QI (2003–…): Season 11, Episode 16 - Kaleidoscope - full transcript
Good evening, good evening,
good evening, good evening,
good evening and welcome to QI.
Tonight, we'll be covering
a kaleidoscope of K topics.
My co-pilots on this kamikaze caper
are: the keen-eyed Sandi Toksvig!
The kick-arse Liza Tarbuck!
The knee-high Susan Calman!
And the knave very voluble
Alan Davies.
And the buzzers today
are kaleidoscopically colourful.
Sandi goes:
♪ Yellow is the colour
of my true love's hair... ♪
Liza goes:
♪ Green is the colour
of the sparklin' corn... ♪
Susan goes:
♪ Blue is the colour
of the sky... ♪
And Alan goes:
♪ We'll drink a drink a drink
to Lily the Pink the Pink the Pink
♪ The saviour of the human race... ♪
AUDIENCE CLAP ALONG
It's like an old people's home!
Join in.
You can have your cocoa in a minute!
- Yes. - It's only for an hour!
Old people's home?
It's like a Nazi rally.
That was how
they used to warm up at Nuremberg.
Now we had better get on
with our erste Frage,
the first question,
which is about your kin.
Your kin and kindred.
Do you know what your relatives
smell like?
My grandmother used to
smell of Lily of the Valley.
Nobody smells of Lily of the Valley
any more.
That was very common.
Grandmothers don't smell
the same at all now, do they?
- They used to smell faintly of mints.
- And Amontillado sherry.
- Oh, yes. Just the one.
- Just the one, dear.
Baileys.
That's what my gran smelled of.
Baileys, round the inside
of the glass with her finger.
Oh, my goodness! Desperate.
There used to be a perfume
called Tramp.
- Yes, there was! - Tramp.
And the advert for Tramp
was a young lady
who knows what she wants,
and that's to be called a Tramp,
apparently, in the 1970s.
And she wanders through a market
and all these guys are like "Hey,"
- and she's like "I'm a Tramp." - It was
a famous nightclub in Jermyn Street.
Tramp or Charlie.
Charlie! I can remember Benny Hill
doing a monologue about going
to one of those King's Road...
"It was a den of ini-quiety."
He said, "It was full of kinky boots
and underwear."
He said "I could smell her Charlie
across the room."
I mean, it was her perfume.
Just so wrong.
Men used to smell of Old Spice,
didn't they?
- Dads smelled of Old Spice. - And Brut.
Brut, yes.
Paul Abbott once wrote a line
in something I did for him
which said, as our characters
went into my parents' house,
the last line was, "Don't say
anything about the smell,"
- which was really fascinating.
- It makes you think of it.
Absolutely. It was that line of
genius that he's very good at.
That is very good, isn't it?
Well, in fact...
I'd know the smell
of my children anywhere.
- My own children.
- That's an interesting point.
It seems that a lot of members
of the animal kingdom do,
- for very good reasons.
- I was sat on quite a lot...
So it would ring a bell.
..by an older brother in order
to incapacitate me during disputes.
- Very beautifully put. - And there was
a certain aroma that I think...
How powerful the olfactory memory
can be.
- It is the most powerful.
- If he sat on me today...
- You'd know!
- I'd be thrown back to 1973.
Well, you're absolutely right.
Can you think of an evolutionary
or ecological reason
why you might need...
Well, you would not want to mate
with your cousin.
You wouldn't want to shag
your own close relatives.
So you'd want to know what your
relatives smelled like so that you...
This sounds like all shagging
takes place in the dark, but...
I mean, for example,
most mammals don't raise their young
the way we do with long,
long bonding,
so you recognise your mother and
say, "I must not shag my mother."
But in other mammals, they might not
see their father, for example.
The mouse lemur, which is
one of the cutest little things,
the Madagascan mouse lemur,
is reared exclusively by its mother.
But it can recognise its father's
smell and avoid shagging him.
And butterflies have
incredibly keen senses of smell.
They can smell mates
from a huge distance away.
But if they're inbred,
they have fewer sex pheromones.
Don't they say that as well,
when you're getting together
with somebody,
that part of the reason
that you get on well
is that you enjoy
each other's smells?
- It seems so.
- And it can keep you together.
I don't know about women, but men
have no sense of smell who are...
Do you remember the word?
- Wordsworth was this,
has no sense of smell. - No.
Anosmic. Anosmic.
You can't taste any food
or anything.
You wouldn't be able to taste food.
But men who have no sense of smell
get less...fewer sexual partners.
I thought
you were going to say takeaways!
"I'll just have toast again."
Erm, Dr Johnson, somebody
once said to him, "You smell."
And he said, "No, I do not.
"I stink."
There you are.
Nature has its reasons
for producing smelly rellies.
Just... Some ways
of blackmailing your parents.
Oh, yes.
Emotional blackmail,
I would have thought.
My children can blackmail me
at any time
by threatening to join
a team sport.
I give them anything they want,
anything,
- as long as I don't have to go
and watch them perform
in some sporting event. - Really?
- Can't be doing with it. - You're
right, that is the well-known way
children blackmail their parents,
by pester power and if you don't...
"I'll never speak to you again"
and such things,
but in the animal kingdom
can that exist?
- Do you know of any...
- Some kind of emotional blackmail?
Yeah, there's
a particular species of bird,
the pied babbler, whose young
actually leave the nest
and threaten to throw themselves
off until their parents
come back and feed them, push them
back in the nest, feed them more.
Suicidal birds?!
Kind of, pretendingly so.
Feed me or I'll jump! Can't fly.
- Oh! - Bye, then.
Darling, darling,
let me give you some more food.
- It's very sophisticated.
- It is sophisticated.
But why don't the adults remember
that that's what they were doing?
That's the problem,
you never remember.
Oh, he's gone over the edge again.
He was bluffing, he was bluffing.
I used to do that when I was
younger, I'm not falling for it.
- You don't remember what you did as
a baby. - That's true, you don't.
That's another thing,
you notice the beaks,
have you ever seen
a very particular kind of beak
that is in young birds?
A koha bird has
the most remarkable beak,
which basically represents a face.
Oh, my God.
But weirdly not even a bird face,
it looks more like a human face.
- Doesn't it? - That is basically saying,
- "Put the food here." - Wow.
It's like those things
they had for men to aim at
- in the urinal, isn't it? - Yes!
It looks like Alan Carr.
I'm half closing my eyes now.
Yes, it does.
- It does look a bit like him.
- That's remarkable, isn't it?
It is extraordinary.
So there's a little man in there,
and he wants some food as well.
The whole intestinal tract.
And then as it gets older it fades.
- Just extraordinary.
- That's brilliant.
What are we looking at here?
- A bird. - More birds. - Yes.
- Is it a cuckoo?
The cuckoo's gone in the nest.
What do most cuckoos do?
They throw the eggs out of the nest,
of another species.
Oddly enough, that's not most.
It's 50 odd of a species
of which there are 136.
Only about 50 odd do it,
the other 80 don't.
It's enough to cause talk, though.
It is, but a minority of cuckoo
species are cuckoos in the nest.
They're giving the rest of them
a bad name.
Nice cuckoos have got to do so much
work to make up for the reputation.
So, birds blackmail their parents,
just like people do.
Why did the spider
go to the bathroom?
Ooh.
- They don't come up the plughole,
they fall in. - Correct.
Fall in and they can't get out.
But why do they go there,
are they thirsty?
- Well, they're house spiders,
so they live in a... - House.
- I've got the hang of this show.
- I still feel there's a trick coming.
They're usually hidden
nicely in the wainscoting.
They can last a long time
without food,
- but one thing they can't
do without... - Is a drink.
Now, just put your own
considerations apart!
Are they voyeurs? Do they like
watching people in the bathroom?
"Here they come!"
That's why they're called spider.
"I spied her!"
As I say, they can do without food
and they can do without drink,
but they can't do without...?
Washing.
- Exercise. - Well, kind of. It's sex.
The male spider, come autumn,
has got to get his rocks off.
This is where
they lose their inhibitions.
That's when you'll see them
in bathrooms and so on.
They don't really stand out.
On carpets, you might miss them,
but in bathrooms, against the white,
they're unmistakable.
But what happens if they don't
have sex? Do they explode?
It's a primary imperative
amongst a lot of animals.
They have an eight-finger shuffle.
Essentially,
when I see these spiders
running around my house in the
autumn, they're just really horny?
Yes. The male's looking
for a female.
That makes it worse.
I've come round to spiders,
because they eat
about 2,000 bugs a year,
and that's 2,000 less of those
in your house and just one spider.
- Completely. - Or two,
because they've got to have sex.
I pulled a curtain once
when I was still in bed,
and you know the dread thing
of seeing that above you?
And for the length it took
for it to drop,
I was up over my boyfriend
and at the end of the room
before it dropped.
It's the quickest I've ever moved
in my life.
That would be a very good
Olympic sport, spider drop.
The height of the spider
and then the distance you're going
to travel, some calculation,
degree of difficulty.
That's a garden spider web,
isn't it?
But in houses, you get cobwebs,
which are messy and asymmetrical.
Film companies
have spray cobwebs,
which is the most glorious thing.
I'm sure you've done it in Jonathan
Ross. This is magical stuff.
You can presumably buy it online,
but it's so great for Halloween
parties. I recommend it.
Did you just say Jonathan Ross?
I didn't even notice! Sorry.
I meant Graham Creek!
