QI (2003–…): Season 10, Episode 7 - Journalism - full transcript

Well, goooooood...

evening, good evening, good evening,
good evening, good evening.

And to a greater or lesser extent,
good evening, and welcome to QI,

where tonight we'll be delving
into the seedy world of journalism.

Before we start sexing up the facts,

let's look at who's going to be
on my press-gang.

Hold the front page,
it's Shappi Khorsandi!

Drop the dead donkey,
it's Ross Noble.

Another world exclusive,
Johnny Vegas!

And, personally responsible
for eating Freddie Starr's hamster,

Alan Davies.



Now, before we press on,
let's hear their buzzers.

Shappi goes...

That's newsy. Ross goes...

Quite newsy, too. Johnny goes...

And Alan goes...

Very pleasing.

- That's great!
- So you've actually given...?

It's A Knockout, yeah.

You've given us the
It's A Knockout theme?

Yeah.

So at any point we can play that
and just wrestle around in that pit?

I could go "HA-HA-HA-HA!"

Then every time I press mine,
something terrible will happen.

Yes, well, yes...



I can't press my buzzer at all,
in case there's a tsunami.

A volcano has killed
the population of Sunderland.

Anyway, let's start.
What kind of person lived here?

Yes, already the tragic tones.

Initially, you think a very angry
person that's quite small.

Yes.

Small-minded, or just small?

It did genuinely exist,
this Daily Mail model village.

This was after the First World War,
when housing was in short supply

and we were trying to build
a land fit for heroes...

And it was made entirely
of Daily Mail papier mâché, was it?

Copies of the Daily Mail?

Well, the Daily Mail was never
shy about trying to draw

attention to itself with publicity
stunts of all kinds -

athletic stunts, firsts in aviation,
and so on.

It was the Daily Mail
that sponsored Amy Johnson

to fly to Australia, for example.

And they decided that they would
lead the world,

because this was the
way they ran in those days,

and they thought they would
contribute to a model village.

I can see that, like if they go,
"Let's have an air race,

"let's try and cross the Atlantic,"
they're all quite...

..like that. And, er...

- But then, model village...
- But then...

You know, it's the sort of thing
where, like, Richard Branson said,

"I'm going to send a rocket to the
moon and I'm going to take people,"

and they go, "Wow, Branson's
amazing! We're gonna fly..."

And when we get here, I'm going
to build a model village!

Well, I suppose you have
to go back to after 1919,

all those people wiped out
by Spanish flu, before that

all the people wiped out
by the First World War,

and the Daily Mail thought
we needed a new, modern Britain

with new, modern cities,
and so they devised this village

which they thought was going
to be absolutely marvellous.

But the plans were a little overambitious,
and they were overtaken by the...

Guardian village.

The company who owned the land around

and who named this new town
Welwyn Garden City.

There it was, the Daily Mail model
village at Welwyn Garden City, 1922.

It's a good job it wasn't
the Sunday Sport model village,

because it would be
the "Well-In Garden City!"

Check out the fronts of those houses!

Oooh, that's total frontage!

- Oooh, look at the gates on...
- And there is always the back alley, too!

Oh, dear. Er...

That is a rubbish model village,
it's clearly full-size.

Yeah.

Did the Daily Mail believe in giants,

and there was a readership
that they were missing out on?

So they built a model village
that was normal size,

so giants would visit and go,
"Oh, it's tiny!

"Oh, look at the attention to detail!"

Don't forget "model" has two meanings -

there's "model" in the sense of
a paragon, a model of its kind.

- That's what they meant by it.
- It's got three meanings, hasn't it?

Because "model village"
everyone just walks around like that.

The high street is called
"The Catwalk", yeah.

- Everyone's just in their pants.
- That's true!

I have to say,
I weep when I think of my childhood

and the amount of time
we spent around a model village...

- Oh, Bekonscot?
-...and what kids have today.

Yeah.

They've got so much,
and my mum and dad were going,

"Look at that, it's Big Ben but
this big," and we'd go, "Wow."

Your dad didn't drink.

My dad would go to a model village,
drink and go, "I'm King Kong!"

And just start smashing stuff!

Oh, how we'd laugh!

You know why I can't go
to model villages?

Cos when you walk around,
because of the painted faces,

they all look like people
who've been trapped by witchcraft.

- Yes, they do, don't they?
- "Help, get me out of here!"

"I'm not really queuing for a newspaper."

