QI (2003–…): Season 11, Episode 12 - Knights and Knaves - full transcript
Good evening, good evening,
good evening, good evening,
good evening, good evening
and welcome to QI,
where tonight we'll be sorting out
the Knights from the Knaves.
Strapping on the breastplate
of interestingness,
we have a goodly knight,
Sue Perkins.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
A knight to remember,
Victoria Coren.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
A very perfect, gentle knight,
the Reverend Richard Coles.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
And the long, dark knight
of the soul, Alan Davies.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
And their knightly noises
all come from naves.
Sue goes...
PLAINSONG PLAYS
Lovely. And Victoria goes...
PLAINSONG PLAYS
Richard goes...
PLAINSONG PLAYS
And Alan goes...
♪ Fruity, fruity, fruity!
♪ Fruity, fruity, fruity! ♪
Yes.
♪ Fruity, fruity, fruity! ♪
Yes!
♪ Fruity, fruity, fruity! ♪
Let... You have been warned.
LAUGHTER
Let's head straight to the lists.
Why was the Black Prince so-called?
PLAINSONG PLAYS
Rev Richard?
Well, if my Ladybird Book Of Princes
is to be trusted,
it's because he had black armour.
KLAXON
Ey! It's the one occasion where
the inestimable Ladybird series
has let you down.
There is no evidence.
Is it like Reservoir Dogs,
where they weren't allowed
to use their first names
and they got a sign up saying,
"You're the Black Knight,
you're the White Knight,
"you're the Pink Knight"?
"Why do I have to be the Pink
Knight?" "Just be the Pink Knight."
It might as well be true.
♪ Fruity! ♪
- Yes? - Was he black?
LAUGHTER
Well, oddly enough,
his mother was perhaps
of Moorish descent.
- Ah. - Philippa of Hainault.
Which is a Tube line, isn't it?
- Hainault is very near where
I grew up. - Oh, there you are.
- 'Ainault. - ANAL. Do you like ANAL?
Anal... Steady!
LAUGHTER
I just... Is it, is Hainault good?
Is, is...
LAUGHTER
- What, what, what happened? - I don't
know. - Did something happen there?
I mean...
APPLAUSE
I find, at the end of every Tube
line, you do get a good Hainault.
I think it falls to me
to rescue this, somehow.
Yes, I think you should, yes.
Did you know that the oldest British
door comes from Hainault?
- No. The oldest door? - Well,
it's in Westminster Abbey,
it's a door which connects
a cloister to the Abbey,
and the Canons of Westminster
live behind it,
and they dated their door.
And they found that the wood
it was made from
was growing in Hainault
in the 10th century.
Wow! Are you proud?
I am very proud of the door.
The sign painters are getting busy
right now, going,
"Home of the oldest door."
- It's a reason to get off at Hainault,
finally. - Yeah.
Is it a wood that grew there
a thousand years ago?
Yeah. Well, Philippa of Hainault
was perhaps of Moorish descent.
So that may be the reason
he was called the Black Prince,
- we don't know for a fact.
- I'm wondering, do you think
the Black Prince might have been
called the Black Prince cos
his sins were as black as pitch?
Yes. I mean, although he was known
as the Master Of Chivalry,
he almost destroyed the entire
population of Limoges and Caen.
- He doesn't look like he's capable
of it. - No, he doesn't, does he?
I know a fact
about the Black Prince.
I don't know if it's definitely
a fact,
but this is something
my husband told me.
David Mitchell told you something
and you believe it?
You know those sort of early dates
when you're just
talking about whether you were
happy at school and heraldry.
LAUGHTER
Is this true that - wait now -
he stole something off a corpse?
I remember the romance
of the moment...
- You're thinking of, "Ich Dien."
- Yes, "Ich Dien,"
which the Prince of Wales wears now,
that was stolen by the Black Prince
off a corpse on a battlefield.
That's right,
and it was the feathers as well,
the three feathers that are the
symbol of the Prince of Wales.
It was the King of Bohemia and he
had a very serious disability,
but he still rode into battle.
He was blind.
That explains appalling make-up.
LAUGHTER
That was the King of Bohemia who
went into battle against him,
and he defeated him
and took his colours,
which were the three
Prince of Wales feathers
and the motto, "I serve."
"Ich Dien."
Do you know, stealing from
dead people was a quite big...
Do you know St Hugh of Lincoln,
the great St Hugh of Lincoln...
I think we are all pretty, yes,
up to speed on St Hugh of Lincoln.
He was one of the great saints
of the Middle Ages,
but he was staying with some monk
friends in France,
and they had the preserved arm
of Mary Magdalene...
I thought I'd got that?!
- You got the other one.
- 25 quid I paid for that!
He bent down to venerate it
and while he was down there,
he bit off her finger. It's true.
He took it back to Lincoln.
When you say, "It's true,"
I happen to know you have written
a book on rather obscure saints and
are you suggesting that everything
about all of them is true?
I'm suggesting that very
little about them is true.
The biting off the finger
of Mary Magdalene is true.
His friendship with a swan
is doubtful.
When you say, "Friendship with a
swan," are you being euphemistic?
No, his best friend was a swan.
And it's depicted in one of his,
sort of, portraits,
that he walks around with a swan.
But if you look
at Lincoln Cathedral,
it has a vault which is all
wonky, which he built, which is
said to suggest the flight
of a swan's wing.
That's great
if builders do something wrong.
They could just say, "I was trying
to evoke a swan's wing."
"Yes, that's right.
"No, that is a symbol
of me being crap at building."
He really did bite off the finger.
There was a huge, huge trade
in bitten off relics.
You know, you weren't
on the ecclesiastical map
until you had a good
dead bit of someone.
So he was notorious for stuffing
his mouth with bitten off
members of one kind or another.
LAUGHTER
The Black Prince, of course, was,
as I say, leader of chivalry
and chivalry was all about jousting,
so can you tell me anything
about jousting?
What the rules were of jousting
in the lists, as they were called?
You had to...
Now, there is the big,
massive cotton bud
and you have to hit the shield?
You get a point if you hit
the shield or their breastplate?
Absolutely right.
The rules vary but one set of rules
we have is that you win
- the joust if you get three points.
- That's how we do it in Croydon.
You get three points and you get
a point for knocking someone
straight on the breastplate
so that it shatters the lance.
A glancing blow doesn't count.
In the dinner show at the Excalibur
casino in Las Vegas, the winner
is the last one to
jump off their horse.
- Do they really have that? - Yes,
it's a brilliant show
because they've got King Arthur
and he fights against his long lost
son Prince Christopher.
I think the people that put
the show together don't
know that there's other people
in the story apart from King Arthur.
They thought, "Well,
we can't have a story
"that only gives you one person,
- "so we will just invent
Prince Christopher." - Christopher?
Yes, and he wins
because he gets off his horse last
and then you all have a
big piece of chicken.
But there's no Game Of Thrones...
with those noises
and heads coming off
and blood spurting out?
- They're real people so... - Oh, right.
There are ways of doing that.
Do you have to dress as a wench?
You say have to.
LAUGHTER
Yes, they give you some plaits to put
on. Sounds all a bit Bavarian!
This is the Excalibur
English-themed casino.
It is sort of
Harry Potter, Robin Hood, King Arthur
and the Queen are
all roughly the same vintage.
You can buy memorabilia of all
of them in the same shop.
How many people are sitting
down for dinner at this event? 200.
It's much like this room actually.
If Richard and I now galloped towards
each other on horseback with lances,
as I very much hope we will later,
that's exactly what it would be like.
It's just people have buckets of
chicken... Don't they get a bit...
Getting a horse into a casino is
a fairly elaborate thing, isn't it?
Las Vegas has white tigers.
They had Siegfried & Roy
- with their white tigers. - They do.
They don't really have
Siegfried & Roy any more.
- There was a terrible mauling. - Yes.
Actually, I really
respected Siegfried & Roy
a lot more after that
because for years,
people thought they were all cheesy
and mainstream
and then one of them had his head
bitten off by a tiger.
It showed that every night they were
actually taking a risk.
- They really were. - The Vicar of
Stiffkey, he was bitten by a lion.
- He was, Roger something or other.
- Harold Davidson I think it was.
You're right.
He was in the '30s, I think,
he was a vicar of Stiffkey,
but he used to try and reform
prostitutes in what we'd say
is in a very hands-on ministry
kind of way.
LAUGHTER
That's what a prostitute
needs really.
Just a bit more prostituting,
but with a goodly hand.
He was tireless in his dedication
to his flock
and rather got in a soup,
and he ended up as a lion tamer
in I think it was Skegness.
It went horribly wrong
and he was bitten by his lion
and that was the end of the
Vicar of Stiffkey.
Are you sure you're not accidentally
recounting the plot of a limerick?
Anyway. So there we are.
Now, what is the first rule
of Knight Club?
LAUGHTER
The first rule of Knight Club?
- Yeah. - Well...
..you don't talk about Knight Club.
KLAXON
APPLAUSE
Oh! It had to be.
- Somebody had to. - Well done.
- Yeah, exactly. - I fell on my sword,
which seems appropriate.
- Yeah, it was, exactly.
It is an existing club,
or a club from the olden times?
No, it's a very olde-times club
of knights.
The most famous group of knights
of...
- Templar. - The Knights Templar.
There are still people who think
they still exist and, you know,
in the sort of Dan Browny
kind of way,
but they actually folded up in 1314.
But they were very powerful.
It was after the First Crusade,
they were formed, in Jerusalem.
And they were allowed to do almost
anything. The law didn't apply to
them in Jerusalem,
which annoyed a lot of people,
but there were certain things
they weren't allowed to do.
They weren't allowed
to breed ferrets?
To breed ferrets!
Anything else you know about them?
- Well, you know they look like that.
- Chew gum.
- I know about ley lines.
- Go on then.
- They made them. - They made...
You see,
you've been reading
these stupid books about knights,
"Apparently, they are responsible
for laying ley lines."
- No, well... - "No."
- They know where they are, anyway.
Yes, they do.
They've got them all hidden.
- No sex? - Well, yeah, they were
allowed to marry,
but if they married, they weren't
allowed to wear the white and red
uniform.
There was no hunting except lions.
LAUGHTER
- That's quite specific. - That would
actually be a brilliant rule for now,
wouldn't it?
There's so much debate about
whether you should hunt or not.
Please everyone - "OK, hunting
is allowed, but only lions."
Lions. That's very true.
They were only allowed one squire
each, no telling tales,
no lockable purses.
- Oh. - Yeah.
I suppose they have to show
their trust or something like that.
But their last and most important
rule was no kissing.
"Lastly, we hold it dangerous
to all religion
"to gaze too much
on the countenance of women
"and therefore, no brother shall
presume to kiss neither widow,
"nor virgin, nor mother, nor sister,
nor aunt, nor any other woman."
But anal's all right.