I like the idea of Alan having had
a brief career as Jonathan Ross.
Maybe it's like Doctor Who, everyone
gets a shot at being Jonathan Ross.
You were the sixth Jonathan Ross.
I've had a long enough career
to regenerate.
Spiders, I think,
can't see very well.
So you would have been as much
a surprise to the spider.
I don't think
they drop on you on purpose.
They don't see you and think,
"Ooh, I'll have a go."
"It's Liza Tarbuck!
Liza Tarbuck!
"I'm going to get an autograph.
"Wahey! Oh, she's gone!
"I used to like you!
"Liza!"
That was brilliant. It was like
Jonathan Ross was in the room.
Mrs Spider, after mating
the house spider, what will she do?
- Eat it. - Yes, the most famous
being the redback. - Black widow.
Or the black widow, indeed.
The redback, the male
is really the most willing for it.
He will inseminate the female
and then jump into her open mouth.
- How marvellous! - Last thing he does.
Your good old British house
spider, she has the decency to
wait for the male to die before
eating him, so it's kinder.
She must feel weird
if she has sons cos
- she knows how they're going
to go, so it can't be...
- It's true, it's true.
Look at the boy, oh, shame.
You'd think she'd want either the
insemination or the spider dinner.
She might not have
wanted either of them.
- That's true. - Would
have gone...Oh, God!
Ah-ah-ah...
- I've just had tea. - Eat me, eat me.
But I suppose
it kills two birds with one stone,
because sometimes
if you have had a little bit of
the sexy, sexy time you are hungry.
That's true.
And it's sometimes annoying
to have to get up
and make a pasta dinner.
And so what it is,
you've just had a bit of a...
I expect in the future
men will evolve
with the Domino's logo on them.
And so women will lie there going,
"At last, that was actually OK.
"Come on, come on."
- And then everyone's happy. - Yes.
So, if there's a spider
stuck in your kitchen sink,
he's probably on the pull.
The best way to help a spider
is by giving him a little ladder.
But what's the point
of Snakes and Ladders?
Ah, now I did a programme about this,
- because actually
it originated in India. - It did.
And it was a morality game,
as so many of our games were, or are.
- Instructional. - Yes.
But wasn't it linked,
as well, with Ludo?
Well, you have Snakes and Ladders
on one side of the board
and Ludo on the other.
Yes, you do, that's right.
It's as easy as that!
So they are, in many ways, linked.
But this, as you say, do you know
what the message is, as it were?
- In the States it was called
Chutes and Ladders. - Really?
If you'd eaten all your dinner
you could go up a ladder,
and if you'd done
something bad, like,
I don't know, become President
and not closed down Guantanamo
or something,
then you went back down the chute.
- So it was the same, I suspect
it's to do with... - That's right,
it's learning various lessons.
The K, in this case,
is karma.
It's a first or second century
Hindu game,
and the snakes represent
different types of sins.
The ladders let you reach nirvana,
which is the finish there.
You can see, the original game
isn't quite the same structure,
but it's not that far off.
That's how it looked.
If you hit a snake
it represented a vice,
for which you are punished.
So evil deed squares
include disobedience,
which moved you from square 41,
to square 4.
Drunkenness, 62 to 21,
murder, 73
all the way back to number one.
I should think so. Quite right.
Desire, almost there, 99,
all the way back to 29.
And the virtues, which were
the ladders that took you up,
included faith, perseverance,
compassion...
Arsenal supporter.
I'm afraid, Alan, knowledge.
Now even more afraid, self-denial.
- So really a properly ancient game.
- Genuinely ancient, yes.
- Second century.
And one that has sort of survived,
I think it has.
Do you young people in the audience
play Snakes and Ladders?
AUDIENCE MEMBER: No.
That man's taken a survey.
Don't you, of an evening?
That one didn't sound very young.
Is there a Snakes and Ladders app?
No?
Well, while we're in a playful mood,
I have one of my knick-knacks
to show you.
ALL: Ooooh!
Yes, now this...
The great Lord Kelvin in the 1890s
was wandering along a beach
with a friend called Hugh Blackburn,
who was a mathematician.
They found a pebble and a surface
on which to spin it
and they found it had a peculiar
property, not unlike this,
which is called a tippe top.
- Erm, and you give it a spin...
- Oooooh!
- Oh! - It turns upside down.
Now, what you, sort of, don't
notice because it's still going
clockwise but it's upside down, so
it's reversed the direction of spin.
Oh...
And engineers and
mathematicians like Bohr
and Pauli were fascinated by this.
It is quite fun.
We can show you some VT
of it being done properly,
then you can see slightly
better spin there.
So, this is about, you know
when they were saying...
The spin is still going...sorry.
Where they were saying that the
earth axis is going to change
and that north is going to be
south. It's much like this.
Sorry, Liza, is the world going to
turn upside down? Apparently so.
Soon? Tuesday,
it's happening on Tuesday.
Just if I've got to get up
and deal with my bills or not.
This is even, perhaps,
more impressive.
This little thing here, and
what's strange about this is
I can spin it one way
but not the other.
If I spin it anti-clockwise,
it goes very happily anti-clockwise
but if I try and spin it clockwise,
it not only will resist,
it will stop and
spin anti-clockwise.
I'm now going to try
and spin it clockwise.
Because of the shape...
the particular shape?
Obviously it's the reason, yes.
Messing with its...you're
twisting its melons, man. Yeah!
And then round and
round and round again.
- Do you know physics is extraordinary.
- It is, try it anti-clockwise.
- It really is...why?
- I know, it is very mysterious.
I'm sorry, I didn't mean to
dismiss you by saying it was
because of the shape.
I'm trying to ascertain what the
shape...I couldn't really see
what was the shape.
- It's a cat's tongue, Alan.
- It is a cat's tongue.
So, there you are. That shows it
goes nicely counter-clockwise.
- Let me see. - It's sort
of a humpy thing.
Slight hump in it
but it's nothing...
- But it's got a twisty bit.
- Tiny twist. Now, do it clockwise.
- Isn't that amazing?
- Did you say it has a name?
This particular thing is
called a rattleback.
That's extraordinary, isn't it?
Yeah, so that's the tippe top
and the rattleback.
Two very extraordinary objects
that you can spin around
and seem to have minds of their own.
Now, name the world's
scariest spice.
- Well, it's none of them. - No.
Because I was a member of the Spice
Girls fan club at the age of 20.
LAUGHTER DROWNS OUT SPEECH
They were amazing.
They WERE amazing.
They take a lot of flak now
but they were amazing.
Zig-a-zig-ah.
I just happened to be
in Spice World: The Movie.
I went to see that in the cinema.
Which one were you playing?!
I honestly literally did it
because I had nephews
who were at the age
where to get the signed photograph
of each one of the Spice Girls,
it was like ten Christmases
for them at once,
and they were so thrilled.
I would have pretended
to be one of your nephews
to get a signed photograph.
You spoke to everyone who was on
that film and they said, "I'm doing
it to get their autographs."
- What was the question? - Oh, yes, which
is the scariest spice of them all?
- So, we're not going to be looking
for an actual spice? - Well, yes.
- So, it's once of these? - Yes.
In order to big-up
the price of spice,
and it didn't need much to do
it back in the 17th century,
spice was the most precious
commodity in the world.
Indeed there were
spice wars between...?
- The British, the Dutch and the
Portuguese mainly. - Absolutely right.
- And the island of Banda... - Yes.
..in Indonesia
was swapped for Manhattan.
Well, one of the Banda
islands was, yes.
Because it had so much nutmeg on it
- and nutmeg was more
valuable than gold. - Indeed.
And they used it to preserve meat.
Well, they do and at the time,
they thought it was
a cure for the bubonic plague,
which increased its value even more.
The island was actually
called Run, which is
- one of the Banda islands but, erm...
- Have you been to a spice farm?
It's the most astonishing thing
cos you say,
"Oh, I'm going to go to a spice farm.
"Thinking there'll be the nutmeg
here and the paprika here..."
It all grows all together in
the most fantastic eco-system
and you walk around
and they're intertwined.
It's the most heady experience I've
ever had in my life, it's fantastic.
- Yeah. - Spice farms in places
like Tanzania...incredible.
- Tanzania and also Sri Lanka.
- So, that's nutmeg there? Love that.
Yeah.
And nutmeg is related to mace
in which way? What way? How way?
- Cousins. - Well, I think it's that
I put mace in my beef stroganoff
but not nutmeg, does that work?
Mace and nutmeg are the same plant,
- just different parts of the same
plant. - Oh, OK. - Actually, yeah.
But the one we're
talking about is cinnamon.
And the salesman of cinnamon,
in order to sell it at the most
premium price they could, used
to tell of where it came from.
Which was the nest of
this extraordinary bird,
which they called
the kinnamomon orneon.
And it used these twigs
of cinnamon in its nest
and what they would have to do
to catch it, this giant bird,
is they'd leave slaughtered
bits of giant oxen
and the birds would take them
up and put them on their nest,
which would over-balance the nest
and it would fall down
and they would take out
the cinnamon twigs.
And, so they would charge all
the more money for how dangerous
it was, basically, to gather
from this mystical bird.
That is so fantastic,
cos you can imagine on the
Silk Road or the trade roads
stopping and earning your
supper of a night by telling
the tale of that particular thing.
Exactly and in fact it is
the bark from a tree,
which doesn't take that much skill.
But to travel the distance it did,
once it got to Britain,
a long, long way away...
- Oh, yeah. - ..only the very, very
richest of people could afford it.
But just stay on spice for a moment.
I've prepared some allspice for you.
I've put them all into pots.
And I want you to tell me
which spices you can smell in there,
which different spices.
I've got one for myself.
If it goes everywhere
that'll be funny.
- Wow. - What can you smell? - Cloves.
- Cloves, definitely.
- Cloves, definitely.
KLAXON SOUNDS
- It's not me, wasn't me,
I didn't do anything. - It was me.
Anything else? You definitely
said cloves, definitely.
I said loaves.
- Loaves! - It's very strong.
- It IS strong. - It's persimmon. It
actually smells like a grandparent.
I wish I could
make the audience smell it,
one day there will be smell-ivision,
and we can share.
- Is somebody going to catch
if I throw it? - It's very strong.
Oh!
LAUGHTER
APPLAUSE
Shall I pass it on?
Pass it along.
Thank you so much.
You can hand it to someone
in the audience behind you.
- Who's good at spices? - You better
have the lid. - Tell me what that is.
No, it's not clove.
Well, it's sort of a cheat, really,
it is called allspice,
and a lot of people seem to believe
allspice is a mixture
of spices, but it isn't.
It is a specific plant
that gets its name
from smelling like a combination
of cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves,
and it's called Pimenta dioica.
- AUDIENCE MEMBER SNEEZES
- Oh, bless you.
That's very funny!
Don't get too close to it, sir.
We know where
it's reached in the audience.
It's all over the back
of row three now.
Excellent.
Now, the word pepper has,
as it were, two meanings for us.
We have the pepper,
which is salt and pepper
and then we have hot peppers.
And do you remember the name
of the scale
by which you measure
the heat of peppers?
I heard a little
whisper in the audience.
If you have a really strong one,
it smells like someone's
died inside you.
- Ahhhhh... Ooooohhhh....
- Someone in the audience is dying to
get out here. - Richter. - Say it again?
FROM THE AUDIENCE: Scoville.
Scoville, Scoville Scale,
you're absolutely right.
And on the Scoville Scale
a jalapeno, for example, is 5,000.
Whereas, the hottest one is
the Trinidad Maruga Scorpion.
- Oh, it sounds hot. - Which ranks over
two million on the Scoville Scale.
Could it kill you, if it was that...?
Almost, I mean, the hottest
possible on the Scoville Scale
are actually genuinely poisonous
but the hottest curry,
supposedly, ever measured
that's been eaten...
It was eaten by a Dr Rothwell,
who was a radiologist,
perhaps appropriately.
In order to prepare it, the chef
had to wear goggles and a mask...
Like so, and it produces crying
and shaking and vomiting,
in eating it.
Very like our local Indian.
The restaurant's owner said that
Dr Rothwell was hallucinating
and he himself took a ten minute
walk down the street weeping,
in the middle of eating it.
Took him an hour to eat.
Which is not bad.
So, so hot!
Now, which Olympic sport
should women not take part in?
Weightlifting.
- She looks so pleased with herself.
- She does, as wouldn't you be.
Four scenes away from
a prolapse though.
I'm trying to think of
her name, she's amazing.
She can lift the equivalent of
two fridges over her head.
- She's an astonishing...
- Cheryl Haworth, by the way.
Cheryl Haworth, that's right,
and she's an amazing weightlifter.
- I went to women's weightlifting
in the Olympics. - Did you?
Marvellous.
And a woman from Kazakhstan won,
very emo...not a dry
eye in the house.
- You can see the physical effort.
- Oh, absolutely.
It's quite funny, the
weightlifting, because usually,
I was going to say the trainer
but it's more like the handler...
Coaxes out the weightlifter...
This way, this way.
- And then they get the powder
for the... - Oh, yes.
..for grip and then
they get in position
and they go "sh-sh-sh"
and you all have to be quiet.
You could hear a pin drop
and then they make this...and
when they can't do it,
it's heartbreaking.
- It's four years...
- They turn their back on it.
If they do do it, everyone erupts.
- So, it's a very emotional
experience. - I bet it is.
There was one girl who fell
down and got pinned under it.
PANEL GASP
Everyone's craning
their necks for a view.
Is she alive?
Twitching...
STEPHEN LAUGHS
Took about four people to lift
the thing off her neck, you know.
- Kept getting help cos
it was enormous. - Exactly.
It was very, very exciting.
- Everything about the Olympics
was exciting. - It was.
- It was quite exciting just going to
the ExCeL centre, no-one's
ever said that before. - No.
- Are you talking about the ancient
Olympics or... - No, the ancient
- Olympics was all male anyway.
No, this is, obviously,
women should be allowed
and can take part
in all the summer Olympics...
Except Pierre de Coubertin, who
founded the modern Olympics, he said
that it should just be about male
athleticism, applauded by women.
But we've moved on from that, as
we know. So, when we say "should"...
- Is it a K? - Yes, it is a K.
- It's a K thing?
It's a K, the word actually
means, in its own language,
a man's something.
Which is why, technically, you
can't have a woman's version of it.
- Kayaking. - Is the right answer.
- Really? - Yeah.
APPLAUSE
Absolutely right.
In the Inuktitut language,
it means a man's boat.
Except, they also
had all female boats
- and I'm trying to think of the name
of them. They had a boat that was
only for the women. - Kayakette.
And traditionally the women caught
more fish...in their boats and
they've got a completely different
name, like an umiak, I think.
It was called a trawler.
Errrr!
Sometimes the men used the umiak
for hunting walruses and things,
but they were mainly used just for
transporting people and objects.
Now, these two in this picture,
one seems to have a quiver
for arrows and the other one
seems to have a baby...
- Growing out of her shoulder.
- It would be awful to
get those mixed up.
Baaaaah!
That's so true.
Stephen, you say that now
it's all marvellous equality,
it's not completely.
For example, in the women's football,
in the 2012 Olympics,
the Japanese sent a women's team
and they sent a men's team,
and the men's team
came from Japan in business class,
and the women's team came in economy.
- That's not my fault!
- No, I'm just saying!
I wasn't blaming you.
They did go back, I have to say,
in a different way, in that the women
went back with a silver medal,
and the men went back
without anything.
In the Olympics, for example,
there are only two sports
which are wholly co-ed, as it were.
- Equestrian, presumably, would be one.
- Equestrian, the other is sailing.
It doesn't seem
to make a difference.
Almost all sports were invented by
men to show off skills men have,
so that's kind of why
I think men are good at them.
I like the ones
where they do those trial ones,
and I think it was 1900 in Paris
they had poodle clipping
as a trial sport.
- It's a nice thought, it's
actually not true. - Is it not true?
- It's a myth but it's a lovely idea.
- I'd like that.
Now for a question
about going under the knife.
What's the advantage of having
an arm surgically attached
to your face?
You could use it like a trunk.
- You could. - Feed yourself buns.
Can you not feed yourself
buns already?
If you're doing something,
doing something else,
so let's say you were performing
surgery, and you got peckish,
- you wouldn't have to get anyone
else to help you. - That's true.
- Are you talking about an arm, or an
arm and a hand, or...? - Extra arm.
- No, it's not to give you
an extra arm. - Skin grafting.
It was kind of skin grafting.
It was done in the 17th century
by an Italian surgeon.
That's the process -
there's your arm.
It's the bit near the shoulder,
and it's attached,
as you can see, to the nose.
It was quite common in that period
for the nose to perish,
to disappear,
to get diseased from...?
- Oh, syphilis. - Syphilis, I'm afraid.
There was a man called
Gaspare Tagliacozzi,
who was a surgeon from Bologna,
and he performed this rhinoplasty,
essentially.
- Can you name a famous person
who had a nose made of metal?
- Tycho Brahe.
You probably pronounce him
better than most,
- because he was your countryman.
- The Danish astronomer.
He had a zinc, was it, or brass...?
- I think it was brass.
- Oh, how fabulous.
Can he play it like a trumpet?
Disconcerting as well, colour wise,
to have a big brass nose,
with a fine shine on it.
I'd like an eye on me finger.
- An eye on your finger. - Mm.
I'm sure it'd be possible one day.
Fit for the uses on buses and tubes.
I'm afraid people get...
- LAUGHTER
- No! Not for an auto colonoscopy!
Stop it!
Behave! That's just revolting.
A-ha.
Of course,
the other thing is, there was
a nobleman who decided
he didn't want anybody's...
There was a nobleman who decided
he didn't want...
I'm reading.
There was a nobleman who decided
he didn't want a cut
made in his own arm, so he had
a servant have his arm cut.
- Really? - Yeah.
And the servant had to
sort of follow him all around.
Of course,
what happened was the servant died
and the nose was rejected.
Of course.
And they weren't sure
whether he died
because it was rejected or whether
it was rejected because he died.
So he had no nose
and nobody to get the tea!
There's another operation -
a gynecomastia,
which is breast diminution.
In 2012, a paper called
Gynecomastia in German Soldiers -
Etiology and Pathology,
looked at the number of breast
reductions that were taking
place among the male members
of the German army.
Abnormal breasts - why would German
soldiers have abnormal breasts?
- They drink too much milk. - No.
Is it when you march like this?
Not quite the marching, it's a
ceremonial buffeting of your
rifle against your chest.
It actually causes the breast
to enlarge.
Is it like a shock thing?
It's a shock and the breast has to
get used to this regular
pummelling, and decides to push
extra fat out to protect itself.
- Wow. - It's during ceremonial drill...
Women could save money on breast
implants and just get a gun.
I think it might be quite odd
if you were just sitting on the bus
doing that all the time.
I'd save it for private!
I think if you took a gun on a bus
at all you'd be in trouble.
In the last six years,
212 German soldiers
have had this procedure,
which is not inconsiderable,
considering that, being a male
soldier, it's presumably
embarrassing.
Exactly. I just thought,
wouldn't it go away?
Yeah, the modern German army...
MIMICS GERMAN ACCENT: Forget all
your notions of the Nazis,
we're whole new peoples!
We're very at ease
with our inner woman, you know.
It's really,
there's no embarrassment -
I could show you my breasts.
And I'm not embarrassed at all.
It's fine.
- That's an incredibly sexy accent.
- Thank you. - It really is.
APPLAUSE
I think camouflage clothing is weird
cos you can see them perfectly well.
You may have missed the point but
I kind of know what you're saying.
Right, let me take you back
to a day in September, 2005.
Why did so many Russians
have it off?
- Was it football?
- Wasn't anything to do with football.
- Is it to do with voting? - Voting?
No. Actually, only in a province.
The governor of this province
and the particular town.
Ulyanovsk is the name of the town.
That might be a hint.
Ulyanov mean anything to you?
- Erm... - Someone in the audience
will know what the name means?
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Lenin.
- Lenin's real name was Ulyanov.
- Oh! I had no idea.
So his town was named after him -
Ulyanovsk - and it was a popular
destination, in Communist times.
People would come and say,
"He vos born Ulanovsk."
There's me just thinking
he was from Liverpool.
I was trying to get into my...
You have to sound as if
you are speaking backwards.
"Iz alvays difficoolt ven...
"Lenin vos born in Ulyanovsk."
HE SPEAKS RUSSIAN
The governor of...
"I hope ze destination..."
- There he is. - Oh, look at him!
- Looks as if he's praying.
- Bruce Forsyth.
LAUGHTER
- Oh, my God, it is! - Yeah!
"Nice to see you..."
Brucefski Vlad Forsythski.
He decided that the town
was suffering and...
Well, it is.
Look at the bloody architecture.
LAUGHTER
Most Communist architecture
is even worse than that.
But he decided it needed
to increase its population,
- so he named a day...
- Was there an edict? - Yes.
And it was basically Shag Day
and if you could show
that you had conceived that day, you
got prizes - very Bruce Forsyth! -
like a fridge.
LAUGHTER
"Fridge - yes, yes!
"Vot else do you have?" There was
a star prize, which was a 4x4.
Really, yes.
- On that day, what did gay people do -
redecorate? - I'm afraid, gay people...
- Yes, they do that every day!
- Oh, sorry!
- Silly me(!) - Gay people
were never the first priority
and still aren't in Russia, I'm
afraid. The Day of Conception.
On those game shows in the '70s,
they'd give you a speedboat
- or a caravan. - Yes!
Things you just didn't want, at all.
"You've won a caravan."
There'd be someone
standing in the door, waving.
Do they pair you up,
like a dating thing?
- Oh, I see what you mean.
- "I vouldn't advise it."
I think it was
a very severe Russian...
I think it had to be
within marriage.
- They didn't want to fill
Ulyanovsk with bastards. - No.
- That was the last thing they wanted.
- Riff-raff. - Yeah, exactly.
Even in the Napoleonic era,
there was a Russian general
called Alexey Arakcheyev,
who insisted that all the women
on his estate have a son every year.
If they had a daughter,
or didn't have any child,
or even miscarried, they were fined.
- That's a bit harsh. - It was tough,
but they understood it(!) - Yes.
- They knew where they were(!)
- Seems perfectly reasonable to me(!)
Anyway, in 2005,
the mayor of Ulyanovsk
gave everyone a day off,
so they could play Hide The Sausage.
LAUGHTER
- We need to talk about Kevin.
- Oh, right. - What can you say?
- Oh. - Kevins. - One of my best
friends is called Kevin.
Well, I'm sorry. I say that because
that is a clue as to the answer.
- Is it the meaning of the name?
- Unfortunately, it's just not
a good name to have if you are
on the hunt for a partner.
On dating websites, people are
actively put off by the name Kevin,
I'm afraid. They get fewer replies.
So, if your name is Kevin,
use your middle name,
but not if your middle name
is Marvin, Justin or Dennis,
cos they are equally unfortunate.
- It's so unfair.
- I've never met anyone called Kevin.
I've never met a Kevin.
I've never met a Kevin.
You've never met a Kevin?
You've never met any Kevin?
There's a Kevin there!
You can meet him!
Is there someone called Kevin in?
Hiya! Susan - Kevin!
Yay! There we go!
- Not only that... - Do you know...?
- Not only that, he's gorgeous!
- He's gorgeous! - He's lovely!
"Before tonight" - it's like
Surprise, Surprise - "before tonight
"I'd never met a Kevin,
now I'm married to one."
Do you know what was nice?
You were so pleased.
You were like that, "At last!
My time in the sun! It's Kevin!"
Also, if you're female, there are
four names that do just as badly
for women - Mandy, Chantelle,
Jacqueline and Celina, with a C.
Apparently, the best names,
which are rather dully middle class,
are Jacob and Alexander
and Charlotte and Emma,
just in terms of returns
on the website.
I'll give you some names last year
born in America, beginning with K.
Krymson, K-R-Y-M-S-O-N.
Klinton, with a K.
Kingsolomon, all one word.
LAUGHTER
- He's mine. - Keats and Kdrian -
letter K, D-R-I-A-N.
YORKSHIRE ACCENT: "Kdrian, coom in,
our kid, your tea's on t'table.
Sorry, don't know
why I said it like that.
There were ten Kindles,
as in the e-reader.
- People are called Kindle? - Ten in
America baptised or given that name.
And ten Kingdavids, all one word.
My sister-in-law used to work
in a hospital and there were
a pair of twins born - this is
in Sunderland - and they were named
Fifa and Uefa.
LAUGHTER
GEORDIE ACCENT: "Little Champions
League, you get in now!"
- Fifa and Uefa. - That's fantastic.
- They're not even words. - Right.
You're less likely to click
with people called Kevin, sadly.
Now it's time
for General Ignorance.
Fingers on buzzers, please.
Which way is this comet going?
- ALAN'S BUZZER
- Where's it headed to?
I think it's going that way,
I thought was the answer.
- KLAXON SOUNDS
- Oh!
Dagnabbit!
It looks as though
the tail is to the left.
The tail is caused by solar wind.
There's nothing to reveal
the direction of travel.
It's solidified carbon dioxide
turning into gas in the solar winds,
and it's always pointing away
from the sun, the tail.
- Isn't it beautiful?
- They are beautiful, aren't they?
Who took that picture?
That's a good effort.
You could put it into a competition.
"I shot this on a Nikon F8,
standing on a stepladder."
"It took me 40 years
to get the film developed."
I assume from some passing object
that NASA sent up.
But it comes from the Greek comitos,
do you know what that means?
- Electrical store. - No.
APPLAUSE
It means "long beard",
and that's what it reminds
people of, a nice long beard.
The point is, there's nothing
to reveal the direction of travel.
- We don't know where that one's
going, then? - We simply don't know.
- Luton.
- It's going to Luton. That'll do.
Describe the skin
on a crocodile's head.
There isn't
going to be any, is there?
- Thick. - Thick is probably right, yeah.
This is a trap, isn't it? Yeah.
- Would I? - Yes.
- They don't have any skin.
- Yeah, they do.
- It's not that.
- It's not that, then, yeah.
Shoe.
Reptilian.
Yes, that'll do. But it isn't scaly.
- Not scaly. - That's right.
Not scaly.
Move on, then, next one.
- Just do a quick explanation.
- Fish are scaly.
It's cracked skin
and it's irregular.
Scales are genetically programmed
to appear and are regular,
but these are different
on every single crocodile
and they're not regular.
Once, I did an extraordinary trip,
where I canoed across Africa -
I don't recommend it, you get
a condition called trench bottom,
and, um...
Met a wonderful woman...
Sorry, you did what nude?
I canoed across Africa. Nude?
No, no, not nude.
All I could hear...
It was in my head.
It wasn't dangerous enough, so I...
I thought I heard you say,
"I can nude."
That's why I went, "Pardon?"
Anyway, I met this woman,
this missionary, and I said to her...
LIZA LAUGHS
She said,
"I hope you're not in a kayak."
- She was a missionary...?
- A missionary.
And she said to me, "Are you worried
about crocodiles." I said, "Yes."
She said, "If you should meet
a crocodile, here's the advice -
"offer it your arm, cos then you've
still got both legs to run away."
True.
I like that.
We know another good way.
Put a rubber band over its mouth.
It can only move one jaw and it
can't put any pressure upwards,
snap it down.
The things that look like scales
on a crocodile's head
are actually just cracks
in its skin.
So, that's the end of the show,
so let's find out
who's the clever clogs
and who's a big stupid old thicky.
In equal last position,
on minus nine,
- it's Liza and Susan!
- SHE CHEERS
In a highly-respectable
second place,
with minus four, Alan Davies!
Which means that our runaway,
super-soaraway winner,
with minus two, is Sandi Toksvig.
