - You were just too lazy to buzz.
- Well, I was...

You've got to use the buzzer -
that's the rule.

Exactly.

Yes, so France
has 12 different time zones.

The US has 11 time zones,
because of Hawaii being all the way,

and Russia nine.

Now, what is the longest
thing about this animal?

Oh, its cock.

- Oh, dear, oh, dear. - Its ears.
- It's a bilby. That's a bilby.

- It's not a bilby.
- Oh, I just lost a point. - Is it not?

And the longest thing
is not the ears,

we rather hid the longest thing.
It's a cute little creature.

- Is it its tail? - It is the tail.

- Well done, and let's have a look.
- Points! - I was going to say tail!

- Aw. - Oh, look at that.
- It's a cute little thing.

- Look at him! - It hops like a little
kangaroo. - It's easy to catch
him, you stick your foot down.

There it goes.

- It lives in the Gobi Desert.
- JULIA: That is cute.

And it has a very long tail,
as you can see,
that it uses for balance

and, rather like a kangaroo,
it can also sit up on it.

Very, very endearing.

The ears are thought to be,
you know, to let the cool...

to cool itself -
the blood cools through the ears.
That looks rather dead, that one.

Well, he's got a... He's treated
himself to a Kinder Surprise.

- He's swallowed the toy and choked on
it. - Yeah. And it's called a jerboa.

- Jerboa. - It's called a jerboa
with a J, hence our J.

It's from an Arabian word in fact,
meaning "flesh of the loins",

rather oddly.

But it's the same
origin as the word gerbil.

And what is it about humans
and big ears?

- They get bigger. - They get bigger.
- The ears get bigger.
- Yeah, I mean old...

So does the nose, is that right?

Old men do seem to have longer ears,

but the trouble is, no-one's
done a study where they've measured
their ears when they were younger

because it could well be,
it's logical...

- The head's getting smaller.
- ..that having large ears
is a predictor of a long life.

- I know what that man
did for a living. - What's that?

He was a bowler hat model.

JULIA: That is a weird-looking guy.

- He was a very fine bowler hat model.
- I've got quite big ears,

but I can also see what it's like to
be someone whose ears are flat

against the side of their head,
because I can go like that.

- Oh, my goodness.
- And I can hold it,

and it's like having
an instant face-lift, like that.

- How do you do that? - Well, I can't
really talk like this as well. - I see.

I'll tell you later.
It means I can do a thing like
when you do it on a roller coaster

and you're just going
over the top, you go...

LAUGHTER

I bet your so-called serious brother
Jeremy can't do that.

- He can't do that. - Yeah.
There's another way.

He could host a phone-in about it,
though, couldn't he?

He could. Call in
if you can wiggle your ears.

"Having a problem with your ears?
Give us a ring now. Go on."

He did once on his show
genuinely have...

I thought they were running out
of things to do that day.

He said, "Please..." And,
honestly, it wasn't a joke,

he said, "Please phone in
if the sound of your own voice
terrifies you."

That was a phone-in topic.
And did anyone call in?

- People rang in screaming, "Argh!"
- Any calls? - Get someone else to ring.

- Yeah, they had some people ring up.
- Sobbing.

"Help me, I'm so afraid!"

Anyway, why would the King of France
enjoy a naive salad for starters?

He's got a tiny head - has
he got massive ears under that wig?

Of course, naive backwards is...?

- Evian. - Evian, as in the water.
- Is it?

- Isn't it? Evian. - Yeah...
Yes, it is... - Yes, it is. - ..Mr Fry.

So it's not that it's backwards
that it's relevant,

but it's that the letters
of naive make Evian,

and the letters of naive
salad could be rearranged to make...

- Dallas. - No, that would be,
that would be two Ls, darling.

- You're absolutely right, carry on.
- Yes, yeah. Naive salad.

See if we can rearrange them.
Anyone in the audience who can see
what's going on?

- Alive. - Alan...Davies!

APPLAUSE

- JULIA: Aah, yeah! - Naive salad.

- Of course, I think your middle name
is Roger, isn't it? - It is.

So Alan R Davies would be
"anal adviser",

um, which might be even better.

The King of France might enjoy
an anal adviser.

Must get a business card
done immediately.

Or you could be "a ladies van".

