QI (2003–…): Season 16, Episode 2 - Peril - full transcript
Comedians Aisling Bea, Lee Mack and Jason Manford join host Sandi Toksvig and regular panellist Alan Davies to look at the topic of peril.
APPLAUSE
Hello! Hello.
You watch tonight's episode
of QI at your peril,
because that is what it's all about.
You have been warned. Let's meet
our fearless foursome,
dicing with death. It's Lee Mack!
APPLAUSE Hello.
Scoffing at danger,
it's Aisling Bea.
APPLAUSE
Running with scissors,
it's Jason Manford.
APPLAUSE
I don't care. I'm not bothered.
And dangling from a fourth floor
balcony in his underwear,
because someone came home
from work unexpectedly...
..Alan Davies!
APPLAUSE
Dare they press their buzzers?
Lee, look out!
SHATTERING GLASS
Aisling, mind yourself!
LOUDER SHATTERING GLASS
Careful, Jason!
RATTLING
Alan, duck!
QUACK
Eh?
What's the most perilous job
in the world?
Parachute tester.
It is a real
and obviously perilous job.
Hang on, is this the actual answer?
No, it isn't the actual answer.
You stumbled upon something
that I actually knew.
Which I was rather pleased about.
There's a worse job
than a parachute tester.
Parachutist catcher.
Again...
Again, nearly right.
Really?! So nearly right.
It's a reverse parachute tester.
So, during the Cold War, both sides
had spy bases in the Arctic.
Aircraft couldn't land anywhere,
so staff had to be parachuted in.
They also had to be parachuted
out again.
Ooh, that would hurt.
Yeah. So, they used a thing called
a skyhook, or an aero retriever.
It's a device for
parachuting upwards.
And what they did was,
they got a helium balloon
and it carried a rope up
into the air.
The aeroplane grabbed
the rope and reeled it in,
with the spy on the end.
OK, let's have a quick look
at this procedure in action.
There the guy on the ground.
Waving, cheerfully.
He's saying, "AAARRRGGHHHH!"
Wow! Shitty death!
That's how they board you
on easyJet.
It's human fishing.
Yes, suppose it is.
Fishing, I like that.
So, lots of perilous jobs,
things with heavy machinery,
working at sea.
Probably the most perilous
specific job
is being President of
the United States.
You have an 8 in 44
chance of dying in office.
It's roughly the fatality rate
27 times that of a lumberjack.
Wow. I mean, luckily,
the present one's really likeable.
Yes.
Test piloting a fighter jet, that is
another extremely perilous job.
Wow, yeah. There's an extraordinary
story, in 1956,
just off the coast of
New York State,
there was a fighter test pilot
called Tom Attridge,
and he accidentally
shot himself down.
So, what he did was, he did a burst
of his cannons
and then he accelerated downwards.
And shortly afterwards,
his windscreen shattered and
the engine failed.
And he assumed that it had been
bird strikes.
In fact, he'd flown into
his own stream of
20 millimetre cannon rounds.
So although the bullets had
had a head start,
the air resistance
had slowed them down.
He'd accelerated and caught them up.
Oh, my God.
I think that was on a Mr Bean.
I know.
The good news is, the plane
crashed, but he survived.
Oh, good, yeah. Another dangerous
job, in terms of sport?
Motorsport.
Motorsports, yeah, absolutely.
Motorcycling. Formula 1.
No, no, no. I have to disagree
with you there.
The most dangerous sport is fishing.
It causes more fatalities
than any other sport.
To fish, certainly.
To the people that drown.
There's more people killed fishing
than any other sport.
If you don't believe me,
just trust me.
Trust you? The legendary liar
from Would I Lie To You?
More people are killed fishing
than any other sport.
But perhaps they mean percentage
wise for how many people do it.
Back to you, Sandi. Thank you.
Formula 1, not so dangerous now.
But in the 1970s, you had a 0.35%
chance of dying
each time you competed in
the Grand Prix.
And a driver who competed in
every race for five years had
a nearly 20% risk of dying
on the job.
I've got some horror stories
about fishermen, but carry on.
Billy Potts, milkman, Accrington -
drowned. Back to you.
Is it that they're pulled in by
a particularly large salmon?
Is that what happened?
It's a big fish, then it's like that
clip of the man being parachuted up.
"This is a big ONE!"
I absolutely love reading
the data of these things.
So in 2015, the Health and
Safety Executive data shows the most
accident-prone occupation in the UK
is hairdresser.
GASP
I know! Hairdresser...
I thought window cleaner
or something.
..slash, beautician. No, no, most
likely to cut or burn yourself.
That guy, yeah! The guy on the right
is a Pakistani hairdresser who
apparently doesn't use scissors.
No! The guy on the left's
who's waiting's not keen.
He burns it and then he puts it out
with a hairdryer.
Just singes it off? Yeah.
I wouldn't like to see
this fella fishing.
Now, then. This is more
perilous than it sounds.
What's a duck worth?
Six bob a week. Oh, sorry, ask me
again and say, "What's a Greek urn?"
Duckworth-Lewis, that's all I know.
Well, you're absolutely heading in
the right direction.
That's how they work out, through
a system that nobody understands,
even the people on the cricket
coverage who have to explain it,
where if it's raining, they set you
a new target to win the match,
based on the run rate, or
the overs left, or something.
No-one knows how they do it.
Yes, it's now called
the Duckworth-Lewis-Stern method.
Basically, what they do is they look
at the number of runs required
and they divide it by the number
of balls left.
But it does also include certain
variables like how many wickets
you've got in hand.
Fascinating. The more you hear
about cricket, the more
interesting it gets.
Now, I like cricket.
So did I, until about a minute ago!
I don't understand a game where
both sides wear the same colour.
And doesn't it never end, cricket?
It just takes as long as it takes.
Five days, and when it's finished
you go, "Is that it?"
They go "No, it's best of five."
What?
It's 25 days long, this game.
"At least someone's going to win."
"Not necessarily.
It could be a draw."
I went once, and the only thing
I learned is
that it is possible to have too
much Pimm's. I did not know that.
You were at the tennis,
that's how much Pimm's you had.
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
Perfectly possible.
So, there's also a thing called
the Duckworth scale.
It uses known statistics to assign
a risk of dying as a result of any
given activity. So at the low end,
you've got zero,
that represents living on Earth
unharmed for an entire year.
The top figure, eight,
is certain doom.
Anybody think of something at eight?
Certain doom?
Absolutely going to die.
Saturday night, Glasgow, Jongleurs.
That is a death for anyone.
Russian roulette with six bullets.
The risk of dying if you play
Russian roulette with six bullets
is absolutely an eight.
Being hit by an asteroid on
the Duckworth scale is 1.6.
It's unlikely, but deadly
if it does happen.
So you're not saying 1.6%.
Just a 1.6 on the scale.
On the scale.
Like the Richter scale.
Apparently, doing the washing up -
5.5.
Why? Well, not very dangerous,
it just happens a lot.
So that increases your chance.
People do a lot of washing up.
Doing the washing up wrong, 6.6.
What, so people tend to die
while they're doing the washing up,
like...
SHE GURGLES
Yeah, and then...
Well, on that theory, we could say
breathing, then.
Breathing should be an eight,
because when you're doing something
when you're breathing,
you die all the time.
Yes.
APPLAUSE
He's broke the Duckworth scale.
You need an activity, darling.
And breathing is
an involuntary activity.
Oh, it has to be a choice?
It has to be a voluntary activity.
Something that you're choosing
to do.
Like rock climbing, for example.
Or heavy breathing. Yeah.
That, you probably can die from,
I would imagine.
So, now you know how
to measure your peril.
What's the most perilous thing
you've ever taught yourself to do?
Breathe.
When I was 16, you could get a
motorbike and get on it and just go.
Yeah. I had a 50cc motorbike
at university
and I had no lessons at all.
Just get on. Exactly the same, yeah.
And have a go.
So, it can only go at 30,
but if you knew the bloke
with a garage full of parts,
you could get a big bore cylinder
and a larger piston,
bigger sprockets and a racing
exhaust, and you could do 40.
Well, there was a young boy
in Ohio, who was eight years old,
it was in April 2017,
he was desperate for a burger,
but his parents had gone to sleep,
so he put on YouTube and he saw
a video about how to drive.
And then he got his four-year-old
sister and he put her in the car
and he drove them to
the nearest McDonald's.
And several concerned witnesses
called the police.
But apparently his motoring
was excellent.
He checked the speed limit,
he obeyed all the traffic rules
and no charges were filed.
Yes. Must have looked like me
driving. Must have been like that.
That's unbelievable.
So, you can teach yourself
all sorts of things.
There was a German physicist
and string theory pioneer,
Theodor Kaluza.
And he was fed up with people saying
theoretical knowledge had no value.
So he taught himself to swim
from a book.
And although he was in his 30s,
he swam at the very first attempt.
Did it not get wet?
Pages sticking together.
I did a tandem skydive.
Why? That's the most frightening
thing. Why did you do that?
You know why? Because I had
a girlfriend who was
always on about how brave her
ex-boyfriend was.
That'll do it.
To be fair to him, he was a
battlefield medic in the Army.
So, he was terrifically brave,
highly trained.
"I do comedy."
Then she really hurt
my feelings when she said
he was also the funniest
person she'd ever met.
That was in Cairns, in Queensland,
I was nowhere near home.
So I thought, "I'm going to do
a tandem parachute jump.
"I'll show her." And I absolutely
shat myself.
It's so frightening.
Because, also, you are being like
babied by another man behind you.
You're being strapped onto
a total stranger.
It wasn't him, was it?
Let's make this interesting!
It's me, Alan!
"The bravest man in the world!"
"Let me tell you a joke
as we're going down,
because I'm really funny."
Someone asked me once if I wanted
to go bungee jumping.
And I don't like heights either.
So I said, "I'll go up
and watch you."
And this was in Australia as well.
And he got to the edge,
and the guy said,
"Right, when I say jump,
you've got to jump.
He said, "OK."
"Right, jump."
And just as he jumped,
he went, "Not yet!"
And he fell!
LAUGHTER
That's not funny!
That is really not funny!
The look on his face!
IN AUSTRALIAN ACCENT:
"Did you see what I did?"
My mate said, afterwards,
"Oh, yeah, I heard him, I thought
I was going to die."
All the way down.
Awful, isn't it? Now then, my
poppets, I have got these for you.
This is for Aisling.
Am I supposed to show you on
the doll where he touched me?
Jason, and Alan.
And then we have me here.
Anybody know what they are?
I'm going to take a stab in the dark
and say, are they dolls?
Yes, they are a particular
kind of doll.
Ideally, you should have
each other's is the thing.
So we can swap round.
I've got Jason's.
Are they voodoo dolls?
They are poppets.
Also known as pippies or moppets.
And they are traditionally used
in European folk magic.
So, they are for casting spells
on people.
So, if you wanted to get
somebody out of your life,
you might fill a poppet...
What are you doing with my poppet
down there?
My poppet does not want
to be down there.
I don't know why, but I feel
the need to rinse my mouth.
LAUGHTER
So, what you might do is you might
fill a poppet with herbs,
and then you tie its hand
behind its back,
and you toss it into
a fast flowing river.
Or you might take one of these.
So I've got needles
that you might use.
I don't want to stab Aisling.
You want to stab Jason?
Oh, I'll stab Jason.
It's not working.
Pass me the Lee Mack doll.
You've got a very hard stomach,
I'll give you that.
Try moving my arms
and see if it works.
I'll move Aisling's right arm.
Oh, it's magic.
Now I appear to be touching
my own breasts. Oh, no!
This joke has backfired.
Wait a minute. Who's this?
Oh, no! Lee fell in the river!
Quick, get your fishing rod!
Fishing accident!
Right, moving on, which is worse,
mild peril or moderate torture?
Well, torture sounds worse.
Doesn't sound good, does it?
I'm going to say that.
Well, I imagined the other way,
because people are often
more frightened of things
that haven't happened yet.
Yeah. So, the British board
of Film Classification,
which used to be the British
Board of Film Censors,
it not only awards films
a certificate,
but since 1997 it's provided a brief
line of consumer advice of what
to expect from the picture.
My favourite one is when it says,
"This film contains language."
They used to have certain
stock phrases -
"mild peril" and "moderate torture".
I remember that. I used to work
at Odeon Cinema -
well, before they were Odeon -
UCI Cinemas, on the phones.
And when that came in,
we had to read it out.
So you'd say, "OK, you've booked
four tickets for Help, I'm A Fish,
"and please be aware that this film
contains mild peril."
You would have to say, like,
"You've booked five tickets
for Harry Potter,
"please be aware this film contains
fantasy spiders."
Yeah. I prefer the old system.
Remember it was U, A,
double-A and X.
Yeah. Remember that? What was wrong
with that? It worked.
That was fine, wasn't it?
We all knew what it meant.
I mean, I miss the X, don't you?
Something to aim for.
X was very scary or very sexy.
So now if I get the letter X
in the alphabet, just looking
at an alphabet,
I get aroused.
The X Factor, I can't watch it,
because I'm...
Wow! So, let's have a quick look
at some advice.
You did tell us one already -
"Contains mild language and horror,
and fantasy spiders"
is indeed Harry Potter
and the Chamber of Secrets.
Let's see if you can guess
what these other ones are.
Contains strong language, violence
and sex, all involving puppets.
QI. QI. About five minutes ago.
Is it Team America?
It is Team America.
You are absolutely right.
Love Team America.
Contains irresponsible behaviour.
Mr Bean? Yes, Mr Bean's Holiday.
Absolutely right. Is it? You
remember that? Are you serious?
I've been waiting
for this moment on QI.
Thank God!
APPLAUSE Finally!
How about this one?
Dangerous behaviour,
mild threat, innuendo,
infrequent mild bad language.
QI.
Austin Powers?
No. Is it something
that is quite tame?
Yes, darling. Is it Pingu?
It's...
It's Paddington.
What? Where's the bad language
in Paddington?
I have no idea.
Actually, there was one bit where
he said, "Where's my marmalade
sandwich, you BLEEP?"
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
My favourite word in
the English language.
But now for some actual mild peril.
You know that scene in
the silent movies where
the damsel is tied to
the railway tracks by the villain,
and then rescued by the hero?
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
KLAXON
I think you'll find I personally
said mm-hmm, not yes.
So here's the extraordinary thing,
in the earliest versions of
this rather famous cliche,
it was the other way round.
It was also in a play,
and not in a film.
So there was a melodrama in 1867
called Under The Gaslight,
it was by Augustin Daly.
And the villain, who's called Byke,
tied the hero, Snorky, to the track,
only to be freed in the nick
of time by the heroine, Laura.
Laura! I love Laura.
So, as he ties him up, Byke,
who is the villain, tells Snorky,
"I am going to put you to bed,
you won't toss much."
And... And when Laura saves him,
Snorky notes,
"Victory, saved, hoorah!
"And these are the women
who ain't to have a vote?"
And that was in 1867.
But here's the other thing,
that image we all have in our
heads of the damsel
being tied to the tracks and
then rescued by a handsome chap
never, ever was part of
silent movies.
It did not exist.
There are no known examples of this
particular scenario in mainstream
silent drama, only in
the comedy spoofs of it.
That's unbelievable.
Right, which of these is best for
defending yourself against a kitten?
I'd say water pistol.
OK. Why would you say water pistol?
They don't like getting wet.
So, it might work,
but there are some kittens
who will think of it as
just more intense play.
So there are some who actually like
the whole water pistol thing.
So, kittens attacking you
is very important.
They are learning how
to ambush and hunt.
It is in their nature. And what
you need to do is, basically,
you need to distract them
before they launch.
So you can whistle
and clap your hands,
you can stomp your foot and so on.
The best thing is an air horn.
Thank God for that,
I thought that was mace!
Do you want to come and try?
AIR HISSES
It's just air. Aah! Yes.
See? I'm not even a cat,
leave me alone.
There's all sorts of self-defence
things you need to do with pets.
So, self-defence against
hamsters and guinea pigs.
Sorry, Sandi, who, apart from you,
would need that kind of defence?
They can bite quite hard.
I just had visions of you
running out your house.
"Aaargh!"
"I just wanted to have a go on
your wheel, that's all!"
Here is the most wonderful piece
of advice you'll ever hear...
"Get off my wheel!" Never approach
a hamster from behind.
Oh, now we know what
you were doing, anyway.
True story, in July 2017 there was
a woman who owned a hamster and she
took her pet to the vet.
She was really worried,
because it had sat motionless in the
corner of the cage for three days,
and it turned out it had swallowed
a fridge magnet.
It was stuck to the bars.
That's amazing.
Wow.
Very good.
If a hamster were to attack you,
if you blow gently in their faces,
they don't like that at all.
Who does? If your pet rabbit
bites you, shriek.
This is apparently a recognised
rabbit signal of pain.
Or turn your back on him
and stamp your feet,
it's a rabbit sign of disapproval.
Isn't the natural reaction to being
bitten by a rabbit to shriek anyway?
Yes, I imagine.
Now it's time to teeter precariously
close to the edge of the perilous
chasm that is General Ignorance.
Here's a hint,
there will be pitfalls.
Danger - when you use tinfoil
on your roast,
should it be shiny side up
or dull side up?
Ohh...
Let's take a quick vote
in the audience.
First of all, hands up for
dull side up.
There's a number of people.
And shiny side up?
I think shiny side has it.
OK.
KLAXON
Yeah.
So, you put the shiny side
close to the bird?
Here's the thing,
it makes no bloody difference.
Does it make no difference really?
It makes no difference at all.
The two different finishes are the
result of the manufacturing process.
So lot of people believe if you
put the dull side on the outside,
when it's cooking, it will absorb
the heat and the shiny side
will reflect
it back into the food.
It is absolute nonsense.
There is no difference in heat
transfer between the two surfaces.
The reason they look different,
so in order to roll it unbelievably
thin without tearing it,
the manufacturers have to put two
sheets through the rollers together.
And as a result, the outside
surfaces get polished by
the rollers
and the inside surfaces stay dull.
It is exactly the same.
It makes no difference whatsoever.
OK, more importantly, which way up
do chocolate biscuits go?
The chocolate is on top.
The chocolate is the top.
KLAXON Yes.
Whoa, what?
Obviously it is. Obviously that's
going to be wrong.
No. The chocolate is on the bottom.
And I have to say, the manufacturers
say so, so it is final.
Well...
No, you're just wrong.
It's not expressing an opinion,
it's just wrong.
The writing is on the top.
It is on the biscuit half.
If you look, it's got the slightly
rounded shoulders on the top.
If you serve the chocolate on top,
they look like stranded turtles.
That's the truth of it.
Yeah, but you need to...
When you dip it, you need to...
When you put it on the plate,
you put the chocolate on the top.
Because otherwise it just looks like
all other digestives.
You're simply wrong, I'm afraid.
A spokesman for the manufacturers...
One series of Bake Off,
and now she's an expert.
Unbelievable!
A spokesman for the
manufacturers said that
during the manufacturing process,
the biscuits go through
a reservoir of chocolate
which enrobes them, so the chocolate
is actually on the bottom.
Enrobes them!
OK, here's a question, then.
If that's the case,
in a can of biscuits,
why are they stacking them
upside down?
Because then you can turn the whole
biscuit tin out like that onto a...
I have no idea.
Why does he want that one,
the bloke?
He's got loads nearer to him.
These biscuits are all upside down!
The fella behind is literally going,
"You are my favourite person
in the world.
"I love you, Kenneth.
"I've never been able to tell you,
but I love you, Kenneth.
"Ever since you start dressing
exactly the same as me..."
He does look like he's just proposed
and the other one's gone,
"If I reach for a far biscuit,
I'll pretend I didn't hear him."
What spread the Black Death?
RATTLING
Go on, Jason? Rats.
KLAXON
That's got it out the way. Idiot.
For generations, we thought that
rats brought the plague to Britain.
Fleas. Fleas bit the rats and
the same fleas bit the humans,
is what we used to think.
That idea is pretty much dead now.
It's humans. It's most likely that
it will spread from one person to...
How come he didn't get
a thing for fleas?
I got one for rats,
he didn't get one for fleas.
Yeah. Just saying.
Because it was fleas,
but not on rats, that's why.
I got you, right. Nothing to do
with rats at all?
No, the rats were pretty much
innocent in this.
They have had a bum rap.
So, the studies in the last decade
of plague victims' bodies which have
been unearthed during
the Crossrail product in London,
and studies of mortality data,
which has been analysed in Oslo,
both conclude the plague simply
couldn't have spread as fast
and as far
if it was entirely dependent
on Rattus rattus.
OK, so, David versus Goliath,
who's the underdog?
Oh, this is a tricky one.
Well, it's David, right?
KLAXON
All right.
Famously, he was not
the favourite in the fight.
Yes, but he had an unfair advantage.
What do you think
it might have been?
He was from the North.
He had a slingshot. He had a
slingshot is exactly right, Jason.
It wasn't a kid's toy,
in ancient days.
It was in fact the deadliest thing
that you could lay your hands on.
So, they've done experiments with
stone ammunition, known as bullets,
which were used by the Roman Army
in their slings.
And if it's launched
by a trained slinger,
it would have the stopping power
of a .44 Magnum handgun.
Whoa. So it could easily hit
a human being 130 yards away.
So, David could simply stay
at a distance and blow him away.
Who knew, all this time?
I know, small but fierce.
Turning to another pair
of legendary rivals,
how come coyotes
never catch roadrunners?
Oh, because they don't live
in the same place.
No, they do. They absolutely do.
No, that's not the reason.
You're such an idiot, Jason.
There's an obvious scientific
reason.
This is because the roadrunner
is famously, in nature,
equipped with an ability
to paint a road onto...
..onto a rock wall.
And then the coyote will think the
road is continuing into the rock,
when in fact it's rock, and will
solidly hit the wall and collapse.
He also keeps shopping at Acme.
Now, after the first couple
of things went wrong,
I'd have found a new distributor.
You've got to get your
anvil somewhere else.
Surely roadrunner is too fast
for the coyote?
No, the coyote's top speed
is about 43mph.
Whereas the bird can only get
to 20mph.
But the bird does cheat.
It can fly? It can fly.
A coyote can go at 43mph?
43mph, yes.
That's fast.
Yes. Not for long, though?
It doesn't fly for very long, but
long enough to escape the predator.
Where else would you use an anvil?
If you were a blacksmith.
Of course! Just trying to help.
If you were competing in
the World's Strongest Man,
they do an anvil carrying round.
Do they? Yes, they do.
Also, large beer barrels and logs.
Back to you in the studio, Sandi.
Coyotes are fast enough to catch
roadrunners, but roadrunners cheat.
Meep-meep! And so, to the scores.
Risking everything, only to finish
fourth with -21, it's Alan!
APPLAUSE
Precariously close to last place
with -15, it's Lee.
APPLAUSE
In peril of almost doing quite well,
with -12, it's Jason!
APPLAUSE I'll take it.
And in serious danger
of being labelled a swot,
the winner this week, with eight
total points, it's Aisling!
APPLAUSE
So, it's thanks to Aisling Bea,
Jason and Alan,
and I leave you with this, the
ultra-bestselling suspense writer
Sidney Sheldon once explained how he
developed his thrilling plots.
"What I do is put my characters into
situations that are so precarious,
"there is no way to get out.
"And then I figure
how to get them out."
We'll see you next time,
goodnight from QI.
APPLAUSE
Hello! Hello.
You watch tonight's episode
of QI at your peril,
because that is what it's all about.
You have been warned. Let's meet
our fearless foursome,
dicing with death. It's Lee Mack!
APPLAUSE Hello.
Scoffing at danger,
it's Aisling Bea.
APPLAUSE
Running with scissors,
it's Jason Manford.
APPLAUSE
I don't care. I'm not bothered.
And dangling from a fourth floor
balcony in his underwear,
because someone came home
from work unexpectedly...
..Alan Davies!
APPLAUSE
Dare they press their buzzers?
Lee, look out!
SHATTERING GLASS
Aisling, mind yourself!
LOUDER SHATTERING GLASS
Careful, Jason!
RATTLING
Alan, duck!
QUACK
Eh?
What's the most perilous job
in the world?
Parachute tester.
It is a real
and obviously perilous job.
Hang on, is this the actual answer?
No, it isn't the actual answer.
You stumbled upon something
that I actually knew.
Which I was rather pleased about.
There's a worse job
than a parachute tester.
Parachutist catcher.
Again...
Again, nearly right.
Really?! So nearly right.
It's a reverse parachute tester.
So, during the Cold War, both sides
had spy bases in the Arctic.
Aircraft couldn't land anywhere,
so staff had to be parachuted in.
They also had to be parachuted
out again.
Ooh, that would hurt.
Yeah. So, they used a thing called
a skyhook, or an aero retriever.
It's a device for
parachuting upwards.
And what they did was,
they got a helium balloon
and it carried a rope up
into the air.
The aeroplane grabbed
the rope and reeled it in,
with the spy on the end.
OK, let's have a quick look
at this procedure in action.
There the guy on the ground.
Waving, cheerfully.
He's saying, "AAARRRGGHHHH!"
Wow! Shitty death!
That's how they board you
on easyJet.
It's human fishing.
Yes, suppose it is.
Fishing, I like that.
So, lots of perilous jobs,
things with heavy machinery,
working at sea.
Probably the most perilous
specific job
is being President of
the United States.
You have an 8 in 44
chance of dying in office.
It's roughly the fatality rate
27 times that of a lumberjack.
Wow. I mean, luckily,
the present one's really likeable.
Yes.
Test piloting a fighter jet, that is
another extremely perilous job.
Wow, yeah. There's an extraordinary
story, in 1956,
just off the coast of
New York State,
there was a fighter test pilot
called Tom Attridge,
and he accidentally
shot himself down.
So, what he did was, he did a burst
of his cannons
and then he accelerated downwards.
And shortly afterwards,
his windscreen shattered and
the engine failed.
And he assumed that it had been
bird strikes.
In fact, he'd flown into
his own stream of
20 millimetre cannon rounds.
So although the bullets had
had a head start,
the air resistance
had slowed them down.
He'd accelerated and caught them up.
Oh, my God.
I think that was on a Mr Bean.
I know.
The good news is, the plane
crashed, but he survived.
Oh, good, yeah. Another dangerous
job, in terms of sport?
Motorsport.
Motorsports, yeah, absolutely.
Motorcycling. Formula 1.
No, no, no. I have to disagree
with you there.
The most dangerous sport is fishing.
It causes more fatalities
than any other sport.
To fish, certainly.
To the people that drown.
There's more people killed fishing
than any other sport.
If you don't believe me,
just trust me.
Trust you? The legendary liar
from Would I Lie To You?
More people are killed fishing
than any other sport.
But perhaps they mean percentage
wise for how many people do it.
Back to you, Sandi. Thank you.
Formula 1, not so dangerous now.
But in the 1970s, you had a 0.35%
chance of dying
each time you competed in
the Grand Prix.
And a driver who competed in
every race for five years had
a nearly 20% risk of dying
on the job.
I've got some horror stories
about fishermen, but carry on.
Billy Potts, milkman, Accrington -
drowned. Back to you.
Is it that they're pulled in by
a particularly large salmon?
Is that what happened?
It's a big fish, then it's like that
clip of the man being parachuted up.
"This is a big ONE!"
I absolutely love reading
the data of these things.
So in 2015, the Health and
Safety Executive data shows the most
accident-prone occupation in the UK
is hairdresser.
GASP
I know! Hairdresser...
I thought window cleaner
or something.
..slash, beautician. No, no, most
likely to cut or burn yourself.
That guy, yeah! The guy on the right
is a Pakistani hairdresser who
apparently doesn't use scissors.
No! The guy on the left's
who's waiting's not keen.
He burns it and then he puts it out
with a hairdryer.
Just singes it off? Yeah.
I wouldn't like to see
this fella fishing.
Now, then. This is more
perilous than it sounds.
What's a duck worth?
Six bob a week. Oh, sorry, ask me
again and say, "What's a Greek urn?"
Duckworth-Lewis, that's all I know.
Well, you're absolutely heading in
the right direction.
That's how they work out, through
a system that nobody understands,
even the people on the cricket
coverage who have to explain it,
where if it's raining, they set you
a new target to win the match,
based on the run rate, or
the overs left, or something.
No-one knows how they do it.
Yes, it's now called
the Duckworth-Lewis-Stern method.
Basically, what they do is they look
at the number of runs required
and they divide it by the number
of balls left.
But it does also include certain
variables like how many wickets
you've got in hand.
Fascinating. The more you hear
about cricket, the more
interesting it gets.
Now, I like cricket.
So did I, until about a minute ago!
I don't understand a game where
both sides wear the same colour.
And doesn't it never end, cricket?
It just takes as long as it takes.
Five days, and when it's finished
you go, "Is that it?"
They go "No, it's best of five."
What?
It's 25 days long, this game.
"At least someone's going to win."
"Not necessarily.
It could be a draw."
I went once, and the only thing
I learned is
that it is possible to have too
much Pimm's. I did not know that.
You were at the tennis,
that's how much Pimm's you had.
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
Perfectly possible.
So, there's also a thing called
the Duckworth scale.
It uses known statistics to assign
a risk of dying as a result of any
given activity. So at the low end,
you've got zero,
that represents living on Earth
unharmed for an entire year.
The top figure, eight,
is certain doom.
Anybody think of something at eight?
Certain doom?
Absolutely going to die.
Saturday night, Glasgow, Jongleurs.
That is a death for anyone.
Russian roulette with six bullets.
The risk of dying if you play
Russian roulette with six bullets
is absolutely an eight.
Being hit by an asteroid on
the Duckworth scale is 1.6.
It's unlikely, but deadly
if it does happen.
So you're not saying 1.6%.
Just a 1.6 on the scale.
On the scale.
Like the Richter scale.
Apparently, doing the washing up -
5.5.
Why? Well, not very dangerous,
it just happens a lot.
So that increases your chance.
People do a lot of washing up.
Doing the washing up wrong, 6.6.
What, so people tend to die
while they're doing the washing up,
like...
SHE GURGLES
Yeah, and then...
Well, on that theory, we could say
breathing, then.
Breathing should be an eight,
because when you're doing something
when you're breathing,
you die all the time.
Yes.
APPLAUSE
He's broke the Duckworth scale.
You need an activity, darling.
And breathing is
an involuntary activity.
Oh, it has to be a choice?
It has to be a voluntary activity.
Something that you're choosing
to do.
Like rock climbing, for example.
Or heavy breathing. Yeah.
That, you probably can die from,
I would imagine.
So, now you know how
to measure your peril.
What's the most perilous thing
you've ever taught yourself to do?
Breathe.
When I was 16, you could get a
motorbike and get on it and just go.
Yeah. I had a 50cc motorbike
at university
and I had no lessons at all.
Just get on. Exactly the same, yeah.
And have a go.
So, it can only go at 30,
but if you knew the bloke
with a garage full of parts,
you could get a big bore cylinder
and a larger piston,
bigger sprockets and a racing
exhaust, and you could do 40.
Well, there was a young boy
in Ohio, who was eight years old,
it was in April 2017,
he was desperate for a burger,
but his parents had gone to sleep,
so he put on YouTube and he saw
a video about how to drive.
And then he got his four-year-old
sister and he put her in the car
and he drove them to
the nearest McDonald's.
And several concerned witnesses
called the police.
But apparently his motoring
was excellent.
He checked the speed limit,
he obeyed all the traffic rules
and no charges were filed.
Yes. Must have looked like me
driving. Must have been like that.
That's unbelievable.
So, you can teach yourself
all sorts of things.
There was a German physicist
and string theory pioneer,
Theodor Kaluza.
And he was fed up with people saying
theoretical knowledge had no value.
So he taught himself to swim
from a book.
And although he was in his 30s,
he swam at the very first attempt.
Did it not get wet?
Pages sticking together.
I did a tandem skydive.
Why? That's the most frightening
thing. Why did you do that?
You know why? Because I had
a girlfriend who was
always on about how brave her
ex-boyfriend was.
That'll do it.
To be fair to him, he was a
battlefield medic in the Army.
So, he was terrifically brave,
highly trained.
"I do comedy."
Then she really hurt
my feelings when she said
he was also the funniest
person she'd ever met.
That was in Cairns, in Queensland,
I was nowhere near home.
So I thought, "I'm going to do
a tandem parachute jump.
"I'll show her." And I absolutely
shat myself.
It's so frightening.
Because, also, you are being like
babied by another man behind you.
You're being strapped onto
a total stranger.
It wasn't him, was it?
Let's make this interesting!
It's me, Alan!
"The bravest man in the world!"
"Let me tell you a joke
as we're going down,
because I'm really funny."
Someone asked me once if I wanted
to go bungee jumping.
And I don't like heights either.
So I said, "I'll go up
and watch you."
And this was in Australia as well.
And he got to the edge,
and the guy said,
"Right, when I say jump,
you've got to jump.
He said, "OK."
"Right, jump."
And just as he jumped,
he went, "Not yet!"
And he fell!
LAUGHTER
That's not funny!
That is really not funny!
The look on his face!
IN AUSTRALIAN ACCENT:
"Did you see what I did?"
My mate said, afterwards,
"Oh, yeah, I heard him, I thought
I was going to die."
All the way down.
Awful, isn't it? Now then, my
poppets, I have got these for you.
This is for Aisling.
Am I supposed to show you on
the doll where he touched me?
Jason, and Alan.
And then we have me here.
Anybody know what they are?
I'm going to take a stab in the dark
and say, are they dolls?
Yes, they are a particular
kind of doll.
Ideally, you should have
each other's is the thing.
So we can swap round.
I've got Jason's.
Are they voodoo dolls?
They are poppets.
Also known as pippies or moppets.
And they are traditionally used
in European folk magic.
So, they are for casting spells
on people.
So, if you wanted to get
somebody out of your life,
you might fill a poppet...
What are you doing with my poppet
down there?
My poppet does not want
to be down there.
I don't know why, but I feel
the need to rinse my mouth.
LAUGHTER
So, what you might do is you might
fill a poppet with herbs,
and then you tie its hand
behind its back,
and you toss it into
a fast flowing river.
Or you might take one of these.
So I've got needles
that you might use.
I don't want to stab Aisling.
You want to stab Jason?
Oh, I'll stab Jason.
It's not working.
Pass me the Lee Mack doll.
You've got a very hard stomach,
I'll give you that.
Try moving my arms
and see if it works.
I'll move Aisling's right arm.
Oh, it's magic.
Now I appear to be touching
my own breasts. Oh, no!
This joke has backfired.
Wait a minute. Who's this?
Oh, no! Lee fell in the river!
Quick, get your fishing rod!
Fishing accident!
Right, moving on, which is worse,
mild peril or moderate torture?
Well, torture sounds worse.
Doesn't sound good, does it?
I'm going to say that.
Well, I imagined the other way,
because people are often
more frightened of things
that haven't happened yet.
Yeah. So, the British board
of Film Classification,
which used to be the British
Board of Film Censors,
it not only awards films
a certificate,
but since 1997 it's provided a brief
line of consumer advice of what
to expect from the picture.
My favourite one is when it says,
"This film contains language."
They used to have certain
stock phrases -
"mild peril" and "moderate torture".
I remember that. I used to work
at Odeon Cinema -
well, before they were Odeon -
UCI Cinemas, on the phones.
And when that came in,
we had to read it out.
So you'd say, "OK, you've booked
four tickets for Help, I'm A Fish,
"and please be aware that this film
contains mild peril."
You would have to say, like,
"You've booked five tickets
for Harry Potter,
"please be aware this film contains
fantasy spiders."
Yeah. I prefer the old system.
Remember it was U, A,
double-A and X.
Yeah. Remember that? What was wrong
with that? It worked.
That was fine, wasn't it?
We all knew what it meant.
I mean, I miss the X, don't you?
Something to aim for.
X was very scary or very sexy.
So now if I get the letter X
in the alphabet, just looking
at an alphabet,
I get aroused.
The X Factor, I can't watch it,
because I'm...
Wow! So, let's have a quick look
at some advice.
You did tell us one already -
"Contains mild language and horror,
and fantasy spiders"
is indeed Harry Potter
and the Chamber of Secrets.
Let's see if you can guess
what these other ones are.
Contains strong language, violence
and sex, all involving puppets.
QI. QI. About five minutes ago.
Is it Team America?
It is Team America.
You are absolutely right.
Love Team America.
Contains irresponsible behaviour.
Mr Bean? Yes, Mr Bean's Holiday.
Absolutely right. Is it? You
remember that? Are you serious?
I've been waiting
for this moment on QI.
Thank God!
APPLAUSE Finally!
How about this one?
Dangerous behaviour,
mild threat, innuendo,
infrequent mild bad language.
QI.
Austin Powers?
No. Is it something
that is quite tame?
Yes, darling. Is it Pingu?
It's...
It's Paddington.
What? Where's the bad language
in Paddington?
I have no idea.
Actually, there was one bit where
he said, "Where's my marmalade
sandwich, you BLEEP?"
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
My favourite word in
the English language.
But now for some actual mild peril.
You know that scene in
the silent movies where
the damsel is tied to
the railway tracks by the villain,
and then rescued by the hero?
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
KLAXON
I think you'll find I personally
said mm-hmm, not yes.
So here's the extraordinary thing,
in the earliest versions of
this rather famous cliche,
it was the other way round.
It was also in a play,
and not in a film.
So there was a melodrama in 1867
called Under The Gaslight,
it was by Augustin Daly.
And the villain, who's called Byke,
tied the hero, Snorky, to the track,
only to be freed in the nick
of time by the heroine, Laura.
Laura! I love Laura.
So, as he ties him up, Byke,
who is the villain, tells Snorky,
"I am going to put you to bed,
you won't toss much."
And... And when Laura saves him,
Snorky notes,
"Victory, saved, hoorah!
"And these are the women
who ain't to have a vote?"
And that was in 1867.
But here's the other thing,
that image we all have in our
heads of the damsel
being tied to the tracks and
then rescued by a handsome chap
never, ever was part of
silent movies.
It did not exist.
There are no known examples of this
particular scenario in mainstream
silent drama, only in
the comedy spoofs of it.
That's unbelievable.
Right, which of these is best for
defending yourself against a kitten?
I'd say water pistol.
OK. Why would you say water pistol?
They don't like getting wet.
So, it might work,
but there are some kittens
who will think of it as
just more intense play.
So there are some who actually like
the whole water pistol thing.
So, kittens attacking you
is very important.
They are learning how
to ambush and hunt.
It is in their nature. And what
you need to do is, basically,
you need to distract them
before they launch.
So you can whistle
and clap your hands,
you can stomp your foot and so on.
The best thing is an air horn.
Thank God for that,
I thought that was mace!
Do you want to come and try?
AIR HISSES
It's just air. Aah! Yes.
See? I'm not even a cat,
leave me alone.
There's all sorts of self-defence
things you need to do with pets.
So, self-defence against
hamsters and guinea pigs.
Sorry, Sandi, who, apart from you,
would need that kind of defence?
They can bite quite hard.
I just had visions of you
running out your house.
"Aaargh!"
"I just wanted to have a go on
your wheel, that's all!"
Here is the most wonderful piece
of advice you'll ever hear...
"Get off my wheel!" Never approach
a hamster from behind.
Oh, now we know what
you were doing, anyway.
True story, in July 2017 there was
a woman who owned a hamster and she
took her pet to the vet.
She was really worried,
because it had sat motionless in the
corner of the cage for three days,
and it turned out it had swallowed
a fridge magnet.
It was stuck to the bars.
That's amazing.
Wow.
Very good.
If a hamster were to attack you,
if you blow gently in their faces,
they don't like that at all.
Who does? If your pet rabbit
bites you, shriek.
This is apparently a recognised
rabbit signal of pain.
Or turn your back on him
and stamp your feet,
it's a rabbit sign of disapproval.
Isn't the natural reaction to being
bitten by a rabbit to shriek anyway?
Yes, I imagine.
Now it's time to teeter precariously
close to the edge of the perilous
chasm that is General Ignorance.
Here's a hint,
there will be pitfalls.
Danger - when you use tinfoil
on your roast,
should it be shiny side up
or dull side up?
Ohh...
Let's take a quick vote
in the audience.
First of all, hands up for
dull side up.
There's a number of people.
And shiny side up?
I think shiny side has it.
OK.
KLAXON
Yeah.
So, you put the shiny side
close to the bird?
Here's the thing,
it makes no bloody difference.
Does it make no difference really?
It makes no difference at all.
The two different finishes are the
result of the manufacturing process.
So lot of people believe if you
put the dull side on the outside,
when it's cooking, it will absorb
the heat and the shiny side
will reflect
it back into the food.
It is absolute nonsense.
There is no difference in heat
transfer between the two surfaces.
The reason they look different,
so in order to roll it unbelievably
thin without tearing it,
the manufacturers have to put two
sheets through the rollers together.
And as a result, the outside
surfaces get polished by
the rollers
and the inside surfaces stay dull.
It is exactly the same.
It makes no difference whatsoever.
OK, more importantly, which way up
do chocolate biscuits go?
The chocolate is on top.
The chocolate is the top.
KLAXON Yes.
Whoa, what?
Obviously it is. Obviously that's
going to be wrong.
No. The chocolate is on the bottom.
And I have to say, the manufacturers
say so, so it is final.
Well...
No, you're just wrong.
It's not expressing an opinion,
it's just wrong.
The writing is on the top.
It is on the biscuit half.
If you look, it's got the slightly
rounded shoulders on the top.
If you serve the chocolate on top,
they look like stranded turtles.
That's the truth of it.
Yeah, but you need to...
When you dip it, you need to...
When you put it on the plate,
you put the chocolate on the top.
Because otherwise it just looks like
all other digestives.
You're simply wrong, I'm afraid.
A spokesman for the manufacturers...
One series of Bake Off,
and now she's an expert.
Unbelievable!
A spokesman for the
manufacturers said that
during the manufacturing process,
the biscuits go through
a reservoir of chocolate
which enrobes them, so the chocolate
is actually on the bottom.
Enrobes them!
OK, here's a question, then.
If that's the case,
in a can of biscuits,
why are they stacking them
upside down?
Because then you can turn the whole
biscuit tin out like that onto a...
I have no idea.
Why does he want that one,
the bloke?
He's got loads nearer to him.
These biscuits are all upside down!
The fella behind is literally going,
"You are my favourite person
in the world.
"I love you, Kenneth.
"I've never been able to tell you,
but I love you, Kenneth.
"Ever since you start dressing
exactly the same as me..."
He does look like he's just proposed
and the other one's gone,
"If I reach for a far biscuit,
I'll pretend I didn't hear him."
What spread the Black Death?
RATTLING
Go on, Jason? Rats.
KLAXON
That's got it out the way. Idiot.
For generations, we thought that
rats brought the plague to Britain.
Fleas. Fleas bit the rats and
the same fleas bit the humans,
is what we used to think.
That idea is pretty much dead now.
It's humans. It's most likely that
it will spread from one person to...
How come he didn't get
a thing for fleas?
I got one for rats,
he didn't get one for fleas.
Yeah. Just saying.
Because it was fleas,
but not on rats, that's why.
I got you, right. Nothing to do
with rats at all?
No, the rats were pretty much
innocent in this.
They have had a bum rap.
So, the studies in the last decade
of plague victims' bodies which have
been unearthed during
the Crossrail product in London,
and studies of mortality data,
which has been analysed in Oslo,
both conclude the plague simply
couldn't have spread as fast
and as far
if it was entirely dependent
on Rattus rattus.
OK, so, David versus Goliath,
who's the underdog?
Oh, this is a tricky one.
Well, it's David, right?
KLAXON
All right.
Famously, he was not
the favourite in the fight.
Yes, but he had an unfair advantage.
What do you think
it might have been?
He was from the North.
He had a slingshot. He had a
slingshot is exactly right, Jason.
It wasn't a kid's toy,
in ancient days.
It was in fact the deadliest thing
that you could lay your hands on.
So, they've done experiments with
stone ammunition, known as bullets,
which were used by the Roman Army
in their slings.
And if it's launched
by a trained slinger,
it would have the stopping power
of a .44 Magnum handgun.
Whoa. So it could easily hit
a human being 130 yards away.
So, David could simply stay
at a distance and blow him away.
Who knew, all this time?
I know, small but fierce.
Turning to another pair
of legendary rivals,
how come coyotes
never catch roadrunners?
Oh, because they don't live
in the same place.
No, they do. They absolutely do.
No, that's not the reason.
You're such an idiot, Jason.
There's an obvious scientific
reason.
This is because the roadrunner
is famously, in nature,
equipped with an ability
to paint a road onto...
..onto a rock wall.
And then the coyote will think the
road is continuing into the rock,
when in fact it's rock, and will
solidly hit the wall and collapse.
He also keeps shopping at Acme.
Now, after the first couple
of things went wrong,
I'd have found a new distributor.
You've got to get your
anvil somewhere else.
Surely roadrunner is too fast
for the coyote?
No, the coyote's top speed
is about 43mph.
Whereas the bird can only get
to 20mph.
But the bird does cheat.
It can fly? It can fly.
A coyote can go at 43mph?
43mph, yes.
That's fast.
Yes. Not for long, though?
It doesn't fly for very long, but
long enough to escape the predator.
Where else would you use an anvil?
If you were a blacksmith.
Of course! Just trying to help.
If you were competing in
the World's Strongest Man,
they do an anvil carrying round.
Do they? Yes, they do.
Also, large beer barrels and logs.
Back to you in the studio, Sandi.
Coyotes are fast enough to catch
roadrunners, but roadrunners cheat.
Meep-meep! And so, to the scores.
Risking everything, only to finish
fourth with -21, it's Alan!
APPLAUSE
Precariously close to last place
with -15, it's Lee.
APPLAUSE
In peril of almost doing quite well,
with -12, it's Jason!
APPLAUSE I'll take it.
And in serious danger
of being labelled a swot,
the winner this week, with eight
total points, it's Aisling!
APPLAUSE
So, it's thanks to Aisling Bea,
Jason and Alan,
and I leave you with this, the
ultra-bestselling suspense writer
Sidney Sheldon once explained how he
developed his thrilling plots.
"What I do is put my characters into
situations that are so precarious,
"there is no way to get out.
"And then I figure
how to get them out."
We'll see you next time,
goodnight from QI.
APPLAUSE