QI (2003–…): Season 12, Episode 1 - L-Animals - full transcript
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
Hello, good evening, guten Abend,
bonsoir and welcome
to the QI L series.
And this is our L series animals
show, so let's meet my lovelies.
The leonine Ross Noble.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
The larky Sarah Millican.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
Lounge lizard Colin Lane.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
And the lesser-spotted Alan Davies.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
Thank you.
And here's what they sound like.
Ross goes...
LION ROARS
A lion!
Sarah goes...
LARK SINGS
A lark, or possibly a ringtone.
And Colin goes...
HOWLING CRY
I thought YOU were supposed
to have the worst one.
See if you can guess what that is.
That was a human simulator.
It's an L.
HOWLING CRY
MIMICS IN AUSSIE ACCENT: "I never!"
It's not a Melbourne housewife, no.
It's a good score at Scrabble
for a four-lettered animal.
Lynx. Yes, it's a lynx.
It's a lynx.
And Alan, your sound is...
'Stephen! Stephen! Listen to me!
'I want points!'
Right.
Now, I've given each of you
a penny in case you're caught short.
One of these.
TOILET FLUSHES
Yes, because one
of our questions tonight,
as in throughout this series,
will be a little bit lavatorial.
So, if you think that
the answer to the question
concerns the lavatory, you get
a chance to spend your penny.
It's a joker card. All right.
Now, what does the loneliest whale
in the world sound like?
LYNX BUZZER
LAUGHTER
That's amazing.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
I was going to say
Richard Littlejohn.
Someone sent me a thing about blue
whales, that they are really loud.
They can make a noise
of 180 decibels.
It's the loudest noise any animal
can make. All whales are loud.
It's louder than a plane taking off.
Oh, completely so. Or a baby crying,
or anything.
And it can be heard 500 miles away.
And further.
In fact, the deeper it is,
the further it sounds,
and if it's very, very
low-pitched...
MIMICS WHALE SONG
HE GETS LOUDER
HE REACHES SCREAMING PITCH
Somebody feed him!
It's not even close.
I don't know what that sounded like.
I never want to hear it ever again.
Your wife is a very lucky woman.
Do you know that?
Yeah, this particular whale,
there's one, we don't actually know
what species it is, because no-one's
found it, but people have heard it.
And it's very unusual
because it's the highest-pitched
whale that's ever been recorded
by hydrophones, the microphones
you pop down into the depths.
But how do they know it's lonely?
Because it's never been answered.
Aww! But maybe it just likes
spending time on its own.
Maybe it's like singing
in your kitchen in your nightie,
maybe it's like that.
There's a subtle difference
between lonely and alone.
That's very, very true, I agree.
Maybe he's just reading books
and spending some time...
Not reading books,
I don't think we can go that far.
MIMICS WHALE SONG
Also, how do we know,
if we've never seen it,
how do we know that it is a whale?
It might just be a couple of dolphins
mucking about with a big shell.
HE HOOTS
"They're coming, they're coming."
"No, nothing. No."
"There's a whale over there, I think,
but, then..."
HE HOOTS
No, I think...
That's the shell.
That's the shell.
It's a conch.
HE HOOTS
I didn't think conch
when you did that.
Oh, dear!
Are you suggesting that I'm...?
I'm not suggesting anything.
Are you suggesting I'm somehow
pleasuring a whale?!
LAUGHTER
The sperm whale's penis
is about three metres long.
Yeah, you'd need a bigger mouth
than even you have got.
LAUGHTER
Isn't it great how we are all
so keen to be involved? Absolutely.
I'll have a go!
Hang on a second,
if we're all getting involved,
I'll start here,
have it all the way along the front.
Here, you hold it like that...
Right, here you go.
Right there we go, there we go!
Heave ho! Heave ho!
It's going to blow!
LAUGHTER
Oh, dear, dear, dear. Well...
Where has it been heard, this...?
It's generally believed
that it is a blue
or a fin whale and it's 52 hertz,
which is a far higher register.
We've actually got it,
we can hear it.
DEEP VIBRATING CALL
That seems very deep to us,
but that's actually the highest.
It sounds like
standing outside a nightclub.
Deeper ones travel much further.
HE MIMICS BEATBOX
This is the Ministry of Sound.
Yeah.
What time are you closing?
We're trying to sleep.
Not with that shirt, mate.
Members only.
At home you might not
be able to hear that,
because not all televisions can
actually take that amount of bass.
You probably haven't got
a woofer at home, as I have.
LAUGHTER
And just on the issue of last
creatures, not necessarily...
Some people believe that
rather than being a blue whale
or a fin whale,
it could actually be a whale
that is a result of two different
species of whale mating, a calf.
A new kind of whale, and that it
doesn't have a natural mate,
because it's a sort of mutated
voice.
Well, the 52-hertz whale has
a high-pitched voice and no mates.
Now, Sarah,
suppose you find a vampire, dear.
A vampire deer? Yes.
LAUGHTER
Who are you gonna call?
Well, I'm tempted to say
Ghostbusters.
Whoa!
Temptation... Really late!
You don't wriggle out of it
by saying, "I'm not going to say..."
Oh, rubbish. I'm sorry.
Aren't we cruel?
So is it a vampire or a vampire deer?
I need to get that clear.
Yeah, very smartly spotted
that I was doing a little trick.
It is indeed a vampire deer.
So you weren't really calling me
a nice thing? No, but... Noted.
And I'm supposed to ring somebody.
Can I not just run for my life?
Well, let's suppose you found
the skull of a vampire deer.
How would I know that's what it was,
though?!
I'm not very good at skulls!
That's the point. You would be
puzzled. This is what you would see.
"We killed one earlier."
I tell you what, that must have been
a horrible Tupperware party.
LAUGHTER
"And then I was thinking,
if you'd like to buy...aaargh!
"It's a vampire deer!"
Well, people do find these
in the soil of Cambridgeshire,
Norfolk, Bedfordshire, that sort of
area. And they are living,
they're creatures that live...
That one's not.
That one, no. Can we just establish,
if it looks in a mirror,
can it see its reflection?
LAUGHTER
Does it have a lovely cloak as well?
I don't think... Yeah!
That's how you ride them,
cos you get on their backs
and you hold the cloak...
You've got to be very careful,
because if you come up behind a car,
they look in the rear-view mirror,
they don't see you,
stop very quickly, bang, dead.
You've got to be careful, as well,
because magicians
have a similar cloak
and you don't want to ride
one of them in the woods, do you?
That is true. That's exactly what
Debbie McGee said to me over tea.
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
All the time.
Is it a vampire deer just because
it's got these funny teeth,
or does it actually like blood? No,
it's cos it's got the funny teeth.
It's like a sabre-tooth,
but it exists now.
So who would you call if you found
an animal, or saw an animal,
that looked really unusual?
There is a place to call.
It's a fine institution.
The finest institution.
The Natural History Museum. The
National History Museum is right.
'Stephen!' Well done.
APPLAUSE
We have with us Stuart Hine from
the National History Museum's
very special department.
Stuart. Hello.
APPLAUSE
Thank you.
Welcome!
When I was a boy
and you found something unusual,
you'd send it to Blue Peter.
But nowadays you get sent things,
is that the point? Yep.
You can send anything to us.
We do about 4,500 or so
identifications each year,
generally for the sort of public.
We're not just full of dinosaurs,
we actually have
more than 300 scientists
who can answer these enquiries
for you.
This presumably is a common thing
for people to send in
because they think it may be
an ancient or unusual species.
Well, once every one or two years,
because they're not that common.
Where it comes from, over in China,
it's becoming more endangered.
We've got about 10% of the world's
population living feral in the UK.
And how did they arrive here,
if they're not endemic?
Into wildlife parks,
zoos and so forth.
A pair escaped back in the '30s,
and they've become
sort of established there now, I
believe possibly from a single pair.
Wow. So it shows that
sometimes incest works.
LAUGHTER
ROSS: Sorry, which area
of the country are they...?
LAUGHTER
No! No!
APPLAUSE
I walked into that one.
Eyes wide shut.
Er, can you give us any other
examples?
Actually, I've got some - this kind
of thing you must get sent -
although it's not necessarily
natural history,
there are people who believe that
life came from such objects.
What's that?
'Stephen! Stephen!'
Meteorite.
Oh, you wish.
Everybody thinks... Is it poo?
Is it fossilized poo?
It could be, like a coprolite,
I think they're called,
aren't they? Is that right? It is.
♪ Ooh, ooh, coprolite. ♪
LAUGHTER
One of my favourite songs,
that's had me thrown out of the
Natural History museum many a time.
SARAH: It's not like somebody's
cooking, is it?
Cos I've made things that
look a bit like that.
It's basically a rock, I think.
Is that right?
It's a bit of, well, slag.
So industrial waste, yeah,
containing metals.
Slightly magnetic.
Oh, well, that's good.
Slag. Er...
LAUGHTER
You'll pay for that, you bitch!
LAUGHTER
I believe a lot of people see stones
and they often...
they might even be smoking
or steaming.
I've heard so many tales of these
smoking, steaming things,
but it usually involves
"my grandfather,
"who was returning from the pub."
So we know where they're going with
that. Are there any other things
that would strike people
as being somehow alien or odd?
ALAN: The prices in the gift shop.
LAUGHTER
APPLAUSE
Various slimes, mystery slimes and
things come in. Ooh, I like that.
So star jelly and things like this.
