QI (2003–…): Season 11, Episode 3 - K-Folk - full transcript
Well, GOOD...evening!
Good evening, good evening,
good evening and welcome to QI,
where tonight,
we're cavorting with the K-folk.
Please welcome the kind-hearted
Katherine Ryan!
The keen-eyed Josh Widdicombe!
The king-sized Phill Jupitus!
And kiss my keister
if it isn't Alan Davies!
And tonight, their buzzers
have a story to tell.
Katherine goes...
CAVALRY TRUMPET
Josh goes...
WA-WA-WA!
Phill goes...
DRUM AND CYMBAL
And Alan goes...
SAWING
CREAKING AND CRASH
I hope you were sitting the
right side of the branch, Alan.
So we start in the Kalahari.
So tell me,
how did the meerkat cross the road?
Carefully.
That's not a life-sized one, is it?
That's not...
Well, it is a life-sized one.
I'd say it was in the foreground,
except there's
a bit of road before it.
Yes, it's confusing, isn't it?
It's just a very tiny car.
It is, it's a little dinky car.
Do they cross in a group?
Like, you know
when you see those kids
in the reflective jackets... Yes.
..snaking across the road
with some sort of handler?
I think that's what children have.
Well, meerkats are, despite
their cutesy-cutesy reputation,
they're pretty mean, fierce animals.
And they have levels of superiority.
And the leading meerkat sends across
the less important meerkat
to test the road.
Amazing.
And it's the youngsters...
That'll be you tonight, Josh.
Do you want me to test it tonight?
It's your children...
It's your first time,
you have to cross the set.
Unbelievably, it's the children
they send. The children?!
They send their little children.
Once again, that'll be me tonight.
Well, we do the same,
we do the same with buggies.
Right? You push that, that's straight
out into the road before you.
So, what are they testing?
That it's not going to
get hit by a car?
Yeah, exactly. That it's safe.
And if the youngsters get gobbled,
they go, "Oh, I'm not going there."
But do they not understand
that there might be
another car in a minute?
Well, it seems odd, but all...
"No-one's been killed by a car,
so we'll all be fine."
Are the tiny meerkats
wearing high-vis jackets
like human children do,
or do they just rely on
their own gorgeousness?
I think they rely on their own
gorgeousness. But the leading,
the sort of head, not exactly...
ALL: Aw!
You see, you're all going, "Aw!"
I don't fancy that one at the
bottom's chances, if that's a road.
No, exactly.
He knows he's about to be sent.
That one behind him
is just about to do that.
You have alpha females
with meerkats
and, in fact, they kill
each other's children. What?!
Yes, they're pretty nasty animals,
when it comes to it, I'm afraid.
They're not very nice at all.
I hate them.
They're child murderers,
to be perfectly honest.
Here are three young meerkats
crossing the...
HE IMITATES FAST CAR
IMITATES HORN BEEPING
Two have spotted the vehicle.
Will the youngest one...?
Barry did not.
Unfortunately,
because of the adverts,
a lot of people
have bought them as pets.
And they very soon abandon them
because they're smelly,
they're aggressive and they attack
people they don't know.
But do you know what,
these people have never died
crossing a road, have they?
No, they haven't. Exactly.
And the meerkat, always worried
that someone's about to
kick them in the knackers.
They do have that look too.
It looks like someone's about to
take a free kick, doesn't it?
It does.
The only thing that could
make that picture even more gorgeous
would be three tiny pianos.
Meerkats know each other
by their calls individually
and you can send
a meerkat almost insane
by recording one meerkat's
voice that it knows,
playing it in a certain area
and then whizzing round to another
area and playing it again,
and it will...
Why would you do such a thing?!
It's very mean, but they get utterly
baffled by the fact... Barry!
How can you be
in two places at once?
There is no meerkat called Barry,
by the way, but it's...
Oh, come on, there will be. No.
But you could do that with a human
voice, because we recognise
everyone through their voices
as well, don't we?
True, but we also know about
recordings. Oh, yeah.
So they would probably guess.
It's a trick missed.
Maybe you don't. There was a time
when only one person
knew about recordings.
Ho-ho! He had great fun.
Well, there you go.
The meerkat road safety code
is to send the kids across first.
Now, Alan, why will you
never eat my noodles?
It was bound to happen
that this show
would just become about you two.
Just haven't agreed on a fee,
have we?
If you remember,
we're involving people
from countries beginning with K.
Kenya. Well, which have a particular
association perhaps with noodles.
Kent. Kent!
Famous for the Kentish pasta.
No... East.
Korea.
Thank you, Josh. In Korea, noodles,
of course, are very popular.
Of course.
"When will I eat your noodles?"
means...
"When are you getting married?"
In other words,
when are you going to be
throwing a party
in which you will serve noodles?
So it's just a Korean phrase.
It's like saying, "When are you
going to tie the knot?" Oh.
When am I going to eat your noodles?
But you're already married, so
I'm not going to eat your noodles,
and you didn't invite me
to your wedding.
I did invite you, you didn't come.
Oh, that's right.
LAUGHTER
I was abroad, of course.
I was abroad.
Yeah, you know what you were doing,
you were filming an episode
of Bones. Yes, I was, I was.
I've never been so insulted
in my life! I'm so sorry.
I'm so... Oh, God, how embarrassing.
I'm so sorry.
Anyway, that's what it means. Here
are some other Korean phrases...
"The other man's rice cake
always looks bigger."
What would be the British
equivalent of that?
"The grass is always greener."
Or as my uncle used to say, "The
other man's arse is always cleaner."
"If there are too many
ferrymen on a boat,
"it will sail up a mountain."
Is that just literal?
Well, yes, it's probably... Maybe.
If they say that in North Korea,
the boat is going up the mountain.
That's true.
"Too many cooks spoil the broth."
Too many cocks...
Too many cooks spoil the broth.
"So, Stephen, tell me about
your childhood!"
OK, here's one.
"Pummelling a dead monk."
LAUGHTER
THEY TALK OVER EACH OTHER
Yeah, but if you've got
erectile dysfunction,
you're pummelling the dead monk!
"Flogging the dead horse?"
It's flogging a dead horse.
It's criticising an enemy
who's already defeated.
It's a useless exercise.
"He worked as if he were tending
the grave of his wife's uncle."
That's brilliant.
What would that mean?
I might start using that. Not much.
Yes, is the answer.
He did bugger-all.
Because in Korea, it is your duty
to tend the graves of your family.
But the more distant the family, the
less attention you give the grave.
So all he was doing was just,
basically,
sprinkling a little bit of water
on the...
It's only his wife's uncle.
Whereas his grandfather,
his father or his mother,
he'd be putting flowers
and giving it great attention.
So that's what that means.
So like "shagging the dog."
Not really.
Not really, Katherine.
Is there something
you want to share with us?
"Like shagging the dog?"
Yeah, like,
if you don't work very hard,
you're just shagging the dog.
LAUGHTER
Not in this country, madam!
In this country, when we shag a dog,
we know what we're doing.
And it's pretty hard work,
I can tell you.
Not as easy as it looks,
I tell you that.
So in Canada, you have the phrase
"shagging the dog"? Yeah. Wow.
Or like, "shagging the sheep,"
if you want, whatever.
That's not a phrase.
Again, perfectly common practice
over here,
but not considered a light
or unburdensome task.
It just means, like,
having an easy day.
There's a lot I have to learn about
Canada. Well, I suppose it's easy
because with, like, a lady,
you have to take her out to dinner
or woo her a bit, but with a dog,
it's just like,
"Here, boy, come on!"
Oh, I see.
You say that, you say that...
But I'd say once he's here,
most of the work is still to be done
in that situation.
Yes. And I'm thinking it...
Oh, let's move on.
So, "You wouldn't notice even if
a friend at the same table died."
What can that mean?
The food was delicious.
Absolutely spot-on!
APPLAUSE
Well done!
Yeah. The food was so damn good that
even if a friend died at the table
you wouldn't notice, cos you'd...
Brilliant, well done!
PHILL: That's pretty classy.
That is classy, isn't it? I like it.
Someone dies at the table,
you're going,
"Could I see the dessert menu?"
That's how good it was.
"My eyebrows are on fire."
"I can hardly believe
what I've seen." Nnnn...
No? Aaaa...
It... Ears on fire?
"Help me, I'm burning!"
"I'm in a really desperate
situation."
Yeah,
"I'm in a desperate situation."
"Showing off your wrinkles
to a silkworm"?
You have found a silkworm
in your underpants.
Silkworms are pretty wrinkly.
So if you show your wrinkles
to a silkworm, he's going to go,
"Nah, I can do better than that."
So it's like teaching
your grandmother to suck eggs. Oh.
It's... That's what it means.
Imagine how wrinkly
a silkworm's knackers are. Exactly.
And finally, "He disappeared
like a fart through hemp pyjamas."
I think that one speaks for itself,
doesn't it?
It does. It's a Korean phrase.
"Awkwardly," basically.
Embarrassingly, awkwardly,
not with maximum grace.
Now, who are these men and
what did they have for breakfast?
The guy there, front left... Yes?
..he looks like he's having
a Calippo for breakfast.
He does, doesn't he? He does.
It's a very early
Calippo commercial.
A very early Calippo commercial,
absolutely right.
They've got the lifestyle element
of the Calippo commercial all wrong.
Calippos have changed
over the years.
Bizarrely, when first made,
they were for poor mining regions.
