QI (2003–…): Season 16, Episode 10 - Episode #16.10 - full transcript
Hello, and welcome to QI,
where tonight we're enjoying
an absolute plethora
of painful punishments.
Please welcome the well hung,
drawn and quartered,
Jimmy Carr.
A cool cat of nine tails, Lee Mack.
Thank you.
An irony maiden, Alice Levine.
And with his neck on
the block, Alan Davis.
And their buzzers are
all suitably painful.
Jimmy goes...
WHIP CRACKS
Oh... Short but sharp, I think.
And Lee goes...
ELECTRICITY CRACKLES
Alice goes...
GUILLOTINE DROPS
And Alan goes...
COMMENTATOR: Tottenham Hotspur - 6,
Arsenal - 0.
The most painful cut of all.
Question one is all about the place
of eternal punishment.
So tell me, how many
circles does hell have?
Someone just went, seven.
SIREN SOUNDS
Was that for me?
Were you trying to...
That person was wrong.
No, not seven circles.
It's like Who Wants
To Be A Millionaire all over again,
with the coughing. Yes.
Seven. Five.
Five, why five?
Did you say hell
or the Olympic rings?
These are concentric
circles of doom that,
depending on how bad you've been...
Yeah, yeah. It just gets worse and
worse and worse and worse and worse,
and then the devil's in the middle.
Yeah, OK.
Who was the person who wrote
about the circles of hell? Dante.
Dante, so in Dante's Inferno...
Nine, nine circles of hell.
Absolutely, nine circles in hell.
So the first part of the epic poem,
the Divine Comedy.
So the seventh circle is the one
everybody talks about,
but there's nothing
special about it.
It's where murderers are punished.
Oh... Isn't there a weird thing
where murderers are punished there,
but then it gets worse
if you're a fraudster,
which I'm annoyed about.
APPLAUSE
It's just made like...
There's a murderer,
and then in a worse place there's me
and my accountant going, "What?!"
Well, you do strike me, Jimmy,
as someone that eventually
will murder, as well.
Thank you, Lee.
Just to get out of hell
one step at a time.
You're going to end up
in the eighth circle of hell.
The eighth?
It's where fraudsters,
pimps, hypocrites,
coin forgers and flatterers
are punished in, frankly, various...
Flatterers?! Flatterers?!
Flatterers.
You look well, Sandi.
So what? Being a suck up
is as bad as being Jimmy?
I'm using you as...
I'm using you...
As bad as being...
What?!
Yeah, so flatterers
get immersed in dung.
That's their thing.
Oh, OK.
Quacks have to suffer the ailments
that they've caused in life.
People who've tried to predict
the future have to walk
around with their head on backwards.
Unable to see ahead...
What about Daily Mail readers?
Are they in number nine?
We know what circle Jimmy's in,
let's see if anybody else wants one
of these.
First circle is just basically
limbo, it's for virtuous
non-Christians.
So... Gary Lineker.
Why Gary Lineker?
I just say that about any
ex-Tottenham players.
First circle of hell.
Straight away.
Second one is lust.
This is the first of
the circles of incontinence.
Can I go back to one, please?
Sexual incontinence,
rather than urinary,
if I may say so.
OK, got you. So you would be
spending your time with Cleopatra,
Helen of Troy, people like that.
And you get to spend
time with Helen of Troy? Yeah.
That...
Put me down for one of those, yeah.
It's too late, you're
already in number eight.
This is quite a sexy circle,
isn't it, this one?
Yeah, that's a good circle.
Gluttony, that's number three.
Trapped in a vile slush.
Greed is number four...
Sorry, what flavour was the slush?
I don't know if...
Is it the blue one?
I like the blue one.
You get to be pounded by icy rain,
I don't know if you fancy...
Oh, it is, it's literally slush.
Yeah. Is greed on a different
category to gluttony?
Yes, and they have to push
rocks around pointlessly.
Is there a way of pushing rocks
around that isn't pointless?
Yes, if you say it's curling.
Number five, anger.
And people who are sullen.
Sullen, angry types.
Yeah. Heresy is number six.
Violence, number seven.
The final circle, the ninth.
There are four circles
within the final circle.
And they have different
names as they go down.
The worst one is round four,
named after Judas Iscariot.
So, hell has nine circles,
but if you think that's bad,
Milton Keynes has got
130 roundabouts.
I think that's the wonderful thing
about Milton Keynes,
the roundabouts, because there's
lots of chances to turn back.
APPLAUSE
OK, which of these punishments
would you rather receive?
The penalty of the sack,
an Assyrian parking fine,
or be forced to wear
a drunkard's cloak?
Are they all worse than they sound?
Well, certainly the
parking fines is hideous.
So, we're talking 700 BC,
what do you think the parking fine
might have been in 700 BC?
Well, I don't know,
but I know after 30 days,
it doubles if you don't
remember to pay.
What, what are
you parking in Assyria?
Chariot or a horse or a camel
or anything you like.
Where is Assyria?
Is it Syria?
It's modern northern Iraq,
south eastern Turkey,
north-western fringes of Iran,
it's an area that's now divided up
into other countries.
And there was a king
called Sennacherib,
and he announced
a parking restriction
on the kingdom's Royal Road, so you
couldn't build anything on it,
you couldn't park your chariot out
front, and if you did,
you were impaled on a stake
and planted in your own garden.
And that's for a single yellow
or a double yellow?
What if your horse
has just broken down?
Got his hazards on.
As long as he blinks like that,
that's all right, the horse...
But they actually had a sign
that said, "Royal Road, let no man
decrease it", in Akkadian cuneiform.
You're saying it's like
it's more of a punishment,
"in your own garden".
Why is that bit so bad?
You might have landscaped,
you might have got your lovely front
garden sorted, and then you...
Yeah, you've just put the leylandii
in, it's all looking nice.
You'd be like one of
those weather cocks, wouldn't you?
You'd swing around with the wind.
And if you've died like that,
you could always point
in the direction of the wind.
Just imagine, if you, I don't know,
say your husband has been impaled
on a stake implanted in the garden,
you spend all your time going,
"Yeah, but where
have you put the car?"
Yeah, the horse is in
a pound somewhere...
Also impaled on a stake.
I mean, impale the horse, not me!
Stashed all the parking
tickets in its mouth,
look at them all.
Look at how many you've ignored.
Right, well the other punishments,
the penalty of the sack,
or a drunkard's cloak.
What do you fancy?
Penalty of the sack, that...
it doesn't sound too bad.
Maybe a waxing?
I'll have that, it's not too bad.
Couple of clothes pegs.
It's called Poena cullei, it's an
ancient Roman punishment for
parricide,
anybody know what parricide is?
Parricide, killing someone in the
family?
Killing your parents.
It involved being whipped,
stitched into a leather sack
and thrown into the sea.
The Emperor Hadrian adjusted the law
by including animals in the sack,
along with the victims.
You might have a dog or a cockerel,
a snake or a monkey.
We're not really sure
whether that was just a deterrent,
or they really did look
for the animals, but we do know
it survived into the 18th century
in Germany, and monkeys and snakes,
really hard to source.
So, in 1715...
Oh, I thought you meant
when you're cooking them, sorry.
Oh, I see, yes.
You'd have a bearnaise.
So, they were very difficult
to source, so in 1715,
there was one man who
was "sacked" with a dog,
a cockerel, a cat
and a picture of a snake.
It's the thought that counts.
Drawn by a child.
What about the drunkard's cloak?
It's something metallic
that is impaled upon you?
No, wooden.
In the 1640s, and I think
you're going to find this hard
to credit, Newcastle upon Tyne
had a problem with drunkenness
in the streets.
Oh, shut up. No way.
So the initial punishment was
to put the offender in the stocks,
but if that didn't work,
they would take a barrel,
and they would cut the bottom
off it, and they would cut holes
like this, one for the head,
two for the hands,
and they would force the drunk
to parade around town.
I think he's more of a medium,
he's wearing an extra large there,
and it's not hugging
in the right places.
That's not overly flattering.
He looks as if he's about
to tell quite a fun story.
Yeah. "All I did was
I parked the chariot..."
It's a very unfortunate outfit,
because drunk people
fall over a lot.
If he falls over he's not
getting back up very easily.
No. He could end up miles away.
Over a waterfall or something.
What's she got on her head?
Scold's bridle.
She's wearing a scold's bridle
and it was something that was done
for nagging women.
And you can't really see
from here, but it had a piece that
went into the mouth and
prevented her from speaking.
And where can you get these?
OK. What's the best punishment
to keep people punctual?
I haven't encountered it yet,
because I'm a very late
person so... Why?
Drives me mad!
I know! Sandi, I know!
You were supposed to be on last
week's show, weren't you? Yeah!
What? If you make an arrangement,
why can't you turn up on time?
Because I do the thing where I think
as long as I leave the house
before the arrangement starts,
then it's fine. I do the same.
Wow. Hasn't started yet,
we'll be all right.
Yeah, exactly.
But it's in Wales.
There's a name for people like you,
it's called selfish.
I'm always on time, Sandi.
What about you, Jimmy?
I've been late once in my
professional career.
I was late for a gig
in Blackburn by two hours,
because the train just stopped.
It was... Yeah...
Did they wait?
Well, the annoying thing
was I had to buy everyone a drink.
Yeah, with your audience
that's only 18 quid.
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
Boom!
I once had a gig in Torquay,
and I was told
I could fly down to the area...
You can't fly!
These magic beans, Sandi?
BA had a flight going from Gatwick.
Anyway, the flight was cancelled,
so I went out to the cab rank
and I got in a black cab and I said,
"Will you please take me
to Torquay?"
and we were ten minutes late.
No! Wow. Yeah.
The bill was eye-watering.
Well, that's always the cheapest
way to do it, isn't it? A BLACK cab.
Anyway, best punishment
to keep people punctual?
Is it impaling people and planting
them in their own garden?
ALARM BLARES
It's guilt, is the very best thing.
So what does not work is
fining people for being late.
So they did a study, two Israeli
economists, and they found that
punctuality gets worse
with a financial penalty.
So they had ten Israeli daycare
centres, and some of them,
if the parents were late
picking up the kids,
they just had to make peace
with the teacher.
Then they changed the system
and they brought in a small fine -
it was about £2 -
as a penalty for lateness,
and punctuality
immediately got worse.
People are happier
to pay a small fine
than they are to face the guilt...
Because you feel
you've your dues then.
Doesn't matter, I've paid for it!
It's fine. Just up the fine.
Yeah, I'd pay £2 -
I wouldn't pay £200 to be late.
I think if the daycare centre said,
"If you're ten minutes late,
it's £200 quid," you'd say,
"You can keep the kid!"
"We liked him, we didn't LOVE him."
"We have others. It's fine.
"They're older and can make tea."
Now, what do parrots think
of the dead parrot sketch?
Oh, actually, I know this one. Yes?
Is it that they don't think anything
cos they're not aware of it,
what the hell are you
on about, Sandi?
I mean, they are intelligent enough
to observe things.
You mean, they can see?!
They can see?!
Cos I can see,
and I'm thick as pig shit.
That's so a teacher writing
the school report
trying to think of something good.
So they can they see more colours
than us? Yes, they can.
So which ones can they see
that we can't see?
There's a whole extra range
in the ultraviolet range
that they can see that we can't see.
Well, if we can't see them,
how do we know they exist?
Lots of birds can see ultraviolet
and they can see...
animals' urine on the ground,
and that's how they know
there's a burrow.
How about that!
That's very good.
So when they're swooping around,
looking for prey and they think,
"Oh, look, they're over there,"
cos lots of those small rodents
are incontinent.
This is all God's will, right?
"I'm going to set this up.
"That one can see wee,
that one keeps pissing itself."
Let the games begin!
Let the games begin!
"Oh, I can't stop pissing!"
"Look at all the wee!
Look at all the wee!"
"Get in the hole! Get in the hole!"
That's the only thing.
If they can't get in...
It must be awful if you're a vole
and running with your mummy,
and you look up and you see one,
and go,
"I'm terrified,
I'm going to wet myself."
"Don't wet yourself!
Do not wet yourself!"
"I can't help it!"
But can you tell us
this absolute crazy fact, then?
Cos I'm really going to pull you up
on it, whatever you say.
Puerto Rican parrots -
I'm being very specific -
are an endangered species,
and what the authorities want to do
is they want to raise some
in captivity
and then release them into the wild.
Here is the problem -
they are not aware of predators,
so they have to be trained
to watch out for predators,
otherwise they will simply
be released into the wild
and captured immediately by
something that wants to kill it.
Like John Cleese?
Probably more like a hawk.
So what they do is they have
a programme of training them,
to be aware of predators
so they might fly a hawk-shaped
cut-out over the aviary,
they might play hawk calls,
they might allow a live hawk
to attack the cage.
The final stage -
they stage a parrot murder scene
and they make
the trainee parrots watch, OK?
So sorry, but this is a Pixar movie,
isn't it?
So we get the learner parrot
and it faces another parrot
who's wearing a small leather vest.
What are you talking about, Sandi?!
You've lost your mind!
There's a straight parrot
and a gay parrot... Yes.
Sandi, can I ask you a question?
Yeah.
When you were painting and
decorating in that blouse today,
did you inhale it?
So what happens...? So Freddie
Mercury parrot, in the leather...
Yes, you've got one
in the leather jacket,
and the trainee parrot,
I'm going to call it.
So it's a waistcoat...?
like a flak jacket, really. Sure.
OK? Yeah.
So a hawk is released to attack
the parrot in the flak jacket...
And he's been told just to attack
the one in the flak jacket?
Don't go near the other one.
No, the learner one is being
protected - it's just watching.
The one that's attacked, obviously
it has a bad time, it screams,
but it's protected by the clothing,
so it doesn't die.
And the trainee parrot learns
to be wary of hawks in the future
and it absolutely
seems to be working.
I mean... What?
I mean, it sounds to me
that evolution is trying to get rid
of these little buggers anyway.
Sounds awful.
It does sound awful, doesn't it?
Right, you've put up with so much
punishment it's time for a prize.
Which of these would you
prefer to win?
..or the Oldest Mouse Award?
I would like to win
the Oldest Mouse Award.
The Oldest Mouse Award.
It's worth, actually,
quite a lot of money.
There's a thing called
the Methuselah Foundation,
they're a scientific body,
and they are working on extending
the healthy life of all of us
and fighting ageing,
and they're offering prize money
if you can make the oldest mouse.
So, the current record
is five years.
Average mouse lives
to be three years old.
So five years in human terms would
be, like, 150 to 180 years old.
And then there's another prize
if you can rejuvenate
a middle-aged mouse.
They are offering a prize
of 1.4 million
to the research team
that can break the record
for the world's oldest mouse.
What proof do they need?
Cos that's an interesting
amount of money.
I love that phrase, "that's an
interesting amount of money".
Is that what you say
to your agent? Yeah.
"That is of interest to me,
that sum."
"Torquay, you say?"
"How much is this cab ride? I've got
an old mouse - I'll pay with that."
The fact is, we are genetically
very similar to mice.
Why are you looking at me now?
I wasn't looking directly at you,
I was ignoring Jimmy. OK.
We are genetically very similar,
so in terms of extended life spans,
it's hoped that successful work
on mice can then eventually be
applied to humans, and the current
prize pot stands at 4.5 million,
and the overall winner will
receive a chunk of the money
for each week that
that the mouse survives
after breaking the old record
and setting a new one.
So what you really want is
a little, tiny
mouse life-support machine.
Tiny... Clear! Ka-dush!
Like, tiny defibrillator.
HIGH-PITCHED: Clear! Boom!
HE SQUEAKS COMPRESSIONS
Two wires and a AA battery.
You get a straw...
HE BLOWS REPEATEDLY
So let's look at the other prizes...
There was
the Aussie Non Drunk Driver Cup,
the Val d'Isere Skiing Cow
and solving the
Birch Swinnerton-Dyer conjecture.
Isn't that the maths thing
where you get paid a fortune
if you solve some impossible thing?
I think Rachel Riley had a crack
at, but she only had 30 seconds.
It's the Clay Mathematics Institute.
Basically,
there are seven maths problems -
they're called
the Millennium Problems -
and you get 1 million
if you can solve any one of them.
Shall we have a go?
Yeah, if you solve it, you get
a million dollars straight away.
Is it eight?
Let's have a look to the other two.
The Val d'Isere Skiing Cow
or the Aussie...
Now, they put a cow on skis, right?
And chuck it down the mountain.
It rings its bell like mad,
but no-one will help it.
So, it is the traditional prize
in the World Cup downhill,
and in 2005, the Olympic skier
Lindsey Vonn -
there she is - she won the cow.
Now, what usually happens...
You win the cow? You win the cow.
What usually happens is the person
goes, "I don't really want a cow,"
and they go we thought you might
not, here's 5,000 instead.
Lindsey, however, wanted to keep
the actual cow,
and everybody was very annoyed
cos it was worth 20,000.
And it was pregnant, so she's
basically getting two cows for one.
She named it Olympe, and it now
lives on a farm in Kirchberg.
It has had other cows,
it has even had grandcows,
and she's named them all after
members of her family.
She is the only person
who has kept her cow prize.
Surely people will now keep them,
now they know they're worth so much?
It's a wonderful... I'd love to have
a cow. I think it's a great idea.
You have to win the competition.
Yeah.
What about
the Aussie Non-Drunk-Driver Cup?
Has nobody ever won it?
No.
I liked it
when they started selling...
We used to have one at home.
..the breathalyser that you could
just... You could buy a thing.
You could buy your own breath...
It's a great idea.
Should have one in the car.
LEE: Don't they want to put them in
cars so you have to blow into them
before you can start the car?
Yes, that's one of the things, that
it would actually stop the ignition
if you had alcohol levels...
You'd just always have your child
with you, wouldn't you? Yeah.
SLURS: "All right, son,
you know the drill."
"Blow into that..."
"Now let's get you to school."
Right...
HE SLURS INDISTINCTLY
Your little seven-year-old blows
into it and it still won't start.
"What have you been doing?"
"Mind your own business!"
Well, in 2016, traffic police
in the Australian town of Nanango
in Queensland started
offering cash prizes
to any driver found to be sober.
Wow, that's...
That is pretty good. Any driver
who was stopped and tested
and had zero blood alcohol limit
entered into a prize draw,
and it gave them a chance
of winning 500.
Is not being arrested
not enough of an incentive?
Apparently not, no.
It's whether you would win money,
and apparently it's spread.
Other towns in Australia
have now picked this up
and think it's a really good idea.
So, now the punishment
of round one is out of the way,
it's time for a quick dip in the
fiery lake of general ignorance.
What's the most volcanic
country on Earth?
Ooh... Oh, yes, Jimmy?
I'll go New Zealand.
No, it is not New Zealand.
Good shout.
Yes?
Is it another place
other than New Zealand?
Indonesia.
SIREN BLARES
No...
It's weird that, because I thought
it was such a stupid answer,
but the fact that it was
considered an obvious answer
I see as a bit of a result.
It's like when you're watching
University Challenge and you say
the answer, but it's wrong,
but they say the same wrong answer.
You go, that's a point.
New Zealand's not even on my list.
Ha-ha, mine was!
It was on the big board!
I'll have Hawaii?
Well, you're absolutely in the right
area, cos it's the United States.
The United States has more volcanoes
than any other country in the world.
It's got 173 volcanoes in total.
Are you counting it
by volcano numbers
or by lava emitted?
OK, so...
If you were doing
most active volcanoes,
then Indonesia would be
the correct answer.
Well, that's what I thought
you meant! Yay!
APPLAUSE
I've just given myself two points.
Yeah, maybe turn the fingers around.
Erm...
I've just given myself two points!
It's United States first, then
Russia than Indonesia and Japan -
those are the ones with
the most volcanoes.
I don't think Russia's taking part,
actually, this year.
In terms of active, it's Indonesia,
then the Philippines,
and then Japan.
There are areas where there's just
a huge number of volcanoes,
so the Pacific Ring of Fire
has got 452 volcanoes -
it runs all the way
around the Pacific.
AS JOHNNY CASH:
# Ring of Fire, Ring of Fire... #
Place in the world with
the densest region of volcanoes?
The most amount of volcanoes?
Yes, the densest.
Where might you find that?
Yes?
Indonesia!
No!
Antarctica.
Antarctica!
But it's so cold!
Yes, so this is the issue about it.
So in 2017, 91 new volcanoes
were found under the ice sheet
of Western Antarctica.
It now has 1 volcano
every 4,800 square miles,
and they're expecting
to find lots, lots more.
So some of them are
as tall as the Eiger. Wow.
And they were all discovered by
researchers at Edinburgh University.
and it really, really matters,
because it has implications
for the rest of the planet.
If one of them erupts,
it could melt the ice from beneath.
Goodbye, Norfolk! Basically.
Let's cancel it, then.
I feel like we were like
"Yeah, let's do that!"
"No, let's not do it."
It's not a good idea.
The most volcanic country on Earth
is actually the United States.
After Great Britain and Ireland,
what is the third most populous
island in the British Isles?
I know that if you could get
everybody in the world
on the Isle of Wight,
then it would sink.
That is not the answer
that I'm looking for.
And the Isle of Wight
in fact would come fourth.
I'm looking for the one that would
come third.
I'm looking for the
most populous island.
Yes? Man.
ALARM BLARES
The Isle of Man is not right, no.
Is it going to be somewhere far off?
No, it's not even far from
the studio, actually... Oh!
Isle of Dogs! Isle of Dogs!
I meant Indonesia!
I was going to say
you could get there
in about an hour and
a quarter on the train.
Isle of Thanet?
It's Portsea Island.
It is where the city
of Portsmouth lies.
The island of Portsea
has the highest population density
of any of the UK's islands.
In fact, Portsmouth is the only
island city in the whole of the UK.
It's a complete island, is it? Yeah.
It was one of the most heavily
defended cities in the world
during the Napoleonic wars.
And it was the world's
first mass production line.
The Royal Navy made...
Pulley blocks were made there by
in fact, Marc Isambard Brunel,
Isambard Kingdom Brunel's father.
The other thing they pioneered
was free venereal disease clinics.
Why would you pay
for venereal disease?
Oh, to the... Yeah.
I've paid for venereal disease.
Well, let's...
..let's all let that
settle in for a minute.
That's what the doctor said.
It sort of works for the joke.
The idea that they'd say
"I'd just let it settle in."
"Let that settle that in if I were
you." "That's there for the winter."
Here's a gorgeous painting
by Turner. Where is this?
Yes? Is it Indonesia?
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
I'll give you a clue.
Here are two paintings.
I'll give you the titles
if this helps.
One is called
Festive Lagoon Scene Venice,
and the other one's called
Procession Of Boats
With Distant Smoke Venice.
Is it Portsmouth?
Yes, it is Portsmouth,
you're absolutely right.
APPLAUSE
They were wrongly titled
in the 1960s
when they were exhibited
in New York.
They had nothing to do with Venice
whatsoever.
You said it as a joke...
No, I'm just an expert on Turner.
So annoying!
If he'd painted them in Indonesia,
I'd have been laughing, wouldn't I?
No, you're totally right.
It was in 2003 that a curator
at the Tate declared
that they were not of Venice at all.
They have been renamed
The Arrival of Louis-Philippe,
who was King, at the time,
of France,
at Portsmouth, 8th of October, 1844,
and The Disembarkation
of Louis-Philippe,
8th of October, 1844.
That is also a stretch, isn't it?
You can't see him coming or going,
can you?
It's not the first time
it's happened to a Turner painting.
There was one which was identified
as a view of Monte Rosa in Italy
for over a century, that turns out
it's actually a pier in Scotland.
Turner's beautiful Venice scenes
turned out to be scenes
of lovely old Portsmouth.
And with that, we've reached the end
of our path of punishment,
and it's time to lick our wounds,
and let's peek at the points
while I point out the penalty.
Our prize fighter tonight
and the winner...
Oh, my goodness.
With -2, it's Jimmy!
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
Yay!
Taking second prize with -3,
it's Alan!
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
And in third place with -8,
it's the audience!
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
So in fourth place with -9,
it's Alice!
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
We're running out of time - you
might want to wrap this up. Yeah.
Finally, an absolute glutton for
punishment, with -27, it's Lee!
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
That's it from Alice, Lee, Jimmy,
Alan and me,
and I leave you with these wise
words of advice from John Hardwick.
Don't do drugs, because if you
do drugs, you'll go to prison,
and drugs are REALLY expensive
in prison.
Goodnight.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
where tonight we're enjoying
an absolute plethora
of painful punishments.
Please welcome the well hung,
drawn and quartered,
Jimmy Carr.
A cool cat of nine tails, Lee Mack.
Thank you.
An irony maiden, Alice Levine.
And with his neck on
the block, Alan Davis.
And their buzzers are
all suitably painful.
Jimmy goes...
WHIP CRACKS
Oh... Short but sharp, I think.
And Lee goes...
ELECTRICITY CRACKLES
Alice goes...
GUILLOTINE DROPS
And Alan goes...
COMMENTATOR: Tottenham Hotspur - 6,
Arsenal - 0.
The most painful cut of all.
Question one is all about the place
of eternal punishment.
So tell me, how many
circles does hell have?
Someone just went, seven.
SIREN SOUNDS
Was that for me?
Were you trying to...
That person was wrong.
No, not seven circles.
It's like Who Wants
To Be A Millionaire all over again,
with the coughing. Yes.
Seven. Five.
Five, why five?
Did you say hell
or the Olympic rings?
These are concentric
circles of doom that,
depending on how bad you've been...
Yeah, yeah. It just gets worse and
worse and worse and worse and worse,
and then the devil's in the middle.
Yeah, OK.
Who was the person who wrote
about the circles of hell? Dante.
Dante, so in Dante's Inferno...
Nine, nine circles of hell.
Absolutely, nine circles in hell.
So the first part of the epic poem,
the Divine Comedy.
So the seventh circle is the one
everybody talks about,
but there's nothing
special about it.
It's where murderers are punished.
Oh... Isn't there a weird thing
where murderers are punished there,
but then it gets worse
if you're a fraudster,
which I'm annoyed about.
APPLAUSE
It's just made like...
There's a murderer,
and then in a worse place there's me
and my accountant going, "What?!"
Well, you do strike me, Jimmy,
as someone that eventually
will murder, as well.
Thank you, Lee.
Just to get out of hell
one step at a time.
You're going to end up
in the eighth circle of hell.
The eighth?
It's where fraudsters,
pimps, hypocrites,
coin forgers and flatterers
are punished in, frankly, various...
Flatterers?! Flatterers?!
Flatterers.
You look well, Sandi.
So what? Being a suck up
is as bad as being Jimmy?
I'm using you as...
I'm using you...
As bad as being...
What?!
Yeah, so flatterers
get immersed in dung.
That's their thing.
Oh, OK.
Quacks have to suffer the ailments
that they've caused in life.
People who've tried to predict
the future have to walk
around with their head on backwards.
Unable to see ahead...
What about Daily Mail readers?
Are they in number nine?
We know what circle Jimmy's in,
let's see if anybody else wants one
of these.
First circle is just basically
limbo, it's for virtuous
non-Christians.
So... Gary Lineker.
Why Gary Lineker?
I just say that about any
ex-Tottenham players.
First circle of hell.
Straight away.
Second one is lust.
This is the first of
the circles of incontinence.
Can I go back to one, please?
Sexual incontinence,
rather than urinary,
if I may say so.
OK, got you. So you would be
spending your time with Cleopatra,
Helen of Troy, people like that.
And you get to spend
time with Helen of Troy? Yeah.
That...
Put me down for one of those, yeah.
It's too late, you're
already in number eight.
This is quite a sexy circle,
isn't it, this one?
Yeah, that's a good circle.
Gluttony, that's number three.
Trapped in a vile slush.
Greed is number four...
Sorry, what flavour was the slush?
I don't know if...
Is it the blue one?
I like the blue one.
You get to be pounded by icy rain,
I don't know if you fancy...
Oh, it is, it's literally slush.
Yeah. Is greed on a different
category to gluttony?
Yes, and they have to push
rocks around pointlessly.
Is there a way of pushing rocks
around that isn't pointless?
Yes, if you say it's curling.
Number five, anger.
And people who are sullen.
Sullen, angry types.
Yeah. Heresy is number six.
Violence, number seven.
The final circle, the ninth.
There are four circles
within the final circle.
And they have different
names as they go down.
The worst one is round four,
named after Judas Iscariot.
So, hell has nine circles,
but if you think that's bad,
Milton Keynes has got
130 roundabouts.
I think that's the wonderful thing
about Milton Keynes,
the roundabouts, because there's
lots of chances to turn back.
APPLAUSE
OK, which of these punishments
would you rather receive?
The penalty of the sack,
an Assyrian parking fine,
or be forced to wear
a drunkard's cloak?
Are they all worse than they sound?
Well, certainly the
parking fines is hideous.
So, we're talking 700 BC,
what do you think the parking fine
might have been in 700 BC?
Well, I don't know,
but I know after 30 days,
it doubles if you don't
remember to pay.
What, what are
you parking in Assyria?
Chariot or a horse or a camel
or anything you like.
Where is Assyria?
Is it Syria?
It's modern northern Iraq,
south eastern Turkey,
north-western fringes of Iran,
it's an area that's now divided up
into other countries.
And there was a king
called Sennacherib,
and he announced
a parking restriction
on the kingdom's Royal Road, so you
couldn't build anything on it,
you couldn't park your chariot out
front, and if you did,
you were impaled on a stake
and planted in your own garden.
And that's for a single yellow
or a double yellow?
What if your horse
has just broken down?
Got his hazards on.
As long as he blinks like that,
that's all right, the horse...
But they actually had a sign
that said, "Royal Road, let no man
decrease it", in Akkadian cuneiform.
You're saying it's like
it's more of a punishment,
"in your own garden".
Why is that bit so bad?
You might have landscaped,
you might have got your lovely front
garden sorted, and then you...
Yeah, you've just put the leylandii
in, it's all looking nice.
You'd be like one of
those weather cocks, wouldn't you?
You'd swing around with the wind.
And if you've died like that,
you could always point
in the direction of the wind.
Just imagine, if you, I don't know,
say your husband has been impaled
on a stake implanted in the garden,
you spend all your time going,
"Yeah, but where
have you put the car?"
Yeah, the horse is in
a pound somewhere...
Also impaled on a stake.
I mean, impale the horse, not me!
Stashed all the parking
tickets in its mouth,
look at them all.
Look at how many you've ignored.
Right, well the other punishments,
the penalty of the sack,
or a drunkard's cloak.
What do you fancy?
Penalty of the sack, that...
it doesn't sound too bad.
Maybe a waxing?
I'll have that, it's not too bad.
Couple of clothes pegs.
It's called Poena cullei, it's an
ancient Roman punishment for
parricide,
anybody know what parricide is?
Parricide, killing someone in the
family?
Killing your parents.
It involved being whipped,
stitched into a leather sack
and thrown into the sea.
The Emperor Hadrian adjusted the law
by including animals in the sack,
along with the victims.
You might have a dog or a cockerel,
a snake or a monkey.
We're not really sure
whether that was just a deterrent,
or they really did look
for the animals, but we do know
it survived into the 18th century
in Germany, and monkeys and snakes,
really hard to source.
So, in 1715...
Oh, I thought you meant
when you're cooking them, sorry.
Oh, I see, yes.
You'd have a bearnaise.
So, they were very difficult
to source, so in 1715,
there was one man who
was "sacked" with a dog,
a cockerel, a cat
and a picture of a snake.
It's the thought that counts.
Drawn by a child.
What about the drunkard's cloak?
It's something metallic
that is impaled upon you?
No, wooden.
In the 1640s, and I think
you're going to find this hard
to credit, Newcastle upon Tyne
had a problem with drunkenness
in the streets.
Oh, shut up. No way.
So the initial punishment was
to put the offender in the stocks,
but if that didn't work,
they would take a barrel,
and they would cut the bottom
off it, and they would cut holes
like this, one for the head,
two for the hands,
and they would force the drunk
to parade around town.
I think he's more of a medium,
he's wearing an extra large there,
and it's not hugging
in the right places.
That's not overly flattering.
He looks as if he's about
to tell quite a fun story.
Yeah. "All I did was
I parked the chariot..."
It's a very unfortunate outfit,
because drunk people
fall over a lot.
If he falls over he's not
getting back up very easily.
No. He could end up miles away.
Over a waterfall or something.
What's she got on her head?
Scold's bridle.
She's wearing a scold's bridle
and it was something that was done
for nagging women.
And you can't really see
from here, but it had a piece that
went into the mouth and
prevented her from speaking.
And where can you get these?
OK. What's the best punishment
to keep people punctual?
I haven't encountered it yet,
because I'm a very late
person so... Why?
Drives me mad!
I know! Sandi, I know!
You were supposed to be on last
week's show, weren't you? Yeah!
What? If you make an arrangement,
why can't you turn up on time?
Because I do the thing where I think
as long as I leave the house
before the arrangement starts,
then it's fine. I do the same.
Wow. Hasn't started yet,
we'll be all right.
Yeah, exactly.
But it's in Wales.
There's a name for people like you,
it's called selfish.
I'm always on time, Sandi.
What about you, Jimmy?
I've been late once in my
professional career.
I was late for a gig
in Blackburn by two hours,
because the train just stopped.
It was... Yeah...
Did they wait?
Well, the annoying thing
was I had to buy everyone a drink.
Yeah, with your audience
that's only 18 quid.
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
Boom!
I once had a gig in Torquay,
and I was told
I could fly down to the area...
You can't fly!
These magic beans, Sandi?
BA had a flight going from Gatwick.
Anyway, the flight was cancelled,
so I went out to the cab rank
and I got in a black cab and I said,
"Will you please take me
to Torquay?"
and we were ten minutes late.
No! Wow. Yeah.
The bill was eye-watering.
Well, that's always the cheapest
way to do it, isn't it? A BLACK cab.
Anyway, best punishment
to keep people punctual?
Is it impaling people and planting
them in their own garden?
ALARM BLARES
It's guilt, is the very best thing.
So what does not work is
fining people for being late.
So they did a study, two Israeli
economists, and they found that
punctuality gets worse
with a financial penalty.
So they had ten Israeli daycare
centres, and some of them,
if the parents were late
picking up the kids,
they just had to make peace
with the teacher.
Then they changed the system
and they brought in a small fine -
it was about £2 -
as a penalty for lateness,
and punctuality
immediately got worse.
People are happier
to pay a small fine
than they are to face the guilt...
Because you feel
you've your dues then.
Doesn't matter, I've paid for it!
It's fine. Just up the fine.
Yeah, I'd pay £2 -
I wouldn't pay £200 to be late.
I think if the daycare centre said,
"If you're ten minutes late,
it's £200 quid," you'd say,
"You can keep the kid!"
"We liked him, we didn't LOVE him."
"We have others. It's fine.
"They're older and can make tea."
Now, what do parrots think
of the dead parrot sketch?
Oh, actually, I know this one. Yes?
Is it that they don't think anything
cos they're not aware of it,
what the hell are you
on about, Sandi?
I mean, they are intelligent enough
to observe things.
You mean, they can see?!
They can see?!
Cos I can see,
and I'm thick as pig shit.
That's so a teacher writing
the school report
trying to think of something good.
So they can they see more colours
than us? Yes, they can.
So which ones can they see
that we can't see?
There's a whole extra range
in the ultraviolet range
that they can see that we can't see.
Well, if we can't see them,
how do we know they exist?
Lots of birds can see ultraviolet
and they can see...
animals' urine on the ground,
and that's how they know
there's a burrow.
How about that!
That's very good.
So when they're swooping around,
looking for prey and they think,
"Oh, look, they're over there,"
cos lots of those small rodents
are incontinent.
This is all God's will, right?
"I'm going to set this up.
"That one can see wee,
that one keeps pissing itself."
Let the games begin!
Let the games begin!
"Oh, I can't stop pissing!"
"Look at all the wee!
Look at all the wee!"
"Get in the hole! Get in the hole!"
That's the only thing.
If they can't get in...
It must be awful if you're a vole
and running with your mummy,
and you look up and you see one,
and go,
"I'm terrified,
I'm going to wet myself."
"Don't wet yourself!
Do not wet yourself!"
"I can't help it!"
But can you tell us
this absolute crazy fact, then?
Cos I'm really going to pull you up
on it, whatever you say.
Puerto Rican parrots -
I'm being very specific -
are an endangered species,
and what the authorities want to do
is they want to raise some
in captivity
and then release them into the wild.
Here is the problem -
they are not aware of predators,
so they have to be trained
to watch out for predators,
otherwise they will simply
be released into the wild
and captured immediately by
something that wants to kill it.
Like John Cleese?
Probably more like a hawk.
So what they do is they have
a programme of training them,
to be aware of predators
so they might fly a hawk-shaped
cut-out over the aviary,
they might play hawk calls,
they might allow a live hawk
to attack the cage.
The final stage -
they stage a parrot murder scene
and they make
the trainee parrots watch, OK?
So sorry, but this is a Pixar movie,
isn't it?
So we get the learner parrot
and it faces another parrot
who's wearing a small leather vest.
What are you talking about, Sandi?!
You've lost your mind!
There's a straight parrot
and a gay parrot... Yes.
Sandi, can I ask you a question?
Yeah.
When you were painting and
decorating in that blouse today,
did you inhale it?
So what happens...? So Freddie
Mercury parrot, in the leather...
Yes, you've got one
in the leather jacket,
and the trainee parrot,
I'm going to call it.
So it's a waistcoat...?
like a flak jacket, really. Sure.
OK? Yeah.
So a hawk is released to attack
the parrot in the flak jacket...
And he's been told just to attack
the one in the flak jacket?
Don't go near the other one.
No, the learner one is being
protected - it's just watching.
The one that's attacked, obviously
it has a bad time, it screams,
but it's protected by the clothing,
so it doesn't die.
And the trainee parrot learns
to be wary of hawks in the future
and it absolutely
seems to be working.
I mean... What?
I mean, it sounds to me
that evolution is trying to get rid
of these little buggers anyway.
Sounds awful.
It does sound awful, doesn't it?
Right, you've put up with so much
punishment it's time for a prize.
Which of these would you
prefer to win?
..or the Oldest Mouse Award?
I would like to win
the Oldest Mouse Award.
The Oldest Mouse Award.
It's worth, actually,
quite a lot of money.
There's a thing called
the Methuselah Foundation,
they're a scientific body,
and they are working on extending
the healthy life of all of us
and fighting ageing,
and they're offering prize money
if you can make the oldest mouse.
So, the current record
is five years.
Average mouse lives
to be three years old.
So five years in human terms would
be, like, 150 to 180 years old.
And then there's another prize
if you can rejuvenate
a middle-aged mouse.
They are offering a prize
of 1.4 million
to the research team
that can break the record
for the world's oldest mouse.
What proof do they need?
Cos that's an interesting
amount of money.
I love that phrase, "that's an
interesting amount of money".
Is that what you say
to your agent? Yeah.
"That is of interest to me,
that sum."
"Torquay, you say?"
"How much is this cab ride? I've got
an old mouse - I'll pay with that."
The fact is, we are genetically
very similar to mice.
Why are you looking at me now?
I wasn't looking directly at you,
I was ignoring Jimmy. OK.
We are genetically very similar,
so in terms of extended life spans,
it's hoped that successful work
on mice can then eventually be
applied to humans, and the current
prize pot stands at 4.5 million,
and the overall winner will
receive a chunk of the money
for each week that
that the mouse survives
after breaking the old record
and setting a new one.
So what you really want is
a little, tiny
mouse life-support machine.
Tiny... Clear! Ka-dush!
Like, tiny defibrillator.
HIGH-PITCHED: Clear! Boom!
HE SQUEAKS COMPRESSIONS
Two wires and a AA battery.
You get a straw...
HE BLOWS REPEATEDLY
So let's look at the other prizes...
There was
the Aussie Non Drunk Driver Cup,
the Val d'Isere Skiing Cow
and solving the
Birch Swinnerton-Dyer conjecture.
Isn't that the maths thing
where you get paid a fortune
if you solve some impossible thing?
I think Rachel Riley had a crack
at, but she only had 30 seconds.
It's the Clay Mathematics Institute.
Basically,
there are seven maths problems -
they're called
the Millennium Problems -
and you get 1 million
if you can solve any one of them.
Shall we have a go?
Yeah, if you solve it, you get
a million dollars straight away.
Is it eight?
Let's have a look to the other two.
The Val d'Isere Skiing Cow
or the Aussie...
Now, they put a cow on skis, right?
And chuck it down the mountain.
It rings its bell like mad,
but no-one will help it.
So, it is the traditional prize
in the World Cup downhill,
and in 2005, the Olympic skier
Lindsey Vonn -
there she is - she won the cow.
Now, what usually happens...
You win the cow? You win the cow.
What usually happens is the person
goes, "I don't really want a cow,"
and they go we thought you might
not, here's 5,000 instead.
Lindsey, however, wanted to keep
the actual cow,
and everybody was very annoyed
cos it was worth 20,000.
And it was pregnant, so she's
basically getting two cows for one.
She named it Olympe, and it now
lives on a farm in Kirchberg.
It has had other cows,
it has even had grandcows,
and she's named them all after
members of her family.
She is the only person
who has kept her cow prize.
Surely people will now keep them,
now they know they're worth so much?
It's a wonderful... I'd love to have
a cow. I think it's a great idea.
You have to win the competition.
Yeah.
What about
the Aussie Non-Drunk-Driver Cup?
Has nobody ever won it?
No.
I liked it
when they started selling...
We used to have one at home.
..the breathalyser that you could
just... You could buy a thing.
You could buy your own breath...
It's a great idea.
Should have one in the car.
LEE: Don't they want to put them in
cars so you have to blow into them
before you can start the car?
Yes, that's one of the things, that
it would actually stop the ignition
if you had alcohol levels...
You'd just always have your child
with you, wouldn't you? Yeah.
SLURS: "All right, son,
you know the drill."
"Blow into that..."
"Now let's get you to school."
Right...
HE SLURS INDISTINCTLY
Your little seven-year-old blows
into it and it still won't start.
"What have you been doing?"
"Mind your own business!"
Well, in 2016, traffic police
in the Australian town of Nanango
in Queensland started
offering cash prizes
to any driver found to be sober.
Wow, that's...
That is pretty good. Any driver
who was stopped and tested
and had zero blood alcohol limit
entered into a prize draw,
and it gave them a chance
of winning 500.
Is not being arrested
not enough of an incentive?
Apparently not, no.
It's whether you would win money,
and apparently it's spread.
Other towns in Australia
have now picked this up
and think it's a really good idea.
So, now the punishment
of round one is out of the way,
it's time for a quick dip in the
fiery lake of general ignorance.
What's the most volcanic
country on Earth?
Ooh... Oh, yes, Jimmy?
I'll go New Zealand.
No, it is not New Zealand.
Good shout.
Yes?
Is it another place
other than New Zealand?
Indonesia.
SIREN BLARES
No...
It's weird that, because I thought
it was such a stupid answer,
but the fact that it was
considered an obvious answer
I see as a bit of a result.
It's like when you're watching
University Challenge and you say
the answer, but it's wrong,
but they say the same wrong answer.
You go, that's a point.
New Zealand's not even on my list.
Ha-ha, mine was!
It was on the big board!
I'll have Hawaii?
Well, you're absolutely in the right
area, cos it's the United States.
The United States has more volcanoes
than any other country in the world.
It's got 173 volcanoes in total.
Are you counting it
by volcano numbers
or by lava emitted?
OK, so...
If you were doing
most active volcanoes,
then Indonesia would be
the correct answer.
Well, that's what I thought
you meant! Yay!
APPLAUSE
I've just given myself two points.
Yeah, maybe turn the fingers around.
Erm...
I've just given myself two points!
It's United States first, then
Russia than Indonesia and Japan -
those are the ones with
the most volcanoes.
I don't think Russia's taking part,
actually, this year.
In terms of active, it's Indonesia,
then the Philippines,
and then Japan.
There are areas where there's just
a huge number of volcanoes,
so the Pacific Ring of Fire
has got 452 volcanoes -
it runs all the way
around the Pacific.
AS JOHNNY CASH:
# Ring of Fire, Ring of Fire... #
Place in the world with
the densest region of volcanoes?
The most amount of volcanoes?
Yes, the densest.
Where might you find that?
Yes?
Indonesia!
No!
Antarctica.
Antarctica!
But it's so cold!
Yes, so this is the issue about it.
So in 2017, 91 new volcanoes
were found under the ice sheet
of Western Antarctica.
It now has 1 volcano
every 4,800 square miles,
and they're expecting
to find lots, lots more.
So some of them are
as tall as the Eiger. Wow.
And they were all discovered by
researchers at Edinburgh University.
and it really, really matters,
because it has implications
for the rest of the planet.
If one of them erupts,
it could melt the ice from beneath.
Goodbye, Norfolk! Basically.
Let's cancel it, then.
I feel like we were like
"Yeah, let's do that!"
"No, let's not do it."
It's not a good idea.
The most volcanic country on Earth
is actually the United States.
After Great Britain and Ireland,
what is the third most populous
island in the British Isles?
I know that if you could get
everybody in the world
on the Isle of Wight,
then it would sink.
That is not the answer
that I'm looking for.
And the Isle of Wight
in fact would come fourth.
I'm looking for the one that would
come third.
I'm looking for the
most populous island.
Yes? Man.
ALARM BLARES
The Isle of Man is not right, no.
Is it going to be somewhere far off?
No, it's not even far from
the studio, actually... Oh!
Isle of Dogs! Isle of Dogs!
I meant Indonesia!
I was going to say
you could get there
in about an hour and
a quarter on the train.
Isle of Thanet?
It's Portsea Island.
It is where the city
of Portsmouth lies.
The island of Portsea
has the highest population density
of any of the UK's islands.
In fact, Portsmouth is the only
island city in the whole of the UK.
It's a complete island, is it? Yeah.
It was one of the most heavily
defended cities in the world
during the Napoleonic wars.
And it was the world's
first mass production line.
The Royal Navy made...
Pulley blocks were made there by
in fact, Marc Isambard Brunel,
Isambard Kingdom Brunel's father.
The other thing they pioneered
was free venereal disease clinics.
Why would you pay
for venereal disease?
Oh, to the... Yeah.
I've paid for venereal disease.
Well, let's...
..let's all let that
settle in for a minute.
That's what the doctor said.
It sort of works for the joke.
The idea that they'd say
"I'd just let it settle in."
"Let that settle that in if I were
you." "That's there for the winter."
Here's a gorgeous painting
by Turner. Where is this?
Yes? Is it Indonesia?
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
I'll give you a clue.
Here are two paintings.
I'll give you the titles
if this helps.
One is called
Festive Lagoon Scene Venice,
and the other one's called
Procession Of Boats
With Distant Smoke Venice.
Is it Portsmouth?
Yes, it is Portsmouth,
you're absolutely right.
APPLAUSE
They were wrongly titled
in the 1960s
when they were exhibited
in New York.
They had nothing to do with Venice
whatsoever.
You said it as a joke...
No, I'm just an expert on Turner.
So annoying!
If he'd painted them in Indonesia,
I'd have been laughing, wouldn't I?
No, you're totally right.
It was in 2003 that a curator
at the Tate declared
that they were not of Venice at all.
They have been renamed
The Arrival of Louis-Philippe,
who was King, at the time,
of France,
at Portsmouth, 8th of October, 1844,
and The Disembarkation
of Louis-Philippe,
8th of October, 1844.
That is also a stretch, isn't it?
You can't see him coming or going,
can you?
It's not the first time
it's happened to a Turner painting.
There was one which was identified
as a view of Monte Rosa in Italy
for over a century, that turns out
it's actually a pier in Scotland.
Turner's beautiful Venice scenes
turned out to be scenes
of lovely old Portsmouth.
And with that, we've reached the end
of our path of punishment,
and it's time to lick our wounds,
and let's peek at the points
while I point out the penalty.
Our prize fighter tonight
and the winner...
Oh, my goodness.
With -2, it's Jimmy!
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
Yay!
Taking second prize with -3,
it's Alan!
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
And in third place with -8,
it's the audience!
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
So in fourth place with -9,
it's Alice!
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
We're running out of time - you
might want to wrap this up. Yeah.
Finally, an absolute glutton for
punishment, with -27, it's Lee!
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
That's it from Alice, Lee, Jimmy,
Alan and me,
and I leave you with these wise
words of advice from John Hardwick.
Don't do drugs, because if you
do drugs, you'll go to prison,
and drugs are REALLY expensive
in prison.
Goodnight.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE