QI (2003–…): Season 12, Episode 5 - Lenses - full transcript
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
Good evening, buona sera, bon soir,
good evening, good evening,
good evening
and welcome to QI, where tonight
we are looking at lungs,
livers and other bits
beginning with L.
Joining me are the luscious legs
of Jo Brand.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
The lustrous locks of Phill Jupitus.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
The lovely larynx
of Josh Widdicombe.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
And the lily-livered Alan Davies.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
So, let's examine your organs.
Jo goes...
FIRST FEW BARS OF
TOCCATA AND FUGUE BY BACH
Phill goes...
NEXT FEW BARS OF
TOCCATA AND FUGUE BY BACH
Josh goes...
NEXT FEW BARS OF TOCCATA
AND FUGUE BY BACH
And Alan goes....
LA CUCARACHA PLAYS ON ELECTRIC ORGAN
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
Anyway, in this L series,
we have a special bonus,
which is if there's a lavatorial
question, it's a Spend A Penny.
- There you go.
- JAUNTY JINGLE, FLUSHING
Because L is for lavatory,
there may be a question which
involves something lavatorial.
If you think you've spotted
the question, wave your penny.
So, let's have a look
at question one.
What was the problem with
the first ever contact lenses?
- ORGAN MUSIC PLAYS
- Jo Brand?
Were they made of hydrochloric acid?
- LAUGHTER
- That would have been
- a serious problem.
I presume they were massive and heavy
and awkward and difficult?
They were very awkward,
massive and difficult.
I'll give you 20 years either way to
say what year they first appeared.
- ALAN AND JOSH: 1920.
- Oh, that's weird.
Whoa!
- Scary. - That was odd!
No, it's not that. 1880, actually.
It was in Germany, where they
grind lenses extremely well.
And there was one pioneer
called August Muller,
who could only wear them
for half an hour,
and then only after he had used
cocaine on his eyes to numb them
cos they were very, very painful.
- Best excuse ever! - Yeah.
"Oh, my eyes, they're so..."
- "Mein augen!" Yeah. - "Ooooh...."
LAUGHTER
"Oh, my eyesight is
so irritable and keen!"
"My eyes are talking nonsense!"
They used to saw off
the bottom of test tubes
and then grind them smooth
and put them in.
They were used not for
vision correction.
Originally, they were concealing
eye damage and things like that,
to protect sensitive eyes.
And then...
Was the eye damage
caused by the contact lenses?
Well, you'd think! But then
they got more sophisticated with it.
By the 1920s and '30s in America
they were quite popular,
but only with
incredibly rich people.
- That's quite a big one, there.
- That is big.
LAUGHTER
In the '20s and '30s they cost
more than a car, one set.
So, it was only very rich daddies
who would let...
Because their daughters
didn't want to wear glasses.
And if you watch Hollywood movies
of the '30s and '40s,
you will see that no actress
wears glasses,
except an actress who is playing
a part that is basically
a librarian, a dowd, a frump...
I'm not looking at you
when I'm saying that!
LAUGHTER
APPLAUSE
IN AMERICAN ACCENT: "Why,
Miss Quimby, you're beautiful!"
Anyway, we have borrowed
some objects
from the world-famous
British Optical Association Museum.
And you each have,
and I'm going to start with Phill,
you have an optical object
and I'd like you to tell me
what you think it might be.
Oh. Right.
- Well, it's got a lovely
leather surround. - Yes.
- Right, so why would you want
to see things this red? - Yeah.
Was it for nascent superhero
Communist Man?
LAUGHTER
Are they literally rose-tinted
glasses? Are you feeling...?
"Ah, the '80s! The Style Council!"
LAUGHTER
"The Guardian
with a decent header font. Oh!"
LAUGHTER
"Araucaria, his crosswords
were easy, then. Oh!"
- Pump up the volume...
- "Billy Bragg! Billy Bragg!"
- As you can see, they look like
flying goggles. - Yeah, yeah.
And that's what they are,
but they're not for flying.
- Then they're not flying goggles.
- JO: Driving.
- They are for... - Don't be picky,
he doesn't like that.
They are for pilots.
They're for night pilots.
- It's so they can acclimatise
their eyes for darkness. - Oh. - Oh!
So they go to the canteen
where the lady says...
- ALAN SPEAKS GERMAN
- .."Flying tonight, love?"
Cos if you're flying tonight,
you've got extra eggs and bacon
because the chances were
you wouldn't come back.
I would say that rather
they make everyone you bump into
- look like a Dutch prostitute.
- Yeah, there is an element of that.
Dance for me, Stephen! Dance for me.
Oh!
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
You made me!
All right.
You are a unique individual,
if you don't mind me saying.
Have a go.
Why can't I dance
without people laughing?!
- I don't understand!
- You bring joy, you're like...
I missed that lesson that everybody
else went to at school
where they were taught
how to dance at a discotheque.
LAUGHTER
Anyway, Alan,
what have you got that's optical?
- It looks like an ordinary
pair of glasses. - Yeah, it is.
And it has three...
Put them on
and describe what you see.
LAUGHTER
- You won't be surprised to hear that
my vision is somewhat obscured. - Yes.
LAUGHTER
- But look at the audience.
- They make three...
And what do I...? What can you see?
Can you see...?
They're kind of like binoculars,
where you can see...
- Can you see me doing anything? - No.
Are they not working, Alan?
Dance. Dance!
Whoa!
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
Are they meant to be
for peripheral vision?
- They were designed for drivers
who had... - Jesus!
LAUGHTER
Who had bad eyesight and it was
to improve their peripheral vision.
But it clearly doesn't work!
There'd be no chance of driving
in these!
You'd just be like that all the time!
LAUGHTER
Well, that's unfortunate.
Well... But thank you
for trying them and next up is Josh.
- What have you got? - They're very
fashionable, aren't they?
Yeah.
No, what you haven't done though...
PHILL: "I will take the red pill."
LAUGHTER
- What you haven't... - Oh, I see!
Yeah, you haven't...fully...
exploited their...
Exactly, what have you got there?
Corners.
- Now put them on. - Oh!
No, they're exactly the same...
If I were to tell you that these
are, despite their modern look,
they're actually WAY over
100 years old.
They're mid-19th century.
What do you think
they might help with?
- Um... - If I were to say one of the
great British love stories...
Oh!
- Wow. - Very good.
- They just keep getting...
- Yeah, the gift that keeps giving.
But one of the great
British love story movies.
Strangers On A Train... No.
- You're in the right area.
- Brief Encounter.
Brief Encounter.
How do they meet, Celia Johnson and
Trevor Howard in Brief Encounter?
- Train station? - It was... He...
- She leans out the window...
And pokes him in the eye.
She gets something in her eye?
She gets a smut in her eye,
he's a doctor,
he comes with a hanky...
The basic thing is...
From the open carriage days
of railways onwards,
because of steam, smuts, so on,
people got really stung in the eyes.
- And these were railway spectacles.
- I'm sorry, who's speaking now?
LAUGHTER
That makes no sense!
And yet it's funny.
So, if she'd had a pair of these,
that wouldn't have been
quite the film it was, would it?
It really wouldn't. It would've
lasted about ten minutes.
If he'd had a pair of these on,
he'd have poked her eye out!
I think I could tell what they do
better, Josh, if you'd dance for me.
LAUGHTER
APPLAUSE
- Never got that reaction before!
- Yeah.
I wish I'd brought more Edam.
Is that a kind of ecstasy cheese?
Oh, there's a thing the drug dealers
haven't thought of...
- Ecstasy cheese!
- ..psychotropic cheeses!
- ALAN: Edam.
- Edam.
Jo, it's your turn.
Oh, you've got a bonnet.
Lovely bonnet.
Oh, and something hanging from it,
there you are.
LAUGHTER
How cool is THAT?
That's great, isn't it?
You are Mrs Norris
in Mansfield Park.
It's a Jane Austen moment.
"Holmes, I never realised
it was you!"
I can't see a bloody thing
through it, though.
What am I supposed to be able to see?
I honestly think you look
absolutely gorgeous.
If there had been...
If there had been a character from
Mansfield Park in Colditz, she...
"So...
"So, you vish to escape
from mein prison camp.
"Not before we have done
a little embroidery, no?"
LAUGHTER
I think it's more sort
of Dickensian, isn't it?
Like Mrs Gamp,
the elderly prostitute.
"I say, sir, let me see your penis."
Now, this is what
these goggles were for!
She's got the idea, that one!
These are definitely Dutch.
- I'm going to have to... - "Even with
my monocle, it's awfully small."
Oh!
You know how to make a man feel
very, very unhappy.
SHE MOUTHS
Enough, enough. I have... I have the
most delicate from this museum...
It's a fan. It's an eventail.
Beautiful fan,
for fanning yourself, obviously,
but it has a secret lens
in the middle,
so I can see what you're doing.
So it allows people who apparently
are fanning themselves
and not taking any notice
of anyone else
to have a very...
- I'm not going to lie to you... - Yeah.
There is a slight different
technique when you start looking at
me to when you're fanning yourself.
- STEPHEN LAUGHS
- Mm!
God, you're really fanning yourself
very slowly there, Stephen.
Rrrreow!
- Yeah...
- I think I'm putting these back on.
- Yes, and they were very popular.
- I've just actually...
A friend of mine.... Cos, like,
opera glasses always seem really
- old-fashioned, don't they?
- Aren't they? Mm.
And he was at the theatre
with his elderly aunt,
she'd never seen them before,
and she said, "How do these work?"
He said,
"You just put your money in
"and then you can see what's going
on onstage," and she went,
"Can't see a thing!"
LAUGHTER
Oh, that's very sweet.
So, good, excellent.
Name something this lizard is doing
as well as running.
ORGAN MUSIC PLAYS
Yes, Josh?
Is he worrying
what's wrong with his legs?
He might be.
I don't think lizards ever worry.
He looks quite cheerful.
- What might he be doing, what do all
animals do, virtually? - Hunting?
- Hunting, yeah. - Sniffing.
- Sniffing, what does that involve?
- Breathing. - Well, uses its tongue.
- What do you mean,
what does it involve? - Breathing?
- Breathing, Josh said.
- KLAXON SOUNDS
Oh! Sorry. I was cruel, I pushed you
on that. He's not breathing.
That's the strange thing
about lizards,
they have to twist their bodies
so much
that it compresses their lungs
and they can't breathe.
So, they do a bit of a run
and then they stop, as we'll see.
He's running, running, running,
not breathing at all,
and then he thinks,
"Oh, blimey, I need some oxygen!"
- He'll stop.
- STEPHEN PANTS
It's only when he's straight,
only when he's heteros...
No, only when he's straight...
that he can...
That's just silly, makes no sense.
- ..that he can breathe. - You were like
the Oxbridge Johnny Morris, then.
"He's running along, baaa, oh, no."
But we have an example. The fastest
humans on Earth run which race?
- 100 metres. - The 100 metres, and it's
said that some 100-metres sprinters
don't breathe throughout the race.
I mean, they obviously take gulps
in, oxygenate themselves,
get all ready, like that,
and then they're running and...
And you see them
in slow motion, going...
And then lower down,
"Phedabida, phedabida, phedabida."
And, um...
LAUGHTER
- Is that the noise it makes?
- That's the noise it makes. - Wow.
When it reaches 20mph,
that's the noise it starts to make.
Wow!
Yeah, exactly.
"Phedabida!"
♪ Doo doo, do-do-do. ♪
LAUGHTER
I happen to have a friend
who was a judge
- in the Linford Christie lunch box
case... - Lookalike competition!
- No, lunch box case.
- Oh. - Who's that?
I can't remember what it was about,
but there was this issue of
his lunch box came up,
Linford Christie's lunch box,
and the judge said,
"What exactly IS a lunch box?"
And I teased him about it,
and he said,
"No, no, I want you to understand
I knew exactly what it meant,
"but I have to ask
on behalf of the jury,"
that's why judges
are always quoted as saying,
"And so what is a muppet precisely?
"Are you saying he was
a member of the Beatles?
"Are you saying he was a ladybird,
or some sort of...?"
No, it's... But, yeah.
- I've got a thing. Has anyone
else got... - Have you, darling?
- LAUGHTER
- And it goes "phedabida".
LAUGHTER
- I can't walk and drink
at the same time. - Ah.
I really struggle with it.
- Is that normal? - No, I think it is.
Who wants to throw in their...
Well, I think you'd have
to go slowly,
because the motion creates a wave
- that will slop over the side
of the glass. It's just... - Exactly.
..physics.
LAUGHTER
Yeah, the ability to do
two things at once.
We can ask the audience
and we can ask you,
it's easier for the audience
cos of the way they're sitting down.
All you have to do is
revolve your right foot clockwise.
That's easy, isn't it? And then,
with your right hand, make a six.
Is your foot suddenly going...?
- Oh, wow! That's weird! - Oh, I don't
like that. - Isn't that extraordinary!
What was it? What foot? Right foot.
That's weird.
- Right foot clockwise. - Yeah.
- And then do a six.
- You have to think about it.
- You really do, don't you? - Oh! Oh!
That was instant!
You really have to think about it
to the point where you nearly
break your foot off.
You forget what's clockwise.
And you start going up
and down and not...
Argh, argh, no!
- I'm absolutely fighting it!
- You're in agony.
But I couldn't do the six, I couldn't
finish the six. I just did a C.
Yes. Exactly. It's a bitch,
isn't it? It's really fascinating.
Oh, I'm going to remember that one.
People say, "What do you remember
from QI?" And I remember nothing!
- Even if you watch your foot. - Yeah.
I mean, this isn't great television,
what I'm doing at this moment.
You can raise your foot, put your
foot on the desk if you want.
Right, so...
- glad I wore my natty socks today.
- Yeah, they've very natty.
Argh!
It is fascinating, isn't it?
I can't even remember what
a six looks like!
LAUGHTER
Oh, little Alan, I'm so sorry!
I won't able to walk,
I'll be going...
"Aah, help me-e-e-e!"
Just tracks on the pavement.
- Well, you're absolutely right.
- Like a Dalek on the stairs.
Did you find that when you were
filming Jonathan Creek or something
that sometimes you suddenly
kind of forget how to walk?
Because the camera's on you and...
"Oh, do I? How... Oh!"
- Do you ever get that or...? - (No.)
- No. Oh, well...
- LAUGHTER
- Damn you! - Sorry!
All right.
Lizards can't breathe and walk
at the same time
and our audience are even worse.
Lizards have four legs,
but what's got eight legs,
sits in the middle
of a spider's web,
but is NOT a spider?
ORGAN MUSIC PLAYS
- Jo Brand? - One and a half flies.
LAUGHTER
- And the half a fly has lost a leg.
- Wouldn't that be nine legs?
No, and the half has lost a leg,
that's been eaten.
- In theory, that is right.
- If... Yes, why...
Don't you hate it
when you try and help a spider
and it resists you,
and then one of its legs comes off.
- Don't you hate that?
- That is so annoying!
Just get on the paper! And
daddy-longlegs, they're even worse.
- Yeah, they are. - You'd think
the spider could do the six
and the clockwise with its two legs.
It probably can, EASILY.
Yeah, it's laughing up its sleeve
at us.
If they have sleeves, eight sleeves,
it's laughing up its eight sleeves.
This does seem very bizarre.
It sits in the middle of a web,
has eight legs,
looks exactly like a spider,
but it isn't a spider.
Is it an unlucky octopus?
- A beached octopus.
- A beached octopus!
- Well, given... - Is it some sort of
predator that wants to eat spiders?
- Is it one of those?
- Actually, it's the reverse.
It's a spider that wants
to DETER predators,
so it creates a fake spider.
- Shut up! - There.
That's made of its dead skin,
it's made of leaf mould. It's made
of all kinds of bits and pieces.
There you can see the sort of body,
you only see four of the legs there,
it's already making a woman
in the audience wet herself.
LAUGHTER
- Did someone just make that?
- A spider did.
- Oh, is that real? - Spiders make them.
That's the point, they make them.
- Is that to scale? - Well, it's...
Almost, in the sense that it's five
times bigger than the actual spider.
So, the spider is quite small
and it makes this enormous spider,
and sometimes,
it lives in a pouch in the abdomen,
and no-one's quite sure why. They
think it may be to deter predators,
because it looks too big,
or it may be to suggest
to other spiders
that you can't steal this web,
- because it's occupied. - It's like
a scarecrow, really, isn't it?
Basically, yeah.
Or turning your lights on
in your house to put burglars off.
- It may just be a hobby. - Yes.
LAUGHTER
When your life is sitting in the
corner of a shed eating flies...
- You need a hobby. - You've got to
have something, haven't you?
It is in the middle
of the Peruvian jungle,
where there are not so many sheds.
They don't even eat them, do they?
They drink them. They what?
Because they wrap them up
in their silky web
and then the prey dissolves
into a fluid
and then they suck it
when it's a liquid thing.
- "Hmm, that's good eatin'."
Yeah, isn't it? - Yeah.
The amazing thing is,
and this is really extraordinary,
is that another species of spider
altogether,
as far away as you can
virtually get on the planet,
11,000 or so miles away,
across from Peru in the Philippines,
does almost exactly the same thing
and nobody knows
if that's convergent evolution
or whether it's...
It'd be a weird raft
that managed to get all the way
across that amount of water.
- It's just God, Stephen,
it's just God. - Just God.
LAUGHTER
I overlooked that possibility.
- Mysterious ways, mysterious ways.
- Very mysterious ways.
So, that's the Peruvian spider
that makes huge models of itself.
Are those spiders to scale?
LAUGHTER
Because, I'm telling you now,
Japan are going to be all over that.
IN JAPANESE ACCENT:
"Oh, no! Giant spider, no!"
I quite like this map behind Alan,
because it looks like...
"And now the spider forecast
with Alan Davies.
"South America, large, red."
It's like when you're on a plane
and they have the map
with the little plane,
if you turned it on and it was that,
you'd shit yourself.
It always has such random cities
on it as well, doesn't it?
- It doesn't have like Paris, Rome,
Venice. - Yeah, King's Lynn!
- LAUGHTER
- Yeah, exactly, it's very strange.
I never quite understood that.
Very peculiar.
Anyway! Peruvian spiders make huge
models of themselves
and put them in
the middle of their webs.
Speaking of things
with lots of legs,
why can I never seem to catch
the perfect centipede?
ORGAN MUSIC PLAYS
- Yes, Jo? - Is it cos you're too pissed
all the time?
LAUGHTER
- Why, thank you for that(!)
- Just a guess.
A lucky guess!
Cos they don't have 100 legs.
- They don't have 100 legs. - No.
- Well remembered! - They don't.
We had it on this show.
- We did.
- LAUGHTER
But it was a long time ago.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
You're absolutely right,
but that's not the reason
one won't catch a perfect one
cos you could have a perfect one
that had...98 legs
because what would 98 legs mean?
That it had how many pairs of legs?
- 49. - 49.
49.
But why can't it have 100?
That'd be 50 pairs...
- No reason. - There is a reason. - Does it
have to have an odd number of pairs?
Yes, an odd number of pairs.
For some reason, all centipedes
have an odd number of pairs of legs
but that's not the reason
I can never catch a perfect one,
cos a perfect centipede would have,
say, 102 legs.
The legs are amazing.
- Astounding.
- They go in a kind of wave.
Yes, they do. It's not...