Star jelly?
Star jelly is one of the names
for one of these slimes.
There, we've got these wonderful
pictures. Oooh! What would that be?
Historically, people
believe that this is associated with
passing meteorites and things.
And, er, it just is frog gel,
or a jelly... Oh, spawn?
Spawn, indeed, yeah.
How would it get outside a pond?
Well, we did some DNA analysis,
which told us that
it came from the frog
and that a magpie was implicated.
Magpie vomit, perhaps. Nice!
Excellent. Lovely. Charming.
Well, thank you very much,
Stuart Hine.
APPLAUSE
There you are, you can all remember
he's your go-to guy
if you find something unusual
in your garden.
Now, what's wild, horny,
comes from Northeast England,
and hasn't been touched by a man
in 800 years?
Don't look at me!
I'm not looking at you!
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
I wasn't!
No, no, I was touched by a man...
Well, eh, that was one.
..on Tuesday last week. There you go.
Definitely not me.
That's one off the list.
Is it...aaah!
Watch this. I'm going to seem
really smart if this works.
Is it, is it the white cows?
The Chllingham white cows?
Whoa-ho! Yes, it is! Well done.
APPLAUSE AND CHEERING
Very good. Have you seen them?
I have seen them.
There they are... In fact, as a boy,
as I frolicked in the...
That's where I'm from.
I'm from the Northumberland...
I'm up that neck of the woods.
And then in the foot-and-mouth,
everyone...
"Oh, the white cows,
they're all going to go!"
And so they were quarantined off,
and no-one was allowed near them,
and it was all touch and go,
touch and go...
Or NOT touch and go. Yeah.
That's right. They haven't been
touched certainly for 100 years
and probably for much longer.
Well, when I was a kid,
we used to ride 'em,
so that's not true.
LAUGHTER
I shouldn't have said that
on the telly.
Oh, please. Depends what you mean
by "touched".
They are fed
during the winter months.
Hay is pitchforked over
the enclosure and they eat that.
But no-one has dared touch them.
They are pretty feral,
and from them are descended
many of the cattle that we now know.
They look very different now,
but you can see the relationship.
Is that one cleaning out its nostril
with its tongue?
Yes. You could if you would.
LAUGHTER
You mean the other way round.
Would if you could.
That was all wrong.
Yeah, the Chillingham cattle.
Do you know how many there are?
Er, 40? There are about 100.
Ah, 100. They have been going up.
Oh, yeah, when I saw them
as a kid there was only 40.
The harsh winter of '46/'47,
they were down to 13 of them.
but they've come back up to
around 100, which is encouraging.
Again, incest seems to be best.
Er... Not in that neck of the woods,
I can assure you.
The Chillingham cattle,
as Ross knew, live wild
and haven't been touched in 800
years. From livestock to larvae.
What form of transport
might a caterpillar use?
Do they hitch onto things?
They do. And I wonder what
they hitch onto.
Furry mammals. Furry mammals
carry a lot of stuff about.
They do, but in this case
they use each other.
Aww! They use a principle
which is quite fun.
The one that's on the bottom layer
is going at a certain speed
and the one above twice the speed,
and the one above that
thrice the speed.
So all told,
the whole group goes faster.
And we've done a little experiment
using stop-motion photography.
Some boot's going to come in
in a minute. Splat!
Awful, isn't it? But if you watch,
we've got two yellow pieces there
and they're both moving
one step at a time.
But you'll see the one
on the top layer is going faster
and the single one
can't catch up with it.
And that's the principle they use -
that the top layer is going quicker.
And so that's how caterpillars
move at greater speed
to get to where they need to be.
It's like a travelator.
The travelator.
Except when people get on the
travelator, they slow right down.
So annoying. It drives me mad.
When I get on a travelator,
I really make the most of it.
Me too. I accelerate.
I love the way that the windows
and everything just speed past you.
Oh, it's fabulous.
Travelator! Yeah.
People even on the travelator,
they just stop. I know!
Yes. Yeah, but it's doing the moving
for you, so you don't have to move.
That's why we're a nation
of morbid... Oh, dear...
LAUGHTER
Or if you have small children, they
turn around and run the other way.
Yes, they will do that.
And then there's people coming
and you're like...
You have to do quite a lot of loud
coughing and harrumphing
and, "My flight's about to leave,"
sort of stuff,
in order to get people
to move across.
It's just politeness
to take one side of the travelator.
Or say, "GET OUT OF THE WAY!"
Yes, all right.
That's an option too.
Anyway, moving from larvae
on to adult Lepidoptera.
What's a sure-fire way of telling
two butterflies apart?
Different colour wings.
ALARM BLARES
That would be true of those that
were different colours.
But suppose they looked identical?
Well, then, you can't.
And were different species or genus.
Then you can't. That's it.
Well, you might be able to.
Their breath. Their breath!
Is it the prettier they are,
the stinkier their breath?
Their address.
Their address, yes.
That would do it.
Are they the same but different?
Their names.
They're all the same but they're
not? There are two genera
of butterfly that look
almost identical,
and it's a type of evolution
called Mullerian.
There they are. And one of them
tastes disgusting to birds,
and the birds
quite quickly learn that.
You just lick them? Well, the birds
did. Just get a bird to lick it.
And so the other one evolved to
look as much like the one
that's disgusting,
without actually being disgusting.
Because it doesn't need to develop
the disgusting taste,
because the birds will assume that
it IS disgusting.
And this is a thing that
happens in nature.
You look identical just to survive.
How smug must THEY be?
It's very, very good. So smug.
And also, the one on the right there
seems to have a tiny roll
of gaffer tape in its mouth.
It does, doesn't it?
LAUGHTER
They're not even his real wings.
He's made them.
He's like that...
"Look at that,
I'm just like him. Come on."
You go round the other side of that,
that's all sticky-back plastic
round there.
But there is an answer to how you
would tell the difference,
and it's deeply personal.
Oh, it's the downstairs, is it?
You would look at their genitalia.
And there's a truly great novelist
of the 20th century,
although English
was his third language,
and he was very good at sexing
butterflies. Indeed...
Sexing? Telling their... Sexing.
..telling their gender, examining
their penises. Sexing or texting?
Sexing.
Texting. No, sexing.
There is a collection
at Harvard University of these tiny
little phials filled with penises
of butterflies that he collected.
There he is. He lived in America,
hence Harvard,
but he was born in Russia
and then moved to Paris
from a rather nobby family.
And his name was Vladimir Nabokov.
But you must have
heard of his most famous novel.
Yeah, 50 Shades Of Butterflies.
Come on.
Yeah, it was amazing.
Don't let us down.
Lolita.
Lolita, thank you, Alan. Yes.
He wrote Lolita, amongst many
other magnificent novels.
Operation Yewtree are all over him
at the moment.
LAUGHTER
"Lolita, light of my loins."
The Russian Yewtree.
And he collects the penises.
Well, he was a...
But he's not bothered about
the rest of it.
He was an incredibly enthusiastic
lepidopterist.
And then he lets them go.
And he went, in fact,
on index cards... Without a penis!
That's a butterfly that's had its
penis removed by Vladimir Nabokov.
I got it, I got it,
it was really good, Alan.
Was his name...? Stick to girls!
Was his name Knob-off, did you say?
Vladimir Knob-off.
"Knob-off by name, knob-off
by nature. I'll do anything.
"Start with a butterfly,
work my way up. Don't care."
He was, as well as being
a great writer,
one of the finest lepidopterists
of his time.
He used his index cards,
on which he wrote his scientific
notes about Lepidoptera,
to write the entire novel of Lolita,
in fact, his most famous work.
Did he try and collect all of the
ladygardens of the butterflies?
LAUGHTER
That's a very good point.
I don't know if he exclusively
confined himself to
the penises of butterflies,
but I suppose they were the easiest
bits to see in such a small insect.
The wings are easier to see.
Well, yeah, no.
When it comes to sexing, I mean.
Butterfly pubes, imagine that.
Imagine a pillow -
how soft would that pillow be?
Just filled with butterfly pubes.
Ohhh...
He gave a very, very...
LAUGHTER
That's what...
Not many people know this.
Not many people know this,
but all of Stephen's suits
are lined with butterfly penises.
That's true.
By the finest tailors in the land.
No, I do have...
Butterfly tailors, no less.
That's right. Tiny moths come in.
"Mr Fry, we have collected
the butterfly pubes
"of a million butterflies."
They've been donated willingly.
They have. More than willingly.
That's why he looks so comfortable
on this show.
See, look,
he's even flapping like a butterfly.
The power of the pubes
are moving through the fine...
LAUGHTER
Look at him moving.
There it goes again!
The best way
to tell butterflies apart
is to look them
straight in the genitals.
Can you give me your impression
of a puffer fish on the pull?
LYNX BUZZER
LAUGHTER
That's the gift that
keeps on giving.
Oh, you're puffing your face.
They play down the puffiness,
I reckon.
They do. Well, what they do
is play up some whole other skill,
which is really astonishing,
in order to attract a female.
They turn themselves inside out.
Fully inside out.
I would be impressed by that.
What, if a bloke came up
to you in a nightclub and went,
"Watch this, love!" Woomf -
and his lungs and heart
and all the rest...
I mean, I wouldn't hug him,
but I'd be impressed. Yeah.
Fish, like birds, as you probably
know, the males tend to be
more colourful
and put on a good show to attract
females. I did not know that.
Did you not?