Well, this is a poor village.
Is that the Dales?
Is it Yorkshire, is it in the North?
It's not, it's remoter.
It's British, but remote. Oh.
Is it Devon? Hebrides.
The Hebrides is right, and it's
the remotest of all of them...
Kelp. ..and the largest.
Seaweed, do they eat seaweed?
They don't eat seaweed.
They lived, for a thousand years,
this community...
On kittens. On Calippos?!
For a thousand years, this community
was isolated from Britain.
They lived on gannets
and skuas and puffins.
It's the largest puffin colony
in Britain,
the largest gannet colony
in the world.
So can you think of the name of the
island? Is it...? No, I can't, no.
It's St Kilda. St Kilda.
And who was St Kilda?
I'll give you ten points
if you can tell me.
Patron Saint of Ducks.
Was St Kilda male or female?
Male. Male.
No. Female.
No. No. St Kilda was not a saint.
It's merely, unfortunately,
a sort of...
Font?
It's an old Norse word
for a shield, "skildir,"
and it just became St Kilda.
But it's not a saint at all.
So it's known as St Kilda.
And it wasn't until 1930,
the last 36 natives of St Kilda
voluntarily left
their ancestral home.
But, oddly enough,
they were given jobs in
the British Forestry Commission,
and there hadn't been trees
on St Kilda for 1,500 years,
so none of the St Kildans
had ever seen a tree before.
And they were given jobs
in forestry.
IN SCOTTISH ACCENT:
"What the fuck is that?!"
I imagine, I mean,
because they're big...
Trees are big.
I mean, the reaction - "Argh! Orks!"
So did they want to come to Britain?
Sorry?
When we brought them all
over here in the '30s... Yeah?
..weren't they resistant?
No, no, it's voluntary.
I mean, this was a place
that was so windy
that, literally,
sheep were blown off the cliffs.
It's terribly sad.
And there was one windy period
where for a week afterwards,
they were all deaf.
I mean, it really...
It was a pretty hostile climate.
I'm still very confused,
cos I feel like until
you told me about the wind
and the dead sheep, it sounded like
a beautiful place to live.
And now, yeah. Because it's sunny
and, like, in the '30s,
nobody wanted to live here,
no offence.
It now sounds a bit more like
Canada, doesn't it, to be honest?
Wahey! Sorry.
No, no, no, I'm only kidding.
And it's like, you know,
they had all these delicious birds,
like the original Nandos. I...
I would like to live there. Yeah.
I want to find St Kilda
and see what they're about.
I dare say you could visit it.
What we saw was actually the
parliament, the men only, gathering.
What? Wow. That's their parliament,
and they talk until...
Cabinet meeting. Are they split
down the middle by party?
They talk about what
the issues of the day...
"I'm holding the Calippo,
it's my turn to speak."
The worst thing is that dog
in the middle is the Prime Minister.
PHILL: No, he's the
Minister of Forestry.
No trees and dogs. That's just cruel!
In the middle of the 19th century
the first apple arrived in St Kilda
which caused absolute astonishment.
Wait until they see the apple tree,
they'll go mental!
Exactly.
Wait till they see the trees.
There's a Disney movie in this,
I really love this place.
There is, isn't there?
Were they allowed to have sex
with their family?
I would imagine it was almost
inevitable that they would have
done, I'm afraid.
I grew up in a remote area. I had
four people in my year at school.
Where? In Devon, on Dartmoor.
Really? Yeah. Wow, oh, in Widecombe?
Or near Widecombe?
Nearby. Two boys, two girls.
Were you home-schooled? No.
It'd work. That was like
all the kids around me.
So this is quite
familiar to you, then?
That's my dad, third from the left.
And the prison bell went...
Was Dartmoor...
No, no, I was at a school.
But when a prisoner escapes
they ring the bell, don't they?
Yeah, but...
Did that ever happen? No...
Well, it's not that loud a bell,
so I don't think it happened...
I don't think my parents
would have told me.
Wouldn't it be terrible if it sounded
the same as the break bell
so you never know...
"Is it break or serial killer?"
You'd come in from the playground
and there'd be an extra guy
in your class that was 40.
Arrows on his suit.
And you had the little ponies,
the Dartmoor ponies?
Yeah, miniature ponies.
Oh, wonderful.
Yeah, it's a little bit more
romantic than growing up in...
Where did you grow up?
I... Barking in...
And Chigwell, are we... Loughton.
Loughton, I beg your pardon. Essex.
And I was in Norfolk, which has
its own charm, and you were in...
Ontario somewhere?
I'm from a place called Sarnia.
Sarnia? Yeah.
How far is that from Toronto?
You just go through a wardrobe...
LAUGHTER
APPLAUSE
"Look, Mr Tumnus,
don't do that to the dog!"
It's just like that. Is it near,
like, Peterborough, Hamilton,
those sort of places?
You know a lot about Canada.
Yes, I do.
I say it's three hours
WORSE than Toronto.
Oh. Well, they say of Toronto,
it's New York run by the Swiss,
don't they?
It's kind of charming,
but just a little bit too sterile.
I hated Switzerland,
have you been to Switzerland?
No, I don't like Switzerland either
very much. The Alps are charming.
I paid seven quid for a cup of tea.
No?! Yeah. Mug.
A cock up, really.
Anyway, anyway, let's move on.
Where should you go
to find Kiev railway station?
Other than Kiev.
ALAN: Well, now... Oh.
Hull, did you say?
Yes, Stephen, Hull!
Let the siren go off on Hull...
Nobody's guessed.
Nobody guessed you'd say Hull.
Kettering!
Let's work our way through.
No, no, no...
Is there not one? There must be one.
There is a Kiev station.
It's in a very major city in Russia.
Moscow. Moscow. And it's the station
that takes the trains to Kiev.
ALL: Oh!
So they have a St Petersburg...
They have a St Petersburg station
as well.
If you want to go to St Petersburg
in Moscow,
you go to St Petersburg station.
There's a kind of logic to it.
A huge number of towns and cities
in England have a London Road,
for example,
that go TO London, they're not IN
London. London Road isn't in London.
RUSSIAN ACCENT: This is why I do not
understand London. I go there...
Newcastle is not here!
It is in Newcastle, which is stupid.
That's why the signage has to be
so explanatory
cos the Russians won't help.
They don't want to give
any customer service over there.
Have you been? They don't.
RUSSIAN ACCENT: It's not possible.
It's not possible. It's not...
Read the sign,
don't speak to the people.
True, and, of course...
I was in Red Square, in Moscow,
and I wanted to have a photo taken,
and there was one of those guys
with the massive peak caps
and the green uniform. Oh, yes.
I asked,
"Would you take a photo of me?"
And he said, "No".
They...
They are very good at being rude.
"I've been watching you,
half an hour,
standing there looking pissed off.
One person's asking
for a little thing.
I just went like that,
with him in the background.
Very good.
APPLAUSE
So, where is the Kremlin?
Oh, I know this. Yes?
It's... There's more than one.
Excellent, you're absolutely right
because almost every Russian city
has a Kremlin. Does it really?
Yeah, it's...
The fortifying walls originally
around a city are a kremlin.
We know a famous one,
which is the one in Moscow,
but there's one in almost every
city you can think of in Russia.
Very good, Josh.
RUSSIAN ACCENT: I go to Cardiff
looking for Tower of London.
Is this country stupid?
And also, your women pop groups,
they on television, not in prison.
Now, there you go.
Here's a question...
If you follow a kulgrinda,
where will it get you?
Oh, oh, oh, it's not... No.
It's not that... Oh, no.
What? No, that thing...
What could you be thinking?
That thing, that application.
That thing... I can't imagine
what you're talking about.
Yes, you know, you know, you know...
Turn it on now, how many
are in the studio? I bet...
I imagine your outfit will
set it off straightaway, Phill.
I'm just bear bait.
This is not,
this is nothing to do with...
No, it's nothing to do with that?
..the gay man-on-man action app, no.
OK.
Kulgrinda is spelt
K-U-L-G-R-I-N-D-A.
It's a rather remarkable thing
that exists in the Baltic.
Particularly in Lithuania,
but also in Kaliningrad.
A naturally occurring phenomenon?
No, it's a man-made phenomenon,
which is a very cunning way
of deceiving your enemies,
running away from them,
or causing them to drown.
Making a misty fog thing?
No. What you do is
you make stepping stones
that are under the water...
A cunning thing.
..which are enough for you
to stand on,
but only you know where they are.
The really cunning thing is
how you lay them.
In the winter, it's incredibly cold,
so you get these huge stepping
stones, put them in a line
across the ice, and as the ice
melts, they drop and form a line.
And if they're big enough, you can
actually drive a coach over them.
I mean, you've got to be pretty sure
you're going to be chased soon,
to go to that trouble.
The Estonians and Kaliningradians
were pretty often at war.
There was a lot of war going on.
It'll happen this year.
"I think we will be chased
in the summer."
They were often invaded.
"Which way shall we go?
Over the river..."
"I'm going to make a kulgrinda,
will you help?"
"Only if you're certain
about this chase.
"Tell me more about it,
who's involved?"
Basically, you set it up
and then you start a game of 'It'
in about June.
RUSSIAN ACCENT: I tried
to walk across River Thames,
they don't have kulgrinda,
it's stupid.
I hate this country.
That is very similar -
your Lithuanian accent -
to your Russian accent, by the way.
