QI (2003–…): Season 13, Episode 1 - Medley of Maladies - full transcript

Goooooooood evening, good evening,
good evening, good evening,
good evening and welcome to QI,

where this week we're under doctor's
orders as we dissect a Medley of
Maladies.

Joining me in the waiting room,

with a 1984 edition of The People's
Friend, we have Dr No, Lucy Porter.

APPLAUSE

Dr Strangelove, Matt Lucas.

APPLAUSE

Dr Zhivago, Ross Noble.

APPLAUSE

And Dr Snuggles, Alan Davies.

APPLAUSE



So, buzzers please, nurse.
Lucy goes...

DR ZHIVAGO THEME TUNE

For the ignorant nonsenses
amongst you,

that was Dr Zhivago's theme tune.
LAUGHTER

Matt goes...

DR FINLAY'S CASEBOOK THEME TUNE

For those under 80,
that was Dr Finlay's Casebook.

So Ross Noble, he goes...

DR WHO THEME TUNE

Hmm, no, I don't know what that was.
And Alan goes...

# Oh, doctor, I'm in trouble

♪ Well, goodness gracious me... ♪

Oh, more of that.

- Yeah, Goodness Gracious Me.
- Can't get enough of it.
- Well, there you are.



So, come in, lie down,
pop your feet in the stirrups

and let's see what the trouble is.

What did Typhoid Mary die of?

Oh, don't...start!

LAUGHTER

DR WHO THEME TUNE
Yes, Ross?

Was it a lack of circulation
to her toe?

That is a possibility.

Yeah. Is it typhoid?

- Oh! - One!

Her name, as the label around
that toe said, was Mary Mallon,

and she was known as Typhoid Mary.

What did she die of?
It wasn't typhoid.

Er...why am I interrupting you?
I don't even know.

That's QI. Yeah.

There was nothing wrong with her.
Boredom, she'd had boredom from...

- Car crash. - That's what I was going
to say. - Waiting to get typhoid
and never getting it.

Boredom. She had typhoid.
She didn't suffer from typhoid.

But she never had symptoms.

Yes, thank you.
Thank you, Lucy Porter.

You're welcome, Stephen Fry.
She didn't have the symptoms,
as Typhoid Mary,

round about the turn of the century
was a cook in New York.

An Irish immigrant.
As the name would suggest, Irish.

Yeah. And she had typhoid,
but no symptoms, she wasn't ill.

She was immune to it,
to all intents and purposes.

But, she was able to give it to
others, and she did.

30, 40, 50 people, possibly.

It must have been freezing in that
ward with all that snow.

That's normally on the...

It's taking... It's taking his mind
off the fact he's being

attacked by an octopus,
at the back there.

Something with trailing legs.

Presumably they're, they're all
lying there going,

"Sorry, what did you say your name
was? What Mary?" Exactly.

"Glad to sharing a ward with you."
Well, the sad thing is that she was
not a nice person,

by any way of looking at it.

All right, Stephen, she's dead -
come on.

Well, the thing is,
she worked in households as a cook

and people would die of typhoid
in the household where she cooked,

and she would mysteriously leave
and take up a job in another one.

- So she knew that she was a carrier.
- Oh, she was a carrier.

Because she was put into quarantine,
and then she could go free

as long as she never worked
in service again, didn't cook.

Within weeks, she got another
job as a cook, and she tried to

hide from the authorities,
and so she ended up, the last two

decades of her life in quarantine

and she died of pneumonia, in fact.

Ah.

How did she pass it on? Saliva,
fluids, body fluids.

Oh, because she was, yeah,
she had typhoid.

- She went...
- BREATHES OUT AND MIMES COUGHING

Yeah. But she actually coughed,
anything like that. Yeah.

- She didn't have to wee in the soup.
- And so her name has become
synonymous.

I don't know about it, I thought
it was waterborne. Or was that
cholera?

Well, it's spread by the...

The germ in question
is salmonella typhi.

The salmonellas.

I thought you said that it's
spread by a German.

I thought you said, just one German,
walking around the place.

Is that the fella there, is it?

There it is, yeah.

- Yeah. - Unpleasant-looking.
Why is it called salmonella?

Salmon, that's salmon it's from,
so it's fishborne.

They were named by a bacteriologist
called Salmon.

- Oh, of course. - Dr Daniel Salmon.

Of course.

Who also died of pneumonia,
as it happens, not of salmonella.

Well, I'll tell you what,
I'm looking at that, I'm never
going to eat Wotsits again.

Now, what's the most deadly thing

you can find in a doctor's
waiting room?

And you can look at that picture.
Oh, a copy of the Daily Telegraph.

LAUGHTER

I'm guessing, looking at that
example,

is it the tiny baby bear
which has crawled out

from inside that plant there?

Oh, is it going to be that lethal
water carrier thing in the corner?

Hang on, right next to a lamp?!
Water next to electricity?

That's a Health and Safety
nightmare!

POSH VOICE: These people
are seconds from death, why?