I knew it about birds.
Hmm, beautiful plumage.
Has he just had a Slush Puppy?
LAUGHTER
A blue Slush Puppy.
What he does...
It was in such a big glass, he went
like that, it's gone on his eyes.
Gone on his eyebrows.
LAUGHTER
What they do is actually remarkable.
If you watch what he does, at first
you'll think it's just random,
but then you'll go,
"Oh, my goodness."
It takes nine days for him
to prepare this for the female.
Is that just farting,
what he's doing there?
LAUGHTER
No, that's... He turned, oh.
It's extraordinary. Aww!
He's made this enormous crater
with ridges. He's made a lair.
Which are decorated with seashells.
And it's there.
WOMEN: Aaah!
The ladies are so impressed. Is
that what you want, a sand castle?
No, I think their "aaah"
was they were impressed.
Nine days' work to attract a female.
How many days?
Nine. Hmm...
LAUGHTER
A lot of females say that.
They go, "No, not good enough."
It has to be absolutely perfect.
And then when it is perfect,
the female lays her eggs
right in the middle.
And he then fertilises them
and looks after them for six days,
just to protect them.
That's nice, and then
she can go back to work.
Or go to another crater.
No, the most amazing thing
about that is,
that's actually on the beach.
That's not even under the water.
That would be...
It comes out, like that.
Puts little flags in every ridge
as well.
It's...I won't say entirely unique,
because we know
so little about what goes on in
the ocean, but it's one of the few
we know which is quite so marvellous
and distinctive, the puffer fish.
But nine days is a long time.
I mean if you, Sarah...
It's not really, though, is it?
If she's worth it.
I mean, when she comes in,
she comes in and just goes,
"Well, you've done that all wrong.
"Been waiting six months for you to
get that finished and it's wrong.
"Do it again. I should have got
somebody in to do it."
LAUGHTER
Anyway, the male puffer fish
attracts his lady with
a heart exhibition.
Now, what do we call a fish
that drives a tank?
Tank fish.
You might call it tank fish,
but when I say "we", I mean WE.
What do we here at QI Central
call a fish that drives a tank?
Sir.
ALARM BLARES
LAUGHTER
APPLAUSE
That was a shock.
We read you like a book.
No, we're going to show you
a fish driving a tank.
What? Yes.
So if my splendid porters can
come on with a little tank tray...
The porters, ladies and gentlemen.
Yeah!
There we are.
So, we've got a tank and we've got a
fish who's going to drive the tank.
And there's our fish.
He doesn't live here,
I want you to know, this is just
his transport system. And...
This is, like,
the poshest fairground ever.
Yeah. And if I turn on
his little motor here...
So this is a fish tank tank.
And as soon as he moves, he will...
Give him some food,
or poke him with a biro.
Every different direction he goes,
he moves the tank.
And, whoa, there you go.
Let's move you into the middle here.
There you are, because you were
getting all excited.
There you are,
a few ant's eggs for him,
or whatever it is we feed him with.
Butterfly penises.
But you obviously want to know...
LAUGHTER
I said, what do we call him?
His name is Alan.
LAUGHTER
He's Alan the QI goldfish,
and just to put your minds at rest,
this is not his tank,
he has a beautiful...
It's MY tank.
Yeah, exactly. He has a beautiful
place where he hangs out, which is
full of wonderful toys and fronds.
It's near Watford and he drives
there himself every morning.
Yeah, exactly. And you might like to
meet our splendid elf Alex Bell,
who built this particular
contraption for Alan.
Come on, Alex.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
We mustn't...
Here we have the classic elf.
Absolutely.
Educated to within an inch
of his life. Smartly turned out.
So how long did it take you
to build this?
A couple of days.
It's made of Lego, completely, so...
It's entirely Lego?
Yeah, it's all Lego.
Can we race it against caterpillars?
LAUGHTER
And why did you make it?
Someone...
No, it's not rude, just asking.
There's a Dutch company called
Studio Dip,
and they made a bigger version
of this for a fish to live in,
and we thought we'd have a go
at making our own.
Did you build it over two days
to attract girls?
LAUGHTER
APPLAUSE
Sarah, are you impressed?
It's working for me.
I think the question that everyone
wants to ask is that
if you were to make a full-size
version out of the Pope-mobile...
LAUGHTER
..and the Pontiff was to swim
very hard,
could he...would that work?
Could we do that? Yeah, probably.
Just to put at rest those
who are wondering what
the principle behind it is, when he
swims forward, what happens exactly?
There are four sensors,
one in each corner,
so whichever corner he goes to,
it goes in that direction.
It's that simple, nothing to do with
the pressure of the water? No.
Would it be possible
to build a giant one,
put a dolphin in it
that could swim up,
do a somersault and then the whole
vehicle could loop the loop?
Yes. Theoretically, yes.
Let's do it.
I shall pay for that
out of my own pocket.
Are there future uses for this?
Maybe military, I think...
Military uses.
The British Army IS on its uppers.
Yeah, I think they'll probably be
the only ones who'll fund it.
Well, it's very exciting for him.
But I'm sure
he wants to get back to his huge
and very luxurious accommodation
in the QI offices. He lives in a
cistern. I'll hand him over to you.
LAUGHTER
Thank you, Alan.
Thank you, Alan and Alex.
APPLAUSE
That was very pleasing.
The porters!
APPLAUSE
So, anyway, moving on.
What has 32 brains and sucks?
The front row.
LAUGHTER
Is there a creature
that has 32 brains?
Does an octopus have
lots of brains in its tentacles?
Yes, and genitalia at the end
as well, if you remember.
Oh, yes, I do remember. Really?
On one of them.
How do you know which one?
You'll soon find out.
LAUGHTER
Get a few lagers into it.
Wey! Wee-e-ey!
But it's not an octopus.
It is an animal that is associated
with moist conditions, and...
A slug.
It looks rather like a slug.
Here's a thing you can do to test
this particular animal.
They've done it,
they've filled a condom with blood
and dropped it in the water
where these creatures... Leech. Yes!
And they've found...
People have done that intentionally?
Filled a condom with blood?
In order to demonstrate how
leeches.. Some intentionally.
Others accidentally.
LAUGHTER
Exactly, exactly.
"Are you all right in there?"
"Yeah, yeah, yeah!"
LAUGHTER
"Don't flush it down the... No!"
That's why it's always...
LAUGHTER
That's horrific.
If you fill a condom full of blood,
that's the best way, in the wild,
to catch one of those vampire deer.
Spin it round...
LAUGHTER
What it doesn't do is catch a leech,
because leeches haven't evolved
expecting humans to splash through
the marshes, but they have expected
other kinds of animal. And...
A frog, perhaps?
A frog is a perfect example.
If you put the condom in
covered in blood,
leeches will not be attracted to it.
If you just wipe
the condom over a frog,
and then drop it in,
the leeches will go pha-doing!
Because they smell frog. And the
frog will be your friend for life.
They go, pha-dong, boing! Wheee!
Exactly. They hop around. Yeah.
So we needn't be as afraid of
leeches as we seem to be.
So, the merest whiff of frog
will lure a leech to lunch.
But what part do Twiglets play
in a mugger's lunch?
We've been very literal
with our picture.
Is that Annie Lennox?!
LAUGHTER
Is a "mugger's lunch"
a euphemism for something?
A mugger is a type of creature.
A mugger is a... Lives in
this kind of environment.
Is it a crocodile or...?
It is a crocodile, yes.
A mugger crocodile.
So it goes to parties...
No, it's not a Twiglet, it is
a twiglet in the most literal sense.
A little twig. A stick. A little
stick. It hides behind the...
Not behind it. It's a very small...
It uses it as a tool.
It uses it as a tool
in order to entrap.
Like chopsticks. Catches Hula-Hoops.
It catches wading birds
who think, "I'm building my nest...
Oh, look, there's a log
"with some twigs on it!"
No way. How stupid are birds?!
LAUGHTER
Tiny brains, haven't they?
Tiny little brains.
Useless. Tiny.
They deserve to be eaten.
LAUGHTER
On the one hand, you think, "I'd
love to be able to fly like a bird,"
but you'd be an idiot. They always
fly into windows and lorries...
Crows are very intelligent.
Crows, ravens...
Crows?! Yeah. What, right,
here's a crow, swooping around.
"Oh, yeah, that looks like
a nice field!
"Ooh, better not go in there..."
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
"Oh, no, he's scary. He's clearly
a trained assassin."
It doesn't make any sense at all.
At least set your scarecrow up
like this.
Rrr! Or just doing that, like that.
Exactly. "I'll take you down."
So that is one example of...
It's the only example we know
of a reptile using tools. And
it's only a recent discovery.
How does it get them
on its head with its little hands?
It cleverly manoeuvres.
It doesn't use its hands.
Puts them in the water
and does that? It takes nine days.
LAUGHTER
I'm impressed by anything
that takes nine days.
He has to lie under a tree
till a twig lands on his head.
And then another, and then another.
It's not the only animal,
however, that uses...
The principle is a lure.
That lures other animals.
You can see there's a type of snake,
for example,
that has a very clever lure.
Oh, it makes... It pretends to be
a worm!
But look what happens. It's scary.
The furry thing...
Whoa!
It's so quick.
And it's eaten itself
a nice little furry meal.
Because the furry thing thought,
"Oh, there's a nice worm."
And you can see, it pulls back,
you can see what it's just eaten.
