QI (2003–…): Season 11, Episode 7 - Knowledge - full transcript
Good evening, good evening, good
evening, good evening, good evening
and welcome to QI, where tonight
we're doing the Knowledge.
Please welcome
the well-educated Jimmy Carr.
Thank you.
The well-informed Jo Brand.
The well-read Graham Linehan.
And the well, you know,
it's Alan Davies.
And if you want to call me,
you know what to do.
Jimmy goes:
♪ Knowing me, knowing you, aha... ♪
Graham goes:
♪ They don't know about us... ♪
Jo goes: ♪ I know him so well... ♪
And Alan goes:
♪ No, no. No, no, no, no
No, no, there's no limits. ♪
There's a spelling issue there,
Alan.
Now, um, I know
what you want to know,
once and for all, how many moons
does the earth have?
Nobody knows.
LAUGHTER
We're not doing that this year,
are we? No, we're not. Three.
Ooh!
KLAXON
What a pity. What a pity.
One.
KLAXON
D'oh! Well, it is!
Just because it's called "the moon"
doesn't mean it's the only one,
it turns out.
The moons, it would be called. Yeah.
Six
KLAXON
You're not doing yourself any
favours early doors. Two. Two, oh!
KLAXON
Now, this could go on for ages.
It could.
So let me stop you right here.
The point is, very early on,
in the A series,
we said there were two.
Are you taking that back? Yes.
What do you mean? Ah, this is...
I rely on this show.
This is all I know.
This is the whole point
of this round, in fact.
Facts are not permanent.
We thought there were two,
and then we said, "Oh, no,
"it's either one or five,"
we said, in the B series.
Because we were acting on
the latest info
that we had
from the scientific community.
And this has changed.
Now NASA describes them
as "mini moons"
but we have about 18,000 moons.
I thought it was the same moon.
LAUGHTER
What, bits of it, you mean?
No, I thought
the ones that we keep seeing was
the same one over and over again.
That was the... That's wrong?
No! Are you talking about the mini
moons? There was like one extra
mini moon? No.
Or just that whole...
The actual moon. So, every night,
you're saying it's a different moon.
He is saying that.
There is a celestial body
that we call the moon, which is
obviously the one that is recognised
and rises... I'm not saying that.
..every 28 days.
No, I'm saying it's the same...
I'm pretty sure...
Until I came on to this show,
I was pretty sure
it was the same moon.
I think I'm with you.
I think it's just one moon.
That's our team's decision.
That's the same moon, as in this
bottle is the same bottle is...
It's the same bottle as it is.
How do you explain this?
That's another one. Exactly.
Well, it looks pretty similar.
They're not the same.
That's my point.
And suddenly we've got three.
I'm not getting mine out,
but can I just say...?
LAUGHTER
If there's so many,
why haven't we noticed them before?
Well, the reason is
they are actually tiny
and it's only recently they've run
computer simulations to show 18,000.
One of those that has been observed,
has been given
the exciting name RH120,
which orbited the Earth,
four orbits, in 2006 and 2007.
They're also known as
"temporarily captured objects".
They're captured into Earth orbit,
perhaps for a short amount of time.
But as satellites of the Earth,
non-man-made, they are moons.
That's what a moon is. But the
man-made satellites are satellites?
Yes, but to be a moon
you have to be a celestial body,
rather than...
you COULD count a man...
Well, that makes me a moon, then.
Yes, exactly, there you are.
Precisely.
You orbit my life, Jo. But you have
to be in orbit for at least five
years before you can claim benefits.
LAUGHTER
Exactly right. But the quite
interesting thing about this is
the point that raised
Jimmy Carr's tremendous eyebrows
earlier, which is
that facts don't remain stable.
Things we know, or think we know,
will be untrue.
LAUGHTER
Very good. Will be untrue
in a number of years' time.
Yes. Appropriately,
you look a bit like Patrick Moore.
I'm trying to do a Mexican wave.
Yes, you do look like Patrick Moore.
"We just...we just don't know."
LAUGHTER
Can I just say, I did
a course at university called...
Shut up!
I bloody did. No!
I bloody did, and it was called
the Sociology of Science, and yes,
I got a grant for it.
It was a complete waste of time.
But what I learnt during that course
is there's no such thing as a fact.
Yes. This is precisely our point.
And indeed, at medical colleges,
they usually teach that half of
what the medical students are going
to learn will be considered untrue
in about 10 or 20 years.
And this is known by academics
as the half-life of facts.
That's to say, you know half of it
will be untrue.
Unfortunately, you don't know
exactly which half.
And on QI,
an estimated 7% of the things
I tell you this evening will be
shown to be untrue in a year's time.
And if you're watching
a very old repeat on Dave,
a much bigger proportion.
It's probably untrue now.
It's probably...even what
I'm saying now is untrue.
I'm not even saying it,
it's so untrue. I'm not on the show.
We actually have a chart showing
the rate of decay of QI facts.
And you can see,
there's series A on the right,
and plotted against it
is the 10th series, J. J.
And so, as you can see,
the further you get away,
the greater the number of untruths.
60% of things in the first series
are bollocks.
Yes, are now untrue.
If that's true, yes, that's right.
We do talk a lot of bollocks,
in fairness.
But the most important thing,
you'll be excited to know,
is that that means over the years,
cumulatively, you must be
owed a lot of points.
And going according to this theory,
things we have said are wrong,
a proportion of them
are likely to have been right.
Therefore, we have actually
calculated how many points
we owe you. Um, and...
This is, suddenly this has gone
brilliantly. Suddenly we're smiling.
Yeah. Jimmy...
Alan is going to be way
out in front, isn't he?
Jimmy, we owe you 43.58 points.
Jo, 84.73.
Can I use them in Sainsbury's?
LAUGHTER
I'm giving you permission.
If you work at Sainsbury's and she
tries to claim them, yes, she can.
The audience are owed 23.24.
Well done.
Even not having done anything.
APPLAUSE
Alan, you are owed 737.66!
APPLAUSE
There you are.
And, um...
Are those transferable?
If I went onto
Have I Got News For You,
could I use... Yes. Could I arrive
and go, "I've got 24 points
that I could use here?"
Yeah. You can take this, yes.
I can just...? Use them, yeah.
Oh, fabulous. Great news.
Mastermind,
can I have it on Mastermind?
I don't think you could
slip that in, somehow.
Someone's going to have to answer
a lot of questions to beat that.
And of course, unfortunately,
Graham, you get nothing.
Yes. Yeah, no. That's really unfair.
You're playing it first time
and you get a huge disadvantage.
Yeah. Well, you needn't
have pointed it out. Yes.
I'll try and find a way to
make it up to you, in some way,
by giving you a random 600 points.
I'll give you some examples of facts
that we gave in good faith on QI.
So in the I series
we said nobody knows how to tell
the age of a lobster.
Well, that was only a few years ago.
Ask it. I think that's what you said
at the time. And that's right.
Is that now right?
It isn't now right.
We now know how to
communicate with lobsters.
One, two, three, four, five,
six, seven, eight, nine...
10. Hold. 11...
Everyone knows that.
In the I series, we said that no-one
could tell the age of lobsters
but, since then, Canadian
scientists have discovered,
the way you do, that
if you dissect their eye stalks
and count the rings,
you know how old they are.
Really? What?
It's not a very kind thing to do.
What you mean is, you know
how old they WERE.
LAUGHTER
I think
that's a reasonable point.
There's a flaw in this plan. I still
think you should ask them first.
Before you dissect their eye stalks!
Another one was in the G series.
We said giraffes' necks may have
evolved for fighting each other,
which was commonly held by quite
a few zoologists. But it now seems
this hypothesis is not believed.
And in the A series... They used
to like wading across deep rivers.
Yes, that, keeping their necks
above, very, very deep.
LAUGHTER
As the river got higher...
Yeah. ..they evolved.
LAUGHTER
That might prove to be correct.
It might, you see.
Who am I to say it isn't?
In the A series, we said that the
best-endowed millipede had 710 legs.
Soon afterwards,
a millipede with 750 turned up,
but that's still
the greatest number we know.
Is there someone checking them?
Yes. That's superb.
I like the idea that counting a
millipede's legs, you would lose...
You'd have to keep going back.
Yes, you would, exactly.
Argh! One, two...
Yeah, it's the same thing...
Many times. It's the same thing
with all these things,
before they count the legs,
they kill it.
LAUGHTER
It's true. So the legs are very
still. Just pluck them off.
Oh, dear! One...
She loves me. Two, three...
It might still be alive.
They might think it was dead, and
then they'd just hear it go, "Argh!"
LAUGHTER
"Argh! Argh!"
Do you know, that's an interesting
fact, that's how they make worms.
LAUGHTER
It's true. True story. Brilliant.
Yeah, a worm would come along,
"Are you not doing anything
with these legs?
"Now you've counted them off
the millipede, can I have four?"
And a whole new species is born.
Yeah. And that is how
sausage dogs are made.
And Daschunds, exactly. Yeah.
We've discovered a lot of new
science here, none of which is
likely to be disproved, or possibly
may come round again to be proved.
Now, how much do you know
about Scotland's Mr Smellie?
Was he one of the Mr Men
that was dropped?
That's a really good point. I can
tell you his name. William Smellie.
19th-century gentleman. He came
from a family... Billy Smellie.
We know little about him
actually because he came from
a banned Protestant sect who were
so persecuted that they didn't
keep any documents about their
births, deaths and marriages.
I should think he was fairly
persecuted at school as well.
Being called Smellie.
SCOTTISH ACCENT: Stinky Smellie!
"Oh, original, thanks."
Anyway,
he rose from relative obscurity
and then he got paid ?200 for
heading up the team on something
that has a thistle as is emblem
but has in its name something
that means British. The...
Of course. The British... Say it.
Encyclopaedia Britannica.
That is the right answer.
The Encyclopaedia Britannica.
That's surely worth...
Nothing, really?
APPLAUSE
Surely it was easier to do that in
the days before the Internet, though.
Yes. If you tried to research now,
you'd get sidetracked.
I get very sidetracked very easily.
Yes, I'll just get to B for bras. Oh.
That's a day lost.
LAUGHTER
I hate Encyclopaedia Britannica
because I had very aspirational
parents and everyone else in my
class was reading Jackie magazine
and I had to read the bloody
Encyclopaedia Britannica.
It was a symbol of that, wasn't it?
Oh, my God.
It's like a dictionary that
sort of just won't stop.
It gets the word and then goes,
"And another thing..."
It is discursive. Very true.
Another of its early editors
was called Andrew Bell,
who was four and a half feet tall
and had a very big nose,
as you will see.
He looks slightly like me,
disturbingly.
I'll be honest with you,
I think that's a regular-sized nose
on a tiny man.
He had a great
sense of humour, though.
If anybody pointed out or laughed
at his nose, he'd rush off
into another room and come back with
a bigger one made of papier-mache.
I bet he could tell when
Mr Smellie was coming round.
I'll tell you what
I know about that guy. Yeah.
Very little. Hey!
LAUGHTER
That is quite good.
I had to think about that.
Anyway, the first edition of
the Encyclopaedia Britannica took
three years to write, cost ?12
for three volumes. Three volumes!
The world's knowledge? Yes,
but the first volume is A to B.
They obviously thought,
"Oh, sod this.
"I've done A to B,
I've only got one volume.
"I'll do C to Z in one volume."
The deadline was looming. Exactly.
With the decay of facts,
I presume it's all bollocks.
This is a good test for that.
What facts are in there?
One is K for Kensington.
See if you can come up with
a good definition of Kensington.
A borough in London. A place.
An area of London town.
No. Nowhere near.
A pleasant village
two miles west of London.
Which is what it was then, you see.
Wow.
And California here is
spelt with two Ls
and it's called a large country
in the West Indies.
Possibly an island or
a peninsula, it's not known.
That's pretty way-off, isn't it?
I mean, there must come
a point where he went,
"We don't know anything about this.
Shall I put it in?" Yes.
"California. It could be
a place or a thing.
"No-one knows. It might be a person.
Good luck." How is that an entry?
What does Encyclopaedia mean?
Because it sounds like
a kiddie fiddler on a bike.
LAUGHTER
APPLAUSE
There's a big difference between
words with P-A-E and P-A-I.
Paedos and paidos.
Sometimes it is very tricky,
I grant you.
It could get an idiot into trouble.
LAUGHTER
I didn't mean it in that way. I
don't know what you're laughing at.
The entry for woman in the original
version just says,
"The female of man. See homo."
LAUGHTER
He will tell you everything
you need to know.
Because he's their best friend. Aw!
Applause is defined as following.
An approbation of something
signified by clapping the hands.
Still practised in theatres.
In the 1960s, an American
called Dr Harvey Einbinder
so hated Encyclopaedia Britannica he
wrote a book... I hate it! Exactly.
He wrote a book where he listed all
the things that were wrong in it.
390 pages long. Oh, I like the sound
of him. The Myth Of Britannica.
What's his name? Harvey Einbinder.
Does he only have one binder?
We meet at last, Mr Einbinder.
With his massive binder.
Don't touch my binder!
Maybe that's why he hated...
This is the binder you seek.
"Encyclopaedia Britannica has
52 binders and I only have one!"
Ein Binder!
He might have pronounced it
Ein-BIN-der, for all we know.
Ein-BIN-der?
William Smellie was the first editor
of the Encyclopaedia Britannica.
Now, what did the inventor
of the thermometer
spend 30 years measuring?
I'm going to say temperature, OK?
KLAXON
Oh!
Wa-hey! Do you know what, Alan?
You've got points to burn
this evening. Just relax.
Sometimes it's right, you know,
sometimes he goes, "Yes, it is."
Exactly.
I know a joke about thermometers,
about nurses and thermometers.
It's about a rectal thermometer.
Go on. Well, a nurse finds a rectal
thermometer in her pocket
and goes, "Aw!
Some arsehole's got my pen."
LAUGHTER
It's an old joke. It's an old joke.
It's very fine, though. Very fine.
One very old nurses' joke
that we used to...
was that a nurse comes running in
and says to the matron,
"Oh, dear, I think I've got
something the wrong way round.
"You asked me
to prick someone's boil."
LAUGHTER
Very good. I do know quite an
interesting fact about thermometers.
Thermometers. The difference between
an oral and rectal thermometer.
Yeah, I hope you do
know the difference!
Yeah. Taste. Oh!
LAUGHTER
No, his name was Sanctorius
Sanctorius. At least that
was his Latinised name. He was from
Padua, and there you can see him.
Right. He's weighing himself, that's
a special balance he had created.
Oh, he's weighing himself?
Every single day he'd weigh
himself AND the food he ate.
And, indeed, the faeces and urine
that he expelled, he excreted.
Was it some sort of weird
Weight Watchers thing he was on?
What he discovered is
that his urine and faeces weighed
only a fraction of what he'd eaten
and drunk, but despite that,
he stayed the same weight,
which is amazing, he thought.
He thought, "Why is it if I put
in, say, 100 pounds of food,
"but I poo out only
30 pounds of faeces..."
It had taken him 30 years...
Did he not work out that
there's a fuel thing?
It is easy to look back
at past generations and say,
"How can you not have known?"
But, of course, NONE of them knew.
And really, before people like him,
who was almost one of the world's
first scientists,
they hadn't measured and calibrated
things. You're absolutely right
about all of those things.
Well, as right as we know.
However... Yeah? 30 Years!
I mean, really, after
three years with the same...
Oh, no, he had a theory, but
his theory was wrong, that's all.
His theory was that the rest
came out of your skin
so it was very dangerous to cover
most of your skin, because you
wouldn't let the poison out.
He knew that faeces was poisonous,
or at least toxic and bad for you.
Its smell is a big
warning, obviously.
Sorry, your faeces smell?
Of Parma Violets. Yeah.
Jimmy's make a noise.
They point at him.
They emit a totally different...
They're very unusual.
It's one in a million people
who have noisy faeces.
"Aah!"
HE IMITATES TOILET FLUSHING
Very good. He co-invented,
with his fellow at Padua,
a much better-known scientist.
Who would that be,
in the same period?
Co-invented? Da Vinci.
His co-inventor. Not Da Vinci, no.
Is he going to be
Centigrade, or...
JO: Galileo. It won't be future.
Galileo.
Galileo is the right answer.
Oh, I nearly said Galileo!
APPLAUSE
Thank you.
I was going to say Scaramouche
or Fandango.
Galileo Galilei.
Can do the Fandango!
Yes, he could, darling,
that's right.
Thunderbolt and lightning!
Oh, no. Please!
Very, very frightening!
Stop. Behave. That's what one of
Jimmy's poos sounds like! No.
"Galileo, Galileo!
You all right in there, Jimmy?!"
LAUGHTER
Be out in a minute, I'm reading
a very interesting article!
Your faeces is made up of 70%...
Shit. ..liquid!
30% solid. It just takes
a bit of separating out.
Not that I would urge you
to do it when you get home!
When I get home? Why wait?!
I've got a centrifuge
in my dressing room!
Oh, dear, oh, dear, oh, dear.
Of that dry weight, 30% is what?
Corn on the cob.
More than 30%. If you've had two.
Oh, dear. Heavens.
Do you know that when they go into
space in a weightless environment,
they poo into the wall?
What do you mean into the wall?
Like a hole in the wall?
A hole in the wall, yeah.
They don't smear it on the wall.
It turns out the best way
to relieve yourself
in a weightless environment
is through a hole in the wall.
It's easier to do that than go down
or up. I do that with the shower.
You admitted it,
which many people wouldn't.
Who doesn't poo in the shower?
LAUGHTER
You bad man.
Everyone would know
if Jimmy pooed in the shower.
Pooing into the wall of a...
So, the space station is built
with a little glory hole thing...
If you want to call it that.
You're too much slightly
in the know to know what that is.
Like in a Welcome Break services,
they've got that...
On the second junction. What?
What is your problem? Everyone
knows that. Never on a Tuesday.
A glory hole on a spaceship!
There's also about three people
on this station at any one time.
By a process of elimination,
it's only going to be
one of two other people.
That's true. You can't...
This is John. It's not Elaine.
You'd recognise...
I thought there was a fourth one and
that was their role in the mission.
I mean, if you're going to Mars,
it's going to take five years.
Your job is a very important job.
You go in this room with
a hole in the wall. Oh, dear.
And people guess your name.
But the other thing that happens
when you go into space is you don't
snore, I believe. Do you know this?
I didn't.
That's a beautiful little fact.
So far. You sleep in these...
Well... Yes, of course.
Cos there's no gravity,
it doesn't affect your vocal cords.
That's an extreme cure,
though, isn't it?
I'm going to try
the little things first.
That's the next step. It's quite
expensive to go intergalactic.
I imagine there are wives
watching this going,
"Yeah, it's going to
have to be space.
"Even then,
I think he might wake me."
Anyway, what can you find out
by hiding under a student's bed?
BUZZER
Yes, Jo?
I've got to go for this.
Is it a massive pile of porn mags?
That's probably true.
I thought that would go off.
Those were the days.
I think, I think now
you've got the internet, it's...
Yeah, you wouldn't, really.
Broadband are doing
a terrific job now. Terrific.
I think that's a bit sad
though, in a way.
It's not, yeah, they were...
You prefer mags. Not for men.
No, not personally.
LAUGHTER
They did this in the 1930s,
it was extremely unethical,
but we're in pursuit of knowledge,
which is our theme today.
Oh, scientists?
So they were researchers.
They were researching,
and the only way to find out
what people are saying without
knowing they're being overheard
was to hide somewhere and take
notes while they were talking.