And I come home, shrouded in guilt,
and drink.

I don't know enough about the dark
arts to make them all fully-sized.

If only you could save them.

The fact is the Daily Mail's
model village didn't work.

They were bought up by the Welwyn
Garden City Company, who eventually

built 41 houses on the six acres
and renamed it Meadow Green.

So it was no longer Daily Mail Village.

Tell me about the Daily Mail,
who founded the Daily Mail?

- Lord Beaverbrook.
- Satan.

Not Lord Beaverbrook, that's
The Express. Satan is closer.

Was it just a load of beavers in a brook?

No, it's a family that still exists
and still controls the group.

Is it the Patak family?

No, it's not the Pataks.

That would be great!

- That would be pleasing.
- If we found out the spice dynasty...

It was founded in 1896
by Alfred Harmsworth,

who later became Lord Northcliffe.

So, Alfred Harmsworth
was a great showman

and he had a brilliant gift
for making Daily Mail readers

think they kind of owned The Mail,
so he was always having competitions

asking them how The Mail
could be improved, for example.

There were people who wrote
in and said

"You should perforate your articles

so we could tear them out, like stamps,"

which is an interesting idea.

Are you sure that wasn't for toilet paper?

Someone else suggested each page
should be perfumed differently,

so it smelt different.

And chip paper, too. What if you confused
the chip paper with the toilet paper?

Madness would ensue.

- Yeah.
- But before he was a press baron,

he actually wrote a rather QI-style book,
which had the marvellous title of

"Answers To Correspondents
On Every Subject Under The Sun."

The first edition contained articles
with headlines,

"What The Queen Eats",
"How To Cure Freckles",

and "Why Jews Don't Ride Bicycles."

And those three answers
covered everything?

Yeah, well...

- That wasn't the sum of the questions.
- Oh, right.

But part of the showman in him
was that he guaranteed

that, if you died with a copy of that
book on you, your estate would get £200.

If you come from a family like mine
where they tend to drown themselves,

that's the preferred suicide...

Right...

...without scuba gear,

how are you going to get down there
to plant the book?

I love the fact that he said
"That's the PREFERRED method"!

Like they've gone... "Oh, I've got
to do the old suicide, but..."

Well there's been a couple of sloppy ones.

Has there?

Yeah, coating themselves in dog food,
you know, going to the zoo...

Good God!

I mean, the ones who've really
thought it through.

- Oh, dear, dear, dear.
- It's not just been a last-minute...

"Lions!"

Shouldn't it be cat food? For the lions.

You walk into the lions' enclosure
covered in dog food...

Ross, they haven't thought it through!

Or else they would drown themselves.

In Japan... Sorry.

What they've introduced
on the underground, because of

the delays of people killing
themselves is the family get billed,

and the further out of the city that
you kill yourself by jumping on

their version of the Underground,
the less money you have to pay,

so everybody's been going right out to...

...like High Barnet and places like that.

Honestly! To top themselves...

"At least he had the taste to kill
himself at Cockfosters!"

Yeah.

- Have you got any happy stories?!
- No...

If you go to Clifton Suspension Bridge,

there's a sign as you get to the bridge

with the phone number of the Samaritans.

Yeah.

Just in case anyone's thinking of
jumping off. And then no telephone.

It really makes me think that
if you are feeling that way,

you're going to think "Well,
that's just typical of my luck!"

Wasn't there somebody...
I might be making this up.

Who used to hang around
at Beachy Head...

Which is a common suicide spot.

- Yeah, and talk people out of it.
- Yes, indeed.

- There's priests walking around.
- Yeah.

Priests, and ordinary good,
kind people, yeah.

But the thing about Beachy Head is
that I've been on to Beachy Head

when I've say, had a gig in Brighton,
and if you just want to have

a little sit-down, and have
a little think, people panic.

I had the police come up to me. Yeah.

Because it is such
a popular suicide spot.

Yeah, I was just having a little
bit of a read.

I think it was a bit attention
seeking of me, if I'm honest.

To be honest I was quite down.

Were you dangling your legs
over the edge(?)

Choking myself!

"I'm fine, I'm absolutely fine."

Now, listen to this obituary,

and let me know what kind
of person is being described.

"He was a tireless raconteur,

who gave colourful accounts of his
exploits, but did not suffer fools gladly."

"An uncompromisingly
direct ladies' man,

he was affable and hospitable
at every hour,

but he did not uphold the highest
ethical standards of the City."