Oh, dear. Oh, wow.
Some of the snakes
do a similar thing, very clever.
They'll pretend to be
a draught excluder.
LAUGHTER
And then when the mouse approaches,
they'll strike, like that,
and... But the mouse
gets the last laugh,
cos it's not a mouse,
it's an old lady's slippers!
HE CHOKES DRYLY
It's just a laughing Nana.
Aww.
I ought to express my gratitude
to the one and only
Al the Viper Keeper
for that footage.
He's lent us that footage.
Anyway, crocodiles are the only
reptiles known to use tools.
Now, what's the most energetic thing
that a slow-th, or sloth, ever does?
Whichever you prefer.
Oh, you're spending your penny.
And you're right to!
Is it? Yes. Well done.
APPLAUSE
Going to the lavatory.
Going to the lavatory.
They spend all their time in
the trees except when they go down
and use a communal lavatory,
which they share.
And this habit of sharing lavatories
has given rise to some pretty
unpleasant... Oh! Somebody's missed
the lavatory there.
Well, I'm afraid it gets...
Go and wee on a friend.
It gets really, really worse.
It's grim beyond believing, this,
but at the Estacion Biologica
Quebrada Blanco in Peru,
which is a field research site
in the Amazon,
they observed very odd
feeding habits of two-toed sloths.
They were hanging upside down from
the roof of the scientists'
latrine, and they started to
drop down into it
and scoop up handfuls of human
excrement and toilet paper,
and they would eat it. ALL: Ugh!
They even plunged into the pit
itself, which you can see,
and emerged covering,
after a liquid lunch, in poo.
The research paper noted,
"It was scooping with one hand
"from the semi-liquid manure,
and then eating from the hand.
"When more persons gathered
around the latrine to watch this
bizarre behaviour,
"the sloth emerged from the latrine
and climbed into the nearest tree."
So it didn't like being watched.
It might have been slightly ashamed.
You know when the film Jaws came
out and it was really terrifying
to go to the toilet in case a shark
came up and bit your bum...?
I don't remember feeling that,
to be honest. Maybe that
was just our house.
But now we've got to worry
about sloths coming up and...
Clawing at your arse. Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, it wouldn't do that, it would
just sit there like that, going...
LAUGHTER
Hit me! Hit me! Ah, oh...
Oh, God! As Supernanny would say,
that was unacceptable.
Unacceptable, yeah.
I mean, dear...
It must be hard for them to be
both an animal and a deadly sin.
LAUGHTER
That's true. That's true.
Because every morning
they just go, "Ohhh..."
Is it the sloth -
I might be wrong here, you'll know -
when they die,
they stay in the trees, don't they?
Totally. How long for?
Just for ever. For ever?
Yeah. Shut up!
Honestly, they're like...
they'll be like...
They'll rot away.
..a skeleton, like just a...
They'll be eaten, perhaps,
by other things.
Yeah, but not the bones,
just the outside. Yeah.
That's a hell of a way
to find your nana, isn't it?
That's how we found mine.
In the local park.
"What are you doing?
Oh, no. Oh, God."
She'd only gone on
the climbing frame.
Oh, dear. The only...
Not really!
Why...why did people go, "Ohhh"?
As if my nan genuinely...
"Oh, that's terrible."
We don't know much about
what goes on in the Northeast,
but we hear things.
LAUGHTER
Mainly from you. Yes.
So, the only reason, as Alan knew,
that sloths ever move out of a tree
is to spend a penny.
But now it's time to wallow for a
while in the filthy pile of ordure
that we call General Ignorance,
so fingers on buzzers, please.
How can you tell your labradoodle
is pleased to see you?
Aren't they wonderful dogs? Yes.
It's got an erection.
LAUGHTER
You mean it's got its lipstick out?
Yeah. It's beetroot. It was always
beetroot in our family.
"Mam, it's got its beetroot out
again!"
Don't you think it's more like
lipstick?
I'm going to look next time
a bit closer.
Is a labradoodle a cross between
a Labrador and a poodle? Yep!
Which is like a seeing-eye dog...
Yes.
..and a poodle, which is like
a fashion accessory dog.
So it's like a dog to see with,
and be seen with!
Very well put!
The labradoodle is not, like some
people think, like an Etch-a-Sketch.
Cos that's a magnadoodle, isn't it?
Aww, sweet. A magnadoodle is a dog
that just attracts spoons.
Whoo!
ROSS BARKS
The point is, it's not just
a labradoodle,
it's all about dogs' expressions
of pleasure to see their owners.
And we know about tail-wagging,
obviously,
but tail-wagging is very subtle
and it's really for signals
to other dogs.
But the answer is actually
rather sweet.
And you may, if you have dogs
at home, check this out
when you get home next
after a little period of absence.
It's very, very quick,
so it has to use high-speed cameras,
usually, to have found this out,
but you may be able to see it.
Your dog will welcome you
by lifting its left eyebrow,
if you are the owner and master
of your dog, or mistress.
And that is the rather touching
thing. The left eyebrow goes up.
Very, very quickly. How do you know
it's not just being quizzical?
Well, it only happens
to their owners
and it doesn't happen to strangers.
You'd expect them
to be more quizzical with people
they hadn't met.
Mmm. But with people they haven't
met, there are other things.
Their left ear will go back,
for example.
If it's an object they don't know,
their right ear will go forward.
So let me get this right.
Owner comes in,
left eyebrow goes up. Yeah.
Stranger comes in,
ear goes that way. Yeah.
So if you were to get...
If I was to come in the house,
and then quickly get a stranger
to come in,
I could flip my dog.
LAUGHTER
What's it mean
when it licks its willy?
What does that mean?
It just wants to have a good time,
I should think.
I can't think of any other reason.
Noted.
Yeah. So, dogs show they're pleased
to see you by raising an eyebrow.
Which cat never changes its spots?
Well, now, see, I sense a trap.
Do you?
LION BUZZER
Oh, lion.
Is it the jaguar?
Good.
Because if you shave a jaguar
it's got that,
the jaguar pattern on its skin,
that's not its fur.
So therefore, it doesn't matter
how many times you shave it,
the spots remain the same.
Interesting.
It's not the correct answer.
All right, I'll be off, then.
We avoided saying the leopard.
Yes, because that was the trap
I sensed.
We can see a little leopard kitten,
with its mother,
and you can see the leopard kitten
really does have quite tight spots,
very close together,
and the mother has what are called
rosettes, which are very different.
The animal actually is a lion
and the spots are where
its whiskers sprout from.
And you can see those little
lines of dots there.
Oh. Like it's been sniffing glue,
like that. They never change.
They never ever change, so they're
like fingerprints - you can
identify a particular lion
just by the array of its spots.
You'd have to get very close to it,
though.
And you wouldn't necessarily want to
do that. No. No, exactly.
So, it's lions, not leopards,
that never change their spots.
Which is the biggest
of the big cats, though?
LION BUZZER
Yes, lion in first.
Is it the jaguar?
LAUGHTER
No. Not even the V12.
No, I'm afraid not.
Any other thoughts?
Well, the lion?
ALARM BLARES
The leopard? No. Panther?
The tiger, is it the tiger?
You're both half-right.
The cougar. Oh, it's the...
It's the labratiger. Labratiger.
The labratiger!
The liger? It is the liger,
and the liger is composed of what?
A lion and a tiger.
But which gender round?
The front half is a tiger.
LAUGHTER
The back half,
it's like a dodgy safari salesman.
"Tell you what, mate, that's lovely,
that's a lion, that is."
Cut and shove.
A male tiger and a female lion.
Yes.
In both cases
they put the male first,
so if it's a liger, it's a
lion male and a tiger female.
And if it's a tigon, then
it's a male tiger and a female...
The best one is the zeraffe. Yeah.
Well...
It's just got a zebra body
and then a giraffe neck,
and it's always falling forward.
LAUGHTER
There are zebroids, which are zebras
crossed with all kinds of...
Asteroids. Haemorrhoids.
LAUGHTER
That's an example...
A dragon and a...
That's a very extraordinary mixture.
In January 2014,
the first set of white ligers
was born, and there they are.
Aww. And they are possibly going to
be the biggest big cats ever.
They're already pretty huge.
Looks like one of those things
on the end of your bed with a zip
that you used to put your pyjamas in.
Yes!
A footstool for All Saints.
Haven't seen All Saints for years.
Their, er, their diet
is exclusively magicians.
LAUGHTER
So you get a zebroid,
you get a wholfin...
A wolf and a dolphin?!
No!
Wh-olfin. They howl
out their blowholes.
HE HOWLS
The best one is a werewholfin.
That's where every full moon,
a wolf-dolphin leaps out of the sea
and changes into a man.
It's a mixture of what's known as
a false killer whale
and a bottlenose dolphin.
There you are. There's only one
in existence in captivity,
but there have been others
reported in the wild.
They've been seen on the M1
in big tank cars.
Indeed.
So, good, excellent.
That brings me to the scores.
Let's leap to them.
In last place, I'm afraid,
he's come thousands of miles to
be minus 20, it's Colin Lane.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
In third place,
twice as good a score,
but still minus 10, Sarah Millican.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
And minus 5, Alan Davies!
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
Which means that our winner on
a staggering plus 6 is Ross Noble!
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
So, it's good night from
Sarah, Ross, Colin, Alan and me.
And I leave you with the last words
of Noel Coward, of all people,
and how sad they are - "Good night,
my darlings, I'll see you tomorrow."