You've got a fire engine there,
you'll be fine.

- Oh, yeah, yeah. - That's true. - On an
electrical fire?! Are you mad?!

LAUGHTER

- Come on! - Does she take the pen and
stab everyone in the waiting room?

That's another...
That would be dangerous.

- Actually, Ross got it straightaway.
- Shut your face!

- It's the bear. - I knew it was the
bear. - The bear? Yeah.

- Why is it the bear? - Ha-ha, the
murderer is in this very room!

Well, you can't trust bears.
Bears are shifty.

LAUGHTER

- Can I say that isn't
ACTUALLY a bear. - Ah.

- It looks like a bear. - Well...

If it were a bear, it would be far
and away

the most dangerous thing
in the room. It's...

I'd say to you, "prove it"!

It's a soft cuddly toy.

- Covered in germs!
It's a carrier of diseases. - Yes.

It's Bear Mary.

LAUGHTER

- Big bear's bear, you're right.
- Typhoid bear.

- Typhoid Beary, yeah.
- Yeah. Typhoid bearer.

Did you see what she did there?

Typhoid Bearer, eh? Ha-ha!

Because a bear can't...

A bear can't shit in the woods...

A bear can't be cut...
A bear can't...

I don't know if I can really
say this, because it sounds odd,

but a bear can't be wiped down.

- LAUGHTER
- You've tried!

Well, I mean, it can
obviously be wiped down.

You've wiped a lot of bears down.
Come on, Stephen.

LAUGHTER

APPLAUSE

Not as hygienically as, say, an
abacus, is that a Barbie or a Sindy?

- I'm not really... - That's a Sindy.
- That's a Sindy. Sindy...

You've got to wipe them down
every 45 minutes.

Lego tower... Her legs go all the
way up. The doll, of course...

- You can chuck in the machine, can't
you, your teddy bear? - I do.

- You can do what?
- Chuck it in the machine.

Chuck it in the machine. On a hot
wash, on a boil. You can, you can.

So, are we coming to the conclusion
that Pudsey needs to die?

LAUGHTER

That's how he lost his eye,
because somebody...

No, he just needs to be boiled.
Not killed, just boiled!

Not too boiled.

That would be the best opening
to Children In Need ever,

if it was literally
cut to Terry Wogan,

he was just there going,
"Ah, good old Pudsey!"

HE YELLS

"Give me the money or Pudsey boils."

There is something very eerie when
you put kids' toys in the machine

and wash them and then you just see
their little faces

pressed against the glass.
Aah, and the children sit...

Because you say to the kids,
"You next, yeah."

The children sit there watching
them going round and round.

Now we know why it's called
Winnie The Pooh. Hey, you're right!

His real name is
"Winnie The Filthy Shit".

LAUGHTER

Oh, dear!

Thank you very much.

APPLAUSE

13.5% of "hard" toys

in GP's waiting rooms...

- Don't google that, whatever you do!
- LAUGHTER

- Don't google "hard toys"! - No.

Don't google "wiping down bears".

LAUGHTER

Basically, it's a nightmare,
isn't it?

Certainly not
"Winnie The Filthy Shit".

She's a lovely girl, but she should
never have started that website.

You don't want to see...
Not while you're eating, anyway.

A shocking 90% of soft toys

had serious moderate to
heavy bacterial contamination.

That's what I want to leave you with.

LAUGHTER
Magazines...

Why do you think that the magazines

in doctors' waiting rooms
are so dull, so uninteresting?

Because people steal the good ones,
presumably!

Is the right answer!

CHEERING
Very good!

APPLAUSE

It's as simple as that.

- Yeah. - Yeah. - Well, I'm not the only
one, then. That is good...

LAUGHTER

I would never buy Now or Chat,
but if it's there...

Yeah. Nobody steals
New Statesman or The Economist.

You might be able...

Where do we stand
on the gentleman's literature...

in the booths...

at a place of...fluid deposits?

LAUGHTER

- The sperm banks?
- That's the word I'm looking for.

- Are they taken away? - What I'm saying
is, is that, you know,

- when they provide the...
- HE MUTTERS

..where does that stand in the...
You know...

Like, on the filth scale,
what are we...?

LAUGHTER

Because I've only done that once

and there wasn't literature.

Strictly speaking,
it wasn't a sperm bank, but...

LAUGHTER

Hang on, no, no, I...
It was a regular doctor...

It was the sperm building society.

- It was a...
- It was a regular doctor's?

- It was a... No, wait... - You went
to the doctor's for a wank? - Yes!

No, no, no.

What happened was, I used to live
right out in the bush,

- right out in the countryside, right,
miles away, right. - Yeah, good!

LAUGHTER

- And I needed to do the...
- Were you on a register?

LAUGHTER

I am now! But the...

No, but we lived too far away.

By the time you've done
the deposit in the beaker...

- Your sperm have died.
- Exactly. By the time you drove in.

So, my wife just said,

"Hey, why don't we just go
to the regular doctor's

"and then you nip into the...
and then have..."

and the only thing that was
in there was,

you know on a lady's sanitary bag,

- they have a picture of a woman
in Victorian costume? - Yes.

LAUGHTER

There's very few things
that I'm happy to admit in public,

but I can't look at Mary Poppins
in the same way now.

LAUGHTER

- I fully, to the... With the...
- You didn't do it in the bag?

LAUGHTER

- What I'm saying is... - Yes?

What I'm saying is, when a
gentleman goes to a sperm bank,

- and they provide you with... - No
gentleman goes to a sperm bank, sir!

LAUGHTER

They provide you with a copy of Smash
Hits, The One Direction Special...

LAUGHTER

Yeah.

- That's... Yes. - Or whatever, yeah.

I believe that's why Harry Styles's
hair goes like that.

- Something about Harry.
- Right across like that. Yeah.

APPLAUSE

So, there we are.

The most dangerous thing
in a waiting room is a cuddly toy.

Which bits of your bodies
could you do without?

I'm going to give you
an example of a human body.

So, that you can possibly...
That's for you two.

- Kidney, you can lose a kidney, can't
you? - This is for you two. This is...

That is one of the most macabre

Bobbleheads I've ever seen.
Look at that.

LAUGHTER

- "Good afternoon." - Woohoo!

- Shall we take out the bits we think?
- Yeah, take out the...

Take out the bits we think?

Take out a bit that you think
we can do without.

You're taking out
the entire intestines. Stop it.

LAUGHTER

There goes the liver.
There goes one lung and another.

I don't know what that is,
but it's going.

ALAN GROANS

- You got that right. - He died.
It's died. - That's one dead human.

Are you offering me a lung?
Half a brain.

No, I was just trying
to make a pork pie.

LAUGHTER

Oh!

Fine, it's fine...

There it is!

What have you got there? A kidney.

A kidney.
That's what I was looking for!

It's not good surgical practice
to get rid of everything else

- between you and the kidney.
- I couldn't get to the kidney!

And now, I can't get it back
together again.

- I'm going to say...
- Nurse! - Right.

I'm going to say, if you're a man,
you don't... Do you need a nipple?

It's a very good question,
as to why men have nipples at all.

They look hot when they're pierced,
but apart from that.

I don't really know why else
you would need one.

Well, the fact is that, there
are lots of bits you can do without.

Tonsils, obviously, you knew that.
Appendix, you have those out.

Appendix, you knew that.
What else have you come across?

You've given me a kidney,
which is good.

I can't get it back together again.

Gall bladder you could give me.
Sinuses. Head.

- Sinuses? - Yeah. You don't need
a face. Appendix. Testes.

I mean, obviously, we LIKE having
testes, if you're a man,

but you won't die
if they're taken away.

- Mine hasn't got any testes, sir.
- Uterus. Uterus, ovaries,

all that shebang.
You can lose the ovaries.

Basically, all you need is a neck.
Yeah. Half your brain can go.

In fact, there's an operation,
a hemispherectomy.

- Well you've done very well with
that, haven't you? - Thanks, yes.

LAUGHTER

- Congratulations.
- Thank you very much.

APPLAUSE

- If you remove...
- Oh, hang on, hair! What about hair?

Yes. And what do you reckon, Matt?

LAUGHTER

Well, I don't know why
you're asking me.

What happens if I were to remove
four fifths of your liver? Yeah.

It would grow back.

Yes, that's the thing about livers,
they do, they regenerate,

you get that back.

Teeth, obviously. Bladders can also
be regrown, amazingly.

The bones in your leg, the fibula
and tibia,

the fibula isn't load-bearing,

so you could lose that and you'd
still be able to walk.

Really? I'll have that out.
I'm going to do it.

Can you name one of the most famous
people on earth

who has gone without a lung
since he was a teenager?

- He, so, it's a he. - Justin Bieber.

Possibly more famous than
Justin Bieber.

Barack Obama. No, I can't.
I don't know.

Hang on a minute, more famous than
Justin Bieber?

Harry Styles?
Argentinian.

"I don't know foreign people,
what's all this about?!"

There's only one truly famous
Argentinian. "Well, I don't know 'em,

"I don't know, I tell you,
I don't watch that show."

- Pele. - Diego Mara... - Diego Maradona.

Diego Maradona's the
only one I know.

- No. The Pope!
- ALL: Oh.

Oh, yes, he is quite famous!
Pope Francis, there he is.

- The Pope, yes. - Yeah.
- He's only got the one lung?

He's gone happily without
a lung for a long time.

What happened
when they were picking him

and all that smoke's coming
out of the top...

Oh, I bet he was wheezing up that
bit, wasn't he?

Going "Hey! You're the Pope!"

He's going, "Oh, oh, me lungs!
Oh, me one lung's playing up, mate!"

Was he born with one lung, or did
he have it removed, he lost it?

As a teenager he had one
removed. So, good.

- Can you pop your bodies away.
Did I just say that? - Yes.

- Put your bodies away. - And we just
reacted as if that was normal.

There's your kidney. OK, so, Alan,
I've got a question for you.

It's quite complicated in a way.

If you had kidney failure...

Right.

I would willingly, happily,
gladly donate a kidney to you.

LAUGHTER

There you are...

I don't like the way
they're looking at me, I must say.

- So, you've got one of my kidneys,
I'm glad... - Thank you, Stephen.

There's no greater cause.

That would leave me
with one kidney, obviously.

How many kidneys would you have?

Well, I presume that I've lost one,

one's failed, and you've given
me one, so I've got two.

KLAXON BLARES
Oh!

- It's a strange thing...
- 14 years!

..in the world of renology,

is that when someone
has a kidney transplant...

- Yes. They take them both out.
- The old one stays in.

- Oh, does it? - Yes. So you'd have
three. - Oh. - Very odd, isn't it?

- That's greedy, isn't it?
- It's greedy, it seems it.

There's a case of a man who had
repeated transplants

and he has five kidneys inside him.

- Enough for a pie, isn't it?
- He's almost a stew.

LAUGHTER

Oh, I wish I was wearing a hat,

I would have taken it off to you
for that.

Here's another handshake.

Well, there are many body parts
that anybody can do without.

What's wrong with 80%
of medical students?

They're so tired from pole dancing
all night...

LAUGHTER

..they can't focus.

They're exhausted
from complaining about being tired.

Well, medical students do get
a hard time of it,

they get very tired,
but they have a condition.

I'm going to say

that they imagine that they're
ill a lot, because they...

It's what I have, where you read
about stuff, and you go,

"Oh, my God! Totally got that!
I've got totally got that!"

Yes, hypochondria
is what it's all about.

And medical students tend to believe
they have the disease of the week.

Each week, they learn about some
extraordinary new condition

and they believe they have it.

And vets get that as well and
they think they've got myxomatosis.

LAUGHTER

If you were a vet, then you'd end up
just loving your ball.

LAUGHTER

"Oh, he loves his food,
don't you, Doctor?" "Yeah!"

"Stop licking that, Doctor,
stop licking it!"

"He doesn't mind, he likes it!"

LAUGHTER
Yeah, it's called
Medical Student Syndrome,

and it was first identified in 1908,

so it's well over 100 years old.

If they read about Medical Student
Syndrome,

they will also believe
they've got that.

- They'll think they've got
everything. - Even if they haven't,

they will then get it.
So, it's long been recognised.

The worst case scenario
is always death.

It could be,
you may just have a headache,

- or it may be a terminal
brain tumour. - Yeah.

We just don't know. Good day.

When you smell something that isn't
there and no-one else can smell,

Like, "Can you smell burning
rubber or burning hair?"

And they go, "No.
Oh, you might have a brain tumour."

- Yeah. Or you're pregnant.
- Or your head might be on fire!

Oh, yeah.

"I can smell burning hair." "Yeah,
you want to put that out, mate."

Yeah, possibly.

Who might be having sex

on your face

right now?

LAUGHTER

Kim and Kanye?

In your dreams! They love it!

Who is having sex on your
face right now?

- Bacteria. It's usually bacteria,
go with me on this. - Mites.

Mites, you said mites.
Mites was the right answer.

Mites. Mites.

- Well, it MIGHT be.
- Let's... Hey!

- Mites, maybe. - Let's consider this.

There are mites that
live on the human face.

They, unfortunately...

They're disgusted already,
don't go any further!

Only 14% of them
are visible to the human eye,

most of them are not.
ALL: 14%?!

- Yes. - Visible? - Yeah.
Listening very closely.

What, just...
"I like your moustache!"

And then it starts
curling up like that.

HE JABBERS

Not that visible,
I mean, they're really, really tiny.

They're very small.
They have no anuses.

Oh, thank God for that!

No!

I don't mind the intercourse,
it's the shitting I can't stand.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

Unfortunately, Alan, the fact
they have no anuses means

that when they die,

a whole lifetime's waste
is deposited on your face.

LAUGHTER

That's what happens.

Is this 14% waste you can see?

No. But what percentage of human...

That's a lovely tan
you've got there, Stephen.

LAUGHTER

You may be right.

But what percentage,
tracking that waste,

voided at the death of the mite,

on account of its having no
anus,

what percentage
of human beings

has been calculated
to have mites on their face?

- Oh, I know this. - Yeah?
- But I'm not going to tell you.

Oh, I'll guess at either 12 or 86.

- Any other thoughts? High.
- 0.1%. - High. - 91%.

No, the answer is 100%.

- Oh...
- We all have these mites on our faces.

LAUGHTER
All of us, all of us.

And there's nothing...
You can't wash them out,

- they're perfectly happy to have
water... - Her Majesty the Queen? - Yes.

- Her Majesty the Queen has...
- Royal mites.

..has anus-less mites wandering
about willy nilly on her face?

Jawohl! German mites!

Unbelievable!

Her Royal Highness?!

Yeah, I know.
Hard to believe, isn't it?

