QI (2003–…): Season 13, Episode 16 - Misconceptions - full transcript

Good evening,

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

good evening, good evening,
good evening, good evening...

and welcome to QI -

where, tonight,
we're mired in misconceptions

and nothing is as it seems.

Or is it? Or will they? Have they?

I don't know.
LAUGHTER

Do you? Maybe not.
I simply don't know.

Or do I?
LAUGHTER

Joining me tonight are...



Sue Perkins.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

..Chris Addison...

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

..Sara Cox...

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

..and Alan Davies.

- CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
- Thank you, thank you.

So, let's hear your buzzers.

Sue goes...

BUZZER

- Oh! - Chris goes...
IDENTICAL BUZZER

Sara goes...
IDENTICAL BUZZER

Alan's buzzer...



BIRD SCREECHES

LAUGHTER

Oh.
KLAXON

LAUGHTER

That wasn't a buzzer,
that was a buzzard.

- That's harsh, though, isn't it?
- It is harsh.

Am I on minus then already,

- before I've spoken? - Yes.

That is a new record.

LAUGHTER

I have no... My hands are tied.
LAUGHTER

Now, because almost everything we
think we know about

the world is wrong,
we've given you each a map,

so you can refresh your memories.

- Yup, there it is. A map of the
world. - Is that wrong?

You're telling us that's wrong.

Well, the sea is where the land
should be.

So, I'm saying yes.

- I don't mind that, shakes things up
a bit. - It does, doesn't it?

It's wrong in other ways. OK.
But it's a representation,

so we'll forgive it for not being
perfectly accurate.

- OK. - Because it's flat,
and the earth is round.

If we were on a direct flight from
Madrid to Montana...

which American states beginning with
"M" would we fly over on the way?

Merica?

Is that one?

None. Because you go over the top,
you go straight over the top.

Is exactly right.
Yes, that's right.

Very good.

- We will show you the route here.
- You might go over Manitoba.

Yes, you do go over Manitoba.

You miss all the American states.

It's seems to not be a straight
line,

but of course on the globe it is the
shortest distance to go that way.

If you were to go what seems
a straight line on flat paper,

it would actually be going
around the curvature of the earth...

Madrid is on the same
line of latitude as New York.

It is.

So you could go around that way.

Well, it's still further.

You've got a little globe there.

You can try
with a piece of string.

OK. Let's do that.

Have a look.

Where's Madrid? There we go.

There you are, viewers.

I've illustrated it perfectly.

You're right.
We're nearly over Winnipeg, there.

Go over Winnipeg and Regina.

Regina, you say?

If you compare the string with
the lines of latitude on the globe,

you've come so much further up,
haven't you?

Cos the line of latitude would be
all the way along that way.

- Yeah. We need more string!
- You need more string.

Are you wrestling
with the world, here?

- Yes. - Aren't we all, Steve?
Yes, I suppose.

Well, that's solved a lot of...
Yeah.

That's an excellent in flight
tool for any air hostess.

- Yes.
- Explaining where you're going.

Just going to
colour in Scotland yellow.

- I didn't want them
the same colour as England. - No.

What we have here is a particular
kind of view of the world.

It's a 16th century cartographer.

Ricardo Montalban.

No, his name was Gerard Merchant,
but it wasn't, it was Latinised.

- Gerard Merchant. - Gerardus...
Mercator.

Mercator. Well done, Chris.

It's called the Mercator Projection.

And it was the first time the world
was expressed in such a way

that sailors could navigate using
straight lines from the compass.

But in order to do that you
had to compromise

the reality of the shape
of the continent.

So Africa became,
for example, much smaller.

- Everything near the equator
was squashed. - Yeah.

Sometimes people think this was
a sort of imperialist thing to make

Europe look bigger, but it wasn't
actually anything to do with that.

It was, as always, to make
money for commerce and trade.

Well, there you are, the great
circle route is a roundabout way

of going in a straight line.

So, how did the first American
airmail arrive at its destination?

Human cannonball.

LAUGHTER
That's a good thought.

They just put a postman
in a cannon and fired him.

Was it an air balloon?

It wasn't, I'm afraid.
KLAXON

- I mean... - Ha-ha-ha! - ..that seems...

LAUGHTER

Welcome to QI. Quite right.

Oh, surely a carrier pigeon.

- Oh! - As in...

KLAXON

Was it by bus?

Closer.

- Bus is closer. Airmail was by bus?
- Stagecoach?

- Train. - Sedan chair. - Train is
the right answer. - Sedan chair.

You deserve to get some points back,
because it started by balloon,

- you see, Sara. - Oh, really? - Yeah.

With great hoopla,
they started an airmail service.

It was going to go
from Indiana to New York.

Unfortunately,
they chose the opening day

and lots of mail had arrived, which
was very self-consciously excited.

"My darling, you're going to get
this by a new means of transport,"

etc, etc.
They were all thrilled by it.

There was no wind and, after five
hours, it had gone 30 miles...

- LAUGHTER
..and so he just... - Could he...?

Basically, they let themselves down
and got on a train.

Throwing the post overboard
to keep height.

LAUGHTER

Was that in the days before the...