So, it only remains for me to thank
Susan, Sandi, Liza and Alan.
Good night.
good evening, good evening,
good evening and welcome to QI.
Tonight, we'll be covering
a kaleidoscope of K topics.
My co-pilots on this kamikaze caper
are: the keen-eyed Sandi Toksvig!
The kick-arse Liza Tarbuck!
The knee-high Susan Calman!
And the knave very voluble
Alan Davies.
And the buzzers today
are kaleidoscopically colourful.
Sandi goes:
♪ Yellow is the colour
of my true love's hair... ♪
Liza goes:
♪ Green is the colour
of the sparklin' corn... ♪
Susan goes:
♪ Blue is the colour
of the sky... ♪
And Alan goes:
♪ We'll drink a drink a drink
to Lily the Pink the Pink the Pink
♪ The saviour of the human race... ♪
AUDIENCE CLAP ALONG
It's like an old people's home!
Join in.
You can have your cocoa in a minute!
- Yes. - It's only for an hour!
Old people's home?
It's like a Nazi rally.
That was how
they used to warm up at Nuremberg.
Now we had better get on
with our erste Frage,
the first question,
which is about your kin.
Your kin and kindred.
Do you know what your relatives
smell like?
My grandmother used to
smell of Lily of the Valley.
Nobody smells of Lily of the Valley
any more.
That was very common.
Grandmothers don't smell
the same at all now, do they?
- They used to smell faintly of mints.
- And Amontillado sherry.
- Oh, yes. Just the one.
- Just the one, dear.
Baileys.
That's what my gran smelled of.
Baileys, round the inside
of the glass with her finger.
Oh, my goodness! Desperate.
There used to be a perfume
called Tramp.
- Yes, there was! - Tramp.
And the advert for Tramp
was a young lady
who knows what she wants,
and that's to be called a Tramp,
apparently, in the 1970s.
And she wanders through a market
and all these guys are like "Hey,"
- and she's like "I'm a Tramp." - It was
a famous nightclub in Jermyn Street.
Tramp or Charlie.
Charlie! I can remember Benny Hill
doing a monologue about going
to one of those King's Road...
"It was a den of ini-quiety."
He said, "It was full of kinky boots
and underwear."
He said "I could smell her Charlie
across the room."
I mean, it was her perfume.
Just so wrong.
Men used to smell of Old Spice,
didn't they?
- Dads smelled of Old Spice. - And Brut.
Brut, yes.
Paul Abbott once wrote a line
in something I did for him
which said, as our characters
went into my parents' house,
the last line was, "Don't say
anything about the smell,"
- which was really fascinating.
- It makes you think of it.
Absolutely. It was that line of
genius that he's very good at.
That is very good, isn't it?
Well, in fact...
I'd know the smell
of my children anywhere.
- My own children.
- That's an interesting point.
It seems that a lot of members
of the animal kingdom do,
- for very good reasons.
- I was sat on quite a lot...
So it would ring a bell.
..by an older brother in order
to incapacitate me during disputes.
- Very beautifully put. - And there was
a certain aroma that I think...
How powerful the olfactory memory
can be.
- It is the most powerful.
- If he sat on me today...
- You'd know!
- I'd be thrown back to 1973.
Well, you're absolutely right.
Can you think of an evolutionary
or ecological reason
why you might need...
Well, you would not want to mate
with your cousin.
You wouldn't want to shag
your own close relatives.
So you'd want to know what your
relatives smelled like so that you...
This sounds like all shagging
takes place in the dark, but...
I mean, for example,
most mammals don't raise their young
the way we do with long,
long bonding,
so you recognise your mother and
say, "I must not shag my mother."
But in other mammals, they might not
see their father, for example.
The mouse lemur, which is
one of the cutest little things,
the Madagascan mouse lemur,
is reared exclusively by its mother.
But it can recognise its father's
smell and avoid shagging him.
And butterflies have
incredibly keen senses of smell.
They can smell mates
from a huge distance away.
But if they're inbred,
they have fewer sex pheromones.
Don't they say that as well,
when you're getting together
with somebody,
that part of the reason
that you get on well
is that you enjoy
each other's smells?
- It seems so.
- And it can keep you together.
I don't know about women, but men
have no sense of smell who are...
Do you remember the word?
- Wordsworth was this,
has no sense of smell. - No.
Anosmic. Anosmic.
You can't taste any food
or anything.
You wouldn't be able to taste food.
But men who have no sense of smell
get less...fewer sexual partners.
I thought
you were going to say takeaways!
"I'll just have toast again."
Erm, Dr Johnson, somebody
once said to him, "You smell."
And he said, "No, I do not.
"I stink."
There you are.
Nature has its reasons
for producing smelly rellies.
Just... Some ways
of blackmailing your parents.
Oh, yes.
Emotional blackmail,
I would have thought.
My children can blackmail me
at any time
by threatening to join
a team sport.
I give them anything they want,
anything,
- as long as I don't have to go
and watch them perform
in some sporting event. - Really?
- Can't be doing with it. - You're
right, that is the well-known way
children blackmail their parents,
by pester power and if you don't...
"I'll never speak to you again"
and such things,
but in the animal kingdom
can that exist?
- Do you know of any...
- Some kind of emotional blackmail?
Yeah, there's
a particular species of bird,
the pied babbler, whose young
actually leave the nest
and threaten to throw themselves
off until their parents
come back and feed them, push them
back in the nest, feed them more.
Suicidal birds?!
Kind of, pretendingly so.
Feed me or I'll jump! Can't fly.
- Oh! - Bye, then.
Darling, darling,
let me give you some more food.
- It's very sophisticated.
- It is sophisticated.
But why don't the adults remember
that that's what they were doing?
That's the problem,
you never remember.
Oh, he's gone over the edge again.
He was bluffing, he was bluffing.
I used to do that when I was
younger, I'm not falling for it.
- You don't remember what you did as
a baby. - That's true, you don't.
That's another thing,
you notice the beaks,
have you ever seen
a very particular kind of beak
that is in young birds?
A koha bird has
the most remarkable beak,
which basically represents a face.
Oh, my God.
But weirdly not even a bird face,
it looks more like a human face.
- Doesn't it? - That is basically saying,
- "Put the food here." - Wow.
It's like those things
they had for men to aim at
- in the urinal, isn't it? - Yes!
It looks like Alan Carr.
I'm half closing my eyes now.
Yes, it does.
- It does look a bit like him.
- That's remarkable, isn't it?
It is extraordinary.
So there's a little man in there,
and he wants some food as well.
The whole intestinal tract.
And then as it gets older it fades.
- Just extraordinary.
- That's brilliant.
What are we looking at here?
- A bird. - More birds. - Yes.
- Is it a cuckoo?
The cuckoo's gone in the nest.
What do most cuckoos do?
They throw the eggs out of the nest,
of another species.
Oddly enough, that's not most.
It's 50 odd of a species
of which there are 136.
Only about 50 odd do it,
the other 80 don't.
It's enough to cause talk, though.
It is, but a minority of cuckoo
species are cuckoos in the nest.
They're giving the rest of them
a bad name.
Nice cuckoos have got to do so much
work to make up for the reputation.
So, birds blackmail their parents,
just like people do.
Why did the spider
go to the bathroom?
Ooh.
- They don't come up the plughole,
they fall in. - Correct.
Fall in and they can't get out.
But why do they go there,
are they thirsty?
- Well, they're house spiders,
so they live in a... - House.
- I've got the hang of this show.
- I still feel there's a trick coming.
They're usually hidden
nicely in the wainscoting.
They can last a long time
without food,
- but one thing they can't
do without... - Is a drink.
Now, just put your own
considerations apart!
Are they voyeurs? Do they like
watching people in the bathroom?
"Here they come!"
That's why they're called spider.
"I spied her!"
As I say, they can do without food
and they can do without drink,
but they can't do without...?
Washing.
- Exercise. - Well, kind of. It's sex.
The male spider, come autumn,
has got to get his rocks off.
This is where
they lose their inhibitions.
That's when you'll see them
in bathrooms and so on.
They don't really stand out.
On carpets, you might miss them,
but in bathrooms, against the white,
they're unmistakable.
But what happens if they don't
have sex? Do they explode?
It's a primary imperative
amongst a lot of animals.
They have an eight-finger shuffle.
Essentially,
when I see these spiders
running around my house in the
autumn, they're just really horny?
Yes. The male's looking
for a female.
That makes it worse.
I've come round to spiders,
because they eat
about 2,000 bugs a year,
and that's 2,000 less of those
in your house and just one spider.
- Completely. - Or two,
because they've got to have sex.
I pulled a curtain once
when I was still in bed,
and you know the dread thing
of seeing that above you?
And for the length it took
for it to drop,
I was up over my boyfriend
and at the end of the room
before it dropped.
It's the quickest I've ever moved
in my life.
That would be a very good
Olympic sport, spider drop.
The height of the spider
and then the distance you're going
to travel, some calculation,
degree of difficulty.
That's a garden spider web,
isn't it?
But in houses, you get cobwebs,
which are messy and asymmetrical.
Film companies
have spray cobwebs,
which is the most glorious thing.
I'm sure you've done it in Jonathan
Ross. This is magical stuff.
You can presumably buy it online,
but it's so great for Halloween
parties. I recommend it.
Did you just say Jonathan Ross?
I didn't even notice! Sorry.
I meant Graham Creek!
I like the idea of Alan having had
a brief career as Jonathan Ross.
Maybe it's like Doctor Who, everyone
gets a shot at being Jonathan Ross.
You were the sixth Jonathan Ross.
I've had a long enough career
to regenerate.
Spiders, I think,
can't see very well.
So you would have been as much
a surprise to the spider.
I don't think
they drop on you on purpose.
They don't see you and think,
"Ooh, I'll have a go."
"It's Liza Tarbuck!
Liza Tarbuck!
"I'm going to get an autograph.
"Wahey! Oh, she's gone!
"I used to like you!
"Liza!"
That was brilliant. It was like
Jonathan Ross was in the room.
Mrs Spider, after mating
the house spider, what will she do?
- Eat it. - Yes, the most famous
being the redback. - Black widow.
Or the black widow, indeed.
The redback, the male
is really the most willing for it.
He will inseminate the female
and then jump into her open mouth.
- How marvellous! - Last thing he does.
Your good old British house
spider, she has the decency to
wait for the male to die before
eating him, so it's kinder.
She must feel weird
if she has sons cos
- she knows how they're going
to go, so it can't be...
- It's true, it's true.
Look at the boy, oh, shame.
You'd think she'd want either the
insemination or the spider dinner.
She might not have
wanted either of them.
- That's true. - Would
have gone...Oh, God!
Ah-ah-ah...
- I've just had tea. - Eat me, eat me.
But I suppose
it kills two birds with one stone,
because sometimes
if you have had a little bit of
the sexy, sexy time you are hungry.
That's true.
And it's sometimes annoying
to have to get up
and make a pasta dinner.
And so what it is,
you've just had a bit of a...
I expect in the future
men will evolve
with the Domino's logo on them.
And so women will lie there going,
"At last, that was actually OK.
"Come on, come on."
- And then everyone's happy. - Yes.
So, if there's a spider
stuck in your kitchen sink,
he's probably on the pull.
The best way to help a spider
is by giving him a little ladder.
But what's the point
of Snakes and Ladders?
Ah, now I did a programme about this,
- because actually
it originated in India. - It did.
And it was a morality game,
as so many of our games were, or are.
- Instructional. - Yes.
But wasn't it linked,
as well, with Ludo?
Well, you have Snakes and Ladders
on one side of the board
and Ludo on the other.
Yes, you do, that's right.
It's as easy as that!
So they are, in many ways, linked.
But this, as you say, do you know
what the message is, as it were?
- In the States it was called
Chutes and Ladders. - Really?
If you'd eaten all your dinner
you could go up a ladder,
and if you'd done
something bad, like,
I don't know, become President
and not closed down Guantanamo
or something,
then you went back down the chute.
- So it was the same, I suspect
it's to do with... - That's right,
it's learning various lessons.
The K, in this case,
is karma.
It's a first or second century
Hindu game,
and the snakes represent
different types of sins.
The ladders let you reach nirvana,
which is the finish there.
You can see, the original game
isn't quite the same structure,
but it's not that far off.
That's how it looked.
If you hit a snake
it represented a vice,
for which you are punished.
So evil deed squares
include disobedience,
which moved you from square 41,
to square 4.
Drunkenness, 62 to 21,
murder, 73
all the way back to number one.
I should think so. Quite right.
Desire, almost there, 99,
all the way back to 29.
And the virtues, which were
the ladders that took you up,
included faith, perseverance,
compassion...
Arsenal supporter.
I'm afraid, Alan, knowledge.
Now even more afraid, self-denial.
- So really a properly ancient game.
- Genuinely ancient, yes.
- Second century.
And one that has sort of survived,
I think it has.
Do you young people in the audience
play Snakes and Ladders?
AUDIENCE MEMBER: No.
That man's taken a survey.
Don't you, of an evening?
That one didn't sound very young.
Is there a Snakes and Ladders app?
No?
Well, while we're in a playful mood,
I have one of my knick-knacks
to show you.
ALL: Ooooh!
Yes, now this...
The great Lord Kelvin in the 1890s
was wandering along a beach
with a friend called Hugh Blackburn,
who was a mathematician.
They found a pebble and a surface
on which to spin it
and they found it had a peculiar
property, not unlike this,
which is called a tippe top.
- Erm, and you give it a spin...
- Oooooh!
- Oh! - It turns upside down.
Now, what you, sort of, don't
notice because it's still going
clockwise but it's upside down, so
it's reversed the direction of spin.
Oh...
And engineers and
mathematicians like Bohr
and Pauli were fascinated by this.
It is quite fun.
We can show you some VT
of it being done properly,
then you can see slightly
better spin there.
So, this is about, you know
when they were saying...
The spin is still going...sorry.
Where they were saying that the
earth axis is going to change
and that north is going to be
south. It's much like this.
Sorry, Liza, is the world going to
turn upside down? Apparently so.
Soon? Tuesday,
it's happening on Tuesday.
Just if I've got to get up
and deal with my bills or not.
This is even, perhaps,
more impressive.
This little thing here, and
what's strange about this is
I can spin it one way
but not the other.
If I spin it anti-clockwise,
it goes very happily anti-clockwise
but if I try and spin it clockwise,
it not only will resist,
it will stop and
spin anti-clockwise.
I'm now going to try
and spin it clockwise.
Because of the shape...
the particular shape?
Obviously it's the reason, yes.
Messing with its...you're
twisting its melons, man. Yeah!
And then round and
round and round again.
- Do you know physics is extraordinary.
- It is, try it anti-clockwise.
- It really is...why?
- I know, it is very mysterious.
I'm sorry, I didn't mean to
dismiss you by saying it was
because of the shape.
I'm trying to ascertain what the
shape...I couldn't really see
what was the shape.
- It's a cat's tongue, Alan.
- It is a cat's tongue.
So, there you are. That shows it
goes nicely counter-clockwise.
- Let me see. - It's sort
of a humpy thing.
Slight hump in it
but it's nothing...
- But it's got a twisty bit.
- Tiny twist. Now, do it clockwise.
- Isn't that amazing?
- Did you say it has a name?
This particular thing is
called a rattleback.
That's extraordinary, isn't it?
Yeah, so that's the tippe top
and the rattleback.
Two very extraordinary objects
that you can spin around
and seem to have minds of their own.
Now, name the world's
scariest spice.
- Well, it's none of them. - No.
Because I was a member of the Spice
Girls fan club at the age of 20.
LAUGHTER DROWNS OUT SPEECH
They were amazing.
They WERE amazing.
They take a lot of flak now
but they were amazing.
Zig-a-zig-ah.
I just happened to be
in Spice World: The Movie.
I went to see that in the cinema.
Which one were you playing?!
I honestly literally did it
because I had nephews
who were at the age
where to get the signed photograph
of each one of the Spice Girls,
it was like ten Christmases
for them at once,
and they were so thrilled.
I would have pretended
to be one of your nephews
to get a signed photograph.
You spoke to everyone who was on
that film and they said, "I'm doing
it to get their autographs."
- What was the question? - Oh, yes, which
is the scariest spice of them all?
- So, we're not going to be looking
for an actual spice? - Well, yes.
- So, it's once of these? - Yes.
In order to big-up
the price of spice,
and it didn't need much to do
it back in the 17th century,
spice was the most precious
commodity in the world.
Indeed there were
spice wars between...?
- The British, the Dutch and the
Portuguese mainly. - Absolutely right.
- And the island of Banda... - Yes.
..in Indonesia
was swapped for Manhattan.
Well, one of the Banda
islands was, yes.
Because it had so much nutmeg on it
- and nutmeg was more
valuable than gold. - Indeed.
And they used it to preserve meat.
Well, they do and at the time,
they thought it was
a cure for the bubonic plague,
which increased its value even more.
The island was actually
called Run, which is
- one of the Banda islands but, erm...
- Have you been to a spice farm?
It's the most astonishing thing
cos you say,
"Oh, I'm going to go to a spice farm.
"Thinking there'll be the nutmeg
here and the paprika here..."
It all grows all together in
the most fantastic eco-system
and you walk around
and they're intertwined.
It's the most heady experience I've
ever had in my life, it's fantastic.
- Yeah. - Spice farms in places
like Tanzania...incredible.
- Tanzania and also Sri Lanka.
- So, that's nutmeg there? Love that.
Yeah.
And nutmeg is related to mace
in which way? What way? How way?
- Cousins. - Well, I think it's that
I put mace in my beef stroganoff
but not nutmeg, does that work?
Mace and nutmeg are the same plant,
- just different parts of the same
plant. - Oh, OK. - Actually, yeah.
But the one we're
talking about is cinnamon.
And the salesman of cinnamon,
in order to sell it at the most
premium price they could, used
to tell of where it came from.
Which was the nest of
this extraordinary bird,
which they called
the kinnamomon orneon.
And it used these twigs
of cinnamon in its nest
and what they would have to do
to catch it, this giant bird,
is they'd leave slaughtered
bits of giant oxen
and the birds would take them
up and put them on their nest,
which would over-balance the nest
and it would fall down
and they would take out
the cinnamon twigs.
And, so they would charge all
the more money for how dangerous
it was, basically, to gather
from this mystical bird.
That is so fantastic,
cos you can imagine on the
Silk Road or the trade roads
stopping and earning your
supper of a night by telling
the tale of that particular thing.
Exactly and in fact it is
the bark from a tree,
which doesn't take that much skill.
But to travel the distance it did,
once it got to Britain,
a long, long way away...
