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

Good evening, good evening,
good evening, good evening,

good evening, good evening,
good evening, good evening,

and welcome to QI.

Tonight...we are musing on the
medieval and the macabre.

Joining me in the Dark Ages are King
of the Castle, David Mitchell!

Queen of the May, Julia Zemiro!

Lord of the Manor, Matt Lucas.

And a knight on the tiles,
Alan Davies.

And their buzzers are all very much
connected with middle age.

David goes...

Julia goes...



It's the Middle Ages, all right.
Matt goes...

And Alan goes...

Dear Sir, why, oh, why, oh, why
must we always have endless monks

chanting on the BBC?

Which of these did they not have
in the Middle Ages?

Oh. Swee... No.

Iron maiden. Well...

They didn't have Iron...
I am aware there is a group.

The most medieval thing seems that
thing with the spikes that you put

someone in. That'll be the thing
they didn't actually have then.

You are absolutely right!

The iron maiden, as you say,
that sort of sarcophagus with spikes,

they weren't even thought of,
or imagined, until 1793.

Oh, I was going to say, I thought they were
invented by Paul Daniels or someone.



The Spanish Inquisition, must be
the Spanish Inquisition.

They weren't used in the
Spanish Inquisition

because they weren't invented
until 1793, which was...

My favourite
one from the Spanish Inquisition...

was they put a pole up your anus,

and they do it in such a way that it

avoids all of your vital organs
and comes out by your shoulder.

And then just leave you there
for people to look at.

I like the first part of that.

Actual poles,
not a Polish gentleman, it is

an actual pole.

Less keen, less keen.

I thought an iron maiden was
a chastity belt. No.

They call that a chastity belt.

So, they didn't ever exist?

Well, in 1793, an archaeologist by the name of
Johann Siebenkees, gave an account of one,
which was a hoax.

And then 100 years or so later,
a guy called Matthias Pfau, had one

installed in Kyburg, his Swiss
castle, as a visitor attraction.

It became the prototype for all
the other iron maidens that were

used in museums and movies.

So they hadn't really been
used as a method of torture.

No, that's what I mean.
They were just a hoax for centuries.

"Here's one for you. Here's one for
you."

What a weird hoax.

Actually, if you think about it,

what they wanted to do in the
Middle Ages is find a way of killing

people as gradually as possible,
which is essentially...

Because it is going to kill them
immediately,

and you don't even get to see
it happening.

And they don't recant their heresy or
whatever it is they were guilty of.

Yeah, they hadn't invented Perspex
until 1974.

It would be a
dead giveaway they weren't medieval

if they had a Perspex front.

Made by the people who brought
you stripper heels.

If we go back to my little
manuscript word cloud,

maybe the other ones didn't
exist in medieval times.

There wasn't much cardboard about.

If there were greeting cards,
they wouldn't have been...

Not big readers, either,
not many people could read. Exactly.

But in fact, there were
single sheet woodcuts

found from the mid-15th century,
with pictures on them,

wishing the recipient
a very good year, even.

It seems a rather modern idea.
Sorry...

But those banderoles with
the little bubbles were very popular.

And they would say things, not,
"Sorry you've been unwell,"

but things like, "A very good year."
So they did exist.

What else might have existed,
or did exist, in that era?

Sweet-and-sour sauce, definitely.

Yes, they called it sour-sweet,
in fact. Aigre-doux.

And they used vinegar and sugar,
cinnamon, orange, onions.

Whatever they could
get their hands on.

Didn't they use onions to
sweeten things?

Onions do contain more sugar
than sugar beets,

as long as you cook them.

Hence the caramelised...you know.
They are a bit oniony, though, as
well.

They can be sweet,

but you wouldn't want too many
puddings being that oniony.

It's true, they're not that sweet.
Because if you ever go to the
freezer

and you go for a Mini Milk,
and you've left a bag of onion
rings

next to the Mini Milks
in the freezer...

It doesn't taste too nice.

The Mini Milks taste a bit oniony.

What I do when I, you know,

slow roast a belly of pork is I take

an onion, a large onion,

and the juices from the pork go
down, and the onion roasts,

and it is so sweet, it is... I swear
you'll believe

you're eating...a Haribo..Har...

Haribo? Are you possessed at the
moment?

We'll find a medieval cure for it.

During the Spanish Inquisition,
they put a Mini Milk up your arse...

What is a Mini Milk?
What is a Mini Milk?