Good night.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
Hello, good evening, guten Abend,
bonsoir and welcome
to the QI L series.
And this is our L series animals
show, so let's meet my lovelies.
The leonine Ross Noble.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
The larky Sarah Millican.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
Lounge lizard Colin Lane.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
And the lesser-spotted Alan Davies.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
Thank you.
And here's what they sound like.
Ross goes...
LION ROARS
A lion!
Sarah goes...
LARK SINGS
A lark, or possibly a ringtone.
And Colin goes...
HOWLING CRY
I thought YOU were supposed
to have the worst one.
See if you can guess what that is.
That was a human simulator.
It's an L.
HOWLING CRY
MIMICS IN AUSSIE ACCENT: "I never!"
It's not a Melbourne housewife, no.
It's a good score at Scrabble
for a four-lettered animal.
Lynx. Yes, it's a lynx.
It's a lynx.
And Alan, your sound is...
'Stephen! Stephen! Listen to me!
'I want points!'
Right.
Now, I've given each of you
a penny in case you're caught short.
One of these.
TOILET FLUSHES
Yes, because one
of our questions tonight,
as in throughout this series,
will be a little bit lavatorial.
So, if you think that
the answer to the question
concerns the lavatory, you get
a chance to spend your penny.
It's a joker card. All right.
Now, what does the loneliest whale
in the world sound like?
LYNX BUZZER
LAUGHTER
That's amazing.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
I was going to say
Richard Littlejohn.
Someone sent me a thing about blue
whales, that they are really loud.
They can make a noise
of 180 decibels.
It's the loudest noise any animal
can make. All whales are loud.
It's louder than a plane taking off.
Oh, completely so. Or a baby crying,
or anything.
And it can be heard 500 miles away.
And further.
In fact, the deeper it is,
the further it sounds,
and if it's very, very
low-pitched...
MIMICS WHALE SONG
HE GETS LOUDER
HE REACHES SCREAMING PITCH
Somebody feed him!
It's not even close.
I don't know what that sounded like.
I never want to hear it ever again.
Your wife is a very lucky woman.
Do you know that?
Yeah, this particular whale,
there's one, we don't actually know
what species it is, because no-one's
found it, but people have heard it.
And it's very unusual
because it's the highest-pitched
whale that's ever been recorded
by hydrophones, the microphones
you pop down into the depths.
But how do they know it's lonely?
Because it's never been answered.
Aww! But maybe it just likes
spending time on its own.
Maybe it's like singing
in your kitchen in your nightie,
maybe it's like that.
There's a subtle difference
between lonely and alone.
That's very, very true, I agree.
Maybe he's just reading books
and spending some time...
Not reading books,
I don't think we can go that far.
MIMICS WHALE SONG
Also, how do we know,
if we've never seen it,
how do we know that it is a whale?
It might just be a couple of dolphins
mucking about with a big shell.
HE HOOTS
"They're coming, they're coming."
"No, nothing. No."
"There's a whale over there, I think,
but, then..."
HE HOOTS
No, I think...
That's the shell.
That's the shell.
It's a conch.
HE HOOTS
I didn't think conch
when you did that.
Oh, dear!
Are you suggesting that I'm...?
I'm not suggesting anything.
Are you suggesting I'm somehow
pleasuring a whale?!
LAUGHTER
The sperm whale's penis
is about three metres long.
Yeah, you'd need a bigger mouth
than even you have got.
LAUGHTER
Isn't it great how we are all
so keen to be involved? Absolutely.
I'll have a go!
Hang on a second,
if we're all getting involved,
I'll start here,
have it all the way along the front.
Here, you hold it like that...
Right, here you go.
Right there we go, there we go!
Heave ho! Heave ho!
It's going to blow!
LAUGHTER
Oh, dear, dear, dear. Well...
Where has it been heard, this...?
It's generally believed
that it is a blue
or a fin whale and it's 52 hertz,
which is a far higher register.
We've actually got it,
we can hear it.
DEEP VIBRATING CALL
That seems very deep to us,
but that's actually the highest.
It sounds like
standing outside a nightclub.
Deeper ones travel much further.
HE MIMICS BEATBOX
This is the Ministry of Sound.
Yeah.
What time are you closing?
We're trying to sleep.
Not with that shirt, mate.
Members only.
At home you might not
be able to hear that,
because not all televisions can
actually take that amount of bass.
You probably haven't got
a woofer at home, as I have.
LAUGHTER
And just on the issue of last
creatures, not necessarily...
Some people believe that
rather than being a blue whale
or a fin whale,
it could actually be a whale
that is a result of two different
species of whale mating, a calf.
A new kind of whale, and that it
doesn't have a natural mate,
because it's a sort of mutated
voice.
Well, the 52-hertz whale has
a high-pitched voice and no mates.
Now, Sarah,
suppose you find a vampire, dear.
A vampire deer? Yes.
LAUGHTER
Who are you gonna call?
Well, I'm tempted to say
Ghostbusters.
Whoa!
Temptation... Really late!
You don't wriggle out of it
by saying, "I'm not going to say..."
Oh, rubbish. I'm sorry.
Aren't we cruel?
So is it a vampire or a vampire deer?
I need to get that clear.
Yeah, very smartly spotted
that I was doing a little trick.
It is indeed a vampire deer.
So you weren't really calling me
a nice thing? No, but... Noted.
And I'm supposed to ring somebody.
Can I not just run for my life?
Well, let's suppose you found
the skull of a vampire deer.
How would I know that's what it was,
though?!
I'm not very good at skulls!
That's the point. You would be
puzzled. This is what you would see.
"We killed one earlier."
I tell you what, that must have been
a horrible Tupperware party.
LAUGHTER
"And then I was thinking,
if you'd like to buy...aaargh!
"It's a vampire deer!"
Well, people do find these
in the soil of Cambridgeshire,
Norfolk, Bedfordshire, that sort of
area. And they are living,
they're creatures that live...
That one's not.
That one, no. Can we just establish,
if it looks in a mirror,
can it see its reflection?
LAUGHTER
Does it have a lovely cloak as well?
I don't think... Yeah!
That's how you ride them,
cos you get on their backs
and you hold the cloak...
You've got to be very careful,
because if you come up behind a car,
they look in the rear-view mirror,
they don't see you,
stop very quickly, bang, dead.
You've got to be careful, as well,
because magicians
have a similar cloak
and you don't want to ride
one of them in the woods, do you?
That is true. That's exactly what
Debbie McGee said to me over tea.
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
All the time.
Is it a vampire deer just because
it's got these funny teeth,
or does it actually like blood? No,
it's cos it's got the funny teeth.
It's like a sabre-tooth,
but it exists now.
So who would you call if you found
an animal, or saw an animal,
that looked really unusual?
There is a place to call.
It's a fine institution.
The finest institution.
The Natural History Museum. The
National History Museum is right.
'Stephen!' Well done.
APPLAUSE
We have with us Stuart Hine from
the National History Museum's
very special department.
Stuart. Hello.
APPLAUSE
Thank you.
Welcome!
When I was a boy
and you found something unusual,
you'd send it to Blue Peter.
But nowadays you get sent things,
is that the point? Yep.
You can send anything to us.
We do about 4,500 or so
identifications each year,
generally for the sort of public.
We're not just full of dinosaurs,
we actually have
more than 300 scientists
who can answer these enquiries
for you.
This presumably is a common thing
for people to send in
because they think it may be
an ancient or unusual species.
Well, once every one or two years,
because they're not that common.
Where it comes from, over in China,
it's becoming more endangered.
We've got about 10% of the world's
population living feral in the UK.
And how did they arrive here,
if they're not endemic?
Into wildlife parks,
zoos and so forth.
A pair escaped back in the '30s,
and they've become
sort of established there now, I
believe possibly from a single pair.
Wow. So it shows that
sometimes incest works.
LAUGHTER
ROSS: Sorry, which area
of the country are they...?
LAUGHTER
No! No!
APPLAUSE
I walked into that one.
Eyes wide shut.
Er, can you give us any other
examples?
Actually, I've got some - this kind
of thing you must get sent -
although it's not necessarily
natural history,
there are people who believe that
life came from such objects.
What's that?
'Stephen! Stephen!'
Meteorite.
Oh, you wish.
Everybody thinks... Is it poo?
Is it fossilized poo?
It could be, like a coprolite,
I think they're called,
aren't they? Is that right? It is.
♪ Ooh, ooh, coprolite. ♪
LAUGHTER
One of my favourite songs,
that's had me thrown out of the
Natural History museum many a time.
SARAH: It's not like somebody's
cooking, is it?
Cos I've made things that
look a bit like that.
It's basically a rock, I think.
Is that right?
It's a bit of, well, slag.
So industrial waste, yeah,
containing metals.
Slightly magnetic.
Oh, well, that's good.
Slag. Er...
LAUGHTER
You'll pay for that, you bitch!
LAUGHTER
I believe a lot of people see stones
and they often...
they might even be smoking
or steaming.
I've heard so many tales of these
smoking, steaming things,
but it usually involves
"my grandfather,
"who was returning from the pub."
So we know where they're going with
that. Are there any other things
that would strike people
as being somehow alien or odd?
ALAN: The prices in the gift shop.
LAUGHTER
APPLAUSE
Various slimes, mystery slimes and
things come in. Ooh, I like that.
So star jelly and things like this.
Star jelly?
Star jelly is one of the names
for one of these slimes.
There, we've got these wonderful
pictures. Oooh! What would that be?
Historically, people
believe that this is associated with
passing meteorites and things.
And, er, it just is frog gel,
or a jelly... Oh, spawn?
Spawn, indeed, yeah.
How would it get outside a pond?
Well, we did some DNA analysis,
which told us that
it came from the frog
and that a magpie was implicated.
Magpie vomit, perhaps. Nice!
Excellent. Lovely. Charming.
Well, thank you very much,
Stuart Hine.
APPLAUSE
There you are, you can all remember
he's your go-to guy
if you find something unusual
in your garden.
Now, what's wild, horny,
comes from Northeast England,
and hasn't been touched by a man
in 800 years?
Don't look at me!
I'm not looking at you!
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
I wasn't!
No, no, I was touched by a man...
Well, eh, that was one.
..on Tuesday last week. There you go.
Definitely not me.
That's one off the list.
Is it...aaah!
Watch this. I'm going to seem
really smart if this works.
Is it, is it the white cows?
The Chllingham white cows?
Whoa-ho! Yes, it is! Well done.
APPLAUSE AND CHEERING
Very good. Have you seen them?
I have seen them.
There they are... In fact, as a boy,
as I frolicked in the...
That's where I'm from.
I'm from the Northumberland...
I'm up that neck of the woods.
And then in the foot-and-mouth,
everyone...
"Oh, the white cows,
they're all going to go!"
And so they were quarantined off,
and no-one was allowed near them,
and it was all touch and go,
touch and go...
Or NOT touch and go. Yeah.
That's right. They haven't been
touched certainly for 100 years
and probably for much longer.
Well, when I was a kid,
we used to ride 'em,
so that's not true.
LAUGHTER
I shouldn't have said that
on the telly.
Oh, please. Depends what you mean
by "touched".
They are fed
during the winter months.
Hay is pitchforked over
the enclosure and they eat that.
But no-one has dared touch them.
They are pretty feral,
and from them are descended
many of the cattle that we now know.
They look very different now,
but you can see the relationship.
Is that one cleaning out its nostril
with its tongue?
Yes. You could if you would.
LAUGHTER
You mean the other way round.
Would if you could.
That was all wrong.
Yeah, the Chillingham cattle.
Do you know how many there are?
Er, 40? There are about 100.
Ah, 100. They have been going up.
Oh, yeah, when I saw them
as a kid there was only 40.
The harsh winter of '46/'47,
they were down to 13 of them.
but they've come back up to
around 100, which is encouraging.
Again, incest seems to be best.
Er... Not in that neck of the woods,
I can assure you.
The Chillingham cattle,
as Ross knew, live wild
and haven't been touched in 800
years. From livestock to larvae.
What form of transport
might a caterpillar use?
Do they hitch onto things?
They do. And I wonder what
they hitch onto.
Furry mammals. Furry mammals
carry a lot of stuff about.
They do, but in this case
they use each other.
Aww! They use a principle
which is quite fun.
The one that's on the bottom layer
is going at a certain speed
and the one above twice the speed,
and the one above that
thrice the speed.
So all told,
the whole group goes faster.
And we've done a little experiment
using stop-motion photography.
Some boot's going to come in
in a minute. Splat!
Awful, isn't it? But if you watch,
we've got two yellow pieces there
and they're both moving
one step at a time.
But you'll see the one
on the top layer is going faster
and the single one
can't catch up with it.
And that's the principle they use -
that the top layer is going quicker.
And so that's how caterpillars
move at greater speed
to get to where they need to be.
It's like a travelator.
The travelator.
Except when people get on the
travelator, they slow right down.
So annoying. It drives me mad.
When I get on a travelator,
I really make the most of it.
Me too. I accelerate.
I love the way that the windows
and everything just speed past you.
Oh, it's fabulous.
Travelator! Yeah.
People even on the travelator,
they just stop. I know!
Yes. Yeah, but it's doing the moving
for you, so you don't have to move.
That's why we're a nation
of morbid... Oh, dear...
LAUGHTER
Or if you have small children, they
turn around and run the other way.
Yes, they will do that.
And then there's people coming
and you're like...
You have to do quite a lot of loud
coughing and harrumphing
and, "My flight's about to leave,"
sort of stuff,
in order to get people
to move across.
It's just politeness
to take one side of the travelator.
Or say, "GET OUT OF THE WAY!"
Yes, all right.
That's an option too.
Anyway, moving from larvae
on to adult Lepidoptera.
What's a sure-fire way of telling
two butterflies apart?
Different colour wings.
ALARM BLARES
That would be true of those that
were different colours.
But suppose they looked identical?
Well, then, you can't.
And were different species or genus.
Then you can't. That's it.
Well, you might be able to.
Their breath. Their breath!
Is it the prettier they are,
the stinkier their breath?
Their address.
Their address, yes.
That would do it.
Are they the same but different?
Their names.
They're all the same but they're
not? There are two genera
of butterfly that look
almost identical,
and it's a type of evolution
called Mullerian.
There they are. And one of them
tastes disgusting to birds,
and the birds
quite quickly learn that.
You just lick them? Well, the birds
did. Just get a bird to lick it.
And so the other one evolved to
look as much like the one
that's disgusting,
without actually being disgusting.
Because it doesn't need to develop
the disgusting taste,
because the birds will assume that
it IS disgusting.
And this is a thing that
happens in nature.
You look identical just to survive.
How smug must THEY be?
It's very, very good. So smug.
And also, the one on the right there
seems to have a tiny roll
of gaffer tape in its mouth.
It does, doesn't it?
LAUGHTER
They're not even his real wings.
He's made them.
He's like that...
"Look at that,
I'm just like him. Come on."
You go round the other side of that,
that's all sticky-back plastic
round there.
But there is an answer to how you
would tell the difference,
and it's deeply personal.
Oh, it's the downstairs, is it?
You would look at their genitalia.
And there's a truly great novelist
of the 20th century,
although English
was his third language,
and he was very good at sexing
butterflies. Indeed...
Sexing? Telling their... Sexing.
..telling their gender, examining
their penises. Sexing or texting?
Sexing.
Texting. No, sexing.
There is a collection
at Harvard University of these tiny
little phials filled with penises
of butterflies that he collected.
There he is. He lived in America,
hence Harvard,
but he was born in Russia
and then moved to Paris
from a rather nobby family.
And his name was Vladimir Nabokov.
But you must have
heard of his most famous novel.
Yeah, 50 Shades Of Butterflies.
Come on.
Yeah, it was amazing.
Don't let us down.
Lolita.
Lolita, thank you, Alan. Yes.
He wrote Lolita, amongst many
other magnificent novels.
Operation Yewtree are all over him
at the moment.
LAUGHTER
"Lolita, light of my loins."
The Russian Yewtree.
And he collects the penises.
Well, he was a...
But he's not bothered about
the rest of it.
He was an incredibly enthusiastic
lepidopterist.
And then he lets them go.
And he went, in fact,
on index cards... Without a penis!
That's a butterfly that's had its
penis removed by Vladimir Nabokov.
I got it, I got it,
it was really good, Alan.
Was his name...? Stick to girls!
Was his name Knob-off, did you say?
Vladimir Knob-off.
"Knob-off by name, knob-off
by nature. I'll do anything.
"Start with a butterfly,
work my way up. Don't care."
He was, as well as being
a great writer,
one of the finest lepidopterists
of his time.
He used his index cards,
on which he wrote his scientific
notes about Lepidoptera,
to write the entire novel of Lolita,
in fact, his most famous work.
Did he try and collect all of the
ladygardens of the butterflies?
LAUGHTER
That's a very good point.
I don't know if he exclusively
confined himself to
the penises of butterflies,
but I suppose they were the easiest
bits to see in such a small insect.
The wings are easier to see.
Well, yeah, no.
When it comes to sexing, I mean.
Butterfly pubes, imagine that.
Imagine a pillow -
how soft would that pillow be?
Just filled with butterfly pubes.
Ohhh...
He gave a very, very...
LAUGHTER
That's what...
Not many people know this.
Not many people know this,
but all of Stephen's suits
are lined with butterfly penises.
That's true.
By the finest tailors in the land.
No, I do have...
Butterfly tailors, no less.
That's right. Tiny moths come in.
"Mr Fry, we have collected
the butterfly pubes
"of a million butterflies."
They've been donated willingly.
They have. More than willingly.
That's why he looks so comfortable
on this show.
See, look,
he's even flapping like a butterfly.
The power of the pubes
are moving through the fine...
LAUGHTER
Look at him moving.
There it goes again!
The best way
to tell butterflies apart
is to look them
straight in the genitals.
Can you give me your impression
of a puffer fish on the pull?
LYNX BUZZER
LAUGHTER
That's the gift that
keeps on giving.
Oh, you're puffing your face.
They play down the puffiness,
I reckon.
They do. Well, what they do
is play up some whole other skill,
which is really astonishing,
in order to attract a female.
They turn themselves inside out.
Fully inside out.
I would be impressed by that.
What, if a bloke came up
to you in a nightclub and went,
"Watch this, love!" Woomf -
and his lungs and heart
and all the rest...
I mean, I wouldn't hug him,
but I'd be impressed. Yeah.
Fish, like birds, as you probably
know, the males tend to be
more colourful
and put on a good show to attract
females. I did not know that.
Did you not?
I knew it about birds.
Hmm, beautiful plumage.