And they wanted to know what sort
of things students spoke about.
So they used to hide underneath
the beds? Yeah, and take notes.
It sounds to me, Stephen, I don't
want to, you know, throw stones
at these lovely scientists, but it
sounds to me like a cover story.
You wait, you wait till I get to
some other unethical scientists,
you hold that back. Because
it gets worse. Oh, tell me more!
We're on the subject
of unethical research.
And basically, this was the only
way you can have of being sure
that you know what people are
talking about with absolute clarity.
Because people change what they say
when they know someone's listening,
someone outside their circle.
But the idea was to discover
what the main subject was,
that people spoke about.
They listened to...
They just thought, "They'll
never look under the bed!"
Why would you look under a bed?!
There's nothing
interesting down there!
Yeah, where they could
overhear them.
And they discovered that 40% of
their conversation was devoted to?
The opposite sex. No, it
wasn't that. It was themselves.
It was a study in egocentricity.
They spoke about themselves.
I would never do that. A-ha-ha!
Jimmy Carr would
never let that happen!
Oh, don't, that's the worst
thing in the world you can do!
So, there are other
dodgy experiments.
There was a Personal Space
Invasion In The Men's Restroom,
a study of 1976.
GRAHAM SNORTS
Someone hid a camera
under the partition,
under the sort of floor space.
"Someone", Stephen? "Someone?"
LAUGHTER
You seem to know a lot about this,
Stephen!
I've got a couple of questions.
You like technology, don't you?
And there's
a camera in the men's room!
"Oh, I'm just doing a study."
"Are you?!"
It was... Apologise, Stephen!
It was to see how they filled space
when, if there was one person,
say the third in a row of six,
where would the average person go?
Would it be as far away apart,
or would that look too obvious?
It's very interesting when you
go in there, because I used to be,
I don't have it any more,
but I used to be quite a shy pee-er,
are you aware of shy peeing?
Yeah, of course. I have a technique
for that. What's your technique?
My technique for shy peeing is,
I think of the most
embarrassing thing I can do.
I just think of doing something
like saying, "I think I love you",
or just something like that,
and then it's all go.
When you say, "I love you",
you will automatically pee.
Have a little wee.
I don't need to say it,
I just need to THINK it.
And I always have to imagine it
very, very realistically.
I imagine the guy going,
"What?! Did he really say that?"
And then the next thing it's just,
you know, it's no longer a problem.
It is very maddening when you've
been absolutely bursting to go
and then, hello. "Come on! Come on!"
I find men's rooms...
There's a story about Bono
going into a men's room
and standing up there and the guy
standing beside him, a long silence,
and then eventually the guy saying,
"Bit of stage fright, Bono?"
JIMMY HOOTS UPROARIOUSLY
But in 1942, and this is the one
where you're going to go,
"Yeah, right(!)",
a psychologist called
Lawrence LeShan
tried to use sleep-learning
at a summer camp...
Yeah, right(!)
..to cure some boys of nail-biting.
Oh, no. He recorded the phrase,
"My fingernails are terribly
bitter," on a phonograph,
and then played it 300 times a night
in the boys' tent, or room or
whatever it was.
And they all went on
to kill and kill again?
One boy appeared
to respond positively,
but then after five weeks
the phonograph broke.
So, to keep the experiment running,
he stood in the boys' dormitory
through the night
and repeated the phrase himself.
"My fingernails taste
terribly bitter."
This seemed to work,
and he claimed it as a success.
It's thought, generally, these
days, that the boys were awake
and just freaked out
by the experience
and they stopped biting their nails
to make the nasty man go away.
It's all very peculiar.
Anyway, moving on.
How did the Romans tell their
Keiths from their Kevins?
Some Keiths and Kevins there, in
case you don't know what they are.
Keith Richards. Kevin Bacon...
Kevin Keegan. Keith Lemon.
Well done, that's enough.
That's all, you won't get any more.
The other ones don't look real.
No... And they're looking...
Are they the actual Romans?
I think on the far left,
that's Burger King, isn't it?
I think it might be,
it does look a bit like it.
They could have... Because in Latin
they both mean the same?
It's not that. It doesn't have
to be Keiths and Kevins,
it means how did Romans
know people's names?
How do they know people's names?
Because we all forget them...
JO: Did they remember them? No.
That's the point, they'd forgotten.
Badge, they had a badge. No.
You have a special servant.
A servant to say your name?
A nomenclator. Not to say YOUR name!
LAUGHTER
I'm assuming you'll remember
your own name! This is Pepe!
It's when you forget other people's.
So you come in and the person
whispers, "Alan Davies",
and you go, "Alan,
how lovely to see you!"
Because otherwise you've forgotten,
like a politician.
That's very useful. Yeah.
Absolutely right. And politicians...
I have a technique for names. Yeah?
If I've forgotten someone's name,
I just say,
"Excuse me for a second",
and then I go home.
LAUGHTER
APPLAUSE
Works every time!
If you're the nomenclator... Yes?
..and you keep saying,
"This is Steve. This is Fiona."
Stevius, Fiona. After a while
he goes, "I know. I know that one!"
Yes, you would.
You're allowed to tell them...
Just tell me the ones I don't know.
She thinks I've forgotten her name!
I really thought I was in there,
and now you've just gone "Fiona",
as if I didn't know it was...
Look at her face now!
Go over there and say,
"He knew, I was just doing my job.
"He wants you to know
that he knew you were Fiona."
"This is your wife, Susan.
You've been married 15 years."
I actually do have a system
involving my wife,
which is, we go over to someone
whose name I don't know,
and I just stand there
in total silence,
and then eventually my wife says,
"I'm sorry, my name's Helen."
And the guy says, "Oh, I'm Gary,"
and I go, "I'm sorry. This is Gary!
Gary, Helen. Helen, Gary."
Didn't I introduce you?
I thought I, yeah... Yeah.
Just as soon as they say it, you go,
"Ah!" And then you sort of...
Is that a system, per se?
LAUGHTER
Sounds like you being awkward
at a party. I'm sorry, I am...
So, moving on to self knowledge.
How do you know
when you have enough?
Everyone always tells me.
It's normally... It's a tap on the
shoulder, isn't it? I think, Jimmy...
Jimmy... It's the cold steel
around both wrists.
And the clanging of the door,
and the one phone call.
"I've had enough.
"Who am I speaking to?"
Oh, dear. Are we talking food here?
We are talking food.
JO: I don't, really.
The fact is this is about knowledge
and you think you're full when,
as it were, you know
you've had enough, which is
obviously not knowledge -
it is memory.
You can test this on people
with short-term memory loss.
I mean amnesiacs, who immediately
forget what's just happened.
I'm sorry, what were you saying?
Exactly. Thank you very much.
So, there are people
who have this condition.
They forget that they've eaten, say,
20 minutes, half an hour afterwards.
And you ask them if they'd like to
eat and they will eat three or four
heavy meals when they are obviously
completely stuffed
because they don't remember eating.
They literally don't remember it.
There is a trick you can do with
a bowl of thick soup which has
got a clever little mechanism on it
so that, while people aren't
looking, it fills itself up again
or empties itself ahead of time.
Some people think
they've had the full bowl of soup
when they've actually had less
or they've actually had a lot more.
I've got a similar device for
desserts, which is my girlfriend.
She won't order one but I'll order
one and then it just goes missing.
It works with chips as well.
Very good.
She hasn't had dessert
in ten years.
I've had a lot of half desserts.
Anyway, that's enough about
that sort of thing. Diet.
We feel full after a meal
not just because we are
but because we think we are.
A question about kith and kin now.
What's the best way of avoiding
talking to your mother-in-law?
BUZZER
Yes, Jo?
Removing her vocal cords,
with some pliers!
That's the best
way of avoiding HER talking to YOU.
JIMMY: Well, lean in for the kiss.
Ugh! Oddly enough, you're in
the right, hideous area. Really?
Prince Charles's hair
is being stealthily removed
from his head by Camilla's
hair-grabbing, hair-eating hat.
LAUGHTER
It's like a Triffid.
And she's operating it slyly
with her hand and going like that.
And the hair is being
sucked into that hat.
She's looking down at the dial.
The hat devours it!
If you don't like your mother-in-law,
what hope is there for you?
I view the mother-in-law
as, it's Christmas Future.
Yes, that's true.
If you don't like your mother-in-law,
you're in trouble, 20 years down the
line. That's what you're buying into.
My mother-in-law makes absolutely
no sound when she moves.
LAUGHTER
That's remarkable. Like Jeeves.
She is the stealthiest person.
You've got a stealth mother-in-law.
Is she sprayed black?
Honestly, she could be
a brilliant spy, you know?
You might be in a room and you're
looking in a thing or something,
and then suddenly she'll go,
"Hello." "Oh, Jesus!
"Where did you come from?!
Where did you come from?!
"It's a long way from the door!"
Anybody would have gone, "Ahem,"
made a little noise. Nothing.
Oh, that's terrible.
It's like the famous story
of the boy who was, you know,
having a play with himself in his
bedroom, with his eyes closed.
And by the way, I was not doing,
I was not playing with myself!
No, not you. In this story,
before you conflate them.
No, that's true. What's that story
or that thing where Alan Davies,
and his mother-in-law
comes up behind him?
Let's just separate
those two things!
All right. But he closes
his eyes in bliss
and when he opens them afterwards,
he just finds
a cup of tea next to him!
LAUGHTER
It sounds so appalling!
She thought, "Well, your father
always likes a cup of tea
afterwards!"
And a biscuit!
APPLAUSE
Oh, gracious! Oh, Alan!
Les Dawson gets a hard time
for mother-in-law jokes.
And they are the best mother-in-law
jokes. Remind us of some.
Copyright Les Dawson.
Copyright Les Dawson was the,
"Walking down the street
with my wife.
"I saw my mother-in-law and she
was being beaten up by six men.