LAUGHTER
Well...
APPLAUSE
It's very funny you should say that,
because one of the reasons
they were closed down is there was
a charge against them...
Too much buggery. Yeah.
There was a charge against them.
"Deosculabantur se in ore,
in umbilico, seu ventre nudo,
"et in ano, seu in spina dorsi."
"Et in ano."
- Et in ano. - "Et in ano."
- And the end, yeah. - Yeah.
And in Hainault.
And the accusation was that they
kissed one another on the mouth,
on the naval, the bare belly,
the anus, or the backbone.
- Well, they were thorough. - They were!
LAUGHTER
When you're looking for a ley line,
you don't want to leave any stone
unturned.
"There might be one
coming out of his arse!"
"I'll have a look."
- But that is... - "Right, that's
enough! That's enough, Templars!"
LAUGHTER
Did you know that the Temple Church
in London, which was founded by the
Knights Templar, and there are still
some Knights Templar lying around...
- Dead ones, yeah. - There's a unique
title for, if you're the priest
in charge there,
you're the Reverend and Valiant
Master of the Temple.
- Oh, that's very good.
- Which sounds like something
from a Star Wars movie.
- The Reverend and Valiant Master of
the Temple. - Yeah. - In that picture,
is he going,
"Show me on the cross
where he kissed you?"
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
They're all going, "Yeah, yeah."
He's saying,
"But my arms are much too long."
- Yes. - "I'm not going to fit on this."
Yes. "You're going
to nail me against the air."
- It's true... - "You're going to have
to just nail my ears to it."
There you go.
Kissing, of course, has long been
a controversial thing
and in the 20th century,
there were anti-kissing leagues.
What do you think they objected to?
- There you are. - Transmission
of disease? - Yes, you're right,
it was a hygiene issue.
I read a thing also that
when trains first began,
women travelling on their own in
compartments were supposed to put
pins in their mouths
lest, when they went through a
tunnel, someone tried to kiss them.
- I read that as well! It's hilarious!
- Nail gun their mouths shut?
Mouths full of pins.
No, with the pin facing outwards, so
if someone went, "Oh, I have to!"
They were in for a rude surprise.
Yes, I do that in tunnels,
- just in case. - I consider myself
warned. I'd keep a pin in my anus.
- Oh, dear! - In case any Knights
Templar... - were around the place.
Oh, you bad person.
OK, what makes you think
this knight is a total bastard?
- Oh, he looks like a mean...
His hat. - Oh... - Not his hat.
PLAINSONG PLAYS
- Richard? - He's got a diagonal
white stripe across his lions,
which means he's been naughty.
- No, he hasn't been naughty at all.
- I beg his pardon.
Is he, oh, is he illegitimate?
Has his father been naughty?
His father's been naughty. It's
what's known as the "bend sinister".
Oh, we've all had bend sinister.
It starts at the bottom left
and goes up to the top right,
which indicates you are a bastard.
And in his case,
there's more information
just on that simple coat of arms.
The three lions.
- No, he's not the bastard son
of Wayne Rooney. - Wayne Rooney.
Yeah, yeah.
LAUGHTER
Something told me
you were going to say that.
Is the red significant?
Yes, it's the Royal Family.
It's a royal coat of arms.
- So he's a royal bastard. - Yeah.
- So he's a Fitz-John or something?
- A Fitz? - Fitz-Herb, Fitz...
- Fitz-Herbert?
- Fitz-John, Fitzroy. Of course.
- Fitzroy. His name would be Fitzroy.
Fitz is the "son of"
and roy, "roi", is king.
And one particular king
had five Fitzroys from his mistress.
Who would that be?
- Who was a really... - Oh, hang on,
George, one of the Georges?
No. Go back a bit. Rewind.
- Henry VIII. Charles II.
- Charles II. - Henry VII.
- No, Charles II. We got there.
- Charles II.
- We got there without you.
Charles II. - Shouting out some kings
to move it along.
Very good. She was called Barbara
Palmer and she bore him five...
- Babs. - Five, Babs Palmer.
They don't think of the Babs,
do they?
She might have been a Babs,
I expect, yeah.
- Queen Babs. - Yeah. - "You Fitz'd me up
again." - You Fitz'd me up.
And we have a Henry...
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
But does it cancel out, if the one
with the stripe then marries
and has a legitimate son,
don't they take the stripe away?
Ah, that would be very good.
No, I think you keep it,
I think, in your coat of arms.
There are certain things which
indicate something very
extraordinary about your shield.
- What do you think they are?
- OK. - They have a particular meaning.
PLAINSONG PLAYS
Yeah?
Is it visible panty line?
LAUGHTER
Oh...
It's terrible, really,
they get terrible VPL.
It's not visible panty line.
It's the colours, actually,
are indicative of...
Status?
Of sin. Of a mistake, an error.
They're known as abatements,
also as "stains"
as in a stain on the family name,
or a stain on the...
Oh. So what can a stain be?
- It's got to be very serious if it's
going on your coat of arms. - I know.
Well, the first is called
the point champaine tenne,
and it's for killing a prisoner
who has demanded quarter, or mercy,
which is really ungentlemanly.
But how would anybody know that
you had done that?
You'd have to have a witness. A very
good point. It's true of any crime.
They'd have to have something
on their shield.
Witnessing someone killing
someone who's asked for quarter -
you've got to have
something on their shield.
That's true, and not intervening.
You're right.
- But how would you know that they'd
done that... - I don't know!
..and not intervened.
They'd definitely need something
on their shield.
They'd have massive whistles and
say, "You grassed me up!"
And the shield would
just be full of stuff.
- A shield within a shield...
- "You don't clean the
toilet properly."
"You've got a toilet brush, you
don't do it, you get one of those."
It's endless.
It's a bit like points
on a driving licence, isn't it?
- It is. You're absolutely right.
- It's the points on the shield for...
- Yeah. Exactly.
And the next one here,
which we'll have a look at.
Needs dusting.
LAUGHTER
This is called the delf tenne,
and that's for issuing a challenge
and then bottling out.
- Coward. - Yeah. - That's a big old
yellow smudge on that.
Exactly. Very much a smudge
on the coat of arms.
And then, we have a gusset,
a gusset sanguine sinister.
- A gusset sanguine? - Yeah.
On a knight, really?
Yeah, I know, absurd, isn't it?
- Gusset sanguine....
- There's no reason for you to get it.
- Well, the sanguine is the colour.
- So a bloody... - It's blood colour.
It's for being drunk.
And you have
a gusset sanguine dexter.
Which is on the right, and that's...
- Is being... - Being stoned?
- Being an adulterer. - Oh, right.
And there you are.
Now we have one that you have
to guess, so tell me what this is.
You're a drunken adulterer.
There you are, you see,
points for listening.
So that's the whole world
of heraldry.
In a way, it's sort of a nicer
design for the drunken adulterer.
- It is, isn't it?
- I feel like it's too rewarding.
Is it two gussets or a wine glass?
Well, that's the choice facing
the drunken adulterer.
Yes, exactly. Exactly.
LAUGHTER
- It's perfect. - Every Saturday.
APPLAUSE
Oh, they knew what they were doing.
Did you know that if you're
a clergyman you can't have
a helmet on your coat of arms?
- Oh, thank God. - Phew!
LAUGHTER
Because you can't have been
a chaplain or something?
No, you can't do anything
which is... Did you know that
if you're a clergyman,
if you go to a black tie do,
you can't have a stripe
down your trousers?
- No. - Because, no,
because it's a military insignia.
- Oh. - And you can't have that.
And you can't have a helmet
because it's a martial sign.
So you have to have this sort of,
it's a lovely sort of,
do you remember Bill and Ben?
It's a bit like that,
it's called a galero.
- Oh, how fabulous. - And it's black
if you're a priest and red
if you're a Cardinal.
And if you're the Pope, you get
a pointy one with three tiaras.
- Oh! - Oh. Quite the fellow.
I want to be Pope now.
I think you'd look good in that.
You've got to...
Oh, you've got to have it.
- Who decides this? - There are people
who apply to, they decide.
Isn't it the College of Arms?
And you have to pay.
How do you become one of
the people that decide?
How do you become a herald?
If you go to Garter Day at Windsor
Castle, they turn out for that.
LAUGHTER
I need to see photos of Garter Day
at Windsor Castle.
It's very exciting
because it's a big do
and if they install new
Knights of the Garter,
you are in there for hours,
then you hear sort of tramping
from miles away and all of a sudden,
the beefeaters come in all done up.
- Then you get the College of
Heralds... - It's like a gay tsunami!
They carry things,
have special big T-shirts.
Saying, "War. What is it good for?"
LAUGHTER
So that's our knights
with their shields.
You also find knights
on a chess board, of course.
So what I want to know is
this very strange conundrum.
What's the maximum number of knights
you can have on a chess board,
such that none of them
can take another one?
- Oh, multiples of eight, I suppose.
- I'll give you, you can try it out.
So that none can...
Maximum number.
What you have to do is understand
what a knight's move is.
Stephen, I don't understand
the question.
It's the maximum, it's the maximum
number of knights you could
have on a chess board,
such that none can take the other.
Have you noticed something in common
with the ones you're putting down?
- They're all the same. - The same, OK,
the same colour, so...
Yes, because a knight move
must take a different colour.
- Oh. - So 32.
- 32 is the right answer! - Oh.
It's really very simple when you
think about it, isn't it? Very good.
APPLAUSE
It's one of those things that sounds
very complicated, that you
have to work out for ages,
- but there you are. - I still don't
understand it at all.
Well, none of those knights
can take another knight.
- But isn't that rather more knights
than we're used to? - Yes.
LAUGHTER
It's a problem,
it's not a real chess situation.
- It's if you had... - Because they
move, because of the way they move,
diagonal and up one, they move to
the alternate colour.
- Yes. - So if you've got all
the knights on the same colour,
they cannot take...
- Exactly right, I mean, that's how...
- Oh, I get it.
In the centre of the board,
you're controlling eight
different squares there.
They're all a different colour,
the knights are on a black square.
So all you have to do is put them
all on a black or a white square.
When you move your knight,
do you make a horsey noise?
HE WHINNIES
Do you? That's so sweet.
HE SNORTS AND SPUTTERS
And when you move your rook.
SHE CAWS
When I do the bishop...
HE IMITATES PLAINSONG
- When you do your queen, "Hello."
- "Hello." - "Hello."
That's your bishop.
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
- Oh, you're going
to get in such trouble. - No!
You're going to get in trouble
from both sides.
I've been going, "Ooh, you are awful,
but I like you."
You're getting into trouble
from both sides, Richard.
If the Bishop of Peterborough
is watching this evening,
you'll have my resignation on your
desk in the morning, by the way.
- He confirmed me, not the present
one. - Which one? - Oh, God knows.
- Was it the rudest bishop in the
Church of England? - It could've been.