Not at the moment cos it's climbing,
but when it starts walking,
they go in a wave. Ooh!
- LAUGHTER
- Yeah. - That's only got about...
- If only they were massive,
I wish they were massive and they
went down the - high street. Oh, don't!
No, but nice and benign
and friendly - "Hello, morning!"
Like if all vicars
were centipedes or something.
- It's just a fact of life,
everyone just accept it. - Yeah.
Anyway, moving on...
If I caught a 102-footed centipede
that would be a perfect centipede,
but I'm talking about
why I can't catch a perfect one.
They're elusive.
They are elusive, but that would be
not being able to catch one.
Is it cos nobody's perfect?
LAUGHTER
That's a lovely point. No, it's
really because if you chase them
- and you start to try and catch
them... - Their legs fall off.
- They jettison legs.
- They throw them at you.
- Well, they kind of do.
- LAUGHTER
That's basically what they do!
Exactly!
LAUGHTER
They do! You've got it.
That's what they do.
APPLAUSE
In order to distract a predator,
they jettison their legs.
So, it stops, the predator will go,
"Ooh, I'll have an eat of that leg,"
and meanwhile, they're haring off.
- God's weird, isn't he?
- He really is. A strange fellow.
Very strange fellow.
And there are lizards that use
a similar technique in Pakistan,
the leopard gecko has a tail
that it can shed,
which will keep moving for really
quite a considerable time
after it's been discarded, about...
- Keep moving, you say? - Yep.
Yeah, that's one hot gecko.
It's called autotomy.
It is self-amputation, if you like,
but it literally will drop its tail
and the tail will wiggle
for half an hour after it's been
separated from the parent body,
which is...
As you say, God is amazing.
Yeah, so there you go. Autotomy.
And speaking of abandoned
body parts,
which body part beginning with L
did Queen Victoria leave
with the Empress of France?
There's Queen Victoria,
and there's the...
- I was going to say labia and that
would be just awful. - I know.
What were you going to say?
- KLAXON SOUNDS
- Oh!
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
Oh, dear, dear, dear, dear, dear.
- We're off! - Is it her little finger?
- Liver, larynx. - Is it a lock of hair?
- Lock of hair is the right answer!
- CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
- Brilliant!
But she virtually invented
this sort of
Victorian sentimental obsession
with locks of hair.
When her husband died, she kept lots
of Albert's hair, but she gave...
- They've taken the photo away,
but really... - I know.
..she looks so pissed off
that her crown doesn't fit her.
- It just looks like a complete...
- Shall we go back? - Yes, can we?
..comedy crown!
"No, honestly, it's absolutely
meant to be this size."
"It doesn't fit me!" "Yes, yes,
honestly, it's exactly as intended."
"It's for a child!" "No, no, no..."
- The Empress is going,
"My bonnet's perfect." - It is.
It's rather like Jo's bonnet.
It was, your monocle bonnet.
Yeah, exactly. Aw, you could be
the Empress of France.
Double vision. Yes. Do you think
I could be the Empress of France?
- Easily. - "Let them eat cake!"
So, let's cut to what she gave.
It was a bracelet
made of her own hair.
It's an astonishing gift.
But this was what Victorians
were obsessed with.
Knitting, braiding, plaiting,
making things out of hair.
Artists powdered hair down. Do you
remember those things, as a child,
when you would put glue, like Pritt,
the non-sticky sticky stuff on it,
and then you would sprinkle glitter?
Do you remember that?
- Copydex. - Or Copydex you could use,
which smelt slightly chlorinous
- and was a wonderfully... - Semen.
LAUGHTER
- Not angry.
- BOTH: Disappointed.
LAUGHTER
Dear me. Oh, well.
Yeah. That's what artists would do,
they would put glue on and then
they'd sprinkle the powdered hair.
So, hair was a big kind of deal.
Lord Byron was considered the most
handsome and extraordinary figure.
There you can see
a little locket hanging...
Although it's beautifully made
as a braid
and with gold, as you can see,
and that could be made to fit
into a waistcoat or something,
for a man's...
"Here you go, Lady Casterby,
"this watch chain
is made of my pubes.
"Ha-ha! And now a poem!"
LAUGHTER
Well, Lord Byron didn't necessarily
give his own hair away,
it's that he was so handsome
and so adored that...
- LAUGHTER
- That's a painting!
But what was wrong with his hands?
It was generally agreed by all
who met and knew him,
he was a hugely charming man.
According to his own diaries anyway.
"Lady Tappleton..."
No, no, he had...
Letters were written to him,
women sent him
locks of their own hair.
So he used locks of
his Newfoundland dog,
which he sent back to the women,
which they didn't notice,
they thought it was Byron's hair.
"Lady Suffolk,
"I apologise for giving you mange
with my latest gift.
"But meanwhile, I shall come round
to your house and I shall rotate
"my right foot and draw a six
in the air. Ha-ha! Poem?"
There's a good reason why that might
have been difficult for Lord Byron.
- Oh, of course, yes, yes.
- He had a dodgy foot.
Despite that, he managed to achieve
a great athletic feat.
- He swam. - He swam the...? - Hellespont.
- Straits of somewhere.
- The Hellespont!
You know these things,
you pretend to be an ignorant pig.
- LAUGHTER
- I only went...
- I mean, sorry! You pretend...
- An ignorant what?
No, I meant to say
you pretend to be pig-ignorant!
- LAUGHTER
- And it came out wrong!
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
Know what I'm going to do with you?
I'm going to make you
run across a field
and I'm going to pull
all your legs and arms off...
I don't want to lower the tone,
but didn't Lady Caroline Lamb
- pull out handfuls of her pubic hair
and send them to Byron? - Yes.
And she was responsible for the most
famous description of him.
- Yes.
- "Mad, bad and dangerous to know."
"Dangerous to have tea with."
Fabulous woman. There was a movie
about her, I think Sarah Miles...
- Yeah.
- JO: Oh, that's right.
Yeah. Yeah, Sarah Miles,
she used to drink her own pee.
- Yes, she was a urinobibe. - Yep.
As was the Prime Minister of India,
Morarji Desai,
who became prime minister
at the age of 80.
And he drank his pee every day.
Anyway, the Empress Eugenie,
her name was,
and she was the wife
of Napoleon III.
There's Eugenie.
She had a fantastic real name -
Dona Maria Eugenia Ignacia Augustina
de Palafox-Portocarrero
de Guzman y Kirkpatrick.
- That was her name. - Kirkpatrick.
Yeah.
- APPLAUSE
- Thank you. - Crikey.
But what was very pleasing
is that she was known as "Carrots".
Because that was her nickname
at school in Bristol,
where she lived,
and she died in Britain as well.
I had no idea
that we had a hipster Napoleon.
- Yeah, he was a hipster, yeah.
- Check him out.
- Yeah, he's pretty good. - "Er,
can I have a flat white, please?"
LAUGHTER
"No, the jacket, I got it in this
vintage place, it's great."
Yes. Queen Victoria
gave the Empress of France
a bracelet made of her own hair.
We move now to a less lovely L -
why would you put a leech
on a leash?
Is it a medicinal leech?
- It's a medicinal leech. - OK.
So, basically, there are
various places you could put it.
Where might you want a leech to go?
No, no!
They've been used for medicinal
purposes for centuries.
- They use them in the NHS today,
don't they? - Yes, they absolutely do.
- Do they? - Yeah.
- You put them on a wound, don't you,
and they eat bits that are infected
or... No, that's the maggots.
You put maggots on a wound,
and they eat the dead flesh.
Leeches actually...
- Have I travelled back in time? - No.
LAUGHTER
Those migraine headaches are
caused by a demon living in your...
HE IS DROWNED OUT BY LAUGHTER
If you have a member reattached -
a finger or some other member -
it's kept in ice
and then it's sewn back on,
and it has
a very good prognosis,
but you can attach leeches
and what it does is
it actually helps the capillaries
join together and thrive.
So, it's like a kind of
biologically-active cauterising?
Yes, yeah,
it's really extraordinary.
- Oh, I don't care, I don't want it.
- Does it hurt?
- It doesn't really hurt much, no.
- How do you know?
Well, I'm told it doesn't hurt.
I don't know, you and your
public school ways, and...
- "Fry, time for a leeching!"
- Yeah, it doesn't...
"Scrotum."
"Yes, sir?"
"Get Fry."
It doesn't hurt as much as double...
"It's time for his leeching."
"What do you want, Scrotum?"
"It's time for your leeching, Fry."
It doesn't hurt as much as
Dr Staveley slamming your dick
in the desk, I admit.
It's... Look, I love to shock you,
it's sweet.
Do you remember John Wayne Bobbitt?
- Oh! - Oh, yeah. - John Wayne Bobbitt.
Yeah, he went to Winchester...
No, no, of course I remember Bobbitt
who severed his wife...
His wife severed his...
Yeah, she cut his penis off
and then threw it out the window
- of a moving car, so it took
some finding. - They took him...
They sewed it back on,
then he made some money
out of porn films, weirdly!
Yeah, he must have been
rather impressed that a penis
that took some finding was found.
He must have thought, "Yes!"
Let's hope they found the right one,
that would have been a disaster!
- LAUGHTER
- Stop it.
Yeah.
I can imagine him at the line-up.
"Can I see number three again?"
You're too used to that programme,
that's just sick.
Yep, they were often popped up
on a leash, up the bottom,
to deal with intestinal problems.
- Oh, up the inside?
- Yep, or down the throat
to deal with bronchial problems.
- Ooh. - Yeah, exactly.
I know, or you could actually
use them on the scrotum
for strained testicles. Have you
ever had strained testicles?
- I'd rather have leeches on my balls.
- JOSH: What, as a pudding?
Hang on!
- One doctor wrote... - Yeah,
strained testicles and custard.
That's what prunes are.
That's prunes.
Yeah, and as I say, these days
they're used to encourage
capillary growth
on severed members.
Doctors USED to put leeches
on leashes
to send them up patients' bottoms.
Now, what did Georgian gentlemen
keep in the sideboard
for after dinner?
Small Georgian ladies.
- After Eights. - After Eights!
LAUGHTER
Porn.
After 1713, it would be.
Porn.
Well, actually, it was something
that disgusted a French observer
and he wrote about it in a letter.
So, you've got a chance here
for serious points.
Ah, Alan, quickly!
Shut up, he's done it before me!
JAUNTY JINGLE, FLUSHING
Oh, there we are, two of you,
three of you.
You all get the points
except Jo, I'm afraid.
The fact is, it was chamber pots.
It was Rochefoucauld,
not the famous Rochefoucauld,
but another Rochefoucauld,
Francois de la Rochefoucauld,
who wrote in his diary
"The sideboard..."
This was in Suffolk, in 1784,
"The sideboard is garnished also
with chamber pots in line
"with the common practice of going
over to the sideboard to pee,
"while the others are drinking.
"Nothing is hidden.
I find that very indecent."
Chamber pots lasted well
into the 20th century,
because there were many households
that weren't on mains supplies.
- Many of them...
- They didn't have a WC.
Exactly, they had outdoor loos
and they popped a chamber pot
under the bed.
And chamber pots were,
I won't say exactly witty,
but they had things written on them
which were quite surprising, really,
thinking of a previous age
where you imagine people were rather
more prudish. Look at these.
"Use me well and keep me clean.
"And I'll not tell
what I have seen."
So, you pooed onto an eye.
Or you peed onto an eye.
And there were some during
the Second World War that had
a picture of Hitler,
so you could poo on Hitler's face.
Which is pleasing in a way.
That's your chamber pot.
Now, it's time to dip the crouton
of confidence
into the all-melting fondue
of General Ignorance.
What kind of wine goes best
with a human liver?
Oh! A Chianti.
- Whoa!
- KLAXON SOUNDS
That's what Hannibal Lecter says.
- That's what he says in...
- In Silence Of The Lambs.
- "I'll have some fava beans and a fine
Chianti." - What are fava beans to...?
- Little white beans, aren't they?
- To reclaim your...
- What would we call them in England?
- Butter beans? Broad beans?
Broad beans, yeah, you get a few
points back from the massive deficit
that you've already...
Um, yeah, it's in the novel. Who
wrote the novels involved with...?
- Thomas Harris.
- Thomas Harris is right.
He, being rather sort of smart and
giving Hannibal Lecter good taste,
knew that something fatty
and greasy like a liver is not
complemented well by a Chianti.
He knew that it was best accompanied
by something
a little more full-bodied.
Something like, for instance,
an Amarone,
which is what is in the novel.
Which is a sort
of Valpolicella-type wine,
- and that is...
- Why did they change it, Stephen?
Because they felt most people
hadn't heard of an Amarone
and they might think it was
some sort of biscuit or something.
They're quite correct.
It sounds like an amaretto.
- It is like an amaretto, exactly.
- What, Hollywood
dumbing something down?
- Yeah, I know, it's hard to believe,
isn't it? - What the F?!
"White wine with meat? Eurgh!"
But why would it have been
a rather disastrous decision to eat
- a human liver anyway? - Toxic?
- Yes, they are toxic.
- Do you know what the toxin is?
- No. - Is it vitamin something? - Yes.
- Vitamin E?
- Actually, A. - A.
A lot of vitamins can't be stored.
As you know, vitamin C,
you pee out the residue,
so the idea of taking these
5,000 milligrams a day is just...
- That's why you have
bright yellow wee. - Exactly.
You're giving the rats the vitamin C.
You're giving the rats the vitamins,
precisely!
They grow more and more immune
and stronger daily!
"Why, they'll be as powerful
as the Prime Minister of India!"
"I'm recycling!"
But, yeah, the liver,
it stores vitamin A,
which in excess
can be quite dangerous.
Helps you see at night, though.
Livers can regenerate themselves,
did you know that?
- Like Doctor Who.
- Like Doctor Who, yeah.
There's the liver drawn by...
- Da Vinci. - Yeah, Leonardo,
and you can see there his famous
mirror writing, which is...
I know the drawings
are amazing enough, but as a boy,
I tried using a mirror to write
mirror writing, it's just...
I mean, you think drawing a six
with your hand and doing a...
Why did he do that?
No-one's quite sure why he wanted it
to be secret, but he did.
- For Dan Brown! - Yes!
- LAUGHTER
- For the one who was... - Whoooo!
Whoooo!
"There's secrets in the Vatican,
Josh. Let's go and find them."
I'm genuinely uncomfortable
in this situation.
If you use those goggles
you can see the map.
PHILL GASPS
No?!
The amazing thing,
the magical thing about livers is
if you take a small liver
from a small dog,
and you transplant it into a large
dog, the small liver will grow to
the size it would have been in the
bigger dog, which is extraordinary.
- (Shut up!) - Wow.
Yes.
You see, I often run out of things
to do with the children at weekends.
- Now you know.
- We're going to try that. Yeah.
Now, also you know
a fantastic slang word
and it's a liver-disturber, and it's
American 19th-century slang for?
- An alcoholic? - No.
A huge dong.
- A huge dong? - Yeah, a liver-disturber!
ALL GROAN
- Oh! - Oh! We think... Exactly!
We think WE'RE sick?!
These are Victorian Americans!
"I got a tonsil-troubler!"
LAUGHTER
Have you heard the prank call...
A guy phones up the pizza place
and he goes, "Do you deliver?"
- Oh, no!
- And he says, "Yes, we deliver."
And he goes, "All right, I'll have
liver, cheese, onion, olives..."
"We don't have any liver."
"Do you DELIVER?"
"Yes, we deliver."
"Right, I'll have liver..."
- And it goes on... - Oh, that is...
It's very likely on the interweb.
It's very funny.
Excellent, I'll look it up.
Now, who sat in the middle
at the Last Supper?
- SPANISH ACCENT: Jesus.
- Jesus?
Oh...
KLAXON SOUNDS
No matter how you pronounce it,
it wasn't he.
JOSH: Judas.
Nor was it Judas, the traitor.
- Peter. - No-one.
Nor was it Peter.
No-one is the right answer.
- No-one's in the middle. - No, it's not
that no-one was in the middle...
it's that no-one sat.
- Oh, shut up, they're all standing!
- Yeah!
- LAUGHTER
- No, they're not standing.
FUNNY ACCENT: Shut up! You shut up!
LAUGHTER
- I don't shut up, you shut up!
- LAUGHTER
You don't tell me to shut up!
No, the...
Stop, stop it now!
Just stop it now!
The thing is, in Palestine,
which was a Roman province,
they ate like Romans. They lay
on their stomachs like Romans.
That can't be good for digestion,
can it?
No, you'd think not,
but we know that's the way they ate,
more or less, because in the Bible,
"Now there was one
leaning on Jesus' bosom,
"one of his disciples
whom Jesus loved."
And that, you know, you kind of see
how that would have worked.
That's how they lay to eat.
Rather pleasing.
- Very odd, though. - A bit odd, to us,
cos we don't do that.
Even in a picnic, you wouldn't want
to be lying on your front.
I agree. I don't like it.
I can't even, you know,
a hot chocolate in bed
I have to sit up
in order to swallow it.
LAUGHTER
There's nothing...
There is nothing about that
that is anything other
than straightforward!
We were just immediately thinking
of the man who sang
Brother Louie in the '70s,
that's all we were thinking.
- # I believe in...
- # I believe in miracles
♪ You sexy thing... ♪
I'll have to sit up now!
LAUGHTER
Oh, lordy, lordy, bless.
Now, nobody sat anywhere at the Last
Supper, everyone was lying down.
Well, now, who's in charge
of all the ants?
Adam.
LAUGHTER
- KLAXON SOUNDS
- Very good, but...
No!
- Yeah. We were there before you,
I'm afraid. - Is it a queen?
A queen ant, of course, that's going
to get a klaxon as well.
- KLAXON SOUNDS
- Oh.
Is it something like the weather
or the climate or something?
- The weather probably
is as good an answer as any.
- And they don't control themselves.
The fact is,
they are a self-organising colony.
There is no leader.
But there's the queen.
All the queen does
is lay thousands and thousands
and thousands of eggs in her life
and then dies of exhaustion.
And the ants
just get on with being ants
and there are just signals sent
between each one
that somehow sort of ripple outwards
into what appears to be
organisation.
But it's a bit like
flocks of starlings
or shoals of mackerel that
have this incredible sort of...
You think, "What's
the intelligence behind this?"
It's like the Tartan Army.
LAUGHTER
No-one knows how they do it,
but they do it.
They somehow do it. Exactly.
The way, at a football match,
a chant will grow
and then suddenly die.
You think, "That's... Who's
organising that?" and no-one is.
It's just a sort of feature
of large groups.
It's very odd.
And that's true of ants,
who are, you know, and termites.
- They love football, don't they?
- They love football. They do indeed.
- North ants, in particular.
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
It seems there's no-one in charge
of the ants,
but there is someone in charge
of the scores, and that's me or I.
And it's very interesting,
because in first place,
with a positive integer, one point,
Phill Jupitus!
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
On minus six, in second place,
Jo Brand!
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
Highly respectable -
for him, it's a triumph -
on minus 26, Alan Davies!
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
So, now, looky here,
on minus 30, Josh Widdicombe!
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
And so it's thanks and good night
from Josh, Phill, Jo, Alan and me.
And we leave you
with some last words.
The last words of American murderer
James Allen Red Dog,
executed in 1993.
"I'd like to thank my family
and friends and Mr Pankowski
"for supporting me and all the
others who treated me with kindness.
"For the rest of you,
y'all can kiss my ass." Good night.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
Good evening, buona sera, bon soir,
good evening, good evening,
good evening
and welcome to QI, where tonight
we are looking at lungs,
livers and other bits
beginning with L.
Joining me are the luscious legs
of Jo Brand.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
The lustrous locks of Phill Jupitus.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
The lovely larynx
of Josh Widdicombe.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
And the lily-livered Alan Davies.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
So, let's examine your organs.
Jo goes...
FIRST FEW BARS OF
TOCCATA AND FUGUE BY BACH
Phill goes...
NEXT FEW BARS OF
TOCCATA AND FUGUE BY BACH
Josh goes...
NEXT FEW BARS OF TOCCATA
AND FUGUE BY BACH
And Alan goes....
LA CUCARACHA PLAYS ON ELECTRIC ORGAN
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
Anyway, in this L series,
we have a special bonus,
which is if there's a lavatorial
question, it's a Spend A Penny.
- There you go.
- JAUNTY JINGLE, FLUSHING
Because L is for lavatory,
there may be a question which
involves something lavatorial.
If you think you've spotted
the question, wave your penny.
So, let's have a look
at question one.
What was the problem with
the first ever contact lenses?
- ORGAN MUSIC PLAYS
- Jo Brand?
Were they made of hydrochloric acid?
- LAUGHTER
- That would have been
- a serious problem.
I presume they were massive and heavy
and awkward and difficult?
They were very awkward,
massive and difficult.
I'll give you 20 years either way to
say what year they first appeared.
- ALAN AND JOSH: 1920.
- Oh, that's weird.
Whoa!
- Scary. - That was odd!
No, it's not that. 1880, actually.
It was in Germany, where they
grind lenses extremely well.
And there was one pioneer
called August Muller,
who could only wear them
for half an hour,
and then only after he had used
cocaine on his eyes to numb them
cos they were very, very painful.
- Best excuse ever! - Yeah.
"Oh, my eyes, they're so..."
- "Mein augen!" Yeah. - "Ooooh...."
LAUGHTER
"Oh, my eyesight is
so irritable and keen!"
"My eyes are talking nonsense!"
They used to saw off
the bottom of test tubes
and then grind them smooth
and put them in.
They were used not for
vision correction.
Originally, they were concealing
eye damage and things like that,
to protect sensitive eyes.
And then...
Was the eye damage
caused by the contact lenses?
Well, you'd think! But then
they got more sophisticated with it.
By the 1920s and '30s in America
they were quite popular,
but only with
incredibly rich people.
- That's quite a big one, there.
- That is big.
LAUGHTER
In the '20s and '30s they cost
more than a car, one set.
So, it was only very rich daddies
who would let...
Because their daughters
didn't want to wear glasses.
And if you watch Hollywood movies
of the '30s and '40s,
you will see that no actress
wears glasses,
except an actress who is playing
a part that is basically
a librarian, a dowd, a frump...
I'm not looking at you
when I'm saying that!
LAUGHTER
APPLAUSE
IN AMERICAN ACCENT: "Why,
Miss Quimby, you're beautiful!"
Anyway, we have borrowed
some objects
from the world-famous
British Optical Association Museum.
And you each have,
and I'm going to start with Phill,
you have an optical object
and I'd like you to tell me
what you think it might be.
Oh. Right.
- Well, it's got a lovely
leather surround. - Yes.
- Right, so why would you want
to see things this red? - Yeah.
Was it for nascent superhero
Communist Man?
LAUGHTER
Are they literally rose-tinted
glasses? Are you feeling...?
"Ah, the '80s! The Style Council!"
LAUGHTER
"The Guardian
with a decent header font. Oh!"
LAUGHTER
"Araucaria, his crosswords
were easy, then. Oh!"
- Pump up the volume...
- "Billy Bragg! Billy Bragg!"
- As you can see, they look like
flying goggles. - Yeah, yeah.
And that's what they are,
but they're not for flying.
- Then they're not flying goggles.
- JO: Driving.
- They are for... - Don't be picky,
he doesn't like that.
They are for pilots.
They're for night pilots.
- It's so they can acclimatise
their eyes for darkness. - Oh. - Oh!
So they go to the canteen
where the lady says...
- ALAN SPEAKS GERMAN
- .."Flying tonight, love?"
Cos if you're flying tonight,
you've got extra eggs and bacon
because the chances were
you wouldn't come back.
I would say that rather
they make everyone you bump into
- look like a Dutch prostitute.
- Yeah, there is an element of that.
Dance for me, Stephen! Dance for me.
Oh!
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
You made me!
All right.
You are a unique individual,
if you don't mind me saying.
Have a go.
Why can't I dance
without people laughing?!
- I don't understand!
- You bring joy, you're like...
I missed that lesson that everybody
else went to at school
where they were taught
how to dance at a discotheque.
LAUGHTER
Anyway, Alan,
what have you got that's optical?
- It looks like an ordinary
pair of glasses. - Yeah, it is.
And it has three...
Put them on
and describe what you see.
LAUGHTER
- You won't be surprised to hear that
my vision is somewhat obscured. - Yes.
LAUGHTER
- But look at the audience.
- They make three...
And what do I...? What can you see?
Can you see...?
They're kind of like binoculars,
where you can see...
- Can you see me doing anything? - No.
Are they not working, Alan?
Dance. Dance!
Whoa!
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
Are they meant to be
for peripheral vision?
- They were designed for drivers
who had... - Jesus!
LAUGHTER
Who had bad eyesight and it was
to improve their peripheral vision.
But it clearly doesn't work!
There'd be no chance of driving
in these!
You'd just be like that all the time!
LAUGHTER
Well, that's unfortunate.
Well... But thank you
for trying them and next up is Josh.
- What have you got? - They're very
fashionable, aren't they?
Yeah.
No, what you haven't done though...
PHILL: "I will take the red pill."
LAUGHTER
- What you haven't... - Oh, I see!
Yeah, you haven't...fully...
exploited their...
Exactly, what have you got there?
Corners.
- Now put them on. - Oh!
No, they're exactly the same...
If I were to tell you that these
are, despite their modern look,
they're actually WAY over
100 years old.
They're mid-19th century.
What do you think
they might help with?
- Um... - If I were to say one of the
great British love stories...
Oh!
- Wow. - Very good.
- They just keep getting...
- Yeah, the gift that keeps giving.
But one of the great
British love story movies.
Strangers On A Train... No.
- You're in the right area.
- Brief Encounter.
Brief Encounter.
How do they meet, Celia Johnson and
Trevor Howard in Brief Encounter?
- Train station? - It was... He...
- She leans out the window...
And pokes him in the eye.
She gets something in her eye?
She gets a smut in her eye,
he's a doctor,
he comes with a hanky...
The basic thing is...
From the open carriage days
of railways onwards,
because of steam, smuts, so on,
people got really stung in the eyes.
- And these were railway spectacles.
- I'm sorry, who's speaking now?
LAUGHTER
That makes no sense!
And yet it's funny.
So, if she'd had a pair of these,
that wouldn't have been
quite the film it was, would it?
It really wouldn't. It would've
lasted about ten minutes.
If he'd had a pair of these on,
he'd have poked her eye out!
I think I could tell what they do
better, Josh, if you'd dance for me.
LAUGHTER
APPLAUSE
- Never got that reaction before!
- Yeah.
I wish I'd brought more Edam.
Is that a kind of ecstasy cheese?
Oh, there's a thing the drug dealers
haven't thought of...
- Ecstasy cheese!
- ..psychotropic cheeses!
- ALAN: Edam.
- Edam.
Jo, it's your turn.
Oh, you've got a bonnet.
Lovely bonnet.
Oh, and something hanging from it,
there you are.
LAUGHTER
How cool is THAT?
That's great, isn't it?
You are Mrs Norris
in Mansfield Park.
It's a Jane Austen moment.
"Holmes, I never realised
it was you!"
I can't see a bloody thing
through it, though.
What am I supposed to be able to see?
I honestly think you look
absolutely gorgeous.
If there had been...
If there had been a character from
Mansfield Park in Colditz, she...
"So...
"So, you vish to escape
from mein prison camp.
"Not before we have done
a little embroidery, no?"
LAUGHTER
I think it's more sort
of Dickensian, isn't it?
Like Mrs Gamp,
the elderly prostitute.
"I say, sir, let me see your penis."
Now, this is what
these goggles were for!
She's got the idea, that one!
These are definitely Dutch.
- I'm going to have to... - "Even with
my monocle, it's awfully small."
Oh!
You know how to make a man feel
very, very unhappy.
SHE MOUTHS
Enough, enough. I have... I have the
most delicate from this museum...
It's a fan. It's an eventail.
Beautiful fan,
for fanning yourself, obviously,
but it has a secret lens
in the middle,
so I can see what you're doing.
So it allows people who apparently
are fanning themselves
and not taking any notice
of anyone else
to have a very...
- I'm not going to lie to you... - Yeah.
There is a slight different
technique when you start looking at
me to when you're fanning yourself.
- STEPHEN LAUGHS
- Mm!
God, you're really fanning yourself
very slowly there, Stephen.
Rrrreow!
- Yeah...
- I think I'm putting these back on.
- Yes, and they were very popular.
- I've just actually...
A friend of mine.... Cos, like,
opera glasses always seem really
- old-fashioned, don't they?
- Aren't they? Mm.
And he was at the theatre
with his elderly aunt,
she'd never seen them before,
and she said, "How do these work?"
He said,
"You just put your money in
"and then you can see what's going
on onstage," and she went,
"Can't see a thing!"
LAUGHTER
Oh, that's very sweet.
So, good, excellent.
Name something this lizard is doing
as well as running.
ORGAN MUSIC PLAYS
Yes, Josh?
Is he worrying
what's wrong with his legs?
He might be.
I don't think lizards ever worry.
He looks quite cheerful.
- What might he be doing, what do all
animals do, virtually? - Hunting?
- Hunting, yeah. - Sniffing.
- Sniffing, what does that involve?
- Breathing. - Well, uses its tongue.
- What do you mean,
what does it involve? - Breathing?
- Breathing, Josh said.
- KLAXON SOUNDS
Oh! Sorry. I was cruel, I pushed you
on that. He's not breathing.
That's the strange thing
about lizards,
they have to twist their bodies
so much
that it compresses their lungs
and they can't breathe.
So, they do a bit of a run
and then they stop, as we'll see.
He's running, running, running,
not breathing at all,
and then he thinks,
"Oh, blimey, I need some oxygen!"
- He'll stop.
- STEPHEN PANTS
It's only when he's straight,
only when he's heteros...
No, only when he's straight...
that he can...
That's just silly, makes no sense.
- ..that he can breathe. - You were like
the Oxbridge Johnny Morris, then.
"He's running along, baaa, oh, no."
But we have an example. The fastest
humans on Earth run which race?
- 100 metres. - The 100 metres, and it's
said that some 100-metres sprinters
don't breathe throughout the race.
I mean, they obviously take gulps
in, oxygenate themselves,
get all ready, like that,
and then they're running and...
And you see them
in slow motion, going...
And then lower down,
"Phedabida, phedabida, phedabida."
And, um...
LAUGHTER
- Is that the noise it makes?
- That's the noise it makes. - Wow.
When it reaches 20mph,
that's the noise it starts to make.
Wow!
Yeah, exactly.
"Phedabida!"
♪ Doo doo, do-do-do. ♪
LAUGHTER
I happen to have a friend
who was a judge
- in the Linford Christie lunch box
case... - Lookalike competition!
- No, lunch box case.
- Oh. - Who's that?
I can't remember what it was about,
but there was this issue of
his lunch box came up,
Linford Christie's lunch box,
and the judge said,
"What exactly IS a lunch box?"
And I teased him about it,
and he said,
"No, no, I want you to understand
I knew exactly what it meant,
"but I have to ask
on behalf of the jury,"
that's why judges
are always quoted as saying,
"And so what is a muppet precisely?
"Are you saying he was
a member of the Beatles?
"Are you saying he was a ladybird,
or some sort of...?"
No, it's... But, yeah.
- I've got a thing. Has anyone
else got... - Have you, darling?
- LAUGHTER
- And it goes "phedabida".
LAUGHTER
- I can't walk and drink
at the same time. - Ah.
I really struggle with it.
- Is that normal? - No, I think it is.
Who wants to throw in their...
Well, I think you'd have
to go slowly,
because the motion creates a wave
- that will slop over the side
of the glass. It's just... - Exactly.
..physics.
LAUGHTER
Yeah, the ability to do
two things at once.
We can ask the audience
and we can ask you,
it's easier for the audience
cos of the way they're sitting down.
All you have to do is
revolve your right foot clockwise.
That's easy, isn't it? And then,
with your right hand, make a six.
Is your foot suddenly going...?
- Oh, wow! That's weird! - Oh, I don't
like that. - Isn't that extraordinary!
What was it? What foot? Right foot.
That's weird.
- Right foot clockwise. - Yeah.
- And then do a six.
- You have to think about it.
- You really do, don't you? - Oh! Oh!
That was instant!
You really have to think about it
to the point where you nearly
break your foot off.
You forget what's clockwise.
And you start going up
and down and not...
Argh, argh, no!
- I'm absolutely fighting it!
- You're in agony.
But I couldn't do the six, I couldn't
finish the six. I just did a C.
Yes. Exactly. It's a bitch,
isn't it? It's really fascinating.
Oh, I'm going to remember that one.
People say, "What do you remember
from QI?" And I remember nothing!
- Even if you watch your foot. - Yeah.
I mean, this isn't great television,
what I'm doing at this moment.
You can raise your foot, put your
foot on the desk if you want.
Right, so...
- glad I wore my natty socks today.
- Yeah, they've very natty.
Argh!
It is fascinating, isn't it?
I can't even remember what
a six looks like!
LAUGHTER
Oh, little Alan, I'm so sorry!
I won't able to walk,
I'll be going...
"Aah, help me-e-e-e!"
Just tracks on the pavement.
- Well, you're absolutely right.
- Like a Dalek on the stairs.
Did you find that when you were
filming Jonathan Creek or something
that sometimes you suddenly
kind of forget how to walk?
Because the camera's on you and...
"Oh, do I? How... Oh!"
- Do you ever get that or...? - (No.)
- No. Oh, well...
- LAUGHTER
- Damn you! - Sorry!
All right.
Lizards can't breathe and walk
at the same time
and our audience are even worse.
Lizards have four legs,
but what's got eight legs,
sits in the middle
of a spider's web,
but is NOT a spider?
ORGAN MUSIC PLAYS
- Jo Brand? - One and a half flies.
LAUGHTER
- And the half a fly has lost a leg.
- Wouldn't that be nine legs?
No, and the half has lost a leg,
that's been eaten.
- In theory, that is right.
- If... Yes, why...
Don't you hate it
when you try and help a spider
and it resists you,
and then one of its legs comes off.
- Don't you hate that?
- That is so annoying!
Just get on the paper! And
daddy-longlegs, they're even worse.
- Yeah, they are. - You'd think
the spider could do the six
and the clockwise with its two legs.
It probably can, EASILY.
Yeah, it's laughing up its sleeve
at us.
If they have sleeves, eight sleeves,
it's laughing up its eight sleeves.
This does seem very bizarre.
It sits in the middle of a web,
has eight legs,
looks exactly like a spider,
but it isn't a spider.
Is it an unlucky octopus?
- A beached octopus.
- A beached octopus!
- Well, given... - Is it some sort of
predator that wants to eat spiders?
- Is it one of those?
- Actually, it's the reverse.
It's a spider that wants
to DETER predators,
so it creates a fake spider.
- Shut up! - There.
That's made of its dead skin,
it's made of leaf mould. It's made
of all kinds of bits and pieces.
There you can see the sort of body,
you only see four of the legs there,
it's already making a woman
in the audience wet herself.
LAUGHTER
- Did someone just make that?
- A spider did.
- Oh, is that real? - Spiders make them.
That's the point, they make them.
- Is that to scale? - Well, it's...
Almost, in the sense that it's five
times bigger than the actual spider.
So, the spider is quite small
and it makes this enormous spider,
and sometimes,
it lives in a pouch in the abdomen,
and no-one's quite sure why. They
think it may be to deter predators,
because it looks too big,
or it may be to suggest
to other spiders
that you can't steal this web,
- because it's occupied. - It's like
a scarecrow, really, isn't it?
Basically, yeah.
Or turning your lights on
in your house to put burglars off.
- It may just be a hobby. - Yes.
LAUGHTER
When your life is sitting in the
corner of a shed eating flies...
- You need a hobby. - You've got to
have something, haven't you?
It is in the middle
of the Peruvian jungle,
where there are not so many sheds.
They don't even eat them, do they?
They drink them. They what?
Because they wrap them up
in their silky web
and then the prey dissolves
into a fluid
and then they suck it
when it's a liquid thing.
- "Hmm, that's good eatin'."
Yeah, isn't it? - Yeah.
The amazing thing is,
and this is really extraordinary,
is that another species of spider
altogether,
as far away as you can
virtually get on the planet,
11,000 or so miles away,
across from Peru in the Philippines,
does almost exactly the same thing
and nobody knows
if that's convergent evolution
or whether it's...
It'd be a weird raft
that managed to get all the way
across that amount of water.
- It's just God, Stephen,
it's just God. - Just God.
LAUGHTER
I overlooked that possibility.
- Mysterious ways, mysterious ways.
- Very mysterious ways.
So, that's the Peruvian spider
that makes huge models of itself.
Are those spiders to scale?
LAUGHTER
Because, I'm telling you now,
Japan are going to be all over that.
IN JAPANESE ACCENT:
"Oh, no! Giant spider, no!"
I quite like this map behind Alan,
because it looks like...
"And now the spider forecast
with Alan Davies.
"South America, large, red."
It's like when you're on a plane
and they have the map
with the little plane,
if you turned it on and it was that,
you'd shit yourself.
It always has such random cities
on it as well, doesn't it?
- It doesn't have like Paris, Rome,
Venice. - Yeah, King's Lynn!
- LAUGHTER
- Yeah, exactly, it's very strange.
I never quite understood that.
Very peculiar.
Anyway! Peruvian spiders make huge
models of themselves
and put them in
the middle of their webs.
Speaking of things
with lots of legs,
why can I never seem to catch
the perfect centipede?
ORGAN MUSIC PLAYS
- Yes, Jo? - Is it cos you're too pissed
all the time?
LAUGHTER
- Why, thank you for that(!)
- Just a guess.
A lucky guess!
Cos they don't have 100 legs.
- They don't have 100 legs. - No.
- Well remembered! - They don't.
We had it on this show.
- We did.
- LAUGHTER
But it was a long time ago.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
You're absolutely right,
but that's not the reason
one won't catch a perfect one
cos you could have a perfect one
that had...98 legs
because what would 98 legs mean?
That it had how many pairs of legs?
- 49. - 49.
49.
But why can't it have 100?
That'd be 50 pairs...
- No reason. - There is a reason. - Does it
have to have an odd number of pairs?
Yes, an odd number of pairs.
For some reason, all centipedes
have an odd number of pairs of legs
but that's not the reason
I can never catch a perfect one,
cos a perfect centipede would have,
say, 102 legs.
The legs are amazing.
- Astounding.
- They go in a kind of wave.
Yes, they do. It's not...
Not at the moment cos it's climbing,
but when it starts walking,
they go in a wave. Ooh!