"My wife said,
'Aren't you going to help?'
"I said, 'Six should be enough.'"
LAUGHTER
Brilliant.
The weird... When I was growing up,
starting in comedy, it was like,
"Oh, yeah, he just tells
mother-in-law jokes." I know.
He was frowned on. He was sort of
a genius. A complete genius.
AS LES DAWSON:
My mother-in-law came round.
The mice were throwing
themselves on the traps.
LAUGHTER
STEPHEN LAUGHS HYSTERICALLY
That piano playing act is one
of the greatest things of all time.
Which is very difficult to do.
Yeah, so I believe.
He'd do The Blue Danube...
HE HUMS TUNE
..like that. Hit the bum note.
Enough. We haven't even begun
to answer this question yet.
It's about sexual taboos
with mothers-in-laws...
Sexual taboos with mother-in-laws?!
Taboos, and there is
this particular language
where you have a special language...
What?! ..in which
to speak to your mother-in-law.
It's called an avoidance language,
so you have your own,
the natural line of language.
We've got one of those,
haven't we? It's called small talk.
But this has a different vocabulary
and it's absolutely different.
A whole language where you can talk
to your mother-in-law so
it's just safe subjects?
You also have to avert the eyes and
look at the ground, which is part of
using that language.
And there are certain words
that don't exist in that language,
most notably things like pubic hair
and sweaty smells. JO: But why?
Because there is a taboo
and a sense of respect
that is given by the male
to the mother of his wife.
It's in Australia.
There's some Aboriginal peoples
who have these avoidance languages.
And it's really fascinating,
isn't it?
In Japan, they have a special
language when talking about
the royal family.
Is there a phrase for
"You've spilt the Tippex,"
in their culture?
Someone needs to address that.
You're so bad. You're so bad!
Now, what did this bird bring
to the German city of Klutz?
Chlamydia. Chlamydia!
The Chlamydia Stork. It's a good
idea. The Chlamydia Stork!
Sounds like a desperate man
back from a business trip in Holland,
going, "Ah, ah,
the thing is, storks." Yes!
Is that a particular, like a giant
stork that you only find in Germany?
I'll show you a picture of it. It's
been stuffed and is in a museum.
How big is it, really?
Well, it's hard to tell the scale,
but storks are quite big.
But that's an arrow through it,
or spear, rather.
They call it an arrow in German,
which is Pfeil,
and it's known as the Pfeilstorch,
which is just literally
"arrow stork".
Now, you may say what's odd
about that? Nothing, particularly.
But what they recognised
was that the arrow was not German.
Indeed it was not even European.
But they recognised right away
that it was African. That it had
flown a very long way.
What on earth would a bird be doing
with an African spear
in its neck, they thought?
So they puzzled out
the possibility that birds,
rather than disappearing
at winter...
Oh, went to Africa. Yes, migrated.
Sorry, are you saying
it flew back with that... Yes.
It survived. No way! I know, yeah.
I was just... I mean, no way!
It happened. Yes, it did.
It flew to Germany going,
"Well, I'm never going back there."
LAUGHTER
"The worst holiday ever!"
APPLAUSE
I find that... The survival of
that bird, I find extraordinary,
that it arrived.
It is. But you hear stories of
bullets piercing people's heads
without somehow managing to...
Not an arrow
travelling the length of
its neck and through its head.
I know.
It is astounding that it flew.
"Something's different!" Yeah.
Do you think it was originally
from Germany? Or it got kind of...
It was from England and somehow,
"Whoa, we're going right a bit!"
It might have slightly tilted
to the right, we don't know.
It was in the 1820s.
In the Spanish Inquisition,
they used to put people on spikes.
They'd put the spike
up your bum hole... Oh, don't.
..and right up through you
and it'd come out your shoulder
and it would miss all the vital
organs and you'd be alive.
That's not nice, is it?
And they'd put you up in the square.
I'm beginning really to think less
and less of the Spanish Inquisition,
let's be honest.
350 years, it went on.
I thought it was, you know...
Oh, no.
..a couple of weeks.
LAUGHTER
Then it was safe to go back!
Back to Marbella.
350 years! It wasn't always
as torturous as it is.
They did some terrible things. They
did. But not for 300 years solid.
When it wasn't torturous,
what would they do?
Well, they would test your faith,
but they wouldn't punish you by...
There was a lot of tickling.
There was 100 years where
it was mainly Chinese burns.
"You do believe in God. Yes, you do!
Yes, you do! Yes, you bloody do.
Anyway, until that time, people
had observed birds disappearing,
and they'd assumed all kinds of
things, that they went underwater,
that, you know, they changed into
other animals, but there was no
particular evidence, except they
disappeared. It was 18...? 1820.
This was the first kind of
clear evidence, as it were,
that the bird had been to Africa.
And so things began
to get put together.
Samuel Johnson wrote that, "Swallows
certainly sleep in the winter.
"A number of them conglobulate
together by flying round and round
"and then all in a heap
throw themselves underwater
and lie on the bed of the river."
That's what he thought, because
swallows disappear in winter.
He assumed they hibernated,
like other animals.
Butterflies, of course,
the migrate thousands of miles
but we never see them.
Why don't we see butterflies
migrating? They're invisible.
They're caterpillars.
They migrate as caterpillars.
They migrate, like, super, super
slowly. A long time to get there.
They are very, very hungry.
I read a book about them.
The reason is that
they are actually a kilometre up.
They are incredibly high. Are they?
Yeah. It's really astonishing that
these fragile, delicate creatures
manage to get the height
and then, when they are in there,
to orient themselves in such a way
that they know they are
all facing the right direction
and get thousands of miles.
They're like this, "Whoa!"
It is astonishing, isn't it?
JO: Well, I remember being
on a school bus once.
There was a beautiful
butterfly on it fluttering around,
trying to get out
and I caught it in my hands.
I went, "Go free,"
and I let it out the window and a
bird swooped in and ate it. Oh, no.
That is a metaphor for life, that.
It is, isn't it? It completely is.
Now, get this right and you can
have your weight in points.
I'd like you to
add these numbers up.
Look at the screen, add up the
numbers. Hang on. Hang on. Pen.
JO: Oh!
That's silly.
Nine, nine, nine, nine. No.
431. No. I'll let you have,
which the winner of this competition
did not have,
the opportunity to see it again.
All right, again. Two-second burst.
Add that up.
Oh, it's about 897.
No. It would be astonishing
if you got it,
but in Japan - where else? -
they have this.
It's called Flash Anzan.
And actually the world record-holder
had a shorter time than that.
You have to correctly add
15 three-digit numbers,
and he did it in 1.7 seconds.
There's a particular reason Japanese
people are very good at this.
I think I know the reason.
It's in Malcolm Gladwell's book.
It's because of how they process...
how the language processes numbers.
There is a strange thing
in Chinese and Japanese,
in both languages, with the number,
if you say the numbers together,
it automatically adds them up,
sort of linguistically.
Yes, but there's a really
interesting addition to that,
which is that what they're doing,
and their fingers are
the giveaway, they do this.
What do you think that is?
That, that is a living one of those!
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
Come on!
Genius! You see?
I've always said, "He's a savant!"
Or it's a herd of those!
I read that book
and isn't there a thing...?
It's a Malcolm Gladwell book
called Outliers. It's brilliant.
The thing about it is they use
fewer syllables in the numbers
so that they have greater
aptitude for adding them up
more quickly as children.
That might help them.
The answer, incidentally was 1,966.
But the secret actually
is in the Chinese, Japanese abacus.
They're actually doing
the action of the abacus.
And the more amazing thing, perhaps,
is that, at the same time, they can
have a conversation with someone.
Because it's another part
of the brain that's being engaged.
And they'll say the answer, but
they won't remember a single one
of the numbers they added up.
I thought about this and
thought, "This is crazy."
I've got a composer friend who
came round to my house and I happen
to have a full orchestral score of
Don Giovanni for the piano and he...
Of course you did!
LAUGHTER
I did! People do!
Anyway, he just opened it like that
and he started playing it,
sight-reading, like that, on the
piano. And talking to me about it.
"This is the bit where it does
that." And I somehow took apart
what he was doing.
It's not written out
as a piano score,
it's written out as violins,
oboes, flutes, cor anglais,
which you have to transpose
in your head while doing it,
cos it's written in a different key
from the rest of everything else.
So, he's doing that and playing
a beautiful transcription
and talking to me. The people that
do that, they're slightly magic.
I agree. And that's a spell
they're saying and I go,
"Yeah, fine, I'll believe that.
Might as well be." I know.
Conductors, trained musicians.
10,000 hours. 10,000 hours.
That's it. The Beatles, Mozart,
all of them, as we know. We think...
It's a very convincing...
I've done 10,000 hours. Of this.
Of sitting around,
vacantly thinking...
And you're really getting good
at it now. Being wrong about stuff.
Which brings me to some very
complicated adding up of my own,
as a matter of fact.
Oh, my gracious goodness, heavens!
The scores are unusual, because we
have, of course, been giving scores
to make up for our errors on account
of the half-life of facts.
So, in last place, I'm afraid,
it's magnificent for a first
appearance, minus 19,
Graham Linehan.
APPLAUSE AND CHEERING
Graham, congratulations. Thank you.
In fourth place, with 23.24,
it's the audience!
Well done!
And in third place...
So I'm behind the audience?
Yes, I'm afraid so.
It's deeply unfair.
The Star Wars guy's in the audience.
I'm on the show!
I'm so sorry.
And in third place,
with plus 33.58, is Jimmy Carr.
APPLAUSE AND CHEERING
Come on.
In second place, with plus 85.73,
Jo Brand.
APPLAUSE AND CHEERING
Not bad for a lady!
And today's out-and-out winner,
with 689.66, is Alan Davies!
APPLAUSE AND WHOOPING
It was worth it.
And, so, it's thank you
and good night
from Graham, Jimmy, Jo, Alan and me.
Be useful and lovely
to yourselves, good night.
evening, good evening, good evening
and welcome to QI, where tonight
we're doing the Knowledge.
Please welcome
the well-educated Jimmy Carr.
Thank you.
The well-informed Jo Brand.
The well-read Graham Linehan.
And the well, you know,
it's Alan Davies.
And if you want to call me,
you know what to do.
Jimmy goes:
♪ Knowing me, knowing you, aha... ♪
Graham goes:
♪ They don't know about us... ♪
Jo goes: ♪ I know him so well... ♪
And Alan goes:
♪ No, no. No, no, no, no
No, no, there's no limits. ♪
There's a spelling issue there,
Alan.
Now, um, I know
what you want to know,
once and for all, how many moons
does the earth have?
Nobody knows.
LAUGHTER
We're not doing that this year,
are we? No, we're not. Three.
Ooh!
KLAXON
What a pity. What a pity.
One.
KLAXON
D'oh! Well, it is!
Just because it's called "the moon"
doesn't mean it's the only one,
it turns out.
The moons, it would be called. Yeah.
Six
KLAXON
You're not doing yourself any
favours early doors. Two. Two, oh!
KLAXON
Now, this could go on for ages.
It could.
So let me stop you right here.
The point is, very early on,
in the A series,
we said there were two.
Are you taking that back? Yes.
What do you mean? Ah, this is...
I rely on this show.
This is all I know.
This is the whole point
of this round, in fact.
Facts are not permanent.
We thought there were two,
and then we said, "Oh, no,
"it's either one or five,"
we said, in the B series.
Because we were acting on
the latest info
that we had
from the scientific community.
And this has changed.
Now NASA describes them
as "mini moons"
but we have about 18,000 moons.
I thought it was the same moon.
LAUGHTER
What, bits of it, you mean?
No, I thought
the ones that we keep seeing was
the same one over and over again.
That was the... That's wrong?
No! Are you talking about the mini
moons? There was like one extra
mini moon? No.
Or just that whole...
The actual moon. So, every night,
you're saying it's a different moon.
He is saying that.
There is a celestial body
that we call the moon, which is
obviously the one that is recognised
and rises... I'm not saying that.
..every 28 days.
No, I'm saying it's the same...
I'm pretty sure...
Until I came on to this show,
I was pretty sure
it was the same moon.
I think I'm with you.
I think it's just one moon.
That's our team's decision.
That's the same moon, as in this
bottle is the same bottle is...
It's the same bottle as it is.
How do you explain this?
That's another one. Exactly.
Well, it looks pretty similar.
They're not the same.
That's my point.
And suddenly we've got three.
I'm not getting mine out,
but can I just say...?
LAUGHTER
If there's so many,
why haven't we noticed them before?
Well, the reason is
they are actually tiny
and it's only recently they've run
computer simulations to show 18,000.
One of those that has been observed,
has been given
the exciting name RH120,
which orbited the Earth,
four orbits, in 2006 and 2007.
They're also known as
"temporarily captured objects".
They're captured into Earth orbit,
perhaps for a short amount of time.
But as satellites of the Earth,
non-man-made, they are moons.
That's what a moon is. But the
man-made satellites are satellites?
Yes, but to be a moon
you have to be a celestial body,
rather than...
you COULD count a man...
Well, that makes me a moon, then.
Yes, exactly, there you are.
Precisely.
You orbit my life, Jo. But you have
to be in orbit for at least five
years before you can claim benefits.
LAUGHTER
Exactly right. But the quite
interesting thing about this is
the point that raised
Jimmy Carr's tremendous eyebrows
earlier, which is
that facts don't remain stable.
Things we know, or think we know,
will be untrue.
LAUGHTER
Very good. Will be untrue
in a number of years' time.
Yes. Appropriately,
you look a bit like Patrick Moore.
I'm trying to do a Mexican wave.
Yes, you do look like Patrick Moore.
"We just...we just don't know."
LAUGHTER
Can I just say, I did
a course at university called...
Shut up!
I bloody did. No!
I bloody did, and it was called
the Sociology of Science, and yes,
I got a grant for it.
It was a complete waste of time.
But what I learnt during that course
is there's no such thing as a fact.
Yes. This is precisely our point.
And indeed, at medical colleges,
they usually teach that half of
what the medical students are going
to learn will be considered untrue
in about 10 or 20 years.
And this is known by academics
as the half-life of facts.
That's to say, you know half of it
will be untrue.
Unfortunately, you don't know
exactly which half.
And on QI,
an estimated 7% of the things
I tell you this evening will be
shown to be untrue in a year's time.
And if you're watching
a very old repeat on Dave,
a much bigger proportion.
It's probably untrue now.
It's probably...even what
I'm saying now is untrue.
I'm not even saying it,
it's so untrue. I'm not on the show.
We actually have a chart showing
the rate of decay of QI facts.
And you can see,
there's series A on the right,
and plotted against it
is the 10th series, J. J.
And so, as you can see,
the further you get away,
the greater the number of untruths.
60% of things in the first series
are bollocks.
Yes, are now untrue.
If that's true, yes, that's right.
We do talk a lot of bollocks,
in fairness.
But the most important thing,
you'll be excited to know,
is that that means over the years,
cumulatively, you must be
owed a lot of points.
And going according to this theory,
things we have said are wrong,
a proportion of them
are likely to have been right.
Therefore, we have actually
calculated how many points
we owe you. Um, and...
This is, suddenly this has gone
brilliantly. Suddenly we're smiling.
Yeah. Jimmy...
Alan is going to be way
out in front, isn't he?
Jimmy, we owe you 43.58 points.
Jo, 84.73.
Can I use them in Sainsbury's?
LAUGHTER
I'm giving you permission.
If you work at Sainsbury's and she
tries to claim them, yes, she can.
The audience are owed 23.24.
Well done.
Even not having done anything.
APPLAUSE
Alan, you are owed 737.66!
APPLAUSE
There you are.
And, um...
Are those transferable?
If I went onto
Have I Got News For You,
could I use... Yes. Could I arrive
and go, "I've got 24 points
that I could use here?"
Yeah. You can take this, yes.
I can just...? Use them, yeah.
Oh, fabulous. Great news.
Mastermind,
can I have it on Mastermind?
I don't think you could
slip that in, somehow.
Someone's going to have to answer
a lot of questions to beat that.
And of course, unfortunately,
Graham, you get nothing.
Yes. Yeah, no. That's really unfair.
You're playing it first time
and you get a huge disadvantage.
Yeah. Well, you needn't
have pointed it out. Yes.
I'll try and find a way to
make it up to you, in some way,
by giving you a random 600 points.
I'll give you some examples of facts
that we gave in good faith on QI.
So in the I series
we said nobody knows how to tell
the age of a lobster.
Well, that was only a few years ago.
Ask it. I think that's what you said
at the time. And that's right.
Is that now right?
It isn't now right.
We now know how to
communicate with lobsters.
One, two, three, four, five,
six, seven, eight, nine...
10. Hold. 11...
Everyone knows that.
In the I series, we said that no-one
could tell the age of lobsters
but, since then, Canadian
scientists have discovered,
the way you do, that
if you dissect their eye stalks
and count the rings,
you know how old they are.
Really? What?
It's not a very kind thing to do.
What you mean is, you know
how old they WERE.
LAUGHTER
I think
that's a reasonable point.
There's a flaw in this plan. I still
think you should ask them first.
Before you dissect their eye stalks!
Another one was in the G series.
We said giraffes' necks may have
evolved for fighting each other,
which was commonly held by quite
a few zoologists. But it now seems
this hypothesis is not believed.
And in the A series... They used
to like wading across deep rivers.
Yes, that, keeping their necks
above, very, very deep.
LAUGHTER
As the river got higher...
Yeah. ..they evolved.
LAUGHTER
That might prove to be correct.
It might, you see.
Who am I to say it isn't?
In the A series, we said that the
best-endowed millipede had 710 legs.
Soon afterwards,
a millipede with 750 turned up,
but that's still
the greatest number we know.
Is there someone checking them?
Yes. That's superb.
I like the idea that counting a
millipede's legs, you would lose...
You'd have to keep going back.
Yes, you would, exactly.
Argh! One, two...
Yeah, it's the same thing...
Many times. It's the same thing
with all these things,
before they count the legs,
they kill it.
LAUGHTER
It's true. So the legs are very
still. Just pluck them off.
Oh, dear! One...
She loves me. Two, three...
It might still be alive.
They might think it was dead, and
then they'd just hear it go, "Argh!"
LAUGHTER
"Argh! Argh!"
Do you know, that's an interesting
fact, that's how they make worms.
LAUGHTER
It's true. True story. Brilliant.
Yeah, a worm would come along,
"Are you not doing anything
with these legs?
"Now you've counted them off
the millipede, can I have four?"
And a whole new species is born.
Yeah. And that is how
sausage dogs are made.
And Daschunds, exactly. Yeah.
We've discovered a lot of new
science here, none of which is
likely to be disproved, or possibly
may come round again to be proved.
Now, how much do you know
about Scotland's Mr Smellie?
Was he one of the Mr Men
that was dropped?
That's a really good point. I can
tell you his name. William Smellie.
19th-century gentleman. He came
from a family... Billy Smellie.
We know little about him
actually because he came from
a banned Protestant sect who were
so persecuted that they didn't
keep any documents about their
births, deaths and marriages.
I should think he was fairly
persecuted at school as well.
Being called Smellie.
SCOTTISH ACCENT: Stinky Smellie!
"Oh, original, thanks."
Anyway,
he rose from relative obscurity
and then he got paid ?200 for
heading up the team on something
that has a thistle as is emblem
but has in its name something
that means British. The...
Of course. The British... Say it.
Encyclopaedia Britannica.
That is the right answer.
The Encyclopaedia Britannica.
That's surely worth...
Nothing, really?
APPLAUSE
Surely it was easier to do that in
the days before the Internet, though.
Yes. If you tried to research now,
you'd get sidetracked.
I get very sidetracked very easily.
Yes, I'll just get to B for bras. Oh.
That's a day lost.
LAUGHTER
I hate Encyclopaedia Britannica
because I had very aspirational
parents and everyone else in my
class was reading Jackie magazine
and I had to read the bloody
Encyclopaedia Britannica.
It was a symbol of that, wasn't it?
Oh, my God.
It's like a dictionary that
sort of just won't stop.
It gets the word and then goes,
"And another thing..."
It is discursive. Very true.
Another of its early editors
was called Andrew Bell,
who was four and a half feet tall
and had a very big nose,
as you will see.
He looks slightly like me,
disturbingly.
I'll be honest with you,
I think that's a regular-sized nose
on a tiny man.
He had a great
sense of humour, though.
If anybody pointed out or laughed
at his nose, he'd rush off
into another room and come back with
a bigger one made of papier-mache.
I bet he could tell when
Mr Smellie was coming round.
I'll tell you what
I know about that guy. Yeah.
Very little. Hey!
LAUGHTER
That is quite good.
I had to think about that.
Anyway, the first edition of
the Encyclopaedia Britannica took
three years to write, cost ?12
for three volumes. Three volumes!
The world's knowledge? Yes,
but the first volume is A to B.
They obviously thought,
"Oh, sod this.
"I've done A to B,
I've only got one volume.
"I'll do C to Z in one volume."
The deadline was looming. Exactly.
With the decay of facts,
I presume it's all bollocks.
This is a good test for that.
What facts are in there?
One is K for Kensington.
See if you can come up with
a good definition of Kensington.
A borough in London. A place.
An area of London town.
No. Nowhere near.
A pleasant village
two miles west of London.
Which is what it was then, you see.
Wow.
And California here is
spelt with two Ls
and it's called a large country
in the West Indies.
Possibly an island or
a peninsula, it's not known.
That's pretty way-off, isn't it?
I mean, there must come
a point where he went,
"We don't know anything about this.
Shall I put it in?" Yes.
"California. It could be
a place or a thing.
"No-one knows. It might be a person.
Good luck." How is that an entry?
What does Encyclopaedia mean?
Because it sounds like
a kiddie fiddler on a bike.
LAUGHTER
APPLAUSE
There's a big difference between
words with P-A-E and P-A-I.
Paedos and paidos.
Sometimes it is very tricky,
I grant you.
It could get an idiot into trouble.
LAUGHTER
I didn't mean it in that way. I
don't know what you're laughing at.
The entry for woman in the original
version just says,
"The female of man. See homo."
LAUGHTER
He will tell you everything
you need to know.
Because he's their best friend. Aw!
Applause is defined as following.
An approbation of something
signified by clapping the hands.
Still practised in theatres.
In the 1960s, an American
called Dr Harvey Einbinder
so hated Encyclopaedia Britannica he
wrote a book... I hate it! Exactly.
He wrote a book where he listed all
the things that were wrong in it.
390 pages long. Oh, I like the sound
of him. The Myth Of Britannica.
What's his name? Harvey Einbinder.
Does he only have one binder?
We meet at last, Mr Einbinder.
With his massive binder.
Don't touch my binder!
Maybe that's why he hated...
This is the binder you seek.
"Encyclopaedia Britannica has
52 binders and I only have one!"
Ein Binder!
He might have pronounced it
Ein-BIN-der, for all we know.
Ein-BIN-der?
William Smellie was the first editor
of the Encyclopaedia Britannica.
Now, what did the inventor
of the thermometer
spend 30 years measuring?
I'm going to say temperature, OK?
KLAXON
Oh!
Wa-hey! Do you know what, Alan?
You've got points to burn
this evening. Just relax.
Sometimes it's right, you know,
sometimes he goes, "Yes, it is."
Exactly.
I know a joke about thermometers,
about nurses and thermometers.
It's about a rectal thermometer.
Go on. Well, a nurse finds a rectal
thermometer in her pocket
and goes, "Aw!
Some arsehole's got my pen."
LAUGHTER
It's an old joke. It's an old joke.
It's very fine, though. Very fine.
One very old nurses' joke
that we used to...
was that a nurse comes running in
and says to the matron,
"Oh, dear, I think I've got
something the wrong way round.
"You asked me
to prick someone's boil."
LAUGHTER
Very good. I do know quite an
interesting fact about thermometers.
Thermometers. The difference between
an oral and rectal thermometer.
Yeah, I hope you do
know the difference!
Yeah. Taste. Oh!
LAUGHTER
No, his name was Sanctorius
Sanctorius. At least that
was his Latinised name. He was from
Padua, and there you can see him.
Right. He's weighing himself, that's
a special balance he had created.
Oh, he's weighing himself?
Every single day he'd weigh
himself AND the food he ate.
And, indeed, the faeces and urine
that he expelled, he excreted.
Was it some sort of weird
Weight Watchers thing he was on?
What he discovered is
that his urine and faeces weighed
only a fraction of what he'd eaten
and drunk, but despite that,
he stayed the same weight,
which is amazing, he thought.
He thought, "Why is it if I put
in, say, 100 pounds of food,
"but I poo out only
30 pounds of faeces..."
It had taken him 30 years...
Did he not work out that
there's a fuel thing?
It is easy to look back
at past generations and say,
"How can you not have known?"
But, of course, NONE of them knew.
And really, before people like him,
who was almost one of the world's
first scientists,
they hadn't measured and calibrated
things. You're absolutely right
about all of those things.
Well, as right as we know.
However... Yeah? 30 Years!
I mean, really, after
three years with the same...
Oh, no, he had a theory, but
his theory was wrong, that's all.
His theory was that the rest
came out of your skin
so it was very dangerous to cover
most of your skin, because you
wouldn't let the poison out.
He knew that faeces was poisonous,
or at least toxic and bad for you.
Its smell is a big
warning, obviously.
Sorry, your faeces smell?
Of Parma Violets. Yeah.
Jimmy's make a noise.
They point at him.
They emit a totally different...
They're very unusual.
It's one in a million people
who have noisy faeces.
"Aah!"
HE IMITATES TOILET FLUSHING
Very good. He co-invented,
with his fellow at Padua,
a much better-known scientist.
Who would that be,
in the same period?
Co-invented? Da Vinci.
His co-inventor. Not Da Vinci, no.
Is he going to be
Centigrade, or...
JO: Galileo. It won't be future.
Galileo.
Galileo is the right answer.
Oh, I nearly said Galileo!
APPLAUSE
Thank you.
I was going to say Scaramouche
or Fandango.
Galileo Galilei.
Can do the Fandango!
Yes, he could, darling,
that's right.
Thunderbolt and lightning!
Oh, no. Please!
Very, very frightening!
Stop. Behave. That's what one of
Jimmy's poos sounds like! No.
"Galileo, Galileo!
You all right in there, Jimmy?!"
LAUGHTER
Be out in a minute, I'm reading
a very interesting article!
Your faeces is made up of 70%...
Shit. ..liquid!
30% solid. It just takes
a bit of separating out.
Not that I would urge you
to do it when you get home!
When I get home? Why wait?!
I've got a centrifuge
in my dressing room!
Oh, dear, oh, dear, oh, dear.
Of that dry weight, 30% is what?
Corn on the cob.
More than 30%. If you've had two.
Oh, dear. Heavens.
Do you know that when they go into
space in a weightless environment,
they poo into the wall?
What do you mean into the wall?
Like a hole in the wall?
A hole in the wall, yeah.
They don't smear it on the wall.
It turns out the best way
to relieve yourself
in a weightless environment
is through a hole in the wall.
It's easier to do that than go down
or up. I do that with the shower.
You admitted it,
which many people wouldn't.
Who doesn't poo in the shower?
LAUGHTER
You bad man.
Everyone would know
if Jimmy pooed in the shower.
Pooing into the wall of a...
So, the space station is built
with a little glory hole thing...
If you want to call it that.
You're too much slightly
in the know to know what that is.
Like in a Welcome Break services,
they've got that...
On the second junction. What?
What is your problem? Everyone
knows that. Never on a Tuesday.
A glory hole on a spaceship!
There's also about three people
on this station at any one time.
By a process of elimination,
it's only going to be
one of two other people.
That's true. You can't...
This is John. It's not Elaine.
You'd recognise...
I thought there was a fourth one and
that was their role in the mission.
I mean, if you're going to Mars,
it's going to take five years.
Your job is a very important job.
You go in this room with
a hole in the wall. Oh, dear.
And people guess your name.
But the other thing that happens
when you go into space is you don't
snore, I believe. Do you know this?
I didn't.
That's a beautiful little fact.
So far. You sleep in these...
Well... Yes, of course.
Cos there's no gravity,
it doesn't affect your vocal cords.
That's an extreme cure,
though, isn't it?
I'm going to try
the little things first.
That's the next step. It's quite
expensive to go intergalactic.
I imagine there are wives
watching this going,
"Yeah, it's going to
have to be space.
"Even then,
I think he might wake me."
Anyway, what can you find out
by hiding under a student's bed?
BUZZER
Yes, Jo?
I've got to go for this.
Is it a massive pile of porn mags?
That's probably true.
I thought that would go off.
Those were the days.
I think, I think now
you've got the internet, it's...
Yeah, you wouldn't, really.
Broadband are doing
a terrific job now. Terrific.
I think that's a bit sad
though, in a way.
It's not, yeah, they were...
You prefer mags. Not for men.
No, not personally.
LAUGHTER
They did this in the 1930s,
it was extremely unethical,
but we're in pursuit of knowledge,
which is our theme today.
Oh, scientists?
So they were researchers.
They were researching,
and the only way to find out
what people are saying without
knowing they're being overheard
was to hide somewhere and take
notes while they were talking.
And they wanted to know what sort
of things students spoke about.
So they used to hide underneath
the beds? Yeah, and take notes.
It sounds to me, Stephen, I don't
want to, you know, throw stones
at these lovely scientists, but it
sounds to me like a cover story.
You wait, you wait till I get to
some other unethical scientists,
you hold that back. Because
it gets worse. Oh, tell me more!
We're on the subject
of unethical research.
And basically, this was the only
way you can have of being sure
that you know what people are
talking about with absolute clarity.
Because people change what they say
when they know someone's listening,
someone outside their circle.
But the idea was to discover
what the main subject was,
that people spoke about.
They listened to...
They just thought, "They'll
never look under the bed!"
Why would you look under a bed?!
There's nothing
interesting down there!
Yeah, where they could
overhear them.
And they discovered that 40% of
their conversation was devoted to?
The opposite sex. No, it
wasn't that. It was themselves.
It was a study in egocentricity.
They spoke about themselves.
I would never do that. A-ha-ha!
Jimmy Carr would
never let that happen!
Oh, don't, that's the worst
thing in the world you can do!
So, there are other
dodgy experiments.
There was a Personal Space
Invasion In The Men's Restroom,
a study of 1976.
GRAHAM SNORTS
Someone hid a camera
under the partition,
under the sort of floor space.
"Someone", Stephen? "Someone?"
LAUGHTER
You seem to know a lot about this,
Stephen!
I've got a couple of questions.
You like technology, don't you?
And there's
a camera in the men's room!
"Oh, I'm just doing a study."
"Are you?!"
It was... Apologise, Stephen!
It was to see how they filled space
when, if there was one person,
say the third in a row of six,
where would the average person go?
Would it be as far away apart,
or would that look too obvious?
It's very interesting when you
go in there, because I used to be,
I don't have it any more,
but I used to be quite a shy pee-er,
are you aware of shy peeing?
Yeah, of course. I have a technique
for that. What's your technique?
My technique for shy peeing is,
I think of the most
embarrassing thing I can do.
I just think of doing something
like saying, "I think I love you",
or just something like that,
and then it's all go.
When you say, "I love you",
you will automatically pee.
Have a little wee.
I don't need to say it,
I just need to THINK it.
And I always have to imagine it
very, very realistically.
I imagine the guy going,
"What?! Did he really say that?"
And then the next thing it's just,
you know, it's no longer a problem.
It is very maddening when you've
been absolutely bursting to go
and then, hello. "Come on! Come on!"
I find men's rooms...
There's a story about Bono
going into a men's room
and standing up there and the guy
standing beside him, a long silence,
and then eventually the guy saying,
"Bit of stage fright, Bono?"
JIMMY HOOTS UPROARIOUSLY
But in 1942, and this is the one
where you're going to go,
"Yeah, right(!)",
a psychologist called
Lawrence LeShan
tried to use sleep-learning
at a summer camp...
Yeah, right(!)
..to cure some boys of nail-biting.
Oh, no. He recorded the phrase,
"My fingernails are terribly
bitter," on a phonograph,
and then played it 300 times a night
in the boys' tent, or room or
whatever it was.
And they all went on
to kill and kill again?
One boy appeared
to respond positively,
but then after five weeks
the phonograph broke.
So, to keep the experiment running,
he stood in the boys' dormitory
through the night
and repeated the phrase himself.
"My fingernails taste
terribly bitter."
This seemed to work,
and he claimed it as a success.
It's thought, generally, these
days, that the boys were awake
and just freaked out
by the experience
and they stopped biting their nails
to make the nasty man go away.
It's all very peculiar.
Anyway, moving on.
How did the Romans tell their
Keiths from their Kevins?
Some Keiths and Kevins there, in
case you don't know what they are.
Keith Richards. Kevin Bacon...
Kevin Keegan. Keith Lemon.
Well done, that's enough.
That's all, you won't get any more.
The other ones don't look real.
No... And they're looking...
Are they the actual Romans?
I think on the far left,
that's Burger King, isn't it?
I think it might be,
it does look a bit like it.
They could have... Because in Latin
they both mean the same?
It's not that. It doesn't have
to be Keiths and Kevins,
it means how did Romans
know people's names?
How do they know people's names?
Because we all forget them...
JO: Did they remember them? No.
That's the point, they'd forgotten.
Badge, they had a badge. No.
You have a special servant.
A servant to say your name?
A nomenclator. Not to say YOUR name!
LAUGHTER
I'm assuming you'll remember
your own name! This is Pepe!
It's when you forget other people's.
So you come in and the person
whispers, "Alan Davies",
and you go, "Alan,
how lovely to see you!"
Because otherwise you've forgotten,
like a politician.
That's very useful. Yeah.
Absolutely right. And politicians...
I have a technique for names. Yeah?
If I've forgotten someone's name,
I just say,
"Excuse me for a second",
and then I go home.
LAUGHTER
APPLAUSE
Works every time!
If you're the nomenclator... Yes?
..and you keep saying,
"This is Steve. This is Fiona."
Stevius, Fiona. After a while
he goes, "I know. I know that one!"
Yes, you would.
You're allowed to tell them...
Just tell me the ones I don't know.
She thinks I've forgotten her name!
I really thought I was in there,
and now you've just gone "Fiona",
as if I didn't know it was...
Look at her face now!
Go over there and say,
"He knew, I was just doing my job.
"He wants you to know
that he knew you were Fiona."
"This is your wife, Susan.
You've been married 15 years."
I actually do have a system
involving my wife,
which is, we go over to someone
whose name I don't know,
and I just stand there
in total silence,
and then eventually my wife says,
"I'm sorry, my name's Helen."
And the guy says, "Oh, I'm Gary,"
and I go, "I'm sorry. This is Gary!
Gary, Helen. Helen, Gary."
Didn't I introduce you?
I thought I, yeah... Yeah.
Just as soon as they say it, you go,
"Ah!" And then you sort of...
Is that a system, per se?
LAUGHTER
Sounds like you being awkward
at a party. I'm sorry, I am...
So, moving on to self knowledge.
How do you know
when you have enough?
Everyone always tells me.
It's normally... It's a tap on the
shoulder, isn't it? I think, Jimmy...
Jimmy... It's the cold steel
around both wrists.
And the clanging of the door,
and the one phone call.
"I've had enough.
"Who am I speaking to?"
Oh, dear. Are we talking food here?
We are talking food.
JO: I don't, really.
The fact is this is about knowledge
and you think you're full when,
as it were, you know
you've had enough, which is
obviously not knowledge -
it is memory.
You can test this on people
with short-term memory loss.
I mean amnesiacs, who immediately
forget what's just happened.
I'm sorry, what were you saying?
Exactly. Thank you very much.
So, there are people
who have this condition.
They forget that they've eaten, say,
20 minutes, half an hour afterwards.
And you ask them if they'd like to
eat and they will eat three or four
heavy meals when they are obviously
completely stuffed
because they don't remember eating.
They literally don't remember it.
There is a trick you can do with
a bowl of thick soup which has
got a clever little mechanism on it
so that, while people aren't
looking, it fills itself up again
or empties itself ahead of time.
Some people think
they've had the full bowl of soup
when they've actually had less
or they've actually had a lot more.
I've got a similar device for
desserts, which is my girlfriend.
She won't order one but I'll order
one and then it just goes missing.
It works with chips as well.
Very good.
She hasn't had dessert
in ten years.
I've had a lot of half desserts.
Anyway, that's enough about
that sort of thing. Diet.
We feel full after a meal
not just because we are
but because we think we are.
A question about kith and kin now.
What's the best way of avoiding
talking to your mother-in-law?
BUZZER
Yes, Jo?
Removing her vocal cords,
with some pliers!
That's the best
way of avoiding HER talking to YOU.
JIMMY: Well, lean in for the kiss.
Ugh! Oddly enough, you're in
the right, hideous area. Really?
Prince Charles's hair
is being stealthily removed
from his head by Camilla's
hair-grabbing, hair-eating hat.
LAUGHTER
It's like a Triffid.
And she's operating it slyly
with her hand and going like that.
And the hair is being
sucked into that hat.
She's looking down at the dial.
The hat devours it!
If you don't like your mother-in-law,
what hope is there for you?
I view the mother-in-law
as, it's Christmas Future.
Yes, that's true.
If you don't like your mother-in-law,
you're in trouble, 20 years down the
line. That's what you're buying into.
My mother-in-law makes absolutely
no sound when she moves.
LAUGHTER
That's remarkable. Like Jeeves.
She is the stealthiest person.
You've got a stealth mother-in-law.
Is she sprayed black?
Honestly, she could be
a brilliant spy, you know?
You might be in a room and you're
looking in a thing or something,
and then suddenly she'll go,
"Hello." "Oh, Jesus!
"Where did you come from?!
Where did you come from?!
"It's a long way from the door!"
Anybody would have gone, "Ahem,"
made a little noise. Nothing.
Oh, that's terrible.
It's like the famous story
of the boy who was, you know,
having a play with himself in his
bedroom, with his eyes closed.
And by the way, I was not doing,
I was not playing with myself!
No, not you. In this story,
before you conflate them.
No, that's true. What's that story
or that thing where Alan Davies,
and his mother-in-law
comes up behind him?
Let's just separate
those two things!
All right. But he closes
his eyes in bliss
and when he opens them afterwards,
he just finds
a cup of tea next to him!
LAUGHTER
It sounds so appalling!
She thought, "Well, your father
always likes a cup of tea
afterwards!"
And a biscuit!
APPLAUSE
Oh, gracious! Oh, Alan!
Les Dawson gets a hard time
for mother-in-law jokes.
And they are the best mother-in-law
jokes. Remind us of some.
Copyright Les Dawson.
Copyright Les Dawson was the,
"Walking down the street
with my wife.
"I saw my mother-in-law and she
was being beaten up by six men.
"My wife said,
'Aren't you going to help?'
"I said, 'Six should be enough.'"
LAUGHTER
Brilliant.
The weird... When I was growing up,
starting in comedy, it was like,
"Oh, yeah, he just tells
mother-in-law jokes." I know.
He was frowned on. He was sort of
a genius. A complete genius.
AS LES DAWSON:
My mother-in-law came round.
The mice were throwing
themselves on the traps.
LAUGHTER
STEPHEN LAUGHS HYSTERICALLY
That piano playing act is one
of the greatest things of all time.
Which is very difficult to do.
Yeah, so I believe.
He'd do The Blue Danube...
HE HUMS TUNE
..like that. Hit the bum note.
Enough. We haven't even begun
to answer this question yet.
It's about sexual taboos
with mothers-in-laws...
Sexual taboos with mother-in-laws?!
Taboos, and there is
this particular language
where you have a special language...
What?! ..in which
to speak to your mother-in-law.
It's called an avoidance language,
so you have your own,
the natural line of language.
We've got one of those,
haven't we? It's called small talk.
But this has a different vocabulary
and it's absolutely different.
A whole language where you can talk
to your mother-in-law so
it's just safe subjects?
You also have to avert the eyes and
look at the ground, which is part of
using that language.
And there are certain words
that don't exist in that language,
most notably things like pubic hair
and sweaty smells. JO: But why?
Because there is a taboo
and a sense of respect
that is given by the male
to the mother of his wife.
It's in Australia.
There's some Aboriginal peoples
who have these avoidance languages.
And it's really fascinating,
isn't it?
In Japan, they have a special
language when talking about
the royal family.
Is there a phrase for
"You've spilt the Tippex,"
in their culture?
Someone needs to address that.
You're so bad. You're so bad!
Now, what did this bird bring
to the German city of Klutz?
Chlamydia. Chlamydia!
The Chlamydia Stork. It's a good
idea. The Chlamydia Stork!
Sounds like a desperate man
back from a business trip in Holland,
going, "Ah, ah,
the thing is, storks." Yes!
Is that a particular, like a giant
stork that you only find in Germany?
I'll show you a picture of it. It's
been stuffed and is in a museum.
How big is it, really?
Well, it's hard to tell the scale,
but storks are quite big.
But that's an arrow through it,
or spear, rather.
They call it an arrow in German,
which is Pfeil,
and it's known as the Pfeilstorch,
which is just literally
"arrow stork".
Now, you may say what's odd
about that? Nothing, particularly.
But what they recognised
was that the arrow was not German.
Indeed it was not even European.
But they recognised right away
that it was African. That it had
flown a very long way.
What on earth would a bird be doing
with an African spear
in its neck, they thought?
So they puzzled out
the possibility that birds,
rather than disappearing
at winter...
Oh, went to Africa. Yes, migrated.
Sorry, are you saying
it flew back with that... Yes.
It survived. No way! I know, yeah.
I was just... I mean, no way!
It happened. Yes, it did.
It flew to Germany going,
"Well, I'm never going back there."
LAUGHTER
"The worst holiday ever!"
APPLAUSE
I find that... The survival of
that bird, I find extraordinary,
that it arrived.
It is. But you hear stories of
bullets piercing people's heads
without somehow managing to...
Not an arrow
travelling the length of
its neck and through its head.
I know.
It is astounding that it flew.
"Something's different!" Yeah.
Do you think it was originally
from Germany? Or it got kind of...
It was from England and somehow,
"Whoa, we're going right a bit!"
It might have slightly tilted
to the right, we don't know.
It was in the 1820s.
In the Spanish Inquisition,
they used to put people on spikes.
They'd put the spike
up your bum hole... Oh, don't.
..and right up through you
and it'd come out your shoulder
and it would miss all the vital
organs and you'd be alive.
That's not nice, is it?
And they'd put you up in the square.
I'm beginning really to think less
and less of the Spanish Inquisition,
let's be honest.
350 years, it went on.
I thought it was, you know...
Oh, no.
..a couple of weeks.
LAUGHTER
Then it was safe to go back!
Back to Marbella.
350 years! It wasn't always
as torturous as it is.
They did some terrible things. They
did. But not for 300 years solid.
When it wasn't torturous,
what would they do?
Well, they would test your faith,
but they wouldn't punish you by...
There was a lot of tickling.
There was 100 years where
it was mainly Chinese burns.
"You do believe in God. Yes, you do!
Yes, you do! Yes, you bloody do.
Anyway, until that time, people
had observed birds disappearing,
and they'd assumed all kinds of
things, that they went underwater,
that, you know, they changed into
other animals, but there was no
particular evidence, except they
disappeared. It was 18...? 1820.
This was the first kind of
clear evidence, as it were,
that the bird had been to Africa.
And so things began
to get put together.
Samuel Johnson wrote that, "Swallows
certainly sleep in the winter.
"A number of them conglobulate
together by flying round and round
"and then all in a heap
throw themselves underwater
and lie on the bed of the river."
That's what he thought, because
swallows disappear in winter.
He assumed they hibernated,
like other animals.
Butterflies, of course,
the migrate thousands of miles
but we never see them.
Why don't we see butterflies
migrating? They're invisible.
They're caterpillars.
They migrate as caterpillars.
They migrate, like, super, super
slowly. A long time to get there.
They are very, very hungry.
I read a book about them.
The reason is that
they are actually a kilometre up.
They are incredibly high. Are they?
Yeah. It's really astonishing that
these fragile, delicate creatures
manage to get the height
and then, when they are in there,
to orient themselves in such a way
that they know they are
all facing the right direction
and get thousands of miles.
They're like this, "Whoa!"
It is astonishing, isn't it?
JO: Well, I remember being
on a school bus once.
There was a beautiful
butterfly on it fluttering around,
trying to get out
and I caught it in my hands.
I went, "Go free,"
and I let it out the window and a
bird swooped in and ate it. Oh, no.
That is a metaphor for life, that.
It is, isn't it? It completely is.
Now, get this right and you can
have your weight in points.
I'd like you to
add these numbers up.
Look at the screen, add up the
numbers. Hang on. Hang on. Pen.
JO: Oh!
That's silly.
Nine, nine, nine, nine. No.
431. No. I'll let you have,
which the winner of this competition
did not have,
the opportunity to see it again.
All right, again. Two-second burst.
Add that up.
Oh, it's about 897.
No. It would be astonishing
if you got it,
but in Japan - where else? -
they have this.
It's called Flash Anzan.
And actually the world record-holder
had a shorter time than that.
You have to correctly add
15 three-digit numbers,
and he did it in 1.7 seconds.
There's a particular reason Japanese
people are very good at this.
I think I know the reason.
It's in Malcolm Gladwell's book.
It's because of how they process...
how the language processes numbers.
There is a strange thing
in Chinese and Japanese,
in both languages, with the number,
if you say the numbers together,
it automatically adds them up,
sort of linguistically.
Yes, but there's a really
interesting addition to that,
which is that what they're doing,
and their fingers are
the giveaway, they do this.
What do you think that is?
That, that is a living one of those!
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
Come on!
Genius! You see?
I've always said, "He's a savant!"
Or it's a herd of those!
I read that book
and isn't there a thing...?
It's a Malcolm Gladwell book
called Outliers. It's brilliant.
The thing about it is they use
fewer syllables in the numbers
so that they have greater
aptitude for adding them up
more quickly as children.
That might help them.
The answer, incidentally was 1,966.
But the secret actually
is in the Chinese, Japanese abacus.
They're actually doing
the action of the abacus.
And the more amazing thing, perhaps,
is that, at the same time, they can
have a conversation with someone.
Because it's another part
of the brain that's being engaged.
And they'll say the answer, but
they won't remember a single one
of the numbers they added up.
I thought about this and
thought, "This is crazy."
I've got a composer friend who
came round to my house and I happen
to have a full orchestral score of
Don Giovanni for the piano and he...
Of course you did!
LAUGHTER
I did! People do!
Anyway, he just opened it like that
and he started playing it,
sight-reading, like that, on the
piano. And talking to me about it.
"This is the bit where it does
that." And I somehow took apart
what he was doing.
It's not written out
as a piano score,
it's written out as violins,
oboes, flutes, cor anglais,
which you have to transpose
in your head while doing it,
cos it's written in a different key
from the rest of everything else.
So, he's doing that and playing
a beautiful transcription
and talking to me. The people that
do that, they're slightly magic.
I agree. And that's a spell
they're saying and I go,
"Yeah, fine, I'll believe that.
Might as well be." I know.
Conductors, trained musicians.
10,000 hours. 10,000 hours.
That's it. The Beatles, Mozart,
all of them, as we know. We think...
It's a very convincing...
I've done 10,000 hours. Of this.
Of sitting around,
vacantly thinking...
And you're really getting good
at it now. Being wrong about stuff.
Which brings me to some very
complicated adding up of my own,
as a matter of fact.
Oh, my gracious goodness, heavens!
The scores are unusual, because we
have, of course, been giving scores
to make up for our errors on account
of the half-life of facts.
So, in last place, I'm afraid,
it's magnificent for a first
appearance, minus 19,
Graham Linehan.
APPLAUSE AND CHEERING
Graham, congratulations. Thank you.
In fourth place, with 23.24,
it's the audience!
Well done!
And in third place...
So I'm behind the audience?
Yes, I'm afraid so.
It's deeply unfair.
The Star Wars guy's in the audience.
I'm on the show!
I'm so sorry.
And in third place,
with plus 33.58, is Jimmy Carr.
APPLAUSE AND CHEERING
Come on.
In second place, with plus 85.73,
Jo Brand.
APPLAUSE AND CHEERING
Not bad for a lady!
And today's out-and-out winner,
with 689.66, is Alan Davies!
APPLAUSE AND WHOOPING
It was worth it.
And, so, it's thank you
and good night
from Graham, Jimmy, Jo, Alan and me.
Be useful and lovely
to yourselves, good night.