But there it is,
we all have mites on our face,

but there are also, some people
believe two thirds

and other scientists believe 98%
of us have eyebrow mites.

Although one of us here,

one of us here won't have
eyebrow mites.

Matt might not have eyebrows.

So, he doesn't, so he doesn't!

I don't got no eyebrows, cos...

Mum says it's cos I'm special.

LAUGHTER

Well, you are special.
I am. You are.

I lost my hair when I was six.

Was it traumatic?
Did you bang your head or something?

Well you know, Duncan Goodhew
fell out of a tree. Yeah.

Well, it was my head
he landed on and my hair...

Hey! No, because.

Why? I think it's an
overactive immune system,

that something happened,

then something inside me said,
"Right, we don't need no hair!"

Like I'm not... And treated
your hair as a foreign invader.

Yeah, maybe it was just a warm day,

and we didn't have the window open,
I don't know.

Maybe you're just
a super-evolved human,

because we don't really need hair
and we're all going...

No, we do, this country's cold!

LAUGHTER

We do, we do.

I suffer, I do suffer.

Well, I would say,
I mean, I feel your pain,

but I would say that
I'm quite a hairy-chested man,

and with small children,
when you're holding a small child,

they like to grab a hold of the
chest hair and then just lean back.

LAUGHTER
Ow. You don't want that.

And it's when you've got
a beautiful little face just there,

- just looking at you and you go...
- HE SCREAMS
- ..into it.

- Apparently, that's not good for
raising a child. - Right.

- You're trying to make me
feel better? - Yeah. - Well, you didn't,

because I'm gay. I don't have
children, I'm very lonely.

AUDIENCE: Ahhh.

All right, then,
well here's the thing,

- we'll work out a time-share
thing. - OK.

- I will make you a chest wig
out of my own chest hair... - Yes.

- And glue it onto you. - All right.

- And then allow my children
to rip it off. - OK.

I'm all about equality,
I want you to feel the pain

- of having your tits ripped off
by a small child. - All right.

And I will arrange for a whole
group of men

- to come and have sex with you.
- Marvellous!

APPLAUSE

Wow! Marvellous. You were there,
ladies and gentlemen.

Now, which of your organs most
resembles an elephant's trunk?

Come on.

LAUGHTER

Oh, God.

- Go on, who wants it? Alan, Ross, me?
- No, no, no, no.

- Who wants it? - Go on, you go on.

I'm just trying to think of the most
humorous way to phrase it.

Yeah, well, no, it's not.
It's not penis. It isn't.

- Of course, it isn't. Well... - Isn't
it? Nose? - Can your penis do that?

An elephant's penis...

It may, there may be it's a dangling,
pendulous appendage, your penis,

and so is a trunk, but really,

truly resembling in structure.

That's not one there, is it?
Down the bottom there?

It's swinging, yes.

- That's it, that's the...
- He's got tusks down there...

There's a lot going on...
Stephen, move out of the way.

The, yeah, no, the elephant can...

- It has a... - Yeah.

Good God!

Yes, all right. All right, class.
It has a...

Very amusing. There's an animal
that has organs of generation,

let's laugh at that for a long time.

- Hmm. - Yeah, but it is quite funny.
- It is funny, though.

LAUGHTER

HE GIGGLES

The elephant, this is...

And this is true this,

- the elephant is the only mammal
that has a chin. - Yes.

Well, what about humans?!

LAUGHTER

Well, yeah, obviously,
apart from humans.

Apart from humans. Bruce Forsyth.
He's got two.

Exactly, if he was an elephant.
Imagine that.

But what is it about the trunk
that... What is...?

We have an organ that
is like the trunk.

Is it the "prehensility",
is that a word?

African elephants have almost
like lips

which can pick up a blade of grass,

prehensile kind of little bits there,

but the actual tongue itself
is interesting, it's a muscle.

- Oh, hang on, so what about the
lip? - I mean, the trunk.

- Ah, have you given us a hint?
- The trunk is... - Ah, the tongue!

- The trunk and our tongue is the
same. Ah. - So what about...?

Our tongue is also a muscle.
It's a muscular hydrostat.

The reason the trunk can take on any
shape is because it's all muscle.

And mostly water, which you wouldn't
think of a muscle, but it's true.

And water can't be compressed,
of course,

liquids cannot be compressed.

I've had a Capri-Sun

and they've got that packet,

and they carry it around.
You can put them under pressure,
but they will burst out.

So, that means like, so you can pull
a muscle, so does that mean

that sometimes an elephant will be
flicking away and...

And pull his tongue.

And he'll go, "Ow!
I've cramped-up me trunk!"

- It's a horrible thought. - And they
have to rub a bit of Deep Heat.

You have to go some to pull a muscle
in your tongue though, don't you?

Well, while on the subject
of muscles,

which of us here
has the strongest muscle?

Well, it's bound to be the lady,
isn't it?

I don't look like that.

- Yeah, for the birthing.
- Yes, so, which muscle would it be?

Pelvic floor? They're always
going on about the pelvic floor.