But the point is,
the Kings of France enjoyed
an Anagrammateur Royale -

a royal anagrammer.
It was like a court jester.

He would make up
flattering anagrams of your name.

We probably know the famous ones,
like Britney Spears is an anagram
of...?

Presbyterians, rather strangely,
but it is.

Virginia Bottomley, who was a Tory
MP under Margaret Thatcher,

anagramatises into
"I'm an evil Tory bigot".

Which is just one of those things.

And you get ones...
The ones which always fascinate me

is "laptop machines" is
an anagram of Apple Macintosh,

- which is very extraordinary,
isn't it? - Oh, wacky.

And in Japan they had a similar
sort of wordplay fest,

which is where someone would start
off with a haiku - five, seven,

five syllables - and then someone
would add a seven syllable line.

It was called the maeku-zuke,
responding to the front line.

And you'd end up making some
witty or satirical poem on the fly.

And that's why
I asked you to write a limerick.

- So have you got a limerick for me?
Any of you? I hope you have. - I do.

- Oh, go on then. - Girls first. - Yeah.

SHE CLEARS THROAT

I carouse in a style bacchanalian

But I sleep in a way marsupalian

I like to eat cheese

But I never say please

Yes, I'm French
but I'm also Australian.

Oh, that's very good!

It's certainly better than
the one I know about an Australian.

There was a young man from Australia

Who painted his arse like a dahlia

Tuppence a smell
Was all very well

But threepence a lick was a failure.

- Alan, what have you got for us?
- I've got...

There once was a show on TV

That was always
the smart place to be

I'm fully aware
You'd rather be there

But instead you're stuck here
with me.

Oh, very good.

I like it.

I've...

I've got one about Rob Brydon.
Ooh.

- Ooh! - Just because I've found
something that rhymes with Brydon.

There was a young man
called Rob Brydon,

Whose favourite film
was the Poseidon...

Adventure...

..and he...

Would watch it regularly

That funny old man called Rob Brydon.

Very good. Excellent because that's
not an easy rhyme. Yeah, yeah.

It's easy to win on QI

You don't need an IQ that's high

Try not to be haughty
Just be a bit naughty

And make sure you please
Stephen Fry.

Yo, I like it! Very good.

I say.

Highly flattering. Many points.

Appearing one night on QI

I made up three facts on the fly

The first was untrue
The second was too

And the third
was about the size of my cock.

And it was no exaggeration, Julia.

Yes. Rob, what have you got for us?

Nothing, as will become evident.

There once was a chap
called Tim Vine...

Oh, hello.

Whose punning was simply sublime

Sat next to Alan... Oh, bugger!

OK.

There once was a man
called Tim Vine

Whose punning
was more than just fine

Sat on the panel
With no end of flannel

That lovely young chap
called Tim Vine.

Tim Vine.

Oh, that's very good,
very good. Very, very fine.

APPLAUSE

Here's one I read in one
of the Piccolo book of jokes.

There was a young man from Devizes
Whose ears were different sizes

One was quite small
And no use at all

The other was huge and won prizes.

Oh, that's very sweet.
I like that. Excellent. Well,

the strange thing about limericks
is no-one knows why

they are called limericks.
They seem to have no relationship to

the town of Limerick,
but they are and continue to be

popular
and sometimes excessively rude.

There was a young chaplain
from Kings

Who talked about God and such things

But his real desire
Was a boy in the choir

With a bottom like jelly on springs.

- There we go. - Lovely.
- Fair enough. - JULIA: Top that! - Yeah.

That brings us to the somewhat
predictable punch line that we
call the scores.

Let's see what's been happening.

Well, divine as he is,

I'm afraid in last place
with -27 is Tim Vine.

APPLAUSE

In a...

The beau of the valleys is in third
place with -6, Rob Brydon.

APPLAUSE

Not good.

And far from a failure,

that wonderful Franco-Australian
Julia, with -3.

APPLAUSE
Oh, phew. Thank you.

APPLAUSE DROWNS SPEECH

It makes men gasp
and stretch their eyes,

Alan Davies is clear winner
with +12!

APPLAUSE

So that's all
from Rob, Julia, Tim, Alan and me.

Thank you, good night
and be extremely pleasant
to each other. Bye-bye.

APPLAUSE