QI (2003–…): Season 12, Episode 13 - Lucky Losers - full transcript

This programme contains
some strong language.

APPLAUSE AND CHEERING

Good evening, good evening,

good evening, good evening
and welcome to QI,

the panel show where
fortune favours the brains.

Tonight's show is all about
Luck and Loss,

so without further ado,
let's meet our Lucky Losers.

The fortunate Sandi Toksvig.

APPLAUSE

The fortuitous Danny Baker.

Thank you.
APPLAUSE



The jammy Jeremy Clarkson.

APPLAUSE

And Mr Jinx, the Jonah, Alan Davies.

APPLAUSE

Now, I'm afraid your buzzers are
a bit of a lottery, so Sandi goes...

DRUM ROLL
'Release the balls.'

Danny goes...

'No more bets, please.'

- That sounded like you, didn't it?
- How nice. - Yeah. Jeremy goes...

FRUIT MACHINE DISPENSES COINS

Literally no idea what that was.

- I think it was a jackpot. - Ah.

Now, Alan goes...

BECK: # I'm a loser, baby
So why don't you kill me? #



Now, seeing as being as
this is the Lucky Losers show,

whoever gets the lowest score wins.

Well done, Alan!

LAUGHTER

Well done already,
congratulations.

So, what you have to do, obviously,

is try and collect
as many Klaxons as you can.

And that's going to be interesting,
we hope. Quite Interesting.

Fingers on the buzzers,
here's your first chance.

What is the oldest you can be
on a Club 18-30 holiday?

- Danny? - 30.

Very well done.

You see, you've got the idea,
there's the Klaxon.

But anyone like to have a go
at the right answer?

What do you imagine
is in fact the right answer?

We won't punish you for that.

Surely there's some leeway?
Those ladies look a little over 30.

Is it sort of mid-20s?

Are they actually...
Is it the other way?

No, it is a little bit
older than 30.

35.

- 173. - 173, that's a very good number.

Is it 31?

No, it's 36, rather bizarrely.

Well, the oldest you can leave the
country with a Club 18-30 ticket

is 35, but you might have your
birthday while on the holiday.

Is there not a degree of sadness
in your life

if you decide to spend your
36th birthday on a 18-30 holiday?

Has that woman on the left
just turned 36?

"I'm so sorry, I've got to go now."

Yeah, there you go.

In theory you could celebrate
your 36th birthday
on a Club 18-30 holiday.

So, what is the youngest
you can be to go on an...

18.

Ooh, he gets those Klaxons,
doesn't he?

I like to win.

Have another go.

- Well, clearly they are keen
on that margin of error. - Yeah.

There's clearly some margin of
error,

so it can't surely be the same
margin, it can't be six years.

No, it wouldn't be six,
that would be awful.

12-36.

LAUGHTER

It's the perfect match.

I'm on the phone
to Operation Yewtree as we speak.

- No.
- It can't be much more. 16 or 17.

17 is the right answer, yes.

I'm winning now,
so therefore I'm losing.

DANNY: Yeah.

Do you remember
they had rather dodgy slogans...?

Do you remember any of them?

- "You will get fucked." - Yeah.

LAUGHTER

APPLAUSE

"Would you like to catch chlamydia?"

"Both carnally and financially."

Well, no, it wasn't quite
as on the nose as that.

- It was... - "Herpes."

.."Beaver Espana".

- GROANING
Oh, God... - I know.

"It's not all sex, sex, sex -
there's some sun and sea as well."

- Oh, dear. - DANNY: I know.
- Really puts you off, doesn't it?

Chlamydia I think is a very good...

There's no symptoms,
when you have chlamydia.

So if somebody says, "How are you?"
and you say, "I'm very well,"

that means you almost certainly
have it.

- It's the perfect disease. - It is.

So I never know how anyone
goes to the doctor's with it,
it would be quite interesting...

- So there are no warts, there's no
weeping... - No green discharge.

- GROANING AND LAUGHTER
- One has to be
- frank about these things.

"Absolutely fine" - go to the
doctor's, you'll have chlamydia.

It's baffling.
And koalas all have it.

- Do they? - Yeah, all got chlamydia.
- How do you know that?

Does that come up
in general conversation?
"Koalas have all got chlamydia."

Huge problem in Australia.

I thought maybe it was an add-on
to an 18-30 Australian holiday.

"If you didn't get lucky,
there's always the koalas."

LAUGHTER

Brilliant. Thank you so much.
Fantastic.

Well, according to the official
rules on their website,

a 17-year-old CAN go to a,
as it turns out rather misnamed,

Club 18-30 holiday.

Now, a question especially
for Alan to lose points with

in this Lucky Losers show.

Which mammal has the most
cells in its body?

Blue whale.

FANFARE

I'm afraid...

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

..it does!

And you get a lot of points
for that.

It's the blue whale bonus and you
get points, and what do points mean?

Prizes.

- Bad surprises. Yeah.
- Bad what?

No, it does indeed have the most
cells, cos it's the largest animal.

And the larger the animal,
the more the cells.

But you can claw your way back
if you could tell me

to the nearest trillion
how many cells a human being has.

LAUGHTER

- It's a certain trillion. - Two.

Ah, it's a bit more than that.

- It's 30 trillion. - Is it?