He just gave me a piece of the Host
and moved on to the next line.
- He gave you a piece of the Host?!
- Yes.
What the hell kind of party was it?!
It's what you would call the bread
and wine, as well you know,
you secret religious, you.
I think it might have been
Bishop Westwood
who, interestingly, is the father
of Tim Westwood, the hip-hop DJ.
- Good gracious!
- Does he speak like him?
Does he have a particular
way of speaking?
Tim Westwood talks like a hip-hop
star from the West Coast of...
- Oh, does he? A false American
accent? - It's very effective.
- Ali G is based on Tim Westwood.
- Really?
But his father was the
Bishop of Peterborough
who was famous for knitting.
LAUGHTER
- It's true! - For knitting?!
The knitting Bishop!
There were items on
Look East about his knitting.
Isn't there a version of chess
for kind of chess-heads
called fairy chess,
where the pieces do more things?
- What a wonderful... - I'm not making
this up, I'm sure this is true.
- Fairy chess.
That there's versions of chess where
you can call these fairy pieces
- and they can do extra things.
- How many drugs did you take
when you were hanging out
with Jimmy Somerville?
So you can just go, you're playing
chess and suddenly you go,
"No, we're playing fairy chess now."
♪ La, la, la, la, la... ♪
Checkmate.
Yeah, well, I don't have
to touch the pieces.
- Yeah. - Oh, I see.
- The whole point of chess is its
limitations. Yeah. - Yes. Precisely.
It's all about the strictness
in which you have to operate.
But hang on, Mrs Poker Player
Victoria Coren Mitchell,
aren't there versions of poker
where they kind of introduce
wild cards and stuff to kind of get
it...? It's the same sort of thing.
Yeah, poker's different.
As Martin Amis once said,
"In chess, the properties
of a bishop are fixed.
"In poker, it's all wobbled through
the prism of personality."
- Very good. - A beautiful quote.
- Beautifully put.
Although, even chess players will
say the best chess move to play
is not the best chess move,
it's the move your opponent
would least like you to play.
So in that sense, it
is very like poker.
Anybody who played Kasparov,
for example,
will say that the moment he sat
down at the table, you felt beaten.
He was so virile, so big, like a...
Five o'clock shadow at
ten in the morning
and he hunched over the board.
But what nobody ever tried with
Kasparov was just grabbing the queen
and shouting,
"I'm playing fairy chess!"
That's exactly right! Exactly right!
You can put your boards away now,
children. There you go.
32. Brilliantly deduced
by Sue "Brilliant" Perkins.
Kasparov wouldn't have liked it
if you'd gone...
HE BLUSTERS
..every time.
He'd have liked it even less if you
did it when he moved his!
LAUGHTER
It's a brilliant strategy!
Every time he moved his knight,
you'd go...
HE WHINNIES
"Put me back in the stable!"
- With fairy chess, it could go...
- HE NEIGHS
- Victoria, what was that line,
that Martin Amis line again?
- It's beautiful.
"In chess, the properties
and powers of a bishop are fixed.
"In poker, it is wobbled through
the prism of personality."
But do you know
when he said that, Stephen?
It was after a poker game
that you and I and he all played.
- Yes, I remember, in Wales.
- Many years ago. - With the
then-unknown Ricky Gervais.
Ricky Gervais was knocked out,
got up and said,
"What am I supposed to do now?"
And you said, "There's a shotgun
in the drawer."
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
Oh, God.
That would be a very good,
very good title for a book.
So, now, name a place
where a knight can be buried.
The ground.
KLAXON
Amazingly not.
APPLAUSE
You must be astonished
to know that isn't true.
Do they have to be buried
above the ground?
No, I'm saying that
they can be buried,
but where can they be buried?
In a...tomb?
- A vault? - A hole.
LAUGHTER
- A pyramid. - A pyramid.
The fact is, is the moment you are
dead, you are no longer a knight.
- You're not a knight any more!
- Oh, of course! - Right.
Cos everyone was shouting
about how Jimmy Savile should
have his knighthood taken away. But
they'd have had to give it back
to him, in order to take it away.
You're no longer a member
of the Order the moment you die.
So the moment you die, you're not
a knight. So you can't bury a knight
anywhere.
Unless you're very mean
and bury them alive, I suppose.
Do you know who has the record for
turning down the most knighthoods?
- No. - LS Lowry. He turned down more
honours than anybody else.
- Good Lord! - Mr Pin Man? Mr Stick
Drawing? - Matchstick men, yeah.
Alan Bennett certainly turned
one down. Who else do we know?
The art, isn't it,
is turning one down
so everybody knows you've
turned it down.
So everyone knows without you
telling them, which I refuse to do.
I turned one down. We all thought
that was a poorly-kept secret.
- You haven't quite grasped this,
Alan. - Sir ANAL Davies.
LAUGHTER
I'm sorry to go on about it,
but if you're a clergyman,
and you're knighted,
you can't call yourself Sir.
- Whoa! - Unless you are knighted
before you're ordained,
and then you can be
the Reverend Sir or Lady.
- What a swiz! - It's a chivalric order,
you can't be...
It's military, isn't it,
if you're a knight?
Exactly, so you can't be that if
you're a vicar. You can't bear arms.
You can bare legs though,
can't you? Yes. Ha-ha!
LAUGHTER
So, there are no dead knights,
only dead former knights.
Which knight's luggage included
cannabis, bladders,
shark intestines, strychnine,
chilli pepper, cocaine,
- heroin and Kendal Mint Cake?
- PLAINSONG PLAYS
Yes, Sue Perkins.
I say to get him through
Eurovision, Terry Wogan.
KLAXON
- APPLAUSE
- We got there! We got there!
Oh, you've got them all!
We've thought of all the heroic
endurance struggles, yes.
PLAINSONG PLAYS
- Was it Sir Edmund Hillary?
- It wasn't Sir Edmund Hillary,
although Sir Edmund Hillary
did take Kendal Mint Cake
right up the Everest.
Really?! I didn't know that was
a serving suggestion!
I'm going to go home
and try it now, though.
It was one of the many things
that made Kendal Mint Cake
famous in its day,
when it was famous perhaps.
- Was it Ranulph Fiennes? - You're in
exactly the right area. - Shackleton?
Sir Ernest Shackleton is the answer.
The Antarctic explorer.
- That's him in the darker polo neck.
- It's a really fun job, isn't it?
The endurance was astonishing.
- They all look like Captain Birdseye.
- They don't look happy.
The one on the right actually can't
open his eyes any more.
- Is it true the he used to take
strychnine as a tonic?
- Yes, that's right.
I've been to Shackleton's hut. I
don't really remember what was there.
This was his first aid kit.
It had isinglass, which is from the
swim bladders of sturgeons,
for use as a wound dressing.
Tonics of iron and strychnine -
completely correct, Richard.
And iron and arsenic, which the
wrong doses of either could
cause a horrible lingering death,
so you had to get that right.
A colic treatment based on cannabis
and chilli pepper.
Ginger carminative, an
anti-flatulence preparation.
LAUGHTER
Cocaine solution, which was in fact
used as eye drops for -
what problem?
Tired eyes. It would
certainly perk them up.
It's actually snow blindness.
Used chalk and opium
against diarrhoeas,
like kaolin and morphine.
- And Kendal Mint Cake. Have you ever
had Kendal Mint Cake? - It's lovely!
I find it quite plain.
I would have taken a Crunchie.
It's nice to see that picture
because it explains what that man
gave me at Schiphol Airport.
Kendal Mint Cake!
If you go to Shackleton's hut,
you are followed all the way
there by a New Zealand official,
and if you eat anything at all,
like a packet of crisps, he walks,
looking around you, making sure you
haven't dropped any crumbs.
I should hope so! And is it worth
a visit? Where is Shackleton's hut?
- It's on Antarctica. - You've been
there? - Yes. - When did you go there?
How exciting!
Ten or 15 years ago,
but it was a very exciting
opportunity to see somewhere
I would never normally go.
- Was this from New Zealand?
- Yes, from New Zealand.
You go up from Christchurch.
I went to an exhibition
about Scott in Christchurch
and they talk about what Amundsen
took - a completely different plan.
Whereas Scott's plan was to go with
ponies and horses and things,
Amundsen was from Norway
and they just went with dogs,
55 dogs I think they had.
They were really much better at it.
SUE: Dogs can go very...
Have you ever been...
I have been in Wyoming.
It was one of the most thrilling
things I've ever done.
A friend of mine did that and
she said that the thing is, the dogs
cannot stop when nature calls
and that you get pelted with poo.
Pelted with droppings.
- Pebble-dashed by huskies.
- It is basically husky cack,
liquid husky cack flying.
What Amundsen dogs didn't know
was that they would be
eaten by the men and by the other
dogs. Is that what happened?
- Yes, it was very carefully worked
out, very precisely.
- You can't carry all that dog food,
you can't feed all those dogs all
the way there and all the way back.
This is the programme that
Paul O'Grady must never make.
The death of dogs!
I think it was a bit unkind
of Amundsen to put "nul points"
under the flag.
Now to some knaves.
What's the best way to stop
your car from being stolen?
Never park it,
just drive it around and around.
Keep driving round
and around and around. Yeah.
What you've cunningly done is avoid
the obvious trap of saying
you have a car alarm, because
it seems that car alarms
are worse than useless.
In fact, we know that instinctively,
don't we?
- Yeah, because you ignore them.
- You ignore them. Exactly. - Yeah.
In fact, not only that,
1% of people, when asked,
said that they would
actually call the police
if they heard a car alarm,
and 60% said they would call up
to complain about it.
So you would actually make a phone
call, but not to say that someone's
car was being stolen, but just to
say what a bloody nuisance it was.
- So if that's the worst thing to do,
what's the best thing to do?
- Put in an old-fashioned lock.
- Or have a rubbish car.
- Or have a terrible car.
- I've got a terrible car.
- Have you? - With loads of graffiti
on it. Someone drew a penis
on the front bonnet.
A friend of mine who's married to
a vicar, she came out one morning
and found someone had written
"Monk Whore" on the back of her car.
LAUGHTER
Extraordinary! Monk whore.
- Monk whore. - And now on BBC One,
Monk Whore.
LAUGHTER
- Robson Green... - Is Monk Whore.
But did you know that actually
car thieving
is almost never a female occupation?
- That's like a challenge.
Yeah. - Yeah.
Tonight, the pair of us.
There's, I'm sure you know
who that is, but...
That's Bonnie.
Bonnie as in Bonnie and Clyde, yes.
But apparently, the confraternity of
car thieves don't think women
should be allowed,
so if a woman steals a car,
they can't sell it on, cos they go,
"Oh, I'm not having that.
"I'm not having it off you,
you don't know what it's about."
So what you're saying is there's
very little to divide between
car thieves and car salesmen.
- Yes. - Of a similar view.
