QI (2003–…): Season 13, Episode 14 - Messy - full transcript

Goo-oo-oo-ood...

evening, good evening,
good evening, good evening,

good evening, good evening, good
evening, good evening and welcome

to QI, where tonight we'll be one
massive, marvellous, molten mess.

And here's the mix.

The massive Noel Fielding...

..the marvellous Eddie Kadi...

..the molten Sarah Millican...

..and who will clean up this mess?

Alan Davies.

And let's hear your messy buzzers.



Noel goes...

Hmm. Eddie goes...

Sarah goes...

And Alan goes...

Do you know what that was?

April 2010.

What's our theme?

Mess.

Lionel?

Lionel Messi.

Messi... scoring how many
times against ARSENAL?

Oh, four. Four times.

Yes.

I'm afraid so.



There you are.

Oh, dear!

Anyway, what's... the meaning
of this mess of M words?

Just choose one as it passes by.

Oh, mumbudget is how much
your mum's got in her purse.

So, is that literally
the budget that your mum has?

Cos when I was growing up,
I'd ask my mum for £10

and she'll always be like,
"I don't have £10, here's £1."

Right? If I asked her for £1,
she'll give me 20 pence,

so I asked her for a million...

Just to get it up.
Just to, yes, just to get it up.

And she slapped me.

Mumbudget is like keeping mum,
it's to be silent about something.

You put the word budget after,
like, there's a word fussbudget,

for example, which is
someone who's very fussy.

"Oh, don't be such a fussbudget"
was a Regency sort of word.

Munge! Monster Munge.

Monster Munge!

Munge is New Zealand for minge.

Oh, munge!

Oh, dear, horribly true.

Monarsenous.

Yeah, a single, er... crack.

Oh!

Mammock, the mixture of
a mammoth and a hammock.

It's a bra, it's a bra.
A useful one to sleep in.

It's where... A mammock? It's where
I hang my mammaries. Oh, your
mammary hammock, yes. A mammock.

A maness is a woman. Yes.

Is a mormal...? Is it? Yes... Is it?

But what's surprising... Is it?!
Yeah. You got one right!

I got one right, yeah. I'm going!
Is it actually? Yes.

You might think that it was a recent
word for a woman, a maness,

but actually it's 16th century.

Tudor, 1500s, maness.

A man and a maness. Yeah, a man...

Mazology, the study of mazes.

Oh, no!

The study of mazes.

Oh, you must be so stupid
to get one of those go off!

It's actually the study of mammals.
Oh!

Mammals in zoology.
That live in mazes.

Mazology, yeah.

Mogi, mogi...

Is a mutton-monger
like a Welsh person? No!

I'll get into trouble for that.

It could be a man with extreme
sexual appetites can be called
a mutton-monger.

Oh, really?
So a Welshman, then.

I pulled it back, did you see?

Moley is someone who's like a mole,
not actually a mole,

but like a mole.
Is mole-y. They're sort of moley.

Is a mournival like
a really good funeral?

Whoo!

I'll catch up with a moley -
it's actually rather a grim thing.
Wonderful there is a name for it.

1950s gangs,
racecourse gangs and things

were often known as razor gangs, and
razors were the weapon of choice.

People used to shave each other.

They used to... Their legs.

They used to conceal razors
inside a potato.

Oh, nice. And they called it
a moley.

"Oh... I'll mole you!"

They could keep it in their pocket
without hurting themselves... Wow.
..and then attack.

Better than having it concealed
in your sandwiches.
Well, yes, that would be horrible.

And what other words
have we come up across?

A mugwump is when you
put your biscuit in your tea

and half of it falls to the bottom.

Oh! That would be
so useful as a word.

What about munge,
is that a man with a vagina?

No, it's...

Is moggadored like
if you're a cat lady?

I'm mog-adored.

Munge is actually a verb,
and it's something mothers do,

but I don't know anybody else would
do it, unless they were weird.

I munge, you munge, we munge,
they munge. We munge,
that's how verbs work.

They munge!

You've conjugated the verb
"to munge" very nicely.

I have.

Mothers... I munge daily. Yeah.

I am munge... I will have munged,
would be future perfect. Yes.

I could have munged.

Could have munged, I might have
munged, I may well have munged. Yes.

I cannot remember
if I munged or not.

To munge is to wipe
someone else's nose. Wow.

I did not munge. You didn't munge.

I munge about
every 15 minutes at home.

Mesopygion... mesopygion
is interesting,

because you almost mentioned that.

A mesopygion. Mesopygion.

Mesopygion.

It sounds like you're doing
yourself down, "Oh me-so-pygion."

Oh, mesopygion. Er...

Pyg, P-Y-G is buttocks in Greek,
as in styrop, styropigus,

and beautiful fat buttocks,
styropigus.

And mesopygius is the crack
between the buttocks. Eso what?

It's your anal fissure,
your anal fissure.

That's what I call sexy times. Did I
say anal fisher? I'm an anal fisher.

A fissure. A fissure, I mean.

Yeah.

Not an anal fisher?

What else were we?

No, no, no. An anal angler.

Oh, dear.

So, if you've got like an itch,
you could be a mesopygion. Yeah,
that's right, yeah, you could.

It's amazing. Oh, it's all running
down my mesopygion. Yeah...

Yup, there it is.

There's got to be a word for
these things, hasn't there?
It's good that it exists. Yeah.

But you talked about mugwump
earlier - "mugwump" is a word that
most Americans would know,

because it has a historical place
in American politics.

Mugwumps were Republicans who
deserted the Republican Party

in the 1880s and voted Democrat.

Oh...

And so it means a turncoat,

a political turncoat in American
political discourse. Wow.

That person must have been really
angry, who decided that word.

Well... "Oh, they've gone to
the other side, the mugwumps!"

It's an Algonquin Indian word.
Mug-wump!

It's Algonquin Indian. Mugwump.

Mullipuff? Mullipuff.

It's a thoughtful...

Puff!

Steady!

It's a contemptible...
It's an absolute minefield!

It's a contemptible, despicable
person, a mullipuff. Is it?

Or it is a type of puffball fungus.

Yeah, there we are.

If you want to know
what the rest mean,

go to...

It's a real site.

There's one last thing I'd like to
mention from the list, though.

Mytacism, which we haven't commented
on, it's an excessive use
of the letter M.

Ah-h-h.

So, let's let the mytacism roll.

Name a politician with
raw animal magnetism.

Oh... wow...

Ed Miliband.

No, but seriously.

It's actually
a politician long dead.

Animal magnetism -
where did that phrase come from?

It's not actually an obvious
or natural phrase.

It seems so to us,
cos we use it all the time,

but why animal magnetism?

There's something charismatic
about them physically,

the way they move or look
or do things. Mmm.

It's not what they say,
it's their aroma.

Is it the way...

Yeah, free spirit.

Yeah, is it the way like
a gorilla can sometimes be sexy,

but you're not allowed to say that?

It's not banned in zoos to go,
"I'd do that one, wouldn't you?"

Where are we, is it American
politicians? No, we're back
in the 19th century.

19th century. 19th century, and...

It'll be either Gladstone or
Disraeli. A German Austrian figure
called Franz... Franz.

..who achieved huge public
recognition for what he
claimed to do,

which involved using
the magnetic fluids of people

to make them do things
they didn't want to do.

And he coined the phrase
"animal magnetism,"

meaning a very basic, primal, human,
magnetic quality.

And his name was Franz M...

Magnet.

Mugwump.

It's a word that means
it's absolutely hypnotic

and amazing, I'm m...

Mesmerising.

Yes, and so his name was?

Bobby Mesmeriser.

I've already given you
Frank... Franz, haven't I?

Franz Mesmer.

Franz Mesmer was his name.

And he was the first great public
figure to hypnotise. Oh-h-h.

To use hypnosis.

Even the name's quite mesmerising.

It is, the name...

"I am Bobby the Mesmeriser."

Yeah. Forget the Bobby.
Frank, Franz. Yeah.

I like Bobby. You prefer Bobby, OK.

Yeah, cos you don't see it
coming, do you? No, you don't.

"Hi, I'm Bobby." "Yeah, he's
harmless." Bobby Mesmer. Where are
the fluids, bodily fluids?

The magnetic fluids? Yeah.
It's nonsense, but that's what
he claimed existed. Oh.

He used what we would call
basic hypnotic techniques,

but he claimed that he was
exploiting these magnetic fluids,

which don't exist in the human body,

in order to sort of pull out the
things that he could make people do.

It's called Rohypnol now.
Yes, I'm afraid it is!

But plenty of people
believed in what he did and said -

Coleridge, Marie Antoinette,
Edgar Allan Poe, Mozart, Dickens,
Conan Doyle, a lot of them.

Dickens liked to try
and practise on a friend of his,

Madame de la Rue, and he once,
on a train, with his wife,

was practising hypnotising
on Madame de la Rue, and he wrote

that he "heard the sound of his
wife's muff falling to the ground."

Why are we laughing?

I think mine sometimes comes loose,
but it's never hit the deck.

Oh, dear. We might come back to
muffs, I hope not, but we might.

What happened is, he hypnotised
his wife into a trance by accident.

And he heard a sound...
He heard the sound of
her muff hitting the ground,

and he turned round and saw that she
had been the one who'd been
hypnotised, not Madame de la Rue.

So, his wife was... she just came in
with a cup of tea, and, bang, gone.

Yes, exactly.

But the politician whom Coleridge
characterised as having animal
magnetism,

which was an insult,

was Pitt the Younger.

He thought Pitt the Younger
exhibited these traits of
animal magnetism. Wow.

In other words, that he somehow
used some sort of force, or some

sort of power over people, in order
to persuade them to his cause.

Yeah, and there were royal
commissions to investigate it,
especially in France,

Louis XVI set one up.

It was the first placebo-controlled
trial in history.

They ruled that
it had no basis in fact,

but nonetheless people
continued to believe it. Yeah.

Pitt the Younger possessed
raw animal magnetism,

at least according to Coleridge.

Now, here's an interesting effect -
listen to this.

What was being said?

Is that the Devil?

It was the Devil, but
do you know what he was saying?

"I'm going to be late,
put the dinner on."

Have another listen.

Now...

Chances are you just didn't
understand what it was saying,

but if you heard it said, clearly,

then listen again to
that distorted sound.

And so this is what was being said.

'Try saying
"blue whale" - that's bound
to come up eventually.'

Isn't it extraordinary? Wow!
Hear that again...

'Try saying "blue whale"
- that's bound to come up
eventually.'

Yeah!
You really can hear it, can't you?

Sounds like he's saying it
with a cold. You're right!

It's amazing what
the human brain can process.

But it needs a little bit
of information -

from that apparently random sound
that you thought you could never,
ever understand,

once you're told what it is,
you can instantly imprint the
structure of it.

It's amazing, I think.
Phenomenal, phenomenal!

What's the most inappropriate thing
beginning with M that the Pope
has kissed?

Yes, Sarah Millican?

My breasts.

Well, this has come as a shock to
me, tell the story, where were you?

That's it, he just, he sort of fell.

He fell on your breasts?

I was in, like, WH Smith's, and...

He'd come in to bless
some Bibles or something,

and he just tripped on, cos
the carpet was... and... and I had

a low-cut top and I don't wear one
for QI, because it feels
disrespectful. Yes.

But I normally have them out,
and he just landed,

and cos his natural inclination
is to kiss things,

he just kissed them. Wow!

What was his reaction?

Did he like it?

He was pleased.

Did he, did he go, "Mmmm"?
No, he was too polite for that,

but I could see a little
glint in his eye.

There's been a rapid succession
of pontiffs in the last ten years
or so.

So was this John Paul I I,
was it Benedict...?

I can't tell them apart.

Well, this is...

It would help if they wore different
outfits, but they're always in the
same dress. They are!

Anyway, a merkin, what's a merkin?

It's a pubic wig. A pubic wig. Yes.

Could a Pope kiss a pubic wig?
Is it likely?

If he was drunk enough.

On communion wine.
Had he tripped in a different way.

Well, we're going back
to the 17th century.

And it was a rather...
If it was a tall lady.

I think you're going
to like this man.

There's an English...

English highwayman
called Captain Dick Dudley.

Dicky Dudley!

Dick Dudley. I think you're going to
like Dick Dudley.

He was hiding in Rome,

and while he was hiding from
the law enforcement officers,

he bought a dead prostitute's
pubic wig,

a merkin, from an anatomist.

"He dried it well and combed it
out," that's in inverted commas

cos it's a quotation,
"and sold it to the Pope."

There they are,
there's a selection of them. Wow!

I like the one on the bottom right.

That's excellent. Yes, nice curls.

Yeah. That's had a perm, that one.

So, this was Ann Summers
back in the day. Yeah. Kind of.

My goodness.

He sold it to the Pope, it could
have been Clement X or Innocent XI,

as a piece of St Peter's beard.

And...

Oh, well done, him!

Popes like relics. He's a great man,
I like Dick Dudley.

Pope Gullible IV.

Yeah! Exactly!

"A beard, you say? Hmm."

"St Peter's!"

Exactly, Alan, the Pope put it on
his mouth, kissed it multiple times

and appeared to be
thrilled with his purchase.

Dick was paid 100 ducats,
and he immediately skedaddled it

out of Rome before anybody caught up
with him, called his muff... bluff!

Wow.

But they've existed
in Britain as pubic wigs
since the 14th century, at least.

And were especially useful for women
who'd lost their pubic hair
due to...?

Disease. Waxing? Yes, syphilis.
Through what?

Waxing. Waxing. No!

That picture looks like the sun
if it forgot to shave.

Yes, it does rather, doesn't it?

Or Mick Hucknall. Hipster sun.

You have to get up early
to catch the sun unshaven.

Anyway, when in Rome,
don't kiss St Peter's beard,

you don't know where it's been.

What did Marie Antoinette
keep in her muff?

Cake.

Oh!

We were there before you,
Eddie, I'm sorry. Welcome.

Yeah, welcome to our world, exactly.

I told you we'd return to muffs,
and here we have with a vengeance.

What did people keep in muffs?
What did women keep in muffs?

There was a particular thing,
a fashionable accessory.

Mirror.

A living, moving accessory. Ooh.

A hamster?

Maybe that just WAS the muff.

Well, you know what Chinese people
kept in their large sleeves?

A crocodile.

A wild guess, and
I wish it were correct, it's...

A duck. Not a duck.

That's what Pekingese dogs
were bred for. A dog.

Yeah, so dogs. In their sleeves?
Yeah.

But the muffs, which were sometimes
known as snuffkins in England,

were worn by both men
and women, not just women.

King Louis XIV had muffs made
of tiger, panther, otter
and beaver skins. Wow.

In his diary, Samuel Pepys
reported that,

"This day I did first wear a muff,
being my wife's last year's muff."

All right... The Marquis de Sade,
who was imprisoned in the Bastille,

of course, had letters
smuggled in by his wife,

which she kept in her muff.

Now, come on.
If I say muff enough, it's...

Can you just control yourselves?!

YOU don't... you, how...

Well, I haven't said anything
about the vagina for four minutes!

There's a marvellous woman called
Celestine Galli-Marie,

who was the first woman
to play Carmen.

She always kept a marmoset
in her muff. Of course she did.

So, there you are.
There's a lot of...

Where else are you going to put it?
Yeah, exactly, there's fun
to be had from muffs.

Muffs were once used to store dogs.
Muff said.

Now, for a question
about meteorology.

Why did the inventor of the weather
forecast think that dinosaurs
had died out?

Maybe he loved dinosaurs, right?
He loved them so much

he wished he could actually let them
know before the weather changed
and killed them off. Yeah.

And he started going,
"Do you know what? I'm going
to resist this happening again,

"I'm creating the weather forecast,
just in case dinosaurs come back
and they need it."

Here's a man who had...

..an extraordinary
and brilliant idea,

and he had
an incredibly stupid idea.

But the world believed
his stupid idea,

but laughed derisively
at his good idea.

His name was FitzRoy
and he invented the weather forecast

and said he could forecast
the weather, given, you know,
enough knowledge of the variables.

And people laughed him to scorn.

But then he said,
"I know why dinosaurs died out.

"Because they were too big
to fit onto Noah's Ark."

And people said, "That's a
brilliant point, you're right."

And that's true. He was genuinely
respected for thinking that.

And that is rubbish because
that ark was huge, wasn't it?
Yeah, that's right.

It's because Tyrannosaurus Rex's
arms were so small,

they couldn't get the umbrella
over their head.

And he...

I'm sure Noah would have
factored that in, wouldn't he?

Noah would have had a whole...
dinosaur section, it's absurd.

You seem to be buying into
this whole Noah's Ark idea.

Was there a weather forecast?

The dinosaurs said, "No, no,
we'll stay, I'm sure it'll be fine."

They're just really positive.

They were deluded. They were
very sort of optimistic.

And when the flood came they
thought, "Oh, shit, actually
it's much worse than we thought."

I've just got the image now
of a weather... cave weatherman
doing the weather...

I don't know why there'd be a cave
weatherman... on a cave, and then

all the dinosaurs sort of gathering
round to see the pollen count.

FitzRoy, does the name mean anything
to you, in terms of natural history?

A bastard.

He was perhaps best known
for being the guy in charge
of the Beagle.

He was a friend of Darwin's. Oh.

But despite being a friend
of Darwin's, he didn't believe
anything Darwin said.

In fact, he was outraged by Darwin's
Theory of Evolution, because Darwin
didn't take into account...

"Oh, Charles, for God's sake,
they just didn't have enough
room on the Ark for them!"

Yeah, exactly.

Basically, that's what he tried...

"Oh, yadda, yadda, yadda, Charles!

"I'm telling you,
it's going to rain in the morning."

"Oh, don't be ridiculous, FitzRoy!"

"You can't possibly know that."

"I'm telling you, it is!"

Well, it was 20 years...
What a pair! They were a pair.

20 years after the Beagle,
he started his weather forecasting,

and actually it did catch on,
despite the initial scepticism.

In fact, even Queen Victoria
used to send word round

asking what sort of crossing
she'd get to the Isle of Wight.

He lived in Norwood and he would
send a message saying,
"It'll be windy."

Lived in Norwood!
That's funny to me.

It is, I know. Only Victorians
lived in Norwood. Norwood.

Maybe Norwood was quite nice then,
but, Christ, it's a khazi.

His first ever weather forecast,
it was in the Times,

and was four words.

"Moderate, westerly wind, fine."

I thought you were going say,
"Bloody pissing down."

Well, there you are.

The word "meteorology" comes from
the Greek for "things high up,"

and in terms of high up,

they used to use frogs for
telling the weather forecast.

They built them little ladders
and put them in a jar.

Of course they did.
And they thought if they went up
the ladder, it was going to be fine.

If they went down the ladder,
it was going to be a bit wet.

Giving you the idea of it. OK.

Did frogs... Did frogs even know
what ladders were?

I don't think they have to know what
they are, do they?

Did they just like...? They just
have to have the instinct to climb.

So, it could have been anything,
didn't have to be ladders.
It didn't have to be.

"Where's the frog?"
"He's halfway up." "But which way is
he looking?" "He's looking down."

Just say, "Scattered showers,
scattered showers."

I think you're right.
"Sunny spells. Sunny spells."

Just do a cloud with
a bit of the sun, half the sun.

What if it was foggy?

"He's gone on an escalator,
it's foggy."

Maybe he was trying to get out
the top. Yeah. That's what he's
trying to do. He's trying to escape.

One day, the ladder's right up to
the top and the frog's fucked off,

and then what's going to happen?

Left a note, "I've no idea what
the weather's going to be like.

"I'm out of here."

I'm out of this game.

There we have it.

That's right, the father
of meteorology thought that

the dinosaurs were too big
for Noah's Ark.

When does the weekend start?

Here! Here!

Nooo!

Oh, Alan, wrong.

I'm speaking in what historians use
as that rather annoying present
tense, that they say,

"And the World War starts in 1914,"

and the weekend starts...

In other words,
it's historian's past tense...

No, the one that I really hate
is the columnists,

when they're going somewhere,

and they always put, "To the awards
at the Dorchester..."

Oh, yes. So annoying, isn't it?

Also being "caught up" -
they interview someone and say,

"I finally caught up with him
in the rehearsal rooms of..."

You didn't catch up with him, you
arranged to meet, precisely there.

This idea that you were running
round going, "Where is he?

"I'm going to catch up with him!"

But a worse one than that...
Preposterous!

I gave an interview to a journalist
once who was late, wasn't his fault,
but he was late,

and I said to him, "Are you going to
have enough? You've got to write
quite a lot."

And he said, "Oh, I don't know..."

I said, "If you think of
anything you wanted to ask me,
just give me a ring and we'll..."

So he rang me the next day, and he
left a message, and I rang him back.

Anyway, when they put the article
in the magazine, they put,

"A few days after this interview,
Davies calls me..."

What ch...

"He wants to talk about the gig
I saw him do at such-and-such a
venue..." What?!

"It's playing on his..."
I didn't fucking call you!

You were late, you useless shitbag!

Like I was desperate, I was so...

Pacing about thinking, "Oh, my God,
I'd better call him about the gig."

"Davies calls me"!

"Davies calls me and climbs
halfway up the ladder."

"Looks like rain again."

Ohh, dear.

"A few days later,
Davies punches me in the face."

Hashtag ♪celebrityproblems. Yeah.

Erm... It's...

It's 15 years ago,
it still pisses me off!

Oh, dear!

So, yeah, the weekend starting now.

Well, it is actually
a fairly modern concept...

Is it?..ish, yeah.

Yeah, in The Ragged-Trousered
Philanthropists,

they work six days a week, they
don't work on Sunday, of course.

And then they have
one day's holiday a year.

Yeah. And they go
on a beano to Margate

and get completely wankered. Mmm.

Magnificent work. It is a great...

No, it is a great novel, it's a
truly great novel. Brilliant book.

Robert Tressell wrote that, didn't
he, just after the invention,
if you like, of the weekend.

Before, for 300 years at least,

there'd been
what was known as Saint Monday,

which was very much a holy day for
workers on which they didn't work.

Like a bank holiday.
Yeah, every Monday.

It started in the 17th century,

you spent Monday with friends
drinking and socialising.

I always feel slightly cheated
if it's a bank holiday

and I haven't realised.
About 12 o'clock, Spartacus comes on

and I go,
"There's no-one on the streets."

"Spartacus is on.
It's got to be a bank holiday."

I have to phone my friends with jobs
and go, "Is it a bank holiday?"

"Yeah, it is."

"Never had a job, you dick."

Yeah, after the Industrial
Revolution introduced
regular working hours,

factory workers adapted by
routinely taking Monday off.

Those who DI D turn up to work
on Monday usually got sent home
from factories

cos there weren't enough people
manning the machines. Wow.

Yeah, surprising, isn't it?
But a lot of people are still
playing into that culture.

Yes, they are!

But, yeah, the weekend was
introduced as a compromise
from employers

to overcome this Saint Monday
business, and they gave...

Half of Saturday was off.
Half of Saturday.

And that's why football was a big
thing. Yes, that's exactly right.

Because football was three o'clock
on a Saturday afternoon, so the
factories would empty and...

Then they had Sunday off,
so they had a day and a half that
just became the weekend,

and then that slowly became
the whole Saturday.

And that's why Saturday night became
the big boozy night,

cos you couldn't drink on a Sunday
cos of God. Mmm, that's right.

God was inflicted on people as a
punishment for trying to have a nice
time on their day off. Precisely!

"No, no, no, you've got to think
about God, dress up and..."

Yeah. Thing is...

I don't think that's...
Shops weren't open until 1994.

Those were the days. Cor!

Those were the days, when
you couldn't get bread or milk,

I used to love those days.

Yes, thank God it's Friday,

but thank Saint Monday
that you get the weekends off.

Now, I'm going to do
something with my mouth.

What do you think?

Yes or no?

Er, yes.

Yes is right.

Oh, phew! That was yes.

Well done.

In the Swedish town of Umea,
that is "yes," to go...

Which you can sort of do in English,
going...

"Yeah,
yeah, yeah..."

Oh, that's their way of saying yes?
Yeah, their way of saying yes.

What's interesting is the idea
that there may or may not be

a universal way of signalling
yes or no.

Darwin was very
interested in the idea,

and he looked all over the world
to the different cultures to see

whether they nodded
and shook for yes and no.

Mostly, it seems that nodding
for yes and shaking for no...

Shaking for Timotei.

Yeah, indeed, in the middle.

And nodding for dandruff.

But there's a reason,
some people think,

why it may be that
there's a "yes" and a "no."

The babies, if you offer them food
and they don't want it,

what do they do? Yeah, they...

They turn their head away,
they do that.

It's a shaking of the head,
if you like, a kind of...

I never do that.
And if they want... No!

If they want food...

Oh, dear!

..they incline their heads
if they want food.

They seem to incline their heads,
generally speaking,
around the world.

Is it, do you know, well, you grew
up in Democratic Republic of Congo,

is there a "yes" and "no"
head-shaking thing?

You know, my friend was in Ethiopia,

and she said
she was at a restaurant,

and the guy was asking,
"What foods do you have?"

And he just kept going...

"Do you have any...?"

So she's like, "I think
he's having a panic attack!"

He goes, "No, they've got everything
on the list."

Literally, that was yes,
their way of saying yes was...

But in Africa in general,
including Congo,

we have sound effects that we use.

You know, your mum,
when she's going, "Ah-ha!",

it means she's agreeing.

When she goes, "Ah-ah!"
it means she doesn't want it.

So, Dad will be like, "Darling, did
you, you know, put the kids to bed?"

And she's like, "Ah-ha."

"So can you put me to bed?"
"Ah-ah!"

Very dramatic.
And it literally is that, you see,

you'll see a lot of Africans,
when they're talking, it's like,

"Ah-ah! Ah-ha!" "Ehh?"
"Ohh!" "Ah-haaa!"

It looks like an argument,

but they're having
the most pleasant conversation.

You mentioned Ethiopia there, cos
actually, Darwin, one of the peoples
he looked into were the Abyssinians,

as they were then called, and they
apparently said "no" by jerking
the head to the right shoulder

and making a slight cluck...

..while "yes" was expressed by the
head being thrown backwards and the
eyebrows raised for an instant.

But it's Bulgaria where
the opposite is true,

that a nod means "no"
and a head-shake means "yes."

What about if you're patting
your head and rubbing your tummy?

What does that mean?

Too much time on your hands.

It means, "I'm available
but don't touch me."

Now, why do you never see a mongoose
and a rat together?

Same person. Yeah.

Oh! Oh, no!

It was too good to be punished,
I'm so sorry.

- That's really sad.
- Do they just not get on?

Well, we're talking about
their lifestyles.

Yeah.

One is day, one is night?

Exactly.

Rats are nocturnal, and mongoose...

Mongooses, mongeese, are diurnal,
they... Do they not, like,
pass, like...

One's like, "Night-night,"
and the other's like... Yeah, yeah.

"Have a nice day -
I've shat everywhere."

It was a particular issue in Hawaii.

They had a rat infestation,

so they decided to bring in some
mongoose to deal with them.

But... Playing the didgeridoo.

They brought in the mongoose
to deal with the rat population,

and of course it didn't work,

because they lived at
different times of day.

And so the mongoose also fed on the
natural endemic birds of Hawaii,

and their populations
went screaming down...

Somebody should have worked that out
before they did that.
They should have done.

It was in the early-ish,
mid-19th century,

when people were less knowledgeable
about wildlife than they are now.

The people of Samoa were about
to introduce to mongoose

to deal with their rat problem

when a resident of Hawaii wrote to
them and said, "Don't do this, it's
destroyed our birdlife even more."

So it saved Samoa.

That's why they invented the moon,
to get rid of the sun.

I think you're onto something there.
Yeah.

It's... I'm loving it.

It was a mongoose
that invented the moon.

There's one bird which,

surprisingly, they're very pleased
has not thrived,

or thriven, in Hawaii,

and that's one of the most beautiful
of all birds.

The dodo. Peacock.

- Not the dodo, that's not thriving anywhere.
- Flamingo. Tits.

The robin. Peacock.
The hummingbird, did you say?

NO, I said robin, but, yeah,
I'll take hummingbird.

Hummingbird is the right answer,
Eddie, well done.

You'd think, why would anybody
not want to have hummingbirds?

But one of the main crops of Hawaii,

out of which they make a lot of
money... Pineapple.

..is the pineapple,
absolutely right.

And hummingbirds are marvellous
pollinators of pineapples,

but unfortunately if you pollinate
it, it's filled with seeds and is
much less juicy and much less tasty.

Right. So they don't want
hummingbirds.

I once ate a whole pineapple.

DID you?! Yeah.

Not the skin, though?
No, no, I, like, you know...

I cored it and stuff, I didn't,
like, eat the whole thing, just...

That's what I imagined.

Just like that with the spiky top
hanging out.

I thought like the Pope, you
just fell over and swallowed...

It was just after the Pope
kissed her on the knockers.

That's how I celebrated.
"Imagine what I'd do with
an entire pineapple!"

Now, what could you learn
from a meerkat?

Oh...

Oh! How to accessorise?

Well, clearly,
very beautifully clothed.

Not how to put mascara on.
No, that's not impressive, is it?

Don't offer a cigarette
to a drawing of a cat?

No!

What are meerkats a type of?

They're a type of meer,
or possibly a type of kat.

They're actually a sort of mongoose.
Mongoose. Oh! A sort of mongoose.

Do you know what they do?
Is a mongoose a goose?

The men fight...
What's that one doing?

What's he doing with his hands?!
He's meering!
Impression of a mongoose.

The males fight so that one becomes
dominant, and then he has his pick

of the females, and he thinks
he's in charge, and he'll usually

drive out the second most dominant
one, and then he'll live on his own.

But the women sneak out to see him.

Oh, that's very sweet.

And that's how they keep mixing up
the genes, you know?

Yes, getting a diverse pool.
The women sneak out.

I saw, there was a whole programme
about it. It's quite funny.

They had quite funny little footage

of the women
kind of sneaking out of the camp.

Like, climbing down,
like, knotted sort of...
Yeah, basically, yeah!

And then she met up with Brian
or whatever, and they did it,

they literally did it in a bush!

And then she went back to camp
as if nothing had happened!

No woman would sneak out
for a Brian!

No?!

We're quite choosy.
Animal magnetism.

Animal magnetism. That's the one.

The question asked was,
"What do we learn from meerkats?"

Well, if it's a driving instructor,
it'll be driving. Yes...

Let's... Iet's suppose
it isn't a driving instructor.

Let's suppose they're in the wild,
in Africa. Is it a danger thing?

We learnt they're one of
the very few animals,

other than human beings,
who teach their young.

Oh, they have classes.
Kind of do, yeah.

Ah! Little books and things.

They sacrifice time and effort, with
no apparent gain to self, to teach.

That one's a supply teacher.

He's got that look!

They also gradually make their
lessons harder for their pupil.

One of the things
they have to teach them,

for example,
is how to deal with a scorpion.

So they start by giving them
a scorpion that's dead,

then a live one with no sting.
Oh, my God!

And then, finally, as you can see -
there it is watching -

making sure that
it's all going well,

if the scorpion escapes,
it pushes it back in.

And then eventually they give
one a scorpion with a sting,

so that they make sure
their young pup...

The last lesson is, "Don't get in
that square with a scorpion!"

Yeah!

But I think it's rather...

If you see a square with
a scorpion in it, go round it.

It is pretty impressive, isn't it?

It's amazing!
And do any of the young die?

I think they're such good teachers,

they know exactly what
they're doing. Really? Yeah.

They don't give them a live one,
even WITHOUT a sting,

until they're absolutely sure
they can cope.

And you would start on, like, your
least favourite bairn. Wouldn't you?
Yes!

While you were learning
how to teach.

"He's boring,
let's do him first. He's lazy."

And you'd keep your good bairn
for the end.

Are you saying there's no bad
students, only bad teachers?

I mean, imagine that.
"You are ready." G-doong!

"Oh, you weren't ready, shit!"

"Brian!"

"I said a scorpion with no tail!
Oh, God!"

But other animals teach.
I mean, it seems that

formal teaching
is clear in the ant world.

They engage in tandem running,

whereby a leader guides
a pupil to a food store

Iike that. There we are.

The leader adjusts its speed
of running, even though

it means getting to the food
four times more slowly

just so the little one can catch up.

So you can see it's very
clearly leading it,

and the other one's following.

They also count their strides to
measure how far they've travelled.

It's easier on that
cos they're on squared paper.

"This is a grid. Shit!"

Well, we've much to learn from ants
and much to learn from meerkats.

And so to the fearful mess
that we call General Ignorance.

Fingers on buzzers, please.
How can I tell the age of this tree?

Chop it down.

Yeah, count the rings.
Oh!

Is that not right?
Well, not really, no.

It's a sort of rough guide, but it
doesn't really tell you the age.

Well, it's still a rough guide.
Maybe that's all I'm after!

It's not all...

Maybe I don't care about accuracy,
Stephen! Maybe I've got shit to do!

Did the question say...?

I'm afraid
the answer is extremely annoying.

There are some years when
it doesn't put down rings

and other years when it puts down
two, even three rings.

So it's very hard to tell precisely.

Wow. As it's getting older,
it starts lying. Yeah.

Not putting a ring down.

"Yeah, I'm doing it, I'm doing it.

"This ran out years ago, mate.

"32 again!"

Dendrochronologists give
a very annoying answer.

They say the most reliable way to
tell the age of a tree

is to find out
when it was planted. Yeah

Oh, shut up! I know! It's not
my answer, it's their answer.

Passport! Yeah!

But some are a little too old
to be able to do that.

In 2012 there was a seed,

that was the oldest seed ever known

successfully to germinate.
How old do you think it was?

1 million years!

No. You said it
like an evil genius there!

"Mr Bond" No,

it wasn't a million years...

36... 32,000. Oh.

You were going to say 36,000? Yeah.

It was 32,000.
So you were jolly close.

They used carbon dating
and that sort of thing.

30 metres below the Siberian ice
it was discovered,

in a fossilised squirrel burrow.

So it was probably buried
there by a squirrel.

How annoyed
would that squirrel be?

There was one in 2008 -
a 2,000-year-old seed grew, and
you may say that's not so impressive

but it sprouted into
an extinct date palm.

- So that was rather wonderful.
- Wow!

A new species came back to life.
Yeah.

Now, what colour is the moon?

Black.

OK! Well...

The dark side of the moon.

I'll accept black, cos it's...
The dark side of the moon.

Well, the sides are all the same
colour. I know! It's a nice thought,
dark side of the moon.

But actually, all the moon is
very, very dark grey. Yes.

Basically kind of charcoal.
Almost black.

Not a light grey
and not a silvery colour.
I mean, of course we get light...

It's weird,
cos you can't get grey cheese.

Right. I hadn't thought of that.

Yeah.

It's quite bright,
but not as bright as the Earth.

A full Earth seen from the moon

is a lot brighter

than a full moon
seen from the Earth.

That's cos people
leave their lights on.

That's probably the reason,
yeah, yeah.

So the moon is very dark grey.
But - what colour is the sun?

I've heard it's... green.

Not bad... Tartan?

- Oh, you were doing so well, Noel.
- Tartan

Well, on the Farrow and Ball
colour chart...

Yes?..it's mushroom.

Well, it is actually a kind
of turquoise, so green is not bad.

Is it? It's bluey-green. Turquoise?

It emits photons of all the colours.
Like a blue flame.

But slightly more blue-green
photons than any other,

so it is, you know, a slightly
blue/green tint. That is not fair.

The moon and the sun are just
playing with us. Well, yes!

It would actually look white from
space, more or less totally white.
Right.

As it does at noon if you looked
at it from the ground. Like a star.
But don't, obviously.

Yeah, the sun is white with
a hint of turquoise.

What is "agoraphobia"?

Ah, now, that's... Now, hang on...

"Wait a second, I'm not going to
get suckered into this!"

You've spelt it different
or something, have you?

No... It's a bit like when Phil
Brown said, "Why does Andrea Pirlo

"not leave Italy
and play in the Premier League?

"Why does he want to stay in Italy?
Is it because he's homophobic?"

He thought "homophobic" meant
he was afraid of leaving home!

Well, it kind of makes sense.
Out loud, on live radio.

It was absolutely brilliant.

Is it
a fear of really fluffy rabbits?

No! "Angoraphobia", very good.

Thanks.

Agoraphobia...? Yeah.
Most people think "agoraphobia"

means a fear of open spaces.

"Agora" is
the Greek for the marketplace,

the equivalent of the Roman forum,
it's the open place.

But apparently in psychiatry,

agoraphobia can be a fear of
any kind of space you don't like.

So claustrophobia is
a kind of agoraphobia.

Other phobias...

Do you know, according to the
Stress Management Center and Phobia
Institute in North Carolina,

80% of high-rise buildings in
America do not have what?

Windows.

No. 80%...

A lift.

We're talking about phobias...?
A 13th floor.

80% of buildings in America
do not have a 13th floor.

So what happens when they come here?
Americans, and they see, like,
"13th floor."

"I'm not staying in this hotel!"
No, they won't.

Or at least they won't want to
be on the 13th floor, they won't
want the room on the 13th floor.

"You're principally unlucky...
because you're American."

Now...!

Alfred Hitchcock
had a very powerful fear - of...?

There is a word for it.

Hummus.

Might as well have been.

It was alektorophobia.
"Alektorophobia", not "electro-".

It's all the more extraordinary
that he made the film The Birds...
People called Alec.

No, not people called Alec.
It's not a fear of birds, but it's
a fear of something birds produce.

Eggs. Eggs, he had a fear of eggs.

Never ate one... Really?
He used to weep around omelettes.

He actually looks scared
in that picture,

as if you'd shown him the eggs.

I'd be scared if an egg that size
was coming... That's true,
it's a big egg.

And all that's left now is the
rather messy business of the scores.

I've got a fear of the scores.

Well, don't have, because...

in last place, with minus 15
is Sarah Millican, I'm afraid!

In third place, with
a jolly minus 14, is Noel Fielding!

With a highly impressive minus 4,
in second place, Eddie Kadi.

It can only mean
one astonishing thing.

In first place,
with minus 1, Alan Davies.

Well!

That's this mess cleaned up.

So we thank Eddie, Noel,
Sarah, Alan and me.

In the words of that prolific
writer, Anne Onymous,

"Chaos, panic and disorder.

"My work here is done." Goodnight.