LAUGHTER

It's the uterus. Oh, the uterus!
The uterus is a muscle. Yeah. Yes.

And of all the muscles
in the human body,

it exerts the most pressure,
pound for pound.

The amount of force that it exerts
is the equivalent to a long bow,

- so if you imagine someone...
- Good God!

Pray God, I'm looking
under the desk going,

"Don't have a long bow
under there, please."

I am not prepared to do that!

Is that why when my wife went into
labour she put an apple on my head?

LAUGHTER

Well, the jaw can exert pressure
which is extremely high

and 500 pounds per square inch,
roughly, which is enormous.

And the gluteus maximus is the
largest muscle in the human body,

the buttock muscle. But it is the
uterus that wins the prize.

Now, you mentioned
the gluteus maximus,

the arse muscles there.

This is a true thing, right.

It is physically impossible for the
human buttocks to break an egg.

- LAUGHTER
- That is true.

That is absolutely 100% true

and I've tried it, and...

- And the beautiful thing... - You put
it in the crack in the cleavage?

As much as you want.

He's not allowed to work in
kitchens any more.

And he keeps going back
like Typhoid Mary.

Yeah, if you put the egg
between the buttocks,

and then it
doesn't matter how hard you squeeze,

impossible to crack the egg.

Now, here's the thing,
I know that to be true,

there might be people watching
this who question that.

But I like to think all over
the country...

People are now introducing
eggs into the area.

Heading for the kitchen,

"Is Noble lying or not?" Hmm.

I mean, if you've got somebody lying
there, you put an egg there,

if somebody else is there
to go like that.

Ah, but then that's not the muscle
doing it.

Ah, OK, yeah. That's the point.

It's the muscle, can you by a twitch,
a pulling in?

- Exactly. - I'm doing it now.

LAUGHTER
I think the worry would be...

Underneath... Oh, that Cadbury's
Creme Egg is gone.

LAUGHTER

That's probably melting
rather than...

The worry is that you do it
and the egg could go right up.

- That's a worry?
- You see, that's interesting.

LAUGHTER

APPLAUSE

Sorry.

So, yes, your tongue is a muscular
hydrostat,

like an elephant's trunk.

What's the difference between
"post-orgasmic illness syndrome"

and "floppy trunk syndrome"?

GIGGLING

It was a mistake to choose
the blue costume, wasn't it?

Those pink ones are floppy trunks,
technically. Yes.

He needs a bra, doesn't he,
that fella...

- It's show-casing the medal
lovely though, isn't it? - Yeah.

LAUGHTER

Are these human conditions?

In the case of floppy trunk
syndrome,

I can tell you that
it's not a human condition,

- you'll be pleased to know.
- Is it an elephant?

It is a condition
that affects elephants,

a very unhappy condition,
affects African elephants.

They can't do anything,
without that, can they?

No, they absolutely can't.

It just seems to lose all power
and it flops

and they often push it over their
heads to keep it out of the way...

- What, flick it away?
- ..to stop it trailing on the ground.

And then the lady elephant says,
"Don't worry, it's happened before."

Yes, leaf through these books.
Doesn't matter.

And they have to half immerse
themselves in water just to drink.

They can't eat properly, they get
emaciated

and they're very often put to death

as a kind of mercy killing,
because there's no cure for it

and there's no understanding
of where it comes from.

There must be some kind of erectile
dysfunction technology

that could help. I suppose, it's a
muscle after all, therefore...

What you don't want is it suddenly
shooting straight up.

LAUGHTER

That's equally useless.

It's true, that is just hopeless.

"Equally useless" is a very
good phrase.

It can't get out from the tree.

LAUGHTER

So that's your
floppy trunk syndrome.

What's your post-orgasmic illness?

I presume that does affect humans
rather than... This is human, yeah.

Is it those feelings of revulsion
that you get after...

Yes, yeah, absolutely.

Where you're just saying,
"I don't even care what is,

- "I don't know the name, I just want
them to leave." - Yeah. - Yeah.

You can say, "Just here, please,
driver," and get out.

This is a worse version.
These are the symptoms.

After sex, flu-like symptoms,

rashes, itching, exhaustion
and concentration difficulties,

Alan.

I'm sorry?

It happens to men

and it's believed to be a result of
being allergic to your own semen.

Ah.

Not because you've drunk it
or tasted it,

though let's face it,
which of us hasn't?

It's...

Oh... Oh, dear.

Did I mis...? Did I misjudge?

Stephen, Stephen,
my mum's sitting just up there.

Oh! I'm sorry.
She told me not to do this show.

I am so sorry.

See if you can guess the cure for
being allergic to your own semen?

Introduced onto your skin
or anything like that,

it caused the problem.

To solve it, because you know, like,
if you're like allergic to cats

- and you slowly bring a cat closer...
- Yes. - Is it the same thing?

- Yes. - Do you just...? - Yes, it is.
- You stand on your head and, well...?

Well, you don't have to do that,

- you ask a doctor to do it for you.
- Oh, God, no!