- LAUGHTER
- Yeah. - That's only got about...
- If only they were massive,
I wish they were massive and they
went down the - high street. Oh, don't!
No, but nice and benign
and friendly - "Hello, morning!"
Like if all vicars
were centipedes or something.
- It's just a fact of life,
everyone just accept it. - Yeah.
Anyway, moving on...
If I caught a 102-footed centipede
that would be a perfect centipede,
but I'm talking about
why I can't catch a perfect one.
They're elusive.
They are elusive, but that would be
not being able to catch one.
Is it cos nobody's perfect?
LAUGHTER
That's a lovely point. No, it's
really because if you chase them
- and you start to try and catch
them... - Their legs fall off.
- They jettison legs.
- They throw them at you.
- Well, they kind of do.
- LAUGHTER
That's basically what they do!
Exactly!
LAUGHTER
They do! You've got it.
That's what they do.
APPLAUSE
In order to distract a predator,
they jettison their legs.
So, it stops, the predator will go,
"Ooh, I'll have an eat of that leg,"
and meanwhile, they're haring off.
- God's weird, isn't he?
- He really is. A strange fellow.
Very strange fellow.
And there are lizards that use
a similar technique in Pakistan,
the leopard gecko has a tail
that it can shed,
which will keep moving for really
quite a considerable time
after it's been discarded, about...
- Keep moving, you say? - Yep.
Yeah, that's one hot gecko.
It's called autotomy.
It is self-amputation, if you like,
but it literally will drop its tail
and the tail will wiggle
for half an hour after it's been
separated from the parent body,
which is...
As you say, God is amazing.
Yeah, so there you go. Autotomy.
And speaking of abandoned
body parts,
which body part beginning with L
did Queen Victoria leave
with the Empress of France?
There's Queen Victoria,
and there's the...
- I was going to say labia and that
would be just awful. - I know.
What were you going to say?
- KLAXON SOUNDS
- Oh!
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
Oh, dear, dear, dear, dear, dear.
- We're off! - Is it her little finger?
- Liver, larynx. - Is it a lock of hair?
- Lock of hair is the right answer!
- CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
- Brilliant!
But she virtually invented
this sort of
Victorian sentimental obsession
with locks of hair.
When her husband died, she kept lots
of Albert's hair, but she gave...
- They've taken the photo away,
but really... - I know.
..she looks so pissed off
that her crown doesn't fit her.
- It just looks like a complete...
- Shall we go back? - Yes, can we?
..comedy crown!
"No, honestly, it's absolutely
meant to be this size."
"It doesn't fit me!" "Yes, yes,
honestly, it's exactly as intended."
"It's for a child!" "No, no, no..."
- The Empress is going,
"My bonnet's perfect." - It is.
It's rather like Jo's bonnet.
It was, your monocle bonnet.
Yeah, exactly. Aw, you could be
the Empress of France.
Double vision. Yes. Do you think
I could be the Empress of France?
- Easily. - "Let them eat cake!"
So, let's cut to what she gave.
It was a bracelet
made of her own hair.
It's an astonishing gift.
But this was what Victorians
were obsessed with.
Knitting, braiding, plaiting,
making things out of hair.
Artists powdered hair down. Do you
remember those things, as a child,
when you would put glue, like Pritt,
the non-sticky sticky stuff on it,
and then you would sprinkle glitter?
Do you remember that?
- Copydex. - Or Copydex you could use,
which smelt slightly chlorinous
- and was a wonderfully... - Semen.
LAUGHTER
- Not angry.
- BOTH: Disappointed.
LAUGHTER
Dear me. Oh, well.
Yeah. That's what artists would do,
they would put glue on and then
they'd sprinkle the powdered hair.
So, hair was a big kind of deal.
Lord Byron was considered the most
handsome and extraordinary figure.
There you can see
a little locket hanging...
Although it's beautifully made
as a braid
and with gold, as you can see,
and that could be made to fit
into a waistcoat or something,
for a man's...
"Here you go, Lady Casterby,
"this watch chain
is made of my pubes.
"Ha-ha! And now a poem!"
LAUGHTER
Well, Lord Byron didn't necessarily
give his own hair away,
it's that he was so handsome
and so adored that...
- LAUGHTER
- That's a painting!
But what was wrong with his hands?
It was generally agreed by all
who met and knew him,
he was a hugely charming man.
According to his own diaries anyway.
"Lady Tappleton..."
No, no, he had...
Letters were written to him,
women sent him
locks of their own hair.
So he used locks of
his Newfoundland dog,
which he sent back to the women,
which they didn't notice,
they thought it was Byron's hair.
"Lady Suffolk,
"I apologise for giving you mange
with my latest gift.
"But meanwhile, I shall come round
to your house and I shall rotate
"my right foot and draw a six
in the air. Ha-ha! Poem?"
There's a good reason why that might
have been difficult for Lord Byron.
- Oh, of course, yes, yes.
- He had a dodgy foot.
Despite that, he managed to achieve
a great athletic feat.
- He swam. - He swam the...? - Hellespont.
- Straits of somewhere.
- The Hellespont!
You know these things,
you pretend to be an ignorant pig.
- LAUGHTER
- I only went...
- I mean, sorry! You pretend...
- An ignorant what?
No, I meant to say
you pretend to be pig-ignorant!
- LAUGHTER
- And it came out wrong!
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
Know what I'm going to do with you?
I'm going to make you
run across a field
and I'm going to pull
all your legs and arms off...
I don't want to lower the tone,
but didn't Lady Caroline Lamb
- pull out handfuls of her pubic hair
and send them to Byron? - Yes.
And she was responsible for the most
famous description of him.
- Yes.
- "Mad, bad and dangerous to know."
"Dangerous to have tea with."
Fabulous woman. There was a movie
about her, I think Sarah Miles...
- Yeah.
- JO: Oh, that's right.
Yeah. Yeah, Sarah Miles,
she used to drink her own pee.
- Yes, she was a urinobibe. - Yep.
As was the Prime Minister of India,
Morarji Desai,
who became prime minister
at the age of 80.
And he drank his pee every day.
Anyway, the Empress Eugenie,
her name was,
and she was the wife
of Napoleon III.
There's Eugenie.
She had a fantastic real name -
Dona Maria Eugenia Ignacia Augustina
de Palafox-Portocarrero
de Guzman y Kirkpatrick.
- That was her name. - Kirkpatrick.
Yeah.
- APPLAUSE
- Thank you. - Crikey.
But what was very pleasing
is that she was known as "Carrots".
Because that was her nickname
at school in Bristol,
where she lived,
and she died in Britain as well.
I had no idea
that we had a hipster Napoleon.
- Yeah, he was a hipster, yeah.
- Check him out.
- Yeah, he's pretty good. - "Er,
can I have a flat white, please?"
LAUGHTER
"No, the jacket, I got it in this
vintage place, it's great."
Yes. Queen Victoria
gave the Empress of France
a bracelet made of her own hair.
We move now to a less lovely L -
why would you put a leech
on a leash?
Is it a medicinal leech?
- It's a medicinal leech. - OK.
So, basically, there are
various places you could put it.
Where might you want a leech to go?
No, no!
They've been used for medicinal
purposes for centuries.
- They use them in the NHS today,
don't they? - Yes, they absolutely do.
- Do they? - Yeah.
- You put them on a wound, don't you,
and they eat bits that are infected
or... No, that's the maggots.
You put maggots on a wound,
and they eat the dead flesh.
Leeches actually...
- Have I travelled back in time? - No.
LAUGHTER
Those migraine headaches are
caused by a demon living in your...
HE IS DROWNED OUT BY LAUGHTER
If you have a member reattached -
a finger or some other member -
it's kept in ice
and then it's sewn back on,
and it has
a very good prognosis,
but you can attach leeches
and what it does is
it actually helps the capillaries
join together and thrive.
So, it's like a kind of
biologically-active cauterising?
Yes, yeah,
it's really extraordinary.
- Oh, I don't care, I don't want it.
- Does it hurt?
- It doesn't really hurt much, no.
- How do you know?
Well, I'm told it doesn't hurt.
I don't know, you and your
public school ways, and...
- "Fry, time for a leeching!"
- Yeah, it doesn't...
"Scrotum."
"Yes, sir?"
"Get Fry."
It doesn't hurt as much as double...
"It's time for his leeching."
"What do you want, Scrotum?"
"It's time for your leeching, Fry."
It doesn't hurt as much as
Dr Staveley slamming your dick
in the desk, I admit.
It's... Look, I love to shock you,
it's sweet.
Do you remember John Wayne Bobbitt?
- Oh! - Oh, yeah. - John Wayne Bobbitt.
Yeah, he went to Winchester...
No, no, of course I remember Bobbitt
who severed his wife...
His wife severed his...
Yeah, she cut his penis off
and then threw it out the window
- of a moving car, so it took
some finding. - They took him...
They sewed it back on,
then he made some money
out of porn films, weirdly!
Yeah, he must have been
rather impressed that a penis
that took some finding was found.
He must have thought, "Yes!"
Let's hope they found the right one,
that would have been a disaster!
- LAUGHTER
- Stop it.
Yeah.
I can imagine him at the line-up.
"Can I see number three again?"
You're too used to that programme,
that's just sick.
Yep, they were often popped up
on a leash, up the bottom,
to deal with intestinal problems.
- Oh, up the inside?
- Yep, or down the throat
to deal with bronchial problems.
- Ooh. - Yeah, exactly.
I know, or you could actually
use them on the scrotum
for strained testicles. Have you
ever had strained testicles?
- I'd rather have leeches on my balls.
- JOSH: What, as a pudding?
Hang on!
- One doctor wrote... - Yeah,
strained testicles and custard.
That's what prunes are.
That's prunes.
Yeah, and as I say, these days
they're used to encourage
capillary growth
on severed members.