- It's a sexist bastion.
I saw this brilliant
documentary about crime
and they interviewed these two young
car criminals who were in jail,
and they talked about what pride
they took in their work,
and one of them
turned to the camera and said,
"Some car criminals, unfortunately,
give the rest of us a bad name."
Fantastic.
A bit of pride in his work.
Now, explain the effect
of Stockholm Syndrome.
- Oh. - Wasn't that when you identify...
LAUGHTER
Oh. But you identify,
if you're a victim of kidnap,
you identify with your kidnappers
- and you sort of become weird
friends. - Yeah. - Is that right?
I mean, that is what they say.
From the Patty Hearst kidnap,
is where it started?
Well, no, because she was
nothing to do with Stockholm.
There was a '73 kidnapping
in Stockholm, where,
after which it was named,
that's the Stockholm four.
And they defended the robbers
after the event and so on, so...
- Cos they'd become so inured to
the system of... - That's right. - Yeah.
And the most famous one,
as you rightly say,
was the heiress of William Randolph
Hearst, Patty Hearst,
who was kidnapped by a strange group
called the Symbionese
Liberation Army.
Unusually for a clergyman
of the Church of England,
I've had dinner with Patty Hearst.
- You haven't! - I have.
- How was she? Is she back to normal?
Charming, completely charming.
I didn't know who she was
until someone said who she was.
By the time they had coffee,
she wanted to be a vicar.
LAUGHTER
She had sort of become a kind of
Bohemian socialite in Los Angeles,
in the 1980s,
when I used to go there
in a previous incarnation,
and I met her...
And when you were a rock star,
a rock god.
- Oh, you! - Yeah.
And I met her there. It was those
sort of dinners that you would go to
where everyone would be
weirdly famous
and have no other reason
to be there at all,
so you'd have Patty Hearst
and, I don't know...
- Nancy Reagan. - ..Andy Warhol
and Eddie the Eagle, you know.
Oh, that's a dinner
you'd want to go to.
Definitely. Definitely.
But the fact is, it seems to be
an aberration, it's very rare.
Most people when they're kidnapped,
have nothing
but feelings of complete hostility
towards their captors.
As you would expect.
I would feel, as a clergyman,
sort of bound to sort of...
Are you a clergyman?
- I would sort of feel obliged to kind
of be nice to them. - Oh, you would.
And establish some rapport
of some kind.
- "I do understand your point
of view." - Exactly, yes. "I think
your case is good in parts."
- It would be like that.
- Yes, exactly.
So there was a famous figure
in history,
one of the most famous in history,
who did certainly not have
Stockholm Syndrome,
who was kidnapped by pirates.
- And... - Pirates in history,
kidnapped... Johnny Depp.
No. This is a great figure
in history.
- Kidnapped by pirates?
- Who was kidnapped by pirates,
was held hostage
and the ransom was paid.
Give us some clues.
What sort of era?
He then pursued them with
a small fleet, or a number
of boats, a flotilla.
- Francis Drake. Drake? - No, and...
- Cook? Raleigh, Cook? Nelson.
Had them all crucified.
- Oh. A Roman. - Oh, it was
Julius Caesar. - Julius Caesar
is the right answer.
- Julius Caesar. - Yeah.
And the thing is, he had told them
while he was held hostage,
"When I get out of here, I will
come back and I will crucify you."
And they apparently
thought it was a joke.
Joke's on you.
- Oh, ho, ho, ho, ho.
- Who's laughing now?
Yeah. They didn't know their Caesar.
Exactly.
- So, one tough cookie. - How do you
crucify someone if they've got hooks
for hands?
It's very, very difficult.
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
Do they hang them up?
- They have magnets, massive magnets.
- Magnets. Magnets.
They have got one wooden leg,
though, haven't they,
so that's not so difficult.
VICTORIA: Why? Why was Julius Caesar
kidnapped by pirates?
- Under what circumstances? - It was a
ransom, simply, it was a business...
But they didn't kill him,
it sounds like he was harsh.
He went after them
and had them crucified.
He was not a man to be trifled with.
Julie.
- Well, especially if you call him
Julie, I imagine. - Yeah, no,
he didn't like that.
The worst thing you can do to
Julius Caesar, call him Julie.
Is call him Jules.
There is a suggestion that
Stockholm syndrome could be
a sort of psychological thing,
in the same way that women
throughout history have had to
put up with being taken and seized
and that the human being
is conditioned
to make the best of a bad job.
Well, we've all been there. But
that's just a relationship, Stephen.
- Yes, that's right. - But it is sort
of logical, if you thought you were
being kidnapped long-term,
- it makes sense to try and see it from
the other person's point of view.
- Yes, it does.
- Just to maintain sanity, apart from
anything. - In fact, to get
- the syndrome to work on them,
rather than you. For them to be
so fond of you, they would no longer
want to kill you,
which would be handy.
Now, what's a good reason
for faking your own kidnapping?
Oh, I mean...
If you're bored on holiday?
- That would do it. - You're trying to
get out of a relationship,
that's why I always do it.
There was an American man
who pretended to be kidnapped
just so that he had an excuse
as to why he hadn't
called his girlfriend for two weeks.
LAUGHTER
He was terrified of her reaction.
And the police realised it
because he had duct tape
round his wrists, but the reel,
the spool of it was still connected.
You can't tear it with your teeth,
it's so fibrous.
I could imagine the girlfriend
saying, "You could still have
texted."
Yes, exactly. Exactly,
he could have done.
There was Jennifer Wilbanks
of Duluth,
who faked a kidnapping to get out
of attending her own wedding.
Yeah, I've been there.
But weirdest of all, there was
a 2008 case of another Spaniard,
Josefa Sanchez Vargas, who convinced
her husband to pay more than half a
million pounds to secure the release
of their children. It was a faked
kidnapping, which you'd say,
"Well, that's... We expect that,"
except she did that six times
over five years.
He didn't twig.
- That's quite a nest egg, isn't it?
- Every time she needed a new hat.
Some people get kidnapped
just for the thrill of it.
- Can you imagine why that would be?
- So they pay for kidnappers
to kidnap them
so they can experience the visceral
thrill of, you know,
being in a car boot with a load
of duct tape round your ankles.
- Absolutely that.
- People are weird. - I know!
The BBC does it to you too.
If you are going
into a hostile zone,
you have hostile zone training where
as you're driving your Land Rover,
chaps come out with ski masks and
put bags over your head and bundle
you into the back of a...
Oh, this is for BBC reporters.
I was just thinking,
"Why presenting Blue Peter..."
Hostile zone as in people
who are not very nice to you.
It sounds like a Top Gear sex park,
where Clarkson
gets his kicks of a weekend.
One of those funny phrases, isn't it?
When you are put in the back of a van
you are always bundled.
Bundled! It's the only word...
- It's true.
- Don't get bundled onto a bus.
Anyway, yes,
there's a French company that,
for 900 euros,
gives you your basic kidnapping,
which is being shoved into a car
boot and held down and blindfolded.
And then, for a little extra money,
you can have helicopter chases
and really quite sort of sexy stuff.
- And then, they'll cut your ear off
and send it to your mum. - Yes.
So, now it's time for me
to hold you all hostage.
There's no escape
from General Ignorance.
Fingers on the buzzers please.
How long should you wait
before reporting a missing person
to the police?
PLAINSONG PLAYS
- Yes, Sue? - Well, certainly
until they're missing.
LAUGHTER
- Very good. - Until they're out of
sight. - Yeah. - Yes, that's...
- Just when they've left the road.
- Yes, when they've turned the corner.
- Yes. - When is it too soon?
"Just going to make a cup of tea."
"Right, I'm ringing."
24 hours?
KLAXON
Ah, no.
- You shouldn't wait at all, if you're
convinced someone's missing.
- Absolutely right.
If you take your child
into a supermarket,
it would be 20 minutes, wouldn't it?
- You know that they're gone.
- 20 seconds. - 20 seconds.
You just check they're not there.
I'm going to wait 24 hours.
Go home to my wife,
"Well, I don't know where she is."
LAUGHTER
- "But I'm going to wait
till tomorrow." - Yes.
"We might as well go out, because
we don't have to get a baby-sitter."
LAUGHTER
"Let's go and have a curry and some
wine and phone her in the morning."
You're absolutely right.
Then, of course, if it's an adult,
it doesn't matter,
cos the police are very likely
just to say,
"That's not our business."
Unless they have
a particular problem.
But the fact is, yeah,
there is no set time.
The police use their own skill
and judgment, as it were.
- If it's a child,
there's obviously... - Oh, well.
ALAN LAUGHS
I don't know why that's...
That's a message.
That's three words you don't
hear in the same sentence, isn't it?
Yeah, you just hope you're not
burgled soon, Alan.
Oh, I was burgled so many times
in the '90s that one time
they came round, it was like
the fifth time I'd been burgled,
they came round and my cat came in,
and this constable goes,
"If only he could talk."
LAUGHTER
That's fantastic.
Oh, that's brilliant.
Is that how we're going to...
Is that it then?
Is that the extent
of the investigation?
Willing the animal to give evidence.
Now, what did Parliament pay for to
put in Sir Peter Viggers' garden?
PLAINSONG PLAYS
Yes?
The notorious duck house.
KLAXON
Ah. You're in the duck house there.
The fact is, the duck house was one
of the ones that they turned down.
- Oh. - Yeah, he put in claims
for £32,000 for gardening.
£500 for 28 tonnes of manure.
£1,645 for the duck island,
but that was turned down
by the eagle-eyed guardians
of the national purse.
It's probably worth mentioning
that at the same time as that
£8 billion was spent bailing out
the banks,
it was just that was too big a sum
for anyone to get their heads around,
so they went, "What?
£10 for a sandwich?!"
- I know. - "This is appalling." - It is,
it's fascinating, isn't it?
Sir Peter Viggers later commented
that the duck house was,
"Never liked by the ducks..."
LAUGHTER
"..and is now in storage."
Ah, look, there they are.
They don't need an island.
- (I love ducks, don't you?) - Hmm.
You never see that sort of thing
on a coat of arms, do you?
All the sort of lions and dragons,
you never see something nice
like a duck.
- A duck. - Or a, you know, Eggs
Benedict, or some sort of friendly,
like a friendly thing. Yes,
like a hamster or guinea pig
or something. Yeah.
- That's true. A furry bearing.
- Yes.
Anyway, the famous duck house
didn't cost the taxpayer a penny.
And with that last tilt
at our old friend General Ignorance,
we reach the end of tonight's
performance,
and I can tell you that
it is incredibly exciting.
We have leaders, two leaders, with
plus three, Richard and Victoria.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
Wowzer!
In third place, with minus seven,
Alan Davies.
Highly commendable,
highly commendable.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
And with a fantastic
minus 24 is Sue Perkins.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
Well...
And it only remains for me
to thank my panellists,
Victoria, Sue, Richard and Alan.
Thank you and good night!
good evening, good evening,
good evening, good evening
and welcome to QI,
where tonight we'll be sorting out
the Knights from the Knaves.
Strapping on the breastplate
of interestingness,
we have a goodly knight,
Sue Perkins.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
A knight to remember,
Victoria Coren.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
A very perfect, gentle knight,
the Reverend Richard Coles.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
And the long, dark knight
of the soul, Alan Davies.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
And their knightly noises
all come from naves.
Sue goes...
PLAINSONG PLAYS
Lovely. And Victoria goes...
PLAINSONG PLAYS
Richard goes...
PLAINSONG PLAYS
And Alan goes...
♪ Fruity, fruity, fruity!
♪ Fruity, fruity, fruity! ♪
Yes.
♪ Fruity, fruity, fruity! ♪
Yes!
♪ Fruity, fruity, fruity! ♪
Let... You have been warned.
LAUGHTER
Let's head straight to the lists.
Why was the Black Prince so-called?
PLAINSONG PLAYS
Rev Richard?
Well, if my Ladybird Book Of Princes
is to be trusted,
it's because he had black armour.
KLAXON
Ey! It's the one occasion where
the inestimable Ladybird series
has let you down.
There is no evidence.
Is it like Reservoir Dogs,
where they weren't allowed
to use their first names
and they got a sign up saying,
"You're the Black Knight,
you're the White Knight,
"you're the Pink Knight"?
"Why do I have to be the Pink
Knight?" "Just be the Pink Knight."
It might as well be true.
♪ Fruity! ♪
- Yes? - Was he black?
LAUGHTER
Well, oddly enough,
his mother was perhaps
of Moorish descent.
- Ah. - Philippa of Hainault.
Which is a Tube line, isn't it?
- Hainault is very near where
I grew up. - Oh, there you are.
- 'Ainault. - ANAL. Do you like ANAL?
Anal... Steady!
LAUGHTER
I just... Is it, is Hainault good?
Is, is...
LAUGHTER
- What, what, what happened? - I don't
know. - Did something happen there?
I mean...
APPLAUSE
I find, at the end of every Tube
line, you do get a good Hainault.
I think it falls to me
to rescue this, somehow.
Yes, I think you should, yes.
Did you know that the oldest British
door comes from Hainault?
- No. The oldest door? - Well,
it's in Westminster Abbey,
it's a door which connects
a cloister to the Abbey,
and the Canons of Westminster
live behind it,
and they dated their door.
And they found that the wood
it was made from
was growing in Hainault
in the 10th century.
Wow! Are you proud?
I am very proud of the door.
The sign painters are getting busy
right now, going,
"Home of the oldest door."
- It's a reason to get off at Hainault,
finally. - Yeah.
Is it a wood that grew there
a thousand years ago?
Yeah. Well, Philippa of Hainault
was perhaps of Moorish descent.
So that may be the reason
he was called the Black Prince,
- we don't know for a fact.
- I'm wondering, do you think
the Black Prince might have been
called the Black Prince cos
his sins were as black as pitch?
Yes. I mean, although he was known
as the Master Of Chivalry,
he almost destroyed the entire
population of Limoges and Caen.
- He doesn't look like he's capable
of it. - No, he doesn't, does he?
I know a fact
about the Black Prince.
I don't know if it's definitely
a fact,
but this is something
my husband told me.
David Mitchell told you something
and you believe it?
You know those sort of early dates
when you're just
talking about whether you were
happy at school and heraldry.
LAUGHTER
Is this true that - wait now -
he stole something off a corpse?
I remember the romance
of the moment...
- You're thinking of, "Ich Dien."
- Yes, "Ich Dien,"
which the Prince of Wales wears now,
that was stolen by the Black Prince
off a corpse on a battlefield.
That's right,
and it was the feathers as well,
the three feathers that are the
symbol of the Prince of Wales.
It was the King of Bohemia and he
had a very serious disability,
but he still rode into battle.
He was blind.
That explains appalling make-up.
LAUGHTER
That was the King of Bohemia who
went into battle against him,
and he defeated him
and took his colours,
which were the three
Prince of Wales feathers
and the motto, "I serve."
"Ich Dien."
Do you know, stealing from
dead people was a quite big...
Do you know St Hugh of Lincoln,
the great St Hugh of Lincoln...
I think we are all pretty, yes,
up to speed on St Hugh of Lincoln.
He was one of the great saints
of the Middle Ages,
but he was staying with some monk
friends in France,
and they had the preserved arm
of Mary Magdalene...
I thought I'd got that?!
- You got the other one.
- 25 quid I paid for that!
He bent down to venerate it
and while he was down there,
he bit off her finger. It's true.
He took it back to Lincoln.
When you say, "It's true,"
I happen to know you have written
a book on rather obscure saints and
are you suggesting that everything
about all of them is true?
I'm suggesting that very
little about them is true.
The biting off the finger
of Mary Magdalene is true.
His friendship with a swan
is doubtful.
When you say, "Friendship with a
swan," are you being euphemistic?
No, his best friend was a swan.
And it's depicted in one of his,
sort of, portraits,
that he walks around with a swan.
But if you look
at Lincoln Cathedral,
it has a vault which is all
wonky, which he built, which is
said to suggest the flight
of a swan's wing.
That's great
if builders do something wrong.
They could just say, "I was trying
to evoke a swan's wing."
"Yes, that's right.
"No, that is a symbol
of me being crap at building."
He really did bite off the finger.
There was a huge, huge trade
in bitten off relics.
You know, you weren't
on the ecclesiastical map
until you had a good
dead bit of someone.
So he was notorious for stuffing
his mouth with bitten off
members of one kind or another.
LAUGHTER
The Black Prince, of course, was,
as I say, leader of chivalry
and chivalry was all about jousting,
so can you tell me anything
about jousting?
What the rules were of jousting
in the lists, as they were called?
You had to...
Now, there is the big,
massive cotton bud
and you have to hit the shield?
You get a point if you hit
the shield or their breastplate?
Absolutely right.
The rules vary but one set of rules
we have is that you win
- the joust if you get three points.
- That's how we do it in Croydon.
You get three points and you get
a point for knocking someone
straight on the breastplate
so that it shatters the lance.
A glancing blow doesn't count.
In the dinner show at the Excalibur
casino in Las Vegas, the winner
is the last one to
jump off their horse.
- Do they really have that? - Yes,
it's a brilliant show
because they've got King Arthur
and he fights against his long lost
son Prince Christopher.
I think the people that put
the show together don't
know that there's other people
in the story apart from King Arthur.
They thought, "Well,
we can't have a story
"that only gives you one person,
- "so we will just invent
Prince Christopher." - Christopher?
Yes, and he wins
because he gets off his horse last
and then you all have a
big piece of chicken.
But there's no Game Of Thrones...
with those noises
and heads coming off
and blood spurting out?
- They're real people so... - Oh, right.
There are ways of doing that.
Do you have to dress as a wench?
You say have to.
LAUGHTER
Yes, they give you some plaits to put
on. Sounds all a bit Bavarian!
This is the Excalibur
English-themed casino.
It is sort of
Harry Potter, Robin Hood, King Arthur
and the Queen are
all roughly the same vintage.
You can buy memorabilia of all
of them in the same shop.
How many people are sitting
down for dinner at this event? 200.
It's much like this room actually.
If Richard and I now galloped towards
each other on horseback with lances,
as I very much hope we will later,
that's exactly what it would be like.
It's just people have buckets of
chicken... Don't they get a bit...
Getting a horse into a casino is
a fairly elaborate thing, isn't it?
Las Vegas has white tigers.
They had Siegfried & Roy
- with their white tigers. - They do.
They don't really have
Siegfried & Roy any more.
- There was a terrible mauling. - Yes.
Actually, I really
respected Siegfried & Roy
a lot more after that
because for years,
people thought they were all cheesy
and mainstream
and then one of them had his head
bitten off by a tiger.
It showed that every night they were
actually taking a risk.
- They really were. - The Vicar of
Stiffkey, he was bitten by a lion.
- He was, Roger something or other.
- Harold Davidson I think it was.
You're right.
He was in the '30s, I think,
he was a vicar of Stiffkey,
but he used to try and reform
prostitutes in what we'd say
is in a very hands-on ministry
kind of way.
LAUGHTER
That's what a prostitute
needs really.
Just a bit more prostituting,
but with a goodly hand.
He was tireless in his dedication
to his flock
and rather got in a soup,
and he ended up as a lion tamer
in I think it was Skegness.
It went horribly wrong
and he was bitten by his lion
and that was the end of the
Vicar of Stiffkey.
Are you sure you're not accidentally
recounting the plot of a limerick?
Anyway. So there we are.
Now, what is the first rule
of Knight Club?
LAUGHTER
The first rule of Knight Club?
- Yeah. - Well...
..you don't talk about Knight Club.
KLAXON
APPLAUSE
Oh! It had to be.
- Somebody had to. - Well done.
- Yeah, exactly. - I fell on my sword,
which seems appropriate.
- Yeah, it was, exactly.
It is an existing club,
or a club from the olden times?
No, it's a very olde-times club
of knights.
The most famous group of knights
of...
- Templar. - The Knights Templar.
There are still people who think
they still exist and, you know,
in the sort of Dan Browny
kind of way,
but they actually folded up in 1314.
But they were very powerful.
It was after the First Crusade,
they were formed, in Jerusalem.
And they were allowed to do almost
anything. The law didn't apply to
them in Jerusalem,
which annoyed a lot of people,
but there were certain things
they weren't allowed to do.
They weren't allowed
to breed ferrets?
To breed ferrets!
Anything else you know about them?
- Well, you know they look like that.
- Chew gum.
- I know about ley lines.
- Go on then.
- They made them. - They made...
You see,
you've been reading
these stupid books about knights,
"Apparently, they are responsible
for laying ley lines."
- No, well... - "No."
- They know where they are, anyway.
Yes, they do.
They've got them all hidden.
- No sex? - Well, yeah, they were
allowed to marry,
but if they married, they weren't
allowed to wear the white and red
uniform.
There was no hunting except lions.
LAUGHTER
- That's quite specific. - That would
actually be a brilliant rule for now,
wouldn't it?
There's so much debate about
whether you should hunt or not.
Please everyone - "OK, hunting
is allowed, but only lions."
Lions. That's very true.
They were only allowed one squire
each, no telling tales,
no lockable purses.
- Oh. - Yeah.
I suppose they have to show
their trust or something like that.
But their last and most important
rule was no kissing.
"Lastly, we hold it dangerous
to all religion
"to gaze too much
on the countenance of women
"and therefore, no brother shall
presume to kiss neither widow,
"nor virgin, nor mother, nor sister,
nor aunt, nor any other woman."
But anal's all right.
LAUGHTER
Well...