Multiple subcutaneous injections
of your own semen.

Well, I've injected into others,
but not into myself.

Oh!

I would...

How dare you?! Your mum's in
tonight!

Oh, yeah, sorry, Mum. Sorry.

I'd be less comfortable
injecting into myself,

I don't think it would reach.

Right, yes, absolutely, completely.

Oh, don't go coy, now, Stephen Fry!
You brought it up!

Why, on this picture of sperm, have
they blotted out all the faces?

LAUGHTER

Good question.

Well, that seems to be
the problem with multiple...

Oh, post-orgasmic syndrome.

LAUGHTER

I imagine the effort,
the physical effort.

Another unfortunate allergy
is suffered by Ian Wragg,

spelled W-R-A-G-G,

a Yorkshire magician,

who is allergic to the rabbits
that he pulls out of the hat. Aah.

Well, why doesn't he pull out cocker
spaniels, or kittens or...

That must be brilliant though,
seeing his show.

Because the top hat,
if he puts his hand in,

his hand comes out twice the size.

He doesn't even need
to pull the rabbit out.

- "Look at this, kids!"
- HE YELLS

We had a lady who came in to work
on Little Britain,

an animal handler,
and she was terrified of...

Is that for bringing in
David Walliams? "Here he is!"

- HE GROWLS
- "Oh!"

It was...

I'm diplomatically not laughing,
but I'm laughing inside.

And this animal handler
was terrified of mice

and she had mice on the show.

- She was like... "Ugh, ugh!"
- No? - Yeah.

And I just thought, "Pick another
job, there's a lot of other jobs."

- It's ridiculous. Yeah, I know.
- That's very funny.

I once worked with
an animal handler who,

he had a parrot on his shoulder

and he was chatting away

and then every now and again,

the parrot would just steal
his hearing aid.

LAUGHTER

And every time he did it,
he looked at him as if to go,

"Oh, my parrot's just
stolen my hearing aid."

And then he had to try and
get it back off the parrot...

"The parrot's got it." "What?"

"The parrot's got it."
"What? Oh..."

- Well, there you go.
- "I've got it... What?"

That's one of the worst things
an elephant can suffer from,

it's floppy trunk syndrome.

Who has the best teeth in the world?

I really like this question
and the answer. The Bee Gees.

- Bee Gees, they have good teeth.
- John Bishop?

- I'm looking for a nation, I'm looking
for a people. - Americans.

KLAXON BLARES
Who did you say, Americans? No.

No, I didn't say that.

Is it Scandinavian,
it must be the Scandinavians...

- No. - Oh, no, it'll be... - The English.
- It'll be the...

- Yes! The British. - Yeah! - The British
have the best teeth in the world!

CHEERING

It's true. According to...

We win again!

According to the OECD,

the Organisation of Economic
Co-operation and Development,

- international body. - Well remembered.

They looked at all the different
nations of the Earth

and they found that, according to
fillings and decay, and so on,

that British children had the best
teeth on Planet Earth!

Did they just go to one particular
school in Notting Hill?

I don't think so. I think it was...

Yeah, they said that's because
we've got less fillings,

it may be because we don't go
to the dentist at all.

"Fewer" fillings.
Fewer fillings.

Ooh! Stephen...
I was just being silly.

Knock knock.
Yeah, who's there?

To. To who?

No, it's "to whom".

LAUGHTER

APPLAUSE
Yes, touche!

Yes. Tou-bloody-che!

Yes. Yes.

- Oh, I love that.
- LAUGHTER

But, actually, you could argue that
the best teeth in the world

- are in fact not human, but the
limpet. - The limpet.

- What's so great about limpets' teeth?
- They get them stuck in a rock.

Yeah, they're on their tongue

and they're the strongest
biological matter on Earth.

Incredible power.
To give you an example...

- "Limpets' teeth"? - Limpets' teeth.

Now how do they compare, on the
scale, bees' knees, limpets' teeth?

Where are we on the scale there?

Well, it's about hanging things
from spaghetti.

- Right. - Right.

The "bees' knees",
I have to tell you,

is just an American way of expressing

when immigrants from Italy and other
places said, "It's the business."

It's the "beesness".

- Oh. - Became "bees' knees",

So, it's not really anything to do
with the knee of a bee, as such.

Oh, what about,
"It's-a the dog's-a bollocks!"

LAUGHTER

But their teeth strength
is the equivalent of

a single string of spaghetti

holding up 3,000 half-kilo bags
of sugar.

- Or 1,500 kilo bags.
- LAUGHTER

Aaah, right.

So. Moving on.

And now, as is our general practice,

it's time to prescribe
a dose of General Ignorance.

Fingers on buzzers.

What did Gabriele Falloppio
call these?

DR ZHIVAGO THEME TUNE
Yes, Lucy?

"My bloody tubes."

"My bloody tubes!"

He didn't call them tubes.
DR FINLAY'S CASEBOOK THEME TUNE

Are they those, what do they
call it, Beats?