- Yeah. - What if you were a fat blue
whale? Then you'd have more.

Well, no, that's a human
I'm talking about.

- The blue whale would be
2,000 times more cells. - Oh!

So you would think,
because it has more cells,

that blue whales
would have more cancers,

or at least have
a greater number of them,

because it has so many more cells.

And in fact it has fewer
than we do, and nobody knows why.

Well, it doesn't smoke.

That's an obvious reason.

There is that.
But it's known as Peto's Paradox.

Do they die of cancer, whales?

All mammals can get it.

People who've had cats and dogs
will know, it's a very sad thing,

- but all animals get cancers,
yeah. - Oh.

So, five minus points available

if you can tell me what species
of whale that is there.

- Blue. - It's not a blue, actually.

We should have offered you a blue,

- but in fact that is a...
- Is it a sperm?

- No, sperm are the ones with the big,
big... - Hump. - It's a humpback.

Oh, sperm's got the big head
that fills with stuff.

With spermaceti.
With a milky substance in its head,

which to this day
we don't know what it uses it for,

the general theory is it's something
to do with the huge depths

it goes down to.
And it was used by Nasa,

because it kept its viscosity
in minus 400 degrees.

Incredibly cold temperatures,
it was the same viscosity.

But it was basically the whole
of the Industrial Revolution
ran on whale oil,

and if it weren't for John D
Rockefeller cracking crude oil

into petroleum and various other
forms like paraffin and so on,

the whales would have
unquestionably been extinct.

- So petrol saved the whale. - It did!

As I've been saying for many years...
LAUGHTER

It's very... Yes, it's
one of the great ironies of history.

APPLAUSE

- Knew it! - It's true.

I thought that would please you,
somehow.

I'm enormously pleased.

You'd rather be a petrolhead
than a spermhead.

- As it is...
- LAUGHTER

I'd take all the compliments
you can get, Jeremy.

LAUGHTER

Now, before we continue,
I should let you know that,

as this is the L series,

one of the questions coming up
will have a lavatorial theme.

The answer will be wholly
lavatorial.

CASH REGISTER RINGS,
TOILET FLUSHES

And if it is, you can ask if you
can spend your penny, right?

- So if there's a lavatory question,
I bring that out? - Yeah. - Right.

And you get extra points.
That's right. So, anyway, moving on.

Which good cause benefited
from Britain's first lottery?

FRUIT MACHINE DISPENSES COINS
Dale Winton.

Dale Winton's tanning salon.

- I'm sure it did very well.
- There you go.

But it wasn't
Britain's first lottery.

- Is it the Bank of England?
- No - that's a very good point.

That was almost like a lottery,
shares were issued to raise money.

- For the army, wasn't it? - Yeah.

It was virtually like a lottery.

- But this one was similarly to
raise money for... - Building?

For a military venture,
or at least for a military,
perhaps for defence, originally.

- Was it Drake?
- Yes, it was indeed in 1567...

- It was Drake. - Yeah, it was...
- The Armada.

What's that doing in my head?
Why is that in my head?

I'm very impressed. It was
Queen Elizabeth and her navy,

and indeed Drake
was one of her leading figures.

- There she is.
- That was a random guess.

She realised that, should
King Philip of Spain send a fleet,

- which in Spanish is...? - Armada?
- Armada, yes.

I'm genuinely still reeling
from the fact that's in my head.

It's really great
when that happens, isn't it?

No, it's odd.
Makes me feel weird.

And so she thought, to raise money,
she'd try and get

those who could afford it
to buy lottery tickets

and the prize would be enormous.

And the money raised
would be enormous.

Now, what do you think
the average wage was per year?

- It can't have been much, can it?
- No, it wasn't much.

- The average annual income in 1600
was about £9. - Oh.

So tickets were 50 pence, we'd
call it now - ten shillings each.

- That's a lot. - Which is about
three week's wages. - Yeah.

So only the rich would be able to.

Only the rich would be able to.
The prize on there was £5,000.

£5,000 then,
which is millions today.

- You could buy America.
- You could buy a huge estate.

Plus, it was paid partly in cash,
but also in gold and silver

and fine tapestry and fabrics,
and something really extraordinary

to encourage sales. And this later
cropped up in one of the most

popular games in our culture, as
something that you could tuck away

under the board of the game,
for future use.

Monopoly, a "get out of
jail free" card.

You got
a "get out of jail free" card.

For anything except murder,
serious felonies, treason...

And parking.

- LAUGHTER
- Yeah. Parking your horse,
- obviously that was not allowed.

Or piracy, that was one thing.
But everything else was.

Very good, wasn't it?

- That would sell tickets now,
wouldn't it? - Brilliant idea.

- I learnt about the Mary Rose. Do you
want to know about the Mary Rose?
- Tell me.

The Mary Rose sank
because they didn't close

- the cannon portholes.
- Oh, my goodness!

They let off a broadside,
and it tipped back

- and the water all went in.
- Every... - 500 men on board.

And they drowned because they'd put
the netting across the deck

to prevent people boarding the boat

- and they were unable to get off.
- They couldn't get out.

And I have to say, the
Mary Rose Museum in Portsmouth is

one of the single best museums I've
ever been, it's only just opened.

And there was some controversy
about it

because they were able to
resurrect skeletons

and using forensic artists show us
pictures of what they actually

looked like - you can stand
and look the cook in the face...

It is the most astonishing thing.
And see all his things.

And what I love is that
even though they were going to war

and they were fighting and so on,
they had violins

and they had chessboards and dice
and they wanted to play games.

I love the fact that they must have
been having a laugh

and enjoying themselves, apart from
it was such a tragic end.

But it's the most amazing
time capsule of that period,

because the ship sank with
everything there.

- It is an amazing thing.
- Well, I'm going to go.

Well worth a visit, I think.

Exactly, let's go to Portsmouth.

Very good, thank you so much.
Brilliant.

APPLAUSE

So, the good cause
in the first national lottery

was beating up the Spanish.

What do newsagents sell that makes
people suddenly want to vote Tory?

Is it going to be the Daily Mail?

KLAXON

APPLAUSE

Makes me want to vote Communist,
but there you go.

Will you get one for
the Daily Telegraph as well?

- You probably might...
- KLAXON

He's clawing his way
back to victory.

No, this is a very odd thing -
well, newsagents sell them.

What about The Sun?

KLAXON

You're on fire!

This is not a newspaper,
I will now say,
but it's something newsagents sell.

They sell something that makes
you want to vote Conservative?

Well, it does if things
turn out well

after you've bought
this particular item.

- OK. - So we're really back
to the last question.
- Is it a lottery ticket?

It's a lottery ticket.
If you win the lottery,

many Labour voters
who've won the lottery

said that they had changed their
mind and were now Tory voters.

- So... - What a depressing comment
on humanity that is. - It is a bit.

Perhaps even more depressing
is that the American therapists

have a name for the syndrome,
which is Sudden Wealth Syndrome,

which is presumably what they suffer
from whenever they name a syndrome,

if they make money by deciding
you have a syndrome.

But that's a really boring name
for it, though.

You'd think so. But these are
the same people who said

if you lose someone you love,
they die, and you are still...

ALAN SNEEZES SPECTACULARLY

- DANNY: Whoa! - Wow!

- Wow, that was huge!
- That was so impressive.

- JEREMY: Alan's exploded.
- That was enormous.
- The day had to happen.

- That was an explosion. - That was
extraordinary. - Are you all right?

There are people in California now

looking at their seismographs,
going, "Jesus Christ!"

- DANNY: What a thing!
- JEREMY: "What was that?"

Is that because I said the word
"die?" Will you do it again?

So sorry for interrupting you.

It's fine, it's just it was a
revolting thing about psychologists

who have said if someone you love
dies and you're still inconsolable
with grief six months later,

that is a mental condition,
it's not healthy.

And what's that called? Six
Months Later Dead Person Syndrome?

It's called grieving. It is
perfectly reasonable, in fact, yeah.

A syndrome I read of -
you know when you come out of
the pictures and you sneeze,

- when you go from a dark thing
or look at the sun? - Yes.

It's got a real fancy name now.

I've never sneezed when walking from
the dark. Is that normal, am I...?

It's because you don't suffer
from it. Don't mock people who do.
LAUGHTER

Presumably you don't go to matinees.

- You go to evening performances.
- Yeah.

So he comes out and it's dark. But
it's from the dark into the light.

Yeah, it's a syndrome.
It's a real syndrome.

We've got the name in front of me,

my Elves have been
busily hacking away. It's called

Autosomal Dominant Compelling
Helio-Ophthalmic Outburst.

There you go. Look at that.

- JEREMY: I want to have him round
for dinner. - So, there we are.

APPLAUSE

For short, it's called
ACHOO Syndrome.

LAUGHTER

We're still with lotteries.
This is more astonishing.

I mean, what a coincidence.

In 2001, guess who won the Zimbabwe
Banking Corporation's jackpot?

No! Mugabe.

It was Robert Mugabe!

What are the odds against that?
I mean...

- Wow, lucky man.
- Yeah. Lucky, lucky, lucky.

Anyway, less fortunate was
Clarence "Inaction" Jackson.

The name tells it all.

He won, in 1995, 5.8 million
on the Connecticut lottery.

- Didn't get it? - Failed to turn up.
- Didn't pick it up?

The collect-by date passed, and they
wouldn't pay out. He tried to sue
and he lost. Very sad.

A woman in 1980 called Maureen chose
the correct winning numbers for both
Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

- Unfortunately, she...
- She was burned as a witch.

No, she played the Massachusetts
numbers in Rhode Island...

ALL GROAN

No! The odds against that
are 30 trillion to one.

Well, quite. Anyway, yes,

lottery winners tend to turn right
after collecting their winnings.

What's the most disgusting thing

a Liberal-Tory coalition
has ever done?

I think you've got
the photo right there!

LAUGHTER

- So much choice. - Mmm.

I'm going to guess
it's NOT this Liberal...

It's not,
it's the Liberal Party rather than

the Liberal Democratic Party,
which is the Lib Dems.

Is it Whiggery...?

It's later than that. 100 years
later, roughly. 1890s, in fact.

Is it something to do with sewers?

It's in your favourite city,
Birmingham. It's not sewers...

Is it something to do with
Thomas Crapper?

No, it's not a spend a penny answer.

- It's eating something, in public.
- In Birmingham?

A liberal person ate something
in Birmingham in the 1850s.

- A group of liberal people.
- It's getting closer and closer.

- Dog shit. - It was a scandal
that rocked the nation.

- It wasn't dog SHIT,
it was... - A dog.

- A dog. - Oh! - They ate a dog.

Not only that, they celebrated
their victory...

LAUGHTER

- That was not a real headline. - No...

LAUGHTER

We did mock that one up,
I grant you.

But the top bit is correct -
"Birmingham Gazette,

"largest sale with one exception of
any provincial morning newspaper."

I love the "with one exception" -

"I'll grant you that,
there is one exception."

Why don't they just put
"second-largest"?!

So they ate this dog -
not only that, they roasted it

and portions of the dog's limbs
were used to create fun

by some of the men rubbing them over
the faces of their companions.

But a few days later,
the Birmingham Gazette

was scooped by the Birmingham Post -
still going, I think -

which revealed that one of the men
involved was a Tory,

so in fact it was
a coalition disgrace.

- Why did they do this?
- To celebrate - they were
obviously drunk, I suspect.

Yeah, but there's drunk,
and there's...

There's really unpleasant.

I've been drunk many, many times,

- and I've never looked at my dogs...
- Or your neighbours' dogs.

You've had a kebab.

GROANING

Did you know that how disgusted
you feel about something,
like eating a dog,

will reflect on your political
inclinations?

So conservative people
are more likely

to feel repulsed
by things than liberals.

And it's something to do with
your physical reaction to something,

so it tells you something about
what political persuasion you are.

That's how I know I'm so liberal.

Cos I'll eat anything.

- I've never eaten a dog, though,
that's very odd. - No.

Well, like most meat-eaters
they're not very tasty.

Well, you shouldn't eat anything
that's more than two from the sun,

- and a dog eats meat... - Exactly.
Meat-eaters are not good. I mean,

those who do eat meat,
eat vegetarians -

we eat cows, and sheep...

You're a vegetarian, aren't you?

I eat fish.
Mmm... I could still eat you.

LAUGHTER

Technically I could eat you.

- I'd leave the hair. - I think
we'd have to have a vote.

This next question is even
more incomprehensible than usual,

so I thought I'd spice things up
by getting you all to wear hats.

Could you pass that to Jeremy?

And you can have that. And yours,
you'll notice, says "Leader".

And you can have the fez.

I have the largest head in the world.

- And you can have a nice
straw boater.
- LAUGHTER

- It's extraordinary. You do have
a large head. - Enormous head.

DANNY: Elmer Fudd!

I saw Bob Dylan
in concert at the O2 Arena,

and he didn't have screens on,
you can't... He's this size.

And he wore a ten-gallon hat for
the whole thing, and he never spoke.

So it could have been anyone.

LAUGHTER

Right, OK, here we go
with this question.

What do Amy Freeze
and Larry Sprinkle

have in common
with D Weedon and AJ Splatt?

Is this some dark part
of the internet?

It's a real thing, it's not
a dark part of the internet,

it's a joyous part
of real life and...

They're real people?

Weedon and Splatt are both
Australian urologists.

Ah.

In other words they cover splatting
and being weed on.

Well, not necessarily
being weed on - weeing, sorry.

And Amy Freeze
and Larry Sprinkle are American...?

- Chefs. Antifreeze manufacturers.
- Ice cream.

- JEREMY: Garden sprinkler
manufacturers. - Weather forecasters.

So it freezes,
you get a sprinkle of rain.

- I don't believe that's
their real names. - It really is.

Now, what is the name for
people having jobs

that come after their names?
So, if you were a baker, say...

Yes, exactly. I don't know the...
I don't know the term.

JEREMY: My dad was a clerk.

- Exactly, that would do it. - Yeah.
- It's called nominative determinism.

It's called nominative
or onomastic determinism,

because you're determined
by your name.

But I've always been
interested by this,

because there was a family
many years ago

and they were called the Gauntletts.

And they christened
their son Victor.

I knew Victor, he ran Aston Martin.

Exactly. He was destined
to run Aston Martin,

simply because his parents
had christened him Victor.

If they'd called him Stan,
he would have been a plumber.

You see it all the time,

where somebody called
Fotherington Major Fortescue

has always got a sandwich shop
in Fulham.

Whereas somebody called Ron Twatt
is a builder from somewhere.

- Very simple names tend to... - Yeah.

I know Ron Twatt. Do you?

Bloody good builder.

Surely Ron Twatt
should be a gynaecologist?

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

Ron Twatt.
Denis Norden and Frank Muir,

when they were writing their scripts,
they used to get bored,

and come up with improbable TV shows.

And the best one was "By day,
she dispensed justice

"on the streets of LA. By night,
she was queen of the music halls.

"Join us at 8:00,
for Tara Raboom, DA."

LAUGHTER

Ta-ra-ra boom-di-ay!
Oh, that's brilliant.

- I love it. - That was my favourite one
of those.

Well, some examples you might know -

they're called aptronyms as well,
because they are apt-onyms.

- Mark Avery, where would he work?
- In an aviary.

Well, no, that's a bit too specific.

- In a zoo. - Birds,
something to do with birds.

He's of the Royal Society for the
Protection of Birds, yes. Very good.

The poet Wordsworth,
when you think about it,

he went to Cambridge
to read mathematics,

and he probably thought, "Well, I'm
called Wordsworth, words, words."

Stephen, why am I wearing this hat?

You'll see. You're the leader,

you've got to have a way
of indicating your leadership.

And you're the leader.

I did a programme years ago sailing
around Britain with John McCarthy,

and we had to go and be
fitted for life jackets

at Crew Saver Life Jackets,
and they were fitted,

and I promise you,
I've still got his card,

by a man called Will Drown.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

You see, it's just fantastic.
It's just bliss when that happens.

Well, you've rather beaten mine,
my rather sorry lot left.

I mean, Danone UK, the managing
director is called Bruno Fromage.

You probably remember the former
Lord Chief Justice was...

- Lord Judge. - Lord Judge.

That really is pretty
straightforward, isn't it?

- What is Fry, darling?
What is it...? - The Frys?

Bristol chaps, and chapesses,
a very famous chapess.

She was on our £5 note until
very recently - Elizabeth Fry.

And she was a Gurney
and the Frys were Frys

and they were both Quaker families,
as many of the chocolatiers were.

Were you plagued at school by
people saying "Turkish Delight"?

Of course. "Fry's Turkish Delight,
keeps you up in the night."

LAUGHTER

- No, it doesn't. - Happy days.
- It's a pleasant comestible.

Try, "Dan, Dan, the lavatory man,
washed his hair with

"a frying pan, combed his hair with
the leg of a chair, Dan, Dan..."

And Danny Boy. There's certain songs
that do curse you through your life

if you have a certain name.

I just got, "What sort of
a fucking name is Jeremy?"

LAUGHTER

APPLAUSE

Just a couple of nominative
determinism facts.

One is this fellow called Robert
Lane, who was a New Yorker, who,

for various reasons, decided to give
his sixth child the name Winner

and his seventh and last child,
rather unkindly, Loser.

Something of
an extraordinary experiment,

but it at least reversed
the effect you might expect

and Loser Lane, known as Lou,

went on to become a pillar
of the NYPD and...

probably arresting
his older brother, Winner,

who was arrested for burglary
more than 30 times.

So it didn't work at all.

Now, if I told you that two of our
biggest fans are called Joyce Baker

and Amanda Pastry, what do you think
you might have handed out to you?

- Is it cake? - Well, it's not cake,
actually, it's biscuits.

So you can help yourself.
You have to eat them all.

Well, it's nice,
but mildly disappointing.

Yeah, you've got to eat them.

- This is all part of the experiment.
- Do we have to eat them? - Yeah.

The third one has to go,
and Alan's taken the third one,

- and that's the important thing.
- What?

Because it's got the word leader...

This happens in experiment
after experiment with human beings,

if you tell someone
they're the leader,

and you give them three
of something, an odd number,

with an even number of people,
the leader always takes.

Well, it's a bit like, my father
once went out for tea with somebody

and two cakes were delivered - one
was very small, one was very large.

And the chap just leant over
and took the large one.

And my dad said, "If that had
been me and I went first,

"I would have taken
the smaller one." And he said,

"Well, you've got it anyway,
so what are you complaining about?"

- That's so logical.
- It is. - That's brilliant.

But I think boys and girls have
a very different way of doing this.

I was once at a party and they were
handing out things on this slate,

they seem to do nowadays,
with canapes, don't they?

And there were two small canapes
on this piece of slate,

and there were three of us.

And all three of us went,
"No, that's very kind, thank you,"

and as we were saying it,
a man walked past,

picked up one canape, put it on top
of the other and ate them both.

Excellent.

So he ate the other one
not just cos he's Alan Davies...

But because he's got "leader"

and he felt like somehow
it was just put into his brain

that he was the leader
and he would have that.

- It's not behavioural...
- Sorry, Jeremy.

Behavioural science is...

I was looking forward
to that biscuit.

Hand in your plates.

It doesn't help that I forgot
I'd got "leader" on my hat.

- Oh, you forgot you were the leader,
that really doesn't help. - Yes, no.

I'll eat those as well, if you like.

Right, so, skimming on.

What did lucky old Edward VII
use this for?

Oh, I say!

- I say lucky, I mean, it's an
extraordinary contrivance. - Oh, God!

What do we know about it this?

- Ah, ah. - No, quite wrong.

He didn't poo on yellow silk.

- You thought it lifted up into
a commode. - A commode, yes.

- Is it sexual, some kind of...?
- It was sexual, yeah.

It's sexual and I'm not going to
say it on television, frankly,

- I'll just be in trouble. - Well, no,
you won't. I mean, it's...

- Well, I will a bit. - Yeah.

For what I've got in mind,
if I said that...

LAUGHTER

I'll accept that then.

I guess a young lady sits on
the top bit and he's not...

He's elsewhere.

Well, this is what
we find hard to work out.

The Chabanais was a maison
de passe in Paris - a brothel,

as we would say - and he had
this constructed for him,

it was called the siege d'amour,
the seat of love.

And the idea was that
he could service, pleasure,

- have his way with two prostitutes
at the same time. - Oh.

How this worked I'm not quite... I
say at the same time, I mean that...

With his extra penis.

It does make you worry.

The King's penis.

Behold. Two birthdays, two penises.

It's got stirrups at the top,
so there's clearly...

It has got stirrups.
Her legs could go, or his...

Is this why Queen Victoria
didn't talk to him?

- I think it might well be.
- "What have you got there now, dear?"

"Ah, Your Majesty."

Dirty Bertie, as he was known,
quite rightly. His name was Bertie.

Do you know that wonderful story,

- he had a long-standing affair
with Lillie Langtry? - Yes.

Probably it's not true at all,

but it is said that he was
very cross with her one day

and he said, "I've spent enough
on you to build a battleship."

And she said "You've spent
enough in me to float one."

LAUGHTER AND GROANS

So, what did the Ancient Greeks
use this for?

- Yes, go on. - Is it that this?

Ah, no, it isn't.

You're not seeing all of it,
which is rather unfair of us.

You just seeing the head. It then
goes on quite a long way down.

- Is it sexual as well?
- Something protrudes. - Is it sexual?

- It is, isn't it? - Is it?
- There you are. - There you go.

- Oh. - Well, you can't... - Well,
it doesn't look like much fun.

He got his bollock shut in the lift.

LAUGHTER

There are very few left in
good condition, I have to say.

Well, somebody's pulled
that one's arms off.

LAUGHTER

APPLAUSE

It's the only way he'll learn.

The only way he'll learn
not to play with himself.

These were called herms,
as in Hermes the god,

and these were little pillars -
or large pillars in some cases -

with a phallus on them
and they were rubbed in oil

and then, as you passed one,
you'd give it a good fondle...

There you are, another one there.
..to give you good luck.

- And where is it from, darling?
- Greece.

The great period of Greece,
if you like.

In fact, during
the Peloponnesian War

in about 415 BC there
was a terrible incident

known as The Mutilation of the Herms

when they were at war with
Sparta, the Athenians,

and every single penis
had been hacked off.

And they blamed this on
the disastrous expedition to

- Sicily a little later.
- Well, it changes...

That period of history,
the discovery that the penis

has anything to do with
reproduction changes everything.

There's no natural reason to
suppose that the predisposition to

pop it in a snug hole somewhere,
which is what all humans

and animals...we can
observe animals doing,

and humans have the same
predisposition, the idea that,

nine months later, the thing that
pops out of you is connected to it

is not a rational one at all.

Until the Greeks,
nobody had worked that out?

Plenty of cultures hadn't worked it
out at all until they were told.

In fact, you get mostly
godless cultures prior to that

where the woman is revered

cos she's the one who is
producing the new child

and the men suddenly go,
"Oh, it's something to do with me!"

And that ruined the world, actually.

LAUGHTER

Very good.

Now, what's the worst thing
you can do with a gympie-gympie?

Gympie-gympie?

Remove her leaf?

Well, that would...
Yeah, she would be upset.

It's wipe your bottom.

You've missed your
Spend A Penny chance.

Does it make it poisonous
or do something dreadful to you?

I think poison is...

It's kind of poison,
but it's sort of worse than that.

Is it full of bugs
that crawl up your bum?

Imagine a stinging nettle turned up
to the absolutely unbearable max.

Why would you
wipe your bottom with it?

Well, because it looks a bit like
a leaf that would be safe to.

- Oh, a dock leaf type thing.
- Yeah, a dock-leafy sort of thing.

It's from Queensland

and it has one of the most
vicious stings in nature.

A brush against it feels apparently
like being burnt with hot acid

and electrocuted at the same time.

According to one account,
a soldier in the bush

in the Second World War was caught
short and picked the wrong leaf

- and found himself in so much pain
that he shot himself. - No!

- AUDIENCE GASPS
- Exactly.

That is a serious...
I mean, just the agony of it.

One of the first mentions is
from 1866, a surveyor reported

that his pack horse was stung,
got mad and died within two hours.

Les Moore, a scientific officer with
the Queensland government, was stung

across the face, ended up looking
like Mr Potato Head, apparently.

I still think it can't be as bad

as the toilet paper
we had at boarding school.

I know what you mean.
Izal and Bronco.

I used to write home to my mother
on it, airmail letters,

that's how bad it was.

- Yes, it was crispy tissue.
- Is that that shiny stuff?

Nothing would stick to it,
it was like grease paper.

You'd think, "I've definitely had
a poo, but there's no evidence."

LAUGHTER

It wouldn't come off on it.
It seemed to serve no purpose.

Shall we move along?

Yes. Let's do that.

So, it was the Spend A Penny
round after all.

If you're caught short in the bush,
don't use a gympie-gympie,

you might end up shooting yourself.

Now, which football team
is the worst in the world

at losing major trophies?

The worst in the world,

so it's a team that presumably
has never won a game.

- It's not that. They've won
quite a lot of games. - Oh.

They've even won trophies.

- Have they had the trophies stolen?
- But then they've lost them.

They've lost them.

- Aston Villa? - Very good.

Well, there you go.

JEREMY: We're back in
Birmingham again now

and you're being rude, aren't you?
By knowing so much.

How do you know that?

He does a sports programme,
he's a football lover.

- Yeah. - Ah. I must listen.

But in the 1964 FA Cup Final,

which was won by...?

West Ham.

Yes, you can see Bobby Moore there.
Who was their manager?

At that point? Er, 1964...

Would have been, not Ron....

- It was Ron. - It was?
- Ron Greenwood, yeah.

He took it home by Tube,
discreetly covering it...

LAUGHTER

..wrapped in a cloth.

That lady, she's got her eye on it.

I was talking
to Jackie Charlton once.

The centre-half for England
when they won the World Cup in 1966.

His brother, Bobby, of course.

And Jack Charlton said that
after the World Cup final, he said,

"Myself and Alan Ball
and a few of the lads,

"we headed to the Talk Of The Town,"

and he said, "I woke up in a couple's
house in Dagenham who I've never seen

"before or since, and the first thing
I did was get my jacket and go...

"Cos I still had the World Cup
winners' medal in my pocket.

"We made a few excuses and went."
So it's not unusual in that period.

I love the fact Bobby Charlton

used to have a cigarette
at half-time in every match.

There's a wonderful ladies football
team called the Dick Kerr Ladies

and the Dick Kerr Ladies
existed for years and years.

During the Second World War, they
were the most popular football team

and there was a woman
who used to play for them

who smoked Woodbines
while playing.

LAUGHTER

Well, Ron Greenwood
had good reason to be worried,

and that's the point.

Football trophies do have
a history of going missing,

and Aston Villa seem to have been
more to blame than anyone else.

In 1895, their FA Cup was stolen
from the window of a sports shop

in Birmingham and, 63 years later,
a man called Harry Burge

confessed that he had been
the man who had stolen it,

- and he had melted it down and made
counterfeit half-crown coins. - Wow!

The second major trophy to have
been mislaid by Aston Villa

- was the European Cup in...
What year did they...? - 1981.

Yes, they mislaid it in '82.
Two members of the...

- 1982. - It would have been, yes.

Two members of the team decided

to take the cup to a darts match,
where it disappeared.

And many years later
a man called Adrian Reed

was identified as the culprit.

He took it to a local
police station.

But it didn't end there,

cos the police decided to have
a football match for it.

So they kept it,
so that they could brag

about being
the European Cup winners.

And the FA Cup gets damaged
so much every year

that it has to get repaired
every single year

because it gets bashed about
in the bath.

- I love they've got a pot of tea
by the bath. - Yes.

A bottle of milk.
A bottle of milk is very nice.

You always used to see them. Quite
often you'd see them drinking milk.

It must have been
this early sponsorship thing.

But always after the FA Cup...
I just remembered this now.

In the post-match interviews, they'd
be standing holding a pint of milk.

- The last thing you want. - Probably
sponsored by the Milk Board.

The Milk Marketing Board.

So Aston Villa may not have
a great record of winning trophies,

but they have a rather impressive
record of losing them.

Speaking of losers,

it's time for the lucky dip
that is General Ignorance.

Fingers on buzzers, please.

And don't forget that tonight the
lowest scorer will be the winner.

Which day is added to a leap year?

Yeah?

February 29th.

Yeah, well done, absolutely.
No, it isn't.

Right, well, it is.

I'm standing my ground on this one.

They squeeze into
the middle of February

and add an extra 24th,
so the 24th becomes the 25th,

25th becomes 26th,
26th becomes 27th,

27th becomes 28th,
28th becomes 29th.

The reason for that is that

the Roman calendar
was divided into three.

The Kalends, the Nones and the Ides.

And when it came to discovering,
which they did,

that a year was actually not 365
days but 365 days and a quarter,

they added it into
one of those calendar series.

Now you may say this is just
ridiculous, they added 29,

but they didn't, and in fact the
proof of this is that in Denmark,

the day on which a woman is
allowed to propose to a man

is the 24th of February,
not the 29th.

That's the reason. Yeah.

There's an extra day in the middle of
February that, apart from Denmark,

nobody else has noticed it.

Well, the Catholic church
did until the '70s,

it was St Matthias's Day.

- So vicars were going, "Ah,
it's the secret day today." - Yeah.

St Matthias's day
was the 24th February,

but on leap years it was the 25th.

I was with you, Alan, really.

- But it's good, because he got
his extra points. - He did.

- Yeah, you see, don't forget that.
- Lucky bastard, as it turns out.

So the day you add for a leap year
is actually February 24th.

In which year did
World War II begin?

- Oh, yes? - 1939.

Well now, there, well done.

Coming up on the rails.

Yes, absolutely.
Overuse of the whip.

I just wanted to make sure
it's working.

Yes, you're still winning. Yeah?

- '39? - He just said that. - I know.

It doesn't work twice.

I was just waiting to hear
why it wasn't 1939.

Well, that's a very Anglo-Franco
point of view.

Certainly it's when the British
and the French joined the war,

but before then the Germans had
been at war with other countries

and the Chinese had been at war
with the Japanese.

That was a very global
sort of event, it spread out,

and of course there were alliances
and other such things.

So you could argue it was '37,
you could argue it was '35,

you could say the Spanish Civil War
with all the International Brigades

that went in, that was the beginning
of the world conflict.

But could it strictly speaking
be the WORLD war at that point?

- I mean, how many countries
does it take? - I don't know.

It certainly is nothing like
the entire globe.

- Austria-Hungary is
probably not enough. - No.

My father was an MEP along
with Otto von Habsburg who,

had things been different,
would've had much more power.

My father was watching the football
in the common room at the Parliament

and Otto came in
and said, "Who's playing?"

My father said, "Austria Hungary."

He said, "Oh, against whom?"

LAUGHTER

So Britain joined
World War II in 1939, yes,

but it had been going on since at
least 1937 and arguably since 1935.

Could you beat a T-Rex
at arm-wrestling?

Yes, easily.

- KLAXON
- Yes, easily.

Well done.
Even the word "easily" you got.

LAUGHTER

Either that's the fastest typist
in the world or I was bang on.

- A couple of points for both words.
- Very good indeed.

No. It may be that,
in relation to its body,

the T-Rex's arms look
rather spindly and puny.

In fact, they are enormous

and powerful they are able to lift
the equivalent to about 400 lbs,

whereas the average human being
would be about 150 lbs.

- Plus I did once lose an arm-wrestle
to Boris Johnson. - Did you?

Lost, can you believe that?
I thought he was all blubber.

He is a horse of a man.

- He is, he's Turkish, he's got
Turkish blood in him. - Hugely strong.

Low centre of gravity.

LAUGHTER

We were in a Turkish bath
at the time.

- So, you were in a Turkish bath...
- I wasn't in a Turkish bath.

I was just arm-wrestling him
over who had vomited most

in an F-15 fighter jet.
How manly is that?

Yes, I went in a Jaguar,
and Hugh Laurie went in one as well.

And Hugh is the butchest man
you've ever met -

he's just extraordinarily athletic,
natural athlete.

And we each got on this aeroplane.

He looked at me, the squadron
leader, as he belted me up

and said, "Hmm, yeah, oh, OK."
And I thought, "Of course,

"I'll be the one who throws up
and Hugh would be flying beside

"and look at me and go, 'ha-ha'."

Hugh threw up for the entire
journey and I was completely fine.

But the bad bit was when we landed

and I said to
the squadron leader,

"When you were just belting me up
and you looked at me and you went,

"Erm, yeah, OK,"
what was that about?

He said,
"Oh, I didn't want to worry you.

"If we had had to use
the ejection seat,

"your kneecaps
would have stayed behind."

LAUGHTER

- My legs were just... - Exactly
the same. - You would have the same.

Exactly the same in a Hawker Hunter.
I would have shot out

and the lower half of my legs
would have remained in the plane.

It's a bomb underneath you.
It's just... Not a chance. Anyway.

God, I was sick.

I was supposed to be
dropping a laser-guided bomb

and I had these three screens
and you have to...

This was a dream.

I kept vomiting all over
the screens and so I missed

not just the target but
all of North Carolina with my bomb.

I have no idea where it landed,
to this day.

I was sick a lot
into their machinery.

Well, despite having mimsy arms,

Tyrannosaurs were
very strong indeed.

What is the length
of an Olympic swimming pool?

50 metres.

100 metres.

50 metres, no.

It is counted as 50 metres,
but it isn't 50 metres.

It's 50 metres.

LAUGHTER

According to the
Federation Internationale Natation -

- de Natation, "of swimming"...
- Oh. Those bastards.

Olympic swimming pools
are over-sized

by a centimetre at each end. Why?

So you don't bash your ankles
when you do that spin-turn thing.

No, it's not that. What do you need
in order to have an Olympic race?

A winning tape.

Well, you need a lap counter
and you need something that

makes sure that the guy has
completed the lap, or the girl.

- A sensor. - The sensor pad.
In each lane you need one of those.

- Which is a centimetre at each end.
- They have to touch it.

What about peeing in the pool?

Is that considered a bad thing
by Olympic swimmers?

Oh, it is bad. It's very bad,
isn't it? Because...

Pooing is right out, but...

It does something with the chlorine,
it mixes with the chlorine.

Well, Olympic swimmers
are perfectly happy to do it

- and perfectly happy to admit
that they do it. - No! - Ugh!

And Michael Phelps, the greatest
Olympian of all time

in terms of his medal haul,
old bucket-hands himself...

Old Pissy Phelps.

LAUGHTER

He says,
"Everybody pees in the pool,

"it's kind of a normal thing to do
for swimmers.

"When you're in the water
for two hours,

"we don't really get out to pee.
Chlorine kills it."

Two hours?! What two-hour race
has he been in?

They do actually practise.

Well, the fact is, an Olympic-sized
swimming pool is actually

two centimetres longer
than you think.

And full of piss.

And indeed, almost entirely
full of urine.

How old do you have to be
to go on a Club 18...

Oh, that must mean that we've
come to the end of the show.

Let's look at the scores and see
who's tonight's lucky loser.

Well, well, well, well, well.

The clear, outright
and extraordinary winner,

with an amazing minus 23

is Danny Baker!

Hurray, thank you.

APPLAUSE

Thank you. Thank you.
Couldn't be more proud.

In second place, with a very,
very impressive minus five,

Jeremy Clarkson.

Is that good or bad?
APPLAUSE

The wrong side of the ledger
with plus three, Sandi Toksvig.

APPLAUSE

But the joker in a pack of 52 cards,

yes, plus 52 for Alan Davies.

APPLAUSE

- The blue whale. - Blue whale. - The blue
whale was a very bad, bad call.

That's all from Sandi, Danny,
Jeremy, Alan and me.

And I leave you with a last word
from actor Edmund Gwenn.

When asked if dying was tough,
he said,

"Yes, it's tough, but not
as tough as doing comedy."

Good night.