Has he just had a Slush Puppy?
LAUGHTER
A blue Slush Puppy.
What he does...
It was in such a big glass, he went
like that, it's gone on his eyes.
Gone on his eyebrows.
LAUGHTER
What they do is actually remarkable.
If you watch what he does, at first
you'll think it's just random,
but then you'll go,
"Oh, my goodness."
It takes nine days for him
to prepare this for the female.
Is that just farting,
what he's doing there?
LAUGHTER
No, that's... He turned, oh.
It's extraordinary. Aww!
He's made this enormous crater
with ridges. He's made a lair.
Which are decorated with seashells.
And it's there.
WOMEN: Aaah!
The ladies are so impressed. Is
that what you want, a sand castle?
No, I think their "aaah"
was they were impressed.
Nine days' work to attract a female.
How many days?
Nine. Hmm...
LAUGHTER
A lot of females say that.
They go, "No, not good enough."
It has to be absolutely perfect.
And then when it is perfect,
the female lays her eggs
right in the middle.
And he then fertilises them
and looks after them for six days,
just to protect them.
That's nice, and then
she can go back to work.
Or go to another crater.
No, the most amazing thing
about that is,
that's actually on the beach.
That's not even under the water.
That would be...
It comes out, like that.
Puts little flags in every ridge
as well.
It's...I won't say entirely unique,
because we know
so little about what goes on in
the ocean, but it's one of the few
we know which is quite so marvellous
and distinctive, the puffer fish.
But nine days is a long time.
I mean if you, Sarah...
It's not really, though, is it?
If she's worth it.
I mean, when she comes in,
she comes in and just goes,
"Well, you've done that all wrong.
"Been waiting six months for you to
get that finished and it's wrong.
"Do it again. I should have got
somebody in to do it."
LAUGHTER
Anyway, the male puffer fish
attracts his lady with
a heart exhibition.
Now, what do we call a fish
that drives a tank?
Tank fish.
You might call it tank fish,
but when I say "we", I mean WE.
What do we here at QI Central
call a fish that drives a tank?
Sir.
ALARM BLARES
LAUGHTER
APPLAUSE
That was a shock.
We read you like a book.
No, we're going to show you
a fish driving a tank.
What? Yes.
So if my splendid porters can
come on with a little tank tray...
The porters, ladies and gentlemen.
Yeah!
There we are.
So, we've got a tank and we've got a
fish who's going to drive the tank.
And there's our fish.
He doesn't live here,
I want you to know, this is just
his transport system. And...
This is, like,
the poshest fairground ever.
Yeah. And if I turn on
his little motor here...
So this is a fish tank tank.
And as soon as he moves, he will...
Give him some food,
or poke him with a biro.
Every different direction he goes,
he moves the tank.
And, whoa, there you go.
Let's move you into the middle here.
There you are, because you were
getting all excited.
There you are,
a few ant's eggs for him,
or whatever it is we feed him with.
Butterfly penises.
But you obviously want to know...
LAUGHTER
I said, what do we call him?
His name is Alan.
LAUGHTER
He's Alan the QI goldfish,
and just to put your minds at rest,
this is not his tank,
he has a beautiful...
It's MY tank.
Yeah, exactly. He has a beautiful
place where he hangs out, which is
full of wonderful toys and fronds.
It's near Watford and he drives
there himself every morning.
Yeah, exactly. And you might like to
meet our splendid elf Alex Bell,
who built this particular
contraption for Alan.
Come on, Alex.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
We mustn't...
Here we have the classic elf.
Absolutely.
Educated to within an inch
of his life. Smartly turned out.
So how long did it take you
to build this?
A couple of days.
It's made of Lego, completely, so...
It's entirely Lego?
Yeah, it's all Lego.
Can we race it against caterpillars?
LAUGHTER
And why did you make it?
Someone...
No, it's not rude, just asking.
There's a Dutch company called
Studio Dip,
and they made a bigger version
of this for a fish to live in,
and we thought we'd have a go
at making our own.
Did you build it over two days
to attract girls?
LAUGHTER
APPLAUSE
Sarah, are you impressed?
It's working for me.
I think the question that everyone
wants to ask is that
if you were to make a full-size
version out of the Pope-mobile...
LAUGHTER
..and the Pontiff was to swim
very hard,
could he...would that work?
Could we do that? Yeah, probably.
Just to put at rest those
who are wondering what
the principle behind it is, when he
swims forward, what happens exactly?
There are four sensors,
one in each corner,
so whichever corner he goes to,
it goes in that direction.
It's that simple, nothing to do with
the pressure of the water? No.
Would it be possible
to build a giant one,
put a dolphin in it
that could swim up,
do a somersault and then the whole
vehicle could loop the loop?
Yes. Theoretically, yes.
Let's do it.
I shall pay for that
out of my own pocket.
Are there future uses for this?
Maybe military, I think...
Military uses.
The British Army IS on its uppers.
Yeah, I think they'll probably be
the only ones who'll fund it.
Well, it's very exciting for him.
But I'm sure
he wants to get back to his huge
and very luxurious accommodation
in the QI offices. He lives in a
cistern. I'll hand him over to you.
LAUGHTER
Thank you, Alan.
Thank you, Alan and Alex.
APPLAUSE
That was very pleasing.
The porters!
APPLAUSE
So, anyway, moving on.
What has 32 brains and sucks?
The front row.
LAUGHTER
Is there a creature
that has 32 brains?
Does an octopus have
lots of brains in its tentacles?
Yes, and genitalia at the end
as well, if you remember.
Oh, yes, I do remember. Really?
On one of them.
How do you know which one?
You'll soon find out.
LAUGHTER
Get a few lagers into it.
Wey! Wee-e-ey!
But it's not an octopus.
It is an animal that is associated
with moist conditions, and...
A slug.
It looks rather like a slug.
Here's a thing you can do to test
this particular animal.
They've done it,
they've filled a condom with blood
and dropped it in the water
where these creatures... Leech. Yes!
And they've found...
People have done that intentionally?
Filled a condom with blood?
In order to demonstrate how
leeches.. Some intentionally.
Others accidentally.
LAUGHTER
Exactly, exactly.
"Are you all right in there?"
"Yeah, yeah, yeah!"
LAUGHTER
"Don't flush it down the... No!"
That's why it's always...
LAUGHTER
That's horrific.
If you fill a condom full of blood,
that's the best way, in the wild,
to catch one of those vampire deer.
Spin it round...
LAUGHTER
What it doesn't do is catch a leech,
because leeches haven't evolved
expecting humans to splash through
the marshes, but they have expected
other kinds of animal. And...
A frog, perhaps?
A frog is a perfect example.
If you put the condom in
covered in blood,
leeches will not be attracted to it.
If you just wipe
the condom over a frog,
and then drop it in,
the leeches will go pha-doing!
Because they smell frog. And the
frog will be your friend for life.
They go, pha-dong, boing! Wheee!
Exactly. They hop around. Yeah.
So we needn't be as afraid of
leeches as we seem to be.
So, the merest whiff of frog
will lure a leech to lunch.
But what part do Twiglets play
in a mugger's lunch?
We've been very literal
with our picture.
Is that Annie Lennox?!
LAUGHTER
Is a "mugger's lunch"
a euphemism for something?
A mugger is a type of creature.
A mugger is a... Lives in
this kind of environment.
Is it a crocodile or...?
It is a crocodile, yes.
A mugger crocodile.
So it goes to parties...
No, it's not a Twiglet, it is
a twiglet in the most literal sense.
A little twig. A stick. A little
stick. It hides behind the...
Not behind it. It's a very small...
It uses it as a tool.
It uses it as a tool
in order to entrap.
Like chopsticks. Catches Hula-Hoops.
It catches wading birds
who think, "I'm building my nest...
Oh, look, there's a log
"with some twigs on it!"
No way. How stupid are birds?!
LAUGHTER
Tiny brains, haven't they?
Tiny little brains.
Useless. Tiny.
They deserve to be eaten.
LAUGHTER
On the one hand, you think, "I'd
love to be able to fly like a bird,"
but you'd be an idiot. They always
fly into windows and lorries...
Crows are very intelligent.
Crows, ravens...
Crows?! Yeah. What, right,
here's a crow, swooping around.
"Oh, yeah, that looks like
a nice field!
"Ooh, better not go in there..."
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
"Oh, no, he's scary. He's clearly
a trained assassin."
It doesn't make any sense at all.
At least set your scarecrow up
like this.
Rrr! Or just doing that, like that.
Exactly. "I'll take you down."
So that is one example of...
It's the only example we know
of a reptile using tools. And
it's only a recent discovery.
How does it get them
on its head with its little hands?
It cleverly manoeuvres.
It doesn't use its hands.
Puts them in the water
and does that? It takes nine days.
LAUGHTER
I'm impressed by anything
that takes nine days.
He has to lie under a tree
till a twig lands on his head.
And then another, and then another.
It's not the only animal,
however, that uses...
The principle is a lure.
That lures other animals.
You can see there's a type of snake,
for example,
that has a very clever lure.
Oh, it makes... It pretends to be
a worm!
But look what happens. It's scary.
The furry thing...
Whoa!
It's so quick.
And it's eaten itself
a nice little furry meal.
Because the furry thing thought,
"Oh, there's a nice worm."
And you can see, it pulls back,
you can see what it's just eaten.
Oh, dear. Oh, wow.