Sounds like a bit of a wrong 'un.

Yes.

Because they're all things
that you kind of...

I've got a problem
with that expression,

- "Didn't suffer fools gladly."
- You've put your finger on it.

Who does? I don't know,
who does suffer fools gladly?

Who goes on, "Brilliant, there's a fool,
I wanna spend the weekend with it"?

You have, you're on my team.

You've put your finger on it, Shappi.

The point is, all those phrases
are what used to be obituary code,

and basically you had to translate it.

"A tireless raconteur"
means a crashing bore.

Is it Nick Clegg?

It's not one individual,
it's just these different things.

"Affable and hospitable at every hour",

or simply convivial - a drunk.

Basically, a terrible drunk.

"Uncompromisingly direct ladies' man".

A serial groper.

You'd also get, "Devoted much
of his time to the Boys' Brigade

and the Boy Scouts." That also
tells you a lot about such figures.

"Gave colourful accounts of his exploits."

- Liar.
- Liar, exactly.

"Did not uphold the highest
ethical standards of the City."

Thief.

Yeah, fraudster, basically.

Exactly. And "Did not suffer fools gladly."

Intolerant!

- A total shit, exactly.
- Yes.

A howling shit.

And these were the codes,
and you read the obituaries

and you kind of understood
what was being said about them.

The longest Times newspaper
obituary was 60,000 words.

Who do you think for?

- Was it...?
- Queen Victoria.

Queen Victoria's the right answer,
well done. Good man!

Point!

Very good.

That's very good, very good.

But can you name anyone who's actually
read his own, premature obituary?

Has anyone ever read their own
obituary while being alive?

There's a weird thing about...
You know Frankie Howerd, and...

- Benny Hill.
- and Benny Hill died on the same day,

and they rang up Benny Hill to say...

"Can you..."
This is apparently true, right.

Don't laugh, like... This is death!
I'm not inviting YOU to my funeral!

Apparently they rang up
Benny Hill to get

a quote about the death
of Frankie Howerd,

and his agent couldn't get a hold
of him, so she made up a quote.

But he'd already died.

And he was at home,
you know, in his flat,

and then the TVs were already
broadcasting his thing

on the death of somebody else,
and he was already dead.

That's such a typical agent
thing, to not realise you're dead!

My wife used to work for an agency,
and one of their clients,

who was called Rory, passed away.

But she, mistakenly,
thought it was Rory McGrath.

So for about a week,

every time somebody rang for
Rory McGrath, she'd say...

"I'm so sorry..."

And they would say,
"But I only saw him on Tuesday!"

"He seemed so well!"

I had a friend who ran an agency
like that, and her now ex-husband,

who wasn't the most sensitive
type, one of the clients,

somebody rang up, rang the house and
obviously said she'd passed away.

And he just left
a note on the fridge saying,

"Mrs Johnson, brown bread."
And so she went shopping!

Oh, no!

- He thought that she needed groceries!
- Oh, dear.

There are two stories, one was that
Alfred Nobel read his own obituary

and was described as being "a merchant
of death" because he invented...

- Dynamite.
- Dynamite, yes, exactly.

And he was so horrified,
and he wasn't dead,

that he instituted the Nobel Prizes
in order to try and reclaim his name.

That is not, in fact, a true story,
it's a myth.

The other one is Marcus Garvey,
the Jamaican black nationalist,

apparently died as a result
of reading his obituary.

He had a stroke when he read the
Chicago Defender newspaper,

which printed his obituary describing
him as "broke, alone and unpopular."

Which was terribly sad.

- That's like Googling yourself.
- Yeah.

Mine would just say,
"It's safe to come out now."

"He's gone, honest."

It would have: "Friends who knew him said,
'Yes, he really WAS like that.'"

I did say, the other day,
I was driving through Islington,

and there was a hearse
slowing everything down,

and I did say to my wife,
"If it's my funeral,

tell the bloke driving the hearse
to step on it, I would not..."

Vroom!

Instead of having a coffin, as well,
just have the body

so that as you're going round the
corners you're slamming against...

Get some chickens...

Get some chickens in a cage and some boxes
to drive through, just make it look like...

- Like an A-Team finale.
- Yeah!

What music do you want
your coffin to go...?

- When your coffin disappears?
- The Sweeney theme.

That would be a good one.

- When my dad...
- The end music when it's really slow.

When the foot presses on the accelerator.

I'd quite like the music from 'Allo, 'Allo

with "You have been watching..."
and my body like that.

You know one of the most popular
ones is the Countdown theme.

When my dad died,
he was a big fan of sailing,

so we gave him a Viking send off.

We put his ashes in a boat
and tried to set fire to it.

But, cos it was in the North Sea,
it wouldn't light...

And... So what we did was, we were
trying to fill the boat full of his ashes,

and we were going,

"Do you tip the ashes straight into
the boat, or do you put them in bags?"

And my mum, who's ever practical,
she went,

"I've got some sandwich bags,
I'll get some sandwich bags."

So we packed them in the boat,

and the we went out to sea, then off he
went and shot off into the distance.

Was it a remote-controlled boat?

- It was, yeah! Like a proper big yacht.
- You're joking!

No, seriously.

You sent your dad off
with four double-As?

Yeah, we did!

Keep going until the batteries run out!

Going around in circles!

You're there with an air rifle, like that.

And the people from the miniature
village were going, "Help that man!"

"Someone, help him!"

A little lifeboat comes out.

Did you not argue over who used
the remote control?

That wouldn't work in our family.

"Give it here, you're doing it wrong!"

"He was my dad, too!"

"Give us a go!"

The word "dignity" is not the first...

This is the thing, that's EXACTLY
what he would have wanted,

and I've said the same thing -
like Hunter S Thompson, when he died,

he was put in a cannon and fired off
across the valley he used to own,

and what I'd quite like to do
is be put in pepper spray,

and then people that I don't like

I'm going to get my wife
to go "Fffft!" like that.

Face full of Noble!

Oh my God, how did we get here?
I can't even remember.

The fact is, no matter how many
character flaws you have,

you can be sure they'll be euphemistically
dealt with in your obituary.

Journalists are not above a bit
of muck-raking, of course,

but can you describe the most
expensive piece of shit

to come out of a British bank?

Is it some sort of fossilised,
dinosodic poo in the...?

How extraordinary you are, Ross Noble.

For 20 minutes you've been
gibbering like an idiot...

...suddenly you've come up
with a brilliant answer.

You're absolutely right.

The only way you could be righter
is if you could give me

a technical name for fossilised shit.

Is there going to be faeces in the thing?

Well, yes, you can call it palaeonto-
faeces, or you can call it coprolite.

"Copra" is shit in Latin.

Coprolite sounds like a chocolate bar.

It does, rather, doesn't it?
Not a very nice one.

But it was a Lloyds Bank
in York, of all places,

and they found this period poo in 1972.

It was 23 centimetres long,
five centimetres wide, a human poo.

It was a Viking poo.

Did they find this within the bank,
or was this...?

I'm taking it it was a staff day out.

It was found under the branch,
this, sort-of, stone hanging down...

To be honest, it just looks
like an old Wotsit to me.

It does, but when you examine it
more closely you will see it is a poo,

and you can actually even
determine what was eaten,

and that is cereal bran, so they were
quite healthy and regular, and hence the...

I wouldn't say it's the most
normal looking stool I've ever seen...

So you're telling me that every time I
go to the loo I am flushing away millions?

In future I'm going to go to my bank
and have a shit there.

But I'm going to tag it
so that my family in future...

You're going to walk in and say,
"I'm just going to make a deposit."

Oh dear, oh dear.

The poo's discoverer, Andrew
"Bones" Jones, said, "This is the most..."

"The most exciting piece
of excrement I've ever seen."

"In its own way, it's as valuable
as the Crown Jewels."

There was another exciting
coprolite that was discovered.

It was a T-Rex turd that was found
in Saskatchewan in 1998,

and that was 17 inches long
and six inches thick.

And that was reckoned to be a bit
of it knocked off,

that the actual turd would have
been even bigger.

How did they know?

Was there a dead T-Rex next to it
that had pooed itself to death?

It was found reaching for
the toilet roll with its tiny claws.

- How does it wipe...?
- All T-Rex's died of frustration,

cos they couldn't get round to wipe.

Coprolites are not everybody's cup of tea,
collecting fossilised turds...

- People like poo, though.
- They do like poo, don't they?

They do like poo,
they like drawing with poo.

I went to someone's house and they
had this elephant poo painting.

But when communication breaks down,
it does make a bold statement

if we're being honest.

When you write something on the
wall, like, "Call me a taxi..."

they do do it, honestly.

You know like one of them parties
when you've had enough?

You write on the wall
with your own faeces,

people start listening to you!

You've just got to do one
big enough to go,

"I was not fond of the cheesecake..."

"...and considering you're out
of vodka and I'm low on turd,

"I would like to go home NOW."

The odd thing is when the forensic
scientists come in and find out

that it was Johnny Vegas's poo, but
it was Lorraine Kelly's handwriting.

Yeah, but the diction was perfect,

and even the sweetcorn
was used for little commas.

Oh, now! Now, there's the line!
We've found the line.

You've crossed a boundary.

Are you finding you're not selling
as much Tupperware at these parties?

I don't mean to keep it
in that area, but I will.

My wife once had,
you know those bath bomb things?

- You know those things?
- Oh, yes. Yes

- She had one of those.
- Yeah, the fizzy ones.

Yeah, and it fizzes upp,
"lass grenades" I call them.

You chuck them in the bath
and they fizz up

and fill the bath with glitter,
and I didn't realise,

went in the bath, and quite a lot
of glitter had gone in my...

...in my bum, and I didn't realise,

and I did a poo, and I looked into
the toilet, and it was sparkling, right...

I, honestly, for a minute I thought
I had a magic arse.

I honestly did. Yeah.

That was lovely.

That's a beautiful story.
Anyway, moving on.

What's the name of the
highly fortified building

where most of the gold in America is kept?

Aww! Now, don't do it, don't do it.

- Yes?
- The Beckhams' house?

The Beckham house is a good answer.

Most of the gold in America
is kept in a single place.

Is this a double bluff
and it IS going to be Fort Knox?

It's not Fort Knox, no.

Nearly twice as much gold is at the
Federal Reserve Bank in New York,

which is their equivalent
of the Bank of England.

They have there about
7,000 tonnes of bullion,

and in Fort Knox, they've got
no more than around 4,500 tonnes

- which is not quite half, but...
- A pittance!

...it's still a lot.

But they've had some interesting
things in Fort Knox apart from gold.

They've had one of
the great English treasures.

- If I were to say the year...
- Oh, Thora Hird?

Not Thora Hird. I'll say the
year 1215 to you. Does that...?

- The Magna Carta.
- Very good.

They had the Magna Carta
in Fort Knox for some short time.

They also stored the crown,
sword, sceptre, orb and cape

of Saint Stephen, King of Hungary
was stored there

and then returned to the
government in Hungary in 1978.

Was it like a cloakroom? Did he come
in? "Oh, all right, take the cape!"

"There's me orb."

Then he lost his ticket
and they wouldn't give it back.

Really annoyed.

Honestly, I am the King of Hung...
Let me try the crown on,

it's a perfect fit, I promise.

And where do Spandau Ballet
fit into the whole equation?

They're like the Rasputin
of the new government.

Is there something
I'm missing out here? There's...

Gold!

Gold!

Always believe in your soul...

- Let's sing that and run at him!
- You've got the power to know...

You're indestructible,
always believe in...

Boom, boom, GOLD!

I'm just going to move on
to the next question if I may,

which is can you think of
a way of promoting railways

that is guaranteed
to get into the papers?

- Yes?
- Make them work.

Ah! Very good! Bravo!

I like that.

- Good answer.
- Crash?

- Mmm!
- Crash them.

- You're right. You get the points.
- You're joking?!

No, I'm not.

- I just saw Branson and thought "Crash."
- Yep, make them crash.

Funnily enough, a man called Crush
was a rail magnate in America,

and in order to draw attention
to what he thought

was his supreme line across Texas,
he arranged for this public display

of two trains charging into each other.

They were either end of a four-mile track.

They then began to accelerate and then
they collided to great cheers.

However, both boilers exploded,
metal began to fly,

spectators ran in blind panic, two
young men and a woman were killed.

At least six other people were
seriously injured in the flying debris.

There's a lot of death in the show today.

Sounds like something Branson
would attempt, doesn't it?

It sounds to me like
Thomas The Tank Engine Does Die Hard!

"Thomas and Percy were flying
towards each other

in some horrific showdown to the death!"

That'd be the Thomas The Tank Engine
video game with the 18 certificate.

- Yes.
- Grand Theft Thomas!

"Thomas went chugging down where,
he killed a prostitute for extra money."

I very much like this idea.
We must write this down.

- That's good!
- "Thomas video game."

Other ways of trying to
get publicity for things.

Honore de Balzac, the great
French writer, he wrote a play.

It's called "Les Rubriques de Quinola".

And his way of drumming up real
attention for it was to tell everybody

that it was sold out. Unfortunately,
this rather backfired cos everyone thought,

"No point trying to buy a ticket."

"It's sold out, I can't go and see it."
So it was a complete failure.

There's a brilliant novel
by Ted Heller called Funnymen,

and it's about a fictional
comic double act.

In one of their shows,
someone had a heart attack

and they came upon this
brilliant publicity scam

where they would have
ambulances outside the theatre,

cos they were so funny,

it was almost certain someone
would have a heart attack and die.

Then they would have people
feigning heart attacks

and being ferried off in ambulances.

That's happened at one of my gigs.

A girl was laughing so much,
she had a really bad asthma attack.

And that's a dilemma, cos on the one
hand you're thinking, "That's terrible."

But on the other hand
you're thinking, "Ye-e-es!"

Nearly killed one!

I killed them tonight! I killed them!

That one's dead. 999 to go.

- Exactly.
- Oh, good Lord!

Now, some people will do anything for fame.

But what did The Famous Five
have lashings of?

Ginger beer.

No!

Someone had to say it.

I read all of those books.
I'm gutted that I don't know.

It's funny, cos in the books
there is only one foodstuff

that is referred to
in all the Famous Five books,

of which they had lashings.

Yeah, they... They eat the dog.

Treacle.

They don't eat the dog, no.

Asbestos.

They had lashings of asbestos.

Before they realised just how
dangerous it was in powdered form.

The dog in The Famous Five
was Asbestos?

- No, not the dog.
- Sorry, I thought the dog was Asbestos.

They just packed lots of asbestos
for its fire-retardant qualities.

- Asbestos is a very good name for a dog.
- It's good, isn't it?

Asbestos!

As-bes-tos!

The reason...

My uncle had a dog named after
Charlie Mingus, the jazz musician.

And he would, er...

It's called Mingus. Problem was, is that
he's got the same accent as me.

He'd be in the park, and he'd just
be shouting, "Mingus! Mingus!"

And the...

The local girls thought that he was...

Yeah, talking to them.

"Mingus!"
"Piss off!"

"Mingus!"
"Who are you calling mingers?"

And it led to all sorts of problems.

I'm sure it did. Why do we think
of the lashings of ginger beer?

Because of The Comic Strip Presents...

Because The Comic Strip Presents...,

their first film was The Comic Strip
Presents Five Go Mad In Dorset...

...and they kept going on about
having lashings of ginger beer.

But in the actual books,

there is no reference to
lashings of ginger beer.

But in one of the books,
Five Go Down To The Sea,

they did arrive at a Cornish farm
and immediately settled down

to a high tea of lettuce,
tomatoes, onions, radishes,

mustard and cress, carrot grated up
and lashings of hard-boiled eggs.

- Eggs! I was going to say eggs!
- You were going to say that!

- The only lashings...
- They always go in to farmhouses

- and get free eggs.
- ...Enid Blyton gave The Famous Five

were lashings of hard-boiled eggs.

- They never had lashings of ginger beer.
- That's a terrible picnic.

- Who has onions at a picnic?
- It's very hard to lash an egg.

Unless you're in some sort of
S&M thing with Humpty Dumpty.

That's why they couldn't
put him back together again.

I will give you 10 points
if you can give me, within three,

the number of books that
Enid Blyton wrote a year.

42.

You were damn close. You were
just out of range, I'm afraid.

She actually wrote 37 books a year.

And, talking of busy women, let's
move on to another question here.

Why have we never heard of
Harriet Quimby?

You've heard of Fred Quimby who
produced the...

- Tom and Jerry.
- Tom and Jerry.

And Mayor Quimby in The Simpsons,

but Harriet was the first American
woman to become a licensed pilot,

and the first woman to fly
the English Channel.

But unfortunately,

it just so happened her record-breaking
flight didn't make the news

because she completed it the day
after the Titanic sank.

So, it just was a damp squib,
to say the least.

She was famous in her day.

She was one of the very first screenwriters
at the very beginning of Hollywood.

She wrote seven scenarios for
the father of cinema, DW Griffith.

She died aged 37
at an aviation meet, sadly crashing.

But it was an impressive
and a short and brilliant life.

Who was the first man to fly
the Channel, do you remember?

Oh, we all know him! We all know
the MEN that fly the channel.

- A mean, I don't...
- Well, he was the first person.

Louis Bleriot. It was one
of the great achievements.

He flew from England to France,
but the French authorities,

when he landed, didn't have a form,

and so they signed him in as having landed

on a yacht called Monoplane, because
that's the best they could do.

It was a huge feat at the time, and
it was a £1,000 prize offered by...?

The Daily Mail?

Of course,
the Daily Mail. Well done. Exactly.

But you know what, Harriet
did that backwards and in heels.

Exactly. Very good. Good point.

- Thank you.
- I'm sure it was harder for her.

But it can be...

It can be very difficult
to die at the wrong time.

Can you think of people who died
unfortunately on the same day

as somebody even better known
than themselves?

Oh, I know!

Mother Teresa.

Yes. Who died the same day as...?

- As Diana. The Princess of Wales.
- Precisely.

So she was not only below
the fold, she was over the page.

I only realised couple of months ago,
that Mother Teresa was dead.

Yes, yes. Who died on
the same day as Michael Jackson?

- Arr! It was an actress, wasn't it?
- Yes.

Farrah Fawcett!

Farrah Fawcett is
the right answer, well done!

Summoned up from nowhere.

I've just found out this moment
that Farrah Fawcett's dead!

- Oh, you didn't know that?
- I had no idea!

She died on the same
day as Michael Jackson.

Apparently when the ambulance men
were driving up Michael Jackson's drive,

they heard he wasn't breathing
and they're driving up there

and one goes, "What are we
going to try first?"

And the other one went,
"I reckon the rollercoaster."

Terrible.

But do you do that
thing where, if you're on a plane

and there's somebody famous on there,
you look at them and think,

"If this goes down, who's
going to get top of the bill?"

I have to say, I haven't yet thought that.

It would be a sad thought, wouldn't it?
"Would I get the headline?"

I was on a plane with Sting once.

Well, "Sting and Alan Davies
Go Down" would be... I don't know...

Could be good news.

- It was in Australia...
- "Sting and Jonathan Creek man!"

We were going on an
internal flight in Australia,

and he knelt on his seat talking to the
person behind him the whole flight,

so everyone on the plane
could see him for the whole...

And he didn't do a
single song, not one song!

Was he not just doing Yoga? He was
sat there but his head was fully...

Fully twisted.

Finally, 22nd of November 1963.
Who died then?

- Kennedy.
- Right, so, JFK.

That was obviously huge news,
the American president dying.

As it happens,

two very distinguished authors
died on the same day.

Both British, as it happens.

CS Lewis and Aldous Huxley both
died on the same day as Kennedy,

so both got rather
tiny-winy little obituaries.

Now, how can you get a German on your
side before he's even had his Corn Flakes?

Allow him to put his towel over them first.

Mine definitely do. This is a
reference to a very specific operation

in the Second World War, and it was
called Operation...?

Corn Flakes.

Operation Corn Flakes, exactly.

Put the milk in the bowl first,
because it's more...

Maddens them!

- Does it?
- No, no!

Really?!

You can tell me anything now
and I'll believe it.

This was an ingenious method
of distributing Allied propaganda.

What they do is a bomber would
bomb a mail train in Germany

and a second plane would come along
and drop tonnes and tonnes

of fake mail addressed
to real German addresses,

that was filled with
anti-German propaganda.

Some of the stamps were even...
You can see the one on the far right,

they looked so like the real one.

That says, "Futsches Reich," "Ruined
Empire." And it has Hitler as a skull.

And those were the normal stamps
the German empire had at the time.

A group in Rome prepared envelopes

with more than two million
names and addresses.

And the whole point was that the
train had appeared to be derailed

and the people would come to rescue
the mail and they'd see amongst it

these mailbags that where identical to
proper German postal mailbags

that had been dropped by
the second Allied bomber,

and they were in fact addressed
to hundreds of thousands of people

telling them they were losing the war,
that Hitler was lying to them.

It was known as Operation Corn Flakes

because they opened their letters
with their Corn Flakes, as it were.

That's quite interesting,
don't you think?

But it's time,
I think, for a Dubious Theory.

"A Dubious Theory from Stephen Fry."

Yes, erm, according to
Dutch writer Iman Wilkens,

the Trojan War actually took place
in England, near Cambridge.

The area which Homer calls Crete
was Scandinavia, Sparta was Spain

and Lesbos was the Isle of Wight.
Dubious or not?

and then decide for yourself.

"A Dubious Theory From Stephen Fry"

Is that a website that's been
set up by the elves?

Yes, it is. But it basically
assembles all the facts

which people who genuinely adhere
to this theory, that the Trojan War

really does not seem to qualify
for a Greek war. For example,

there's no mention of any Greeks anywhere.

Troy's attackers are referred to
as Danaeans and Achaeans,

who could be Danes, could be people
from Argos, the kingdom of Northern France.

And Homer's Troy also has a climate
which is very un-Mediterranean,

full of storms and wind and rain.

But Stephen, were this true, would we
not have relics all around East Anglia?

Swords and helmets
and that kind of thing?

And a massive rotten old horse...

- And a rotten old horse, exactly.
-...in Cambridge City Centre.

Exactly! There are counter arguments,

and most people will believe
that it is dubious.

Canakkale in Turkey is
generally believed to be

the archaeological site of Ilium or Troy,

but there are serious
historians who maintain

that Homer was writing
about a Trojan War

that in fact took place in Britain.
In East Anglia, would you believe?

All right, What kind of hat
did they wear in the Wild West?

Ten-gallon hat.

Ten-gallon hat?

Five-gallon hat?

No, no.

Of course, cos now it's litres, isn't it?

- 45 litre?
- No, no litres or gallons.

Was it a Stetson? Can I have Stetson?

It wasn't a Stetson, no.

- The most popular hat by far...
- A cap, a flat cap.

No.

It was the, it was the...

- Say it.
- A bowler hat.

Yes, a bowler hat is the right answer.

Far and away.

There we are.

We think of the bowler hat
as the British businessman,

but in fact it was THE
preferred hat in the West.

That's a pretty wild bunch, there.
Butch Cassidy, seated front right.

Sundance Kid, Harry Longabaugh,
of course, front left.

In fact, their pride in having their
photographs taken with those hats

was their undoing, because the Pinkerton
agency reproduced the photographs

and gave it to their agents, who
tracked them down and killed them.

It was hat makers Thomas and William
Bowler who created the hat,

but they weren't known as bowler hats
in America, nor are they to this day.

What do they call them?

- Derbies.
- Derbies, yes. "Darbies" or "derbies"

Bowlers basically were much more
common in the Wild West than Stetsons.

Who fancies a shoot-out with
a real, live vortex canon?

I've given you one each, next. You've
got a box. See that box, there?

It's simply a box, all right?

Now, the hole is
where the vortex emerges,

so if you lean it so that the hole
is pointing at the target, all right?

And basically, what you've got to do
is smack the side of the box.

All right? After three, two, one... Smack!

Very good. There you are!

But what we can...

Yes. What we can do,
before you destroy the box,

Before you destroy the box, you can
do something even more exciting,

and that is fill it with smoke,

and it will demonstrate what,
in fact, was happening with the air.

You should all have smoke machines.

That's it, fill with smoke.
Fill it with smoke. And now...

Look! Look at that!

Just a gentle tap. That is a vortex,
those beautiful smoke rings.

A lovely one, there.

I've got a...

I've got an enormous cannon, here.

I'm gonna fill mine with...

I'll see if I can get mine across the...

- You can even chase each other!
- Across the room, here.

Here we go.

I've got it the wrong way round, obviously.

We'll let the smoke drift a little.

Would anyone like a big dustbin?

It's simply pressure of air
creating this wonderful vortex.

- No, it's not, it's magic.
- Nice one, Alan!

Hey, with this kind of magic we could
make the tiny people big again.

Basically, ladies and gentlemen, that's it.

Hours of fun can be had...

...playing with your own home-made...

- ...vortex canon.
- Quick! More smoke!

And I suppose it must be time
now for me to give the scores.

And how interesting they are.

In first place, with minus 5,

is Ross Noble.

Second equal with minus 6,

Alan Davies and Johnny Vegas.

And a slightly unhappy Shappi
with minus 17.

Those lovely smoke rings.
Lovely smoke rings.

So, that's all from Shappi,
Johnny, Ross, Alan and me.

And I will leave you with
this from Abraham Lincoln.

"The trouble with quotes taken
from the Internet

is that you can
never know if they are genuine."

Thank you and good night.