- They still had burners. - Did they
literally use air for air balloons?

- Well, yes, it had to be hot air.
- What's the technical term for...

- That is the technical term.
- It's a burner. - Very hard to spell.

He was a piano maker
turned ballooning pioneer,

Professor John Wise,
who started it out. It was in 1859.

The world's first official airmail
delivery took place in 1911.

- Where, do you think?
- South Africa.

- SARA: New Zealand.
- Not South Africa or New Zealand.

- France. - Germany.

No, it's India.

- What?! - All right.

It's not that shocking,
but it is perhaps surprising.

Yeah, it travelled five miles.

I wouldn't trust my letters in that
contraption.

- They'd be blowing all over the shop.
- They would, wouldn't they?

He can't be a postman,
he's not got his shorts on either.

- They wear a short, a tailored short.
- Yes.

That's powered by a dog chasing it.

The American airmail service
was started in 1918

as a way of training pilots -

and the assistant postmaster
was ruthless,

and he insisted that the trainees

would fly, whatever the weather.

And out of 40 who started,

- more than half were killed.
- Oh...! - Oh, dear.

He was a lunatic.
He, himself, didn't fly -

so it was pretty obvious
he had no idea what was going on,

so it was all rather tragic.

Good to see the use of a sinister
doll on the mailbag as well.

LAUGHTER

- The whole thing's sent by voodoo.
- Yeah, it is.

LAUGHTER

It's for when they don't
want to get in the plane,

he makes them with the doll.
LAUGHTER

He walks the doll.

"I don't want to fly in the plane!"

The first airplane-powered
glider airmail service

was founded by whom?

- Amy Johnson.
- The first one was named after...

- No, she's not known
as an aviatrix... - Oh, right.

..she's known as a novelist.

- Madonna. - Barbara Cartland.

Is the right answer!

APPLAUSE

INAUDIBLE

That was very impressive, Sue.

Barbara Cartland flew the first
glider that dispensed mail?

- Yep, that's absolutely right.
- Tell me it was painted pink.

The glider was called The Barbara
Cartland, as you can see. Yeah.

Where does she get her ideas?
Indeed.

Well, she was a flapper,
she was a sort of deb.

She was very much an aristocrat,

part of the Bright Young Things -
and they all loved to fly.

- It was an expression of youth. - "Oh,
because it was extremely good fun!

"I mean, just really, really
good to get in a glider

"and just shove a few letters out.

"Lovely, rollicking, good fun."

One of the people I most admire in
the 20th century was

the writer PG Wodehouse.

He had such an extraordinary
sunny disposition

and a genuine belief
in the goodness of people.

One of the things he did when he was
in London, he would type letters,

type the address, stamp it
and throw it out the window.

And he reasoned that the average
Britain on seeing a stamped

addressed envelope would put it in
the nearest letterbox.

And he claimed
he never had a letter go astray.

But then he never had
a reply either.

America's first airmail letters
arrived by train.

Now, from airmail to e-mail.

What's the most effective way
to do a massive data dump?

Is it...?
LAUGHTER

Is it - "Give your laptop
to a British civil servant

"to leave in a car?"

LAUGHTER
Yes, that will happen.

- A data dump? - Yeah.

I'm sorry about the picture,

it's nothing to do
with anything lavatorial.

Where have you got that from?
I've no idea.

They just googled "data dump",
and there you are.

- Yeah. - The techno turd.
- LAUGHTER

No, don't...
Forget that whole side of it. We...

- No, I'm obsessed with that image.
- It's our fault.

Our picture suggests the lavatory,
but it's not about that.

If you want to transfer
HUGE amounts of data,

- what's the best way to do it?
- Dropbox. - Dropbox, yeah.

Dropbox. You send it...
KLAXON

Oh, dear. Oh, dear.
Oh, dear. Oh, dear.

Do you...? By data dump, do you mean
to get the data somewhere else,

- or do you mean to...?
- To wipe it? - Yeah, exactly.

- Oh sorry, the "wipe it" again,
I mean... - No, not to wipe it.

LAUGHTER

But you always want to wipe
after a data dump.

I'll give you an example.

Enormous data sets
that come from Hubble

have to be transferred
to different scientists,

to interpret
and to render the images

and all these kind of...
And they're huge data sets.

So, what do they use to send it?
Do they use Ethernet?

Do they use...?
What do they use? Fibre optics?

See, I'm regretting in our house
that we divvy up all the duties.

You see, if you were to ask me
about what factor sun cream

to pack for my kids' holidays,
it's kind of one of my things.

Technology is my husband's.

Would your husband do the data dump?

Yeah, and light bulbs.

But he gives more to the family than
that, do you know what I mean?

Do they just print it off?

- No, that's... - Do they put it
in the Cloud? - They don't put it...

They run to a phone booth. They do
all that, like in the old films.

"I've got all the data.
OK, have you got a pen? Listen."

LAUGHTER

"OK, first thing - a star,
then a space, then another star..."

- LAUGHTER
- ..and do that for some time.

What they do is they post it...

in the mail, the ordinary mail.

It's quicker. Bradley Wiggins
delivers it. It's quicker.

It takes less than 24 hours
for each transfer

if you take it by mail.

Whereas, to transfer
the complete data set,

which is 120 terabytes,

it would take 111 days...

- if you did it by the internet.
- To send?

- You know, by e-mail. - Yeah.

That is surprising, isn't it?

And we've done some calculations.

FedEx or UPS, or any of those,

could deliver massive amounts
of information

64 times faster than the internet.

Based on the weight of packages
which ship every day...

They're going to love you!

- I hope you're getting money
from them for this! - No, it's just...

I didn't... Oh, from FedEx.

It all ends up on an island
with Tom Hanks...

"Faster than the internet."
- Stephen Fry.

..for three years.

Based on the weight of packages
and the weight of memory cards,

they could transport
2,222 terabytes per second.

Now that...
The whole internet, in 2016,

is expected to be
34.5 terabytes a second.

What's a terabyte, Stephen?

- Well, you've got a byte...
- Yes. - A byte.

..a kilobyte...

And then the terror-byte!

- ..a megabyte... - Megabyte.
- Yeah. Megabyte I can do, yeah.

- Yeah, a megabyte.
..and then a gigabyte... - Yeah.

..and a terabyte...

..and then you have a petabyte,
even bigger than that. Petabyte.

But the expansion of memory,

the expansion of processing power
in computing is bewildering -

partly because
it doubles every two years,

and do you know what that is called?

It was predicted in the '60s
that it would double.

- A gobble, a gobble, a double gobble.
- No, there was a man who predicted...

- Oh, right. - ..that it would
double every two years.

His name was Gordon Moore
and it's called Moore's Law,

- and Moore's Law... - Oh, that's good.

- That worked out well, didn't it?
- Yeah.

Moore's Law has governed
the astonishing rise in power

and capacity in computing
ever since.

For a long, long time. It doubles
and doubles and doubles.

To give you an example of how
breathtaking and bewildering it is,

we've got some memory capacity here.

Here... This is from the '60s

and it's rather elegant
in its own little way.

And it would have fitted into
some sort of great, big cabinet

that was part of a computing system.

It's called the Univac 1004.

And it's a core store memory module.

And how much memory
do you think that contains?

A byte.

No, it's a lot more than that.

- A gigabyte. - A gigabyte.

Oh, no, it's nothing
like as big as that.

LAUGHTER

- It's one kilobyte.
- A kilobyte?! - Yeah.

- There's a kilobyte, too.
- What's a kilobyte? - I don't remember.

1,000 bytes.

And look. I've got here, this -

which is 128 gigabytes.

Can you see it?
I'll put it there, it's a little...

micro SD chip.

And this, here,

would have to weigh
140,229 metric tonnes...

to carry this much information.
LAUGHTER

- In 1963. - Yeah.
That is hugely impractical.

It's... Exactly.

Just under six-and-a-half
Ark Royal aircraft carriers...

- I'd need an extension done.
- LAUGHTER

..if this was what you were using.

And it just shows, this is
an example of Moore's Law -

you go from that to that.

Or maybe this.

Ah! There we are.

- Look at that.
Isn't that beautiful? - It is.

It is a splendid piece of work,
isn't it?

That's the middle of C-3PO.
LAUGHTER

It's the Elliott 803
core store memory module.

It was made in the early '60s, also,

- and it weighs 7kg...
- Wow.

..and stores 20 kilobytes.

LAUGHTER
Wow!

- Yeah. - How about that?

- My favourite one... - Supercomputers.

..is the Bryant Model-2 Series
hard disk platter.

- Mine too. - Yeah.

I love that. I've got all of them.

I have a poster.
Did you have the poster?

- Yeah, absolutely. I was obsessed.
- I love it. I was in the club.

- I had the...
- GASPS AND LAUGHTER

- There it is. - No!

THAT is a hard disk.

Isn't that good?

- It's a disk... - That's ludicrous!

HE KNOCKS ON DISK
..and it's hard.

LAUGHTER

It's very rare for technology to
double as S&M equipment, isn't it?

LAUGHTER
I think it's absolutely blissful.

You look like a Borrower
playing with a CD.

I'm going to put that down again...

Oh! ..because it's so heavy. Oh!

It's made of magnesium alloy
of some kind.

Careful, you'll scratch it.
LAUGHTER

Yeah, I don't want to scratch it.

It carried eight megabytes,

so that was pretty impressive.

- What's a megabyte? - And its drive...
LAUGHTER

Can't remember.

The drive that operated the Bryant
Model-2 Series hard disk platter,

the brochure boasted
its short warm-up time.

Which was?

15 minutes.

- LAUGHTER
- Oh.

These are wonderful, I think,
of the advances certainly in

memory management and in capacity
and everything else.

It doesn't make us any better
people.

Well, listen, I ought to say
that we are extremely grateful

to the National Museum of Computing,
who lent us these fabulous items.

If you want a really great day out,
and I'm completely ashamed about

recommending it cos I'm a bit of a
nerd when it comes to these things,

then you could do a lot worse than
visit

the National Museum
of Computing at Bletchley -

where, of course, Enigma was cracked

and it's the home of British
engineering in that regard.

So we deeply thank Robert Dowell
and Angie Lewis.

APPLAUSE

Alan, when will I finally be able
to replace you with a machine?

Sooner than I would like.

Mm-hm. Yeah, that's maybe true.

There is a kind of, it's not a law,
really, but when people predict

robots that replace humans, they
always say in about 15 years' time.

That started in 1950. By 1965, they
will have robots that replace us.

1965, it will be by 1980.

Presumably at some
point that is true.

It's presumably that at some point
that prediction comes true.

Yes, it will be. Or possibly was.
Yeah.

Well, indeed cos there are plenty
of things in which humans

have been replaced by computers.
Can you think of any examples?

At the supermarket,
with self service.

God, I hate those!

I think instead of getting
the self service tills

they should have got
robots behind the tills

and just put them
in a nice tabard...

Even cheapest, to have the humans
you already have who just go...

beep, boop, beep, beep, boop.

Doing all the things
they'd normally do.

- Beep, boop, beep, beep.
- Peter Crouch tactic.

Boop, boop, beep, boop.

A friend of mine got so angry with
those machines that he punched it.

I'll so end up doing that.

I'm sure that when I die
and I'm in the crematorium,

last sound I'll hear will be,

"Unexpected item
in the burning area."

I once mooned on that,

because I kept hearing,
"Unexpected item in the bagging
area."

Literally, trousers down and said,
"Now there is."

- Had an absolute belly full of it.
- Deal with it. Exactly.

- Permanently. - Horrifying.
Well, that is one area indeed.

And of course, planes,
flying planes.

On an average, how long do you think
pilots are in control of the flight?

Like, 10% of the time or something.

Less than that. Three minutes.

Three minutes?!

That is an easy job, isn't it?

It's pretty good, isn't it?

You turn up to work, you work
for a minute and a half and you go,

"There we go," for ten hours.

Just the taxi into the runway,
that three minutes.

- It probably is.
- And after that they go...

A couple of scientists at Oxford,
Carl Frey

and Michael Osborne,
have suggested that taxi drivers,

security guards, jobs most likely
to be replaced by robots.

50% chance that computer programming
could be outsourced to machines.

Cameramen have a 60% chance.

Oh!

Stay where you are. Don't worry.
It's fine.

Television announcers
only 10% apparently.

Yes!

Be a long time before comedians
are replaced by machines.

That doesn't affect anyone here.

There are various teams around
the world working on algorithms

to create jokes.

We've got two really weird
ones here.

Dreadful puns, but they're so...

Surreal isn't the word,
they're just odd.

What do you call a washing machine
with a September?

I don't know, Stephen,

what do you call a washing machine
with a September?

Autumnpoint. I don't know.

An autumn-matic washing machine.

- You nearly got it.
- Yes, well, it's one of mine.

I've been trying
that for years in the clubs,

never got anything out of it.

A washing machine with a September?

It hasn't quite got the point,
has it?

No. Or,
what kind of preschool has a wine?

Most of them.

A playgrape.

AUDIENCE GROANS

So, hang on,
they've taken presumably the end

and then tried to back
work the joke?

Yeah, they take words that sound
like other words a bit,

so they obviously can
find that automatic

sounds like autumn, so they've got
quite a good database of sounds.

Yeah, but just no sense of humour.

Needs work, I think.

I would love to see one of them
at a club though.

ROBOT VOICE: Sorry, this is all new.

What was I going to say next?
Please don't leave.

What a funny idea.

I think it's safe to say that
artificial intelligence

is still 15 years away.

Now then,
for a question about mistakes,

what's the real cost
of parachute jumping?

A shattered pelvis?

It can be.

Why do most people jump off planes?

- For charity. - Charity. For charity.

Well...

Which is good, don't get me wrong.
LAUGHTER

Can I just say,
it's only in that situation,

falling out of a plane,
that my hair makes sense.

LAUGHTER

I've been looking for a context
for this for years.

- It does, doesn't it?
- Now, finally. - Whoosh.

Stephen appears quite
frightened at the back there.

- Well, I am... - Are you on fire?

..because I probably know about the
1999 Perth Royal Infirmary study -

which is most unfortunate.

They looked at five years
of charity jumps

and found they resulted
in injuries to 174 people, right?

- Which cost the National
Health Service... - Oh, no.

over £600,000.

How much had they raised?

The average amount raised per person
for charity was £30.

So, every pound raised

cost the NHS roughly £13.75.

Oh, that is so depressing, though.

And, of course,
about 70% of the jumps

were raising money
for NHS-related causes.

- LAUGHTER
- Oh, no. That is amazing.

It is amazing, isn't it?

The thing is, when you think
about it, don't do something

that is likely to injure yourself,
if that's your game.

"I'm having a sponsored
catch-the-measles."

LAUGHTER

- Sponsored... - For Measles Relief.
- Yeah, for Measles relief.

Sponsored spread cholera.

Bring typhus back...for charity.
LAUGHTER

A lot of them
are first-time jumpers, of course,

and what happens is, very often,

when the ground
rushes up to meet you,

you forget everything
you've been taught

and so all the bad things you've
been told could happen, happen.

And you need longer training,

not necessarily on the details
of how to roll and drop -

but on how to prepare your mind
so that you don't panic.

- That's the key. - Is that a thing
that they do in the paras then?

So before they go behind enemy
lines, are they there going,

"Hmm..."?
LAUGHTER

"Just don't drop us yet,
I'm not quite there."

LAUGHTER
Maybe. Maybe.

I mean the fact is,
it's a dangerous thing to do.

And in the days of, you know, those
great commando parachute drops,

they're unlikely to survive
more than three.

Well, but then there were
people shooting at you then -

which might actually make them
more fun, these charity drops.

Certainly add a bit of spice.

Well, there was a dog
called Rob, in 1945,

and this was in Africa and Italy,
in the campaign there, and he...

Apparently, he did 20 drops,
and he won...

For the RSPCA!

He won the...
LAUGHTER

- Yes, quite! - Fundraising.

He won the Dickin Medal,
which is the VC for animals.

They just open the door of
the plane, throw a bone out

and off he goes.

But it wasn't until 2006
that it was revealed

that his heroism was a hoax.

- What? Oh. - For morale?

Well, not quite, actually.
Well, sort of morale, in a way.

It was that the couple
from Shropshire,

who had given the dog
to the regiment, said,

"Can we have him back, please?"

And the regiment
were so fond of him,

they made-up all these things
to show that he was indispensable.

"He's a heroic dog, you will
not believe what he can do."

And so they went, "Oh, all right
then, you'd better keep him,

"I suppose.
He's valuable for the war effort."

- But he wasn't at all,
he was just a mascot. - Brilliant.

They just liked him.

Sending them pictures
of him chewing Hitler's legs.

LAUGHTER
Yes, that's right.

I presume that was the actual shape
of his right front leg there.

And they were like, "Look what he's
done on his trip, he was so brave."

After World War II, in America,
they used surplus parachutes

to help repopulate beavers
into the wild.

The idea was
they'd shove them in a box.

They first thought, "We'll shove
them in a box and they'll fall

"and then they'll gnaw
their way out of the box."

- Then they worried... - This doesn't
sound like sexy times to me.

Just shove them in a box.
They'll pull through.

They worried that
they'd eat through the box

- while they were still in the air.
- They chucked them out of a plane?

- Yeah. - To repopulate... - Yeah.
LAUGHTER

There are huge areas of wilderness.

- It's incredibly hard to...
- Yes, it makes total sense.

..give them their own territory.

Couldn't they have
driven them there, Stephen?

- They could have driven them there.
- No... Wilderness.

Huge areas of wilderness.
They're bigger than countries.

- They're bigger than England,
these... - What, beavers?!

No, the parks! The parks.
LAUGHTER

"Bring me some massive beavers!"

- The parks in which
you wished to drop them. - OK.

And you want to sort of get
them disposed evenly around.

- Why had they been dying out?
- Oh, gosh.

- People had been throwing them
out of planes. - Yeah.

LAUGHTER

As you fall out, you gnaw your
way out of your crate and go,

"Oh, thanks a lot!"

- "Well, this is the middle of...
- HE MOUTHS - ..nowhere."

LAUGHTER

"I've got to go all
the way back to Ottawa."

Until another beaver
lands on your head at high velocity.

LAUGHTER

The rest of the wildlife...

The moose around there,

"What is going on?!"

Beavers coming out of the sky.

"My God! It's actually happening!"

"It's raining beavers."

Part of the moose religious texts
is that that's...

LAUGHTER

That's a sign of the rapture
is when the beavers start dropping.

Well, they had tried moving them

into new territories
for them by mule

and they just simply got too hot and
they really didn't like it at all.

- They put a beaver on horseback,
essentially? - Yeah.

Well, you've got
to transport it somehow.

- What...? How would you transport it?
- Well, I...

But I don't understand
why the beavers...

- I don't understand any of this.
- LAUGHTER

They thought, "We can't..."

"OK, there's no way we
can drop them into a park,

"other than from the sky."

Or by mule, which you found
also incomprehensible.

Is there a man with...?

Or a lady with the beaver
on horseback?

Or is it just a beaver on horseback?

LAUGHTER

Of course there's a person.

I'm confused.

So, is it one beaver per mule?

LAUGHTER

Because then they're repopulating
the place with mules,

as far as I can work it out.
LAUGHTER

Yeah, the beavers
didn't want to stay.

The mules have
forced the beavers further along...

They were relying on the mule
to find its way back.

LAUGHTER

More complicated than you think,
this beaver transportation thing.

Yeah, it is. Well, that was harder
work than I expected.

LAUGHTER

In 1834, someone translated these
ancient Swedish ruins.

- What do you think they said?
- Best before 1833.

Don't try assembling the Billy
bookcase from Ikea.

Is it particularly ghastly,
the Billy bookcase?

I think they all are.
I don't know.

I can't and won't...

Have you noticed that you never see
a lorry with Ikea on the side?

- Don't you?
- And that's because they transport

so much stuff that it would freak
you out if it had Ikea on the wagon.

It would put the brand that
much into your head, like,

"Wow, they've taken over the world.
This isn't great."

So they just do it
undercover in white wagons.

- That's really interesting.
- In white wagons.

A friend told me that on the way
back from the pub, so...

As he was saying, just behind your
head an Ikea lorry was just going.

But it's good.
You never see a lorry with that.

You know that Eddie Stobart
is the Swedish for Ikea.

Oh, I love an Eddie Stobart.

I like how the front
of Eddie Stobart lorries

always have the name
of the driver's lady love.

I've always wanted to see just one
of those guys in the Stobart livery,

with the tie, and just "Keith".

It would be great.

"I love him."

- Back to the ruins. It's in Runemo
in Sweden. - So what is it?

Well, from the 12th century it was
believed to be a secret message

written, no-one could solve it.

The Royal Danish scientific society
took a look in 1833.

A scholar called Finnur Magnusson
had a breakthrough.

He announced that no-one else had
been able to decipher them

is that they were in Icelandic
and they should be read backwards.

And he came up with the ruin's poem
telling you of a battle victory.

And then they discovered
in 2000-ish...

- Oh, dear. I sense bad things.
- Yeah.

- Is it birds or something?
- It's just cracks in the rock.

Love it.

He had worked on a copy someone else
had made and it's just nothing.

So he'd written some huge poem?

That's right.
It was 700 pages he wrote.

He must have padded that out.
Look at that.

He thought it said this.
Which is Runic for...

Out of focus.

STEPHEN READS OUT POEM

I like that there's obviously two
symbols that he just couldn't

figure out and went,
"They must be brackets."

It's a nice thought that, isn't it?

But what "Ole, hate" is about,
I don't know.

It's an early football chant.

Yeah, the mysterious Runemo ruins
turned out to be

a load of old cracks.

Now, we're off to the match
and it's penalty time.

For the best chance of success,
where should you aim?

At the ball.

LAUGHTER

- And then into the goal. - Wahey!

I'm so bad at sport,
my inclination would be to...

I know where I'd hit it,

so I would then just reverse
my natural inclination.

That would probably be the best.

- So, a bit of game theory going on,
on yourself? - Yes.

- Yeah. - See, I'd go top right,

which means that probably
the best way would be bottom left...

KLAXON

Yeah, top corner either way
is not the best.

Is it "at the goalie?"

Yes.

- Because he's going to jump...
- Yeah, because he's going to...

He's going to go. Because
the goalkeeper nearly always

- goes one way or the other. - So you
hit it straight down the middle?

Straight down the middle
is, far and away,

the most statistical
likely way of doing it.

But it's odd, because
footballers know this...

because it's been, you know,
obviously well gone over...

and yet footballers don't.

Is it because they just think
they'd look so stupid

- if they kicked it
right at the keeper... - Yes!

..and the keeper just caught it?

If the one or two times
out of 100,

the goalkeeper does actually
stay in the middle

and the ball goes and hits him,

the crowd would
just boo their heads off

and think that the penalty taker
is the biggest idiot in the world.

Although, statistically, he was
doing exactly the right thing.

So, they'd rather not look a fool.
You're absolutely right.

Because it's seen as 50/50.

If the goalie goes the correct way
and saves it,

- it's still seen as all right,
isn't it? - Yes.

In fact, it's 57% in one direction,

41% in the other.

- Do you know which that might be?
- Left. Left-right. - Left?

- It's 57% left, yes.
- Because you...

- They go left more often.
- ..use your right foot.

And 2% in the middle.

Three countries have an absolute

0% success record
in penalty shoot-outs.

They played two and lost two.

- San Marino? - No, it's Gabon...

Micronesia. ..Romania and Chile.

But there's one country
that's taken part in more than two

and has the worst record of all in
the world, apart from those three...

- Is it England?
..and it's England. - Yeah.

- AUDIENCE GROANS
- Why is that? - What a surprise(!)

We've only ever won one.

We've won one out of eight.

12.5% success rate - as opposed to
Germany, who've won 83% of theirs.

Why is that then?

Because, presumably,
all teams have access to that

very simple statistical information.

Is it just the fact that
it's now embedded in the psyche?

FAUX GERMAN ACCENT:
"You are weak, mentally weak."

LAUGHTER

- Do you think hypnotism would help?
- Probably.

- Of the keeper. - Of the keeper, yeah.
- LAUGHTER

- Of the keeper, like...
- LAUGHTER

I think if it was me, I'd stand by
one post, feigning indifference...

- Having a fag.
- ..and, as they run up to take it,

- I would sprint to the other post...
- LAUGHTER

..surely distracting him

and, if he did go that way,
it would hit me on the way past.

LAUGHTER

That would do it.
Yep, that's the plain truth.

To be successful
in penalty shoot-outs,

either go straight down the middle
or be German.

LAUGHTER

Do an impression of
the world's first mime.

"Come back! I'm not supposed to
be saying anything. Come back!"

- Is it the one where you do...? - Oh.

They do the... Is it that one?

KLAXON
Oh, they're all doing it.

You're all doing activities.

Where does the word "mime"
come from, do you imagine?

- "Twat in white gloves?" - Mimic?
LAUGHTER

Mimic, the same root
as the word mimic.

You see...

- Mimesis. - Yeah.

- Greek word meaning...
Yes, imitation. - Imitation, yeah.

But imitation doesn't stick to
physical movements, does it?

No. So was it more like sort of
Rorius Bremnerus?

It was acting,

it was full-on acting.

Speech and movement
and everything else.

The world's first mime
was a fellow called Sophron,

who was much admired by Plato,
amongst others.

His audience don't seem
to like him very much.

Well, no, that's...
LAUGHTER

They're punching him.
No, I think...

They're recreating
that night after Top Gear.

LAUGHTER

Very good.
APPLAUSE

In Rome, mimes were pretty amazing.

Women took the female parts,
which is just...

- Scandalous! - Yeah.

LAUGHTER

Performers did not wear masks
or formal acting shoes.

LAUGHTER

Oh! Forfend!

"My formal acting shoes."

"What kind of formal acting shoes
would you wear?"

The object...
Now you'll like this, Alan.

The object was to get laughs,
no matter how obscene...

LAUGHTER
..the jokes had to be.

They all had a character called the
"stupidus," or fool, who was some...

- Who's actually the cleverest one
of them all. - Yes. Now, exactly.

LAUGHTER

Sometimes they featured
adultery live on stage.

Wahey!

- Or a little bit less, less...
- Gets better by the minute!

Less amusingly,

live executions with actors
replaced by condemned criminals.

- Were they wearing the right shoes?
- Yes.

The church excommunicated all mimes
in the fifth century AD.

Not a moment too soon.

Why? I guess, because they
were pleasurable and...

It's not why, it's...

It's hard because you can't scream.
LAUGHTER

Marcel Marceau of course is
the famous French mime

with his character Bip.
Bip on the left.

And he's hardly
recognisable as a man himself.

- Has he been excommunicated?
- I don't think he has.

He did a sketch called
walking in the wind,

and do you know who was
influenced by that?

The people of East Anglia.

Charlie Chaplin.
The people of East Anglia.

No, not Charlie Chaplin.
It's Michael Jackson.

Moonwalking was essentially derived
from Marcel Marceau.

Is that where the white
glove comes from?

- Like an homage to...
- Maybe, yes.

And the scary white face.

LAUGHTER

Very good.

The first mimes had plenty
to say for themselves.

If you want something,
what's the magic word?

"Darling..."

LAUGHTER

"Please."

KLAXON

LAUGHTER

This is something
that's been researched.

There is a particular word.

Let's suppose that you queue-barge.

Now, in general, if you queue-barge
apologetically and charmingly,

60% of people will let you in
without too much complaint -

this was done for a queue
to a photocopier -

but if you used this one word
in your sentence,

you would get 95% of people
letting you in quite happily.

- Smallpox?
- LAUGHTER

- Letting you in... - "I've got
the smallpox. Can I get in?"

Letting you in,
not abandoning the queue.

- It's a good thought though.
- It's probably better though.

- "Unclean, unclean." - What do you say?

Do you say, "Room for a small one?"

You say, "I like your blouse.
Can I come in?"

LAUGHTER
It's one word.

"Because.

"Because. Yeah, because I've got
some photocopying to do."

And it's obvious
you've got photocopying to do,

you've gone to the front
of the photocopying queue,

- but just saying "because"
is the magic word. - You can't...

It unlocks people's objection.
"Because I'm in a hurry."

"Do you mind?
Because I'm in a hurry."

Can you turn to someone
and go, "Because!"

LAUGHTER
Maybe.

♪ Because, because,
because, because... ♪

Obviously there are...

There are variables
in terms of attitude and niceness.

♪ I'm off to see the wizard... ♪

"Because!"

"All right, go in front, Christ!"

LAUGHTER

- He's going to do the whole musical.
- You're ever so silly. Oh, dear.

♪ The wonderful Wizard of Oz... ♪
"All right, go in front of me!"

Well, I can illustrate
the answer, actually,

because - say it's
a magical word here, this is...

- You know I like to do little
magical moments... - I know.

..because it's the M series here -

and we've got,
as you can see, MAGICAL.

So, what we do is, we take
all the letters from MAGICAL...

As you can see, I hope.

..and we shuffle them about.

- I'll have one
from the bottom, please. - Well...

Or from anywhere else,
please, Carol.

What I'll do is, I'll give you...
I'll give you the numbers,

so you can call out where
you want the letter to go.

- Do you see? - OK. Yes, sir.

So I'll pick a letter up and you
decide where it goes, all right.

- Three. - Three?

One, two, three,
isn't it? There. Yeah.

- Smooth. - Seven.

Seven? All right.
This will go in seven.

- Are you sure seven? - Five.
- All right, OK. - Five.

One, two, three, four, five. Yeah.

- One. - One, oh...

- This is what happens
when you do these things. - Four.

Four? Oh, God, you had to do that,
didn't you?

- Yeah? - Two. - Two.

Two? All right,
all right, all right.

And what are the chances?
What are the chances?

What are the chances?!

APPLAUSE

The laws of physics
absolutely defied on this programme.

It's frightening.
LAUGHTER

Now - since this whole show
has been about Misconceptions -

this week, we've replaced
General Ignorance

with a test of your
M-themed general knowledge.

There are lots and lots of points
to be won in this quickfire round,

so fingers on buzzers.

What's the capital of Mexico?
BUZZARD

Mexico City.

Is the right answer. Very good.
Name the deepest part of the ocean?

- BUZZARD
Yes? - The Mariana...

Marianas Trench or something?

The Mariana Trench
is the right answer.

If something is genuine,
it's the real...?

- BUZZER
- McCoy.

Oh.
KLAXON

LAUGHTER

No, the original phrase is McKay.

That's 42 years older than
the phrase - "the real McCoy."

It's from G McKay,
the Scottish distillers.

There you are.

FAUX SCOTTISH ACCENT: "A drappie
o' the real McKay."

So, what city can be found
on the Moscow River?

- BUZZER
Yes? - Moscow.

Is the right answer!

What's the name of
Cameron Mackintosh's

Abba-themed London Musical?

- BUZZARD
Yes? - Mamma Mia.

BUZZER
Mamma Mia? Oh, Alan!

KLAXON

No, indeed.
BUZZER

Mamma Mia was produced
by Judy Craymer -

but, before that,
a musical called Abbacadabra,

produced by Cameron Mackintosh,

- staged at the Lyric, Hammersmith,
in 1983. - Oh! - Yeah.

So, who created Miss Marple?

BUZZER
Yes?

Agatha Christie.

- Of course. You see, nothing to be
frightened of. - I'm scared now.

LAUGHTER
That's the point...

- I'm really scared.
- ..we want you scared.

Agatha Christie, of course,
created Miss Marple.

What's the gambling
capital of the world?

- BUZZER
Yes? - Las Vegas.

Oh!
KLAXON

- Oh, that was really unlucky.
- I don't know.

- Is it Croydon? - Dubai? - "Croydon."
LAUGHTER

It's seven times bigger
than Las Vegas.

- BUZZER
- It's Hong Kong.

- No. You're in the right area.
- The other one.

- What's our themed letter? - M. M...

AUDIENCE CALL OUT: Macau.

Audience gets the points.
BUZZER

APPLAUSE

- I guessed on your behalf.
It's Macau. - Macau. - Is it really?

- Yes. - Where's your sheep, though?
Hey!

- It's Ma-cow. - Here's me cow.

LAUGHTER

- Very, very, very, very... - Me cow.

..very amusing!

LAUGHTER

Macau is the gambling capital
of the world.

Where's your cow?

Which planet is closest to the sun?

- BUZZER
- Mercury.

Is of course the right answer.

How long do mayflies live for?
BUZZER

17 hours.

Oh, no.
BUZZER

That's a good answer.
You didn't say a day.

No, it's not a day and it's not...

- BUZZER
- Ages.

Ages is the right answer.

- No, up to four years. - Four years?!

This is nonsense. Not in that form.

But from the larva all
the way through.

They have a long, long lifespan.

So they're in their adult
form for 17...

- Yes, for a day.
- A day and they're kids for...

As juveniles, they have a long,
long time.

That's double a hamster.

I'm going to get those
beauties for my kids.

"Oh, lovely mayfly."

Your last chance for lots of points
is a picture round.

Please draw a picture of
a juvenile fruit fly brain.

A juvenile fruit fly brain?

Yes, indeed.

All right.

I'll wager...

that it doesn't have one.

LAUGHTER

I'm going to do it...

So, we've already got...

We've got there, from
Chris's juvenile fruit fly brain

- to scale. - I've done a banana.
What have you drawn?

You've got a strawberry.

Well, the shattering news
for you, Alan -

and it really is disappointing -

is that, for once, what you
usually draw could have worked.

- What, it's like... - It's a cock
and balls! - ..a cock and balls?

- No! - Yes!
LAUGHTER

There they are.

WHISTLING

You see, the one time you didn't.

The one time you behaved.
Oh, you did?

- Before the show. - Before the show.

Before the show? I see.

We got the cock and balls
out of our system before the show.

- LAUGHTER
- We got that out of the way.

First thing you do when you arrive.
Do the cock and balls.

Do the cock and balls, then you
won't make a fool of yourself

by drawing a cock and balls
on the programme.

Well, on that cock-shell,
let's take a look at...

LAUGHTER

Let's take a look at the scores.

It's pretty exciting,
because we have a clear winner,

on a staggering...

plus - and minus - zero,

is Chris Addison.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

How?

In second place...

with a highly impressive minus six,

Sue Perkins.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Usually this would be good enough
to win the wooden spoon, Sara,

it's a brilliant first appearance
to get minus 13...

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

..but it takes an old hand to do
really, really badly at this game,

- Alan Davies on minus 54! - 54?!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

So it's thank you
from Sara, Chris, Sue, Alan and me.

And I leave you with
this from Charlie Brown.

"Sometimes I lie awake at night and
I ask, 'Where have I gone wrong?'

"Then a voice says to me,

" 'This is going to take
more than one night.' "

Goodnight.