Some of the snakes
do a similar thing, very clever.
They'll pretend to be
a draught excluder.
LAUGHTER
And then when the mouse approaches,
they'll strike, like that,
and... But the mouse
gets the last laugh,
cos it's not a mouse,
it's an old lady's slippers!
HE CHOKES DRYLY
It's just a laughing Nana.
Aww.
I ought to express my gratitude
to the one and only
Al the Viper Keeper
for that footage.
He's lent us that footage.
Anyway, crocodiles are the only
reptiles known to use tools.
Now, what's the most energetic thing
that a slow-th, or sloth, ever does?
Whichever you prefer.
Oh, you're spending your penny.
And you're right to!
Is it? Yes. Well done.
APPLAUSE
Going to the lavatory.
Going to the lavatory.
They spend all their time in
the trees except when they go down
and use a communal lavatory,
which they share.
And this habit of sharing lavatories
has given rise to some pretty
unpleasant... Oh! Somebody's missed
the lavatory there.
Well, I'm afraid it gets...
Go and wee on a friend.
It gets really, really worse.
It's grim beyond believing, this,
but at the Estacion Biologica
Quebrada Blanco in Peru,
which is a field research site
in the Amazon,
they observed very odd
feeding habits of two-toed sloths.
They were hanging upside down from
the roof of the scientists'
latrine, and they started to
drop down into it
and scoop up handfuls of human
excrement and toilet paper,
and they would eat it. ALL: Ugh!
They even plunged into the pit
itself, which you can see,
and emerged covering,
after a liquid lunch, in poo.
The research paper noted,
"It was scooping with one hand
"from the semi-liquid manure,
and then eating from the hand.
"When more persons gathered
around the latrine to watch this
bizarre behaviour,
"the sloth emerged from the latrine
and climbed into the nearest tree."
So it didn't like being watched.
It might have been slightly ashamed.
You know when the film Jaws came
out and it was really terrifying
to go to the toilet in case a shark
came up and bit your bum...?
I don't remember feeling that,
to be honest. Maybe that
was just our house.
But now we've got to worry
about sloths coming up and...
Clawing at your arse. Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, it wouldn't do that, it would
just sit there like that, going...
LAUGHTER
Hit me! Hit me! Ah, oh...
Oh, God! As Supernanny would say,
that was unacceptable.
Unacceptable, yeah.
I mean, dear...
It must be hard for them to be
both an animal and a deadly sin.
LAUGHTER
That's true. That's true.
Because every morning
they just go, "Ohhh..."
Is it the sloth -
I might be wrong here, you'll know -
when they die,
they stay in the trees, don't they?
Totally. How long for?
Just for ever. For ever?
Yeah. Shut up!
Honestly, they're like...
they'll be like...
They'll rot away.
..a skeleton, like just a...
They'll be eaten, perhaps,
by other things.
Yeah, but not the bones,
just the outside. Yeah.
That's a hell of a way
to find your nana, isn't it?
That's how we found mine.
In the local park.
"What are you doing?
Oh, no. Oh, God."
She'd only gone on
the climbing frame.
Oh, dear. The only...
Not really!
Why...why did people go, "Ohhh"?
As if my nan genuinely...
"Oh, that's terrible."
We don't know much about
what goes on in the Northeast,
but we hear things.
LAUGHTER
Mainly from you. Yes.
So, the only reason, as Alan knew,
that sloths ever move out of a tree
is to spend a penny.
But now it's time to wallow for a
while in the filthy pile of ordure
that we call General Ignorance,
so fingers on buzzers, please.
How can you tell your labradoodle
is pleased to see you?
Aren't they wonderful dogs? Yes.
It's got an erection.
LAUGHTER
You mean it's got its lipstick out?
Yeah. It's beetroot. It was always
beetroot in our family.
"Mam, it's got its beetroot out
again!"
Don't you think it's more like
lipstick?
I'm going to look next time
a bit closer.
Is a labradoodle a cross between
a Labrador and a poodle? Yep!
Which is like a seeing-eye dog...
Yes.
..and a poodle, which is like
a fashion accessory dog.
So it's like a dog to see with,
and be seen with!
Very well put!
The labradoodle is not, like some
people think, like an Etch-a-Sketch.
Cos that's a magnadoodle, isn't it?
Aww, sweet. A magnadoodle is a dog
that just attracts spoons.
Whoo!
ROSS BARKS
The point is, it's not just
a labradoodle,
it's all about dogs' expressions
of pleasure to see their owners.
And we know about tail-wagging,
obviously,
but tail-wagging is very subtle
and it's really for signals
to other dogs.
But the answer is actually
rather sweet.
And you may, if you have dogs
at home, check this out
when you get home next
after a little period of absence.
It's very, very quick,
so it has to use high-speed cameras,
usually, to have found this out,
but you may be able to see it.
Your dog will welcome you
by lifting its left eyebrow,
if you are the owner and master
of your dog, or mistress.
And that is the rather touching
thing. The left eyebrow goes up.
Very, very quickly. How do you know
it's not just being quizzical?
Well, it only happens
to their owners
and it doesn't happen to strangers.
You'd expect them
to be more quizzical with people
they hadn't met.
Mmm. But with people they haven't
met, there are other things.
Their left ear will go back,
for example.
If it's an object they don't know,
their right ear will go forward.
So let me get this right.
Owner comes in,
left eyebrow goes up. Yeah.
Stranger comes in,
ear goes that way. Yeah.
So if you were to get...
If I was to come in the house,
and then quickly get a stranger
to come in,
I could flip my dog.
LAUGHTER
What's it mean
when it licks its willy?
What does that mean?
It just wants to have a good time,
I should think.
I can't think of any other reason.
Noted.
Yeah. So, dogs show they're pleased
to see you by raising an eyebrow.
Which cat never changes its spots?
Well, now, see, I sense a trap.
Do you?
LION BUZZER
Oh, lion.
Is it the jaguar?
Good.
Because if you shave a jaguar
it's got that,
the jaguar pattern on its skin,
that's not its fur.
So therefore, it doesn't matter
how many times you shave it,
the spots remain the same.
Interesting.
It's not the correct answer.
All right, I'll be off, then.
We avoided saying the leopard.
Yes, because that was the trap
I sensed.
We can see a little leopard kitten,
with its mother,
and you can see the leopard kitten
really does have quite tight spots,
very close together,
and the mother has what are called
rosettes, which are very different.
The animal actually is a lion
and the spots are where
its whiskers sprout from.
And you can see those little
lines of dots there.
Oh. Like it's been sniffing glue,
like that. They never change.
They never ever change, so they're
like fingerprints - you can
identify a particular lion
just by the array of its spots.
You'd have to get very close to it,
though.
And you wouldn't necessarily want to
do that. No. No, exactly.
So, it's lions, not leopards,
that never change their spots.
Which is the biggest
of the big cats, though?
LION BUZZER
Yes, lion in first.
Is it the jaguar?
LAUGHTER
No. Not even the V12.
No, I'm afraid not.
Any other thoughts?
Well, the lion?
ALARM BLARES
The leopard? No. Panther?
The tiger, is it the tiger?
You're both half-right.
The cougar. Oh, it's the...
It's the labratiger. Labratiger.
The labratiger!
The liger? It is the liger,
and the liger is composed of what?
A lion and a tiger.
But which gender round?
The front half is a tiger.
LAUGHTER
The back half,
it's like a dodgy safari salesman.
"Tell you what, mate, that's lovely,
that's a lion, that is."
Cut and shove.
A male tiger and a female lion.
Yes.
In both cases
they put the male first,
so if it's a liger, it's a
lion male and a tiger female.
And if it's a tigon, then
it's a male tiger and a female...
The best one is the zeraffe. Yeah.
Well...
It's just got a zebra body
and then a giraffe neck,
and it's always falling forward.
LAUGHTER
There are zebroids, which are zebras
crossed with all kinds of...
Asteroids. Haemorrhoids.
LAUGHTER
That's an example...
A dragon and a...
That's a very extraordinary mixture.
In January 2014,
the first set of white ligers
was born, and there they are.
Aww. And they are possibly going to
be the biggest big cats ever.
They're already pretty huge.
Looks like one of those things
on the end of your bed with a zip
that you used to put your pyjamas in.
Yes!
A footstool for All Saints.
Haven't seen All Saints for years.
Their, er, their diet
is exclusively magicians.
LAUGHTER
So you get a zebroid,
you get a wholfin...
A wolf and a dolphin?!
No!
Wh-olfin. They howl
out their blowholes.
HE HOWLS
The best one is a werewholfin.
That's where every full moon,
a wolf-dolphin leaps out of the sea
and changes into a man.
It's a mixture of what's known as
a false killer whale
and a bottlenose dolphin.
There you are. There's only one
in existence in captivity,
but there have been others
reported in the wild.
They've been seen on the M1
in big tank cars.
Indeed.
So, good, excellent.
That brings me to the scores.
Let's leap to them.
In last place, I'm afraid,
he's come thousands of miles to
be minus 20, it's Colin Lane.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
In third place,
twice as good a score,
but still minus 10, Sarah Millican.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
And minus 5, Alan Davies!
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
Which means that our winner on
a staggering plus 6 is Ross Noble!
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
So, it's good night from
Sarah, Ross, Colin, Alan and me.
And I leave you with the last words
of Noel Coward, of all people,
and how sad they are - "Good night,
my darlings, I'll see you tomorrow."
Good night.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE