QI (2003–…): Season 17, Episode 13 - Quills - full transcript

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Good evening and welcome to QI,

for a show all about writers and
writing, as we take up our quills.

Let's meet our scribblers.

In fine feathers, it's Lou Sanders.

Ruffling a few feathers,
it's Tom Allen.

Knock me down with a feather,
it's Jimmy Carr.

And always tickling our fancy...

Ooh. ..Alan Davies.

Right, let's get writing.

Lou goes...



The Typewriter
by Leroy Anderson

That's nice.

Tom goes...

MUSIC CONTINUES

Jimmy goes...

MUSIC CONTINUES

And Alan goes...

MUSIC PLAYS CONTINUALLY

MUSIC STOPS

If you want to take notes, your own
quill pens are on your desk,

but why don't we tend to use them
any more?

Does anyone use a pen any more?
I don't even use a pen.

Do you not?

When did you last write something
down? You type it.



Also, people,
my mum is allergic to feathers.

Is she? Yeah.
She couldn't have written anything.

There used to be a name for that,
that was called being illiterate.

Ah. Now.

That's my dad.

My mum can actually write and read.

They were the writing instrument
of choice for almost 1,500 years.

But they required a lot of up-keep.

So, basically, not very efficient,
you could write maybe three

or four letters at a time,
and then you'd run out of ink.

And they regularly needed
sharpening.

So the pen part of a penknife,

anybody know where the word
pen in penknife comes from?

Oh, from sharpening pens.
Yes.

And it comes from penna,
which is Latin for feather.

So that is why
we call it a penknife.

Oh, did you hear that?
There was a lovely, "Ooh."

"I'm going to tell that
to someone in a pub."

So, in order to make a quill pen,

what are you going to have
to do first of all?

You're going to have
to catch a bird. Yes.

It has to be a feather from a
live bird, is the first thing.

And then there's
a hierarchy of quills.

So, Jimmy, you've got the goose.

Is that like an everyday
working pen?

It is, I'm afraid, it's common.

Common-or-garden, that one.

When you say a live bird, it's not,
is it live for long?

I mean, do you?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean once
you've plucked a bird's feather,

it will grow back.

It'll take about a year
probably for it to grow back again.

So ye olde WHSmith's would have
been just a bunch of birds

and you're plucking feathers
out one at a time.

And you're going, "Well, I'll be
back in a year for a refill."

There was a real problem
in the 19th century.

They began to experience
a real shortage of quills.

Why might that be?

Oh, avian flu or something? Was it?

No, just more people could read
and write, darling.

Amazing!

You've a very dark mind,
Tom, very dark.

I read a really interesting thing
that Clive James wrote,

about typewriters.

He said about the noise
that writing used to make.

So when he wrote his first memoir,
he wrote it on a typewriter

and he said it was a terrific
racket all day long.

It was a phenomenal noise. Yeah.

"Crash, crash, crash, ping!"
For every line.

And I still,
that's a sign of my age,

because I still do that
when I'm miming typing.

Really? On an iPad you'll do that?
Yeah, I know, it's very annoying.

I would like to have that effect
when I press return,

that it goes, "ting."

Just so other people on the train in
the quiet carriage would be livid.

You know when you hear
people on their phone

and they haven't turned
the keypad tones off?

Yes. Oh, it's so endearing,
isn't it?

Oh, that was a good noise as well.

I just say to them, "You know
you can turn that off, don't you?".

Do you? Yeah.
Are you bold like that?

Yeah, I just say,
"Do you want me to do it for you?"

Throw the phone out of the window.
Yeah.

Now, you've got a crow feather.

Oh, thanks.
These were for artistic people.

They were specifically
for drawing thin lines.

Oh. So you might be doing
an architectural drawing,

or some such thing.

You might be drawing my body.

Because it's thin, do you get it?

You've got a swan quill.
Oh, lovely.

And that's only the best.
Thank you.

So Elizabeth I, she preferred swan.

But the everyday one,
Thomas Jefferson kept his own geese.

I was so pleased when I got given
this, and now I feel like, ah!

Jimmy?

And are you all right-handed?

Yeah, I'm right-handed, yeah, yeah.

You would need a quill from a
left wing if you are right handed,

because you don't want the feather
to be hitting you in the face.

Oh, that must have been awful then,

if they weren't killing the birds
and they were just bald on one side.

Just flying in circles going,
"Well, this one still works."

If bald eagles lose
a feather on one wing,

they will shed the same
one on the other side. Wow!

Why might they do that?
Fashion. Yes.

They don't, you know.

So what, so you pull out one
and they pull out the other?

That's fascinating.

Yeah, but what's that though?
What's that?

It's a seagull going to the library.

No, coming back from the library.
Oh, sorry.

Sandi, I have a question.
Darling?

I mean, it's all very well
talking about feathers,

why didn't they just
sharpen a stick?

It has like a little
reservoir inside it.

That's where the ink goes. Oh.
And the ink can go inside.

Whereas a stick, less successful.

And in fact, one of the sort
of forerunners of the fountain pen,

they worked out that they
could have a little steel holder

and you could actually cut
one of these into five or six little

nibs, and then
we eventually get the fountain pen.

But there are some advantages to the
quill, because it can hold certain

inks which would clog a fountain
pen, like India ink, for example.

Now, goose feathers are still used.

For what purpose might you still
use a goose feather?

Oh! I forgot I've got that as well.

Pillows and duvets.

Pillows and duvets, I'll thank you!
What is this game?!

There are no rules!

It's lawless.
Absolute Wild West here.

What else? Yes?

A goose himself, or herself,
are using the feathers.

No, it's not one of the answers
we had thought of, but, yes.

Yes, goose feathers still
weirdly in use by the geese.

Fashion.

Fashion, no.
So, sport?

Oh! Archery.

Shuttlecocks.
Shuttlecocks is right. Oh!

Shuttlecocks.
Shuttlecocks.

That one's absolutely enormous.

"Look out, look out!

"The giants are playing
on the next court!"

It has to be made, a shuttlecock,
from the left wing of a goose,

in order that it spins clockwise
when it is struck.

Ooh.

What?
This is a great show.

I'm learning so much.

The name Federer,
like as in Roger Federer.

Greatest ever tennis player.

Yeah, OK, his name means
one who trades in quills.

So, really he should have been
a badminton player.

It would have been much better,
wouldn't it?

Oh, does he know?

I bet he'd pick it up,
wouldn't he, badminton?

Do you think?
Yeah, probably.

You've wasted your life, Roger.
Yeah.

The real money is in badminton.

Now, where might you be well
advised to skip the queue?

Well, they don't like
to queue in France.

Or Italy.
Or Italy.

They're really, really, pushy,
especially the elderly, in Italy.

Yeah. Right.

They burrow in,
the little Italian women,

they burrow right
into the heart of the queue

and then you can't get them out.
They're in and they're in the front.

I like that - a tiny
Italian woman just

pushing by everyone to the front.

Yeah, "Scusi, scusi,
scusi, scusi, scusi!"

And then she's in the front.

And no-one knows how to stop her.

She's not got long left, I think
they should be allowed to

go to the front.
Yeah, yeah, she's going to die.

People with kids should be right at
the back, they've got ages. Yeah.

Maybe they should just do
queuing by longevity.

How long do you think you've got?

You shouldn't queue in hospital.

Well, my friend skipped the queue,
but she'd cut her finger off,

so they were like,
"Yeah, come to the front."

Yes, that's quite a serious thing,
isn't it?

Well, as well, because she, when
they come out and go, "Who's next?"

She was not in a position
to go like...

She couldn't go like that.

So, it's not actually about queuing,
in terms of a physical queue.

It's about the letter Q.

The letter Q. Yes, you're right.
Oh, oh, oh! Yes?

The surname, Smith. What?
You don't need a Q in that.

Skip it.

I'll just give myself
ten points there.

Are there some languages
where there isn't a Q?

Well, the letter Q was actually
banned in Turkey,

until 2013, along with two other
letters, the X and the W.

It's a language thing.
It is a language thing, darling.

But the real issue is that the
Turkish language doesn't use

the letter Q,
but the Kurdish one does.

And there was a lot of anti-Kurdish
sentiment in Turkey.

And so those letters were not
allowed to appear in official

documents and people were not
allowed to use them

when naming their children.

Until the early 1990s,
it was illegal in Turkey for the

15 to 20 million Kurds,
you're talking around about 20%

of the population,
to use any Kurdish at all in public.

And it was only since 2013 that
you are actually allowed to use

the letter Q once more in Turkey.

In Turkey, would they not have
Quavers then? That would be...

Well, that's why
there's been an outcry. Yeah.

People are a little bit
annoyed about the sort of repression

of the Kurdish people, but mainly...
Yeah, Quavers.

..it's those lovely cheesy snacks.
Yeah.

Now, I'm going to play you
the sound of someone typing.

What do you think
they are trying to say?

We don't know any Shakespeare,
we're only monkeys.

So why might we know,
just from the sound,

what somebody is actually
trying to say?

Really? We can?

Do they have like a slightly
different pitch, all of the buttons?

Yeah, so it's the QWERTY keyboard.
And it can be "translated"

if you like,
to work out what we are typing.

No! No way.
If you had just a microphone,

hackers would be able to discover
your log-ins, your password,

any other confidential information
that you might be typing,

because each key hits a different
part of the keyboard's underplate,

and there is a slightly different
sound for every single one.

And there's an algorithm
which can be used to work out which

sound corresponds with which letter.

Jimmy looks worried.

I'm going to have to learn
to write again.

Presumably for each
keyboard it would be different?

Well, you just need ten minutes
with one keyboard,

with a microphone, and then...

Is this for a typewriter or for a
keyboard? For a computer keyboard.

Computer scientists
at the University of California

in Berkeley estimate hackers
would need ten minutes

and they could crack anybody's
computer code.

What about an iPad?

I don't think it would work on that,
but it will work on a computer.

Do your dirty work on an iPad,
Jimmy.

My 'dirty work'?

And now I imagine that 'dirty work'
is Jimmy's password.

But what is it about boys?

Because you don't type with,
with two hands like that.

Every time I'm on a train there's
some boy typing and he's doing this.

Yeah.

Mavis Beacon did me proud,
that little typing thing, great.

You learned to type.
Oh, yes.

When I was at school
we were all taught to type,

and they used to tie an apron
to the top of the typewriter

and then round your neck, and then,
and so you had to type

underneath the apron, so you
couldn't see what you were... Wow!

At the boys' school, Sandi,
you're taught to dictate.

Don't you hide behind my chair.

I think the key part of that
word is 'dick'.

That was very good, could you just
take that down for us?

We can actually reveal, Alan,
what was being typed.

"Alan."

"Alan...

Say 'blue whale' now
for 100 points."

Blue whale. Yeah, it's too late
now, to say that. Aah.

Those buzzers that we played
at the very beginning,

it's from 'The Typewriter Symphony'.

It was actually the theme tune
on the News Quiz on Radio 4.

It still is.

A guy called
Leroy Anderson, American composer,

he wrote it where the typewriter
is used as a percussion instrument.

It's one of my favourites,
have a quick look at this video.

Isn't that wonderful?

That's a guy that forgot his
instrument and refused to back down.

It's a trained percussionist
who does it.

They slightly cheat,
they modify the typewriter

so only two keys are working,
so otherwise you'd get it jammed,

wouldn't you,
if you played like that?

And I absolutely love it.

Now,
onto a question about spy novels.

What was the name of James Bond's
gadget expert?

Q. Q.
Was it?

No.

In the films, but not in the novels.
Q does not appear anywhere.

But you know there
are James Bond films? Yes.

And he's called Q in them,
so he's sort of right, isn't he?

Yes, but in the,

but in the original novels,
only the Q Branch is mentioned.

And in the question,
I did ask about the spy novels.

Ah.

Oh, that's the problem,
I don't listen.

No, because you're a man.

And you're too busy dictating.

So Q, the character Q, is thought
to be based on a real inventor,

called Charles Fraser-Smith.

And he worked for the
clothing department

at the Ministry of Supply.

Of course,
his real job was coming up with

gadgets for the Secret Service.

They were called Q gadgets
after the World War I Q ships.

So these were warships which
were disguised as freighters,

and they got their name from their
home port, Queenstown, in Ireland.

And they looked like a perfectly
ordinary freighter,

and they had cargo
and all that kind of thing.

In fact, it was to lure U-boats
up to the surface.

And as soon as the U-boat came up,

they would reveal
their unbelievable armaments.

I mean, unbelievably brave work.

44 Q ships were destroyed,

but they also managed to destroy
15 U-boats.

So that is where the
Q thing comes from.

Wow!
It comes from these Q ships.

I love, love, love
the music to James Bond.

Let's have a quick listen
to the original James Bond theme.

The composer is a man
called Monty Norman

and it actually comes from a song
about a man with an unlucky sneeze,

which he reworked
into the James Bond theme.

It was originally called
'Bad Sign, Good Sign',

and it didn't sound at all
like the original song.

Have a listen to this.

INDIAN INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC

Can I have some onion bhajis,
please?

# I was born
with this unlucky sneeze

# And what is worse I came
into the world the wrong way round

# Pundits all agree... #

OK, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop.

Oh, this is surely bullshit.
No, this is true.

V S Naipaul's novel,
'A House For Mr Biswas',

it's a wonderful novel,

and Mr Biswas has a terrible sneeze
and it's unlucky for him.

And Monty Norman wrote a musical
version of this,

which was not a huge success.

He was later hired to write
the music for the first Bond film,

which was 'Dr No'.

He re-worked the theme tune
into the James Bond theme tune.

So we thought we'd do a bit of,
I'm going to call it Quaraoke,

because it starts with a Q.

We're going to try and see

if we can sing the original
James Bond theme tune.

So the words are going to come
up on the screen for you.

Let's all get ready.

# I was born with this
unlucky sneeze

# And what is worse, I came
into the world the wrong way round

# Pundits all agree
that I'm the reason why

# My father fell into the
village pond and drowned. #

No.
No, no, no, no!

No, do you know what, I now,

I now don't believe you
when you say it wasn't a huge hit.

Yeah.
That now I can't understand.

I'd rather watch that than
James Bond.

He fell into the village pond
and drowned?

It's a very sad story.

Is it a true story?
No.

We've been expecting you, Mr Bond.

We heard you sneezing
all the way down the corridor.

And the pond needs a clear out.

My name is Pond, James Pond.

James Pond.

James Pond.

Anyway, here is my next question.

What would you find in
Mrs Q's memoirs?

I like the image you've used,
by the way,

that you think a key might be needed
to undo a piece of string.

Well, it's possibly the key
to her heart, my darling.

You don't know about love, do you?
I've never experienced it, no.

No, I joke, I joke, I've had a lot
of love on very short-term bases.

My dressing room door
is always open.

And mine has a key.
So...

Early 19th century, Mrs Q?

Mrs Q's Memoirs, was it a fake name
for someone with a salacious memoir?

Yeah, it was a woman called
Harriette Wilson.

She was a courtesan.

I love that.
We say sex worker now.

So she started her career aged 15,
as a mistress of Lord Craven,

and she took lots of lovers.

Some people say the Prince Regent,
we have no evidence for that.

When she announced that she was
going to write her memoirs,

she said,

"Any concerned gentlemen could pay
£200 to avoid being written about."

Among those that she wrote to
and said,

"Do you want me to leave you out?"

was Arthur Wellesley,
Duke of Wellington,

who rather famously said,
"Publish and be damned."

So published in 1825,
it was four volumes. Wow.

And it was, I mean,
unbelievably popular.

So popular, a barrier had to be set
up outside the publishers' offices.

And the publishers
and Wilson went on to make £10,000,

which at the time was an enormous
amount of money.

It has the great opening line,
these memoirs,

"I shall not say how and why
I became, at the age of 15,

"the mistress of the Earl of
Craven."

It's a fantastic opening.

Anybody think of a book that kind
of mirrors this situation recently?

Well, I suppose Stormy Daniels.

Stormy Daniels, absolutely.

She said that, of course,

that Donald Trump had paid
to keep their affair secret.

Well, I've, I've not read the book,

I've watched a lot of her films,
but, covers similar areas.

The chapter concerning Trump begins,

"OK, so did you just skip
to this chapter?"

But what she says is, "My life is
a lot more interesting than

"an encounter with Donald Trump,
but I get it.

"Still, of all the people
who I had sex with,

"why couldn't the world obsess
over one of the hot ones?"

Absolutely.

And then she went on tour,
'Make America Horny Again'.

She's working as a stand-up
comedian now.

Really? Yeah.

She's funny, she is funny.
Yeah.

Now, from one form of artistic
expression to another.

What is the most disgusting panel
you can think of?

Oh, goodness,
I'd forgotten about that picture.

It does look like I'm sort of
merging into Alan.

I'd like to take a moment, Sandi,

to thank you for the nasal trimmers
you got me for Christmas.

It does look like
you're saying, like,

"look, I've got nothing
up my nose, OK."

So, it's the letter Q
we are looking for.

What might,
what else might you have in a panel?

I'm absolutely stumped actually,
Sandi. OK.

So the answer is quilts.
Quilts? Quilts, yeah.

Oh, well we were never
going to get quilts.

Well, I think that is
the point of the programme.

Well, then we did really well.
Yes, you did very well. Thank you.

There's a woman called Anna
Dumitriu, she was the 2018 President

of the Science and Arts section
of the British Science Association.

And she made a quilt where
every panel was impregnated

with MRSA bacteria.

Now, of course she'd
heavily treated it,

so it wasn't going to kill you
to actually hold the quilt up.

It is Staphylococcus
aureus bacteria,

so MRSA is the deadly strain
of this.

And what she was trying to do
was to highlight

the problem of
antibiotic resistance.

Oh.
Unpleasantly, I think.

She got the bacteria out of her own
nose and grew it on the quilt.

Yeah.

We did that to the Native Americans,
didn't we?

We gave them quilts with smallpox.
Smallpox.

You are right, they did give out
blankets infected with smallpox

in order to "subdue", they called
it, the Native American population.

So what point was
she making with this?

She's just trying to show us
the real issue

that we are having at the
moment with antibiotic resistance.

In fact,
the whole thing about making quilts

and so on goes much further.

So during various
wars in the 19th century,

it was very common for soldiers to
make rather intricate quilts,

often made from scraps of uniform.

And they were known as
'convalescence quilts'.

And some of the most complex
examples have up to 25,000

pieces of fabric in them.

When I was a child, duvets were
called 'continental quilts'.

Does anybody remember this?
Yeah. Oh, yes.

I remember that.
I remember them starting.

I just remember going to a hotel and
it didn't have sheets and blankets.

And we really didn't know
what to do with ourselves.

You couldn't tuck it in,
it was just going to fall,

and some of them did fall off.

They'd slide straight off you.

Well, yeah, they first
came to Britain in about 1964,

and it was Habitat who advertised
them, saying that you could

make a bed so quickly, just a few
shakes, that even a man could do it.

And how wrong they were,
because getting that cover on...

Yeah, this is what we're going
to do.

So, you've each got...
Oh.

A quilt and a cover.

Right. Oh.

So, we're going to have
a very quick competition...

Couldn't be easier.

..to see who can be quickest.

Hang on, hang on,
I haven't undone the bow yet.

I haven't got my key. OK.
Get your quilt out.

Ha ha!

We're going to do it
all at the same time.

Oh, no, wait, wait, wait, wait.

OK. Are you ready?
Hang on, yeah, yeah.

I can't find my opening, Sandi!

Hang on, can we open it,
where do we start from?

I can't find my thing.

OK, ready? One, two, three, go!

Oh, no, I'm not ready, I'm not
ready! I'm nowhere near ready!

Oh, my God!

No, I can't do it,
I can't do it!

Hang on, mine's buttoned up.

The girls have got it!

Hang on, hang on,
mine's buttoned up!

Yours didn't have buttons on it.

Mine's buttoned up, that's not fair.

Jimmy! Yes?

Darling, I...

He has staff to do it for him.

Are you all right there, darling?

Mind your hair.

What happened?! I think it's
all right. I did, yeah, I mean, wow.

Jimmy, look. Wow.
Come here.

I think I'm not the only one
who's amazed it stayed on.

We specially got a duvet cover
for you with blue whales on,

we were very pleased with it.

Ah!

Are you all right, sweetheart?

So, I think, no question about it,
Lou was the winner there,

it was absolutely fantastic.

Now, put your security
blankets away,

because it's time for the round
that we call General Ignorance.

Fingers on buzzers, please.

What happens to Dr Jekyll's trousers
when he becomes Mr Hyde?

They rip, don't they?

No, they don't rip.

Why do they not rip?

Because he's not The Hulk?

Because he gets smaller, he becomes
smaller and kind of hunched

and like a beast, doesn't he?

Yeah, so they should fall down,
is the answer. Yeah.

Because in the book, Edward Hyde
is much smaller than Dr Jekyll.

The reason for his short stature is
he represents Dr Jekyll's evil side.

So the bit that he's been
trying to suppress,

as he lives as decently
and as morally as he can.

It's the films
and the TV that show him as bigger,

more like The Incredible Hulk.

And The Hulk is based on that,
isn't it? Yes, exactly.

And Robert Louis Stevenson's tale
was inspired by a man called

Deacon Brodie.

He lived in 18th century Edinburgh,

and, by day, he was the most
marvellous,

respectable cabinet maker, lock
maker, member of the Town Council.

By night, he used the keys that he
made to break into their homes

and steal their stuff.

This is him with his accomplice,
George Smith.

George Smith. Oh.

You'd think he'd stick out,
the fact that he was a chicken.

Anyway, Robert Louis Stevenson
had a wardrobe as a child

at the end of his bed which had been
made by Deacon Brodie.

So it's probably how he came
to have the idea in the first place.

And Brodie was eventually hanged,

although the story is that he wore
a steel band around his neck

and escaped and went to Paris
to live out his life.

Cool.

I like the idea that you would be
hung and they would go,

"Oh, well, don't look, we're hanging
him." And just look the other way.

Yeah. Where's the body gone?
Oh, I don't know.

I don't know what happened to him.

He must have buried himself,
I suppose. Yeah.

Yeah!

Finally,
what colour is the Emerald City?

I think I know a weird fact
about the Wizard of Oz. Yes?

Which I didn't realise
until recently, which is

that it's an allegory for America?

The farmers are the Straw Man
and they need a brain.

And industry was the Tin Man
and industry doesn't have a heart.

Wow!

And the Lion was the politicians and
that they didn't have any courage.

You're absolutely right.

But it is not what we were looking
for, we were looking for the colour.

LAUGHTER

Well, is the answer green then?

Hey!

Oh, damn it! I knew something,
I knew something!

Yes? Emerald.

Ah.

Yellow.

Brown. No.
No. Red.

Stop naming colours.
Blue. Teal.

When she first goes
to the City of Oz,

she is told she must don a pair
of protective glasses in order

to avoid being
blinded by the brightness.

I have that when I have
laser on my Jack and Danny,

they make you wear glasses.
On your what? On what?

Jack and Danny.
Jack and Danny?

Jack and Danny, fanny.

Sorry, it's called a Jack, what is?

A Jack and Danny.
What?

They make you put the glasses on.
No, wait, wait, wait, wait.

Also...

Jack and Danny?

My mum doesn't like me
doing rude stuff

and she's really pleased
I was going to be on QI. Right.

And now she's not going to be
pleased any more.

She's going to be very embarrassed
in front of the Gardening Club,

of course, again.

Speaking of the gardening club,
you had all downstairs lasered?

I did not know.

It's rhyming slang, is it,
Jack and Danny? Hmm.

Who knew?
For fanny, yeah.

My favourite when I was growing up,
it was always called the

'a fine china'.
Aah.

Oh, is that your...?
Hmm.

Because you get it out
for special occasions!

Exactly right, yeah.

Back to the Wizard of Oz.

What we learn from the Wizard
at the end is that he makes

everybody wear green spectacles
so that things appear green.

And when she asks if that means
everything isn't really green,

he replies,
"No more so than any other city,

"but my people have worn green
glasses on their eyes so long,

that most of them think
it really is an emerald city."

Everything looks green when viewed
through emerald tinted glasses.

BELL

And there goes the bell
for the end of the school day.

Before we leave for play time, let's
have a look at your report cards.

In first place tonight,
well, this is astonishing,

with a full five points, it's Alan.

Oh!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

The crowd's gone mad.

In second place,
with minus six, it's Lou.

In third place,
with minus 13, Jimmy.

Third place, very respectable.

Fabulous fourth,
with minus 26, it's Tom.

Thanks to our guests,
Tom, Jimmy, Lou and Alan.

And I leave you with this
quick quotation from the quill

of American author Robert Benchley.

"It took me 15 years
to discover that

"I had no talent for writing,
but I couldn't give it up,

"because by that time
I was too famous."

Goodbye.