Doctors USED to put leeches
on leashes
to send them up patients' bottoms.
Now, what did Georgian gentlemen
keep in the sideboard
for after dinner?
Small Georgian ladies.
- After Eights. - After Eights!
LAUGHTER
Porn.
After 1713, it would be.
Porn.
Well, actually, it was something
that disgusted a French observer
and he wrote about it in a letter.
So, you've got a chance here
for serious points.
Ah, Alan, quickly!
Shut up, he's done it before me!
JAUNTY JINGLE, FLUSHING
Oh, there we are, two of you,
three of you.
You all get the points
except Jo, I'm afraid.
The fact is, it was chamber pots.
It was Rochefoucauld,
not the famous Rochefoucauld,
but another Rochefoucauld,
Francois de la Rochefoucauld,
who wrote in his diary
"The sideboard..."
This was in Suffolk, in 1784,
"The sideboard is garnished also
with chamber pots in line
"with the common practice of going
over to the sideboard to pee,
"while the others are drinking.
"Nothing is hidden.
I find that very indecent."
Chamber pots lasted well
into the 20th century,
because there were many households
that weren't on mains supplies.
- Many of them...
- They didn't have a WC.
Exactly, they had outdoor loos
and they popped a chamber pot
under the bed.
And chamber pots were,
I won't say exactly witty,
but they had things written on them
which were quite surprising, really,
thinking of a previous age
where you imagine people were rather
more prudish. Look at these.
"Use me well and keep me clean.
"And I'll not tell
what I have seen."
So, you pooed onto an eye.
Or you peed onto an eye.
And there were some during
the Second World War that had
a picture of Hitler,
so you could poo on Hitler's face.
Which is pleasing in a way.
That's your chamber pot.
Now, it's time to dip the crouton
of confidence
into the all-melting fondue
of General Ignorance.
What kind of wine goes best
with a human liver?
Oh! A Chianti.
- Whoa!
- KLAXON SOUNDS
That's what Hannibal Lecter says.
- That's what he says in...
- In Silence Of The Lambs.
- "I'll have some fava beans and a fine
Chianti." - What are fava beans to...?
- Little white beans, aren't they?
- To reclaim your...
- What would we call them in England?
- Butter beans? Broad beans?
Broad beans, yeah, you get a few
points back from the massive deficit
that you've already...
Um, yeah, it's in the novel. Who
wrote the novels involved with...?
- Thomas Harris.
- Thomas Harris is right.
He, being rather sort of smart and
giving Hannibal Lecter good taste,
knew that something fatty
and greasy like a liver is not
complemented well by a Chianti.
He knew that it was best accompanied
by something
a little more full-bodied.
Something like, for instance,
an Amarone,
which is what is in the novel.
Which is a sort
of Valpolicella-type wine,
- and that is...
- Why did they change it, Stephen?
Because they felt most people
hadn't heard of an Amarone
and they might think it was
some sort of biscuit or something.
They're quite correct.
It sounds like an amaretto.
- It is like an amaretto, exactly.
- What, Hollywood
dumbing something down?
- Yeah, I know, it's hard to believe,
isn't it? - What the F?!
"White wine with meat? Eurgh!"
But why would it have been
a rather disastrous decision to eat
- a human liver anyway? - Toxic?
- Yes, they are toxic.
- Do you know what the toxin is?
- No. - Is it vitamin something? - Yes.
- Vitamin E?
- Actually, A. - A.
A lot of vitamins can't be stored.
As you know, vitamin C,
you pee out the residue,
so the idea of taking these
5,000 milligrams a day is just...
- That's why you have
bright yellow wee. - Exactly.
You're giving the rats the vitamin C.
You're giving the rats the vitamins,
precisely!
They grow more and more immune
and stronger daily!
"Why, they'll be as powerful
as the Prime Minister of India!"
"I'm recycling!"
But, yeah, the liver,
it stores vitamin A,
which in excess
can be quite dangerous.
Helps you see at night, though.
Livers can regenerate themselves,
did you know that?
- Like Doctor Who.
- Like Doctor Who, yeah.
There's the liver drawn by...
- Da Vinci. - Yeah, Leonardo,
and you can see there his famous
mirror writing, which is...
I know the drawings
are amazing enough, but as a boy,
I tried using a mirror to write
mirror writing, it's just...
I mean, you think drawing a six
with your hand and doing a...
Why did he do that?
No-one's quite sure why he wanted it
to be secret, but he did.
- For Dan Brown! - Yes!
- LAUGHTER
- For the one who was... - Whoooo!
Whoooo!
"There's secrets in the Vatican,
Josh. Let's go and find them."
I'm genuinely uncomfortable
in this situation.
If you use those goggles
you can see the map.
PHILL GASPS
No?!
The amazing thing,
the magical thing about livers is
if you take a small liver
from a small dog,
and you transplant it into a large
dog, the small liver will grow to
the size it would have been in the
bigger dog, which is extraordinary.
- (Shut up!) - Wow.
Yes.
You see, I often run out of things
to do with the children at weekends.
- Now you know.
- We're going to try that. Yeah.
Now, also you know
a fantastic slang word
and it's a liver-disturber, and it's
American 19th-century slang for?
- An alcoholic? - No.
A huge dong.
- A huge dong? - Yeah, a liver-disturber!
ALL GROAN
- Oh! - Oh! We think... Exactly!
We think WE'RE sick?!
These are Victorian Americans!
"I got a tonsil-troubler!"
LAUGHTER
Have you heard the prank call...
A guy phones up the pizza place
and he goes, "Do you deliver?"
- Oh, no!
- And he says, "Yes, we deliver."
And he goes, "All right, I'll have
liver, cheese, onion, olives..."
"We don't have any liver."
"Do you DELIVER?"
"Yes, we deliver."
"Right, I'll have liver..."
- And it goes on... - Oh, that is...
It's very likely on the interweb.
It's very funny.
Excellent, I'll look it up.
Now, who sat in the middle
at the Last Supper?
- SPANISH ACCENT: Jesus.
- Jesus?
Oh...
KLAXON SOUNDS
No matter how you pronounce it,
it wasn't he.
JOSH: Judas.
Nor was it Judas, the traitor.
- Peter. - No-one.
Nor was it Peter.
No-one is the right answer.
- No-one's in the middle. - No, it's not
that no-one was in the middle...
it's that no-one sat.
- Oh, shut up, they're all standing!
- Yeah!
- LAUGHTER
- No, they're not standing.
FUNNY ACCENT: Shut up! You shut up!
LAUGHTER
- I don't shut up, you shut up!
- LAUGHTER
You don't tell me to shut up!
No, the...
Stop, stop it now!
Just stop it now!
The thing is, in Palestine,
which was a Roman province,
they ate like Romans. They lay
on their stomachs like Romans.
That can't be good for digestion,
can it?
No, you'd think not,
but we know that's the way they ate,
more or less, because in the Bible,
"Now there was one
leaning on Jesus' bosom,
"one of his disciples
whom Jesus loved."
And that, you know, you kind of see
how that would have worked.
That's how they lay to eat.
Rather pleasing.
- Very odd, though. - A bit odd, to us,
cos we don't do that.
Even in a picnic, you wouldn't want
to be lying on your front.
I agree. I don't like it.
I can't even, you know,
a hot chocolate in bed
I have to sit up
in order to swallow it.
LAUGHTER
There's nothing...
There is nothing about that
that is anything other
than straightforward!
We were just immediately thinking
of the man who sang
Brother Louie in the '70s,
that's all we were thinking.
- # I believe in...
- # I believe in miracles
♪ You sexy thing... ♪
I'll have to sit up now!
LAUGHTER
Oh, lordy, lordy, bless.
Now, nobody sat anywhere at the Last
Supper, everyone was lying down.
Well, now, who's in charge
of all the ants?
Adam.
LAUGHTER
- KLAXON SOUNDS
- Very good, but...
No!
- Yeah. We were there before you,
I'm afraid. - Is it a queen?
A queen ant, of course, that's going
to get a klaxon as well.
- KLAXON SOUNDS
- Oh.
Is it something like the weather
or the climate or something?
- The weather probably
is as good an answer as any.
- And they don't control themselves.
The fact is,
they are a self-organising colony.
There is no leader.
But there's the queen.
All the queen does
is lay thousands and thousands
and thousands of eggs in her life
and then dies of exhaustion.
And the ants
just get on with being ants
and there are just signals sent
between each one
that somehow sort of ripple outwards
into what appears to be
organisation.
But it's a bit like
flocks of starlings
or shoals of mackerel that
have this incredible sort of...
You think, "What's
the intelligence behind this?"
It's like the Tartan Army.
LAUGHTER
No-one knows how they do it,
but they do it.
They somehow do it. Exactly.
The way, at a football match,
a chant will grow
and then suddenly die.
You think, "That's... Who's
organising that?" and no-one is.
It's just a sort of feature
of large groups.
It's very odd.
And that's true of ants,
who are, you know, and termites.
- They love football, don't they?
- They love football. They do indeed.
- North ants, in particular.
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
It seems there's no-one in charge
of the ants,
but there is someone in charge
of the scores, and that's me or I.
And it's very interesting,
because in first place,
with a positive integer, one point,
Phill Jupitus!
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
On minus six, in second place,
Jo Brand!
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
Highly respectable -
for him, it's a triumph -
on minus 26, Alan Davies!
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
So, now, looky here,
on minus 30, Josh Widdicombe!
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
And so it's thanks and good night
from Josh, Phill, Jo, Alan and me.
And we leave you
with some last words.
The last words of American murderer
James Allen Red Dog,
executed in 1993.
"I'd like to thank my family
and friends and Mr Pankowski
"for supporting me and all the
others who treated me with kindness.
"For the rest of you,
y'all can kiss my ass." Good night.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE