QI (2003–…): Season 13, Episode 9 - Messing with Your Mind - full transcript

GOOD evening, good evening,
good evening, good evening,

good evening, good evening
and welcome to QI,

where this week
I shall be messing with your minds.

Joining me
on the psychiatrist's couch,

we have the open-minded
Sarah Millican.

APPLAUSE

The sharp-minded Josh Widdicombe.

APPLAUSE

The broad-minded Tommy Tiernan.

APPLAUSE

And...



Oh, never mind, it's Alan Davies.

APPLAUSE

So, let's be mindful
of their buzzers.

Sarah goes...

MUSIC: Always On My Mind
by Elvis Presley

Josh goes...

MUSIC: Got My Mind Set On You
by George Harrison

Tommy goes...

MUSIC: Making Your Mind Up
by Bucks Fizz

And Alan goes...

TRAIN RATTLES
'Mind the gap. Mind the gap.'

LAUGHTER

Good.

So, it's time to get down to
minding our own business.



Alan, we've been working together
now for 13 years,

playing together,
I like to think of it.

- But of course. - Quite wrongly.

And we get on like a,
like a mouse on fire.

Was it love at first sight?

Oh, yeah, absolutely, Stephen.

KLAXON
Oh!

That's such a shame.

No. No, it wasn't.

Well, it's about the mind
and another capacity of the mind,

one of its most important capacities,
that begins with M.

- Memory.
- Memory is right, yeah. Absolutely.

Can we really remember things?

13 years ago, emotional states,

do we remember them accurately?

Things like falling in love
at first sight.

But isn't there a difference
between fact and truth?

- Right. - So...
- JOSH: 13 years of QI saps us.

- That's good...
- Keep going, we like this.

This could really help me
on this show, you know.

So, I would remember stuff from my
childhood that my father says

didn't happen,
but there's truth in the memory.

- Yes. - I have a memory, he would
suggest that it never happened,

of him holding me by the ankles
over the side of a ship.

LAUGHTER

And he says he...

So, he thinks that's a false
memory syndrome event.

He questions it, but I know that the
feeling of being held by the ankles

over the side of a ship by my father
speaks a truth of my childhood.

- Right. - That the facts
may not support.

- It doesn't mean... - Is your dad...?
- It's very profound and correct.

So there's truth in
the feeling of the memory,

so the feeling is nothing
to do with facts.

You wouldn't fail a
lie detector test

if you explained
that memory to a polygraph.

- Much to my father's chagrin. - Right.

I think I've got the opposite,

cos I think my first memory
is something that I've been told

so many times happened,
that I don't think I do remember it.

- I did... - Yes, so that's the
opposite of what happened to Tommy.

- You've had yours reinforced
by your family. - Yeah. - Yeah.

Does that make you worry that
you might be a robot?

And like they've just been,

all these memories have
just been uploaded.

Well, we're all a bit like that.

Certainly in terms of falling
in love at first sight, there was

a survey of 10,000 people
in long-term relationships

and half of the men in that survey

said they fell in love
at first sight.

A quarter of the women said
they fell in love at first sight.

So a lot of men
were fooling themselves.

No, what that is, though, I think
that's just the law of averages,

because say like you're a single
man, I think when I've been single,

I fall in love with women
20 to 30 times a day.

LAUGHTER

- I think... - So, the law of averages,

eventually the one
I get together with,

she'll be one of the
400,000 I fell in love with.

There is a sense in which
many people would say

that despite this view of women's
sentimental literature

and the rest of it, men are far
more sentimental than women.

Women are practical
and less sentimental

and they probably have a clearer...
Because women...

LAUGHTER

There, see. Why has he got it facing
away from him though?!

That's so rude!

On the other side of the wallet,
it's a picture of Stephen.

Bound to be.

APPLAUSE

Oh, dear.

He's looking at
the back of your head.

Yeah, maybe that's what it is.

That's rather,
you see there he's all dreamy-eyed

and maybe you're clear-eyed.
Well, women are more practical

because they've got more
shit to get done.

Yeah. Yeah. That's what it is.

Do you know that story
about the journalist who interviewed

a busy sort of woman
and said they were doing this

survey about who makes the important
decisions in your household.

She said, "Oh, my husband makes all
the important decisions, I make all

"the trivial decisions, like what the
children should wear and what they

"should eat and how much we should
spend on our household budget, and

"where we should go on holiday and
what sort of car we should drive.

"But my husband makes all the
important decisions, like whether

"there should be a United Nations
presence in Bosnia for example."

That sort of sums up basically men
fantasising about political things,

where women get on with
the real business of life, maybe.

I don't think I fell in love
at first sight. You didn't?

I don't think so. I don't think,
that makes it sound...

I've never been so hurt in my life.

There are other memory tricks.

Can you remember what you were doing
when the World Trade Center was hit?

Yes. I was one of the first
people in England to find out

because I was watching
lunchtime Neighbours.

LAUGHTER

One of the four people
to find out then.

And they interrupted, it was
at the end of lunchtime Neighbours.

- They crossed straight to New York.
- So, you saw the first plane go in?

- Yeah. Well, first, I saw Lou
close up the pub. - Yeah!

LAUGHTER

A friend of mine was living
in New York when it happened,

- And slept through it. - Wow. Wow. Wow.

He'd been out drinking
the night before.

This friend of yours,
was he Irish? Irish, yes. Yes.

LAUGHTER

"Bloody hell, what's going on?"

"Where the fuck is everybody?"

"What a night!"

JOSH: What a night!

Well, a lot of people will tell
you that they saw the first plane

go in to the tower on 9/11 and
then the second

and then them both falling.

What they can't have seen
is the first plane going in.

That was only shown on television
on the second day.

Because it would have been
very suspicious

if they'd cut to New York before
that plane hit the tower.

LAUGHTER

Josh, that's exactly what the
conspiracy theorists think

because George W Bush said, you know,

"Seeing that plane go in to
the first tower, my heart sank."

Everyone said, "Ah, he saw it,

"that means he must have had
a secret camera watching it,

"that means he must have planned it,"

but, in fact, it just means he had
a faulty memory like many people.

- Cos he was reading a book about
my first goat, was it? - To children.

To children, yeah,
not just to himself.

LAUGHTER

Well, similar to your memories,

they have found that research has
convinced 70% of participants

that they had committed crimes,
including theft and assault,

during their adolescence,
even though none of them had.

They just talked to them about it
and they said,

"According to your parents, you did
this," and social pressure,

most people are able to retrieve
memories of things they've done.

"You stole a car when you were...
Don't you remember?"

And they kind of go, "Oh, yeah.

"Yes, yes, I did, that's right."

When my father can't sleep,
he says he lies in bed

and tries to remember things
he's never remembered before.

Wow!

That's very, that's profound.

It's amazing.

Yes, well, we'll do an experiment
actually with memory

a little later on.

So there we are.
I can't remember what kind of point

I was trying to make there.

But fortunately, neither can you.

Now for something that should
seriously mess with your mind,

how much would you pay for a machine
that can print money?

TOMMY'S BUZZER

Nothing, because the person you
bought it from wouldn't need cash.

- Oh, clever. - Very good. - Clever.

Well, I'm going to put it
up for offers, because I've got

a machine which I hope you will see
is able to print money.

What I've got is a piece of paper,

which is the right size.

And my printer,
which is pretty accurate.

- At least if I print it well.
- Ah, very good.

Well, there it is.

- Oooh. - There you go.

- Blimey! - What do you think? - Eh?

APPLAUSE

There you are.

So, how much would
you pay for that machine?

I'd pay a tenner, because...

LAUGHTER

And then I'd go out onto the
South Bank and make loads of money.

We'll keep that.

We'll keep that, we'll keep that
ten and maybe we'll see

if we can make more money later on.

But, this idea of making money,
of course goes

deep, deep, deep into human nature,

and there was a man called
Victor Lustig,

who was one of the great conmen
of the time who, unlike me,

cheated and built a machine that
actually didn't print money at all,

whereas mine, as you can see,
genuinely does.

He, in his lifetime,
sold the Eiffel Tower -

twice - so he was pretty good.

But he also built a machine
for creating 100 bills

and then he would sell
the machine for 30,000.

It was very successful,
he went to prison.

I was given a rose underneath
the Eiffel Tower once.

Just handed a rose.
You were given a rose?

Yeah, it was so lovely
and I didn't think

I looked especially nice that day
but maybe I did. I am sure you did.

And then the same man ran
after my husband for 15 Euros.

LAUGHTER

I think if you had a machine that
made money...

- As I do. - ..as you do... - Yes. - ..I
think it would drive you demented

and I think you'd probably
knock great craic out of it

for about a year and then you'd
do anything to get rid of it.

Would you make the money at home
or would you just keep

the machine in your handbag?

It would be a curse cos you'd
never leave the machine.

You wouldn't be able to
leave the machine.

Yes, I make about 2,000
or 3,000 every morning

and if I need more, I will come back.

Are you talking
about voice-over work?

LAUGHTER

Damn!

APPLAUSE

So, yeah, you probably weren't
completely convinced

by my moneymaking machine.
but tell me this,

which do you find most convincing -
the IKEA Effect,

the Rhyme As Reason Effect

or the Frequency Illusion?

Is the IKEA Effect just
arrows on the floor?

Is that what that is?

Just not being able to get
out of anywhere ever.

That, if you can...

Is that prison? Is that prison?

Prison with tea lights.

It may be better understood
by saying things like

if you make crab apple jelly, say,
or jam - in my case, apricot jam,

I made last year, it's just the best
apricot jam there ever was.

I knew this, it's a fact.

It's the best apricot jam
anyone's ever tasted.

But I'm told that it's part
of the IKEA Effect. In other words,

if you've made it yourself from your
own ingredients, you just think it's

better than anything else that you
can buy in a shop or anything else.

Is that why people are really
smug about their babies? Yes.

LAUGHTER

Basically, they are an IKEA Effect.

APPLAUSE

Do you ever have any
equivalent of that effect?

I am fierce fond of
a decent bowel movement.

LAUGHTER

"Fierce fond"!

I like that.

I will often call my wife
and children in and...

"Look what Daddy made.

"Even while I was reading!"

JOSH: That is preferable to if
you're a fan of someone else's

though, isn't it?

I'm huge fan of Alan Davies's
bowel movements.

That's very unlikely.

I think things like you're
going through the forest

and you see a hole up a tree
and you throw a stone at it

and the first one, your stone
goes straight in the hole.

There's never any one around.

There's never any one to watch you,
that's true. That's very satis...

Squirrel comes out going...

Well, let's move on to the second
in our list, then, which is

the Rhyme As Reason Effect.

What do you think that can be about?

Is that like, "No pain, no gain"?

- Yes. - Or, "Treat them mean,
keep them keen" would be another.

Yes. Oh, like, there's
loads of alcohol ones,

isn't there, like, "If you drink
wine you'll be fine" and...

- Oh, yeah, yeah.
- "Beer, you'll be queer."

Only shots, yeah.

But that did work,
didn't it, Stephen?

It did, yeah, yeah. It worked on me.

"Only shots, you'll get the trots",
that sort of thing. Yeah.

Yeah, all the boozy ones.

- Yeah, isn't there one with
grape and grain? - Yeah.

Never the twain with... No.

LAUGHING: ..with the grape and grain.

They do seem to work, in as much as,
if you suggest a kind of rhyming

piece of advice to someone, and to
another group of people you put the

same sentiment that doesn't rhyme,
they'll believe the rhyming one.

So, for example,
they gave "wealth makes health,"

to a group of people, and almost
all of them agreed with it.

They then said, "Financial success
improves medical outcomes."

Catchy. It's catchy.

And they didn't agree at all,
despite it meaning the same thing.

So it shows there is a strange
quality that a rhyming phrase has.

It's easier to remember as well,

so you might want to pass it on to
somebody else. That's right.

If it rhymes.

And it seems just to have some
sort of authority or imprimatur,

that an ordinary phrase doesn't.
It's also the Keats heuristic -

because it's beautiful,
it must be true.

Beauty is truth
and truth beauty, is the idea.

You may remember OJ Simpson's
defence lawyer,

Johnnie Cochran,
do you remember him?

- Oh, it doesn't fit.
- If the glove doesn't fit...

- If the glove doesn't fit...
- ..you must... - Acquit. - Acquit.

That's it, yeah.

That seems to be one of the
things that got OJ...

That's quite specific as well,

you can't use that,
like, every day, can you?

It's not going to come up a lot,
that one, is it?

No. It worked on the day, though.

- You've got to be in it... - To win it.
- ..to win it. Yes.

Points mean prizes.

No, I'm not very good at this, am I?
Hang on.

LAUGHTER

An apple a day, of course,
the doctor away.

Red light in the sky,
shepherd's pie. No, that's not...

LAUGHTER

Red sky at night, shepherds' delight.
Yes.

The Frequency Illusion,
does that mean anything to you?

No.

No reason why it should.

When I used the word "heuristic",
it may be that you didn't know

the word, but it's quite likely
that in a couple of days you might

see it in a magazine or hear someone
else using it on the radio or

TV and you go, "That's weird,
I only just heard that word

"for the first time two days ago, and
now it keeps cropping up everywhere."

- Have you ever had that experience?
- Yeah. I was talking to Richard Osman

about this, cos he was complaining
about people saying there's always

- tennis questions on Pointless.
- Oh, yes.

And the moment you think

that there's tennis questions
on Pointless,

if you see one, you think,

- "Well, that completely reinforces
everything." - Yes, that's right.

All these things are called
a sort of cognitive bias, they push

you into a way of thinking,
some different ways of thinking.

So, you can
tell the most appalling lie,

if it rhymes or it's featured on QI.

What did the amnesiac say
when the doctor asked him his name?

TOMMY'S BUZZER

I don't know the answer to
that question.

Oh!
KLAXON

No, no, I was telling you that...

- That you didn't know the...
Very clever. - Right...

Very clever,
give him his points back.

He didn't know
the answer to the question.

Did he just say his name,

because it was written on
the inside label of his knickers?

That would be the
contortionist amnesiac.

Yeah.

There's the guy that... They said,
"What's your name?" and he

asked for a pen and paper, and he
drew a piano and they brought him

a piano and he wouldn't speak to
them, but he'd just play the piano.

- Do you remember this guy? - I do.

Yeah, and then it turned out, I
think, that he was a con artist.

- Yeah, he was.
- He didn't have amnesia at all.

Because, if you have amnesia,
you don't forget your name

and you don't forget your past life.

What you're not capable of doing

is remembering new things
that happen to you.

That's the point.
You've just ruined loads of films.

I know, you're absolutely right.

It's films in particular
that relish this idea that you

might have a trauma and you lose
all memory of who you are

and you become a fresh,
new, empty person.

And very often as well
a second clump on the head

will bring your memory back.

And all this is utterly
unknown to medical science.

- It's completely made up. - A very
rudimentary psychiatric hospital in

the west of Ireland would use
that as a technique.

LAUGHTER
A clump on the back of the head.

If it was a thump on the head
that got you sick,

it'll be a thump on the head
that'll make you better.

There's another kind of cognitive
impairment which is to do with

the fact that if you take a
photograph of something,

you don't remember nearly as well as
if you look at it.

Do you know, they should announce
that before every concert and say...

I think anyone who takes a photo
at a concert needs to be thrown out.

Out of the country.

LAUGHTER

It does my head in.

It is very peculiar.

Especially, as you say,
knowing as we do,

that you'll remember it better
if you just look.

And also in that situation, you
can just get a postcard in the shop.

Yes, exactly!

Interestingly, on the other hand,

if you zoom in on an object
in a museum or something like that,

you remember both the area you
zoomed in on and the object itself

because, there, you're concentrating
on the thing rather than just

framing it,
so that's a strange mental thing.

Yeah, we're back in Memory Lane and
now it's time for our memory test.

All right, I want
the audience and you four,

if you'd be kind enough, to listen
to and remember these words.

Bed. Rest. Awake.

Tired. Dream. Wake.

Snooze. Blanket. Doze.

Slumber.

Snore. Nap.

Peace. Yawn.

Drowsy.

All right?

Remember those words,
if you'd be so kind.

Good. Well, I think
we've earned ourselves

- another money-making moment, yes?
Go on. - Excellent.

Because I've got another machine.
Well, it's not a machine

in this case, it's just an ordinary
blotter and a piece of paper.

This is a, see, there you are.

It's all pretty straightforward.

The blotter is to blot out
all the excess ink as we try

and print out this, we try
and print it out, there we go.

Oh, let's have a go. Oh.

- Oh, yes, that's worked. - Now that is
good. - That's good. - That is so good.

APPLAUSE

There you are. More money for us.

Isn't that pleasing?

Are you going to show us
how they work later on?

Of course! Good.

Before I kill you.

I don't mind. I don't mind. No.
Oh, you don't mind, good, no.

- It's just... If you do any...
- What a way to go,

that's a trade-off I'll take.

Now for some multiple choice, listen
carefully. True or false?

True or false questions are more
likely to be true than false.

- I'm going to... - I need an answer.

JOSH'S BUZZER

Oh, I love George Harrison.

I'm going to go...true.

- Is the right answer. - Oh!

APPLAUSE

Very good. Yeah.

50/50 ball, as they say.

And you did well, that's right.
Yeah, it's...

But there isn't a vault or a bank
where all the true or false

questions in the world
were ever asked

and somebody decides to count
which are more true or more false.

That's like saying, when you're
given directions, is the first

direction more often likely to be
turn left or turn right?

Depends where you're going.

- Left. - Yes.

But you can analyse a huge bank of
questions, which is what was done.

American exam questions,
in this instance.

And they found that it was
56% of them the answer was true,

- and 44% the answer was false. - Right.

And it seems the reason is
that the examiners, of course,

have to think of the questions
all the time, and it's a lot

easier to think of a true question
than it is to think of a false one.

When I did my GCSEs,
they said as a tip,

if you're doing a multiple choice,
A, B, C, D,

and you don't know the answer, go B
or C, because the lazy examiners

are more likely to put the answer
in the middle than on the edge.

Would have been better
if they just taught us the answers.

Yes, I was going to say.
Just important to...

Don't worry about learning about
science, just go C.

All right, I'll give you
another chance then, OK.

If question one is true in an exam,
what is question two likely to be?

True.

Oh!
KLAXON

No, true, false, true, false
is more prevalent.

Oh, that's so boring, though.

It's not absolutely
guaranteed, of course,

but the chance the next answer
will be different

from the present one is 63%, though,
so it's quite a high amount.

So if question two
the answer was true,

question three,
63% that it will be false.

The way therefore to optimise
your scores, if you're doing a true

or false, is to answer all the ones
you know the answer to, obviously.

Then the ones next to them,
put the opposite.

And then all the rest
that are left over put true.

And then you've got your best chance
of a good score.

- Oh, that's, I like it. - Yeah.
Or just revise more.

Or just revise more.

Yeah, you are everything that is
wrong with British education.

LAUGHTER

Now, I'd like you to watch this film
and tell me what happens.

When am I going to have to repeat
all these words

that you made us remember?

LAUGHTER

Keep thinking of them.

Now, what's been happening
while you've been watching?

Oh, it's blinking.

Oh, look, there's
a different person!

Oh, the dog's still there.

- It's a woman. - Well, there we are.

Now, so what have you seen?

That thing's just appeared.

- What thing's that? - On the purple.

What's that brown thing?

The brown thing on the purple.
In the centre there?

Yeah. Has that been there
all the time?

Yeah, no, it's always been there,
yeah, I said that.

LAUGHTER

Tell me what you're sure you've seen.

Well, there was
a girl with an umbrella and then it
turned into a person with a dog.

- Indeterminate. - The man with the dog
turned into a woman with a dog.

- Right. - Is that right?
- Well, we'll see.

Let's have a look,
this time without the blinks

and there's rather a lot
you've missed.

- Oh! - King of Thai noodle comes up.
- JOSH: I was wondering that...

- Oh, no, it's still there.
- Yeah, the lighting, Thai noodle.

- No way! - No, shut up!

- TOMMY: I didn't see that at all.
- JOSH: Stephen Fry!

- How can you do this to us?
- Isn't it amazing? Wow!

I spent my whole time
looking at the person.

- That's what humans do.
- The tree turned up.

Have you seen that video, there's
a study they did in America and

you have, there's these
people passing basketballs
back and forwards...

- Yes. - ..and you have to count how
many... - How many passes.

..and they missed that a guy
dressed in huge ape suit comes along

- and does that. - Waving at the camera!

It is extraordinary. It's a famous
experiment and a brilliant one.

That's absolutely right, Josh.

This was a short film shown at the
Royal Institution Christmas Lecture

by Professor Bruce Hood,
who is a great friend of QI

and he has given us that film
and that kind of blindness,

as it were, to changes in the scene

and to things that happen is
very common and is a problem for

witnesses and so on, but it's also
every day it might happen to us.

If you look into a mirror

and you look at your right eye
in the mirror and then you look

at your left eye, you never
see your eyes move, but they do.

Why don't you see it?

The reason is the brain shuts down
your vision for that moment

so you are functionally blind at just
that incredibly small moment.

That's weird.

But we don't question the fact
that we don't see our eyes move.

We sort of don't expect to
because we're used not to.

We're used to not seeing our eyes
move but anybody watching us

would see our eyes moving
cos they are.

Do you ever do that thing where you
look at your eyes in the mirror

and then you like
move your head around

and it just looks like your eyes
are staying in the same place.

- Yes, it's very extraordinary,
isn't it? - Hours of fun.

LAUGHTER

I didn't have many toys
when I was growing up.

But that's enough, you own body is
a wonderful toy. Oh, I wish I...

LAUGHTER

APPLAUSE

Oh, sorry!

It's called saccadic masking,
this form of blindness

and it can add up to 30 to 45
minutes a day in most humans.

It means we're temporarily blind
for 2% of our lives.

How many people are looking in
the mirror for that length of time
everyday?

No, it's not only
looking into the mirror.

There are other moments.

Just 45 minutes,
just watching myself...

get older.

Inattentional blindness stops you
from noticing things

that are right in front of your eyes.

So, pay attention now, it's time for
another magical money-making moment.

Oh.

Yes. I've got a proper,
proper printing press here.

It's very, it's a
rather exciting one,

and as you can see, it's got
all the bells and whistles.

And it's even got a little
calibration here.

I'm going to, let's,
can you see it's on ten, I'm going

to move it up to 20. Because
I've got a 20-sized one here.

This may, I hope this works.

It takes a long
time to fill it with ink,

so if it doesn't work,
I'm not going to do it twice.

Oh, yes, that works.
Oh, good, there you are.

- Oh, wow. - There you are.
APPLAUSE

Oh, there we go.

Stephen, hold on,
one of the options is 100.

I just want to see what one
of them looks like.

OK. OK.

Oh, oh, there we go.

And, oh... Oh, it's a 50.
It should be 100.

Oh, it is 100. There you are!

That's good.

APPLAUSE

There we are.

So, yeah, we've made a,
made a proper amount of money today.

Just shows,
with a little application

and a little skill,
you can make money pretty easily.

That's amazing. Yes.

But I feel guilty about it,
so I'll probably give it away,

to a bookmaker.

LAUGHTER

Now, how much sleep does
a paradoxical insomniac get?

TOMMY'S BUZZER

Paradoxical, lots?

Well, yes. He does.

- More than he thinks. - Yes.

It's like a paradoxical kleptomaniac
who leaves things in shops.

What a wonderful thing to be.

APPLAUSE

Oh, look, he's left
a DVD on the teabags again.

Yeah, it's a very rare condition,
but essentially your body sleeps

very happily and all the scientific
equipment that goes onto the

brain to check that you're sleeping
shows that you are sleeping,

but you're awake, and you remember
where you are and what's going on.

But you're refreshed.

- Are you doing stuff, like are you
driving a bus or something? - No.

No, absolutely not. No,
they're definitely asleep in bed.

So which one of those two is it?

They are aware of their surroundings
during the night,

as if they were awake,
but they quite clearly weren't.

- Every brain scan shows they are
asleep. - Is this now an advantage?

No. It's weird, yes.

It's called properly
"sleep state misperception".

There's also an opposite condition,

negative sleep state misperception,
in which you think

you've been sleeping for much
longer than you have.

You're convinced you've
slept for eight hours...

When you wake up
when you're beard is wet and you go,

"How the hell!"
And you go back to sleep.

LAUGHTER

So are these people, do they...?
Sorry, I don't really understand

and I think you're lying,
but anyway.

Are these people the sort of
people, do they say,

"I've had a good night's sleep,"
or, "I haven't slept a wink"?

How do they feel?
They feel refreshed?

They feel refreshed, they feel fine.
How do they know they haven't slept?

Cos they've been awake all the time.
They've slept, haven't they?

In their mind, they've
been awake all the time.

Is this when you have to be awake
at ten to five,

no matter what happens, you have
to be awake at ten to five,

and miraculously
you are awake at ten to five.

That's an alarm clock, love.

LAUGHTER

- No, I have that too,
I do definitely. - Yeah.

- It's extraordinary. - So is that the
same kind of... - It works very well.

At school, when we...
if we were going on a, you know,

a little dawn raid, or something
like that, you'd, they'd say...

Sorry?

Well, you know, to do a raid
on the kitchens and steal jelly

and things, you know. So...

I forgot you grew up
in an Enid Blyton novel.

LAUGHTER

To get your catapult
back from the teacher.

You would do this onto the pillow,
you would go,

"One, two, three, four,"

like that, and you'd wake up at
four in the morning.

- And it always seemed to work. - No.

Honestly, I can't remember a time
when it didn't. That is bullshit!

- No... - OK.

I totally agree.

It's maybe a false memory I've got,
but it's a very clear one.

If it's so true, I want you to

give us your phone and alarm clock

and never use it again
to wake yourself up.

And just use the head hitting.

It all changes when you get
an enlarged prostate.

LAUGHTER

And do you have to hit it
four times on the pillow?

This is something that Blyton
didn't cover much.

She didn't, did she? Not
lashings of enlarged prostates, no.

Oh, dear.

Anyway, how well you sleep
is really all in your mind.

Now, how would you swear
like a pre-pubescent supercomputer?

Bum, bum, wee.

- Bum, bum, wee. - And poo.

- Pretty close. - They're the main,
they're the main ones?

The big three.

It's a supercomputer,
we've called it pre-pubescent

because it's about
11 years old now. And...

And it swears?

Well, it's called Watson

and it is one of the smartest
supercomputers around.

It was first trained to win
at the American quiz game Jeopardy,

which you may have seen if you've
ever been in the United States,

it's on every single day.

They give an answer
and you say the question.

Exactly.
So this actor played Jonathan Creek.

The answer is,
on Jeopardy, Who is Alan Davies?

- Yes. - It's been going for 40 years or
something on American TV.

Does the supercomputer do
proper swearing or swearing like

"mother funster," or...
Melon farmer! Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

What they did was,
they fed it an online dictionary

and I think you can guess which one
it was, if it was swearing.

Urban Dictionary.

- Urban Dictionary, yes, which is
a rather naughty dictionary. - It is.

It has bad M words.

I don't know what,
I really, what's motorboat?

Am I, am I the only...?

Oh, OK. I've got this one,

I've got this one!
APPLAUSE

I'm not going to do it,
it's where you

put your head in between there
and then do that...

Oh, yes, that's right. "Brrr."
It's rather sweet, that, isn't it?

- Rather sweet?! - Well...

LAUGHTER

Well, I don't know.

Nicer than minger,
or muffin top? Milkshake.

Where's your man cave?

That's not... Oh, no, is that,
have I got a man... No?

LAUGHTER

No. Is that what...?
Is it like a den where you...

Oh.

LAUGHS

That sounded like you'd suddenly
got a catchphrase,

where's your man cave?

It's Sarah "Where's Your
Man Cave" Millican.

It's Sarah Millican,
Where's Your Man Cave!

TOMMY: Sarah, you definitely have
one man cave, the question is,

do you have two?

Ah, yes.

LAUGHTER

No?

- Was that the right answer?
- I don't know.

I'm still recovering from motorboat.

So, that's Urban Dictionary
and it was popped into Watson,

this IBM computer and unfortunately,
he learnt too much from it

and so when they were testing it,
before it went on Jeopardy,

it was just saying "bullshit"
to every question that you posed

to it, like a stroppy
pre-pubescent, basically.

It's now...

The question he asked was never,
"Where's your man cave?"

No, it never was.

We just gave you some Ms just
because it's the M series,

but there are plenty of others.

Are they all like new words,
because milkshake's been around

for a long time, but has it got
a new meaning that I need to learn?

- Yeah. - You're young.

- Um, well... - What is it?

Well, Kelis sung, "My milkshake
brings all the boys to the yard,"

- didn't she? - Yes, because she had
like a van that sold milkshakes.

If that's what you want to think
she meant, that's what she meant.

My dormitory at school had
a milkshake club,

but we won't go into that.

It wasn't all like Enid Blyton,
then, was it?

No, no.

Ooooh, where were we?

Oh, yes.

Where is the, would you imagine,
most powerful computer in the world?

- NASA. - It's not NASA,
not the Pentagon.

- Not in America, in fact. - Beijing.

Well, yes, China is the answer.

There it is. Huge. Look at that.

It's pretty impressive. It is called
Tianhe, which means Milky Way.

Didn't you used to play
that at school?

LAUGHTER

Sorry! I'll stop now.

Oh, dear. It can run 100,000 times
as many calculations

per second as there
are stars in the galaxy.

Cor, blimey.

All computers, including that,
are very slow still when it comes
to what?

The fastest supercomputers can mimic
one second of human brain activity

in about 40 minutes.

So they're rubbish at Snap,
for instance.

LAUGHTER

So we still, for the moment at least,

we still are the fastest
processor on the planet.

I spent an entire summer trying to
teach a cat how to play Snap.

Really?

Yeah. We had this cat who every
now and again would just go...

LAUGHTER

So we thought we would take it
to the fair and if we could...

LAUGHTER

If we could train it to play Snap,
that would make a fortune.

Well, they used to have at fairs,
pigs that spelled out words.

You would go to the fair
with your learned pig

and you'd have alphabet cards in
a huge circle with the pig inside.

Was it mostly just "help"?

No, you'd ask a member of the public

and they'd have to pay tuppence
or whatever, to shout a word,

and they'd shout a word
like "barnyard" or something,

and pig would go up to the B
and then up to the A

and then up to the R, etc,
and spell out the word.

Like a pig Ouija board.

Kind of, yeah.

And, of course, pigs can't read,
it was a trick

but it was a very good one,

it was simply looking at
its owner over there

and he's going like that for
B or whatever and that for A,

and it worked beautifully.

It's all in Ricky Jay's excellent
book, Learned Pigs.

But, yeah, where were we?

Oh, yes, Watson, the supercomputer

got in trouble because he couldn't
stop fucking swearing.

And so we glide from the canyons of
our minds into the clueless

depths of General Ignorance.

Fingers on buzzers, if you would.

Why did the camel get the hump?
And where?

- On their back. - In the desert.

What's it for?

It's, oh, it's, I know...

Isn't it for food and water?

KLAXON

I knew it!

I thought it was as well.

Why didn't you say?

Because I wanted that
to happen to you.

The surprising thing, perhaps,

is that it evolved not in the
deserts, not in the hot countries,

but in the Arctic,
that's where it began,

like the Bactrians there that you see
that still live in cold conditions.

And the hump seems to have developed
for fat storage and for warmth.

I thought it was for tourists
so that they didn't fall off.

You sit between them, don't you?
You do, you do. Yes.

Canadian scientists found fossilised
fragments of camel leg bone

in Canada, which were
3.5 million years old

and the DNA matched the modern camel.

So, the camel originally got
its hump to survive the cold.

In a war between the grass and
the grass-eaters, who's winning?

LAUGHTER

JOSH'S BUZZER

- The grass.
- KLAXON

- Eaters.
- KLAXON

LAUGHTER

Can we get the grass-eaters?

KLAXON
Thank you.

I haven't finished yet!

Grass-eaters is not
the right answer.

Oh, you don't get away with that.

Evolution is an interspecies
arms race to some extent

and very often plants do create
stratagems to avoid being eaten.

They become poisonous, they become
thickly thorned and prickly

but it seems that grass
doesn't try and stop

itself from being eaten,
and the thing about grass is,

unlike most plants,
its centre of being is at the bottom,

so you can have the top of the blade
as much as you like.

95% of it can be eaten like that

and it's perfectly happy
just to regrow

so it actually does quite well
because it's helped by being
kept cropped.

Yeah, in the war between the grass
and the grass-eaters,

everyone's a winner.

Do mushrooms prefer to grow
in the light or in the dark?

SARAH'S BUZZER

Well, the thing's going to go off
if I say in the dark,

so I'm going to say in the light.

KLAXON
Oh, bugger!

The answer is
they don't prefer either.

They grow just as well in dark,
half light.

They rarely express a preference.
What would you like?

Would you like the light on,
or shall I leave it?

Maybe a little bedtime story,
be tucked in.

But going by how much they thrive,
it clearly doesn't make any

difference, so why is it traditional
to grow them in the dark?

Because it's a dirty secret?

Like if you have them in your house,

it's not something
you tell everybody.

I've got mushrooms
in the back bedroom.

It's simply cheaper.
We don't have to turn the light on.

So you just shove them
in a cellar or a dark room,

somewhere you've got
and they'll grow.

It's that simple. Oh.

Not very exciting,
but quite interesting.

Magic mushrooms, double M,
they have psychotropic,

or at least hallucinogenic
qualities, I believe, don't they?

- Good Lord!
- Is anybody else seeing that?

That's horrible.

But they have a disadvantage,

which is that you get
a terrible tummy ache,

and what did people do in order
to obviate this disadvantage?

- I'm afraid... - They'd make
themselves sick, would they?

Well, no, what they did is,

they'd give the mushrooms
to the village idiot.

And he'd then have a pee and they'd
drink the pee, which had all the...

- No! - ..had all the
psycho-active properties. - Wow.

Who is the idiot in that scenario?

I don't know. No.

It is very unfortunate.

Are we the only creatures who are
affected by eating magic mushrooms?

Like, if a cow went into a field
full of magic mushrooms, and ate

them all, will it have
some moments of insight

that it would be impossible
to share with us,

the whole town would gather
round him there.

Moooo!

"I don't get it, I don't get it."

Moo!

- And there was a...
- Are you trying to tell us something?

There was a theory
that Jesus Christ...

..was a magic mushroom.

He actually was a mushroom?

I mightn't have remembered this
entirely correctly, but...

LAUGHTER

Does your dad deny this story?

There's a thing called
the Amanita muscaria, which is the,

it's the notion of using mushrooms
as a means to transcendence.

- Right. - And I don't know
the rest of the story.

Oh! You heard it here first,
ladies and gentlemen.

Yes, mushrooms are grown in the
dark to save electricity.

So, with that, we stagger dazed
and confused into the most

mind-numbing and mind-bending subject
of all, the QI scores.

Oh, how interesting they are.
My goodness me.

In fourth place,
with a very respectable -22,

is Josh Widdicombe.

APPLAUSE

In third place, with a splendid
-18 is Sarah Millican.

APPLAUSE

He's achieved heights
that may require oxygen,

on -6, it's Alan Davies.

- Thank you very much.
- APPLAUSE

What a debut, Tommy Tiernan on 2!

Plus 2!

MUSIC PLAYS

Thanks to Sarah, Josh,
Tommy and Alan.

Oh, I nearly forgot our memory test.

Oh, how ironic. Can we turn
the cameras onto the audience?

Let's see by a show of hands which
words you remembered me saying.

Who remembered the word bed?

Oh, most of you, that's pretty good.

Snooze?

Pretty good.

Sleep?

KLAXON
Oh, audience.

No, I didn't say sleep,

I said words so closely connected to
it that it was easy to force

yourself into the memory of
thinking that I did say it.

So you all encountered a sort
of false memory planting there.

If you don't believe me,

you'll just have to watch
the show all over again, won't you?

So, from me, from all of us,
thank you and goodnight.