They're really... Did you not here
the "eell, eell, eell"? Ah, yes.
The most famous one
is the Sietuva swamp,
which the Lithuanian explorer
Ludwik Krzywicki
navigated by coach in 1903.
And he wrote that
at the deepest point,
the water was up to
the sides of his horse.
So they're really
impressive little things.
I'd say the most famous one
is the one Jesus used.
That's true.
To trick everyone in the Bible.
That's true.
That's very true. But,
here's a supplementary question -
where can you get arrested
for wearing a seat belt?
Oh, is this... Is it... Oh. Is it
somewhere where the road is by water?
Well, we're still in
the Baltic region.
In Estonia they have lakes
that freeze over
and there are roads on them,
you can drive on them.
But... And you can see that.
And you can drive along them
because it's 22cm thick, the ice,
and it won't give way,
but you're not allowed
to wear a seat belt
in case you slip over or something
and you get trapped.
So, it's actually safer
not to wear a seat belt.
The other thing...
Why would this be?
You mustn't drive between
25 and 40kph.
Is it like Back To The Future?
Vroom!
Flame-coloured from your DeLorean!
You can drive faster?
Yes, you can drive faster or slower,
but not between 25 and 40.
Not between those?
Yeah, those particular speeds.
Same speed as a polar bear.
No, it's a bit like marching over
bridges in step.
Oh, is it to do with...
Oh, it's the vibrations.
It sets up vibrations
that might crack the ice.
Those particular speeds.
Why wouldn't a faster...
Is it just those speeds,
the resonance...
At those speeds it's the resonance,
yeah, just something to do
with the frequency.
Interesting, isn't it? Well, we hope
it's interesting, otherwise
to hell with this programme.
The US Antarctic Program,
the other side of the world,
near McMurdo Sound,
they, every year, construct...
What do they construct on the ice?
I mean, it's...
ALAN: Massive ice Jenga.
It's also to do with transport.
Ice plane.
Well, not an ice plane, but a...
Boat.
PHILL: An airport. Yeah, a runway.
A runway, so they can land
their planes at McMurdo.
Yeah, they have to redo it
every year.
How do they grip it? It's...
Ice, you know, it's not too bad.
What? Ice isn't too bad to grip?!
Have you seen Dancing On Ice?
Not that sort of ice.
Dancing On Ice
is all that sort of...
That's what they said to the pilot.
"Oh, no, actually,
it's not as bad as you think.
"It's not the sticky ice,
it's the other one."
"We landed two hours ago and we
still seem to be going along."
There's an element of that.
All right. Now, what is there to say
about long-necked Karen?
She's got lovely eyes.
Yeah, you're always the first
to see the nice...
That's one of those
Family Fortunes ones, isn't it?
We've had this before.
Oh, yes. "Survey said..."
"Name a bird with a long neck."
And the bloke goes,
"Naomi Campbell."
This is clearly not Naomi. No, Emu.
Karen is the answer here.
Who is this Karen?
Tom Cruise always likes girls,
like, tall girls with long necks,
but then he doesn't let them
wear heels around him.
No, because he is not
the tallest man in the world.
Well, then why date the girls
with the long necks?
So they can spot predators.
Say again...
Tribe, is it a tribe? Tribe.
The Karen tribe. The Karen tribe.
"Oh, hello, all right?
Lovely to see you."
"Hiya, you all right?"
The neighbouring Tracey tribe...
ALAN: Argh!
They hate the Traceys.
"Stay away from Gary!"
Here come the Garys.
HE GRUNTS
"Bovered?"
But the tribe we're talking about,
the Padaung Karen tribe, from...?
Do they put rings round the...?
Exactly, let's have a look at them.
Extending over time.
There we are, look at that.
Oh, my word. Wow!
Wow, isn't that impressive?
It looks like she's kind of
been bred with a Slinky.
They're so-called giraffe-necked...
At the end of the day, "Oh!"
Well, they can't...
LAUGHTER
"Beryl, Beryl, why are
the curtains on the...? Oh."
You know when you have
a jack-in-the-box ready to go?
Oh, yes. P-ding!
Maybe that's what would happen,
rather than go down, it just goes...
The surprising thing is that
X-rays show that their necks...
They can't have any more
vertebrae, can they?
No. X-rays show their necks are not
longer than normal people's.
So what's going on?
It's just that we're all hunchy.
That does look quite long,
but it's actually what's lower
is the collarbone,
or are the collarbones. Wow.
They're supposed to wear them
until they get married,
but a lot of them
keep them on forever.
It's a sign of beauty,
traditionally,
although it's supposed also
to protect them against tigers,
who will attack them by the neck.
That's one theory.
That is great, I always thought,
OK, maybe they're sacred,
all right, it looks pretty...
Tigers! I'm totally with it now.
Yeah, it's tiger-proof.
Put those around your neck.
Exactly. All right.
Most of them now live in Thailand,
having fled Burma,
and you can pay to go and see them.
There's another nearby tribe,
who also wear brass coils,
not only around their necks, but
around their lower knees and arms.
I don't think this is so mad, really.
I think... I get it with the tigers
and here, you've got Katy Price
doing loads of crazy stuff
to her body and all her friends,
and they look lovely,
but they're, like, orange and
they've got fake hair and fake nails,
how is this worse? You're absolutely
right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
APPLAUSE
Yeah, girls, yeah.
Points to Katherine, naturally,
for that good observation.
Now, just how badly wrong could
a house-warming go in one of these?
Nice house.
That man is a big fan of the show.
Let's see the rest of him,
go on, it's past the watershed.
The house doesn't look warm at all
to me, it looks cold in there.
It does look cool in there.
All of his guests have to arrive
by helicopter.
"Doreen, I love squirrels,
what can I say?"
Well, we've looked at the Karen
tribe... Is this real?
This is another tribe,
these are the Korowai tribe.
They're a New Guinea tribe
who live entirely in tree houses.
They are the only people
in the world, apart from the Kombai,
another tribe,
who also live only in tree houses.
Each house lasts on average
about five years
and then they rebuild
somewhere else.
They take their pets up, everything,
and that's where they live.
How do they go to the toilet?
Well, the long drop, I guess,
is the answer.
What? You're walking past...
Yes! Don't walk past is the answer.
They are roofed with leaves
from branches,
like a house you'd see anywhere,
to stop the rain getting in and...
With a little pediment,
it's very splendid.
Once installed, though,
they celebrate by lighting
a ceremonial fire,
the whole thing's made of wood,
but it's kept safe by suspending the
fireplace in a hole in the floor,
and if the fire gets too big
it just drops down to the ground.
You'd think it would set fire to the
struts. Burn the whole forest.
Yeah! but it seems to work,
they've been doing it
for a very, very long time.
One of the marvellous things about
them is they had no idea at all
that there were any other human
beings in the world until 1970.
That is pretty astonishing.
Anyway, the Korowai have open fires
in their houses,
even though they're made entirely
of wood and 30m off the ground.
Now, where's the best place to keep
a load of old rubbish
from the 1980s?
My loft. Your loft?!
No, this is a story
you're not likely to know,
but it is a 16-year voyage
of a ship.
It's called the Khian Sea, trying to
offload rubbish from Pennsylvania.
In 1986, it was loaded with
15,000 tons of non-toxic ash,
bound for dumping in the Bahamas.
But they said no,
so they went to Puerto Rico,
Bermuda, the Dominican Republic,
Honduras, Guinea-Bissau
and the Netherlands Antilles.
They all said no.
Then they cunningly
re-classified the cargo
as "topsoil fertiliser"
and managed to get rid of
4,000 tons of it in Haiti.
And then they were rumbled
and sent packing.
So they then went to Senegal,
Cape Verde, Yugoslavia, Sri Lanka,
Indonesia and the Philippines.
And then Singapore,
where she was found to be empty.
And then the captain and
the ship's executives admitted
they'd dumped the ash at sea
and were jailed.
And at the insistence of Haiti,
the ship had to go back to pick up
the 4,000 tons they'd left behind.
So eventually, Pennsylvania,
where it originated from,
took it back, and in 2002,
16 years later,
it was off-loaded and taken by train
to a landfill just 120 miles
where it had originally come from.
How impressive is that?
I quite like the idea of
that boat sailing around
and the captain, with a teaspoon,
just going...
Like in a prison yard, bring it
out of the bottom of his trousers.
And the amazing thing is,
it wasn't toxic,
it's just people didn't want
American rubbish...
Don't say anything. Erm...
How does ash go away? You landfill.
That's it? Yeah.
Eco-friendly Sweden uses
so much waste
to power its generators that it
actually has to import rubbish.
And Norway pays Sweden
to take 80,000 tons a year,
which Sweden then turns into power
and then they send the ash back
to Norway for landfilling.
So why don't we all do that?
Why? Exactly. Good old Sweden.
Let's hear it for the Swedes. Yay!
APPLAUSE
They're good, we like the Swedes.
One of the Maldives, unfortunately,
Thilafushi,
is an artificial island
made entirely out of rubbish,
which is really distressing.
The country's residents and tourists
produce so much garbage,
the island is growing
by one square metre a day.
That is really, really upsetting,
isn't it? Ay, Chihuahua!
I haven't been recycling
for the last month because...
PHILL GASPS
I saw your face then, I was like...
Yeah.
..Cos someone stole my recycling bin
from outside the front of my house.
Oh! Which I don't know what
the morals are on that crime.
Are they good for sledding?
I bet they're great for sledding.