- Oh, yeah. - ..only the very, very
richest of people could afford it.
But just stay on spice for a moment.
I've prepared some allspice for you.
I've put them all into pots.
And I want you to tell me
which spices you can smell in there,
which different spices.
I've got one for myself.
If it goes everywhere
that'll be funny.
- Wow. - What can you smell? - Cloves.
- Cloves, definitely.
- Cloves, definitely.
KLAXON SOUNDS
- It's not me, wasn't me,
I didn't do anything. - It was me.
Anything else? You definitely
said cloves, definitely.
I said loaves.
- Loaves! - It's very strong.
- It IS strong. - It's persimmon. It
actually smells like a grandparent.
I wish I could
make the audience smell it,
one day there will be smell-ivision,
and we can share.
- Is somebody going to catch
if I throw it? - It's very strong.
Oh!
LAUGHTER
APPLAUSE
Shall I pass it on?
Pass it along.
Thank you so much.
You can hand it to someone
in the audience behind you.
- Who's good at spices? - You better
have the lid. - Tell me what that is.
No, it's not clove.
Well, it's sort of a cheat, really,
it is called allspice,
and a lot of people seem to believe
allspice is a mixture
of spices, but it isn't.
It is a specific plant
that gets its name
from smelling like a combination
of cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves,
and it's called Pimenta dioica.
- AUDIENCE MEMBER SNEEZES
- Oh, bless you.
That's very funny!
Don't get too close to it, sir.
We know where
it's reached in the audience.
It's all over the back
of row three now.
Excellent.
Now, the word pepper has,
as it were, two meanings for us.
We have the pepper,
which is salt and pepper
and then we have hot peppers.
And do you remember the name
of the scale
by which you measure
the heat of peppers?
I heard a little
whisper in the audience.
If you have a really strong one,
it smells like someone's
died inside you.
- Ahhhhh... Ooooohhhh....
- Someone in the audience is dying to
get out here. - Richter. - Say it again?
FROM THE AUDIENCE: Scoville.
Scoville, Scoville Scale,
you're absolutely right.
And on the Scoville Scale
a jalapeno, for example, is 5,000.
Whereas, the hottest one is
the Trinidad Maruga Scorpion.
- Oh, it sounds hot. - Which ranks over
two million on the Scoville Scale.
Could it kill you, if it was that...?
Almost, I mean, the hottest
possible on the Scoville Scale
are actually genuinely poisonous
but the hottest curry,
supposedly, ever measured
that's been eaten...
It was eaten by a Dr Rothwell,
who was a radiologist,
perhaps appropriately.
In order to prepare it, the chef
had to wear goggles and a mask...
Like so, and it produces crying
and shaking and vomiting,
in eating it.
Very like our local Indian.
The restaurant's owner said that
Dr Rothwell was hallucinating
and he himself took a ten minute
walk down the street weeping,
in the middle of eating it.
Took him an hour to eat.
Which is not bad.
So, so hot!
Now, which Olympic sport
should women not take part in?
Weightlifting.
- She looks so pleased with herself.
- She does, as wouldn't you be.
Four scenes away from
a prolapse though.
I'm trying to think of
her name, she's amazing.
She can lift the equivalent of
two fridges over her head.
- She's an astonishing...
- Cheryl Haworth, by the way.
Cheryl Haworth, that's right,
and she's an amazing weightlifter.
- I went to women's weightlifting
in the Olympics. - Did you?
Marvellous.
And a woman from Kazakhstan won,
very emo...not a dry
eye in the house.
- You can see the physical effort.
- Oh, absolutely.
It's quite funny, the
weightlifting, because usually,
I was going to say the trainer
but it's more like the handler...
Coaxes out the weightlifter...
This way, this way.
- And then they get the powder
for the... - Oh, yes.
..for grip and then
they get in position
and they go "sh-sh-sh"
and you all have to be quiet.
You could hear a pin drop
and then they make this...and
when they can't do it,
it's heartbreaking.
- It's four years...
- They turn their back on it.
If they do do it, everyone erupts.
- So, it's a very emotional
experience. - I bet it is.
There was one girl who fell
down and got pinned under it.
PANEL GASP
Everyone's craning
their necks for a view.
Is she alive?
Twitching...
STEPHEN LAUGHS
Took about four people to lift
the thing off her neck, you know.
- Kept getting help cos
it was enormous. - Exactly.
It was very, very exciting.
- Everything about the Olympics
was exciting. - It was.
- It was quite exciting just going to
the ExCeL centre, no-one's
ever said that before. - No.
- Are you talking about the ancient
Olympics or... - No, the ancient
- Olympics was all male anyway.
No, this is, obviously,
women should be allowed
and can take part
in all the summer Olympics...
Except Pierre de Coubertin, who
founded the modern Olympics, he said
that it should just be about male
athleticism, applauded by women.
But we've moved on from that, as
we know. So, when we say "should"...
- Is it a K? - Yes, it is a K.
- It's a K thing?
It's a K, the word actually
means, in its own language,
a man's something.
Which is why, technically, you
can't have a woman's version of it.
- Kayaking. - Is the right answer.
- Really? - Yeah.
APPLAUSE
Absolutely right.
In the Inuktitut language,
it means a man's boat.
Except, they also
had all female boats
- and I'm trying to think of the name
of them. They had a boat that was
only for the women. - Kayakette.
And traditionally the women caught
more fish...in their boats and
they've got a completely different
name, like an umiak, I think.
It was called a trawler.
Errrr!
Sometimes the men used the umiak
for hunting walruses and things,
but they were mainly used just for
transporting people and objects.
Now, these two in this picture,
one seems to have a quiver
for arrows and the other one
seems to have a baby...
- Growing out of her shoulder.
- It would be awful to
get those mixed up.
Baaaaah!
That's so true.
Stephen, you say that now
it's all marvellous equality,
it's not completely.
For example, in the women's football,
in the 2012 Olympics,
the Japanese sent a women's team
and they sent a men's team,
and the men's team
came from Japan in business class,
and the women's team came in economy.
- That's not my fault!
- No, I'm just saying!
I wasn't blaming you.
They did go back, I have to say,
in a different way, in that the women
went back with a silver medal,
and the men went back
without anything.
In the Olympics, for example,
there are only two sports
which are wholly co-ed, as it were.
- Equestrian, presumably, would be one.
- Equestrian, the other is sailing.
It doesn't seem
to make a difference.
Almost all sports were invented by
men to show off skills men have,
so that's kind of why
I think men are good at them.
I like the ones
where they do those trial ones,
and I think it was 1900 in Paris
they had poodle clipping
as a trial sport.
- It's a nice thought, it's
actually not true. - Is it not true?
- It's a myth but it's a lovely idea.
- I'd like that.
Now for a question
about going under the knife.
What's the advantage of having
an arm surgically attached
to your face?
You could use it like a trunk.
- You could. - Feed yourself buns.
Can you not feed yourself
buns already?
If you're doing something,
doing something else,
so let's say you were performing
surgery, and you got peckish,
- you wouldn't have to get anyone
else to help you. - That's true.
- Are you talking about an arm, or an
arm and a hand, or...? - Extra arm.
- No, it's not to give you
an extra arm. - Skin grafting.
It was kind of skin grafting.
It was done in the 17th century
by an Italian surgeon.
That's the process -
there's your arm.
It's the bit near the shoulder,
and it's attached,
as you can see, to the nose.
It was quite common in that period
for the nose to perish,
to disappear,
to get diseased from...?
- Oh, syphilis. - Syphilis, I'm afraid.
There was a man called
Gaspare Tagliacozzi,
who was a surgeon from Bologna,
and he performed this rhinoplasty,
essentially.
- Can you name a famous person
who had a nose made of metal?
- Tycho Brahe.
You probably pronounce him
better than most,
- because he was your countryman.
- The Danish astronomer.
He had a zinc, was it, or brass...?
- I think it was brass.
- Oh, how fabulous.
Can he play it like a trumpet?
Disconcerting as well, colour wise,
to have a big brass nose,
with a fine shine on it.
I'd like an eye on me finger.
- An eye on your finger. - Mm.
I'm sure it'd be possible one day.
Fit for the uses on buses and tubes.
I'm afraid people get...
- LAUGHTER
- No! Not for an auto colonoscopy!
Stop it!
Behave! That's just revolting.
A-ha.
Of course,
the other thing is, there was
a nobleman who decided
he didn't want anybody's...
There was a nobleman who decided
he didn't want...
I'm reading.
There was a nobleman who decided
he didn't want a cut
made in his own arm, so he had
a servant have his arm cut.
- Really? - Yeah.
And the servant had to
sort of follow him all around.
Of course,
what happened was the servant died
and the nose was rejected.
Of course.
And they weren't sure
whether he died
because it was rejected or whether
it was rejected because he died.
So he had no nose
and nobody to get the tea!
There's another operation -
a gynecomastia,
which is breast diminution.
In 2012, a paper called
Gynecomastia in German Soldiers -
Etiology and Pathology,
looked at the number of breast
reductions that were taking
place among the male members
of the German army.
Abnormal breasts - why would German
soldiers have abnormal breasts?
- They drink too much milk. - No.
Is it when you march like this?
Not quite the marching, it's a
ceremonial buffeting of your
rifle against your chest.
It actually causes the breast
to enlarge.
Is it like a shock thing?
It's a shock and the breast has to
get used to this regular
pummelling, and decides to push
extra fat out to protect itself.
- Wow. - It's during ceremonial drill...
Women could save money on breast
implants and just get a gun.
I think it might be quite odd
if you were just sitting on the bus
doing that all the time.
I'd save it for private!
I think if you took a gun on a bus
at all you'd be in trouble.
In the last six years,
212 German soldiers
have had this procedure,
which is not inconsiderable,
considering that, being a male
soldier, it's presumably
embarrassing.
Exactly. I just thought,
wouldn't it go away?
Yeah, the modern German army...
MIMICS GERMAN ACCENT: Forget all
your notions of the Nazis,
we're whole new peoples!
We're very at ease
with our inner woman, you know.
It's really,
there's no embarrassment -
I could show you my breasts.
And I'm not embarrassed at all.
It's fine.
- That's an incredibly sexy accent.
- Thank you. - It really is.
APPLAUSE
I think camouflage clothing is weird
cos you can see them perfectly well.
You may have missed the point but
I kind of know what you're saying.
Right, let me take you back
to a day in September, 2005.
Why did so many Russians
have it off?
- Was it football?
- Wasn't anything to do with football.
- Is it to do with voting? - Voting?
No. Actually, only in a province.
The governor of this province
and the particular town.
Ulyanovsk is the name of the town.
That might be a hint.
Ulyanov mean anything to you?
- Erm... - Someone in the audience
will know what the name means?
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Lenin.
- Lenin's real name was Ulyanov.
- Oh! I had no idea.
So his town was named after him -
Ulyanovsk - and it was a popular
destination, in Communist times.
People would come and say,
"He vos born Ulanovsk."
There's me just thinking
he was from Liverpool.
I was trying to get into my...
You have to sound as if
you are speaking backwards.
"Iz alvays difficoolt ven...
"Lenin vos born in Ulyanovsk."
HE SPEAKS RUSSIAN
The governor of...
"I hope ze destination..."
- There he is. - Oh, look at him!
- Looks as if he's praying.
- Bruce Forsyth.
LAUGHTER
- Oh, my God, it is! - Yeah!
"Nice to see you..."
Brucefski Vlad Forsythski.
He decided that the town
was suffering and...
Well, it is.
Look at the bloody architecture.
LAUGHTER
Most Communist architecture
is even worse than that.
But he decided it needed
to increase its population,
- so he named a day...
- Was there an edict? - Yes.
And it was basically Shag Day
and if you could show
that you had conceived that day, you
got prizes - very Bruce Forsyth! -
like a fridge.
LAUGHTER
"Fridge - yes, yes!
"Vot else do you have?" There was
a star prize, which was a 4x4.
Really, yes.
- On that day, what did gay people do -
redecorate? - I'm afraid, gay people...
- Yes, they do that every day!
- Oh, sorry!
- Silly me(!) - Gay people
were never the first priority
and still aren't in Russia, I'm
afraid. The Day of Conception.
On those game shows in the '70s,
they'd give you a speedboat
- or a caravan. - Yes!
Things you just didn't want, at all.
"You've won a caravan."
There'd be someone
standing in the door, waving.
Do they pair you up,
like a dating thing?
- Oh, I see what you mean.
- "I vouldn't advise it."
I think it was
a very severe Russian...
I think it had to be
within marriage.
- They didn't want to fill
Ulyanovsk with bastards. - No.
- That was the last thing they wanted.
- Riff-raff. - Yeah, exactly.
Even in the Napoleonic era,
there was a Russian general
called Alexey Arakcheyev,
who insisted that all the women
on his estate have a son every year.
If they had a daughter,
or didn't have any child,
or even miscarried, they were fined.
- That's a bit harsh. - It was tough,
but they understood it(!) - Yes.
- They knew where they were(!)
- Seems perfectly reasonable to me(!)
Anyway, in 2005,
the mayor of Ulyanovsk
gave everyone a day off,
so they could play Hide The Sausage.
LAUGHTER
- We need to talk about Kevin.
- Oh, right. - What can you say?
- Oh. - Kevins. - One of my best
friends is called Kevin.
Well, I'm sorry. I say that because
that is a clue as to the answer.
- Is it the meaning of the name?
- Unfortunately, it's just not
a good name to have if you are
on the hunt for a partner.
On dating websites, people are
actively put off by the name Kevin,
I'm afraid. They get fewer replies.
So, if your name is Kevin,
use your middle name,
but not if your middle name
is Marvin, Justin or Dennis,
cos they are equally unfortunate.
- It's so unfair.
- I've never met anyone called Kevin.
I've never met a Kevin.
I've never met a Kevin.
You've never met a Kevin?
You've never met any Kevin?
There's a Kevin there!
You can meet him!
Is there someone called Kevin in?
Hiya! Susan - Kevin!
Yay! There we go!
- Not only that... - Do you know...?
- Not only that, he's gorgeous!
- He's gorgeous! - He's lovely!
"Before tonight" - it's like
Surprise, Surprise - "before tonight
"I'd never met a Kevin,
now I'm married to one."
Do you know what was nice?
You were so pleased.
You were like that, "At last!
My time in the sun! It's Kevin!"
Also, if you're female, there are
four names that do just as badly
for women - Mandy, Chantelle,
Jacqueline and Celina, with a C.
Apparently, the best names,
which are rather dully middle class,
are Jacob and Alexander
and Charlotte and Emma,
just in terms of returns
on the website.
I'll give you some names last year
born in America, beginning with K.
Krymson, K-R-Y-M-S-O-N.
Klinton, with a K.
Kingsolomon, all one word.
LAUGHTER
- He's mine. - Keats and Kdrian -
letter K, D-R-I-A-N.
YORKSHIRE ACCENT: "Kdrian, coom in,
our kid, your tea's on t'table.
Sorry, don't know
why I said it like that.
There were ten Kindles,
as in the e-reader.
- People are called Kindle? - Ten in
America baptised or given that name.
And ten Kingdavids, all one word.
My sister-in-law used to work
in a hospital and there were
a pair of twins born - this is
in Sunderland - and they were named
Fifa and Uefa.
LAUGHTER
GEORDIE ACCENT: "Little Champions
League, you get in now!"
- Fifa and Uefa. - That's fantastic.
- They're not even words. - Right.
You're less likely to click
with people called Kevin, sadly.
Now it's time
for General Ignorance.
Fingers on buzzers, please.
Which way is this comet going?
- ALAN'S BUZZER
- Where's it headed to?
I think it's going that way,
I thought was the answer.
- KLAXON SOUNDS
- Oh!
Dagnabbit!
It looks as though
the tail is to the left.
The tail is caused by solar wind.
There's nothing to reveal
the direction of travel.
It's solidified carbon dioxide
turning into gas in the solar winds,
and it's always pointing away
from the sun, the tail.
- Isn't it beautiful?
- They are beautiful, aren't they?
Who took that picture?
That's a good effort.
You could put it into a competition.
"I shot this on a Nikon F8,
standing on a stepladder."
"It took me 40 years
to get the film developed."
I assume from some passing object
that NASA sent up.
But it comes from the Greek comitos,
do you know what that means?
- Electrical store. - No.
APPLAUSE
It means "long beard",
and that's what it reminds
people of, a nice long beard.
The point is, there's nothing
to reveal the direction of travel.
- We don't know where that one's
going, then? - We simply don't know.
- Luton.
- It's going to Luton. That'll do.
Describe the skin
on a crocodile's head.
There isn't
going to be any, is there?
- Thick. - Thick is probably right, yeah.
This is a trap, isn't it? Yeah.
- Would I? - Yes.
- They don't have any skin.
- Yeah, they do.
- It's not that.
- It's not that, then, yeah.
Shoe.
Reptilian.
Yes, that'll do. But it isn't scaly.
- Not scaly. - That's right.
Not scaly.
Move on, then, next one.
- Just do a quick explanation.
- Fish are scaly.
It's cracked skin
and it's irregular.
Scales are genetically programmed
to appear and are regular,
but these are different
on every single crocodile
and they're not regular.
Once, I did an extraordinary trip,
where I canoed across Africa -
I don't recommend it, you get
a condition called trench bottom,
and, um...
Met a wonderful woman...
Sorry, you did what nude?
I canoed across Africa. Nude?
No, no, not nude.
All I could hear...
It was in my head.
It wasn't dangerous enough, so I...
I thought I heard you say,
"I can nude."
That's why I went, "Pardon?"
Anyway, I met this woman,
this missionary, and I said to her...
LIZA LAUGHS
She said,
"I hope you're not in a kayak."
- She was a missionary...?
- A missionary.
And she said to me, "Are you worried
about crocodiles." I said, "Yes."
She said, "If you should meet
a crocodile, here's the advice -
"offer it your arm, cos then you've
still got both legs to run away."
True.
I like that.
We know another good way.
Put a rubber band over its mouth.
It can only move one jaw and it
can't put any pressure upwards,
snap it down.
The things that look like scales
on a crocodile's head
are actually just cracks
in its skin.
So, that's the end of the show,
so let's find out
who's the clever clogs
and who's a big stupid old thicky.
In equal last position,
on minus nine,
- it's Liza and Susan!
- SHE CHEERS
In a highly-respectable
second place,
with minus four, Alan Davies!
Which means that our runaway,
super-soaraway winner,
with minus two, is Sandi Toksvig.
So, it only remains for me to thank
Susan, Sandi, Liza and Alan.
Good night.