Those headphones, the Beats.

LAUGHTER

- Fallopians by Dre. - Yeah. Dr Dre.

Fallopian tubes, we think of.

- Yeah. But Falloppio...
- He called them something else.

He thought, when he identified these
shapes inside the lady person...

A lady's pipes.

Yeah, he thought they reminded
him of what were

in those days rather long musical
instruments

with an end like a trumpet's bell,
these were tubas.

And so he called them "tubas".

And if you have a tuba,

if you have a word ending
in A in Italian,

how do you pluralise it?
What is two "tuba"?

- Tube. - "Tube." - Tube.

Tube. With an E on the end,
spelled T-U-B-E.

So, when it went around the world as
his "tube", his "tubas",

people saw the word "tube".

But, in fact, he had called
them "tubas". Gosh!

So now, when a lady breaks wind,

she can say, "I'm sorry,
"it's just my fallopian tubas."

- ALAN PARPS
- Just the old tuba.

- HE PARPS
- Sorry about my tuba. - Her tube.

That's quite interesting,
a reasonably interesting piece.

- That is quite interesting.
- Quite interesting, yes.

He also gave the world the condom.

He was 16th century,
so it was in 1540s and '50s.

What were they made of, then?
I will show you. This. Linen.

Oh, is it the old pig's bladder?

Would you like to play with a condom?
What, is that a real one?

No, that's not a real one.

No, made by our director's wife,
as a matter of fact.

HE PUFFS

I love blowing up a condom,
don't you?

Falloppio was very...

Didn't answer.

..ahead of his time.

A condom for you, there you are.

He was very ahead of his time.

He reckoned that the use of these
would save a lot of deaths

and infections from syphilis.

And he actually gave...

1,100 men, he gave condoms

and none of them developed syphilis.

Not one of those men got pregnant.
Very good.

- And I'll tell you what, keep you
warm, wouldn't it. - Yeah.

Yeah, it's... Not right for the
woman, because it's quite abrasive.

Well, yes. Well...
LUCY GIGGLES

Yes, I don't know. Oh, Lucy! My!

Well, it seems that a fallopian tube

should really have been
a fallopian tuba.

So, which of these couples
is most likely to catch a cold?

Couple on the left, because you get
more of it from contact with hands.

You're right. Yeah, because then
you scratch your eyes and you...

- That's exactly the point. - Yes.

Mucus and the nose, and people
who do that who've got a cold.

They get left everywhere on door
handles.

They shake hands with someone.
But saliva is not a problem,

as far as cold transmission
is concerned, at all.

Really? Saliva, what you can't,
oh...? No.

You can osculate as much
as you like,

you can give it good French and you
won't necessarily get a cold from it.

You may get another disease, but...
Who's that? I've seen her.

- What's her name?
- It's Dame Vera Lynn.

In the blue, I've seen her.
Oh, um, on the stamp, that's it.

Look at her face,
covered in mites! Look at it!

LAUGHTER

Disgusting!

You disgust me, Your Majesty!
You disgust me!

Look at Dame Vera Lynn there, you
could eat your dinner off her face!

That's why we won the war.

- She's let the country down
with those mites. - Yeah.

Look at Terry Wogan leaning
forward going,

"Oh, Jesus, I poked his eye out,

"I put him in a pan
and boiled his head!"

LAUGHTER

Anyway, this could go on for ever,
but it mustn't.

It mustn't, and it won't,
and it shan't and shut up!

So, you're more
likely to catch a cold

from holding someone's hand
than tickling their tonsils.

Here's an easy question,
what's a hip fracture?

It's cracking the hip bone?

Is it not really a fracture
and that's why you're asking us...?

KLAXON BLARES

A fracture of the hip.
Oh, I see.

A hip fracture is not a fracture of
the hip. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's weird to say this,
but it's true.

A hip fracture is a fracture of the
femur, of the long thigh bone,

there. OK, but, what if you actually
fracture your hip, you'll...

That's a pelvic fracture.

But what if you actually fracture
your pelvis? We could go on...

I know, I know.
It's a different name for every one!

I know, it does seem mad,
it's a question that was designed

simply to get points out
of Alan and it worked, and so...

God, well, no wonder
the doctors are going mad.

Yeah, it is a bit peculiar,
I grant you.

And we now come coughing
and spluttering

to the most heavily doctored part
of the whole evening - the scores.

Oh, my. Well, in first place,
with not a cough, not a tickle,

clear skin, free of mites,

on 9 points, it's Lucy Porter.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

I thank you.

I know.

In second place, almost as healthy,

it's Ross Noble on 7 points!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

On -5,
with a tickly throat,

and not looking too well,

it's Matt Lucas.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Thank you.

And groaning and wheezing

at death's door on -44,
Alan Davies.

- CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
- What?!

So, it only remains for me
to thank Matt, Ross, Lucy and Alan.

I leave you with
the words of Rodney Dangerfield.

"When I was born, I was so ugly
the doctor slapped my mother."

Goodnight.