APPLAUSE
It's very funny you should say that,
because one of the reasons
they were closed down is there was
a charge against them...
Too much buggery. Yeah.
There was a charge against them.
"Deosculabantur se in ore,
in umbilico, seu ventre nudo,
"et in ano, seu in spina dorsi."
"Et in ano."
- Et in ano. - "Et in ano."
- And the end, yeah. - Yeah.
And in Hainault.
And the accusation was that they
kissed one another on the mouth,
on the naval, the bare belly,
the anus, or the backbone.
- Well, they were thorough. - They were!
LAUGHTER
When you're looking for a ley line,
you don't want to leave any stone
unturned.
"There might be one
coming out of his arse!"
"I'll have a look."
- But that is... - "Right, that's
enough! That's enough, Templars!"
LAUGHTER
Did you know that the Temple Church
in London, which was founded by the
Knights Templar, and there are still
some Knights Templar lying around...
- Dead ones, yeah. - There's a unique
title for, if you're the priest
in charge there,
you're the Reverend and Valiant
Master of the Temple.
- Oh, that's very good.
- Which sounds like something
from a Star Wars movie.
- The Reverend and Valiant Master of
the Temple. - Yeah. - In that picture,
is he going,
"Show me on the cross
where he kissed you?"
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
They're all going, "Yeah, yeah."
He's saying,
"But my arms are much too long."
- Yes. - "I'm not going to fit on this."
Yes. "You're going
to nail me against the air."
- It's true... - "You're going to have
to just nail my ears to it."
There you go.
Kissing, of course, has long been
a controversial thing
and in the 20th century,
there were anti-kissing leagues.
What do you think they objected to?
- There you are. - Transmission
of disease? - Yes, you're right,
it was a hygiene issue.
I read a thing also that
when trains first began,
women travelling on their own in
compartments were supposed to put
pins in their mouths
lest, when they went through a
tunnel, someone tried to kiss them.
- I read that as well! It's hilarious!
- Nail gun their mouths shut?
Mouths full of pins.
No, with the pin facing outwards, so
if someone went, "Oh, I have to!"
They were in for a rude surprise.
Yes, I do that in tunnels,
- just in case. - I consider myself
warned. I'd keep a pin in my anus.
- Oh, dear! - In case any Knights
Templar... - were around the place.
Oh, you bad person.
OK, what makes you think
this knight is a total bastard?
- Oh, he looks like a mean...
His hat. - Oh... - Not his hat.
PLAINSONG PLAYS
- Richard? - He's got a diagonal
white stripe across his lions,
which means he's been naughty.
- No, he hasn't been naughty at all.
- I beg his pardon.
Is he, oh, is he illegitimate?
Has his father been naughty?
His father's been naughty. It's
what's known as the "bend sinister".
Oh, we've all had bend sinister.
It starts at the bottom left
and goes up to the top right,
which indicates you are a bastard.
And in his case,
there's more information
just on that simple coat of arms.
The three lions.
- No, he's not the bastard son
of Wayne Rooney. - Wayne Rooney.
Yeah, yeah.
LAUGHTER
Something told me
you were going to say that.
Is the red significant?
Yes, it's the Royal Family.
It's a royal coat of arms.
- So he's a royal bastard. - Yeah.
- So he's a Fitz-John or something?
- A Fitz? - Fitz-Herb, Fitz...
- Fitz-Herbert?
- Fitz-John, Fitzroy. Of course.
- Fitzroy. His name would be Fitzroy.
Fitz is the "son of"
and roy, "roi", is king.
And one particular king
had five Fitzroys from his mistress.
Who would that be?
- Who was a really... - Oh, hang on,
George, one of the Georges?
No. Go back a bit. Rewind.
- Henry VIII. Charles II.
- Charles II. - Henry VII.
- No, Charles II. We got there.
- Charles II.
- We got there without you.
Charles II. - Shouting out some kings
to move it along.
Very good. She was called Barbara
Palmer and she bore him five...
- Babs. - Five, Babs Palmer.
They don't think of the Babs,
do they?
She might have been a Babs,
I expect, yeah.
- Queen Babs. - Yeah. - "You Fitz'd me up
again." - You Fitz'd me up.
And we have a Henry...
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
But does it cancel out, if the one
with the stripe then marries
and has a legitimate son,
don't they take the stripe away?
Ah, that would be very good.
No, I think you keep it,
I think, in your coat of arms.
There are certain things which
indicate something very
extraordinary about your shield.
- What do you think they are?
- OK. - They have a particular meaning.
PLAINSONG PLAYS
Yeah?
Is it visible panty line?
LAUGHTER
Oh...
It's terrible, really,
they get terrible VPL.
It's not visible panty line.
It's the colours, actually,
are indicative of...
Status?
Of sin. Of a mistake, an error.
They're known as abatements,
also as "stains"
as in a stain on the family name,
or a stain on the...
Oh. So what can a stain be?
- It's got to be very serious if it's
going on your coat of arms. - I know.
Well, the first is called
the point champaine tenne,
and it's for killing a prisoner
who has demanded quarter, or mercy,
which is really ungentlemanly.
But how would anybody know that
you had done that?
You'd have to have a witness. A very
good point. It's true of any crime.
They'd have to have something
on their shield.
Witnessing someone killing
someone who's asked for quarter -
you've got to have
something on their shield.
That's true, and not intervening.
You're right.
- But how would you know that they'd
done that... - I don't know!
..and not intervened.
They'd definitely need something
on their shield.
They'd have massive whistles and
say, "You grassed me up!"
And the shield would
just be full of stuff.
- A shield within a shield...
- "You don't clean the
toilet properly."
"You've got a toilet brush, you
don't do it, you get one of those."
It's endless.
It's a bit like points
on a driving licence, isn't it?
- It is. You're absolutely right.
- It's the points on the shield for...
- Yeah. Exactly.
And the next one here,
which we'll have a look at.
Needs dusting.
LAUGHTER
This is called the delf tenne,
and that's for issuing a challenge
and then bottling out.
- Coward. - Yeah. - That's a big old
yellow smudge on that.
Exactly. Very much a smudge
on the coat of arms.
And then, we have a gusset,
a gusset sanguine sinister.
- A gusset sanguine? - Yeah.
On a knight, really?
Yeah, I know, absurd, isn't it?
- Gusset sanguine....
- There's no reason for you to get it.
- Well, the sanguine is the colour.
- So a bloody... - It's blood colour.
It's for being drunk.
And you have
a gusset sanguine dexter.
Which is on the right, and that's...
- Is being... - Being stoned?
- Being an adulterer. - Oh, right.
And there you are.
Now we have one that you have
to guess, so tell me what this is.
You're a drunken adulterer.
There you are, you see,
points for listening.
So that's the whole world
of heraldry.
In a way, it's sort of a nicer
design for the drunken adulterer.
- It is, isn't it?
- I feel like it's too rewarding.
Is it two gussets or a wine glass?
Well, that's the choice facing
the drunken adulterer.
Yes, exactly. Exactly.
LAUGHTER
- It's perfect. - Every Saturday.
APPLAUSE
Oh, they knew what they were doing.
Did you know that if you're
a clergyman you can't have
a helmet on your coat of arms?
- Oh, thank God. - Phew!
LAUGHTER
Because you can't have been
a chaplain or something?
No, you can't do anything
which is... Did you know that
if you're a clergyman,
if you go to a black tie do,
you can't have a stripe
down your trousers?
- No. - Because, no,
because it's a military insignia.
- Oh. - And you can't have that.
And you can't have a helmet
because it's a martial sign.
So you have to have this sort of,
it's a lovely sort of,
do you remember Bill and Ben?
It's a bit like that,
it's called a galero.
- Oh, how fabulous. - And it's black
if you're a priest and red
if you're a Cardinal.
And if you're the Pope, you get
a pointy one with three tiaras.
- Oh! - Oh. Quite the fellow.
I want to be Pope now.
I think you'd look good in that.
You've got to...
Oh, you've got to have it.
- Who decides this? - There are people
who apply to, they decide.
Isn't it the College of Arms?
And you have to pay.
How do you become one of
the people that decide?
How do you become a herald?
If you go to Garter Day at Windsor
Castle, they turn out for that.
LAUGHTER
I need to see photos of Garter Day
at Windsor Castle.
It's very exciting
because it's a big do
and if they install new
Knights of the Garter,
you are in there for hours,
then you hear sort of tramping
from miles away and all of a sudden,
the beefeaters come in all done up.
- Then you get the College of
Heralds... - It's like a gay tsunami!
They carry things,
have special big T-shirts.
Saying, "War. What is it good for?"
LAUGHTER
So that's our knights
with their shields.
You also find knights
on a chess board, of course.
So what I want to know is
this very strange conundrum.
What's the maximum number of knights
you can have on a chess board,
such that none of them
can take another one?
- Oh, multiples of eight, I suppose.
- I'll give you, you can try it out.
So that none can...
Maximum number.
What you have to do is understand
what a knight's move is.
Stephen, I don't understand
the question.
It's the maximum, it's the maximum
number of knights you could
have on a chess board,
such that none can take the other.
Have you noticed something in common
with the ones you're putting down?
- They're all the same. - The same, OK,
the same colour, so...
Yes, because a knight move
must take a different colour.
- Oh. - So 32.
- 32 is the right answer! - Oh.
It's really very simple when you
think about it, isn't it? Very good.
APPLAUSE
It's one of those things that sounds
very complicated, that you
have to work out for ages,
- but there you are. - I still don't
understand it at all.
Well, none of those knights
can take another knight.
- But isn't that rather more knights
than we're used to? - Yes.
LAUGHTER
It's a problem,
it's not a real chess situation.
- It's if you had... - Because they
move, because of the way they move,
diagonal and up one, they move to
the alternate colour.
- Yes. - So if you've got all
the knights on the same colour,
they cannot take...
- Exactly right, I mean, that's how...
- Oh, I get it.
In the centre of the board,
you're controlling eight
different squares there.
They're all a different colour,
the knights are on a black square.
So all you have to do is put them
all on a black or a white square.
When you move your knight,
do you make a horsey noise?
HE WHINNIES
Do you? That's so sweet.
HE SNORTS AND SPUTTERS
And when you move your rook.
SHE CAWS
When I do the bishop...
HE IMITATES PLAINSONG
- When you do your queen, "Hello."
- "Hello." - "Hello."
That's your bishop.
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
- Oh, you're going
to get in such trouble. - No!
You're going to get in trouble
from both sides.
I've been going, "Ooh, you are awful,
but I like you."
You're getting into trouble
from both sides, Richard.
If the Bishop of Peterborough
is watching this evening,
you'll have my resignation on your
desk in the morning, by the way.
- He confirmed me, not the present
one. - Which one? - Oh, God knows.
- Was it the rudest bishop in the
Church of England? - It could've been.
He just gave me a piece of the Host
and moved on to the next line.
- He gave you a piece of the Host?!
- Yes.
What the hell kind of party was it?!
It's what you would call the bread
and wine, as well you know,
you secret religious, you.
I think it might have been
Bishop Westwood
who, interestingly, is the father
of Tim Westwood, the hip-hop DJ.
- Good gracious!
- Does he speak like him?
Does he have a particular
way of speaking?
Tim Westwood talks like a hip-hop
star from the West Coast of...
- Oh, does he? A false American
accent? - It's very effective.
- Ali G is based on Tim Westwood.
- Really?
But his father was the
Bishop of Peterborough
who was famous for knitting.
LAUGHTER
- It's true! - For knitting?!
The knitting Bishop!
There were items on
Look East about his knitting.
Isn't there a version of chess
for kind of chess-heads
called fairy chess,
where the pieces do more things?
- What a wonderful... - I'm not making
this up, I'm sure this is true.
- Fairy chess.
That there's versions of chess where
you can call these fairy pieces
- and they can do extra things.
- How many drugs did you take
when you were hanging out
with Jimmy Somerville?
So you can just go, you're playing
chess and suddenly you go,
"No, we're playing fairy chess now."
♪ La, la, la, la, la... ♪
Checkmate.
Yeah, well, I don't have
to touch the pieces.
- Yeah. - Oh, I see.
- The whole point of chess is its
limitations. Yeah. - Yes. Precisely.
It's all about the strictness
in which you have to operate.
But hang on, Mrs Poker Player
Victoria Coren Mitchell,
aren't there versions of poker
where they kind of introduce
wild cards and stuff to kind of get
it...? It's the same sort of thing.
Yeah, poker's different.
As Martin Amis once said,
"In chess, the properties
of a bishop are fixed.
"In poker, it's all wobbled through
the prism of personality."
- Very good. - A beautiful quote.
- Beautifully put.
Although, even chess players will
say the best chess move to play
is not the best chess move,
it's the move your opponent
would least like you to play.
So in that sense, it
is very like poker.
Anybody who played Kasparov,
for example,
will say that the moment he sat
down at the table, you felt beaten.
He was so virile, so big, like a...
Five o'clock shadow at
ten in the morning
and he hunched over the board.
But what nobody ever tried with
Kasparov was just grabbing the queen
and shouting,
"I'm playing fairy chess!"
That's exactly right! Exactly right!
You can put your boards away now,
children. There you go.
32. Brilliantly deduced
by Sue "Brilliant" Perkins.
Kasparov wouldn't have liked it
if you'd gone...
HE BLUSTERS
..every time.
He'd have liked it even less if you
did it when he moved his!
LAUGHTER
It's a brilliant strategy!
Every time he moved his knight,
you'd go...
HE WHINNIES
"Put me back in the stable!"
- With fairy chess, it could go...
- HE NEIGHS
- Victoria, what was that line,
that Martin Amis line again?
- It's beautiful.
"In chess, the properties
and powers of a bishop are fixed.
"In poker, it is wobbled through
the prism of personality."
But do you know
when he said that, Stephen?
It was after a poker game
that you and I and he all played.
- Yes, I remember, in Wales.
- Many years ago. - With the
then-unknown Ricky Gervais.
Ricky Gervais was knocked out,
got up and said,
"What am I supposed to do now?"
And you said, "There's a shotgun
in the drawer."
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
Oh, God.
That would be a very good,
very good title for a book.
So, now, name a place
where a knight can be buried.
The ground.
KLAXON
Amazingly not.
APPLAUSE
You must be astonished
to know that isn't true.
Do they have to be buried
above the ground?
No, I'm saying that
they can be buried,
but where can they be buried?
In a...tomb?
- A vault? - A hole.
LAUGHTER
- A pyramid. - A pyramid.
The fact is, is the moment you are
dead, you are no longer a knight.
- You're not a knight any more!
- Oh, of course! - Right.
Cos everyone was shouting
about how Jimmy Savile should
have his knighthood taken away. But
they'd have had to give it back
to him, in order to take it away.
You're no longer a member
of the Order the moment you die.
So the moment you die, you're not
a knight. So you can't bury a knight
anywhere.
Unless you're very mean
and bury them alive, I suppose.
Do you know who has the record for
turning down the most knighthoods?
- No. - LS Lowry. He turned down more
honours than anybody else.
- Good Lord! - Mr Pin Man? Mr Stick
Drawing? - Matchstick men, yeah.
Alan Bennett certainly turned
one down. Who else do we know?
The art, isn't it,
is turning one down
so everybody knows you've
turned it down.
So everyone knows without you
telling them, which I refuse to do.
I turned one down. We all thought
that was a poorly-kept secret.
- You haven't quite grasped this,
Alan. - Sir ANAL Davies.
LAUGHTER
I'm sorry to go on about it,
but if you're a clergyman,
and you're knighted,
you can't call yourself Sir.
- Whoa! - Unless you are knighted
before you're ordained,
and then you can be
the Reverend Sir or Lady.
- What a swiz! - It's a chivalric order,
you can't be...
It's military, isn't it,
if you're a knight?
Exactly, so you can't be that if
you're a vicar. You can't bear arms.
You can bare legs though,
can't you? Yes. Ha-ha!
LAUGHTER
So, there are no dead knights,
only dead former knights.
Which knight's luggage included
cannabis, bladders,
shark intestines, strychnine,
chilli pepper, cocaine,
- heroin and Kendal Mint Cake?
- PLAINSONG PLAYS
Yes, Sue Perkins.
I say to get him through
Eurovision, Terry Wogan.
KLAXON
- APPLAUSE
- We got there! We got there!
Oh, you've got them all!
We've thought of all the heroic
endurance struggles, yes.
PLAINSONG PLAYS
- Was it Sir Edmund Hillary?
- It wasn't Sir Edmund Hillary,
although Sir Edmund Hillary
did take Kendal Mint Cake
right up the Everest.
Really?! I didn't know that was
a serving suggestion!
I'm going to go home
and try it now, though.
It was one of the many things
that made Kendal Mint Cake
famous in its day,
when it was famous perhaps.
- Was it Ranulph Fiennes? - You're in
exactly the right area. - Shackleton?
Sir Ernest Shackleton is the answer.
The Antarctic explorer.
- That's him in the darker polo neck.
- It's a really fun job, isn't it?
The endurance was astonishing.
- They all look like Captain Birdseye.
- They don't look happy.
The one on the right actually can't
open his eyes any more.
- Is it true the he used to take
strychnine as a tonic?
- Yes, that's right.
I've been to Shackleton's hut. I
don't really remember what was there.
This was his first aid kit.
It had isinglass, which is from the
swim bladders of sturgeons,
for use as a wound dressing.
Tonics of iron and strychnine -
completely correct, Richard.
And iron and arsenic, which the
wrong doses of either could
cause a horrible lingering death,
so you had to get that right.
A colic treatment based on cannabis
and chilli pepper.
Ginger carminative, an
anti-flatulence preparation.
LAUGHTER
Cocaine solution, which was in fact
used as eye drops for -
what problem?
Tired eyes. It would
certainly perk them up.
It's actually snow blindness.
Used chalk and opium
against diarrhoeas,
like kaolin and morphine.
- And Kendal Mint Cake. Have you ever
had Kendal Mint Cake? - It's lovely!
I find it quite plain.
I would have taken a Crunchie.
It's nice to see that picture
because it explains what that man
gave me at Schiphol Airport.
Kendal Mint Cake!
If you go to Shackleton's hut,
you are followed all the way
there by a New Zealand official,
and if you eat anything at all,
like a packet of crisps, he walks,
looking around you, making sure you
haven't dropped any crumbs.
I should hope so! And is it worth
a visit? Where is Shackleton's hut?
- It's on Antarctica. - You've been
there? - Yes. - When did you go there?
How exciting!
Ten or 15 years ago,
but it was a very exciting
opportunity to see somewhere
I would never normally go.
- Was this from New Zealand?
- Yes, from New Zealand.
You go up from Christchurch.
I went to an exhibition
about Scott in Christchurch
and they talk about what Amundsen
took - a completely different plan.
Whereas Scott's plan was to go with
ponies and horses and things,
Amundsen was from Norway
and they just went with dogs,
55 dogs I think they had.
They were really much better at it.
SUE: Dogs can go very...
Have you ever been...
I have been in Wyoming.
It was one of the most thrilling
things I've ever done.
A friend of mine did that and
she said that the thing is, the dogs
cannot stop when nature calls
and that you get pelted with poo.
Pelted with droppings.
- Pebble-dashed by huskies.
- It is basically husky cack,
liquid husky cack flying.
What Amundsen dogs didn't know
was that they would be
eaten by the men and by the other
dogs. Is that what happened?
- Yes, it was very carefully worked
out, very precisely.
- You can't carry all that dog food,
you can't feed all those dogs all
the way there and all the way back.
This is the programme that
Paul O'Grady must never make.
The death of dogs!
I think it was a bit unkind
of Amundsen to put "nul points"
under the flag.
Now to some knaves.
What's the best way to stop
your car from being stolen?
Never park it,
just drive it around and around.
Keep driving round
and around and around. Yeah.
What you've cunningly done is avoid
the obvious trap of saying
you have a car alarm, because
it seems that car alarms
are worse than useless.
In fact, we know that instinctively,
don't we?
- Yeah, because you ignore them.
- You ignore them. Exactly. - Yeah.
In fact, not only that,
1% of people, when asked,
said that they would
actually call the police
if they heard a car alarm,
and 60% said they would call up
to complain about it.
So you would actually make a phone
call, but not to say that someone's
car was being stolen, but just to
say what a bloody nuisance it was.
- So if that's the worst thing to do,
what's the best thing to do?
- Put in an old-fashioned lock.
- Or have a rubbish car.
- Or have a terrible car.
- I've got a terrible car.
- Have you? - With loads of graffiti
on it. Someone drew a penis
on the front bonnet.
A friend of mine who's married to
a vicar, she came out one morning
and found someone had written
"Monk Whore" on the back of her car.
LAUGHTER
Extraordinary! Monk whore.
- Monk whore. - And now on BBC One,
Monk Whore.
LAUGHTER
- Robson Green... - Is Monk Whore.
But did you know that actually
car thieving
is almost never a female occupation?
- That's like a challenge.
Yeah. - Yeah.
Tonight, the pair of us.
There's, I'm sure you know
who that is, but...
That's Bonnie.
Bonnie as in Bonnie and Clyde, yes.
But apparently, the confraternity of
car thieves don't think women
should be allowed,
so if a woman steals a car,
they can't sell it on, cos they go,
"Oh, I'm not having that.
"I'm not having it off you,
you don't know what it's about."
So what you're saying is there's
very little to divide between
car thieves and car salesmen.
- Yes. - Of a similar view.
- It's a sexist bastion.
