QI (2003–…): Season 17, Episode 2 - Quintessential - full transcript

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Good evening and welcome to QI.

Tonight, we are quintessentially Q,

and taking their cues from me

are the quirky Holly Walsh...

APPLAUSE

..the quizzical Cariad Lloyd...

APPLAUSE

..the quixotic Josh Widdicombe...

APPLAUSE

Don't know what it means.
Don't know what it means.



..and, for the quadrillionth time,
it's Alan Davies!

And their buzzers
are quintessentially QI.

Holly goes...

QI THEME'S FIRST THREE NOTES

Cariad goes...

SECOND THREE NOTES

Josh goes...

NEXT THREE NOTES

And Alan goes...

HOOTER, FORFEIT KLAXON

STEPHEN FRY: Tottenham Hotspur 6,
Arsenal 0.

# Fruity, fruity, fruity! #

LAUGHTER

It was a... It was a mishmash...



It was. Yeah. ..just for you.

Right, here we go.

This is a portrait
from the "Ching" dynasty.

First of all, how would you spell
"Ching"? Anybody?

With a Q. Yes, Q-I-N-G.

So why is this woman so made up?

Did she walk too slowly
through the make-up department

at Army and Navy in Guildford?

Oh, that is the most terrifying
thing, isn't it? Yeah.

My mum paid for me to go
for a makeover in one of those.

Did she? Yes. Er, recently?

No, when I was about 17. Right.

I honestly looked like a woman
in her late 80s.

LAUGHTER

I actually looked like Mary Berry.

That was what happened.

LAUGHTER

This is a portrait of Prince Zhu.

He was the uncle
of the then-emperor,

so we're talking mid-18th century,

and his wife, who was called
Lady Jiun Tse.

He's about 60 and she's 14.

ALL: Wow!

Yeah, it's one of those, you know,

spring and autumn... Oh.
..kind of a... thing.

But it's very typical of court
paintings of the Qing Dynasty

because it was traditional
for the wives, and indeed,

the concubines of the Emperor
and his family to be hidden

from public view.

So this posed a problem if you
wanted to do a painting... Yeah.

..because you weren't allowed
to actually see

what the woman looked like.

They had to decide to paint
the concubines to look like bits...

From sketchbooks, basically.

We have no idea what she actually
looked like.

This is entirely a made-up portrait.

Is that why... Yes? ..her face is
kind of neutral... Yes.

..compared to, like,
his detailed face? I know.

Hers looks like, you know when you
buy a kid a colouring book

and it's like, "You could add
whatever face you want"? Yeah.

Like, that's the basic start
of a painting.

It looks like they've started on
him, they've really nailed it,

then they realise they've got
five minutes to do her face. Yeah.

She looks like an emoji,
doesn't she? Yeah, yeah.

But the whole concubine thing,
I mean, it was considered

absolutely crucial to Qing Dynasty
court life.

So the idea was you wanted to make
sure that the emperor

had, you know, multiple offspring,

so you wanted to make sure
he had a very healthy sex life.

In fact, in the 1670s,
they started a government branch

called The Office
Of Respectful Service.

So there's, like, a guy outside
the bedroom, seeing how many times

a woman has been in and out
that week. Wow. Wow.

And it mattered because if you went
in and out that week, say,

three times into the Emperor's
chambers

then you would go up in the...
Yeah. In the concubine standings.

Sounds quite exhausting
the Emperor. For him.

LAUGHTER

Do you think when they go in,
he's just saying,

"We could just watch TV
and have a chat?"

"Let's have a cup of tea
and a pillow fight."

There are some fantastic empresses,
so these are the chief consorts.

There's one in particular
called Empress Cixi.

So she started as a 16-year-old,

you know how you do, a bit of work
experience, low grade...

..you know, concubine. Hand jobs.

Well, she started out
in the lowliest position

and then she got herself, over 40
years, to the highest position.

She killed quite a few people
on the way...

She killed people?! What? She did.

With her hat? Well...

LAUGHTER

It does look like a mortar board,
doesn't it? Yeah.

It looks like a mortar board with
a toilet flush on the side. Yeah.

LAUGHTER

The night before she died,
and she knew that she was dying,

she's thought to have poisoned
her own nephew

so that he couldn't take power.
Wow! I know.

She's really a vicious thing.

Wow, let's hope the Queen's
listening.

LAUGHTER

What an end to The Crown
that would be!

LAUGHTER

Anyway, what do bacteria talk about?

Is it Love Island?

Other bacteria who aren't
in the room.

I love it when by complete
chance you're correct.

So they are communicating
about where the other bacteria are.

It's something called
quorum sensing.

They actually emit and detect
each other's chemical signals,

and what they basically do
is they take a head count

to see how many bacteria there are.

And they base their activity
on how many bacteria

they have detected around them.

Like a fight, like there's
ten of us and four of them.

It's like the army gathering
and going,

"Right we're ready to go over the
top now because we've got enough."

Lots of bacteria that cause
human diseases,

so cholera, pneumonia,
staph infections and so on,

they use quorum sensing.

So they wait harmlessly inside us
until they agree that there's enough

and then they go. It's a bit
like social media, right?

So one person tweets but then it is
repeated and repeated and repeated

until it goes viral

and you have enough to make it
a story for a lazy journalist.

LAUGHTER

It was very first observed
in the 1970s.

There are some bacteria called
Vibrio fischeri

and they live in the bodies
of the Hawaiian bobtail squid.

Isn't that beautiful? Wow.

So the squid gives them
accommodation and sugar

and amino acid for food
and in return,

the bacteria gives
the squid the most

ingenious defence mechanism,

by glowing all of them all at once

and generating bioluminescence.

So the squid is able to control
this light,

which is created by all these
bacteria living there,

and basically any potential predator
that is looking up at the squid

will think it's looking at the moon,

because the squid can point
this light downwards.

What? Isn't it clever?

I know, so it's working with
bacteria in order to do this trick.

It's called counter-illumination,

and the squid can even use
its ink to dim the lights.

And it's useless for the bacteria
to glow

unless there's enough of them.

That seems like
a really fair payment. Yeah.

You get that incredible party trick
just from getting some bac...

Like, if I got that every time
I'd had thrush, I would...

I am so in love with the idea
of getting thrush

and suddenly being bioluminescent.
Yeah!

It would definitely be literally
the silver lining. Yes.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

It'd be also a conversation starter
cos I'd walk in and I'd go,

"Holly, you look great.

"Got through the thrush?"

She looks like the moon
but she's so itchy.

Oh, wow!

A roller-coaster might make
you queasy, but what can it cure?

Yes?

Thrush.

Actually, thrush, with that thing
between your legs,

that's going to make it worse.

HOLLY: God, I went and did Go Ape
yesterday.

It was quite something
in terms of the harness.

It's not comfortable.

Been used by a lot of other people.

Are you suggesting it has chafed
many thighs?

I'm suggesting that the harnesses
can communicate with one another.

LAUGHTER

I got stuck on a roller-coaster
at Alton Towers.

Oh, see? My idea of hell.

Yeah, I got stuck
in the Black Hole. What?!

This is the kind of audience
I want with my anecdotes.

What is the Black Hole like?

So it's a roller-coaster
in the dark. No! Nightmare.

If I'd have been there, you would
have felt a hell of a lot happier.

Lighting it up.

And it's one of those
roller-coasters

where you're straddling someone.

Sorry, what?!

So you get on and you're both in,
like, a cart,

and one of you has to sit
with your legs out

and then the other kind of sits
like... Oh, OK.

And you were the one
with the legs out?

I was the one with the legs out.

You were with a stranger? Yes! Oh!

Why? Where are your friends?

I was in a three, and those two
paired up. HOLLY: Oh, awkward.

And I wasn't going to, like,
miss out on the Black Hole

and then we just ran
out of momentum.

I mean, the cart,
not like the conversation.

And we were there for about
five minutes, just sat there.

At one point, you could hear
the other carts coming down.

It was absolutely terrifying.

And then they got us off in the end
and they went,

"You can have free tickets
to go again." We were like, "No!"

Just the guy had a soaking wet back
from where you pissed yourself.

So it is the back that we are
thinking about, OK?

Sciatica. Well, no,
something much more painful.

Possibly even more painful
than childbirth.

It's considered to be one of
the most painful things

you can have in the world.
Oh, kidney infection.

It's kidney stones. Kidney stones.
More painful than childbirth.

I have had them. Unbearably painful.

So in 2018, an Ig Nobel Prize
was awarded to two urologists

who discovered a really quick
way to quash kidney stones.

So they had several patients
who said they'd passed kidney stones

when they were on a roller-coaster,

so they made a silicon cast
of a kidney.

They filled it with actual urine,

they added three artificial
kidney stones

and they took it on Disney World's
Big Thunder Mountain.

And apparently most effective is
riding at the back of the coaster -

passage rate of 64%. Wow!

Compared to 17%
if you sit at the front.

So much better to sit at the back.

Is there somewhere, like,
just pictures of two people

then a picture of a kidney
on a roller-coaster?

Yeah, probably, probably!

In medicine, a bumpy ride
isn't always such a bad thing.

What can you tell me about
Philip the Missionary's position?

I once sat behind him on
a roller-coaster.

Who's Philip the Missionary?
Also known as Philip the Evangelist?

Anybody had a religious upbringing
at all?

I can sing Lord Of The Dance,
if that's what you mean.

That's so tempting! Go on.

No! I... Why did I say that?
You brought it up.

# Dance then, wherever you may be

BOTH: # I am the Lord Of The Dance,
said he

# And I'll lead you all,
wherever you may be

# And I'll lead you all
in the dance, said he. #

So in a word, no idea who he is.

LAUGHTER

Is he in the Bible then?

Which bit of the Bible? He'll be
in the New Testament, surely.

It's in the New Testament, you're
absolutely right. It's in Acts.

He's an evangelist, so he tours
the Middle East performing miracles.

You couldn't get tickets, though.
could you? It's hard.

So his...

So weird when all your hair
is on the bottom of your head.

It does look like you could flip his
head, just flip it over like that.

And then your mouth
would be at the top, though,

that would be weird, and your eyes
would be under your mouth. Yeah.

And every time you ate,
you'd get food in your eyes.

But at least your hair would be
in the right place.

But then when it rains, all the
water would go down your nose.

LAUGHTER

It'd be so beautiful.
It'd be like the, erm... Those...

..fountains in...

What are those fountains called,
the fountains called in Las Vegas?

AUDIENCE: Bellagio!

Bellagio. My God,
I cried when I saw those.

Are those the ones where they fire
out and land in a hole?

No.

They're my favourite fountain.

Honest to God, it's like being
in an old people's home.

He toured the Middle East, did he?
He toured the Middle East!

Right. Josh wants to sing
Lord Of The Dance again!

I saw a fountain once! Did you?

OK. So he toured the Middle East.

Tell us about the dark room again!

LAUGHTER

Er...
ALAN LAUGHING

When we going on the roller-coaster?

You said we was going
on a roller-coaster!

I never pissed meself.

I've got thrush!

So this is him baptising a eunuch.

Here's what happens.
When the eunuch lifts his head...

Oh, I didn't know
what you were going to say.

I really didn't!
LAUGHTER

So what happens is the eunuch lifts
his head up, he's been baptised

and Philip has disappeared.

So the eunuch never saw him again,
but went away on his way rejoicing.

Meanwhile, Philip found himself
further north at the town of Azotus,

so it seems to provide the Bible's
only example of teleportation

because there's a moment he's there

and the next minute, he's in
a completely different town.

So here's the question -
Philip aside... Yes.

..do you think that humans
will ever teleport?

Mm... JOSH: No. Yeah. Yeah.

Yes. OK, Holly, why?

If you think about it,
ten years ago, we didn't have Uber

and now we've got Uber.

LAUGHTER

And that's as good as teleporting.
Yeah, just the same.

There's been times when I don't
remember how I got home

and then I've looked at my e-mails
and I've realised

I've got an Uber receipt, and I
thought that's as good as...

Teleporting. ..teleporting.

Right. Now for a classic snack to go
with a classical question,

so...

How can you squeeze the maximum
number of Quavers

into the smallest possible space?

Yes, Josh.

Oh, no, Josh!

LAUGHTER

APPLAUSE

Want to share yours now, Sandi?

Oh, my.

LAUGHTER

Unbelievably delicious, aren't they?

Bad luck.

I like Twiglets. I met a man in
Sainsbury's dressed as a Twiglet.

Erm...

You were dressed as a Twiglet?

No! No, I didn't even know it was
a job you could do.

I would have definitely done it.

Anyway, quaver, where do we get
the word from, do you think?

The actual word "quaver."

Is it French? No, we're going
to go Middle English.

What do you think it meant?
Middle English, did you say?

Middle English. What, so Quavers
have been around

since medieval times? No, the word.

I think this batch has been around
since medieval times.

Does it mean to quiver? It does mean
to shake. It's the letter S.

Look at that. Isn't that weird?
Ooh, look!

You are so easily pleased.

LAUGHTER

So it began as a meaning of shaken.

Then it became singing in a sort of
tremulous voice.

Do you remember
when women in church always...

SHE VOCALISES

# Da-a-a-nce, then
wherever you may be

# I am the Lord of the Dance,
said he. #

Yep. It's like Josh was in the room.

LAUGHTER

And then it became the name
of a musical note.

Anybody know how long a quaver...?

A quaver is half a minim.

It's an eighth. There are
semiquavers which are one 16th

followed by a demisemiquaver
which would be... Half. ..a 32nd.

A hemidemisemiquaver which is...

64th. ..64th, and a
quasihemidemisemiquaver

which is a... A Danish wizard.

LAUGHTER

APPLAUSE

We almost went for the same Quaver.

What did you say, Josh?

128th? 128th. 128th.

So these notes are quite rare.

Why is it so rare?

So it's rare because it's so fast.

So if you took a work in 4/4 time,

so with a tempo of 100 beats per
minute, a quasihemidemisemiquaver

would last for just 0.02 seconds,

so that is too short for the human
ear to distinguish. Oh, yeah, yeah.

But in fact, Beethoven and Mozart
used them to describe brief rapid

sections in particular movements.

The shortest note in any
published work

is a 1024th note
which should be called a

quasihemidemisemihemidemisemiquaver.

That's his brother! Yep.

And it appears in
Anthony Philip Heinrich's

Toccata Grande Cromatica,

which was written around 1820...
CARIAD LAUGHS

Look at that guy! Somebody's pleased
with himself, aren't they?

"I've used a
semidemiquaverquaver..."

Those glasses look no use to
anybody, do they? They're too small.

They're smug glasses.

They're intended
to make you feel stupid.

So this is one of the rare uses
of this 1024th note,

but in the very first manuscript,
an extra bar was added to the note

which meant it was actually
miswritten as a 2048th note,

which would be a demisemihemidemi
semihemidemisemiquaver.

Oh, my God. There it is.
Look at that.

That is... I mean how fast
would that... Madness. Bonkers.

So could we hear...?

Like, what's the shortest note
that we could hear?

There is a thing called
extremepianochannel on YouTube.

Whoa!

You've all got some instruments
beside you.

Why don't you bring out
your instruments?

TRIANGLE CHIMES

What I want you to do -

you've got five seconds -

I want you to play the same note
as many times as you can

and count how many times...
Counting and playing?

Did you used to do that game
at school where you'd try

to start and stop a stopwatch
as quickly as possible? Oh, yeah.

I loved that game and I was so good.

OK, ready? Five seconds,
going now.

Up!

OK? Holly. How many?
TRIANGLE STILL RINGING

Alan! Alan!

Alan, the bus is here!

How many, Holly?

I lost count about...

..erm, 12.

After about 12.
Alan? You've no bloody idea.

LAUGHTER
Cariad?

34. 34?

Honestly? Yeah.

37.

Oh! Josh wins that one.

That's very impressive.

But, I mean, it's A hollow victory
if you have to give your own score

when you know what the other
scores are.

The most piano key presses
in one minute is 824... What?!

..which is 68 and a half
every five seconds.

It's a Portuguese American pianist,
he's astonishing,

called Antonio Domingos, and you can
see his work on extremepiano.

Does he just do all the same notes
again and again

or is it like a tune?
No, it was just one note

but he played it with two fingers.

Most claps in a minute,
how many claps do you think?

Well, flamenco people can go very,
very fast. About 400.

No, 300.

About 300, anybody else?

200.

1,080. Wow!

By a nine-year-old.

What?! A nine-year-old?

He's called Seven Wade.

180 every ten seconds.
What, just for fun?

He's not even doing flamenco?
He had his toe in a plug socket.

LAUGHTER

I'd absolutely love him
in my audience on tour.

Right, Quavers away,
instruments away.

For what sort of business would you
want to use a queer plunger?

I once had a nightmare
with a plunger.

LAUGHTER

So we had a New Year's Eve party

and then the next day our toilet
was blocked,

and I thought, "Oh, I'll nail this."

I'd never used a plunger before.

They're difficult to use.

Yeah, I thought I'd just whack
it down there,

whacked it down and it suctioned
just on to the bottom of the toilet,

brought it up, all I had
was the piece of stick.

LAUGHTER

And now I didn't just have
to unblock the toilet,

I had to get my hand in there
to get the... Oh!

OK, so queer plunger -
what might you plunge into?

The ocean. So, water,
you might plunge into water.

It was a term given to con men
who took advantage of the rules

of the Society for the Recovery
of Persons Apparently Drowned.

So, it was set up in 1774.

So, two London doctors, they were
worried that too many victims

were being wrongly pronounced dead
and sometimes buried alive,

and so they developed new techniques
of resuscitation.

They offered a reward of four
guineas, which is over £500 today,

a lot of money, to anybody
who successfully brought

a drowned man back to life.

Well, swindlers paired up with each
other so one would throw themselves

into the river and pretend to drown

and the other would jump in and
rescue him from the brink of death

and the two of them would then share
the four guineas,

and they became known
as queer plungers.

How many of you around the table
know about WC Fields?

The cricketer. No.
That's WG Grace.

He was an amazing early
20th-century actor and comedian.

One of his very first jobs
was to drown several times a day.

So he worked at Atlantic City
and he would pretend to swim out

and then he would pretend to drown

and somebody would come
and rescue him

and a great crowd would gather,

and they'd all applaud because he'd
been saved

and they were all so thrilled

and then they would buy
beer and hot dogs

and it was the beer and hot dog guys
who paid WC Fields

to drown several times a day. No!

The Netherlands was the first
country to have

a society for resuscitation.
Why the Netherlands?

People falling in canals.
Lots of water, yes.

Sometimes it's just a really simple
answer, isn't it?

Do they have fjords as well?

No, they don't have fjords there.
God's sake! No.

The Netherlands is famously flat
and fjords are famously steep.

Right. So, no.

Do you know what? I'm just glad
I didn't say it

on national television.

No, that's a good thing.

So the very first society, 1767,

the Netherlands Society
for Resuscitation,

and they had incredibly strict rules
about what you should do

in order to bring a drowning person
back to life.

So first of all, you've got to take
them inside and you've got

to take their wet clothes off
and then you've got to rub them

with woollen materials
to warm them up.

And maybe, if you really feel
it's necessary,

give them tobacco smoke
up the rectum.

They used to do that
in London as well.

Do you know how I know that?
We had it on this show.

They did indeed.

It was considered an effective
means of resuscitation.

My sister fell in a canal. Did she?

One of the best days of my life.

LAUGHTER

So we went on a canal holiday
in Birmingham and...

ONE PERSON LAUGHS

Does that go through fjords?

It's got more miles of canal
than Venice, Birmingham.

I do know this. Doesn't make
it a better holiday. No.

And my sister fell in
and there was panic

and my dad was shouting,
"Get the camera!"

And then she found her feet
cos it was only about that,

and my brother threw
the plastic Polo

and it her on the head
and knocked her out.

I thought you were going to say
your brother threw her the camera.

So there are other things
you had to do,

you had to do
bleeding of the arms and neck,

you had to pour liquor down
the throat and then place the person

in a preheated bed with
a naked person next to them.

Yeah, well, that makes sense.

To provide natural heat. Yes, yes,

because that's what happens
when you're a keen bivouacker

like I was as a teenager.
You, erm...

No wonder you've got thrush.

You learn that if somebody gets
quite severe hypothermia

that you should both strip off,
get inside a plastic bag together

and just keep each other warm.

OK, who told you this?

Was it someone holding
a massive bin liner?

"Come on, Holly!
Come on, in you come!"

"We've got to stay warm, Holly!
Akela said!"

Is this why you were
at Go Ape yesterday?

Now we come to the quintessentially
QI brand of torment

that is General Ignorance.
Fingers on buzzers, please.

What's the tallest building
in Europe?

The Shard.

KLAXON

It isn't the Shard.

Well, it is the Shard, so...

LAUGHTER

I'm in charge. It's not the Shard.

I will give you that the Shard
is the tallest building in the EU

at the time of recording.

Possibly not at the time
of broadcast.

The top four are all in Russia.

Oh. The Lakhta Center in
St Petersburg tops the list

at 463 metres.

Look at that. Isn't it astonishing?

Tallest building in the world?

Anybody know? I think I went up it
in Dubai.

It is in Dubai, you're absolutely
right. It's called the Burj Khalifa.

This is astonishing.
It is nearly a kilometre high

and it means that at the top of it,

the sun sets more than three minutes
later than at ground level.

That is how high the building is.

And during Ramadan, there are
clerics who have pointed out

that Muslims who live and work
there, they have to stop fasting

at different times depending
on what floor they're on.

So one Dubai cleric reckons that
people living above the 80th floor

should fast for an extra two minutes

and those on the 150th floor
and above

should fast
for an extra three minutes.

I was doing a gig in Dubai
with Jack Dee,

we went up to the top of that.

You've never seen someone...

..less excited.

LAUGHTER

Europe's four tallest buildings
are all in Russia

with the Shard coming in
a paltry fifth.

Right, final question.

What activity causes carpal
tunnel syndrome?

Masturbation.

KLAXON

APPLAUSE

I hope it's not masturbation
because my grandma had it

and she didn't seem the sort.

It's an RSI thing, right?

Isn't it quite common with typing
and that sort...

KLAXON

Who knows what carpal tunnel is?

It's where the tendons get inflamed
in your wrist?

Yes, so it's the canal that
connects the arm and the hand.

It's in the wrist, and various
tendons pass through it.

And what happens is when one
of these swells up, it compresses

on the nerves that are inside
this channel

and leads to pain, numbness and
tingling. It's really painful.

It's unbelievably painful.

You won't get it pretty much from
typing or from playing video games

or any of those things. Those cause
problems like tendonitis.

Yeah. It's idiopathic, so idiopathic
means we don't know.

It is an unknown cause,
the swelling.

And yet I'm still wrong twice.

LAUGHTER

And that's been our pleasure.

But the chances of getting it are
increased with obesity, pregnancy,

smoking, arthritis, diabetes,
any of those things.

The only work-related activity
that we absolutely know

it is related to is the long term
and repeated use

of vibrating hand tools.

So in a way...

..Alan was right.
KLAXON

In 2018, Kim Kardashian,
she revealed that the doctor

had warned her to stop
taking selfies

because she had injured her wrist
from doing so many. What?

So when she was filming an advert,

she recruited one of her
production assistants

to take her selfies for her.

Now, this is a marvellous concept,
to have somebody...

You're so rich that you have
your own selfie taker.

So I have decided we needed
a selfie elf,

so, Anna, if you're going to come
on, please, and be our selfie elf.

Thank you very much.
APPLAUSE

I've got a stick now. So if you
could all come in for the selfie.

I reckon this is going to be
more popular

than the Ellen DeGeneres one.

You've got this, but you can't be
in it, darling.

No, because you're the selfie elf
I'm not having you in it.

AUDIENCE: Aw!
No.

So are you in? Are you in?

If you're taking selfies
or playing computer games,

you won't get carpal tunnel
syndrome,

but you should probably
get out more.

Which leads us to the scores.
In first place with...

No, it's supposed to be on here.
Where is the thing?

Oh, there it is. Oh, no! What?!

LAUGHTER

In first place, with two points,
it's Holly!

APPLAUSE

In second place, with one point,
it's Cariad!

APPLAUSE

In third place, with minus five -
Josh.

APPLAUSE

And in last place, with minus 27,
it's Alan!

APPLAUSE

My thanks to Cariad, Josh,
Holly and Alan.

And I leave you with this
quintessentially QI quote

from quondam quipper Oscar Levant.

"What the world needs
is more geniuses with humility.

"There are so few of us left."

Goodnight.
APPLAUSE