Was it you?
I just got the lid.
Were you luging on Josh's lid?
How wrong of you, how wrong of you.
What did you just say?!
Luging.
That's when you go... Yeah, but it's
just that combination of words.
I know, well, that's what we like.
Yeah. Yes.
It's fun. Delicious.
There's a shop at the end of my road
that takes clothing
and they send it to Africa
and they give you money for it,
and I was thinking,
"Great, I've got lots of
designer baby items,"
and so, I brought all this stuff
down, like cute little things,
I'm showing them to the guy...
He doesn't care what it is, he just
cares about how much of it there is.
In weight or volume?
They weigh it, so if you've got,
like, big old trousers,
you get more money than if you've
got beautiful little baby stuff.
And where's this shop? It's right...
I took some stuff to my local
charity shop, some clothes,
and I've become increasing irate
that I haven't made
the window display yet.
Yes, never give a gift
you've been given to a charity shop,
cos that will go in the window
and your friend who gave it to you
will pass it.
Believe me, I've done it.
Buy it and give it to you again.
Yes, exactly.
LAUGHTER
Oh, dear, and so the whirligig
of time brings in its revenges.
Now, name the nearest
Third World country?
Oh, steady, we could get into all
sorts of trouble. Yes, you could.
Oh, hello.
I'm not going to make any jokes
about our near neighbours
on this fine island.
Good. Let's just say...
it's as well that
you didn't say Wales, or Scotland.
I'm too scared to answer.
Let me give you the original
definition of a Third World nation,
then you'll be less embarrassed,
all right?
French historian
Alfred Sauvy coined... France!
ALARM WAILS
We jumped the gun.
..coined the phrase... Oh, Stephen!
..the Third World,
"le monde troisieme," in 1952.
It meant "states not politically
aligned with the USSR or the USA,"
ie, the Soviet Bloc
or with America.
So any state that wasn't in some way
politically aligned
was called Third World.
Now, which is the nearest
one of those to us?
France was, although it
wasn't a member of NATO,
it was politically aligned.
Ireland wasn't, was it?
Ireland is the right answer.
The one I was most afraid of saying.
Oh, there, you see!
It's only more recently that
it became a term meaning poverty.
And nowadays, of course,
it's not a politically correct
word to use, anyway. We don't say
a Third World country, we say...?
Developing.
The developing world, exactly.
We say a vibrant
tourist destination.
Absolutely, bravo!
That's exactly what we say.
Unspoiled, we say, unspoiled.
Unspoiled, exactly.
There is Fourth World, however,
what does Fourth World refer to?
Essex.
LAUGHTER
You're lucky you can get away
with that cos you come from there,
but the
Center for World Indigenous Studies
says it means, essentially,
dispossessed people,
such as Kurds or Romanies
and such like.
They are Fourth World.
If you're Irish in Britain
there's something you can do
that you can't do
if you're British in Ireland.
Piss in the street.
Open a theme pub.
"Piss in the street!"
"Open a theme pub!"
Riverdance!
Yeah, sing in pubs.
No, it's really an important right.
Vote? Vote! Amazingly,
Irish citizens living in Britain
can vote
in British general elections.
British citizens living in Ireland
cannot vote in Republic of Ireland
general elections.
Now, which country's national anthem
is the Land Of The Free?
America?
ALARM WAILS
America is not the right answer,
I'm afraid.
They sing it. Beyonce sang it.
It's in the lyrics - "The home of
the brave and the land of the free,"
but...
Is it somewhere incredibly not free?
No, it's free. Free-ish?
It's the only flag
of an independent sovereign nation
that has human beings on it,
two of them as a matter of fact.
Are they copulating?
They're not copulating.
If it's any help to you,
they're chopping wood.
Are they dancing Gangnam Style?
It's one of those freaky islands,
isn't it?
Oh, it's... "One of those
freaky islands!" Well, it is!
One of the lines is, "By the might
of truth and the grace of God,
"no longer shall we be
hewers of wood."
Mordor.
LAUGHTER
Give us more clues,
we can get this, come on.
It was once a British possession...
Belize.
Yes! Come on! Very good!
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
Very good.
PHILL: Very good.
Belize, formerly known as
British Honduras
and it says the national anthem
is called the Land Of The Free.
The name of the American
national anthem is?
ALL: The Star-Spangled Banner -
"Oh, say, can you see
by the dawn's early light,"
et cetera, et cetera.
Who wrote the words for that,
do you know? Jay Z.
It was a man called
Francis Scott Key
and what's interesting about him...
Joe Biden is absolutely hating that!
He's not looking happy, is he?
And neither is the other guy.
PHILL: "I wanted to sing it!
"I have a beautiful,
piercing alto, yeah."
Anyway, Francis Scott Key
gave his first three names to
a distant cousin
who was Francis Scott Key, surname,
one of the greatest
writers of the 20th century.
Fitzgerald? Yes,
F Scott Fitzgerald's real name was
Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald
because he was a cousin of the man
who gave us the words
of the Star-Spangled Banner.
And finally, a really easy one,
does the Paris-Dakar Rally
start in Paris and end in Dakar,
or start in Dakar and end in Paris?
It starts in France
and ends in Africa.
Oh!
ALARM WAILS
Sorry. Anybody else?
Is it neither? Yes.
Well, I know it ends in Africa...
It doesn't.
..so I presumed
it started in France.
It doesn't end in Africa.
Where does it end?
In South America. What?! What?!
What the heck?!
No, the Paris-Dakar rally
has been held in South America
for the last five years,
since threats in 2007 from Al-Qaeda.
And so the organisers relocated it
in South America.
Really? Absolutely.
The Mongol Rally starts in England
and ends in Ulan Bator,
which is the capital of Outer
Mongolia, as I'm sure you know.
I'd just take a mobile phone,
rather than doing that.
There, you see the...
The problem is, you can't get
the signal. This is 1990.
It starts in London
and ends in Ulan Bator.
And what route does it take?
A2.
The fact is... He's not wrong.
The fact is, any way you want to go.
Because there is...
A33. There is no set route, you
can just choose to go through...
Dover, Folkestone.
..whichever countries
will allow you to get through them.
They don't want to cramp the style
of the rallyists.
In India, there's a very good rally
called the Blind Man's Car Rally.
A 40-mile race in which blind
navigators use a Braille map.
The drivers are sighted, but they
must adhere to the directions given
by their unsighted navigators,
who are using Braille.
Even if they know it's going to be
a collision?
"Left, left, left!"
Anyway, now we have a Knick-Knack
exploding custard powder experiment.
For something to explode,
you need certain things.
You need something to light -
in this case, custard powder.
You need something to light it with
and you need oxygen.
But you need a little bit
more than that,
because if I try and light this
custard powder, you will see...
ALAN IMITATES EXPLOSION
..that nothing happens.
The trick custard powder, ha-ha!
I blew his arm off! Ha-ha!
It doesn't... The whole point is,
nothing happens.
Nothing would happen to that,
it's custard, you fool.
I bet Heston could make it burn.
Ah. He couldn't in this state.
No? What you need, in order to
get something like custard,
or any powder, even metallic powder,
to burn and really burn,
is one of these ordinary
everyday objects like this.
As you may see, I have a funnel
and I have some safety glasses,
to save my beautiful eyelashes.
And I have a lighter.
I miss Jacques Cousteau.
And I have a pump.
ALAN IMITATES DIVER'S BREATHING
I have a pump that rather
wants to fall over.
So we'll just raise this here...
HE CONTINUES TO IMITATE DIVER
..so it doesn't fall over. OK...
What I'm going to do...
I don't want to know
what you're going to do!
What I'm going to do is -
I'm going to pour the custard powder
in this funnel.
And I'm going to...
I'm going to present
a flame across it.
Oh... Yes. Yes.
Be afraid, be very afraid.
Can I use Alan as a human shield?
No, you're the shield, you're new!
Oh, my God! Ooh, ho-ho!
There's flame,
there's custard powder in there.
"I feel the need!
"The need for speed!"
All I need to do...
Where are you going?!
Why the fuck am I next to it?!
I'm going to the pump.
I'm just going to the pump,
because I'm going to pump...
We are now nearer than you!
Can you see what I'm going to do?
I'm pumping air...
There's just too many double
entendres, you pumping custard.
Stop it. Are your ready for me
to pump the custard?!
Oh, my God, don't do it!
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
All right.
Oh, God!
Yes, I'm ready for you
to pump your custard.
I need a countdown
from the audience.
This is not how I wanted to go,
I've got to be honest.
Audience, I want you
to count me down from three...
AUDIENCE: ..two, one,
go!
AUDIENCE CHEERS
Wasn't that dangerous!
Well, it's quite warm there,
actually.
Can you feel the heat?
Yeah, I can feel the heat.
SHOUTING: If I'd been sitting there,
I could have been igni...
QUIETLY: I could have been ignited.
You could have been
covered in hot custard.
I told you before
you did this experiment!
Which hot and exciting experiment
brings me
to the little matter of the scores.
And they are fascinating.
In last place, although
he's played it so many times,
with minus nine, is Phill Jupitus.
APPLAUSE
A highly creditable third place,
with minus eight, Katherine Ryan.
APPLAUSE
Wow!
First appearance, second place, with
minus seven, it's Josh Widdicombe.
Ladies and gentlemen,
can you believe your ears?
14 points, in the lead,
with plus seven, is Alan Davies!
Enormous thanks to Katherine,
Phill, Josh and Alan. Good night.
Good evening, good evening,
good evening and welcome to QI,
where tonight,
we're cavorting with the K-folk.
Please welcome the kind-hearted
Katherine Ryan!
The keen-eyed Josh Widdicombe!
The king-sized Phill Jupitus!
And kiss my keister
if it isn't Alan Davies!
And tonight, their buzzers
have a story to tell.
Katherine goes...
CAVALRY TRUMPET
Josh goes...
WA-WA-WA!
Phill goes...
DRUM AND CYMBAL
And Alan goes...
SAWING
CREAKING AND CRASH
I hope you were sitting the
right side of the branch, Alan.
So we start in the Kalahari.
So tell me,
how did the meerkat cross the road?
Carefully.
That's not a life-sized one, is it?
That's not...
Well, it is a life-sized one.
I'd say it was in the foreground,
except there's
a bit of road before it.
Yes, it's confusing, isn't it?
It's just a very tiny car.
It is, it's a little dinky car.
Do they cross in a group?
Like, you know
when you see those kids
in the reflective jackets... Yes.
..snaking across the road
with some sort of handler?
I think that's what children have.
Well, meerkats are, despite
their cutesy-cutesy reputation,
they're pretty mean, fierce animals.
And they have levels of superiority.
And the leading meerkat sends across
the less important meerkat
to test the road.
Amazing.
And it's the youngsters...
That'll be you tonight, Josh.
Do you want me to test it tonight?
It's your children...
It's your first time,
you have to cross the set.
Unbelievably, it's the children
they send. The children?!
They send their little children.
Once again, that'll be me tonight.
Well, we do the same,
we do the same with buggies.
Right? You push that, that's straight
out into the road before you.
So, what are they testing?
That it's not going to
get hit by a car?
Yeah, exactly. That it's safe.
And if the youngsters get gobbled,
they go, "Oh, I'm not going there."
But do they not understand
that there might be
another car in a minute?
Well, it seems odd, but all...
"No-one's been killed by a car,
so we'll all be fine."
Are the tiny meerkats
wearing high-vis jackets
like human children do,
or do they just rely on
their own gorgeousness?
I think they rely on their own
gorgeousness. But the leading,
the sort of head, not exactly...
ALL: Aw!
You see, you're all going, "Aw!"
I don't fancy that one at the
bottom's chances, if that's a road.
No, exactly.
He knows he's about to be sent.
That one behind him
is just about to do that.
You have alpha females
with meerkats
and, in fact, they kill
each other's children. What?!
Yes, they're pretty nasty animals,
when it comes to it, I'm afraid.
They're not very nice at all.
I hate them.
They're child murderers,
to be perfectly honest.
Here are three young meerkats
crossing the...
HE IMITATES FAST CAR
IMITATES HORN BEEPING
Two have spotted the vehicle.
Will the youngest one...?
Barry did not.
Unfortunately,
because of the adverts,
a lot of people
have bought them as pets.
And they very soon abandon them
because they're smelly,
they're aggressive and they attack
people they don't know.
But do you know what,
these people have never died
crossing a road, have they?
No, they haven't. Exactly.
And the meerkat, always worried
that someone's about to
kick them in the knackers.
They do have that look too.
It looks like someone's about to
take a free kick, doesn't it?
It does.
The only thing that could
make that picture even more gorgeous
would be three tiny pianos.
Meerkats know each other
by their calls individually
and you can send
a meerkat almost insane
by recording one meerkat's
voice that it knows,
playing it in a certain area
and then whizzing round to another
area and playing it again,
and it will...
Why would you do such a thing?!
It's very mean, but they get utterly
baffled by the fact... Barry!
How can you be
in two places at once?
There is no meerkat called Barry,
by the way, but it's...
Oh, come on, there will be. No.
But you could do that with a human
voice, because we recognise
everyone through their voices
as well, don't we?
True, but we also know about
recordings. Oh, yeah.
So they would probably guess.
It's a trick missed.
Maybe you don't. There was a time
when only one person
knew about recordings.
Ho-ho! He had great fun.
Well, there you go.
The meerkat road safety code
is to send the kids across first.
Now, Alan, why will you
never eat my noodles?
It was bound to happen
that this show
would just become about you two.
Just haven't agreed on a fee,
have we?
If you remember,
we're involving people
from countries beginning with K.
Kenya. Well, which have a particular
association perhaps with noodles.
Kent. Kent!
Famous for the Kentish pasta.
No... East.
Korea.
Thank you, Josh. In Korea, noodles,
of course, are very popular.
Of course.
"When will I eat your noodles?"
means...
"When are you getting married?"
In other words,
when are you going to be
throwing a party
in which you will serve noodles?
So it's just a Korean phrase.
It's like saying, "When are you
going to tie the knot?" Oh.
When am I going to eat your noodles?
But you're already married, so
I'm not going to eat your noodles,
and you didn't invite me
to your wedding.
I did invite you, you didn't come.
Oh, that's right.
LAUGHTER
I was abroad, of course.
I was abroad.
Yeah, you know what you were doing,
you were filming an episode
of Bones. Yes, I was, I was.
I've never been so insulted
in my life! I'm so sorry.
I'm so... Oh, God, how embarrassing.
I'm so sorry.
Anyway, that's what it means. Here
are some other Korean phrases...
"The other man's rice cake
always looks bigger."
What would be the British
equivalent of that?
"The grass is always greener."
Or as my uncle used to say, "The
other man's arse is always cleaner."
"If there are too many
ferrymen on a boat,
"it will sail up a mountain."
Is that just literal?
Well, yes, it's probably... Maybe.
If they say that in North Korea,
the boat is going up the mountain.
That's true.
"Too many cooks spoil the broth."
Too many cocks...
Too many cooks spoil the broth.
"So, Stephen, tell me about
your childhood!"
OK, here's one.
"Pummelling a dead monk."
LAUGHTER
THEY TALK OVER EACH OTHER
Yeah, but if you've got
erectile dysfunction,
you're pummelling the dead monk!
"Flogging the dead horse?"
It's flogging a dead horse.
It's criticising an enemy
who's already defeated.
It's a useless exercise.
"He worked as if he were tending
the grave of his wife's uncle."
That's brilliant.
What would that mean?
I might start using that. Not much.
Yes, is the answer.
He did bugger-all.
Because in Korea, it is your duty
to tend the graves of your family.
But the more distant the family, the
less attention you give the grave.
So all he was doing was just,
basically,
sprinkling a little bit of water
on the...
It's only his wife's uncle.
Whereas his grandfather,
his father or his mother,
he'd be putting flowers
and giving it great attention.
So that's what that means.
So like "shagging the dog."
Not really.
Not really, Katherine.
Is there something
you want to share with us?
"Like shagging the dog?"
Yeah, like,
if you don't work very hard,
you're just shagging the dog.
LAUGHTER
Not in this country, madam!
In this country, when we shag a dog,
we know what we're doing.
And it's pretty hard work,
I can tell you.
Not as easy as it looks,
I tell you that.
So in Canada, you have the phrase
"shagging the dog"? Yeah. Wow.
Or like, "shagging the sheep,"
if you want, whatever.
That's not a phrase.
Again, perfectly common practice
over here,
but not considered a light
or unburdensome task.
It just means, like,
having an easy day.
There's a lot I have to learn about
Canada. Well, I suppose it's easy
because with, like, a lady,
you have to take her out to dinner
or woo her a bit, but with a dog,
it's just like,
"Here, boy, come on!"
Oh, I see.
You say that, you say that...
But I'd say once he's here,
most of the work is still to be done
in that situation.
Yes. And I'm thinking it...
Oh, let's move on.
So, "You wouldn't notice even if
a friend at the same table died."
What can that mean?
The food was delicious.
Absolutely spot-on!
APPLAUSE
Well done!
Yeah. The food was so damn good that
even if a friend died at the table
you wouldn't notice, cos you'd...
Brilliant, well done!
PHILL: That's pretty classy.
That is classy, isn't it? I like it.
Someone dies at the table,
you're going,
"Could I see the dessert menu?"
That's how good it was.
"My eyebrows are on fire."
"I can hardly believe
what I've seen." Nnnn...
No? Aaaa...
It... Ears on fire?
"Help me, I'm burning!"
"I'm in a really desperate
situation."
Yeah,
"I'm in a desperate situation."
"Showing off your wrinkles
to a silkworm"?
You have found a silkworm
in your underpants.
Silkworms are pretty wrinkly.
So if you show your wrinkles
to a silkworm, he's going to go,
"Nah, I can do better than that."
So it's like teaching
your grandmother to suck eggs. Oh.
It's... That's what it means.
Imagine how wrinkly
a silkworm's knackers are. Exactly.
And finally, "He disappeared
like a fart through hemp pyjamas."
I think that one speaks for itself,
doesn't it?
It does. It's a Korean phrase.
"Awkwardly," basically.
Embarrassingly, awkwardly,
not with maximum grace.
Now, who are these men and
what did they have for breakfast?
The guy there, front left... Yes?
..he looks like he's having
a Calippo for breakfast.
He does, doesn't he? He does.
It's a very early
Calippo commercial.
A very early Calippo commercial,
absolutely right.
They've got the lifestyle element
of the Calippo commercial all wrong.
Calippos have changed
over the years.
Bizarrely, when first made,
they were for poor mining regions.
Well, this is a poor village.
Is that the Dales?
Is it Yorkshire, is it in the North?
It's not, it's remoter.
It's British, but remote. Oh.
Is it Devon? Hebrides.
The Hebrides is right, and it's
the remotest of all of them...
Kelp. ..and the largest.
Seaweed, do they eat seaweed?
They don't eat seaweed.
They lived, for a thousand years,
this community...
On kittens. On Calippos?!
For a thousand years, this community
was isolated from Britain.
They lived on gannets
and skuas and puffins.
It's the largest puffin colony
in Britain,
the largest gannet colony
in the world.
So can you think of the name of the
island? Is it...? No, I can't, no.
It's St Kilda. St Kilda.
And who was St Kilda?
I'll give you ten points
if you can tell me.
Patron Saint of Ducks.
Was St Kilda male or female?
Male. Male.
No. Female.
No. No. St Kilda was not a saint.
It's merely, unfortunately,
a sort of...
Font?
It's an old Norse word
for a shield, "skildir,"
and it just became St Kilda.
But it's not a saint at all.
So it's known as St Kilda.
And it wasn't until 1930,
the last 36 natives of St Kilda
voluntarily left
their ancestral home.
But, oddly enough,
they were given jobs in
the British Forestry Commission,
and there hadn't been trees
on St Kilda for 1,500 years,
so none of the St Kildans
had ever seen a tree before.
And they were given jobs
in forestry.
IN SCOTTISH ACCENT:
"What the fuck is that?!"
I imagine, I mean,
because they're big...
Trees are big.
I mean, the reaction - "Argh! Orks!"
So did they want to come to Britain?
Sorry?
When we brought them all
over here in the '30s... Yeah?
..weren't they resistant?
No, no, it's voluntary.
I mean, this was a place
that was so windy
that, literally,
sheep were blown off the cliffs.
It's terribly sad.
And there was one windy period
where for a week afterwards,
they were all deaf.
I mean, it really...
It was a pretty hostile climate.
I'm still very confused,
cos I feel like until
you told me about the wind
and the dead sheep, it sounded like
a beautiful place to live.
And now, yeah. Because it's sunny
and, like, in the '30s,
nobody wanted to live here,
no offence.
It now sounds a bit more like
Canada, doesn't it, to be honest?
Wahey! Sorry.
No, no, no, I'm only kidding.
And it's like, you know,
they had all these delicious birds,
like the original Nandos. I...
I would like to live there. Yeah.
I want to find St Kilda
and see what they're about.
I dare say you could visit it.
What we saw was actually the
parliament, the men only, gathering.
What? Wow. That's their parliament,
and they talk until...
Cabinet meeting. Are they split
down the middle by party?
They talk about what
the issues of the day...
"I'm holding the Calippo,
it's my turn to speak."
The worst thing is that dog
in the middle is the Prime Minister.
PHILL: No, he's the
Minister of Forestry.
No trees and dogs. That's just cruel!
In the middle of the 19th century
the first apple arrived in St Kilda
which caused absolute astonishment.
Wait until they see the apple tree,
they'll go mental!
Exactly.
Wait till they see the trees.
There's a Disney movie in this,
I really love this place.
There is, isn't there?
Were they allowed to have sex
with their family?
I would imagine it was almost
inevitable that they would have
done, I'm afraid.
I grew up in a remote area. I had
four people in my year at school.
Where? In Devon, on Dartmoor.
Really? Yeah. Wow, oh, in Widecombe?
Or near Widecombe?
Nearby. Two boys, two girls.
Were you home-schooled? No.
It'd work. That was like
all the kids around me.
So this is quite
familiar to you, then?
That's my dad, third from the left.
And the prison bell went...
Was Dartmoor...
No, no, I was at a school.
But when a prisoner escapes
they ring the bell, don't they?
Yeah, but...
Did that ever happen? No...
Well, it's not that loud a bell,
so I don't think it happened...
I don't think my parents
would have told me.
Wouldn't it be terrible if it sounded
the same as the break bell
so you never know...
"Is it break or serial killer?"
You'd come in from the playground
and there'd be an extra guy
in your class that was 40.
Arrows on his suit.
And you had the little ponies,
the Dartmoor ponies?
Yeah, miniature ponies.
Oh, wonderful.
Yeah, it's a little bit more
romantic than growing up in...
Where did you grow up?
I... Barking in...
And Chigwell, are we... Loughton.
Loughton, I beg your pardon. Essex.
And I was in Norfolk, which has
its own charm, and you were in...
Ontario somewhere?
I'm from a place called Sarnia.
Sarnia? Yeah.
How far is that from Toronto?
You just go through a wardrobe...
LAUGHTER
APPLAUSE
"Look, Mr Tumnus,
don't do that to the dog!"
It's just like that. Is it near,
like, Peterborough, Hamilton,
those sort of places?
You know a lot about Canada.
Yes, I do.
I say it's three hours
WORSE than Toronto.
Oh. Well, they say of Toronto,
it's New York run by the Swiss,
don't they?
It's kind of charming,
but just a little bit too sterile.
I hated Switzerland,
have you been to Switzerland?
No, I don't like Switzerland either
very much. The Alps are charming.
I paid seven quid for a cup of tea.
No?! Yeah. Mug.
A cock up, really.
Anyway, anyway, let's move on.
Where should you go
to find Kiev railway station?
Other than Kiev.
ALAN: Well, now... Oh.
Hull, did you say?
Yes, Stephen, Hull!
Let the siren go off on Hull...
Nobody's guessed.
Nobody guessed you'd say Hull.
Kettering!
Let's work our way through.
No, no, no...
Is there not one? There must be one.
There is a Kiev station.
It's in a very major city in Russia.
Moscow. Moscow. And it's the station
that takes the trains to Kiev.
ALL: Oh!
So they have a St Petersburg...
They have a St Petersburg station
as well.
If you want to go to St Petersburg
in Moscow,
you go to St Petersburg station.
There's a kind of logic to it.
A huge number of towns and cities
in England have a London Road,
for example,
that go TO London, they're not IN
London. London Road isn't in London.
RUSSIAN ACCENT: This is why I do not
understand London. I go there...
Newcastle is not here!
It is in Newcastle, which is stupid.
That's why the signage has to be
so explanatory
cos the Russians won't help.
They don't want to give
any customer service over there.
Have you been? They don't.
RUSSIAN ACCENT: It's not possible.
It's not possible. It's not...
Read the sign,
don't speak to the people.
True, and, of course...
I was in Red Square, in Moscow,
and I wanted to have a photo taken,
and there was one of those guys
with the massive peak caps
and the green uniform. Oh, yes.
I asked,
"Would you take a photo of me?"
And he said, "No".
They...
They are very good at being rude.
"I've been watching you,
half an hour,
standing there looking pissed off.
One person's asking
for a little thing.
I just went like that,
with him in the background.
Very good.
APPLAUSE
So, where is the Kremlin?
Oh, I know this. Yes?
It's... There's more than one.
Excellent, you're absolutely right
because almost every Russian city
has a Kremlin. Does it really?
Yeah, it's...
The fortifying walls originally
around a city are a kremlin.
We know a famous one,
which is the one in Moscow,
but there's one in almost every
city you can think of in Russia.
Very good, Josh.
RUSSIAN ACCENT: I go to Cardiff
looking for Tower of London.
Is this country stupid?
And also, your women pop groups,
they on television, not in prison.
Now, there you go.
Here's a question...
If you follow a kulgrinda,
where will it get you?
Oh, oh, oh, it's not... No.
It's not that... Oh, no.
What? No, that thing...
What could you be thinking?
That thing, that application.
That thing... I can't imagine
what you're talking about.
Yes, you know, you know, you know...
Turn it on now, how many
are in the studio? I bet...
I imagine your outfit will
set it off straightaway, Phill.
I'm just bear bait.
This is not,
this is nothing to do with...
No, it's nothing to do with that?
..the gay man-on-man action app, no.
OK.
Kulgrinda is spelt
K-U-L-G-R-I-N-D-A.
It's a rather remarkable thing
that exists in the Baltic.
Particularly in Lithuania,
but also in Kaliningrad.
A naturally occurring phenomenon?
No, it's a man-made phenomenon,
which is a very cunning way
of deceiving your enemies,
running away from them,
or causing them to drown.
Making a misty fog thing?
No. What you do is
you make stepping stones
that are under the water...
A cunning thing.
..which are enough for you
to stand on,
but only you know where they are.
The really cunning thing is
how you lay them.
In the winter, it's incredibly cold,
so you get these huge stepping
stones, put them in a line
across the ice, and as the ice
melts, they drop and form a line.
And if they're big enough, you can
actually drive a coach over them.
I mean, you've got to be pretty sure
you're going to be chased soon,
to go to that trouble.
The Estonians and Kaliningradians
were pretty often at war.
There was a lot of war going on.
It'll happen this year.
"I think we will be chased
in the summer."
They were often invaded.
"Which way shall we go?
Over the river..."
"I'm going to make a kulgrinda,
will you help?"
"Only if you're certain
about this chase.
"Tell me more about it,
who's involved?"
Basically, you set it up
and then you start a game of 'It'
in about June.
RUSSIAN ACCENT: I tried
to walk across River Thames,
they don't have kulgrinda,
it's stupid.
I hate this country.
That is very similar -
your Lithuanian accent -
to your Russian accent, by the way.
They're really... Did you not here
the "eell, eell, eell"? Ah, yes.
The most famous one
is the Sietuva swamp,
which the Lithuanian explorer
Ludwik Krzywicki
navigated by coach in 1903.
And he wrote that
at the deepest point,
the water was up to
the sides of his horse.
So they're really
impressive little things.
I'd say the most famous one
is the one Jesus used.
That's true.
To trick everyone in the Bible.
That's true.
That's very true. But,
here's a supplementary question -
where can you get arrested
for wearing a seat belt?
Oh, is this... Is it... Oh. Is it
somewhere where the road is by water?
Well, we're still in
the Baltic region.
In Estonia they have lakes
that freeze over
and there are roads on them,
you can drive on them.
But... And you can see that.
And you can drive along them
because it's 22cm thick, the ice,
and it won't give way,
but you're not allowed
to wear a seat belt
in case you slip over or something
and you get trapped.
So, it's actually safer
not to wear a seat belt.
The other thing...
Why would this be?
You mustn't drive between
25 and 40kph.
Is it like Back To The Future?
Vroom!
Flame-coloured from your DeLorean!
You can drive faster?
Yes, you can drive faster or slower,
but not between 25 and 40.
Not between those?
Yeah, those particular speeds.
Same speed as a polar bear.
No, it's a bit like marching over
bridges in step.
Oh, is it to do with...
Oh, it's the vibrations.
It sets up vibrations
that might crack the ice.
Those particular speeds.
Why wouldn't a faster...
Is it just those speeds,
the resonance...
At those speeds it's the resonance,
yeah, just something to do
with the frequency.
Interesting, isn't it? Well, we hope
it's interesting, otherwise
to hell with this programme.
The US Antarctic Program,
the other side of the world,
near McMurdo Sound,
they, every year, construct...
What do they construct on the ice?
I mean, it's...
ALAN: Massive ice Jenga.
It's also to do with transport.
Ice plane.
Well, not an ice plane, but a...
Boat.
PHILL: An airport. Yeah, a runway.
A runway, so they can land
their planes at McMurdo.
Yeah, they have to redo it
every year.
How do they grip it? It's...
Ice, you know, it's not too bad.
What? Ice isn't too bad to grip?!
Have you seen Dancing On Ice?
Not that sort of ice.
Dancing On Ice
is all that sort of...
That's what they said to the pilot.
"Oh, no, actually,
it's not as bad as you think.
"It's not the sticky ice,
it's the other one."
"We landed two hours ago and we
still seem to be going along."
There's an element of that.
All right. Now, what is there to say
about long-necked Karen?
She's got lovely eyes.
Yeah, you're always the first
to see the nice...
That's one of those
Family Fortunes ones, isn't it?
We've had this before.
Oh, yes. "Survey said..."
"Name a bird with a long neck."
And the bloke goes,
"Naomi Campbell."
This is clearly not Naomi. No, Emu.
Karen is the answer here.
Who is this Karen?
Tom Cruise always likes girls,
like, tall girls with long necks,
but then he doesn't let them
wear heels around him.
No, because he is not
the tallest man in the world.
Well, then why date the girls
with the long necks?
So they can spot predators.
Say again...
Tribe, is it a tribe? Tribe.
The Karen tribe. The Karen tribe.
"Oh, hello, all right?
Lovely to see you."
"Hiya, you all right?"
The neighbouring Tracey tribe...
ALAN: Argh!
They hate the Traceys.
"Stay away from Gary!"
Here come the Garys.
HE GRUNTS
"Bovered?"
But the tribe we're talking about,
the Padaung Karen tribe, from...?
Do they put rings round the...?
Exactly, let's have a look at them.
Extending over time.
There we are, look at that.
Oh, my word. Wow!
Wow, isn't that impressive?
It looks like she's kind of
been bred with a Slinky.
They're so-called giraffe-necked...
At the end of the day, "Oh!"
Well, they can't...
LAUGHTER
"Beryl, Beryl, why are
the curtains on the...? Oh."
You know when you have
a jack-in-the-box ready to go?
Oh, yes. P-ding!
Maybe that's what would happen,
rather than go down, it just goes...
The surprising thing is that
X-rays show that their necks...
They can't have any more
vertebrae, can they?
No. X-rays show their necks are not
longer than normal people's.
So what's going on?
It's just that we're all hunchy.
That does look quite long,
but it's actually what's lower
is the collarbone,
or are the collarbones. Wow.
They're supposed to wear them
until they get married,
but a lot of them
keep them on forever.
It's a sign of beauty,
traditionally,
although it's supposed also
to protect them against tigers,
who will attack them by the neck.
That's one theory.
That is great, I always thought,
OK, maybe they're sacred,
all right, it looks pretty...
Tigers! I'm totally with it now.
Yeah, it's tiger-proof.
Put those around your neck.
Exactly. All right.
Most of them now live in Thailand,
having fled Burma,
and you can pay to go and see them.
There's another nearby tribe,
who also wear brass coils,
not only around their necks, but
around their lower knees and arms.
I don't think this is so mad, really.
I think... I get it with the tigers
and here, you've got Katy Price
doing loads of crazy stuff
to her body and all her friends,
and they look lovely,
but they're, like, orange and
they've got fake hair and fake nails,
how is this worse? You're absolutely
right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
APPLAUSE
Yeah, girls, yeah.
Points to Katherine, naturally,
for that good observation.
Now, just how badly wrong could
a house-warming go in one of these?
Nice house.
That man is a big fan of the show.
Let's see the rest of him,
go on, it's past the watershed.
The house doesn't look warm at all
to me, it looks cold in there.
It does look cool in there.
All of his guests have to arrive
by helicopter.
"Doreen, I love squirrels,
what can I say?"
Well, we've looked at the Karen
tribe... Is this real?
This is another tribe,
these are the Korowai tribe.
They're a New Guinea tribe
who live entirely in tree houses.
They are the only people
in the world, apart from the Kombai,
another tribe,
who also live only in tree houses.
Each house lasts on average
about five years
and then they rebuild
somewhere else.
They take their pets up, everything,
and that's where they live.
How do they go to the toilet?
Well, the long drop, I guess,
is the answer.
What? You're walking past...
Yes! Don't walk past is the answer.
They are roofed with leaves
from branches,
like a house you'd see anywhere,
to stop the rain getting in and...
With a little pediment,
it's very splendid.
Once installed, though,
they celebrate by lighting
a ceremonial fire,
the whole thing's made of wood,
but it's kept safe by suspending the
fireplace in a hole in the floor,
and if the fire gets too big
it just drops down to the ground.
You'd think it would set fire to the
struts. Burn the whole forest.
Yeah! but it seems to work,
they've been doing it
for a very, very long time.
One of the marvellous things about
them is they had no idea at all
that there were any other human
beings in the world until 1970.
That is pretty astonishing.
Anyway, the Korowai have open fires
in their houses,
even though they're made entirely
of wood and 30m off the ground.
Now, where's the best place to keep
a load of old rubbish
from the 1980s?
My loft. Your loft?!
No, this is a story
you're not likely to know,
but it is a 16-year voyage
of a ship.
It's called the Khian Sea, trying to
offload rubbish from Pennsylvania.
In 1986, it was loaded with
15,000 tons of non-toxic ash,
bound for dumping in the Bahamas.
But they said no,
so they went to Puerto Rico,
Bermuda, the Dominican Republic,
Honduras, Guinea-Bissau
and the Netherlands Antilles.
They all said no.
Then they cunningly
re-classified the cargo
as "topsoil fertiliser"
and managed to get rid of
4,000 tons of it in Haiti.
And then they were rumbled
and sent packing.
So they then went to Senegal,
Cape Verde, Yugoslavia, Sri Lanka,
Indonesia and the Philippines.
And then Singapore,
where she was found to be empty.
And then the captain and
the ship's executives admitted
they'd dumped the ash at sea
and were jailed.
And at the insistence of Haiti,
the ship had to go back to pick up
the 4,000 tons they'd left behind.
So eventually, Pennsylvania,
where it originated from,
took it back, and in 2002,
16 years later,
it was off-loaded and taken by train
to a landfill just 120 miles
where it had originally come from.
How impressive is that?
I quite like the idea of
that boat sailing around
and the captain, with a teaspoon,
just going...
Like in a prison yard, bring it
out of the bottom of his trousers.
And the amazing thing is,
it wasn't toxic,
it's just people didn't want
American rubbish...
Don't say anything. Erm...
How does ash go away? You landfill.
That's it? Yeah.
Eco-friendly Sweden uses
so much waste
to power its generators that it
actually has to import rubbish.
And Norway pays Sweden
to take 80,000 tons a year,
which Sweden then turns into power
and then they send the ash back
to Norway for landfilling.
So why don't we all do that?
Why? Exactly. Good old Sweden.
Let's hear it for the Swedes. Yay!
APPLAUSE
They're good, we like the Swedes.
One of the Maldives, unfortunately,
Thilafushi,
is an artificial island
made entirely out of rubbish,
which is really distressing.
The country's residents and tourists
produce so much garbage,
the island is growing
by one square metre a day.
That is really, really upsetting,
isn't it? Ay, Chihuahua!
I haven't been recycling
for the last month because...
PHILL GASPS
I saw your face then, I was like...
Yeah.
..Cos someone stole my recycling bin
from outside the front of my house.
Oh! Which I don't know what
the morals are on that crime.
Are they good for sledding?
I bet they're great for sledding.
Was it you?
I just got the lid.
Were you luging on Josh's lid?
How wrong of you, how wrong of you.
What did you just say?!
Luging.
That's when you go... Yeah, but it's
just that combination of words.
I know, well, that's what we like.
Yeah. Yes.
It's fun. Delicious.
There's a shop at the end of my road
that takes clothing
and they send it to Africa
and they give you money for it,
and I was thinking,
"Great, I've got lots of
designer baby items,"
and so, I brought all this stuff
down, like cute little things,
I'm showing them to the guy...
He doesn't care what it is, he just
cares about how much of it there is.
In weight or volume?
They weigh it, so if you've got,
like, big old trousers,
you get more money than if you've
got beautiful little baby stuff.
And where's this shop? It's right...
I took some stuff to my local
charity shop, some clothes,
and I've become increasing irate
that I haven't made
the window display yet.
Yes, never give a gift
you've been given to a charity shop,
cos that will go in the window
and your friend who gave it to you
will pass it.
Believe me, I've done it.
Buy it and give it to you again.
Yes, exactly.
LAUGHTER
Oh, dear, and so the whirligig
of time brings in its revenges.
Now, name the nearest
Third World country?
Oh, steady, we could get into all
sorts of trouble. Yes, you could.
Oh, hello.
I'm not going to make any jokes
about our near neighbours
on this fine island.
Good. Let's just say...
it's as well that
you didn't say Wales, or Scotland.
I'm too scared to answer.
Let me give you the original
definition of a Third World nation,
then you'll be less embarrassed,
all right?
French historian
Alfred Sauvy coined... France!
ALARM WAILS
We jumped the gun.
..coined the phrase... Oh, Stephen!
..the Third World,
"le monde troisieme," in 1952.
It meant "states not politically
aligned with the USSR or the USA,"
ie, the Soviet Bloc
or with America.
So any state that wasn't in some way
politically aligned
was called Third World.
Now, which is the nearest
one of those to us?
France was, although it
wasn't a member of NATO,
it was politically aligned.
Ireland wasn't, was it?
Ireland is the right answer.
The one I was most afraid of saying.
Oh, there, you see!
It's only more recently that
it became a term meaning poverty.
And nowadays, of course,
it's not a politically correct
word to use, anyway. We don't say
a Third World country, we say...?
Developing.
The developing world, exactly.
We say a vibrant
tourist destination.
Absolutely, bravo!
That's exactly what we say.
Unspoiled, we say, unspoiled.
Unspoiled, exactly.
There is Fourth World, however,
what does Fourth World refer to?
Essex.
LAUGHTER
You're lucky you can get away
with that cos you come from there,
but the
Center for World Indigenous Studies
says it means, essentially,
dispossessed people,
such as Kurds or Romanies
and such like.
They are Fourth World.
If you're Irish in Britain
there's something you can do
that you can't do
if you're British in Ireland.
Piss in the street.
Open a theme pub.
"Piss in the street!"
"Open a theme pub!"
Riverdance!
Yeah, sing in pubs.
No, it's really an important right.
Vote? Vote! Amazingly,
Irish citizens living in Britain
can vote
in British general elections.
British citizens living in Ireland
cannot vote in Republic of Ireland
general elections.
Now, which country's national anthem
is the Land Of The Free?
America?
ALARM WAILS
America is not the right answer,
I'm afraid.
They sing it. Beyonce sang it.
It's in the lyrics - "The home of
the brave and the land of the free,"
but...
Is it somewhere incredibly not free?
No, it's free. Free-ish?
It's the only flag
of an independent sovereign nation
that has human beings on it,
two of them as a matter of fact.
Are they copulating?
They're not copulating.
If it's any help to you,
they're chopping wood.
Are they dancing Gangnam Style?
It's one of those freaky islands,
isn't it?
Oh, it's... "One of those
freaky islands!" Well, it is!
One of the lines is, "By the might
of truth and the grace of God,
"no longer shall we be
hewers of wood."
Mordor.
LAUGHTER
Give us more clues,
we can get this, come on.
It was once a British possession...
Belize.
Yes! Come on! Very good!
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
Very good.
PHILL: Very good.
Belize, formerly known as
British Honduras
and it says the national anthem
is called the Land Of The Free.
The name of the American
national anthem is?
ALL: The Star-Spangled Banner -
"Oh, say, can you see
by the dawn's early light,"
et cetera, et cetera.
Who wrote the words for that,
do you know? Jay Z.
It was a man called
Francis Scott Key
and what's interesting about him...
Joe Biden is absolutely hating that!
He's not looking happy, is he?
And neither is the other guy.
PHILL: "I wanted to sing it!
"I have a beautiful,
piercing alto, yeah."
Anyway, Francis Scott Key
gave his first three names to
a distant cousin
who was Francis Scott Key, surname,
one of the greatest
writers of the 20th century.
Fitzgerald? Yes,
F Scott Fitzgerald's real name was
Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald
because he was a cousin of the man
who gave us the words
of the Star-Spangled Banner.
And finally, a really easy one,
does the Paris-Dakar Rally
start in Paris and end in Dakar,
or start in Dakar and end in Paris?
It starts in France
and ends in Africa.
Oh!
ALARM WAILS
Sorry. Anybody else?
Is it neither? Yes.
Well, I know it ends in Africa...
It doesn't.
..so I presumed
it started in France.
It doesn't end in Africa.
Where does it end?
In South America. What?! What?!
What the heck?!
No, the Paris-Dakar rally
has been held in South America
for the last five years,
since threats in 2007 from Al-Qaeda.
And so the organisers relocated it
in South America.
Really? Absolutely.
The Mongol Rally starts in England
and ends in Ulan Bator,
which is the capital of Outer
Mongolia, as I'm sure you know.
I'd just take a mobile phone,
rather than doing that.
There, you see the...
The problem is, you can't get
the signal. This is 1990.
It starts in London
and ends in Ulan Bator.
And what route does it take?
A2.
The fact is... He's not wrong.
The fact is, any way you want to go.
Because there is...
A33. There is no set route, you
can just choose to go through...
Dover, Folkestone.
..whichever countries
will allow you to get through them.
They don't want to cramp the style
of the rallyists.
In India, there's a very good rally
called the Blind Man's Car Rally.
A 40-mile race in which blind
navigators use a Braille map.
The drivers are sighted, but they
must adhere to the directions given
by their unsighted navigators,
who are using Braille.
Even if they know it's going to be
a collision?
"Left, left, left!"
Anyway, now we have a Knick-Knack
exploding custard powder experiment.
For something to explode,
you need certain things.
You need something to light -
in this case, custard powder.
You need something to light it with
and you need oxygen.
But you need a little bit
more than that,
because if I try and light this
custard powder, you will see...
ALAN IMITATES EXPLOSION
..that nothing happens.
The trick custard powder, ha-ha!
I blew his arm off! Ha-ha!
It doesn't... The whole point is,
nothing happens.
Nothing would happen to that,
it's custard, you fool.
I bet Heston could make it burn.
Ah. He couldn't in this state.
No? What you need, in order to
get something like custard,
or any powder, even metallic powder,
to burn and really burn,
is one of these ordinary
everyday objects like this.
As you may see, I have a funnel
and I have some safety glasses,
to save my beautiful eyelashes.
And I have a lighter.
I miss Jacques Cousteau.
And I have a pump.
ALAN IMITATES DIVER'S BREATHING
I have a pump that rather
wants to fall over.
So we'll just raise this here...
HE CONTINUES TO IMITATE DIVER
..so it doesn't fall over. OK...
What I'm going to do...
I don't want to know
what you're going to do!
What I'm going to do is -
I'm going to pour the custard powder
in this funnel.
And I'm going to...
I'm going to present
a flame across it.
Oh... Yes. Yes.
Be afraid, be very afraid.
Can I use Alan as a human shield?
No, you're the shield, you're new!
Oh, my God! Ooh, ho-ho!
There's flame,
there's custard powder in there.
"I feel the need!
"The need for speed!"
All I need to do...
Where are you going?!
Why the fuck am I next to it?!
I'm going to the pump.
I'm just going to the pump,
because I'm going to pump...
We are now nearer than you!
Can you see what I'm going to do?
I'm pumping air...
There's just too many double
entendres, you pumping custard.
Stop it. Are your ready for me
to pump the custard?!
Oh, my God, don't do it!
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
All right.
Oh, God!
Yes, I'm ready for you
to pump your custard.
I need a countdown
from the audience.
This is not how I wanted to go,
I've got to be honest.
Audience, I want you
to count me down from three...
AUDIENCE: ..two, one,
go!
AUDIENCE CHEERS
Wasn't that dangerous!
Well, it's quite warm there,
actually.
Can you feel the heat?
Yeah, I can feel the heat.
SHOUTING: If I'd been sitting there,
I could have been igni...
QUIETLY: I could have been ignited.
You could have been
covered in hot custard.
I told you before
you did this experiment!
Which hot and exciting experiment
brings me
to the little matter of the scores.
And they are fascinating.
In last place, although
he's played it so many times,
with minus nine, is Phill Jupitus.
APPLAUSE
A highly creditable third place,
with minus eight, Katherine Ryan.
APPLAUSE
Wow!
First appearance, second place, with
minus seven, it's Josh Widdicombe.
Ladies and gentlemen,
can you believe your ears?
14 points, in the lead,
with plus seven, is Alan Davies!
Enormous thanks to Katherine,
Phill, Josh and Alan. Good night.