I saw this brilliant
documentary about crime
and they interviewed these two young
car criminals who were in jail,
and they talked about what pride
they took in their work,
and one of them
turned to the camera and said,
"Some car criminals, unfortunately,
give the rest of us a bad name."
Fantastic.
A bit of pride in his work.
Now, explain the effect
of Stockholm Syndrome.
- Oh. - Wasn't that when you identify...
LAUGHTER
Oh. But you identify,
if you're a victim of kidnap,
you identify with your kidnappers
- and you sort of become weird
friends. - Yeah. - Is that right?
I mean, that is what they say.
From the Patty Hearst kidnap,
is where it started?
Well, no, because she was
nothing to do with Stockholm.
There was a '73 kidnapping
in Stockholm, where,
after which it was named,
that's the Stockholm four.
And they defended the robbers
after the event and so on, so...
- Cos they'd become so inured to
the system of... - That's right. - Yeah.
And the most famous one,
as you rightly say,
was the heiress of William Randolph
Hearst, Patty Hearst,
who was kidnapped by a strange group
called the Symbionese
Liberation Army.
Unusually for a clergyman
of the Church of England,
I've had dinner with Patty Hearst.
- You haven't! - I have.
- How was she? Is she back to normal?
Charming, completely charming.
I didn't know who she was
until someone said who she was.
By the time they had coffee,
she wanted to be a vicar.
LAUGHTER
She had sort of become a kind of
Bohemian socialite in Los Angeles,
in the 1980s,
when I used to go there
in a previous incarnation,
and I met her...
And when you were a rock star,
a rock god.
- Oh, you! - Yeah.
And I met her there. It was those
sort of dinners that you would go to
where everyone would be
weirdly famous
and have no other reason
to be there at all,
so you'd have Patty Hearst
and, I don't know...
- Nancy Reagan. - ..Andy Warhol
and Eddie the Eagle, you know.
Oh, that's a dinner
you'd want to go to.
Definitely. Definitely.
But the fact is, it seems to be
an aberration, it's very rare.
Most people when they're kidnapped,
have nothing
but feelings of complete hostility
towards their captors.
As you would expect.
I would feel, as a clergyman,
sort of bound to sort of...
Are you a clergyman?
- I would sort of feel obliged to kind
of be nice to them. - Oh, you would.
And establish some rapport
of some kind.
- "I do understand your point
of view." - Exactly, yes. "I think
your case is good in parts."
- It would be like that.
- Yes, exactly.
So there was a famous figure
in history,
one of the most famous in history,
who did certainly not have
Stockholm Syndrome,
who was kidnapped by pirates.
- And... - Pirates in history,
kidnapped... Johnny Depp.
No. This is a great figure
in history.
- Kidnapped by pirates?
- Who was kidnapped by pirates,
was held hostage
and the ransom was paid.
Give us some clues.
What sort of era?
He then pursued them with
a small fleet, or a number
of boats, a flotilla.
- Francis Drake. Drake? - No, and...
- Cook? Raleigh, Cook? Nelson.
Had them all crucified.
- Oh. A Roman. - Oh, it was
Julius Caesar. - Julius Caesar
is the right answer.
- Julius Caesar. - Yeah.
And the thing is, he had told them
while he was held hostage,
"When I get out of here, I will
come back and I will crucify you."
And they apparently
thought it was a joke.
Joke's on you.
- Oh, ho, ho, ho, ho.
- Who's laughing now?
Yeah. They didn't know their Caesar.
Exactly.
- So, one tough cookie. - How do you
crucify someone if they've got hooks
for hands?
It's very, very difficult.
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
Do they hang them up?
- They have magnets, massive magnets.
- Magnets. Magnets.
They have got one wooden leg,
though, haven't they,
so that's not so difficult.
VICTORIA: Why? Why was Julius Caesar
kidnapped by pirates?
- Under what circumstances? - It was a
ransom, simply, it was a business...
But they didn't kill him,
it sounds like he was harsh.
He went after them
and had them crucified.
He was not a man to be trifled with.
Julie.
- Well, especially if you call him
Julie, I imagine. - Yeah, no,
he didn't like that.
The worst thing you can do to
Julius Caesar, call him Julie.
Is call him Jules.
There is a suggestion that
Stockholm syndrome could be
a sort of psychological thing,
in the same way that women
throughout history have had to
put up with being taken and seized
and that the human being
is conditioned
to make the best of a bad job.
Well, we've all been there. But
that's just a relationship, Stephen.
- Yes, that's right. - But it is sort
of logical, if you thought you were
being kidnapped long-term,
- it makes sense to try and see it from
the other person's point of view.
- Yes, it does.
- Just to maintain sanity, apart from
anything. - In fact, to get
- the syndrome to work on them,
rather than you. For them to be
so fond of you, they would no longer
want to kill you,
which would be handy.
Now, what's a good reason
for faking your own kidnapping?
Oh, I mean...
If you're bored on holiday?
- That would do it. - You're trying to
get out of a relationship,
that's why I always do it.
There was an American man
who pretended to be kidnapped
just so that he had an excuse
as to why he hadn't
called his girlfriend for two weeks.
LAUGHTER
He was terrified of her reaction.
And the police realised it
because he had duct tape
round his wrists, but the reel,
the spool of it was still connected.
You can't tear it with your teeth,
it's so fibrous.
I could imagine the girlfriend
saying, "You could still have
texted."
Yes, exactly. Exactly,
he could have done.
There was Jennifer Wilbanks
of Duluth,
who faked a kidnapping to get out
of attending her own wedding.
Yeah, I've been there.
But weirdest of all, there was
a 2008 case of another Spaniard,
Josefa Sanchez Vargas, who convinced
her husband to pay more than half a
million pounds to secure the release
of their children. It was a faked
kidnapping, which you'd say,
"Well, that's... We expect that,"
except she did that six times
over five years.
He didn't twig.
- That's quite a nest egg, isn't it?
- Every time she needed a new hat.
Some people get kidnapped
just for the thrill of it.
- Can you imagine why that would be?
- So they pay for kidnappers
to kidnap them
so they can experience the visceral
thrill of, you know,
being in a car boot with a load
of duct tape round your ankles.
- Absolutely that.
- People are weird. - I know!
The BBC does it to you too.
If you are going
into a hostile zone,
you have hostile zone training where
as you're driving your Land Rover,
chaps come out with ski masks and
put bags over your head and bundle
you into the back of a...
Oh, this is for BBC reporters.
I was just thinking,
"Why presenting Blue Peter..."
Hostile zone as in people
who are not very nice to you.
It sounds like a Top Gear sex park,
where Clarkson
gets his kicks of a weekend.
One of those funny phrases, isn't it?
When you are put in the back of a van
you are always bundled.
Bundled! It's the only word...
- It's true.
- Don't get bundled onto a bus.
Anyway, yes,
there's a French company that,
for 900 euros,
gives you your basic kidnapping,
which is being shoved into a car
boot and held down and blindfolded.
And then, for a little extra money,
you can have helicopter chases
and really quite sort of sexy stuff.
- And then, they'll cut your ear off
and send it to your mum. - Yes.
So, now it's time for me
to hold you all hostage.
There's no escape
from General Ignorance.
Fingers on the buzzers please.
How long should you wait
before reporting a missing person
to the police?
PLAINSONG PLAYS
- Yes, Sue? - Well, certainly
until they're missing.
LAUGHTER
- Very good. - Until they're out of
sight. - Yeah. - Yes, that's...
- Just when they've left the road.
- Yes, when they've turned the corner.
- Yes. - When is it too soon?
"Just going to make a cup of tea."
"Right, I'm ringing."
24 hours?
KLAXON
Ah, no.
- You shouldn't wait at all, if you're
convinced someone's missing.
- Absolutely right.
If you take your child
into a supermarket,
it would be 20 minutes, wouldn't it?
- You know that they're gone.
- 20 seconds. - 20 seconds.
You just check they're not there.
I'm going to wait 24 hours.
Go home to my wife,
"Well, I don't know where she is."
LAUGHTER
- "But I'm going to wait
till tomorrow." - Yes.
"We might as well go out, because
we don't have to get a baby-sitter."
LAUGHTER
"Let's go and have a curry and some
wine and phone her in the morning."
You're absolutely right.
Then, of course, if it's an adult,
it doesn't matter,
cos the police are very likely
just to say,
"That's not our business."
Unless they have
a particular problem.
But the fact is, yeah,
there is no set time.
The police use their own skill
and judgment, as it were.
- If it's a child,
there's obviously... - Oh, well.
ALAN LAUGHS
I don't know why that's...
That's a message.
That's three words you don't
hear in the same sentence, isn't it?
Yeah, you just hope you're not
burgled soon, Alan.
Oh, I was burgled so many times
in the '90s that one time
they came round, it was like
the fifth time I'd been burgled,
they came round and my cat came in,
and this constable goes,
"If only he could talk."
LAUGHTER
That's fantastic.
Oh, that's brilliant.
Is that how we're going to...
Is that it then?
Is that the extent
of the investigation?
Willing the animal to give evidence.
Now, what did Parliament pay for to
put in Sir Peter Viggers' garden?
PLAINSONG PLAYS
Yes?
The notorious duck house.
KLAXON
Ah. You're in the duck house there.
The fact is, the duck house was one
of the ones that they turned down.
- Oh. - Yeah, he put in claims
for £32,000 for gardening.
£500 for 28 tonnes of manure.
£1,645 for the duck island,
but that was turned down
by the eagle-eyed guardians
of the national purse.
It's probably worth mentioning
that at the same time as that
£8 billion was spent bailing out
the banks,
it was just that was too big a sum
for anyone to get their heads around,
so they went, "What?
£10 for a sandwich?!"
- I know. - "This is appalling." - It is,
it's fascinating, isn't it?
Sir Peter Viggers later commented
that the duck house was,
"Never liked by the ducks..."
LAUGHTER
"..and is now in storage."
Ah, look, there they are.
They don't need an island.
- (I love ducks, don't you?) - Hmm.
You never see that sort of thing
on a coat of arms, do you?
All the sort of lions and dragons,
you never see something nice
like a duck.
- A duck. - Or a, you know, Eggs
Benedict, or some sort of friendly,
like a friendly thing. Yes,
like a hamster or guinea pig
or something. Yeah.
- That's true. A furry bearing.
- Yes.
Anyway, the famous duck house
didn't cost the taxpayer a penny.
And with that last tilt
at our old friend General Ignorance,
we reach the end of tonight's
performance,
and I can tell you that
it is incredibly exciting.
We have leaders, two leaders, with
plus three, Richard and Victoria.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
Wowzer!
In third place, with minus seven,
Alan Davies.
Highly commendable,
highly commendable.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
And with a fantastic
minus 24 is Sue Perkins.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
Well...
And it only remains for me
to thank my panellists,
Victoria, Sue, Richard and Alan.
Thank you and good night!