Oh, dear.

Is it one of those sweets that
looks like a tiny bottle of milk?

No, it's an ice cream on a
stick, basically. It is basically...

When you want a Magnum
and your mum won't buy you a Magnum,

you get a Mini Milk. And you keep
those with onion rings? No, I didn't!

I have separate shelves. You've got
to keep sweet... Put me on camera.

You've got to keep...

You've got to keep sweet
and savoury separate in freezers,

guys, come on!

Mini Milks are nice. They are like,
I don't know, if you can't get a
Sparkle,

get a Mini Milk, I don't know.
What's a Sparkle? Oh, dear.

What's your ice cream of choice?
I used to like Mivvis when I was a
boy.

That's the point! Now I'm an adult!
Right. I eat olives.

And I eat cheese.

This has all gone
very weird. You started it.

We are a long way... I want to live
in the Middle Ages now,

because they seem to have
grown-up food.

Question from the floor, Mr Fry.
What is a prefab?

Oh, don't you have those
in Australia?

I don't know. It means a sort of
modular building that is made outside

the site and then brought to it
and assembled.

It is associated
with low-cost housing.

The Duchess of Cambridge
grew up in one. Did she?

No.

Because she grew up on an estate.

I just like the fact that people
think she was common as muck.

William the Conqueror had prefabs,
didn't he? Did he?

Didn't they bring prefab
castles over with...

Not the Normandy landings,
the other way round.

The Hasting landings.
They brought...

Because all the plug
sockets are different here,

and they wanted their own...

An example of prefab housing that we
have is the Vikings, in fact,

who, when they invaded Orkney, found
there was virtually nowhere to live,

and so they came back with supplies,
on longboats, of prefab little
houses.

And that's presumably where Vikings
got the idea of flat-pack...

Have you noticed that the current
Vikings have decided

it should be described as "ickier",
not IKEA. It is ridiculous.

As in, "more icky"? "More icky",
yes.

There is a voice-over now that goes
on about "ickier".

Strange. Oh, they can fick off, then.

That leaves us, I think, with
official commemorative merchandise.

Would that be if you went to...

They used to be very keen on seeing
a rotting old bit of a saint.

Very much so. If you were medieval,
there was

one saint who was more or less
contemporary, who was a martyr.

And they would stop off at this
cathedral where he was murdered,

famously. Who would that be? Thomas
Becket. Thomas Becket. Points!

Points! Points! Solid points.
In the 12th century, Thomas Becket
was killed by Henry I I.

And they immediately
tried to sell his blood,

and that ran out rather quickly,
so they diluted it.

But also they sold little swords,
little simulacra of the sword that

had stabbed him, and you could buy
one of those. And it was official.

It was, as it were, stamped. It's
still got a shop in the cathedral.

Exactly.

The Middle Ages, in fact, featured
lots of very useful inventions,

but tell me, what has been called
"the wickedest, silliest,

"most insane and most disastrous
book in world literature?"

The Liar by Stephen Fry. Ah!

It probably is. Mein Kampf.

That would be a very sensible guess.

And in the interests of balance,
The Da Vinci Code also.

These self-help books.

The books that say,

"If you just change the way
you think, you'll be fine."

I mean, you know, everyone has got
a mood board for something.

So, maybe there was a medieval mood
board of some kind.

You're right to mention
the medieval era,

because it was a book of the 15th
century. Foxe's Book Of Martyrs.

No, that was a little later.
But let me give you its title.

Malleus Maleficorum. MeleficARUM,
I beg your pardon.

That's the point.
If you know your Latin, that means...

Malleus, does it...? If you take the
US off

and put a T... Mallet. Mallet.
Hammer. Malleus is hammer.

Timmy Mallett's autobiography.

Sorry, I'm bringing the tone down,
I know.

Is it... Mal... Is that like
"the bad-doing hammer" thing?

It is "of the". That's genitive.

Come on, boy, that's genitive.

So, it is "the hammer of...the
bad-doing people."

But the "arum", not "orum",
tells you it's bad...

Doing women. Yes.

Bad-doing women and their hammer!
No.

The hammer of. I want to be the
hammer of them. I want to beat them
down.

The crazy Witches of Eastwick.
Witches. Witches. You said it.
You said it. We got there.

We're supposed to hammer them?
The hammer of the witches
is what that means.

So it's not... They don't own the
hammer. No. We own the hammer
and we hammer away at them.

I am more confused than when
I talked about Mini Milk. I...

We had a Latin parsing essay in which
The Malleus Maleficarum turned out to
mean The Hammer of Witches...

Wow...the way to beat witches,
and this was a textbook
about how to destroy

and find witches. It was strange
because it was mid-15th century.

In the mid-15th century, the Church
banned belief in witches.

So this wasn't a time of witch
burnings or anything of the nature

but the very nature of the success
of the book meant that a slow

movement grew in which witches
should be found, burned and tortured.

This book was therefore called the
silliest, most wicked book
written

because it made appalling
claims about women, that for example,

that they dispossessed men
of their penises. As if

They would take their penises, put
them on a tray and the penises would

wander around of their own volition
eating...eating oats and corn.

Not maize corn.
With a simple pecking motion.

Or with a suction.

How would they do it?
There's a theory.

Do you know the theory
about the witch's broomstick,

about how it might have developed?

Yeah, they put it up your anus...

It's funny you
should say that

cos, yes, they put them
up their anus. What?

You may say, why would a woman stick
a broomstick up her botty?

I'm so glad we're having this
conversation.

But anyway, the point is there is
a substance that has been accused,

if you like, throughout history, of
being behind a lot of episodes

of mass hysteria and hallucination
and so on

and the substance is called ergot.

Have you heard of ergot? No.
Where can you get it?

You can get it
if you live near a field of rye.

Where rye grows. It is a fungus
that grows on rye.

Its spores can be breathed in
and it is not unlike lysergic acid,

which is the L of LSD, and it causes
weird trips.

Now, with any drug there are
different ways of ingesting it.

Intranasally, orally...
Or on a broomstick up your arse.

..intravenously
or in a suppository form.

Right. So one way would be to take
it and to grease up your...

I'm not making this up.
Grease up your pole with ergot.

Grease up your pole and scatter it
with bits of ergot and then, "Whoo!"

And you only... You feel like you're
flying.

That's basically it.
You then get your...

What does that mean? How much ergot
are those kids at Hogwarts getting
through?

It's not appropriate to
encourage that kind of drug
taking in the young. It isn't.

And there is another theory
that it was actually intra-vaginal

- rather than intra-anal...
- Lovely

..so that it was covered on the
broom and then it went smoothly up.

I can't see anything smooth
about this at all.

I don't know.
Owww!

Do you want to apply it, do you?
Do that yourself?!

You'd be a great gynaecologist,
though, Stephen

cos because you're very calm the
way you're explaining everything.

Let's get more decent here.
What did old Mummy Pettigrew do?

Wow. Is there a clue in the picture?
No. The picture is there to deceive.

The key is in the M word, this being
the M series. Was she a Mother
Superior of a nunnery?

No, she wasn't.
No. Was she a Morrissey fan?

This could take a long time,
couldn't it? Yes, it could.

Madonna.... I'm assuming she wasn't
a dead Egyptian.

Ah, no, SHE wasn't.

All right, Mummy Pettigrew -
not female. Oh, right.

If I was very interested in beetles,
you might call me Beetle Fry,

and if I was very interested in
mummies, you might call me Mummy Fry,

so, Mummy Pettigrew...

..was a Mr Pettigrew who was
obsessed with Egyptology.

On the money. Ah.

And here you are, exactly,
and there is a picture of him.

He was quite well-known.

He was Thomas "Mummy" Pettigrew.

He was a 19th-century anatomist,
and what he would do,

he would issue invitations,

cos this was a period in which
mummies were coming into Britain

from all over - mostly Egypt,
obviously, but North Africa, too,

and other places where mummification
was what happened.

We went and robbed the world.
We robbed the world.

It was a pretty awful kind of
cultural violation that went on,

there, I'm afraid, but...
Not like the British to do that,

through history, is it?
Americans, too,

and it was... French, also.
It was a big deal in America,

and France almost invented
Egyptology. All right, hang on.

Well, all the countries of Europe,
essentially -

the powers, as they were known
in the 19th century -

Ioved Egyptology,
and these mummies would come in,

and rather than unrolling them
carefully in the British Museum,

these were public events
and Pettigrew was the chief of it.

You would pay to see a mummy
unrolled for the first time.

You had no idea
what you'd see inside.

That'd be amazing. And there were
hundreds of them coming in, yeah,

and the more you paid,
the closer to the mummy you got,

and some of them were so popular
that... People were betting.

"Will it be a dead body?
Will it be a robot?" You know.

Yeah, or someone going, "At last!"
Well...

There was an Egyptologist called
George Gliddon, who, in 1850,

proudly unrolled,
before his paying public, a princess.

Cos he'd been
able to read the hieroglyphs

and tell that this was important -
a princess.

He unrolled the mummy and this
huge, great todger poked out,

so it was quite clear
he wasn't exactly right.

It was clear that he
wasn't yet dead.

And there was one occasion where
the Archbishop of Canterbury was

pushed out cos the press of people
was so great

that he couldn't even get a view.

These were very popular events,

and one of the greatest fans of them
was the Duke of Hamilton,

who loved these things.

He became very obsessed,

and asked Pettigrew that he might be
mummified, himself, when he died.

Although he looks younger in that
picture than Pettigrew, I suppose...

Was that him with his wife?

Well, anyway, when he died,
he was duly mummified

by Thomas "Mummy" Pettigrew... Yeah.

..and they rather got the
proportions wrong of the sarcophagus

in which he was going to
be placed as a mummy,

and so they had to cut his feet off.

Did they put his feet
in a little shoebox?

Yes, probably.
I'd like to be mummified.

I mean, obviously,

once I'm dead, but I would...
Yeah, I was going to say.

It'd be good, cos I'd look like
the Michelin man,

cos you know...
It'd be nice. It'd be nice.

Let's see if we can guess where
the northernmost mummies were found.

That's not eccentrics
like the Duke of Hamilton,

who asked to be mummied,

but proper mummified creatures
according... Wigan. Erm...

No, a little further south
than Wigan, but certainly north.

Kent. No, north...

Nottingham.

Ian McNeice. I think I'm right in
saying Michael Parkinson.

Barnsley. Barnsley is right.
That's right, Barnsley.

Now, why would there be found
ancient mummies in Barnsley in 300AD?

There was no room in
the car park in Leicester.

Good.

No, who was stationed
and garrisoned in Britain?

Oh, was it Egyptian Romans?
The Romans?

North African, yes, who observed
mummification... Right, yeah.

..and they are the furthest north

of any mummied remains.
They were in the Roman army?

Yes. Stationed here? Absolutely.

They mummified folk?

Either as conscripts, or, you know
mercenaries, I don't know.

Were there, sort of,
British legionaries in Egypt

who played bagpipes?

Maybe.

So, we went all the way to Egypt
and ransacked the pyramids

and then we had some in Barnsley?

It was a bit of a surprise.

Can't ransack Yorkshire, though,
can you? They won't have it.

Was it a certain class of people
only that were mummified?

Was that the, like...? No, actually,
one of the most beautiful things

you could see when you go up
the Nile, if you do,

is, there's the Valley of the Kings,

but behind it is the Valley
of the Artisans and Artists,

and they're the most touchingly
extraordinary ones because they were

the artists and artisans who worked
on the great tombs of the Pharaohs.

I guess, if you had the art,
you could do it yourself.

Hilda, get to t'mummy.

Enough. Mummy Pettigrew
was very much a mummy's boy.

Now, for a mile-high question -

how do you get
a whole row of seats to yourself

on a Virgin Airways flight?

Oh, if you're really fat.

That would... Yeah, I think they
might be able to get rid of an arm...

but I don't think they'd let you on
if you were any fatter.

No, but, like, really fat.
Oh, I see what you mean. Die!

Is the right answer.
You'd have to die. Oh... Die.

We asked.

You can't... I mean, you can't
make people sit next to the dead.

That's...
That's the truth, isn't it?

Basically, I think
that would be what it was,

and if you're flying, say,
from London to New York,

if you're near enough,
and someone dies,

you'd turn around and all the other
passengers would be going,

"Oh, really!
Please, have some consideration."

But once you've passed that point
of no return, as they call it,

then there's nothing you can do,
except go on to New York.

But what if the plane's full?

Well... Do they keep a row
for the dead, just in case?

And, in which case,
if they keep a row for the dead,

what if two people die?
There's always a row at the back...

Exactly, if there's an outbreak
of sickness.

..and the crew use it
for having a kip. Oh, that's true.

What it means is the crew
will then have to be awake. Yes.

The dead bloke -
that'll piss him off.

Does it happen a lot, though?

Oh, now, this is what's interesting.

British Airways have about
ten deaths a year in flight.

Well, that food is just...

And amongst
the 36 million passengers,

so if you extrapolate out to the
rather amazing 3.5 billion passengers

that fly every year, that means there
must be around 1,000 deaths a year,

and different airlines have
different ways of doing it.

Singapore Airlines have
a corpse cupboard.

I don't know why it's funny,
but it is.

So no-one need even know there's
a dead person. "Oh, I'm sorry."

It's all so Fawlty Towers, isn't it?
Yeah.

If I ever die on the plane,

I should like to be stored
in the overhead lockers.

For the rest of time. Brilliant.

British Airways, though,
you get a good deal if you die,

because you go to first class.

Yeah. Excellent. Yeah. At last.

One long established steward said,

"Many years ago, we used to give
them a vodka and tonic,

"a Daily Mail and eyeshades, and
tell the passengers they were fine.

"We don't do that any more."
Yeah, I think...

It's bad enough being dead

but having to hold the Daily Mail?!
The Daily Mail!

Oh, trash!

The Daily Mail and other newspapers,
not just the Daily Mail,

when they talk
about their circulation,

they are also including the
newspapers that they give away

for free... Oh, really?

..and so I don't think
the airlines or any of those

kind of institutions actually
pay for the newspapers.

Oh, really? So it's mainly...

The Daily Mail is mainly dead people
on aeroplanes. Yes.

But they are...

The dead are very, very right-wing.

Oh, that is true.

All right.

When do you think -
I'll give you five years either way -

was the first airline stewardess?

I think 200 years
before the first aeroplane,

and I think it was a weird pointless
scheme by a futurologist,

who just went up and down a field
with a trolley,

asking the cattle, "Drink, sir?"

1962. '62?

1958.

'58. I'm going much earlier.

I'm going to say 1924.

Ooh, you're so close.

It's 1930.

There she is, Ellen Church. Aw...

The very first. She wanted to be
a pilot but she wasn't allowed.

She and her colleagues,
who were all nurses,

were known as "sky girls",
in those early days.

That was United, as you can see -
United Airlines.

Their duties included
screwing down loose seats -

not loo-seats, loose seats -

helping to fuel the plane... Wow.

..and pushing the plane into its
hangar at the end of the journey.

All that and flogging the perfume,
as well... Yeah.

..and the scratchcards,

and going up and down with a bin
liner saying, "Is that rubbish?"

I don't think they sell
scratchcards on aeroplanes.

Not on the ones you go on, Stephen,
but, yes, they do.

I would say a scra...
a lottery card on an aeroplane,

you do not want to sell something
when your chances of winning

are so much less than your chances
of dying on that aeroplane.

So, good, now,

how would this man
make your mouth water?

Oh, old Captain Saliva.

Is the stick relevant?

Well... Hmm...

By making... Hit you in the nuts
with his walking stick.

Maybe if I told you his name,
it might help.

Hang on, now dogs have appeared -
walking sticks and dogs.

His name was Ivan... Doggie-stick.

..Petrovich...

Pavlov, as someone shouted
in the audience. Pavlov.

Oh, Pavlov's dogs.
So how would he make drool appear?

By ringing a bell.

Wrong!

You said it.

Thank you for saying it.

Aww. Your fault, "Pavlov."
You see, it's so unfair.

You led me astray there.
Would he make a pavlova?

Did he invent that as well?
No, that was Anna Pavlova.

Anna Pavlova, yes, exactly.

They'd feed the dogs
and they'd do something, well,

they'd ring a bell, wouldn't they?

And then the dogs would think
the food was coming

and then they would get all excited.

That is what we think of when we
thought of Pavlov and his dogs.

They were trained to recognise
particular bells.

When he rang the bell, they would
start immediately to salivate

because dogs salivate when they're
about to eat because it helps

them digest but the weird thing is,
he did everything except ring bells.

He did things that showed
the extraordinary

sophistication of dogs' hearing.

They could distinguish between
rhythms of

96 and 104 beats per minute,

so if he gave 104 beats
per minute on a metronome,

there would be no food,
96, there would be food.

A day later he would go 96,
they'd drool.

He tried also ascending
and descending musical scales.

If a scale was going up,

they're going to eat, it was going
down, they weren't going to eat.

All that
and he could've just rung a bell.

Followers of Pavlov
used bells but he didn't.

Is this a sort of victory
of the journalist who reported it?

"It's like he rang a bell?"
"No, no, there's a metronome."

"You know, basically
he rang a bell."

And then they just
reported it as a bell.

But do you want to know
the weird thing?

Yes, I do,
I want to know the weird thing.

In 1904, he became the first ever
Russian to win...

the NO- BELL prize.

I've always wondered why it was
called that.

He became a Nobel laureate
for his contribution to medicine,

particularly to digestion and so on.

And he decided to sell
gastric juices of dogs

and I suppose his name was helpful.

And he felt that these would
help people as

a digestive cure of some kind.

So you would drink the gastric
juice of a dog to help your own

gastric business?

He would stick a catheter in a poor
dog, up into its tummy to milk it

of its gastric juices and, yeah,
he sold them.

We've got a picture of a dog
giving his all here.

It's only a drawing!

So, if you think Pavlov rings a bell,
you're barking.

Now, Matt, what's dense, slimy,
lives at the bottom of the sea

and is called...?
David Walliams.

He's a very strong swimmer,
isn't he?

Oh, dear.

Matt, what's dense, slimy,
lives at the bottom of the sea

and is called Matt?

David Walliams. Wa-hey!

And called Matt? Is it just a mat?

Oh, yes.

Yes. It's a mat. So I AM clever.

Is it some kind of sea vegetable?

It's...it's...it's sea life,
sea matter that's cohered.

Algae. How big would it be, the mat?

Huge, huge, hundreds
of thousands of square miles.

Certainly the biggest we know of,
it's about the size of Greece.

There you are, you see.
You see. You ARE clever.

It's not in Greece or near Greece,
it's off the coast of Peru and Chile.

Oh, look at David Walliams.

Stop it!

No, don't stop, carry on.

It's microbial.
It's a whole load of microbes.

So many of them that they can create
this matter that's thick and...

Mat matter.
Mat matter, exactly.

Don't say anything bad about them
because we owe the photosynthesis

and the oxygen-rich nature
of our own atmosphere to these.

We couldn't live without them.

I've been served that in a motorway
service station.

They eat hydrogen
and they breathe nitrates.

And they live in streams and
lakes as well as the ocean.

They're very, very exciting and here,

I know you like
wonderful information,

the total weight of microbes
in the ocean is equivalent

to 240 billion African elephants.

The good thing about that is that
really helps me visualise that.

That was very, very helpful.
Let me help you more, then.

35 elephants made of microbes
for everyone on the planet.

So each of us have got 35 elephants
made of microbes surrounding us now.

We're rich!
35, that's a lot of elephants.

The time has come to rule out
lifting all that in one go.

Right.

You learn a lot on this show,

I never knew that the ocean was made
up of 35,000 billion elephants.

I've really been educated.

No wonder elephants are endangered

when you think of the number
who have been drowned.

To create a mat
at the bottom of the sea.

That's probably why the trunks...
They were trying to evolve snorkels.

Oh, dear.

I can see that I've not really
explained myself very well.

And now for something slightly mucky.

Alan, have you ever had your dirt
hole burgled without your knowledge?

Do you know what?
I'm not going to answer that.

Fair enough.

I'm actually writing
to Points Of View now in this book.

It's a question to do with the
macabre side of human life, muck.

Oh, is this something like, in some
context, excrement has a value?

Yes, where there's muck...

Yes, they need it for fertiliser
or whatever

and so people would sell their,
erm, you know, their shit.

So obviously other people
would steal it.

Which gave it a value,
and if something has a value,

there will always be some
who wish to steal it.

Is this in medieval times or now?

No, actually, it's not medieval,
it's 18th and 19th century.

I think the question is flawed.
How so?

Because if I'd have had my dirt hole
burgled without my knowledge,

I wouldn't know about it, would I?

Touche. You're absolutely right.

So I don't know.
Is the right answer. Possibly.

"Possibly." Yup.

So people kept their rubbish in holes
that could be collected.

It was a bin collection.

The dustman and the dustcart
were actually often collecting

dust as well because it was simply
dirt that people had swept up

and poured into a little hole
or into a bucket in a hole,

the dirt hole,
because everything was recycled.

Even family pets,
when they died, had a value.

White cat, sixpence,
multicoloured cat, fourpence.

In those days, the Flying Dustmen,
as they were called,

the people who came to collect it,

they were paid to get it rather than
you paying rates to have it removed.

There was hardware and software.

Software would be
things like a dead cat

and the hardware was broken crockery,
oyster shells, things like that,

which road builders could use.

Anyway, from muck to mugshots.

What heinous crime was
committed by Baby- Face Bertillon?

He stole the faces of babies.

And then wore them himself.

I don't know
if you're a Sherlock Holmes buff.

I... I'm quite buff but...

no, not so much
with Sherlock Holmes.

Sherlock Holmes talks about the
Bertillon system at one point.

It was a famous system.

And it did involve, really,
what you're looking at.

Mugshots.
Mugshots is the right answer!

So Bertillon took a
photograph of his young son,

hence the Baby- Face Bertillon.

And what he did there was
he exhibited his technique,

which may seem obvious to us
but what are we looking at?

Taking a front and profile.

He realised that ears were very,
very good ways of identifying people,

and so you couldn't just have
a full-on

but a side view is very important.

And, over the years,
the French police

and the British got huge collections
of pictures of criminals.

And these became
the rogues' galleries,

the mugshots that are famous

in films and TV shows where some
witness says,

"Oh, I'd know him if I saw him."

"Hey, show him,
show him the mugshots."

You know. And the witness would go
through the book

and each book would be...

That was days after I'd
had my dirt hole burgled.

Was it by Hugh Grant above you?

Hugh Grant's trying
to look cross there.

And the crime that Bertillon's son
had committed was nibbling all

the pears in a basket.

Trying one and putting it back.
Yeah. My little boy does that.

It drives me mad. Which,
to a Frenchman, is a grave sin.

Sorry, is it a euphemism?

Maybe it's a euphemism,
have I missed something?

"I admit I nibbled all
the pears in the basket.

"And she bloody loved it."

That's terrible. Anyway, yes.

Francois Bertillon was
the notorious Paris pear nibbler.

And talking of delicious things
to eat, one last medieval question.

How many uses can you
think of for a monk's earwax?

Oh, it's endless. Candles.
Candles, yeah.

Polishing wood.
They might have done.

That definitely sounds
like a euphemism.

Yeah.

I meant it...

There's not much else
to do in a monastery, is there?

Polishing their own wood.

What have monks handed down to us
mostly?

Bibles. Bibles and manuscripts,
illustrated...

Spent their lifetime writing,
copying them out.

Doing lines, basically. Yes.

There we are, there's a picture of a
happy monk doing his illuminations.

And that side of it,
the painty side of it,

they used a substance called
glair -G-L-A-I-R-

and it tended to get bubbled but they
found if they added earwax to it,

they could get a really smooth,
beautiful lustre and sheen

to the illustrations they were doing,

which have lasted us down
the centuries.

How do you think of that, though?
To go, "Hmm, there it is."

A thing you might try at home is you
could take a pint of foaming beer

and then pop earwax
into the head of your foaming tankard

and the bubbles should collapse.

If you're watching TV,
don't listen to this man.

I think you're right.

It would be better if it was
the other way round.

You had a flat liquid and then you
put a bit of earwax in it

and then it went, fzzeee!

Chuck some sodium in your beer.
That should do it.

And which orifice does sodium
come out of?

They left other little things for us,
little maniculae, little hands

that pointed to certain
sections of the text in the Bible.

You can see one on the left there.

Well,
if you've read The Name Of The Rose,

they left clues everywhere,
all sorts.

Yeah. And octopuses as well, you can
see an octopus at the top there.

They, for some reason,
liked octopuses.

Is that a person with a huge
sort of trumpet up his bottom?

It's something odd,
isn't it? Yeah, it is.

I don't know what they're doing
there. They're praising the Lord.

It's so boring
in those monasteries. Exactly.

The old fart trumpet
was the favourite...

I was going to say on a Sunday
but perhaps not.

"Dinner!"

They used to leave little remarks
like, "Oh, God, it's cold in here,"

or, "I'm so bored."

Round the Bible.
Just like schoolkids on their desks.

Exactly like that.

So why are they fighting snails?

No-one is quite sure. But it's a
common feature - knights vs snails.

They seemed to like...

Some people may think it was
a symbol of the struggle of the poor

against the aristocracy.

I think people shouldn't watch
this show any more.

Do you think they had
loads of snails in these cold,

damp monasteries
and there were snails everywhere

and they were hoping a
gallant knight would come

and help them deal with the snail
infestation problem?

Possibly!

Which means it's time...

..to place various intimate
parts of you into the thumbscrew

of general ignorance.
Fingers on buzzers, please.

Where are most missionaries
positioned?

I'm going to guess that
most of them are in Utah where

the Mormons tend to
kind of congregate

because they haven't yet been
assigned their places to go to.

Interesting,
interesting answer but I'm

talking about which is the country
that receives the most incoming?

Well, I'm not talking about that.

I'm talking about them
before they've gone.

So I'm not asking you where the most
missionaries come FROM, I'm asking...

I know but...

I'm trying to get a point.

By you answering the question
that I haven't asked.

My guess is China.

Ah, it's a possibility.
I mean, it's not...

Well, it IS a possibility
but it's not a fact.

Is it in Africa? It's not Africa.
Is it England? No.

Is it South America?
England is much, much closer.

South America.
Not South America, not SOUTH America.

Central. Not Central...
North America. North America!

America, United States. Well, I think
you'll find Utah is in America.

But I specifically said,
"Where are the most

"missionaries who've come from
outside one country?"

I know, but I didn't choose
to answer that. Argh!

I've got to give you points,
you deserve them for sheer tenacity.

The fact is, we don't quite know
why missionaries...

Some think they just want to
go to a very rich country,

others think these missionaries
believe America has lapsed into sin.

You're absolutely right in one way,
certainly, which is

that America produces the most
missionaries.

I've gone, I'm passed it.

For me, it's gone.

32,400 missionaries went to

the USA from other nations.
No, not interested.

Whereas 127,000 go out of the US.
No, it's too late,
too little too late.

And I think he's a Mormon.
No, we're not looking.

In 2003...

..in 2003 the residents
of a Fijian village...

Don't listen to him.
..apologised...

..apologised to the family
of an English missionary who had,

in 1867,
been eaten by their ancestors.

Well, again, too little too late.

It's not known why
the missionary was killed.

Because he looked bloody tasty,
I should expect.

The villagers said that they had been
suffering bad luck ever since eating

the missionary and hoped it would
change their fortunes to apologise.

A year later,
there was an earthquake.

Maybe they should have...

I wouldn't apologise for anyone
my ancestors had eaten.

I don't think it's my fault.
No, exactly.

And I wouldn't expect
a descendant of mine

to apologise for anything I'd eaten,
either.

I think what you eat, it's you to
apologise, no-one else.

Ridiculous for having
pan-generational responsibility

for ancestors' diets.

But they thought it brought them
bad luck, they were superstitious.

So they weren't really sorry at all.

If they thought it would bring them
good luck,

they'd probably eat another one.

OK, more missionaries go to the
United States than anywhere else.

Do an impression of someone
in the stocks.

"Fuck off, fuck off!"

It's like that, isn't it?

Ah-ha! Points to Mitchell.
Yes, absolutely. That the pillory.

That's a pillory or fuse,
as they were also known.

That's stocks.
Oh, stocks are feet, are they?

I 'm into public shaming, though.

If you've done something bad
people can go,

"Oh, don't do it again,"
and then you go,

"Oh, that was awful, I won't have
friends if I do this again."

And then you go back into society.
I don't think it's so bad.

You're very right.
They could be quite forgiving.

Sometimes people had flowers
thrown at them.

Daniel Defoe,
when he was in the stocks

because he defended the church,
people threw flowers at him.

Those aren't stocks, so...

No, he wasn't in the stocks there,

he was pilloried,
I think is the safest way to...

People threw horrible things
at you, big heavy things,

and actually you could die.
Yeah, no, absolutely.

Some people took great lengths
to protect themselves as a result.

There was a gentleman here,
Charles Hitchen, who was convicted

of attempted sodomy and he went into
the stocks wearing a suit of armour.

What happened to successful ones,

ones that managed to bring it off,
as it were?

Presumably you have to pay a lot for
that when you were in the stocks.

The stocks weren't for your head
and arms, just for your legs.

And, with that,

our mosey through the
medieval macabre must come to an end.

We have scores. Mercy, mercy me.

Well, in joint first position,
with minus six,

Matt and Julia.

In third place with minus ten,

David Mitchell.

But the witch we shall be burning
this evening is

Alan Davies with minus 25.

Well, it only remains for me
to thank, Matt, David, Julia

and Alan and the last word on the
Middle Ages comes from Bennett Cerf.

"Middle age is
when your contemporaries are

"so grey and wrinkled and bald

"they don't recognise you."

Good night.